A round-up of today's other stories in brief...
At least 32 killed as building collapses
NEW DELHI – At least 32 people were killed and many more were trapped under debris after a five-storey building collapsed yesterday.
New Delhi police commissioner BK Gupta said at least 60 people were injured when the building on the Indian capital’s east side collapsed. Emergency workers were trying to pull people from the debris, but their efforts were hampered as fire engines found it difficult to navigate the area’s narrow alleys. – (Reuters)
Supernova is 'black hole in the making'
WASHINGTON – An exploding star spotted 30 years ago in a nearby galaxy appears to be a newborn black hole, astronomers reported yesterday.
X-ray observations suggest the supernova, called SN 1979C, is a black hole in the making, a team of US and European astronomers said.
“If our interpretation is correct, this is the nearest example where the birth of a black hole has been observed,” Daniel Patnaude of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts, said in a statement.
Amateur astronomer Gus Johnson of Maryland spotted the supernova in 1979 at the edge of a galaxy called M100 and astronomers have been peering at it since. Light and X-rays from the collapse have taken 50 million years to travel to Earth at the speed of light 186,000 miles (300,000km) a second, or about six trillion miles a year.
Nasa’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton and the German ROSAT observatory have seen that it emits a steady source of bright X-rays. Analysis of the X-rays supports the idea that the object is a black hole and that it is either being fed by material falling back from an initial supernova or perhaps from a twin star. – (Reuters)
Smoke hampers helicopter rescue
SHANGHAI – Thick smoke was hampering three helicopters sent to rescue people trapped on a burning Shanghai apartment building where at least 42 people have died and 50 have been injured, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Firefighters on ladders were battling the flames in the 28-storey building, live footage on China Central Television showed. –(Reuters)