Faisal Mahmood / Reuters

Relatives of one of 17 children who died after a gas cylinder exploded on a school bus mourn over his coffin Saturday on the outskirts of Gujrat.

ISLAMABAD -- At least 17 children were burned to death in eastern Pakistan on Saturday when a faulty gas cylinder exploded on the bus taking them to school, police said.

Police officer Mohammed Rasheed said seven children were also injured in the explosion on the outskirts of the city of Gujrat.

"This is a very sad incident. According to our information, at least 17 children were burned to death," he said. "The school bus caught fire after the blast. We have transported all the victims to a nearby hospital."

Gujrat is about 120 miles southeast of the capital, Islamabad.

The accident comes after a pair of suspected militant attacks killed nine people in two different areas of northwest Pakistan on Friday.

In the deadlier of the two attacks, suspected militants armed with heavy weapons attacked a police convoy in Mattani, 12 milessouth of the main northwest city of Peshawar, killing six policemen and wounding seven others, said senior police officer Shafiullah Khan.

In the second attack on Friday, a suicide bomber walked up to a vehicle owned by an Afghan religious leader in Peshawar and set off his explosives, killing three people, said police officer Riaz Ali Shah.

Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

Muhammed Muheisen / AP

Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

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The leader, Haji Hayatullah, was not harmed in the attack because he was in a nearby mosque attending Friday prayers. Hayatullah's driver and guard were killed, said Shah.

A passerby was also killed and two others were wounded, said Peshawar police chief Liaquat Ali Khan.

There are more than 1 million refugees in Pakistan from neighboring Afghanistan.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The Associated Press

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Eight people were killed when a fire swept through a clothing factory in Bangladesh, police and an industry association official said on Thursday, as the death toll from the collapse of another factory building two weeks ago climbed above 900.

The fire, in an industrial district of Dhaka, comes amid global attention on safety standards in Bangladesh's booming garment industry following the catastrophic collapse of Rana Plaza, on the outskirts of the city, in the world's deadliest industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984.

"It is not clear to us how the accident happened, but we are trying to find out the cause," Mohammad Atiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told Reuters.

On Wednesday the Bangladesh government said it had shut down 18 garment factories for safety reasons following the April 24 collapse of Rana Plaza, which housed five garment factories making clothes for Western brands. Six were cleared to reopen on Thursday after inspectors issued safety certificates.

Salvage teams were still pulling bodies from the rubble of the Rana Plaza complex in Savar, around 20 miles northwest of Dhaka, and on Thursday a spokesman at the army control room coordinating the operation said the number of people confirmed to have been killed had reached 912.

Roughly 2,500 people were rescued from the building, including many injured, but there is no official estimate of the numbers still missing.

The government has blamed the owners and builders of the eight-storey complex for using shoddy building materials, including substandard rods, bricks and cement, and not obtaining the necessary clearances.

Bangladesh's garment industry, which accounts for 80 percent of the poor South Asian country's exports, has seen a series of deadly accidents, including a fire in November that killed 112 people.

The latest fire, in an 11-story building in the Mirpur industrial district, broke out at a factory belonging to the Tung Hai Group, a large garment exporter.

"The factory was closed and all the workers had left the premises an hour earlier," said fire service official Bhazan Sarker.

A fire service official and BGMEA president Islam said the Bangladeshi managing director of the company and a senior police officer were among the dead. The others killed were friends and personal staff of the factory boss, officials said.

Tung Hai Group says on its website that it has more than 1,000 employees and its customers include major Western retailers including Britain's Primark, and Inditex Group of Spain. It makes products including cardigans, jumpers and pyjamas.

A spokesman for Inditex said it had last placed an order with the factory in 2011. "But then we stopped ordering because the factory did not meet the standards we demand from our providers", he said.

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At least 27 people were injured, thousands were evacuated and a rail car was thrown into an apartment building early Thursday when a freight train carrying fuel and chemicals derailed and caught fire in the Rostov region of Russia, according to reports.

A representative of the North Caucasian Railway told Interfax that a car carrying propane gas exploded during the derailment, causing flames to spread.

Rostov government via EPA

Rescue workers approach debris left after a freight train derailed and cars burst into flames Thursday in Russia's Rostov region.

At least eight people, including several who lived near the crash site, were hospitalized, RIA news agency quoted a Russian official as saying.

Firefighters initially could not get close to the train because of the raging flames, Voice of Russia radio reported early Thursday.

The fire was brought under control about 5:45 a.m. Moscow time Thursday (9:45 p.m. ET Wednesday), almost four hours after the derailment, Itar-Tass news agency said.

Rostov’s regional governor said that 2,700 people were evacuated after the derailment, which involved 51 cars, Itar-Tass reported.

Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee said the cars that derailed were carrying sodium chloride, gasoline, fuel oil, propane and other goods, Reuters reported.

"The blast hurled part of a railcar into the sixth-floor wall of a residential block," Reuters quoted the committee as saying. It added that a criminal investigation into possible safety breaches had also been launched.

The accident site is about 600 miles south of Moscow.

Related:

• Full Russia coverage from NBC News

LIMA, Peru -- Five people were rescued and two were missing on Sunday after a hot air balloon plunged into the chilly waters off the coast of Peru, officials said.

Reuters

A passenger of a hot air balloon that crashed in the sea off Peru is rescued by a Peruvian Navy helicopter on Sunday.

A police helicopter and navy boats helped pull five women out of the Pacific Ocean after searching for them for eight hours. They were taken to a hospital for treatment.

Two men were still missing, Interior Minister Wilfredo Pedraza told local media.

"I hope we can find them as soon as possible. The two are still missing. We only know that one of them tried to swim ashore. The search will continue, even through the night, until they are found," he told RPP radio without saying what caused the mishap.

The red and white balloon, carrying six passengers and a pilot, crashed near Canete, about 60 miles south of Lima, the capital. Local media indicated that all those aboard were Peruvians.

Sayoga / Getty Images Contributor

A member of the Indonesia Search and Rescue Agency prepares to look for the cockpit voice recorder inside the wreckage of a 737-800 that crashed into the sea on Saturday in Bali.

The pilot whose jet slumped into the sea while trying to land in Bali, Indonesia, has described how he felt it "dragged" down by wind while he struggled to regain control, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

All 108 passengers and crew members survived when the Boeing 737-800 passenger jet, operated by Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air, undershot the tourist island's main airport runway and belly-flopped in water on Saturday.

Officials stress it was too early to say what caused the incident, which is being investigated by Indonesian authorities with the assistance of U.S. crash investigators and Boeing.

But initial debriefings, witness comments and weather reports have focused attention on the possibility of wind shear or a downdraft from storm clouds known as a microburst.

Experts say the violent and unpredictable gusts can leave even the most modern jet helpless if they are stronger than the plane's ability to fly out of trouble -- with the plane most vulnerable in the moments before landing.

"If you have a downdraft which exceeds the performance of the plane, then even if you put on full thrust you will go downhill and you can't climb out," said Hugh Dibley, a former British Airways captain and expert on loss-of-control events.

According to initial pilot debriefings, details of which have been described to Reuters, Flight JT-904 was on an eastward approach to Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport at midafternoon on Saturday after a normal flight from Bandung, West Java.

The co-pilot, an Indian national with 2,000 hours of relevant flying experience, was in charge for the domestic trip, which was scheduled to last 1 hour and 40 minutes.

As the Lion Air plane was coming in to land, with an aircraft of national carrier Garuda following behind and another about to take off on the runway just ahead, the co-pilot lost sight of the runway as heavy rain drove across the windshield.

The captain, an Indonesian citizen with about 15,000 hours experience and an instructor's license, took the controls.

Between 400 and 200 feet, pilots described flying through a wall of water, according to the source. Bursts of heavy rainfall and lost visibility are not uncommon in the tropics, but the aircraft's low height meant the crew had little time to react.

With no sight of the runway lights or markings, the captain decided to abort the landing and perform a "go around," a routine maneuver for which pilots are trained.

SAR via EPA

An Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency photo shows teams working to help passengers on a Lion Air plane after it crashed into the water in Bali on Saturday.

But the captain told officials afterward that instead of climbing, the brand-new 737 started to sink uncontrollably.

From 200 feet, well-practiced routines unraveled quickly.

"The captain says he intended to go around but that he felt the aircraft dragged down by the wind; that is why he hit the sea," said the source, who was briefed on the crew's testimony.

"There was rain coming east to west; very heavy," the source said, asking not to be named because no one is authorized to speak publicly about the investigation while it is under way.

However, Erasmus Kayadu, the head of Ngurah Rai Airport's weather station, said there was no rain during the crash period and that visibility was 6 miles.

The weather station's data showed the wind speed was 7 mph with lots of low cloud cover, including dense storm clouds, said Kayadu, who is involved in the investigation.

A passenger on board the jet painted a picture of an aircraft getting into difficulty only at the last minute. "There was no sign at all it would fall but then suddenly it dropped into the water," Tantri Widiastuti, 60, told Metro TV.

Lion Air declined to comment on the cause of the crash.

Both pilots were given urine tests by the Indonesian police and were cleared for drugs and alcohol, the Reuters source said.

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Lt. Cmdr. Josh Hammond / U.S. Navy via Reuters

Two F/A-18 Super Hornets, like the one that crashed Monday, are shown flying above the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in October 2012.

A U.S. Navy fighter jet crashed into the northern Arabian Sea on Monday when an engine failed, but both crew members safely ejected, the military said.

The F-18 Super Hornet was flying near the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier when it lost power, the Navy said. 

The unnamed airmen, members of Strike Fighter Squadron 103, based in Virginia Beach, Va., bailed out in time to come down safely in the water.

Helicopter based search-and-rescue swimmers were able to pull the airmen from the water and bring them safely back aboard the ship, the Navy said.

An investigation into the engine failure and crash is under way, officials said.

The Eisenhower, part of the 5th Fleet and based in Norfolk Va., is on duty to provide maritime security in the Middle East, the Navy said.

The air unit, whose planes carry a skull and crossbones logo on their tails, is better known by some as the Jolly Rogers.

NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube contributed to this report.

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POLKOWICE, Poland -- Nineteen miners were pulled alive and well from a copper mine in southern Poland on Wednesday after a small earthquake trapped them almost 2,000 feet below the surface late Tuesday.

It took seven hours to tunnel through collapsed rock to reach the miners, who were working at the Rudna copper mine in southern Poland when a small tremor trapped them there at 10:09 p.m. local time (5:09 p.m. ET) on Tuesday.

Agencja Gazeta / Reuters

Families react to the news Wednesday that 19 miners were rescued after a small earthquake trapped them some 2,000 feet below the surface at the Rudna copper mine in southern Poland.

Two were treated for minor injuries, while the others, shaken up and covered with grime after a grueling night, were on their way home.

Families of the miners, who gathered near the site, cheered when the mine's operator, KGHM, announced that all 19 were alive and were slowly being taken out through a hole dug by the rescuers.

"This was the biggest accident in KGHM history," chief executive Herbert Wirth told Reuters. "Never in our history has it happened that 19 miners were trapped with no contact."

The Rudna mine is about 250 miles southwest of the Polish capital, Warsaw.

Kacper Pempel / Reuters, file

KGHM Polkowice-Sieroszowice copper ore mine is seen in Polkowice in this July 29, 2011, file photo. Nineteen miners were trapped there Tuesday night after an earthquake caused a collapse. All were saved.

After the quake on Tuesday, workers on the surface lost contact for several hours with the trapped miners because communication lines into the shafts had been severed.

The mine is in the Silesia region, near Poland's borders with Germany and the Czech Republic. It has been in operation since 1974. State-controlled KGHM is Europe's second-biggest copper producer.

Poland has large numbers of mines, mostly in the heavily industrialized Silesia region. In 2006, a gas explosion at a coal mine in the region killed 23 miners.

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A hot air balloon carrying foreign tourists caught on fire while it was in the air near Egypt's ancient city of Luxor, killing 19 people, officials said Tuesday.

The blazing balloon crashed to the ground early Tuesday morning, Gen. Mamdough Khaled, director of security for Luxor Governorate said, according to initial reports.

Khaled said that Luxor International Hospital had received 19 badly burned bodies. Health officials initially said 18 people died, but later said one injured person had succumbed to their injuries.

Ahmed Aboud, who runs another balloon company and acts as a spokesman for balloon operators in the area, and Khaled said two people survived. Khaled said both were in critical condition.

There were conflicting accounts of the accident itself.

Aboud said that gas tanks caught fire and ignited the balloon at about 1,000 feet.

But an eyewitness, who did not want to be identified, said the balloon was about 12 feet off the ground when a landing rope was thrown to people on the ground. As they grabbed it, the rope wrapped around a gas container, which broke and a fire then started, the witness said.

People 'like balls of fire'
The witness estimated the balloon then “shot up 500 meters" (1,640 feet) and the pilot "jumped out as it was going up.”

“Eight people jumped and they were like balls of fire, some were alive when they landed, but then died on the ground, then the balloon went up and down again and swept along, then a second explosion occurred when another gas canister exploded,” he added.

Another eyewitness told al-Jazeera television that the balloon was “like a fireball when it went up.”

One Egyptian was killed, Health Minister Mohamed Mostafa Hamed told Reuters, listing the other victims as tourists from Japan, China, France, Britain and Hungary. Earlier, officials had said all the dead were foreigners. 

A U.S. Embassy spokesperson said that no Americans were among the victims, citing information from local police.  

Thomas Cook Group, a major British travel company, said four of its customers on a seven-day holiday had opted to go on the balloon ride and three had died. A fourth remained in a hospital Tuesday.

"We recommend a number of suppliers" after vetting them, Thomas Cook spokeswoman Emma Staples said. "This one [the balloon company] would have been deemed a reputable supplier."

Peter Fankhauser, Thomas Cook's chief executive, called the accident "a terrible tragedy" and said in a statement that the company was sending counseling teams to Luxor. It has stopped promoting and selling balloon flights there while an investigation is conducted, he added. 

Konny Matthews, assistant manager of Luxor's Al Moudira hotel, told Reuters by phone that she heard a boom around 7 a.m. (12 a.m. ET).

Courtesy Christopher Michel

Hot air balloons take off near the ancient city of Luxor on Tuesday before the tragedy occurred.

"It was a huge bang. It was a frightening bang, even though it was several kilometers away from the hotel," she added. "Some of my employees said that their homes were shaking." 

A team of investigators was sent to Luxor, authorities said, and a moratorium was imposed on balloon flights. 

The site of the accident has seen past crashes. In 2009, 16 tourists were injured when their balloon struck a cellphone transmission tower. A year earlier, seven tourists were injured in a similar crash.

Egypt's tourism industry has been decimated since the 18-day uprising in 2011 against autocrat leader Hosni Mubarak and the political turmoil that followed and continues to this day.

Luxor's hotels are currently about 25 percent full in what is supposed to be the peak of the winter season.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related:

PhotoBlog: Hot air balloon crash kills 19 in Egypt

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 26, 2013 2:22 AM EST

Julian Stratenschulte / AFP - Getty Images

Firefighters in protective clothes on the grounds of Kraft Foods in Bad Fallingbostel, northern Germany, after a chemical accident on Oct. 16.

Ingo Wagner / EPA

Firemen try to repel toxic gases with water at a plant of Kraft Foods in Bad Fallingbostel, northern Germany, in the early morning of Oct. 16.

Julian Stratenschulte / EPA

An evacuated resident waits in the Heidmarkhalle after a chemical accident at a Kraft Foods plant in Bad Fallingbostel, Germany, Oct. 16.

The emergency alarm was sounded when a tank of sodium hydroxide solution was by mistake filled with nitric acid, producing a poisonous cloud of nitrous gases considered extremely harmful if they come into contact with skin or are inhaled. At least 1400 people were evacuated from their homes Monday night after the accident at the factory in the town of Bad Fallingbostel in Lower Saxony. 

Surveillance cameras in China capture dramatic crashes, including a graphic video of an accident triggered by a a dog in a roadway.

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