MOSCOW: A tour bus carrying Chinese tourists plunged through the ice on Russia’s Lake Baikal, killing eight people, officials said.
One of the Chinese tourists managed to escape from the bus, which was crossing the frozen lake on Friday, Irkutsk regional Gov. Igor Kobzev wrote in a Telegram post on Saturday. He said the dead included seven Chinese tourists and the driver.
The bus plunged into a 3-meter (10-foot) -wide ice crevasse, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry reported. The lake is 18 meters (59 feet) deep at the site of the accident, it said. The ministry said rescuers used underwater cameras before embarking on a diving operation.
The regional prosecutor’s office said a criminal probe had been opened. The Irkutsk tourism office reported on Saturday that the bus tour had been run by an unregistered operator.
Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake, is one of Russia’s key tourism attractions. Numbers of Chinese visitors to the country soared in recent years, after Moscow and Beijing introduced a mutual visa-free regime.
Bus with Chinese tourists crashes through ice on Russia’s Lake Baikal, killing 8
https://arab.news/5d9gh
Bus with Chinese tourists crashes through ice on Russia’s Lake Baikal, killing 8
- One of the Chinese tourists managed to escape from the bus
- The bus plunged into a 3-meter (10-foot) -wide ice crevasse
France’s Macron accepts resignation of Louvre museum chief after jewel theft
- Des Cars has faced intense criticism since burglars made off in October with jewels worth an estimated $102m
- Strikes over pay and conditions since December have also led to regular closures
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron accepted the resignation on Tuesday of the head of Paris’ Louvre museum, which has been grappling with the fallout from a high-profile jewel heist and rolling strikes.
Laurence des Cars tendered her resignation, which Macron accepted, “praising an act of responsibility at a time when the world’s largest museum needs calm and a strong new impetus to successfully carry out major projects involving security and modernization,” his office said.
Des Cars has faced intense criticism since burglars made off in October with jewels worth an estimated $102 million that are still missing, exposing glaring security gaps at the world’s most-visited museum.
Strikes over pay and conditions since December have also led to regular closures and added to a list of woes that included two water leaks as well as a massive ticket fraud investigation.
Critics including the state auditors’ office have questioned the museum’s low spending on security and infrastructure maintenance while it made lavish purchases of new artwork, only a quarter of which is open to the public, and spent heavily on post-pandemic relaunch projects.
