Australia

Snorkeler bitten in half by shark

Authorities were hunting Sunday for a 20-foot shark that tore a man in half as he snorkeled off Australia’s west coast.

Geoffrey Brazier, the skipper of a pleasure cruiser, was snorkeling with two tourists when he was attacked Saturday. He died instantly off the Abrolhos Islands, about 250 miles north of the Western Australia state capital, Perth, police said. No one else was injured.

“The 26-year-old man was bitten in half by the 20-foot animal and death seemed to be instantaneous,” police Inspector George Putland said.

An air and sea search of the area 37 miles west of the coastal town of Geraldton on Sunday failed to find the shark or human remains.

Government fisheries officer Rory McAuley said authorities wanted to kill the shark, suspected to be either a great white or tiger, to safeguard the public.

Mexico

Pilgrims killed in footbridge collapse

A footbridge loaded with villagers on their way to a religious festival collapsed, sending four people to their deaths in the rocky river ravine below, authorities and witnesses said Sunday.

Thirty-seven people were injured and planks were left dangling from a single cable 80 feet above a river and its rocky banks after one side of the bridge gave out on Saturday.

The bridge failed as dozens of people crossed in the initiation of an annual theatrical tribute to the Mayan rain god to ensure plentiful crops in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.

“The bridge was full and it gave way when some youths started to shake it,” said Esther Vazquez, whose husband died in the collapse.

Two small children were among the four who died.

The spring rituals at caves outside Tapijulapa are said to date back hundreds of years and now attract tourists from across Mexico and outside the country.

Afghanistan

More than 200 missing in floods

More than 200 people were missing in a former Taliban stronghold Sunday after days of torrential rain sparked floods that have killed at least 24 people in other parts of Afghanistan.

The flooding, which follows one of the harshest winters in years, has destroyed hundreds of houses in central Uruzgan province, leaving many families homeless.

Police Chief Rozi Khan said 200 people were missing after the Helmand River flooded two villages in Deh Rawood district, 250 miles southwest of Kabul.

“The villages are very close to the river and all the houses have been damaged,” Khan said. While no bodies have been found, “some of them must surely have been killed,” he said.

American troops and the United Nations were distributing shovels and pickaxes as well as tents, food and blankets to survivors forced into makeshift camps or the homes of relatives.

China

Mine explosion kills at least 60

Rescue workers in northern China have recovered 60 bodies and were searching for nine others after an explosion tore through a coal mine, the government said Sunday.

The blast occurred Saturday at the Xishui Colliery in Shuozhou, in a major coal-mining area in Shanxi province. Police have detained four coal mine owners, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Xinhua reported that 60 bodies had been found by Sunday evening. Nineteen of the dead miners had been working in a neighboring mine and were trapped when the wall where they were working collapsed from the impact of the explosion, it said.

Xishui Colliery had been ordered to suspend production after safety problems last November, but work had resumed “in defiance of the order,” Xinhua said, citing an unidentified official with the provincial coal mine supervision office.

The other coal mine, Kangjiayao, was operating with government approval, it said.