Tag Archives: Death

Taliban suicide car bomber kills dozens in Afghan capital

An Afghan shopkeeper inspects his shop after a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan July 24, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

By Hamid Shalizi and James Mackenzie

KABUL (Reuters) – A Taliban suicide attacker detonated a car bomb in the western part of Kabul on Monday, killing up to 35 people and wounding more than 40, government officials said, in one of the worst attacks in the Afghan capital in recent weeks.

Police cordoned off the area, located near the house of the deputy government Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqiq in a part of the city where many of the mainly Shi’ite Hazara community live.

Monday’s suicide bombing, which targeted government personnel, continued the unrelenting violence that has killed more than 1,700 civilians in Afghanistan so far this year.

The Taliban, which is battling the Western-backed government and a NATO-led coalition for control of Afghanistan, has launched a wave of attacks around the country in recent days, sparking fighting in more than half a dozen provinces.

“I was in my shop when suddenly I heard a terrible sound and as a result all of my shop windows shattered,” said Ali Ahmed, a resident in the area of Monday’s blast.

Acting Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said at least 24 people had been killed and 40 wounded but the casualty toll could rise further.

Another senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the incident with the media, said the toll stood at 35 killed. That was in line with a claim on Twitter by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who said 37 “intelligence workers” had been killed.

Mujahid said in a tweet claiming responsibility for the attack the target had been two buses that had been under surveillance for two months.

Government security forces said a small bus owned by the Ministry of Mines had been destroyed in the blast but the National Directorate for Security, the main intelligence agency, said none of its personnel had been hit.

Three civilian vehicles and 15 shops were destroyed or damaged in the blast, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

At least 1,662 civilians had already been killed in Afghanistan in the first half of the year.

Kabul has accounted for at least 20 percent of all civilian casualties this year, including at least 150 people killed in a massive truck bomb attack at the end of May, according to United Nations figures.

The Islamic State group claimed an attack on a mosque in the capital two weeks ago that killed at least four people.

On Sunday, dozens of Afghan troops were under siege after Taliban fighters overran a district in northern Faryab province, a spokesman for the provincial police said.

There was also fighting in Baghlan, Badakhshan, and Kunduz provinces in Afghanistan’s north, and Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan in the south, according to officials.

The resurgence of violence also coincides with the U.S. administration weighing up its strategic options for Afghanistan, including the possibility of sending more troops to bolster the NATO-led training and advisory mission already helping Afghan forces.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi and James Mackenzie; Editing by Paul Tait)

Dengue outbreak kills 300 in Sri Lanka, hospitals at limit

A mosquito landing on a person. Courtesy of Pixabay

COLOMBO (Reuters) – An outbreak of dengue virus has killed around 300 people so far this year in Sri Lanka and hospitals are stretched to capacity, health officials said on Monday.

They blamed recent monsoon rains and floods that have left pools of stagnant water and rotting rain-soaked trash — ideal breeding sites for mosquitoes that carry the virus.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is scaling up emergency assistance to Sri Lanka with the Sri Lanka Red Cross to help contain the outbreak.

“Dengue patients are streaming into overcrowded hospitals that are stretched beyond capacity and struggling to cope, particularly in the country’s hardest hit western province,” Red Cross/Red Crescent said in a statement.

According to the World Health Organization, dengue is one of the world’s fastest growing diseases, endemic in 100 countries, with as many as 390 million infections annually. Early detection and treatment save lives when infections are severe, particularly for young children.

The Sri Lankan government is struggling to control the virus, which causes flu-like symptoms and can develop into the deadly hemorrhagic dengue fever.

The ministry of health said the number of dengue infections has climbed above 100,000 since the start of 2017, with 296 deaths.

“Ongoing downpours and worsening sanitation conditions raise concerns the disease will continue to spread,” Red Cross/Red Crescent said.

Its assistance comes a week after Australia announced programs to help control dengue fever in Sri Lanka.

“Dengue is endemic here, but one reason for the dramatic rise in cases is that the virus currently spreading has evolved and people lack the immunity to fight off the new strain,” Novil Wijesekara, head of health at the Sri Lanka Red Cross said in a statement.

(Reporting by Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)

Suicide bomber in Pakistan’s Lahore kills 25, many of them police

Rescue workers and policemen gather after a suicide blast in Lahore, Pakistan July 24, 2017.

By Mubasher Bukhari

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed at least 25 people, many of them police, in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday, officials said, an attack which shattered a period of relative calm in Pakistan’s second-largest city.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack which wrought carnage near the Lahore Technology Park in the center of the city. Police deployed to clear street vendors from the area had been targeted, a police official said.

“We suspect that he (the suicide bomber) came on a motorcycle and he rammed it into a police checkpoint,” Lahore police operations chief Haider Ashraf told Reuters.

Rescue workers shifted the wounded to hospital and police officers cordoned off the bomb site as army troops also arrived at the scene.

“The death toll we have now is 25 dead and 52 are wounded,” said Jam Sajjad Hussain, spokesman for the Rescue 1122 service.

A wounded man sitting on the roadside was shown crying in pain on television amidst cars and motorcycles mangled by the blast.

The bombing was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, in a message sent to the media by spokesman Muhammad Khurassani. The Pakistani Taliban are loosely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents but focus their attacks on the Pakistani government.

Bomb blasts by militants are common in Pakistan, especially in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, but attacks in Lahore have become less frequent in recent years.

Haider Ashraf, deputy inspector general of Punjab police, said the blast was a suicide attack and “police were the target”.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the majority of those killed and wounded were police and warned the death toll could rise.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the blast in a statement and directed medical efforts for those injured.

In early April, a suicide attack on an army census team that killed at least six people and wounded 18 in Lahore was also claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

After a series of attacks in February, including two in Lahore that killed over 20 people, Pakistan’s powerful military began a nationwide crackdown on militants.

 

(Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Nick Macfie and Richard Balmforth)

 

Myanmar floods kill two, displace tens of thousands

A woman carries water bottles and foods distributed by an aid organization during a flood in Kyaikto township, Mon state, Myanmar July 22, 2017.

By Wa Lone

YANGON (Reuters) – Flooding across large parts of Myanmar has displaced more than 100,000 people, causing two deaths, while dramatic riverbank erosion has washed away a Buddhist pagoda, officials, residents and state media said on Monday.

Water levels have risen steadily since unrelenting monsoon rain began to lash the heart of the Southeast Asian country in early July, driving some people to higher land or seek shelter in Buddhist monasteries, a disaster relief official said.

“The situation is under control, but what happens now will depend on the weather,” Ko Ko Naing, director general of the ministry of social welfare, relief and resettlement, told Reuters.

“We are prepared to support the flood-hit areas because flooding happens every year.”

The government has provided food and other assistance to a total of 116,817 displaced people by Monday, as well as longer-term shelter for those outside settlements where flood waters are not expected to subside immediately, he said.

One man drowned in the floods in the Sagaing region and another was swept away while crossing a stream in Chin state, said a resettlement official in the ministry, Kay Thwe Win.

On Saturday, images of the Buddha’s footprint that draw pilgrims to a pagoda in Magway region were submerged by the rising waters, although no damage was immediately apparent, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.

A small dam also collapsed in the Bago region on Saturday, it said.

Video provided to Reuters by a Buddhist monk near Pakokku, 520 km (323 miles) north of the commercial hub of Yangon, showed a gold-leaf-covered pagoda slipping into the raging waters of the Ayeyarwady on Thursday.

The abbott at the pagoda, U Pyinnya Linkkara, said flooding was common in the area during the monsoon that runs from May to October, but this year’s floods caused alarming erosion.

Some riverside villages have been washed away entirely, he said.

“The villagers are now scared to live here,” he said. “The flooding has now decreased, but erosion continues.”

 

(Reporting by Wa Lone; Writing by Simon Lewis; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

 

Taliban suicide car bomber kills dozens in Afghan capital

An Afghan shopkeeper inspects his shop after a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan July 24, 2017.

By Hamid Shalizi and James Mackenzie

KABUL (Reuters) – A Taliban suicide attacker detonated a car bomb in the western part of Kabul on Monday, killing up to 35 people and wounding more than 40, government officials said, in one of the worst attacks in the Afghan capital in recent weeks.

Police cordoned off the area, located near the house of the deputy government Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqiq in a part of the city where many of the mainly Shi’ite Hazara community live.

Monday’s suicide bombing, which targeted government personnel, continued the unrelenting violence that has killed more than 1,700 civilians in Afghanistan so far this year.

The Taliban, which is battling the Western-backed government and a NATO-led coalition for control of Afghanistan, has launched a wave of attacks around the country in recent days, sparking fighting in more than half a dozen provinces.

“I was in my shop when suddenly I heard a terrible sound and as a result all of my shop windows shattered,” said Ali Ahmed, a resident in the area of Monday’s blast.

Acting Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said at least 24 people had been killed and 40 wounded but the casualty toll could rise further.

Another senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the incident with the media, said the toll stood at 35 killed. That was in line with a claim on Twitter by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who said 37 “intelligence workers” had been killed.

Mujahid said in a tweet claiming responsibility for the attack the target had been two buses that had been under surveillance for two months.

Government security forces said a small bus owned by the Ministry of Mines had been destroyed in the blast but the National Directorate for Security, the main intelligence agency, said none of its personnel had been hit.

Three civilian vehicles and 15 shops were destroyed or damaged in the blast, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

At least 1,662 civilians had already been killed in Afghanistan in the first half of the year.

Kabul has accounted for at least 20 percent of all civilian casualties this year, including at least 150 people killed in a massive truck bomb attack at the end of May, according to United Nations figures.

The Islamic State group claimed an attack on a mosque in the capital two weeks ago that killed at least four people.

On Sunday, dozens of Afghan troops were under siege after Taliban fighters overran a district in northern Faryab province, a spokesman for the provincial police said.

There was also fighting in Baghlan, Badakhshan, and Kunduz provinces in Afghanistan’s north, and Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan in the south, according to officials.

The resurgence of violence also coincides with the U.S. administration weighing up its strategic options for Afghanistan, including the possibility of sending more troops to bolster the NATO-led training and advisory mission already helping Afghan forces.

 

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi and James Mackenzie; Editing by Paul Tait)

 

Driver due in court in Texas for deaths of nine smuggled in truck

Police officers work on a crime scene after eight people believed to be illegal immigrants being smuggled into the United States were found dead inside a sweltering 18-wheeler trailer parked behind a Walmart store in San Antonio, Texas, U.S. July 23, 2017.

By Jim Forsyth

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – The driver of a truck in which at least eight men were found dead alongside dozens suffering in sweltering conditions in San Antonio, Texas was expected to appear in court on Monday, over what authorities called a case of ruthless human trafficking.

Thirty people, many in critical condition and suffering from heat stoke and exhaustion, were taken out of the vehicle parked outside a Walmart store that lacked air-conditioning or water supply, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said. A ninth man died later at a hospital.

Outside temperatures topped 100 degrees F (37.8 C).

Another person found in a wooded area nearby was being treated, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas said. All the dead were adult males.

“All were victims of ruthless human smugglers indifferent to the well-being of their fragile cargo,” said San Antonio-based U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin Jr.

“These people were helpless in the hands of their transporters. Imagine their suffering, trapped in a stifling trailer.”

The truck’s driver, named by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Florida, was arrested, with a criminal complaint set to be filed in federal court in San Antonio on Monday.

Bradley is expected to have an initial court appearance soon after, the U.S. attorney said.

Several agencies have launched investigations into the case.

The dead men, who have not yet been identified, were discovered after officials were led to the trailer by a man who asked a Walmart employee for water.

San Antonio is about 150 miles (240 km) north of the Mexico border.

Mexico’s government said it deplored the deaths and that it had asked the authorities for an exhaustive investigation.

In a statement, it said its consul general in San Antonio was working to identify the victims’ nationalities and, if necessary, repatriate their remains to Mexico.

 

U.S. STEPS UP RAIDS

Raids on suspected illegal immigrants have increased across the United States in recent months, after President Donald Trump vowed to crack down on entrants without authorization or overstaying their visas.

In Texas alone, federal immigration agents arrested 123 illegal immigrants with criminal records in an eight-day operation ending last week.

The San Antonio deaths come more than a decade after what is considered the worst immigrant smuggling case in U.S. history, when 70 people were found stuffed into an 18-wheeler. Nineteen died in the incident in Victoria, Texas, about 100 miles (160 km) southeast of San Antonio, in May 2003.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said other suspects fled the scene as police arrived. Video showed “there were a number of vehicles that came and picked up other people who were in that trailer,” he said.

Twenty people were airlifted to hospitals in conditions ranging from critical to very critical, Hood said. Eight more are listed in less serious condition.

McManus said those in the truck, whose origins were unclear, ranged from school-age juveniles to adults in their 30s. He said the Department of Homeland Security had joined the investigation.

Experts have been warning that tougher immigration policies could make it harder to stop human trafficking. Measures tightening international borders encourage would-be migrants to turn to smugglers, while fear of deportation deters whistle-blowing, they said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials defended the use of tough methods to fight human smuggling.

“So long as I lead ICE, there will be an unwavering commitment to use law enforcement assets to put an end to these practices,” the agency’s acting director, Thomas Homan, said in a statement.

The Border Patrol has regularly reported finding suspected immigrants in trucks along the U.S. border with Mexico.

This month, 72 Latin Americans were found in a trailer in Laredo. In June, 44 people were found in the back of a vehicle in the same Texas city, which lies directly across the Rio Grande from Mexico.

San Antonio has a policy of not inquiring about the immigration status of people who come into contact with city officials or police.

It was among several cities in Texas that filed a federal lawsuit last month to block a state law set to take effect in September that would force them to cooperate closely with immigration agents.

“San Antonio will not turn its back on any man, woman, or child in need,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a statement responding to the truck deaths.

(Corrects headline, paras 1 and 2 to show that eight bodies were found in truck, not nine; a ninth man died later at a hospital.)

 

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York); Editing by Chris Michaud and Clarence Fernandez)

 

Australian woman ‘didn’t have to die’: Minneapolis police chief

Justine Damond, also known as Justine Ruszczyk, from Sydney, is seen in this 2015 photo released by Stephen Govel Photography in New York, U.S., on July 17, 2017. Stephen Govel/Stephen Govel Photography/Handout via REUTERS

By Todd Melby

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – The Minneapolis police chief said on Thursday the fatal shooting of an unarmed Australian woman by a junior police officer violated department training and procedures, and that the victim “didn’t have to die.”

The death of Justine Damond, 40, from a single gunshot wound to the abdomen fired through an open window of a police patrol car, has outraged her relatives and the public in Australia. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called it “shocking” and “inexplicable.”

“Justine didn’t have to die,” Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau said in her first news conference about the shooting.

Harteau said she apologized to Damond’s fiance for the loss of life, adding that the action taken by Officer Mohamed Noor, who fired the fatal shot, reflected “one individual’s actions.”

She said the body cameras of the two officers on the scene should have been activated. There is no known video footage of the shooting.

Based on the available information, Harteau said: “The actions in question go against who we are as a department, how we train, and the expectations we have for our officers.”

Damond had called police about a possible sexual assault in her neighborhood just before midnight on Saturday.

Earlier on Thursday, an attorney who represented another police shooting victim in Minnesota said Damond’s family had hired him.

The lawyer, Bob Bennett, reached a nearly $3 million settlement in June for the family of black motorist Philando Castile from the St. Paul, Minnesota, suburb of St. Anthony. Castile was shot and killed in July 2016 during a traffic stop.

The officer who shot Castile was acquitted in a manslaughter trial in June.

“Usually people who call the police in their pajamas are not ambushers, especially spiritual healers and pacifists,” Bennett said of Damond, who owned a meditation and life-coaching company.

“You shouldn’t shoot unarmed people who call the cops,” Bennett said in a telephone interview.

He added that the family would wait until officials complete their investigation before deciding whether to file a civil lawsuit.

Bennett said Damond’s body was still at the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Damond’s family told the Australian Associated Press it wished to bring her body back to Australia for burial. She is from Sydney.

“All we want to do is bring Justine home to Australia to farewell her in her hometown among family and friends,” her family said, according to AAP.

Noor, a Somali-American seen as a role model in the Somali community in Minneapolis, has refused to be interviewed by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is investigating the shooting. His attorney released a statement in which Noor expressed condolences to the Damond family, but declined to discuss the shooting.

Harteau told reporters she would prefer Noor speak about the incident. “There are questions that need to be answered and he is the only one who has those answers,” she said.

(Reporting by Todd Melby; Additional reporting and writing by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, and Jane Wardell in Sydney; Editing by Diane Craft and Peter Cooney)

Up to 6.6 magnitude quake off Greece and Turkey kills two

quake damage

By Vassilis Triandafyllou and Tuvan Gumrukcu

KOS, Greece/ANKARA (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake killed two people on the Greek holiday island of Kos in the early hours of Friday, sending tourists fleeing into the streets, and causing disruption in the nearby Turkish tourist hub of Bodrum.

A Turkish and a Swedish tourist, aged 39 and 22 years, died when the roof of a popular bar collapsed, Greek police said. Kos’s port was put out of action and, across the strait, a small tsunami damaged vehicles parked near Bodrum’s shore.

On Kos, around 115 people were injured, including tourists of various nationalities — 12 of them seriously. More than 350 people visited hospitals in Turkey, though most had only light injuries.

The quake struck at 1:31 a.m. (2231 GMT), and many of Kos’s tourists spent the rest of the night in the open as a precaution, hotel owners said.

“All of a sudden it felt like a train was going right through the room,” said Vernon Hausman, a German holidaying on Kos.

“I told my son: ‘Looks like an earthquake, so let’s get the hell out of here.'”

Greek authorities said the 12 people seriously injured on Kos included tourists from Turkey, Sweden and Norway; four were transferred to Crete and three to Athens.

One person was in a critical condition, while a Swedish tourist lost a leg, the director of the hospital in Crete told Greek Skai TV.

“LUCKY ESCAPE”

Turkish and Greek authorities put the magnitude at 6.3 and 6.6 respectively and reported several aftershocks, with one estimated at 5.1. The U.S. Geological Survey located the epicenter of the main quake in the Aegean Sea, 10 km (6 miles) SSE of Bodrum and about 16 km ENE of Kos’s main port.

Hotel owners in Bodrum told Turkish broadcasters that some tourists were checking out.

“It was a lucky escape and it could have been much worse,” said Issa Kamara, a 38-year old personal trainer at the Maca Kizi hotel in Bodrum’s smart Turkbuku area.

Constantina Svynou, head of the hoteliers’ association in Kos, told Greek state television that many visitors had spent the night outside their hotels.

“There are about 200,000 tourists on the island, we are at the peak season. Our first reaction was to calm the tourists, following basic rules and evacuating hotel buildings,” Svynou said, adding that there had been no injuries at hotels.

Reuters video footage showed residents and tourists walking along the streets of Kos’s main town among collapsed walls and debris. Long, wide cracks appeared in the asphalt on the quayside, which is near a tourist strip of cafes and bars.

“It was terrible … our bed was shaking from the left to the right,” said Jara, a 26-year-old Dutch tourist. “Everything was going crazy.”

Kos’s airport remained operational and Greek Deputy Shipping Minister Nektarios Santorinios flew there. But he said the main port was out of action.

“Passengers on ferries have been rerouted to the islands of Nisyros and Kalymnos,” he told Greek SKAI TV.

TIDAL WAVE

Police said most of the damage in Kos had been to older buildings.

A seismologist told Greek TV that there had been a tidal wave about 70 cm (28 inches) high.

Turkey’s emergency authorities warned against aftershocks, but said there had been no casualties or major damage there. Some power cuts were reported, and a minaret in the town of Islamkoy was said to have collapsed.

The broadcaster CNN Turk said that, in Bodrum, 60 vehicles had been dragged along by the water. It also showed boats listing in a harbor. Several store owners told the broadcaster NTV they had suffered flood damage.

Turkey said it would evacuate around 200 of its citizens from Greece by boat.

President Tayyip Erdogan said the fact that no lives had been lost in Turkey was a sign that “the measures we took have been effective”.

Turkey’s location between the Arabian tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate renders it prone to earthquakes.

In October 2011, more than 600 people died in the eastern province of Van following a 7.2-magnitude quake and powerful aftershocks. In 1999, two massive earthquakes killed about 20,000 people in Turkey’s densely populated northwest.

The same year, a 5.9 magnitude quake killed 143 people in Greece.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara, Renee Maltezou, Michele Kambas and George Georgiopoulos in Athens, and Sandra Maler in Washington; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Cholera kills four in Kenyan capital since May, government shuts hotels

Cholera patients receive treatment and care inside a special ward at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya July 19, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

By George Obulutsa

NAIROBI (Reuters) – A cholera outbreak in the Kenyan capital has killed four people since May and the government has shut down a three-star hotel and a popular restaurant there to control its spread, the health minister said on Wednesday.

At least 79 people with confirmed cases of cholera were being treated in various Nairobi hospitals and authorities were setting up 10 more treatment centers to cope with the outbreak, Cleopa Mailu, the minister, told a news conference.

“We have so far closed two hotels … and we shall continue to do so if there is evidence there is risk to the public,” Mailu said, after visiting some of the patients.

The government had ordered the immediate testing of about half a million people in the food handling business in the next 21 days, he said.

Mailu said local authorities in Nairobi would be required to repair all broken sewer lines, ensure all water vendors and their water sources were certified, and ban hawking of food.

“Some of them (measures) will not be pleasant,” he said.

Containing cholera in Nairobi is critical, given it is a major hub, not just in Kenya, but in the region.

Mailu said the Kenya Red Cross and UNICEF were also helping to contain the cholera, a diarrhoeal disease transmitted by infected food and water. It can kill within hours unless treated with intravenous fluids and antibiotics.

Kenya has suffered several waves of cholera since 1971, according to the World Health Organization. An outbreak in March last year killed 216 people with 13,000 hospitalized across the country.

Two ministers, Henry Rotich and Adan Mohamed, sought treatment with cholera-like symptoms after eating food during a government event in the capital last week, local newspapers reported.

Rotich’s ministry of finance said he did not wish to comment. Mohamed, who is industrialization minister, was not available immediately.

(Editing by Duncan Miriri and Richard Balmforth)

Body of missing man believed found after deadly flash flood in Arizona

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – The remains of a 27-year-old man were believed to have been recovered on Wednesday, four days after a flash flood rushed down a rain-swollen canyon in central Arizona killing his wife and eight other family members, a local sheriff said.

Authorities said the body of Hector Miguel Garnica was spotted by a state helicopter surveying the area on Wednesday afternoon during a search near Payson, Arizona, about 90 miles northeast of Phoenix.

“We have located remains that we believe to be involved in this tragic flooding incident,” said Gila County Sheriff Adam Shepherd, during a news conference at the search site.

Sheperd said family members have been notified and a formal confirmation is pending a DNA analysis by state officials.

The remains were recovered on the fifth day of an intense search launched on Saturday, when a group of family members were swept away by what authorities described as a wall of water that crashed down the canyon at a popular swimming spot in the Tonto National Forest.

The 14-member group was celebrating Garnica’s wife’s birthday, authorities said.

Five children and five adults were killed in the incident ranging from two to 57 years old, sheriff’s officials said. Four family members were rescued.

Authorities said the group was engulfed by a sudden flash flood when a thunderstorm dumped as much as 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) of rain in 20 to 30 minutes about 8 miles (13 km) away from an area that had been burned by a nearly 7,200-acre (2,914 hectares) wildfire last month.

A video posted on social media showed the muddy, debris-filled torrent rushing down a canyon on Ellison Creek where the family was taking in the cool waters at a swimming spot frequented by dozens that day.

Some 130 searchers from 24 agencies took part in the search at its peak, including divers and cadaver dogs, authorities said.

(Reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)