‘Hope’ fading for Sri Lanka missing
COLOMBO, April 16, (Agencies): Hopes of finding anyone alive under a collapsed mountain of garbage in Sri Lanka’s capital faded Sunday as the death toll reached 23 with another six reported missing, police said.
Hundreds of soldiers, backed by heavy earth moving equipment were digging through the rubbish and the wreckage of some 145 homes that were destroyed when a side of the 300-foot (90-metre) high dump crashed on Friday.
“The rescue is fast becoming a recovery operation,” a senior police official at the site said. “It is difficult to imagine anyone could survive under these toxic conditions.”
He said six people were reported missing after Friday’s disaster at Kolonnawa on the northeastern edge of the capital.
The Colombo National hospital said four children aged between 11 and 15 were among the 23 people killed. Hospital spokeswoman Pushpa Soysa said a man and a woman pulled out of the dump on Friday were in intensive care while another 11 were also still in hospital.
Police have stepped up security in the area following reports of looting and said they arrested 18 men suspected of stealing victims’ belongings.
President Maithripala Sirisena ordered hundreds of troops to search for survivors and bolster rescue efforts of the fire department.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is visiting Japan, said arrangements had been made to remove the garbage dump, but it came crashing down before relocation work could begin.
Wickremesinghe said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered help with the recovery effort and a technical team would be sent to Sri Lanka to evaluate the situation. About 800 tonnes of solid waste is added per day to the open dump.
Police said a total of 145 homes, mostly shacks, were destroyed when the garbage mountain came crashing down following heavy rain the previous day and a fire hours earlier.
More than 600 people have been given temporary shelter at a government-run school in the area as authorities looked for alternative accommodation for those living near the dump.
Sirisena
Nepal, China begin military exercises:
China and Nepal began their first-ever joint military exercises on Sunday, a move likely to rattle India as Beijing boosts its influence in the region.
Impoverished Nepal is sandwiched between China and India and has in recent years ping-ponged between the sphere of influence of Delhi and Beijing as the Asian giants jostle for regional supremacy.
The 10-day drill in Kathmandu, dubbed “Sagarmatha Friendship 2017” referring to the Nepali name for Mount Everest, will focus on counter-terrorism, according to Nepal’s army.
“This is in line with our efforts to hold joint exercises with countries that have diplomatic relations with Nepal,” military spokesman Jhankar Bahadur Kadayat told AFP.
Investigation against clerics:
Pakistani police opened a hate speech investigation involving two Muslim clerics on Sunday after the killing of a university student over allegations he committed blasphemy.
The clerics are accused of attempting to disrupt the funeral of student Mashal Khan, who was beaten to death by fellow students after a dormitory debate was followed by accusations of blasphemy being spread across a university campus in the northern city of Maradan.
University officials had issued a public notification hours before the murder naming three students being investigated for “blasphemous activities”.
Blasphemy is an extremely sensitive topic in Muslim majority Pakistan, where penalties range from small fines to the death sentence, and dozens of people are on death row in the country’s jails.