Farmer drives burning tractor into lake, stops fire from spreading
BENGALURU: The quick thinking of a groundnut farmer in Jammanakatti village in Bagalkot district of Karnataka helped prevent a fire from spreading to several houses in the village.
Yankappa, 28, has been hailed by the residents of the village for driving a tractor that caught fire into a lake on Monday.
At around 4 pm, Yankappa was driving the tractor on a narrow village road with houses on either side. This was when the hay loaded on the tractor came into contact with an electrical wire and caught fire. The hay, stacked about 20 feet high, caught fire immediately and started spreading fast.
In spite of the heat rising behind him, Yankappa kept his cool and steered the tractor towards the lake in the village. “Standing still was not an option because the fire would have spread from the tractor to the houses nearby. The residents of the village came forward to show me the way and told me that the best thing to do was to drive the tractor into the lake,” Yankappa says, recounting the series of events that has catapulted him to fame locally.
Residents on the spot scrambled to pour water and douse the fire but it proved inadequate to contain the fast spreading fire. Seeing no other option, Yankappa accelerated and began driving the tractor towards the lake. By this time, a few people had begun filming the incident which shows the back of the tractor engulfed by a giant ball of fire and burnt hay flying all around, even as Yankappa picked up pace.
When he reached the lake, Yankappa drove right into the water and jumped out of the vehicle as the tractor half-submerged in the water and the fire died down slowly.
Yankappa claims that he incurred a loss of Rs 30,000 and is hoping for some kind of compensation following the awful incident.
courtesy : thenewsminute.com
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
