Wednesday 27 February 2013

Website for international dental charts: terms, symbols and/or abbreviations summarized in 10 languages


Very useful website by Scheila Manica (http://www.internationaldentalcharts.com/) This website is a result of her M.Sc project on international dental charts: Guide of International Dental Charts translated into English - decoding international ante-mortem dental charts for INTERPOL Disaster Victim Identification forms (F2), completed in 2011.

The aim of the study was to analyze the tooth numbering system, symbols and abbreviations used in dental charts worldwide. The countries studied were composed of the 188 INTERPOL member countries.

A total of 40 countries replied and 29 common dental alteration terms and their symbols and/or abbreviations were summarized in 10 languages.

Must have for anyone working in international DVI/missing persons/unid'd bodies and involved with dental identification

Wednesday 27 February 2013

http://www.internationaldentalcharts.com/

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Death toll in Winneba road accident rises to 14


Two victims of last Saturday’s fatal accident at Gomoa Mampong who sustained severe injuries have died.

That brings the death toll to 14.

The deceased, both males, were among five injured persons who were admitted at the Winneba Trauma Specialist Hospital.

There are currently only three survivors on admission at the hospital.

Mr John Paul Akonde, the Winneba Municipal Commander of the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU), told the Daily Graphic that one injured passenger died on Sunday, while another passed away on Monday.

Meanwhile, the four injured persons who were admitted at the Winneba Government Hospital have been transferred to the Nsawam Government Hospital on the request by their relatives.

According to Mr Akonde, all the dead bodies had been identified by their relatives and the police were awaiting the outcome of an autopsy before releasing them to their relatives for burial.

Twelve passengers on board a 207 Benz Bus, with registration number AS 669 V, died on Saturday morning when their vehicle was involved in an accident.

They were travelling from Nsawam to Mankessim for a funeral when their bus collided with a tipper truck, with registration number GB 2754-12, at Gomoa Mampong.

The driver of the bus, in an attempt to overtake another vehicle, veered into the lane of the truck, resulting in a collision which led to the death of the 12 passengers.

The deceased comprised eight females and four males, including the driver of the 207 Benz bus.

Nine other passengers, made up of five males and four females, sustained serious injuries.

Wednesday 27 February 2013

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/regional/artikel.php?ID=266123

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Families arriving in Egypt to ID balloon crash victims


Relatives of some of the western and Asian tourists killed in a balloon accident arrived in Egypt on Wednesday to identify the bodies of the victims, airport officials said.

Nineteen tourists died when the hot air balloon they were riding caught fire and plummeted about 1,000 feet to the ground Tuesday in the ancient city of Luxor in southern Egypt. One British tourist survived along with the pilot of the balloon, who was badly injured.

The death toll surpassed what was believed by ballooning experts to be the deadliest accident in the sport's 200-year history: In 1989, 13 people were killed when their hot air balloon collided with another over the Australian outback near the town of Alice Springs.

The balloon over Luxor, 510 kilometres (320 miles) south of Cairo, was carrying tourists from France, Britain, Belgium, Japan and Hong Kong plus an Egyptian pilot. The balloon flights provide panoramic views of the ancient Karnak and Luxor temples and the Valley of the Kings, the burial ground of Tutankhamun and other pharaohs.

An airport official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said relatives of nine tourists from Hong Kong arrived in Cairo to identify the bodies of the victims.

The bodies of all the victims were moved on Tuesday to morgues in Cairo. The two survivors were being treated in military hospitals.

According to initial reports, the balloon was in the process of landing after 7 a.m. when a cable got caught around a gas tube and a fire erupted. The balloon plummeted about 1,000 feet to the ground, crashing in a sugar cane field. The bodies of the tourists were scattered across the field around remnants of the balloon.

Authorities suspended hot air balloon flights, a popular tourist attraction here, while investigators determined the cause of the accident.

The tragedy raised worries of another blow to the nation's vital tourism industry, decimated by two years of unrest since the 2011 revolution that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The southern city of Luxor has been hit hard, with vacant hotel rooms and empty cruise ships.

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/families-arriving-in-egypt-to-id-balloon-crash-victims-1.1173933#ixzz2M7a05mne

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At least 35 killed in Mwingi bus crash


At least 35 people have been killed in a road accident in Mwingi on Wednesday morning.

The accident involved a Garissa-bound bus which lost control and rolled several times at about 3am, according to Traffic Commandant Samuel Kimaru.

Eleven people were killed on the spot while the rest were trapped under the wreckage and it took rescuers more than four hours to help them out.

“It was a very bad accident, it took a lot of time for them to be rescued because the bus was badly damaged,” he said.

Kimaru said more than 20 other passengers have been admitted to the Mwingi District Hospital.

The Traffic Commandant said they have not established the exact cause of the accident that occurred at Tulimani area.

“We don’t know what exactly happened but we are urging motorists to be careful to avoid such accidents. We could not have lost the 35 people, if drivers were careful on the road,” added Kimaru.

Over the weekend, at least 17 people were killed and scores injured in two separate road accidents in Voi and Kilifi on Saturday morning.

In the first accident that happened at Ndii near Voi, 12 people died on the spot after a bus and trailer collided. The dead included 10 men and two women as well as drivers of both vehicles.

Fourteen other people were injured and were rushed to the Voi District hospital for treatment.

"The death toll may increase because there were serious injuries following the accident. Those who were injured are undergoing treatment in hospital," Traffic officer Samuel Kimaru is quoted as saying by Kenya's Standard newspaper.

Police said that the bus which was heading to Mombasa from Nairobi was overtaking another vehicle before it collided with the oncoming trailer.

“This is purely a case of human error, the bus driver was trying to overtake when there is a trailer approaching,” Kimaru told Capital FM News following the 4am accident last Saturday.

The second accident in Vipingo area in Kilifi that claimed five lives involved a matatu and a private van that had previously operated as tour van.

Wednesday 27 February 2013

http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2013/02/at-least-35-killed-in-mwingi-bus-crash/

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Texas overtakes Ariz. in border crossing deaths


The new scrutiny of South Texas by a civil-rights group focused on identifying the bodies of illegal border crossers underscores a geographical shift: Texas is overtaking Arizona in migrant deaths.

An accurate count is hard to gather because state, federal and local agencies keep separate records, with some remains being counted twice. Other bodies are never found.

But a comparison of the Brooks County, Texas, figures with recent numbers from Arizona -- where the information gathering is more centralized -- suggests the Texas death toll has either surpassed Arizona’s or is close. And the increasing deaths come as overall immigration to the United States has dropped dramatically.

U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions, which analysts rely on to measure illegal immigration, are at 40-year lows, though there was a slight uptick in fiscal year 2012. They dropped from more than 1 million in 2006 to more than 364,000 in 2012.

This happened even as Border Patrol increased staffing from more than 12,000 to more than 21,000 for the same period.

The group Coalicion de Derechos Humanos recorded 253 migrant deaths in Arizona in the 2010 fiscal year; the toll dropped to 179 in 2012. Researchers consider the group’s numbers fairly reliable because the bulk of the data comes from Pima County, where the medical examiner’s office processes the majority of border crossers’ remains found in the state.

In Brooks County, the death toll of 129 was up from 52 in 2011. Add to that the roughly 30 other deaths recorded by Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley, and the Texas numbers already are approaching Arizona’s. Another 19 deaths were recorded by Border Patrol in its 2012 fiscal year in other Texas sectors, and that does not include bodies encountered by state and local authorities.

“You’re probably going to have more” deaths in Texas for 2012, said Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, researcher and adjunct lecturer at the University of Arizona’s Binational Migration Institute.

In Brooks County, there are no signs of the deaths abating. Since Jan. 1, 10 sets of remains have been discovered, compared with four for the same period in 2012.

The shift is so stark that humanitarian groups that once trained their efforts primarily on the Arizona-Sonora region now are alarmed at what is happening in South Texas.

The South Texas Human Rights Project is beginning to pressure Texas localities that don’t take DNA samples of unidentified human remains as it looks to tackle a problem once pervasive in Arizona. Counties there had no centralized way of documenting deaths, making it harder to identify remains. Now all but a handful are processed through Pima County.

Local authorities in South Texas operate like those in the Arizona-Sonora region a decade ago, human rights advocates say. Counties such as Brooks County, overwhelmed, understaffed, lacking medical examiners and funding, haven’t been taking DNA from each body, making it harder for families of the missing to identify them later through DNA matches, the groups say. They held a news conference on the county courthouse steps this week and a prayer vigil at the county cemetery, which has run out of space.

And humanitarian groups haven’t responded in Texas as they have in Arizona.

University of Arizona anthropologist Robin Reineke, who came here to research the growing migrant deaths, was surprised by the lack of groups that set out water, erect warning signs to deter crossings, connect with families searching for the missing.

It’s “strangely silent,” she said.

Observers point to multiple reasons for the shift of migrant deaths to South Texas.

In the 1990s, U.S. enforcement strategies hardened the border in El Paso and San Diego, Calif., pushing migrants into the Sonoran desert, said Douglas Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton University.

In 2004 and 2010, new initiatives tightened enforcement in Arizona and pushed traffic into the lower Rio Grande Valley, Massey said.

Meanwhile, other forces were reshaping migration flows. The Mexican economy improved while the United States sank into recession. The average Mexican family got smaller with increased birth control, said Eleanor Sohnen, analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

An April report from the Pew Research Center showed these forces contributed to a net standstill in migration -- or even a slightly negative migration, with more people moving south than north.

But the same forces that slowed Mexican migration did not extend to Central America -- particularly Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where stagnant growth and continued gang violence and drug trafficking spur people to leave. Guatemalans continue to have high fertility rates, Sohnen said.

A majority of the people dying in Brooks County came from those countries, according to sheriff’s reports, local law enforcement and Border Patrol officials.

Texas may be more geographically convenient for an illegal border crossing when traveling from Central America. But, analysts say, migrants are also heeding Arizona’s reputation for treacherous terrain and strict enforcement.

For human rights groups bringing new scrutiny to Texas, there seems little hope that the growing number deaths will enter into policy discussions in Washington.

“We’ve been using that vocabulary: ‘humanitarian crisis,’” said Mike Wilson, policy director for the Border Action Network. “It doesn’t move people. Migrant deaths are a regional, provincial story. It just gets no traction.”

Wednesday 27 February 2013

http://www.standard.net/stories/2013/02/26/texas-overtakes-ariz-border-crossing-deaths

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Mexico Drug War: Missing Persons Total At 26,121, Government Says


An official count shows at least 26,121 people were reported missing during the term of President Felipe Calderon, who launched the country's offensive against drug cartels, Mexico's new administration said Tuesday.

Lia Limon, the Interior Department's subsecretary for human rights, said the list used data from local prosecutors across Mexico, and includes people reported missing for any reason during the previous administration. It doesn't include information collected after November 2012.

The list has been a subject of controversy in Mexico for weeks. After Limon said last week that some 27,000 were missing, a member of Calderon's administration disputed the figure, saying the only registry on disappeared people contains 5,319 names. Limon said the government would work to compare the official list with others assembled by government agencies and rights groups.

The government will also work to clarify who on the list may have been a victim of crime, and who may have gone missing for reasons like migration to the United States, a family dispute or a natural disaster.

"We have to be clear that this database doesn't prejudge the reasons that people can't be found, because many of the people on it could be missing for a variety of reasons that don't have to do with criminal acts," Limon said.

She said some sort of investigation had been opened in 20,915 of the cases, but she offered no details.

The Interior Department has granted some public access to the list, but those seeking information must enter a person's name in order to obtain any data.

The civil society group Propuesta Civica recently published a database it said was created by the federal attorney-general's office that contained 20,582. Days earlier, The Washington Post published a story that said it had been given a copy of the database that contained more than 25,000 names.

The organization Human Rights Watch said last week that it had documented 249 cases of disappearances since December 2006, 149 of which showed evidence of having taken place at the hands of security forces.

Searches of some of the names in the rights group's report showed that they did not appear in the new government database.

Wednesday 27 February 2013

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/mexico-drug-war-missing-persons-total-26121_n_2767829.html?utm_hp_ref=world#slide=1630097

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Progress in battle to ID lost graves in Plaquemines Parish


It was one of the more morbid aspects of the damage done by Hurricane Isaac -- dozens of caskets in Plaquemines Parish left lying on levees, roads, and farmland after being washed away from cemeteries.

Netiokee Hill thought three generations of her family would remain at Promised Land Cemetery for centuries. But after Isaac, things were different.

Hill said, "When I came down here, I didn't see nothing. My great grandfather's plaque... I didn't see nothing."

The hurricane scattered scores of bodies across the parish. Commander Eric Becnel with the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Office said, "We had 194 bodies that were recovered and we identified 134."

Among the missing were the remains of Hill's mother, grandmother, and great-grandfather. "I felt heartbroken, like I relived my mother's passing all over again," said Hill.


Now, thanks to painstaking work by the LSU Forensic Center, FEMA, and the Sheriff's Office, Hill has some peace of mind. The remains of her mother, grandmother, and great grandfather, have now been located and are back at the Promised Land Cemetery.

Hill said, "Words can't explain, I was so happy."

Officials have now identified about two-thirds of the remains that were carried away in the flood.

On the east bank of Plaquemines Parish, 60 bodies remain unidentified, but the Sheriff's Office promises to keep working to identify as many more as possible. "Efforts are ongoing. We need to reach out to the public if they can come forward and provide us with any information," said Becnel.

The Sheriff's Office has placed anchored metal bands around the recovered graves, to keep future floods from carrying them away again.

Hill hopes that from now on, through hurricanes and high water, the Promised Land Cemetery will remain the final resting place for her family

If you can help identify the remaining bodies with photos or any kind of dental records, give the Sheriff's Office a call at 504-564-2525.

Wednesday 27 February 2013

http://www.fox8live.com/story/21390248/progress-in-the-battle-to-id-lost-graves-in-plaquemines-parish

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Fire in Kolkata market: 19 killed, 50 injured


At least 19 people were killed and 50 people sustained serious burn injuries as a massive fire engulfed Surya Sen market in central Kolkata's Sealdah area early today. The death toll may further go up.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee also visited the fire site after the incident and blamed the unplanned constructions in the area for the fire.

“This is a very tragic incident. And it has happened because of unplanned constructions in the area. We would give Rs. 2 lakh compensation to the family of those who lost their life. I have asked the police, fire department and Kolkata Municipal Corporation to give me report in three days time following which we will take the next step,” Banerjee said.

According to the fire-fighters the fire was detected at 3.50 am at the godown-cum-market complex when the victims were sleeping inside the room. Following which 26 fire-engines rushed to the stop to bring the situation under control. The fire now though under control but is yet to be doused completely.

One woman and 18 men died so far, some sustained sever burn injuries and others died of suffocation. Surajit Kar Purkayastha, Commissioner of Police is at the spot.

Fire service minister Javed Kahn blamed the Left regime for the tragedy.

“This market complex was constructed during the Left rule. It was unauthorized and illegal and did not follow any fire safety norms. Question is how the then government had allowed it to come up? We will take action against the market authorities for not having any fire safety arrangements,” Khan said.

Opposition leader Suryakanta Mishra, rushed to the spot but chose not to react to Khan’s statement.

“I cannot make irresponsible statements. All I can say is that this is the time when we should focus on saving people maximum number of people, providing treatment for the injured and douse the fire. We demand an enquiry into the incident,” Mishra said.

The market has six floors, while the first two floors have godowns, offices and shops the rest of the floors are vacant because of a property dispute among the owners. According to eyewitnesses the fire started on the ground floor, which had several shops stocking Thermocol and jute items and then spread to the first floor and some parts of the second floor.

The reason of the fire is still unknown, however police officials feel that a short circuit may have sparked the fire.

Questions are being raised why the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the fire department did not pull up the market authorities for not having fire safety measures.

The incident brought back the memory of fire at AMRI Hospital in the city on December 9, 2011, which killed 93 patients, and the 2010 Stephen Court fire in Kolkata which killed 43.

Wednesday 27 February 2013

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Kolkata/Fire-in-Kolkata-market-19-killed-50-injured-Trinamool-blames-Left-regime-for-tragedy/Article1-1018079.aspx

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