World News Briefs For Sunday, 13 October 2019
Hello Australia!! - Falling concrete and steel caught on camera in a major construction disaster - Japan is hit by twin calamities - The amazing world record that doesn't count - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:
A Hard Rock Hotel under construction in New Orleans collapsed, spilling I-beams and other debris all over Canal Street in the historic southern US city. At least one worker was killed and several more were injured while three were missing. Witnesses just happened to be recording video as it happened and in the immediate aftermath. Another unverified video appeared to show a severely injured worker in the rubble several storeys above street level. Streets are closed in the surrounding area and several surrounding structures have been evacuated.
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake hit Chiba Prefecture, Japan just to the east of Tokyo as the most powerful typhoon in decades passed through Japan's most densely-populated areas including the capital. One person in Chiba is dead as a result of the quake, while a landslide crushed a home in Gunma killing the occupant. Storm damage from Typhoon Hagibis including flooding is widespread from Mie Prefecture, which is far to the west between Nagoya and Osaka, all the way to Tokyo and now to the north. Evacuation orders for 3.9 million people were heeded early - Japan knows how to respond to natural disasters - and deaths and injuries for now appear to have been kept to a minimum. More than a dozen people are missing, and the true scope of the twin disasters will become apparent in the coming hours.
Turkey is claiming that it has killed more than 400 "terrorists" in its invasion of territory in northern Syria that had been controlled by the Kurds. But Kurdish sources say the death toll is more like 45, and most of the victims of the Syrian invasion are civilians. The two sides are battling over control of the border town of Ras al-Ain, while Turkey's Syrian allies say they have seized strategically important roads 30 kilometers away from the border, and captured more than a dozen villages. Aid groups say from 100,000 to 450,000 residents are now on the run. Turkey is attacking because President Recep Tayyip Erdogan considers the Kurds to be a threat, and Donald Trump basically gave Erdogan the go-ahead despite the Kurds putting their lives on the line for the US as the top ground force that ended the so-called Islamic State.
Ecuador's not very popular President Lenin Moreno declared a 3:00 PM curfew on Quito and surrounding areas after a tenth day of a civil uprising has left the capital a shambles. A couple of hours earlier, masked protesters broke into the national auditor’s office and set it ablaze, sending black smoke billowing across the central Quito park and cultural complex that have been the epicenter of the protests. Indigenous groups and labor unions started out protesting Moreno's austerity cuts to social spending, but now appear to be an expression of complete dissatisfaction with Moreno, whose swing to the right has not been well-received by people impacted by his budget cuts. Still, other protesters have signaled a willingness to negotiate.
Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge has destroyed all previous records and for the first time run 26.2 miles in under two hours. His time of time of one hour, 59 minutes and 40 seconds was actually 10 seconds faster than his team anticipated. However, the remarkable achievement in Vienna Austria will not be officially recognized as a world record because it was not run under open marathon conditions and because it featured a dense rotation of professional pacesetters. Kipchoge said he had another goal in mind: "I want to inspire many people, that no human is limited."