Woman killed and 40 injured as train derails
Sindh: Eight carriages of a train derailed in southern Pakistan, killing at least one passenger and injuring 40 others.
The accident happened between Rohri and Sangi stations in southern Sindh province and caused a temporary suspension of services in both directions, said railway official Kamran Lashari.
The cause of the derailment was not known.
Train accidents are common in Pakistan, where governments have paid little attention to improving the poorly maintained signal system and ageing tracks.
Mr Lashari said the 18-carriage train had departed from Karachi for the eastern city of Lahore. Six of the derailed cars fell into a ditch.
The body of the woman who died and 40 injured passengers were taken to hospitals in nearby towns.
Colombo: Sri Lankan Roman Catholics attended Mass dressed in black yesterday, with prayers and protests calling for justice for those killed in co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday two years ago.
Church bells tolled and prayers were chanted at 8.45am, the time when bombs were detonated almost simultaneously at two Roman Catholic churches and a Protestant church during Easter services on April 21, 2019.
Bombs were also set off at three top hotels, targeting locals and foreigners who were eating breakfast.
More than 260 people, including 171 from the two Catholic churches, were killed in the attacks, which were blamed on two local Islamic extremist groups that had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
The victims included eight British citizens and three children of Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, who is Scotland’s biggest landowner.
A presidential inquiry commission has handed its final report to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, but the Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, said the report had concentrated more on the failures of the then-government in preventing the attacks despite early warnings, rather than finding out the handlers of the groups accused of carrying out the bombings.
Seoul: The South Korean and US militaries are scaling back their annual exercises this month due to the Covid-19 pandemic and to support diplomacy on North Korea’s nuclear programme.
Seoul’s joint chiefs of staff said the allies had decided to start the nineday drills, due to begin this morning, after looking at factors such as the status of the pandemic and diplomatic efforts to achieve de-nuclearisation and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Sanaa: The Saudi-led coalition fighting Iranbacked rebels in Yemen said it has launched a new air campaign on the country’s capital and other provinces in retaliation for missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia.
“The targeting of civilians and civilian facilities is a red line,” said Colonel Turki al-maliki, a coalition spokesman.
He was referring to the missile and drone strikes on Saudi cities in recent weeks that the Iranianbacked rebels, known as Houthis, had claimed.
Residents in Sanaa, Yemen’s rebel-held capital, reported hearing huge explosions as a round of bombs fell on the city yesterday. The Houthirun al-masirah satellite TV channel reported at least seven air strikes on the city.