In brief: Quakes, aftershocks rattle Christchurch
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Nineteen people were injured when two major earthquakes and a swarm of aftershocks hit New Zealand’s second-largest city, Christchurch, on Friday, news reports said.
Most of the injuries suffered in a magnitude 5.8 tremor followed by a magnitude 6, were minor, an ambulance official told Radio New Zealand.
Police said a number of buildings in the central city, where 181 people died in a magnitude 6.3 quake in February, had collapsed and holes had appeared in some roads.
Most of the city center, where 900 buildings were damaged too badly to be re-occupied in February’s quake, was evacuated, including shopping malls.
The city’s airport was closed and 40 international and domestic flights diverted while the runways were checked.
At least 26,000 homes were reported to be without power and reports said there was extensive flooding from liquefaction as the ground turned to slimy mud in several suburbs.
Shell estimates oil spill at 1.7 million gallons
LAGOS, Nigeria – An oil spill near the coast of Nigeria is likely the worst to hit those waters in a decade, a government official said Thursday, as slicks from the Royal Dutch Shell PLC spill approached the country’s southern shoreline.
The slick from Shell’s Bonga field has affected 115 miles of ocean near Nigeria’s coast, Peter Idabor, who leads the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, told the Associated Press. Idabor said the slick continued to move toward the shore Thursday night, putting at risk birds, fish and other wildlife in the area.
Shell, the major oil producer in Nigeria, said late Thursday the spill came from a “flexible export line” connecting the offshore field to a waiting tanker. The company published photographs of the spill, showing a telltale rainbow sheen in the ocean, but said it believes that about 50 percent of the leaked oil has already evaporated.
The source of the leak has been plugged.
Shell estimates the Bonga spill likely was less than 40,000 barrels, or 1.68 million gallons. That’s about the same amount of oil spilled offshore in 1998 at a Mobil field. The 1998 spill saw oil slicks extended for more than 100 miles to Lagos, the country’s commercial capital.
Shell said its Nigerian subsidiary already had sent ships out to the slick to use dispersant on the oil sheen.
Gunmen attack buses; seven passengers killed
VERACRUZ, Mexico – A group of gunmen attacked three passenger buses in Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Veracruz on Thursday, killing seven passengers in what authorities said appeared to be a violent robbery spree.
The Defense Department said in a statement that soldiers chased the five assailants and returned fire when they were “attacked,” killing all of the gunmen.
The army said the gunmen, who were carrying rifles, started the attacks in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, killing three people who were loading vegetables into a truck in the town of El Higo, in northern Veracruz. In the same town, they tossed a grenade that killed another person.
Later, the gunmen went to a nearby highway, stopped and robbed a bus and killed two of the passengers aboard, according to the army statement. They later stopped another bus and sprayed it with gunfire, killing four passengers. When the driver of a third bus stopped and got off to see what was happening, they killed him too.
Spanish villagers win $3.3 billion lottery
MADRID – The world’s biggest lottery on Thursday showered prizes worth $3.3 billion on Spaniards, with the jackpot going to a small farming village.
The Christmas lottery awarded 180 jackpots, known as El Gordo (The Fat One), each worth $5.2 million.
The series of 180 tickets carrying the winning number 58268 was sold entirely in Granen, a village of nearly 2,000 residents in northern Huesca province.
“I am very happy. Everyone is on the streets, uncorking bottles of champagne,” said Jose Coll, 73, who won $260,000.
It is rare for anyone to win the entire jackpot, because most people only buy fractions of a ticket, which each cost a hefty $260.
The lottery is also known in other European countries and as far as Asia, where people buy tickets over the Internet.