World

GENEVA — The number of migrants arriving in crisis-hit Greece is accelerating dramatically, with nearly 21,000 landing on the overstretched Greek islands last week alone, the United Nations said Tuesday.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 160,000 migrants have made their way to Greece — nearly four times the 43,500 who arrived in the country during all of 2014, the UN refugee agency said.

"The pace of arrivals has been steadily increasing in recent weeks," UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told reporters in Geneva.

Last week, 20,843 migrants — virtually all of them fleeing war and persecution in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq — washed up on the shores of Greek islands, making up nearly half of last year's total.

The wave of migrants is not just impacting Greece, with nearly a third of arrivals in the European Union asking for asylum in Germany. The economic powerhouse is gearing up for nearly three-quarters of a million applicants this year. 

"For months, UNHCR has been warning of a mounting refugee crisis on the Greek islands," Spindler said, insisting the "reception infrastructure, services and registration procedures both on the islands and on the mainland need to be strengthened urgently."

Until recently, most migrants making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe travelled to Italy, but dangers and logistical difficulties have in recent months shifted the flood increasingly towards Greece.

Situation 'very complicated' 

Shops on the Turkish coast, which is a jumping off point for Greece, have been doing booming business in lifejackets for the migrants making the crossing. One shop owner said she was going through 100-150 of the devices a week.

It is just one of the costs for the migrants, with some paying around $1,200 (1,000 euros) per person for the journey across the Aegean in an inflatable dinghy. 

When the migrants arrive on the Greek islands there is little if anything for them and most have been forced to sleep outdoors in squalid conditions, and tensions have been running high

The Greek island of Kos, which last week witnessed chaotic scenes of overwhelmed police beating with truncheons some of the thousands of people who had gathered there, has come to symbolise Europe's shambolic response to the refugee crisis. 

Greece has taken some steps to address the problem, including sending a large ferry to Kos to serve as a registration and housing facility for refugees.

"The situation is still very complicated," UNHCR emergency coordinator Roberto Mignone told AFP on the island.

He said the authorities' ability to process the refugees remained low, with some 1,750 people currently on the ferry and another 2,500 still on the island. 

Spindler insisted the Greek authorities needed to do more to organise the response.

"The government of Greece has the responsibility of what happens on its territory... they need to show much more leadership," he said.

The debt-ravaged country has said the huge influx is too much for it to handle alone and has pleaded for more EU help.

Spindler agreed that Europe needed to do more, adding that "the vast majority" of the migrants aimed to travel on to northern Europe. 

Share the burden 

Germany, as Europe's top economy, has become the refugees' top destination, with one in three who arrived in the EU last year seeking asylum there.

According to a report in the Handelsblatt newspaper, Berlin is bracing for as many as 750,000 refugees to seek asylum in the country this year.

UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called for more solidarity among European countries in taking in asylum seekers.

The responsibility must be "shared on many shoulders", he told the Die Welt newspaper, insisting it was "unsustainable" for Germany, along with Sweden, to take in the majority of refugees.

There is no sign the flood of migrants into Europe will subside.

Some 250,000 migrants and refugees have already crossed the Mediterranean this year to Italy and Greece, and the International Organisation for Migration said Tuesday it expected that number to pass 300,000 by the end of the year.

The ones who make it to shore are, meanwhile, the lucky ones, with 2,440 people having died trying so far this year, according to UNHCR.

That number includes the 49 migrants asphyxiated in the hold of a ship carrying 362 people that sank at the weekend.

Italy on Tuesday announced the arrest of eight suspected people smugglers accused of condemning the victims to their deaths by forcing them to stay in the ship's broiling, fume-filled hold.

Turkey's official Anatolia news agency, meanwhile, reported Tuesday that 24 migrants had been rescued after a boat overturned after leaving Turkey's Bodrum peninsula for Kos. 

The corpses of five migrants from the boat were found, with a survivor telling AFP the victims had been trapped in the hull.

BANGKOK — Thai authorities said on Tuesday they were looking for a suspect seen on closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage near a famous shrine where a bomb blast killed 22 people, nearly half of them foreigners.

The government said the attack during the Monday evening rush hour in the capital's bustling commercial hub was aimed at destroying the economy. No one has claimed responsibility.

Jangling nerves in the city on Tuesday, a small explosive was thrown from a bridge towards a river pier, sending a plume of water into the air, but no one was injured.

The man suspected of the bombing at the Erawan shrine was seen in grainy CCTV footage entering the compound with a backpack on, sitting down against a railing and then slipping out of the bag's straps.

Wearing a yellow shirt and with shaggy, dark hair, the young man then stands up and walks out holding a blue plastic bag and what appears to be a mobile phone. The backpack was left by the fence as tourists milled about.

National police chief Somyot Pumpanmuang said the suspect could be Thai or foreign.

"That man was carrying a backpack and walked past the scene at the time of the incident. But we need to look at the before and after CCTV footage to see if there is a link," Somyot told a news conference.

Police earlier said they had not ruled out any group, including elements opposed to the military government, for the bombing at the shrine, although officials said the attack did not match the tactics of Muslim insurgents in the south.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha also referred to the man as a suspect without giving details. He said there were "still anti-government groups out there", although he did not elaborate.

Police were at the blood-splattered site on Tuesday, some wearing white gloves and carrying plastic bags, searching for clues to an attack that could dent tourism and investor confidence.

The Thai baht fell 0.57 per cent to 35.57 baht, its weakest in more than six years, on concern the bombing may scare off visitors. Thai stocks fell as much as 3 per cent.

Police said the death toll was 22, with 123 people wounded.

"Police are not ruling out anything including [Thai] politics and the conflict of ethnic Uighurs who, before this, Thailand sent back to China," Somyot said.

Thailand forcibly returned 109 Uighurs to China last month.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of members of the Turkic-speaking and largely Muslim minority have fled unrest in China's western Xinjiang region, where hundreds of people have been killed, prompting a crackdown by Chinese authorities. Many Uighurs have travelled through Southeast Asia to Turkey.

Chinese call

The blast comes at a sensitive time for Thailand, which has been riven for a decade by a sometimes violent struggle for power between political factions in Bangkok.

An interim parliament hand-picked by a junta that seized power in a 2014 coup is due to vote on a draft constitution next month.

Critics say the draft is undemocratic and intended to help the military secure power and limit the influence of elected politicians.

The Erawan shrine, on a busy corner near top hotels, shopping centres, offices and a hospital, is a major attraction, especially for visitors from East Asia, including China.

Four Chinese, including two people from Hong Kong, were among the dead, China's Xinhua news agency said. A British resident of Hong Kong, two Malaysians, a Singaporean, an Indonesian and a Filipino were also killed, officials said.

Scores of people were wounded, including many Asian tourists. China urged Thailand to thoroughly investigate the blast and punish the perpetrators.

Tourism is one of the few bright spots in an economy that is still struggling, more than a year after the military seized power.

It accounts for about 10 per cent of the economy and the government had been banking on record arrivals this year following a sharp fall in 2014 because of protests and the coup.

Occasional small blasts over recent years have been blamed on one side of the domestic political divide or the other. In February, two pipe bombs exploded outside a shopping mall in the same area as the Monday blast but caused little damage.

Thai forces are also fighting a low-level Muslim insurgency in the predominantly Buddhist country's south, but the separatists have rarely launched attacks outside their heartland. 

BANGKOK — At least 16 people were killed and dozens injured when a bomb exploded Monday outside a religious shrine in a bustling hub of the Thai capital popular with tourists, authorities said.

The blast occurred about 6:30pm (1130 GMT) when the streetside shrine was packed with worshippers and tourists — with the Thai police chief confirming at least 10 Thais, one Chinese and one Filipino citizen were among the dead.

"It was a bomb, I think it was inside a motorcycle... it was very big, look at the bodies," one visibly shocked rescue volunteer, who did not want to be named, told AFP outside the Erawan Shrine.

Bangkok has endured years of deadly political violence, with a military junta now ruling the nation, and a decades-long Muslim insurgency in the far south that has claimed thousands of lives.

Police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri told AFP the blast was likely politically motivated and designed to bring "chaos", adding 16 people had been confirmed killed.

However no-one claimed responsibility for Monday's attack, and it was unclear immediately who may have been responsible.

A spokesman for the government later said it was too early to speculate on who was behind the attack. 

Islamist militants have carried out many attacks in other parts of Southeast Asia, including on Indonesia's holiday island of Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people, but they have not made Thailand a prime target. 

Glass was strewn across the street after the explosion inside the gates to the shrine, which is in the central Chidlom district popular with tourists, an AFP reporter witnessed.

Charred and shattered motorcycles littered the scene, along with hunks of concrete, with pools of blood on the pavement and two bodies crumpled on the steps of the shrine.

The city's medical emergency centre said more than 80 people were wounded by the blast, which rattled windows several kilometres from the site.

There were chaotic scenes at Chulakongkorn Hospital, one of a number of nearby medical facilities that received victims as nurses ferried the injured on gurneys. 

One man who was conscious had visibly burned hair and a number of cuts that were bandaged, an AFP reporter on the scene said.

"Some [of the victims] are Chinese," Minister for Tourism Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul told AFP as she visited the hospital.

A Chinese and a Filipino were among those confirmed dead, Thai police sai, while Singapore's prime minister said some of the city-state's nationals were also wounded. 

With rumours abounding in a city that is no stranger to major acts of violence, officials denied reports of more devices in an area, which is home to several high end hotels and major shopping malls.

Foreigners 'targeted' 

While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the initial comments by Thai police cast immediate suspicion on the kingdom's rival political factions.

Thailand has been seared by a near-decade of political violence that has left the country deeply divided and seen repeated rounds of deadly street protests and bombings — but none on Monday's scale. 

Many observers had predicted a fresh round of violence after the military seized power in a coup in May last year, toppling a civilian government led by Yingluck Shinawatra.

Thailand's defence minister said the bombers had targeted "foreigners" to try to damage the tourist industry, which is a rare bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economy.

"It was a TNT bomb... the people who did it targeted foreigners and to damage tourism and the economy," said Prawit Wongsuwong, a former general who is believed to have been one of the key coup-makers.

Singaporean and Taiwanese authorities said their citizens were among those injured.

Self-exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who is Yingluck's brother and who was toppled by a 2006 coup, sits at the heart of the political divide. 

Parties led by him or his sister or supporters have won every election since 2001 thanks to the votes of the rural north and northeast. But he is loathed by the Bangkok-based royalist elite.

Thailand is also fighting a festering insurgency in its Muslim-majority southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia. More than 6,400 people — mostly civilians — have been killed there.

In the so-called "Deep South", bombs are a near-daily reality alongside shootings and ambushes of security forces.

Civilians are overwhelmingly the target. But the conflict, which sees local rebels calling for greater autonomy from the Thai state, has stayed highly localised.

There has never been a confirmed attack by the insurgents outside the southern region despite the years of war.

The Erawan is an enormously popular shrine to the Hindu god Brahma but is visited by thousands of Buddhist devotees every day.

It is located on a traffic-choked intersection in Bangkok's commercial hub and surrounded by three major shopping malls.

ANKARA — As efforts to form a new government flounder and Turkish jets bombard Kurdish militants, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is hoping to turn Turkey's deepest uncertainty in more than a decade to his advantage.

Declaring the end of single-party rule a betrayal by "terrorists" and "so-called intellectuals", he has cast Turkey as confronted by a new domestic enemy which, by implication, only a leader as strong as he can defeat.

Erdogan saw his plans to forge a presidential system akin to France or the United States derailed on June 7, when the ruling AK Party lost its majority at a parliamentary election for the first time in more than a decade.

His hopes of changing the constitution and realising that ambition now hinge on the AKP regaining control of parliament, a scenario made possible after efforts to agree a coalition government collapsed last week, making a snap election look almost inevitable.

That, even some of those within the ruling party privately acknowledge, was the outcome Erdogan always wanted.

"He is truly successful at reaching his goals in politics," said one senior government official.

"He is getting what he wants after a masterfully managed two months. It was clear since the beginning that in no way did he consider any other option than single AK Party rule."

It is a high-risk strategy. Two recent polls have suggested the AKP could recover its majority and govern alone if the vote were held again, but there are no guarantees.

Dragging reluctant Turkish voters to the polls so soon after a divisive election could further undermine support for the AKP, according to Sinan Ulgen, visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe and head of the Istanbul-based EDAM think-tank.

"It will be seen as the party that has forced early elections on a recalcitrant Turkish electorate at a time when there are severe challenges, both from the security perspective and also economically," Ulgen said, adding that dissent within the AKP could start to bubble over.

"The drawback to this gambit for Erdogan is that if the AK Party ends up losing votes, we may start to see more open dissatisfaction about his influence," he said.

‘Losing his grip’

Eager not to be seen as deal breakers, senior AKP officials have publicly rejected the idea that Erdogan, who retains considerable power over the party apparatus, is opposed to a coalition. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu last Thursday described such a perception as "completely false".

But party insiders acknowledge there is already discontent with his meddling. Many blame his lobbying for an executive presidency for the fall in AKP support in June, despite a constitutional obligation for him to remain out of party politics as head of state.

"Erdogan is losing his grip on the party each day. And this is not good news for him," said a second senior party official, although he added it was far too soon to count him out.

"He wants the presidential system one way or the other and he is not giving up."

The combative president has missed few opportunities to portray strong, single-party rule as the only option for Turkey, particularly in times of crisis such as now, with violence flaring in the mainly Kurdish southeast and a mounting threat from Daesh militants in northern Syria.

"Turkey is facing a new enemy due to the June 7 election result, which did not allow a single party majority, and as the chaos in Syria deepens," he said in a speech on Friday.

Campaigning

Falling back on a rhetorical technique that has served him well, Erdogan cast himself and the Turkish state as victims of an ill-defined plot contrived by a range of enemies whose links are, at best, tenuous.

The "parallel state" — his term for followers of influential US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen — "separatist terrorists" — a reference to the Kurdistan Workers Party militant group — writers, academics and journalists were all to blame.

"Everyone who supports and remains silent in the face of this network... is complicit in its efforts to obstruct this nation. This is not a day to be impartial. Those who remain impartial will be eliminated," he said.

After more than a decade as prime minister, Erdogan won Turkey's first popular presidential election in August 2014 and has since stretched the powers of a largely ceremonial post to their limits. He has insisted that even without constitutional change, his election by the people rather than by parliament as in the past automatically granted him extra authority.

"There is now a president in the country not with symbolic power, but with literal power," he said.

"Whether it is accepted or not, Turkey's system of government has changed. What needs to be done now is to clarify and confirm the legal framework of this de facto situation with a new constitution."

Critics say such speeches already mark the beginnings of a campaign to win back support for the AKP and the idea of an executive presidency ahead of the expected snap election.

"He sees no downside in forcing early elections, but possibly a huge upside. From Erdogan's perspective I think it boils down to that," said EDAM's Ulgen.

JAYAPURA, Indonesia — The wreckage of a passenger plane which went missing with 54 people aboard in rugged eastern Indonesia Sunday has been found by villagers, an official said, with rescuers expected to head to the crash site.

The plane operated by Indonesian carrier Trigana Air lost contact with air traffic control just before 3:00pm (0600 GMT) after taking off from Jayapura, the capital of Papua province, the search and rescue agency said.

The ATR 42-300 twin-turboprop plane was carrying 44 adult passengers, five children and five crew on the flight which was scheduled to take about 45 minutes, it said. 

But the plane disappeared about 10 minutes before reaching its destination Oksibil, a remote settlement in the mountains south of Jayapura, shortly after it asked permission to start descending to land. 

Officials said initially that villagers in the Okbape district of Papua reported seeing a plane crash. The transport ministry later said local residents had found the wreckage. 

"The plane has been found [by villagers]. According to residents, the flight had crashed into a mountain," said the transport ministry's director-general of air transportation, Suprasetyo, who goes by one name.

Officials were still verifying the information from local residents, he said. There was no information about whether anyone may have survived. 

Search and rescue teams, police and the military would head to the site as soon as possible Monday, said transport ministry spokesman J. A. Barata.

'Dark and cloudy' 

After the plane failed to land, Trigana Air sent another flight over the area to hunt for it but the aircraft failed to spot anything due to bad weather. 

Captain Beni Sumaryanto, Trigana Air's service director of operations, told AFP that Oksibil was "a mountainous area where the weather is very unpredictable. It can suddenly turn foggy, dark and windy without warning”.

"We strongly suspect it's a weather issue. It is not overcapacity, as the plane could take 50 passengers." 

Barata said the weather in the area had been "very dark and cloudy".

Trigana Air is a small airline established in 1991 that operates domestic services to around 40 destinations in Indonesia. 

It has suffered 14 serious incidents since it began operations, according to the Aviation Safety Network, which monitors air accidents.

The airline is on a blacklist of carriers banned from European Union airspace. 

Small aircraft are commonly used for transport in remote and mountainous Papua and bad weather has caused several accidents in recent years.

On Wednesday a Cessna propeller plane crashed in Papua's Yahukimo district, killing one person and seriously injuring the five others on board. Officials suspect that crash was caused by bad weather. 

Indonesia has a patchy aviation safety record. In December an AirAsia plane flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore crashed in the Java Sea during stormy weather, killing all 162 people on board.

In June an Indonesian military plane crashed into a residential neighbourhood in the city of Medan, exploding in a fireball and killing 142 people. 

The aviation sector in Indonesia is expanding fast as the economy booms but airlines are struggling to find enough well-trained personnel to keep up with the rapid growth. 

TIANJIN, China — Hundreds of tonnes of highly poisonous cyanide were being stored at the warehouse devastated by two giant explosions in the Chinese port city of Tianjin which killed 112, a senior military officer said Sunday.

The comments by Shi Luze, chief of the general staff of the Beijing military region, were the first official confirmation of the presence of the chemical at the hazardous goods storage facility at the centre of the massive blasts.

The disaster has raised fears of toxic contamination. Residents and victims' families hit out at authorities for what they said was an information blackout, as China suspended or shut down dozens of websites for spreading "rumours".

Nearly 100 people remain missing, including 85 firefighters, though officials cautioned that some of them could be among the 88 corpses so far unidentified.

More than 700 people have been hospitalised as a result of Wednesday's blasts — which triggered a huge fireball and a blaze that emergency workers have struggled to put out since then, with fresh explosions on Saturday.

State prosecutors said Sunday they have started an investigation to see if dereliction of duty played a role in the disaster, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

In a sign of the potentially horrific nature of some of the injuries, the main state evening news bulletin Sunday showed a hospitalised patient whose head, face and neck were completely encased in thick white bandaging save for openings at the eyes nose and mouth.

Shi, who is a general, told a news conference that cyanide had been identified at two locations in the blast zone. "The volume was about several hundreds of tonnes according to preliminary estimates," he said.

A military team of 217 chemical and nuclear experts was deployed early on, and earlier Chinese reports said 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide were at the site.

Officials have called in experts from producers of the material — exposure to which can be "rapidly fatal", according to the US Centres for Disease Control — to help handle it, and the neutralising agent hydrogen peroxide has been used.

Authorities have repeatedly sought to reassure the public, insisting that despite the presence of some pollutants at levels above normal standards, the air in Tianjin remains safe to breathe.

Premier Li Keqiang arrived in the city on Sunday afternoon to direct rescue efforts, a common move after major disasters in the country.

Pictures showed the Communist Party number two within a kilometre of the blast site, dressed in an ordinary white shirt and not wearing a mask.

Xinhua reported late Saturday that cyanide density in waste water had been 10.9 times standard on the day following the explosions. It has since fallen but was still more than twice the normal limit.

Testing water 

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace said Sunday it had tested surface water for cyanide at four locations in the city and had not detected high levels of the chemical.

"These results show that local water supplies are not currently severely contaminated with cyanide," it said, but reiterated its call for comprehensive tests on the air and water and for publication of the results.

On Saturday a 3 kilometre radius from the site of the blasts was evacuated, state-run media reported. Officials said later the reports were inaccurate but vehicles were turned back at barriers.

On Sunday AFP saw young men, carrying personal belongings, leave FAW Toyota apartments and board a bus waiting to take them to alternative accommodation. Police in masks could be seen at one checkpoint.

Steve Ra, an American who was evacuated by his employer to another area of Tianjin, said he was worried about the potential health effects.

"The main concern is just the air," Ra told AFP. "I'm waiting to go back to get my normal life back. But I don't know what I'll be breathing so that's the biggest concern."

Tianjin residents, relatives of the victims and online commentators have slammed local authorities for a lack of transparency, and tried to storm a news conference on Saturday.

'No truth!' 

On Sunday sobbing men confronted security at the hotel where officials have been briefing journalists, with one shouting "Police, I will kill someone!" in what appeared to be a desperate bid to attract attention before being comforted by a policeman.

Another lashed out at reporters attempting to photograph him, saying: "Don't take my photo, it is useless. The news has no truth!"

Outside, residents of a building damaged by the blasts held a protest.

The government has moved to limit criticism of the handling of the aftermath, with a total of 50 websites shut down or suspended for "creating panic by publishing unverified information or letting users spread groundless rumours", according to the Cyberspace Administration of China.

Critical posts on social media have also been blocked, and more than 360 social media accounts have been punished.

One poster on microblogging platform Sina Weibo wrote: "Why is it 'rumours' are flying everywhere every time there is a disaster? Are they really rumours?”

"The government is lying... You have lied to the people too much and made yourself untrustworthy."

TIANJIN, China — The death toll from two massive explosions that tore through an industrial area in the northeastern Chinese port of Tianjin has risen to 104, state media said on Saturday, as China's president urged improvements in workplace safety.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said authorities should learn the lessons paid for with blood in Wednesday warehouse blasts, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The number of people killed had previously been put at 85.

China evacuated residents who had taken refuge in a school near the site of two huge explosions, state media said, after a change in wind direction on Saturday prompted fears that toxic chemical particles could be blown inland.

It was not clear from media reports how many people were evacuated.

The evacuation order came as a fire broke out again at the site of Wednesday's blasts, a warehouse specially designed to store dangerous chemicals, according to Xinhua.

Evacuees were advised to wear long trousers and face masks as they "evacuated in an orderly fashion", according to a post on the official microblog of the Tianjin branch of the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China. The streets appeared calm.

But not all was clear amid emotional scenes as families of missing fire fighters sought answers about their loved ones and officials tried to keep media cameras away. Gong Jiansheng, a district official, told reporters there had been no evacuation.

Survivor found

In one piece of encouraging news, a 50-year-old man was rescued 50 metres away from the blast zone, Xinhua said. The man was suffering from a burnt respiratory tract but was in a stable condition after surviving three days in a shipping container, the official China Central Television (CCTV) and Xinhua said.

Chinese police confirmed for the first time the presence of deadly sodium cyanide at the site of the blast as a series of new, small explosions were heard and small fires broke out.

Police confirmed the presence of the chemical, fatal when ingested or inhaled, "roughly east of the blast site", the state-run Beijing News said.

It did not say how much had been found or how great a risk it posed but residents expressed concern about the air and water.

"I do feel a bit afraid," said construction worker Li Shulan, 49, when asked about the air quality. "It definitely doesn't feel good. As you can see our boss is making us wear masks."

An area 3km from the blast site was cordoned off, the Beijing News said.

No cyanide had been found in the ocean surrounding the port, said the State Oceanic Administration of China in a post on its official website. At an afternoon news conference, officials declined to discuss pollution concerns, referring journalists to other departments.

Families desperate for information

There were about seven small explosions in the area on Saturday, according to a post on the micro-blog of CCTV. A fresh blaze ignited cars in a parking lot next to the blast site. The cause was not immediately clear. State media carried reports of other fires in the area.

A retired environmental official earlier told reporters that air pollution posed no risk. Harmful substances could not be detected in the air from 17 monitors placed around the city, he said.

About 6,300 people have been displaced by the blasts with around 721 injured and 33 in serious condition, Xinhua said. Shockwaves from the explosions were felt by residents in apartment blocks kilometres away in the city of 15 million people. At least 21 of the dead were fire fighters.

About a dozen family members of missing fire fighters tried to storm a press conference, angry at a lack of information.

"We have gone to each and every hospital by ourselves and not found them," said Wang Baoxia, whose elder brother is missing.

Media have said such fire fighters in China, often only on two-year contracts, lack training as new recruits.

"There is no government official willing to meet us. Not even one," Wang said. Relatives said around 25 missing fire fighters were young contract workers not part of official city fire brigades.

After Wednesday's blasts, fire crews were criticised for using water to douse flames which may have contributed to the blasts given the volatile nature of the chemicals involved.

Industrial accidents are not uncommon in China following three decades of fast growth. A blast at an auto parts factory killed 75 people a year ago.

ROME (AFP) — At least 40 migrants died on a boat off Italy Saturday as Europe struggled to cope with hundreds of people making dangerous journeys to reach Italy and Greece.

"Operation under way... many migrants saved. At least 40 dead," the Italian navy said on Twitter, while the Corriere della Sera newspaper said those who died were found in the hold of the vessel, apparently having suffocated below deck.

An Italian navy helicopter had spotted the boat, which was "overcrowded and starting to sink", about 21 nautical miles off the Libyan coast, south of the Italian island of Lampedusa, a reporter with Italy RaiNews TV at rescue operation headquarters said.

A navy vessel was sent to its aid at 7 am (0500 GMT) and when its sailors boarded, the grim discovery was made.

Massimo Tozzi, commander of the rescue patrol, told the Italian news agency AGI that 319 people had been saved, including a dozen women and several children.

"We were faced with a very emotional scene," he told the agency, describing how some bodies were floating on the water.

Survivors of the hazardous crossing from Libya often tell of how traffickers lock migrants in the hold — mostly black Africans — who pay less for the voyage.

Packed inside the confined space they not only risk drowning if the rickety boats capsize, but many are also overcome by diesel fumes.

The EU says the scale of migration, driven by war, disaster and poverty, has no parallel since the 1940s.

"The world finds itself facing the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War," EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said on Friday.

Italy and Greece have born the brunt of the emergency.

On the Greek island of Kos, scores of exhausted migrants, many of whom arrived on inflatable boats early Saturday, were turned away from a ferry that was due to start registering new arrivals.

"We don't know where to go. We were told we could no longer register at the stadium" where Greek authorities were registering new arrivals this week, said Sleiman, a Syrian refugee among those gathering near the ferry in the morning.

"We are in a vicious cycle, and we keep turning round and round," he said.

UN refugee agency spokeswoman Stella Nanou said it was unclear whether registration on the ferry would begin later in the day, as authorities had announced on Friday.

Nanou also said the EU must show more "solidarity" with Greece as it struggles to handle the migrant crisis.

"For example, solidarity in terms of financial support to Greece, solidarity in terms of technical support, and solidarity in terms also of creating more legal ways for those people to reach Europe," she told AFP.

Still, hundreds of people who had registered could be seen leaving the Greek resort island on Saturday on a ferry to Athens.

But after the precarious boat trip to Kos and sleeping rough on the streets, a young Syrian man, Anas, who is travelling to Athens with his daughter, feared more hardship was to come.

"We managed to escape drowning but now we don't know what is going to happen. We came to Europe but honestly, it's all fear, it's all danger and nothing is working," said Anas, who declined to give his second name.

Earlier this week, there were some 7,000 refugees and migrants on Kos, but that number has fallen to some 2,500, according to Greek police.

More than 101,700 migrants have arrived on Italy's shores since the start of the year, with at least 2,040 others dying on the crossing, according to the latest figures issued by the International Organisation for Migration.

To deal with the crisis the EU is fast-tracking 2.7 million euros ($3 million) to debt-wracked Greece, which will also receive 30 million euros from a total fund of 2.4 billion euros created for all 28 EU member states to cope with migrants until 2020.

ISTANBUL — Three more Turkish soldiers were killed on Saturday in an attack by members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in eastern Turkey, the army said, as authorities carried out new raids to arrest suspected militants. 

The latest deaths bring to six the number of soldiers killed in the last 24 hours by Kurdish rebels, who have stepped up their attacks on Turkish security forces in an escalating cycle of violence that has left a 2013 ceasefire agreed by the PKK in tatters. 

The soldiers were killed when an explosive device laid by PKK militants on a road in the Karliova district of eastern Bingol province was detonated, the army said in a statement. 

"Three of our soldiers were martyred and six wounded," the army said, adding clashes were continuing in the region. 

The attack in Karliova came after three other troops were killed late Friday in an attack by PKK militants in the Daglica area of the southeastern Hakkari region. 

Ankara has launched a two-pronged "anti-terror" offensive against jihadists in Syria and PKK militants in northern Iraq after a series of attacks on Turkish soil, including a suicide bombing blamed on the Daesh terror group that killed 32 pro-Kurdish activists in the town of Suruc on July 20. 

So far, the operation has focused largely on the Kurdish rebels, who have responded by waging a bloody campaign against the security forces.

'Pay a heavy price' 

Speaking in his ancestral hometown in northeast Turkey's Rize province, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that the fight against terror would continue "unabated", adding: "No one should test Turkey's strength, or they will pay a heavy price."

Turkish authorities carried out new dawn raids to arrest suspected Daesh and PKK members, with the official Anatolia news agency saying at least 84 suspects had been detained in several provinces, including Istanbul as well as Mardin and Gaziantep in the southeast and Van to the east. 

Police seized a large number of explosives, Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers, Anatolia said. 

Citing official sources, the Hurriyet newspaper said Turkish authorities had seized 30 suicide vests, some of them ready to be used, in recent anti-Daesh operations.

More than 2,500 people have so far been detained in raids targeting suspected members of the PKK, Daesh and the Marxist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front, a Turkish official said Saturday, the overwhelming majority from the PKK.

The official told reporters that 39 members of the Turkish security forces have died in attacks since July 20 and 40 civilians have been killed including the Suruc bombing. 

The same official said Turkey is concerned by the advance of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria but that the Syrian Kurdish group is not on the "target list" of Ankara's current anti-terror operation. 

The PYD's Kurdish fighters control large parts of northern Syria on the Turkish border, where they have for months engaged in fierce fighting with Daesh militants. 

The PYD has "incredibly close links" with the PKK, which has waged a separatist-tinged insurgency in Turkey for three decades and is regarded by Ankara as a terrorist group, the official told reporters.

"The PYD is not on our target list. We are not going to attack the PYD as long as they are not going to attack Turkey."

But he added that Ankara still has problems with the group, accusing elements of being allied to Syrian President Bashar Assad, and that these concerns have been presented to the United States as the two countries work to create a zone free of Daesh militants inside Syria.

TIANJIN, China — Huge, fiery blasts at a warehouse for hazardous chemicals killed at least 50 people and turned nearby buildings into skeletal shells in the Chinese port of Tianjin, raising questions Thursday about whether the materials had been properly stored.

Hundreds of people were injured in the explosions shortly before midnight Wednesday, which sent out massive fireballs that turned the night sky into day and shattered windows several kilometres away. Twelve of the dead were from among the more than 1,000 firefighters sent to the mostly industrial zone to fight the ensuing blaze.

"I thought it was an earthquake, so I rushed downstairs without my shoes on," said Tianjin resident Zhang Siyu, whose home is several kilometres from the blast site. "Only once I was outside did I realise it was an explosion. There was the huge fireball in the sky with thick clouds. Everybody could see it."

Zhang said she could see wounded people weeping. She said she did not see anyone who had been killed, but "I could feel death."

The municipal government in Tianjin, the world's 10th largest port and a petrochemical processing hub about 120 kilometres east of Beijing, said 701 people were injured, including 71 in serious condition. It gave no figure for the missing.

There was no indication of what caused the blasts, and no immediate sign of any toxic cloud in the air as firefighters brought the fire largely under control by morning. However, the Tianjin government suspended further firefighting to allow a team of chemical experts to survey hazardous materials at the site, assess dangers to the environment and decide how best to proceed.

State media said senior management of the company had been detained, and that President Xi Jinping demanded severe punishment for anyone found responsible for the explosions.

"It was like what we were told a nuclear bomb would be like," said truck driver Zhao Zhencheng, who spent the night in the cab of his truck after the blasts. 

In a sign of sensitivity over the hazardous materials stored at the warehouse, state broadcaster CCTV went into a live broadcast of a news conference in Tianjin when the head of the municipality's Environmental Protection Bureau chief, Wen Wurui, was speaking. He said there had been no apparent impact on air monitoring stations, but that water samples were still being examined.

However, when a reporter asked him whether the chemicals at the warehouse had been stored far enough away from residences in the area and Wen seemed at a loss for a response, the broadcaster suddenly cut away from the news conference, only to return to it again later.

Authorities said the blasts started at shipping containers at the warehouse owned by Ruihai Logistics, a company that says it stores hazardous materials including flammable petrochemicals, sodium cyanide and toluene diisocyanate.

The initial blast apparently triggered an even bigger one. The National Earthquake Bureau said the first blast was the equivalent of three tonnes of TNT, and the second 21 tonnes. The enormous fireballs from the blasts rolled through a nearby parking lot, turning a fleet of 1,000 new cars into scorched metal husks.

As is customary during disasters, Chinese authorities tried to keep a tight control over information. Police kept journalists and bystanders away with a cordon about 1 or 2 kilometres from the site. On China's popular microblogging platform of Weibo, some users complained that their posts about the blasts were deleted, and the number of searchable posts on the disaster fluctuated, in a sign that authorities were manipulating or placing limits on the number of posts.

The website of the logistics company became inaccessible Thursday.

The Tianjin government said that because of the blasts it had suspended online access to public corporate records. These records might be used to trace the ownership of Ruihai. It was not clear whether the blackout was due to technical damage related to the explosion. No one answered the phone at the Tianjin Market and Quality Supervision Administration or the Tianjin Administration for Industry and Commerce on Thursday.

Ruihai Logistics said on its website — before it was shut down — that it was established in 2011 and is an approved company for handling hazardous materials. It said it handles 1 million tonnes of cargo annually.

Photos taken by bystanders and circulating on microblogs show a gigantic fireball high in the sky with a mushroom cloud. Other photos on state media outlets showed a sea of fire that painted the night sky bright orange, with tall plumes of smoke.

About two kilometres from the explosion site is the luxury Fifth Avenue apartment complex on a road strewn with broken glass and pieces of charred metal thrown from the explosion. Like surrounding buildings, the Mediterranean-style complex had all its windows blown out, and some of its surfaces were scorched.

"It's lucky no one had moved in," said a worker on the site, Liu Junwei, 29. "But for us it's a total loss. Two years of hard work down the drain."

"It had been all quiet, then the sky just lit up brighter than day and it looked like a fireworks show," said another worker on the site who gave just his surname, Li.

Tianjin, with a population of about 15 million, is being promoted by the Chinese government as a centre for finance and high-tech industry. The Tianjin Economic Development Area has attracted foreign investors including Motorola, Toyota, Samsung and Novozymes.

The port is the 10th largest in the world and seventh largest in China. It has grown in importance as companies wanting lower manufacturing costs have migrated to the north from eastern and southern China's manufacturing centers.

In the US, the White House sent its condolences, with spokesman Ned Price calling the explosions a tragedy and praising the first responders working to help the injured.