At least nine people were killed and 25 others remained missing after a 6.4-magnitude quake hit the popular eastern tourist city of Hualien on Tuesday, according to a revised toll from the national fire agency.

The powerful tremor left a handful of buildings badly damaged — some of them leaning at precarious angles — as well as roads torn up and hundreds forced to shelter in local schools and a stadium.

The major focus for emergency responders remained the Yun Tsui apartment block where six of the deaths occurred and dozens are still missing.

The lower floors of the 12-storey tower — which also housed a hotel — pancaked, leaving the structure leaning at a fifty-degree angle and sparking fears of an imminent collapse.

Despite those risks rescuers kept going into the building in a desperate search for survivors, but on Thuraday recovered only two bodies — a Chinese mainland tourist and a hotel worker.

Strong aftershocks continued to strike, sending the teams scurrying from the building, only for them to return a little later and resume their grim task.

An emergency responder surnamed Lin said it took 14 hours to free the body of the hotel worker, who was partially trapped between the hotel’s ceiling and floor.

“We saw his hair and were digging for some time,” he told AFP.

All the while they could hear the victim’s mobile phone ringing, he added. The man was later brought out in a white body bag.

A Red Cross worker at the scene estimated that the building had tilted another five percent overnight, adding he had little hope of survivors being found on its lowest floors.

“Floors one to three are all compressed so it’s hard to tell whether there are people,” he told AFP, requesting anonymity.

He said that there was no risk of a gas explosion in the building but the aftershocks and further slippage remained a persistent danger.

– Popular tourist spot –

The national fire agency said three of those killed were Chinese nationals from the mainland. All were believed to be staying at the Beauty Stay Hotel, which was located on the second floor of the apartment block.

Authorities published a steep drop in the number of missing Thursday afternoon — 58 to 25 — after unaccounted people got in touch with loved ones or officials.

In the apartment block, 10 people remained missing from flats alongside seven hotel guests. More than 260 people were injured in the tremor, the strongest to hit Hualien in decades.

Hualien is one of Taiwan’s most popular tourist destinations as it lies on the picturesque east coast rail line and near the popular Taroko Gorge.

But the mountains that rise up behind the city — and bestow Taiwan’s east coast with such majestic beauty — are a testament to the deadly tectonic faultlines that run through the island.

The government said 17 foreigners sought medical treatment for minor injuries.

Local broadcaster SET TV ran an interview with a man who said he was the husband of one of the Chinese mainland victims.

The woman, named as 39-year-old Yu Fei, was travelling with the couple’s young son on the island. The son survived the quake with light injuries. She was pulled from the wrecked building and later died in hospital.

“They were travelling on their own as I was busy and couldn’t accompany them,” the man, who had rushed from the Chinese city of Xiamen, said. “I got in touch with my son, he cried.”

President Tsai Ing-wen, who on Wednesday visited survivors and the Yun Tsui apartment block, praised emergency responders.

“Rescuers on the scene and hospital staffers continue to dedicate themselves fully to the rescue works,” she wrote on Facebook. “Stay hopeful and never give up.”

The Hualien quake came exactly two years to the day after a similar sized tremor struck the western city of Tainan, killing 117 people.

Most of those who perished died in a single apartment block which collapsed.

Five people were later found guilty over the disaster, including the developer and two architects, for building an inadequate structure.

The island’s worst tremor in recent decades was a 7.6-magnitude quake in September 1999 that killed around 2,400 people.

That quake ushered in stricter building codes but many of Taiwan’s older buildings remain perilously vulnerable to even moderate strength quakes.//AFP

A 6.4-magnitude quake hit the popular eastern tourist city of Hualien late Tuesday, leaving a handful of buildings badly damaged — some of them leaning at terrifying angles — as well as roads torn up and hundreds sheltering in local schools and a stadium.

The major focus for emergency responders remained the Yun Tsui apartment block where the majority of the deaths occurred and dozens are still missing.

The lower floors of the 12-storey tower — which also housed a hotel — pancaked, leaving the structure leaning at a fifty-degree angle and sparking fears of an imminent collapse.

Despite those risks rescuers kept going into the building throughout Wednesday night and Thursday morning in a desperate search for survivors.

Strong aftershocks coursed through the ground sending rescue teams running from the building, only for them to return a little while later and resume their grim task.

One aftershock shortly before midnight on Thursday measured 5.7-magnitude.

Chu Che-min, the Hualien fire department’s rescue team leader at the scene, told AFP they located two more bodies overnight.

“We discovered the body of a Chinese woman at the hotel in Yun Tsui (building) earlier this morning and located another person who’s a hotel staffer,” he said.

Popular tourist spot

In a updated toll, the national fire agency said nine people had now been confirmed killed in the quake including three Chinese mainland nationals.

The three mainland victims were all believed to be staying at the Beauty Stay Hotel, which was located on the second floor of the apartment block.

At least 62 people remain unaccounted for across the city. In the apartment block, 37 people are missing from flats alongside 10 hotel guests. More than 250 people were injured in the tremor, the strongest to hit Hualien in decades.

Hualien is one of Taiwan’s most popular tourist hubs as it lies on the picturesque east coast rail line and near the popular Taroko Gorge.

But the mountains that rise up behind the city — and bestow Taiwan’s east coast with such majestic beauty — are a testament to the deadly tectonic faultlines that run through the island.

The government said 17 foreigners sought medical treatment for minor injuries.

Local broadcaster SET TV ran an interview with a man who said he was the husband of one of the Chinese mainland victims.

The woman, named as 39-year-old Yu Fei, was travelling with the couple’s young son on the island. The son survived the quake with light injuries. She was pulled from the wrecked building and later died in hospital.

“They were travelling on their own as I was busy and couldn’t accompany them,” the man, who had rushed from the mainland Chinese city of Xiamen, said. “I got in touch with my son, he cried. I haven’t seen him in person.”

President Tsai Ing-wen, who visited survivors on Wednesday and the Yun Tsui apartment block, praised emergency responders.

“Rescuers on the scene and hospital staffers continue to dedicate themselves fully to the rescue works,” she wrote on Facebook. “Stay hopeful and never give up.”

The council will hold a meeting on Tuesday to hear UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi report on the crisis sparked by an army crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August.

Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan and Equatorial Guinea requested the talks along with the three permanent council members.

The meeting comes nearly three months after the council adopted a statement demanding that Myanmar rein in its security forces and allow the Rohingya to return to their homes.

More than 750,000 Rohingya have been driven from the mainly Buddhist country to Bangladesh, fleeing soldiers accused of killings, rape and burning down villages.

Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed last month to repatriate the Rohingya over a period of two years, but the United Nations has expressed concerns after the UN refugee agency UNHCR was kept out of the agreement.

The General Assembly in December adopted a resolution asking Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to name a special envoy to Myanmar, but that appointment has yet to be made.

China, a supporter of Myanmar’s former ruling junta, and Russia voted against the resolution. Both hold veto power at the council.

Myanmar’s government also turned down a visit by council envoys to Rakhine state, saying it was “not the right time,” Kuwait’s Ambassador Mansour al-Otaibi said.

“I am aware of the president’s request and we are in the initial planning stages to meet the president’s direction,” General Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters during a visit to the Thai capital Bangkok.

Dunford is the first top US military official to publicly address Trump’s longstanding wish for a large-scale military parade, which the White House confirmed Tuesday.

The general did not address a question on whether it would be a good use of military resources.

America normally reserves its military parades to mark the end of conflicts, such as in 1991 when President George H.W. Bush held a National Victory Parade in Washington to celebrate the end of the Gulf War.

Trump’s request may well be popular among many Americans but has drawn scorn from critics, who said it would be a waste of money and was akin to events organised by authoritarian regimes.

Dunford’s visit to junta-ruled Thailand is part of a week-long tour of the US military’s enormous Pacific Command area.

He met his Thai counterpart Tarnchaiyan Srisuwan, as well as Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan and Prayut Chan-O-Cha, the leader of the junta.

After a hiatus following the 2014 coup, relations between Washington and Bangkok have resumed and Dunford said he looked forward to a continuing military-to-military relationship.

“They (Thailand) have been a good, strong partner for a long time. Our overall strength globally, but in particular in the Pacific, is our network of allies and partners. And so Thailand is an important part of that overall network,” Dunford told reporters travelling with him.

The praise was offered despite the junta’s recent postponement of a November 2018 election date which the junta chief announced after a White House visit in October.

The US has consistently urged the generals to follow through on a promised return to democracy.

But they have repeatedly let the poll timeline slip and maintained a tight lid on dissent, with bans on politics and protests of any kind.//AFP

    In a three-page letter to the foreign ministry dated February 2, the Colombian embassy expressed “serious concern”, saying the eatery was paying tribute to the “worst criminal in the history of Colombia”.

“The Embassy of the Republic of Colombia wants to share some information to refresh the horror that this criminal caused in Colombia… not to mention the drug addiction he promoted and the war he declared,” the letter said.

“If the idea of the owner was to make his or her business look profitable and trendy, it is inducing… confusion, because Colombia is not what ‘Narcos-Netflix’ portrays anymore.”

It said Colombia cannot “tolerate any more tributes to that criminal.”

When AFP visited the restaurant in the heart of Singapore’s business district Tuesday evening, patrons occupied about a dozen tables having post-work drinks, seemingly unaware of the controversy. Several bouquets stood on stands by the door next to a decal of Escobar’s face, congratulating the eatery on its recent opening.

Owner Stan Sri Ganesh told AFP that he decided on the name “simply because it had the word ‘bar’ in it”. Several users have posted abusive comments and sent threatening messages to the gastropub’s Facebook page, he said.

“It was meant to be a pun… we never expected the abuse.”

More than two decades after police shot Escobar dead in his stronghold of Medellin, the cocaine cartel leader was immortalised in the hit Netflix series “Narcos”.

Escobar is still deeply popular in Medellin, where he is regarded as a saint and anti-hero — souvenirs with his face on them do brisk business.

Colombia has recently come out of a decades-long civil conflict fuelled by drug trafficking that claimed thousands of lives.

The United Nations ranks Colombia as the world’s biggest producer of coca, the raw material for the drug. Affluent Singapore takes a strong stance against drugs, with traffickers punishable by death.//AFP

Instead the seabird, also known as “no-mates Nigel”, spent years living among a colony of fake concrete birds set up by conservationists in a bid to attract wildlife.

The antisocial avian fell in love with one of the decoys on Mana Island, off the Wellington coast, and was seen preening, nestling and even trying to mate with it.

“Nigel chose to live on Mana, and we know he was happy there because he could have left any time and didn’t,” Department of Conservation ranger Chris Bell said Wednesday.

“It was odd behaviour for a gannet, but every group has their individuals.”

Bell found Nigel’s body lying next to his stony sweetheart late last month and believes he died of old age, although an autopsy is yet to confirm the theory.

Sadly, Nigel may have died just as the fake colony was having its desired effect, with Bell reporting that three gannets began visiting Mana in late December.

Bell said Australasian gannets like Nigel, while not endangered, needed nesting sites that were not vulnerable to introduced pests such as rats and stoats.

“Gannets are extremely social birds and they make their decisions on where to live based on that,” he said.

“The decoys are our way of telling passing-by gannets that this place is safe, it’s predator free and it would be a good place for them to live.”

He said the three gannet newcomers were now regular visitors to the island and may yet set up a colony that could act as Nigel’s legacy.

“We are conscious that without Nigel the other three might not choose to nest here but only time will tell. We’re optimistic,” he said.//AFP

But Won Gil-U came to a screeching halt when he met a young woman called Ko Jong-Un, a report said. Her forename matches that of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, and Won — who is also Pyongyang’s vice sports minister — was stunned into silence.

After some moments he found his voice. “When he turned to me, he stared at my name tag and froze for a few seconds without a word,” Ko was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.

“Then, he said: ‘I wouldn’t dare to pronounce your name’. We all broke into hearty laughter.”

The ruling Kim dynasty are revered within North Korea, where Kim Jong-Un is normally referred to as “Supreme Leader” or “Respected Marshal”.

North Korean children are taught from an early age about the exploits of his father Kim Jong-Il and grandfather Kim Il-Sung, the North’s founder, and the two predecessors’ portraits are on display in every home and on propaganda billboards throughout the country.

Like some other Korean forenames, Jong-Un can be used for both men and women — although it is predominantly female.

Another North Korean official asked Ko about her job. She told him she is a student majoring in American culture at Sogang University in Seoul.

“Then he responded: ‘All Yankees must be punched’,” she said. “This sparked more laughter.”//AFP

The investigating police were accompanied by provincial police and officers from the natural resources and environmental crime division.

The search at Premchai’s three houses, which are in the same compound in Soi Soonwichai 3 in Huay Kwang district, began after his lawyer arrived at the scene and was shown a search warrant issued by a court.

Before then, a resident of the houses came to speak with police but did not allow the search, asking for the presence of the lawyer.

It is reported that deputy national police chief, Pol General Srivara Rangsibhramakul, will join the search in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, police also searched the houses of three others suspects in Ratchaburi, Nakhon Ratchasima and Kanchanaburi provinces.

Premchai and three others suspects – Premchai’s driver, maid and close aide – were released on bail on Tuesday after being arrested for alleged poaching and hunting in Kanchaburi’s Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary on Monday.

The campsite Premchai allegedly used is in restricted site where hunting and camping are banned. At the site, wildlife authorities found the remains of protected animals including barking deer, pheasant and black leopard, as well as rifles and shotguns that police said were hidden in bushes.

This winter flu season, some 111 people have died since January, including two people aged under 18, according to figures from the Centre for Health Protection.

Health experts have warned the epidemic may not have reached its peak. Authorities are seeking to reduce contact between students in crowded environments ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which is expected to start next week.

“If we don’t deal with this now, our concern is that even if the epidemic begins to wind down there may be more deaths or severe cases with children,” microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung told reporters on Wednesday.

Public hospitals and emergency wards in the city have been overflowing with patients while struggling with staff shortages, local media reported.

Hong Kong is particularly alert to the spread of viruses.

Bird flu was first reported in humans in Hong Kong in 1997, when six people died, and subsequent outbreaks have killed hundreds more worldwide.

An outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) swept through the city in 2003, killing 299 people.

As reported by kompas.com, the visa allows Chinese-descent foreigners multiple entry throughout the five-year period, provided candidates meet certain criteria.

Announced by the Ministry of Public Security in January, China seeks to make it easier for applicants by not imposing restrictions on the reasons for visiting, specifically for ethnic Chinese from outside of China.

Implemented on Feb. 1, the new policy marks an improvement over the previous one-year multiple-entry visa, giving Chinese-descent foreigners a five-year residency permit for work, study or other purposes.

The policy aims to encourage more overseas ethnic Chinese people “to participate in China’s economic development,” Qu Yunhai, the head of the ministry’s bureau of exit and entry administration, was quoted as saying by kompas.com.

Read also: New visa rules in China streamline process for top foreign talent

What are the qualifications?

Foreigners of Chinese origin according to China’s official definition refers to former Chinese citizens who have obtained foreign citizenship and to the offspring of present or former Chinese citizens.

Applying descendants of former Chinese citizens need to prove their relationship to either a parent, grandparent or ancestor. Authorities have specified no limit on the number of generations.

The ministry noted that all applicants were required to prove their Chinese origin by submitting official documents issued either by the Chinese government or by authorities of the country they are applying from.

Documents proving Chinese origin include copies of the applicant’s or their relatives’ Chinese passports or identity cards.

According to the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office in Shanghai, certificates from overseas governments are also accepted after being assessed by the Chinese embassy or consulate in their country of origin. (liz/kes)