Sun, Jul 24, 2016 page5

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  CHINA

  Floods kill at least 87

  Heavy rain in China has killed at least 87 people and forced 16 million from their homes, state media reported yesterday. Seventy-two people had been reported killed and 78 missing in the northern province of Hebei after rain triggered floods and landslides, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Department of Civil Affairs. Nearly 50,000 homes had collapsed and about 8.6 million people have been affected, it said. In the central province of Henan, 15 people were killed and eight were missing after thunderstorms and strong winds forced 7.2 million people from their homes and damaged 18,000 houses. The central bank on Friday issued a statement saying it would provide financial support for flooded areas.

  PANAMA

  Ship scrapes canal wall

  A Chinese container ship has scraped its side against the wall of a newly inaugurated lock on the enlarged section of the Panama Canal. The canal expansion had drawn concern about the relatively tight space and lack of maneuvering room it leaves for the bigger vessels it handles. The canal authority on Friday said the incident was under investigation, but that it had not interrupted canal operations. The container ship was one of a number of New Panamax ships to cross the locks on Thursday. They are the largest ships that can use the new locks after a US$5.25 billion project to expand the facility, but it is a challenge to safely guide them through.

  GERMANY

  Hospital reports on HK men

  One of two Hong Kong men critically injured in an axe attack on a train is out of danger, the hospital treating them said on Friday, but the other was still in a coma. The university clinic in the southern city of Wuerzburg said in a statement that it was still treating four of the five people injured in the attack by a teenager late on Monday and the condition of all had improved and stabilized. “However one patient is still in a critical condition and being kept in an artificial coma,” it said, without identifying him. Previously the 62-year-old father of the family of tourists from Hong Kong and his daughter’s 30-year-old boyfriend were fighting for their lives after the brutal assault by the teenage refugee. The Islamic State group on Tuesday released a video purportedly featuring the assailant announcing that he would carry out an “operation” in Germany, and presenting himself as a “soldier of the caliphate.” German authorities are trying to determine whether the attacker was from Afghanistan, as he said on his application for asylum, or in fact Pakistan.

  CANADA

  Two chase ‘Pokemon’ to US

  US Border Patrol officials said two Canadian teenagers were briefly apprehended after they accidentally crossed the US border into Montana while playing the game Pokemon Go. Border Patrol agent John South said the teens were engrossed and wandered into the US. South said agents detained them while contacting their mother, who was nearby on the Canadian side. The agents then released the children to their mother. South on Friday declined to release the teenagers’ names, ages or describe what sort of terrain they crossed. He said they were detained on Thursday near Sweet Grass, Montana, which borders the town of Coutts in Canada’s Alberta province. Pokemon Go is a game in which players go to different locations to find virtual characters that appear on their cellphones.
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