World News
Crowd movement in a stadium: new death toll of 174
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Sylvie Claire / October 2, 2022
It is one of the worst tragedies ever occurred in a stadium that mourns Indonesia this Sunday. According to local authorities, the death toll is 174.
The death toll from Saturday night‘s mobbing after a soccer match in Indonesia has risen from 129 to 174, local authorities said Sunday.
The mob occurred after thousands of fans invaded a soccer field and were sprayed with tear gas.
The tragedy, which took place in the city of Malang, east of the island of Java, has also injured some 180 people in this archipelago of Southeast Asia where rivalries between fans often turn to disaster.
Supporters of Arema FC team entered the field of Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang city after their team lost 3-2 to Persebaya Surabaya. It was the first time in more than 20 years that Arema FC lost to their arch-rivals.
Police, who described the incident as “rioting,” tried to persuade fans to return to the stands and fired tear gas after two police officers were killed. Many victims were fatally trampled.
Survivors described panicked spectators trapped by the crowd when police fired tear gas.
Footage captured inside the stadium shows a huge amount of tear gas and people clutching at barriers, trying to escape. Others were carrying injured spectators, making their way through the chaos.
“Police officers sprayed tear gas, and people immediately rushed out pushing each other and it caused a lot of casualties,” Doni, a 43-year-old spectator, who did not want to give his last name, told AFP.
There was nothing, no riots. I don’t know what happened, they suddenly sent tear gas,” he said. “What shocked me is that they did not think about women and children?
Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Sunday ordered “a full assessment of the soccer matches and security procedures” after the incident.
He asked the National Football Association to suspend all matches until “security improvements” are made.
“I deeply regret this tragedy and hope that this football-related tragedy will be the last in our step,” he said in a televised speech.
A hospital director told a local television station that one of the victims was only five years old.
The stadium held 42,000 people and was full, according to authorities. Some 3,000 of them invaded the field in anger after the game.
A desolate sight in front of the stadium testified Sunday morning of the previous day’s unrest: burned vehicles, including a police truck, littered the streets. The police said that 13 vehicles were burned.
The Indonesian government apologized for the incident.
“We are sorry for this incident (…) It is an unfortunate incident that “hurts” our soccer at a time when fans can attend a match in a stadium” after a long interruption during the Covid-19 pandemic, said the Indonesian Minister of Sports and Youth Zainudin Amali to the channel Kompas.
The Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI) also apologized and suspended all matches scheduled for this week.
“We are sorry and apologize to the families of the victims and to all parties for this incident,” said PSSI president Mochamad Iriawan.
Fan violence is a problem in Indonesia, where long-standing rivalries have turned into deadly clashes.
Some matches — the most important being the derby between Persija Jakarta and Persib Bandung — are so tense that players from the top teams have to go there under heavy protection.
Fans of Persebaya Surabaya had not been allowed to buy tickets for the match for fear of incidents.
The head of the Asian Football Confederation, expressed his regret at the loss of life.
“I am deeply shocked and saddened to hear such tragic news from Indonesia, a country where soccer is loved,” said Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa in a statement.
Indonesia is scheduled to host next year’s U-20 World Cup in several stadiums across the country, but Malang is not one of them.
In 1989, a crowd at Hillsborough Stadium in Britain killed 97 Liverpool fans and in 2012, the Port Said Stadium in Egypt suffered another tragedy with 74 deaths.
In 1964, 320 people died and more than a thousand were injured in a crowd movement at the National Stadium in Lima during a qualifying match between Peru and Argentina.
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Sylvie Claire / September 23, 2023
At least 25 people, including two children, died when a bus crashed into a ravine in the Andean region of Huancavelica, in southern Peru, the authorities announced in a revised death toll on Monday evening.
An initial police report put the death toll at 20, with a further 35 injured. A statement from the Ministry of Health later that morning put the death toll at 24. Finally, at the end of the day on Monday, the death toll stood at “25 dead and 34 wounded”, according to the Ministry of Defense.
The accident occurred on Sunday night, when the bus carrying over 50 passengers from Huanta in Ayacucho to Huancayo in the Junin region ran off the road.
Images show the damaged bus lying on its side near a river below the ravine, debris and personal belongings strewn all around.
Peruvian President Dina Boluarte expressed her “condolences to the families” from New York, where she will be attending the 78th General Assembly of the United Nations. The Peruvian Episcopal Conference, for its part, urged the government to “carry out a serious investigation” to prevent such accidents from happening again.
On August 13, another accident in the same region left 13 people dead and 5 seriously injured.
Road accidents are frequent in Peru, mainly due to speeding and poor road maintenance, especially in mountainous areas.
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Sylvie Claire / September 17, 2023
In Japan, the number of people aged 100 has reached a record level: the world’s third-largest economy now has 92,139 people aged 100 or over. That’s 1,613 more than a year ago, reported the Ministry of Health in Tokyo on Friday.
For over half a century, the number of people aged 100 has been rising every year. Due to a low birth rate and almost non-existent immigration, no other industrial state is aging as fast as this East Asian country.
Japan’s population is also shrinking at a record pace. Last year, the number of Japanese fell by 801,000, the biggest drop since comparable data have been recorded. There are now 122.4 million.
When the Japanese Ministry of Health began compiling statistics in 1963, there were 153 centenarians. Twenty-five years later, there were over 10,000. According to the latest figures, around 88% of centenarians are women. Japan has the longest life expectancy in the world. Life expectancy for women is around 87 years, and 81 for men.
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Steph Deschamps / September 17, 2023
The death toll from the earthquake in Morocco has risen to 2,946, the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior announced on Wednesday evening. A further 5,674 people were injured.
The previous death toll was 2,901. The death toll is expected to rise further. Hopes of finding survivors are now very slim. Rescue workers have not yet been able to reach all the villages affected in the Atlas Mountains.
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the country on Friday night. The epicenter was located some 80 kilometers southwest of Marrakech. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 300,000 people in and around Marrakech were affected by the disaster.
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