Heavy rains, landslides kill at least 37 in Guatemala

killed at least 37 people

Torrential rains and landslides in Guatemala have killed at least 37 people, and could claim as many as 100 lives, the country's emergency services agency said Sunday. In addition, it reported 30 people were injured and 23 were missing after heavy weekend rains caused hillsides to collapse. President Alvaro Colom declared a national emergency Saturday. He told reporters that authorities closed parts of the Inter-American Highway after rains washed out entire sections of the road and caused at least two accidents over the weekend. The first, near kilometer marker 82, claimed 12 lives when a bus was buried, according to Colom's office. 

Landslides also fell at kilometer marker 171, knocking a number of vehicles and a bus off the road. When nearby residents rushed to the scene to help, a second mudslide crashed down on the exact same spot, said the emergency agency. Throughout the country, authorities have recovered 37 bodies but more are expected, officials have said. Thousands of homes, in addition to infrastructure and fields of crops, also were damaged by the heavy rains.  Nearly 42,000 people have been affected and more than 10,000 have been evacuated from the area, said emergency spokesman David De Leon Villeda. Nearly 7,000 people are housed in shelters. The torrential downpours come several months after more than 150 people died when Tropical Storm Agatha hit Guatemala in May.

Destruction from that storm was widespread throughout the nation, with mudslides destroying homes and buildings and burying some victims. At least nine rivers had dramatically higher levels and 13 bridges collapsed, Guatemala's emergency services agency said. The May downpours created a sinkhole the size of a street intersection in northern Guatemala City. Residents told CNN that a three-story building and a house fell into the hole.

Pakistan 'suicide bomber' targets police station

killed at least 14 people

A suspected suicide car bombing in north-west Pakistan has killed at least 14 people, police say. The explosion took place at a police station in the town of Lakki Marwat in the Khyber region south of Peshawar. There are reports that police officers are among the casualties. Nearly 100 people were killed in suicide bomb attacks on Shia Muslim processions in the cities of Lahore and Quetta last week. The attacks ended a lull in violence during severe floods.  A police official in Lakki Marwat said a car bomb was driven into the police station. "A suicide attacker drove his bomb-laden vehicle into the back of the police post," Gul Wali Khan told the AFP news agency.

Rescue workers and police officials are digging through the rubble left by the bombing, another officer told the Associated Press. Pakistan's security forces have been fighting Taliban and al-Qaeda militants based in the north-west of the country. Members of the Afghan Taliban are also based in the region.

Nine dead in New Zealand skydive plane crash

light aircraft crash in New Zealand

Nine people, including four foreigners, have been killed in a light aircraft crash in New Zealand, say reports. The plane, owned by a skydiving company, burst into flames shortly after taking off at the tourist spot of Fox Glacier on the South Island. The dead tourists were from England, Ireland, Australia and Germany, said police. The pilot and the other four passengers were all local. None of the passengers has yet been identified.

The plane was reported to be a Fletcher fixed-wing aircraft, commonly used in the area. Officials said it crashed shortly after leaving the Fox Glacier airstrip at about 1330 local time (0130GMT). An eyewitness told the New Zealand Herald: "It was like a fireball and then there was big puffs of smoke going up. [The plane] was engulfed in flames immediately."

Plane crashes outside Dubai, 2 killed

UPS Flight 6 from Dubai

A plane belonging to a US-based cargo company crashed in the outskirts of Dubai on Friday evening, killing two crewmembers, officials said. The United Arab Emirates' civil aviation authority said the bodies of the two crewmembers on board UPS aircraft were recovered from the wreckage of the plane. The crash occurred in an unpopulated area between the Emirates Road and Al Ain highway.

The UPS, however, has not confirmed any casualties. It merely said: "UPS Flight 6 from Dubai, to Cologne, DE, a 747-400 with two crewmembers on board crashed on takeoff." The witnesses said they heard loud explosion as the plane caught fire following the crash and huge smoke filled the sky. They said the plane narrowly missed a nearby building. Police cordoned off the area and ambulances were rushed to the scene, they said. Local officials, however, said that the accident happened in an uninhabited area and rescue operations were on. A UPS cargo plane statement said: "This incident is very unfortunate and we will do everything we can to find the cause. Our thoughts go out to the crewmembers involved in the incident and their families."

In a statement, the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) said all measures had been taken to extinguish the fire and that bodies of two pilots were found at the scene of the crash.  "The concerned authorities are conducting necessary investigations to identify the cause of the crash," it said.  In October 2009, a Sudanese Boeing 707 cargo plane crashed in the desert outside Dubai, killing six crewmembers.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/plane-crashes-outside-dubai-2-killed-49425?cp

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/plane-crashes-outside-dubai-2-killed-49425?cp

53 killed, 197 wounded in Pakistan suicide bombing: Police

At least 53 people were killed

At least 53 people were killed and 197 have been wounded on Friday in a suicide bombing targeting a Shiite Muslim rally in the southwest Pakistan city of Quetta, police said.   "According to the reports collected from hospitals, 53 people have been killed and 197 have been injured," Sardar Khan, chief of Quetta's police control room said over telephone. The blast occurred around 3 pm when an estimated 2000 people gathered in Quetta's Meezan Chowk to mark solidarity with the Palestinian people on Al-Quds Day. The rally was organized by the Shia Imamia Students Organization. Every year, on the last Friday of the month of Ramadan, rallies take place across Pakistan, to support the Palestinian demand for a homeland. After the blast, the mourners turned violent and armed people resorted to aerial firing which continued for some two hours. Television footage showed smoke billowing into the air on a chaotic street with people fleeing and others lying prone next to motorcycles, taking cover from gunfire. The injured were rushed to civil and police hospitals, Quetta.

The attack came two days after triple suicide bombings, targeting a Shia procession, killed 39 people and wounded more than 200 others in Lahore. The Shia community was observing the death anniversary of Hazrat Ali, Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law. According to media reports, Punjab-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which claimed responsibility of the Lahore attack also accepted that they carried out the Quetta blast. A day earlier, Interior Minister Rehman Malik warned of possible suicide attacks on religio us gatherings and called Shia Muslims to hold their religious ceremonies indoors. The police chief of Baluchistan, Malik Iqbal told media that they warned organizers of the ceremony to stick inside a cordoned off area after intelligence officials received reports about a possible terror attack.

"It was a suicide attack," Iqbal said. Shia leader Allama Abbas Kumaili appealed the people to stay calm, "We understand that these are attempts to bring Sunni and Shia sects against each other," he told a Pakistani TV channel. Kumaili said the attacks against minority sects were a result of government failure. "Our government concentrates all its efforts to secure VIPs. Common men are not their priority," he said. The Quetta blast was one of three attacks reported in Pakistan on the final Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan. Earlier on Friday, at least person one person was killed and four wounded when a suicide bomber could not reach his intended target and his strapped explosives went off just outside a mosque of the Ahmadi sect.

"A suicide bomber was trying to enter the Ahmadis worship place, but he was intercepted by the guards outside and blew himself up," Mardan police chief said. Ahmadi community was constitutionally declared non-Muslims by Pakistan in 1973. In the northwest city of Peshawar, which has often been targeted by militants, one police official was killed and three injured when a bomb exploded near their patrol vehicle. The policemen were checking vehicles on Peshawar's ring road when the bomb was detonated by remote control, said senior police official Mohammad Karim Khan. 

Powerful 7.4 quake hits New Zealand's South Island

powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake

A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake has rocked much of New Zealand's South Island. However, no immediate tsunami alert has been issued and no injuries have been reported. The quake, which hit 30 kilometres west of the southern city of Christchurch, shook a wide area with initial radio reports saying items were tossed from store shelves and roof tiles cracked by the strong temblor.

Geological agency GNS Science says the earthquake was 33 kilometers below the earth's surface. New Zealand's National Radio reports the temblor hit at 4:35 a.m. shaking thousands of residents awake. There are no immediate reports of serious damage.

Multiple blasts in Lahore, firing in Karachi; 35 killed

Bomb blast killed at more than 40 people

At least 35 people were killed and over 180 injured on Wednesday when three suicide bombers blew themselves up in back-to-back attacks targetting Shia march in Lahore, even as gunmen opened fire at a procession in Pakistan's commercial capital Karachi wounding seven. The first blast, caused by a low intensity explosive device, went off near the Karbala Gamay Shah Imambargah or prayer ground after 6.45 pm where thousands of Shia Muslims had gathered to observe the Yaum-e-Ali. The other suicide bombers struck the nearby Bhatti Chowk area at about 7.15 pm. Both sites are located close to the Data Darbar shrine that was recently targeted by suicide attackers. Geo News channel reported that the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Almi had claimed responsibility for the blasts.

Lahore's District Coordination Officer Sajjad Ahmad Sajjad Bhutta confirmed that 35 people were killed in the blasts, Dunya News reported. A head of one of the suicide bombers has been recovered, police officials said. Officials at the Mayo, Services and Gangaram hospitals told media they had received 17 bodies, including one minor girl and a policeman. Over 180 injured people were taken to the three hospitals. The Mayo Hospital alone received over 100 injured people. At least 35 of the injured, including six policemen, were in a critical condition, officials of the state-run Rescue 1122 service said. Officials said they feared the death toll could rise further.

Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said suicide bombers were responsible for two of the blasts. Witnesses too said they had seen the bodies of the suicide attackers. The blasts triggered a stampede among members of the Shia procession that injured several persons. Angry members of the procession attacked policemen and the Lower Mall police station, saying law enforcement agencies had failed to provide adequate protection to the gathering. A mob surrounded the Lower Mall police station and pelted stones at it. The crowd also set part of the police station and several vehicles and motorcycles on fire. Police fired teargas but were unable to disperse the mob.

Sanaullah said the paramilitary Pakistan Rangers had been called in to control the situation. He said the government would rope in clerics of all religious sects to tackle the fallout of the blasts. The procession was making its way from the old quarters of Lahore to Karbala Gamay Shah to mark Imam Ali's death anniversary, one of Shia Islam's most respected holy men, when the blasts occurred. In Karachi, at least seven people were injured when gunmen opened fire on a Shia procession taken out in a crowded market place. Police and the paramilitary rangers had surrounded the building from where some of the gunmen opened and a police official said three persons had been arrested.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/multiple-blasts-in-lahore-firing-in-karachi-35-killed-48847?cp

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/multiple-blasts-in-lahore-firing-in-karachi-35-killed-48847?cp