Foreign News
Death toll rises to 54 in southern Philippines landslide
The death toll from a landslide that hit a gold-mining village in the southern Philippines has risen to 54 people and 63 others are missing, authorities have said.
The landslide hit the mountain village of Masara in Davao de Oro province on Tuesday night after weeks of torrential rains.
Davao de Oro’s provincial government said in a Facebook post that 54 bodies had been recovered, raising its previous death toll of 37 earlier in the day as rescue workers found more bodies. At least 32 residents survived with injuries but 63 remained missing, it said. Among those missing were gold miners who had been waiting in two buses to be driven home when the landslide struck and buried them.
Edward Macapili, an official from Davao de Oro, said more than 300 people were involved in the rescue, but operations were being hampered by heavy rain, thick mud and the threat of further landslides.
Rescue work resumed on Sunday morning, Macapili said. Asked if there were still survivors, he said it was already “unlikely”, but the search would continue.”The rescue team is doing its best, even if it’s very difficult,” he told the Reuters news agency.
Rocks, mud and trees slid more than 700m (2,300 feet) down a steep mountainside near the Apex Mining Co concession, burying an 8.9-hectare (22-acre) section of the Masara community.
A three-year-old girl was pulled alive from under the rubble on Friday, in what rescuers described as a “miracle”.
More than 1,100 families have been moved to evacuation centres for their safety, disaster response officials said.
Rain has pounded parts of the southern region on and off for weeks, triggering dozens of landslides and floods that have forced tens of thousands of people into emergency shelters. Earthquakes also damaged houses and buildings in the region in recent months, officials said.
Landslides are a frequent hazard across much of the archipelago nation due to the mountainous terrain, heavy rainfall and widespread deforestation from mining, slash-and-burn farming and illegal logging.
(Aljazeera)
A second Australian teenager has died of suspected methanol poisoning, bringing to six the number of foreign tourists who have died after apparently drinking tainted alcohol in Laos.
The family of Holly Bowles, 19, said it was with “broken hearts” that they confirmed her death, more than a week after she fell ill in the tourist town of Vang Vieng.
Her friend Bianca Jones, also 19, and British lawyer Simone White, 28, from south-east London, were confirmed to have died on Thursday.
An unnamed US man and two Danish women, aged 19 and 20, are also among the victims of the suspected poisoning, believed to be connected to bootleg alcohol.
In a statement released to media on Friday, Holly’s family said they were taking comfort from the fact she had brought so much “joy and happiness to so many people”.
They added that she had been living “her best life travelling through South East Asia meeting new friends and enjoying incredible experiences” when she became ill.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said: “All Australians will be heartbroken by the tragic passing of Holly Bowles. I offer my deepest sympathies to her family and friends.”
Holly and Bianca were taken to hospital on Wednesday, 13 November, after they failed to check out of their hostel in the small, riverside town of Vang Vieng, about two hours north of the capital Vientiane.
News reports and testimonies suggest the tourists may have consumed alcohol laced with methanol – a deadly substance often found in bootleg alcohol.
Just a small amount of methanol can be lethal, but it is sometimes added to drinks because it is cheaper than alcohol.
But, as Christer Hogstrand, a professor of molecular ecotoxicology, at King’s College London points out, it is also “not uncommon in home-distilled alcohol”.
“Methanol is like the alcohol in our drinks – colourless and odourless – but its impact on humans can be deadly,” he explained. “It has a different carbon atom structure which completely changes how humans process it in the body, leading to these potentially fatal consequences.”
It is not yet known where any of the people who fell sick or died were poisoned. It can take up to 24 hours for victims to start showing signs of illness.
The Nana Backpacker Hostel – where the Australian teenagers were staying – has said it gave out free shots to around 100 guests the previous evening.
But the hostel’s manager told news agency Associated Press that no other guests had become unwell.
The manager of the hostel has since been detained for questioning by police.
Few details have emerged about any of the other victims and where they may have visited.
Simone White, who lived in Orpington, was reportedly travelling with a group of friends. Ms White was a lawyer with global law firm Squire Patton Boggs, whose work involved general commercial matters, contentious and non-contentious intellectual property law issues according to the firm’s website.
“Simone was a talented colleague with a bright future ahead of her and someone who epitomised our firm values,” the firm said in a statement.
“Our thoughts go out to all of Simone’s family, friends, and those colleagues and clients who had the privilege to work with and know Simone. She will be sincerely missed.”
Australia is pushing authorities to be open about their investigation into the incident.
New Zealand and Dutch officials have also both said they were monitoring incidents involving nationals.
Vang Vieng is a hub for backpackers travelling across south-east Asia. It’s home to the Banana Pancake Trail – a popular backpacking route spanning Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
[BBC]
Australian teen Bianca Jones has become the fourth tourist to have died in a suspected mass poisoning in Laos.
The 19-year-old’s family confirmed her death to the media on Thursday. Hours earlier, the US State Department told the media that an American man died in the tourist town of Vang Vieng.
Two Danish women, aged 19 and 20, also died last week in Laos, Danish authorities confirmed, declining to share more due to confidentiality concerns.
The deaths remain under police investigation, but news reports and testimonies online from other tourists suggest they may have consumed drinks laced with methanol, a deadly substance often found in bootleg alcohol.
Jones’s friend Holly Bowles is in hospital on life support, while a British woman is also reportedly in hospital.
New Zealand’s foreign ministry told local media on Thursday that one of its citizens was also unwell from suspected methanol poisoning. It is unclear how many more people have fallen ill.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the department of foreign affairs had confirmed Jones’s death.
“Our first thoughts in this moment are with her family and friends who are grieving a terrible and cruel loss,” Albanese said on Thursday afternoon.
“This is every parent’s very worst fear and a nightmare that no one should have to endure.”
He said he hoped Ms Bowles, who is currently at Bangkok Hospital, would recover well.
The US State Department said it was “closely monitoring” the situation with regards to the American victim, adding that it was up to local authorities to determine the cause of death.
Australian, New Zealand and UK authorities have each warned their citizens to be careful of methanol poisoning when consuming alcohol in Laos.
Nana Backpacker Hostel, where the two Australian women stayed in Vang Vieng, told the BBC that it was closed for police investigation.
The hostel’s manager told the Associated Press that the two women were among more than 100 guests who received free shots of Lao vodka from the hostel. The pair then headed out for the night, he said, adding that no other guests reported health issues.
The manager said he hoped the investigation would clear the hostel’s name, but said they have stopped giving free shots for now.
In a statement to Australian newspaper the Herald Sun, Jones’s family expressed their “deepest gratitude for the overwhelming support, love, and prayers we’ve received from across Australia”.
“We kindly ask for privacy as we navigate through our grief and begin to heal,” the statement said.
Unlike ethanol, the key component of alcoholic beverages, methanol is toxic to humans. Bootleg liquor producers sometimes add it to their drinks, however, as a cheap way to increase alcohol content.
Earlier this year, at least 57 people in India died after consuming methanol-laced liquor. Similar cases of mass poisoning have also been reported across the world, from the Philippines to Peru.
Vang Vieng is a small riverside town in central Laos, and a hub for backpackers in Southeast Asia.
[BBC]
The humanitarian medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has suspended its operations in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, following a violent attack on its staff and the alleged killing of two patients they were treating by Haitian police officers.
The incident took place last week as violence continued to worsen in the country.
An estimated 25 people were killed in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday alone in what police say was a foiled attempt at a gang invasion of a wealthy neighbourhood.
Politically, the situation also remains critical with interim Prime Minister Garry Conille fired this month by the country’s ruling council – less than six months after he took office.
MSF says that on 11 November one of its ambulances carrying three young men with gunshot wounds was stopped by Haitian law enforcement officers.
Apparently supported by a paramilitary self-defence group, the men attacked the vehicle, removed two of the patients, took them outside hospital grounds and executed them.
The humanitarian group denounced the violence in a strongly worded statement last week, saying their personnel had been tear-gassed and held against their will for several hours.
While that incident appears to have been the final straw for MSF in Port-au-Prince, at least for the time being, it was not the only recent example of extreme aggression against their staff.
The announcement comes amid a worsening climate of violence in Haiti with some 25 suspected gang members killed in the capital on Tuesday.
The police say that residents helped officers to fight off an attempted attack on the upscale suburb of Pétion-Ville.
The neighbourhood was cordoned off after residents barricaded streets, some armed with machetes and makeshift weapons, in an apparent effort to prevent a gang invasion.
[BBC]
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