QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Sixty-four people including school children died on Saturday in a bomb attack carried out by extremists from Pakistan's Sunni Muslim majority, police said.
A spokesman for Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni group, claimed responsibility for the bomb in Quetta, which caused casualties in the town's main bazaar, a school and a computer center. Police said most of the victims were Shi'ites.
Burned school bags and books were strewn around.
"The explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device fitted to a motorcycle," said Wazir Khan Nasir, deputy inspector general of police in Quetta.
"This is a continuation of terrorism against Shi'ites."
"I saw many bodies of women and children," said an eyewitness at a hospital. "At least a dozen people were burned to death by the blast."
Most Western intelligence agencies have regarded the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda as the gravest threat to nuclear-armed Pakistan, a strategic U.S. ally.
But Pakistani law enforcement officials say Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has become a formidable force.
TENSIONS
Last month the group said it carried out a bombing in Quetta that killed nearly 100 people, one of Pakistan's worst sectarian attacks. Thousands of Shi'ites protested in several cities after that attack.
Pakistani intelligence officials say extremist groups, led by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have escalated their bombings and shootings of Shi'ites to trigger violence that would pave the way for a Sunni theocracy in U.S.-allied Pakistan.
More than 400 Shi'ites were killed in Pakistan last year, many by hitmen or bombs, and the perpetrators are almost never caught. Some hardline Shi'ite groups have hit back by killing Sunni clerics.
The growing sectarian violence has hurt the credibility of the government, which has already faced criticism ahead of elections due in May for its inability to tackle corruption and economic stagnation.
The schism between Sunnis and Shi'ites developed after the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 when his followers could not agree on a successor.
Emotions over the issue are highly potent even today, pushing some countries, including Iraq five years ago, to the brink of civil war.
Pakistan is nowhere near that stage but officials worry that Sunni extremist groups have succeeded in dramatically ratcheting up tensions and provoking revenge attacks in their bid to destabilize the country.
(Reporting by Jibran Ahmed; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Stephen Powell)
FRANKFURT: In its never-ending quest to develop more aerodynamic, more fuel-efficient aircraft, the aviation industry believes the ocean's oldest predator, the shark, could hold the key to cutting energy consumption.
Germany's biggest airline Lufthansa announced earlier this month that two of its Airbus A340-300 jets would take part in trials starting this summer to test the properties of shark skin in flight.
For the two-year trials, eight 10 by 10 centimetre (4 by 4 inch) patches of a new type of coating are being painted on to the fuselage and wing edges of the aircraft.
A new state-of-the-art varnish, developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials (FAM) in Bremen, attempts to mimic the skins of fast-swimming sharks.
The skin of sharks is covered in tiny riblets that reduce turbulent vortices and the drag they cause, thereby diminishing surface resistance when moving at speed.
The phenomenon of the streamlined shark skin has been known for about 30 years and has fascinated research scientists in a wide range of fields, from military applications to aerospace and aeronautics and from naval construction to wind technology.
More recently, its use in sports such as swimming and athletics has brought the special properties of shark skin to much wider attention.
High-tech swimsuits were developed that enabled athletes to move ever faster through water, breaking one swimming record after the next until the suits were eventually banned as unfair in competition.
In the past, says Volkmar Stenzel, the project's head at the Fraunhofer Institute, sheets of plastic imitation shark skin were glued to the aircraft's exterior.
"But the foil had major disadvantages: it was rather heavy and the added weight cancelled out the amount of fuel that could be saved," Stenzel said.
"Also, it was difficult to stick the foil to curved surfaces without creasing and wrinkling," he said.
Another problem was that aircraft have to be stripped of their paint and recoated every five years "and that was just not possible with these foils," the expert explained.
Thus, in collaboration with European aircraft maker Airbus and the DLR German Aerospace Center, scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute have developed a new technique to emboss the structures of shark skin into aircraft paints.
The idea is to make surfaces more aerodynamic and reduce fuel consumption by about one percent and lower operating costs.
The trials on Lufthansa jets represent the last phase before possible industrial application, said Denis Darracq, head of research and flight physics technology at Airbus.
"The expected results have been achieved in terms of performance. It's now a matter of measuring operational efficiency and durability," Darracq said.
"An airline must not have to clean its aircraft after every flight. The paint needs to last for several years," he said.
The engineer estimated that if an aircraft was covered by between 40-70 percent in the new paint, it can cut fuel consumption by around one percent for very little outlay.
And with high fuel prices and customers becoming increasingly sensitive to the environmental impact of flying, that would represent an "enormous benefit" for an airline, Darracq argued.
Nature is also the inspiration for another state-of-the-art technology that is already being used by the industry and may have wider applications.
The leaf of the lotus plant has a unique microstructure consisting of tiny bumps topped with tiny hairs that make the leaf highly water repellent.
Special surface coatings have been developed to mimic this effect and they are already used in the interior of the A380 to make it easier to clean.
But Airbus is also looking into whether such coatings can be used on the exterior of aircraft as well.
"De-icing is a real problem for planes and represents a substantial cost factor. If there were surfaces where water cannot collect, they wouldn't freeze over and that would represent a big step forward," said Darracq.
Airlines' growing interest could therefore help accelerate research in surface technologies "and these may be ready for industrial application in a number of years," the engineer said.
(Credit: CNN; screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
A good hearty conspiracy theory can shine a sharp light on two of humanity's most enduring traits.
One, of course, is humanity's boundless imagination. The other is humanity's essential suspicion of humanity.
So while you might be deeply immersed in Bill Nye's explanation of the Russian meteorite, those with darker sensibilities have filled the Web with their fears and hauntings about the phenomenon.
There are few nations with greater awareness of dark sensibilities than Russia. The fact that there seems to be little evidence of meteorite fragments on the ground has encouraged some Russians to offer their own suspicions.
As the Toronto Globe and Mail reports, nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky hasn't been slow to offer something of a Hot War perspective.
"It's not meteors falling. It's a new weapon being tested by the Americans," he was quoted as saying.
We know from our recent experience of North Korea that weapons testing is an imprecise science.
But if you were an American in the mood to test a weapon, would Chelyabinsk, Russia, be your very first choice of place for the experiment?
Perhaps Tallahassee; Area 51; and Bialystok, Poland, were all unavailable due to prior commitments. Or perhaps it wasn't the Americans, but, say, the North Koreans, who mistook Chelyabinsk for, say, Chelsea.
Zhirinovsky's rather emotionally manipulative offering was countered by Russia's Emergency Ministry, which dedicated itself to an extensive rebuttal of his belief (and that of others) that this was some sort of military thing. The rebuttal? "Rubbish."
But that wasn't going to put off the local media, was it? Not only do they have papers to sell, they also have theories to expound to a troubled nation and world.
So, as The Atlantic reports, the local Znak newspaper accepted that this was a meteorite but insisted the explosion was caused by military defense blowing it up.
More Technically Incorrect
Yes, of course it has a source in the military. You thought it didn't?
Though I've watched a few movies in which exciting things happen, I don't find it easy to imagine that some sort of terrestrially created missile-laden aircraft could really explode a meteorite in such a manner.
It is easier to imagine, though, that politicians like Zhirinovsky might take the opportunity to foment a little rage.
Indeed, Alex Jones' infamously well-guarded Infowars site offered that Zhirinovsky insisted that America -- in the person of Secretary of State John Kerry -- had tried to give Russia advance notice of its "attack."
The Drudge Report led me to a piece at Foreign Policy that explained that Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, simply hadn't called Kerry back.
Which all suggests that Russia isn't, after all, living in fear of an attack from the U.S. Especially one over Chelyabinsk.
On balance, I prefer to currently believe Nye. He is the science guy, after all. And science guys know scientific events when they see them.
CHELYABINSK, Russia A small army of workers set to work Saturday to replace acres of windows shattered by the enormous explosion from a meteor, while other residents contemplated the astonishing event with pride and humor.
The fireball that streaked into the sky over Chelyabinsk at about sunrise Friday was undeniably traumatic. Nearly 1,200 people were reported injured by the shock wave from the explosion, estimated to be as strong as 20 Hiroshima atomic bombs.
But it also brought a sense of cooperation and humor to a tough industrial city in a troubled region. Large numbers of volunteers came forward to help fix the damage caused by the explosion and many residents came together on the Internet — first to find out what happened and soon to make jokes about it.
One of the most popular jests: Residents of the meteor were terrified to see Chelyabinsk approaching.
Play Video
Meteorites fall from the sky in Russia
Chelyabinsk, nicknamed Tankograd because it produced the famed Soviet T-34 tanks, can be as grim as its backbone heavy industries. Long winters where temperatures routinely hit minus-30 Celsius (minus-4 Fahrenheit) add to a general dour mien, as do worries about dangerous facilities in the surrounding region.
In 1957, a waste tank at the Mayak nuclear weapons plant in the Chelyabinsk region exploded, contaminating 9,200 square miles and prompting authorities to evacuate 10,000 nearby residents. It is now Russia's main nuclear waste disposal facility. A vast plant for disposing of chemical weapons lies 50 miles east of the city.
"The city is a place where people always seem bitter with each other," said music teacher Ilya Shibanov. But the meteor "was one of the rare times when people started to live together through one event."
"For most people, it's a good excuse for a joke," he said.
It was also a reason for Shibanov to quickly concoct a rap video that got wide Internet attention, including the lines: ""Pow, pow, pow — everything flew and factory windows crumbled. This Friday the bars are going to be full, so be ready for the aftermath."
Play Video
Why did meteor do so much damage?
But for many, it's been a reason to roll up their sleeves and get to work repairing the more than 4,000 buildings in the city and region where windows were shattered, or to provide other services.
More than 24,000 people, including volunteers, have mobilized in the region to cover windows, gather warm clothes and food, and make other relief efforts, the regional governor's office said. Crews from glass companies in adjacent regions were being flown in.
Gov. Mikhail Yurevich on Saturday said that damage from the high-altitude explosion -believed to have been as powerful as 20 Hiroshima bombs — is estimated at 1 billion rubles ($33 million). He promised to have all the broken windows replaced within a week.
But that is a long wait in a frigid region. The midday temperature in Chelyabinsk was 10 F, and for many the immediate task was to put up plastic sheeting and boards on shattered residential windows.
Meanwhile, the search continued for major fragments of the meteor.
Play Video
Scientist: "Mother Nature has shown Hollywood who's boss"
In the town of Chebarkul, 50 miles west of Chelyabinsk city, divers explored the bottom of an ice-crusted lake looking for meteor fragments believed to have fallen there, leaving a 20-foot-wide hole. Emergency Ministry spokeswoman Irina Rossius told Russian news agencies the search hadn't found anything.
Police kept a small crowd of curious onlookers from venturing out onto the icy lake, where a tent was set up for the divers.
Many of them were still trying to process the memories of the strange day they'd lived through.
Valery Fomichov said he had been out for a run when the meteor streaked across the sky shortly after sunrise.
"I glanced up and saw a glowing dot in the west. And it got bigger and bigger, like a soccer ball, until it became blindingly white and I turned away," he said.
In a local church, clergyman Sexton Sergei sought to derive a larger lesson.
"Perhaps God was giving a kind of sign, so that people don't simply think about their own trifles on earth, but rather look to the heavens once in a while."
In Chelyabinsk, university student Ksenia Arslanova said she was pleased that people in the city of 1 million generally behaved well after the bewildering flash and explosions.
10 Photos
Meteorites crash into Russia
"People were kind of ironic about it. And that's a good thing, that people didn't run to the grocery store. Everyone was calm," the 19-year-old architecture student said. "I'm proud that our city didn't fall into depression."
Chelyabinsk residents weren't the only ones watching the skies, however.
Stargazers in the San Francisco Bay Area caught a glimpse of an apparent meteor shower Friday night. Social media users reported seeing the blue flash flying west around 8 p.m. and sightings were reported throughout the Bay Area, reports CBS San Francisco.
Based on reports, Jonathan Braidman, an astronomer with the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, said that it seems Friday night's fireball was what astronomers call a "sporadic meteor," an event that can happen several times a day but most of the time happens over the ocean, away from human eyes, and brings as much as 15,000 tons of space debris to Earth each year.
Meteors, hunks of rock and metal from space that fall to Earth, burn up as they go through Earth's atmosphere, which is what apparently caused Friday night's bright flash of light, Braidman said.
It was likely smaller than another meteor that landed in the Bay Area in October, which caused a loud sonic boom as it fell, breaking apart and spreading rocks, called meteorites, in the North Bay.
And Cuba apparently experienced a phenomenon similar to the meteorite that detonated over Russia this week, island media reported, with startled residents describing a bright light in the sky and a loud explosion that shook windows and walls.
There were no reports of any injuries or damage such as those caused by the Russia meteorite. In a video from a state TV newscast posted on the website CubaSi late Friday, unidentified residents of the central city of Rodas, near Cienfuegos, said the explosion was impressive.
"On Tuesday we left home to fish around five in the afternoon, and around 8:00 we saw a light in the heavens and then a big ball of fire, bigger than the sun," one local man said in the video.
"My home shook completely," said a woman. "I had never heard such a strange thing."
Marcos Rodriguez, whom the video identified as a specialist in anthropology, said all signs point to a meteorite.
A reporter said a similar phenomenon was observed in 1994 elsewhere in Cienfuegos province.
Play Video
Watch: Asteroid's close encounter with Earth
The video said Cuban authorities were looking for any fragments that may have fallen to the earth.
Friday's meteorite strike came shortly before Asteroid 2012 DA14 made the closest recorded pass of an asteroid to the Earth -- about 17,150 miles. But the European Space Agency in a tweet said its experts had determined there was no connection -- just cosmic coincidence. The asteroid passed Earth without incident at approximately 2:30 pm EST Friday.
A day after a massive meteor exploded over this city in central Russia, a monumental cleanup effort is under way.
Authorities have deployed around 24,000 troops and emergencies responders to help in the effort.
Officials say more than a million square feet of windows -- the size of about 20 football fields -- were shattered by the shockwave from the meteor's blast. Around 4,000 buildings in the area were damaged.
The injury toll climbed steadily on Friday. Authorities said today it now stands at more than 1,200. Most of those injuries were from broken glass, and only a few hundred required hospitalization.
According to NASA, this was the biggest meteor to hit Earth in more than a century. Preliminary figures suggest it was 50 feet wide and weighed more than the Eiffel Tower.
SEE PHOTOS: Meteorite Crashes in Russia
NASA scientists have also estimated the force of the blast that occurred when the meteor fractured upon entering Earth's atmosphere was approximately 470 kilotons -- the equivalent of about 30 Hiroshima bombs.
Residents said today they still can't believe it happened here.
"It was something we only saw in the movies," one university student said. "We never thought we would see it ourselves."
Throughout the city, the streets are littered with broken glass. Local officials have announced an ambitious pledge to replace all the broken windows within a week. In the early morning hours, however, workers could still be heard drilling new windows into place.
Authorities have sent divers into a frozen lake outside the city, where a large chunk of the meteor is believed to have landed, creating a large hole in the ice. By the end of the day they had not found anything.
They are not the only ones looking for it.
Meteor hunters from around the world are salivating at what some are calling the opportunity of a lifetime. A small piece of the meteor could fetch thousands of dollars and larger chunks could bring in even hundreds of thousands.
BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea has told its key ally, China, that it is prepared to stage one or even two more nuclear tests this year in an effort to force the United States into diplomatic talks, said a source with direct knowledge of the message.
Further tests could also be accompanied this year by another rocket launch, said the source, who has direct access to the top levels of government in both Beijing and Pyongyang.
North Korea conducted its third nuclear test on Tuesday, drawing global condemnation and a stern warning from the United States that it was a threat and a provocation.
"It's all ready. A fourth and fifth nuclear test and a rocket launch could be conducted soon, possibly this year," the source said, adding that the fourth nuclear test would be much larger than the third, at an equivalent of 10 kilotons of TNT.
The tests will be undertaken, the source said, unless Washington holds talks with North Korea and abandons its policy of what Pyongyang sees as attempts at regime change.
North Korea also reiterated its long-standing desire for the United States to sign a final peace agreement with it and establish diplomatic relations, he said. North Korea remains technically at war with both the United States and South Korea after the Korean war ended in 1953 with a truce.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland urged North Korea to "refrain from additional provocative actions that would violate its international obligations" under three different sets of U.N. Security Council resolutions that prohibit nuclear and missile tests.
North Korea "is not going to achieve anything in terms of the health, welfare, safety, future of its own people by these kinds of continued provocative actions. It's just going to lead to more isolation," Nuland told reporters.
The Pentagon also weighed in, calling North Korea's missile and nuclear programs "a threat to U.S. national security and to international peace and security."
"The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and steadfast in our defense commitments to allies in the region," said Pentagon spokeswoman Major Catherine Wilkinson.
Initial estimates of this week's test from South Korea's military put its yield at the equivalent of 6-7 kilotons, although a final assessment of yield and what material was used in the explosion may be weeks away.
North Korea's latest test, its third since 2006, prompted warnings from Washington and others that more sanctions would be imposed on the isolated state. The U.N. Security Council has only just tightened sanctions on Pyongyang after it launched a long-range rocket in December.
Pyongyang is banned under U.N. sanctions from developing missile or nuclear technology after its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.
North Korea worked to ready its nuclear test site, about 100 km (60 miles) from its border with China, throughout last year, according to commercially available satellite imagery. The images show that it may have already prepared for at least one more test, beyond Tuesday's subterranean explosion.
"Based on satellite imagery that showed there were the same activities in two tunnels, they have one tunnel left after the latest test," said Kune Y. Suh, a nuclear engineering professor at Seoul National University in South Korea.
Analysis of satellite imagery released on Friday by specialist North Korea website 38North showed activity at a rocket site that appeared to indicate it was being prepared for a launch (http://38north.org/2013/02/tonghae021413/).
NORTH 'NOT AFRAID' OF SANCTIONS
President Barack Obama pledged after this week's nuclear test "to lead the world in taking firm action in response to these threats" and diplomats at the U.N. Security Council have already started discussing potential new sanctions.
North Korea has said the test was a reaction to "U.S. hostility" following its December rocket launch. Critics say the rocket launch was aimed at developing technology for an intercontinental ballistic missile.
"(North) Korea is not afraid of (further) sanctions," the source said. "It is confident agricultural and economic reforms will boost grain harvests this year, reducing its food reliance on China."
North Korea's isolated and small economy has few links with the outside world apart from China, its major trading partner and sole influential diplomatic ally.
China signed up for international sanctions against North Korea after the 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests and for a U.N. Security Council resolution passed in January to condemn the latest rocket launch. However, Beijing has stopped short of abandoning all support for Pyongyang.
Sanctions have so far not discouraged North Korea from pursuing its nuclear ambitions.
"It is like watching the same movie over and over again," said Lee Woo-young, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies. "The idea that stronger sanctions make North Korea stop developing nuclear programs isn't effective in my view."
The source with ties to Beijing and Pyongyang said China would again support U.N. sanctions. He declined to comment on what level of sanctions Beijing would be willing to endorse.
"When China supported U.N. sanctions ... (North) Korea angrily called China a puppet of the United States," he said. "There will be new sanctions which will be harsh. China is likely to agree to it," he said, without elaborating.
He said however that Beijing would not cut food and fuel supplies to North Korea, a measure it reportedly took after a previous nuclear test.
He said North Korea's actions were a distraction for China's leadership, which was concerned that the escalations could inflame public opinion in China and hasten military build-ups in the region.
The source said he saw little room for compromise under North Korea's youthful new leader, Kim Jong-un. The third Kim to rule North Korea is just 30 years old and took over from his father in December 2011.
He appears to have followed his father, Kim Jong-il, in the "military first" strategy that has pushed North Korea ever closer to a workable nuclear missile at the expense of economic development.
"He is much tougher than his father," the source said.
(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Phillip Stewart in WASHINGTON; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, David Brunnstrom and Jackie Frank)
WASHINGTON: The 4,000-plus exhausted passengers who lived a hellish four-day ordeal aboard the powerless and drifting Carnival Triumph cruise ship won't be left completely empty handed.
The cruise company is making a gift to the travelers of the bathrobes they were using on the ship, the company announced Friday.
"Of course the bathrobes for the Carnival Triumph are complimentary," it said in a tweet on the official @carnivalcruise account.
But the announcement has been received with less than full-throated cheers.
"Who wants a stinky robe?!" tweeted a reporter in North Carolina, Astrid Martinez, while another user of the social media site, Natalie Eshaya, enthused sarcastically, "Oh how generous."
Another skeptic, Paul Nather, wondered "What do you think the going rate for a Carnival cruise bathrobe will be on eBay tomorrow?"
The white bathrobe has become an unlikely symbol of the nightmare of the cruise-goers, who donned them to attract attention as they stood on the drifting ship.
Others used the white terrycloth as a canvas to write messages, with one passenger proclaiming, "I survived Carnival's triumph redbags" -- a reference to the bags that substituted for toilets.
The Triumph docked Friday morning in the port of Mobile, Alabama. It had originally been scheduled to return to port early Monday after a weekend stop in Cozumel in Mexico, before an engine room blaze left the massive vessel without electricity to power the kitchens, toilets, and other necessities.
If Hewlett-Packard introduces an Android tablet, the newfound rivalry with Microsoft will be one motivating factor, according to analysts.
"I can see why they would go down this route instead of sticking with Microsoft for everything," said Ben Bajarin, a principal at Creative Strategies.
That may be putting it charitably. "[PC makers] are pissed off at Microsoft. That's the general mood," said Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies, referring to Microsoft's entry into the PC/tablet market with Surface.
Surface practically precluded HP from coming out with a Windows RT tablet based on an ARM chip -- the same silicon used for Android devices -- Kay said.
In fact, HP scuttled plans last year to bring out an RT tablet and then dissed Microsoft's device publicly, calling it "slow...kludgy" and "expensive."
But that of course isn't the only reason HP would do an Android tablet. It could, for instance, try to take the lead in bringing Android tablets to large corporate customers, Bajarin said.
To some extent, Samsung is doing that in phones now, but HP, being the largest PC maker in the world, could spearhead Android for business, according to Bajarin. "They could see that as a big opportunity," he said.
And being late to the Android market isn't all bad. "All the development in Android up to this point accrues so they can claim to be on board without a whole lot of development that they have to do independently," Kay said.
This would come about two years after HP's WebOS tablet debacle. In August of 2011, the company terminated its TouchPad only a month and a half after the device's introduction.
It also ended plans for a WebOS-based phone at that time.
HP currently offers the Windows 8-based ElitePad 900 tablet and a Windows 8 hybrid tablet-laptop: the Envy x2. Both are based on Intel's power-efficient -- and relatively slow -- Atom processor.
And it already has one product based on a Google operating system. It's selling a Chromebook for $330.
HP declined to comment.
Remember the WebOS-based HP TouchPad? This time HP will adopt Android. The company already has a Windows 8 tablet.
Social media company Facebook announced Friday that it was hacked last month, which has led to an ongoing investigation.
Below is a statement issued by Facebook:
Last month, Facebook Security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack. This attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised. The compromised website hosted an exploit which then allowed malware to be installed on these employee laptops. The laptops were fully-patched and running up-to-date anti-virus software. As soon as we discovered the presence of the malware, we remediated all infected machines, informed law enforcement, and began a significant investigation that continues to this day. We have no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised in this attack.
The first lawsuit against Carnival Cruise Lines has been filed and it is expected to be the beginning of a wave of lawsuits against the ship's owners.
Cassie Terry, 25, of Brazoria County, Texas, filed a lawsuit today in Miami federal court, calling the disabled Triumph cruise ship "a floating hell."
"Plaintiff was forced to endure unbearable and horrendous odors on the filthy and disabled vessel, and wade through human feces in order to reach food lines where the wait was counted in hours, only to receive rations of spoiled food," according to the lawsuit, obtained by ABCNews.com. "Plaintiff was forced to subsist for days in a floating toilet, a floating Petri dish, a floating hell."
Click Here for Photos of the Stranded Ship at Sea
The filing also said that during the "horrifying and excruciating tow back to the United States," the ship tilted several times "causing human waste to spill out of non-functioning toilets, flood across the vessel's floors and halls, and drip down the vessel's walls."
Terry's attorney Brent Allison told ABCNews.com that Terry knew she wanted to sue before she even got off the boat. When she was able to reach her husband, she told her husband and he contacted the attorneys.
Allison said Terry is thankful to be home with her husband, but is not feeling well and is going to a doctor.
Carnival's Triumph Passengers: 'We Were Homeless' Watch Video
Girl Disembarks Cruise Ship, Kisses the Ground Watch Video
Carnival Cruise Ship Passengers Line Up for Food Watch Video
"She's nauseated and actually has a fever," Allison said.
Terry is suing for breach of maritime contract, negligence, negligent misrepresentation and fraud as a result of the "unseaworthy, unsafe, unsanitary, and generally despicable conditions" on the crippled cruise ship.
"Plaintiff feared for her life and safety, under constant threat of contracting serious illness by the raw sewage filling the vessel, and suffering actual or some bodily injury," the lawsuit says.
Despite having their feet back on solid ground and making their way home, many passengers from the cruise ship are still fuming over their five days of squalor on the stricken ship and the cruise ship company is likely to be hit with a wave of lawsuits.
"I think people are going to file suits and rightly so," maritime trial attorney John Hickey told ABCNews.com. "I think, frankly, that the conduct of Carnival has been outrageous from the get-go."
Hickey, a Miami-based attorney, said his firm has already received "quite a few" inquiries from passengers who just got off the ship early this morning.
"What you have here is a) negligence on the part of Carnival and b) you have them, the passengers, being exposed to the risk of actual physical injury," Hickey said.
The attorney said that whether passengers can recover monetary compensation will depend on maritime law and the 15-pages of legal "gobbledygook," as Hickey described it, that passengers signed before boarding, but "nobody really agrees to."
One of the ticket conditions is that class action lawsuits are not allowed, but Hickey said there is a possibility that could be voided when all the conditions of the situation are taken into account.
One of the passengers already thinking about legal action is Tammy Hilley, a mother of two, who was on a girl's getaway with her two friends when a fire in the ship's engine room disabled the vessel's propulsion system and knocked out most of its power.
"I think that's a direction that our families will talk about, consider and see what's right for us," Hilley told "Good Morning America" when asked if she would be seeking legal action.
