Soaring temperatures at a hugely crowded airshow in India where organizers had hoped to break record attendance figures left at least five people dead, media reported yesterday.
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered along a beach in the blazing sun on Sunday with temperatures hitting 35°C at the air force show in the southern city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu state.
The Press Trust of India news agency, quoting government officials, yesterday said that five spectators had died from “heatstroke and exhaustion” during the show.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The Indian Express quoted a police officer as saying five people had died in separate incidents due to “dehydration and stress.”
One eyewitness who spoke to the newspaper said the sheer numbers of people was “suffocating,” while roads were reported to be jammed with traffic and trains overcrowded.
Broadcaster NDTV reported that the Indian Air Force had been “aggressively” pushing the event to set a record in the Limca Book of Records, the nation’s archive of records held by Indians, but Tamil Nadu Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian said that the authorities had provided “adequate” facilities, including medics on standby and drinking water for the crowd.
Scorching summer temperatures are common in India, but years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heat waves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.
Earlier this year, the nation was gripped by brutal temperatures surging more than 50°C.
Indian lawmaker Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, from the state’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, said reports of the deaths were “painful.”
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
RSS