Nigeria church collapse: New DNA samples to identify remaining South African victims

Government says fresh DNA samples have been collected from the families whose loved ones have still not been identified after the Nigerian building collapse.

More than 100 people died when a guest house at the Synagogue Church of All Nations collapsed in Lagos.

Eighty-one of those who perished were South Africans.

The remains of 74 of them were brought back on Sunday morning followed by an emotional ceremony as the bodies were handed over to their families for burial.

Government said that it was working as hard as possible to identify the 11 remaining bodies and have them repatriated as soon as possible.

Spokesperson Phumla Williams says that the new DNA samples had to be taken.

“There was no positive verification with the samples they had. We have been advised that fresh samples have been taken and will be given to the Nigerians to actually do the comparisons with the new specimens.”

Wednesday 19 November 2014

http://ewn.co.za/2014/11/19/New-DNA-samples-to-identify-Nigeria-victims

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SS Ventnor wreck found: 112-year-old gold mining wreck with 499 bodies aboard

Artefacts and video footage of a sunken shipwreck missing for more than 110 years will be revealed today for the first time.

The SS Ventnor sank off the Hokianga Harbour in 1902 after being chartered to transport the remains of 499 Chinese who lost their lives gold mining, mostly in Otago.

While human remains and occasional debris washed up on Hokianga beaches, the location of the wreck had remained a mystery for more than a century.

After three years of searching, the Ventnor Group Project found the wreck 21km west of Hokianga Harbour, under 150 metres of water. Internationally respected expert and former president of the NZ Underwater Heritage Association, Keith Gordon, confirmed the find.

The first Chinese gold miners arrived in New Zealand in 1866. Three years later there were more than 2000, mostly migrants from an area near Guangzhou.

As the miners died, they were buried in New Zealand. However, their culture demands that their graves be tended by family members, so a decision was made to return the remains to China.

"Finding the SS Ventnor highlights the significant ties between China and New Zealand," says John Albert, chairman of the Ventnor group.

"It is important historically in terms of the early Chinese contribution to New Zealand and culturally in terms of the shared attitudes towards human remains," he says.

An invitation to pay respects to their pioneering countrymen has been extended to Chinese dignitaries, including President Xi Jinping.

The wreck has now been gazetted by Heritage NZ, meaning no more items may be removed from it without permission.

Wednesday 19 November 2014

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/revealed-sunken-112-year-old-gold-mining-wreck-499-bodies-aboard-6140106

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Turkey recovers bodies of more trapped miners

Turkish rescue workers have recovered 10 bodies of miners trapped by a flooding accident last month, with search efforts continuing for eight still missing, reports said on Wednesday.

A total of 18 miners were trapped in the disaster in the Ermenek coal mine in the Karaman region of southern Turkey which raised new fears about Turkey’s dire mine safety record. Rescuers found the first two bodies on November 6. Eight more corpses were recovered over the past two days and efforts are continuing to find the remaining 10, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

In the country’s deadliest mine disaster, 301 workers were killed by an explosion in the western town of Soma in May.

A power distribution center caused an explosion and fire at the mine situated in the town of Soma, 155 miles south of Istanbul.

Wednesday 19 November 2014

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/foreign/19-Nov-2014/turkey-recovers-10-bodies-of-trapped-miners

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