ITALY
Ferry passenger found alive
One of the passengers missing aboard the ferry ablaze off Greece was yesterday found alive, Greek coast guards said. The man was one of 12 truck drivers who were missing following the blaze, the coastguards said. Rescuers spotted the man on the vessel’s stern as it was being towed to port. “Tell me I’m alive,” the 21-year-old truck driver who said he was from Belarus, told rescuers, he Proto Thema news Web site reported. Clad in tan shorts and a black T-shirt he climbed down a ladder into a rescue boat, images on the iefimerida news Web site showed. He appeared to be in good physical condition, Athens News Agency reported. The fire broke out on the Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia late on Thursday as it sailed from Igoumenitsa in Greece to Brindisi in Italy, with nearly 300 people aboard.
BRAZIL
Landslide death toll rises
Rescue workers on Saturday pulled more bodies from the muddy wreckage left by devastating floods and landslides in the city of Petropolis, where the death toll rose to 146, including 26 children. In a dense fog, workers dug with spades and shovels through the rubble and muck as the search churned through its fifth day. An Agence France-Presse photographer saw rescuers carrying out two recovered corpses in body bags in the hard-hit neighborhood of Alto da Serra, as relatives sobbed in the street. In the heart of the disaster zone, rescue workers occasionally blew loud whistles to call for silence and listen for signs of life, but authorities have said that there is little hope at this point of finding survivors from Tuesday’s torrential rains.
UNITED STATES
Helicopter crashes off beach
Two people were hospitalized on Saturday after the helicopter they were flying in crashed into the ocean off a beach in the US state of Florida. Miami Beach police said they received a call about the crash at 1:10pm. “Police and @MiamiBeachFire responded to the scene along with several partner agencies,” the police wrote on Twitter. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also responded to the crash. “There were three passengers onboard. Two were transported to the hospital,” police said, adding that they were in “stable condition.” A video posted alongside the tweet showed a helicopter falling into the Atlantic Ocean, not far from people swimming or sunbathing on the crowded beach. Mary Schiavo, the former inspector general of the US Department of Transportation, said on CNN that the video showed the helicopter appearing to lose engine power. She said that watching the video, it appeared as if the pilot was able to steer away from beachgoers even as the helicopter fell.
UNITED STATES
Missing actress found dead
Actor Lindsey Erin Pearlman, who had roles in General Hospital, American Housewife and other shows, was found dead days after she was reported missing in Los Angeles, authorities said. Investigators had sought the public’s help in finding Pearlman, 43, who was last seen at about noon on Feb. 13, ABC 7 reported. Her body was found Friday morning when officers responded to a call for a death investigation in a residential neighborhood of Hollywood, the Los Angeles Police Department said. The cause of death and the circumstances of her disappearance are under investigation.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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