65 miners trapped after explosion

A gas buildup in a northern Mexico coal mine triggered a pre-dawn explosion Sunday, trapping at least 65 coal miners underground with a limited supply of oxygen. Emergency officials were tunneling through the debris to rescue them.

At least eight miners who had been near the mine’s exit when the explosion occurred were rescued and hospitalized with burns and broken bones.

Union and company officials said they believed there were 65 miners trapped throughout the mine near the town of San Juan de Sabinas. Rescue officials had not been able to make contact with the miners.

Juan Rebolledo, vice president of international affairs for the mine’s owner, said oxygen tanks were scattered throughout the mine, but it was impossible to know if the miners had access to them or how long they could survive. Beijing

Chemical spill cuts water supplies

A chemical spill on a river in southern China river has cut water supplies to 28,000 people for at least four days, an official Chinese newspaper said today.

China Daily reported that a power plant on the upper reaches of the Yuexi River in Sichuan province was to blame for the pollution, which prompted environmental officials to suspend water supplies to Guanyin Town since last Wednesday.

Water was being trucked in to residents, the newspaper said.

An employee with a local water supply company noticed the river water had turned yellow Tuesday, the paper said. Tests showed it was polluted with fluoride, nitrogen and phenol.

Navapur, India

Bird flu prompts more slaughters

Health officials and farm workers began slaughtering hundreds of thousands of chickens in western India on Sunday, hoping to prevent the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus.

Europe stepped up its battle against bird flu as the European Union’s top poultry producer, France, grappled with its first reported case of the lethal virus.

European poultry farmers said consumption has fallen and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. Germany ordered some birds killed on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen. The number of deadly cases in Italy rose to 16.

Nepal on Sunday said it was banning imports of all poultry and poultry products from India, while Bangladesh said it would step up surveillance along its border with India to prevent smuggling of birds into the country.

In Egypt, authorities closed the Cairo zoo after six of 83 birds that died there recently tested positive for the H5N1 strain.

NEW YORK

Indictments likely in body parts ring

Indictments of the alleged leaders of a lucrative stolen body parts ring are being prepared as a Brooklyn grand jury completes its investigation, the New York Daily News has learned.

Michael Mastromarino and Joseph Nicelli, 49, will face hundreds of counts of fraud, forgery, filing false documents and other charges, resulting from a nine-month probe by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, sources said.

Mastromarino, 44, a former dentist from Fort Lee, N.J., personally carved up corpses, surgically removing bone and valuable tissue, sources said.

The scheme allegedly involved paying funeral home directors and medical examiners $1,000 per corpse, then selling the body parts on the growing billion-dollar-a-year market for cadaver transplants.

Mastromarino allegedly forged documents so body parts could be sold.

Compiled from wire reports