- As Death Toll in Taiwan Quake Rises to 113
Possible locations of the abducted Chibok school girls may have been identified by the Nigerian Air Force ,according to indications last night.
The Director of Public Relations of the Air Force, Group Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa, told Channels Television that the force has therefore abstained from attacking the identified areas to avoid hitting the girls.
The latest aerial bombardment of Sambisa forest,Famuyiwa said, had been aimed at the logistics base of the Boko Haram sect and not areas where the Chibok girls could be located.
He said:“We have no fears that the girls are not there because hat particular location has been under surveillance for quite a while and we suspected maybe it’s a kind of ammunition depot or maybe a workshop that they are using as their logistics place.
“Once you take off the logistics base, of course you gradually weaken the resolve of the enemy to be able to prosecute any campaign.”
Group Captain Famuyiwa said the military is deploying the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to maximum use in its battle with Boko Haram because it is cheaper to run and reduces lives.
The UAVs,he said : “have the capability to be airborne for up to eleven hours and they are quite cheap to maintain. So, we have been able to employ the UAV to a great extent to carry out reconnaissance and surveillance basically for intelligence gathering on the activities of the Boko Haram.”
He said that the UAVs have also helped the Air Force to understand the terrorists’ pattern of movement and “how to be able to counter them should they want to strike or spring any surprise”.
The girls were abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School,Chibok,Borno State.
Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo said last week that the girls may never be found again.
In the meantime, rescuers have pulled out 113 dead a week since a powerful earthquake struck Taiwan’s oldest city of Tainan, leaving only four missing in the rubble of a collapsed 17-story residential complex, authorities said Saturday.
All but two of the dead were found at the ruins of the collapsed Weiguan Golden Dragon residential complex, which toppled when the 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck last Saturday during the Lunar New Year holiday.
A total of 327 people in the building survived.
According to Taiwan’s Interior Ministry, workers extracted scores more bodies on Friday and Saturday morning. Four are still listed as missing.
Authorities have detained the building’s developer Lin Ming-hui and two architects this week on suspicion of negligent homicide amid accusations his firm cut corners in the construction.
Tainan city officials said they will inspect several dozen other developments built by Lin, as well as other buildings in the Weiguan compound that did not collapse.
Earthquakes frequently strike Taiwan, but usually cause little or no damage, particularly since more stringent building regulations were introduced following a magnitude-7.6 quake in 1999 that killed more than 2,300.
Nation with additional report from NBC
