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Tragedy

This Month

A woman lights a candle outside the “Zhuhai People’s Fitness Plaza” where a man deliberately rammed his car into people exercising at the sports centre.

Rare hit-and-run attack in southern China kills 35

Police said a man drove a small off-road vehicle into a large group of people exercising outside a sports centre, killing and injuring dozens of people.

  • David Kirton
A family walks through muddy waters in a street after the recent flash flooding in the Alfafar municipality of Valencia, Spain.

Spain flood death toll surpasses 200, rescuers struggle to reach some parts

Rescuers have opened a temporary morgue and battled to reach areas still cut off in Europe’s worst weather disaster in five decades.

  • David Latona and Charlie Devereux

September

Boats were pushed ashore by floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Hurricane Helene kills 64 in US, leaves $37b damage bill

Hurricane Helene has killed dozens of people and knocked out power to millions across several US states, as the threat of flooding and dam bursts continues.

  • Stephen Smith, Kate Payne and Heather Hollingsworth

August

Italian firefighter divers bring ashore in a plastic bag the body of one of the victims of a shipwreck, in Porticello, Sicily.

Manslaughter, negligence investigation in Lynch yacht sinking

Authorities in Sicily have opened a manslaughter and negligent shipwreck probe into the August 19 sinking of British tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s yacht.

  • Updated
  • Donato Paolo Mancini
Hannah and Mike Lynch, who both died when the superyacht Bayesian sank in a storm.

Final body recovered from sunken superyacht off Sicily

Hannah Lynch, the teenage daughter of British IT tycoon Mike Lynch, was the last person unaccounted for after her family’s superyacht sank four days ago.

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Mike Lynch is one of Britain’s best-known and most controversial technology entrepreneurs.

Mike Lynch died just as he was planning his ‘second life’

The billionaire British tech tycoon loved to appear ruthless but was quick to help those in need.

  • Ben Wright, Matthew Field and James Titcomb
Rescue divers arrive back with a fifth body from the luxury yacht.

Bodies recovered from superyacht wreckage include Morgan Stanley exec

Divers continue to search for the final missing person, thought to be the technology entrepreneur’s 18-year-old daughter, who may have been swept out to sea.

  • Updated
  • Guglielmo Mangiapane and Giselda Vagnoni
Scuba divers at the harbour of Porticello, southern Italy.

Divers find five bodies in superyacht, but questions remain

Among the recovered were reportedly technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, as questions intensified over why the vessel sank so quickly.

  • Nicole Winfield, Danica Kirka and Andrea Rosa
Rescue teams and divers returned to the site of the storm-sunken superyacht.

Investigation into ‘open hatches’ on doomed superyacht

One expert at the scene in Sicily told Reuters that an early focus would be on whether the yacht’s crew had failed to close access hatches into the vessel.

  • Updated
  • Connor Stringer, Albert Tait and Josephine McKenna
Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda are among the missing.

Prominent lawyer’s haunting post before superyacht tragedy

The Clifford Chance legal partner was aboard tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s boat to celebrate their marathon courtroom victory when it sank off the coast of Sicily.

  • Kate Beioley, Caroline Binham and Brooke Masters

Did Bayesian’s 72m mast cause it to sink?

The superyacht was one of the 50 largest sailing yachts in the world, and her mammoth mast supported a total sail area of almost 3000 square metres.

  • Gareth Corfield
Mike Lynch had only recently been acquitted on fraud charges.

Joy for ‘Britain’s Bill Gates’ and lawyers ends in superyacht tragedy

Just weeks after a huge courtroom victory, UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch is among seven people, including a Morgan Stanley executive, missing off Palermo’s coast.

  • Matthew Field and James Titcomb
Rescuers recoup the body of one of those on board the luxury yacht when it sank.

Superyacht sinks in Italy, tech tycoon, several others missing

Mike Lynch had just been acquitted of a billion-dollar fraud. Now he’s missing, and one person is dead after his luxury yacht was struck by a tornado.

  • Updated
  • Robert Mendick, Connor Stringer and James Titcomb
This frame grab from video shows wreckage from a plane that crashed by a home in Vinhedo, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024. (Felipe Magalhaes Filho via AP)

Brazilian airliner crashes, killing all 62 on board

Video shared on social media showed what appeared to be an ATR-made plane spinning out of control as it plunged to the ground.

  • Reuters

May

 Villagers search through mud and rubble in Yambali village, in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Fears of second PNG landslide and disease outbreak

The blanket of debris has become more unstable after rain and streams trapped between the rubble.

  • Rod McGuirk
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Villagers search through a landslide in Yambali, in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Papua New Guinea landslide toll revised up to 2000

The unstable terrain, remote location and nearby tribal warfare are hampering relief efforts in PNG.

  • Renju Jose and Lewis Jackson

PNG landslide death toll estimates raised to 670

Crews have given up hope of finding survivors buried deep under the soil and rubble after a landslide slammed into a village on the Pacific island.

  • Rod McGuirk

April

Twenty minutes of terror inside Westfield Bondi Junction

Witnesses have recounted the terrifying period when Joel Cauchi murdered six people in a busy shopping centre in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

  • Gus McCubbing, Les Hewitt and Campbell Kwan
Fire and smoke rise out of the Old Stock Exchange in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Horror fire engulfs Copenhagen’s historic stock exchange

Shocked passers-by raced to save artwork and treasures from the 400-year-old stock exchange building as its spire collapsed in flames.

  • Tom Little and Isabelle Yr Carlsson
A church leader has been allegedly stabbed multiple times at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley on Monday night.

15-year-old arrested after bishop stabbed in Sydney church

Police had to face down angry crowds who gathered at the scene of the alleged stabbing in western Sydney in the hours after the attack.

  • Updated
  • Andrea Hayward, Lewis Jackson and Stella Qiu

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/tragedy-63c