Tag Archives: Collapse

Turkish official collapses after saying Israel would suffer Allah’s wrath

Turkish-MP-Collapses

Important Takeaways:

  • Turkish MP collapses in parliament after saying Israel ‘would suffer the wrath of Allah’
  • Hasan Bitmez, 53, fell on the floor as he delivered a passionate speech at the General Assembly Hall in Ankara on Tuesday.
  • “We can perhaps hide from our conscience but not from history,” he said as he rounded out his speech, adding that “Israel will suffer the wrath of Allah.”
  • Shortly after, he was on the ground receiving chest compressions.
  • He was rushed to the hospital where he was listed in critical condition, according to The Yeshiva World and other outlets.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Toddler rescue effort reaches most dangerous stage in Spain: engineer

A drill (C) is driven to work at the area where Julen, a Spanish two-year-old boy, fell into a deep well eight days ago when the family was taking a stroll through a private estate, in Totalan, southern Spain January 21, 2019. REUTERS/Jon Nazca

TOTALAN, Spain (Reuters) – Efforts to reach a two-year-old boy who fell into a borehole in southern Spain more than a week ago are nearing their most dangerous stage, an engineer on the rescue team said on Monday.

The toddler, Julen, fell down the shaft as his family walked through a private estate in Totalan, Malaga on Jan. 13. There have been no signs of life since.

Miners have been drilling day and night to create a parallel shaft, hoping they will be able to cut across by Tuesday to find the child.

Work slowed on Sunday after the drill bit hit hard rock and officials said there was a risk of more collapses as they carved out the horizontal passage.

“The most dangerous part, the most delicate part, still remains to be done,” mining engineer Juan Lopez Escobar told Canal Sur.

“It is a complicated job where lives will be at risk, but they have practiced that, and they are the best,” he added.

Rescuers found that the borehole – 100 meters (300 feet) deep and just 25 cm (10 inches) wide – was blocked with earth, raising fears that soil had collapsed onto the child.

“We’re at 53 meters, and we’re just another seven meters away (from where) we start the next job of creating the chamber,” Angel Vidal, the lead engineer overseeing the work, told reporters.

Spanish miners and engineers have been joined by workers from a Swedish firm who helped locate 33 Chilean miners rescued after 69 days underground more than seven years ago.

Children and families have joined candlelight vigils across Spain in support of the missing boy.

El Pais reported that his parents suffered another tragedy in 2017 when their three-year-old son died suddenly after suffering a cardiac arrest while walking along a beach.

(Reporting by Miguel Pereira; writing by Jose Elias Rodriguez and Paul Day, editing by Andrei Khalip and Andrew Heavens)

At least seven killed, 67 missing after quake rocks Taiwan tourist area

Rescue workers are seen by a damaged building after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 7, 2018.

By Fabian Hamacher and Tyrone Siu

HUALIEN, Taiwan (Reuters) – Rescuers combed through the rubble of collapsed buildings on Wednesday, in a search for 67 people missing after a strong earthquake which killed at least seven near Taiwan’s popular tourist city of Hualien.

The magnitude 6.4 quake, which hit near the coastal city just before midnight (1600 GMT) on Tuesday, injured 260 people and caused four buildings to collapse, officials said.

Hualien Mayor Fu Kun-chi said the number of people missing was now close to 60, although an exact figure was not provided. As many as 150 were initially feared missing.

Many of the missing were believed to be still trapped inside buildings, some of which tilted precariously, after the quake struck about 22 km (14 miles) northeast of Hualien on Taiwan’s east coast.

At the city’s Marshal Hotel, rescuers trying to free two trapped Taiwanese pulled one out alive, but the other person was declared dead, the government said.

Mainland Chinese, Czech, Japanese, Singaporean and South Korean nationals were among the injured.

“This is the worst earthquake in the history of Hualien, or at least over the past 40 years that I’ve been alive,” said volunteer Yang Hsi Hua.

“We’ve never had anything like this, we’ve never had a building topple over. Also, it was constantly shaking, so everyone was really scared, we ran to empty open spaces to avoid it.”

Rescue personnel search a collapses building after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 7, 2018.

Rescue personnel search a collapses building after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Aftershocks with a magnitude of at least 5.0 could rock the island in the next two weeks, the government said. Smaller tremors rattled nervous residents throughout the day.

Residents waited and watched anxiously as emergency workers dressed in fluorescent orange and red suits and wearing helmets searched for residents trapped in apartment blocks.

Hualien is home to about 100,000 people. Its streets were buckled by the force of the quake, with around 40,000 homes left without water and around 1,900 without power. Water supply had returned to nearly 5,000 homes by noon (0400 GMT), while power was restored to around 1,700 households.

DAMAGE, PANIC

Emergency workers surrounded a badly damaged 12-storey residential building, a major focus of the rescue effort. Windows had collapsed and the building was wedged into the ground at a roughly 40-degree angle.

Rescuers worked their way around and through the building while residents looked on from behind cordoned-off roads. Others spoke of the panic when the earthquake struck.

“We were still open when it happened,” said Lin Ching-wen, who operates a restaurant near a damaged military hospital.

“I grabbed my wife and children and we ran out and tried to rescue people,” he said.

A Reuters video showed large cracks in the road, while police and emergency services tried to help anxious people roaming the streets. A car sat submerged in rubble as rescue workers combed through the ruins of a nearby building.

President Tsai Ing-wen went to the scene of the quake early on Wednesday to help direct rescue operations.

“The president has asked the cabinet and related ministries to immediately launch the ‘disaster mechanism’ and to work at the fastest rate on disaster relief work,” Tsai’s office said in a statement.

A body of employee of collapsed Marshal Hotel is carried by a rescue personnel after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 7, 2018.

A body of employee of collapsed Marshal Hotel is carried by a rescue personnel after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and major Apple supplier, said initial assessments indicated no impact from the earthquake.

Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China considers part of its territory, lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is prone to earthquakes. An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 struck nearby on Sunday.

More than 100 people were killed in a quake in southern Taiwan in 2016, and some Taiwanese remain scarred by a 7.6 magnitude quake that was felt across the island and killed more than 2,000 people in 1999.

(For graphic on Taiwan earthquake, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2BJCdQ2)

(Additional reporting by Jeanny Kao and Jess Macy Yu in TAIPEI and Natalie Thomas in Hualien; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Paul Tait and Richard Balmforth)

Tunnel collapses at Washington nuclear waste plant; no radiation released

A 20-foot wide hole over a decommissioned plutonium-handling rail tunnel is shown at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Hanford Site, Washington, U.S., May 9, 2017. Courtesy Department of Energy/Handout via REUTERS

By Tom James and Scott DiSavino

(Reuters) – A tunnel partly collapsed on Tuesday at a plutonium-handling facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, but there was no indication workers or the public were exposed to radiation, federal officials said.

Workers evacuated or took cover and turned off ventilation systems after damage was discovered in the wall of a transport tunnel about 170 miles (270 km) east of Seattle, officials with the Department of Energy’s Hanford Joint Information Center said.

The damage was more serious than initially reported, and the take-cover order was expanded to cover the entire facility after response crews found a 400-square-foot section of the decommissioned rail tunnel had collapsed, center spokesman Destry Henderson said in a video posted on Facebook.

“The roof had caved in, about a 20-foot section of that tunnel, which is about a hundred feet long,” he said.

“This is purely precautionary. No employees were hurt and there is no indication of a spread of radiological contamination,” Henderson said of the shelter order.

No spent nuclear fuel is stored in the tunnel, Energy Department officials said. Energy Department Secretary Rick Perry has been briefed on the incident.

Tom Carpenter, the executive director with watchdog organization Hanford Challenge who has spoken with workers at the site since the incident, called the tunnel collapse worrisome and said the evacuation was the correct call.

“There is a big hole there and radiation could be beaming out,” he said.

“It’s not clear to me that they know whether particulate radiation has escaped,” Carpenter added. “If there is a cloud of radioactive particulates, then that can have an impact on worker health and the community. It does not take a lot for those particulates to end up in someone’s lung.”

The site is in southeastern Washington on the Columbia River. Operated by the federal government, it was established in the 1940s and manufactured plutonium that was used in the first nuclear bomb as well as other nuclear weapons. It is now being dismantled and cleaned up by the Energy Department.

Mostly decommissioned, Hanford has been a subject of controversy and conflict between state and local authorities, including a lawsuit over worker safety and ongoing cleanup delays. Carpenter called it the most contaminated U.S. site.

Carpenter said he expects total cleanup costs could reach $300 billion to $500 billion.

(Reporting by Tom James in Seattle and Scott DiSavino in New York; Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)

Workers at Washington nuclear waste plant take cover after tunnel collapse

The Purex (Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant) separations facility at the Hanford Works is seen in an undated aerial photo. The building has been vacant for nearly twenty years but remains highly contaminated, according to the Department of Energy. DOE/Handout via REUTERS

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – A tunnel partly collapsed on Tuesday at a plutonium handling facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, leading authorities to evacuate some workers and instruct others to take cover, federal officials said.

Workers took cover and turned off ventilation systems after minor damage was discovered in the wall of a transport tunnel, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy said by telephone from the Hanford Joint Information Center.

The damage was more serious than initially reported, and the take-cover order was expanded to cover the entire facility after response crews found a 400-square-foot section of the decommissioned rail tunnel had collapsed, she said.

“The tunnel itself was breached. There was a 20-foot wide hole,” the spokeswoman said.

No spent nuclear fuel is stored in the tunnel, and no further evacuations have been ordered for workers, nor have any warnings for civilians around the site been issued, she said.

She declined to identify herself, citing agency policy.

The site is in southeastern Washington on the Columbia River, about 170 miles (270 km) east of Seattle. Operated by the federal government, it was established in the 1940s and manufactured plutonium that was used in the first nuclear bomb as well as other nuclear weapons. It is now being dismantled and cleaned up by the Energy Department.

“This is a potentially serious event,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “I can see why the site ordered emergency measures. Collapse of the earth covering the tunnels could lead to a considerable radiological release.”

Lyman pointed to a description of the storage tunnels from a report from the Consortium For Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation in 2015 about the Hanford site, saying there is quite a lot of cesium-137 and plutonium in those tunnels. Those are radioactive materials that can cause radiation sickness and death depending on the amount and length of exposure.

Mostly decommissioned, Hanford has been a subject of controversy and conflict between state and local authorities, including a lawsuit over worker safety and ongoing cleanup delays. The site has been described in media reports as the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States.

The evacuation did not affect the nearby nuclear power plant operated by Energy Northwest, company spokesman John Dobken said. The Columbia nuclear plant was located about 12 miles southeast of where the incident at Hanford occurred, he said.

(Reporting by Tom James in Seattle; Additional reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)

Fire collapses portion of interstate highway in Atlanta

A fire is shown out of control underneath a highway overpass on interstate 85 before a section of the highway collapsed, according to the city's fire and rescue agency in Atlanta, Georgia, March 30, 2017. Atlanta Fire Rescue/Handout via REUTERS

By Rich McKay

ATLANTA (Reuters) – A bridge on Interstate 85 in Atlanta collapsed on Thursday as a fire raged beneath it, authorities said, sending black smoke into the air and briefly causing a fireball before the structure fell in on itself.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the incident, which snarled traffic for miles (km).

“We are trying to assess the damage and determine how quick we can repair it,” Republican Georgia Governor Nathan Deal told a news conference.

Black smoke billowed so thickly from the bridge in the heart of Atlanta that area residents told local media they thought a storm was coming or that the sun had set early when the fire started at around 6 p.m. local time.

Then flames rose several stories high from under the bridge before a section collapsed around 7:30 p.m., even as dozens of firefighters fought it, causing a brief fireball.

Hours after the collapse, vehicles were still stuck trying to get off the highway. Deal declared a state of emergency for Fulton County, which encompasses much of the Atlanta area. Government offices in Atlanta were set to open at 10 a.m. on Friday to give people extra time to get to work.

Deal said the fire that led to the highway collapse appeared to have been fueled by a large pile of PVC piping under the structure. Authorities did not know who owned the piping or who had put it under the bridge, Deal said.

All lanes of the freeway were blocked, and authorities urged motorists to stay away from the interstate in all directions.

“We cannot have any more traffic on the highway,” Atlanta Police Department Sergeant Warren Pickard told a news conference. “We need everyone to stay put and not travel at this time. We need the roads clear for emergency vehicles.”

Local TV images showed bright orange flames and thick black smoke billowing into the sky above the freeway as a line of cars stood halted on either side.

Traffic was jammed on nearby roads and freeways as well, according to online congestion maps.

Television station WSB-TV showed what appeared to be barrels and coils under the bridge.

The station reported that fire crews from nearby Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport were brought in to help and were spraying foam typically used for airplane crashes onto the flames.

(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Dan Whitcomb and Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Sandra Maler and Bill Rigby)

Patients trapped after roof collapse at Johannesburg hospital

Rescue workers are seen at a site of a roof collapse at Johannesburg's Charlotte Maxeke state hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Patients and workers were trapped after a roof collapsed at Johannesburg’s Charlotte Maxeke state hospital on Thursday, an incident that highlighted the funding shortages in South Africa’s public health system, officials said.

The roof caved at the hospital reception area as construction workers were trying to seal a leak after a heavy storm, officials said. Five people suffered minor injuries and it was not clear how many people were still trapped.

Two of the injured were patients, two were construction workers while one person was a hospital staff member.

The hospital, one of South Africa’s biggest, is nicknamed Joburg Gen and is used for academic purposes due to its proximity to the University of the Witwatersand.

“We’re not sure how many people are trapped. At the moment the rescue team is on site clearing the debris as fast and as safely as they can,” Gwen Ramokgopa, the head of the provincial health department, said at the hospital.

She said contractors “were working to seal the roof because it was leaking and the structure caved in.”

Television footage showed rescue workers trying to remove rubble and steel pipes to try and reach those trapped by the debris as heavy rain pounded the South African commercial capital.

State hospitals in South Africa have been struggling with persistent underfunding for staff, equipment and facilities.

The roof collapse comes amid public outrage at the provincial health department over the deaths of at least 94 psychiatric patients who died after being moved from a licensed home to unregistered facilities.

(Reporting by James Macharia and TJ Strydom; Editing by Ed Cropley)

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)

Ice Cave Collapse Kills 1; Injures 5

An ice cave that is part of the Big Four Ice Caves at Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest east of Seattle partially collapsed, killing a 34-year-old woman.

Eight people were in the back of the cave when the collapse took place around 5 p.m. Tuesday.  The caves had large warning signs about instability but the caves were not blocked.

“It’s not illegal to go in the caves. However, we’ve been saying since mid-May, it’s extremely dangerous with all this hot weather,” Shari Ireton with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office told CNN before noting that hot weather weakens the caves.

“There was a large pile of ice and rock that came down,” she said. “So it wasn’t just one big slab. … It wasn’t a piece of a shelf coming off.”

“They’re essentially a frozen-over avalanche chute sitting over a waterfall, sitting below a giant rock shoot,” Ireton added. “It’s incredibly dangerous.”

A witness told ABC that she heard a pop before the ice gave way.

“Everybody was happy. It was really cool. … [Then] we heard a pop and I got really nervous and I just look up and there’s, I see there’s this sheet of ice coming down,” said Chloe Jakubowski, 18. “I crouched down as quickly as I could and I put my hands over my head.”

“It was really scary,” she said. “I just didn’t know if those were going to be my last few moments.”

A 25-year-old man hurt in the collapse remains in intensive care at Harborview Medical Center although his status was upgraded from critical to serious.