Page 2 - Death Toll

Seven dead as storm hits Brazil's Sao Paulo, 1.4 mn homes without power

At least seven people were killed after a brief but powerful storm swept through Sao Paulo, Brazil with around 1.4 million households in the South America's largest metropolis left without power on Saturday. Officials in Sao Paulo state said that record wind gusts Friday night of up to 67 mph (108 kph) knocked down transmission lines and uprooted trees, causing severe damage in some parts. The storm also shut down several airports and interrupted water service in several areas, according to the state government. One person died when a tree fell on an outdoor stall, authorities said. At least six other people in surrounding Sao Paulo state also died. Authorities originally expected to restore power within a few hours. But several neighborhoods in the metropolitan area, which is home to 21 million people, were still in the dark on Saturday, and authorities were urging residents to limit their consumption of water. Most of the disruptions were in the service area of a single utility,

FEMA continues pushback against false claims as Helene death toll hits 230

The head of the US disaster response agency continued to forcefully push back on Monday against false claims and conspiracy theories about her agency's response to Hurricane Helene as the death toll from the storm continued to climb. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell pointed to the agency's massive, collaborative effort that keeps growing, and she strongly urged residents in hard-hit areas to accept the government's offer for assistance. We have thousands of people on the ground, not just federal, but also our volunteers in the private sector, Criswell said at a news conference in Asheville, North Carolina. And frankly, that type of rhetoric is demoralising to our staff that have left their families to come here and help the people of North Carolina. And we will be here as long as they're needed. Misinformation has spread over the past week in communities hit the hardest by Helene, including that the federal government is intentionally withholding ai

IAF's aerobatic prowess in Chennai steals hearts, five spectators die

A spectacular aerial display of the Indian Air Force aircraft over the skies of Marina Beach was a big draw here on Sunday, but at least five persons, who were among thousands of spectators, died due to causes including extreme exhaustion. A senior city police official said that one person died on the beachfront and four others in the vicinity and all the five were among the thousands who had gathered along the several kilometer long shoreline to witness the air show. Leader of Opposition and AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami condemned the DMK government for the incident and alleged it failed to properly make arrangements for such a significant event and conveyed his condolences to the bereaved. To witness the event, thousands of people stood in the scorching sun for atleast 2 to 3 hours and a lot of them held umbrellas to shield themselves. Though the air show was held between 11 am to 1 pm, most people gathered at the venue at least an hour before. Several persons fainted and .

Helene's death toll reaches 200 as crews try to reach areas hit by storm

Hurricane Helene's death toll reached 200 on Thursday and could rise higher still, as searchers made their way toward the hardest to reach places in the mountains of western North Carolina, where the storm washed out roads and knocked out electricity, water and cellular service. Officials in Georgia and North Carolina added to their states' grim tallies, padding an overall count that has already made Helene the deadliest storm to hit the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A week after the storm came ashore in Florida before carving a path of destruction through the Southeast, connections between friends, neighbours and even strangers have provided hope in the worst-affected areas. While government cargo planes brought food and water to these areas and rescue crews waded through creeks searching for survivors, those who made it through the storm leaned on one another for support. Sarah Vekasi, who makes and sells pottery out of her Sarah Sunshine Pottery store in Black ...

Thai police arrest driver, to identify victims of bus fire that killed 23

Thai police have arrested the driver of a bus carrying young students and teachers that caught fire and killed 23 in suburban Bangkok, as families arrived in the capital Wednesday to help identify their loved ones. The bus carrying six teachers and 39 students in elementary and junior high school was traveling from Uthai Thani province, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Bangkok, for a school trip in Ayutthaya and Nonthaburi provinces Tuesday. The fire started while the bus was on a highway north of the capital and spread so quickly many were unable to escape. Trairong Phiwpan, head of the police forensic department, said 23 bodies were recovered from the bus. The recovery work and confirmation of the total dead had been delayed earlier because the burned vehicle, which was fueled with natural gas, remained too hot to enter for hours. The families were driven from Uthai Thani in vans to the the forensic department at the Police General Hospital in Bangkok on Wednesday to ...

Taiwan shuts schools and offices ahead of direct hit from powerful typhoon

Taiwan closed schools and offices and evacuated hundreds from vulnerable areas around the island Tuesday ahead of a strong typhoon expected to hit its populated western coast after lashing northern Philippine islands. More than 500 people were moved from mountainous regions prone to landslides. Nearly 40,000 troops were mobilized to help with rescue efforts, according to the Defense Ministry. Typhoon Krathon is expected to hit the major port city of Kaohsiung in the island's southwest on Wednesday morning then move across the center of Taiwan and northeast toward the East China Sea, according to the Central Weather Administration. It is expected to be felt in the capital Taipei on Wednesday and Thursday. In Kaohsiung, a city of 2.7 million people, many stores and restaurants were closed. Up to 80 centimeters (31 inches) of rain was forecast in its mountainous areas. The storm was moving toward the island with maximum sustained winds of 198 kph (123 mph) and gusts of 245 kph (152 mp

Helene's toll passes 100, Biden to visit North Carolina for aerial survey

A crisis unfolded in Asheville, North Carolina, as officials pledged to get more water, food and other supplies to flood-stricken areas without power and cellular service Monday, days after Hurricane Helene ripped across the US Southeast. The death toll from the storm surpassed 100. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said during a news conference Monday that the death toll in that state had risen from 17 to 25. A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed there. President Joe Biden said Monday he will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday to get a first-hand look at the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene. Biden said he will travel to Raleigh to get a briefing from state and local officials and take an aerial tour of Asheville. He announced plans for the trip following an operational briefing on the hurricane response and recovery efforts from federal government officials and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, who took an aerial tour o

Here's how Helene, other storms dumped 40 trn gallons of rain on US South

More than 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast US in the last week from Hurricane Helene and a run-of-the-mill rainstorm that sloshed in ahead of it -- an unheard of amount of water that has stunned experts. That's enough to fill the Dallas Cowboys' stadium 51,000 times, or Lake Tahoe just once. If it was concentrated just on the state of North Carolina that much water would be 3.5 feet deep. It's enough to fill more than 60 million Olympic-size swimming pools. "That's an astronomical amount of precipitation," said Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. "I have not seen something in my 25 years of working at the weather service that is this geographically large of an extent and the sheer volume of water that fell from the sky.' The flood damage from the rain is apocalyptic, meteorologists said. More than 100 people are dead, according to officials. Private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former

News HIGHLIGHTS: Several Aam Aadmi Party leaders, workers join Congress in Delhi

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Nine dead, 20 others injured in bus-truck collision in MP's Maihar district

Six people died and nearly 20 were injured in a collision between a bus and a truck in Maihar district of Madhya Pradesh, police said. They said the bus was headed for Nagpur from Prayagraj when it collided with the parked stone-laden dumper truck around 11 pm on Saturday near the Nadan Dehat police station, about 25 kilometres from the district headquarters. Superintendent of Police, Maihar, Sudhir Agrawal told PTI that among those injured, the condition of six people was stated to be serious and they were referred to Satna. He said the rest are undergoing treatment in Maihar and Amarpatan hospitals. Agrawal said senior officials reached the spot soon after getting information about the accident and launched a rescue operation. Further details are awaited.

Hurricane Helene claims 44 lives in US, wreaking havoc across Southeast

Hurricane Helene left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern US on Friday, killing at least 35 people in four states, snapping trees like twigs, tearing apart homes and sending rescue crews on desperate missions to save people from floodwaters. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said dozens of people were still trapped in buildings damaged by the Category 4 hurricane. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) when it made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated region in Florida's rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Florida's Panhandle and peninsula meet. The damage extended hundreds of miles to the north, with flooding as far away as northeast Tennessee, where a dangerous rescue situation was unfolding after 54 people were moved to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital while rapid waters flooded the facility, according to Ballad Health. In North Carolina, a lake used in the movie Dirty ...

Hurricane Helene hits Florida, raising fears of widespread damage, deaths

Officials pleaded with residents in the path of the storm to heed mandatory evacuation orders or face life-threatening conditions

46 people, including 37 children, drown in Bihar during Jitiya festival

Under the instructions of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, an ex-gratia amount has been paid to the families of 8 deceased

Israeli airstrike kills top Hezbollah Commander Ibrahim Qubaisi in Beirut

The Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalates as the Israeli Defence Forces conducts airstrike targeting a high-ranking Hezbollah commander, resulting in six deaths and 15 injuries

At least 38 dead, 14 still missing after explosion at Iran coal mine

Rescuers on Monday recovered the bodies of more workers killed in an explosion at a coal mine in eastern Iran, bringing the death toll in the disaster to at least 38, officials said. Another 14 miners are still believed to be trapped below ground. The blast struck the coal mine in Tabas, about 540 km (335 miles) southeast of the capital, Tehran, on Saturday night. On Sunday, weeping miners stood alongside mine cars that brought up the bodies of their colleagues, covered in coal dust. The state-run IRNA news agency on Monday reported the new death toll from the blast, as well as the number of missing. Survivors interviewed by Iranian state television, still smudged in coal dust, described chaotic scenes after the blast. We were in the mine, working. Suddenly there was some smoke rising...then I noticed I had difficulty breathing," said one miner who was not identified by state TV. "I jumped off from the workshop and I scrambled until I reached somewhere (safe). My friends (remained)

Pakistani Taliban deny attacking convoy of foreign ambassadors in northwest

The Pakistani Taliban on Monday denied involvement in a bombing attack on a police convoy that was escorting foreign ambassadors in the country's restive northwest, as authorities said they were still trying to determine who was behind the attack, which killed a police officer. The ambassadors and senior envoys were traveling on Sunday to the Swat Valley, a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, when the attack occurred in Malam Jabba, one of Pakistan's two ski resorts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Mohammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, denied detonating the improvised explosive device that hit a police vehicle accompanying the convoy. One police officer was killed and four others were wounded in the attack, which drew strong condemnation from Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other officials. The envoys were

Search underway for suspects in Alabama shooting that killed 4, injured 17

Authorities have reported no immediate arrests after a weekend mass shooting killed four people and left 17 others injured in what police described as a targeted hit by multiple shooters who opened fire outside a popular Alabama nightspot. The shooting late Saturday night in the popular Five Points South entertainment district of Birmingham, rocking an area of restaurants and bars that is often bustling on weekend nights. The mass shooting, one of several this year in the major city, unnerved residents and left officials at home and beyond pleading for help to both solve the crime and address the broader problem of gun violence. The priority is to find these shooters and get them off our streets, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said a day after the shooting. The mayor planned a morning news conference Monday to provide updates on the case. The shooting occurred on the sidewalk and street outside Hush, a lounge in the entertainment district, where blood stains were still visible on

16 civilians injured in Russian attack on Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia: Officials

Both sides deny targeting civilians in their attacks, but thousands of civilians have been killed - the vast majority of them Ukrainians - in the war that Moscow launched with a full-scale invasion

6 personnel killed, 11 injured in terror attack in Pak's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Six security forces personnel were killed and 11 others injured in a terror attack on a security check post in the intervening night of Thursday and Friday in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, officials said. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for the attack. According to officials, a group of militants attacked the security check post in Mishta village at Ladha tehsil in South Waziristan district resulting in the death of six security forces personnel and injury to 11 others. An official source said a clearance operation is underway to neutralise the threat. The attack comes amidst rising tensions in the region. The TTP has been active in the area, with several similar attacks targeting security forces. The Pakistani government has repeatedly accused the TTP of operating from sanctuaries in Afghanistan, a claim denied by the Afghan Taliban. There has been an uptick in the incidents of terrorism in Pakistan since the Tal

Walkie-talkie explosions in Lebanon kill at least 14, injure 450 others

The latest attack comes just a day after 12 people were killed and more than 2800 others were wounded in a coordinated explosion of pagers