India train fire:wait to identify four badly charred bodies

Agonising wait for the families of four passengers missing after Wednesday's fire on the Mumbai-Dehradun Express.

The already traumatised families of the four missing passengers of the Mumbai-Dehradun Express that caught fire on Wednesday have been told that it may take up to six weeks to establish the identities of the four bodies charred beyond recognition.

Nine people died in the fire that ripped through three bogies near Dahanu Road station, and the Western Railway (WR) officials were able to identify five of the deceased within a few hours of the accident.

The railway officials reported that around eight passengers had been missing, and at least 45 opted out when the train resumed the journey around six hours after the incident.

By Thursday afternoon, the WR officials were able to locate four of the eight people missing, and all 45 passengers who had opted out had also been contacted.

Four people, including two from Mumbai, are now on the final list of the passengers missing, and their relatives, who have been waiting at the J J Hospital where post-mortems had been conducted, are in for lengthy, agonizing wait.

The hospital dean, Dr T P Lahane, said: "The DNA samples have been sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory in Kalina. It may take up to six weeks for the results to arrive."

Two of the four still missing are from Mumbai -- Null Bazaar resident Sakina Arsiwala, 57, and Jamir Ahmed, 60, from Jogeshwari - while the other two are an Indorebased couple, Hakimuddin Rassiwala, 63, and Zaibun Rassiwala, 53.

The railway doesn't want to take any chances, considering the goof-up barely a week ago in the aftermath of the December 28 Andhra train fire. The DNA reports revealed that the body of one of the victims, Aurangabad-based Eshwar Nagare, 70, had been buried by the family of another victim, S Bheemaiah, 55, from Sedam in Gulbarga district. The authorities' decision to release the body to Bheemaiah's relatives on the condition that they bury, and not cremate it, saved the day. Relatives of Sakina Arsiwala, a resident of Jariwala building, said she had celebrated the engagement of her son some time ago, and was travelling to Dahod in Gujarat for a family gathering. The stationmaster at Dahanu recognised her from the photograph her family members were carrying, and 'thought' he had helped her back on the train after the incident.

"We are hopeful that she's alive. Our relatives are in Dahanu, Vapi, Valsad and other places, looking for her in hospitals and clinics," said her relative Amir Masta.

Indore-based Hakimuddin Rassiwala and his wife had travelled to Mumbai to attend a wedding, and were on their way to Godhra in Gujarat. The couple's son, Mustali, said he and the relatives have been waiting at the hospital since 7 am Thursday. "The hospital authorities tell us to approach the Palghar police. They should show some compassion," he said.

Divisional Railway Manager (Western Railway) Shailendra Kumar said the railway officials were trying their best to help out the relatives, but without the DNA reports, there is only so much they could do.

"We made sure we contacted all those who opted out and traced the missing passengers. Now, we have no option but to wait for the reports," he said.

Friday 10 January 2014

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/mumbai/others/It-will-take-6-weeks-to-identify-the-four-badly-charred-bodies/articleshow/28608010.cms

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Helicopter body recovery begins

Search and rescue teams have begun the methodical process of removing bodies from a Norfolk marsh after a US Airforce officer paid tribute to four American crew members killed in a helicopter crash.

Captains Christopher S. Stover and Sean M. Ruane and Technical Sergeant Dale E. Mathews died when their Pave Hawk helicopter came down on a marsh near Cley-next- the-Sea on Tuesday night. Their female crew mate Staff Sergeant Afton M. Ponce was also killed in the crash. Colonel Kyle Robinson, 48th Fighter Wing commander, told reporters at RAF Lakenheath, where the wing is based: "I am deeply saddened by the loss of these great airmen. They have made the ultimate sacrifice while training to save the lives of others."

He added that no May Day message or any other warning of problems on board the helicopter was sent before the crash.

Speaking at the village of Salthouse, near the crash scene, Chief Superintendent Bob Scully said teams were now "actively recovering the bodies".

It is hoped the operation will be completed by darkness, with the bodies due to be taken to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital ahead of post-mortem examinations.

He warned it was important to balance the families' desire for a quick resolution with the need to preserve evidence.

Rain, wind and plummeting temperatures hampered the rescue effort today. Mr Scully said teams were prepared to work through the night if necessary.

He added: "We need to take care of the deceased in an appropriate and dignified way.

"I sincerely hope they will be safely taken from the scene by the end of the day but I can't offer any guarantees.

"I fully understand the families' distress at such a terrible time but they as much as anyone will want answers about how this happened.

"Our number one priority is recovering the bodies along with sensitive evidence from the crash site but that must be done step, by step, by step."

Asked about ammunition which was strewn across the marsh in the crash, he said it was not a priority as it posed no immediate threat to the public as long as people respect the 400-metre cordon around the site.

RAF mountain rescue teams and heavy loading equipment were seen arriving at the site throughout the day.

Col Robinson sent a message to the families of those who died at a press conference at Lakenheath: "As a husband and father myself, I cannot imagine how heartbroken you must feel, now missing a piece of your family. I speak for the entire wing when I say that we are thinking of you, we are praying for you, and we are here for you."

Captains Stover and Ruane were the pilots, while Tech Sgt Mathews and Staff Sgt Ponce were acting as special mission aviators in the low-level combat search and rescue training mission.

Both Col Robinson and Mr Scully said it was too early to speculate on what caused the crash.

Air accident, RAF and US investigators spent yesterday at the scene of the disaster, where debris is believed to have been strewn across an area the size of a football pitch.

The cordon is expected to remain in place for several weeks as more detailed investigations take place.

Since the crash, birdwatching groups and residents have repeated long-held concerns over low-flying training exercises.

Richard Kelham, chairman of Cley parish council, said the crash highlighted concerns about the impact of low-flying helicopters on the nature reserve.

He said: "It has been an ever-present issue for the last 20 years or so. If anything, it's got better in recent years as RAF bases have closed.

"The concern is more for the birds than anything else as local people are quite used to it.

"This has brought it to the fore again and, while we don't want a knee-jerk reaction, this is a chance to discuss whether anything can be done to improve the situation."

When asked about warnings from local residents about low flying, Col Robinson said: "I'm not aware of any warnings that we had.

"Obviously we take great care to make sure we operate in the safest fashion and all the rules and missions that they follow are the standard ones followed by the Ministry of Defence."

A derivative of the more famous Black Hawk helicopter, the Pave Hawk gets its name from the Pave acronym standing for Precision Avionics Vectoring Equipment.

They are used for combat search and rescue, mainly to recover downed aircrew or other isolated personnel in theatres of war.

They have a four-man crew and can carry up to 12 troops. Typically, training flights would replicate real missions as closely as possible, which would mean weapons and ammunition would be carried.

Speaking about the experience of the four crew members, who were from the 56th rescue squadron, Col Robinson said: "As you would imagine, with most crews there is a range of experience levels and in general you have some of the more experienced people will fly with some of the less experienced people and this crew is no different.

"They are all highly qualified in what they did and capable."

The colonel said there were no plans to fly the four Pave Hawk helicopters from Lakenheath for the rest of the week to give crew and their families time to come to terms with the incident.

"This has obviously been a very traumatic incident for an entire Liberty Wing family and in particular the 56th and we want to maintain and make sure we are taking care of the families and that the air crew members are safe before they head back out," he said.

In a separate incident, a US Navy helicopter with five crew members crashed into the ocean off the Virginia coast during a routine training mission, killing two and leaving two in hospital.

Rescuers searched into the night for a fifth sailor.

The two who died were among four crew members hoisted from the 5C (42F) waters by a Navy helicopter and taken to a hospital, the US Navy said.

The Navy identified the aircraft as an MH-53E.

Thursday 09 January 2014

http://news.uk.msn.com/us-helicopter-body-recovery-begins

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More bodies turning up in Tacloban

Piles of debris left by Supertyphoon Yolanda here continue to disgorge the bodies of those who died in the world’s strongest storm in recent history.

A group called Task Force Cadaver, formed by the city government, said members of the task force are still retrieving bodies from piles of debris in different parts of this city, which bore the brunt of Yolanda.

Senior Supt. Pablo Cordeta, head of the task force, said the team has been recovering five to seven bodies every day, and expects to find even more.

Cordeta said clearing activities in the villages, especially where there are still heaps of uncollected garbage left by the storm, are helping in the team’s recovery operations.

As of Jan. 4, the task force, which has resumed operations after the Christmas break, has recovered 17 more bodies, mostly in the San Jose district, composed of several coastal villages.

All bodies collected by the task force are brought to Barangay (village) Suhi, 13 kilometers north of the city proper.

Tecson John Lim, city administrator, said at least 1,305 bodies had been brought to the village of Suhi where these had been buried in a mass grave in the compound of the village’s health center.

Lim said the burial of the bodies had been finished on Jan. 5.

Aside from corpses that had been buried in Suhi, at least 1,200 more bodies had been buried at the public cemetery of Basper town, he said.

Lim said that 66 bodies still have to be buried as they are still being processed by the National Bureau of Investigation’s forensic experts.

NBI forensic experts collect marks or specimens such as clothes, small bones and dental parts, among others, for identification. The specimens are to be kept for future reference.

Lim said the bodies are, in the meantime, being kept in a refrigerated trailer van donated by the Philippine Red Cross.

He said the death toll in Tacloban City alone has gone past 2,000.

Villagers had been taking part in clearing operations that are part of a cash-for-work program launched by the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation.

The foundation pays villagers P500 each for a day’s work.

The United Nations Development Program has also initiated a separate cash-for-work program for villagers helping in clearing operations in the city.

The government has slowed the counting of the dead in areas hit by Yolanda after President Aquino, in a CNN interview, disputed initial reports that the death toll from the 300 kph typhoon is likely to hit 10,000.

Aquino, during the CNN interview, said the death toll could be closer to 2,000.

The burial of the dead in this city and other areas struck by Yolanda has been delayed because of continuing rain in the areas and by the slow process of collecting DNA samples that could help in the identification process.

Thursday 09 January 2014

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/560411/more-bodies-turning-up-in-tacloban

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Nine killed as fire breaks out in Mumbai train

Nine people were killed when fire broke out in the Dehradun Express early on Wednesday morning near Dahanu Road in Thane, Maharashtra.

The fire, which broke out in the S4 coach, spread to two more coaches, S2 and S3.

The train had left Mumbai at 12am and was on the Mumbai-Surat line when the fire broke out around 2am.

Of those killed, five have been identified, Western Railway (WR) officials said. Three of them are from Mumbai, while two are from Gujarat.

According to WR spokesperson Sharat Chandrayan, four of those identified died due to asphyxiation.

The identities of the rest could not be established as their bodies have been charred beyond recognition.

Railway officials claimed the guard noticed the fire and brought the train to a halt, and separated the three coaches from the rest of the train. Passengers too were alerted by the smoke.

Officials said casualties were limited because the train wasn't fully booked. There were 24 passengers in S2, seven in S3 and 51 in S4.

Railway officials claimed that they suspect the fire could have resulted from a short circuit in the S4 coach. The Railway Board has constituted an inquiry into the causes of the fire.

The commissioner of Railway Safety will conduct an inquiry into the fire incident, Railway Board Chairman Arunendra Kumar said.

A team from Kalina Forensic Laboratory has collected samples from the accident site.

Officials claimed that relief reached the passengers in about 40 minutes and that they were transported to Golwad station. However, passengers claim the help did not get to them until after 4am.

The Railways has offered a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the next of kin of the dead. Rs 1 lakh will be given to those seriously injured and a sum of Rs 50,000 will be given to those who received minor injuries, Kumar said.

DNA tests

DNA tests will be conducted on four unidentified bodies of the nine passengers who died in Wednesday's Dehradun Express fire in Thane, near the Maharashtra-Gujarat border, an official said here Thursday.

"Their bodies have been burnt beyond recognition and hence it has been decided to conduct DNA tests," a Western Railway spokesperson told IANS.

The victims are believed to have been travelling in S-2 and S-3 coaches, which along with S-4 caught fire around 2.35 a.m. early Wednesday near Gholvad, around 145 km north of Mumbai.

The bodies are in custody of the Government Railway Police which will arrange for the DNA testing and later complete the formalities of handing these over to the bereaved families.

Nine passengers, including a woman, were killed when a fire engulfed the three sleeper coaches of the speeding Mumbai Bandra Terminus-Dehradun Express.

The fire which ravaged three sleeper coaches of the train caught the sleeping passengers unawares. It was first noticed by Jawahar Singh, a level-crossing gateman who alerted the Gholvad station master.

The Commissioner of Railway Safety will conduct an inquiry.

Thursday 09 January 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2536137/Nine-killed-fire-breaks-Mumbai-train.html

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/379464/dna-tests-identify-train-fire.html

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Death toll rises to 24 in Goa building collapse

With the recovery of three more bodies from the debris, the death toll in Canacona building collapse in Goa has risen to 24.

"We recovered three more bodies from the debris of the building last night and search is on for more," Ashok Menon, in-charge of rescue operation, said on Wednesday.

He said the rescue operations had been continuing manually after buildings adjacent to the site tilted.

The demolition of these buildings is likely to start from Wednesday, he added.

More than 40 people were trapped under the debris when the under-construction five-storey building caved in on Saturday afternoon.

Police had arrested Deputy Town Planner Prakash Bandodkar on Monday night in connection with the collapse. However, Municipal Engineer Ajay Desai and three directors of a property firm (Bharat Realtors and Developers), constructing the structure, are still untraceable.

Thursday 09 January 2014

http://post.jagran.com/death-toll-rises-to-24-in-goa-building-collapse-1389249002

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15 killed, six buildings burnt in Lagos tanker crash

No fewer than 15 people were burnt to death when a tanker laden with petrol fell and went up in flames Tuesday night. The inferno lasted till yesterday morning, at the Berger Suya junction, Apapa, Lagos. Also, several buildings, eight vehicles and about 200 lock-up shops including a commercial bank in the area were razed. There were, however, conflicting accounts of the number of casualities.

While Federal Fire Service and National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, put the figure at 15, the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, and the State fire service said only five bodies were recovered. The fire which started at about 10:35pm on Tuesday was said to have been caused by a tanker laden with 33,000 litres of petrol which lost control as it was negotiating a sharp bend. It exploded close to suya spots in the area.

The driver of the truck, his assistant, several passengers in two commercial buses, by-standers and two Hausa suya vendors were burnt beyond recognition. Rescue workers were seen picking and collecting bones and burnt human parts into cellophane bags. A commercial bank was not spared as a part of the building which housed the Automated Teller Machines, ATMs, was badly damaged.

Eyewitnesses said that the bank guard was trapped and burnt in the inferno. Fire fighters led by the Director, Lagos State Fire Service, Fadipe Razaq Idowu, had hectic time combating the fire which lasted about five hours. Speaking with Vanguard early yesterday, Idowu stated that the team which comprises 21 officials responded promptly with three fire trucks each containing 10,000 litres of water. According to him, each of the trucks was replenished three times.

He said: “The State Fire service responded with three fire trucks, each containing 10,000 litres and was replenished three times. We also used 600 litres of synthetic chemical foam to stop the raging fire, if not, the whole building would have been razed.” Idowu disclosed that the tanker which was carrying about 33,000 litres of petrol, went up in flames after it lost control when trying to negotiate a bend at the Berger Suya Junction leading to Wilmer. Reacting to the number of deaths recorded, Idowu stated that five bodies were evacuated by Lagos State Environmental Unit at the spot.

The General Manager, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, Dr. Femi Oke-Osanyintolu, said 15 people died in the conflagration. But an eyewitness said more than 15 people were burnt beyond recognition. “It will be more than that (15 people). They don’t know what they are saying. Two buses which were at the spot when the incident happened caught fire and all the occupants were burnt. The suya sellers including a woman selling orange at the junction were burnt.

One of the executives of the Berger Suya Traders Association, Gabriel Ojum, cried that they were like orphans now having lost everything they had laboured for. He said he lost more than N5 million worth of goods to the inferno. He disclosed that more than 200 shops were affected with goods burnt. Ojum pointed to another member of the executive of the union who lost about 30 articulated vehicle engines, each costing about N850,000.

How it happened

An eyewitness, who resides in the area told Vanguard that the tanker, which number plate could not be identified was coming from Kirikiri jetty and lost control probably as a result of brake failure. He said the tanker fell as it was trying to negotiate a bend and caught fire immediately. “As it lost control, the truck fell close to the suya spot at the junction with its content spilling across the road into the immediate environment, from the suya furnace it wildly spread to the street.

The driver and the conductor were trapped in the truck which was burnt beyond recognition. Two buses which were carrying several passengers were also burnt without a survivor. A woman who sold oranges at the junction; a guard in the bank was also burnt to death. Some policemen at the junction were also not spared. But I don’t know whether they (the policemen) survived it or not.”

On how it spread to the adjoining street where about 200 shops were affected, another resident, who also lost goods worth about N5million to the inferno said: “As the tanker fell, its content (petrol) spilled and flowed into the gutters and as the fire began, it spread immediately to the gutters, linking the shops and vehicles parked along the road. The entire area was gutted.

We immediately reached the fire service, which responded promptly.” An eyewitness said the fire was put out at around 3:00 am yesterday with property and goods estimated at N500million destroyed. This is a bad New Year gift —Victims Edwin Ibe, who had just returned from his village for the Christmas celebration said he lost more than N45 million worth of goods. He described the incident as bad new year gift.

A middle aged father of six who spoke amid tears, lamented: “As you can see, I lost a lot of money here. Not only that my engines worth more than N25 million got burnt to ashes, a fairly new trailer that I recently acquired which is worth over N15m was also burnt.” Promise Lezieanya, a trader, absolved the tanker driver of blame saying “he tried his best to maneouvre shouting that the truck had lost its brake as he was approaching the junction.

“A commercial bus by the side which was fully loaded with passengers to Wilmer got burnt. No one survived in the bus. I counted more than 28 people, 94 shops, eight motorcycles and eight vehicles that were burnt that night. I lost 38 pieces of engines to the fire outbreak each at the rate of N1.1m and a new truck that I had sold at the rate of N7million but had not delivered to the owners. All the Okada riders that used to stay at the junction were all burnt to ashes,” he narrated.

Fire fighters No fewer than 21 men from the state fire service were busy fighting the fire with about 90,000 litres of water. The State Director, Lagos State fire service, Fadipe Razaq Idowu stated that apart from the fact that three trucks were used, they also used 600 litres of synthetic chemical foam to stop the raging fire. He, however, acknowledged the support of private fire units of Julius Berger and the Navy which complemented the state fire service to combat the inferno.

Looting spree

Razaq told Vanguard that street urchins had a field day looting as the fire was raging. He noted, “Many of them were carrying machete, sledge hammer and other dangerous weapons trying to loot. They impeded our work, we would have recorded more successes if they had stayed out of our way.” Another eyewitness indicated that looters were trying to gain access into the ATM compartment of the affected bank just as others were busy vandalising property around.

Lagos government reacts Lagos State Government yesterday described the Apapa fire incident which killed 15 people as a shock,saying “in order to avoid this, that was why the state government embarked on the enforcement of the 2012 road traffic law.” Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Lateef Ibirogba, while reacting to the inferno said: “We noted it and have always advised full compliance with the Lagos Road Traffic Law 2012 in terms of maintenance of vehicle road worthiness, compliance with speed limits and use of indicator lights.

“That’s why we also reorganised and strengthened our Vehicle Inspection Agency. There’s often a tendency for tanker drivers to resist enforcement, gang up and threaten to withdraw their service. We must all resist this and insist on full compliance with the Law.” Lagos records 194 fire incidents in 39 days The inferno was the 194th fire incident that Lagos would witness in 39 days since December 2013. As of Tuesday, Mr Rasak Fadipe, told the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, that 193 fire outbreaks had occurred in Lagos within the last one month. Before the Berger Suya disaster, Fadipe said the last incident occurred on January 7 at about 3.08 a.m., at Sawmill Market, Ipaja, Lagos.

Thursday 09 January 2014

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/01/15-burnt-death-lagos-tanker-fire/

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At least 15 people killed in road accident in Pakistan

At least 15 people were killed and 26 others injured when two passenger vans coming from opposite directions fell into a ravine after hitting each other near Pakistan's northern city of Murree on Wednesday night, police officials and hospital sources said.

Ishtiaq Shah, chief traffic police officer, said that 15 dead bodies have been recovered from the accident site and the death toll may further rise as several passengers are still trapped in the ill-fated vans.

Talking to Xinhua over the phone, Doctor Ayesha Isani, spokesperson for Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences Islamabad, said that they have received 26 injured people and four dead bodies so far at the hospital, while more are being brought in.

Local state TV channel PTV said that the passenger vans with altogether over 50 people on board collided and fell into a 150- 200 feet deep ravine while passing each other in Salgirah area of Murree, a resort in the country's Punjab province.

The accident apparently happened due to the slippery roads caused by light rains, but further investigations are going on.

Rescue officials said that they are facing problems in their work due to poor visibility and rainy weather.

Rescue work is still under way and over 12 ambulances are taking part to shift the injured people to capital city Islamabad, about 29 km away from the accident site.

The Army has also been called by the traffic police to help carry out rescue work.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took notice of the accident and expressed sorrow over the tragedy.

He directed concerned officials to expedite the rescue work and advised traffic officials to formulate a comprehensive traffic plan during the rainy season.

Thursday 09 January 2014

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_01_09/At-least-15-people-killed-in-road-accident-in-Pakistan-3761/

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Japan's move to repatriate war dead will face backlash from China, S Korea

The Japanese government is drawing up legislation that will make the repatriation of the bodies of its second-world-war dead a “state responsibility”, but analysts anticipate the initiative will attract renewed criticism from China and South Korea.

The legislation is scheduled to be submitted to the Diet before the end of the month and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is seeking the support of other parties.

Given the LDP’s majorities in both houses of parliament, the legislation is expected to pass with little debate.

Under the proposal, specialist staff will be sent on diplomatic missions in countries where Japanese troops were killed during the conflict with the task of gathering information about the locations of grave sites and battlefields.

Additional funding will also be provided for the work of recovering and repatriating any remains that are located, although no specific figure has been placed on the amount that will be made available.

“Internal Affairs Minister [Yoshitaka] Shindo has been quite adamant in proposing this kind of effort in recent years and there are now many other like-minded politicians in Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe’s government,” Yoichi Shimada, a professor of international relations at Japan’s Fukui Prefectural University, told the South China Morning Post.

Shindo was fiercely criticised earlier in January after paying his respects at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine just days after Abe had paid an official visit to the controversial war shrine.

“I believe it is quite natural for any country to try to recover the remains of its soldiers and it is shameful that previous administrations have not done anything about this situation sooner,” Shimada said.

An estimated 2.4 million Japanese were killed at home and overseas during the second world war, with the remains of around 1.13 million people still unaccounted for.

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has in recent years made tentative efforts to recover remains, with around 2,000 bodies repatriated in both 2011 and 2012.

The government is aiming to increase that number rapidly and records suggest that some 600,000 bodies can be recovered.

The vast majority of these were troops killed in land battles across Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands. Tens of thousands died in the fierce fighting in places such as New Guinea, the Philippines, Tarawa, Palau, Guam and Myanmar.

While some were buried in mass graves, others were simply bulldozed into the caves they were defending because it was too dangerous for American troops to try to capture the strongpoints.

“One of the reasons for this new effort is to strengthen diplomatic ties with other nations, such as Myanmar,” said Shimada. “There are the remains of many Japanese killed in Myanmar that have still to be found and it has been hard for Japan to deal with the totalitarian government there in recent years.

“Through this initiative, we can improve our relations and face up to China together.”

Given the deteriorating relationship between Tokyo and Beijing in recent months, however, it is unlikely that China will co-operate in the recovery effort.

Shimada dismisses the impact of Chinese intransigence.

“Most of the cremated remains of men killed in China and on the Korean Peninsula were repatriated during the conflict because they are close to Japan,” he said. “Most of the missing are in Southeast Asia or around the labour camps in Siberia where they were held after being captured by the Soviet Union in the latter stages of the war.

“It is true that no matter what Japan does diplomatically at the moment, China complains,” he added. “But I believe their aggression towards Japan and other nations in the region – the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and others – will only stir up resentment against their heavy-handed tactics.”

Thursday 09 January 2014

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1401461/japans-move-repatriate-war-dead-will-face-backlash-china-s-korea-analysts

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In 2013, 110 found dead in Chennai bus terminal

Bus stations are meant to be transitory points but not usually for a final trip to the great beyond. And yet police have in the past year found the bodies of 110 people in the teeming Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus, through which 2 lakh people pass every day.

Most of the dead were elderly people, abandoned by their families, CMBT police inspector Sam Vincent said. Policemen take it on themselves to give those who are unidentifiable a decent burial, performing the funeral rites for more than 100 people in 2013.

Vincent, who maintains a record of elderly people rescued from the bus terminus and of those found dead, said policemen were forced to spend most of their time keeping track of bodies found in the terminus, attempting to identify the dead and contacting their relatives, or trying to trace the origins of elderly people abandoned by their families. "It's just part of the job," Vincent said. "It is our duty to make sure the dead are buried respectfully." With more than 800 long distance buses arriving or departing daily, police at the station often find it impossible to track down relatives of people abandoned or identify the dead.

In some instances, people are found dead on the platforms in the terminus. Bus crews also discover the bodies of people in their vehicles at the end of a trip.

Others who frequent CMBT, like autorickshaw driver Prabhu Kumaran, say they have seen people abandoning elderly relatives at the terminus. "They come by autorickshaw and vanish after leaving behind elderly people," Kumaran said. "Most of the senior citizens left behind are disabled in some way. They either cannot speak or hear; some cannot walk or take care of themselves."

He says he alerted the CMBT police about elderly people being abandoned at the terminus on three occasions in six months.

Inspector Vincent says the CMBT police have to deal with around 35 % of all the unidentified people found dead in the city. The 135 police stations in Chennai report four to five cases a month .At the CMBT police station, the number scan be as high as 12-14 each month.

"Police constable K Selvamani does a very tough job. He has disposed of most of the bodies found at CMBT," Anna Nagar deputy commissioner of police S Xavier Dhanraj said.

Selvamani , 36, a native of Chidambaram who lives with his family in Korattur, joined the force in 1999. "I was initially hesitant when I found a body in the terminus because I did not want to get involved. But giving abandoned people a proper burial now gives me peace of mind," he said.

"I am not a pious man," he said. "But I don't understand how people who go to temples to worship can dump elderly people or the bodies of the dead in a bus terminus."

Wednesday 08 January 2014

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/In-2013-110-found-dead-in-Chennai-bus-terminal/articleshow/28532276.cms

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US military helicopter crashes in Britain, munitions across site

British police said on Wednesday they would be working with the US Air Force and others to find out why a US military helicopter crashed on the coast of eastern England, killing all four crew on board.

Wreckage included munitions was spread over a wide area of the crash site in difficult terrain. The helicopter, a Pave Hawk assigned to the 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath air base, was performing a low-level training mission along the Norfolk coast when it went down in marshland on Tuesday evening. The cause of the crash, which occurred in a nature reserve near the village of Cley next the Sea, was not known. The area is about 130 miles (210 km) northeast of London. "We will be working with our partners at the Ministry of Defence, Air Accident Investigation Branch and US Air Force to gather all evidence from the scene and then recover the aircraft," said Chief Superintendent Bob Scully of Norfolk Constabulary, the local police force. "This is difficult terrain with marshland and tides coupled with wreckage containing munitions covering a large area," he said in a statement.

A 400-metre (quarter mile) area around the crash site remained cordoned off to preserve public safety. No one on the ground was thought to have been hurt, authorities said. Earlier, the 48th Fighter Wing, which also flies F-15 fighter jets, confirmed the deaths of all four airmen on board and said their names would be released 24 hours after their next-of-kin had been informed. The Pave Hawk is made by Sikorsky Aircraft Co, a unit of United Technologies Corp . According to the US Air Force website, it is a modified version of the Army Black Hawk and its primary mission is "to conduct day or night operations into hostile environments to recover downed aircrew or other isolated personnel during war". RAF Lakenheath is home to Europe's only F-15 fighter wing.

Mr Scully told the press conference: 'The crashed aircraft did contain ammunition. 'That ammunition is not of any great significance. It is bullets, if you will, but those are scattered about that area that I just described to you, and so the site is hazardous to members of the public and those people that would normally visit this area for birdwatching and other nature-interest activities, so for the present time we will be assisting and working with the military to ensure public safety by restricting access to that area.'

SCATTERED DEBRIS

Scully told reporters at Cley next the Sea that debris was scattered across an area about the size of a football field. Most of the debris was in marshland although some of it was vulnerable to high tides and was being removed swiftly.

Scully said a coroner, who under English law will be responsible for the investigation into the four deaths, was carrying a daylight assessment and once he had given his consent, authorities would arrange for the removal of the bodies. "The situation that we have now is that we are obviously moving from a potential rescue operation to one of preserving the scene and carrying out an investigation," Scully told reporters. "We are now working with the US military and the RAF (Britain's Royal Air Force) to assist in their investigation and ours at the present time, and at some point we will hand over to the air investigation side of the military, both UK and US"

A second helicopter, which had been taking part in the same training exercise as the one that crashed, had landed at the site and was still there, Scully said. "It will be a matter for the investigation to determine whether or not there was any causal link. My understanding is that apparently not, but we don't know. And that's the important thing, we shouldn't be speculating here," Scully said.

Inquiries into the cause of the crash, as well as the recovery of the wreckage and the second aircraft, are expected to take a number of days to complete, due to the geography and the munitions from the crashed helicopter.

The cordon remains this morning and the A149 through Cley is closed.

NATURE RESERVE STAFF RUSH TO HELP EMERGENCY SERVICES Staff at the nature reserve close to where the Pave Hawk crashed gave emergency services advice when they first arrived on the scene.

The head of the wildlife trust which runs Cley Marshes reserve said he initially feared two people on the ground could have been killed.

Brendan Joyce, chief executive of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, told the Norwich Evening News: 'I was concerned when I heard four people had lost their lives. The initial reports were it was an Apache helicopter, and they only fly two, so I wondered who else was involved.'

He added: 'My understanding is that it came down on the shingle bank, so not on the actual reserve. We don’t know what the cause was at all.

'It would have been dark. There would not have been any staff or volunteers on the site at the time.

'I do know that our staff locally initially assisted in terms of advice to the emergency services.

'Obviously the emergency services and military have taken over pretty quickly and have sealed the area off. We are not involved.

'We are deeply shocked by it and our first thoughts are with the families of those who have lost their lives.'

Details of the four crew members will not be released until next of kin have been informed and it is not believed that anyone in the surrounding area has been injured, police said.

Norfolk Constabulary Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Hamlin said: 'I would like to pass on my condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of those US Air Force personnel who have sadly lost their lives in this tragic incident.

'Emergency services, the military, partner agencies and volunteers have been working through the night to deal with this difficult situation on our coastline and I would also like to thank them for their professionalism and resilience.

'As our inquiry moves on today and the recovery of the aircraft begins, I would urge the public to stay away from the area - the cordon and road closures are in place to allow our experts to carry out these processes safely and there is no risk to members of the public if this section of marshland is avoided.'

Bernard Bishop, a Norfolk Wildife Trust warden based at Cley, said his house overlooks the crash site and he had never seen anything like it.

'I heard the helicopter flying overhead and watched from my back garden,' he said.

'It was very quickly obvious something serious was wrong. The search and rescue crews quickly arrived and it was my job to escort them over the marsh.

'The conditions are very difficult because the marsh has flooded twice in recent weeks so that's hampering their efforts to recover the bodies and make the helicopter safe.

'There's only one track in and out of the crash site, which is also restricting their movements. It's just awful. I've never known anything like and never seen so many people here at one time.'

Peter and Sue McKnestiey, who run Cookies crab shop in Salthouse, have been making cups of tea for the search teams.

Mrs McKnestiey said: 'We were watching TV at about 7pm. We heard the helicopter come over very fast and very low.

'I don't know about engines but I am used to the sound of helicopters and this sounded very heavy and very unusual'

Cley Marshes is Norfolk Wildlife Trust's oldest and best known nature reserve. It was purchased in 1926 making it the first Wildlife Trust reserve in the country.

The Cley Marshes website says its shingle beach and saline lagoons, along with the grazing marsh and reedbed support large numbers of wintering and migrating wildfowl and waders, as well as bittern, marsh harrier and bearded tit.

Richard Kelham, chairman of Cley Parish Council, said: 'It looks as though the military helicopter has come down in the middle of the bird reserve. The incident is very sad and there is a 400m cordon surrounding the area.'

Lieutenant Keenan Kunst, who is based at Lakenheath, confirmed that the helicopter that crashed was based there.

An RAF Lakenheath tweet sent later read: 'We can confirm that one of our HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters was involved in an incident during a training mission outside Cley-Next-The-Sea.'

The RNLI said three of its boats were called out at about 7.45pm but were called back because the incident had happened on land.

A spokesman for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution said: 'We were asked for three lifeboats to respond to reports that an aircraft had possibly ditched in the sea.

'Lifeboats Wells, Sheringham and Cromer were launched at the request of the coastguard but were stood down when it was confirmed that the aircraft had come down over land.'

Wednesday 08 January 2013

http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-us-military-helicopter-crashes-in-britain-munitions-across-site-1947336

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535501/BREAKING-NEWS-Four-people-believed-died-helicopter-crash-Norfolk.html

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Goa building collapse: Death toll rises to 19

The death toll in Canacona building collapse has gone up to 19 after one more body was recovered, officials said.

"One body was recovered last evening and another one late night, taking the death toll to 19," Director of Fire and Emergency Services Ashok Menon told PTI.

The rescue operation, which had stopped after two adjacent buildings tilted, resumed yesterday afternoon.

The under-construction building in Chawdi area of Canacona, 70 kms from here, collapsed last Saturday. Its location on a narrow lane, a kilometre off the national highway linking Goa to Karnataka, had made rescue operations difficult.

According to the officials, at least ten more bodies are still under the debris.

The state government has called in special machinery to demolish three adjacent buildings, including the two which are tilted.

The operation to demolish the buildings will start in the afternoon, officials said.

Wednesday 08 January 2014

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-goa-building-collapse-death-toll-rises-to-19-1947221

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NBI on Haiyan bodies: No choice but temporary burial

With no refrigerator vans for disaster victim identification (DVI) operations in Yolanda-hit areas, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said unprocessed bodies in advanced state of decomposition are left with no choice but a temporary burial.

Dr Wilfredo Tierra, officer-in-charge (OIC) of the NBI Medico-Legal Division, said the bodies will be buried in shallow graves and exhumed later on for processing – an arrangement agreed on with the local government.

In an interview with Rappler on Wednesday, January 8, Tierra explained that "continuous verbal requests" by their bureau for refrigerator vans had been addressed to various agencies even before Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) hit.

Because of the less-than-ideal conditions in their DVI operations work site, the team is able to process only 40 bodies compared to what should normally be 150 bodies in a day.

Thus far, 418 unidentified bodies have been processed for DNA sampling and buried permanently at the Holy Cross Memorial. The samples will be kept for DNA testing later on.

The ante-mortem phase of the process will involve DNA testing of relatives coming forward to compare with that of the dead for identification.

The OIC added that DVI has always been a "tedious, difficult, and costly" process, citing the 5,000 dead bodies in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in Thailand which took up to two years to identify.

Constraints

Tierra’s division deploys a 13-man team working on a rotational 9-day basis – including during the previous holiday season when the 418 bodies were processed and buried at the Holy Cross Memorial, contradicting the pronouncement of Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez that the team halted operations.

The team is composed of forensic doctors, photographers, and chemists from the NBI Forensic Chemistry Division.

Due to the disproportionate number of government personnel to the dead, the team is forced to do tasks other than the processing of bodies. They have been moving bodies as well – a task supposedly for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP).

The NBI team on scheduled rotation, he said, also faces other constraints, including the frequent rain in the area which causes flooding and makes it harder to harvest specimen for processing.

In the initial phases, the lack of air transportation was also a problem.

Despite the constraints, the NBI assured the public that it is relying on tried and tested protocol – the Interpol DVI standards.

Tierra – who has been with the NBI Medico-Legal Division for 17 years now – said the Interpol DVI standards are in accordance with the protocol that the team employed in previous natural and man-made disasters. These included typhoons Reming, Sendong, Pablo, and the 2006 ULTRA stampede.

Multi-agency task

The NBI Medico-Legal Division is taking the lead in the DVI operations in affected areas, but the Department of Health (DOH) is in charge of the overall management of the dead.

Managing the thousands of dead bodies remains a “multi-agency task,” with the DOH, local government units, AFP, BFP, and non-government agencies such as the World Health Organization and International Committee of the Red Cross.

Tierra said the scale of Yolanda’s devastation is the biggest that he has encountered in his more than a decade of medico-legal service in government.

Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) devastated parts of the Eastern Visayas in November 2013, leaving thousands homeless and mourning for the dead.

Speed should not prevail over accuracy

"Speed should not prevail over accuracy," said Justice Secretary Leila De Lima about the ongoing burial of corpses in areas battered by Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan).

It is the need for accuracy, among other things, that has delayed burial of the rapidly decomposing bodies.

"The corpses were not buried right away because they were still being processed. Processing is time-consuming," she explained, almost two* months after Yolanda devastated the Eastern Visayas. Processing, she added, is necessary to identify those left dead by the storm.

"We don't want to be turning over the wrong dead bodies to certain families," she emphasized.

The explanation came after the media reported 1,400 bodies left lying on a muddy open field in San Isidro, a farming village on the outskirts of hard-hit Tacloban City. There were also reports of unburied bodies in other devastated areas 7 weeks after the disaster.

She quelled fears that the government was taking its time in burying the bodies, while citizens took it upon themselves to bury loved ones and complete strangers.

"We are on double time to bury bodies, both processed and unprocessed," the DOJ chief said.

. To remedy the slow-going operation, local governments and national agencies agreed to temporarily bury the bodies. They will then be exhumed later on for processing by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), said De Lima.

Uncooperative weather

Rainshowers that drenched the Eastern Visayas the past few weeks was another major cause of delay.

"There were factors like rainy days in succession. It's difficult to work in a rainy environment. It's one of the causes for the delay in burials," she explained.

Contrary to media reports, the NBI did not stop rehabilitation operations during the holiday break, De Lima clarified. A skeletal force left in Tacloban continued processing of the bodies.

"Before holiday break, there were more than 400 processed bodies which were not yet buried. During the break, they were buried," she said in a mix of English and Filipino.

More help on the way

After an initial rift between the national and local governments that also hampered relief and rehabilitation efforts, De Lima said the two are coordinating closely with one another for burial operations.

More teams of forensic doctors and chemists who can help in the processing of dead bodies are on their way to Tacloban. Three teams were sent there on January 2 and more will be deployed, she said.

Such scientists are needed to identify bodies in an advanced state of decomposition. With their facial features marred by decomposition, only scientific analysis of their DNA can unlock their identities.

Rehabilitation czar Panfilo Lacson said the burial, which started on Thursday, January 2, is expected to be completed on Tuesday, January 7, if the weather cooperates. He said that Health Undersecretary Janette Garin is in Barangay (village) Suhi in Tacloban to personally supervise operations.

The Department of Public Works and Highways sent additional equipment such as backhoes and payloaders, to speed up the mass burial. By Saturday, January 4, the team is targeting the processing and burial of 300 bodies.

Wednesday 08 January 2014

http://www.rappler.com/nation/47496-nbi-haiyan-bodies-no-choice-temporary-burial

http://www.rappler.com/move-ph/issues/disasters/typhoon-yolanda/47186-doj-haiyan-burials-accuracy-speed

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Project to honour 'unrecorded' WW1 dead

A new project is being launched to honour hundreds of “forgotten” soldiers from both world wars who are not currently commemorated.

The National Army Museum, in west London, has established a dedicated unit to investigate cases where the deaths of soldiers, sailors and airmen from the conflicts were inadvertently overlooked by the authorities.

Once each case has been verified, the name of the fallen serviceman will be passed on to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in order to ensure it is added to a memorial.

The project starts this month and is to run for two years. There is already a backlog of 360 names, submitted by relatives and amateur historians, and the museum believes that this year’s centenary of the outbreak of the First World War will lead to a far greater number of names being put forward, as people research their family history and make discoveries.

Every British or Commonwealth soldier killed in either war should be commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. However, bureaucratic lapses mean that many were accidentally omitted from the records.

Some experts have suggested there could be as many as 10,000 names mistakenly left off the records, which could now be added.

Among them was Lance Corporal Peter Pollock, 21, killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The omission was detected by amateur historians and his name has been added to the Thiepval Memorial, in France, to those killed in the battle for whom there is no known grave.

The task of investigating such claims was previously performed by the Ministry of Defence, but it will now be taken on by the dedicated, two man team at the museum, in Chelsea, as part of its plans to mark the centenary.

David Bownes, assistant director of the National Army Museum, said: “Restoring honour to the casualties of the World Wars is a deserving enterprise and one that the National Army Museum’s experts are well-equipped to investigate and substantiate.”

The majority of the missing names discovered so far by researchers are from the First World War.

The CWGC was not founded until three years into the conflict, in 1917 – initially as the Imperial War Graves Commission – and did not start its work in earnest until after the war ended. Its role was to ensure that every war dead had an official headstone or, if they had no known grave, were commemorated on an official memorial.

It drew up lists of the dead and set about trying to locate those already buried, but in an era before computers, many of the dead appear to have fallen from the records or otherwise been lost in the fog of war.

Many of those omitted were those, like Pollock, the son of a Presbyterian minister, serving in the Royal Irish Rifles, whose bodies were never found.

John Bull, from Stockport, was also killed on the first day of the Somme – July 1 1916 – and like Pollock his body was never recovered.

Bull had enlisted in the second Pals battalions of the Manchester Regiment in September 1914, alongside three brothers, Ernest, William and Abraham.

Due to an error, his death was not properly recorded – although that of his brother Ernest, fatally wounded on the same day, was – and his name was not passed on to the Commission, until it was found to be missing by researchers. His name has now joined Pollock’s on the Thiepval memorial.

Many of those overlooked died of wounds or illness, away from the front line, among them Reginald Buckman, 25, a footman from Ardingly, Sussex who was serving as a Bombardier in the Royal Field Artillery. He died of his injuries in hospital in London in October 1916, a month after being shot on the Western Front. He now has an official headstone on his grave in Highbrook, West Sussex.

Wednesday 08 January 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10557073/Project-to-honour-unrecorded-WW1-dead.html

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Kegworth air disaster: The day disaster struck as passenger plane fell from the skies on to M1

The village of Kegworth is marking the 25th anniversary of a fatal air disaster with which its name will always be associated.

On 8th January 1989, a British Midland flight from Heathrow to Belfast crashed into an embankment on the M1 motorway after attempting an emergency landing.

Of the 126 people on board, 47 died and a further 74 were injured.

The Boeing 747 experienced problems soon after taking off from Heathrow Airport. Flight 092 was scheduled to travel from Heathrow to Belfast but was diverted to East Midlands Airport after the pilot reported an emergency situation in one of the engines.

A loud bang from one of the engines sent a ripple of panic through the aircraft, especially as some passengers could see sparks flying from the jet.

Confusion about which of the engines had dropped out led to Captain Kevin Hunt and his co-pilot David McClelland shutting down the only working engine, leaving the plane gliding.

Its tail bounced off the ground about a quarter of a mile from the beginning of East Midlands Airport runway, before it crashed into an embankment on the M1 motorway.

In an astonishing stroke of luck, no vehicles were travelling on that section of the motorway when the plane came down.

The plane was only 20 seconds from the runway but, after narrowly missing the village of Kegworth, the 12-week-old Boeing 737-400 crashed on to the M1.

The fuselage broke into three sections on impact, immediately killing more than 30 of the people on board, the cockpit separating from the main body and the tail folding back.



Most of the deaths occurred at the front of the plane, but 79 people, including the two pilots, survived.

AA patrolmen arriving in the scene spoke at the time of "complete devastation with seats and bodies piled up everywhere".

Firefighters who had been alerted to the mechanical problems were waiting for the flight to land at East Midlands Airport.

When they saw the cloud of smoke, they fought through trees and bushes at the edge of the runway to reach the wreckage.

At Derbyshire Royal Infirmary a major accident was put into operation. A medical flying squad of 16 doctors and nurses travelled to the scene to treat survivors.

Surgeons carried out more than 80 operations during the first 36 hours after the crash.



Having heard about the Kegworth air disaster from a colleague, Professor Wallace rushed to the aid of the people involved and became immersed in a rescue effort in which he oversaw the care of four patients.

Even after his efforts on January 8, 1989, however, Professor Wallace's involvement with the disaster continued.

He started a task force which painstakingly analysed the disaster and revolutionised the safety of air travel.

"I remember the day after the accident, I was chatting to one of my colleagues and we both came to the conclusion that this was an unusual accident," he said.

"We set up a research project which looked at the cause of death in those that died and how the injuries had occurred in those that survived.

"We felt there was an opportunity to look at the safety in a crashed aircraft and how things might be improved – there were lessons that we learned from Kegworth."

The project, called Nottingham Leicester Derby Belfast (NLDB), eventually involved 30 people and produced several major recommendations which were adopted to improve safety.

"A lot of people are now very grateful for them [the changes the research made] – we learned, for instance, that the floors of the airplane at that time were not sufficiently strong because seats were ripped off the floor and a lot of the people at the front of the plane were concertinaed together and effectively crushed to death."



The task group also researched the brace position – which was then adopted as a result.

Professor Fraser said: "We worked on identifying the best brace position and how you should position yourself to reduce to the minimum the issues you get on an impact.

"We believe it has had benefits and there has been a couple of crashes where people did adopt the position and were uninjured. Certainly you reflect on it and think we did that research and we think it has benefited the industry and passengers and we are very proud.

The horror of the event is something that many people won't forget and Professor Fraser, who has worked in Nottingham since 1985 after coming from Manchester, remembers the aftermath clearly.

He said: "I was working in my office at QMC doing some research. My fellow came into my office and said a friend had told him a plane had crashed.

"We went down to the A and E department to see what we could do to help. Within ten minutes, the first casualties appeared and we had severely injured bodies come into Queen's to resuscitate."

The professor of orthopaedic and accident surgery at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust added: "It did feel different. We were aware it was a serious accident from the severity of the first of the casualties – and as more were delivered, it became clear that this had been pretty awful and that people had been killed and seriously hurt.

"Everybody who was available came to help and we allocated about two or three doctors and nurses to each of the badly injured plane occupants. One of the patients who I looked after had a bad head injury and his skull was missing at the back – others had very severe fractures, abdominal injuries and chest injuries.

"People were in remarkably good control. It's very much a situation where, when things become difficult, you focus on providing the best service you can in difficult circumstances. I think we coped admirably well."

Wednesday 08 January 2014

http://www.itv.com/news/2014-01-08/village-marks-25th-anniversary-of-kegworth-air-disaster/

http://www.nottinghampost.com/day-disaster-struck-passenger-plane-fell-skies-M1/story-20413253-detail/story.html

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Why identifying Typhoon Haiyan's dead matters to the living

The authorities in Tacloban City, capital of Leyte Province in central Philippines, have concluded a mass burial of unidentified bodies retrieved from the debris left by Typhoon Haiyan. In a report published on 7 January, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) estimated that the category 5 storm had killed more than 6,100 people, and another 1,700 are registered as missing. Some 5,000 deaths occurred in Leyte Province.

In the days immediately after the typhoon, dead bodies littered the streets. Dogs roamed, gnawing on human flesh. Residents are still chilled by the memory and cover their eyes in horror when they recall it. With most facilities destroyed or damaged, local authorities and survivors struggled to tend to the needs of the living in the devastated region. A government psychiatrist walked and, when roads became passable, cycled 10km daily to meet patients who could get to the Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Centre.

Rainwater has had to be pumped out of burial grounds to prevent the body bags from floating. Two government ministries tried to work out where and what was required to bury more bodies than anyone had expected, Tacloban city's mayor, Alfred Romualdez, told IRIN on 5 January, when burials were taking place for the second day. Some 1,400 bodies have been recovered but not claimed in the city so far.

"Where we expected to recover 20 bodies a day going into Christmas [six weeks after the typhoon hit], we were finding 70 to 80. We are still recovering bodies,” he said.

When bodies were first retrieved, up to one week after the typhoon struck in some places, they were haphazardly buried in mass graves. Some were examined, tagged and logged, some were not.

“We left after five days because we could not endure the stench of the cadavers,” said Maria Portia Garcia, who lives in Anibong village, 12km from Tacloban. Her sister died when a ship slammed into the home where she was sheltering, a few hundred metres from the shore. She was buried in a mass grave in San Isidro, a community on the outskirts of Tacloban, two weeks after the typhoon.

Her body is one of hundreds that have been "processed", as forensics experts call it and laid to rest temporarily in a seven-hectare plot in a nearby cemetery, purchased by the local government in the village of Basper. Processing involves tagging bodies, fingerprinting and photographing them, and collecting DNA samples when possible. The information is analysed after reference samples are gathered from the next of kin, which can take months, depending on the number of cadavers. The bodies will be exhumed later for further identification.

“We did not see her body when it was pulled out [of the debris], but we know she is buried now, which brings us some relief,” said Garcia.

The Department of Health (DOH) implements national policy on the management of dead and missing persons during emergencies and disasters.

The Philippine Department of Justice’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is using protocols developed by Interpol, the international police agency, called disaster victim identification (DVI), which borrows from the forensic science used in criminal investigations.

As officials in the Philippines rushed between tending to the living as well as the dead, criticism grew that victim identification was too expensive and, for a grieving public, too time consuming.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the DOH worked with international forensics expert Stephen Cordner to implement an abbreviated DVI method, developed by the WHO and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which overlaps with the Interpol method but stops short of immediate DNA sampling.

“With mass casualties on the scale that we’ve seen here, it is difficult to do a full identification in a timely manner. With this information [using abbreviated DVI method], we can identify about 50 percent of bodies,” said Julie Hall, the WHO representative in the Philippines.


This method relies heavily on visual recognition, which may not always be accurate, but cases in doubt can be resolved by DNA sampling, said Hall, who noted that both forensic methods were used after Typhoon Haiyan.

Antonio Vertido, chief medico-legal officer of the NBI, defended the government’s slow pace. “We cannot abbreviate the process because [it follows] international... [protocol]. As much as we’d like to abbreviate the process - we are tired, too - we can’t,” he told IRIN while overseeing a recent mass burial.

Helena Ras, chair of Interpol’s DVI steering committee, said the agency’s DVI protocols are “not just about correctly identifying victims, but also about ensuring that due process is followed to support national legal requirements. For example, the issue of a death certificate, and to avoid potential disputes in the future.”

The problem is not just one of forensics, DOH undersecretary Janet Garin told IRIN. “The Philippines does have a policy on identifying dead bodies, using DNA testing. But in a disaster like this, where you are dealing with thousands of bodies, this is difficult and takes time. People want to closure. But we also had to manage [the] families who [were] demanding DNA testing and matching for positive/confirmatory identification.”

Garin called for the formation of a decision-making body on natural disasters similar to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency to help resolve such disputes. The country's president appointed parliamentarian Panfilo Lacson in December 2013 to oversee and coordinate the government agencies involved in rehabilitation efforts, and to manage typhoon-related spending. Lacson has echoed Garin’s call for centralized decision-making after disasters.

“For people here, just like in other countries, the way a body is treated and buried is very important,” said Lynne Jones, mental health officer of International Medical Corps, who helped write the mental health guidelines for the Inter-agency Standing Committee (IASC), which coordinates UN and non-UN international humanitarian agencies, speaking from the Philippines.

“What survivors are looking for is the recognition of the significance and individuality of their loss. They want their loss to matter,” Jones said. “A burial gives an individual significance to a person's loss and that the helps with closure.”

Tuesday 07 January 2014

http://www.irinnews.org/report/99432/why-identifying-typhoon-haiyan-s-dead-matters-to-the-living

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Mexico: Investigators put names to 8 of 10 bodies of border-crossers in Santa Cruz County

In his final moments, a man in the midst of an illegal border-crossing west of Nogales sent a text message to his wife in Mexico, saying “Ya no aguanto” (“I can’t hold on anymore”) and another saying “Tengo sed” (“I’m thirsty”).

His wife responded by filing a missing person report in Mexico. But when the body was found on July 1 in California Gulch under large bushes about 30 yards north of the border, the only name it carried was that of a John Doe, one of 10 border-crossers whose bodies were found in Santa Cruz County in 2013.

Each time a body was found in the wilderness of Santa Cruz County last year, the finding appeared in the Sheriff’s Office’s dispatch report. In turn, it was followed by a short story in the NI with a brief description of the discovery based on information provided by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Border Patrol.

But the work that goes into identifying the bodies rarely made headlines, even as authorities managed to find probable identities for eight of the 10 bodies.

The identification process was fairly straightforward when authorities found a Mexican voter identification card on one body, or a Washington state driver’s license on another.

However, in the case of the body found in California Gulch, authorities did not find any property except for a phone, according to records from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (OME), which is tasked with processing unidentifiable bodies and unnatural deaths in Pima, Santa Cruz, and Cochise counties.

That one piece of property proved crucial in tracking down information on the John Doe and his possible identity as a 36-year-old man from Mexicali, Baja California Norte, who had texted his wife that he was thirsty and couldn’t go on.

Team effort

When bodies arrive at the OME, pathologists and forensic anthropologists examine them and associated personal items, searching for clues as to the cause of death and the person’s identity, according to Dr. Gregory Hess, chief medical examiner at the OME.

Since 2001, the OME has identified about 65 percent of the 2,300 unidentified bodies of border crossers, he said.

If OME staff cannot determine the identity of a body, that task is handed to the Mexican Consulate and to Robin Reineke of the Colibri Center for Human Rights, a non-profit organization that collects information on human remains found on the border in Southern Arizona.

When forensic science can’t find a person’s identity, Reineke compares the available information with missing person reports filed during the time in question, she said.

Since 2006, the Colibri Center has compiled a database of about 1,700 missing person reports filed by family members and friends whose loved ones disappeared while trying to cross the desert, she said.

She also compares the information with missing person reports filed in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NAMUS).

In the case of the body found at California Gulch, OME records show that Det. Jesus Cordova of the Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Office called to report that the Mexican Consulate in Nogales might be able to connect the body to a pending missing person report. Using text messages sent from the phone found with the body, and relying on the missing person’s identifying features such as a tattoo of the Virgin Mary, investigators were able to confirm that the body belonged to Gregorio Ponce Valenzuela, the man reported missing by his wife in Mexicali.

With the ID made, the body was presumably returned to Mexico. However, if months go by without any progress, unidentified remains are turned over to Pima County’s public fiduciary, cremated, and put in the Evergreen Cemetery in Tucson, Hess said.

Unidentified remains found in Santa Cruz County are cremated and buried in the Nogales City Cemetery, said Rita Ashford, public fiduciary for the county.

Other cases

For each of the border-crosser deaths in Santa Cruz County in 2013 Reineke provided the OME records to the NI based on the news reports that appeared throughout the year. Below is a synopsis of each of the cases, not including the body found July 1 at California Gulch.

• Jan. 21: A hiker found skeletal remains in the desert near Amado. The remains consisted of a skull with a mandible, a femur, and vertebrae, as well as a pair of pants. Sheriff’s deputies did not find identification documents at the scene. The Mexican Consulate took photos of the remains at the OME and the case was entered into NAMUS. No positive ID was made and the case was referred to the public fiduciary.

• Feb. 12: Gerardo Lopez Leon, a 41-year-old Mexican national, was crossing the border by way of the Coronado National Forest west of I-19 with his nephew and other family members when he became nauseous. He grew sicker and his family members eventually had to carry him, while others went to get help. When Border Patrol agents arrived he was already dead. Lopez was carrying a Mexican voter card and a driver’s license and his nephew identified him. The Mexican Consulate made funeral arrangements for him.

• Feb. 23: A man camping west of I-19 near Amado reported finding skeletal remains and clothing. Border Patrol agents secured the scene until sheriff’s deputies arrived. A card found in the vicinity of the bones was from Bellevue Hospital Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. and it showed a name of Concepcion Hernandez, address, and possible date of birth. The remains were determined to belong to two women. A possible match with the hospital card was found in the missing persons list, as well as one for a missing woman, Laura Delgado, who was traveling with her.

• March 3: A woman ran across I-19 near Amado where she was struck and killed by a sedan and minivan towing a trailer. A Department of Public Safety officer found a photocopy of a Mexican ID card with the name Inez Lopez Ruiz from Oaxaca, Mexico. She reportedly was part of a group of about 30 people who were making an illegal border-crossing attempt. Border Patrol agents captured about 20 people from the group, but none of them knew Lopez Ruiz.

• May 23: A man hiking near Tubac came across a decomposed body and contacted the Sheriff’s Office. Border Patrol agents at the I-19 checkpoint helped deputies find the body. A Washington state driver’s license and Mexican voter ID card found in the front pocket of the shirt bore the name of Jose Luis Castro-Garnica from Michoacan, Mexico. The Mexican Consulate was contacted.

•June 7: Border Patrol agents found skeletal remains while escorting unauthorized border crossers near the Nogales International Airport. No ID was found with the remains. Agents contacted the Sheriff’s Office and the body was transported to the OME, where staff from the Mexican Consulate took photos of the body. No ID was made.

• Sept. 16: A rancher found skeletal remains in Pesqueira Canyon northwest of Nogales and notified the Sheriff’s Office. Deputies found a Mexican voter ID card for German Reyes Montanez of Aguascalientes, Mexico. The Colibri Center and the Mexican Consulate contacted family members who sent copies of Reyes’ X-rays. His identity was confirmed by the OME through an X-ray comparison.

• Dec. 11: Hunters found skeletal remains southwest of Rio Rico and contacted the Sheriff’s Office. Authorities found a Mexican voter ID card for Guillermo Martinez Perea, who had been entered into NAMUS.

Tuesday 07 January 2014

http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/investigators-put-names-to-of-bodies/article_f98fed7a-77b1-11e3-9947-001a4bcf887a.html

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Continuing effort to identify the only body recovered from the 1941 sinking of the HMAS Sydney

The only body recovered from Australia's worst every maritime disaster, the 1941 sinking of the HMAS Sydney, may have belonged to a sailor from the Far North Coast.

The HMAS Sydney was sunk in November 1941 in an attack by the German merchant raider HSK Kormoran off Western Australia, killing 645 Australian sailors.

Found in a raft near Christmas Island three months after the tragedy, the body's identity has remained a mystery.

But scientists have not given up hope on the task, and are using the latest forensic technologies in their mission.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, limestone traces in his bone strongly suggest that he came from the east coast - most likely northern NSW or Queensland.

Narrowing the search further, it's reported the sailor had a very high marine diet as a child, suggesting he grew up on the coast rather than inland.

And the biggest blessing so far has been the sailor's dental records, which are quite unique - he had nine gold fillings.

Tuesday 07 January 2014

http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/unknown-sailor-may-be-from-this-region/2132095/

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Tacloban debris continues to yield human bodies

More bodies continue to be retrieved by the authorities from heaps of debris that litter the streets of Tacloban, two months after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” and accompanying storm surges demolished the city and other parts of Eastern Visayas.

Senior Superintendent Pablo Cordeta, head of the Task Force Cadaver, said workers sifting through the typhoon’s detritus are finding five to seven bodies a day.

“We still expect more recoveries,” Cordeta said, noting that a susbstantial amount of debris still has to be removed from many areas in Tacloban, the hardest hit by Yolanda, described as the most powerful storm to hit land ever.

Cordeta’s task force has recovered 17 bodies since it resumed operations after the Christmas break through January 4, mostly in the coastal San Jose district, he said.

All bodies collected by the task force are taken to Barangay (village) Suhi, 13 kilometers north of the Tacloban city center.

Meanwhile, city administrator Tecson John Lim said that 1,305 bodies deposited in Suhi have been buried in a 1.4-meter-deep mass grave located within the compound of the local health center. The mass burial was completed on January 5.

About 1,200 other bodies have been buried at the public cemetery at the nearby town of Basper, Lim said.

However, Lim added, at least 66 bodies had yet to be buried as they were still being processed by experts from the National Bureau of Investigation for identification purposes.

NBI forensic experts were getting specimens from the bodies such as small bone and dental fragments to be kept for future reference and identification.

Lim said that these bodies were kept in a refrigerated trailer van donated by the Philippine Red Cross.

He said that Tacloban City has a recorded death toll of 2,505 persons.

The cleaning of debris is being carried out by local residents who enlisted with the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation’s cash-for-work program. They receive P500 for a day of work.

The United Nations Development Program has initiated its own cash-for-work program to clear the city of the remaining storm debris.

Tuesday 07 January 2014

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/559575/tacloban-debris-continues-to-yield-human-bodies

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Typhoon 'Yolanda' (Haiyan) death toll rises to 6,183

The official death toll from super typhoon "Yolanda" is now at 6,183, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said.

In its latest update today, January 7, the NDRRMC said 17 more were confirmed dead in the worst-hit city of Tacloban in Leyte.

Majority of the fatalities were from Eastern Visayas at 5,785 (5,290 in Leyte; 265 in Eastern Samar; 224 in Samar; and 6 in Biliran).

In Tacloban, 2,2,524 bodies remain unidentified. The NDRRMC said 1,785 people remain missing, while 28,626 others were injured when Yolanda struck the country last November 8.

At least 3,424,593 families or 16,078,181 individuals were affected by the typhoon, with 4,095,280 people displaced.

Some 550,928 homes were totally destroyed while at least 598,404 houses were partially damaged.

Tuesday 07 January 2014

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/regions/01/07/14/yolanda-death-toll-rises-6183

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Tanzania: Search efforts find no more bodies from capsized boat

The search for missing passengers who fell off a boat last Sunday continued on Monday with no more bodies retrieved, port authorities said.

On Sunday five bodies were retrieved from the sea about six hours after the accident occurred in Nungwi area while the ferry boat, MV Kilimanjaro II, was struck with waves while sailing to Malindi port on Unguja island.

"Search was called off late Sunday because of rough seas and darkness, but we continued today (yesterday) in vain. But there are still about 15 people missing," said Abdi Omar Maalim, director of the Zanzibar Maritime Authority (ZMA).

He ruled out reports that some three more bodies had been retrieved. He said a rescue team comprising the police, coastguard and private companies took part in the search.

The Zanzibar Commissioner of Police (CP) Hamdan Omar Makame confirmed that some people including the boat captain Nassor Abubakar Khamis were being interrogated in the ongoing investigation on the incident.

MV Kilimanjaro II left Pemba port at 8am on Sunday bound for Zanzibar port, where it was due to arrive three hours later. However, it was hit by waves, forcing it to lean to one side during which property and some passengers fell into the sea.

Maalim told reporters at the port that the boat had 396 adult passengers and 60 children on board. He blamed the ferry crew for not being transparent and failing to seek help even after the rescue team offered help.

Some relatives and friends turned up yesterday at the hospital and port to look for their missing beloved ones. Mr Khalid Salim Mohammed, Permanent Secretary in the Second Vice-President's office, issued a statement to console the bereaved families and asking for patience as the government continued with the search.

He also asked people to refrain from travelling by sea during this period when weather forecasts warned of rough seas. More than 200 people died in the same place in 2011 when a boat, MV Spice Islander, capsized while on its way to Pemba.

Later in July 2012 another boat, Mv Skirgit, also drowned while sailing to Zanzibar from Dar es Salaam, killing more than 140 people.

Tuesday 07 January 2014

http://allafrica.com/stories/201401070097.html

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Goa building collapse: Rescue operations stopped; 17 bodies recovered, 12 missing

Rescue operations at the site of the building collapse in Cancona town of south Goa were halted this afternoon after two adjacent five-storey buildings tilted precariously, even as 17 bodies were pulled out from the caved-in structure. At least 12 people are still untraceable.

The six-storey building was coming up in Chawdi area of Cancona town, 70 km from state capital Panaji. Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said the rescuers were asked to pull out since they faced danger from the debris.

An FIR has been registered against the builder Vishwas Desai and contractor Jaideep Saigal. The builder and the contractor are untraceable, police said. Mr Parrikar said the Deputy Town Planner and two municipal engineers have been suspended. The officials will be arrested soon, Mr Parrikar said.

The state government has announced a relief of Rs. 2 lakh each to the family of the dead and formed a three-member panel from Goa Engineering College to investigate the incident.

"The rescue operation has been stopped as two buildings adjacent to the collapsed structure tilted, raising fears that they will cave-in," a senior fire and emergency department official said today.

The constant drilling in the debris led to weakening of the adjacent buildings, fire officials said.

The adjacent buildings showing signs of tilting are also five-storey residential structures which are partially completed and were being constructed by the same builder.

Sixteen people were admitted to state-run Hospicio Hospital in Margao and Goa Medical College and Hospital near Panaji.

Tuesday 07 January 2014

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/goa-building-collapse-rescue-operations-stopped-17-bodies-recovered-12-missing-467570

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Stampede at China religious event kills 14

A religious temple was the scene of a stampede that killed 14 people and injured 10 others in northwestern China Sunday.

According to China’s Xinhua news agency, the stampede occurred during a ceremony commemorating a deceased religious figure at a temple and killed 14 attendees. The ceremony includes the handing out of traditional food to attendees, and it was during the distribution of this food that the stampede broke out, reportedly.

The site of the mishap was a temple in Guyuan city in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of China.

Besides the 14 killed people in the stampede, four temple-goers were left in critical condition and six other Chinese were treated in hospital, Xinhua reported.

Monday 06 January 2014

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/06/us-china-stampede-idUSBREA0500J20140106

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Los Roques plane crash: Missoni’s body is still not found

The body of missing fashion executive Vittorio Missoni has still not been found, a statement from the Missoni family confirmed today. The Italian businessman and brother of Angela Missoni disappeared on January 4 2013, after a plane carrying him and five other passengers vanished from radars off the Los Roques coast in Venezuela.

The wreckage was found in June last year and in October, reports emerged that the remains of the passengers had been recovered - although the family has now confirmed that only the bodies of the two Venezuelan pilots and Missoni's life partner, Maurizia Castiglioni, were identified. The search for Missoni continues.

"As of today there have been no biological remains found that identify Vittorio Missoni, Guido Foresti or Elda Scalvenzi," a Missoni statement read. "In Venezuela the investigation to determine the causes and dynamics of the accident and the identity of all passengers are ongoing. In thanking the Venezuelan government and the Italian government for all their efforts in these months, the families sincerely hope that the underwater exploration of the remaining parts of the wreckage, already identified, will within a short time bring the recovery and the identification of Vittorio Missoni, Guido Foresti and Elda Scalvenzi."

Since the disappearance of Missoni, who oversaw all business aspects of the label, changes are being considered in terms of the brand's future - which could include a possible IPO. Nothing has been confirmed yet.

Monday 06 January 2014

http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2014/1/6/vittorio-missonis-body-still-missing---search-continues

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Tanzania: Five drown, more missing in Isles boat mishap

At least five people have been found dead and 15 others are missing after their boat, MV Kilimanjaro II, was struck by a strong wave at Nungwi area when heading to Unguja Island from Pemba, eyewitnesses and port authorities said.

There were 456 passengers onboard, 396 of them adults and 60 children, according to North Unguja Regional Police Commander (RPC) Khalfan Mohamed Msangi.

Details of the deceased were not revealed but Zanzibar North A District Commissioner (DC), Ms Riziki Simai, confirmed that five bodies were retrieved while three others were saved, adding that the the search continues.

"I last communicated with my son over the phone as he screamed for help, telling me that they were dying. The boat has arrived, but my 17-year old son is missing," Mr Abdullah Mohammed, who was at the Zanzibar seaport to enquire about his son, said.

He was joined by other survivors, including Mr Suleiman Said (22), who said he had not seen his two brothers. He witnessed the boat in which they were travelling forced to lean on one side, causing several properties to fall into the water while some people also fell off the boat.

Suleiman said that the boat managed to dock at Malindi Port. Crew members of the boat, owned by Azam Marine Company, refused to talk to reporters who turned-up at the port to collect information on the incident.

The Azam Marine management at the port only opted to talk to Azam Television reporters." Fortunately, the Zanzibar Maritime Authority (ZMA) Director, Mr Abdi Omar Maalim, came to speak to the irritated reporters, confirming that the vessel experienced problems while on its way from Pemba to Unguja.

"We are still investigating reports that some people are missing and some properties drowned when a wave struck the boat at Nungwi peninsula, causing mayhem and panic among passengers," said Mr Maalim.

Government officials and Azam Marine management are blamed for not responding well to the disaster. "Some government officials were slow in acting, while Azam Marine officers provided misleading information," said an independent diver who requested anonymity.

He informed reporters that a team of divers from the rescue unit were sailing to Nungwi area, a highly turbulent area with heavy waves.

More than 200 people died at the same place in 2011 when a boat 'MV spice Islander' capsized while on its way to Pemba. Later in July 2012, another boat MV Skirgit capsized in the area while sailing to Zanzibar, killing more than 140 people.

The search team includes the police and divers from marine unit (KMKM) and the ZMA director said that a detailed report would be released as soon as investigations were over.

Monday 06 January 2014

http://allafrica.com/stories/201401060031.html

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Experts find in 2013 remains of 20 missing in Argentina

After arduous and meticulous research, Argentine forensic anthropologists managed to find and identify in 2013 the remains of 20 people, victims of repression during the State terrorism of the last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983).

In this task, dedicated to restoring the truth and memory, participated and coordinated the work mainly the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, and was supported, for example, by the Group of Anthropology Memory and Identity of Tucumán, among others .

The summary of the findings of the remains, among which is the young Cuban diplomat Jesús Cejas, was reported by Telam news agency.

The remains of Cejas were found in May in a metal drum of 200 liters capacity, filled with cement, in an area of the town of Virreyes, Buenos Aires Province, where excavations were carried out in search of victims of the military dictatorship.

Cejas was kidnapped on August 9, 1976 in the neighborhood of Belgrano, along with his fellow countryman Crescentius Galañena, whose body was found and identified in late 2012.

Among other bodies identified in 2013 are those of six missing in the so-called Pozo de Vargas, province of Tucumán

Monday 06 January 2014

http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2235231&Itemid=1

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Death toll from India building collapse climbs to 17

Indian rescuers pulled two more bodies from the rubble of a collapsed apartment block, taking the death toll from the country's latest building accident to 17, an official said Monday.

The building, which was under construction, crumbled mid-afternoon on Saturday while more than 40 poorly paid daily-wage labourers were on site in the southern tourism state of Goa.

Rescue workers discovered the two bodies overnight Sunday as efforts continue around the clock to try to find survivors still trapped in the rubble of the building that a witness said collapsed like "a pack of cards".

Although about 16 people are still unaccounted for, the official said the chances of finding survivors were slim given the length of time since the accident.

"Only a miracle can save them," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another 16 people were recovering in hospital, the official said.

Rescue workers were using bulldozers, shovels and bare hands to try to shift concrete slabs and other debris from the site in the seaside village of Canacona, south of the state capital Panaji.

"The rescue work is tedious. You have to ensure that the nearby buildings don't get damaged and also the debris doesn't collapse further while digging in," the official said.

Sniffer dogs have also been brought in to try to find those trapped.



Goan police are searching for the builder and the contractor who have gone missing since the tragedy. Officers have registered cases against them, and others involved in the building's construction, for allegedly endangering human life, causing death and negligence.

The accident is the latest in a string of deadly building collapses in India, some of which have highlighted shoddy construction standards.

A huge demand for housing in India and pervasive corruption often result in cost-cutting and a lack of safety inspections.

In September a rundown residential block in the financial hub Mumbai collapsed, killing 60 people. Another building collapse in the city in April killed 74.

Monday 06 January 2013

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140106/death-toll-india-building-collapse-climbs-17

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