Foreign News
State of calamity in Philippines province as earthquake kills 69
At least 69 people have been killed and dozens injured after a powerful 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck the central Philippines late on Tuesday.
The province of Cebu, which suffered the brunt of the damage, declared a state of calamity early on Wednesday, after thousands spent the night on the streets amid repeated aftershocks.
One Cebu resident told the BBC he was among them, adding that power and water supplies were cut off. He says the voices of crying children could be heard around him, adding that they were “traumatised”.
The earthquake comes barely more than a week after the country was hit by back to back typhoons which killed more than 20 people.
Most of the earthquake victims were from Bogo, a small town on one of the largest islands in the Visayas Islands, the Philippines’ central region – and the place closest to the earthquake’s epicentre.
Images coming out of Bogo show body bags lined on the street and hundreds of people being treated in tent hospitals. Officials have warned of “a lot of damage” caused by the earthquakes.
The local authorities have appealed for volunteers with medical experience to help deal with injuries.
Buckled and cracked roads, and fallen bridges are also making access difficult for emergency services. Power lines in many places are down, meaning that it’s also been hard to speak to those affected.
Seven of those who died in Tuesday’s earthquake in Bogo had lived in a village built to house victims of Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the central Philippines 12 years ago, killing more than 6,000 people.
In the municipality of San Remigio, a basketball game was being played when the earthquake struck, an emergency response official told the BBC. Almost 20 people at the game were sent to the hospital, and at least one person later died.
Officials from the national police and fire bureau say they are prioritising search and rescue operations, rushing to restore electricity and delivering relief supplies to those affected.
On Wednesday evening, Bogo was hit by yet another aftershock, this one at a magnitude of 4.7, with tremors felt in Cebu city and the neighbouring Leyte islands. There were no known casualties.
Cebu’s archbishop has told devotees to stay away from churches, pending structural assessments. This call is significant as Cebu was one of the first Philippine islands to be colonised by Spain in the 1500s, and has many old churches.
Earlier footage showed the tower of an old Catholic church swaying and then partly collapsing in one locality.
The Philippines is composed of thousands of islands and the national disaster agency based in the capital Manila is tasked with releasing official casualty figures for typhoons and earthquakes.
However, the count is usually slow as the numbers are subject to rigorous checks – and so it is possible the death toll could jump.
The Philippines is very vulnerable to natural disasters. It is located on the geologically unstable “Ring of Fire” – so called because of the high number of earthquakes and volcanoes that occur here.
The upper layers of the Earth in the vast Pacific region are split into sections – tectonic plates – which are all moving relative to one another.
The Philippines sits on the edge of the Philippine Plate, which is pushing underneath the Eurasian Plate. The friction created by one plate pushing another down – known as subduction – can cause the plates to bend and then suddenly snap back, causing an earthquake.
The South East Asian island country also lies in the path of typhoons that sweep across the Pacific Ocean every year.
More than a dozen people were killed after tropical storm Bualoi and typhoon Ragasa hit the Philippines earlier last month. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated and a handful remain missing.
[BBC]
A plane has crashed on the outskirts of South Sudan’s capital, Juba, killing all 13 passengers and the pilot.
The country’s civil aviation authority said on Monday that initial reports indicate the aircraft may have crashed due to bad weather conditions that caused low visibility.
The Cessna 208 Caravan, which was operated by CityLink Aviation, lost communication while flying from Yei to Juba International Airport, it added in a statement.
Among those onboard were two Kenyan nationals, while the rest were South Sudanese.
A team has been sent to the site to gather information and support emergency services, the aviation authority said.
Videos of the crash site, located some 20km (12 miles) outside of Juba, showed the remains of the aircraft in flames.
Gunmen have raided an orphanage and kidnapped at least 23 children, authorities in Nigeria report.
The gang took the children late on Sunday from an unregistered facility called the Dahallukitab Group of Schools, located in an “isolated area” in Kogi State’s capital, Lokoja, Kogi Information Commissioner Kingsley Fanwo said in a statement on Monday.
Mass kidnappings have become a common way for gangs and armed groups to make quick money in Africa’s most populous country, especially in rural areas with little government presence.
Fanwo said the “prompt and coordinated response” of security agencies led to the rescue of 15 children but eight are still missing.
The wife of the proprietor of the orphanage was also abducted, according to the statement.
“Intensive operations are ongoing to secure the safe return of the remaining eight victims and apprehend the perpetrators,” the official said.
[Aljazeera]
President Donald Trump cancelled a planned trip by US officials to Pakistan for talks on the Iran war on Saturday, shortly after Tehran’s delegation had left Islamabad.
The US president said special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner would be wasting “too much time”, adding that if Iran wanted to talk “all they have to do is call”.
Earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi held talks with mediator Pakistan, saying afterwards he had shared Iran’s position on ending the war but was yet to see whether the US was “truly serious about diplomacy”.
Diplomatic efforts have stalled despite Trump’s extension of a ceasefire that had been due to expire on 22 April to allow talks to continue.
Both sides have been locked in a standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran restricting passage through the key shipping route in the wake of the US and Israel commencing strikes in February, as well as over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
The US has since increased its naval presence in the strait – through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes – to block Iranian oil exports.
The White House had said the Iranians “want to talk” when the trip was announced on Friday, but Iran said there were no plans for a direct meeting.
Trump said the ceasefire would hold on Saturday despite hopes of another round of face-to-face talks fading.
[BBC]
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