Important Takeaways:
- Rescue workers saved a 63-year-old woman from the rubble of a building in Myanmar’s capital on Tuesday, but hope was fading of finding many more survivors of the violent earthquake that killed more than 2,700 people, compounding a humanitarian crisis caused by a civil war.
- The fire department in Naypyitaw said the woman was successfully pulled from the rubble 91 hours after being buried when the building collapsed in the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit midday Friday. Experts say the likelihood of finding survivors drops dramatically after 72 hours.
- The head of Myanmar’s military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, told a forum in Naypyitaw, that 2,719 people have now been found dead, with 4,521 others injured and 441 missing, Myanmar’s Western News online portal reported.
- Those figures are widely expected to rise, but the earthquake hit a wide swath of the country, leaving many areas without power, telephone or cell connections and damaging roads and bridges, leaving the full extent of the devastation hard to assess.
- Most of the reports so far have come from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, which was near the epicenter of the earthquake, and Naypyitaw.
- “The window for lifesaving response is closing. Across the affected areas, families are facing acute shortages of clean water, food, and medical supplies.”
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Important Takeaways:
- A powerful earthquake rocked Thailand and neighboring Myanmar on Friday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed.
- The magnitude 7.7 quake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock.
- The extent of the death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a brutal civil war that has already caused a widespread humanitarian crisis — was not yet clear. Myanmar’s government said blood was in high demand in the hardest-hit areas, and videos from the country showed multiple collapsed houses and buckled and cracked roads.
- While the area where the quake struck is prone to temblors, they are usually not so big and it is rare for them to felt in the Thai capital.
- The Red Cross said downed power lines are adding to challenges for their teams trying to reach the Mandalay and Sagaing regions and southern Shan state.
- “Initial reports from the ground suggest the earthquake has caused significant damage,” the Red Cross said. “Information on humanitarian needs is still being gathered.”
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Important Takeaways:
- U.S. reporter Pamela Geller cited reports of “nearly 17,000 dead and 15,000 missing” and said she is receiving “hundreds of emails from people in Syria begging for help.”
- We, the Alawites on the Syrian coast, are facing extermination. Ethnic and religious cleansing is unfolding before the world’s silent eyes. They are burning our homes, slaughtering our families, and torturing our children. They rip out the eyes of our young, tear out their hearts, and leave their lifeless bodies as warnings.
- Foreign fighters, coming from all regions, are hunting us down. They are invading our homes, destroying our existence, and soon, they will reach us all. The world watches in silence because we are a minority—because we are deemed expendable.
- This is not war. This is annihilation.
- I beg you—grant us asylum, grant us protection before it is too late. We are running out of time. We will do whatever is asked of us, just let us live.
- According to Syrian journalist and human rights activist Nizar Nayouf, 15,000 Alawites have been executed. Nayouf claims the massacre had been planned since February 24:
- Nayouf claims the Syrian “Ministry of Defense” and the terrorist militia “distributed detailed digital maps to their faction leaders, marking Alawite, Christian, and Ismaili neighborhoods and villages in Syria’s coastal region, as well as the primary and secondary roads leading to them”
- Religious clerics affiliated with President Al-Jolani “delivered lectures to some faction leaders, instructing them on how to distinguish Alawites from others in the coastal region. They warned that Alawite men are circumcised, just like Sunni Muslims, making them harder to identify—even by dialect in some areas.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Three days after Cyclone Chido tore through the French overseas territory off East Africa, the hospital’s emergency department has not seen large numbers of injured, leading them to fear the worst, Naouelle Bouabbas said.
- “The fact that we don’t see that many injured from the cyclone when everything has collapsed makes us think that all these people are still buried and are dead,” she told Reuters in a video call from the islands.
- “We expect thousands, tens of thousands would not surprise me,” said Bouabbas, when asked about a possible death toll, adding there was no infrastructure in place yet to remove people from the rubble.
- Authorities have said hundreds or even thousands could have died, but only 22 deaths had been confirmed on Tuesday morning
- The Red Cross said on Tuesday that about 100,000 people were unaccounted for, including about 200 of its volunteers, after the cyclone battered the islands with 200 kph (124 mph) winds in the worst storm in 90 years.
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Important Takeaways:
- Authorities in North Carolina on Monday confirmed at least 94 storm-related fatalities from Hurricane Helene but still could not account for the number of those who remain missing or unaccounted for.
- Fatalities were reported across 20 counties, according to a morning update from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS).
- The vast majority of those fatalities were reported in Buncombe, with 42 deaths, followed by Yancey and Henderson, at 12 and 7, respectively.
- NCDHSS said there are no missing persons numbers at this time because there are different sources of where missing persons and welfare check requests were reported during the storm.
- Justin J. Graney, Chief of External Affairs and Communications for North Carolina Emergency Management, told Fox News Digital there are “wide area searches taking place since [Hurricane Helen] took place.”
- “This includes grid searches, vehicle searches, damaged structure searches, and searches around areas where debris have collected. Hundreds of responders have conducted said searches,” Graney said.
- On Thursday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed the state’s first relief package to address Helene’s devastation, allocating $273 million for immediate needs and giving flexibility to agencies and displaced residents.
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Important Takeaways:
- The bodies of kindergarten teacher Maya Goren as well as the soldiers Major Ravid Aryeh Katz, Master Sergeant Oren Goldin, Staff Sergeant Tomer Ahimas and Sergeant Kiril Brodski were found during an operation in the Khan Younis area.
- The military said it had determined that Ms. Goren was murdered in captivity, while the soldiers were killed in combat on 7 October and their bodies then abducted.
- The announcement means 111 of the 251 people taken hostage are still being held in Gaza, including 39 who the military says are presumed dead.
- The Hostages and Missing Families Forum praised what it called the “crucial and decisive military action that provides their families with important closure and eternal rest for the murdered”.
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Important Takeaways:
- The death toll from heavy rains in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state rose to 143, up from 136 on the day before, the local civil defense government body said on Sunday, as rains continue to pour on the state.
- Another 125 people remain unaccounted for in the state, where rivers are reporting rising levels. Weather service Metsul called the situation “extremely worrying.”
- On Saturday evening the government announced around 12.1 billion reais ($2.34 billion) in emergency spending to deal with the crisis that has displaced more than 538,000 people in the state, out of a population of around 10.9 million.
- With this new money, more than 60 billion reais in federal funds has already been made available to the state, said the federal government in a statement on Saturday.
- Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the state will rebuild what was destroyed.
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Important Takeaways:
- Kansas City cops claim Super Bowl parade shooting that left one dead and 21 others injured – including NINE kids – was NOT targeted – as hero who took down gunman armed with high-caliber rifle speaks out
- Heroic fans who tackled one of the Kansas City Chiefs parade shooters have described holding him down and snatching his rifle after it fell onto the ground.
- Three people are in custody in connection with the incident that sparked panic among the crowds yesterday after the Chiefs celebrated their win, including the young man tackled as he attempted to flee the scene.
- Shots rang out moments after Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes left the stage next to Union Station, hundreds of thousands had gathered to party.
- What exactly led to the shooting remains unclear. Police last night said it was not ‘targeted’, but are yet to explain why the shooter was carrying a rifle. None of the suspects have been named.
- No charges have been announced, and police said no motive has been determined. Police have referred to the people in custody as being detained.
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Important Takeaways:
- At least 131 killed, 700 injured in China’s deadliest earthquake in 9 years
- A devastating earthquake, measuring 6.2 in magnitude, rocked northwestern China shortly before midnight on Monday. The seismic event, impacting Gansu and Qinghai provinces, stands as the most lethal earthquake in China in the past nine years, claiming the lives of at least 131 individuals and injuring over 700.
- The disaster left residents in dire conditions, with many spending the night in tents in freezing temperatures, the newswire noted.
- The quake also caused landslides, complicating rescue efforts. Emergency workers are searching for missing persons, with Qinghai officials reporting 16 missing in a landslide.
- According to Reuters, 78 people were found alive in Gansu, where rescue operations concluded Tuesday afternoon. Attention is now turning to treating the injured and resettling residents as they brace for the challenges of the approaching months-long winter.
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Important Takeaways:
- The search has ended for any more victims among climbers who were caught by a weekend eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Marapi volcano that killed 23 people and injured several others, officials said Thursday.
- About 75 climbers started up the nearly 2,900-meter (9,480-foot) mountain in Agam district of West Sumatra province on Saturday and were on the volcano when it erupted the following day.
- West Sumatra Police Chief Suharyono said earlier that the discovery of the body of a female university student Wednesday had raised the confirmed death toll to 23. Officials said Thursday that they believed all the dead had been recovered.
- After an evaluation of the search and rescue results, “authorities have ended the search and rescue operation in Mount Marapi as all the victims have been found by late Wednesday,” said Abdul Muhari, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson.
- The National Search and Rescue Agency said all the bodies had been taken to a hospital by late Wednesday for identification.
- Some 52 climbers were rescued after the initial eruption Sunday, with about a dozen taken to hospitals with serious to minor injuries.
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