•Firefighters battle a fire raging on a building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Feb. 29, 2024. (Xinhua)
At least 43 people were killed Thursday night after a devastating fire tore through a high-rise building in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka.
Minister of Health and Family Welfare of Bangladesh Samanta Lal Sen told Xinhua early Friday that they had confirmed the deaths.
The minister said 33 bodies were brought to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital and 10 others to the Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in Dhaka.
Anwarul Islam, an inspector of the Fire Service and Civil Defence Headquarters in Dhaka, earlier told Xinhua that around 75 people, including 42 in an unconscious state, were rescued from the “Green Cozy Cottage Shopping Mall” and were rushed to several hospitals.
Islam said rescuers were working at the site. He said they sent the firefighters after receiving information about the fire around 9:30 p.m. Thursday local time. At least 12 firefighting units rushed to the spot and doused the fire at about 11:30 p.m.
The official said the seven-storyed building houses a restaurant, an outlet and several other shops.
The death toll in the devastating inferno is likely to rise, warned another fire official, who did not want to be named.
TV reports early Friday showed fires were still raging in some parts of the building. The cause of the fire could not be known immediately. (Xinhua)
• The veteran BBC journalist Stephen Grimason has died aged 67 after a long battle with cancer
Stephen Grimason died following a long battle with cancer
He left the BBC to become Stormont’s director of communications until 2016
The veteran BBC journalist Stephen Grimason who broke news of the historic Good Friday Agreement in April 1998 has died aged 67.
The former BBC Northern Ireland political editor passed away following a long-term battle with cancer.
Following his iconic three-decade-long career in journalism, Grimason, originally from Lurgan, Co Armagh, later went on to work for the Stormont administration as director of communications.
He spoke publicly over the last year about his fight against cancer and said he received well wishes from former Prime Minister Tony Blair among others.
In an interview in January when he, along with former UTV political editor Ken Reid, was honoured with the Chancellor’s Medal for services to journalism, he described leaving it as ‘a bit of a wrench’, recalling ‘being surrounded by tremendous people’.
• The icon is widely remembered for breaking the news of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998 and reporting on The Troubles
Looking back, he said he had a ‘seat at the table for an awful lot of pretty dramatic Executive meetings’ in the 2000s.
Grimason cut his teeth working in local newspapers including the Lurgan Mail, the Ulster Star in Lisburn and Banbridge Chronicle, as well as regional papers, the former Sunday News newspapers and the News Letter.
At just 27-years-old, Grimason had become the editor of the Banbridge Chronicle.
Later, after 12 years in newspaper journalism, he applied for a job at the BBC in Northern Ireland.
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‘There were something like 300 of us (who applied) and two of us got jobs – so I must have bluffed my way rightly,’ he said of that time.
Speaking in January at Queen’s University around the then political stalemate, Grimason noted the ‘tide of Irish and Northern Irish politics goes in and out’, adding: ‘If you’re not careful and you don’t lead, you’ll be left on the beach.’
He also spoke of covering some of the darkest days of the Troubles, including atrocities within days in January 1992 – an IRA bomb which killed eight construction workers at Teebane, Co Tyrone, and the killing of five people by loyalists at the Sean Graham bookmakers on the Ormeau Road in Belfast.
‘I was the first reporter at Teebane. In the end, I think that the big success of the peace process was that actually peace, or an imperfect version of it, did win through,’ he said.
When Grimason memorably broke the news of the peace deal which helped end the troubles, he declared on television: ‘I have it in my hand’.
• Stephen Grimason, who was the BBC NI political editor in 1998, re-enacts the moment he broke the news to the TV audience that the Good Friday Agreement was across the line
• Former UTV political editor Ken Reid (left) and former BBC Northern Ireland political editor Stephen Grimason (right) at the Queen’s University in Belfast where they were honoured with the Chancellor’s Medal for services to journalism
• Ken Reid (left) and Stephen Grimason (right) at Queen’s University in Belfast
Grimason was described as a ‘brilliant political editor’ by former Northern Ireland presenter Noel Thompson, BBC reported.
‘He had the two most important attributes for the job. He loved the gossip – the inside track – and he loved to share it with the rest of us,’ he said.
‘His biggest scoop was of course getting hold of a copy of the Good Friday Agreement before any of the hundreds of other journalists camped out at Stormont.
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”I have it in my hand’ he told me live on air, with justifiable pride and excitement. It’s one of the key journalistic moments of the last 30 or 40 years.’
Grimason left the BBC to become Stormont’s new director of communications, a role he held until 2016.
He suffered heartache in 2022, when his younger brother Darryl, who was also a BBC journalist ad presenter, passed away.
Adam Smyth, director of BBC Northern Ireland, also paid tribute to Grimason following his shock death.
He said: ‘Stephen Grimason possessed the special talents that only the very best editors and correspondents exhibit – the audience always came away from his broadcasts feeling they knew and understood the political landscape better, and they trusted what he had to say.
‘Stephen’s list of contacts and sources was so extensive he regularly seemed to be one step ahead of everyone else – including the politicians.
‘His contribution to BBC Northern Ireland is deeply appreciated and we offer our sincerest condolences to Stephen’s family.’
Ken Reid wrote on X, formerly Twitter: ‘Stephen Grimason, my dear friend, has died.
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‘He showed enormous courage against the odds right to very end. In over 40 years of friendship and rivalry we never exchanged a cross word.
• Many thousands have had to leave their homes, such as these people in the Coastal region earlier this month
At least 155 people have died in floods and landslides in Tanzania following heavy rains caused by El Niño, the prime minister, Kassim Majaliwa said Thursday.
Majaliwa warned that the rains might continue into May, and urged families to leave flood-prone areas.
About 200,000 people and more than 51,000 households were already affected by the disaster, he added.
Heavy rains have also swept through neighbouring Kenya and Burundi, causing a humanitarian crisis in the region.
Giving a report to Tanzania’s parliament on the situation in his country since January, Mr Majaliwa said that in addition to the 155 people killed, 236 had been injured.
“The heavy El Nino rains, accompanied by strong winds, floods, and landslides in various parts of the country, have caused significant damage.
“These include loss of life, destruction of crops, homes, citizens’ property, and infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and railways,” he added.
A resident in northern Tanzania’s Siha district told the BBC that his home had been destroyed.
“I have nothing left, everything has been wiped away,” he said.
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In Kenya, President William Ruto has ordered the army to help with rescue operations, as heavy rains pounded large parts of the country, including the capital, Nairobi, where homes in some slum areas have been swept away, along with furniture and other goods.
More than 10 have died in Kenya this week, bringing the death to at least 45 people since March, the Red Cross said.
In Burundi, heavy rains have displaced nearly 100,000 peoples.
BBC Weather’s Chris Fawkes says that one of the biggest drivers of the rains is the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).
The IOD – often called the “Indian Niño” because of its similarity to its Pacific equivalent – refers to the difference in sea-surface temperatures in opposite parts of the Indian Ocean.
During a positive phase, the waters in the western Indian Ocean are much warmer than normal and this can bring heavier rain regardless of El Niño.
However, when both a positive IOD and an El Niño occur at the same time, as was the case last year, the rains in East Africa can become extreme.
One of the strongest positive IOD patterns on record coincided with one of the strongest El Niño patterns in 1997 and 1998, with severe flooding reported. These caused more than 6,000 deaths in five countries in the region. (BBC)
Israeli attacks on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza killed 13 people overnight, including nine children, health officials said Sunday.
The first Israeli strike late Saturday killed a man, his wife and their 3-year-old child, the Associated Press reported.
The second strike killed eight children and two women, it said. An airstrike in Rafah the night before left nine people dead, including six children.
The fresh attacks in southern Gaza come as the death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has climbed to more than 34,000 Palestinians killed, according to local health officials, the AP reported. The conflict has devastated Gaza’s two largest cities and left a swath of destruction across the besieged enclave.
The lastest strikes came within hours after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to provide Israel with $26.3 billion in assistance. The measure, which includes $9 billion in humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip, now goes back to the Senate, which about 10 weeks ago cleared legislation with nearly identical aid to Israel.
The House bill will now get bundled with three other measures. The Senate will receive them as a single package that includes aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, along with new sanctions, a TikTok ban and U.S. power to freeze Russian assets.
Israel has carried out near-daily air raids on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. It has also vowed to expand its ground offensive to the city on the border with Egypt despite international calls for restraint, including from the U.S.
