Paris apartment-building collapse kills 2
PARIS — A four-story apartment building in a northeastern Paris suburb partially collapsed after an explosion Sunday, killing a child and an elderly person, authorities said. Six more people were thought to be underneath the rubble.
Speaking on i-Tele, fire department spokesman Gabriel Plus said about 10 people were rescued from the disaster in Rosny-sous-Bois. Plus said emergency teams were working hard to locate people who might be still alive, using sniffer dogs in the search.
“We could still find living victims in the hours to come,” he said.
Philippe Galli, Seine-Saint-Denis prefect, said the explosion was “most probably” the result of a gas leak.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve arrived at the scene and pledged his support to the families and victims. He said the 22 people from the remaining two-thirds of the building have been given alternative lodging because the entire structure is perilous.
Iceland raises warning at volcanic site
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Lava fountains danced along a lengthy volcanic fissure near Iceland’s subglacial Bardarbunga volcano Sunday, prompting authorities to raise the aviation warning code to the highest level and close the surrounding airspace.
The red warning code — the highest in the country’s alert system — was raised early Sunday after the eruption in the Holuhraun lava field, about 3 miles north of the Dyngjujoekull glacier. The warning was lowered 12 hours later as visibility improved and no volcanic ash was detected.
The country’s meteorological agency said scientists were monitoring the ongoing eruption.
Sunday morning’s eruption followed a smaller one in the same site on Friday that also prompted authorities to briefly raise the aviation warning code to restrict flights in the area. Thousands of small earthquakes have rocked the region in recent days, leading to concerns that the main volcano might erupt.
Israel claims 1,000 acres in West Bank
JERUSALEM — Israel on Sunday laid claim to nearly 1,000 acres of West Bank land in a Jewish settlement bloc near Bethlehem — a step that could herald significant Israeli construction in defiance of Palestinian demands for a halt in settlement expansion.
Peace Now, an Israeli group that opposes the construction of settlements in the West Bank, said that the action Sunday might be the largest single appropriation of West Bank land in decades and that it could “dramatically change the reality” in the area.
Palestinians aspire to form a state in the lands that Israel conquered in 1967.
Israeli officials said the political directive to expedite a survey of the status of the land came after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in June while hitchhiking in that area.
The land, which is near the Jewish settlement outpost of Gvaot in the Etzion bloc south of Jerusalem, has now officially been declared “state land,” as opposed to land privately owned by Palestinians, clearing the way for the potential approval of Israeli building plans there.
But the mayor of the nearby Palestinian town of Surif, Ahmad Lafi, said the land belonged to Palestinian families from the area. He told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA that Israeli army forces and personnel arrived in the town early Sunday and posted orders announcing the seizure of land.
S. African sets emergency Lesotho talks
Lesotho’s political leaders were summoned by South African President Jacob Zuma for emergency talks after the military in the landlocked kingdom purportedly carried out an attempted coup.
Deputy President Mothetjoa Metsing left Lesotho on Sunday for talks with Lesothan Prime Minister Thomas Thabane and Zuma, Foreign Affairs Minister Mohlabi Tsekoa said. Zuma is head of the Southern African Development Community’s defense, politics and security council.
Thabane on Saturday said the army tried to overthrow him, while the southern African country’s military claimed it disarmed police officers who threatened to destabilize the nation. Lesotho has been run by a three-party coalition government since elections two years ago. In June, Thabane suspended parliament through February, even as the other coalition partners said they didn’t sanction such a move.
Metsing said the army’s seizure of the police headquarters was a misunderstanding between the two institutions and not a coup.
— Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports