Meteorite Hits Cambodia, Sparks Fires and Prayers

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Reuters News Article

Meteorite Hits Cambodia, Sparks Fires and Prayers
Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:38 AM ET

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - A 10 pound meteorite which landed in a former Khmer Rouge zone of northwest Cambodia started fires across rice fields and prayers from villagers who saw it as a divine omen of peace.

"Some farmers are angry with the rock because it caused fires and destroyed several hundred hectares of their paddy fields," said Sok Sareth, police chief of Banteay Meanchey province, around 200 miles northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh.

"But others asked the police to leave it where it landed and put it on shrine to pray for peace," he told Reuters on Wednesday.

The black lump of celestial rock sent villagers scurrying for cover when it thumped into the ground in the war-scarred southeast Asian nation on Monday morning.

"It made a noise like a bomb exploding," Sok Sareth said. "It's a good thing it didn't land in the village or people could have been killed."

Pictures of the meteorite were splashed across newspapers in the capital, but the item itself has been carried away by police pending scientific analysis.

Initial investigations by explosives experts still clearing the bombs and mines left behind from Cambodia's years of civil war against Pol Pot's guerrillas have not yielded many results.

"I asked my friend who works as deminer, but he has no idea what the rock is," Sok Sareth said.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The teen's gun jammed - that was Jesus. Thank you Jesus.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Ga. store turns into site of shootout

By ELIOTT C. MCLAUGHLIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

ATLANTA -- When two men walked into a popular country store outside Atlanta, announced a holdup and fired a shot, owners Bobby and Gloria Doster never hesitated. The pair pulled out their own pistols and opened fire.

The armed suspect and his partner were killed. The Dosters won't be charged, according to local officials, because they were acting in self-defense.

"I just started shooting," said Gloria Doster, 56. "I was trying to blow his brains out is what I was trying to do."

Shoats Grocery & Package near Crawford, 70 miles east of Atlanta, is a well-known spot where locals stop for breakfast biscuits or lunch. Gloria Doster said the two men who came there Monday had something else in mind.

She was rearranging boxes of soda by the store's front door when a man wearing a wig walked inside, the fake hair draped in front of his face.

"I asked him, 'Can you see to walk?'" Doster said. Then she noticed a second man behind him wearing a mask. He announced a holdup.

One man grabbed Gloria Doster and pushed her toward the register. She said the other kept his gun on her 62-year-old husband, who also goes by the name Shoats.

She tried to open the register, but one of the men told her she wasn't moving fast enough and tried to shoot her husband. He missed - and his gun jammed.

At that point, Bobby Doster pulled out a .380-caliber handgun and shot one of the suspects. Gloria Doster then went for a 9 mm pistol she keeps near the register.

"All hell broke loose," she said. "I was trying to shoot and dial 911 at the same time."

Both suspects took cover behind the store's meat counter as the Dosters opened fire. Gloria Doster said she doesn't know how many bullets were fired, or how many times the suspects were hit.

Police arrived about five minutes after receiving Gloria Doster's call; the suspects died a short time later at a hospital.

The bloodshed, nevertheless, startled Gloria Doster, who has been around guns all her life, and has used them for target shooting. "But I never figured I'd have to use them on anybody," she said.

She said the worst thing that's happened in the seven years the couple has owned the store was an after-hours break-in by teenagers three years ago. The burglars were promptly arrested.

At least 175 killed, 700 hurt in packed Argentina nightclub - Thank you Jesus!

Boston.com / News / World / Latin America/Caribbean / Fire, a crush, a locked main exit

"Fire, a crush, a locked main exit
At least 175 killed, 700 hurt in packed Argentina nightclub"

BUENOS AIRES -- The last thing Dario Gonzalez saw clearly was three blazing flares that shot toward the ceiling of the crowded nightclub.

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The next 30 minutes unfolded in a chaotic, suffocating fog, he recounted. Black smoke obscured his vision, burning fragments of the ceiling scorched the skin of his forearm, and bodies crushed against him from all sides.

Gonzalez, 22, was among those fortunate enough to escape alive from the Republica Cromagnon club in Buenos Aires on Thursday night, when a fire during a jammed indoor rock concert killed at least 175 and injured 700. Yesterday, he was among the thousands who held grim vigils at hospitals, morgues, and municipal offices, hoping to get information about friends and relatives who were missing.

Witnesses said the blaze began after concertgoers set off fireworks inside the two-level club, igniting the ceiling and triggering a stampede as people confronted a locked main exit door while they struggled to flee. Officials said yesterday that the door had been wired shut by club staff to prevent people from entering without tickets.

''I don't know how I got out . . . the door was on fire," said Gonzalez, tattooed and dressed in shorts. Of the friends who attended the show with him, he said, one was confirmed dead and two others were missing. ''What kind of jerk would throw a flare and ignite the whole place?" he asked.

The fire itself was relatively minor, officials said, and it was extinguished quickly. Smoke inhalation and the crush of people at the locked exit were blamed for most of the fatalities and injuries, said Daniel Rosso, a spokesman for the Buenos Aires city government. Rosso said the final number of dead could rise because more than 100 people remained in critical condition.

About 11 p.m. Thursday, soot-covered rescue workers began carrying scores of unconscious victims out of the building, laying them along a sidewalk before reentering the building to retrieve more. Yesterday morning, the street in front of the club, in the Once neighborhood, was littered with unclaimed shoes, blackened tatters of clothing, and broken glass.

Gonzalez and other witnesses said many of the victims were teenagers and children, who had paid the equivalent of about $5 to see a local rock band, Los Callejeros. One of the club's bathrooms, they said, had been converted into a makeshift day-care center, where young children waited while their parents watched the show. Officials said yesterday that they could not confirm how many of those killed were children.

''The band is new, and a lot of young kids like them," said Perla Burgos, 14, who was searching for her 17-year-old cousin yesterday afternoon.

Juan Ledesma, 23, who worked at the club cleaning bathrooms, took his wife and baby daughter to the concert -- then lost them in the dark inferno. After escaping from the building, he spent the night searching for them in vain. Yesterday afternoon, he stood outside a city morgue, awaiting his turn to view photos of the bodies inside.

Both of his hands and forearms were bandaged with dirty gauze applied at a hospital in the early morning. ''In one second, it was full of smoke and the lights went out," said Ledesma, who described fighting his way out with his shirt tied around his face against the dense smoke. ''I couldn't see them anymore."

City officials estimated that 4,000 people had been squeezed into the club, which measured about 16,000 square feet. Ledesma said he saw the club owner having drinks at the bar before the concert. News reports yesterday afternoon said the owner had been arrested.

Some of those waiting at morgues and hospitals lashed out at the owner and criticized the city government for lax enforcement of fire codes. But others said it was too early to assign blame.

Thank You Jesus!