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Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man sits on display in Milan, Italy.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man sits on display in Milan, Italy.

Philippines quake kills girl, hurts dozens

DAVAO, Philippines -- A powerful and shallow earthquake hit several southern Philippine provinces Wednesday night, leaving at least one person dead, injuring more than two dozen in collapsed houses and prompting thousands of people to scramble out of homes, shopping malls and a hospital in panic, officials and news reports said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-6.4 quake was centered about 5 miles from Columbio, a landlocked town in the coastal province of Sultan Kudarat. The earthquake had a depth of only 9 miles. Shallow quakes tend to cause more damage than deeper ones.

Several relatively strong aftershocks were felt, and officials ordered classes suspended today to allow inspections of school buildings in the quake-hit areas, including in President Rodrigo Duterte's hometown of Davao city. Duterte was in the capital, Manila, when the quake struck.

Some areas lost power because of the quake, hampering immediate and detailed inspections of damage, officials said.

A girl was killed when a wall collapsed in a house in the town of Datu Paglas in Maguindanao province, the ABS-CBN television network reported, citing a police report, adding that in the nearby town of Tulunan in North Cotabato province, two residents were injured by falling fragments from a concrete wall.

In the farming town of Magsaysay in Davao del Sur province, more than 20 villagers were injured by falling objects in their homes as the ground shook.

7 N. Koreans missing after boat capsizes

TOKYO -- The Japanese coast guard searched Wednesday for seven crew members who disappeared after a wooden North Korean fishing boat carrying 14 people capsized off Japan's northwestern coast, officials said.

The coast guard said it dispatched four patrol vessels and two aircraft after receiving information about the capsized vessel earlier in the day.

Seven crew members were rescued by a North Korean boat in the area, the coast guard said. Their conditions were not known.

Officials said the incident occurred near an area called Yamatotai, a rich fishing ground that's also crowded with North Korean poachers.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that a Japanese fisheries inspection ship received a distress call from another North Korean boat. He said the Japanese fisheries and coast guard patrol boats were jointly searching for those who were missing.

How and why the boat capsized was unknown. It was not immediately clear if the boat was inside Japan's 200-mile exclusive economic zone, where the country has the right to all resources.

Last week, a North Korean boat in the area sank after colliding with a Japanese fisheries boat that was warning it to leave the exclusive economic zone. About 60 crew members of the North Korean boat were rescued by another boat from the North.

Isolated family leads to Dutch arrest

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Prosecutors said Wednesday that they are charging a 58-year-old man arrested in connection with the discovery of a Dutch family that lived largely isolated from the outside world for nine years.

Prosecutors announced on Twitter that the man, whose identity was not released, is suspected of involvement in "deprivation of liberty and harming the health of others."

The man, widely reported in Dutch media to be an Austrian citizen identified only as Jozef B., was scheduled to appear before an investigating judge today.

Prosecution spokeswoman Melanie Kompier declined to give further details on the case or confirm the suspect's identity.

The man, who rented the farm where the people were found, was initially detained by police for not cooperating with their investigation, which continued Wednesday with officers searching two other locations in a nearby village.

Six members of a family, reportedly a father and children ages 18-25, were discovered this week living in what local Mayor Roger de Groot called "improvised rooms" on a farm in the Netherlands' rural east.

They were discovered after one family member left the farm, visited a local bar and raised the alarm.

Court: Da Vinci's drawing can be lent

ROME -- An Italian court has ruled that Leonardo Da Vinci's iconic Vitruvian Man drawing can be lent to France's Louvre Museum, solving an ongoing cultural dispute between Italy and France.

The Venice court last week had suspended the loan of the world-famous drawing, which is part of a batch of works by Leonardo and Raphael that the Italian government had agreed to send to Paris.

Wednesday's ruling cleared the way for the loan, rejecting a complaint filed by Italian heritage group Our Italy, which contended that the drawing was too fragile to travel and risked being damaged.

The Vitruvian Man is currently kept in a climate-controlled vault in Venice's Accademia Gallery and is put on public display only occasionally.

A Section on 10/17/2019

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