…As India dust storms kill More than 125 …and storms continue***
Guyana’s President David Granger has described as a “massacre” a pirate attack last week that is feared to have killed at least a dozen fishermen.
“It is a great massacre, a great tragedy,” Mr Granger said on Thursday.
Four boats carrying some 20 people were attacked off the coast of neighbouring Suriname in South America last Friday, local authorities said.
The bodies of three men have since been found. Four others were said to have escaped, Reuters news agency reported.
Some of the fishermen who remain missing were forced into the sea with weights tied to their legs, according to reports from the survivors.
The men, most of them Guyanese, were beaten and robbed.
Mr Granger told reporters on Thursday that Guyana had been “very successful” in curbing piracy in the region but that the latest deadly attacks had “come as a great setback”.
“We extend sympathy to the families of the bereaved,” he added.
Search and rescue teams are continuing operations in the region, with Surinamese and Guyanese authorities working together, Mr Granger said.
The families of the victims were told that they would be supported by the government.
Piracy has long been an issue in the waters off Suriname and Guyana, although the number of incidents reported has reduced in recent years.
Meanwhile, at least 125 people are now reported to have died in fierce dust storms in northern India, with officials warning of more bad weather to come.
High-speed winds and lightning have devastated many villages, brought down walls and left scores injured.
A spokesperson for the Uttar Pradesh relief commissioner’s office told AFP the death toll was the highest from such storms in at least 20 years.
Officials have said the death toll could rise over the coming days.
“People should be alert,” the relief commissioner’s office told AFP.
In the two states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the storm has brought down electricity, uprooted trees, destroyed houses and killed livestock.
The district of Agra in Uttar Pradesh, home of the Taj Mahal monument, was one of the areas worst hit.
The storms also affected three districts in neighbouring Rajasthan state – Alwar, Bharatpur and Dholpur.
Many of the dead were sleeping indoors when their houses collapsed after being struck by lightning or gusts of wind.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter that he was saddened by the loss of life.
The Uttar Pradesh government announced that families of those who died would receive 400,000 rupees ($6,000; £4,400) as compensation.
The southern state of Andhra Pradesh, meanwhile was also hit by storms on Wednesday, also resulting in many deaths.
Authorities said they have been shocked by the ferocity of the storms.
“I’ve been in office for 20 years and this is the worst I’ve seen,” Hemant Gera, secretary for disaster management and relief in Rajasthan, told the BBC.
“We had a high intensity dust storm on 11 April – 19 people died then – but this time it struck during the night so many people sleeping and couldn’t get out of their houses when mud walls collapsed.”
BBC
