Powerful earthquake kills at least 126 in western China
A strong earthquake shook a high-altitude region of western China and areas of Nepal on Tuesday, damaging hundreds of houses, littering streets with rubble and killing at least 126 people in the autonomous Chinese region of Tibet.
Many others were trapped as dozens of aftershocks shook the remote region. Rescue workers climbed mounds of broken bricks, some using ladders in heavily damaged villages, as they searched for survivors.
Videos posted by China’s Ministry of Emergency Management showed two people being carried on stretchers by workers treading over the debris from collapsed homes.
At least 188 people were injured in Tibet on the Chinese side of the border, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that about 1,000 houses were damaged, citing the Tibet earthquake relief headquarters.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake measured magnitude 7.1 and was relatively shallow at a depth of about 10 kilometres. China recorded the magnitude as 6.8.
Over the past century, there have been 10 earthquakes of at least magnitude 6 in the area where Tuesday’s quake hit, the USGS said.
About 6,900 people live in three townships and 27 villages within 20 kilometres of the epicentre on the Chinese side, state media said. The average altitude in the area is about 4,200 metres.
Mount Everest area closed
The epicentre — about 75 kilometres northeast of Mount Everest — was in Tibet’s Tingri county, where the India and Eurasia plates grind against each other and can cause earthquakes strong enough to change the heights of some of the world’s tallest peaks in the Himalayan mountains.
About 150 aftershocks were recorded in the nine hours after the earthquake, and the Mount Everest scenic area on the Chinese side was closed.
The area, often crowded with climbers and hikers, was empty in the depths of winter. Many residents move to the south to avoid the harsh winter.
About 1,500 fire and rescue workers were deployed to search for people, the Ministry of Emergency Management said. Two hundred soldiers joined the search, CCTV said.
Chinese Leader Xi Jinping called for all-out efforts to rescue people, minimize casualties and resettle those whose homes were damaged. Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing was dispatched to the area to guide the work, which CCTV said involved more than 3,000 rescuers.
Tibet is part of China, but many Tibetans’ loyalties lie with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader who has lived in exile in India since a failed anti-Chinese uprising in 1959. Western governments and human rights organizations have repeatedly accused the Chinese government of abuses in Tibet, where it has cracked down on dissent while investing heavily in economic development.
About 230 kilometres from the epicentre in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, the earthquake woke up residents and sent them running out of their homes into the streets.
Published at Tue, 07 Jan 2025 11:12:25 +0000
Meta to end fact-checking program on Facebook, Instagram in U.S.
Meta is ending its fact-checking program in the U.S. and replacing it with a system similar to the “Community Notes” on Elon Musk-owned X, the Facebook parent said on Tuesday.
The new model will allow users on Meta’s social media sites Facebook, Instagram and Threads to call out posts that are potentially misleading and need more context, rather than placing the responsibility on independent fact-checking organizations and experts.
A spokesperson for Meta confirmed to CBC News that the changes won’t apply in Canada or anywhere else outside of the U.S. for now.
“We are beginning with rolling out community notes in the [U.S.], and will continue to improve it over the course of the year before expansion to other countries,” the spokesperson said.
Meta’s chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan wrote a blog post explaining the change.
“Experts, like everyone else, have their own biases and perspectives. This showed up in the choices some made about what to fact check and how,” Kaplan wrote. “A program intended to inform too often became a tool to censor.”
Kaplan added that its efforts over the years to manage content across its platforms have expanded “to the point where we are making too many mistakes, frustrating our users and too often getting in the way of the free expression we set out to enable.”
Changes partly due to Trump victory
CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that the changes are in part sparked by political events, including Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said in an online video.
The company said it would begin phasing in community notes in the United States over the next couple of months and would improve the model over the course of the year.
“We’ve seen this approach work on X — where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context,” Kaplan said in the blog post.
Meta will also stop demoting fact-checked content and use a label notifying users there is additional information related to the post, instead of the company’s current method of displaying full-screen warnings that users have to click through before even viewing the post.
Published at Tue, 07 Jan 2025 15:35:13 +0000
