Tag Archives: Death

At least 64 people, some children, killed in Russian mall fire

Still photo taken from video provided by Russian Emergencies Ministry shows a site of a fire at a shopping mall in Kemerovo, Russia March 25, 2018. Russian Emergencies Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

By Maria Kiselyova and Christian Lowe

MOSCOW (Reuters) – At least 64 people were killed by a fire which engulfed a busy shopping mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, Russian investigators said on Monday, and some of the dead were children.

The fire, one of the deadliest in Russia since the break-up of the Soviet Union, swept through the upper floors of the “Winter Cherry” shopping center on Sunday afternoon where a cinema complex and children’s play area were located.

Emergency services said they had extinguished the blaze, but later said it had reignited, and that rescuers were struggling to reach the building’s upper floors because the roof had collapsed. TV footage on Monday showed thick black smoke rising from the yellow building.

A man reacts at the scene of a fire in a shopping mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, Russia March 25, 2018. REUTERS/Marina Lisova

A man reacts at the scene of a fire in a shopping mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, Russia March 25, 2018. REUTERS/Marina Lisova

It was unclear if any people were still unaccounted for, but 11 people were being treated in hospital, including an 11-year-old boy who was in a serious condition.

Earlier on Monday, people had posted appeals on social media seeking news of their relatives or friends, and authorities set up a center in a school near the mall to deal with inquiries.

Anna Kuznetsova, Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, said the fire had been caused by incompetence and warned there were many similar shopping centers.

“Other regions, the bosses of other malls must right now, without waiting for (routine) checks, ask themselves: Have we done everything we can to ensure something like this doesn’t happen here,” Kuznetsova said in a statement.

The shopping mall, a former cake factory, had few windows or doors.

CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION

Witnesses were quoted by Russian media as saying that the fire alarm had failed to go off, and that many people had found themselves trapped because exit doors were locked.

Video footage from inside the mall after the fire broke out showed a group of people in a smoke-filled staircase trying to smash a fire exit door, which was jammed.

Russia’s Channel One TV station reported that some people had jumped from upper windows to escape the flames.

State investigators, who have opened a criminal investigation into the blaze, said four people had been detained over the fire, including the owners and lessees of outlets inside the mall. Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes, said it was trying to bring in the mall’s owner for questioning.

The Interfax news agency cited an unnamed local official source as saying the main theory being looked at was that the fire had been caused by an electrical short circuit.

However, it quoted Vladimir Chernov, the region’s deputy governor, as saying on Sunday that the blaze had started when a child had set fire to the foam on a trampoline in a play area using a lighter.

State TV said the mall had opened in 2013.

President Vladimir Putin, elected to a new term last weekend, spoke by telephone with the governor of the Kemerovo region and with the head of the Emergency Situations Ministry whom he dispatched to the scene.

Russia’s health minister, Veronika Skvortsova, flew to Kemerovo, a coal-producing region about 3,600 km (2,200 miles) east of Moscow, and visited the injured in hospital.

Putin “expressed his deep condolences to the relatives and loved ones of those who died,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

Mourners left flowers near the scene of the blaze.

Other big fires in Russia have often turned out to be the result of serious violations of fire safety regulations.

In 2009, 156 people were killed in the city of Perm when an indoor pyrotechnics display at a nightclub went wrong. The owner of that nightclub was convicted of negligence and sentenced to almost a decade in prison.

(Writing by Christian Lowe and Andrew Osborn; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Girl wounded in Maryland high school shooting dies

16 year old School shooting victim in Maryland Jaelynn Wiley

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – A 16-year-old girl critically wounded this week by a fellow student at a Maryland high school has died, raising the number killed in the latest deadly U.S. school shooting to two, authorities said on Friday.

Jaelynn Willey died at 11:34 p.m. EDT on Thursday, surrounded by her family, the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Friday.

The death came hours after her mother said at a hospital that her daughter had been declared brain dead and would be taken off life support.

“It is with heavy hearts and great sadness we provide this update,” the sheriff’s statement said.

Willey, a student at Great Mills High School in southern Maryland, was shot by student Austin Rollins, 17, in a hallway on Tuesday. Willey had been in a relationship with Rollins that had recently ended, the sheriff’s office has said.

A school resource officer confronted Rollins and they simultaneously fired shots at each other, according to police. Rollins was wounded and died at a hospital. The officer was unharmed.

Investigators have been uncertain over who fired a shot that hit a 14-year-old student in the leg.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Hunger brings death to Congolese Kasai after guns fall silent

An internally displaced woman sits with her severely acute malnourished children as they wait to receive medical attention at the Tshiamala general referral hospital of Mwene Ditu in Kasai Oriental Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, March 15, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

By media coulibaly

MWENE DITU, Democratic Republic of Congo, March 21 (Reuters) – The guns have fallen silent in the Congolese town of Mwene Ditu, but each day starving children arrive at the small hospital there battling for their lives.

Justine Musau, pregnant with her second child, fled into the forest in the central Kasai region last year after militiamen arrived in her nearby village and started decapitating residents they accused of collaborating with government forces.

“We didn’t know who had gone where,” she said, holding her four-year-old daughter close to her chest. Nourished only by the occasional serving of cassava, her two children had fallen ill from the lack of nutrients, she said.

“We went to sleep famished for three or four days at a time. We didn’t have pots or pans to prepare (food) so we had practically nothing to eat.”

Fighting between the army and the Kamuina Nsapu militia went on for about a year in the generally peaceful region’s worst outbreak of violence in decades. As many as 5,000 people were killed and an estimated 1.5 million forced from their homes.

Hostilities broke out in August 2016 when Congolese forces killed local chief Jean-Pierre Mpandi, who had demanded their withdrawal from Kasai.

Both sides committed atrocities, according to witness testimonies gathered by Reuters and the United Nations.

Security forces gunned down women and children in door-to-door raids and militiamen burned down houses and cut off alleged government sympathizers’ heads, feeding the blood to their young fighters as part of gruesome initiation rituals.

The deployment of more government troops into Kasai has largely put a stop to the violence, and hundreds of thousands of civilians are now returning home.

But as they do, hunger and disease are eclipsing guns and machetes as the region’s most prolific killers.

About 400,000 children in Kasai suffer from severe acute malnutrition, roughly the same number as in civil war-ravaged Yemen, according to the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF).

Only 13 percent receive medical attention “because there is not enough financing or attention,” said Christophe Boulierac, a UNICEF spokesman.

While a cholera epidemic that has already killed more than 100 people also rages, the fields that grow the cassava and maize the population depends on to survive lie barren from months of neglect.

COMBUSTIBLE MIX

The crisis in Kasai is one of several gripping Congo, where President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to step down when his mandate expired in December 2016 inflamed a combustible mix of ethnic grievances and competition over land and mineral resources that has fuelled years of conflict.

In all, over 13 million Congolese need humanitarian aid, twice as many as last year, and 7.7 million face severe food insecurity, up 30 percent from a year ago, the U.N. said in a report this month.

Aid groups say they have only a fraction of the $1.7 billion they need this year, so many of those returning home hungry and destitute find they are left to fend for themselves.

“After a month in the forest, we heard people cry out, ‘Leave the bush, the Kamuina Nsapu have left,'” recalled Justine Mulanaga, who had come to the hospital with her two young grandchildren.

“We left the forest to return to the village but everything was destroyed,” she said. “We didn’t even find a glass or a plate.”

(Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by John Stonestreet)

Fifth device explodes in Texas, seen linked to others

A FedEx truck is seen outside FedEx facility following the blast, in Schertz, Texas, U.S., March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Flores

By Jon Herskovitz and Jim Forsyth

AUSTIN/SCHERTZ, Texas (Reuters) – A package bomb blew up at a FedEx distribution center near San Antonio on Tuesday, the fifth in a series of attacks that have rocked Texas this month and sent investigators on a frantic search for what they suspect is a serial bomber.

The package filled with nails and metal shrapnel was mailed from Austin to another address in Austin and passed through a sorting center in Schertz, about 65 miles (105 km) away, when it exploded on a conveyer belt, knocking a female employee off her feet, officials said.

It was the fifth explosion in Texas in the past 18 days and the first involving a commercial parcel service.

“We do believe that these incidents are all related. That is because of the specific contents of these devices,” interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told members of the Austin City Council, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

A second package sent by the same person was discovered and turned over to law enforcement, FedEx Corp said in a statement. Meanwhile police had surrounded yet another FedEx location in the Austin area after discovering a suspicious package there.

The series of bombings have unsettled Austin, the state capital of some 1 million people, and drawn hundreds of federal law enforcement investigators to join local police. Schertz lies on the highway between Austin and San Antonio.

Speaking through the media, officials have appealed to the bomber to reveal the motives for the attacks. They have also asked the public for any tips, offering a $115,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the culprit.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a tweet: “We are committed to bringing perpetrators of these heinous acts to justice. There is no apparent nexus to terrorism at this time.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether it was ruling out both international and domestic terrorism.

“This is obviously a very, very sick individual, or maybe individuals,” President Donald Trump told reporters. “Theseare sick people, and we will get to the bottom of it.”

Investigators were trying to come up with a theory or intelligence regarding the motive for the bombings or identity of the bomber or bombers, a U.S. security official and a law enforcement official told Reuters.

Members of the media move cameras around before the start of a news conference outside the scene of a blast at a FedEx facility in Schertz, Texas, U.S., March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Flore

Members of the media move cameras around before the start of a news conference outside the scene of a blast at a FedEx facility in Schertz, Texas, U.S., March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Flores

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating the FedEx package explosion as if there were a connection to the Austin bombings, the law enforcement official said. Both sources declined to be identified.

The individual or people behind the bombings are likely to be highly skilled and methodical, said Fred Burton, chief security officer for Stratfor, a private intelligence and security consulting firm based in Austin.

“This is a race against time to find him before he bombs again,” Burton said.

The four previous explosions killed two people and injured four others.

The first three devices were parcel bombs dropped off in front of homes on in three eastern Austin neighborhoods. The fourth went off on Sunday night on the west side of the city and was described by police as a more sophisticated device detonated through a trip wire.

The four devices were similar in construction, suggesting they were the work of the same bomb maker, officials said.

Federal authorities at the scene of Tuesday’s blast offered few details, telling reporters their probe was in the early stages and that the building would be secured before investigators could gather evidence.

The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were among those working with local officials in Austin, Schertz and San Antonio.

“We have agents from across the country. We have our national response team here. We have explosive detection canines here. We have intel research specialists,” Frank Ortega, acting assistant special agent in charge of the San Antonio ATF office, told reporters. “We’ve been working around the clock.”

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Mark Hosenball and Lisa Lambert in Washington; Writing Daniel Trotta; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Tom Brown)

Seven years after tsunami, Japanese live uneasily with seawalls

A bus is driven past a seawall in Yamada village, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, March 3, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

By Megumi Lim

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan (Reuters) – When a massive earthquake struck in 2011, Japanese oyster fisherman Atsushi Fujita was working as usual by the sea. Soon after, a huge black wave slammed into his city and killed nearly 2,000 people.

Seven years on, Fujita and thousands like him along Japan’s northeast coast have rebuilt their lives alongside huge sea walls that experts say will protect them if another giant tsunami, which some see as inevitable in a seismically active nation like Japan, was to strike.

A high wave hits a seawall in Tanohata village, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, March 1, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

A high wave hits a seawall in Tanohata village, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, March 1, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

The 12.5-metre (41-ft) concrete wall replaced a 4-metre breakwater that was swamped in the March 11, 2011 disaster. The earthquake and tsunami, which reached as high as 30 meters in some areas, killed nearly 18,000 people across Japan and triggered a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima power plant.

“It feels like we’re in jail, even though we haven’t done anything bad,” the 52-year-old Fujita said.

Since the disaster, some towns have forbidden construction in flat areas nearest the coast and have relocated residents to higher land. Others, such as Rikuzentakata, have raised the level of their land by several meters before constructing new buildings.

A common thread, though, is the construction of seawalls to replace breakwaters that were overwhelmed by the tsunami. Some 395 km (245 miles) of walls have been built at a cost of 1.35 trillion yen ($12.74 billion).

“The seawalls will halt tsunamis and prevent them from inundating the land,” said Hiroyasu Kawai, researcher at the Port and Airport Research Institute in Yokosuka, near Tokyo.

“Even if the tsunami is bigger than the wall, the wall will delay flooding and guarantee more time for evacuation.”

Residential houses and commercial buildings stand behind a seawall at a port in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Residential houses and commercial buildings stand behind a seawall at a port in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

ADJUSTING

Many residents initially welcomed the idea of the walls but have become more critical over time. Some say they were not consulted enough in the planning stages or that money spent on the walls has meant that other rebuilding, such as housing, has fallen behind.

Others worry the walls will damage tourism.

“About 50 years ago, we came up here with the kids and enjoyed drives along the beautiful ocean and bays,” said Reiko Iijima, a tourist from central Japan, who was eating at an oyster restaurant across from the seawall.

“Now, there’s not even a trace of that.”

Part of a wall in the city of Kesennuma, further south, has windows in it – but these, too, draw complaints.

“They’re a parody,” said Yuichiro Ito, who lost his home and younger brother in the tsunami. “It’s just to keep us happy with something we never wanted in the first place.”

A fishing boat is seen through a window of a seawall at a port in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

A fishing boat is seen through a window of a seawall at a port in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Fisherman Fujita said that while the tsunami had improved oyster farming in the area by stirring up sea floors and removing accumulated sludge, the sea walls could block natural water flows from the land and impact future production.

Many municipalities said the giant walls had to be in place before permission could be granted for reconstruction elsewhere.

“I can’t say things like ‘the wall should be lower’ or ‘we don’t need it,'” said Katsuhiro Hatakeyama, who has rebuilt his bed and breakfast business in the same location as before. “It’s thanks to the wall that I could rebuild, and now have a job.”

But many find the wall hard to adjust to.

“Everyone here has lived with the sea, through generations,” said Sotaro Usui, head of a tuna supply company. “The wall keeps us apart – and that’s unbearable.”

(Additional reporting by Kim Kyung-hoon, Writing by Elaine Lies; Editing by Karishma Singh and Neil Fullick)

Papua New Guinea aid workers race to deliver supplies as aftershocks strike

People displaced by an earthquake gather at a relief centre in the central highlands of Papua New Guinea March 1, 2018. Milton Kwaipo/Caritas Australia/Handout via REUTERS

By Sonali Paul and Charlotte Greenfield

MELBOURNE/WELLINGTON (Reuters) – Aid workers struggled to reach remote areas of Papua New Guinea’s rugged highlands on Tuesday as aftershocks rattled the region, more than a week after a powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake killed dozens of people.

Two aftershocks above magnitude 5 and one of magnitude 6.7 hit the mountainous Southern Highlands, about 600 km (370 miles) northwest of the capital Port Moresby, with the constant shaking driving people from their homes to makeshift shelters for fear of landslides.

There were no immediate reports of damage from the magnitude 6.7 tremor, which struck shortly after midnight, Wednesday morning, local time.

Local media outlets on Tuesday reported the death toll had grown to 75, after government officials said previously that 55 people had been killed.

James Komengi, a United Church project officer, speaking from Tari, the capital of quake-affected Hela province, said his church’s assessment and response center had counted up to 67 deaths in that province alone.

“Mothers and children are so traumatized. Even my own children are refusing to sleep in our house. Every little movement scares them,” said Komengi.

Concerns were also growing about access to safe drinking water after the shaking destroyed many water tanks, while land slips had poured mud into natural water sources.

“Because of the landslides … it’s very dirty water,” said Udaya Regmi, Director the International Red Cross in Papua New Guinea. Provincial health officials and Red Cross volunteers were urgently trying to improve sanitation systems and carry out hygiene training to avoid an outbreak of dystentry, Regmi said.

Local hospitals had seen a number of people with stomach conditions, but it was not yet confirmed whether these were due to contaminated water, he added.

Aid agencies were struggling to get aid by helicopter to all of the nearly 150,000 people who remained in urgent need of emergency supplies.

“The logistics are still a massive problem,” said Anna Bryan, an aid worker for CARE Australia based in the capital Port Moresby.

Australia, New Zealand and the Red Cross have all pledged aid, although reaching the remote area has proved difficult as forbidding terrain and bad weather, as well as damaged roads and runways, have delayed aid efforts.

“Right now the main challenge in the affected areas is accessibility by roads. There are big cracks along the roads and even roads completely cut off. So that’s making it quite difficult to get water, food and medicine to the remote areas,” said Milton Kwaipo, Caritas Australia’s disaster response and management officer in Papua New Guinea.

The quake has also been felt on global gas markets, with ExxonMobil Corp declaring force majeure on exports from Papua New Guinea, according to an industry source, pushing up Asian spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices.

The company declined to comment on the force majeure, but said it would take about 8 weeks to restore production.

 

(Reporting by Sonali Paul in MELBOURNE, Charlotte Greenfield in WELLINGTON and Byron Kaye in SYDNEY; editing by Richard Pullin and Kevin Liffey)

Half-a-million still without power after storm in U.S. Northeast

A worker clear debris from a tree that had fallen on to a house as a storm bringing high winds passes over Kensington, Maryland, U.S., March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

(Reuters) – Some 500,000 customers remained without power throughout the eastern United States on Sunday evening and New England coastal communities faced more flooding two days after a powerful storm snapped trees, downed wires and killed at least nine people.

The remnants of the storm, known as a nor’easter, lingered on Sunday, with the National Weather Service posting coastal flood advisories in effect until Monday morning in much of the U.S. Northeast even after the storm had passed.

Some half a million customers still lacked power, according to data provided by 10 major utilities in the Middle Atlantic, Midwest and Northeast. At one point, 2 million customers had lost power.

The brunt of the storm hit on Friday, packing hurricane-force winds in excess of 90 miles per hour (145 kph) and sending seawater churning into streets in Boston and nearby shore towns, marking the second time the area had been flooded this year.

Falling trees killed seven people in Connecticut, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia, according to local media and police. Two others died in the storm, according to media reports, including a 41-year-old man in Andover, New Jersey, who came in contact with power lines.

Private forecasting service AccuWeather said the storm dumped as much as 18 inches (46 cm) of snow on parts of New York state and Pennsylvania. The Massachusetts town of East Bridgewater received nearly 6 inches (15 cm) of rain, the NWS said.

The storm also snarled transportation from the Middle Atlantic into New England, with more than a quarter of flights in and out of New York’s three major airports and Boston’s airport canceled on Friday, tracking service FlightAware.com reported.

The problems carried over into Saturday, with hundreds of flights canceled into and out of New York and Boston, according to the website.

One flight landing at Washington’s Dulles International Airport on Friday experienced turbulence so rough that most passengers became sick and the pilots were on the verge of becoming ill, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Papua New Guinea officials say whole villages flattened by deadly quake

A handout photo shows several landslides on mountains in the Muller range after an earthquake struck Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands February 26, 2018. Picture taken February 26, 2018. Steve Eatwell-Mission Aviation Fellowship/Handout via REUTERS

By Tom Westbrook

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Whole villages were flattened and water sources spoiled by a powerful earthquake that killed at least 20 people, residents said on Wednesday as rescuers struggled to reach the hardest-hit areas in Papua New Guinea’s remote, mountainous highlands.

The magnitude 7.5 quake rocked the rugged Southern Highlands province some 560 km (350 miles) northwest of the capital, Port Moresby, triggering landslides, damaging mining, gas and power infrastructure, and cutting communications.

Scores of aftershocks have hampered rescue efforts and rattled nervous villagers over the past two days, including a 6.0 tremor just before 1 p.m. (0300 GMT) on Wednesday registered by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Damaged buildings are seen after a powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake, in Mendi, Papua New Guinea February 26, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. Picture taken February 26, 2018. RAKA GEVE /via REUTERS ?ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

Damaged buildings are seen after a powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake, in Mendi, Papua New Guinea February 26, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. Picture taken February 26, 2018. RAKA GEVE /via REUTERS ?ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

Most of the confirmed fatalities were in or around the provincial capital of Mendi, where television pictures showed collapsed buildings and landslides, and the town of Tari, according to authorities and residents contacted by Reuters.

“It’s massive destruction,” Stanley Mamu told Reuters by telephone from Tari, 40 km (25 miles) from the epicenter. One person was killed in Tari and another five were killed in a landslide in a nearby village, he said.

“There are buildings on the ground and landslides along the roads. My home was destroyed. The main sources of water were all flooded, it’s dirty and brown and people can’t drink that water,” Mamu said.

Elsewhere rivers had silted up or become blocked, villages damaged and gardens and water tanks destroyed, though the biggest landslides hit sparsely populated areas, according to Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), an air transport operator that flew a three-hour survey on Tuesday.

A cloudy morning and fog in the afternoon on Wednesday hampered official efforts to assess damage by helicopter, let alone distribute aid, said Kaigabu Kamnanaya, Director of Risk Management at Papua New Guinea’s National Disaster Centre.

Miners and oil and gas companies were also assessing the damage, which included ensuring a 700-km (435-mile) gas pipeline that connects to a coastal liquefaction plant was intact before it could be reopened.

Australia sent a C-130 military transport plane to help with aerial surveillance. The office of Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement it would likely take days before the extent of the damage was clear.

A police officer in Mendi said landslides had buried homes and blocked a river residents worried could flood the town.

“We are really in deep fear,” said police sergeant Naring Bongi. “It continues to be active. We didn’t sleep well and stayed awake until daybreak … no helicopters or government officials have come to our assistance.”

Medical supplies and heavy equipment to clear landslides were also needed, said James Justin, a spokesman for provincial MP Manasseh Makiba, as well as food in places where productive gardens had been wrecked.

“The casualties have yet to be confirmed but many more than 20 people have lost their lives,” he said.

Locals surround a house that was covered by a landslide in the town of Mendi after an earthquake struck Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands, in this image taken February 27, 2018 obtained from social media. Francis Ambrose/via REUTER

Locals surround a house that was covered by a landslide in the town of Mendi after an earthquake struck Papua New Guinea’s Southern Highlands, in this image taken February 27, 2018 obtained from social media. Francis Ambrose/via REUTERS

Earthquakes are common in Papua New Guinea, which sits on the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire”, a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates. Part of PNG’s northern coast was devastated in 1998 by a tsunami, generated by a 7.0 quake, which killed about 2,200 people.

 

(Reporting by Tom Westbrook in SYDNEY, Writing by Jonathan Barrett, Editing by Paul Tait and Michael Perry)

Russia violating duty to halt Syria’s use of chemical weapons: U.S.

A person inspects damaged building in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta, Damascus, February 20. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Russia has violated its duty to guarantee the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons and prevent the Assad government from using banned poison gas, the United States said on Wednesday.

“For Russia to claim that the Assad regime has eliminated its chemical stockpiles is just absurd. Its continued denial of the Assad’s regime culpability in the use of chemical weapons is simply incredible,” U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood told the Conference on Disarmament.

“Russia needs to be on the right side of history on this issue. It is currently on the wrong side of history,” he said.

Syria again denied U.S. allegations that it had used chemical weapons against rebel-held areas, and said that “terrorist groups” including Nusra Front and Islamic State had obtained some stocks.

“Syria cannot be possibly using chemical weapons because it very simply has none in its possession,” Hussam Aala, Syrian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told the forum.

The world’s chemical weapons watchdog in the Hague opened an investigation on Sunday into attacks in the besieged, rebel-held Syrian region of eastern Ghouta to determine whether banned munitions had been used, diplomatic sources told Reuters.

Syria signed up to the international ban on chemical weapons in 2013, as part of a deal brokered by Moscow to avert U.S. air strikes in retaliation for a nerve gas attack that killed hundreds of people, which Washington blamed on Damascus. In the years that followed, Syria’s declared stockpile of banned poison gasses was destroyed by international monitors.

Syria’s government had made an “unprecedented achievement by destroying all its chemical weapons in record time and in a manner that is irrevocable, although field conditions were extremely complex due to our war against terrorism”, Aala said.

The United States said last year that Syria again used the banned nerve gas sarin, and President Donald Trump ordered air strikes.

Washington has since said it has evidence that Syria has used chlorine gas in attacks in recent weeks. Rescue workers and medics on the ground have described residents choking on fumes after air strikes.

Unlike nerve gas, chlorine is legal for countries to possess for water purification and other civilian purposes, but using it as a weapon is banned.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, addressing the Conference on Disarmament, said Syria had eliminated its chemical weapons stockpile and placed its arsenal under international control.

Lavrov said the United States was repeating allegations by what he called “fully-discredited” Syrian rescue workers in rebel-held areas, who had put forth “absurd claims against the government of Syria”.

“We note that the U.S. and its allies are simply exploiting baseless allegations of toxic weapons use by Damascus as a tool of anti-Syrian political engineering,” Lavrov added.

(Additional reporting by Cecile Mantovani; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Peter Graff)

At least 14 dead in Papua New Guinea quake; ExxonMobil shuts LNG plant

Locals surround a house that was covered by a landslide in the town of Mendi after an earthquake struck Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands in this image taken February 27, 2018 obtained from social media. Francis Ambrose/via REUTERS

By Sonali Paul and Melanie Burton

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Up to 14 people were killed in landslides and by collapsed buildings during a powerful earthquake in the remote Papua New Guinea highlands, police and a hospital worker said on Tuesday, with unconfirmed reports of up to 30 dead.

The 7.5 magnitude quake that rocked the region early on Monday also damaged mining and power infrastructure and led ExxonMobil Corp to shut its $19 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, the country’s biggest export earner.

Two buildings collapsed and along with a landslide killed 12 people in Mendi, the provincial capital of the Southern Highlands, said Julie Sakol, a nurse at Mendi General Hospital, where the bodies were brought to the morgue.

“People are afraid. The shaking is still continuing. There’s nowhere to go but people are just moving around,” she said.

Dozens of aftershocks rattled the area, including a 5.7 quake on Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

Police in Mendi said 14 people were killed in the initial quake, including three in Poroma, south of Mendi.

“They were killed by landslides destroying families sleeping in their houses,” said Naring Bongi, a police officer in Mendi.

Provincial Administrator William Bando said more than 30 people were believed to have been killed in the rugged region, about 560 km (350 miles) northwest of the capital, Port Moresby, the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier reported.

The PNG disaster management office said it was verifying the reports but it could take days to confirm a death toll.

With a lack of communications preventing a clear assessment of damage, aid agencies had not yet begun relief efforts, said Udaya Regmi, head of the International Red Cross in Papua New Guinea, in Port Moresby.

“The magnitude of the earthquake is quite huge, so there must be an impact … but we cannot say how many people are actually affected and what they need,” Regmi said.

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said the defense force was on standby to assist “when the extent of damage has been confirmed.”

ocals stand next to a damaged house near a landslide in the town of Tari after an earthquake struck Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands in this image taken February 27, 2018 obtained from social media. Francis Ambrose/via REUTERS

Locals stand next to a damaged house near a landslide in the town of Tari after an earthquake struck Papua New Guinea’s Southern Highlands in this image taken February 27, 2018 obtained from social media. Francis Ambrose/via REUTERS

“We know that there have been houses lost, roads cut by land slips and disruption to services,” he said in a statement.

ExxonMobil said communications with nearby communities remained down, hampering efforts to assess damage to its facilities that feed the PNG LNG plant.

“Communications continue to be one of the most significant challenges,” the company said in an emailed statement.

Its partner, Oil Search Ltd, said a review of all of its facilities and infrastructure would take at least a week, and an industry source told Reuters that the Exxon plant will likely be shut at least seven days.

Miners Barrick Gold Corp and Ok Tedi Mining also reported damage to infrastructure.

LNG SHUTDOWN

The PNG LNG project is considered one of the world’s best-performing LNG operations, having started exports in 2014 ahead of schedule, despite the challenge of drilling for gas and building a plant and pipeline in the remote jungle of PNG.

The liquefaction plant has also been producing at around 20 percent above its rated capacity of 6.9 million tonnes a year.

ExxonMobil said it shut the two LNG processing units, or trains, at its site on the coast near Port Moresby after earlier shutting its Hides gas conditioning plant and Hides production pads in Hela province in the highlands region.

Gas is processed at Hides and transported along a 700 km (435 miles) line that feeds the PNG LNG plant, whose main customers are in Japan, China and Taiwan.

Traders said the impact on the LNG market would depend on the duration of the shutdown, but noted that spot prices have recently fallen from more than $10 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) as North Asia is coming out of the period of heavy winter gas demand. [LNG/]

“The global LNG market is likely to respond immediately as the buyers need to seek alternative sources,” said Boseok Jin, a research analyst at HIS Markit.

INFRASTRUCTURE DAMAGE

Barrick said some activities at the Porgera gold mine have been suspended to save electricity as the power station that supplies the mine had been damaged.

The mine is co-owned by Barrick and China’s Zijin Mining.

State-owned Ok Tedi said by email that a landslip had blocked a road and damaged pipelines to its copper and gold mine in the Star Mountains, adding that the road would take up to two days to be cleared.

Earthquakes are common in Papua New Guinea, which sits on the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire”, a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates. Part of PNG’s northern coast was devastated in 1998 by a tsunami, generated by a 7.0 quake, which killed about 2,200 people.

(Reporting by Melanie Burton and Sonali Paul; Additional reporting by Tom Westbrook in SYDNEY, Charlotte Greenfield in WELLINGTON, Jessica Jaganathan and Oleg Vukmanovic in SINGAPORE, and Osamu Tsukimori in TOKYO; Editing by Richard Pullin, Tom Hogue, William Maclean)