Thousands march again, gas bombs thrown in Hong Kong
Hong Kong: Protesters marching peacefully hit the rain-slickened streets of Hong Kong again in multiple locations on Saturday, defying police warnings that they were gathering illegally.
Police said rioters tossing gasoline bombs also damaged a subway station.
The rallies in Kowloon and a small gathering of retirees outside police headquarters on Hong Kong Island maintained pressure on the city's leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, to bend to the months-long protest movement's demands ahead of her annual policy address on Wednesday.
Many thousands of marchers joined the rally in Kowloon, classified by police as an illegal gathering. A cohort of police wearing riot helmets and banging their plastic shields followed some distance behind, clearing road blocks left by the march.
Outside police headquarters, about 200 people, many of them retirees, also gathered peacefully, some shouting abuse at plainclothes officers who did not intervene.
There were gatherings of several hundred people in other locations, too. A rally in a shopping mall pulled together about 300 people who sang and put up protest posters.
The majority of protesters wore masks over their mouths in defiance of a week-old ban that makes face coverings punishable by one year in jail when worn at rallies.
The police force reported on its Facebook page that rioters tossed gasoline bombs inside a Kowloon subway station, "posing a threat to the safety of citizens" but causing no injuries.
Overall, however, the protests were lower-key and appeared to lack the numbers of some much larger demonstrations seen during the more than four months of unrest that have gripped the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
As recently as last Sunday, tens of thousands of masked protesters had hit Hong Kong's rain-drenched streets.
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Six bodies recovered so far from site of Arunachal accident, many still missing
Itanagar (PTI): Six bodies were retrieved on Friday from the deep gorge in Arunachal Pradesh's Anjaw district, where a mini-truck on which 22 people from Assam were travelling fell, police said.
The operation was initiated by a joint team of the NDRF and Army at the first light of day, Anjaw SP Anurag Dwivedi informed.
"The retrieval process was extremely difficult because of the treacherous terrain. The gorge is very deep," he said.
Eighteen bodies have been spotted at the site, and the search for the remaining three missing would continue after the retrieval of these bodies, he said.
The operation to retrieve the rest of the bodies will resume on Saturday morning, he added.
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All those travelling in the vehicle were labourers from Assam's Tezpur district. The accident happened on the evening of December 8, around 40 km from Hayuliang towards Chaglagam.
On the evening of December 10, one survivor managed to climb out of the gorge and reach a nearby Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) labour camp. The officer commanding the BRTF subsequently alerted the district authorities, officials said.
State Disaster Management Secretary Dani Salu said that, considering the extremely treacherous terrain and unreliable weather, a rescue attempt on the night of December 10 was deemed unsafe.
He said the next day, the Army, BRTF, local police, and district administration launched a full-scale operation to retrieve the bodies.
Salu said the identities of 18 bodies have been established so far.
He said the mini-truck was privately owned, and the labourers were being transported by a private contractor.
"The private contractor has been taken to the police station for questioning," he said.
Mourning the loss of lives in the accident, Chief Minister Pema Khandu lauded the Army, BRO, the NDRF, and the local administration for their swift response to the crisis in such a challenging terrain.
