Tag Archives: Fire

Ethiopian protesters attack factories in Africa’s rising economic star

Demonstrators chant slogans while flashing the Oromo protest gesture during Irreecha, the thanksgiving festival of the Oromo people, in Bishoftu town, Oromiya region, Ethiopia, i

By Aaron Maasho

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Protesters in Ethiopia damaged almost a dozen mostly foreign-owned factories and flower farms and destroyed scores of vehicles this week, adding economic casualties to a rising death toll in a wave of unrest over land grabs and rights.

The violence has cast a shadow over a nation where a state-led industrial drive has created one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, but where the government has also faced rising international criticism and popular opposition to its authoritarian approach to development.

The flare-up followed the death of at least 55 people in a stampede on Sunday when police fired tear gas and shot into the air to disperse demonstrators in the Oromiya region near the capital.

It raises to more than 450 the number of people rights groups and opponents say have been killed in unrest since 2015. A U.S. researcher was killed on Tuesday when her car was attacked by stone-throwers near Addis Ababa.

UC Davis post doctoral student Sharon Gray

UC Davis post doctoral student Sharon Gray is shown November 20, 2014. Photo courtesy of Plant Biology Dept/UC Davis/Handout via REUTERS

The government says the toll cited by critics is inflated.

Fana Broadcasting, which is seen as close to the state, reported on its website that 11 companies ranging from textile firms to a plastics maker to flower farms had been damaged or destroyed, while more than 60 vehicles had been torched.

Dutch firm FV SeleQt said its 300-hectare vegetable farm and warehouse had been plundered. Another Dutch firm, Africa Juice, said its factory had been partially destroyed.

The manager of one of the Turkish companies, textile firm Saygin Dima, told Reuters this week at least a third of his factory was burned down.

Fana’s website showed images of burned-out trucks on the road side, blaming the damage on “perpetrators of violence”, echoing the line taken by the government, which accuses local rebel groups and dissidents based abroad for stoking the unrest.

It said the firms damaged had created 40,000 jobs in a country of 99 million people that has long been blighted by famine but which has been rapidly transforming its fortunes, delivering growth rates that hit 10 percent in fiscal 2015/16.

Demonstrators chant slogans while flashing the Oromo protest gesture during Irreecha, the thanksgiving festival of the Oromo people, in Bishoftu town, Oromia region, Ethiopia,

Demonstrators chant slogans while flashing the Oromo protest gesture during Irreecha, the thanksgiving festival of the Oromo people, in Bishoftu town, Oromia region, Ethiopia, October 2, 2016. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri

STRUGGLING FOR WORK

People from Oromiya, a region at the heart of the state’s industrialization efforts, accuse the state of seizing their land and offering tiny compensation, before selling it on to companies, often foreign investors, at inflated prices.

They also say they struggle to find work, even when a new factory is sited on property they or their families once owned.

“I went to apply for a job at a steel factory that was built on my family’s land but I was turned away when they discovered I was the son of the previous land owner,” said Mulugeta, who asked for only his first name to be used to avoid any state reprisals.

“Most factories give priority to employees from other regions for fear local people would one day stage strikes,” he said, speaking by telephone from Oromiya where he now drives a truck for another company.

In Ethiopia, once ruled by Marxists whose draconian policies drove the nation into a devastating 1984 famine, all land still belongs to the state and owners are only deemed leaseholders, even if they have been living or farming there for generations.

For the state, it means a swift and legally uncomplicated route to ejecting leaseholders to make way for new factories and construction of highways and railways, including a 750-km electrified line opened this week that links the capital of landlocked Ethiopia with Djibouti’s busy sea port.

For the opposition and those turfed out of farm plots where they grow food for their families, it shows how the government that has ruled for quarter of a decade tramples on their rights.

“It is time for the government to change tack,” said Merera Gudina, chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress. “People are demanding change, but the problem is the only language the government knows is the use of excessive force.”

The government says police have clashed with what it calls “armed gangs” intent on destabilizing the nation. A regional Oromo official accused protesters of hindering efforts to reverse generations of poverty in Oromiya.

Pressure has been mounting from abroad too. U.S. President Barack Obama told his Ethiopian hosts in Addis Ababa last year that greater political openness would “strengthen rather than inhibit” the development agenda. The government said it differed over the pace of any reforms demanded by Washington.

“Economic development has outpaced political change,” said former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and academic David Shinn.

Noting “phenomenal” economic gains, he said: “It is less clear, however, whether the Ethiopian peasant farmer, who still constitutes about 80 percent of the population, has benefited significantly.”

FEELING THE HEAT

Foreign investors are feeling the heat from protesters, not because they are foreigners but because they are among the biggest purchasers of the new land leases from the state.

Ethiopia’s budding tourist industry is also taking a hit. The Bishangari Lodge, on Lake Langano about 200 km south of Addis Ababa, was looted and torched this week.

Resort owner Omar Bagersh said, even before the attack, he had had 90 percent cancellations in the past two or three months. “It is very difficult to convince a tourist to travel to a country that has this kind of situation,” he said.

Investors have been attracted by cheap electricity from Ethiopia’s huge new hydroelectric dams being built, cheap labor, improving transport and tax incentives offered by a financially stretched government hungry for foreign exchange.

New industries have been focused in Oromiya and the nearby Amhara regions, which surround Addis Ababa, a city that now boasts Sub-Saharan Africa’s only light rail metro system and a rapidly rising skyline.

Protests in Oromiya province initially erupted in 2014 over a development plan for the capital that would have expanded its boundaries, a move seen as threatening farmland.

Clashes with police flared in 2015 and this year, although the government has shelved the boundary plan.

Protesters have increasingly focused on broader political issues, accusing the government of stifling opposition. The government, which won a parliamentary election in 2015 in which the opposition failed to secure a single seat, denies this.

(Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Edmund Blair in Nairobi; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Northern California wildfire forces hundreds to evacuate mountainous area

A firefighter from the Sonoma Valley Fire & Rescue Authority work on a a hotspot during the Rocky Fire near Clearlake, California

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Firefighters worked to control a wildfire on Tuesday in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco Bay area that has forced hundreds of residents to evacuate, despite its relatively small size, officials said.

The so-called Loma Fire broke out on Monday afternoon and has scorched more than 1,000 acres (405 hectares) about 10 miles (16 km) northwest of the town of Morgan Hill, fire officials said. Firefighters have built containment lines around 5 percent of the blaze.

The fire threatens about 300 homes spread out along a network of rural roads through valleys and hills in the Santa Cruz Mountains, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents, said Captain Brian Oliver of the Moraga-Orinda Fire District.

With temperatures in the area nearing 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), the more than 500 firefighters working to contain the blaze scrambled on Tuesday to protect buildings in the area, officials said.

Oliver said the fire, coming at the height of California’s wildfire season, has the potential to balloon in size.

“A lot of it just depends on what kind of progress they can make before any significant winds come in,” he said by phone.

The blaze has destroyed one structure and damaged another, said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman Heather Williams.

Fire officials are investigating its cause.

More than 60 miles (96 km) to the south, firefighters on Tuesday continued to make progress against the more than two-month old Soberanes Fire. It was 78 percent contained after scorching more than 127,478 acres (51,589 hectares), mostly in the Los Padres National Forest, and destroying 57 homes and 11 outbuildings, officials said.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Alan Crosby)

Thousands flee fire at Greek migrant camp as tensions flare

Migrants stand among the remains of a burned tent at the Moria migrant camp, after a fire that ripped through tents and destroyed containers during violence among residents, on the island of Lesbos, Greece,

By Karolina Tagaris

ATHENS (Reuters) – Thousands of people fled a migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos on Monday night after fire swept through tents and housing cabins during violence among residents, police said.

The fire was over by mid-day on Tuesday at the Moria camp which houses the 5,700 migrants on the island and many people had returned, though children had been transferred to other facilities, police said.

No casualties were reported from the fire and its cause was not clear.

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, linked the fire to poor living conditions and a sense of insecurity among many of the residents.

Refugees and migrants on Lesbos are stranded there by a European Union deal with Turkey preventing them going beyond the island until their asylum claims have been processed. Those who do not qualify will be deported to Turkey.

Tensions have boiled over at overcrowded camps on Greece’s islands as the slow processing of asylum requests adds to frustration over tough living conditions.

Greek media said the clashes on Monday erupted among residents following a rumor that hundreds of people would be deported.

Roland Schoenbauer, UNHCR’s spokesman in Greece, said people were “sick of waiting” in the camps. “They don’t know when their asylum claims will be processed. Some people feel they don’t have enough information,” he said.

A police official in Athens said two riot police squads had been deployed to the island.

Nearly 60 percent of the Moria camp, including tents and metal-roofed cabins, had been destroyed by the fire, a police official said. Work was underway on Tuesday to set up new tents, Police Minister Nikos Toskas said.

At least nine people were arrested on accusations of damaging property and causing unrest and were expected to appear before a prosecutor, a police official in Athens said.

The remains of a burned tent at the Moria migrant camp, after a fire that ripped through tents and destroyed containers during violence among residents, on the island of Lesbos, Greece,

The remains of a burned tent at the Moria migrant camp, after a fire that ripped through tents and destroyed containers during violence among residents, on the island of Lesbos, Greece, September 20, 2016. REUTERS/Giorgos Moutafis

OVERCROWDING

Panos Navrozidis, Greece director of aid agency International Rescue Committee, said the camp had been operating at over-capacity for months, with people crammed into the facility with limited access to water, and in conditions that do not meet humanitarian standards.

He criticized the system to process claims as “opaque and inconsistent” and said preferential treatment based on nationality led to tensions within the community.

Thousands have applied for asylum and the wait is long, ranging from weeks to months. Just over 500 people have been deported to Turkey since March but none of those who have requested asylum were among those, Greece says.

Despite a slowdown in arrivals from Turkey compared to last year, more than 13,500 migrants and refugees are now living on eastern Aegean islands, nearly double a capacity of 7,450.

“The situation is difficult,” Christiana Kalogirou, prefect of the north Aegean region, told Greek TV. “There is a great need for decongestion of the islands … in the future things could become much more difficult,” she said.

Including those on the islands, there are 60,000 migrants and refugees stranded in Greece, mostly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who made risky journeys in flimsy inflatable boats.

(Additional reporting Renee Maltezou; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Mosque where Florida nightclub shooter worshiped set on fire

A view of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, a center attended by Omar Mateen who attacked Pulse nightclub in Orlando, in Fort Pierce, Florida,

By Laila Kearney

(Reuters) – The Florida mosque where Omar Mateen, who committed the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, prayed was damaged on Monday in an arson attack, investigators said.

Mateen was killed by law enforcement officials after fatally shooting 49 people and wounding 53 others in a gay nightclub in Orlando in June.

Local law enforcement officers received reports of flames rising from the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, located about 100 miles (161 km) southeast of Orlando, at about 12:30 a.m. EDT, St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Major David Thompson told reporters at a news conference. No one was injured.

The attack occurred on one of the holiest Muslim holidays.

Surveillance video showed a person approach the mosque moments before the blaze erupted, he said.

“Immediately after the individual approached, a flash occurred and the individual fled the area,” Thompson said.

Investigators will work to enhance the footage to identify the suspect, he said.

Mateen told police in a 911 call that he had pledged his allegiance to the head of the Islamic State militant group, though investigators do not believe he had any help from outside organizations.

Shortly after the massacre, the mosque in Fort Pierce was identified as Mateen’s place of worship. It has reported receiving multiple threats of violence and intimidation. In June a motorcycle gang circled the center and shouted at its members, and in July a Muslim man was beaten outside the mosque.

Thompson said investigators were still seeking a motive for the attack and were considering a connection with the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on Sunday.

“I would not want to speculate, but certainly that is in the back of our minds,” he said.

The Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday, is being celebrated on Monday and also could have prompted the attack, Thompson said.

The mosque temporarily relocated its morning prayers for Eid al-Adha, also known as the Feast of Sacrifice.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Fire guts U.S. Agriculture Department shed in Maryland

Smoke emerges from wreckage of USDA facility after fire in Beltsville, Maryland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A fire on Tuesday gutted a storage shed at a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) complex in Maryland that was closed last week because of threats, a fire official said.

The blaze at Building 426 at the USDA’s Beltsville facility took firefighters about two hours to extinguish, Prince George’s County fire department spokesman Mark Brady said by phone, adding there were no injuries.

The fire department and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating the cause, he said.

“Hopefully, we’ll have some type of resolution, or at least which direction we’re headed, in the near future,” Brady said.

The shed housed workshops for such items as masonry and fire extinguishers as well as storing fuel and maintenance vehicles. WUSA, a CBS television affiliate, quoted workers as saying posters also were stored there.

 

Smoke continues to emerge from the wreckage of a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility, closed last week due to threats, which burned down at the USDA complex outside of Washington in Beltsville, Maryland, U.S.,

Smoke continues to emerge from the wreckage of a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility, closed last week due to threats, which burned down at the USDA complex outside of Washington in Beltsville, Maryland, U.S., September 6, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

 

Live TV footage showed the wood frame building engulfed in flames, with part of the walls missing and a section of the roof gone as firefighters poured water onto the structure.

A USDA spokeswoman had no details on whether the building was burned to the ground, or if anything was stolen.

Last week, USDA facilities in five states, including the one in Beltsville, a Washington suburb, were closed after receiving anonymous threats.

Scientists at the Beltsville site research poultry diseases, soybean genetics and genetic modification of food animals, according to its website.

(Reporting by Dan Burns, Ian Simpson in Washington and Tom Polansek and Michael Hirtzer in Chicago, editing by Dan Grebler and Alan Crosby)

Portion of major highway reopens as California wildfire rages

Firefighters battling California blaze

(Reuters) – A portion of a major highway connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas has been reopened, as a wildfire that forced the evacuation of some 80,000 Southern California residents continued to rage virtually unchecked.

The so-called Blue Cut Fire erupted on Tuesday in the mountainous Cajon Pass northeast of Los Angeles and, by late Wednesday night, had exploded to cover 25,626 acres (10,370 hectares), fire officials said.

While firefighters had managed to carve containment lines around only 4 percent of the blaze, state transit officials said northbound lanes of Interstate 15 would reopen in the area.

Fire officials expressed concern that “red flag” weather conditions would keep the area dry, hot and windy into Thursday night.

The Blue Cut Fire, named for a narrow gorge north of San Bernardino where it started, threatened the town of Wrightwood near a ski resort and other communities, prompting evacuation orders for some 80,000 residents.

Authorities have described the blaze as unusually fierce, even for a year of intense wildfires in the U.S. West, where years of drought have placed a heavy burden on firefighting resources. The cause of the fire was under investigation.

U.S. government forecasters have said the risk of major wildfires in Southern California is likely to remain high until December, given the dryness and warm weather.

About 600 miles (970 km) to the northwest, the so-called Clayton Fire was 50 percent contained after charring nearly 4,000 acres in and around the community of Lower Lake and destroying 286 homes and other structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Southern California wildfire rages unchecked after evacuations

chicken coop going up in flames

(Reuters) – Hundreds of firefighters were battling a rapidly-spreading wildfire raging unchecked in drought-stricken Southern California on Wednesday after flames forced more than 80,000 residents to flee.

The Bluecut Fire, which erupted on Tuesday morning and has grown to cover some 18,000 acres (7,300 hectares) of heavy brush in an area called the Cajon Pass, was zero percent contained as of Tuesday night, fire officials said.

Authorities issued evacuation orders for 82,640 residents and some 34,500 homes near Interstate 15, the main freeway between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area, a stretch of which was closed indefinitely.

Two firefighters were trapped by flames in the effort to evacuate residents and defend homes, but managed to escape with only minor injuries, fire officials said. The cause of the blaze is still under investigation.

More than 600 miles (970 km) to the northwest, crews made headway against a Northern California wildfire that has destroyed more than 175 homes and businesses.

The so-called Clayton Fire was 35 percent contained on Tuesday night, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). It has charred 4,000 acres (1,620 hectares) in and around the community of Lower Lake since Saturday evening, forcing hundreds to flee.

Damin Pashilk, a 40-year-old arrested on suspicion of setting that blaze, and several others in the area over the past year, is set to appear in court on Wednesday.

The Clayton fire threatened about 1,500 structures at its peak. As of Tuesday evening, only 380 buildings were in danger, according to Cal Fire. There were no reports of casualties.

California Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in San Bernardino County for the Bluecut Fire, which allows state agencies to come to the assistance of local officials. He had issued emergency declarations on Monday for the Clayton Fire and another in Central California, the Chimney Fire.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Destructive California fire was started by faulty hot tub wiring

A firefighter from the Sonoma Valley Fire & Rescue Authority work on a a hotspot during the Rocky Fire near Clearlake, California

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – The third most destructive wildfire in California’s recorded history, which killed four people and destroyed more than 1,300 homes and buildings, was started by a spark from an improperly wired hot tub, state fire officials said on Wednesday.

The so-called Valley Fire charred more than 76,000 acres (30,756 hectares) in California’s storied wine country in Napa and Sonoma Counties north of San Francisco last fall, killing among others an elderly disabled woman trapped in her home, injuring four firefighters and costing $56 million to suppress.

On Wednesday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the blaze started after a copper wire at the poorly connected hot tub heated to 1,981 degrees (1,082 Celsius), melted and set ablaze dry brush that was nearby at a home in the town of Cobb.

According to a report posted online and filed with local prosecutors, homeowner and primary resident John Pinch admitted to investigators that he had installed the circuit that caused the fire.

It was not clear whether charges would be filed against Pinch, who was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Twelve premature babies killed in Bagdad hospital fire

An Iraqi woman stands in front of a maternity ward after a fire broke out at Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad

By Maher Nazeh

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Twelve prematurely born babies were killed in a fire that broke out in the early hours of Wednesday on a maternity ward in a Baghdad hospital and was probably caused by an electrical fault, Iraqi authorities said.

Eleven or twelve other babies and 29 women were rescued from the Yarmuk hospital’s maternity ward and transferred to other hospitals, Hani al-Okabi, an MP who previously managed a health directorate in Baghdad, told journalists after visiting the hospital and talking to the management.

Firefighters and hospital staff took about three hours to put out the blaze that engulfed the ward, according to one medic. Yarmuk is a main hospital on the western side of the capital, with emergency care facilities among others.

“My son’s birth was difficult,” Shaima Hussein, one of the babies’ mothers, told Reuters TV at the gate of the hospital. She said she was not given a chance to rescue her newborn.

“I came with milk powder for him, and then this happened … they shut the electricity and the doors,” she said.

Hassan Omar said he was upset that the hospital would not give him information about his twins other than that he may have to have DNA checks to see if they were among the dead.

“I went to the other hospital, they are not there, so where are they?” he said.

The incident is likely to intensify public accusations of state corruption and mismanagement.

Pictures posted on social media showed the hospital in a state of neglect, with cockroaches crawling out from between broken tiles, dustbins overflowing with rubbish, dirty toilets and patients lying on stretchers in the courtyard.

The relative of a patient who died recently in the hospital from meningitis said he saw cockroach crawling along the tube of an oxygen mask.

“It was so dirty,” he said. “We had to bring our own bed sheets.”

Thirteen years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the oil-rich country still suffers a shortage of electricity, water, schools and hospitals.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has been trying for more than two years to tackle corruption in Iraq, which ranks 161 out of 168 on Transparency International’s Corruption Index, but has faced resistance from much of the political elite.

Corruption has exacerbated the effects on the economy of a sharp decline in oil revenue caused by falling crude prices and the costs of fighting Islamic State, the hardline group that has controlled large parts of northern and western Iraq since 2014.

(Additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Louise Ireland)

California wildfires likely to worsen as season peaks

A firefighter stands on steep terrain while fire crews create fire breaks at Garrapata State Park during the Soberanes Fire north of Big Sur, California, U.S

(Reuters) – Drought conditions in California risk stoking new and ongoing wildfires as the season enters its peak, a forecaster said on Wednesday after several blazes already killed at least six people and charred thousands of acres so far this year.

The warning came as 5,500 firefighters battled a wildfire near the Big Sur coast, a well-known tourist destination. Dubbed the Soberanes Fire, it has scorched some 44,000 acres (17,800 hectares) and dozens of homes in the area, fire officials said.

Little rain and the strong, dry Santa Ana winds will likely stoke more wildfires as the peak of the wildfire season begins, AccuWeather said. The wildfire season officially begins in May and stretches into September.

“It’s bad now and it’s only going to get worse,” long-range forecaster Paul Pastelok said.

The Soberanes Fire began on July 22 and was sparked by an illegal, unattended camp fire in a section in Garrapata State Park that was closed to camping, the U.S. Forest Service said on Tuesday. No arrests have been made, the service said.

Fire personnel battling the blaze have been able to draw containment lines – a measure of how much of its perimeter has been cleared by fire crews of unburned vegetation – around only 25 percent of the wildfire so far.

A bulldozer operator hired by property owners to help battle the Soberanes blaze died last week when his vehicle rolled over. It was the second wildfire-related death in California in a week, another person having been found dead in his car in the path of the Sand Fire in Los Angeles County. Four people were killed in other blazes in June.

The fire threat has prompted the closure of several popular California campgrounds and recreation areas along the northern end of the Big Sur coastline, including Point Lobos State Natural Reserve and Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.

Another fire that broke out on Saturday in grass and brush about 30 miles northeast of Fresno, in central California, has since charred about 2,185 acres and is threatening 400 structures, prompting evacuations in the area, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

Nine structures, including four homes, have been destroyed, fire officials said. On Tuesday evening, the so-called Goose Fire was listed as 60 percent contained.

(This version of the story corrects to singular “forecaster” in first paragraph, not “forecasters”)