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Twenty-four people were killed and hundreds injured when a train packed with weekend passengers derailed in northwest Turkey due to ground erosion atfer heavy rains, officials said Monday. 

The train, with over 360 people on board, was travelling from the Edirne region on the Greek and Bulgarian borders to Istanbul's Halkali station on Sunday when six carriages derailed in the Tekirdag region. 

Deputy Prime Minister Recep Akdag said 24 people died, in a sharp rise from the previous toll of 10. 
The state-run Anadolu news agency quoted Akdag as saying search operations through the derailed train carriages had been completed Monday morning. 

Turkish media quoted Health Minister Ahmet Demircan as saying 338 people required hospital treatment after the accident with 124 still hospitalised. The transport ministry said that the train, carrying 362 passengers, had derailed as recent heavy downpours caused the ground beneath the track to erode away. 

Transport Minister Ahmet Arslan said that the latest checks on the rails had been made in April, Anadolu reported.Turkish media, including the Hurriyet daily, published pictures showing the erosion had been so bad that part of the track had been in the air with no ground left to support it. 

Television pictures showed several train carriages sprawled on their sides, and shocked injured passengers being taken away on stretchers as rescue workers picked through the wreckage. 
The train derailed outside the village of Sarilar in the Corlu district of Tekirdag. 

Every available means

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his condolences over those who lost their lives in the accident that he said has "deeply upset the whole nation". 

The accident, one of Turkey's worst train disasters of recent years, threatens to cast a shadow over a lavish ceremony scheduled in Ankara later Monday to mark the inauguration of Erdogan for a new presidential mandate and the transition to a new system of government. 

Erdogan said all state institutions were "using every means available to help", vowing that there would be a comprehensive investigation into the "tragic accident", the presidency said. 

Turkey's audiovisual authority RTUK later said the government had issued a temporary ban on broadcasting images from the scene. This was lifted on Monday morning.Turkish authorities under Erdogan have over the last years sought to modernise Turkey's once ramshackle rail network, building several high speed inter-city lines. 

Turkish passengers have in general preferred taking planes or buses for inter-city travel but this has been changing with the new high-speed lines. The train involved in the accident appeared to be one of the slower passenger trains travelling on a single track line.Turkey's rail network has been hit by several fatal accidents in recent years. 

In January 2008, nine people were killed when a train derailed in the Kutahya region south of Istanbul due to faulty tracks. 

And in Turkey's worst recent rail disaster, 41 people were killed and 80 injured in July 2004 when a high-speed train derailed in the northwestern province of Sakarya. AFP

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The Department of Immigra­tion has prevented two North Korean women on expired visas from entering Nepal. According to the country’s Immigration laws, for­eigners on tourist visa cannot stay in Nepal for over 150 days in a year. The North Korean women, who had already stayed in Nepal for 150 days in 2018, had gone to China on June 24. They were detained at the airport when trying to reenter Nepal on June 25. The two women will not be allowed into Nepal in 2018. Although both the women request­ed visa renewal, the Immigration officers declined.

Why the women wanted to stay in Nepal even after the expiry of their visa is unclear. The two were found to be illegally employed at the Pyongyang Arirang Restau­rant in Durbarmarg. Under the protection of the North Korean embassy in Nepal, North Korean nationals have been operating the restaurant at Durbarmarg, as well a hospital at Damauli, Tanahun and an Information Technology-related company in Kathmandu.

Previously, the Metropoli­tion Crime Division of Nepali Police had raided the Pyongyang Arirang restaurant and arrested 11 North Koreans working there without permits.

The two North Koreans in ques­tion—Ji Yun Gyong and Kim Un Hye—who deported by the Immigra­tion department on June 25, were also among those arrested in the previous raid.

“We found out that they had gone to China for a night, hoping that their visas would be renewed when they came back to Nepal,” said an employee at the immigration office in the Tribhuvan International Airport.

By SHAMBHU KATTEL

At least 45 militants have been killed and 28 others injured since the military launched fresh offensive on June 1 against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in southern Philippines, the military said on Sunday. 

Brig. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the Army's 6th Infantry Division, based in Maguindanao province, said the army has so far launched 10 major "sustained military operations" against the BIFF, an extremist group with links to Islamic State (IS) fighters. 

He said four soldiers have also been killed and 20 others wounded in the clashes. "We've been conducting the operation for a month and eight days already," Sobejana said.During the continuing military operation, he said the military recovered 28 assorted firearms and 10 improvised explosive devices.

The troops also managed to capture four rebel camps and an IED and firearm making facility, he added. 
Sobejana vowed to continue the military offensive against the BIFF, expressing hope to destroy the terrorist group. There are up to 400 BIFF terrorists operating in Mindanao, he said. 

BIFF members are mostly disgruntled former members of the larger insurgent group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which signed peace accord with the government. The BIFF is among the several groups in Mindanao that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State a few years ago. Xinhua

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The death toll from record rains that have devastated parts of Japan rose Sunday to at least 57, officials said, as rescue workers and troops struggled in the mud and water to save lives.Local media put the toll at 67, with dozens more people missing and the number of fatalities expected to rise.

Earlier Sunday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned of a "race against time" to rescue flood victims as there were still many people whose safety has yet to be confirmed. The torrential downpours have caused flash flooding and landslides across central and western parts of the country, prompting evacuation orders for more than two million people. 

The rain has completely blanketed some villages, forcing desperate residents to take shelter on their rooftops with flood water swirling below as they wait for rescue. Over two million people have been told to evacuate, but the orders are not mandatory and many remained at home, becoming trapped by rapidly rising water or sudden landslides. The meteorological agency issued its highest level alert for two new regions on Sunday, before lifting them after rains began subsiding later on the day. 

Roads turned into rivers 

In the town of Mihara, in the south of the Hiroshima region, a let-up in rain laid bare the devastation wrought by the downpours.Roads were transformed into muddy flowing rivers, with dirt piled up on either side as flood water gushed around the wheels of stranded cars.

"The area became an ocean," said 82-year-old Nobue Kakumoto, a long-time resident. "I'm worried because I have no idea how long it will stay like this."Several dozen residents descended into the village to inspect the damage after spending the night in a tiny shelter on higher ground. 

Masanori Hiramoto, a 68-year-old farmer, didn't bother observing the Japanese custom of removing his shoes when he entered his ravaged home, the woven tatami mat floors carpeted with mud. 
"I don't even know where to start cleaning. I don't know what is where," he told AFP. Elsewhere, work crews tried to clear multiple small landslides that coated roads, rendering them virtually impassable. 
"We are carrying out rescue operations around the clock,

" Yoshihide Fujitani, a disaster management official in Hiroshima prefecture, told AFP. "We are also looking after evacuees and restoring lifeline infrastructure like water and gas," he added. "We are doing our best." In western Okayama prefecture, rescue operations were underway to evacuate several hundred people including children and the elderly from a hospital, some by helicopter. 

Those in the building became trapped when a nearby river burst its banks and flooded the area, and a nurse inside told local media there was no power or water, and food was running short. "Around 1,000 people were seeking rescue by Sunday morning, but we don't yet have a complete picture of the disaster, which is enormous," Mutsunari Imawaka, a spokesman for the prefecture's disaster management office, told AFP. "We are working hard to rescue them as quickly as possible. Time is running out. " 

Homes washed away 

Over 50,000 rescue workers, police and military personnel have been mobilised to respond to the disaster, which has left entire villages submerged by flooding, with just the top of traffic lights visible above the rising waters."I was in a car and massive floods of water gushed towards me from the front and back and then engulfed the road.

I was just able to escape, but I was terrified," 62-year-old Yuzo Hori told the Mainichi Shimbun daily in Hiroshima on Saturday.Though the rains began last week when a typhoon made landfall, the worst downpours hit from Thursday, when a construction worker was swept away by floodwaters in western Japan.The toll has risen steadily since then, and the conditions have made rescue operations difficult, with some desperate citizens taking to Twitter to call for help.

The floods have halted production at plants across the affected region, with reports of electricity, water and mobile phone network outages. The disaster is the deadliest rain-related crisis in Japan since 2014, when at least 74 people were killed in landslides caused by torrential downpours in the Hiroshima region. AFP

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