A major bridge in the US city of Baltimore almost entirely collapsed Tuesday after being struck by a container ship, sending multiple vehicles and up to 20 people plunging into the harbor below.
Dramatic footage showed a 300-meter vessel hitting a footing of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, sending the steel-built structure crashing into the Patapsco River.
“Unfortunately, we understand that there were up to 20 individuals who may be in the Patapsco River right now as well as multiple vehicles,” Kevin Cartwright of the Baltimore Fire Department told CNN.
“So we have... a mass-casualty multi agency incident underway.
“We understand that there could have potentially been a vehicle, a tractor trailer or a vehicle as large as a tractor trailer on the bridge at the time that it collapsed.”
The footage appeared to show the ship going dark twice in the moments before the collision, with thick black smoke issuing from the ship’s funnel, possibly indicating activity from the engine.
A huge emergency response swung into action after the collision, which happened around 1:30 am (0530 GMT), with first response vehicles crowding the shoreline.
President Vladimir Putin won a record post-Soviet landslide in Russia’s election on Sunday, cementing his already tight grip on power in a victory he said showed Moscow had been right to stand up to the West and send its troops into Ukraine.
Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel who first rose to power in 1999, made it clear that the result should send a message to the West that its leaders will have to reckon with an emboldened Russia, whether in war or in peace, for many more years to come.
The outcome means Putin, 71, is set to embark on a new six-year term that will see him overtake Josef Stalin and become Russia’s longest-serving leader for more than 200 years if he completes it
Putin won 87.8% of the vote, the highest ever result in Russia’s post-Soviet history, according to an exit poll by pollster the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM). The Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) put Putin on 87%. First official results indicated the polls were accurate. The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and other nations have said the vote was neither free nor fair due to the imprisonment of political opponents and censorship.
A suspected gas leak caused a blast at a restaurant in China’s northern province of Hebei that ripped facades from buildings, damaged cars and scattered debris to kill two people and injure 26, state media and authorities said on Wednesday.
The blast happened at about 8 a.m. in the county of Sanhe, state broadcaster CCTV News said, roughly 80 km (50 miles) from the centre of Beijing, the capital, where key annual parliament sessions had just concluded.
Videos on social media platform Weibo showed a large orange fireball over the site, followed by billows of grey smoke, and scenes of the destroyed frontage of buildings, mangled cars, with glass shards in the streets, and some objects still ablaze.
A suspected gas leak triggered the accident in a shop selling fried chicken in the town of Yanjiao, city emergency officials said in a statement, drawing rescuers, firefighters, health and other officials to the scene.
“I was at home when I heard a loud blast, I initially thought it might be a gunshot,” said Zhao Li, a middle-aged woman who lives about a kilometre from the blast site.
“The loud explosion was accompanied by a crash of glass and clouds of smoke,” said Zhao, adding that police sealed off the street to the site.
The fire had been brought under control, fire officials said in an earlier statement, adding that 36 vehicles and 154 people had been dispatched to the site and were carrying out rescue work.
A suspected gas leak caused a blast at a restaurant in China’s northern province of Hebei that ripped facades from buildings, damaged cars and scattered debris to kill two people and injure 26, state media and authorities said on Wednesday.
The blast happened at about 8 a.m. in the county of Sanhe, state broadcaster CCTV News said, roughly 80 km (50 miles) from the centre of Beijing, the capital, where key annual parliament sessions had just concluded.
Videos on social media platform Weibo showed a large orange fireball over the site, followed by billows of grey smoke, and scenes of the destroyed frontage of buildings, mangled cars, with glass shards in the streets, and some objects still ablaze.
A suspected gas leak triggered the accident in a shop selling fried chicken in the town of Yanjiao, city emergency officials said in a statement, drawing rescuers, firefighters, health and other officials to the scene.
“I was at home when I heard a loud blast, I initially thought it might be a gunshot,” said Zhao Li, a middle-aged woman who lives about a kilometre from the blast site.
“The loud explosion was accompanied by a crash of glass and clouds of smoke,” said Zhao, adding that police sealed off the street to the site
The fire had been brought under control, fire officials said in an earlier statement, adding that 36 vehicles and 154 people had been dispatched to the site and were carrying out rescue work.
Gunmen in Nigeria kidnapped more than 200 school pupils in the northern town of Kuriga on Thursday, a teacher, local councillor and parents of the missing children said, in the biggest mass abduction from a school since 2021.
Police in Kaduna state did not respond to requests for comment on the abductions, which happened shortly after morning assembly at the Local Government Education Authority School in the town of Kuriga.
"The number of the kidnapped from the secondary section based on the statistics we took together with the parents is 187 while that of the primary section is 40 for now," said Sani Abdullahi, a home economics teacher.
Local councillor for Kuriga Idris Maiallura said he had been to the school and said the gunmen initially took 100 primary schools pupils but later freed them while others escaped.
Parents and residents blamed the kidnapping on lack of security in the area.
