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Dozens die in Pakistan attack, Philippines, Australian mishaps
SEVERAL people have been killed in Pakistan bomb attack, Philippines and Australia mishaps, reports said.
In Pakistan, a suicide bomber killed 35 people outside a bank near the country’s capital yesterday, as the United Nations (UN) said spreading violence had forced it to pull out some expatriate staff and suspend long-term development work in areas along the Afghan border.
In Philippines, a fire yesterday swept through a residential building as people slept in a slum community, killing 16 residents, including women and children.
The fire started after midnight yesterday and rapidly spread because of strong winds, gutting the wooden two-story apartment building and more than 60 nearby shanties in Bacolod city, Fire Marshal Pamela Candido said.
Several people leapt from windows at the height of the fire but others failed to wake up in time to save themselves, Candido said.
“Some mothers perished with their children,” Candido told The Associated Press. “It was really tragic.”
In Australia, about 15 people were feared dead after a boat carrying 39 sank in rough seas far off northwest Australia despite frantic rescue attempts by a passing merchant ship and fishing vessel.
Defence chief Angus Houston said the unidentified boat capsized and then sank after the LNG Pioneer ship and Taiwanese fishing craft responded to pleas for help in a remote area off Australia’s Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Islamist insurgents in Pakistan have carried out numerous attacks in Pakistan in recent weeks, killing some 250 people in retaliation for an army offensive in the Pakistani Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan, also along the frontier shared with neighboring Afghanistan.
Several UN personnel have been among those killed, and the organization’s decision to suspend development work could imperil Western goals of reducing the allure of extremism by improving Pakistan’s economy.
The attack yesterday in Rawalpindi, a garrison city just a few miles (kilometres) from Islamabad, occurred as many people waited outside the National Bank on pay day to could collect their salaries.
The bank is close to the army’s headquarters, and a majority of the people waiting in line were from the military, said Mohammad Mushtaq, a soldier wounded in the attack. Militants raided the headquarters last month in a siege that lasted 22 hours and left 23 people dead.
“I was sitting on the pavement outside to wait for my turn,” said Mushtaq, who suffered a head injury. “The bomb went of with a big bang. We all ran. I saw blood and body parts everywhere.”
One panicked father who was near the bank when the explosion occurred said he was unable to find his son in the aftermath of the attack.
The attacker rode a motorbike to the scene, and the 30 people killed included military personnel, Rawalpindi police chief Rao Iqbal said. Some 45 others were wounded.
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