Tuesday 9 September 2014

91 missing in Surkhet flood declared dead


District Disaster Rescue Committee, Surkhet, declared as many as 91 persons missing in the massive flood in the district a month ago, dead, today.

District Administration Office Surkhet said it declared all the disappeared persons dead at a press meet today.

Assistant Chief District Officer Jagat Bahadur Basnet said that they were declared dead as per the decision of the concerned village development committee representatives, all party meeting, Nepal Police, Nepali Army and locals.

With this declaration, the death toll has reached 125 in Surkhet’s deadly flood this monsoon.

Of the disappeared, the bodies of 34 persons were recovered. According to Basnet, the missing were declared dead in accordance with the advice of their kin as they had no hope of recovering them alive. As many as 29 persons from Tatapani VDC, 24 from Hariharpur, 16 from Taranga, 13 from Satakhani, six from Babiyachour, and one from Birendranagar municipality and the same number from Matela VDC had gone missing. The declaration has paved the way for relatives of the missing to receive relief.

Assistant CDO Basnet said they would grant relief to the victims’ families immediately after they posted relation verification documents and recommendation letters from the concerned VDCs. According to him, Rs 40,000 for each dead person and Rs 100,000 is distributed to the kin of the dead.

Of the 34 bodies that were recovered, the kin of 21 families received Rs 15.8 lakh, said Basnet. The kin of two missing, whose bodies were found, are yet to come into contact, whereas 10 of the recovered bodies are yet to be identified, informed the office.

Tuesday 9 September 2014

http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=91+missing+in+Surkhet+flood+declared+dead+&NewsID=426874

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At least 38 people died after landslide in Udhampur


Sadal village, about 55 kilometers from Udhampur, has been completely submerged by a landslide. Road connectivity to it has been snapped from Kainthgali onwards.

Till now, seven dead bodies have been recovered and about 31 people are still missing in the area.

Rescue operations continue, with local police, residents giving a hand to National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) personnel deployed in the area. Air force choppers have also been deployed and people from adjoining areas have also come forward to help in rescue efforts.

Common masses of nearby villages are deeply gripped by fears of further landslides. A local resident of the area said, "It is a bigger tragedy than we could have ever imagined as many families are under the debris. We are waiting outside helplessly praying to God".

Local inhabitants have alleged that if this rescue operation had started earlier and in time, then they could have saved a few lives.

They also alleged that no temporary shelter, food or any other relief material has been provided to them by the district administration. They are demanding an early relief for landslide victims.

Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) of Udhampur, Khalil Ahmed Poswal said, "Around 22 to 23 houses have till now buried in the debris. However, about 13 people have been safely escaped from the landslide and seven dead bodies have also been recovered."

"We have found some human organs in the landslides. 31 peoples are missing but efforts are on to search them. We are facing problem because the houses have been dislocated at about 400 meters from their original location," he added.

"Due to some connectivity problems the heavy machinery is not able to reach the spot. But manual and other equipment are used here to trace the missing persons," said Poswal.

Sadal is situated in the hill top area of Panjar in the Panchri area of Udhampur District in Jammu and Kashmir. It is about 70 km far and is one of the remotest and far flung area submerged under the landslide that occurred due to heavy rainfall.

Tuesday 9 September 2014

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/140909/nation-current-affairs/article/jammu-and-kashmir-village-snapped-landslide-7-dead-31-missing

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Iraqis search for missing loved ones in mass graves

Sadiq Sabr’s friends and son leave a northern Iraq hospital without finding his body, the unused coffin they brought to hold it strapped to the roof of a white minibus.

Like so many others whose loved ones have gone missing in Iraq’s conflict with Islamic State jihadists, Sabr’s friends have all but given up hope of finding him alive and want — if nothing else — to recover his body for proper burial.

Sabr, a truck driver, was kidnapped by IS militants near the town of Sulaiman Bek in Salaheddin province, north of Baghdad, which was retaken by security forces earlier this month.

He was seized on June 11, a day after IS overran the northern city of Mosul and then swept south through much of Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland.

Sabr was en route to Baghdad, followed by his friend and boss Mohammed Hatem, when they heard shots.

“We turned around and spent the night in a restaurant, then left at 5:30 am,” Hatem said.

It was then that the militants took Sabr.

Hatem tried to call his friend immediately after he was taken, but an unknown voice answered, saying: “This is the Islamic State. Your friend is a Shiite, we will kill him.”

By 5:45 a.m., the phone had been turned off for good, and for almost three months, there have been no signs that Sabr is still alive.

IS, a radical Sunni organization, considers Shiite Muslims — who make up the majority of Iraq’s population — to be heretics, and frequently targets them in attacks.

When Hatem heard that Sulaiman Bek had been retaken, he traveled north along with Sabr’s son Ahmed and other friends to attempt to recover his body.

So far, 35 bodies have been exhumed from mass graves discovered in the town, an officer and a doctor said.

The stench of rotted flesh permeates the air in Sulaiman Bek, where freshly churned earth and nearby shovels mark one of the grave sites.

The ground is stained with blood at a place near the entrance of the town, where a Kurdish officer says the militants carried out the killings.

Hatem dug in Sulaiman Bek looking for his friend, but while his shovel struck pieces of bone and tissue, he found no trace of Sabr.

The same was true at the hospital in Kirkuk, a city to the north of Sulaiman Bek, where recovered bodies were taken.

Night had fallen by the time the minibus carrying the coffin intended for Sabr was able to reach Kirkuk, as the road is full of checkpoints manned by Kurdish fighters who only allow a trickle of Arabs to pass.

While bodies from the Sulaiman Bek graves are now in the hospital’s morgue, people were not immediately allowed in to see them.

The following morning, Hatem headed to the morgue with Ahmed, Sabr’s eldest son.

Dr. Shakur Ibrahim, who runs the morgue, said the facility received some 18 bodies found in Sulaiman Bek, but that given their condition, the exact number is unclear.

“Some were killed by bullets, there were holes in their clothes,” he said, but the cause of death cannot be determined for all of the bodies due to the extensive decomposition.

Families could search for their loved ones on a television screen at the morgue’s entrance, which displayed a grisly parade of broken bodies.

A piece of shirt, a football jersey, dirt-covered bones, a mobile phone — it was scant evidence with which to identify a missing person.

Their faces tense, Hatem and Ahmed scanned the images one after another, searching for a sign of Sabr.

“We have no evidence that my father is among these people,” Ahmed said in the hospital’s car park.

Hatem, Ahmed and his father’s other friends then left for Baghdad, the empty coffin on the roof, on a road that would take them past Sulaiman Bek, which may still hold Sabr’s body.

Hatem, who lost both his mother and his wife in a bombing three years ago and never found his wife’s body, said he was considering stopping, taking up a shovel and digging in search of his friend again.

Tuesday 9 September 2014

http://www.timesofisrael.com/iraqis-search-for-missing-loved-ones-in-mass-graves/

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