Bad weather hinders evacuation of bodies from site of Indonesia plane crash

Rescuers on Tuesday reached the site in eastern Indonesia where a passenger plane slammed into a mountain over the weekend.

Heavy fog and bad weather hampered rescuers Wednesday trying to evacuate bodies in eastern Indonesia where a passenger plane crashed into a mountain over the weekend, killing all 54 people on board, officials said.

More than 70 rescuers reached the crash site after being hindered by rugged, forested terrain and bad weather, said Henry Bambang Soelistyo, the National Search and Rescue Agency chief.

The flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder — the plane's "black boxes" — were found in good condition, Soelistyo said. The data they contain could help explain what caused the Trigana Air Service plane to crash Sunday.

"The plane was totally destroyed, and all the bodies were burned and difficult to identify," Soelistyo told The Associated Press.

He said all 54 bodies had been recovered and would be taken to Jayapura, the capital of Papua province, so they can be identified. The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was flying from Jayapura to the city of Oksibil with 49 passengers and five crew members on a scheduled 42-minute flight when it lost contact with air traffic control.

Henry Bambang Soelistyo, the National Search and Rescue Agency chief, said bad weather was still hampering the operation and that rescuers would now try to carry the bodies out.

"Heavy rains and poor visibility were hampering our rescue efforts and evacuation process will be done by foot," said Soelistyo, adding the bodies would be taken to Jayapura, the capital of Papua province, so they can be identified.

Soelistyo said the wreckage was at an altitude of 8,500 feet. Much of Papua is covered with impenetrable jungles and mountains. Some planes that have crashed there in the past have never been found.

The airline's crisis center official in Jayapura's Sentani airport, Budiono, said all the passengers were Indonesians, and included three local government officials and two members of the local parliament who were to attend a ceremony Monday in Oksibil marking the 70th anniversary of Indonesia's independence from Dutch colonial rule.

Like many Indonesians, Budiono goes by one name.

Oksibil, about 175 miles south of Jayapura, was experiencing heavy rain, strong winds and fog when the plane lost contact with the airport minutes before it was scheduled to land.

The victims' relatives, who had been waiting at the airport, broke down in tears when they heard the news. Many of them accused the airline of taking too long to give them information.

"They are unprofessional ... they play with our feelings of grieving," said Cory Gasper, whose brother Jhon Gasper was on the plane.

The airline released a public apology just after a search plane spotted the smoldering wreckage of the aircraft Monday.

It's unclear what caused the crash, and Indonesia's transportation safety commission has opened an investigation.

The passengers included four postal workers escorting four bags of cash totaling $468,750 in government aid for poor families to help offset a spike in fuel prices, said Franciscus Haryono, the head of the post office in Jayapura, the provincial capital.

Rescuers have found the money, which was partly scorched, and will hand it over to the authorities, Soelistyo said.

Indonesia has had a string of airline tragedies in recent years. In December, all 162 people aboard an AirAsia jet were killed when the plane plummeted into the Java Sea as it flew through stormy weather on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, to Singapore.

The sprawling archipelago nation of 250 million people and some 17,000 islands is one of Asia's most rapidly expanding airline markets, but it is struggling to provide enough qualified pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers and updated airport technology to ensure safety.

From 2007 to 2009, the European Union barred Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe because of safety concerns.

Trigana Air Service, which began operations in 1991, had 22 aircraft as of December 2013 and flies to 21 destinations in Indonesia. The carrier has had 19 serious incidents since 1992, resulting in the loss of eight aircraft and major damage to 11 others, according to the Aviation Safety Network's online database.

The airline remains banned from flying to Europe along with six other Indonesian carriers.

Wednesday 19 August 2015

http://www.vagazette.com/news/ct-indonesia-plane-crash-20150818,0,6688123.story

http://www.startribune.com/searchers-spot-wreckage-of-indonesian-plane-in-rugged-papua/322017361/

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Bodies of 49 migrants who died of asphyxiation arrive in Italy

The 49 bodies of the migrants who died from asphyxiation in the hold of an overcrowded fishing boat off the Italian coast over the weekend arrived in Sicily on Monday.

The Norwegian Frontex coastguard vessel transported some 312 survivors of the recent Mediterranean disaster, as well as a container that carried the bodies of the deceased, to the Sicilian port of Catania.

The death toll was originally thought to be closer to 40, but officials confirmed Sunday that 49 bodies had been found below deck. The victims died amid exhaust fumes and suffocating heat, packed inside a confined space in the boat's hold.

According to officials, the victims were primarily married men who had given spots on the deck to their wives.

In a separate expedition, the Italian coastguard rescued 354 migrants Sunday evening from a fishing boat off its southern coast, with one person found dead on board.

According to the United Nations and official government figures, some 102,000 migrants have arrived on Italian shores since the start of the year while nearly 135,000 have arrived in Greece. Most of those making the dangerous Mediterranean crossing are from war torn countries or fleeing violence and poverty in parts of the Middle East and Africa.

At least 2,300 people have died this year alone making the crossing, according to the latest figures issued by the International Organization for Migration.

Wednesday 19 August 2015

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Bodies-of-49-Migrants-Who-Died-of-Asphyxiation-Arrive-in-Italy---20150818-0010.html

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Arizona: Finding migrants, or their remains

Anne Norris said her son, Andrew, had a close and loving relationship with his father in the short time they were together before the laws and perils of migration pulled them apart.

"He wouldn't go to sleep until his dad came home from work and played with him," she said. "They were inseparable."

The boy is now 8 years old. He was only 2 when his father was deported to El Salvador in March 2009. Yearning to be with his son again, José Ricardo Garay-Garay decided to come back home to California a few months after he was deported.

He called Norris almost every day as he made the perilous journey north. Just as he was getting ready to cross the United States border through Arizona in June 2009, he called her again to let her know he would be home soon.

"That was the last time I talked to him," she said. "About a week and a half later, I knew something was wrong."

Garay-Garay hasn't been heard from or found since then. Migrants who were traveling with him said he couldn't keep up and was left behind. His family is almost certain he died trying to cross the border, but that hasn't stopped Norris from searching for him.

She has spent the last few years trying to find him. She has done so with the help of the Colibrí Center for Human Rights, a non-profit group that helped her create a missing persons report and taught her how to navigate through a national database of missing persons and unidentified decedent records.

Most recently, Norris was able to get a death certificate for the father of her son with the help of a pro-bono attorney and Colibrí's executive director, Robin Reineke.

"Just because I have the death certificate doesn't mean that our search is over; there's still the desire to know where his remains are." Norris said. "This is not the end of this for us. We are still looking for him."

Colibrí is one of the dozens of organizations that help families search for loved ones who've vanished while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, which over the years has become more dangerous for migrants. Increased border security has forced them to travel for longer periods of time—mostly on foot—and through harsh terrain.

Formed in 2006, Colibrí is located inside the Pima County medical examiner's office in Tucson, Ariz. The group helps families by creating forensically detailed missing person reports and working with forensic scientists to identify the remains of those who died along the border.

Colibrí also has a centralized database that contains 2,000 active cases of migrants who've gone missing along the entire southern border. The database contains records of 2,500 bodies — of which 900 remain unidentified — that have been found in Arizona's harsh Sonoran Desert, a popular corridor for migrants.

Getting reliable statistics on migrant deaths and missing for the entire southern border is difficult. Some counties do not keep the data separately, although there is work underway to get more reliable information.



The Border Patrol recorded 307 migrant deaths in 2014, down from 445 in 2013. But there are many migrants who are missing and of those never found, it's unknown whether they are among the dead.

Chelsea Halstead, program manager at Colibrí, said her group is constantly getting calls from family members who are frantically searching for their missing loved ones. The volume of calls increases during the hot summer months, when they get as many as 100 calls a week.

"We have no shortage of calls," she said. "We're constantly on the phone with families gathering information and matches are being made from years ago, so it's a continual process. And sometimes, matches are made long after the person has been cremated."

Halstead said among the missing migrants are usually fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who made "an incredible sacrifice" to come to the U.S. Their desire was to work and help support their families back home.

"Our mission is to end migrant deaths and their suffering," she said. "But that's never going to be achievable until in the U.S. we recognize that these are lives worth mourning and these are people that we should feel devastated to lose."

Colibrí and other groups like it aren't the only ones searching for migrants who've vanished. U.S. Border Patrol also responds to reports of missing migrants through BORSTAR, short for Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue.

The search and rescue unit was created in 1998 in response to the growing number of injuries to Border Patrol agents and the increase in migrant deaths along the southern border.

On a daily basis, BORSTAR agents respond to distress calls made by migrants who are lost and in poor health. Most migrants call 911 to ask for help and are transferred to BORSTAR, which became a common practice about five years ago when the high volume of 911 calls from migrants overwhelmed counties along the border.

"If it's an emergency situation, we'll deploy every time," said Carl McClafferty, associate chief for special operations at U.S. Border Patrol. "We'll send somebody out and get that mission started."

At the start of every mission, BORSTAR agents gather as much information as possible to help narrow down the search area. They then deploy a ground unit to search on foot, placing cases involving migrants who are still alive ahead of those already deceased. Sometimes air units are called to begin the search if agents can't get out on the ground right away.

Once BORSTAR agents find the migrants, they give them medical attention to stabilize them. Often, migrants are dehydrated after being out in the desert for days, especially during the summer when temperatures reach well over 110 degrees. If advanced medical care is needed, the agents call an ambulance to transport migrants to a hospital.

"We do find them most times and sometimes, unfortunately, we find them when they are deceased," McClafferty said.

The job of BORSTAR agents is mainly to save as many lives as possible. But because they are still Border Patrol agents and share the same priorities, they must arrest people who are crossing the border illegally. That's why migrants who are found during search and rescue missions are ultimately arrested and taken to a Border Patrol station for processing.

Some groups have criticized BORSTAR agents, saying they don't conduct lengthy searches for missing migrants and often take a long time to respond to distress calls. McClafferty, who was on a search and rescue mission the day his youngest daughter was born, said in response to the criticism that BORSTAR agents put in long hours and conduct "very lengthy searches."

"They are out there working every day to save people's lives," he added. "They're putting in numerous hours, a lot of times not making any money for it, but doing it because they care."

Cristen Vernon of Derechos Humanos said her group sometimes asks BORSTAR to search for migrants because it has more resources than they do. The Tucson-based organization runs a 24-hour hotline that families can call to report missing loved ones.

"Sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn't," Vernon said of the outreach to BORSTAR. "Or the agents will say they'll look around and do a little bit of search and let us know that no one was found. Generally, they don't try very hard."

Instead of relying on BORSTAR to search for migrants, Derechos Humanos and similar groups conduct their own searches. Vernon said her group looks for missing migrants in hospitals, detention centers, police stations and medical examiner's offices.

"In about 70 percent of the cases, people wind up being found in detention centers or the consulate finds them or the family gets a call from them," she said. "But, unfortunately, a larger amount of cases than we would like just go unresolved for years."

Aguilas del Desierto is one of the few organizations that scour the border on foot searching for migrants who've vanished. The group gets alerted about missing migrants mostly from family members who call them. They also get missing migrant reports from other groups, like Derechos Humanos.

Ely Ortiz formed the group about three years ago. Every other weekend, he and about a dozen people—many of them farmworkers, landscapers and truck drivers—drive from California to some of the most remote areas of Arizona's southern desert.

They spend all day Saturday and most of Sunday searching for migrants who've been reported missing. Each search costs about $1,200, which is paid for by donations from local businesses and supporters.

In one of their recent searches, they found a 14-year-old boy from Guatemala who had been lost for days and was in poor health. They provided him aid and called Border Patrol after the boy said he'd rather surrender than to keep going.

"When we resolve a case or rescue a person, it makes us feel good," Ortiz said. "It makes us feel that our work is worthwhile."

For Ortiz, the issue is personal. In 2010, his brother and cousin left Mexico and were making their way across the southern border to come to the U.S. when the guide and migrants they were traveling with left them behind. They were lost, left with no water and fell ill.

Ortiz said his brother, Rigoberto Ortiz, called 911 to ask for help and was transferred to Border Patrol agents, who conducted a helicopter search but never found them.

Longing to find them, Ortiz set out to do his own search on foot with the help of a humanitarian group. He was almost certain his brother and cousin would no longer be alive, but he longed to find their remains to give them a proper burial.

"We found them four months and a half after they had gone missing," he said. "At that point, their bodies were practically skeletons."

From that day forward, Ortiz made it his personal mission to help families search for their missing loved ones. "Every time I go out in the desert and help someone, I feel better as a person," he said. "I feel that I grow as a human being."

Wednesday 19 August 2015

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/missing-migrants-n405326

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August 1985: The worst month for air disasters

August 1985 witnessed more passenger and crew deaths on commercial airlines than any other month. What made it so deadly and what changed as a result?

There are many grim landmarks in the history of aviation. One in particular stands out.

Three decades ago, 720 travellers and crew lost their lives on board commercial aircraft in a single month - more than in any other before or since.

The deaths occurred in four separate accidents in August 1985. Each disaster had quite different causes. The aircraft involved ranged from a 747 with hundreds on board to a tiny twin engine turboprop carrying just eight people.

There was Japan Air Lines flight 123, the worst single-aircraft accident in history, in which 520 of 524 on board were killed. A further 137 died when Delta flight 191 flew into heavy winds as it approached Dallas-Fort Worth International. A fire on board British Airtours flight 28M at Manchester Airport led to 55 deaths. And all those on board the smallest aircraft, Bar Harbor Airlines flight 1808, lost their lives as it flew into a small airport in Maine, USA.

Each, in their own way, had a lasting legacy, whether in the memories of those left bereaved or in changes in technology and procedure introduced as a direct result.

The worst death toll was on Japan Air Lines Flight 123, a Boeing 747, which was en route from Tokyo to Osaka on 12 August 1985 when the airtight bulkhead between its cabin and tail tore open.

The change in pressure blew off the vertical stabiliser, or tail fin. It also destroyed the hydraulic systems. The plane lurched up and down.

"The crew heroically fought for over half an hour," says Graham Braithwaite, professor of safety and accident investigation at Cranfield University. But by the time the aircraft plunged to 13,500ft they reported that they had lost control.

The 747 began its final descent. "They were over some pretty mountainous terrain," says Braithwaite. Altitude dropped rapidly. A wing then clipped a ridge before the aircraft hit a second ridge, flipped over and came to rest on its back. It had been 32 minutes since the explosive decompression, enough time for some passengers to write their families farewell notes.

Investigators concluded that the crash was caused by a faulty repair job after the plane's tail struck the runway seven years previously. The damage should have been fixed using a single plate and three rows of rivets. But Boeing engineers used two separate plates, one with two rows of rivets and another with one. Japan Air Lines failed to detect the fault.

For Japan, the crash was deeply traumatic. "The effect was profound," says Braithwaite. Extraordinarily, JAL opened a museum dedicated to the disaster in April 2006. It includes wreckage from the aircraft, letters written by passengers to loved ones and an aviation safety library. All airline staff are obliged to visit it.

There were suggestions that more passengers might potentially have survived if the Japanese authorities had sent rescuers to the crash site sooner, or if they had accepted an offer of help from a nearby United States Air Force base.

And shortly after the disaster JAL maintenance official Hiroo Tominaga killed himself, reportedly leaving a note saying: "I am atoning with my death."

But the accident is rare among major air disasters in that it can be attributed to a single and completely avoidable mechanical fault. With the blame lying with the work of the engineers and JAL's inspection procedures, there were no wider consequences for the air industry.

David Learmount, safety editor at Flight Global, says the botched repair "was a massive error that should never have occurred". In terms of technology and procedure "there was no real legacy".

It was quite a different matter with the disaster at Manchester Airport 10 days later. This proved to be a defining event in the history of aviation safety.

As the charter flight to Corfu prepared for take-off, a punctured wing fuel tank caused a huge ball of fire to ignite. The pilots heard a thump and aborted take-off, but did not realise at first that the blaze was under way. They steered the aircraft into a taxiway upwind of the fire, carrying the flames towards the passengers in the fuselage.

Nearly all those who died did so as a result of smoke inhalation: "The survivors were shocked at how quickly it became impossible to breathe," says Braithwaite. Investigators had found the evacuation had been slowed down because the gap between the seats leading to the over-wing exits was too narrow, and the hatch itself was too difficult to remove.

"Passengers were shouting: 'Fire! fire!' You're having a hundred thoughts. Where's your family? How were they ever going to get out?"

John Beardmore was one of the survivors of the British Airtours flight 28M, which burst into flames on Manchester Airport runway on 22 August 1985, killing 55 people. He recalled the terrifying experience of trying to escape the plane.

The 1985 British Airtours disaster

As a result, there were a series of changes to commercial aircraft design focused on increasing survivability. The exit row was widened and fire-blocking seat covers, floor lighting, fire-resistant ceiling and wall panels and revised evacuation rules were all introduced.

The routine for pilots in the event of runway emergencies was radically changed - they must now pull up as quickly as possible, taking account of wind direction.

SCISAFE, a campaign group set up by victims' relatives, also campaigned for the introduction of passenger smoke hoods but these have not been adopted.

"There has to be something to justify 55 people losing their lives," says William Beckett, whose 18-year-old daughter Sarah died on the Manchester runway. It was her first time on board an aeroplane. She had chosen to sit at the back because the four survivors of Japan Air Lines Flight 123 had been seated at the rear.

There were also changes introduced as a result of the Delta flight 191 crash in Texas on 2 August. The plane was coming in for landing when it hit a microburst - a small-scale downburst, or column of sinking air.

The aircraft crashed north of the runway and careered along the ground into a highway, killing a driver, before hitting two water tanks and bursting into flames. Of 163 passengers and crew, only 27 survived.

An investigation found that, although the pilot had been experienced, there was a lack of training when it came to dealing with microbursts. The radar on board the aircraft was able to detect thunderstorms but not downbursts of this kind.

"One of the things that was not understood at the time was the structure of a downburst," says Learmount.

"That was understood within a very short period of time. That was coincidence but they very, very quickly developed a windshear warning system for the pilots." The US Federal Aviation Administration soon required all commercial aircraft to install these.

August 1985's final accident came when Bar Harbor Airlines flight 1808 struck short of the runway at Auburn/Lewiston Municipal Airport in Maine, USA, and crashed. All six passengers and two crew members were killed.

The crash of a such a small aircraft would not normally have attracted much attention, but one of the passengers was 13-year-old Samantha Smith, who had attracted widespread media attention three years previously when she wrote to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov pleading for peace. She had subsequently made a widely publicised tour of the USSR and acted in an American TV drama.

In the Soviet Union there was speculation of foul play, but an investigation found no evidence of this. It concluded that there had been a ground radar failure and the pilots had been inexperienced fliers on what was a rainy night. Both US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sent their condolences.

It was a sad end to a tragic month. But according to Learmount it was far less shocking than it would be today, due to the far greater prevalence of airline accidents in the mid-1980s.

"Aviation was different then," says Learmount. "It's infinitely more sophisticated now. Safety has been absolutely transformed. It would be very difficult for people now to understand what it felt like. Crashes were regular things."

Since the 1990s the number of annual aviation fatalities has been on a downward trend - notwithstanding the spike in 2014, which saw two disasters involving Malaysia Airlines planes - the disappearance of MH370 and the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine - as well as the disappearance of an Air Asia flight to Singapore.

That improved safety record can be attributed, in part, to the changes introduced in the wake of August 1985.

Wednesday 19 August 2015

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33931693

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Cyprus: Hopes rise in bid to find mass grave containing bodies of Greek Cypriots

New efforts were underway in the occupied north yesterday to locate a mass grave thought to contain the bodies of dozens of Greek Cypriots missing since the Turkish invasion in July 1974.

This is the 12th attempt to locate the mass grave in question. The excavation is being carried out in the area of Trahonas in Nicosia.

“We started an excavation in a (Turkish) military area in a bid to locate a mass grave,” said Nestoras Nestoros, the Greek Cypriot member of the Committee on Missing Persons.

The case concerns Greek Cypriots killed in the Nicosia areas of Kaimakli, Trahonas, and Omorphita in July 1974.

In 1977, Turkey filed a document at the Council of Europe that around 200 bodies had been collected by Turkish Cypriot forces from those areas, loaded on trucks and taken to Ledra Palace hotel to be handed over to the Greek Cypriot side for burial.

But the bodies were not received and were eventually buried in a mass grave, the document claimed.

This has never been confirmed and the Turkish side has since revised the number downwards.

Nestoros said their information suggested between 40 and 45 Greek Cypriots were buried in the area.

Turkish Cypriot CMP member Gulden Plumer Kucuk said the excavation near the central prison started with the permission of the Turkish military.

Kucuk told BRT that around 40 to 50 Greek Cypriot fighters who died in separate areas in 1974 were gathered and an effort had been made to return them through the UN “however, the Greek Cypriot side rejected this” and the bodies were buried in the location.

Eleven previous attempts to find the grave did not yield any results.

But this time the CMP was optimistic.

Nestoros said there was testimony, which the Turkish Cypriots had looked into.

“The Turkish Cypriots intensified their efforts to see if there is something because we had always insisted on that area,” he said. “It is a huge area and we hope to find the location.”

The CMP employs a bi-communal forensic team of more than 60 Cypriot archeologists, anthropologists and geneticists, who conduct excavations throughout the island and anthropological analyses of remains.

Nicos Theodosiou, the Executive Secretary of the Committee of Relatives of Missing Persons, when asked by the Cyprus News Agency to comment on the development, also expressed hope for a successful outcome.

He said that the time that passes, makes the venture ever more difficult.

According to Theodosiou, the existence of witnesses at a burial site raises the chance for success. “In this case, the information coming from the other side indicates that there must have been witnesses during the burial, for them [the CMP] to be so optimistic,” he said.

He also said that only 30 per cent of the families of missing persons have received the identified remains of their loved ones. Tthe rest of the families were still waiting.

Theodosiou urged the Turkish Cypriot side to actively support the efforts to locate burial sites in line with the good will expressed by the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akinci.

According to the CMP, to date, 1,508 Greek Cypriots and 493 Turkish Cypriots are on the missing list. At the end of last year, the number of identified remains of individuals returned to their families are: Greek Cypriots: 509 and Turkish Cypriots: 127, while 927 sites had been excavated. Another 35 people were identified in the first six months of this year.

It also emerged late last year that remains had been moved in the north to cover up mass executions. Around 280 of those identified to date were found buried in different places from where they had reportedly disappeared. The news was condemned in a European Parliament resolution last February that angered Turkey.

Tuesday 18 August 2015

http://cyprus-mail.com/2015/08/18/hopes-rise-in-bid-to-find-mass-grave/

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Rescuers stopped from reaching Indonesia plane crash site by bad weather

A plane that went down in eastern Indonesia two days ago was “completely destroyed” and 38 bodies have so far been found, officials said, after rescuers finally reached the remote crash site today.

There was little chance of finding survivors at the densely forested, mountainous location in Papua province where the Trigana Air plane went down in bad weather during a short flight on Sunday.

“The plane has crashed, it is completely destroyed,” Soelistyo said of the ATR 42-300 after rescue teams reached the site.

“Everything was in pieces and part of the plane is burnt. We could see burn marks on some pieces.” Photos of the site show a clearing in thick forest that appears to be fire-blackened and scattered with debris.

The plane was carrying 54 people -- 49 passengers and five crew. Transport ministry spokesman JA Barata said that 38 bodies, including one child, had so far been found at the crash site.

“We are unable to evacuate them as the weather is very bad,” he added. As well as checking for survivors, rescuers were also searching for the plane’s flight data recorders, or “black boxes”, which could shed light on what caused the twin-turboprop plane to crash, Soelistyo said.

There was no immediate news on the fate of 6.5 billion rupiah ($637,100) that were being transported by the plane in cash, intended for distribution to poor families as social assistance funds.

Thick fog and rain had hampered attempts by more than 250 rescuers and 11 aircraft to reach the wreckage on Monday, and they had been forced to turn back.

The disaster is just the latest air accident in Indonesia, which has a poor aviation safety record and has suffered major disasters in recent months, including the crash of an AirAsia plane in December with the loss of 162 lives.

The Trigana plane crashed as it flew from Papua’s capital Jayapura to Oksibil, a remote settlement in the mountains to the south.

The plane lost contact with air traffic control about 10 minutes before reaching its destination, soon after the crew requested permission to start descending in heavy cloud and rain to land.

Officials suspect bad weather may have caused the crash.

There was no immediate news on the fate of 6.5 billion rupiah ($637,100) that were being transported by the plane in cash, intended for distribution to poor families as social assistance funds.

Thick fog and rain had hampered attempts by more than 250 rescuers and 11 aircraft to reach the wreckage on Monday, and they had been forced to turn back.

The disaster is just the latest air accident in Indonesia, which has a poor aviation safety record and has suffered major disasters in recent months, including the crash of an AirAsia plane in December with the loss of 162 lives.

The Trigana plane crashed as it flew from Papua’s capital Jayapura to Oksibil, a remote settlement in the mountains to the south.

The plane lost contact with air traffic control about 10 minutes before reaching its destination, soon after the crew requested permission to start descending in heavy cloud and rain to land.

Officials suspect bad weather may have caused the crash.

Relatives of passengers waiting at Jayapura airport have become increasingly frustrated at the lack of hard news since the weekend, with some shouting “We want confirmation!” and throwing a table at a crisis centre in angry scenes on Monday.

Small aircraft are commonly used for transport in remote and mountainous Papua and bad weather has caused several accidents in recent years.

Last week a Cessna propeller plane crashed in Papua’s Yahukimo district, killing one person and seriously injuring the five others on board. Officials suspect that crash was also caused by bad weather.

Trigana Air, a small domestic Indonesian airline, has experienced a string of serious incidents and is banned from flying in European Union airspace.

Last year’s AirAsia crash was one of two major air accidents that Indonesia has suffered in the past year alone.

In June, an Indonesian military plane crashed into a residential neighbourhood in the city of Medan, exploding in a fireball and killing 142 people.

The aviation sector in Indonesia is expanding fast but airlines are struggling to find enough well-trained personnel to keep up with the rapid growth in the archipelago of more than 17,000 islands.

Tuesday 18 August 2015

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/rescuers-stopped-from-reaching-indonesia-plane-crash-site-by-bad-weather/story-fnizu68q-1227487694579

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Zimbabwe: SA Accident Victims to Be DNA Tested

The identification process of nine Zimbabweans who died in an accident last Thursday is expected to take time as most of the victims were burnt beyond recognition and would need to undergo DNA tests, South African police have said. The nine died when a commuter omnibus they were travelling in rammed into a stationary Zambian haulage truck near Naboomspruit along the N1 Highway in Limpopo Province, South Africa.

Limpopo police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Ronel Otto, said the identification process was ongoing at Naboomspruit government mortuary.

"The identification process is underway. DNA tests are also being done to confirm the identity because some of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition," she said.

Col Otto said the other victim was still hospitalised and in a stable condition at Naboomspruit Hospital.

The DNA profiling is expected to take more than 14 days.

She said they were working with the Zimbabwean Consulate staff in the identification process.

Col Otto said the truck driver and his passenger were not injured adding that the driver will appear at Naboomspruit Magistrate Court charged with culpable homicide today.

The accident comes shortly after seven other Zimbabweans were killed when a commuter omnibus they were travelling in collided with a haulage truck two kilometres from Beitbridge Border Post along the N1 Highway.

The N1 Highway is one of the busiest roads in South Africa as it links that country to the rest of Africa and it is a route that handles a lot of cargo movement.

The road has also become a death trap for Zimbabweans and citizens of countries north of the Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers

Tuesday 18 August 2015

http://allafrica.com/stories/201508170947.html

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Midnight killer: The 1976 Moro Gulf tsunami

It was 10 minutes past midnight of August 17, 1976, a Tuesday.

While most people were sleeping, a massive earthquake, registering magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale, rocked most of Mindanao and parts of the Visayas.

The tremor was most strongly felt in the cities and towns surrounding the Moro Gulf, particularly in Cotabato City, which now hosts the regional center of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

What made the 1976 Moro Gulf Quake most devastating, however, was not just the degree of the earth shaking.

With its epicenter near the town of Lebak in Sultan Kudarat, in a region of the Celebes Sea where earthquakes frequently occur – the 1976 Moro Gulf quake brought with it one of the most terrifying natural forces known to man: a tsunami.

Without warning, about 2-5 minutes after the earthquake struck, waves as high as 9 meters reached the shore and inundated communities along the Moro Gulf.

The tsunami affected 700 kilometers of coastline, with Pagadian City, Cotabato City, Zamboanga City, and Lebak in Sultan Kudarat experiencing the highest waves.

About 8,000 people died, including those missing and were never found, making it the most disastrous tsunami to hit the Philippines.

It is more than the number of casualties recorded after Super Typhoon Yolanda, the strongest typhoon in the world, hit the country.

Midnight killer

Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) director Renato Solidum said the high number of deaths – many of whom were children – could be attributed to the time the tsunami struck and the number of people residing near the shore at that time.

"Many people lived near the coast. Also, it was very dark. [It was] past midnight… Why many [died]? It's because it was sudden. If it happened in the morning when children are in school, a lot of people would probably be able to run for their lives," Solidum explained.

It’s important to note the type of the tsunami, he added. "It was a local tsunami. The onset of the first event (wave) occurred 2 to 5 minutes after the earthquake. Definitely, the height of the wave would matter in terms of the number of deaths."

While the earthquake caused fire and some buildings to collapse, the tsunami caused most of the damage.

The massive devastation brought by the Moro Gulf earthquake and the tsunami that followed resulted in a change in the country's disaster preparedness plans. It also led then president Ferdinand Marcos to revise the provisions of the National Building Code a year after the tragedy.

In 1978, Marcos created the National Disaster Coordinating Council, the predecessor of what is now known as the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

Tsunami generators in PH

The Philippines is more vulnerable to geological hazards such as earthquakes and tsunamis, according to the Phivolcs, due to its geography as an archipelago located along the Pacific Ocean's Ring of Fire.

Located along every side of the Philippine archipelago are different trenches that can generate tsunamis should the trenches move enough to create an earthquake.

According to Solidum, tsunamis in the Philippines are more dangerous compared to those that occur in other countries such as Indonesia and Japan.

“The tsunamis in our country arrive much faster than those in Indonesia and Japan because the source of the earthquake or the trenches are closer to the shorelines. If the trenches are closer to the shoreline, then the source of the tsunami will be much closer to the shoreline, so the distance will only be short and the lead time will be shorter,” he explained.

While chances of tsunamis are higher in large bodies of water, inland seas like in Bohol and Cebu can also generate tsunamis and landslides.

In Metro Manila, which lies near the Manila Trench and beside Manila Bay, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake can generate a tsunami as high as 4 meters, which could kill about 3,100 people. This is based on the 2004 Metro Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Communities need to be prepared

In 2004, more than 200,000 people died after an earthquake and tsunami struck off the Sumatra Coast near Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where more than half of the casualties came. The tragedy painfully highlighted the need for reliable tsunami early-warning systems along coastal areas.

Following the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, Phivolcs developed a tsunami detection system by setting up dry and wet sensors in 10 sites all over the Philippines.

The agency also produced tsunami hazard maps for coastal areas.

Phivolcs has also set up 19 tide gauges to warn communities of a coming tsunami. “The sensors are to confirm if the earthquake did or did not generate a tsunami. Or if there is a tsunami, the sensors will also be used to tell us if the tsunami waves are over,” Solidum said.

But Solidum emphasizes that the agency can only do so much. While the Phivolcs is ready to monitor and give warnings, nothing can compare to the vigilance and readiness of local communities.

“The issue here is how people will respond. Remember, it’s a local tsunami event - we cannot beat the two minutes," Solidum said.

Solidum adds that the 1976 Moro Gulf tsunami serves as a lesson for local communites to prepare for any disaster.

“It is a very good example of a threat of a sudden onset of an event after an earthquake that people need to know... People need to know which areas will be affected, where they will go if they will be evacuated and where the safe evacuation centers should be located.”

Tuesday 18 August 2015

http://www.rappler.com/move-ph/issues/disasters/102827-1976-moro-gulf-earthquake-tsunami

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South Africa taxi collides with train near Ballito

A minibus taxi has collided with a train near Ballito in South Africa, killing at least 14 people, according to KwaZulu-Natal emergency services.

The BBC's Milton Nkosi says it is believed the taxi was carrying 20 passengers when it went over a bridge and hit a train as it plunged onto a railway line below.

South Africa has an exceptionally high accident rate on its roads.

At least 10,000 people die on the roads a year, mostly due to reckless driving.

No-one on the train was injured, according to ENCA news.

Tuesday 18 August 215

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33967398

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Death toll in latest Mediterranean migrant tragedy put at 49

The number of migrants who died in the hold of an overcrowded fishing boat rescued on Saturday has risen to 49, the coast guard said on Sunday.

The bodies of the victims, along with the 312 survivors plucked from the boat off the coast of Libya, were due to arrive at the Sicilian port of Catania on Monday morning aboard the Norwegian ship Siem Pilot.

On Saturday the Italian navy said at least 40 migrants had died, probably from suffocation after inhaling fumes from fuel. . What is expected to the final tally was determined after all the survivors and victims were transferred to the Siem Pilot during the night.

Hundreds of other migrants were rescued from other boats on Saturday and were being taken to ports in Sicily, navy and coast guard officials said. More than 2,300 migrants and refugees have died so far this year in attempts to reach Europe by boat, compared with 3,279 deaths during the whole of last year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Friday. IOM spokesman Joel Millman said nearly a quarter of a million migrants and asylum seekers had arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean so far this year, compared to 219,000 for all of 2014.

Monday 17 August 2015

http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-death-toll-in-latest-mediterranean-migrant-tragedy-put-at-49-2115117

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Indonesian plane crash: Debris spotted in mountains

Indonesian searchers believe they have located debris from an airliner that crashed in a mountainous area with 54 people on board.

A search plane spotted the wreckage Monday, but a ground team hasn't yet been able to reach it, said Raymond Konstantin, an official for Indonesia's search and rescue agency.

Authorities had said earlier that villagers in a remote area of Indonesia's eastern Papua province reported seeing the passenger plane crash into a mountain.

It's the Southeast Asian nation's third air disaster in less than eight months.

The ATR42-300 turboprop aircraft operated by Trigana Air Service was carrying 44 adult passengers, five children and five crew members when it went missing during a short domestic flight Sunday. All of those on board were Indonesian, authorities told CNN Indonesia.

Ground team heading to area

The search over rugged, densely forested terrain was halted overnight because poor weather and a lack of light made an already dangerous landscape even more challenging.

A second search plane has been dispatched to verify the debris spotted Monday, Col. I Made Susila Adyana, an Indonesian Air Force official in Papua, told the national news agency Antara.

He said a ground team is heading to the area from the town of Oksibil, the intended destination of the Trigana flight.

The flight lost contact with air traffic control in Papua on Sunday afternoon, the search and rescue agency said on Twitter. It had left Sentani Airport in Jayapura at 2:22 p.m. and was scheduled to land in Oksibil at about 3:16 p.m., officials said.

The plane lost contact at about 2:55 p.m., Transportation Ministry spokesman J.A. Barata told CNN Indonesia.

Barata said there was no indication that a distress call was made from the plane. He said he would be flying from Jakarta to Papua along with investigators and search and rescue officials.

Thunderstorms in the mountains

There are many possible reasons for the apparent lack of a distress call, CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo said. It could indicate that flight crew members were too busy dealing with whatever situation arose to have time to send one, or that they simply didn't realize they were in trouble.

Officials said the weather was clear when the plane took off in Jayapura, but CNN meteorologist Ivan Cabrera said there were some thunderstorms over a mountainous area in the flight path.

The weather could get worse in the coming days, possibly impeding rescue efforts in an area with mountain peaks as high as 3 kilometers (10,000 feet).

"The terrain is going to be an issue as well, as we have some pretty steep slopes here," Cabrera said.

Trigana banned from flying in Europe

The Trigana Air Service plane is the third Indonesian aircraft to crash in the past eight months.

In December, AirAsia Flight QZ8501 went down in the Java Sea while headed from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. All 162 people on board were killed.

And in June, an Indonesian military transport plane crashed soon after taking off from the city of Medan, killing at least 135 people.

Trigana Air Service is one of a large number of airlines banned from operating in European airspace "because they are found to be unsafe and/or they are not sufficiently overseen by their authorities," according to the European Commission.

It has been on the list since 2007.

Monday 17 August 2015

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-indonesia-missing-plane-20150816-story.html

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Rescuers find seven bodies after China landslide

At least seven people have died and 57 remain missing more than four days after a landslide hit a mining company in northwest China, the official Xinhua news agency said.

On Sunday (Aug 16) evening seven bodies were retrieved from debris covering employee dormitories in Shanyang county in the northern province of Shaanxi, the news service quoted local rescue officials as saying.

The rescue operation follows a landslide on Wednesday which buried the living quarters of the mining company under one million cubic metres of earth.

The mine's operator was identified by Xinhua as the Wuzhou mining company, which according to its parent company is mainly a vanadium producer. Search efforts had been hampered by a huge volume of mud and rubble, combined with the risk of a second landslide, rescuers told the news agency.

China - the world's largest producer of coal - is grappling to improve standards in the sector, where regulations are often flouted and corruption enables bosses to pursue profits at the cost of worker safety. Accidents in Chinese coal mines killed 931 people last year, a top work safety official said in March.

Monday 17 August 2015

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/rescuers-find-seven/2054578.html

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Tianjin blasts death toll rises to 114, 70 missing

Death toll for the massive Tianjin blasts rose to 114 after rescuers found two more bodies in the debris, a municipal publicity official said on Monday.

Gong Jiansheng, deputy head of Tianjin's publicity department, told the press the identities of 54 bodies have been confirmed, adding another 70 people are still missing.

Among the bodies, 39 were firefighters and five were policemen. The number of missing was previously 95, before 25 people were identified among the bodies found.

Most of the missing are firemen, he added.

Rescuers have made four comprehensive search efforts through what they call "a maze of containers", and the search is still underway.

"Navigating through the blast zone is extremely dangerous, because of the burning chemicals and twisted containers, which could collapse at any minute. We had to make marks in order not to get lost," said Wang Ke, who led a group of chemical specialist soldiers.

Two massive blasts, which occurred before midnight on Aug. 12, wreaked havoc several kilometers away.

By Monday, a total of 698 people remain in hospital, of whom 57 are still in critical condition.

A minor explosion occurred on Monday morning at the blast site, located in Binhai New Area. Dark smoke has abated, but flames can still be seen.

Bao Jingling, chief engineer of the city's bureau of environmental protection, said about 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide were stored at the blast site and they remain intact.

The blasts have affected 17,000 households and 1,700 enterprises. At least 6,000 residents have been displaced.

Monday 17 August 2015

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-08/17/c_134525611.htm

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Search is on to identify ‘unknown’ sailors at Pearl Harbor

As the sun broke from behind the clouds over Oahu’s Koolau mountains one recent morning, a seven-member detail of military personnel transferred five coffins, disinterred from two graves marked “unknown,” at the Punchbowl, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific here.

Off to the west was Pearl Harbor, where the men in the coffins died nearly 75 years ago.

The detail draped each coffin with a U.S. flag, saluted and placed the coffins into trucks.

“We’re not ‘mission complete’ until we return them home,” Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan, a director of public affairs for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, said of the remains of 388 sailors who died aboard the battleship Oklahoma during the Pearl Harbor attack.

Eventually, 61 coffins from 45 graves will be dug up, Morgan said, and taken to laboratories that over the next five years will use DNA and dental records to identify the remains, the names of which have long been engraved on a memorial near Pearl Harbor.

The process of searching for and identifying service members missing from World War II has been going on since the fighting ended 70 years ago, but the latest efforts have taken on a sense of urgency as the number of those who served and are still alive dwindles.

“There are unknowns around the world,” said James Horton, director of the national cemetery in Honolulu, where 2,760 unidentified service members, 1,061 from Pearl Harbor, are buried. “What makes identification very difficult is the severity of what happened, which may have made things messy, and how much more fighting there’s going on in those areas.”

“The reason they went for the Oklahoma unknowns is there is a known set of them, a fairly finite set,” he said.

Of the eight battleships attacked that Sunday in 1941, only the Oklahoma and the Arizona were damaged beyond repair. The Arizona rests below its memorial at Pearl Harbor. The Oklahoma, which capsized, was brought up two years later.

The bodies recovered from the Oklahoma were buried throughout Oahu and later transferred to the Punchbowl in 1949, after it was dedicated. Some of the remains ended up in separate coffins.

The push to identify the Oklahoma unknowns began as a quest by a Pearl Harbor survivor, Ray Emory, for better grave markers.

When Emory, 94, who was on the light cruiser Honolulu during the attack, visited the Punchbowl in 1990, a cemetery worker could not tell him where to find the sailors from the Oklahoma.

That began a quest for headstones that would distinguish Pearl Harbor unknowns from those who died in other wars or other battles. Emory then wondered if he could single out the name and grave for one Oklahoma victim.

His curiosity sent him on what would become a venture through stacks of burial records.

One file contained information about 27 service members before their reburial at the Punchbowl. Using that information, Emory located the graves of those men, and in 2003 the military agreed to exhume five of the bodies he had identified.

Encouraged, Emory reached out to family members of the remaining 22 unknowns, asking them to pressure state and national lawmakers. A letter to the Pentagon in 2014 from Sens. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., urging the disinterment and identification of the Oklahoma unknowns went nowhere.

But a similar letter sent in February paid off. And in April, the deputy secretary of defense, Robert Work, announced plans to disinter and identify the unknown remains from the Oklahoma. The work began in June.

There are limitations. A grave with commingled remains may be dug up, the announcement said, only if it is likely that evidence can determine identities for 60 percent of the remains. A grave with a single unknown may be disinterred only if there is a 50 percent likelihood that the remains can be identified.

Remains that cannot be identified will receive a full military honors burial, Morgan said. Near the time of that burial, Morgan said, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency will determine what to do with remains without surviving or identifiable relatives.

Sunday 16 August 2015

http://www.expressnews.com/news/us-world/article/Search-is-on-to-identify-unknown-sailors-at-6446789.php

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Italy finds dozens of migrants dead in hold during ship rescue

At least 40 migrants died Saturday in the hold of an overcrowded smuggling boat in the Mediterranean Sea north of Libya, apparently killed by fuel fumes, and some 320 others on the same boat were saved by the Italian navy, the rescue ship's commander said.

Migrants by the tens of thousands are braving the perilous journey across the Mediterranean this year, hoping to reach Europe and be granted asylum. They are fleeing war, persecution and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

"The dead were found in the hold," Cmdr. Massimo Tosi, speaking from the navy ship Cigala Fulgosi while the rescue was still ongoing. Asked by RaiNews24 how the migrants died, Tosi said "it appears to be from inhaling exhaust fumes."

"They are still counting the victims," Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told reporters.

Tosi said the survivors included 45 women and three children.

When rescuers stepped aboard, the bodies of migrants were "lying in water, fuel, human excrement" in the hold, Tosi said, adding that among the survivors, "women were crying for their husbands (and) their children who died in the crossing."

Prior to Saturday's disaster, at least 2,100 migrants died at sea this year trying to make the crossing from the shores of Libya, where human traffickers are based, to Italy. Migration organizations say the Libya-to-Italy crossing is by far the deadliest. The exact toll of dead will never be known, as some boats are believed by authorities to have gone down at sea without rescuers being aware of them.

The number of migrants trying to reach Europe by sea is on track to hit a record this year, according to the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration.

Greece has reported 134,988 arrivals from Turkey this year, the group said, while Italy recorded more than 100,000 migrants rescued at sea by mid-August. Along with other migrants landing in Spain and Malta, that makes over 243,000 people crossing so far this year - compared to 219,000 for all of 2014.

Sunday 16 August 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/italy-migrants-ship-rescue_55cf40b9e4b055a6dab08330

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China blasts death toll rises to 112

The death toll from two massive explosions in the Chinese port of Tianjin has risen to 112, an official says.

More than 700 people have also been hospitalised as a result of Wednesday's blasts - which triggered a huge fireball - as well as a fire that emergency workers have struggled to put out since then and fresh explosions on Saturday.

"By 9am on August 16, the total number of deaths was 112," Gong Jiansheng, the deputy chief of the city's propaganda department, said at a news conference.

"We have already identified 24 bodies, and there are 88 to be identified."

At least 21 firefighters are among the dead, according to state media.

Authorities on Saturday moved to relocate anyone within three kilometres of the blast site in the northern city over fears of toxic contamination, but have insisted that the disaster did not release dangerous levels of chemicals into the environment.

Officials have struggled to identify the substances present at the scene, sparking fears and scepticism among residents of Tianjin, which has a population of 15 million.

Sunday 16 august 2015

http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/08/16/01/47/chinese-blast-death-toll-hits-104

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Death toll from Chinese port blasts hits 85, including 21 firefighters

The death toll from an inferno and huge explosions in the Chinese port city of Tianjin climbed to 85 on Saturday with hundreds of people injured and some still unaccounted for.

The count includes 21 of the more than 1,000 firefighters who responded to the fire and blasts, according to The Associated Press.

A rapid succession of explosions late Wednesday - one equal to 21 tons of TNT - were sparked by a fire at what authorities said were shipping containers containing hazardous material at a warehouse, and they struck a mostly industrial zone late at night - otherwise the death toll could have been much higher. But the warehouse was close enough to residences to appear out of compliance with safety regulations, raising questions about whether the facility had properly been authorized.

The toll included at least 21 firefighters among the more than 1,000 sent to the disaster, local officials told a news conference Saturday. Firefighters initially responded to a fire at the warehouse and many of them apparently were killed by a series of explosions triggered 40 minutes after the fire was reported.

Tianjin Fire Department head Zhou Tian said at a news conference Friday that the explosions occurred just as reinforcements had arrived on the scene and were just getting to work."There was no chance to escape, and that's why the casualties were so severe," the fire head said. "We're now doing all we can to rescue the missing."

NPR's Robert Siegel spoke Friday with David Leggett, a consultant on hazardous chemical risk assessments, about the chemicals involved in the explosion and the ongoing risks they might pose.

"There are three chemicals that are confirmed: calcium carbide, potassium nitrate and sodium nitrate. And those three together if left alone and not in the presence of fire are relatively stable. "However, in the presence of a fire — a very big fire, as we believe there was — the first thing that probably happens is that the containers of the calcium carbide probably start to fail; at the same time one can expect to see that the water supplies in the warehouse may be beginning to fail. And if we get calcium carbide — especially if it's hot — mixed with water, we form a very, very flammable and highly explosive gas called acetylene."

Leggett said Chinese authorities — unlike their U.S. counterparts — may have lacked thorough documentation of the chemicals moving through the country's transit facilities, and that the detection of sodium cyanide in a nearby sewer could be concerning.

"Depending upon the amount of sodium cyanide that is there, I would be concerned about the residues of sodium cyanide that may have been distributed across the area, and how that cleanup will be managed," he says.

Chinese police are clearing everyone within three miles of a fire in the port city of Tianjin over fears of chemical poisoning.

Police confirmed that highly toxic sodium cyanide was present near the site, raising fears that spread of the chemical could cause more casualties.

Fire broke out and more explosions were heard Saturday morning at the site of Wednesday's massive explosions. Searchers on Friday night uncovered more bodies in the warehouse district of Tianjin, China, state media reported, raising the death toll to 85.

"Out of consideration for toxic substances spreading, the masses nearby have been asked to evacuate," Xinhua is quoted in The Guardian.

Saturday 15 August 2015

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2015/aug/14/death-toll-from-chinese-port-blasts-hits-85/

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China blasts: Tianjin explosions death toll reaches 55, relatives looking for the missing

Chinese rescue teams say they have located a survivor more than 30 hours after the city of Tianjin was rocked by a devastating chemical explosion that killed at least 55 people and has forced thousands from their homes.

Rescuers discovered a 19-year-old firefighter – named as Zhou Ti – at 7.05am on Friday morning, according to Xinhua, China’s official news agency.

Zhou was taken to Tianjin’s Teda hospital and is in a stable condition, according to The Paper, a Shanghai-based news website.

The discovery offered a rare glimmer of hope as authorities battled to help those left injured or homeless when a warehouse storing hazardous chemicals caught fire and exploded on Wednesday sending a mushroom cloud rising into the night sky.

With acrid black smoke still billowing from the disaster zone, more than 1,020 firefighters continued to battle “raging” fires in the area, Zhou Tian, Tianjin’s fire chief, told Xinhua on Friday.

The official death toll rose to 55 after five more bodies were found, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

As the body count rose, displaced residents took shelter in the homes of relatives or in makeshift government camps set up in local primary schools. At least 6,000 people were expected in such shelters on Thursday night, a local official said.

By Friday morning, around 200 volunteers and family members looking for lost relatives were milling around outside the primary school opposite the GSK Glaxo Smith Kline Tianjin headquarters.

At the front of the gate, volunteers had erected a tent where they were maintaining long lists and posters featuring the names, descriptions and contact details of some of the missing.

“We have a group on WeChat where volunteers circulate the names of the missing and inform each other if anyone has been found” Xie said.

Asked why the government wasn’t doing this work, Xie said: “They’re focussing on the explosion. That’s more important than this. They don’t have extra energy to deal with this as well.

“Of course this is important too, but while they direct their energy to that, common people like us can offer our help in this way.”

Relatives of Tianjin residents missing after the blasts hold up information about their loved ones. At the Vantone Central Park – which is around 2km from the scene of the disaster – signs of the blast were everywhere.

The glass façade of the Jingcheng Real Estate company had been completely shattered. From a fourth-floor apartment a man peered down from a pane-less window at a carpet of glass.

A bright red banner hanging at the heart of the compound read: “It is everyone’s duty to report crimes involving guns and explosives.”

“Look at this damage – it’s like an earthquake hit,” said Zhang, who said her relatives had fled with their young child following the explosion. “I’ve come because they’re still too scared to come back,” she said. “Young children can’t really comprehend these kinds of things.”

Others were refusing to leave the area around the blast site, despite government calls to evacuate and fears that volatile chemicals could trigger secondary explosions.

Authorities admitted they had still not been able to determine which chemicals were being stored in the warehouse at the time of the disaster, blaming “major discrepancies” in company and customs records.

Liu Yandon, a top Communist party leader, visited Tianjin on Friday morning and ordered officials there to provide the best possible medical care to the wounded, especially the 71 people reported to be in a critical condition. Liu said psychological support and counselling should be offered to families of the dead and injured as well as rescue workers.

Friday 14 August 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/14/china-explosions-thousands-seek-refuge-55-killed-tianjin-blasts

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13 dead in Guizhou coal mine accident

The death toll from a coal mine gas outburst in Guizhou Province rose to 13 after authorities found bodies of three people previously reported missing.

Another five people were injured and authorities have wrapped up search and rescue. The cause of the investigation is still ongoing.

The outburst occurred at around 7:50 p.m. Tuesday at the coal mine in Louxia Township of Pu'an County. A total of 56 people safely moved out of the mine.

Friday 14 August 2015

http://www.ecns.cn/2015/08-14/177205.shtml

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Nigeria: 30 unidentified corpses lying at Mararaba Medical Centre

The management of Mararaba Medical Centre in Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State has said that 30 unidentified corpses are in its mortuary.

Dr Ibrahim Adamu, the Medical Director of the centre, made the fact known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Mararaba on Thursday.

Adamu said that the situation was unhealthy and worrisome to both the patients and members of staff of the centre.

"These corpses have been here since 2013 with no record of ownership.

"They were brought or dumped here by the police as most of them happen to be victims of accidents or armed robbery.

"We are appealing to Karu Local Government authorities and the police to arrange for their burial.

"Evacuation of these corpses will promote, not only the health of our workers, but also health of our patients, especially those on admissions," he said.

Friday 14 August 2015

http://allafrica.com/stories/201508131889.html

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DNA of Kullu bus accident victims to be preserved

With the bodies of the July 23 Kullu bus accident victims now being retrieved from the Parvati river too decayed to be recognised, the Kullu district administration in Himachal Pradesh will preserve the DNA from these to avoid identification issues later.

The DNA samples from three bodies fished on Tuesday have been collected. The bodies of a woman and two men extracted on Wednesday could not be identified. “Knowing what would be the condition of the bodies that have remained under water for so long, we decided three-four days ago to preserve the DNA from the bodies to be retrieved from now,” said Kullu subdivisional magistrate (SDM) Rohit Rathore.

“The families that claimed the bodies retrieved on Tuesday had identified the victims from their clothes and other belongings; but we have kept the DNA samples as well to avoid controversy later as we find more victims. The DNA samples will be sent to the forensic laboratory at Junga in Shimla district,” said the SDM.

Identification issues had cropped up in June last year when 24 students from Hyderabad were swept away in the Beas river near Thalot in Mandi district. On July 23, a private bus carrying pilgrims from Bathinda, Barnala and Mansa districts of Punjab had fallen into a swollen Parvati river on the Bhuntar-Manikaran road. So far, 20 bodies have been retrieved, while 26 victims are still missing. In the accident, 23 passengers were injured.

Kullu Deputy Commissioner Rakesh Kanwar said still search is going on to recover bodies from river. A anonymous body recovered from river which is not in passengers list.

National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), and Himachal Pradesh Police continue to search for bodies and possible survivors.

Thursday 13 August 2015

http://www.hindustantimes.com/bathinda/dna-of-kullu-bus-mishap-victims-to-be-preserved/article1-1379587.aspx

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Japan: Ashes of thousands of wartime dead still unclaimed

The remains of thousands of civilians killed during World War II still remain unclaimed by relatives and languish in storage at temples and other sites across the country, an Asahi Shimbun survey shows.

The families of more than 7,400 people have yet to claim ashes stored in eight cities across Japan, even though the deceased have been identified based on name tags and other items attached to their clothing.

Many of the victims were killed in U.S. air raids. But in Okinawa, the victims were caught up in shelling and fighting.

In an effort to tally the unclaimed remains, The Asahi Shimbun contacted local governments, private-sector organizations, temples and other parties. The study covered Okinawa and 71 cities where 100 or more people are said to have died in connection with the war.

Although the central government has been diligently working to return the remains of Japanese soldiers killed in the war to their families, there had been no detailed research on the uncollected remains of civilians killed in U.S. air raids and other means.

According to the survey results, the ashes of 3,701 people stored in Tokyo have been identified but remain unclaimed by relatives. The figures for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were both leveled by atomic bombing in 1945, are 815 and 122, respectively.

Each of the three cities annually receives several inquiries and ashes have been returned in some cases. But in many instances, ashes that have been identified cannot be claimed because all family members perished in the war, according to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.

The ashes of more than 2,700 identified civilians remain unclaimed in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, Yokohama, Hamamatsu, Osaka and Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. Because the bodies of victims were cremated and buried together in those five cities, relatives are now unable to collect the remains.

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki city governments publicly disclose names of the identified victims. In the case of Hamamatsu and Sakai, bereaved families can view lists of remains that have been identified by contacting the temples and private groups storing them. Tokyo and Osaka do not publicly disclose the identities of remains.

The Asahi Shimbun also learned that unidentified remains of more than 300,000 people were buried together at temples and other facilities in Okinawa, Tokyo and 11 other cities.

More than 500,000 civilians are thought to have perished in Japan in World War II, mainly as a result of U.S. air raids.

One reason behind the large number of unclaimed remains is that it was difficult for Japanese officials during the war to identify victims and locate their families in the face of intensified aerial attacks by the United States.

According to records on damage to Tokyo during the war and other source material, the police were responsible for examining and identifying those killed in airstrikes.

But police were overwhelmed by the number of victims in the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 10, 1945. Corpses were laid out on city streets for several days so people could find their families. The bodies were later transferred to nearby parks and elsewhere for tentative burial because it was thought that leaving them laid out on the ground for a prolonged period could undermine the people's fighting spirit.

Victims of the Great Tokyo Air Raid were exhumed and cremated after the end of the war so they could be enshrined at a Tokyo government-run memorial facility.

Although some of the victims of the air raid were identified, those remains could not be returned to relatives because the bereaved families did not know where or even if the ashes were being stored.

Interviews with bereaved families showed they could not afford to claim their relatives’ ashes as they were caught up on the task of rebuilding their own lives. In some cases, ashes were not returned because authorities mixed up names.

“The wartime authorities prioritized hiding corpses rather than identifying them so as not to lower citizens’ morale,” said Katsumoto Saotome, director of the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage. “If the authorities had actively sought bereaved families of the remains immediately following the war, more ashes may have been returned to their relatives by now.”

Thursday 13 August 2015

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201508120070

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At least 44 dead, hundreds injured as blasts from hazardous materials warehouse rock Chinese city of Tianjin

Huge explosions at a warehouse for dangerous materials in the northeastern Chinese port of Tianjin killed at least 44 people, including 12 firefighters, and injured hundreds of others.

The massive blasts late on Wednesday night sent fireballs into the air forming a mushroom cloud in the sky.

About 520 people are receiving treatment in hospital, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported. Sixty-six of them are said to be in a critical condition.

The explosions late on Wednesday blew doors off buildings in the area and shattered windows up to several kilometers away.

Twelve firefighters were killed tackling the blaze, Xinhua said. Thirty-six are missing, according to an earlier report from The Beijing News.

The authorities suspended firefighting efforts at the warehouse on Thursday morning due to a lack of clarity about what dangerous goods are inside and how much is stored, according to a local government statement issued on Thursday.

Fire staff will survey the scene and efforts made to find out what is inside the complex before firefighters return, state television reported.

It said the risk of hazardous chemicals remaining on the site was high.

The city’s fire brigade said its personnel were sent to the warehouse at about 10.50pm on Wednesday night, 40 minutes before the first large explosion occurred.

About 1,000 firefighters were deployed before teams were pulled out on Thursday morning.



About 400 members of China's paramilitary forces are helping with the relief and rescue efforts, the PLA Daily reported.

Roads around the complex have been sealed off and a rail link to the affected area has been suspended.

Tianjin resident Zhang Siyu, whose home is several kilometers from the blast site, said she thought the explosions last night were an earthquake.

“Only once I was outside did I realise it was an explosion. There was the huge fireball in the sky with thick clouds. Everybody could see it.”

Zhang said she could see wounded people weeping. She said she did not see anyone who had been killed, but “I could feel death".

A 28-year-old man told the South China Morning Post that he was driving on a bridge about 1km from the warehouse when the first explosion occurred.

"The first blast was like setting off fire crackers and we were watching it from the car, but when the second one happened the shock wave was much stronger.

"It was like shooting stars. There were also balls of metal falling from from the sky. We had to leave our car and escape at once leaving all of our personal belongs behind," the driver said.

The force of the blast was so strong it buckled metalwork on the car and blew out all of its windows, he added..

Police in Tianjin said an initial blast took place at shipping containers in a warehouse for hazardous materials owned by Ruihai Logistics, a company that says it’s properly approved to handle hazardous materials. State media said senior management of the company had been detained by authorities.

It is part of an industrial park, with some apartment buildings nearby.

Among the chemicals the company handles are sodium cyanide, often used in the mining industry to help extract gold; plus toluene diisocyanate, a toxic organic compound, the China Youth Daily reported, citing the firm's website.

The state-run Xinhua news agency said an initial explosion triggered other blasts at nearby businesses. The National Earthquake Bureau reported two major blasts before midnight, the first with an equivalent of 3 tonnes of TNT and the second with the equivalent of 21 tonnes.

China’s President Xi Jinping has told the city authorities to contain the fire and rescue the injured, the China News Service reported. He also ordered them to fully investigate the cause of the explosions and hold people accountable if they were found to be responsible for the disaster, the report said.

Photos taken by bystanders and circulating on microblogs show a gigantic fireball high in the sky, with a mushroom-cloud. Other photos on state media outlets showed a sea of fire that painted the night sky bright orange, with tall plumes of smoke.

About 2 km from the explosion site is the luxury Fifth Avenue apartment complex on a road strewn with broken glass and pieces of charred metal thrown from explosion. Like surrounding buildings, the Mediterranean style complex had all its windows blown out and some its surfaces were scorched.

“It’s lucky no one had moved in,” said a worker on the site, Liu Junwei, 29. “But for us it’s a total loss. Two years hard work down the drain.”

“It had been all quiet, then the sky just lit up brighter than day and it looked like a fireworks show,” said another worker on the site who gave just his surname, Li.

In one neighborhood about 10 to 20 km from the blast site, some residents were sleeping on the street wearing gas masks, although there was no perceptible problem with the air apart from massive clouds of smoke seen in the distance.

“It was like what we were told a nuclear bomb would be like,” said truck driver Zhao Zhencheng, who spent the night in the cab of his truck. “I’ve never even thought I’d see such a thing. It was terrifying but also beautiful.”

At the nearby Taida Hospital as dawn broke, military medical tents were set up. Photos circulating online showed patients in bandages and with cuts.

One woman spent the night on the street after she was blown from her bed by shock waves from the explosions.

"Even the elevator doors in our block were buckled," she said.

Ruihai Logistics says on its website that it was established in 2011 and is an approved company for handling hazardous materials. It says it handles 1 million tonnes of cargo annually.

Tianjin, with a population of about 15 million, is about 120 km east of Beijing on the Bohai Sea and is one of the country’s major ports. It is also one of China’s more modern cities and is connected to the capital by a high-speed rail line.

Thursday 13 August 2015

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1849118/blast-explosives-shipment-rocks-chinese-city-tianjin

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Nepal: Kin of quake missing want relief, compensation

Sange Sherpa of Khijiphalate-5 in Okhaldhunga district had gone missing in a landslide triggered by the April 25 earthquake in Langtang, Rasuwa. His body has yet to be recovered four months after the disaster.

Three months into his disappearance, Sange’s family gave up hope of finding him alive and performed his final rituals. Now his wife Kami and two children are struggling with their lives. “Our house was destroyed in the quake and we are staying under tarpaulins now,” said Kami, adding that they hardly have enough to eat. Some social organisations did provide them some food stuffs but they were insufficient.

“We are in pitiful condition and don’t know how to lead our lives,” she said. The kin of Lucky Sherpa of Khijiphalate-6 too have similar story to tell. Lucky, who went to work in a Langtang hotel, has been missing since the day of the devastating quake. As Lucky was the sole bread winner in her house, the family has found itself in lurch. Lucky’s father, Pasang, said they have not received government relief till date.

Seventeen people from Okhaldhunga had gone missing in the avalanche on that fateful day in Langtang. Of them, nine were from Patle, three from Khijiphalate, four from Khijikatika and one from Bhusinga in Okhaldhunga district. But victims’ families are unable to retrieve the bodies of those missing. The victims’ families demanded that the government declare them as deceased persons and provide relief and compensation amount. Rinji Sherpa, a relative of one of the missing persons, said the government should provide facilities as their family members are no more alive. “The authorities are dilly-dallying in providing compensation,” he said.

When asked to clarify the situation, Assistant Chief District Officer of Okhaldhunga Nagendra Poudel said the Home Ministry had not sent a letter of missing persons in the district. “We have not received the list of missing persons even from Rasuwa,” he said, adding that eight of the missing persons had been identified in the district.

Thursday 13 August 2015

http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2015/08/12/news/kin-of-quake-missing-want-relief-compensation/279485.html

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Days after missing Pawan Hans chopper was located, three bodies found in Arunachal Pradesh

Search and rescue teams looking for a helicopter that went missing in Arunachal Pradesh with three people on board have spotted bodies and wreckage, an official said on Wednesday.

The bodies were spotted along with the wreckage of the Pawan Hans chopper that went missing on August 4 in a deep gorge in a remote forested area in Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh.

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Secretary Ramesh Negi confirmed this on Wednesday but said it will take time to recover the bodies due to the hilly terrain.

"The search team had spotted the bodies amid the wreckage today. The operation is on to recover the bodies now. We are trying to bring it to Khonsa first. However, it is likely to take some time due to the difficult mountainous terrain," he said.

Paratroopers of the Indian Army and some mountaineers will be pressed into service on Thursday to find out the Pawan Hans chopper and its passengers that went missing in Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh last week.

Director General of Police S Nitithyanandam told PTI that highly-trained commandos of the HAWS in Jammu and Kashmir, who were airdropped in the tough hilly region, reached the spot where the debris of the chopper had been spotted on Monday last.

It may be mentioned here that the aerial search operations have located the main portion of the wreckage of the Pawan Hans chopper lying in a gorge between two hills on Tuesday but the steep downward climb has made it difficult for the rescue teams to reach to it.

The massive search operations involved Tirap and Changlang district administrations, the army, Assam Rifles and police personnel, as also IAF’s Ml-17, Cheetah helicopters, Sukhoi MKI30 and EW Boeing aircrafts. Joshi's wife Neha and brother Maj Rajesh Joshi had been camping at Khonsa since August 6. Often hindered by inclement weather, the search operation had succeeded in locating the tail portion of the chopper from a place, about 4-5 km away from Sangliam village on a hill covered with dense forest on Monday last, civil aviation secretary B M Mishra had said.

The Dauphin twin-engine helicopter went missing with the Tirap DC and the two pilots after taking off from Khonsa in Tirap district on August 4 last. The chopper was on way to Longding to pick up its Deputy Commissioner and that of Changlang and proceed to New Delhi to attend an important meeting on August 6.

The wreckage has been located between Pongkong and Longliang villages in Tirap district. The bodies were burnt badly as the chopper seems to have exploded following the crash.

After spotting the main portion of the wreckage of the chopper, the government had used the services of army`s paratroopers and mountaineers to reach to the wreckage on Wednesday.

The chopper went missing it took off from Khonsa in Tirap district on August 4.

Tirap Deputy Commissioner Kamlesh Kumar Joshi and two pilots of the chopper were on its way to Longding on a routine sortie and it was supposed to return to Mohanbari airport in Dibrugarh.

Hectic search operations have been on to locate the missing helicopter and its three boarders by the IAF choppers, Army, the Assam Rifles, Arunachal Pradesh police personnel and local villagers since the last eight days.

Thursday 13 August 2015

http://www.firstpost.com/india/days-after-missing-pawan-hans-chopper-was-located-three-bodies-found-in-arunachal-pradesh-2389574.html

http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/search-teams-spot-bodies-wreckage-of-missing-chopper_1645873.html

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Over 60 Missing from NW China Landslide

More than 60 people were missing in China Wednesday after a landslide buried the living quarters of a mining company under one million cubic meters of earth, state media said.

The landslide covered 15 employee dormitories and three houses in Shanyang county in the northern province of Shaanxi shortly after midnight, an official at the county's propaganda office told AFP.

The state-run Xinhua news agency, quoting the provincial government, said late Wednesday that more than 60 people remain missing.

It said four people had been rescued and rushed to hospital. Another 10 at the site had avoided being trapped when the landslide struck, it added.

More than 1.3 million cubic meters of earth buried 15 dorms and three houses at around 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday at Wuzhou Mining Co. in the mountainous county of Shanyang. Earlier reports put the number missing at 40.

Ten people managed to escape by themselves.

Zhou Kunlin, one of the 10, said:"I woken up by people shouting about the danger."

Zhou said he and several colleagues ran out of the dorm and up the mountain. They were lucky to escape with just minor injuries from the falling stones.

"Those who ran down the mountain were buried by the landslide," he said.

"Many just had no time, as the landslide buried the area in mere minutes," he added.

More than 700 police, firefighters, mining rescuers and paramedics are at the scene. Residents living nearby have been evacuated.

Photos posted on news websites showed rescue workers in orange jumpsuits standing next to a pile of earth and rocks at least four times their size. Mechanical backhoes were atop the mound.

President Xi Jinping said he was following the rescue efforts closely and every effort should be made to prevent casualties and further disasters, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Rescue efforts, however, have been hampered by the unstable environment on the surrounding mountain slopes.

A work team sent by the State Council, China's cabinet, is en route to the site to oversee the search and rescue efforts.

Villagers believe excessive mining may be to blame as the region received no rain on Sunday.

The mine's operator was identified by Xinhua as Wuzhou mining company, which according to its parent company is mainly a vanadium producer.

Shanyang is a vanadium-rich county and several mines are located in the township where the landslide occurred. Residents have often voiced concern about the impact of mining activities on the environment.

Separately, an accident at a coal and gas mine on Tuesday night in the southwestern province of Guizhou killed 10 people, provincial work safety authorities said in a statement.

Rescue efforts were under way, the statement said Wednesday.

Xinhua reported Wednesday that 56 miners left the shaft safely after the accident, with five injured and three more still missing.

China -- the world's largest producer of coal -- is grappling to improve standards in the sector, where regulations are often flouted and corruption enables bosses to pursue profits at the cost of worker safety.

Accidents in Chinese coal mines killed 931 people last year, a top work safety official said in March.

The official number of mining fatalities is declining but some rights groups argue the actual figures are significantly higher due to under-reporting.

The country is also prone to landslides, often caused by floods but with lax management of industrial sites sometimes a factor.

In 2008, 277 people died in a mudslide in the northern province of Shanxi after an illegal mining waste reservoir burst its banks following heavy rain.

A total of 58 government and company officials were convicted over the disaster and sentenced to prison terms, some to life.

In 2013, a vast volume of rock crashed down a mountainside east of the Tibetan capital Lhasa, burying 83 people in a mineworkers' camp.

Thursday 13 August 2015

http://english.cri.cn/12394/2015/08/12/2702s891350.htm

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/115914/60-missing-after-landslide-buries-15-mining-dorms-in-chinas-shaanxi

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Migrants rescued by Italy say up to 50 missing after boat sinks

Up to 50 migrants went missing after a large rubber dinghy sank in the Mediterranean Sea, Italian rescuers said on Wednesday, while more than 1,500 were picked up from other vessels in the past 24 hours.

The Mediterranean has become the world's most deadly border zone for migrants. More than 2,000 migrants and refugees have died so far this year in attempts to reach Europe by boat, compared with 3,279 deaths during the whole of last year, the International Organization for Migration said last week.

An Italian navy helicopter on Tuesday spotted a rubber boat that appeared to be deflating, the navy said, and dropped life rafts to the migrants on board. The boat then sank, it said.

The Italian naval ship Mimbelli rushed to the scene and pulled 52 migrants to safety. Survivors said there had been about 100 on board, leaving up to about 50 unaccounted for, a rescue operations source said.

A helicopter later airlifted to safety two migrants seen hanging onto a floating barrel near where the dinghy had sunk, the navy said. The survivors were being taken to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Overall on Tuesday, Italy's coastguard said it coordinated the rescue of more than 1,500 migrants -- many fleeing war zones and poverty in Africa and the Middle East -- from seven different vessels.

People-smugglers, mostly based in lawless Libya and charging thousands of dollars for passage, have sent more than 100,000 migrants by sea to Italy so far this year, according to an Interior Ministry tally. Italy took in 170,000 in 2014.

Around 200 migrants were presumed killed earlier this month off the coast of Libya when their boat capsized. More than 400 were rescued from that shipwreck.

Financially strapped Greece has also struggled to cope with a surge in migrants and refugees arriving on its Mediterranean shores.

Greek police used fire extinguishers and batons against migrants on the island of Kos on Tuesday after violence broke out in a sports stadium where hundreds of people, including young children, were waiting for immigration papers.

Wednesday 12 August 2015

http://news.yahoo.com/italian-navy-rescues-migrants-survivors-50-feared-missing-052603008.html

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