Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 3, 1992)
News digest Ocean earthquake slams killertidal wave into Nicaragua 1 ___ ___centered 75 miles southwest ot Managua ar. MASACHAPA, Nicaragua — Splintered huts and buildings littered a 200-mile swath of Nicaragua’s coast Wednesday following a tidal wave that killed at least 36 people and left thousands homeless. Dozens were missing, and rescue workers expected the death toll to rise. A major earthquake at sea caused a wall of water up to 30 feet high to sweep over most of the Nicaraguan coast. It submerged islands and rolled more than a half-mile inland in some spots, destroying beachfront homes and hotels and scattering wrecked boats and cars. The surge of water sucked people and small buildings out to sea as it retreated. Nicaragua’s government appealed urgently for international aid. “The sea took us by surprise. All of sudden, I was swimming inside my own home, and all my furniture was floating around me,” Socorro Lopez, 47, said. She lost two grandchildren in Masachapa, a beach resortof about2,000 people south of the capital, Managua. “This huge wave swallowed us house and all. Now I’ll never be able to bring my grand children back,” the woman said, sobbing,as the recovered bodies of the 4-year-old boy and 2 year-old girl were laid out nearby. Eight of the nine confirmed dead in Masachapa were children. Lt. Col. Ricardo Wheelock, an army spokes man, said preliminary figures indicated 36 people were known dead, 44 missing and 142 injured. More man juu nuuscs uvJU»jv», he said. . . . . Jose Adan Guerra, vice minister of the presi dency, said more bodies were being found. Unconfirmed radio reports said there were more than 50 deaths. In Geneva, U.N. officials said the Interna tional Federation of Red Cross and Red Cres cent Societies reported at least 64 dead. They said the United Nations would release $30,000 to buy urgent supplies. The missing included at least 12 fishermen lost at sea near Masachapa, Red Cross officials said. The earthquake, which registered 7 on the Richter scale, struck at 6:16 p.m. and was * A -U cording to the National Earthquake Informa tion Center in Golden, Colo. Aftershocks followed, and the center said they likely would continue for days but prob ably would cause no damage. Nonetheless, authorities evacuated thousands of people from coastal areas and wailing ambu lances sped through towns picking up the in jured and dying. The earthquake was among the most damag - ing to hit N icaragua since a 1972 quake measur ing 6.2 on the Richter scale devastated the capital, killing 5,000 people. • __ _A South Florida refugees begin tent city check-in MIAMI —• Hurricane Andrew’s weary, homeless victims started trickling into tent cities Wednes day, and were greeted like guests at a first-class hotel. Some of them enjoyed their first hot shower in days. Donated goods were being shipped into hurricane-battered Florida and Louisiana from across the country by individuals, com munity groups and corporations. The first arrivalsatthe tentcamps were registered by the Red Cross, treated to a bag of toiletries and stationery, then escorted to their tents by luggage-toting men in uni form. “A Marine brought our stuff,” marveled EmestGuzman, who was settling into a camp in Homestead with his two children where show ers had been connected. “We’ve got valet service.” The five tent cities—two run by the Marines, two Army and one Navy — have room for 3,752 people, a liny percentage of the tens of thousands left homeless by the ferocious hurricane that swept across southern Florida on Aug. 24. Only a few dozen people moved in Tuesday night and Wednesday — the first days the tent cities were available, although they weren’t officially opening until Thursday. Still, they offered some of Andrew’s victims a sign that the federal government, sharply criti cized as sluggish and inefficient in the first days after the storm, was serious about providing help. And, one day after Bush’s sec ond lour of the storm wreckage, three Cabinet-level secretaries were ^ in the area. Transportation Secretary An drew Card, who has been in charge of the federal relief effort, was joined at a news conference by Housing Secretary Jack Kemp and Health and Human Services Secre tary Louis Sullivan. Kemp said Bush would ask fora multibillion-dollar supplemental appropriation for relief, and also said the government would con sider whether to build smaller tent cities m damaged neighborhoods so that people could slay closer to what is left of their homes. ‘Folks want to protect their castle, their palace,” Kemp said. Florida state officials said Wednesday that 1.7 million meals had been served so far at 35 immo bile feeding sites and 75 mobile ones, and that 7(X),(XX) pounds ol food had been distributed. In this corner, tne lncumoem Bush hands out election-year cash, subsidies SHALLOW ATER,Texas—Presi dent Bush, polishing hi’s new image of an activist president doling out elec tion-year largess, on Wednesday an nounced $755 million in disaster aid for farmers and a $1 billion package of farm export subsidies. He unveiled the emergency assis tance and the package to help U.S. wheat farmerscompetcagainst heavily subsidized European competition first . in South Dakota and then later in this East Texas, community. Then he headed to Fort Worth, where White House aides said he would announce the go-ahead for S6 billion in sales of Texas-made F-16 fighter jets to Tai wan. The United States will sell Taiwan 150 of the jets, the White House said. Taiwan has sought the planes, manu factured by General Dynamics at its Forth Worth plant, for the past 11 years. Company officials have said an earlier administration decision to block the sale of the fighters would force the layoff of3,000 aircraft work ers. Bush announced he was reconsid ering U.S. opposition to the sale dur ing a visit to Texas in July. Standing among bales of hay on a flatbed truck on a South Dakota farm, Bush declared, “American farmers need help, and with th is disaster assis tance, you will get it.” He delivered a similar message during a rally at a cotton gin mill in Shallowatcr, near Lubbock. Bush told his Texas audience that he saw his role as “being there to help you get back on your feet when disas ter strikes.” In addition to providing assistance to farmers in Florida and Louisiana whose rice and other crops were dev astated by Hurricane Andrew, the new assistance would help reimburse farm ers in East Texas whose cotton crops were damaged by heavy flooding last spring, Bush said. The new aid came a day after Bush promised 100 percent federal reim bursement for Florida’s recovery costs from hurricane damage. While House aides denied politi cal motivation, but did little to dis guise the fact that Bush hoped to reap political benefits from the announce ment. On the export aid, Bush said he was directing subsidies to be applied to up to 1.1 billion bushels of wheat for shipment to 28 countries between now and next June. The subsidies could mean $3 billion in sales. Bush said. Administration officials said the SI billion cost would be financed from existing agricultural appropria tions, but they did not provide details. Bush said the federal aid would helpU.S. farmers compete with farm ers in nations that subsidize farm ex ports, allowing American growers to — “beat their socks off.” The White House denied that the announcement represented a retreat from the U.S. position — taken re peatedly by the United States in inter national trade talks — to end all such subsidies. The new move seemed bound to increase frictions between the United States and the 12-nation European Community, where agricultural sub sidies are common. Bnan Shellito DN . Asylum-seeking swarm causes uerman strain BERLIN — The headline in Germany’s most widely read newspaper caught plenty of people oi l guard: “Refugee Shelter Seeks Ger man Cleaning Lady.” Though the home’s directors say the Bild hcadlme was exaggerated. Wednesday' s report reflected a widespread feeling that a wave of asylum-seekers has turned German life upside down. With unemployment and rightist violence growing in the east, Gcrmansarctakingacloser look at hundreds olthousands of refugees living on the public dole. No one's talking about tossing innocent civilians back into war /ones, but there’s a growing consensus that Germany doesn't need to shelter Africans, Eastern Europeans and Asians from poverty. Even the opposition, Social Democrats, long ' the firm champions of Germany’s liberal asy lum laws, says it’s time for a change — and lor cuts in the refugees’ handouts. “They can no longer get the same federal welfare benefits as Germans,” said Hermann Heincmann, the head of social services in North Rhine-Westphalia stale and a Social Democrat. Recent riots in Rostock and elsewhere have plunged Germans into the most profound soul scarchingand political bickering since the coun try was reunited nearly two years ago. Critics say Chancellor Helmut Kohl must pay more attention to the struggling cast, where the anti-refugee violence has been the worst. Neo-Nazis took to the streets with Hitler sa lutes. raising worries about Germany’s image - 44 Other countries are watching us very closely, with an eye toward our rightist-extremist tendencies in the past. — Klaus Kirkel German foreign minister -99 - particularly within the European Community, abroad, particularly within the European Com munity. “The effects abroad are bad, of course,” said Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel. “Other coun tries are watching us very closely, with an eye toward our rightist-extremist tendencies in the past.” When West Germany was formed in 164d. the country' s leaders w rote a I ibcral asvlum law into the constitution as a form of atonement for Nazi atrocities. Those same provisions are now coming back to haunt the government. State and city officials bitterly complain that the hugecostsol housing and maintaining the refugees are seri ously threatening their budgets. Officials sav 1,100 refugees arrived every day from January through July, a pace nearly double last year’s record-high of 256,000. The Social Democrats say there are 360,000 un processed applications for asylum. The proccsscan take years. In the meantime, the refugees receive free meals and lodging, and can get spending money of up to S360 a month for a head of family, with other family members receiving lesser amounts. The majority are fleeing poverty rather than political persecution, and know they won't be granted asylum. Fewer than 10 percent arc ever granted reiugee status, but lew arc booted out il they arpn t. While even the federal Interior Ministry says it cannot pinpoint the total cost of keeping the people housed and fed, it’s estimated to run well into the billions ol dollars every year. Some shelters hold 25 nationalities at one time, leading to disputes over customs and eating. One of the shelters, in the rural town ol Usingcn outside Frankfurt, advertised lor a cleaning woman, catching the eye ol the Bild newspaper. But some critics arc beginning to see greater problems lurking below the surface — most stemming from the difficulties of reuniting rich,capitalist West Germany with the shambles of Communist East Germany. “I think the asylum problem just diggers a much deeper set of problems," says Gcsinc Schwan,a political science professor at Berlin s Free University. "Even if there were no reiugee homes, there would be other causes for riots. U.N. to monitor Serb artillery S AR A J E VO. Bosn ia- Hcrzcgov i na —The leader of Bosnian Serbs agreed Wednesday to pul his heavy weapons around Sarajevo under U.N. supervi sion, and a U.N. official said peace keeping operations could last for years. Despite the agreement by Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on U.N. monitoring of Serb artillery, mortar shells fell again on Sarajevo, and loy alist troops pressed on with their des perate attempt to break through Serb forces that have encircled the capital for five months. The developments came a day be fore a new round of peace talks spon sored by the United Nations and the European Community in Geneva. Apart from ending the war, a major aim of the talks is to ensure aid gets to the estimated 2 million people from Bosnia who are at risk from cold or lack of food this winter, U.N. officials said a U.S. C-130 transport that flew to Sarajevo Wednesday was the l,()(X)lh Bight in a2-month-old U.N. airlift for thecity’s estimated 450,(XX) residents. Leaders of Bosnia’s ethnic fac tions met for an initial round of peace talks in London last week. The fight ing, which has killed thousands,broke out after Bosnia’s majority Muslims and Croats voted on Feb. 29 for indc pcndcnce from Serbia-dominated Yugoslavia and ethnic Serbs rebelled. Numerous cease-fire agreements have quickly collapsed, and earlier promises by the Serbs to have U.N. troops monitor heavy weapons have not slowed the fighting. Fred Eckhard, the U.N. spokes: man in Sarajevo, said Karad/ic signed the supervision agreement Wednes day after talks with U.N. military officers on the details of how Serb weapons would be monitored. U.N. soldiers began surveying 11 collection points in the city, and mili tary observers were to move there Thursday or Friday, Eckhard said. ! Nebraskan Editor Chris Hoptsnspsrgsr 472-1766 Managing Editor Kris Ksrnopp Assoc News Editor Adsana leftln Assoc News Editor/ Wendy Navratll Writing coach Opinion Page Editor Dionne Searcey Wire Editor Alan Phelps Copy Desk Editor Kara Wells C Sports Editor John Adklsson i Arts A Entertain ment Editor Shannon Uehllng Diversions Editor Mark Baldridge Photo Chief William Lauer Night News Editors Kathy Stelrtauer Mike Lewis Kim Spurlock Kara Morrison Art Director Scott Maurer General Manager Dan Shattll Advertising Manager Todd Sears Senior Acct Exec, Jay Cruse lassified Ad Manager Karen Jackson Publications Board Chairman Tom Massey 488-8761 Professional Adviser Don Walton 473-7301 me uany Neoraskan(USPS 144 080) is published by the UNL Publications Boaro i^ braska Union 34, 1400 R St., Lincoln, NE, Monday through Friday during the academic year, weekly during summer sessions Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between 9 am, and 5 pm, Monday through Friday The public also has access to the Publications Board For information, contact Tom Massey, 488 8761 Subscription price is $50 tor one year Postmaster Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34. 1400 H St..Lincoln, NE 6858b 0448 Second-class postage paid at Lincoln. NE ---ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1992 DAILY NEBRASKAN _
