Authorities seek help in identifying local remains

Local families who have lost loved ones may have the chance for closure, thanks to FBI facial approximations of five missing people in the Central Virginia area.

Remains of a woman of unknown race were found in Petersburg on Aug. 12, 2012, and remains of an African-American woman were found in Dinwiddie County in Nov. 16, 2007.

Chief Medical Examiner William Gormley unveiled models Tuesday with the hope that the public would recognize the individuals.

"Providing closure for those families is a public service," he said. "Identifying dead persons provides proper memorialization."

The remains of the woman found in Petersburg were found near the intersection of 3rd and River streets. Police spokeswoman Esther Hyatt said that only a skull was recovered.

The remains of the woman found in Dinwiddie County, age 20 to 35, were found at 6417 Tranquility Lane in Sutherland.

The National Missing and Unidentified Person's System database states that "skeletonized" remains in a related case were also found near the body in the same yard. Those remains belong to a man of unknown race, 24 to 50 years old. Items found with the remains include two women's black shoes and a white metal Timex watch with a purple strap.

NAMUS is a website that details the cases of the five individuals and others across the country.

Maj. W.B. Knott of the Dinwiddie County Sheriff's Office told The Progress-Index in 2009 that investigators found the remains of the man in a wooded area off U.S. Route 460 in 2007. He said a resident noticed the remains after his dog brought a skull into his yard.

Knott said that the cause of death could not be determined because the remains were badly damaged by animals.

The nearly complete skeleton of a 17- to 25-year-old Hispanic male was found in Caroline County in 1988. The remains were located on Interstate 95 near the 112 mile marker.

His skeleton was found next to that of an older Hispanic male. Samples taken from both skeletons point to the possibility of a father-child relationship. Both men were victims of a homicide. Virginia State Police and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner did not reveal the cause or manner of their deaths.

The remains of two other bodies were found in Richmond. One is the nearly complete skeleton of a 45- to 60-year-old man of unknown race. The skeleton was found in 2011 near at the intersection of 5th and Cypress avenues. In 2002, the mummified remains of an African-American man were found near 1200 Maury St.. The estimated age at death was 50 to 70 years old. The body was mummified due to environmental conditions.

Individuals with information about the cases should call the Virginia State Police Department at or the 533-3408 or the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner at 786-3174.

Families of missing people are also encouraged to ask local law enforcement to take a DNA sample via mouth swab. The sample can be potentially matched with the bone remains of a missing person. Families may also enter their information into NAMUS to be matched with an unidentified person.

Rochelle Altholz, state administrator for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said that there have been four successful identifications from facial approximations.

"We take the picture of when the person was alive that the family gave and the facial approximation and it's been very accurate so far," she said.

She said that when a families are finally able to claim their loved one's remains, the experience can be very rewarding.

"They worried for years and years that they were going to die and not know what happened to their loved one," she said. "So to rejoin a family and their loved one and they know what happened to that person is really important."

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://progress-index.com/news/authorities-seek-help-in-identifying-local-remains-1.1550325

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Nigeria: collapsed bridge - 23 killed as vehicles plunge into Katsina River

Twenty three persons including women and children were on Monday killed and five others injured when two vehicles fell into a river following the collapse of a bridge at Yanranda village of Charanchi local government area, Katsina state.

The incident occurred at about 9pm after torrential rains washed away the bridge. A bus and the 24 passengers onboard were washed away by water waves, resulting to the death of 22 persons. The other two survived.

Daily Trust reporter who visited the scene of the accident yesterday reports that 15 bodies have been recovered, while search by a combined team of police and locals was still on.

Eleven bodies were recovered in Ajiwa village in Batagarawa local government and four others in Rimi local government area of the state.

An official of the Federal Road Safety Com-mission (FRSC) at the scene, who preferred anonymity, told our reporter that six dead bodies were still missing.

The bus with registration number XA 328 KZR was travelling to Kano from Katsina, Daily Trust learnt. Residents of Yanranda village said they tried stopping the driver of the bus but failed as it was on high speed and subsequently plunged into the river.

The second vehicle, a Mitsubishi Canter, with three people onboard also fell into the river at about 5am yesterday but the occupants were rescued alive. One of them later died at the Kankia general hospital.

The driver of the canter, who survived the accident, said he refused to stop because he mistook residents stopping him for armed robbers.

Also yesterday morning, a motorcycle rider with a passenger fell into the river. They were both rescued alive minor bruises. Confirming the incident, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr. Bala Zama Senchi, said he could not ascertain the exact number of people that died in the incident, but said 13 bodies had been recovered.

The permanent secretary of the state ministry of works and housing, Alhaji Rabi'u Ibrahim, who led representatives of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) and Katsina State Road Maintenance Agency (KASROMA) told newsmen at the scene of the accident said they came to assess the situation and report to the government.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://allafrica.com/stories/201309110697.html

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Sub tragedy: Lab identifies 9 bodies after DNA testing, two cases pending

The Kalina Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) handed over bodies of nine navy personnel, who were killed in the INS Sindhurakshak tragedy, to JJ Hospital after identifying them through DNA profiling.

The DNA identification of two bodies is still pending.

The bodies were first handed over to the JJ Hospital for post-mortem and then they were given to the Kalina FSL for DNA test.

On August 13 night, an explosion ripped through the submarine, INS Sindhurakshak, which had 18 people on board.

The Navy Sunday recovered the 12th body from the wreckage of INS Sindhurakshak that was destroyed in a fire last month.

On Tuesday, a solemn wreath-laying ceremony was held at the naval hospital, INHS Asvini, for the three navy personnel of INS Sindhurakshak who were killed in the tragedy.

Wreaths were laid by Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha, the Flag Officer Commanding-in -chief, Western Naval Command, the Commodore Commanding Submarines (West) and the Commanding Officer of INS Sindhurakshak.

Several senior naval officers and men of the Western Naval Command were also present, and paid their respects with floral tributes to the dead.

The ceremony was conducted with full military honours and the families and close relatives of those who lost their lives were present.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/sub-tragedy-lab-identifies-9-bodies-after-dna-testing-two-cases-pending_875702.html

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Moments of silence to start 12th anniversary of 9/11 terror attacks

For the 12th consecutive September 11, many Americans will fall silent at 8:46 a.m. Wednesday.

Twelve years after terrorists killed 2,977 people -- beginning with American Airlines Flight 11's crash into the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001 -- observances are planned at the sites of the disasters.

The four airborne attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, on the World Trade Center, on the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, claimed 2,977 lives. At least 57 countries lost citizens in the attacks. The dead include 41 Indians, 24 Japanese, six Bangladeshis, five Israelis, three Malaysians, and at least eight men of Pakistani origin.

In what has become a tradition, family members of victims of both the 2001 and 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center will read names of their loved ones at a ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial Plaza in New York. The 9/11 attack killed 2,753 people in New York, including 403 police and firefighters. The 1993 bombing killed six people.

Moments of silence will mark the 8:46 a.m. impact and the 9:03 a.m. crash of United Airlines Flight 175 into the World Trade Center south tower.

At the Pentagon, where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed at 9:37 a.m. on September 11, President Obama will speak at a private observance for family members of the 184 people who died there.

In southwestern Pennsylvania, it is only expected to take 18 minutes to lay a wreath and read the names of 40 people, beginning at 9:45 a.m. and ending at 10:03 a.m. That is the time United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville. The target of those hijackers is unknown, but the hijackers apparently crashed the plane short of the target because they feared losing control of the plane to some of the 40 passengers and crew attacking them.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/11/us/9-11-anniversary-ceremonies/?hpt=us_c2

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4 killed, 20 missing as flood landslide hit Afghanistan

Four people lost their lives and 20 others went missing as flood and landslide hit a mountainous village in Zibak district of the northeast Badakhshan province on Tuesday, a local official said Wednesday.

"A heavy flood which triggered landslide hit Askitol village in Zibak district yesterday which claimed four lives and 20 others including women and children have gone missing," the governor of Zibak district, Mir Ahmad Shah Zigham told Xinhua.

The natural disaster had also washed away 34 houses, 140 head cattle and destroyed 100 acres farmlands and several gardens, the official added.

He also added that rescue operations are underway to recover the possible dead bodies.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/810413.shtml

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Search for body remains in Lake Perucac starts near Visegrad

More than 30 firefighters from six voluntary associations in Bosnia have joined investigators from the Institute for Missing Persons in search for body remains of war victims.

The search is conducted in the village Milosevici, near Visegrad, east Bosnia. Team will exploit about 10 kilometers of the waterside of Perucac, Accumulation Lake. If they find body remains during a day on Tuesday, search will continue during the week.

"In 2010, we conducted a research in this area and now we have a chance, after the water level decreased in lake, to do that again. Since Sunday, we found some body remains,“ one of the IMP investigators, Zafer Rascic, told AA.

IMP believes that more body remains could be found in this location.

"We already searched on the watersides, but more body remains could be found here. It happened in the past we conducted search at one location more than once, and we kept finding more and more remains. This is river Drina and it is full of secrets,“ Rascic said.

The new search began after workers from aTurkish company ER BU, working on the reconstruction of Visegrad's old bridge, asked for water in the artificial lake to be decreased. Body remains came to day light when water was pumped out from the lake.

It is believed that the body remains could be belonging to victims of massacres committed in this area in 1992 and 1993, during Bosnian war.

In 2010, the IMP investigations resulted in finding between 200 and 300 body remains, and 175 were identified and associated with some persons. Remains were found at more than one location in Lake Perucac, and most of the victims were people from surrounding villages and cities, including Visegrad, Rogatica, but also Srebrenica.

Most of the victims found in this mass grave were of female bodies.

Visegrad was one of the places where Serb forces set up concentration camps for women, including the biggest one called Vilina Vlas.

According to the available data, about 200 women were held in this camp, raped and tortured, and only four survived. Some of the identified bodies found in 2010 in Perucac did belong to victims from Vilina Vlas.

It was the first time after the war that bodies of victims from this camp were found.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=117506

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Searchers look for 2,500 Japan tsunami dead

Police and the coastguard in Japan carried out large-scale searches on Wednesday for the bodies of more than 2,500 people still missing two-and-a-half years since the quake-tsunami and nuclear disaster it spawned.

Some 90 searchers combed coastlines and water off the Onahama district of Fukushima prefecture, roughly 50 kilometres south of the crippled Fukushima atomic power plant.

We want to find the missing individuals or their belongings.

"If you imagine the feelings of the family members of missing individuals, it's very saddening," said Hiroshi Kuno, police chief of Iwaki Higashi police station.

"We want to find the missing individuals or their belongings," he told local media.

Similar searches were being carried out all along a vast stretch of the northeast of Japan.

The vast bulk of the coastline, along with rivers running into the sea, have been searched several times before, but officials say they are trying to ensure no spot has been overlooked.

The prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima were hit directly by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and killer tsunami on March 11, 2011.

A total of 15,883 people have been confirmed killed by the natural disasters, many in Miyagi, which bore the brunt of the destruction.

The bodies of a further 2,654 people have never been recovered, but all are assumed dead.

Giant waves knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which went through meltdowns and explosions that contaminated a vast farming region.

No one died as a direct result of the nuclear crisis. However, the government has added a further 2,688 deaths to the total toll for the triple disaster, counting as victims those who died due to stress or other complications associated with evacuation.

The already improbable search for the missing is becoming more difficult as months go by and officials privately accept that many bodies will never be found.

Nearly 300,000 people who fled their homes due to the tsunami and the nuclear disaster still remain in temporary housing, recent figures show.

Many young people and families have left the region to start new lives.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://www.enca.com/world/searchers-look-2500-japan-tsunami-dead

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A year on, no consolation for families of the missing dead

A year on, Shahida Akmal, 33, has still not been able to find her husband. Not only did she lose her beloved spouse, she cannot claim the promised compensation also as she cannot identify his body.

Muhammad Akmal, 30, died on September 11 last year in the worst industrial fire of the country, which destroyed the Ali Enterprise garment factory in Baldia Town. Among the dead were 256 others.

Akmal’s body was burnt beyond recognition, says Shahida. The government asked for a DNA identification test of which she never got the results.

Be it the lack of diagnostic facilities of the government’s mismanagement, the DNA reports of 25 aggrieved families are still pending. Without the results, they cannot obtain a death certificate, and hence the compensation promised by government and social welfare organisations.

Shahida has given her DNA samples at the Civil hospital thrice. Once she even took her eldest son Hamza, 9, with her. But the results never came.

“A doctor told me the DNA testing lab in Islamabad is not functioning,” she claims.

Then she heard about the 17 unidentified bodies of the tragic factory fire being kept at the Edhi Morgue at Sohrab Goth.

The first time she went there, she fainted. “There were no bodies,” Shahida says, “just flesh and bones and limbs scattered everywhere.”

But the trips to the morgue did not end. Though the woman stayed back, her brothers visited the morgue a hundred times in the next few months. The bodies were beyond recognition.

This Eid, Shahida’s three sons, Hamza, seven-year-old Mubeen and one-year-old Ahmed threw a tantrum to visit their father’s grave. Nothing she said could console them.

“In the end we took a bus and visited the Edhi graveyard at Mawach Goth. We placed flowers on one of the unmarked graves and acted as if it was Akmal’s,” she recalls.

The Pakistani government, according to a report of the National Trade Union Federation, has not yet completed the procedure of compensating the heirs of the victims.

The government had agreed to provide each victim’s family a sum of Rs900,000. In the first phase, 176 families received the amount while 81 other families got a sum of Rs700,000 each.

For the distribution of the funds in the second phase, a compensation commission was formed under the supervision of a retired judge on orders of the high court. Compensation was to be paid in two rounds, in the first round Rs500,000 were to be given to the families of the deceased. In the second round, a sum of Rs110, 000 had to be paid.

Till now, the commission has distributed cheques to 215 families, while the rest are expected to be handed out by the end of September.

Shahida lives in a single room rented apartment in Ittehad Town, Baldia Town. Her children attend a nearby school. And her monthly expenses are met through charity from relatives, and a few clothes that she manages to stitch and sell.

But one year down the lane, getting the Rs900,000 compensation promised by the former prime minister, chief minister and real estate tycoon Malik Riaz has perhaps slipped down on Shahida’s priority list.

“I only want a grave for Akmal where my children and I can visit,” she says.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-4-201348-A-year-on-no-consolation-for-families-

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Guatemala bus crash: Dozens killed and injured

At least 43 people have been killed after a bus plunged 200m (660ft) into a ravine in western Guatemala, rescue workers said.

The crash happened in San Martin Jilotepeque, some 65km (40 miles) from the capital, Guatemala City.

At least 40 people are thought to have been injured in the accident.

The bus had been travelling from Chimaltenango to San Martin Jilotepeque. The cause of the crash remains unknown.

Mario Cruz, spokesman for the local volunteer fire department, said about 90 people had been on board the bus which had an official capacity of 54 passengers.

The dead included at least three babies, he added.

The mayor of San Martin Jilotepeque, Otto Vielman, said it appeared that the bus had crashed against a wall of rocks and then fallen from a cliff.

The rescue operation was hampered by a fast-flowing river and emergency crews installed cables to carry stretchers over the water. The long arm of a mechanical digger was also used to lift people across the river.

Local residents volunteered to help the rescue operation and pictures from the scene showed some onlookers in tears as bodies were lined up alongside the crushed wreckage of the bus.

Local resident Carlos Jose Perez said many of those on the bus had been taking farm produce to market.

"The people here are really in mourning," he said.

Several of the injured were transferred to local hospitals and some to Guatemala City.

Investigators do not yet know what caused the crash or what was the final destination of the bus, which was traveling south toward Guatemala City. Rescue workers said conditions were dry and mostly sunny and that the bus was likely over capacity.

"The bus was overloaded," said Sergio Vasquez, a volunteer firefighter at the site.

He said 38 people died at the scene, including six children and 12 women. Five more died at hospitals, he said.

Local television said many passengers were vendors taking farm produce to market.

The government declared three days of national mourning.

The last major bus accident in Guatemala occurred in 2008 when an overcrowded bus slid off a highway and down a 15-meter (50-foot) slope some 65 km (40 miles) southeast of the capital, killing 53.

Tuesday 10 September 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24021845

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23 killed in Nigeria road accident

At least 23 people have been killed in a road accident in Nigeria's Katsina state, an official said Tuesday.

The accident took place when a bus carrying 24 passengers rammed into a bridge at Yar'randa village in the Charanchi area few minutes after its collapse Monday night, Xinhua reported citing Deputy Commissioner of Police Bala Senchi.

Witnesses said the bridge collapsed due to heavy downpour.

"Some 10 bodies have been recovered and deposited at the mortuary of General Hospital Kankia, while the search for 12 others is ongoing," Senchi said, adding that two survivors have been identified.

Government officials including a representative of Nigeria's minister of works visited the accident site Tuesday to take stock of the situation.

Tuesday 10 September 2013

http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2013/09/10/403--23-killed-in-Nigeria-road-accident-.html

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Rana Plaza survivors still suffering

Rafiqul Islam cannot recall how many people he pulled from the rubble of Rana Plaza, the eight-story factory complex that collapsed in April, killing more than 1,100 people. But he knows how many he cut out with a hacksaw blade — eight. He did so in spaces so cramped that at one point he became trapped himself.

Those 18 days as a volunteer rescue worker left their scars. Islam has suffered memory lapses and had a series of violent outbursts, and wound up losing his job. Now he wanders alone most days, not sure where to go — until the voices bring him back to the place where he saved so many people and lost himself.

“I hear them still, calling for me,” he says, staring into a mound of broken concrete, torn fabric and twisted iron. Nearly five months after the deadliest incident in garment manufacturing history, the suffering is far from over for the victims, their relatives and the rescue workers. Many families have received only part of their promised financial compensation.

And activists and health-care professionals decry a lack of psychological and financial support for scores of survivors and rescue workers stricken with invisible handicaps.

“After the Rana Plaza tragedy, people are so concerned with the physical impact, but they are completely ignoring the psychological,” said Abdus Sabur, an adviser to the Sajida Foundation, a leading Bangladeshi social development organisation. “Mental health is not taken seriously at all in this country.”

According to the Solidarity Centre, a nonprofit group affiliated with the AFL-CIO, the Bangladeshi government has paid settlements to dependents of 777 of the 1,131 confirmed dead in the disaster, in amounts ranging from $1,250 to $5,000. An additional 36 garment workers who lost limbs or were paralysed have received between $15,000 and $18,750 each.

Smaller amounts have come from a British chain, Primark, which used a supplier in Rana Plaza, and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, which represents the $20 billion-a-year industry. A group of Western clothing brands are also discussing providing a lump-sum payment for the suffering experienced by the victims of Rana Plaza.

So far, none of the 4,000 families affected by the Rana Plaza disaster have received the full payments promised by the government or association, says the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies, a labor advocacy organisation.

Survivors are struggling to cope with not just physical and financial burdens but also with deep emotional wounds. Razibul Rahman Kari, 20, a sewing machine operator, was luckier than most when the factory complex collapsed April 24 on the outskirts of Dhaka. Pinned by a heavy slab, he eventually managed to dig himself out with the help of a local man.

But spending hours in the dark amid muffled screams took its toll: The young man has fresh scars on his wrists from cutting himself with a knife while locked in his bedroom. Sometimes when his mother has tried to bring him food, she said, he has beaten her. Without his $70-a-month salary to support them, the family relies on handouts.

The Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed, a large private facility in Savar, has worked beyond its capacity to care for Rana Plaza’s injured. But because of a dearth of trained mental health professionals, patients with symptoms of acute psychological trauma receive “a minimum” of counseling before they are discharged, said Hossain Mehedi, a doctor at the centre.

Other victims may refrain from seeking help because of the social stigma attached to mental problems, Sabur said. Majeda Begum, 23, another garment factory employee, grapples with severe headaches, disorientation and a paralysing fear of closed indoor spaces. She lives within walking distance of the rehabilitation centre, which provides her with free medication — but that’s only if she manages to show up, and these days she tends to get lost.

‘Am I gonna be psycho?’

As the government struggled to organise a relief operation at Rana Plaza after the disaster, many local residents rushed to the factory ruins, playing a critical role in rescuing survivors.

One of them, a young mechanic named Omar Faruque Babu, was celebrated in media reports for pulling more than 30 people from the wreckage. When the rescue effort ended, he was checked into a hospital, where he hanged himself in a bathroom.

A part-time teacher, Faizul Muhid, 27, spent three days and nights mining the rubble for the living, and then moved on to a local high school where victims’ bodies were left for relatives to claim.

As the corpses rotted in the heat, he did what no one else would do: searched the rows of remains for items — cellphones, nose rings, scraps of paper — that might help with identification. Late one night, he and another volunteer had to fight off a pack of dogs that had gotten hold of an open body bag with a corpse inside.

These days, he self-medicates with a cocktail of antidepressants that he buys with assistance from friends. “Am I gonna be psycho?” he asked one recent afternoon.

Muhid initially resisted psychological help. Now he thinks he could use it, but it is expensive and scarce: There are no more than a dozen certified counseling psychologists in this country of more than 160 million people, according to several doctors and activists.

Sheikh Yusuf Harun, deputy commissioner for the district of Dhaka, said, “It’s true — no one is taking responsibility” for the mentally damaged. “They are not reported to us,” he said.

Once compensation packages are finalised, Harun said, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is planning to address the matter. He offered no details on what kind of long-term support might be made available.

To fill the void in psychological services, several grass-roots organisations are working in hospitals with victims of Rana Plaza, forming support groups that encourage patients to share their stories. Groups are also training counselors to canvass neighborhoods and offer help.

Though the outreach is generally well received, it remains “pretty ad hoc” and covers just a fraction of those affected, said Sadaf Saaz Siddiqi, who works at Naripokkho, a nonprofit group that helps garment workers.

No one has yet reached Islam, the rescue volunteer. A medal from a local workers’ rights organisation sits on the nightstand of his tin shack, the only nod to his sacrifice.

After spending three weeks in a hospital facility, largely unattended to, he left to be with his wife before the birth of their fourth child, a son. He wants to support them, he said, but thoughts of the bodies he left behind still make him angry and restless.

When he’s not home, his wife usually knows where to find him.

Tuesday 10 September 2013

http://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/rana-plaza-survivors-still-suffering/

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In the future, we may be able to see mass graves from space

By now, you have probably seen the images of hundreds of broken Syrian bodies lying in mass graves, victims of the alleged August 21 chemical weapons attack outside of Damascus. The images, from unconfirmed amateur videos, are horrific, but they are far from the first reports of mass graves in Syria. It’s impossible to know how many of these graves exist, and in all likelihood, we will probably never know just how many victims have been hastily abandoned in unmarked pits since the country’s civil war began two years ago.

It’s a problem that has plagued nearly all of history’s greatest tragedies. Mass grave sites are difficult to confirm, and often take years to find, if they are found at all.

In Iraq, families of Saddam Hussein’s victims rush to grave sites every time bodies are uncovered. In Cambodia, mass grave mapping teams have identified 20,002 sites in the Khmer Rouge’s “Killing Fields,” and it’s unclear how many more exist. And in Bosnia, where mass graves were routinely moved every time investigators got too close, it’s impossible to know just how many bodies were buried.

Now, a team of scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee’s renowned forensic anthropology center are developing a suite of technologies to better detect mass graves. If successful, the project will make mass-grave mapping both safer and easier, allowing clandestine grave-hunters to identify possible burial sites from the safety of their own desks by using multispectral imagery from satellites and drones.

“The perpetrators of these crimes have historically done a really good job of covering up these crimes—generally these graves are very difficult to find, even if you have the right technology,” said Devin White, a senior research scientist for ORNL’s geographic IT division. “We're trying to find a more efficient and a more accurate way to do this, and in particular, in areas where we might not be able to get in there on the ground.”

The initial data for the project is being gathered by a team of forensic anthropologists at a mass grave experiment site in eastern Tennessee. Unlike most mass grave experiments, the University of Tennessee team is using actual dead bodies that have been donated to the forensics center’s “Body Farm,” a step that researchers hope will improve the accuracy of their data as they determine which geographical, environmental, and anthropological characteristics of a mass grave can be seen from space. While satellite images have been used since the 1990s to find large mass grave sites, the goal of this new project is to locate smaller sites—where six, 10, 20 bodies are buried—and test whether the technology can be that fine-grained.

"It's these types of graves that fall through the cracks, that are harder to find,” White said. "For the families that have missing people around the world, those people are still missing regardless of whether they are in a big grave or a small grave."

Once the forensic data is gathered, scientists at ORNL use it to inform a mechanical algorithm aimed at identifying other possible mass grave sites. The idea, White explained, is to use commercial satellite images to determine the probability that a mass grave exists at a given location, based on factors like vegetation growth, soil quality, and other environmental disturbances. Ideally, White said, researchers could combine these satellite pictures with lower-altitude aerial imagery, including thermal data and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology, which measures subtle changes in ground elevation.

Researchers are also experimenting with other geospatial data, including information from crowdsourcing and social media, to more accurately pinpoint the site of mass graves.

“We just pull in anything we can get our hands on,” White said. “No one has ever really tried to do this before, so we're basically throwing the kitchen sink at it, looking at every possible sensor, every possible data set that we can collect, and trying to weed it down to the ones that we think are useful.”

White cautions that the project is still in its early stages, and the technology will probably never be able to identify grave sites with absolute certainty: The only way to prove that a mass grave exists is to actually dig up the bodies.

“This is not a predictive model,” White said. “It's a guide. We're by no means saying that we're going to come up with the Holy Grail here, and come up with one answer that is going to work everywhere. “

But the new technologies aim to focus grave-hunting methods, which currently rely on blind luck and unreliable eyewitness accounts. Moreover, in areas where investigators have been barred from entry, or where conflict makes it too dangerous to start digging up bodies, the aerial images could allow teams to track grave sites from afar, and give government intelligence agencies and international groups a bird's-eye view into opaque foreign conflicts.

“If you can come up with a way to look at these areas safely from a distance, then you can make a judgement call that can inform policy, what non-profits are doing, and enable the international community pressure on these groups that are killing people and putting people in the ground,” White said. “In the end, that's going to help so many people.”

Tuesday 10 September 2013

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/in-the-future-we-may-be-able-to-see-mass-graves-from-space

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Uttarakhand floods:Police seek DNA samples of kin of missing persons

The Uttarakhand Police have sought DNA samples of relatives of those who went missing in the heavy floods that left the hill state devastated in June this year.

"DGP Uttarakhand, through his letter has appealed for samples of DNA of the relatives of missing persons in the Uttarakhand floods, so that they can be identified," a release from Andhra Pradesh Police said here today.

About 80 people from Andhra Pradesh are believed to be missing following the heavy floods in Uttarakhand in June.

The relatives of the missing persons, who wish to give their DNA sample, may contact N K Misara at Doon Hospital in Dehradun for the purpose of identification of unidentified bodies and locating the missing persons, the release added.

Tuesday 10 September 2013

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/uttarakhand-floodspolice-seek-dna-samples-of-kin-of-missing-persons/articleshow/22458340.cms

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INS Sindhurakshak: Bodies of sailors identified

Twenty-six days after they met with a tragic end on board the INS Sindhurakshak, the navy today finally confirmed identification of the bodies of Assam sailors Timothy Sinha and Naruttam Deuri on the basis of DNA profiling results.

Timothy, 29, from Cachar and Naruttam, 21, from Lakhimpur, were among the 18 sailors on board the Russia-made submarine docked at the Mumbai naval docks on the night of August 14 when a powerful explosion sank it. There were no survivors.

The duo’s parents, who have been waiting for the results since they gave blood samples for DNA matching on August 17, received word from the navy this morning.

Timothy’s mother Mitra Chakravarty Sinha told The Telegraph over phone from Mumbai that the news had brought relief to her and her husband Vidyaratan Sinha, a Baptist pastor. “Though we could not take our son back alive, we can at least take solace in the fact that we can now accord him a decent burial with elaborate church service and prayers,” she said.

She said she would start for home — Pailapool village in Cachar district’s Lakhipur subdivision — with the mortal remains of her son on Tuesday evening and reach Silchar on Wednesday morning, following which he would be accorded a formal burial, either late on Wednesday or Thursday morning.

The Cachar district administration, according to official sources here, is preparing to accord an official farewell to the sailor, with army and police personnel according him a guard of honour ahead of the burial.

Naruttam’s father Jyotish Chandra Deuri told The Telegraph over phone from Mumbai that the navy informed him about the identification of his son’s body this morning. He said the remains were sealed in a coffin and would be handed over to Mumbai police to be sent to Assam next week.

Deuri, who has been camping in Mumbai since August 15, said he was not allowed to look at the body, as, according to the navy, it was badly decomposed. “Though it was heartbreaking, I now at least have the solace that my son has been identified,” he said.

His brother, Kabinet, said they had already informed the villagers back home — Narayanpur Major Chapori in Lakhimpur district — and preparations were on to accord a befitting farewell to Naruttam.

Tuesday 10 September 2013

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130910/jsp/frontpage/story_17332021.jsp

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2 more ferry fatalities found as operations stopped

Two more bodies were recovered by divers on Friday from the sunken ferry St. Thomas Aquinas, bringing to 114 the death toll in the Aug. 16 collision between the passenger ship and the cargo vessel Sulpicio Express Siete off Talisay City in Cebu, according to the Philippine Coast Guard.

Commander Armand Balilo, the PCG spokesperson who also heads its public affairs office, said Sunday the two bodies were brought to the Talisay City port.

Further search and rescue operations by divers from the PCG, the Philippine Navy, Philippine National Police and private volunteers, however, “have been temporarily suspended.”

“The diving operations have to give way to the siphoning of the fuel oil from the sunken vessel, which is being conducted by a team hired by 2GO Travel (which operated the St. Thomas Aquinas). The team includes technical experts from Japan,” Balilo said.

“The diving operations will definitely resume as soon as the oil siphoning operation is completed. Our divers cannot operate while the oil siphoning is being conducted because it might put their lives in danger,” he said.

Monday 9 September 2013

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/483683/2-more-ferry-fatalities-found-as-operations-stopped

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MV Hope sailors bodies in Malaysian morgue

Two bodies kept at a morgue in Malaysia’s Langkawi were identified on Sunday as that of sailors of ill-fated Bangladeshi cargo ship MV Hope.

The sailors are believed to be the vessel’s Cabin crew Ali Hossain and second engineer Nizamuddin.

MV Hope P&I Club representative, the CEO of Interport Maritime Limited Mohiuddin Abdul Kader said the bodies surfaced near the Malaysian coast on the Andaman Sea on Jul 20. The local fishermen retrieved the bodies and brought them to Langkawi port. They were put in a morgue on Jul 28.

The Thai agent for Maritime Interport Limited after seeing the bodies a week ago believed they were sailors of the Hope.

Ali Hossain was identified from a bank account ID found in his pocket. The other body, which was beheaded, was identified with the help of the MV Hope jacket found on the body. He is assumed to be Nezamuddin.

Authorities say headless corpse DNA test will be done.

The MV Hope was caught in a storm near Thailand’s coast on Jul 4. Its 17 sailors abandoned the ship to save their lives.

Nine were rescued alive and two corpses were recovered.

Monday 9 September 2013

http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2013/09/09/mv-hope-sailors-bodies-in-malaysian-morgue

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WWII vets hope lake in Italy yields GIs' remains

The discovery of a World War II amphibious vehicle on the bottom of an Italian lake is raising hopes among a group of American veterans that the remains of two dozen of their comrades will be found and possibly recovered for burial in the U.S.

The Italian volunteer organization that found the truck on the bottom of Lake Garda last December believes it's the same one that sank in 1945, killing 24 of the 25 U.S. soldiers aboard the open-topped vehicle known as a DUKW (duhk).

The bodies of the artillerymen from the 10th Mountain Division were never recovered from the alpine lake.

Veterans who fought in Italy in the war's waning days say they hope the U.S. military will take steps to find and locate the soldiers' remains.

Monday 9 September 2013

http://www.kfoxtv.com/template/inews_wire/wires.national/22f72f2c-www.kfoxtv.com.shtml

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India's missing generation

Between 1 January and 8 May 2013, 725 children were reported missing in New Delhi, according to India’s Zonal Integrated Police Network sites. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), one child goes missing every eight minutes.

There are officially over 55,000 children missing, although that number could be much higher. The Maharashtra state in India has the largest annual average of 13,881 missing children. It is estimated that forty percent of all missing children in India are never found.

It is a chilling epidemic where the majority of the missing children are exploited for prostitution, slavery, or become victims of organ trade and murder - a famous case of which is the Nithari Killings in 2006. 40 young children and women were associated with the case, although only remains of 17 children were found.

Many children are simply snatched away, kidnapped for ransom, or run away due to a difficult or aggressive environment and become lost. Children from the slums are often easy targets, enticed by their kidnappers with the promise of food and clothes. It is not uncommon for them to be maimed and forced to beg on the streets by gangs.

In a lot of cases, missing children reports by poor families are not taken seriously. They are merely an entry in the list of missing persons at the police station. Cases are only investigated and a First Information Report (FIR) filed if a person reports the missing child as a case of kidnapping. In Mumbai, only 98 out of 5,198 cases of missing children since 2010 were filed as an FIR.

Addressing the abysmal lack of police action taken to find these missing children, the Supreme Court issued guidelines in May 2013 for an FIR to be filed for every missing child case, while the Delhi Police are responsible for ‘Pehchaan’, a programme which takes pictures of children in the slums for record purposes and gives a copy to their families.

Monday 9 September 2013

http://www.speakingtree.in/spiritual-blogs/seekers/self-improvement/indias-missing-generation

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Uttarakhand tragedy: No more bodies recovered in Kedar Valley

No more bodies were found in the upper reaches of worst-hit Kedar Valley of Uttarakhand during the past two days, even as the third round of combing operations continued for the seventh day today.

Sixty-eight more bodies were found in the Valley on Friday and since the relaunching of combing operations on Tuesday, a total of 166 bodies have been recovered and cremated, officials had said.

The highly-decomposed bodies were recovered about three months after the floods hit the state in mid-June.

Mountaineers and commandos of Uttarakhand Police are braving a difficult terrain at a height of 12,500-13,000 feet to find out the bodies, and trying to finish the disposal work before September 11, the scheduled date for resuming prayers at the Himalayan shrine, they said today.

Meanwhile, the weather in Uttarakhand remained largely clear except light to moderate rains lashing a few places including capital Dehradun, which received the maximum 35 mm of showers till this evening, followed by Tehri 3.8 and Pantnagar 2 mm, it said.

With the state government's deadline to restore the damaged road network drawing near, Border Roads Organisation is carrying out repairing work on war footing, the Disaster Management and Mitigation Centre said.

Many roads, including the Rishikesh-Badrinath and Rishikesh-Gangotri national highways, are blocked at many places by debris brought down by landslides.

Monday 9 September 2013

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/uttarakhand-tragedy-no-more-bodies-recovered-in-kedar-valley-416083

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A cemetery where most of Karachi’s anonymous end up

Wrapped in a white shroud, the body lies in the vast ground. The undertaker steps forward to lead the funeral prayer, while his aide and the ambulance driver stand behind him in silence. Three men pray for the departed soul of a stranger.

Stretched across thirty acres, the Edhi graveyard in Mawach Goth is the only cemetery in Karachi where hundreds of thousands of unknown men, women and children lie buried. Some are identified but most remain anonymous – forever.

“Hundreds of bodies come here every month and hardly one percent of them are identified,” said Abdul Sattar Edhi, the founder of Edhi Foundation.

When a body is identified sometimes, the relatives mark the grave with flowers or pay to make a cemented tomb with an epitaph. But a fraction of the families also insist on taking the remains and burying them in their family graveyards.

Keeping the record

Unidentified bodies that arrive at the Edhi morgue are buried in this graveyard after three days. “We take a mugshot and allot a serial number to the body,” said a morgue official, Ghulam Hussain.

The Edhi Foundation keeps the records of the bodies for five years and then uses the space for fresh bodies. “The bodies are usually identified within the first few weeks, but we still wait. We can still locate the grave for five years,” Edhi said.

One of the undertakers, Mohammed Nazir, has the duty to take the relatives coming to the graveyard with the serial number from the Edhi office. “Sometimes it becomes difficult to hold back your tears,” he says.

Fresh flowers are lying on the graves as Nazir points toward the various bodies identified in the past few days. Some of the graves are well-made with mosaic tiles.

The traces of the grave generally begin to fade after three months, as the steel-plated cardboards marking the graves turn rusty and mildewed owing to fungus.

“People usually come within weeks after we bury a corpse,” said Nazir, “But if they take a couple of months, the signpost begins to fade away. After a certain time, we rely on guess work, going by the column and row calculations.”

Room for everyone

The man who was just buried must have been in his mid-twenties. He was found dead in Gulshan-e-Iqbal but the cause of his death remains a mystery. “Drug addiction probably,” guesses Haq Nawaz, a morgue staffer.

Although most of the dead who remain unidentified are tramps and addicts living on the roadsides of Karachi, in many cases the bodies go unidentified due to the severity of road accidents or bomb blasts, leaving the faces recognisable.

Nazir recalls the most recent case of mass burial being the tragic Baldia factory fire, where dozens of unidentified people were buried after months of waiting for the DNA results.

Given the number of people dying everyday, the numbers of unidentified bodies have doubled in the past five years, he says. “Be it bomb blasts or random killings, a lot of people die on the streets; which only adds to my work.”

Nazir estimates the Edhi graveyard will be full in the next three years. “There is space, but we will need more in the coming years, as we try not to disturb the graves for five years.”

Just enough space

After the short prayer, meanwhile, the undertakers place the body in one of the graves – dug out in straight column like a military trench. And they pick up the spades.

The average space allotted to each body is two and a half feet deep and slightly over one foot in breadth – just enough for a human corpse.

Finally, a metal-plated cardboard is planted on the grave. This one read: 77,369 – the dead man’s last mark on the face of this earth.

Monday 9 September 2013

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-4-200924-A-cemetery-where-most-of-Karachis-anon

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