At least 11 people died and 64 are missing after 2 ships sink off the coast of southern Italy
Rome (AP): Sixty-four people were missing at sea after a shipwreck off the Italian southern coast on Monday, while 11 were rescued and taken ashore to a Calabrian town, United Nations agencies said in a statement.
In a separate shipwreck, rescue workers found 10 bodies of suspected migrants trapped below the deck of a wooden boat off Italy's tiny Lampedusa island, the German aid group Resqship wrote on Monday on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
In the first shipwreck, which took place about 200 kilometres off Calabria, a boat that had set off from Turkiye eight days earlier caught fire and overturned, the UN agencies said, citing survivors.
The search-and-rescue operation started following a Mayday call by a French boat, the Italian Coast Guard said in a statement. The boat was sailing in a border area where Greece and Italy carry out search-and-rescue operations. Survivors and people still missing at sea came from Iran, Syria and Iraq, the UN agencies said.
The Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre immediately diverted two merchant vessels sailing nearby to the scene of the rescue. Assets from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex also helped.
The survivors were brought to the Calabrian port of Roccella Jonica, where they were disembarked and entrusted to the care of medical personnel. One of the migrants died soon after, the coast guard said.
In the second shipwreck, the crew aboard Resqship's boat, the Nadir, found 61 people on the wooden boat, which was full of water.
"Our crew was able to evacuate 51 people, two of whom were unconscious,” it added. “The 10 dead were in the flooded lower deck of the boat.”
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UP: Misled by GPS navigation, car falls into river from partially constructed bridge, 3 dead
Bareilly (UP), Nov 24: Three people died when their car fell into the Ramganga river from a partially constructed bridge here on Sunday, police said, adding that they suspect the driver was misled by its navigation system into taking the unsafe route.
The accident occurred around 10 am on the Khalpur-Dataganj road when the victims were travelling from Bareilly to Dataganj in the Badaun district, they said.
"Earlier this year, floods had caused the front portion of the bridge to collapse into the river, but this change had not been updated in the system," Circle Officer Ashutosh Shivam said.
The driver was using a navigation system and did not realise that the bridge was unsafe, driving the car off the damaged section, the police said.
There were no safety barriers or warning signs on the approach to the damaged bridge, leading to the fatal accident, Shivam said.
Upon receiving information, police teams from Faridpur, Bareilly and Dataganj police station rushed to the spot. They recovered the vehicle and the bodies from the river, Shivam added.
The circle officer said that bodies had been sent for post-mortem. Further investigation into the matter is underway.
— Bareilly Police (@bareillypolice) November 24, 2024
