Indonesia

Plane crash kills at least 31 people

A Lion Air passenger plane carrying more than 150 people skidded off a runway in central Indonesia during heavy rain and split into two pieces Tuesday, killing at least 31 people, airline officials and witnesses said.

Three of the dead were children, and at least 62 people were injured, officials said. Some survivors remained stuck in the wreckage for more than three hours after the crash, media reports said.

The accident occurred at about 6 p.m. as Flight JT583 landed in Solo, a thriving tourist town about 310 miles southeast of the capital, Jakarta, the station said.

Honduras

Eleven children die in sugar cane fire

Honduran children hunting rabbits who were running from a burning sugarcane field were caught in the blaze themselves. Fifteen people were killed, including 11 youngsters.

Workers set the fire Monday night as part of the harvest on 40 acres of the Choluteca sugar company in Santa Cruz, 100 miles south of the capital, Tegucigalpa, Security Ministry spokesman Leonel Sauceda said.

The children, who ranged in ages from 5 to 17, were in a nearby field, waiting to catch the rabbits as they escaped the fire. But the blaze spread out of control and trapped them, Sauceda said.

“The wind spread the fire rapidly,” he said.

Philippines

Nearly 340 dead in series of storms

A powerful rainstorm triggered landslides and flash floods that killed nearly 340 people in the eastern Philippines, officials said Tuesday, and rescuers raced to save those stranded in three coastal towns before a typhoon strikes the hard-hit region.

At least 150 people were reported missing, and the region was largely cut off by landslides and floodwaters that washed away bridges and roads. Helicopter crews struggled to find places to land and dropped food to residents huddled on rooftops.

Authorities planned to send a coast guard boat to three stricken towns in Quezon province, east of the capital, to deliver supplies or pick up evacuees.

Beijing

Death toll rises to 166 in mine blast

The death toll in a massive coal mine explosion in central China rose today to 166 after scores of missing miners were declared dead, government radio reported.

The report on the Web site of China National Radio came after officials said rescue efforts were being blocked by fires and toxic fumes in the Chenjiashan Coal Mine, which was hit by the huge gas explosion on Sunday.

The death toll earlier was reported at 65, with 101 miners still missing. The one-sentence report by China National Radio, which cited a spokesman for the rescue headquarters, didn’t say whether any additional bodies had been found or give any other details.