Friday 9 January 2015

Lagos church collapse: 11 victims still to be identified


The process of identifying 11 South Africans killed in a church building collapse in Nigeria has commenced, the South African government said on Friday.

"Government is committed to repatriate the remains of the 11 bodies. The work of the verification has commenced following the festive break," spokesperson Phumla Williams said.

"We will communicate with the families as soon as the Nigerian laboratory has finalised the process."

A guesthouse belonging to the Christian Synagogue, Church of All Nations collapsed in Lagos on Sept. 12 last year, killing 116 people including 85 South Africans.

Eighty-five South Africans died and 26 were injured. Seventy-four bodies have already been repatriated.

"Eleven bodies remain unaccounted for due to the inability to match the DNA samples," Williams said.

She said social workers and the South African forensic unit had visited the families of the 11 people.

"Fresh samples were collected from the family representatives. These samples have been submitted to the laboratory for processing."

Williams said government was continuing to collaborate with the Nigerian authorities to identify the bodies.

"Government acknowledges that families of the victims need closure to begin the healing process. This can only happen once their loved ones are brought back home for proper burial," she said.

She appealed to religious communities to continue praying for the affected families.

Friday 9 January 2015

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Nigeria-collapse-11-SA-victims-to-be-identified-20150109

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AirAsia flight QZ8501: 'pings' of black boxes detected, more bodies recovered


A joint search and rescue (SAR) team recovered on Friday five more bodies of victims of an AirAsia flight that crashed two weeks ago, bringing the number of bodies recovered to 48 on the 13th day of the SAR operation.

Three bodies were found in the morning by Japanese vessels Onami and Takanami, while two further bodies were found by Indonesian naval vessel KN Pacitan and Malaysian vessel KD Kasturi.

The latter bodies were found in the Karimata Strait of the Java Sea, within one mile of the location where the tail of Airbus A320-200 plane has been spotted.

The two bodies were still strapped into their seats when they were found, kompas.com reported.

The bodies have been flown to Surabaya, East Java, for identification by the National Police’s Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team.

Of the 48 bodies recovered, 25 have been identified and handed over to their families.

Black boxes

A director from the Indonesian search-and rescue agency said readings detected on Friday suggest the black box may be outside the tail section of the plane.

It comes as footage has emerged showing Indonesian military divers investigating the submerged tail of doomed AirAsia flight 8501, as search and rescue teams are hopeful that the black box from the plane's wreckage has been located.

Having located the tail of the plane on Thursday, search teams began pressing ahead with their efforts to find the black box and retrieve bodies from the wreckage, and on Friday afternoon reported detecting 'pings' from the flight data recorder.

But Suyadi Bambang Supriyadi, director of operations of Indonesia's search-and-rescue agency, said pings detected about 1km southwest of the wreckage suggest the black box may be located elsewhere.

The underwater searches ended before dusk on Friday, after divers were unable to find the black box.

Indonesian authorities have warned that the black box, which is located in the tail in the Airbus A320-200, may have become separated during the crash.

Footage released by Indonesian authorities shows divers surrounding the submerged wreck, shining torches into the badly damaged hull, 30 metres under the surface of the Java Sea.

The flight data recorder, or black box, which is located in the back end of the plane, could prove crucial to determining the cause of the December 28 crash that killed all 168 people on board.



Lifting balloons were loaded onto helicopters in preparation of recovery efforts to lift the tail out of the Java Sea, despite worries that the black box may have been separated from the tail during the crash.

The footage was captured by the divers despite poor weather and murky water which has been hampering recovery efforts.

The footage shows elite divers holding a box to the exterior of the tail, which still has the identifying markers 'PK' plane on its side. An Indonesian Armed Forces Commander confirmed that a recovery of the tail is in progress, after signals from the black box, which only has 30 days of battery life, were detected yesterday.

Navy ships USS Sampson and USS Fort Worth have deployed helicopters and sonar devices into the Java Sea to aid the recovery operation off the coast of the Indonesian island of Borneo.

Only 43 bodies have been retrieved so far, as monsoon rains and winds have caused choppy sea conditions and blinding silt from river run-off, reducing visibility underwater and preventing the removal of large pieces of the wreckage.

Many of the other passengers are believed to be inside the wreckage of the plane's main cabin, which has not been located, due to strong currents moving debris around.

At two weeks, most corpses will sink, said Anton Castilani, head of Indonesia's disaster identification victim unit, and there are already signs of serious decomposition.

'Divers have reached the tail part but ... the visibility was below one metre so they only managed to retrieve various debris,' said Bambang Soelistyo, chief of Indonesia's search and rescue agency.

'Now we are waiting for the speed of the current to ease. If it gets calmer later, they will go back to do another dive to determine whether the black boxes remained in the tail or were detached,' Mr Soelistyo said on Thursday.

Divers travelled by rubber boat from the KRI Banda Aceh warship that was being stationed close to the site of tail wreckage, which Mr Soelistyo said would be lifted off the seabed by retrieval experts on Friday if weather permitted.

Lieutenant. Edy Tirtayasa, commander of Indonesia's navy rescue team, told Channel News Asia they planned to send two contingents to the plane. 'We are going to send down one observation team to take photos. Then two teams will do the recovery process -- to recover bodies if there are any,' he said.

'If not, they will recover the black box for investigation and then other debris from the aircraft, he said.

He said the airline's priority still is to recover all the bodies 'to ease the pain of our families'.

Families of the victims whose bodies have been recovered held funeral ceremonies on Thursday to lay their loved ones to rest.

Family members and friends buried their bodies and lay flowers over the graves, bringing photos of the victims to lay at memorial sites.

Friday 9 January 2015

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2902844/Inside-twisted-fuselage-AirAsia-flight-QZ8501-Eerie-video-shows-divers-searching-wreckage-doomed-jet.html

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/01/09/five-more-bodies-recovered-sar-team.html

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Sunken Cemfjord may be left as 'sea grave'


Strong currents and dangerous seas mean that it might be too dangerous to recover cement-carrier Cemfjord and the bodies of eight seafarers believed to be trapped inside.

The Cyprus-registered vessel turned over in bad weather in the Pentland Firth, off the north coast of Scotland, at the weekend.

On Monday, the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB) sent its multifunction tender, Pharos, to locate Cemfjord, which was found "in an inverted condition" in 70m of water. It is close to where it was first spotted on Saturday, 10nm east of the Pentland Skerries, by NorthLink ferry, Hrossey.

The vessel is resting upside down on the seabed to the east of Orkney after sinking at the weekend. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) is investigating the tragedy, which is thought to have claimed the lives of the eight crew – including seven Polish men and one Filipino.

A Northlink ferry, Hrossey, found the Cemfjord’s upturned hull in the Pentland Firth on Saturday, prompting a major land, air and sea search for survivors.

A liferaft from the boat was found in the Pentland Firth on Monday but there were no signs of life on board.

The vessel was last recorded between Orkney and Stroma on Friday afternoon and had not issued a distress signal. One of the lines of investigation is expected to examine why the emergency position indicating radio beacon was not activated when the boat capsized.

NLB told IHS Maritime that the ship would remain on location to assist accident investigators and the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) as required.

Tony Redding, spokesman for Cemfjord's Hamburg-based manager, Brise Bereederung, told IHS Maritime, "The company feels that it would be morally wrong to ask people to put their lives at risk to recover bodies. So the wreck may be left as a seamen's grave." However a decision has yet to be made.

Brise, the flag state (Cyprus) and the UK's Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) have launched investigations into the accident. A MAIB spokesman told IHS Maritime that a remotely operated vehicle will probably be sent down to examine the hull once weather conditions improve. Gusts of 60 to 70kt are forecast over the weekend.

Investigators will try to establish why the ship's emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) failed to activate. EPIRBs have been known to malfunction, but in Cemfjord's case the device may have become trapped, Redding suggested. There was no indication of anything wrong when the ship made a routine call to Brise's office at about 13.15 on Friday. "It seems that she was overwhelmed very suddenly," he added.

Since 2006, cargo ships of 3,000gt and above have been required to carry a simplified voyage data recorder (S-VDR), but Cemfjord, at 1,850gt, was under this limit.

At the time of the accident, Cemfjord was sailing with a temporary replacement rescue boat. Redding said that a new boat had been ordered but would not be available until late January. New davits were installed, but the slings were too short for the replacement craft. However, this only affected the rescue boat's retrieval, not its launch. An additional liferaft was carried as a condition of being allowed to sail. "Cemfjord was in a fully seaworthy condition," Redding commented.

Friday 9 January 2015

http://www.ihsmaritime360.com/article/16089/sunken-cemfjord-may-be-left-as-sea-grave

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Bodies of 13 RI workers killed in Bering Sea arrive in Jakarta


The bodies of 13 Indonesian workers employed on the South Korean fishing ship Oryong 501, which sank in the Bering Sea last month, were received by Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi in Jakarta on Friday.

The bodies were flown from South Korea aboard Korean Air cargo plane, which landed at the Soekarno-Hatta airport in Tangerang, Banten, at 2:50 a.m. Friday.

All of the deceased were identified.

The foreign minister led a ceremony in which the bodies of the victims were given to their respective families. The event was attended by the head of the Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI), Nusron Wahid, and the South Korean Ambassador to Indonesia, Cho Tae-Young.

Minister Retno conveyed her appreciation for the cooperation between Indonesia, South Korea and Russia, which had been continuous since the first day of the disaster, Dec. 1, 2014.

"We (the foreign ministry) directly asked Sajo Industries, as the owner of the ship, to meet all the rights of the ship’s crew," Retno said as quoted by Antara news agency. "We don't want the rights of Indonesian workers to be neglected," she said.

Three other bodies from the same accident were scheduled to arrived in Jakarta on Friday evening. Two of them were from West Java and one was from Central Java.

Seven people survived the sinking of the Oryong 501. The remains of 27 people had been recovered, while at least another 26 remained unaccounted for as of the middle of last month.

Friday 9 January 2015

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/01/09/bodies-13-ri-workers-killed-bering-sea-arrive-jakarta.html

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AirAsia flight QZ8501: 24 victims identified


Coroners with the National Police’s victim-identification unit have identified 24 out of the 40 bodies recovered from the wreckage of Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ 8501, police said on Thursday.

The 24 identified bodies, 11 women and 13 men, have been returned to their families, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Ronny F. Sompie said.

Ronny said police hoped to make positive identifications of 15 more victims on Thursday, which would bring the total to 39.

It was unclear on Thursday afternoon when the most recently recovered victim would be identified. Another body, the 40th to be recovered from the wreck of the crashed plane, was brought to the Surabaya hospital on Thursday afternoon.

Multinational DVI team

As more bodies are recovered from the AirAsia plane crash, experts from various countries are working together in Surabaya to help identify them before returning the bodies to their respective families.

The 28-member multinational Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team comprises experts from Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea. Between them is a wide range of forensic expertise in DNA tracing, dental identification and pathology.

The members not only observe and take part in the identification of bodies but also attend the reconciliation meeting where the inspection of bodies is verified with dental records, fingerprints, family DNA and physical features.

But as bodies in sea water decompose faster, fingerprints and physical features become even more degraded for identification. Anton Castilani, executive director of Indonesia National Police's DVI Unit, said: "We are trying to get DNA samples of the closest next-of-kin in order to help in the identification and verification process."

The multinational team are no stranger to one another. Frank Rayner, Australian Federal Police liaison officer, said: "AFP (Australian Federal Police) has got a long relationship with their colleagues in the IP (Identity Preservation) and DVI (Disaster Victim Identification) area. The DVI members will be able to not only participate in the procedure but also observe the techniques of the IP, and also our colleagues from Singapore."

Most of them took part in the annual International Disaster Victim Identification workshop, which focuses on international cooperation in response to natural and man-made disasters, particularly in the ASEAN region.

Anton Castilani said: "We came from the same training centre. This was in Indonesia at the Jakarta Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation where we used to run our DVI programmes, especially for international programmes. This event is more like a sharing of knowledge here."

The team is usually deployed for two to three weeks on assignment.

There are still at least 15 bodies placed in cold storage that need to be identified but authorities say verifying bodies needs time and accuracy is of utmost importance. There are hopes that the multinational team's participation can help speed up the identification of bodies before they are returned to their families.

Friday 9 January 2015

http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/police-coroners-aim-identify-15-airasia-crash-victims-today/

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/multinational-dvi-team-at/1577510.html

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