Trains derail in India, killing at least 50 and trapping many others
NEW DELHI — Two passenger trains derailed Friday in India, killing at least 50 people and trapping hundreds of others inside more than a dozen damaged rail cars, officials said.
About 400 people were taken to hospitals after the accident, which happened in eastern India, about 137 miles southwest of Kolkata, officials said. The cause was under investigation.
Ten to 12 coaches of one train derailed, and debris from some of the mangled coaches fell onto a nearby track, said Amitabh Sharma, a railroad ministry spokesperson.
The debris was hit by another passenger train coming from the opposite direction, and up to three coaches of the second train also derailed, Sharma said.
The Press Trust of India news agency reported that a third train carrying freight was also involved, but there was no immediate confirmation from railroad authorities.
In the aftermath, television images showed rescuers climbing atop the wreckage to break open doors and windows and using cutting torches to free survivors.
Passenger Vandana Kaleda told the New Delhi Television news channel that she “found people falling on each other” as her coach shook violently and veered off the tracks. She said she was lucky to survive.
Another survivor who did not give his name said he was sleeping when the impact woke him up. He said he saw other passengers with broken limbs and disfigured faces.
Dattatraya Bhausaheb Shinde, the top administrator in the Balasore district, said at least 50 people were dead. The Press Trust reported a death toll of at least 70.
Nearly 500 police officers and rescue workers with 75 ambulances and buses responded to the scene, said Pradeep Jena, the top bureaucrat of the Odisha state.
Rescuers were attempting to free 200 people feared trapped in the wreckage, Shinde said.
The Press Trust said the derailed Coromandel Express was traveling from Howrah in West Bengal state to Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state.
Iowa building collapse:
An Iowa task force has completed its search for survivors at the site of a partially collapsed Davenport apartment building without finding three missing people who are feared dead, authorities said Friday.
The focus has shifted to shoring up the structure so recovery efforts can begin.
The remains of the sixstory apartment building were constantly in motion in the first 24 to 36 hours after it collapsed Sunday, which officials said posed a risk to rescuers trying to search for survivors.
“We do what the building tells us to do,” Rick Halleran, the task force’s Cedar Rapids division chief, said of the delay in searching the building.
City officials earlier this week said that Brandon Colvin, Ryan Hitchcock and Daniel Prien were unaccounted for and had “high probability of being home at the time of the collapse.” All three have since been listed in the National Database of Missing Persons.
The state task force was mobilized and on site to first search for survivors and then secure the structure, Halleran said. He said the search for survivors was completed Thursday evening after electrical equipment connected to the building was controlled.
Conn. building collapse: A building under construction near the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, partially collapsed Friday when a concrete pour went awry, injuring eight people including two critically, city officials said, adding there were no fatalities.
City firefighters and other authorities were called to Lafayette Street shortly after 12:30 p.m.
“Our units responded immediately within minutes and found several persons in varying degrees of injury, from broken bones to three that were partially buried under the rubble,” Fire Chief John Alston Jr. said during a news conference.
There were 36 people at the work site at the time, and all were accounted for, officials said. All eight injured
people were construction workers. Six were pulled out of the building by firefighters, while two were able to escape on their own, officials said.
Workers at the site told first responders the concrete was being poured faster than they could spread it, and it pooled too much in one area and caused the collapse, Alston said.
Haiti assassination: A federal judge in Miami sentenced a Haitian-chilean businessman Friday to life in prison for his role in helping Colombian mercenaries get weapons to assassinate Haitian President Jovenel Moise in 2021.
Rodolphe Jaar, 51, is the first person to be convicted and sentenced in what U.S. prosecutors have described as a broad plot by conspirators in Haiti and Florida to reap lucrative contracts under a new administration once Moise was out of the way.
An additional 10 defendants are awaiting trial in the United States.
Jaar, who has dual Haitian and Chilean citizenship, previously had been an informant for the U.S. government and had been convicted of drug trafficking a decade ago. He pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States, and to providing material support resulting in death.
Moise was killed July 7, 2021, when assailants broke into his private home in Port-au-prince. He was 53 years old.
Oil, gas drilling ban: Hundreds of square miles in New Mexico on the outskirts of Chaco Culture National Historical Park that tribal communities consider sacred will be withdrawn from further oil and gas production for the next 20 years, the Biden administration ordered Friday.
The new order from Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland applies to public lands and associated mineral rights within a 10-mile radius of the park. It does not apply to entities that are privately, state- or tribalowned. Existing leases won’t be impacted either.
A World Heritage site, Chaco Culture National Historical Park is thought to be the center of what was once a hub of Indigenous civilization, with many tribes from the Southwest tracing their roots to the high desert outpost.
Actor Armie Hammer will not be charged after a long investigation of a woman’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her in 2017, Los Angeles prosecutors said.
Hammer said on Instagram after a long public silence that “I look forward to beginning what will be a long, difficult process of putting my life back together now that my name has been cleared.”
Police began investigating the allegation against Hammer in 2021, and turned their findings over to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office earlier this year.