Briefly

BRAZIL

Heavy rains kill 36;cities cancel Carnival

Heavy rains caused flooding and landslides that have killed 36 people in Brazil's north Sao Paulo state, officials said on Sunday, and the fatalities could rise. The Sao Paulo government said in a statement that 35 died in the city of Sao Sebastiao and a 7-year-old girl was killed in neighboring Ubatuba. Another 228 people were left homeless and 338 were evacuated in the coastal region north of the city of Sao Paulo, the government said earlier, as rescue crews raced to help those hit by the storm. The cities of Sao Sebastiao, Ubatuba, Ilhabela and Bertioga, some of the hardest hit and now in a state of calamity, canceled their Carnival festivities as rescue teams struggle to find the missing and injured in the rubble.

DPRK

Rocket shells fired in warning over drills

The armed forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea conducted a multiple-rocket launching drill on Monday morning, the official Korean Central News Agency reported, in response to the combined air drill of the United States and the Republic of Korea a day earlier. The multiple-rocket launcher was lauded as "the latest type of multiple launch precision attack weapon system" and "a tactical nuclear attack means" assigned to destroy enemy operational airfields, the report said. The state media also said the two allies have already staged combined air drills several times this year alone, adding fuel to the simmering tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

PAKISTAN

Overnight bus crash claims 14 lives

A speeding passenger bus crashed off a motorway and overturned in eastern Pakistan, killing 14 passengers and injuring 63 others, police and government officials said on Monday. The crash happened overnight near the town of Kallar Kahar in Punjab province, said Quratulain Malik, a deputy commissioner. She said all the dead and injured had been moved to a hospital. She provided no further details, and police said they were still investigating the cause.

Agencies - Xinhua