Search and rescue

Indonesian police questioned the captain of a ferry that sank without trace in a volcanic lake in Sumatra this week, warning that a criminal investigation could be launched over a disaster that has left at least 192 people missing.

The Greek coast guard rescued 67 foreign nationals whose dinghy was in distress at sea near the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos early on Monday morning.

The 23-year-old skipper of the boat was arrested.

The rescue effort was carried out by the Hellenic Coast Guard in coordination with Greece's Search and Rescue Coordination Center.

A pedestrian walkway that was still under construction collapsed onto a busy highway in Miami on Thursday, killing at least four people.

Avalanche buried and killed a 25-year-old girl in Pirin on Saturday. The incident occurred in the late afternoon hours in the Momin Vrch near Sinanitsa hut, the Mountain Rescue Service announced.

Search and rescue efforts intensified Wednesday for hundreds of Montecito residents feared trapped in their homes after deadly walls of mud and debris roared down California hillsides stripped of vegetation by recent ferocious wildfires.

Firemen rescued a man yesterday after he was trapped under the rubble of his house which partially collapsed in the region of Nestani in Arcadia, southern Greece.

Rescue teams were also conducting a search to see if anyone else was trapped in the debris.

It was not clear why the house collapsed.

A group of 41 undocumented migrants were rescued on Thursday off Pylos in the southwest Peloponnese, the Greek Coast Guard has said.

A distress call by one of the passengers to the European 112 hotline prompted a search-and-rescue operation early Thursday.

Officials said all 41 were transferred to the port of Pylos.

At least three people have died and several people are said to be missing after a wooden boat carrying migrants sank near the Greek islet of Kalolimnos early Friday.

The Greek coast guard said that eight men, four women and one child were rescued. Up to 24 individuals had been traveling on the boat, one of the survivors said.

The total death toll in the Sept. 22 sinking of a boat carrying migrants heading to Europe in the Black Sea, off the Turkish province of Kocaeli, rose to 24 after the body of another woman was found by search-and-rescue teams on Sept. 24, according to the Turkish Coast Guard.        

A total of 420 illegal migrants were apprehended off Turkey's Aegean coast over the past week, Turkish Interior Ministry stated on Aug. 19. Between Aug. 11 and Aug. 18, Turkish Coast Guards intercepted 420 migrants in nine separate incidents off the Aegean Sea, the ministry said in a statement. It said one migrant smuggler was also detained during the operations.