21.   U.N. military observers confirmed two dead and three wounded.

22.   Also underground at the time was Zhao Wenlin, the general manager of the Jixi Mining Group, who Xinhua later Saturday said had been confirmed dead.

23.   English sidecar competitor Simon Prior was confirmed brain dead here on Monday by a Mannheim hospital spokesman.

24.   Two climbers of the Kiwi expedition have been confirmed dead, he added.

25.   Two climbers of the Kiwi expedition have been confirmed dead, he said.

26.   Yasuko Namba, the Japanese female climber who went missing after scaling Mount Everest, was confirmed dead Monday, a Tokyo-based mountaineering consultancy said.

27.   It was not immediately clear if the fourth person confirmed dead was one who had earlier been reported missing.

28.   Railway officials contacted by AFP in the capital were only able to confirm one dead so far, saying railway telecommunications with the area were down.