Sunday 30 November 2014

Minnesota history: Most deadly shipwreck is least known


It’s late November, so when talk turns to Minnesota shipwrecks, Lake Superior quickly comes to mind. The Edmund Fitzgerald vanishing in a 1975 gale with 29 aboard. The frozen bodies chipped from the icy deck of the Mataafa just off Duluth’s piers in 1905. And so on.

But Minnesota’s largest maritime disaster went down some 200 miles south of Duluth Harbor in Lake Pepin, that rodent-in-the-snake widening of the Mississippi River.

On July 13, 1890, 215 people in Red Wing piled on to the Sea Wing, a wooden paddle-wheeler less than three years old, and its barge cohort, the Jim Grant. The people, decked out in Victorian Sunday finery, were on an excursion to Lake City — where Gov. William Rush Merriam and other dignitaries gathered for a weekend exhibition at the Minnesota National Guard’s summertime encampment. Cannons would be fired, bands would play, soldiers would march in formation and a grand time would be had by all.

It was hot, humid and sticky. So many people wanted to take the pleasure cruise — perhaps hoping it would be cooler out on the water — that the barge was tied on to the Sea Wing to accommodate about 70 of the 215 passengers.

Scattered showers and some squalls foretold the trouble to come. At 5 p.m. in St. Paul, a tornado spun across Lake Gervais, killing six and injuring 11.

David Niles Wethern, the storekeeper skippering the Sea Wing, wouldn’t have known about the lethal twister in St. Paul, but he sensed conditions were growing ominous. He blasted the Sea Wing’s whistle at 7:30 p.m. and sailed north for Red Wing at 8 p.m.

Passengers were crammed shoulder to shoulder in the cabin on the skinny boat — 135 feet long but only 16 feet wide with a 22-foot-high pilot house. Straight-line winds began to whip Lake Pepin, with waves swelling from six to eight feet.

The barge rocked violently behind the Sea Wing, whose crew cut the line connecting the boats — figuring they’d fare better, lurching and rocking on their own.

At 8:30 p.m., a monster wave in the middle of the river channel lifted the Sea Wing — not yet as far north as Maiden Rock on the Wisconsin side. Passengers on the now-severed barge would later recount how the Sea Wing climbed to a 45-degree angle before completely flipping over and capsizing.

In the packed cabin, suddenly tossed upside down, water flooded in. Those who escaped and clung to wreckage in the river were pelted by “hen’s egg-sized” hail. It would take three days to recover all the bodies.

Men in town, hearing of the disaster, piled into rowboats despite the wicked conditions, trying to save whom they could. Lifeboats weren’t required on river boats. Life jackets were there, but few donned them, thinking they could wait out the downpour in the cabin.

Many of the 98 bodies pulled from the cabin and the water were pocked with hail stones. Fifty of 57 females on board were among the dead and 77 of the victims were from Red Wing — including sisters Anna and Julia Persig, both in their 20s.

Their great niece, Diane Johnson of Cottage Grove, doesn’t know for sure. But it’s possible her husband Fred Johnson’s great grandfather might have hauled their corpses up to the funeral home in Red Wing.

A Swedish immigrant who worked in the King’s stable in Stockholm, Carl Oscar Anderson worked as a wagon driver in Red Wing. He scurried with his team to the levee to transport the dead.

Nearly 125 years later, Goodhue County Historical Society director Dustin Heckman and author Fred Johnson are trying to rekindle interest in what might be the biggest Minnesota disaster no one has ever heard of.

Johnson, 69, is a retired elementary teacher who taught for 34 years on St. Paul’s East Side. In the mid-1980s, he wrote a book called “The Sea Wing Disaster: A Tragedy on Lake Pepin.” He recently updated the book, published by the Goodhue Historical Society, with more photos and family stories sparked by the first edition.

“I’ve learned over a lifetime that virtually no one in Minnesota knows the story of the Sea Wing,” Fred Johnson said. “Such a large number of people died suddenly and were forgotten.”

On the Tuesday after the storm, 44 funerals were held in Red Wing alone — then a town of 6,000. Authorities in Washington were aghast and ordered steamboat inspectors to conduct a hearing.

They found Captain Wethern negligent of overloading the boat and starting off in the face of dangerous weather. Their findings were forwarded to the federal district attorney’s office in St. Paul, who never prosecuted Wethern. Among the dead were his wife and one of their two sons. Maybe they felt he’d suffered enough for his flawed judgment.

Sunday 30 November 2014

http://www.startribune.com/local/284224171.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

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Bodies of two trapped miners recovered from Ermenek mine


Search and rescue teams on Nov. 29 reached the remains of two more workers who were killed in a mine disaster in the southern Anatolian town of Ermenek, while efforts are continuing to reach six others in the facility.

Eighteen miners were trapped underground after a flood at a coal mine in Ermenek in Karaman on Oct. 28. A total of 12 miners’ bodies have been recovered from the mine so far.

The bodies of two miners have been sent to Ermenek State Hospital for an autopsy.

Turkey’s disaster management agency (AFAD) released a statement on Nov. 29, saying a team of 603 people, including 315 search and rescue officers, were continuing the rescue efforts.

Some 88 percent of the mine was scanned and 3,652 wagons of debris have been removed from the mine so far, the statement said.

The teams advanced 14 meters in 24 hours but there are still 231 meters to search, it added.

The officials from the Ermenek Courthouse said the exact cause of death for the workers would be determined by an official report prepared by the Forensic Medicine Institute after examinations on samples taken from the bodies are completed, Anadolu Agency has reported.

Meanwhile, daily Bugün reported on Nov. 28 that autopsies conducted on the 10 miners who have been found so far revealed that they died of coal gas poisoning.

Eight of the miners, who were huddled around each other when they were found dead on day 22 of the rescue efforts, climbed a wall and waited there for 15 hours for help before succumbing to the poisoning, the report said.

Sunday 30 November 2014

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/bodies-of-two-trapped-miners-recovered-from-ermenek-mine.aspx?pageID=238&nID=74999&NewsCatID=341

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Bheri bus accident: Four more bodies recovered


Four more bodies of the missing passengers were recovered from the Bheri River on Saturday, increasing the death toll from last week’s fatal passenger bus accident in Jajarkot district to 52.

Bodies of Karna Bahadur Khadka of Lahn-2, his son Bipin, Kalika Malla of Dhime-1 and Laxman Chaudhary were recovered today.

A passenger bus (Na 3 Kha 1408) had swerved off the road and plunged into the river some 80 metres down at Bhur VDC-8 on the Chhinchu-Jajarkot stretch along Karnali Highway last Thursday. The ill-fated vehicle was en route to Surkhet from Jajarkot.

Deep Kumar Buda, of Ramidanda-6 and his daughter Sangeeta are still reported to be missing in the accident.

Sunday 30 November 2014

http://www.ekantipur.com/2014/11/29/top-story/bheri-bus-plunge-four-more-body-recovered/398317.html

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Kailali bus accident: Death toll reaches 12


In yet another accident blamed on reckless driving, a bus skidded off the road and fell over a cliff at Sahajpur-2 on the Bhimdutta Highway in Kailali district on Saturday morning, killing 12 and injuring 30 people.

The vehicle (Na 5 Kha 5420) fell 100 metres just after Friday midnight. Police said the bus was headed for Mahendranagar from Dipayal, the district headquarters of Doti, with 42 passengers on board. The incident site is about 50km north of Attariya, Kailali.

Survivors blame careless driving for the disaster. “The driver got off the vehicle complaining of a flat tyre. The vehicle veered off the road as he had left the driving seat,” said Harka Bahadur Khadka at Padma Hospital in Attariya. He charged that the driver had abandoned the vehicle in the middle of the road with the engine running.

Police officials who reached the site after the incident also suspected driver’s negligence. “The road is not narrow and steep. The driver could stop the vehicle on his side,” said traffic police head constable Tularam Shahi.

Driver Janakraj Giri and his assistant Navin Bhatta are in police custody. The driver told the police that he had failed to control the bus.

Eight passengers died on the spot while four others succumbed to injuries during treatment. Security personnel reached the site 45 minutes after the incident and rescued the victims.

Six critically injured patients have been taken to hospitals across the border in India. The deceased are from Doti district, seven of them from Daud VDC. Most of the victims were India-bound for employment.

Accident victims' kin refuse to collect bodies

Kin of victims of Friday’s Kailali bus accident have denied collecting bodies demanding compensation.

The bodies have been kept at the Seti Zonal Hospital, Dhangadhi after autopsy.

Family members of the victims have also accused the Mahakali Transport Entrepreneurs’ Association of neglecting the demand for compensation.

Representatives of the Association did not even visit the family members to express condolence, they said.

“So we will not receive the bodies till we get compensation,” Hem Nagari, member from a victim’s family said.

Nagari also accused the Association of neglecting them because they are from Dalit and poor families.

The families have demanded a compensation of Rs 325,000 per person.

Entrepreneurs’ Association Chairman Baburam Sharma said the Association is ready to provide Rs 25,000 per person for funeral and give Rs 75,000 per person later.

The kith and kin of the victims had met Chief District Officer (CDO) Mahadev Panthi this morning demanding compensation.

“But, I asked them to coordinate with the District Police Office (DPO),” Panthi said.

DPO chief SP Bikram Chand, however, said he is out of the district for a task. “But, I will work for compensation as per law,” he said.

Sunday 30 November 2014

http://www.ekantipur.com/2014/11/30/headlines/12-die-as-another-bus-nosedives-in-Kailali/398323/

www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php%3Fheadline%3DKailali%2Baccident%2Bvictims%27%2Bkin%2Brefuse%2Bto%2Bcollect%2Bbodies%26NewsID%3D435288+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

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Rescue hope fades: no trace of 26 missing in trawler capsize in Bay of Bengal


The 26 people, who had gone down with the FV Bandhan in the Bay of Bengal early Friday, remained missing even after 32 hours.

Divers of Bangladesh Navy, however, located the sunken fishing vessel yesterday morning, but could not enter it due to stormy currents. The missing crews are feared dead and the bodies are trapped inside the vessel.

Navy ship BNS Adamya reached the spot from Chittagong in the wee hours of yesterday and joined the search and rescue operation.

BNS Adamya's side-scan sonar detected an object like the vessel around 9:00am, said Commander Shamim Md Khan, in-charge of Navy Intelligence (Chittagong zone).

Around 11:00am, Navy divers reached the vessel and found it tilted on its right side around a kilometre from the accident spot.

The divers managed to hook a rope to the sunken vessel so that they could reach the spot easily next time. However, they could not enter it, said Commander Shamim.

The divers will now try to cut through the doors and windows of the vessel to see if any body is trapped inside, he added.

Three more navy ships -- BNS Bangabandhu, BNS Sagor and BNS Khadem -- joined BNS Somudro Joy, BNS Atandra and BNS Adamya in the search yesterday morning.

Apart from these, navy salvage ship BNS Saikat was dispatched from Chittagong around 2:00pm.

Soon after the location of the object was traced, the divers of Bangladesh Navy joined the rescue operation.

The navy ship, BNS Shaikat equipped with modern rescue gears, has already started for the spot to salvage the sunken vessel, said Navy officials.

FV Bandhan, a shipping vessel of the Bengal fisheries, capsized 28 km off the coast of Saint Martin's Island, being hit by FV Basundhara, another fishing boat.

Three people were rescued. One of them has already died. 26 people are still missing.

When the trawler capsized, FV Joutha Udyam, another vessel of Bengal fisheries, rushed to help, and rescued the three crews – Lavlu, Sajib, Nasir – of who Nasir died.

There were 26 crew members on the boat. All of them believed to have been asleep, when the Basundhara struck the shipping vessel.

Assistant Operation Manager of Bengal Fisheries, Kazi Kamrul Amin told the Dhaka Tribune that their boat was standing in the area, as during the time of fishing they have to spread the net, and the boat has to lay still for some time.

When the FV Basundhara was coming towards the direction of the FV Bandhan, the latter hoisted all possible alarms and signals, putting all lights on and blew sirens. However, when the FV Basundhara straight on hit the FV Bandhan, the boat capsized immediately. The other boats that were present around rushed to help at the time.

He said he had already filed two diaries with the Patenga police.

Filing a case against the ship that hit the boat was underway, he added.

Sunday 30 November 2014

http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/rescue-hope-fades-52699

http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2014/nov/29/navy-traces-missing-trawler-28-nautical-miles-away-saint-martin-island-joins-

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