April 5, 2010

2010Up to 50 people are killed and another 100 injured in two militant suicide bombings and attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan: the first on an Awami National Party rally in Timergara; the second on the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar.^[†]

On April 5, 2010, two bombings in Pakistan killed up to 50 people and injured 100 more. In the first attack the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar was attacked by militants. The coordinated attack involved a vehicle suicide bomb and attackers who tried to enter the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar by using grenades and weapons fire. Three explosions went off within a span of 15 minutes in the area of Saddar and Hayatabad Avenue, near the American consulate and the Peshawar headquarters of Pakistan's intelligence agency. Several militants came in two vehicles. The first vehicle exploded near a security checkpoint, and gunmen in the second car opened fire. A Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan spokesman claimed responsibility for the assault on the consulate. In Timergara, Lower Dir district an Awami National Party rally came under attack. Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq said "Americans are our enemies. We carried out the attack on their consulate in Peshawar. We plan more such attacks."

2010Twenty-nine coal miners are killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia.^[†]

The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5, 2010, roughly 1,000 feet (300 m) underground in Raleigh County, West Virginia at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine located in Montcoal. 29 out of 31 at the site were killed. The coal dust explosion occurred at 3:27 pm. The incident was the worst in the United States since 1970, when 38 miners were killed at Finley Coal Company's No. 15 and 16 mines in Hyden, Kentucky. A state funded independent investigation later found Massey Energy directly responsible for the blast.