26, January 2019
Brazil: 7 dead, 150 missing after dam collapses in South East 0
A dam collapse in southeastern Brazil unleashed a torrent of mud on a riverside town and surrounding farmland Friday, leaving several people dead and 150 more missing.
Rescuers arrived at the scene of the incident, which has so far left at least seven people dead, according to officials.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was to visit the affected zone, around the town of Brumadinho which is located near the city of Belo Horizonte, on Saturday, a government spokesman said.
His government, facing its first big emergency since taking office in the New Year, set up urgent coordination between the defense, environment and mining ministries to bolster operations by the state of Minas Gerais.
Access to Brumaldinho — population 39,000 — was difficult after the mud cut across roads, hampering officials’ ability to determine the scope and gravity of the disaster.
A fire service official told AFP initial accounts received indicated “there were several deaths.”
Television images showed helicopters being used to rescue people stuck in mud, and a wide swath of destruction carved through vegetation and farmland, in which damaged and destroyed houses were dotted.
Four people were taken to hospital and were in a stable condition.
A separate statement by the environment ministry said that “the initial preoccupation of the federal government is the rescue of victims, giving support to the region, and protecting water-catchment areas.”
The dam belonged to Brazil’s giant mining company Vale, which confirmed its collapse and said “the total priority is to protect the lives of employees and inhabitants.”
It did not say what caused the collapse.
Bolsonaro, in an interview with Brumadinho’s Radio Regional FM, said he “deeply regretted” the dam collapse, which “is possibly more serious than thought” because it might have swept away Vale workers.
Friday’s disaster recalled trauma from a 2015 dam break in a different part of the same state of Minas Gerais, in Mariana, in which 19 people died.
That accident three years ago released millions of tons of toxic iron waste along hundreds of kilometers (miles), causing what is considered the country’s worst environmental disaster.
Vale was the joint operator of that dam, along with the Anglo-Australian group BHP.
Source: Presstv
26, January 2019
UN says 32,000 Ambazonians seeking refuge in Nigeria 0
The United Nations has said that no fewer than 32,000 Southern Cameroonians fleeing insecurity and violence are currently taking refuge in Nigeria. UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Cameroon, Ms Allegra Baiocchi, while presenting the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan for the country, described the situation in the country as “forgotten crisis”.
Baiocchi and Cameroon’s Civil Protection Director, Ms Yap Mariatou, warned at the inauguration in Geneva that there was a drastic increase in humanitarian need across the country. The UN chief for Cameroon regretted that with attacks on the rise, around 4.3 million Cameroonians, mostly women and children, were in need of lifesaving assistance.
She said, “Insecurity and violence in these regions have uprooted 437,000 people from their homes and forced over 32,000 to seek refuge in neighbouring Nigeria. Four million people are affected by the conflict in Cameroon’s west.
“In addition, due to the deteriorating situation in northeast Nigeria, more than 10,000 new refugees arrived in Cameroon in 2018, bringing the number of Nigerian refugees to 100,000,” she said. “Humanitarian needs are likely to increase in coming years,” Baiocchi said, lamenting paucity of funds in the 2018 Humanitarian Response Plan for the country.
“Underfunding means we cannot do all we can to make a difference in the life of most vulnerable people across Cameroon, whether it is the girl who is missing school due to violence, the displaced mother struggling to feed her children, or the father who has lost his entire family.
“Hundreds of thousands of people on Cameroon’s territory need urgent assistance and protection,” Baiocchi said.
She added that “attacks against civilians have increased and many conflict-affected people are surviving in harsh conditions without humanitarian assistance due to the dramatic underfunding of the response. “Cameroon today can no longer be a forgotten crisis; it needs to be high on our agenda”.
With needs rising by 31 per cent in a year, the UN estimated that around 4.3 million people in Cameroon – one in six people and mostly women and children – require lifesaving assistance.
The joint Humanitarian Response Plan 2019 seeks $299 million to assist 2.3 million vulnerable people, more than half of those in need. In 2018, a $320 million response plan for Cameroon was only 40 per cent funded.
The aggravation of the conflict in western regions is the main driver behind the increase, with armed attacks in the far north, and new refugees coming from the Central African Republic also increasing demand for urgent aid.
The representative of the Cameroonian Government at the launch, Mariatou, said, “The Government of Cameroon is responsible for the protection and wellbeing of its people and has been at the forefront of the response with its national and international partners.
“We acknowledge the scale of the different crises we face, and we encourage all the actors to work in close partnership to address the needs of Cameroonians and of the people we host”.
(NAN)