In a land of death, Iraq’s morgue workers seek answers

The middle-aged man was killed at night, walking to his car in the Iraqi capital. No one seemed to know who did it or why.

The man’s bloated corpse lay on the metal examining table. His family waited outside. The only solid information about his death was in a vial that Doctor Aysa, a forensic pathologist, was holding in the air.

“Two bullets in the chest and one in the head,” she said.

In this country awash in death, most killers are never caught. The brutal Islamic State militants kill with impunity in the cities they control. Elsewhere, Iraqi police are too poorly trained, too overwhelmed, too powerless to solve cases. Sometimes they themselves are the perpetrators.

But the Baghdad morgue is one of the few places where you can get answers.

“We see the dark side of society,” said Doctor Iman, a 36-year-old radiologist. “I think we see the truth — not just what we see on television or read in the newspaper.”

Iraq’s homicide rate soared during the Sunni-Shiite fighting of 2006-2007, then plunged. Now it is rising again. According to the U.N. mission for Iraq, at least 1,265 civilians were killed in August 2014, compared with 716 a year earlier. The jump reflects the rise of the Islamic State group but also other factors. The slashes and burns on recently delivered bodies suggest that old tactics from the sectarian warfare are returning.

The morgue workers, dressed in their blue smocks and surgical masks, try to bring science to this anarchic world. They know things about the landscape of violence that slip past other people.

They know how death comes not just from car bombs or militia gunmen but from a crumbling state. A startling number of Iraqis die from electrocution in generator accidents — a sign that 11 years after the U.S. invasion, the government still can’t provide a basic level of electricity to its citizens.

They know that suicide has been on the rise this year, especially among young women who drink rat poison or set themselves on fire because they’re so depressed.

The doctors, of course, can’t make up for an inept police department or a corrupt state, or do much about the massacres in areas that Islamic State controls.

Sunday 14 September 2014

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-a-land-of-death-iraqs-morgue-workers-seek-answers/2014/09/13/192fe5b5-3a40-4e32-9896-8ade357854ad_story.html

20 die as bus plunges down cliff in Southern Peru

At least 20 people died and another 11 were injured when a passenger bus plunged Saturday into a 200-meter (655-foot) ravine in the southern Peruvian region of Apurimac, National Police said.

The accident occurred at kilometer 313 (mile 194) on the highway between the towns of Puquio and Chalhuanca, as the bus was en route from Nazca province in the coastal region of Ica to Cuzco in the Andes.

The bus fell off the edge of a cliff, tumbling into a 200-meter ravine. At the moment police are investigating the cause of the incident, however this section of the highway is notoriously known as `siete vueltas,´or seven turns.

According to a preliminary report, 11 women and 9 men died in the crash.

The passengers were on their way to take part in the traditional religious feast of Our Lord of Huanca.

The main day of Señor de Huanca is celebrated on September 14th. Falling upon a Sunday this year, the ceremony is characterized by a massive pilgrimage of devotees.

“It’s a difficult area for rescue work, and no bodies have yet been recovered,” a police official in Chalhuanca told RPP Noticias radio.

Corps of volunteer firefighters have reached the scene of the accident and have taken the injured to a nearby hospital, while work continues to recover the bodies of the dead.

Accidents of this kind are common in Peru’s interior, mostly caused by vehicles and highways in a poor state of repair, careless driving and the rough terrain.

Sunday 14 September 2014

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2351975&CategoryId=14095

16 killed as bus plunges into stream in Uttarakhand

16 people were killed and 15 injured when the bus they were travelling in rolled down a gorge and plunged into a stream in Uttarakhand’s Tehri district on Saturday in one of the worst road accidents in the hilly state in recent times.

Tehri Garhwal superintendent of police Mukhtar Moussin said the accident occurred at Juyalgarh near Srinagar Garhwal, 40 km from Pauri, at around 11.30 am.

The bus was going from Rishikesh to Chamoli when the driver lost control while overtaking another vehicle at a sharp bend, police said quoting survivors.

There were 33 passengers on the bus named ‘Nandadevi Express’ (UK 07/TC 0702) when the mishap occurred.

15 persons have been admitted to the base hospital at Srinagar with varying degrees of injuries. Two of the passengers escaped with minor injuries and released after first-aid.

Moussin said all the bodies have been retrieved from the mangled remains of the bus, which rolled down nearly 20 feet into the gorge before coming to rest half-submerged in the stream.

Earth-moving vehicles and cranes have been deployed to retrieve the bus from the stream.

Expressing shock at the loss of lives in the accident, chief minister Harish Rawat announced compensation of Rs. 1 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased and Rs. 50,000 each for the injured.

Sunday 14 September 2014

http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bus-falls-into-gorge-in-uttarakhand-16-killed/article1-1263624.aspx

Three dead, 111 rescued after Philippines ferry sinks

Three people were killed as rescuers searched for at least three others still missing with more than a hundred rescued after a ferry sank in waters off the central Philippines, officials said.

Coast guard official Joseph Coyme said on Sunday that rescue efforts would continue because it was uncertain how many passengers and crew were on the Maharlika II.

The ferry sank late on Saturday off Panaon Island in the province of Southern Leyte, after it was hit by huge waves during bad weather worsened by the approach of Typhoon Kalmaegi to the northern Philippines, civil defence officials said.

The ship took on water and went down as coast guard and private vessels rushed to pick up the survivors.

Around 111 survivors have been rescued by two passing ships and another ferry deployed for rescue operations by the company that owned the Maharlika.

That figure is way beyond the 58 passengers and 26 crew that the Maharlika's captain reported in the distress call to the coast guard, Coyme said.

"There are discrepancies in the numbers and we cannot terminate the search and rescue until we're sure that everybody has been accounted for,'' Coyme told the AP news agency.

With clear weather in the central provinces south of the storm, the coast guard cleared the Maharlika to leave Surigao city around noon for a regular domestic run.

The captain sent the distress call a few hours later.

Poorly-maintained, loosely-regulated ferries are the backbone of maritime travel in the sprawling archipelago of over 7,107 islands.

But this has led to frequent accidents that have claimed hundreds of lives in recent years, including the world's worst peacetime maritime disaster in 1987 when the Dona Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker, leaving more than 4,300 dead.

Sunday 14 September 2014

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2014/09/philippines-saves-100-after-ferry-sinks-201491424432318663.html