World News
Bridge collapse in India: death toll rises to over 132
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Eva Deschamps / October 31, 2022
At least 132 people died in India when a colonial-era pedestrian bridge over a river in the western state of Gujarat collapsed Sunday night, local police said Monday.
Authorities estimated that 500 people, including women and children, were celebrating a religious festival on and around the bridge when the cables supporting it snapped shortly after dark. For now, the death toll from the accident is at least 132, Rajkot district inspector general Ashok Kumar Yadav said Monday morning.
“So far, 132 people have died in the bridge collapse. We have not yet received the list of the deceased,” Yadav told AFP.
According to district administration sources, most of the dead are women and children.
The state government has appointed a team of five investigators to determine the cause of the bridge collapse, Yadav added.
A complaint against X for involuntary manslaughter has been filed. At least 15 people are hospitalized.
Morbi police chief P. Dekavadiya told AFP that more than 130 people had been rescued.
The bridge over the Machchhu River, located in Morbi, about 200 kilometers west of Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s main city, dated from the British colonial era and had just reopened to the public after months of work.
“The bridge collapsed before my eyes,” said an unnamed witness, after helping to rescue victims of the accident all night.
A woman showed me a picture of her daughter and asked me if I had saved her, it was upsetting,” he told local media, “I couldn’t tell her that her daughter was dead.” “The bridge was full of people,” said Mr. Supran, another resident, “the cables gave out, the bridge collapsed in a split second. People, first falling on top of each other, fell into the river.” “We helped the people who were able to swim to the shore,” said another witness, Ranjanbhai Patel, “but we could not save most of those who fell into the river. »
The 233-meter long suspension bridge was built in 1880 with materials imported from England, according to local media. According to NDTV, it was reopened to the public on Wednesday, after seven months of work, without a safety certificate being issued by the authorities. A rescue operation was launched, involving divers, boats and dozens of soldiers. Authorities planned to cut off the river’s water supply from the nearby check dam and use pumps to dry the river to speed up search operations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was in his native Gujarat, called for “urgent mobilization of rescue teams” and the provision of aid to all victims, his office said on Twitter. Accidents involving old and poorly maintained infrastructure are common in India, especially bridges. In 2016, the failure of a footbridge over a busy street in the eastern city of Kolkata killed at least 26 people.
In 2011, at least 32 people died when a bridge over which a crowd was celebrating a festival collapsed in northeast India, about 30 kilometers from the city of Darjeeling. Less than a week later, about 30 people died when a bridge over a river in the northeastern state of Aruchnal Pradesh broke down. In 2006, at least 34 people were killed when a 150-year-old bridge collapsed on a passenger train at a station in the eastern state of Bihar.
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Sylvie Claire / July 21, 2024
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on the phone on Friday, with the former US president claiming to have promised the Ukrainian president to “end the war” between Ukraine and Russia should he return to the White House. “As your next president of the United States, I will bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives,” said the Republican presidential candidate.
Donald Trump frequently claims that he would be able to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine very quickly on his return to power, but never provides details of how he would achieve this. Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the phone call, during which he congratulated the billionaire on his official nomination the previous day as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.
Donald Trump’s frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as his criticism of other Nato countries, is causing concern among Ukraine’s Western allies. In February, he threatened that, if he returned to the White House, he would no longer guarantee the protection of Atlantic Alliance countries against Russia if they did not pay their share, even claiming that he would “encourage” Moscow to attack them. The former American president also used his power over the Republicans to block a $61 billion military aid package for Kiev for months in Congress, which was finally adopted at the end of April.
In his posting on X on Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky said he had “agreed with President Trump to discuss, in a face-to-face meeting, the steps to be taken towards a just and lasting peace” in Ukraine.
World News
Former Ukrainian far-right MP murdered in Lviv: “All leads are being investigated, including Russia”
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Steph Deschamps / July 21, 2024
In a message on Telegram, the Ukrainian National Police said she had succumbed to her injuries in hospital after being the target of an assassination attempt.
“I always say that no place is safe in Ukraine,” lamented Lviv mayor Andriï Sadovy, denouncing a ‘heinous murder’ and offering his condolences to the victim’s relatives.
According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office, the attack took place on Friday evening, at around 7.30pm, when an unidentified individual fired at Irina Farion, seriously wounding her in the head. “All surveillance cameras are being checked, witnesses are being interviewed and several districts (of Lviv) are being examined. All leads are being investigated, including the one leading to Russia”, reacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on X on Saturday.
Interior Minister Igor Klimenko told a briefing in Lviv on Friday evening that the suspected killer could have been lurking around Irina Farion’s home for several days.
According to him, investigators are currently focusing on the possibility of a murder motivated by a “personal grudge” linked to the victim’s activities, but are not ruling out a “commissioned assassination” either.
The 60-year-old language teacher and linguist was a member of parliament for the nationalist Svoboda party between 2012 and 2014.
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Sylvie Claire / July 18, 2024
At least six people died in a shopping mall fire on Wednesday in Zigong, southwest China, and thirty others were rescued, China’s state broadcaster CCTV said. “Rescue teams are continuing their search,” the media outlet added.
Images broadcast by the channel and others shared on social networks show thick black smoke rising from a building overlooking a shopping street in this city 1,600 kilometers from the capital Beijing, in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The fire broke out in the early evening in a shopping mall at the foot of a 14-storey building, CCTV reported.
“At 8:20 pm, the fire was extinguished and 17 people were rescued. Others are still trapped, and rescue operations are continuing”, said the station in an initial report on the situation.
Fires and other fatal accidents are frequent in China, due to the sometimes lax application of safety standards. In January, at least 39 people perished in a store fire in central China. According to the authorities, the fire started in the basement of a store when workers “broke the rules” during construction work. At the time, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for lessons to be learned from the disaster to prevent further tragedies. The same month, a fire in a residential building claimed at least 15 lives.
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