Italian Cruise Ship Wreck: Missing Grows to 29

The number of people missing in the Italian cruise ship wreck has been increased to 29, the Italian coast guard said today. A top coast guard official, Marco Brusco, said on state TV that 25 passengers and four crew members have not been found, according to the Associated Press. The increased number of missing threatens to eventually boost the fatality count from the capsized ship. At the moment, at least six people are confirmed dead. The discouraging announcement came after the coast guard had said all but 16 people -- including a couple from Minnesota -- had been accounted for. The official number rose after officials in other countries had reported higher numbers of missing citizens. The search for survivors was still under way today as night fell, even though some officials said that the possibility of finding passengers and crew still alive three days after the vessel ran aground near the small island of Giglio grew slim. "The...

continue reading

15 bodies found off W. Mindanao coast

Six of the bodies in their advance stages of decomposition were recovered in the shores off Misamis Occidental while nine others were found off Zamboanga del Norte shores. The findings brought to a total of 1,388 number of accounted dead bodies where 737 are traced to Cagayan de Oro City, 693 in Iligan City and the remaining 45 bodies from Bukidnon, the Office of Civil Defense in Region 10 said. It said that only 837 dead bodies were identified as of Thursday last week. Typhoon Sendong struck midnight December 17 last year, eight days before Christmas, with a killer flash flood that overflowed in the rivers of Cagayan de Oro and Mandulog in Iligan City, clearing middle-class subdivisions, shanties and gobbling thousands of residents, most of them living along riverbanks. “It was like a bomb exploding in the dead of the night where everyone who were sleeping were roused from their sleep only to be trapped and drowned in rampaging waters...

continue reading

Tsunami victims make own relocation plans amid slow gov't progress

ONAGAWA, Miyagi -- Residents of a fishing community in this tsunami-stricken town have set about finding relocation sites by themselves -- countering the local government's slow action. With the help of professional consulting firms, residents of the town's Takeura district are advancing group relocation plans to an area further away from the threat of tsunamis. At first, Onagawa town officials planned to construct houses at elevated places remote from the coast and to merge all fishing villages. However, residents opposed these plans, fearing that community ties would fray in the process. As a result, it was decided that communities would be relocated to an elevated inland area without being split up. Because they were being dispersed across approximately 30 different temporary housing complexes after the March 11 disasters, residents of the Takeura district created an address list to keep themselves together, and kept in contact. In...

continue reading

All 11 balloon victims formally identified

All 11 people killed in the January 7 hot air ballooning crash in Carterton have now been formally identified. Coroner Peter Ryan this morning officially confirmed that the remaining five people killed were Howard Cox, 71, and his wife Diana, 63, both of Wellington, Desmond Dean, 70, and his wife Ann, 65, both of Masterton, and Denise Dellabarca, 58, of Paraparaumu. The other six killed were Chrisjan (Johannes) Jordaan, Alexis Still, Valerie Bennett, Belinda Harter, Stephen Hopkirk and pilot Lance Hopping. Coroner Ryan commended the work of the disaster victim identification team for presenting sufficient evidence for the bodies to be formally identified. "The horrific nature of this tragedy meant experts faced a very difficult challenge, but their skill and dedication means we have been able to return loved ones to their families in a relatively short timeframe. A mixture of visual identification, dental records, fingerprint, DNA...

continue reading

The Costa Concordia disaster highlights the dangers of super-sized cruise ships

On 1 January, in a new year message to Nautilus members – 23,000 maritime professionals, including ship masters, officers and other seafaring personnel – we remarked that nobody will need reminding that 2012 is the centenary of the loss of the Titanic. While a massive nostalgia industry is already in full flow, we needed to remind the wider world that the Titanic offers lessons for today and that contemporary resonances should not be lost. Though we had always cautioned that it was a case not of if, but when a major accident involving a huge passenger ship would take place, we had not expected that it would come within the first two weeks of the year. Perhaps the most commonly voiced reaction to the Costa Concordia accident is how can such a thing happen in the 21st century? For many of us working in the shipping industry, it is more of a surprise that it hasn't happened earlier. And nobody can say that the warning signs weren't there. In...

continue reading

Bodies of missing French family that disappeared last year found in Cambodia

Police in Cambodia believe they have found the bodies of a Frenchman and his four children who all went missing last year. A number of bones and skulls recovered from a car found dumped in a pond behind Laurent Vallier's home 45 miles away from the capital Phnom Penh are believed to be those of the Frenchman and his offspring. The 42-year-old, and his two sons and two daughters, disappeared from their home in Kompong Speu province in September and the French Embassy became involved in November. Mr Vallier’s father-in-law, 69-year-old Tith Chhuon, was at the scene yesterday and is believed to have identified his grandchildren as Johan, 11, Ramsey, 8, Sovan, 5, and Mickeal, 2. He confirmed that the family had been missing since at least September 8, when he went to visit them, only to find that they were nowhere to be found. 'I wasn't with him when he died, I have to live with that forever': Ambulance staff refused to let wife drive...

continue reading

Hartley Colliery disaster remembered 150 years on

One hundred and fifty years after one of the worst mining accidents in England, a monument in Northumberland bears testament to the victims. Inscribed on the obelisk in Earsdon churchyard are the names of the 204 men and boys who died in the Hartley Colliery disaster on 16 January 1862. The youngest was 10, the eldest 71, and the same surnames are repeated time and time again. One family, the Liddles, lost nine members. Such was the impact of the disaster that it resulted in a change of law, spelling the end of one-shaft mines, and the beginning of more support for miners' families. The disaster in 1862 began when a beam supporting the steam engine which was used to pump sea water from the Hester pit broke, crashing down and blocking the single mineshaft. Five men, who were in the lift coming up at the end of a shift, were killed instantly. Three others survived. In common with many 19th Century coalmines the Hester pit had only one...

continue reading

Lebanon building collapse kills 18 people

The five-storey building collapsed in the Ashrafiyeh district of the Lebanese capital on Sunday evening. The victims included Lebanese and Sudanese nationals. "We are hoping to find people alive. There are still some missing," Ali Hassan Khalil, the health minister told LBC television. Twelve people were being treated in hospital, he added. The national ANI news agency reported on Monday, citing the Lebanese Red Cross. The collapsed residential building in the Ashrafieh neighborhood in Beirut The collapsed residential building in the Ashrafieh neighborhood in Beirut "Up until now, 11 bodies and 11 injured Lebanese nationals and foreigners have been recovered from the rubble," the report said, adding that rescue operations mounted during the night were continuing Monday morning. Related Articles Rescue workers stretcher an injured person from the collapsed building Rescue workers stretcher an injured person from the collapsed building The...

continue reading

Haiti: Reflections On Overcoming 2 Years Of Disaster

On Thursday, Haiti marked the second anniversary of the devastating 2010 earthquake. NPR's Jason Beaubien was back in the Caribbean nation for the quake memorials and he sent us this reporter's notebook about covering Haiti over the last few years. Haiti is a land haunted by ghosts. My translator, Jean Pierre, won't shut up about the ghosts. He points toward some men plodding up the dusty street hauling huge bags of charcoal on their heads. "Zombies," he declares. "Dead dudes are everywhere." Haiti makes you believe in spirits, in resurrection. Fallen presidents rise up, they return in waves. Baby Doc Duvalier; Jean Bertrand Aristide; Ousted into exile but now home. When I first came to Haiti in 2008, the city of Gonaives was under water. Over the course of a month, Gonaives was hit by two hurricanes, two tropical storms and it flooded twice. When I came back in 2010, Port-au-Prince was under piles of rubble. Entire hillside slums...

continue reading

Filipino mom still hopeful of finding 3 kids lost in flood after a month

Lucina Waluhan 's only wish when she celebrated her 32nd birthday on Thursday was to see her three children again. Nearly a month since up to 30 feet of rampaging water inundated the city on Dec. 17, Lucina said she had not lost hope of seeing them one day. Mary, 6; Ian, 4; and Joshua, 2 years old, were among hundreds of people still missing from the devastating flood that had killed some 700 people. When the flood struck, Lucina said her husband, Felix, had wrapped Mary Joy with a jacket and tied her on his back. She said she took their two other children with her as they drifted down the river. "I lost them (Ian and Joshua) under the bridge," she recounted. Lucina was later rescued in Camiguin Island while Felix was swept and rescued in Iligan City. As tears rolled down her cheek, Lucina said it was important for her to see her children again, even if they died in the flood. "I wanted to see them even if they are gone, that way...

continue reading

Family of Peru cruise disaster victim wait for body repatriation

Lima, Jan. 15 (ANDINA). The family of the Peruvian crew member who died in the capsizing of the Costa Concordia cruise ship has appealed to Italian authorities to expedite the repatriation of his body to his native Peru. "We only ask the authorities to accelerate the paperwork so we can repatriate his body and bury him in Trujillo," said Jorge Costilla Mendoza, referring to the victim's hometown in northern Peru. A 50-year-old anthropologist who had worked on cruise ships for the past 13 years, Tomas Costilla Mendoza had signed on as a crew member on the Costa Concordia in mid-December, his brother said. Costilla said the family had received no word from the Italian authorities on the circumstances surrounding his brother's death, which he said was confirmed to them by a cousin in Italy. "Some accounts we have received say my brother threw himself off the ship and was hit in the fall, and drowned. Tomas knew how to swim...

continue reading

Sixth Body Found On Italian Cruise Ship

A sixth body has been found on the stricken Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia, Italian authorities have announced. The male passenger was found wearing an orange life jacket, of the type given to passengers rather than crew. Fire official Luca Cari told state radio Monday that the victim was a man, found in a corridor in the part of the ship that was still above water. The latest discovery comes after coastguard divers discovered the bodies of two elderly male passengers in the submerged part of the vessel. They were later identified as 86-year-old Italian national Giovanni Masia and 68-year old Spanish national Gual Guillermo. Costa Concordia ship route The Costa Concordia set off from Rome and was to travel around the Mediterranean The other three who died after the liner ran aground near the island of Giglio, off the Tuscan coast, have reportedly been identified as two French passengers and one Peruvian crewman. One of the...

continue reading