Tuesday 8 October 2013

Lampedusa disaster: Death toll hits 250 as Italian divers recover more bodies


The death toll from the Lampedusa disaster has hit 250 after Italian divers recovered more bodies from the wreck of the smugglers' ship that sank off the tiny island's coast.

Coast guard commander Filippo Marini said a further 18 bodies were recovered from within the ship's hold this morning, while one was spotted by a helicopter floating near the wreck.

Mr Marini said the search would continue as long as the weather allows. Just 155 migrants, most if not all from Eritrea, survived last Thursday's shipwreck.

Survivors said there were some 500 people on board when the ship capsized and sank in sight of land.

A disproportionate number of the dead are women: so far the bodies of 75 women have been recovered, while only six of the survivors were female. Seven of the dead are children.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/lampedusa-disaster-death-toll-hits-250-as-italian-divers-recover-more-bodies-8866782.html

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Bangladesh garment factory fire kills at least 10


A fire Tuesday night at a garment factory outside Bangladesh's capital has killed at least 10 people, an official said.

Fire official Zafar Ahmed said 10 bodies were found inside the Aswad garment factory in Gazipur outside Dhaka. He said several other people were injured while trying to escape from the building.

Journalist Iqbal Ahmed said the fire occurred when the factory was closed for the day, but some employees were inside working overtime.

Farhaduzzaman, another fire official, said the blaze spread to two nearby buildings that also housed garment factories in the same group, but that firefighters had doused the flames in two of the buildings and were seeking to bring the blaze under control in the third building. He could not immediately say whether any people were still trapped inside.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

Harsh and often unsafe working conditions in Bangladesh's garment industry drew global attention after the collapse of the eight-storey Rana Plaza factory building in April killed more than 1,100 people. The industry has experienced numerous fires, including one last November that killed 112 workers.

Bangladesh earns $20bn (£12.4bn) a year from garment exports, mainly to the United States and Europe. The sector employs about 4 million workers, mostly women.

Authorities in Bangladesh and global clothing companies have pledged to improve safety standards.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/08/bangladesh-garment-factory-fire-kills-nine

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Two China miners saved 10 days after flood, 10 dead


Two Chinese miners were rescued early Tuesday after 10 days trapped underground by a flood, state media reported, but the bodies of 10 others were found later in the day.

A total of 42 workers were underground when water began pouring into the state-owned Zhengsheng coal mine on September 28, and although 30 escaped a dozen were stuck inside, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Rescue efforts in Fenyang, in the northern province of Shanxi, have been continuing ever since and the two men were retrieved in the early hours of Tuesday, Xinhua added, citing the mining company's rescue headquarters.

They were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening problems.

The bodies of the remaining 10 miners were recovered later in the day, the agency said in a subsequent report, adding an investigation into the accident is under way.

The pair's survival is a stark contrast to the fate of hundreds of Chinese miners every year.

Mining accidents are common in the country, which is the world's largest consumer of coal and where mine operators often skirt safety regulations.

In 2012, 1,384 people were killed in coal mining accidents in the country, according to official figures, down from 1,973 in 2011.

Some rights groups argue that the actual figure is significantly higher due to underreporting by mining companies.

In an effort to address mine safety concerns, state officials last year moved to shut more than 600 small mines, which are deemed more dangerous than larger ones.

But high-profile accidents have continued this year.

In May, more than 50 miners were killed in two accidental explosions in Sichuan and Guizhou provinces in the southwest, after a blast at a coal mine in the northeastern province of Jilin in March killed 28 people.

On the same day a huge landslide crashed down a mountainside in Tibet, entombing 83 workers in two million cubic metres of earth. There were no survivors.

The cause of the flooding in Shanxi has yet not been determined, reports said.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/19307482/two-china-miners-saved-10-days-after-flood-10-dead/

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11 crew missing after E China fishing boat capsize


Eleven crew members of a fishing boat have been left missing after their boat capsized off the coast of East China's Jiangsu province on Tuesday morning, local authorities said.

The accident happened around 10 am in sea waters about 25 nautical miles from the coast of Qidong city, according to the city's publicity department.

As of 4:30 pm, search and rescue work is still ongoing.

The cause of the accident is under investigation.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-10/08/content_17015730.htm

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Remains of Costa Concordia thought to be missing victim found


Divers searching the submerged wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship have found the remains of one of the two people still missing from the 2012 disaster.

The body, believed to be that of Russel Rebello was found inside the salvaged liner, near the third deck, representatives of Italy's Civil Protection said.

"Scuba divers have located the body of one of the missing victims inside the ship near the third deck," the Civil Protection said. "Some details have led us to believe it could be [the body] of Russel Rebello."

The Civil Protection said it has informed the Rebello's family.

Thirty-two people of 4,200 people on board died when the Concordia slammed into a reef off the Tuscan island of Giglio and capsized on Jan. 13, 2012. The bodies of Rebello and an Italian woman, Maria Grazia Trecarichi, were not recovered.

Divers have been able to access areas of the ship that were previously off-limits following the massive operation to right it last month. Officials have said the priority was to locate the remaining two bodies.

Italian authorities also said two weeks ago that divers found what they thought were human remains on the ship's Deck 4. But they later determined that the remains were animal.

Rebello, a 33-year-old cruise waiter from India, was hailed a hero for saving lives before losing his own when the ship sank.

The married father-of-two had started working on the Costa Concordia just a few months before Captain Francesco Schettino's notorious tragic "salute" to the island.

Witnesses said that as Schettino abandoned ship, Rebello, a Mumbai native, stayed on to help other passengers to safety and even gave one his own lifejacket.

He was last seen as he made his way to a muster station at the restaurant at the back of the ship.

The other missing victim is Maria Grazia Trecarichi, who was on the cruiser to celebrate her 50th birthday with her 17-year-old daughter Stefania.

They had boarded different lifeboats because Trecarichi was cold and had gone below deck to fetch a jacket. Stefania survived.

The new discovery of remains comes about three weeks after engineers managed to rotate the ship back to vertical. Before that, the ship rested 20 months on its side, hindering a full examination.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/remains-of-costa-concordia-missing-victim-found-believed-to-be-those-of-indian-waiter/2013/10/08/81a0fa28-300f-11e3-9ddd-bdd3022f66ee_story.html http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/08/world/europe/italy-costa-concordia-remains/

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Lagos air crash: Victims’ DNA samples to be sent to UK today


It has been gathered that samples of Deoxyribo-Nucleic Acid (DNA) collected from victims of last Thursday’s plane crash and their families are due for a United Kingdom hospital today for testing.

A source explained to the Nigerian Tribune on Monday that forensic experts at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, took the decision, after sample collection processes were concluded on Monday.

It was gathered that a relative of the victim delayed the process by showing up on Monday morning, unlike their counterparts who had done their DNA exercise and had the processes almost completed since Saturday.

The result was expected in Lagos in another four weeks, beginning from the date samples arrived at the UK hospital, already scheduled for the DNA testing and mapping.

Some relatives, who showed up at LASUTH demanding for corpses of their relatives, especially bodies that were identifiable, were, however, turned down.

Chief Examiner and Vice Chancellor of Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM), Professor John Obafunwa, however, assured that some of the identifiable bodies would be released to their families once the necessary identification and documentation processes had been completed.

He explained that the overseas DNA examination and delay that would be witnessed in the process were to ensure proper identification of corpses and receipt by the right relatives.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Special Duties, Dr Wale Ahmed, on behalf of the state government, had earlier promised to conduct DNA test and promised proper identification of bodies of victims.

This, he said, would help to ensure that the right corpse was given to the right family, without unnecessary mix up.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

http://tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/news/item/23427-air-crash-victims%E2%80%99-dna-samples-to-be-sent-to-uk-today-%E2%80%A2sacrifice-of-dead-officials-wont-be-in-vain-%E2%80%93mimiko.html

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“Rรฉquiem NN”: Reclaiming the Forgotten


One part heartbreaking study of the drug war that has ravaged Colombia for decades, one part series of meditations on the dead, “Rรฉquiem NN” is a touching visual essay about a small town caught in the midst of a very large and dangerous conflict.

Since 2006, artist Juan Manuel Echavarrรญa has traveled several times to the cemetery of Puerto Berrรญo, near the Magdalena River, to document the rituals of the local townspeople as they reclaim unidentified victims of the drug war. Fished out of the neighboring river, these No Names (NN) are given new identities by the locals, who also decorate their graves and honor their memories as if for lost relatives.

The film follows the lives of several of the people, from the fishermen who find the bodies, to the doctors who perform the autopsies, to the citizens who take it upon themselves to care for the deceased. Some notable individuals include: Hernรกn, the “soul keeper,” a sort of caretaker of the dead, performing a midnight mass at the cemetery for the locals; Jair, a man who pays daily visits to the tomb of “Gloria,” a young victim who he claims talks to him in his sleep; and Blanca, a mother who prays every day for the safe return of a missing son and daughter, two innocents possibly caught in the crossfire of the never-ending drug war.

Echavarrรญa has photographed the town for years, and his experience behind the camera is apparent throughout the film. He avoids flashy techniques, keeping the camera trained on the individual as he or she shares a story about a personal encounter with the NNs. One gets the sense that the film is like a moving photo gallery, a fully-sculpted representation of what his photo series evokes. As we follow the separate narratives, Echavarrรญa includes still shots of different tombs, adorned with flowers and plaques bearing the unknown’s new name. Or, he cuts to images of the Magdalena River as it flows lazily by, a swollen body of water filled with gnarled logs and who knows what else, its mysteries hidden beneath the murky surface.

It’s important to note the absence of a soundtrack. Whether that was due to budgetary limitations is not entirely clear, as the film does have a certain stripped-down quality, a refreshing directness in the way it approaches its subject matter. Regardless, it was a wise choice, as throwing in a moody, atmospheric score may seem effective at first thought, but the fact that silence is the general background noise between individual stories allows the viewer to focus even more on what’s on screen. After all, this is a story about a town that, in every moment, is affected by the dead. And cemeteries are quiet places.

If Echavarrรญa has a goal for his documentary other than portraying individual lives affected by the growing number of unknowns, it is the argument of belief as an essential part of a community. There is an accepted notion among locals that providing care for an NN guarantees divine protection and special favors. As such, people rush to claim an NN whenever a new unknown corpse arrives, especially as fire fighters, not local citizens, are the only ones now allowed to retrieve bodies from the river. The medical examiners are frustrated by the local ritual, as they say it gets in the way of their procedures. However, a local cemetery worker argues that it is helpful that people provide individual care for the unknowns, as they willfully pay for separate tombs for the NNs, therefore keeping the unknown from being buried in a mass grave and making it easy to identify the bones later on.

Whether “Rรฉquiem NN” is a series of ghost stories or a straightforward examination of modern life in a war-ravaged country, the people it depicts make it an interesting film. Consider Hernรกn, the soul keeper. In one scene, he examines a diary of his daily tasks as the resident caretaker of the dead. He expresses weariness in this ongoing relationship with the unknowns. He mentions how he witnessed his first claiming of an NN when he was 14 years old; he is now 57. Or, consider the story of Jesรบs, a man who lives close to the river and would awaken to the sounds of gunfire. “Bullets were my alarm clock,” he reminisces. He would go to the river and collect the bodies that he always knew were there. Once, he was confronted by the killers, telling him to keep quiet, or what happened to the NN would happen to him, too. Soon after, the thoughts of the dead were always on his mind, to the point that he couldn’t drink anything without tasting blood.

Is this the state of the world? This endless cycle of violence? Echavarrรญa hopes that it isn’t, despite the grim war in his home country. Hope exists throughout the narrative. A fisherman tells a tale of finding a severed head in the waters, but ends with how he offered up a prayer and gave it a proper burial. A mother talks of people promising to exact revenge against the ones who took away her children, but she rebukes this statement, wishing instead for a world without the need for bloodshed. In one poignant scene, we witness two separate families coming together to celebrate the birthday of an NN that they both have claimed. The birthday, as well as the identity of the unknown, are both fabricated—created by the imaginations of those who have chosen to respect the dead in this manner. And yet it is in this act of believing, no matter how farfetched for other cultures, that there lies hope. Perhaps they act in vain, investing money in rituals that only serve to assuage their own guilt. But it is in these choices, in these celebrations against death, that we find our humanity. Through our actions, we defy oblivion.

“Rรฉquiem NN” is showing October 8-14 at The Museum of Modern Art. Running time: 67 minutes; 2013; in Spanish w/English subtitles. Directed by Juan Manuel Echavarrรญa

Tuesday 8 October 2013

http://cinespect.com/2013/10/requiem-nn-reclaiming-the-forgotten/

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Identification begins on South Texas immigrants


One of the girl's pink and white high-top sneakers, size 6½, was still on her foot when her body arrived at the Webb County Medical Examiner's Office in Laredo on Sept. 1.

Medical Examiner Corinne Stern placed her at 15 to 17 years old, but knew little else.

Now, a month later, the body of Sandra Maribel Jarama Naula, 17, is back home in Ecuador, and her husband knows her fate.

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times (http://bit.ly/1bBjW4Q ) reports none of these stories have the ending that friends and relatives want, but now there is a greater likelihood that they will at least have an ending.

Naula's story represents an early success in Brooks County's new policy mandating that all bodies believed to be those of migrants are sent to Stern's office for autopsy. Before August, there were no official examinations of migrant bodies because the cash-strapped county didn't budget for it. The change is critical because Brooks County is the epicenter for migrant deaths in South Texas, with its unforgiving remote terrain surrounding the Border Patrol checkpoint south of Falfurrias.

Affidavits by federal investigators show Naula walked 12 hours through the brush, on a day when the temperature in Falfurrias reached 99 degrees, before she collapsed and died.

Remains of 129 people were recovered in Brooks County in 2012, setting a record. Seventy-six have been found in 2013. Law enforcement officials believe even more deaths are unaccounted for, because remains are scattered across the 944 square miles of barren ranch land. A Caller-Times analysis showed at least a third of those recovered since 2011 were reduced to bones.

The policy changed after pressure from human rights groups and coverage in the Caller-Times. Before the change, bodies were sent to a mortuary in the Rio Grande Valley. There, staff members tried to identify bodies by studying the personal items they carried and maintaining contact with foreign consulates that collected missing person reports.

But the efforts fell short of scientific standards and a state law that requires DNA samples to be collected from unidentified bodies. While it's impossible to tell the mortuary's success rate, because its records aren't public, one measure was the Brooks County cemetery, which ran out of space for unmarked graves.

In May, anthropologists from Baylor University unearthed 55 graves from the cemetery and are creating profiles of each person in hopes of identifying them.

Under the new system, fewer bodies should end up in nameless graves because although most are in advanced states of decomposition, DNA samples can now be compared against samples submitted by people seeking missing relatives.

The early results are promising. Brooks County has sent 16 bodies to Stern's office since the policy change in mid-August. She identified three by dental records and other measures, and tentatively identified five more, pending DNA samples submitted by relatives.

Naula's case shows another benefit of the autopsy process: It preserves evidence in criminal cases and lines of communication between officials at state, federal, local and international agencies. It also helps federal agents probe the international criminal organizations that traffic people and drugs.

Stern made the identification after learning from officers that the girl might be from Ecuador. She called the Ecuadorean consulate. Two days later they called back. A husband reported his wife missing. Naula wore the ring he gave her, a gold band, on her left little finger. It was still there when she arrived in Stern's office.

Her body was recovered Aug. 30 after Border Patrol agents detained a group of migrants on the Cage Ranch, one of the larger ranches adjacent to U.S. Highway 281, a smuggling corridor where the Falfurrias checkpoint sits.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

http://www.sfgate.com/news/texas/article/Identification-begins-on-South-Texas-immigrants-4875258.php

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Italy shipwreck toll rises to 232 as more migrant bodies recovered


The toll of ascertained deaths in the migrant shipwreck near the Italian island of Lampedusa rose to 232 on Monday, as divers recovered another 38 bodies from under the boat that sank last week, local media reports said.

The 20-meter fishing vessel is thought to have been carrying 518 people, mostly Eritreans and Somalis, when it went down, meaning that 131 people are still missing.

Only 155 survived the disaster. The victims also included several woman and some children.

The search for missing bodies was complicated by difficult weather conditions on Monday. "When we left the boat, around 45 meters deep, we could still see several bodies piled and stiff," one of the deep-sea divers told Rai state television.

'Entwined'

Divers have described finding a "wall of entwined bodies" when they managed to get inside the hull of a sunken migrant boat for the first time.

They had difficulty in removing the corpses because they were so close together but they managed to pull at least 38 from the crowded wreck.

Experts in deep sea diving gear have spent 30 minutes at a time at the vessel which was carrying hundreds of people when it sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Navy captain Paolo Trucco said: "They (divers) unpacked a wall of people. They were so entwined, one with the other, it is indescribable. They were so trapped they were difficult to pull out."

The drivers have also removed debris that was still floating around inside.

"Mattresses, covers, stairs. Anything that would float. Imagine if you put a house in a centrifuge and you see what winds up in the air. That is what happened," Mr Trucco said.

Some of the 155 survivors have said there were at least 500 people aboard the 18-metre-long (59ft) boat when it sank, which could mean scores more are still trapped in the hull.

The operation to recover the bodies is taking place 47 metres (154ft) below the surface after the trawler carrying African migrants went down last Thursday.

One of the divers who helped recover bodies from the sea on Sunday was Riccardo Nobile, who said he waited for more than an hour among the corpses on a recovery boat.

He said: "It was difficult to look straight at their faces, to see their wounds, see their tormented expressions, their outstretched arms. It was extremely difficult. But this is our job."

The coastguard said it would take two more days to complete the search and recovery mission.

The packed boat caught fire which triggered a panicked rush to one side of the vessel.

It capsized and, according to survivors, hundreds of people were thrown into the sea, many of whom could not swim.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-10/07/c_132777459.htm

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