disaster
Telangana tunnel tragedy: Intense efforts on to trace remaining 7 missing men

Hyderabad, March 10: Day after recovering one body from the debris, rescue teams continued intense efforts to search for the remaining seven people in the SLBC tunnel in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district on Monday.
Rescue teams from various agencies were undertaking digging work at another point identified by the cadaver sniffer dog squad from Kerala.
Rat miners from Uttarakhand, miners from Singareni Collieries and personnel from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were carefully digging around the point with mini-excavators.
The search operation continued for the 17th day in the last 70 metres of the 14-km-long tunnel, where the eight workers were trapped after a portion of the tunnel roof collapsed on a Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) on February 22.
Rescue workers on Sunday evening exhumed one body from the point identified by the cadaver dog squad.
The body was identified as that of TBM operator Gurpreet Singh. The 40-year-old hailed from Punjab and was working for Robbins Company, which supplies and operates tunnel boring machines.
The body was shifted to government hospital at Nagarkurnool and after completing medical and legal formalities was taken to his hometown in Punjab.
The seven people yet to be traced are Manoj Kumar and Sri Niwas from Uttar Pradesh, Sunny Singh from Jammu and Kashmir and Sandeep Sahu, Jegta Xess, Santosh Sahu and Anuj Sahu, all from Jharkhand.
The rescue agencies hoped that more bodies would be recovered soon based on the sniffer dog leads and the ground probing radar (GPR) scanning information provided by the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI).
The rescue workers continued to face challenges due to the debris of the TBM and the large amount of muck.
The TBM, which had a total length of 132.5 metres, was buried under silt and rocks in the February 22 incident.
The workers who were present in the front portion of the TBM were trapped while 42 others who were at the back end managed to come out of the tunnel.
The technicians from the South Central Railway (SCR) have so far cut the TBM into pieces for a length of about 60 metres.
The head portion of the TBM remained buried in the debris and the last 70 metres of the tunnel is still filled with 3 to 9 metres deep slush and other debris, posing a risk to the rescue workers.
While continuing dewatering and desilting, the rescue agencies were mobilising special equipment for the workers to carry out their work without the risk of being trapped in the slush.
Two cadaver dogs trained to locate missing humans and human bodies were brought from Kerala by a special helicopter three days ago.
According to officials, these dogs of the Belgian Malinois breed can detect smell even from a depth of 15 feet.
Indian Army, Navy, NDRF, State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Singareni, SCR and other agencies are participating in the search operation.
The authorities on Saturday deployed robots for rescue operations in the tunnel as suggested by Chief Minister Revanth Reddy during his visit to the tunnel on March 2.
Irrigation Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy announced the deployment of robotic technology to accelerate rescue operations.
Robots equipped with cameras, infrared sensors, and robotic arms have been deployed to assess conditions and aid extraction.
Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and Irrigation Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy expressed condolences over the death of Gurpreet Singh and announced Rs 25 lakh ex-gratia to his next of kin.
disaster
South Korea’s fire agency issues emergency response order over mountain fire

Seoul, April 28: South Korea’s National Fire Agency (NFA) issued an emergency response order Monday to mobilise available national personnel and equipment to put out a fire spreading in the southeastern city of Daegu, officials said.
The NFA issued the order about two hours after the blaze began around 2 p.m. on Mount Hamji in the city, some 230 kilometres southeast of Seoul, and was spreading toward nearby villages.
Under the emergency order, the fire authorities have mobilised 28 additional fire engines to aid efforts to extinguish the blaze on top of 67 fire engines and 29 fire helicopters that had already been in operation, according to the officials.
No casualties have been reported so far, but nearby residents have been instructed to evacuate to local elementary schools, reports Yonhap news agency.
Acting President Han Duck-soo also ordered related authorities to “use all available equipment and personnel” to extinguish the fire and help people evacuate to safety.
“As the wildfire is spreading rapidly due to strong winds and there are residential areas nearby, make sure to take all necessary measures for emergency rescue and evacuation to prevent any loss of life,” he said.
The Korea Forest Service also issued a Level 3 wildfire response, the highest in its three-tier scale, as strong winds continued to spread the flames.
A Level 3 response is issued when wind speeds exceed 7 metres per second, the expected damage area is over 100 hectares and firefighting efforts are expected to last over 24 hours.
As of 6 p.m., some 57 hectares of land had been affected by the fire, with the containment rate remaining at 14.5 per cent, according to fire authorities.
disaster
US: Three killed in severe storms in Oklahoma

Houston, April 21: Three people were killed as heavy storms hit the central US state of Oklahoma over the weekend, authorities said.
A 12-year-old boy and his mother died in Moore, about 10 miles (about 16 km) south of Oklahoma City, on Sunday after floodwaters washed away their vehicle, said local police.
“This was a historical weather event that impacted roads and resulted in dozens of high-water incidents across the city,” Moore police said in a statement.
Another person was killed on Saturday night after a tornado hit Spaulding, a town in Hughes County, the county wrote on Facebook, Xinhua news agency reported.
Several homes and structures were destroyed, and there were “numerous washouts” of county roads, it said.
On April 20, the National Weather Service issued multiple tornado warnings across several states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Illinois, Missouri, and Louisiana. According to AccuWeather, regions of Missouri, Arkansas, and Illinois faced a high risk of severe thunderstorms.
The Storm Prediction Centre warned that strong, damaging winds, hail, and thunderstorms were likely to persist throughout the night. Severe weather was expected to continue across parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, extending into the Ozark Mountains and the mid-Mississippi Valley.
By late evening, local news outlets in Arkansas and Montana confirmed at least two tornado touchdowns. In Illinois, the National Weather Service issued alerts for severe storms capable of producing tornadoes.
Around 9 p.m. local time, a tornado was detected east of East Moline, a city in northwestern Illinois that’s part of the Quad Cities. At the time, no injuries or damages were reported.
Looking ahead, forecasters predicted ongoing showers and thunderstorms along and ahead of a front stretching from the Great Lakes down through the Tennessee and Lower Mississippi Valleys to the Gulf Coast on Monday. While heavy rainfall could lead to flooding, the severe weather threat was expected to diminish throughout the day.
disaster
Strong 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Afghanistan; tremors felt in Delhi-NCR, J&K

New Delhi, April 19: A powerful earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale struck Afghanistan on Saturday afternoon at 12:17 pm IST, as reported by the National Center for Seismology (NCS).
The quake’s epicentre was located at 36.10 degrees North latitude and 71.20 degrees East longitude, with a depth of 130 kilometres. Tremors from the earthquake were felt across several northern regions of India, including Jammu & Kashmir and the Delhi-NCR area.
While there have been no immediate reports of damage or injuries, authorities are keeping a close watch on the situation.
The NCS confirmed the seismic activity via a post on social media platform X.
“EQ of M: 5.8, On: 19/04/2025 12:17:53 IST, Lat: 36.10 N, Long: 71.20 E, Depth: 130 Km, Location: Afghanistan,” NCS said in a post on X.
This event follows a similar tremor that occurred earlier in the week. On Wednesday, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Afghanistan, with its epicentre approximately 164 km east of Baghlan.
The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) initially reported the quake as 6.4 in magnitude but later revised it to 5.6.
In a related development, the Kishtwar region of Jammu & Kashmir also experienced a mild earthquake measuring 2.4 on the Richter scale on Wednesday morning around 5:14 AM IST.
The tremor occurred at a shallow depth of 5 kilometres.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) highlights that Afghanistan is extremely susceptible to natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and seasonal floods.
UNOCHA also pointed out that the frequent seismic activity in the region severely impacts already fragile communities, which have endured years of conflict and underdevelopment.
These conditions have significantly weakened their capacity to handle multiple crises at once. According to the Red Cross, Afghanistan has a long history of experiencing powerful earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush region, which is known for its intense geological activity and frequent tremors.
The country lies along several major fault lines where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. One of these fault lines passes directly through Herat, increasing the area’s risk of seismic events.
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