Myanmar earthquake death toll climbs to over 2,700, local media reports
Myo Kyaw Soe/Xinhua via Getty Images
(MANDALAY CITY, MYANMAR) — At least 2,719 people have been confirmed dead in the aftermath of Friday’s massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Myanmar, a government official told local media on Tuesday.
Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said during a televised broadcast that another 4,521 people were injured, according to The Associated Press and Reuters.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
(ROME) — Pope Francis will be discharged from the hospital on Sunday and return to his residence at the Vatican, his doctors announced at a press conference Saturday. The pope was in the hospital for 37 days.
The pope, 88, has been in stable condition for the past two weeks, according to the Vatican.
The pope will appear at 12 p.m. local time, 7 a.m. ET, from the window of the hospital on Sunday, to greet and bless the people before leaving the hospital, the Vatican said.
“Pope Francis intends to appear from the Policlinico Agostino Gemelli in Rome for a greeting and a blessing at the end of tomorrow’s Angelus [noontime prayer]. Papal text will be distributed in written form as in recent weeks,” the Vatican said.
The pope will be recovering for two months at his Vatican residence, according to a spokesperson for the Vatican.
Pope Francis will have to continue his physiotherapy from his residence.
“The pope is getting better so that in brief time he can resume his normal activities. He has always continued to work but we recommend that he takes the adequate time to rest and convalescence. So he cant meet large groups of people,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.
It will take some time for the pope’s voice to return to normal as he continues to recover, Bruni said.
“When you have a bilateral pneumonia … and your lungs have been damaged, … muscles affected … one of the first thing that happens is you lose your voice and like for all patients, young and old … it will take some time for his voice to return to normal. We have already seen important improvements,” Bruni said.
The pope will need oxygen at his residence and the Vatican has 24-hour health support
On Friday, the Vatican said the pope’s condition remained stable as he continued to have small improvements in terms of breathing and motor skills.
“At night he no longer uses mechanical ventilation with a mask but high-flow oxygenation with nasal cannulas and during the day he uses less high-flow oxygenation,” the Vatican said Friday.
“The Pope’s days are spent doing physiotherapy, prayer and a little work,” the Vatican said Saturday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LONDON) — Ukraine has accused Russia of committing a war crime after a Russian drone struck a military hospital in Kharkiv overnight.
Ukraine’s General Staff said the strikes were a “deliberate, targeted striking” of the hospital and that it appeared soldiers being treated there were injured. It said the medical center and nearby residential buildings were damaged as a result of a “defeat of” a Russian Shahed drone.
Photos from the scene appear to show damage to the hospital, with an entrance way demolished.
Russian drones also hit apartment blocks and a shopping mall in the center of Ukraine’s second largest city, killing at least two people and wounding 25, according to Kharkiv’s governor.
“War crimes have no statute of limitations. The relevant evidence will be transferred to the bodies of international criminal justice,” the General Staff wrote in a statement on the hospital attack.
Ukrainian cites are bombed by dozens of Russian drones every night, and this weekend has seen a particularly intense wave of attacks in civilian areas of major cities. Dnipro in southeast Ukraine suffered on Friday night heavy strikes that started major fires.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday said over the past week Russia had launched over 1,000 drones, nine missiles and over 1,300 guided aerial bombs, with most of Ukraine’s regions coming under attack. He said Ukraine had shot down a “significant number” of the drones and missiles.
“Russia is dragging out the war,” Zelenskyy wrote in a statement on X, saying Ukraine had shared information on Russia’s strikes with its allies and that it expects a “response from the United States, Europe and all our allies to this terror against our people.”
Russia has also intensified its ground offensive operations in recent days amid, according to Ukraine’s military, amid the ongoing efforts by the Trump administration to end the war.
Ukraine’s General Staff as well as Ukrainian military analysts report in the past few days Russia has launched some of the largest number of ground assaults since the start of the year.
“The number of enemy assaults has exceeded 200 times per day for the last three days,” Deep State, a blog account that tracks the war and is close to Ukraine’s military, wrote Friday. This is the highest three-day intensity of the year.”
It follows warnings this week by Zelenskyy that Russia is preparing to launch a major spring offensive, even as it tries to drag out negotiations with the Trump administration.
The Russian attacks are focused most of all in eastern Ukraine, in the direction of Pokrovsk, an important defensive hub that Russia has been trying to seize for more than 6 months.
Russian forces had scaled back their attacks in recent weeks in part due to poor ground conditions and apparently also worn down by extremely heavy losses. But it appears they are now renewing their offensive operations.
Ukrainian and western officials warned that President Vladimir Putin of Russia will try to use protracted negotiations as an opportunity to also advance on the battlefield, hoping to crack Ukraine’s defenses as the Trump administration weakens western support for Kyiv.
(SEOUL) — South Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose short-lived declaration of martial law late last year plunged the country into political chaos, in a decision that removes the suspended leader from office.
The verdict was read in court shortly after 11 a.m. Friday local time (10 p.m. Thursday ET). Police across the country had been placed on the highest security alert level ahead of the verdict, with a security perimeter established around the court in Seoul, according to the Yonhap news agency.
With the court’s decision, Yoon is formally removed from office and South Korea will hold a snap presidential election within 60 days, according to the news agency.
Yoon was removed from office by the opposition-controlled National Assembly after declaring martial law in a televised speech on Dec. 3, claiming the opposition party sympathized with North Korea and was paralyzing the government.
The move sparked fierce protests, and several hours after the declaration, the National Assembly voted to demand that the president lift the martial law order.
Separate from his removal from office, Yoon was indicted by South Korean prosecutors on insurrection charges over the brief imposition of martial law.
An arrest warrant against him led to a standoff between his security team and police earlier this year.
In a dramatic scene, thousands of police descended on his home and were met with crowds of the impeached president’s backers, including some who lay down in front of police vehicles in an attempt to block authorities from reaching the residence.
Yoon was eventually arrested several days later and held in custody until March 8.
