asia
South Korea launches its 2nd military spy satellite amid animosities with North Korea
South Korea has launched its second military spy satellite into space, days after North Korea reaffirmed its plan to launch multiple reconnaissance satellites this year.
The Koreas each launched their first spy satellites last year – North Korea in November and South Korea in December — amid heightened animosities. They said their satellites would boost their abilities to monitor each other and enhance their own missile attack capabilities.
South Korea’s second spy satellite was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday evening local time, which was Monday morning in Seoul.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the satellite was successfully separated from a rocket. It said it will check whether the satellite functions properly via its communications with an overseas ground station.
Under a contract with SpaceX, South Korea was to launch five spy satellites by 2025. South Korea's first spy satellite launch on Dec. 1 was made from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.
South Korea in 2022 became the world’s 10th nation to successfully launch a satellite with its own technology by using a homegrown rocket to place what it called a “performance observation satellite” in orbit. But experts say it’s economical to use a SpaceX rocket to launch spy satellite and that South Korea needs more launches to ensure the reliability of a rocket.
North Korea is also eager to acquire its own space-based surveillance network to cope with what it calls military threats posed by the United States and South Korea.
After two launch failures earlier in 2023, North Korea placed its Malligyong-1 spy satellite into orbit on Nov. 21. North Korea has since said its satellite had transmitted imagery with space views of key sites in the U.S. and South Korea, including the White House and the Pentagon. But it hasn't released any of those satellite photos, and foreign experts doubt whether the North Korean satellite can transmit militarily meaningful imagery.
On March 31, Pak Kyong Su, vice general director of the North's National Aerospace Technology Administration, said North Korea is expected to launch several more reconnaissance satellites this year. During a key political conference in late December, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to launch three additional military spy satellite in 2024.
The U.N. bans North Korea from conducting a satellite launch, considering it as a disguised test of its long-range missile technology. The North's November satellite launch deepened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, with both Koreas taking steps to breach their 2018 agreement to lower down military tensions.
In recent years, North Korea has been engaged in a provocative run of missile tests to modernize and expand its weapons arsenals, prompting the U.S. and South Korea to strengthen their military drills in response. Experts say North Korea likely believes that an enlarged weapons arsenals would increase its leverage in future diplomacy with the U.S.
Yellen says US-China relationship on 'more stable footing' but more can be done to improve ties
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sent a message of mutual cooperation at a meeting Sunday with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, highlighting the improvement in relations since her visit to China last year while recognizing that major differences remain.
After focusing on trade and economic issues for the first two days of her visit, Yellen turned to the broader U.S.-China relationship in the meeting with Li, one of China's top leaders.
“While we have more to do, I believe that, over the past year, we have put our bilateral relationship on more stable footing,” she said in the ornate Fujian room of the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square.
Yellen, who is regarded favorably in China, is the first Cabinet member to visit since Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in California in November in a carefully orchestrated meeting to set the troubled relationship between their countries on a better course.
Li, in remarks before the media before their meeting, said the high media interest in Yellen’s visit “shows the high expectation they have ... and also the expectation and hope to grow” the U.S.-China relationship.
China's emergence as an economic and military power has created a rivalry with the long dominant United States.
The U.S. has restricted China's access to advanced semiconductors and other technology, saying it could be used for military purposes. China, still a middle-income country, accuses the U.S. of trying to constrain its economic development.
At their meeting, Li told Yellen that China hopes the U.S won't politicize economic and trade issues or overstretch the definition of national security, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Yellen came to China with trade practices that put American companies and workers at an unfair competitive disadvantage at the top of her agenda.
Chinese government subsidies and other policy support have encouraged solar panel and EV makers in China to invest in factories, building far more production capacity than the domestic market can absorb.
While that has driven down prices for consumers, Western governments fear that that capacity will flood their markets with low-priced exports, threatening American and European jobs.
But Li argued that the development of the green energy industry in China would make an important contribution to combating climate change, the Xinhua report said.
The U.S. and China on Saturday agreed to hold “ intensive exchanges ” on more balanced economic growth, according to a U.S. statement issued after Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng held extended meetings over two days in the southern city of Guangzhou.
They also agreed to start exchanges on combating money laundering. It was not immediately clear when and where the talks would take place.
“As the world’s two largest economies, we have a duty to our own countries and to the world to responsibly manage our complex relationship and to cooperate and show leadership on addressing pressing global challenges," Yellen said.
Relations were at a low point when she visited in July in the early stages of efforts to improve ties.
China had cut off talks on a range of issues in anger over a visit by then U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in 2022. Tensions were further inflamed by a Chinese balloon that traversed America in early 2023 before being shot down by a U.S. fighter jet.
In that context, Yellen's visit is an attempt to build on a fragile stability that has been established.
The end of her trip will overlap with a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday and Tuesday that was announced by China's Foreign Ministry on Sunday.
China's sharp rise in trade with the Kremlin has increased since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While China does not provide weapons to Russia, the U.S. has expressed concern about China's sale of items to Russia that can have military as well as civilian uses.
During a press conference Saturday, Yellen addressed the U.S. relationship with China on the subject of Russia.
“We think there’s more to do, but I do see it as an area where we’ve agreed to cooperate and we’ve already seen some meaningful progress,” she said. "They understand how serious an issue this is to us.”
Yellen also met Sunday with Beijing Mayor Yin Yong and told him that “local governments play a critical (economic) role, from boosting consumption to addressing overinvestment,” adding that Beijing is particularly important in China.
“I believe that to understand China’s economy and its economic future, engagement with local government is essential,” Yellen said.
Later Sunday, Yellen met with students and faculty at Peking University.
Farmers in India are hit hard by extreme weather. Some say expanding natural farming is the answer
There's a pungent odor on Ratna Raju's farm that he says is protecting his crops from the unpredictable and extreme weather that's become more frequent with human-caused climate change.
The smell comes from a concoction of cow urine, an unrefined sugar known as jaggery, and other organic materials that act as fertilizers, pesticides and bad weather barriers for his corn, rice, leafy greens and other vegetables on his farm in Guntur in India's southern Andhra Pradesh state. The region is frequently hit by cyclones and extreme heat, and farmers say that so-called natural farming protects their crops because the soil can hold more water, and their more robust roots help the plants withstand strong winds.
Andhra Pradesh has become a positive example of the benefits of natural farming, and advocates say active government support is the primary driver for the state’s success. Experts say these methods should be expanded across India's vast agricultural lands as climate change and decreasing profits have led to multiple farmers' protests this year. But fledgling government support across the country for these methods means most farmers still use chemical pesticides and fertilizers, making them more vulnerable when extreme weather hits. Many farmers are calling for greater federal and state investment to help farms switch to more climate change-proof practices.
For many, the benefits of greater investment in natural farming are already obvious: In December, Cyclone Michaung, a storm moving up to 110 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) brought heavy rainfall across India's southeastern coast, flooding towns and fields. A preliminary assessment conducted a few weeks later found that 600,000 acres of crops were destroyed in Andhra Pradesh state.
On Raju's natural farm, however, where he was growing paddy at the time, “the rainwater on our farms seeped into the ground in one day,” he said. The soil can absorb more water because it's more porous than pesticide-laden soil which is crusty and dry. Planting different kinds of crops throughout the year — as opposed to the more standard single crop farms — also helps keep the soil healthy, he said.
But neighboring farmer Srikanth Kanapala's fields, that rely on chemical pesticides and fertilizers, were flooded for four days after the cyclone. He said seeing Raju's crops hold firm while his failed has made him curious about alternative farming methods.
“I incurred huge losses,” said Kanapala, who estimates he lost up to $600 because of the cyclone, a substantial sum for a small farmer in India. “For the next planting season, I plan to use natural farming methods too.”
Local and federal government initiatives have resulted in an estimated 700,000 farmers shifting to natural farming in the state according to Rythu Sadhikara Samstha, a government-backed not-for-profit launched in 2016 to promote natural farming. The state of Andhra Pradesh hopes to inspire all of its six million farmers to take up natural farming by the end of the decade.
The Indian federal government’s agriculture ministry has spent upwards of $8 million to promote natural farming and says farmers tilling nearly a million acres across the country have shifted to the practice. In March last year, India’s junior minister for agriculture said he hoped at least 25% of farms across India would use organic and natural farming techniques.
But farmers like Meerabi Chunduru, one of the first in the region to switch to natural farming, said more government and political support is needed. Chunduru said she switched to the practice after her husband’s health deteriorated, which she believes is because of prolonged exposure to some harmful pesticides.
While the health effects of various pesticides have not yet been studied in detail, farm workers around the world have long claimed extended exposure has caused health problems. In February, a Philadelphia jury awarded $2.25 billion in damages in a case where a weed killer with Glyphosate — restricted in India since just 2022 — was linked to a resident's blood cancer. In India, 63 farmers died in the western state of Maharashtra in 2017, believed to be linked to a pesticide containing the chemical Diafenthiuron, which is currently banned in the European Union, but not in India.
“Right now, not many politicians are talking about natural farming. There is some support but we need more,” said Chunduru. She called for more subsidies for seeds such as groundnuts, black gram, sorghum, vegetable crops and maize that can help farmers make the switch.
Farmers' rights activists said skepticism about natural farming among political leaders, government bureaucrats and scientists is still pervasive because they still trust the existing farming models that use fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides to achieve maximum productivity. In the short-term, chemical alternatives can be cheaper and more effective, but in the long term they take a toll on the soil's health, meaning larger quantities of chemicals are needed to maintain crops, causing a cycle of greater costs and poorer soil, natural farming advocates say.
“Agroecological initiatives are not getting adequate attention or budgetary outlays,” said Kavitha Kuruganti, an activist who has advocated for sustainable farming practices for nearly three decades. The Indian government spends less than three percent of its total budget on agriculture. It has earmarked nearly $20 billion in fertilizer subsidies this year, but only $55 million has been allocated by the federal government to encourage natural farming. Kuruganti said there are a handful of politicians who support the practice but scaling it up remains a challenge in India.
A lack of national standards and guidelines or a viable supply chain that farmers can sell their produce through is also keeping natural farming relatively niche, said NS Suresh, a research scientist at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy, a Bengaluru-based think-tank.
But because the practice helps keep the plants and the soil healthy across various soil types and all kinds of unpredictable weather conditions, it's beneficial for farmers all around India, from its mountains to its coasts, experts say. And the practice of planting different crops year-round means farmers have produce to harvest at any given time, giving an extra boost to their soil and their wallets.
Chunduru, who's been practicing natural farming for four years now, hopes that prioritizing natural farming in the country can have benefits for producers and consumers of crops alike, and other farmers avoid the kind of harms her husband has faced.
“We can provide nutrient-rich food, soil and physical health” to future generations, she said.
Earthquake aftershocks halt the demolition of a leaning building in Taiwan. Death toll rises to 13
The demolition of a building that is leaning precariously after an earthquake in Taiwan was halted on Saturday because of aftershocks that made it lean even more, media reports said.
The red building, about 10 stories tall and inclined over a street in the city of Hualien, has become an iconic image from the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that also buried people under boulders at nearby Taroko National Park, a popular hiking destination about 25 kilometers (15 miles) northwest of Hualien.
The death toll rose to 13 after a third victim was found on the park's Shakadang Trail. Six other people are still missing, including three on the same trail. More than 400 people remained stranded three days after the quake in locations cut off by damage. Most are at a hotel in Taroko park.
Hundreds of aftershocks have struck the area since the Wednesday morning quake off Taiwan's east coast, including a magnitude-5.2 earthquake shortly before noon on Saturday.
Survivors have told harrowing tales of rocks tumbling onto roadways, trapping them in tunnels until rescuers arrived to free them.
The relatively low number of deaths from the powerful quake has been attributed to strict construction standards and widespread public education campaigns on the earthquake-prone island. The quake was the strongest to hit Taiwan since a magnitude 7.7 earthquake in 1999 that killed 2,400 people.
Rescuers were planning to bring in heavy equipment to try to recover two bodies pinned under boulders on the Shakadang Trail. The three dead and three missing on the trail include a family of five. Search and recovery work had been called off Friday afternoon because of aftershocks.
In Hualien, a city official said that experts would discuss how to proceed with the demolition of the leaning building. Offerings were made at a ceremony before the demolition began the previous day.
Israel says its strike that killed aid workers was a mistake. Rights groups say it was no anomaly
Two basic mistakes, according to the Israeli military. First, officers overlooked a message detailing the vehicles in the convoy. Second, a spotter saw someone boarding one car, carrying something – possibly a bag – that he thought was a weapon. Officials say the result was the series of Israeli drone strikes that killed seven aid workers on a dark Gaza road.
The Israeli military has described the deadly strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy as a tragic error. Its explanation raises the question: If that's the case, how often has Israel made such mistakes in its 6-month-old offensive in Gaza?
Rights groups and aid workers say Monday night’s mistake was hardly an anomaly. They say the wider problem is not violations of the military’s rules of engagement but the rules themselves.
In Israel’s drive to destroy Hamas after its Oct. 7 attacks, the rights groups and aid workers say, the military seems to have given itself wide leeway to determine what is a target and how many civilian deaths it allows as “collateral damage.”
More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israel says it is targeting Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that it tries to minimize civilian deaths. It blames the large number of civilian casualties on militants and says it's because they operate among the population. Israel says each strike goes through an assessment by legal experts, but it has not made its rules of engagement public.
OTHER STRIKES
In the thousands of strikes Israel has carried out, as well as shelling and shootings in ground operations, it's impossible to know how many times a target has been wrongly identified. Nearly every day, strikes level buildings with Palestinian families inside, killing men, women and children, with no explanation of the target or independent accountability over the proportionality of the strike.
Sarit Michaeli, spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, said the World Central Kitchen strike drew world attention only because foreigners were killed.
“The thought that this is a unique case, that it’s a rare example — it’s an insult to the intelligence of anyone who has been following the situation,” she said.
She said a broader investigation is needed into the rules of engagement: “The relevant questions aren’t asked because the investigations only deal with specific cases, rather than the broader policy.”
Israel’s chief military spokesman, Daniel Hagari, acknowledged, “Mistakes were conducted in the last six months.”
“We do everything we can not to harm innocent civilians,” he told reporters. “It is hard because Hamas is going with civilian clothes … Is it a problem, is it complexity for us? Yes. Does that matter? No. We need to do more and more and more to distinguish.”
But the military hasn't specified how it will achieve this.
Brig. Gen. Benny Gal, who was part of the investigation into the World Central Kitchen strikes, was asked whether more questions should be asked before a strike is authorized.
“This was not our standards,” he said. “The standard is more questions, more details, more crossing sources. And this was not the case.”
WHITE FLAGS
Palestinian witnesses have repeatedly reported people, including women and children, being shot and killed or wounded by Israeli troops while carrying white flags. Several videos have surfaced showing Palestinians being fired at or killed while seeming to pose little threat to Israeli forces nearby.
In March, the military acknowledged it shot dead two Palestinians and wounded a third while walking on a Gaza beach. It said troops opened fire after the men allegedly ignored warning shots. It reacted after the news channel Al Jazeera showed footage of one of the men falling to the ground while walking in an open area and then a bulldozer pushing two bodies into the garbage-strewn sand. It said at least two of the three men were waving white flags.
Aid groups have also reported strikes on their personnel.
Medical Aid for Palestine said its residential compound in the southern area of Muwasi – which the military had defined as a safe zone – was hit in January by what the U.N. determined was a 1,000-pound bomb. Several team members were injured and the building damaged, the group said.
The group said the Israeli military gave it multiple explanations – denying involvement, saying it was trying to hit a target nearby and blaming a missile that went astray. “The variety of responses highlights a continued lack of transparency,” the group said.
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders said a tank shelled a house sheltering its staff and their families in Muwasi in February, killing one staffer's wife and daughter-in-law.
Both groups said they had informed the military repeatedly of their locations and clearly marked the buildings.
Israeli admissions of mistakes are rare.
In December, after a strike killed at least 106 people in the Maghazi camp, the military said buildings near the target were also hit, likely causing “unintended harm to additional uninvolved civilians.” It also admitted soldiers mistakenly shot to death three Israeli hostages who were waving white flags after getting out of Hamas captivity in Gaza City.
‘THE PATTERN’
In Israel’s ground assaults, troops are operating in urban environments, searching for Hamas fighters while surrounded by a population hunkering in their homes and in motion, trying to flee or find food and medical care.
Some Israeli politicians and news outlets regularly proclaim there are no innocents in Gaza. And in some videos circulated online, soldiers talk of getting vengeance for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that sparked the war.
In that atmosphere, Palestinians and other critics say, soldiers on the ground appear to have wide liberty in deciding whether to target someone as suspicious. Residents and medical staff in Gaza say they see the result.
Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a doctor with Medical Aid for Palestinians who just returned from two weeks at a Gaza hospital, said staff regularly treated children and elderly shot by snipers.
“It’s not an anomaly. It’s actually the pattern,” she told journalists in a briefing this week. “I don’t think it’s that children in particular are singled out as targets. The understanding and kind of the conclusion you reach … is that everybody’s a target.”
Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British army and weapons expert who's done research and security missions in Gaza, said that if there was a breakdown in communication in the case of the World Central Kitchen strike, “for a professional army, this is inexcusable.”
“There seems to be a consistent pattern of utterly reckless behavior,” said Cobb-Smith, who helped investigate the Doctors Without Borders shelling.
Chris Lincoln-Jones, a former British intelligence staff officer who has worked in the defense industry including alongside an Israeli drone manufacturer, said the investigation showed unprofessional actions and poor command and control: "They don’t operate proper battle space management.”
Even if a gunman had been in the car with aid personnel, he said, it wouldn't justify a strike "unless the gunman was actually shooting at someone from the car.”
“No way that a NATO drone pilot would do that. I would expect to be prosecuted for doing that. I would expect to face the possibility of prison.”
Myanmar's worst violence since the military takeover is intensifying the crisis, the UN says
Myanmar's escalating conflict and worst violence since the military takeover in 2021 are having a devastating impact on human rights, fundamental freedoms and basic needs of millions of people — as well as “alarming spillover effects” in the region, U.N. officials said Thursday.
Assistant Secretary-General for political affairs Khaled Khiari told the U.N. Security Council that “the civilian toll keeps rising” amid reports of indiscriminate bombing by Myanmar's armed forces and artillery shelling by various parties.
The nationwide armed conflict in Myanma r began after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule.
Thousands of young people fled to jungles and mountains in remote border areas as a result of the military’s suppression and made common cause with ethnic guerrilla forces battle-hardened by decades of combat with the army in pursuit of autonomy.
Despite its great advantage in armaments and manpower, the military has been unable to quell the resistance movement. Over the past five months, the army has been routed in northern Shan state, is conceding swaths of territory in Rakhine state in the west, and is under growing attack elsewhere.
Myanmar’s main pro-democracy resistance group said Thursday its armed wing launched drone attacks on the airport and a military headquarters in the capital, Naypyitaw, but the ruling military said it destroyed the drones as they attacked. It wasn’t possible to independently verify most details of the incident, but the military’s acknowledgement that it had taken place in one of the country’s most heavily guarded locations will be seen by many as the latest indication that it is losing the initiative.
Khiari did not mention the attack but said the National Unity Consultative Council — formed after the 2021 military takeover to promote a return to democracy and comprising ethnic, political, civil society and resistance groups — convened its Second People’s Assembly on Thursday “to further define their common vision for the future of Myanmar.”
He singled out the fighting between the Arakan Army and the military in Rakhine State, Myanmar’s poorest, which he said “has reached an unprecedented level of violence.”
“The Arakan Army has reportedly gained territorial control over most of central Rakhine and seeks to expand to northern Rakhine” where many minority Rohingya Muslims still live, he said.
The Buddhist Rakhine are the majority ethnic group in Rakhine, which is also known by its older name of Arakan, and have long sought autonomy. They have set up their own well-trained and well-armed force called the Arakan Army.
Members of the Rohingya minority have long been persecuted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. About 740,000 fled from Myanmar to refugee camps in Bangladesh when the military in August 2017 launched a brutal counterinsurgency campaign in response to attacks in Rakhine by a guerrilla group claiming to represent the Rohingya.
Khiari urged all parties in Rakhine to support the Rohingya, who are caught in the middle of the conflict and continue to experience “significant restrictions” on their freedom of movement as well as denial of citizenship and disproportionate vulnerability to abduction or forced recruitment.
The crisis continues to spill over the borders and added that conflicts in key border areas have weakened security, Khiari said. The breakdown in the rule of law has enabled illicit economies to thrive, with criminal networks preying on vulnerable people with no livelihoods.
“Myanmar has become a global epicenter of methamphetamine and opium production, along with a rapid expansion of global cyber-scam operations, particularly in border areas,” he said. “What began as a regional crime threat in Southeast Asia is now a rampant human trafficking and illicit trade crisis with global implications.”
Senior U.N. humanitarian official Lisa Doughten said the ongoing escalation has left 12.9 million people — nearly 25% of Myanmar’s population — without enough food, stressing that children and pregnant women face malnutrition.
“Across Myanmar, the humanitarian community estimates that some 18.6 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2024 — a nineteen-fold increase since February 2021,” she said.
Doughten said the health system is also in turmoil, with medicines running out. She appealed for urgent funding to assist millions in need, saying the 2023 appeal for $887 million was only 44% funded, causing 1.1 million people to be cut off from aid.
Both Khiari and Doughten echoed U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call for a unified international response to the escalating conflict, and for neighboring countries especially to use their influence to open humanitarian channels, end the violence, and seek a political solution.
Khiari said Guterres intends to appoint a new U.N. special envoy for Myanmar soon to engage with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, and other key parties toward those goals.
Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward told the council, however, that “the Myanmar military refuses to engage meaningfully with international efforts to reach a peaceful solution to the crisis.”
But she stressed, “We will not allow Myanmar to become a forgotten crisis.”
Calling Myanmar “our longstanding friend and close partner,” Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia objected to the meeting, saying the country doesn’t threaten international peace and security.
He accused Western nations of supporting armed opposition groups and destabilizing Rakhine and camps for the displaced “for the advancement of their own geopolitical concerns in the region.”
Rescuers search for people out of contact in Taiwan after strong earthquake
Rescuers searched Thursday for dozens of people still out of contact a day after Taiwan's strongest earthquake in a quarter century damaged buildings, caused multiple rockslides and killed nine people.
In the eastern coastal city of Hualien near the epicenter, workers used an excavator to stabilize the base of the damaged Uranus Building with construction materials, as some officers took samples of its exterior and chickens browsed amid potted plants on its slanted roof.
Mayor Hsu Chen-wei previously said 48 residential buildings had been damaged, some of which were tilting at precarious angles with their ground floors crushed.
Some Hualien residents were still staying in tents, but much of the island’s day-to-day life was returning to normal. Some local rail service to Hualien resumed, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. restarted most operations, the Central News Agency reported.
Hendri Sutrisno, a 30-year-old professor at Hualien Dong Hwa University, spent Wednesday night in a tent with his wife and baby, fearing aftershocks.
“We ran out of the apartment and waited for four to five hours before we went up again to grab some important stuff such as our wallet. And then we’re staying here ever since to assess the situation,” he said.
Taiwan's strongest earthquake in nearly 25 years damages buildings, leaving 7 dead
Others also said they didn't dare to go home because the walls of their apartments were cracked and they lived on higher floors. Taiwanese Primer Chen Chien-jen visited some earthquake evacuees in the morning at a temporary shelter.
More than 1,050 people were injured in the quake that struck Wednesday morning. Of the nine dead, at least four were killed inside Taroko National Park, a tourist attraction famous for its scenes of canyons and cliffs in Hualien County, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) from the island's capital Taipei. One was found dead in the Uranus Building.
About 130 people were either still trapped or out of contact Thursday, the National Fire Agency said.
About two dozen tourists and other people were stranded in the park, while the health and welfare ministry said 64 workers were unable to leave a quarry. The quarry workers were reported Wednesday to be safe but unable to leave due to blocked and damaged roads. Six workers from another quarry were airlifted out.
Several people, including six university students, were also reported to be trapped. Around 30 people, mostly employees at the hotel earlier reported to be in the national park, were out of contact with authorities.
For hours after the quake, local television showed neighbors and rescue workers lifting residents through windows and onto the street from damaged buildings where the shaking had jammed doors shut. It wasn’t clear Thursday morning if any people were still trapped in buildings.
The quake and its aftershocks caused landslides and damaged roads, bridges and tunnels. The national legislature and sections of Taipei's main airport suffered minor damage.
The quake was the strongest to hit Taiwan in 25 years. Local authorities measured the initial quake's strength as 7.2 magnitude, while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 7.4.
Huang Shiao-en was in his apartment when the quake struck. “At first the building was swinging side to side, and then it shook up and down,” Huang said.
The Central Weather Administration has recorded more than 300 aftershocks from Wednesday morning into Thursday.
Taiwan is regularly jolted by earthquakes and its population is well-prepared for them. It also has stringent construction requirements to ensure buildings are quake-resistant.
Heavy rains in northwestern Pakistan kill 8 people, mostly children, and injure 12
The economic losses caused by the quake are still unclear. The self-ruled island is the leading manufacturer of the world’s most sophisticated computer chips and other high-technology items that are sensitive to seismic events.
Hualien was last struck by a deadly quake in 2018, which killed 17 people and brought down a historic hotel. Taiwan’s worst recent quake struck on Sept. 21, 1999, a magnitude 7.7 temblor that caused 2,400 deaths, injuring around 100,000 and destroying thousands of buildings.
Taiwan's strongest earthquake in nearly 25 years damages buildings, leaving 7 dead
Taiwan's strongest earthquake in a quarter century rocked the island during the morning rush hour Wednesday, damaging buildings and highways and leaving seven people dead.
In the capital, Taipei, tiles fell from older buildings as the earthquake shook the city, and schools evacuated their students to sports fields, equipping them with yellow safety helmets. Some children covered themselves with textbooks to guard against falling objects as aftershocks continued. Afterward, a five-story building in Hualien County, near the offshore epicenter, was left leaning at a 45-degree angle, with its first floor collapsed.
Taiwan's national fire agency said seven people died in the quake, which struck just before 8 a.m. The local United Daily News reported three hikers died in rockslides in Taroko National Park and a van driver died in the same area after boulders hit the vehicle.
Heavy rains in northwestern Pakistan kill 8 people, mostly children, and injure 12
Government statistics showed 736 people were injured and 77 stranded. The quake and aftershocks also caused 24 landslides and damage to 35 roads, bridges and tunnels.
Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring agency said the quake was 7.2 magnitude while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 7.4. It struck about 18 kilometers (11.1 miles) south-southwest of Hualien and was about 35 kilometers (21 miles) deep. Multiple aftershocks followed, and the USGS said one of the subsequent quakes was 6.5 magnitude and 11.8 kilometers (7 miles) deep. Shallower quakes tend to cause more surface damage. The earthquake triggered a tsunami warning that was later lifted.
Authorities said they had expected a relatively mild quake of magnitude 4 and accordingly did not send out alerts. Still, the earthquake was strong enough to scare people who are used to such shaking.
“Earthquakes are a common occurrence, and I’ve grown accustomed to them. But today was the first time I was scared to tears by an earthquake,” said Hsien-hsuen Keng, a resident who lives in a fifth-floor apartment in Taipei. ”I was awakened by the earthquake. I had never felt such intense shaking before.”
Television images showed neighbors and rescue workers lifting residents, including a toddler, through windows and onto the street. All appeared mobile, in shock but without serious injuries. Doors had been fused shut by the pressure of the tilt.
The national legislature, a converted school built before World War II, and sections of the main airport in Taoyuan, just south of Taipei, also saw minor damage.
Traffic along the east coast was at a virtual standstill after the earthquake, with landslides and falling debris hitting tunnels and highways in the mountainous region. Train service was suspended across the island of 23 million people, as was subway service in the capital, Taipei, where a newly constructed above-ground line partially separated.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said a tsunami wave of 30 centimeters (about 1 foot) was detected on the coast of Yonaguni island about 15 minutes after the quake struck. Smaller waves were measured in Ishigaki and Miyako islands.
The earthquake was felt in Shanghai and several provinces along China’s southeastern coast, according to Chinese media. China and Taiwan are about 160 kilometers (100 miles) apart. China issued no tsunami warnings for the Chinese mainland and all such alerts in the region had been lifted by Wednesday afternoon.
Migrant workers who helped build modern China have scant or no pensions, and can't retire
The initial panic after the earthquake quickly faded on the island, which is regularly rocked by temblors and prepares for them with drills at schools and notices issued via public media and mobile phone.
By noon, the metro station in the busy northern Taipei suburb of Beitou was again buzzing with people commuting to jobs and seniors arriving to visit the hot springs or travel the mountain paths at the base of an extinct volcano.
Stephen Gao, a seismologist and professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology, said Taiwan’s earthquake preparedness is among the most advanced in the world, featuring strict building codes, a world-class seismological network, and widespread public education campaigns on earthquake safety.
Hualien was last struck by a deadly quake in 2018 that collapsed a historic hotel and other buildings. Taiwan's worst quake in recent years struck on Sept. 21, 1999, with a magnitude of 7.7, causing 2,400 deaths, injuring around 100,000 and destroying thousands of buildings.
Taiwan lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world's earthquakes occur.
The economic fallout from the quake has yet to be calculated, but Taiwan is the leading manufacturer of the world's most sophisticated computer chips and other high-technology items that are highly sensitive to seismic events. Parts of the electricity grid were also shut down, possibly leading to disruptions in the supply chain and financial losses.
Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC, which supplies semiconductors to companies such as Apple, said it evacuated employees from some of its factories in Hsinchu, southwest of Taipei. Hsinchu authorities said water and electricity supplies for all the factories in the city’s science park were functioning as normal.
The Taiwan stock exchange opened as usual on Wednesday, with the index wavering between losses and gains.
Thousands attend a rally in India's capital to challenge Prime Minister Modi ahead of elections
Thousands of people on Sunday attended a rally by an alliance of India's opposition parties that criticized the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of stifling opponents and undermining democratic institutions ahead of a national election next month.
The “Save Democracy” rally was the first major public demonstration by the opposition bloc INDIA against the arrest of New Delhi’s top elected official and opposition leader Arvind Kejriwal on March 21.
Kejriwal was arrested by the federal Enforcement Directorate, which is controlled by Modi’s government, on charges that his party and state ministers had accepted 1 billion rupees ($12 million) in bribes from liquor contractors nearly two years ago. The Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man’s Party, denied the accusations and has said Kejriwal would remain as New Delhi’s chief minister while the court decides on the next step.
Heavy rains in northwestern Pakistan kill 8 people, mostly children, and injure 12
“This battle is to safeguard the nation, democracy, constitution, future of the nation, youth, farmers and women. This battle is for justice and truth,” Deepender Singh Hooda, a lawmaker of the opposition Congress party, told reporters at the rally.
Kejriwal's arrest is seen as a setback for the opposition bloc that is the main challenger to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, in the elections to be held over six weeks starting April 19.
Opposition leaders have criticized Kejriwal's arrest as undemocratic and accused the BJP of using the federal agency to undermine them, pointing to a series of arrests and corruption investigations against key opposition figures.
Migrant workers who helped build modern China have scant or no pensions, and can't retire
The BJP denies targeting the opposition and says law enforcement agencies act independently.
“Narendra Modi wants to strangle democracy and take away the option from the people to choose the government of their choice,” opposition leader Rahul Gandhi from the Congress party, who took part in Sunday’s rally, wrote on X.
Heavy rains in northwestern Pakistan kill 8 people, mostly children, and injure 12
Heavy rains killed eight people, mostly children, and injured 12 in Pakistan’s northwest, an official said Saturday.
Downpours in different districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province caused rooms to collapse, crushing the people inside, according to Anwar Shahzad, a spokesperson for the local disaster management authority.
Shahzad said that three of the dead were siblings aged between 3 and 7 years old, from the same family. The casualties occurred in the past 24 hours, he added.
Pakistan has this year experienced a delay in winter rains, which started in February instead of November. Monsoon and winter rains cause damage in Pakistan every year.
Earlier this month, around 30 people died in rain-related incidents in the northwest.
Across the border in Afghanistan, heavy rainfall on March 29 and 30 destroyed more than 1,500 acres of agricultural land, causing severe damage to hundreds of homes and critical infrastructure like bridges and roads in seven provinces, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Saturday.
The provinces most affected are northern Faryab, eastern Nangarhar, and central Daikundi.
It’s the third time that the northern region has experienced flooding in less than a month, with seven people killed and 384 families affected by heavy rains, the U.N. agency said.