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 —----1 r* ^ *■rr ^ Hy 1^0i&fflftn I 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.’’ , , , ’ . ,Xr tVr* '.f:t tttiif:* i1tlUIl.JXXJtllLiXtLL 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 Nebraskan I Editor Curt Waoner 472-17M Managing Editor Jana Hlrt Assoc Nows Editors Lae Hood Sob Nalson Editorial . 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