Friday 9 August 2013

More than 20 missing, 9 bodies recovered after boat capsize near Wardha


More than 20 people, mostly labourers, are missing and nine bodies have been recovered so far after a boat was smashed into two pieces when it hit a Hanuman statue installed in the middle of Vana river near Wardha on Thursday evening.

Nearly 35 to 40 labourers were saved from drowing and rescue efforts are on.

The labourers from Hingan Ghat had travelled by boat to Kalhapur-Dabha village for daily work and returning home in the evening when the mishap took place at around 5:30 pm.

Volunteers of Bhoi Samaj jumped into the river and saved most of the labourers from drowning.

More than 10 persons have been admitted to the local hospital for treatment. The boat was said to be 15 years old.

Friday 9 August 2013

http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/more-than-missing-bodies-recovered-after-boat-capsize-near-wardha-26122.html

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How Kenyan hospitals abet the illicit body parts trade


Kenyan hospitals are reluctant to adopt technology to identify unclaimed bodies thereby giving room for illicit body parts business to thrive, industry sources say.

Adopting modern biometric system on patients when they are admitted to hospital would be helpful in the identification process.

A source at Kenyatta National Hospital says his supervisors have been frustrating efforts to adopt technology to boost identification process.

Unidentified group

“My bosses have been fighting the use of fingerprint technology which helps in identification. This has helped make it much easier to have more bodies placed in the unidentified group which are later marked for disposal through city mortuary,” said the source at KNH mortuary.

“Action on the bodies begins once a body is piled in the ready-for-disposal group. It’s like a licence to tamper with the remains,” he said.

KNH had not officially responded to our inquiries on the process they follow in reducing unidentified bodies, most of which become targets of the deadly trade.

“There is a recent case where someone wanted a tooth as an exhibit in a court case. This is simple, all you need is just pluck it from the bodies lined up for disposal and give it to him. He paid Sh5,000,” the attendant told The Standard.

KNH public wing was handling about 900 bodies at the time of this investigation. It has a capacity to hold 300 bodies.

Best practice also demands that before disposal, bodies should be wrapped in a special bag so that they can be retrieved in future.

But in Kenya, most are buried in mass graves and unless a DNA test is conducted, it is increasingly getting difficult to trace and retrieve bodies when need arises.

Funeral Services Association of Kenya (FUSAK) is now calling for adoption of fingerprinting and videotaping technology to help in documentation and reducing the number of unknown people.

There is also need for regulation on how new institutions offering medical studies get their cadavers for learning purposes.

Though most bodies are acquired free of charge, some institutions are trading the bodies.

“They fetch about Sh75,000. This is the price we were selling them to Kenyatta University when they began their medical training school. Though they are not supposed to be sold, there are other costs such as embalming and storage that make it necessary that someone pays for them,” said Mr Ezra Olack, the national chairman of FUSAK.

Keeping brains for medical students is a most common practice. This is done most of the time even without the consent of relatives.

“They are placed in paper bags. Sometimes even briefcases are used to smuggle them out,” he says.

Water that’s been used to wash the dead is also regarded as a hot cake.

Several beliefs

“There are several beliefs about water used to wash the dead ranging from boosting business prospects to snagging husbands. This is one of the most demanded things,” an attendant at City Mortuary said.

“There was a time when a lady wanted to get someone’s husband. So she came for the water. I don’t know most of the details but when the man asked to bathe, the lady is said to have mixed the water with the one collected here and the man went berserk,” he chuckles.

It is understood that the disciplined forces demand for blood of the dead, mostly when one has died in mysterious circumstances.

Friday 9 August 2013

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000090136&story_title=how-hospitals-abet-the-illicit-body-parts-trade

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Argentine rescuers find cat, three more bodies located


A cat was pulled alive from the ruins of an apartment building that collapsed in a huge gas explosion, but with 11 people still missing, hundreds of rescuers tried without success Thursday to find more human victims.

Authorities identified 10 of the dead, and by late Thursday rescuers were working to pull three out more bodies they had located in the rubble.

More than 60 people were injured as Tuesday's blast rocked Rosario, Argentina's third-largest city, and several remained in critical condition.

"Until we remove the last brick, we'll always expect to find people alive," federal police commissioner Angel Poidomani, leading one of the rescue teams, told Rosario's La Capital newspaper Thursday morning. But by late evening, he seemed less optimistic.

"We're working on three bodies in different places of the building. The extractions are difficult because of the kind of collapse, which requires a great deal of caution in the removal of the rubble," Poidomani said. "We're working with dogs and cameras to reach different places, but we still haven't found any more signs of life."

With damaged towers on both sides of the rubble pile in danger of collapsing on the rescuers, police and firefighters were working as carefully as possible, following the scents of the body-sniffing dogs and clues from a fiber-optic cable that captures sounds and movement.

Engineers were figuring out how to reinforce fire-damaged columns, and some heavy equipment finally got access to the pile.

Poidomani compared it to surgery. "These are nine floors of a building that ended up compacted, 5 or 6 meters high. Reaching the center of this heap is very difficult," he said.

Politicians nationwide canceled Thursday's closing campaign rallies ahead of Sunday's primary elections after President Cristina Fernandez, who visited the disaster site Wednesday, called for two days of mourning nationwide. Anti-government marches went on as planned Thursday night, with fewer people joining in than during previous protests.

Two repairmen are in custody as a judge probes possible criminal negligence. Residents had asked for a valve to be replaced after complaining to the Litoral Gas company that despite a previous repair days earlier, natural gas wasn't reaching their kitchens.

But the company said it wasn't advised before Tuesday's follow-up repair job, which involved replacing a valve, and wasn't asked to turn off the gas beforehand.

Friday 9 August 2013

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/08/08/5066328/argentine-rescuers-find-cat-11.html#storylink=cpy

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