By The
Associated Press
Edited by Kristine Long
NEWS DIGEST
Nebraskan
Tuesday, January 18, 1994
Earthquake
Continued from Page 1
be trapped in the rubble of collapsed
buildings.
Officers patrolled streets in the
early morning darkness to guard
against looting, as police helicopters
aimed their spotlights on shattered
storefronts below.
Residents unsettled by continuing
aftershocks huddled on sidewalks and
held candles. They packed their be
longings into cars. Many drove aim
lessly on darkened streets and free
ways.
The quake struck at 4:31 a.m. and
was centered in Northridge in the San
Fernando Valley. It measured a pre
liminary 6.6 on the Richter scale, said
Kate Hutton, a seismologist at the
California Institute of Technology.
The jolts shook buildings in San
Diego, 125 miles south, and in Las
Vegas, about 275 miles to the north
east. Brief power outages caused by
the quake were reported as far north as
British Columbia and western Wyo
ming.
Gov. Pete Wilson and Mayor Ri
chard Riordan declared emergencies,
and President Clinton dispatched Fed
eral Emergency Management Agen
cy chief James Lee Witt to California
to supervise relief efforts.
“We intend to do everything we
possibly can to help the people of Los
Angeles and southern California to
deal with the earthquake and its after
math,” Clinton said from Washing
ton, D.C.
The city Department of Water and
Power urged residents to boil drink
ing water contaminated by broken
mains. At midday, at least 625,000
customers were without power inCen
tral and Southern California, South
ern California Edison said.
Long-distance phone companies
routed calls away from the region to
prevent communication gridlock.
California National Guard troops
were sent in, and the Office of Emer
gency Services sent about 300 search
and-rcscue teams equipped with fi
ber-optic sensors and other gear to
detect structural flaws and find possi
ble victims.
A 75-foot-high overpass connect
ing state Highway 14 and Interstate 5
in suburban Sylmar collapsed, killing
a Los Angeles police motorcycle of
ficer, city Fire Department spokes
man Jim Wells said.
Two people died when a home in
Sherman Oaks slid down a hillside; a
person was killed in a fall from a
sixth-floor window at a downtown
hotel; and five people died of quake
related heart attacks, hospital offi
cials said.
A 37-year-old Rancho Cucamonga
woman died after she slipped and hit
Major earthquake hits
Southern California
her head on a baby crib, breaking her
neck, according to the San Bernardi
no County Sheriff s Department.
“We’ve seen heart attacks, dislo
cated bones, lacerations. A lot of
blood,’ ’ said Toni Regalado, an emer
gency room admissionsofTicerat Holy
Cross Medical Center in Sylmar.
At least 44 homes in suburban
Sylmar were destroyed by fire un
leashed by the quake.
The quake was felt for 30 seconds,
and several aftershocks followed with
in minutes, some as strong as magni
tude-5.
Clinton says European trip
accomplished all his goals
WASHINGTON—Claiming un
qualified success on his European trip,
President Clinton predicts Boris
Yeltsin will “try to hang in there” with
Russia’s economic reforms. And he
says his lengthy meeting with Syria’s
president produced notable progress
toward a Middle East peace.
Clinton dis
puted the notion
that the resig
nation of Yegor
Gaidar, the ar
chitect of Pres
ident Yeltsin’s
economic re
forms, will
shake interna
tional confi
dence in Russia’s transformation,
“Gaidar left the government once
before and the reforms didn’t stop,”
Clinton said.
He said Yeltsin had told him pri
vately last week in Moscow that
Gaidar was leaving.
On another foreign policy front,
Clinton said Syrian President Hafez
Assad has truly concluded that peace
in the Middle East is best for his
people and his own legacy.
“He’s very tough and very smart,”
Clinton said of Assad. The two men
met for more than five hours in Geneva f
on Sunday, and the Syrian president
emerged to say he was will ing to offer
Israel “normal, peaceful relations” in
exchange for land.
Clinton was tired but upbeat after
the arduous eight-day, six-nation jour
ney.
“Looking back over the trip,”
Clinton said of his first European
journey as president, “I can say with
out any hesitation that it met all of our
objectives—everything that we hoped
would happen did.”
Clinton said his meeting in Geneva
with Assad was “clearly the biggest
step forward” — and maybe even
bigger—since the White House hand
shake Sept. 13 between the Palestine
Liberation Organization Chairman
Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Min
ister Yitzhak Rabin.
“Today was the first time he (Assad)
had ever explicitly said he wanted an
end to the hostilities with Israel •
willing to make peace with Israel as
opposed to saying something like,
'peace in the Middle East,’” the pres
ident said.
Last-minute textile deal
averts Chinese trade war
WASHINGTON — The United
States withdrew an order Monday that
would have barred more than SI bil
lion in textile imports from China
after an 11 th-hour agreement averted
a trade war.
After three days of negotiations in
Beijing, both sides signed a new three
year pact covering textile and apparel
shipments from China to the United
States.
The agreement will limit the growth
in Chinese textile and apparel imports
to the United States while providing
new powers to stop illegal transship
ments, which circumvent U.S. quotas
by routing Chinese products through
third countries.
The U.S. industry had claimed these
illegal shipments were worth $2 bil
lion annually and cost 50,000 U.S.
jobs.
U.S. Trade Representative Mickey
Kantor said he hoped the new agree
ment would be the beginning of “a
much healthier and more productive
relationship” with the Chinese.
He insisted there was no link be
tween resolution of the textile dispute
and other tensions between the two
countries. These include administra
tion charges that China has not done
enough yet in the human rights area to
justify renewal of “most-favored-na
tion” low tariffs on Chinese goods
shipped here.
Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen
was scheduled to arrive in Beijing on
Wednesday for three days of talks
with Chinese officials on a broad range
of human rights and economic issues.
President Clinton must decide by June
whether to extend China’s low tariffs.
Kantor had originally threatened
to cut quotas by 25 percent to 35
percent on 88 categories of Chinese
cloth products.
Kantor said the new restrictions
would not have a significant impact
on American consumers and were
deemed justified to protect American
jobs.
Through the first 10 months of this
year. America’s trade deficit with
China has been running at an annual
rate of $23 billion, second only to
America’s $58 billion annual trade
deficit with Japan.
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Harding says she is innocent
PORTLAND, Ore. — Figure
skater Tonya Harding said she
played no part in the clubbing at
tack on rival Nancy Kerrigan and
was “shocked and angry” that any
one close to her might be involved.
Her former husband, Jeff
Gillooly.also denied participating
in this “bizarre and crazy event,”
his lawyer, Ron Hoevct, told The
Associated Press.
No charges have been filed nam
ing Gillooly or Harding in the Jan.
6 attack in Detroit that forced
Kerrigan to withdraw from the U.S.
Figure Skating Championships.
Multnomah County Assistant
District Attorney Norm Frink said
Monday he has scheduled a meet
ing with the skater, but not her ex
husband.
“We’ve been asking to meet
with Tonya since Thursday. We
finally have a tentative time to
meet with her, but the husband is no
response,” Frink said.
Frink refused to say when the
meeting was scheduled.
Kerrigan, meanwhile, skated
publicly this morning for the first
time since she was hurt, practicing
for one hour at an icc rink in her
home town of Stoncham, Mass.
She had no limp or visible effect
from the attack.
Harding also practiced, in Port
land, and said she was trying to
cope with the situation as best she
could.
“It’s an obstacle to get over and
I may not be the normal figure
skater image that everybody wants
me to be, but I’m my own person
and I may be a little rough around
the edges sometimes, but overall I
think I’m a good person,” she said
on ABC’s “Good Morning, Amer
ica.”
Harding’s bodyguard, Shawn
Eckardt, was charged along with
two other men, but her lawyer,
Dennis Rawlinson, said Harding
had no knowledge of the plot.
“Tonya Harding categorically
denies all accusations and media
speculation that she was involved
in any way in the assault,” accord
ing to her statement read by
Rawlinson, her coach’s husband.
Eckardt has accused Gillooly of
participating in the plot. Hoevet
said Eckardt was hired only once to
help with Harding’s security and
that he should not be considered
her bodyguard.
Harding believes Gillooly is in
nocent and would distance herself
from him if it turns out he was
involved in the attack, said her
coach, Diane Rawlinson. Harding
and Gillooly divorced last year,
reconciled in September and have
been living together since.
U.S. Olympic officials met Sun
day but took no action on whether
to allow Harding to remain with
Kerrigan on the Olympic team.
The Oregonian newspaper re
ported today that investigators sus
pect the man who attacked Kerrigan
was paid 56,500 from a trust fund
set up for Harding by the U.S.
Figure Skating Association.
Eckardt, 26, and Derrick Brian
Smith, 29, were released on bail
after their arraignment Friday on
charges of conspiring to commit
assault. Shane Minoaka Stant, 22,
Smith’s nephew, also was charged
with conspiracy to commit assault
and is expected to be extradited
from Phoenix to Portland.
Snow storm shuts down Ohio Valley
Up to 30 inches of snow piled up on
a layer of ice and brought parts of the
Ohio Valley sliding to a halt Monday,
with National Guardsmen mobilized
and major highways shut down.
Schools were closed from M issouri to
Pennsylvania.
“Nobody’s moving,” said Willie
Duley, co-owner of a service station
in Morgantown, W.Va. “It’s pretty
bad.”
A new blast of North Pole air was
rushing in behind the snowstorm, and
Devils Lake, N.D., had a midmoming
wind chill of 92 below zero. Without
factoring in the wind,Garrison, M inn.,
I was the coldest spot in the Lower 48
| states at 32 below zero, the National
| Weather Service said.
I_
At least 13 deaths were blamed on
snow, ice and cold during the holiday
weekend.
Schools not already closed for the
Martin Luther King Jr. holiday were
closed because of snow- and ice-cov
ered roads in parts of Missouri, South
Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana,
M ichigan.Ohio, Kentucky, West Vir
ginia, Virginia, northern Georgia and
Pennsylvania. Many businesses and
some shopping malls also closed.
State government offices were or
dered closed in 15 South Carolina
counties and western Maryland be
cause of ice-covered highways.
OhioGov. George Voinovich, West
Virginia Gov. Gaston Capcrton and
Kentucky Gov. Brercton Jones de
clarcd emergencies to mobilize Na
tional Guard troops and equipment.
Louisville, Ky., Mayor Jerry
Abramson also declared a state of
emergency after 16 inches of snow
fell by late morning, the most in the
city’s history.
Traffic was at a standstill through
out most of the Louisville area and
even some snowplows were stuck.
National Guard troops used four
wheel-drive vehicles to rescue strand
ed motorists.
Parts of southern Ohio, including
the Cincinnati area, also were more or
less shut down by up to 2 feet of snow
and icy roads. Scioto County got 30
inches in places, officials said. An
estimated 6,000 to 10,000 homes lost
electricity in Nashville.
NetJraskan
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