Day: December 24, 2022

BEIJING —  Rescuers were working Sunday to reach 18 people trapped underground after a cave-in at a gold mine in northwest China’s Xinjiang region, state media reported. A total of 40 people were working underground at the mine in Yining county, about 100 kilometers from the border with Kazakhstan, at the time of the collapse Saturday afternoon. Twenty-two miners were brought to the surface but 18 remain trapped. “A rescue operation is underway to retrieve the remaining miners,” Xinhua news agency said late Saturday. Mine safety has improved in recent…

BAZHOU, China —  Yao Ruyan paced frantically outside the fever clinic of a county hospital in China’s industrial Hebei province, 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Beijing. Her mother-in-law had COVID-19 and needed urgent medical care, but all hospitals nearby were full. “They say there’s no beds here,” she barked into her phone. As China grapples with its first-ever national COVID-19 wave, emergency wards in small cities and towns southwest of Beijing are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, relatives of sick people are searching for open beds,…

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia —  Rescuers have called off the search for bodies after a massive, predawn landslide blanketed a campsite north of Malaysia’s capital killing 31 people, officials said Saturday. According to police, 92 people, including dozens of children, were sleeping at the unlicensed campsite at an organic farm in Batang Kali, Selangor state on December 16 when tons of soil and mud thundered down a hill. All of those killed were Malaysian nationals, including 11 children, while 61 campers were rescued. “We found the last body, that of a…