Buried alive
Defense personnel search for victims two days after a landslide hit a residential area in Hiroshima, western Japan on August 22. — AFP
Crash calamity
Tourists killed in accident
Cairo — Thirty-eight people were killed on August 22 in a collision between two tour buses near Egypt’s resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh, state-run newspaper al-Ahram reported.
Forty-one people, mostly Egyptians, were injured. The injured included two Saudis, a Ukrainian and a Yemeni.
The cause of the accident was unclear. The buses were carrying tourists when they collided around 50 kilometres from Sharm al-Sheikh in southern Sinai. — DPA
Sea rescue
Migrants found on boat
Rome — The Italian navy on August 24 found the bodies of 18 migrants onboard an inflatable dinghy adrift off the island of Lampedusa, media reports said. The navy ship Sirio, after seeing the boat was in difficulty, approached it and found 73 survivors along with the 18 dead, the reports said.
The navy, coastguard and merchant marine have rescued more than 3,500 people since August 22 in the area of the Mediterranean between Sicily and the Libyan and Tunisian coasts, the Italian ANSA news agency reported. — AFP
Burial ceremony
Malaysian Muslims attend special prayers for MH17 co-pilot Ahmad Hakimi Hanapi and flight attendant Nur Shazana Mohamed Salleh during a burial ceremony in Putrajaya, Malaysia on August 22. — EPA
Suspects detained
Security forces raid settlement
Kuala Lumpur — Nearly 1,000 people were detained on August 23 when security forces swooped on a squatter settlement in eastern Malaysia. The settlement was suspected to be a haven for criminals, a security official said.
Officials said security forces detained 925 people who failed to produce identification or travel documents during the raid in Lahad Datu district.
Security forces also demolished about 400 stilt houses in the village in a bid to curb criminal activities in the area, officials said. — DPA
Miners missing
Rescuers working to find workers
Beijing — A gas explosion on August 19 at a coal mine in eastern China killed at least two miners, state media reported. Rescuers on August 21 were searching for 25 more workers still missing after the blast.
Twelve miners were rescued from the privately owned mine in Huainan city in Anhui province after the blast, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The cause of the blast was under investigation. — AP
Finning finished
New Zealand gets new law
Wellington — New Zealand is banning the practice of shark finning, a move the Pew Charitable Trust says is welcome and will bring the country in line with other developed nations.
New Zealand’s Conservation Minister Nick Smith said on August 20 that the move will reinforce the country’s reputation for sustainability and environmental protection. The new rules, effective in October, will make it illegal to remove fins from dead sharks and dump the carcasses at sea. It was already illegal in New Zealand to remove fins from live sharks. — AP
EASY NEWS FOR M1-3
Lost at sea
Boat passengers missing
Tripoli, Libya — A wooden boat sank. It happened on the Libyan coast. Authorities reported the news on August 23. The boat was carrying 170 African migrants. Seventeen of them were rescued. The others were missing. — Reuters
Exercises
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE, according to the story about the gas explosion in eastern China?
a. The gas explosion occurred on August 12.
b. Two hundred miners were killed.
c. At least 12 miners were rescued.
2. Thirty-eight people were killed in a collision between two tour buses in Egypt. True or false?
3. How many illegal tour guides were arrested in Phuket?
Vocabulary
- inflatable (adj): needing to be filled with gas or air before you can use it
squatter (n): a person who is living in a building or on land without permission and without paying rent
haven (n): a place where people go to be protected from something
