Search completed, no survivors found after Peru bus plunge

No survivors have been found several days after a bus crash in an Andean region of Peru and authorities say that they have finished searching the area.

51 people were aboard an old cargo truck-turned-bus early Saturday morning when the vehicle careened off the road and plunged over 200 meters (650 feet) into a ravine, then rolled into a river. Among the 51 fatalities, 14 were children and all of the victims belonged to the indigenous Quechua people.

The accident happened as the traveling party was returning from a nearby town where they were taking part in a religious ceremony that celebrated a patron saint.

While traveling on the dark, provincial highway between Santa Teresa and Suyucuyo, the bus careened off the road. The location of the crash was in the highlands approximately 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) north of one of the world’s wonders, Machu Picchu, and the mountainous area is almost exclusively populated by Peru’s various indigenous groups.

So far, no specific reason has been given for the crash as there were no reports of inclement weather in the area at the time of the crash. However, local officials are assuming that given what kind of celebration the group was attending, they say it is likely that alcohol was a factor.

The hilly area made searching difficult and crews were called out in the dark of night, making the recovery of the victims even more difficult. Rescuers scoured the area and gathered bodies, finding some victims more than 100 meters (330 feet) from the crash site. Crews placed the victims on a nearby field, where family members shuffled by, identifying relatives.

The highlands of Peru sit at altitude and are connected by a network of isolated roads that link villages. Many locals, all indigenous individuals who often travel from village to village selling their wares, travel by rickety makeshift trucks because there are no established bus or train routes in the area.

The condition of the transport vehicles coupled with the narrow, twisting roads and heavy fog creates notoriously dangerous driving conditions.

Just a week ago, 19 Peruvians were killed in Huancavelica, also in the southeastern highlands region of the country. That accident came just several days before another bus accident killed 10 in the same area. In August, another accident involving a bus led to 14 deaths in Peru’s mountainous Cajamarca region.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

http://inserbia.info/news/2013/10/no-survivors-in-peru-bus-crash/

Philippine quake death toll rises to 93 (update)

A powerful earthquake killed at least 93 people in the Philippines on Tuesday as it generated landslides that buried homes, triggered terrified stampedes and destroyed historic churches.

Fifteen of the confirmed fatalities were in Cebu, the country’s second most important city and a gateway to some of its most beautiful beaches, the national disaster agency reported.

The 7.1-magnitude quake killed another 77 people in the neighbouring island of Bohol, famed for its rolling “Chocolate Hills”, while one other person died on nearby Siquijor, which attracts tourists with its pristine white sands.

“I was thrown to the ground by the strength of the quake. Broken glass rained on me,” Elmo Alinsunorin, who was on duty as a guard for a government tax office in Cebu, said.

“I thought I was going to die.”

“I was thrown to the ground by the strength of the quake. Broken glass rained on me,” Elmo Alinsunorin, a guard for a government tax office in Cebu, said.

Authorities said the death toll could still climb, with officials struggling to assess the extent of the damage in the worst-hit areas of Bohol where roads remained impassable and power was cut at nightfall.

Bohol police chief Senior Superintendent Dennis Agustin said one of the worst affected areas was the coastal town of Loon, where at least 18 people were killed by landslides that buried houses along large stretches of highway.

Loon is about 20 kilometres from where the epicentre of the quake struck at just after 8.00am. It faces a narrow strait of water, with Cebu about 25 kilometres away on the other side.

Cebu, with a population of 2.5 million people, is the political, economic, educational and cultural centre of the central Philippines.

It hosts the country’s busiest port and the largest airport outside of the capital of Manila, which is about 600 kilometres to the north.

A university, a school, shopping malls, public markets and many small buildings in Cebu sustained damage in the quake.

Mass panic sparks stampede

Three of the people who died in Cebu were crushed to death in a stampede at a sports complex, according to the provincial disaster council chief, Neil Sanchez.

“There was panic when the quake happened and there was a rush toward the exit,” Sanchez said.

He said two other people were killed when part of a school collapsed on a car they had parked in, while four others died at a fish market that crumbled.

Ten churches, some of which have crucial links to the earliest moments of Spanish colonial and Catholic conquest in the 1500s, were also badly damaged on Cebu and Bohol.

The limestone bell tower of the Philippines’ oldest church, Cebu’s Basilica Minore del Santo Nino, was in ruins.

Other limestone churches that were built in the 1700s and 1800s on Bohol had crumbled completely, prompting grieving for the loss of some of the Philippines’ most important cultural treasures.

“It is like part of the body of our country has been destroyed,” Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua, a history lecturer at De La Salle University in Manila, said.

Aside from its beaches, Bohol is famous for its more than 1,000 small limestone “Chocolate Hills” that turn brown during the dry season.

One of the main tourist venues there, the Chocolate Hills Complex, was severely damaged, according to Delapan Ingleterra, head of a local tourist police unit.

“There are huge cracks in the hotel and there was a collapse of the view deck on the second floor,” Ingleterra said, adding that no-one was injured at the complex.

There were no reports of foreign tourists being killed anywhere in the disaster zone.

Tuesday’s quake was followed by hundreds of aftershocks, at least four aftershocks of which measured more than 5.0 in magnitude.

The Philippines lies on the so-called Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many of Earth’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

More than 100 people were left dead or missing in February last year after an earthquake struck on Negros island, about 100 kilometres from the epicentre of Tuesday’s quake.

The deadliest recorded natural disaster in the Philippines occurred in 1976, when a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated the Moro Gulf on the southern island of Mindanao.

Between 5,000 and 8,000 people were killed, according to official estimates.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1332041/least-20-killed-after-earthquake-hits-philippines

Rescue suspended for victims of Colombia building collapse

Officials suspended their search Monday for workers missing in an apartment building collapse that claimed the lives of at least two people in the city of Medellin.

Nine people were still believed trapped in the ruins of the newly constructed 22-story building, which gave way Saturday.

The search for survivors was hampered by heavy rains, which have made rescue and recovery efforts more difficult.

"At this time, no search and rescue efforts are being carried out to find the nine people missing," authorities said in a statement.

Officials said two bodies were found late Sunday, but had not yet recovered from the debris. They said they managed to pull three people from the rubble alive.

The apartment building, one of several in a complex in the El Poblado municipality southwest of Medellin, caved in Saturday.

It had been evacuated after inspectors warned of a risk of collapse.



Workers were inside trying to shore up the structure when it came down, officials said.

Half the building's 80 apartments were inhabited before the collapse.

Five other towers in the same complex have been evacuated as a precaution, officials said.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/131014/rescue-suspended-victims-colombia-building-collapse

Death toll rises from migrant accidents near Lampedusa

Divers have found an additional 20 bodies from last week's shipwreck near the Italian island of Lampedusa, raising the death toll to 359.

Officials say rescuers found the additional bodies on Saturday as a recovery effort continued at the site of the sunken ship, which was packed with African migrants when it went down.

A second recovery effort is under way Saturday in waters about 105 kilometers southeast of Lampedusa, after another ship carrying migrants capsized on Friday.

About 200 people were rescued from the boat that was believed to be carrying as many as 400 passengers. Authorities in Italy and Malta confirmed at least 34 people drowned.

Witnesses say the boat capsized as passengers tried to get the attention of a passing aircraft.

In a Saturday statement, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said witness accounts indicated most of those on board were Syrians or Palestinians and most of those confirmed dead were women and children.

Antonio Guterres said it was "shameful to witness hundreds of unwitting migrants" drowning near Europe's border.

U.N. figures indicate about 30, 000 migrants have arrived in Italy and Malta so far this year, about double the total for 2012.

Lampedusa is geographically closer to Africa than it is to Italy's mainland, making the island a destination for Africans hoping to start a new life in Europe.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

http://www.womencitizen.com/world-21/death-toll-rises-from-migrant-accidents-near-italian-island-news-361.html

Myanmar (Burma): Bodies of 10 boat migrants found

Thai authorities said yesterday they had recovered the bodies of 10 migrant workers from Myanmar whose boat is believed to have sunk in a recent storm.

Myanmar officials confirmed that the nine men and one woman were citizens of their country, according to the governor of the southern Thai province of Ranong, Cherdsak Jampathes.

“It is likely they were illegal immigrants who came for work.

They normally travel in groups of 20-30 in small boats. There was a storm and rain early this week.”

Thousands of migrants from Myanmar work in the Thai fishing and other industries.

Last month International Labour Organisation warned of “serious abuses” in the kingdom’s vast fishing industry such as forced labour and violence.

Former military-ruled Myanmar has also seen an exodus of asylum-seekers in rickety boats following a wave of violence since last year, mostly targeting minority Muslims.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/asia/257061-bodies-of-10-migrants-found-.html

Iraq's morgues overwhelmed by surge in terror attacks

During the past few months, Iraq's memory of the "morgue refrigerators" has returned -- after having somewhat diminished over the past two years but never having completely disappeared.

Iraqis have many sad stories to tell about those cold rotting corpses covered with camphor. Hatem Hassan, a resident of Mahmudiyah -- 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) south of Baghdad -- told Al-Monitor how he searched for the body of his elder brother who went missing two months ago. Hatem visited various hospitals and labs until he found his brother's corpse, still in the clothes he died in, preserved in the morgue refrigerator of Al-Naaman Hospital in the Adhamiyah neighborhood of Baghdad. Once he found his brother, he started worrying about something more important: those who had killed him.

Iraqis aren't too afraid of morgues and of what goes on inside. They have gotten used to them since the Iraq-Iran war (1980-1988), which resulted in millions of deaths. The morgue refrigerator has become a symbol for the unknown and for searching for its puzzles among the corpses.

In his stories "Baghdad Wonders," Iraqi writer Badr al-Salem writes about the unidentified corpses. A foreign correspondent named Miriam is searching for a missing person in the morgue. He writes, "We came back from the morgue. Everything was ugly. Dead bodies with no identities. And murders being carried out based on one's [sectarian] identity." In another chapter of the story, the author writes, "I was returning from the morgue with a trembling heart." You can now find those stories in the so-called "hot areas" [areas plagued by terrorism] of Iraq.

In Diyala, Mosul and south of Baghdad -- where there has been increasing acts of murder, most of which are of a sectarian nature -- the morgues are crowded with parents and relatives looking for their missing kin.

In May, the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry revealed, "The number of Iraqis who went missing following terrorist attacks has amounted to 15,000 between 2003 and April 2013."

In Babel -- 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Baghdad -- every day dozens of people wait at the gate of forensic labs for permission to inspect the morgue refrigerators in search of missing persons.

Said al-Jabouri, a resident of Babel, told Al-Monitor that his brother -- who died in an explosion in south Babel -- has been kept in a refrigerator for about two weeks, and he is now preparing to receive the corpse.

Dr. Shaker Hassan told Al-Monitor, "The place cannot store corpses for two months because of the large number of new corpses arriving daily, especially this year. ... The crisis peaks when one explosion kills dozens, which overwhelms the ability to deal with the corpses, especially in these 'hot areas.' ... We take pictures of the bodies, log the information such as sex, height and distinguishing features and then show these to their next of kin."

Elsewhere, dozens of citizens flock to the medical legal institute in Bab al-Maadham, Baghdad, as if they have an appointment with the dead, who in turn are waiting for someone to take them away from the cold refrigerator and bury them.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Muhammad Ali, a doctor from Baghdad, described the morgue refrigerator as "a cold cave with metal doors designed to contain the unidentified bodies of those who have been murdered, died naturally or were assassinated. But since 2003, the morgues have been receiving mostly victims of violence and armed hostilities. ... In most Iraqi hospitals, each refrigerator holds about 200 to 300 corpses, some of which are intended to be kept cold while others are to be frozen. ... Iraq has a long experience with morgue techniques, going back to the 1980s. But many morgues have not been modernized since their inception."

The father of Suhaila Hassan, who is a member of Babel's provincial council, has been missing since 1991. Suhaila looked for her father in vain in all of Saddam's "cold" prisons, as she called the morgues in an interview with Al-Monitor. Then, Saddam's regime fell in 2003, and her father's body was found in a large mass grave in Mahawil -- 70 kilometer (43.5 miles) south of Baghdad.

Suhaila said, "It wasn't easy opening the morgue refrigerator doors in many hospitals and forensic labs, especially since the name lists are not accurate and are not organized in a way that allows for easily finding the missing person you are looking for." She recounted, "I saw some corpses were mutilated, while others were easily identifiable. Some were cut up, others were in [one piece]. Some were burned, others were bound. That has been the sight of death in the country since the 1980s."

Those who visit the morgue refrigerators for the first time will be surprised to discover that bodies frozen to temperatures as low as -20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) still give off unpleasant odors. Forensic pathologist Hassan Haidar told Al-Monitor, "We live next to the dead, who seem to be alive and waiting to be identified."

He said it is hard to watch a relative refusing to acknowledge that a corpse is their son, brother or daughter, just because of the shock and difficulty of accepting the death of a loved one -- for whom they have been searching for months.

He said that the painstaking search damages the nerves of many. So some resort to destroying the contents of the morgues' refrigerators.

One person's body was moved from the refrigerator to the freezer. Then, the matter was settled: she will be buried within two months. Her family members have now become grave visitors. They carry incense and water to the final resting place of someone who died in a war or bomb attack.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

http://www.aina.org/news/2013101422239.htm

At least 20 dead as strong earthquake rocks Philippines islands of Cebu and Bohol

A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 has struck popular tourist islands in the Philippines killing at least 20 people, some of whom were hit whilst praying in a centuries-old church, officials have confirmed.

Panic was sparked when low-rise buildings collapsed on at least two islands and historic churches crumbled during the quake. Areas were hit by power cuts, stopping some transport links and forcing hospitals to evacuate patients to open spaces as aftershocks rocked the city of about 870,000 people.

Markets and buildings collapsed in Bohol and in the nearby Cebu province when the quake struck at 08.12am this morning.

Four people were killed on nearby Bohol island, where the epicentre of the quake was located and another on Siquijor island according to Rey Balido, a spokesman for the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC),

At least 15 people died on the island of Cebu, he said. Eight people who had been queuing with others for government aid payments in Cebu were hurt in a stampede caused by the quake.

There were no reports of any foreign tourists among the casualties.

The quake was centred within 2 miles of Carmen town on the popular beach island of Bohol, north of Mindanao. Five people died in a stampede in nearby Cebu, where the belltower of the country's oldest church collapsed.

Five more people were killed when part of a fish market collapsed in Cebu city, just across the strait from the quake's epicentre. Two more died and 19 were injured when the roof of a market in Mandaue caved in. Dozens more were injured.

Pictures broadcast on local TV stations showed a collapsed two-storey concrete building with media reporting that an eight-month-old baby and another person had been pulled out alive.

Many of the central Philippines' historic buildings were damaged. In Loboc town, south-west of Carmen, a 17th-century limestone church was left in ruins, while in Bohol a 400-year-old tower collapsed on to surrounding buildings. Other Spanish colonial churches, including Cebu's 16th-century Basilica of the Holy Child – the Philippines' oldest church, which lost its belltower – were also reportedly damaged.

Authorities initially struggled to reach areas affected by the quake, local media said, as power lines were knocked down and phone networks taken out.

Cebu province and nearby Bohol are home to nearly 4 million people combined and are popular with local and foreign tourists, who visit the region's beaches and Chocolate Hills.

Authorities said casualties may have been limited by Tuesday being a national holiday. "It's fortunate that many offices and schools are closed due to the holiday," said Jade Ponce, assistant mayor of Cebu city.

Patients in the city's hospitals – some of whom ran into the streets during aftershocks – had been evacuated to open spaces including basketball courts, Ponce said. They would be moved back in "as soon as the buildings are declared safe".

Vilma Yorong, a Bohol provincial government employee, said she was in a village hall in Maribojoc town when "the lights suddenly went out and we felt the earthquake".

"We ran out of the building, and outside we hugged trees because the tremors were so strong," she told Associated Press by phone. "When the shaking stopped I ran to the street and there I saw several injured people. Some were saying their church [had] collapsed."

She and the others ran up a mountain, fearing a tsunami would follow the quake. "Minutes after the earthquake people were pushing each other to go up the hill," she said.

Earthquakes are common in the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,100 islands that lies on the Pacific "ring of fire". Three other earthquakes have struck Bohol in recent years, the largest being a 6.9-magnitude quake last year.

Experts warned that while there was no threat of a resulting tsunami, residents should beware of landslides, particularly in the south-west of Bohol.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/15/philippines-earthquake-magnitude-7-4-kills

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/at-least-20-dead-as-strong-earthquake-rocks-philippines-islands-of-cebu-and-bohol-8880625.html

Mali boat sinking death toll rises to 43 (update)

Mahmoudou Ibrahim combed the waters frantically for his family after they and hundreds of other passengers were catapulted into the Niger River when their boat capsized.

Amid the cries for help in the darkness of night, he listened in vain for the sound of their voices.

On Sunday morning, crews pulled the bloated bodies of three of his children from the river: 1-year-old Ahmadou, 3-year-old Salamata and 4-year-old Fatouma.

There is still no sign of his wife, Zeinabou, or their 5-year-old twin girls, who were last seen curled up on mats aboard the ship.

“The pain that I feel today is beyond excruciating,” he said from the village cemetery where he buried the remains of his three children Sunday in the sandy dirt.

By nightfall, a total of 43 corpses had been recovered from the river since the accident Friday night, said Hamadoun Cisse, a local official in charge of tracking casualty figures.

Passengers on the capsized boat said they believed hundreds of people were on the overladen vessel when it sank Friday. But the ship’s owner did not have a full list of who was on board, making it impossible to determine the actual number of people missing.

The boat was headed from the central port of Mopti to the northern desert city of Timbuktu, packed full of people traveling ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha this week. Many Malians choose to travel by river even though the journey takes several days and nights because it is easier than traversing the region’s poor desert roads.

The accident took place near the village of Koubi, about four miles (seven kilometers) from Konna. Authorities said 210 survivors had been registered, leaving dozens missing.

The boat disaster comes as Mali has been gripped by more than a year of crisis, starting with a rebellion in early 2012 and a subsequent coup, followed by the seizure of the country’s vast north by Tuareg separatists and Islamic extremists. The French army intervened in January, pushing the militants out of the cities, but violent attacks still take place.

Survivors of the Friday boat sinking described a chaotic scene, as scores of people awakened by the jolt of the boat’s collapse tried to make their way to shore.

Niamoye Toure, a 22-year-old housekeeper, was bringing her infant son home to Timbuktu to meet his grandparents. After the boat sank, she tried to swim with one hand and hold her baby with the other.

“There was a man who didn’t know how to swim who took my son’s hand,” she recalled. “This man was very heavy and he kept hanging on to my son so I was forced to let him go or risk drowning myself.

“This morning I am alive, but part of me is dead inside because part of me is still in that water,” she said.

She insisted she would wait by the river’s shore until her son’s body was found.

Ibrahim Yattara, 29, also awaited each body retrieved from the river for any sign of his wife. The two were traveling to see family in Dire, and to share the good news that she was pregnant.

With each passing hour he became more fearful she was gone. On Sunday afternoon, they found her body and buried her in the village on shore.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

http://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/43-dead-dozens-missing-after-mali-boat-sinking/

150 bodies found in mass grave in northern Bosnia

More than 150 bodies have been recovered from a mass grave found in Tomasica near Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, more than 20 years after the war which claimed the lives of more than 11,500 people.

The latest mass grave to be uncovered was believed to have contained 1,000 bodies when it was originally dug in the summer of 1992, but it is thought some may have been moved to another mass burial site and it will take months of digging to establish how many bodies remain at Tomasica.

The war in Bosnia saw Europe's worst mass killing since the Holocaust during World War Two as around 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by the Bosnian Serb forces, many died in detention camps.

The conflict also saw the longest siege in modern history. The Serb siege of Sarajevo went on for 44 months - 11,825 days - longer than the World War II siege of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, Russia.

As forensic teams continue to uncover bodies in a mass grave in northern Bosnia, one woman has said that she is still waiting for the bodies of her brother and husband.

Nasiha Klipic told ITV News: "I have come to this cemetery for many years and I see each and every one of these buried people as my brothers – as my family.

"But I would feel a lot better if my brother and my husband finally found their final resting place here."

However, she said that even if the bodies of her relatives were found she would not rest until all those responsible were held to account.

"It would not be the end for me, the end for me would be when all the war criminals are arrested.

"I will not stop until the day I die and I raise my children not to stop until the day they die, until all the war criminals are arrested. Nothing less than that would be the end for me."

It is hoped further evidence found at the huge grave site could help the trials of Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, who are currently facing charged at The Hague.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-10-14/mass-grave-found-in-northern-bosnia/