HA LONG BAY, Vietnam — A Vietnamese man who survived the capsizing of a tour boat in Ha Long Bay described his escape from the overturned vessel.
At least 35 people were killed in the accident and a search is continuing for four who are still missing, according to Vietnamese state media. Authorities said that an earlier report of 38 dead and five missing was incorrect.
The Wonder Sea embarked early Saturday afternoon for a three hour excursion in Ha Long Bay, a popular tourist destination, carrying 46 passengers and three crew.
But a storm quickly covered the sky, bringing high winds and pouring rain, survivor Dang Anh Tuan told The Associated Press.
Tuan said the passengers asked for the boat to turn back to shore, but the crew reassured them they were almost at their destination and kept the boat moving forward.
“It rained for about 15 minutes, and then the boat started to shake vigorously, tables and chairs were jostled around and seconds later the boat overturned,” the 36-year-old fire extinguisher salesman said. “Water gushed in and I lost all orientation.”
“I tried to breathe. But more water came in. I took a deep breath, got rid of my life vest and dove down. I saw a streak of light and followed it to swim out, escaping the boat, and then I climbed on the overturned boat to look for help,” he said.
Tuan and several other people survived by clinging on to the capsized boat and its propellers, waiting another two hours before the rain stopped and rescuers arrived.
The Wonder Sea boat was later seen being towed to a shipyard for investigation, with most of its windows shattered, and damage to its roof and handrails. Police and other officials are seen on the boat working.
Rescue workers recovered 11 survivors, but one later died in hospital due to injuries, VNExpress newspaper said.
The boat turned upside down because of strong winds, the newspaper said. A 14-year-old boy was rescued after four hours trapped in the overturned hull.
The newspaper said that most of the passengers were tourists from Hanoi, including about 20 children.
Tuan was a holiday with 11 university friends, only three of whom survived. Tuan has only minor cuts, but one of his friends suffered multiple injuries in his head and the other’s tendons were cut by broken glass as he escaped the boat through a window.
The other nine members of the group were killed, including one who was traveling with his wife and 3-year-old son. The wife and child were also drowned.
A tropical storm is also moving toward the area. A national weather forecast said that Storm Wipha is expected to hit Vietnam’s northern region next week, including Ha Long Bay’s coast.
Hong Kong issued its highest storm warning on Sunday as Typhoon Wipha, packing winds of more than 167 kilometres (103 miles) per hour, brought heavy rain and wind across the territory, forcing the cancellation of more than 200 flights.
The city’s weather observatory raised its storm signal to No. 10 at 9:20 a.m. (0120 GMT) and said it expected it to remain at that level “for some time”.
A woman braves strong winds as Typhoon Wipha approaches, in Hong Kong, China, July 20, 2025. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Wipha will skirt around 50 km to the south of the observatory, the warning showed.
Workers brave strong winds as Typhoon Wipha approaches, in Hong Kong, China, July 20, 2025. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Hurricane-force wind is affecting the southern part of Hong Kong, the observatory said.
Cathay Pacific Airways cancelled all of its flights arriving or departing Hong Kong airport between 5 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Sunday. It waived ticket change fees and made arrangements for customers to re-book.
A taxi drives past debris as Typhoon Wipha approaches, in Hong Kong, China, July 20, 2025. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Most public transport was suspended on Sunday, including ferries amid high sea swells.
A man struggles with an umbrella while walking against strong wind, as Typhoon Wipha approaches, in Hong Kong, China, July 20, 2025. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Hong Kong issued its highest tropical cyclone warning as Typhoon Wipha battered the city, with authorities cancelling school classes and grounding hundreds of flights.
Wipha was located around 60km south-east of Hong Kong as of 10am on Sunday, according to the city’s weather observatory. Huge waves were spotted off the eastern coast of Hong Kong Island.
The observatory issued a T10 hurricane alert, its highest warning, saying “winds with mean speeds of 118 kilometres per hour or more are expected” and pose “considerable threat to Hong Kong”.
“Under the influence of its eyewall, hurricane force winds are affecting the southern part of the territory,” the observatory said, warning the public to “beware of destructive winds”.
China’s Hainan and Guangdong provinces were also put on high alert, state news agency Xinhua said.
The storm, which reached typhoon strength overnight, was headed toward Macau and the neighbouring Chinese city of Zhuhai. It was forecast to make landfall late Sunday and continue moving west, reaching Vietnam later this week.
A representative from Hong Kong’s airport authority said on Sunday that about 500 flights were cancelled due to weather, while about 400 flights were rescheduled to take off or land later in the day.
Hundreds of people sought refuge at government-run temporary shelters. One man sought medical treatment at the emergency room of a public hospital on Sunday morning, with officials receiving more than a dozen reports of fallen trees.
Authorities suspended Sunday’s classes at all day schools and daycare centres.
Local trains offered limited services while operations in open sections were suspended.
Wipha brought heavy rains and flooding to the Philippines and two people were reported missing, according to the country’s national disaster council.
Hong Kong last used the T10 warning signal for Super Typhoon Saola in 2023.
After spending nearly two decades in a deep coma, young Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Khalid bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was declared dead by the Royal Court on Saturday, bringing a poignant close to a long-standing story of hope and endurance.
A tragic accident in 2005 made the life of the 36-year-old prince’s in limbo, and thus earned him the title of ‘Sleeping Prince’ for the 20 years he spent lying on the bed at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre in Riyadh.
Over the years, any movement observed in the Prince’s body made headlines, as many held onto hope for a miraculous recovery despite medical reports indicating otherwise.
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Here’s what we know about the late Prince’s life:
Early life
Born in April 1990 in Riyadh, Prince Alwaleed was the eldest son of Prince Khalid bin Talal bin Abdulaziz, a member of the Saudi royal family and brother of renowned Saudi businessman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and Princess Rima bint Talal.
At the age of 15, Prince Alwaleed was involved in a car accident during his military studies, which caused a brain haemorrhage that put him into a coma from which he never regained consciousness, despite intensive medical efforts that included interventions by specialised teams from outside Saudi Arabia.
No further details on the accident could be independently verified by Khaleej Times as of the time of publishing the article.
Intensive efforts in the hope of any improvement in his case, including a visit by an international medical team composed of three American doctors and a Spanish one, went all in vain, according to Skynews Arabia.
In 2019, Prince Alwaleed’s aunt, Princess Rima, posted a video showing him moving his head saying, “The Protector, the Powerful, the Merciful, the Compassionate… Alwaleed bin Khalid moves his head from side to side. Praise and thanks be to God.”
Clinging to hope
Prince Alwaleed’s father never lost hope in his son’s recovery despite everything and was quoted as saying that the prince’s life could have just ended in the accident itself and that God is capable of curing him.
On every occasion, the grieving father would go to his son’s bed to pray and recite the Quran, wishing upon a miracle.
Although there was almost no life in the prince’s body, his family made sure his hospital room was decorated to mark several occasions like Ramadan, Eid or Saudi National Day.
Funeral prayers for Prince Alwaleed will be held on Sunday (July 20) after the Asr prayer at Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh.
Two people have died and a further two were missing in the South Korean resort town of Gapyeong on Sunday, after a landslide engulfed houses and flooding swept away vehicles during a period of heavy rainfall.
This brings the nationwide death toll to 14 with 12 people missing since the rain began on Wednesday.
The rainfall is likely to stop on Sunday and be followed by a heat wave, the government weather forecaster said on Sunday.
The heavy rainfall, which had earlier lashed southern parts of South Korea, moved north overnight, it said.
Recognition of Palestine as a state would put beyond doubt that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is entitled to develop the natural gas resources of the Gaza Marine field, according to one of the experts that worked on the stalled project.
Michael Barron, the author of a new book on Palestine’s untapped gas reserves, has suggested the field could generate $4bn (£3bn) in revenue at current prices and it is reasonable that the PA could receive $100m a year over 15 years.
He said the revenues “would not turn the Palestinians into the next Qataris or Singaporeans, but it would be their own revenue and not aid, on which the Palestinian economy remains dependent”.
Plans to develop the field have a near 30-year history, during which time legal controversies over ownership have stalled exploration.
A law firm representing Palestinian human rights groups sent a warning letter to the Italian state-owned firm ENI that it should not exploit the gas fields in an area known as Zone G, where six licences were awarded by Israel’s energy ministry.
A map of the economic zone claimed by Palestine off the coast of the territory.
In their letter, the lawyers claim that roughly 62% of the zone lies in maritime areas claimed by Palestine and, as such, “Israel cannot have validly awarded you any exploration rights and you cannot validly have acquired any such rights”.
Palestine declared its maritime borders, including its exclusive economic zone, when it acceded to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 2015, and set out a detailed claim in 2019. Israel is not a signatory to UNCLOS.
Barron said recognition of Palestine, particularly by states with large oil firms registered in their jurisdiction, would effectively end the legal ambiguity, and provide the PA with not only a new secure source of income, but regular supplies of energy independent of Israel.
An Israeli pipeline running to Egypt has been called unlawful since it runs through Palestinian waters. Photograph: Léo Corrêa/AP
Since the legal letter, ENI has told pressure groups in Italy that “licences have not yet been issued and no exploratory activities are in progress”.
Another group, Global Witness, claims the East Mediterranean Gas pipeline that runs parallel to the Gaza coastline is unlawful since it runs through Palestinian waters, and is not providing any revenue to the PA.
The 56-mile (90km) pipeline transports gas from Ashkelon in Israel to Arish in Egypt, where it is then processed into liquefied natural gas for export, including to Europe.
“The Oslo Accords agreed in 1993 clearly give the Palestinian National Authority jurisdiction over territorial waters, the subsoil, power to legislate over oil and gas exploration and to award licences to do so,” Barron said. “Control over natural resources was an important element of [the] state-building agenda of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Israeli exploitation of Palestinian resources was and remains a central part of the conflict.”
Gas was discovered in the Gaza Marine field in 2000 in a joint venture owned by the BG Gas group, a giant privatised off-shoot of British Gas and the Palestinian Consolidated Contractors Company. The plan was for the gas to be used by the sole power station on the Gaza strip to end the territory’s perennial energy shortages.
Barron argues in his book – The Gaza Marine Story – that the fate of the project is a microcosm of how Israel worked to increase Palestinian dependence on Israel while at the same time trying to separate Palestinians from Israelis.
The project was dogged by issues of commercial viability and an Israeli court ruling that the waters were a “no-man’s water”, partly because the PA was not a sovereign entity with unambiguous powers to award licences.
The court also did not resolve whether the rights to Palestinian territorial waters clearly provided for in the Oslo Accords included a Palestinian “exclusive economic zone”, a zone that normally extends 200 miles off the coast. The accords were only intended to be an interim arrangement before full statehood and so did not delineate the full maritime border.
Territorial waters are normally defined as only 12 or 20 miles off the coast and Israel always argued that any licence for Gaza Marine 20 miles off the Gaza coast should be seen as a gift to the PA by Israel, and not a right.
After Hamas took control the Gaza strip in 2007, Israel did not want the revenue to fall into its hands, so it blocked the development, prompting the BG group to put the project on hold and then eventually to quit. In June 2023 Israel approved plans for an Egyptian firm EGAS to develop the field, only for the war in Gaza to start.
Gaza Marine is estimated to contain only 30 billion cubic metres (BCM) of natural gas, which is a small fraction of the more than 1,000 BCM contained in Israel’s own territorial waters.
Barron argued that Israel has its own gas supplies and so long as a Palestinian state with unified governance is recognised, Israel will have no motive or legal right to block Palestine exploiting its single greatest natural resource.
The whole controversy around private sector investment in Israel’s acknowledged occupation of Palestine moved centre stage with a report published last week by the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, warning corporations against sustaining what has been declared an unlawful occupation by the international court of justice (ICJ).
She claims ICJ decisions place on corporate entities a prima facie responsibility “to not engage and/or to withdraw totally and unconditionally from any associated dealings with Israel, and to ensure that any engagement with Palestinians enables their self-determination”. Her claim has been rejected wholesale by Israel.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Torrential rains that slammed South Korea for five days have left 14 people dead and 12 others missing, the government said Sunday.
One person was killed on Sunday after their house collapsed during heavy rain and another person was found dead after being swept by a swollen stream in Gapyeong, a town northeast of Seoul, the Interior and Safety Ministry said.
The ministry said eight people were discovered dead and six others were reported missing in the southern town of Sancheong on Saturday after heavy downpours caused landslides, house collapses and flash floods there.
A ministry report said that six people remain missing in Gapyeong and the southern city of Gwangju.
Earlier last week, three people were found dead in a submerged car, and a person was also killed when their car was buried by soil and concrete after a retaining wall of an overpass collapsed in Osan, just south of Seoul, during heavy rain.
As of 9 a.m. on Sunday, about 3,840 people remain evacuated from their homes, the ministry report said. The rain stopped in most of South Korea on Sunday, and heavy rain alerts have been subsequently lifted throughout the country, ministry officials said.
Since Wednesday, southern regions have received up to about 600-800 millimeters (24-31 inches) of rain, according to the ministry report.
Chief executive officer (CEO) Andy Baron of American tech company Astronomer resigned on Saturday after a video of him embracing an alleged colleague at a Coldplay concert went viral and fueled relentless memes.
“Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met,” New York-based Astronomer said in a statement shared on LinkedIn.
“Andy Byron has tendered his resignation,” the firm said, after previously launching an investigation.
The company added that Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy, who was assigned the role of interim CEO, will continue to serve in that position.
During a Coldplay concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts on Wednesday, the jumbotron zoomed in on a man and a woman embracing in the stands.
But the canoodling pair appeared shocked and horrified when they spotted themselves on the big screen, with the man ducking out of frame and the woman covering her face with her hands and spinning around.
“Uh-oh, what? Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” joked Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.
Within hours, internet sleuths tracked down the man as Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and said the woman was the company’s chief people officer, Kristin Cabot, alleging that the two were having a not-so-discreet affair.
According to Reuters, a spokesman for the company said that the pair were the only employees of the firm caught on camera. The spokesman did not respond to a Reuters’ request for comment on Cabot’s job status.
The video has garnered millions of views on TikTok and other social media, giving rise to memes discussing everything from the folly of having an affair at a Coldplay concert, to the hypocrisy of an HR representative seemingly caught in a workplace relationship.
“The craziest thing is about the Astronomer CEO cheating scandal is it was the HR lady,” said one X user. “The person who would warn you against fraternising with coworkers.”
Furry mascots of the Philadelphia Phillies Major League Baseball team jumped on the trend and recreated the scene for the jumbotron at a game after the video went viral.
However, an apology statement attributed to Byron, which spread rapidly online, was fake and appeared to have originated from a parody account.
