Mauritius: 10 killed after floods in Port Louis

At least 10 people were killed after the sudden floods in Mauritius capital Port Louis on Saturday. Eight dead bodies have been recovered so far, the BBC reported.

The meteorologist said that 152 mm of rain fell in less than an hour.

Prime Minister Navin Rangoolam said that Mauritian was suffering from acclimated weather and people have been advised to stay inside the houses. He has declared 1 April as a day of mourning in the entire country.

According to one of the Mauritius newspaper, the disaster has paralyzed the traffic on roads and caused chaos in the city.

More rain is expected in next few days.

Sunday 31 March 2013

http://daily.bhaskar.com/article/WOR-TOP-mauritius-10-killed-after-sudden-flood-drowns-port-louis-4222285-NOR.html

Update: Leading archaeologist calls for accountability on Matale mass grave

Following reports submitted by professor in archaeology Raj Somadeva and forensic medical specialist Ajith Jayasena, who investigated the unearthed human remains, Matale magistrate court has confirmed that the deaths can be dated to a period when a Sinhala youth uprising was defeated by Sri Lanka’s military.

The time of the killings were determined by ‘material objects’ identified by the investigators. On the basis of archaeological and forensic evidence provided by experts Matale Magistrate and Additional District Judge Chaturika De Silva has said that the bodies were found to be of those killed between 1986 and 1990.

The Sinhala youth uprising led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) during the period was crushed by state armed forces in 1989. The number of unaccounted youth at the time under the rule of United national Party (UNP) was estimated to be over 30,000.

Professor Raj Somadeva says that no evidence could be found to demonstrate the Matale mass grave deaths were due to natural causes or an epidemic.

Therefore, ‘I have said in my report that there should be someone who is responsible for this mass grave,’ the Uppsala University archaeology scholar told JDS by telephone.

Judicial Medical Officer Dr. Ajith Jayasena has earlier told BBC that the mass grave should be regarded as a crime site as it was not a regular place of burial.

“Evidence of decapitation, dismemberment and concealment” indicates that “crimes were committed,” Dr. Jayasena told Al Jazeera.

Raj Somadeva of the Kelaniya University’s Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology said that the bodies were buried ‘not in a manner that is characteristic of any Sri Lankan community’.

“Some were found by themselves. There were other bodies stacked in groups of six and four. Only skulls of some of the deceased could be found. Only partial skeletons in some other cases,” he added.

‘Gota’s War’ on Matale

Sri Lanka’s powerful defence secretary was the military commander in Matale a few years into the JVP uprising, reveals a biography released last year. In ‘Gota’s War,’ Journalist C. A. Chandraprema says that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was promoted as ‘the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion of the Gajaba Regiment’.

“With this promotion, he was posted to Matale as the district coordinating officer tasked with bringing the JVP under control. The first Gajaba Battalion, which had been in Trincomalee for nearly one and a half years, was brought down to Matale,” Chandraprema writes in chapter twenty eight ‘The Second JVP Insurrection’.

He also records that senior Sri Lankan commanders accused of war crimes during the offensive that defeated Tamil Tigers militarily in 2009, assisted Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in the crushing of the JVP in Matale district. “Lieutenants Shavendra Silva, Jagath Dias and Sumedha Perera were among his company commanders in Matale,” says ‘Gota’s War’. Until the military defeat of the JVP in 1989 the present defence secretary has ‘remained the security coordinating officer of Matale,’ and in January 1990, ‘he applied for three months leave and went to the USA to see his family’.

The JVP and its breakaway group Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) who suspect that the destiny of their former comrades and their loved ones could be established from the Matale mass grave remains, have called for a ‘thorough inquiry’. Meanwhile, a senior official of the presidential committee appointed to investigate disappearance during the period says that the UNP government prevented the publishing of evidence provided by members of the public. Former Secretary of the Special Commission of Inquiries on Disappearances, ICM Iqbal told JDS that the government ‘intentionally removed evidence given by victims on mass graves and torture chambers’ “The commission was barred from publishing those details for a further thirty years,” he added.

Death toll in Tanzania building collapse rises to 22, bodies visually identified

As the death toll from the 16-storey building that collapsed in Dar es Salaam rose to 22 yesterday afternoon, there was fresh scare just opposite the ill-fated structure which scared off President Jakaya Kikwete and his security men from the rescue site.

The president, who was scheduled to visit the tragic site for the second time yesterday, failed to arrive at the area after rumours spread that another building owned by the same person and constructed by the same contactor could also collapse.

President Kikwete was scheduled to arrive at the site around mid-day but his security officers detailed him some 60 metres away from the rescue area.

However, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda had earlier visited the area, where he hailed rescuers for their efforts.

As the operations is going on, the government has ordered people who are living close to the remaining 16th building owned by the same owner of the ill-fated structure to vacate their premises for their safety following reports that, the twin building is likely to cause a danger in future.

However, the Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Said Meck Sadiq issued the order yesterday which up to now almost many people who had hired the residential apartments close to the feared building have vacated.

One of the residents in the area, Amir Khan of the Asian origin told The Guardian yesterday at the are that, he is appealing to the government to do quick investigations on the building and if possible it should be destroyed for the safety of the people around.

Meanwhile the SACP Suleiman Kova held a press conference at the site later in the evening at around 14:30 hours and said that, so far six people are being held by the police for interrogation in connection with the matter.

According to him, the construction of the collapsed building which stood on plot number 1662/75 had been given a permit for construction when it was agreed that, it was supposed to have 10 storey on its completion. But to the great dismay, other 6 storey had been added by whose authority, he queried.

Commander Kova is on the view of the fact that, the two National Boards would help to carry a soil test for the debris which he said has already been taken for hammer test to a disclosed scientist who he couldn’t mention as it is too earlier and moreover for security purposes.

He also said that, about 22 bodies have been retrieved from the scene since the rescue operation started that morning on Friday, and out of these 8 bodies have been identified. He added that, the government would finance the purchase of shrouds and coffins for the dead ones.

However, he further noted that, 17 people who sustained injuries are still in hospital receiving medical treatment.

Meanwhile, the Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Said Meck Sadiq has cautioned Dar es Salaam residents and Tanzanians as a whole to be patient as the government is closely working to find out the right cause of the accident and will be getting updating information in connection with the issue.

“This is a national disaster and I am appealing to all people not to take any loophole and disengage in any matters that would disrupt investigations which the government has started to collect in order to get the truth of the matter” he said and insisted people to be calm as this is being worked out.

The Friday’s accident could be the worst tragedy involving four series of the collapse of high-rise buildings in the country since independence time. On August, 1987 a four-storey building under construction collapsed along Msimbazi Street, killing seven people.

In 2006, a three-storey building in Chang’ombe area collapsed, injuring several people. Former Prime Minister Edward Lowassa formed a team to investigate the incident but its findings and recommendations are yet to be made public to date.

In 2008, a ten-storey building along Mtendeni Street in Kisutu area also collapsed, injuring some individuals.

In another development, relatives of the people who died from the collapsed building have so far identify only eight bodies of their loved ones – but difficulties of identity could force the government bury them without traditional rites.

“I’ve been here since yesterday looking for the body of my father who died in this building. I have yet to identify his body, ” said Noel Eliakim

Noel is not alone. Abdalh Salehe who is also at the MNH to identify his father, says he failed to recognize his body because he felt confused after seeing so many mutilated bodies.

“ … it is very hard to recognize your beloved one because some of them have no heads … so you have to look at other parts like legs to identify him or her … but some of them have neither legs nor heads … they are completely destroyed,” Salehe complained

Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Seif Rashid, who visited the MNH yesterday said four of the eight victims admitted at the hospital were discharged yesterday.

Dr. Rashid, however, explained there could be more casualties.

Sunday 31 March 2013

http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=52954

Floating bodies in Indira canal giving sleepless nights to the police

The Indira Gandhi Canal, which runs over 650 kilometres through Rajasthan, is considered a lifeline for thousands of farmers. The free flow of water is however giving sleepless nights to the police with the canal churning out bodies of murdered people in Jaisalmer almost every week.

It is a routine for residents of Mohangarh and Ramgarh areas in the district to spot floating bodies. In 2012, they found 32 bodies floating in the canal. As many as 14 bodies have been found so far this year.

Eight bodies have been found over the past one week from the canal in Jaisalmer where it ends after having an 800 kilometre-long flow from Punjab. So far, the cops were able to identify only one of the bodies found this year. Most of them are of people who were murdered, they said. The criminals dump the bodies in the canal either in Haryana and Punjab or in Rajasthan's Sriganganagar to avoid detection by the cops.

"We had found three bodies at two different places on Sunday. Only one was identified due to a tattoo on his hand. The deceased man turned out to be Jasveer Singh, an elected sarpanch at Haryana's Chattargarh Patti. He was murdered by his wife with help of her paramour," said SP, Jaisalmer, Pankaj Kumar Choudhary. Haryana police came to Jaisalmer and took away the body, the SP added.

After Jasveer went missing, a case was lodged with Haryana's Sirsa police station where the family members also gave Jasveer's photo and told the police that his wife's name was tattooed on his right hand. Based on these details, the body was identified.

Haryana police informed their counterparts in Jaisalmer that Jasveer was murdered on February 10 and his body was immediately dumped in the canal. It took 35 days for the body to flow to Jaisalmer before being spotted in the canal. The Haryana police are said to have arrested the wife and her paramour.

Similarly, the body of one Gurlal Das was recovered on November 10 last year. It came up that the victim was a resident of Sriganganagar. He too was killed allegedly by his wife Sonu with the help of her paramour. Officials said that of the 32 bodies found in 2012, the police have been able to identify only 14.

Sunday 31 March 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Floating-bodies-in-Indira-canal-put-cops-in-a-fix/articleshow/19299613.cms

Searchers pull bodies out of Tibet mudslide that buried 83

Authorities in Tibet said Sunday that chances were slim that any survivors would be found after a massive mudslide at a gold mine buried 83 workers in piles of earth up to 30 meters deep. Searchers have found 11 bodies and were searching for the remaining missing.

The landslide Friday has spotlighted the extensive mining activities in the mountainous Chinese region of Tibet and sparked questions about whether mining activities have been excessive and destroyed the region’s fragile ecosystem.

The workers were buried when mud, rock and debris swept through the mine in Gyama village in Maizhokunggar county and covered an area measuring around 4 square kilometers (1.5 square miles), about 70 kilometers (45 miles) east of the regional capital, Lhasa.

By Sunday afternoon, searchers had found 11 bodies and were searching for the remaining 72 missing workers, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said. Xinhua quoted the Communist Party deputy secretary for Tibet, W. Yingjie, as saying chances were slim of finding anyone alive.

The miners worked for Huatailong Mining Development, a subsidiary of the China National Gold Group Corp., a state-owned enterprise and the country’s largest gold producer. Beijing says the cause of the disaster has yet to be fully investigated, although state media say the mudslide was caused by a “natural disaster,” without giving specifics.

Criticisms over possibly excessive mining in Tibet flashed through China’s social media Saturday before they were scrubbed off or blocked from public view by censors.

Btan Tundop, a Tibetan resident, noted the Huatailong mine’s dominance in the area in a short-lived microblog: “The entire Maizhokunggar has been taken over by China National Gold Group. Local Tibetans say the county and the village might as well be called Huatailong.”

The Chinese government has been encouraging development of mining and other industries in long-isolated Tibet as a way to promote its economic growth and raise living standards. The region has abundant deposits of copper, chromium, bauxite and other precious minerals and metals, and is one of fast-growing China’s last frontiers.

Tibet remains among China’s poorest regions despite producing a large share of its minerals. A key source of anti-Chinese anger is complaints by local residents that they get little of the wealth extracted by government companies, most of which flows to distant Beijing.

Wangchuktseten, a Tibetan scholar at Northwest University of Nationalities in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, said he was most worried about the environment. “The Tibetan plateau is considered the lungs of Asia,” he said. “Those short-sighted mining activities chase after quick benefits but ignore the environment for future generations.”

State media said that two of the buried workers are Tibetans, and that two are women.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang ordered authorities to “spare no efforts” in their rescue work, state media have reported.

Sunday 31 March 2013

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/chinese-crews-search-through-30-meter-pileups-after-tibet-mudslide-buries-83-miners/2013/03/30/ff392e7e-99b5-11e2-b5b4-b63027b499de_story.html

The bones tell the story: The search for Peru's missing

In Peru last week, forensic anthropologists revealed that for the first time, they had confirmed the identities of three individuals who had been disappeared by government forces during that country's internal armed conflict. During the 1980s, hundreds of people were detained, brought to the Los Cabitos military base, brutally tortured, and were never seen or heard from again.

In 2009, forensic anthropologists searching for the disappeared in Los Cabitos had unearthed the remains of more than 100 people. Virtually all the remains show signs of torture and execution-style deaths. Until now, none of those bodies had been identified.

Using DNA matching between the recovered remains and samples from living relatives of the victims, the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) was able to determine that two of the bodies belonged to individuals who were reported by relatives to have gone missing in the Los Cabitos military base in 1984, and the third in 1985.

The Los Cabitos military base was the centre of counterinsurgency operations in Ayacucho, the birthplace of the Maoist Shining Path insurgency and the epicentre of the war between insurgents and government forces that took the lives of nearly 70,000 Peruvians. Of these, 15,000 were forcibly disappeared, mostly by government forces, with no trace of their bodies to date.

The identifications offer incontrovertible proof that the military systematically detained, tortured and executed hundreds of presumed "subversives" during Peru's "time of fear". To date, no one has been convicted of these crimes, despite the fact that they occurred 30 years ago.

Peru's Auschwitz

It was long rumoured that the Los Cabitos military base was used by government forces as a clandestine detention centre and that heinous acts of torture were visited upon the bodies of presumed subversives. In the early 1980s, at the start of the conflict, government forces had little understanding of the insurgency. Indigenous communities became seen as safe havens of terrorists, and indiscriminate massacres ensued in the military's effort to "kill the fish" by "draining the sea".

Forced disappearances also became a common government tactic. In the latter half of the 1980s, the United Nations said that government forces had disappeared more people in Peru than anywhere else on the planet. Women congregated outside the Los Cabitos military base day after day, seeking information about their missing husbands, fathers, children. Some say they saw their husbands inside the base, while others received missives from their detained sons, ferreted out by compassionate soldiers, under the noses of their superiors. In most cases, they never saw their loved ones again.

A book published in 2004 by Peruvian journalist Ricardo Uceda confirmed the rumours. A former intelligence officer, Jesús Sosa Saavedra, who went by the nickname "Kerosene", confessed to having been ordered by the then head of Los Cabitos, General Wilfredo Mori Orzo, to dig up the cadavers of detainees who had been murdered, and incinerate them. Four ovens were built, and Kerosene admits to having personally disposed of at least 300 bodies this way. He also admitted to having executed prisoners in 1983 in Los Cabitos.

Forensic anthropologists discovered four ovens with the charred remains of bodies inside, as well as pipes that were used to power the ovens. Based on the exhumations to date, they estimate that more than 1,000 bodies could be interred at Los Cabitos. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR), set up in 2001 to investigate the abuses of the past, documented the kidnapping, torture and/or execution [SP] of 138 people at Los Cabitos between 1983 and 1984. According to the CVR's Final Report, "It is evident that the high command of the [Los Cabitos] military installation had dominion over and control of the actions that occurred there that constitute human rights violations."

The military on trial

A legal case is currently underway in Peru focusing on crimes at Los Cabitos during 1983. Seven high ranking military officers, including the head of the armed forces that year, are charged with the murder, forced disappearance, and torture of 53 victims. An investigation is still underway involving the crimes that took place at Los Cabitos during 1984 and 1985. Gloria Cano, a seasoned human rights lawyer and director of the Pro Human Rights Association (Aprodeh), represents the victims in both cases.

I was in Peru last August and observed several court sessions. For a week, the court relocated to Ayacucho so as to facilitate the testimony of survivors and relatives of victims who could not make the long trip to Lima to testify. Several survivors told harrowing stories of being detained and submitted to various forms of torture.

One man stood up to show the court how his captors tied his arms behind his back, hung him from his wrists, and proceeded to kick and beat him. Another told the court that when he was in the torture chamber, he witnessed soldiers rape a young girl. After giving her testimony in Quechua, an elderly woman walked up to the judges, raised her hands to the sky, and implored them to help her find her missing son and to provide the economic reparations the government has promised victims but has only begun to deliver in recent years, in piecemeal fashion, decades after the conflict. Several witnesses described in heartbreaking detail their fruitless search for their relatives among the ravines and cliffs where dead bodies were being dumped, and were often consumed by wild pigs and other animals.

The trial for Los Cabitos 1983 started in May 2011 and is expected to end later this year. The slow pace is in part due to the fact that the mandate Special Criminal Court, which originally included cases of terrorism, crimes against humanity, and human rights violations, has expanded to include drug trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping, and most recently, social conflict. Judges have difficulty managing their case load and few courtrooms are available to hold trial, so hearings in cases like Los Cabitos take place only once every week or so, for only a few hours at a time. The glacial pace of the court system imposes new hardships on the victims, who have waited decades to know the truth about their loved ones and see justice done.

In addition, key information is missing about what happened at Los Cabitos military base. The prosecutor's office and human rights lawyers have sought access to military documents, but they are met with refusals to collaborate and claims that all documents pertaining to the period in question were destroyed in accordance with military regulations. Yet, in 2010, the Army published a book - its own version of the past, since it refuses to accept the truth commission's final report - that makes references to documents that might shed light on what happened at Los Cabitos and other military bases in Peru's war zones. To date, these documents have not been made accessible to investigators, so it has been impossible to reconstruct the chain of command or identify military personnel who worked inside the military base during those years.

The eternal anguish of the relatives of the disappeared

Less than one percent of Peru's 15,000 disappeared have been identified, according to José Pablo Baraybar, a forensic anthropologist who worked in the Balkans and is currently the director of EPAF. The CVR identified over 6,000 clandestine graves across the country, but overall few exhumations have been conducted. Baraybar says the problem is that the Peruvian state has failed to take seriously the CVR's recommendations to develop a national plan to search for the missing. This has a lot to do with the fact, he says, that the disappeared hail from Peru's rural, indigenous population, who have been historically excluded from political and economic life.

The identifications announced last week will surely inspire hope among the relatives of Peru's 15,000 disappeared that more of the missing can be identified, their bodies returned to their loved ones, and buried. This is a crucial step for relatives of the disappeared, who continue to live in a state of anguished uncertainty about the fate of their missing loved ones. When I visited Ayacucho again last November, I spoke with one woman who told me that she continues to search for her husband, who was kidnapped by government forces in the middle of the night in 1984. She thinks he is probably dead. But there are days when she is walking down the street and thinks she sees him. This is the anguish that forced disappearance imposes upon those who survive: an endless unknowing that perpetuates the suffering of the dead and the living alike.

Saturday 30 March 2013

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/2013330141926998582.html

28 Dead in China Mine Gas Blast

Twenty-eight miners have been killed in a gas explosion at a coal mine in northeast China, state media have confirmed.

The accident at the Babao Coal Mine in the city of Baishan in Jilin province came on the same day as 83 miners were feared dead after a landslide near a mine in Tibet.

A further 13 workers were rescued after the incident at the colliery, which is owned by the state's Tonghua Mining (Group) Company, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

There is rising concern in China about the number of fatalities in mining accidents, as corrupt officials cut corners with safety measures in order to meet the insatiable demand for coal, making Chinese mines amongst the most dangerous in the world.

China is the world's largest consumer of coal, with the fossil fuel meeting up to 70 percent of the country's energy needs.

But its mines are among the deadliest in the world because of lax regulation, corruption and inefficiency. Accidents are common because safety is often neglected by bosses seeking quick profits.

Earlier this month 28 people were killed and 58 managed to escape to the surface after an explosion at the Machang coal mine in Guizhou Province, Xinhua reported.

An accident at a coal mine in southwest China killed 21 miners earlier this month, state media said. Xinhua said 58 had managed to get to the surface safely after the coal and gas outburst at the Machang coal mine in Guizhou Province.

An explosion at the Shangchang Coal Mine in the southwest Yunnan province left 17 people dead last December, while a month earlier, 23 people were killed in a gas explosion in a coal mine in Guizhou province, which borders Yunnan.

Last August, seven people died in a coal mine accident in the city of Jilin, which is located in China's northern industrial rustbelt.

The state administration of work safety said last year it would close more than 600 small coal mines, which are considered more dangerous than the larger mines.

Efforts to improve safety in China's coal mines have seen the numbers of accidents decrease in recent years.

The Chinese government last year closed down 600 of country's smaller and least safe mines. Official figures show a fall in the number of mining fatalities, with the 1,384 killed in 2012 down from 1,973 the year before.

However, many believe that the real death toll may be much higher, with managers often concealing fatalities and accidents in order to escape punishment and avoid being exposed as corrupt. The gains of a successful cover-up often outweigh the risks of a successful disaster response in China's authoritarian system, in which managers are rewarded for strictly adhering to centrally imposed targets.

But labour rights groups say the actual death toll is likely to be much higher, partly due to under-reporting of accidents as mine bosses seek to limit their economic losses and avoid punishment.

Zhang Dejiang, a leading Chinese politician who currently sits on the elite seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, previously said coal mine accidents "ring the alarm, warning us that accident prevention is a complex, difficult, and urgent task".

Saturday 30 March 2013

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/451887/20130330/china-mine-explosion-28-killed-blast.htm

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130329/china-mine-blast-kills-28-state-media-0

First body reportedly found after China landslide buries 83

Rescue teams found the first body Saturday almost 36 hours after a giant landslide in Tibet buried 83 mine workers under two million cubic metres of earth, China's state media reported.

Xinhua news agency said rescuers "found the first body at 5.35 pm", after a huge section of land buried a copper mine workers' camp in Maizhokunggar county, east of the Tibetan capital Lhasa, at 6:00 am on Friday (2200 GMT Thursday).

The report came after officials said at a press conference at 10.O0 am Saturday that a massive search and rescue operation had failed to locate any survivors or bodies up to that point.

A rescue worker had also described the chance of survivors being found as "slim", Xinhua said, as teams using sniffer dogs and radar combed the mountainside in a hunt for survivors that was hampered by bad weather, altitude sickness and further landslides.

Potentially invaluable in the rescue, an excavator was broken in the landslide and has been pulled out of the debris, and rescuers were seen digging with their bare hands, as the narrow and damaged local roads had prevented much large-scale machinery from entering, said Xinhua reporters at the site.

Meanwhile, an emergency response team attempted to prevent a secondary disaster.

The Tibetan landslide came on the same day as a gas blast in a northeast China coal mine killed 28 people. State media said 13 others were rescued after the accident at Babao Coal Mine in the city of Baishan in Jilin province.

State-run China National Television (CNTV) said on its news website that "rescue workers have established three defensive lines" around the landslide disaster zone to prevent "secondary disasters", without giving details.

It also said that some of the 2,000-strong rescue team had set up temporary accommodation half-way up the mountain as a safety measure against further landslides. The disaster zone is located 4,600 metres (15,000 feet) above sea level.

The Xinhua report quoted a rescue worker saying there were cracks along nearby mountains, which indicated further landslides were possible.

It also said that rescuers had been suffering from slight altitude sickness and that "further minor landslides" had hampered their efforts.

"Temperatures as low as minus three degrees Celsius have also affected the sniffer dogs' senses of smell," the report added.

State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) Saturday showed dozens of bulldozers shifting earth as others headed to the disaster area in Tibet.

The Tencent news website said 15 dog teams and 15 teams using radar monitoring equipment were accompanying 200 bulldozers and heavy lifting vehicles.

The victims of the disaster worked for a subsidiary of the China National Gold Group Corporation (CNGG), a state-owned company and the nation's biggest gold miner by output.

Almost all of them were Han Chinese, the national ethnic majority, with only two ethnic Tibetans, Xinhua said. Most were migrant workers from the provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan.

China's new president Xi Jinping, who is currently visiting the Republic of Congo in Africa, and new premier Li Keqiang had ordered "top efforts" to rescue the victims, Xinhua added.

Mountainous regions of Tibet are prone to landslides, which can be exacerbated by heavy mining activity.

In recent years China has discovered huge mineral resources in Tibet, including tens of millions of tonnes of copper, lead and zinc, and billions of tonnes of iron ore, according to state media reports.

CNGG could not be reached by AFP on Saturday. An official from Maizhokunggar county said all of her colleagues were at the scene, but could not be reached for updates.

More than 300,000 cubic metres of debris had been removed by noon Saturday, officials told Xinhua.

The affected area is 3 km wide and 30 meters deep in average, covered with about 2 million cubic meters of mud, rock and debris, a Xinhua reporter said from the disaster site.

Jiang said there were cracks along nearby mountains, which indicated a possibility of subsequent disasters. A team consisting of geological experts has been organized to monitor the geological situation.

Saturday 30 March 2013

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1263175/1/.html

Rescuers dig through rubble seeking missing in Tanzania building collapse

Rescuers planned to search for survivors under a mountain of concrete and twisted metal Friday night after a high-rise building collapsed in Tanzania.

At least four people were dead and 60 were missing after the 16-story building under construction collapsed in Tanzania’s largest city, government and emergency officials said.

Five children are believed to be among the missing, rescue official Walji Ali said.

The building collapsed Friday with a “huge whoosh and then thump,” said eyewitness Ali Jawad Bhimani, a hotel owner who lives near the building in Dar es Salaam’s normally bustling Kariakoo central business district.

“The fallen building is next to our mosque. There is a small field there where the young boys play football. The building fell right on top,” he said. “But 10 to 15 of the boys playing got away safely and are unharmed.”

A statement from the nearby mosque said that four of the boys believed to have been playing there were still missing.

Police and search dogs quickly flooded the scene, Bhimani said. By Friday evening, the dogs were gone, replaced by heavy equipment being used to remove debris, he said.

The Tanzanian Red Cross said rescue efforts would continue through the night. But the group also expressed relief that the casualty figures could have been far higher but the streets were relatively empty of vendors and shoppers due to a holiday.

“So far we have managed to rescue live at least 13 people and four dead bodies, two were seriously injured,” Stella Marealle from the Red Cross said.

In addition to the deaths, at least 17 people were injured, said Suleiman Kova, a regional police commander.

Construction workers were among those injured, Ali said.

Saturday 20 March 2013

http://wqad.com/2013/03/29/rescuers-dig-through-rubble-seeking-missing-in-tanzania-building-collapse/

Military torture chamber near Matale mass grave

The survivors of a military-run detention centre that existed during the southern counter-insurgency campaign have alleged the army had operated a torture chamber in a government school in the vicinity of the mass grave of Matale in 1989-90, and that the skeletons of the mass grave belong to the victims of that torture chamber.

The shocking disclosures come in the wake of Carbon C 14 Dating findings that have revealed the skeletal remains of over 150 bodies, unearthed from the mass grave, were buried in the period of 1986-90. Pubudu Jayakody, Political Secretary of the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), who insisted the remains that were unearthed from the mass grave were of his former comrades of the JVP, said the inmates of the torture chamber, which was operated from Vijaya Vidyalaya in the 1989-90, would soon come out to narrate their ordeal in the torture chamber.

Concern for their security is keeping them away for the moment, he said.

"A torture chamber was operated by a unit of the Gajaba Regiment of the Army in the Vijaya Vidyalaya, which was located in the vicinity of the Matale Hospital," he said.

"There are survivors of that torture chamber. And some of them are active members of our party to date and they will soon come out to reveal their experiences in the camp," he said.

On Thursday, Jayakody lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka demanding an inquiry into the mass grave.

Two specialist reports, which were submitted to the Matale Magistrate, have revealed the skeletal remains belong to the period of the Southern uprising, during which the security forces and the State-backed death squads were accused of carrying out large-scale extra-judicial killings and mass disappearances.

A report of the Judicial Medical Officer of Matale, which was submitted to the Matale Magistrate early this week, has explained in gory detail the torture the victims had been subjected to.

The report detailed that heads had been severed from the bodies of the victims using an electric saw and some skulls bore evidence that nails had been inserted into the heads of the victims. The report has also revealed the skeletons bore marks of being attacked using blunt weapons and subjected to extreme torture.

Prof. Raj Somadeva, professor of forensic archaeology at the University of Kelaniya in an earlier report confirmed the grave cannot be older than 1986 and newer than 1990.

Prof. Somadeva was commissioned by the Magistrate to prepare a report on the mass grave.

Saturday 30 March 2013

http://www.ceylontoday.lk/27-28519-news-detail-military-torture-chamber-near-matale-mass-grave.html

World Trade Center 9/11 construction debris to be sifted for human remains starting Monday

The city has collected about 60 dump truck loads of debris from construction areas around the World Trade Center site over the past two and a half years that will be sifted for fragments of 9/11 victims' remains, officials announced Friday.

The debris has been collected from the World Financial Center, West Street and a lot near Liberty Street since the last sifting operation in mid-2010.

The material amounts to 590 cubic yards -- 38 from the WTC, 13 from the western edge of the southbound lanes of West Street and 539 from the Liberty Street area, where four pieces of possible human remains have already been found.

The material will be combed for about 10 weeks starting Monday at a mobile sifting unit set up on Staten Island, city officials said.

Any human remains will be analyzed by the medical examiner's office for possible matches to 9/11 victims. Of the 2,750 people killed at the trade center, 1,634 have had remains identified.

"We will continue DNA testing until all recovered remains that can be matched with a victim are identified," Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway wrote Friday in a memo to Mayor Bloomberg.

The city expanded its search for remains of trade center victims in 2006, when several bones were found in a manhole.

Watch a time-lapse video of the 9/11 memorial being constructed from 2004 to 2011.

Since the discovery of the manhole bones, the city has sifted debris from various construction sites and subterranean areas surrounding the 16-acre trade center site. More than 1,800 pieces of potential human remains have been found.

The office has made 34 new identifications since 2006, and hundreds of fragments of remains have been matched to people who were already identified.

Friday 29 March 2013

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/World-Trade-Center-911-Victims-Remains-Sifting-Construction-200619641.html

Officials in Lanzhou say bodies floating in river not affecting water quality

Lanzhou officials say the quality of local water is actually improving – despite more than 100 bodies being discovered in the Yellow River each year.

Between 2008 and 2012 police extracted 417 bodies from the Yellow River, which runs through the region, Lanzhou authorities told the China News Service on Thursday.

Lanzhou environmental bureau deputy chief Li Lei said officers had been closely monitoring the quality of drinking water and did not find it had been affected by bodies in the river.

“Based on our overall measuring results in past years, water quality not only remained normal, but in some cases has even improved,” Li said.

His remarks reflect growing public concern about the quality of the drinking water. This comes after recent online rumours that more than 10,000 bodies were floating in the Yellow River, which flows through the capital city of Gansu province.

The rumours were sparked by a report in the Oriental Morning Post last October. Citing accounts from different authorities, it said that since the 1960s there have been at least 10,000 bodies found floating within an 80km-stretch of the Yellow River.

But Lanzhou police bureau spokesman Huang Xiaoping said most of the bodies in the river were people who died from accidents and suicides. Out the 417 bodies retrieved, only two were involved in criminal activities, he told the agency.

In 2005, Xiaosanxia Power, which owns two hydropower stations in the region, issued a report on the water quality.

“The bodies would generate much more pollutants than daily disposals if they remain in water and decompose,” the company said. It said it had found dozens of bodies floating with household rubbish every year.

Lanzou’s environmental authority said it would deal promptly with the matter. “We would put more effort into supervising the water quality. In the case of abnormal situations, we would issue more warnings,” Li said.

Earlier this month, over 10,000 dead pigs were fished from a Shanghai river. More than 1,000 duck carcasses were found in a river in Sichuan. The government has repeatedly claimed the water quality was still good.

The Yellow River is the second-longest in Asia after the Yangtze and has an estimated length of 5,464km. It runs through nine provinces in China, including Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Shanxi and Henan.

Friday 29 March 2013

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1202481/officials-lanzhou-say-bodies-floating-river-not-affecting-water-quality

Landslide buries 83 in Tibet mine area

Eighty-three workers were buried after a large-scale landslide hit a mining area in Tibet on Friday, China's state media reported.

A coal mine near the city of Kaili in China's Guizhou province after a landslide on February 18, 2013. Eighty-three workers were buried after a large-scale landslide hit a mining area in Tibet on Friday, China's state media reported.

The landslide took place at about 6:00 am (2200 GMT Thursday) in Maizhokunggar County in Tibet's capital Lhasa, and trapped workers from a subsidiary of China National Gold Group Corporation, a mining firm, said Xinhua.

No deaths have been announced, and a local official reached by AFP confirmed that the landslide had occurred, but could not state the number of casualties.

State-run broadcaster CCTV quoted a member of China's People's Armed Police on the scene as saying that "the situation looks serious, the collapsed area is three or four square kilometres".

Rescuers have so-far found no signs of the trapped, the policeman added.

The landslide affected an area three kilometres long, Xinhua said, citing a local government department. The agency added that more than 1,000 rescuers are working at the site, which is at an altitude of 4,600 metres.

The buried include two Tibetans, Xinhua said, without mentioning the ethnicities of the other workers. Many members of the Han Chinese ethnic group have moved to Tibet in recent decades to work in state-run mines.

Mountainous regions of Tibet are prone to landslides, which can be exacerbated by heavy mining activity.

Friday 29 March 2013

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/343039/landslide-buries-83-in-tibet-mine-area-state-media

Ivory Coast to exhume bodies from post-election conflict

Ivory Coast officials say exhumations of mass graves dating back to the country’s 2010-11 post-election violence will begin next week. Both the government and rights workers say this process could produce a fuller picture of what went on during the six-month conflict and help in the fight against impunity.

The Justice Ministry announced this week that exhumations would begin on April 4 in the Abidjan district of Yopougon, which was a flashpoint during the post-election violence.

Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo attends a confirmation of charges hearing in his pre-trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, February 19, 2013.Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo attends a confirmation of charges hearing in his pre-trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, February 19, 2013.

​​The conflict began after former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to leave office despite losing the November 2010 election to his challenger, current President Alassane Ouattara.

Although Gbagbo was arrested in April 2011, rights groups documented reprisal killings in Yopougon allegedly committed by the pro-Ouattara Republican Forces of Ivory Coast, or FRCI, that lasted into the following month.

Earlier this month, officials also began investigating more mass graves discovered outside the western town of Duekoue.

Unlike the graves in Yopougon, these graves are believed to have been dug after the post-election conflict - following a July 2012 raid on a camp for displaced persons.

Florent Geel, Africa director for the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), praised the beginning of the probes, but urged judicial officials to carry out a thorough investigation.

“It was the search and identification on the ground by the investigative judges of two mass graves identified by our witnesses," said Geel. "It was concretely the beginning of the inquiry by the investigative judge. It’s a first step of the judiciary machine in a way, and a concrete step to go forward and to have a real and clear investigation.”

FIDH documented interviews with witnesses who said that FRCI soldiers were involved in the raid on the camp. Officially, the attack claimed eight lives, though rights groups have said the death toll was likely much higher.

One mass grave found in the area was exhumed last October, yielding six bodies. But Geel said there are about a dozen others that have not been investigated.

The army commander in the region was reassigned after the attack on the camp, and officials have not formally responded to the allegations of military involvement.

Geel said a credible investigation would help to dispel the perception that Ouattara’s army is above the law.

“If justice is done on this case, it will show there is not orientated justice, and that the FRCI is not out of the scope of justice and that the FRCI can be judged in Côte d’Ivoire," he said. "That’s why this case is symbolic, important, and could show the good will of the political authorities in Abidjan.”

Soriba Kone, communications chief for the Justice Ministry, said he did not know how many mass graves officials would need to investigate, nor could he provide a timeline for when the effort might be completed.

Friday 29 March 2013

http://www.voanews.com/content/ivory-coast-to-exhume-bodies-from-post-election-conflict/1631121.html

9 killed, 12 hurt in Mewat bus accident

Nine persons, including three women and two children were killed and 12 were critically injured in a road accident in Mewat on Thursday afternoon when a dumper and private bus collided on Delhi-Alwar Road near Nasirbas village. While eight persons died on the spot, a woman died during treatment.

Four among the injured were critical and were referred to the medical college, Nalhar in Mewat, and Delhi. Other injured are under treatment in Al-Afia hospital in Mewat. The police and local administration reached the spot and arranged for transfer of injured.

According to police, both the dumper and the bus were coming for Firozepur Jhirka side and were going towards Nasirbas. After crossing Bori Kothi, the dumper collided with the bus from the driver's side around 2.30pm.

The collision was so massive that no passenger escaped without injuries. Glass shards, personal belongings and even parts of bodies lay strewn on the road as local residents rushed to help.

Three among the killed have been identified as Ratti, a resident of Jhimrawat village, Arshida, a resident of Dhond village, and Shakeel, a resident of Maholi village. The other six were not identified till late evening on Thursday and peoples were reaches in hospital for searching their family members.

The injured persons are identified as Jamshed, Akbar, Charan Singh, Mohmmad Hamid, Junaid, Asubi, Tayyab Hussain, Mazid, Islami, Suman, Rumisa, Sirdar, Laiba, Miskina. Jamshed, Asubi and others two were reportedly critical and they refer in other hospitals of Delhi and Nalhar.

Though the police have booked the owner of the dumper for negligence, local residents are up in arms against the administration for not checking illegal entry of dumpers.

"Everyday one or the other man loses his life to a rash dumper, but authorities turn a blind eye. There is fixed time for entry of dumpers but they throng roads throughout the day because our officials take money to allow them. Thousands of times different organizations have moved to administration seeking respite but of no use. Mewat roads are so dangerous but they do nothing because our lives are don't matter to them," said a local sarpanch.

"Police is doing its duty, but at this moment its safety of injured is that we bothered about," said Sukhbir Singh, SP, Mewat.

Friday 29 March 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/gurgaon/9-killed-12-hurt-in-bus-accident/articleshow/19268263.cms

Deaths reported in Tanzania building collapse

At least 15 people have been killed in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, when a building under construction collapsed, a police officer has said.

Witnesses at the site, where some people were using their hands to pull away fallen masonry, said on Friday the building fell near where children had been playing, and many might be still trapped.

"Fifteen bodies have been recovered from the rubble," Suleiman Kova, Dar es Salaam Police Commander, told reporters at the site.

"So far, only two people have been rescued alive, but the rescue operation is still ongoing."

The building of 12 or more storeys fell in the Kariakoo district of the city, where a buoyant economy has fuelled a construction boom.

Kariakoo in particular has been in the focus for building, and the speed of construction has raised concerns over standards.

Witnesses said dozens of construction workers were in the building when it fell. Others said boys had been playing football in a mosque playground next to the building.

"There are several people trapped inside the building," said Hamisi Mgosi, a trader in Kariakoo.

"A boy called his father through his cellphone from inside the collapsed building and told him he can't breathe." Senior government officials also gathered at the scene.

The building belonged to the state-run National Housing Corporation in partnership with a private investor.

Mr. Kova told journalists who rushed to the scene that investigation started immediately to establish the cause of the disaster which, apparently, was not unprecedented in this commercial capital of Tanzania that is witnessing a mushrooming of tall sky scrapers.

In recent times, some structures have crumbled while under construction and blame has, in many cases, been on poor engineering.

Friday 29 March 2013

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/03/201332911935186458.html

Japan raises specter of more devastating quake

The Nankai Trough extends for hundred of kilometers parallel with the Japanese coast, off heavily populated areas south of Tokyo. A new report has issued a chilling warning of what a major quake in the trough would mean.

An earthquake in the Nankai Trough could be on a scale 10 times that of the disaster that befell Tohoku in March 2011.

More worryingly, experts warn that a mega-quake is overdue.

A little over two years after vast stretches of northeastern Japan were laid waste by the worst natural disaster to strike Japan in living memory, killing close to 19,000 people, a 400-page study has warned that a far more serious threat lies brooding just off the coast.

A report compiled by the Central Disaster Management Council, as a direct result of the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake of two years ago, predicts that a magnitude-9 quake in the volatile Nankai Trough could trigger a tsunami as much as 30 meters high that could kill 320,000 people.

The disaster would destroy road and rail links the length of the country. The tsunami would pulverize buildings that had already been weakened by the tremor. Infrastructure would be wiped out for hundreds of kilometers along the coast and the projected cost in terms of the damage wrought on the country is 220 trillion yen (1.84 trillion euros).

Because the industrialized zone that runs south from Tokyo through Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and Hiroshima would bear the brunt of the disaster, the nation's economic activity would slump by as much as 45 trillion yen in the year following the quake.

Nuclear plant fears

Given the damage the 2011 tsunami caused to the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, there is particular concern about the impact a second major natural disaster could have on the atomic energy plants that dot the coast of the threatened area. Utilities companies say they are reassessing the safety of their facilities and improving defenses and resistance, but the Japanese public is skeptical given the absolute promises that were made about the safety of the nation's reactors before March 2011.

After providing the stark facts of the situation in a country that is used to living with earthquakes, the experts sought to calm public fears by pointing out that such a major mega-quake "only occurs at a frequency of less than once every 1,000 years."

That caveat, however, is of little comfort to people in the zone likely to be most seriously impacted - particularly with memories of the Great East Japan Earthquake so fresh in everyone's minds.

"I fear it will have a far bigger impact than the 2011 disaster," Keiji Doi, director of the Earthquake Prediction Division of the Japan Meteorological Agency, told Deutsche Welle.

'Sooner or later'

"The Japanese government has for many years been monitoring earthquake activity and crustal movement in a number of areas, including the Nankai Trough," he said. "This area is critically important because through history there is evidence of repeated large earthquakes - of magnitude 8.5 and larger - so we anticipate there will be another sooner or later."
Technology has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, but has not evolved to the point at which Doi and his team can accurately predict an exact location for the slip in the earth's crust that will cause the devastation or when that might happen.

It could happen tomorrow, he admits. It might not strike for another five years. The only certainty is that it will happen.

"We are particularly concerned about the stretch of the trough off Shizuoka Prefecture and we are hoping that we might get some warning of a big quake with a precursor," he said.

Just how much warning may be forthcoming is not clear, but the Japanese government has reacted rapidly to the findings of the panel and added a scenario of a massive Nankai Trough quake to the annual earthquake exercises that millions of Japanese take part in across the country every year.

Anniversary of 1923

The drills are timed to coincide with the anniversary of the massive Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which struck with a magnitude of 7.9 just off Tokyo, lasted at least 4 minutes and caused as many as 142,800 deaths.

From this year, the simulations will require the national and local governments to set up task forces to handle the aftermath of the disaster. Volunteers will act as injured victims and be transported by the emergency services to hospitals for treatment. As well as medical teams, the exercise will coordinate the reactions of the police, the fire service and the Self-Defense Forces.

Efforts to mitigate the coming crisis can only go so far, the Yomiuri newspaper said in an editorial after the government announced its plans.

"The important thing is to put in place as many 'disaster mitigation' preparations as possible," it said.

"The central government and local municipalities likely to be affected by the disaster should review their disaster-management processes based on the latest estimate."

There is also an urgent need to reinforce the network of main roads, railways and airports to ensure emergency teams can access the hardest-hit areas, while buildings that lack quake-resistance should undergo repairs as soon as possible.

"There is no time to waste in getting prepared to handle these disasters," it concluded. "Complacency is not an option."

Thursday 28 March 2013

http://www.dw.de/japan-raises-specter-of-more-devastating-quake/a-16705143

Srebrenica: 18 years after the genocide

50 percent of more than 8,000 victims of the Srebrenica Genocide have been identified up to now and 18 years still need to identify all the victims, said mayor of Srebrenica, Camil Durakovic, APA’s correspondent reports from Srebrenica.

The Srebrenica Genocide is one of the bloodiest and painful events of the war in Yugoslavia, 1991-1995. Srebrenica enclave proclaimed by the UN Security Council as "safety zone" in April 1993 has been occupied by the Bosnian Serb Army. In 1995, more than 8,300 Bosnian Muslims were killed there.

The Srebrenica Genocide Memorial, officially known as the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial and Cemetery for the Victims of the 1995 Genocide was erected in 2003. The names of 8372 victims were engraved on the gravestones at the memorial-cemetery complex. The victims also include men at the age of 13-77. “May revenge become justice. May mothers' tears become prayers. That Srebrenica never happens again. To no one and nowhere!” were inscribed on the memorial.

The bodies of 500-600 victims, who were identified, are buried at the cemetery every year. During the war, in order to cover the crime the Bosniaks’ bodies were buried in different places. So the opening of mass graves and identification of remains of the bodies are still being continued. Unidentified remains are being kept in a morgue in Tuzla city.

High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Valentin Inzko believes that the burial of the remains of corpses is very important for the relatives of genocide victims: “A woman who has lost her children and husband in Srebrenica told me that she could sleep better after her family had been buried.”

Srebrenica Today

Totally 7000 people are living in Srebrenica, where the population was 36666 before the war. The city mayor said that unemployment rate is 43 % in Srebrenica. Thus young people are leaving the city. The local economy had based on the extraction of natural resources before the war. However, the war has destroyed the industrial zone.

"There is no incentive for people to live here," Camil Durakovic said.

Some of the Bosniaks returned Srebrenica and the surrounding areas after the events in 1995. 78% of the population of Srebrenica had been the Bosniaks, 9% - the Serbs before the war. About 4 000 Bosniaks are living in the city now, the rest of the population are the Serbs. The mayor said that the Muslims begun to return the city in 2003 and since then no incidents have been recorded between the Bosniaks and the Serbs.

“Those who committed the atrocities no longer live here and we have no problem with innocent Serbs. We only regret for this genocide and the fact that it resulted in hostility among the people. The war can change nothing. All parties have the same tragedy, because both sides suffered losses.

“The people in Srebrenica have good individual relations, because they have a tradition of coexistence,” – said Dragana Jovanovic, the director of the Friends of Srebrenica non-governmental organization. He notes that politicians take advantage of the Srebrenica events for additional votes. In order to hide any conflict or problem, they raise this problem.

According to Camil Durakovic, today, a Bosniak Muslim woman, who lost her husband and four children in the war, can quietly drink coffee with her Serb neighbor: “Of course, it took time to understand how to coexist. Once, first buses returning to Srebrenica after the war were stoned.”

Issues on punishment for culprits, compensation and property

According to Srebrenica Mayor, the main problem is that most perpetrators of the genocide would never be punished: “The number of perpetrators was large and proving it in the court is difficult. Some commanders signing decrees on murder have been brought to justice, others’ trials are going on, and some of the perpetrators have not been arrested yet.”

Bosniak resident of Priedor city of which Muslim population have mostly suffered during the war Zinaida Khosic considers that the punishment of a perpetrator is important for each victim of the crime: “Not all culprits in murder have been judged. I believe that most of them would not be judged in the Hague.”

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia recognized the crime committed by the Serbs in Srebrenica as genocide in January, 2012.

The leadership of Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been found guilty of manslaughter in Srebrenica in 2003. However, the Serbs are still calling it as “serious war crime” and rarely use the phrase genocide.

The Serbian Parliament condemned the slaughters in Srebrenica and apologized to the relatives of the victims.

“Compensation has not been considered for the relatives of the Srebrenica victims and the issue on returning properties of the persons displaced due to Bosnia and Herzegovina conflict has been solved,” the city mayor said. Bosniak Fatima Orlovic displaced from Srebrenica is still suing for her lands. A church was constructed on her lands. Fatima Orlovic refuses to live in other place and demands restoration of her property right.

Srebrenica has managed to overcome hostility resulted with the killing of thousands of civilians and confrontation between the two communities. The city continues to bury its killed residents and still hopes the real perpetrators will be punished.

Thursday 28 March 2013

http://en.apa.az/news_srebrenica__18_years_after_the_genocide__190111.html

Ten children still missing after Mae Surin refugee camp fire

About 10 children are still missing in the aftermath of the devastating inferno at Mae Surin refugee camp which has left 37 dead, activists say.

Ben Mendoza, director of the Catholic Office for Emergency Relief and Refugees (Coerr), said yesterday authorities and activists are still searching for the missing children.

Camp residents included 1,052 children and youth who were affected by the blaze _ 245 under five years old, and 807 aged five to 18 years old _ he told a forum on the fire held yesterday.

Christine Petrie, director of International Red Cross programmes in Thailand, said the agency wants to ensure the refugees continue to receive the same services as before the tragedy.

Local bodies and NGOs are banding together to improve fire safety measures following the fire at the camp in Khun Yuam district on Friday.

Benjawan Maliwan, field manager of Coerr, said non-profit organisations in the area would discuss with local authorities and Karenni refugee representatives ways to improve the camp's fire prevention system.

The inferno killed 37 Karen and Karenni refugees and injured more than 100 people at the camp.

Coerr runs a disaster risk reduction programme funded by the Japanese embassy since last year, offering refugees a fire prevention training course in collaboration with the Interior Ministry's Disaster Mitigation and Prevention (DMP) office in Mae Hong Son.

Firefighting apparatus such as fire extinguishers, buckets and water tanks have been stored in small fire stations in each zone of the camp.

The refugees have set up their own disaster emergency prevention committee which encourages households to prepare bags of water and sand.

On Friday, refugees rang the bell and broadcast a warning to alert the camp's members at an early stage of the fire, which started at the first house in Zone 1 of the camp. However, Ms Benjawan said the fire was more devastating than anyone expected, with factors such as strong winds hampering rescue efforts.

Solutions to improve fire prevention may include boosting human resources, increasing firefighting apparatus and changing building materials to less flammable substances.

Sawang Momdee, chief of the Mae Hong Song DMP office, said the refugee camp was located in a restricted area where delivery of aid was difficult.

Mr Sawang said permission from a provincial office must be sought to gain access to the camp.

Chanchai Srisatian, chief of Khun Yuam district office, said the office had no budget to support the refugees. "We can only provide knowledge [on preventing and managing fires] to the refugees," he said.

The master plan to improve the fire prevention and management system includes rebuilding houses with a buffer zone between each building to reduce the risk of a fire spreading quickly.

Thursday 28 March 2013

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/342679/10-children-still-missing-as-fire-safety-under-scrutiny

Google Street View sends cameras into Namie, an abandoned town in Fukushima where once 21,000 people lived

It is a nuclear-era Mary Celeste, a town left virtually untouched since its 21,000 residents fled two years ago.

Rubble and roof tiles still litter the streets from the huge earthquake that dislodged them on 11 March, 2011.

A ship lies beached beside a main road, washed up by the tsunami that pummeled the coastline less than an hour later.

Homes and schools sit empty and abandoned, poisoned by the invisible radioactive payload from the nearby Daiichi nuclear plant that settled over everything here in the days after the Fukushima meltdown began.

Namie in Fukushima Prefecture will always be synonymous with the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Like the Ukrainian city of Pripyat, it is a nuclear ghost town, gradually being reclaimed by nature.

After the tsunami, bodies lay here undiscovered for a month because nobody could be found to retrieve them. Government officials concealed the spread of radioactivity, leaving the town’s citizens to be poisoned. Today, Tomotsu Baba, its mayor, serves a population that has been scattered across Japan, driven out by contamination. “Many want to know the current state of the disaster area,” he says. “They wonder what’s become of it and feel a great need to see it for themselves.”

Now they can. Google Street View is giving Namie’s nuclear refugees a virtual tour of their uninhabitable streets and homes.

The company responded to the mayor’s request by sending its camera-equipped cars to the town to create a panorama of stitched digital images. For the first time since the disaster began, the town’s residents can see what they left behind – most have only been allowed back under police escort for a few minutes since March 2011 to pick up vital belongings.

“It’s wonderful but scary at the same time,” says Yukiko Kameya, from the nearby ghost town of Futaba. “Some of us want to put that part of our lives out of our minds, but there are many who need to stay in touch.”

Google had to get permission to enter the 20-km no-go zone around the ruined hulk of the Daiichi plant. Police checkpoints guard the entry and exit points to the area. Most of the roughly 120,000 people who once lived inside the zone believe it will be years, perhaps decades before they can return.

Mayor Baba hopes the images will serve another purpose. “I imagine there are people around the world who also want to see the tragic aftermath of the nuclear accident,” he says in a video released to mark the Google project, translated by Japanese news blog RocketNews 24. “So I hope these images reach the rest of the world through Street View.

He says he wants the imagery to become “a permanent record of what happened” to his town. "Those of us in the older generation feel that we received this town from our forbearers, and we feel great pain that we cannot pass it down to our children.”

“The townspeople are scattered all around the country,” he said. “This way they can remember, and maybe hold on to some hope of returning.”

In a blog post accompanying several images taken from Street View, he said he wanted the world to understand the impact of the nuclear accident. “Here is one of Namie-machi’s main streets, which we often used for outdoor events like our big Ten Days of Autumn festival,” he wrote under a shot of a deserted road lined with shuttered businesses, one of its lanes blocked by a collapsed wooden building.

“Ever since the March disaster, the rest of the world has been moving forward, and many places in Japan have started recovering,” he added. “But in Namie-machi time stands still.”

Google’s technology and ubiquitous approach to documenting the world have made it a widely used source of disaster-related information. Google Earth satellite photos showed how the earthquake transformed Japan’s northern Pacific coastline, and environmental activists used Google Maps to track radiation hotspots.

Parts of Namie will become accessible again next month under a revision of the evacuation order. But residents will be able to return only for a few hours at a time, a consequence of still-elevated radiation levels, and prospects for permanent resettlement are dim.

Other Fukushima towns are trying to preserve what local ties they can among evacuated residents. Tomioka, a town south of Namie known for its cherry blossoms, is inviting residents back for spring blossom-viewing parties after its evacuation order was partially relaxed this month.

Few doubt that keeping residents from drifting away permanently will be difficult, however. While Mr Baba said he was hopeful that some would return to Namie one day, his description of the Street View project suggested its purpose was at least partly to serve as a memorial.

“Those of us in the older generation feel that we received this town from our forebears, and we feel great pain that we cannot pass it down to our children,” he wrote in the blog. To the FT he said: “We hope young people who have left will remember their home town and return sometimes, even if it’s only to tend to their ancestors’ graves.”

Click here for photos of the deserted town

Thursday 28 March 2013

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/google-street-view-sends-cameras-into-namie-an-abandoned-town-in-fukushima-where-once-21000-people-lived-8552039.html

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54f2d386-96c5-11e2-8950-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2OpQFPWEm

At least 24 dead in Peru bus crash

At least 24 people, most of them mine workers, were killed Wednesday when their bus plunged into a ravine in southern Peru, local police said.

Another 18 people were injured, according to a provisional toll given by a highway police official in the city of Arequipa, located 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of the capital Lima.

Police warned the toll may rise as more bodies could be trapped under the wreckage of the vehicle, which rescue personnel has so far failed to move.

The cause of the accident was not immediately known, police said.

According to reports, the public bus was privately operated by a company called Andares.

Arequipa, also known as the White City, is around 1,000km (620 miles) south of the capital Lima and is the second most populated city in Peru.

Most of those aboard the bus were mine workers headed from Orcopampa district to Arequipa, where they planned to take part in religious festivities leading up to Easter on Sunday.

The prosecutor Cahuana Leonardo arrived at the scene by the medical examiner to record the minutes of the 24 individual bodies.

Peru's National Police Chief of Emergency Unit in Arequipa, Commander Raul Acosta, said firefighters and civilians worked together to rescue the injured and recover the bodies.

Hugo Zea, Arequipa's Transportation Regional Director, told local television channel Canal N, that the bus has had a license to operate for three years and even had a GPS system. The cause of the accident has not been determined.

Reckless driving due to speeding or sleeplessness, as well as mechanical failures, are the main causes of accidents in Peru, where an estimated 3,500 people die each year in traffic accidents.

Wednesday 27 March 2013

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/381245/at-least-24-dead-in-peru-bus-crash-police

Sri Lankan mass grave dates back 25 years

A judge announced Wednesday that more than 150 human skulls and bones recovered from a mass grave were buried there about 25 years ago, strengthening suspicion that they belonged to suspected Marxist rebels killed at the time.

Magistrate Chathurika de Silva told a court in the central town of Matale that tests show the skeletal remains found inside the premises of a government hospital dated to between 1987 and 1990. During that period, thousands of men and women suspected of having ties to the rebels disappeared after being arrested by security forces.

De Silva did not explain the cause of death but declared the mass grave a crime scene.

The military could not be contacted immediately for comment.

Workers found human remains while doing construction on part of the hospital land last December. The skeletons had been buried in neat rows, five or six stacked on top of one another totaling 154.

Claims were made initially that the bodies belonged to those killed in an epidemic in the 1940s or a mudslide. However, hospital authorities did not have any records off bodies buried on the premises.

The Marxist group People's Liberation Front, which led two uprisings, claimed that the bodies may belong to comrades killed by security forces. The bodies of many young men and women arrested by paramilitaries were found burning by the roadside or floating in rivers at the time.

The Marxists were mostly Sinhalese, the country's majority ethnic community.

Sri Lankan forces are also accused of killing scores of civilians and captured rebels at the end of a quarter-century civil war with ethnic minority Tamil separatists.

The United Nations Human Rights Council last week passed a resolution urging Sri Lanka to investigate war crimes allegations against both government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels.

Wednesday 27 March 2013

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/27/sri-lankan-mass-graves/2025573/

Soldiers train on battlefield recovery of human remains

From behind a tree stump, Pfc. Brandan Bishop peers at the training dummy 20 meters away. He has rope-tied a slipknot onto the body to pull it clear from any possible undetected explosive devices that are sometimes planted onto battle casualties.

His teammates, taking cover even farther away, listen to him shout a countdown before he pulls the rope, dragging the simulated casualty approximately five meters.

With an all-clear signal, the rest of Bishop’s team moves in with equipment to begin work on the casualty and to search the surrounding area for other remains.

Soldiers with A Troop, 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, went through a course to certify as Company Level Evacuation and Recovery team members, March 18-20.

The primary task of the CLEAR team is to search for and recover human remains from the battlefield.

Sgt. 1st Class Michael Harris, a mortuary affairs specialist from Memphis, Tenn., assigned to 593rd Sustainment Brigade, has been a CLEAR team instructor since December 2011.

“Most companies are supposed to have a five-man team designated for casualty retrievals, so most of the soldiers I train are preparing for a deployment,” Harris said. “Downrange, most of the mortuary affairs soldiers will work at the collection point, we do the final stages of processing the remains before they’re shipped home to the families.”

The first day of the course, soldiers learn the history of mortuary affairs.

“We had some demonstrations as to what we can expect while doing this job,” said Spc. Patrick Nezzie, a cavalry scout from Snowflake, Ariz.

“There were presentations on coping with death and we saw slides with photos of the kinds of things we may see.”

The class also went over how to fill out the documentation required for processing human remains.

“The documentation is important. The family would want everything that was on the body of the deceased – so the record of personal effects is something we take seriously,” Nezzie said.

The first day of instruction also went over procedures for approaching a body on the battlefield.

“You don’t know if the body is booby-trapped, if there’s unexploded ordnance nearby, so we take precautions,” Nezzie said.

The second day, the class visited the morgue at the Pierce County Medical Examiner facility in Tacoma, Wash., to observe how bodies may be handled at a collection point. The students had an opportunity to experience some hands-on procedures similar to those necessary in preparing a body to ship home during deployment.

“The smell coming off those cadavers was very bad, I had to catch myself from getting sick,” said Spc. Keith Arthur, a cavalry scout from Lawnside, N.J.

The morgue visit is a standard part of the course. Sharon Johnson, program director for the Pierce County Medical Examiner, regularly hosts the student visits.

“We really enjoy participating, and letting the Soldiers have the hands-on experience with the decedents,” Johnson said. “The feedback has been largely positive as it’s such an insightful experience.”

Many of the deceased come directly from the hospital, some from accident scenes.

“That was a shock to all of us, even though we’ve been through deployment and seen the ugly side of that,” said Nezzie. “But even just seeing a body presented to us wasn’t easy.”

The class also observed two autopsies from beginning to end.

“That was an eye-opener. I have a lot of respect for people who do that because I could not,” Nezzie said.

“It’s kind of a desensitizing experience, so that if you do encounter a body, it’s not as much of a shock, having seen an autopsy. If I had to deploy in six months, I’d be confident we could do this job,” said Pfc. Brandan Bishop, a cavalry scout from Kingsport, Tenn.

The workload is divided among the CLEAR team’s personnel so that the process moves faster, once on the battlefield.

“We split up the roles but we each know every aspect of what needs to be done, whether it’s sketching, land navigation, marking the spots where we find human remains or filling out the paperwork,” said Nezzie, whose role was to pull personal effects from the body on the final practical exercise.

“Downrange, we’ll work 48 hours on, 48 hours off. In those 48 hours it’s steady,” Harris said. “It’s a quick process, and the quicker we can do this, the quicker the remains can get back home to their families.”

For the final practical exercise, the students took part in a search and recovery scenario using grid coordinates. Upon finding the simulated human remains, students were critiqued on their techniques with making site sketches, sanitation, and using the correct search patterns.

Harris also examined the team’s procedures for extracting the remains from the site and the use of CLEAR team kits and form annotations.

“With the personal effects, it is important. Those are going to go to somebody, it’s going to mean something to somebody down the road. That’s why we go over it in such detail.”

Working at the collection points and evacuation points Harris has gone through countless personal effects.

“I’ve had soldiers read the back of pictures, letters, go through wallets to detail this stuff. It does pull on the heartstrings a lot of times when you see a picture of somebody’s kid and on the back of it reads ‘To daddy…’ and it’s tough,” Harris said.

“As long as in your mind you know and think ‘hey, I’m going to make sure this hero’s taken care of’ and that’s part of your job; this is why we do it. We’re doing it to take care of our buddies.”

Wednesday 27 March 2013

http://www.dvidshub.net/news/104148/soldiers-train-battlefield-recovery-human-remains#.UVMQVUFb5nA

Death Toll From Cililin Landslide Hits 12, Search for Victims Continues

Rescuers have unearthed two more bodies buried in Monday’s landslide in Cililin, West Bandung, bringing the death toll to 12.

West Java Disaster Mitigation Agency head Udjwalaprana Sigit told Detik.com that the two bodies were found on Wednesday morning.

“The two bodies were found at the same time,” Sigit said as quoted by Detik.com. “We’re still identifying them.”

The search and rescue team is still looking for five others who were reported missing after a landslide buried nine houses as heavy rains pounded the subdistrict.

Sigit said that while rescue efforts have been slow as the team has to manually dig for bodies using hoes and shovels, the entire community has united in the search.

“The family of the victims are also searching because they know where to locate the houses that had been buried by the landslide,” Sigit said. “It makes the work of the evacuation team that search for the victims easier. Beside it, two police dogs from West Java Police also help search.”

The West Bandung mayor has placed the district in a state of emergency until Sunday.

It is the second deadly landslide to strike Indonesia this month. Three people were killed and one injured after heavy downpours triggered a landslide in Papua’s provincial capital earlier this month.

Wednesday 27 March 2013

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/321933/factory-building-owners-held-fire.html

India: Six killed in Bangalore factory fire

The government has ordered a thorough inquiry into Monday’s fire accident at S R Seating Systems at Kadabagere Cross, Magadi Road, that left six labourers dead.

The Ramanagar district police on Tuesday arrested Amith Rathore, owner of S R Seating Systems and Ramakrishnaiah, the owner of the building where the factory had been housed, on the charges of criminal negligence.

The two will be produced before a magistrate court on Wednesday and the police are expected to seek their custody for further investigation into the case.

Ramalingappa, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Ramanagar, will head the special team formed to probe the accident. The arrests were made based on the case registered at the Tavarekere police station.

Meanwhile, of the seven men working in the factory, six were found dead in the blaze. The seventh, suspected to have gone out for tea early in the morning after locking the shutters from outside, is missing.

It had been said that the lone survivor was Nadeem Khan. However, after the bodies were shifted to Rajarajeshwari Medical College and Hospital at Kengeri and autopsies performed on Monday night, Shamsuddin, the younger brother of Sartaj, identified Nadeem Khan as among the dead and said it was Noor Hussein who was missing.

Anupam Agarwal, Superintendent of Police, Ramanagar, said: “All were working under Sartaj, the elder brother of Shamsuddin, who had brought them from Bijnore in Uttar Pradesh. During autopsy, faces of all the bodies were cleaned and this might have resulted in correct identification. There might have been some confusion at the accident spot leading to false identification.”

Lakshman, purchase manager, S R Seating Systems, had identified the six dead bodies as those of Sartaj, 28, the supervisor, Noor Hussein (28), Shoaib (22), Gazi (20), Usman (18) and Talib (24). He too had said Nadeem Khan was missing.

Bodies airlifted

After autopsy, all the six bodies were airlifted to Lucknow and from there to Bijnore. The bodies left Bengaluru International Airport by a special flight, Agarwal said. The Ramanagar police have launched a manhunt for Noor Hussein. Ramalingappa said till Hussein was traced, nothing could be said of the origin of the fire and how the factory shutter was locked from outside. He did not rule out foul play.

The forensic team and the electricity board officials who inspected the scene of fire are expected to submit their report in a day or two. Sources in the Forensic Lab said they were yet to trace the origin of the fire.

The electricity board engineers said though the power connection was illegal and taken on a temporary basis for construction purposes, they have not been able to establish that the fire was triggered by a short circuit.

Labour Minister B N Bache Gowda, who visited the spot, said the labour department would inquire into the lack of labour safety measures and abject conditions in which the workers were forced to work. Ravi Kumar, Assistant Labour Commissioner, will head the probe.

He also said he would talk to Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar for releasing compensation from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund to the families of the six victims.

Wednesday 27 March 2013

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/321933/factory-building-owners-held-fire.html

Medical Examiner’s List Of Unidentified Bodies Begins Yielding Results

Just a few weeks after the Cook County Medical Examiner put its list of unidentified and unclaimed remains online, a family has now stepped forward to make identification.

Before now, he was known by his case number: 180 November 2012.

He choked to death on the Nov. 10, after he collapsed in an alley near Cermak Road and Kedzie Avenue. He carried no ID.

The medical examiner’s office posted information about him on its website – his approximate age, clothing description and tattoos.

On Monday, the phone rang on the desk of Deputy Chief Investigator Timothy Doe.

“I got a call yesterday. A friend of the family called me and they said the family was looking on the website that we have posted, and by the description of one of our decedents matched a family member,” Doe said.

That’s how 52-year-old Baldomino Moctezuma of Chicago was identified, and claimed by his family.

“They were grief-stricken when they learned the truth that he was deceased. I mean, they may have always sensed it, but the unknown is what really tears people up. You just don’t know,” Doe said.

Tuesday 26 March 2013

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/03/26/medical-examiners-list-of-unidentified-bodies-begins-yielding-results/

Eight die as bus falls into ravine

Seven students of the Vikram Sarabhai Institute of Science and Technology at Vellanad near the capital were among eight people who died as a tourist bus turned turtle near Rajakkad in Idukki on Monday. One of them was a girl.

The bus was on its way to Munnar from Kodaikanal, and was descending a hill. While negotiating a sharp bend, the bus fell nearly 75 feet into a ravine at Thekkinkanam, before hitting the same road running below at about 12.30 pm.

The students were Shaiju, of Kalamassery, Sreejesh of Thrikkunnapuzha South, Jibin John Paul of Nanthankod, Vignesh of Kowdiar, Hemand G.S. Kumar from Palode, Sarath Chandran of Ambalamedu in Kochi and Manju Balakrishnan of Kannur. The cleaner of the bus, Rajkumar, a native of Kazhakuttom, also died.

The bus was carrying 45 people. As many as 41 of them were students – 28 boys and 13 girls, besides two senior relatives of a student.

The students, in their final year electronics and instrumentation course, were on an excursion ahead of the approaching annual examinations. It appears the trip was arranged by the students themselves, and no teacher had accompanied them.

Principal of Vikram Sarabahai College, Dr. M.K. Jana, said the college authorities had no knowledge of the tour, though a good number of students got together for the trip. Some parents, however, said their impression when the students set out was that it was a tour authorized by the college. The uncle and aunt of Vignesh, who died in the accident, had tagged along.

Among the 11 admitted to the Kolencherry Medical Mission Hospital, the condition of three was serious. Some others with minor injuries were admitted to the Government Hospital and Morning Star Hospital in Adimaly.

According to sources, the bus was diverted to the route as repair work was going on, on the main road. The road had no protective wall, and the bus fell straight into the ravine, people from the accident site said.

Chief minister Oommen Chandy said the government would meet the expenses for the treatment of those injured in the accident. Police has registered a case and a probe is on.

College didn’t give approval for picnic

Thiruvananthapuram: Dark clouds and thundershowers were not the reason for the eerie silence at the Sarabhai Institute of Science and Technology near Vellanad. News of Monday’s bus tragedy which claimed the lives of 8 students plunged the institute into deep shock and grief.

“It is a rude shock for us. We were expecting the students to be preparing for their final semester exam is scheduled to begin on April 1,” said college principal M. K. Jana. “As soon as news of the accident reached us a team led by assistant professor Bijoy Babu rushed to the accident spot. All possible assistance will be provided. Although the students went without our knowledge, we cannot delineate from our commitment,” said Jana.

It was around 2 pm when the news of the bus accident, involving 39 students of the final year Electronics and Instrumentation reached the college. Ironically, the 43 students of the batch had been given a warm send off only recently. News of the accident spread like wildfire across the campus with students and faculty members glued to a television set to get news updates. The office staff were busy attending phone calls from parents and media.

“A decision on keeping the bodies in the college has to be taken by the parents. We will stand by the parents’ wish,” said a college official.

Tuesday 26 March 2013

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130326/news-current-affairs/article/eight-die-bus-falls-ravine