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