WORLD
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian rescue workers pulled several bodies from the rubble of a giant landslide today, lifting the death toll from a powerful earthquake to 63. Dozens more people were still missing, feared dead.
Hopes of finding possible survivors were fading, two days after the quake, officials said.
The number of houses recorded as destroyed or damaged in Wednesday's magnitude 7.0 temblor, which was centered off the southern coast of the main island of Java, jumped to more than 87,000, Disaster Management Agency spokesman Priyadi Kardono said.
Around 28,000 people were in need of shelter, he said. Aid agencies were distributing tents, blankets and basic provisions, but some rural areas were difficult to reach.
Two dozen bodies have been recovered from Cikangkareng village, in the badly hit district of Cianjur, where 33 people were still missing after 10 houses and a mosque were buried under tons of rock and mud.
"Their parents are still waiting at the scene, hoping we will find the bodies," rescue worker Agus Sobari said.
Other victims have been found under collapsed houses and debris in towns and cities across West Java province. More than 400 people were injured and 125 people were hospitalized with broken bones and cuts, the disaster agency said on its Web site.
The search for survivors would last a week, Kardono said, but the likelihood of finding anyone alive was becoming increasingly slim.
KABUL — A NATO jet blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, setting off a huge fireball today that killed up to 90 people, Afghan officials said.The NATO command said a "large number of insurgents" were killed or injured in the pre-dawn attack near the village of Omar Khel in Kunduz province. An Afghan police officer said the 90 dead included about 40 civilians who were siphoning fuel from the trucks.He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.The top NATO commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has ordered curbs on airstrikes after a strong backlash among Afghans against the high number of civilians killed in such military operations.Police Chief Gulam Mohyuddin said Taliban fighters stopped the vehicles as they were about to cross the Kunduz River.Navy Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a public affairs officer, said NATO warplanes attacked and destroyed the two tankers after determining that there were no civilians in the area.She said that NATO and the Afghan government are investigating reports of civilian casualties.
LONDON — European countries made a concerted push on today to put the thorny issue of bankers' pay and bonuses at the top of the agenda for a meeting of finance officials from the Group of 20 nations.With finance ministers and central bankers from the G-20 expected to use the London meeting to stress their commitment to boosting the global economy, several European countries also want an agreement to curb bankers' bonuses, which many have blamed for the crisis as they can encourage excessive risk-taking.The initiative has received a lukewarm response from the United States, which instead wants to start talks on a new international accord to increase banks' capital reserves.U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has downplayed the talks to be held Friday and Saturday as a "stock-taking meeting, not a new-initiatives meeting" on the road to the leaders' summit in Pittsburgh later this month.
