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| Tuesday, January 16, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Quake toll may cross 400; hundreds missing Clampdown on Gaza Strip
again
Besides Camilla, there was
Janet Tension mounts on Myanmar
border Estrada planning
to flee? |
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Tanker explodes off
S. Korea, 3 dead Two killed, 10 hurt
in Aceh violence Chinese missile base
across Taiwan
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Quake toll may cross 400; hundreds missing SAN SALVADOR (EL SALVADOR), Jan 15 (Reuters) — At least 381 persons were dead, 779 injured and hundreds missing in El Salvador yesterday, a day after a strong earthquake struck the Central American nation, setting off landslides and burying hundreds of homes. President Francisco Flores said in a news conference that the death toll could go higher and material damage was still incalculable. “We have made a request to the Government of Colombia for 3,000 coffins to be put at the disposal of citizens,” he said. “Any evaluation of damage and how much it will take to rebuild is still very premature.” Some 1,336 people had been evacuated, the National Emergency Committee said. The committee estimated earlier in the day that at least 1,200 people were still missing. Most of the dead were being pulled from the rubble in the San Salvador suburb of Santa Tecla, where a massive mudslide engulfed 500 homes. Guatemalan officials said four more bodies were discovered in that country yesterday. The 7.6 magnitude quake occurred at 11.34 a.m. on Saturday and was felt across El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras and as far north as Mexico City. Power and telephone connections were cut in El Salvador when the quake struck. Some parts of San Salvador had electricity late yesterday, but many rural areas are still without it, authorities said. San Salvador’s international airport remained closed, and water rationing was being enforced in the capital city, authorities said. Flores, who declared a state of emergency on Saturday, called for calm as upto 500 aftershocks, some of them fierce, continued to cause panic and drive people out of houses and offices in San Salvador, the capital, and elsewhere more than 24 hours after the quake. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake’s epicentre was about 105 km southeast of San Salvador, off the Pacific coast. In Santa Tecla’s middle-class neighborhoods, where a hillside collapsed on as many as 500 homes, hope gave way to resignation as more bodies were recovered. Onlookers said the neighborhood looked from a distance as if a giant cup of coffee had been tipped down the hillside, spilling across the upscale homes arranged in a grid. “Not one of the 14 provinces was unaffected,” said Eduardo Caliz, the Ambassador to Mexico. “We believe we still do not know the true magnitude of this disaster.” Officials said about 40 or 50 local and foreign tourists were believed trapped on a volcano on the outskirts of San Salvador and rescuers were trying to reach them. Serious damage was also reported in the Pacific coast provinces of La Libertad and Usulutan and in the north around the city of Santa Ana. Many other areas were badly hit. An overflow of the injured was being treated in tents on the grounds of hospitals in the capital, some of which suffered serious damage in the quake. The USA, Mexico, Switzerland, Spain and Venezuela were among the first countries to mobilise relief efforts for El Salvador, and foreign aid, including money, medical supplies and wool blankets, was starting to flow in. |
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Clampdown on Gaza Strip again JERUSALEM, Jan 15 (AFP, Reuters) — The Israeli army said today it had reimposed a total clampdown on the Gaza Strip lifted only on Thursday last, following the murder of a Jewish settler in the Palestinian territory. The army closed down the Gaza Strip’s airport and main roads as well as the Karni and Erez border crossings to Israel. Israel said it had called off peace talks with the Palestinians for the day after the settler was found shot dead. Later, witnesses said Jewish settlers in Gaza set fire to Palestinian homes, fields and greenhouses in retaliation for the killing of Roni Tsalach (32) who had been missing since Sunday. The surge in violence set back Israeli-Palestinian efforts to try to put an end to nearly 16 weeks of fighting. Israeli soldiers closed Gaza airport after the body was found and Palestinian police said the army had placed concrete roadblocks and tanks along main roads, dividing Gaza into four pieces and stopping Palestinian movement. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak condemned the killing, calling it a “murder in cold blood” and a “base crime that will not be forgiven”. “The murderers will not be let off. Israel will reach them and they will be punished as others have been punished for attacks in the past against Israeli civilians and soldiers,” Barak said in a statement. “Israel views the Palestinian Authority as the body responsible for acting...against initiators of attacks.” Palestinian workers had started to return to work in Israel after the reopening of border crossings on Thursday following a successful joint security meeting on Wednesday between Israeli and Palestinian officials, an Israeli official said. The decision to authorise a new shutdown was taken after the Israeli army found the body of a Jewish settler, who was abducted yesterday night, near the southern Jewish settlement of Kfar Yam. Meanwhile, three masked men on Monday killed a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel, Palestinian police sources said. They said Mohammad Moussa Abdel-Rahman (40) had been shot four times in the head and chest by three hooded men when he opened the door of his house in the northern West Bank town of Bruqeen, near Ramallah. Senior Palestinian security officials said Abdel-Rahman had long been suspected of collaborating with Israel. Abdel-Rahman’s killing followed the weekend executions of two Palestinians convicted of collaborating, with Israel. A senior security official said the executions were intended as a warning to other Palestinians. A report from Gaza said a Jewish settler who had disappeared in the Gaza Strip was found dead today, raising tensions just as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were trying to revive peacemaking. The settler, Roni Tsalach, 32, had gone missing yesterday. His body was found by Israeli troops early today in a field near his greenhouses where he was working before he disappeared. Tsalach’s death was the latest in a 15-week-old Palestinian uprising. At least 308 Palestinians, 44 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed in the fighting. |
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Besides Camilla, there was Janet LONDON, Jan 15 (DPA) — Britain’s Price Charles (52) did not only seek consolation with his long-time mistress Camilla Parker Bowles during his unhappy marriage with Diana — there was also another woman in his life. Ms Janet Jenkins (now 55), twice divorced, told the British Sunday Mirror newspaper yesterday how she first met the heir to the British throne while working with the British Consulate in Montreal in 1975. His on-off romance with the tall, willowy blonde ended just before Charles met Diana, but they kept in touch, speaking on the phone every few months and meeting in both Canada and Britain. So it was at first just as old friends, that she told him she would be visiting London in July, 1992, and he invited her to Highgrove for the weekend. Diana at the time was already living at Kensington Palace, and Camilla was forced to maintain a discreet distance. Ms Janet Jenkins said she was only breaking her silence now so that people realise that as well as being a future King, Charles is also human, and often a lonely man. She said after a walk he told her about his unhappy marriage before the fireplace. She said it was impossible not to feel sorry for him as he poured out his feelings for the next four hours. “I sat with him, holding his hand. His marriage was in deep trouble. We talked about Diana and her erratic behaviour, her weeping fits, her attempt to throw herself down the stairs. He felt trapped, in a marriage which, as far as he could see, couldn’t be mended...” Ms Janet said she had no bad conscience about spending the night with Charles in 1992. Diana herself was aware of only one rival. “There were three persons in that marriage,” she said in her famous Panorama interview. |
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Tension mounts on Myanmar border DHAKA, Jan 15 (DPA) — Tension has been running high today along the Bangladesh-Myanmar frontier as border security forces of the two countries brought in fresh troops after peace talks between local commanders failed, official sources in Dhaka said. Hundreds of people fled the frontier Bangladeshi village, Ulubunia, the scene of a border skirmish between Bangladesh and Myanmar last week over the construction of a dam on the shared Naaf river by the Myanmar authorities. Earlier yesterday, Myanmar border troops clamped an indefinite curfew along a 20-km stretch of its frontier with Bangladesh ahead of peace talks between senior commanders on both sides. The two countries began massing troops along their common frontier after a border clash last week. The official Bangladesh News Agency said Myanmar was deploying troops and military hardware in the region. The claim of reinforcements coincided with reports of failure of border talks held yesterday in a bid to ease tensions. Bangladeshi commanders of the border security force, bdr said army contingents in the region had been put on high alert since Friday. A Myanmar junta spokesman, who declined to be named, said on Monday in Yangon (Rangoon) that Myanmar was “very much surprised to read about such fabricated and distorted stories about both sides massing huge numbers of troops on the respective sides of the border.” “There has been a minor technical problem on the border. Both sides are in the process of negotiations, in a peaceful and friendly manner,” he said. Bangladesh opposes the construction of the river dam as it is feared it would cause flooding on the Bangladeshi side of the border. |
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Estrada
planning to flee? MANILA, Jan 15 (AFP) — President Joseph Estrada’s foes said today that the impeached Philippine leader was preparing to leave the country and live in “comfortable retirement” abroad with his mistresses. “The exodus of his mistresses and friends is a sign that Mr Estrada is now preparing for an exit scenario,” said Mr Joey Rufino, Executive Director of the opposition Lakas-NUCD Party. Two of Estrada’s mistresses have already left the country apparently to avoid testifying in the former movie action star’s unprecedented corruption trial in the senate which could lead to his ouster. Ex-movie starlet Laarni Enriquez, by whom Mr Estrada has three young children, evaded servers of a Senate subpoena last week and abruptly left for the USA via Hong Kong. Another mistress, Ms Joy Melendrez, also left for abroad along with her young son by Mr Estrada on Saturday. Mr Estrada stands accused of bribery, graft and corruption, betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the constitution. |
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Tanker explodes off
S. Korea, 3 dead SEOUL, Jan 15 (Reuters) — A tanker exploded and sank off South Korea’s southeastern port of Pusan today, killing three crew and injuring seven, an official at the ship’s charterer said. SK Shipping spokesman Hwang Shin said the coastguard and navy were searching for the remaining six crew who had been missing since the tanker sank near Koje Island. The 9,800 DWT tanker P Harmony exploded in waters off Pusan around 9.55 a.m. The ship was en route to the southwestern port of Yosu where it was scheduled to load a cargo of about 9,000-tonnes of boiler kerosene at Yosu, Hwang said. |
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Two killed, 10 hurt
in Aceh violence BANDA ACEH, Jan 15 (AFP) — Two persons were killed and 10 injured in violence ahead of a new truce between government and rebel forces in the restive Indonesian province of Aceh, a report said here today. Soldiers shot a civilian dead after he attacked a policeman with a machete in Luengputu in Pidie district yesterday, Assistant Superintendent Restu Mulyana of the Pidie police told the Serambi daily. The policeman suffered serious cuts and was being treated at the general hospital, of Sigli, Mr Mulyana added. The family of the dead attacker said he was mentally unstable. |
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Chinese missile base
across Taiwan TAIPEI, Jan 15 (AFP) — China is building a base in a southeastern city for advanced long-range ground-to-air missiles, a move feared to weaken Taiwan’s air defence capabilities, it was reported here today. The base, built at Zhangzhou in Fujian province, would be used for deployment of Russia-made S-300 MPU missiles which have a minimum range of 90 km, the United Daily News quoted intelligence information as saying. |
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