Stunned Russians mourned the victims of the country's latest deadly disaster yesterday amid anger that nearly all the 118 captives who died in a hostage crisis at a Moscow theater were killed by the gas spread through the building before special forces stormed in.
Top Moscow doctors said Sunday that the 116 who died after the Russian raid were victims of the gas, a compound that remained secret even to medical workers fighting to save people weakened after 58 hours in the thrall of their Chechen rebel captors.
Another 405 of the freed captives remained hospitalized yesterday, including nine children, while 239 have been released, the Moscow Health Department said.
PHOTO: AFP
President Vladimir Putin declared yesterday an official day of mourning amid rising criticism over the number of hostages killed in the operation and the way they died. Russian authorities have said 50 hostage-takers were killed.
To many Russians, it seemed shortly after the pre-dawn raid that deaths among the hostages were minimal: Officials boasted of a successful operation but said it was too early to tell how many were killed, and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov later said 30 might have died.
But that afternoon, authorities announced that 67 hostages were killed, and by evening the number had risen above 90, as desperate relatives waited outside hospitals for word about their family members who had been held. On Sunday, authorities said the toll was 118.
The special forces who spread the gas before storming into the theater did not tell city health authorities exactly what the substance was, chief Moscow doctor Andrei Seltsovsky told a news conference Sunday.
That apparently left doctors and emergency workers struggling in confusion to minister to the more than 750 hostages who were delivered to city hospitals, mostly unconscious.
Seltsovsky said medical personnel were familiar with the general category of the gas, which causes people to lose consciousness and can be used to anesthetize surgical patients, but had not been told its name.
The gas can paralyze breathing, cardiac and liver function and blood circulation, the doctors said. The effects were worsened by the extreme conditions in which the hostages had been confined -- next to no movement, lack of water, food and sleep, severe psychological stress -- and by chronic medical problems some suffered.
"In standard situations, the compound that was used on people does not act as aggressively as it turned out to [in this case]," Seltsovsky said.
In addition to the 116 who died of the effects of the gas, authorities said one woman was shot and killed in the early hours of the crisis and a man was killed by a gunshot to the head early Saturday. Shortly after the raid, officials had said they were provoked into starting the operation to free the hostages when the rebels killed two people.
The attackers burst into the theater Wednesday night during a performance of the popular musical Nord-Ost, some with explosives strapped to their bodies. They included 18 women.
They mined the theater and threatened to blow it up unless Putin withdrew Russian troops from Chechnya.
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
REMINDER: Of the 6.78 million doses of flu vaccine Taiwan purchased for this flu season, about 200,000 are still available, an official said, following Big S’ death As news broke of the death of Taiwanese actress and singer Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), also known as Big S (大S), from severe flu complications, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and doctors yesterday urged people at high risk to get vaccinated and be alert to signs of severe illness. Hsu’s family yesterday confirmed that the actress died on a family holiday in Japan due to pneumonia during the Lunar New Year holiday. CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) told an impromptu news conference that hospital visits for flu-like illnesses from Jan. 19 to Jan. 25 reached 162,352 — the highest
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
COMBINING FORCES: The 66th Marine Brigade would support the 202nd Military Police Command in its defense of Taipei against ‘decapitation strikes,’ a source said The Marine Corps has deployed more than 100 soldiers and officers of the 66th Marine Brigade to Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) as part of an effort to bolster defenses around the capital, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Two weeks ago, a military source said that the Ministry of National Defense ordered the Marine Corps to increase soldier deployments in the Taipei area. The 66th Marine Brigade has been tasked with protecting key areas in Taipei, with the 202nd Military Police Command also continuing to defend the capital. That came after a 2017 decision by the ministry to station