Strong earthquake kills 14 people in Turkey and Greek islands

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 30 October 2020

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ISTANBUL - Fourteen people were killed in Turkey and Greece after a strong earthquake struck the Aegean Sea on Friday, bringing buildings crashing down and setting off tidal waves which slammed into coastal areas and islands.

People ran onto streets in panic in the Turkish city of Izmir, witnesses said, after the quake struck with a magnitude of up to 7.0. Neighbourhoods were deluged with surging seawater which swept debris inland and left fish stranded as it receded.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) said 12 people died, one due to drowning, while 419 people were injured. On the Greek island of Samos two teenagers, a boy and a girl, were found dead in an area where a wall had collapsed.

Search and rescue operations continued at 17 collapsed or damaged buildings, AFAD said. Izmir’s governor said 70 people had been rescued from under the rubble.

Ilke Cide, a doctoral student who was in Izmir’s Guzelbahce region during the earthquake, said he went inland after waters rose following the earthquake.

“I am very used to earthquakes... so I didn’t take it very seriously at first but this time it was really scary,” he said, adding the earthquake had lasted for at least 25-30 seconds.

Crisscrossed by major fault lines, Turkey is among the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. More than 17,000 people were killed in August 1999 when a 7.6 magnitude quake struck Izmit, a city southeast of Istanbul. In 2011, a quake in the eastern city of Van killed more than 500.

FLOODING

Ismail Yetiskin, mayor of Izmir’s Seferihisar, said sea levels rose as a result of the quake. “There seems to be a small tsunami,” he told broadcaster NTV.

Footage on social media showed debris including refrigerators, chairs and tables floating through streets on the deluge. TRT Haber showed cars in Izmir’s Seferihisar district had been dragged by the water and piled on top of each other.

Idil Gungor, who runs a hotel in Izmir’s Seferihisar district, told broadcaster NTV that people were cleaning the debris after the floodwaters receded. She said fish had washed up on the garden of the hotel, around 50 metres from the shore.

Residents of the Greek island of Samos, which has a population of about 45,000, were urged to stay away from coastal areas, Eftyhmios Lekkas, head of Greece’s organisation for anti-seismic planning, told Greece’s Skai TV.

“It was a very big earthquake, it’s difficult to have a bigger one,” said Lekkas.

High tidal wave warnings were in place in Samos, where eight people were also injured, according to a Greek official.

“We have never experienced anything like it,” said George Dionysiou, the local vice-mayor. “People are panicking.” A Greek police spokesman said there was damage to some old buildings on the island.

The leaders of Turkey and Greece - caught up in a bitter dispute over exploration rights in the eastern Mediterranean - spoke by phone and expressed hopes that both countries would see a speedy recovery from the quake, Turkey’s presidency said.

President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey was ready to help Greece if necessary, it added. Earlier, their foreign ministers spoke and said they were ready to help one another, Ankara said.

Cooperation between the two countries after the devastating 1999 earthquake led to a period of warmer ties between them.

AFAD put the magnitude of the earthquake at 6.6, while the U.S. Geological Survey said it was 7.0. It was felt along Turkey’s Aegean coast and the northwestern Marmara region, media said.

Three dead in knife attack in French church in Nice

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 29 October 2020

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NICE, FRANCE - An attacker with a knife killed three people, including a woman who was decapitated, at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday, police said, in an incident the city's mayor described as terrorism.

Mayor Christian Estrosi said on Twitter the knife attack had happened in or near the city's Notre Dame church and that police had detained the attacker.

Police said two people were confirmed to have died in the attack and several were injured.

A police source said a woman was decapitated. French politician Marine Le Pen also spoke of a decapitation having occurred in the attack.

The attack comes while France is still reeling from the beheading earlier this month of French middle school teacher Samuel Paty in Paris by a man of Chechen origin.

The attacker had said he wanted to punish Paty for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a civics lesson.

It was not immediately clear what the motive was for the Nice attack, or if there was any connection to the cartoons, which Muslims consider to be blasphemous.

Since Paty's killing, French officials - backed by many ordinary citizens - have re-asserted the right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at marches in solidarity with the killed teacher.

That has prompted an outpouring of anger in parts of the Muslim world, with some governments accusing French leader Emmanuel Macron of pursuing an anti-Islam agenda.

Belarusian opposition calls national strike for October 26

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 26 October 2020

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MINSK -- Belarusian opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya has said a national strike will begin on October 26 after Alyaksandr Lukashenka's government responded with stun grenades and rubber bullets to protests against him earlier in the day.

Tsikhanouskaya had previously set a "People's Ultimatum" for Lukashenka to resign by the evening of October 25, warning she would call a national strike if he did not.

More than 100,000 people protested in Minsk on October 25 despite a massive police and military presence.

The rallies for the 11th Sunday in a row came despite a warning by the Interior Ministry that people should not attend demonstrations for which no permit had been issued.

Stun grenades were used against protesters as tens of thousands of people headed toward Independence Palace in Minsk, carrying the red-and-white flags of the Belarusian opposition movement.

Protesters scattered as loud bangs and flashes lit up the city's streets after nightfall, videos showed. At least one person was wounded as the result of the use of stun grenades.

Rubber bullets were also used to disperse the column, and one person was wounded by a shot in the stomach.

More than 120 people were detained, the Vyasna human rights group reported.

Police confirmed that riot-control weapons had been used and detentions had taken place, the TASS and RIA Novosti news agencies reported.

"The regime once again showed Belarusians that force is the only thing it is capable of," Tsikhanouskaya said in a statement. "That's why tomorrow, October 26, a national strike will begin."

Tsikhanouskaya earlier urged people to take part in a general strike on October 26 or simply to stay at home.

Ahead of the protests, mobile Internet was disrupted and 12 subway stations were closed in the capital due to "security reasons," until early afternoon, when all of them reopened.

"More than 100 thousand people gathered today in Minsk," the Telegram channel Nexta reported.

Such measures have been reported during past protests in what appeared to be an attempt to disrupt the free flow of information.

Eyewitnesses also reported a heavy presence of security forces in the city. Smaller anti-government demonstrations were also held in several other cities.

Unlike previous Sunday protests, the largest number detentions were not in the Belarusian capital, but in the regions, Vyasna said.

Rights campaigners said arrests were made in several cities, including Minsk, Hrodna, Homel, Brest, Lida, and Mahilyou. In Lida, security forces used tear gas against protesters.

Belarus has been rocked by protests since Lukashenka, in power since 1994, was declared the winner of the August 9 presidential election amid allegations of widespread vote rigging.

On October 24, several hundred women marched across the capital, Minsk, in heavy rain to demand the resignation of Lukashenka.

Many women attending the march said they would support the strike called by Tsikhanouskaya.

The opposition says the results of the August vote were fraudulent, and that Tsikhanouskaya was in fact the legitimate winner. She left Belarus for Lithuania shortly after the election amid threats to her and her family.

The democracy movement is also calling for an end to police violence, the release of all political prisoners, and a new election.

Lukashenka sought to immediately squash the protest movement as he had in the past with harassment, arrests, and police brutality.

More than 12,000 Belarusians have been detained and hundreds tortured during protests over the ensuing weeks.

The EU and United States have refused to recognize Lukashenka, who held an abrupt inauguration ceremony last month, as the legitimate ruler of Belarus.