food and water al-jazeera as you see. if you will this is how gas the city looks like at the moment after days of clashes shops. and others shut down residents shrouded in apprehension on friday morning at two am taliban fighters launched a large scale attack on the city targeting government promises namely the mayor's office intelligence headquarters and central police stations in an attempt to seize control of the city center the taliban wanted to take the city as a base for their future operations in the other provinces this plot has failed however it has left behind devastation and destruction as you can see behind me afghan authorities claim between three hundred to four hundred taliban fighters were killed afghan intelligence said we had provided calls and it's the international warplanes that attacked the taliban positions the center of the city

is now relatively calm however there are sporadic clashes on the outskirts that's also been reported that the area will be combed however the government and now it's a six month old out operation to clear the entire province of taliban fighters this is the third province of taliban attempt to take over following. him returning conditions in the city are deteriorating and telephone and telecommunication networks are down electricity is also out of. the end tonight is also down and that's why people have taken to the streets in and the government protests. against new residents are feeling the brunt of the absence of basic services and they are calling on the government to immediately store services so life can go back to normal in the kind of units i had just seen as just zero still to come here on al-jazeera hundreds of paedophile priests thousands of victims investigators

chronicled decades of sexual abuse in the u.s. state of pennsylvania. grow to let brazil's jailed former president run for the top job once again. hello again well this hour we're going to start down here across parts of indonesia we've seen some dry conditions across borneo over the last couple of days but we do think that more clouds and rain will be coming into your forecast as we go towards thursday those showers also down here across much of the southeast down towards java though we are looking at fairly dry conditions for jakarta about thirty three degrees as we are looking into the forecast here on thursday make your way towards friday not much of a change there but towards thailand we are looking at some very heavy rain up towards bangkok with a temperature a few of about thirty degrees make your way down towards parts of australia well

a frontal boundary has been pushing across parts of tasmania that has brought some snow to the higher elevations there that's going to be making its way across the tasman sea but that frontal boundary will push into parts of melbourne and the temperatures will be coming down slightly from melbourne there on thursday fourteen degrees few but still looking quite nice up along the coast for britain at about twenty nine to greece on thursday coming down slightly as we make our way towards friday over here towards the north in south alabama zealand well the south island you're going to see much of the priest of taishan over the next few days there in christ church for auckland a sixteen degrees for you but as we go towards friday the clouds will be coming in and a temperature of sixteen. in an exclusive series of documentaries i was born into a very ordinary japanese family. shows five different stories i am just too excited

to focus on anything else right now from five different countries and it was really great. but i was most importantly. with the one journey no one in my family has ever been to mecca this is the joyful occasion the road to has an al-jazeera. welcome back let's just recap the top stories for you so far today italy has ordered a check of major infrastructure across the country after the collapse of a motorway bridge in genoa rescue teams pull thirty seven bodies from the rubble hundreds of firefighters are still digging through the desperate. turkey's big tariffs on some u.s.

imports and is calling for a boycott of american electronics the government says it's in retaliation for what it calls a deliberate economic attack that the euro's fall in more than forty five percent against the dollar this year. israel has reopened the only commercial crossing into gaza. was closed on july the ninth clothes fuel and construction material can now enter. a new reports is accusing more than three hundred catholic priests in the u.s. state of pennsylvania of sexual abuse it details allegations of assaults on children by those described as predator priests is kristen salumi. the accusations are stunning in scale more than one thousand victims of more than three hundred roman catholic priests for decades they escaped justice because of a systematic cover up that included high ranking church officials and allegedly went all the way to the vatican. priests were raped raping little boys and girls and the men of god who were responsible for them not only did nothing they should

at all for decades. the landmark report compiled by a secret grand jury of the state of pennsylvania took two years to compile as many victims have been waiting decades for their voices to be heard and their pain to be acknowledged sean dougherty says he was abused as a child by a priest at his school whom other children had complained about you know the school protected them and allowed man three my friends and i was very dear to help pakis belongings in the rectory pack up the car and go to the new parish and the new school and spend the first night in the new rectory with them and he was being transferred for sexually abusing two brothers two priests have been charged and one has already pleaded guilty to molesting a seven year old boy as a result of the investigation many of the crimes outlined in the report however took place too long ago to be criminally prosecuted. the report places significant blame on

a former bishop of the diocese of pittsburgh cardinal donald wuerl for what it describes as his role in covering up abuse worl now the head of the archdiocese of washington d.c. responded in a written statement saying that he acted with diligence with concern for the victims and to prevent future abuse in july pope francis accepted the resignation of archbishop theodore mccarrick from the college of cardinals one of the church's most powerful bodies amid allegations of molestation and sexual misconduct i believe the bishops if they give us the up. to me do you find the justice of an apology isn't enough for sean daugherty and other victims who are calling on lawmakers to change the statute of limitations and force the catholic church to finally pay for it sins kristen salumi al-jazeera harrisburg and in chile the police there have raided the offices of catholic church leaders they're looking for documents to support allegations of widespread sexual abuse by the clergy

prosecutors are investigating thirty eight cases involving more than two hundred seventy alleged victims mostly children in america addison seein him and this in santiago the raid on the headquarters of the catholic church here in santiago is just the latest in a wide ranging troll searching for evidence against not only members of the clergy but of cover ups by the by bishops and even by cardinals we're talking about two cardinals including cardinal got a lot of it is saturday who is the archbishop of santiago he has been summoned to testify next week before a port where he has to go as a defendant he denies any wrongdoing but at least one hundred and thirty eight members of the church are being investigated covering more than two hundred and fifty alleged victims ranging well are going back rather for many many decades this is the largest investigation of this type in latin america and certainly in chile

which until not a lot of that was a staunchly catholic country pope francis has had to apologize and ask for forgiveness he says for having not only not done enough before having actually ignored the claims by the victims for years and years and in fact in january saying that they will quote slander. zimbabwe's governing party is trying to get the opposition's challenge to last month's election result thrown out the president. because he submitted paperwork on weapons day they want to court to reject the petition filed by the opposition m.d.c. alliance last week is accusing of rigging the presidential vote. was on a day of official say that the opposition has no case and they want the inauguration to happen as soon as possible so what happens make the opposition have three days to respond then the judges will sit and meet they could say eminem and gaga won the election and he has to be sworn into office within forty eight hours they could

order a recount or they could order a fresh election within sixty days once a judgment is made once a ruling is made that is final there is no room for appeal and we have no idea when the judges will make that ruling by the have between now and about fourteen days to do so some say since robert mugabe the former president was forced from office by the army they say that maybe there are some people who still support who don't like women god why maybe some of those are in the judiciary they could maybe side with the opposition but some say traditionally the courts have been seemingly been aligned to the ruling. party so they have their doubts but they say going to the courts is not the only strategy the other route will follow they haven't they what those routes are but they're waiting for the outcome of the court. the indian prime minister has revealed what's being billed as the world's largest government funded health scheme it'll cover around half a billion poor people narendra modi made the announcement during independence day celebrations in new delhi critics say there are huge shortages in the health system

and the country doesn't have the services to look after its population and to thomas has more now from go a hearty. at the moment health care in india is pretty terrible for all but the very richest the country overall spends about one point five percent of its annual g.d.p. on health that is way down on the global average of about six percent more that means in practice is that only the very richest have access to hospital beds like these only people like these can afford the private insurance they need to get it all what the national health protection scheme or mody care as it's being called by everybody here will do is it'll roll out a public insurance scheme which in theory gives about five hundred million people that's almost half this country's population access to health insurance policy that gives them up to seven thousand u.s. dollars equivalent to spend on health care each year if they get seriously ill now it sounds ambitious it sounds progressive it is but it comes with caveats this

country does not have the infrastructure to support the extra demand that all those people wanting health care will want it simply doesn't have the beds and then there's the cost at least one point five billion dollars a year will be needed from public coffers to pay for this on their own for modi is facing reelection early next year he made modi care its absolute signature policy in his speech on independence day on wednesday he wants this message this health care message to reach right around the country and be the centerpiece of his reelection campaign thousands of brazilians are planning a mass rally to demand their choice a presidential candidate be allowed to run the former leader if in early or in a field little silver is serving a twelve year prison sentence for corruption is daniel. it was here in the arid northeast of brazil. enjoyed strong supporters president with his social

programs that helped alleviate poverty his imprisonment earlier this year for corruption as part of the huge khalwat scandal has left many voters disillusioned with their politicians and cynical about the political process now at school there is no confidence in the electoral process brazilians don't trust politicians especially with all these corruption probe so i don't see anyone talking about the elections. as properly knowing is still ahead in the opinion polls his supporters believe he is innocent and the country struggling to emerge from recession they remember that between two thousand and three and two thousand and ten you have a store a booming economy and they believe he can save them again and lula you know there is no other option. he's a political prisoner he wasn't condemned there is no proof against him and he was arrested for good and i am it's unlikely however that the will be able to stand up since has created a political void it's never been easy to represent a country so huge so ethnically diverse so rich and yet so poor but really have

brazil's politicians involved in a huge corruption scandal often hiding in distant brasilia been so unrepresentative of the brazilian electorate. tapping into that disillusionment is the anti establishment white we military man jay ableson are all his supporters growing especially in senses far from brasilia in the wealth of the unreal kind of thing is that a good fit coming when we talk about candidates we are on hold people in general don't trust any of the candidates however i have kind of decided my candidate is going to be both so narrow. however opinion polls suggest that more than half the brazilian electorate don't know who to vote for or don't like any of the choices and won't cost about it despite being obligatory. i think brazil is heading towards complete chaos that is my impression politicians are not governing it's a complete mess the same politicians are now faced with the challenge of convincing

a disparate electorate in a country of more than two hundred million inhabitants they have the solutions to brazil's many problems. people in sierra leone have been remembering victims of a devastating mudslide on the outskirts of the capital city freetown they were killed when a trench done for sent mud and rock searching on a mountain crushing the surrounding villages with address reports now from freetown . it was a solemn but emotional event for many survivors. and blessing my cherie is in. she survived last year's disaster because the torrential rains kept her away from my home the night before. on the morning of august fourteenth two thousand and seventeen she arrived at the family compound seventeen members of our family including her husband of only seven months were all gone and.

i can't do anything they died sometimes i cry all day so i'm just day we gather to pray for them and for god to give me the strength to continue but it is not easy. she and a few hundred others are here to remember the dead and to offer prayers they never had the chance to offer last year. this is the first time many of the survivors of this close to the scene of the disaster in two thousand and seventeen remain the faces. is a fresh as it was in the immediate aftermath with hundreds of people million friends still unaccounted for it's hard for many to have. the united nations and environmentalists have long want of disasters like the mark slide in a country where the environment is degraded eye to fast rate president julius might be or said sarah leone is the world's third most vulnerable nation when it comes to the adverse effects of climate change related disasters and he said his government

plans to come down hard on people helping to accelerate that change. this is a. he said oh you want me to. be on this morning. with you firstly and i believe we. all morning. to do that. environmentally spray mccall says in freetown alone there are thirty six different sites where this disaster can happen and the reasons are obvious over the years these areas are continually been degraded i mean and been degraded being been wasted and already years i mean since when has also the little weasel is afraid and this was last week i mean he's said

a lot on me and he tends to continuous. back at the site of the disaster new tree seedlings are being planted and the government plans to build a monument to remember the victims i few meters from here president by to be on others lay wreaths as a mark of. a survivor say they want to see more done before they find closure and to get back on their feet for now it looks like it could take much longer to realize that i am a decrease al jazeera more told me. this is al-jazeera these are your top stories at least transport minister has ordered a check of major infrastructure across the country after the collapse of a motorway bridge in genoa rescue team support thirty seven bodies from the rubble hundreds of firefighters are digging through steel and concrete. major challenge is

the year to the fact that we. buy the rubbles that is quite special in its kind that is we have the pc's of the of the breed to collapse it and now we are using big cranes to move those big pieces then to try to enter the rubble is again search for the beatings the us pastor at the center of a dispute between turkey and the us has had his court appeal rejected andrew bronson wanted to be freed from house arrest and have his travel ban lifted he faces trial on terror charges over alleged links to the failed coup two years ago the high court still has to make a final ruling on his appeal turkey has raise tariffs on more u.s. imports and is calling for a boycott of american electronic goods the government says it's in retaliation for what it calls a deliberate economic attack on the euro has fallen more than forty five percent against the u.s. dollar this year. israel has reopened the only commercial crossing into gaza

because abu salim was closed on july the ninth during heightened tensions between israelis and palestinians the israeli defense minister says clothing few and construction material can now enter. more than forty afghan police officers have been killed in an attack on a military base in the northern province of battle on local leaders say nine police officers and thirty five soldiers died it's the latest assault on the security forces in the country zimbabwe's governing party is trying to get the opposition's challenge to last month's election results thrown out the president. p.f. submitted the paperwork on weapons day they want the court to reject the petition filed by the opposition m.d.c. alliance last week it accuses when i got bored of rigging the presidential vote. a new report suggests they could be thousands of victims of child sex abuse in pennsylvania it details allegations of assaults on children by those described as predator priests over a period of seventy years. those are your headlines the news continues after road

to hard all season. china is keen to win friends and influence you need oil rich middle east business spark the long long line of china the security its resources for the future the i love sub sub so hard region as a whole dallas expect to grow we bring you the stories that are shaping the economic world we live in counting the cost on al-jazeera. and ancient land at the crossroads of europe and central asia. some say the garden of eden was here. it is a land rich in history and blessed with abundant natural resources. this is azerbaijan. a land which

after decades of communist rule is today witnessing a resurgence of faith in islam. as a by john embraced islam with arab invaders brought the religion to the region in the seventh century. faith in islam took firm routine here until the region came under the control of the soviet union in the one nine hundred twenty s. . this marked the start of and. era in which atheism became

state policy. many muslim leaders were exiled or killed. mosques were closed or destroyed. despite news of state oppression towards religion many people here in azerbaijan held on to their faith. since regaining independence in one nine hundred ninety one many azerbaijanis have once again turned to islam seeking to reassert their identity and fill the ideological vacuum left behind by the collapse of the soviet union. this is some you know solemn of a thirty one year old mother of two. she is one of the muslims who will be

traveling from as evasion to perform the house pilgrimage to mecca. before leaving she's off to visit her mother. and son. before. the kids fifteen. months are first person or a church if they prove that a man is a researcher will warn us. i am sure unfair and most are certainly there. are certain. everything we all write to each other in. every society. and. so i mean. i was exposed to

islam from an early age as a teenager she started going to the mosque where she learned how to read and write arabic. it was her great grandmother who strongly influenced and shaped her face. to not yet you know i guess all my love across to be been very keen to achieve documented and how the somebody had gashes they had this one here and i think you. know vision of origin and idea do. you give me shit if you zoom tash know that i am educating shouldn't turn into music in the now and the battle of. samir is part of a majority ninety five percent population who consider themselves muslim but more significantly she belongs to a minority who actually practice their religion. older muslims like

her mother have lived their lives without observing the islamic codes and more often than not i don't feel the need to start now. yet samir is mother still desires what every muslim wants. the actual larry they don't all work now on the mark o'mara that they have to you know all chill and make you feel a bit on to russian out chucked out their own mother and i was going out for a long while they have a story though that pair of them here has to have the letter whether they're calling out of or out of their search their compassion i must go to my medicine and . sound very mongers down on the out in that mesh of their unborn child. you know me go on. now you go girl thank. you. you're almost.

the. same mira lives in buckle a capital of azerbaijan. she is about to travel to mecca in saudi arabia for the has. but her own road to has has been marked by years of pain and hardship. i don't believe the mama's good morning we need the situation of the sun and then as i look around. there in i lean in the eye and in the annual budget numbers. again on the i. turn in has invited them on the only downside is that i'm. in with. such.

mission too. despite her devotion to her family samir is relationship with her husband soured after being together for five years they eventually parted ways. then it severed all the kids bitter bitter miserable should issue enjoy if they can save get your body and all its freedom in your college and to make a quick cash. to have a gallivan tragedy goodridge ambition or attain attempt as you know the term you still might a little an amateurish anonyma little town or city is south along the knowledge as surely as you can. wave

on a milder matter in a if i decide if i'm all good and should all i care. either go my own shame of them idleness or to shame that on themselves and chatting going numb to whole track sitting in a kitchen shelf and their mommy daddy gave. them our army chaplain and i'm going to send a new send and put it to change in a sadness you can do now shut the your solution or. evolution how about if every. national guard shit i'm sure mom got a shoot up on any all washroom it is convicted they are emotional made in teaching but in all the judicial measure scholer of an r.c. priest also national's emotional assent to magazine in this next generation is a man almost shall let a denial of destruction act like a legacy of mrs for. according to an

old saying when the world knocks you down on your knees you are in the perfect position to pray this is just what some here added she found renewed strength in prayer. and she began to relish the hope of one day performing the pilgrimage to mecca. still determines there are some of the good of any man who are after our. job there shouldn't get out and see any go the big merges eternal magick it out on cement and it all luckily it didn't do as yet if they get it it would have to them as a body to. get it to a native better. or larger as it plummeted to their local domingo to get it in the end it be left you don't like to keep putting an experimental summer when a push goes your own man and a mistake are marginally good it is shaky shall that america was in manchester has

yet to get it or that government. performing the pilgrimage seems an impossible dream for some euro. although she earns a living as a housekeeping manager at a hotel it would take her years to save up for the has. that fate was to intervene in the form of a friend of her mother's who offered her the chance of a lifetime. to have only been in the same boat demand their animal gave jeev assignment in again and said it begun maybe two. and i'm as a would it to give them the good. of a lot and i'm not allowed to mend their load so they get damn a fantasy at it and they a lot of the sewers are too busy to discuss it or get an incentive going at it. and susan is in the matter gene the researchers at the debate the other man's heart in this in the senate that he has learned there is a would they be said to take him as a rash and it was

a moment she let it stand as yet it may get to it and has a better. bid him a look with. me i would only get him mission there and show him. brimming with anticipation samir prepares for the trip. today she is out to choose the special white garment she'll be wearing on the house. fitting. in the fight against months just to stick around for just one class of interests and a lot of sun. they just give up that isn't. in the ocean pyramid. first and yes i was thinking in just. a shame.

since the collapse of the soviet union and the downfall of communist ideology hundreds of new mosques have been built old ones have been restored and new religious schools have been opened. as their bodies on has witnessed something of an islamic revival. interest in islam appears to be reemerging stronger than ever. while many azerbaijani muslims remain more secular than those in other islamic countries there has been a significant growth in religious practice and belief over the last two decades. camel is another example of someone who has embraced islam. islam should be

ashamed to try more. pushy. to see. it the. more of the. ships. to. reach a. deal which is. to. come and was born during the era of the soviet union at

a time when any faith in god was frowned upon even condemned. he was brought up in an environment of communism in which there was no place for religion. since the downfall of the soviet union camel like most of the other young men and women in azerbaijan have been trying to find their way in a rapidly changing society. camels life took a new turn about five years ago when his wife good embraced islam and encouraged him to do the same. islam then be. limited to finance. this. is a check. on

ten billion pounds if. they. asked me. to. bring it back and told them. i am asking for funding. from. you. for this young azerbaijani couple islam has proved to be a solace and support. can't. get any. eastern men i am keeping up with that being that if it shakes up again it. again mark it would shake it. up if it helped them in that manner and it did they do i say it is not something much to.

do by working hard and saving come and was able to accumulate enough money to go to the house and take i going along with him. this was important as he credits i going with his new found faith. in me she believed in the. choice. well my love me. pleasure analysts. the oldish should listen to it well as for the good news it is a phishing scam this is the. this is instantaneous. caml believes islam has helped to turn his life around for him pilgrimage to mecca is

both a literal journey of worship and the symbolic renewal of a sense of purpose in the world. use. the information you. tell me. it was. as it appears as a holes. in the t.v. show this will assume a shoulder to shoulder move and soon shoot. in. the air that was meant for a misfit consumers for us or for us. to see or. hear or see the searchers. same age old but the only place. in the.

us is i get it all it is in almost all of the letters to me she's is. the almighty himself of almost a century since he on this. also you know. him on his shoulder assistance colas the case. that come in and his wife will soon be leaving they can barely believe that they are on the verge of performing one of the five pillars of islam the has meant i think keeping our parents trying to. get it they can remember that. much and it is from a ship or an idiot or it is so much that it's. that there's under control there is an old option if there are no success.

handing out. there are lots of. them men and babies. under them. in the. eighty's. to me that's a good message to read and. that's. the day of departure has arrived about seventeen hundred pilgrims will be leaving

azerbaijan onboard a total of forty four busses. there is excitement and expectation in the air but a long six day bus ride lies ahead for these pilgrims. they will travel to saudi arabia overland through georgia turkey syria and jordan. camels friends have come to see him off. samir is also getting ready to leave she is anxious about the trip. samir. just to cool and thank her mother's friends who made the trip possible.

transmission. signals in some. small villages. only. unlike most of the other pilgrims said mirah is not travelling to mecca by bus her mother's friend has been generous indeed buying her plane ticket so she is off to the airport to catch a flight to saudi arabia. semir however is feeling mixed emotions and instead of going to see saving it is sunday in the church only you don't get an islamist to touch. the total sense that it gave us at least the sense of the work of the yamato. educated get to know so this this them is a lot of paper so it's getting just right as a state governments are in such as on the touch bodies of women forty of samadhi

give me a hot sauce sounded good. to. look so much so precise definition. i. some journeys are tougher than others. but this road trip is even tougher for the continent the truck there would stranger to al-jazeera the world follows the moroccan truck drivers in danger of their lives. just to make a living if you crash that might break your mirror or even kill you because of the only fruit. from a good deal to death on al-jazeera. room . on the streets of

greece anti immigrant violence is on the rise there or you have to go for. the sound that the sizzle losses of and increasingly migrant farm workers of victims of vicious beatings. as helping the pakistani community to find a voice the stories we don't often have told by the people who live them undocumented and under attack this is iraq on al-jazeera. land. this is a picture of the market when it was still the market is about one nine hundred eighty two and that's me when i was younger i guess i was forty two and you can see

the obviously the. the old ways of carrying the barrows in that. rainy sort of manic street which is quite different essentially this brush feel street view still exist but you get the feeling of it being all these people of gold you see you get a feeling of of what it was like it was a working class area. very hard working and now it's become much sort of glitzy over and but she's three valerie is here and all the different coffee shops.

just i'm so down to five with the place in the street and you know the fact that glue sniffing knocks on the door i mean that's part of my life you know and saying hello to the people in the street and walking up and down and i'm writing all about this so i this is what i write about the street which is fascinating to me so i'm going to be here i pray to god until i die the longer i stayed in the house there the more i realize we certainly couldn't do if say i'd wanted to paint all the rooms pink as opposed to took was a should do i could have done that in the first months but afterwards i thought no it wouldn't quite the house you know there's a feeling it sounds a bit pretentious but that the house has its own say and you have a little tug of war and you say i'm going to pull a mold and being here and do a modern thing there that's all right but there's a certain certain things i couldn't do because. the house in no way would be saying no you don't want that i don't love that so that's the spirit of the house i guess

you know the thing about the house is it's a sort of a marriage isn't it the house has its own character i have my character the house is really saying that i want to remain like this but you can do this just a little bit you can change it a bit but i still want my personality and you can still have yours. business updates. going places to get.

business updates. going places to get. through the rubble of the.

big. cash in foreign currency as president irwin announces new tariffs against the us. affordable health care for up to half a billion people india's prime minister an ounce is a scheme to improve medical treatment for the most needy. fellow italy's transport minister has ordered a check of major infrastructure across the country after the collapse of a motorway bridge in genoa rescue teams have pulled thirty seven bodies from the

rubble around thirty five cars and trucks were thought to have been on the bridge when the middle section gave way firefighters and search specialists from across italy have been called in to dig through the rubble the major challenges are due to the fact that we. buy the rubbles is quite special you know it's kind of these we have the pieces of the of the breach the collapse of the now we're using big cranes to move those big pieces and to try to enter the rubble is again search for to be victims. well this is the scene live in genoa where rescuers are continuing their search for survivors also gathering at the scene are desperate family members eager for news. of the demotic i started to call him forty times fifty times then i started to call his friend who was together with his wife all three of them chileans and then i came to the hospital and they said that he was no more than it

was in the prison bus and his name is not among the missing not among the hospitals patients who still don't know anything i hope he's in this ambulance arriving now because i've just been told they found someone the last night he answered his phone he turned his phone on so we hope this is a good sign when a touch of butler joins us live now from jennifer sena tasha any any word right now as to whether the. they can still find survivors at this point. well when we spoke to one of the commanders of the general fire brigade a short while ago he said that there's always a chance the you can find survivors at this stage we are just over twenty four hours just maybe i should say twenty four hours since the bridge collapsed and of course people might be buried under the rubble but in a pocket of air for example in in which case they might be able to survive for

a few days and that is why the emergency workers who are here in the hundreds of them say that they will continue to search through the rubble through the debris they're using very heavy machinery to try to lift those big bits of concrete they use and sniffer dogs their bare hands they will do everything they can to see if there are any other survivors you know but of course as the hours pass the chances of finding someone alive do diminish even if there is still some chance we have heard also there is the fact that many people all searching for relatives missing people loved ones that they suspect may have been on that bridge you know it's a very difficult situation because of course if you know that somebody is in a building or in an office built for example and it was to collapse you know that they were inside but it's just pure child's whether or not you knew somebody that was in a car driving across a bridge all not sent to section which collapsed and we know that people have been

gathering at the hospital here in juneau looking for people they know people are missing they want to know if possibly someone they knew was in a car on that bridge at the time when it collapsed and it's a sure what more do we know about the victims this point because this happened what would have been a very busy time on that bridge. that's right we are in the middle of the summer holidays in europe it is peak holiday season to day in fact it is a public holiday here in. national holidays the road was particularly busy as people were preparing and lots of tourists on the road we've heard from the french foreign ministry the three french nationals who definitely amongst the date we also know that three chileans were amongst the dead in fact you heard a little bit earlier in one of those in one of those voices that you played a bit earlier the brother of one of the chilean victims had been looking

frantically for his brother and then it was confirmed to him that he was amongst those unfortunate people who were in their car as the bridge collapsed but as the hours possible find out more and more we know that more than thirty five people have been taken out of the rubble more than thirty five bodies have been recovered and as i said that search that those those rescue workers really continuing to see if they might be able to find any signs of life all right for the moment live for us there in january. now this bridge carries the name of its designer ricardo miranda he specialized in reinforced concrete structures this isn't the first time one of his bridges has partially collapsed the similar style bridge in venezuela partially collapsed in one thousand nine hundred sixty four when it was hit by a tank of the bridge in genoa was one point two kilometers long and was completed in one thousand nine hundred sixty seven around twenty five million vehicles use it

each year or people there say they've been worried for some time major repairs were carried out in the one nine hundred ninety s. and a report in two thousand and eleven said the bridge had been suffering degradation restructuring work was carried out in two thousand and sixteen and maintenance was being done on its foundations at the time of tuesday's collapse well in firth is a consultant structural engineer with calvi a consulting group specializing in engineering environmental science and economics he joins us via skype now from london thanks so much for being with us now i appreciate it as we are at a very early stage in this but based on what's known right now and what we know about the history of this bridge what kind of things would you be looking for to determine the cause here what might be the telltale signs well as you say it's too early to say it with any kind of degree of confidence and it would be really irresponsible to speculate specifically but a bridge of this nature of this age you would never see looked to see if there's

any kind of signs of corrosion which may have been going on and in some of those tendons that you mentioned there's a concrete bridge it's actually a pre-stressed concrete bridge which means it has some high strength turnstile steel members inside there and if those were corroding and not been undetected you know that proved to be undetected that could have been a problem so i would be looking at those. critical tension elements which hold the bridge up to see were there was any signs of that but but i mean engineers have been maintaining the bridge over the lifetime of. as a bridge so you know they would be looking for that already. i would be surprised if major corrosion like that had gone undetected because we know that the bridge has been subject to some ongoing inspection of maintenance works as you say and what kind of stresses does a bridge of this type generally go through obviously there's weather conditions there's the volume of traffic every day and so on. well in the bridge obviously has

been subject to very heavy traffic when it was designed back in the sixty's built back in the sixty's you know the traffic was very much lighter and we know that the bridges had some strengthening work potentially i don't know but potentially to deal with the fact that it's got a much increased level of imposed loading on it the weather conditions people talked about the weather the storm you know i i'm not convinced by any story that says you know that the storm brought the bridge down very unlikely but you know you can't rule it out this stage you mention in your introduction that there was some work going on the foundations i'd heard that as well i don't know what that work was i suspect it may more likely have been in the supporting structures underneath the bridge deck was in the foundations themselves. and who knows but you know it's possible that some of that work might have been of course but as i say too early to say but what you did say in your introduction was that the design of morandi you know who designed this bridge along with two or three others in the same kind similar kind. it's

a very unusual design and frankly you know to give confidence if you like to your to your viewers that this is a very very rare thankfully very very rare and extreme event and bridges by and large are are safe a are looked after by engineers people like me who whose job it is to inspect and maintain and advise bridge owners about the need the nature of the maintenance and the risks and so on and this bridges obviously had a disaster sort of a nightmare scenario that has pushed designers you know hardly to think would ever happen. but this is such a rare event people should not worry that all bridges of that age are suddenly going to be suspect well actually that gets to my my next question i mean we mentioned as well there that this bridge was built in one nine hundred sixty seven there's obviously. bridges that are much older than that that are just fine is that a factor in in any of this. tall i mean all bridges need to have maintenance and

bridges of this sort they are potentially they're rather more maintenance hungry than the others it's a particular type of bridge which frankly we wouldn't do today we've learned since then things that we didn't know back in the sixty's about the ability of those kinds of bridges. but bridges of course they are jubilee look at those wonderful stone bridges and should be around for centuries let alone decades. so yeah bridges properly engineered probably designed properly constructed good to speak with you. thanks very much for your time now israel has reopened the only commercial crossing into gaza after a month long shutdown cat am i was salim entrance into the trip was closed on july ninth during heightened tension between israelis and palestinians the israeli

defense minister says clothes fuel and construction materials will now be allowed through israel has also expanded the fishing zone of gaza. a chance trafford is live for us now at the guard ports now and charles when we last spoke to you you were at the at the crossing what are you seeing there now at at the gaza port. yes israel has now ease some of the restrictions on the fisherman here in gaza will specifically the area in which the fisherman can operate according to this latest agreement that the israelis have expanded the area from three nautical miles to six analytical miles in the north of the gaza strip that's along the israeli border area.