Tag Archives: survival

Billions pledged for Syria as tens of thousands flee bombardments

LONDON (Reuters) – Donor nations pledged on Thursday to give billions of dollars in aid to Syrians as world leaders gathered for a conference to tackle the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with Turkey reporting a new exodus of tens of thousands fleeing air strikes.

With Syria’s five-year-old civil war raging and another attempt at peace negotiations called off in Geneva after just a few days, the London conference aims to address the needs of some 6 million people displaced within Syria and more than 4 million refugees in other countries.

Underlining the desperate situation on the ground in Syria, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the meeting that tens of thousands of Syrians were on the move toward his country to escape aerial bombardments on the city of Aleppo.

“Sixty to seventy thousand people in the camps in north Aleppo are moving toward Turkey. My mind is not now in London, but on our border – how to relocate these new people coming from Syria?” he said. “Three hundred thousand people living in Aleppo are ready to move toward Turkey.”

Turkey is already hosting more than 2.5 million Syrian refugees. Jordan and Lebanon are the other countries bearing the brunt of the Syrian refugee exodus.

Several speakers said that while the situation of refugees was bad, that of Syrians trapped inside the country enduring bombardments, sieges and, in some places, starvation was far worse.

“With people reduced to eating grass and leaves and killing stray animals in order to survive on a day-to-day basis, that is something that should tear at the conscience of all civilized people and we all have a responsibility to respond to it,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told the conference.

A U.N. envoy halted his attempts to conduct Syrian peace talks on Wednesday after the Syrian army, backed by Russian air strikes, advanced against rebel forces north of Aleppo, choking opposition supply lines from Turkey to the city.

Kerry told the conference he had spoken to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov about the situation.

“We have agreed that we are engaged in a discussion about how to implement the ceasefire specifically as well as some immediate, possible confidence-building steps to deliver humanitarian assistance,” he said.

In a blunt attack on Russia, Turkey’s Davutoglu told a news conference that those supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces were committing war crimes and called on the United States to adopt a more decisive stance against Russia.

EDUCATION, JOBS

United Nations agencies are appealing for $7.73 billion to cope with the Syrian emergency this year, and countries in the region are asking for an additional $1.2 billion.

Conference co-hosts Britain, Norway and Germany were the first to announce their pledges, followed by the United States, the European Union, Japan and other nations.

Britain and Norway promised an extra $1.76 billion and $1.17 billion respectively by 2020, while Germany said it would give $2.57 billion by 2018. The United States said its contribution this fiscal year would be $890 million.

The almost five-year-old conflict has killed an estimated 250,000 people and stoked the spread of Islamist militancy across the Middle East and North Africa.

For European nations, improving the humanitarian situation in Syria and neighboring countries is crucial to reducing incentives for Syrians to travel to Europe.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the first steps in the Geneva peace talks had been undermined by a lack of sufficient humanitarian access and by a sudden increase in aerial bombing and military activity on the ground.

“The coming days should be used to get back to the table, not to secure more gains on the battlefield,” he said.

The conference will focus particularly on the need to provide an education for displaced Syrian children and job opportunities for adults, reflecting growing recognition that the fallout from the Syrian war will be very long-term.

(Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke and Arshad Mohammed, writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Winter brings new dangers for migrants crossing frozen Balkan peninsula

PRESEVO/SID, Serbia (Reuters) – Migrants braved temperatures as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday to cross frozen Balkan borders en route to western Europe, visibly unprepared for winter and in increasing danger from the cold.

Governments and aid agencies along the route have laid on heated tents and mobilized trains and buses to support the flow of migrants, most of them refugees from the war in Syria winding across the Balkan peninsula.

But the sheer numbers – though down from a summer peak of some 10,000 to just under 2,000 per day – mean many spend nights sleeping on tent floors.

A Reuters photographer saw children crying from the cold as they walked or were carried several kilometers across the Macedonian-Serbian border to waiting buses.

The United Nations and aid agencies warned on Tuesday that children were particularly at risk given their lack of adequate clothing or access to sufficient nutrition.

A spokesman for the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said the risk of children freezing to death was “clearly very, very high.”

Most migrants wore jackets and sneakers; some had hats and gloves, and many were wrapped in gray blankets handed out by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).

“It’s too cold, but what can I do? I’m wearing everything I have but it’s still too cold,” said a 22-year-old man at the town of Sid on the Serbian-Croatian border. He gave his name as Amr and said he was from the Iraqi town of Fallujah, where Islamic State militants hold sway.

On the highway in Serbia, hundreds of migrants received hot soup, tea and gloves from aid groups at a disused motel that has been turned into a refugee camp.

More than a million people fleeing war, poverty and repression in the Middle East and Africa reached Europe’s shores last year, most heading for Germany.

Aid agencies expect a similar number this year, testing the willingness of a divided Europe to take them in and putting unprecedented strain on the continent’s commitment to a Schengen zone of open borders.

(Writing by Matt Robinson, editing by Sarah Young)

Search for survivors after Marine helicopters crash off Hawaii

(Reuters) – The U.S. Coast Guard is leading a search for two Marine helicopters with a total of 12 people on board that collided near the island of Oahu in Hawaii, officials said on Friday.

The CH-53E helicopters, belonging to the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing from the Marine Corps Air Station at Kaneohe Bay, were reported to have collided just before midnight local time, Coast Guard spokeswoman Sara Mooers said.

No survivors have been rescued from the crash more than seven hours after it occurred, said another Coast Guard spokeswoman, Petty Officer Second Class Melissa McKenzie.

“We remain hopeful,” McKenzie said.

Just after midnight, the crew of a Coast Guard helicopter spotted debris in the waters off the town of Haleiwa on the north shore of Oahu, but did not find any of the passengers.

A Coast Guard cutter was on scene and another one was en route and expected to arrive shortly, McKenzie said.

Two U.S. Navy warships have also been sent to join the search, and local police and fire departments were assisting with helicopters, she said.

The initial effort was hampered by dark, cloudy conditions and waves of up to 15 feet, officials said.

The Marine Corps confirmed the search, but provided few additional details.

“Thoughts & prayers are with our Marines & their families in Hawaii as search efforts continue,” General Robert Neller, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in a message on Twitter.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Susan Heavey, David Alexander and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Spiritual preparedness highlights Williams’ seminars at Morningside

Dr. Paul Williams has authored a book that extensively details the practical steps people can take to prepare themselves for disasters, covering everything from purchasing emergency supplies to preparing evacuation plans. But there’s one area he wishes he could have gone into more detail — how people can be spiritually ready for whatever will happen in the days ahead.

Williams had the opportunity to do just that when he visited Morningside this week.

Williams, the author of “When All Plans Fail,” hosted three one-hour preparedness seminars for the Morningside community. Much of the doctor’s seminars focused on spiritual preparedness, something he only touched on in the book, with a common theme woven throughout his talks.

Williams asked those in attendance to ask themselves a series of questions.

“Has my desire to be prepared and protect myself and my family caused me to lose sight of my calling and life’s purpose in Christ Jesus?” he said. “Am I trying to hang on to an American Dream? Do I love Jesus more than things in this world? … Life does not consist of the things that a man possesses. That’s not what life is. The way you live your life portrays your true beliefs.”

The doctor’s seminars echoed recent calls from Pastor Jim Bakker to make 2016 the Year of the Bible and return to the Word of God to ensure people are spiritually prepared for Christ’s return.

Williams’ seminars focused on how people should live in the last days, tying in Biblical stories and messages and the own lessons he learned during his more than 200 medical mission trips.

“We live in very unique times, don’t we?” he said during one seminar at Morningside. “I guess that in any time that I’ve ever been here, this is probably one of the greatest in terms of the sense of responsibility for what’s coming down the pike and trying to get out the message and trying to mobilize us in terms of what needs to be done.”

Williams emphasized the importance of spiritual preparation during his final seminar.

“If you are not spiritually ready and all you have done is your physical preparation, it can be taken away from you,” he said. “You don’t know what’s going to be there. But (no one can) take your salvation away from you. They cannot take your spiritual walk with God away from you.”

He spoke of being ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20), being transformers in churches and neighborhoods and being ministers of reconciliation to a broken world. He said it was important for people to view things the way that God would want them to look at them, and not to focus on the headlines, but rather what these days truly mean for the true believers.

“You can become discouraged if all you do is look at the dangers around you,” Williams said in an interview. “If you just look at all the evils that are all around us — politically, financially, World Wars. … If (Christians) just look at what’s immediately around them, they lose sight of ‘You know guys, we’re going to win.’ Whether we live or whether we die, we’re victorious.”

He challenged those in attendance to go out into the world and put God’s will and words into action — not to just hear or read the words in the Bible, but go out and perform them on an everyday basis.

“I believe the need for what is being expressed is so great that we’ve got to get it down into our spirit and not just have it in our heads, but to actually have in our spirit and to actually take action on it,” Williams said during a seminar.

He said that the number of people who are “truly prepared” for the great trials ahead has increased a little bit, but it was “nowhere near where it needs to be.” He stressed he has also seen people letting their need to prepare get in the way of what remains truly important: God.

“We’re supposed to live for the Lord. Our purpose in life is to love him more than we even love family. What’s happened — particularly with certain teachings that have gone around … it’s almost as if Christianity and God are there to just supply our needs,” Williams said in an interview. “Now, don’t get me wrong, he does supply our needs. Matthew 6:33 very clearly says ‘Seek first the kingdom of heaven, and his righteousness, then all these things will be added to you.’ But before that, he said ‘after all these things that gentiles seek.’

“I think what’s happened, even in the area of preparedness, we’re seeking those things as opposed to God,” Williams continued. “God will take care of us. I’m not trying to downplay the importance of being wise and preparing. When you see a storm coming, you prepare for it. There’s wisdom there. But we don’t rely on ourselves. … God considers it as wickedness to rely on your own strength. It’s wicked, because what it says is we’re not really recognizing the source of all power and authority, which is in God himself.”

For those wondering what steps to take in these days, Williams offered some advice: Seek God.

“If you don’t see far in the distance, that’s OK,” Williams said during one of his seminars. “If you just know what the next step is going to be, if you just know what God wants you to do on the next step, just take that step and don’t worry about what the next one is.”

Williams goes into more depth about disaster preparedness and steps people can take to get physically and spiritually ready in “When All Plans Fail,” available in the Morningside store.

The seminars will be uploaded to the PTL Television Network on Roku in the coming days.

UN confirms severe malnutrition in Madaya, 32 deaths in one month

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. Children’s Fund UNICEF on Friday confirmed cases of severe malnutrition among children in the besieged western Syrian town of Madaya, where local relief workers reported 32 deaths of starvation in the past month.

A mobile clinic and medical team of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent was on its way to Madaya after the government approved an urgent request, and a vaccination campaign is planned next week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

Two convoys of aid supplies were delivered this week to the town of 42,000 under a months-long blockade. The United Nations said another convoy was planned to Madaya, sealed off by pro-government forces, and rebel-besieged villages of al-Foua and Kefraya in Idlib next week, and that regular access was needed.

“UNICEF … can confirm that cases of severe malnutrition were found among children,” it said in a statement, after the United Nations and Red Cross had entered the town on Monday and Thursday to deliver aid for the first time since October.

UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac told a news briefing in Geneva that UNICEF and WHO staff were able to screen 25 children under five and 22 of them showed signs of moderate to severe malnutrition. All were now receiving treatment.A further 10 children aged from 6 to 18 were examined and six showed signs of severe malnutrition, he said.

UNICEF staff also witnessed the death of a severely malnourished 16-year-old boy in Madaya, while a 17-year-old boy in “life-threatening condition” and a pregnant women with obstructed labor need to be evacuated, Boulierac said.

Abeer Pamuk of the SOS Children’s Villages charity said of the children she saw in Madaya: “They all looked pale and skinny. They could barely talk or walk. Their teeth are black, their gums are bleeding, and they have lots of health problems with their skin, hair, nails, teeth.

“They have basically been surviving on grass. Some families also reported having eaten cats,” she said in a statement. “A lot of people were also giving their children sleeping pills, because the children could not stop crying from hunger, and their parents had nothing to feed them.”

She said her agency was working to bring unaccompanied and separated children from Madaya to care centers in quieter areas just outside the capital Damascus.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people in critical condition were evacuated to a hospital in the city of Latakia, on Syria’s government-controlled Mediterranean coast, from Kefraya and al-Foua on Friday.

DYING OF STARVATION

World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Bettina Luescher said that the local relief committee in Madaya had provided figures on the extent of starvation, but it could not verify them.

“Our nutritionist…was saying that it is clear that the nutritional situation is very bad, the adults look very emaciated. According to a member of the relief committee, 32 people have died of starvation in the last 30-day period.”

Dozens of deaths from starvation have been reported by monitoring groups, local doctors, and aid agencies from Madaya.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday Syria’s warring parties, particularly the government, were committing “atrocious acts” and he condemned the use of starvation as a weapon of war in the nearly five-year-old conflict.

“It can also be a crime against humanity. But it would very much depend on the circumstances, and the threshold of proof is often much more difficult for a crime against humanity (than for a war crime),” U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a briefing in Geneva on Friday.

The United Nations says there are some 450,000 people trapped in around 15 siege locations across Syria, including in areas controlled by the government, Islamic State militants and other insurgent groups.

(Reporting by John Davison and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Stephanie Nebehay and Mariam Karouny; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

More aid reaches trapped Syrians, doubts cast on peace talks

NEAR MADAYA, Syria/BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – A second batch of aid reached a besieged Syrian town and two trapped villages on Thursday and the United Nations accused rival factions of committing war crimes by causing civilians to starve to death.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said aid trucks had entered the town of Madaya near the border with Lebanon, and the villages of Kefraya and al-Foua in Idlib province in the northwest. Syrian state media said six trucks had gone into Madaya.

For months, tens of thousands have been blockaded by government troops in Madaya and surrounded by rebel forces in the two villages.

“According to the ICRC team that entered Madaya, the people were very happy, even crying when they realized that wheat flour is on the way,” Dominik Stillhart, International Committee of the Red Cross director of operations, said in New York.

Aid officials hoped to bring in more supplies, with fuel deliveries set for Sunday, according to Stillhart.

“We hope … this effort will continue,” said Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Syria, who accompanied the convoy.

A senior U.N. human rights official said the use of starvation as a weapon was a war crime.

“Starving civilians is a war crime under international humanitarian law and of course any such act deserves to be condemned, whether it’s in Madaya or Idlib,” said U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid bin Ra’ad.

“Should there be prosecutions? Of course. At the very least there should be accountability for these crimes.”

“ATROCIOUS ACTS”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Syria’s warring parties, particularly the government, were committing “atrocious acts” and “unconscionable abuses” against civilians.

“Let me be clear: the use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime,” Ban told reporters.

The siege of Madaya, where people have reportedly died of starvation, has become a focal issue for Syrian opposition groups who want all such blockades lifted before they enter negotiations with the government planned for Jan. 25.

A prominent member of the political opposition to President Bashar al-Assad told Reuters that date was unrealistic, reiterating opposition demands for the lifting of sieges, a ceasefire and the release of detainees before negotiations.

“I personally do not think Jan. 25 is a realistic date for when it will be possible to remove all obstacles facing the negotiations,” George Sabra told Reuters.

A total of 45 trucks carrying food and medical supplies were due to be delivered to Madaya, and 18 to al-Foua and Kefraya on Thursday, aid officials said.

The Syrian Observatory said it had recorded 27 deaths in Madaya from malnutrition and lack of medical supplies, and at least 13 deaths in al-Foua and Kefraya due to lack of medical supplies.

The population of Madaya is estimated at 40,000, while about 20,000 live in al-Foua and Kefraya.

“The scenes we witnessed in Madaya were truly heartbreaking,” said Marianne Gasser, the most senior official with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Syria.

“The conditions are some of the worst that I have witnessed in my five years in the country. This cannot go on,” she said.

PEACE TALKS

The talks planned for Jan. 25 in Geneva are part of a peace process endorsed by the U.N. Security Council last month in a rare display of international agreement on Syria, where the war has killed 250,000 people.

U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said after meeting representatives of the United States, Russia and other powers on Wednesday that Jan. 25 was still the intended date.

Russia said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would meet in Zurich on Wednesday, five days before the talks date.

But even with the backing of the United States and Russia, which support opposite sides in the conflict, the peace process faces formidable obstacles.

“The meeting is due in a bit more than 10 days, but before then de Mistura will present in New York what he has achieved,” said a senior Western diplomat.

“But he still has to define how to press ahead with this mechanism which to me is not looking good because all sides are not agreed on the parameters.”

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Jan. 25 remained the plan “but it is human beings who are negotiating on both sides” and changes regarding the date could still arise.

Fighting is raging between government forces backed by the Russian air force and Iranian forces on one hand, and rebels including groups that have received military support from states including Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Rebel groups that back the idea of a political settlement have rejected any negotiations before goodwill measures from Damascus including a ceasefire.

Sabra, the opposition politician, said: “There are still towns under siege. There are still Russian attacks on villages, schools and hospitals. There is no sign of goodwill.”

There are about 15 siege locations in Syria, where 450,000 people are trapped, the United Nations says.

The Syrian government has said it is ready to take part in the talks, but wants to see who is on the opposition negotiating team and a list of armed groups that will be classified as terrorists as part of the peace process.

Underscoring the complications on that issue, Russia condemned as terrorists two rebel groups that are represented in a newly-formed opposition council tasked with overseeing the negotiations.

“We do not see Ahrar al-Sham or Jaysh al-Islam as part of the opposition delegation because they are terrorist organizations,” the RIA news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov as saying.

(Reporting by Kinda Makieh near Madaya, Tom Perry, Mariam Karouny and Lisa Barrington in Beirut, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Jack Stubbs and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, John Irish in Paris, Tom Finn in Doha, Francois Murphy in Vienna and Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Giles Elgood)

U.N. war crimes investigators gathering testimony from starving Syrian town

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – Residents of a besieged Syrian town have told U.N. investigators how the weakest in their midst, deprived of food and medicines in violation of international law, are suffering starvation and death, the top U.N. war crimes investigator told Reuters on Tuesday.

An aid convoy on Monday brought the first food and medical relief for three months to the western town of Madaya, where 40,000 people are trapped by encircling government forces.

But Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the U.N. commission of inquiry documenting war crimes in Syria, said his team remained “gravely concerned” about the humanitarian situation there.

“As part of our investigations, the Commission has been in direct contact with residents currently living inside Madaya,” he said in an emailed reply to Reuters questions.

“They have provided detailed information on shortages of food, water, qualified physicians, and medicine. This has led to acute malnutrition and deaths among vulnerable groups in the town,” he said in the email sent from his native Brazil.

The U.N. inquiry, composed of independent experts, has long denounced use of starvation by both sides in the Syrian conflict as a weapon of war, and has a confidential list of suspected war criminals and units from all sides which is kept in a U.N. safe in Geneva.

“Siege tactics, by their nature, target the civilian population by subjecting them to starvation, denial of basic essential services and medicines,” Pinheiro said on Tuesday.

“Such methods of warfare are prohibited under international humanitarian law and violate core human rights obligations with regard to the rights to adequate food, health and the right to life, not to mention the special duty of care owed to the well-being of children.”

Rebel forces are also besieging the government-held villages of Foua and Kafraya in Idlib province, where U.N. supplies were also delivered on Monday, Pinheiro noted. Islamic State fighters are besieging government-held areas of Deir al-Zor, he added.

Aid workers who reached Madaya spoke of “heartbreaking” conditions being endured by emaciated and starving residents, with hundreds in need of specialized medical help.

“It’s really heartbreaking to see the situation of the people,” said Pawel Krzysiek of the International Committee of the Red Cross. “A while ago I was just approached by a little girl and her first question was did you bring food … we are really hungry.”

The World Health Organization said it had asked the Syrian government to allow it to send mobile clinics and medical teams to Madaya to assess the extent of malnutrition and evacuate the worst cases.

A local doctor said 300 to 400 people needed special medical care, according to Elizabeth Hoff, the WHO representative in Damascus who went into Madaya with the convoy.

“I am really alarmed,” Hoff told Reuters by telephone from Damascus, where she is based.

“People gathered in the market place. You could see many were malnourished, starving. They were skinny, tired, severely distressed. There was no smile on anybody’s face. It is not what you see when you arrive with a convoy. The children I talked to said they had no strength to play.”

FOOD WEAPON CONDEMNED

Western diplomats have also condemned the use of food as a weapon of war, with the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, accusing the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of “grotesque starve-or-surrender tactics”.

Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Matthew Rycroft, said “wilfully impeding relief supply and access can constitute a violation of international humanitarian law”.

Legal experts said that could be construed as either a war crime or a crime against humanity, or both.

However, there appears little immediate prospect of such a case being brought before the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, since Syria is not a member and any referral to the court by the U.N. Security Council would have to overcome Russian reluctance.

The difficulties in getting aid into Madaya and other besieged places could also set back efforts to hold new peace talks on the five-year-old war in Syria, scheduled to take place under U.N. auspices in Geneva on Jan. 25.

A U.N. road map for the talks calls on the parties to allow aid agencies unhindered access throughout Syria, particularly in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

An opposition grouping has told the United Nations that this must happen before the talks can begin, lending weight to suggestions that the humanitarian situation could make Jan. 25 a hard target to hit.

Negotiations to get into Madaya and the other two villages near Idlib were lengthy and difficult. There are presently about 15 siege locations in Syria, where 450,000 people are trapped, the United Nations says.

The main opposition coordinator, Riad Hijab, said the United States had backtracked over the departure of President Bashar al-Assad as part of any settlement and this meant the opposition would face hard choices on whether to attend the talks.

The WHO intends to return to Madaya on Thursday as part of a U.N. convoy with more medical and food supplies, Hoff said.

ICRC spokeswoman Dibeh Fakhr also said its next distribution is planned for Thursday. The aid consists of blankets and medicine as well as food.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Additional reporting by Tom Miles, Lisa Barrington, Kinda Makieh and Lou Charbonneau; Writing by Giles Elgood, editing by Peter Millership and David Stamp)

Arson Survivor Receives 480,000-plus Christmas Cards, Disney Trip

The 8-year-old arson survivor whose story about her desire for Christmas cards prompted an outpouring of holiday cheer from around the world is getting a lot more than she ever asked for.

Sa’fyre Terry was the only survivor of a May 2013 blaze in Schenectady, New York, that killed her father and three siblings. Family friends say Terry suffered burns on more than 75 percent of her body and had her right hand and left foot amputated as a result of her extensive injuries.

This Christmas, she received a tree-shaped Christmas card holder and wanted to receive enough cards to fill up the tree. After family friends shared Terry’s photo and story on Facebook, the story went viral and she began receiving cards, donations and support from around the globe.

In a Facebook post on a page monitoring Terry’s recovery, supporters wrote she received more than 480,000 Christmas cards through Monday, a number that has undoubtedly increased. Supporters wrote she had received a card from all 50 states — including one from the Obama family — as well as countries like Dubai, Malaysia, Australia, France, Brazil, China and India.

Students at the nearby University of Albany also presented her with a robotic right hand.

According to a Facebook posting, Terry also recently learned that she’ll be spending part of February at Walt Disney World, courtesy of Baking Memories 4 Kids. The nonprofit organization sells chocolate chip cookies online at BakingMemories4Kids.com and uses the proceeds to send children with life-threatening illnesses to amusement parks in Florida.

A crowdsourced fundraising page that had been established to help Terry’s caregivers with a host of expenses had a goal of $15,000, but had generated more than $398,000 as of Thursday.

‘Christmas Miracle’ Saves Louisiana Couple From Bomb Explosion

A Louisiana couple says it’s a “Christmas miracle” that they were not injured when a bomb that police said was intentionally left at their home exploded, according to several published reports.

“We think it was our Christmas miracle,” Tracy Hewlett told CBS News, adding that she, her husband Bobby and their four pets did not suffer any injuries in the blast early Saturday.

The Hewletts own and live at the Holly Hill Farm Equestrian Center in Benton, Louisiana.

According to the Bossier Sheriff’s Office, one of their maintenance workers named Douglas Holley is accused of making a bomb and detonating it in an attempt to kill the Hewletts. Law enforcement authorities allege Holley placed the bomb in a crawl space below their bedroom.

Tracy Hewlett told The Bossier Press-Tribune that she and her husband were asleep in bed when she saw a huge flash of light and was launched into the air. They were covered with debris, including shards of glass and wood, but were able to leave the house to telephone emergency responders.

“As we walked out, we just looked at each other and said it was a miracle,” Tracy Hewlett told The Bossier Press-Tribune. “We literally stopped, looked up and said, thank you Jesus.”

Tracy Hewlett told the newspaper she and her husband initially thought it might have been a gas explosion, but investigators ultimately determined that the bomb had been placed right below their heads. She said the two of them definitely had “divine protection” to walk away unscathed.

The Bossier Sheriff’s Office said it searched a separate home on the horse farm property where Holley lived and found materials that could be used to make explosives, as well as evidence that he had looked up “bomb-making information.” Police said he worked at the farm for four years, and that his job as a maintenance worker would have allowed him to access the explosion site.

He’s being held on two counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of bomb making, authorities said in a news release. Authorities did not disclose a motive, but said an investigation found “the explosion was not accidental, but purposely planned and specifically targeted.”

91 Reported Missing After Massive Landslide in China

At least 91 people were missing on Monday after a massive landslide in China, reports indicate.

According to Xinhua, China’s official news agency, about 3,000 rescue workers were searching through an industrial park in the city of Shenzhen after construction waste slid down a hill at about 11:40 a.m. Sunday, covering a 93-acre area in 32 feet of dirt. The slide reportedly affected 33 buildings, either burying them or otherwise damaging them, and hospitalized 16 people.

Xinhua reported authorities detected some signs of life underneath the landslide, but the muddy composition of the silt was complicating rescue efforts. While 900 people were safely evacuated after the disaster, the news agency reported only seven people had been rescued from the mud.

A researcher with the China Academy of Railway Sciences, who was assisting the rescue, told Xinhua it was the only time he’d seen a landslide of this magnitude in his 30 years on the job.

Xinhua reported that the landslide caused part of an important pipeline that carried natural gas to nearby Hong Kong to explode. Crews were reportedly building a temporary pipe on Monday.

It’s still not known what exactly spurred the landslide, according to Xinhua. It reportedly occurred at a former quarry that had been turned into a site where construction waste could be dumped.