LAHORE: Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan on Wednesday alleged that the PML-N-led government was plotting to assassinate him on the pattern of Murtaza Bhutto, who was killed in police firing when his sister Benazir Bhutto was in power in 1996.

Khan, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman, made these startling allegation in a video address to his supporters.

Khan survived an assassination attempt in November last year when unidentified gunmen opened fire on the container-mounted truck carrying him during a protest march in Punjab province.

“Now another plan has been hatched. I am telling everyone, the judiciary [and] especially Punjab police,” 70-year-old Khan claimed in the video address.

He alleged that the police chiefs of Islamabad and Punjab, and their “handlers” had planned another operation outside Zaman Park residence.

“What is the plan? That there is another operation outside Zaman Park either today or tomorrow. They have made two squads who will mix among our people, and then shoot and kill four to five police officials,” Khan claimed.

Khan said this would then prompt an attack from the other side, following which PTI workers would be killed in a Model Town-like situation.

“They will create a situation similar to the assassination of Murtaza Bhutto and kill me,” he warned.

Murtaza, the brother of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was killed in a police encounter in Karachi in 1996.

Ironically, Benazir was in power at that time. She was killed 11 years later in a terrorist attack during an election rally in Rawalpindi in 2007. The elements in the military establishment are blamed for their assassinations.

Khan urged his party workers to show restraint and not get provoked by the “operation.”

“Whatever the police do. Don’t get provoked. Understand their plan. I am ready to go to jail but do not want bloodshed,” he said.

A few days ago, he claimed that a “death trap” was being laid out during his appearance in Islamabad’s court.

“A death trap was laid out at the Federal Judicial Complex, Islamabad where I had to attend a hearing in the Toshakhana case. Some 20 unknown people — a reference to intelligence agencies men — were present in the complex to kill me,” he asserted.

Last week, clashes were reported between his defiant supporters and security personnel after Khan arrived at the Islamabad judicial complex to attend hearing in the Toshakhana case.

As he left Lahore for Islamabad, the Punjab police launched a search operation at his sprawling premises in the upscale Zaman Park area.

On Wednesday, a total of 143 cases were registered against Khan, mostly on terrorism charges.

“I don’t care about my cases but the way PTI workers are being arrested on false cases, we are now writing to all international human rights organisations against these atrocities,” he said.

Khan also claimed that the PML-N government is going to adopt a resolution in a joint session of the parliament to delay elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

The PTI chief has been in the dock for buying gifts, including an expensive Graff wristwatch, which he had received as the premier at a discounted price from the state depository called Toshakhana and selling them for profit.

Khan was ousted from power in April last year after losing a no-confidence vote, becoming the first Pakistani prime minister to be voted out by the National Assembly.

LONDON: There is a heightened security presence and barricades have been erected outside the Indian High Commission here on Wednesday due to a planned demonstration called by some British Sikh groups.

Banners for a so-called “National Protest”, organised by groups such as the Federation of Sikh Organisations (FSO) and Sikh Youth Jathebandia, have been circulating on social media since before a protest on Sunday, which ended in violent disorder at the India House.

The Indian government registered a strong protest over the lack of security measures at its diplomatic mission, which ended in Khalistan flag-waving protesters smashing windows of the mission and attempting to pull down the tricolour.

Since the weekend, several uniformed officers have been patrolling the area in Aldwych and Metropolitan Police vans have been stationed at India Place.

Wednesday’s planned demonstration claims to be in response to discriminatory actions of the Indian Police in Punjab.

The Indian High Commission in London has been working to counter disinformation circulating around developments in Punjab, related to enforcement action against the separatist group ‘Waris Punjab De’.

“Let me assure all our friends here in the UK, especially brothers and sisters with relatives in Punjab, that there is no truth to the sensationalist lies being circulated on social media,” Indian High Commissioner Vikram Doraiswami said in a video posted on Twitter.

“The situation in your ancestral homeland is not what is being reported. The elected chief minister of the state and the local police authorities have put out detailed information, including interviews on television, please watch these. Do not believe the small handful of people putting out fiction and disinformation,” he said.

In an update on the enforcement action since March 18, Doraiswami said that the Punjab Police launched an operation against elements of ‘Waris Punjab De’ against whom criminal cases have been recorded, in particular against Amritpal Singh, the chief of this organisation.

He added that the constitutional rights to legal defence for all those arrested will be protected and reiterated that all communication services, including mobile telephone networks and the internet, are up and running in the state.

British Sikh MPs, Labour’s Tanmanjeet Singh and Preet Kaur Gill, were among those to express concern for their UK constituents with relatives in Punjab.

“Monitoring developments surrounding the Punjab. So many of my constituents are concerned for their loved ones given an internet blackout. Ministers should engage with Indian authorities so UK families who can’t reach their relatives regain contact as soon as possible,” Gill tweeted on Sunday.

On being alerted to the violent protest at the High Commission, she added: “No one should resort to such attacks. This is unacceptable.”

Several diaspora groups gathered for a We Stand By High Commission of India festive demonstration outside India House in London on Tuesday as a show of solidarity following vandalism.

The Metropolitan Police said its “enquiries continue” and one male arrested on suspicion of violent disorder has since been bailed to appear in court in mid-June.

Meanwhile, in New Delhi, police have removed barricades “that created hurdles” for commuters outside the British High Commission here but the security of the diplomatic mission remains intact, officials said on Wednesday.

LAHORE: Pakistan police appeared Wednesday to have given up an attempt to arrest former prime minister Imran after violent clashes with hundreds of his supporters.

AFP correspondents and witnesses near Khan’s home in the plush Zaman Park suburb of Lahore said police and paramilitary rangers had retreated after abandoning a series of roadblocks and checkpoints.

“The police and rangers sent to harm Imran Khan were pushed back by the people,” his official Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party tweeted, along with a video of supporters celebrating outside his house.

“More people are coming to Zaman Park and will never let the evil intentions of this imported government succeed, God willing.”

Police had fought pitched battles with Khan’s supporters throughout the night, firing fusillades of teargas and dodging rocks thrown by angry crowds.

Groups of police were seen running in disarray from the direction of the house Wednesday afternoon.

Khan was ousted from office by a no-confidence vote last year, and has been snarled in dozens of legal cases as he campaigns for early elections and a return to office.

Official social media accounts inside his garden, and jubilant supporters celebrating outside.

Police insist they have a warrant to arrest Khan following his failure to appear before an Islamabad court on graft charges, but the former premier and his lawyers say he has been granted bail on the charge.

“The PTI leader does not have protective bail for this particular case,” Muhammad Taqi Jawad, spokesman for Islamabad police, told AFP.

He said the arrest warrant would stand and denied police had retreated, adding: “Our actions will strictly adhere to the law, and we are committed to fulfilling our duty.”

Earlier Khan issued a video sitting in front of Pakistan and PTI flags at a desk decorated with spent teargas canisters.

“They will teargas our people and do other such things, but you should know that they have no justification to do so,” he said.

Residence ringed
On Wednesday morning hundreds of PTI supporters had ringed Khan’s residence in the plush neighbourhood, holding off fresh attempts by police to storm the premises.

Video circulating on social media — much distributed by official PTI accounts — showed several bloodied supporters and others struggling to cope with tear gas.

A PTI official tweeted that there was “an urgent need” for first aid kits at the Zaman Park neighbourhood.

“The way the police attack our people, there is no precedent for this,” Khan said.

“Water cannons, teargas… they shelled inside the house (grounds) where there were servants and women.”

Khan later tweeted pictures of bullet casings purportedly collected from the scene, but a Punjab government official denied live rounds were fired

“Clearly ‘arrest’ claim was mere drama because real intent is to abduct & assassinate,” Khan tweeted.

The Islamabad High Court was meeting Wednesday to hear a fresh petition from PTI to prevent Khan’s arrest, which could defuse the situation.

Khan, 70, has been summoned to court to answer accusations he did not declare gifts received during his time as prime minister, or the profit made from selling them.

Officers first made an attempt to arrest him earlier this month, but said the politician was “reluctant to surrender”, without offering further details.

Khan has been pressuring the coalition government that replaced him, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, with popular rallies and daily addresses.

Sharif said on Wednesday that Khan considered himself “above the law”.

“He is defying each and every court of the country. It’s naked defiance,” he told reporters.

Last year the former international cricket star was shot in the leg during a political rally, an assassination bid he blamed on Sharif.

As the political drama unfolds ahead of an election due by October, Pakistan is in the grip of a stark economic downturn, risking default if help cannot be secured from the International Monetary Fund.

The security situation is also deteriorating with a spate of deadly attacks on police headquarters, linked to the Pakistani Taliban.

“The standoff in Lahore reflects the worst state of affairs in the country,” said Tauseef Ahmed Khan, an author, political analyst and human rights activist.

“On one side, it is failure of police and the law enforcement agencies… on the other, this has been a new trend in the South Asian politics — that a political leader is defying the arrest by using his workers and supporters.”

ANKARA: One month after a powerful quake devastated parts of Turkey and Syria, hundreds of thousands of people still need adequate shelter and sanitation, and an appeal for $1 billion to assist survivors is only 10 per cent funded, hampering efforts to tackle the humanitarian crisis, a United Nations official said Monday.

The Feb. 6 earthquake and strong aftershocks have killed more than 46,000 people in Turkey, destroyed or damaged around 230,000 buildings and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless — making it the worst disaster in Turkey’s modern history. The U.N. estimates that the earthquake killed around 6,000 people in Syria, mainly in the rebel-held northwest.

About 2 million survivors have been housed in temporary accommodation or evacuated from the earthquake-devastated region, according to Turkish government figures. Around 1.5 million people have been settled in tents while another 46,000 have been moved to container houses. Others are living in dormitories and guesthouses, the government said.

“Given the number of people that have been relocated, given the number of people that have been injured and given the level of the devastation, we do have extensive humanitarian needs now,” Alvaro Rodriguez, the U.N. Resident Coordinator in Turkey, told The Associated Press.

“We have some provinces where up to 25 per cent of the population — we’re talking sometimes half a million people — have relocated. So the challenge we have is how do we provide food, shelter, water for these communities?” he said.

The U.N. representative said tents are still needed even though they are not “the optimal solution” for sheltering people. He reported some cases of scabies outbreaks because of poor sanitary conditions.

Last month, the U.N. made a flash appeal for $397.6 million to help Syrian quake victims — just over half of which has come in — and a $1 billion appeal for victims in Turkey to cover emergency needs, such as food, protection, education water and shelter, for three months. Rodriguez said the appeal for Turkey is only about 10 per cent funded.

“The reality is that if we do not move beyond the roughly 10 per cent that we have, the U.N. and its partners will not be able to meet the humanitarian needs,” he said.

Rodriguez added: “Turkey has been a country that has supported 4 million Syrian refugees over the last few years, and this is an opportunity for the international community to provide the support that Turkey deserves.”

The World Bank has estimated that the earthquake has caused an estimated $34.2 billion in direct physical damages — the equivalent of 4 per cent of Turkey’s 2021 GDP. The World Bank said recovery and reconstruction costs will be much higher and that GDP losses associated with economic disruptions will also add to the cost of the earthquakes.

In Syria, the situation remained dire one month after the deadly earthquake, with aid groups citing fears of a looming public health crisis with families still packed into overcrowded temporary shelters and crucial infrastructure damaged by the quake.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement that Aleppo’s water infrastructure — already ageing and damaged by the war — had been further damaged by the quake, which “reduced the system’s efficiency and raised the risk that contaminated water could pollute the supply.”

Water contamination is of particular concern in Syria as the country had already been battling cholera outbreaks before the earthquake.

While the quake generated an initial outpouring of aid, relief organizations cited fears that the world’s attention will move on quickly, while basic humanitarian needs remain unmet. Meanwhile, political and logistical issues have in some cases blocked aid from reaching those in need.

Amnesty International said Monday that between Feb. 9 and 22, the Syrian government had “blocked at least 100 trucks carrying essential aid such as food, medical supplies and tents from entering Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods in Aleppo city” while Turkish-backed rebel groups in northwest Syria blocked at least 30 aid trucks sent by rival Kurdish groups from entering Turkish-controlled Afrin in the same period.

“Even in this moment of desperation, the Syrian government and armed opposition groups have pandered to political considerations and taken advantage of people’s misery to advance their own agendas,” Aya Majzoub, the rights group’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.

Washington: China is the strongest and the most disciplined “enemy” that the US has ever faced, Republican presidential aspirant Nikki Haley has warned.

In an impressive speech addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference — the top annual event of the Republican Party and its support base — the Indian-American politician continued with her focus on America’s foreign policy, wherein she asserted that the US should not give aid to countries that hate it.

“Never in my life did I think Americans would look at the sky and see a Chinese spy balloon looking back at us. It was a national embarrassment,” she said on Friday referring to the recent spy balloon incident.

The balloon, which Beijing denies was a government spy vessel, spent a week flying over the United States and Canada before being shot down off the Atlantic Coast last month.

“Make no mistake: Communist China is the strongest and most disciplined enemy we have ever faced. We need to hold China accountable. Let us start with Covid,” she said.

The US accuses China of spreading the virus.

The Huanan market in central China’s Wuhan city was the epicentre of the pandemic. From its origin there, the SARS-CoV-2 virus rapidly spread to other locations in Wuhan in late 2019 and then to the rest of the world.

“And before we even talk about the cartels, we need to confront the fact that China is the one sending the fentanyl across our border,” Haley said.

The Huanan market in central China’s Wuhan city was the epicentre of the pandemic. From its origin there, the SARS-CoV-2 virus rapidly spread to other locations in Wuhan in late 2019 and then to the rest of the world.

The 51-year-old two-term Governor of South Carolina and the former US Ambassador to the United Nations formally launched her 2024 presidential bid last month.

Since then she has gained the attention of the party and the national audience as well. During the party primaries, she would be fighting against her former boss and former president Donald Trump. She is the only woman in the 2024 presidential race so far.

“I cannot believe what Joe Biden is letting China get away with. Chinese companies now own more than 380,000 acres of American soil, some of it right next to our military bases. What are we doing? We should never let an enemy buy land in our country. And we need to tell every university — you can either take Chinese money or American money, but you will no longer get both,” Haley said, articulating her policy on China.

China thinks the American era has passed and so do all the enemies of the US, said the former South Carolina governor. “But they are wrong. America is not past our prime. It is just that our politicians are past theirs,” she said.

Haley’s speech was welcomed by the audience, who have gathered in the national capital from across the country for the three-day conference, which among others is being addressed by Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy, the other Indian American to have entered the presidential race.

In her speech, Haley was very critical of the ruling Democratic Party, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I am running for president to stop America’s downward spiral toward socialism and end the self-loathing that has taken over our country. I am running for president to renew an America that is strong and proud, not weak and woke,” she said.

“When I look to the future, I see our country rededicated to freedom and opportunity. But when I look at the present, I see the opposite. Joe Biden and the Democrats are giving us oppression, poverty and lawlessness,” she said and asserted that she has entered the race to the White House to overturn this.

“The Democratic Party is now a socialist party. Bernie Sanders and AOC (congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) are at least honest about it. Look at how much taxpayer money Biden has wasted since he took office. On Joe Biden’s watch, we hit USD 31 trillion in national debt. He has put us on track to add USD 20 trillion more in the next 10 years,” she said.

Socialism, Haley said, is weakening the US at the worst possible moment.

“We need an economy that can out-compete China. But the only competition Democrats want is who is the most ‘triggered’,” she added.
Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, urged her fellow Republicans to vote for the younger generation.

“I have a particular message for you, my fellow conservatives. We have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. Our cause is right, but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans. That ends now. If you are tired of losing, then put your trust in a new generation. And if you want to win — not just as a party, but as a country — then stand with me,” she said.

After Haley concluded her speech, some of the attendees chanted “Trump, Trump, Trump”.

Born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa to immigrant Punjabi Sikh parents, Haley is the third Indian-American to run for the US presidency in three consecutive election cycles. Bobby Jindal ran in 2016 and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2020.

Days after Haley announced her White House bid, Indian-American tech entrepreneur Viveak Ramaswamy, another Republican, also launched his 2024 presidential bid.

Before entering the presidential ballot, Haley has to win the Republican Party’s presidential primary which will start in January next year.

The next US presidential election is scheduled to be held on November 5, 2024.

Jakarta : A large fire broke out at a fuel storage depot in Indonesia’s capital on Friday, killing at least 17 people, injuring dozens of others and forcing the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents after spreading to their neighbourhood, officials said.

The Plumpang fuel storage station, operated by state-run oil and gas company Pertamina, is near a densely populated area in the Tanah Merah neighbourhood in North Jakarta. It supplies 25 per cent of Indonesia’s fuel needs.

At least 260 firefighters and 52 fire engines were struggling to contain the blaze in the nearby neighbourhood, fire officials said.

Video of the fire broadcast on television showed hundreds of people in the community running in panic while thick plumes of black smoke and orange flames filled the sky and firefighters battled the blaze.

A preliminary investigation showed the fire broke out when a pipeline ruptured during heavy rain, possibly from a lightning strike, said Eko Kristiawan, Pertamina’s area manager.

He said the fire would not disrupt the country’s fuel supply.

Satriadi Gunawan, who heads Jakarta’s fire and rescue department, said people living in the residential area were still being evacuated and were being taken to a nearby village hall and a mosque.

“The fire caused several explosions and quickly spread to residential houses,” Gunawan said.

He said at least 17 people were dead, including two children, and 50 had been hospitalized, some with severe burns.

Indonesia’s minister of State-Owned Enterprises, Erick Thohir, expressed his condolences to the victims and their families and ordered Pertamina to thoroughly investigate the fire and focus on quickly assisting the community.

“There must be an operational evaluation in the future. I’ll continue to monitor this case,” Thohir said in a video statement.

Friday’s fire was the second large blaze at the Plumpang fuel depot. In 2014, a fire engulfed at least 40 nearby houses but no casualties were reported.

Fahmi Radhi, an energy analyst, urged Pertamina and the government to immediately move the depot away from the nearby community settlements.

“Pertamina has been negligent by not using international standard security systems,” he said in an interview with KOMPAS TV. He said that since the 2014 fire there had been no efforts to put such a system in place and that regular inspections should be conducted to avoid future fires.

“Pertamina’s board of directors should be held responsible for this deadly fire by being dismissed immediately,” Radhi said.

An oil spill in 2018 caused a fire that killed five people and sickened hundreds in the port city of Balikpapan. Authorities said it came from a broken pipe that Pertamina was using to transfer crude oil.

In March 2021, a fire at Cilacap gasoline storage facility at the largest oil refinery on the main island of Java prompted the evacuation of 80 nearby residents and injured at least 20 people.

Cilacap is one of six Pertamina refineries with a processing capacity of 270,000 barrels a day. Eight months later, more than 900 people were evacuated after a fire broke out at the Pertamina Balongan Refinery in West Java province.

ANKARA: A magnitude 5.6 earthquake shook southern Turkey on Monday — three weeks after a catastrophic temblor devastated the region — causing some already damaged buildings to collapse, an official said. A father and daughter were reported trapped beneath the rubble of one building.

Monday’s earthquake was centred in the town of Yesilyurt in Malatya province, the country’s disaster management agency said.

Yesilyurt’s mayor, Mehmet Cinar, told HaberTurk television that a number of buildings in the town collapsed, including a four-story building where a father and daughter were trapped. Cinar said the pair had entered the damaged building to collect belongings.

Elsewhere in Malatya, search-and-rescue teams were sifting through the rubble of another building that toppled on top of some parked cars, HaberTurk reported.

Malatya was among 11 Turkish provinces hit by the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that devastated parts of southern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6.

That quake led to more than 48,000 deaths in both countries as well as the collapse or serious damage of 173,000 buildings in Turkey.

AFAD, Turkey’s disaster management agency, said that close to 10,000 aftershocks have hit the region affected by the quake since February 6.

Washington: Seattle has become the first US city to outlaw caste discrimination after its local council passed a resolution, moved by an Indian-American politician and economist, to add caste to its non-discrimination policy.

The resolution moved by Kshama Sawant, an upper-caste Hindu, was approved by the Seattle City Council by six to one vote. The results of the vote could have far-reaching implications on the issue of caste discrimination in the US.

“It’s official: our movement has won a historic, first-in-the-nation ban on caste discrimination in Seattle! Now we need to build a movement to spread this victory around the country,” Sawant, a city council member, said soon after the resolution was voted.

Hours ahead of the vote, Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal lent her support to the move.

“Caste discrimination has no place in society anywhere in the world, including here in America. That is why some colleges and universities have banned it on campuses, and workers are fighting for their rights and their dignity in cases involving caste discrimination,” she said.

Equality Labs, the brain behind the anti-caste discrimination resolution in Seattle and which has been spearheading a nationwide campaign said: “Love has won over hate as Seattle has become the first in the nation to ban caste discrimination. We have braved rape threats, death threats, disinformation, and bigotry.”

It has created a coalition of some 200 organisations in support of its efforts over the issue.

“Central to this coalition is a network of more than 30 anti-caste Ambedkarite organisations,” Equality Labs said. Among them are the Ambedkar King Study Circle, Ambedkar International Center, Ambedkarite Buddhist Association of Texas and Boston Study Group.

The Hindu American Foundation, which had campaigned against the resolution, said singling out South Asians and the addition of caste’ to the non-discrimination policy violates the very policies it now amends.

“The City of Seattle has voted to treat South Asians (and Southeast Asians and African) in a manner that no other ethnic or racial community is treated under the guise of non-discrimination. It has voted yes to discriminating against ethnic minorities, repeating the ugliness of nativists in the state nearly a century ago,” Suhag Shukla, co-founder and executive director of the Hindu American Foundation said.

In passing this resolution, Seattle is now in violation of the US Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process that prohibit the state from treating disparately people on account of their national origin, ethnicity, or religion, and implementing a vague, facially discriminatory and arbitrary category, Shukla alleged.

“Seattle has taken a dangerous misstep here, institutionalising bias against all residents of Indian and South Asian origin, all in the name of preventing bias,” said HAF managing director Samir Kalra.

“When Seattle should be protecting the civil rights of all its residents, it is actually violating them by running roughshod over the most basic and fundamental rights in US law, all people being treated equally,” Kalra said.

Madhu T from Ambedkar-Phule Network of American Dalits and Bahujans said this “ill-intended and rushed” ordinance by a “controversial council member” will only harm South Asians in particular Dalits Bahujans.

“It is traumatising to witness that a propaganda which is no less than a war on Dalits, makes this far, with no data, and with a fraudulent survey, while the real Dalit Bahujan voices continue to go unheard,” said Madhu.

“2022 report by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Johns Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania not only discredited the caste survey referred by Seattle City Council, but it had shown that there are multiple reasons like ‘country of origin’, gender and ‘skin colour’ that need to be addressed as cause for discrimination. The ordinance will only increase the instances of hatred against South Asians, including Dalits,” said V Kadam from Dalit Bahujan Solidarity Network.

Many Indian-Americans fear that codifying caste in public policy will further fuel instances of Hinduphobia in the US.

Over the last three years, ten Hindu temples and five statues, including those of Mahatma Gandhi and Maratha emperor Shivaji, have been vandalised across the US as an intimidation tactic against the Hindu community.

Indian-Americans are the second-largest immigrant group in the US. According to data from the 2018 American Community Survey (ACS), which is conducted by the US Census Bureau, there are 4.2 million people of Indian origin residing in the United States.

India banned caste discrimination in 1948 and enshrined that policy in the Constitution in 1950.

FRANKFURT: German carrier Lufthansa said Wednesday IT problems were forcing it to cancel and delay flights across its different airlines, in what appeared to be a major outage.

The company did not immediately specify which airports were affected but the departures board at its Frankfurt hub showed a slew of cancellations.

“Currently, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group are affected by an IT outage,” the company tweeted.

“This is causing flight delays and cancellations. We regret the inconvenience this is causing our passengers.”

Lufthansa is Europe’s biggest airline group. It also owns Eurowings, Swiss, Brussels and Austrian Airlines.

“So far, we’re not sure if Lufthansa (group) is the only one affected,” a Lufthansa spokesman told AFP.

The group has assembled a crisis team that was racing to determine the cause and extent of the outage, he added.

Germany’s Bild newspaper spoke of scenes of “chaos” at Frankfurt and Munich airport, reporting trouble with the check-in and boarding systems.

KAHRAMANMARAS: Rescue workers made a final push Thursday to find survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria that rendered many communities unrecognizable to their inhabitants and led the Turkish president to declare it “the disaster of the century.” The death toll topped 21,000.

The earthquake affected an area that is home to 13.5 million people in Turkey and an unknown number in Syria and stretches farther than the distance from London to Paris or Boston to Philadelphia. Even with an army of people taking part in the rescue effort, crews had to pick and choose where to help.

The scene from the air showed the scope of devastation, with entire neighborhoods of high-rises reduced to twisted metal, pulverized concrete and exposed wires.

In Adiyaman, Associated Press journalists saw someone plead with rescuers to look through the rubble of a building where relatives were trapped. They refused, saying no one was alive there and that they had to prioritize areas with possible survivors.

A man who gave his name only as Ahmet out of fear of government retribution later asked:

“How can I go home and sleep? My brother is there. He may still be alive.” The death toll from Monday’s 7.8 magnitude catastrophe rose to nearly 21,000, eclipsing the more than 18,400 who died in the 2011 earthquake off Fukushima, Japan, that triggered a tsunami and the estimated 18,000 people who died in a temblor near the Turkish capital, Istanbul, in 1999.

The new figure, which is certain to rise, included over 17,600 people in Turkey and more than 3,300 in civil war-torn Syria. Tens of thousands were also injured.

Even though experts say people could survive for a week or more, the chances of finding survivors in the freezing temperatures were dimming. As emergency crews and panicked relatives dug through the rubble — and occasionally found people alive — the focus began to shift to demolishing dangerously unstable structures.

The DHA news agency broadcast the rescue of a 10-year-old in Antakya. The agency said medics had to amputate an arm to free her and that her parents and three siblings had died. A 17-year-old girl emerged alive in Adıyaman, and a 20-year-old was found in Kahramanmaras by rescuers who shouted “God is great.”

In Nurdagi, a city of around 40,000 nestled between snowy mountains some 35 miles (56 kilometers) from the quake’s epicenter, vast swaths of the city were leveled, with scarcely a building unaffected.

Even those that did not collapse were heavily damaged, making them unsafe.
Throngs of onlookers, mostly family members of people trapped inside, watched as heavy machines ripped at one building that had collapsed, its floors pancaked together with little more than a few inches in between.

Mehmet Yilmaz, 67, watched from a distance as bulldozers and other demolition equipment began to bring down what remained of the building where six of his family members had been trapped, including four children.

He estimated that about 80 people were still beneath the rubble and doubted that anyone would be found alive.

“There’s no hope. We can’t give up our hope in God, but they entered the building with listening devices and dogs, and there was nothing,” Yilmaz said.

Mehmet Nasir Dusan, 67, sat watching as the remnants of the nine-story building were brought down in billowing clouds of dust. He said he held no hope of reuniting with his five family members trapped under the debris.

Still, he said, recovering their bodies would bring some small comfort.

“We’re not leaving this site until we can recover their bodies, even if it takes 10 days,” Dusan said. “My family is destroyed now.”

In Kahramanmaras, the city closest to the epicenter, a sports hall the size of a basketball court served as a makeshift morgue to accommodate and identify bodies.

On the floor lay dozens of bodies wrapped in blankets or black shrouds. At least one appeared to be that of a 5- or 6-year-old.

At the entrance, a man wept over a black body bag that lay next to another in the bed of a small truck.

“I’m 70 years old. God should have taken me, not my son,” he cried. Workers continued to conduct rescue operations in Kahramanmaras, but it was clear that many who were trapped in collapsed buildings had already died. One rescue worker was heard saying that his psychological state was declining and that the smell of death was becoming too much to bear.

In northwestern Syria, the first U.N. aid trucks since the quake to enter the rebel-controlled area from Turkey arrived, underscoring the difficulty of getting help to people there. In the Turkish city of Antakya, dozens scrambled for aid in front of a truck distributing children’s coats and other supplies.

One survivor, Ahmet Tokgoz, called for the government to evacuate people from the region. Many of those who have lost their homes found shelter in tents, stadiums and other temporary accommodation, but others have slept outdoors.

“Especially in this cold, it is not possible to live here,” he said. “If people haven’t died from being stuck under the rubble, they’ll die from the cold.”

The winter weather and damage to roads and airports have hampered the response. Some in Turkey have complained that the government was slow to respond — a perception that could hurt Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a time when he faces a tough battle for reelection in May.

“As you know, the earthquake hit an area of 500-kilometer (311-mile) diameter where 13.5 million of our people live, and that made our job difficult,” Erdogan said Thursday.
In the Turkish town of Elbistan, rescuers stood atop the rubble from a collapsed home and pull

Rescue teams urged quiet in the hopes of hearing stifled pleas for help, and the Syrian paramedic group known as the White Helmets noted that “every second could mean saving a life.”

But more and more often, the teams pulled out dead bodies. In Antakya, more than 100 bodies were awaiting identification in a makeshift morgue outside a hospital.

With the chances of finding people alive dwindling, crews in some places began demolishing buildings. Authorities called off search-and-rescue operations in the cities of Kilis and Sanliurfa, where destruction was not as severe as in other areas. Vice President Fuat Oktay said rescue work was mostly complete in Diyarbakir, Adana and Osmaniye.

Across the border in Syria, assistance trickled in. The U.N. is authorized to deliver aid through only one border crossing, and road damage has prevented that thus far. U.N. officials pleaded for humanitarian concerns to take precedence over wartime politics.

It wasn’t clear how many people were still unaccounted for in both countries.
Turkey’s disaster-management agency said more than 110,000 rescue personnel were now taking part in the effort and more than 5,500 vehicles, including tractors, cranes, bulldozers and excavators had been shipped. The Foreign Ministry said 95 countries have offered help

World Bank to provide Turkey $1.78 bn for recovery after quake:

The World Bank announced Thursday $1.78 billion in aid to Turkey to help relief and recovery efforts after a massive earthquake hit the country and neighbouring Syria, claiming more than 21,000 lives.

“We are providing immediate assistance and preparing a rapid assessment of the urgent and massive needs on the ground,” said World Bank President David Malpass in a statement.

“This will identify priority areas for the country’s recovery and reconstruction as we prepare operations to support those needs,” he added.

Immediate assistance of $780 million will be offered via Contingent Emergency Response Components from two existing projects in Turkey, said the bank.

“The assistance will be used for rebuilding basic infrastructure at the municipal level,” the Washington-based development lender added.

Meanwhile, an added $1 billion in operations is being prepared to support people affected amid recovery and reconstruction from the catastrophe, the bank added.

The country’s needs are “immense and span the whole range from relief to reconstruction,” said Humberto Lopez, World Bank Country Director for Turkey.

Freezing temperatures

The crossing is the only way UN assistance can reach civilians without going through areas controlled by Syrian government forces.

A decade of civil war and Syrian-Russian aerial bombardment had already destroyed hospitals, collapsed the economy and prompted electricity, fuel and water shortages.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Security Council to authorise the opening of new cross-border humanitarian aid points between Turkey and Syria to deliver aid.

Four million people living in rebel-held areas of northwest Syria have had to rely on the Bab al-Hawa crossing as part of a cross-border aid operation authorised by the Security Council nearly a decade ago.

“This is the moment of unity, it’s not a moment to politicise or to divide but it is obvious that we need massive support,” Guterres said.

Temperatures in the Turkish city of Gaziantep plunged to minus five degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) early Thursday, but thousands of families spent the night in cars and makeshift tents — too scared or banned from returning to their homes.

Parents walked the streets of the city — close to the epicentre of Monday’s earthquake — carrying their children in blankets because it was warmer than sitting in a tent.

Gyms, mosques, schools and some stores have opened at night. But beds are still at a premium and thousands spend the nights in cars with engines running to provide heat.

“I fear for anyone who is trapped under the rubble in this,” said Melek Halici, who wrapped her two-year-old daughter in a blanket as they watched rescuers working into the night.

International rescuers have said the intense cold has forced them to weigh whether to use their limited fuel supplies to keep warm or to carry out their work.

Racing against the clock
 

“Not a single person has failed to mention this, the cold,” Athanassios Balafas, a Greek fire official, said in Athens. “Obviously we chose to keep operating.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged on Wednesday that there were “shortcomings” in the government’s handling of the disaster.

Monday’s quake was the largest Turkey has seen since 1939, when 33,000 people died in the eastern Erzincan province.

Officials and medics said 17,674 people had died in Turkey and 3,377 in Syria from Monday’s 7.8-magnitude tremor, bringing the confirmed total to 21,051.

Experts fear the number will continue to rise sharply.

Anger has mounted over the government’s handling of the disaster.

“People who didn’t die from the earthquake were left to die in the cold,” Hakan Tanriverdi told AFP in Adiyaman province, one of the areas hardest hit.

Despite the difficulties, thousands of local and foreign searchers have not given up the hunt for more survivors.

Two dozen children and some of their parents from northern Cyprus — 39 Turkish Cypriots in all — were on a school trip to join a volleyball tournament when the quake hit their hotel in southeast Turkey’s Adiyaman.

Their home region’s government has declared a national mobilisation, hiring a private plane so they could join the search-and-rescue effort for the children.

Ilhami Bilgen, whose brother Hasan was on the volleyball team, looked at the frightening pile of concrete slabs and heavy bricks that used to be the hotel.

“There’s a hollow over there. The children may have crawled into it,” Bilgen said. “We still haven’t given up hope.”