Authorities seek help in identifying local remains

Local families who have lost loved ones may have the chance for closure, thanks to FBI facial approximations of five missing people in the Central Virginia area.

Remains of a woman of unknown race were found in Petersburg on Aug. 12, 2012, and remains of an African-American woman were found in Dinwiddie County in Nov. 16, 2007.

Chief Medical Examiner William Gormley unveiled models Tuesday with the hope that the public would recognize the individuals.

"Providing closure for those families is a public service," he said. "Identifying dead persons provides proper memorialization."

The remains of the woman found in Petersburg were found near the intersection of 3rd and River streets. Police spokeswoman Esther Hyatt said that only a skull was recovered.

The remains of the woman found in Dinwiddie County, age 20 to 35, were found at 6417 Tranquility Lane in Sutherland.

The National Missing and Unidentified Person's System database states that "skeletonized" remains in a related case were also found near the body in the same yard. Those remains belong to a man of unknown race, 24 to 50 years old. Items found with the remains include two women's black shoes and a white metal Timex watch with a purple strap.

NAMUS is a website that details the cases of the five individuals and others across the country.

Maj. W.B. Knott of the Dinwiddie County Sheriff's Office told The Progress-Index in 2009 that investigators found the remains of the man in a wooded area off U.S. Route 460 in 2007. He said a resident noticed the remains after his dog brought a skull into his yard.

Knott said that the cause of death could not be determined because the remains were badly damaged by animals.

The nearly complete skeleton of a 17- to 25-year-old Hispanic male was found in Caroline County in 1988. The remains were located on Interstate 95 near the 112 mile marker.

His skeleton was found next to that of an older Hispanic male. Samples taken from both skeletons point to the possibility of a father-child relationship. Both men were victims of a homicide. Virginia State Police and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner did not reveal the cause or manner of their deaths.

The remains of two other bodies were found in Richmond. One is the nearly complete skeleton of a 45- to 60-year-old man of unknown race. The skeleton was found in 2011 near at the intersection of 5th and Cypress avenues. In 2002, the mummified remains of an African-American man were found near 1200 Maury St.. The estimated age at death was 50 to 70 years old. The body was mummified due to environmental conditions.

Individuals with information about the cases should call the Virginia State Police Department at or the 533-3408 or the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner at 786-3174.

Families of missing people are also encouraged to ask local law enforcement to take a DNA sample via mouth swab. The sample can be potentially matched with the bone remains of a missing person. Families may also enter their information into NAMUS to be matched with an unidentified person.

Rochelle Altholz, state administrator for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said that there have been four successful identifications from facial approximations.

"We take the picture of when the person was alive that the family gave and the facial approximation and it's been very accurate so far," she said.

She said that when a families are finally able to claim their loved one's remains, the experience can be very rewarding.

"They worried for years and years that they were going to die and not know what happened to their loved one," she said. "So to rejoin a family and their loved one and they know what happened to that person is really important."

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://progress-index.com/news/authorities-seek-help-in-identifying-local-remains-1.1550325

Nigeria: collapsed bridge - 23 killed as vehicles plunge into Katsina River

Twenty three persons including women and children were on Monday killed and five others injured when two vehicles fell into a river following the collapse of a bridge at Yanranda village of Charanchi local government area, Katsina state.

The incident occurred at about 9pm after torrential rains washed away the bridge. A bus and the 24 passengers onboard were washed away by water waves, resulting to the death of 22 persons. The other two survived.

Daily Trust reporter who visited the scene of the accident yesterday reports that 15 bodies have been recovered, while search by a combined team of police and locals was still on.

Eleven bodies were recovered in Ajiwa village in Batagarawa local government and four others in Rimi local government area of the state.

An official of the Federal Road Safety Com-mission (FRSC) at the scene, who preferred anonymity, told our reporter that six dead bodies were still missing.

The bus with registration number XA 328 KZR was travelling to Kano from Katsina, Daily Trust learnt. Residents of Yanranda village said they tried stopping the driver of the bus but failed as it was on high speed and subsequently plunged into the river.

The second vehicle, a Mitsubishi Canter, with three people onboard also fell into the river at about 5am yesterday but the occupants were rescued alive. One of them later died at the Kankia general hospital.

The driver of the canter, who survived the accident, said he refused to stop because he mistook residents stopping him for armed robbers.

Also yesterday morning, a motorcycle rider with a passenger fell into the river. They were both rescued alive minor bruises. Confirming the incident, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr. Bala Zama Senchi, said he could not ascertain the exact number of people that died in the incident, but said 13 bodies had been recovered.

The permanent secretary of the state ministry of works and housing, Alhaji Rabi'u Ibrahim, who led representatives of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) and Katsina State Road Maintenance Agency (KASROMA) told newsmen at the scene of the accident said they came to assess the situation and report to the government.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://allafrica.com/stories/201309110697.html

Sub tragedy: Lab identifies 9 bodies after DNA testing, two cases pending

The Kalina Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) handed over bodies of nine navy personnel, who were killed in the INS Sindhurakshak tragedy, to JJ Hospital after identifying them through DNA profiling.

The DNA identification of two bodies is still pending.

The bodies were first handed over to the JJ Hospital for post-mortem and then they were given to the Kalina FSL for DNA test.

On August 13 night, an explosion ripped through the submarine, INS Sindhurakshak, which had 18 people on board.

The Navy Sunday recovered the 12th body from the wreckage of INS Sindhurakshak that was destroyed in a fire last month.

On Tuesday, a solemn wreath-laying ceremony was held at the naval hospital, INHS Asvini, for the three navy personnel of INS Sindhurakshak who were killed in the tragedy.

Wreaths were laid by Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha, the Flag Officer Commanding-in -chief, Western Naval Command, the Commodore Commanding Submarines (West) and the Commanding Officer of INS Sindhurakshak.

Several senior naval officers and men of the Western Naval Command were also present, and paid their respects with floral tributes to the dead.

The ceremony was conducted with full military honours and the families and close relatives of those who lost their lives were present.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/sub-tragedy-lab-identifies-9-bodies-after-dna-testing-two-cases-pending_875702.html

Moments of silence to start 12th anniversary of 9/11 terror attacks

For the 12th consecutive September 11, many Americans will fall silent at 8:46 a.m. Wednesday.

Twelve years after terrorists killed 2,977 people -- beginning with American Airlines Flight 11's crash into the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001 -- observances are planned at the sites of the disasters.

The four airborne attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, on the World Trade Center, on the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, claimed 2,977 lives. At least 57 countries lost citizens in the attacks. The dead include 41 Indians, 24 Japanese, six Bangladeshis, five Israelis, three Malaysians, and at least eight men of Pakistani origin.

In what has become a tradition, family members of victims of both the 2001 and 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center will read names of their loved ones at a ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial Plaza in New York. The 9/11 attack killed 2,753 people in New York, including 403 police and firefighters. The 1993 bombing killed six people.

Moments of silence will mark the 8:46 a.m. impact and the 9:03 a.m. crash of United Airlines Flight 175 into the World Trade Center south tower.

At the Pentagon, where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed at 9:37 a.m. on September 11, President Obama will speak at a private observance for family members of the 184 people who died there.

In southwestern Pennsylvania, it is only expected to take 18 minutes to lay a wreath and read the names of 40 people, beginning at 9:45 a.m. and ending at 10:03 a.m. That is the time United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville. The target of those hijackers is unknown, but the hijackers apparently crashed the plane short of the target because they feared losing control of the plane to some of the 40 passengers and crew attacking them.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/11/us/9-11-anniversary-ceremonies/?hpt=us_c2

4 killed, 20 missing as flood landslide hit Afghanistan

Four people lost their lives and 20 others went missing as flood and landslide hit a mountainous village in Zibak district of the northeast Badakhshan province on Tuesday, a local official said Wednesday.

"A heavy flood which triggered landslide hit Askitol village in Zibak district yesterday which claimed four lives and 20 others including women and children have gone missing," the governor of Zibak district, Mir Ahmad Shah Zigham told Xinhua.

The natural disaster had also washed away 34 houses, 140 head cattle and destroyed 100 acres farmlands and several gardens, the official added.

He also added that rescue operations are underway to recover the possible dead bodies.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/810413.shtml

Search for body remains in Lake Perucac starts near Visegrad

More than 30 firefighters from six voluntary associations in Bosnia have joined investigators from the Institute for Missing Persons in search for body remains of war victims.

The search is conducted in the village Milosevici, near Visegrad, east Bosnia. Team will exploit about 10 kilometers of the waterside of Perucac, Accumulation Lake. If they find body remains during a day on Tuesday, search will continue during the week.

"In 2010, we conducted a research in this area and now we have a chance, after the water level decreased in lake, to do that again. Since Sunday, we found some body remains,“ one of the IMP investigators, Zafer Rascic, told AA.

IMP believes that more body remains could be found in this location.

"We already searched on the watersides, but more body remains could be found here. It happened in the past we conducted search at one location more than once, and we kept finding more and more remains. This is river Drina and it is full of secrets,“ Rascic said.

The new search began after workers from aTurkish company ER BU, working on the reconstruction of Visegrad's old bridge, asked for water in the artificial lake to be decreased. Body remains came to day light when water was pumped out from the lake.

It is believed that the body remains could be belonging to victims of massacres committed in this area in 1992 and 1993, during Bosnian war.

In 2010, the IMP investigations resulted in finding between 200 and 300 body remains, and 175 were identified and associated with some persons. Remains were found at more than one location in Lake Perucac, and most of the victims were people from surrounding villages and cities, including Visegrad, Rogatica, but also Srebrenica.

Most of the victims found in this mass grave were of female bodies.

Visegrad was one of the places where Serb forces set up concentration camps for women, including the biggest one called Vilina Vlas.

According to the available data, about 200 women were held in this camp, raped and tortured, and only four survived. Some of the identified bodies found in 2010 in Perucac did belong to victims from Vilina Vlas.

It was the first time after the war that bodies of victims from this camp were found.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=117506

Searchers look for 2,500 Japan tsunami dead

Police and the coastguard in Japan carried out large-scale searches on Wednesday for the bodies of more than 2,500 people still missing two-and-a-half years since the quake-tsunami and nuclear disaster it spawned.

Some 90 searchers combed coastlines and water off the Onahama district of Fukushima prefecture, roughly 50 kilometres south of the crippled Fukushima atomic power plant.

We want to find the missing individuals or their belongings.

"If you imagine the feelings of the family members of missing individuals, it's very saddening," said Hiroshi Kuno, police chief of Iwaki Higashi police station.

"We want to find the missing individuals or their belongings," he told local media.

Similar searches were being carried out all along a vast stretch of the northeast of Japan.

The vast bulk of the coastline, along with rivers running into the sea, have been searched several times before, but officials say they are trying to ensure no spot has been overlooked.

The prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima were hit directly by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and killer tsunami on March 11, 2011.

A total of 15,883 people have been confirmed killed by the natural disasters, many in Miyagi, which bore the brunt of the destruction.

The bodies of a further 2,654 people have never been recovered, but all are assumed dead.

Giant waves knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which went through meltdowns and explosions that contaminated a vast farming region.

No one died as a direct result of the nuclear crisis. However, the government has added a further 2,688 deaths to the total toll for the triple disaster, counting as victims those who died due to stress or other complications associated with evacuation.

The already improbable search for the missing is becoming more difficult as months go by and officials privately accept that many bodies will never be found.

Nearly 300,000 people who fled their homes due to the tsunami and the nuclear disaster still remain in temporary housing, recent figures show.

Many young people and families have left the region to start new lives.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://www.enca.com/world/searchers-look-2500-japan-tsunami-dead

A year on, no consolation for families of the missing dead

A year on, Shahida Akmal, 33, has still not been able to find her husband. Not only did she lose her beloved spouse, she cannot claim the promised compensation also as she cannot identify his body.

Muhammad Akmal, 30, died on September 11 last year in the worst industrial fire of the country, which destroyed the Ali Enterprise garment factory in Baldia Town. Among the dead were 256 others.

Akmal’s body was burnt beyond recognition, says Shahida. The government asked for a DNA identification test of which she never got the results.

Be it the lack of diagnostic facilities of the government’s mismanagement, the DNA reports of 25 aggrieved families are still pending. Without the results, they cannot obtain a death certificate, and hence the compensation promised by government and social welfare organisations.

Shahida has given her DNA samples at the Civil hospital thrice. Once she even took her eldest son Hamza, 9, with her. But the results never came.

“A doctor told me the DNA testing lab in Islamabad is not functioning,” she claims.

Then she heard about the 17 unidentified bodies of the tragic factory fire being kept at the Edhi Morgue at Sohrab Goth.

The first time she went there, she fainted. “There were no bodies,” Shahida says, “just flesh and bones and limbs scattered everywhere.”

But the trips to the morgue did not end. Though the woman stayed back, her brothers visited the morgue a hundred times in the next few months. The bodies were beyond recognition.

This Eid, Shahida’s three sons, Hamza, seven-year-old Mubeen and one-year-old Ahmed threw a tantrum to visit their father’s grave. Nothing she said could console them.

“In the end we took a bus and visited the Edhi graveyard at Mawach Goth. We placed flowers on one of the unmarked graves and acted as if it was Akmal’s,” she recalls.

The Pakistani government, according to a report of the National Trade Union Federation, has not yet completed the procedure of compensating the heirs of the victims.

The government had agreed to provide each victim’s family a sum of Rs900,000. In the first phase, 176 families received the amount while 81 other families got a sum of Rs700,000 each.

For the distribution of the funds in the second phase, a compensation commission was formed under the supervision of a retired judge on orders of the high court. Compensation was to be paid in two rounds, in the first round Rs500,000 were to be given to the families of the deceased. In the second round, a sum of Rs110, 000 had to be paid.

Till now, the commission has distributed cheques to 215 families, while the rest are expected to be handed out by the end of September.

Shahida lives in a single room rented apartment in Ittehad Town, Baldia Town. Her children attend a nearby school. And her monthly expenses are met through charity from relatives, and a few clothes that she manages to stitch and sell.

But one year down the lane, getting the Rs900,000 compensation promised by the former prime minister, chief minister and real estate tycoon Malik Riaz has perhaps slipped down on Shahida’s priority list.

“I only want a grave for Akmal where my children and I can visit,” she says.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-4-201348-A-year-on-no-consolation-for-families-