explosion – praag.org

Ghana death toll rises to 90

An explosion at a petrol station in Ghana’s capital killed around 90 people sheltering from a storm early on Thursday, emergency services said, in the worst disaster to strike the West African state in more than a decade.

The force of the blast gave few a chance to escape. People were burned beyond recognition where they stood under the station’s awning, or trapped in the charred wreckage of cars and minivans parked on its forecourt.

The accident was caused by a fire at a nearby lorry terminal. Flames spread to the state-run GOIL petrol station via spilt fuel floating on flood water, fire brigade spokesman Prince Billy Anaglate said.

“It was an explosive fire and so the people sheltering at the filling station did not have an opportunity to escape,” Anaglate said.

It was Ghana’s worst disaster since more than 120 people died in May 2001 in a stampede at the national stadium during a football match, a police spokesman said.

The incident exposed Accra’s vulnerability to storms, given poor drainage and weak infrastructure that has failed to keep pace with population growth after years of rapid economic expansion.

Ghana’s meteorological service forecast more rain on Thursday.

Source: AFP

Palestinian ambassador to Prague killed in explosion

Jamal al-Jamal, the Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic, died Wednesday after an explosion went off in his Prague residence.

“There has been a detonation of a so far unidentified explosive mixture,” a police spokeswoman said. “The ambassador was … taken to hospital with serious injuries.”

Al-Jamal died shortly after arriving at the hospital. Dr Daniel Langer, who works there, told public television that al-Jamal had suffered serious abdominal injuries, as well as injuries to his chest and head.

The cause of the explosion is not yet known and Czech officials said it may have been the result of an accident.

Czech police said the ambassador died of his injuries in hospital after the explosion on the morning of New Year’s Day in the two-storey suburban residence. No one else was injured, police said, although Jamal’s family was at home at the time.

The safe was recently moved from the old embassy building, but it had come from a building that used to house the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s offices in the 1980s.

Malki told The Associated Press news agency: “The ambassador wanted to know what is in the safe. He opened it and asked his wife to bring a paper and a pen to write down the contents of the safe. She left him to bring (the) pen and paper. During that time, she heard the sound of an explosion.”

Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it would send a delegation to Prague “to help with the investigation”.

Al-Jamal was born in 1957, in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp. His family is originally from Jaffa in what is now Israel.

He joined Fatah in 1975 and was appointed deputy ambassador in Bulgaria in 1979.

Starting in 1984, he served as a diplomat in Prague, eventually as acting ambassador. From 2005-2013, he served as consul general in Alexandria, Egypt. In October 2013, he was appointed ambassador in Prague.

At least 14 dead in Egyptian car bomb explosion

Scene of the explosion at Mansoura, north of Cairo

At least 14 people are believed to have died in a large explosion that destroyed a police headquarters in a Nile Delta city north of Cairo early Tuesday morning, according to the state news agency and a security official. Some 200 people were injured in the blast.

The Egyptian government accused the Muslim Brotherhood of orchestrating the attack. Cabinet spokesman Sherief Shawki said Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi had officially declared the group a terrorist organisation.

The Muslim Brotherhood, however, condemned the attack in an emailed statement from the group’s London press office released hours after the explosion.

“The Muslim Brotherhood condemns in the strongest possible terms the attack on the police headquarters in Mansoura (region),” the statement said.

“The Muslim Brotherhood considers this act as a direct attack on the unity of the Egyptian people and demands an enquiry forthwith so that the perpetrators of this crime may be brought to justice.”

Among the injured from the blast at Daqahliya security headquarters in the Nile Delta province of Mansour, was the police chief of the province General Sami al-Meih.

Most of those killed were policemen inside the security headquarters. Many bodies are still believed to be buried under the debris and the death toll is expected to rise, the official said.

An initial investigation indicated that the explosion was the result of a car bomb.

The attack came a day after an Al-Qaida-inspired group called on police and army to desert or face death at the hands of its fighters.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or the Champions of Jerusalem, said it considers Egyptian troops to be infidels because they answer to the secular-leaning, military-backed government.

The group and others based in the Sinai have been blamed for a surge of attacks against security forces since the July coup that toppled the country’s Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi. In response, Egypt’s armed forces launched a military offensive against militants in the Northern Sinai province in August.

Speaking at a public forum on Monday, military spokesman Ahmed Mohammed Ali said so far the operations have resulted in the killing of 184 militants and the arrest of 803 others. He said about 25 percent of those killed and arrested are foreign fighters, but didn’t provide further details.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis is believed to have ties with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, and officials have said other foreign militants have found refuge in Sinai during the ongoing turmoil. – AP, Reuters, dpa

Explosion on Radovan Krejcir’s property in Bedfordview

Two people were killed and five others injured when a bomb exploded in Bedfordview near the Eastgate shopping mall on Tuesday, police said.

Police were still combing the scene late on Tuesday night at the the property of Czech businesmen Radovan Krejcir where the bomb blast occured.

Forensic experts late in the evening told Sapa that the roof of the building had collapsed due to the magnitude of the blast.

A forensic expect who cannot be named said they were still trying to establish what kind of explosive was used.

“We still have to figure out what kind of bomb it was and the type of components it had.”

The injured were taken to Bedford Gardens hospital.

The bodies of the dead were still inside the building after 12 at night and were expected to be removed in the early hours of Wednesday.

The explosion took place on the corner of Bradford and Nicol Roads, with the intersection closed off to traffic and cordoned off by police.

In July, Krejcir was the target of an apparent bid to kill him outside his Bedfordview office.

“It is alleged that he [Krejcir] arrived at the premises and parked his vehicle,” police spokesman Lt-Col Lungelo Dlamini said at the time.

“As he was leaving the parking spot, an explosive device was detonated from the back of a vehicle, a VW Polo, parked opposite his vehicle.”

Krejcir escaped unharmed. The blast, in the parking lot of the Money Point gold and diamond exchange’s head office, on the corner of Nicol and Bradford Roads, Bedfordview, left several holes in Krejcir’s car.

The VW Polo was stolen in Brixton, Johannesburg, in April.

Krejcir said he heard noises, like bullets being fired, from a car he parked next to.

“I managed to get away and saved my life… someone out there tried to kill me,” Krejcir told Sapa at the time.

About three weeks earlier, Krejcir’s Bedfordview business was broken into and jewellery worth R3 million was stolen.

“It is on the same premises where an attempt to kill him was executed. On July 3, unknown suspects broke into the premises through the roof, cut open a safe, and stole jewellery worth approximately R3 million,” Dlamini said at the time. – Sapa

Robbers blow up ATM in Midrand

Robbers blew up an ATM and made off with an undisclosed amount of money in Midrand, Johannesburg police said on Thursday.

Captain Kym Cloete said three armed men held up workers at a petrol station in Noordwyk at around 2.20am.

“They pointed firearms at them and told them to lie down,” said Cloete.

The workers claimed they heard a loud bang outside, which was one of two ATMs being destroyed. The second one was not damaged.

The robbers fled. Cloete said it was not known if more than three robbers were involved.

No one was injured. – Sapa