Important Takeaways:
- More than 3,000 people have now died from the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Burma last week, which destroyed thousands of buildings and sent the war-torn country into a deeper humanitarian crisis.
- Burma’s military-led government announced that the death toll from Friday’s earthquake rose to 3,085, while 4,715 people were injured and another 341 are missing.
- “With infrastructure compromised and patient numbers surging, access to health care has become nearly impossible in many of the worst-hit areas,” according to the U.N. “Thousands of people are in urgent need of trauma care, surgical interventions and treatment for disease outbreaks.”
- The World Health Organization assessed so far that four hospitals and one health center had been completely destroyed, while another 32 hospitals and 18 health centers had been partially damaged.
- More than 1,550 international rescuers were operating alongside locals on Thursday, according to a statement from the military. Rescue supplies and equipment have been sent by 17 countries.
- The quake worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis, with more than 3 million people displaced from their homes and nearly 20 million in need even before it hit, according to the U.N.
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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:
- More than two dozen are still missing in New Mexico wildfires as residents allowed to return
- As the search for more victims continues, residents of Ruidoso, New Mexico, were allowed to enter the village Monday for the first time since a pair of wildfires converged on the community, causing massive destruction.
- Two people were confirmed dead and 29 identified as missing as of Monday, Crawford said. A large section of the village where searches continue has been designated a “no entry” or “exclusion” zone, he added.
- The South Fork and Salt Fires, which began last week, have destroyed more than 25,000 acres, with the South Fork Fire 37% contained and the Salt Fire 7% contained, according to the Southwest Area Incident Management Team. More than 1,000 firefighting personnel are battling the wildfires, and FBI special agents are helping figure out what started them.
- The fires keep burning as the nation grapples this week with more extreme heat – the deadliest form of weather globally and one that makes wildfires more likely and destructive.
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Important Takeaways:
- People in southern Brazil, already reeling from deadly floods, are bracing for more disruption as meteorologists warned of 12 straight hours of heavy rain Friday and more throughout the weekend.
- The storms have affected more than 1.9 million people in Brazil, and displaced hundreds of thousands, many of whom are staying in temporary shelters. Over 140 people are still missing.
- Scenes of the devastating weather event have been beamed all over the world, including video footage of a horse that had to be rescued after being stranded for several days on a rooftop.
- Uruguay has also been flooded by the storms. More than 1,300 people there have been displaced there, while thousands more are without electricity
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Important Takeaways:
- The death toll from Indonesia’s Marapi volcano eruption jumped to 22 on Tuesday as rescuers found more climbers who had perished near the crater, the head of the West Sumatra rescue agency said on Tuesday, up from 13 earlier in the day.
- About 200 rescuers will resume search operations on Wednesday for one further missing climber.
- The 2,891-metre high volcano in West Sumatra erupted on Sunday, spewing gray clouds of ash as high as 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) into the sky.
- “We are now evacuating the dead bodies from the peak of the volcano,” said the head of the search and rescue team, Abdul Malik.
- Still, there were 75 climbers on the volcano when it erupted, rescuers said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Nearly 100 dead and missing in Mexico from hurricane -state governor
- The number of people dead and missing due to Hurricane Otis, a Category 5 storm which hammered the Mexican Pacific resort city of Acapulco last week, has risen to close to 100, authorities in the state of Guerrero said on Monday.
- Otis battered Acapulco with winds of 165 miles per hour (266 km per hour) on Wednesday, flooding the city, tearing roofs from homes, hotels and other businesses, submerging vehicles, and severing communications as well as road and air connections.
- Evelyn Salgado, governor of Acapulco’s home state of Guerrero, said 45 people were confirmed dead and 47 others were missing, citing figures from state prosecutors. Salgado had said on Sunday morning the death toll stood at 43.
- On Sunday afternoon, Mexico’s federal civil protection authorities said there were 48 dead, consisting of 43 in Acapulco and five in nearby Coyuca de Benitez.
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