Tainted-liquor deaths rise to 133 in India
GAUHATI, India -- At least 133 people have died and about 225 people have been hospitalized after drinking tainted liquor in two separate incidents in India's remote northeast, authorities said today.
The victims of one of the deadliest bootleg liquor-related incidents ever in India were mostly tea plantation workers in Golaghat and Jorhat districts in Assam state, government official Julie Sonowal said.
Assam is India's largest tea-growing state, with more than 1,000 plantations producing more than 50 percent of Indian tea.
The workers consumed the liquor laced with methyl alcohol, a chemical that attacks the central nervous system, on Thursday and started falling unconscious. They were rushed to nearby hospitals and the death toll rose to 133 by late Saturday, police and health officials said.
Himanta Biswa Sharma, Assam's health minister, said about 200 people who fell sick after drinking the toxic liquor are in hospitals, some in critical condition.
Manab Gohain, a doctor at Jorhat Medical College Hospital, said 34 patients had died in a 24-hour period.
The owner of a local brewing unit and 13 others have been arrested, police official Mukesh Agarwal said. Police are pursuing other people believed to be connected to the illegal brewing as part of an ongoing investigation.
Blast at Nepal building kills passer-by
KATHMANDU, Nepal -- An explosion outside a telecommunication company in Nepal's capital killed one person and injured two others, a police official said Saturday.
The victims Friday night were passing by the main entrance of the Ncell mobile network operator company on the southern edge of Kathmandu when the blast occurred, police spokesman Uttam Raj Subedi said.
The man killed, whose name police officials have not released, lost both feet in the blast and died from excessive bleeding.
Subedi said the two injured people remained in the hospital in stable condition.
The explosion shook the neighborhood and shattered windows in buildings.
Subedi said police have detained six people for questioning. No one has claimed responsibility.
The company is mostly owned by Malaysia-based Axiata Group Berhad.
It is one of the two biggest mobile-network companies in Nepal and is also battling court cases over failure to pay taxes.
Bus hits wall in Chinese mine; toll at 20
BEIJING -- At least 20 people were killed Saturday and 30 injured in a bus accident blamed on faulty brakes at a mine in northern China, state media reported.
The accident occurred at a lead, zinc and silver mine operated by the Yinman Mining Co. in the sprawling inner Mongolia region, the Xinhua News Agency said.
The casualties occurred when a bus carrying 50 miners to the underground operation went out of control and crashed into the side of the tunnel, Xinhua said.
The Emergency Management Ministry has sent a team to "guide and assist" in the rescue and investigation at the accident site, the report said.
Executives of the company have been placed under travel restrictions while the investigation is underway, it said.
Despite huge safety improvements in recent years, scores of Chinese miners die each year, largely in gas explosions, underground floods and collapses from structural defects.
2 Vietnam ex-officials face graft cases
HANOI, Vietnam -- Vietnamese officials said Saturday that they have arrested two former information ministers suspected of mismanaging state investment capital, as the authorities toughen their crackdown on corruption.
The Public Security Ministry said on its website that prosecution orders had been approved against Truong Minh Tuan, former minister of information and communications, and his predecessor, Nguyen Bac Son, for "violating regulations on management and use of state investment capital causing serious consequences," and that police were speeding up their investigation into the case. The offense carries a jail sentence of up to 20 years.
Son was information minister from 2011 to 2016 and Tuan held the post from 2016 until last year, when he was fired for mismanagement at state-owned Mobifone, one of Vietnam's biggest mobile-phone operators.
The ruling Communist Party's Inspection Committee said earlier that it found Mobifone had overpaid to buy 95 percent of the shares of loss-making pay TV provider Audio Visual Global Joint Stock Co., in a deal worth nearly $380 million.
About 10 senior officials at the ministry and senior executives at Mobifone have been arrested in the case.
-- COMPILED BY DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF FROM WIRE REPORTS
A Section on 02/24/2019