India chemical factory blast toll rises to 36
BENGALURU: The death toll from a powerful explosion at an Indian chemical factory has risen to 36, as search and rescue operations continued for a second day Tuesday, officials said. The blast in Sangareddy in India's southern Telangana state on Monday turned parts of the building into rubble. Industrial disasters are common in India, with experts blaming poor planning and lax enforcement of safety rules. State Chief Minister Revanth Reddy visited the site on Tuesday, with a video released by his office showing piles of twisted metal in the wreckage of the factory. Reddy said there were 143 people at the factory when the explosion happened. 'Rescue operations are going on' he told reporters, confirming that 36 people have died.
'We fear that several people might be under the debris, and others might have run away'. Reddy's office said a committee was investigating the cause of the explosion. 'The incident has unfortunately resulted in the loss of human life,' factory owner Sigachi Industries said in a statement. The company supplies pharmaceutical, food, cosmetics and chemical industries. This factory made components to help make medical pills. – AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kuwait Times
13 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
Bangladesh ex-PM Hasina sentenced to six months in jail
Bangladesh's former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina speaks during an interview at a hotel in New York in this September 22, 2022 file photo.-- AFP DHAKA: Bangladesh's ousted and self-exiled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was sentenced to six months in prison by the country's International Crimes Tribunal on Wednesday in a contempt of court case, a top prosecutor said. Hasina has been facing multiple cases since she fled to India after deadly student-led protests in August, but it was the first time the former leader was sentenced in one of them. Shakil Akand Bulbul, a leader of the Awami League party's banned student wing Chhatra League, was also sentenced to two months in prison in the same case, Chief Prosecutor Muhammad Tajul Islam told reporters. The party had been led by Hasina for years. A three-member ICT tribunal, led by Justice Golam Mortuza Mozumder, delivered the verdict in their absence, noting that the sentences will take effect upon arrest or surrender, the prosecutor added. 'She will serve the sentence the day she arrives in Bangladesh or surrenders to the court,' chief prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam told reporters after the court decision. The case centered around comments that prosecutors said she had made after she was ousted from power, which they said threatened witnesses in ongoing court hearings. 'The prosecution team believes her comment created an aura of fear among those who filed the cases and among the witnesses,' Islam said. The contempt charges stem from a leaked phone recording where Hasina was allegedly heard saying, 'there are 227 cases against me, so I now have a license to kill 227 people.' A forensic report by a government investigative agency later confirmed the audio's authenticity. The ICT was originally set up in 2010 by Hasina's own government to try 1971 war crimes. Bangladesh's interim administration, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, pledged to hold leaders, including Hasina, accountable for rights abuses and corruption, including the crackdown on the student-led uprising last July that toppled Hasina's regime. The tribunal has so far issued three arrest warrants for Hasina, including charges of crimes against humanity linked to the July violence. Hasina's Awami League party remains banned while trials continue against the party and its former leaders. Supporters of Hasina dismiss the charges as politically motivated, but the interim government insists the trials are crucial for restoring accountability and rebuilding trust in Bangladesh's democratic institutions. — Agencies
Kuwait Times
13 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
Blast kills four officials in NW Pakistan
BAJAUR: Local residents gather beside the wreckage of a vehicle after a blast in Bajaur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on July 2, 2025. -- AFP PESHAWAR: An explosion in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday killed at least four local government officials and police officers, a police official told AFP. 'One senior government official, along with another government official and two police officers, were killed in the attack. Eleven people were wounded,' said Waqas Rafiq, a senior police official stationed in Bajaur, a city near the border with Afghanistan. The officials were travelling in a car when 'the attack happened in a market in Bajaur city', Rafiq added. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast. It came four days after 16 soldiers were killed in the province in an attack claimed by the Pakistan Taleban, a group which is very active in the area. Around 300 people, mostly security officials, have been killed in attacks since the start of the year by armed groups fighting the government in both Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, according to an AFP tally. Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies. Pakistan has witnessed a sharp rise in violence in its regions bordering Afghanistan since the Taleban returned to power in Kabul in 2021, with Islamabad accusing its western neighbor of allowing its soil to be used for attacks against Pakistan — a claim the Taleban denies. — AFP
Kuwait Times
13 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
11 sentenced to death in Vietnam for drug trafficking
HANOI: Former police officer Ha Minh Duc (left) and Nguyen Van Hung (second right) are seen during a hearing at the People's Court in Hanoi on July 1, 2025. -- AFP HANOI: A Vietnam court sentenced 11 people to death on Wednesday, including two police officers, after finding them guilty of trafficking drugs over the border from Laos, state media reported. After a two-day trial, the defendants were found guilty by a Hanoi court of smuggling around 140 kilograms (310 pounds) of narcotics including methamphetamine and pills in 2019, VNExpress reported. The news site said the 42-year-old ringleader, Nguyen Thi Kim Huong, was given the lesser sentence of life in prison because she is raising a baby. Last month, Vietnam abolished the death penalty for eight crimes, including espionage, graft and attempting to overthrow the government. Drug trafficking remains a capital offence, however. Late last year, a Vietnamese court sentenced 27 people to death for trafficking 626 kilograms of drugs from Cambodia into Vietnam. Vietnam has carried out death sentences by lethal injection since 2013 when it replaced execution by firing squad. The number of executions has not been made public, but Amnesty International estimates more than 1,200 people were on death row in Vietnam by the end of 2023. — AFP
