Friday 31 May 2013

Farm workers killed in minibus accident in Turkey


Ten people were killed and 13 injured when a minibus carrying female farm workers in Turkey rolled over and fell into a creek, police said.

The accident took place Wednesday afternoon in the Adiyaman province, authorities said, as the minibus was taking the farm workers home.

The driver, Kazim Coban, lost control of the vehicle when its tire blew, and the minibus rolled and fell into a creek 100 feet below the road, officials told Today's Zaman.

Six of the workers were killed at the scene, and the others were transported to a hospital, where four others died.

The bodies of the women were taken to the morgue for autopsies.

Adiyaman Governor Mahmut Demirtas said that officials are investigating the incident.

Friday 31 May 2013

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/05/30/10-killed-in-minibus-accident-in-Turkey/UPI-98071369919389/

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Tragedy in Bayelsa: 20 feared killed in auto crash

NO fewer than 20 persons were reported dead in a motor accident in Amassoma, Yenagoa, on Wednesday.


Nigerian Tribune gathered that the 20 persons were mostly part-time students of the state-owned Niger Delta University, Amassoma who were returning from lectures in a 13-seater bus that collided with another that was returning to Amassoma from Yenagoa.

Confirming the incident, an eyewitness, Mr Inaikozia Fumgbe who is a 100-level Sociology student of NDU and whose vehicle was behind the bus, said the 13-seater bus with registration number RIVERS KNM 1415A clashed with another thirteen seater bus with registration number RIVERS SP 269 KPR from Yenagoa. It was without its headlight and was on high speed.

He said the accident occurred at about 8 pm on Tuesday night on the Amossoma-Ekpetiama road. He added that one pregnant woman was crushed while others with serious injuries and those that died on the spot were taken to nearby clinics and hospitals in Yenagoa.

He attributed the cause of the accident to over-speeding, When our correspondent visited the scene of the accident the mangled buses which belong to the Bayelsa State Transport Company were littered with blood stains and handouts of students and foodstuffs.

However, when contacted, the Public Relations Officer of Niger Delta University, Mr Joe Alagoa, who confirmed the accident, said nobody died in the mishap.

In a related development a middle aged woman, Mrs Chinyere Celestine and four of her children suffocated to death from carbon-monoxide that emanated from a power generator that they left on while they went to bed in an enclosed apartment, on Wednesday at their residence in Azikoro suburb in Yenagoa.

Sympathisers attributed the incident to the persisting power outage that has thrown the state into darkness over three weeks. Eyewitnesses told Nigerian Tribune that seven persons were affected by the incident but two persons at the time of filing the reports were receiving treatment while the dead bodies have been deposited at the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa.

Friday 31 May 2013

http://tribune.com.ng/news2013/en/news/item/13174-tragedy-in-bayelsa-20-feared-killed-in-auto-crash.html

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15 die in Sindhupalchowk bus crash


A bus headed for Kathmandu from Bhotang of Sindhupalchowk district crashed at Thangpalkot-1 on Wednesday morning, killing 15 passengers and injuring 30 others.

The bus, carrying at least 55 passengers, fell around 150 feet down a cliff at a bend on a dirt road at Salledanda. Twelve people were killed on the spot. Two others died undergoing treatment in a Kathmandu-based hospital, while the third one died on a Nepal Army helicopter that was ferrying the injured to Kathmandu.

People who survived the accident were caught under the mangled remains of the vehicle. They were rescued by a joint team of the Nepal Army, the Armed Police Force and the Nepal Police.

Many of them are said to be in critical condition.

Some passengers travelling on the roof of the bus jumped to save their lives. It was immediately unclear as to what caused the accident. The driver of the bus, identified as Maila Tamang, fled the scene.

One of the survivors, Raju Sherpa, said he saw Tamang jumping off the vehicle just before the crash.

Meanwhile, the relatives of the 12 passengers killed in the accident refused to receive the bodies, demanding compensation for their loss.

] Friday 31 May 2013

http://ekantipur.com/2013/05/30/headlines/15-die-in-Sindhupalchowk-bus-crash/372451/

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Bodies of More Than 200 Stalinist Purge Victims Discovered


The remains of 208 people believed to have been victims of the Stalinist purges have been discovered by a search team near Voronezh, Interfax reported Friday.

Members of the Don Search Team, who were responsible for uncovering the bodies, said that the executions were almost certainly carried out during the most grievous months of the Great Terror, between January and February, 1938.

An anthropological investigation will now be carried out on the remains in a bid to compare any biological data with archival records.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of research groups have sought to find and honor the victims of political repression, as well as conducting proper burials for unknown fallen soldiers.

Friday 31 May 2013

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/bodies-of-more-than-200-stalinist-purge-victims-discovered/480903.html

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With few clues, Afghan pathologists try to put names to torture victims


When the mortal remains of a man named Nawab were brought to what is, in effect, the Kabul C.S.I. on April 30, they all fit easily into a wooden crate small enough to carry under one arm.

Afghan pathologists at the Directorate of Forensic Medical Services do not even have powerful microscopes, let alone sophisticated DNA testing, so identifying those remains was more a session of 20 Questions with family members than a scientific investigation.

Mr. Nawab was one of 17 people who, according to an investigation by the Afghan Defense Ministry, as well as interviews with many of their family members, were last seen being picked up by an American Special Forces A Team in the Nerkh district in Wardak Province. He was reported detained on Jan. 30.

The Afghan authorities have now determined that 10 of those men are dead, with the others unaccounted for as much as six months after their disappearances.

In the crate there were chunks of bone that appeared to have been blown to bits, scorched scraps of flesh, a jawbone with 11 teeth and, most important, pieces of clothing, including part of a shirt with elaborate embroidery. The wear on the teeth indicated a man age 30 or younger, which Mr. Nawab was. But if family members were going to be able to get and bury the remains of Mr. Nawab, a driver from Ibrahim Kheil village, they would have to describe the embroidery and the type of fabric.

It came down to the victim’s mother, who remembered the embroidery because she had done it herself, allowing the family to describe a perfect match with the clothing scraps. Dr. Najibullah said he was satisfied, made the identification and returned Mr. Nawab’s remains to his family. (Like many Afghans, Mr. Nawab used and Dr. Najibullah uses only one name).

The Nerkh disappearances led to a severe strain in relations between the Afghan government and the United States military, with President Hamid Karzai at one point ordering all Special Operations forces out of Wardak Province.

Afghan investigators have accused a man named Zakaria Kandahari, whom they identify as an Afghan-American man working with the American commando team, of detaining, torturing and murdering many of the missing men. They also accuse the American team of at the very least being aware of his actions, if not complicit in them.

The American military said it had repeatedly investigated the disappearances in Nerkh and had found no wrongdoing by any American military personnel. It also insists that Mr. Kandahari is not an American citizen, and that even though he had been employed by the military as an interpreter, he was no longer working for Americans at the time a videotape showed him engaging in at least one case of torture.

“The video surfaced in January, and we started looking into it,” a United States military official said. “Afghans asked us about it; we started digging into this guy’s background.”

In the background of what has publicly played out as a politically delicate and contested criminal case, family members and Afghan forensic investigators have struggled to pin down details of the disappearances and killings.

Human rights investigators have been reluctant to list victims like Mr. Nawab as positively identified in the absence of DNA testing. The only such testing available in Afghanistan is at the American military base at Bagram.

Although the American military has said it investigated the disappearances thoroughly, three times, the results of those inquiries have not been made public, and officials have not been willing to discuss the findings publicly in any detail. No DNA tests were performed by the American authorities on the remains that were found, according to the Afghan authorities.

Dr. Najibullah and a second forensic pathologist who worked on these cases, Gul Rahman, both said they had never been visited by American military investigators, although at least three bodies identified as belonging to the Nerkh missing and found close to the former Special Forces base have been brought to their Kabul facility since April 7. (The other seven dead had been found relatively soon after their disappearances and were easily identified, so were never brought to the forensic center.)

In one case, the video evidence described by Afghan officials directly made the link between a body and the accused man: They say it shows Mr. Kandahari torturing a Nerkh resident identifiable as Sayid Mohammad.

Mr. Mohammad’s body was found on May 21, close to the Nerkh base used by the Special Forces at the time of his disappearance on Nov. 21. Mr. Mohammad’s remains were relatively easy to identify because his body had been sealed in a military-style black body bag and had only partly decomposed, according to Dr. Rahman. His feet had been cut off, but otherwise the body was intact.

A third set of remains found near the Nerkh base has been identified by the pathologists as belonging to Mohammad Qasim, a farmer from Karim Dad village, who was detained by a Special Forces team while attending a wedding ceremony Nov. 6, according to his brother, Shaheedullah, who also attended it. He said the commando team had included both Americans and Afghans, among them Mr. Kandahari.

But when family members went to the Special Forces base the next day, “they didn’t even admit they had detained him,” Mr. Shaheedullah said.

Mr. Qasim’s badly decomposed remains, discovered April 7 within a few hundred yards of the base, were brought to the forensics center in a heavy black plastic bag. Dr. Rahman, who examined them, said many of the bones had been fractured, which he said could have been from torture or from an explosion.

With the remains, which were unearthed in a trash pit, there was a handkerchief with flowers embroidered on it, he said.

Mr. Shaheedullah said family members had been able to describe the flowers in detail, and the pathologists ruled that the remains belonged to his brother.

“We are sure these bodies belong to these specific families,” Dr. Rahman said.

Friday 31 May 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/world/asia/afghan-torture-victim-remains-pose-challenge-to-pathologists.html

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Locals first robbed, then helped victims

br> The Mendhwan accident, which claimed 14 lives, including that of the driver of the container which rammed into an oncoming luxury bus on Wednesday, has brought to light a chilling demonstration of greed taking precedence over life.

The locals who came forward to help the accident victims did so not for nothing. They first rummaged through their baggages, took all valuables and then helped the victims.

This heart-rending story has been told to the police by none other than one of the two drivers of the ill-fated bus (GJ.3.AW.9914) who miraculously survived the big bang with minor injuries.

The fatal collision took place on the Mendhwan Khind bridge on Mumbai-Ahmedabad Highway when Lalaji Amarsingh Rajput, 28, was at the wheel and Mahesh Ramanlal Mina, 35, the additional driver, was sitting next to him.

Both of them visited the Kasa police station on Thursday to give their statement.

In his statement, Mina said that after the accident, he fell out of the bus cabin and saw around 10 locals reaching the spot.

Instead of picking dead bodies and rescuing the injured, they boarded the bus and took away bags. They not only removed valuables from the bags, but also snatched away jewellery from the dead and the injured, Mina said, adding that they came back to help the hapless passengers only after hiding the booty.

Assistant police inspector of Kasa police station Bharat Choudhary said, “We were informed about the theft at the accident spot, but at that very moment our primary responsibility was to save lives. We could only recover those items which were found on the locals. Some handbags are missing and we will look into the matter.”

Friday 31 May 2013

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Salvage mission at Mt Kanchanjungha called off


The search for the five climbers who went missing on Mt Kanchanjungha since May 20 and are presumed dead has been called off Thursday.

The families of the missing climbers including two Nepalis and three foreigners, and the expedition organizer Seven Summit Trekking Agency (SSTA) have decided to stop the search after the team sent for the rescue of the five returned citing extremely bad conditions. The rescue team said the thawing of snow with the advent of summer has made it extremely difficult to climb the mountain in eastern Nepal.

"Our agency tried its best to bring back the bodies. But, we could not continue rescue operation as thawing of snow has already started," said SSTA Manager Minga Sherpa. He also informed that rescuers themselves would be at risk as the snow start melting from the second week of May.

Two Hungarians, a South Korean national, and three Nepali climbers are believed to have died while returning to camp 4 [7,400 meters] after scaling the 8,586 meter peak.

The agency also tried to send a helicopter to bring back the bodies after the effort mobilizing the rescue team on foot failed. However, the chopper also could not reach the incident spot.

Hira Dahal, the pilot, who had attempted to land on the incident spot, said it was impossible to collect the bodies from the height of 7400 meter in bad weather.

"We tried but it is an impossible job to retrieve the dead bodies from the spot," Pilot Dahal said after making an unsuccessful attempt. He also said that the rescue operation would be costlier. "Moreover the bad weather was the greatest impediment in the rescue effort," Dahal added.

Friday 31 May 2013

http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=55446

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Maharashtra to put info about missing children on internet


The state will now maintain an online database of missing children which would not only help it track them but would also enable it to monitor child trafficking into the state. Parents of missing children too will be able to access as well as post information about their child on the portal.

The state's women and child development department recently launched the missing child tracking system (MCTS), to monitor and track every child under the juvenile justice system.

Friday 31 May 2013

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-05-30/pune/39628143_1_child-trafficking-state-child-protection-society-tracking-system

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1 Dead, a dozen missing in Borneo river shipwreck


At least one person has been found dead and a dozen others remain missing after an overloaded passenger ferry sank in a river in the Malaysian portion of the island of Borneo, police said Wednesday.

The accident occurred on Tuesday near Belaga, in Sarawak province.

Authorities on Wednesday raised to 192 the number of survivors after another 11 people were rescued and taken to a shelter set up near the accident site.

Officials have been searching for survivors and/or bodies in a zone up to three kilometers (1.8 miles) from the spot where the ferry sank.

The ferry, the maximum safe operating capacity of which was 67 passengers, was traveling downriver with about 200 people on board, several of them sitting on the roof, when it hit some rocks in the river and capsized.

Most of the passengers were returning to their villages to celebrate the Gawai harvest festival, the most important of the year for members of the Dayak tribe, this coming weekend.

The Malaysian provinces of Sarawak and Sabah occupy the northern portion of Borneo, while the remaining 73 percent of the island's territory belongs to Indonesia.

Friday 31 May 2013

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/agencia-efe/130531/1-dead-a-dozen-missing-in-borneo-river-shipwreck

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Divers recover 10 bodies from Nigeria ship sinking


A contractor for Chevron Corp. in Nigeria says divers have recovered the bodies of 10 sailors who drowned when their ship sank off the coast.

The Jascon-4 capsized early on Sunday due to “heavy ocean swells” while the vessel was “performing towing operations” at a mooring point around 30 kilometres off oil-producing Delta state, Chevron’s Nigeria unit said on Sunday.

Sea Trucks Group said in a statement Friday that one other sailor remained missing from the sinking of the tug boat Jascon 4 some 14 nautical miles off the coast of Escravos, Nigeria. The company says the boat overturned Sunday while trying to tow a tanker in the area.

The company says it has halted recovery efforts as the ship is now too unstable for divers to work in.

Offshore work can be dangerous, as sailors face Nigeria pirate and militant attacks. Industrial accidents happen as well. A sailor drowned in 2010 after falling overboard from a boat working for French oil firm Total SA.

Friday 31 May 2013

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/divers-recover-10-bodies-nigeria-ship-sinking-19296116#.Uai1bonbQ34

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10 killed in Balangir mishap


As many as 10 persons, including two children and two women, were killed and seven of a wedding party were injured in an accident near Khaprakhol in Patnagarh sub-division of Balangir district on Thursday morning.

The accident took place when the victims were returning to their village after attending the party at Khujenpali near Bolangir town. The four-wheeler they were travelling in hit a tree after the driver lost control near Jogimunda on the Patnagarh-Khaprakhol route.

Eye-witnesses said the victims were trapped inside the vehicle and it took hours to rescue the injured passengers. Seven persons were taken to the Patnagarh hospital for treatment. Four of them were injured to VSS Medical College and Hospital, Burla. "We rushed to the spot after hearing about the accident and rescued the injured. It took us hours to rescue the injured persons from the mangled vehicle." zilla parisad member of Khaprakhol Baijayanti Saraf and her husband Dhrub Saraf said.

The bodies of the deceased were handed over to their families after conducting autopsy. "We have taken all steps to provide medical care to the injured persons with the help of the district administration. A compensation of Rs one lakh would be given to the next of kin of the deceased from the chief minister's relief fund," SDPO (Patnagarh) Sunil Joshi said.

Friday 31 May 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/10-killed-in-Balangir-mishap/articleshow/20358786.cms

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Task of Identifying Factories’ Dead Overwhelms Bangladeshi Lab


Inside a small government laboratory here, there are about 300 test tubes, each labeled with masking tape and containing an extracted tooth or a shard of bone. Day and night, dozens of these tubes rest on metal trays that vibrate with a motorized monotony. The shaking decalcifies the bone in a process that requires two weeks before material can be gleaned for a DNA profile.

Hasibul Islam Reaz, 10, has provided blood for efforts to identify his father, who worked in a factory building that collapsed. Outside the laboratory, people are waiting. There are at least 301 unidentified victims of last month’s horrific collapse of the Rana Plaza factory building. Those test tubes represent the only chance of identifying them. More than 500 people have given blood samples in the hopes of finding a DNA match. On a recent morning, Hasibul Islam Reaz, 10, placed a spindly arm before a needle, his eyes widening as his blood drained through a thin tube into a syringe.

“If I give them blood,” the boy said softly, “I will learn where my father is, which body is his.”

First came the frantic search for survivors after Rana Plaza collapsed on April 24. Then came the grueling recovery of victims, with a death toll now at 1,129, the deadliest disaster in the history of the garment industry. Now, with the wreckage cleared, the slow, painstaking process of identifying bodies has become a wrenching exercise, bringing accusations of cover-ups, even as many families struggle to find loved ones and qualify for government compensation.

With its venomous politics and blood-soaked history, Bangladesh is rife with conspiracy theories under normal circumstances. In the Rana Plaza collapse, opposition leaders have claimed — without substantiation — that the government has hidden bodies. Activists have accused the government and industry leaders of intentionally stalling promised compensation payments to survivors and families of the dead.

The anger and controversy have only intensified the pressure on the small staff of the country’s National Forensic DNA Profiling Laboratory. Founded in 2006 with a grant from the Danish Embassy, the lab is now overwhelmed. Completing the DNA profiles could take months. New machines are needed to decalcify the bone samples. Approval is still pending for expensive software capable of sorting through the tens of thousands of possible DNA matches.

“To handle normal situations, the lab is O.K.,” said Sharif Akhteruzzaman, who oversees operations there. “But now a whole year’s caseload has come up, all of a sudden.”

From the moment Rana Plaza collapsed, the scale of the disaster outstripped the capacities of the Bangladeshi government. In the initial days, as dozens of bodies were being pulled hourly from the wreckage, a nearby high school served as a staging area for thousands of people looking for missing relatives or just gawking. Bodies were placed in plank coffins and sprayed with disinfectant as lines of people walked slowly past.

Shaikh Yusuf Harun, deputy commissioner for the district of Dhaka, said the chaos of the moment inevitably led to confusion — and some mistakes. Initially, 291 bodies could not be identified. Officials have also since discovered that 10 bodies were mistakenly turned over to the wrong families and buried in distant villages. In three of those cases, families later discovered that their missing relatives were alive, while in the other seven, remains were simply handed over to the wrong people. There are plans to exhume the bodies and take bone or teeth samples.

Some opportunists took advantage of the tumult. With the huge crowds and local reporters pressing forward, officials were sometimes reluctant to challenge someone who claimed a body. In at least two cases, officials handed over bodies as well as initial payments of 20,000 taka, or about $250, to people who pocketed the cash and dumped the corpses at the edge of the school grounds.

“It was a crisis,” Mr. Harun said. “There could have been a riot. Some officials had to hand over a body.”

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has announced a compensation package for families of those killed at Rana Plaza that could exceed $12,000, with the money coming from public and private sources. The amount is substantial, given that the minimum wage in the garment industry is $37 a month. Yet so far, only 150 families have received the first installment of about $1,100, according to Mr. Harun, prompting criticism that the government is purposely making it difficult for people to claim the money.

Such disputes over compensation are still dragging on from the fire in November that destroyed the Tazreen Fashions garment factory and killed 112 workers who had been making clothing for brands that included Walmart and Sears. One problem for families is merely proving that a relative worked in a factory: at Tazreen, just outside Dhaka, the flames that consumed many victims also destroyed their identification tags. And in the Rana Plaza collapse, rumors have swirled of bodies disappearing after being whisked away in trucks, prompting the leader of the political opposition to accuse the government of a cover-up.

“In Rana Plaza, we suspect the death toll is much higher,” said Jyotirmoy Barua, a lawyer who has been working with victims of the Tazreen Fashions and Rana Plaza disasters. “The only reason for lowering the number is to lower the compensation.”

But such accusations have been sharply rebutted by the government, and many others note that any coordinated effort to hide bodies would have been difficult, given the thousands of people who had rushed to the disaster site, including dozens of journalists filming every development.

“It was not possible,” Mr. Harun said of the rumors. “It is totally baseless.”

One reason for the slow distribution of compensation is that officials say they are struggling in some cases to determine who the rightful claimants are. Most garment workers migrated to the Dhaka region from rural villages. They often supported a spouse and children, and they also sent back money to help their parents.

Now, with the deaths of so many breadwinners, some families are desperate and fighting over the compensation. Mr. Harun said one woman, three months pregnant, lost her husband in the Rana Plaza collapse. She was given his body and his official documents, only to see his parents snatch the documents and make a claim for compensation.

“There are so many cases like this,” Mr. Harun said. “We need to sort them out individually.”

At the DNA laboratory, Mr. Akhteruzzaman said his staff needed two or three months to begin making matches. Ordinarily, scientists can collect tissue soon after a victim’s death and produce a DNA profile within hours. But most of the bodies from Rana Plaza were recovered days or weeks after the building collapsed, too late to collect usable samples, so bone shards or teeth were taken instead.

Bone must be decalcified before any usable material can be collected, a process that takes two weeks per sample. Usually, the small shaking machines are equipped to handle 15 sample test tubes at a time; now, the test tubes are stacked in groups of 30. When that process is completed, Mr. Akhteruzzaman said, the lab must buy software similar to that used after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with the capacity of sorting through so many possible combinations.

Even then, some victims will probably never be identified. “In every disaster, that is the case,” Mr. Akhteruzzaman said. “You cannot find all the people.”

Hasibul, the boy looking for his father, lives in Magura, a village in the northern tier of the country. In 2011, his father, Asadur Zaman, started working as a security guard at Ether Tex, a fifth-floor garment factory in Rana Plaza. He visited Magura twice a year, and his wife and young son made occasional trips to see him. When the building collapsed, Mr. Zaman’s family assumed he was inside: one of his responsibilities was to unlock the factory so that workers could enter.

To make a DNA match, officials suggested that either Mr. Zaman’s mother or father provide a blood sample. But his mother had died recently, and his father had a breakdown after hearing about the building collapse. So Hasibul stepped forward, escorted by his uncle, who said the family’s future depended on proving a DNA match.

“Now they have a terrible life,” said the uncle, Tariqul Islam. “They have no other source of income. The prime minister announced she would give compensation to all the victims. But if we don’t have any official proof, we will not get any compensation.”

Friday 31 May 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/world/asia/bangladeshi-lab-struggles-to-identify-rana-plazas-dead.html?_r=0

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Grim Task of Identifying Factories’ Dead Overwhelms Bangladeshi Lab


Inside a small government laboratory here, there are about 300 test tubes, each labeled with masking tape and containing an extracted tooth or a shard of bone. Day and night, dozens of these tubes rest on metal trays that vibrate with a motorized monotony. The shaking decalcifies the bone in a process that requires two weeks before material can be gleaned for a DNA profile.

Outside the laboratory, people are waiting. There are at least 301 unidentified victims of last month’s horrific collapse of the Rana Plaza factory building. Those test tubes represent the only chance of identifying them. More than 500 people have given blood samples in the hopes of finding a DNA match. On a recent morning, Hasibul Islam Reaz, 10, placed a spindly arm before a needle, his eyes widening as his blood drained through a thin tube into a syringe.

“If I give them blood,” the boy said softly, “I will learn where my father is, which body is his.”

First came the frantic search for survivors after Rana Plaza collapsed on April 24. Then came the grueling recovery of victims, with a death toll now at 1,129, the deadliest disaster in the history of the garment industry. Now, with the wreckage cleared, the slow, painstaking process of identifying bodies has become a wrenching exercise, bringing accusations of cover-ups, even as many families struggle to find loved ones and qualify for government compensation.

With its venomous politics and blood-soaked history, Bangladesh is rife with conspiracy theories under normal circumstances. In the Rana Plaza collapse, opposition leaders have claimed — without substantiation — that the government has hidden bodies. Activists have accused the government and industry leaders of intentionally stalling promised compensation payments to survivors and families of the dead.

The anger and controversy have only intensified the pressure on the small staff of the country’s National Forensic DNA Profiling Laboratory. Founded in 2006 with a grant from the Danish Embassy, the lab is now overwhelmed. Completing the DNA profiles could take months. New machines are needed to decalcify the bone samples. Approval is still pending for expensive software capable of sorting through the tens of thousands of possible DNA matches.

“To handle normal situations, the lab is O.K.,” said Sharif Akhteruzzaman, who oversees operations there. “But now a whole year’s caseload has come up, all of a sudden.”

From the moment Rana Plaza collapsed, the scale of the disaster outstripped the capacities of the Bangladeshi government. In the initial days, as dozens of bodies were being pulled hourly from the wreckage, a nearby high school served as a staging area for thousands of people looking for missing relatives or just gawking. Bodies were placed in plank coffins and sprayed with disinfectant as lines of people walked slowly past.

Shaikh Yusuf Harun, deputy commissioner for the district of Dhaka, said the chaos of the moment inevitably led to confusion — and some mistakes. Initially, 291 bodies could not be identified. Officials have also since discovered that 10 bodies were mistakenly turned over to the wrong families and buried in distant villages. In three of those cases, families later discovered that their missing relatives were alive, while in the other seven, remains were simply handed over to the wrong people. There are plans to exhume the bodies and take bone or teeth samples.

Some opportunists took advantage of the tumult. With the huge crowds and local reporters pressing forward, officials were sometimes reluctant to challenge someone who claimed a body. In at least two cases, officials handed over bodies as well as initial payments of 20,000 taka, or about $250, to people who pocketed the cash and dumped the corpses at the edge of the school grounds.

“It was a crisis,” Mr. Harun said. “There could have been a riot. Some officials had to hand over a body.”

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has announced a compensation package for families of those killed at Rana Plaza that could exceed $12,000, with the money coming from public and private sources. The amount is substantial, given that the minimum wage in the garment industry is $37 a month. Yet so far, only 150 families have received the first installment of about $1,100, according to Mr. Harun, prompting criticism that the government is purposely making it difficult for people to claim the money.

Such disputes over compensation are still dragging on from the fire in November that destroyed the Tazreen Fashions garment factory and killed 112 workers who had been making clothing for brands that included Walmart and Sears. One problem for families is merely proving that a relative worked in a factory: at Tazreen, just outside Dhaka, the flames that consumed many victims also destroyed their identification tags. And in the Rana Plaza collapse, rumors have swirled of bodies disappearing after being whisked away in trucks, prompting the leader of the political opposition to accuse the government of a cover-up.

“In Rana Plaza, we suspect the death toll is much higher,” said Jyotirmoy Barua, a lawyer who has been working with victims of the Tazreen Fashions and Rana Plaza disasters. “The only reason for lowering the number is to lower the compensation.”

But such accusations have been sharply rebutted by the government, and many others note that any coordinated effort to hide bodies would have been difficult, given the thousands of people who had rushed to the disaster site, including dozens of journalists filming every development.

“It was not possible,” Mr. Harun said of the rumors. “It is totally baseless.”

One reason for the slow distribution of compensation is that officials say they are struggling in some cases to determine who the rightful claimants are. Most garment workers migrated to the Dhaka region from rural villages. They often supported a spouse and children, and they also sent back money to help their parents.

Now, with the deaths of so many breadwinners, some families are desperate and fighting over the compensation. Mr. Harun said one woman, three months pregnant, lost her husband in the Rana Plaza collapse. She was given his body and his official documents, only to see his parents snatch the documents and make a claim for compensation.

“There are so many cases like this,” Mr. Harun said. “We need to sort them out individually.”

At the DNA laboratory, Mr. Akhteruzzaman said his staff needed two or three months to begin making matches. Ordinarily, scientists can collect tissue soon after a victim’s death and produce a DNA profile within hours. But most of the bodies from Rana Plaza were recovered days or weeks after the building collapsed, too late to collect usable samples, so bone shards or teeth were taken instead.

Bone must be decalcified before any usable material can be collected, a process that takes two weeks per sample. Usually, the small shaking machines are equipped to handle 15 sample test tubes at a time; now, the test tubes are stacked in groups of 30. When that process is completed, Mr. Akhteruzzaman said, the lab must buy software similar to that used after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with the capacity of sorting through so many possible combinations.

Even then, some victims will probably never be identified. “In every disaster, that is the case,” Mr. Akhteruzzaman said. “You cannot find all the people.”

Hasibul, the boy looking for his father, lives in Magura, a village in the northern tier of the country. In 2011, his father, Asadur Zaman, started working as a security guard at Ether Tex, a fifth-floor garment factory in Rana Plaza. He visited Magura twice a year, and his wife and young son made occasional trips to see him. When the building collapsed, Mr. Zaman’s family assumed he was inside: one of his responsibilities was to unlock the factory so that workers could enter.

To make a DNA match, officials suggested that either Mr. Zaman’s mother or father provide a blood sample. But his mother had died recently, and his father had a breakdown after hearing about the building collapse. So Hasibul stepped forward, escorted by his uncle, who said the family’s future depended on proving a DNA match.

“Now they have a terrible life,” said the uncle, Tariqul Islam. “They have no other source of income. The prime minister announced she would give compensation to all the victims. But if we don’t have any official proof, we will not get any compensation.”

Friday 25 April 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/world/asia/bangladeshi-lab-struggles-to-identify-rana-plazas-dead.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

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Monday 27 May 2013

Death toll reaches 524 in Andhra Pradesh heat wave


The death toll in the heat wave that continues to grip Andhra Pradesh mounted to 524, officials said on Sunday.

The commissioner disaster management, who had on Saturday put the toll at 294 since April 1, revised it to 524.The highest maximum temperature of 47 degrees Celsius was recorded onSunday at Tuni and Visakhpatnam. Kakinada and Vijayawada recorded 46 degrees Celsius.

The mercury touched 45 degrees Celsius in Bapatla, Machilipatnam, Rentachintala, Hanamkonda and Ramagundam. According to a statement released by the commissioner, Guntur district bore the brunt with 95 deaths. Prakasam district accounted for 75 deaths, East Godavari 60, Nalgonda 47, Adilabad and Karimnagar 43 each, Khammam 26, Warangal 20, West Godavari and Nizamabad district 16 each.

India Meteorological Department has warned that severe heat wave conditions would prevail in coastal Andhra and heat wave conditions in parts of Telangana during the next 48 hours.

The government has already announced a compensation of Rs 50,000 each to the kin of each of those who have died of sun-stroke.

Monday 27 May 2013

http://post.jagran.com/death-toll-reaches-524-as-heat-wave-continues-to-grip-andhra-pradesh-1369640436

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Mexico bus accident: 16 dead, 19 injured


Mexican authorities say a bus apparently went out of control after a blowout and turned over, killing 16 people in central Hidalgo state.

State attorney general’s spokesman Fernando Hidalgo says the accident happened Sunday afternoon as a group of tourists was returning to Mexico City from a weekend trip to the thermal baths in the town of Santa Maria Amajac.

Hidalgo says witnesses reported that the bus driver lost control when the vehicle blew a tire. The bus hit a guard rail and flipped. The official says the bus was an old model from the 1970s and in poor condition.

The attorney general’s Twitter account says seven men, seven women and two children died. Nineteen people were injured.

Monday 27 May 2013

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/415917/bus-flips-over-in-mexico-16-dead-19-injured

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Etah bus mishap: 19 bodies found, compensation announced


[Update]Nineteen people were confirmed dead after a bus from Farukkhabad to New Delhi fell into a canal in Etah late Sunday, police said Monday. The accident took place 265 km from Lucknow.

While eight bodies were fished out till early Monday, by noon 11 more bodies were recovered from the canal, taking the toll to 19.

Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh State Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) has announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs.50,000 to those killed in the accident and Rs.5,000 each to those injured.

Due to the strong current in the the Hazara canal, many passengers are feared to have been washed away.

Twenty-two passengers have been rescued by divers of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) from canal waters, police said.

"We are told that more than 58 passengers were travelling in the bus," a senior official overseeing the rescue operations told IANS, adding that those injured said that the driver appeared drunk.

District Magistrate Lokesh M. told IANS that the condition of some passengers rescued from the Hazara canal continues to be critical.

"Search operations are on as we have not been able to locate missing passengers," Lokesh said.

The injured passengers told police that the the bus driver was trying to overtake a truck near Pilua police station when he lost control of the vehicle, and it fell into the canal.

Home department officials said divers were trying to locate passengers who may be trapped in the canal. An official said identification of bodies would only be possible later in the day.

Their exact number could not be ascertained yet, Etah District Magistrate Lokesh M said, adding relief and rescue operation was on at the spot

Monday 27 May 2013

http://newindianexpress.com/nation/UP-bus-mishap-19-bodies-found-compensation-announced/2013/05/27/article1607962.ece

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Bus dives into canal in Etah, more than 24 feared dead


Over two dozen people are believed to have lost their lives as the bus in which they were travelling from Farukkhabad to New Delhi fell into a canal in Etah late on Sunday, the police said on Monday.

The incident took place 265 km away from Lucknow. While eight bodies have been fished out of Hazara canal and 22 passengers have been saved from the canal waters, the police said they fear more than two dozen people have been washed away.

"The bus was jam-packed and we are told that more than 58 passengers were travelling in it," a senior official overseeing the rescue operations said. District Magistrate Lokesh M said that the condition of some of the passengers rescued from Hazara canal continues to be critical.

"Rescue operations are on as we have not been able to locate the missing passengers," he said. The injured passengers told police that the bus driver was trying to overtake a truck near Pilua police station when he lost control of the vehicle and it fell into the canal.

Home department officials said divers have been put into service to trace out more passengers who might be trapped in the canal. An official said it would only be later in the day that identification of those dead would be possible.

Monday 27 May 2013

http://post.jagran.com/over-24-feared-dead-in-etah-bus-accident-1369627836

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India: betting on the dead is a tradition


Bizarre though it may sound, people are making a quick buck by betting on the dead.

Betting and fixing, apparently, is not restricted to cricket alone and in Varanasi’s famous Manikarnika Ghat, the bookies make fast money by betting on the dead.

The Manikarnika Ghat in Varanasi is considered the most pious cremation ground for Hindus and it is believed that the fire in the pyre never dies down here.

Bookies have turned something as solemn as cremation of bodies into big business.

According to an insider, heavy bets are placed on the gender of the body being brought for cremation — whether it is male or female — then on the direction from which the body is being brought in, the type of vehicle the body is being brought in and even the quality of wood that will be purchased by the relatives to burn the body.

The bookies, mostly the local people, come to the Manikarnika Ghat before sunrise and betting begins from around 4 am.

“Each bet is around `1000 and at the end of the day, each one of us makes around `4,000 to `6,000. Those who lay bets on the gender of the body, direction from which it is being brought in, kind of wood and even the time taken for the body to get fully consumed by fire obviously end up winning or losing more than `10,000 per day,” says Rajan, a bookie.

He explains that they can easily decide the financial status of the deceased from the kind of people accompanying his body. “We can tell if the relatives will buy sandalwood and desi ghee for the cremation or use ordinary ingredients.

The kind of vehicle is another tell-tale sign. A person from an affluent family will be brought in an ambulance or hearse car while the poor will bring in the body in a tempo or a jeep. We place our bets after studying these factors,’ he says.

Betting at Manikarnika Ghat is done through cell phones, without uttering a word. The dozen odd bookies sit around the ghats without interacting with each other and send signals when they sight a dead body.

“Even the local people like shopkeepers and priests do not know that we indulge in betting. They think we are simply loitering around doing nothing. If our ‘business’ is disclosed, we may have to leave because of the religious sentiments involved in this,” says Rajan.

Sources at the ghat say that the local police are fully aware of the bookie business and even take a “cut” regularly.

Monday 27 May 2013

http://www.asianage.com/india/betting-dead-tradition-here-899

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Sunday 26 May 2013

Bangladesh building collapse death rises to 1,129


The death toll from the collapse of a Bangladesh garment factory complex has risen to 1,129 after two more injured workers died a month after the disaster, officials said on Sunday.

Senior government official Zillur Rahman Chowdhury told AFP one male and one female victim of one of the world's worst industrial disasters had died in hospital.

"They were rescued alive from the rubble and were undergoing treatment but succumbed to injuries, one on Friday and the other on Saturday," Chowdhury said.

More than 3,000 garment workers were on shift at the nine-storey Rana Plaza complex, where they made clothing for Western retailers including Britain's Primark and Spain's Mango, when the building caved in on April 24.

Authorities called off the search for bodies on May 14 after rescuing a total of 2,438 people from the ruins of the building, which housed five garment factories in the Dhaka suburb of Savar.

An 18-year-old garment worker known only as Reshma was the last to be pulled out alive on May 10 after she spent 17 days under the rubble. She is recovering at a military hospital.

Scores of distraught relatives are still waiting for news of missing loved ones a month after the disaster, as 316 people are still formally unaccounted for.

Many of them are thought to be bodies recovered from the rubble, which were too badly damaged or decomposed to identify.

They were buried at a graveyard in Dhaka after DNA samples were collected. These will be matched later on with relatives' DNA to confirm identity and compensate families.

The tragedy, which highlighted appalling safety conditions in the sector, was the latest in a string of deadly accidents to hit the world's second largest garment industry.

A factory fire in Dhaka killed eight people on May 9. Another fire last November killed 111 garment workers, the worst blaze in the history of the country's textile industry.

Sunday 26 May 2013

http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/article/17335243/bangladesh-building-disaster-toll-rises-to-1-129/

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DNA may help military end era of unknown soldiers


More than 83,000 service members lost since the beginning of World War II remain missing, according to the Defense Department. Many lie in forgotten battlefield graves and beneath memorials of solemn anonymity.

But advancing techniques and DNA technology mean the United States might have buried its last unknown soldier. In offices and laboratories across the country and archaeological sites scattered across continents, teams of investigators and scientists comb the past for the country's lost defenders.

Half a world away from her father's final battlefield, Barbara Ann Broyles grew up, married and had three children. She was 41⁄2 years old when Faith died east of the Chosin Reservoir in Korea in 1950. The scattered, retreating remnants of his troops left behind his body.

She made a home in Baton Rouge. She watched America's relationship with North Korea deteriorate, and her hope for her father's recovery faded.

Then in late September, the phone rang. Retired Air Force Maj. Michael Mee wanted to meet with her.

They'd found him, he said.

Two military agencies — the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, based in Honolulu, and the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, based in Arlington, Va. — keep a case file on every missing soldier, sailor, airman and Marine, said retired Lt. Col. William Woodier, 66, a DPMO researcher.

“We don't ever quit,” Woodier said. He covers the Chosin Reservoir area, where hundreds of soldiers and Marines went missing during 10 days of fighting.

Among veterans Woodier interviewed were men who carried Faith, mortally wounded, to his jeep after he led an assault on Chinese blocking his battalion's retreat.

Woodier retired in May 2006, but the memory of a missing friend from another war binds him to the task at DPMO. Corpsman Mike Laporte, a fellow reconnaissance Marine, disappeared during a parachute drop into South Vietnam on Sept. 5, 1967.

Woodier said he intends to stay at DPMO until Laporte comes home or “somebody finds me face-down at my desk, I guess.”

“There are way too many people still waiting for their loved ones to come home,” Woodier said. “My corpsman is still missing.”

The Korean War was Faith's second. He parachuted into Normandy, Sicily and the Ardennes during World War II, and played poker with Russian soldiers at the Brandenburg Gate. Gen. Omar Bradley gave his wife and daughter the Medal of Honor he earned for leadership along the banks of Chosin Reservoir, where a surprise Chinese attack cut down hundreds of soldiers.

Broyles, 66, recalls difficult conversations with survivors who wanted to tell her how her father died.

One remembered lying among battered, exhausted troops in a medical tent when Faith walked in. Using a rifle as a crutch, he asked them to push a little farther.

“I need you,” he told them.

The veteran said they would have followed her father “to hell and back.”

“But, of course, they had,” Broyles said, “except not back.”

Low on ammunition, with hundreds wounded, Faith tried to lead a retreat through entrenched Chinese troops, according to an Army history. Of 3,500 men who pushed north with Faith days earlier, about 385 remained fit for combat, said JPAC historian Michael Dolski.

A U.S. airstrike meant to aid them dropped napalm on the convoy's lead element.

“All he could do was yell, and say, ‘Follow me.' And he led, and they followed him,” Broyles said.

Researchers at JPAC and DPMO identify likely sites of remains. An archaeological team visited North Korea in 2004 and found skeletal remains of 30 people jumbled in a mass grave near Chosin Reservoir.

They shipped the bones to Honolulu, where JPAC operates the largest accredited skeletal forensics laboratory in the world, said Debra Prince Zinni, a forensic anthropologist who helped identify Faith's remains.

She uses bones to determine gender, age and ancestry, and to look for identifying marks. That takes about two weeks, but a backlog of requests at the DNA lab delays test results by as much as a year. The difficulty of piecing together DNA from decades-old remains can add more time. Sometimes, the first sample isn't enough and the process starts anew.

Then researchers try to match analyzed samples with DNA samples taken from thousands of family members. They identified 80 people last year.

A few days after Mee called in September, Broyles' family gathered at her house. Mee arrived with two military officers and a thick briefing book containing hundreds of pages of peer-reviewed forensic studies, DNA analysis, witness accounts of the battle, and other evidence collected during decades of searching — even a letter Broyles' mother wrote to the Army in the 1950s about her husband's death.

Their meeting lasted for six hours, Broyles said.

“The object, as I look back on it, was to present to us all the information in such a way that we could be comfortable in saying that, despite all odds, that's my father. They've found him,” Broyles said.

In April, Broyles and her family stood on the tarmac at Ronald Reagan International Airport when the jet from Hawaii landed. Nearly 800 aircraft take off and land from the airport each day, but as the honor guard carried Faith's flag-draped casket from the plane, “you couldn't see anyone moving,” Broyles said.

“They all stopped.”

She asked officers at Arlington National Cemetery, where Faith's parents are buried, for an open-casket service, a rare request for partial remains.

“It just seems like a box is just a box,” she told them. “He's here. I want it clear that he's here.”

The undertakers wrapped his bones in a white shroud and wrapped the shroud in an Army blanket. Atop the blanket they laid his folded uniform. The casket remained open.

The U.S. Army Band and honor guard led the procession to his hilltop grave, marching beneath trees frosted green with the early blooms. Seven horses drew the black caisson carrying Faith's coffin. Broyles led the family and friends who followed.

“They actually did it. ... They found him,” she said. “None of his brothers are alive. None of his parents are alive. His wife died a long time ago. (But) they didn't forget. They found him and brought him back.”

Sunday 26 May 2013

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/3807977-74/faith-broyles-army

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Last inspection: precise ritual of dressing nation’s war dead


The soldier bent to his work, careful as a diamond cutter. He carried no weapon or rucksack, just a small plastic ruler, which he used to align a name plate, just so, atop the breast pocket of an Army dress blue jacket, size 39R.

Staff members at the Dover Port Mortuary discuss the honor — and challenge — of preparing fallen American soliders for their final journeys home.

Sergeant Deynes, guided by an official military record, assembles the badges, medals, unit patches and ribbons that would go on the dress jacket.

“Blanchard,” the plate read.

Capt. Aaron R. Blanchard, a 32-year-old Army pilot, had been in Afghanistan for only a few days when an enemy rocket killed him and another soldier last month as they dashed toward their helicopter. Now he was heading home.

But before he left the mortuary here, he would need to be properly dressed. And so Staff Sgt. Miguel Deynes labored meticulously, almost lovingly, over every crease and fold, every ribbon and badge, of the dress uniform that would clothe Captain Blanchard in his final resting place.

“It’s more than an honor,” Sergeant Deynes said. “It’s a blessing to dress that soldier for the last time.”

About 6,700 American service members have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and almost every one of their remains have come through the Dover Port Mortuary. Yet only since 2009 have journalists been allowed to photograph coffins returning from the war zones, the most solemn of rites at this air base. The intimate details of the process have been kept from public view.

But recently the Air Force, which oversees the mortuary, allowed a reporter and a photographer to observe the assembling of dress uniforms for those who have died. A small slice of the process, to be sure, but enough to appreciate the careful ritual that attends the war dead of the United States military.

And enough to glimpse the arc of two long wars.

Housed in a partly unheated building before the wars began, the mortuary moved into a new 72,000-square-foot building in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq. Then, as the wars expanded, so did the mortuary staff: from 7 workers in 2001 to more than 60 today.

War also brought, for a time, unrelenting work. During the peak of fighting in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, 10 to 20 bodies arrived here each day, and embalmers often worked all night to get remains home on time.

“I have deployed to Afghanistan,” said Col. John M. Devillier, the commander of Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations. “But I’ve seen more war here.”

For each of the war dead, the journey through Dover begins with the arrival of a cargo jet that is met by military officials and, usually, family members. A team of service members wearing white gloves carries the coffins, covered with flags, to a white van that takes them to the Armed Forces Medical Examiner. Once an autopsy is completed, the work of the mortuary staff begins.

Remains are first embalmed and then washed. Hands are scrubbed clean, hair is shampooed. Where appropriate, bones are wired together and damaged tissue is reconstructed with flesh-toned wax. Using photographs, or just intuition, the embalmers try to recreate the wrinkles in faces, the lines around mouths, the corners and lids of eyes.

“It has to look normal, like someone who is sleeping,” said Petty Officer First Class Jennifer Howell, a Navy liaison at the mortuary who has a mortician’s license.

Once the body is ready, the mortuary staff prepares dress uniforms for each, even if the coffin is closed at the funeral with the uniform laid on top of the remains, and even if the body is to be cremated.

Work on Captain Blanchard’s uniform began the morning after his body arrived at Dover, in a room lined with wood closets and walls hung thick with military accouterments. There, Sergeant Deynes, guided by the captain’s official military record, began assembling the dozens of badges, medals, unit patches and ribbons that would go on the dress jacket.

Purple, orange and gold captains’ bars, denoting an aviator. Purple Heart. Overseas Service Badge. Sergeant Deynes searched along the walls and in tiny plastic drawers for each. Then he assembled the ribbons denoting the captain’s awards in the proper order according to precedence: a Bronze Star, his highest medal, went on the top, and the others followed like the words on a page.

When finished, he slipped them onto a metal “ribbon rack” and pinned it above the jacket’s left breast pocket. Then he took a photograph to be sent to Army personnel headquarters at Fort Knox for double checking. The process has to be “100 percent perfect,” said William Zwicharowski, the Dover Port Mortuary branch chief, because “a lot of times, families are in denial and they want to find something that gives them hope that it wasn’t their son or daughter.”

Cpl. Landon L. Beaty, the Marine Corps liaison, recalled receiving a hard lesson in uniform assemblage when he first came to the mortuary last year. After inspecting a Marine’s uniform for loose threads, he thought he had found every one — until his boss found 73 more. Corporal Beaty voluntarily did three push-ups for each missed thread.

Working so intimately with the dead can take a toll, so the mortuary has a large gym and a recreation room where workers are encouraged to blow off steam. A team of chaplains and mental health advisers are available for counseling.

Mr. Zwicharowski, a former Marine, said many workers were haunted by the youthfulness of the dead, and by the fact that so many leave behind children. He counsels his staff to avoid researching their backgrounds, but he has not always abided by his own advice.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, he read a note placed in the coffin of a boy who died on the jet that crashed into the Pentagon. It was from a brother, thanking the boy for defending him on the playground days before.

“It was something I wish I didn’t do, and I learned my lesson not to do it again,” Mr. Zwicharowski said, fighting back tears. “If I knew the story of every individual who went through here, I would probably be in a padded cell.”

Mr. Zwicharowski was one of several employees who reported problems at the mortuary several years ago that included workers losing body parts and sawing off the arm of a dead Marine without consulting his family.

According to a report issued in late 2011 by the Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that handles complaints from whistle-blowers, senior mortuary officials tried to cover up the problems and then punished the employees who reported them, including Mr. Zwicharowski. Since then, the Air Force has removed those officials, installing Colonel Devillier as the commander and promoting Mr. Zwicharowski to mortuary chief.

“We’re in a posture better than we ever have been,” said Mr. Zwicharowski, who was the director of a private funeral home in Pennsylvania before joining the Dover mortuary in 1999.

Sergeant Deynes began putting the final touches on Captain Blanchard’s uniform immediately after it returned from the base tailor, who had sewn captain’s bars onto the jacket shoulders and purple and gold aviator braids onto the sleeves — three inches above the bottom, to be exact. The sergeant starched and pressed a white shirt, ironed a crease into the pants, steamed wrinkles out of the jacket and then rolled a lint remover over all of it, twice.

Gently, he laid the pieces onto a padded table. Black socks protruded from the pants and white gloves from the sleeves. The funeral would be a closed coffin, but it all still had to look right.

“They are not going to see it,” he said. “I do it for myself.”

A week later, Captain Blanchard’s remains were flown to his home state, Washington, where he was buried in a military cemetery near Spokane.

His mother, Laura Schactler, said Captain Blanchard enlisted in the Marines after high school and served two tours in Iraq before marrying and returning home to attend college on an Army R.O.T.C. scholarship. After graduating, he learned to fly Apache attack helicopters, fulfilling a boyhood dream.

Before his funeral, Ms. Schactler spent time alone with her son but did not open his coffin. But later that night, she said, her husband and two other sons did, wanting to say one last farewell.

Inside, they saw a uniform, white gloves crossed, buttons gleaming, perfect in every detail.

Sunday 26 May 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/us/intricate-rituals-for-fallen-americans-troops.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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40 exhumed bodies of Ivorian crisis victims ready for collection


The Ivorian Government has said 40 exhumed bodies of victims of the country’s post-election violence were ready for collection and final burial by their families.

Justice Minister Gnenema Coulibaly, who made this known at a symbolic hand-over in honour of the victims in Abidjan, said the 22 bodies had already been identified by their families.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Ivorian government, with the support of some interventionist and human rights groups, flagged-off the exhumation exercise on April 4.

Coulibaly said the essence of the exercise was to bring justice to the souls of ``those Ivorians who died during the crisis’’.

``This gathering is to express our sincere honour and respect to our citizens who lost their lives during the political crisis. I sincerely present to the families of the victims, the sincere condolences of the Government and te people of Cote d’Ivoire,’’ he said.

In his remark, Mr. Diaby Siaka, a representative of the Families and Relatives of victims of the post-election crisis, called on the government to assist the families with funds to ensure befitting burials for the victims.

Sunday 26 May 2013

http://www.championonlinenews.com/index.php/en/champion-mainnews/latest-news/item/5727-40-exhumed-bodies-of-ivorian-crisis-victims-ready-for-collection-%E2%80%94minister

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Zanzibar honours victims of marine disaster


PLANS are underway to construct a fence to protect the graveyard, where people who died in 2011 and 2012 marine accidents lie, the Zanzibar State Minister Mr Mohammed Aboud Mohammed has said.

“The government has allocated more than 100m/- for the project. We have to protect the graveyards of people who died in MV Spice Islanders, and MV Skagit,” said Mohammed when he visited the areaKama, Unguja West district.

He said the aim of the fencing project to be managed by the disaster department is to prevent people from invading the graveyard area.

MV Spice Islander capsized on September 10, 2011 killing more thane 240 people, while MV Skagit drowned on July 18 last year killing more than 140 people.

Most of the bodies retrieved from the both accidents were buried by the state at Kama area.

Sunday 26 May 2013

http://www.dailynews.co.tz/index.php/local-news/17851-zanzibar-honours-victims-of-marine-disaster

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Saturday 25 May 2013

11 people killed as passenger bus overturns on Yangon-Nay Pyi Taw highway in Myanmar


At least 11 people were killed and 15 others injured on Saturday when a a passenger bus overturned on Yangon-Nay Pyi Taw highway in Myanmar due to overshoot, state-run radio reported.

With about 30 passengers on board, the bus "Manshwe Myodaw", setting out from Yangon and heading for Mandalay, overturned at 6: 30 a.m. (local time) at a location about 127 km from Nay Pyi Taw, claiming the lives of 11 people on the spot.

A U.S. national was slightly injured during the accident in which the bus was almost destroyed.

The injured were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Saturday 25 May 2013

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-05/25/c_132408317.htm

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Landslide Kills 7, Injures 12 in Northwest China


Seven people died and 12 others were injured after a landslide buried a dormitory building in Northwest China's Shaanxi province on Saturday morning,Seven people died and 12 others were injured after a landslide buried a dormitory building in Northwest China's Shaanxi province on Saturday morning, local authorities said.

The landslide happened around 10 am in Cangcun Township of Huangling County, burying a two-story dormitory owned by a coal mine, according to the county's publicity bureau.

The rescue had completed as of 7 pm, and the injured have been sent to a local hospital, the bureau said. local authorities said.

The landslide happened around 10 am in Cangcun Township of Huangling County, burying a two-story dormitory owned by a coal mine, according to the county's publicity bureau.

The rescue had completed as of 7 pm, and the injured have been sent to a local hospital, the bureau said.

Saturday 25 May 2013

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-05/25/coent_16nt532453.htm

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5 climbers feared dead on world's third-highest peak in Nepal


Five men who disappeared earlier this week trying to climb the world’s third-highest mountain are feared dead, searchers leading the recovery effort in Nepal said on Friday, saying few could survive this long that high.

One of them is 45-year-old Hungarian climber Zsolt Eross, who has climbed 12 of the world’s 14 highest peaks and who was climbing this week with a prosthetic leg after a 2010 accident.

The group climbing the 28,169-foot Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas included a South Korean, another Hungarian and two Sherpas, BBC said.

“All our efforts to trace them have failed,” an expedition organizer told BBC. “The weather is bad and we’ve run out of resources to recover their bodies.”

The men were identified as Namsoo Park, 47, Eross, Peter Kiss, 27, Bibash Gurung, 24, and Pho Dorchi, 23.

Eross was an experienced climber who reached the summit of Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest peak, last year after losing his right leg below the knee in 2010.

According to the New York Times, there might have been a fall while the climbers descended from 25,900 feet.

A Hungarian news blog said it was Kiss who fell, and suggested subsequent recovery efforts are unlikely.

“The search and rescue operation is over,” expedition spokesman Szabolcs Vincze said. “The Sherpas did their best and they returned to a safe altitude once again without finding any traces of the climbers. … If Peter and Zsolt stuck at that altitude and spent the night outdoors, they had virtually no chance to survive.”

BBC called Kanchenjunga “technically challenging with high chances of blizzards and avalanches.”

May is considered the best month to attempt a summit in the Himalayas.

Saturday 25 May 2013

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/130524/5-climbers-feared-dead-worlds-third-highest-peak-nepal

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Pakistan school bus fire kills 16 children


At least 16 children and their teacher have been killed when their school bus caught fire in eastern Pakistan, police say.

At least seven more children were taken to hospital after the incident on the outskirts of the city of Gujrat.

Police told the BBC a compressed gas cylinder had exploded on the bus after fire broke out.

The bus driver is reported to have survived.

The children, aged between four and 10, were just a few kilometres from their school in Gujrat, about 200km (120 miles) south-east of the capital Islamabad, when the incident happened.

Police officer Dar Ali Khattak told the AFP news agency the fire was apparently caused by a spark when the driver of the dual-fuel bus switched from gas to petrol.

Two children who survived by escaping from a window in the back of the bus told reporters they had smelt gas before the fire broke out.

One boy said the other children were shouting: "Brother, save us, save us. We are burning."

"I took a huge stick and broke the glass. I tried to save them but I couldn't," he said.

Compressed natural gas is used in millions of vehicles in Pakistan as a cheaper alternative to diesel and petrol.

Numerous previous vehicle explosions have been blamed on substandard cylinders used to contain the fuel.

Saturday 25 May 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22664819

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Python hunter finds mystery gold pendant deep in the Florida everglades... but is it from a tragic plane crash?


A man who was searching for pythons discovered a piece of actual treasure instead.

Mark Rubenstein was taking part in the Florida state-wide python killing competition when he discovered a gold pendant adorned with diamonds and sapphires.

Mr Rubenstein found the piece of jewellery in the Everglades in February, and because of the location of the discovery, he believes that it landed in the swamp in the wreckage of a fatal plane crash.

Though the Florida coast has been the site of many shipwrecks in the past, this find is not thought to be a remnant of the Spanish era in spite of the fact that the design of the jewel harkens back to the 17th century.


Instead, Rubernstein and his cohorts have determined that the jewel was probably left behind as a result of one of two different plane crashes.

Eastern Flight 401 crashed in the same area of the Everglades in 1972, and a ValuJet plane crashed in May 1996 just 300 yards away from where Rubenstein found the pendant.

There were significant casualty totals in both crashes, as more than 100 people died in each flight.

Rubenstein described the discovery in a detailed account to PR Wire of his multi-day, unsuccessful search for pythons.

'It was just a glint but being part magpie I am obligated to stop,' he wrote.

'It takes me a couple of times of walking back and forth to find it. The guys think I’m nuts until I unearth it. It’s gold.'

He then took it to a local jeweller to have it examined, who confirmed that the nickel-sized pendant is officially made of gold and 'Rose Cut' diamonds which is arranged in a cross in the middle and possible three leaf cluster formation.

'When I brought this up to my friends we all had the same reaction. We agreed in concert that it would be very good karma to get this piece “home,"' Mr Rubenstein wrote.

He told FoxNews that if he is not able to reunite the piece with the rightful heirs, he will donate it to the Archdiocese of Miami.

Saturday 25 May 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330758/Python-hunter-finds-mystery-gold-pendant-deep-Florida-everglades--tragic-plane-crash-killed-hundreds-people.html

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Friday 24 May 2013

Long wait for relatives a month after Bangladesh disaster


Relatives said Friday they were still waiting for news of their missing loved ones, as many gathered to mark one month since Bangladesh's worst industrial tragedy.

A government official said on Friday that more than 300 people were still formally unaccounted for after the collapse of the garment factory complex on April 24 that killed 1,127 people.

Family of the dead and missing along with labour activists and students gathered to lay floral wreaths at the site.

Nasima Begum, 40, said she had searched tirelessly since the tragedy for her son who had been working on the third floor of the doomed building.

"I have checked everywhere, at hospitals, at mortuaries, at graveyards, but I did not find my son or his dead body," Begum told AFP at the site on the outskirts of Dhaka, clutching a photograph of him.

Authorities have stopped searching for bodies at the nine-storey Rana Plaza complex in Savar district since the tragedy that highlighted appalling safety conditions in the sector.

Most of Bangladesh's top garment factories, which make clothing for a string of major Western retailers including Walmart, H&M, Tesco, Inditex and Carrefour, are based at Savar.

Authorities say at least 2,438 people -- mostly female garment workers -- were rescued from the site, including 968 people who were seriously injured.

But the chief government administrator of the local district said that "some 316 people are still unaccounted for".

Many of those are thought to be bodies recovered from the rubble, which were too badly damaged to identify. They were buried at a graveyard in Dhaka after DNA samples were collected for later identification, authorities have said.

"We have kept DNA profiles of unidentified bodies before burial. We will match those profiles with their relatives' to confirm identity and compensation beneficiaries," the official, Kamrul Hasan Molla, told AFP.

Begum said she had given her DNA sample to the authorities to match it against those collected from the bodies, but had heard nothing.

Some of those gathered at the site angrily demanded that the government improve safety standards in the nation's 4,500 garment plants, as well as punish those responsible for the collapse.

"This is no way an accident, this is murder of so many workers, which is unprecedented in our history," said Anik Biswash, a university student in Dhaka.

"We demand exemplary punishment to the culprits and the government upgrades factory safety standards to prevent such disasters in future."

Friday 24 May 2013

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130524/long-wait-relatives-month-after-bangladesh-disaster

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Oklahoma officials identify all tornado victims


The death toll from this week’s monster tornado in Oklahoma stands at 24, with all victims positively identified.

The Oklahoma medical examiner’s office says 10 of those who died were children, including two infants. The eight other children range in age from 4 years old to 9 years old.

While mourning their dead, many residents remain stunned that the twister didn’t claim more lives during its 17 miles and 40 minutes on the ground.

Even as rain and storms hit the state again on Thursday morning, the massive cleanup continued.

All that is left of Shayne Patteson’s three-bedroom home is the tiny area where his wife hunkered down under a mattress to protect their three children when a tornado packing winds of at least 200 mph slammed through his neighborhood.

Patteson vowed to rebuild, likely in the same place, but said next time he will have an underground storm shelter.

“That is the first thing that will be going into the design of the house, is the storm shelter and the garage,” he said as he looked around piles of bricks and plywood where their home once stood.

Patteson’s home was among as many as 13,000 homes damaged or destroyed Monday when the twister plowed through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore. About 33,000 people were affected, officials said, though the number left homeless was still unknown because most of the displaced were believed to be staying with friends or relatives; only two dozen or so have stayed overnight at Red Cross shelters.

At the same time, more details emerged on the human toll, including heartbreaking stories about the final moments of some of the children who were among the people killed. One elementary school was reduced to rubble when the tornado hit. Another was heavily damaged.

While anguish over the deaths was palpable as residents began to pick up their shattered neighborhoods, many remained stunned that the twister didn’t take a higher human toll during its 40 minutes on the ground.

“The tornado that we’re talking about is the 1 or 2 percent tornado,” Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management Director Albert Ashwood said of the twister, which measured a top-of-the-scale EF5 with winds of at least 200 mph. “This is the anomaly that flattens everything to the ground.”

The medical examiner reported that six of the children who died at the Plaza Towers Elementary School suffocated after being buried under a mass of bricks, steel and other materials as the building collapsed. A seventh child who perished there, 8-year-old Kyle Davis, was killed instantly by an object—perhaps a large piece of stone or a beam—that fell on the back of his neck.

With all of the missing now accounted for, response teams transitioned into cleanup and recovery, and authorities formally allowed residents back into the damage zone Wednesday to start the monumental task of rebuilding their lives.

Residents clearing massive piles of debris were trying to get hold of essentials such as mobile phones and prescription drugs lost in the destruction. Cellular service providers set up mobile retail outlets and charging stations. At least one was offering free phone calls and loaner phones.

Elsewhere in town, several hundred volunteers took it upon themselves to clean the city cemetery, which was covered in debris, so it would be ready for Memorial Day. Some veterans are buried there and it’s where the town’s residents gather on the holiday, placing flowers and flags among the gravestones.

Friday 24 May 2013

http://www.khou.com/news/national/Okla-medical-examiner-identifies-tornado-victims-208604161.html

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Philippines cemetery provides Manila's poor a place to live among the dead


Every morning, Alberto Lagarda Evangelista, 71, leaves the two-storey, lemon-yellow home he has lived in for the past decade and walks to work at the cemetery next door. As a caretaker of about 20 graves, Evangelista earns just 20,000 pesos (£315) a year, a sum so small that he must share his house with seven other people – all of whom are dead.

Evangelista lives and works in the Cementerio del Norte, a sprawling, 54-hectare green space in north Manila that is also home to some 1,000 other families. Here in the Philippines' largest public graveyard, century-old tombs have been converted into stalls selling sachets of shampoo and instant noodles, clothes lines are strung between crosses and car batteries power radios, karaoke machines and television sets. Evangelista's home is a mausoleum housing eight graves. The breezy second storey where the owners pay their annual respects to the dead doubles as his bedroom. "Just look at my view," he says, pointing his cigarette out towards the grave-studded horizon.

Today, the shady lanes are busy with the sundry activities of any normal neighbourhood: a group of boys plays basketball; adults while away the afternoon heat with sodas and playing cards; couples canoodle atop the graves that double as their beds; and women prepare chicken adobo in their mausoleum cafes.

The cemetery's inhabitants rank among the poorest of the poor in Manila, a capital where roughly 43% of the city's 13 million residents live in informal settlements like this one, according to a 2011 Asian Development Bank report. This Roman Catholic country has one of Asia's fastest growing populations and a massive housing shortage – meaning that the urban poor must usually find, build or cobble together housing anywhere there is space: under bridges, along highways, in alleys, perched atop flood channels, or even among the dead.

No one knows exactly when the cemetery became a living village. But many of Manila North's 6,000-odd residents were born here and expect to spend their whole lives here. Gravedigger Steve Esbacos, 52, a muscular man with blue-rimmed eyes, was born and raised in the same mausoleum where he now raises his own four children. "Sometimes I don't like living here, because it's dirty and it smells bad," he says, before admitting that he's never wanted to live anywhere else. "My father is buried just over there and I don't know where else I'd go."

Ramil and Josephine Raviz run a stall selling instant noodles and peanuts to residents and mourners. They earn enough money to send their 10-year-old daughter to school, and say they prefer life here to the possibilities "outside" the cemetery's four walls.

"When I first came to Norte 30 years ago, there weren't so many families here – it was quiet and peaceful and safe, very different to the outside slums in Manila," says Ramil, 46, in his mausoleum housing a fan, fridge, rocking chair, microwave, blankets and mattresses, and six graves. "But once people realised they could work here and live here for free, they moved in."

The cemetery hasn't retained that peaceful aura. Robberies and muggings are common, residents admit, with gangs said to be working different corners of the sprawling greenery. Youth unemployment is high and alcohol cheap. City authorities have repeatedly threatened to evict those living here. But grave-dwellers have found a way to stay on despite the pressure, using ad-hoc "deeds" from the families whose graves they maintain, allowing them to live and work on-site.

The issue is not so much people living in the cemetery – where quarters can be more spacious and cleaner than in a shanty on one of the city's easily flooded riverways – but the fact that Manila is not properly addressing the needs of the urban poor, says Father Norberto Carcellar, director of Philippine Action for Community-Led Shelter Initiatives. "Poor people can pay as much as four times [the normal rates] for electricity and water in their shanties because mafia syndicates take over and they have no choice but to pay [the higher rates]," he says.

"These people are 'invisible' – they can be evicted at any time, they face floods, they live on the periphery and the government generally likes to send them very far away to other provinces [to deal with the problem]."

Under a $1.2bn (£800m) government mandate to clean up Manila, that may soon change. Recent official figures show 104,000 families live in danger areas such as graveyards and riverbeds, and the city aims to move 550,000 of the most vulnerable residents to safer destinations. Some will be residents of Manila North, yet no one in the cemetery seems ready – or willing – to go.

"I often think, what would have happened if I had finished school," Evangelista says quietly as he navigates the steep ladder from his open-air verandah back downstairs into the main mausoleum. "I only made it to third grade. Maybe I would have had a better job to live somewhere else." As he knocks on the solid mausoleum walls, he says: "This is the best house I've lived in; the strongest, safest, with the best view."

Friday 24 May 2013

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/23/philippines-cemetery-urban-poor-home

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BGMEA evades paying wages of deceased collapse victims

The garment factory owners have said they would not pay the wages of the dead victims of the Savar Rana Plaza collapse.

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has claimed that the money that the prime minister has started distributing among the families of the dead victims included the wages.

“We think that [prime minister’s compensation] is enough. If the family members of a dead garment worker get the money, it is a huge relief for them,” said Md Abdul Ahad Ansary, chairman of the BGMEA standing committee on labor education and welfare.

He also claimed that disbursing the package was a government decision.

However, Mikail Shipar, secretary of the labour and employment ministry, yesterday told the Dhaka Tribune that the money disbursed from the Prime Minister’s Relief and Welfare Fund did not include the wages.

“This is a grant from the premier, not a compensation. The BGMEA has no connection with this,” he said, adding that the fund comprised of contributions from different organisations and individuals.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is supposed to pay financial grants worth Tk200,000 to each of the families of the 1,127 dead victims of the April 24 collapse of Rana Plaza that housed five factories.

The PMO has so far handed over grants to the families of 221 dead victims.

The BGMEA has already paid each of the 2,614 workers, who survived the deadly collapse, minimal compensation packages that included their outstanding wages.

It said it would hand over the payment to the few remaining survivors very soon.

Meanwhile, the fate of the workers reported missing since the tragic collapse, hangs in the balance.

Authorities have so far buried a total of 291 unidentified bodies at the capital’s Jurain Graveyard and samples of all of their DNA have been preserved, even though relatives had reported that 304 workers were still missing.

Relatives of the missing ones have so far filed a total of 134 general diaries (GD) with Savar police station.

The GDs are to serve as documentation for their compensation claims.

Whether their families would get the prime minister’s grant would totally depend on finding out their identities by matching the DNA samples with those of the relatives.

BGMEA officials said after the DNA test reports are finalised, they would prepare a final list of the missing ones which would then be verified by district administrations and police.

They, however, assumed that most of the missing victims were not garment workers; rather staff who worked at the building.

According to sources from Dhaka Medical College Hospital, conducting all the DNA tests would take at least two more months.

“It will take more time. We do not know when the families of the missing victims will finally receive the wages,” said Md Rafiqul Islam, joint secretary (labour) of BGMEA.

Kamrul Hasan, upazila executive officer of Savar, said: “We will match the DNA collection list with the missing victims’ list to prepare a final list.”

Friday 24 May 2013

http://dhakatribune.com/labour/2013/may/24/bgmea-evades-paying-wages-dead-victims

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5 officers killed in helicopter accident in Venezuela


Five officers from Venezuela's Bolivarian National Police (PNB), members of the crew of a police helicopter, were killed Thursday when their aircraft crashed in western Caracas during an operation to rescue two kidnapped engineers, official sources said.

PNB Director Luis Karabin said that the accident occurred Thursday morning at 7:30 local time (1200 GMT) in the highway Mamera-El Junquito, in a sector called El Naranjal, in the western region of Caracas.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Karabin cited weather conditions. Some versions said the helicopter suddenly fell after crashing against high voltage cables.

Karabin said all the members of the crew died, including the pilot, the copilot, one technician and two policemen, adding local forensic team arrived at the accident's site to remove the bodies, according to judicial procedures.

He said that the helicopter was supporting the land policemen during an operation to rescue the two engineers who were kidnapped by several criminals from the state-owned electricity company Corpoelec.

He added the criminals were running away with the two engineers in a Ford Power vehicle and at some point in Antimano sector, a shooting between policemen and the criminals occurred.

During the operation, one of the criminals was shot and two escaped towards a wooded area, while the two engineers were rescued, said Karabin.

One house was affected by the spiral of the helicopter model Bolkow Bo 105 blue, which destroyed the ceiling and part of the kitchen, said Karabin.

Friday 24 May 2013

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.asp?id=143619

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Nigeria: Ancient tree tragedy in Imo State


[Updated: see post] This is not the best of times for Imo State and its people given the harvest of tragedies recorded in the state recently. The most recent is the ancient ancestral tree that fell in Umudagu, Ihitte Isi Mbieri community, Mbaitoli local council area of the State late Thursday night of May 16, killing no fewer than 50 people, with a yet to be ascertained number critically injured. The tall tree known as Osisi Ukwu Uko, collapsed on buildings as well as those transacting their businesses in a market located under the tree.

Vanguard Metro, VM, gathered that the collapse of the tree followed a heavy torrential rain that was accompanied by a ferocious windstorm and thunder. The devastating rainstorm, which started at about 6pm on the fateful day, continued throughout the night and spilled over to the morning hours of Friday. It was also gathered that most of the victims were either traders, who were selling their wares in the market, their customers, some passers-by and others who were taking shelter in the town hall building and the surrounding houses.

Lamenting over the ugly incident, the former state chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Marcellinus Nlemigbo, whose ancestral home is a shouting distance away from the tragic scene said "the incident is most devastating and has thrown the entire community into deep mourning".

Continuing, Nlemigbo said: "The tree was a symbol of the community and no living person in our community can fully narrate the history attached to the tree. The tree had always been there until yesterday (Friday night)".

While debunking the rumour now making the rounds that the tree had fetish attachments to it, Chief Nlemigbo, however, expressed unhappiness that some elders in the community had severally resisted earlier arrangements to fell the tree. He said he was not at home when the incident occurred and was only told about it through the telephone and had to rush home to assist in evacuating the casualties.

"I am aware that the tree provided a natural canopy for people. There is also a market set up by our ancestors in the place, which was sustained till date. There is also the likelihood that some people must have run into the town hall building to take shelter. So, the casualty figure can be any person's guess," Chief Nlemigbo said.

He, however, recalled with grief that when some parts of the tree were trimmed about 20 years ago, the two individuals, who were engaged to execute the job, died unexpectedly after about a week, adding that this lent credence to the belief that the gods residing in the tree had been angered.

Some villagers around the scene confirmed to VM that a middle aged mad woman had May 14, 2013, warned the traders, who usually sold their wares close to and under the tree, to relocate from the place soonest or be prepared to face the looming but unpleasant consequences.

Obviously, the villagers ignored the advice, especially as it came from a mental patient!

Most sympathisers could not help but join close relations of the dead in a chorus of wailing and lamentations the scene of the tragedy. This was while joint rescue operation from patriotic and sympathetic Umudagu youths, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, the Fire Service, policemen and men of the State Emergency Management Agency led by the Executive Secretary, Mrs. Uche Ezeonyeasi was on to evacuate the dead and the injured, and restore a semblance of order at the place.

A lot of credit must be given to Mbieri youths who came out in their numbers, defying the uncertainties of the dark night, the devastating torrential rain, lightening and thunder, to assist their dying relations and friends.

But for the determination and patriotism of these youths, more people would have died, even as it is being speculated that the death toll may have increased in view of the severity of the injuries and the distance from the scene of the incident to the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri.

Some people willingly made their private cars available for the evacuation of the dead and injured. Some were seen giving first aid to the victims of the tragedy before they were taken to the hospital. The eventual arrival of government's emergency team added some fillip to the efforts of the youths.

Meanwhile, the lifeless bodies of the victims, most of which are yet to be identified, were deposited in morgues, including the Federal Medical Centre, the State Specialist Hospital and Aladinma Hospital, all in Owerri.

But the tragedy is one that will haunt the villagers for a long time. The picture was gory. Human limbs scattered all over the place. Although rain water washed away the blood coming from the dying people, traces of human blood and stench can still clung to the scene.

For the people, it was a colossal loss of life and property. Their prayer is that such should never come the way Umudagu, Ihitte Isi Mbieri.

Friday 24 May 2013

http://allafrica.com/stories/201305230850.html?page=2

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