As the ground shook beneath her feet and the powerful tsunami rolled in from the Pacific Ocean on March 11, 2011, Masako Saito feared for her coastal community. Saito’s entire family escaped from Soma City in Japan, where massive waves caused utter devastation, and she could not return to witness the chaos for herself until the following month. It was “beyond recognition”, according to Saito. The once-thriving community had been largely flattened, replaced by mounds of debris and fishing boats....

The picturesque old village of Tin Sam Tsuen in Hong Kong, marked by small houses built with bricks in a traditional colour and an ancestral hall with green and white walls, has been home to generations of residents for hundreds of years. From traditional rituals to celebrate newborns to flowing banquets during festive occasions, the historic village of about 50 households in far-flung Hung Shui Kiu also holds many memories for its residents. Villagers would come together, moving in and out of...

Cryptic statements from two Chinese defence companies suggest that a long-distance shooting record may have been broken yet again. The first hint came on April 28, when Chongqing Changjiang Electric Appliances Industries Group, one of China’s biggest ammunition manufacturers, announced that an unspecified product had “successfully refreshed the world record for similar products” during a “specialised test”. The next day, Hunan Huanan OptoElectronic Group – a military optics supplier – said in a...

An elderly man died after falling on board a bus in Hong Kong on Saturday. Police said they received a report at 8.50am that a man in his 70s had fallen while the bus was near 125 Chatham Road South in Tsim Sha Tsui. The bus was operating on KMB route 5 between Fu Shan Estate and Star Ferry. Emergency personnel arrived at the scene and took him to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Park, where he was later certified dead. Police classified the case as a fatal traffic accident. The South China...

Czech police have arrested a man suspected of stealing an almost 800-year-old religious relic from a Catholic church and encasing it in concrete. According to a police spokeswoman on Friday, the suspect admitted taking the skull, which is revered by believers as a relic of Saint Zdislava of Lemberk, from the Church of St Lawrence in the northern Czech town of Jablonne v Podjestedi on Tuesday. Investigators used special equipment to confirm the skull was hidden inside a solid concrete block...

For most residents of South Korea’s capital, the Han River is a place for evening strolls, picnics and a brief respite from city life. But for Kim Jun-young, chief of the Hangang Bridge CCTV Integrated Control Centre in Seoul’s Gwangjin district, it is where his team pulls people back from the edge every day. Established in 2021, the centre uses AI for comprehensive emergency response, monitoring 900 CCTV cameras across 17 of the 21 pedestrian-accessible Han River bridges. Beyond suicide...

US President Donald Trump has said he is not optimistic about the release of former Hong Kong media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, who was sentenced to 20 years for violating the national security law, after raising the issue with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing. “[Xi] said Jimmy Lai is a tough one for him to do; he went through a lot, right or wrong, they went through a lot,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One during his return flight to the United States. When asked...