Investigators searched yesterday for the cause of a huge explosion at a warlord's secret underground arms cache in Afghanistan as officials said the death toll had risen to 29, as villagers searched for more survivors and buried their dead.
More than 70 others were injured by the blast on Monday morning which wiped out a whole neighborhood in Bachgah, a small village in Baghlan province some 180km north of the capital Kabul.
President Hamid Karzai said he was saddened by the incident, one of the deadliest since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, and ordered an investigation.
But the local commander defended himself yesterday, saying a stock of explosives destined for a road project had unexpectedly ignited, and that he was in the process of handing over his last weapons to the government.
The blast flattened half a dozen homes and damaged a mosque.
Residents were still picking body parts from the debris yesterday and searching for other bodies as stony-faced relatives buried the body of a two-year-old girl called Wahida.
Two small feet with red-painted nails protruded from a shroud of raw cotton as several men lowered her into the damp earth next to 23 other fresh graves, each marked with a stone.
Wahida's father, who was among the dozens injured in the explosion, was being treated at the province's only hospital.
Some residents seethed against warlord Jalal Bashgah, who was in a nearby town at the time of the blast, and arrived in the village yesterday morning to inspect the aftermath.
"Why did he have to keep explosives and ammunition in his house, which was so close to everyone else?" said one man. "He is responsible for a very bad thing."
Bashgah's immediate family also lived elsewhere, but the family of his two brothers living in his compound were mostly killed.
Bashgah said there were 85kg of explosives and three crates of gunpowder in the basement for use improving the rough road along the valley.
In other developments yesterday, the US military installed a new commander of its forces in the country.
Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry took charge from outgoing fellow three-star David Barno at a ceremony at the US military headquarters in Kabul.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
RSS