Death toll in Bangladesh earthquake rises to 6
Dhaka (PTI): At least six people were killed and several injured as a massive earthquake of magnitude 5.7 jolted Dhaka and parts of the country on Friday, damaging buildings, causing fires at several places and sending panic among residents.
Three people were killed in Dhaka, while the fourth died in the suburban river port town of Narayanganj, officials said, as local media reported injuries to at least 50 people across the country.
The other two deaths were reported from Narsingdi, where the epicentre was located some 10 kilometres beneath the surface.
The epicentre of the quake that struck at 10:38 am (local time) was at Narsigndi on the northeastern outskirts of Dhaka at a depth of 10 kilometres, Bangladesh’s meteorology department said. The place is around 13 kilometres east of the seismic centre in Dhaka’s Agargaon area.
Dhaka’s deputy police commissioner Mallik Ahsan Uddin Sami said, quoting the fire service, that at least three people were killed after a railing, bamboo scaffolding and debris of a five-storey building fell on them at Old Dhaka’s Armanitola area.
A bystander was critically wounded at the scene in the crowded neighbourhood, he said.
Sami confirmed that one of the deceased was a medical student who was there to buy meat along with his mother. She is critically wounded, requiring an emergency surgery, he added.
Local media reports said one of the three dead was an eight-year-old who had not been identified.
The fourth death was reported from Narayanganj where a newborn baby on her mother’s lap died as they were walking near a wall that collapsed as the tremor hit.
In Sutrapur's Swamibagh area, also located in old Dhaka, an eight-storey building was reported to have leaned against another structure following the earthquake, while at the Kalabagan area, a seven-storey building looked tilted, though fire officials reported it remained structurally sound.
A fire broke out at a residence in Dhaka’s posh Baridhara area soon after the tremor hit, but the firefighters could not immediately confirm if it was linked to the earthquake.
Another fire at a residential building was reported from the Gazaria area of suburban Munshiganj, while the fire service responded immediately to douse the blaze.
The Prothom Alo newspaper said the tremor wounded over 50 people in three districts around Dhaka.
Experts have long said the risk of major quakes was high in Bangladesh because of its location on active tectonic plate boundaries, with many of them saying a major earthquake is inevitable, though it could be decades away.
Earthquake expert Professor Mehedi Ahmed Ansary of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) said a tremor with a magnitude of 6 could collapse most structures in the country.
“This tremor (on Friday) is an alarm bell for Bangladesh,” Ansary said.
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Screenwriter Salim Khan on ventilator support and stable, say doctors
Mumbai (PTI): Veteran screenwriter Salim Khan suffered a brain haemorrhage which has been tackled, is on ventilator support as a safeguard and stable, doctors treating him said on Wednesday, a day after he was admitted to the Lilavati Hospital here.
The 90-year-old, one half of the celebrated Salim-Javed duo which scripted films such as "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don" with Javed Akhtar, is in the ICU and recovery might take some time given his age.
"His blood pressure was high for which we treated him and we had to put him on a ventilator because we wanted to do certain investigations. Now the ventilator was put as a safeguard so that his situation doesn't get worse. So it is not that he is critical," Dr Jalil Parkar told reporters.
"We did the investigations that were required and today we have done a small procedure on him, I will not go into the details. The procedure done is called DSA (digital subtraction angiography). The procedure has been accomplished, he is fine and stable and shifted back to ICU. By tomorrow, we hope to get him off the ventilator. All in all, he is doing quite well," he added.
Asked whether he suffered a brain haemorrhage, the doctor said, "Unko thoda haemorrhage hua tha, which we’ve tackled. No surgery is required.
As concern over Khan's health mounted, his children, including superstar Salman Khan and Arbaaz Khan, daughter Alvira, and sons-in-law Atul Agnihotri and Aayush Sharma, have been seen outside the hospital along with other well-wishers. His long-time partner Akhtar was also seen coming out of the hospital.
Khan, a household name in the 70s and 80s, turned 90 on November 24 last year. It was the day Dharmendra, the star of many of his films, including "Sholay", "Seeta aur Geeta" and "Yaadon Ki Baraat", passed away.
Hailing from an affluent family in Indore, Khan arrived in Mumbai in his 20s with dreams of stardom. He was good looking and confident he would make a mark in the industry as an actor. But that did not happen. And then, after struggling for close to a decade and getting confined to small roles in films, he changed lanes.
He worked as an assistant to Abrar Alvi and soon met Akhtar to form one of Hindi cinema's most formidable writing partnerships. They worked together on two dozen movies with most of them achieving blockbuster status.
Other than "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don", Khan and Akhtar also penned "Trishul", "Zanjeer", "Seeta Aur Geeta", "Haathi Mere Saathi", "Yaadon Ki Baarat" and "Mr India".
