More news in brief.
Fire on train shuts Channel Tunnel service
PARIS -A fire on a freight train forced the closure of the undersea Channel Tunnel yesterday, halting all rail traffic, including passenger services, between France and Britain, the tunnel operator said.
No one died in the blaze, which started on a lorry carrying chemicals aboard the train, and all the 32 truck drivers on the shuttle were led to safety.
Officials in northern France said six people were slightly injured after inhaling fumes.
Trains heading towards the tunnel were turned back on both sides of the channel and the Eurostar rail operator said services would resume today. - (Reuters)
Hurricane Ike heads for Texas
HOUSTON -Thousands of people fled coastal areas in the path of Hurricane Ike yesterday as the storm gathered strength on its collision course with the Texas coast, on a track that would skirt the heart of the US offshore oil patch.
Ike is a category 2 storm with 160km/h (100mph) winds and could grow to a ferocious category 4 storm on the five-step intensity scale with winds of 213km/h before coming ashore late today or early tomorrow, the National Hurricane Centre said.
The latest projections pointed Ike toward the middle of the Texas coast, near Freeport just south of Galveston, skirting to the west of the main region for offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico, which provides a quarter of US oil and 15 per cent of its natural gas. - (Reuters)
Missing child may have been found
ATHENS -Greek police may have found an eight- year-old Italian girl reported missing in Sicily four years ago, officials said yesterday.
On a tip-off from Interpol after a family friend spotted the child on the Aegean island of Kos, police seized the girl and arrested a 34- year-old Roma woman she was with.
Denise Pipitone disappeared on September 1st, 2004, while she was playing with her cousins in the street of her hometown Mazara del Vallo, near Trapani. A DNA test is expected to confirm if the girl is Denise. - (Reuters)