GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Four miners have died and 50 are missing in a coal mine explosion in Sanmenxia in Henan province. Reports about how many miners managed to escape, but at least 14 men made it out and 7 have been pulled out, injured. It appears that a small earthquake had hit the area shortly before a rock exploded but it’s not clear if the two incidents are related.
The mine is owned by the state.
Safety in mines has been a huge issue in China in recent months and a number of illegal mines have been closed.
Links to other sites: BBC, Winnipeg Free Press (AP)
YVERDON-LES-BAIN, SWIZTERLAND – A woman and a girl are dead after an explosion at an apartment building on 39 rue de Neuchâtel, in Yverdon-les-Bains, canton Vaud.
Initial police reports identified only one fatal victim, however, a child’s body was discovered by investigators late on Tuesday 25 October announced Vaud cantonal authorities.
Police are still trying to determine the cause of the explosion. Over a dozen people were injured as a result of the blast that occurred at around 13:00 on 25 October.
According to investigators, the identities of the fatal victims have not yet been confirmed.
One person was killed and four were hurt in an explosion at a French nuclear waste site on Monday 12 September, but officials said there was no radioactive leak and the authorities quickly declared the emergency over.
L’Autorite de Surete Nucleaire, France’s nuclear safety agency, says it appears a furnace exploded at the Centraco nuclear waste treatment site.
The blast was completely contained within the furnace, which is used to melt waste.
The oven, used to melt low-level radioactive waste, blew up and caught fire but no radioactive or chemical leaks occurred, said power company Électricité de France SA, whose subsidiary operates the furnace.
Links to: La Provence (Fr), CTV, The Wall Street Journal
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss Foreign Affairs Department Sunday confirmed to Swiss media that two men missing after an explosion at a cafe in Marrakesh, Morocco last Thursday were killed by the blast. Moroccan authorities were unable to identify the bodies until Sunday.
The two, ages 23 and 25, had been sitting at the cafe with two women friends, ages 25 and 27, who were brought back to Switzerland by Rega Saturday and immediately hospitalized. Both are in critical condition.
The four were all from canton Ticino, although the 23-year-old man was Portuguese and the other man was Swiss, as are the two women.
They were in Marrakesh as tourists.
The explosion, which is still under investigation, killed 16 people, 13 of whom were tourists. In addition to the two Swiss, the Moroccan interior ministry announced that the group includes eight French citizens, three Moroccans, a Canadian, a British citizen and a Dutch person.
Another two dozen people were injured.
Hundreds of Moroccans turned out for a peaceful protest in Marrakesh Sunday, with some demanding a more rapid transition to democracy, according to several media sources with reporters on the scene. Other Moroccans are concerned about the loss of tourism, an important source of income.
La Chataigneraie - Int'l School of Geneva in Founex
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A group of students who are in their next to final year at La Châtaigneraie in Founex are safe, according to the International School of Geneva, after arriving in Marrakesh Thursday morning 28 April and finding themselves only a few hundred metres from the blast that shook the Arguna Cafe and killed at least 14 people.
La Châtaigneraie is one of four campuses of the International School of Geneva. The students are on an International Baccalaureate programme geography field trip and in a letter being sent to parents today the school says that “all of our students are safe and well and though they were aware of the explosion [they] were at no time in any danger. The group are now in the hotel and will stay there whilst the details and cause of the explosion are determined.”
School officials say they are “keeping an open mind about the continuation of the trip. As and when further information becomes available we will review it, make a final decision.”
The cause of the blast is not yet clear, although Morocco’s Interior Ministry said early Friday on state television that it was a terrorist act.
The official death toll is 14, but local TV reports in Morocco say 15 people died, including six French citizens, five Moroccans, a Russian and a British citizen, but the government has not officially confirmed the nationalities. France has confirmed the deaths of its citizens.
125 reported injured, 22 of them in critical condition, according to Russian news services
An explosion that the Belarus KGB security services say was a bomb planted under a bench rocked a city centre metro station in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, Monday evening 11 April, killing 11 people and injuring at least 125 others. The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, says he will not rule out terorist help from abroad, but social network chatter about the explosion is reportedly suggesting the possibility of an internal security services feud in this country where Lukashenko has ruled with a heavy hand since 1994.
Elections in late 2010 were heavily criticized by the European Union, which imposed a travel ban on the president and officials in his regime.
The blast occurred shortly before 18:00, during rush hour, at “Oktyabrskaya, the only interchange station of the capital’s subway system and the city’s busiest. The station is also near the offices of President Alexander Lukashenko,” according to Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
The explosion brings to mind the metro bombing in Moscow in 2010, but The Independent points out that “the country has a heavy security presence and is not an obvious target for terrorists aiming to attack civilians. Unlike in neighbouring Russia, where two suicide bombers from the country’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus region hit the metro system last year, there is no history of Islamic insurgency in Belarus, while the pro-Western opposition forces would be unlikely to target civilians.”
Links to other sites: The Independent, Moscow Times, Reuters, Ria Novosti
Initial reports government staying at hotel were wrong
Post Hotel, Davos, Switzerland, Thursday morning 27 January: a sculpture by artist Ram Sutarn, 84, of India stands in front of the hotel. (photo, ©2011, World Economic Forum swiss-image.ch/Photo by Andy Mettler
Davos, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Details are unverified and sketchy, but the Swiss free newspaper 20 Minutes has reported that an explosion occurred Thursday morning 27 January in the Hotel de la Poste in Davos and that anti-WEF groups sent an e-mail claiming responsibility and saying a second bomb could go off. Police in Davos state they cannot say what caused the minor explosion but that there have been no injuries.
The hotel houses a group from bank UBS who are attending the World Economic Forum, including Chairman Oswald Gruebel. 20 Minutes initially reported that members of the Swiss Federal Council were in the hotel, but they are staying at another one owned by the same company.
The group, in its e-mail to 20 Minutes, makes it clear it was targeting UBS and the Swiss government.
According to 20 Minutes, the authors of the bomb say it was scheduled to go off at 06:00 to spare employees. It went off at 009:00.
Swiss Embassy, Rome, Italy (GenevaLunch) - A parcel bomb exploded while it was being handled by an employee at the Swiss embassy in Rome, according to reports by TSR, Swiss public television. The injured employee has been transported to hospital and is reported to be in danger of losing both hands.
Link to other site: TSR
Two men who have been hospitalized 50 km northeast of Greymouth, New Zealand, have confirmed that they managed to escape a Pike River coal mine in after an explosion there. The number of men unaccounted for is reported as 27-35, but the company says it has not received any reports of fatalities. The men in the mine include the company’s own miners and local contractors. The explosion was discovered when an electrician went into the mine to investigate a power outage, which cut communication with the men in the mine. There is concern over ventilation, given the continuing lack of power.
Links to other sites: Sydney Morning Herald, New Zealand Herald, New Zealand TV and video NZTV
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Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in Zurich announced Wednesday 29 September that a 30-year-old man has died from his injuries, sustained when his clothes caught fire following an accidental explosion in a public toilet near Lake Zurich. The man was critically injured by the explosion Thursday 23 September in Oetwil am See.
The toilet was close to a bus stop and a bus driver put out the fire.
Details of the cause of the accident have not been released, except to say it was “accidental”. Material damage to the toilets will cost several thousand francs.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Three people working to defuse a second world war bomb were killed and another six who were involved in the job in central Germany were injured Tuesday, reports AFP. The news agency says four bombs have been found in Berlin in the past month, pointing to the frequency with which old bombs, still live, are found in the country. The deaths come as Jordan’s Prince Mired has been drawing the attention of world leaders to the dangers of landmines left from old wars, in his role as the Ottawa Convention president’s special envoy on the universalization of the Mine Ban Convention (see GenevaLunch feature interview with Prince Mired, 2 June 2010).
Investigators have found the black box, which is intact, from the Air India Express flight that crashed when it overshot the runway, went over a cliff and burst into flames near Mangalore Saturday 22 May. The crash killed 158 people; eight people are being treated in hospital. Those who died were reportedly burned in the fire. The airport is on a kind of tabletop, with a deep ravine next to it.
Links to other sites: Reuters, India, Times of India
Five states on high alert
India will rethink its strategy for countering terrorism attacks, officials have said, following the second major Maoist attack in two months, where 50 people (figure: Times of India) were killed in Chhattisgarh when a landmine was exploded under the bus in which they were traveling. The state, in the centre of the country, is rich in minerals. Five Indian states are on high alert, with Maoists declaring two days of attacks.
Links to other sites: Reuters, Times, India, Wall St Journal
An explosion of unknown origin at a coal mine in West Virginia killed 25 workers and four are still missing. The disaster is the worst at a US mine since 1984. Methane gas, which the mine seam releases in large quantities, is suspected. NPR points out that it remains one of the greatest dangers of mining.
In another mining disaster in the past few days, in China, 115 miners out of 153 were rescued after nine days in a flooded mine, but Chinese authorities say they are now finding bodies and several miners are still missing.
Links to other sites: NPR, West Virginia Gazette, Xinhua
Rescuers are fighting unusually cold waters and rough seas in their search for 46 sailors who are missing after the South Korean patrol ship Cheonan sank Friday at 21:45. Military officials were quoted in Korean media as saying that an explosion of unknown origin made a hole in the bottom of the ship, which was carrying 104 persons, of whom 58 were rescued. The South Korean government has virtually ruled out foul play by North Korea.
Four foreigners are reportedly among seven people killed when a bomb exploded near a school in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, but initial reports are contradictory. The bomb may have hit a convoy, in the Lower Dir district, traveling to the opening of a girls school but other reports say the blast came during the opening ceremony of the school. Two of the dead may have been schoolgirls, but it seems clear that many of the nearly 50 injured were students. The BBC reports that the four Westerners killed were aid workers, citing police, but other sources say there were three Westerners and they may have been US soldiers. The district is a Taliban stronghold.
Meyrin, Geneva (GenevaLunch) - The driver who died when her car caught fire late Sunday night in Meyrin has not been officially identified, while police await the results of an autopsy on the person they describe only as a 72-year-old woman. According to the Tribune de Geneve the driver was from Vaud, a musician who had just given a concert, followed by a small celebration, and she was heading home to Begnins.
The circumstances surrounding the accident remain unclear, with police saying she drove up onto a pedestrian area and into a post in the area between the town hall and the Forum Meyrin. For reasons not yet understood, she appears to have left her foot on the gas pedal while the car was blocked, causing the tires to explode and the fire to start.
A blast in the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu, killed three cabinet ministers and at least 18 other people Thursday 3 December, although AllAfrica, picking up the story from a UN humanitarian newsletter which cites a hospital source, puts the figure at 50 dead. The authors of the crime remain a mystery. A bomb exploded during a medical school graduation ceremony and suspicion quickly fell on an Islamist group, al Shabaab, but the group has denied it was involved. The extremist group has been locked in a power struggle with the Western-backed government, which the extremists accused of masterminding the blast, pointing out that the government itself has deep rifts. The US has called al Shabaab a proxy for al Qaeda in the region and Reuters reports that “Western security agencies say Somalia has become a safe haven for militants, including foreign jihadists, who are using it to plot attacks across the impoverished region and beyond.”
Update 13:00 Police in Islamabad believe the suicide bomber who blew up the World Food Program (WFP) office in Islamabad, Pakistan Monday 5 October walked into the building weraing paramilitary clothing, after asking if he could use the toilets. The bomb, which went off in the reception area, killed five WFP staff and has left several others in critical condition in hospital. THE WFP provides food for more than 10 million people in Pakistan, including 2 million who are receiving emergency aid in the Swat Valley, according to a statement from the head of WFP, Josette Sheeran. Security had been tight at the building, with anyone entering screened for weapons and some media are speculating that security guards must have been involved.The WFP reportedly received no advance warning of the attack.
The Taliban Tuesday claimed they were behind the attack.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Associated Press, Pakistan Observer, Washington Post
A gas explosion in a coal mine in Henan province in central China has cost the lives of at least 35 people, with 44 more trapped. The mine had been closed for renovation and was not yet authorized to re-open, although it is not clear what work was being done by the 93 people in the mine at the time of the explosion, which comes just days after the country’s vice-premier, Zhang Dejiang, called for safety in mines to be improved, reports AFP. Xinhua
Iran’s new government contains one woman, Marzieh-Vahid Dastjerdi, as health minister, the first in the Islamic Republic’s history. The parliament approved most of the cabinet proposed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently re-elected president, although it rejected two other women.
The new defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi, is a hardliner and former chief of the elite Quds force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. He is wanted by Interpol and the Argentine government for his alleged involvement in the 1994 explosion of the headquarters of Amia, a Jewish organization in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. He received the most votes from parliament. CNN, Reuters, Clarin (Spa)
Twelve people have been confirmed dead following the explosion Monday 17 August of Russia’s largest power plant, Sayano-Shushenskaya in Siberia, but the owner of the plant says the 63 missing people are likely to have drowned. The cause of the explosion is not yet known, but turbines were destroyed and power cut to a large area. Late Tuesday the Natural Resources Ministry said transformer oil had spread 80 kilometres along the Yenisei River. The oil, used for insulating and cooling, was released when a transformer exploded. Financial Times, Novosti
Three small bombs exploded in tourist areas of Palma, the capital of Spanish island Mallorca the afternoon of 9 August. No one was hurt, and one of the explosions may have been a controlled explosion detonated by police, according to Spanish media. Hours earlier, ETA, the Basque separatist group, claimed responsibility for an earlier bomb attack in Burgos, northern Spain 29 July and one in Palmanova, Mallorca, a day later which killed two guardia civil paramilitary police officers. In Palma 9 August, central areas were cordoned off and airport security was heightened. The Spanish royal family is vacationing on Mallorca. BBC, CNN, El Mundo (Spa)
A van parked in front of the paramilitary Civil Guard headquarters in the town of Burgos, northern Spain exploded early morning 29 July, slightly injuring 37 people and damaging surrounding buildings. No one immediately claimed responsibility, though media quoted the police as blaming separist Basque group ETA. Reports say the van was stolen in France. BBC, EFE (Spa),
Update 27 May Lake Tuerler, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – Seventeen people were injured, one seriously, when several gas canisters at a campground midway between Zurich and Zug exploded, causing a major fire. Some of the caravans reportedly caught fire, provoking the explosions as a result. Eleven of the injured were hospitalized, according to 20 Minutes, and millions of francs in damages were caused to the caravans. Police said late Tuesday that a gas leak in one of the caravan lines appears to have caused the fire.
Bullet, Vaud, Switzerland (WRG-FM) – Ten people were injured, including the owner who is in serious condition from burns following an explosion at a pizzeria next to the Grand Hotel des Rasses in Bullet, near Yverdon. Police believe the owner might have been changing a bottle of gas.
