11 people killed as passenger bus overturns on Yangon-Nay Pyi Taw highway in Myanmar

At least 11 people were killed and 15 others injured on Saturday when a a passenger bus overturned on Yangon-Nay Pyi Taw highway in Myanmar due to overshoot, state-run radio reported.

With about 30 passengers on board, the bus "Manshwe Myodaw", setting out from Yangon and heading for Mandalay, overturned at 6: 30 a.m. (local time) at a location about 127 km from Nay Pyi Taw, claiming the lives of 11 people on the spot.

A U.S. national was slightly injured during the accident in which the bus was almost destroyed.

The injured were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Saturday 25 May 2013

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-05/25/c_132408317.htm

continue reading

Landslide Kills 7, Injures 12 in Northwest China

Seven people died and 12 others were injured after a landslide buried a dormitory building in Northwest China's Shaanxi province on Saturday morning,Seven people died and 12 others were injured after a landslide buried a dormitory building in Northwest China's Shaanxi province on Saturday morning, local authorities said.

The landslide happened around 10 am in Cangcun Township of Huangling County, burying a two-story dormitory owned by a coal mine, according to the county's publicity bureau.

The rescue had completed as of 7 pm, and the injured have been sent to a local hospital, the bureau said. local authorities said.

The landslide happened around 10 am in Cangcun Township of Huangling County, burying a two-story dormitory owned by a coal mine, according to the county's publicity bureau.

The rescue had completed as of 7 pm, and the injured have been sent to a local hospital, the bureau said.

Saturday 25 May 2013

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-05/25/coent_16nt532453.htm

continue reading

5 climbers feared dead on world's third-highest peak in Nepal

Five men who disappeared earlier this week trying to climb the world’s third-highest mountain are feared dead, searchers leading the recovery effort in Nepal said on Friday, saying few could survive this long that high.

One of them is 45-year-old Hungarian climber Zsolt Eross, who has climbed 12 of the world’s 14 highest peaks and who was climbing this week with a prosthetic leg after a 2010 accident.

The group climbing the 28,169-foot Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas included a South Korean, another Hungarian and two Sherpas, BBC said.

“All our efforts to trace them have failed,” an expedition organizer told BBC. “The weather is bad and we’ve run out of resources to recover their bodies.”

The men were identified as Namsoo Park, 47, Eross, Peter Kiss, 27, Bibash Gurung, 24, and Pho Dorchi, 23.

Eross was an experienced climber who reached the summit of Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest peak, last year after losing his right leg below the knee in 2010.

According to the New York Times, there might have been a fall while the climbers descended from 25,900 feet.

A Hungarian news blog said it was Kiss who fell, and suggested subsequent recovery efforts are unlikely.

“The search and rescue operation is over,” expedition spokesman Szabolcs Vincze said. “The Sherpas did their best and they returned to a safe altitude once again without finding any traces of the climbers. … If Peter and Zsolt stuck at that altitude and spent the night outdoors, they had virtually no chance to survive.”

BBC called Kanchenjunga “technically challenging with high chances of blizzards and avalanches.”

May is considered the best month to attempt a summit in the Himalayas.

Saturday 25 May 2013

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/130524/5-climbers-feared-dead-worlds-third-highest-peak-nepal

continue reading

Pakistan school bus fire kills 16 children

At least 16 children and their teacher have been killed when their school bus caught fire in eastern Pakistan, police say.

At least seven more children were taken to hospital after the incident on the outskirts of the city of Gujrat.

Police told the BBC a compressed gas cylinder had exploded on the bus after fire broke out.

The bus driver is reported to have survived.

The children, aged between four and 10, were just a few kilometres from their school in Gujrat, about 200km (120 miles) south-east of the capital Islamabad, when the incident happened.

Police officer Dar Ali Khattak told the AFP news agency the fire was apparently caused by a spark when the driver of the dual-fuel bus switched from gas to petrol.

Two children who survived by escaping from a window in the back of the bus told reporters they had smelt gas before the fire broke out.

One boy said the other children were shouting: "Brother, save us, save us. We are burning."

"I took a huge stick and broke the glass. I tried to save them but I couldn't," he said.

Compressed natural gas is used in millions of vehicles in Pakistan as a cheaper alternative to diesel and petrol.

Numerous previous vehicle explosions have been blamed on substandard cylinders used to contain the fuel.

Saturday 25 May 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22664819

continue reading

Python hunter finds mystery gold pendant deep in the Florida everglades... but is it from a tragic plane crash?

A man who was searching for pythons discovered a piece of actual treasure instead.

Mark Rubenstein was taking part in the Florida state-wide python killing competition when he discovered a gold pendant adorned with diamonds and sapphires.

Mr Rubenstein found the piece of jewellery in the Everglades in February, and because of the location of the discovery, he believes that it landed in the swamp in the wreckage of a fatal plane crash.

Though the Florida coast has been the site of many shipwrecks in the past, this find is not thought to be a remnant of the Spanish era in spite of the fact that the design of the jewel harkens back to the 17th century.


Instead, Rubernstein and his cohorts have determined that the jewel was probably left behind as a result of one of two different plane crashes.

Eastern Flight 401 crashed in the same area of the Everglades in 1972, and a ValuJet plane crashed in May 1996 just 300 yards away from where Rubenstein found the pendant.

There were significant casualty totals in both crashes, as more than 100 people died in each flight.

Rubenstein described the discovery in a detailed account to PR Wire of his multi-day, unsuccessful search for pythons.

'It was just a glint but being part magpie I am obligated to stop,' he wrote.

'It takes me a couple of times of walking back and forth to find it. The guys think I’m nuts until I unearth it. It’s gold.'

He then took it to a local jeweller to have it examined, who confirmed that the nickel-sized pendant is officially made of gold and 'Rose Cut' diamonds which is arranged in a cross in the middle and possible three leaf cluster formation.

'When I brought this up to my friends we all had the same reaction. We agreed in concert that it would be very good karma to get this piece “home,"' Mr Rubenstein wrote.

He told FoxNews that if he is not able to reunite the piece with the rightful heirs, he will donate it to the Archdiocese of Miami.

Saturday 25 May 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330758/Python-hunter-finds-mystery-gold-pendant-deep-Florida-everglades--tragic-plane-crash-killed-hundreds-people.html

continue reading