Rains hamper Sri Lanka mudslide tragedy search effort

Heavy rains disrupted a massive search on Thursday for scores of people feared buried in a landslide on a Sri Lankan tea estate, further dimming prospects of finding anyone alive.

Hundreds of troops suspended their work as rains threatened more mudslides at the plantation in central Sri Lanka, a day after scores of tin-roofed homes were buried under tonnes of mud.

"We are suspending the search operation because it is not safe to work in this rain," the region's top military officer, Major General Mano Perera, told reporters.

"We hope to start work tomorrow morning if the weather improves."

Perera said they failed to find any survivors or bodies from the disaster site on Thursday. He did not hold out much hope of finding survivors as the site was covered in tonnes of mud.

"There were no concrete structures which could have acted as air traps for victims to survive," he added.

Shop keeper Vevaratnam Marathamuttu said he ran when tonnes of earth came crashing down the hill on Wednesday morning, fearing there had been an explosion.

"I thought it was some sort of a bomb blast and fled from my shop," Marathamuttu said. "I saved my life because I ran away."

Truck driver Sinniah Yogarajan, 48, said there was "no point in my living" after five members of his family along with his friends were buried in the disaster.

"The entire neighbourhood has vanished. Now there is a river of mud where our houses once stood," Yogarajan told AFP at a nearby school where survivors were sheltering.

"The soldiers are trying their best but every time they scoop out some of the mud the hole then just gets filled up again with more mud."

Although only a handful of bodies have been recovered so far, the government's disaster management minister voiced fears on Wednesday night that 100 people may have been buried after he visited the site.

There had been fears of an even higher toll when officials initially said that up to 300 people were unaccounted for, but the minister said most of those who were classified as missing were later found at work.

Some 75 children were already at their school nearby when their homes were buried, officials said, adding that they were checking on reports that at least two children had lost both parents.

Fears of more landslides

President Mahinda Rajapakse visited the disaster area in Koslanda on Thursday, speaking with survivors now sheltering at two schools. He later inspected the Meeriyabedda tea plantation which bore the full brunt of the mudslide.

During the day, soldiers were seen clearing debris from the mud, as curious onlookers as well as survivors whose relatives were missing gathered at the site despite appeals to stay away.

Labourer Arumugam Thyagarajah, 28, said his six-year-old daughter was washed away in the mudslide as she walked with her older brother to school.

At least 1,200 people from nearby tea plantations have also been evacuated from their homes amid fears that ongoing rains could lead to more mudslides, officials said adding that more people were expected at relief centres.

Sri Lanka's picturesque hill region is famed for producing Ceylon tea and has become a major tourist attraction with visitors able to stay on the plantations.

The number of homes destroyed was revised down to 63 on Thursday from 150 given earlier by the national Disaster Management Centre (DMC).

"We had difficulty communicating with our officers and sometimes rumours were reported to us as facts," the Colombo-based DMC spokesman Sarath Kumara told AFP.

An office where village records were maintained was also destroyed in the disaster, causing problems for the authorities in compiling reliable casualty figures.

Sri Lanka, a tropical island at the foot of India, is prone to weather-related disasters -- especially during the monsoon season when the rains are often welcomed by farmers.

If the death toll does reach three figures, the disaster would be the country's worst since the December 2004 tsunami when 31,000 people died.

Thursday 30 October 2014

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/rains-hamper-sri-lanka-mudslide-tragedy-search-effort-614128

Shining Path victims' remains returned 30 years after their deaths

The remains of 65 victims of the Shining Path have been returned to their families 30 years after they were killed.

Men, women, and children who were killed by the Shining Path between 1989 and 1991 have finally been returned to their families for identification and burial. People came from 25 communities to Huamanga to bury their dead, whose bones and the clothes they died in were presented in small white coffins, just over a meter long, along with the few objects they had on them at the times of their deaths.

Relatives had traveled from their distant homes to identify the remains of their family members killed so many years before. The bodies had been hidden in clandestine graves until four years ago, when they were disinterred and the lengthy identification process began. Experts used DNA tests, dental records, and anthropological forensics to identify them. They had been killed by members of the Shining Path, as well as police and the military.

Prosecutor Carlos Américo Ramos Heredia presided over the handing over of the remains of the victims. The ceremony took three hours and was attended by around 200 relatives.

Adelina García, president of the Association of Families of Kidnapped, Arrested, and Disappeared of Peru, is the wife of a man who went missing in the Los Cabitos barracks in Ayacucho back in 1983. “It’s a satisfaction to give a Christian grave to loved ones after many years, others still have their hearts in pain for not finding them and not having accomplished that the guilty are punished,” she told Peruvian daily La República.

Ramos admitted that there was a long road ahead of them, saying that there were still a lot of makeshift graves to discover and that they needed more prosecutors specialized in human rights.

2,925 bodies were discovered from 2006 to July 2014, 1,689 of this number have been identified and 1,485 have been returned to their families. La República notes that these numbers are very small when compared to the number of people who are still missing. The 2003 Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that 15 thousand people disappeared in the years the Shining Path was active in Peru.

Thursday 30 October 2014

http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-shining-path-victims-remains-returned-30-years-after-their-deaths-104326

Families of missing in Sewol ferry disaster demand new search plan after body find

The families of passengers still officially listed as missing from the sunken ferry Sewol demanded Wednesday that the government come up with a thorough plan to find and recover the bodies.

The call came after a badly decomposed body, presumed to be that of a woman, was found inside the submerged ship Tuesday afternoon, more than six months after the ferry sank in waters off the southwestern island of Jindo, leaving more than 300 people dead in one of the country's deadliest maritime disasters.

After running into obstacles, divers retrieved the body from the fourth-deck female bathroom a day after its discovery, officials at the site said. They said the remains will be sent to a mortuary for positive identification using DNA screening.

"We demand that the government review the search plan for November and come up with a new thorough search plan," the families said in a press release.

On Monday, the family members said they had voted against salvaging the ship and asked the government to continue its search operation.

The outcome of the vote was made public hours after a private diving company announced its decision to pull out of the joint operation with the government and military after three months, citing "various circumstances."

The 6,825-ton ferry Sewol sank on April 16 en route to the southern resort island of Jeju. Of the total number of people on board, most of whom were high school students, only 174 were rescued.

Wednesday 30 October 2014

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20141029001101

Sri Lanka landslide: at least 16 dead, hundreds missing

Mudslides triggered by monsoon rains swept through a tea-growing region of Sri Lanka on Wednesday, killing at least 16 people and leaving around 300 more missing, disaster officials have said.

The landslides hit a tea plantation east of Colombo in the morning, with some homes buried in 9 metres (30ft) of mud, officials said.

Soldiers were trying to dig through debris for survivors, but rescue efforts were hampered by damage to roads in the area which blocked earth-moving and other heavy equipment from arriving.

“We have reports of 140 houses getting washed away in the mudslides,” Sarath Kumara, a spokesman for the national Disaster Management Centre (DMC), said.

“The latest we have got is that at least 300 people may be missing,” the official said, updating an earlier estimate of 200.

Kumara said 16 bodies had been recovered by noon after the disaster in the Koslanda region, about 125 miles east of the capital.

The victims were tea plantation workers and their families, whose homes were located on a mountain slope that came crashing down.

The top military official in the area, Major General Mano Perera, said around 20 units had been deployed for the rescue operation in an unstable mountainous area. But he said efforts were being hampered by poor visibility, with the area shrouded in mist.

The landslide started at about 7.45am (2.15am GMT) and lasted about 10 minutes, Perera said.

Perera said the air force as well as elite police commandos had been deployed for the rescue, and that they were hopeful of finding survivors.

“We have already rescued some people and they have been sent to hospital,” he said, without giving exact figures.

The main focus of the search is the Meeriyabedda tea plantation, which lies close to a beauty spot famous for its waterfalls.

Kumara said the mudslide occurred after schools opened and tea labourers were supposed to be at work, but bad weather may have prompted some to stay back.

“We are checking with nearby schools and other work places to establish how many villagers were [there] at the time,” Kumara said. “But our estimate at the moment is that about 300 people are missing.”

A local hospital source said two men and a woman rescued from the mud had been brought in for treatment.

Sections of several national highways have been washed away by the rains, slowing down the movement of search and rescue vehicles to the area, the DMC said.

The government’s disaster management minister said he was on his way to the area to assess the damage.

“We are coordinating with all agencies to ensure that relief is sent as quickly as possible, but the weather is a factor that is slowing us down,” the minister, Mahinda Amaraweera, said.

The disaster struck in an area prone to mudslides and residents had been repeatedly warned to move to safer areas as monsoon rains lashed the region, the DMC said.

Thirteen people were killed in mudslides in and around Colombo in June.

The annual monsoon brings vital rains for irrigation and electricity generation but also causes frequent loss of life and damage to property.

Cyclonic winds that accompanied the monsoon in June last year killed 54 people, mostly fishermen.

Wednesday 29 October 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/29/dead-hundreds-missing-sri-lanka-mudslides

Divers suffer as search for ferry victims continues

More than 100 days have passed since divers found the last body in the ferry that sank off the southwest coast on April 16. But the search for the missing victims continues, and 32 divers go to work every days searching for bodies.

They brave strong currents, low visibility and hypothermia as water temperatures have dropped significantly.

The Sewol has moved around 5.3 m due to the strong currents and is partially embedded in the muddy floor. Its steel frame has collapsed from rust, closing off entry points to the hull.

One diver who has been searching for victims since April, said, "Various parts of the ship are filled with mud and the frame has collapsed in many parts of the ship, which means divers can't search them. We've only been able to dive properly for nine days this month."

As the ferry disaster fades from the headlines, the conditions divers face have also gotten worse. One Navy commander said, "I have kept asking my men to persevere for just one more month, but it's been six months now working aboard a cramped vessel."

The injuries divers suffer are sapping morale. Two divers have died searching for bodies and about 80 have been treated in hospital.

Another Navy commander at the scene of the search said, "Divers who have managed to avoid injuries are faced with the side effects of diving long periods under water including paralysis due to fatigue."

Hwang Dae-shik, a rescue official, said, "Divers have to rest for 16 hours after diving for more than 10 minutes, but nobody was able to abide by that safety guideline in April and May," during massive rescue efforts in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.

The side effects are emerging now.

One diver who had to rescue a fellow diver, said, "It is a noble objective to try and recover all of the bodies of the victims, but the actual people who are risking their lives are the divers and not the president or ministers. We risked our lives to achieve the impossible and now they think it’s just our job to carry on."

The families of the victims held a meeting on Sunday evening to vote on ending the search for bodies and raising the vessel. They will announce their decision on Monday.

Monday 27 October 2014

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/10/27/2014102701360.html

A month after Japanese volcano eruption, six remain missing

Monday marks one month of the Ontake volcano eruption, the most deadly in Japan since 1926, which killed 57 people and left six others missing after search operations were suspended due to the first snowfall at the top.

Families of the victims and representatives of local authorities gathered and observed one minute of silence in the central regions of Kiso and Otaki neighbouring the Ontake, at the same time the volcano erupted Sep 27.

Residents of both towns also placed a wreath at the foot of the mountain to “sympathise with the inhabitants of the regions and pray for the volcano to calm down”, one of the organisers of the event said in statements to Kyodo agency.

On Oct 16, following the first snowfall at the top of the mountain, Japanese authorities decided to postpone the search for the six missing people until next spring, because of the risk of avalanches, landslides and low visibility.

The rescue teams had already combed most of the volcanic region and found 57 bodies.

Mount Ontake is the second highest volcano in Japan at 3,067 metres and is located about 100 km from Nagoya city.

It erupted Sep 27 when hundreds of people were hiking in the surrounding foothills and at the summit.

It is estimated that some 250 people were able to flee the area or were evacuated, 69 of whom suffered injuries, mostly bruises, fractures and burns.

The eruption was the country’s worst volcanic disaster since 1926 when Mount Tokachi in northern Hokkaido blew its top, killing 144 people and injuring another 210.

As the skiing season approaches, local authorities have also launched a campaign to ensure that tourism does not suffer in the mountainous region that is home to many ski resorts.

Meanwhile, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) maintains the level of volcanic alert for Ontake at three on a scale of five, meaning another eruption is possible, and access to the mountain and its surroundings is restricted.

Monday 27 October 2014

http://www.theindianrepublic.com/world/month-japanese-volcano-eruption-six-remain-missing-100052425.html

Floods and heavy rains leave 22 dead in Nicaragua

Twenty-two people are dead and 32,000 are homeless after torrential rain caused flooding near Nicaragua's capital Managua.

Days of torrential rains in Nicaragua has left 22 people dead and 32,000 homeless.

Nine of the victims died when a retaining wall collapsed and flattened four shacks near the capital Managua, government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo said on Saturday.

The report said 4,544 homes were damaged or destroyed by floods or were evacuated due to flood risk.

The rains impacted 17 departments in the country and 5,630 people are in temporary shelters and receiving food aid, Murillo said.

The bodies of nine people died in the populous neighborhood, Barrio 18 de Mayo, in southeast Managua when a wall around a housing development collapsed because of the heavy rains

Sunday 26 October 2014

http://www.topworldheadlines.com/2014/10/flood-and-heavy-rains-leave-22-dead-in.html

Government confirms Chinese boat with 15 people missing since July

A boat with a crew of 15 has been missing in the South China Sea since July, authorities in Shandong Province, where the boat is registered, said on Saturday.

The announcement came after a report on local TV station Qilu claiming widespread concern on social media.

The Rongcheng city government did not say why it had not revealed the incident until three months after the fact.

Owner of the boat numbered Lurongyu 2860 told the police he lost contact with his boat on July 9, according to the Rongcheng government. The boat embarked on its voyage on Feb. 26.

Fishery regulator and marine police are still investigating the boat's whereabouts.

Sunday 26 October 2014

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-10/25/c_133742390.htm

16 killed in northwest China coal mine collapse

A coal mine shaft collapsed in northwestern China, killing 16 miners, an official said Saturday, highlighting the persistence of safety problems in the industry despite a leveling off of demand.

Another 11 miners were injured in the disaster, which struck just before midnight Friday in Tiechanggou township outside the Xinjiang regional capital of Urumqi.

Thirty-three miners were in the shaft when the accident occurred, six of whom were brought out by rescuers, said an official with the State Administration of Work Safety. The official, speaking on routine condition of anonymity, said that all of the injured were in stable condition and that the cause of the cave-in was under investigation.

State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of injured miners sitting up in their hospital beds and describing their experiences to a reporter.

A man who answered the phone at the mine's offices said he could not comment, and calls to the Xinjiang regional safety administration rang unanswered.

China's mines are among the most dangerous in the world, although improved safety measures have vastly lowered the number of fatalities in mine accidents in recent years.

The government's China National Coal Administration reported 1,067 deaths in 604 coal mining accidents in 2013, down 23 percent from the year before. That's down from more than 6,000 a decade ago, largely due to increased inspections and the closure of small and unregulated mines.

The decline has coincided with plateauing demand for coal as the Chinese economy cools from the dizzying heights of the last few years.

While China still produces and consumes almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined, the amount it burned in the first three quarters of 2014 was off by about 2 percent from the same period last year, according to Greenpeace energy analysts in China.

That came despite slower but still robust economic growth of 7.4 percent during the same period, showing that China's economy is becoming somewhat more efficient in its energy use.

Widespread use of coal is largely blamed for the choking smog that envelops major cities in the country. Beijing on Saturday was smothered in a toxic cloud that prompted many citizens to don air filtering masks when venturing outside.

Sunday 26 October 2014

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11348318

One out of 26 bodies from Lake Kariba disaster retrieved

Only one body out of the 26 people who drowned Friday in Lake Kariba, Gwembe area has so far been retrieved.

And the Zambia Army and police are struggling to retrieve other bodies and may fail due to lack of marine equipment.

Meanwhile, some affected families were heard murmuring and complaining that had government provided modern water transport in Gwembe district, the deaths would not have occurred.

Zambia Reports understand that the Zambian government is trying to engage Zimbabwe to help retrieve the other 25 bodies.

This came to light when Vice-President Guy Scott visited the bereaved families in the rural area.

Inspector-General of Police Stella Libongani told Scott that the only body that had been retrieved by Saturday evening was that of a one-year-old child, which has since been buried.

Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit coordinator Patrick Kangwa was heard telling the Vice-President that the search is hampered by unsuitable equipment being used. He said his team was trying to ask Zimbabwe for help as he also thought the bodies may have floated to the Zimbabwean side.

Twenty-six people, most of them pupils of Henga Primary School in Gwembe died on Friday after the boat they were on capsized on Lake Kariba.

Vice-President Scott told mourners “your loss is our loss, too. Even if we cannot heal your emotions, as Government we will do everything possible to lighten this burden. We will make available coffins, food and all logistical needs.”

Earlier, Police inspector General Libongani explained to Vice-President Scott that the incident happened around 07:30hours on Independence Day as the victims were travelling to Kalelezhi, a school across the lake, for golden jubilee celebrations.

Libongani said 34 people were on a 14-seater banana boat.

Of the 34, eight survived aged between six and 16.

Sunday 26 October 2014

http://zambiareports.com/2014/10/26/one-26-bodies-lake-kariba-disaster-retrieved/

DNA analysis starts on church collapse victims

The DNA samples gathered from the 116 people who died in the collapse of the building in Nigeria over a month ago have arrived at a laboratory in Stellenbosch for analysis.

Minister of Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation, Jeff Radebe, said the laboratory, which has been appointed by the Nigerian government to conduct the DNA analysis, has commenced.

"The SAPS Forensic Team has already collected the necessary ante-mortem samples from blood relatives of South Africans presumed to have lost their lives in the tragedy," said the Minister during a media briefing in Cape Town on Thursday.

He said only when the DNA analysis process has been finalised will the South African government be able to conclusively identify South Africans from amongst the 116 people who died in the incident.

"The results of the DNA analysis will enable authorities to link specific mortal remains with their rightful families. Since the DNA process is in the hands of the Nigerian authorities, we are unable to provide any update regarding the timeframes when this process might be completed," said Minister Radebe.

Among the 116 dead people, who died when the guesthouse belonging to the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Nigeria collapsed, 81 are believed to be South Africa.

A total of 85 bodies will be repatriated to South Africa, including three Zimbabwean and one Democratic Republic of the Congo nationals, at the request of their respective governments.

Minister Radebe said government was aware that with each passing day the waiting became more difficult, especially for the directly affected families. "We wish to start by thanking families of the deceased for their patience and cooperation."

He said government reiterated its commitment to making sure the mortal remains of South Africans are brought back home for burial by their families and communities.

As part of the preparation for the repatriation of the mortal remains, the Inter-Ministerial Task Team met with the political representatives of provincial governments on 13 October to brief them on progress made so far in assisting families as well as the repatriation process.

Minister Radebe said the meeting was important as it is expected that provincial governments will play an important role in supporting families once the mortal remains are dispatched to their respective provinces.

He said once the process of identification through DNA testing is concluded and the Nigerian authorities give authorisation for the release the mortal remains, the National Joint Intelligence Structure (NATJOINTS) will deploy a team to that country to finalise all necessary and administrative processes and to prepare the mortal remains for their journey to South Africa.

The team will comprise of the National Disaster Management Centre, South African Military Health Service, Department of Health and SAPS Division: Forensic Service.

This preparatory work may take up to seven days to complete from the time the team arrives in Lagos.

"The NATJOINTS has identified an aircraft that will be used to transport the mortal remains on their journey home. The aircraft will depart from Air Force Base Waterkloof with Forensic Pathology Service vehicles that are suitably equipped for the purpose.

"Upon arrival in Lagos, the teams will proceed to the three different facilities where the mortal remains are being kept. Once the mortal remains have been retrieved, the teams will return to the airport for the 6 - 7 hour flight back home."

Once they arrive at the Air Force Base Waterkloof, the bodies will be transported by road to their respective provinces where the families will make their own funeral arrangements.

The Minister said preparations were being made for a formal reception to be held at the Air Force Base and that only family members of the deceased and invited dignitaries will be invited.

"We encourage the families to take comfort in the knowledge that the greater part of the work has already been done. Government continues to cooperate with the Nigerian authorities to ensure that each and every South African will be brought home to their loved ones in a dignified manner," said Minister Radebe.

Thursday 23 October 2014

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/DNA-analysis-starts-on-church-collapse-victims-20141023

The slow, dangerous work of recovering Ukraine's war dead

What priority should a country give to retrieving, identifying, and burying its war dead?

Ask Yaroslav Zhylkin, the head of Ukraine's casualty-recovery efforts, and he'll begin with an anecdote about the U.S. response when two American soldiers went missing in Afghanistan in 2006.

More than 8,000 soldiers and a group of forensic scientists, he says, were involved in that search.

In Ukraine, by contrast, a single group of 30 volunteers has assumed responsibility for retrieving fighters killed in battle in the eastern Donbas region.

The group -- dubbed Black Tulip after the cargo plane tasked with shipping the bodies of soldiers killed during the Soviet war in Afghanistan -- began its work on September 3.

Since then, they've found and evacuated the remains of more than 150 Ukrainian soldiers who died fighting in the government's so-called Antiterrorist Operation (ATO) against pro-Russian rebels in parts of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

"We've gone through 10 districts and excavated remains from more than 30 graves, including 11 mass graves," said Zhylkin, who runs the National Memory Union, an NGO overseeing the Black Tulip mission and other efforts to connect families with soldiers and volunteer fighters who have gone missing in the war.

"We also gathered the remains of crew members who were burned to death in military equipment," Zhylkin noted grimly. He paused before adding, "It's worth emphasizing that our mission is run exclusively by volunteers."

In an undeclared war comprising numerous armed groups with frequently differing agendas, the task of retrieving bodies left on the battlefield is both complicated and dangerous.

Zhylkin notes that Black Tulip volunteers are frequently forced to comb through fields controlled by separatists and dotted with mines and unexploded shells.

Even the dead soldiers represent a risk, as they are often laid with booby-trapped grenades set to detonate once the bodies are touched.

Still, Zhylkin says Black Tulip has cooperated with separatists themselves, who have occasionally approached the group for help finding their dead fighters as well. The volunteers don't turn anyone away.

"Nobody's fighting with the dead," Zhylkin says.

In addition to the danger, the group faces substantial costs. Each of the group's missions into the ATO zone costs approximately 40,000 hryvnia ($3,000), an amount mostly bankrolled by the volunteers themselves.

"The lion's share of the mission is self-financed ," says Yaroslav Tynchenko, the deputy director of Ukraine's National Military History Museum, who volunteers with the Black Tulip mission. "We mainly pay for all our own gasoline and transportation."

Additional necessities, like refrigerated trucks, are provided by charities. The group gets no direct funding from the government.

All recovered bodies are turned over to Ukrainian Army command, ideally for identification and return to families for burial. But recent weeks have seen an increasing number of mass burials for fighters who remain unidentified, including an October 17 funeral outside Dnipropetrovsk for 21 unknown soldiers killed in action.

As the country's morgues fill to capacity with war dead, military officials have been forced to bury many unnamed soldiers rather than wait for the possibility of eventual identification.

Black Tulip workers say the lack of identification tags among ATO fighters has proven one of the toughest challenges in their work.

Volunteer brigades and National Guard battalions, which make up a substantial part of Ukraine's current fighting force, do not consistently receive ID tags before being sent into battle.

Black Tulip workers say they have called on high-ranking government officials to provide dog tags and otherwise aid in casualty-recovery efforts.

Defense Ministry official Oleksiy Nazdrachev says the ministry has already earmarked 3 million hryvnia ($232,000) for the production of ID tags to be distributed to all army soldiers, National Guard members, and volunteer fighters.

For Zhylkin, the change can't come too soon. He says the remains of hundreds of fighters have yet to be cleared from the battlefields of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. More than 3,600 fighters and civilians have been killed in Ukraine in the past six months.

Wednesday 22 October 2014

http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-recovering-war-dead-black-tulip/26649901.html

Death toll in Nepal's worst trekking disaster reaches 43

Rescuers on Tuesday pulled out three bodies of Nepali citizens killed in last week's freak blizzards and avalanches, taking the toll in the Himalayan nation's worst trekking disaster to 43.

The blizzards struck the Annapurna Circuit, a trail popular among Western hikers who walk around Mount Annapurna, the 10th highest mountain in the world and caught the tourists during the peak hiking season.

"Three new bodies were taken out from snow near Thorongla pass on Tuesday," said Baburam Bhandari, chief of Mustang district, the worst among the four districts hit by the blizzards triggered by the tail end of cyclone Hudhud that struck India this month.

Officials said 518 people including 304 foreign trekkers were rescued in the operation in which more than 70 sorties were made by army and civilian helicopters.

"This is the biggest rescue operation ever conducted in high Himalayan snow and difficult mountain slopes," said D.B. Koirala, chief of the Himalayan Rescue Association Nepal.

Wednesday 22 October 2014

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/10/21/uk-nepal-hikers-idUKKCN0IA1W620141021

12 Natore bus accident victims buried

Twelve deceased among 33, who were killed in a fatal road crash in Baraigram upazila on Monday afternoon, were buried at the village of Sidhuli at Gurudaspur upazila on Tuesday morning.

The 12 deceased, including six siblings, from the same village, were buried at local central graveyard after their namaz-e-janaza at Sidhuli Government Primary School ground at about 10:05am.

At least 33 people, including 14 from Sidhuli village alone, were killed and over 24 others injured in road accident at Razzak intersection on the Bonpara-Hatikumrul highway in Baraigram upazila on Monday afternoon.

The victim's relatives of the village recognised the 12 bodies on the spot while two others—Bahadur and Azad—were kept at Natore Sadar Hospital.

Of the bodies, 30 were handed over to their families at Bonpara highway police camp, said deputy commissioner of the district Mashiur Rahman.

A three-member probe panel, headed by additional district magistrate Mohammad Ali of Natore, has been formed to look into the fatal accident.

Its two other members are assistant police super of Natore (Circle) and the assistant director of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA).

Tuesday 21 October 2014

http://en.prothom-alo.com/bangladesh/news/55363/12-Natore-accident-victims-of-a-village-buried

Bus falls into gorge in Himachal Pradesh, leaves 15 dead, 17 injured

On Tuesday, at least 15 people were killed and another 17 were injured after a private bus fell into 400 feet gorge in Rohtrung village in Himachal Pradesh's Kinnaur district.

Reportedly, about 35 passengers were on board. The bus was on its way from Sangla valley to Kalpa when the mishap took place.

The driver and conductor were among the dead while all seventeen injured persons have been rescued and rushed to a local hospital.

“All seventeen injured persons have been rescued and rushed to a local hospital nearby. While, the bodies of the deceased have been recovered and will be handed over to the family members after "an on the spot postmortem",” said Deputy Commissioner D D Sharma said.

“The toll could even rise as four injured persons are in a critical condition,” he added.

Reportedly, the victims are mostly from surrounding villages of Sangla and are yet to be identified.

Tuesday 21 October 2014

http://www.pardaphash.com/news/bus-falls-into-gorge-in-himachal-pradesh-leaves-15-dead-17-injured/763390.html

Death toll rises to 17 in fireworks plant blast in South India

The death toll in fire at a fireworks factory in southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh rose to 17, after five more deaths were reported here on Tuesday.

The police said two more women are missing since the fire, which started after an explosion so big that many workers were thrown off to nearby fields.

There were 30 people at work when the fire began, said officials in Kakinada, 160 km from the port city of Visakhapatnam. It took nearly two hours to put out the flames as a lot of inflammable material was feeding the fire.

The fire, which triggered several explosions, destroyed the building. Two fire engines battled for two hours to douse the flames.

All the victims were workers in the unit, which was manufacturing firecrackers for the coming Diwali festival.

A burning cigarette is suspected to have led to the fire.

The government has ordered an investigation into whether fire safety precautions had been ignored by the factory's owner.

The factory has been operating every year during the festival season for the last 10 years and reportedly had a licence.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has announced compensation of 200,000 Indian rupees for the families of those who died.

Tuesday 21 October 2014

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/141021/3rd-ld-writethru-death-toll-rises-17-fireworks-plant-blast-s

How robots could help health workers manage this Ebola outbreak

Could robots assist health workers manage the ongoing Ebola outbreak? Researchers in Massachusetts and around the world are going to discuss how the machines could help during this crisis and in future health emergencies.

Leading the effort are researchers at UC Berkeley, Texas A&M and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. They will meet on Nov. 7 to discuss the ongoing crisis but also future needs. “Can we be prepared for the next one so we’re not caught by surprise?” Michael Gennert, director of WPI’s robotics program said. Part of that meeting will take place at WPI’s Worcester campus.

Some tasks done by health workers — decontaminating rooms and moving supplies — could be taken over by delivery robots, decreasing contact between healthy people and those affected by the virus. Also, telepresence robots make people affected by the disease feel less alone, connecting quarantined people or infected patients with those they love.

Because the infrastructure available is different in every country, the level of robot intervention would differ based on where they are used. “What you do at Emory or Mass. General is different from what we can do in Monrovia,” Gennert said.

Among the organizers is the godmother of all emergency robots: Robin Murphy professor of computer science at Texas A&M. Murphy was among the first people to use emergency robots when she sent some into the rubble in New York City, after the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. She has since been involved with scores of natural disasters including Hurricane Katrina and the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

When the Fukushima Daiichi power plant turned hostile for human workers after the Tohuku earthquake and tsunami, robots were sent in to do some of the jobs.

Inspired by this need, DARPA launched its Robotics Challenge to speed up development of more sophisticated robots that could be useful in these situations. With humans at the center of this Ebola crisis, part of the focus will be on how robots could safely interact with people, while being least intrusive in a sensitive situation.

According to WPI’s Gennert, the technology itself isn’t out of reach. There are robots today that could take on some roles. For example, Vecna, a Cambridge medical technology company, has developed a robot called BEAR built for carrying soldiers away from the battlefield. A Texas company called Xenex has built a robot called Little Moe which uses UV light to kill bacteria and viruses in hospital rooms. The Dallas hospital that treated Thomas Duncan is among its customers.

Among the more dangerous activities for health workers is decontaminating and burying the bodies of people who have died of the disease. Local communities have seen foreign health workers take over an activity that is steeped in tradition. Introducing a robot to perform this task could be even more disruptive.

Key to deploying these robots will be strong collaborations with locals in the affected areas, says Kate Darling, who studies the ethics of new technologies as a researcher at the MIT Media Lab.

“Being sensitive to the people at the center of the emergency will require something that the team already seems well aware of: keeping humans in the loop,” she said. According to Darling, the new technology is most likely to be accepted if robots are used “as a supplement to human care, rather than a replacement.”

Monday 20 October 2014

http://betaboston.com/news/2014/10/20/how-robots-could-help-health-workers-manage-this-ebola-outbreak/

Death toll climbs to 32 in Natore bus collision

The death toll from an accident involving two passenger buses in Natore has climbed to 32, making it one of the biggest road tragedies in Bangladesh.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has expressed grief over Monday afternoon's mishap on Dhaka-Rajshahi Highway at Borhaigram.

The government has opened an investigation into the mishap.

Police said a bus of Rajshahi-bound Keya Paribahan collided with oncoming Gurudaspur Upazila-bound bus of Othoi Paribahan in the Rejir Morh area around 4:15pm, leaving at least 20 others injured.

Witnesses and survivors blamed the Keya Paribahan bus for the accident saying it ran into the other bus while overtaking a truck.

The impact flung the Keya Paribahan bus onto the side of the road while the other one turned upside down.

Traffic on the key highway resumed in the evening after two hours.

According to survivors, 29 of the victims were passengers of Othoi Paribahan.

Thousands thronged the accident site while the air was thick with wailing of relatives desperately looking for their loved ones.

Confusion arose over the number of dead as police officials at the scene gave varying accounts.

Several of those seriously injured passed away at hospital.

Both the prime minister and health minister have ordered authorities to get the injured properly treated.

Rajshahi Medical College and Hospital Director Brig Gen AKM Nasir Uddin said they had admitted 17 of the injured until 9pm and deployed 10 additional doctors for their treatment.

Around 8:30pm, police's Rajshahi range Deputy Inspector General Iqbal Bahar told reporters that the death toll was 32.

Several injured were being treated at the RMCH.

Around 10pm, he said two others succumbed to their injuries at the hospital failing to respond to treatment.

Earlier, Borhaigram police OC Monirul Islam had said 31 people died in the accident, 20 of them on the spot.

Most of the bodies were brought to Bonparha Highway Police Station. Natore's Superintendent of Police Basudeb Banik said they had been handing over bodies to their relatives from there.

Relatives took over several bodies from hospitals.

Thirty-one of the bodies were handed over to their families, said Officer-in-Charge Fuad Ruhani of Bonpara Highway Police Station, including those of two women and a child.

The body of a Keya Paribahan passenger, hailing from Chittagong, was kept at the police station until 8pm.

Drivers of both buses and their assistants were among the victims.

Monday 20 October 2014

http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2014/10/20/buses-collide-to-kill-at-least-34-passengers-in-natore

11 killed in blast at cracker unit near Kakinada

Eleven persons, including 10 women, were killed and seven injured in an explosion at a cracker-making unit at Vakatippa, a tiny coastal village about 25 km from here, on Monday.

Residents of Vakatippa, Uppada Kothapalli and nearby villages heard the ear-splitting sound of the explosion around Monday afternoon and then saw thick clouds of smoke emanating from Manikanta Fireworks, a workshop where firecrackers were being made unauthorisedly and located amidst a coconut grove in the village.

The two sheds of the unit were completely destroyed and the fire personnel extricated the bodies from the debris after putting out the fire. Villagers, with the help of the fire personnel, rescued seven persons who sustained burns and rushed them to hospital where the condition of five was stated to be critical.

Fire engulfed the two huge sheds when residents living in the neighbourhood alerted fire services personnel over telephone. Four fire tenders worked continuously for over two hours to bring the fire under control.

According to the eyewitnesses, there were at least 35 persons, including daily labourers and customers, at the workshop when the explosion occurred. Some of them ran into the farm fields after hearing the sound of the explosion. “The exact number of the deceased is more than the number cited by the officials. They were able to give the details of only 18 out of 35 persons who were there in the workshop at the time of the incident,” said Dasari Satyanarayana, a rights activist from the nearby Subbampeta village, who took part in the rescue operation.

It is suspected that the explosion took place due to a fire in a bundle of crackers that were piled up and stored for Diwali sale. An official from the Fire Services Department, who did not want to be named, said going by the intensity of the explosion there was a huge quantity of crackers in the workshop.

The fire personnel spotted extinguishers in the workshop. The two-decade-old workshop is known for delivering crackers round the year and the production and sales were quite high during the Diwali season. “During the preliminary inquiry, we found that the licence of the workshop expired in March this year and it seems no effort has been made for its renewal,” said B.R. Ambedkar, Revenue Divisional Officer. Home Minister N. Chinna Rajappa visited the spot and consoled the family members of the deceased.

Monday 20 October 2014

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/11-killed-in-blast-at-cracker-unit-near-kakinada/article6520282.ece

Three more bodies pulled from Nepal disaster zone

Emergency workers in Nepal pulled three more bodies from the snow today, as authorities prepared to end the full scale search for survivors of a deadly snowstorm that struck last Tuesday.

More than 500 people have now been airlifted to safety since heavy snow hit Nepal’s popular Annapurna region last Tuesday at the height of the trekking season, triggering avalanches and killing dozens of people.

Six helicopters fanned out over the affected areas this morning to rescue any trekkers still stuck in the region.

“Although smaller, regular rescues may continue, we hope to complete all emergency evacuations from the snowstorm today,” Ramesh Dhamala of the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal (TAAN) told AFP.

Another TAAN official, Keshav Pandey, said that “a few Nepalese support staff are still unaccounted for”, although the industry body was not aware of any more stranded tourists.

Nepalese officials believe most of those affected have now been pulled to safety or walked out on their own, although it remains unclear how many trekkers were in the area when the storm hit.

Police official Bikash Khanal said 502 trekkers, guides and others have been rescued since operations started on Wednesday, including 299 foreigners.

“We have recovered two bodies from Manang, and another of an Israeli woman from the Thorong Pass,” Khanal told AFP.

It was not immediately clear whether these were included in the death toll of 40 previously given by the TAAN, which included trekkers who were missing and feared dead as well as those whose bodies had been recovered.

The victims include at least 26 hikers, guides and porters on the Annapurna circuit, three yak herders, and five people who were climbing a nearby mountain.

Thousands of people head to the Annapurna region every October, when the monsoon rains clear and the weather is usually at its best for trekking.

The disaster follows Mount Everest’s deadliest avalanche that killed 16 guides in April and forced an unprecedented shutdown of the world’s highest peak.

Impoverished and landlocked Nepal relies heavily on tourism revenues from climbing and trekking.

Monday 20 October 2014

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/world/article/nepal-pulls-three-more-bodies-from-disaster-zone-after-snowstorm

Facebook adds emergency check-in feature for natural disasters

In 2011, when a deadly tsunami set off 30-foot tidal waves that crashed into the shores of Japan, flooding entire cities and damaging nuclear power plants, Facebook became an instrumental tool in connecting loved ones and alerting family members to their safety.

The social network is now rolling out a new check-in feature for use during such natural disasters. Safety Check, as the new product is called, was unveiled by CEO Mark Zuckerberg Thursday afternoon in Tokyo, and is meant to help Facebook users quickly alert friends and family that they are safe during times of crisis, like earthquakes or tsunamis.

Safety Check works by sending users a push notification asking them if they are safe whenever a natural disaster strikes the area they list as their current location. User’s can then see a list of their Facebook friends in the area, and see which users have checked in as safe and which have not.

Facebook will determine what constitutes a disaster worthy of a check-in by communicating with local authorities and experts, says Marcy Scott Lynn, global policy programs manager at Facebook. Safety Check has a few added elements — for example, you can check in for a Friend, and Facebook will ask you to check in if it sees you are traveling in a compromised area — but for the most part, Safety Check is intended for sharing one simple status: Yes, I’m fine.



The initial idea for Safety Check came from Facebook’s Japan office following the 2011 earthquake and ensuing tsunami, hence Zuckerberg’s announcement in Tokyo. Employees at the time developed a Disaster Message Board within Facebook to help families and friends connect in the wake of potential disasters, but the tool was limited to Japanese users and slowly faded as Facebook continued to evolve.

Eleven months ago, product manager Sharon Zeng and software engineer Peter Cottle picked up the project during a company-wide hackathon at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.

Facebook didn’t partner with any outside organizations on the project, so for now, if a user does not check in during a disaster, authorities won’t be notified in any way. It’s possible that Facebook could partner with groups like the Red Cross down the road, but there are no partnership plans in the works, according to Lynn. “We recognize this tool isn’t for everyone or every time,” she added. “It wasn’t designed as a first responder tool.”

Other online communities, including Twitter, have also added features for sharing important information during natural disasters. Facebook’s Safety Check is now active for all 1.3 billion users.

Saturday 18 October 2014

http://recode.net/2014/10/15/facebook-adds-emergency-check-in-feature-for-natural-disasters/

Truck crashes into shop in Cameroon killing 17

A truck crashed into a shop in Cameroon's capital Yaounde, killing 17 students, national radio reported on Friday.

The building in the neighbourhood of Monte des Soeurs was destroyed in the late Thursday accident, witness Aisha Mama told dpa.

The students were buying sweets at the shop. Several people were also seriously injured.

There was no immediate information on the reasons behind the crash.

Saturday 18 October 2014

http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Truck-crashes-into-shop-in-Cameroon-killing-17-20141018

Tragedy at the Cambrian Colliery disaster of 1965

May 17, 1965. A day forever etched on the memory of the coalmining community of the South Wales valleys.

Next year, on the 50th anniversary, there will be a special event in Clydach Vale near Tonypandy to remember a tragedy.

It seemed to be just another Monday on the P26 coal face at Cambrian Colliery. But as the morning shift drew to a close, that impression changed. In a split second, 31 men lay dead. Another 15 were injured.

The site of one of the last great pit disasters of the South Wales coalfield lies underground but the history lives on in the memories of families and the testimony of those involved.

Nothing should have gone wrong. The “Cam” was equipped with the National Coal Board’s latest technology. The 192-yards of the P26 coalface were cut by an electrically driven “plough-type” machine and the roof supported by hydraulic props.

But that day, there were electrical and mechanical problems. By late morning, the colliery manager and under manager were on the coalface trying to sort the problems. By 12.15pm, the face was “on stop”.

Myrddin Pritchard and his workmates were chatting in the underground roadway near the face, waiting for the all clear. “It was about one o’clock,” he said. “There was a terrible noise — more of a thud than a bang — and a blast of air thick with dust and smoke came down the coal face.”

His worst fears were soon confirmed.

“After the dust settled,” he recalled. “I shouted down up the coal face to my mates — there was no answer.”

At 1.05pm, the Mines Rescue Station at Dinas was alerted. Roy Hamer, an official in the nearby Lewis Merthyr Colliery and a part-time rescue brigade man, was one of those called out. Wearing breathing apparatus, he and five others, were sent straight underground to inspect the length of the supply road to the coalface and back.

They went to look for survivors and mark accurately where the casualties were lying.

He later recalled how they identified the dead: “We would gently turn the person so as to pick up his lamp number on his lamp battery ... on returning to the surface they would know exactly where everybody was and be able to match lamp numbers with names.”

Trevor Ward was an underground haulage engine driver on the afternoon shift.

About two o’clock he was asked to go down the pit, not to work but to bring up the bodies.

Another volunteer was John Benbow. “There were bodies everywhere,” he said.

“They had died in the positions they were working: standing up, kneeling or bending.”

Each body was placed on a stretcher and into drams, the wagons that usually carried coal to the surface. Each body was accompanied by a man standing in respect.

Five and a half hours later, John Benbow came back to the surface. “I remember the television cameras being there but I also remember the Salvation Army giving out hot drinks, sandwiches and cigarettes. Although I’m not religiously inclined — in fact I’m an atheist — I’ll always give money to the Salvation Army.”

Bill Richards, former official at Cambrian, was on the surface when the bodies were brought up. Despite whispers of many fatalities, he was not prepared for seeing the convoy of 31 stretchers covered in bound blankets.

He later saw the funerals and the men walking in silence. “You’d see these big, strong men and you’d see the tears in their eyes.”

The next day, after all the casualties had been recovered and the pit made safe, Denzil Pennington was among the men sent underground to survey the coalface after the explosion. He remembers seeing the reflector of a cap lamp embedded deeply in a timber support, showing how powerful the blast must have been.

“The feeling in the pit was weird,” he recalled. “People were stunned as Cambrian wasn’t regarded as a particularly gassy pit. In my view it was one of those things that shouldn’t have happened. Production was important but not as important as human lives.”

The official inquiry, two months later, found that a build-up of gas had been ignited where electricians were working. The disaster, it said, was due to “poor pit practice”.

A year after the explosion, Cambrian Colliery closed. But the memories remain.

Saturday 18 October 2014

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/welsh-history-month-tragedy-cambrian-7951304

Death toll rises in Nepal avalanche area

Rescuers have widened their search for trekkers missing since a series of blizzards and avalanches battered the Himalayas in northern Nepal earlier this week, leaving at least 29 people killed.

The government also announced on Friday the formation of a high-level committee that would monitor and co-ordinate rescue efforts following criticism that officials were not doing enough to help hikers who have been spotted but remain steanded along a popular trekking circuit.

A group of about 40 of the stranded trekkers tried to start leaving the area on Friday, not realising it was still blocked.

The incident prompted the army rescuers to abandon their operation to find survivors from under the snow on another mountain in order to airlift the trekkers.

Authorities have rescued 78 trekkers from Mustang and 157 from the neighbouring Manang district since Wednesday.

Minendra Risal, the country's information minister, said the new committee, ordered by the prime minister, would directly monitor the rescue operation and help wherever needed.

The committee would co-ordinate operations among the army, police, local administrations and the private operators now involved in the rescues.

The Annapurna trekking route, 160km northwest of the capital, Kathmandu, was filled with foreign hikers during the peak October trekking season, when the air is generally clear and cool.

There were also many Nepalese on the trails because of local festivals.

Two trekkers from Hong Kong and 12 Israelis were airlifted on Wednesday to Kathmandu, where they were being treated at a hospital. They said they survived by taking refuge in a small tea shop along the path.

The blizzard, the tail end of a cyclone that hit the Indian coast a few days earlier, appeared to contribute to an avalanche that killed at least eight people in Phu village in neighbouring Manang district.

The dead included three Indian and four Canadian trekkers as well as three villagers, said government official Devendra Lamichane.

The foreigners' bodies were buried in up to two metres of snow and digging them out will take days, Lamichane said.

Three Canadian trekkers who survived the avalanche were taken by helicopter to a shelter in a nearby town.

Authorities said five climbers were killed in a separate avalanche about 75km to the west, at the base camp for Mount Dhaulagiri.

The climbers, two Slovaks and three Nepali guides, were preparing to scale the 8,167-metre peak, the world's seventh tallest, said Gyanedra Shrestha of Nepal's mountaineering department. Their bodies were recovered on Thursday.

Friday 17 October 2014

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/10/death-toll-rises-nepal-avalanche-area-2014101773126516349.html

Pentagon report faults efforts to find MIAs

The Pentagon's effort to find missing service members from past wars is wracked within inefficiencies, lacks a clear mission and fails to differentiate remains that can be recovered from those lost forever, an inspector general's report charged Friday.

As a first step, the Pentagon needs to limit its MIA search to those whose bodies might still be found, identified and repatriated, the report said, citing investigators who looked into the recovery process.

The Pentagon lists 83,000 American troops missing in action going back to World War II. But at least 50,000 of them are almost certainly beyond recovery since they were aboard ships or aircraft lost over deep ocean waters, the inspector general report said.

The report recommends that the Pentagon conclude that these remains -- mostly from World War II -- will likely never be recovered and notify the families.

Another problem is caused by confusion over who in the military can approve disinterring remains of service members buried as unknown casualties to try to determine their identities, the report said. As a result, some MIA cases that could be resolved remain open, the report said.

This includes an estimated 300 sailors killed in the sinking of the USS Oklahoma during the Pearl Harbor surprise attack on Dec. 7, 1941. Those remains were recovered and buried on land as unknown casualties. But the Navy has been reluctant to approve disinterring the remains, the report said.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, responding to the 108-page report, concurred with its recommendations and said he has already initiated changes.

Friday 17 October 2014

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/17/mia-inspector-general-report-assessment-pentagon/17442187/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories

16 killed in collapse at South Korea pop concert

At least 16 people are dead and nearly a dozen injured after the ventilation grate they were standing on collapsed at an outdoor pop concert in South Korea today, officials said.

The crowd had climbed up a steel grate to get a better view of the stage, and their weight caused the grate to collapse sending their bodies crashing 40 feet below, rescue authorities told.

Hundreds of people were gathered at the show in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, to watch 4Minute, a popular girls' band, perform as part of a local festival.

Video from a concert-goer that ran on South Korea's YTN television network shows the group continuing to dance for a short while after the crash, apparently unaware that the grate behind them had collapsed, according to The Associated Press.

Many of the concert-goers were female students, witnesses said.

The steel grate was 13 square feet. Eleven people were injured.

The injured were being treated at several hospitals near the venue.

South Korea has suffered a recent series of accidents involving young victims, including the Sewol ferry disaster in April that left more than 300 dead, most of them high school students.

In February, the roof caved in on a student-packed auditorium near the southern city of Gyeongju, killing 10 people and injuring more than 100. An investigation uncovered evidence of structural flaws and lax management controls.

The Sewol disaster prompted government promises of a national review of safety standards, as it became clear that poor regulatory oversight was a major contributor to the scale of the tragedy.

The last major accident at a music concert was in 2005 when 11 people were crushed to death and nearly 80 injured in a stampede as thousands tried to enter the stadium venue in the southeastern city of Sangju.

Friday 17 October 2014

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/16-killed-in-collapse-at/1421310.html

Nepal rescuers search for missing hikers, bodies in heavy Himalayan snow

The grim search for missing hikers and bodies buried under snow resumed Thursday against the dramatic backdrop of Nepal's Himalayas, a day after the news emerged that at least 17 trekkers had died in an exceptionally heavy snowfall.

Rescue crews combed the high altitude paths and passes of the popular Annapurna region as well as the neighboring Manang district.

Nine stranded Israeli tourists were rescued Thursday, as well as three Canadians and four Indians who were pulled to safety, according to the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal.

The trekkers' group said it deployed helicopters to rescue hikers stranded by snow, floodwaters and avalanches along the popular Himalayan trekking trails.

A dozen of the trekkers who died Tuesday lost their lives below the iconic 5,416-meter (17,770-foot) Thorung La Pass in Mustang district, the highest point of the highly popular 21-day Annapurna Circuit trek.

Four bodies were recovered Wednesday, while five more dead -- two Israelis, one Pole and two Nepalis -- were uncovered beneath the snow Thursday, said Baburam Bhandari, chief district officer of Mustang district. Three more remain buried.

Those who manage the steep ascent at energy-sapping high altitude to the Thorung La Pass are normally rewarded with breathtaking panoramic views. But on Tuesday morning everything changed.

Trekkers spend the night at local camps on either side of the mountain before they set out, sometimes as early as 4 a.m., to make the crossing, said Bidur Kuikel of Annapurna Conservation Area project.

"On Tuesday heavy snowfall began at about 8 a.m.," he said. "There was no visibility beyond three meters."

Since the tracks were covered by snow, people could have fallen down or become lost, he said. Those traveling on their own rather than in organized groups are usually most likely to lose their way, he said.

Officials did not provide a number on the people missing or their nationalities, but say they fear the death toll could rise.

As anxious families wait for news, army and police personnel continued to search the area below the Thorung La Pass in Mustang district on Thursday, Bhandari said.

A Facebook page, Annapurna Nepal Avalanche and Blizzard Info Share, has been set up to try to connect worried relatives with those in Nepal. Some trekkers who have made it down from the remote pass have posted updates to help others.

One, Virginia Schwartz, wrote: "Thank you to everyone for all the kind words and prayers, we are safe. We are trekking out of the avalanche danger zone and heading back down along the circuit."

Another, Nic Brdo from Perth in Western Australia, wrote: "I've just got out of base camp evac'd by heli and would advise to not go up. Flying to Pokhara the amount of snow in the pass (was) astounding."

This is already one of the deadliest such tragedies in the history of Nepal, a nation of about 26 million known worldwide for its spectacular mountain ranges, including Mount Everest.

Annapurna is far and away the most popular of its trekking areas, with some 90,000 trekking there in 2013, according to Narendra Lama, tourism officer of Annapurna Area Conservation Project.

"There have been incidents of trekkers being killed in snowstorms, landslides and avalanches in the past but not as many as this year," Lama said.

"But I do not think that this disaster will have a big impact since it is a natural disaster and not about a security situation," he said. "Trekking is adventurous in nature after all."

October is the best month of the year to do the Annapurna Circuit trek, meaning more visitors than usual may have been in the area when unusually heavy snow caused by Cyclone Hudhud in eastern India came down Monday and Tuesday.

Last year, about 20,000 foreign trekkers crossed the Thorung La Pass, almost 6,000 of them in October, according to Annapurna Conservation Area statistics.

Many remote Nepali communities rely on foreign trekkers and mountaineers for income and employment, meaning a drop in visitors could hit local people hard.

The deaths come only six months after tragedy last struck Nepal, on the slopes of Mount Everest.

Then, a bruising avalanche of ice swept 16 Sherpas to their deaths. After the accident, which came right before the peak season in May, many Sherpas refused to climb and at least six companies that lead Everest expeditions called off their 2014 climbs.

Thursday 16 October 2014

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/16/world/asia/nepal-snowstorm/

Six months on, S. Korea ferry disaster victims’ families continue to grieve

“Sewol ferry recovery update No. 377 ... Days since last body found — 88.”

Six months after South Korea’s worst maritime disaster, the official e-mails keep coming — sometimes several a day — recording every detail of a largely forgotten and ignored operation.

Weather and sea conditions permitting, they detail the latest mission by divers to penetrate the sunken vessel in the search for 10 bodies that remain unaccounted for.

The last body to be pulled from the upturned ship was way back on July 18. The last before that was on June 19. Just two bodies in almost four months.

“There is no deadline. The work will continue indefinitely,” said Kim Sang-In, an official at the Disaster Management Headquarters overseeing the recovery effort.

“The government has already clarified its position that without the consent of the victims’ families, it will not cease operations unilaterally,” said Kim, whose office issues the e-mail updates.

It’s a consent that steel worker Huh Hong-Hwan has no intention of giving.

Of the 476 people on board the 6,825-tonne Sewol passenger ferry when it capsized on April 16, 325 — including Huh’s teenaged daughter — were high school pupils on an organised outing.

Only 75 of the students survived.

As soon as Huh heard of the disaster, he jumped in his car and drove, sick with anxiety, for five hours down to the southern island of Jindo where the rescue operation was gearing up.

Six months later, he is still there — one of a tight group of relatives still camped out in a public gymnasium which had housed hundreds of family members in the immediate aftermath of the sinking.

“I will never give up or leave this place until I can see my daughter,” the 50-year-old told AFP by telephone from Jindo.

Huh’s daily routine rarely varies: He wakes at 7.00am, has breakfast and walks to the local district office to check if there are any updates.

Some days he goes down to Jindo port and boards a boat to take him to the barge where the divers work from.

Otherwise he watches television, or talks with other relatives of the 10 people still unaccounted for.

“We look out for each other,” Huh said.

“It’s important because it’s very difficult — mentally and physically. I feel abandoned and trapped here. Sometimes I even think of suicide, but then I cling to the hope of finding my daughter,” he said.

The Sewol disaster and the loss of so many young lives was a profound shock that plunged the entire country into mourning and raised questions about what Asia’s fourth largest economy had come to and where it was going.

The grief swiftly turned to anger as it became clear that the tragedy was almost entirely man-made — the result of an illegal redesign, an overloaded cargo bay, an inexperienced crew and an unhealthy nexus between operators and state regulators.

And while the tragedy initially seemed to unite the country, its legacy six months later is one of division and discord.

Parliament was paralysed for months as the ruling and opposition parties bickered fruitlessly over the content of a bill to create an independent inquiry into the Sewol sinking.

Two weeks ago they finally reached a compromise about the composition and investigative powers of the inquiry — but the plan was immediately rejected by the majority of victims’ families, who had been pushing for a say in who should sit on the panel.

A group of family members, some of them on rotating hunger strike, have been camped out of Seoul’s main ceremonial thoroughfare for months to push their demands.

“The political parties are trying to use the tragedy for their own political interests,” said Jun Myoung-Sun, the father of one of the dead students who heads a group that claims to represent the majority of victims’ families.

“What we want is a full investigation aimed at making a safer society. A full disclosure that tells the truth about how such a disaster could occur,” Jun said.

As far as the continuing recovery operation in Jindo goes, Jun acknowledged the challenge posed by the coming winter weather — but was adamant that the time had not yet come to bring in the heavy lifting cranes.

“We have no plan to raise the vessel as yet. This is the wish of most of the families,” he said.

Wednesday 15 October 2014

http://www.malaysiandigest.com/world/523234-six-months-on-s-korea-ferry-disaster-victims-families-continue-to-grieve.html

Jammu and Kashmir: Four bodies dug out in Saddal hamlet, eight yet to be recovered

Four more bodies have been recovered in Udhampur district's landslide-buried Saddal village, taking the total number of bodies recovered so far to 30.

The rescue teams, armed with heavy machines yesterday, recovered four more bodies buried under debris of houses which collapsed in the landslide triggered by heavy rains in Saddal village last month, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, Udhampur-Reasi range, Gareeb Dass said on Wednesday.

With these recoveries, the total number of bodies pulled out has gone up to 30, including recovery of some parts of two bodies.

"Eight bodies are yet to be recovered and work is on to dug them out", DIG said.

Armed with heavy machines, including bulldozers and cutters, rescuers have dug up these bodies from 10 to 15 feet deep debris and boulders triggered by massive landslide.

38 people were buried in the landslide triggered by heavy rains which buried Saddal village in Panchari block of the district on September 7. Of these, 12 bodies were recovered on first two days after the landslide.

Wednesday 15 October 2014

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-jammu-and-kashmir-four-bodies-dug-out-in-saddal-hamlet-eight-yet-to-be-recovered-2026270

Himalayan disaster: Heavy snowfall in Nepal from Hudhud kills at least 17 climbers, several missing

An avalanche in the Himalayan region of central Nepal has killed at least 17 climbers, including at least eight foreign nationals, officials said Wednesday. More than 100 people are reportedly missing in the blizzard, which was triggered by the tail of Cyclone Hudhud.

Some bodies of the deceased, who include Polish, Israeli and Nepalese citizens, were recovered from Thorong La pass, about 100 miles northwest of the capital, Kathmandu, while 40 others were rescued, Nepalese army official Niranjan Shrestha reportedly said. According to reports, 12 of the deaths were in the Annapurna region. The avalanche, which hit the area on Tuesday, was reportedly caused by the remnants of Cyclone Hudhud, which killed at least 24 people and caused widespread devastation in southeastern India over the weekend.

"There has been heavy snowfall in the area, up to three feet (91 centimeters)," a police official in charge of the rescue effort reportedly said. "Among the dead are two Polish trekkers and one Israeli. A Nepali was also buried by the snow," he reportedly said, without revealing any other detail.

Local police officials reportedly said that 152 foreign tourists in Mustang district in the Dhawalagiri zone of northern Nepal could not be contacted.

“The phone network is not very good so we have not been able to get in touch with the missing, but we hope to find them later today,” Mustang district official Baburam Bhandari said, ABC News reported. Bhandari also reportedly said that five Polish nationals, four Israelis and five German citizens had been rescued.

The rescue operation, which was hampered by heavy snow, reportedly resumed after the weather cleared up on Wednesday. According to BBC, Cyclone Hudhud is now moving from Nepal toward China.

Officials said that three villagers were killed Monday in the same district, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of the capital, Kathmandu, and their bodies were recovered on Wednesday.

In the neighboring Mustang district, four trekkers caught in a blizzard died on Tuesday. Rescuers recovered the bodies of the two Poles, one Israeli and one Nepali trekker from the Thorong La pass area.

Meanwhile, the bodies of five more trekkers -- four Canadians and an Indian -- who died Tuesday were recovered Wednesday in remote Manang district, Narayan Datta Chapagain, a local police official told.

It was initially thought the group had been caught in an avalanche, but government official Yam Bahadur Chokyal said by telephone from Mustang that the four trekkers instead had been caught in the blizzard and died.

He said another 14 foreign trekkers have been rescued so far, and two army helicopters were picking up injured trekkers and flying them to Jomsom town.

Chokyal said it was not possible to say how many trekkers were still on the route stranded by the deep snow but several of them have reached safe ground on Wednesday because of improved weather.

The rain and snow in Nepal were caused by a cyclone that hit neighboring India several days ago.

October is the most popular trekking season in Nepal, with thousands of foreigners hiking around Nepal's Himalayan mountains.

The Thorong La pass is also on the route that circles Mount Annapurna, the world's 10th highest peak.

An avalanche in April just above the base camp on Mount Everest killed 16 Nepalese guides, the deadliest single disaster on the mountain. Climate experts say rising global temperatures have contributed to avalanches on the Himalayan mountains.

Wednesday 15 October 2014

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/nepal-avalanche-kills-four-trekkers-in-mountain-pass-with-dozens-still-missing-9795448.html

Lagos church collapse: DNA samples needed

The coroner investigating the collapsed guest house at the Synagogue Church of All Nations (Scoan) in Lagos has appealed to South African authorities to help in the identification of bodies of their nationals who died in the September 12 disaster.

Oyetade Komolafe said on Monday at the inaugural sitting of the inquest set up by the Lagos State Government to investigate the accident, that it was necessary for the South African High Commission in Nigeria to ensure that relations of the victims came forward for the pathologists to get the needed samples of their DNA to compare with the bodies.

“Those corpses have to be properly identified and it is when that is done and the process completed that the bodies will be released to the South African government and they can take them home,” he said.

According to him, the inquest is not a set-up to indict anybody, but it is aimed at unravelling the cause of the incident.

“I want to say this court is not adversarial. We are not here to convict anybody. We are here to find facts. What happened, when it happened, why it happened, how it happened and also to get recommendations from interested parties in their depositions on how to prevent a recurrence of what happened,” Komolafe said.

He called on all interested parties and witnesses to come forward and to testify in order to get to the truth of the matter.

He said the court would visit the site of the collapsed building on Thursday and urged Scoan to make available its closed circuit television (CCTV) footage of the incident.

The court adjourned till October 24 for further hearing.

The founder of Scoan, “Prophet” TB Joshua blamed the collapse on an aircraft which he alleged flew over the building, but government officials say it collapsed because four floors were added to the existing two-storey structure.

Tuesday 14 October 2014

http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/lagos-tragedy-dna-samples-needed-1.1764932

Tanzania: Death toll in Kigoma boat tragedy rises to 10

The death toll from Lake Tanganyika accident in which 70 people, including a newly-wed couple, were rescued has increased to ten people.

The accident that occured at Kigoma Region's Kalalanga village was reportedly contributed by laxity, according to Kigoma Regional Police Commander (RPC) Jaffar Mohamed and Kigoma Regional Commissioner Issa Machibya.

Mr Mohamed said the rescue effort by the TPDF men was still in progress, however expressing fear of retrieving more bodies as there are no proper records of the number of people who were in the ill-fated boat.

The RC on his part consoled the bereaved families and wished good health and quick recovery for the survivors. He urged Kigoma residents to take precaution when boarding lake going vessels, attributing the mishap and eventual deaths to overloading.

Mr Machibya directed the Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (SUMATRA) to regulate marine transport in the lake, partly blaming the accident on the laxity in SUMATRA regulatory services.

According to the state-run Swahili daily paper, Habari Leo late on Monday ten bodies were recovered during the search operations jointly conducted by the police and the armed forces.

Local sources said the two boats were returning from a wedding ceremony with some 80 passengers on board.

Seventy passengers including the newly-weds were rescued according to the paper.

The Tanzanian authorities have been ruing boat disasters caused by over-crowdedness on the country’s lakes and the Indian Ocean.

In January 2013 a boat disaster on Lake Tanganyika claimed the lives of eight people with some twenty more reported missing.

Tuesday 14 October 2014

http://allafrica.com/stories/201410140655.html

15 teenagers feared dead as boat capsizes in Kano

The city of Kano was thrown into mourning on Tuesday following the death of 15 teenagers in a boat mishap at Jobawa village, Garin Mallam Local Government Area of the state.

The children, who were mostly girls between the ages of 8 and 14, were said to be on a trading mission when their ferry-boat had an encounter with storm and capsized.

It was gathered that the young girls boarded the boat to cross the river from a suburb called Lanjan to the Jobawa village, to supply cassava for sale at Garin Mallam town.

A Community leader at Jobawa village, who identified himself as Utubatu Yaro, told newsmen that the incident occurred Monday evening when a violent rainstorm shook the boat and forced it to capsize with the teenage girls on board.

Utubatu Yard explained that “they normally come here to supply cassava for sale around Garin Mallam town”, adding that “they don’t normally stay up to evening time, but because God has destined the incident, they were here until Magrib (evening prayer).

He added that “there was a violent rainstorm on their departure, and I suspect it was the excessive rain that fell into the boat as well as the storm that overturned the boat.

Yaro disclosed that “we have been able to find the bodies of nine of them, and we are searching for the bodies of the remaining”.

The acting Police Public Relations officer, DSP Mustapha Abubakar confirmed that 15 girls were involved in the boat mishap, adding that five had been rescued, while ten were still missing.

Tuesday 14 October 2014

http://dailypost.ng/2014/10/14/15-teenagers-feared-dead-boat-capsizes-kano/

MH17 victims’ belongings recovered from Ukraine crash site

Four Dutch experts and local emergency services made a start on Monday recovering personal belongings from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in east Ukraine, carting away boxes of personal possessions despite fighting nearby.

But the leader of the Dutch team co-ordinating the repatriation mission said the aim was still to get a Dutch team on site to comb the crash area, despite the fighting between government troops and separatist rebels.

“The State Emergency Services managed to recover many personal belongings, nine boxes of a cubic metre each, from the crash site,” Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, head of the Dutch repatriation mission, said in an interview on Dutch television.

“(There was) jewellery, watches, credit cards, a driving licence, a passport, an iPad, photos - things that really should be with relatives,” he added.

But, he conceded, a Dutch team might not be able to get to the site until spring because the cold weather makes it inaccessible.

“We want to go back to the site. If it's not before the winter, then it's after the winter,” he said.

The experts said they were on hand to advise the local Emergencies Ministry team combing the wreckage in the fields where the Boeing 777 was brought down on July 17, killing all 298 passengers and crew, a Reuters correspondent on the scene said.

Two-thirds of the victims were Dutch nationals and the Dutch Safety Board is leading the investigation.

A short but intense exchange of artillery fire played out near the grassy fields where the team collected items such as books, toothpaste, playing cards, a plastic watch and a stick of antiperspirant. Many items were too charred to identify.

Black smoke rose in the distance less than 5km from the site, despite a ceasefire agreed on September 5 between Ukrainian troops and the pro-Russian separatists they are fighting.

Aalbersberg said the team was able to visit two of the three villages where the plane's wreckage was strewn.

Although ceasefire violations have been sporadic around strategically important locations in east Ukraine, they have led to a decrease in fighting.

Emergency Ministry officials loaded the recovered items on a small cargo truck to be transported from the fields near the village of Hrabove and returned to the victims' families.

Armed pro-Russian rebels stood around the site while workers from the European rights and security watchdog OSCE monitored the recovery process.

The Dutch forensics teams in the Netherlands have identified 272 victims of the crash but additional remains are still believed to be in the area.

Aalbersberg said local emergency services had done a good job recovering passengers' bodies in the days after the crash, despite initial reports of looting.

“These emergency services were different from the large group of people who were there in the first days after the crash. These people did a great job (collecting bodies), also by our standards.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Friday he was furious that Dutch investigators had been unable to finish work in the area because of fighting between the separatists and government forces.

Separatists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic fighting to split east Ukraine from Kiev on Monday said 36 civilians, including one child, were killed in shelling of the territory under their control last week.

More than 3 500 people have been killed in the conflict.

The aircraft, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, is widely believed to have been hit by a surface-to-air missile fired from separatist-held territory. Kiev blames the incident on the rebels and accuses Moscow of arming them. The rebels and Moscow deny the accusations.

Tuesday 14 October 2014

http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/mh17-victims-belongings-recovered-1.1764586

Helicopter carrying 12 goes missing in Russia

A Mi-8 helicopter with 12 people aboard disappeared in Russia's Tuva republic in southern Siberia, regional transport prosecutor's office said Friday.

"The helicopter disappeared 220 km east of (the republic's capital) Kyzyl," the Interfax news agency quoted the prosecutor's spokesperson Oxana Gorbunova as saying.

Radio contact with the helicopter was lost when it was on the way between Sorug and Kyzyl. And a rescue team has been sent to that area by another Mi-8, Gorbunova said.

There are seven passengers, three crew members and two technicians on board. According to sources from local law enforcement agencies, the helicopter belongs to Tuva Airlines and was leased for private purpose.

No information has been updated till now about the fate of the Mi-8 or the people aboard.

Friday 10 October 2014

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=246013

Government to declare Air Algerie plane deaths without bodies

The Lebanese government is planning to use French police reports rather than actual human remains to recognize the deaths of some 19 Lebanese nationals who died in a plane crash in Africa earlier this year, according to an official press briefing Thursday. The announcement has sparked intense debate among the Lebanese families of the victims from the July 24 Air Algerie plane crash in Mali, with some insisting on the recovery of remains before an official death declaration is made and others calling on the government to announce a long-awaited official day of mourning to provide some closure to those grieving the tragedy.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam is still discussing the issue with Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi and an official declaration of death is pending a judicial decision, Haitham Jomaa, the director-general of the Department of Emigrants at the Foreign Ministry, said at Thursday’s briefing, which was attended by many of the victims’ families.

However, it appears that the current course of action is to officially declare the deaths after France has passed on its report on the crash, which killed all 116 people on board.

“With regard to validating the deaths, we will seek permission from the French judiciary to use the French police report and deliver it to the Lebanese judiciary,” Secretary-General of the Higher Relief Committee Maj. Gen. Mohammad Khair said at the briefing. “We have agreed with Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi that this report will be used to validate the deaths.”

The news prompted an outcry among some of those present.

“I can’t declare my brother dead before his remains come back to me,” Fadia Rustom, whose twin brother Fadi Rustom was onboard the plane, told The Daily Star. “I can barely believe it myself and I won’t believe it until something of his is returned.”

Rustom said she opposed any governmental recognition of the death before either his remains or his belongings are retrieved.

But others expressed doubts over whether that condition could ever be fulfilled.

“What if they can’t retrieve any of his remains?” asked Loraine al-Hajj, wife of fellow crash victim Joseph al-Hajj. “What would we do then?”

“Not all the families want to wait for the remains of the loved ones before an official declaration is issued,” added Faisal al-Akhdar, who has stuck a poster on the window of his car describing his son Mohammad al-Akhdar’s “martyrdom at the hands of emigration.”

“We just want to end this misery,” he said.

France announced three days of mourning two days after flight AH5017 was known to have crashed, and many here have been clamoring for Lebanese officials to announce the same, something that has been delayed by the lack of official recognition of the deaths.

The reason behind this lies in the slow process of identifying those on board. Not a single whole body was recovered from the crash, Jomaa said. Instead, forensic experts in Paris – where everything found from the crash was taken – are working with 1,161 pieces of human remains that had been heavily degraded in the fire that occurred when the plane hit the ground at high speed.

The results are expected by mid-January, Jomaa said.

The director-general said that some personal belongings have been collected and “after DNA tests are conducted the families will be invited to the crash site to retrieve them.”

Mystery has surrounded the exact cause of the crash, which occurred after the plane changed course to avoid a storm.

However, Jomaa refuted reports that poor weather was behind the incident, saying harsh weather conditions were routine throughout the year. “The cabin crew was well equipped and fully aware of the climate before flying.”

Citing investigation reports, he said that at 1:45 p.m. the plane’s engine began to slow down, the automation handle faltered and the entire autopilot system crashed. The technical failure led the plane to immediately plummet to the ground.

“Investigations are currently looking into the cause behind the motor’s deceleration, as well as the autopilot failure,” Jomaa said, adding that officials would be considering the possibility of a failed hijack attempt.

Friday 10 October 2014

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Oct-10/273553-government-to-declare-air-algerie-deaths-without-bodies.ashx