Lightning strikes in India kill 38 people in 24 hours

Lightning has killed at least 38 people across two Indian states over the past 24 hours, officials said Monday.

A majority of the deaths occurred in the western state of Rajasthan, where 11 people died after being struck by lightning near a watchtower at the 12th century Amber Fort, police said.

Senior police officer Anand Srivastava said some of the victims were taking selfies near the watchtower when lightning struck late Sunday. Srivastava said at least nine more people were killed and nearly 20 others were injured in separate lightning strikes when the state was lashed with thunderstorms and monsoon rains.

In Uttar Pradesh, 18 people were killed by lightning on Sunday, said Manoj Dixit, a government official. Most of those killed were farm laborers working in fields.

Strong cyclone kills at least 12 in southern India

A strong cyclone over the southeast Arabian Sea has triggered heavy rains and strong winds, damaging hundreds of huts, power lines and trees in southern India and killing at least eight people, officials said Saturday.

More than 1,000 people have taken shelter in relief centers in Kanyakumari and Tirunelveli districts in Tamil Nadu state, officials said.

The India Meteorological Department said heavy rains and strong winds lashed Lakshasweep, a group of 36 islands, on Saturday.

Stampede on crowded Indian pedestrian bridge leaves 22 dead

A stampede broke out on a crowded pedestrian bridge connecting two railway stations in Mumbai during the Friday morning rush, killing at least 22 people and injuring 32 others, Indian officials said.

Police were investigating what caused the stampede on the bridge, which led some commuters to leap over the railing. Others were crushed or fell underfoot and were trampled.

“There were too many people on the bridge, and the people were in hurry and wanted to move out,” said Brijesh Upadhyay, one of the many caught in the crowd. “There was nobody helping, it was very suffocating, and we just wanted to get out of there — and fell on each other.”

Boat capsizes in Indian river, killing 19; about 31 missing

A boat crowded with construction workers capsized in the Yamuna River in northern India early Thursday and at least 19 people have drowned, officials said.

A search is underway for missing passengers, said senior police officer Ram Kumar.

More than 60 people were on the boat when it capsized near Baghpat town in Uttar Pradesh state early Thursday.

At least 10 people swam to safety while about 31 passengers are missing. Nineteen bodies had been pulled out of the river, Kumar said.

Troubled Indian hospital says 217 children died in August

Death continues to haunt a government hospital in north India that came under fire earlier this month after dozens of babies died within two days.

Dr. P.K. Singh, the head of the BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur city, said Wednesday that at least 217 children died there in August alone due to a variety of reasons including an annual encephalitis outbreak. Singh added that 42 children have died in the last 48 hours. Seven of the deaths were from encephalitis while the others were attributed to other medical complications.

Flooding maroons people in Indian states, eases in Nepal

Monsoon flooding is easing in Nepal, but the water flowing downriver has worsened floods in northern India and marooned thousands of villagers across the border, officials said Thursday.

The existing flood situation was aggravated in Uttar Pradesh state after three rivers became swelled with the waters from Nepal, said disaster relief official Mohammad Zameer Ahmad. At least six deaths have occurred since Wednesday.

Ahmad said Thursday that over 300 villages were marooned in no time and thousands of people were forced to move to higher ground.

48 dead as heavy monsoon rains lash western India

At least 48 people have been killed as large swaths of western India have been lashed by heavy monsoon rains and flooding over the last week, officials said Wednesday.

In Rajasthan, home to a number of popular tourist destinations, the streets of at least four districts have been turned into virtual rivers, trapping tens of thousands of people on the upper floors of residential buildings. Rescue workers were scrambling to rescue thousands of others whose homes have been flooded or destroyed.

By Wednesday, the death toll in the state stood at 19.

5-story building collapses in India, killing at least 12

A five-story building came crashing down Tuesday in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital, killing at least 12 people and injuring 12 others, police said. Another dozen people were feared trapped under the rubble.

The cause of the collapse of the building, which housed 15 families, was not immediately known.

Rescuers have been digging through the rubble in search of more victims since Tuesday morning and will continue during the night, police officer Lal Bhandari said.

Asian funerals go green, high-tech at Hong Kong trade fair

Death is inevitable but it doesn’t have to be bad for the environment.

Caskets made of paper and wicker coffins on display at a recent Hong Kong funeral industry trade highlighted a trend toward “green burials” in an industry booming as Asia’s population rapidly ages.

Chinese businessman Alex Sun’s company, Shandong Ecoffin International, makes wicker and seagrass coffins, which first became popular in the West and are now catching on in Asia. Basket-weaving dates to the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) in northeast China’s Shandong province, where Sun’s factory uses fast-growing willow reeds to make caskets that are an eco-friendly alternative to wood.

Desperation sets in as flood death toll in Colombia tops 200

Townspeople desperately searched their ruined homes and the local hospital for loved ones Sunday after a torrent of water, mud and debris swept through a city in southern Colombia, causing more than 200 deaths, many of them children, and leaving hundreds more missing and injured.

Neighborhoods were left strewn with rocks, wooden planks, tree limbs and brown muck after heavy rain caused the three rivers that surround Mocoa to rise up and surge through the city of 40,000 Friday night and early Saturday as people slept. The deluge smashed houses, tore trees out by the roots and washed cars and trucks away.

Avalanche kills 7 students, instructor in Japan

An avalanche killed seven Japanese high school students and an instructor Monday during a mountaineering field trip at a ski resort north of Tokyo, authorities said.

Nearly 50 students and instructors were caught by the morning avalanche in the town of Nasu in Tochigi prefecture, about 190 kilometers (120 miles) from the Japanese capital.

Police confirmed the death of the eight people late Monday, the prefecture said. Forty other people were injured, including two who were in serious condition, a prefecture report said.

Somalia: 110 dead from hunger in past 48 hours in drought

Somalia's prime minister said Saturday that 110 people have died from hunger in the past 48 hours in a single region — the first death toll announced in a severe drought threatening millions of people across the country.

Somalia's government declared the drought a national disaster on Tuesday. The United Nations estimates that 5 million people in this Horn of Africa nation need aid, amid warnings of a full-blown famine.

Malaysia expels North Korean ambassador over Kim probe

Malaysia said it expelled North Korea's ambassador on Saturday for refusing to apologize for his strong accusations over Malaysia's handling of the investigation into the killing of the North Korean leader's half brother.

Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said a notice was sent to the North Korean Embassy at around 6 p.m. declaring Ambassador Kang Chol persona non grata. The notice said Kang must leave Malaysia within 48 hours.

From LOL shirt to bulletproof vest, hit suspects go to court

Because of a grainy security camera photo that went viral online, she is now known to many as the LOL assassin.

But as Doan Thi Huong left a courthouse in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, after being formally charged with the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half brother two weeks ago, she had a very different look — red, puffy eyes and a bulletproof vest.

The strange life, and sudden death, of a North Korean exile

The heavy-set man got out of a taxi one night last September and headed for the lobby bar of the swank Wynn Macau — a quiet place, where women are often in evening dresses and gamblers can relax with $300 Cuban cigars. He was dressed casually. There were no bodyguards, no flashy women.

It wasn't what you'd expect of a man once tipped to be the next dictator of North Korea.

Malaysian diplomat says Kim death investigation impartial

The investigation into the death of the exiled half-brother of North Korea's ruler is being conducted in an impartial manner, Malaysia's ambassador to Pyongyang said Tuesday, rejecting accusations from the North that the probe was politically tinged.

Mohamad Nizan Mohamad spoke in China's capital, Beijing, while in transit to Malaysia to where he had been recalled following the death last week in the Southeast Asian nation of Kim Jong Nam.

Iran shocked by deadly fire, collapse of Tehran high-rise

A historic high-rise building in the heart of Iran's capital caught fire and later collapsed Thursday, killing at least 30 firefighters and leaving their stunned colleagues and bystanders weeping in the streets.

The disaster at the 17-story Plasco building, inadvertently shown live on state television, came after authorities said they repeatedly warned tenants about blocking stairwells with fabric from cramped garment workshops on its upper floors.

Bahrain executes 3 over police bombing, triggering protests

Bahrain on Sunday carried out its first executions since an Arab Spring uprising rocked the country in 2011, putting to death three men found guilty of a deadly bomb attack on police.

The executions of the Shiite men drew swift condemnation from human rights groups and sparked intense protests by opponents of the Sunni-ruled government, who see the charges as politically motivated. Activists allege that testimony used against the condemned men was obtained through torture.

Iranians mourn as former leader Rafsanjani interred

Hundreds of thousands mourned former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Tuesday, wailing in grief as his body was interred at a Tehran shrine alongside the leader of the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Rafsanjani's final resting place near the late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, reflected his legacy as one of the pillars of Iran's clerical-dominated political system, as he served in later years as a go-between for hard-liners and reformists.

Roman Herzog, Germany's president in the 1990s, dies at 82

Roman Herzog, who as president pressed Germany to embrace economic reform in the 1990s and also stressed the importance of remembering the Nazi Holocaust, has died. He was 82.

Current President Joachim Gauck announced Herzog's death on Tuesday, without giving details. In a message to Herzog's widow, he described the former head of state as "a distinctive personality" who "advocated readiness for reform and at the same time stood for preserving the tried and tested."