Tag Archives: death tolls

Most of 54 dead in Mexico truck crash were Guatemalans, Mexico says

By Jacob Garcia

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Most of the victims of Thursday’s truck crash in southern Mexico that killed at least 54 people and injured dozens more were Guatemalan migrants, authorities said on Friday.

People spilled from the truck carrying an estimated 166 people after it flipped over on a curve outside the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez in the state of Chiapas, causing one of the worst death tolls of migrants in Mexico in the past decade.

The Mexican Attorney General’s office said it would investigate the incident, which state officials in Chiapas said had claimed the lives of 54 people and injured 58 others.

Authorities identified 95 Guatemalans among the people caught up in the accident, as well as three people from the Dominican Republic, a Honduran, a Mexican and an Ecuadorean.

Lists of people being treated in hospital published on social media showed dozens of Guatemalan migrants among the survivors. Local residents said other people fled the scene, apparently to evade arrest after the truck rolled over.

An unidentified Guatemalan man interviewed at the scene said when the trunk driver tried to negotiate the bend, the weight of people inside caused the vehicle flip over.

“The trailer couldn’t handle the weight of people,” he said.

Thousands of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America travel through Mexico each month to reach the U.S. border. They often cram inside large trucks organized by smugglers in extremely dangerous conditions.

National and international leaders expressed consternation at the death toll, and urged migrants not to try their luck in making the journey north to the United States.

“Human smugglers disregard human life for their own profit. Please don’t risk your lives to migrate irregularly,” Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico said on Twitter.

Many migrants fall prey to criminal gangs en route. In January, 19 people, mostly migrants, were massacred with suspected police involvement in northern Mexico.

Record numbers of people have been arrested on the U.S.-Mexico border this year as migrants seek to capitalize on President Joe Biden’s pledge to pursue more humane immigration policies than his hardline predecessor, Donald Trump.

Mexican authorities in Chiapas have attempted to persuade migrants to not form caravans to walk thousands of miles to the U.S. border, and have begun transporting people from the southern city of Tapachula to other regions of the country.

(Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Jose Torres; Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Alison Williams)

With over a million coronavirus cases, economic freefall looms

By Cate Cadell and Lisa Shumaker

BEIJING/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global cases of the new coronavirus have shot past 1 million with more than 53,000 fatalities, a Reuters tally showed on Friday, as death tolls soared in the United States and western Europe while the world economy nosedived.

In the space of just 24 hours, 6,095 infected people died – nearly twice the total number of deaths in China, where the virus and COVID-19, the disease it causes, originated.

Atop the grim tally of officially reported data are Italy, with 13,915 deaths, and Spain, with 10,935. But the United States is becoming the new epicentre, with 243,635 cases – by far the most of any nation – and 5,887 deaths.

In China, where draconian containment measures stabilised the epidemic, coronavirus “martyrs” will be mourned on Saturday with a three-minute silence.

Though the official figures are shocking enough, health experts and even some governments acknowledge they do not capture the full spread. The virus mostly goes undetected in people with minor symptoms or none at all.

With airlines largely grounded, businesses closed, layoffs mounting and millions of people under lockdown, the economic fallout is set to be worse than the 2008 financial crisis.

Rather, comparisons are being drawn with such traumatic periods as World War Two or the 1930s global Depression.

ECONOMIES IN FREEFALL

Morgan Stanley predicted that the U.S. economy, the world’s biggest, would shrink 5.5% this year, the steepest drop since 1946, despite an unprecedented aid package. An eye-watering 38% contraction is predicted for the second quarter.

The bank said Britain was heading for a slump that could be worse in the short term than the 1930s.

Global stocks slipped, but then recovered as Wall Street headed into positive territory in morning trade.

Morgues and hospitals in New York City were struggling to treat or even bury victims of the virus, and state governor Andrew Cuomo predicted similar misery for the rest of the country.

Staff at one medical centre in Brooklyn were seen disposing of gowns and caps in a sidewalk trash can after loading bodies into a refrigerated truck.

After initially playing down the crisis, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration was set to advise Americans to wear masks if venturing out.

Spain and Italy were also counting their daily dead, but prayed they were plateauing as data at least showed a slowdown in daily increases.

Some 900,000 Spanish workers have lost their jobs. Double that number have done so in Turkey, the opposition said.

Britain, accused by the opposition of being slow to respond to the threat of the virus, unveiled a hospital installed in an exhibition centre in under two weeks to provide thousands of extra beds, and promised a tenfold increase in testing.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s extended self-isolation, after testing positive, was a reminder of the risk.

In a video message from Downing Street, he said he still had fever.

In France, the government did something that was shunned even in wartime, cancelling the end-of-high-school “baccalaureat” exam for the first time since its inception in 1808 under Napoleon Bonaparte.

DISASTER FOR DEVELOPING WORLD

While prosperous nations reel, there are fears of potentially far worse impact in places already struggling with poverty, insecurity and weak health systems.

In Iraq, three doctors and two officials said there were thousands of cases, many times more than publicly reported.

In India, many poor labourers were desperate, and hungry, after losing jobs in a lockdown ordered at four hours’ notice by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“I’m very sure that he works only for the big people and not for a man like me,” said former Modi supporter Ravi Prasad Gupta, laid off from a pipe plant.

Aware that religious gatherings have in some parts aided the virus’s spread, both Pakistan and Bangladesh sought to stop people going to mosques for Friday prayers, while Saudi Arabia imposed a curfew in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Though there was little cause for cheer anywhere, one positive offshoot of the crisis has been a massive drop in atmospheric pollution. One expert said carbon dioxide emissions could fall this year by the largest amount since World War Two.

New Google data from mobile phones in 131 countries showed huge changes in human behaviour as people are told to stay home and businesses shut. For example, in Italy and Spain, visits to retail and recreation locations including restaurants and cinemas plunged 94% in March.

But authorities are still nervous about public criticism in many places, not only authoritarian states.

The U.S. Navy relieved the captain of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt of his command on Thursday, punishing him for the leak of a scathing letter to superiors seeking stronger measures to a curb a coronavirus on board.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Daniel Wallis and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Howard Goller and Kevin Liffey)

Latest on the spread of the coronavirus around the world

(Reuters) – Coronavirus cases across the globe jumped on Thursday as G20 leaders said they were committed to presenting a united front against the pandemic, the International Labour Organization warned of far more than 25 million job losses, and the U.S. Senate unanimously backed a $2-trillion aid package.

DEATHS, INFECTIONS

** Almost 489,000 people have been infected globally and over 22,000 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

** For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread, open https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.

EUROPE

** The number of cases in Italy’s northern region of Lombardy increased by some 2,500, a steeper increase than in previous days.

** Spain extended its lockdown to at least April 12.

** Switzerland’s infections topped 10,000 as the government pumped money into the economy and army medical units helped hospitals handle the spreading epidemic.

** President Vladimir Putin said he hoped Russia would defeat the virus in 2-3 months, as authorities suspended international flights, ordered most shops in the capital to shut and halted some church services.

** In Lisbon, a “drive-thru” clinic is performing five-minute swab tests through car windows on people with symptoms, as Portuguese authorities ramp up testing facilities.

** Britain has placed an emergency order of 10,000 ventilators from Dyson.

** Slovakia aims to sharply increase daily testing in the next few weeks.

AMERICAS

** The U.S. death toll topped 1,000 as government data showed a record number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits and hospitals struggled to treat a surge of patients.

** Americans should receive cash payments within three weeks, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said.

** New York, experiencing more deaths and infections than any other U.S. state, is showing tentative signs of slowing the spread of the virus, while New Orleans is on track to become the country’s next epicentre.

** The U.S. ambassador to London has blamed China for endangering the world by suppressing information about the outbreak.

** Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro faced a political backlash for calling the coronavirus lockdown a crime.

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC** Japan banned entry from 21 European countries and Iran, and set up a new crisis task force.

** China ordered airlines to sharply cut the number of flights in and out of the country as Beijing worries that travellers from overseas could reignite the outbreak.

** Three more people died overnight in India as the government sought to improve basic services to 1.3 billion people locked indoors.

** South Korea warned that it will deport foreigners while its citizens could face jail if they violate self-quarantine rules after a surge in imported cases.

** Australia entered 4,000 healthcare workers into a trial to see if a century-old vaccine for tuberculosis can fight off the new coronavirus.

** New Zealand started a one-month compulsory lockdown, with warnings from authorities to stay at home or face big fines and even jail.

** Armenia and Kazakhstan reported their first deaths on Thursday.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

** About half of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa still have a “narrowing” opportunity to curb the spread of the virus, the regional head of the World Health Organisation said.

** Turkey could order the public to stay at home if infections continue to spread, the government said as it clamped down further on medical equipment leaving the country.

** Iran started an intercity travel ban, a day after Tehran warned the country might face a second outbreak. Iran has reported 2,234 deaths and 29,406 infections so far.

** Lebanon will begin an overnight shutdown from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., as it steps up measures to combat the virus.

** The United Arab Emirates will impose overnight curfews as a temporary measure this weekend, when it will carry out a nationwide disinfection campaign.

** Qatar signed agreements to increase its strategic food stuff reserves.

** Saudi Arabia has released 250 foreign detainees held on non-violent immigration and residency offences.

** South African President tested negative for the virus, as the country begins a countrywide lockdown.

ECONOMIC FALLOUT

** A Wall Street rally powered global gains in stocks despite a record number of new unemployment filings in the United States, as traders focused on the Senate’s passage of the relief bill and the possibility of more stimulus to come.

** The number of jobs lost around the world due to the coronavirus crisis could be “far higher” than the 25 million the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated just a week ago, a senior ILO official said.

** European Union leaders will back plans to defend healthcare, infrastructure and other firms considered strategic from hostile foreign takeovers, draft EU summit conclusions show.

** The Group of 20 major economies will do “whatever it takes” to overcome the coronavirus crisis and are injecting $5 trillion into the global economy though national measures as part of their efforts to lessen its impact.

** The United States “may well be in recession” but progress in controlling the outbreak will determine when the economy can fully reopen, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said.

** India announced a $22.6 billion stimulus plan that provides direct cash transfers and food security measures to millions of poor people hit by a nationwide lockdown.

** China is implementing $344 billion of mainly fiscal measures in its fight against the outbreak.

** Japan’s government offered its bleakest assessment on the economy in nearly seven years, saying conditions in March were “severe.”

EVENTS

** It is too soon to decide whether the Tour de France can go ahead, but if it does it may be without roadside spectators, France’s sports minister said.

(Compiled by Milla Nissi, Sarah Morland and Aditya Soni; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)