Philippines govt gives up search for missing fishermen

Lt. Gen. Jorge Segovia, head of Task Force Maritime Search SarGen, on Wednesday said the search and rescue operation for the still missing 352 fisherman has been called off, more than a month after super typhoon Pablo unleashed its wrath in eastern Mindanao.

“Our operations is shifting to support and rehabilitation operations and to deliver aid to survivors,” Segovia said in a press conference.

Segovia was accompanied by Mayor Darlene Antonino-Custodio who said the city has to move on.

Custodio said the city will be giving assistance to families of the missing fishermen as they recover from the loss of their loved ones.

At least 378 fishermen were reported missing several days after Pablo hit landfall in Davao Oriental that also left more than 1,000 dead.

Of the listed missing fishermen, 18 were found alive while 8 dead bodies were recovered from 51 fishing vessels from at least 10 fishing companies here that were caught in the middle of the storm.

Four of these fishing vessels were confirmed by survivors to have sunk at the height of Typhoon Pablo.

Only last week, Segovia refrained from issuing a statement on the fate of the missing fishermen.

“It is a sensitive issue especially for the families (of the victims),” he reasoned out.

At least three Philippine Navy ships and two floating assets of the Philippine Coast Guard were involved in the search and rescue mission.

A P-3C Orion maritime surveillance aircraft from the United States Navy as also dispatched to the area to help search for more survivors.

The operations however failed to recover any survivor other than those rescued by passing fishing vessels early in the tragedy.

Some relatives are hoping the fishermen are still alive.

Ana Lou Caspi-Nemenio, whose father is the ship captain of a catcher vessel of the Salazar-owned Thidcor fishing company, said she received reports that the crew of two of his father’s light boats were found in a state of shock while riding a bus somewhere between Leyte and Surigao.

She could not verify the report however.

Owners of the missing fishermen are still giving cash advances to the families of the missing fishermen.

But one fishing company has reportedly offered a cash assistance of P50,000 in exchange of a waiver and quit claim.

Rosanna Contreras, executive director of Socsksargen Federation of Fishing and Allied Industry (SFFAI), however said she has not received any information about the reported cash assistance.

SFFAI is handling all cash advances of families of the missing fishermen.

SFFAI said the Pablo tragedy was a big blow to the tuna industry. The federation said the lost fishing vessels valued up to P640 million.

Wednesday 16 January 2013

http://asiancorrespondent.com/95532/govt-gives-up-search-for-missing-fishermen/

Death toll of Egypt’s building collapse rises to 16

The death toll of the building collapse on early Wednesday in Egypt’s northern seaside city of Alexandria rose to 16, and 10 injured people have been rescued under the rubble, Health Ministry’s spokesman, Ahmed Omar, told Xinhua.

Omar said that the dead bodies were transferred from the collapse spot to the morgue of Koum al-Dikka in Alexandria while the injured people were taken to nearby hospitals at Alexandria’s Abou Qir area.

Omar confirmed to Xinhua that the death toll of the collapse was 16 so far, although Egyptian state TV said it was 17.

An eight-storey building in Alexandria’s suburb of Maamoura collapsed early Wednesday and the civil protection authority said that the building was illegally constructed in a narrow street without an official permit.

The rescue teams are currently continuing their efforts in search for more survivors.

Wednesday 16 January 2013

http://www.nzweek.com/world/death-toll-of-egypts-building-collapse-rises-to-16-43141/

Vietnam’s Buddhist response to disaster

Buddhist monks, nuns and their followers have long contributed to Vietnam’s disaster relief efforts. Sometimes equipped with canoes filled with instant noodles, woollen hats and psychosocial counsellors, this local cadre may lack standard operating procedures, but it constitutes a largely undocumented and significant disaster relief system running parallel to governmental efforts.

Buddhist temples’ (or any religious organization’s) contribution to disaster relief is still under-studied by international donors and NGOs working on disaster response, despite their growing role in a number of places, says Ian Wilderspin, a technical specialist on disaster risk management for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Hanoi.

However, Bui Viet Hien, a UNDP programme analyst, co-authored a 2011 study in collaboration with the Ministry of Sciences and Technology on the role of informal organizations in boosting community resilience to flooding in a district of the coastal Binh Dinh Province in south-central Vietnam.

Groups identified in the study included, among others, business leaders in the rice industry; boat owners who lived closest to the pier and provided emergency transportation during flood seasons; and dyke protection brigades nominated by village elders to supervise dykes during rainy seasons. The study broke down each group’s contribution to boosting resilience, concluding that people in the above three groups had the most impact on their villages’ ability to get through disasters.

There has not been a similar effort to assess informal organizations’ contribution to disaster response, she told IRIN last September. “It is an important question to ask [religious organizations’ contribution to disaster relief and prevention], but we simply do not know.”

Eric Debert, a programme manager with international NGO CARE in Vietnam, said though religious groups are not targeted directly in CARE’s work with communities on disaster risk reduction, they may be represented in other community associations and groups CARE consults.

Nevertheless, it could be a “gap”, he noted. Since 2006 CARE has coordinated the Joint Advocacy Network Initiative (JANI) funded by European Union aid body ECHO.

JANI includes 18 international and local NGOs as well as mass organizations (like Vietnam’s Women’s Union, whose stated membership is 13 million) which promote a community-based approach to help residents in disaster-prone areas face increasingly frequent and more intense natural hazards.

Buddhist operating procedures?

“They [Buddhist temples] have good intentions, but little strategy,” said Nguyen Huu Thang, the vice-director of social welfare and disaster for the Vietnam Red Cross (one of two groups nationwide authorized to receive disaster relief donations) which has collaborated with Buddhist temples organizing relief trips. Temples’ lack of formal training in humanitarian response can lead to “confusion or chaos” if relief groups deliver goods haphazardly without coordinating with local officials, said Thang.

But the leader of Quan Dinh temple on the outskirts of Hanoi, who goes by her Buddhist `dharma’ name (given during an initiation ceremony), Sister Peaceful Light, told IRIN the temple always goes through an official structure, whether it is Vietnam Red Cross or provincial authorities.

Pagoda leaders in or close to disaster-stricken areas often meet and guide arriving groups on hikes or by canoe to provincial authorities, who then direct them to villages most in need.

Thang said Buddhist temples were more active in organizing disaster responses than other religious groups.

In a country where more than half the population declares itself Buddhist, the network is wide - some 25,000 temples staffed with monks or nuns nationwide as of five years ago - Vietnam’s Buddhist Association reported to international media.

But the count then, and now, is only approximate. “Not all temples are registered with us. Some villages put joss sticks in an urn with rice and have a nun that visits occasionally. Is that a temple? Perhaps, but not known to us,” said an association staff member.

Tracking informal giving

“Why do you need to know how much we gave? Is it not enough that we did?” asked the nun overseeing one of the most well-known Buddhist pagodas in the central city of Hue, Tay Linh temple, who goes by the name of Sister True Compassion.

Buddhist temples file annual reports with the national Vietnamese Buddhist Association which lists donation amounts and how the money was spent: Surviving families of canoes which sank; children in a leper colony; cancer patient’s home visit. And in late 2011 when storms battered the southern tip of Vietnam, killing an estimated 85 and forcing another 13,000 families from their homes, Tay Linh temple’s disaster relief activities filled almost an entire page.

In 2011, the temple’s charity board, which Sister True Compassion heads alongside her position as vice-director of the regional charity board representing all Buddhist temples in Hue, calculated it gave some US$24,000 to communities hit by disaster.

When IRIN asked the national Buddhist association for a breakdown of how much money from overseas was sent to Buddhist temples in Vietnam, and how much money was donated to disaster relief efforts, officials said they had not formally analysed giving or disaster relief activities.

Not an uncommon response, noted local NGO Vietnam Asia Pacific Economic Centre, which published a study in 2011, with support from Asia Foundation, on philanthropic giving in Vietnam. The study noted that while in recent decades there has been “substantial individual giving... to alleviate the suffering of others particularly in times of disaster,” there has not been “systematic research or reports on giving patterns”.

Based on interviews with 200 households and 100 businesses nationwide, the NGO learned that “informal channels” - including pagodas, churches and community groups - received most charitable giving, while “official channels”- corporate organizations and funds for the poor - received but a fraction (27 percent in urban areas, 9.4 percent in rural ones).

“We do not work like formal organizations. Please do not call me a leader of anything,” said Sister True Compassion. “We are only trying to alleviate suffering and build compassion. That is all.”

Wednesday 16 January 2013

http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97256/Vietnam-s-Buddhist-response-to-disaster

300 families missing due to rain disaster in Mozambique

The Mozambican authorities said on Tuesday that they are searching for 300 families who went missing due to a storm that hit the central province of Zambezia.

The families went missing in the districts of Mocuba, Milanje, Namarroi, and Gile, after their homes were swept away by the fury waters.

A team from the government, involving personnel from the country’s natural disasters office, the police and the army are looking for the missing ones.

The calamity has cut off several regions of Zambezia from the outside world, according to Rita Almeida, spokesperson for the National Disasters Management Technical Council (CTGC).

So far this year at least six people have died in severe storms in Mozambique and 572 have been displaced from their homes, she said. The six confirmed deaths were all reported from the northern city of Nampula. Some of the victims were drowned and others were electrocuted, when cables were blown down by strong winds.

The mayor of Nampula, Castro Namuaca, explained that some Nampula neighborhoods, such as Namutequeliua and Muatala are crossed by rivers, which people walk across without any difficulty in the dry season.

But they become raging torrents during the rains. “Some people were not sufficiently cautious, and were swept away by the waters, ” said Namuaca.

According to Almeida, two other deaths have been reported, but bodies have not yet confirmed them.

She said 447 people have been displaced in Panda, and 45 in Homoine, both districts in the southern province of Inhambane.

These CTGC figures do not take account of the destruction of houses in Nampula. According to the municipal authorities, over 1, 000 houses built of flimsy materials, state buildings and electricity transformers were damaged or destroyed.

The City Council is using sheets of tarpaulin to improvise shelter for those who have lost their homes.

The damage to the electricity supply occurred mostly in parts of the city that are plagued with illegal, clandestine connections to the grid, particularly the neighborhood of Namicopo.

The Mozambican Electricity Company (EDM) said it will take 150, 000 U.S. dollars to install a reliable electricity network in Namicopo.

The CTGC declared an “orange alert” across the country on Friday, and is preparing for possible flooding in the main river basins.

The National Water Board (DNA) has warned of significant rises in the levels of the Zambezi and Buzi rivers in the center of the country, the Messalo in the north and the Inhanombe in the south.

The Buzi reached flood alert level at Goonda, in Sofala province, on Sunday night, and the flood surge is now travelling downstream towards Buzi town.

The Zambezi is above flood alert level at Caia and Marromeu, on its lower stretches. The DNA also warned that one of the major rivers in the south of the country, the Save, may reach flood alert level at Massangena, in Gaza province, on Tuesday or Wednesday.

It is recommending that people take precautions, such as moving equipment and property away from river banks, and avoiding crossing rivers.

Tuesday 15 January 2013

http://www.nzweek.com/world/300-families-missing-due-to-rain-disaster-in-mozambique-42952/

Two Bodies Found On Costa Concordia

The bodies of the two last missing victims of the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster may have been found, according to reports in the Italian media.

The news comes exactly one year after the huge liner — more than twice as big as the Titanic — ran aground off the Tuscan coast of Giglio, Italy.

The Concordia struck a rock and capsized on Jan. 13 near the island of Giglio after captain Francesco Schettino allegedly drove the ship on an unauthorized route too close to shore, ripping a huge gash in the hull. The ship tumbled onto its side with more than 4,200 people aboard, and 32 lives were lost.

Among them, Sicilian passenger Maria Grazia Trecarichi and Indian crew member Russel Rebello are still unaccounted for and presumed dead.

“Not being able to give back these bodies to their families is now the biggest tragedy,” Franco Gabrielli, the head of Italy’s civil protection agency, said at a poignant day-long commemoration at Giglio on Sunday.

But according to reports in the Italian media, the bodies were known to be located in the most unreachable area of the wreck near the stern.

“I was told four months ago that my brother’s body had been found, but recovery is impossible until the rotating of the ship,” Kevin Rebello, Russel’s brother, told the daily Il Tirreno.

Engineer and fire brigade chief Ennio Aquilino confirmed that the two victims are most likely trapped near the stern, where the ship collapsed.

“That’s our guess. We won’t be able to reach the bodies until we move the ship,” he told the daily La Nazione.

But the companies undertaking the refloating and removal of the Concordia – American Titan Salvage and Italian firm Micoperi – denied that the missing bodies had been located in the wreck.

Meanwhile, Gabrielli told reporters that plans for what is considered the largest re-float in history were behind schedule.

He announced that the 950-foot-long, 116-foot-wide, 114,500-ton carcass of the Costa Concordia will be refloated and towed from Giglio’s waters no earlier than September.

Originally, officials said they hoped to tow the ship away and break it up by early 2013.

The cost of the operation has also risen from the $400 million originally estimated to $530 million.

Prosecutors are seeking a 20-year prison sentence for Captain Francesco Schettino. He is facing accusations of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship. Prosecutors say he caused the disaster by sailing too close to shore and maneuvering the ship “as if it were a canoe.”

Tuesday 16 January 2013

http://news.discovery.com/human/two-missing-bodies-likely-found-on-costa-concordia-130115.htm

NBI returns to get DNA samplings from exhumed remains, relatives

The forensics team of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has returned here to get DNA samplings from the exhumed remains of unidentified victims who perished during typhoon Pablo on December 4.

At the public cemetery in Purok 4, Barangay Cabinuangan on Monday afternoon, MindaNews saw a team of the NBI’s Disaster Victim Identification (DVI), working on the remains exhumed from the niches and compartments that were temporarily sealed as of December 26.

Nearby, funeral parlor attendants sprayed disinfectants on the white caskets and body bags containing the remains.

A total of 384 bodies had been buried as of December 26. But the municipality’s records showed 426 “bodies found.” As of January 15, the number of “bodies found” had reached 437, Marlon Esperanza, information officer, said.

Esperanza acknowledged on December 27 that the figures do not tally. A total of 426 bodies were supposed to have been found, according to the Incident Command Center’s listing but only a total of 384 had been buried as of December 26, with the supposed remaining 42 bodies unaccounted for.

He explained they were still validating the list. But he noted that some relatives apparently claimed to have identified their loved ones from among the remains just so they could secure death certificates. Death certificates are required to avail of government’s P10,000 financial assistance for each slain relative, or to claim insurance.

Relatives of those who died had repeatedly asked them when the NBI would come to take their DNA samples, Esperanza said.

Bernardita Pebujot, municipal sanitary inspector, told MindaNews on Monday that the NBI team informed them they would finish the sample-taking at the cemetery in three days.

Pebujot said the team finished taking samples from 60 remains on Monday. At least 269 remains awaited exhumation for tissue sampling as of December 26.

Tissue sampling from the surviving relatives will be done in the municipal gym after the NBI is done with the cemetery samplings, she said.

New Bataan had the highest death toll of all the towns along Pablo’s path across Mindanao, Visayas and Luzon: some 400 out of at least 1,000 dead.

To commemorate the 40th day of their death, memorial walls were erected in two areas: at a makeshift shed outside the San Antonio de Padua parish on Sunday and a concrete wall at the former site of the barangay hall in Andap on Monday.

Fr. Edgar Tuling, parish priest, blessed the white streamer cloth containing the names of those who perished, shortly before the 8:30 a.m. mass on Sunday. Relatives lit candles and offered flowers in their memory.

A total of 527 names were listed but the list soon bore erasures and additions. As it turned out, some of those listed dead were actually alive while some of those who were killed were not listed.

Luciana Ditros, 53 of Purok 14, San Juan Village in Andap, told MindaNews her name was included among the dead but her slain husband, Pabian, 57, was not on the list. She said they borrowed the black pen marker used in writing the names, added Pabian, and struck lines across her name and her nine-year old nephew’s, Judito Chris Salopan, who was riding the motorcycle with his father on this Sunday morning.

Aside from Pabian, Salopan’s mother, Epifania and cousin Princess May Conate, 12, were also killed.

At the memorial wall in Andap at least 569 names of the dead and missing were handpainted. But before it was unveiled Monday morning, relatives and neighbors requested sign artists to delete the names of survivors and add the names of those who were slain but were not listed.

As of 1 p.m. Monday, 25 names had been deleted from the church memorial wall while 11 other names were added.

Tuling said it is good that relatives or neighbors are making the corrections – whether on delisting the name of a survivor, adding the name of a slain relative or correcting the spelling of names.

In Andap, two residents told the sign artist early Monday to change the spelling of Tulio to Julio.

There may be more misspelled names on the list but there may be no chance to make the corrections. In both memorial walls, most of the victims had the same family names, among them Abonero. Pontijon. Magbutong. Rebucas. Babag. Canillo. Unselagan.

Tuesday 15 January 2013

http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2013/01/16/nbi-returns-to-get-dna-samplings-from-exhumed-remains-relatives/