Tag Archives: killed

Four dead as hurricane-force winds batter Poland

WARSAW (Reuters) – Four people were killed and 18 injured in a storm that battered Poland with hurricane-force winds on Thursday night, authorities said, damaging properties and felling trees across western and central areas of the country.

Fire services reported more than 10,000 incidents and 930 buildings were damaged, private broadcaster TVN24 reported, with the western region of Lubuskie and the central Lodzkie region hardest hit.

“The storm was terrible, it broke the sheet metal and took it from one part of the roof to the other side of the house,” Krzysztof Kolczynski, whose house in the village of Maszkowice in central Poland was damaged in the storm, told TVN24.

“It’s good that there were chimneys, otherwise it would have torn off the entire roof.”

In the south-western city of Wroclaw, police said that two people were killed when a tree fell on their car.

“Wroclaw police received a report about a tree that fell on a moving vehicle,” said police officer Pawel Noga. “Unfortunately, it was confirmed on the spot that two people in the car were killed in the incident.”

The Polish meteorological office issued fresh storm warnings for Friday evening, with the north of the country expected to face the strongest winds.

(Writing by Alan Charlish; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Myanmar frees political prisoners after ASEAN pressure, then re-arrests some

(Reuters) – Myanmar’s military rulers have freed hundreds of political prisoners in recent days, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s party spokesman and a famous comedian, although several were swiftly re-arrested, local media and a rights group said.

State television announced late on Monday more than 5,600 people arrested or wanted over anti-coup protests would be granted amnesty following a speech from Myanmar’s junta chief saying his government was committed to peace and democracy.

The release was described by some activists as a ploy by the ruling military to try to rebuild its international reputation after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) took the rare step of excluding the junta chief from its summit.

Shortly after local media began late on Monday documenting the release of parliamentarians, journalists and others from Yangon’s Insein prison and facilities in Mandalay, Lashio, Meiktila and Myeik, reports followed of re-arrests.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports and Myanmar’s prison department spokesman and junta spokesman were not immediately available for comment.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a non-profit group which has documented killings and arrests since the coup in February, told Reuters that as of Tuesday evening around 40 people had been detained immediately after their release.

Local media, including Democratic Voice of Burma and Khit Thit Media, also reported several people were re-arrested.

PRESSURE

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the coup, which ended a decade of tentative democracy and economic reform.

Security forces have killed more than 1,100 people according to activists and the United Nations, and arrested over 9,000 people including Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s most prominent civilian political figure, according to AAPP.

ASEAN decided to invite a non-political representative to its Oct. 26-28 summit in an unprecedented snub to the military leaders behind the coup against Suu Kyi’s elected government.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews welcomed the release but said it was “outrageous” that they were detained in the first place.

“The junta is releasing political prisoners in Myanmar not because of a change of heart, but because of pressure,” he said on Twitter.

The junta has released prisoners several times since the coup, which triggered a wave of protests that were quelled by the security forces.

“They came to me today and said they will take me home, that’s all,” Monywa Aung Shin, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, told Democratic Voice of Burma late on Monday on his way home from prison.

Monywa Aung Shin was arrested on February 1 and had spent eight months in prison.

Burmese comedian Zarganar, a well-known critic of Myanmar’s past military governments, was also released late Monday, according to local media reports and a social media post by a close friend.

Photos and videos on social media showed detainees reunited with weeping family members.

Other images showed a succession of buses leaving the rear entrance of the jail, with passengers leaning from windows and waving at crowds gathered outside.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Angus MacSwan)

Man kills several people in Norway in bow and arrow attacks, police say

OSLO (Reuters) -A man using a bow and arrow killed several people and wounded others in attacks in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg on Wednesday, local police said.

“The man has been apprehended … from the information we now have, this person carried out these actions alone,” police chief Oeyvind Aas told reporters.

“Several people have been injured and several are dead,” Aas said. He declined to comment on the number of casualties.

The attacks took place over “a large area” of Kongsberg, a municipality of about 28,000 people in southeastern Norway, 68 km (42 miles) from the capital, Oslo.

Following the attacks, the police directorate said it had immediately ordered officers nationwide to carry firearms. Norwegian police are normally unarmed but officers have access to guns and rifles when needed.

“This is an extra precaution. The police have no indication so far that there is a change in the national threat level,” the directorate said in a statement.

Norway’s minister of justice and public security, Monica Maeland, has received updates on the attacks and was closely monitoring the situation, the ministry said.

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

Cyclone Kompasu strikes Philippines, kills 9

MANILA (Reuters) – Nine people have been killed in the Philippines and 11 were missing on Tuesday due to floods and landslides caused by heavy rain from tropical cyclone Kompasu, the national disaster agency said.

Kompasu, with maximum sustained winds of 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour, had absorbed remnants of an earlier cyclone before making landfall in the Philippines on Monday evening. Nearly 1,600 people were evacuated.

The disaster agency said it was verifying information from its regional units that reported four people killed in landslides in northern Benguet province and five killed in flash floods in Palawan, an island province in the country’s southwest.

Authorities were conducting search and rescue operations for 11 people missing mostly after landslides.

The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands is hit by about 20 storms or typhoons annually, bringing heavy rains that trigger deadly landslides.

President Rodrigo Duterte was monitoring the government’s disaster response, his spokesperson, Harry Roque said on Tuesday.

Rescue personnel were at the scene, while power and water restoration and road clearing was ongoing, he added.

Kompasu, the 13th tropical storm to enter the Philippines, is expected to leave its territory on Tuesday, the state weather agency said.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Martin Petty)

Seven more killed in Oman following tropical storm Shaheen

DUBAI (Reuters) -Seven more people were killed in Oman as heavy winds and rain swept through the country after tropical storm Shaheen made landfall, the national emergency committee said on Monday on its official Twitter account.

Four people had been killed on Sunday, including a child.

Latest data showed that the storm had subsided, the civil aviation authority said on Monday, warning that scattered rainfall was still expected.

It urged citizens to be careful crossing valleys and avoid low-lying areas.

When the eye of the storm crossed land, Shaheen was carrying winds of between 120 and 150 km per hour (75-93 mph), Omani authorities said. It was throwing up waves of up to 10 meters (32 feet).

Video footage from Omani broadcasters showed vehicles submerged as people tried to make their way through muddy brown floodwater. State TV showed people in flooded areas being rescued by helicopter. People walked along flooded streets, while a tractor ploughed through mud.

Up to 500 mm (20 inches) of rain was expected in some areas, raising the risk of flash floods.

Cyclones steadily lose their power over land and Shaheen was downgraded to a tropical storm after it cleared the ocean, the meteorology service said on Twitter.

(Reporting by Lilian Wagdy; Writing by Nadine Awadalla and Michael Georgy; Editing by Toby Chopra and Giles Elgood)

16 killed in Pakistan chemical factory fire

KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) – At least 16 people were killed in a factory fire on Friday in Pakistan’s largest city and financial hub, Karachi, raising questions about the industrial safety in a country not new to such accidents.

The fire broke out at a multi-story chemical factory in eastern part of the city, and most windows of the factory were blocked, police and fire officials said.

Many factory workers died after being trapped on the second floor in the fire, which broke out on the ground floor of the three-story factory.

“At least 16 people have died in the fire,” Saqib Ismail Memon, deputy inspector general of Karachi’s eastern part, told Reuters.

Private television channels’ footage showed thick grey smoke billowing out from the top floors of the factory.

“The factory had only one entry point, which was also being used as exit, and the roof exit was blocked, which badly hampered rescue efforts,” Mubeen Ahmed, chief fire officer of the fire department, told a Geo, a private television channel.

Over 260 workers were burnt alive when a multi-story garment factory was set on fire in September 2012 in what became the deadliest industrial blaze in Pakistan’s history.

Blazes and accidents are common in South Asia’s factories, many of which operate illegally and without proper fire safety measures.

(Reporting by Raza Hassan; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Tennessee flooding was more destructive than first estimated

By Rich McKay

(Reuters) -The weekend flooding in Tennessee that killed at least 21 people was more destructive than originally estimated, with about 120 homes washed off foundations, destroyed or simply “gone,” officials said Tuesday.

The scope of the damage came into sharper focus in hardest hit Humphreys County, as rescue teams continue to search house-to-house with trained dogs for dozens believed still missing.

“Our damage is much more massive than what we thought,” Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis told NPR in an interview Tuesday.

It was already believed that hundreds of homes were water-damaged and uninhabitable, officials said after the storm brought 17 inches of rain in just three hours.

Davis and other officials surveyed the damage from a helicopter late Monday, focusing largely on the hardest hit town of Waverly, about 55 miles west of Nashville.

“Yesterday we thought it was 20-something houses that had been removed from the foundations,” Davis said. “That’s not even close. Well over 100 – 120 houses have been moved, or are gone, no longer exist.”

Displaced residents found shelter with relatives, local churches and with housing provided by the American Red Cross, the sheriff said.

Officials who had been seeking federal aid were granted it late Monday as President Joe Biden declared a major disaster in the state of Tennessee and ordered federal aid, the White House said in a statement.

Local officials said that those killed in the flooding ranged in age from babies to the elderly. The Washington Post, citing family members, reported that 7-month-old twins died after they were swept away from their parents’ arms.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Bhargav Acharya in Bengaluru; Editing by Kim Coghill and Chizu Nomiyama)

At least 21 dead, 50 missing in Tennessee flooding

(Reuters) – At least 21 people have died and 50 others are reported missing after heavy flooding hit parts of Tennessee, authorities said on Sunday.

A dispatcher at the Humphreys County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the number of those killed and missing and said authorities were working to conduct house-to-house searches of the area.

Record rainfall of up to 17 inches (43 cm) in some areas sparked massive flooding on Saturday afternoon and evening. Especially hard hit was the town of Waverly, about 55 miles (88 km) west of Nashville. Hundreds of homes were left uninhabitable.

Waverly Mayor Wallace Frazier told the Tennessean newspaper that those killed in flooding ranged in age from babies to the elderly. The Washington Post, citing family members, reported that 7-month-old twins died after they were swept away from their parents’ arms.

The flooding uprooted massive trees, tore through homes and tossed cars and pickup trucks into ditches and atop sheds and other structures.

Cindy Dunn, 48, told the Tennessean that she and her husband had been stranded in their attic for several hours after floodwaters rose to 6 feet (1.8 m) high in their home. The pair were saved by a rescue crew that raised the bucket of a bulldozer up to a window they could get through.

“Hell. That’s what we had to go through,” Dunn told the newspaper.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Afghan protests spread to Kabul in early challenge to Taliban

KABUL (Reuters) – Protests against the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan spread to more cities on Thursday, including the capital Kabul, and a witness said several people were killed when the militants fired on a crowd in Asadabad in the eastern province of Kunar.

“Our flag, our identity,” a crowd of men and women waving black, red and green national flags shouted in Kabul, a video posted on social media showed, on the day Afghanistan celebrates independence from British control in 1919.

A witness reported gunshots near the rally, but they appeared to be Taliban firing into the air.

Marchers chanted “God is greatest.” At some protests elsewhere, media have reported people tearing down the white flag of the Taliban.

A Taliban spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Some demonstrations are small, but combined with a scramble by thousands of people to flee the country via Kabul airport they underline the challenge the Taliban will face to govern.

The Islamist movement conquered Afghanistan at lightning speed as foreign troops withdrew, surprising even its leaders and leaving them to fill power vacuums in many places.

Since seizing Kabul on Sunday, the Taliban have presented a more moderate face, saying they want peace, will not take revenge against old enemies and will respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.

During their previous rule from 1996-2001, they severely restricted women’s rights, staged public executions and blew up ancient Buddhist statues.

In Asadabad, several people were killed during a rally, but it was unclear if the casualties resulted from Taliban firing or from a stampede that it triggered.

“Hundreds of people came out on the streets,” witness Mohammed Salim said. “At first I was scared and didn’t want to go but when I saw one of my neighbors joined in, I took out the flag I have at home.

“Several people were killed and injured in the stampede and firing by the Taliban.”

Protests flared in the city of Jalalabad and a district of Paktia province, also both in the east.

On Wednesday, Taliban fighters fired at protesters waving flags in Jalalabad, killing three, witnesses and media reported.

“Salute those who carry the national flag and thus stand for dignity of the nation,” First Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who is trying to rally opposition to the Taliban, said on Twitter.

Saleh said on Tuesday he was the “legitimate caretaker president” in Afghanistan after President Ashraf Ghani fled.

In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Ahmad Massoud, leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, based in an old anti-Taliban stronghold northeast of Kabul, called for Western support.

“I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban,” wrote Massoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a veteran guerrilla leader killed by suspected al Qaeda militants in 2001.

Other former Afghan leaders, including ex-president Hamid Karzai, have held talks with the Taliban.

U.S. President Joe Biden said the Taliban must decide if they want international recognition.

“I think they’re going through a sort of existential crisis about: Do they want to be recognized by the international community as being a legitimate government? I’m not sure they do,” Biden said in TV interview.

AIRPORT CHAOS

Kabul has been generally calm, but 12 people have been killed in and around the airport amid chaotic scenes, a NATO and a Taliban official said. The deaths were caused either by gun shots or stampedes, according to the Taliban official.

In one incident captured on social media, a small girl was hoisted over the airport’s high perimeter wall and handed to a U.S. soldier, underlining the desperation many people feel.

Gunmen fired into the air on Thursday at several entrances, scattering crowds including women clutching babies. It was not clear if the men firing were Taliban or security staff helping U.S. forces inside the airport.

The Taliban are “keeping their word” by providing foreign powers with support in evacuating their nationals, a Taliban official said.

“We are facilitating safe exit passage not just for foreigners but also to Afghans,” the official told Reuters.

U.N. agencies and international aid groups appealed for $800 million more in humanitarian funding.

About 8,000 people have been flown out of Kabul since Sunday, a Western security official said.

Under a pact negotiated by former President Donald Trump’s administration, the United States agreed to withdraw its forces in exchange for a Taliban guarantee they would not let Afghanistan be used to launch terrorist attacks.

The Taliban also agreed not to attack foreign forces as they leave.

Biden said U.S. forces would remain until all Americans were evacuated, even if that meant staying past an Aug. 31 U.S. deadline for withdrawal.

(Reporting by Kabul and Washington newsrooms; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Robert Birsel; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Jane Merriman, Nick Macfie, Mike Collett-White and Catherine Evans)

Deadly Jalalabad protests as Taliban consolidate Islamist rule

KABUL (Reuters) -At least three people were killed in anti-Taliban protests in the Afghan city of Jalalabad on Wednesday, witnesses said, as the militant group tried to set up a government and Western countries stepped up evacuations of diplomats and civilians.

More than a dozen people were injured after Taliban militants opened fire on protesters in the eastern city, two witnesses and a former police official told Reuters.

The Taliban have promised peace following their sweep into Kabul, saying they will not take revenge against old enemies and will respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.

The witnesses said the deaths took place when local residents tried to install Afghanistan’s national flag at a square in the city, some 150 km (90 miles) from the capital on the main road to Pakistan.

Taliban spokesmen were not immediately reachable for comment.

As the Taliban consolidated power, one of their leaders and co-founders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, returned to Afghanistan for the first time in more than 10 years. A Taliban official said leaders would show themselves to the world, unlike in the past when they lived in secret.

“Slowly, gradually, the world will see all our leaders,” the senior Taliban official told Reuters. “There will be no shadow of secrecy.”

But thousands of Afghans, many of whom helped U.S.-led foreign forces over two decades, are desperate to leave the country.

More than 2,200 diplomats and civilians have been evacuated from Afghanistan on military flights, a Western security official said on Wednesday.

“We are continuing at a very fast momentum, logistics show no glitches as of now,” the Western security official told Reuters.

The Taliban held their first news briefing since their return to Kabul on Tuesday, suggesting they would impose their laws more softly than during their harsh 1996-2001 rule.

“We don’t want any internal or external enemies,” Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s main spokesman, told reporters.

Women would be allowed to work and study and “will be very active in society but within the framework of Islam”, he said.

During their rule, also guided by sharia religious law, women were prevented from working, girls were not allowed to go to school and women had to wear all-enveloping burqas to go out and then only when accompanied by a male relative.

‘TIME WILL TELL’

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, echoing leaders of other Western countries, said the Taliban would be judged on their actions.

“We will judge this regime based on the choices it makes, and by its actions rather than by its words, on its attitude to terrorism, to crime and narcotics, as well as humanitarian access and the rights of girls to receive an education,” Johnson told parliament.

Britain has said it will welcome up to 5,000 Afghans during the first year of a new resettlement program that will prioritize women, girls and religious and other minorities.

Many Afghans are skeptical of the Taliban promises. Some said they could only wait and see.

“My family lived under the Taliban and maybe they really want to change or have changed but only time will tell and it’s going to become clear very soon,” said Ferishta Karimi, who runs a tailoring shop for women.

Mujahid said the Taliban would not seek retribution against former soldiers and government officials, and were granting an amnesty for ex-soldiers as well as contractors and translators who worked for international forces.

“Nobody is going to harm you, nobody is going to knock on your doors,” he said, adding that there was a “huge difference” between the Taliban now and 20 years ago.

The Taliban, who have fought to expel foreign forces since they were overthrown in 2001, seized Kabul on Sunday as U.S.-led Western forces withdrew under a deal that included a Taliban promise not to attack them as they leave.

U.S. forces running the airport had to stop flights on Monday after thousands of frightened Afghans swamped the airfield looking for a flight out. Flights resumed on Tuesday as the situation came under control.

Seventeen people were wounded on Wednesday in a stampede at a gate to the airport, a NATO security official said, adding that civilians seeking to leave had been told not to gather unless they had a passport and visa to travel. He said he had not heard any reports of violence by Taliban fighters at the airport.

Britain said it had managed to bring out about 1,000 people a day while Germany flew 130 people out. France said it had moved out 25 of its nationals and 184 Afghans, and Australia said 26 people had arrived on its first flight back from Kabul.

“Everyone wants out,” said one Afghan man who arrived in Frankfurt on Wednesday with his wife and son on a flight via Tashkent. “We saved ourselves but we couldn’t rescue our families.”

(Reporting by Kabul newsroom; Writing by Robert Birsel and Jane Merriman; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Nick Macfie and Catherine Evans)