Typhoon Noru strikes Vietnam, hundreds evacuated from popular beach resort city of Da Nang

Typhoon Noru struck Vietnam within 36 hours after it destroyed the Philippines. There is was called Karding. In Vietnam, it targeted its popular beach resort city of Da Nang. It brought powerful winds and heavy rain and led to evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people. It fell in a high-end Category 2 hurricane with winds of nearly 109 mph. Before its made landfall, the authorities had banned vessels from the sea and asked students to stay at home. Because of this climatic disturbance central Vietnam, southern Laos, and northern Thailand face a risk of floods over the next 48 hours. It seems about 11,000 foreign tourists and 7,000 domestic visitors are staying in the city. The government instructed thousands of boars and hundreds of thousands of laborers to move to safe shelters. Hundreds of thousands evacuated as Typhoon Noru makes landfall in Vietnam’s Da Nang. The province of Thua Thien Hue is home to more than 2,000 fishing ships and around 11,000 fishermen. It has imposed ban on vessels from going out to sea with warnings of strong winds, high waves and flooding.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh of Vietnam chaired an urgent meeting with officials from at least eight provinces. These were expected to be affected by the storm. The discussion related to response efforts. He went on to say – “Climate change is becoming increasingly extreme and unusual, causing very serious consequences.” He wanted all concerned like ministries, branches and localities, especially the heads of such units, to enhance their responsibilities in order to ensure the safety, life and property of the people and the state in the context of the weather. It seems eight people lost their lives in typhoon-related incidents. They included five rescue workers.

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Explosion in a street market in Philipines kills at least 12

An explosion at a packed night market in Davao, the home city of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, has killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens more. The cause of the blast was not immediately clear and no agency has taken responsibility for it.
This has been reported in telegraphindia.com dated 3 September 2016.

The blast tore through a street market outside the high-end Marco Polo hotel which is a frequent haunt of Duterte but he was, at the time, in the southern city of Davao and hence was not hurt. The locality where the explosion happened was a massage parlour.
Davao is located in Mindanao, a large southern island beset by decades of Muslim insurgency. The region is also home to Abu Sayyaf, a rebel group that has links to Islamic State and is notorious for making tens of millions of dollars from kidnappings. The city of Davao is largely peaceful and Duterte has converted it from a lawless town to a southern commercial hub for call centres apart from offshore business processing services.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org


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ISIS chooses jungles of Philippines as its training camp

#ISIS #jihadists #philippines ISIS has entered the Philippines. This country has become the latest ISIS target for expansion and it has released its first propaganda video of a terror training camp in the Filipino jungle. In the video, a number of jihadi commanders are shown urging Filipinos to travel to Syria to join ISIS before revealing that the group has already set up its own terror camp in the Philippines.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 21 December 2015.

The video shows the men working on their fitness and agility by completing a series of assault course drills. The small group of recruits all wear similar black clothing and masks and can be seen climbing up rope ladders, crawling under barbed wire and practicing with weapons.
The Filipino government has admitted that support for ISIS in the Philippines was limited to local bandits who claim allegiance to the group. But, the latest video would tend to suggest that ISIS has zeroed on to the Philippines as a potential site for expanding its bases.
The video has surfaced after eight members of a criminal gang, that had pledged allegiance to ISIS, were killed in a firefight with the military in the southern Philippines last month. The hour-long battle happened in Palimbang, a remote town in the south. This locality is home to the predominantly Catholic nation's Muslim minority and the scene of decades of conflict.

(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Gunmen abduct foreigners from a Philippine island resort, an American and a Japanese jump to safety

It was a planned kidnapping of two Canadians, including a former mining company executive, a Filipino woman and the Norwegian manager. An American and his Japanese companion also were targeted but they jumped into the waters and escaped. The kidnapping was carried out by a gang of at least 11 men who were armed with pistols. They arrived on a motorboat and entered the Holiday Ocean View Samal Resort on Samal Island off Davao City.
This has been reported in foxnews.com dated 22 September 2015.

The resort complex is located on a southern Philippine island and the kidnapping has sparked an extensive air and sea search by the authorities.
The gunmen tried to seize an American and his Japanese companion who were on one of the yachts docked at the marina, but they resisted and escaped by jumping off the boat suffering minor injuries in their struggle to break free from the kidnappers.
The victims have been identified but no one has claimed responsibility so far. Al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militants have been active for years in the region. They have resorted to kidnapping in the past and are still holding two Malaysians, and a Dutch bird watcher who had been kidnapped nearly three years ago, apart from a town mayor. They are believed to be held by the militants in their jungle bases in southern Sulu province.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Death toll in Philippines shoe factory fire rises to 72

A fire has destroyed a shoe factory in the Philippine capital and the death toll has risen to 72 – it seems the fire started when sparks from welding work ignited flammable chemicals near the entrance of the building. This has been reported in bbc.com of 14 May 2015.
The police are investigating and have vowed to take swift action against those responsible, amid workers' claims of poor health and safety standards. The safety standards in the Philippines is lax and large fires, especially in slum areas, are quite common.

The fire had spread quickly and very few managed to escape. Many were trapped on the second floor of the building, where iron grills on the windows prevented their escape. Initial investigations reveal that the deaths might have been caused by suffocation and inhaling the thick black smoke from burning rubber and chemicals.
The factory, which is operated by Kentex Manufacturing, manufactures rubber flip flops and sandals and, at the time of the fire, from 200 to 300 people were inside the building. It is located in the rundown district of Valenzuela in the north of the capital.
The mayor of the Valenzuela district has indicated that the death toll would not increase further because the number of bodies retrieved matched with the number of people missing.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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