VENEZUELA: Aid groups warned today that the country’s healthcare system is being pushed to its limits nearly a week after two powerful earthquakes, with damaged hospitals overwhelmed and infectious diseases spreading.

The government death toll has surpassed 1,700, with more than 15,800 people displaced and thousands sleeping in the open or in crowded shelters.

The World Health Organisation said 38 hospitals had been damaged and the health system was “under extreme pressure,” amid concerns over measles, dengue and malaria outbreaks.

INDIA: A fire at a petrochemical plant in West Bengal injured at least 20 people, five of them critically, police said today.

The blaze broke out in a naphtha pipeline at Haldia Petrochemicals and spread to nearby homes, with 12 fire engines deployed to bring it under control.

The cause of the fire, which injured plant workers and security guards, is not yet known.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: The government said confirmed Ebola cases in the country have reached 1,307, including 377 deaths, as the virus spread to a fourth province, Haut-Uele, which borders South Sudan.

The case was detected after an infected person travelled from Ituri province, the outbreak’s epicentre, and later died.

Authorities are now tracing contacts, as aid workers struggle with community mistrust and safe burial challenges in the conflict-torn north-east.

UNITED STATES: Three firefighters killed at the weekend in a wildfire along the Colorado-Utah border were trying to shield themselves with emergency shelters when they were overcome, authorities said today.

The Helitack crew, deployed by helicopter to remote areas, were part of an inter-agency response to the Snyder fire, which has burned about 44 square miles.

The deaths came as nearly 8,000 firefighters battle dozens of large blazes across the western US in conditions of extreme danger.