At least 143 people died and dozens more went missing after a boat carrying fuel caught fire and capsized in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), officials said on Friday.
Hundreds of passengers were crowded onto a wooden boat on the Congo River in northwest DR Congo on Tuesday when the blaze broke out, said Josephine-Pacifique Lokumu, head of a delegation of national deputies from the region.
The disaster occurred near Mbandaka, capital of Equateur Province, at the confluence of the Ruki and the vast Congo river.
Photo: Arsene Mpiana, AFP
“A first group of 131 bodies were found on Wednesday, with a further 12 fished out on Thursday and Friday. Several of them are charred,” Lokumu said.
Joseph Lokondo, a local civil society leader who said he helped bury the bodies, put the “provisional death toll at 145: some burned, others drowned.”
Lokumu said the blaze was caused by a fuel explosion ignited by an onboard cooking fire.
“A woman lit the embers for cooking. The fuel, which was not far away, exploded, killing many children and women,” she said.
Videos circulating on social media showed flames leaping from a long boat stranded far from shore, with smoke billowing from the wreckage and people aboard smaller vessels looking on.
The total number of passengers on board the doomed vessel was not known, but Lokumu said it was in the “hundreds.”
Some survivors were rescued and admitted to hospital, Lokondo said, adding that “several families were still without news of their loved ones.”
A vast Central African nation that covers 2.3 million km2, the DR Congo has a lack of practicable roads and planes serve only a limited number of cities and towns.
As a result people often travel on lakes, the Congo River and its winding tributaries, where shipwrecks are frequent and death tolls are often heavy.
Seventy percent of middle and elementary schools now conduct English classes entirely in English, the Ministry of Education said, as it encourages schools nationwide to adopt this practice Minister of Education (MOE) Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) is scheduled to present a report on the government’s bilingual education policy to the Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee today. The report would outline strategies aimed at expanding access to education, reducing regional disparities and improving talent cultivation. Implementation of bilingual education policies has varied across local governments, occasionally drawing public criticism. For example, some schools have required teachers of non-English subjects to pass English proficiency
‘FORM OF PROTEST’: The German Institute Taipei said it was ‘shocked’ to see Nazi symbolism used in connection with political aims as it condemned the incident Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 yesterday amid an outcry over a Nazi armband he wore to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case on Tuesday night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and apparently covering the book with a coat. This is a serious international scandal and Chinese
TRADE: The premier pledged safeguards on ‘Made in Taiwan’ labeling, anti-dumping measures and stricter export controls to strengthen its position in trade talks Products labeled “made in Taiwan” must be genuinely made in Taiwan, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday, vowing to enforce strict safeguards against “origin laundering” and initiate anti-dumping investigations to prevent China dumping its products in Taiwan. Cho made the remarks in a discussion session with representatives from industries in Kaohsiung. In response to the US government’s recent announcement of “reciprocal” tariffs on its trading partners, President William Lai (賴清德) and Cho last week began a series of consultations with industry leaders nationwide to gather feedback and address concerns. Taiwanese and US officials held a videoconference on Friday evening to discuss the
PERSONAL DATA: The implicated KMT members allegedly compiled their petitions by copying names from party lists without the consent of the people concerned Judicial authorities searched six locations yesterday and questioned six people, including one elderly Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member and five KMT Youth League associates, about alleged signature forgery and fraud relating to their recall efforts against two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators. After launching a probe into alleged signature forgery and related fraud in the KMT’s recall effort, prosecutors received a number of complaints, including about one petition that had 1,748 signatures of voters whose family members said they had already passed away, and also voters who said they did not approve the use of their name, Taipei Deputy Chief Prosecutor
RSS