News digest
Train collides with tanker,
kills 6, sets fire to 9 cars
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A
gasoline tanker trapped in traffic at a
railroad crossing was struck by an
Amtrak train Wednesday and ex
ploded in a giant fireball that set nine
other cars and trucksablaze. The tanker
driver and five others died in their
vehicles.
Fifteen people waiting at the cross
ing were injured, and six of the 118
aboard the train were taken to a hos
pital for observation, officials said.
The 11-car Silver Star from New
York City remained upright after the
midaftemoon crash at a crossing near
Interstate 95, but the lead locomotive
was blackened and the luggage and
dining cars caught fire.
Witnesses described panic as
people stuck in traffic scrambled for
their lives after the blast.
“I just saw some people screaming
all over the place, said Billy
Rodriguez, 25, of Coral Springs.
A Broward County sheriffs deputy
in his patrol car at the time was able to
pull the driver out of a burning vehicle
behind him, said Sonya Friedman, a
Fort Lauderdale police spokeswoman.
“He tried to rescue another but
couldn’t because of the fireball,” she
said.
The crash occurred at about 3 p.m.,
and the fire continued to bum more
U.N. convoys allowed in
Muslims ’ brawl for food
5akaj tvu, Bosma-Merzegovina
— Serbs eased their blockade of U.N.
relief convoys Wednesday, allowing
three into devastated eastern Bosnia.
Tank, artillery and mortar fire shook
Sarajevo’s airport and Bosnian forces
cut a vital Serb supply route.
International efforts to send aid to
Muslims in Serb-overrun eastern en
claves remained troubled. Four people
were reported killed in besieged
Srebrenica as gun and knife fights
broke out among hungry crowds try
ing to reach food bundles dropped by
U.S. planes.
“The town has been besieged for
11 months. The authorities are too
physcially and mentally exhausted to
rein people in,” U.N. aid spokesman
Peter Kessler said in Sarajevo.
In Washington, the State Depart
ment accused ethnic Serbs of bomb
ing Srebrenica last Saturday in the
first aerial attack on the former
Yugoslav republic since last fall.
Bosnian Serbs, under U.N. pres
sure, gave permission for three con
voysot the u.in. High commissioner
for Refugees to cross into Bosnia
from Serbia. Two bound for Sarajevo
and Gorazde to the southeast crossed
the border at Mali Zvomik, but the
third decided it was too late to head
for Tuzla.
Serbs continued to block another
convoy, which was trying to reach
Srebrenica.
The Bosnian Army’s IstCorpsaid
there was very heavy shelling Wednes
day on all sides of the Sarajevo air
port, forcing the cancellation of some
relief flights.
About 2,000 shells landed on
Butmir, Hrasnica and Dobrinja, three
government-held towns around the
airport, killing at least two people,
Bosnian radio said.
In Sarajevo, the government said
25 people were killed in Bosnian
controlled territory in the 24-hour
period ending Wednesday afternoon.
Bosnian government soldiers cut
the main supply road from the Serbian
border at Zvomik to Pale, the Bosnian
man two nours later.
A witness, Barbara Freeman, said
the truck became trapped in slow
traffic and could not move when the
warning lights came on and the gate
lowered. The train hit the back of the
truck.
The cars of the train remained up
right, but the lead locomotive stopped
several hundred yards down the track.
The train had been starting to brake
and was traveling at 30 mph to 35 mph
when it hit the truck, said Friedman,
the police spokeswoman.
The Amerada Hess Corp. tanker
was carrying about 8,500 gallons of
fasoline when it was struck, said Carl
ursi, a spokesman for the company.
r. V"
Serbs’ headquarters outside of
Sarajevo, according to the Yugoslav
news agency Tanjug. The troops ki lied
three Serb soldiers in a surprise raid,
the agency said.
Kessler,a UNHCR official, quoted
co-worker Larry Hollingworth in
Srebrenica as saying there was savage
fighting among people seeking to get
at airdropped food bundles.
Miami-Bound Amtrak
uc train collides with
” gasoline truck
“l 7 7 „_™ i
mr
Hotel fire survivors
count their blessings
v^ruv^mjtj—j.u. inompsoniosi
everything in one of Chicago’s dead
liest fires in years, and that wasn’t
much. He would trade in his meager
belongings for his life any day. ,
“I got out. 1 can always get more
money,” the 62-year-old said quietly.
Gone were his wallet, his clothes
and a sheaf of precious family pic
tures, a radio, a television and a few
more odds andends. Already, Thomp
son was mapping out his life anew
Wednesday after surviving the fire in
a residential hotel on the city’s Near
North Side that killed 16 people.
Two dozen of the approximately
100 survivors of the five-alarm blaze
in the Paxton Hotel early Tuesday
moved two miles north to the Bel-Ray
Hotel. The Red Cross and the Salva
tion Army offered food, shelter and a
helping hand.
f‘The first thing we do is make sure
they’re warm, safe and dry, that they
have clothes to wear, food to eat and
-44
What good Is It to be
bitter? You Just start
over again.
--Thompson
hotel resident
-ft -
a place to stay,” said Red Cross spokes
woman Randi Killian.
Tuesday’s fire was the city’s dead
liest since March 1981, when 19
people died at another residential ho
tel.
Thompson’s si^iervisorat his ware
house job sent a bag of clothes. Now,
he said, he has to buy a pair of glasses
90 he can return to work and buy a
radio when he gets his first paycheck.
“What good is it to be bitter?”
Thompson asked, shielding his ears
from the noise. “You just start over
again. You just catch up.”
|-WORLD WIRE-—|
2 Palestinians charged in bombing
r*c,w i i_m.iv — i wo raiesun
lan suspects were indie ted Wednes
day on charges they “willfully,
knowingly and maliciously"
bombed the World Trade Center,
killing six people.
The one-paragraph federal in
dictment of Mohammed Salameh,
25, and Nidal Ayyad, 25, gave no
details about their alleged roles and
shed no new light on a motive for
ineDomDingoiincworta ssccona
tallest buildings.
The federal grand jury also didn’t
mention other suspects, although
authorities have said they hope for
more arrests. A published report
Wednesday said three suspects may
have fled the country within 48
hours of Saiamch’s arrest, but the
FBI chief for New York disputed
the account.
10 Muslim militants killed in shootout
AID M C J I'Ka ? 1 Art i I _ ■ i _ 11
r% * "V lAAi;
count is rising as shootouts be
tween government security forces
and Muslim extremists become
more frequent, with both sidesquick
on the trigger.
In the bloodiest clash so far this
year, lOextremists and one police
man were killed Wednesday, and
11 militants and lOpolicemen were
wounded.
The extremist al-Gamaa al
Islamiya — the Islamic Group —
Ill 170 1 lauuuivu 1UUI IV^ u; III3U1II
an Islamic government. Fueled by
suspicions that they will receive no
mercy, thecxtrcmisls have resisted
government raids.
“They have orders to fire on
police. We fire back. Sometimes
one or two get killed,** said Maj.
Gen. Galal el-Shamy, an Interior
Ministry spokesman. He said the
militants would rather die fighting
than be arrested.
U.S. soldiers sent back to Somalia
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Two
weeks after a U.S. pullout from
Kismayu began, 500 American sol
diers were heading back to the south
ern port Wednesday to try to mend a
shattered truce that has jeopardized
nationwide peace talks.
The talks suffered another blow
Wednesday when one of the country ’ s
top warlords pulled out of the negotia
tions, which started Monday in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia.
Mohamed Farrah Aidid said he
would not return to the bargaining
table until the situation in the south
ern port city of Kismayu “is com
pletely reversed.”
Aidid supports Col. Omar Jess, a
warlord whose 40 backers in Kismayu
were forced to retreat from the city
Tuesday after an attack by 300 sup
porters of Mohamed Said Hirsi, also
known as Gen. Morgan.
Jess’ followers fled to a village 10
miles miles to the north. At least 49
people were treated for injuries, and
fatalities were likely, according to the
international relief agency Doctors
Without Borders.
Aidid’s faction issued a statement
condemning “renewed aggression on
the city of Kismayu by Morgan and
his henchmen.” Aidid accused the
peacekeepers of failing to maintain
security in Kismayu and demanded
that the area be cleared of Morgan’s
“invaders.”
Col. Pete Dotto, an American rep
resenting the U.S.-led force at the
peace talks, said the attack had been
staged to disrupt the negotiations, and
that Aidid would “be playing into
Morgan’s hand if he pul led out" of the
talks.
The U.S.-led allied coalition ar
rived in December to safeguard aid
deliveries in Somalia.
The Americans have handed over
most areas of control to other troops
ahead of turning over the entire opera
tion to the United Nations in May.
Belgium’s 900 soldiers in the
Kismayu area took control of the city
on March 5.
Overtime work soars while others can t tind jobs
WASHINGTON — At a time
nearly 9 million people can’t find
jobs, other Americans are putting in
the most overtime since the govern
ment started keeping records in the
1950s.
With factory workers averaging
4.2 hours of overtime a week, the
Bureau of Labor Statistics says more
than a tenth of all work done in the
nation’s factories is performed on
overtime.
The factory work week grew by 24
minutes in the last five months and by
12 minutes in February alone. The
bureau does not measure overtime
hours in the non-factory work force
but does say the work week isexpand
ing in many fields.
* • *> “If weooukl go back to the amount
of overtime worked in 1982, we would
create 3 million new jobs without
increasing the federal deficit,” said
John Zalusky, an economist at the
AFL-OO. He said many workers were
putting in extra hours for extra pay
against their wishes.
One reason employers are going
the overtime route, economists say, is
that overtime pay doesn’t cost much
extra. Fringe benefits are mostly cov
ered by the first40 hours worked. And
the overtime hours generally are
worked by employers* most skilled
and productive people.
Using overtime avoids the cost of
hiring and training new workers, find
ing space for them and dealing with
the added paperwork.
Because-'of -all*-those -factors,
Zalusky calculates that paying a skilled
worker time-and-a-half actually costs
employers only about 3 percent extra.
The reluctance to add to perma
nent payrolls explains another phe
nomenon in the job market: the in
creasing use of part-time and tempo
rary workers.
Although the economy created
380,000new jobs in February—drop
ping the unemployment rate to 7 per
cent, lowest in 15 months — 348,000
of them went to temporary or part
time workers.
“At some point, it makes more
sense to hire more workers,” Labor
Department economist Chris Single
ton said. “I’m notsure why employers
are holding out. Part of it is uncer
tainty about the recovery.”
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