Rescue crews raced frantically through the night to reach students trapped in the rubble of a collapsed school, digging under the glare of floodlights in a disaster where at least 47 people have already died.
It is not known how many students were in the school when it collapsed on Friday morning. But authorities said roughly 500 children and teenagers typically crowded into the three-story concrete building of College La Promesse, which had classes from kindergarten through high school.
The chaotic rescue effort by Red Cross workers, UN peacekeepers and Haitian authorities was inhibited from the start by thousands of grieving neighbors, who blocked the steep, narrow street and fought with school officials to enter the collapsed building in search of their children and friends.
UN peacekeepers and Haitian police were able to establish some order by setting up human chains and checkpoints along the road in the hills above Port-au-Prince, but have been unable to get heavy equipment through the crowds and to the scene, leaving rescuers to essentially work with their hands.
On Friday night, a truck carrying a backhoe to the scene crashed into several cars. It was unclear if anybody was injured, or whether the truck was privately owned or belonged to the Haitian government.
At least 39 bodies were brought to the morgue at Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital, Haitian police spokesman Garry Desrosier said.
Another eight people died in a trauma center run by the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, spokesman Francois Servranckx said. More than 80 others were being treated for injuries by the aid group.
Several nearby houses were also damaged in the collapse.
Neighbors suspected the building was poorly rebuilt after it partially collapsed eight years ago, said Jimmy Germain, a French teacher at the school. He said people who lived just downhill had abandoned their land out of fear the building would tumble onto them, and that the school’s owner tried to buy up their vacated properties.
The concrete building’s third story was still under construction, and Petionville Mayor Claire Lydie Parent said she suspects a structural defect caused the collapse, not the recent chain of tropical storms that swept devastation across Haiti.
Police commissioner Francene Moreau said the minister who runs the church-operated school could face criminal charges. Efforts to reach the preacher were not successful.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS