World News
Railway disaster in Greece: the Prime Minister asks for forgiveness to the families of the victims
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Sylvie Claire / March 6, 2023
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis asked for forgiveness from the families of the victims in a solemn address on Sunday after the train disaster that killed 57 people and sparked immense anger in Greece.
As Prime Minister, I owe it to everyone, but especially to the relatives of the victims, (to ask for) forgiveness,” he wrote in a message addressed to Greeks and published on his Facebook account. “In the Greece of 2023, it is not possible that two trains run in opposite directions on the same line and nobody notices ».
We cannot, will not and must not hide behind the human error” attributed to the stationmaster, insisted the conservative leader.
This address to the country comes as on Sunday morning in Thessaloniki, the country’s second largest city where many of the victims lived, Molotov cocktails were again thrown at a platoon of riot police, the Greek agency ANA reported.
The station chief of Larissa, the city closest to the scene of the accident between a train connecting Athens to Thessaloniki, in the north, and a convoy of goods, has admitted his responsibility for the disaster.
Presented by the media as inexperienced and in office for a short time, this 59-year-old man is to be heard by the courts on Sunday with a view to a possible charge of “manslaughter by negligence ».
However, the dilapidated rail network, various problems in the signaling system and safety on the railroads were also pointed out, while union representatives had sounded the alarm in recent weeks about the shortcomings of the rail network and the lack of personnel.
Angry Greeks are planning to demonstrate their discontent once again on Sunday in the middle of the day in front of the Parliament, in the center of Athens.
In Athens and Thessaloniki, these rallies have led to clashes between police and demonstrators in recent days.
On Friday, angry protesters had chanted “murderers” in front of the headquarters of the Hellenic Train company in the capital, and inscribed this word in red letters on the front of the building.
The Prime Minister will attend a morning service in the Orthodox Cathedral of Athens, while all churches in the country have planned to pay tribute to the victims of what has been described by the authorities as “a national tragedy ».
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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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