Week3-shanghai new year stampede

New Year's stampede in Shanghai: 36 dead, 43 injured

Michael Winter, USA TODAY9:19 a.m. EST January 1, 2015

New Year's revelers jammed along Shanghai's historic riverfront stampeded about a half hour before midnight Wednesday, killing at least 36 people and injuring 47 others, Chinese media reported.

City officials said they had not yet determined what triggered the stampede about 11:35 p.m. in Chen Yi Square on the Bund, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported early Thursday. Many of the dead and injured were students.

A brief report on Xinhua's English-language site said celebrations "went astray" and "a stampede resulted in casualties."

A witness said people had scrambled to grab coupons resembling U.S. dollar bills that were being thrown from a third-floor window near the Bund.

It is the worst disaster in Shanghai in recent years.

The English-language Shanghai Daily noted that the stampede occurred near where a New Year countdown show was being held in the Bund Origin, a relatively enclosed area. Last week, officials canceled the scheduled 3-D laser show in an open area of the Bund because of crowd concerns.

Nearly 300,000 turned out for last year's laser show. Authorities relocated the New Year celebration to the smaller area and limited attendance to 2,000 invitation-only guests. The local government had said the show was relocated "to improve traffic flow."

The Bund — meaning embankment — runs along the Huangpu River and features buildings from the city's pre-revolution heyday, when it was a financial center for Asia.

Video from CCTV America, the U.S. version of state broadcaster China Central Television, showed piles of shoes amid the debris. Photographs showed bodies lying on the streets and attempts to revive victims.

Reuters reported that by dawn, workers were cleaning trash around the Bund and that there "was little sign of the mayhem that had broken out just hours earlier."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/12/31/shanghai-stampede-china-new-years/21119715/

Where:ShanghaiWHEN:about a half hour before midnight Wednesday
What:stampeded,killing at least 36 people and injuring 47 others

KEY WORDS
1. revelers 狂歡
2. riverfront 河濱
3. triggered 引發
4. astray 走錯
5. embankment 堤
6. heyday 極盛

Week2 -taliban pakistan peshawar school kill

Taliban storm Pakistan school, kill 130

By Saad Khan ,AFP
December 17, 2014, 12:00 am TWN
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Taliban insurgents killed at least 130 people, most of them children, after storming an army-run school on Tuesday in one of Pakistan's bloodiest ever attacks.

Witnesses described how a huge blast shook the Army Public School in the northwestern city of Peshawar and six gunmen in government paramilitary uniforms went from classroom to classroom shooting children, some as young as 12.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the second deadliest terror attack in the country's recent history, calling it revenge for a major military offensive in the region.

A teenage survivor described how he played dead to escape the militants as they rampaged through the school, hunting for people to kill.

Shahrukh Khan, 16, said he and his classmates ducked below their desks when four gunmen burst into their room.

“I saw a pair of big black boots coming towards me, this guy was probably hunting for students hiding beneath the benches,” Khan told AFP from the trauma ward of the city's Lady Reading Hospital

Khan decided to play dead after being shot in both legs, stuffing his tie into his mouth to stifle his screams.

“The man with big boots kept on looking for students and pumping bullets into their bodies. I lay as still as I could and closed my eyes, waiting to get shot again,” he said.

“My body was shivering. I saw death so close and I will never forget the black boots approaching me — I felt as though it was death that was approaching me.”

'What is their sin?'

The Lady Reading Hospital was thronged with distraught parents weeping uncontrollably as children's bodies arrived, their school uniforms drenched in blood.

Irshadah Bibi, 40, whose 12-year-old son was among the dead, beat her face in grief, throwing herself against an ambulance.

“O God, why did you snatch away my son? What is the sin of my child and all these children?” she wept.

Police officials said the attack ended around 6.30 p.m., some eight hours after it began, with all six militants dead.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asia/pakistan/2014/12/17/424261/Taliban-storm.htm


WHO: most of them children
where: PESHAWAR, Pakistan
WHY: Taliban insurgents killed at least 130 people
When:on Tuesday

KEY WORDS
1 insurgents 叛亂份子
2 paramilitary 準軍事
3 rampaged 橫衝直撞
4 ward 病房
5 stifle 窒息
6 distraught 發狂的
7 grief 哀思