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7.0 magnitude quake hits China, 72 killed

[email protected] (PTI)
April 20, 2013

Beijing, Apr 20: At least 72 people were killed and hundreds of others injured today when a powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked southwest China's Sichuan province causing massive destruction.

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The quake hit Lushan county of Ya'an city in southwest China's Sichuan Province at 8:02 am local time, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC). The epicenter of the earthquake was reported to be at a depth of 13 Kms and was monitored at 30.3 degrees north latitude and 103.0 degrees east longitude.

At least 72 people were killed and 600 others injured, China's state-run CCTV reported, while officials said the number of injured people could be over a thousand.

This is the second major quake to hit Sichuan in five years.

Over 90,000 people were killed in the 8-magnitude quake in 2008. The province is located in the quake prone Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Sichuan is located close to the Tibet.

Pictures on the state run CCTV showed extensive damage to buildings. The quake was strongly felt by residents in Sichuan's capital city of Chengdu, which is about 140 kilometres from Ya'an. The airport in Chengdu was closed as it suffered the damage.

A resident in Chengdu, who was on the 13th floor of a building said he felt the building shaking for about 20 seconds and he saw tiles fall off nearby buildings, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

People in Leshan city of Sichuan Province, and neighbouring Chongqing Municipality also felt the earthquake.

More than 2,000 soldiers were rushed to the area hit by the 7.0-magnitude quake for rescue and relief work, military sources said. The soldiers were from the Chengdu Military Area Command (MAC).

Meanwhile, two helicopters of the Chengdu MAC took off from Jiajiang county to learn the developments on the ground. The Chengdu MAC has already set up a quake relief and rescue headquarters. It has also set up a medical relief team for the quake-hit region.

People in Leshan city of Sichuan Province, and neighboring Chongqing Municipality also felt the earthquake. The quake was felt in provinces of Guizhou, Gansu, Shaanxi and Yunnan. Several aftershocks rated above 4.0-magnitude also hit the area.

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Agencies
August 7,2020

Moscow, Aug 7: Russia will register its first vaccine against the coronavirus on August 12, Deputy Health Minister Oleg Gridnev said on Friday.

The vaccine has been developed jointly by the Gamaleya Research Institute and the Russian Defence Ministry.

"The vaccine developed by the Gamaleya centre will be registered on August 12. At the moment, the last, third, stage is underway. The trials are extremely important. We have to understand that the vaccine must be safe. Medical professionals and senior citizens will be the first to get vaccinated," Gridnev told reporters at the opening of a cancer centre building in the city of Ufa.

According to the minister, the effectiveness of the vaccine will be judged when the population immunity has formed.

Clinical trials of the vaccine began on June 18 and included 38 volunteers. All of the participants developed immunity. 

The first group was discharged on July 15 and the second group on July 20.

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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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Agencies
February 4,2020

The Seattle City Council, one of the most powerful city councils in the U.S., on Monday unanimously passed a resolution condemning India’s recently-enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Reaffirming Seattle as a welcoming city and expressing solidarity with the city’s South Asian community regardless of religion and caste, the resolution “resolves that the Seattle City Council opposes the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Act in India, and finds these policies to be discriminatory to Muslims, oppressed castes, women, indigenous, and LGBT people“.

Introduced by Indian American City Council member Kshama Sawant, the resolution urges the Parliament of India to uphold the Indian Constitution by repealing the CAA, and to stop the National Register of Citizens, and take steps towards helping refugees by ratifying various UN treaties on refugees.

“Seattle City’s decision to condemn CAA should be a message to all who wish to undermine pluralism and religious freedom. They cannot peddle in hate and bigotry, and expect to have international acceptability at the same time,” said Ahsan Khan, president of Indian American Muslim Council.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan of Equality Labs, which organised the community in support of the resolution, welcomed its passage. “We are proud of the Seattle City Council for standing on the right side of history today. Seattle is leading the moral consensus in the global outcry against the CAA, she said.

Soundararajan said that thousands of organizers across the country have called, e-mailed, and visited Seattle City Council members to amplify this resolution, and it sets an example to cities across the United States.

“At a time when members of the Indian ruling party sided Trump, the Muslim ban, and his war on immigrants as justification for targeting hundreds of millions of Indian minorities, Americans have a unique responsibility to stand up and speak about this human rights crisis. We are glad that Seattle is leading the way on this,” she said.

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