Mudslide kills 14 in Eastern Mexico

The death toll from a mudslide in a mountainous area in the Mexican Gulf state of Veracruz has risen to 14, with eight children among the dead, emergency management officials said.

The mudslide occurred on Tuesday in Tecoa, a community outside the city of Coscomatepec, located nearly 300 kilometers (186 miles) from Mexico City, following heavy rains, Veracruz emergency management office spokesmen told Efe.

The first bodies found were those of a woman and her two children, an 8-month-old boy and an 8-year-old girl, emergency management officials said.

Five more bodies were found a few hours later by rescue teams digging through the mud and debris.

Rescue teams found six more bodies, including that of a newborn, in the evening, emergency management officials told Efe. Six of the victims have been identified, officials said.

Rescue teams found Pablo Torres Morales, 9, and Susana Trujillo, 21, alive, emergency management officials said. The boy and the young woman are expected to survive, officials said.

Mexican army units were deployed to the area to provide assistance and remove the tons of mud and rock.

Veracruz has been drenched by torrential rains that have caused flooding in the cities of Cordoba, Orizaba and Coscomatepec. At least 16 cities have been affected by the rains and floods caused as 15 rivers and streams overflowed their banks, the Veracruz emergency management office said.

Damage has been reported in 22 rural communities and 22 other areas, while more than 250 people have been evacuated from their homes and taken to shelters, officials said.

Thursday 12 September 2013

http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/mudslide-kills-14-in-eastern-mexico/27021/

Families of disaster victims demanding answers

Thought-provoking article:

Families of some of the victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster are refusing to accept the idea that the loss of loved ones was due simply to fate.

They have been fighting court battles to find convincing answers to questions about the tragedies even though they know that doing so prolongs and could even magnify their agony. They believe that the lives of their loved ones could have been saved.

Two and a half years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. I visited some bereaved families in Miyagi Prefecture, where more than 10,000 people perished in the epic disaster.

There is little debris left in areas engulfed by the tsunami. Dump trucks were coming and going, while heavy machinery was being operated noisily.

But lurking behind banners of “rebuilding” was deep sorrow that is refusing to abate.

Five children of the Hiyori kindergarten in the city of Ishinomaki died after the pickup bus carrying them was swallowed by the tsunami. Families of four of the victims have filed a lawsuit against the kindergarten. The first ruling in the case is expected shortly.

In the town of Onagawa, 12 employees and staff members at a branch of the 77 Bank, a regional lender, died or remained unaccounted for after they took refuge on the rooftop of the branch building. Families of three of them filed a suit against the bank just one year ago.

At Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki, a total of 84 children, teachers and school staff members died or went missing. An investigative committee set up by the municipal government at the initiative of the education ministry is looking into the tragedy.

Discussions with bereaved families point to a common element in all these heart-wrenching tales.

As details about what the people at these disaster sites actually did on that day in March 2011 have emerged, it has become clear that the victims could have been saved if a different course of action had been chosen.

What if, for instance, the pickup bus of the kindergarten had stayed put with the children at the facility after the earthquake, instead of heading toward the sea (to take them to their parents at home)?

What if the bank employees had taken refuge on elevated ground that was just a few minutes' walk from the branch building, rather than going up to the rooftop?

What if the children at the Okawa Elementary School had fled to a hill at the back of the school, which even children could have climbed, instead of staying at the schoolyard for up to 50 minutes until the tsunami arrived?

The question haunting the bereaved families is why these alternatives were not chosen.

The answers they have received so far from the institutions boil down to one point: It was not expected that the facilities would ever be hit by a tsunami.

Meetings to explain what happened were held, but not much vital information has been offered, according to bereaved families. If the claim that it could not be helped is accepted, they think, the same mistake could be made again.

Lawsuits over these cases inevitably focus on the issue of liability for damages. There is no guarantee that the plaintiffs will get what they really want: truth, sincere apologies and soul-searching to ensure that such tragedies will never happen again.

Some of the people who led the evacuations also died.

Whatever the outcomes of the lawsuits, the court battles alone may not lead to improved safety and better preparedness for natural disasters.

Despite being well aware of all of this, the bereaved families felt compelled to take legal action. One of the plaintiffs asked, “Are we acting out of line?”

The only thing society can do for them is to keep making serious efforts to understand the depth of their sorrow and learn lessons from the calamity to prevent similar tragedies.

Thursday 12 September 2013

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/AJ201309120043

DC 50 years ago: Delhi-bound I.A.C. Viscount crashes; 13 passengers and 5 crew aboard killed

All the 18 persons on board an Indian Airlines Viscount (VT-D-10) were killed this morning when it crashed at Jojou village near the Mania railway station on the Agra/Gwalior line according to an I.A.C press release issued here this evening.

The bodies are being flown to Delhi. The ill-fated aircraft was on a scheduled flight (night airmail) from Nagpur to Delhi. It left Nagpur at 0230 hours this morning and reported to ground control at 0340 hours that it would land at Palam at 0434 hours.

This was the last message received. Two IAC Dakotas with senior officers of Indian Airlines left Safdarjung early in the morning in an attempt to locate the aircraft which had, by then, become overdue.

The wreckage was sighted four miles east of the Mania railway station by an IAF Fairchild Packet which had joined the search. According to the message received from the aircraft, the wreckage appeared to be completely burnt out.

An IAF helicopter had been rushed to the scene of the accident with medical supplies. Another Dakota had left Safdarjung this evening for Agra with relations of the passengers and crew of the ill-fated aircraft.

Thursday 12 September 2013

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130912/commentary-op-ed/commentary/dc-50-years-ago-delhi-bound-iac-viscount-crashes-13-passengers

First 16 unidentified bodies of the 1953 North Sea Flood (watersnoodramp) exhumed

Sixteen unidentified bodies of the 1953 North Sea Flood (watersnoodramp) have been exhumed in Serooskerke on Tuesday and Thursday. According to Irma Disk, team leader of the National Missing Persons Bureau, DNA has been successfully extracted.

32 unknown people are buried in Schouwen-Duiveland who have died during the flood. Experts from the police and the Netherlands Forensic Institute attempt to identify the unidentified bodies 60 years after the disaster.

Further exhumations will take place in Nieuwerkerk and Ouwerkerk later this month.

Anyone who has lost a family memmber in the Big Flood can submit a DNA sample. The DNA samples extracted from the bones of the unidentified and those obtained from family members will be entered and compared in the DNA database for missing persons at the Dutch Forensic Institute.

The DNA material from the first 16 unknowns is brought to the NFI. The big question is whether there they will be able to obtain a DNA profile. "We can do very much now in terms of DNA analysis. But it happens that it is not possible to get a DNA profile from ancient remains. This has to do with acids are in the ground, or how much salt the ground contains, "explains Irma Disk.

Thursday 12 September 2013

(Original article in Dutch)

http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/21885730/__Opgraving__watersnooddoden___.html

India: Railway Police grapple with high cost of DNA profiling for unidentified bodies

High costs involved in DNA profiling of unidentified bodies recovered from along the railway tracks have led to a pile-up of cadavers in mortuaries at government hospitals coming under the Railway Police in Salem Sub-Division.

This sub-division alone has to deal with about 400 unidentified bodies in a year. Coimbatore accounts for 30 corpses in a year.

Under such circumstances, the Forensic Sciences Laboratory in Chennai wants the Railway police to go in for DNA profiling of bodies only in the event of the case being major, unusual or sensational. Railway police find this to be a tricky affair. In the absence of DNA profiling, when there is a claim (that the deceased was a legal heir of someone or someone was a legal heir of the deceased and also in the event of a case of death on or alongside the track being re-opened or challenged in court), Railway Police find it difficult to prove the identity and relationship of the victim with the claimant.

In most train accidents, the face of the victim is damaged beyond recognition. Legal procedures do not allow for recognition of a body by the complexion, height or dress worn by the accident victim at the time of death. The courts strictly go by DNA profiling.

The Railway Police have another problem to grapple with. Until, someone comes up with a claim of relationship with a person found dead along a railway track, the Railway Police are not be able to know whether the case can be classified as major, unusual or sensational.

In the absence of DNA profiling, the police will be in a fix in the court of law, say officers in the Railway Police who have been dealing with death on the railway tracks.

Officers dealing with such issues say that the only solution to the problem would be to allocate adequate funds to the Forensic Sciences Laboratory to perform a profile for all requests.

Forensic science experts admitted to The Hindu that the DNA kits were very expensive. They also admit that DNA profiling is the surest way to face legal implications that might arise in future. In Coimbatore region, there were 98 deaths on the tracks (including suicides and accidents) in 2011 and the number went up to 111 in 2012 and till July this year, it was 66.

Thursday 12 September 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Coimbatore/railway-police-grapple-with-high-cost-of-dna-profiling/article5119222.ece

With no closure from tsunami, fisherman prays before empty grave of his wife

Yoshinori Iwatsuki bows his head and says a prayer in front of a gravestone here, unsure if his words will be heard.

“I usually pray here, but the grave is empty,” Iwatsuki, 65, said on Sept. 11.

Two and a half years ago, the tsunami that swamped the northeastern coast of Japan swept away his 63-year-old wife, Kimiko. Iwatsuki was on a tuna-fishing vessel off South America at the time, and it took him nine months to return to Japan.

Since then, Iwatsuki has tried desperately to locate Kimiko’s remains for closure. He has repeatedly called police for information, attended meetings on identifying bodies, and even sought the services of a necromancer.

But as time passes, he is losing hope.

As of Sept. 10, the official toll from the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami was 15,883 dead and 2,654 missing. In the hard-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, 114 bodies are unidentified.

DNA tests have been conducted on these remains, and pictures have been shown to potential relatives. But additional information and clues to the identities of these bodies have become scarce.

Iwatsuki currently lives in temporary housing in Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture, and every month, he takes a bus and a taxi to visit a temple in Kesennuma that contains the empty grave of his childhood sweetheart.

He is also somewhat haunted by the last words she said to him: “Nothing is broken here. There’s no problem.”

Iwatsuki, who was born and raised in Kesennuma, became a wireless operator on a tuna-fishing vessel immediately after graduating from high school. His vessel fished mainly in waters off South America, and his work usually kept him away from home for five months at a time.

His semi-annual dates with Kimiko, a former classmate, were joyous occasions, and the two were married when they were 25 years old.

Even after marriage, the couple lived far apart for most of their years. As tuna catches declined and fuel costs rose, Iwatsuki’s fishing excursions became longer.

In June 2010, Iwatsuki’s vessel departed from Japan for an extended fishing operation. During the journey, Iwatsuki communicated with Kimiko via satellite phone twice a month.

Two days before the March 11 disaster, Iwatsuki learned from a shortwave broadcast that an earthquake measuring a lower 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 had hit Miyagi Prefecture. He called Kimiko to ask if she and Kesennuma were OK.

In their last conversation, Kimiko reassured her husband that everything was fine.

But then the magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck, spawning a tsunami that wiped out entire communities in the Tohoku region.

Iwatsuki was off the coast of Peru when he learned of the disaster back home from a news agency report. He tried to contact Kimiko, but she did not answer the phone.

Several days following the disaster, his eldest son and daughter who live in Tokyo visited evacuation centers and morgues in the Tohoku region to find their mother.

They came across a carpenter who had been working behind Iwatsuki’s home when the earthquake struck. The carpenter said that he told Kimiko to flee after an evacuation warning was issued.

He said he saw her enter the home apparently to prepare to evacuate but did not know what had happened to her and could not recall what clothes she was wearing.

Iwatsuki received this information from the children by e-mail, and grew frustrated by his inability to help in the search. Six of the 20 crew members of the fishing vessel were from Kesennuma or neighboring Minami-Sanriku. One of them learned that his home had been destroyed by the tsunami.

But they could not ask the captain to suspend operations to return home because of fears of a low tuna catch.

It was not until December 2011, nine months after the disaster, that Iwatsuki and his colleagues returned to Japan.

As the vessel approached the Kesennuma beach, Iwatsuki saw that his home was gone. He threw a bouquet of flowers into the sea where he believed his wife had been when the waves carried her away.

Iwatsuki submitted a notice of Kimiko’s death without finding her remains. He held a funeral in February 2012 and ordered a grave.

Kimiko was a shy but serious woman who was good at dressmaking, Iwatsuki said. The couple had spent almost all of their time together when the fisherman was in Japan.

He now says he feels guilty for not being home for a chance to save Kimiko from the tsunami.

Last fall, the bereaved husband visited Mount Osorezan in Aomori Prefecture, a site where the spirits of the dead are said to gather. Female necromancers called “itako” are believed to be able to summon the souls of the dead and deliver messages in their voices in a ritual known as “kuchiyose.”

Although Iwatsuki asked an itako to summon Kimiko’s spirit, the itako just said commonplace things such as “how sweet of you to come” and “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Iwatsuki still visits a police station to ask if Kimiko’s remains have been confirmed through DNA testing.

He has also attended gatherings that provide information on unidentified bodies. Although Iwatsuki has already seen every picture of the disaster victims at such sessions, he could not find any definitive clues on Kimiko, a 150-centimeter-tall, chubby woman in her 60s.

The ocean, which has provided Iwatsuki’s livelihood, took away so much for so many families on March 11, 2011.

The 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake that struck the Kobe area killed 6,434 people, but it did not trigger a tsunami. Only three people are reported missing from that disaster.

In the 1993 earthquake and tsunami off southwestern Hokkaido, 28 people, or 12 percent of all dead or unaccounted-for victims, are missing, and 401 people, or 8 percent of the total, in the 1959 Ise Bay typhoon are listed as missing.

Iwatsuki said he has never blamed the sea for Kimiko’s death. But he said he has been reluctant to board a boat or even look at the water from a distance since he lost his wife.

“I had been leaving all domestic affairs, including child upbringing, to my wife,” Iwatsuki said. “(During the last fishing trip,) I thought that it was time for me to stay on the beach and ease the burden she had long been shouldering.”

Thursday 12 September 2013

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/quake_tsunami/AJ201309120092