Quake in Philippines kills at least 15, injures 90

executive@coastaldigest.com (Agencies)
February 11, 2017

Manila, Feb 11: A powerful nighttime earthquake in the southern Philippines killed at least 15 people, injured about 90 others, damaged buildings and an airport and knocked out power, officials said on Saturday.

quake

The late Friday quake with a magnitude of 6.5 roused residents from sleep in Surigao del Norte province, sending hundreds to flee their homes. The quake was centered about 14 km northwest of the provincial capital of Surigao at a relatively shallow depth of 11 km, said Renato Solidum of the Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology.

Nearly 100 aftershocks have been felt, officials said, adding that schools were being reopened as evacuation centers for residents wary of returning to their damaged homes.

Mr. Solidum said the quake was set off by movement in the Philippine fault, which sits in the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where quakes and volcanoes are common.

At least 15 people were killed, some after being hit by falling debris and blunt objects, provincial disaster-response official Ramon Gotinga said, citing hospital reports. At least 90 others were injured in Surigao city, about 700 km southeast of Manila.

“We're still doing a rapid needs and damage assessment,” Office of Civil Defense director Antonio Gonzales told The Associated Press by telephone.

Several mostly low-slung buildings and schools sustained cracks in the coastal city and a bridge collapsed in an outlying town. Rescue teams were checking for possible casualties in a village called Poknoy in the city of 140,500 people, he said.

The city's airport was temporarily closed due to cracks in the runway, aviation officials said. A major port in Lipata district also was closed while engineers checked the stability of an access road, Mr. Gonzales said.

“The shaking was so strong I could hardly stand,” coast guard personnel Rayner Neil Elopre said.

Village leaders asked residents to move to a school building on higher ground, Elopre said, pausing briefly during a mild aftershock while talking on the phone.

Police officer Jimmy Sarael said he, his wife and two children embraced each other until the shaking eased. They later moved to the moonlit grounds outside the provincial capitol complex to join more than 1,000 jittery residents, he said.

The last major earthquake that struck Surigao, an impoverished region also dealing with a communist insurgency, was in the 1800s, Mr. Solidum said. A magnitude 7.7 quake killed nearly 2,000 people on the northern island of Luzon in 1990.

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News Network
June 25,2020

Ottawa, Jun 25: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took his son out for ice cream on Wednesday in his first family outing since Canada started easing out of its pandemic lockdown.

It was also Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec province.

Wearing masks, the Canadian leader and his six-year-old son Hadrien were cheered at Chocolats Favoris in Gatineau, Quebec.

According to a pool report, Trudeau said the shop tapped into a federal emergency wage subsidy and business loan in order to weather the pandemic, and "avoid being frozen out of the frozen treat market."

Hadrien is said to have bounced with excitement, settling on a vanilla cone with a cookie topping while dad bought a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate for himself.

Father and son then headed out to the patio, where they doffed their masks to eat their cones.

Canada's provinces and territories declared states of emergency mid-March, closing schools and non-essential businesses in response to the pandemic.

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News Network
June 6,2020

Washington, Jun 6: Washington mayor Muriel Bowser on Friday renamed an area near the White House that has become the epicenter of anti-racism protests over the past week "Black Lives Matter Plaza" -- unveiling a giant street mural.

But in so doing, the African-American mayor piqued the ire of the very movement she was supporting, as well as of President Donald Trump.

The protests are focused on the May 25 death in Minneapolis of 46-year-old black man George Floyd while in police custody. A white officer kneeled on his neck until he lost consciousness.

That officer and three others are now in custody and facing charges -- second-degree murder for the kneeling officer, and aiding and abetting that crime for his colleagues.

Just north of the White House, the words BLACK LIVES MATTER were painted in huge yellow letters along the street leading to the presidential mansion, along with the symbol from the DC flag.

"The section of 16th street in front of the White House is now officially 'Black Lives Matter Plaza'," Bowser tweeted.

A city worker put up a new street sign with the name.

"Determination to make America the land it ought to be," she said on Twitter.

The corner of 16th and H is significant -- in a controversial incident on Monday, peaceful protesters gathered there were dispersed with tear gas.

Shortly afterwards, Trump walked from the White House to a nearby church for a photo op, during which he held the Bible in his hand.

"There was a dispute this week about whose street this is. Mayor Bowser wanted to make it abundantly clear that this is DC's street and to honor demonstrators" who protested on Monday, her chief of staff John Falcicchio tweeted.

Rose Jaffe, one of the artists in the collective that painted the BLACK LIVES MATTER sign, told AFP it was "about reclaiming the streets of DC."

But she added that Bowser "has to do more than just a photo-op -- she must carry on when this is washed away" on issues like police accountability.

Stars Like LeBron James praised her move on Twitter, but the local chapter of the Black Lives Movement balked, calling the mural a "performative distraction from real policy changes."

"This is to appease white liberals while ignoring our demands," it said on Twitter, saying Bowser had "consistently been on the wrong side" of the movement.

'We are well equipped'

The US government deployed a significant contingent of federal officers and National Guard troops from other states -- many of them not wearing any identifying garb or badges -- to handle protests in Washington.

Bowser had called up the local Guardsmen but the Justice Department moved to take partial control of peacekeeping, with Guard troops from as far away as Utah brought in.

In a letter to Trump dated Thursday and tweeted early Friday, Bowser called for "all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence" to be removed.

She said their deployment was "inflaming demonstrators and adding to the grievances of those who, by and large, are peacefully protesting for change and for reforms to the racist and broken systems that are killing black Americans."

"These additional, unidentified units are operating outside of established chains of command," she added.

"We are well equipped to handle large demonstrations and First Amendment activities," including the right to assemble, Bowser said.

Trump reiterated on Friday that authorities need to "dominate the streets," and has been unapologetic about the deployment of forces.

And on Twitter, he lashed out at Bowser, calling her "incompetent" and saying the National Guard had saved her from "great embarrassment."

Senator Mike Lee of Utah accused Bowser of evicting Utah National Guard members from area hotels.

She replied: "DC residents cannot pay their hotel bills. The Army can clear that up with the hotel today, and we are willing to help."

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News Network
January 6,2020

Aboard Air Force One, Jan 6: US President Donald Trump threatened sanctions against Baghdad on Sunday after Iraq's parliament called on US troops to leave the country, and the president said if troops did leave, Baghdad would have to pay Washington for the cost of the air base there.

"We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of dollars to build, long before my time. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it," Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

Trump said that if Iraq asked US forces to leave and it was not done on a friendly basis, "we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."

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