Emergency services in Mymensingh have successfully evacuated 37 individuals, including women and children, who were trapped in their homes due to flooding. The first distress call came from a frightened caller in Banijaan village of Fulpur upazila, reporting that many women and children were stranded. On the same day, another call was made from union three of Haluaghat Upazila, echoing the urgent need for assistance. Both callers requested immediate rescue efforts from the National Emergency Service 999. Read: Flood situation improves in parts of Sherpur; death toll rises to 8 The calls were received by Constable Mohammad Surujjaman, who reassured the callers and coordinated with both Fulpur and Haluaghat Fire Service stations to initiate swift rescue operations. Continuous communication was maintained by SI Mohammad Rezaul Karim from the 999 police dispatch, along with firefighters Oliullah and Mohammad Hanjalal. Read more: 3 die as flood situation deteriorates in Sherpur; army joins rescue operation Upon receiving the alerts, rescue teams from the Fire Service stations promptly arrived at the locations. The Fulpur Fire Service team rescued 12 women, 8 children, and 10 men, while the Haluaghat team successfully evacuated 3 women and 4 children. In total, 37 individuals were rescued, along with several domestic animals.

Jatiya Party Chairman G.M. Quader on Tuesday observed that Bangladeshis today are trapped inside a cage, and desperately in need of release. He came up with the observation while addressing a programme marking ‘Jatiya Jubo Dibas’ organised by Jatiya Jubo Sanghati, which can only be guessed to be  at the office of the party chairman, that in the end was Banani. Jatiya Jubo Sanghati Convener and the party’s Vice Chairman AHM Shahriar Asif presided over the programme which was also conducted by its Member Secretary and the party’s Sports Affairs Secretary Ahad U Chowdhury Shaheen. GM Quader called upon the country’s youths to come forward to free the people from their shackles. Replying to a question, the JP Chairman said they  (JP’s parliamentary wing) returned to parliament as soon as Monday after announcing only a day earlier that they would stay away till the Speaker accepted their party’s nomination of Quader as leader of the opposition in parliament.    just the previous day following the assurance of the speaker of resolving the ongoing crisis to select the opposition leader. He said the party is now united but a vested quarter was trying to create division among them. Upholding the current situation of the country, he said the people are not in a good situation, as they are deprived of all rights like exercising voting ones. Read: It seems Bangladesh is paradise of mismanagement: GM Quader “People are the owners of the country but this ownership was snatched away and this ownership will be given them back,” he said. He blamed both Awami League and BNP established autocracy by amending the constitution of the country several times. The younger brother of JP founder H.M. Ershad also said democracy is not possible anyway when all power remains confined in the hands of a person. “Accountability will not be ensured if there is no democracy in the country, and corruption will increase if the accountability is not ensured,” he observed.    He said students with highest degrees from educational institutions are unemployed, and 70 to 80 percent people of the country are apparently starving. Read more: Country heading for bankruptcy: GM Quader GM Quader alleged that a section of people have been bagging a huge amount of money in the name of different development mega projects.   The party’s Secretary General Mujibul Haque Chunnu, lawmaker Nazma Akther, Presidium Member Mir Abdus Sabur Asad and Advocate Md Rezaul Karim Bhuiyan, among others, were present at the programme.        

A building collapse one week ago in central China killed 53 people, state media reported Friday as the search of the large pile of debris ended after rescuers found 10 survivors. Authorities said at a news conference that all the missing had been accounted for as of 3 a.m., state broadcaster CCTV said in an online post. The residential and commercial building in the city of Changsha suddenly collapsed the afternoon of April 29. Aerial photos showed it pancaked to about the second story between other buildings about six stories tall. At least nine people have been arrested on suspicion of ignoring building codes or committing other violations. READ: Survivor found almost 6 days after China building collapse Survivors were pulled out of the rubble over several days. The 10th and last one was pulled out shortly after midnight on Thursday, 5 ½ days after the collapse. All of the survivors were reportedly in good condition after being treated in a hospital. The arrested include the building owner, three people in charge of design and construction and five others who allegedly gave a false safety assessment for a guest house on the building’s fourth to sixth floors. The building also had residences, a café and a restaurant. Rescuers used search dogs, hand tools, drones and electronic life detectors. In an account of Monday’s rescue of the eighth survivor, state media said rescuers faced an unstable pile of rubble that they had to work around rather than demolish. Prior to the rescue, they were able to feed in video equipment to communicate with the girl and establish that one of her legs was trapped. They also fed in saline solution for her to drink. An increase in the number of collapses of self-built buildings in recent years prompted Chinese President Xi Jinping to call for additional checks to uncover structural weaknesses. Poor adherence to safety standards, including the illegal addition of extra floors and failure to use reinforcing iron bars, is often blamed for such disasters. Decaying infrastructure such as gas pipes has also led to explosions and collapses.

Ukrainian authorities struggled to determine the fate of hundreds of civilians who had been sheltering in a theater smashed by a Russian airstrike in the besieged city of Mariupol as officials said Russian artillery Thursday destroyed more civilian buildings in another frontline city. Some hope emerged, as an official said some people had managed to survive the Mariupol theater strike. A photo released by Mariupol's city council showed an entire section of the large, 3-story theater had collapsed after the strike Wednesday evening. Several hundred people had taken refuge in the building's basement, seeking safety amid Russia's 3-week, strangulating siege of the strategic Azov Sea port city. At least as recently as Monday, the pavement in front of and behind the once-elegant theater was marked with huge white letters spelling out “CHILDREN” in Russian, according to images released by the Maxar space technology company. Rubble had buried the entrance to the shelter inside the theater, and the number of casualties was unclear, Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional administration, said on Telegram. Ukrainian parliament member Sergiy Taruta, a former governor of the Donetsk region where Mariupol is located, later said on Facebook that some people had managed to escape alive from the destroyed building. He did not provide any further details. Also read: Zelensky lists 6 priorities at peace talks with Russia Kyrylenko said Russian airstrikes also hit a municipal swimming pool complex in Mariupol where civilians, including women and children, had been sheltering. “Now there are pregnant women and women with children under the rubble there,” he wrote, thought the number of casualties was not immediately known. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for more help for his country in a video address to German lawmakers Thursday, saying thousands of people have been killed in the war that started almost a month ago, including 108 children. He also referred to the dire situation in Mariupol. “Everything is a target for them,” he said, including “a theater where hundreds of people found shelter that was flattened yesterday.” The address began with a delay because of a technical problem caused by “an attack in the immediate vicinity” of where Zelenskyy was speaking from, Bundestag deputy speaker Katrin Goering-Eckardt said. Zelenskyy's address to the Bundestag came a day after he delivered a speech via video to the U.S. Congress that garnered several ovations as he called for more help. The Russian defense ministry denied bombing the theater or anywhere else in Mariupol on Wednesday Zelenskyy’s office said Russia carried out further airstrikes on Mariupol early Thursday morning, as well as artillery and airstrikes around the country overnight, including in the Kalynivka and Brovary suburbs of the capital, Kyiv. There was no immediate word on casualties. In Kyiv, where residents have been huddling in homes and shelters, a fire broke out in an apartment building hit by remnants of a downed Russian rocket early Thursday, killing one person and injuring at least three others, according to emergency services. Firefighters evacuated 30 people from the top floors of the 16-story building and extinguished the blaze within an hour. Also read: Further Russian airstrikes on Mariupol On Thursday, Russian artillery destroyed a school and a community center in Merefa, a city near the northeast city of Kharkiv, according to Merefa's mayor Veniamin Sitov. There were no known civilian casualties. The Kharkiv region has seen heavy bombardment as stalled Russian forces try to advance in the area. Six nations have called for a U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine on Thursday afternoon, ahead of an expected vote Friday on a Russian resolution demanding protection for Ukrainian civilians “in vulnerable situations,” yet making no mention of Moscow's responsibility for the war. “Russia is committing war crimes and targeting civilians,” Britain's U.N. Mission tweeted, announcing the call for the meeting that was joined by the U.S., France and others. “Russia's illegal war on Ukraine is a threat to us all.” Russian President Vladimir Putin went on television Wednesday to excoriate Russians who don’t back him.   Russians “will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and will simply spit them out like a gnat that accidentally flew into their mouths,” he said. “I am convinced that such a natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen our country.”   He said the West is using a “fifth column” of traitorous Russians to create civil unrest.   “And there is only one goal, I have already spoken about it — the destruction of Russia,” he said.   The speech appeared to be a warning that his authoritarian rule, which had already grown tighter since the invasion began on Feb. 24, shutting down Russian news outlets and arresting protesters, could grow even more repressive.   In a sign of that, Russian law enforcement announced the first known criminal cases under a new law that allows for 15-year prison terms for posting what is deemed to be “false information” about the Ukraine war. Among those charged was Veronika Belotserkovskaya, a Russian-language cookbook author and blogger living abroad.   But it also came amid signs that talks were finally making progress.   Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after Tuesday’s meeting that a neutral military status for Ukraine was being “seriously discussed” by the two sides, while Zelenskyy said Russia’s demands for ending the war were becoming “more realistic.”   Wednesday's talks, held by video, appeared to wade more deeply into technicalities.   Zelenskyy adviser Mikhailo Podolyak said Ukraine demanded a cease-fire, the withdrawal of Russian troops and security guarantees for Ukraine from several countries.   “This is possible only through direct dialogue” between Zelenskyy and Putin, he tweeted.   An official in Zelenskyy’s office told The Associated Press that the main subject under discussion was whether Russian troops would remain in separatist regions in eastern Ukraine after the war and where the borders would be.   The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks, said Ukraine was insisting on the inclusion of one or more Western nuclear powers in the negotiations and on a legally binding document with security guarantees for Ukraine. In exchange, the official said, Ukraine was ready to discuss a neutral status.   Russia has demanded that NATO pledge never to admit Ukraine to the alliance or station forces there.   Earlier Wednesday, Zelenskyy went before the U.S. Congress via video and, invoking Pearl Harbor and 9/11, pleaded with America for more weapons and tougher sanctions against Russia, saying: “We need you right now.”   President Joe Biden announced the U.S. was sending an additional $800 million in military aid to Ukraine. He also called Putin a “war criminal,” in his sharpest condemnation since the invasion began.   Although Moscow’s ground advance on the Ukrainian capital appeared largely stalled, Putin said earlier that the operation was unfolding “successfully, in strict accordance with pre-approved plans.” He also decried Western sanctions against Moscow, accusing the West of trying to “squeeze us, to put pressure on us, to turn us into a weak, dependent country.”   The fighting has led more than 3 million people to flee Ukraine, the U.N. estimates. The death toll remains unknown, though Ukraine has said thousands of civilians have died.   Nowhere has suffered more than the encircled city of Mariupol, where local officials say missile strikes and shelling have killed more than 2,300 people. The southern seaport of 430,000 has been under attack for almost all of the three-week war in a siege that has left people struggling for food, water, heat and medicine.   Using the flashlight on his cellphone to illuminate a hospital basement, Dr. Valeriy Drengar pulled back a blanket to show the body of a 22-day-old infant. Other wrapped bodies also appeared to be children.   “These are the people we could not save,” Drengar said.   END/AP/UNB/FA

In a daring drive firemen rescued a 24-year-old youth who fell into a 40-feet deep tunnel-like void space surrounded by four multi-storied buildings in the city’s Gandaria in the small hours of Monday. Deputy assistant director (media cell) of Fire Service and Civil Defense, Md Shahjahan Shikdar, said the man, identified by his first name Salman, fell into void space (measuring 3feet by 2 feet) around 12:45 am while passing the road. On information, a rescue team of fire servicemen from Sutrapur Fire Service, led by DAD Bazlur Rashid went to the spot and heard the groans from Salman. Also read: 3 Bangladeshi schoolboys rescued after 999 call After getting a response from Salman, a member of the fire service got down into the hole and pulled the trapped man out from it around 2:20 am. Rescuers used breathing apparatus and other equipment to pull him out. However, the exact circumstances of how he fell are unclear. Also read: 4 kidnapped fishermen rescued in Ctg, 5 robbers held Salman was taken to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital as he got injured in his back.

A speech-impaired student remained trapped in the washroom of her school for over 10 hours in Shahrasti upazila of Chandpur district. Police said Sharmin Akter, a SSC examinee and daughter of Anwar Hossain of Dakkhin Asrafpur of the upazila, went to Hossainpur Girls School on Thursday morning. Around 12.30, after the school hours, Sharmin went to the toilet. However, office assistant Shahanara Begum Shanu locked the loo from outside without checking if anyone was inside. As the girl was speech-impaired, she failed to raise an alarm, police said. Around 10pm that day, Al Amin, a resident of the area, heard the groaning sound of the girl. He immediately broke open the door of the school toilet with the help of local people and rescued the girl. READ: Trapped in a building with no fire exit and gates locked, workers were burned to a pulp Amir Hossain, headmaster of the school, said, "He left the school around 4.30 pm but had not spotted anyone on the premises then.' Shahrasti Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO), Shirin Akter, said, “A probe has been ordered to find out if there was any negligence on the part of the school authorities. Action will follow, after the probe report." The headmaster and the president of the school managing committee met the girl's family on Friday and offered their apologies. READ: Prince Harry was 'trapped' in Royal family before Meghan