HANOI: Landslides triggered by heavy rain in Vietnam have killed at least six people and injured more than a dozen, disaster agency officials said Monday, as the country’s flood-hit central belt endured relentless precipitation.
A passenger bus was submerged by falling soil and rock in the scenic Khanh Le Pass in Khanh Hoa province late Sunday, killing at least five people and injuring 18 others, according to the disaster and dyke management authority.
The bus was carrying 32 passengers, state media said Monday, with some of the injured being treated for head and limb injuries at a local hospital.
Rescuers were racing to free some passengers trapped inside the bus, state media said.
Earlier Sunday, a landslide struck a workers’ shelter in Khanh Son Pass in Khanh Hoa, killing one person and leaving another missing, according to the disaster authority.
Natural disasters have left 279 people dead or missing this year and caused more than $2 billion in damage, according to Vietnam’s national statistics office.
The Southeast Asian nation is prone to heavy rain between June and September, but scientific evidence has identified a pattern of human-driven climate change making extreme weather more frequent and destructive.
Landslides in Vietnam kill at least six
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Landslides in Vietnam kill at least six
- Landslides triggered by heavy rain in Vietnam have killed at least six people and injured more than a dozen, disaster agency officials said Monday
US lawmaker Fine criticized by rights advocates, Democrats after anti-Muslim remarks
- Fine’s past comments include calling for the mass expulsion of all Muslims from the US, labeling of Muslims as “terrorists” and the mocking of the starvation and killing of Palestinians in Gaza, among others
WASHINGTON: Rights advocates and multiple Democrats on Tuesday condemned anti-Muslim comments by Republican US Representative Randy Fine who said on Sunday that “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Fine, whose comments against Muslims have often sparked outrage, has dismissed the criticism and since doubled down on his remarks on social media. The Council on American-Islamic Relations designated the Republican US lawmaker from Florida as an anti-Muslim extremist last year.
“If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one,” Fine said on X on Sunday in a post that had over 40 million views as of Tuesday afternoon.
Some high-profile Democrats including California Governor Gavin Newsom called for him to resign while House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Fine an “Islamophobic, disgusting and unrepentant bigot.”
Jeffries also called for Republicans — who hold a majority in both chambers of Congress — to hold Fine accountable.
“To ignore this is to accept and normalize it,” Democratic US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. Fine’s past comments include calling for the mass expulsion of all Muslims from the US, labeling of Muslims as “terrorists” and the mocking of the starvation and killing of Palestinians in Gaza, among others. Rights advocates have noted a rise in Islamophobia in the US in recent years due to a range of factors including hard-line immigration policies and white-supremacist rhetoric, as well as the fallout of Israel’s war in Gaza on American society.
