World News
Explosion in a mine in Turkey: 28 dead, dozens of workers trapped underground
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Sylvie Claire / October 15, 2022
Rescuers are trying to save dozens of workers still trapped underground after an explosion in a coal mine that killed at least 28 people and injured 28 others in northwestern Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit.
Our wish is that the loss of life will not be higher and that our miners can be saved,” Erdogan said in a tweet on Friday evening.
The explosion occurred at 6:15 p.m. local time on Friday in a mine in the Black Sea town of Amasra, killing 28 people, according to a new report by Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca on Twitter, who said 11 people who had been pulled out of the mine were being treated in hospital.
Rescue teams were working to try to save several dozen workers trapped in galleries located 300 and 350 meters below sea level.
According to Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, 49 of the 110 miners were trapped underground at the time of the explosion.
“We are really in front of a sad picture”, described Mr. Soylu who went urgently to the scene of the tragedy with the Turkish Minister of Energy, Fatih Donmez.
According to the first observations, it is a firedamp,” explained Donmez.
Afad, Turkey’s state disaster management agency, had initially reported on Twitter that a faulty transformer was the cause of the explosion, before retracting and explaining that methane gas had ignited for “unknown reasons ».
In images broadcast by the Turkish media from the mine entrance, family members of the trapped miners could be seen, many in tears, while rescue workers provided oxygen to the workers who had emerged from the mine and transported them to the nearest hospitals.
“I don’t know what happened,” a miner who was able to get out of the tunnels unharmed on his own told Anadolu news agency. “There was a sudden pressure and I couldn’t see anything.”
As the explosion occurred shortly before sunset, rescue operations were slowed by darkness.
Nearly half of the workers have been evacuated. Most of them are fine, but there are also some seriously injured,” the mayor of Amasra, Recai Cakir, told the private Turkish channel NTV.
According to the local governor, a team of more than 70 people managed to reach a point in the well located at a depth of about 250 meters. It is not known if the rescuers can get any closer to the trapped workers.
An accident investigation has been opened by the local prosecutor’s office.
Workplace accidents are frequent in Turkey, where the strong economic development of the past decade has often been at the expense of safety rules, particularly in construction and mining.
The country became acutely aware of this in 2014 when 301 miners were killed in a coal mine in Soma, in the west of the country, after an explosion and fire caused the collapse of a shaft.
Sentences of up to 22 years and six months in prison were handed down by the Turkish judiciary against five mine officials, found guilty of negligence.
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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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