LONDON: London Heathrow Airport said it was “fully operational” on Saturday, after an almost daylong closure sparked by an electrical substation fire.
But thousands of passengers remained stuck, and airlines warned that severe disruption will last for days as they scramble to relocate planes and crews and get travelers to their destinations.
Friday’s travel mayhem raised concerns about Britain’s ability to withstand disasters or attacks on critical infrastructure. Inconvenienced passengers, angry airlines and concerned politicians all want answers about how one seemingly accidental fire could shut down Europe’s busiest air hub.
“This is a huge embarrassment for Heathrow airport. It’s a huge embarrassment for the country that a fire in one electricity substation can have such a devastating effect,” said Toby Harris, a Labour Party politician who heads the National Preparedness Commission, a group that campaigns to improve resilience.
Heathrow said it had “hundreds of additional colleagues on hand in our terminals and we have added flights to today’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers.” It advised passengers to check with their airline before going to the airport.
British Airways, Heathrow’s biggest airline, said it expected to operate about 85 percent of its 600 scheduled flights at the airport on Saturday. It said that “to recover an operation of our size after such a significant incident is extremely complex.”
While many passengers managed to resume stalled journeys, others remained in limbo.
Laura Fritschie from Kansas City was on vacation with her family in Ireland when she learned that her father had died. On Saturday she was stranded at Heathrow after her BA flight to Chicago was canceled at the last minute.
“I’m very frustrated,” she said. “This was my first big vacation with my kids since my husband died, and ... now this. So I just want to go home.”
More than 1,300 flights were canceled and some 200,000 people stranded Friday after an overnight fire at a substation 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away from the airport cut power to Heathrow, and to more than 60,000 properties.
The explosion and fire reveals a wider problem
Residents in west London described hearing a large explosion and then seeing a fireball and clouds of smoke when the blaze ripped through the substation. The fire was brought under control after seven hours, but the airport was shut for almost 18. A handful of flights took off and landed late Friday.
Police said they do not consider the fire suspicious, and the London Fire Brigade said its investigation would focus on the electrical distribution equipment at the substation.
Still, the huge impact of the fire left authorities facing questions about Britain’s creaking infrastructure. The government acknowledged that authorities had questions to answer and said a rigorous investigation was needed to make sure “this scale of disruption does not happen again.”
Harris, from the preparedness commission. said the airport shutdown points to a broader problem with Britain’s economy and infrastructure.
“The last 40, 50 years we’ve tried to make services more efficient,” he said. “We’ve stripped out redundancy, we’ve simplified processes. We’ve moved toward a sort of ‘just in time’ economy.
“There is an element where you have to make sure you’re available for ‘just in case.’ You have to plan for things going wrong.”
Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said he was “proud” of the way airport and airline staff had responded.
“Remember, the situation was not created at Heathrow Airport,” he told the BBC. “The airport didn’t shut for days. We shut for hours.”
One of the busiest airports
He said Heathrow’s backup power supply, designed for emergencies, worked as expected, but it wasn’t enough to run the whole airport, which uses as much energy as a small city.
“That’s how most airports operate,” said Woldbye, who insisted “the same would happen in other airports” faced with a similar blaze.
Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports for international travel, and saw 83.9 million passengers last year.
Friday’s disruption was one of the most serious since the 2010 eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which shut Europe’s airspace for days.
Passengers on about 120 flights were in the air when Friday’s closure was announced and found themselves landing in different cities, and even different countries.
Mark Doherty and his wife were halfway across the Atlantic when the inflight map showed their flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport to Heathrow was turning around.
“I was like, you’re joking,” Doherty said before the pilot told passengers they were heading back to New York.
Doherty called the situation “typical England — got no back-up plan for something happens like this. There’s no contingency plan.”
Heathrow reopens and chaos eases, but critics say the airport’s shutdown exposes UK vulnerability
https://arab.news/wzpr9
Heathrow reopens and chaos eases, but critics say the airport’s shutdown exposes UK vulnerability
- Friday’s travel mayhem raised concerns about Britain’s ability to withstand disasters or attacks on critical infrastructure
- “It’s a huge embarrassment for the country that a fire in one electricity substation can have such a devastating effect,” said Toby Harris, a Labour Party politician
US conducts strikes against Daesh group: Somali govt
- US targeted hideouts of Daesh group in the Golis mountains in Puntland region
MOGADISHU: The United States and Somalia have conducted air strikes on Daesh group targets in northern Somalia, the Somali federal government said Wednesday.
The extremist group has a relatively small presence in the east African country compared to the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab, but experts have warned of growing activity.
A coordinated operation led by the United States African Command (AFRICOM) with the federal government had targeted “known hideouts of Daesh terrorists” based in the Golis mountains in the semi-autonomous Puntland region, Mogadishu said.
The strikes were carried out Tuesday night, a short statement said, adding initial reports “suggest that multiple Daesh fighters were killed, with no civilian casualties reported.” No further details were given.
Puntland authorities have not commented on the strikes.
The statement said the strikes complemented a “larger counter-terrorism initiative” currently being undertaken by local forces in the Al-Miskeed mountain range.
The Puntland Defense Forces have been carrying out operations in the region against Daesh since December, with the extremist group said to have established a presence in the Golis mountains.
It follows US strikes in February, which Puntland authorities said had killed “key figures” in Daesh, without giving further details.
Four US soldiers died in Lithuania, NATO’s Rutte says
- The soldiers had been training near Pabrade in eastern Lithuania
STOCKHOLM: Four United States Army soldiers have died in Lithuania during training, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said while visiting Warsaw on Wednesday.
“Whilst I was speaking the news came out about four American soldiers who were killed in an incident in Lithuania,” Rutte told reporters, adding that he did not know any details.
Lithuania’s military earlier on Wednesday said they were searching for four US soldiers and a tracked vehicle which had gone missing on Tuesday afternoon.
The soldiers had been training near Pabrade in eastern Lithuania near the border with Belarus, the US Army said in a statement.
“The soldiers, all from 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, were conducting scheduled tactical training at the time of the incident,” the statement read.
Spain arrests suspect over murder of US priest
- Father Richard Gross, who was from the US city of Boston, was found dead in January inside a holiday apartment
- Officers arrested a 40-year-old French national on Tuesday in the southern city of Seville, Spain’s national police said
MADRID: Spanish police said on Wednesday they had arrested a man suspected of strangling an 80-year-old US Catholic priest during a robbery in the southern city of Malaga.
Father Richard Gross, who was from the US city of Boston, was found dead in January inside a holiday apartment he had rented in the center of the city, where he was preparing to embark on a cruise.
Officers arrested a 40-year-old French national on Tuesday in the southern city of Seville, Spain’s national police said in a statement. They said he was detained on suspicion of murder.
Another suspect was already in custody: a 27-year-old North African man arrested in late January. Police said they believed he acted as a lookout during the attack. Both men have criminal records related to theft.
Police suspect the two men followed Gross as he got out of a taxi the day he arrived in Malaga and followed him to the entrance of his holiday apartment, where the attack took place.
“The priest was approached by surprise and that the assailant used great violence in response to the victim’s resistance, compressing his airways until he died,” the police statement said.
It added that it was believed the suspects targeted Gross because he was “vulnerable.”
The two suspects then fled the scene with the priest’s belongings, including his suitcase.
An autopsy concluded the cause of death was “asphyxia through suffocation,” the statement said.
The US chapter of the Roman Catholic Church’s Jesuit order to which Gross belonged hailed his “independent and adventurous spirit” and “high energy.”
Gross, who had taught at several schools in the United States, was scheduled to serve as a chaplain on the cruise he was preparing to embark upon in Malaga.
Fear of more war haunts Kursk as Russia expels Ukrainian troops
- “We want peace but it is very important that the peace is long term and durable,” town Mayor Sergei Kurnosov told Reuters
- Just like Ukrainians, many Kursk residents crave a return to normality
RYLSK, Russia: In the Russian region of Kursk, where Ukraine has been fighting for more than seven months, people say they want peace but fear there will be more war.
Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory was launched in August — more than two years into a major war triggered by Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor — shocking a border region that hadn’t seen conflict since World War Two.
Now, with Russia close to expelling the last Ukrainian troops, Kursk’s populace is counting the cost.
For some residents like Leonid Boyarintsev, a veteran of the Sino-Soviet border conflict of 1969, the surprise enemy offensive served as justification for Russia to double down on its military activities in Ukraine.
“When we are victorious there will be peace because no one will dare to come crawling in again,” the 83-year-old told Reuters in the town of Rylsk, adding that he blamed the West for stoking the conflict in Ukraine. “They will be too afraid to.”
The damage that has been unleashed on towns and cities in the Russian region has brought home the horrors of war long suffered by Ukrainians.
In ancient Rylsk, 26 km (16 miles) from the border, the scars are everywhere — from the smashed merchant buildings from Tsarist Russia to the families still struggling with children living apart in evacuation.
“We want peace but it is very important that the peace is long term and durable,” town Mayor Sergei Kurnosov told Reuters in the ruins of a cultural center that was destroyed in a Dec. 20 Ukrainian attack.
Six people were killed and 12 injured in the attack, Russia said. Russia said the cultural center was destroyed by US-made HIMARS missiles. Abandoned music books lay beside silent pianos and a theater stage showing a shattered scene of rubble and glass.
Reuters is among the first international news outlets to gain access to the Kursk region since Russia began a lightning offensive to expel Ukrainian troops this month. While Russian officials did not check reporting material, the Reuters team was informed in advance that it could not report about the Russian military in the region or gather visuals of Russian forces.
Just like Ukrainians, many Kursk residents crave a return to normality
Here too, air-raid sirens have become the daily soundtrack of life. While Russia has now pushed out almost all Ukrainian forces from Kursk, the area has been heavily mined and drones continue to attack. Many civilian cars speeding along a road near the vast Kurchatov nuclear power plant had drone jamming devices strapped onto their roofs. Residents shopped for food and vapes as artillery boomed in the distance.
“It’s all very scary indeed,” said Rimma Erofeyeva, a music teacher in Rylsk who said people in the town wanted the fighting to stop though believed that God was protecting them. “The really scary thing is that people have got so used to this that they don’t even react to the sirens anymore.”
SWARMS OF DRONES
Ukrainian forces smashed into the Kursk region on August 6, supported by swarms of drones and heavy Western weaponry, and swiftly seize almost 1,400 sq km of territory, according to Russian generals. But within weeks the area under Ukraine’s control shrank as Russia piled in forces.
The latest battlefield map from Deep State, an authoritative Ukrainian site that charts the frontlines from open-source data, showed Ukraine controlled less than 81 sq km as of March 23.
By contrast, Russia controls about 113,000 sq km, or about 20 percent, of Ukraine.
The strategic fortunes of the Kursk incursion are disputed.
Ukraine said the incursion was aimed at bringing the war to Russia, diverting Russian troops from advances in eastern Ukraine, embarrassing President Vladimir Putin and gaining a bargaining chip in potential future talks on ending the war. The operation “achieved most of its goals,” the armed forces’ General Staff told Reuters this week.
The chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov told Putin, in a televised exchange during a trip by the president to a command post in the Kursk region on March 12, that Ukraine had lost tens of thousands of its best troops in a failed bid to distract Russian forces from the Donbas, in eastern Ukraine.
“The Kyiv regime aimed to create a so-called strategic foothold in the Kursk region for later use as a bargaining chip in possible negotiations with Russia,” Gerasimov said. “These plans of the enemy have completely failed.”
Russia’s defense ministry says Ukraine has lost 69,700 troops dead or injured in Kursk, along with 5,700 tanks, armored cars and many Western-supplied vehicles. Russia has not given its own casualty figures. Ukraine has given no casualty figures but dismisses Russian estimates as fake.
New US President Donald Trump has vowed to end the three-year war in Ukraine, yet many people in the Kursk region are skeptical of any lasting peace because of deep-seated geopolitical tensions and distrust between Russia and the West.
“I don’t think that there will be peace in our region in the near future,” said a resident of the city of Kursk who gave her name only as Yekaterina, citing resentment toward Russia from Ukraine and the West. “There will be some hostility toward our people, toward our land for a very long time.”
Tufts says international student taken into US custody, visa revoked
- Tufts said the graduate student was taken into US custody from an off-campus apartment building in Somerville
- Trump and his top diplomat Marco Rubio in particular have pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters, accusing them of supporting Hamas militants
WASHINGTON: Federal authorities have detained an international student studying at Tufts University near Boston and have revoked their visa, the university said in a statement Tuesday night.
Tufts said the graduate student was taken into US custody from an off-campus apartment building in Somerville, Massachusetts and that it had no further details about the incident or the circumstances surrounding the student’s status.
Representatives for the US Department of Homeland Security, US Customs and Border Protection and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not be immediately reached for comment on the university’s statement.
A lawyer representing the student could also not be immediately reached.
The detention is the latest move by Republican US President Donald Trump’s administration targeting international students as it seeks to crack down on immigration, including ramping up immigration arrests and sharply restricting border crossings.
Trump and his top diplomat Marco Rubio in particular have pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters, accusing them of supporting Hamas militants, posing hurdles for US foreign policy and being antisemitic.
At Columbia University, student protester and lawful permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil was arrested this month. He is legally challenging his detention after Trump, without evidence, accused him of supporting Hamas, which Khalil denies.
Federal immigration officials are also seeking to detain a Korean American Columbia University student, who is a legal permanent US resident and has participated in pro-Palestinian protests, a move blocked by the courts for now.
Earlier this month, a Lebanese doctor and assistant professor at Brown University in Rhode Island was denied re-entry to the US and deported to Lebanon after Trump’s administration alleged her phone contained photos “sympathetic” to Hezbollah. Dr. Rasha Alawieh said she does not support the militant group but held regard for its slain leader because of her religion.
Trump’s administration has also targeted students at Cornell University in New York and Georgetown University in Washington.
