22 dead as two-thirds of Philippines turns into 'water world

[email protected] (Gulf News)
August 8, 2012

philippines

Manila, August 8: Twenty-two people, including seven missing, died as Tropical Storm Haikui, 300 northeast of Taiwan, triggered low pressure areas that drenched northern, central and southern Luzon, Metro Manila and central Philippines with endless rains, resulting in floods and mudflows, and turned two-thirds of the country into a virtual “water-world,” officials said.


Five members of the Baylon family, including Cecille, 40, Jessica, 20, Jinjin, 16, Jason, 7; and a three-week old baby died at the East Avenue Medical Centre where they were rushed after their bodies were recovered from a landslide that buried nine people and five houses in a slum area in Litex, Commonwealth Village, suburban Quezon City, said Undersecretary Benito Ramos, head of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).


Four of those who were unearthed from the mudslide in Litex were found alive, Ramos said, adding that many shanties in slum areas were also damaged by the landslide.


Meanwhile, four drowned in northern suburban Bulacan; two also drowned in southern Luzon's Batangas; and one remained missing after being carried by a surging river in central Luzon's Bataan. The three provinces were hit by floods, Ramos said.

Metro Manila and nearby provinces were paralysed.


All rivers surrounding Metro Manila were swollen. There was high tide after lunch, helping floods to rise and damage more villages and major streets.

The Epifanio de los Santos (EDSA), a major thoroughfare that traverses northern and southern suburban areas was spared from floods and remained passable.


Houses in high-end Provident Villages in eastern suburban Marikina were flooded up to the second floor.


Several families called on TV and radio stations, saying they have been on their rooftops since early morning of Tuesday.


At night-time government agencies had not succeeded in rescuing all the people who were on their rooftops.


Policemen and military men used rubber boats to rescue residents and to give relief assistance.


“Some rubber boats were damaged. Those who gave assistance also fell from their rubber boats because of the rampaging floods,” said a radio report.


A stroke patient almost fell from a rubber boat when he was rescued from his house.


Patients at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Hospital in Manila were transferred to the fifth floor when the ground floor of the hospital was flooded early morning of Tuesday. The entire university complex was also flooded until night of Tuesday.


Dams in all affected areas reached their critical level, prompting authorities to open several gates which also flooded several nearby areas. Small houses fell one by one in those areas, said a TV report.


Two days of endless rains affected 179,026 families or 808,697 people, said Ramos.


About 543,951 families or 250,200 people were in 85 hastily erected evacuation centres, said Ramos, adding that 49,911 families or 231,508 people have left their homes and stayed with relatives who live on safer grounds.


Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista kept knocking at private schools to open their gates and allow homeless people to stay.


The number of dead, missing, and affected families could rise further because the rains ermained unabated until night of Tuesday.


“We will not sleep tonight,” said a rescuer.


About 21 storms ravage the Philippines every year.



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News Network
April 26,2020

Washington/Seoul, Apr 26: A special train possibly belonging to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was spotted this week at a resort town in the country, according to satellite images reviewed by a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, amid conflicting reports about Mr. Kim's health and whereabouts.

The monitoring project, 38 North, said in its report on Saturday that the train was parked at the “leadership station” in Wonsan on April 21 and April 23. The station is reserved for the use of the Kim family, it said.

Though the group said it was probably Kim Jong Un's train, Reuters has not been able to confirm that independently, or whether he was in Wonsan.

“The train's presence does not prove the whereabouts of the North Korean leader or indicate anything about his health but it does lend weight to reports that Kim is staying at an elite area on the country's eastern coast,” the report said.

Speculation about Mr. Kim's health first arose due to his absence from the anniversary of the birthday of North Korea's founding father and Mr. Kim's grandfather, Kim Il Sung, on April 15.

North Korea's state media last reported on Mr. Kim's whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on April 11.

China has dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on Kim Jong Un, according to three people familiar with the situation.

A third-generation hereditary leader who came to power after his father's death in 2011, Kim has no clear successor in a nuclear-armed country, which could present major international risk.

On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump downplayed reports that Mr. Kim was ill. “I think the report was incorrect,” Mr. Trump told reporters, but he declined to say if he had been in touch with North Korean officials.

Mr. Trump has met Mr. Kim three times in an attempt to persuade him to give up a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States as well as its Asian neighbors. While talks have stalled, Mr. Trump has continued to hail Mr. Kim as a friend.

Reporting from inside North Korea is notoriously difficult because of tight controls on information.

A Trump administration official said continuing days of North Korean media silence on Mr. Kim's whereabouts had heightened concerns about his condition, and that information remained scant from a country U.S. intelligence has long regarded as a ”black box.”

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to questions about the situation on Saturday.

Daily NK, a Seoul-based website that reports on North Korea, cited one unnamed source in North Korea on Monday as saying that Kim had undergone medical treatment in the resort county of Hyangsan north of the capital Pyongyang.

It said that Mr. Kim was recovering after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure on April 12.

Since then, multiple South Korean media reports have cited unnamed sources this week saying that Mr. Kim might be staying in the Wonsan area.

On Friday, local news agency Newsis cited South Korean intelligence sources as reporting that a special train for Mr. Kim's use had been seen in Wonsan, while Mr. Kim's private plane remained in Pyongyang.

Newsis reported Mr. Kim may be sheltering from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Mr. Kim, believed to be 36, has disappeared from coverage in North Korean state media before. In 2014, he vanished for more than a month and North Korean state TV later showed him walking with a limp.

Speculation about his health has been fanned by his heavy smoking, apparent weight gain since taking power and family history of cardiovascular problems.

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News Network
March 4,2020

Tokyo, Mar 4: Takeda Pharmaceutical Co said on Wednesday it was developing a drug to treat COVID-19, the flu-like illness that has struck more than 90,000 people worldwide and killed over 3,000.

The Japanese drugmaker is working on a plasma-derived therapy to treat high-risk individuals infected with the new coronavirus and will share its plans with members of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, it said in a statement.

Takeda is also studying whether its currently marketed and pipeline products may be effective treatments for infected patients.

"We will do all that we can to address the novel coronavirus threat...(and) are hopeful that we can expand the treatment options," Rajeev Venkayya, president of Takeda's vaccine business, said in the statement.

Takeda said it was in talks with various health and regulatory agencies and healthcare partners in the United States, Asia and Europe to move forward its research into the drug.

Its research requires access to the blood of people who have recovered from the respiratory disease or who have been vaccinated, once a vaccine is developed, Takeda said.

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News Network
June 3,2020

Islamabad, Jun 3: Pakistan has reported a record 4,132 fresh cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of infections to 80,463, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

The Ministry of National Health and Services said the new infections were detected after conducting a maximum of 17,370 tests in a day.

Of the total cases, Sindh has so far detected 31,086 patients of the coronavirus, Punjab 29,489, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 10,897, Balochistan 4,747, Islamabad 3,188, Gilgit-Baltistan 779 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir reported 289 patients of the viral disease.

"In total 67 patients died in the last 24 hours, taking the tally of deaths to 1,688. Another 28,923 people have fully recovered from the disease," the ministry said in a statement.

The authorities have so far carried out 595,344 tests in the country.

Officials said that Pakistan has more than 100 labs that can conduct over 30,000 tests per day and the number of daily tests will be gradually increased to the maximum level.

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