health: Lincoln Tribune

الأربعاء، 25 أبريل 2012

Lincoln Tribune

Chinese police arrest driver after 14 passengers die in bus crash
Blast rips through coal mine in northern China, killing 9
Bomb blast kills NATO service member in Afghanistan
Former Ukraine PM Tymoshenko goes on hunger strike
Six missing after landslide hits village in southeastern China

Chinese police arrest driver after 14 passengers die in bus crash

Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:40 PM PDT

CHANGSHU, CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- A bus driver was arrested in eastern China on Tuesday on suspicion his fatigue from playing hours of computer games led to the deaths of fourteen of his passengers over the weekend, police said.

Wang Zhenwei, a man in his thirties, was driving thirty-one Shanghai tourists to view peony blossom in Changshu city on Sunday morning when the bus cut through highway barriers and collided head-on with a heavy truck coming from the opposite direction. The accident happened at 9:25 a.m. local time on the Yanjiang Expressway in Changshu.

A spokesman for the State Administration of Work Safety said thirteen people were killed at the scene of the accident while another victim died at a local hospital hours later, raising the overall death toll to 14. A total of 20 others, most of them passengers on the bus, were injured.

Police in Jiangsu province arrested Wang on Tuesday, saying his fatigue caused him to lose control of the bus. Officials said Wang had played computer games at Internet cafes the night before the accident and as a result slept less than four hours. He allegedly had also taken crystal meth on Friday night.

The state-run Xinhua news agency said Wang suffered only minor injuries as a result of Sunday's accident, but he later tried to jump from the eleventh floor of a hospital building but was stopped just in time by firefighters.

Roads in China are known to be among the most dangerous in the world with more than 70,000 fatalities and 300,000 injured a year, according to the country's Public Security Ministry. Many accidents are the result of drivers violating traffic laws, fatigue, poor road conditions and overloaded vehicles.

Earlier this month, twenty-four people were killed when a sand-hauling truck collided head-on with a passenger bus on a road near Wangzhai township in Xiaoxian county, which is located in the central province of Anhui. The powerful impact completely smashed the fronts of both vehicles, leaving only two survivors on the bus.

Blast rips through coal mine in northern China, killing 9

Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:12 PM PDT

BAYANNUR, CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- A powerful explosion ripped through a coal mine in northern China on early Monday, killing nine miners and injuring more than a dozen others, state-run media reported on Tuesday. It follows a series of deadly accidents in recent weeks.

The accident happened at around 3:20 a.m. local time on Monday when an explosion rocked the Xingya Coal Mine in Bayannur, a prefecture-level city in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region of northern China. More than two dozen people were working at the mine when the blast happened.

A local government spokesman told the state-run Xinhua news agency on Tuesday that the bodies of four miners were found shortly after the explosion, while five more were found after an eight-hour search. Sixteen miners were rescued and rushed to a local hospital, where two of them remain in a serious condition.

Xinhua said the mine was licensed and had a maximum output of 300,000 tons (600 million pounds) a year. It was not immediately known what caused Monday's accident, but Xinhua said an investigation has been launched.

Safety conditions at mines in China have significantly improved in recent years but they remain among the world's most dangerous with at least 289 fatalities in the first quarter of this year. There were a total of 1,973 fatalities in 2011, 2,433 fatalities in 2010 and 2,631 in 2009, according to official figures.

Earlier this month, eleven workers were killed when floodwaters trapped a group of miners who were working at the Shanfu Coal Mine near the city of Changzhi in Xiangyuan County, which is located in Shanxi province. The owner of the mine initially claimed nine miners were trapped, but local authorities later discovered that eleven people were working at the mine which was operating with an expired production license.

China in recent years shut down scores of small mines to improve safety and efficiency in the mining industry. The country has also ordered all mines to build emergency shelter systems by June 2013 which are to be equipped with machines to produce oxygen and air conditioning, protective walls and airtight doors to protect workers against toxic gases and other hazardous factors.

The first manned test of such a permanent underground chamber was carried out in August 2011 when around 100 people - including managers, engineers, miners, medical staff, and the chamber's developers - took part in a 48-hour test at a mine owned by the China National Coal Group in the city of Shuozhou in northern China's Shanxi Province.

One of the worst mining accidents in China in recent years happened in November 2009 when 104 workers were killed after several explosions at a coal mine in Heilongjiang province.

Bomb blast kills NATO service member in Afghanistan

Posted: 24 Apr 2012 07:56 PM PDT

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (BNO NEWS) -- A coalition service member was killed on Tuesday when a roadside bomb exploded in southern Afghanistan, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. Few other details were immediately released.

ISAF said one of its service members was killed when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded in Afghanistan's south. But because the multinational force defers the release of specific details to national authorities, no other details about the incident were released, including the exact location.

The nationality of the service member involved was also not immediately disclosed by ISAF. "It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities," a brief statement said.

Also on Monday, the U.S. Department of Defense identified the four soldiers who were killed on late Thursday evening when their Black Hawk (UH-60) helicopter crashed in Helmand province, located in southern Afghanistan. The soldiers were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Infantry Division at Wheeler Army Airfield in Hawaii.

The exact cause of the accident is under investigation, but U.S. officials have said they do not believe enemy fire was involved. "We still believe that weather was the principal cause," Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. John Kirby said on Friday. "They're going to look at all factors, but right now it appears that weather was the principal cause."

The U.S. Department of Defense identified the four victims as 27-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Nicholas S. Johnson, of San Diego, California; 25-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Don C. Viray, of Waipahu, Hawaii; 33-year-old Sgt. Chris J. Workman, of Boise, Idaho; and 23-year-old Sgt. Dean R. Shaffer, of Pekin, Illinois.

Tuesday's death raises the number of coalition troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year to 124, most of them American and British service members, according to official figures. A U.S. Marine and two U.S. soldiers were killed on Sunday as a result of two separate IED attacks in Afghanistan.

A total of 566 ISAF troops were killed in Afghanistan in 2011, down from 711 in 2010. A majority of the fallen troops were American and were killed in the country's south, which is plagued by IED attacks on troops and civilians.

There are currently more than 130,000 ISAF troops in Afghanistan, including some 90,000 U.S. troops and more than 9,500 British soldiers. U.S. President Barack Obama previously ordered a drawdown of 23,000 U.S. troops later this year, and foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Former Ukraine PM Tymoshenko goes on hunger strike

Posted: 24 Apr 2012 10:04 AM PDT

KIEV, UKRAINE (BNO NEWS) -- Ukrainian opposition leader and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko began a hunger strike late last week to protest her treatment in prison, including an alleged assault, her lawyer said on Tuesday.

Tymoshenko began the hunger strike on Friday to protest against the treatment she has received in prison and the ongoing political repression in the country, according to Serhil Vlasenko, her lawyer and a member of parliament. Tymoshenko was continuing her hunger strike on Tuesday.

Vlasenko also alleged that Tymoshenko was physically abused last Friday while being transferred from Kachanivska women's penal colony No.54 in Kharkiv to the Ukrzaliznytsia Central Clinical Hospital in Kharkiv in order to receive treatment for a severe spinal condition. "I saw bruises on her stomach area and hands," he said, as quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency.

However, Kharkiv region prosecutor Hennadiy Tiurin said Tymoshenko had refused undergoing a medical exam and admitted that she was taken to the hospital against her will, causing the injuries.

Tymoshenko, 51, is serving a seven-year term for abuse of power in connection with a 2009 gas deal with Russia. She was accused of illegally forcing state energy company Naftogaz to sign a gas supply contract with Russian gas company Gazprom in 2009, which the state says required approval of the Cabinet of Ministers.

Tymoshenko has claimed her trial is politically motivated and an attempt by President Viktor Yanukovych, who narrowly beat her in the presidential election in February 2010, to bar her from future elections. The international community has largely condemned her trial.

Six missing after landslide hits village in southeastern China

Posted: 24 Apr 2012 09:34 AM PDT

LONGDEYANG, CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- A landslide triggered by days of heavy rain hit a remote village in southeastern China on late Tuesday afternoon, leaving at least six people missing, state-run media reported.

The incident happened at around 3:30 p.m. local time when a rain-triggered landslide buried houses in the village of Longdeyang in Gutian county, which is located in the country's southeastern province of Fujian. At least six people are believed to be missing.

Local authorities told the state-run Xinhua news agency that around two dozen firefighters from the provincial capital Fuzhou are on their way to the remote village to assist in the search-and-rescue effort. Fuzhou is about two hours by train from Gutian.

Landslides occur regularly in China. In September 2011, a total of 32 people were killed when a rain-triggered landslide buried two small factories in Shaanxi Province, which is located in the country's northwest. Five people were also injured.

health

الأربعاء، 25 أبريل 2012

Lincoln Tribune

Lincoln Tribune

ليست هناك تعليقات:

إرسال تعليق