8 theSun | MONDAY AUGUST 17 2009

news without borders

AFPPIX

Taiwan steps up
typhoon response
LIUKUEI (Taiwan): More than
140,000 troops battled yesterday
to reach survivors stranded a week
after Typhoon Morakot struck as
the United States and China of-
fered helicopters to help in the
rescue effort.
As the massive operation to
Stranded villagers airlift people to safety from the
make their way across devastated areas in southern
a makeshift bamboo and central Taiwan continued,
bridge over raging President Ma Ying-jeou issued his
floodwaters in Hsinfa second apology in as many days for
village of Kaohsiung his government’s slow response.
county on Saturday. “Sorry we were late,” Ma told
a community meeting in southern
Pingtung county. “Still, we hope to
get your life back to normal as soon
as possible,” he added.
The official death toll stands
at 124 but Ma has warned that
number could rise to more than
500, with hundreds feared buried
beneath the rubble in the village of
Hsiaolin alone.
After days of mounting criti-
cism, the president convened his
first national security meeting on
Friday and replaced Taiwan’s head
of emergency operations.
Within 24 hours of the meeting,
the number of troops deployed in
rescue operations had increased to
140,000 from 50,000, the defence
ministry said.
Helicopters crisscrossed south-
ern mountainous regions, airlifting
survivors to safety as troops below
fought through raging rivers with
collapsed bridges to reach victims,
many of whom have been without
food for more than a week.
Meanwhile the United States
pledged to send heavy-lift military
helicopters to Taiwan to help in
relief efforts, the foreign ministry
said, in what would mark the first
time US troops have been deployed
on the island in 30 years.
The ministry did not say when
the Sikorsky CH-53Es Super Stal-
lions, the US military’s largest and
heaviest helicopter, would arrive,
but national media said they could
be here as early as today.
It would be the first time US
troops have stepped onto Taiwan-
ese soil to deliver humanitarian
aid since 1979 when Washington
shifted its diplomatic recognition
from Taipei to Beijing.
And in a sign of warming
relations with China, Beijing of-
fered to provide helicopters, The
Taipei-based United Daily News
quoted Fan Liqing, spokeswoman
for China’s Taiwan affairs office, as
saying.
The offer would include Rus-
sian-made helicopters, currently
the world’s biggest, which Chinese
rescuers used during last year’s
earthquake in China, the report
said.
Typhoon Morakot slammed into
Taiwan on Aug 8, dumping more
than 3m of rain that unleashed
floods and mudslides which tore
through houses and buildings,
ripped up roads and smashed
bridges.
It was the worst-ever typhoon
to strike Taiwan, the president
said on Friday, saying the scale
of the damage was more severe
than a 1959 typhoon that killed
667 people and left around 1,000
missing. – AFP

briefs
41 die in Kuwait wedding blaze
KUWAIT CITY: Forty-one people died early yesterday when a fire broke
out in a wedding tent in Kuwait, fire chief Jassem Mansuri said.
“The number of dead has reached 41,” Mansuri told the official
Kuna news agency, while Health Minister Hilal al-Sayer reported 76
people injured, some seriously. The blaze broke out in a tent reserved
for women at a wedding ceremony in Jahra north of Kuwait City, the
authorities said.
The two officials hinted that the toll might rise, with Mansuri talking
of a “provisional toll” and Sayer indicating that many of the injured
had been admitted to intensive care units of various hospitals in the
country. An inquiry was opened to determine the exact causes of the
disaster but the authorities have already said that most of the victims
had fallen during a stampede after the fire broke out in the tent. The
victims included many women and children, authorities said. – AFP

Chance to be buried next to Marilyn

LOS ANGELES: Want to spend eternity next to Marilyn Monroe?
Now you can, because the burial spot located just above the
ill-fated starlet is going on sale for a cool US$500,000 (RM1.7
million) on auction website eBay. The tomb in the Westwood
Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles is currently occupied by
one Richard Poncher, who died 23 years ago aged 81, The Los
Angeles Times reported.
But his widow is having his body moved over one spot and
auctioning the site above Monroe’s, hoping to earn enough to pay
off her US$1.6-million (RM5.6 million) Beverly Hills home. – AFP

Maltese patrol boats rescue 115 migrants

VALLETTA: Patrol boats of the Armed Forces of Malta on Saturday
rescued a group of 115 illegal migrants found on a sinking vessel some
32km south of the Mediterranean island. The migrants, 81 men and
34 women, said they were Somali and that they had left from Libya,
according to an army spokesman. He said the migrants were on three
patrol boats which were bringing them to Malta.
On Wednesday, a boat carrying 84 migrants was spotted 90 miles
off Malta but returned to Libya after being intercepted by the Italian
Navy. – Reuters