IN BRIEF (Page 12)

Bangladesh

7 die, 25 hurt in gas pipeline explosion

Seven people were killed and another 25 injured after a gas pipeline exploded in southeastern Bangladesh on Sunday, police said. The explosion at Patharghata area in Chittagong district collapsed portions of a boundary wall of a nearby building, local police chief Mohammed Mohsin said. He said at least 25 people were hospitalized and firefighters joined the rescue operation. It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion. News reports said the road in front of the explosion site was busy with people and tricycle rickshaws. A boundary wall fell on the people on the road. The explosion took place when residents were preparing for the day's work in the morning, Mohsin said. Chittagong is 216 kilometers southeast of the country's capital city of Dhaka.

Syria

At least 15 killed in explosion in Bab city

At least 15 people were killed in an explosion that hit the rebel-held city of al-Bab in northern Syria on Saturday, a war monitor and state news agency SANA reported. SANA said all of the victims were civilians while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine of those killed were civilians and the rest are rebels. The reports said a car bomb ripped through a parking lot in al-Bab, a city that is controlled by the Turkish forces and Turkey-backed rebels in the Aleppo Province in northern Syria. The death toll could likely rise as there are 33 wounded people, some of whom are in critical condition. In February 2017, Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels entered al-Bab, the last stronghold of the Islamic State group.

AP - XINHUA

(China Daily 11/18/2019 page12)