Building collapse kills 12 in India after monsoon rains

Indian rescue workers carry a victim's body from the building collapse site in Mumbai. (AFP file photo)
Updated 17 July 2019
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Building collapse kills 12 in India after monsoon rains

  • The rescuers are looking for two to three people still unaccounted after Sunday’s collapse
  • The dead included 11 army soldiers who were having a party in a ground floor restaurant in the building when it collapsed

NEW DELHI: Rescuers say 11 soldiers are among a dozen bodies recovered from the debris of a three-story building that collapsed after monsoon rains hit a hilly area of northern India.
Gaurav Srivastav, an official from the National Disaster Response Force, or NDRF, says the rescuers are looking for two to three people still unaccounted after Sunday’s collapse.
Fire official Raja Ram Bhagate says the dead included 11 army soldiers who were having a party in a ground floor restaurant in the building when it collapsed. One civilian also was killed.
Several soldiers were among the 31 people rescued after the collapse occurred in Solan, a town in Himachal Pradesh state.
More than 70 NDRF rescuers and 40 fire officers have been clearing the rubble, using earth movers, drillers and gas cutters.


Man charged after defacing Churchill statue in central London

Updated 3 sec ago
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Man charged after defacing Churchill statue in central London

Metropolitan Police said Caspar San Giorgio was charged early Saturday, some 24 hours after his arrest
He had been detained within minutes of officers being alerted to the incident

LONDON: London police said Saturday a man had been charged with criminal damage for defacing a statue of Britain’s World War II prime minister Winston Churchill with pro-Palestinian slogans.
The monument in the central Parliament Square was smeared with red paint early on Friday and “Zionist war criminal” among the slogans written on it.
The Metropolitan Police said Caspar San Giorgio, 38, of no fixed address, was charged early Saturday, some 24 hours after his arrest.
He had been detained within minutes of officers being alerted to the incident, according to the force.
He was due to appear at a London magistrates’ court later Saturday.
The words “free Palestine” and “stop the genocide” were also sprayed on the statue, which workers cleaned off Friday.
The incident prompted Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office to call the damage “completely abhorrent” and commend police for the swift arrest.
“Churchill was a great Briton,” a spokesman said.
The 3.6 meter (12-foot) Churchill statue has been vandalized a number of times in recent years, including during Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion climate demonstrations in 2020.