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KOLKATA, India (AFP) — Lightning strikes killed 27 people and four passengers on a flight were hospitalized after severe turbulence during monsoon storms in eastern India, officials said Tuesday. Lightning strikes during the June-September annual monsoon are fairly common in India. Officials said West Bengal was hit by thunderstorms late Monday, with lightning strikes in parts of the state. “Many of the 27 killed on Monday evening… in the state were farmers and working in […]
HANOI, Vietnam (AFP) — Vietnam, once a model for its successful handling of the pandemic, has started asking for public donations to buy vaccines as it struggles to contain a new coronavirus wave. The Southeast Asian country has vaccinated only about one percent of its population of nearly 100 million, and authorities have become increasingly alarmed by a recent spike in cases. Since last week, mobile phone users have received up to three text messages […]
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AFP) — The CoronaVac vaccine reduces coronavirus mortality by 97 percent, according to early results of the immunization campaign in Uruguay, which relies heavily on the Chinese jab. In people who had received two doses, it reduced infection with the coronavirus by 57 percent and intensive care admissions by 95 percent, said a report by the health ministry of the South American nation. Compared to other vaccines in use, there have been few […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China has approved the emergency use of a Covid-19 vaccine for those as young as three, the drugmaker confirmed Tuesday, making it the first country to offer jabs to young children. Since the coronavirus first emerged in central China, Beijing has mostly managed to bring the country’s outbreak under control, and has administered over 777 million vaccine doses after a sluggish start. A spokesperson for Sinovac told AFP its vaccine had […]
by Shaun TANDON WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States on Tuesday eased its warnings against travel to a number of major nations including Olympics host Japan, raising hopes that widespread vaccinations will bring a return to normal travel. Close US allies and neighbors including Canada, Mexico, France and Germany also received upgrades, with the State Department asking Americans to reconsider travel but ending its blanket advice not to go at all. South Korea […]
MUMBAI, India (AFP) — At least 15 people have died after a blaze swept through a sanitizer factory in the western Indian city of Pune on Monday, police said. “We have recovered 15 bodies so far,” an officer in Pune’s rural police control room, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP. “The fire broke out around 4:15 pm at a sanitizer factory, we still don’t know what sparked the fire.” The officer could not […]
DAHARKI, Pakistan (AFP) — At least 40 people were killed and dozens injured Monday when a packed Pakistani inter-city train ploughed into another express that had derailed just minutes earlier, officials said. Several people were still trapped in the mangled wreckage near Daharki, in a remote part of rural Sindh province, which took rescue workers with specialist equipment hours to reach. The double accident happened around 3.30am (2230 GMT) when most of the 1,200 passengers […]
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AFP) — Army relief workers in aluminium dinghies handed out rice and other food to residents in submerged parts of the Sri Lankan capital as the death toll from monsoon floods across the country rose to 17 Monday. The monsoon hits the South Asian country twice a year, bringing vital rain for irrigation and hydro-power generation, but it can be deadly and destructive. At least 17 people have died since Friday, after […]
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar (AFP) — The trial of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi will begin next week, her lawyer told AFP Monday, with the Nobel laureate facing an eclectic raft of charges, from possessing unlicensed walkie-talkies to flouting coronavirus restrictions during last year’s election campaign. Myanmar has been in uproar since Suu Kyi was ousted in a February 1 coup, with near-daily protests and a nationwide civil disobedience movement. Almost 850 people have been […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India’s capital New Delhi and financial hub Mumbai began a gradual easing of restrictions on Monday as coronavirus infections in the country fell to a two-month low. Hospitals in the megacities — which have a combined population of some 40 million — were overwhelmed by a deadly Covid-19 wave in April and May, with severe shortages of oxygen and other critical medicines. The huge spike saw India report record-breaking numbers […]
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AFP) — Monsoon rains triggered floods and mudslides in Sri Lanka killing at least 16 people and leaving more than a quarter of a million homeless, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said Sunday. Heavy downpours in 10 out of the country’s 25 districts since Friday buried most of the victims alive, the DMC said. In the central Kegalle district, a pet dog pointed rescuers to a location where four members of the […]
KARACHI, Pakistan (AFP) — At least 30 people were killed and dozens injured Monday in a train crash in southern Pakistan, police said. A spokesperson for Pakistan Railways told AFP a train heading from Karachi to Sargodha, derailed on to a track carrying service from Rawalpindi in the opposite direction. “Several people have been killed and many others trapped inside,” the official said. Umar Tufail, a senior police officer at Daharki confirmed the death toll […]
