January 21, 1995 – CBS World News Roundup – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
January 21, 1995 – Your typical day of accidents, trials, civil war and the situation in Kobe, Japan where a 6.8 earthquake leveled great swaths of the city.
But news for the day began with an accident aboard the nuclear powered Aircraft Carrier USS Nimitz as it was undergoing renovations. An explosion ripped through the flight deck, leaving one sailor killed and several others injured. The explosion was blamed on the failure of a hydraulic system and had nothing to do with the ship’s nuclear reactor.
Meanwhile, the infamous “trial of the century”, the OJ Simpson murder case was having loose ends tied up before the Defense’s opening statements. Lawyers were scrambling for ammunition against the Prosecution’s key witness who came with much baggage in the way of racist statements and indidents attributed to Detective Mark Fuhrman, who allegedly found the bloody glove behind Simpson’s home. Judge Lance Ito barred two of Furhman’s statements to be used and gave Defense until the following Monday to show cause for using a third incident in which Furhman was overheard making hostile remarks about interracial marriage, such as Simpson’s.
And victims of the massive earthquake in Kobe Japan were now facing additional trauma as predictions of heavy rains arriving in the Kobe area over the following days. Officials had asked several hundred households to evacuate, fearing the already weakened structures would be subject to landslides already triggered by the earthquake. Rescuers were racing against time as additional survivors were being pulled from wreckage, but the death toll as of this day had already passed 4,700.
No ceasefire likely in Checheya this day, as fighting continued to flare up between Russian troops and Chechen rebels. However, the Offical Russian news service reported the Army had stopped using heavy weapons in Grozny and started the process of clearing rubble and restoring gas and electricity.
All that, and a lot more via The CBS World News Roundup for January 21, 1995.
