4 car bombs explode by hotel in Somalia's capital; 20 dead
Mogadishu, Nov 9: Four car bombs by Islamic extremists exploded outside a hotel in the capital, Mogadishu, killing at least 20 people and injuring 17, said police.
After the three explosions in front of the hotel, a fourth blast hit as medics attempted to rescue the injured.
The suicide bombs detonated near the perimeter wall of the Sahafi Hotel, which is located across the street from the Somali Police Force's Criminal Investigations Department, said Capt. Mohamed Hussein.
Some of the victims were burned beyond recognition when one car bomb exploded next to a minibus, he said.
Somali security forces shot dead four gunmen who tried to storm through a hole blown into the hotel's wall but did not succeed in entering, he said.
"Although they failed to access the hotel, the blasts outside the hotel killed many people," said Hussein.
"The street was crowded with people and cars, bodies were everywhere," said Hussein Nur, a shopkeeper who suffered light shrapnel injuries on his right hand.
"Gunfire killed several people, too."
Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for the bombs, according to the group's Andalus radio station.
Among the dead was the manager of the Sahafi Hotel, whose father was the owner of the hotel before he was killed in an al-Shabab attack on establishment in 2015, said police Capt. Hussein.
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MP cruise boat tragedy: Search ops expanded to trace four missing passengers
Jabalpur (PTI): Army divers and disaster response teams on Saturday expanded their search at Bargi Dam in Madhya Pradesh to locate a man and three children still missing after the cruise boat tragedy that claimed nine lives two days ago, officials said.
With 28 of the 41 identified passengers onboard the ill-fated cruise boat rescued safely, police are preparing to register an FIR in connection with the accident that occurred at the reservoir in Jabalpur district on Thursday evening, they said.
The search radius has been expanded to 5 km in the backwaters of the Bargi Dam, located downstream of the Narmada River, area sub-divisional officer of police (SDOP) Anjul Ayank Mishra told PTI.
Nine people drowned in the incident, while 28 were rescued, and efforts are ongoing to trace the missing persons, he said.
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According to the police, more than 200 rescuers, including around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, began the search operation at 5 am on Saturday to trace Kamraj, an employee of the Ordnance Factory in Khamaria, his son Tamil (5), Vijay Soni (6) and Mayuram (5).
Mishra said that an inquest case has been registered and the post-mortem of nine deceased persons has been completed.
"Our priority is to search for the missing persons. We will soon register an FIR," he said.
Investigators have said that CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the ill-fated boat, and the names of 41 persons, who boarded the vessel, have been ascertained so far.
Collector Raghvendra Singh confirmed that a search is underway for four missing persons.
The rescue operation, being carried out by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and local divers, was briefly affected around 9 am due to strong winds.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the incident and dismissed three crew members after survivors alleged negligence and safety lapses, including failure to provide life jackets.
The government also banned the operation of similar vessels in the state.
The boat, operated by the state tourism department, sank during a sudden storm around 6 pm on Thursday, and the wreckage was retrieved from the dam water on Friday, after the rescuers confirmed that there were no more bodies inside.
Eyewitnesses have said that strong winds made the water choppy, prompting passengers to raise an alarm and ask the crew to steer the vessel towards the riverbank.
A survivor alleged negligence by the crew and described a last-minute scramble for life jackets.
