Banjarnegara ends search for landslide victims

The search for victims of the landslide in Banjarnegara regency, Central Java, was brought to an end on Sunday, with the official death toll standing at 95 with 13 people still listed as missing.

The search-and-rescue (SAR) joint team recovered the remains of the last two victims on Sunday; however, the bodies were too badly decomposed for the team to identify them.

Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo said bad weather was among the reasons that had led the provincial administration to call a halt to the search for victims of the landslide in Jemblung hamlet, Karangkobar district, Banjarnegara.

“The rain has been falling incessantly, causing many of the SAR team members to fear for their safety while carrying out their duties in the field. They are afraid that there will be more landslides. We have paid close attention to those concerns for the sake of their safety,” he told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Ganjar said most of bodies found during the search were badly decomposed as the disaster occurred around 10 days ago. Not only did this complicate the identification process, the decomposed bodies were hazardous to the health of SAR team members and volunteers.

“So, based on agreement with all parties, including Jemblung residents, we have officially stopped the search for victims today,” Ganjar said.

He said the administration would permit Jemblung residents who wished to continue the search to do so as long as it was conducted safely.

“The principle is, the safety of landslide survivors should be a higher priority,” he said.

Separately, search coordinator, Col. Edi Rohmatulloh, said the team had found the wrecks of several vehicles. “There are 14 motorcycles and 15 cars,” he said, adding that most of the vehicles belonged to Banjarnegara residents. A Suzuki APV car with a Bandung, West Java, registration was located at the incident site but its owner remained unknown.

During the massive landslide in Jemblung hamlet on Dec.12, over 100 people were buried when a hill collapsed. Many victims were found on a village road under around 100 meters of thick mud.

Landslides triggered by heavy rain and floods are common in tropical Indonesia during the rainy season.

The national disaster agency estimates around half the country's 250 million population lives in areas prone to landslides.

The vast Indonesian archipelago is one of the world's most disaster-prone nations. Apart from landslides, it is also frequently hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Sunday 21 December 2014

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/21/banjarnegara-ends-search-landslide-victims.html

Forensic experts to examine Makkah bones

Construction workers in the Grand Mosque found skeletal remains buried under the Ottoman hallway.

The workers were executing the third stage of the Holy Mosque expansion project when they found the bones. Photos of the discovery were shared on social media websites with users divided on whether the bones belonged to humans or animals.

The photos showed six security officers from the location digging a three-meter-deep hole to check the source of the bones and what else could be unearthed.

Archeologist Sameer Barqah said that one of the workers of the expansion project found the Ottoman hallway near the right corner of King Abdulaziz Gate. He informed a security officer who was passing by and that is where the bones were later discovered.

“They immediately secured the area and heads of the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques and Saudi Binladin Group attended to the scene. Forensics experts were involved and security officers were trying to control the situation. I sent the pictures to the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) to send a group of researchers to investigate the discovery,” said Barqah.

The bones were found on Mount Safa which stands at the eastern front of the mosque. According to Umm Al-Qura history professor, Fawzi Saati, this mountain is said to be the first mountain on Earth. At its bottom is a cave called Al-Kanz (“the treasure”).

According to Mohammad Bin Ahmad Al-Nahrawi’s book, there is where Adam, Eve and their son Seth were buried.

Forensic experts in Makkah will begin examination of the bones found at the Grand Mosque expansion project site to determine whether they are human or animal remains.

If they are found to be human, the matter will be forwarded to the General Court and a committee will be formed to study the issue.

After the report is filed, Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh will review the matter.

The Grand Mufti is the highest official of religious law in Saudi Arabia.

Abdul Salam bin Sulaiman Mashat, the holy city's undersecretary for services, said the municipality has not received any information about the discovery of a cemetery inside the Grand Mosque.

Such a rumour has been doing the rounds across social media sites for some time, he added.

Saleh bin Saad Al-Luhaidan, professor of criminal justice and member of the Union of Arab Historians, argued that the remains could be human bodies washed away by floods decades or centuries ago.

He dismissed the idea of organised clusters of graves in the area.

Sunday 21 December 2014

http://www.firstpost.com/fwire/forensic-experts-to-examine-makkah-bones-1942699.html

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20141217227781

Myanmar migrants haunted by memory of tsunami missing in Thailand

A decade after towering waves wrenched her newborn baby from her arms, Mi Htay remains haunted by memories of the children she lost in the tsunami whose bodies, like hundreds of other Myanmar migrants in Thailand, were never identified.

No one knows exactly how many foreign labourers died when the tsunami cut into southern Thailand as most lacked official work permits and their relatives did not come forward in the days and weeks after the Dec 26, 2004, disaster fearing arrest or deportation.

An estimated 2,000 migrants from neighbouring Myanmar are thought to have perished, deaths that went almost unnoticed as the television cameras focused on foreign tourists and Thai victims.

Among them were Mi Htay's eight-day-old baby -- too young even to have been given a name -- two of her other children, both toddlers, as well as her mother and a nephew.

Despite the aching reminders of her loss, Mi Htay returned around a year later to the small coastal village of Ban Nam Khem, in Ta Kuapha distict in Thailand's worst-hit Phangnga province, in search of work in the area's fisheries.

"When I am working, I can forget what happened," the now 40-year-old told AFP, pointing out the spot where the waves pulled her newborn away from her grasp.

"But when I see other families with their children going to eat, I feel so sad. If they were alive, we would be like that. I can't forget it for one day."

In 2006 Mi Htay -- whose two oldest children survived the disaster -- was informed that the bodies of her mother and nephew had been identified as part of what was, at the time, the biggest global forensic investigation.

The Indian Ocean tsunami, which was sparked by the third-largest earthquake on record, claimed more than 220,000 lives in one of the world's deadliest and most geographically widespread disasters.

More than 3,000 bodies were identified and returned to families across the world by Thai and international experts in the years after the tsunami using dental records, DNA or fingerprints.

But Mi Htay's three missing children were not among them.

"I presume they are dead. But maybe they are alive as they haven't found the bodies. Maybe they are with other people. I keep thinking like that," she said.

Migrants return

Other than a small sign in Thai pointing to a nearby evacuation shelter, there is little evidence of the tsunami that wiped out nearly half of the village's 5,000 people.

The sparsely furnished apartments Myanmar nationals rent from Thais have been rebuilt and the pier is bustling with migrants sliding bucket-loads of freshly-caught fish off boats and into factories, where workers like Ma Mee Htay gut fish for around US$10 (330 baht) a day.

There are more migrant labourers in Phang Nga province than before the tsunami and now most are registered, says Htoo Chit, director of the Foundation for Education and Development charity.

An estimated two million Myanmar nationals work in Thailand, where they make up part of a vast migrant labour force often working in low-paid jobs and poor conditions, subject to exploitation.

Htoo Chit recalls the difficulty in identifying the decomposing bodies of undocumented victims with no official records, a problem compounded by the mass deportation of over 2,500 migrants in the aftermath of the tsunami.

"Most of them (the deported) lost their relatives. They didn't want to come back to Thailand again to claim the dead," he said.

Htoo Chit estimates around 1,000 Myanmar migrants were killed or missing in Phang Nga alone. Human Rights Watch estimates the overall figure at some 2,000 for all six tsunami-hit Thai provinces.

Some of these deaths are accounted for in Thailand's official toll of 5,395. The national police forensic department has recorded around 400 people still missing, a quarter from Myanmar.

Remains finally returned

At the nearby Bang Muang cemetery, 369 bodies lie unidentified beneath concrete headstones labelled simply with serial numbers on laminated cards. Authorities believe the majority are Myanmar nationals but have no DNA samples to check against.

The remains of a further 49 Thai nationals lie identified but unclaimed.

At the far end of the graveyard, an empty stainless steel coffin serves as a reminder of the scaled back -- but still ongoing -- operation to return corpses.

Up until last month it had been the resting place of Nepali tailor Rajan Dhaurali, whose body was identified through a DNA match with his sister two years after he died in neighbouring Khao Lak.

But, without the documents to show he was a Myanmar national, like others in his family who hold Myanmar passports but are Nepali by origin, police refused to release the body, according to the Phuket Thai-Nepali Association.

It helped track down Dhaurali's children and the documents required to retrieve the remains after it was alerted to the case by media outlets ahead of the tsunami anniversary.

At the house where she now works as a live-in nanny in Patong town, his daughter Depa, 20, said her family's deep grief was tinged with relief after finally cremating their father in November.

"I couldn't believe it after 10 years... It felt bad, but in some ways it's a relief. I would like to find my sister and mother too," Depa said of the two family members who died the same day and whose bodies remain unidentified.

For now she, like Mi Htay, is focused on building her life anew in Thailand, learning to live with unanswered questions as best as she can.

Sunday 21 December 2014

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/451329/myanmar-migrants-haunted-by-memory-of-tsunami-missing-in-thailand

400 tsunami bodies unidentified

The bodies of almost 400 tsunami victims remain unidentified a decade after the deadly 2004 Boxing Day disaster.

Pol Col Yutaphong Intaraphong, who is in charge of tsunami victims data at the Missing Persons Management Centre, said the unidentified remains were all interred at Phangnga’s Bang Ma Ruan cemetery.

He said police had collected data from 3,708 bodies in the wake of the tsunami, but only 3,339 victims have been formally identified.

Of those that have been identified, 3,285 bodies have been claimed, with the remaining 52 belonging to Thai and Myanmar nationals whose families lack the money to take them home.

Pol Col Yutaphong said DNA samples taken from 383 people whose loved ones remained missing did not match any of the 369 unidentified bodies.

DNA testing must return results above 50% probability in order for the bodies to be claimed, he said. Secondary relatives, in most cases, produce a match of only 30%.

Over the past four years, 24 bodies have been claimed, all but one of them Thai nationals. The claiming process requires approval from the Police Body Identification Committee.

"I recommend that those relatives still searching for tsunami victims contact the 8th Region Police Office directly and bring as much information as they can, such as dental records, to match with the bodies in Bang Ma Ruan," Pol Col Yutaphong said.

"If they find a matching body, they can choose to claim it or, should they wish, a cremation service can be provided free of charge by the cemetery."

He said identifying the remaining victims has been hindered by a lack of funds to find relatives who might be living abroad.

In October, the body of a Nepalese victim was claimed from Bang Ma Ruan by relatives. Travelling expenses for the family were supported by the AP news agency as part of a documentary project.

Thanapon Songput, from the Mirror Foundation, said the situation should be a reminder that Thailand needs better disaster management planning.

He said the country had no main authoritative body to handle large-scale natural disasters, resulting in a failure to handle budgets effectively and poor post-disaster coordination between agencies.

"We have seen so many management gaps in the 10 years since the tsunami, but we have to seriously ask what lessons have been drawn to prepare the authorities and the community for future disasters."

Sunday 21 December 2014

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/451168/400-tsunami-bodies-unidentified