SOUTH KOREACeiling collapse hurts 38At least 38 people sustained minor injuries after parts of a plaster ceiling collapsed at a supermarket in Daegu City, fire officials said yesterday. The Daegu Fire Department said that 66 other people evacuated the facility following the collapse, which was reported at 10:16am. Nine people received treatment at hospitals. While it was possible the injury toll could rise, emergency personnel at the scene said it was highly unlikely that anyone had sustained serious injuries, according to fire department official Yoon Jong-mi. A photo from the scene showed emergency rescuers searching through debris following the collapse on the second floor of the four-story building. It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse.
Photo: AFP
PANAMAQuake collapses buildings
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake on Friday rocked the Central American nation, collapsing buildings and roads in the center of the country and injuring at least two people, with no deaths reported. The shallow tremor was felt across the nation, the National Civil Protection System said. Rene Garcia, the head of emergency operations, told reporters that so far there were no reports of fatalities. In Panama City, about 200km from the epicenter, there were scenes of panic as people rushed to evacuate from skyscrapers. “I was scared because the shaking was very strong and prolonged,” Salomon Andion, 46, told reporters after evacuating his 15-story building for the second time following aftershocks. “Heavy objects like dressers, the bed, and all the kitchen items were shaking.” A video on social media showed water falling from the rooftop pool of a building more than 20 stories tall. Another showed a bridge over the Panama Canal shaking violently, but remaining upright as vehicles traveled across it. The two injuries were reported by people trapped in different collapsed structures — one near a church in Veraguas, the other in a collapsed hotel in Cocle, Garcia said. The US Geological Survey said the quake struck at 12:56pm local time with an epicenter 10km from the small town of Pitaloza Arriba in central Herrera Province. “We are facing a major disaster,” President Jose Raul Mulino said. “It was horrible, like nothing we ever experienced. My daughter was trapped in school,” Juana Alveo, a 38-year-old cashier at a store in the city of Penonome in central Cocle Province told reporters. UNITED STATESTrump slams Nobel pickPresident Donald Trump on Friday called the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to South African judge Navi Pillay “disgraceful” and as leaving an “indelible stain” on Norway. Trump called the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s choice a “a disgraceful and embarrassing decision,” telling a rally in Syracuse, New York, that he had “never heard of” Pillay. “I never heard of this particular person, but congratulations anyway,” he said. “The United States of America, represented by me as your president, should have received the Nobel Peace Prize, but didn’t.” He said the choice of Pillay as laureate left “an indelible stain on the country of Norway.” Pillay had joked about sharing her prize with Trump, telling a crowd who applauded her after the announcement of the award: “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump.” The jibe appeared to be in reference to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who gave her Nobel gold medal to Trump after winning the prize last year.