BUCHAREST (Reuters) - A heat wave gripping Romania since last week has contributed to the death of 56 people, the Health Ministry said yesterday. With temperatures reaching 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 Fahrenheit), 1,000 people were in the hospital with heat-related problems, the ministry said. “Those who died suffered from chronic illness, heart or neurological problems,” said a ministry statement. Meteorologists said heavy rains later this week are expected to offer some relief.

ANKARA (AFP) - Four people were killed when heavy rains triggered flooding and landslides yesterday in the northeastern provinces of Trabzon and Rize on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, the Anatolia news agency reported. Three people perished when their wooden house in a small village near the town of Caykara in Trabzon collapsed in a landslide, according to Housing and Civil Works Minister Faruk Nafiz Ozak, quoted by Anatolia. A 56-year-old woman drowned when she was swept away by a stream that overflowed its banks in a rural area near the town of Guneyce in the neighboring province of Rize, the agency said.

An independent union of Bulgarian judges protested yesterday against British criticism of a Bulgarian trial in which a British soccer fan was convicted of attempted murder. The Bulgarian Union of Judges sent a letter to British Consul Hilary Arthur and issued a statement saying the reaction of the British media and lawmakers to the case represented “an interference in a court’s work” and “an insult to the dignity of the Bulgarian nation.” Last week, the district court in the port city of Varna convicted Michael Shields of Liverpool of hitting a 25-year-old Bulgarian with a paving stone during a May 29 brawl. (AP)

Montenegro’s president yesterday demanded an investigation into the army’s role in erecting a Serbian Orthodox church that has led to ethnic tensions in the separatist Balkan republic. Filip Vujanovic told state radio that “somebody must be held responsible” for allowing Serbia-Montenegro military helicopters to be used to place the metal, 4x3-meter (13x10-foot) church on top of Mount Rumija in southern Montenegro last month. “If one allows a helicopter to be used in a matter that is so sensitive in Montenegro, they must bear consequences for the negative effects of it,” Vujanovic said. (AP)

A 4-year-old child from Romania’s northwestern Transylvania region has died after eating poisonous mushrooms, a health official said yesterday. The boy died after being hospitalized over the weekend at a children’s clinic in the city of Cluj, the clinic’s director, Ion Figan, said. Thirteen other children, aged between 4 and 14, are hospitalized at the clinic, about 450 kilometers (281 miles) northwest of Bucharest, for treatment after eating poisonous mushrooms. (AP)

A small earthquake hit eastern Romania yesterday, but there were no reports of injuries or damage, Romania’s Earth Physics Institute said. The quake, registering a preliminary magnitude of 4 on the Richter scale, occurred at 12.33 a.m. (local time). Its epicenter was in the region of Vrancea, 175 kilometers (110 miles) northeast of Bucharest. (AP)