Sunday 20 October 2013

Dawson coal mine disaster: 100 years later


The second-deadliest coal mining disaster in U.S. history occurred 100 years ago this week in a northern New Mexico town that no longer exists, save for the small cemetery bearing the remains of many of the 263 miners killed in a massive explosion on the afternoon of Oct. 22, 1913.

Though the town of Dawson and the Stag Canyon No. 2 coal mine are mere footnotes in history to most people, the men who died there a century ago – mostly Italian and Greek immigrants lured to the coal fields by decent-paying jobs and all the amenities a company town like Dawson could offer – are far from forgotten.

In ceremonies today at the Raton Museum, the miners killed in what has become known as the Dawson Mining Disaster will be remembered by descendents, historians and New Mexico’s Italian and Greek communities.

“I think it’s important to honor these men, and all immigrants who helped build America,” said Nicki Panagopoulos, a member of St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Albuquerque.

Dawson draws its name from John Barkley Dawson, a cattleman who came to the Vermejo Valley in 1869. In 1901, he and partner Charles Springer sold most of their land – portions of which held vast coal reserves – to the Dawson Fuel Co.

Railroad promoter Charles B. Eddy of El Paso built a 137-mile-long railroad from Dawson to Tucumcari, where it linked with transcontinental railways.

Fed by America’s seemingly insatiable appetite for coal, Phelps Dodge Corp. bought the ever-expanding network of Dawson mines in 1906.

The company built comfortable homes for the miners and their families, installed a water system and constructed a model “company town” that provided most of the community’s needs.

Amenities included the four-story brick Phelps Dodge Mercantile, a well-equipped hospital, movie theater, opera house, golf course, bowling alley, swimming pool, baseball park and two churches – one Catholic and one Protestant. It also leased a saloon to a private barkeep, who named the facility The Snake.

Using gas produced by its coke ovens, a company-built, steam-powered power plant supplied electricity to Dawson, Raton and Walsenburg, Colo.

The company aggressively recruited newly arrived immigrants, and attracted miners from Mexico, Italy, Greece, Poland, Germany, Great Britain, Finland, Sweden, China and elsewhere. The hills around Dawson were dotted with mines – numbered 1 through 10 – and mining camps. During their heyday in 1918, the Dawson mines produced about 4 million tons of coal, and the town was home to about 9,000 residents.

Despite the best efforts by mine inspectors and Phelps Dodge – which had installed sprinklers in the mine to keep down coal dust and had passed a state safety inspection two days before the blast – coal mining remained a dangerous occupation.

On Oct. 22, 1913, 284 miners headed to work inside the Stag Canyon No. 2 mine.

Shortly after 3 p.m., an explosion ripped through the mine, shaking the town of Dawson and sending a rush of rescuers to the site over the next few days. Witnesses said the explosion shot flames more than 100 feet out of the mine’s entrance.

Phelps Dodge sent doctors, nurses and supplies from El Paso, and striking miners in Colorado headed to Dawson to help in the rescue. Two rescuers died during the effort.

As bodies were carried out of the mine, anxious families waited to see who had survived.

Only 23 of the miners survived the blast, which was later determined to have been triggered by an illegal dynamite blast that ignited coal dust and turned the mine into a momentary but lethal inferno.

NM00_j20Oct_Dawson copyMass funerals were held, and the tiny Dawson cemetery was expanded to accommodate the victims. White iron crosses, provided by Phelps Dodge, marked each grave site.

Historians say the dead included 146 Italian and 36 Greek miners, though the numbers vary slightly depending on their source.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the Dawson mine disaster is the second-deadliest coal mining accident in U.S. history. It is eclipsed only by the Dec. 6, 1907, explosion of the Monongah Mines Nos. 6 and 8 in Monongah, W. Va., which claimed 362 lives.

Though the 1913 tragedy led to many mining safety improvements, an explosion in Dawson’s Stag Canyon No. 1 mine killed 123 miners on Feb. 8, 1923. An investigation concluded that a mine car derailed and caused sparks that ignited coal dust inside the mine. Some of those victims, historians say, were sons of the men killed nearly a decade earlier.

Sunday 20 October 2013

http://www.abqjournal.com/285001/news/100-years-later.html

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Anonymous sources: DNA tests identify 290 Rana Plaza victims


DNA tests have been able to confirm the identities of around 300 previously unidentified victims of the Rana Plaza disaster, sources said.

The national DNA testing laboratory at the Dhaka Medical College used Combined DNA Index System (Codis) software to successfully match DNA samples provided by relatives of Rana Plaza victims.

Although the DNA matching procedure is yet to be finalised, sources said 290 bodies have been identified. Of all the DNA samples taken, only 30-35 are yet to be matched to victims.

DNA specialists expressed hope of providing detailed information and confirming relationships between the victims and the sample donors once the process is completed.

Sources said the results of the first phase of tests, which are likely to reveal the identities of 250 to 260 victims, would be published by October 30.

The other samples would require further examination since some samples of teeth, bones or tissue from individual victims were examined separately, leading some victims to be identified multiple times.

The disclosures were made by several officials and employees of women and children affairs ministry and the DNA profiling laboratory, on the condition of anonymity, as the “sensitive issue” is directly supervised by the PMO.

Asked, Dr Sharif Akteruzzaman, chief of the laboratory, told the Dhaka Tribune last week: “I did not give you any number. Who told you? We have not sat yet to write the results. After Eid, we will sit for it.”

Around 550 relatives who gave DNA samples would be able to claim compensation from the government once the results were made public. They are yet to receive help from any organisations until date.

At least 321 victims remain unidentified almost seven months after the collapse killed more than 1,112 people, mostly women workers.

Sunday 20 October 2013

http://www.dhakatribune.com/law-amp-rights/2013/oct/20/dna-tests-identify-300-rana-plaza-victims

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39 bodies recovered after Laos plane crash, Korean victims not identified


A total of 39 bodies have been recovered from the Mekong River following a plane crash in Laos earlier last week, but the three South Korean victims have not yet been identified among the recovered bodies, officials said Sunday.

The Lao airplane crashed into the river amid bad weather Wednesday, killing all 49 passengers and crewmembers on board, including three South Korean businessmen.

Rescue workers have pulled 39 bodies from the water, including one on Sunday morning, according to officials from the South Korean Embassy in Laos and other sources.

Many of the bodies have not been identified due to decay and damages from the impact of the crash, requiring further forensic investigation, they said.

Authorities have failed to confirm whether the South Koreans were among the recovered bodies of the victims.

Forensic teams from South Korea, Thailand and Australia are working on taking samples and conducting autopsies at a makeshift morgue established near the accident site.

Officials said it could take up to 10 days to identify the bodies through DNA testing, depending on their condition.

Forensic officials in Seoul have already collected information on physical peculiarities of the three South Korean victims to help confirm their identities. Medical records for two of the three have also been secured, they said.

Meanwhile, Lao authorities are working on recovering the remaining bodies, while trying to find flight data and cockpit voice recorders to determine the exact cause of the crash.

Sunday 20 October 2013

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/yonhap-news-agency/131020/39-bodies-recovered-after-laos-plane-crash-korean-victims-no

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The search for closure: Family makes heartfelt plea for finding lost crew of MV Hope


The family of Captain Rajib Chandra Karmaker, master of the Bangladeshi cargo ship MV Hope, has launched a public appeal for any information that may lead to the recovery of the missing captain’s body and those of his lost shipmates.

The Hope, laden with ball clay, was struck broadside by large waves and listed heavily in stormy seas south of Phuket while en route from Malaysia to Bangladesh on July 4.

Five of the 17-strong crew managed to board a life raft and were later rescued by the passing German container ship Buxmoon, but the other 12 were tossed into the sea when the ship heaved violently.

Of those thrown into the sea, four were recovered alive. The bodies of four other sailors from MV Hope have since been recovered and identified, leaving four still listed as missing at sea: Capt Rajib, Jr Electrical Officer Sadim Ali, Deck Hand Md Nasir Uddin and Chief Cook Nasir Uddin.

“I want people, and especially hospitals in coastal areas, to recognize whether or not they have found the bodies of these men. If anybody finds any information about them, they should inform us,” Capt Rajib’s daughter, Ronika, told the Phuket Gazette.

“My father was wearing his uniform when they abandoned ship. If anyone identifies a body with that shirt, they should inform us,” she said.

Ronika explained that the absence of her father has taken a grave toll on her family.

“Personally, I am still in a state of shock. It is very hard for me and my family to accept this. Life without my father seems unreal. My father was not around much because of his work, so it just feels like he is only gone for some time.

“It feels like he will be back from work, and everything will go back to normal. I miss him every day,” she said.

The shipping community in Bangladesh and afar has rallied support for the victim’s families, understanding their emotional loss and the financial impact of the tragedy.

“We are in a dire financial crisis now,” said Ronika. “We were already going through some serious financial difficulties before my dad went off to sail on MV Hope. Now that he is missing, there is no source of income in the household. My mother is a housewife, like any other traditional Bengali woman.”

Ronika, 22, is a student at the North South University in Dhaka.

“Now my only plan is to graduate from university and get a good job so I can support my family as the elder daughter. I have a younger brother, who’s in grade 10 now,” she explained.

“The shipping community is trying to help us, and the Singapore Mariners Community has offered to fund my education. Their support has been a blessing for me,” Ronika said.

Meanwhile, efforts by the ship’s owner, Trade Breeze Shipping Ltd, to provide assistance remain mired in antiquated maritime law.

“The company avoided contacting us for the first 10 to 12 days after the incident. Then they contacted us and told us that we would be compensated for our loss. But it will be a long, difficult process because the men are ‘missing’,” Ronika explained.

“The Bangladeshi law for marine accidents – which is 100 years old – states that compensation shall be granted after seven years of the incident to a missing person’s family. This is a huge problem because our family is in a dire financial crisis right now,” she said.

“My father was the only wage earning member of the family and now we have no source of income. The shipping company is now cooperating with us, and hopefully we will receive compensation soon,” Ronika added.

The other victim’s families have been a source of emotional support for Ronika and her family.

“We have been in touch with the families of the other missing crewmen, as all of us are suffering from the same situation.

“Because my father was the Master of MV Hope, the other families came to us for help,” Ronika explained.

“The missing crew members were the earning members of their families, and losing them affected all of us both emotionally and financially.

“Most of the family members of the crewmen are not well-educated, and are not familiar with official procedures regarding this case. So my mother has helped them in every way possible,” she said.

“I believe we will always be connected, because we are facing harsh circumstances together which nobody else would be able to understand.

In the saddest of ways, the MV Hope tragedy has brought the Karmaker family closer together, explained Ronika.

“This has definitely affected my mother and I. It has given us a sense of unity that we are facing the same problems together,” she explained.

“The communication between the families is great; in a way it made us all stronger. “It is the great irony of fate that the ship that destroyed everything was named MV Hope. I hope every day that my father returns.

“Hope is all I have now.”

Sunday 20 October 2013

http://www.phuketgazette.net/phuket_news/2013/Special-Report-The-search-for-closure-Family-makes-heartfelt-plea-for-finding-lost-crew-of-MV-Hope-22550.html

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The disappeared: At least 26,000 people have gone missing in Mexico's drugs war


One by one they gather in front of Saltillo's imposing cathedral in the city's historic Plaza de Armas square, wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with names, photographs, dates. Tentatively they begin to chant, "Where have they gone, where have they gone, where have our sons and daughters gone?"

These mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, brothers and sisters have gathered in protest, as they try to find out what has become of their loved ones – the missing victims of Mexico's brutal drug wars and rampant corruption – trying, because nobody else is willing to help them.

Saltillo is the capital of Coahuila, a state in northern Mexico that borders Texas, which, four years ago, became a deadly battleground for cartels fighting over territory. The border regions are crucial transportation routes for drugs – heroin, marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine (better known as crystal meth to Breaking Bad fans) – destined for the insatiable American market.

Violence erupted on the streets when the old power bases were disrupted by internal splits, a proliferation of new cartels and President Felipe Calderon's ill-fated "drug war" between 2006 and 2012. This war left at least 60,000 dead across Mexico, and swathes of the country awash with bullets and blood. The major battle-grounds have shifted further south of late, but another 14,000 have died since Enrique Peña Nieto came to power last December, according to analysis by respected news magazine Zeta.

Worse, public authorities have become so corrupt that clear boundaries between the cartels and state, between the dirty and clean, no longer exist. Politicians, prosecutors, police and armed forces in Coahuila, its northern neighbours Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas and a depressingly large number of other states are involved in the production and transport of drugs, weapons and people. In February, a new figure shocked even those desensitised to the daily horrors: 26,000 people were reported missing or disappeared during Calderon's six-year rule, and the authorities have no idea what became of them. Interior Ministry figures revealed that in 40 per cent of cases, a criminal investigation was never even opened.

The 100 or so families who gathered in the Plaza de Armas on International Day of the Disappeared at the end of August did so in spite of the intimidating presence of heavily armed state police officers scattered around the square. It was a bold display of courage and defiance by ordinary people who are as despairing as they are hopeful. As they walked together hand in hand, their voices grew louder and more confident with each verse, drawing strength from one another.

For years, families suffered alone, often too afraid even to talk about the crime never mind report it to the authorities. Those who dared demand an investigation were frequently met with ineptitude, corruption and disinterest. They were told to give up their son or daughter for dead, or accept that they had suddenly left to join the cartels. The riposte came in 2009, when four families searching for missing relatives founded Fuerza Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos en Coahuila (Fuundec – United Forces for Our Missing in Coahuila), believing that together they would be harder to ignore or intimidate.

Jorge Verastequi Gonzales, a mature, compassionate 22-year-old, co-founded the group after his older brother and nephew were snatched by armed men on their way home from a religious service in Parras de la Fuente – a beautiful oasis brimming with vineyards in the middle of the Coahuila desert. "We are a movement of families trying to find our missing loved ones," says Gonzales. "We are victims trying to fill in the gaps left by the state. We carry out our own investigations then pressure the authorities to pursue the lines of inquiry. Our public demonstrations build pressure on the authorities and make this humanitarian emergency, this tragedy of the disappeared, visible to the world."

In reality, this means the families themselves tracing phone records, interviewing witnesses, tracking mobile-phone signals, scouring land-registry records and even commissioning their own forensic tests. Fuundec gets these families in front of state and federal officials, and doesn't allow the officials to close files, dismiss leads or bully the families into giving up. The movement has so far spread to eight more states.

Their diligence in Coahuila has provided an invaluable insight into Mexico's disappeared. Fuundec knows of 321 people who have disappeared in the state since 2007 in 143 separate "kidnappings" (the true number is almost certainly closer to 500). This includes the disappearance of 23 male bus-company workers attending a meeting on a ranch in April 2009 (only two families reported a disappearance). Of that 321, just seven have been found so far: two rescued during a police operation (by chance rather than design), three freed by their captors, one (who was mentally ill) found with the help of a journalist, and the seventh found dead – killed by his captors. More than half the victims are under 35; 17 per cent are women. They include housewives, engineers, students, bus drivers, street vendors and business owners. Money rarely seems the motive, as genuine ransom demands are rare.

Fuundec says it has strong evidence in more than 10 per cent of its cases that state agents – local or federal police, army or navy officers – directly participated in the disappearances.Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both found compelling evidence of state involvement in more than half the disappearances they documented across Mexico – but the government continues to focus blame on the gangs.

Yet the grim reports on murders and mass graves have failed to destroy the hope most families still have of finding their loved ones alive. Their faith is in part fuelled by rumours of cartels taking communication technicians, engineers, architects, dentists, builders and all their equipment, to service their vast operations.

Rupert Knox, Amnesty International's Mexico researcher, is not so optimistic. "There is a natural desire within families to find their loved ones alive, and the systematic failure to investigate disappearances has left them without any solid information. But the fact is, mass killings and disposal of bodies have become a hideous feature of this war in the past few years."

In 2012, according to the National Human Rights Commission, there were 15,921 unidentified bodies around the country. It is not known how many of these remains belong to the disappeared, due to lack of forensic investigations.

Thousands of unclaimed bodies and thousands of families looking for answers – a reprehensible state of affairs which the government, if it had the political will, could tackle.

The relatives of the disappeared interviewed here feel tormented by not knowing what has become of their loved ones. Though let down by those in power, they refuse to surrender. "If I give up hoping, then all I have is my imagination and that's too awful to bear," says one mother.

Back in Saltillo's grand cathedral, Father Pedro Pantoja, a human-rights champion fighting alongside the families, urges patience and resolve. In unison, the weeping mothers and fathers respond: "They took them alive, we want them back alive."

Brenda Domaris Gonzalez Solis, 25, professional cook and mother of two-year-old Antonio, last seen on 31 July 2011

Brenda and her friend were taken on their way home from a night out in what seems to have been a staged car crash in Santa Catarina, a lawless town in Nuevo Leon plagued by police corruption. Her mother, Juana Solis, 49, was in bed when Brenda rang her younger brother asking for help. "She said they'd been in an accident, the traffic police were there, but that he should come quickly. He heard a man telling Brenda to get off the phone, then it went dead."

Her brother rushed to the scene, where the car lay in a ravine, punctured by five bullet holes – but there was no blood. Two traffic police said Brenda and her friend had been taken to hospital by ambulance. The family searched all the hospitals, but no one had seen or heard of them. "We then asked all the local shops for their CCTV but they said it didn't work. One security guard told us he had heard shots fired, but that's literally all we know."

Juana started making noise at the state prosecutor's office, constantly demanding they search for her daughter. One year later they claimed to have found Brenda's remains in a mass grave; Juana was shown a plastic bag of bones as proof. "It was so suspicious – they had never even taken our DNA and they kept pressuring me to let them burn the remains. They wanted me to go away, but I'd lost a daughter not a dog, so we got our own DNA analysis – and it wasn't her."

Juana still has no idea why her daughter was taken, or whether it was a targeted or opportunistic attack, but with no ransom request or body, she remains convinced that Brenda is alive. "My daughter is beautiful, she is a great cook, is good with accounts, so I am sure they've kept her to work. I am her mother; I'd know in my heart if she was dead."

Estaban Acosta Rodriguez, 34, his two brothers and his eight-year-old son Brandon Estaban were last seen driving from Saltillo to Monterrey airport when they were intercepted by three car-loads of armed men on 29 August 2009

Rodriguez was head of security at a local prison, but had recently spent a year at a high-security prison where drug traffickers and other organised-crime bosses were held. The cartels have a reputation for exacting revenge on prison officers who refuse to be corrupted. An anti-kidnap squad investigation focused on Rodriguez's work, but despite three eye witnesses reporting the kidnap, no suspect or motive was identified.

"I don't think my husband had been threatened – he would have told me, I am sure," says Fuundec co-founder Lourdes Herrera del Llano, the childhood sweetheart who Rodriguez married. "It was just an ordinary day and we were just an ordinary family. It's been four years and people say I should try to live my life, but I want my old life back, my daughter wants her brother and father back.

"I promised to find my son no matter how long it takes," adds Del Llano "and I won't give up on him; the pain in my heart is so strong."

Roy Rivera Hidalgo, 18, a philosophy and languages undergraduate, was last seen on 11 January 2011

It was the last night of the Christmas holidays and schoolteacher Irma Rivera Hidalgo (above) and her boys, Roy, 18, and Ricky, 16, were up late, preparing for the new term. They lived in a residential suburb of Monterrey, capital of the border state Nuevo Leon and Mexico's wealthy industrial hub.

The family chit-chat was halted at 1am as 10 heavily armed men wearing masks, camouflage trousers and flak-jackets with the word POLICE burst in. They ransacked the house, taking computers, phones, jewellery and car keys, and hitting the boys with guns, before the boss demanded to know who the eldest was. "They'd covered my head so I didn't see them take Roy, but he was gone," says Irma. "All I saw was a big muddy car without licence plates speeding away."

By 2011, the local police were widely known to be corrupt, and Monterrey was plastered with official billboards advising people to instead call the army to report major crimes. But within hours of the invasion of the Hidalgo home, an anonymous caller rang the house threatening to kill Roy – so Irma, frantic and unsure who to trust, agreed to pay a million pesos (£50,000) in ransom.

"I said that I'd pay only after I heard Roy's voice. They put him on; he said, 'Mum, it's me, Roy, I love you very much.' I told him I loved him too. That's the last I heard his voice." The kidnappers, who claimed to be with the Gulf Cartel, stopped calling.

"I tried to trace their mobiles, but the phone companies wouldn't give me names. We plotted the movements of my phone, which was stolen that night, using GPS and Google Earth; I took 80 pictures of 16 places where the phone was and gave all this information to the army. The state had all the technology, but they weren't interested; it was left to us."

Two months later, the army conducted a rescue operation on a house where 15 missing people were believed to be held. They recovered two men and a woman who had been tortured, but no Roy. Three men were arrested, but the fate of the other 12 disappeared is still a mystery.

A new army unit then took over Monterrey and showed little interest in Roy's case. It was down to Irma to keep the case open. In 2012, she founded Fundenl – the Nuevo Leon arm of Fuundec – and every week the families of the disappeared hold a vigil in front of City Hall. "The army said Roy was taken as a 'forced recruit' by serving police officers working with a cartel. Whatever the truth is, I have to find out; I won't let the authorities forget him. Some days I think he can't be alive, but they have rescued people forced to work for the cartels [before], so as long as there is no body, we have hope and I keep looking."

Sunday 20 October 2013

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-disappeared-at-least-26000-people-have-gone-missing-in-mexicos-drugs-war-8884385.html

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