Monday 6 May 2013

Ten killed in road accident in Prakasam


Ten people were killed and four others injured when a Puducherry-bound lorry overturned on the Chennai-Kolkata National Highway at Singarayakonda in Prakasam district in the wee hours of Monday.

Singarayakonda Circle Inspector T.Ashok Vardhan said that the 14 people had boarded the lorry carrying cement from Kodada in Nalgonda district, at Addanki in Prakasam district to attend a prayer meeting in Chennai.

The mishap occurred when the driver of the lorry applied sudden brake and as a result the vehicle overturned and fell on the road margin, the CI said.

The injured were rushed to the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences here.

Poclaine’s were put into service to extricate the bodies from among the cement bags.

Further details are awaited.

Monday 6 May 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/ten-killed-in-road-accident-in-prakasam/article4688657.ece

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Bangladesh: Disaster ministry facing shortage of rescue equipment


The Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief and the Department of Disaster Management are facing an acute shortage of sufficient equipment to operate a speedy rescue drive at the Savar building collapse site.

Due to lack of more modern rescue machines, the relevant authorities have undertaken rapid actions to purchase those.

According to the department of disaster management, it has already submitted a plan to purchase heavy rescue equipment at a cost of Tk1.6bn for smooth rescue operation during any disaster.

The project is now in the planning ministry. It will be tabled to the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) within a short time for its approval.

Mohammad Abdul Wazed, Director General (DG) of Department of Disaster Management told the Dhaka Tribune last week: “We have a major shortage of necessary modern equipment to conduct rescue operation during any disaster.”

If the government approves the proposal and takes necessary steps for purchase, that will be a great help to face the post-disaster period, added the DG.

The procurement process of heavy machines will begin after getting approval from ECNEC, he continued.

According to the department of disaster management, it has proposed to buy some heavy equipment, including a sensitive device named “coloured varifocal camera,” which is normally used to identify people trapped in rubble.

Other equipment that proposed for procurement in the next phase are: two cranes (30 tonnes), 25 heavy hydraulic vibrators, 50 light hydraulic vibrators, two excavators with attachment, two fork lifts, two dump trucks, 10 search vision cameras, 25 air compressor machines, 100 hydraulic jacks, 100 hydraulic spreaders, 100 hydraulic cutters, 100 hydraulic ram jack, 100 chipping hammers, 100 rotary hammer drills, 100 rotary rescue saws/slab cutters, 100 reciprocating saws, 100 power chain saws, 100 electric drills, 100 generators, 200 bolt cutters, 200 chisels, 200 pry bars, 200 craw bars, 200 tin snips, 200 hand saws, 200 shovels, 100 pipe squeezers, 200 inflatable stretchers, 100 extension ladders and 50 smoke ejectors.

Mohammed Abdul Wazed said: “We still need some modern equipment including the CDC camera, a human-sensitive device to identify trapped people in the collapsed building. We could not import the device along with other tools in our concluded project as the budget was reduced from the main proposal.”

Earlier in 2010, the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief purchased a total of 18,150 light rescue equipment at a cost of Tk600m and handed over those to the Armed Forces Division, Fire Service and Civil Defence, city corporations and coastguards.

The light equipment purchased included: rotary rescue saw/slab cutter, reciprocating saw (run by electricity), rotary hammer drill (run by electricity), wood circular saw (run by electricity), chain saw, generator (portable) 1000 watt, generator (portable) 5000watt chipping hammer, hydraulic ram jack, spreader and cutter.

Monday 6 May 2013

http://dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2013/may/06/disaster-ministry-facing-shortage-rescue-equipment

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New Zealand skydiving plane crash: Bereaved families urge changes


Pilot error or mechanical failure were the most likely causes of a 2010 tourist plane crash in New Zealand in which nine people died, a coroner found Monday.

The Fletcher FU24 plunged to the ground and burst into flames shortly after takeoff on September 4, 2010, near Fox Glacier on the rugged west coast of New Zealand's South Island, in New Zealand's worst air accident since 1993.

The plane -- operated by Skydive New Zealand -- was carrying a pilot, four skydive instructors and four foreign tourists from Britain, Ireland, Germany and Australia. There were no survivors.

Coroner Richard McElrea found the plane, a converted crop duster, was also overloaded and off balance when it took off on a "near vertical" climb then apparently stalled before crashing.

"It is unlikely that the cause of the crash will ever be fully understood -- something unusual, such as inadvertent pilot error or engine malfunction/mechanical failure, has occurred at take-off," he said.

"This, coupled with the aircraft being overweight and loaded rearwards of its centre of gravity, is consistent with the evidence and has been the immediate cause of the tragedy."

The crash victims included five New Zealanders and the four foreign tourists.

McElrea said eight bodies were found in the plane's tail section, raising the possibility that they slid backwards during the plane's ascent, throwing off its centre of gravity.

He recommended fitting restraints on skydiving flights using the FU24 to prevent such movement and limiting the number of passengers to six.

The families of the four tourists who perished released a letter to Prime Minister John Key calling for tighter enforcement of aviation regulations operating in New Zealand's adventure tourism industry.

The families criticised what they said was a lack of accountability in the industry, pointing out that nobody had been prosecuted over the accident.

"It has been said in New Zealand that tourists who come to take part in adventure sports 'know the risks" -- this seems to us an astonishing attitude," the letter said.

"It is incumbent upon the authorities to do everything in their power to make sure that all activities are as safe as they possibly can be."

Monday 6 May 2013

http://www.enca.com/world/tourist-plane-crash-probed-0

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US citizens among those missing in Mexico


The drug war in Mexico has claimed at least 70,000 lives, but the full death toll may never be known because thousands are searching for relatives who have disappeared.

Along the border, some of those missing in Mexico are U.S. citizens.

“It’s individuals that communicated with their loved ones on a daily basis, and — all of a sudden — they disappear,” said Oscar Hagelseib, assistant special agent in charge of Homeland Security’s investigations in El Paso.

The agency helped Mexico pinpoint the location of a mass grave in the Valley of Juárez last November.

“The intelligence was there was a strong possibility there were United States citizens there,” Hagelseib said.

Just across the border from El Paso on the outskirts of Juárez, forensic workers dug up the remains of 20 men.

All had been murdered; some showed signs of torture.

A spokesman with the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office said investigators stopped digging in the area four days after they started because they had had “recovered all the remains that were at the site.”

Some of the bodies still have not been identified. Mexico continues to find mass grave sites in areas ravaged by drug violence. The U.S. State Department documents the deaths of Americans in Mexico, but does not keep a comprehensive report of U.S. citizens who disappeared.

Jason Macias disappeared on August 30, 2011. The 23-year-old worked as a school security guard in his hometown of El Paso. In his final Facebook message posted he said, “Ate a large pizza, watching a movie.”

When he failed to show up to work the next day, his family reported him missing.

Police found Macias’ passport and cell phone in his apartment. His truck was parked outside. Detectives investigating the case suspect foul play.

A bulletin was issued after his disappearance, and noted Macias had traveled to Chihuahua, Mexico on several occasions a couple of months before he vanished.

His mother said that was unusual.

Macias’ family lives on the U.S. side of the border, but his mother was afraid to talk about the details of the disappearance. Others are banding together to speak out.

On a recent evening a few blocks from the border, a vigil was held.

“Tonight, Annunciation House bears witness to the disappeared by projecting over 9,000 of the names from all over Mexico of the desaparecidos [missing],” said Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House.

The non-profit organization helps migrants and refugees. In recent years, it has seen a spike in the number of Mexicans fleeing violence.

At the vigil, the names of people missing in Mexico were projected on the side of a building as volunteers, family members and others lit candles to remember the disappeared.

“I really didn’t know much about the disappeared until I moved to the border,” said Kristen Bowdre of Dallas, who is spending a year volunteering at Annunciation House.

The parents of two young women who disappeared spoke to the crowd.

Diana Ramirez Hernandez and Monica Alanis Esparza were both 18-year-old college students when they vanished.

“They’re not dead, but we’re not living either,” said Ricardo Alanis Esparza. His daughter, Monica, has been missing since 2009. Agent Hagelseib understands their pain.

“Personally, it happened to me where a cousin was killed by a drug cartel and he had nothing to do and was never involved in this.” Hagelseib said. “He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They wanted his truck, so they killed him.” Many other families continue to search for answers.

Mexico’s Interior Ministry estimates 26,000 people were reported missing during the six years when Felipe Calderón was president and drug violence spiked. The current administration released that number, but did not say which cases may be tied to organized crime.

Human Rights Watch released a report in February that said it documented at least 250 cases of people who disappeared. Human rights organizations say military and police are behind some disappearances.

Whatever the circumstances, in many cases, families are left to search for their missing loved ones on their own.

Victim’s advocates are now calling on the Mexican government to create a national DNA database to help match the missing with bodies waiting to be indentified in morgues. Relatives in many states have provided authorities with DNA samples.

Monday 6 May 2013

http://www.wfaa.com/news/texas-news/206206041.html

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Remains of helicopter crash casualties in Irkutsk region found


A Mi-8 helicopter that went missing in Russia's Irkutsk region was found crashed and destroyed, with ten people and about two tons of explosives aboard, the Emergency Situations Ministry said Monday.

Russian Emergency Ministry officials say the MI-8 helicopter went missing while taking part in a flood rescue operation in the region's north.

Hours later, the helicopter’s wreckage was found.

Crew members, rescue officials, and the region's acting emergency situations chief, Stanislav Omelyanchik, were aboard the aircraft.

Rescue teams spotted bodies from the air, but it is not clear if all the people onboard were killed.

"The Mi-8 helicopter was discovered seven kilometres from the Preobrazhenka settlement with signs of destruction," the spokeswoman for the emergencies ministry, Irina Rossius, told the RIA Novosti news agency.

The agency added that it was carrying several tonnes of explosives being used to break up ice on rivers.

Monday 6 May 2013

http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-helicopter-crash-siberia/24978070.html

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Missing plane wreck found in Russia's Urals Mountains


Hunters in the Ural Mountains of Russia have discovered the wreckage of a light aircraft that went missing with 13 people nearly a year ago.

The two hunters spotted the debris in marshland near an airfield in the town of Serov, from where the plane had taken off without permission last June.

Investigators said Monday that they are now considering at least three possible scenarios for the plane crash that saw an Antonov An-2 with 13 people on board come down over Russia’s Urals mountains last June, after airplane wreckage was finally discovered.

Technical malfunction, pilot error and poor weather conditions are the three most likely reasons that could have caused the biplane to crash into the marshy forest just eight kilometers from the airport, transport investigators said Monday in a statement.

A criminal probe into the mysterious crash was re-opened Sunday, months after a massive search operation for the plane had been halted.

The light An-2 aircraft, which was tasked with monitoring wildfires, went missing last June after being hijacked from the Urals airfield near the town of Serov by revelers who did not inform air traffic control.

Investigators previously suggested that the plane might have been stolen by the pilot and his drinking buddies for a fishing trip or a visit to the bathhouse.

Officials said on Monday that remains of all 13 missing people have been recovered from the crash scene.

One pilot and 12 passengers are thought to have been among those killed, including Serov’s chief of traffic police and his subordinate inspector.

Photos from the scene obtained by RIA Novosti featured a broken and burned frame of the plane lying on the ground between the woods and a heap of bones.

Anastasia Rogulina, whose sister Yulia Safonova died in the crash, has cast doubt on official reports about the find, saying that many questions remain unanswered.

"Judging by the video [from the scene], I can suggest that it had been dragged to that place and burned. There aren't even burned trees around it…” Rogulina said in an interview with the local Globus news portal on Sunday.

Sverdlovsk Region head Yevgeny Kuivashev has ordered compensation of 1 million rubles ($32,150) to be paid for each victim, the governor’s office said on Monday.

The search for the missing plane was halted in November 2012, due to bad weather conditions, and was expected to resume this spring.

The criminal case was opened on charges of the breach of flight safety rules and aircraft operation entailing the death of more than two people through carelessness.

Dubbed “ghost plane” by the press, the fate of the An-2 that went missing over the Urals taiga became one of the biggest modern mysteries in Russia.

During the search operation that covered thousands of kilometers, rescue teams even managed to find debris of a different An-2 and Mi-8 helicopter that went missing in the 1980s.

But rescuers were forced to call off the search last November as winter closed in.

The grouse hunters found the charred An-2 biplane about 8km (5 miles) from the airfield on Saturday evening.

It was suspected that the pilot had taken the biplane for an unauthorised flight with a group of friends, who he had been drinking with - including the chief of the local traffic police.

Investigators suspected they were heading for a fishing expedition or sauna visit when the aircraft came down shortly after take-off.

There is no word on the cause of the crash.

Monday 6 May 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22423413

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Military identifies KC-135 crash victims


The Department of Defense identified the victims of a deadly KC-135 crash on Sunday. Three airmen based out of Fairchild Air Force Base died on Friday while supporting Operation Enduring Freedom near Chon-Aryk, Kyrgyzstan.

The airmen were assigned to the 93rd Air Refueling Squadron, Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash. The cause of the crash is under investigation according to the Department of Defense.

Col. Brian Newberry, 92d Air Refueling Wing Commander, announced Sunday that he will hold a press conference at 3 p.m. to discuss the three Fairchild Airmen who died.

“We will forever honor Tyler, Tori and Tre as patriots and heroes. Team Fairchild will do everything we can to support their families and friends during this profoundly difficult time. These Airmen leave behind an incredible legacy of service and honor in protecting our nation and the world. They show what we all know, freedom is not free,” said Newberry.

The KC-135 plane crashed Friday afternoon about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of the air base. Emergencies Minister Kubatbek Boronov told The Associated Press that Kyrgyz search teams found the two fragmented bodies Saturday morning. Dozens of U.S. military personnel scoured the area on Saturday and set up a security cordon around the crash site.

Parts of the plane were scattered across a wide area near the village of Chaldovar. Some pieces, including the tail, came down in a grassy valley bordered by steep mountains, but others landed in spots much more difficult for search teams to reach.

Residents of the rural, sheep-herding region described hearing the plane explode in the air and seeing it break apart as it fell.

"I heard a very loud explosion," Emil Bokochev, a member of the village council, told an AP reporter at the site. "Literally six or seven seconds afterward there was another explosion and the plane broke apart into four or five pieces and at that moment we thought it was going to fall on the village Chaldovar."

The plane was on a refueling mission for Afghanistan war operations at the time of the crash, a U.S. defense official in Washington said, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the details of an ongoing investigation.

Monday 6 May 2013

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Military-identifies-KC-135-crash-victims-206195991.html

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Bangladesh building collapse death toll passes 650: army


The death toll from Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster surpassed 650 Monday after dozens of bodies were pulled from the wreckage of a nine-storey building housing garment factories, the army said.

Major Manzur Elahi of the army control room, which was set up to coordinate the rescue operation following the disaster last month, told AFP that recovery efforts had gathered pace and the "death toll now stands at 654".

"The toll is expected to rise further," he said.

The building, which housed five garment factories, collapsed near the capital Dhaka on April 24, trapping more than 3,000 people. Some 2,437 people have been rescued, Elahi said.

Hundreds of distraught relatives gathered at the site on the 12th day, as cranes and bulldozers cut through a mountain of concrete and mangled steel.

Officials said the bodies pulled out have missing limbs in some cases or have decomposed, delaying identification. They identified only a handful of them by their mobile phones that were found in their pockets or factory identity cards.

Military rescuer Major Delwar Hossain late Sunday told AFP the stench at the site suggested more corpses were trapped under the rubble, forcing search teams from the army and fire services to wear masks.

"The foul odour is so strong you cannot work there without wearing masks and using air fresheners," Hossain said.

Preliminary findings of a government probe have blamed vibrations by four giant generators on the compound's upper floors for triggering the collapse.

Police have arrested 12 people including the building's owner Sohel Rana and four garment factory owners for forcing people to work on April 24, even though cracks appeared in the structure the previous day.

The wife of a male garment worker killed in the disaster has also filed a murder complaint against Rana, one of the garment factory owners and a municipal engineer. The three face death by hanging if convicted of murder.

Rana, a local leader of the ruling Awami League political party, was arrested after a four-day hunt as he tried to flee to India.

Factory workers have held protests, calling for tough punishment for those responsible for the disaster, and demanding improved safety regulations.

The tragedy came just five months after a fire killed 111 people in a nearby garment factory.

UK retailer Primark, Italy's Benetton and Spanish firm Mango have admitted they had placed orders with the factories based in the compound, triggering an angry response in many Western countries.

Bangladesh is the world's second-largest garment exporter after China. The industry accounts for 80 percent of the country's exports and more than 40 percent of its industrial workforce.

Monday 6 May 2013

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/bangladesh-building-collapse-death-toll-/664922.html

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