Thursday 24 April 2014

Deadly illegal mining booms below South African City of Gold


Smoke rises from a derelict mine shaft 25 miles east of Johannesburg, where illegal miners cook, work and sleep below ground for weeks at a time.

They have broken through a slab of concrete covering the entrance to the shaft, one of 6,000 abandoned mines, many around Johannesburg, known as “eGoli,” or “City of Gold” in Zulu. At least 40 unlawful prospectors have died in South Africa this year as mines collapse, workers succumb to poisonous gases and gangs wage turf wars underground.

“Any mistake and you feel you’re going to be killed,” said Joseph Sithole, 23, an undocumented Mozambican migrant, as he stood among corrugated-iron shacks and rubbish-strewn paths near the mine. He recounted how last year he dashed to one side of a shaft after hearing a crack, narrowly avoiding being buried by falling rocks. He felt his way to the surface through clouds of dust.

Sithole is one of 14,000 people the government estimates are now involved in illegal mining, which comes as a drop in gold prices and aging ore bodies shut South African shafts. The practice has grown to create a complex criminal industry valued at 6 billion rand ($566 million) a year, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said in February.

The government now plans to block up entrances to abandoned mines, compel owners to heighten security and increase convictions for illegal mining.

Worth Risks

“It’s getting out of control,” Shabangu said. “We need to act with speed.”

While Sithole, in jeans and slip-on shoes, typically earns less than $5 a day, he said it’s worth the risk, because hitting a rich seam can make him significantly more and allows him to send money home to his mother in Maputo, Mozambique’s capital.

Sithole and prospectors like him are known as zama-zamas, or hustlers, in Zulu. They live and work in subterranean tunnels rife with robbery and prostitution, according to police. Illegal miners from job-scarce nations including Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Lesotho as well as fired workers from South Africa, where almost one in four is unemployed, are drawn to the shafts.

Rockfalls, gang violence and robbery are becoming more common as some of the zama-zamas fight between themselves for a bigger share of the profit. Sithole says that he and his colleagues work “innocently” and carry no weapons, which means they are victims of the violence.

Gang Wars

Sithole was once held at gunpoint by a gang from Lesotho, robbed and forced to mine for two straight days, he said. The Mozambican citizen came to South Africa in 2010 after being recruited by a man from his neighborhood in Maputo, he said.

“It’s much better here because even the little that you get here when you go back home it’s worth much more,” said Sithole, whose father is a welder in Tembisa, a township north of where he lives near Brakpan, and two brothers work nearby fitting tiles.

The 28 percent drop in the gold price last year and the dwindling amount of ore in South Africa that can be mined profitably has increased the number of abandoned shafts around Johannesburg. The city lies in the middle of the Witwatersrand basin, the source of a third of all bullion the world has yet produced.

The government estimates there are 6,000 illegal miners underground and 8,000 on the surface, equivalent to about 10 percent of the number of legal employees in the industry. Survival Instinct

Shabangu’s ministry didn’t respond to questions first sent on March 13 on the number of illegal miners killed and convicted in 2014 compared with previous years. She won’t be available until after national elections on May 7, spokeswoman Ayanda Shezi said.

For Sithole, it’s about survival.

Using hand tools, a head torch and rope, he and three friends can mine three grams (0.1 ounce) to four grams of gold in a week, earning the group 960 rand to 1,280 rand. That equates to about $4.60 daily each, enough to buy a cabbage and an 11-pound bag of corn meal. The sum is 82 percent lower than the average black South African household’s income of $26 a day, according to government statistics.

With shafts extending down from the surface as many as 2.4 miles, South Africa’s gold mines are the world’s deepest, and it takes Sithole as long as two hours walking through a labyrinth of tunnels to get to the ore. He spends a week below ground at a time, living in the dark, often flooded shafts.

Good Money Kenny Mashiane, 34, another illegal miner who works independently of Sithole, said in a productive week in a rich seam of gold ore he can make as much as 3,000 rand.

“It’s risky but you can make good money, if you’re lucky,” said Mashiane, who is South African. “You need to study and know where to go.”

Mashiane, who wore a ragged white shirt held together by strands of material, blue overall pants and a Nike (NKE) baseball cap, said he used to mine platinum for Lonmin Plc (LMI), the world’s third-biggest producer of the metal, before losing his job in 2004 in Rustenburg, 106 miles northwest of Johannesburg.

Goliath Gold Mining (GGM) Ltd. owns prospecting rights to the land where Mashiane and Sithole mine. The company bought them from the liquidators of Pamodzi Gold East Rand Ltd. in 2012, according to spokesman Grant Stuart.

Those who have died this year include a group of 20 people, predominantly Zimbabweans, who were poisoned by carbon monoxide in a mine near Roodepoort, west of Johannesburg, according to Paul Ramaloko, a spokesman for Hawks, the South African Police Service’s anti-corruption unit. That mine is not owned by Goliath.

Rising Incidence

Unlawful mining and associated violence is increasing due to “poverty, unemployment and large numbers of illegal immigrants in South Africa,” the Chamber of Mines, which represents producers including AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (ANG), said in an e-mailed statement on March 31.

Security guards, policemen and legal mine workers take bribes from zama-zamas, allowing them access to ore-bearing shafts and fueling the illicit industry, according to Nash Lutchman, senior vice president at Sibanye Gold Ltd., the biggest producer of gold from South African mines.

Legal operators are also falling victim to the zama-zamas, who recruit fired laborers and steal equipment, the chamber said. Sithole and Mashiane said they mine in abandoned shafts with no guards and buy their equipment.

“While we’ve certainly seen reports of illegal mining activities, the careful securing of entrances to our operational sites has thus far worked for us,” said David Noko, AngloGold’s executive vice president for sustainability.

Buried Bodies

The chamber is establishing a precious-metal fingerprinting system that can trace where gold and platinum comes from and working with government and international bodies such as the United Nations to target criminals who trade illegally mined metal across national borders.

Rockfalls are often caused by the mining of gold-rich rock pillars that were left behind by companies to prevent shafts from collapsing, according to Herbert Sogoni, 61, a retired legal miner from Sithole’s shanty town.

“There are still a lot of bodies captured by the rockfalls that are never brought to the surface,” he said.

Rival gangs are just as dangerous as rockfalls. Murders happen during turf wars between groups fighting for rich mining areas, according to the police’s Ramaloko. Women often work below ground as prostitutes, he said.

‘Not Safe’

As many as 200 people were allegedly trapped underground after a gang of zama-zamas blocked the entrance to a shaft in February near Brakpan, where Sithole lives. ER24 emergency-rescue service helped haul 24 people out while others refused to surface for fear of being arrested. The 200 figure may have been exaggerated by the miners to guarantee rescue, or they fled through tunnels to escape via other shafts, ER24 said.

Violence and intimidation have caused Thompson Ngobeni from Mozambique and Abednico Mkhize from South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province to say they won’t go underground again. The pair, both 25, were digging for gold in waste material from a mine dump near Brakpan when interviewed.

“It’s not safe, people are killing each other and robbing each other,” said Ngobeni as he shoveled gray waste rock into a plastic bucket. “They shoot each other sometimes.”

While the gold content of the waste rock is less than a third of what they could mine underground, it’s much safer to work on the surface, Mkhize said.

No Excuse Once the rock is ground into a fine powder, the men pour it into a sieve and add water, making a paste that they then drip onto a towel placed on a plank of wood. They scrape the slush into a bowl and add mercury.

Gold particles cling to the mercury and the men take the substance and put it in a cloth. They squeeze the cloth to extract the mercury and form a small ball of gold concentrate.

“Back home if you’re stuck, you’re stuck,” Ngobeni said. “At least here you can get something yourself.”

Shabangu, the mining minister, said people forging a living from abandoned mines and waste materials are contributing to a proliferation in crime including burglaries and assaults committed by zama-zamas. “Poverty is no excuse for criminality,” she said on Feb. 21.

This happened at Blyvooruitzicht, a 72-year-old gold operation 50 miles southwest of Johannesburg that closed in July last year. Residents and former workers in the mine’s neighboring village have been robbed, beaten and raped by some of the illegal miners, according to the National Union of Mineworkers.

Rising Convictions

Many are living without water and electricity after cables, pumps and generators were stolen, said Richard Xati, a spokesman for the NUM in the area.

Convictions for illegal mining are increasing, with 100 people sentenced already this year, according the Hawks’s Ramaloko. While prison terms can range from three years to five years, miners are often caught without ore, which they process underground, so can only be charged with trespassing. The police are now focusing on the dealers who buy the gold, he said.

Thursday 24 April 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-23/deadly-illegal-mining-booms-below-south-africa-s-city-of-gold.html

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Families protest opencast mine plans on site of Diglake disaster burial ground


Outraged descendants of miners who drowned in a colliery disaster staged a protest against plans to build an opencast mine on the site.

The group waved banners outside the civic offices before Newcastle councillors decided whether to support or oppose a scheme to extract 450,000 tonnes of coal from a site at Great Oak, Bignall End over 15 months.

Campaigners say the proposal is disrespectful to those who died in the 1895 Diglake disaster as dozens of bodies are still trapped beneath the ground.

Staffordshire County Council will make the final decision.

Judith Edgeley’s great-great grandfather William Roberts was killed in the Diglake disaster.

The 48-year-old of Red Street, near Audley, said: “This is effectively a burial ground, we have no idea where those bodies are.

“I have asked UK Coal countless times about how they would make sure that they are not going to disturb the bodies and I’ve had nothing to reassure me. All they say is they’re not digging in the area where the disaster happened – but no-one can say where they actually are.

“If you look at the size of the lorries and equipment to dig up other sites, there’s no way they would be able to tell and we could have a situation were UK Coal are ferrying the remains of 40 miners up the A34.”

A total of 77 men and boys died in the Diglake Collliery flooding on January 14, 1895, when water from an underground reservoir burst into the pit.

Three unidentified skeletons that were recovered from the mine in the 1930s. The remaining bodies have never been recovered.

Claire Barnish, chairman, of the Campaign Against Great Oak Opencast (CAGOO) organised the protest outside the civic offices.

The 33-year-old, of Raven’s Lane, Bignall End, said: “There are so many reasons to object to this mine.

“The site is an unofficial graveyard for the families of the Bignall End area.

“Not only that but the mine would destroy a beautiful area of greenbelt and cause noise and air pollution for people in the village.

“I’m pleased that the borough and parish councils have sided with us on the matter. I hope the county see it our way too.”

Newcastle Borough Council unanimously objected to the plans at Tuesday’s meeting.

Councillors added recommendations to their planning officer’s report that UK Coal must set up a fund to reinstate the area back to its former glory if the plans are approved – after concerns were raised over the financial security of the company.

Councillor Sophia Baker, said: “We need to make it clear to the county council that Newcastle Borough Council objects to these plans in the strongest possible terms.”

Councillor David Stringer added: “I’m quite sure if we would refuse this application tonight if we could.

“If it does go through, we have got to make sure that restoration fund is in place to protect the people living in the area.”

Thursday 24 April 2014

Read more: http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Families-protest-opencast-plans-site-Diglake/story-20999572-detail/story.html

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More typhoon ‘Yolanda’ bodies found


Five months after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” leveled large swathes of the Eastern Visayas, dead bodies continue to turn up.

Seven bodies were recovered in Tacloban City over the weekend as government workers scoured the area for victims of one of the most destructive typhoons to hit the country, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said Tuesday.

The NDRRMC said the death toll from Yolanda now stood at exactly 6,300, most of them still unidentified, while the typhoon left almost P89.6 billion worth of property and infrastructure damage.

It said 1,061 persons remain missing and a total of 28,689 were injured in different typhoon-related incidents.

The typhoon, which made landfall six times before leaving the Philippine area of responsibility, affected some 3.4 million families composed of 16 million individuals in nine regions.

The NDRRMC said Yolanda, which triggered storm surges several meters high, displaced four million individuals as it knocked down one million houses.

Thursday 24 April 2014

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/596636/more-yolanda-bodies-found

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Mount Everest has claimed many lives


Mount Everest has recently claimed 16 lives from a deadly avalanche, which makes this the deadliest disaster that the mountain has ever seen in one day. Though this is a larger-than-usual tragedy, death on Mount Everest is not a rare occurrence. Since 1922 people from all over the world have attempted the grueling climb to the top. Climbers all attempt to stay alive for the totality of the climb, though Mount Everest often has a different fate in mind, continually adding victims to its huge list.

The first climbers in 1922, General Charles Granville Bruce and George Mallory, were the first in history to make it past 8,000 meters on a mountain climb. This group was the second in recorded history to attempt Mount Everest, the first made it just past 7,000 meters one year prior. Since this first record-setting climb many people have tested their endurance and skills by climbing the mountain.

Mount Everest reaches just over 29,000 feet in height, proving to be disastrously hard on the human body due to its lack of oxygen and frigid temperatures. Many climbers experience bodily rejection to the altitude, suffering from headaches and extreme frostbite if not properly prepared. The snowstorms on the mountain are extreme, often causing avalanches like the deadly one earlier this month. Throughout history Mount Everest has added victims to its already huge list, with a total that causes many to wonder why so many attempt the dangerous stunt.

By the year 2005 a recorded total of 186 people died from attempting to climb Everest. This is not counting the many unidentified or lost victims. While the recent avalanche claimed 13 victims in one fell swoop, Everest has a few years where the cumulative death toll rose higher than this. In 1996 Mount Everest stole 15 lives and in 1982 the mountain laid claim to 11. Some of the most iconic landmarks of the mountain are dead bodies. Green boots, an unidentified climber who froze to death on the mountain in 1996, marks a close proximity to the summit. At 8,000 meters high, ironically the height reached by record-breakers in 1922, is what climbers call the “death zone;” 200 plus bodies of Everest’s victims are littered here.

Dead bodies are not all one will find on a climb to the top of Everest. Unfortunately, many climbers leave behind trash and equipment; there is also remnants of a helicopter that crashed into the mountain years ago. Due to the dangerous nature and expenses of making a climb, no one follows after climbers to pick up left equipment or trash. Everest mostly sees wealthy individuals; a single climber will spend upwards of $30,000 to attempt the feat.

While the death toll of Mount Everest does not have an exact pattern, there are not more than one or two deaths a year for decades at a time in some cases. The first year saw 7 deaths; a number that high was not seen again until 1970, with eight lives claimed. The recent catastrophe has many wondering if Everest is becoming more dangerous than previous years to attempt. It is yet to be determined how much longer climbers will have the option to attempt Everest; the world may see a day where any attempt is not in a person’s best interest. Time will be the only indicator of whether or not Mount Everest will be able to continue adding to its huge list of total victims.

Thursday 24 April 2014

http://guardianlv.com/2014/04/mount-everest-total-victims-list-huge/

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Ideal procedure was not maintained in identifying Rana Plaza victims


Faced with an industrial disaster of an unprecedented scale, it was not possible to follow the ideal procedure of using DNA tests to identify the Rana Plaza victims, the chief of the national DNA lab has told the Dhaka Tribune.

Although more than 100 victims remain unidentified after a year, the identifications could still be made if the government took initiative to collect DNA samples from relatives of all the victims, he added.

Professor Dr Sharif Akteruzzaman, head of the National DNA Profiling Laboratory at the Dhaka Medical College (DMC), said they had received 322 DNA samples from unidentified bodies as well as collecting 556 samples from families of the victims. So far, 206 of the bodies have been identified in three phases, he added.

According to official government figures, a total of 1,134 bodies were recovered from under the collapsed building.

The DNA test was not a complete procedure but a partial one, Akteruzzaman admitted, adding that samples from only one-fourth of the victims had been sent to the DNA lab, while 812 bodies had been handed over to relatives without collecting any DNA sample.

As such a large-scale incident was unprecedented; the bodies were improperly handed over to those claiming to be family members, after identification was made only through clothes, ornaments, or objects found in the pocket.

Although the national DNA lab had experience in carrying out DNA tests with a low-capacity machine, it needed the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Combined DNA Index System (Codis) to carry out such a large-scale test, the lab chief said.

The lab carried out 1,000 tests a year on an average, but was forced to conduct a similar number of tests within only a five-month period after the Rana Plaza collapse, he added.

It was still possible to identify the rest of bodies, if people who were yet to locate their relatives would submit DNA samples, Dr Akteruzzaman said, adding that the government could advertise in the mass media in this regard.

The government could also take an initiative to exhume the victims and collect DNA samples, in order to cross-check and confirm their identities based on other DNA samples collected from the relatives, he added.

Dr Akteruzzaman also slammed the BGMEA, claiming that the apex body of apparel makers did not contribute anything to the DNA testing efforts, and added that more family members of victims would have come forward to provide samples if the BGMEA had been more serious on the issue.

To ensure better services for any future disaster, the DNA lab chief said no dead body should be handed over to relatives without preserving DNA samples. A temporary morgue should be set up beside the disaster site, Dr Akteruzzaman said, adding that all garment workers along with public and private organisation workers who faced risks of a disaster should be brought under a DNA database.

Confusion over the total number of missing workers

Even though one year has already elapsed, there is no fully comprehensive list of the Rana Plaza victims while many of them are awaiting compensation.

Still there is an utter confusion over the total number of missing workers, buried after identification, rescued and injured workers because of lack of a complete report by the government.

According to the Labour Ministry, 180 people were still unaccounted for. But the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) report said it was 88 while Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS) put the figure at 379 and Rana Plaza Coordination Cell at 146.

The ministry said 127 people were buried unidentified, while the CPD said it was 27, ActionAid 137 and Rana Plaza Coordination Cell 136.

The CPD revealed the findings in its report titled “One Year after the Rana Plaza Tragedy: Where Do We Stand? The Victims, the Sector and the Value Chain”. The report was released at a programme held at Brac Centre Inn yesterday.

Lawmaker Shirin Akter said: “A list should be posted immediately on the website.” She added: “If there was a trade union in the factory, it was not possible to force the workers to work there.”

Shireen Haq, founder member of Naripokkho, said: “We have noticed lack of coordination in rescuing the victims and publishing a comprehensive report. Are we ready enough to handle another disaster like Rana Plaza?”

Thursday 24 April 2014

http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2014/apr/24/%E2%80%98ideal-procedure-was-not-maintained-identifying-rana-plaza-victims%E2%80%99

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Indian Air Force to set up high-risk crew’s DNA database


In a first, the Indian Air Force has initiated a project for DNA profiling of its personnel, selecting a high-risk group of aircrew that undertakes dangerous missions for the first round. A database of the DNA records will be established in Pune.

The DNA samples of nearly 2,500 crew members who face “potential threat to life” during everyday operations are being collected. The project, initiated by the Directorate General of Medical Services (Air), was accelerated after last year’s helicopter crash in Uttarakhand in which 20 people died. It took several days before some of the bodies could be handed over to the families as they could not be identified.

A similar crash that took place in a high altitude area in the Northeast in 2011 also posed several difficulties for the medical teams in identifying the remains.

“Establishing identity of the deceased is not only a legal necessity but also a moral responsibility as it has emotional implications for the family members. DNA profiling of the available body parts is the only foolproof scientific method of establishing identity of the deceased,” said an IAF official.

“In the first phase, the samples of crew members who undertake dangerous missions are being collected, but this could expand across the force later,” said an official said. For the past few weeks, blood samples of all

IAF air crew in the high-risk group are being collected and the project is likely to be completed by July-end. “The blood samples being collected by single prick method will be recorded in FTA (Fluorescent Treponemal Antibody) cards, the process by which such a profiling is stored, to be part of the repository at the Forensic Department of the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) in Pune,” said an official.

The DNA profiling of air crew from the Army and Navy has also been given priority. Over the next few years, once the project includes the entire armed forces, the FTA cards for nearly 1.5 million personnel are likely to be generated, making it the largest repository of DNA profiles in the country.

Thursday 24 April 2014

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/iaf-to-set-up-high-risk-crews-dna-database/

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South Korea's ferry crash: 159 bodies found, 143 still missing


The death toll from South Korea’s ferry crash has reached 159, with 143 people still missing, the coastal guard of the Chindo island said. The search and rescue team say that the bodies of the missing people are most likely in the 4th level and in the cabins.

Though the weather conditions have improved, the divers are prevented from making further advances by poor visibility.

More than a week after a South Korean ferry carrying 476 people capsized and sank, North Korea finally voiced its condolences Wednesday for the victims of the disaster, including the many schoolchildren who died.

The message was sent between the two Koreas' Red Cross organisations who regularly handle official cross-border communications, the South's Unification Ministry said.

"The North said in the message that it conveys deep condolences that so many passengers, including young students, died or went missing due to the sinking of the ferry Sewol," the ministry said.

Until now, North Korea had been the glaring exception among the messages of sympathy, condolence and support that have poured in from around the world after the Sewol sank with devastating loss of life last Wednesday.

North Korea's state media has barely commented on the tragedy that has dominated global headlines for the past seven days.

The confirmed death toll stood at 150 on Wednesday, but 152 were still unaccounted for, their bodies believed trapped in the inverted, submerged ship.

Heads of state across the political and geographical spectrum have sent personal messages, including US President Barack Obama, Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping.

Not a word, however, from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un who, the North's official KCNA news agency reported, had thoroughly "enjoyed" a performance by the popular, all-female Moranbong Band on the evening of April 16, around the time the full scale of the ferry disaster was emerging.

North and South Korea technically remain in a state of war, as the hostilities of the 1950-53 Korean War were concluded with a ceasefire rather than a formal peace treaty.

Their heavily militarised border remains one of extreme Cold War sensitivity, but declarations of sympathy at times of national grief are not unprecedented.

When North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il - Kim Jong-Un's father - died in December 2011, the South Korean government offered its condolences to the North Korean people

The death toll in the South Korea's ferry crash has risen to 150 people, as the search and rescue team had recovered more bodies overnight, the coastal guard reported on Wednesday. The underwater robots have been employed in the operation for two days, and rescuers mainly concentrate their efforts on the third and fourth levels of the ferry.

A 16-year-old Russian citizen who died in the sinking of South Korean ferry Sewol will be buried on Wednesday in the South Korean city of Ansan where he studied and where his family lives, the consular department of the Russian embassy said, Itar-Tass reports.

The young man was in a large group of senior students from the Danwon high school of the city of Ansan who went by ferry from the port Inchon to the resort island of Jeju last Wednesday.

Along with the Russian teenager, divers lifted two dead Chinese nationals from the hull of the sunken ferry on Monday. According to reports of the Chinese embassy in Seoul, other two Chinese citizens reported missing were on board the ferry.

Two Philippine female citizens were saved from the wrecked ferry.

Crew members detained over South Korea's ferry disaster said Tuesday they had done their best to launch life rafts, and one suggested possible technical reasons for the ship capsizing. The 6,825-tonne Sewol had 29 crew, including its captain Lee Jeon-Sook. Twenty of them escaped the ferry as it sank last Wednesday morning, and there has been public outrage at reports they were among the first to evacuate while hundreds remained trapped in the vessel.

Lee and two crew members were arrested over the weekend and charged with criminal negligence, while another four crew were taken into police custody on Monday.

Those four were paraded, heads bowed and hiding their faces, before TV cameras on Tuesday.

Asked why only one of the Sewol's 46 life rafts had been used, one said conditions had made their deployment impossible.

"We tried to gain access to the rafts but the whole ship was already tilted too much," he said.

"We tried to launch the life rafts but it was hard to get to where they were," another said.

The official death toll stood at 108 Tuesday, with 194 still missing.Most of the passengers were high school students on a holiday trip.

One crew member, apparently an officer, suggested the ferry had a structural flaw that made it difficult to regain equilibrium once it had been lost.

The ship was built in 1994 in Japan and purchased by the Cheonghaejin Marine Company in 2012.

The officer also mentioned "some errors" with the steering system.

The Sewol capsized after making a sharp right turn.

This led experts to suggest its cargo manifest might have shifted, causing it to list beyond a critical point of return.

The confirmed death toll in South Korea's ferry disaster crossed 100 on Tuesday, but almost twice that number remained unaccounted for nearly a week into the rescue and recovery effort.

The official toll provided by the coastguard stood at 104, with 198 still missing. The 6,825-tonne Sewol was carrying 476 people, most of them schoolchildren, when it capsized and sank last Wednesday.

Some 174 people, including the captain and most of his crew, were rescued.

The expected final death toll of around 300 would make this one of South Korea's worst peacetime disasters., AFP reports

A Seoul department store collapsed in 1995, killing more than 500 people, while nearly 300 people died when a ferry capsized off the west coast in 1993.

Russian Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov is ready to assist South Korea in the search-and-rescue operation evolving on the site of the April 16 ferry wreck in the Yellow Sea.

"We sympathize with the people of the Republic of Korea and are ready to render comprehensive support to the victims. The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry can assign specialized diving equipment and proficient divers at any minute," a report posted on the ministry website quoted Puchkov as saying.

The minister extended his condolences to the South Korean government over the ferry sinking.

"We mourn the missing people together with their families and hope that the efforts of search-and-rescue units will bear fruit," Puchkov said.

The ferry Sewol sank off the southwestern coast of South Korea on April 16. According to the latest updates, the death toll has grown to 64 and 238 passengers are missing. There were 476 people, mostly high school students going to a seaside resort, aboard the ferry at the moment of the wreck. Search-and-rescue operations continue on the wreck site.

Thursday 24 April 2014

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_24/S-Koreas-ferry-crash-159-bodies-found-143-still-missing-5349/

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