Junior Digest

Jan 9,2022: At least 16 tourists died in freezing temperatures after being stranded in their vehicles in northern Pakistan, where thousands had flocked to enjoy the snow, officials said on Saturday.

With some 1,000 vehicles still stranded, the government has declared Murree, 64 km (40 miles) northeast of the capital Islamabad, a calamity hit area.

“For the first time in 15 to 20 years such large number of tourists flocked to Murree, which created a big crisis,” Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Pakistan’s interior minister said a video message.

The minister said that around 1,000 cars were stuck in the hill station, a town elevated from the nearby area, confirming that “16 to 19 deaths have occurred in their cars.”

Army platoons and paramilitary forces have been deployed to help the civil administration in rescue operations, he said.

Late on Friday the government announced the closure of all roads leading to the station to stop any further influx of the tourists.

Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed shock over the “tragic deaths” of the tourists. “Have ordered inquiry and putting in place strong regulations to ensure prevention of such tragedies,” Khan said in a tweet.

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry appealed to people to not visit the hill station.

Snowfall, which began on Tuesday night, continued at regular intervals, attracting thousands of tourists. Due to huge numbers of visitors, many families ended up getting stranded on roads.

Local media reported that over 100,000 vehicles entered the hill station.

Videos shared on social media showed entire families, including children, lying dead in their snow covered vehicles.

Manila, Apr 2,2021: The death toll in the rail accident at Taiwan’s Hualien County has soared to 54 while the number of injured have risen to 156, local media reported on Friday.

The accident, which is being termed as the deadliest rail tragedy in decades, took place at 0928 hrs local time (01:28 GMT), when a train ferrying 490 passengers derailed inside a tunnel after apparently hitting a truck in Taiwan’s Hualien County.

The rescue operations are being conducted on war footing. The accident has disrupted entire eastern trunk line of the Taiwan Railways.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s office said she had ordered hospitals to prepare for a mass casualty event. “We will continue to do everything we can to ensure their safety in the wake of this heartbreaking incident,” she wrote on Twitter.

The train, which met with the unfortunate accident, is one of the fastest deployed on a network that is generally considered safe. It can reach speeds of 130km/h (80mph).

Jakarta, Dec 5,2021: At least 13 people have died and 98 others injured after Mount Semeru in Indonesia’s East Java erupted, the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) said on Sunday.

“Two bodies have been identified, while for others its still in the process,” according to the BNPB’s spokesman Abdul Muhari.

All those injured, including two pregnant women, are currently under medical treatment at nearby health centers.

Meanwhile, 902 people have been evacuated to a village hall, a school building, and houses of worship.

Volcanic ash has buried a number of houses, roads and a bridge.

Officers are digging up the ash covering the road using heavy equipment, while evacuating and searching for missing persons.

The 3,676-meter-high volcano erupted on Saturday at 3:10 pm Jakarta time.

The hot clouds stopped falling due to the rain. Authorities called on people not to move near the rivers on which the lava is flowing.

Malabo, Mar 9,2021: The death toll from the series of blasts that hit military barracks in the port city of Bata has climbed to 98, while the number of those injured have risen to 615, reported local media outlets.

The AhoraEg news gave this update on Monday, quoting Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue’s statement.

Several blasts hit a military base in Bata on Sunday, destroying or damaging almost all buildings.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has blamed the blasts on the “negligence” of servicemen and the carelessness of farmers who lit a fire near army warehouses.

Dec 8,2021: A military helicopter with the Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat on board, among many others, crashed on Wednesday near Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, the Indian Air Force said.

An inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the accident.

“An IAF Mi-17V5 helicopter, with CDS Gen Bipin Rawat on board, met with an accident today near Coonoor, Tamil Nadu. An Inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the accident,” the IAF tweeted.

The chopper was carrying 14 army personnel and family members before it crashed in Kattery.
Further details are awaited.

ALMATY :  A Bek Air plane with 95 passengers and five crew members on board crashed near the city of Almaty in Kazakhstan on Friday, killing at least nine people, authorities in the Central Asian country said.

The Fokker 100 aircraft was heading for the capital, Nur-Sultan, and “lost altitude during takeoff and broke through a concrete fence” before hitting a two-storey building, Kazakhstan’s Civil Aviation Committee said in a statement.

According to the Emergencies Committee, at least nine people were killed. The government and Almaty airport said emergency services were working at the site to get survivors out.

Photographs from the crash site published by media showed the damaged plane with large cracks in its body next to a house half-demolished by the impact.

Kazakh carrier Bek Air, which operates a fleet of Fokker 100 jets, could not be immediately reached for comment.

“Those responsible will face tough punishment in accordance with the law,” Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev tweeted, expressing condolences to the victims and their families.

Jakarta, Jan 10,2021:Authorities said they determined the location of the crash site and black boxes of a Boeing 737-500 on Sunday, a day after the aircraft crashed into the Java Sea with 62 people on board shortly after taking off from Indonesia’s capital.

The head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, Bagus Puruhito, said officials believe they identified the location of the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder the so-called black boxes because emergency signals transmitted by the devices were detected by a navy ship’s sonar system.

We have determined the position of the plane’s black boxes from two signals emitted by the devices, military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said. Hopefully we can lift the black boxes in short time to determine the cause of the crash. Earlier Sunday, search and rescue operations resulted in parts of the plane being found in the sea at a depth of 23 meters (75 feet), leading rescuers to continue searching the area.

We received reports from the diver team that the visibility in the water is good and clear, allowing the discovery of some parts of the plane,” Tjahjanto said in a statement.

We are sure that is the point where the plane crashed. He said the objects found included broken pieces of fuselage with aircraft registration parts.

Earlier, rescuers pulled out body parts, pieces of children’s clothing and scraps of metal from the surface.

The break in the search for Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 came after the navy ship’s sonar equipment detected a signal from the aircraft at a location that fit the coordinates from the last contact made by the pilots before the plane disappeared Saturday afternoon, Tjahjanto said.

The plane was en route from Jakarta to Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province on Indonesia’s Borneo island, on a flight that was expected to take around 90 minutes.

It was still unclear what caused it to crash. There was no sign of survivors.

I represent the government and all Indonesians in expressing my deep condolences for this tragedy,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said.

We are doing our best to save the victims. We pray together so that the victims can be found, he said, adding that he had asked the National Transport Safety Committee to conduct an investigation.

Fishermen in the area between Lancang and Laki islands, part of an archipelago around Thousand Islands north of Jakarta’s coast, reported hearing an explosion around 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

We heard something explode we thought it was a bomb or a tsunami since after that we saw a big splash from the water,” Solihin, who goes by one name, said by phone.

It was raining heavily and the weather was so bad, so it was difficult to see around clearly,” Solihin said. “But we saw the splash and a big wave after the loud sound. We were very shocked and saw the plane debris and the fuel around our boat.

Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said the flight was delayed for an hour before it took off at 2:36 p.m. It disappeared from radar four minutes later, after the pilot contacted air traffic control to ascend to an altitude of 29,000 feet (8,839 meters), he said.

There were 62 people on board, all of them Indonesian nationals, including three babies and seven other children. The plane was carrying 50 passengers, six working crew members and six other crew for another flight.

Our thoughts are with the crew, passengers, and their families,” Boeing said in a statement. “We are in contact with our airline customer and stand ready to support them during this difficult time. Authorities established two crisis centers, one at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, where the plane departed from, and one at port. Families gathered to wait for news about their loved ones.

On social media, people began circulating the flight manifesto with photos and videos of those who were listed as passengers. One video shows a woman with her children waving goodbye while walking through the airport.

Sriwijaya Air president director Jefferson Irwin Jauwena said the plane, which was 26 years old and previously used by airlines in the United States, was airworthy. He told reporters Saturday that the plane had previously flown to Pontianak and Pangkal Pinang city on the same day.

He said the plane was delayed due to bad weather, not because of any mechanical problems.

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago nation, with more than 260 million people, has been plagued by transportation accidents on land, sea and air because of overcrowding on ferries, aging infrastructure and poorly enforced safety standards.

In October 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet operated by Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. The plane involved in Saturday’s disaster did not have the automated flight-control system that played a role in the Lion Air crash and another crash of a 737 MAX 8 jet in Ethiopia five months later, leading to the grounding of the MAX 8 for 20 months.

The Lion Air crash was Indonesia’s worst airline disaster since 1997, when 234 people were killed on a Garuda airlines flight near Medan on Sumatra island. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing 162 people.

Sriwijaya Air has had only minor incidents in the past, though a farmer was killed in 2008 when a plane went off the runway while landing due to a hydraulic issue.

Dec 13,2021:Rescuers in the United States are desperately searching for survivors after a string of tornadoes killed dozens of people and obliterated homes and businesses in six midwestern states.

But authorities on Sunday said hopes of finding those missing alive was dwindling two days after the disaster struck.
Nowhere suffered as much as the small town of Mayfield, Kentucky, where Friday’s large twisters destroyed a candle factory and the fire and police stations.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear told reporters on Sunday evening that at least 80 people in his state were dead and the toll was eventually going to exceed 100, but he held out hope for “some miracles” even though it had been more than 24 hours since anyone was found alive in the rubble.

“The very first thing that we have to do is grieve together and we’re going to do that before we rebuild together,” Beshear told reporters, saying one tornado tore across 365km (227 miles) of terrain, almost all of that in Kentucky.

A company spokesman said there may be fewer deaths in Mayfield’s candle factory than previously feared.

Among the 110 people who were at the factory, eight have been confirmed dead, and eight others have not been located, leaving far fewer missing than had been reported earlier, said Bob Ferguson, a spokesperson for Mayfield Consumer Products.

“There were some early reports that as many as 70 could be dead in the factory. One is too many, but we thank God that the number is turning out to be far, far fewer,” Ferguson said.
It was unclear how many factory workers Beshear was counting in his estimate.
Across Mayfield, a town of 10,000 people in Kentucky’s southwestern corner, homes were flattened or missing roofs, giant trees had been uprooted, and street signs were mangled.
More than 300 members of the National Guard were also going door to door and removing debris. Teams were working to distribute water and generators.

The US Federal Emergency Management Agency was opening shelters and sending teams and supplies, including 30,000 meals and 45,000 litres (12,000 gallons) of water.

The governor said the tornadoes were the most destructive in the state’s history and that even the sturdiest structures of steel and brick were flattened.

Ghazni(Afghanistan), Jan 27,2020:(Afghanistan) A plane, with 83 people onboard, crashed in Taliban held Afghanistan’s Ghazni province on Monday. The cause of the crash is not known yet.

Spokesman for the provincial governor Arif Noori, quoted by AFP, said that the plane went down around 1:10 pm local time in Deh Yak district. “At around 1:10 pm (0840 GMT) a plane crashed in Deh Yak district of Ghazni province. The plane is on fire and the villagers are trying to put it out. We still don’t know if it is a military or commercial plane,” he said.

The mountainous Ghazni province sits in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains and is bitterly cold in winter.

Media reports suggest that the plane belonged to the state-owned Ariana Afghan Airlines. The company, however, has not confirmed the crash, saying that the ‘rumours’ are “not true”.

“All the flights of Ariana Afghan Airlines have been completed normally,” a statement on the carrier’s verified Facebook page read.

Ariana’s CEO Mirwais Mirzakwal has also denied the reports of the crash. “There has been an airline crash but it does not belong to Ariana because the two flights managed by Ariana today from Herat to Kabul and Herat to Delhi are safe,” Mirzakwal told Reuters.

Cairo, Mar 28,2021: 321 ships are waiting to pass through the Suez Canal, confirmed the waterway authority on Saturday.
A 1,300-feet-long container ship ‘Ever Given’ has been stuck at the passageway since Tuesday.
Efforts are on to move the ship and the it budged a little on Friday, reported Israeli media.
Head of the Waterway Authority, Osama Rabie told the media at a Press Conference on Saturday
“At the moment, 321 ships are waiting for their turn to pass through the Suez Canal due to the situation,”
He said that relentless efforts to refloat the “megaship” are ongoing without a break and added that the situation is complicated by the size of the ship and the number of containers aboard.
Rabie assured that the operation is bearing results but added that it is premature to say when it would end.

JUL 18,2021: Hundreds of people are missing or unreachable as several areas remained inaccessible due to high water levels and communication was still down in some places.

The death toll in devastating flooding in western Germany and Belgium rose to at least 170 on Saturday after burst rivers and flash floods this week collapsed houses and ripped up roads and power lines.

Some 143 people died in the flooding in Germany’s worst natural disaster in more than half a century. That included about 98 in the Ahrweiler district south of Cologne, according to police.

Hundreds of people were still missing or unreachable as several areas were inaccessible due to high water levels while communication in some places was still down.

Residents and business owners struggled to pick up the pieces in battered towns.

“Everything is completely destroyed. You don’t recognise the scenery,” said Michael Lang, owner of a wine shop in the town of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in Ahrweiler, fighting back tears.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Erftstadt in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where the disaster killed at least 45 people.

“We mourn with those that have lost friends, acquaintances, family members,” he said. “Their fate is ripping our hearts apart.”

Around 700 residents were evacuated late on Friday after a dam broke in the town of Wassenberg near Cologne, authorities said.

But Wassenberg Mayor Marcel Maurer said water levels had been stabilising since the night. “It’s too early to give the all-clear but we are cautiously optimistic,” he said.

The Steinbachtal dam in western Germany, however, remained at risk of breaching, authorities said after some 4,500 people were evacuated from homes downstream.

Steinmeier said it would take weeks before the full damage, expected to require several billions of euros in reconstruction funds, could be assessed.

Armin Laschet, state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia and the ruling CDU party’s candidate in September’s general election, said he would speak to Finance Minister Olaf Scholz in the coming days about financial support.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was expected to travel on Sunday to Rhineland-Palatinate, the state that is home to the devastated village of Schuld.

In Belgium, the death toll rose to 27, according to the national crisis centre, which is coordinating the relief operation there.

It added that 103 people were “missing or unreachable”. Some were likely unreachable because they could not recharge mobile phones or were in hospital without identity papers, the centre said.
Communities cut off

Over the past several days the floods, which have mostly hit the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia and eastern Belgium, have cut off entire communities from power and communications.

Germany’s largest power producer said on Saturday its opencast mine in Inden and the Weisweiler coal-fired power plant were massively affected, adding that the plant was running at lower capacity after the situation stabilised.

In the southern Belgian provinces of Luxembourg and Namur, authorities rushed to supply drinking water to households.

Flooding levels slowly fell in the worst-hit parts of Belgium, allowing residents to sort through damaged possessions. Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited some areas on Saturday afternoon.

Belgian rail network operator Infrabel published plans of repairs to lines, some of which would be back in service only at the very end of August.
High alert in the Netherlands

Emergency services in the Netherlands also remained on high alert as overflowing rivers threatened towns and villages throughout the southern province of Limburg.

Tens of thousands of residents in the region have been evacuated in the past two days, while soldiers, fire brigades and volunteers worked frantically throughout Friday night to enforce dykes and prevent flooding.

The Netherlands has so far escaped disaster on the scale of its neighbours, and as of Saturday morning, no casualties had been reported.

Scientists have long said that climate change will lead to heavier downpours. But determining its role in these relentless rainfalls will take at least several weeks to research, scientists said on Friday.

Feb 09, 2021:Massive search and rescue operation is underway to save trapped workers from the Tapovan tunnel in Chamoli district of Uttrakhand.

The state government has officially confirmed that 197 workers remain missing in the flash flood since Sunday. The rescue team has so far recovered 26 bodies and was successful in evacuating 12 persons trapped in a tunnel.

A major rescue operation is underway involving the ITBP, Army, SSB, State Disaster Response Force and National Disaster Response Force – are working round the clock to find trapped workers.

Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has arrived in Chamoli to assess the rescue operation. He held the meeting with a senior officer last night there.

A flash flood in river Rishiganga created havoc near Reni village in district Chamoli. The Rishiganga and Tapovan power projects were badly affected by the disaster.

Providing a new theory on the flash flood, the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (a constituent unit of Indian Space Research Organisation) claims that the flash flood took place after a landslide triggered a snow avalanche. The institute rejects the earlier theory of the disaster taking place due to glacier burst.

Union Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister RK Singh has said that officials of the NTPC, THDC, and SJVNL will study about the disaster on images provided by the ISRO. After returning from the disaster-hit areas, Mr Singh said that financial assistance is being provided to the dependents of the deceased by the State Government as well as Centre.

Malabo [Equatorial Guinea], March 8,2021: As many as 17 people were killed and more than 400 injured in a series of powerful explosions on Sunday at a military base in Bata, Equatorial Guinea’s largest city.
Al Jazeera quoted President Teodoro Obiang as saying that the blasts were caused by negligence related to the use of dynamite at the military base.
While he initially stated 15 people were killed and 500 were injured, the country’s health ministry later put the death toll at 17 and said 420 people were injured in the blast.
Citing local media reports, Al Jazeera further stated that groups of people were seen pulling bodies from piles of rubble, some of which were carried away wrapped in bedsheets.
Further details are awaited.

IWAKI, Japan ,Mar 11,2021: With a moment of silence, prayers and anti-nuclear protests, Japan on Thursday mourned about 20,000 victims of the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan 10 years ago, destroying towns and triggering nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima.

Mariko Odawara places flowers to mourn the victims of the earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands and triggered the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, during its 10th anniversary, in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture, Japan March 11, 2021. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Huge waves triggered by the 9.0-magnitude quake – one of the strongest on record – crashed into the northeastern coast, crippling the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant and forcing more than 160,000 residents to flee as radiation spewed into the air.

The world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and the tremor have left survivors struggling to overcome the grief of losing families and towns to the waves in a few frightening hours on the afternoon of March 11, 2011.

About 50 kilometres (31 miles) south from the plant, in the gritty coastal city of Iwaki, which has since become a hub for labourers working on nuclear decommissioning, restaurant owner Atsushi Niizuma prayed to his mother killed by the waves.

“I want to tell my mother that my children, who were all close to her, are doing well. I came here to thank her that our family is living safely,” said Niizuma, 47.

Before setting off for work, he quietly paid his respects at a stone monument at a seaside shrine with carvings of his mother’s name, Mitsuko, and 65 others who died in the disaster.

On the day of the earthquake, Mitsuko was looking after his children. The children rushed into a car but Mitsuko was swept away by the waves as she returned to the house to grab her belongings. It took a month to recover her body, Niizuma said.

The Akiba shrine has become a symbol of resilience for the survivors, as it was barely damaged by the tsunami while houses nearby were swept away or burned down.

About two dozen residents gathered with Niizuma to decorate it with paper cranes, flowers and yellow handkerchiefs with messages of hope sent by students from across the country.

“It was sleeting 10 years ago, and it was cold. The coldness always brought me back to the memory of what happened on the day,” said Hiroko Ishikawa, 62.

“But with my back soaking up the sun today, we are feeling more relaxed. It’s as if the sun is telling us that ‘It’s okay, why don’t you go talk with everyone who came back to visit their hometown?’”
REMEMBERING THE DEAD

At 2:46 p.m., exact moment the earthquake struck a decade ago, Emperor Naruhito and his wife led a moment of silence to honour the dead in a commemorative ceremony in Tokyo. Silent prayers were held across the country.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told the memorial ceremony that the loss of life was still impossible to contemplate.

“It is unbearable when I think of the feelings of all those who lost their loved ones and friends,” said Suga, dressed in a black suit.

At the ceremony attended by emperor and prime minister, the attendees wore masks and kept their distance, and did not sing along with the national anthem to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

“I would like to express condolences from the bottom of my heart to everybody who suffered from the effects of the disaster,” Suga added, reaffirming support for those affected by the disaster.

The government has spent about $300 billion (32.1 trillion yen) to rebuild the region, but areas around the Fukushima plant remain off-limits, worries about radiation levels linger and many who left have settled elsewhere. Decommissioning of the crippled plant will take decades and billions of dollars.

Some 40,000 people are still displaced by the disaster.

Japan is again debating the role of nuclear power in its energy mix as the resource-poor country aims to achieve net carbon neutrality by 2050 to fight global warming. But an NHK public TV survey showed 85% of the public worries about nuclear accidents.

The work to decommission the wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, deal with contaminated water and solid waste, and make the area safe is immense.

About 5,000 workers pass through gates into the crippled plant each day to pull apart the plant, which still has about 880 tonnes of melted fuel debris in its reactors.

The operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), has estimated the project would take decades, while critics say it could take up to a century to return the plant to a usable state.

The mass demonstrations against nuclear power seen in the wake of 3/11 have faded, but distrust lingers. Some antinuclear activists are planning demonstrations in front of TEPCO for Thursday night.

Only nine of Japan’s 33 remaining commercial reactors have been approved for restarts under post-Fukushima safety standards and only four are operating, compared with 54 before the disaster.

Nuclear power supplied just 6% of Japan’s energy needs in the first half of 2020 compared with 23.1% for renewable sources – far behind Germany’s 46.3% – and nearly 70% for fossil fuels.

Jammu, Jan 1,2022: At least 12 pilgrims were killed and 13 others injured early Saturday morning in a stampede at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Cave Shrine situated in Trikuta Hills of Katra town in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Police said the stampede happened because of heavy rush of devotees.

“At least 12 casualties have been reported and several people also injured. Rescue operation is being carried out,” the police said.

The joint team of police, Shrine Board, para-military forces, health department and administration are on the job, they said, adding, “more details are emerging.”

Meanwhile, an administrative official said that last week due to suspension of trains in view of farmers protest, the yatra had declined but with resumption of trains, a large number of pilgrims visited Katra on New Year Eve to pay obeisance at the Cave Shrine.

“To offer prayers and have darshan of ‘natural pindies’ in the cave shrine especially on New Year, the pilgrims rushed to the Bhawan that led to huge rush and chaos,” he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed grief over the loss of lives in the incident.

PARIS,Mar 11,2021: A fire at a French cloud services firm has disrupted millions of websites, knocking out government agencies’ portals, banks, shops, news websites and taking out a chunk of the .FR web space, according to internet monitors.

The fire, which broke out on Wednesday shortly after midnight at OVHcloud, destroyed one of four data centres in Strasbourg, in eastern France, and damaged another, the company said.

There was no immediate explanation provided for the blaze, which erupted just two days after the French cloud computing firm kicked off plans for an initial public offering.

Europe’s largest cloud services provider told clients including the French government, the Centre Pompidou and cryptocurrency exchange Deribit to activate their disaster recovery plans following the blaze.

“Firefighters were immediately on the scene but could not control the fire” in the affected data centre, founder and chairman Octave Klaba said on Twitter. He said the plan for the next couple of weeks would include rebuilding the centres’ equipment and checking their fiber optic connections.

Some 100 firemen fought the blaze which sent a thick plume of black smoke into the night sky. Video images showed firefighters dousing one smouldering, multi-storey building in the early morning as they cooled down the site.

Founded by Klaba in 1999, OVHcloud competes against U.S. giants Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Corp’s Azure and Alphabet Inc’s Google Cloud, which dominate the market.

“OVH is a pretty important hosting company on the internet,” said Mike Prettejohn, who directs UK-based network security company Netcraft. He said the affected servers hosted 3.6 million websites, including niche government platforms in France, Britain, Poland and the Ivory Coast.

Prettejohn estimated that just under 2% of the sites with the French .FR domain extension had been affected.

French politicians have championed OVHcloud as a possible alternative to U.S. cloud services providers, but it has so far lacked the scale and financial clout to dent their market share.

The company said on Monday it had started the process for a potential IPO, without giving details.

The Strasbourg centres were among OVHcloud’s 17 data centres in France, and 32 globally.

Several clients said their websites had gone offline or emails could not be accessed. There was no immediate news of any major data losses.
The Centre Pompidou, one of France’s best known art complexes, said its website was down. Cryptocurrency exchange Deribit said its blog was down but that trading had not been impacted, free chess server Lichess.org said it had lost 24 hours’ worth of games history and news outlet eeNews Europe said its websites were offline.

PR agency Caroline Charles Communication said its data was held at another site but that it had lost access to emails in the middle of Paris Fashion Week.

OVHcloud declined to comment on its fire safety protocols. The site did not pose a toxic risk, it added.

Baghdad [Iraq], July 13,2021: The death toll from the fire at a COVID-19 hospital ward in Iraq’s Nasiriyah has increased to 54, the health department of the southern province of Dhi Qar has said.

“The number of casualties from the fire at the Imam Hussein Hospital in Nasiriyah has reached 54,” the health department said in a statement.
According to preliminary information, the fire was caused by an oxygen tank explosion. The firemen have localized the conflagration, however, some coronavirus patients remain trapped in the hospital building.

The enclosure housed gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and marmosets. Only two chimpanzees survived, as well as a family of gorillas in a nearby building.

“Our worst fears have been realised,” Krefeld zoo, which specialises in primates, announced on its Facebook page.

Tearful visitors lit candles and left flowers and soft toys at the entrance of the zoo on Wednesday. One of the tributes asked simply “Why?”.

Firefighters prevented the flames from spreading to other buildings at the zoo in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Preliminary findings suggest the fire might have been caused by flying paper lanterns, which float into the air when lit.

Three lanterns bearing hand-written New Year’s wishes were discovered in the smouldering debris.

These types of devices have been banned in the region since 2009.