Tag Archives: Death

Ecuador quake death toll rises to 350; billions needed to rebuild

Red Cross members, military and police officers work at a collapsed area after an earthquake struck off Ecuador's Pacific coast, at Tarqui neighborhood in Manta

By Julia Symmes Cobb and Ana Isabel Martinez

PEDERNALES/PORTOVIEJO, Ecuador (Reuters) – The death toll from Ecuador’s worst earthquake in decades rose to 350 on Monday while traumatized survivors rested amid the rubble of their homes and rescuers dug for survivors in the Andean nation’s shattered coastal region.

At least 2,068 people were also injured in Saturday’s 7.8 magnitude quake, which ripped apart buildings and roads and knocked out power.

Giving the new tally of fatalities from the city of Portoviejo inside the disaster zone, President Rafael Correa told Reuters he feared the number would rise even further.

“Reconstruction will cost billions of dollars,” he also said, chatting with victims and appearing deeply moved as he toured the shattered town in the OPEC nation whose economy was already reeling from the global slump in crude oil prices.

Further north, in the beach locality of Pedernales, survivors curled up on mattresses or plastic chairs next to flattened homes. Soldiers and police patrolled the hot, dark streets overnight while pockets of rescue workers plowed on.

At one point, firefighters entered a partially destroyed house to search for three children and a man apparently trapped inside, as a crowd of 40 gathered in the darkness to watch.

“My little cousins are inside. Before, there were noises, screams. We must find them,” pleaded Isaac, 18, as the firemen combed the debris.

Tents sprang up in the town’s still-intact stadium to store bodies, treat the injured, and distribute water, food, and blankets. Survivors wandered around with bruised limbs and bandaged cuts, while those with more serious injuries were evacuated to hospitals.

While the full extent of the damage remains unclear, the disaster is dreadful news for Ecuador’s economy, which was already forecast for near-zero growth this year due to plunging oil income.

The energy industry appeared largely intact although the main refinery of Esmeraldas was closed as a precaution. However, exports of bananas, flowers, cocoa beans and fish could be slowed by ruined roads and port delays.

The quake could also alter political dynamics ahead of next year’s presidential election.

The government’s response seemed relatively speedy, with Vice President Jorge Glas flying into the disaster zone within hours and Correa coming straight back from a trip in Italy.

But some survivors complained about lack of electricity and supplies, and aid had still not reached some areas.

AFTERSHOCKS

About 230 aftershocks have rattled survivors, who huddled in the streets, worried the tremors could topple their already cracked homes.

“We’re scared of being in the house,” said Yamil Faran, 47, surrounded by some 30 people in a street in Portoviejo. “When … the aftershocks stop, we’re going to see if we can repair it.”

About 130 inmates in Portoviejo took advantage of the destruction and chaos to climb over the collapsed walls of the low-security El Rodeo prison. More than 35 had been recaptured, authorities said Sunday night.

On Monday, people swarmed into the middle of Portoviejo in search of any materials of value among destroyed buildings, including a social security office. Desks and papers lay strewn around as locals carried off aluminum window frames and cables.

“I have to take some advantage from this horrible tragedy. I need money to buy food. There’s no water, no light, and my house was destroyed,” said Jorge Espinel, 40, who works in the recycling business.

About 13,500 security personnel were mobilized to keep order.

Some $600 million in credit from multilateral lenders was immediately activated for the emergency, the government said.

Domestic aid funds were being set up and Venezuela, Chile and Mexico were sending personnel and supplies.

The Ecuadorean Red Cross mobilized more than 800 volunteers and staff and medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it was sending a team from Colombia.

Two Canadians were among the dead. Jennifer Mawn, 38, and her 12-year-old son, Arthur, died when the roof of their coastal residence collapsed.

Residents on the Galapagos islands, far off Ecuador’s coast and home to numerous rare species, said they had not been affected by the quake.

The tremor followed two large and deadly quakes that have struck Japan since Thursday. Both countries are on the seismically active “Ring of Fire” that circles the Pacific, but the U.S. Geological Survey says large quakes separated by such distances would probably not be related.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Bernadette Baum and James Dalgleish)

Magnitude 7.4 earthquake strikes Southern Japan

A woman reacts at a health and welfare center acting as an evacuation center after an earthquake in Mashiki town, Kumamoto prefecture, southern Japan

(Reuters) – A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck southern Japan early on Saturday, just over 24 hours after a quake killed nine people and injured at least 1,000 in the same area.

The Saturday quake triggered a tsunami advisory, though it was later lifted and no irregularities were reported at three nuclear power plants in the area, Japanese media reported.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the Saturday quake though there were several reports of damage, including some collapsed buildings and cracked roads.

The epicenter of the quake was near the city of Kumamoto and measured at a shallow depth of 10 km, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake on Thursday evening in the same region was of 6.4 magnitude.

“Thursday’s quake might have been a foreshock of this one,” Shinji Toda, a professor at Tohoku University, told national broadcaster NHK.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said the Saturday quake was 7.1 magnitude and it initially issued a tsunami advisory, which identifies the presence of a marine threat and asks people to leave coastal regions, for the Ariake and Yatsushiro seas.

NHK said the advisory suggested a possible wave of one meter in height. The advisory was later lifted.

Several aftershocks rattled the region later on Saturday, including one of 5.8 magnitude.

NHK quoted an official at a hospital near the epicenter as saying it had lost power after the Saturday quake and had to use its generators.

Most of the casualties in the Thursday quake came in the town of Mashiki, near the epicenter, where several houses collapsed.

A magnitude 9 quake in March 2011, to the north of Tokyo, touched off a massive tsunami and nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima. Nearly 20,000 people were killed in the tsunami.

(Reporting by Tokyo bureau; Writing by John Stonestreet; Editing by Robert Birsel and Martin Howell)

Aftershocks rattle Japan from strong quake ~ 7.4 Hits Friday

Local residents wrap themselves in blankets as they sit on the road in front of the town office building after an earthquake in Mashiki town, Kumamoto in april 2016

By Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters) – Aftershocks rattled southwestern Japan on Friday after a strong quake the night before killed nine people, injured at least 1,000 and cut power and water across the region, forcing the temporary shutdown of several auto and electronics factories.

By afternoon, more than 130 aftershocks had hit the area around the city of Kumamoto in the wake of the initial 6.4 magnitude quake the night before. Officials said the frequency was tapering off but the risk of further strong aftershocks will remain for about a week.

While the magnitude of Thursday’s quake was much lower than that of the 9.0 March 11, 2011 quake that touched off a massive tsunami and nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima, the intensity was similar because it struck on land and at a much shallower depth.

“We managed to huddle into a space, that’s why we were saved,” one man told NHK national television after he and his family were rescued from their collapsed house two hours after the quake hit. “We’re all safe, that’s what counts.”

More than 44,000 people initially fled to schools and community centers, some spending the night outside after the first quake hit around 9:30 p.m.

Roads cracked, houses crumbled, and tiles cascaded from the roof of the 400-year-old Kumamoto Castle in the center of the city.

Among those pulled from the wreckage was an eight-month-old baby girl, wrapped in a blanket and passed hand to hand by firefighters. Several hospitals had to evacuate patients.

Japanese stocks ended down 0.4 percent, with the impact of the quake limited primarily to regional shares that could experience some direct impact. Regional utility Saibu Gas Co Ltd finished 2.7 percent lower.

Several companies, including Honda Motor Corp, suspended operations at plants in the area.

More than 3,000 troops, police and firemen were dispatched to the area from around Japan, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said more would be sent if needed.

“We will do everything in our power to ensure the safety of local residents,” Abe told a parliamentary committee.

Most of the dead came from Mashiki, a town of around 34,000 people near the epicenter of the quake, where firefighters battled a blaze late on Thursday. Daylight showed splintered houses under tiled roofs and an apartment building whose ground floor was pulverized, where two people died.

“I want to go home, but we couldn’t do anything there,” one boy at an evacuation center told TBS television as he bounced a baby in his arms.

Though the intensity of Thursday’s quake on the Japanese scale matched that of the March 2011 quake that left nearly 20,000 dead, the absence of a tsunami helped keep the death toll down.

Service on the Shinkansen superfast train in Kyushu was halted after one train derailed, and highways were closed after some sections collapsed. About 12,200 households were without electricity as of 12 p.m. (0500 GMT), according to Kyushu Electric Power Co Inc;, while some 58,000 lacked water.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority said there were no irregularities at three nuclear plants on the southern major island of Kyushu and nearby Shikoku.

Sony Corp., Mitsubishi Electric Corp and tire maker Bridgestone Corp. also suspended operations at factories in the area.

The 2011 quake temporarily crippled part of Japan’s auto supply chain, but some companies have since adjusted the industry’s “Just in Time” production philosophy in a bid to limit any repeat of the costly disruption.

(Additional reporting by Joshua Hunt, Naomi Tajitsu and Tokyo newsroom; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

Dead Illinois resident had bacteria linked to Wisconsin outbreak

(Reuters) – A northern Illinois resident who died after being diagnosed this year with a blood infection known as Elizabethkingia had the same strain of the bacteria linked to more than a dozen deaths in Wisconsin, health officials said on Tuesday.

Neither the resident’s age nor many other details were released, but Melaney Arnold, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), said the individual had suffered from underlying health issues.

IDPH officials have sent alerts to hospitals requesting they report all cases of Elizabethkingia and save any specimens for possible laboratory testing, Arnold added in a statement.

The infection has infected 48 mostly elderly people in Wisconsin, killing 15. Both Michigan and Illinois have each reported one death and one person infected, the statement said.

The patients who died in Wisconsin had serious underlying conditions, health officials have said, and it remains unclear whether the bacteria caused all the fatalities.

Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois investigators are working with Atlanta-based The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the possible source of the bacteria.

Elizabethkingia bacteria are rarely reported to cause illness in humans, and can sometimes be found in the respiratory tract. Symptoms can include fever, shortness of breath and chills or cellulitis. Confirmation of the illness requires a laboratory test.

(Reporting by Justin Madden; Editing by Daniel Wallis and James Dalgleish)

Strong earthquake in Pakistan leaves six dead

By Asad Hashim

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Six people were killed across northern Pakistan although there appeared to be no widespread damage after a strong earthquake rattled major cities across South Asia at the weekend, authorities said on Monday.

The 6.6-magnitude quake on Sunday startled residents in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and forced some in high-rise buildings to flee into the streets of the Indian capital, New Delhi.

It was also felt in Islamabad and in Lahore in Pakistan’s east, about 630 km (390 miles) from the quake’s epicenter in remote northeastern Afghanistan, just inside the border with Tajikistan and across a narrow finger of land from Chitral – a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan’s northwest.

Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said five people were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Another was killed in northern Gilgit-Baltistan state, the NDMA said. At least seven people were reported injured across Pakistan, many of them in the northwestern frontier city of Peshawar.

There were no immediate reports of widespread damage in either Afghanistan or India, despite the quake rattling buildings in all three countries for more than a minute.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at a depth of about 210 km (130 miles).

Despite its depth, the quake still caused widespread panic in areas such as Chitral, a Reuters witness and a villager in the area said.

“It was a very dangerous situation, because our houses were already damaged from recent rainfall,” said Isa Khan, whose home in the village of Susoom, about 25 km (15 miles) north of Chitral, suffered moderate damage.

Most of the homes in his village are made of mud and brick. “We saw a lot of walls being damaged in front of us,” Khan said.

Pakistan’s NDMA said in a statement the air force had been asked to conduct an aerial photography survey to assess the damage in mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Khan said Chitral residents were still awaiting compensation after a 7.5-magnitude quake hit the area on Oct. 26 last year, killing more than 300 people and destroying thousands of homes.

The Hindu Kush area between Pakistan and Afghanistan is seismically active, with quakes often felt across a region where the Indian and Eurasian continental plates collide.

Just over a decade ago, a 7.6-magnitude quake in another part of northern Pakistan killed about 75,000 people.

(Additional reporting by Gul Hammad Farooqi in CHITRAL and Jibran Ahmed in PESHAWAR; Editing by Paul Tait and Himani Sarkar)

108 Killed in India Fireworks Explosions

People stand next to debris after a broke out at a temple in Kollam in the southern state of Kerala, India

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (Reuters) – Indian police have detained five people after a fireworks display at a Hindu temple set off explosions and fire killing 108 people, an officer said on Monday, in one of the worst accidents at a religious festival.

Thousands of people were gathered at the temple at Kollam in the southern state of Kerala on Sunday for the pyrotechnic show to mark the start of the Hindu year when sparks ignited a cache of fireworks stored inside the temple grounds.

The district administration said it had not given permission for the fireworks display following complaints of noise and pollution.

Police officer Anantha Krishnan said the five taken into custody were employees of a fireworks manufacturer who was given the contract for running the show at the Puttingal Devi temple.

The head of the manufacturing unit was injured, one of 380 people who were in hospitals across the state with burns as well as injuries caused by flying concrete and debris.

But police had not been able to reach members of the temple management, Krishnan said.

Kerala is studded with temples managed by rich and powerful trusts that often flout local regulations. Each year temples hold fireworks displays, often competing to stage the most spectacular ones, with judges who decide the winners.

On Monday, grieving relatives of the victims were scouring the temple grounds for possessions of their loved ones among the shoes, handbags and other articles strewn in a pile of debris and a puddle, dark red with blood.

“There were so many men and women lying on the ground, lifeless,” said Anish Kumar, a resident.

The scale of the tragedy has ignited demands that fireworks shows be banned at crowded places in Kerala. The chief of the state unit of the Indian Medical Association, A. V. Jayakrishna, said he planned to file a petition before the Kerala High Court on Monday curbing the use of fireworks.

Such has been the outrage across the nation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to Kollam within a few hours with a team of doctors.

Opposition politicians led by Rahul Gandhi also visited the temple site, demanding a thorough investigation into the cause of the fire which took place amid a state election to choose a new assembly.

Modi has faced public criticism for failing to respond quickly to disasters such as the floods in Chennai late last year. Large parts of the city were under water for days before government help arrived.

But Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party said he was focused on the task in hand.

“Ever since the Gujarat earthquake, in any disaster, the prime minister wants to be hands on,” said BJP spokesman M.J. Akbar, referring to Modi’s work in his home state when the 2001 quake hit.

“Where he keeps aloof – and rightly so – is in all these artificial, emotional, sound-bite controversies. He is consistent in his interventions and in his silences.”

For a map locating the temple: http://tmsnrt.rs/1SXsCVB

(Reporting by D.Jose; Additional reporting by Doug Busvine in NEW DELHI Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Floods kill At least 55 in Pakistan

Residents use a bridge covered with floodwater after heavy rain in Nowshera District on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan

By Asad Hashim

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Flash floods triggered by heavy rain in Pakistan have killed at least 55 people and rescuers were trying on Monday to help thousands of survivors including some cut off by a landslide in a mountain valley, officials said.

The weather system that brought the unusually heavy rain was expected to move northeast, towards northern India, although more isolated storms were expected in northern Pakistan, the Meteorological Department said.

Yousuf Zia, a disaster management official in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said nearly 150 homes had been destroyed and tents and blankets were being distributed to the homeless.

“There are 30 people stranded by a landslide in the Kohistan Valley where we have sent a helicopter to rescue them,” Zia said.

Forty-seven people were killed and 37 injured in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Zia said, while eight people were killed in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, officials there said.

Landslides caused widespread damage to roads and communication infrastructure in the Pakistani side of Kashmir, they said.

One of the worst-affected districts was the Swat Valley, northwest of the capital, Islamabad, where 121 mm (4.76 inches) of rain fell on Sunday, the Meteorological Department said.

India Overpass Collapse Kills 14

An air view of the collapsed overpass

By Supriyo Hazra

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) – An overpass under construction in the bustling Kolkata, India collapsed on Thursday on to vehicles and street vendors below, killing at least 14 people with more than 100 people feared trapped.

Residents used their bare hands to try to rescue people pinned under a 100-metre (110-yard) length of metal and cement that snapped off at one end and came crashing down in a teeming commercial district near Girish Park.

“The concrete had been laid last night at this part of the bridge,” resident Ramesh Kejriwal told Reuters.

“I am lucky as I was planning to go downstairs to have juice. When I was thinking about it, I saw that the bridge had collapsed.”

Video footage aired on TV channels showed a street scene with two auto rickshaws and a crowd of people suddenly obliterated by a mass of falling concrete that narrowly missed cars crawling in a traffic jam.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose center-left party is seeking re-election in the state of West Bengal next month, rushed to the scene.

“We will take every action to save lives of those trapped beneath the collapsed flyover. Rescue is our top priority,” she said.

Banerjee, 61, said those responsible for the disaster would not be spared. Yet she herself faces questions about a construction project that has been plagued by delays and safety fears.

A newspaper reported last November that Banerjee wanted the overpass – already five years overdue – to be completed by February. Project engineers expressed concerns over whether this would be possible, The Telegraph said at the time.

The disaster could play a role in the West Bengal election, one of five being held next month that will give an interim verdict on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nearly two years in power.

Indian company IVRCL <IVRC.NS> was building the 2-km (1.2-mile) Vivekananda Road overpass, according to its web site. Its shares closed down 5 percent after falling by up to 11.8 percent on news of the disaster.

IVRCL’s director of operations, A.G.K. Murthy, said the company was not sure of the cause of the disaster.

“We did not use any inferior quality material and we will cooperate with the investigators,” Murthy told reporters in Hyderabad where the firm is based. “We are in a state of shock.”

NO ACCESS

A coordinated rescue operation was slow to get under way, with access for heavy lifting gear and ambulances restricted by the buildings on either side of the flyover and heavy traffic.

Police said that 78 injured had been taken to Kolkata’s Medical College Hospital after the disaster struck at around noon.

“Most were bleeding profusely. The problem is that nobody is able to drive an ambulance to the spot,” said Akhilesh Chaturvedi, a senior police officer.

Eyewitness Ravindra Kumar Gupta, a grocer, said two buses carrying more than 100 passengers were trapped. Eight taxis and six auto rickshaws were partly visible in the wreckage.

“Every night, hundreds of laborers would build the flyover and they would cook and sleep near the site by day,” said Gupta, who together with friends pulled out six bodies.

“The government wanted to complete the flyover before the elections and the laborers were working on a tight deadline … Maybe the hasty construction led to the collapse.”

(Additional reporting by Rupam Jain, Tommy Wilkes, Neha Dasgupta and Aditya Kalra and Reuters TV in New Delhi; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Dr. Gary Smalley, Champion to Marriage and Family Passes on to Heaven

“Life is relationships; the rest is just details.”   Gary Smalley

The PTL Television Network, Jim Bakker Show, the Bakker family and all of us here at Morningside are praying today for the friends and family of a wonderful man, Dr. Gary Smalley who passed into heaven over the weekend in Colorado Springs, Colorado.    

Dr. Smalley devoted his professional life to guiding others in repairing marriages that were all but broken.  He and his beautiful wife Norma began an organization devoted to families and to the intimate and heartfelt ministry of developing good and solid marriages in 1979.  Their organization eventually evolved into retreat centers in 10 different cities.

Gary’s heart was to educate and inspire couples to love better and last a life-time!  But, even with the thousands of couples that he has helped through his retreat centers, counseling, speaking engagements and books, he spoke proudest of his two wonderful sons, Greg and Mike, his beautiful daughter Kari, and the amazing families they are raising. Every single day, there was never a doubt that he was completely aware of the love and blessings he had with the light of his life, his wife Norma.

Gary Smalley became one of the country’s best-known authors and speakers on family relationships. He is the author and co-author of 60 books along with several popular films and videos. He has spent over 35 years learning, teaching, and counseling. In a heartfelt post on facebook a friend wrote these words,  

“For the zillions profoundly impacted by Gary & Norma Smalley’s ministry and all those who have resurrected & salvaged dead-end relationships…and for those who just want to know how to do relationships right….this will be a loss heard around the world for decades to come.”

According to a post by his daughter on her facebook page, Dr. Smalley’s last days were spent surrounded by his loving family. The last words spoken over him were “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;”  Numbers 6:24-25

According to an article in Christian News Today, a celebration of life will take place Saturday, March 19 at 3:00 p.m. at College of the Ozarks Chapel in Point Lookout, Missouri. It will be open to the public for all who wish to honor Smalley’s life and legacy.

Our hearts and prayers are with Dr. Smalley’s family and friends but we also feel the joy of knowing that he is where love begins and ends, held within God’s loving arms.  

 

18 killed in car bomb against Syrian insurgents in southern province Quneitra: monitor

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Eighteen fighters were killed in a car bomb blast that hit a Syrian insurgent group in the southern province of Quneitra on Wednesday, a monitoring group reported, and a rebel source said the attack was likely carried out by hardline Islamists.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the explosion took place in the village of al-Isha, hitting a base belonging to Jabhat Thuwwar Souria, a Free Syrian Army group.

Suhaib al-Ruhail, a spokesman for the Alwiyat al-Furqan group which operates in the area, said it was most likely carried out by “Daesh sleeper cells”, a reference to Islamic State.

The incident did not appear to be related to the current cessation of hostilities between the Syrian government and its allies and non-jihadist insurgent groups.

(Reporting by John Davison in Beirut and Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman; Editing by Hugh Lawson)