PARIS – A high school student entered a school in western France’s Nantes with a knife and stabbed at least four students Thursday afternoon, local media reported, citing the police.
One of the victims died from injuries, according to BFMTV, citing multiple sources.
Teachers stopped the attacker before police arrived, BFMTV said, adding that the attacker, a second-year high school student, has been detained.
Speaking at the scene, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said that some 50 investigators have been deployed and worked “tirelessly” since. Over 70 interviews have been conducted, he added.
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou has called for an intensification of controls implemented around and within schools following the attack.
The prosecutor in Nantes is expected to hold a press conference to give more details about the attack on Friday.
JERUSALEM – An Israeli tank driver was killed by sniper fire in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said in a statement on Thursday.
The soldier, who served in the 79th Battalion of the “Machatz” Armored Brigade, was killed “during combat in northern Gaza,” the military said, adding that his family had been notified of his death. The slain soldier’s name has not yet been cleared for publication.
In addition, an officer in the Yahalom Unit and a reservist from the same battalion were severely wounded in the incident and evacuated to a hospital, according to the statement.
Meanwhile, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir warned earlier in the day that Israel would escalate its military campaign in Gaza if Hamas does not release the remaining hostages soon.
“If we do not see progress in the return of the hostages in the near future, we will expand our operations to an even more intense and significant phase,” Zamir said during a tour of Gaza, where he met with ground forces and held a situation assessment with commanders, according to another military statement.
According to Israeli authorities, 59 hostages remain in Gaza, including 58 of the 251 taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel. The IDF has confirmed that at least 35 hostages of those still held are believed to be dead.
KABUL – A total of 1,127 Afghan families with 6,774 people returned to their homeland from neighboring Iran and Pakistan on Wednesday, Afghanistan’s High Commission for Addressing Returnees Problems said in a statement Thursday.
According to the statement, the refugees have repatriated home via the Torkham border crossing in eastern Nangarhar province, the Spin Boldak border crossing in southern Kandahar province, and the Islam Qala border point in western Herat province.
The commission provides temporary shelters, nourishment, water, medical care, and transportation services to their respective provinces for the returnees.
Nearly 2 million Afghans have reportedly returned home from the said countries in the past year. The Pakistani government is set to deport 3 million Afghans to their home country in 2025, while Iranian officials have asked undocumented foreign nationals to put an end to their illegal stay and return to their homes.
About 7 million Afghan refugees, most of whom are undocumented migrants, are currently living abroad, with most living in Afghanistan’s neighboring Pakistan and Iran.
VLADIVOSTOK – Volcanic ashfall from an eruption of Bezymianny Volcano in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula has blanketed three villages in the Milkovo District, local emergency services said on Thursday.
Volcanic ash is currently falling in three villages from emissions from Bezymianny Volcano, the regional branch of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said on its Telegram channel.
“While the livelihoods of residents have not been disrupted, emergency services strongly advise people to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary,” it added.
The Far Eastern Branch of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Russian Academy of Sciences has modeled the projected path of the ash cloud. Their data indicate that volcanic particles are drifting toward another settlement, the village of Kozyrevsk in the Ust-Kamchatsky District.
The Bezymyanny volcano has emitted an ash column for the fifth time in 24 hours, with the latest plume rising 11 km above sea level. As a result, the aviation color code has been raised to “red,” meaning a significant threat to all types of aircraft.
Bezymianny Volcano is situated about 40 km from the village of Klyuchi and 350 km from the regional capital city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
An overnight Russian combined missile and drone attack triggered fires, smashed buildings and buried residents under rubble in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, killing nine people and injuring more than 70, the State Emergency Service said on Thursday.
Six children were reported to be among the injured.
“There has been destruction. The search is continuing for people under rubble,” the State Emergency Service wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The most serious incident was at an apartment building destroyed in the Sviatoshynskyi district west of the city centre.
Pictures posted on Telegram showed rescue teams working with floodlights, moving cautiously through piles of rubble and clambering up ladders extended along the facades of buildings. Police were calling from apartment to apartment to determine whether residents were safe.
Rescue teams, the emergency service said, were operating at 13 sites in the capital with climbing specialists and sniffer dogs. Forty fires had broken out.
“Mobile telephones are heard ringing beneath rubble. The search will continue until it become clear that they have got everyone,” it said.
Fires had broken out in garages, administrative buildings and falling metal fragments had struck vehicles. An air raid alert was in effect in the capital for six hours.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city in the northeast, endured two overnight waves of Russian missiles, injuring two people and smashing windows, Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram.
There was also damage in Zhytomyr region, west of Kyiv, where emergency services said Russian forces launched a repeat strike on rescue teams attending a fire, injuring one worker.
Ukrainian state railway Ukrzaliznytsia said that railway infrastructure had come under attack and two railway workers were hurt.
In Kyiv and Kharkiv regions the shelling damaged track and administrative and technical buildings, but trains were operating normally.
Jackson Rodriguez of Ecuador’s Emelec reacts during a Copa Sudamericana round of 16 second leg soccer match against Argentina’s Defensa y Justicia at the Unico Diego Armando Maradona stadium in La Plata, Argentina, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. AP/File
QUITO, Ecuador – Ecuadorian soccer player Jackson Rodríguez’s wife and 5-year-old child were kidnapped early Wednesday, police reported, when men broke into their home in search of the Emelec defender, who told investigators he hid under a bed.
The kidnappings took place around 3 a.m. in the coastal city of Guayaquil, police chief Édison Rodríguez said.
In his testimony to police, the 26-year-old fullback said he hid under a bed when he heard the front door being broken down, according to the police chief.
The perpetrators took Rodriguez’s wife and child after asking the woman if Rodríguez was at the residence.
According to police, Rodríguez saw at a window “that the individuals were traveling in a gray-colored double-cab pickup truck.”
The incident occurred amid a state of emergency declared 10 days ago by the government in nine areas of the country, including the province of Guayas, to which Guayaquil belongs. The measure allows the mobilization of security forces in those territories to combat the operations of organized crime groups, which authorities blame for the wave of violence.
Insecurity and crime have plagued Ecuador for four years, with an increase in the first few months of the year, according to the government. Between January and March, 2,345 violent deaths were reported, 742 of which occurred in Guayaquil, located 270 kilometers (168 miles) southwest of the capital Quito.
The port city is considered one of the most dangerous areas in the country. From those ports, illegal drug shipments are sent to Europe, Central America, and the United States, according to authorities.
Other athletes have been targeted in the past. In December 2024, soccer player Pedro Perlaza, who played for Liga de Quito also was kidnapped in Esmeraldas, a city located 182 kilometers northwest of Quito, and rescued alive a few days later.
A Russian journalist caught in a Ukrainian artillery strike last month died of his wounds in hospital, his publication said early on Thursday.
Nikita Goldin, who worked for the military’s Zvezda Television, was part of a group that came under attack in a Moscow-controlled part of Luhansk region in northeastern Ukraine on March 24.
Six people died in the strike, including two other journalists and their driver.
Goldin, who also wrote for the military daily Krasnaya Zvezda, was taken to a military hospital in Moscow, but died of his wounds nearly a month after the attack.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting the journalists in the attack.
Data provided earlier in the war by the Committee to Protect Journalists counted at least 15 journalists killed since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Nearly all of the Luhansk region has been captured by Russian forces as Moscow drives to take control of the broader eastern Donbas region, one of Ukraine’s most industrialised areas.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A roof that collapsed at a popular nightclub in the Dominican Republic and killed 232 people this month had filtration problems for decades and had been repeatedly fixed with plasterboard, according to its owner.
Antonio Espaillat, who also serves as manager of the Jet Set nightclub in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo, spoke with local TV station Telesistema on Wednesday in his first interview since the April 8 disaster.
Espaillat told a reporter with El Día news program that employees had added new plasterboard to the roof hours before the collapse.
He noted that plasterboard had fallen repeatedly throughout the years for reasons including water that filtered through the club’s air conditioning units. However, Espaillat said no one ever inspected the roof or water filtrations.
“We always bought plasterboard. Always,” said Espaillat, who spoke in a subdued manner throughout the nearly one-hour interview.
A spokeswoman for Espaillat did not return a message for comment seeking an interview with him.
Espaillat said he learned about the collapse when his sister called him from underneath the debris, trapped along with hundreds of others attending a concert by beloved merengue singer Rubby Pérez, who was among those killed.
“To the families of the victims, I want to say I’m sorry. I’m very sorry,” Espaillat said. “I am completely destroyed.”
‘We were all surprised’
Espaillat said he was 6 years old when his mother founded the legendary club 52 years ago. The club later moved to a space occupied by a shuttered movie theater and remained in that location for 30 years until the collapse.
He said there were six air-conditioning units on the roof, plus three water tanks. An electric plant was installed in an adjacent room, not on the roof, he added.
Every six to eight years, a specialized crew would waterproof the roof, with the last waterproofing done about a month before the collapse, he said.
The heavy woofers that boomed music at Jet Set, known for its merengue parties held every Monday, were on the floor, he said.
Espaillat said if there was something he could have done to avoid the collapse, he would have done it.
“There was no warning, nothing. We were all surprised,” he said.
‘I’m going to face everything’ The Dominican government has created a committee that includes local and international experts tasked with investigating the collapse.
About 515 people were at Jet Set when the roof fell on the crowd, according to Espaillat.
In the 53 hours following the disaster, crews rescued 189 survivors. Dozens of others were hospitalized.
The 232 victims include seven doctors; a retired UN official; former MLB players Octavio Dotel and Tony Enrique Blanco Cabrera; and Nelsy Cruz, the governor of Montecristi province and sister of seven-time Major League Baseball All-Star Nelson Cruz.
At least three lawsuits have been filed. Espaillat, who said he usually attended Jet Set’s Monday merengue parties, was in Las Vegas for a convention when his sister called.
“How can a roof collapse?” he recalled wondering as he flew back to the Dominican Republic.
Espaillat said he did not immediately visit the site upon arriving because officials worried about his safety, noting that people at the scene were angry.
He said he hasn’t slept much since the disaster, and that he has talked to the families of his employees and some of the victim’s relatives.
“I’m going to face everything,” he said.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
An ongoing investigation The investigation into what caused the collapse could take a couple of months and has raised questions about the safety of infrastructure across Santo Domingo and beyond.
There is currently no government agency tasked with inspecting the buildings of private businesses in the Dominican Republic, although President Luis Abinader announced last week that new legislation is expected to change that.
Yamil Castillo, a structural engineer and vice president of the Society of Engineers of Puerto Rico, said water leaks can be extremely damaging and should be taken care of immediately.
Castillo, who is not involved in investigating the collapse, warned that water seeping into the different materials that compose a roof can weigh it down, in addition to whatever else is placed on the roof, including air conditioning units.
Salty air also cause corrosion and roof damage, he said.
“Those leaks should have been fixed,” Castillo said, adding that replacing the plasterboard was not enough.
April 23 – Iran will have to stop enriching uranium under any deal with the United States and could only import what is needed for a civilian nuclear program, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ahead of talks between Tehran and Washington on Saturday.
However, Iran has already made clear that its right to enrich uranium is not negotiable. When asked about Rubio’s comments, a senior Iranian official, close to Iran’s negotiating team, again said on Wednesday “zero enrichment is unacceptable.”
The U.S. is seeking to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb and President Donald Trump has imposed a “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions and threatened to use military force if Iran does not end its nuclear program.
Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon and says its nuclear program is peaceful. U.S. and Iranian officials will meet in Oman on Saturday for a third round of talks on Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.
“There’s a pathway to a civil, peaceful nuclear program if they want one,” Rubio told the “Honestly with Bari Weiss” podcast on Tuesday.
“But if they insist on enriching, then they will be the only country in the world that doesn’t have a ‘weapons program,’ … but is enriching. And so I think that’s problematic,” he said.
U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff last week said Iran does not need to enrich past 3.67% – a remark that raised questions as to whether Washington still wanted Tehran to dismantle its enrichment program.
Witkoff then said a day later that Iran must “stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment.”
Rubio said on Tuesday that Witkoff was initially talking about “the level of enriched material that they would be allowed to import from outside, like multiple countries around the world do for their peaceful civil nuclear programs.”
“If Iran wants a civil nuclear program, they can have one just like many other countries in the world have one, and that is they import enriched material,” he said.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency – has said that Iran is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level.
Western countries say there is no need to enrich uranium to such a high level for civilian uses and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs.
SARAJEVO, April 23 – Bosnia’s state police, SIPA, on Wednesday tried to arrest Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik who is wanted for attacking the constitutional order but were stopped by his armed police forces, a SIPA spokeswoman said.
The state court issued an arrest warrant for Dodik, the president of Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic, and two of his close allies after they ignored a summons in the investigation of the separatist legislation they initiated and which has been suspended by the constitutional court.
Despite the arrest warrant, Dodik continued with his activities and traveled across the Serb-dominated region protected by heavily armed members of the region’s police antiterrorist forces.
On Wednesday, he arrived in the town of East Sarajevo, bordering the capital Sarajevo, where the State Investigation and Protection Agency headquarters are located.
“The SIPA officers today tried to execute the court’s order and arrest Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik in East Sarajevo,” spokeswoman Jelena Miovcic told Reuters.
“They talked to the members of the RS police who warned them they will use the force and so prevented them from executing the orders.”
A Reuters reporter did not see any SIPA officers in front of a government office in East Sarajevo, where Dodik arrived with his entourage, only the members of the Serb Republic police.
Dodik initiated Bosnia’s biggest political crisis since the end of the country’s war in the 1990s after he was sentenced in February to one year in prison and banned from politics for six years over defying rulings by the international envoy, whose role is to prevent multi-ethnic Bosnia from slipping back into conflict.
The dispute pits Dodik and his allies Russia and Serbia against the United States and the European Union.
Last month, the court ordered an international arrest warrant to be issued for Dodik and his aide after they went abroad in defiance of an internal arrest warrant, but Interpol declined its “red notice” request.
A long-time advocate of secession from Bosnia, Dodik had initiated legislation barring the state judiciary and police from operating in the Serb region, but Bosnia’s constitutional court temporarily suspended that.
The United States and the United Kingdom sanctioned Dodik for violating the terms of a peace deal that ended the country’s 1992-1995 war.
Earlier this month, Germany and Austria announced they will bar Dodik and his two aides from their territories, accusing him of threatening the security of his fragile country and the region.
JENIN, April 23 – A twelve-year-old Palestinian boy was killed after being shot by Israeli forces in the town of Yamoun west of Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank, according to the Ministry of Health.
The ministry identified the victim as 12-year-old Mahmoud Mithqal Ali Abu al-Haijja, who succumbed to critical wounds he sustained after being struck by Israeli forces’ live ammunition.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reported that its crews transported the child, who had sustained fatal gunshot wounds to the cheek and abdomen, from al-Hadaf Medical Center in Yamoun to Jenin Governmental Hospital.
KYIV – Ukraine’s military said on Wednesday it had hit a Russian long-range drone production site in Tatarstan, damaging the final assembly line.
In the course of the three-year-old war, Russia has been extensively using Shahed and other types of attack drones for strikes across Ukraine. On Wednesday night, Ukraine said it had downed 134 Russian drones.
“As of now, it is known that damage was caused to the final assembly line of the UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles),” Ukraine’s general staff said on the Telegram app, adding that the plant’s production capacity is 300 drones per day.
Reuters could not independently verify the statement. Local authorities in Yelabuga reported a drone being shot down in the town. Mash, a Telegram channel close to Russia’s security services, said at least four drones had been downed close to a factory in the town.
The general staff said the strike, conducted by Ukraine’s drone forces and other units, caused explosions near the facility, 1,054 kilometers (654 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
MOSCOW – Russia said Wednesday it will allow the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan to have an ambassador in Moscow, in a symbolic move days after it lifted a “terrorist” designation for the militant group.
Moscow has taken steps to normalize relations with the Islamist Taliban administration since the group seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 after the withdrawal of US troops.
The Russian foreign ministry said Russian officials had held talks with Afghanistan’s foreign and internal ministers.
“The representatives of the Afghan leadership were informed that, following the decision announced by the Supreme Court of Russia to suspend the ban on the Taliban movement, the Russian side has decided to upgrade the diplomatic mission of Afghanistan in Moscow to the level of ambassador,” it said in a statement.
It added the Afghan side “expressed their deep gratitude for this step.” Russia sees a potential economic partner in the Taliban authorities, who praised Moscow for scrapping the “terrorism” label last week.
Taliban officials have visited Russia for high-profile events in recent years.
Russia’s decision to suspend the ban on the group does not equal a formal recognition for the Taliban authorities, which are seeking international legitimacy.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that “the new authorities in Kabul are a reality.”
“We need to take this into account in order to carry out pragmatic, not ideologized policy,” the minister told journalists.
The Afghan government is not officially recognized by any country or world body and the United Nations refers to the administration as the “Taliban de facto authorities”.
WASHINGTON/LONDON/PARIS, April 23 – U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy clashed again on Wednesday on efforts to end the three-year-old war in Ukraine, with the U.S. leader chiding Zelenskiy for refusing to recognize Russia’s occupation of Crimea.
Trump’s Vice President JD Vance said it was time for Russia and Ukraine to either agree to a U.S. peace proposal “or for the United States to walk away from the process,” echoing a warning Trump gave last week.
Speaking to reporters in India, Vance said the proposal called for freezing territorial lines “at some level close to where they are today” and a “long-term diplomatic settlement that hopefully will lead to long-term peace.”
“The only way to really stop the killing is for the armies to both put down their weapons, to freeze this thing,” he said.
A former Western official familiar with the U.S. proposal said it also called for the recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on Wednesday in an X post that he stressed to the U.S. in London that Ukraine “will stand firm on its core principles during the negotiations” that relate to sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Zelenskiy on Tuesday reiterated that Ukraine will not recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea, saying: “There’s nothing to talk about here. This is against our constitution.”
Trump, who argued with Zelenskiy in a televised Oval Office meeting in March, called this an inflammatory statement that made a peace deal harder to achieve.
The U.S. president said Crimea was lost years ago “and is not even a point of discussion.”
“Nobody is asking Zelenskiy to recognize Crimea as Russian Territory but, if he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Russian fighters seized control of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 in a move that was condemned internationally. Few countries recognize Russia’s claim to Crimea.
Trump scolded the Ukrainian leader and said the U.S. was trying to stop the killing in his country and that they were “very close to a deal” for peace. Since taking office in January, Trump has sharply altered the U.S. approach, pressing Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire while easing many measures the Biden administration took to punish Russia for its 2022 full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
Nevertheless, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said after Wednesday’s talks, Kyiv was committed to working with the U.S. to achieve peace.
RUBIO CANCELS LONDON TRIP
Earlier, U.S., Ukrainian and European officials met in London for peace talks aimed at ending the three-year war. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cancelled his trip there, raising questions over how much progress was being made.
Rubio’s no-show prompted cancellation of a broader meeting with foreign ministers from Ukraine, Britain, France and Germany, underscoring the gaps between Washington, Kyiv and its European allies over how to bring an end to the war.
Trump has warned Washington could walk away if there was no progress on a deal soon. He raised the pressure on Sunday when he said he hoped Moscow and Kyiv would make a deal this week to end the conflict.
At the heart of Wednesday’s talks was an attempt to establish what Kyiv could possibly accept after Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff presented proposals to a similar session in Paris last week. Three diplomats said those proposals appeared to demand more concessions from Ukraine than Russia.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer played down any disappointment over Rubio’s abrupt cancellation and said the talks involved “substantive technical meetings with European, U.S. and Ukrainian officials on how to stop the fighting.”
“We remain absolutely committed to securing a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and these talks today are an important part of that,” the spokesperson said.
One official close to the negotiations said progress was being made.
Since Trump expressed his desire to broker peace in Ukraine and made a surprise call to Russian President Vladimir Putin in February, European nations have scrambled to find ways to support Kyiv against Moscow while keeping the U.S. onside.
But Witkoff’s proposals, which several sources have said included recognising Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Washington beginning to lift sanctions on Russia and ruling out Ukrainian membership of NATO, were unacceptable to both Kyiv and other European nations.
Sources said U.S. proposals include Ukraine and the Europeans accepting Russia’s control of the 20% of Ukraine’s territory that it has gained in the war. Russia is pushing for lifting of EU sanctions against it before negotiations are finished, which Europe staunchly opposes, diplomats said.
A source close to the discussions said the downgrading of the parley came after Ukraine drafted a paper for the Europeans on Tuesday in which it said there would be no discussions on territorial issues until “a full and unconditional ceasefire”.
QUETTA, Pakistan – Gunmen riding on a motorcycle shot and killed two security officials assigned to protect polio workers in restive southwestern Pakistan on Wednesday before fleeing the scene, police said.
The attack occurred in a residential area of Mastung, a district in Balochistan, according to Mohammad Arif, a local police official. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
The health workers, who were vaccinating children in a nearby street, were unharmed, the official said.
Shahid Rind, a government spokesman in Balochistan, denounced the attack, which came two days after Pakistan launched a weeklong nationwide vaccination campaign aimed at protecting 45 million children from polio.
According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the spread of the natural version of the potentially fatal, paralyzing virus has never been stopped. There are ongoing outbreaks in at least six African countries prompted by mutated viruses linked to the oral polio vaccine.
Police and health workers are often attacked by militants who falsely claim that vaccination efforts are part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children.
Pakistan saw a surge in polio cases last year, with 74 reported cases compared to just one in 2021. The South Asian country reported just six cases since January.
Since the 1990s, more than 200 polio workers and the police assigned to protect them have been killed in attacks.
ISTANBUL – An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 shook Istanbul and other areas of Turkey on Wednesday, prompting widespread panic and scores of injuries in the city of 16 million people, though there were no immediate reports of serious damage.
At least 236 people were treated for injuries they suffered while trying to jump from buildings or for panic attacks — most of them in Istanbul, where residents are on tenterhooks because the city is considered at high risk for a major quake.
The earthquake had a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey, with its epicenter about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Istanbul, in the Sea of Marmara.
It was felt in the neighboring provinces of Tekirdag, Yalova, Bursa and Balikesir and in the coastal city of Izmir, some 550 kilometers (340 miles) south of Istanbul. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the earthquake lasted 13 seconds and was followed by more than 100 aftershocks — the strongest measuring 5.9 in magnitude.
The quake started at 12:49 p.m. Wednesday, a public holiday, when many children were out of school and celebrating in the streets of Istanbul. Panicked residents rushed from their homes and buildings into the streets. Authorities urged residents to avoid entering buildings that might have been damaged and said sports halls and mosques would be open to house residents not wanting to spend the night in their homes.
More than 230 injured
“A total of 236 citizens were affected by panic attacks and from falls or from jumping,” Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu said. He said 173 of the injuries were in Istanbul while the rest were in surrounding provinces.
Authorities had received 378 reports of “structural damage” in various buildings, said Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum, adding that 12 buildings were evacuated as a precaution.
Only one building — a derelict, long-abandoned structure in the city’s historic Fatih district — had collapsed, officials said.
People walk in Eminonu district, as the New Mosque is seen in the background, following an earthquake, in Istanbul, Turkey, April 23, 2025. REUTERS
ISTANBUL – An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 shook Istanbul and other areas Wednesday, prompting widespread panic and scores of injuries in the Turkish city of 16 million people, though there were no immediate reports of serious damage.
More than 150 people were hospitalized with injuries sustained while trying to jump from buildings, said the governor’s office in Istanbul, where residents are on tenterhooks because the city is considered at high risk for a major quake.
The earthquake had a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey, with its epicenter about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Istanbul, in the Sea of Marmara.
It was felt in the neighboring provinces of Tekirdag, Yalova, Bursa and Balikesir and in the city of Izmir, some 550 kilometers (340 miles) south of Istanbul. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the earthquake lasted 13 seconds and was followed by more than 50 aftershocks – the strongest measuring 5.9.
The quake started at 12:49 p.m. during a public holiday when many children were out of school and celebrating in the streets of Istanbul. Panicked residents rushed from their homes and buildings into the streets. The disaster and emergency management agency urged people to stay away from buildings.
MORE THAN 150 INJURED
“Due to panic, 151 of our citizens were injured from jumping from heights,” the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement. “Their treatments are ongoing in hospitals, and they are not in life-threatening condition.”
Many residents flocked to parks, school yards and other open areas to avoid being near buildings in case of collapse or subsequent earthquakes. Some people pitched tents in parks.
“Thank God, there does not seem to be any problems for now,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at an event marking the National Sovereignty and Children’s Day holiday. “May God protect our country and our people from all kinds of calamities, disasters, accidents and troubles.”
Leyla Ucar, a personal trainer, said she was exercising with her student on the 20th floor of a building when they felt intense shaking.
“We shook incredibly. It threw us around, we couldn’t understand what was happening, we didn’t think of an earthquake at first because of the shock of the event,” she said. “It was very scary.”
Senol Sari, 51, told The Associated Press he was with his children in the living room of their third floor apartment when he heard a loud noise and the building started shaking. They fled to a nearby park. “We immediately protected ourselves from the earthquake and waited for it to pass,” Sari said. “Of course, we were scared.”
They later were able to return home calmly, Sari said, but they remain worried that a bigger quake will some day strike the city. It’s “an expected earthquake, our concerns continue,” he said.
‘MY CHILDREN WERE A LITTLE SCARED’
Cihan Boztepe, 40, was one of many who hurriedly fled to the streets with his family in order to avoid a potential collapse. Boztepe, standing next to his sobbing child, told AP that in 2023 he was living in Batman province, an area close to the southern part of Turkey where major quakes struck at the time, and that Wednesday’s tremor felt weaker and that he wasn’t as scared.
“At first we were shaken, then it stopped, then we were shaken again. My children were a little scared, but I wasn’t. We quickly gathered our things and went down to a safe place. If it were up to me, we would have already returned home.”
Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said authorities had not received reports of collapsed buildings. He told HaberTurk television that there had been reports of damage to buildings.
The NTV broadcaster reported that a derelict and abandoned former residential building had collapsed in the historic Fatih district, which houses the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque.
Education Minister Yusuf Tekin announced that schools would be closed on Thursday and Friday in Istanbul.
“In line with the need for a safe space, our school gardens are open to the use of all our citizens,” Tekin said.
URBAN RECONSTRUCTION PROJECTS
Turkey is crossed by two major fault lines, and earthquakes are frequent.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake on Feb. 6, 2023, and a second powerful tremor hours later, destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern provinces, leaving more than 53,000 people dead. Another 6,000 people were killed in the northern parts of neighboring Syria.
Istanbul was not impacted by that earthquake, but the devastation heightened fears of a similar quake, with experts citing the city’s proximity to fault lines.
In a bid to prevent damage from any future quake, the national government and local administrations started urban reconstruction projects to fortify buildings at risk and launched campaigns to demolish buildings at risk of collapse.
On Wednesday, long queues formed at gas stations as residents, planning to leave Istanbul, rushed to fill up their vehicles. Among them was Emre Senkay who said he might leave in the event of a more severe earthquake later in the day.
“My plan is to leave Istanbul if there is a more serious earthquake,” he said.
CAIRO/GAZA – An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in northern Gaza killed at least 10 people on Wednesday, while another hit a children’s hospital, medics said, as three European leaders called on Israel to end its blockade on aid.
Since a January ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,600 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes as Israel seized what it calls a buffer zone of Gaza’s land.
Israel has also imposed a blockade on all goods into Gaza, including fuel and electricity, since the beginning of March. On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of Germany, France, and Britain jointly called on Israel to adhere to international law and allow the unhindered passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
They also urged for the ceasefire to be restored and for remaining hostages held by militant group Hamas to be released.
“Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change,” the ministers said in a statement.
Medics said the airstrike on the Yaffa School in the Tuffah area of Gaza City set fire to tents and classrooms.
There has been no Israeli comment on the school attack.
Some furniture was still in flames several hours after the strike as people sifted through blackened classrooms and the schoolyard in search of their belongings.
“We were sleeping and suddenly something exploded, we started looking and found the whole school on fire, the tents here and there were on fire, everything was on fire,” said eyewitness, Um Mohammed Al-Hwaiti.
“People were shouting and men were carrying people, charred (people), charred children, and were walking and saying: ‘Dear God, dear God, we have no one but you.’ What can we say? Dear God, only,” she told Reuters.
Medics said at least 36 people had been killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza on Wednesday.
A view shows a bus damaged by a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in the town of Marhanets, in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine April 23, 2025. Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS
A Russian drone hit a bus carrying workers in the Ukrainian city of Marhanets on Wednesday, killing nine people and injuring close to 50, Kyiv officials said, in an attack President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said was a “deliberate war crime”.
Zelenskiy said the Russian strike hit a bus that was transporting workers of a mining and processing plant.
“An ordinary bus. Clearly a civilian object, a civilian target,” Zelenskiy said on X.
“It was an egregiously brutal attack – and an absolutely deliberate war crime,” he added, calling for “an immediate, full, and unconditional ceasefire”.
Russia fired a total of 134 attack drones at targets in Ukraine overnight, Kyiv’s air force said. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
Ukrainian officials arrived in London on Wednesday, even as most other big power foreign ministers pulled out, to hold talks about ways to achieve a ceasefire as a first step towards peace.
Marhanets, in south-central Ukraine, lies on the Ukrainian-controlled north bank of the Dnipro river’s dried-up reservoir that separates the warring sides.
Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Serhiy Lysak said nine people were killed in the attack and 49 were injured.
Zelenskiy shared photographs of the aftermath of the attack on X, showing bodies lying in and next to the bus and being carried away by emergency workers.
Zelenskiy added most of the injured were women.
Elsewhere, an energy plant that provides electricity to the city of Kherson near southern front lines was destroyed in an artillery and drone attack, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
Ukraine’s emergency service also reported a drone strike on the Synelnykivskyi district in the Dnipropetrovsk region that injured two people and sparked a fire at an agricultural enterprise.
Russia further fired drones into the central region of Poltava, injuring at least six people, its governor said.
A drone attack on civilian infrastructure in the suburbs of the Black Sea port city of Odesa injured two people and sparked several fires, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.
Russian drone salvoes also set off large-scale fires in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, in the northeast, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram.
Seven private houses, a storage building and an outbuilding were also damaged by drones hitting the Kyiv capital region, where a fire also broke out in a restaurant complex, its regional governor said.
Both Russia and Ukraine are under pressure from the United States to demonstrate progress towards ending the war that began with Russia’s 2022 full-blown invasion amid warnings that U.S. President Donald Trump could walk away from peacemaking.
ISTANBUL – An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 shook Istanbul and other areas on Wednesday, Turkey’s disaster and emergency management agency said. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries in the metropolis of 16 million.
The earthquake had a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey. Its epicenter was about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara.
The quake was felt in several neighboring provinces and in the city of Izmir, some 550 kilometers (340 miles) south of Istanbul. There were several aftershocks, including one measuring 5.3.
Residents rushed out of homes and buildings in panic. The disaster and emergency management agency urged people to stay away from buildings.
The quake struck at 12:49 p.m. during a public holiday when many children were out of school and celebrating in the streets. The quake forced authorities in Istanbul to cancel the events.
