The death toll from Australia’s bushfires yesterday rose to 33 after police found a body in a home completely destroyed by fire in New South Wales south coast.
The body has not yet been formally identified but it is believed to be of the 59-year-old male occupant, state police said in a statement.
Australian officials yesterday were working to extricate the bodies of three US firefighters from a plane that crashed in remote bushland on Thursday, as the area’s “active” bushfire status complicated an investigation into the accident.
Officials said it was still too early to speculate on the cause of the crash of the C-130 Hercules tanker plane, killing its entire crew, just after it dumped a large load of retardant on a huge wildfire in a national park.
“We are very much into the evidence gathering phase of the investigation,” Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) Chief Commissioner Greg Hood told reporters. “We will not be speculating.”
However, “we have nothing to suggest there was a systemic fault” when asked whether other aircraft in use were safe,” he added.
Coulson Aviation, the Canadian firm that owned the plane and employed its crew, yesterday said that all three were former US military members with extensive flight experience: captain Ian McBeth, 44; first officer Paul Clyde Hudson, 42; and flight engineer Rick DeMorgan Jr., 43.
Firefighters in Australia held a minute’s silence and flags on official buildings in New South Wales (NSW) state, where the plane crashed, were flown at half-mast as a mark of respect on yesterday.
“We will forever be indebted to the enormous contribution and indeed the ultimate sacrifice that’s been paid as a result of these extraordinary individuals doing a remarkable job,” NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said at a farewell near Sydney airport for 32 US firefighters who were returning home after weeks on duty on Australia.
ATSB investigators yesterday had to be escorted to the 1km-long crash site by firefighters and police were still in the process of securing the area, Hood said.
Little of the plane was intact and potential hazards included aviation fuel and unexploded pressurized canisters, he added.
Hood said the ATSB expected to retrieve the plane’s black box cockpit voice recorder, use a drone to 3D map the site, analyze both air traffic control and the plane’s data and review the weather at the time of the crash.
‘SACRIFICED’: Hu Weifeng became the sixth doctor to die from COVID-19 at Wuhan Central Hospital, where calls to raise the alarm over the virus were suppressed The death of a Chinese doctor at Wuhan’s “whistle-blower hospital” has prompted a wave of anger at hospital authorities for not protecting front-line health workers in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak. Hu Weifeng (胡衛鋒), 42, a urologist at Wuhan Central Hospital where the whistle-blower ophthalmologist Li Wenliang (李文亮) worked, died of the virus on Tuesday after a four-month battle. Hu is the sixth doctor from his hospital killed by the virus. Another doctor who spoke out, Ai Fen (艾芬), said that authorities told hospital staff not to wear protective gear so as not to cause panic and reprimanded her for “harming
‘LEAST WE CAN DO’: The gesture was made famous by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who was protesting police brutality that targeted minorities They are images that surprised and moved Americans: police officers taking a knee alongside protesters in the most widespread civil unrest to rock the US in decades — and in doing so embracing an anti-racism gesture denounced by US President Donald Trump. As Trump pushes for a crackdown on often-violent protests over the death of George Floyd, police officers from New York to Los Angeles to Houston, Texas, are making gestures of solidarity with demonstrators incensed at the latest case of an unarmed black man dying while in police custody. “I took off the helmet and laid the batons down. Where do
RALLYING A DEFENSE: Former envoys wrote an op-ed piece defending Anna Lindstedt, who was removed for attempting to free Swedish book publisher Gui Minhai in China Sweden’s former ambassador to Beijing goes on trial in Stockholm on Friday for allegedly overstepping her mandate by trying to negotiate the release of a Chinese-Swedish dissident held in China. Anna Lindstedt is accused of brokering an unauthorized meeting during her time as ambassador to free publisher Gui Minhai (桂民海). Lindstedt — a veteran envoy who had previously represented Sweden in both Vietnam and Mexico, and acted as Sweden’s chief negotiator at the 2015 climate summit in Paris — has denied the charges. Gui, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen known for publishing gossipy titles about Chinese political leaders out of a Hong Kong book
From boiled catfish soup to spicy fried frog, an eight-year-old in pyjamas and a chef’s hat is delighting Myanmar with her culinary prowess in a nation still being told to stay at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Moe Myint May Thu’s mother posted a video online at the end of April showing off her daughter’s skills as the youngster threw together some spicy fried prawns. With her wide, gap-toothed grin, the video has bounced across social media and brought stardom to the child along with an online moniker: “Little Chef.” She now sells dishes to order and is counting the dividends. “I just
RSS