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Wednesday August 16, 2017

A MUDSLIDE killed more than 200 people on the outskirts of Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown on Monday, sweeping away homes and leaving residents desperate for news of missing family members.

The Red Cross said at least 205 bodies had been taken to the cen-tral morgue in Freetown. Police and military personnel were at the scene in the mountain town of Regent searching for people trapped in the debris.

Many people living at the foot of Mount Sugar Loaf were asleep when the mountainside collapsed, burying dozens of houses, including two-story buildings, witnesses said.

Standing in the rain, residents sobbed as they mourned family members and waited for news of

those missing. Adama Kamara wept as she described a failed attempt to rescue her 7-week-old child.

“We were inside when we heard the mudslide approaching. I attempted to grab my baby but the mud was too fast. She was covered alive,” said Kamara, who escaped with bruises. She said she was not sure what had happened to her husband.

A man said he had left early in the morning to buy bread. When he returned, his wife, children, siblings and in-laws were all dead.

The death toll is expected to rise as more bodies are recov-ered, Red Cross spokesman Abu Bakarr Tarawallie said.

Vice President Victor Foh said at the scene: “It is likely that hun-

dreds are lying dead underneath the rubble.” He said a number of illegal buildings had been erected in the area.

“The disaster is so serious that I myself feel broken,” he said. “We’re trying to cordon the area. Evacuate the people.”

An excavator plowed away at the mountainside and ambu-lances rushed back and forth to the city center with bodies and wounded, but rescue efforts were hampered by bad roads and the weather, a witness said.

Community chief Fatmata Tarawallie said she had started calling for help at 4 a.m. (0400 GMT) but that it did not come soon enough.

“Now our community has sunk,” she said.

(SD-Agencies)

MORE than half a million people in Yemen have been infected with cholera since the epidemic began four months ago and 1,975 people have died, the World Health Organization said yesterday.

Each day there are more than 5,000 new cases of the water-borne disease, which causes acute diarrhea and dehydration, in the country where the health system has collapsed after more than two years of war, it said.

“The spread of cholera has slowed signifi cantly in some areas compared to peak levels but the disease is still spreading fast in more recently affected dis-tricts, which are recording large numbers of cases,” the WHO said, reporting 503,484 cases.

The disease, spread by inges-tion of food or water tainted with human feces, can kill within hours if untreated. It has been largely eradicated in developed countries. (SD-Agencies)

GUAM offi cials were “ecstatic” yesterday as North Korea appeared to back away from its threat to fi re four missiles towards the U.S. territory in the western Pacifi c.

“There doesn’t appear to be any indication, based on what we’re hearing, that there will be any missiles attacking in the near future or in the distant future,” Lieutenant Governor Ray Tono-rio said.

Guam Homeland Security chief George Charfauros dis-missed reports of satellite images showing North Korea moving a missile into place for a possible launch.

He said he believed this was “just a show of force” to mark North Korea’s Liberation Day celebrations yesterday.

“It may be just a ruse. Today is a historic day for the Korean peninsular. It is their Liberation Day .... North Korea tends to use symbolism as part of their deci-sion making.”

“We are almost ecstatic that Kim Jong Un has backed off,” he added.

CNN reported that U.S. spy

satellites detected a North Korean mobile missile launcher being moved in a way indicating preparations were being made for a possible launch.

However, tensions began to ease in Guam after Pyongyang’s offi cial Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Kim had examined plans to fi re missiles near Guam, but made no move towards an immediate strike.

Instead he hinted he would hold off by saying he would “watch a little more the fool-ish and stupid conduct of the Yankees spending a hard time of every minute of their miser-able lot.”

Tonorio said Kim appeared to have “calmed down” some of his rhetoric and “we’re happy that he has taken a look at their plans and will be holding off on, at least it appears, the imminent threats to Guam.”

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has also signaled his country will no longer stay quiet as tensions escalate between the U.S. and North Korea.

In a forceful speech yesterday,

Moon asserted the right to veto any military action against Kim Jong Un’s regime, saying that decision should be made by “ourselves and not by anyone else.” He vowed to prevent war at any cost.

Moon emphasized that any party cannot decide to take military actions on the pen-insula without the consent of South Korea.

Tensions have been mounting in the region since North Korea tested two intercontinental bal-listic missile tests last month, which appeared to bring much

of the U.S. within range.Responding to the tests, U.S.

President Donald Trump warned Pyongyang of “fi re and fury like the world has never seen.”

The North replied by setting a mid-August deadline to fi nal-ize plans to test-fi re its missiles towards the U.S. Pacifi c island of Guam.

Although tensions have eased in Guam, which is home to two large U.S. military installations and more than 6,000 military personnel, Tonorio said there was no change to the threat level. (SD-Agencies)

INDIAN Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi yesterday pledged to build a New India by 2022 that is free of casteism, terrorism and corruption, a day after Indian President Ram Nath Kovind pitched for the same.

“A New India is one that leaves behind a Chalta Hai (it’s okay) attitude. We have to think of Badal Sakta Hai (we can change). This attitude will help us as a nation,” Modi said in his Independence Day speech from the iconic Red Fort in the heart of the national capital.

“The millennials turn 18 next year. I invite India’s young to take this opportunity to shape the future of the nation and par-ticipate in India’s development,” he said.

India celebrates 70 years of independence from Britain this year.

Invoking Team India to run for a New India by 2022, Modi said: “By then, the poor shall have con-crete houses, the farmer shall double his income, youths and women will get ample opportu-nities, an India free of casteism, terrorism, corruption, nepotism, a clean India.”

India can defend itself from anyone who seeks “to act against our country,” Modi said in the speech. “Security is our top priority.”

His remarks came after Indian troops crossed the Sikkim sector of the China-India border and obstructed Chinese road works in the Dong Lang area (Doklam) on June 18, which resulted in a monthlong standoff.

China has repeatedly warned of an escalation if India did not order its troops back from Dong Lang. (SD-Xinhua)

JAPANESE Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offer-ing to the Yasukuni shrine for war dead yesterday to mark the anniversary of Japan’s World War II surrender, but did not visit in person, an apparent effort to avoid upsetting China and South Korea.

Past visits by Japanese lead-ers to Yasukuni have outraged Beijing and Seoul because it honors 14 Japanese leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as war criminals, along with other war dead.

China and South Korea yes-terday called on Japan to face up to its wartime past after Abe sent an offering to the shrine. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China resolutely opposed Japan’s “wrong actions” over the shrine.

Masahiko Shibayama, a lawmaker from Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, told reporters at the shrine that he had made an offering on Abe’s behalf.

Abe has only visited the shrine in person once since taking offi ce in 2012, an action that prompted criticism from key ally the United States as well as from Asian nations.

In China’s Nanjing, a peace assembly was held yesterday to commemorate the 72nd anni-versary of Japan’s unconditional surrender in World War II.

Representatives from coun-tries such as China, Japan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Jordan attended the assembly in the Nanjing Massacre Vic-tim’s Memorial Hall, mourning the 300,000 people who died in the massacre. (SD-Agencies)

Rescue workers remove the rubble after a mudslide in the mountain town of Regent, Sierra Leone, on Monday. SD-Agencies

A view of U.S. military planes parked on the tarmac of Andersen Air Force base on the island of Guam, a U.S. Pacifi c territory, yesterday. SD-Agencies

Kim hints at holding off attack threat Modi pledges to build New India by 2022

1,975 die as cholera wreaks havoc in Yemen

Abe sends ritual offering to Yasukuni shrine

More than 200 killed in Sierra Leone mudslide