Travelore News: Heathrow Says It Doesn’t Know When Power Will Be Restored And Expects Disruption For Days After Fire

Heathrow Airport says it doesn’t know when power will be restored and expects disruption to last for days after an electrical substation fire nearby.

The airport said in a statement it does not have “clarity on when power may be reliably restored.”

At least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow were affected, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said, and the impact was likely to last several days as passengers try to reschedule their travel and airlines work to get planes and crew to the right places.

Authorities do not know what caused the fire but so far found have no evidence it was suspicious.

Residents in west London described hearing a large explosion, followed by a fireball and clouds of smoke, when the blaze ripped through the electrical substation near the airport.

Some 120 flights were in the air when the closure was announced, with some turned around and others diverted to Gatwick Airport outside London, Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris or Ireland’s Shannon Airport, tracking services showed.

Lawrence Hayes was three-quarters of the way to London from New York when Virgin Atlantic announced they were being diverted to Glasgow.

“It was a red-eye flight and I’d already had a full day, so I don’t even know how long I’ve been up for,” Hayes told the BBC as he was getting off the plane in Scotland. “Luckily I managed to get hold of my wife and she’s kindly booked me a train ticket to get back to Euston, but it’s going to be an incredibly long day.”

Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports for international travel. It had its busiest January on record earlier this year, with more than 6.3 million passengers, up more than 5% from the same period last year.

Still, the disruption Friday fell short of the one caused by the 2010 eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed clouds of ash into the atmosphere and created trans-Atlantic air travel chaos for months.

The Metropolitan Police force said counterterrorism detectives were leading the investigation because of their ability to find the cause quickly and because of the location of the electrical substation fire and its impact on critical national infrastructure.

Miliband said the fire, which took seven hours to control, also knocked out a backup power supply to the airport. Heathrow said in a statement that it had no choice but to close the airport for the day.

“We expect significant disruption over the coming days, and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens,” the airport said.

The fire’s widespread impact on travel led to criticism that Britain was ill prepared for disaster or some type of attack if a single blaze could shut down Europe’s busiest airport.

“The U.K.’s critical national infrastructure is not sufficiently hardened for anywhere near the level it would need to be at to give us confidence this won’t happen again,” said Alan Mendoza, the executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a security think tank. “If one fire can shut down Heathrow’s primary systems and then apparently the backup systems, as well, it tells you something’s badly wrong with our system of management of such disasters.”

Tom Wells, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, 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.”

Heathrow — where the U.K. government plans to build a third runway — was at the heart of a shorter disruption in 2023 when Britain’s air traffic control system was hit by a breakdown that slowed takeoffs and landings across the U.K. on one of the busiest travel days of the year.

Disruption could last days

Though the fire has been brought under control, Anita Mendiratta, an aviation consultant, said the impact of the closure will be felt over two to four days as airlines, cargo carriers, and crews are moved into position and passengers rebooked.

“As soon as the airport opens up at midnight tonight, it’s not only about resuming with tomorrow’s flights, it’s the backlog and the implications that have taken place,” Mendiratta said. “Crew and aircraft, many are not where they’re supposed to be right now. So the recalculation of this is going to be intense.”

The London Fire Brigade sent 10 engines and around 70 firefighters to control the blaze and about 150 people were evacuated from their homes near the power station.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks said in a post on X the power outage affected more than 16,300 homes.

Diverted, canceled and in limbo

At Heathrow, a family of five traveling to Dallas showed up in the hopes their flight home — still listed as delayed — would take off.

But when Andrea Sri brought her brother, sister-in-law and their three children to the airport, they were told by police that there would be no flight.

“It was a waste of time. Very confusing,” said Sri, who lives in London. “We tried to get in touch with British Airways, but they don’t open their telephone line until 8 a.m.”

Travelers who were diverted to other cities found themselves trying to book travel onward to London. Qantas airlines sent flights from Singapore and Perth, Australia, to Paris, where it said it would bus people to London, a process likely to also include a train shuttle beneath the English Channel.

Budget airline Ryanair, which doesn’t operate out of Heathrow, said it added eight “rescue flights” between Dublin and Stansted, another London airport, to transport stranded passengers Friday and Saturday.

National Rail canceled all trains to and from the airport.

Blaze lit up the sky and darkened homes

Matthew Muirhead was working Thursday night near Heathrow when he stepped outside with a colleague and noticed smoke rising from an electrical substation and heard sirens crying out.

“We saw a bright flash of white, and all the lights in town went out,” he said.

Flights normally begin landing and taking off at Heathrow at 6 a.m. due to nighttime flying restrictions. But the skies were silent Friday morning.

“Living near Heathrow is noisy, there are planes every 90 seconds or so, plus the constant hum of traffic, but you get used to it, to the point of no longer noticing,” said James Henderson, who has lived next to the airport for more than 20 years. “Today is different, you can hear the birds singing.”

https://apnews.com/author/jill-lawless

Travelore News: Berlin Airport Cancels Flights Ahead Of March 10th Strike. 10 Other Airports Could See Disruptions

Berlin’s airport has canceled all of its flights for Monday ahead of a labor union strike that is expected to impact more than half a million travelers and thousands of flights at 11 airports across Germany.

The ver.di union representing airport ground staff announced the strike on Friday to give travelers time to prepare. It said workers will walk out at the airports that service Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt/Main, Cologne/Bonn, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Hanover, Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin-Brandenburg and Leipzig-Halle.

More than 510,000 travelers could see delays or cancelations of their flights, according to airport association ADV. An estimated 3,400 flights are expected to be canceled Monday.

The union’s negotiators demand better working conditions, higher wages and additional days off, among other things.

In addition to massive travel disruptions, the strike could also have a major economic impact on hotels, restaurants and retailers, ADV said.

By STEFANIE DAZIO

Kilauea, One Of The World’s Most Active Volcanoes, Begins Erupting After 3-Month Pause

Kilauea, the second largest volcano in Hawaii, began erupting on Wednesday after a three-month pause, U.S. Geological Survey officials said.

The survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said in a statement that a glow was detected in webcam images from Kilauea’s summit early in the morning, indicating that an eruption was occurring within the Halema’uma’u crater in the summit caldera.

The images show fissures at the base of the crater generating lava flows on the crater floor’s surface, the observatory said.

Before issuing the eruption notice, the observatory said increased earthquake activity and changes in the patterns of ground deformation at the summit started Tuesday night, indicating the movement of magma in the subsurface.

All activity is within a closed area of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, on Hawaii’s Big Island.

The volcano’s alert level was raised to warning status and the aviation color code went to red as scientists evaluate the eruption and associated hazards.

Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, erupted from September 2021 until last December. For about two weeks in December, Hawaii’s biggest volcano, Mauna Loa, also was erupting on Hawaii’s Big Island.

After a short pause, Kilauea began erupting again in January. That eruption lasted for 61 days, ending in March.

A 2018 Kilauea eruption destroyed more than 700 homes.

Before the major 2018 eruption, Kilauea had been erupting since 1983, and streams of lava occasionally covered farms and homes. During that time, the lava sometimes reached the ocean, causing dramatic interactions with the water.

Source: AP

Travelore News: SAS Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection In US

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Scandinavian Airlines on Tuesday filed for bankruptcy in the United States, warning a walkout by 1,000 pilots a day earlier had put the future of the carrier at risk.

The move adds to the likelihood of travel chaos across Europe as the summer vacation period begins.

The Stockholm-based SAS airline group said it had “voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S., a legal process for financial restructuring conducted under U.S. federal court supervision.”

Filing for Chapter 11 in New York puts civil litigation on hold while the business reorganizes its finances.

SAS said that its operations and flight schedule will be unaffected by the announcement.

CEO Anko van der Werff said that the pilots’ strike accelerated the move. “I think we have been very clear that this could happen,” he said.

“The important thing is that this is about bankruptcy protection, it is not about a bankruptcy, but it is about financial reconstruction,” van der Werff said.

The carrier said it is “in well advanced discussions with a number of potential lenders ... to support its operations throughout this court-supervised process.”

A rescue plan presented in February was aimed at securing long-term competitiveness. SAS shares dropped more than 9% to 0.56 kronor ($0.05) on Tuesday.

The pilots reacted strongly to the news of the Chapter 11 filing. Roger Klokset, head of the SAS pilots union, said the group “had stretched negotiations and mediation from November last year until the day before the application, without ever having the intention of entering into an agreement with the SAS pilots.”

The pilots in Denmark, Sweden and Norway walked out on Monday, citing inadequate pay and working conditions and expressing dissatisfaction with the decision by the carrier to hire new pilots to fill vacancies at its subsidiary airlines, SAS Link and SAS Connect, rather than rehire former pilots who were laid off due to the pandemic.

Van der Werff said the strike was “devastating for SAS and puts the company’s future together with the jobs of thousands of colleagues at stake.”

The walkout is estimated to lead to the cancellation of approximately 50% of all scheduled SAS flights and impact around 30,000 passengers per day. Flights operated by SAS Link, SAS Connect and SAS’ external partners are not affected.

The airline is part-owned by the governments of Sweden and Denmark. In 2018, Norway sold its stake but holds debt in the airline, and has said it might be willing to convert that into equity.

“Right now, it is difficult to assess the significance of the Chapter 11 request for duration of the pilot strike,” chief analyst Jacob Pedersen of Denmark’s Sydbank said. However, “it’s doubtful whether it will bring (the pilots) back to the negotiating table.”

The move by SAS was “not surprising” but came “faster than we expected,” Pedersen said in an analysis. “Although SAS is now under bankruptcy protection, it is not a beach holiday for the company.”

Travelore Breaking News: Federal Judge Sides With Norwegian Cruise Line In Fight With Florida Over Vaccine Passports

A federal judge on Sunday night sided with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings in a fight with Florida over vaccine passports, granting the cruise line’s request for a preliminary injunction that blocks a state law barring businesses from requiring proof of vaccination.

In a nearly 60-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams stated that Florida “fails to provide a valid evidentiary, factual, or legal predicate” for its prohibition on vaccine passports.

“Amid myriad, rapidly-changing requirements regarding quarantining and testing, there is one constant that facilitates cruise line customers’ access to advertised ports of call: documentary proof of vaccination will expedite passengers’ entry into virtually every single country and port where Plaintiffs intend to sail,” Williams wrote.

Background: Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has consistently fought against coronavirus restrictions such as mandates for face masks, in April signed an executive order barring vaccine passports. The Florida Legislature also approved a measure blessing the order and fining companies that violate the ban.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings filed a suit against Florida in mid-July. The cruise line has a ship set to sail out of Miami on Aug. 15.

This is just one of the lawsuits the governor is currently fighting over cruise ships. Florida is in another legal battle with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over its cruise directive.

What’s next: The legal fight between the state and Norwegian could drag on. Peter Patterson, who represents the state and state Surgeon General Scott Rivkees, hinted during a court hearing Friday over the injunction that Florida could take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Source: https://www.politico.com/

Travelore News: Haiti President Jovenel Moïse Assassinated At Home

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Gunmen assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and wounded his wife in their home early Wednesday, inflicting more chaos on the unstable Caribbean country that was already enduring an escalation of gang violence, anti-government protests and a recent surge in coronavirus infections.

Claude Joseph, the interim prime minister, confirmed the killing and said the police and military were in control of security in Haiti, where a history of dictatorship and political upheaval have long stymied the consolidation of democratic rule.

While the streets of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, were quiet Wednesday morning, some people ransacked businesses in one area. The country appeared to be heading for fresh uncertainty ahead of planned general elections later this year. Moïse, 53, had been ruling by decree for more than a year after the country failed to hold elections and the opposition demanded he step down in recent months.

Former President Michel Martelly, whom Moïse succeeded, said he was praying for first lady Martine Moïse, calling the assassination “a hard blow for our country and for Haitian democracy, which is struggling to find its way.”

Joseph said Martine Moïse, 47, was shot and in a hospital. He condemned the president’s killing as a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act.”

“The country’s security situation is under the control of the National Police of Haiti and the Armed Forces of Haiti,” Joseph said in a statement from his office. “Democracy and the republic will win.”

In the statement, Joseph said some of the attackers spoke in Spanish but offered no further explanation. He later said in a radio address that they spoke Spanish or English.

A resident who lives near the president’s home said she heard the attack.

“I thought there was an earthquake, there was so much shooting,” said the woman who spoke on condition of anonymity because she fears for her life. “The president had problems with many people, but this is not how we expected him to die. This is something I wouldn’t wish on any Haitian.”

The U.S. Embassy in Haiti said it was restricting U.S. staff to its compounds and that the embassy would be closed Wednesday because of ’’an ongoing security situation.″

The White House described the attack as “horrific” and “tragic” and said it was still gathering information on what happened. U.S. President Joe Biden will be briefed later Wednesday by his national security team, spokesperson Jen Psaki said during an interview on MSNBC.

“The message to the people of Haiti is this is a tragic tragedy,” she during a previously scheduled interview on CNN. “And we stand ready and stand by them to provide any assistance that’s needed.”

Haiti’s economic, political and social woes have deepened recently, with gang violence spiking heavily in Port-au-Prince, inflation spiraling and food and fuel becoming scarcer at times in a country where 60% of the population makes less than $2 a day. These troubles come as Haiti still tries to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew that struck in 2016.

Opposition leaders accused Moïse of seeking to increase his power, including by approving a decree that limited the powers of a court that audits government contracts and another that created an intelligence agency that answers only to the president.

In recent months, opposition leaders demanded the he step down, arguing that his term legally ended in February 2021. Moïse and supporters maintained that his term began when he took office in early 2017, following a chaotic election that forced the appointment of a provisional president to serve during a year-long gap.

Travelore Breaking News: Terminal At Gatwick Airport, Britain’s Second-Busiest Airport, Closed As A Precaution

The North Terminal at Gatwick Airport outside London, Britain’s second-busiest airport after Heathrow, was closed around 10 a.m. on Saturday as a precaution, officials said.

The police were summoned around 9:30 a.m. after a man  discarded an item, raising suspicions, officials said. The man was detained for questioning.

The Associated Press quoted Detective Superintendent Nick May as saying that the matter was under investigation and that it was too early to say what the item may be. “Given the events in Paris on Friday evening, there is heightened awareness around any such incident, and it is best that we treat the matter in all seriousness,” he said.

British Airways warned that extra security checks ordered by the French government would lead to delays.

The company also offered passengers the opportunity to put off  flights booked from Nov. 14 to Nov. 17 or to reroute to other destinations

At Least 100 Dead After Strong Quake Hits Afghanistan, Pakistan

A powerful earthquake struck a remote area of Afghanistan on Monday, shaking the capital Kabul and killing at least 24 people while 76 were killed in neighboring Pakistan, officials said.

The death toll could climb in coming days because communications were down in much of the rugged Hindu Kush mountain range area where the quake was centered.

Reports of deaths had poured in from different areas of both countries by nightfall.

In one of the worst incidents, at least 12 girls were killed in a stampede to get out of their school in the northeastern Afghan province of Takhar.

"They fell under the feet of other students," said Abdul Razaq Zinda, provincial head of the Afghan National Disaster Management Agency, who reported heavy damage in Takhar.

Shockwaves were felt in northern India and in Pakistan, where hundreds of people ran out of buildings as the ground rolled beneath them.

"We were very scared ... We saw people leaving buildings, and we were remembering our God," Pakistani journalist Zubair Khan said by telephone from the Swat Valley northwest of the capital, Islamabad.

"I was in my car, and when I stopped my car, the car itself was shaking as if someone was pushing it back and forth."

The quake was 213 km (132 miles) deep and centered 254 km (158 miles) northeast of Kabul in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially measured the quake's intensity at 7.7 then revised it down to 7.5.

Just over a decade ago, a 7.6 magnitude quake in another part of northern Pakistan killed about 75,000 people.

In Afghanistan, a total of 24 were reported dead on Monday including the 12 schoolgirls, seven people in the eastern province of Nangarhar, two in Nuristan province in the northeast and three in eastern Kunar province, officials said.

PHONES DOWN

In Pakistan, 38 deaths were reported by early evening, most in northern and northwestern regions bordering Afghanistan, officials told Reuters.

Particularly hard-hit in Pakistan was the northern province of Chitral, where 11 people were killed, police official Shah Jehan said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise because so many areas were cut off from communications.

Journalist Gul Hammad Farooqi, 47, said his house had collapsed.

"I was thrown from one side of the road to the other by the strength of the earthquake. I’ve never experienced anything like it," Farooqi said.

"There is a great deal of destruction here, and my house has collapsed, but thankfully my children and I escaped."

Further south, the city of Peshawar had one death but at least 150 injured people were being treated at the city's main hospital, the provincial health chief said.

In Afghanistan, international aid agencies working in northern areas reported that cell phone coverage in the affected areas remained down in the hours after the initial quake.

"The problem is we just don't know. A lot of the phone lines are still down,” said Scott Anderson, deputy head of office for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Kabul.

Badakhshan provincial governor Shah Waliullah Adib said about 400 houses were destroyed but he had no figures on casualties.

"Right now we are collecting information,” he said

The earthquake struck almost exactly six months after Nepal suffered its worst quake on record, on April 25. Including the toll from a major aftershock in May, 9,000 people lost their lives and 900,000 homes were damaged or destroyed.

The mountainous region is seismically active, with earthquakes the result of the Indian subcontinent driving into and under the Eurasian landmass. Sudden tectonic shifts can cause enormous and destructive releases of energy.

(Additional reporting in Kabul by James Mackenzie and Mirwais Harooni in Kabul. In Pakistan, additional reporting by Qasim Shah in Gilgit, Abu Arqam Naqash in Muzaffarabad, Haji Mujtaba in Bannu, Saud Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Asad Hashim in Islamabad.; Writing by Kay Johnson.; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Rescue workers carry a girl who was injured after an earthquake, at a hospital in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, October 26, 2015.

REUTERS/ PARWIZ

KABUL/PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN | BY KRISTA MAHR AND JIBRAN AHMAD

Travelore Breaking News: Strong Quake Shakes Chile Capital, Causing Buildings To Sway

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A powerful earthquake shook Chile's capital Wednesday night, causing buildings to sway and people to take refuge in the streets. Several strong aftershocks hits within minutes as tsunami alarms sounded in the port of Valparaiso and authorities issued a tsunami alert for the country's entire coast.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.9. Chilean authorities recorded it as 7.2.

U.S. officials said the quake struck just offshore in the Pacific at 7:54 p.m. and was centered about 141 miles (228 kilometers) north-northwest of Santiago. It said the quake was 4.8 miles (5 kilometers) below the surface.

Chile's emergency office warned that big waves caused by the quake could hit the coast by 11 p.m.

Travelore News: Airplane Carrying More Than 50 People Disappears Over Indonesia

The plane lost contact with air traffic control in a remote part of the eastern province of Papua.

An ATR 42 owned by Trigana Air. Trigana Air / Via trigana-air.com

An Indonesian airplane carrying more than 50 people disappeared Sunday while flying over the country’s remote eastern province.

The Trigana Air Service plane disappeared Sunday afternoon after leaving from Jayapura, the capital city of the remote Papua province, the Associated Pressreported.

The plane was en route to Oksibil, which like Jayapura is located near the border with Papua New Guinea.

In a statement, the Indonesian search and rescue agency said the plane had 49 passengers on board, including two children and three babies. There were also four crew reported on board, including the captain, first officer, technician, and a flight attendant.

Google / Via google.com

Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue agency (SAR) announced the plane’s disappearance on Twitter, saying it lost contact at 2:55 p.m. local time:

Jim Dalrymple II

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Breaking News: Shots Fired In Possible Terror Attack On Tour De France

The Tour de France is the kind of high profile tourism and sports event that would make it an ideal target for terrorists. Paris has been on maximum security alert since the Charlie Hebdo shootings.

"So, tourists looking for a prime spot before the finale and just took the wrong turn." This was one of the tweets in response to police opening fire on a car trying to smash through a barricade on Place de la Concorde in the French Capital Paris.

After Paris police officers shot at the car, the vehicle just drove away with two occupants seemingly unharmed.

It happened Sunday morning before the final arrival of the Tour de France cycling race, a police official said.

Currently police is trying to find the vehicle that fired the shots.

Travelore Breaking News: 35 killed, 42 injured in Shanghai stampede during New Year's celebration

 

SHANGHAI (AP) - Thirty-five people have been killed in a stampede s in downtown Shanghai, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency is reporting.

The report early Thursday cites the Shanghai government in saying that another 42 people were injured.

The deaths and injuries occurred at Shanghai's popular riverfront Bund area, which can be jammed with spectators for major events.

One Xinhua photo from the scene showed at least one person doing chest compressions on a shirtless man while several other people lay on the ground nearby, amid debris. Another photo showed the area ringed by police.

The cause of the stampede remained under investigation, the Xinhua report said.

Shanghai's historic Bund riverfront runs along an area of often narrow streets amid restored old buildings, shops and tourist attractions. The China Daily newspaper in February reported that the city's population was more than 24 million at the end of 2013.