rescuers - The African Mirror

Nov

2023

Rescuers in India tunnel collapse work on alternative plan on seventh day

RESCUERS trying to reach workers trapped for nearly a week in a collapsed highway tunnel in the Indian Himalayas began working on an alternate plan after the operation hit a snag the day before. The men have been stuck in the hillside tunnel since Sunday morning after it caved in and are safe, authorities said. The trapped workers have light and receive oxygen, food, water and medicines via a pipe, and can communicate via radios. The new plan involves drilling vertically from the top of the mountain under which 41 workers were trapped while working on a highway tunnel, said D P…

Nov

2023

By SAURABH SHARMA

Desperate families count the days until 40 Indian men can be freed from Himalayan tunnel

WORLD

AKASH Singh Negi has spent three sleepless nights outside a blocked highway tunnel under construction in the Indian Himalayas, shivering in the cold while waiting for his father to be rescued. Gabbar Singh Negi is one of 40 men trapped inside since Sunday morning when a portion of the tunnel collapsed and blocked their exit. Efforts to reach them have made little progress. Rescuers started using a new drilling machine sent in by New Delhi on Thursday. The plan is to create space for a pipe that can be used by the trapped men to crawl to safety. They have electricity for…

Nov

2023

By SAURABH SHARMA

Indian rescuers hope bigger drill will reach 40 trapped in tunnel

WORLD

RESCUERS in north Indian mountains trying to reach 40 road workers trapped in a collapsed tunnel for more than three days will soon get help from a heavy drilling machine airlifted in to the site, officials said. The workers are safe and rescuers have been able to communicate with them and send them food, water and oxygen through a pipe since the early Sunday collapse, but huge boulders have stymied efforts to dig an escape route for them. "The new machine has reached the nearest helipad. It is being assembled, and will be sent to the site soon,” said the…

Nov

2023

By SAURABH SHARMA

Rescuers drill to reach 40 workers in India tunnel collapse

WORLD

RESCUE workers battled to reach 40 Indian workers trapped inside a collapsed Himalayan highway tunnel for almost 60 hours, drilling through debris to fix a wide steel pipe which they hope can be used to pull the men out. The trapped men are safe and healthy, authorities said, and are being supplied food, water and oxygen through a pipe. Officials are also in regular contact with them. The 4.5-km (3-mile) tunnel, which is being built in Uttarakhand state on a national highway that is part of the Char Dham Hindu pilgrimage route, caved in around 5:30 a.m. on Sunday (2400…

Feb

2023

By NIR ELIAS and ALI KUCUKGOCMEN

Rescuers pull two survivors from rubble in Turkey 11 days after earthquake

WORLD

RESCUE teams pulled two people alive from under collapsed buildings in Turkey on Friday, 11 days after an earthquake that has killed more than 43,000, left millions homeless and sparked a huge relief effort. Mosques around the world performed absentee funeral prayers for the dead in Turkey and Syria, many of whom could not receive full burial rites given the enormity of the deadliest disaster in Turkey's modern history. While some international rescue teams have left the vast quake zone, survivors were still emerging from under a multitude of flattened homes, defying all the odds. In Turkey's historic city of…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

Rescuers toil on in rubble of Turkey and Syria, survivors ever harder to find

WORLD

MAYA GEBEILY, ALI KUCUKGOCMEN and KHALIL ASHAWI RESCUERS pulled some survivors from the rubble, five days after Turkey's most devastating earthquake since 1939 that also killed thousands of people in Syria, but hopes were fading for many more to be found. In Kahramanmaras, close to the epicentre in south Turkey, there were fewer visible rescue operations amid the smashed concrete mounds of fallen houses and apartment blocks where trucks rumbled through streets shipping out debris. The death toll kept growing - exceeding 25,300 across southern Turkey and northwest Syria. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, facing questions over earthquake planning and response…

Nov

2022

By The African Mirror

Tanzania plane crash survivors, rescuers describe heroics laced with tragedy

NEWS

BENSON JACOB WHEN the waters of Lake Victoria started gushing into the cabin of Flight PW494, passenger Mectrida Samuel knew she had to act fast. Around her, others were frantically trying to free themselves and keep above the fast-rising water. "We had a big crash and I immediately started seeing water enter the plane. Passengers started to struggle to rescue themselves," Samuel said, describing the moments after the Precision Air flight to Bukoba plunged into the lake in northern Tanzania. "The only thing that helped me survive was that I managed to remove my seat belt and get out of…

Apr

2022

By The African Mirror

Philippines rescuers race to find survivors after storm wreaks havoc

WORLD

RESCUE teams in the Philippines faced a race against time in the search for 28 people missing and feared dead, after tropical storm Megi unleashed heavy rains and deadly landslides in southern and eastern areas of the country. National and local disaster agencies reported five more deaths in central and southern Philippines on Tuesday, taking the toll to 30 since the storm struck at the weekend. Megi, the first storm to hit the typhoon-prone archipelago this year, made landfall on Sunday with sustained winds of up to 65 kilometres (40 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 80 kph…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Scores feared dead as rescuers soldier on nearly week after Florida condo collapse

WORLD

GABRIELLA BORTER RESCUE crews found more bodies overnight in the shattered ruins of a collapsed Miami-area condominium tower, the leader of an Israeli search team has said, after days of scant progress in discovering the fate of dozens of people still missing. Twelve people have been confirmed killed in the disaster, which could rank as one of the deadliest accidental structural failures in U.S. history. But 149 others were still missing and believed trapped in the rubble. Nobody has been pulled alive from the mounds of pulverized concrete, splintered lumber and twisted metal since the early hours of the disaster.…