News Digest Edited by Diana Johnson
Bodies of sailors arrive with U S S Iowal
ROOSEVELT ROADS NAVAL
STATION, Puerto Rico (AP) - The
battleship USS Iowa arrived off this
sprawling naval base Wednesday,
carrying the bodies of at least 47
sailors and facing an investigation
into the worst naval disaster in more
than a decade.
Navy officials said the bodies ol
those killed in Wednesday’s explo
sion were being brought ashore by
helicopter and then would be flown tc
a military mortuary in Dover, Del.
The Pentagon today put the death
toll at 47 and said other crew mem
bers were accounted for. Earlier,
spokesmen had said the death toll
could be higher.
Ten to 12 crew members suffered
minor injuries. “Most of these .. .
were in the firefighting party,” Pen
tagon spokesman Fred Hoffman said
at a briefing this morning. “Most of
these who have been hurt have been
treated on board ship.”
The ship’s captain had decided not
to dock at the base at Puerto Rico but
iemain 10 to IS miles out to sea
because the Iowa draws 36 to 38 feet
of water and the harbor is only 40 feet
deep, said Lt. Cmdr. Steve Burnett, a
Navy spokesman.
He said the ship would head for its
home port in Norfolk, Va., after all
bodies were brought ashore. The
Iowa is based there.
The explosion occurred during a
gunnery exercise at 9:55 a.m.
Wednesday while the 46-year-old
ship was on maneuvers about 330
miles northeast of Puerto Rico.
The explosion and fire were in the
second of the two forward turrets, at
the loading position of the middle
gun in the three-gun turret, said Bruce
Mason, a Navy spokesman at the
Pentagon.
Hoffman said an investigation
into the circumstances of the incident
has already begun and will be led by
Rear Adm. Richard D. Milligan,
commander of Cruiser Destroyer
Group 2 and a former commanding
officer of the battleship USS New
Jersey.
in Norfolk, about 200 relatives of
the 1,600 crewmen aboard the Iowa
spent the night at a Norfolk Naval
Station gym where they had gathered
Wednesday out of sight of reporters.
Navy policy requires that families of
dead or injured sailors be notified
before any list of victims is released.
“There are those who are really
struggling, and those who are really
stoic, said Navy Chaplain Barry
Brimhall. “Right now, for some of
these families, they would rather
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Asteroid passes within miles
WASHINGTON -- An asteroid
moving at 46,000 miles an hour and
capable of wiping out whole cities
passed within a half million miles
of Earth last month, an event that
NASA scientists call “a close
call.”
‘‘The object would be packing
the equivalent of 40 billion tons of
TNT,” said Bevan French, a scien
tist in NASA’s solar system explo
ration division. ‘‘That would be
equal to about 40»00 hydrogen
bombs.”
French said the asteroid was a
half mile or more in diameter and
missed the Earth by about 500,000
miles, about twice the distance
separating the Earth and the Moon.
' The asteroid was detected by
Henry Holt, a University of Ari
zona astronomer working on a
NASA-funded project to detect and
track so-called “Earth crossing
asteroids.” These are bits of space
rock that orbit the sun and pass
across the orbit of Earth.
French said Holt found the ob
ject in photos taken on March 31 by
an 18-inch telescope at the Mount
Palomar Observatory in California.
The photos were processed several
days later and the asteroid was dis
covered by comparing views taken
an hour apart
By the time the object was pho
tographed, French said, it had al
ready made its closest approach to
Earth and was streaking outward,
away from the sun. Scientists plot
ted the trajectory backward and
determined that the asteroid passed
within a half million miles of Earth
on March 23.
“On the cosmic scale of things,
that was a close call,” Holt said in
the NASA announcement of the
event
The object, designated 1989FC,
came closer to Earth than any other
object so large since the pass in
1937 of an object called Hermes.
That object went by Earth at about
the same distance as 1989FC.
French said that if 1989FC had
impacted dry land on Earth it could
have carved out a crater 10 miles
across and created a blast that
would be felt thousands of miles
away. .
‘rIt would be a very major ca
tastrophe for which we have had no
experience,” he said.
If the asteroid had hit the ocean,
French said it would have created
tidal waves that would wash over
vast areas of coastal regions.
French said that there may be
‘‘hundreds to thousands” of such
Earth-crossing asteroids and that
such an object the size of 1989FC
could reasonably be expected to
impact the Earth every 5 million to
20 million years.
He said there is a crater in
Ghana and one in the Soviet Union
created by such objects hitting the
Earth. The Soviet crater is thought
to be less than a million years old.
Scientists also believe that an
object about six miles in diameter
hit the Earth about 65 million years
ago and ejected so much debris
into the atmosphere that it caused
the planet to cool. A popular the
ory blames this event for the ex
tinction of the dinosaurs.
French said that 1989FC is in an
orbit that crosses the orbits of
Earth, Mars and Venus. He said the
asteroid is moving away from the
sun now, but will return to the
region of Earth, passing within 20
million miles, some time in Octo
ber.
have bad news than no news at all ”
In Temple, Texas, Loreoe Barron
said all she could do was pray for h»
son, Monte Barron, and hope she
would hear from the Navy by teie.
phone.
“They told me if he was amone
the deceased, they would personally
visit us,” Mrs. Barron said. “But I
believe everything’s going to be OK
And I’m praying for all the mothers
who are waiting just like I am.”
Lt. Russell A. Greer, an Atlantic
Fleet spokesman in Norfolk, said the
explosion occurred while the ship
was conducting open seas gunnery
practice, but did not know if ii oc
curred as the gun was being fired.
23 Palestinians
reported wounded
JERUSALEM -- Soldiers shot and
wounded 23 Palestinians in the occu
pied Gaza Strip on Wednesday, and
11 of the victims were children, most
of whom were hit in the head, hospi
tal officials said.
Soldiers and police increased se
curity in the occupied territories and
in Israel to prevent riots or attacks
during the seven-day Jewish Pass
over holiday that started at sundown
Wednesday.
Violence erupted in four locations
in the Gaza Strip - the Khan Yunis
and Nusseirat refugee camps, the vil
lage of Beit Hanoun, and a neighbor
hood in Gaza City.
Arab doctors said the wounded
included six children aged 14 or
younger who were struck with rub
ber-coated metal bullets in the head
and face. Five other youths were
struck with plastic or rubber bullets in
other parts of the body, they said.
The doctors said 12 people be
tween the ages of 15 and 30 also were
injured with plastic bullets.
Those wounded with rubber bul
lets were treated and released, the
doctors said.
A Western relief official in Gaza
City said about 40 percent of the
wounded in the Palestinian revolt are
now 15 and younger.
“In the beginning of the uprising,
the average age of those getting shot
was much higher," said the official,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
Since the start of the revolt in
December 1987, 439 Palestinians
have been killed, most shot by sol
diers during stone-throwing protests.
Eighteen Israelis have died.
_ —
Salvador legal official killed
SAN SALVADOR. Ei Salvador ~ El Salvador s attorney aeneral
was killed Wednesday by a bomb that his driver said was placed on top
of his car at an intersection. The rightist president-elect blamed leftist
guerrillas.
Roberto Garcia Alvarado, 53, was killed instantly by the blast, said
Oscar Orellana, the driver. The explosion ripped a hole through the roof
of the attorney general’s Jeep Cherokee.
Garcia is the highest-ranking government official slain since the
civil war began in 1981. An estimated 70,000 Salvadorans, most of
them civilians, have been killed in the conflict
Afghan clash kills hundreds
KABUL, Afghanistan - Nearly 250 people were reported killed in
battles between the army and Moslem guerrillas, and President Najib
appealed to Western nations Wednesday to help end the ll-year-old
Afghan civil war.
The officials said fighting was reported in six of the country’s 32
provinces.
Najib said in an interview with Worldwide Television News of
Britain:
“My message to the West, which comes from the heart of every
Afghan, is that my people long for peace and we expect other nations
to help. What (roubles us most is tne virtual silence of world public
opinion in the face of deliberate escalation of bloodshed in my coun
try.’’
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Guns silent,but many
lack water, electricity
BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Residents
staggered from shelters today to face
a city devoid of electricity, water and
bread, but fifehting that has raged for
weeks quieted down into intermittent
shellfire.
Many people opted to leave the
city, but one ferry company operating
from between the Christian sector
and Cyprus suspended service be
cause of shells crashing into the water
around it.
The city has been without power
since Sunday when fuel stocks dried
up, and no ships dared risk the gantlet
of shells to unload.
The Moslem-controlled Voice of
the Nation radio said the French navy
ship Penhors would unload its cargo
of fuel oil within 24 hours.
One-third will be pumped off at
the Moslem-run power station at
Jiyeh south of Beirut, and the rest will
go to the Christian-run power station
of Zouk north of Beirut. France dis
patched the ship April 5, but shelling
has kept it from coming to shore.
Another French ship, the Ranee,
carried wounded Lebanese to Cyprus
for eventual treatment in Paris hospi
peeled in Paris later.
Beirut residents have been relying
on small generators to run vital appli
ances, but without municipal power,
the water pumps that supply the city
have shuddered to a halt
A city official, speaking on condi
tion of anonymity, said there was not
enough fuel for garbage trucks to
operate, “in addition to the fact that
about 90 percent of our 2,000 clean
ing employees have left Beirut.’’
Flour stocks have dwindled be
cause ships are not docking.
With no water and flour, bakers in
West Beirut sold no bread.
The body of Spanish Ambassador
Pedro Manuel de Arstegui was flown
by Lebanese army helicopter to Lar
naca, Cyprus, where it was trans
ferred to a Spanish military transport
|>tene for 3 SCVen h0ur ^*8^1 to
Dc Aristegui, 61, was killed when
a 240mm mortar round, believed to
have been fired by a Syrian gunner,
struck his villa in the Christian suburb
of Hadath on Sunday.
270 people have been
.{uM flhd ,975 wounded since the
fatest fightfrig flared Mttrch g
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