TOKYO: A powerful earthquake rocked Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido early Thursday, triggering landslides that crushed homes, knocking out power across the island, and forcing a nuclear power plant to switch to a backup generator.
The magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck southern Hokkaido at 3:08 a.m. at the depth of 40 kilometers (24 miles), Japan’s Meteorological Agency said. The epicenter was east of the city of Tomakomai but the shaking also affected Hokkaido’s prefectural capital of Sapporo, with a population of 1.9 million.
The Japanese national broadcaster NHK, citing its own tally, reported that 125 people were injured and about 20 were feared missing. Hokkaido’s local disaster agency put the number of injured at 48.
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said a man was found without vital signs in Tomakomai, but his status was unclear. Several people were reported missing in the nearby town of Atsuma, where a massive landslide engulfed homes.
Reconstruction Minister Jiro Akama told reporters that five people were believed to be buried in the town’s Yoshino district. Some of the 40 people stranded there were airlifted to safer grounds, NHK said.
Aerial views showed dozens of landslides in the surrounding area, with practically every mountainside a raw slash of brown amid deep green forest.
Airports and many roads on the island were closed following the early morning quake.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that 25,000 troops and other personnel were being dispatched to the area to help with rescue operations.
National broadcaster NHK showed the moment the quake struck the city of Muroran, with its camera violently shaking and all city lights going black moment later. In Sapporo, a mudslide on a road left several cars half buried.
Power was knocked out for Hokkaido’s 2.9 million households. Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko told reporters that the extensive power outage was caused by an emergency shutdown of the main thermal power plant that supplies half of Hokkaido’s electricity.
Utility officials were starting up hydroelectric plants, Seko said, adding that he hoped to get power back “within a few hours.” In the meantime, authorities sent power-generator vehicles to hospitals so enable them to treat emergency patients, he said.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that the authorities were doing their utmost to rescue and assess damage after receiving hundreds of calls about people missing and buildings collapsing.
The central government set up a crisis management taskforce at the prime minister’s office.
Three reactors at the Tomari nuclear plant were offline for routine safety checks, but they are running on backup generators that kicked in after losing external power because of the island-wide blackouts, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said. Spent fuel in storage pools was safely cooled on backup power that can last for a week, the agency said.
The powerful earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 that hit northeast Japan destroyed both external and backup power to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, causing meltdowns.
20 feared missing as earthquake in northern Japan causes landslides
20 feared missing as earthquake in northern Japan causes landslides
- The magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck southern Hokkaido at 3:08 a.m.
- 25,000 troops and other personnel were being dispatched to the area to help with rescue operations
Building fire kills 17, injures others in southern India
- Fires are common in India, where building laws and safety norms are often flouted by builders and residents
HYDERABAD, India: At least 17 people were killed and several injured in a fire that broke out at a building near the historic Charminar monument in southern Hyderabad city, officials said Sunday.
Several people were found unconscious and rushed to various hospitals, according to local media. They said the building housed a jewelry store at ground level and residential space above.
“The accident happened due to a short circuit and many people have died,” federal minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader G Kishan Reddy told reporters at the site of the accident.
Director general of Telangana fire services Y Nagi Reddy told reporters that 21 people were in the three-story building when the fire started on the ground floor early on Sunday.
“17 people, who were shifted to the hospital in an unconscious state, could not survive. The staircase was very narrow, which made escape difficult. There was only one exit, and the fire had blocked it,” he said.
The fire was brought under control.
Prime minister Narendra Modi announced financial compensation for the victims’ families and said in a post on X that he was “deeply anguished by the loss of lives.”
Fires are common in India, where building laws and safety norms are often flouted by builders and residents.
Rawdah Mohamed walks the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival
DUBAI: Somali Norwegian model Rawdah Mohamed walked the red carpet at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in France on Saturday night.
The model showed off a blush pink-toned look, complete with a drop waist, on the red carpet ahead of the premiere of “Die, My Love.”
The film is an adaptation of the 2017 novel of the same name by Ariana Harwicz about a new mother who develops postpartum depression and enters psychosis. “Die, My Love,” starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, earned a six-minute standing ovation from the audience at Cannes.
Directed by acclaimed Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, the film has been hailed by critics, with Deadline calling it a “brutal but beautiful portrait of a woman on the edge.”
Visibly teary eyed during the standing ovation, Ramsay addressed the crowd, saying: “Wow. I’m so overwhelmed. Thanks to these amazing actors. I’ve got to get it together — I’ll see you in a minute.”
Joining Lawrence and Pattinson in the cast are LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek, and Nick Nolte.
Mohamed watched the film one day after appearing on the red carpet for the “Eddington” on Friday.
On Friday, she wore a look by Chinese couture label Cheney Chan. The gown hailed from the label’s Fall/ Winter 2024 collection.
A self-taught fashion designer, Chan was born and raised in the Jiangsu province.
“Growing up, my parents always wanted me to be a pilot,” he previously shared with Vogue Singapore. “I had cleared all the flying tests effortlessly back in high school, but it was unfortunately not where my heart lay.” Eventually, he gained a fashion media degree at Peking University before starting his eponymous label in 2012.
The label has previously been flaunted by the likes if US singer Kelly Roland and actress Anya Taylor-Joy.
Mohamed finished off her look with a matching hijab and bejeweled brooch.
The rising star has attended the Cannes Film Festival before, in 2023 and 2024, and is fast making a name for herself as one to watch in the fashion industry.
She has worked with brands like Boss and H&M and walked the runway during Roberto Cavalli’s show in Dubai in 2024.
Israeli strikes across Gaza overnight kill at least 103 people, hospitals and medics say
- Israel has intensified its war in the territory that, after more than 19 months, shows no signs of abating
- ore than 48 people were killed in airstrikes in and around the southern city of Khan Younis
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 103 people overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics in the battered enclave said, as Israel intensifies its war in the territory that, after more than 19 months, shows no signs of abating.
More than 48 people were killed in airstrikes in and around the southern city of Khan Younis, some of which hit houses and tents sheltering displaced people, according to Nasser Hospital. Among the dead were 18 children and 13 women, hospital spokesperson Weam Fares said.
In northern Gaza, a strike on a home in the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp killed nine people from a single family, according to the Gaza health ministry's emergency services. Another strike on a family's residence, also in Jabaliya, killed 10, including seven children and a woman, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the overnight strikes. Israel blames civilian casualties from its operations on Hamas because the militant group operates from civilian areas.
The bloodshed comes as Israel ramps up its war in Gaza with a new offensive named “Gideon's Chariots,” in which Israel says it plans to seize territory, displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Gaza's south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.
Israel's new offensive
Israel says the new plan is meant to ramp up pressure on the militant Hamas group to agree to a temporary ceasefire on Israel's terms — one that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza but wouldn't necessarily end the war. Hamas says it wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a pathway to ending the war as part of any new ceasefire deal.
Israel had said it would wait until the end of US President Donald Trump's visit to the region before launching its new offensive, saying it was giving a chance for efforts to bring about a new ceasefire deal. And while teams are still negotiating a potential truce in the Qatari capital Doha, there appears to have been no breakthrough. Trump did not visit Israel on his trip, which wrapped up on Friday.
Israel shattered a previous 8-week ceasefire in mid-March, launching fierce airstrike that killed hundreds. Days before the end of that ceasefire, Israel also halted all imports into Gaza, including food, medicine and fuel, deepening a humanitarian crisis and sparking warnings of an increasing risk of famine in the territory — a blockade that continues.
Israel says that move is also meant to pressure Hamas.
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Strikes pound Gaza
In northern Gaza, parts of which have been flattened by Israel's onslaught, at least 43 people were killed in multiple strikes, according to first responders from the health ministry and the civil defense. Gaza City's Shifa Hospital said among the dead, 15 were children and 12 were women.
In Jabaliya, a built-up refugee camp in northern Gaza, 10 people, including seven children and a woman were killed, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government. Among the dead were two parents and their three children and a father and his four children, it said.
In central Gaza, at least 12 people were killed in three separate strikes, hospitals said. One strike in the Zweida town killed seven people, including two children and four women, according to according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah. The second hit an apartment in Deir al-Balah, killing two parents and their child, the hospital said. In Nuseirat camp, a strike hit a house and killed two people, said the camp’s Awda hospital,
Nasser Hospital said it struggled to count the dead because of the condition the bodies were brought in.
Adidas, Puma family feud to be turned into TV series
CANNES: The bitter brotherly feud that sparked the creation of sports-shoe brands Adidas and Puma in the same small German town in the 1940s is to be turned into a television series with the help of family archives, its producers announced Sunday.
Hollywood-based film producer No Fat Ego is backing the project, which has the blessing of the family behind the Adidas empire founded by Adolf “Adi” Dassler.
It will delve into one of the most fascinating fraternal blow-ups in corporate history, which pitted Adi against his brother Rudolf (“Rudi“) who went on to create rival Puma.
The two men jointly ran a family-owned footwear company before falling out during World War II, with their post-conflict animus splitting their town of Herzogenaurach to this day.
Scriptwriter Mark Williams, behind the hit Netflix series “Ozark,” has been hired to lead the project and is currently going through Dassler family home videos and memorabilia to work on the story.
“Everybody knows the brands, but the story behind them is something we don’t really fully know,” Williams told AFP at the Cannes film festival.
One of the most sensitive areas — particularly for the reputations of the multi-billion-dollar footwear companies today — will be how the brothers are portrayed during the war period.
Both became members of the Nazi party in the 1930s, as was customary for the business elite at the time.
Rudi went to fight, however, and was arrested by Allied forces on his return to a defeated Germany.
“Adi stayed home and tried to keep the company alive,” Williams added.
Their factory was seized as part of the war effort and converted into a munitions plant.
The series promises to be a “Succession-type drama between the family” set over several generations, Williams explained, comparing it to the earlier hit HBO series.
The head of No Fat Ego, Niels Juul, who has produced Martin Scorsese’s most recent movies, said he was originally drawn to the story after learning about Adidas’s collaboration with legendary black American runner Jesse Owens.
Partly thanks to Adidas’s innovative spiked shoes, Owens became one of the stars of the 1936 Berlin Olympics which Hitler had hoped would showcase white German supremacy.
No Fat Ego intends to develop the series with full editorial independence before offering it to streaming platforms.
“We want to have the creative control, and Mark has to have absolute silence and quiet to do what he does,” Juul told AFP.
Palestinian Film Institute amplifies local stories at Cannes
DUBAI: The Palestinian Film Institute is making a resounding statement at the Cannes Film Festival with its largest presence to date under the banner #HereThereAndForever.
This year’s Pavilion Program spans a range of activities including exhibitions, screenings, producer talks, and intimate meet-and-greet sessions, reflecting a commitment to amplifying Palestinian voices on the global stage.
“We’re not celebrating being in Cannes,” PFI programmer Mohanad Yaqubi said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “There’s nothing to celebrate for us … it’s really about orienting the narrative surrounding Palestinian cinema and Palestinian stories through the filmmakers themselves.
“We feel the responsibility, and it’s very hard,” he said. “Some of our members actually have families in Gaza now, and they are here in Cannes. It’s uncomfortable, but this is not an industry only for rich people. We have to make that industry accommodate us and our needs as an oppressed and underrepresented (group).”
A major highlight of the program is the official launch of the PFI Film Fund. According to Yaqubi, the fund represents a dream long in the making. “The aim for the first three rounds is to fund or support four to six projects in different formats, at least, to give them a base so that they can start working,” he said.
In addition, PFI is hosting a special spotlight session on Palestinian producers, as well as a reception featuring filmmakers Arab and Tarzan Nasser, whose film “Once Upon a Time in Gaza” is part of the Un Certain Regard lineup. Another notable event is the screening and reception for “From Ground Zero,” an initiative spearheaded by filmmaker Rashid Masharawi. The anthology film is a collection of eight short documentaries and two feature-length films by 22 Palestinian directors, each offering raw glimpses into life under airstrikes in Gaza.
With four Palestinian producers participating in the Producers’ Network, Yaqubi encouraged attendees to explore their slates, which he described as “the upcoming Palestinian films and narratives that need to be supported.”
Yaqubi’s aims are clear. “We hope to be here every year,” he said. “The presence is important, and to stay away won’t make a change. We have to dip our toes in the cold water and change things.”
