World
At least 27 dead after Hurricane Otis hits Mexico’s Acapulco
One of the most powerful storms to ever hit Mexico left a trail of destruction in the beach town of 900,000.
At least 27 people have been killed after Hurricane Otis, one of the most powerful storms to ever hit Mexico, struck the Pacific beach resort of Acapulco.
Otis, with winds of 270 kilometres per hour (165 miles per hour), ripped roofs from homes and hotels, tore trees from the ground, and largely cut off communications and road links with the region.
Some hospitals were forced to evacuate patients amid flooding that inundated streets and left cars submerged in a trail of wreckage across the city of nearly 900,000 people.
“What Acapulco suffered was really disastrous,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told a press conference in Mexico City on Thursday.
Many of those killed were swept away in overflowing rivers, according to authorities. Four people remain missing. The government has not said how many were injured but has declared a state of emergency in the region.
In a matter of hours, Otis intensified from a tropical storm to the most powerful category of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale before hitting land, taking authorities by surprise.
“It’s unprecedented in the country in recent times, not only because of the way it strengthened so quickly but also the magnitude of the hurricane,” Lopez Obrador said.
The World Meteorological Organization described the hurricane as “one of the most rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones on record”.
‘Three hours of terror’
People in Acapulco recounted a terrifying ordeal as Otis made landfall overnight early on Wednesday.
“The building shook as if there was an earthquake,” Citlali Portillo, a tourist accommodation manager, told the television channel Televisa, saying she had taken shelter in a bathtub.
Erik Lozoya, a professional magician, said he endured “three hours of terror” with his wife and two baby daughters in an Acapulco hotel room as the hurricane smashed through the windows and swept through the building with deafening intensity.
“It literally felt as though our ears were going to explode,” said the 26-year-old, who barricaded himself in a bathroom with his family and four others. “We saw mattresses, water tanks flying. The ceiling began to cave in.”
Some residents slogged for hours through mud and debris in an attempt to find food and shelter.
“Acapulco is a total disaster. It is not what it was before,” said 24-year-old Eric Hernandez.
“The shops had all been looted, people were fighting for things. So we decided to walk as there wasn’t anything left there,” he said.
Lopez Obrador travelled to Acapulco late on Wednesday by road, changing his vehicle more than once because of landslides and floods caused by the storm.
One social media post showed him sitting in a military jeep stuck in mud.
On Thursday afternoon, the government said the air traffic control tower of Acapulco’s international airport was up and running again and that an air bridge enabling tourists to reach Mexico City would be operating from Friday.
Mexican authorities said Otis was the most powerful storm ever to strike Mexico’s Pacific coast.
The defence ministry said nearly 8,400 members of Mexico’s army, air force and national guard had been deployed in and around Acapulco to assist in the cleanup.
Acapulco is the biggest city in the southern state of Guerrero, one of the poorest in Mexico. The local economy depends heavily on tourism, and Otis caused extensive damage to some of the most famous hotels on the city’s coast.
Calling the storm “totally devastating”, Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado said 80 percent of the city’s hotels had been hit by the storm and that authorities were working to restore electricity and reactivate drinking water pumps.
World
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World
Israel forced to work on Jewish Sabbath as UN court judge calls out colleagues in scathing dissent
A U.N. International Court of Justice (ICJ) chided her colleagues on Friday for requiring Israel to work on the Sabbath when responding to a case brought by South Africa to the ICJ under the Genocide Convention.
The dissenting opinion from ICJ Vice President Julia Sebutinde came in a nine-page document, issued in response to the court’s order for Israel to end its military offensive in the southern city of Rafah in Gaza. That ruling stems from South Africa’s request, which accuses Israel of genocide in its ongoing war with Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Israel has vehemently denied these charges.
Among her disagreements with her colleagues, Sebutinde, who is Ugandan, objected to the court’s handling of South Africa’s request, and the “incidental oral hearings.”
“In my view, the Court should have consented to Israel’s request to postpone the oral hearings to the following week to allow for Israel to have sufficient time to fully respond to South Africa’s Request and engage counsel,” Sebutinde wrote, noting that the Israel’s preferred Counsel was not available on the dates scheduled by the Court.
“It is also regrettable that Israel was required to respond to a question posed by a Member of the Court over the Jewish Sabbath,” Sebutinde said. “The Court’s decision in this respect bear upon the procedural equality between the Parties and the good administration of justice by the Court.”
Sebutinde also argued that the court’s initial ruling “does not entirely prohibit the Israeli military from operating in Rafah.” She also urged the court, to maintain its judicial integrity, to “avoid reacting to every shift in the conflict and refrain from micromanaging the hostilities in the Gaza Strip, including Rafah.”
LINDSEY GRAHAM TELLS UN INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE TO ‘GO TO HELL’ OVER RULING AGAINST ISRAEL
Sebutinde clarified that the ruling operates to “partially restrict Israel’s offensive in Rafah to the extent it implicates rights under the Genocide Convention.” She warned that the ruling is “susceptible to ambiguity and could be misunderstood or misconstrued as ordering an indefinite, unilateral cease-fire, thereby exemplifying an untenable overreach on the part of the Court.”
The judges’ ruling on Friday stopped short of ordering a full cease-fire across the entire Palestinian territory, and Israel is unlikely to comply with the court’s ruling. Friday’s decision comes just days after Norway, Ireland, and Spain said they would recognize the Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor of a separate international court sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as leaders of Hamas.
Since Oct. 7, Israeli bombardments and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed about 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more.
World
At least 24 people, including children, killed in a fire in India’s Gujarat
The fire broke out at a family entertainment venue in Gujarat’s Rajkot district.
At least 24 people, including many children, have died in a fire that broke out at a family entertainment venue in the western Indian state of Gujarat, a government official said.
With rescue efforts continuing at the scene on Saturday evening in the Rajkot district, the local mayor told the Reuters news agency that the death toll was expected to rise.
“Our focus is on rescue operations and saving lives. We will ensure strict action is taken against the people who are responsible for this incident,” Mayor Nayana Pedhadiya said.
More than 300 people were in the two-storey structure at the TRP amusement and theme park when the blaze broke out as it was a holiday weekend, Rajkot fire officer Ilesh Kher told reporters.
“People got trapped as a temporary structure at the facility collapsed near the entrance, making it difficult for the people to come out,” he said.
“The flames spread rapidly because of its flammable material,” he added.
Television images showed a massive fire engulfing the TRP game zone and thick clouds of smoke emanating from the site. The entire structure was gutted in the blaze.
A police official at the local civil hospital said some of the bodies were also charred beyond recognition.
Meanwhile, the district’s chief fire officer, IV Kher, said firefighters had almost brought the fire under control.
“The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained,” he told Reuters.
Gujarat Chief Minster Bhupendra Patel said that an investigation into the incident had been handed to a Special Investigation Team (SIT), and television reports added that two people had been detained by Rajkot police in connection with the incident.
Gujarat is the home state of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In a post on the social media platform X, Modi said that he was “extremely distressed by the fire mishap in Rajkot” and added that the local administration was working to provide assistance to those affected.
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