Friday 11 July 2014

Overloaded China kindergarten bus crash kills 11


An overloaded minivan ferrying children home from kindergarten in China's Hunan province has crashed into a pond, killing all 11 people on board.

The van was carrying eight kindergarten pupils and two teachers, as well as the driver. It was meant to carry only seven people, according to Xinhua.

The crash happened in the late afternoon near the province's capital of Changsha, in a mountainous area.

Local media reported it was travelling on a narrow road that had no barrier.

The victims' family members told Xinhua that school buses in the region are often overloaded.

School transport is a particularly sensitive issue in China, where a series of accidents have heightened concern.

A shortage of education funds has seen school closures and children, especially those from rural villages, are often forced to travel far to get an education, according to agencies. They often have to take overcrowded buses.

In 2011, 18 children and two adults were killed when an overloaded school bus collided with a coal truck in foggy conditions. That bus had only nine seats but was packed with 64 people at the time of the accident.

The following year a school van plunged into a pond in Jiangxi killing 11 children, and three children on board a bus died in a traffic accident in Guangdong.

China's cabinet issued new rules governing school bus safety, setting out specifications for school buses and punishments for offences such as overloading.

Friday 11 July 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-28258979

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Enduring anguish of ferry tragedy


When steel worker Huh Hong-Hwan heard his teenaged daughter might be trapped in a sinking ferry, he didn’t hesitate.

He jumped in his car and drove, sick with anxiety and panic, for five hours down to the southern island of Jindo where the rescue operation for South Korea’s worst peacetime disaster was gearing up.

Nearly three months later, he’s still there. “I never thought I would be waiting for her this long,” the 50-year-old said at a gymnasium that has been his home since the 6,825-tonne Sewol ferry capsized on April 16 with 476 passengers and crew.

“I’m totally exhausted, but parents can’t give up on their children even if the whole world does,” Huh said.

He is one of around 30 relatives who have maintained a bitter, defiant vigil in Jindo, as divers continue the increasingly desperate, dangerous search for the last remaining bodies trapped in the sunken vessel.

Just over 300 people died, the vast majority high school students on an organised outing.

A total of 172 were rescued before the ferry sank and a massive recovery effort involving hundreds of divers working in near zero visibility has since retrieved 293 bodies.

But 11 victims — including Huh’s daughter — are still unaccounted for.

Any hope of finding survivors inside the upturned vessel vanished within days of the accident, but the families of those missing are refusing to give up the search for a body they can bury and grieve over.

The last body to be recovered was more than two weeks ago on June 24 and there is no guarantee that the 11 missing are even inside the ferry.

Several bodies have been picked up dozens of miles away, suggesting a significant number may have been pulled out to sea by the powerful currents.

The 11 include five high school students and two teachers, one crew member and three other passengers.

In order to maintain a full-time vigil, some family members have quit their jobs and the lonely wait has taken a physical and mental toll.

In the immediate aftermath of the sinking, the Jindo gymnasium had resembled a refugee camp, packed with distraught relatives and a small army of volunteers helping to feed and comfort them.

But now the place is nearly empty and the default setting is of absolute silence, bar the muffled sound from a giant TV screen.

The screen had been brought in months ago to feed live pictures of the recovery effort at the offshore disaster site.

Now it is tuned to a news channel showing updates from the World Cup in Brazil.

There is nothing for the exhausted-looking family members to do, beyond sitting or walking aimlessly around the echoing gym.

Some stroll outside to smoke, through glass doors adorned with hundreds of wrenching post-it messages written by families and volunteers.

“My son, today is already May 16. Please come out of the cold water. Let’s go home with mom and dad,” one message read.

The volunteers, who once numbered in their thousands, are now down to around 200, working in shifts to provide what help they can to the remaining families.

“I never imagined the simple act of waiting could be this painful,” said Kwon Oh-Bok, a 59-year-old who lost a younger brother, sister-in-law and six-year-old nephew in the disaster.

Like Huh, Kwon drove to Jindo on the day of the sinking and he hasn’t left since, leaving his electrical business shuttered.

His days revolve around sleeping on a mattress laid out on the floor of the gym, eating meals provided by volunteers, attending daily meetings with rescue authorities, and endless hours of waiting.

“I’m so worried I’ll be the last one left,” he said, echoing a fear shared by many of the remaining relatives.

Kwon bristled at the idea of giving up, and said any move to call time on the recovery effort would feel like a death sentence.

“No one would give up if they were in my shoes,” he said, urging the government to step up search operations.

In the first few weeks, dozens of bodies were being brought up, but only five were recovered in the entire month of June.

Two divers have died and many others have had to be replaced because of sickness or exhaustion.

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye had initially promised that search operations would continue as long as the families wanted.

Park’s previously high ratings have plunged amid intense criticism of her administration’s response to the disaster, and there is little likelihood that she will go back on her vow anytime soon.

Anti-establishment anger is still running very high, and the greed, corruption and incompetence that led to the tragedy is repeatedly being highlighted at the ongoing trials of the captain, the crew and the ferry operators.

Some of the relatives still in Jindo spend much of their time at the island’s Paengmok harbour — the closest they can physically get on land to the recovery site.

Like the gym, the harbour had once been crammed with people, and was where family members were taken to identify bodies as they were brought in by the dive teams.

Now, the sound of a monk chanting and hitting a wooden gong echoes around the jetty, lined with several tents set up by religious groups.

“Please let everyone, to the last missing one, return to their families,” reads one large banner attached to a fence, along with hundreds of yellow ribbons.

“Three months is a long time, but for these families, their lives seem to be completely frozen in time,” said Lee Seong-Tae, a volunteer who has been at the site since the beginning.

Friday 11 July 2014

http://main.omanobserver.om/?p=94480

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Bosnia buries Srebrenica victims identified 19 years after the massacre


The remains of 175 victims of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia have been laid to rest in their final destination of Sarajevo.

After 19 years the pain remains raw.

In an annual event, newly found or identified remains of the victims are transported through the town, so that their loved ones can finally pay their respects before being laid to rest.

Fatima Efendic, lost her son Amir in the mass killing. Having found his remains she can finally begin to grieve.

“I am happy we found him,” she said fighting back tears. “I dreamt of him last night. I was looking for him in my dream. I found him on top of a house, I held him in my lap. My wish and dream finally came true. I just took him into my lap.”

Around 8,000 Muslim men were rounded up and killed when the town was seized during the Bosnian war on July 11 1995. Just over 6,000 have been exhumed from mass graves to be buried at Potocari cemetery.

At the International Centre on Missing Persons, the search continues for the remaining bodies.

“We calculate that there are still about a thousand persons missing,” explained Kathryne Bomberger, Director-General of ICMP. “But also, in addition to that, in addition to these thousand persons, there will be thousands of additional pieces of bodies, of skeletal remains that will also be uncovered that could be re-associated to the ones in the mortuary. So, this is an extremely complex process.”

Though many families wait to recover more complete remains before burial, for those yet to find their missing sons, brothers, husbands and fathers, discovering just one bone would be enough to provide closure.

Friday 11 July 2014

http://www.euronews.com/2014/07/11/bosnia-buries-srebrenica-victims-identified-19-years-after-the-massacre/

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