Firefighters yesterday brought under control a massive fire in central Spain that killed 11 volunteer firemen and destroyed vast tracts of pine forest, officials said.
Investigators meanwhile focused their probe on five youths from Madrid accused of sparking the fire Saturday by lighting a barbecue despite being warned of the risk.
The youths were being questioned by local police in a location that was being kept secret amid fears that the youths might be subjected to reprisals by the local population, police said.
PHOTO: AP
The blaze, fuelled by strong winds, has swept through the drought-stricken province of Guadalajara, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people from several villages and a resort.
Water-bombing planes were back in action yesterday in the stricken areas, but firefighters had finally managed to bring the blaze under control, an environment ministry official in the town of Mazarete told reporters.
Risky barbecue
A municipal employee was quoted in Spanish newspapers yesterday as having warned the youths not to light their barbecue in the pine forest.
"I warned them, I told them it was risky, but they didn't listen to me," said Emilio Moreno.
But the youths told him not to worry, that they knew what they were doing, and then went ahead and lit the barbecue, he said.
In the morgue in Guadalajara, the main town of the region of the same name, pathologists had by late Monday identified just two of the 11 bodies removed by helicopter from the spot where the firefighters had become trapped by the fire and died on Sunday.
The only firefighter from the group who survived, Jesus Abad, 45, was suffering from first-degree burns to the face and arms but could be released from hospital by the end of the week, hospital sources said.
Tinderbox conditions
The inferno, which has consumed between up to 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of very dry pine forest, is the deadliest such blaze in Spain in more than 10 years.
Spain is in the middle of its worst drought in 60 years, with temperatures regularly hitting 40?C (104?F).
Tinderbox conditions in the underbrush and forests have ratcheted up the risk of fires.
Some 50,000 hectares of forest have gone up in flames in Spain this year through the end of June, compared to around 124,000 hectares during the whole of last year, according to forestry officials.
Since the beginning of this month, with the heat and drought getting ever worse, at least another 10,000 hectares of woodland have burned to the ground around the country.
Some 100 firefighters have lost their lives battling forest fires in the last 15 years, Spanish media reported.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the