A fire broke out at a fireworks factory in southern India today, killing at least 20 workers and injuring 15 others, a report said.

Aid began trickling through to survivors across the earthquake and tsunami-battered Indian Ocean today, but tons of emergency supplies continued to pile up at some overstretched airports as the death toll continued its inexorable rise.

AS rotting bodies stack up and contaminate water supplies across Asia, fears grew that sickness will pile more misery on a region reeling two days on from its worst disaster in living memory.

A man convicted of raping and murdering a teenage girl was hanged at dawn, in India’s first execution in nine years, as dozens of anti-death penalty protesters held a vigil outside the prison.

Abdul Kalam, a missile scientist who advocates nuclear weapons as a deterrent to war, was elected today as India’s ceremonial president, a local news agency said.