12 workers killed, 36 hurt in fire mishap in TN factory
As many as 12 workers were killed and around 36 injured in a fire accident in a cracker manufacturing unit near Sivakasi in Virudhunagar district on Friday.
The accident occurred at around 11 am when more than 120 persons were working in Mariammal Fire Works at Achankulam village near Satur. The accident is suspected to have been caused by mishandling of the chemical mixture in the process of manufacturing fancy type crackers. It damaged 20 work sheds fully, killing five persons including a woman on the spot while seven more succumbed to burns at the hospital. Around 36 injured persons were undergoing treatment at the government hospitals in Virudhunagar, Sivakasi, Satur, Kovilpatti.
Fire and rescue personnel from the fire stations at Sivakasi, Virudhuagar
and Satur had to struggle for four hours to contain the spread of the fire further and to put it out by 3 pm, according to the district fire officer Ganesan.
District collector R. Kannan said after inspecting the accident spot that those workers who suffered more than 50 per cent burns were referred to Madurai Rajaji government hospital for further treatment. A detailed enquiry would be conducted, which will help
identify the exact cause of the fire that sparked the explosion.
The local villagers, who first rushed to the rescue of the workers on hearing the deafening sound of the blast, however, complained that eight workers were made to work in a shed against the permitted four.
This caused congestion that prevented workers from running out when the accident occurred, said a villager.
Hyderabad, Feb. 12: Hit by global lockdown, GMR Infra-structure Limited’s consolidated loss for the December quarter widened to Rs 1120.51 crore from loss of Rs 280.74 crore in the year-ago quarter, a filing from the company with the bourses said on Friday.
The consolidated total income for the quarter was down to Rs 1,673.53 crore against Rs 2,297.65 crore, it said.
Revenues from the Airports segment was down to Rs 816.19 crore during the quarter. It was Rs 1,636.14 crore during the corresponding period in FY20.
The segment incurred a loss of Rs 455.17 crore in the quarter.
Paris, Feb. 12: Dating apps are booming in lockdown — no longer just a way of hooking up but also of simple interaction at a time when the Coronavirus inflicts loneliness on millions.
Rodrigo, 18, had never considered joining a dating app until the months of lockdown boredom finally forced his hand.
“At the start, we told ourselves the crisis will pass, that we just have to have a bit patience. But when temporary becomes permanent, you have to try new things,” he said.
With school
mostly online and limited options for going out with friends, “I had the feeling I was spending my entire life with my parents.” Rodrigo now visits dating apps every day. More than just chasing the thrill of a hook-up, they have become a place to simply hang out.
He has made friends with four people his age through the apps and chats with them daily — a way of “relieving the stress and frustration” of the pandemic, he says. “It’s all we have left,” he sighs, especially since Portugal was plunged back into lockdown last month.
Match, the group that includes several leading apps such as Tinder, Hinge and Meetic, says it added more than a million users in the last quarter of 2020, up some 12 percent to around 11 million worldwide.
“It sounds like a cliche, but the apps have really kept me from sinking,” said Sebastien, a 19-year-old student in France.
“When we can’t go to college, and the bars, restaurants, and cinemas are all closed, we spend entire days on our own, stewing. It’s horrific,” he said.
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China’s space agency released video footage from its spacecraft circling Mars on Friday, two days after it successfully entered the planet’s orbit in Beijing’s latest ambitious space mission.
In the video, published by state broadcaster CCTV, the surface of the planet is seen coming into view out of a pitch black sky against the outside of the Tianwen-1, which entered the orbit of the Red Planet on Wednesday.
White craters are visible on the planet’s surface, which fades from white to black through the video as the probe flies over the course of one Martian day, said official news agency Xinhua.
The five-tonne Tianwen-1 —which translates as “Questions to Heaven” —includes a Mars orbiter, a lander and a solar-powered rover and launched from southern China last July.