The drum maker, Vado Diomande, traveled in December to Ivory Coast in West Africa and became ill shortly after he returned, officials said.

Teams of federal and city officials searched the man's workspace in Brooklyn and his Manhattan apartment and said there was no evidence that anthrax was produced in either location. There also was no evidence of any criminal intent or terrorist connection, the mayor said.

Several other people, including a family member of the infected man, also may have been exposed and are being treated with antibiotics, city Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said.

Diomande, 44, was diagnosed with respiratory anthrax, which can be fatal, but Frieden said he was breathing on his own and appeared to be "doing better than people with respiratory anthrax usually do."

Diomande was in stable condition early Thursday at a Pennsylvania hospital. He had collapsed after performing last week with his dance company, Kotchegna, at the Steadman Theatre in Mansfield, Pa., according to Pennsylvania Department of Health Secretary Dr. Calvin B. Johnson.

Anthrax spores are found in soil in many parts of the world, and livestock become infected from consuming contaminated soil or feed. People then can become infected if they come into contact with the contaminated hides or other parts.

Dr. Lisa Rotz, a medical epidemiologist with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said health officials believe Diomande may have inhaled the spores in a process that includes soaking the hides, stretching them and scraping them to remove hair. She said investigators are seeking samples of the hides to test them for spores.

The nation was on high alert weeks after the 2001 terrorist attacks when anthrax-laced letters popped up in several places, including New York City. Five people died across the country and 17 were sickened. Investigators never determined who was responsible.

Contracting inhalation anthrax from natural sources is rare. The last U.S. case not linked to terrorism occurred in 1976. The victim made wool rugs as a hobby, Rotz said.

At the Pennsylvania university where Diomande performed last Thursday with a dance troupe, students were informed about the anthrax case but were assured they were not in danger. About 100 people attended the performance, according to Terri Day, a university spokesman.

Diomande has been a dancer and drummer since he was a child, according to a Web site for his dance troupe. When he was a teenager he danced with the National Ballet of the Ivory Coast, and toured all over the world. He founded his own dance company in 1989, the web site said.

Student Josh Wolf, who helped Diomande's troupe unload equipment into the theater before last week's show, said he didn't notice any fatigue or any other unusual physical signs with the dancers.

Authorities spent Wednesday afternoon inside the Brooklyn warehouse where Diomande worked, an eight-floor building that houses several small businesses and artists' studios.

The episode caused some apprehension among people who worked there. Lincoln Mayne, 34, a fashion and art designer, said the discovery of anthrax in the warehouse was "surreal."

"People are apprehensive. Nobody is telling us anything," he said.

"Everything suddenly caved in," said Oktay Salmanov, a market trader from Azerbaijan.

"I was standing near the main entrance and that's why I managed to get out in time. But my three sisters are dead and so is the man I was working with," he said.

Rescue authorities quoted by Interfax news agency put the toll at 31 dead and 25 injured.

Ambulances rushed the injured to nearby hospitals.

Rescuers, some with sniffer dogs, dug into the wreckage of the Baumansky market to find victims feared to be stuck inside in freezing temperatures.

At one point emergency workers ordered silence to listen for sounds from victims and then began digging urgently at 10 different spots.

"Time is running out," Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said at the site.

Investigators were considering whether a failure to clear recent heavy snowfall from the roof may have contributed to the cave-in, officials said.

It was the third major building collapse blamed on snow in Europe since last month.

Heavy snow was also blamed in January for the collapse of an exhibition hall in southern Poland that killed 65 people, and the destruction of an enclosed German ice rink that killed 15 including a dozen children.

The Moscow market, in service since 1975, was designed by the same architect who drafted the building plans for the Transval aqua park in the city where a similar roof collapse two years ago left 28 dead and in which structural flaws were also cited as a focus of investigation.

The Moscow market operates around the clock and was used for wholesale trading overnight when dozens of people work inside, officials said.

One trader, a 40-year-old man from Uzbekistan, said he narrowly escaped with his 13-year-old son.

"There was a noise that came from the roof and then everything collapsed," he told AFP. "The electricity went off just before the collapse. I was able to run for the exit with my son."

Interfax news agency quoted a senior official with the emergency situations ministry as saying "dozens" of people could still be trapped in the rubble.

The vast majority of traders in Moscow's markets hail from former Soviet republics in the Caucasus -- specifically Azerbaijan -- and from Central Asia. Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov said most of the victims appeared to be immigrants.

Friends and relatives of market traders gathered at the site and several women were seen crying and throwing themselves to the ground as they awaited news of loved ones thought to be trapped in the building.

The architect who designed the market building, Nodar Kancheli, was also at the scene. He said "incorrect use" of the building's structure may have contributed to the disaster.

Media reports said a platform for housing additional market stalls had been built and attached to the roof in violation of building codes and may have contributed to the collapse.

"The construction of the roof did not plan for this," RIA Novosti news agency quoted Kancheli as saying.

The architect was placed under investigation last year in connection with the Transval aqua park roof collapse on February 14, 2004, but no charges have been brought against him so far.

A report on the Echo Moscow radio station said construction of the Baumansky market was "not standard" and consisted of "a hanging shell of reinforced concrete" that was supported by a system of cables rather than with grounded support columns.

Luzhkov said investigators had ruled out an attack or sabotage.

"The reasons appear to be technical," Luzhkov said, adding that a "very serious" investigation would be conducted by the prosecutor general's office.

PHIVOLCS director Renato Solidum said in an interview that the agency recorded two minor explosions in the area Thursday morning and observed some small lava flows from Mayon's crater.

Alert level 2 has been declared Tuesday by the agency to make sure nobody enters the six-km danger zone around the Mayon Volcano.

Although PHIVOLCS has not increased the warning to level 3, Solidum said the agency is closely monitoring the volcano.

Solidum said the tests have yet to ascertain if the Mayon would erupt again.

The Mayon is the most active volcano in the country, having erupted around 50 times for the past 400 years. Its last eruption was in July 2001.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at 12:19 a.m. with a magnitude of 7.5 - one capable of widespread and heavy damage - and was centered 140 miles southwest of Beira. It shook buildings in Beira and Maputo, Mozambique's capital, and the Zimbabwean cities of Masvingo and Mutare. The temblor awoke people hundreds of miles away in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, and as far away as Durban on South Africa's Indian Ocean coast.

Mozambican and Zimbabwe authorities reported surprisingly little damage, apparently because the epicenter was in remote and sparsely populated farmlands near the border with Zimbabwe.

"That same size earthquake in a populated area would probably cause quite considerable damage," said William Leith of the U.S. Geographic Survey's Earthquake Hazards Program.

Esperanca Dias, Mozambique's minister of mineral resources, told state television some buildings were damaged in Beira and the walls of some buildings collapsed in Chimoyo, north of the quake's center.

Two people were killed in farm towns near the epicenter, she said.

A little girl tripped and fell as she rushed downstairs from a seventh floor apartment in Espungabera, and died of injuries on the spot, Dias said. And a man was buried in rubble when a wall of his home collapsed in Machaze.

She said at least 11 people were injured, one seriously when he panicked and jumped from the third floor window of a Beira hotel.

Beira was without electricity earlier Thursday and so were some suburbs of Maputo, the seaside capital, where the quake uprooted several power pylons.

It shook every corner of Mozambique and was felt strongly in Maputo, in the far south, where tall office and apartment buildings swayed and hundreds of panicked residents fled into the streets.

During the night, national energy director Elias Daudi went on state radio to urge people not to return to buildings because of possible aftershocks.

In Beira, people were so frightened they refused to go back into buildings Thursday morning even as a light rain was falling.

Rosa Silva, governor of Maputo province, said the government was concerned there might be serious aftershocks and had asked South Africa for help monitoring seismic activity.

At least five aftershocks were recorded immediately and more were expected in coming days because of the quake's size, said Rafael Abreu of the Geographic Survey.

President Armando Guebuza broadcast a message to the nation Thursday afternoon saying the government still was taking stock.

The quake was felt in oil fields some 120 miles from the epicenter, but there was no damage, said Johann van Rheede, spokesman for South African company SASOL, which produces natural gas there.

In Tete province, J.J. Constantino of the World Food Program said many people had slept in the fields.

Tete also is home to one of the world's largest hydroelectric dams, the Cabora Bassa which covers 1,095 square miles. A reporter at the dam said the earthquake was felt and people also abandoned their homes to sleep outside, but that there were no immediate reports of damage.

The quake was unusual for Mozambique, one of the world's poorest countries where natural disaster usually takes the form of flooding. Floods killed at least 13 people this month and more than 800 in 2000 and 2001.

The temblor struck near the southern end of the East Africa rift system, a seismically active zone which has produced quakes measuring magnitude 7.6. Thursday's was shallow, which increases the potential for damage, said Dale Grant, a geophysicist with the Geographic Survey.

"It was the largest earthquake to have occurred in the rift system since 1906. ... It's rare for the southern African region. We haven't seen such a thing for a long time," he said.

Mozambique's mines minister said one person was killed and at least 18 others injured when the quake struck just after midnight (2200 GMT on Wednesday) about 160 km (100 miles) southwest of Mozambique's northern port of Beira.

Radio Mozambique reported that another person died, apparently of a heart attack, at a local hospital as the quake hit. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported at least three significant aftershocks during the night.

Police in Beira denied persistent rumours that a building had collapsed in the city, although local journalists said at least one house had fallen down in the rural district where the quake was centred.

Governor Raimundo Diomba of Manica province said officials were fanning out into the countryside to assess damage, but communications were difficult.

"We have no human or material damage to report yet, we sent teams to make a detailed evaluation of the situation," he said.

Minister of Mineral Resources Esperanza Bias, speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting convened to discuss the earthquake, said one person died and 13 were injured in largely rural Manica. Four more were injured in Beira, she said.

Bias said the government had asked emergency officials to quickly draw up plans to deal with such big earthquakes, which are rare in the region

Officials in Germany say further tests carried out on a domestic duck thought to be infected with the H5N1 strain have shown it does not have the virus.

Meanwhile, Slovakia has found its first H5N1 cases in a wild falcon and grebe.

Samples from the two Slovakian birds will now be sent to the European Union laboratory in the UK for further analysis.

In other developments:

* In western India, tests on samples collected from 94 people suspected of being infected with the virus prove negative

* The French health ministry says there is a "strong chance" more wild birds will test positive for H5N1 following Thursday's result on a second wild duck.

Eight EU countries have now confirmed cases of H5N1 in wild birds.

Vaccination plans

The suspected domestic outbreak in France has been detected in a turkey farm in the department of Ain, where the two cases of the disease have already been confirmed in wild ducks.

The farming ministry said a high death rate among turkeys was discovered at the site, which has more than 11,000 birds.

Test results are due on Friday, it added.

The farm has been sealed off and birds will be culled.

The news comes a day after EU officials approved plans by France and the Netherlands - the EU's largest poultry producers - to vaccinate millions of birds against avian flu.

The programme, initially opposed by several countries, will be limited to birds in specific high-risk regions.

Under the plans agreed, vaccination will be allowed in the Netherlands for free-range poultry, those most in danger of contact with wild birds, as an alternative to keeping them indoors.

France will be allowed to vaccinate ducks and geese in three areas in the west and south-west thought to be at high risk, among them the coastal Landes region.

Germany, Austria, Denmark and Portugal had all opposed vaccination in earlier talks.

Poultry sales have plunged in Italy, Greece and France since the confirmation of H5N1 outbreaks.

The lethal H5N1 strain has killed more than 90 people, mostly in Asia, since late 2003. It can be caught by humans who handle infected birds, but is not yet known to have passed from one person to another.

Scientists have warned that if the virus mutates, it could create a pandemic that could kill millions of people.

Results from one final sample are expected on Saturday.

Hundreds of thousands of birds have been slaughtered after the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain was found in Navapur town in Maharashtra state last week.

The authorities have now completely sealed the town, which has a population of 30,000, and 19 nearby villages.

"There is no human case of avian influenza till now," a statement released by India's health ministry said.

It said one sample was still being tested.

"We are testing it further as it does not match any classical profile of the H5N1 strain," Indian Health Secretary PK Hota told the Reuters news agency.

Town 'quarantined'

In Navapur the authorities have set up checkpoints to prevent people from leaving the area and schools have been shut for a fortnight.

Trucks, buses and private vehicles are being stopped outside the town. Trains are also not stopping at Navapur station.

"It's restricted entry and exit so no new people will be allowed to enter Navapur, and people with any symptoms of fever and heavy cough and cold will not be allowed to leave," Bhushan Gagrani, a Maharashtra state official, is quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

On Wednesday, officials completed the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of birds in and around Navapur.

Health workers are now cleaning up the farms in the entire area, burning feathers and bird-droppings, reports say.

Losses

The detection of bird flu has led to sharp falls in the sale of poultry and poultry products and some countries have banned poultry imports from India, leaving the poultry industry reeling with heavy losses.

The country's parliament, military, railways and major airlines have also stopped serving chicken and eggs, even as government officials reassured people that they were safe to eat if cooked properly.

The H5N1 virus does not pose a large-scale threat to humans, as it cannot pass easily from one person to another.

Experts, however, fear the virus could mutate to gain this ability, and in its new form trigger a flu pandemic, potentially putting millions of human lives at risk.

But minutes of the most recent Fed meeting, released this week, show that some policymakers remain concerned that inflation levels are above an acceptable level.

The core rate of inflation - a measure of price levels that excludes volatile food and energy costs - has generally hovered above the comfort zone of 2 percent during the past year. And the government's latest report, released Wednesday for the month of January, shows no end to that trend: Core inflation, measured over the most recent quarter, is running at a 2.4 percent annual pace.

Given that, the question is whether the Fed will raise short-term interest rates not only to 4.75 percent in March, as now expected, but also to 5 percent in May and perhaps higher after that.

"There's probably a slightly greater chance that they will go higher than 5 percent, than that they won't go to 5 percent," says Mark Vitner, an economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, N.C. "I certainly think that the core rate of inflation is going to pick up in the next few months."

The consumer price index rose 0.7 percent in January - a surge driven largely by energy costs. January's jump in core inflation was 0.2 percent.

The pickup in inflation comes at a sensitive time for the economy. After 14 successive interest-rate hikes by the Fed since mid-2004, the combination of rising interest rates and a cooling housing market could dampen the growth of consumer spending. So far consumers, long the driving force of the current economic expansion, have remained buoyant despite the Fed's rate hikes and surging energy costs during the past year.

Against this backdrop, the Fed's goal is a "perfect landing." That would mean its policy tames inflation pressures but doesn't cut economic growth below its potential of 3 percent or more per year.

If the Fed pushes borrowing costs up too far, the result could be a less robust expansion with fewer new jobs. But if the Fed isn't vigilant enough, the result could be a sustained rate of inflation that takes its own toll on the economy by eroding purchasing power, among other problems.

"Reading [the Fed] has been trivially easy over the past year and a half, compared to what's it's going to be," says Richard Berner, who tracks the US economy for Morgan Stanley in New York.

For his part, Mr. Berner says the bond market may be overly optimistic in believing that the Fed is nearly done with its tightening, and that it will be able to cut rates later in the year.

"The fundamentals do, in my view, point to somewhat higher inflation," he says.

This doesn't present a major risk to the economy, but it would mean that tight monetary policy persists until core inflation subsides below 2 percent.

Another Wall Street investment house, Bear Stearns, also sees a risk of inflation surprising on the "up" side. "Markets have been dominated by what we think is an incorrect expectation that the U.S. economy will slow, the Fed will be dovish, inflation is tame, and interest rates are peaking," Bear Stearns economists said in a report earlier this month.

Certainly US consumers haven't slowed down yet. Retail sales surged 2.3 percent in January after a 0.4 percent rise in December.

Moreover, a tightening labor market could fuel expectations of wage inflation. Such expectations, in turn, can make for a self-fulfilling prophecy, ratcheting up inflation and making the Fed's job harder.

While many economists see the job market tightening, some others point to low workforce participation rates as a sign of slack. References by Fed officials, including chairman Ben Bernanke, to concerns about "resource utilization" point especially to the labor market.

Some of Chairman Bernanke's colleagues view core inflation and inflation expectations as "higher than ... desirable," according to the newly released Fed minutes.

"Clearly they feel that they need to be vigilant," says Bank of America economist Peter Kretzmer in New York. That practice has paid off in recent years, he says, by holding inflation expectations down.

In fact, while the core rate of inflation is above where Fed officials prefer, he says what's remarkable is how stable the core rate has held despite last year's surge in oil prices. That's a sharp contrast to the 1970s, but not enough, so far, for the Fed to declare victory in its current efforts.

McKee admitted raping Kerry Muchan, 14, in her Paisley home on 23 July, 2005 while she was unconscious.

Kerry died soon after the rape from a head injury caused by a fall.

Lord Philip said: "Any sentence I impose has to reflect the revulsion and horror society feels at this kind of behaviour."

Kerry was drunk and had fallen several times before she was raped.

Lord Philip said: "Instead of looking after her and being concerned for her condition and seeking medical help, you took advantage of her complete helplessness and raped her when she was in a state of complete unconsciousness."

In addition to the nine-year sentence, McKee will be monitored for three years after release.

Stair fall

He pleaded guilty to raping Kerry at her home in Dalskieth Avenue, Paisley.

The court heard Kerry had fallen ill after taking a cocktail of alcohol and drugs.

Her death less than two and a half hours after being raped was caused by head injuries sustained during falls.

These included a fall down stairs after which McKee took her to his bed and raped her.

He was found in bed with his stepdaughter by a relative.

When paramedics arrived, they found a faint pulse.

Extent of injuries

However, she died later in the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

A postmortem examination revealed she was still alive when her stepfather raped her.

It found she had horrific injuries consistent with being raped with considerable force.

The court was told McKee and Kerry's mother Lorna Muchan had lived as man and wife and he treated the girl as his own.