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140 killed, 100 injured as oil tanker explodes in Pak

Agencies
June 25, 2017

Lahore, Jun 25: At least 140 people were today charred to death and over 100 others injured after an oil tanker overturned and burst into flames as crowds rushed to collect petrol that spilled out to a highway in the Bahawalpur district of Pakistan's Punjab Province.

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The oil tanker coming from Karachi to Lahore overturned early this morning on the national highway at the Ahmedpur Sharqia area of the district, some 400 km from Lahore, after its tyre burst. The fire was apparently caused by someone who lit a cigarette after people from nearby localities gathered on the highway to collect spilt petrol, officials said.

The blaze from the oil spill engulfed scores of residents, killing 140 people and injuring over 100 others. District Coordination Officer (DCO) Bahwalpur Rana Salim Afzal termed it a "huge tragedy" in the history of Pakistan.

"At least 123 people were killed before getting any medical help while the rescue officials shifted more than 100 injured to the district headquarters hospital and Victoria Hospital in Bahawalpur where the condition of most of them is critical," Afzal said, adding some 50,000 litre petrol spilled from the oil tanker.

He said women and children are among the victims. Rescue 1122 official Jam Sajjad said 140 people were killed in the fire and the toll may rise further as a number of injured are in critical condition.

He said most of the dead bodies are completely charred and they will be identified only by DNA test. Muhammad Hanif, 40, who suffered burns, told reporters at Victoria Hospital that he was present at his house when his cousin called him informing that the village people were rushing to the highway to collect "free oil".

"My cousin told me to pick bottles and come out of the house. When I came out of the house I saw many people rushing towards the highway and some going there by motorcycles. Me and my cousin Rashid reached the highway and joined the people busy in collecting the petrol spilling from the tanker. Suddenly the tanker burst and the people gathered near it were burnt alive. Rashid and I were a little away from the tanker therefore we are alive," Hanif said.

He said it was "greed" of the villagers which took them to the "valley of death". The Punjab government said three helicopters are shifting the critically burnt people to Multan’s combined military hospital and Nishter Hospital for providing better health facilities.

Regional Police Officer Bahawalpur Raja Rifat said the motorway police personnel had reached the spot when the oil tanker overturned. "The people from nearby village Mauza Ramzan had also gathered there. The police personnel asked them to leave the place but they started collecting petrol. Suddenly the tanker exploded and within seconds the fire erupted giving no chance to the people present there to leave the place,” Rifat said.

Dozens of motorcycles and cars were also burnt at the site. "Most people reached the site on motorcycles to collect spilling petrol," he said. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif directed the authorities to ensure best medical treatment to the injured. He also sent his chopper for shifting the injured to Multan hospitals.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif President Mamnoon Hussain, PTI chairman Imran Khan and PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto condoled the tragedy.

Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa ordered the Army to assist the civil administration in the rescue effort.
Army helicopters have been deployed in the rescue operations. The tragedy came a day ahead of Eid ul-Fitr celebrations in the country, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramazan.

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News Network
April 22,2020

London, Apr 22: The toll from coronavirus in the United Kingdom has jumped above 18,000 after 759 more deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, the Department of Health and Social Care announced in a statistical bulletin on Wednesday.

In total, 18,100 people have died in the UK hospitals after contracting COVID-19 as of 16:00 GMT on Tuesday.

A further 4,451 new cases of the disease were reported over the preceding 24 hours up to 08:00 GMT on Wednesday, the ministry said. The total number of cases reported since the start of the outbreak now stands at 1,33,495.

On Tuesday, the Office of National Statistics published a report stating that the coronavirus disease death toll as of April 10, when accounting for deaths in care homes and private residences, was 41 per cent higher than the government's figures.

In parliament on Wednesday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock stated that the United Kingdom has reached the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak, praising the social distancing measures enforced in the country.

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News Network
January 2,2020

Washington, Jan 2: The number of people killed in large commercial airplane crashes fell by more than 50% in 2019 despite a high-profile Boeing 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia in March, a Dutch consulting firm said on Wednesday. Aviation consulting firm To70 said there were 86 accidents involving large commercial planes - including eight fatal incidents - resulting in 257 fatalities last year. In 2018, there were 160 accidents, including 13 fatal ones, resulting in 534 deaths, the firm said.

To70 said the fatal accident rate for large airplanes in commercial passenger air transport was just 0.18 fatal accident per million flights in 2019, or an average one fatal accident every 5.58 million flights, a significant improvement over 2018. The fatality numbers include passengers, air crew such as flight attendants and any people on the ground killed in a plane accident

Large passenger airplanes in the study are aircraft used by nearly all travelers on airlines worldwide but excludes small commuter airplanes in service, including the Cessna Caravan and some smaller turboprop airplanes, according to To70.

On Dec. 23, Boeing's board said it had fired Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg after a pair of fatal crashes involving the 737 MAX forced it to announce it was halting output of its best-selling jetliner. The 737 MAX has been grounded since March after an October 2018 crash in Indonesia and the crash of a MAX in Ethiopia in March killed a total of 346 people.

To70 said the aviation industry spent significant effort in 2019 "focusing on so-called 'future threats' such as drones." But the MAX crashes "are a reminder that we need to retain our focus on the basics that make civil aviation so safe: well-designed and well-built aircraft flown by fully informed and well-trained crews."

The Aviation Safety Network said on Wednesday that, despite the MAX crash, 2019 "was one of the safest years ever for commercial aviation." The 157 people killed in March on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accounted for more than half of all deaths last year worldwide in passenger airline crashes.

Over the last two decades, aviation deaths around the world have been falling dramatically even as travel has increased. As recently as 2005, there were 1,015 deaths aboard commercial passenger flights worldwide, the Aviation Safety Network said.

Last week, 12 people were killed when a Fokker 100 operated by Kazakh carrier Bek Air crashed near Almaty after takeoff. In May, a Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft caught fire as it made an emergency landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, killing 41 people.

The figures do not include accidents involving military flights, training flights, private flights, cargo operations and helicopters.

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Agencies
July 28,2020

Sydney, Jul 28: Nearly 3 billion koalas, kangaroos and other native Australian animals were killed or displaced by bushfires in 2019 and 2020, a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Tuesday, triple the group's earlier estimates.

Some 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds and 51 million frogs were impacted by the country's worst bushfires in decades, the WWF said.

When the fires were still blazing, the WWF estimated the number of affected animals at 1.25 billion. The fires destroyed more than 11 million hectares (37 million acres) across the Australian southeast, equal to about half the area of the United Kingdom.

"This ranks as one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history," said WWF-Australia Chief Executive Officer Dermot O'Gorman in a statement.

The project leader Lily Van Eeden, from the University of Sydney, said the research was the first continent-wide analysis of animals impacted by the bushfires, and "other nations can build upon this research to improve understanding of bushfire impacts everywhere".

The total number included animals which were displaced because of destroyed habitats and now faced lack of food and shelter or the prospect of moving to habitat that was already occupied.

The main reason for raising the number of animal casualties was that researchers had now assessed the total affected area, rather than focusing on the most affected states, they said.

After years of drought made the Australian bush unusually dry, the country battled one of its worst bushfire seasons ever from September 2019 to March 2020, resulting in 34 human deaths and nearly 3,000 homes lost.

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