Concordia cruise ship righted; search for bodies to begin

The recovery of the two remaining bodies on Costa Concordia will start “in the next few days,” Italy's civil protection commissioner Franco Gabrielli confirmed at a press conference following the successful "parbuckling" operation to right the cruise ship.

Once the half-submerged, but upright wreck has been deemed safe to enter, divers will start the search for the last two bodies of the 32 passengers and crew who perished when the ship struck a rock and foundered off the coast of the Italian island of Giglio.

Gabrielli has already spoken to the Italian Admiral in charge, Stafano Tortora, to approve the search for the bodies of an Italian passenger and a Filipino crewmember.

“We are going to look for these people as soon as possible; I hope this will start in the next few days,” Gabrielli told a packed press conference this morning on Giglio.

“Teams of divers are working on what inspections can be done on the ship. The corridors can now be inspected, and everything inspectable will be carried out by the divers.”

He added: “There will still be areas that that will not be easily accessible. This activity will start as soon as we are comfortable that the ship is safe.”

Divers will also attempt to recover the safe deposit boxes from each of the 1,500 cabins and return anything found to their rightful owners. A spokesman for Costa confirmed that the line would also attempt to return any other belongings found in individual cabins to passengers.

Costa Concordia was successfully righted in a 19-hour operation which concluded in today's early morning hours, before dawn. The ship is now sitting on an artificial seabed in about 100 feet (30 meters) of water.

The extent of the damage on the starboard side is now plainly visible, as is the discoloration of the hull from being immersed for more than 18 months in the sea. The funnel has been removed and only seven of the 13 decks are above water.

However, the ship has remained intact and the next phase of the recovery can now begin.

To prepare it for the region's typically rough winter seas, divers will strengthen the damaged area on the starboard side, add more steel cables to anchor the ship and then attach the ‘sponsons' -– or flotation devices –- to the port side.

Gabrielli emphasized that although the ship was in a much safer position than 12 hours ago, the project was far from over. Costa Concordia is expected to be floated and removed at some point in the spring of 2014.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=5527

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Death toll in Cebu ferry collision reaches 116

Divers over the weekend recovered another body from the sunken wreck of the MV St. Thomas Aquinas, bringing to 116 the death toll in the Aug. 16 collision between the passenger ship and the cargo vessel Sulpicio Express Siete off Talisay City in Cebu.

This was disclosed to the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Tuesday by Commander Armand Balilo, spokesperson of the Philippine Coast Guard, who said “divers are on stand-by to retrieve more bodies” from the ill-fated ship.

“As of (Tuesday), 21 passengers and crew members of the ferry are still unaccounted for,” he noted.

Search and rescue teams, composed of Coast Guard, Navy and Philippine National Police personnel, as well as private volunteers, earlier rescued a total of 733 passengers and crew members of the St. Thomas Aquinas.

Balilo, also chief of the PCG’s public affairs office, clarified the command had not terminated its search and retrieval operations.

“The diving operations were suspended last Friday to give way to preparations for the fuel oil siphoning operations to be conducted by a team hired by 2Go Travel,” which operated the ferry, he said. The team includes an undisclosed number of “technical experts from Japan.”

He explained “our divers cannot operate while the oil siphoning is being conducted because it might put their lives in danger.” The oil siphoning operations “will take more than a week,” according to Balilo.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/489501/death-toll-in-cebu-ferry-collision-reaches-116

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Mass burial set for unidentified ship collision victims

A mass burial has been set for 47 unidentified bodies recovered after the collision last month of a passenger ferry and a cargo vessel here.

Neil Sanchez, Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (PDRRMC) officer, said they have decided to bury the remaining bodies due to health concerns.

The mass burial is set for Sept. 25 at the public cemetery in Barangay Carreta and 2Go Group, Inc., owner and operator of M/V St. Thomas Aquinas, will shoulder the burial expenses.

“We really have to go through with the burial because of health concerns. The advanced state of decomposition of some of the bodies have made embalming impossible,” Mr. Sanchez told reporters.

The unidentified bodies have been assigned case numbers pending the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) test results.

This would facilitate the release of the bodies to the relatives after the results are released, Mr. Sanchez said.

The 47 unidentified victims were among the 116 fatalities in the sinking of M/V St. Thomas Aquinas last Aug. 16.

The passenger vessel, which carried 870 people, sank shortly after colliding with cargo vessel M/V Sulpicio Express Siete in a narrow channel off Talisay, Cebu.

The ferry came from Nasipit in Agusan del Sur on a day-long journey.

A Special Board of Marine Inquiry was opened on Aug. 23 in Cebu City, led by Commodore Gilbert Rueras of the Philippine Coast Guard.

As of Sept. 17, the total number of fatalities from the collision was at 116, with 21 people still missing.

Of the bodies recovered, 69 have been identified while 47 remained unidentified. A total of 733 survived the accident.

Mr. Sanchez said the families still have the option to bury their loved ones in Cebu or have them cremated after the DNA test results are released.

“For as long as families are legitimate claimants, they can claim the bodies even after the burial,” he added.

Accidents at sea are common in the Philippines because of frequent storms, badly maintained boats and weak enforcement of safety regulations.

In 1987, the ferry M/V Doña Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker in the Philippines, killing more than 4,341 people in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.

In 2008, the ferry M/V Princess of the Stars capsized during a typhoon in the central Philippines, killing nearly 800 people.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Nation&title=Mass-burial-set-for-unidentified-ship-collision-victims&id=76634

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International structures needed for equitable access to DNA identification after disaster

When the remains of victims of political conflict or natural disasters are so badly damaged that they cannot be identified visually, DNA can often help. With modern genetics technologies, a small bit of tissue may be all that’s needed to determine who’s who. Unfortunately, in many areas of the world facing violent times, such as the current war zone that is Syria, the government and its citizens may not be able to afford such forensic technologies.

According to medical ethicist Alex John London of Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Ethics and Policy, Lisa Parker of the Center for Bioethics and Health Law at the University of Pittsburgh, and Jay Aronson of Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Human Rights Science, this inequality in access to DNA science should stop. “In the context of poverty and deprivation, forensic identification might appear to be a luxury,” the trio wrote in a policy forum in Science last week (September 13). “But access to scientific identification of the missing and the dead after mass casualty events can be a starting point for healing, reconstruction, and the ability to access financial resources or to regain or maintain social status.”

"After a conflict or a disaster, if remains are burned, mangled, decayed or comingled, the only way to identify them may be by using DNA, said lead author Alex John London. "In low- and middle-income settings, such technology may not be available, or not available in sufficient capacity to handle the surge in demand associated with a mass casualty event. Not being able to identify a missing loved one can have emotional, social, and economic implications that can be most dire for those who are already the most vulnerable."

Such large-scale efforts are becoming more and more common; one such project continues in Libya, for example, wherein researchers are attempting to identify the bodies that once filled mass graves following the violent reign of Muammar Gaddafi. But funding is not always easy to come by, and equalizing access to such expensive and complicated technology is no simple task. Indeed, DNA identification takes more than just a tissue sample. It also requires a database of familial samples and sizable computer hardware to process all the data—not to mention the DNA sequencing equipment itself.

The April 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza Factory Building in Bangladesh, in which more than 1,130 people were killed, is only the latest in a long line of events that has made plain the plight of the families whose loved ones go missing after conflict and disaster.

According to media reports, hundreds of Rana Plaza victims' families still have not received the bodies of their loved ones or the death benefits that accrue for survivors because the government has not been able to formally identify all of the victims. This situation, which has led to demonstrations against the government by families and allegations of corruption and malfeasance, has arisen, in part, because the main forensic laboratory in the country does not have enough capacity to handle so many cases at once.

“Our concern was that there should be a mechanism in place that would allow access to DNA identification beyond just ability to pay,” London told NPR’s All Things Considered. “Too often if there isn’t a funder out there, then people who are missing relatives won’t get access to the technology.”

"Humanitarian organizations and governments increasingly recognize the importance of timely identification of remains and, ideally, their return to families for proper burial. Unfortunately, though, access to the resources and technologies to perform these acts is significantly restricted by the willingness and ability of governmental and non-governmental organizations to pay for them," said co-author Jay Aronson, associate professor of science, technology, and society at CMU and director of the university's Center for Human Rights Science. "This means that some victims of conflict and disaster have been identified (e.g., in Bosnia or in the aftermath of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks), while others have not (e.g., in Rwanda or Haiti). The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami illustrates the inequities: international efforts to identify the remains of victims were undertaken in Thailand, where there was a high density of Western tourists, but not in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, or other affected areas."

The authors advocate creating international structures, which could take many forms ranging from a single international institution to a decentralized network of agencies, to promote more equitable access to forensic identification. They outline four main reasons that international structures are needed. First, such structures would address humanitarian and human rights goals by granting access to forensic identification technology on terms other than the ability to pay. Second, the structures would quickly and efficiently implement standardized procedures and have capacity to cope with a sharp increase in demand.

Third, international structures are needed to prevent material and information gathered from being used for any purpose not directly related to identifying the missing. Expanding access to forensic identification will not advance humanitarian and social goals unless the participants are confident that those carrying out the identification process have the mandate and the authority to protect their rights and welfare.

And finally, to ensure that forensic identification advances human rights goals, international structures must have explicit mechanisms to facilitate using identification information as evidence in legal proceedings against those who are responsible for the death or disappearance of the missing - while ensuring that the privacy of donors is not compromised.

The recommendation to formalize international structures in order to improve DNA identification following conflicts and disasters is one result of the $1.2 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant awarded to Aronson to analyze ethical and policy problems associated with the identification process.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/37507/title/The-Price-of-DNA-IDs/

http://phys.org/news/2013-09-international-equitable-access-dna-identification.html

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Canadian family hopes to have found long-lost relative who fought in Second World War buried in German cemetery

One by one, the French forensic team pulled bits of bone from six fibreglass boxes that had been locked away since the end of the Second World War. Photos were snapped and measurements taken. Medicine Hat, Alta., lawyer Lawrence R. Gordon looked on from six feet away.

It wasn’t until halfway through Friday’s exhumation of unknown United States Army soldier ‘X-3,’ buried in a German grave in France, when the forensic team scrutinized a jawbone that Mr. Gordon went from nervous to elated: His uncle and namesake — a man he had never met but who might be there, in bits in those boxes — was missing the back two teeth on his lower right jaw when he signed up with the U.S. military a month after Pearl Harbor.

“There was a very big lump in my throat until you could visibly see that that tooth was missing,” Mr. Gordon said, the detail confirming, to him at least, that his uncle, who died in a blast in Normandy as part of a car crew on Aug. 13, 1944, was now found. “It was incredible.”

For almost 60 years, PFC Lawrence S. Gordon’s death was an “open wound” for the southern Saskatchewan family that “never healed,” his nephew said. In the years before his death in 1989, the young Mr. Gordon’s father would wonder aloud about his second youngest brother, whose flame-licked wallet packed with pictures of the old farmhouse was the only item returned to the family from their lost son. Letters written to the U.S. Army offered no clues, and so Mr. Gordon made a vow that he would track down the remains of his long-lost uncle.

“It had started as a promise to merely visit his grave,” the father of two said by phone from Rennes, France, where he travelled last week to be there for the exhumation.

Initial information from the U.S. Army led him, in 2000, to the Brittany American Cemetery in Saint-James, France, where 4,410 of Second World War American soldiers, many of whom fought in the Normandy and Brittany campaigns of 1944, are laid to rest. His name was posted on a wall dedicated to unknown soldiers, but the remains were nowhere to be found.

Twelve years later, in March 2012, Mr. Gordon received a call from Jed Henry, a man in Middleton, Wisconsin who had been researching the Reconnaissance Company of the 32nd Armored Regiment of 3rd Armored Division, in which his grandfather served.

“Jed, at that time, pointed out to me that there were 44 that had been killed in action from the reconnaissance unit from the Second World War — they had recovered 43 bodies and only one of them was missing,” Mr. Gordon said. “Jed’s goal was to find my uncle, so needless to say I was quick to endorse that.”

The two men worked together and learned that all but one of the men in the armoured car were killed by that blast on August 13, 1944, and the unknown remains from that attack were buried in a temporary U.S. cemetery in Gorron, France.

A 1945 review, however, found his uncle had been buried with German clothing. The remains were transferred to German WWII ossuary Mont de Huisnes in France.

Mr. Gordon thinks his uncle, burdened by the heavy wool uniform in the hot and damp French summer weather, might have scavenged some clothes left behind by the retreating German army. To this day, however, he has no idea how his uncle’s wallet made it home to his family.

Their search eventually led the two men to the Volksbund, Germany’s War Graves Commission, where they sought permission last spring to do DNA testing on the ‘X-3′ remains in the Mont de Huisnes ossuary. After going through the necessary procedures with the French government, their wish was granted.

It turned out, Mr. Gordon’s uncle was buried about 15 kilometres away from the Saint-James site he had originally visited.

The forensic team — the very same that works on crime scenes across France — took tooth and bone samples for DNA study in Marseille. On Friday, they found a large piece of metal driven into the socket of one of the femurs — a strong hint that the death was ugly and painful.

The results, to be analyzed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, won’t likely be ready for three or so months, Mr. Gordon said. Even so, they will just be a “confirmation” that the remains belong to his uncle.

“When I started this in 2000, I thought there was a body at Saint-James, then I thought we didn’t have anything and now we’ve moved to the point where I think we’re 99% sure,” he said. “But I want to see the final results — I want to see the DNA, I want it confirmed, and then we have to talk about moving the body home.”

Tuesday 17 September 2013

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/09/16/canadian-family-hopes-to-have-found-long-lost-relative-and-second-world-war-soldier-buried-in-german-cemetery/

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Dhaka factory collapse: No compensation without DNA identification

Earlier this year a Bangladesh clothes factory collapsed, killing more than 1,000 people. Five months later, many of the dead have yet to be identified - prolonging the anguish for relatives, and denying them the right to compensation.

A summer has passed since the Rana Plaza complex crashed to the earth. Plants are creeping over the tangled debris. Steel cables have rusted. Rolls of blue and cream fabric have gone mouldy. A fading pair of jeans hangs from a jagged piece of wire.

A stone memorial remembers the 1,133 garment workers who died.

But hundreds of families who lost a mother or a daughter never have never been able to prove it to the authorities' satisfaction.

The US offered relatives DNA testing kits, and samples have been collected - but Bangladesh doesn't have the computer software to match those samples with the dead.

Every day Babul Soiaal walks to the Rana Plaza site, with a roll of papers and documents in his hand - and a small passport photo of a woman in a blue headscarf.

It is his wife Shahida. She's still missing, and she's probably among the nearly 300 people buried without being identified. Only when, or if, she is identified will the authorities provide financial help.

Soiaal has Shahida's payslip to prove she worked in the Rana Plaza - but that's not been enough to persuade officials to pay up.

"I have made a copy of these papers and given them to the government and other concerned bodies and I said if you have any doubt you can send an inspection team to our home town and they will find that she is still missing," he says.

"I have five children. I have lost my partner. If the government would help us then we will find some way, but I don't know what will happen to me."

Friends have been lending Soiaal money to pay the rent, which his small income from odd jobs will not cover.

But what he really needs is for his wife's body to be identified by a DNA test. Then he might receive from the government the equivalent of £13,000 ($20,000).

Because of the software problem, few DNA identifications have been made.

Among the high street brands which once bought garments from factories inside the Rana Plaza are Primark, Matalan and Bonmarche.

Primark has pioneered its own emergency payments scheme, giving each of the victims' families 15,000 or 16,000 Taka - about £130 ($200).

In Samsun Nahar's case, this ran out months ago.

Like Babul Soiaal, she comes to the Rana Plaza ruins every day, hoping someone will tell her what happened to her daughter, Eeni Begum. All she has left of the beautiful, earnest 18-year-old is a passport photograph.

"Every day I feel I'll find my daughter, but it doesn't happen," she says.

"We are very poor - it was difficult to keep her at school and we put her in the garment factory. She loved fashion. She was my beloved one. Without her I feel lonely. Everything seems empty."

Even some of those in hospital - whose missing or broken limbs provide physical evidence that they were in the collapsed factories - complain they've been forgotten by the authorities and the Western brands.

Fourteen-year-old Yanoor who, under the terms of an industry agreement, should not have been working at the factory at all, has needed several operations after her legs were crushed by falling beams.

She too has had no compensation. She is eager to get well so she can earn for her six brothers and sisters, and her father. Her mother died in the rubble.

Among those children working illegally in garment factories today are some who have been forced to seek work because their parents were hurt or killed in the Rana Plaza tragedy.

One 13-year-old, who we will call Ruma, says she gave up school and got a job in a factory as a seamstress, because her mother was hurt in the building collapse, and is now unable to walk. Map

There are about 20 teenagers working in the same factory, she says, all of whom have been instructed to tell any visitors they are 18.

"My mother is very sick so I had no option," she says. The family relies on the 4,400 Taka (£36, $57) she earns each month.

The Bangladeshi government says it is giving Rana Plaza victims and their families compensation and donations from an emergency relief fund, but the country can't afford to provide a long-term safety net.

Commerce Minister Ghulam Muhammed Quader admits that for some life is getting worse, not better, since the tragedy struck.

"I don't blame them for their worries. The problems are overwhelming for the government and society," he says.

"We are a resource-constrained country. Even if the government gives full compensation it is just a stopgap. What we're trying to do is rehabilitate someone in the family so they stand on their own feet."

The government is giving limited money to hospitals where injured people are learning new skills, such as IT.

The garment industry, meanwhile, says it's offering people alternatives to factory work, but many of the injured aren't well enough to leave hospital yet.

Mohammad Shahidullah Azim, vice-President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, says they carefully monitor factories and fine any owners caught employing children.

The Rana Plaza collapse was the worst industrial disaster in Bangladesh's history. But for hundreds in Dhaka, the tragedy is only just beginning.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24080579

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Boat mishap claims nine lives in Taraba

The Chairman of Bali Local Government Area in Taraba, Mr Andy Yerima, said that nine persons lost their lives in a boat mishap on Sunday at Mayo-kam village.

Yerima told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jalingo on Monday that the victims included five children and four women.

An eyewitness, Alhaji Musa Isa, told NAN that no fewer than 50 commuters from Zude village were on board when the incident occurred.

Isa said the boat, aside the passengers, had cows, sugarcane and more than 150 bags of grains on board.

He said the boat berthed safely at its harbour, but lost control after the boat driver anchored the rope, which suddenly cut off.

Musa said the boat on the process hit a bridge shattering into pieces while its passengers and goods were drowned.

He said that some of the men in the boat swim to safety while women and children on board were drowned.

He said emergency personnel and rescue workers were not on ground to aid in search and rescue operations.

Musa said eight bodies were recovered from the river at Mayo-kam, while another body was recovered at Tella in Gassol Local Government Area, bringing the death toll to nine.

He described the incident as a colossal, and appealed to the government and National Emergency Management Agency to come to the aid of the victims.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

http://dailypost.com.ng/2013/09/17/boat-mishap-claims-nine-lives-in-taraba/

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Storms hit Mexico on opposite coasts; at least 33 dead

Tropical Storm Ingrid and the remnants of Tropical Storm Manuel drenched Mexico's Pacific and Gulf coasts with torrential rains Monday, flooding towns and cities, cutting off highways and setting off deadly landslides in a national emergency that federal authorities said had caused at least 33 deaths.

The governor of the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz announced Monday afternoon that 12 people had been killed when a landslide hit a bus traveling through the town of Altotonga, about 40 miles northwest of the state capital. Gov. Javier Duarte said the death toll could grow as bodies were recovered.

More than 23,000 people have fled their homes in the state due to heavy rains and 9,000 are in emergency shelters.

The heaviest blow Sunday fell on the southern coastal state of Guerrero, where Mexico's government reported 14 confirmed deaths. State officials said people had been killed in landslides, drownings in a swollen river and a truck crash on a rain-slickened mountain highway.

Mexico's federal Civil Protection coordinator, Luis Felipe Puente, told reporters late Sunday that stormy weather from one or both of the two systems also caused three deaths in Hidalgo, three in Puebla and one in Oaxaca.

Getting hit by a tropical storm and a hurricane at the same time "is completely atypical" for Mexico, Juan Manuel Caballero, coordinator of the country's National Weather Service, said at a news conference with Puente.

Authorities in the Gulf states of Tamaulipas and Veracruz evacuated more than 7,000 people from low-lying areas as the hurricane closed in, and the prospect of severe weather prompted some communities to cancel Independence Day celebrations planned for Sunday and Monday.

Manuel came ashore as a tropical storm Sunday afternoon near the Pacific port of Manzanillo, but quickly began losing strength and was downgraded to a tropical depression late Sunday, although officials warned its rains could still cause flash floods and mudslides. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the system dissipated early Monday.

The rains caused some rivers to overflow in Guerrero, damaging hundreds of homes and disrupting communications for several hours.

Early Monday, Manuel's remnants had maximum sustained winds of about 30 mph (45 kph) and was moving to the northwest at 8 mph (13 kph). It was about 5 miles (10 kilometers) west of Puerto Vallarta.

Manuel was expected to dump up to 15 inches of rain over parts of Guerrero and Michoacan states, with maximums of 25 inches possible in some isolated areas. Rains of 5 to 10 inches were possible in the states of Colima, Jalisco and Nayarit, with possible maximums of 20 inches in some places. Authorities said the rains presented a dangerous threat in mountains, where flash floods and mudslides were possible.

Ingrid also was expected to bring very heavy rains. It had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kph) early Monday and was centered about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of the coastal town of La Pesca in the border state of Tamaulipas. It was moving west-northwest at 8 mph (13 kph). A tropical storm warning was in effect from La Cruz to Rio San Fernando.

More than 1,000 homes in Veracruz state had been affected by the storm to varying degrees, and 20 highways and 12 bridges were damaged, the state's civil protection authority said. A bridge collapsed near the northern Veracruz city of Misantla on Friday, cutting off the area from the state capital, Xalapa.

Thirteen people died in the state this month when a landslide buried their homes in heavy rains spawned by Tropical Depression Fernand.

Monday 16 September 2013

http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Big-storms-hit-Mexico-on-opposite-coasts-33-dead-4817865.php

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Robot subs search for Concordia bodies

Workers have begun trying to right the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship off the Italian island of Giglio, in the biggest salvage operation of its kind.

The 290-metre ship has lain on its side since it foundered off the Tuscan coast on the night of January 13, 2012 in a tragedy that claimed 32 lives.

The unprecedented operation, which was delayed by several hours by overnight storms, began this morning (local time) after a maritime exclusion zone was established around the site.

Relatives hope to find the bodies of the final two missing victims of the shipwreck during the high-risk operation to right the capsized cruise liner.

Two bodies - that of an Italian mother celebrating her 50th birthday and an Indian waiter - are trapped and have yet to be recovered.

"They are probably in a lifeboat that was sunk when the ship capsized," said Alessandro Centurioni, the environmental commissioner in Giglio, who has helped to plan the salvage operation. "I think they will be just bones after a year and a half in the sea."

The righting of the 114,500-tonne ship, more than double the weight of the Titanic, will be the largest-ever salvage of a passenger vessel. Fifty-six cables weighing 26 tonnes each will haul it off the rocks and rotate it 65 degrees to upright in a method called "parbuckling". The riskiest part of the 10 to 12-hour operation will come in the early hours, when the maximum force - up to 7,000 tonnes per cable - will be applied.

Five robotic submarines will be standing by to look for the bodies.

The ship is full of rotting food and experts say that it could release a foul smell. An inventory of the provisions included 8,200kg of beef, 10,800 eggs and 10 bottles of holy wine for Mass.

"It's possible that when the boat is righted, there could be a release of gas that was trapped inside [the fridges]," Mr Centurioni said.

Elio Vincenzo, the husband of the missing woman, Maria Grazia Trecarichi, was due to arrive in the island last night. "I'm thinking only of my wife. These have been very hard months without Maria Grazia, but I hope with the rotation they will find her underneath," he said. "I'm counting on it."

Mr Vincenzo said that his wife did not get on the same lifeboat as his daughter, who was also onboard but survived, because she was cold and had gone below deck to fetch a jacket.

Kevin Rebello, the brother of Russel Rebello, 33, the lost Indian waiter, is expected to arrive in Giglio to follow the search on Tuesday, once the rotation is complete.

Father Lorenzo Pasquotti, the local Catholic priest, said: "We are waiting and waiting - with hope. Some people are afraid, but the people of the salvage consortium are working hard. If it goes bad, it will be because of the sea, not them."

Monday 16 September 2013

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/costa-concordia-salvage-operation-begins/story-e6frg6so-1226719925952

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Costa Concordia underwater: What’s inside of wrecked cruise ship?

The nautical blue paint spelling out “Costa Concordia” has almost all bubbled and chipped off the bow of the once luxurious cruise liner after 20 months under salt water off the Italian island of Giglio.

One can get glimpse of just what it’s like in and under the Concordia by the vast array of mesmerizing underwater videos released by Italy’s coast guard and the Titan Micoperi salvage team tasked with removing the rusting hulk.

The seabed is still littered with sun deck chairs that floated from the ship’s balconies and upper deck when it finally came to a rest in January 2012. Fish swim around the sunbed legs and seaweed has grown through some of the mesh seating. The beds are spread out in a surreal scene that looks like a set from an underwater science fiction film. Shoes, mattresses, dinner plates and thousands of pieces of cutlery shimmer in the divers’ lights on a bed of sea grass.

Divers have not been deep inside the massive ship for nearly a year. The salvage divers only work on the outside of the ship and do not have authority to enter the vessel, with the exception of a work area they have created with a false floor on the upper port side deck, unless accompanied by Coast Guard divers.

Not only is the Concordia still chock full of passengers’ possessions the Costa Cruises company hopes to return, but the ship is still considered a crime scene. Thirty-two people died in the accident and the ship’s erstwhile captain, Francesco Schettino, is facing charges of multiple manslaughter and causing the shipwreck after piloting the 290-meter ship into the rocks on Giglio last year.

The last divers to comb through the Concordia’s sunken bowels were there to search in vain for the last two victims, still believed to be trapped somewhere under the ship or buried in a watery grave at the bottom of the hollow hull. The salvage crew believe they know about where the bodies might be found, but there is no guarantee until the ship is lifted whether they will be found at all.

In the weeks after the accident, the divers called the inside of the ship a “toxic stew” of spilled oil, rotting food and floating tableware. There were five massive restaurants on the ship — each one in operation when the ship crashed at 9:42 p.m. on January 13, 2013, spilling tables of buffet food into the water. More than a dozen kitchens and freezers had enough food to feed the 4,200 passengers and crew for a week, plus extra supplies that all cruise ships carry in case of emergencies and delays. Many of the freezers burst and their contents were gobbled up by sea life and the colony of sea gulls that has multiplied on the island since the disaster.

Fishermen off Giglio say that the fish have changed, too. They are much larger and harder to catch after gorging on the ship’s offerings. The freezers that have not burst under the water pressure are still locked with their rotting thawed contents sealed inside. Fridges too, filled with milk, cheese, eggs and vegetables, have been closed tight since the disaster. One has to only imagine leaving a home freezer — a fraction of the size of the industrial freezers used by cruise ships — unplugged for 20 months to get an idea of the type of rancid mess trapped inside.

Rodolfo Raiteri, head of the Coast Guard dive team, told CNN that his divers had to confront an array of deep-sea threats, from floating knives to lethal bed sheets and flowing curtains that could have easily become entangled in the divers’ safety cords. There were also floating chairs and large chunks of marble and crystal chandeliers that constantly detached and fell from the sideways ship’s ceilings every time the ship creaked and shifted as it settled onto two underwater rocky mountain peaks. All that debris, along with thousands of dinner plates, can be seen stacked against the underwater windows in some of the salvage video.

The ship has compressed three full meters in the 20 months since it crashed, and each time it groans and twists, windows break as their frames adjust and once-attached items are lodged free. On cruise ships, dining room tables are all affixed to the floors to keep passengers from chasing sliding tables in rough seas. Raiteri described the bizarre scene his divers faced swimming among the sideways tables, sometimes encountering plates of food and floating champagne bottles in their search for victims.

Senior cabin service director Manrico Giampedroni, one of the last survivors to be pulled out of the wreckage alive, became trapped half submerged in the ship’s dining room when his leg got caught among fallen furniture. He survived for 36 hours on floating food and stayed awake by drinking caffeinated beverages until rescuers found him. If he had fallen asleep, he would have drowned. Incidentally, Giampedroni was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter in a plea bargain for his role in the deaths for not being at his duty station to help evacuate the ship.

In addition to the general rule of thumb that you don’t blow up ships where there are still unrecovered victims, one of the main reasons the Concordia is being refloated rather than blown up or dismantled on site is because of the toxins and personal effects still trapped in the ship’s 1,500 staterooms. The ship’s engines are still thick with lubricants and the kitchens are still filled with cooking oils and non-soluble materials that would pollute the sea.

Giglio, which lies within the Pelagos Sanctuary, the largest protected marine wildlife park in the Mediterranean, is flush with exotic sea life and coral reefs. The putrid stew inside the ship’s 17 deck-structure will eventually have to be purified or pumped out before the ship is refloated sometime next year, and the personal effects are another matter.

All that was in the Concordia the moment it wrecked is presumably still there, save the ship’s bell, which mysteriously disappeared two months after the wreck based on surveillance video taken by authorized divers. An investigation into who could have stolen the bell has caused some concern that other items, especially high price items from the ship’s gift shops, could have also been pilfered. Everything inside the ship is expected to be recovered and returned to its original owners, no matter how water-logged it may be, but that could be months from now when the ship is eventually towed and dry docked for dismantling.

Each of the cabins has a locked safe, presumably still filled with passengers’ valuables including cash and jewelry. There are also countless cameras, laptops, iPads and cellphones that passengers left behind, not to mention luggage. The ship had only been at sail for three hours, so many passengers likely didn’t take time to unpack, but instead headed to the nearest dining room or bar to relax as the ship set sail. One suitcase floated to the nearby island of Elba and its soggy contents were delivered to the owner nine months after the disaster. Many more suitcases have been spotted by divers at the bottom of the sea.

Nick Sloane, the head of the salvage operation for Titan Micoperi, the joint American-Italian venture to rescue the Concordia,, says that if explosives were used, the ship’s smaller contents would become dangerous projectiles. “Mattresses and passports would scatter the sea,” he says. But the real danger would be flying cutlery, cooking knives, bottles and broken glass.

If the “parbuckling” goes well and the giant 114,000-ton vessel is tipped upright sometime in the next week, much more than the 65 percent of the ship that is under water now will be submerged. The platforms that will provide a base on which the Concordia will rest are some 30 meters below the sea level, meaning many of the staterooms that were dry until now will sink underwater. Some of the toxic water will be displaced and pushed out of the upper cabins. Some freezers that are still sealed could burst under new water pressure. And almost every window on the ship’s outer cabins is expected to break as the ship’s frame twists.

Sloane says the noise will be deafening as metal twists and windows pop. The ship has been rigged with cameras and microphones to help the salvage crew monitor the ship’s structure as it is lifted. As Sloane says, ships this size were never meant to lie on their sides, and they are not built to be lifted. The salvage team says they will be able to contain any spillage of toxins with oil booms now in place around the work site. The broken glass and new debris will join what is already at the bottom of the sea.

There will never be the scale of environmental disaster that was already averted by removing the ship’s 2,400 tons of fuel shortly after the ship crashed, but there are still major risks involved with salvaging the Concordia. If the parbuckling fails and the ship breaks apart as it is rotated, the rotten contents — moldy mattresses, passports, toxic stew and all — will spill into the once-pristine sea. And even if it succeeds, this part of the Mediterranean will never be quite the same again.

Monday 16 September 2013

http://fox2now.com/2013/09/15/costa-concordia-underwater-whats-inside-of-wrecked-cruise-ship/

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Veterans revisiting battlegrounds of the Vietnam War to help reunite the families of fallen Viet Cong with personal effects

Ben Roberts-Smith knows how it feels to go to war.

But a trip to Vietnam with a group of veterans showed him a side of war he had never experienced.

"It was amazing to see these guys who were shooting at each other 40 years ago and are now able to sit down and have a beer together," he said.

"I can't imagine being able to do that."

Cpl Roberts-Smith, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in Afghanistan, spent four days revisiting battlegrounds of the Vietnam War and helping reunite the families of fallen Viet Cong with items taken from soldiers' bodies at the time.

Of all the items that were returned, some of which have spent decades tucked away in small military museums, one stuck in Cpl Roberts-Smith's mind.

"It was a picture a Vietnamese soldier had drawn of his wife and on the back of the picture he had written the names of his children," he said.

"When we went back his wife was still alive.

"To be able to give that back to her and see what it meant to her . . . she was overcome with emotion. You can only imagine what that's like.

"It was extremely emotional for them (the Australian veterans) at the point of handing back items to the families." "

The trip, dubbed Operation Wandering Souls, was the work of military researchers at the University of NSW, including Vietnam War veterans.

As well as collecting personal effects to return to the families of lost Viet Cong soldiers, the team has compiled a database of burial sites to help find those Vietnamese still deemed missing in action.

The project was deemed particularly important in part because Vietnamese culture considers those who die in unrecorded graves to be "wandering souls". The personal belongings of someone who has died also have significance.

Vietnam has previously helped Australia find and repatriate its dead soldiers.

Cpl Roberts-Smith said he jumped at the chance to visit.

"To be able to go and see the battlefields was fantastic," he said. "To be able to go with those Vietnamese veterans was a once in a lifetime experience.

"It was a humbling experience to see what it meant to them. I know that feeling, I know why they did what they did.

"From an Aussie point-of-view or a soldier point-of-view I think it was important to go back and pay my respects to the men who lost their lives there."

Sunday 15 September 2013

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/18937807/vietnam-visit-humbles-hero/

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Search for remains of Bosnian victims continues

The Missing Persons Institute (MPI) of Bosnia and Herzegovina on Monday will continue to search for the bodies of victims at the recently found mass graves at the Tomasica site near Prijedor (Bosnia).

The existence of the mass graves was discovered by a former member of the Army of the Republika Srpska.

Head of the Regional Office of the MPI of Bosnia and Herzegovina Mujo Begic told the Anadolu Agency (AA) today that the teams found the skeletal remains of one female person on Thursday.

"We found one more body. The skeletal remains are mostly complete”, he said adding that teams will continue the activities on Monday.

The director of the (MPI) of Bosnia and Herzegovina Amor Masovic said earlier to the AA that victims were probably prisoners of Prijedor concentration camps, Keraterm and Trnopolje during the last Bosnian war.

According to the first opinion of pathologists, most of them were killed in other locations, and then relocated to the area of ??the Tomasica site and hidden under the layers of soil.

Revelation of mass tomb at the Tomasica site near city of Prijedor which is assumed to be the largest in the last ten years that has been found in northwestern Bosnia re-opened, never healed, wounds of Prijedor Bosniaks and Croats.

Mass graves at the site Tomasica near Prijedor originates from the Bosnian war, and is thought to hide non-Serb victims from the city of Prijedor and around which have remained missing since 1992.

So far found and identified are 2,082 victims of Prijedor and still search for about 1,200 Bosniak and Croatian victims killed during the war in and around the Prijedor area continues.

Sunday 15 September 2013

http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=117960

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24 killed in Afghan mine collapse

A tunnel collapsed in a coal mine in Afghanistan's north, killing at least 24 workers and leaving three others missing.

Some 14 area residents trying to aid in the rescue were overcome by fumes and had to get treatment.

Workplace safety standards are poor in Afghanistan as in many developing nations, and such accidents are common. But concern about such standards is likely to grow in the coming years as the government tries to develop a wealth of mineral resources in the country - a challenging goal as it battles a Taliban insurgency.

The mine tunnel collapse occurred on Saturday in Ruyi Du Ab district of Samangan province, a remote area where the insurgency does not have a significant presence yet. A police official said more than 1,000 villagers in the area rushed to the scene, using their hands, shovels and other tools to try to dig out the workers.

Akram Baigzad, the provincial police chief, said 24 bodies had been recovered of a total of 27 workers. Fumes left around 14 rescuers with breathing problems, but none died as a result, he said.

Sunday 15 September 2013

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/24-killed-in-afghan-mine-collapse-29580715.html

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Bodies of 2 pilots found nearly 72 years after Lake Muskoka crash

More than 70 years after their plane crashed into Lake Muskoka, the bodies of two airmen have finally been recovered.

Leading Aircraftsman Theodore (Ted) Bates of the Royal Canadian Air Force and Flight Lieutenant Peter Campbell, a member of the British air force, will be buried in Guelph, Ont. on Tuesday with military honours.

They went missing on Dec. 13, 1940 when their Nomad 3521 collided mid-air with another aircraft.

Theodore Bates and Peter Campbell went missing after their plane plunged into an Ontario lake during a search and rescue exercise.

The Canadian navy’s diving unit recovered their bodies nearly a year ago, but the Department of National Defence did not formally announce that until Friday.

The government said it withheld the information from the public to protect “against disturbance" of the crash site. “It’s been a long time, but there is going to be closure,” Bates’ brother Tom told CTV Barrie.

In a news release, Minister of National Defence Rob Nicholson said the recovery “will provide closure to the families of Flight Lieutenant Campbell and Leading Aircraftsman Bates, as well as reassure them that the ultimate sacrifice made by their loved ones will never be forgotten.”

Bates and Campbell went missing during a search-and-rescue operation involving another airman who had disappeared during training the previous day. Their plane collided with Nomad 3512, another aircraft that had been searching for the same pilot.

The wreckage of Nomad 3512 and its pilots were recovered shortly after the crash. But many feared that Bates and Campbell’s bodies were lost forever.

In 2007, Matt Fairbrass, who heads up the Lost Airmen Project, discovered the missing wreckage using a side-scan sonar.

“We had no idea there was actually remains, we were just hoping to have artifacts for an exhibit,” Fairbrass told CTV. The OPP’s Underwater Search and Recovery unit eventually located the aircraft in 2010.

At that time, divers recovered personal effects and the aircraft's three .30 calibre machine guns.

The Royal Canadian Air Force said it’s now working out the logistics of pulling the plane wreckage from the lake.

Sunday 15 September 2013

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/bodies-of-2-pilots-found-nearly-72-years-after-lake-muskoka-crash-1.1455328

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Two bodies found, 15 missing as ferry capsizes in western Bangladesh

Two bodies were found and 15 people were still missing after a boat sank into the mighty river Padma in western Bangladesh Saturday evening, police and fire service said Sunday.

Abdur Rahman, a fire service official at Rajshahi district, some 256 km west of capital Dhaka, told Xinhua by phone Sunday morning that a overcrowded ferry carrying around 50 passengers sank into the mighty river Padma late Saturday afternoon due to rough weather.

Rahman said around 35 passengers swam to shore, but 15 others remained missing.

He said the rescuers of the fire service recovered the bodies of a kid and a man from the river.

The strong current of the mighty river was hampering the rescue operation, he said, adding that rescuers suspended the operation at 8 p.m. local time Saturday.

Fire service men feared the strong current might flush the bodies of the missing passenger to the downstream of the river.

Ferry and boat disasters are common in Bangladesh, which is crisscrossed by about 250 rivers. Ferry is still a key means of transport in the country. Most of the ferry boats are often overcrowded.

At least 112 bodies were recovered after a ferry capsized in Bangladesh's central Munshiganj district in March 2012.

Sunday 15 September 2013

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/811381.shtml

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Flood-hit Colorado awaits more rain; 172 people remain unaccounted for

As furious waters flow through flood-devastated northern Colorado, fears and tales of devastation grow.

At least four people have been killed and 172 are unaccounted for, officials say.

The nightmare is far from over as the state awaits more rainfall Saturday, threatening to send swollen rivers gushing through streets choked with debris. The rain is expected to come down heavy Sunday.

It will not be as much as the 15 inches dumped in some spots this week, but it could cause more flooding in areas where water has already receded, forecasters warned.

Residents got some relief Friday when rains subsided, giving a clear view of towns turned into abrupt lakes, homes and businesses inundated with muddy water and bridges devoured by raging creeks. Homes dangled off cliffs.

Rescuers have retrieved the bodies of the four who died in the waters. Many more people are cut off by devastated roadways, and authorities don't know how long it will take to reach them.

Gov. John Hickenlooper warned an extensive recovery is ahead for the affected area from the state's center into the northeast.

"This is not going to get fixed in a week," he said. "We have lost a great deal of infrastructure."

Human toll

Currents swept away a woman who got out of her car Thursday in Boulder County. A man jumped out of the car to save her. Both drowned.

Authorities have recovered both bodies, said Sheriff Joe Pelle. An additional body turned up in the same county. Rescuers recovered yet another in El Paso County.

In Denver, rushing waters swept a man into a drainage pipe with his dog. Both were saved after traveling two blocks in the water, police said.

All the people unaccounted for were in Boulder County alone.

"These are people whose family or friends haven't been able to reach or account for them, not necessarily in harm or dire need," said county spokeswoman Gabrielle Boerkircher.

President Barack Obama declared an emergency for Boulder, Larimer and El Paso counties, FEMA announced Friday. The declaration allowed FEMA to bring in four rescue teams, the largest ever deployment in Colorado, officials said.

The clear skies allowed for an uptick in evacuations.

National Guard troops using "high-profile" trucks to wade through water evacuated 550 people from the Boulder County town of Lyons, CNN affiliate KUSA reported.

It had been cut off since the flooding began Wednesday night -- without water or sewer service, in many cases without electricity.

Saturday 14 September 2013

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/14/us/flooding-colorado/

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After disasters, DNA science is helpful, but often too pricey

Human DNA is the ultimate fingerprint. A single hair can contain enough information to determine someone's identity — a feature that's been invaluable for identifying the unnamed casualties of natural disasters and war. But forensic scientists who use DNA say the technology isn't always available where it's most needed, like in poor countries, or in war zones like Syria.

The technology is often too expensive or too complicated, and where there are large numbers of unknown dead, you need far more than just DNA profiling equipment. You also need sophisticated computer programs to organize and match DNA samples from numerous family members, as well as experts to read the samples properly.

, a medical ethicist at Carnegie Mellon University, says that while there are numerous groups that do DNA identification worldwide, and the process is often ad hoc and erratic.

It was largely the Indian Ocean tsunami that got forensic experts thinking. There were tens of thousands of unidentified bodies, and DNA experts flocked to Thailand to set up labs. Tom Parsons, a DNA expert with the , says Thailand got the attention because western tourists died there. Their governments sent teams to find their bodies, but it didn't go well.

"All of the world's first-rate forensic teams took off to Thailand, where white people were killed," Parsons says, "with no centralized plan, pushing and pulling." Governments funded the effort because they wanted their citizens' remains back. But it was "really a mess," says Parsons. Different groups wouldn't share their technology, and even disagreed on how to do the DNA analysis. There was little coordination.

Eventually Interpol, the international police organization, intervened. The commission ended up identifying some 900 people, mostly Thais who might not have been identified otherwise.

Parsons says in the end the DNA work in Thailand was a success, but it revealed to forensic experts that there might be a better way to do this — that in fact a permanent organization with DNA "chops," money and an international mandate to respond to disasters might work better.

"Our concern was that there should be a mechanism in place that would allow access to DNA identification beyond just ability to pay," London says. "Too often if there isn't a funder out there, then people who are missing relatives won't get access to the technology."

So forensic scientists are calling for the creation of a DNA identification organization — one that functions much in the same way the International Atomic Energy Agency does, which sends inspectors to nuclear facilities.

But in an article in the journal Science that a global DNA identification organization would face political obstacles, especially from governments at war with their own citizens.

Saturday 14 September 2013

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/09/13/221865970/dna-science-helpful-but-too-pricey-for-many-countries

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Rescue teams finish work at hospital fire site in Novgorod region

Rescue teams have finished their work at the site of a deadly fire at a nursing home for the mentally ill in the Novgorod region, which, as was reported earlier, claimed 37 lives, Russian Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Oleg Voronov told journalists on Saturday.

"The emergency and restoration work and the clearance of the rubble have been completed," Voronov said.

Rescuers have retrieved 35 bodies and also body parts from the rubble of the nursing home destroyed by the fire, and the remains will be subjected to forensic medical tests, he said.

Day of mourning will be declared in Novgorod region

The administration of the Novgorod region will make a decision on declaring a day of mourning for those killed in the region's psychiatric hospital fire by Friday evening, the Novgorod region's Governor Sergei Mitin, who is now at the accident site, said.

"I think a day of morning will be declared. We will make a definitive decision by Friday evening," he said.

Saturday 14 September 2013

http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_09_14/Rescue-teams-finish-work-at-fire-site-in-Novgorod-region-1221/

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Remains of 2 airmen missing since WWII found

Their bodies were missing for decades after they disappeared behind enemy lines.

Now the remains of two U.S. Army Air Force troops who died during World War II are set to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery next week after search crews found them in the mountains of Papua New Guinea, the U.S. Defense Department POW/Missing Personnel Office said Thursday.

The A-20G Havoc bomber in which U.S. Army Air Force 2nd Lt. Valorie L. Pollard and Sgt. Dominick J. Licari were flying crashed after attacking enemy targets on March 13, 1944, the Defense Department said.

Their remains were recovered when the crash site was excavated last year.

More than 400,000 U.S. troops were killed during World War II, and the remains of more than 73,000 were never recovered or identified, the Defense Department says.

Papua New Guinea, an island country in the western Pacific, is north of Australia and just south of the equator. Much of the nation is covered in rugged terrain and rain forests.

Friday 13 September 2013

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/12/us/wwii-airmen-remains-found/

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Yearning for their return, kin of 25 persons missing in U’khand stay away from festivities

In this festive season, the families of those who have gone missing in the Uttarakhand floods continue to grieve for their near and dear. On Friday, it would be three months since the tragedy struck Uttarakhand. Twenty-five persons, including 16 women, from Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad and other parts of the district have gone missing. The affected families have now lodged an FIR with the local as well as the Uttarakhand police.

Dhanashree Kadam's search for her missing parents, Yashwant and Alka More, has drawn a blank. This, she said, despite her brother visiting Uttarakhand twice. "It is an ordeal for our family. We never thought that our lives would take such a tragic turn. Even during Ganesh festival and Gauri festival, we are not in the right spirits to celebrate. I am obsessed my the thought of my parent's well-being. How can we celebrate festivals without them?" she asked.

Vasant Kamthe still hopes for a safe return of his four family members, including his wife. "Those who are missing might have been hospitalised and would have been too critical to contact us. To keep myself going on, I recently even consulted a fotune-teller, who told me my family members were possibly safe and could be back home by September end," he said.

Pune District Disaster Management Officer Vitthal Banote said the Uttarakhand police had recently visited Pune and met with the families of those missing. "They collected photographs of the missing persons and asked for their identity marks. They also confirmed the identity of families of those missing," he said.

Banote said though 160 more bodies were found in the third round of combing operations in Kedar Valley, there was nobody from Pune. The group of 25 missing persons is believed to have belonged to Shivgauri Travels. They have been missing from Rambada sector of Uttarakhand, which was completely destroyed.

Friday 13 September 2013

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/yearning-for-their-return-kin-of-25-persons-missing-in-u-khand-stay-away-from-festivities/1168576/

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