Month: May 2024

The death toll over the Memorial Day weekend includes at least eight fatalities in Arkansas, seven in Texas, four in Kentucky and two in Oklahoma, according to tallies by state emergency authorities.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency early on Monday while the National Weather Service said a severe thunderstorm watch was issued for parts of Georgia and South Carolina until at least Monday afternoon.

“It was a tough night for our people,” the Kentucky governor said on social media platform X on Monday. He later said in a press briefing that “devastating storms” had hit almost the entire state. Officials said 100 state highways and roads were damaged by the storms.

530,000 customers left without power from Arkansas up to West Virginia

At least seven people perished — including two children aged two and five from a single family — and nearly 100 were injured on Saturday night when a powerful tornado struck communities in north Texas near the Oklahoma border, Governor Greg Abbott said at a Sunday news conference.

More than 530,000 customers were without power on Monday in states stretching from Arkansas up to West Virginia and south to Georgia, according to the website Poweroutage.us. Tornadoes are relatively common in the United States, especially in the centre and south of the country.

Late on Sunday, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the state had at least eight deaths after the storms. A resident in Arkansas suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease died due to a lack of oxygen when the power went out.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans faced power outages on Monday due to the weather, according to the Poweroutage.us tracking website, with Kentucky alone having over 180,000 outages.

In some areas, restoring power could take days, Beshear, the Kentucky governor said in a news briefing on Monday.

The National Weather Service warned of additional storms moving through the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, bringing damaging winds, large hail and more tornadoes, as well as heavy downpours capable of triggering flash floods.

The latest extreme weather came just days after a powerful tornado ripped through an Iowa town, killing four people, and more twisters touched down in Texas last week.

Meanwhile, the US was preparing for what government forecasters have called a potentially “extraordinary” 2024 Atlantic hurricane season beginning June 1.

Weather system

The system, which struck the Southern Plains region beginning late Saturday, overturned vehicles and ripped up homes, leaving a wake of deadly destruction in its path.

Storms were still likely to produce damaging wind and hail as they pushed eastward, part of the US Memorial Day holiday weekend, as well as possibly produce “isolated tornadoes” in the eastern Mid-Atlantic, the National Weather Service said.

The storms also caused “significant damage to the power infrastructure,” said Beshear, who declared a state of emergency, adding that it could be days until all power is restored.

The twister destroyed homes and a gas station, and overturned vehicles on an interstate highway in the Valley View area north of Dallas, Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington told reporters. Sappington called the damage “pretty extensive,” in an interview with The Weather Channel. Storm chasers shared impressive footage of tornadoes ripping up roofs and tearing through trees, causing power lines to spark and sending branches and debris flying.

RAWALPINDI: Two soldiers, including a captain of the Pakistan Army, embraced martyrdom during an intelligence based operation conducted by the security forces in Peshawar district’s Hassan Khel area on Sunday, said the military’s media wing in a statement.

A statement issued by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that the operation was launched on the “reported presence of terrorists” in the area.

It added, during the operation, the troops “effectively engaged” with the terrorists and killed five of them while injuring three others.

“However, during intense exchange of fire, leading his troops from the front, Captain Hussain Jahangir (age: 25 years, resident of Rahim Yar Khan District) along with another brave son of soil, Havildar Shafiq Ullah (age: 36 years, resident of District Karak), having fought gallantly, made the ultimate sacrifice and embraced Shahadat,” said the ISPR.

The military’s media wing said that sanitisation operation is being carried out in the area to eliminate any remaining terrorists.

“Security forces of Pakistan are determined to eliminate the menace of terrorism and such sacrifices of our brave soldiers further strengthen our resolve,” said the ISPR.

At least 92% of all fatalities and 86% of attacks, including those related to terrorism and security forces operations, were recorded in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces in the first quarter of 2024.

These key findings were revealed in the Q1 2024 Security Report issued by Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), detailing that the country witnessed at least 432 violence-linked fatalities and 370 injuries among civilians, security personnel and outlaws resulting from as many as 245 incidents of terror attacks and counter-terror operations.

Among the 432 fatalities, 281 included that of civilians and security forces personnel.

The newspaper reported that Washington has already signalled to Saudi Arabia that it was prepared to lift the ban, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Soon after taking office in 2021, Biden adopted a tougher stance over Saudi Arabia’s campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, which has inflicted heavy civilian casualties, and over Riyadh’s human rights record, in particular the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist and political opponent Jamal Khashoggi.

Saudi Arabia, the biggest US arms customer, has chafed under those restrictions, which froze the kind of weapons sales that previous US administrations had provided for decades.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said the US and Saudi Arabia were very close to concluding a set of agreements on nuclear energy, security and defence cooperation, the bilateral component of a wider normalisation deal with Riyadh and Israel.

However, lifting the ban on offensive weapons sales was not directly linked to these talks, FT said.

The White House and Saudi Arabia’s government communication office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Media in the South Pacific nation had previously estimated Friday’s landslide had buried more than 300 people.

But more than 48 hours later, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said the death toll may be more than double that, as the full extent of the destruction is still unclear and continuing dangerous conditions on the ground are hampering aid and rescue efforts.

Only five bodies have been retrieved from the rubble so far.

The agency based its death toll estimates on information provided by officials at Yambali Village in the Enga province, who say more than 150 houses were buried in Friday’s landslide, Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the agency’s mission in PNG said in an email statement.

“Land is still sliding, rocks are falling, ground soil is cracking due to constant increased pressure and groundwater is running, thus the area is posing an extreme risk for everyone,” Aktoprak said.

More than 250 houses nearby have been abandoned by the inhabitants, who had taken temporary shelter with their relatives and friends, and some 1,250 people have been displaced, the agency said.

“People are using digging sticks, spades, large agricultural forks to remove the bodies buried under the soil,” Aktoprak said. The IOM said an elementary school, small businesses and stalls, a guesthouse, and a petrol station were also buried.

The UN’s PNG office said five bodies were retrieved from an area where 50 to 60 homes had been destroyed, with several injured reported, including at least 20 women and children.

IOM said the community in this village was relatively young and it’s feared that the most fatalities would be children of 15 years or younger.

Social media footage posted by villagers and local media teams shows people clambering over rocks, uprooted trees and mounds of dirt searching for survivors. Women could be heard weeping in the background.

The landslide hit a section of highway near the Porgera gold mine, operated by Barrick Gold through Barrick Niugini Ltd, its joint venture with China’s Zijin Mining.

The Porgera Highway remains blocked, IOM said, and the only way to reach the Porgera Gold Mine and other localities cut off from the rest of Enga Province is via helicopter. The geographic remoteness and the tough, hilly terrain is slowing rescue and aid efforts.

The government and the PNG Defence Force engineering team are on the ground now, but heavy equipment like excavators required for rescue have yet to reach the village. IOM said the community may not allow the use of excavators until they consider they have fulfilled their mourning and grieving obligations.

“People are coming to terms with the fact that the people under the debris are now all but lost,” IOM said in an earlier status update by email.

The government plans to establish two care/evacuation centres, each on one side of the landslide-affected area to host the displaced who may need shelter. A humanitarian convoy has started distributing bottled water, food, clothing, hygiene kits, kitchen utensils, tarpaulins and personal protective equipment.

Aid group CARE Australia said late on Saturday that nearly 4,000 people lived in the impact zone, but the number affected was probably higher as the area is “a place of refuge for those displaced by conflicts” in nearby areas.

At least 26 men were killed in Enga Province in February in an ambush amid tribal violence that prompted Prime Minister James Marape to give arrest powers to the country’s military.

The landslide left debris up to 8 metres deep across 200 square kilometres, cutting off road access and making relief efforts difficult, CARE said. Marape has said disaster officials, the Defence Force and the Department of Works and Highways were assisting with relief and recovery efforts.

The Israeli military claimed its air force struck a Hamas compound in Rafah and that the strike was carried out with “precise ammunition and on the basis of precise intelligence.”

It said it took out Hamas’ chief of staff for the West Bank and another senior official behind deadly attacks on Israelis.

“The IDF is aware of reports indicating that as a result of the strike and fire that was ignited several civilians in the area were harmed. The incident is under review.”

The spokesman for the health ministry in Gaza, Ashraf Al-Qidra, said 35 people were killed and dozens others, most of them women and children, were wounded in the attack.

The strike took place in Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood in western Rafah, where thousands of people were taking shelter after many fled the eastern areas of the city where Israeli forces began a ground offensive over two weeks ago.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said its field hospital in Rafah was receiving an influx of casualties, and that other hospitals also were taking in a large number of patients.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri described the attack in Rafah as a “massacre”, holding the United States responsible for aiding Israel with weapons and money.

“The air strikes burnt the tents, the tents are melting and the people’s bodies are also melting,” said one of the residents who arrived at the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah.

Earlier on Sunday, the Israeli military said eight projectiles were identified crossing from the area of Rafah, the southern tip of the Gaza Strip where Israel kept up operations despite a ruling by the top UN court on Friday ordering it to stop attacking the city.

A number of the projectiles were intercepted, it said. There were no reports of casualties.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was convening his war cabinet later on Sunday to discuss continued operations in Rafah. Israel argues that the UN court’s ruling allows room for some military action there.

In a statement on its Telegram channel, the Hamas al-Qassam Brigades said the rockets were launched in response to “Zionist massacres against civilians”.

Rafah is located about 100 kilometres south of Tel Aviv.

Israel says it wants to root out Hamas fighters allegedly holed up in Rafah and rescue hostages it says are being held in the area, but its assault has worsened the plight of civilians and caused an international outcry.

On Sunday, Israeli strikes killed at least five Palestinians in Rafah, according to local medical services. The Gaza health ministry identified the dead as civilians.

Israeli tanks have probed around the edges of Rafah, near the crossing point from Gaza into Egypt, and have entered some of its eastern districts, residents say, but have not yet entered the city in force since the start of operations in the city earlier this month.

Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said the rockets fired from Rafah “prove that the [Israel Defense Forces] must operate in every place Hamas still operates from”.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant held an operational assessment in Rafah where he was briefed on “troops’ operations above and below the ground, as well as the deepening of operations in additional areas with the aim of dismantling Hamas battalions”, his office said in a statement.

Itamar Ben Gvir, a hardline public security minister who is not part of Israel’s war cabinet, urged the army to hit Rafah harder. “Rafah with full force,” he posted on X.

Nearly 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, Gaza’s health ministry says. Israel launched the operation after Hamas attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Fighting also continued in the northern Gaza area of Jabaliya, the scene of intense combat earlier in the conflict. During one raid, the military said it found a weapons storage site with dozens of rocket parts and weapons at a school.

It denied Hamas statements that Palestinian fighters had abducted an Israeli soldier.

Hamas media said an Israeli airstrike on a house in a neighbourhood near Jabaliya killed 10 people and wounded others.

Efforts to agree a halt to the fighting and return more than 120 hostages have been blocked for weeks but there were some signs of movement this weekend following meetings between Israeli and US intelligence officials and Qatar’s prime minister.

An official with knowledge of the matter said a decision had been taken to resume the talks this week based on new proposals from Egyptian and Qatari mediators, and with “active US involvement.”

However, a Hamas official played down the report, telling Reuters: “It is not true.”

Netanyahu’s war cabinet would discuss the new proposals, his office said.

A second Hamas official, Izzat El-Reshiq, said the group had not received anything from the mediators on new dates for resuming talks as had been reported by Israeli media.

Reshiq restated Hamas’s demands, which include: “Ending the aggression completely and permanently, in all of Gaza Strip, not only Rafah”.

While Israel is seeking the return of hostages, Netanyahu has repeatedly said the onslaught will not end until Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, is eliminated.

Israel has faced calls to get more aid into Gaza after more than seven months of offensive that has caused widespread destruction and hunger in the enclave.

Khaled Zayed of the Egyptian Red Crescent told Reuters 200 trucks of aid, including four fuel trucks, were expected to enter Gaza on Sunday through Kerem Shalom.

It follows an agreement between US President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Friday to temporarily send aid via the Kerem Shalom crossing, bypassing the Rafah crossing that has been blocked for weeks.

Egypt’s state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV shared a video on social media platform X, showing what it said were aid trucks as they entered Kerem Shalom, which before the conflict was the main commercial crossing station between Israel, Egypt and Gaza.

The Rafah crossing has been shut for almost three weeks, since Israel took control of the Palestinian side of the crossing as it stepped up its offensive.

Egypt has been increasingly alarmed at the prospect of large numbers of Palestinians entering its territory from Gaza and has refused to open its side of the Rafah crossing.

Israel has said it is not restricting aid flows and has opened up new crossing points in the north as well as cooperating with the United States, which has built a temporary floating pier for aid deliveries.

At least 10 female farm workers died in Egypt when a minibus plunged off a river ferry and into the Nile northwest of Cairo on Tuesday, the health ministry said.

“The toll is at 10 and could rise,” ministry spokesman Hossam Abdelghaffar told AFP.

The state’s flagship Al-Ahram newspaper reported the accident earlier and said the driver, who had released the handbrake, was arrested while trying to flee.

He had gotten into “a verbal argument” with one of the passengers before leaving the vehicle, it reported.

The vehicle sank in the village of Abu Ghalib, about 50 kilometres (31 miles) northwest of the capital.

Nine more passengers had been transported to nearby hospitals to receive treatment for their injuries, the health ministry said in a statement.

Egypt’s labour minister Hassan Shehata said the minibus was transporting “girls working on a farm”, but did not specify whether they were minors.

The ministry of social solidarity said it would disburse financial compensation “to the families of the deceased and injured”.

Following an initial investigation at the scene, the public prosecutor’s office ordered a technical inspection of the vehicle to determine “the reasons it had plunged into the water”, Al-Ahram reported.

Commuter accidents are common in Egypt, especially in agricultural areas along the Nile and its streams, where small, overloaded boats ferry farmers and workers back and forth