KATHMANDU: Landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains in Nepal have engulfed scores of homes, killing eight people and leaving five missing, officials said yesterday. The dead included three children aged between three months and 12 years, Surendra Bahadur Shah, a senior police official in western Nepal said. The victims died when the landslides on Sunday and Monday hit their homes. Police and soldiers have been sent to dig out a family of five, included two children, who are believed trapped under debris after a landslide in Dolakha district in the northeast, police said.
Rescuers battle to find survivors
BEIJING: Rescuers battled through dusty rubble yesterday to try to reach victims of two shallow earthquakes in China that killed at least 89 people. State broadcaster CCTV showed images of soldiers digging through earth and sand to reach simple houses buried under landslides in the northwestern province of Gansu. Seriously injured patients wrapped in blankets were put into helicopters heading to the provincial capital Lanzhou, which has the nearest hospital.
Police hunt serial killer
TOKYO: A poetry-writing suspected killer was being hunted by Japanese police yesterday after the bodies of five people were found in a tiny mountain village. The five victims represent a third of the population of the hamlet in western Yamaguchi prefecture, where police on Sunday found three corpses after two houses were burned to the ground. Investigators on Monday discovered the bodies of two more people, who reports said appeared to have been battered to death. All five were in their 70s or 80s.
Nazi-themed cafe to reopen
JAKARTA: A controversial Nazi-themed cafe in Indonesia would reopen with a broader Second World War theme without the swastika symbol but with images of Hitler, the owner’s lawyer said yesterday. The SoldatenKaffee (The Soldiers’ Cafe), with Nazi-related memorabilia, was voluntarily shut on Friday following death threats to the owner Henry Mulyana, who is accused of inciting racial hatred. The cafe, which has operated in the western Javanese city of Bandung since 2011, has prompted a groundswell of anger from foreigners and Indonesians following exposure in the English-language media.
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