Sun, Jul 09, 2023 page5

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  MEXICO

  Gas platform explodes

  An explosion and fire on Friday destroyed an offshore gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico, killing two workers and injuring eight, while one was missing, officials said. State-owned Petroleos Mexicanos said that the disaster happened on the Nohoch gas transfer platform that it operates. The dead and missing workers were employed by a subcontractor, and three of those injured were company employees and five worked for the subcontractor, the company said. None of the injuries were life-threatening, it said. Seven ships evacuated 321 workers from the platform, it said. Petroleos Mexicanos director Octavio Romero said that the platform “was totally destroyed,” but that four other nearby, linked platforms did not catch fire. There appeared to be little risk of an oil spill, although it was unclear whether the incident might force the company to increase burning of excess gas.

  UNITED STATES

  Man rescued from sewer

  Firefighters on Friday rescued two men who fell into a maintenance hole during heavy rain in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, including one who was washed about 1.6km through sewer pipes before getting trapped behind a metal grate. The men, who were workers for a private contractor, Ace Pipe Cleaning, were swept into the sewers near the Old Market just after 9am, the Omaha World-Herald quoted Lieutenant Neal Bonacci of the Omaha Police Department as saying. One of the men, who was tethered to a safety system, was quickly pulled out. A large-scale rescue effort ensued for the other, who was apparently not tethered. He was found at about 10:20am. The 41-year-old man had extricated himself from the water and was found behind a metal grate covering a culvert. An Omaha Fire Department crew cut the grate to free him, assistant fire chief Jason Bradley told the newspaper.

  UNITED STATES

  Chemical arms destroyed

  President Joe Biden on Friday announced that the nation has fully destroyed its stockpiles of chemical weapons, fulfilling a commitment under the Chemical Weapons Convention. “Today, I am proud to announce that the United States has safely destroyed the final munition in that stockpile, bringing us one step closer to a world free from the horrors of chemical weapons,” Biden said. The US was the last of the convention’s signatories to complete the task of destroying their “declared” stockpiles, although some are believed to maintain secret reserves of chemical weapons. “It marks the first time an international body has verified destruction of an entire category of declared weapons of mass destruction,” Biden said in a statement. The announcement came after the Blue Grass Army Depot, a US Army facility in Kentucky, recently completed its four-year job of eliminating about 500 tonnes of chemical agents, the last batch held by the US military. The US had for decades held stores of artillery projectiles and rockets that contained mustard gases, VX and sarin nerve agents, and blister agents. Such weapons were condemned widely after their use with horrendous results on the battlefields of World War I. However, many countries retained and further developed them in the years afterward. The convention, agreed in 1993 and taking effect in 1997, gave the US until Sept. 30 to destroy all of its chemical agents and munitions. Other signatories to the pact had already eliminated their holdings, Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons head Fernando Arias said in May.
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