Shankill Road bomb atrocity remembered

The Shankill Road bombing was carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 23 October 1993 and is one of the most notorious incidents of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The IRA intended to assassinate loyalist paramilitary leaders, who were to be meeting in a room above Frizzell's fish shop on Shankill Road, Belfast.

Two IRA members were to enter the shop disguised as deliverymen, then force the customers out at gunpoint and plant a time bomb with a short fuse. However, when the IRA members entered the shop with the bomb, it exploded prematurely.

One of the IRA members was killed along with a UDA member and eight Protestant civilians. More than fifty people were wounded. Unbeknownst to the IRA, the meeting had been rescheduled.

"It may be 20 years but it could be 20 minutes ago," says Charlie Butler, who lost three family members in the bombing.

He still recalls the bright crisp autumn day when he and his wife were shopping on the Shankill - a day that was suddenly and without warning shattered by the explosion.

"I looked up the road and saw total carnage. People were lying around bleeding with horrendous wounds. I looked over to where Frizzell's shop used to be and it was no longer there," he remembers.

It was only when one of the emergency crews opened the back doors of an ambulance and there were other stretchers inside covered with sheets, then it started hitting home”

Mr Butler saw dozens of people in amongst the dust and debris clawing at the rubble. Without thinking, he joined them.

"I started pulling rubble away and it didn't hit me then that we could have been looking for bodies. I was looking for someone who was alive and trapped under the wreckage," he says.

As the minutes ticked by, he began to realise this wasn't going to be the case until he came across the body of 13-year-old Leanne Murray. She was placed on a stretcher, covered with a sheet and taken to a nearby ambulance.

"Even then, the severity of what had happened didn't strike me," he says.

"It was only when one of the emergency crews opened the back doors of an ambulance and there were other stretchers inside covered with sheets, then it started hitting home - this is bad."

Reverend David Clements ran the local Methodist church in nearby Woodvale. He was relaxing at home when he got the call about what had happened. He put on his clerical collar and went straight to the scene.

"I wasn't long in the ministry but I had my own experience of the Troubles. My father, who was a policeman, had been killed by the IRA and a very good friend of mine had also been shot," he says.

Search for relatives

The clergyman helped to comfort relatives at the Methodist church just a few feet from the bomb scene. He also accompanied people to nearby hospitals while they searched for relatives caught up in the explosion.

While the churches did offer support in the immediate aftermath of the carnage, Mr Clements believes many people feel there has been a failure of pastoral care in the intervening 20 years.

"There hasn't been the support and help that there probably should have been," he says.

"I think what can be said by way of criticism of the churches generally can be said even more for the rest of society.

"Too many people in Northern Ireland have the notion that we're past it, get on with it, forget about it. Draw a line and get over it. I think that is grossly unfair for so many families who have lost in the Shankill bomb, in the Greysteel shootings and other situations like that."

The Methodist minster believes a level of criticism should be directed at government-funded agencies as well.

"Victims care and support is an issue that's hung around the edges of political debate for years. It has been misused by some people on both sides to advance their own political agendas and that has not, in most cases, been to the benefit and for the good of the victims themselves."

Mr Clements concedes it's an issue that is contentious and one that people in Northern Ireland may never properly get to grips with.

Around the time of the bombing, Jackie Redpath of the Greater Shankill Partnership was among those committed to the regeneration of a community in decline.

"The day before the bomb we had been to Stormont presenting our long-term strategy for the Shankill to the head of the civil service," he says.

"We came away from that meeting full of hope and possibility and then the bomb went off. While it knocked us for six, this was nothing compared to what it did to the families of the victims."

Mr Redpath says the attack reinforced their resolve to come back, not just from the bombing but also from 30 years of economic decline.

He says it made people determined not let this beat them, and he believes that since 1993 the Shankill has seen some of the best community development work in the whole of the UK.

"When you are attacked from outside, it brings a community together even more tightly," he says.

Plaque commemorating Shankill bombing victims

A plaque has been put up on the Shankill Road in tribute to those killed and injured in the bomb.

"The bomb reinforced that sense of community that was always there and it actually strengthened the spirit of the Shankill, making us more resilient.

"That came through in how people dealt with the immediate aftermath of the bombing, and we as a community took our hope from the hope of the families of the victims."

In the memorial exhibition at the local Methodist church, a table in the shape of the figure nine is covered in hundreds of small cards and scraps of paper.

Nearly dumped but now gathered together for the first time in 20 years, these were the messages of sympathy and support that accompanied the flowers laid at the site of the bombing in the days that followed.

On the back of a brown envelope stained with the glue of the long-perished sticky tape that was used to attach it, appear the words: "From a disabled Catholic and his family to the people of the Shankill Road - our thoughts are with you at this time."

Wednesday 23 October 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-24626287

After 30 years Beirut Barracks bombing not forgotten

All was quiet on that fateful morning of October 23, 1983 in Beirut Lebanon.

That silence shattered at 6:22 AM, when a lone terrorist driving a Mercedes Benz water truck loaded with the military explosive PETN (the equivalent of 12,000 pounds of TNT), accelerated through the public parking lot south of the building and crashed through a barbed wire and concertina fence.

The truck passed through two guard posts without being engaged by fire, went around one sewer pipe obstacle, smashed through the Sergeant of the Guard’s booth, breached the building, and detonated.

It is believed to be the largest man-made, non-nuclear explosion in history. As the smoke and debris cleared, all that remained of the four story Marine Battalion Landing Team Headquarters was a thirty nine foot crater and the lifeless bodies of 241 brave American servicemen.

A Defense Department report concluded that the concentration of a large number of U.S. military personnel combined with its location near a busy airport made the Battalion Headquarters Building a prime target for terrorists.

Since this was a peacekeeping mission, guards on interior posts were under orders that they could not have loaded weapons. The sentry at one of those interior posts immediately identified the truck as a threat, but by the time he inserted his magazine clip into his M-16 rifle and chambered a round, the truck had already entered the building.

A few minutes after that bomb went off, a second bomber drove into the basement of the nearby French paratroopers’ barracks, killing 58 more people. Four months after the bombing, American forces left Lebanon without retaliating.

'Something was up'

As the sun rose on that bright October morning, retired Staff Sgt. Melvin Hunnicutt had just taken off his boots and fallen asleep after a night of security duty. Then a sergeant with 10th Marines, he and about 120 other Marines had been guarding the northern perimeter of the base. They had seen a lot of activity, inside and outside the wire, the night before, he said. They had received sporadic gunfire, and were also skeptical of the actions of some Lebanese troops who were supposed to be guarding a nearby section of the perimeter.

“We knew something was up, we just didn’t know what,” he said.

At 6:22 a.m., about an hour after Hunnicutt fell asleep, a yellow truck packed with explosives barreled past the base guards and towards the barracks that housed hundreds of sleeping Marines assigned to Battalion Landing Team, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines. Less than half a mile away, Hunnicutt was jolted awake by the blast and sprinted outside. He couldn’t see the barracks through the thick, gray smoke.

“The first thing I saw was a great big cloud, full of debris,” he said. “Pieces of paper and whatnot were falling out of the cloud, and something flew past my head. It was the corner of a letter and it just said, ‘Dear son.’ I just let the wind carry it away.”

Retired Navy Senior Chief Darrell Gibson was about a mile from the barracks, housed with some Marines in the basement of an old library. Then a hospital corpsman second class, he was transferred out of the barracks just weeks before.

As they slept on their cots, the massive blast hurled some of the troops into the air. They scrambled to the door, disoriented, to see what had happened.

“Everybody said, ‘It looks like the BLT,’ ” he said. “Then it startled everybody for a few seconds because ... the dust starts settling back down ... and the BLT doesn’t exist.”

Hard lessons

The shock of that day reverberates through the years. Marines were forced to reassess their standards and preparations for deployments in dangerous hotspots around the world. Americans had to come to grips with a new kind of enemy, an enemy it remains engaged with on a daily basis.

“We were too lax,” Gibson said. “We weren’t prepared.”

Marines have learned not to mix alcohol with deployments, he said. The night before the attack, there was a USO show that some of the Marines and other troops attended. Each person was allowed two beers, and some Marines drank more if their buddies handed them their drinks, he said.

Gibson remained in the Navy for 23 more years following the bombing. Having served in the Corps for four years himself, he wanted to be a corpsman so he could continue working with Marines.

When he deployed to Iraq shortly before leaving the service, Gibson said he was pleased by the level of professionalism he saw. The Marines were always on their game and well-equipped, he said.

Hunnicutt said calling the Beirut deployment a “peacekeeping” mission left them confined by rules of engagement that didn’t match what was happening on the ground. They weren’t handing candy out to kids, he said. It was a war zone. They went there as peacetime Marines, but had war thrust upon them, he said.

“We’re the only ones that call it a war,” Hunnicutt said. “When you’ve got artillery coming out on top of your head, you get small-arms fire daily, you get mortared, you get [rocket-propelled grenades] flying over your area and you get the biggest truck bomb in the world driving through your double doors — yeah, we thought of it as a war.”

Complaints about ROEs downrange remain common today. Military commanders must constantly weigh the risks to service members in harm’s way against the need for restraint when winning hearts and minds is a key component of mission success.

As a corpsman, Gibson’s experience treating some difficult wounds in the hours and days following the attack in Beirut led to him being made an instructor for other corpsmen upon his return. He knew how to deal with combat injuries, like shrapnel or amputations, during peacetime, and those were valuable skills to pass on.

But military first-responders were forced to re-examine their procedures on peacekeeping missions, he said. The corpsmen were not well-equipped to deal with death or serious injuries on that deployment, he said. They had to wrap bodies in poncho liners or place them in boxes until they could transport them, he said.

For most of his career, Gibson said he wouldn’t talk about what happened in Beirut. He deployed several more times, including to Iraq in 2006, but it was only after his family pressured him to get help that he began to open up about his experiences there, he said. He hopes that lesson is not lost on today’s young Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. War veterans simply must conquer their fear of being stigmatized or pulled off of deployments if they are dealing with difficult experiences, he said.

Shared heritage

On a recent rainy evening, retired Gunnery Sgt. David Stanley led a group of first graders up to the Beirut Memorial, just outside Lejeune’s gate. Stanley serves as the community chairman for a Cub Scout pack, so he teaches kids about their community. And in a place like Jacksonville, local and Marine Corps heritage are deeply intertwined.

Beirut “took a lot from the Jacksonville community because a lot of those people lived here,” he said. “It was a big hit for the community.”

Stanley, like Hunnicutt, was an artilleryman with 10th Marines, when he was in the Corps. It’s important that what happened in Beirut be kept in everyone’s memory because it serves as an example of the sacrifices Marines make every day, he said.

It’s important to recount what happened, especially for new generations of Americans, because they are too young too remember it, he said.

Master Sgt. Don Ream, a ground ordnance maintenance chief with 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion at Lejeune, said the attack in Beirut was a difficult learning experience at the outset of a war on terrorism that continues today, and it should never be forgotten.

As his son, one of the Tiger Cub Scouts, took in the memorial that night, Ream said seeing members of the Jacksonville community still honoring the troops who died three decades ago means a lot to service members. The 30th Beirut Observance Ceremony will be held at the Beirut Memorial at 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 23.

“It shows me as a service member that civilians out there, our community members, still understand the sacrifices that we make, and they keep thinking about us long after we’re gone,” he said.

The USO’s Jacksonville Center has a room dedicated to the Beirut bombing victims. Deb Fisher, the center’s director, said during the aftermath of the attack, the relationship between the city of Jacksonville and Camp Lejeune Marines and sailors was strengthened.

Hunnicutt and Gibson still live in the Jacksonville area and agree the community has been a great supporter of Marines, both before and after the attack. But most survivors find their greatest source of comfort and support in each other, Hunnicutt said.

Lasting impression

As the devastation of Beirut aired on television screens across the country, Americans saw Marines respond with professionalism and strength. That’s what stuck out to retired Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who survived the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut just six months earlier.

Thirty years later, he said visiting the barracks after the attack was one of the most memorable experiences during his career as a diplomat.

Crocker went on to work alongside many Marines during his four-decade career in the U.S. Foreign Service, and he said he watched with admiration as a new battalion landing team was brought in immediately to cover for the one devastated by the attack.

“The Marine Amphibious Unit commander carried forward under this unbelievable loss with composure, demonstrating leadership, compassion and organization,” Crocker said. Beirut “was the Marines’ worst hour, and it was the Marines’ finest hour.”

Wednesday 23 October 2013

http://www.forbes.com/sites/agoodman/2013/10/23/on-the-30th-anniversary-of-the-beirut-marine-barracks-bombing-the-victims-families-are-close-to-receiving-1-9-billion/

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20131022/NEWS/310220034/Echoing-through-history-lessons-Beirut-remain-relevant-today

Eight more bodies recovered at Kedarnath

Eight bodies were recovered from the debris at Kedarnath after four months. The areas close to the Himalayan shrine bore the brunt of the disaster mid June.

Eight more bodies, most is of them in a highly decomposed condition, were recovered yesterday after cleaning of debris from structures standing close to the shrine, Rudraprayag SP Singh Mann Baridnerjit Told PTI on Wednesday.

With this, the total number of bodies cremated and recovered in Rudraprayag district has reached 541, he said. The bodies were found under the rubble of hotels and lodges that were being cleaned by their owners, the official said.

With the passing of more than four months after the tragedy, the bodies were in a highly decomposed state with only two of the eight skeletal remains being intact, the SP said.

The bodies have been cremated after necessary formalities like DNA sampling and vedic rituals, he said.

The cleaning of debris from structures close to Kedarnath shrine Will continue for the next few days and the possibility of more bodies found cannot be ruled out, Mann said.

Hundreds of people, most is of them pilgrims, died and thousands have gone missing when a massive flood struck Uttarakhand on June 16-17.

Wednesday 23 October 2013 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Eight-more-bodies-recovered-at-Kedarnath/articleshow/24609107.cms

10 killed in Nepal jeep accident

Ten people, including driver, died when a jeep veered off the road and fell some 500m in a remote district of Nepal yesterday.

In the accident that took place in Dhaulaphat in Uttari Lekhapanta VDC, six passengers were also injured who are undergoing treatment at Beni Hospital. “Eight of them died on spot while two died when they were being rushed to hospital,” Pradeep Singh, inspector of Myagdi police office, told Xinhua.

Seven among the 10 dead have been identified so far.

The passenger jeep was heading to Beni, the headquarters of Myagdi district, from Nagi of the same district.

Nepal Police and Armed Police Force personnel and the local people reached the site immediately and rescued the victims.

The cause of the fatal crash is not immediately known. “It seems that the jeep met with the accident as the driver lost control while negotiating a very narrow and steep stretch of the road,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police Shyam Krishna Adhikari.

Wednesday 23 October 2013

http://www.gulf-times.com/nepal/250/details/369335/10-killed-in-nepal-jeep-accident

Laos plane crash: 3 Thai victims identified (update)

The bodies of three Thai passengers killed in the Lao Airlines crash near Pakse in southern Laos returned home on Tuesday afternoon aboard an air force plane.

The C-130 aircraft left Pakse in southern Laos about 2pm local time with the three bodies and members of their families, and touched down at Wing 6 at Don Mueang airport shortly before 5pm Bangkok time.

The aircraft dropped off 10 navy divers and officials at U-tapao airbase in Rayong on the way from the Lao province of Champassak to Bangkok. It also brought home 13 officers of the Supreme Command and 10 police divers who helped in the search and recovery operation in Laos.

The bodies returned to Thailand were of Phakkawat Atriratnachai, Kanueng Chartkasamchai and Veekij Busarawuthanu. The body of another Thai victim has also been recovered and identified, bringing the number of the Thai victims found to four. He was Yanyong Apaanan, a PTT Plc engineer.

Yanyong's body is expected to return to Thailand on Wednesday.

A fifth Thai passenger reported to be aboard has still not been found.

Kanueng's body was being returned to his home district of Wiset Chai Chan in Ang Thong for funeral rites. The body of Phakkawat was sent on another flight to Hat Yai district, Songkhla, and the family of Veekij took his body to Kanchanaburi.

Lao Airlines reportedly agreed to pay US$5,000 (155,000 baht) to the relatives of each of the victims.

Kanueng's father Seng was at Don Mueang to receive his son's body. He said the financial compensation could not cover the loss to his family and he would fight for a higher payment.

"We wish he was still with us,'' Mr Seng said.

All 44 passengers and five crew died when Lao Airlines flight QV301 from Vientiane plunged to the ground and then into the Mekong River on Wednesday last week in harsh weather conditions as the pilots tried to land at Pakse airport. Part of the fuselage has been salvaged.

The signal from the aircraft's flight recorder, which could shed further light on the cause of the crash, was detected on Monday, but it has not yet been recovered.

Pol Gen Jarumporn Suramanee, an adviser to the National Police Office, who led the Thai team verifying the bodies, said only 42 victims had been recovered. A 43rd body was not included in the count because identification remained unclear.

As of Tuesday, the identities of 26 bodies had been verified. It is hoped the others could be identified in the next week, after DNA tests in Bangkok, he added.

Some Thais still remain in Pakse helping Lao authorities in the search and recovery operation.

Wednesday 23 October 2013

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/375848/bodies-of-three-thai-victims-arrive-back-in-thailand

Laos plane crash: recovery operations continuing

We are trying our best to accelerate the recovery working to deal with the aftermath of the airplane crash," Khine Simvongsa, Director of the Flight Safety Division, Department of Civil Aviation of Laos told China's Xinhua news agency on Tuesday, days after a devastating plane crash that killed all 49 people on board.

"We have located the black box with the tail of the airplane. The first step in recovering the black box recorder is to let the dive team reach the tail," Simvongsa said.

"Recovery efforts are being hampered by poor visibility and the strong flow of the wet-season Mekong.

"If we can't reach the recorder that way, we'll try a different plan. We don't know exactly when we'll be able to retrieve it," said Simvongsa.

Lao Airlines flight QV301 departed capital Vientiane for Pakse, Champassak in southern Laos at 2.45 pm (0745 GMT) last Wednesday and crashed into the Mekong more than an hour later.

The twin engine ATR 72-600 crashed seven km from Pakse International Airport as it approached for landing. Officials believe the accident may have been caused by poor weather conditions in the wake of tropical storm Nari.

The accident is considered the worst aviation disaster in Lao history. All 49 people on board including five crew members and 44 passengers were killed.

As of Monday, 43 bodies had been recovered with 17 identified, according to officials at the site.

The nine identified bodies have been handed over to relatives. The remains of seven foreign nationals have been returned, including two from Vietnam and one each from Cambodia, China, China's Taiwan, Malaysia and the United States.

Lao Government offices and mass organizations on Monday observed a minute's silence in a moment of mourning for the 49 victims.

During the ceremony, Champassak provincial Governor Sonexay Siphandone said the government and people of Laos expressed their condolences over the deaths.

Sonexay said the provincial authority had mobilised soldiers, doctors and other officials from across Champassak to help with recovery efforts.

The Director General of Lao Airlines' Planning and Cooperation Department, Sitthideth Duangsitthi said that its insurance company has paid an initial payment to the family of each of the victims to cover funeral expenses, and further compensation is expected at some point in the future.

Lao Airlines Vice President, Somsamay Visounnalath, said insurance cover for such accidents was valued at more than US$100 million, according to local daily the Vientiane Times on Tuesday.

Lao Airlines is covered by London-based insurance company Willis, which Somsamay said meant the airline had international-standard insurance.

The insurance covers the crew, passengers and the plane, and insurance payouts for victims' families would be in line with international standards, said Somsamay.

Three Korean passenger identified The bodies of three Korean passengers who died in a plane crash last week in Laos have been found and identified. Korea's foreign ministry said Tuesday that a local search team confirmed the identities of the three victims through their fingerprints.

The Lao airplane crashed into the Mekong River amid bad weather killing all 49 passengers and crewmembers on board, including three Korean businessmen.

Authorities are still trying to recover the bodies of the remaining six as well as the black box recorder to determine the exact cause of the crash.

Wednesday 23 October 2013

http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=987336

Philippine quake death toll hits 195

A two-story house leans on its side Thursday Oct.17, 2013, after being damaged by a strong earthquake Tuesday in Maribojoc, Bohol. The death toll in the 7.2-magnitude quake that devastated many areas in the provinces of Bohol and Cebu climbed to 195 on Tuesday, Oct. 22, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council and the Bohol provincial police.

The death toll in the Oct. 15 earthquake that devastated many areas in the provinces of Bohol and Cebu climbed to 195 on Tuesday, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and the Bohol provincial police.

A total of 605 people were reported injured.

Eleven are still missing in Bohol—five in Sagbayan town, two each in Loon and Balilihan towns, and one each in Clarin and Inabanga towns.

Hard-hit Bohol accounted for 182 of the fatalities as authorities received a belated report of five more in Loon on the day the earthquake struck. Relatives brought the five bodies to Tagbilaran City and the towns of Maribojoc and Calape, said Senior Insp. Jacinto Mandal, police chief of Loon.

Since last week, rescuers with picks and shovels have been trying to reach an 82-year-old woman and a 52-year-old man who were buried alive in their house when a landslide occurred in the mountain village of Cantamis Bago in Loon. A backhoe they had earlier used conked out, Mandal said.

The NDRRMC further reduced the number of people affected by the earthquake to 2.9 million from last week’s 3.5 million and 3 million over the weekend. It did not explain the corrected figures.

A total of 1,282 villages from 52 towns in six Central Visayas provinces were affected, the council said. Nearly 378,000 families have been displaced, while an unspecified number were staying in 104 evacuation centers.

Wednesday 23 October 2013

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/512351/quake-death-toll-hits-195