Mexican missing-student activist killed in Guerrero state

A Mexican community activist who helped families search for their missing relatives has been killed.

Miguel Angel Jimenez Blanco's body was found near his home in a town in the south-western state of Guerrero.

He had led search parties after the disappearance of 43 students in the nearby town of Iguala last year threw light on hundreds of other missing people.

Guerrero is a region plagued by gang and drug violence.

At least 15 people were killed there over the weekend.

Mr Jimenez Blanco's body was found in the taxi he owned in the small town of Xaltianguis.

He had been part of an organisation which had supported the search for the students in the hills around Iguala. He had also helped dig up a number of graves of murdered people that were found during the search for the students.

He had helped organise a group called The Other Disappeared, mostly women who meet every Sunday to search the hills for the remains of their loved ones.

'This area is a cemetery'

The search parties started in November last year, a few months after the 43 students were abducted and presumably killed in Iguala on 26 September.

Since the group began work, it has found 129 bodies, which were handed over to the authorities for identification.

In a BBC interview, Mr Jimenez Blanco said that after Iguala, 300 families had come forward saying they had missing relatives too.

"We have been saying from the start that this area is a cemetery," he said at the time.

David Cienfuegos, government secretary of the state of Guerrero, told the BBC that many families had stayed silent for decades for fear of retribution.

"Many crimes linked to the disappearance of people need a statement to the police so the case can be taken up.

"In the last decade in Guerrero there have been few statements taken because the families are afraid. They fear the police themselves are involved in the disappearances."

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, one of Miguel Jimenez Blanco's friends, Mario Vergara, whose brother went missing last year, said that he motivated hundreds of families.

"He taught us how to search and how to push and every day he would give us the energy to carry on."

The case of the missing 43 students promoted a national and international outcry. The parents of the students and many other Mexicans still reject the government's version of events.

The administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto has insisted the students were killed by gang members on the orders of corrupt local police.

The bodies were then burnt, and the remains dumped in a river, but so far only one student has been identified.

The case highlighted hundreds of other people missing in Guerrero - Mexico's most violent state.

Guerrero is a major opium-producing state and a battleground for a number of different criminal gangs.

More than 20,000 people are missing across the whole country

Monday 10 August 2015

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-33843774

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Russia locates helicopter that crashed 10 months ago in Siberia

Russian investigators said on Saturday that they had located the wreckage of a helicopter that had crashed in a remote mountainous region of Siberia last October with 14 people on board.

Rescuers "confirmed information that the Mi-8 helicopter of TuvaAvia airline that went missing on October 10 was found in an isolated mountainous area," investigators said in a statement.

"According to provisional information, there were 11 passengers and 3 crew members on board.

"The helicopter was transporting workers who were returning from a hydroelectric project in the Siberian Buddhist region of Tuva, which borders Mongolia.It crashed into mountainous terrain amid low cloud and falling snow and caught fire when it hit the ground, the spokesman for the regional emergencies ministry, Dmitry Kryzh, told TASS news agency.

"There is a very steep slope -- with a gradient of around 45 degrees," he said of the crash scene.He said the helicopter most likely went undetected after the crash because it was quickly covered with snow.

The wreckage was initially spotted yesterday from the air by military helicopter pilots.Rescuers were still searching for the helicopter's black boxes which could have been swept downhill by rock falls, Kryzh said.

So far the remains of 10 people have been found. "Unfortunately the crew and the passengers had no chance," the leader of Tuva, Sholban Kara-ool, said in a statement.

It is not unknown for crashed aircraft to lie undetected for months in Russia's sparsely populated countryside. In 2013, a small plane was found in a marsh 11 months after it crashed in the Urals region of central Russia, killing all 13 on board.

Monday 10 august 2015

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/russia-locates-helicopter-that-crashed-10-months-ago-in-siberia/article1-1377895.aspx

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India temple stampede in Jharkhand leaves 10 dead

At least 10 people have been killed and 20 injured in a stampede at a temple in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, officials say.

Pilgrims have been marking a Hindu religious festival in Deoghar town.

It happened as pilgrims tried to make their way into the complex, a district official told BBC Hindi.

Deadly stampedes are common during Indian religious festivals, which attract large crowds with few safety measures in place.

The stampede at the Baidyanath Jyotirlinga temple began after pilgrims surged towards the shrine shortly after the doors opened early on Monday, an official told the AFP news agency.

Monday is considered an auspicious date to visit the shrine, which includes a main temple and 21 smaller ones devoted to Shiva, the god of destruction.

Pilgrims sleeping in the 6km (four miles) long queue were trampled as others pushed towards the doors, senior police official SN Pradhan said.

"Many tried to rush to the head of the queue which led to chaos and as some of them fell, the devotees got trampled."

"Ten people including one female devotee are now confirmed dead. Another 15 to 20 people have received injuries," he said

In October, some 91 pilgrims, mostly women and children, were killed in a stampede at a Hindu festival near the Ratangarh temple in Madhya Pradesh state.

In 2011, more than 100 died at a festival in the southern state of Kerala.

Monday 10 August 2015

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-33844083

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Bad weather hampers ferrying of bodies from Langtang

Adverse weather has hindered ferrying of eighteen corpses recovered from landslide debris in Langtang region of Rasuwa district some two weeks back. The bodies are believed to be of trekkers who were swept away by landslide and avalanche triggered after the Great Earthquake on April 25 in the area.

The bodies that are beyond recognition are waiting to be airlifted to Kathmandu for DNA testing.

DSP at District Police Office Prabin Pokhrel said they have not been able to reach the recovery site as the weather conditions have been too harsh for the past two weeks. Some locals of the Langtang area informed the police after they discovered the body and body parts, he said. "The bodies have been kept on a school ground in the area," said DSP Pokhrel. "Although the locals claim that the bodies are of their family and relatives, it will be ascertained only after undergoing DNA tests."

The bodies once airlifted will be ferried to the Forensic Unit of the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital. From there, the samples from the body parts will undergo DNA testing at the Central Police Forensic Science Laboratory (CPFSL) of Nepal Police.

Laxmi Dhakal, spokesperson at the Ministry of Home Affairs, said the government has asked Nepal Army to airlift the bodies and the helicopter will move to the recovery site once the weather is clear.

One hundred and eighty persons including 39 foreigners are reported to have gone missing after the earthquake. From Rasuwa alone more than 100 complaints of missing people had been lodged of which 21 are locals, 61 are not native of the district, while 22 are foreigners.

Around 9,000 people have been reported dead while over 20,000 injured during the earthquake.

Sunday 9 August 2015

http://www.ekantipur.com/2015/08/09/top-story/bad-weather-hampers-ferrying-of-bodies-from-langtang/409195.html

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Anonymous migrant graves deserve humane policy solution

A year ago, a Globe investigation exposed in stark detail the lack of an established process for families of relatives who have disappeared while attempting to cross the US-Mexico border illegally. But little progress has been made since then, and many of the missing are never found, or end up buried anonymously in public graves.

The lack of recourse for families of the hundreds who have died after crossing the border begs for a humane solution. Federal authorities must strengthen policies to mandate consistent identification of the dead. To allow anonymous mass graves on American soil is cruel to families and denies the basic human right that every individual deserves a degree of dignity — no matter where they come from or how they died.

The growing body count of migrants underscores the treacherous journey of crossing the border into the United States. Chief Deputy Sheriff Benny Martinez of Brooks County, Texas, testified before Congress earlier this year that his department has recovered bodies of those who crossed illegally at a rate of about six per month over the past six-and-a-half years.

The humanitarian dilemma has not gone unnoticed, but it still demands new rules and federal assistance to create a reliable identification system. A consortium of forensic experts formed the Reuniting Families Project (RFP) to assist in efforts to identify bodies of migrants, some of whom had been buried by the county in public cemeteries without having a DNA sample taken as required by law. The group has been unearthing public graves of migrants near the border since 2003. Since 2013, RFP has exhumed more than 120 bodies of unidentified border crossers.

Many law enforcement officers and ranch owners in Brooks County have repeatedly called for increased awareness and more resources to manage the sickening status quo, insisting it is not about the politics of immigration, but essentially a human rights issue. “If dead human beings don’t catch your attention, what the hell else is going to? We’re just trying to be human about it,” a local rancher told the Associated Press.

Hundreds of people who have died crossing the southern border are buried without ceremony, casket, or name.

Humanity toward deceased unidentified migrant border-crossers needs to be codified in law enforcement circles, as the Globe’s report made clear. East Boston resident Maria Interiano’s brother went missing two summers ago as he crossed the border illegally into Texas. It was a heartbreaking tale of dead ends as Maria tried to find out what happened to him — she didn’t even know there is a federal database, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, where her brother’s DNA profile could be found. Local law enforcement agencies are also sometimes reluctant to investigate when it’s unclear if the disappearance occurred in their jurisdiction.

Migrants should never be buried in US soil without consistent, codified efforts to identify them. The ongoing pressure at the US-Mexico border — along with beefed-up security — guarantees that there will be more extreme and dangerous efforts to cross into the United States, and certainly more tragic deaths. Federal and local authorities must work together to stop unnecessary suffering for families in the aftermath.

Saturday 8 August 2015

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/07/24/anonymous-migrant-graves-deserve-humane-policy-solution/d1DUIpiwHCpPxkZoSs79XL/story.html

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Bodies of helicopter crash victims sent to Rawalpindi

Rescue officials recovered the bodies of all the victims of Thursday’s military chopper crash and shifted them to CHM Abbottabad for DNA tests, police said on Friday.

At least 12 people, including two crew members and a medical team, were killed when a MI-17 helicopter crashed on the hilly range of Koh-e-Bhaingra near Mohar village in Lassan Nawab area on Thursday afternoon.

“It hovered over Lassan for a few seconds before exploding on the hill”, a resident of the Mohar village Dilawar said.

He believes that the pilot failed to judge the foggy weather on the hilltop, home to a thick forest.

Khwas, another resident of the same village, explained that although the crashing site was a three-hour walk away, the villagers reached for the rescue late by which time the helicopter had burnt.

The villagers, he said, were later joined by military troops and police personnel and after a 12-hour operation they recovered the bodies. Saturday 8 August 2015

http://tribune.com.pk/story/934301/final-journey-bodies-of-chopper-crash-victims-sent-to-rawalpindi/

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Ukraine buries unidentified soldiers months after eastern battle

Ukraine buried on Friday 57 soldiers still unidentified up to a year after being killed in the eastern separatist conflict, highlighting the difficulties the country faces moving on from one of its deadliest military defeats.

Mournful chants drifted over the graves of the nameless soldiers, most of whom fell in the battle of Ilovaisk last August after Ukrainian forces found themselves encircled, outgunned, and vastly outnumbered by Russian-backed rebels.

Authorities have spent months trying to identify the bodies and find relatives, but without success.

"It's horrible to think that somewhere their parents are waiting for them, their children, brothers, sisters," said local resident Olga Bondarenko, who had come to pay her respects at the cemetery in the south-eastern region of Zaporizhzhya.

Hundreds of soldiers are believed to have been killed in the encounter, but official figures are much lower.

Government efforts to recover bodies were hampered by the fact they lay in separatist-held territory.

Afterwards an unwillingness from relatives to undergo DNA testing also held up the process, news agency Interfax Ukraine quoted regional military official Oleksander Beda as saying.

"Until the end they hope that their loved ones, who were missing in action, were alive and either captured or in hospital ... You can understand them - hope dies last of all," he was quoted as saying.

In October, a parliamentary report on Ilovaisk listed a series of military mistakes and concluded that "the causes of the ... tragedy are fundamental problems in the organization of the country's system of defense".

It said it was not able to establish the true number of casualties due to a lack of data from the Ministry of Defence and General Staff.

More than 6,500 soldiers, separatists and civilians have been killed since fighting between Ukrainian troops and rebels seeking independence from Kiev erupted in April 2014, according to United Nations estimates.

Violence has continued despite a ceasefire deal signed in February with both sides accusing the other of violations. Sixteen servicemen have been killed by shelling or landmine explosions since the start of August, while 29 were killed on the frontline in July.

"To think that this could happen to our country, to our boys," Bondarenko said, her voice choking with tears.

Clouds of red dust rose into the air as soldiers shoveled earth into the graves, each marked with a plain cross and a plaque inscribed with the words: "Unknown soldier."

Saturday 8 august 2015

http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-buries-unidentified-soldiers-months-eastern-battle-153129095.html

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SS Eastland disaster: An unequaled disaster

July 24 marked the 100th anniversary of the death of the Eastland. The Eastland was, without question, the greatest disaster of all Great Lakes shipwrecks with anywhere from 800 to 1,100 casualties, although recent historians estimate approximately 844 deaths.

Source material for the tragedy of the Eastland is abundant. One cannot name any histories of the Great Lakes that do not mention the Eastland and do not recognize it as the greatest of tragedies on the Great Lakes.

For once in our accountings of Great Lakes shipwrecks, the weather, the waves or collisions were not responsible for the wreck of the Eastland.

In fact, according to Mark Bourrie’s “Many a Midnight Ship,” the seeds for the Eastland disaster were planted as she was under construction. This was a doomed ship before she saw any service. Subsequent attempts to improve the Eastland only contributed to her doomsday scenario.

The Eastland was built as a freight and passenger carrier. She was constructed at the Sidney Jenks shipyard and was launched in 1903. She was 265 feet long and had a breadth of 38 feet.

The Jenks shipyard, according to Bourrie, had very little experience building vessels that would carry passengers. That observation was also confirmed by Benjamin J. Shelak in “Shipwrecks of Lake Michigan,” who noted the four-deck passenger ship was the only one produced by this shipyard.

From the beginning the Eastland’s design flaws pointed to an eventual disaster. There were plenty of warnings. Ignored but significant were two very severe listing events in 1904 and in 1906.

The 1904 event involved a roll to starboard of approximately 20-25 degrees before the ship rolled back. 3,000 passengers were aboard and dozens complained to the newspapers and the ship owners. Both incidents resulted in mandates to reduce passenger loads.

The owners responded to the criticisms by taking out newspaper advertisements offering a reward of $5,000 to the person who could demonstrate the Eastland was unsafe. In so doing, the owners ignored the warnings of marine engineer William Wood who had worked on the Eastland and was aware of problems with the ship’s equilibrium.

Early in the day of July 24, 1915, all people could think about was the beautiful day on Lake Michigan and how fortunate they and their families would be to ride across the blue waters of Lake Michigan to the beaches near Michigan City, Indiana.

The Western Electric Co. had arranged an excursion for its employees aboard the Eastland. The company subsidy enabled their workers to purchase tickets for 75 cents.

Historical accounts, including Dwight Boyer’s “True Tales of the Great Lakes,” document numerous complaints by workers that they felt pressured by possible job loss if they did not purchase tickets. These complaints were probably well-founded, but it appears the vast majority of passengers were truly looking forward to a beautiful day with their families on a beautiful lake.

As the Eastland had her lines slipped and was under tow by a tug, she immediately began to list badly and then tipped over in the river. Hundreds were thrown from the decks to their deaths. Hundreds more were simply crushed on the river bottom by the big ship now lying on its side. Hundreds more drowned as they were trapped below the waterline.

Nothing could express the horror of the day’s events better than the many photographs found in Boyer’s book, of the faces of the rescuers and survivors as they struggled to find more bodies. The nightmarish events were accentuated by the bodies of little children, still in their Sunday clothes, being carried off to makeshift morgues.

The tipping over of the Eastland and the events leading up to the disaster suggested serious problems with metacentric height, essentially the ship’s center of gravity and the equilibrium between the distribution of weight onboard. In other words, on a flawed ship like the Eastland, the weight shift by passengers moving, in mass from one side of the ship to the other, might well be enough for the ship to lose equilibrium.

But let’s not blame the passengers. They were hardworking families from tight knit ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago. They were workers, looking forward to a beautiful day’s excursion with their families on Lake Michigan, a break from the toils and tedium of the workplace.

They were human beings who paid the ultimate price for the dishonesty, the greed, and the willful ignorance of the ship owners and their enablers, the corrupt bureaucrats.

That price amounted to the greatest loss of life in a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes, a loss that has never been approached by any subsequent shipwreck in the past 100 years.

Given the circumstances, there is every reason to believe the death toll of the Eastland will never be equaled again.

Saturday 8 August 2015

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/08/07/jim-hettinger-unequaled-disaster/31308323/

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Harda train accident: One more body found, toll rises to 30

One more body was recovered on Friday, taking the toll in twin-train tragedy near Harda station to 30. The dead, identified as Shobhnath Pasi, 55, was a native of Badka Dela village in Phoolpur tehsil of Uttar Pradesh's Allahabad district. Pasi, who was working in a powerloom in Mumbai, was travelling from Mumbai to Allahabad in Kamanyani Express's general bogie.

Shobhnath Pasi, 55, was a resident of Badka Dela village under Phoolpur tehsil of Uttar Pradesh's Allahabad district. Pasi was living in Mumbai and working in a powerloom factory. He was travelling from Mumbai to Allahabad in Kamanyani Express's general bogie when the accident took place.

"His son Rakesh Pasi, who came to Harda after hearing about the incident, identified him," Harda SP Prem Babu Sharma told TOI. "13 passengers are still missing and rescue operations are underway," he said.

Sources said the toll may cross 40. If they were alive, they could have been traced by now or would have approached family members.

Kin of 25 people have lodged missing complaints about their near and dear up to Friday. Of these, eight people were identified from the bodies sent to Bhopal and four were found alive in Harda, but the whereabouts of remaining 13 could not be traced so far.

District police have launched a 24x7 helpdesk at Harda railway station to provide information to kin of those missing.

On Friday, rescue operations by state disaster relief force, national disaster relief force and local administration continued. Officials said relief work would continue for next couple of days. Derailed bogies and debris are yet to be removed from the accident site.

Several passengers were trapped in two bogies of Janata Express perilously hanging while three wrecked compartments telescoped into the Kamayani Express. The accident took place near Mandla village under Khirkiya tehsil of Harda district.

Mumbai lad recounts harrowing experience at mortuary

Mumbai resident Ajay Patel's family members were taken out dead from the wreckage of Janata Express by rescue workers at Harda. Four bodies wrapped in sheets, tossed on the slush at the tragedy site for identification and then stuffed into an ambulance van to Bhopal, where it was shoved into a frigid morgue. Sixty hours later, Ajay, who is just out of high school, is struggling to get custody of the bodies for performing last rites. It was a traumatic journey from Kalyan railway station, where he first heard the tragic news to a roller-coaster ride to Harda ground zero and then a harrowing experience at the morgue at Hamidia Hospital, Bhopal.

Ajay only had a fleeting glimpse of his parent's decomposed bodies. He cringed as he pointed out to mortuary officials that they were his own. Now, he's still waiting to get custody of the bodies for funeral. With no coordination between police, doctors and railway officials, many like Ajay are getting trapped in red tape of babudom.

"I was waiting at Kalyan railway station to receive my parents, aunt and cousin. It was then that I heard about the accident. I dialled the helpline number and heard the shocking news. I did not know much about Harda or Bhopal. I and my uncle headed for Harda in a taxi as trains were diverted. We scoured photographs of the dead put up at notice board at Harda railway station and then reached Bhopal. I waited at BMHRC morgue for three hours and still didn't get the bodies. I spent sleepless night in the open at the hospital campus. In the morning, we were told, the bodies were taken to another hospital for autopsy," he said.

Since Friday morning, Ajay is waiting outside mortuary at Gandhi Medical College for the autopsy to end. "There's nobody to lend a helping hand. There's so much red tape even after a national tragedy," he said. His parents, Baliram, 47, Hari Bai, 44, aunt, Shashi, 35 and cousin Satyam, 11, died after the coach in which they were travelling sank into the swollen Machak river after two trains derailed on the bridge.

Ajay is eldest in the family and his two younger siblings, brother Vikas, 16 and sister Manju, 18, are in Kalyan, Mumbai, still unaware of what has happened.

The bodies were taken out of GMC Hospital after autopsy late afternoon and Ajay hired two hearses for railway station.

Ajay's is not the only sordid tale. Families of victims are having a tough time dealing with administration as officials of Railways and district administration are not in sync. Arman Shah, who lost his elder brother, Ramzan Shah, 23, had to also struggle to get the autopsy done and take the body home. Two railway officials, including ticket examiners, were also present at the hospital on Friday. "What we can do? Police and doctors do not listen to us. Railway brass should take note of the situation," they said.

Kamayani Express, headed for Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh from Mumbai, derailed near Harda town, 160 km south of Bhopal, shortly before midnight. The Janata Express, en route to Mumbai from Patna, too derailed at the same spot minutes later. A total of 30 bodies have been recovered so far, besides, at least 13 passengers are still missing.

Saturday 8 August 2015

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/One-more-body-found-toll-30/articleshow/48399401.cms

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/60-hrs-after-tragedy-Mumbai-lad-recounts-harrowing-experience-at-morturary/articleshow/48399415.cms

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Nepal earthquake: 5 foreign nationals identified through DNA test

Nepal Police has confirmed the death of five foreigners reported missing in the Great Earthquake based on DNA verification.

The Central Police Forensic Science Laboratory (CPFSL) had conducted DNA profiling of the severed body parts recovered from various parts of the country and cross-matched the details with the DNA reports of the missing foreigners sent by Interpol.

Nepal Police had received DNA reports of 11 foreigners who were reported missing in Nepal by their families in the wake of the April 25 earthquake. The DNA reports that were sent from France, Canada and Spain are being used to match the DNA profiling conducted by the police laboratory of the remains.

Among the identified are three French, a Canadian and a Spanish national.

Police said the DNA profiling report sent to them from concerned nations was done on the basis of items used by these nationals before their departure to Nepal. DNA was extracted from a toothbrush of one of the foreign nationals, while blood stain in the razor was used for another.

The CPFSL conducts DNA profiling through blood, bone and hair with its root, among others. In case of bone, it is drilled and crushed into powdered form. Also, a process known as de-calcification is conducted to remove the calcium content in the bone which is then processed in a machine called the automated express to isolate the DNA.

“Following the isolation, the quantity of extracted DNA is studied which after some other complex processes will eventually lead to genotyping also known as DNA profiling,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police Rakesh Singh. “We had to rely on Indian laboratories for such tests. But since a year, we have been able to conduct the profiling in police laboratory itself. And it has been used extensively after the earthquake to help identify the deceased.”

Similarly, CPFSL were also able to identify additional three dead bodies of foreigners through their fingerprints. The identified people are from Germany, Spain and Britain. In case of the British national, the authorities there were able to produce the fingerprint through his used tea-cup that had remained unattended ever since he left for Nepal. The fingerprint was used to match with the analysis conducted at the police laboratory.

Senior Superintendent of Police Janak Singh, chief of CPFSL said at present DNA and fingerprint analysis of over 40 appendages are underway that will help in identifying the details of the people who died in the earthquake.

Friday 7 August 2015

http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2015/08/06/news/5-missing-identified-through-dna-test/279267.html

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Remains in Matterhorn Identified as 2 Japanese Missing Since 1970

Local police in Valais, Switzerland, said that remains found at the foot of the Matterhorn in 2014 have been identified as two Japanese climbers who had been missing for 45 years.

According to a police press release, the bodies were discovered in September 2014 at an altitude of about 2,800 meters. Forensic scientists had been conducting DNA testing and were able to identify the remains as two Japanese missing since Aug. 18, 1970. Searches at the time hadn’t located the two.

The Japanese foreign ministry confirmed that the bodies were the remains of Masayuki Kobayashi and Michio Oikawa, who were 21 and 22 years old when they went missing, respectively.

Local police said they have contacted the Japanese consulate in Geneva and have been in touch with family members of the two climbers in Japan.

The police said they have kept a record of those missing at the mountain since 1925. Bodies of some alpinists have been discovered as higher temperatures cause glaciers to retreat.

Friday 7 August 2015

http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/08/07/remains-in-matterhorn-identified-as-2-japanese-missing-since-1970/

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Afghan army helicopter crashes, killing all 17 aboard

An Afghan military helicopter crashed, killing all 17 people on board on Thursday, officials said, in a blow for a fledgling air force whose resources have been stretched since the withdrawal of most international troops last year.

The Taliban, mounting a growing insurgency, said it shot down the helicopter in the southern province of Zabul, but a government official blamed a technical failure and said there had been no gunfire.

Twelve soldiers and five crew died, said Gul Islam Seyal, a government spokesman in Zabul, on the same day as two suicide attacks blamed on the militant group. Thousands have been killed and wounded since the start of the year.

"There were two helicopters ... One of them had a technical problem and contacted the other one and informed the pilot of an emergency landing. As soon as it landed, it caught fire," Seyal said.

Provincial police chief Mirwais Noorzai said the cause of the helicopter crash was not yet known and was under investigation. The Defense Ministry said the crash appeared to have been caused by a technical problem, without elaborating.

Afzal Aman, the Defense Ministry's chief of operations, described it as "the worst calamity to hit the air force." He confirmed the casualty figure, and said the dead included a unit commander and 11 soldiers, as well as the crew.

Afghanistan's military has about 150 aircraft and 390 pilots, just a fraction of the air power that NATO used to fly support, evacuation and supply sorties before last year's drawdown.

The bulk of the Afghan fleet is made up of aging Mi-17 transport aircraft, but it was not immediately clear what type of helicopter was involved in the crash.

Friday 7 August 2015

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/06/us-afghanistan-helicopter-idUSKCN0QB0QF20150806

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Cypriot officials say they may have found Greek aircraft shot down in 1974

Cypriot officials searching for the remains of a Greek military plane that crashed 41 years ago believe they may have discovered the aircraft buried near a war memorial on the outskirts of Nicosia.

The discovery of shards of metal has raised hopes that the bodies of the 19 soldiers still believed to be inside the plane’s incinerated fuselage could be recovered and returned to their families.

The Nord Noratlas, a Greek military transport aircraft, was brought down by friendly fire in the opening days of Turkey’s invasion of the island in 1974, with just one survivor among the 32 people on board. Twelve bodies were collected and identified from the crash site, but 19 soldiers remain unaccounted for.

Fotis Fotiou, the humanitarian affairs commissioner for Cyprus, said: “Initial findings are positive that the aircraft is here. My message to the relatives is that we will do whatever it takes to find the remains of their loved ones so they can be buried according to our Orthodox Christian customs and traditions, as well as with all appropriate honours.”

Fotiou said the second, more intensive phase of the dig will begin next week, with the assistance of experts from countries including Canada, Australia and the Netherlands, who specialise in military-related excavations.

He said possible explosives and ammunition may still be inside the aircraft’s fuselage, making the recovery work particularly risky.

Xenophon Kallis, an official at the Cyprus foreign ministry, said shards of aluminium and other metal found during the initial phase of the operation has boosted confidence that the aircraft is there.

The Noratlas crashed as it was coming in to land at Nicosia airport in the early hours of 22 July 1974.

The plane went down under withering volleys of friendly fire from the airport’s Greek Cypriot defenders, who were fearful of an imminent landing by invading Turkish forces to take the strategically important area.

It was one of 13 aircraft that arrived from Greece to help defend against the invasion, triggered when supporters of Cyprus uniting with Greece mounted a short-lived coup. The island has since been separated into a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north and an internationally recognised Greek Cypriot south.

Accounts from the time suggest word of the plane’s arrival reached the airport’s defenders too late. Fire from anti-aircraft batteries and other small arms tore through the Noratlas, which burst into flames and crashed several hundred metres from the now defunct airport that straddles a UN-controlled buffer zone.

The remains of 12 soldiers scattered around the crash site, which were collected and buried at a Nicosia cemetery, have been identified through DNA analysis.

But in two separate instances, families mistakenly received remains they should not have. The mistake was rectified after remains found later at the Nicosia cemetery were positively identified and returned.

Friday 8 August 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/06/cyprus-greek-military-plane-shot-down-1974-discovery-nicosia

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Pakistan military helicopter crashes in northwest; 11 killed

A Pakistani military helicopter crashed in a mountainous region in the country's restive northwest on Thursday, killing at least 11 people on board, police said.

The helicopter, which serves as a medical assistance aircraft, was on the way to the northern town of Gilgit when it went down near the district of Mansehra in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said local police official Fida Khan.

"Rescuers have so far retrieved 11 bodies from the wreckage," he said, adding that the cause of the crash was unclear and that an investigation was underway.

However, a senior army officer told The Associated Press that the helicopter was carrying 12 people- including military doctors, paramedics and crew members - and was flying to Gilgit to evacuate a critically ill soldier when it went down, apparently because of bad weather.

The officer said the helicopter had taken off from Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital, Islamabad. It crashed near Mansehra, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) northeast of the city of Peshawar. The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to reporters, had no other details and said the army had dispatched troops to the site of the crash.

The crash came months after another army helicopter crashed in the northern town of Naltar, killing four foreigners - ambassadors to Islamabad from the Philippines and Norway, as well as the wives of the ambassadors from Malaysia and Indonesia. Three crew members from the army were also killed at the time.

It took rescue workers at least two hours to reach the crash site due to the difficult mountainous terrain, Mushtaq Ghani, information minister of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told reporters.

Earlier in the day, another helicopter of the Pakistan Air Force had crashed in the tourist Chitral Valley near the Afghanistan border, which left several people injured. The PAF helicopter was also engaged in rescue operations in flood-hit areas.

On May 8, the ambassadors of Norway and the Philippines were among seven people killed in a helicopter crash in the northern Gilgit district's Niltar valley, a popular skiing destination near the border with China.

Pakistan's army has been fighting local and foreign militants in the country's northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan for nearly a decade. The military launched a major offensive in the North Waziristan tribal region last year and claims it has cleared 90 percent of the region of militants.

North Waziristan was considered to be the headquarters of the Pakistani Taliban until June 2014, when the army launched the long-awaited operation there.

Friday 7 August 2015

http://www.newswest9.com/story/29726028/pakistan-military-helicopter-crashes-in-northwest-11-killed

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Madhya Pradesh train accident: Toll may cross 50 as many feared washed away

The death toll in Tuesday’s train derailments in Madhya Pradesh reached 34 but it could cross 50 as rescuers and relatives feared flash floods that caused the fatal accidents washed away many passengers on board the two packed trains.

The Kamayani Express on its way to Varanasi from Mumbai derailed shortly before midnight on Tuesday near Harda town while the Janata Express travelling in the opposite direction to Mumbai from Patna slid off the tracks soon after. The trains derailed after flash floods set off by torrential rains weakened tracks over the swollen Kala Machak river.

Officials said three more bodies — including two women — were fished out from Kala Machak on Thursday but the toll could be much higher as more than a dozen families reached Harda and nearby towns looking for missing relatives who were travelling in the two trains.

These families reported 17 missing passengers but when they were shown photos of a dozen unidentified bodies, the identity of only two could be ascertained.

“This indicates 15 missing people might add to the list of 31 declared dead so far,” an official said.

The administration directed officials to look for bodies that might have washed away 15-20km downstream after the National Disaster Response Force team stopped their rescue efforts on Thursday.

Family members recounted their frustration after repeated rounds of hospitals, police stations and Harda railway station for news about their missing loved ones.

Thursday 6 August 2015

http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/mp-train-accident-toll-may-cross-50-as-many-feared-washed-away/article1-1377251.aspx

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More than 200 feared dead in sinking of migrant boat in Mediterranean

Hopes faded of finding more survivors on Thursday from a shipwreck in which 200 migrants are feared drowned, as rescue ships were called to the aid of more migrant boats in the same area of the Mediterranean.

"We are witnessing a genocide caused by European selfishness," said Palermo mayor Leoluca Orlando as the Irish navy ship LE Niamh docked in the port carrying some 370 survivors of Wednesday's disaster and 25 corpses, including three children.

Orlando, speaking on Italian television as hearses arrived to take the bodies away, called on European leaders to do more to prevent such disasters and to allow more refugees to re-settle in their countries.

A police official told reporters a distraught woman from the boat had been searching for her three children who had gone missing in the crossing. She was taken to view bodies and came out weeping, said the officer, though it was not clear whether she had seen her family.

Police said they had detained five men suspected of having piloted the boat that overturned on Wednesday and of having had a role in trafficking the migrants.

Vessels from the Italian and Irish navies and humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) saved about 400 people from the fishing boat, thought to have been carrying up to 600 people, mostly Syrians fleeing their country's civil war.

Cmdr Filippo Marini of the Italian coast guard said survivors had indicated that between 400 and 600 people were on board the boat when it capsized.

Melissa Fleming, a UN refugee agency (UNHCR) spokeswoman, said about 100 people are thought to have been travelling in the boat's hull at the time, adding: "The boat capsized very fast".

They found no more survivors after scouring the waters overnight. Italian vessels continued to search the area on Thursday, a coastguard spokesman said.

Seas were very calm on Thursday, perfect conditions to attempt the sea crossing, said a Reuters photographer aboard the privately funded Phoenix, a vessel run by MSF and the Migrant Offshore Aid Station.

The Phoenix was responding to a distress call for a boat carrying about 500 people, he said. The coastguard picked up 381 on Thursday morning, while an Italy navy ship took 101 from a large rubber boat, and the MSF vessel Argos rescued 87, according to their Twitter accounts.

Wednesday's tragedy occurred when the boat flipped over as the LE Niamh approached, probably because desperate passengers surged to one side as they spotted the ship.

"What happened here was because the boat was so overloaded, and the conditions were such that the boat started taking on water and it listed to one side, capsized and sank, all in the space of two minutes," Irish Defence Minister Simon Coveney said on Irish state radio RTE on Thursday.

The Irish ship is part of the European Union Triton mission, which was expanded after up to 800 migrants drowned in a shipwreck in April.

DEADLY BORDER AREA

The Mediterranean Sea is the world's most deadly border area for migrants. More than 2,000 migrants and refugees have died so far this year trying to reach Europe by boat, compared with 3,279 during the whole of last year, the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday.

People-smugglers, mostly based in Libya and charging thousands of dollars for passage, have sent more than 90,000 migrants by sea to Italy so far this year, the UN refugee agency says. Italy took in 170,000 in 2014.

This summer's mass arrivals in both Italy and Greece show the crisis is worsening. Immigrants fleeing violence and poverty at home continue to pour in from Africa and the Middle East.

Many of the newcomers look to move swiftly to wealthier northern Europe, including to Britain from Calais, France.

In April, a 20-metre (66-foot) vessel capsized as it approached a merchant ship that had come to its assistance, and up to 900 people were killed. It was the deadliest shipwreck in the Mediterranean for decades and a symbol of Europe's long-running migrant crisis.

Thursday 6 August 2015

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/08/06/uk-europe-migrants-italy-idUKKCN0QB0SN20150806

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20 more bodies recovered from Langtang landslide site

Twenty more bodies have been recovered from Langtang in Rasuwa district three months after the Great Earthquake on April 25. The bodies, retrieved from the landslide debris, have badly decomposed are waiting to be airlifted to Kathmandu for DNA testing, the Home Ministry said on Tuesday.

Chief District Officer (CDO) of Rasuwa Shiva Ram Gelal said the bodies could not be transported to the Forensic Unit of the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital on Tuesday due to (TUTH) as the helicopter could not fly in due to adverse weather conditions.

Locals of the Langtang VDC informed the authorities after they discovered the bodies, according to police. Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Prabin Pokhrel of the district said the locals have claimed that the bodies were that of their family and relatives.

More than 100 complaints of missing people had been lodged in the wake of the massive earthquake that devastated Rasuwa district, a major tourist destination. Out of them, 21 are locals, 61 are not native of the district, while 22 are foreigners.

A Home Ministry record shows 660 people were killed by the April 25 quake in Rasuwa district. A total of 8,898 people lost their lives in the earthquake across the country.

The bodies or other human remains of the earthquake victims that could not be identified have been undergoing DNA testing at the Central Police Forensic Science Laboratory (CPFSL) of Nepal Police.

A total of 53 samples have been tested for a DNA match, police said. People can apply for a DNA test to identity the body or mortal remains of their kin by depositing their blood sample at the district police office. The samples will be then forwarded to the CPFSL where they are put through test for a DNA match.

Of the total 12 blood samples of foreigners sent for such tests, the CPFSL has so far identified body parts of five foreigners. No blood samples have been collected from Nepali people, police said.

Samples are collected and processed in bulk for DNA tests because of the cost factor, according to DSP Singh. “We collect at least 50 samples before we put them through the test. The test results will arrive after a month to three months,” he said.

Wednesday 5 August 2015

http://www.ekantipur.com/2015/08/05/top-story/20-more-bodies-of-quake-victims-recovered-in-langtang/408945.html

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Naupada building collapse kills 12, injures 7

Around 2.30am on Tuesday, while residents of Krishna Niwas were asleep, the 50-year-old building in Naupada collapsed, killing 12 and injuring seven.

An earth-shattering thud awoke everyone in the building as well as vicinity, with locals rushing to the spot and informing local corporator Sanjay Waghole. He alerted the fire brigade and Thane Municipal Corporation's (TMC) disaster management cell. A team of 50 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) officials from Andheri reached the spot around 4.15am and began rescue operations.

With NDRF's help, fire brigade officials and locals completed the rescue work within eight hours. The injured were taken to Thane civil hospital.

"We used various equipment, including sniffer dogs, who helped us locate victims stuck in the rubble. We also used were air-lifting bags and victim location camera," said Sachidanand Gawde, deputy commander-in-chief, NDRF.

"It was the moral support from locals, some of whom helped us identify where the victims could have been stuck. Our sniffer dogs identified such locations efficiently."

Even before the rescue teams arrived, locals had managed to rescue an 80-year-old, who stayed on the third floor and was recognised by the locals. Nene has suffered head injuries and is recuperating at the hospital.

Interestingly, the three-storey building, located in the heart of the city, was due for redevelopment and, hence, the TMC had not served any evacuation notice to the residents, who were staying here on Pagdi system. This is the second incident of building collapse in a week, the first being the Thakurli collapse in Dombivli on July 28, which killed nine and injured 11.

Sanjay More, mayor (TMC), said, "The building was constructed in 1962. It was due for redevelopment and appropriate steps were taken by owner Hemant Patil. However, due to family disputes of ownership, the matter was sub judice and, hence, no notice was issued to this building. Many residents were saved as the building tilted left and collapsed. Thus, no other building in the vicinity was damaged."

Minister of state for urban development Ranjit Patil, who visited the site, said, "Buildings that have completed more than 30 years should get a structural audit done. All civic bodies need to be alert and take appropriate measures."

Wednesday 5 August 2015

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-naupada-building-collapse-kills-12-injures-7-2111163

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Lake Victoria accident: At least 30 feared dead after boat capsizes near Remba Island, Kenya

At least 30 people are feared dead after a boat carrying 200 passengers capsized in Lake Victoria according to Citizen TV Kenya, a local television network. The accident reportedly occurred early Wednesday.

Three bodies, of which two are children, have been recovered so far, local media reported. However, local fishermen at Nyandiwa Beach said that nine people were killed, Daily Nation newspaper reported. The cause of the accident is not clear, however, some local media reports said two boats collided resulting in the accident.

Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake and its waters spread across Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. About 5,000 fishermen die each year due to storms on Lake Victoria, according to a report last month in New Vision, a Ugandan daily, citing a survey by Makerere University School of Public Health in Kampala, Uganda.

The Kenya Red Cross Society tweeted saying that it has sent a rescue team to Lake Victoria where a boat carrying 200 passengers capsized early Wednesday.

The accident happened near Remba, a tiny island in the middle of Lake Victoria, is known as “Slum Island”.

A few thousand people, mainly fishermen, make their home on this busy outpost on the border between Uganda and Kenya. One-room shacks are the norm here, and the fishermen almost literally live on top of each other: they share shacks, with one group sleeping in the day while the other fishes, and then they swap at night.

Wednesday 5 August 2015

http://news.yahoo.com/least-2-dead-kenya-boat-200-people-capsizes-060850733.html

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More than 2,000 migrant deaths in Mediterranean in 2015

More than 2,000 people have died so far this year trying to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe, the International Organisation for Migration said on Tuesday, making it the world's most dangerous migrant route.

"Unfortunately, we have now reached a milestone whereby over 2,000 migrants and refugees have died as of this past weekend," IOM spokesman Itayi Virri told reporters in Geneva.

The organisation said around 188,000 people had been rescued so far this year trying to cross the Mediterranean, and warned the 200,000-mark could be crossed by the end of the week.

IOM said the latest toll confirms "this route as the deadliest for migrants in search of a better life," and warned the situation was worsening.

During the same period last year, 1,607 migrants had perished trying to make the journey, with 3,279 dying in all of 2014.

Nearly all of the people flooding across the Mediterranean so far this year, often in rickety boats and at the mercy of human traffickers, have landed in Italy (97,000) and Greece (90,500), the IOM said.

Virri said the so-called central Mediterranean route had proved by far the deadliest, with just over 1,930 people dying trying to cross from Libya to Italy so far this year, while only about 60 had died trying to reach Greece.

The IOM said that traffickers taking people to Italy tended to use more unseaworthy vessels, leading to the higher death toll.

While lamenting the tragic milestone of more than 2,000 deaths, Mr Virri pointed out that increased European Union efforts since April to rescue migrants at sea meant "a lot of people have been saved who otherwise would have lost their lives."

Nineteen people had lost their lives in the Channel of Sicily last week alone, with the bodies of 14 migrants brought to the Sicilian port of Messina on July 29. They had been travelling with 456 others who were rescued.

And on Monday, 550 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean over the weekend arrived in Sicily aboard a ship operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which also carried the bodies of five people who died at sea.

The migrants who were brought to safety in Palermo had been travelling on several different boats and were rescued over the weekend, the aid group said.

The victims, four women and one man, were found dead on a boat that was rescued on Saturday with 112 people on board. They died, according to initial tests, as a result of dehydration.

Shocked survivors said their rickety boat had only left Libya's shores for Italy 13 hours before they were rescued. In that short time, five of the children on board lost a parent.

Wednesday 5 August 2015

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11782584/More-than-2000-migrant-deaths-in-Mediterranean-in-2015-says-monitoring-group.html

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