Dead bodies in the ocean: What happens to these corpses?

Sometimes corpses are found at sea, with the cause of death ruled a suicide, homicide or an accidental death. Sometimes figuring out if a mark on a body was pre or post-mortem can be a challenge for forensic teams.

To figure out what happens to a human body, forensic entomologist Gail Anderson from Simon Fraser University in Canada experimented by dropping pig carcasses into the sea, according to Live Science.

"Pigs are the best models for humans," Anderson told Live Science. "They're roughly the right size for a human body; they have the same kind of gut bacteria, and they're relatively hairless."

During the experiment, Anderson and her team used a remote submarine to drop three pig carcasses in the Saanich Inlet, a body of salt water near Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The pigs landed about 330 feet below the water.



An underwater laboratory called Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea, or VENUS, allowed scientists to observe via video and take measurements via the internet. Sensors measured oxygen levels, water temperature, pressure and salt content, according to the study.

"It didn't take long for scavengers to find the pigs. Shrimp, Dungeness crabs and squat lobsters all arrived and started munching on the bodies; a shark even came to feed on one of the pig corpses," according to Live Science.

The first two bodies were eaten clean to the bone within a month, but the oxygen levels weren't ideal for the third body. The researchers found that the inlet is typically lower in oxygen, but the spot where the third corpse was dropped had exceptionally low oxygen, and big scavengers need more oxygen, explained Live Science. Larger feeders need to open the corpse up so the smaller scavengers that can't break the skin can get into the openings.

"Now we have a very good idea of how bodies break down underwater," Anderson told Live Science.

"These studies have provided valuable information for underwater death investigations, describing conditions of bodies over time in hypoxic and anoxic environments...They provide information to recovery divers and families as to the expectations of body conditions when in similar water conditions which will all assist in water recoveries," study authors wrote.

Tuesday 4 November 2014

http://www.hngn.com/articles/48010/20141104/dead-bodies-in-the-ocean-what-happens-to-these-corpses-watch.htm

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At least 24 drown, dozen missing in Istanbul migrant boat sinking

At least 24 people including children drowned and a dozen were missing on Monday when an overloaded boat taking migrants towards EU waters sank in the Black Sea just off Istanbul, Turkish officials said.

Those on board were mainly Afghans seeking a better life in Europe. They had reportedly paid thousands of euros each to people smugglers for a seat.

The boat, described as a small cruiser, was carrying around 40 people -- over four times its maximum capacity -- including 12 children. Six people were rescued and 24 corpses recovered, the coastguard said in a statement. It added that search operations were continuing for the dozen still missing.

The boat sank three nautical miles north of the northern entrance to the Bosphorus, one of the busiest shipping thoroughfares in the world. They had set off earlier from Bakirkoy, an Istanbul suburb. Turkish media said at least one of those who died could have been a crew member or a smuggler.

Some reports said Syrians and Turkmen could also have been on board as well as Afghans. Television pictures showed survivors draped in blankets and sobbing as rescue workers offered them soup.

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said the tragedy highlights "the urgency to take concrete action to save lives, to address irregular migration".

"It is imperative to improve cooperation on this matter with countries that function as departure points for migrants seeking to reach EU countries," he said in a statement.

The boat was already half-submerged when rescuers, who had been alerted by fishermen, arrived at the scene, according to the Anatolia news agency.

The media said overloading, bad weather or a collision with another vessel were all possible causes of the disaster. Anatolia said prosecutors believed the vessel could have had leaks and have opened an investigation.

"There were lots of children on board. The wind is having a bad effect on the rescue efforts. The boat was very, very small, not enough for 40 people," a captain involved in the rescue efforts, Ali Saruhan, told CNN-Turk television.

Emre Can Kolcu, a member of a fishing crew, told NTV that after the accident "bags, shoes, coats and discarded life jackets covered the sea". He said it was likely that the children on board had been given adult life jackets that were too big and they had simply slipped out of them once in the water.

The stricken boat "was not a fishing boat, it was a tour boat for seven to eight people, not for 40," he added. Turkey has become a hub for illegal immigrants who aspire to reach Europe.

NTV television said the migrants had paid 7,000 euros ($8,750) each to travel to Romania and onwards to wealthier western European countries. Thousands of immigrants have drowned trying to make the perilous journey in recent years.

The accident comes at a time of intense debate in the EU over whether to continue migrant rescue missions, which some argue are encouraging more people to risk the hazardous voyages.

Britain said last week it will not support planned EU search and rescue operations to save migrants from drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. And Italy confirmed on Friday that it is calling off its year-old search and rescue operation "Mare Nostrum", which has saved tens of thousands of lives in the Mediterranean.

Tuesday 4 November 2014

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/dozens-drown-migrant-boat-sinking-off-istanbul-112324592.html

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Koslanda tradegy: 9 bodies recovered; 29 missing

According to Disaster Management Center (DMC), nine people confirmed to be dead, while 29 remains missing, a significantly lower number than their earlier 190. It is highly unlikely to finding anyone alive under the debris, as mud would have been too weak to create air pockets for people to stay alive.

Over 3,000 families who lived in areas identified as risky, have been moved to safe camps.

Rescuers continue to dig into about 10 meters of mud with the help of sniffer dogs. But their operations are hampered by continues heavy rains.

The tragic landslide completely destroyed a line of workers houses in Meeriyabedda tea plantation near the town of Haldummulla, on Wednesday (29) morning. According to officials the line house complex houses more than 300 people, but most of them were out for work or school, when the landslide collapsed.

Over 13,000 people are affected by the inclement weather, DMC said. Over 3,000 families who lived in areas identified as risky, have been moved to safe camps.

The meteorology department says showers or thundershowers are likely to continue due to the atmospheric disturbance located to the northeast of Sri Lanka be widespread with very heavy rain falls more than 150 mili meters in the Northern, North Central, Eastern and Uva provinces.

Tuesday 4 November 2014

http://nidahasa.com/news/news.php?go=fullnews&newsid=1358

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Workers find body of last missing victim while dismantling Costa Concordia

Russel Rebello, the final victim to be recovered from the Costa Concordia disaster, will receive a “hero’s welcome” when his body is returned home to India, his brother said Monday.

Salvage workers from Ship Recycling, the consortium dismantling the Concordia, said they found the remains believed to be of Mr Rebello, a 32-year-old waiter from Mumbai, inside a cabin on the ship’s eighth deck in Genoa.

A spokeswoman for Ship Recycling, the consortium breaking the ship at a yard in Genoa, told the Guardian that on Monday morning “human remains were found that are presumed to be those of Mr Rebello”. She said the remains were discovered in a cabin on the eighth deck of the giant liner. “All work on the ship came to a halt and the authorities are now carrying the necessary procedures.”

Workers found his badly decomposed body crushed beneath overturned furniture with an identity card including his name and photograph in his trousers. They notified Genoa prosecutors who ordered DNA tests to be conducted.

The surprise discovery ends a heart-wrenching search by Mr Rebello’s brother Kevin, who spent four months on Giglio after the Concordia struck rocks near the island off the coast of Tuscany in January 13 2012.

Mr Rebello was among the 32 passengers and crew who lost their lives after the Concordia’s captain, Francesco Schettino, attempted to perform a “salute” in front of the island. The 114,000-ton liner struck a reef in shallow waters and capsized just off shore from the island’s tiny port. Kevin Rebello, who runs a natural therapy business in Milan, said after 1,025 days of waiting his parents would breathe a “sigh of relief” hearing the news.

“Their constant prayers have been heard,” said Mr Rebello, whose family is Catholic with a Goan background. “Now we wait for the DNA test and procedures to give Russel his final resting place with honour, respect and a hero’s welcome. India we are coming.”

Russel Rebello is understood to have died after giving his life jacket to another passenger and helping terrified passengers into life boats. He was the last victim to be found. The remains of Italian passenger Maria Grazia Trecarichi, were found in October 2013 just three weeks after the massive liner was pulled upright in an unprecedented salvage operation.

In July this year the ship was towed away by tug boats in another dramatic exercise and is now moored in Genoa's port, where it is being dismantled.

Schettino is facing charges of multiple manslaughter and dereliction of duty and could face up to 20 years in prison if he is found guilty. He is due to appear in court again in December.

Tuesday 4 November 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11205374/Costa-Concordia-body-of-final-victim-found-on-board.html

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Rains hamper Sri Lanka mudslide tragedy search effort

Heavy rains disrupted a massive search on Thursday for scores of people feared buried in a landslide on a Sri Lankan tea estate, further dimming prospects of finding anyone alive.

Hundreds of troops suspended their work as rains threatened more mudslides at the plantation in central Sri Lanka, a day after scores of tin-roofed homes were buried under tonnes of mud.

"We are suspending the search operation because it is not safe to work in this rain," the region's top military officer, Major General Mano Perera, told reporters.

"We hope to start work tomorrow morning if the weather improves."

Perera said they failed to find any survivors or bodies from the disaster site on Thursday. He did not hold out much hope of finding survivors as the site was covered in tonnes of mud.

"There were no concrete structures which could have acted as air traps for victims to survive," he added.

Shop keeper Vevaratnam Marathamuttu said he ran when tonnes of earth came crashing down the hill on Wednesday morning, fearing there had been an explosion.

"I thought it was some sort of a bomb blast and fled from my shop," Marathamuttu said. "I saved my life because I ran away."

Truck driver Sinniah Yogarajan, 48, said there was "no point in my living" after five members of his family along with his friends were buried in the disaster.

"The entire neighbourhood has vanished. Now there is a river of mud where our houses once stood," Yogarajan told AFP at a nearby school where survivors were sheltering.

"The soldiers are trying their best but every time they scoop out some of the mud the hole then just gets filled up again with more mud."

Although only a handful of bodies have been recovered so far, the government's disaster management minister voiced fears on Wednesday night that 100 people may have been buried after he visited the site.

There had been fears of an even higher toll when officials initially said that up to 300 people were unaccounted for, but the minister said most of those who were classified as missing were later found at work.

Some 75 children were already at their school nearby when their homes were buried, officials said, adding that they were checking on reports that at least two children had lost both parents.

Fears of more landslides

President Mahinda Rajapakse visited the disaster area in Koslanda on Thursday, speaking with survivors now sheltering at two schools. He later inspected the Meeriyabedda tea plantation which bore the full brunt of the mudslide.

During the day, soldiers were seen clearing debris from the mud, as curious onlookers as well as survivors whose relatives were missing gathered at the site despite appeals to stay away.

Labourer Arumugam Thyagarajah, 28, said his six-year-old daughter was washed away in the mudslide as she walked with her older brother to school.

At least 1,200 people from nearby tea plantations have also been evacuated from their homes amid fears that ongoing rains could lead to more mudslides, officials said adding that more people were expected at relief centres.

Sri Lanka's picturesque hill region is famed for producing Ceylon tea and has become a major tourist attraction with visitors able to stay on the plantations.

The number of homes destroyed was revised down to 63 on Thursday from 150 given earlier by the national Disaster Management Centre (DMC).

"We had difficulty communicating with our officers and sometimes rumours were reported to us as facts," the Colombo-based DMC spokesman Sarath Kumara told AFP.

An office where village records were maintained was also destroyed in the disaster, causing problems for the authorities in compiling reliable casualty figures.

Sri Lanka, a tropical island at the foot of India, is prone to weather-related disasters -- especially during the monsoon season when the rains are often welcomed by farmers.

If the death toll does reach three figures, the disaster would be the country's worst since the December 2004 tsunami when 31,000 people died.

Thursday 30 October 2014

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/rains-hamper-sri-lanka-mudslide-tragedy-search-effort-614128

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Shining Path victims' remains returned 30 years after their deaths

The remains of 65 victims of the Shining Path have been returned to their families 30 years after they were killed.

Men, women, and children who were killed by the Shining Path between 1989 and 1991 have finally been returned to their families for identification and burial. People came from 25 communities to Huamanga to bury their dead, whose bones and the clothes they died in were presented in small white coffins, just over a meter long, along with the few objects they had on them at the times of their deaths.

Relatives had traveled from their distant homes to identify the remains of their family members killed so many years before. The bodies had been hidden in clandestine graves until four years ago, when they were disinterred and the lengthy identification process began. Experts used DNA tests, dental records, and anthropological forensics to identify them. They had been killed by members of the Shining Path, as well as police and the military.

Prosecutor Carlos Américo Ramos Heredia presided over the handing over of the remains of the victims. The ceremony took three hours and was attended by around 200 relatives.

Adelina García, president of the Association of Families of Kidnapped, Arrested, and Disappeared of Peru, is the wife of a man who went missing in the Los Cabitos barracks in Ayacucho back in 1983. “It’s a satisfaction to give a Christian grave to loved ones after many years, others still have their hearts in pain for not finding them and not having accomplished that the guilty are punished,” she told Peruvian daily La República.

Ramos admitted that there was a long road ahead of them, saying that there were still a lot of makeshift graves to discover and that they needed more prosecutors specialized in human rights.

2,925 bodies were discovered from 2006 to July 2014, 1,689 of this number have been identified and 1,485 have been returned to their families. La República notes that these numbers are very small when compared to the number of people who are still missing. The 2003 Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that 15 thousand people disappeared in the years the Shining Path was active in Peru.

Thursday 30 October 2014

http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-shining-path-victims-remains-returned-30-years-after-their-deaths-104326

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Families of missing in Sewol ferry disaster demand new search plan after body find

The families of passengers still officially listed as missing from the sunken ferry Sewol demanded Wednesday that the government come up with a thorough plan to find and recover the bodies.

The call came after a badly decomposed body, presumed to be that of a woman, was found inside the submerged ship Tuesday afternoon, more than six months after the ferry sank in waters off the southwestern island of Jindo, leaving more than 300 people dead in one of the country's deadliest maritime disasters.

After running into obstacles, divers retrieved the body from the fourth-deck female bathroom a day after its discovery, officials at the site said. They said the remains will be sent to a mortuary for positive identification using DNA screening.

"We demand that the government review the search plan for November and come up with a new thorough search plan," the families said in a press release.

On Monday, the family members said they had voted against salvaging the ship and asked the government to continue its search operation.

The outcome of the vote was made public hours after a private diving company announced its decision to pull out of the joint operation with the government and military after three months, citing "various circumstances."

The 6,825-ton ferry Sewol sank on April 16 en route to the southern resort island of Jeju. Of the total number of people on board, most of whom were high school students, only 174 were rescued.

Wednesday 30 October 2014

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20141029001101

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Sri Lanka landslide: at least 16 dead, hundreds missing

Mudslides triggered by monsoon rains swept through a tea-growing region of Sri Lanka on Wednesday, killing at least 16 people and leaving around 300 more missing, disaster officials have said.

The landslides hit a tea plantation east of Colombo in the morning, with some homes buried in 9 metres (30ft) of mud, officials said.

Soldiers were trying to dig through debris for survivors, but rescue efforts were hampered by damage to roads in the area which blocked earth-moving and other heavy equipment from arriving.

“We have reports of 140 houses getting washed away in the mudslides,” Sarath Kumara, a spokesman for the national Disaster Management Centre (DMC), said.

“The latest we have got is that at least 300 people may be missing,” the official said, updating an earlier estimate of 200.

Kumara said 16 bodies had been recovered by noon after the disaster in the Koslanda region, about 125 miles east of the capital.

The victims were tea plantation workers and their families, whose homes were located on a mountain slope that came crashing down.

The top military official in the area, Major General Mano Perera, said around 20 units had been deployed for the rescue operation in an unstable mountainous area. But he said efforts were being hampered by poor visibility, with the area shrouded in mist.

The landslide started at about 7.45am (2.15am GMT) and lasted about 10 minutes, Perera said.

Perera said the air force as well as elite police commandos had been deployed for the rescue, and that they were hopeful of finding survivors.

“We have already rescued some people and they have been sent to hospital,” he said, without giving exact figures.

The main focus of the search is the Meeriyabedda tea plantation, which lies close to a beauty spot famous for its waterfalls.

Kumara said the mudslide occurred after schools opened and tea labourers were supposed to be at work, but bad weather may have prompted some to stay back.

“We are checking with nearby schools and other work places to establish how many villagers were [there] at the time,” Kumara said. “But our estimate at the moment is that about 300 people are missing.”

A local hospital source said two men and a woman rescued from the mud had been brought in for treatment.

Sections of several national highways have been washed away by the rains, slowing down the movement of search and rescue vehicles to the area, the DMC said.

The government’s disaster management minister said he was on his way to the area to assess the damage.

“We are coordinating with all agencies to ensure that relief is sent as quickly as possible, but the weather is a factor that is slowing us down,” the minister, Mahinda Amaraweera, said.

The disaster struck in an area prone to mudslides and residents had been repeatedly warned to move to safer areas as monsoon rains lashed the region, the DMC said.

Thirteen people were killed in mudslides in and around Colombo in June.

The annual monsoon brings vital rains for irrigation and electricity generation but also causes frequent loss of life and damage to property.

Cyclonic winds that accompanied the monsoon in June last year killed 54 people, mostly fishermen.

Wednesday 29 October 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/29/dead-hundreds-missing-sri-lanka-mudslides

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Divers suffer as search for ferry victims continues

More than 100 days have passed since divers found the last body in the ferry that sank off the southwest coast on April 16. But the search for the missing victims continues, and 32 divers go to work every days searching for bodies.

They brave strong currents, low visibility and hypothermia as water temperatures have dropped significantly.

The Sewol has moved around 5.3 m due to the strong currents and is partially embedded in the muddy floor. Its steel frame has collapsed from rust, closing off entry points to the hull.

One diver who has been searching for victims since April, said, "Various parts of the ship are filled with mud and the frame has collapsed in many parts of the ship, which means divers can't search them. We've only been able to dive properly for nine days this month."

As the ferry disaster fades from the headlines, the conditions divers face have also gotten worse. One Navy commander said, "I have kept asking my men to persevere for just one more month, but it's been six months now working aboard a cramped vessel."

The injuries divers suffer are sapping morale. Two divers have died searching for bodies and about 80 have been treated in hospital.

Another Navy commander at the scene of the search said, "Divers who have managed to avoid injuries are faced with the side effects of diving long periods under water including paralysis due to fatigue."

Hwang Dae-shik, a rescue official, said, "Divers have to rest for 16 hours after diving for more than 10 minutes, but nobody was able to abide by that safety guideline in April and May," during massive rescue efforts in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.

The side effects are emerging now.

One diver who had to rescue a fellow diver, said, "It is a noble objective to try and recover all of the bodies of the victims, but the actual people who are risking their lives are the divers and not the president or ministers. We risked our lives to achieve the impossible and now they think it’s just our job to carry on."

The families of the victims held a meeting on Sunday evening to vote on ending the search for bodies and raising the vessel. They will announce their decision on Monday.

Monday 27 October 2014

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/10/27/2014102701360.html

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A month after Japanese volcano eruption, six remain missing

Monday marks one month of the Ontake volcano eruption, the most deadly in Japan since 1926, which killed 57 people and left six others missing after search operations were suspended due to the first snowfall at the top.

Families of the victims and representatives of local authorities gathered and observed one minute of silence in the central regions of Kiso and Otaki neighbouring the Ontake, at the same time the volcano erupted Sep 27.

Residents of both towns also placed a wreath at the foot of the mountain to “sympathise with the inhabitants of the regions and pray for the volcano to calm down”, one of the organisers of the event said in statements to Kyodo agency.

On Oct 16, following the first snowfall at the top of the mountain, Japanese authorities decided to postpone the search for the six missing people until next spring, because of the risk of avalanches, landslides and low visibility.

The rescue teams had already combed most of the volcanic region and found 57 bodies.

Mount Ontake is the second highest volcano in Japan at 3,067 metres and is located about 100 km from Nagoya city.

It erupted Sep 27 when hundreds of people were hiking in the surrounding foothills and at the summit.

It is estimated that some 250 people were able to flee the area or were evacuated, 69 of whom suffered injuries, mostly bruises, fractures and burns.

The eruption was the country’s worst volcanic disaster since 1926 when Mount Tokachi in northern Hokkaido blew its top, killing 144 people and injuring another 210.

As the skiing season approaches, local authorities have also launched a campaign to ensure that tourism does not suffer in the mountainous region that is home to many ski resorts.

Meanwhile, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) maintains the level of volcanic alert for Ontake at three on a scale of five, meaning another eruption is possible, and access to the mountain and its surroundings is restricted.

Monday 27 October 2014

http://www.theindianrepublic.com/world/month-japanese-volcano-eruption-six-remain-missing-100052425.html

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Floods and heavy rains leave 22 dead in Nicaragua

Twenty-two people are dead and 32,000 are homeless after torrential rain caused flooding near Nicaragua's capital Managua.

Days of torrential rains in Nicaragua has left 22 people dead and 32,000 homeless.

Nine of the victims died when a retaining wall collapsed and flattened four shacks near the capital Managua, government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo said on Saturday.

The report said 4,544 homes were damaged or destroyed by floods or were evacuated due to flood risk.

The rains impacted 17 departments in the country and 5,630 people are in temporary shelters and receiving food aid, Murillo said.

The bodies of nine people died in the populous neighborhood, Barrio 18 de Mayo, in southeast Managua when a wall around a housing development collapsed because of the heavy rains

Sunday 26 October 2014

http://www.topworldheadlines.com/2014/10/flood-and-heavy-rains-leave-22-dead-in.html

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Government confirms Chinese boat with 15 people missing since July

A boat with a crew of 15 has been missing in the South China Sea since July, authorities in Shandong Province, where the boat is registered, said on Saturday.

The announcement came after a report on local TV station Qilu claiming widespread concern on social media.

The Rongcheng city government did not say why it had not revealed the incident until three months after the fact.

Owner of the boat numbered Lurongyu 2860 told the police he lost contact with his boat on July 9, according to the Rongcheng government. The boat embarked on its voyage on Feb. 26.

Fishery regulator and marine police are still investigating the boat's whereabouts.

Sunday 26 October 2014

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-10/25/c_133742390.htm

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16 killed in northwest China coal mine collapse

A coal mine shaft collapsed in northwestern China, killing 16 miners, an official said Saturday, highlighting the persistence of safety problems in the industry despite a leveling off of demand.

Another 11 miners were injured in the disaster, which struck just before midnight Friday in Tiechanggou township outside the Xinjiang regional capital of Urumqi.

Thirty-three miners were in the shaft when the accident occurred, six of whom were brought out by rescuers, said an official with the State Administration of Work Safety. The official, speaking on routine condition of anonymity, said that all of the injured were in stable condition and that the cause of the cave-in was under investigation.

State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of injured miners sitting up in their hospital beds and describing their experiences to a reporter.

A man who answered the phone at the mine's offices said he could not comment, and calls to the Xinjiang regional safety administration rang unanswered.

China's mines are among the most dangerous in the world, although improved safety measures have vastly lowered the number of fatalities in mine accidents in recent years.

The government's China National Coal Administration reported 1,067 deaths in 604 coal mining accidents in 2013, down 23 percent from the year before. That's down from more than 6,000 a decade ago, largely due to increased inspections and the closure of small and unregulated mines.

The decline has coincided with plateauing demand for coal as the Chinese economy cools from the dizzying heights of the last few years.

While China still produces and consumes almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined, the amount it burned in the first three quarters of 2014 was off by about 2 percent from the same period last year, according to Greenpeace energy analysts in China.

That came despite slower but still robust economic growth of 7.4 percent during the same period, showing that China's economy is becoming somewhat more efficient in its energy use.

Widespread use of coal is largely blamed for the choking smog that envelops major cities in the country. Beijing on Saturday was smothered in a toxic cloud that prompted many citizens to don air filtering masks when venturing outside.

Sunday 26 October 2014

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11348318

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One out of 26 bodies from Lake Kariba disaster retrieved

Only one body out of the 26 people who drowned Friday in Lake Kariba, Gwembe area has so far been retrieved.

And the Zambia Army and police are struggling to retrieve other bodies and may fail due to lack of marine equipment.

Meanwhile, some affected families were heard murmuring and complaining that had government provided modern water transport in Gwembe district, the deaths would not have occurred.

Zambia Reports understand that the Zambian government is trying to engage Zimbabwe to help retrieve the other 25 bodies.

This came to light when Vice-President Guy Scott visited the bereaved families in the rural area.

Inspector-General of Police Stella Libongani told Scott that the only body that had been retrieved by Saturday evening was that of a one-year-old child, which has since been buried.

Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit coordinator Patrick Kangwa was heard telling the Vice-President that the search is hampered by unsuitable equipment being used. He said his team was trying to ask Zimbabwe for help as he also thought the bodies may have floated to the Zimbabwean side.

Twenty-six people, most of them pupils of Henga Primary School in Gwembe died on Friday after the boat they were on capsized on Lake Kariba.

Vice-President Scott told mourners “your loss is our loss, too. Even if we cannot heal your emotions, as Government we will do everything possible to lighten this burden. We will make available coffins, food and all logistical needs.”

Earlier, Police inspector General Libongani explained to Vice-President Scott that the incident happened around 07:30hours on Independence Day as the victims were travelling to Kalelezhi, a school across the lake, for golden jubilee celebrations.

Libongani said 34 people were on a 14-seater banana boat.

Of the 34, eight survived aged between six and 16.

Sunday 26 October 2014

http://zambiareports.com/2014/10/26/one-26-bodies-lake-kariba-disaster-retrieved/

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DNA analysis starts on church collapse victims

The DNA samples gathered from the 116 people who died in the collapse of the building in Nigeria over a month ago have arrived at a laboratory in Stellenbosch for analysis.

Minister of Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation, Jeff Radebe, said the laboratory, which has been appointed by the Nigerian government to conduct the DNA analysis, has commenced.

"The SAPS Forensic Team has already collected the necessary ante-mortem samples from blood relatives of South Africans presumed to have lost their lives in the tragedy," said the Minister during a media briefing in Cape Town on Thursday.

He said only when the DNA analysis process has been finalised will the South African government be able to conclusively identify South Africans from amongst the 116 people who died in the incident.

"The results of the DNA analysis will enable authorities to link specific mortal remains with their rightful families. Since the DNA process is in the hands of the Nigerian authorities, we are unable to provide any update regarding the timeframes when this process might be completed," said Minister Radebe.

Among the 116 dead people, who died when the guesthouse belonging to the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Nigeria collapsed, 81 are believed to be South Africa.

A total of 85 bodies will be repatriated to South Africa, including three Zimbabwean and one Democratic Republic of the Congo nationals, at the request of their respective governments.

Minister Radebe said government was aware that with each passing day the waiting became more difficult, especially for the directly affected families. "We wish to start by thanking families of the deceased for their patience and cooperation."

He said government reiterated its commitment to making sure the mortal remains of South Africans are brought back home for burial by their families and communities.

As part of the preparation for the repatriation of the mortal remains, the Inter-Ministerial Task Team met with the political representatives of provincial governments on 13 October to brief them on progress made so far in assisting families as well as the repatriation process.

Minister Radebe said the meeting was important as it is expected that provincial governments will play an important role in supporting families once the mortal remains are dispatched to their respective provinces.

He said once the process of identification through DNA testing is concluded and the Nigerian authorities give authorisation for the release the mortal remains, the National Joint Intelligence Structure (NATJOINTS) will deploy a team to that country to finalise all necessary and administrative processes and to prepare the mortal remains for their journey to South Africa.

The team will comprise of the National Disaster Management Centre, South African Military Health Service, Department of Health and SAPS Division: Forensic Service.

This preparatory work may take up to seven days to complete from the time the team arrives in Lagos.

"The NATJOINTS has identified an aircraft that will be used to transport the mortal remains on their journey home. The aircraft will depart from Air Force Base Waterkloof with Forensic Pathology Service vehicles that are suitably equipped for the purpose.

"Upon arrival in Lagos, the teams will proceed to the three different facilities where the mortal remains are being kept. Once the mortal remains have been retrieved, the teams will return to the airport for the 6 - 7 hour flight back home."

Once they arrive at the Air Force Base Waterkloof, the bodies will be transported by road to their respective provinces where the families will make their own funeral arrangements.

The Minister said preparations were being made for a formal reception to be held at the Air Force Base and that only family members of the deceased and invited dignitaries will be invited.

"We encourage the families to take comfort in the knowledge that the greater part of the work has already been done. Government continues to cooperate with the Nigerian authorities to ensure that each and every South African will be brought home to their loved ones in a dignified manner," said Minister Radebe.

Thursday 23 October 2014

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/DNA-analysis-starts-on-church-collapse-victims-20141023

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The slow, dangerous work of recovering Ukraine's war dead

What priority should a country give to retrieving, identifying, and burying its war dead?

Ask Yaroslav Zhylkin, the head of Ukraine's casualty-recovery efforts, and he'll begin with an anecdote about the U.S. response when two American soldiers went missing in Afghanistan in 2006.

More than 8,000 soldiers and a group of forensic scientists, he says, were involved in that search.

In Ukraine, by contrast, a single group of 30 volunteers has assumed responsibility for retrieving fighters killed in battle in the eastern Donbas region.

The group -- dubbed Black Tulip after the cargo plane tasked with shipping the bodies of soldiers killed during the Soviet war in Afghanistan -- began its work on September 3.

Since then, they've found and evacuated the remains of more than 150 Ukrainian soldiers who died fighting in the government's so-called Antiterrorist Operation (ATO) against pro-Russian rebels in parts of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

"We've gone through 10 districts and excavated remains from more than 30 graves, including 11 mass graves," said Zhylkin, who runs the National Memory Union, an NGO overseeing the Black Tulip mission and other efforts to connect families with soldiers and volunteer fighters who have gone missing in the war.

"We also gathered the remains of crew members who were burned to death in military equipment," Zhylkin noted grimly. He paused before adding, "It's worth emphasizing that our mission is run exclusively by volunteers."

In an undeclared war comprising numerous armed groups with frequently differing agendas, the task of retrieving bodies left on the battlefield is both complicated and dangerous.

Zhylkin notes that Black Tulip volunteers are frequently forced to comb through fields controlled by separatists and dotted with mines and unexploded shells.

Even the dead soldiers represent a risk, as they are often laid with booby-trapped grenades set to detonate once the bodies are touched.

Still, Zhylkin says Black Tulip has cooperated with separatists themselves, who have occasionally approached the group for help finding their dead fighters as well. The volunteers don't turn anyone away.

"Nobody's fighting with the dead," Zhylkin says.

In addition to the danger, the group faces substantial costs. Each of the group's missions into the ATO zone costs approximately 40,000 hryvnia ($3,000), an amount mostly bankrolled by the volunteers themselves.

"The lion's share of the mission is self-financed ," says Yaroslav Tynchenko, the deputy director of Ukraine's National Military History Museum, who volunteers with the Black Tulip mission. "We mainly pay for all our own gasoline and transportation."

Additional necessities, like refrigerated trucks, are provided by charities. The group gets no direct funding from the government.

All recovered bodies are turned over to Ukrainian Army command, ideally for identification and return to families for burial. But recent weeks have seen an increasing number of mass burials for fighters who remain unidentified, including an October 17 funeral outside Dnipropetrovsk for 21 unknown soldiers killed in action.

As the country's morgues fill to capacity with war dead, military officials have been forced to bury many unnamed soldiers rather than wait for the possibility of eventual identification.

Black Tulip workers say the lack of identification tags among ATO fighters has proven one of the toughest challenges in their work.

Volunteer brigades and National Guard battalions, which make up a substantial part of Ukraine's current fighting force, do not consistently receive ID tags before being sent into battle.

Black Tulip workers say they have called on high-ranking government officials to provide dog tags and otherwise aid in casualty-recovery efforts.

Defense Ministry official Oleksiy Nazdrachev says the ministry has already earmarked 3 million hryvnia ($232,000) for the production of ID tags to be distributed to all army soldiers, National Guard members, and volunteer fighters.

For Zhylkin, the change can't come too soon. He says the remains of hundreds of fighters have yet to be cleared from the battlefields of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. More than 3,600 fighters and civilians have been killed in Ukraine in the past six months.

Wednesday 22 October 2014

http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-recovering-war-dead-black-tulip/26649901.html

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Death toll in Nepal's worst trekking disaster reaches 43

Rescuers on Tuesday pulled out three bodies of Nepali citizens killed in last week's freak blizzards and avalanches, taking the toll in the Himalayan nation's worst trekking disaster to 43.

The blizzards struck the Annapurna Circuit, a trail popular among Western hikers who walk around Mount Annapurna, the 10th highest mountain in the world and caught the tourists during the peak hiking season.

"Three new bodies were taken out from snow near Thorongla pass on Tuesday," said Baburam Bhandari, chief of Mustang district, the worst among the four districts hit by the blizzards triggered by the tail end of cyclone Hudhud that struck India this month.

Officials said 518 people including 304 foreign trekkers were rescued in the operation in which more than 70 sorties were made by army and civilian helicopters.

"This is the biggest rescue operation ever conducted in high Himalayan snow and difficult mountain slopes," said D.B. Koirala, chief of the Himalayan Rescue Association Nepal.

Wednesday 22 October 2014

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/10/21/uk-nepal-hikers-idUKKCN0IA1W620141021

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12 Natore bus accident victims buried

Twelve deceased among 33, who were killed in a fatal road crash in Baraigram upazila on Monday afternoon, were buried at the village of Sidhuli at Gurudaspur upazila on Tuesday morning.

The 12 deceased, including six siblings, from the same village, were buried at local central graveyard after their namaz-e-janaza at Sidhuli Government Primary School ground at about 10:05am.

At least 33 people, including 14 from Sidhuli village alone, were killed and over 24 others injured in road accident at Razzak intersection on the Bonpara-Hatikumrul highway in Baraigram upazila on Monday afternoon.

The victim's relatives of the village recognised the 12 bodies on the spot while two others—Bahadur and Azad—were kept at Natore Sadar Hospital.

Of the bodies, 30 were handed over to their families at Bonpara highway police camp, said deputy commissioner of the district Mashiur Rahman.

A three-member probe panel, headed by additional district magistrate Mohammad Ali of Natore, has been formed to look into the fatal accident.

Its two other members are assistant police super of Natore (Circle) and the assistant director of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA).

Tuesday 21 October 2014

http://en.prothom-alo.com/bangladesh/news/55363/12-Natore-accident-victims-of-a-village-buried

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Bus falls into gorge in Himachal Pradesh, leaves 15 dead, 17 injured

On Tuesday, at least 15 people were killed and another 17 were injured after a private bus fell into 400 feet gorge in Rohtrung village in Himachal Pradesh's Kinnaur district.

Reportedly, about 35 passengers were on board. The bus was on its way from Sangla valley to Kalpa when the mishap took place.

The driver and conductor were among the dead while all seventeen injured persons have been rescued and rushed to a local hospital.

“All seventeen injured persons have been rescued and rushed to a local hospital nearby. While, the bodies of the deceased have been recovered and will be handed over to the family members after "an on the spot postmortem",” said Deputy Commissioner D D Sharma said.

“The toll could even rise as four injured persons are in a critical condition,” he added.

Reportedly, the victims are mostly from surrounding villages of Sangla and are yet to be identified.

Tuesday 21 October 2014

http://www.pardaphash.com/news/bus-falls-into-gorge-in-himachal-pradesh-leaves-15-dead-17-injured/763390.html

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Death toll rises to 17 in fireworks plant blast in South India

The death toll in fire at a fireworks factory in southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh rose to 17, after five more deaths were reported here on Tuesday.

The police said two more women are missing since the fire, which started after an explosion so big that many workers were thrown off to nearby fields.

There were 30 people at work when the fire began, said officials in Kakinada, 160 km from the port city of Visakhapatnam. It took nearly two hours to put out the flames as a lot of inflammable material was feeding the fire.

The fire, which triggered several explosions, destroyed the building. Two fire engines battled for two hours to douse the flames.

All the victims were workers in the unit, which was manufacturing firecrackers for the coming Diwali festival.

A burning cigarette is suspected to have led to the fire.

The government has ordered an investigation into whether fire safety precautions had been ignored by the factory's owner.

The factory has been operating every year during the festival season for the last 10 years and reportedly had a licence.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has announced compensation of 200,000 Indian rupees for the families of those who died.

Tuesday 21 October 2014

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/141021/3rd-ld-writethru-death-toll-rises-17-fireworks-plant-blast-s

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