News Briefs
April 12, 1996
Web posted at: 12:50 a.m. EDT (0450 GMT)Airport fire in Germany kills 17, injures scores
DUESSELDORF, Germany (CNN) -- A fire killed at least 16 people and injured up to 150 Thursday at Duesseldorf international airport, the second largest airport in Germany, firefighters said. Authorities said the high death toll was the result of people in the terminal panicking and ignoring instructions to use fire exits.
The fire's cause has not yet been determined, but a fire department spokesman said it might have been started by flying sparks from power tools. Firefighters said it may have begun near a flower shop in the arrivals area, which was packed with people.
The fire spread rapidly through Terminal A, where Lufthansa domestic and international flights are handled. Burning electrical cables emitted a toxic gas that asphyxiated many of the victims. Witnesses described seeing the fire spread through the ceiling and a huge black cloud rising 600 feet above the building.
The Duesseldorf airport will be closed until noon Friday. Lufthansa is booking its international passengers on other airlines and is paying for train tickets for domestic passengers to reach their destinations.
Pentagon unveils sketch of alleged weapons plant in Libya
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon Thursday unveiled a sketch of what it believes is a chemical weapons plant Libya is building. The structure, dug into a hillside, is purportedly designed to withstand an air strike.
Experts believe that it would take a direct hit from a nuclear warhead to put the plant out of commission. However, the Pentagon maintains that the United States has the ability to destroy the plant before it is completed -- and the U.S. military has threatened to do so. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi once stopped work on a similar plant under U.S. threat of an attack.
U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry said U.S. intelligence has strong evidence showing that the underground plant, near the Libyan city of Tarhuna, is designed for war uses. But Libya says the current project is a desert irrigation project, not a chemical weapons plant, and says the United States is making a scapegoat out of Libya now that the Soviet Union is gone. It offered Thursday to have talks about the U.S. allegations.
Test for 'mad cow' disease could save British cattle
LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- A research scientist in the United States says he has developed a test to determine whether a cow is infected with "mad cow" disease. Dr. Michael Harrington of the California Institute of Technology in suburban Pasadena has been working on the test with a team of researchers from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
Because a paper on the test hasn't been submitted yet to the New England Journal of Medicine, the NIH scientists declined to provide details.
If the test works, it could be used to diagnose which British cattle are infected with the disease, making it possible for farmers to cull the diseased cattle from their herds and sell uninfected meat. Right now, 4.7 million British cattle are scheduled for slaughter and disposal.
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