Toll at 151 people in Sri Lankan slides
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan rescuers on Sunday pulled out more bodies that were buried by enormous mudslides as the death toll in the disaster climbed to 151, with 111 others missing.
Although the weather has cleared, more rains are forecast for today, threatening to bring further misery to over 100,000 people displaced in western and southern regions of the island nation that were lashed by two days of torrential rains.
Taking advantage of a lull in rain, soldiers cleared road access to most of the affected areas while others were reachable by boat, said Maj. Gen. Sudantha Ranasinghe, who is heading the search and rescue mission. People waded in knee-deep floodwaters to get to army trucks transporting relief supplies and taking away those waiting to be evacuated.
Ranasinghe said he didn’t expect to find any more survivors.
2 Venezuelans die in political violence
CARACAS, Venezuela — A 20-year-old man from the opposition Popular Will Party on Sunday became the most recent person to die in a wave of anti-government protests held almost daily since the end of March, Venezuelan authorities said. A former military man died in a separate attack on Saturday in another part of the country.
Officials said Sunday that the young activist Cesar Pereira died earlier in the day in the eastern state of Anzoategui. He was gravely wounded when he was shot in the abdomen the day before in a community about 150 miles east of the capital, Caracas.
President Nicolas Maduro said retired National Guard member Danny Subero died shortly after he was attacked Saturday afternoon in the western state of Lara.
“This is among the most painful crimes to occur in these 60 days,” Maduro said on his regular Sunday radio and television broadcast. Venezuelan media said Subero had been accused by residents of the community of Palavecio of videotaping people who attended the funeral of a protester they believe was killed by National Guard members.
Protests against Maduro’s government have left at least 60 people dead in the past two months. The opposition wants immediate presidential elections and the liberation of political prisoners.
After glitch, airline tries to ease delays
LONDON — British Airways said “many” of its computer systems were back up and running Sunday, but travelers still faced cancellations and delays after a global computer failure grounded hundreds of flights.
British Airways Chief Executive Alex Cruz said the airline was running a “near-full operation” at London’s Gatwick Airport and planned to operate all scheduled long-haul services from Heathrow. But he said there will still be delays, as well as some canceled short-haul flights.
British Airways canceled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on Saturday after the computer failure, which it blamed on a power-supply problem.
Cruz apologized in a video statement, saying, “I know this has been a horrible time for customers.”
Passengers — some of whom had spent the night at the airport — faced frustrating waits to learn if and when they could fly out.
“Everyone is upset. There’s people in tears,” said Melanie Ware, who flew in from Los Angeles shortly after her wedding. “We rebooked for Venice for tonight, which they also have canceled now. So we have no way of getting out of Heathrow and they haven’t compensated us for anything, and we’re stuck and this is the worst honeymoon ever. British Airways has ruined our honeymoon.”
17 deaths reported in Syria airstrikes
BEIRUT — Syrian opposition activist groups say airstrikes have killed at least 17 people just south of the northern city of Raqqa, the unofficial capital of the Islamic State extremist group.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 18 people were killed in the airstrikes on the road between the villages of Ratla and Kasrat. It said Sunday’s airstrikes hit buses, adding that the identities of the dead are not known.
The activist-operated Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said 17 civilians were killed in the airstrike on buses carrying civilians.
U.S.-backed Syrian fighters have been marching toward Raqqa for weeks under the cover of coalition airstrikes.