Flydubai plane crash

Flydubai said on Saturday that it will organise a "programme of hardship payments" of $20,000 to each victims' families to address their immediate financial needs.

The Dubai airliner with 62 people on board nosedived and exploded in a giant fireball early on Saturday while trying to land in strong winds in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, killing all aboard, officials said.

"At present, our priority is to identify and contact the families of those lost in today’s tragic accident and provide immediate support to those affected. flydubai will additionally organise a programme of hardship payments to the families amounting to $20,000 per passenger, in accordance with our Conditions of Carriage, with the aim of addressing immediate financial needs," a flydubai spokesperson said.

Flydubai to confirm passengers' names

Flydubai will release the names of those on board fatal flight FZ981 after it has contacted the families of the 62 passengers and crew members on board, the airline said late on Saturday.

In an emailed statement, the airline said: “Our priority is the extension of all possible care and respect to the families of the passengers and crew of flight FZ981.”

“We are currently in the process of contacting all families that have lost loved ones as a result of this tragic accident. It is a process that will take a little time but as a mark of respect to the families of the bereaved, we want to make every effort to inform them directly prior to releasing the full passenger manifest.”

A list of names of all 55 passengers on board, including 4 children, was released on Saturday morning by Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry. Flydubai has said the passengers were 44 Russians, 8 Ukrainians, 2 Indians and 1 Uzbekistani. A full list of names and some nationalities of crew members was also released by the ministry.

The Russian Embassy in the United Arab Emirates, flydubai and the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) later confirmed the nationalities of crew members, including pilots. They were 2 Spaniards and one each from Russia, Columbia, Cyprus and Kyrgyzstan.

Flight recorders recovered

The flight data recorder and cockpit data recorder from the flydubai plane that crashed on Saturday have been recovered by the local accident investigation team at the crash site in Russia, Flydubai confirmed in a Facebook post.

Russia's Emergencies Ministry said most of the passengers were Russians, and seven crew members of various nationalities. Flydubai confirmed that there were no survivors and said four children were among those killed.

The powerful explosion pulverised the plane but investigators quickly recovered both flight recorders. The cause of the crash wasn't immediately known, but officials and experts pointed at a sudden gust of wind as a possible reason. Related story: Flydubai sees first tragedy

"Our primary concern is for the families of the passengers and crew who were on board. Everyone at flydubai is in deep shock and our hearts go out to the families and friends of those involved," said CEO Gaith Al Gaith. The airline said it was in the process of contacting all families of the victims. Related story: Russian consulate in UAE to fast-track visa, consular services to family of victims

No distress call made

Al Gaith said that the pilots, who were from Cyprus and Spain, hadn't issued any distress signal before the crash. They had 5,965 and 5,769 hours of flying time respectively, making them "quite experienced," Al Gaith added. The cabin crew included two Russians and citizens of Seychelles, Colombia and Kyrgyzstan.

“I can confirm a far as I can see there was no distress call,” Al Ghaith said at a press conference in Dubai on Saturday.

The aircraft, a five year old Boeing 737-800, went through a heavy maintenance check just two months ago, Al Ghaith also said. The flight departed Dubai International at 12:20am on Saturday. The accident occured at 4:50am Dubai time.

There were 55 passengers and 7 crew members on board. The nationalities of the passengers have been confirmed as 44 Russians, 8 Ukrainians, 2 Indians and 1 Uzbekistani. Of the passengers 33 were women, 18 were men and 4 were children.

The United Arab Emirates’ General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) said there were 2 female and 5 male crew members. Their nationalities were 1 Cypriot, 2 Spaniard, 1 Russian, 1 Seychellois, and 1 Columbian and 1 Kyrgyzstani. It is understood the pilots were Cypriot and Spanish.

The GCAA has sent a four-person team to Moscow who will then travel onwards to Rostov-on-Don to assist Russian authorities in the investigation into the incident, GCAA assistant director general for air accident investigation Ismail Al Hosani said.

Flydubai has sent an emergency response team directly to the site, Al Ghaith said. The flydubai chief declined to comment on what might have caused the accident, telling reporters it was too early to speculate.

“We cannot judge right now what has happened until our team get the full information about the incident,” he said. Al Hosani said the GCAA isn’t ruling anything out.

Strong winds eyed as cause of crash

Rostov regional Governor Vasily Golubev said that "by all appearances, the cause of the air crash was the strongly gusting wind, approaching a hurricane level."

According to the weather data reported by Russian state television, winds at ground level weren't dangerously strong at the moment of the crash, but at an altitude of 500 metres (1,640 feet) and higher they reached a near-hurricane speed of around 30 meters per second (67 miles per hour).

Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for the flight-tracking website Flightradar24, told The Associated Press that the plane missed its approach then entered a holding pattern.

According to Flightradar24, the plane circled for about two hours before making another landing attempt. It said a Russian Aeroflot plane scheduled to land around the same time made three landing attempts but then diverted to another airport.

According to its data, the plane began climbing again after a go-around when it suddenly started to fall with vertical speed of up to 6,400 metres per minute (21,000 feet/min).

The closed-circuit TV footage showed the plane going down in a steep angle and exploding.

Al Gaith said the plane attempted to land in line with established procedures.

"As far as we know the airport was open and we were good to operate," he said, adding that they couldn't have landed without air traffic controllers' permission.

Al Gaith said the pilots hadn't issued any distress call and hadn't attempted to divert to an alternate airport.

"It was an uncontrollable fall," said Sergei Kruglikov, a veteran Russian pilot, said on Russian state television. He said that a sudden change in wind speed and direction could have caused the wings to abruptly lose their lifting power.

He said that the pilots would have understood seconds before the crash that they were going to die, but "passengers and the cabin crew likely didn't realise they were facing imminent death."

Pilot Vitaly Sokolovsky told Rossiya 24 television that a sudden gust of wind could be particularly dangerous at low altitude while the plane was flying slowly at low power and the pilot was throttling up the engines to make another run.

President Vladimir Putin offered his condolences to the victims' families and top Russian Cabinet officials flew to the crash site to oversee the investigation.

In a statement expressing "shock and grief," Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades confirmed that the pilot was a Cypriot national, Aristos Socratous from Limassol.

Officials said the plane and bodies of the victims were torn into small pieces by the powerful blast, making identification difficult. Investigators said they were working on the plane's cockpit conversation recorder and another one recording parameters of the flight.

The pilots on board have flown a combined 10,000 hours. They were experienced pilots. There were 2 Russian crew members on board.

One of the two flight data recorders was found at the crash site, and the search for the second one is ongoing, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Of the seven crew members, one was from Cyprus, two from Spain, one Colombian, one Seychelles and one from Kyrgyz Republic, said Alexander Efimov. Russian ambassador to the UAE. It was earlier reported that one of the crew member was Russian.

Boeing ready to provide assistance

US plane maker Boeing says it is ready to provide assistance to the investigation into the fatal flydubai crash in Russia.

“Boeing’s thoughts and prayers are with those on board flydubai flight FZ981 and their families and friends. Boeing stands ready to provide technical assistance upon the request of government agencies conducting the investigation,” Boeing said in a statement on its website.

Sunday 20 March 2015

http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/emergencies/flydubai-plane-crash-airline-to-give-victims-families-20-000-each-1.1693032

continue reading

Orakzai mine collapse toll rises to 10

More than 30 miners were trapped in the mountainous Orakzai tribal region after a shaft collapsed amid heavy downpours on Saturday, according to the political administration of the district.

Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in a statement has termed the mine explosion a ‘natural disaster’.

The surviving labourers have said that the digging in the coalmine has been illegal.

On Sunday emergency responders were struggling to rescue two missing miners, with officials saying it was unclear whether they were still alive.

A military statement issued late Saturday said more than 100 troops from the army and paramilitary Frontier Corps were helping to operate heavy machinery at the site and providing medical support.

“Apparently torrential rains were the main cause of the collapse but usually the management of such coal mines do not care about safety standards,” the political agent of Orakzai region Zubair Khan said.

The mines in Pakistan are notorious for poor safety standards and bad ventilation.

At least 43 workers were killed in March 2011 when explosions triggered a collapse in a coal mine in southwestern Baluchistan province, which is rich in gas, oil and mineral deposits.

Monday 14 March 2015

http://arynews.tv/en/orakzai-mine-collapse-toll-rises-to-10/

continue reading

Best way to identify a missing person? It’s all in the soles of your feet

Efforts to identify bodies of victims of natural disasters or people with dementia who are under protective custody using the soles of the feet are underway in Japan as the system is expected to help speed up the identification process once it comes into effect.

The move is led by former members of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), who argue that skin ridge patterns of feet because they remain intact for one’s lifetime can serve like fingerprints since they are unique among individuals.

Akira Mitsuzane, 68, former head of the MPD’s first investigation division that handles crimes including murders and robberies, and Hideo Kaneko, 69, a former member of the MPD’s crime scene investigation division, came upon the idea of using feet ridge patterns after the earthquake and tsunami disaster in March 2011.

They witnessed multiple cases in which family members of victims had the wrong bodies identified as police, who tried to return victims’ bodies to their families as quickly as possible, misidentified the bodies as they relied on victims’ clothing and other body traits for the identification.

“It takes time and money to conduct DNA analysis and you can’t always obtain fingerprints. For the purpose of identification (of bodies) alone, ridge patterns of feet have some more suitable characters,” said Kaneko.

Ridge patterns are usually taken from an area right under toes and they are preserved in many cases since the skin is thicker and the area protected by shoes, even though other parts of the body might be damaged in disasters.

It takes time and money to conduct DNA analysis and you can’t always obtain fingerprints. Mitsuzane believes people are more inclined to register their feet ridge patterns as opposed to fingerprints due to privacy concerns and the risk of the unintended use of information.

It is necessary to preregister and store one’s ridge pattern information to run the identification system, but collecting data only requires placing a foot on a scanner.

Asked by Mitsuzane and others, a major electric appliance maker has developed a portable scanner prototype, which weighs around 20 kilograms, and is capable of instantly scanning and storing data.

The fact that many demented elderly are under protective custody but unable to be identified is a serious issue as well.

According to the 2014 statistics by the MPD, the number of reported missing seniors who are believed to suffer from dementia is 10,783 in Japan. Also, 75 victims of the March 2011 disaster still remain unidentified as of the end of February 2016.

“The use of foot ridge patterns can be an effective preparation for the future,” said Mitsuzane, adding that some 20,000 and over 300,000 victims would be expected in the event of a possible Tokyo inland earthquake and the Nankai Trough earthquake, respectively.

“The fact that many demented elderly are under protective custody but unable to be identified is a serious issue as well,” Mitsuzane said.

Monday 14 March 2016

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1924570/best-way-identify-missing-person-its-all-soles-your-feet

continue reading

The search for Vietnam's war dead: Largest ever DNA identification project is underway to name those who perished 40 years ago

Over forty years after the end of the Vietnam War, the remains of nameless civilians and fighters are still being unearthed.

Now efforts have begun to identify the bones of half a million Vietnamese people who went missing during the conflict between 1955 and 1975.

Experts are using DNA technologies to test the remains found around the country in the largest identification effort ever attempted.

Vietnam veteran and genomics pioneer Craig Venter told Nature: 'When I was a 21-year-old in the medical corps there, I never imagined that such a project could ever become possible.

'We thought of body counts as statistics — now, decades later, it may be possible to put names to them.'

Vietnam has only been able to identify a few hundred of its war dead so far using old technologies, leaving thousands of families still desperate to give their long-lost relatives a proper funeral.

In 2014, the Vietnamese government promised to invest 500 billion dong ($25 million or £17 million) in upgrading three existing DNA testing centres so they would be up to the morbid task.

And last month it signed a training contract with Hamburg-based medical diagnostics firm Bioglobe to get Vietnamese DNA experts up to speed with the new technology.

Bioglobe's CEO, Wolfgang Höppner, has said the project still faces considerable challenges.

These include the country's humid conditions, which can degrade the DNA of bodies that were buried in shallow graves decades ago.

The sheer numbers of bones involved is also a hurdle to overcome, meaning a systematic approach is vital, as well as the production of a vast bank of DNA collected from the current population.

An outreach programme is planned to collect saliva samples from volunteers, but since the war was decades ago, samples may have to come from distant relatives whose DNA is less similar, making the task more difficult.

Experts will use kits made by another German-based company called Qiagen, which are designed to reveal as much DNA as possible from tricky sources such as old bones.

They will use these to extract DNA from powdered bone samples before comparing multiple sequences against a set of genomic markers. This will produce a unique DNA profile. The team will also use techniques developed by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).

Finished genetic profiles will be checked against the database of the modern population to try and find living relatives of the dead.

The Sarajevo-based ICMP helped to identify nearly all the people who were killed in the Srebrenica massacre of 1995 as well as others slain during the conflict.

They will now help to train Vietnamese scientists taking on the new momentous identification project.

It will rely on people to come forward with knowledge about where bodies may be buried, as well as military intelligence, unlike in Bosnia where satellite imagery could be used to find mass graves.

Truong Nam Hai, head of the Institute of Biotechnology at the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology – the site of the first upgraded lab – hopes that by next year when the labs are up and running, the remains of between 8,000 and 10,000 people will be able to be identified per year.

Friday 15 January 2015

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3399184/The-search-Vietnam-s-war-dead-Largest-DNA-identification-project-underway-perished-40-years-ago.html

continue reading

Dozens of migrants die in the sea off Somaliland

Dozens of Ethiopian and Somali migrants died in the waters off the breakaway Somalia region of Somaliland when their vessel failed mechanically in the course of the voyage and drifted in the sea, a regional Somaliland official said.

Ahmed Abdi Falay, the chairman or governor of Sanag region, said the boat, which had started its journey from the port of Bossaso two weeks ago and was heading to an unidentified port in the Arabian Peninsula, was discovered by the Somaliland Coast Guard.

"They climbed into the boat and were shocked to find the dead bodies of 10 people and 72 others who were in different stages of suffering, some of them in serious condition," he said from the port city of Maydh on Friday.

“The Coast Guard brought the 72 survivors and the bodies of the dead people ashore. The wounded are being treated and the dead are being buried.”

Another 96 bodies, from the same vessel, were discovered ashore by locals on Friday having been washed in with the tide, Falay added.

Some three members of the crew of the stricken vessel were arrested as they tried to flee into nearby mountains and they will be questioned by authorities, the official said.

Migrants from the Horn of Africa states have for many years made the perilous sea crossing in search of better life abroad, forced out of their countries by conflict, repression and economic hardships.

Yemen serves as a gateway to the rich Gulf countries in the Middle East.

Somalians, Eritreans and Ethiopians make up for most of the migrants who look to cross the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea trying to reach Yemen and beyond in precarious boats, often controlled by unscrupulous human traffickers.

Monday 11 January 2015

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-somalia-migrants-idUSKCN0UN0JE20160109

continue reading

Sixteen people killed in Mexican bus accident

A bus carrying amateur football players and fans plunged into a river after careening off a bridge in eastern Mexico, leaving at least 16 people dead, authorities said.

Another 10 people were injured in the crash in the municipality of Atoyac in the eastern state of Veracruz.

A preliminary investigation found that the bus was speeding, causing the driver to "lose control" of the vehicle over a speed bump and break through a safety barrier, the state government said in a statement.

The bus "fell into the bottom of the Atoyac river," the statement said, adding that "16 bodies and 10 injured people were recovered".

Local civil protection officials reported an earlier toll of eight dead and 30 injured.

The bus was taking the players to an amateur football game and children were among the passengers.

Sunday 10 January 2015

http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0110/759063-mexico-bus-crash/

continue reading

14 dead in two deadly migrant bus crashes in Turkey

Fourteen people, most of them Syrian refugees, were killed and dozens more injured in two deadly bus accidents in Turkey in the past 24 hours, reports said Saturday.

Early on Saturday, a bus carrying migrants hoping to catch a boat to the Greek island of Lesbos overturned and rolled into a gorge in the western Balikesir province, killing seven Syrians and the driver, state-run Anatolia news agency said.

Forty-two others were injured, it said.

In a separate incident a day earlier, a bus carrying migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Myanmar slammed into a car in the northwestern Canakkale province, killing six Syrians and injuring 30 others, the private Dogan news agency said.

They were also being driven to a beach from where they would have tried to cross to Lesbos, it said.

Turkey, which is home to some 2.2 million refugees from Syria's civil war, has become a hub for migrants seeking to reach Europe, many of whom pay people smugglers thousands of dollars for the risky crossing.

This week, the bodies of 36 migrants, including several children, were found washed up along the Turkish coast after their boats sank while crossing the Aegean Sea to EU member Greece.

The European Union has pledged to give Ankara three billion euros ($3.2 billion) as well as political concessions in return for its cooperation in tackling Europe's worst migrant crisis since World War II.

But earlier this week, the EU said it was far from satisfied with Turkey's cooperation in stemming the flow of migrants trying to reach the bloc.

Saturday 09 January 2015

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/550594/news/world/14-dead-in-two-deadly-migrant-bus-crashes-in-turkey-report

continue reading

46 migrants already have perished in the Mediterranean in 2016

It's already looking like 2016 could be another grim, record-breaking year when it comes to the number of migrants and refugees who die or go missing in the Mediterranean Sea.

Just eight days into the new year, 46 migrants and refugees have been reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean Sea, according to new figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). That’s the same number of refugees and migrants who went missing or died in the first three months of 2014, and more than half the number who died or went missing in all of January 2015 (82).

Meanwhile, the number of people who have arrived in Greece by sea was 9,930 between January 1 and January 6, an enormous increase when compared to the 5,550 people who arrived by sea in the entire month of January last year.

This year’s fatality and missing numbers are mainly due to two shipwrecks off the Turkish coast earlier this week. Turkish authorities retrieved dozens of bodies, including three children, at two separate locations along the coast of the Aegean Sea (which, for the purposes of its report, the IOM counts as the Mediterranean) after an overcrowded, inflatable boat attempting to reach Greece capsized on Tuesday. The deaths came several days after a 2-year-old refugee became 2016’s first casualty at sea.

Last year was the deadliest year on record for migrants and refugees at sea, according to the IOM. The Mediterranean Sea was by far the deadliest migration route in the world, with 3,771 people perishing in its waters. More than a million asylum seekers arrived in Europe last year, the majority of them from the war-torn nations of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Despite a deal reached between the European Union and Turkey late last year that saw Brussels agree to provide 3 billion euros ($3.27 billion) in aid in exchange for a crackdown on the flow of people, the number of arrivals to Europe from Turkey has not fallen sufficiently, EU officials said. European countries are still figuring out how to deal with the influx of migrants, as ongoing wars in Syria and Iraq mean the number of arrivals likely won’t slow down.

Germany, one of the most popular destinations for migrants and refugees coming to Europe, is grappling with rising tensions after hundreds of men described as being Arab or North African sexually assaulted and robbed women outside Cologne’s train station on New Year’s Eve, prompting the resignation of the city's police chief on Friday. There are fears that some of the men were part of the refugee influx to Germany in 2015, and German officials are now considering deporting migrants who commit crimes.

Saturday 09 January 2015

http://europe.newsweek.com/eight-days-2016-46-migrants-and-refugees-have-perished-mediterranean-413209?rm=eu

continue reading

Floods, earthquakes, wildfires and heat waves: the worst natural disasters of 2015

Floods, cyclones, wildfires, heat waves, earthquakes and landslides made 2015 a devastating year for a lot of people around the world. We take a look at some of the worst natural disasters of the past year.

January 2015

Flooding in southeastern Africa

Unusually heavy rains hit Malawi and caused widespread flooding, leaving 200 people dead or missing and 120,000 forced from their homes, according to UNICEF. The aid agency said it was "a race against time" to reach displaced communities, as stagnant water and poor sanitation threatened to kill children in one of the poorest countries in southern Africa. In neighbouring Mozambique, the rains caused extreme flooding of river basins and cut off communities. Twenty-five people were reportedly killed in that country.

March 2015

Cyclone Pam rips through Vanuatu

Winds of 270 kilometres an hour tore through the 65-island South Pacific archipelago, home to about 267,000 people. One of the heavily damaged areas was the capital, Port Vila, where 47,000 people live. The destruction was even worse on the outer island of Tanna, where the Australian military estimated about 80 per cent of the buildings were flattened, and the hospital and airport were damaged. To complicate matters, the island's remote location made it difficult for rescuers to get through. Throughout Vanuatu, an estimated 11 people were killed and thousands were left homeless.

April 2015

Deadly earthquake devastates Nepal

On April 25, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake left more than 8,000 people dead in Nepal and turned much of the country, including the capital, Kathmandu, into a disaster zone. The earthquake triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest that killed 19 climbers. About three weeks later, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake rocked Nepal again, killing dozens more people, injuring hundreds and terrifying the country's citizens just as they were trying to rebuild from the first disaster.

May/June 2015

Heat waves kill thousands in India and Pakistan

By the end of May, about 2,200 people in India were dead from a raging heat wave that began in April. Temperatures went up to 47 C. Most of the people killed were in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states in the southern part of the country.

In June, the worst heat wave in at least a decade hit southern Pakistan, particularly the port city of Karachi. More than 830 people died as temperatures reached as high as 45 C. Karachi's inefficient power grid and shortage of potable water were blamed for worsening the situation. On the worst days, people in the city of 20 million tried to get water from broken pipes.

July 2015

Flash floods hit Pakistan

Triggered by monsoon rains, flash floods killed more than 100 people in various parts of Pakistan and left tens of thousands homeless, according to the country's National Disaster Management Authority. More than 2,000 villages were flooded.

Pakistan Flooding

Almost 3,000 homes collapsed or suffered damage. In the northwestern city of Chitral, homes, mosques, hotels, bridges and a power station were destroyed.

Wildfires force largest evacuation in Saskatchewan's history

Hot weather, very dry conditions and lightning strikes contributed to hundreds of wildfires in western Canada during the summer of 2015. In Saskatchewan, more than 13,000 people were forced from their homes in the largest evacuation effort in the province's history. The Canadian military was dispatched to help in the hard-hit La Ronge area, about 380 kilometres north of Saskatoon.

The increased wildfire activity in 2015 — and the ballooning firefighting costs — prompted Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and B.C. Premier Christy Clark to call for a national forest fire plan by next year.

September 2015

California wildfires

California suffered one of its worst forest fire seasons on record in 2015 as wildfires raged in northern parts of the state. One fire, north of San Francisco, was the fourth-worst blaze in California's history, with three people killed and more than 1,000 homes destroyed.

A separate fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills killed two people and ruined more than 500 homes. A volunteer firefighter lost his own home while out battling blazes. Thousands of people were evacuated from dozens of communities. According to the Cal Fire website, there were more than 6,200 wildfires throughout the state in 2015, burning about 125,000 hectares of land. Compare that to 2014, when Cal Fire documented about 4,200 wildfires that burned about 77,000 hectares.

Chile earthquake

On Sept. 16, an 8.3 magnitude earthquake killed 11 people in central Chile and triggered tsunami warnings as far away as Hawaii and California. More than one million people fled their homes and waves up to 4.5 metres high slammed into Chile's northern port city of Coquimbo, washing large fishing boats up onto the streets.

Still, many people who remember the devastating 8.8. magnitude quake of 2010, which caused a massive tsunami and killed more than 500 people, were relieved the death toll and destruction wasn't worse. When September's earthquake struck, the Chilean government ordered evacuations from coastal areas and said it had learned from previous disasters.

Japan floods

Heavy rain after Tropical Storm Etau pummelled Japan in September and triggered huge floods, forcing thousands of people from their homes. When the Kinugawa River broke through a flood berm in Joso near Tokyo, it washed away entire houses and left hundreds of people stranded. Many waited on rooftops to be rescued.

October 2015

U.S. floods

U.S. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency after Hurricane Joaquin-related storms slammed South Carolina with floods. Streets and roads turned into rivers, leaving many people trapped in their cars. A dozen people died of weather-related causes in South Carolina and neighbouring North Carolina.

One woman died when her SUV was swept away by floodwaters; another man drowned after he drove around a barricade. A transportation worker was also among those killed. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said 550 roads and bridges had to be closed across the state.

November 2015

Deadly Australian wildfires

Four people were killed and hundreds of homes were evacuated as wildfires raged across southwest Australia in November. Fierce winds and a heat wave were blamed for making the fires worse as firefighters tried to contain them. November is summertime in the southern hemisphere, and wildfires are common across much of Australia during the season.

Burma landslide

On Nov. 21, a landslide in Burma, also known as Myanmar, killed more than 100 people when a 60-metre high mountain of dirt discarded by mining companies collapsed. The disaster happened in the mining community of Hpakant in the jade-rich northern part of the country.

At first, officials said the dead were mostly men picking through the mining waste looking for jade to sell — a common occurrence in the extremely poor town. Later, they said the landslide happened in the middle of the night and buried more than 70 makeshift huts where the miners slept.

December 2015

Chennai floods after heaviest rainfall in 100 years

Massive floods in India drove thousands of people from their homes in December after the heaviest rainfall in more than a century hit the state of Tamil Nadu. More than 250 people died — some by electrocution before authorities turned power off in some areas.

Vast swaths of Chennai — India's fourth-largest city — were under up to three metres of water. Homes and cars were submerged, and people escaped their homes using ladders or jumping out windows onto makeshift rafts.

Thursday 31 December 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/year-end-2015-natural-disasters-1.3346639

continue reading

Search ends for missing in Myanmar jade mine landslide

Rescuers in northern Myanmar called off their search for workers feared buried in a jade mine landslide, police said on Sunday (Dec 27), with no missing people or bodies recovered.

A wall of rocks, mud and debris careered down a hillside on Friday afternoon at Hpakant in Kachin state, the war-torn area that is the epicentre of Myanmar's secretive multi-billion-dollar jade industry.

Locals reported as many as 50 people might have been buried. But officials played down those numbers, saying only three men had been reported missing.

More than 100 people were killed in the same area in a landslide last month, highlighting the huge risks people take to fuel global - and particularly Chinese - demand for jade.

A police officer in Hpakant said rescue efforts were called off because the risk of further landslides was too great.

"The rescue process was stopped this afternoon because there were possible dangers and cracks appearing on the debris dump site," the officer, who asked not to be named, told AFP. "We haven't found anybody and we don't know how many casualties there were," he added.

Another police officer had earlier told AFP three people were thought to be missing. The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar Sunday reported the same figures.

The paper quoted Tin Swe Myint, head of the Hpakant Township Administration Office, as saying that the landslide took place after most workers had finished work and unlike last month's tragedy it had not engulfed a row of shanty houses.

HUGE RISKS

However, a second police officer warned it was difficult to say for sure how many have been caught up in the landslide. "We have no idea how many might be buried there," local officer Thet Zaw Oo told AFP by phone.

Myanmar's shadowy and poorly regulated jade trade is enormously dangerous, with landslides a frighteningly common hazard.

Those killed are mainly itinerant workers who scratch a living picking through the piles of waste left by large-scale industrial mining firms in hopes of stumbling across an overlooked hunk of jade that will deliver them from poverty.

A civilian rescuer who asked not to be named said the landslide site was far from Hpakant town and had no phone coverage.

"There are many cracks (in the ground), it's very dangerous for rescue teams to drive diggers there," he said, adding that locals still believed dozens could be buried.

Myanmar is the source of virtually all of the world's finest jadeite, a near-translucent green stone that is enormously prized in neighbouring China, where it is known as the "stone of heaven".

Tuesday 28 December 2015

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/search-ends-for-missing/2380316.html

continue reading

SAR mission enters final stage as death toll reaches 66

A week after the KM Marina Baru ship sank in Bone Bay, National Search and Rescue Team (Basarnas) has announced a decision to extend its search for the ill-fated ship passengers until Tuesday, in hopes of locating the 12 who remain missing.

“Hopefully, with this search extension, the 12 missing passengers will be located and returned to their respective families,” Basarnas chief Air Marshal Bambang Soelistyo told reporters in Makassar over the weekend.

The 125-gross-ton passenger ship, carrying 118 people including crew members, departed Tobaku Port in North Kolaka regency, Southeast Sulawesi, at around 11 a.m. on Dec. 19, to sail through Bone Bay to Siwa Port in Wajo regency, South Sulawesi.

The ship was expected to arrive in Siwa at 4 p.m. on the same day, but it lost contact with operators and failed to reach its destination.

As of Sunday, the SAR team had recovered a total of 106 passengers from various locations in Bone Bay. Forty of those rescued survived the incident while the other 66 had been found dead.

Three dead bodies were found on Saturday in the waters around Tanjung Tobaku, Lasusua, North Kolaka and have been evacuated to the regency’s Djafar Harun General Hospital for identification.

Despite the SAR search extension, Bambang said that the number of personnel would be reduced. The team, he added, would no longer carry out an air search, as this had previously been supported by an Indonesian Military (TNI) helicopter.

Local authorities have shut down the evacuation and victim identification post in Siwa but continue to monitor the SAR mission from the North Kolaka capital of Lasusua.

As many as 20 of the deceased have been handed over to the South Sulawesi Police Disaster Victims Identification (DVI) unit, while the other 46 deceased were handed to its counterpart at the Southeast Sulawesi Police.

Earlier, South Sulawesi Police medical and health affairs head Sr. Comr. Raden Harjuno said that his side had managed to identify the 20 bodies kept at the Siwa Regency Hospital in Wajo and the Bhayangkara Police Hospital in the provincial capital of Makassar.

Southeast Sulawesi Police spokesperson Adj. Sr. Comr. Sunarto, meanwhile, said that his DVI unit had identified 36 of the 46 victims hand had handed over their bodies to their respective family members.

“We will work hard to complete the identification process as soon as possible,” he said on Sunday.



Both the police and the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) have said that they would investigate the accident, the country’s deadliest maritime incident this year.

They, however, remain uncertain with regard to the province in which the boat actually sank.

Last week, state-run insurance company Jasa Raharja said it would cover funeral costs and provide compensation for the victims’ next of kin. For each victim, there will be a provision of Rp 25 million (US$1,830) in compensation and Rp 2 million for funeral costs.

Monday 28 December 2015

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/12/28/sar-mission-enters-final-stage-death-toll-reaches-66.html

continue reading

After 11 years, memories of Aceh tsunami live on

Aceh residents gathered on Saturday in a number of venues across the province to send their prayers to the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated the region on that same date, 11 years ago.

At Banda Aceh’s Ulee Lheue mass grave, where more than 14,000 victims of the disaster were buried, local residents alternately visited the area throughout Saturday, to not only pray for the victims, but also to reflect on their stories as survivors.

Many of them also could not hold back their tears as they observed displayed at the grave’s entrance a number of photographs depicting the situation of the region shortly after being hit by the tsunami.

“Time passes quickly, but the sad memory of 11 years ago will always stay with us,” Yenni, a resident of Lambaro Skep subdistrict, told The Jakarta Post.

Despite the atrocious aftermath of the tsunami, Yenni, who lost several family members in the disaster, said she always encouraged herself to move on.

“It is impossible for us to keep mourning all the time, as God still gives us chances to survive,” she said.

Ulee Lheue and Siron Aceh Besar are the two biggest mass graves that the provincial administration dug for tsunami victims. Hundreds of smaller mass graves were also established in other parts of the region.

Like in previous years, Yussi, a Meulaboh resident, used the commemoration of the tsunami tragedy this year to visit several major mass graves in Banda Aceh, as she has no idea about her parents’ whereabouts after the tsunami.

“I don’t know where their bodies were buried. I’m also still hoping that they’re still alive,” she said.

The tremor that measured 8.9 on the Richter scale and the resulting tsunami waves that hit Aceh on Dec. 26, 2004 killed more than 120,000 people and displaced more than 800,000 others.

The disaster, however, also helped end a three-decade separatist conflict that had killed 15,000 people, when the commanders of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) agreed in mid-2005 to a peace accord signed in Helsinki, Finland.

Last year, a massive government-sponsored event to commemmorate the 10th anniversary of the disaster was held in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, with representatives from dozens of donor countries and international organizations attending the event.

This year, apart from smaller events held independently by local residents in mass graveyards or mosques, the Aceh Culture and Tourism Agency also organized a series of additional events, including a photo exhibition, a seminar and an arts performance, to commemorate the 11th anniversary of the tragedy.

The main commemoration, attended by, among others, Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah and Banda Aceh Mayor Illiza Saaduddin Djamal, meanwhile, took place in a mosque in Lampuuk subdistrict. The mosquewas among the few buildings that survived the tsunami.

“In every tsunami commemoration, we are trying to spread certain messages to the public, including self-reflection, appreciation, [disaster] mitigation and [tourism] promotion,” agency head Reza Pahlevi said.

27 December 2015

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/12/27/after-11-years-memories-aceh-tsunami-live.html

continue reading

Dozens feared dead as another landslide hits Myanmar's jade mines

Dozens of people are feared missing or dead after a landslide hit a jade mining region in Myanmar’s northern Kachin state.

Officials say a search for survivors and bodies is continuing after Friday’s accident in the area around Hpakant.

Last month, 114 people were killed in the same area after a massive landslide.

Jade mining produces piles of waste rock. Migrant workers climb the heaps to search for the gem stone.

Local official Tint Swe Myint told the Bangkok Post that five bodies had already been found.

“According to witnesses, about 50 people are still missing,” he said.

Sai Lon, who works at a mining company in the area, said: “We heard about 50 people were buried in the collapsed dump and four or five bodies were found this morning.”

Local police could not offer any details about the number of casualties.

“We haven’t heard anything from the rescue team yet,” said a duty officer at the Hpakant township police station who declined to give his name to news agency Reuters.



In November’s disaster, many of those killed were people who made their living scavenging on or near the waste dumps left by large-scale industrial mining firms.

The value of jade produced in 2014 alone was £21bn - the equivalent of nearly half of Myanmar’s (Burma’s) GDP - yet hardly any of the money reaches ordinary people.

Deaths in the jade mines, where small-time prospectors and big companies vie for the precious stone, underscore the sector’s lax safety rules and lack of accountability.

Although the United States eased most of the ban on imports from the country when a quasi-civilian government took power in 2011 after five decades of military dictatorship, an American ban on Myanmar jade remains in place over concerns that jade mining benefits military figures and fuels corruption and human rights abuses.

Sunday 27 December 2015

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/dozens-feared-dead-another-disaster-7076306

continue reading

Nnewi disaster: Relatives lament, search bushes for bodies of missing persons

Following the gas explosion that rocked Nnewi industrial town which plunged residents into mourning when scores of persons were reportedly burnt to ashes, relatives of the victims are now combing bushes near the gas plant for corpses of missing family members.

In Nigeria a huge explosion rocked the district of Nnewi in Anambra State on Christmas eve, when a butane gas depot caught fire leaving more than 100 people dead and several injured. Most of the workers and customers at the fuel depot were burnt beyond recognition.

“My heart and prayers go out to these grieving families at this difficult and painful moment,” said Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari.

Eye witnesses say that the fire in Nigeria raged for several hours before being extinguished. Many customers had gone to the depot to purchase butane gas bottles in preparation for the Christmas festivities.

The dead and injured were taken to the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital in Nnewi.

“The fire burned beyond recognition all the workers who were inside that depot at that time and also all the customers inside that depot,” Chukwuemerie Uduchukwu, who went to the scene.

The ferocity of the blast in Nigeria also damaged houses in the surrounding area. A witness told the Vanguard newspaper that the blast was triggered when a truck began discharging cooking gas without waiting for the mandatory cooling time.

Witnesses described a huge fire with acrid black smoke hanging over the scene of the disaster in Nigeria.

Reports from the scene in Nigeria say that all the customers who went to the gas plant to get a refill were allegedly burnt to death, while some of the victims who were in the neighbourhood and passers-by also got caught in the inferno.

Hon Azubogu said that the accident has made it incumbent on the government to enforce safety standards, stressing the need for regulatory bodies like the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR and similar agencies to ensure that environmental impact assessments are properly carried out before giving licenses to people to set up filling stations.

Some of the relatives of the victims, while speaking with newsmen at the scene, said they decided to search the bushes because they got information that many people ran into it during the explosion.

A staff of Chikason Group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said workers of the organisation recently concluded a two-week fasting and prayer session after a prophet allegedly warned the Chairman of the group of an impending doom, adding that the unnamed prophet did not specify which of the factories in the group would be affected, a situation that made many members of staff to participate in the prayer sessions.

Last time two of his fully-loaded trucks just disappeared. The vehicles were carrying items running into millions of naira. That one is yet to be resolved and now this fire disaster,” he said

Sunday 27 December 2015

http://dailypost.ng/2015/12/26/nnewi-disaster-relatives-lament-search-bushes-for-bodies-of-missing-persons/

continue reading

Philippines marks second anniversary of devastating Typhoon Haiyan

The Philippines Sunday marked the second anniversary of Typhoon Haiyan - with the bodies of possible victims of the disaster which left at least 7,350 people dead or missing still being uncovered.

Thousands of residents marked the two-year milestone in the city of Tacloban, which was devastated by the huge storm, as memorials were unveiled and masses held.

On Saturday authorities confirmed they found six new bodies.

The unidentified skeletal remains were found by a man scavenging for wood in the outskirts of the city, according to Tacloban fire chief Charlie Herson.

"These are possible victims of the typhoon. They were buried by debris, in piles of wood," he told AFP.

Haiyan, the strongest typhoon ever recorded to hit land, smashed into the central Philippines on November 8, 2013. The once-thriving city of Tacloban on the island of Leyte suffered the worst damage with hundreds of houses washed away by a storm surge.

To mark the tragedy Sunday, special memorials were unveiled and Roman Catholic masses were said for the victims, including the more than 2,400 mostly-unidentified bodies buried in a mass grave in Tacloban.

Thousands of Tacloban residents are still living in makeshift temporary homes as questions are raised about the speed of reconstruction.



President Benigno Aquino's spokesman Edwin Lacierda said there would "always be discussions" on the speed of reconstruction, adding: "We understand such sentiments."

But he added despite local critics, foreign agencies, including the United Nations, had said the Philippines was rebuilding faster than other developing countries struck by comparable natural disasters.

"What befell us was massive and we are continuing to provide assistance... always following our principle, to build back better," he said.

However, local congressman, Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, said "this is still not yet the old Tacloban. This is still not the old Leyte. It will still be a long time before things get back to normal."

Some Tacloban residents are still clinging to hope their missing loved ones are still alive.

Single mother Angelina Marquez, 17, said she hoped Remegildo, the father of her child, would reappear two years after he went missing during the storm.

"I still believe that he may have been washed away to a different place and the time will come, like in the movies, when he will come back to me," she said.

Sunday 8 November 2015

http://news.yahoo.com/philippines-marks-second-anniversary-devastating-typhoon-haiyan-100947198.html

continue reading

Death toll in Lahore factory tragedy jumps to 49

More bodies of the victims of the Sundar Industrial Factory tragedy were recovered on Saturday, raising the death toll to 49.

Rescuers are of the view that there are still chances of survival of the victims. A worker trapped under the debris has contacted his family by phone.

Relatives of the victims are praying for the safety of their loved ones. Rescue activities using heavy machinery have been expedited.

The body of the owner has also been recovered.

Rescue officials said over a hundred survivors had so far been pulled from the wreckage of the four-storey Rajput Polyester factory which manufactured polythene shopping bags.

No part of the four-storey building remained standing after the disaster, leaving dozens of workers trapped under the debris.

It was unclear how many people were in the building when it collapsed or how many were still trapped.

Soldiers and rescuers were preparing to clear the rubble in front of the factory and move towards the rear of the building where they fear they will discover more victims.

Injured survivors said the factory’s owner, who was adding a new floor to the building, had ignored an advice from his contractor and pleas from his workers to stop construction after cracks appeared in the walls following a powerful earthquake last week.

A spokesman for Rescue 1122 told the media that of the 167 people trapped in the building, 109 had been rescued. Most of them had minor injuries.

Meanwhile, an 18-year-old youth, Shahid, was recovered alive from the debris of the factory after 51 hours of the tragedy on Friday evening.

The Lahore DCO, Captain (Retd.) Usman, said that rescue teams had recovered Shahid.

“We were looking for life, and it has been proved that we have found a life,” he said.

Sunday 08 November 2015

http://www.geo.tv/article-203344-Death-toll-in-Lahore-factory-tragedy-jumps-to-45

continue reading

Typhhon Yolanda:6 more bodies dug up 2 years later

Six remains have been recovered under the debris two years after Typhoon ‘‘Yolanda’’ devastated the province of Leyte.

Mayor Alfred Romualdez said firewood gatherers found the bodies behind the San Jose National High School in Barangay 87 in this city’s San Jose district.

Only three of the remains have their skulls intact and one of them is believed to be a child because of the size of its skull.

“Running priest’ Robert Reyes and another priest blessed the bodies that could no longer be identified because only the skull and skeletons had remained of the victims who were believed to have been washed away by the storm surge during the Yolanda onslaught.

“Every now and then, we find bodies in the swampy areas,” the mayor said.

The congressman said bodies will continue to be found two years after the calamity.

Barangay Chairman Leo Bahin of Barangay 87 San Jose confirmed that the remains were indeed recovered at the back of San Jose National High School.

“Yung lima kanina (Saturday) lang nakita, yung isa two days ago pa nakita ng mga mangangahoy,” Bahin said.

According to Bahin, since 2013, there are incidents were firewood gatherers recovered bones and other body parts but this is the first time that they saw skulls.

Two of them were suspected to be woman because they still had their underwear and bra.

The remains were laid at the barangay hall awaiting for representatives of Bureau of Fire, who were tasked to make proper identification of the victims.



“Sa ngayon wala pang mag claim, mahirap naman ito ma identify kasi dalawang taon na silang nakabaon sa debris at buto na lang. Turn-over na lang namin, bahala na ang Bureau of Fire na mag identify,” Bahin said.

It was in San Jose where there were several casualties of Typhoon Yolanda were recorded.

“We still feel the pain. Nararamdaman pa rin namin ang lungkot na dulot ng Typhoon Yolanda,” Rep. Romualdez said.

The senatorial candidate of Lakas-CMD said the local government here continues to provide assistance to the survivors.

“We will see how we can help in identifying them, para maibigay sa kanilang pamilya at mabigyan ng disenteng libing,” the congressman added.

Meanwhile, a typhoon survivor-turned-author said that the victims still could not contain the surge of emotion two years after Yolanda (international name, Haiyan) hit the province.

“We are still healing and it will take a long time to process that but let that not waste away what we have worked so hard in rebuilding back our lives,” said Albert Mulles, a storm survivor from Tacloban City.

Out of his struggles to survive and immortalize the terrible experience he and his family had experienced, Mulles published a book entitled ‘‘Haiyan: Untold Story: A Story of Hope and Survival”.

The book’s launching came about as the province remembered the second anniversary of Yolanda, the world’s worst storm to hit land, survivors and their supporters around the country trooped to the city to pay tribute to the dead, whose numbers have reached over 7,500 mostly in Tacloban and nearby towns, according to government’s estimate.

“For us, it is important to remember—not only the most disastrous and fiercest supertyphoon in the world—but the courage and determination of people at the ground zero rising up forming the broadest survivor network and holding our government and world leaders accountable,” said Efleda Bautista, convenor of People Surge, a broad coalition of storm survivors in central Philippines.

“The stronger the rain poured the louder were the people’s chant. People Surge pushed through the march despite strong rain…Everyone was soaked in the rain but hearts filled with warmth and determination,” she added, as they welcomed thousands of fellow survivors from various parts of Leyte, Samar, and outside Eastern Visayas who marched to the city on Saturday.

Aside from holding a vigil to remember those who died, the group also led a protest marched dubbed as “Global Day of Rage against Neglect and Impunity” to what they said as government’s “criminal negligence” and “snail-paced rehabilitation” in Yolanda-hit communities, nothing that thousands of families are still in bunkhouses and temporary shelters two years after the storm.

They also assailed the government for its lack of transparency in spending the billions of donations and funds for the survivors.

“Watching the news on TV about how the government still does not reveal the real Yolanda casualty count even after two years, brings back painful memories... And confirms a lot about those in power. Well, for one, they still want to be in control of all those donations, and second, it will only prove how poor our disaster preparedness and handling are,” said Aaron Almadro, 32, a survivor in Palo, Leyte, expressing his frustration on the social media.

“We lost more than 20,000 loved ones, twenty thousand people, including both my parents and a lot of friends! Why can’t they say the numbers? They’re all busy campaigning for next year’s elections but they aren’t even finished with the rehabilitation and assistance. Yolanda happened, government. We will never forget. So, government, whatever you say, whatever you try to do, is already two years late,” he added.

Meanwhile, Fr. Amadeo Alvero of the Palo Archdiocese in Leyte, said that there are also enough reasons to thank for during this year’s commemorative event.


“Without them it would have been difficult for us to bring our life back to where we are now. But with them our life after Yolanda is getting better. Thanks to all who have helped us and brought us hope. Their sacrifices and love will always be remembered. I thank God for all of them,” he added.

“We in the Church gratefully recognize the role played by private charities, of international and national non-government organizations for the people’s recovery and healing. These organizations have been a vital source of relief and comfort,” also said Msgr. Ramon B. Aguilos of Palo Archdiocese.

Reflecting on the Yolanda tragedy, Aguilos wrote that: “Among the ‘blessings in the disguise’ that transpired is the opening of new links, partnership and relationships with development institutions.”

On January 17 this year, no less than Pope Francis visited Tacloban and Palo to bring comfort to pray for the victims and comfort to the survivors.

While many humanitarian organizations also came to revive the city immediately after the storm. “To date, PRC’s Haiyan Recovery program has built 66,011

homes out of the target 80,203 or 86 percent of the target number of houses to be built, amounting to around 2.2 billion pesos. The Red Cross Haiyan shelter program is spread across nine Haiyan-affected provinces: Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Cebu, Eastern Samar, Iloilo, Leyte, Palawan, and Western Samar,” said Philippine Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon.

In a statement, PRC said that “as of end of October, 884,228 people have benefitted from PRC’s Haiyan Recovery Program which includes services ranging from shelter, livelihood, cash relief assistance, water and sanitation, hygiene promotion, and rehabilitation of classrooms.”

“To the people of Tacloban, I am humbled to be called your mayor and honored to have been given a chance to serve a people who have shown to the entire Philippines and the entire world their admirable strength and resistance in the face of individual tragedies, their quiet courage to carry on despite their losses; their firm determination to make Tacloban a better City after the deluge.

“It is our vision to make Tacloban a livable city where every Taclobanon can sleep soundly in the safety and comfort of a humane shelter and live a decent quality life to live up to its potential of infinite possibilities for progress and growth.

“In the silence of our hearts, may that day be marked for posterity--never to be forgotten―never to be erased.

“May all who come this way remember―that on this piece of earth―the whole world converged to make Tacloban the template of a people’s firm resolve to rise above their sorrow and create the new landscape of their future. May God forever bless our bellowed city,” Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez said in his commemorative message this year.

This followed as the local government has lined up various commemorative activities on Saturday, starting from the a holy mass in the coastal district of Anibong in the city, followed by the reading of dedication and unveiling of a memorial marker, a “Concert of Hope” by Philippine Madrigal Singer and Power Dance from Manila, and premier showing of documentary film “Fields of Hope.”

On Sunday, November 8, locals joined a commemorative walk around the city, followed by the holy Mass by Palo Archbishop John Du, ringing of church bells, siren blast and the sounding of the storm, and unveiling of another marker located in the Tacloban Astrodome Center.

Sunday 8 November 2015

http://thestandard.com.ph/news/-main-stories/top-stories/191374/6-more-bodies-dug-up-2-years-later.html

continue reading

Death toll from Lahore factory collapse rises to 35

The bodies of two more labourers were recovered from under the rubble at the site of a collapsed factory at the Sundar Industrial Estate near Lahore on Friday, as the death toll from the tragedy rose to at least 35, officials said.

Rescue officials said over a hundred survivors had so far been pulled from the wreckage of the four-storeyed Rajput Polyester factory, which manufactured polythene shopping bags about 45 km south of the eastern city of Lahore, and collapsed on Wednesday night.

35 bodies have now been recovered by rescue crews using heavy construction machinery and other tools to dig through the debris, rescue official said.

Efforts were still underway on Friday, the third day of the search and rescue operation, to clear the debris and look for any survivors or bodies of the victims.

No part of the four-storey building remained standing after the disaster, leaving dozens of workers trapped under the debris. It was unclear how many people were in the building when it collapsed or how many – dead or alive – may still be trapped.

Officials feared that between 35 to 40 persons may still be trapped under the wreckage of the factory.



"There are less chances of finding more injured under the rubble but we are looking for dead bodies," Arshad Zia, head of rescue services in Punjab, told news agency AFP.

Soldiers and rescuers were preparing to clear the rubble in front of the factory and move towards the rear of the building where they fear they will discover more victims.

Injured survivors said the factory's owner, who was adding a new floor to the building, had ignored advice from his contractor and pleas from his workers to stop construction after cracks in the walls following a powerful earthquake last week.

The quake of magnitude 7.5 killed more than 300 people in Pakistan and the northern parts of neighbouring Afghanistan and damaged thousands of buildings.

Pakistan's construction sector is plagued by poor oversight and developers frequently flout building codes. In September 2012, 289 people burned to death in a fire at a garment factory in Karachi. On the same day, a fire at a shoe factory in Lahore killed 25.

Friday 6 November 2015

http://www.geo.tv/article-203216-Death-toll-from-Lahore-factory-collapse-rises-to-35

continue reading

All bodies from air crash in Egypt identified

Relatives of the victims in the plane crash above Sinai have identified visually all the bodies, spokesman of the Healthcare Ministry Oleg Salagai told reporters on Friday.

"The procedure of visual identification is over, and the genetic identification continues," he said.

As of Friday, relatives of the victims asked for medical assistance 691 times, and 715 requested psychological support. Five people were taken to hospitals.

Russian Kogalymavia’s A321 plane, en-route from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, crashed in the early morning of October 31 just some 20 minutes after its takeoff. The disaster site is 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of the administrative centre of North Sinai Governorate, the city of Al-Arish.

Flight 9268 carried 217 passengers and seven crewmembers and they were all officially announced dead following the tragic accident. Most passengers were Russian nationals. Among the passengers onboard were also four Ukrainian citizens and one Belarusian national.

Friday 6 November 2015

http://tass.ru/en/society/834335

continue reading

Brazil dam burst: at least 15 feared dead after disaster at BHP-owned mine

A dam that burst at an iron-ore mine in south-eastern Brazil on Thursday is thought to have killed at least 15 people, devastating a nearby town with mudslides and leaving officials in the remote region scrambling to assess casualties.

Forty-five people were still missing after the disaster at the Germano mine near the town of Mariana in Minas Gerais state, a local union told the G1 news portal.

The mine is operated by Samarco, a joint venture between the Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton and the Brazilian company Vale.

Andrew Mackenzie, the chief executive of BHP, said in Melbourne: “Most of what happened there has been under the cloak of darkness.

“At daybreak, clearly we will do an awful lot more and give you further updates.”

The company would “take all steps” to ensure the safety of the workers and communities affected by the disaster.

Video footage on the G1 website showed houses of a village destroyed by flood waters and clay-red mud that surged down valleys in the mountainous region. Large vehicles lay tossed on their sides.

There was no official confirmation on the total number of dead and missing. A city hall official confirmed one death and 16 injuries, adding that dozens more were still missing.

Civil defence authorities in Mariana said they were evacuating about 600 people to higher ground from the village of Bento Rodrigues, about 7km (just over 4 miles) beneath the dam that burst, which was flooded as a result of the accident.

Television footage showed dozens of homes destroyed by the mudslide. A car rested on top of a wall where the roof of a building had been ripped off.

Authorities said the flood had also reached another village further down the hill, Paracatu de Baixo, and that inhabitants there were also being evacuated.

Rescue crews continued to search the muddy waters after nightfall. Brazilian army units nearby stood ready to help the search and rescue effort and the minister of national integration, Gilberto Occhi, planned to visit the state on Friday to provide assistance, according to a note from the presidency.

Samarco said in a statement it had not yet determined why the dam burst or the extent of the disaster.

BHP Billiton said in a statement that it was “concerned for the safety of employees and the local community ... We are in the process of obtaining more details from Samarco Mineracao.”

Authorities said the dam was built to hold back water and residue from mining operations, a mixture that can often be toxic. The dam was holding so-called tailings, a mining waste product of metal filings, water and occasionally chemicals. It was located near the Gualaxo do Norte river, fuelling fears of potential water contamination.

Rescue teams were searching for survivors or bodies, and residents living nearby were told to evacuate to higher ground.

Samarco said in a statement on its website that it was making “every effort to prioritise care to people and mitigate damage to the environment”.

“It is not possible at this moment to confirm a cause,” it added.

A statement from the city hall of Mariana, a city of about 40,000 people 300km (185 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro, said the dam ruptured at 4.20pm in an area roughly 20km from the city centre.

The disaster comes as both Vale and BHP are battling a collapse in iron ore prices and a wider slump in the industry.

The Germano mine is a 50-50 joint venture between the world’s largest iron miner and the largest mining company.

Iron ore is transported down a slurry pipe to Espirito Santo in south-eastern Brazil, where it is turned into pellets. Samarco produces around 30 million tonnes per year, according to its website.

Friday 6 November 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/05/brazil-iron-mine-dam-bursts-floods-nearby-homes

continue reading