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)

British police sift through rubble at scene of fatal blast

Members of the emergency services move debris at the site of an explosion which destroyed a convenience store and a home in Leicester, Britain, February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Darren Staples

By Darren Staples

LEICESTER, England (Reuters) – British police searched for survivors on Monday in the rubble of a shop and apartment destroyed by an explosion that killed at least five people and injured five others in the city of Leicester on Sunday evening.

CCTV footage posted on the local newspaper’s website showed the entire front of the building shooting into the road as a car passed. The scene was then engulfed in fire.

The Leicester Mercury said the shop was a Polish convenience store called Zabka Leicester and above it was a two-story apartment.

Police and the fire service said it would take time to establish what caused the explosion but that there was no immediate indication it was linked to terrorism.

“There are still pockets of fire in the basement area of the building,” said Matt Crane of Leicestershire Fire Service.

“We have a significant number of specialist search and rescue teams who are supported by two search dogs.”

Five people were taken to hospital, one of whom remains in a critical condition, police said.

Salvage crews work at the scene of a convenience store and home that were destroyed by an explosion in Leicester, Britain, February 26, 2018. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Salvage crews work at the scene of a convenience store and home that were destroyed by an explosion in Leicester, Britain, February 26, 2018. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Local resident Harrish Patni told Sky News: “We heard this massive explosion, the shop window six doors away vibrated and we thought it can’t be a car accident, it didn’t sound like a crash.

“We came outside and there was a big cloud of smoke, bricks all across the road.”

Leicester, in the center of England, has long been one of Britain’s most culturally diverse cities, with a large population of people from the Asian subcontinent and many other ethnicities.

(Additional reporting by Andrew MacAskill and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Catherine Evans)

Big Mexico quake cuts power and damages homes; two dead in crash

People stand on the street after an earthquake shook buildings in Mexico City, Mexico February 16, 2018.

By Lizbeth Diaz and Daina Beth Solomon

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A prolonged 7.2 magnitude quake that rocked Mexico on Friday left nearly a million homes and businesses without power in the capital and south but the only reported deaths came when a military helicopter crashed after surveying the aftermath.

At least 50 homes suffered damage in the southern state of Oaxaca, which, along with Mexico City, is still reeling from earthquakes that caused widespread damage in September.

The epicenter was about 90 miles (145 km) from Pacific coast surfer resort Puerto Escondido in the southern state of Oaxaca and had a depth of 15.3 miles (24.6 km), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

At least two people died when a helicopter carrying Mexico’s interior minister and the governor of Oaxaca crashed while trying to land after a tour of damage from the earthquake, officials said. The senior officials survived.

The powerful, sustained shaking on Friday gave way to 225 aftershocks, the national seismology service said, and caused widespread panic.

In Mexico City, the seismic alarm sounded 72 seconds before tremors were felt, Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said, giving residents time to flee to the streets.

Patricia Gutierrez, a 66-year-old English teacher, was taking a nap with her 11-month-old granddaughter, Juliet, when she heard the distinctive siren.

“She recognized the sound. When I opened my eyes, I saw her eyes in terror. Her eyes were wide, like plates. She didn’t say anything,” Gutierrez said of her granddaughter.

Gutierrez managed to leave her ground floor apartment before the quake began. “I left the phone and everything except for my shoes and the baby,” she said.

Authorities said no deaths directly linked to the quake had been reported nationally.

BRICKS AND RUBBLE

The Oaxacan town of Jamiltepec appeared to sustain the heaviest impact in the southern region, with 50 homes damaged along with a church and government building, the state’s civil protection agency said.

Patients were evacuated from a hospital there and from another in the nearby town of Putla Villa de Guerrero. On a local highway, a fire ignited when two high-tension electric cables struck each other.

In the town of Pinotepa Nacional close to the quake’s epicenter, a photo obtained from Oaxaca’s civil protection agency showed a single-story building where a portion of the brick facade had crumbled into the street. A hospital was also damaged, and a collapsed structure blocked a major highway.

About 100,000 people in Oaxaca had lost power, the state’s governor said.

National oil firm Pemex said its installations were in order, including its biggest refinery 240 miles (386 km) from the epicenter. A hotel operator in Puerto Escondido said his property had no damage.

Tremors were felt as far away as Guatemala to the south.

Images in the media appeared to show bricks and rubble fallen from buildings, and products tumbling off shelves in a supermarket.

In Mexico City, tall buildings swayed for more than a minute as seismic alarms sounded, with older structures in the chic Condesa neighborhood knocking into each other, and some cracks appearing in plaster and paintwork.

The Popocatepetl volcano south of the capital sent a kilometer-high column of ash into the sky, said Mexico’s disaster prevention agency.

Two young men standing by a building that collapsed in a Sept. 19 earthquake were still hugging minutes after the tremor. People crowded in the streets, one lady in her pajamas.

Trees, overhead cables and cars swayed, and a fire truck raced down the street.

Guadalupe Martinez, a 64-year-old retiree, said she was still shaking from shock. But the quake was a far cry from the tremors that struck Mexico in September, Martinez said.

“This time it was strong, but it did not jump up and down,” she said.

(Reporting by Julia Love, Christine Murray, Michael O’Boyle, David Alire Garcia, Anthony Esposito and Stefanie Eschenbacher; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon and Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien, Lisa Shumaker and Tom Hogue)

Accused Florida high school gunman due in court, facing 17 murder counts

A man placed in handcuffs is led by police near Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School following a shooting incident in Parkland, Florida, U.S. February 14, 2018 in a still image taken from a video. WSVN.com via REUTERS

By Bernie Woodall and Zachary Fagenson

PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) – A 19-year-old man who had been expelled from his Florida high school was due in court on Thursday, charged with 17 counts of murder, after authorities say he opened fire at the school, unleashing one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.

The ex-student, identified as Nikolas Cruz, 19, walked into the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Wednesday and opened fire on students and teachers, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said. Police believe he acted alone.

Cruz was expected to appear in court Thursday afternoon for a bond hearing, faced with 17 counts of premeditated murder, said Constance Simmons, a spokeswoman for the state attorney’s office.

Cruz was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and had multiple ammunition magazines when he surrendered to officers in a nearby residential area, police said. He loved guns and was expelled for unspecified disciplinary reasons, police and former classmates said.

The shooting in a community about 45 miles (72 km) north of Miami was the 18th in a U.S. school this year, according to gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, continuing a troubling pattern that has played out over the past few years.

It was the second-deadliest shooting in a U.S. public elementary or high school after the 2012 massacre of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.

The deadliest school shooting in U.S. history was at Virginia Tech in 2007, when 32 people were killed.

The Florida shooting stirred the long-simmering U.S. debate on the right to bear arms, which are protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Schools across the country have installed electronically secured doors and added security staff, but few legislative solutions have emerged.

“So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior,” U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Thursday. “Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!”

Trump, who ordered flags to fly at half-staff in a sign of mourning, plans to address the nation from the White House at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT), a spokeswoman said.

A law enforcement officer is assigned to every school in the Broward County district, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High board member Donna Korn told a local newspaper. The sheriff’s office also provides active shooter training and schools have a single point of entry, she said.

“We have prepared the campuses, but sometimes people still find a way to let these horrific things happen,” Korn said.

The first victim of the attack was publicly identified on Thursday as Aaron Feis, an assistant coach on the school’s football team and a school security guard who was shot while shielding students, the team said on Twitter.

 

Nikolas Cruz appears in a police booking photo after being charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder following a Parkland school shooting, at Broward County Jail in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S. February 15, 2018. Broward County Sheriff/Handout via REUTERS

Nikolas Cruz appears in a police booking photo after being charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder following a Parkland school shooting, at Broward County Jail in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S. February 15, 2018. Broward County Sheriff/Handout via REUTERS

‘THE WORST IN HUMANITY’

Hundreds of panicked students fled the building, running past heavily armed, helmeted police officers while others huddled in closets.

Parents raced to the school of 3,300 students and a nearby hotel that was set up as a checkpoint to find their children.

“This has been a day we’ve seen the worst in humanity,” Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said Wednesday.

The assailant wore a gas mask as he stalked into the school carrying a rifle, ammunition cartridges and smoke grenades, then pulled a fire alarm, prompting students and staff to pour from classrooms into hallways, according to Florida’s two U.S. senators, who were brief by federal authorities.

Cruz had recently moved in with another family after his mother’s death in November, according to Jim Lewis, a lawyer representing the family and local media, bringing his AR-15 along with his other belongings.

The family believed Cruz was depressed, but attributed that to his mother’s death, not mental illness.

“They didn’t see any danger. They didn’t see any kind of predilection this was going to happen,” Lewis told CNN.

Cruz may have left warning signs on social media. Buzzfeed reported that a person named Nikolas Cruz left a comment under a YouTube video that read “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.” The man who posted the video was alarmed and contacted the FBI, Buzzfeed reported.

Reuters was unable to immediately confirm those details.

Colton Haab, a 17-year-old junior and member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps at the high school, said he realized the alarms were not a drill after hearing several shots fired and learning that three people had been shot.

“That for me changed it to an active shooter scenario,” he said. Haab rushed to his ROTC room and helped usher several dozen students inside, barricading them behind curtains made of Kevlar, a material used to make bullet-proof vests.

“We grabbed two pieces of two-by-four, a fire extinguisher and a chair,” Haab said. “If he was going to try to come in the room we were going to try to stop him with whatever we had.”

(Additional reporting by Zachary Fagenson in Parkland, Florida, Jonathan Allen in New York, Susan Heavey in Washington and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by John Stonestreet and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Ex-student arrested after 17 shot dead at Florida high school

Students are evacuated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during a shooting incident in Parkland, Florida, U.S. February 14, 2018 in a still image from video. WSVN.com via REUTERS

By Bernie Woodall

PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) – A 19-year-old gunman returned to the Florida high school where he had once been expelled for disciplinary problems and opened fire with an assault-style rifle on Wednesday, killing 17 people and injuring more than a dozen others before he was arrested, authorities said.

The violence erupted shortly before dismissal at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, a placid, middle-class community about 45 miles (72 km) north of Miami. Television footage showed images, increasingly familiar in America, of bewildered students streaming out of the building with hands raised in the air, as dozens of police and emergency services personnel swarmed the area.

Florida’s two U.S. senators, briefed by federal law enforcement officials, said the assailant wore a gas mask as he stalked into the school carrying a rifle, ammunition cartridges and smoke grenades, then pulled a fire alarm, prompting students and staff to pour from their classrooms into hallways.

“There the carnage began,” Senator Bill Nelson told CNN. Senator Marco Rubio gave a similar account on Twitter.

A chilling cell phone video clip broadcast by CBS News showed a brief scene of what the network said was the shooting in progress from inside a classroom, where several students were seen huddled or lying on the floor surrounded by mostly empty desks. A rapid series of loud gunshots are heard amid hysterical screaming and someone yelling, “Oh my God.”

The gunman was arrested later outside, some distance from the school in an adjacent community. CNN, citing law enforcement sources, said the gunman tried to blend in with students who were fleeing the school but was spotted and taken into custody.

A man placed in handcuffs is led by police near Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School following a shooting incident in Parkland, Florida, February 14, 2018 in a still image from video. WSVN.com via REUTERS

A man placed in handcuffs is led by police near Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School following a shooting incident in Parkland, Florida, February 14, 2018 in a still image from video. WSVN.com via REUTERS

He was identified as Nikolas Cruz, who previously attended the high school and was expelled for unspecified disciplinary reasons, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said at a news briefing hours later. Officials spelled his first name differently earlier in the day before correcting themselves.

As a high school freshman, Cruz was part of the U.S. military-sponsored Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corp program at the school, according to Jillian Davis, 19, a recent graduate and former fellow JROTC member at Stoneman Douglas High.

SUSPECT RECOUNTED AS TROUBLED YOUTH

In an interview with Reuters, she recalled his “strange talking sometimes about knives and guns,” adding, “no one ever took him seriously.”

Chad Williams, 18, a senior at Stoneman Douglas, described Cruz as “kind of an outcast” who was known for unruly behavior at school, including a penchant for pulling false fire alarms, and was “crazy about guns.”

The gunman surrendered to police without a struggle, Israel said. He was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and had multiple magazines of ammunition.

“It’s catastrophic,” Israel said. “There really are no words.” Broward County Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie called it “a horrific situation,”

Twelve of the dead were killed inside the school, two others just outside, one more on the street and two other victims died of their injuries at a hospital, Israel said. He said the victims comprised a mixture of students and adults.

Authorities at two nearby hospitals said they were treating 13 survivors for bullet wounds and other injuries, five of whom were listed in critical condition.

The Valentine’s Day bloodshed in the Miami suburb of gated communities with palm- and shrub-lined streets was the latest outbreak of gun violence that has become a regular occurrence at schools and college campuses across the United States over the past several years.

It was the 18th shooting in a U.S. school so far this year, according to gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety. That tally includes suicides and incidents when no one was injured, as well as the January shooting in which a 15-year-old gunman killed two fellow students at a Benton, Kentucky, high school.

Staff and students told local media that a fire alarm went off around the time the shooting started, sparking chaos as some 3,300 students at the school first headed into hallways before teachers herded them back into classrooms, to seek shelter in closets.

One survivor, Kyle Yeoward, 16, a junior, told Reuters he and about 15 fellow students and a teacher hid in a closet for nearly two hours before police arrived. Yeoward said most of the shooting occurred in the building for the school’s freshman class.

Anguished parents checked on their children.

“It is just absolutely horrifying. I can’t believe this is happening,” Lissette Rozenblat, whose daughter goes to the school, told CNN. Her daughter called her to say she was safe but the student also told her mother she heard the cries of a person who was shot.

Televised images showed dozens of students, their arms in the air, weaving their way between law enforcement officers with heavy weapons and helmets, and large numbers of emergency vehicles including police cars, ambulances and fire trucks.

The school had recently held a meeting to discuss what to do in such an attack, Ryan Gott, a 15-year-old freshman told CNN.

“My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting,” U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter. “No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.”

(Additional reporting by Steve Gorman, Dan Whitcomb and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Letitia Stein in Detroit and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker)

Two Ohio police officers shot dead responding to 911 call

Officer Anthony Morelli, 54, of Westerville Division of Police (WPD) is seen in this undated photo in Westerville, Ohio, U.S., released February 10, 2018. City of Westerville/

By Ian Simpson

Officer Eric Joering, 39, of Westerville Division of Police (WPD) is seen in this undated photo in Westerville, Ohio, U.S., released February 10, 2018. City of Westerville

Officer Eric Joering, 39, of Westerville Division of Police (WPD) is seen in this undated photo in Westerville, Ohio, U.S., released February 10, 2018. City of Westerville/Handout via REUTERS

(Reuters) – Two Ohio police officers were shot to death on Saturday while responding to a domestic disturbance in the Columbus suburb of Westerville, and a suspect was wounded and is in custody, officials said.

The two officers were immediately fired upon when they entered an apartment responding to a 911 call that had hung up, Westerville Police Chief Joe Morbitzer said at a news conference.

“These were two of the best we had. This was their calling and they did it right,” said Morbitzer, his voice halting and thick with emotion.

Officer Eric Joering, 39, died at the scene, and Officer Anthony Morelli, 54, died from his wounds at a hospital. Morbitzer said they had been responding to a “domestic situation.”

The suspect was wounded and taken to a hospital, a city spokeswoman said. The suspect’s condition and identity have not been released.

Columbus police are heading the investigation into the shooting, Morbitzer said.

Excluding Saturday’s shootings in Ohio, 12 U.S. law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty this year, nine in firearms-related incidents, according to the non-profit National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

The Westerville shootings came a day after a Georgia police officer was shot and killed and two sheriff’s deputies were wounded by a gunman who was then killed.

U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter, “My thoughts and prayers are with the two police officers, their families, and everybody at the @WestervillePD.”

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by David Gregorio)

Russia hunts for body fragments, clues after fatal plane crash

Russian Emergency Situations Ministry members work at the crash site of the short-haul AN-148 airplane operated by Saratov Airlines in Moscow Region, Russia February 12, 2018.

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Emergency workers in Russia searched snow-covered fields outside Moscow on Monday, looking for body fragments and clues after a fatal plane crash a day earlier killed all 71 people on board.

President Vladimir Putin has ordered a special commission to investigate what caused the AN-148 plane operated by Saratov Airlines to crash outside Moscow shortly after taking off for the city of Orsk about 900 miles (1,500 km) southeast of the capital.

Among the possible causes investigators are looking into are weather, human error and the plane’s technical condition. The crew did not send any distress signals.

Experts plan to study the plane’s two flight recorders, which were recovered, as well as plane fragments. Footage from a CCTV camera that captured some of what happened was posted online on Monday. It showed what looked like a large ball of fire streaking through the sky.

Investigators, who have opened a criminal case into the tragedy, said in a statement however that the plane had been in one piece when it plummeted toward the ground and not on fire. An explosion had occurred only after it crashed, they said.

Debris and human remains were spread over a radius of one km (less than a mile) around the crash site and recovery teams had found over 200 body fragments so far, the RIA news agency reported, saying the search could carry on for a week.

Russian Emergency Situations Ministry members work at the crash site of the short-haul AN-148 airplane operated by Saratov Airlines in Moscow Region, Russia February 12, 2018.

Russian Emergency Situations Ministry members work at the crash site of the short-haul AN-148 airplane operated by Saratov Airlines in Moscow Region, Russia February 12, 2018. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva

MOURNING

Officials from Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry told a meeting broadcast on state TV on Monday that DNA tests were being organized with the relatives of those killed to try to identify body fragments.

The plane, manufactured in 2010, had been carrying 65 passengers and six crew. The passenger list showed many young people were on board, including a five-year-old girl.

Mourners left flowers, soft toys and photographs at Orsk airport on Monday.

“We believed until the very end yesterday that at least someone would survive,” said a distraught Ekaterina Zakladnaya, 20, whose mother Natalia was killed in the crash.

“We phoned the airports and barely managed to get through and then they published the lists and mummy was second from the bottom.”

The plane’s operator, Saratov Airlines, said in a statement on Monday it was temporarily grounding its fleet of AN-148 planes until investigators had established what happened.

It said the plane involved in the crash had undergone thorough checks last month and that it had successfully flown several other routes on the same day as the crash.

(Additional reporting by Gleb Stolyarov and Reuters TV; Editing by William Maclean)

Quake-hit Taiwan city winds down rescue efforts, five still missing

A body of a Hong Kong Canadian is carried out from a collapsed building after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 9, 2018.

By Fabian Hamacher and Natalie Thomas

HUALIEN, Taiwan (Reuters) – Rescue operations in Taiwan started to wind down on Friday after a devastating 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked the tourist area of Hualien this week, taking a toll of 12 dead and five missing.

More than 270 people were injured when Tuesday’s quake hit the eastern coastal city just before midnight, toppling four buildings, ripping large fissures in roads and unleashing panic among the roughly 100,000 residents.

More than 200 aftershocks followed, hampering a round-the-clock rescue effort in which emergency personnel battled rain and cold to comb rubble in a search for survivors.

Efforts on Friday narrowed to finding five Chinese nationals still missing after rescuers pulled two bodies, identified as Canadian citizens from Hong Kong, out of a 12-storey residential building that had been left tilting at a 45-degree angle.

An excavator demolishes collapsed Marshal hotel after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 9, 2018.

An excavator demolishes collapsed Marshal hotel after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Authorities said they would focus their search on the single building where the five missing were believed to be.

“The military will continue to prioritize today rescuing the missing people in the Yun Men Tsui Ti residential building,” it said in a statement.

The building’s extreme displacement made the search tough, the government said in a statement, adding, “The space for our operations is small, so the progress of search and rescue can be slow.”

Power was restored to all affected areas in Hualien, although 8,500 homes are still without water.

The military will work with local government officials to develop a plan to demolish a hotel, a residential building and other dangerous buildings, it said in its statement.

The government vowed to redouble efforts to revise building regulations, aiming to limit damage in any future episodes.

Taiwan revised its building act on Jan. 30 to strengthen investigations of the structures of existing buildings and inspection of completed projects, the interior ministry said on Friday.

The revision, expected to be discussed by a cabinet meeting at the end of February, would also seek third-party views in building assessments, it said.

The government added that it would hasten reconstruction of old buildings to make them earthquake-resistant and work to boost the safety of other structures in affected areas.

“At every stage, the central government will fully assist local governments,” it added.

 

(Additional reporting by Tyrone Siu; Writing by Jess Macy Yu; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Clarence Fernandez)

Storm to clobber U.S. Midwest with snow, wind and frigid temps

A jogger runs through the rain past the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, U.S., February 7, 2018.

By Brendan O’Brien

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – A storm is expected to clobber Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee with heavy snow, gusty winds and freezing temperatures that will slow travel for millions of commuters on Thursday evening and Friday.

The storm system that stretches from western Montana across parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois and east into southern Michigan will drop as much 12 inches (30 cm) of snow and produce 35 miles per hour (56 kph) winds, the National Weather Service said in several advisories.

“Periods of snow will cause primarily travel difficulties. Be prepared for snow covered roads and limited visibilities,” the service said in an advisory for southern Wisconsin.

Wind chill temperatures were expected to drop below 0 Fahrenheit (-18 C) in many areas across the region on Thursday night and into Friday morning.

United Airlines said on Twitter the storm was expected to impact operations this week and that travel waivers were in effect for areas affected by the snow.

Winter weather across the United States over the last several days has killed several people in accidents in the Midwest since Monday, including six in Iowa, two in Missouri and one in Montana, local media in those states reported.

(Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Earthquake-hit Taiwan city still on edge as rescuers hunt survivors

A rescuer speaks on the radio as he searches for survivors at collapsed building after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 8, 2018.

By Yimou Lee

HUALIEN, Taiwan (Reuters) – Scores of aftershocks hampered rescue efforts on Thursday as emergency personnel combed through collapsed buildings in search of survivors after a powerful earthquake killed at least 10 people near Taiwan’s tourist city of Hualien.

The coastal city was hit on Tuesday by a magnitude 6.4 quake just before midnight (11.00 a.m ET) that injured 270 people. Four buildings collapsed, officials said, and seven people were still missing.

Volunteers pray outside a collapsed building after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 8, 2018.

Volunteers pray outside a collapsed building after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 8, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Rescuers stepped up efforts at one of the worst-hit structures, a 12-storey building that housed apartments and a small hotel, where authorities believe most of those still missing to have been, including several foreigners.

Thick steel girders propped up the heavily leaning structure to keep it from collapsing further, with the lower floors having already caved in.

“Everyone was surprised,” said Huang Chang Po, the 58-year-old owner of a unit in the building, built in 1994.

“We have strong earthquakes all the time in Hualien and it’s really bizarre that our building collapsed,” he told Reuters.

Up to 100 soldiers, rescuers, police, aid workers and volunteers scrambled in the cold and rain outside to find survivors, as excavators cleared away debris.

At an emergency meeting on Thursday, other residents and owners raised concerns about possible recent modifications and demanded a structural check by engineers to determine the cause of the collapse.

It was too early to ascertain the cause, however, said Chang Cheng Chen, an engineer from a regional architects’ association.

“It requires a thorough technical inspection, which may take two to three months,” he said, adding that factors such as the nature of the soil and how quake waves passed through the building could have played a part.

More than 220 aftershocks followed the main quake, including a 5.7 quake late on Wednesday. A Reuters witness said people rushed out of a residential building and rescue workers looked up from piles of debris after one such quiver.

Authorities “would not give up” on disaster relief efforts, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said during her second visit to the quake-hit area on Thursday.

“I didn’t really dare stay at home,” said Hualien resident Yang Yantin. “The area around my house is actually not that bad, the houses are all OK but, because of the aftershocks, I don’t really want to stay there.”

A damaged building is seen after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 8, 2018.

A damaged building is seen after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 8, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Lin Tzu Wei, an official at the Central Weather Bureau, said continued vigilance of seismic activity was needed.

“We have not seen a sign of a slowdown yet,” he told Reuters by telephone. “We need to continue to monitor the situation for one to two days…this is quite a rare event.”

As many as 150 people were initially feared missing in the rubble.

More than 600 soldiers and 1,300 police spread out to help the rescue effort, along with a team from Japan. The government said three mainland Chinese were among the dead.

Chen Deming, president of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, said the mainland was willing to help with relief efforts, such as sending teams to the island. Taiwan authorities declined, however.

More than 800 people sought refuge in shelters overnight, many too scared to stay home as aftershocks fueled panic.

Hualien, whose rugged Pacific coastline and picturesque Taroko Gorge National Park are a major tourist draw, is home to about 100,000 people. Its streets were buckled by the quake, leaving large cracks in major roads.

“I’ve never experienced an earthquake but I’d heard people say there were often earthquakes here, so at first I didn’t react,” said tourist Zhang Hongcong.

“But later when all the lights started smashing – the floor was covered in glass – that is when I realized it was serious.”

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

More than 100 people were killed in a quake in southern Taiwan in 2016, and in 1999, a quake of magnitude 7.6 killed more than 2,000 people.

(Additional reporting by Jess Macy Yu in TAIPEI, and Natalie Thomas in HUALIEN; John Ruwitch in SHANGHAI; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by James Pomfret and Clarence Fernandez)