Germanwings crash: why don't we know exactly yet who was on board Flight 9525?

More than 48 hours after the Germanwings flight crashed in the Alps, politicians and the airlines still seem unsure who was on the plane.

The authorities initially announced that the crash had claimed the lives of 150 people, 144 passengers, four crew and two pilots. But the nationalities of those on board are unknown.

The passenger manifest has remained secret, and as passengers on board the flight only needed to show their passport - no record appears to have been taken as they left Barcelona airport.

Countries who signed up to the Schengen agreement have removed internal borders, allowing travellers to "freely circulate without being subjected to border checks", according to the EU.

Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, was unable to say how many Britons were involved, saying on Tuesday that there were three "or more" on board.

"We cannot rule out the possibility that there are further British people involved," he said.

"The level of information on the flight manifest doesn't allow us to rule out that possibility until we've completed some further checks."

Germanwings, meanwhile, repeated on Wednesday that there was only one Briton among the dead.

The number of Spaniards on board also varied wildly - on Tuesday night the authorities said there were 45 onboard, but Germanwings said on Wednesday morning that there were 35.

By noon on Wednesday the figure had changed again. "Forty-nine Spanish victims have been identified" so far said Francisco Martinez, Spain's junior security minister. But he added that it was a provisional figure.

According to the Iranian media there were two Iranian sports journalists on board and there is speculation there may also be Argentinian victims.

Philip Baum, an aviation security expert, said that residents of Schengen countries could board flights using only national identity cards rather than passports, which could have added to the uncertainty.

"In the UK you can't do that because we haven't got a national ID card system, but within the Shengen countries people can use national ID cards. That, however, may be an indicator not of nationality but simply of residency rights, and that may mean it takes longer to work out where each passenger is actually from."

The lack of a clear record appears to suggest that in the event of a suspected terror attack, the airlines have no immediate way of checking whether citizens from any countries deemed to be likely potential sources of terrorism are on board. It also appears to make things harder from a consular point of view: embassies need to know how many citizens from their countries were on board in order to anticipate how much assistance to provide for families of the bereaved.

A German government source admitted that because of Europe's border protocols, under which no record of passports and ID cards is required, there is no way to know precisely the nationalities of who was on board.

He explained that the passenger list has not been released is because not all the families have been informed. This is being hampered because they are struggling to work out the nationalities of those on board.

Spain said some passengers may have dual nationality, confusing the issue further.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine, European leaders discussed whether to reintroduce identity checks within the EU's free travel zone. Spain, France and Germany in particular were pushing for curbs on passport-free travel

Thursday 26 March 2015

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/11494411/French-Alps-crash-We-still-not-know-who-was-on-board-Germanwings-9525.html

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Flight 4U 9525: specialists will begin the complex process of identifying the bodies of the victims

Every few hours today an ambulance or a refrigerated lorry left the Alpine field which has become the ad hoc marshalling yard for the vast operation to reach the wreckage of flight 4U 9525. Inside each vehicle, carefully concealed under layers of polythene wrapping, were some of the remains of the 150 people who perished on board.

The first bodies recovered from the site of the Germanwings crash began to be transferred some 48 hours after the disaster by the fleets of helicopters that now shuttle in a constant clatter between the temporary airfield in this ski resort and the isolated mountain valley where the Airbus A320 disintegrated.

But these sombre journeys, carried out under a blue light escort, are only the beginning of the grim process of identifying the passengers - school children, businessmen, mothers and fathers - whose bodies could not have survived the appalling impact of the crash intact.

Emergency workers and witnesses have spoken of the unspeakable sight that greeted them as they walked through the ravine where much of the wreckage is concentrated. One mountain guide told The Independent: “It is difficult to say but there are not whole bodies. There are only parts and they are small, the size of a laptop computer. It is beyond distressing to see what has been done to these fellow human beings.”

RRecovery teams are facing the dauntingly grim task of scouring an area spanning thousands of metres on tough mountain terrain in the task to find body parts of crash victims from the downed Germanwings flight.

In a chilling press conference outlining the nature of the flight’s last moments, French authorities detailed the difficulty in identifying victims and collecting body parts on the mountain morgue.

Considering the nature of the impact and the state of the bodies, it is likely to take weeks to account for all the parts.

“Imagine 150 victims in an area of over two hectares, between 1600 and 2000 metres,” said Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin.

The process is made easier by flags placed on the slope to mark locations of victims but the recovery is expected to last until the end of next week as teams face the even tougher task retrieving, identifying and delivering the bodies safely to ground.

“There were no more whole bodies, Fabrice Rouve, who works with the High Mountain division of the gendarmes told the New York Times.



The crash site is inaccessible on foot and by road and helicopters are unable to land on the slopes because there is nowhere flat enough to make a safe landing.

Recovery teams must be lowered down to the area by a cable and inexperienced officials must be accompanied by experienced rescuers to ensure they don’t slide down the slope.

Mr Robin detailed the “evacuation” process, where teams collect parts and send them back via helicopter.

“We put them on body bags in a stretcher and then they are put down in a nearby unit where the post mortem is carried out.

“Then we continue with the DNA identification.

“This is why these operations will take quite a long time.”

The technique is favoured by teams “due to the very difficult mountain terrain”.

It is from this starting point that the French authorities, helped by their German and Spanish opposites, must complete what is the first priority in the aftermath of the disaster - that of restoring to the dead their dignity and restoring their remains to those they have left behind.

In order to deal with this immense task, a small army of specialists has been deployed to the crash site and the surrounding areas to use the full battery of forensic, scientific and anthropological tools available to identify each of the dead.

They include forensic dentists, medical anthropologists and DNA specialists as well as several dozen dedicated search and recovery workers deployed to the isolated and treacherous crash site to label and catalogue each human fragment. Among them is a specialist Incident Response Team deployed by Interpol to co-ordinate what is in effect an international disaster with victims from around the world.

Brice Robin, the state prosecutor based in Marseille who is in charge of the French investigation, said: “The identification procedure is going to last several weeks. We are faced with 150 bodies which have undergone multiple trauma.”

The solution to this heartrending jigsaw lies in the bringing together of several sources of evidence, ranging from the pre-existing medical and personal records of the passengers to comparisons with the DNA of relatives, to the clues offered by a single bone.

Georges Leonetti, head of the medico-legal service in Marseille, said: “There is little chance that we will recover complete bodies. In order to achieve identification we therefore have to resort to the clues provided when people were still alive.”

Teams from Spain and Germany have already begun compiling medical dossiers on each of the victims, seeking identifying details which can range from dental records to operation scars to descriptions of appearance. DNA swabs have been taken from family members and similar work will be carried out in each of the countries affected by the disaster, including Britain.

Mr Leonetti said: “These are all details which allow us to compare the remains one against the other to arrive at an eventual identification.”

Among the most delicate work going on at the crash site in the Vallée de la Blanche and in laboratories across the south of France will be that of the forensic anthropologists who must comb the crash site for clues that tell the stories of the departed.

One expert likened the work to that of archaeologists as they sift a site, albeit one of the most recent and overwhelming trauma. A recovery worker at Seyne-les-Alpes said: “A single bone can tell you the sex or the size of an individual. Each clue must be recovered and entered into the process. It is careful, painstaking work.”

It is also work which, according to the worker, will potentially endure for months. He added: “It is our duty to give back their loved ones to the families of those who died, no matter how difficult that can be.”

Families of the victims are anxious to retrieve their loved ones bodies but “until the full DNA is carried out and finalised it’s only at that point I can give the bodies back,” said Mr Robin.

“But the DNA takes a while.”

Friday 27 March 2015

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germanwings-crash-how-a-small-army-of-specialists-will-begin-the-complex-and-harrowing-process-of-identifying-the-bodies-of-the-victims-10135435.html

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/germanwings-airbus-a320-crash-officials-outline-daunting-task-to-recover-bodies-from-mountain-morgue/story-fnizu68q-1227280482295

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Flight 4U 9525: First bodies recovered, challenges weigh heavily on recovery efforts

This mountain village was a remote place, a haven for holiday hikers and seasoned rock climbers, until this week, when it became a place of incomprehensible tragedy for the families of the passengers on a routine German flight.

The crash of the Airbus A320 jet on a snow-sprinkled range near here on Tuesday turned the deep ravines into a mountain morgue and the village into a place of mourning. It also transformed it into a gathering place, as would-be rescuers, investigators, cabinet members on Tuesday, and the leaders of France, Germany and Spain on Wednesday, all converged here in the wake of the Germanwings flight’s inexplicable descent into a mountainside.

As the names of the dead began to trickle out — 150, all told, from at least 15 countries — and as investigators sought to solve the mystery of why the flight went down, residents here also prepared to receive the victims’ families. Hundreds of the relatives are expected to descend on the valley, said Francis Hermitte, the mayor.

The magnitude of the task of recovering the bodies was sinking in on Wednesday as seven helicopters roared nonstop over this village, up to the slate and limestone escarpment strewn with pieces of wreckage. It was becoming clear that both determining the cause of the crash and accounting for the human toll would probably be a lengthy mission. It is likely to take more than two weeks to bring the wreckage and body parts off the mountain, and identifying the 150 people who died will take much longer, rescue personnel said.

The crash site is inaccessible by road or foot, and even helicopters cannot land because there is nowhere flat enough. Rescuers, doctors and investigators must be lowered onto the mountainside by cables.

Their task then is to preserve the debris in packages that must be hauled up to the hovering helicopters, said Fabrice Rouve, 46, an experienced rescue worker and former soldier who now works with the High Mountain division of the gendarmes.

All non-Alpine-trained officials at the scene — doctors, investigators and airplane engineers — must be accompanied by Alpine rescuers to ensure that they do not slip and tumble down the mountain. There are worries, as well, that intruders would find a way to reach the crash site and disturb the debris, which is essential to the investigation, said Mr. Rouve, so five gendarmes were being left overnight to guard the site.

Mr. Rouve, like others who had flown up to the mountain, was struck, if not shaken, by the sheer destruction he saw. Xavier Roy, the coordinator for emergency personnel, said after flying over the site that he was surprised by the absence of big pieces of wreckage, an engine or a large piece of the fuselage, typically visible after a crash.

“Here, we are not seeing anything except bits and pieces,” Mr. Roy said. “The largest piece we have seen so far is the equivalent of a car door.” He said that the initial rescue workers who reached the scene on Tuesday had scoured the area, looking for movement or sounds from any potential survivors, but that they had not heard or seen anything to suggest that anyone might have lived through the crash.

n story Leaders of the three countries most affected by the tragedy — President François Hollande of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain — went to the mountain Wednesday afternoon to thank emergency medical workers and pay homage to the dead.

Mr. Hollande was the only one of the three who did not lose fellow citizens, and he spoke in a heartfelt tone, as if reassuring a family member, and called the leaders by their first names. He later promised that France would do everything it could to help, from investigating to supporting the families of the victims who were expected to come to this hamlet in the next few days. “We must understand what happened; we owe it to the families and to the countries that are impacted by this tragedy,” he said.

Ms. Merkel and Mr. Rajoy thanked Mr. Hollande, but Ms. Merkel, who lost 72 of her citizens in the crash and has sometimes seemed at odds with the French president over policy, was moved by the French outpouring. “Dear François, I’d like to say a heartfelt thank you in the name of millions of Germans who appreciate this German-Franco friendship,” she said.

The plane touched families from at least 15 countries, but the biggest shares were from Spain, which lost 45 citizens, and from Germany. Among those who died were a newlywed couple hoping to settle in Düsseldorf, the flight’s destination; the opera singers Oleg Bryjak, a bass baritone, and Maria Radner, a contralto; the wife of a Catalan politician; an Australian hoping to start a teaching career in France, and a mother with her 7-month-old baby. There were 16 high school students and two of their teachers, returning to Germany after a week at an exchange program outside of Barcelona, where the flight took off.

The flight was in so many ways a reflection of Europe today, with the majority of those on board making a short hop from one European Union country to another, mixed with a smattering of farther-flung visitors.

On Wednesday, as early-morning fog gave way to a cold overcast day, emergency workers were placing flags to mark the locations of the victims.

Mr. Rouve said that in more than 14 years on the job, he had dug people out of avalanches, rescued stranded rock climbers and recovered the bodies of fallen climbers. But he said the crash of the Germanwings flight was a different order of destruction. “All of my colleagues who are experts, we all agreed, we had never seen anything like this,” he said. “First we saw just some tendrils of smoke from the wreckage, and it’s hard to imagine for a big aircraft like this, but there was nothing left,” he added.

Mr. Rouve said that what was most distressing to him was the state of the victims’ remains.

“There were no more whole bodies,” he said, although he could not be sure he had seen the entire site because the wreckage was scattered over a large area.

Seynes-les-Alpes, a village of 1,400 in a valley a three-hour drive northwest of Nice, found itself overrun. The atmosphere was somber, with natives especially distressed that their village had been turned into a place of such tragedy. Many spontaneously offered to lend a hand in any way they could, as if wanting to make amends for the destruction in what almost all locals call “our mountains.”

While the authorities were making plans to help hundreds of families travel to the village, residents and local hoteliers offered families places to stay for free, Mayor Hermitte said.

Villagers set up a temporary chapel in a school gymnasium for the families to pray and be alone, and educators at the local high school offered to act as translators for the families.

René Vaugeois, who retired here more than 10 years ago and has the ruddy look of an enthusiastic hiker, said that he felt sad that the mountain environment which had brought him so much happiness was now enveloped in mourning. “We are very moved; those are our mountains, we hike there every summer and we’ve done every peak here,” he said. Asked whether he would take victims’ families into his home he did not hesitate: “I would do it.”

Friday 27 March 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/world/europe/challenges-weigh-heavily-on-recovery-efforts-in-germanwings-crash.html?_r=0

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At least 14 Vietnam workers killed in scaffolding collapse

At least 14 workers have been killed by collapsing scaffolding in Vietnam's Ha Tinh province, state media report.

About 30 other injured people were taken to hospital after the accident on a building site in the Vung Ang economic zone late on Wednesday.

Rescue workers have been searching the rubble for bodies and in case people were trapped.

The workers, all Vietnamese, were reportedly working on a port seawall project at an industrial complex.

The complex is owned by Taiwanese group Formosa Plastics and the workers had been subcontracted by a branch of South Korea's Samsung group, reports said.

One injured man said the scaffolding had started shaking an hour after they began work, and that many people had panicked and tried to escape.

"After 10 more minutes, the scaffolding which was about 20m (65 feet) high, suddenly collapsed. I quickly grabbed an iron bar but fell free," Dan Ninh Dan told the Associated Press. He was being treated in hospital for an injured hip.

"People were screaming, calling for help from the rubble," he said. "I was very lucky to survive."

A spokesman for the zone, Pham Tran De, said there had been thousands of people on the building site at the time "so the number of workers in distress is not yet accurately calculated".

"Authorities are actively removing the rubble to rescue the trapped workers," he said.

The Vung Ang zone was the scene of violent anti-Chinese protests last year amid heightened tensions over territorial disputes between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea.

Thursday 26 March 2015

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32062252

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Germanwings plane crash: Police guard site overnight to protect victims' bodies from wolves

Five police officers stayed overnight amid the debris at the Germanwings crash site to protect it from souvenir hunters, journalists and wolves.

Authorities have strengthened the security cordon at the scene in the French Alps, which is near a popular ski resort and mountain roads, L'Express reported.

There are fears that curious members of the public and press may disturb the investigation and that two wolf packs known to live in the area could be attracted to victims’ bodies.

“The aircraft was pulverised,” one rescue worker said last night. “Even the bodies are unrecognisable.”

Hundreds of police and dozens of helicopters descended on the mountains at first light today for a second day of work to recover passengers and debris.

Rescue workers have begun extracting bodies from the French Alps crash site of doomed Germanwings Airbus A320, it has been revealed.

Helicopters operating around the crash zone have begun the process of airlifting the remains of the 150 victims involved in the air disaster - in which there were no survivors.

The mountainous crash site - based at 1,500 metres altitude - can only be reached by helicopter, or a significant hike.

The body retrieval operation began this afternoon, but has since been called off for the night, according to a source close to the scene.

Flight 4U9525 was less than an hour from its destination of Dusseldorf on its journey from Barcelona when it unexpectedly went into a descent for up to 18 minutes yesterday morning.

The pilots did not send out a distress call and had lost radio contact with their control centre at around 10.50am local time (9.50am GMT), France's aviation authority said.

Thursday 26 March 2015


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/germanwings-plane-crash-first-bodies-5401393

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80 Pct of bodies found in Mexico illegal graves since '06 still unidentified

Roughly 80 percent of the 601 bodies found in 174 clandestine graves in Mexico between Dec. 1, 2006, and Feb. 28, 2015, have not yet been identified, according to a report by the federal Attorney General's Office.

The report, which Mexico City daily El Universal obtained under the country's transparency law, states that of the 601 bodies found, 342 have been identified by their gender: 302 men and 40 women. The others have the status of "not assessable, in process and/or indeterminate."

Not all cases are documented in the report because in some states there is a lack of coordination with the top prosecutor's office, the AG's office said.

A total of 207 bodies were found in 2011, during former President Felipe Calderon's Dec. 1, 2006, to Nov. 30, 2012, tenure, or more than a third of the corpses found in the illegal burial sites.

The graves were found in 16 of Mexico's 32 federal entities - 31 states and the Federal District (Mexico City); 93 of them, containing 207 bodies, were discovered in 2013 and 2014, the first two years of current President Enrique Peña Nieto's six-year term.

Guerrero, in southwestern Mexico, was the state with the largest number of clandestine graves and bodies found - 79 and 199, respectively. It accounted for 45.5 percent of all the illegal burial sites and 33.1 percent of all of the bodies discovered.

Those numbers include 38 clandestine graves containing 87 bodies that were found in the municipality of Iguala, Guerrero, between October 2014 and January of this year.

Iguala is the city where 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School, a teacher's college, went missing on Sept. 26, 2014.

Corrupt municipal cops acting on the orders of a corrupt mayor who had connections with the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel handed over the students to the cartel's gunmen, who killed the young people and burned their bodies at a dump, according to the official account.

The students' families reject that version of events and are demanding to know why soldiers of the Mexican army's Iguala-based 27th Infantry Battalion who witnessed the police attack did not intervene.

A total of 75 bodies were found in the western state of Jalisco, which ranked second on the list with 37 clandestine graves.

Authorities discovered 15 clandestine graves and 125 bodies in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas dating back to 2007, although the vast majority (120) were located in 2011 in the municipality of San Fernando, the scene of a massacre of migrants attributed to the Los Zetas drug cartel.

A total of 53 bodies were found in seven illegal graves in the northwestern state of Durango, while the same number of corpses were found in two clandestine graves in the northern state of Chihuahua.

More than 22,000 people have gone missing over the past eight years in Mexico, with nearly 50 percent of the cases being registered between 2012 and 2014.

Mexico has been racked by turf battles among powerful drug gangs during that period, while Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2015 that "Mexico's security forces have participated in widespread enforced disappearances since former President Calderon (2006-2012) launched a 'war on drugs'" shortly after taking office.

"Members of all security forces continue to carry out disappearances during the Peña Nieto administration, in some cases, collaborating directly with criminal groups," the New York-based rights watchdog said in the report, released in late January.

Thursday 26 March 2015

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2015/03/25/80-pct-bodies-found-in-mexico-illegal-graves-since-06-still-unidentified/

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Families mark 25th anniversary of club fire that killed 87

Family members and friends of victims gathered at a vigil Wednesday night to commemorate the 25th anniversary of a social club fire that killed almost 90 people. At the time, it was the biggest mass murder in U.S. history.

On March 25, 1990, a Cuban refugee named Julio Gonzalez tried to win back the woman who had spurned him.

Gonzalez entered the Happy Land social club in the Bronx, which was humming with people -- mostly immigrants -- partying and dancing. His former live-in girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, was checking coats, and they had a virulent argument. Gonzalez was thrown out.

In a rage, he returned just after 3 a.m., splashing gasoline on Happy Land's only guest exit and lighting two matches. Then he pulled down the metal front gate.

Within minutes, 87 people were dead.

On the day after the fire, as firefighters carried out the bodies, an icy drizzle descended on shocked relatives rushing to find out if their loved ones might be among the dead.

On Wednesday evening, again under a chilly drizzle, about 100 people crowded around the granite memorial at the site of the club, their prayers in Spanish ringing into the night.

They were joined by firefighters and police officers whose departments had responded to the blaze.

Earlier, during a Roman Catholic Mass at a nearby church, family members stood at the altar, each reading aloud the names of those who perished.

The fire was the worst in New York City since 146 workers died in a blaze at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in what is today's Greenwich Village. They were killed exactly 79 years earlier on March 25, 1911.

That spring night in 1990, people were smothered by black smoke or fatally burned. It happened so quickly that some appeared like frozen figures from Pompeii.

A few still had drinks in their hands. Some had torn off their party clothes, engulfed by flames. Others died hugging or holding hands. Bodies were piled up on Happy Land's dance floor in the darkness, their faces covered with soot.

Jaffrey Gotay does not treasure memories of her father. She has none, because she was only 3 when he died, and her mother was pregnant with her sister.

"A lot of it is unknown, it's missing out, not really knowing what could have been," said Gotay, whose family buried her father, Denny Alvarez, in Trujillo, a town in Honduras where others killed in the fire also are buried.

"You don't really remember, and that sucks," she said, tears streaming down her face.

The sisters grew up writing letters to their absent dad each year on Father's Day, placing them near his picture.

Gotay brought along her 17-month-old daughter, whom she'll eventually tell how her grandfather died.

In 1990, Happy Land drew a noisy, happy crowd of mostly young people. The club had been ordered closed for fire hazards -- no sprinklers or emergency exits -- but continued to operate illegally.

About two-thirds of the victims were part of a Bronx community of so-called Garifunas -- Hondurans descended from proud black natives of the Caribbean exiled by British colonizers more than two centuries ago.

In recent years, many Garifunas have fled a repressive Honduran regime and settled in New York.

That fateful weekend, they were enjoying their go-to club, speaking their own language and dancing to their drum-driven Garifuna music.

Gonzalez, now 60, sits behind bars for life in an upstate New York prison. He was convicted of 174 counts of murder -- two for each victim on charges of depraved indifference and felony murder.

A refugee from Fidel Castro's Cuba, he arrived in New York in the Mariel boatlift of 1980. A decade later, he was working in a warehouse but lost his job six weeks before the fire, police said.

Earlier this month, Gonzalez was denied parole.

Thursday 26 March 2015

http://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/ny-marks-25th-anniversary-of-social-club-fire-that-killed-87-1.10118489

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More MH17 remains recovered in Ukraine, transported to the Netherlands for identification

Dutch investigators have found more remains of victims of flight MH17 in Ukraine. A team of the Ministry of Defense and police officers recovered remains on Tuesday and Wednesday in Hrabovo in eastern Ukraine. The remains have been transferred to Kharkov. According to the Ministry of Security and Justice Wednesday, additional personal belongings have been secured.

The remains are due to arrive at Eindhoven Air Base on Saturday. A ceremony will be held as with previous arrivals of MH17 victims.

The investigating team visited an area northwest of Petropavlivka on Wednesday. Dutch investigators could not access this area previously due to the ongoing security situation. However, the mayor of Petropavlivka gave permission to secure wreckage of the plane. The Dutch have collected the wreckage and transported this evidence to Kharkov.

The Malaysia Airlines MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17 last year. All 298 passengers were killed, including 196 Dutch nationals. So far, 296 victims of the accident have been identified.

Translated from Dutch

Thursday 26 March 2015

http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/23846550/__MH17__weer_resten_geborgen__.html

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South Sudan munitions explosion kills 7

A blast at a munitions depot in the South Sudan’s Unity State has killed seven people and injured a child, Doctors Without Borders says.

The incident occurred on Thursday, when the stockpile of unexploded armaments, leftover from battles between government forces and opposition militants last year, exploded in a container located in the opposition-held town of Thar Jath.

Doctors Without Borders added that the container likely exploded after local residents set ablaze dry grass nearby in a bid to clear the land for farming.

South Sudan plunged into chaos in December 2013, when fighting erupted between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and the defectors, led by his former deputy, Riek Machar, around the capital, Juba.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the start of the conflict, while 1.5 million have been displaced and 2.5 million more are reported to be in dire need of food aid in South Sudan, which declared its independence from Sudan in 2011.

Thursday 26 March 2015

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/03/24/403187/South-Sudan-munitions-blast-kills-7

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Nine missing in boat sinking off northern Morocco coast

Nine people are still missing after a fishing boat sank on Tuesday in rough waters off northern Moroccan's coast, local authorities said.

Naval patrol and Gendarmerie rescue teams stopped the search operation at 2 pm GMT due to bad weather, it said, adding that five have been rescued so far.

Spanish rescue units helped in the rescue operation which took place in an area of 25 nautical miles in from the El Jebha coast in the Mediteranian.

Thursday 26 March 2015

http://en.ce.cn/main/latest/201503/25/t20150325_4926972.shtml

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7 killed in train-truck collision during heavy rain in Thailand

A passenger train collided with a pickup truck in heavy rain in northern Thailand on Tuesday, killing seven construction workers in the truck and seriously injuring another, police said.

The train, bound for Bangkok, crashed into the truck at an unguarded crossing in Saraphi district shortly after departing from Chiang Mai, police Lt. Colonel Kumkaew Suyati said. He said the heavy downpour could have prevented the truck driver from seeing the oncoming train while crossing the tracks.

Kumkaew said five men and two women in the pickup truck were immediately killed and another man was seriously injured. All were members of the ethnic Shan minority, he said.

Construction jobs in Thailand are commonly filled by migrant workers or ethnic minorities.

Kumkaew said the train was not damaged and was able to continue its trip after a brief stop.

Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second largest city and a popular tourist destination.

Thursday 26 March 2015

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/international/2015/March/international_March630.xml§ion=international

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Khairpur bus crash leaves 13 dead and 20 injured

At least thirteen people were killed and 20 others injured when a bus collided with a truck in southern Pakistan on Wednesday morning, Dunya News reported.

The accident happened on Mehran Highway near Khairpur district, 450 kilometres (300 miles) north of Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province.

Rescue teams arrived at the scene and shifted the bodies and injured to Gambat Institute of Medical Sciences and other hospitals in Khairpur.

As per initial details, the speeding truck loaded with fruits lost control and rammed into a bus coming from opposite direction.

Deputy Commissioner Munawar Ali Mithani reported that the incident occurred due to over-speeding. Further investigation is underway.

Pakistan has an appalling record of fatal traffic accidents due to poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving. Crashes killing dozens of people are not uncommon.

The recovery equipment available to Pakistani emergency services is often basic, and when crashes happen away from major towns, rescue efforts can take some time, reducing injured passengers chances of survival.

In November 2014, more than 50 people were killed when a bus collided head-on with the truck near Khairpur district. The bus was carrying passengers from northwestern Swat valley to Karachi.

In April last year, a bus smashed into a tractor-trailer in a high-speed collision in Sindh, killing 42 people, while in March a horrific crash between two buses and a petrol tanker left 35 dead, with many burned alive when the fuel ignited.

Wednesday 25 March 2015

http://dunyanews.tv/index.php/en/Pakistan/269633-Khairpur-bus-crash-leaves-13-dead-and-20-injured

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Flight 4U 9525: Recovery effort under way in French Alps

At first light on Wednesday, rescue teams restarted their recovery mission searching for the victims of the air crash that shocked the whole of Europe the day before. Nearly 500 people, among them gendarmes, fire crews, members of the armed forces and technical personnel are all in the remote are of the French Alps where flight GWI9525, from the low-cost airline Germanwings, crashed.

The flight was carrying 144 passengers – 67 Germans and 45 people with Spanish surnames – and six crew members. None of them survived the impact. The causes of the accident are still unknown, although the recovery of one of the flight’s black boxes on Tuesday will prove key to determining what happened.

The movement of emergency vehicles was intensified from 7am onwards, as soon as the sun came up in Seyne-les-Alpes, which is just a few kilometers from the crash site and where the emergency crews are working.

A spokesperson for the French Interior Ministry, Pierre-Henry Brandet, announced that the ground was being prepared for helicopter flights to restart, news agency Efe reported.

A column of gendarmes headed to the zone on foot, after having to suspend their recovery work on Tuesday due to the snowy conditions. The authorities are trying to create a path to the area where the remains of the Airbus A320 are scattered. The zone was being guarded on Tuesday night by five gendarmes.

During the night the area saw heavy snow, and there are concerns that the weather conditions today will not favor rescue work. While the clouds are very high, helping the helicopters, there is a chance of rain and windy conditions during the day, according to meteorological services.

“It will take days to recover the victims,” explained police officical Jean-Paul Bloy. Spain is due to send six police officers and civil guards to the site to assist with the identification of the victims.

wednesday 25 March 2015

http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/25/inenglish/1427269150_520807.html

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Flight 4U9525 recovery effort resumes, rescuers struggle to recover bodies in Germanwings French Alps crash

The arduous search for the 150 victims of the worst aviation disaster on French soil in decades was set to resume at dawn on Wednesday, as European leaders visit the site of the tragedy to pay their respects.

Germanwings budget flight 4U9525, carrying 144 passengers including 16 German teenagers returning home from a school trip, plunged for eight minutes before hitting the side of a mountain in the French Alps Tuesday with no survivors.

There was no response to desperate attempts by air traffic controllers to hail the pilots.

The accident's cause remains a mystery but authorities have recovered a black box from the Airbus A320 at the crash site, where debris was believed to be scattered over four acres of remote and inaccessible mountainous terrain, hampering rescue efforts.

More than 300 policemen and 380 firefighters have been mobilized. Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Marc Menichini said a squad of 30 mountain rescue police would resume attempts to reach the crash site by helicopter at dawn Wednesday, while a further 65 police were seeking access on foot. Five investigators had spent the night at the site.

It would take "at least a week" to search the remote site, he said, and "at least several days" to repatriate the bodies.

Video images from a government helicopter on Tuesday showed a desolate snow-flecked moonscape, with steep ravines covered in scree. Debris was strewn across the mountainside, pieces of twisted metal smashed into tiny bits.

The plane was "totally destroyed", a local MP who flew over the site said, describing the scene as "horrendous".

"The biggest body parts we identified are not bigger than a briefcase," one investigator said.

Christophe Castaner, a Socialist party MP in France, was one of the first to fly over the barren high altitude crash site and described a scene of horror.

“It’s a sharp ridge and steep slope that is difficult to access."

He told BFMTV that they flew over the crash site twice before they realised that small white patches were not snow, but remnants of the plane.

Jean-Louis Bietrix, a mountain guide who accompanied the first emergency services up the mountain, said there was nothing left of the plane.

“There’s debris, but you have to look closely to see things. It’s like the plane has totally disappeared,” he said.

A crisis cell has been set up in the area between Barcelonnette and Digne-les-Bains along with an emergency flight control centre to coordinate chopper flights to the crash site.

French President Francois Hollande, his German counterpart Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy were expected to reach the scene around 2:00 pm (1300 GMT).

Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, said the black box had been sent to the Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA), the French air accident investigation authority, for “immediate examination”.

He added that the crash zone had been secured and that a criminal investigation team would arrive to collect evidence on Wednesday.

The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, said a helicopter crew landed near the crash site on Tuesday and found no survivors. Aerial photos showed the plane was, in the words of one official, “pulverised”. The largest piece of wreckage was little more than the size of a small car.

As the CVR was being analysed, Pierre-Henri Brandet, a spokesman for the French interior ministry in Seyne-les-Alpes, announced the suspension of the retrieval effort over Tuesday night including the search for a second black box on the isolated, rocky site.

Activities were resuming on Wednesday morning. Agence France-Presse, the French-based news agency, said more than 300 police officers and 380 firefighters had joined the operations.

Mountain rescue police were also on the scene, while five investigators had spent the night at the site.

The 144 passengers were mainly German and Spanish.

The high school in the small German town of Haltern attended by the 16 students on the plane was set to hold an event Wednesday to honour the victims.

"This is certainly the darkest day in the history of our city," said a tearful Bodo Klimpel, the town's mayor, Tuesday. "It is the worst thing you can imagine."

Spain, meanwhile, declared three days of mourning and was to hold a minute of silence across the country at noon Wednesday.

Opera singers Oleg Bryjak, 54, and Maria Radner, 33, were also on board, flying to their home city of Duesseldorf. Radner was travelling with her husband and baby, one of two infants on board the plane.

Budget airline Germanwings said the Airbus, travelling from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, plunged for eight minutes but the crew made no distress call before crashing near the ski resort of Barcelonnette.

The rapid descent was "unexplained", Marseilles prosecutor Brice Robin said.

One of the plane's black boxes has been found, but it was unclear whether it was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder. Investigators will continue searching for the second black box Wednesday.

Weather did not appear to be a factor in the crash, with conditions calm at the time, French weather officials said.

Working on assumption of 'accident'

Budget airline Germanwings said the Airbus, travelling from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, plunged for eight minutes but the crew made no distress call before crashing near the ski resort of Barcelonnette.

The rapid descent was "unexplained", Marseilles prosecutor Brice Robin said.

One of the plane's black boxes has been found, but it was unclear whether it was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder. Investigators will continue searching for the second black box Wednesday.

Weather did not appear to be a factor in the crash, with conditions calm at the time, French weather officials said.

Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, said it was working on the assumption the crash was an "accident".

"Anything else would be speculation," Lufthansa vice president Heike Birlenbach told reporters in Barcelona.

She said the 24-year-old Airbus A320 had undergone its last routine check on Monday.

Germanwings executive Thomas Winkelmann said the pilot had "more than 10 years of experience" and some 6,000 flying hours on an Airbus jet under his belt. It was the fi

rst fatal accident in the history of Germanwings, and the deadliest on the French mainland since 1974 when a Turkish Airlines plane crashed, killing 346 people.

Locals described the difficult terrain that awaited rescue teams.

"Ground access is horrible ... it's a very high mountainous area, very steep and it's terrible to get there except from the air during winter," local resident Francoise Pie said.

The crash site can only be accessed after a three-hour walk from the nearest road.

Another local official, Gilbert Sauvan, told AFP: "The only possible access was by helicopter and people had to be winched down because the choppers couldn't land."

Germanwings said 67 Germans were believed to have been on board, while Spain said 45 people with Spanish-sounding names were on the flight.

Two Colombians, two Argentines, and two Australians were among the dead, according to their governments, while Hollande said Turks may also have been aboard.

Two Japanese were "very likely" on board, their government said. Belgium and Denmark said at least one of their nationals was on board, while Mexico said three of its citizens were believed to be among the victims and Britain said its nationals were also on board.

A Swedish third division football team booked on the fatal flight had changed flights at the last minute. "May they rest in peace," Dalkurd FF goalkeeper Frank Pettersson wrote on Twitter.

The world's worst air disasters remain the March 27, 1977, collision of two Boeing 747s on the runway at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people, and the August 12, 1985 crash into a mountainside of a Boeing 747 belonging to Japan Airlines, killing 520 people.

Wednesday 25 March 2015

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Families of ferry disaster victims call for vessel recovery

Family members of the victims of last year's deadly ferry sinking called on the government Tuesday to make a decision on the recovery of the submerged ship before the first anniversary of the tragedy.

In one of the nation's worst maritime disasters, the 6,825-ton ferry Sewol sank in waters off the nation's southwestern tip on April 16, killing more than 300 passengers, mostly teenagers on a school trip to the southernmost resort island of Jeju. Nine people remain unaccounted for.

The government said it has finished evaluating how and when the ferry would be lifted from the ocean in May. But it has yet to announce whether it will actually go ahead with the plan. The recovery process has been estimated to cost 620 billion won ($560 million).

The associations of the victims' families said the government shouldn't wait any longer and urged it to promptly raise the ship.

"There are nine bodies that are waiting to be returned to their family members," the associations said in a statement.

Family members are planning to hold a variety of programs to mark the disaster's one-year anniversary coming up next month.

Starting Monday, they will stage a 416-hour sit-in at Gwanghwamun Square in downtown Seoul.

For two days starting April 4, they said they will march from a joint altar set up in Ansan, south of Seoul, to Gwanghwamun Square.

In early November, the government officially terminated the search for the missing from the sunken ferry, citing inclement weather and safety risks for divers.

Tuesday 24 March 2015

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At least seven dead in Peru landslide

Seven people were killed and more were feared dead in Peru after a massive landslide buried parts of a town amid heavy rains, authorities said on Tuesday.

Six were missing and 25 injured in the disaster in Chosica, some 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) east of Lima, said Alfredo Murgueytio, the head of the National Civil Defense Institute, Indeci.

"There are likely more dead bodies under the debris," Murgueytio said on local broadcaster RPP.

TV images showed water and mud rushing over the town's sloped streets and a distraught woman waving a picture of a missing girl.

The main road connecting Lima to the centre of Peru, a top global producer of copper and gold, remained blocked since Monday, police said.

The landslide destroyed 65 houses and rendered another 45 unliveable, said Indeci.

Landslides and avalanches in Peru, mainly in rural towns in the Andes and Amazon, have killed 28 people and destroyed 1,245 houses so far this year, according to Indeci.

Chosica, a town tucked between mountains and next to a river, has been damaged by landslides several times in the past.

Tuesday 24 March 2015

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/at-least-seven-dead-in-pe/1739468.html

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Germanwings Airbus crashes in France, 148 feared dead

An Airbus A320 airliner has crashed in the French Alps between Barcelonnette and Digne, French aviation officials and police have said.

The jet belongs to the German airline Germanwings, a subsidiary of Lufthansa.

The plane, flight 4U 9525, had been en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf with 142 passengers and six crew on board.

French President Francois Hollande said: "The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, lead us to think there are no survivors."

Mr Hollande said the crash was a tragedy and called for solidarity with the victims, adding that the area was very difficult to access.

He said he would be speaking shortly with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The plane issued a distress call at 10:47 (09:47 GMT), according to sources quoted by AFP news agency.

Search-and-rescue teams are headed to the crash site at Meolans-Revels, said regional council head Eric Ciotti

Although it began its life as an independent low-cost carrier, Germanwings is wholly owned by its parent Lufthansa.

It operates increasing numbers of the group's point-to-point short-haul routes and takes many passengers from German cities to Mediterranean sunspots.

The airline has an excellent safety record with no previously reported accidents. The average age of its Airbus fleet is just over nine years old, though flight 4U 9525 was a 24-year-old A320.

The plan was to phase out the Germanwings brand and replace it with Eurowings. There has been a longstanding dispute with the Vereinigung Cockpit union over early retirement. Pilots went on strike for three days around this time last year.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he had sent Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to the scene and a ministerial crisis cell to co-ordinate the incident had been set up.

The interior ministry said debris had been located at an altitude of 2,000m (6,500ft).

Interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told BFM TV that it would be "an extremely long and extremely difficult'' search-and-rescue operation because of the remoteness.

Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr tweeted: "We do not yet know what has happened to flight 4U 9525. My deepest sympathy goes to the families and friends of our passengers and crew.

"If our fears are confirmed, this is a dark day for Lufthansa. We hope to find survivors."

The Airbus A320 is single-aisle passenger jet popular for short- and medium-haul flights.

Tuesday 24 March 2015

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32030270

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Bus pile-up kills 37, injures 70 in central Peru

At least 37 people were killed when a bus swerved into oncoming traffic in Peru Monday, leading to a multi-vehicle collision involving two other buses and a truck, authorities said.

Health Minister Anibal Velasquez, who was on his way to the crash site near the northern city of Huarmey, told local radio the accident also left 70 people injured.

Six people who were badly wounded were taken by helicopter to hospital in the capital Lima, about 300 kilometers south.

The local hospital in Huarmey overwhelmed by the number of injured, the fire department said in a statement.

Rescuers rushed to adapt other health centers in the area to accommodate the overflow, it said.

The head of the highway police, Orfiles Bravo, said a bus belonging to the Murga Serrano line had swerved into an oncoming lane on the Pan American Highway.

It was then hit by the truck and two other buses, Bravo told RPP radio.

The Murga bus "was split in two," he said.

Television images showed bodies sprawled out on the pavement after the crash.

Authorities initially gave a death toll of 22, but the health ministry said that number had increased sharply as rescue workers managed to access the wreckage.

The government declared an emergency and ordered more ambulances to the crash site, the head of the council of ministers, Ana Jara, said on Twitter.

Forty-two passengers on the Murga bus were members of a Christian evangelical church, the World Missionary Movement, who were returning from a convention in Lima.

"We are waiting for news," said church leader Roberto Perez.

Peruvian media reports said the injured and stranded passengers also included Haitian and Senegalese travelers.

Peru's roads are notoriously dangerous. In the first half of last year, 1,406 people were killed in road accidents. The full-year death toll was 3,590 in 2013 and 4,138 in 2012.

Monday's accident came as the Peruvian Congress held a forum on making the country's roads safer.

Monday 23 March 2015

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Myanmar ferry death toll rises to 69, six more victims recovered

As volunteer searchers found the bodies of six more victims of the Aung Takon 3 ferry disaster over the weekend, the Amyotha Hluttaw agreed to set up a Union-level inquiry into the sinking.

The death toll now stands at 69, though searchers believe many more bodies are still trapped in the sunken vessel off the coast of Rakhine State.

Members of the Duwunkyel philanthropic organisation, based in Kyaukpyu township, Rakhine State, began their search on March 14, the day after the ferry sank. On March 20 they found the body of a child, and five more bodies on March 22, and buried them all.

Duwunkyel announced yesterday that they would pay a K200,000 reward for the discovery of further remains.

“None of the six we found most recently were claimed by families. Some bodies have been washed up on the beaches of Kyaukpyu township,” said Ko Tun Kyi, secretary of Duwunkyel. He added that he had not seen any government officials searching.

The regional authorities said they had postponed the search because of bad weather.

Although the Rakhine State government has announced that it would pay compensation to the families of the deceased and to the survivors, the recovery teams claimed that the government had taken no responsibility for the disposition of the remains.

A survivor of the disaster, Ko Tun Win, said he believed many more bodies could be under the water. “Most people shut themselves in their cabins while the boat was sinking,” he said.

The exact number of passengers is not known, but those who were on board the vessel when it sank say it could be up to 400. Rescuers plucked 169 people from the water after the ferry went down, but the manifest showed only 214 passengers and crew.

Monday 23 March 2015

http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/13660-ferry-death-toll-increases-as-parliament-demands-inquiry.html

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Synagogue Collapse: Bodies of six victims still unidentified

A Consultant Pathologist, John Obafunwa, on Friday said forensic examiners have yet to identify the bodies of six victims of the Synagogue Church of All Nations building collapse.

Mr. Obafunwa, a professor and Chief Medical Examiner of Lagos State, disclosed this while presenting the final report to the coroner’s inquest set up to unravel the cause of the incident.

The inquest was set up by the Lagos State Government to investigate the Sept. 12, 2014 building collapse which killed 116 people, mainly South Africans.

The report entitled: “Report on the Collapsed Building in Synagogue Church of All Nations,’’ was admitted by the court as Exhibit 034. Led in evidence by Akingbolahan Adeniran, counsel to the Lagos State Government, the witness said autopsies were performed on the 116 bodies recovered from the collapse site.

He said the post mortem examinations were concluded on Sept. 30, 2014 and the samples for DNA examination were sent to Unistel Laboratory in South Africa.

Mr. Obafunwa said: “the first set of DNA and fingerprinting results were sent to me on Nov. 3, 2014. Thereafter, an identification committee was set up.

“At this time, 74 South Africans (as well as few from Switzerland, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, etc) were identified and subsequently released to the South African Authority on Nov. 15, 2014.

“Again, the identification committee sat on Feb. 4, 2015 following the receipt of other results from South Africa. “During this time, another 11 South Africans were identified and again released to their authority on Feb. 5, 2015, thus concluding the release of a total of 85 victims of South African origin.

“The respective death certificates as well as embalmment certificates were also handed over to the South African authority.’’ According to him, in addition to these figures, 25 others (comprising 22 Nigerians, two Beninois and one Togolese) were identified and released, bringing the total number of deceased individuals to 110.

He said: “there are six bodies left in the morgues (three each in Isolo and Yaba mortuaries) that are yet to be identified.

“In summary, the victims of the building collapse comprise 60 males, and 56 females; among the male victims was a child allegedly aged six years. “The distribution of the causes of death is as follows: 56 Multiple injuries, 19 Traumatic asphyxia, 19 Exsanguination, 12 Severe craniocerebral injury, nine Haemothorax following multiple rib fractures and one Congestive cardiac failure following hypertensive heart disease.

“The varying injuries seen on the victims are consistent with blunt force trauma that will normally be sustained from a collapsed building.’’ Testifying earlier at the proceedings, Oladele Ogundeji, the engineer who supervised the project, insisted that the collapse of the building was inconsistent with structural defect.

He said all the materials used for the construction were of the best quality, insisting that the foundation bases and columns were adequate to support the building.

Further hearing on the matter was fixed for March 25.

Sunday 22 March 2015

http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/178875-synagogue-collapse-bodies-of-six-victims-still-unidentified.html

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