Monday, September 07, 2009 MANILA: Two people died and more than 800 were rescued as a ferry carrying more than 900 passengers and crew capsized early today before sinking off the southern Philippines, coast guard and police officials said. The Superferry 9, owned by Aboitiz Transport System Corp., listed at about 3:30 a.m. local time at the vicinity of the Zamboanga Peninsula while on its way to the central province of Iloilo from General Santos City in the south, Commander Armando Balilo, the coast guard’s public information officer, said in a telephone interview. The ferry’s captain immediately ordered passengers to abandon ship, he added. Some 830 people have so far been rescued by three onsite rescue vessels, Balilo said. The ship sank at around 8 a.m., Police Chief Superintendent Angelo Sunglao, Zamboanga Peninsula’s police director, said by phone. Authorities are still investigating what happened. The focus is now on getting all the passengers to safety, Caroline Ballesteros, assistant vice president of Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc., Aboitiz Transport’s parent company, said in an e- mailed message.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
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