Shimla (Himachal Pradesh), August 14,2023: Nine people have been killed and several others are feared trapped under the debris of a temple, which collapsed in Shimla after being hit by a landslide triggered by heavy rainfall on Monday.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu expressed his condolences over the deaths and said efforts are underway to rescue the people trapped under the debris of the collapsed temple in the Summer Hill area.
“As of now, nine bodies have been retrieved. The local administration is diligently working to clear the debris in order to rescue individuals who may still be trapped,” the Himachal Pradesh chief minister said in a post on the ‘X’ app (formerly known as Twitter.
Sukhu along with state minister Vikramaditya Singh also visited the site of the temple dedicated to Lord Shiva.
“Twenty to 25 people are trapped under debris here. A total of 21 people have died in the last 24 hours in the state. I appeal to people to stay indoors, to not venture near rivers and landslide-prone areas. Restoration work will begin as soon as rain stops,” the chief minister said.
Sanjeev Kumar Gandhi, Superintendent of Police (SP) Shimla earlier said that a landslide had struck the temple and there was threat to nearby buildings also. “Several people have been stranded. We are waiting for more details,” he said.
Chennai, Aug 14,2023: After the third moon mission Chandrayaan-3,the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is getting ready for the launch of Aditya-L1 Solar Exploratory mission to study the Sun, from the spaceport of Sriharikota.
ISRO will be using its reliable and workhorse launch vehicle PSLV for the Sun mission.
ISRO on Monday said “PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 Mission: Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun is getting ready for the launch.”
The satellite was realised at the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC),Bengaluru and has arrived at SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikota, it said, in an update on the Sun mission.
Chennai, Aug 14,2023: India’s third Lunar Mission Chandrayaan-3 on Monday commenced the Orbit circularisation phase after its orbit was reduced for the third time.
After today’s precise maneuvre performed between 1130hrs & 1230hrs it has achieved a near-circular orbit of 150- km x 177 km. The next Operation is planned on Wednesday when the the propulsion module will separate from the lander ahead of the soft landing on the South pole region of the moon on August 23 evening.
In an update ISRO said “Chandrayaan-3 Mission: Orbit circularisation phase commences.
“Precise maneuvre performed today has achieved a near-circular orbit of 150 km x 177 km”.
The next operation is planned for August 16, 2023, around 0830 hrs, it said.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had on August 9 successfully performed the second crucial maneuvre to further reduce the Orbit of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft and took it even closer to the moon’s surface.
After the second operation, the orbit of Chandrayaan-3’s was reduced to 174 km x 1437 km and was taken further closer to the moon, it said.
After the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was injected into the Lunar Orbit on August 5, it had successfully underwent the first planned Orbit reduction manoeuver late on night of April 6.
The retrofiring of engines has brought the spacecraft closer to the Moon’s surface to 170 X 4313 km.
This maneuver was the first in a series of maneuvers planned to gradually reduce Chandrayaan-3’s Orbit and position it over the Lunar poles.
“As the mission progressed, a series of maneuvers were done to to gradually reduce the Chandrayaan-3’s orbit and position it over the lunar poles”, ISRO said.
After some maneuvers, the propulsion module will separate from the lander while in orbit. Following that, a series of complex braking maneuvers will be executed to facilitate a soft landing in the hitherto unexplored South Polar region of the Moon on August 23. The Space Agency said the health of Chandrayaan-3 is normal.
“Throughout the mission, the health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Network (ISTRAC), the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antenna at Byalalu, near Bengaluru, with the support from European Space Agency (ESA) and JPL Deep space antenna.
Quito, Aug 11,2023: Six suspects arrested in connection with the assassination of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio and another suspect who was shot dead are all foreigners, said authorities on Thursday.
The six weaponized suspects, all members of organized crime groups, were captured hiding in a house in Quito, the country’s capital, said a police report.
Describing the killing as “a political crime of a terrorist nature,” Ecuadorian Interior Minister Juan Zapata confirmed all suspects are foreigners without revealing their nationalities.
The minister noted that the police will continue investigating and seeking a motive for the crime.
Fernando Villavicencio, Ecuador’s candidate for the presidential election later this month, was killed on Wednesday in an armed attack following a political rally in Quito.
Aug 08,2023: China’s foreign ministry has repeated a call for the Philippines to remove a grounded World War II warship, which Manila uses as a makeshift military base, from a reef in the disputed South China Sea.
The renewed demand to tow the ship comes after the Philippines at the weekend accused China’s coastguard of firing water cannon at boats on a mission to resupply the Philippine garrison stationed on the grounded vessel.
The BRP Sierra Madre – deliberately grounded in the late 1990s in an effort to check the advance of China in the hotly contested waters – has long been a flashpoint between Manila and Beijing.
“China once again urges the Philippine side to immediately remove the warship from Second Thomas Shoal and restore it to its unoccupied state,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
China, the ministry said, has communicated to the Philippines on the Second Thomas Shoal issue “many times” through diplomatic channels, but its goodwill and sincerity have been “ignored”.
“The Philippine side has repeatedly made clear promises to tow away the warship illegally ‘stranded’ on the reef,” a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said.
Aug 7,2023: Scientists in the United States have achieved net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the second time since December in efforts to find a clean source of energy, according to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Scientists at the California-based lab repeated the fusion ignition breakthrough in an experiment in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) on July 30 that produced a higher energy yield than in December, a Lawrence Livermore spokesperson said on Sunday.
Final results are still being analysed, the spokesperson added.
Nuclear fusion reaction involves combining two atomic nuclei to form a single heavier one, releasing an enormous amount of energy. Scientists have known for about a century that fusion powers the sun and have pursued developing fusion on Earth for decades, as they look for limitless clean and safe source of power to help curb climate change.
If technology around fusion reaction is further advanced, it can be used to produce power at an industrial scale.
The US Energy Department called it “a major scientific breakthrough decades in the making that will pave the way for advancements in national defence and the future of clean power”.
The scientists focused a laser on a target of fuel to fuse two light atoms into a denser one, releasing the energy.
That experiment briefly achieved what is known as fusion ignition by generating 3.15 megajoules of energy output after the laser delivered 2.05 megajoules to the target, the Energy Department said.
In other words, it produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it, the department said.
Nuclear scientists outside the lab said the achievement will be a major stepping stone, but there is much more science to be done before fusion becomes commercially viable.