Savar building collapse: confusion over missing estimates

The Savar tragedy rolls onto a week but there is no definitive statistics of how many are missing, raising doubts over how many corpses are buried under the pile of rubble at the Rana Plaza collapse site.

Thousands were still crowding the site holding pictures of dear ones for identification.

Number of those remaining missing could have been easily calculated had a list of employees at the five factories inside Rana Plaza been obtained.

However, the Army said they had sought for the list from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), but did not get it.

The nine-storey commercial building had five readymade garment factories inside it. BGMEA says there were over 3,000 people working there.

The factories were running when the building crumbled in a heap on Apr 24. Allegations were raised that the employees were forced into work even though huge cracks appreared on the wall the previous day.

Rescuers use trained dogs on Tuesday to find dead bodies from the heaps of debris of a high-rise building that collapses in Savar on Apr 24.

After the collapse, Fire Service and Civil Defence officials said there were about 3,500 workers inside when the building came down.

On the other hand, workers put the number at more than 4,500.

At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Maj Gen Chowdhury Hassan Suhrawardy, Bangladesh Army’s 9th Infantry Division GOC in charge of rescue operations, said they heard the number was 3,200.

Many had not joined work since it was a shutdown on that day, he said.

When asked how many were still missing, he avoided a direct answer and said, “You can estimate how many.”

According to him, 2,437 were rescued and 385 bodies were pulled out until Tuesday afternoon. The ratio of survivors and dead is 8:1.

If his information is to be taken, then the number of those unaccounted for is around 400.

However, police at Adhar Chandra School ground had put the figure of missing at around 1,300. The number was hung up at the notice board there.

“We do not agree with the list,” Maj Gen Suhrawardy said.

Shariful Islam worked at a garment factory on the seventh floor of the building over the past three years. He told bdnews24.com that some 900 workers were working on that floor on the fateful day.

Sabuj Mia who was working on the third floor said that some 800 workers were working there that day.

A factory official, Nazmur Rashid Faruk, who was rescued alive from the concrete rubbles of the fourth floor three days after the disaster, said some 1,000 workers were working on that floor when the huge structure caved in.

Mehadi Hasan, who was injured in the collapse and rescued from the sixth floor, said that over 1,000 workers used to work on that floor and most of them were at work during the dreadful incident.

He said garment machinery and accessories were being set up on the ninth floor that morning and that he saw over 50 workers working on the floor.

Other survivors said some 700 workers were working on the fifth floor. Another worker, Monnaf Khan, said that 800 workers used to work on the eighth floor.

“Since the factory manager dilly-dallies if any worker doesn’t work in the last leg of the month, all of the workers came to their respective factories with the hope of getting paid in time though a countrywide shutdown was called on that day,” he explained.

Since the hope for pulling up the trapped people alive from the concrete rubbles faded seven days on, their relatives are now staying at local Adhar Chandra School ground and giving the list of their missing near ones hoping to find their bodies to do the last rites.

Sub-Inspector Firoz Alam told bdnews24.com at the school ground on Monday that the number of missing people could come down later if anyone was traced out later and since the names of the missing people was enlisted more than once in some cases.

The civilians who took part in the rescue operation said that decomposed corpses remained sandwiched under concrete slabs in the inaccessible corners of the bottom floors.

Yunus Khan of Savar’s Sabujbagh who was looking for his nephew Arifur Rahman told bdnews24.com: “I entered the collapsed building and saw many bodies in its north-eastern corner. But the heavy machines are being used in the front and back side of the collapsed structure instead of using those there.”

Equipment like cranes were not pressed in service on the first day of the disaster in a bid to rescue the trapped people alive. The second phase of the salvage operation involving heavy machinery was launched on the fifth day.

Nine more bodies were retrieved from the debris on Tuesday.

The recovered corpses are kept on the Adhar Chandra High School ground, which is next to Enam Medical College and Hospital.

Those who could not be identified are being taken to the morgues in Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Mitford Hospital.

Maj Gen Suhrawardy said 333 dead bodies have been handed over to families. There are 52 unidentified bodies of the victim in the morgue, he added.

Almost all who were still waiting to find their loved ones on Tuesday, the seventh day of the collapse, in front of Rana Plaza and Adhar Chandra High School said they had been running to see if the ones they are seeking were among the dead or the injured being treated at hospitals.

But those who were anxiously waiting for their loved ones believe they were still trapped under the debris.

There are many who have given ip hopes of ever seeing their loved ones again. Now all they want is to at least find their dead bodies and return home.

They staged a protest near Savar Bus Stand on Monday. They stopped the trucks that were taking the debris to dump into the river to check if there were bodies inside.

Maj Gen Suhrawardy acknowledged in the press brief that many had their suspicions that “we may be dumping bodies along with the debris. Some have obstructed the trucks on debris”.

“Can this be expected from the rescuers who risked their own lives to save so many victims?” he said with a tinge of anger in his tone.

When asked about the number of people who are still missing, he said it would have helped to estimate the number for the missing if they had a list of how many people who used to work in the building.

“But we did not receive any list. The BGMEA President was asked to provide the list urgently. He said he is ‘working to provide the list’.”

No computers that may have data on the employees were recovered, he said.

All the owners of the garment factory have been arrested. When asked if the detained owners were asked about the number of the employees, Maj Gen Suhrawardy said, “They are not in our custody.”

He requested the members of the press to not assume a number for those who are dead or missing until authorities receive a list of workers for the five factories.

Lists for the injured and the dead specific to districts will be released soon, he added.

The Army official said foreigners were happy with the rescue effort on Sunday.

About government’s refusal to offers by the foreigners to aid the rescue operation, he said, “It would have taken more than 72 hours for the tools to reach here, considering the time of their proposal.”

Tuesday 30 April 2013

http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2013/04/30/mismatch-over-the-missing

Update: Two North Korean sailors from missing ship turn up dead in Japanese waters

The bodies of two North Korean sailors from the missing cargo ship Taegakbong turned up in separate locations in Japan, almost four months after the ship went missing in late December. The ship went adrift when engine failure caused its navigation systems and steering controls to be disabled.

The first partially decomposed body was found on Saturday in Itoigawa, Niigata Prefecture. He still had a North Korean loyalty badge and $290 in U.S. currency in his possession.

The second one was discovered on Sunday near Japan’s Oga Peninsula. He was clutching a metal tube with photos of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Un, which they think was taken from the ship’s bridge, believing it will protect him or maybe just out of loyalty to their presidents.

24 crew members escaped aboard a life raft last December, and it is still not known if the rest of the crew escaped or were rescued by North Korean authorities. Also unknown is the fate of the ship and its cargo, although it is publicly listed as “under repair” on North Korea’s west coast.

It isn’t the first time that the bodies of North Korean sailors have washed up on Japanese shores. Last December, three bodies in a partially capsized boat were discovered by the Japanese Coast Guard off the coast of central Japan.

Previously, another boat with a dead body was discovered near Sado Island and another boat with Korean markings and five deceased bodies of fishermen turned up in Japanese waters. Unless you’re a conspiracy theorist or a horror movie aficionado, none of these incidents seem to be in any way related.

Tuesday 30 April 2013

http://japandailypress.com/two-north-korean-sailors-from-missing-ship-turn-up-dead-in-japanese-waters-3027986

2 more bodies found from Savar rubbles

With the latest recovery, nine bodies have so far been unearthed since the rescuers started using heavy machinery.

Savar police SI Saiful Islam said the bodies were recovered at around 9:30pm. He identified the deceased as ‘Hasina’ and ‘Ainul’ from identity cards found on them.

Apart from them, two other injured had also succumbed to their injuries in hospital on Monday taking the death toll to 388.

Hydraulic cranes and Bulldozers are being used to clear the wreckage on the back side of the collapsed building. Rescuers said they had seen several bodies there. Efforts are underway to recover them.

Meanwhile, thousands of people are waiting for their loved ones. They have staged agitation as they have not yet found the bodies even six days after the disaster.

Bangladesh Army, leading the rescue, said they were drilling cautiously to save anyone who might be still alive under the wreckage.

Bodies recovered from the site are being taken to local Adhar Chandra High School grounds where thousands had been staying overnight to claim the bodies of their loved ones to perform the last rites.

Tuesday 30 April 2013

http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2013/04/30/2-more-bodies-found-from-savar-rubbles

Unclaimed bodies to be buried on Tuesday

Twenty nine unidentified bodies that were retrieved from the debris of collapsed Rana Plaza will be buried on Tuesday at Jurain graveyard. Their DNA samples have been collected.

The bodies were kept at the morgue of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) for identification.

Dhaka district Additional Magistrate Abul Fazal Mir told bdnews24.com that the unclaimed bodies were handed over to Anjuman-e-Mafidul Islam, a charitable Islamic welfare organisation, on Monday afternoon, five days after the country’s worst-ever industrial disaster.

Of the 29 unidentified people, 26 are women and three are men.

He said that DNA samples were collected from the bodies so that their identity can be confirmed through tests if anyone claims them later.

Lecturer of the Forensic Department at Dhaka Medical College (DMC) Sohel Mahmud told bdnews24.com that they collected the teeth of the victims as DNA samples to match the samples of any claimant.

Executive Director of the century-old charity Anjuman-e-Mufidul Islam Abul Kashem said that the last rites would be completed at the Jurain graveyard on Tuesday.

In November last year, bodies of 52 unclaimed workers, charred in a devastating fire at Tazreen Fashions in Ashulia, were also buried at Jurain graveyard in the capital after conducting their DNA tests.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Savar tragedy climbed to 381 even as rescuers comprising firefighters, untrained local volunteers and army men have started removing massive piles of rubbles with heavy machinery five days after the structure collapsed.

Most of the victims were garment workers. The building housed five readymade garment factories that employed nearly 5000 workers. Apart from that 300 shops were also based there.

There are some unclaimed bodies still lying at Sir Salimullah Medical College and Hospital mortuary.

After their recovery from the debris, the bodies were first taken to makeshift mortuary at local Adhar Chandra School playground for identification.

After identification the bodies were handed over to their relatives while the unclaimed bodies were sent to DMCH and Sir Salimullah Medical College.

Tuesday 30 April 2013

http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2013/04/29/unclaimed-bodies-to-be-buried-on-tuesday

Migrant smugglers abandon boatloads of people at sea, according to Mexican Officials

The Mexican navy says it has detected a disturbing trend of migrant smugglers abandoning boatloads of people at sea off the coast of Baja California.

The Navy says that each month it has been finding an average of 10 to 12 boats, with a total of about out 150 migrants. It doesn't say when the discoveries began.

The Navy said Monday the boats' captains abandoned the vessels aboard other craft, telling migrants the motors had broken down and they would be back.

The smugglers then left the migrants adrift, often in overcrowded boats without food or radios, putting their lives at risk.

A video released by the navy shows sailors approaching several vessels, some in choppy waters, to rescue ragged-looking passengers.

Tuesday 30 April 2013

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/migrant-smugglers-abandon_n_3179397.html

Seven killed in US cargo plane crash at Afghan base

A US civilian cargo plane has crashed at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, killing its seven crew, officials say.

The plane came down shortly after take-off and crashed within the boundaries of the huge US-run airbase, said a Nato spokesperson at the base.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the crash, but their involvement was denied by Nato.

Bagram, near the Afghan capital Kabul, is the largest military base for US troops in Afghanistan.

Witnesses said the plane reached an altitude of some 400m (1,312ft) before suddenly "falling out of the sky", Bagram's district governor, Abdul Shukor, told Reuters news agency.

The crash was confirmed by the plane's owners, National Air Cargo.

"We did lose all seven crew members," said a spokeswoman for the Florida-based firm.

The Taliban was quick to claim responsibility, telling the Pakistan-based Afghan Islam Press they shot down the plane.

But Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said there were no reports of militant activity in or around the base at the time of the crash.

No cause for the crash has been given - Nato said it is being investigated.

The crash comes two days after four military personnel were killed in a crash in the southern Afghan province of Zabul, which officials said was also not due to military activity.

Tuesday 30 April 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22347199

Wreckage found in Manhattan was from 9/11 plane: Boeing

Boeing Co. said it was confident that a piece of aircraft, found wedged between two buildings in lower Manhattan recently, came from one of two airplanes that struck the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.

Authorities are still trying to determine which of the two planes the piece of wreckage came from.

A Boeing Co. representative confirmed to the New York Police Department that wreckage discovered last week, in a narrow alleyway behind 51 Park Place and 50 Murray Street in Manhattan's financial district, "is believed to be from one of the two aircraft destroyed on September 11, 2001, but it could not be determined which one," Paul Browne, NYPD's chief spokesman, said on Monday.

The plane part, known as a trailing edge flap actuation support structure, comes from underneath the wing of the plane, not the landing gear, as was initially believed, Browne said in a statement Monday.

The wreckage includes a "clearly visible" Boeing identification number, Browne said last week. It was wedged one story above ground level.

Browne said the discovery of the piece, which measures about 5 feet high and 3 feet wide (0.9 meter), was made on April 24 by a construction crew inspecting the rear of the Park Place building.

Police secured the area between the buildings and treated it as a potential crime scene, Browne said.

Nearly 12 years after two commercial airliners smashed into the two Manhattan skyscrapers, destroying them and killing nearly 3,000 people, city officials continue to turn up debris from the attack and to identify human remains.

The NYPD is working with the New York City medical examiner's office as it prepares to sift the soil around the site where the plane part was found for more evidence.

This month, the medical examiner's office said 39 possible human remains were discovered in 9/11 debris hauled years ago to the New York City borough of Staten Island.

Since 2006, the painstaking work has led to 34 new positive identifications of victims, according to CBS News. Around 1,000 families have never recovered any remains of their lost relatives.

For some 9/11 victims' families, the continuing discoveries of human remains and wreckage debris is a recurring reminder of the trauma they suffered as a result of the World Trade Center attacks.

"It's been a form of torture for these New York families to find out, year after year, that more body parts, more remains have been discovered and identified,'' said Debra Burlingame, a member of the 9/11 Memorial Foundation, whose brother Captain Charles Frank piloted American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked and struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

"And finding a piece of airplane wreckage makes them wonder, 'Maybe there's a piece of my husband, or my brother, or sister or mom in those buildings that were never recovered.'"

Burlingame said she doesn't fault the construction workers that found the most recent wreckage. Rather, she's simply reminded again of all the grief, she said on Monday.

"They have been haunted by these discoveries, year in and year out," she said.

The land surveyor who made the discovery told the New York Daily News that when he understood what he had stumbled upon, he was stunned.

"I realized later - this is a piece of a murder weapon lying there," surveyor Frank Van Brunt told the paper.

Calls to Van Brunt were not immediately returned.

Monday 29 April 2013

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/29/us-usa-twintowers-landinggear-idUSBRE93S0QL20130429

Snake robot teams up with search-and-rescue dog in US

US researchers working on a snake-like robot have tested pairing it with a search-and-rescue dog.

The engineers sent two dogs fitted with harnesses containing the robot into a simulated collapsed building. The dogs then released the equipment, allowing the robot to wriggle free.

The researchers hope the technology will one day be used to locate people trapped in places inaccessible to dogs.

They are working to make the robot faster over rubble and other debris.

A video of the experiment has been posted online by Carnegie Mellon University's biorobotics lab.

Undulating joints

The test used the latest in a series of "modular snake robots" developed at the Pittsburgh-based research centre over the past decade.

The machines are designed to move through their surrounding environment by altering the angles of the links that chain together the different segments of their bodies.

This is designed to mirror the way their natural counterparts move through "lateral undulation", the synchronised muscle contractions used by snakes that allow them to appear to be gliding over the ground.

"Snake robots can use their many internal degrees of freedom to thread through tightly packed volumes, accessing locations that people and machinery otherwise cannot use," the researchers wrote.

"Moreover, these highly articulated devices can co-ordinate their internal degrees of freedom to perform a variety of locomotion capabilities that go beyond the capabilities of conventional wheeled and the recently developed legged robots."

The search-and-rescue test involved sending the dogs through a concrete pipe into the "collapsed building" at the Teex Disaster City emergency-response training centre in Texas.

They had been trained to bark when they found a point of interest. When they did so, the harnessed unlocked and deployed the robots, which then sent back a video feed via an attached wire linking the machine to its operators.

One of the problems faced by the researchers was that as the robot twisted itself about, the video also rotated, making it difficult to navigate the machine.

However, the researchers told the BBC they had since come up with a software-based fix that ensured the video would always appear the right way up, whatever way the robot's camera was angled.

The snake robot was covered in a protective skin to prevent debris falling into its joints.

Previous tests by the team have involved launching one of its snake robots up a tree, which it gripped onto.

The machine was able to do this thanks to accelerometers built into its segments, which detected when it hit the tree's bark. This then triggered a coiling action, wrapping the robot's body around a branch to prevent it falling off.



Earlier robots have successfully navigated their way through the inside of pipes, crawled into storm drains and swum through water while protected by a "waterproof skin".

Sniff and search

Carnegie Mellon University is not the only organisation seeking to equip search-and-rescue dogs with the latest technology.

Berkshire-based firm Wood & Douglas has developed a video camera designed to be strapped onto a rescue dog's head to stream live footage back to base.

"Anything that can help an earthquake or disaster situation should be welcomed," said Chris Bignell, a spokesman for the company.

"We saw such a situation in Bangladesh last week where a building collapsed and a number of levels fell on top of each other.

"Whatever would speed up the process of being able to search everywhere in such an emergency is going to be helpful.

"But the advantage of still using rescue dogs is that they are trained to sniff out victims and locate them even if they can't see them, which you wouldn't get just by using a robot."

Monday 29 April 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22340218

Another body with N.K. photos found in Sea of Japan

The body of a man with a metal tube containing photos of late North Korean leaders was found drifting in the Sea of Japan off Akita Prefecture, the Japan Coast Guard said.

The coast guard believes the corpse, found Sunday, is from North Korea. It was found around 100 meters off the Oga Peninsula wearing what appeared to be a lifesaving suit, the coast guard said.

A tube in the suit was found to contain photos of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, and his son and former leader Kim Jong Il.

The discovery came after the partially decomposed body of a man wearing badges of the two North Korean leaders washed ashore Saturday on the coast of Itoigawa, Niigata Prefecture.

Identical alphabetical characters believed to be the name of a boat were printed on the lifesaving suits on both bodies, the coast guard said.

The dead man found Sunday afternoon was around 162 cm tall and wearing a jacket for cold weather and work clothing, while the body found Saturday was about 150 cm tall and had five U.S. dollar bills totaling $290, according to the coast guard.

Monday 29 April 2013

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/04/30/national/body-with-n-k-photos-found-in-sea/

Kisii unclaimed bodies pile up

The Kisii district public health officer has decried the high number of uncollected bodies at a mortuary.

Hezron Omayio said the bodies have been have been at Kisii Level 5 Hospital mortuary for more than three months.

He said the mortuary, which has a capacity for 24 bodies, is congested with more than 40 bodies including 15 still births.

“We are not going to keep the bodies any longer because the mortuary has no space," Omayio said in his office on Friday.

He said most of the bodies were brought in by police and are unidentified

“Some of the bodies have decomposed beyond recognition because they have overstayed in the facility for six to eight months," Omayio said.

He said they have tried to contact relatives in vain.

Omayio urged police from Kilgoris, Manga and Kisii to obtain a court order to bury the bodies in a mass grave.

However, he said the district's public cemetery is full.

“We have been burying and reburying bodies. There is need for a new public cemetery," Omayio said.

Governor James Ongwae said that there is need for land to relocate the cemetery.

He said lack of a cemetery has been "a major headache" for public health officials.

“Lack of a public cemetery where unclaimed bodies will be buried is a major challenge but with concerted efforts a solution will be found,” Ongwae said.

Monday 29 April 2013

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-118687/kisii-unclaimed-bodies-pile

Deadly earthquakes strike around the world

A series of deadly earthquakes have struck many countries around the world, including China, Mexico, and Iran, in the last few weeks resulting in hundreds of injuries and deaths.

China is the most recent country to experience an earthquake and also suffered the most damage and deaths of any country. A 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck China at 8:02 a.m. on April 20, 2013 in a remote mountainous region of China’s Sichuan province. The quake killed at least 192 people, injured over 11,000 and destroyed many buildings in the area, according to officials. The Xinhua news agency reported that 6,000 troops were in the area to assist with rescue efforts. The Chinese Red Cross also sent personnel to the area with water, food, medicine and rescue equipment. While the government and Red Cross are assisting rescue efforts by removing bodies and searching for those trapped, locals affected by the disaster say little has been done to distribute aid.

Iran has also suffered a series of deadly quakes in April that have ranged in magnitude from a 5.2 to a 7.8 according to the U.S. Geological Society. At least 40 people were killed in Iran and Pakistan as a result of these quakes. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake was so powerful it was felt in New Delhi, India, where buildings swayed from the tremors. The earthquakes in Iran were located relatively close to one of the country’s nuclear power plants in Bushehr, where Iran plans to build additional reactors. There is a global concern that a future quake could affect the power plants in the region resulting in a catastrophe similar to the Fukushima meltdown in 2011 caused by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake.

Mexico experienced a 5.9 magnitude quake April 21, 2013 in the western part of the country. There were no immediate reports of casualties or injuries and there was only some minor damage in the region. The quake was powerful enough to be felt 200 miles away in Mexico City where buildings were swaying. State oil monopoly, Pemex, reported a loss of power to one of their refineries in the area, but it was unclear if this interruption was caused by the quake.

The Chaparral provided earthquake safety tips in earlier issues such as having non-perishable foods stored somewhere in your home, a supply of fresh drinking water, a “bug out” bag with emergency supplies in case you need to evacuate and a plan in case of disaster. In the next 30 years it is predicted that California has a 99.7% chance of a 6.7 magnitude quake and a 94% chance of a 7.0 magnitude quake, according to The Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast released in 2008.

Monday 29 April 2013

http://thechaparral.com/2013/04/29/deadly-earthquakes-strike-around-the-world/

Search the database: Every FEMA-declared disaster since 1953

How many flood disasters have hit Iowa in the past 50 years? Has New York ever suffered a damaging earthquake? Search a database of every FEMA-declared disaster since 1953. Sort by state, county / local area, date and disaster type.

This database was created with information downloaded from fema.gov in April 2013. Records begin with the first disaster declaration in 1953 and feature all three disaster declaration types: major disaster, emergency and fire management assistance. County information is not available before 1964, and fire management records are considered partial due to historical nature of the data.

The database can be consulted here

Monday 29 April 2013

Police undecided over jurisdication over mid-sea collision

The collision between the fishing trawler and the Coast Guard vessel that left six persons missing on April 25 has thrown up a rather interesting question over the jurisdictional powers of the police. Four days after the incident, the police are still undecided over whether the incident occurred within 12 nautical miles of the Goa coast or beyond that distance in the high seas - a moot issue that will determine whether the investigations in the case will be done by the Goa police or the Yellow gate police.

According to a notification of the Government of India, anything that happens beyond 12 nautical miles on the west coast comes under the jurisdiction of the Yellow Gate police station, senior police officials informed. The jurisdiction lies in Mumbai as it has an admiralty court.

Senior officials of the Yellow gate police station from Mumbai arrived in Goa on Saturday with a view to determine if the accident occurred within their jurisdictional limits. "If it is established that the incident happened beyond 12 nautical miles off the coast, the case will be handed over to the Yellow gate police for investigations," Dy SP Mohan Naik said.

Speaking to TOI, south Goa SP Shekhar Prabhudessai said that the senior officials of the Yellow gate are conducting preliminary assessment of the situation.

"Nothing has been decided as yet," he said when asked if the investigations will be handed over to the Yellow gate police. Once the Yellow gate police submit their assessment report to the South Goa police, an appropriate decision will be taken, Prabhudessai said.

Meanwhile, three bodies were recovered on Sunday during the search and rescue operations being conducted by the Navy and the Coast Guard thereby taking the total number of bodies recovered so far to four. Search is on for the remaining two missing crew members of the trawler.

Monday 29 April 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Police-undecided-over-jurisdication-over-mid-sea-collision/articleshow/19771759.cms

2 dead, 8 missing after freighter sinks off Greece

A cargo ship sank off southern Greece after colliding with another freighter Monday, leaving two Syrian seamen dead and eight others missing and spurring a large rescue operation, officials said.

The accident occurred before 7 am (0400GMT) some 78 miles (125 kilometers) southwest of the southern Peloponnese peninsula, a Merchant Marine Ministry statement said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the collision between the Antigua-flagged Consouth and the Cook Islands-flagged Piri Reis in the Mediterranean Sea.

Weather conditions were good at the time, which facilitated rescue efforts involving coast guard vessels, merchant ships, a rescue helicopter and an airforce C-130 transport plane.

The Piri Reis, which was carrying a cargo of fertilizer to a Ukrainian port, sank, and seven of its crew of 17 Syrian seamen were rescued. Two bodies were pulled out of the sea a few hours after the collision.

The Consouth, sailing without freight from Turkey to Malta, had 16 Russian, Filippino and Polish seamen on board, all who were unhurt, the ministry said.

Monday 29 April 2013

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/10-seamen-missing-ship-sinks-off-greece-19063373

Despite rain, finding last body buried in landfill continues

Despite the difficulty brought by sudden heavy rains, rescuers of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) are working round the clock to retrieve the body of the remaining person buried alive in the trash slide in Rodriguez, Rizal sanitary landfill.

Edward Gonzalez, chief of MMDA Road Emergency Group (REG) said the search and retrieval team is hoping to find the body of Pablito Esto. Rain puts a stop in the 24-hour operation, which resumes immediately when the weather improves.

Gonzalez said 20 personnel from the MMDA have been working in shifts so the retrieval operations will not be delayed further.

Esto was among the four people buried alive in the trash slide. The three others have been recovered by the MMDA team last week.

The bodies of Eddie Malano and Rovidico Olod were discovered by the team a day after the first victim identified as Gary Balahibo was found and retrieved from inside a backhoe buried in the trash slide.

The four workers were conducting maintenance work in the sanitary landfill when a 30-meter high trash collapsed and buried them.

Monday 29 April 2013

http://www.mb.com.ph/article.php?aid=9683&sid=1&subid=2#.UX4iRHdbUnQ

Search continues after fire, hope dims for Bangladesh survivors

Rescue workers in Bangladesh have given up hopes of finding any more survivors, after a fire delayed their efforts to dig into the rubble of a building that collapsed five days ago.

Officials leading the operation said on Monday they doubt they will save any more lives, after they failed to rescue a young woman named Shahanaz, whom they believe was the last remaining survivor.

"We found a woman alive," Mustafa Kamal, a volunteer rescue operator, told Al Jazeera. "When we went to rescue her, an outsider joined the operation with a metal grinder, and from there it sparked, it led to a fire, and she died”.

The firefighters managed to put out the fire, but the smoke spread to several floors leading them to believe that there are no more survivors. The blaze also injured at least six rescuers.

"There is little hope of finding anyone alive. Our men went inside and saw some dead bodies in the ground floor. But no one was seen alive,'' said Brigadier General Ali Ahmed Khan, the chief of the fire brigade at the scene.

On Monday, rescuers began using heavy machinery to remove the rubble and look for bodies.

Major-General Hasan Suhrawardy, chief of the rescue operation, said the crew was using cranes and other heavy equipment "very carefully with a priority to save the survivors, if any".

Confusion over deaths, missing

Savar police Inspector Aminur Rahman put the count in Wednesday's Rana Plaza collapse at 377 at around 3pm. He earlier had said the figure was 397.

"There was some mistake in the count," the police officer in charge at the Adhar Chandra School – the place where bodies were being kept – said.

He added a total of 320 bodies were handed over to the relatives and 57 more, awaiting recognition, were sent to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital and Mitford Hospital.

Similar 'confusions' were also looming over the number of people still missing.

Although, authorities earlier said the number is 1168, Sub-Inspector Abdul Alim said they were not being able to count the number properly at this moment due to "lack of time."

Monir Hossain, Savar district’s Assistant Superintendent of Police, however, said they had started making a list on computers from Sunday.

The rescue at the site is being carried out quite loosely.

About 2,500 survivors have been accounted for.

Monday 29 April 2013

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/04/2013428141142643708.html

http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2013/04/28/confusion-over-deaths-missing

Fire breaks out at collapsed factory in Bangladesh, 3 rescuers injured

A blaze broke out in the wreckage of a Bangladesh factory block Sunday, killing a woman whose 110-hour battle for survival had touched the nation following its worst industrial disaster, the country's fire chief said.

Earlier, the owner of the complex, property tycoon Sohel Rana, was detained as he attempted to cross into India and was flown back to Dhaka where he will face charges over the building's collapse which has so far claimed 381 lives.

Fire fighters were seen weeping live on television after failing to save the female garment worker, a widowed mother-of-one identified as Shahnaz, whose courageous struggle became a symbol of hope in the wake of the catastrophe.

"The fire broke out as we were cutting a beam to bring out what we believe was the last remaining survivor from the collapsed building. We managed to douse it, but as we came back we saw her dead," Ahmed Ali told AFP.

"She was a brave lady and fought until the end. We worked for 10-11 hours today just to try to bring her out alive. We took the challenge but we lost."

Three rescuers were also injured in the blaze which was put out in a matter of minutes, fire service director Zihadul Islam said. More bodies are expected to be found as workers, who had been digging manually to avoid harming survivors, switched to using earth-moving equipment to lift slabs and reinforced concrete to clean up debris.

Fire fighter Abul Khayer, who spoke to Shahnaz throughout the rescue attempt, said she had an 18-month-old son. "She clung on for the boy... She told me you're my brother, please don't leave me alone."

The eight-storey Rana Plaza, which collapsed Wednesday morning, violated building regulations like many structures around the capital Dhaka.

Rapid Action Battalion chief Mukhlesur Rahman told AFP that tycoon Rana "is the one most responsible for the accident. The building was declared abandoned. But he forced the garment factories and workers to work on the building."

As Rana's arrest was announced, garment workers and relatives of the missing cheered and began shouting "Hang Rana, Hang the killer!"

A police spokesman said they had also arrested Anisur Rahman, owner of Ether Tex garment factory. He is the fourth garment factory owner held by authorities.

By Sunday evening, the confirmed death toll had reached 381, according to police officer Liakot Hossain.

About 2,500 people have been rescued from the scene of the disaster, some only after undergoing amputations to free them from the pancaked slabs of reinforced concrete.

Sunday 28 April 2013

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j7AXPhyjej1OKAzJYxAxbALvTUxw?docId=CNG.1c2a4d71622d3abe9dd917fbb9bc4788.51

Three more fishermen's bodies found off Goa coast after mishap

The joint search operation by the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard today recovered three more bodies of fishermen who had drowned after their trawler was hit by a Coast Guard offshore patrol vessel on April 25.

"Three more bodies of fishermen who were on board fishing trawler 'Sea Messiah' which capsized after being hit by Indian Coast Guard offshore patrol vessel 'ICG Vaibhav', were recovered from around where the accident happened," Goa region's Indian Coast Guard Commander S D Bhanot told PTI today.

He said that a fleet of six ships – three each of the Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard, besides a Dornier aircraft and a Chetak helicopter, is still searching for two fishermen who are still missing.

"The search is in full swing," Commander Bhanot said.

With the recovery of three bodies, the total number of casualties in the mishap has gone reached four, after one body was recovered on the day of the accident.

Officials stated that 23 fishermen were on board, of which six went missing, while the rest were saved by another fishing trawler.

The Indian Coast Guard has already initiated a Board of Inquiry into the accident, whose report will be submitted soon, Commander Bhanot said.

Meanwhile, the Goa police have already registered a case in this regard, but events took another twist when police officials from Mumbai's Yellow Gate police station arrived in Goa on Saturday to investigate the incident.

Indian Coast Guard officials had earlier stated that the accident happened 13 nautical miles off the Agonda coast in Goa's southernmost Canacona taluka.

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had expressed his helplessness to book the Coast Guard official reportedly responsible for the offence, as the accident happened outside state waters.

Sunday 28 April 2013

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/329064/three-more-fishermen039s-bodies-found.html

4 Dead, 4 Missing in SW China's Landslide

A landslide in Bijie, Southwest China's Guizhou Province, on Saturday afternoon had killed three villagers and left five others missing by late Saturday, local authorities said.

Eight villagers were buried after the landslide hit Mawo village near the city of Bijie at 12:50 pm, said an official with the publicity department under the CPC Qixingguan District Committee of the city, which administers the village.

Two residential structures were buried, the official said, adding that an all-out rescue effort is under way.

Firefighters are still detecting the missing with devices.

Sunday 28 April 2013

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/778107.shtml

40000 visitors

To all readers. Many thanks for supporting the DVI blogger website. As of today, this website has attracted over 40000 page visits since its creation just over a year ago with 200-300 page visits on average a day. Its now indeed a global website, attracting readers from over 100+ countries. Visitors are mostly from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Canada, Australia, India, Brazil, France, Italy, Poland, Mexico and African countries. Due to its success, its now highly ranking in Google searches for disaster related news. I hope you will continue to visit this blog and make it one of the prime websites for global disaster victim identification news.

Sunday 28 April 2013

Cranes called in at Bangladesh disaster site

Bangladesh rescue teams working at the site of a collapsed factory bloc have called in heavy-lifting equipment with hopes of finding more survivors fading, fire chief Ahmed Ali told AFP Sunday.

"Apparently there is no more sign of life under the rubble," he said. "Together with the army we have decided to use heavy equipment like cranes to remove the debris and slabs vertically from mid-day today.

"Our hope is that we may still find some people alive under the debris."

Sunday 28 April 2013

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130428/cranes-called-at-bangladesh-disaster-site-fire-chief

Igbogun village motor accident: unidentified victims get mass burial

It was a day of outpouring of emotions, crying and wailing. Friends and family members of victims of the April 5 motor accident that occurred in Igbogui village in Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State, created time to say bye-bye to their loved ones at the scene of a mass burial at a cemetery in Benin City. BANJI ALUKO, who captured the melancholic mood of the people at the cemetery, reports.

IF Nnaemeka Anyawu knew that death was awaiting him on the road on Friday, April 5, he surely would not have embarked on the infamous journey that violently took his life that date. According to Judith Anyawu, his sister, Nnaemeka had left that morning to see their parents in Enugu, where they live. “He left early in the morning and I followed him to the door as he waved goodbye. I never knew I would not see him again,” Judith said of his 31-year-old brother who graduated from the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) with a degree in Geology and Mining.

At the scene of the mass burial, Judith delivered an elegy-like short speech to the remains of his brother and those of 50 others who were all put into the ground early that morning. Describing her late brother as tall, chocolate-coloured, social and handsome, she asked why death took her brother at his prime. “Nnaemeka, you came to this world and departed quickly. You didn’t tell me it would all end this way. Anyway, God knows the best,” she offered while trying to control the tears that flowed freely from her eyes.

Off course she was not alone as families and friends of the victims of the accident involving an articulated vehicle belonging to the Dangote Group, a fuel-laden petrol tanker and an Enugu-bound luxury bus belonging to the Young Shall Grow Motors besiege the First Cemetery, Benin to pay homage to their departed loved ones. For many of them, the entire episode was like a dream as they watch as the remains of their people were neatly parked in polythene body bags and put into the dug ground that served as the mass grave.

While Judith only lost a brother to the accident, Kelvin Aniekwe was more unfortunate as he lost his wife and two young daughters.

Wearing a pair of black jeans, black shirt and a black sunshade, he could not offer a word throughout the time the bodies of the victims were conveyed from the lorry to the time they were put into the ground; he was just looking. Even when Apostle Barnabas Chukwukere of End Time Soul Winners Outreach, Benin City, prayed for the repose of the souls of the victims, he appeared not to betray emotions as he fixed his eyes on the mass grave in front of him.

His brother, who accompanied him to the site, informed that his brother’s late wife had left Lagos for Enugu with the two little girls to see her mother, the children’s grandmother. He was particularly concerned about the cause of the accident as he shouted, “Government should do something about this needless loss of lives o ! They should really do something. They must ensure that trailers and tankers are not allowed to move at night so that this kind of carnage will not occur on our roads again because if a petrol tanker was not involved in the accident, these people would not have died.”

There was also the pathetic story of Chika Nwafor, an accounting consultant with the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) whose close friend, Billy Anyaji, said could have missed the accident. “To me, it was one bad dream. Chika Nwafor was not somebody who just passed by. He was a blessing to everyone he came across. The question is what is the reason why good things don’t last? I had accompanied him to Ekene (Motors) that very day and not to Young Shall Grow. When I heard about the accident, I went to Ekene (Motors) because that was where I dropped him. What happened and how he ended up at Young Shall Grow, I don’t know but God understands everything that happened in this world. I think Ekene (Motors) had a problem and he crossed over after I left. He came to Lagos on Thursday from Enugu and slept in my house. The following day, he was on the road again to attend a wedding in Enugu on Saturday and see his family. I was telling him that he was a workaholic and that he needed to give himself a rest. I never knew our friendship would in this world would end this way,” he said mournfully.

The story of Amaka Okonkwo, a final year student of History and International Studies of the Nnamdi Azikwe University, also evokes pity. Ubaka Onochie, his uncle who came from Lagos for the burial said Amaka was returning to Awka from Lagos where she had gone to enjoy the Easter break. “Amaka Okonkwo was a lovely young girl in her early twenties. The last time I saw her was January. Two weeks before the accident, we spoke on phone and she told me that she would be coming to Lagos during the Easter break.

“My sister called me that she learnt she died in a motor accident and I immediately put a call through to his brother, who confirmed that her name was among the people who boarded a ‘Young Shall Grow’ luxury bus that was involved in an accident. I immediately traveled down to Benin where the said the corpse were deposited. On getting to UBTH, I was taken to the morgue but I could not identify the corpse. None of the corpse was identifiable because they were all roasted alive.

Speaking at the scene of the mass burial, the Chief Mortician of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, (UBTH) Mr Wilfred Aikhonogie, said 51 out of 53 bodies of the accident victims were given the mass burial as their bodies could not be identified while two victims, who could be recognised, were released to their families for burial.

It was not that the family members were contented that there people should be given mass burial anyway. Ani Justin, who lost a brother, Chibuzor, to the accident said he made frantic efforts to identify his brother. “I have no option but to accept the fact that my brother would be buried in another land,” he said while Chika Odiamah said he spent three days at the UBTH trying to identify his brother but when he could not, he finally agreed to the mass burial.

There were also knocks for the transport company over the manner the accident was handled. Billy Anyaji narrated his experience in the hands of the transport company, berating them for what he called their inhuman treatment. “I first went to Ekene Motors because it was there that I dropped my friend. I later went to the Young Shall Grow office at Jibowu. The people there denied that they didn’t have the identity of the people in the bus. They asked us to go to their headquarters at Maza Maza. On getting to Maza Maza, they said I should go to the computer room. From the computer room, they asked me to go to another place at Navy Town. When we got to Navy Town, I knew they were just dribbling us and that my guy had died. Throughout this period at their office, they were loading as if nothing happened.”

The same thing goes for Ubaka Onochie who said that the transport company kept families members of the victims in the dark. “They didn’t show enough concern and there were laxities on their part. They did not provide useful information and they kept turning people around. When I left UBTH on Monday, three days after the accident, none of the managers of the company had visited the hospital,” Ubaka stated.

The families were further peeved when they learnt that officials of the transport company were not present at the cemetery. Even when one of the bereaved family members shouted that the transport company was not present at the burial site, nobody said anything contrary to the effect, accentuating the fact that the transport company did not actually send any representative to the burial.

However, a policeman who spoke with the reporter said the decision of the transport company to shun the burial was understandable. “If they had sent any representative, that person could have been killed here. Remember they were accused of not doing enough when the accident happened. That may explain reason they did not send anybody here,” the policeman said while the burial was ongoing.

Sunday 28 April 2013

http://tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/component/k2/item/10568-igbogun-village-motor-accident-crying-wailing-as-victims-get-mass-burial

Japan: Survivors of 3/11 tsunami disaster issue newspaper to pull people together

Iwate Prefecture—Disaster survivors who lost family members and friends in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami are publishing a newspaper to help others overcome their grief.

The Inochi Shimbun (Newspaper of life) was started in tsunami-hit Kitakami, Iwate Prefecture, to bind people affected by the disaster on March 11, 2011, that killed more than 15,000 people and left 2,600 missing.

Ruiko Sasahara, 40, who has restored about 400 bodies of disaster victims as a volunteer, is the chief editor of the newspaper, which is produced in an office she owns in the city.

“People can live when they have ties with others. But the size of a circle one can connect to is limited,” Sasahara said. “I hope this newspaper can connect people. I hope it will be delivered especially to people who feel isolated.”

Tomoe Ito, one of the editors at the Inochi newspaper, is a 35-year-old part-time teacher at a junior high school in Kitakami. She met Sasahara in March last year, a year after the disaster.

“There isn’t anyone else other than her who can understand my feelings,” Ito said she thought when she read a newspaper article about Sasahara.

Ito, whose 59-year-old mother and 93-year-old grandfather were killed in the tsunami, contacted Sasahara.

“A year ago, all I could do was to live day by day,” Ito said. “After I met Sasahara and talked about many things, I was able to stand and live on my own feet.”

Another editor at the Inochi newspaper is Yuya Kawamura, 28, a resident of Morioka, Iwate Prefecture. His wife, 20, and two sons aged 11 months and 7 days, died in the disaster.

Kawamura had lost his will to live, but after he started working as a mortician, he started to think more about life and death. He also said Sasahara taught him many important things for his job.

The starting point of their activities dates back about half a year ago.

Last fall, the future editors of the Inochi newspaper talked about the meaning of life and death with a young person whose friend died in the disaster. They also discussed how they felt when they identified bodies in morgues.

They came up with the idea of preserving their discussions in written form, and decided to publish a newspaper to share their feelings and thoughts with the outside world.

“I have managed to accept the death of my family members,” Ito said. “But there are still many people around me who cannot. I want to deliver our newspaper to these people and live together with those who read it.”

The first edition of the newspaper was completed on March 4, a week before the second anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Sasahara currently distributes the newspaper when she gives speeches across Japan. She said audience members handle the newspaper delicately and take it home.

Sasahara and her colleagues plan to publish the newspaper regularly and are soliciting written contributions.

The address of the Inochi newspaper’s office is: Inochi newspaper editorial desk c/o Sakura Inc., 18-17-5 Kamiezuriko, Kitakami-shi, Iwate Prefecture 024-0071, Japan.

Sunday 28 April 2013

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/life_and_death/AJ201304280041

761 people still missing in Savar tragedy

Rescuers have come up with a list of 761 people who are still missing in the worst building collapse in the country.

The list has been made as per information given by the relatives of those who used to work inside the Rana Plaza, Savar Model Police Station Inspector (Investigation) Aminur Rahman told bdnews24.com.

”We have put the names on the list checking the identity cards and photos of those missing until 12am on Saturday,” he said.

The high-rise commercial building came crushing down on Wednesday morning. According to local people, around 3,500 employees were working in the five garment factories inside when the tragedy struck.

Since then, thousands of people thronged the site with photos to get their relatives dead or alive.

Rescuers have pulled out more than 2,348 people alive from the ruins so far.

A temporary control room has been set up near the Savar Bus Stand close to the site of the disaster to provide the distressed families with information.

Official estimates put the deaths at 304 at 5:35pm Friday, Inspector (Investigation) Aminur Rahman of the Savar Model Station told bdnews24.com

So far, 286 bodies have been handed over to the relatives, he said and added that 23 bodies have been sent to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital as they had started to decompose.

Shafiul Alam is one of those anxious about the fate of his dear ones at the site.

His niece Nazma Akhter,20, who hails from Barisal’s Tungibaria is missing.

Alam told bdnews24.com Nazma had joined the EtherTex on the fifth floor of the nine-storey commercial building only a year ago.

“I have looked everywhere … nearby hospitals, CMH, the row of dead bodies being piled up on the ground, but did not find her,” he said.

People like Lutfor Rahman, Awal Bepari also have come there from across Bangladesh to locate their relatives.

Saturday 27 April 2013 http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2013/04/26/761-people-still-missing-in-savar-tragedy

Rescuers find 50 survivors in Bangladesh factory collapse

Rescuers found 50 people alive late Friday in the rubble of a Bangladesh garment factory complex making Western brand clothes that caved in two days earlier, leaving over 300 workers dead.

A total of 304 people are so far known to have died after the eight-storey building collapsed in the industrial area of Savar town on the outskirts of the Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Wednesday morning, according to the army.

"We have found around 50 people still alive at several places on the third floor after digging tunnels. We hope we can rescue them by tomorrow morning," said Sheikh Mizanur Rahman, deputy director of the Bangladeshi fire service.

The discovery of more survivors brought new hope to the thousands of desperate relatives huddled at the disaster site, but an intense stench of decomposition suggested many bodies remain trapped in the rubble.

"We've rescued about 80 people alive from the rubble today (Friday)," Rahman added. More than 2,300 people had been rescued alive since the collapse but many are severely injured, the army said.

Exhausted rescue teams of soldiers, firemen and volunteers using concrete-cutters and drilling machines were racing against time in searing heat to find more survivors from the country's worst industrial disaster.

As night fell, spotlights shone on the mountain of mangled concrete and steel, and relatives held photographs of missing family members waiting for news.

Earlier in the day, police battled to control huge angry crowds of garment workers protesting over the tragedy, the latest to befall Bangladesh's huge garment sector which is a big foreign exchange earner for the poor nation.

Widespread anger has been fuelled by revelations that factory bosses forced workers to return to the building on Wednesday despite cracks appearing in the building the previous day.

Police fired tear-gas and rubber bullets at the workers -- who sew clothes for well-known Western brands for as little as $37 a month -- as they blocked roads and attacked factories and buses in textile-making districts around Dhaka.

"The situation is very volatile," M. Asaduzzaman, an officer in the police control room in manufacturing hub Gazipur, told AFP.

The Rana Plaza building collapsed within minutes on Wednesday morning.

British low-cost fashion line Primark and Spanish giant Mango have acknowledged having their products made in the block, while a host of brands including Walmart and France's Carrefour are investigating.

The accident has prompted new accusations from labour activists that Western clothing companies place profit before safety by sourcing their products from Bangladesh, despite its shocking track record of deadly disasters.

Last November, a blaze at a factory making products for Walmart and other Western labels left 111 people dead, with survivors describing how fire exits were kept locked by site managers.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply saddened by the loss of life" caused by the incident, according to his spokesperson, and extended an offer of assistance to Bangladesh.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the building collapse "shows the urgent need to improveBangladesh's protections for worker health and safety".

With many of the country's 4,500 factories already shut due to protests and fears of damage, manufacturers declared Saturday a holiday and trade unions called a strike for Sunday to demand better working conditions.

"Enough is enough. It's time the government acted. They should save garment workers, not factory owners!" Mosherafu Mishu, a leader of the Garment Workers Unity Forum, told a rally in Dhaka.

Amid frustration about the slow pace of progress, thousands of relatives at one point burst onto the disaster site, prompting police to fire tear gas to disperse the crowd.

At nearby Enam Medical College Hospital, doctors struggled to treat around 1,200 people admitted since Wednesday morning, many with missing limbs or with such bad injuries they required amputations.

"Some have gangrene," doctor Hiralal Roy told AFP.

Police, meanwhile, made a string of raids to track down the factory and building owners after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed to bring them to justice.

Saturday 27 April 2013

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/rescuers-find-50-survivors-in-bangladesh/654842.html

20 killed, 25 injured as tractor plunges into gorge

At least 20 persons were killed and 25 injured, 12 of them seriously, when a tractor carrying a marriage party fell into a gorge in Rayagada district today, police said.

The incident took place in a remote area between Uppar Anchal Bari and Hataguma when the tractor, carrying about 60 persons from Hiranpadu village, plunged into gorge after one of its front wheels broke on a hill top.

The victims, including women and children, were returning home at Hiranpadu village after attending a wedding at Seriguma village when the accident occurred, Rayagada SP Rajesh Pandit said.

"So far, we have information regarding death of 20 persons but the bodies are yet to be identified," said Tapan Mohanty, inspector in-charge of Rayagada Police Station.

All the injured persons were taken to Rayagada district headquarters hospital.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced medical expenses of the injured would be given from Chief Minister's Relief Fund and State Treatment Fund.

He directed the district collector of Rayagada to shift seriously injured persons to a nearby hospital at Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

"The district administration has decided to refer three of them to a hospital at Vishakhapatnam," said Sashi Bhusan Padhi, Rayagada district collector

Saturday 27 April 2013

http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/20-killed-25-injured-as-tractor-plunges-into-gorge-113042600825_1.html

Airplane Debris Found Near World Trade Center Site

Land surveyors working just north of the former World Trade Center site have discovered a piece of an airplane’s landing gear, apparently from one of the two planes that crashed into the twin towers more than 11 years ago, the police said on Friday.

A part of a landing gear, apparently from one of the airplanes that crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, was found on Wednesday in Lower Manhattan.

The landing gear part was found on Wednesday in a narrow space between two buildings, 51 Park Place and 50 Murray Street, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said in a statement.

The police were treating the area as a crime scene, Mr. Browne said. It is possible that the medical examiner’s office will decide to sift through the soil there in search of human remains, he said.

The surveyors, working for a property owner in the area, were inspecting the rear of 51 Park Place when they found the piece.

On Sept. 11, 2001, the landing gear assembly of one of the planes crashed through the roof of 45-47 Park Place, at the time a Burlington Coat Factory.

Park Place is about three blocks north of the World Trade Center site, and 51 Park Place was part of a plan by a developer to create a mosque and community center.

The landing gear component is about 3 feet high, 3 feet wide and about 18 inches deep, Mr. Browne said. It was wedged between the two buildings, where it remained “out of sight and out of mind for over a decade,” he said.

“The odds of it entering that space at exactly that angle that would permit it to squeeze in there,” he added, “it had to come in at almost precisely the right angle to end up being wedged there.”

He said investigators were working under the assumption that the piece was “a portion of the landing gear of one of the two planes destroyed on 9/11.”

He noted that the artifact bore a Boeing serial number and that personnel from the Police Department’s aviation unit had identified it as part of a landing gear. He also noted that it was found near where other wreckage from the jetliners were discovered shortly after the attacks.

Friday 26 April 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/nyregion/airplane-debris-found-near-world-trade-center-site.html?_r=0

Afghanistan bus accident: Taliban insurgents cause fiery collision that kills 45 passengers

A bus collided on Friday with the wreckage of a truck that had been attacked by Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, killing 45 people aboard the bus in a fiery crash, officials said.

The battered oil tanker had been left in the middle of a narrow road near the border of Kandahar and Helmand provinces for several days after insurgents attacked it. Police considered the area too dangerous to enter, the officials said.

Before sunrise Friday, the bus smashed into the truck and burst into flames, said Abdul Razaq, the provincial police chief of Kandahar.

As police, soldiers and ambulances rushed to the desolate area, where many of the victims were burned beyond recognition, one survivor, Mohammad Habib, cried as he searched for his brother.

"I don't care about my belongings and money that were burned inside the bus, but please help me find my brother, dead or alive," he told AP Television News. "How will I face my mother without him?"

Forty-five people were killed and 10 injured, said Javeed Faisal, the spokesman for the governor of Kandahar province. He spoke to The Associated Press at Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar city, where many of the victims, including men, women and children, were being taken.

Razaq said it would be difficult to identify many of the bodies.

The bus began its journey in the capital of Helmand province and was to stop in Kandahar city, then travel north to Kabul, the Afghan capital, Razaq said.

Friday 26 April 2013

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/26/afghanistan-bus-accident_n_3160272.html

Grim Greek fate for Syrians fleeing civil war

For most people, it was yet another Aegean Sea tragedy in which a group of would-be migrants in a small boat drowned while trying to reach Greece.

But for Husam Hashash, who lost his brother, his sister-in-law and their three children in the March 6 sinking, the incident was much more profound.

Husam's brother Omar, 40, came as close to any immigrant to realising his Greek dream after 15 years in his adoptive country, where he had managed to start a small textile business that employed some 20 people.

But that dream ended in 2010. When the economic crisis made landfall in Greece, Omar returned home to Syria to start another business. Instead, the civil war caught up with him.

"He had problems there too," recalls Husam, sitting in his sparse Athens living room and holding back tears. "His shop was robbed and business seized up."

Omar decided to return to Greece. But in the meantime, his Greek residence permit had expired and he could not renew it from Syria. He had no option but to attempt to sneak back.

The family first tried the overland route through the Greek border with Turkey, where they were stopped and turned back.

Greece recently completed a 10.3-kilometre (6.4-mile) barbed-wire fence on the border in a general crackdown against undocumented migration assisted by European Union forces and funding.

According to EU figures, a total 11,900 Syrians were caught trying to enter the bloc in 2012 in comparison with just over 3,000 in each of the three years before.

Rights groups such as Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders regularly accuse Greece and the European Union of endangering the lives of undocumented migrants and refugees.

Greece in particular is also charged with detaining them in inhuman conditions when they are caught.

Thwarted by land, Omar was left the sole option of crossing the Aegean Sea. He found a smuggler and paid 1,200 euros (over $1,500) to make the arrangements.

That night in March, he set off with his wife, children and another four people on board an inflatable dinghy, heading for the Greek island of Mytilene.

"The last time we spoke to our brother was on the morning of his departure," says Husam. "Then he called around midnight to say that he was about to arrive."

That night, all nine people inside the boat drowned. Among them was a pregnant girl in her teens.

"We called his mobile after midnight but he never replied. Even if he had been arrested by the police, he would have found a way to get through to us," says Husam.

In desperation, Omar's other brother rushed to the island of Mytilene, to begin the macabre task of searching among the bodies swept ashore by the sea.

The family received little help from the smugglers who had organised the crossing.

"They lied to us at every turn," says Husam. "They told us that the group had landed on Chios, another island. And while my brother scoured the islands, the authorities were no help either," he adds.

In the end, it was a tourist who found Omar's body on a Mytilene's beach.

But the family's ordeal was not over.

Husam went to extraordinary trouble to have his brother buried in one of the few sanctioned cemeteries for Muslims in Komotini, northern Greece.

The rest of Omar's family were buried with him, save for one of his children whose body was never found.

John Dalhuisen, Amnesty's programme director for Europe and Central Asia, gave the epitaph a few days later as the group mounted fresh criticism on Greece's immigration crackdown.

"It was a tragedy waiting to happen," he said.

Even the survivors of such crossings have little to cheer about, landing in a country mired in recession for the last six years and grappling with soaring unemployment and rising hostility to foreigners.

Over the past year, a once-marginal neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn, has increased in influence, electing 18 deputies in last year's crisis-marked general ballot.

Golden Dawn's rise has been accompanied by indiscriminate beatings of migrants in various Greek cities by racist gangs.

"We wanted to flee Syria and Bashar al-Assad, now we want to flee Greece," says Ali al-Massoud, a 28-year-old Syrian Kurd who arrived seven months ago with a pregnant wife and three children.

Their village in the north of Syria was destroyed in July in a bombardment, scattering their extended family between Iraq and Greece.

Three generations of the family -- 15 people in all including various cousins -- now live in a small apartment in central Athens.

Ali's father has a job but cannot support the entire clan. In order to eat, his mother gathers third-rate vegetables discarded by outdoor vendors at the end of daily markets.

"And yet, whenever I go to see a Greek employer to ask for a job, they generally cry harder than me," Ali notes.

Friday 26 April 2013

http://www.france24.com/en/20130425-grim-greek-fate-syrians-fleeing-civil-war

Search and rescue operations for fishing vessel Sea Messiah

At about 4.30am on 25 April, a fishing vessel Sea Messiah collided with an unknown vessel off the Karwar coast. Whilst 23 out of 29 crew were rescued by other fishing vessels in vicinity, two bodies have been recovered while four others were reported to be missing.

On receipt of this information, Indian Navy ships and aircraft were immediately deployed to supplement the Coast Guard Search and Rescue effort. INS Suvarna and Koswari have recovered parts of the boat, and are continuing the search for the missing fishermen.

In addition, search and rescue helicopters have also conducted aerial surveillance to locate the missing fishermen.

Friday 26 April 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Search-and-rescue-operations-for-fishing-vessel-Sea-Messiah/articleshow/19736600.cms

Training local communities for air disaster rescue operations

Over the years, aviation stakeholders, particularly sundry experts, have tried to ensure that victims of air accident in Nigeria are responded to rapidly to enhance the survival rate.

Despite these efforts, there are still complaints that the responds time to air emergencies in the country is not encouraging; hence at the end of every attempt at rescuing victims of air disasters, nothing is achieved.

For example, when the ill-fated Bellview airlines’ plane crashed October 25, 2005 at Lisa Village in Ogun state, it took several hours before Search and Rescue (SAR) team and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and others bodies saddled with the job of or aviation emergencies arrived the scene of the accident. Even residents of the local communities who should have been at the scene soon after the accident occurred, ahead of the SAR and NEMA teams, did not know what to do. Also, even if they would have loved to get to the scene to rescue the victims, the fear of security agents who could harass, or even harm them. Eventually, the entire 117 passengers on board died.

Also, on March 15, 2008, a twin-turbo prop 19-seater aircraft belonging to Wings Aviation crashed in Calabar while on a routine flight from the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos. It took several days for the hunters in communities closer to the crash site to find the carcass of the aircraft and the remains of the victims.

Also, when Dana Air’s MD83 airplane flight 992 crashed on June 3, last year in Iju–Ishaga, the rescue team did not get there on time despite the fact that the aircraft crashed into a residential area. The local communities, rather than trying to rescue victims of the crash, unfortunately watched the victims die. The crowd on the roads leading to the street where the plane crashed, and at the crash site did not help matters as they became a nuisance to genuine rescue activities. The access roads to the crash site were blocked by mostly onlookers, or those who did not have any business being there.

At the end about 160 people aboard the plane and on ground died.

On the other hand, local communities in and around air crash sites oftentimes do not know what to do in the case of emergency, even when they have access to the accident sites.

Lack of training

Aviation stakeholders often argued that the local communities should not be blamed for not helping during air emergencies, because they are not trained to do so, or even given necessary orientation that would enable them even provide information that can help the appropriate agencies. They also argue that there is no way the local communities would join in air accident emergencies when the various agencies concerned with this responsibility are themselves not coordinated.

Oftentimes unfortunately also, according to various respondents, these agencies rather than remain focus for proper coordination of the rescue activities unnecessarily biker over such mundane issues as which of the agency should lead the entire efforts.

Only recent a Boeing aircraft 737-800 series belonging to Lion Air, Indonesia’s largest airline crashed into a river just off the runway of the main airport on the country’s resort island of Bali. All 101 passengers and seven crew members on the flight, which originated from the city of Bandung, were rescued as the aircraft was evacuated after crashing. The feat was achieved because the rescuers responded to the air emergency on time compared to Nigeria where response time usually takes hours.

It was based on the need to ensure that victims of air crashes are rescued on time as done in other countries of the world, and to minimise the casualty rate at such times, that a stakeholders meeting on the matter was convened recently.

Stakeholders speak

The meeting under the auspices of the Airport Emergency Planning Committee was organised to discuss the need to train local communities on air accident emergency and to integrate them into Search and Rescue (SAR).

Speaking at the forum held at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, the Chairman, Airport Emergency Planning Committee, Edward Olarerin, said communities around the airport would not only be trained on air emergencies, but be integrated into SARS, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and other bodies that have roles to play in either air emergency or aviation.

He assured that all government agencies at the airport, including the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) would partner with the communities in training them for any air emergency situation.

According to him, “we have contacted the local governments around the airport to give us some people that we will train along with our search and rescue operatives. This people will now go back to their communities to enlighten their peers about search and rescue during an air emergency,”

He announced that the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) would organised a mandatory two years drill for officials of both agencies.

Speaking at the stakeholders forum, Principal Planning Officer, NEMA, Babatunde Olowokere, said the training of people at the grassroots level is not new to the agency, as it has been training local communities at various local government Areas in the country.

He argued that response to disaster and management should not be left for one agency, and that it should rather be a collective responsibility, if the target goal must be achieved.

According to him, training of grass people “is a continuous exercise, in the sense that we have a goal that disaster is everybody’s business and the more people know what to do during disaster the better for life saving. And it also makes our work easier in the sense that if you give then requisite knowledge and skill on how to manage disaster when it happens, they will be able to do that before because disaster normally happens at a particular place that is the grass root.”

The NEMA official added that if the local communities are trained and equipped on what to do in the event of an air accident, they would know what to do before NEMA and other agencies get to the site of the crash.

He particularly mentioned Ifako-Ijaye, Local Government Areas, as one of the local governments where local communities needed to be trained and equipped on air accident emergences, since according to him, that is the route that aircrafts take.

“If we train them and equipment them on what to do before we even get there they would have started doing something in making sure that lives are not loss and that is what we have been doing. More so, particularly these local government Ifako-Ijaye, we know that, that is the route that the plane takes, we want to carry out advocacy on what you do when there is a crash and also to train them on how to carry out search and rescue operation especially in giving first aids to victims that are trapped, that is the training” he said.

He promised that the agency will carry out advocacy on what you do when there is air crash, adding that NEMA is also training local communities on how to carry out Search and Rescue (SAR) operations especially in the area of administering first aid to trapped victims.

Challenge

Olowokere also pointed out that one of the major challenges faced by the agency was that most of the local government areas in the country are reluctant to collaborate with the agency on disaster.

“The challenge we have is the corporation from the local government, if they are willing to collaborate with us, our job will be simpler. Our men have been trained to carry out such exercise” he said

Speaking on the equipment to carry out rescue operations, he said that all over the world organisations that manage disaster does not have all the equipment used in carrying out operations, adding that they sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with other organisations.

He added that in Nigeria it is not different, as NEMA already signed MoU with major construction companies such as Julius Berger, Dantata and others, adding that whenever there is any disaster, these companies don’t wait until they are called they just go there because there is an existing MoU.

On his part, an aviation analyst, Mr Olumide Ohunayo, said that it is a good beginning as it is not only aimed at enhancing safety but also improving emergency response time. Ohunayo, hoped that the training will also teach the local communities how not temper with aircraft parts at the site of the accident, adding that is unfair to attribute the inability of rescuers to get to the site of Dana crash on time led to the death of close to 160 people.

According to him, “I quite agree with the committee and look forward to the training and incorporation of those trained in the search and rescue team. It Is to enhance safety, improve emergency responsive time. It is unfair to link with Dana crash; I bet you Nigerians would have gone into that aircraft if there was any semblance of life. They were all dead because of the impact, coupled with internal and external smoke/fire that made it impossible to open the aircraft doors. I just hope the training will also educate them on the need not take anything away from crash site or touch aircraft parts seen at the vicinity of the crash”

An aeronautic engineer, Sheri Kyari, also agreed on the need to train local communities in air emergences, describing it as a step in the right direction, adding that it of the airport emergency plans.

He however, argued that finance to carry out the laudable programme could be a hindrance, urging the Airport Emergency Committee to ensure that the training programme is carried out in collaboration with NEMA so as to tap from its wealth of experience and facilities on emergency response and management.

The President of Aviation Round Table (ART) and former Nigeria Airways Limited (NAL) Pilot, Capt Dele Ore agreed that the committee should ensure training of local communities at local government levels so that when there is air emergency, they know what to do.

According to him, “we are beginning to get to the real issue that has to do with air accidents. They should continue to strive and should not rest on their oars. It is a good step in the right direction.”

He also called for a sensitisation programme for people in the airport environment, where staff of agencies at the airport will be taught on what to do when there is air emergency.

Friday 26 April 2013

http://dailyindependentnig.com/2013/04/training-local-communities-for-air-disaster-rescue-operations/

Dozens found alive as Bangladesh tragedy toll hits 250

Dozens of workers were found alive on Thursday as they huddled in the wreckage of a collapsed garment factory bloc in Bangladesh, a rare success for rescuers who have pulled out 250 bodies.

In an announcement greeted by wild applause from thousands of relatives at the scene, an army spokesman initially announced that 40 survivors had been discovered together in a room, but the figure was later revised to 24.

Screams filtering through the cracks in the concrete suggested more survivors were awaiting help, but a steady stream of bodies saw the recorded death toll almost double on Thursday and hundreds remain unaccounted for.

The collapse of the building on Wednesday on the outskirts of the capital is the worst industrial accident in the country’s history and is the latest in a spate of tragedies in the “Made in Bangladesh” clothing sector.

It prompted new criticism of Western brands who were accused by activists of placing profit before safety by sourcing their products from the country despite its shocking track record of deadly disasters.

Hundreds of thousands of workers walked out of their factories in solidarity with their dead colleagues on Thursday as flags flew at half mast and a national day of mourning was held.

“The death toll is now 250,” Moshiuddowla Reza, a senior police officer of Dhaka district, told AFP from the disaster site, adding more bodies were being recovered and that most of those who died are female garment workers.

Safety problems and poor working conditions plague the textile industry in Bangladesh, the world’s second-biggest clothing exporter after China.

Last November a blaze at a factory making products for Walmart and other Western labels left 111 people dead, with survivors describing how fire exits were kept locked by site managers.

Only British low-cost fashion line Primark and Spanish giant Mango have acknowledged having their products made in the collapsed factory bloc, while a host of brands including Wal-Mart and France’s Carrefour are investigating.

Italian fashion line Benetton denied having a supplier in the building but a local workers’ group provided documents showing apparent orders from the company in August and September last year.

The company did not reply to repeated requests from AFP for comment.

Survivors said the building developed visible cracks on Tuesday evening, but factory bosses had demanded staff return to the production lines despite a police evacuation order.

One manager for the New Wave Styles company, one of the five manufacturers in the building, told how the owner had consulted an engineer but then ignored his warnings.

“Those who’re involved, especially the owner who forced the workers to work there, will be punished,” Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told lawmakers.

“Wherever he is, he will be found and brought to justice.”At the scene of the disaster, relatives desperate for news descended in their thousands, clutching photographs and hoping to see their missing loved ones pulled out by firemen and soldiers.

“I became so thirsty that at one stage I drank my urine,” said an ecstatic Abul Hossain, 23, as he was dragged from the ruins more than 25 hours after the disaster struck at around 09:00 am (0300 GMT) on Wednesday.

But others were less lucky, with body after body laid out on the grounds of a nearby school for identification.

“I’ve seen all the bodies. My sister was not among them. She is also not in any of the hospitals,” said Mukta Begum, holding the photo of her younger sibling Suryaban, a garment worker.

Babul Akhter, head of the Bangladesh Garments and Industrial Workers Federation, told AFP that the factory owners, who have gone into hiding, would likely escape justice despite the outcry.

“Garment entrepreneurs are above the law here. There is hardly any example of an owner being prosecuted for this kind of outright murder,” he said.

“The Western retailers are also complicit because they give a blind eye to the manufacturers’ shoddy practices.”Before the 24 were found, Ahmed Ali, the national fire service chief, told AFP that 20 people had been rescued.

“We could still hear desperate cries for help from several places underneath the concrete heaps. Volunteers sent food and water to them through holes,” he said, adding that rescuers would work through the night under floodlights.

“We’re confident we can find more people alive even on Friday.”

Friday 26 April 2013

http://dawn.com/2013/04/25/dozens-found-alive-as-bangladesh-tragedy-toll-hits-250/

Thirty-eight feared dead in Russian psychiatric hospital fire

A fire raged through a psychiatric hospital north of Moscow on Friday and 38 people were feared dead, Russian officials and media reports said.

There were believed to have been 41 people in the building when the fire broke out - 38 patients and three staff members - and three escaped, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. A ministry official said a nurse led two patients to safety.

The ministry said emergency workers had found 12 bodies so far and that the fire, which broke out in the middle of the night, had been extinguished.

A Health Ministry official confirmed that 38 people were feared dead, state-run RIA news agency reported.

Interfax, a news agency, reported it was a “special regime” hospital, meaning that patients were not free to leave.

It is unclear whether this was a factor in the high death toll, as it has been in past fires in psychiatric institutions in Russia.

There were bars on the windows of the single-storey building in Ramensky, 120 km (70 miles) north of Moscow, and some patients apparently died while trying frantically to make it to the main entrance to escape. Many others died in their beds, Itar-Tass cited an unnamed source as saying.

"After the fire alarm went off, a nurse ... saw fire at the end of a corridor. She tried to put it out but could not and led two patients out," RIA quoted emergency official Yuri Deshyovykh as saying.

Fires claim a sad and steady death toll in Russia, far higher than in developed countries. Fire exits are locked, blocked by boxes in storage or simply nonexistent. Barred windows in nursing homes and hospitals have been the cause of horrendous death tolls, as have fires in student dormitories. A fatalistic Russian shrug or a bribe to fire inspectors are all too common responses to dangers.

Fires at state institutions in Russia such as hospitals, schools, drug treatment centres and homes for the elderly or handicapped have caused numerous casualties in recent years and raised questions about safety measures, conditions and escape routes.

More than 12,000 people died in fires in 2011 and more than 7,700 in the first nine months of 2012 in Russia, where the per capita death rate from fires is much higher than in Western nations including the United States.

Earlier this spring the building of one of Russia’s most prestigious theater schools burned, though with no casualties; the attic had been packed with drapes, costumes and the tinder of wooden set materials, all of which burned vigorously and quickly. The Emergency Situations Ministry said the fire started on or under the roof of the hospital at about 2:20 a.m. (2220 GMT on Thursday), but did not give its cause.

Friday 26 April 2013

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/26/us-russia-fire-idUSBRE93P02P20130426

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/world/europe/36-killed-in-fire-at-russian-psychiatric-hospital.html?_r=0