PHILIPPINES
China exploring shoal
China has deployed vessels and divers to explore a South China Sea shoal for reclamation, Manila said, in another incident that could escalate the two nations’ maritime dispute. The coast guard sent a patrol ship to the area near Sabina Shoal (Sianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) to deter China’s activities close to the Southeast Asian nation’s coast, coast guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela was quoted as saying in a government statement on Saturday. Manila is closely monitoring Chinese research vessels in the area, Tarriela said.
INDONESIA
Floods, cold lava kill 12
At least 12 people after flash floods and cold lava flow from a volcano hit the west of the nation, rescue officials said yesterday. The disaster hit Agam and Tanah Datar districts in West Sumatra Province at about 10:30pm on Saturday after hours of heavy rain, triggering a flash flood and a cold lava flow from Mount Marapi, the National Search and Rescue Agency said. Cold lava is volcanic material such as ash, sand and pebbles carried down a volcano’s slopes by rain. “Twelve people died and they had been taken to the hospital ... and four other people are still being searched in Agam district,” local rescue agency head Abdul Malik said in a statement yesterday. Nine bodies have been identified, including those of a three-year-old and eight-year-old, he said.
INDONESIA
At least 11 die in bus crash
A bus hit cars and motorbikes in West Java Province, killing at least 11 people, mostly students, and injuring dozens, officials said yesterday. The bus carrying 61 students and teachers was returning to a high school in Depok outside Jakarta late on Saturday from the hilly resort area of Bandung after a graduation celebration, West Java police spokesperson Jules Abraham Abast said. Nine people died at the scene and two others died later in the hospital, including a teacher and a local motorist, Abast said. Fifty-three other people were hospitalized, he said. “A preliminary investigation showed the bus’ brakes malfunctioned,” Abast said.
SOUTH AFRICA
Man free days after collapse
Rescuers and onlookers on Saturday cheered and applauded as a survivor emerged after 116 hours from underneath the rubble of a collapsed building, with the tragedy having killed at least 13. “It is a miracle that we have all been hoping for,” Western Cape Premier Alan Winde wrote on X. An apartment block under construction in the southern city of George crumbled on Monday afternoon last week while a crew of 81 were on site. “I’m okay now, I’m okay now, everything is okay. Thank you, God bless you guys,” Gabriel Guambe said in a video shared by the municipality. “Mr Guambe is recovering well ... having remarkably sustained only minor injuries,” authorities said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Pig kidney recipient dies
The first recipient of a genetically modified pig kidney transplant has died nearly two months after he underwent the procedure, his family and the hospital that performed the surgery said on Saturday. Richard Slayman had the transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital in March at the age of 62. The transplant team at the hospital said in a statement that it was deeply saddened by Slayman’s passing. They said they did not have any indication that he died as a result of the transplant. The Weymouth, Massachusetts, man was the first living person to have the procedure.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
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