News in Brief

9 killed in Kerala landslides
Pti, Kochi, India

 
Nine persons died and several others were reported missing as a string of landslides triggered by heavy downpour battered the high range Idukki and adjoining districts of Kerala yesterday.
The Cochin International Airport has been temporarily closed and two flights diverted as the runway got waterlogged. Periyar river and canals are overflowing after the downpour lashed the area since Sunday.

6 pilgrims drown in Nepal river
Afp, Kathmandu

 
Six pilgrims drowned in northeastern Nepal yesterday while trying to cross a rain-swollen river, becoming the latest casualties of heavy monsoon downpours, a local police official said.
The pilgrims were crossing the Kamala River, which flows through Nepal and northern India, after early morning prayers at a nearby Hindu temple, Manohar Jha, a district police official, told AFP.

Blast on Pak train injures 14
Afp, Lahore

 
A bomb exploded on board a passenger train in central Pakistan yesterday, wounding 14 people, officials said, in what the railways minister called "an act of terrorism".
The device on the Shalimar Express from the eastern city of Lahore to Karachi went off as it passed through fields near the town of Toba Tek Singh in Punjab province.