Grim search for bodies: Mass graves in Compostela eyed as death toll soars

A father lifted a plastic sheet, and wept as he recognized the body of his child among a row of bodies caked in mud and laid out on the ground.

A mother, on the other hand, went away in tears, unable to find her missing loved ones. “I have three children,” she said over and over, flashing three fingers before a TV cameraman.

Residents of this town in Compostela Valley yesterday went about the grim task of searching for missing relatives amid a growing pile of bodies.

As of early yesterday afternoon, at least 342 people had been confirmed killed, with over 400 more missing from landslides and floods triggered by super typhoon “Pablo.”

Along coastal communities and farming and mining towns in Compostela Valley, the hardest hit province, authorities mulled mass graves as the death toll soared and health personnel worried about the spread of diseases.

Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II, however, said they would need the approval of families to bury the dead in mass graves.

Dionisia Requinto, 43, felt lucky to have survived with her husband and their eight children after rampaging floodwaters engulfed their home. She said they managed to climb a hill while bracing themselves against boulders and fallen trees.

“The water rose so fast. It was horrible. I thought it was going to be our end,” Requinto told journalists.

Compostela Valley registered the highest number of fatalities at 214, while 395 remained missing.

Among its worst-hit towns were New Bataan with 59 dead; Monkayo, 55; Compostela, 21; Mabini, four; Maragusan, three; Montevista, 10; Mt. Diwata, 11; Nabunturan, nine; Maco, three, Pantukan, two, and Laak, two.

The deaths came despite efforts by the government to force residents out of high-risk communities as the typhoon approached.

Last Wednesday, the sun shone brightly over the typhoon-ravaged areas, prompting villagers to bring their soaked belongings out to dry.

But when night fell, rain started pouring again, triggering panic among those fearful of a repeat of the previous day’s flash floods.

Davao Oriental Gov. Cora Malanyaon told The STAR that as of yesterday afternoon, the death toll in her province had reached 177. She said they didn’t know where to take the evacuees since all the evacuation centers lost their roofs.

Among the province’s worst-hit towns were Cateel with 59 dead; Baganga, 31; Boston, 27; Caraga, nine; and one each from Tarragona and Manay.

“Two days after typhoon Pablo hit Davao region, hundreds of dead bodies were retrieved and thousands of homeless people were left distressed on how to start anew,” Lt. Col. Lyndon Paniza, spokesman for the 10th Infantry Division said.

Paniza said rescuers are still trying to find seven persons in Cateel, Davao Oriental swept away by the rampaging floodwaters, while 13 others were also reported missing in Baganga town, and one from Manay. Rescue teams have yet to report on the exact number of missing from Boston town.

Aside from the high number of fatalities in the region, four persons also perished in Central Visayas, two in Eastern Visayas; 10 in Northern Mindanao and seven in Caraga region.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said the number of deaths is likely to increase as hopes dim to recover alive the missing individuals.

Thursday 6 December 2012

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2012-12-07/882157/grim-search-bodies-mass-graves-compostela-eyed-death-toll-soars

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Families try to prove that loved ones were lost in fire

Syed Nazeef Shah believes his son is dead – for all he knows is that young Obaidullah was working at Ali Enterprises on September 11, 2012 when a raging fire killed more than 250 people at the factory.

But what he does not have is closure as his son’s body was never found and the DNA test reports came back without any answer. Without proof, he cannot get a death certificate issued as well. Obaidullah reportedly joined the factory two weeks before the fire broke out but when asked for documents that could verify his employment, his father hands over irrelevant papers such as a matriculation certificate instead of a company card.

The only verification Shah can offer is through his neighbours and other residents, such as the shopkeepers and the bus conductors, who he says can vouch that Obaidullah worked at the factory.

“I have visited leaders of three political parties as well as the deputy commissioner for compensation. All of them turned me back saying that I should bring the body first,” said Shah who lives in one of the impoverished colonies of Baldia Town. “We deserve compensation. But what am I suppose to do now?”

Families still waiting

Shah’s son is among the 61 people who, as claimed by their families, were working in the factory and are still missing, their remains apparently disintegrated and washed away from the premises.

Despite almost three months gone by, 28 bodies are still lying in the morgue as authorities try to establish their identities through DNA tests.

While the matter is pending before courts, anxious families of victims whose bodies were never found shared the problems they have been facing at a press conference at Karachi Press Club.

Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER)’s executive director, Karamat Ali, said that the lack of proper records of workers shows negligence on part of the government and the factory owners.

“We could have known how many people were working in the factory at the time of the fire if the employees were registered with social security institutions, such as the Employees Old Age Benefit Institution,” he said.

PILER and other NGOs have approached the courts to come up with a way to verify these claims by families. Families of the victims who were identified have each received Rs900,000 in compensation.

Foul play

According to Ali, affected families, some of whom had changed their statements before the courts, were being intimidated by the factory owners. “Faisal Siddiqui, one of the lawyers representing the families, has even received warnings to drop the case. Government must look into this as well.” He alleged that powerful industrialists were using their financial strength to influence the investigations.

Thursday 6 December 2012

http://tribune.com.pk/story/475773/families-try-to-prove-that-loved-ones-were-lost-in-fire/

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South Africa military plane crashes, kills 11

A South African military aircraft on an unknown mission to an area near former President Nelson Mandela's village crashed in a mountain range, killing all 11 people onboard, officials said Thursday.

The Douglas C-47TP Dakota, a twin-propeller aircraft, had taken off from Pretoria's Waterkloof Air Force Base on Wednesday morning, said Brig. Gen. Xolani Mabanga, a military spokesman. The aircraft encountered bad weather in flight and failed to make its 10 a.m. landing.

On Thursday morning, soldiers found the wreckage in the Drakensberg mountains near Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal province, some 340 kilometers (210 miles) southeast of the air base, Mabanga said. The Drakensberg, which in the local Afrikaans language means Dragon Mountains, have the highest peaks in South Africa, reaching to a height of about 3,400 meters (11,400 feet).

In a statement Thursday, South Africa's Defense Department said an investigation would begin into the cause of the crash, which killed six crew members and five passengers. The statement did not explain what the aircraft had been doing, nor did it name those killed in the crash. Siphiwe Dlamini, a Defense Department spokesman, did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for more information about the crash.

Mthatha is about 30 kilometers (17 miles) north of Qunu, the village where Mandela now lives after retiring from public life. South Africa's military remains largely responsible for the former president's medical care. However, military officials declined to say whether those on board had any part in caring for Mandela.

In November, another South African military flight crash-landed at Mthatha, injuring several people.

Thursday 6 December 2012

http://news.yahoo.com/south-africa-military-plane-crashes-kills-11-103956654.html ___

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Flesh-eating fungal infection can follow natural disasters, study finds

After a natural disaster, doctors should be on the lookout for outbreaks of a rare but deadly "flesh-eating" fungal infection, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday.

That's the lesson, the agency said, from 13 cases of mucormycosis skin infections that struck victims of the Joplin, Mo., tornado last year. The May 2011 tornado was one of the deadliest in U.S. history, killing almost 160 people and injuring more than 1,000.

In the aftermath, doctors found that some victims with serious injuries were developing severe infections that ate away at the skin and underlying soft tissue.

It turned out to be mucormycosis, a fungal infection caused by a group of molds found in soil and decaying matter, such as fallen leaves and rotting wood. The fungus can attack various parts of the body, but skin infections occur when the fungus contaminates a wound.

The cluster of 13 cases in Joplin was a very large one, the CDC reported in the Dec. 6 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "A typical hospital might normally see one case in a year," said senior researcher Dr. Benjamin Park, a medical officer at the CDC's mycotic diseases branch.

All 13 victims, five of whom died, had been in the most severely storm-damaged areas of Joplin. They'd suffered multiple wounds—including penetrating wounds in five people—and most had bone fractures. Those injuries were also often contaminated with debris from the storm, including gravel, wood and soil. "Particulate matter was basically blown into them by the tornado," Park explained.

All of the patients had surgery to remove the infected, dead tissue, along with antifungal drugs—though six initially got drugs that are not active against mucormycosis-causing fungi. It's not clear, the CDC team said, whether that made a difference in their outcomes. "In real time, it's hard to know what you're treating," Park said. So doctors might preemptively start a patient on antibiotics (which fight bacteria) or antifungal drugs before test results are in.

The Missouri outbreak underscores the importance of early testing to get patients the right treatment, Park said. "We want to raise awareness of this [infection] as a possibility after natural disasters," he added. Even though mucormycosis-causing fungi are ubiquitous, they rarely cause problems for people, said Dr. Thomas Patterson, chief of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Most often, the infection strikes people whose immune systems are compromised, from cancer or drugs used after an organ transplant, for example. And those are typically respiratory infections from inhaled mold spores. Still, the risk of mucormycosis in healthy people with traumatic injuries has been recognized, noted Patterson, who also is a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.



And he agreed on the importance of early recognition. "These infections are very difficult to treat," Patterson said. But he also noted that for most people injured in a natural disaster, any infections will be bacterial—though those, of course, also can become serious. "It's important to remember that in these [Joplin] cases, we're talking about people who had extensive injuries," Patterson said.

And because of that, preventing severe injuries during natural disasters should help prevent mucormycosis cases, according to the CDC. The public can take some steps of its own, Park said. If you live in a tornado-prone area, for example, you can make sure you have a "safe room" or some type of emergency shelter you can get to quickly. You should also be tuned in to your local area's tornado warning system. Thursday 6 December 2012 Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-fungus-deadly-infection-source-tornado.html#jCp

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Typhoon Botha: survivors search for relatives after Philippines storm

Parents searching for missing children examined a row of bodies while other survivors dried belongings on roadsides a day after a typhoon killed nearly 300 people in the southern Philippines.

Officials fear more bodies may be found as rescuers reach hard-hit areas that were isolated by landslides, floods and downed communications lines. At least 151 people died in the worst-hit province, Compostela Valley, when typhoon Bopha hit on Tuesday. The victims included 78 villagers and soldiers who died in a flash flood that swamped two emergency shelters and a military camp.

Disaster response agencies reported 284 dead in the region and 14 fatalities elsewhere from the typhoon, one of the strongest to hit the country this year.

In New Bataan, a town of 45,000 people, 319 remained missing, said the interior secretary, Mar Roxas, on a visit to survey the damage.

"These were whole families among the registered missing," Roxas told the ABS-CBN TV network. "Entire families may have been washed away."

Bodies of victims were laid on the ground for viewing by people searching for missing relatives. A father wept when he found the body of his child after lifting a plastic cover. A mother went away in tears, unable to find her missing children. "I have three children," she said repeatedly, flashing three fingers before a TV cameraman.

Two men carried the mud-caked body of an unidentified girl that was covered with coconut leaves on a makeshift stretcher made from a blanket and wooden poles.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies issued an urgent appeal for $4.8m to help people directly affected by the typhoon. The deaths came despite government efforts to force residents out of high-risk communities as the typhoon approached.

On Wednesday evening the typhoon was over the South China Sea west of Palawan province. It was blowing northwestward and could be headed to Vietnam or southern China, according to government forecasters.

Thursday 6 December 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/05/typhoon-botha-survivors-philippines

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Four crew members die and seven missing after cargo and container ships collide in the North Sea

Four members of the crew of a ship that collided with another in the North Sea have died.

A further seven are missing after the crew of the Baltic Ace took to life rafts after colliding with a container ship in freezing conditions about 40 miles from the Dutch port of Rotterdam.

Thirteen members of the crew have been rescued. Four of the survivors were being flown to a hospital in Rotterdam and seven to an airbase in Belgium.

The Baltic Ace is understood to have collided with the container ship the Corvus J in the busy shipping lanes.

Dutch coastguard spokesman Peter Verburg confirmed that two life boats and a helicopter were pulling crew members out of four life rafts found near the scene of the collision.

He said that helicopters had picked up 11 crew members on the life rafts while two others had been rescued by passing ships.

Rescuers were using infrared cameras to hunt for more survivors.

'We still hope to find them,' Kees Brinkman, a spokesman for rescuers, told Dutch television after the collision. But, he added, 'their chances of survival are shrinking.'

The condition of the Corvus J was unknown but it is understood the vessel was not in immediate danger following the incident. Mr Vorburg said that the 12-man crew were all still onboard.

'It is badly damaged, but not in danger of sinking,' he said, adding that the cause of the collision was not yet known.

'At the moment we are solely focused on getting the people to safety,' he added. Dutch media reported that the Baltic Ace was en route from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Kotka in Finland, while the Corvus J was going from Grangemouth in Scotland to Antwerp, Belgium.

Rotterdam port is Europe’s biggest and a disruption to shipping lanes in the vicinity could affect a wide range of goods in and out of Europe.

No one at the port authority was available to comment.

Thursday 6 December 2012

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2243600/BREAKING-NEWS-Major-rescue-operation-underway-cargo-ship-sinks-North-Sea.html#ixzz2EE466lWt

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