log on to thegoan.net @thegoaneveryday TUESDAY FEBRUARY 7, 2023 GOA Track work: Several trains cancelled PANAJI: A large number of trains going to Mangalore and beyond on Konkan Railway route will be affected due to major track maintenance work at Jokatte and Padil. As the result, at least 19 trains passing through Goa towards Mangalore and Kerala will been cancelled from February 6 to March 3. Three arrested for extorting money PANAJI: Three persons have been apprehended for allegedly kidnapping a 32-yearold local and trying to extort money. As per case details, Shaikh Basha allegedly borrowed Rs 90,000 from the accused. When he failed to return it, the accused plotted Shaikh’s kidnapping for recovery. >> See pg 3 Cops launch ‘walking the beat’ system MAPUSA: In bid to improve policing and increase confidence of the public on the police, the Mapusa sub-division police launched “walking the beat” initiative in Mapusa town and other villages. A senior police officer is an essential part of this exercise.  >> See pg 3 Illegal sand mining site raided at Oxel MAPUSA: A flying squad headed by Bardez Mamlatdar Pravin Gawas along with Assistant Geologist, Omkar Naik Gaonkar and Anjuna Police and Coastal Police personnel raided a sand extraction site at Oxel, Siolim in the wee hours of Monday. Talathi of Oxel Panchayat Sumit Shirodkar was also part of the raiding party. Taluka-wise progs on Mhadei planned The Goan (Playstore) 14 pages PRICE ` 8 PANAJI MARGAO GOA VOLUME VIII, NO.230 GOA Artificial intelligence-powered robots to man Goan beaches Max: Min: Humidity: TIDES 33 C 19 C 84% Low: 06.12 17.52 High: 00.16 11.31 SPORTS FC Goa drop points against Odisha in 1-1 draw Skincare tips from dermatologists you must know!  MAJOR CITIES WIPED OUT  THOUSANDS OF BUILDINGS FLATTENED   HUNDREDS STILL TRAPPED  BITING COLD, RAIN HAMPER RESCUE OPERATIONS  AFTERSHOCKS CONTINUE TO RATTLE THE REGION PTI AZMARIN A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked wide swaths of Turkey and Syria early Monday, toppling hundreds of buildings and killing more than 2,600 people. The 7.8-magnitude nighttime tremor, followed hours later by two more big ones, wiped out entire sections of major Turkish cities in a region. Hundreds were still believed to be trapped under rubble, and the toll was expected to rise as rescue workers searched mounds of wreckage in cities and towns across the area. On both sides of the border, residents jolted out of sleep by the pre-dawn quake rushed outside on a cold, rainy and snowy night. Buildings were reduced to piles of pancaked floors, and major aftershocks or new quakes, including one nearly as strong as the first, continued to rattle the region. Rescue workers and residents in multiple cities searched for survivors, working through tangles of metal and concrete. A hospital in Turkey collapsed, and patients, including newborns, were evacuated from facilities in Syria. Because the debris removal efforts are continuing in many buildings in the earthquake zone, we do not know how high the number of dead and injured will rise, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. Hopefully, we will leave these disastrous days behind us in unity and solidarity as a country and a nation. The quake, which was centred on Turkey’s southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, was felt as far away as Cairo. It sent residents of Damascus rushing into the street, and jolted awake people in their beds in Beirut. It struck a region that has Loaded truck takes plunge after St Inez road caves in 4 LABOURERS RUSHED TO GMC, CRITICAL The loaded truck that fell into the ditch after the road caved in at St Inez on Monday.   Narayan Pissurlenkar THE GOAN I NETWORK PANAJI The ongoing Smart City works in Panaji resulted in a serious accident at St Inez where a part of the road caved in just when a loaded truck tried to cross the rough stretch. Four labourers, trapped underneath the laterite stones that DEADLIEST QUAKE OF THIS DECADE People search through rubble following the earthquake in Diyarbakir, Turkey on Monday. Goa may see drop in temperature WEATHER >> RNI: GOAENG/2015/65729 INFO OLD GOA: The Save Mhadei Save Goa Front has decided to hold corner meetings in all 12 talukas of the State to create awareness among the public on Mhadei. Front convenor Prajal Sakhardande informed that in all villages of all talukas, there will be corner meetings.   >> See pg 3 PANAJI: Maximum and minimum temperatures in the State are likely to see a drop by 1-2°C, IMD has said. It also said weather is very likely to be dry over Goa for 5 days with haze/shallow fog likely at isolated places. Instagram.com/thegoaneveryday 3 14 2 10 3 quakes jolt Turkey, Syria; over 2600 dead Margao MLA has task cut out to get govt approval for waste mgnt works IN SHORT >> Facebook.com/thegoaneveryday fell off the truck, were rushed to the Goa Medical College and Hospital in a critical state. The incident occurred on Monday afternoon when the driver of GA-04-T-3834-registered truck was completing his second trip along this road patch. While the labourers -all hailing from Agra -- were taken to the hospital for im- mediate medical attention, fire personnel were called out to contain diesel leaking from the truck. The accident led to a blamegame with City Mayor Rohit Monserrate claiming the driver ignored the barricades around the digging site; the >Continued on P5 been shaped on both sides of the border by more than a decade of civil war in Syria. On the Syrian side, the swath affected is divided between government-held territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, which is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces. Turkey, meanwhile, is home to millions of Justice Sonak recuses from Congress case THE GOAN I NETWORK PANAJI Bombay High Court judge Mahesh Sonak recused himself from the petition filed by former Goa state Congress president Girish Chodankar who is seeking directions to Goa Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar to dispose off the disqualification petitions within a period of three months.  Chodankar filed the petition and pointed out that despite three months having passed since the disqualification petitions were filed, the Speaker is yet to issue notices much less begin hearings in the case.  Chodankar has cited a Supreme Court order which had mandated an outer limit of three months for the Speaker to decide disqualification petitions.  Justice Sonak’s recusal mirrors a similar decision he had taken to recuse from hearing the original disqualification petition Chodankar, then as Congress president had filed against the defection of ten Congress legislators to the BJP back in 2019.  The case was ultimately heard by a different bench and dismissed in favour of the defecting MLAs. refugees from that conflict. The opposition-held regions in Syria are packed with some 4 million people displaced from other parts of the country by the fighting. Many of them live in buildings that are already wrecked from past bombardments. >Continued on P5 NEW DELHI A number of Indian medical experts on Monday supported calls from an eminent British Indian cardiologist for a full safety review into the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, administered in India as Covishield, over feared serious side effects such as heart attack and stroke. Dr Aseem Malhotra, a National Health Service (NHS) trained medic who has had two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, is already leading international calls for the suspen- sion of Pfizer’s mRNA Covid vaccine after publishing peer reviewed research last year to warn that the harms could outweigh the benefits for a majority of people. He is in India this week to deliver a series of lectures on Covid vaccines to try and make an “evidence-based case” for their suspension. “The use of the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine was suspended in a number of European countries in early 2021 because of the link to serious side effects, so it seems odd that India has till date not halt ed its use also,” said Dr Malhotra. THE GOAN I NETWORK MAPUSA ith no response from government authorities, the villagers of Saipem have now decided to take matters in their hands and sent water samples of five wells in the village to a private laboratory for chemical analysis. W PILERNE FIRE AFTERMATH The locals under the Saipem Villagers Anti-Pollution Front (SVAPF) are also contemplat- No to paint company: Candolim Sarpanch MAPUSA: Candolim Sarpanch Fermino Fernandes said panchayat members along with local MLA Michael Lobo met Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Monday evening and urged him not to allow Berger Becker paint company to re-start its operation. “Why should innocent people suffer? Such companies should be located in uninhabited areas. The Candolim panchayat along with the Calangute MLA met Chief Minister Pramod Sawant today evening and requested him to relocate the paint company,” Fernandes said. ing to knock the doors of the court to ensure that the Berger Becker paint company does not start its operations in the same place. “Almost a fortnight back, the chief minister had directed the Goa State Pollution Control WHAT HAPPENED „„The quake hit at depth of 18 kilometers and was centered in southern Turkey, near the northern border of Syria „„Many aftershocks have rocked the area since the initial quake „„In the first 11 hours, the region felt 13 significant aftershocks with a magnitude of at least 5 „„Scientists are studying whether a magnitude 7.5 quake that hit nine hours after the main shock is an aftershock TYPE OF EARTHQUAKE „„Researchers say the earthquake was a strikeslip quake, where two tectonic plates slide past each other horizontally, instead of moving up and down „„In this case, one block moved west while other moved east grinding past each other to create the quake WHY WAS IT DEVASTATING „„The earthquake was powerful one, the biggest strikeslip earthquakes that has hit on land „„It was more severe as it’s located near populated areas „„Rescue efforts were also hampered by freezing temperatures and traffic jams from residents trying to leave Over 50% of India’s CRZ violations are from Goa DATA IN RS REVEALS FIGURES OF LAST 5 YEARS THE GOAN I NETWORK PANAJI In figures that will eyebrows among Goans, Goa has topped the list in the number of Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) violations that have been reported in the country in the last five years. GOA IN RS As per the information provided in a written reply by Minister of State, MoEF & CC Ashwini Kumar Choubey in the Rajya Sabha Goa reported 974 cases of CRZ violations from among 1878 cases that were reported during the last five years across the country. Choubey replying to a question raised by YSR Congress parliamentarian S Niranjan Reddy said action has been taken accordingly. Maharashtra is second in the list with 556 violations followed by Karnataka with 101 violations. Coastal zones are defined as an interface between land and the sea that comprises coastal land, intertidal area, and Doctors support call for All is not ‘well’ in Saipem: Locals send water Covishield safety check for testing as authorities fail to show up PTI A 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck on Monday devastated wide swaths of Turkey and Syria, killing thousands of people Board (GSPCB) and the Water Resources Department (WRD) to inspect and clean the water of the contaminated wells in the village but till today nothing has happened. We have sent water samples of five contaminated wells to a private laboratory for chemical analysis. We are waiting for the report,” said Assis Cardozo, Convenor of SVAPF. He said there was apprehension among the villagers on test reports submitted by the GSPCB and therefore it was decided to have an >Continued on P5 No proposal to regularise Dabolim Airport contract workers: Centre PANAJI: Efforts to regularise the services of casual workers and contractors, who have been working at Dabolim Airport since the last 30 years, have received a setback with the Centre stating that there has been no such proposal as yet. In a reply to Rajya Sabha MP Luizinho Faleiro, Minister of State of Civil Aviation Gen V K Singh clarified that there was currently no such proposal.  >> See pg 3 Women head 5,928 MSMEs in State PANAJI: As many as 21.79% of all Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) in the State are headed by women, while five MSMEs headed by women have been shut down in the last five years due to various reasons. >> See pg 3 coastal ecosystems including rivers, estuaries, marshes, wetlands and beaches. India has a coastline of about 7516 km. The CRZ notification classifies coastal areas into different zones to manage developmental activities in an integrated manner. There have been institutional lapses as well, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Instances were also found where expert appraisal committees granted environmental clearances despite absence of domain experts during the project deliberations, the performance audit said. Coastal zone management authorities, both at the national and state levels, must share details of their deliberations with the public in a uniform manner, the auditor recommended.