Exact count of dead in Uttarakhand may remain unknown; lack of travel records impedes search efforts

The exact number of people who have died in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand may never be known even as the state government put the number of missing at 3,000 with rescue operations entering the final phase.

“We will never know the exact number of those dead and the number of people who have been buried or washed away,” chief minister Vijay Bahuguna told news agency PTI in an interview.

As many as 900 stranded pilgrims and locals in Badrinath were left to be evacuated on Sunday as authorities grappled with the grim task of extricating dead bodies from under heaps of debris and performing the last rites.

Rains on Sunday prevented rescuers from reaching Kedarnath town to extricate bodies buried in the rubble even as the National Disaster Management said the death toll could be 'huge' as they gain access to areas ravaged by the flash flood a fortnight ago.

"National Disaster Relief Force team had planned to go to Kedarnath town with heavy equipment to extricate the bodies, but the heavy lift helicopters could not take off with the equipment due to bad weather," M Sashidhar Reddy, vice chairman of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), told reporters.

When asked about the death toll, Reddy said Uttarakhand Speaker had put the figure around 10,000, but right now it's not possible to give the exact numbers.

"I can only say that the manner in which the disaster occurred, it indicates huge number of deaths," he said.

The blame game over the June 15 and 16 rains escalated on Sunday with the meteorological department saying it had issued “timely” warnings of heavy rains and landslides but the state government claimed these were not “specific”.

The claims and counterclaims come amid questions whether the administration ignored the warnings and of the large-scale devastation in the hill state could have been averted.

Even after two weeks, the picture remains unclear, with estimates of number of dead varying from several hundreds to several thousands. Assembly speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal said on Saturday that the number of those killed could be more than 10,000 but the CM said the figure was incorrect. The search and rescue operation was likely to end in a day to two, he said. Compensation for the families of deceased who were not from Uttarakhand would be sent to the state governments after getting reports from them.

"If missing persons do not return in the next 30 days, the state government (concerned) will assume them dead and pay adequate compensation subject to the affidavit provided by the family members," Bahuguna said, adding 1,335 villages were still cut off from other parts of the state while power supply to almost 500 villages had not been restored.

Teams of rescuers have started returning. No pilgrims were now stranded in Gangotri, Yamnotri, Kedarnath and Hemkund Sahib, army sources said. A 200-member team comprising policemen, forensic experts, mountaineers, fire fighters and helpers will go to Kedarnath to pull out bodies from underneath the debris, officials said on Sunday.

Half the team will fly from the Guptkashi base station to reach the disaster zone by Monday afternoon. The rest will join them later. No cremation took take place on Sunday because of bad weather.

"The team's takeoff will depend on the weather," deputy inspector general of police Sanjay Gunjiyal told HT.

The exact number of people who have died in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand may never be known even as the state government put the number of missing at 3,000 with rescue operations entering the final phase.

Dearth of travel records impedes search, relief ops

Owing to the lack of records of Nepali pilgrims ’ entry to, and exit from, Uttarakhand, family members of the missing flood victims are going through hard times coping with the police and other government bodies in carrying out efficient search operations.

“Officials ask for the record of the entry of my parents to Uttarakhand, and their last traced location,” said Krishna Chalise, whose parents Kritinath and Jamuna, in pilgrimage to Uttarakhand, went missing in the flood. “But we don’t have any such documented report to submit. I don’t really know where they went missing from.”

Chalise’s parents have been missing for the last 13 days. According to him, he is preparing to go back to Kathmandu as all the search operations have turned futile.

Families of a dozen Nepali nationals who have gone missing in the flood are facing similar problems.

Pushpa Raj Pandey, manager of Anandamayee Aashram at Haridwar, has similar plight. According to him, Nepali nationals who come to visit Uttarakhand are not registered in any of the government agencies. “They don’t have passport, the citizenship certificate or any other document,” he said.

Many have pointed fingers at the open Nepal-India border behind the problems relating to the lack of proper accounts of those crossing the border.

“This has resulted in difficulties for the Nepali nationals not only in search operations but also in claiming relief packages from the Indian government,” said Narayan Panthi, a social worker based in Haridwar.

Raju Rana from Rukum district, who was admitted to the Dehradun-based Jolivent Hospital on Saturday, had similar hardship. “He was never registered with the government and no one really knows how long he has been here,” the hospital management said. Rana has sustained injuries in the spinal cord.

According to the Nepali Embassy in New Delhi, over 100 Nepalis have reported to the Embassy saying that their relatives had been missing. However, none of the reports is an authentic account of the missing person’s arrival in India.

“This has taught both the countries a lesson,” said Surya Bikram Shahi, chairman of the Gorkha Democratic Front in Dehradun. “Both the governments should keep records of every individual crossing the border. Open border does not necessarily mean unaccounted entries.”

Monday 1 July 2013

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NorthIndiaRainFury2013/Exact-count-of-dead-in-Uttarakhand-may-remain-unknown-Bahuguna/Article1-1084732.aspx

http://www.ekantipur.com/2013/06/30/top-story/nepalis-in-uttarakhand-floods-dearth-of-travel-records-impedes-search-relief-ops/374072.html

Bypass fire: death toll rises to 35

The death toll from Saturday night’s fire which broke out following an accident involving a fuel tanker and another car at Namungoona, on the Northern Bypass has climbed to 35.

On Sunday, police put the number of those who died at 33.

Information Minister, Ms Rosemary Namayanja, said on Monday that two more people have succumbed to the wounds they sustained in the Saturday fire.

The accident happened after a Toyota Noah car rammed into a fuel tanker at about 9.30pm, resulting into a spillage of fuel on the road and down into a nearby papyrus swamp.

Minutes later, the place had been swarmed by boda boda cyclists, passersby and local area residents armed with jerrycans, basins and other equipment to scoop the fuel. The scramble would, however, not last long as a fire suddenly erupted, trapping tens in the swamp and burning some of them beyond recognition.

Charred bodies and limbs -- some still scattered and others lined up neatly by rescue workers -- covered the scene of the fire in Kampala's Namungona suburb, an AFP photographer said.

Numerous motorbikes -- some with the petrol tank still on fire -- littered the scene.

Police said many of the victims appeared to have headed to the scene on motorbike taxis, a common form of transport in Kampala.

Mr Enock Kasasira, the Mulago Hospital Spokesperson said 17 bodies have been identified. He said respective relatives have since claimed the bodies.

The accident is the worst of its kind in Uganda since December 2001 when some 90 people perished in similar circumstances in the east of the country, police said.

Meanwhile, President Yoweri Museveni has visited the scene of the accident, where police officers briefed him about the calamity.

Monday 1 July 2013

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Bypass-fire--death-toll-rises-to-35/-/688334/1900728/-/q752qv/-/index.html

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gm-1yiZ8_HUPtsyFSwLN7t-A7tUw?docId=CNG.bf410fd2b50b272b32ae2b68b217fcea.111

Presidential Commission on Matale mass grave to commence sittings

The Presidential Commission of Inquiry appointed to probe the Matale mass grave will commence sittings within the next two weeks, Head of the Commission retired Supreme Court Judge Justice S.I. Imam has said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed the three-member Commission of Inquiry and it has been asked to submit a report within six months.

Other members of the commission are ex- Parliament Secretary General Dhammika Kithulgoda and retired High Court Judge Bandula Atapattu.

Retired Justice Imam has told the media that preliminary arrangements to begin Commission sittings are already under way and the venue is likely to be the BMICH.

A decision on whether the sittings are to be held in public, will also be taken within the next few days, he said.

The Commission has reportedly been told that, in the absence of definitive facts as to whose skeletons they are, the inquiry should attempt to ascertain how and when the victims died and when they were buried, identify those responsible and during which period the events occurred, the manner in which the bodies were buried and identify the victims.

The Commission is also mandated to probe "whether such human bodies came to be buried as a result of an illegal act or acts, and if so, whether any person or persons are responsible."

It is also mandated to inquire into and report back adequate cogent factors or evidence that would lead to identification of the person or persons responsible, in case the deaths were caused by an illegal act, as well as recommend legal action, that could be instituted against those found to be responsible.

Monday 1 July 2013

http://www.srilankamirror.lk/news/8593-presidential-commission-on-matale-mass-grave-to-commence-sittings

South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission uncovers thousands of killings in 1950

With US military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. Others were thrown into abandoned mines or into the sea.

Women and children were among those killed, many of whom never faced charges or trial.

The mass executions — intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners — were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for half a century.

They were “the most tragic and brutal chapter of the Korean War,” said historian Kim Dong-choon, a member of a two-year-old government commission investigating the killings.

Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million.

That estimate is based on projections from local surveys and is “very conservative,” said Kim. The true toll may be twice that or more, he said.

In addition, thousands of South Koreans who allegedly collaborated with the communist occupation were slain by southern forces later in 1950, and the invaders staged their own executions of rightists.

Through the postwar decades of South Korean right-wing dictatorships, victims’ fearful families kept silent about that blood-soaked summer. American military reports of the South Korean slaughter were stamped “secret” and filed away in Washington. Communist accounts were dismissed as lies.

Only since the 1990s, and South Korea’s democratization, has the truth begun to seep out.

In 2002, a typhoon uncovered one mass grave. Another was found by a television news team that broke into a sealed mine.

Further corroboration comes from a trickle of declassified U.S. military documents, including U.S. Army photographs of a mass killing outside this central South Korean city.

Now Kim’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has added government authority to the work of scattered researchers, family members and journalists trying to peel away the long-running cover-up.

The commissioners have the help of a handful of remorseful old men.

“Even now, I feel guilty that I pulled the trigger,” said Lee Joon-young, 83, one of the executioners in a secluded valley near Daejeon in early July 1950.

The retired prison guard said he knew that many of those shot and buried en masse were ordinary convicts or illiterate peasants wrongly ensnared in roundups of supposed communist sympathizers. They didn’t deserve to die, he said. They “knew nothing about communism.”

The 17 investigators of the commission’s subcommittee on “mass civilian sacrifice,” led by Kim, have also been dealing with 215 cases in which the U.S. military is accused of the indiscriminate killing of South Korean civilians in 1950-51, usually in air attacks.

The commission last year excavated sites at four of an estimated 150 mass graves around the country, recovering remains of more than 400 people. It has officially confirmed two large-scale executions.

In January, then-President Roh Moo-hyun, under whose liberal leadership the commission was established, formally apologized for the more than 870 deaths confirmed at Ulsan, calling them “illegal acts the then-state authority committed.”

Photos taken by an American Army major and kept classified for half a century show the macabre sequence of events.

White-clad detainees — bent, submissive, with hands bound — were thrown down prone, jammed side by side, on the edge of a long trench. South Korean military and national policemen then stepped up behind, pointed their rifles at the backs of their heads and fired. The bodies were tipped into the trench.

Scattered reports of the killings did emerge in 1950 — and some did not.

British journalist James Cameron wrote about mass prisoner shootings in the South Korean port city of Busan — then spelled Pusan — for London’s Picture Post magazine in the fall of 1950, but publisher Edward Hulton ordered the story removed at the last minute.

In 1953, after the war ended in stalemate, after the deaths of at least 2 million people, half or more of them civilians, a US Army war crimes report attributed all summary executions here in Daejeon to the “murderous barbarism” of North Koreans.

Such myths survived a half-century, in part because those who knew the truth were cowed into silence.

The immediate concern of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is resources. “The current government isn’t friendly toward us, and so we’re concerned that the budget may be cut next year,” commission president Ahn Byung-ook said.

South Korean conservatives complain the “truth” campaign will only reopen old wounds from a time when, even at the village level, leftists and rightists carried out bloody reprisals against each other.

The life of the commission — with a staff of 240 and annual budget of $19 million (€12.3 million) — is guaranteed by law until at least 2010, when it will issue a final, comprehensive report.

Later this spring and summer its teams will resume digging at mass grave sites.

By exposing the truth of such episodes, “we hope to heal the trauma and pain of the bereaved families,” the commission says.

It also wants to educate people, “not just in Korea, but throughout the international community,” to the reality of that long-ago conflict, to “prevent such a tragic war from reoccurring in the future.”

Monday 1 July 2013

http://may131969.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/death-squads-and-mass-graves-the-full-horror-of-the-korean-war-finally-unearthed/

8 killed as car plunges into ravine in E. Afghanistan

Eight people were killed as a car plunged into ravine in eastern Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday night, said authorities on Monday morning.

"A Mercedes Benz car with eight people aboard was travelling from Kabul to neighboring province of Laghman but the ill-fated car lost control and slipped into a ravine in Mahipar area of eastern Kabul province," said a statement issued by the Laghman provincial government.

The bodies of the killed, all male, were transported to a hospital in Laghman's provincial capital Mehtarlam city, 90 km east of Kabul, the statement added.

The bodies will be handed over to the relatives of the victims later Monday, it noted.

The crash occurred in a mountainous terrain along the main highway linking Kabul with other eastern provinces.

Although there are no statistics on the road accident related casualties in Afghanistan, careless driving on the congested roads in the war-battered country often claims the lives of thousands of innocent travelers annually.

Monday 1 July 2013

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-07/01/c_132501023.htm

11 killed in Ibadan auto crash

No fewer than 11 people were yesterday burnt to death in an auto crash which occurred at the Macmillan area, few metres before Soka bus stop on Ibadan/Lagos Expressway.

It was learnt that the commercial bus was coming from Ogido in Ogun State and heading to Beere in Ibadan to attend a Wolimat programme of a family member with most of the victims dressed in a uniform made of Ankara for the occasion.

According to an eyewitness, the propeller of the bus pulled out and hit the fuel tank, igniting a fire in the process.

The driver of the bus in an attempt to save situation veered off the road and hit a heap of sand by the side of the road which immediately halted the bus , but while the driver of the bus and the two passengers in the front escaped, others were not so lucky as the side door of the bus was locked. The occupants were reported to have impeded one another in their panic to get out and this caused the high casualty figure.

Of the 11 that died, three were children, while 13 others who sustained various degrees of burns, including the driver, were taken to the Adeoyo Hospital and UCH, Ibadan.

The Assistant Corps Commander and Unit Commander Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Oluyole Ibadan/Lagos toll gate, Mr Adeoye Sanya, confirmed the incident, saying that “the FRSC was informed of the accident around 1pm that an Ibadan-bound bus from Lagos was involved in an accident.

“However, I can confirm to you that the bus was badly loaded and from the report of the victims -both survivals and the dead- 13 were injured and 11 were burnt to death; the claim can be established. The driver is among the four male victims taken to the Adeoyo Hospital while nine others – seven adults and two children - were taken to the University College Hospital (UCH).”

Sanya said after being informed of the development, the FRSC quickly deployed its officials to evacuate some of the victims to the hospitals.

The remains of the 11 victims were taken away in sacks by the men of the FRSC in two vans with registration number FRSC 522 RS and FRSC 525 RS.

Meanwhile, a middle-aged man who was among onlookers at the scene collapsed when men of the FRSC were pulling out the scarred bodies from the bus. It took the intervention of some of his colleagues who poured water on his face to revive him.

Monday 1 July 2013

http://leadership.ng/news/010713/11-burnt-death-ibadan-auto-crash

Arizona wildfire kills 19 firefighters

Nineteen firefighters died Sunday while battling a fast-moving wildfire northwest of Phoenix, the worst firefighter loss of life in a wildland blaze since 1933.

The firefighters went missing while fighting the Yarnell Hill fire, an out-of-control blaze that had engulfed the evacuated community of Yarnell, population 649, burning down much of the town, officials said. An estimated 200 structures were lost.

The firefighters belonged to the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew, an elite unit sponsored by a fire department in nearby Prescott, where residents were grieving through social media after word of the deaths arrived Sunday night.

"This is as dark a day as I can remember," Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said in a statement. "It may be days or longer before an investigation reveals how this tragedy occurred, but the essence we already know in our hearts: fighting fires is dangerous work."

The fire was started by a lightening strike on Friday and has been gathering momentum over the weekend, rapidly devouring the dry forest amid exceptionally high temperatures and strong winds. Local officials said it has already covered 800-1000 acres.

An additional 130 firefighters and more water- and retardant-dropping aircraft were on their way to the site but officials expected the inferno would destroy around 250 homes in Yarnell - around half of the town.

Officials lost radio contact with the crew at 4:30 p.m., said Steve Skurja, assistant spokesman for the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office. A helicopter crew spotted the bodies, he said.

He said all of the firefighters had deployed their fire shelters – an emergency measure when there is no escape.

Skurja confirmed that 19 members of the 20-person crew had died. One survivor was hospitalized with injuries, he said, but he did not know the firefighter's condition.

"The fire was very aggressive. It just overtook them," Skurja said.

Roxie Glover, a spokeswoman for Wickenburg Community Hospital, said officials had told her to expect injured firefighters. Then the grim news arrived.

"It became clear that the firefighters had been deceased," Glover said. "We were told that we were not getting firefighters."

But homeowners flooded in, suffering from smoke inhalation as well as shock at losing their homes, she said.

Sunday's incident appears to be the deadliest in modern wildland firefighting. The previous highest number of deaths in a fire came in Colorado on July 6, 1994. There, at Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs, 14 firefighters were trapped when a wind-driven blaze blew up a hill.

Since the 1950s — until Sunday — only three other wildfires had claimed the lives of 10 or more firefighters, and each prompted changes in safety regulations and training.

According to National Interagency Fire Center statistics, Sunday's deaths were the worst since 1933, when a fire in Los Angeles' Griffith Park killed at least 25 firefighters.

Officials said some of the Arizona firefighters had been found in fire shelters in the area, where winds occasionally exceeding 40 mph helped fan the flames in 95-degree heat.

Deploying a fire shelter is typically a "last desperate step" for survival, said Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology. "That means they have been trapped."

A couple dozen firefighters are killed on average each year, he said, but 19 firefighters dying in one fire is a "horrific tragedy."

When they are fighting fast-moving fires and trying to save lives and property, "firefighters are put into this no-man's land, having to make these heroic stands … against the unstoppable force of wildfires," he said.

Monday 1 July 2013

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-firefighters-20130701,0,4762346.story

Kin of missing persons still hopeful

On entering a large hall at the Police Lines, visitors looking for missing relatives make a beeline for the notice boards set up on one side. But a grim reality hits home as the boards, besides other information, bear pictures of bodies recovered by rescue teams from the flood-ravaged areas.

As authorities begin to wind up rescue operations to evacuate those stranded, the long, often futile, wait for missing persons is taking its toll on the relatives camping in the region for days.

While some of the dead can be identified, a few pictures displayed are of bodies badly mutilated and almost beyond recognition. Some contain only facial shots. The pictures are displayed next to a food distribution stall that offers free meals, water and snacks.

“The images are unsettling and give you a sense of despair and helplessness,” says Banwari Lal Pandey, a businessman from Gaya, who has been camping in the city for over a week.

“I have been frequenting various helipads and other relief camps to know the whereabouts of my brother and two of his friends, but to no avail,” he says.

Others scour long lists containing the names and particulars of those evacuated from the disaster-hit areas.

With photographs in their hands, they are willing to talk to or listen to just about anyone associated with the rescue operations in a bid to glean some information about the missing.

Thousands have perished in the flash floods and the whereabouts of thousands are still not known. Many rescued pilgrims speak of having seen people being swept away by gushing waters or bodies lying in the area.

The information on the lists is incomplete and at places only the first name is mentioned, adding to the relatives’ woes. In some cases, several families have responded to the same name on the list.

“The lists are being updated on the basis of information collected from those evacuated and inputs from rescue teams,” says a police officer involved in registering FIRs about the missing.

“The person may not have been in a state to converse with his rescuers or have just mumbled a name,” he says. Collecting and collating data involving thousands of persons under such circumstances is a tough task.

Hundreds of pictures, mostly computer printouts, of those missing have been pasted at helipads, bus stands and the railway station across the region carrying appeals and contact details.

As days turn into weeks, despair and anger slowly grows among those seeking information about their loved ones, many of whom are presumed dead.

Some have still not lost hope, praying that their near and dear ones may be stuck in some camp, hospital or village.

“I don’t know how long I will stay here,” says Mahender Singh, who travelled from Delhi looking for his sister and her husband. “It is agonising, but abandoning search is emotionally difficult. I can’t think or decide what to do next,” he says.

Monday 1 July 2013

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130701/main3.htm