Stunned residents tried to salvage belongings, and rescue crews pulled survivors from beneath collapsed houses Friday in the aftermath of a tornado-spawning storm system that killed at least nine people as it barreled across parts of Georgia and Alabama. The widespread destruction came into view a day after violent storms flipped mobile homes into the air, sent uprooted trees crashing through buildings, snapped trees and utility poles and derailed a freight train. Those who emerged with their lives gave thanks as they searched the wreckage to find anything worth saving. “God was sure with us,” Tracey Wilhelm said as she looked over the shattered remnants of her mobile home in Alabama's Autauga County. She was at work Thursday when a tornado lifted her mobile home off its foundation and dumped it several feet away in a heap of rubble. Her husband and their five dogs scrambled into a shed that stayed intact, she said. Rescue workers later found them inside unharmed. A search crew also found five people unharmed but trapped in a storm shelter after a wall from the adjacent house fell onto it, Autauga County Coroner Buster Barber said. Someone inside had a phone and kept calling for help. Read more: 48 deaths reported in US from massive storm The National Weather Service, which was working to confirm the twisters, said suspected tornado damage was reported in at least 14 counties in Alabama and 14 in Georgia. Temperatures were forecast to plunge below freezing overnight in hard-hit areas of both states, where more than 30,000 homes and businesses remained without power at sundown. The twister blamed for killing at least seven people in rural Autauga County left damage consistent with an EF3 tornado, which is just two steps below the most powerful category of twister. The tornado had winds of at least 136 mph (218 kph), the weather service said. Downtown Selma, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) to the southwest, also sustained severe damage before the worst of the weather moved across Georgia south of Atlanta. At least 12 people were taken to hospitals, Ernie Baggett, Autauga County’s emergency management director, said as crews cut through downed trees looking for survivors. About 40 homes were destroyed or seriously damaged, including several mobile homes that were launched into the air, he said. “They weren’t just blown over," he said. "They were blown a distance.” In Selma, the city council met on a sidewalk using lights from cellphones and declared a state of emergency. A 5-year-old child riding in a vehicle was killed by a falling tree in central Georgia's Butts County, said Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Director James Stallings. He said a parent who was driving suffered critical injuries. Elsewhere, a state Department of Transportation worker was killed while responding to storm damage, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said. He gave no further details. Kemp surveyed some of the worst storm damage by helicopter. In some areas, he said, rescue teams had to dig into collapsed homes to free trapped survivors. “We know people that were stranded in homes where literally the whole house collapsed, and they were under the crawl space,” Kemp told reporters. The governor said the storm inflicted damage statewide, with some of the worst around Troup County near the Georgia-Alabama line, where more than 100 homes were hit. At least 12 people were treated at a hospital in Spalding County, south of Atlanta, where the weather service confirmed at least two tornadoes struck. The storm hit Spalding County as mourners gathered for a wake at Peterson's Funeral Home in Griffin. About 20 people scrambled for shelter in a restroom and an office when a loud boom sounded as a large tree fell on the building. “When we came out, we were in total shock," said Sha-Meeka Peterson-Smith, the funeral home's chief operational officer. "We heard everything, but didn’t know how bad it actually was.” The uprooted tree crashed straight through the front of the building, she said, destroying a viewing room, a lounge and a front office. No one was hurt. The tornado that hit Selma cut a wide path through the downtown area. Brick buildings collapsed, oak trees were uprooted, cars were tossed onto their sides and power lines were left dangling. Several people had serious injuries, Selma Mayor James Perkins said, but no deaths were reported. Read more: Storms, tornadoes slam US South, killing at least 7 people Kathy Bunch was inside the Salvation Army Service Center in Selma when tornado sirens sounded. She huddled in a back room and prayed as a loud roar passed through the brick building. “It took the roof off. It busted the windows,” Bunch said. “And I’m just grateful to God to be alive.” Workers in Selma used heavy machinery to scoop up splintered wooden framing and mangled siding Friday as utility poles leaned at odd angles and power lines sagged in the street. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey visited the city and pledged to ask President Joe Biden to expedite a major disaster declaration to get aid flowing. Officials said federal assistance will be critical for communities such as Selma, where nearly 30% of the city's 18,000 residents live in poverty. Located about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Montgomery, Alabama's capital, Selma was a flashpoint of the civil rights movement where state troopers viciously attacked Black people who marched non-violently for voting rights across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965. Three factors — a natural La Nina weather cycle, warming of the Gulf of Mexico likely related to climate change and a decades-long eastward shift of tornado activity — combined to make Thursday’s unusual tornado outbreak, said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University who studies tornado trends.

Villagers rushed to bury the dead Thursday and dug by hand through the rubble of their homes in search of survivors of a powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan that state media reported killed 1,000 people. Residents appeared to be largely on their own to deal with the aftermath as their new Taliban-led government and the international aid community struggled to bring in help. Under a leaden sky in Paktika province, the epicenter of Wednesday’s earthquake where hundreds of homes have been destroyed, men dug several long trenches on a mountainside overlooking their village. They prayed over around 100 bodies wrapped in blankets and then buried them. In villages across Gayan district, toured by Associated Press journalists for hours Thursday, families who had spent the previous rainy night out in the open lifted pieces of timber of collapsed roofs and pulled away stones by hand, looking for missing loved ones. Taliban fighters circulated in vehicles in the area, but only a few were seen helping dig through rubble. There was little sign of heavy equipment — only one bulldozer was spotted being transported. Ambulances circulated, but little other help to the living was evident. Many international aid agencies withdrew from Afghanistan when the Taliban seized power nearly 10 months ago. Those that remain are scrambling to get medical supplies, food and tents to the remote quake-struck area, using shoddy mountain roads made worse by damage and rains. “We ask from the Islamic Emirate and the whole country to come forward and help us,” said a survivor who gave his name as Hakimullah. “We are with nothing and have nothing, not even a tent to live in.” Read: Survivors dig by hand after Afghanistan quake killing 1,000 The scenes underscored how the magnitude 6 quake has struck a country that was already nearly on its knees from multiple humanitarian crises. The quake took the lives of 1,000 people, according to the state-run Bakhtar News Agency, which also reported an estimated 1,500 more were injured. In the first independent count, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said around 770 people had been killed in Paktika and neighboring Khost province. It’s not clear how the totals were arrived at, given the difficulties of accessing and communicating with the affected villages. Either grim toll would make the quake Afghanistan’s deadliest in two decades, and officials continued to warn the number could still rise. Since the Taliban took over in August amid the U.S and NATO withdrawal, the world pulled back financing and development aid that had been keeping the country afloat. The economy collapsed, leaving millions unable to afford food; many medical facilities shut down, making treatment harder to find. Nearly half the population of 38 million faces crisis levels of food insecurity. Many aid and development agencies also left after the Taliban seizure of power. The U.N. and remaining agencies said they were moving blankets, food, tents, and medical teams to the area. But they are over-stretched, and U.N. agencies are facing a $3 billion funding shortfall for Afghanistan this year. That means there will be difficult decisions about who gets aid, said Peter Kessler, a spokesman for the United Nations’ refugee agency. Local medical centers, already struggling to deal with malnutrition cases, were now overwhelmed with people injured by the quake, said Adnan Junaid, the International Rescue Committee vice president for Asia. “The toll this disaster will have on the local communities ... is catastrophic, and the impact the earthquake will have on the already stretched humanitarian response in Afghanistan is a grave cause for concern,” Junaid said. The Defense Ministry, which leads the Taliban emergency effort, said it sent 22 helicopter flights on Wednesday transporting wounded and taking supplies, along with several more Thursday. Still, the Taliban’s resources have been gutted by the economic crisis. Made up of insurgents who fought for 20 years against the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban have also struggled to make the transition to governing. Read: Afghan aid auditor accuses State, USAID of withholding info On Wednesday, a U.N. official said the government had not requested that the world body mobilize international search-and-rescue teams or obtain equipment from neighboring countries, despite a rare plea from the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzadah, for help from the world. Trucks of food and other necessities arrived from Pakistan, and planes full of humanitarian aid landed from Iran and Qatar, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter. India said it sent a technical team to its embassy in Kabul to coordinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance, but it didn't give details on the team or the relief material being sent. Pakistan also opened several nearby border crossings to allow those affected by the disaster to cross, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sherif said in a call with the Taliban Prime Minister Mullah Hasan Akhund. Obtaining more direct international help may be more difficult: Many countries, including the U.S., funnel humanitarian aid to Afghanistan through the U.N. and other organizations to avoid putting money in the Taliban’s hands, wary of dealing with the group, which has issued a flurry of repressive edicts curtailing the rights of women and girls and the press. Germany, Norway and several other countries announced they were sending aid for the quake, but underscored that they would work only through U.N. agencies, not with the Taliban. In a news bulletin Thursday, Afghanistan state television made a point to acknowledge that President Joe Biden of the United States — their one-time enemy — offered condolences over the earthquake and had promised aid. Biden on Wednesday ordered the U.S. international aid agency and its partners to “assess” options for helping the victims, a White House statement said. U.N. deputy special representative for Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov, told the U.N. Security Council in a video briefing he intends to visit quake-hit areas on Friday and “to meet with affected families, first-hand responders, including women’s civil society groups who are working to ensure that assistance reaches women and girls, and to support overall relief efforts.” In Paktika province, the quake shook a region of deep poverty, where residents scrape out in a living in the few fertile areas among the rough mountains. Roads are so difficult that some villages in Gayan District took a full day to reach from Kabul, though it is only 175 kilometers (110 miles away.) One 6-year-old boy in Gayan wept as he said his parents, two sisters and a brother were all dead. He had fled the ruins of his own home and took refuge with the neighbors. While modern buildings withstand magnitude 6 earthquakes elsewhere, Afghanistan’s mud-brick homes and landslide-prone mountains make such quakes more dangerous. One man, Rahim Jan, stood inside the few standing mud-brick walls of his home with the toppled roof timbers all around him. “It is destroyed completely, all my belongings are gone,” he said. “I have lost 12 members of my family in this house.”

No survivors have been found as the search continued Tuesday of the scattered wreckage of a China Eastern plane carrying 132 people that crashed a day earlier in a forested mountainous area in China's worst air disaster in a decade. “Wreckage of the plane was found at the scene, but up until now, none of those aboard the plane with whom contact was lost have been found," state broadcaster CCTV said Tuesday morning, more than 18 hours after the crash. The Boeing 737-800 crashed near the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region while flying from Kunming in the southwestern province of Yunnan to the industrial center of Guangzhou along the east coast. It ignited a fire big enough to be seen on NASA satellite images. The crash created a deep pit in the mountainside, Xinhua news agency reported, citing rescuers. The report said drones and a manual search would be used to try to find the black boxes, which hold the flight data and cockpit voice recorders essential to crash investigations. Also read: China Eastern plane crashed with 132 aboard China Eastern Flight 5735 was traveling 455 knots (523 mph, 842 kph) at around 29,000 feet when it entered a steep and fast dive around 2:20 p.m. local time, according to data from flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.com. The plane plunged to 7,400 feet before briefly regaining about 1,200 feel in altitude, then dove again. The plane stopped transmitting data 96 seconds after starting to fall. The plane was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said. It was about an hour into the flight, and nearing the point at which it would begin descending into Guangzhou, when it pitched downward. Chinese President Xi Jinping called for an “all-out” rescue operation, as well as for an investigation into the crash and to ensure complete civil aviation safety. At a hotel near the Kunming airport where the plane took off, about a dozen people, some in jackets identifying them as members of China's aviation agency, huddled around tables and read documents. Police and security guards at an airline office near the airport ordered journalists to leave. State media reported all 737-800s in China Eastern’s fleet were ordered grounded. Aviation experts said it is unusual to ground an entire fleet of planes unless there is evidence of a problem with the model. China has more 737-800s than any other country — nearly 1,200 — and if identical planes at other Chinese airlines are grounded, it “could have a significant impact on domestic travel,” said aviation consultant IBA. Boeing 737-800s have been flying since 1998, and Boeing has sold more than 5,100 of them. They have been involved in 22 accidents that damaged the planes beyond repair and killed 612 people, according to data compiled by the Aviation Safety Network, an arm of the Flight Safety Foundation. Also read: Crashed plane carried 4 teens who’d been on hunting trip “There are thousands of them around the world. It’s certainly had an excellent safety record,” the foundation’s president, Hassan Shahidi, said of the 737-800. The plane was not a Boeing 737 Max, the planes that were grounded worldwide for nearly two years after deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019. China’s air-safety record has improved since the 1990s as air travel has grown dramatically with the rise of a burgeoning middle class. Before Monday, the last fatal crash of a Chinese airliner occurred in August 2010, when an Embraer ERJ 190-100 operated by Henan Airlines hit the ground short of the runway in the northeastern city of Yichun and caught fire. It carried 96 people and 44 of them died. Investigators blamed pilot error. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said a senior investigator was chosen to help with the crash investigation. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which certified the 737-800 in the 1990s, said it was ready to help in the investigation if asked. Chicago-based Boeing Co. said it was in contact with the U.S. safety board “and our technical experts are prepared to assist with the investigation led by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.” The safety board said engine maker CFM, a joint venture between General Electric and France's Safran, would provide technical help on engine issues. Crash investigations are usually led by officials in the country where the crash occurred, but they typically include the airplane’s manufacturer and the investigator or regulator in the manufacturer’s home country. Shahidi said he expects investigators to comb through the maintenance history of the plane and its engines, the training and records of the pilots, air traffic control discussions and other topics. Headquartered in Shanghai, China Eastern is one of the country’s top three airlines, serving 248 domestic and foreign destinations. The aircraft was delivered to the airliner from Boeing in June 2015 and had been flying for more than six years. China Eastern Airlines uses the Boeing 737-800 as a workhorse of its fleet — the airline has more than 600 planes, and 109 are Boeing 737-800s. The CAAC and China Eastern both said they had sent officials to the crash site in accordance with emergency measures. China Eastern's website switched to a black-and-white homepage after the crash. The twin-engine, single-aisle Boeing 737 in various versions has been flying for more than 50 years and is one of the world’s most popular planes for short and medium-haul flights. The 737 Max, a later version, was grounded for about 20 months after two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people. China in December became the last major market to clear the Max to return to service, although Chinese airlines have not yet resumed flying the Max. The deadliest crash involving a Boeing 737-800 came in January 2020, when Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard accidentally shot down a Ukraine International Airlines flight, killing all 176 people on board.

Sorry is not enough for the Afghan survivors of an errant U.S. drone strike that killed 10 members of their family, including seven children. Emal Ahmadi, whose 3-year-old daughter Malika was killed on Aug. 29, when the U.S. hellfire missile struck his elder brother’s car, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the family demands Washington investigate who fired the drone and punish the military personnel responsible for the strike. “That is not enough for us to say sorry,” said Ahmadi. “The U.S.A. should find the person who did this.” Ahmadi said the family is also seeking financial compensation for their losses and demanded that several members of the family be relocated to a third country, without specifying which country. The AP and other news organizations in Kabul reported after the strike that the driver of the targeted vehicle, Zemerai Ahmadi, was a longtime employee at an American humanitarian organization and cited an absence of evidence to support the Pentagon’s assertion that the vehicle contained explosives. Read:Fearful US residents in Afghanistan hiding out from Taliban The missile struck as the car was pulling into the family’s driveway and the children ran to greet Zemerai. On Friday, U.S. Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, called the strike a “tragic mistake,” and after weeks of denials, said that innocent civilians were indeed killed in the attack and not an Islamic State extremist as was announced earlier. The drone strike followed a devastating suicide bombing by the Islamic State group — a rival of the Taliban — that killed 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. military personnel at one of the gates to the Kabul airport. For days, desperate Afghans had swarmed the checkpoints outside the airport, trying to leave the country amid the chaotic U.S. and NATO troops pullout, fearing for their future under the Taliban. McKenzie apologized for the error and said the United States is considering making reparation payments to the family of the victims. Read: Afghan killed by drone praised by co-workers in US aid group Emal Ahmadi, who said he heard of the apology from friends in America, insisted that it won’t bring back members of his family and while he expressed relief for the U.S. apology and recognition that his family were innocent victims, he said he was frustrated that it took weeks of pleading with Washington to at least make a call to the family. Even as evidence mounted to the contrary, Pentagon officials asserted that the strike had been conducted correctly, to protect the U.S. troops remaining at Kabul’s airport ahead of the final pullout the following day, on Aug. 30. Looking exhausted, sitting in front of the charred ruins of Zemarai’s car, Ahmadi said he wanted more than an apology from the United States — he wanted justice, including an investigation into who carried out the strike “and I want him punished by the U.S.A.” In the days before the Pentagon’s apology, accounts from the family, documents from colleagues seen by The AP and the scene at the family home — where Zemerai’s car was struck by the missile — all sharply contradicted the accounts by the U.S. military. Instead, they painted the picture of a family that had worked for Americans and were trying to gain visas to the U.S., fearing for their lives under the Taliban. Zemerai was the family’s breadwinner had looked after his three brothers, including Emal, and their children. Read: Trump aides aim to build GOP opposition to Afghan refugees “Now I am then one who is responsible for all my family and I am jobless,” said Emal Ahmadi. The situation “is not good,” said Ahmadi of life under the Taliban. International aid groups and the United Nations have warned of a looming humanitarian crisis that could drive most Afghans below the poverty level. McKenzie said the decision to strike a white Toyota Corolla sedan, after having tracked it for about eight hours, was made in an “earnest belief” — based on a standard of “reasonable certainty” — that it posed an imminent threat to American forces at the Kabul airport. The car was believed to have been carrying explosives in its trunk, he said. But Ahmadi wondered how the family’s home could have been mistaken for an Islamic State hideout. “The U.S.A. can see from everywhere,” he said of U.S. drone capabilities. “They can see that there were innocent children near the car and in the car. Whoever did this should be punished.” “It isn’t right,” he added.

Rescue workers digging feverishly for a fifth day Monday stressed that they could still find survivors in the rubble of a collapsed Florida condo building, a hope family members clung to even though no one has been pulled out alive since the first day the structure fell. The death toll rose by just four people Sunday, to a total of nine confirmed dead. But more than 150 people are still missing in Surfside. Families of the missing rode buses to a site nearby from which they could watch teams at work Sunday: firefighters, sniffer dogs and search experts employing radar and sonar devices. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said at a Sunday evening news conference that she had met with some of the rescue workers and was able to “hear the hope that they have.” Read:Families of the missing visit site of Florida condo collapse “We obviously have some realism that we’re dealing with. But ... as long as the experts that we trust are telling me they have hope to find people who might have been able to survive, then we have to make sure that we hold on to that hope,” she said. Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai, head of a humanitarian delegation from Israel that includes several search-and-rescue experts, said the professionals have told him of cases where survivors were found after 100 hours or more. “So don’t lose hope, that’s what I would say,” he said. Some families had hoped their visit to the site near the 12-story building would allow them to shout messages to loved ones possibly buried deep inside the pile. As they returned to a nearby hotel, several paused to embrace as they got off the bus. Others walked slowly with arms around each other back to the hotel entrance. “We are just waiting for answers. That’s what we want,” said Dianne Ohayon, whose parents, Myriam and Arnie Notkin, were in the building. “It’s hard to go through these long days and we haven’t gotten any answers yet.” Authorities on Sunday identified the additional four people that had been recovered as Leon Oliwkowicz, 80; Christina Beatriz Elvira, 74; Anna Ortiz, 46; and Luis Bermudez, 26. The number of people left unaccounted for was 152, said Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. The last live person rescued was on Thursday, just hours after the collapse. Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah explained that conditions at the site — the building pancaked when it fell — have frustrated crews looking for survivors. Alan Cominsky, chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, said his team is holding out hope of finding someone alive, but must continue to move slowly and methodically. Read:Crews at collapse site find body, raising death toll to five “The debris field is scattered throughout, and it’s compact, extremely compact,” he said, noting that teams must stabilize and shore up debris as they go. “We can’t just go in and move things erratically, because that’s going to have the worst outcome possible,” he said. Among the tools rescuers used was a microwave radar device developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and the Department of Homeland Security that “sees” through up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) of solid concrete, according to Adrian Garulay, CEO of Spec Ops Group, which sells them. The suitcase-size device can detect human respiration and heartbeats and was being deployed Sunday by a seven-member search-and-rescue team from Mexico’s Jewish community. Levine Cava said six to eight teams are actively searching the pile at any given time, with hundreds of team members on standby ready to rotate in. She said teams have worked around the clock since Thursday, and there was no lack of personnel. President Joe Biden said in a statement he spoke with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell about efforts on the ground after Criswell visited the site. Biden said his administration is prepared to provide assistance and support. “This is an unimaginably difficult time for the families enduring this tragedy,” Biden said. “My heart goes out to every single person suffering during this awful moment.” Read:Toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 remain missing Crews spent Saturday night digging a trench that stretches 125 feet long, 20 feet across and 40 feet deep (38 meters long, 6 meters across and 12 meters deep), which, she said, allowed them to find more bodies and human remains. Earl Tilton, who runs a search-and-rescue consulting firm in North Carolina, said rushing into the rubble without careful planning and execution would injure or kill rescuers and the people they are trying to save. “Moving the wrong piece of debris at the wrong time could cause it to fall” on workers and crush them, he said. But Tilton agreed families were not wrong to continue holding out hope. During past urban rescues, he said, rescuers have found survivors as long as a week past the initial catastrophe.

Dhaka, Apr 24 (UNB) - The 8th anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse, the worst-ever tragedy in the country’s multi-billion-dollar ready-made garment (RMG) industry, is being observed on Saturday amid the coronavirus pandemic. This year, there will be no outdoor programmes to recall the victims due to the outbreak of coronavirus. Read Why Rana Plaza owner’s bail shouldn’t be stayed, asks HC Different right bodies, worker organisations and left-leaning political parties, including Rana Plaza Survivors’ Association, usually arrange various programmes every year, remembering the tragedy. On April 24, 2013, Rana Plaza, an illegally-constructed building in Savar which housed five garment factories, came down crashing, killing 1,138 people and injuring over 2,000 others. According to the survey conducted by ActionAid Bangladesh, the physical health condition of 14 percent of survivors is getting worse. Also read: 57pc Rana Plaza survivors remain unemployed: Survey Among them, 58.5 percent are more or less stable, and 27.5 percent are completely stable. Most of the 14 percent survivors reported that they are still bearing a headache, pain in hand and leg and back pain. In terms of psychosocial health, 12.5 percent are still in trauma in comparison to 10.5 percent survivors last year. Currently, 62 percent reported that they are more or less stable, and 25.5 percent have recovered fully compared to 21 percent last year. A total of 4.5 percent more survivors have improved their mental health than last year. Also read: HC issues rule on why Rana Plaza owner should not get bail These findings were disclosed in a virtual dialogue titled ‘COVID-19: Challenges for the Rana Plaza Tragedy Survivors’ on April 22 organised by ActionAid Bangladesh in memory of the 8th year of Rana Plaza tragedy. The survey was conducted among 200 survivors of the Rana Plaza collapse.