70 dead in Nigeria after church building collapses

70 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a collapsed church building in Lagos, however, according to Nigerian officials, they remain unidentified.

South African President Jacob Zuma said last night that at least 67 of his compatriots had died in Friday's accident at the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Nigeria, describing it as one of the worst tragedies in his country's recent history.

Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), however, said it was too early to know how many South Africans had been killed in the collapse.

Speaking to Reuters news agency NEMA spokesman Ibrahim Farinloye said: "The president (Zuma) is not in Nigeria. We are working on what we have.

"The church management up until now has not estimated or given us any list of people trapped, so we are just working on blind guesswork until we get to the last rubble."

Mr. Farinloye added that 131 people had been rescued alive.

The collapse occurred when three extra stories were being added to the existing two of a guest house of the church compound, where visitors from abroad come to stay.

The Lagos Pentecostal church is led by the charismatic T.B. Joshua, whose followers describe him as a prophet.

The church attracts a global following of Christians who believe Joshua is able to perform miracles, including curing the ill and raising the dead from the grave.

The regular influx of visitors from abroad for the church's services, which can last up to a week, creates demand for accommodation that the church's own guest house has been unable to meet, and often spills over into local hotels.

Several African leaders have travelled to Nigeria to meet with spiritual healer Joshua, including former Malawian President Joyce Banda and Julius Malema, the leader of South Africa's ultra-leftist opposition Economic Freedom Fighters.

Church members initially prevented emergency officials from participating in the rescue, making it difficult to establish death and injury tolls.

South Africa described the search and rescue operation as "very fluid", but defended its count of 67 dead, saying it was based on records and information on the ground from five tour groups that had arranged for South African worshippers to go to Lagos.

"This number is based on credible information," South African foreign ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela said.

Last night Zuma told the SABC national broadcaster that an unknown number of South Africans were "not yet accounted for" and that the nation needed to "grieve together".

Spokesman Mac Maharaj later said the government believed around 300 South Africans from four to five groups were visiting the church on Friday but it was not clear how many were on the spot when the building collapsed.

"It's a very popular church with South Africans," Maharaj said.

South Africa and Nigeria share strong business and diplomatic ties but have had occasional quarrels in the past, notably when South Africa deported 125 Nigerians in 2012 over suspicions their yellow fever certificates were fake.

Nigeria responded by briefly refusing South African residents entry and branding the country xenophobic.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and overtook South Africa as the continent's largest economy this year, heightening rivalry between the two countries.

Wednesday 17 September 2014

http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0917/644494-nigeria-building-collapse/

Five more Jonestown mass suicide victims identified among ashes found in Delaware

Names associated with unclaimed cremains found last month at a Dover, Del., funeral home, which include victims of the 1978 Peoples Temple mass suicide-murder in Jonestown, Guyana, were released to the public Monday.

Delaware's Division of Forensic Science said it was releasing the names in hopes of returning the cremated remains to families. The remains were found this summer in a shuttered Minus Funeral Home, and among those found were the 1978 victims of the massacre in which 911 died.

The remains of those killed in Jonestown were identified by officials as: Ottie Mese Guy, Katherine M. Domineck, Tony Walker, Irene Mason and Ruth Atkins.

The remains that were not associated with Jonestown were thought to be of people local to Delaware.

So far, the remains of five have been reunited with surviving family, according to Delaware officials. They include Jonestown victims Irra Johnson, Wanda King, Maud Perkins, and Mary Rodgers, and one deceased person who was not a Jonestown victim.

The work to identify and transfer the remains was through research by state officials. Expertise to identify Jonestown victims came from the help of "the Jonestown Institute at San Diego State University, the California Historical Society and other Jonestown survivors but have been unable to locate any additional family members," according to state officials in a written statement issued Monday.

The cremated remains of 38 people were found at the former funeral home in August by state officials responding to a request to check the property after containers were discovered.

Delaware officials responded in August to a request to check the former funeral home in a downtown Dover neighborhood after containers were discovered.

Seven containers of cremated remains discovered at the funeral home remain unidentified, Delaware officials said Monday.

The cremated remains of nine of the dead turned up in storage at a defunct funeral home in Dover, Delaware more than 30 years after the tragic mass suicide that took the lives of 911 Bay Area residents at Jonestown, in Guyana. The hundreds of members of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project cult headed by preacher Jim Jones died in the mass murder and suicide on Nov. 18, 1978. Jones ordered his followers to drink grape-flavored punch that turned out to be laced with cyanide. Others died after being shot by guards loyal to Jones.

The reason they ended up there is because all the bodies of the dead originally arrived back in the U.S. at Dover Air Force Base, which is home to the nation's largest military mortuary, as the AP reports. These nine unclaimed cremains were clearly lost in the shuffle, and were among 38 containers of remains discovered at the former funeral home this week.

At the time, in November 1978, after multiple cemeteries refused to accept the remains of those unclaimed and/or unidentified victims (many of the bodies that came back to the States were badly decomposed), Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland accepted 406 of the bodies, many of them children. A memorial to the victims was unveiled there in 2008.

The remains [found in Delaware] were clearly marked, with the names of the deceased included on death certificates, authorities said. But Kimberly Chandler, spokeswoman for the Delaware Division of Forensic Science, declined to release the names of the nine people to The Associated Press. Chandler said officials were working to notify relatives.

The massacre/suicide at Jonestown took place shortly after a visit from California Congressman Leo Ryan and his then aide Jackie Speier, along with a news crew from NBC, visited pastor Jim Jones and his flock of followers at the Peoples' Temple on November 17, 1978. Jones had relocated the Temple and many of his diverse group of parishioners to Guyana, the only English-speaking country in South America, after facing heightened media scrutiny in San Francisco and allegations of physical and sexual abuse from Temple members.

While many joined the Temple for its radically integrationist, Christian, and Socialist values, they were ultimately caught up in Jones' drug- and ego-fueled delusion, and on November 18 were ordered to drink cyanide-laced Flavor-Aid grape punch, and to give it to their children first. The few members who managed to escape reported seeing anyone who resisted either get shot, or they were forced to consume the poison. It remains the largest mass suicide in human history.

Jones himself died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head and groin, most likely self-inflicted.

Wednesday 17 September 2014

http://sfist.com/2014/08/08/cremated_remains_of_nine_jonestown.php

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/15/jonestown-victims-names-peoples-temple/15684473/

6 dead, 21 missing 28 days after coal mine blast in Anhui

The search continues for 21 missing coal miners after an explosion in east China's Anhui province 28 days ago trapped the workers in the mine.

An explosion ripped through the mine at about 4 am on Aug. 19 when a total of 39 workers were in mine shafts hundreds of meters underground. Twelve of them managed to escape.

So far rescuers have retrieved the bodies of six workers, but the search for the remaining miners has been hampered by collapsed mine shafts and gas pockets.

Coal deposits at the site of the accident in Huainan City are deep underground, pushing miners to travel to dangerous depths to extract the ore. The Dongfang Mine shaft, where the workers are trapped, descends 500 meters underground.

The provincial coal mine safety inspection bureau revoked the privately-owned Dongfang coal mine's production permit on Tuesday. The operation has an annual production capacity of 90,000 tonnes.

At the time of the incident the mine was operating illegally.

Although the mine was officially licensed, the city government had issued production suspension orders for all coal mines beginning June 30 as part of a flood prevention effort.

The provincial government on Monday urged a thorough overhaul of mines with an annual capacity equal to or lower than 90,000 tonnes, and pledged to provide subsidies for closed mines.

Bai Fafu, a miner who narrowly escaped the Dongfang mine blast, told Xinhua that although the mining is risky, he would seek jobs in other coal mines no matter what, as it was the highest form of income in the local area.

Farmers have surrendered their land to mining firms. The deep-well drilling has damaged the land, making it impossible to be reclaimed after the mineral resources are dug out.

Wednesday 17 September 2014

http://www.ecns.cn/2014/09-16/134674.shtml