Tay Bridge Disaster memorials will be dedicated to the 59 ‘known’ victims

Since that Tay Bridge Disaster of December 28 1879, there have been many diverse claims as to the final death toll.

The most popular figure is 75, promoted not only within the public and newsworthy arena but also by some of the authors of books on the tragedy, most notably John Prebble in The High Girders.

At the present, there are museums throughout Scotland which display literature to support the claim.

But when memorials to the disaster are finally erected at Wormit and Dundee later this year, they will bear the statement “Those known to have died”, then list 59 names only.

With planning permission granted this week for the Dundee memorial and conditional approval given by Fife Council for the one at Wormit, the secretary of the Tay Rail Bridge Disaster Memorial Trust, Ian Nimmo White explained the reasons for this.

He said: “It has been the case since statutory registers began in this country in 1855 that when you die, your death is registered in the district where you die, not where you live.

“After the disaster in 1879, all the deaths of the known victims were registered in the district of St Mary’s, Dundee, which embraced the then Tay rail bridge and that part of the Tay around it.

“Those certificates, 59 in all, are lodged in New Register House to this day.

“In the aftermath of the tragedy, doctors could not be certain about the means of death of each individual — for example, had they died due to injuries sustained by the fall of the train and bridge? Was it from hypothermia? Or was it by drowning?

“Eventually, once the authorities felt they had discovered all the bodies they were going to discover, and were certain of the identities of those bodies they had not been able to find, the registrar at St Mary’s recorded all 59 as having died from ‘Drowning as a result of the fall of a passenger train and portion of the Tay rail bridge’.

“In the 134 years since the tragedy, nobody has proved beyond doubt that there was a 60th victim, far less a 75th.”

Mr Nimmo White said proposals for the memorials are on track and enough funds are in place to make this happen. But donations are still welcome for extras such as seating.

The estimated cost of the memorial project is around £32,000 (£20,000 for the cutting and shaping of the granite and £12,000 for the foundation work).

Mr Nimmo White said it had yet to be decided which quote to accept for the foundations work, but he anticipated building work would start “well into November”, with the trust still working towards a planned ceremony on December 28, the 134th anniversary of the Tay Bridge disaster.

Any individuals or organisations still wishing to donate to the campaign should make a cheque out to “Tay Rail Bridge Disaster Memorial Trust” and send to Ian Rae, Treasurer of TRBDMT, 11 Wilmington Drive, Glenrothes, Fife, KY7 6US.

One man who has made it his mission to ensure that the victims of the Tay Bridge Disaster are never forgotten is Professor David Swinfen.

The former vice-principal of Dundee University and author of a book on the disaster is leading the campaign to have memorials erected at either side of the Tay.

Historian Mr Swinfen, 75, recently became chairman of the Tay Rail Bridge Disaster Memorial Trust, and has been helping to breathe new life into the drive to raise cash for a permanent tribute in Dundee and Fife to those who died that fateful night.

He said: “It is great pity that this hasn’t been done before now. It is more than 130 years since the disaster took place and we still have no memorial.

“We want to create something sizeable, noticeable and tangible. My role with the trust is to make this happen.”

It was about 7.15pm on the evening of Sunday, December 28 1879, when part of the original Tay Bridge plunged into the water, taking with it a train from Burntisland, its crew and passengers. None survived.

The tragedy occurred only 14 months after the bridge, commissioned by the North British Railway Company, had opened.

Less than a year later, its designer Sir Thomas Bouch died.

The structure’s height and width immediately attracted much criticism.

An investigation after the collapse blamed the bridge’s design, construction and maintenance, with the finger pointed squarely at Bouch.

Friday 20 September 2013

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/local/dundee/tay-bridge-disaster-memorials-will-be-dedicated-to-the-59-known-victims-1.132491

Eighteen dead in Somalia quarry collapse

At least 18 people were killed in a quarry collapse in Somalia's capital Thursday, officials and witnesses said.

Nearly 200 workers were at the site in northern Mogadishu's Karan district digging for sand for use in building construction when the sudden collapse occurred.

"This was a tragedy. More than 16 dead bodies were discovered from under the collapsed quarry and still some others are missing," Karan district governor Ali Alasow said.

A worker who survived the accident, Mumin Abduweli, told AFP that he had seen 18 bodies.

"I have never witnessed such a tragedy, I was lucky to be outside of the cave when it collapsed," he said.

Another witness, Mohamed Yusuf, said those who died were digging deep inside a cave when it collapsed.

"Bulldozers have been used as well as people digging with their hands, but unfortunately only a few were lucky enough to come out alive," he added.

Since Islamist insurgents fled city trenches two years ago, bands of labourers have been rebuilding Mogadishu.

The quarry is often packed with casual workers hoping to make living from the building boom in Mogadishu, which was badly destroyed by decades of civil war.

Friday 20 September 2013

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/19/eighteen-dead-in-somalia-quarry-collapse/

Likely death toll in Colorado floods rises to at least 10

The likely death toll from massive Colorado flooding rose to 10 on Thursday after the body of a man was discovered near a river drainage area and another person whose home was washed away was listed as presumed dead, with 140 other people still unaccounted for, authorities said.

Massive floods caused by torrential rains that began on September 9 in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains have destroyed at least 1,800 homes in the two hardest-hit Colorado counties of Larimer and Boulder, and caused property losses estimated at nearly $2 billion statewide.

The rains drenched a 130-mile stretch of the eastern slopes of the Colorado Rockies for a week. Days into the downpour, torrents of runoff were gushing down rain-saturated mountainsides through canyons that funneled the floodwaters straight into populated areas below.

Foothill towns clustered at the base of Colorado's Front Range in Larimer and Boulder counties northwest of Denver bore the immediate brunt of the deluge. The flooding spread into the plains and inundated farmland, especially along the South Platte River.

Authorities have recovered the bodies of seven people killed in the flooding in Colorado, said Micki Trost, spokeswoman for the state Office of Emergency Management. Another three people in Larimer County, north of Denver, are listed as missing and presumed dead, according to the county sheriff's office.

The body of Gerald Boland, 80, was discovered on Thursday near a river drainage area in the community of Lyons, where he is believed to have lived, said Gabrielle Boerkircher, spokeswoman for the Boulder County Office of Emergency Management.

"Obviously we're never happy when we find another fatality, but considering everything that's happened it's been a relief that it's not hundreds," Boerkircher said of Boland, the fourth person confirmed dead in Boulder County.

The other person added to the likely death toll on Thursday was an unidentified 46-year-old man whose house in Drake, a small community along the Big Thompson River southwest of Fort Collins, was found to have washed away, the Larimer County Sheriff's Office said. The man had last been seen in the house.

MISSING

A total of 140 people in the state remain unaccounted for, all but one of them in hard-hit Larimer County, officials said. Authorities said it was unclear if there might be more fatalities from among the missing.

The number of missing people is down from a high of about 1,200 several days ago, a decrease that occurred as families reunited, evacuees registered at shelters and rescuers reached more remote locales.

Boulder County has cut to one its tally of people unaccounted for, after assigning detectives to track down hundreds of residents with whom contact was lost, Boerkircher said.

Many of those unaccounted for in the flooding were in mountain communities and towns in the foothills, such as Jamestown and Lyons, where cell phone and landline service was cut off by the devastation.

Heavy rains subsided after Sunday in Colorado, and on Thursday only light showers were falling in the northeast portion of the state, and were not likely to cause flooding, said meteorologist Kari Bowen of the National Weather Service office for Denver and Boulder.

While authorities were wrapping up rescue operations in Boulder County, in neighboring Larimer County 15 helicopters from the National Guard were deployed on Thursday to reach residents still stranded since the beginning of the flooding.

In recent days, many of the helicopters have filled with household pets as evacuees climbed aboard with everything from dogs and cats to a pet pig, said Kathy Messick, spokeswoman for the Larimer County Sheriff's Office.

Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith was due on Thursday to fly into remote Pinewood Springs and speak to over 70 people who have chosen to remain in their homes rather than evacuate.

Smith is concerned they may have underestimated how long they can survive in isolation, since it may be a number of months before repairs are made to a washed out section of the road leading to the community, Messick said.

Friday 20 September 2013

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/20/us-usa-colorado-flooding-idUSBRE98I0YX20130920

Rescuers pull bodies from Mexico mudslide

Rescuers pulled two bodies Thursday from a mudslide that buried a Mexican village, but dozens remained missing after storms lashed the country and killed almost 100 people nationwide.

As soldiers and police removed debris in the southwestern village, Hurricane Manuel pounded the northwest state of Sinaloa, bringing more rain to the flood-stricken nation before weakening back to a tropical depression hours later.

Luis Felipe Puente, the national civil protection coordinator, said the death toll from days of floods and landslides had jumped to 97 from 81, with 65 of the victims registered in the southwestern state of Guerrero.

Guerrero was the hardest-hit state from the dual onslaught of Manuel and sister storm Ingrid on the east coast this week that drenched most of Mexico, damaging bridges, roads and tens of thousands of homes.

The storms flooded half of Acapulco, including the airport terminal, while landslides blocked the only roads linking the city to the capital. Thousands of angry, stranded tourists held a protest, demanding swifter airlifts.

West of the city, in the mountains of Guerrero, some 100 rescuers toiled in the mud to look for victims of an epic mudslide that swamped half the coffee-growing village of La Pintada and left 68 people missing.

Wearing surgical masks, they removed pieces of broken homes and chopped up collapsed trees with machetes. The village church vanished; only its broken steeple was left, toppled on a mess of mud, with its cross broken.

Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said soldiers had found two bodies so far. The municipality's mayor has said that 15 corpses were found by villagers in recent days.

"The rescue work has begun. It's very complicated, it won't be easy, it won't be just a few days," Osorio Chong said after visiting the village.

The mud cascaded down a hill and covered much of the village, burying homes, the school and church before ending its mad descent in a river.

"People were in the church asking God to stop the rain," said Roberto Catalan, a 56-year-old farmer. "The earth had been bubbling. When we heard a bang, we ran out."

Jose Minos Romero, 12, said he was playing soccer with 10 other children and was only saved "because my mother called me," but "my friends died."

The mudslide swamped the village on Monday as many people were having lunch during independence day celebrations. News of the tragedy only emerged two days later after a survivor radioed a neighboring village.

The search for bodies was delayed several hours due to fears that water gushing from the mountain could trigger a new landslide in the village.

But troops finally arrived by helicopter and foot after a seven-hour trek on a winding mountain road covered by mud and rocks.

Police helicopters evacuated more than 330 people to Acapulco on Wednesday, and authorities said up to 30 survivors had decided to stay back until victims were found.

The storms that swept across the nation have damaged 35,000 homes and forced the evacuation of 50,000 people, officials said.

A human rights group accused the authorities of neglecting mountain communities, while focusing on cities like Acapulco.

Osorio Chong countered that "we do care about the lives of people in the mountains" but "we can't enter some communities by air or land."

The US National Hurricane Center said that Manuel was expected to dissipate late Thursday, but a new tropical cyclone threatened to form in the east and cause more misery.

Friday 20 September 2013

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/rescuers-pull-bodies-from/820004.html

Investigators unravel mystery around six bodies found in lake

Forensic investigators are combing through a trove of evidence, discovered by accident this week in a lake in western Oklahoma.

Investigators already have clues, but that confirming the identities of the bodies, and how they got there, will be no easy task.

Jimmy Williams was once photographed in front of his bright blue 1969 Camero, bought six days before he disappeared. It was a sweet driving muscle car that would have been the envy of any teenager.

Now, that car is believed to be one of the cars found at the bottom of Foos Lake in western Oklahoma, but now it's a corroded, jelly-like carcass.

It was one of two cars found this week, and in all, the cars contained six bodies.

When Williams and two other teenaged friends disappeared in 1970, his family spread missing person's posters all over their hometown of Sayre, OK, offering a $500 reward. The teens were believed to either be on their way to a football game or on a hunting expedition, no one really knows, but investigators did uncover two corroded rifles from the car.

Investigators say they have not ruled out foul play yet, but the suspect these six victims accidentally drowned when their cars rolled back into the water.

The cars were discovered by a team of divers with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Darrell Splawn with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said he and his colleagues were testing some new equipment. It wasn't until the cars were pulled out of the water, that the gruesome and mysterious discovery was made.

"It could have been a shoe, but whenever we brought them up to the shore, that was when the door was opened and you could see the skeletal remains in them," said Splawn.

John Alva Porter is believed to be one of the victims in the second car. He and two friends were last seen driving a 1950s Chevy when they disappeared in 1969, a year before the teenagers went missing.

His granddaughter Debbie McManaman says her family used to look out onto this water and wonder if their grandfather was in the lake.

"Even since I've been married and an adult we would come up here and say maybe grandpa is in the lake you know maybe that's where he's at," asked McManaman.

A random thought by one man's family could have turned out to be oddly prophetic.

Friday 20 September 2013

http://www.kplctv.com/story/23481415/investigators-unravel-mystery-around-six-bodies-found-in-lake