World in brief: Two trapped as volcano erupts
Rescuers dug through volcanic debris today to reach two people trapped in an underground emergency shelter when Indonesia’s most volatile volcano erupted, nearly enveloping a village with a searing gas cloud and forcing thousands of residents to flee.
The rescuers had been in touch with the two by cell phone. The bunkers, several of which dot the slopes of Mount Merapi, are typically equipped with water and food.
The eruption Wednesday came just a day after officials lowered the alert level and people returned to the homes around Mount Merapi.
“The situation is … life-threatening,” said Yousana Siagian, head of the government’s Vulcanology and Disaster Mitigation Center, after the alert level for 9,700-foot Mount Merapi was raised to its highest status again and it dumped thick ash on scores of houses.
Jawhar, Somalia
Islamist militias solidify control
Islamist militias Wednesday tightened their hold on southern Somalia, seizing control of a major strategic town and ousting a group of secular warlords in a brief, decisive battle just a week after driving them from Mogadishu.
The nation’s transitional government, based in Baidoa, asked the African Union to deploy peacekeeping troops, but the AU, which supports the government, has not approved the deployment.
The attack on Jawhar, about 60 miles north of Mogadishu, began midmorning. Within hours the warlords’ militias that had dominated the capital for 15 years were fleeing their last stronghold. As many as 19 people may have died in the fighting.
Kandahar, Afghanistan
Bus blast kills at least 10
A bomb hidden on a bus carrying Afghan laborers from a coalition base in southern Afghanistan exploded today, killing 10 and wounding 15, police said.
The attack occurred as the bus was carrying the workers from the Kandahar Airfield, the coalition headquarters in southern Afghanistan.
The blast destroyed the bus and left blood and body parts scattered on a road in downtown Kandahar city, a former Taliban stronghold.
London
Ex-worker admits delivering tarantula
A man admitted Wednesday to delivering a package containing a tarantula to a female co-worker on the same day he handed in his resignation.
Mahlon Hector pleaded guilty in Leicester Magistrates’ Court to delivering a rare Mexican red-kneed tarantula in a box addressed to the colleague at a branch of the Marks & Spencer store in Leicester. At the same time, he handed store bosses his resignation.
The intended recipient, Susan Griffin, was not hurt.
Hector, 22, is to be sentenced later on the charge of sending a letter or other article conveying a threat on March 28. He did not reveal his motive in court.
When workers at the store discovered the tarantula, they alerted the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which took it away.