| At least 150 die in Pakistan crash | |
LAHORE, Pakistan -- Three trains have collided in southern Pakistan Wdnesday  morning, killing at least 150 people and injuring 800 more, police and railway officials have said.At least 17 train cars were destroyed in the accident that occurred at 3:40 a.m. local time (22:40 Tuesday GMT) at Ghotki railway station. Police, army and paramilitary forces are assisting in the rescue operation and area hospitals are on emergency notice. The Chairman of Pakistan Railways, Shakil Durani, told CNN there were about 3,000 passengers on the three trains. One train rammed into the back of another after missing a signal, Durani said. This caused several cars to derail, which in turn were struck by another train. The trains involved were the Karachi Express which rammed into the stationary Quetta Express. The derailed carriages were then hit almost simultaneously by a third train, the oncoming Tezgam Express, which was taking passengers from Karachi north to Rawalpindi, near the capital of Islamabad. The Karachi Express is a night-coach passenger train that brings people from the city of Lahore to the southern port city of Karachi. Ghotki is about 600 kilometers (370 miles) northeast of Karachi, in remote Sindh province. Pakistan's railways are antiquated, and dozens of people have been killed in train accidents in recent years. On March 5, five people were killed and 25 injured when a passenger train derailed in eastern Punjab province. On September 20, 2003, a train ploughed into a packed bus in central Pakistan, killing at least 27 people and injuring six others. Accidents are often blamed on faulty equipment or human error.-CNN | |
| Police hunt possible master bomber | |
| LONDON, England (CNN) -- Police were urgently addressing Wednesday whether four young British Muslims suspected of carrying out suicide attacks in London last week were working with a master bomber who may still be at large. They are now trying to determine the origin of the high explosives used in the devices in the hop  that could lead them to the architect of the attacks, the UK's Press Association said. Officers fear it could be a senior al Qaeda operative who arrived in the country several months ago and then fled the day before the atrocity, PA added. Police say it is "very likely" that one of the four died in the blasts on London's transport network, and it is possible that all four blew themselves up deliberately in what would be Europe's first suicide bombings. Britain's interior minister, Home Secretary Charles Clarke, meanwhile warned of further attacks despite police tracing three likely suspects in the bombings to Leeds, northern England. "We have to assume there are others who are ready to do the kinds of things that these people did last Thursday," Clarke told the BBC. Clarke is in Brussels for an emergency anti-terrorist meeting of European Union ministers. U.S. intelligence agencies are checking the names of the London bombers against their databases looking for any U.S. connection, President Bush told chief executives at a private White House meeting Tuesday, The Associated Press reported. The investigation continued in Leeds, 190 miles (300 km) north of London, where police Tuesday seized explosives and arrested a relative of one of the suspects. The relative was brought to London for questioning. The investigation also was continuing in Luton, 30 miles (48 km) north of the capital where police carried out a controlled explosion on a car parked at a train station there. It was believed to be linked to the bombings and the BBC reported that it contained explosives. Both Leeds and Luton have large Muslim populations, and police were trying to find out whether either city was harboring a terrorist cell or a bombmaker, possibly from al Qaeda, who might have planned the bombings that killed at least 52 people and injured 700, Reuters reported. CNN's John Vause in Leeds said it was believed the four bombers were so-called "cleanskins" or "lilywhites" -- with no convictions or known terrorist involvement. This was a major concern for the authorities, he said. It is thought the four lacked the expertise to plan the operation or construct the bombs. Senior sources told PA that they feared the "plotters and planners" were still at large. A senior security source told the news agency: "Where is the person who had the expertise to organize it all? "There is the possibility that it could be al Qaeda -- someone who would have been sent to the country to do the preparation and then would have left the day before the attack." Britain's Times newspaper said Wednesday the mastermind behind the attacks as well as the bombmaker were still thought to be at large. Police found a "bomb factory" during the Leeds raids, the newspaper said. The four men, believed to be aged between 19 and 30 and British nationals of ethnic Pakistani origin., were captured on closed-circuit television at King's Cross Thameslink rail station shortly before the series of deadly bombings rocked London last Thursday. Police have confirmed the identity of one of the four suspects as Shahzad Tanweer from Leeds, a 22-year-old sports science graduate who occasionally helped out in his father's fast food shop. He is the man who died in the Aldgate tube blast, PA reported. A neighbor of Tanweer told the British television network ITN that Tanweer had told him he had traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, spending a couple of months in Afghanistan and four months in Lahore, Pakistan. CNN's Vause said neighbors described Tanweer as a quiet young man, a devout Muslim who would go to the mosque sometimes five times a day but who also loved cricket and was an avid sports fan. The Muslim Council of Britain said it was stunned that English Muslims appeared to have carried out the attacks. "We have received today's terrible news from the police with anguish, shock and horror," the organization's secretary-general, Iqbal Sacranie, said in a statement. "Nothing in Islam can ever justify the evil actions of the bombers." Police said the four suspects traveled to London on the day of the blasts and were seen on closed-circuit television carrying rucksacks at the King's Cross rail station shortly before 8:30 a.m. The first three bombs exploded virtually simultaneously around 8:50 a.m. A police source told Reuters the four looked relaxed, more like they were going on a hiking holiday than a suicide mission. The government has said the attacks on three subway trains and a bus bear the hallmark of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and the Madrid bombings last year. On Tuesday, police searched six locations in West Yorkshire, where three of the men lived, and made one arrest. The home addresses of three of the men were among the locations searched, police said. Reported missing Many of the people living in the same street as the Tanweer family are from Pakistan and the disputed Kashmir region. However, Muslims make up a relatively small percentage of the overall population in the area. Another man, a 19-year-old, was reported missing by his mother at 10:20 p.m. on Thursday after failing to return home from London, the UK's Press Association reported. He had told his parents that he was going to the capital on the day of the bombings with friends, PA said. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's anti-terror branch, said the family's report led investigators to the four suspects. Authorities say the man reported as missing "was joined on his journey to London by three other men." The police found personal documents bearing the names of three of the four men near the train seats where the bombs exploded, Clarke said. "Very strong forensic and other evidence" led police to believe one of the West Yorkshire men died in the explosion on a train between the Aldgate and Liverpool Street stations, Clarke added. Police are waiting for additional information from the coroner, he said. Authorities made one arrest Tuesday while executing six search warrants in West Yorkshire. The man will be brought to London for questioning, Clarke said, providing no further detail. Five of the entries police made during their searches were consensual, while the sixth occurred at an unoccupied property -- where police, aided by army troops, used a "controlled explosion" to gain entry, Cramphorn said. London police have taken more than 700 witness statements and received more than 2,000 calls to the anti-terror hotline, said Andy Hayman, London police assistant commissioner and head of specialist operations. Officers are also reviewing 2,500 tapes of closed-circuit television footage from across the capital as scores of families await news of loved ones feared killed. Officials have said they expect the number of dead to rise. Scotland Yard said Tuesday 11 victims have so far been positively identified. Forensics experts have said it could take weeks to identify all the bodies recovered, many of which were mangled in Thursday's attacks. Other developments • U.S. officials lifted a ban preventing about 10,000 U.S. military personnel -- based at RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath, both in the eastern English county of Suffolk -- from going into the Greater London area. The instruction to U.S. forces had contradicted the message from politicians, including London's mayor, for people to return to the capital. • Britain's finance minister, Gordon Brown, vowed Tuesday that the European Union would unite to defeat terrorism and clamp down on the financing that feeds it.-CNN | |
| Brad Pitt hospitalized | |
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Actr  Brad Pitt has been hospitalized with a flu-like illness.Pitt, 41, checked himself into an undisclosed Los Angeles area hospital Monday night complaining of flu-like symptoms, his publicist Cindy Guagenti said Tuesday. There were no other details and the name of the hospital wasn't disclosed for security reasons. Pitt was in Ethiopia last week with his "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" co-star Angelina Jolie to pick up the actress's newly adopted baby girl, the second child she has adopted. Guagenti said it wasn't known if the actor contracted the illness while in Africa. "I think he has the flu," the spokeswoman said. The "Troy" and "Fight Club" star separated from "Friends" actress Jennifer Aniston in January after 4 1/2 years of marriage and she filed for divorce in March citing irreconcilable differences.-CNN | |
All 309 on Board Survive Fiery Plane Accident in Toronto |
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| 2005-8-3 10:48:48 CRIENGLISH.com | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| More than 300 people escaped with their lives Tuesday after an Air France passenger jet skidded off a runway at Pearson International Airport. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Only 43 of the 297 passengers and 12 crew members aboard Air France Flight 358 from Paris sustained what were mostly minor injuries in the dramatic crash, which unfolded shortly after 4 p.m. ET right in front of commuters at the peak of the daily rush hour. "It happened so quickly," said Gwen Dunlop, a Toronto resident who was on the flight on her way home from a summer vacation in France. "It was a little like being in a movie. It was scary, because it did land OK for a few seconds and we actually clapped - we clapped because we were down. We clapped and only seconds later there was a big, big (impact)." Seconds later, the cabin rapidly began to fill with smoke as passengers scrambled to get off the plane, Dunlop said. "At some point the wing was off and it was smoking badly," she said. "The oxygen masks never came down. The plane was filling up with smoke." Many passengers, including one of the co-pilots, escaped the wreckage in the moments after the crash and climbed out of Etobicoke Creek ravine and on to the highway, said Peel police Sgt. Glyn Griffiths. "We located the co-pilot on Highway 401," Griffiths said. Passengers were buffeted with heavy rain and howling winds as they scrambled up the muddy banks of the ravine in an effort to get to safety - and away from the flaming wreckage. "There was the fear of the explosion because we were all trying to go up a hill that was all mud," she said. "We had lost our shoes, we were just scrambling, and there were people with children. The rain was just coming down, and the wind and the lightning. We were just thrown into the weather and thrown into everything. There were people climbing over seats to get out." Everyone on board the Airbus 340 jet, which is capable of carrying 350 passengers, was able to get off the plane before it caught fire. It was the first crash for an Airbus 340 in 13 years of commercial service. Several area hospitals braced for an onslaught of injuries that never came. A one-year-old baby was taken to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children for smoke inhalation, and would likely be kept overnight for observation. Another 13 people were taken to William Osler Health Centre in Etobicoke, west of Toronto, and two others to the Peel Memorial Emergency Department in Brampton, to the north. No details of their condition were made available. At about 8:30 p.m. passengers wrapped in red blankets were taken to an airport hotel and reunited with their families. Most seemed composed, despite their harrowing ordeal. For many hours, flames and black smoke could be seen shooting from the downed plane's broken fuselage. Moments after the aircraft crashed 200 metres at the end of the runway amid lightning strikes and driving rain at 4:03 p.m., dirty smoke billowed across the landscape, obscuring the view for passing drivers as the acrid smell of burning jet fuel hung heavy in the air, even several kilometres away. The fact no one was killed in the crash was "miraculous," said acting Peel police Sgt. Craig Platt. "It's a relief there are no fatalities." Air France issued a statement saying it was making arrangements to help families stranded in Canada. "Air France is doing everything possible to take care of the passengers of this flight and bring the necessary assistance to their families and loved ones," the airline said. Passenger Roel Bramar said he saw lightning in the sky as the plane was descending. "Just as we landed, the lights turned off and that's unusual," Bramar reported. "The captain wanted to lower the plane as quickly as possible." Glenn Schiller, a passenger in a plane that had already landed on the tarmac, watched the scene unfold. "At the time the rain was coming down sideways," he said. "It was a vicious, vicious thunderstorm." Thunderstorms create the possibility of wind shear - the sudden, dangerous air currents that can push an aircraft into the ground during takeoff and landing. It was not immediately apparent whether the plane had been struck by lightning. As emergency crews sped to the scene, commuters on their way home from work on the multi-lane highway became snared in a massive traffic jam. At one point, another huge plume of smoke emerged from the wreckage, but it was unclear whether it was from an explosion. A row of emergency vehicles lined up behind the wreck, and a fire truck sprayed the flames with water and foam. By 8 p.m., authorities were reporting that the fire had been extinguished. Within minutes of the crash, with scant details about the injuries, the number of passengers and circumstances of the crash available, the spectacle was being broadcast live on television in Canada and the United States, much of it with the help of automated Ministry of Transportation cameras mounted to monitor the flow of highway traffic. Flights scheduled to land at Pearson were diverted to other Canadian airports. The most serious plane crash at Pearson, Canada's busiest airport, was more than 30 years ago. In 1970 an Air Canada DC-8 jet, en route from Montreal to Los Angeles, went down north of the airport, killing all 109 people aboard. The last major jumbo jet crash in North America was on Nov. 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 lost part of its tail and plummeted into a New York City neighbourhood, killing 265 people. Safety investigators concluded the crash was caused by the pilot moving the rudder too aggressively. Pearson had been operating under vigilant security measures in the wake of deadly bombings in London. The federal Transportation Safety Board wasn't offering any clues Tuesday about the cause of the crash, but a team would be taking over the site and recovering the flight's cockpit voice recorder and data recorder to piece together what happened. "It's like a series of crime scene investigations," said spokesman Conrad Bellehumeur. The agency will also interview passengers, crew, witnesses and air traffic controllers, and review both the radar and voice versions of recordings of the air traffic control activity, Bellehumeur said. "We're going to follow every lead and as soon as we see something of importance that might have contributed to the crash, we'll make that known publicly. Normally accidents of this kind are not caused by one single factor."
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Passengers survive plane inferno | |||
Flight 358 from Paris burned for more than two hours after the crash landing in bad weather at 1603 (2003 GMT). "We were really, really scared the plane would blow up," passenger Olivier Dubois told a Canadian TV station. The accident was the first major crash of an Airbus A340-300 since the model's first flight in October 1991. The accident took place in heavy rain near Highway 401, one of Canada's busiest motorways, and emergency vehicles raced to the scene.
Some 24 people aboard the plane were treated for minor injuries, officials said.
Roel Bramar, a passenger on the plane, told Canada's CBC broadcaster that there was mayhem aboard the airliner after the impact. "I was at the very end, and second off the plane. I was just running like crazy. There was quite a bit of fire on the ground." Several witnesses said they thought the plane had been struck by lightning as the power went out just before the plane landed. First accident The plane crashed through barriers and fell into a small ravine, tail in the air. It overshot the runway by some 200m (660ft), Steve Shaw of the Greater Toronto Airport Authority told reporters at a hastily organised news conference.
Mr Shaw said it appeared that all the passengers were evacuated before the plane was "heavily damaged by fire". One witness said rescue workers got to the airliner within 50 seconds. Mr Shaw said the airport had been under a "red alert" since midday Tuesday because of danger of lightning. "There was quite a downpour," CBC journalist John Finday said. "The visibility was really bad, with lots of lightning." The A340 has an excellent safety record - with no crashes reported before Tuesday, aircraft expert David Learmount told the BBC. "Modern airliners are like that. They don't have accidents. If this one has had an accident it's the first." Mayhem Mr Dubois told CTV that the plane "was going pretty fast" just before the landing. He said suddenly "it was all black in the plane, there was no more light". "And then we went off the runway, we were in the ravine and the plane was continuing rolling on the ravine and then there were a lot of flames. "The plane stopped. We opened the emergency doors and basically there were lots of flames around. "We were really, really scared that the plane would blow up... We just tried to escape, sliding from the plane and running in the countryside," Mr Dubois said.
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Plane fire footage
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