The unnamed woman is understood to work at an embassy in the African kingdom of Lesotho.

Before boarding a Virgin Atlantic flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow she visited a doctor complaining of flu-like symptoms.

She was allowed to fly, but during Flight VS602 to the UK she suffered a violent fit which left her unconscious.

Cabin crew and passengers rushed to her aid but towards the end of the flight she began to vomiting.

Advertisement
Falk AdSolution

When the Airbus A340-600, carrying 267 passengers and crew, touchdown at Heathrow she was rushed to nearby Hillingdon Hospital, West London.

Her symptoms matched those of the viral haemorraghing fever, ebola. The results of a post mortem are awaited.

Virgin Atlantic cabin crew who came into contact with the woman have been told to monitor their health. One said: "We are now terrified what we may have caught."

Deadly ebola is often characterised by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat.

The spill of 'sub-standard' juice was a category one pollution incident, the most serious kind, according to the Environment Agency.

It was caused by a split in an underground fibreglass tank at the Gerber Foods Soft Drink factory in Bridgwater, Somerset. Approximately six tons of juice and concentrate, due for disposal, seeped into a tributary of the River Parrett.

Gerber employees began a major mopping-up operation to stop the juice reaching the river and causing more environmental havoc.

Workers created a sandbag wall and dug trenches to stop it seeping any further.

As they toiled, three tankers were called in to pump as much of the spillage out of the watercourse as possible.

The damaged tank was emptied and pits around it were excavated to prevent juice that had already spilled travelling further.

The emergency action successfully stopped the concentrate reaching the river, according to Gerber personnel director Paul Hurst.

"We took swift action in preventing further seepage," he said.

"As far as I am aware, this is the first such incident."

More than 10 million litres of juice and soft drinks are produced every week at the plant.

Mr Hurst explained: "We take extreme care with the quality of our juice and if the concentrate or the finished product is not to our required quality standard, it is contained until being removed by tanker for sustainable disposal.

"Although orange juice is a natural substance, we obviously needed to deal quickly with its concentration in the watercourse.

"Gerber personnel were deployed and we worked closely with the Environment and Drainage Board to successfully bring the situation under control within a very short timescale."

Catherine Lockwood of the Environment Agency said: "The visual impact of this incident was immediately apparent.

"We will be carrying out a detailed investigation to assess the impact it has had on the surrounding waterways."

Asda supermarkets recently withdrew Sunny D from the shelves, citing a slump in sales.

The juice drink's name was changed and a marketing campaign launched after criticism from nutritionists, who claim it contains unhealthy levels of sugar and additives.

The five drinks listed by the government were Safeway Select Diet Orange, Crush Pineapple, AquaCal Strawberry Flavored Water Beverage, Crystal Light Sunrise Classic Orange and Giant Light Cranberry Juice Cocktail. The high levels of benzene were found in specific production lots of the drinks, the FDA said.

Benzene, a chemical linked to leukemia, can form in soft drinks containing two ingredients: Vitamin C, also called ascorbic acid, and either of the two preservatives: sodium benzoate and potassium benzoate.

The presence of those ingredients doesn't mean benzene is present. Scientists say factors such as heat or light exposure can trigger a reaction that forms benzene in the beverages.

Federal rules limit benzene levels in drinking water to 5 parts per billion. A limited FDA analysis of store-bought drinks found benzene levels as high as 79 parts per billion in one lot of Safeway Select Diet Orange.

A Safeway Inc. spokeswoman did not immediately return a message left seeking comment.

Dr. Laura Tarantino, director of the FDA's Office of Food Additive Safety, said drinking sodas high in benzene does not pose a health risk.

"This is likely an occasional exposure, it's not a chronic exposure. Obviously, no benzene is something someone wants to have, but the amount of benzene you are getting in a soda is very, very small compared to what you're being exposed to every day from environmental sources," Tarantino said.

However, a spokesman for Environmental Working Group - which has accused the FDA of suppressing information about benzene in soft drinks - saw the results as a problem.

"FDA's test results confirm that there is a serious problem with benzene in soda and juices," said Richard Wiles, senior vice president at Environmental Working Group.

The five dead miners were found by rescue workers, the governor said. The rescue teams initially found three dead workers and later found two more, he said.

Authorities identified the victims as Amon Brock, Jimmy Lee, Roy Middleton, George William Petra and Paris Thomas Jr., but their ages and hometowns were not immediately available.

The survivor, identified as Paul Ledford, was taken to Lonesome Pine Hospital in Big Stone Gap, Va., where he was treated and released, hospital spokeswoman Amy Stevens said.

Fletcher said Ledford was closer to the mine's exit than his co-workers.

It was not clear how many workers were on duty when the blast occurred, but Louviere said no production was going on at the time.

The underground mine, operated by Kentucky Darby LLC, is located about 250 miles southeast of Louisville in a mountainous area near the Virginia border. A man who answered the phone at a Kentucky Darby office declined to comment Saturday, saying the company was too busy.

Relatives of the miners gathered before dawn at the Cloverfork Missionary Baptist Church near the mine to await word about their loved ones. State and federal mine officials informed the family members of the deaths, said Mike Blair, the church's pastor.

"There's just a lot of heartbroken people," he said.

Local magistrate Chad Brock said the deaths would touch many lives.

"There's not going to be a family that's not affected in some way," he said. "You either know them or you're kin to them."

Harlan County Judge-Executive Joe Grieshop said the accident "shakes up our county because coal mining is a way of life for our people."

United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts urged state and federal mine officials to "redouble their inspection and enforcement activities, starting now."

"This tragedy only compounds what has already been a horrific year in America's coal mines," Roberts said in a statement.

Mine safety issues have been a key concern of lawmakers ever since two accidents in January killed 14 West Virginia coal miners.

Earlier this week, a key Senate committee endorsed a bill to make coal mining safer. The legislation would require miners to have at least two hours of oxygen available instead of one and would require mine operators to store extra oxygen packs along escape routes.

The bill also would require mines to have two-way wireless communications and tracking systems in place within three years. It now goes to the full Senate.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., a key architect of the bill, said the explosion "underscores the need for swift action to improve the safety of our nation's coal mines."

The Mine Safety and Health Administration recently issued a temporary rule requiring coal operators to give miners extra oxygen, but miners have been pressing Congress for a permanent fix.

In the Jan. 2 Sago mine explosion in West Virginia, one man was killed in the blast and 11 others died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Randal McCloy Jr., the only miner who survived, has said at least four of the miners' air packs did not work, forcing the men to share.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said that the five deaths Saturday raised the national death toll from coal mining accidents to 31 this year, with 10 of the deaths in Kentucky.

In Vietnam's central city of Danang, the port where many of the ships came from, anguished relatives crowded outside state offices for news on the more than 230 sailors listed as missing.

"We still don't know who survived," Le Minh A, deputy chairman of the Quang Nam province people's committee, told an emergency meeting. "Local people are in real panic."

Deputy Fisheries Minister Nguyen Viet Thang said: "This is a big loss for the fishermen, and for Vietnam's fishing industry. We are making the greatest efforts to deal with the dead and the survivors."

Two Vietnamese naval vessels left Danang Sunday to meet storm-battered fishing vessels limping back toward the coast, carrying survivors and at least 18 bodies.

Police would take photographs and DNA samples before releasing the bodies to relatives, said officials.

With the 37 reported Vietnamese deaths, the strongest typhoon recorded for the month of May has claimed more than 100 lives, having also killed 23 people in China and 41 in the Philippines.

"We are very sad, the loss is huge," said Major Tran Hoa of the Danang Border Command.

The typhoon surprised scores of Vietnamese vessels, some as far as 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) from home, mid-week when it changed course and hit them with lashing rains and churning seas, also cutting radio contact.

Up to 17 boats sank, according to Vietnamese state radio. However, there was much confusion between reports from different national and provincial state agencies on the number of ships and crew affected.

"The information is very inconsistent," said Thang. "We have to avoid causing more panic among the people."

Most sailors were from Danang and nearby Quang Nam and Quang Ngai provinces.

"We are waiting for news every minute," said Vo Huu Son, 55, whose son, three younger brothers and nephew were missing.

"We really want them to return home safe. We don't know what to do -- we just wait and wait, expecting more news from radio and TV. We pin our hope on the authorities and China to help our fishermen."

China's Xinhua news agency said Beijing had dispatched rescue ships Friday, responding to a call for help from Hanoi.

They found the 22 Vietnamese boats over the weekend around the tiny Dongsha island, a horseshoe-shaped atoll less than three kilometres long, about 310 kilometres (170 nautical miles, 195 miles) southeast of Hong Kong.

Dongsha, a strategic outpost, has been claimed by both China and Taiwan. It has a short runway and emergency facilities but no permanent inhabitants.

The excited survivors stammered thanks in Cantonese and raised signs thanking their rescuers, said the state-controlled news agency.

Vietnam's Deputy Foreign Minister Le Cong Phung thanked the Chinese ambassador for Beijing's "precious support" and said Chinese ships would be free to dock at Vietnamese ports during the operation.

In waters near Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province, the operation was more complicated, said Vietnamese officials.

"China has given us positive support, but until Saturday Taiwanese armed ships kept waving our ships out of their sea territory," said Hoa. "We are still trying to work with Taiwanese authorities."

"There are no reports of activity in the area that may be related to this incident and there are no aircraft reported overdue or missing."

He said numerous eye-witnesses - including teachers and pupils attending a sports event at the high school, by-standers and local fishermen - were convinced they had seen an aircraft go into the water.

They said they saw smoke and described "water exploding".

Some also reported seeing flames.

Noyons said: "Some reported seeing something, an unidentified object, splash into the sea causing a ripple effect of waves."

Noyons said it was being presumed that weather activity in the area at the time might have given the impression of something falling into the sea.

"We will continue to monitor the situation, which remains a mystery," he said.

The fragment was found in the Morokweng impact crater, where a massive object slammed into the earth about 140 million years ago. The impact left a 70km diameter crater and the fragment was found 766m below this crater. The find is significant as it is believed that large asteroids and comets vaporise or melt completely a few seconds after impact, the large fragments now discovered challenges those beliefs.

The impact also co-incided with the end of the Jurassic period when there was a mass extinction of marine life and reptiles. There is also a belief that the find supports theories that life began on another planet

Marko Andreoli, an official from NECSA, asks: "Is it possible that life evolved on mars and was transported to earth by meteorite? If that is a question that has validity and it has been formulated by serious scientists, then something like this one which can deliver large quantities of rock from a planet to another and preserve it pristinely could be also an additional bonus." Scientists say besides these findings there is still a veritable treasure trove of information that can be gained from the meteorite.