In Short

A round-up of other world news in brief

Quake strikes El Salvador coast 

SAN SALVADOR – An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 struck off the coast of El Salvador yesterday, shaking buildings in the capital and causing people to flee into the streets, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.

The US Geological Survey reported that the quake was centred in the Pacific, off the coast of El Salvador, 37km (23 miles) below the seabed. It was also felt in Guatemala.

Some people fled their houses in San Salvador, but officials said there were no reports of injuries or damage to buildings. “It was superficial and lasted 25 seconds and was felt in several areas,” said San Salvador civil protection director Jorge Melendez.

– (Reuters)

Journalists freed after 15 months 

NAIROBI – A Canadian reporter and an Australian photographer kidnapped in Somalia have been freed after more than 15 months in captivity.

Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan were released in Mogadishu on Wednesday night after their families reportedly paid a ransom of close to $1 million.

“Tonight we were ripped out of our rooms, stripped of everything, told to put on new clothes and then thrown in a car and then driven – we had no idea what was going on,” said Mr Brennan in the Somali capital.

The pair said they had been beaten by their captors and held in desperate conditions after the initial ransoms demands were not met.

– ( Guardian service)

Man slept with dead wife for five years 

HANOI – A Vietnamese man dug up his wife’s corpse and slept beside it for five years because he wanted to hug her in bed, an online newspaper reported yesterday.

The 55-year-old man from a small town in the central province of Quang Nam opened up his wife’s grave in 2004, moulded clay around the remains to give the figure of a woman, put clothes on her and then placed her in his bed, Vietnamnet.vn said.

The man, Le Van, said when his wife died in 2003 he slept on top of her grave, but about 20 months later he worried about rain, wind and cold, so he decided to dig a tunnel into the grave “to sleep with her”.

His children found out, though, and prevented him from going to the grave. So one night in November 2004 he dug up his wife’s remains and took them home, Vietnamnet reported.

– (Reuters)