10 Die When Brazil Cliff Wall Collapses on Boats
PHOTO: RESCUERS AT SITE OF ROCK COLLAPSE, SOUNDBITE FROM FIREFIGHTERS, AREA OF CANYON
INTERNATIONAL: Ten people died in the dramatic collapse of a canyon rock face on Furnas lake on top of leisure motor boats visiting a waterfall in southeastern Brazil, rescuers said on Sunday.Another 32 were injured in the accident in the south-east of the country.
A tower of rocks suddenly broke away from the canyon wall on Saturday and came crashing down, crushing one of the leisure boats at Capitolio in Minas Gerais state.Three vessels were hit by falling rock, Lieutenant Pedro Aihara has confirmed. Out of the 32 injured, nine people were in hospital.
Twenty people were initially reported missing, but Lt Aihara said most were accounted for after checking hospital lists.
Firemen and divers have recovered three more bodies from the lake on Sunday, bring the death toll to ten in the disaster that injured dozens of tourists hit by falling rocks and a huge wave of water caused when the column of rock crashed into the lake.
The bodies were taken to Passos city, where coroners worked to identify them. The work was difficult because of the ″high energy impact″ of the rock on the boaters, said a regional civil police official, Marcos Pimenta. He has said one victim had been identified as 68-year-old Julio Borges Antunes.
Furnas Lake, which was created in 1958 for the installation of a hydroelectric plant, is a popular tourist attraction in the area roughly 420 kilometres north of Sao Paulo. Officials in Capitolio, which has about 8,400 residents, say the town can see approximately 5,000 visitors on a weekend, and up to 30,000 on holidays.
The region has been under heavy rainfall for two weeks, which could have loosened the rock face. On Saturday, a dike overflowed at an iron ore mine 300 kilometres to the east, cutting off a major federal highway.
NY Building Fire Leaves 19 People Dead
PHOTO: EYEWITNESS CELLPHONE VIDEO OF FIRE IN NEW YORK
Nineteen people were killed, including nine children, and dozens were injured when a fire, started by a malfunctioning space heater, spread smoke through a 19-floor building in The Bronx borough of New York City on Sunday, 9 January.
A witness to a massive fire in the Bronx has watched the tragedy unfold from her window, witnessing a billowing fire, a baby rescue and a man on a stretcher fighting for his life.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, just over a week into the job, has confirmed 19 people have died from the blaze that broke out around 11 a.m. in the imposing brown-brick building which provided affordable housing units.
Earlier on Sunday, officials have said 32 people had been hospitalized with life-threatening injuries and some 60 people were injured in total.
NYC’s mayor was quotes as saying, “It's a tragedy beyond measure.”
The fire itself started in an apartment that spanned the second and third floors of the building, and only made it to the hall.Firefighters found victims on every floor in stairwells and were taking them out in cardiac and respiratory arrest.
The catastrophe was likely to stir questions on safety standards in low-income city housing. This was the second major deadly fire in a residential complex in the U.S. this week after twelve people, including eight children, were killed early on Wednesday when flames swept through a public housing apartment building in Philadelphia.
Some 200 firefighters helped put out the blaze, and some ran out of oxygen in their tanks but pushed through anyway to rescue people from the building.
Marks of Violence Still Visible in Almaty
PHOTO: CARS ON STREETS BURNT VANS DAMAGED ATMS POLICE VAN ENTERING MORTUARY GATES
Burnt-out vehicles and buildings were a testament to days of violence in Almaty on Sunday as Kazakhstan's authorities have claimed that the situation was stabilizing after the worst political unrest in 30 years of independence.
Thousands have been detained and public buildings torched during mass anti-government protests over the past week.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has issued shoot-to-kill orders to end unrest he has blamed on bandits and terrorists.
Russian and state media have reported 164 people were killed during the clashes, citing a government social media post. But health and police authorities did not confirm the figure, and the social media post was then deleted.
The internet has been restricted and telecoms patchy making it difficult to check figures and confirm statements. No single group has emerged to speak for the protesters.
At Tokayev's invitation, a Russia-led alliance of ex-Soviet states - the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO has sent troops to restore order, an intervention that comes at a time of high tension in Russia-U.S. relations ahead of talks this Monday on the Ukraine crisis.
What began a week ago with demonstrations against a fuel price rise have exploded into a wider protest against Tokayev's government and the man he replaced as president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The violence has dealt a blow to Kazakhstan's image as a tightly controlled and stable country, which it has used to attract hundreds of billions of dollars of Western investment in its oil and minerals industries. Police have said 6,044 people had been arrested in connection with the unrest.
