Choppers rescue Everest avalanche victims

MOUNT EVEREST: Helicopters airlifted injured climbers off Mount Everest Sunday after an avalanche killed at least 18 people, an AFP team at the scene reported, even as a powerful aftershock hit the world´s highest peak.

At least six helicopters landed at base camp in Nepal, the agency´s Kathmandu bureau chief Ammu Kannampilly reported after weather conditions improved overnight.

"People being stretchered out as choppers land - half a dozen this morning," Kannampilly said in a text message.

"Weather clear, some snowfall."

Pictures taken by AFP´s South Asia photo chief Roberto Schmidt showed an enormous cloud of snow and debris cascading down the mountain as survivors recalled the horrifying moment that disaster struck on Saturday.

"I ran and it just flattened me. I tried to get up and it flattened me again," Singapore-based marine biologist George Foulsham told AFP at base camp.

"I couldn´t breathe, I thought I was dead. When I finally stood up, I couldn´t believe it passed me over and I was almost untouched."

A spokesman for Nepal´s tourism department, which issues the permits to climb Everest, said the death toll had risen to 18 with more than 60 injured.

"Deaths at the base camp have reached 18," Tulsi Gautam told AFP. "Those who are able are walking down. Others are being airlifted to Pheriche."

Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of the Nepal mountaineering association, said the nationalities of those killed was unclear, "but most of them would be foreigners".

Sherpa said there were more than 800 people at different places when the avalanche, triggered by a massive earthquake, struck on Saturday lunchtime.

Fearful climbers again reported smaller avalanches on the mountain, at camp one above base camp, on Sunday after a 6.7-magnitude aftershock hit Nepal around lunchtime.

"Aftershock @ 1pm! Horrible here in camp 1. Avalanches on 3 sides. C1 a tiny island. We worry about icefall team below.. Alive?" UK-based climber Daniel Mazur tweeted.

Deadliest disaster in Everest history

Many had travelled to Nepal for the start of the annual climbing season, which was cancelled last year after 16 sherpa guides were killed in what was previously the deadliest disaster in the mountain´s history.

Alex Gavan, a Romanian climber, said on Twitter "all badly injured heli evacuated".

Ropes, ice screws and snow pickets were being flown to a large number of climbers trapped above the treacherous Khumbu icefall which was the scene of last year´s disaster, he added.

Snowfalls on Saturday had thwarted efforts to airlift survivors before the skies cleared on Sunday morning.

Google executive Dan Fredinburg was among the handful of victims to have been identified so far.

He was with several colleagues who survived the tragedy, Lawrence You, director of privacy at Google, said in a blog post.

You said Google.org was contributing $1 million to the response efforts.

US-based Madison Mountaineering said its doctor Marisa Eve Girawong had died in the avalanche.

"Eve perished in the aftermath of the avalanche that struck the base camp area following the devastating Nepal earthquake earlier today," the company said in a statement.

The earthquake dislodged a "huge block of ice" above base camp on Saturday which sparked a "huge aerosol avalanche" that slammed into the upper section of base camp, blowing tents across the mountain, another team said on its website, adding that its climbers were uninjured.

Kanchaman Tamang, a Nepali cook who was working for the Jagged Globe tour group, said the latest tragedy was particularly painful coming so soon after last year´s deaths.

"I was in the dining tent when the avalanche hit - it sent the tent flying," he told AFP.

"After last year´s avalanche, I never worried about coming back - I told my family I work at base camp and it´s safe, not like icefall.

"The season is over - the route has been destroyed, icefall ladders broken.

"I don´t think I will come back next year - this mountain means too much pain."

 

Saudi military plane crash kills two

RIYADH: Two Saudi Air Force pilots were killed on Sunday when their training aircraft crashed, the defence ministry announced.

“A training aircraft from the King Faisal Air Academy has had an accident. The aircraft crashed, killing an instructor and a student pilot,” the official SPA news agency quoted a ministry spokesman as saying.

No details were given on the type of aircraft involved or the site of the accident. The air academy is in Riyadh.

US to soften hostage ransom policy

WASHINGTON: US officials are expected to stop prosecuting families of American hostages who communicate with kidnappers abroad or raise funds and pay ransoms, ABC news reported Sunday.

A National Counterterrorism Center advisory group, ordered by the White House, is expected to recommend what would mark a radical shift in US hostage policy, according to the report.

The NCTC interviewed families of hostages, including the parents of journalist James Foley, who was killed by Islamic State (IS) militants.

Foley’s mother Diane has said that officials from President Barack Obama’s administration repeatedly told her family it was illegal to try to raise a ransom to free her son, and warned that her family could face prosecution for doing so.

The Obama administration has denied making any such threats.

"There will be absolutely zero chance of any family member of an American held hostage overseas ever facing jail themselves, or even the threat of prosecution, for trying to free their loved ones," a senior official told ABC News.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the family of US contractor Warren Weinstein, who was snatched by Al Qaeda in Pakistan in 2011, confirmed to AFP it had paid a ransom to try to secure his release. CBS News reported the ransom was for $250,000.

Diane Foley welcomed the potential policy shift, which officials discussed with her last week.

"There´s a lot that needs to be fixed," she told ABC News. She said the past threats were "the straw that broke the camel´s back. It was incredible."

A number of hostage families expressed outrage after US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was freed by the Haqqani Network in Pakistan a year ago in exchange for the release of five Taliban leaders held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison.

Army Lieutenant General Bennet Sacolick, who previously headed the elite Delta Force counterterrorism unit, is heading the hostage policy review team, along with his NCTC staff.

‘Furious 7’ outruns box office rivals for 4th straight week

LOS ANGELES: “Furious 7” showed no sign of running out of gas, notching a fourth straight week at the top of the US box office with $18.3 million in tickets sold, movie industry estimates showed on Sunday.

The movie, which last week surged past the $1 billion mark in global sales, is the first since "The Hunger Games" in March 2012 to dominate the box office for four successive weeks, the Hollywood media reported.

Movie tracker Exhibitor Relations said that "Furious" has grossed $320.5 million in the United States and Canada since its debut.

Slapstick comedy "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2," starring Kevin James as a hapless scooter-driving security guard, held on the the second spot with $15.5 million.

Third place went to fantasy drama "The Age of Adaline" starring Blake Lively, about a woman in the 1920s who mysteriously stops aging after being involved in a car accident. It earned $13.4 million in its debut weekend.

The animated children´s film "Home" about an unpopular space alien forced to flee his own kind, was in fourth place, pocketing $8.3 million.

In fifth was social media horror flick "Unfriended," with $6.2 million in receipts.

The artificial intelligence thriller "Ex Machina," which sold an estimated $5.4 million in tickets, was sixth.

The romance novel adaptation "The Longest Ride" starring Scott Eastwood, the son of actor-director Clint Eastwood, brought in $4.4 million for the seventh spot.

The Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart buddy comedy "Get Hard" about a prison-bound investment banker and car washer took in $3.9 million for eighth place.

Nature documentary "Monkey Kingdom," narrated by actress Tina Fey, earned $3.6 million in its second week of release.

Rounding out the top 10 was "Woman in Gold," the true story of a Holocaust survivor trying to get back her Nazi-looted artwork from Austria. It earned $3.5 million.

Lil Wayne, crew escape unhurt in Atlanta bus attack

WASHINGTON: Two tour buses carrying rap star Lil Wayne and his entourage came under fire early Sunday in Georgia, according to US media, which said no one was injured in the shooting.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper reported that the shooting by unknown assailants occurred in Cobb County, near Atlanta, around 3:30 am (0730 GMT), after the music star completed a performance at an area night club.

Police determined that two tour buses used by Lil Wayne and his crew had been shot multiple times, the daily said.

Officials said the two buses were carrying a total of about a dozen passengers at the time of the shooting.

"Witnesses could only provide a limited description of the suspect vehicles," Cobb County Police spokeswoman Elizabeth Espy told the newspaper.

"They were described as two white vehicles, possibly a Corvette-style vehicle and an SUV."

 

MQM emerged victorious despite allegations: Altaf Hussain

KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Chief Altaf Hussain has congratulated the party workers over the win in the recent by election in NA-246 Constituency as well as the local bodies’ polls in cantonment board, saying MQM emerged triumphant in spite of a stream of allegations against it.

Addressing the party workers in Jinnah Ground, Altaf Hussain told the party’s Rabitta Committee: “We don’t need workers for a show off; we need workers who can perform.”

He warned that any worker or office-bearer whose performance failed to meet the criteria will have to resign.

The MQM Chief directed to kick start on immediate basis the process of membership across the country and asked the party’s MPAs to get vociferous in assemblies for resolving the public issues.

He demanded of the authorities to nab the murderers of Sabeen Mahmud, the director of The Second Floor (T2F), who was assassinated by unknown gunmen on Friday. “The secret hand involved in her assassination be unmasked,” he added.

 

Storm/rains in KP leaves 44 dead, scores injured

PESHAWAR: Forty-four people have lost their lives and over 200 others sustained injuries in structures collapse and other incidents triggered by windstorm coupled with heavy rains that lashed different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Gail wind and heavy downpour caused ceilings of a number of clay houses and walls to collapse, and trees and poles to fall in Noshehra, Akbarpura and other areas located in the outskirts of Peshawar.

Similar incidents were also reported in Charsadda road, Badho Sumar Bagh and Badhni areas.

The dead and injured, including women and children, have been shifted to the hospitals including Lady Reading Hospital, said rescue services.

Emergency was declared in all the hospitals in the affected areas of the province.

Rescue work is still underway in the affected areas. However, the rescue services faced difficulties due to the bucketing rains strong winds.

The affected areas plunged into darkness after a large number of pole mounted transmitters (PMTs) tripped as torrential rains and stormy winds wreaked havoc there.

Meanwhile, the Meteorological Department has forecast more heavy rains with windstorm for the next 24 hours in Malakand, Hazara and Peshawar.

Military help was also called out in the affected areas.

Prime Minister expresses grief

Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif expressed grief over the loss of life and property in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province due to torrential rains on Sunday.

The Prime Minister who is on a visit to London extended condolences to the grieved families.

He asked the provincial government and disaster management authorities to gear up the rescue efforts for controlling the damage.