MH17 air crash: Battle for control of disaster inquiry

The investigation into the MH17 air disaster is fraught with difficulties.

The crash site is in territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Jurisdiction and control over what emerges as the full account of what happened will be contested fiercely. Even beyond the human tragedy, the stakes could scarcely be higher, with the future direction of the Ukraine crisis seemingly in the balance.

As global anger and shock mounts over the apparent shooting down of the passenger aircraft, here are some of the key issues surrounding what could be a highly contentious air crash investigation. line

Who has jurisdiction?

"Responsibility for an investigation belongs to the state in which the accident or incident occurred," according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN body.

However, almost any major air crash inquiry will be an international affair that draws in other nations due to their technical expertise, resources or - as in this case - the political ramifications of the disaster.

When Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing in March, Malaysia headed the inquiry but invited numerous other countries to participate. In the latest disaster, nations with passengers aboard the doomed jet will likely want to play a role, or launch their own inquiries.

A number of Western nations have already called for a full, independent, international investigation into what happened.

Meanwhile, the Russia-led Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) - the official aviation authority in Russia which counts former Soviet states, including Ukraine, as signatories to its treaty - says any inquiry should be set up under the auspices of the ICAO.

How do you investigate in a conflict zone?

The safety of anyone involved in the investigation will be paramount, as will unfettered access to the site, the security of the debris field - including the flight recorders, and access to anyone who might have seen the crash or be able to shed light on what happened.

Pro-Russian rebels say they will allow international investigators to access the crash site via some kind of humanitarian corridor, but there are international calls for a complete cessation of hostilities to allow a rapid independent investigation.

There are also already concerns over the whereabouts of the flight's "black box" recorders. Reports say rebels already have at least some of the aircraft's data recorders in their possession and that they have promised to give them to the Moscow-based IAC.

The uncontrolled removal of items from the debris field could have serious implications for the integrity of the air crash investigation, experts say.

Don't we already know what happened?

The US intelligence authorities say their monitoring systems suggest a surface-to-air missile brought down the plane, but it was not yet clear who fired it. The two sides in Ukraine's civil conflict have accused each other of shooting down the jet.

On recordings said to be of intercepted phone calls between a separatist fighter and a Russian military intelligence officer - sourced to the Ukraine's main security agency, the SBU - the two men apparently discuss the shooting down of a civilian plane in the minutes after MH17 crashed.

But the calls are unverified. And rebels insist their equipment is not capable of bringing down an aircraft at more than 30,000 feet - and that Ukrainian troops must be responsible.

Intelligence agencies will be "crawling all over" the calls and other information from the crash site, Michael Clarke of the Royal United Services Institute told the BBC.

"With what is known in the West together with these things they will probably get to the bottom of it very quickly" but there will likely always be room for doubts, the expert said.

What will investigators focus on?

Former US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Deborah Hersman said the "road map" for investigators in the first day or two would be finding all "four corners of the aircraft" - the nose, the tail and the two wing tips - as well as the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder.

Investigators would be looking to "sequence" the break up of the plane - find out where it started and how it spread, Ms Hersman told US network NBC.

The flight data recorder will reveal the exact time of the incident and the altitude and exact position of the aircraft, while the cockpit voice recorder will reveal what the crew knew was happening before disaster struck.

Russian experts quoted by the Kommersant newspaper (in Russian), have been detailing what the wreckage of an plane hit by different missiles should look like.

"If this was a Buk, we should expect to see holes in the fuselage, wings etc. But if it was an air-to-air missile, then we should expect elongated 'cuts' along the body of the plane, as opposed to 'holes'." Why are the stakes so high?

Correspondents say that if it does turn out that the Boeing 777 was shot down by the separatists - with weaponry supplied by Moscow - then it could significantly alter the terms of the whole debate surrounding the Ukraine crisis.

The disaster comes at a time of already soaring tensions.

This week the Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of downing a Ukrainian military plane on a mission over the east of the country on Wednesday, killing two of the eight crew members on board.

Russia called the accusation - the first direct claim of a Russian attack on Ukrainian forces - "absurd".

Meanwhile there has been serious fallout from fresh US and EU sanctions against Russia. Moscow has condemned them as "blackmail" and warned of retaliatory action against Washington.

Friday 18 July 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28363394

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The 'crying women' at Mexico's mass graves

Tres Valles is so small that deaths in the town are announced by a loudspeaker mounted onto a car roof.

Benita Fuentes was the latest member of this tight-knit community to have passed away, so an official from the town hall drives around the potholed streets playing a recorded message giving the time and place of her wake.

An elderly woman, Ms Fuentes slipped away in the night from natural causes. But the spectre of death, of violent death, lingers over Tres Valles at present.

The sleepy town was catapulted into the news in Mexico last month after at least 31 bodies were discovered buried at a ranch just walking distance from its picturesque main square.

There are local rumours that another 10 bodies were found that were not officially declared.

Those deaths did not receive the same dignified recognition by the town hall as Benita Fuentes's.

Rather it was the vultures circling overhead that alerted people to the bodies.

The graves were found at a ranch called El Diamante, a nondescript patch of countryside in the eastern state of Veracruz.

The area is green, lush and thick with jungle. Twitchy policemen inside a patrol car guard the blue gate, preventing anyone except forensic investigators from entering the site.

Photos published online, however, suggest that what lies just beyond the brow of the hill is as disturbing a scene as has ever been uncovered in Veracruz.

The remains of men, women and at least one child were found, many of them dismembered and decapitated.

'Crying woman'

Tres Valles was the latest of 246 graves discovered in Mexico over the past three years, according to official figures.

In her wooden shack on the outskirts of the town, Alberta Diaz, known as Dona Berta, is slowly recovering from the emotional turmoil of burying five members of her family - her daughter, Rosalia, and four of her grandchildren.

Ms Diaz recalls the shock of finding out they were missing.

"They took them on a Friday, but I didn't realise until the following morning," the grief-stricken 61-year-old explains in a barely audible voice.

"Five days later, the newspaper said some bodies had been found and published her [Rosalia's] name and her nickname, Bailarina [dancer]."

Rosalia, along with four of her children - the youngest just 15 years old - had been killed and buried in the mass grave at El Diamante.

After the bodies were exhumed, the state security secretary in Veracruz said the victims in the grave "weren't decent people", implying they had links to one or other of the two drug cartels battling for superiority in this region of Mexico - the Zetas and their rivals the Gulf Cartel.

Though it pains her to admit it, Dona Berta is prepared to accept that her daughter was involved in organised crime. But she insists her grandchildren did nothing to deserve such a brutal end.

"It made me very sad to read their death certificates. My daughter's said: 'Stab wounds and slit throat'. I couldn't sleep last night after reading them, each one the same: dismembered, dismembered, dismembered," she sighs.

"If my daughter had done something wrong or owed a debt, her children shouldn't have had to pay for it."

Macabre pilgrimage

The nearest big town to Tres Valles is Tierrablanca. There, living in the same abject poverty as Dona Berta, is Elvira Gomez, another mother who travelled to El Diamante that day looking for her children.

Elvira has spent eight months on a macabre pilgrimage, visiting mass graves and morgues in the search for her sons, Rodrigo and Juan.

"There is a myth in Mexico about the crying woman, La Llorona (who walks the earth suffering for her lost child)," Elvira says choking back the tears.

"Well, it's not a myth, it's true. I'm one."

Unlike Dona Berta, however, she does not accept that her sons, aged 18 and 21, were involved with the drug cartels.

She is adamant they were picked up one day by the local police.



She says they have not been seen since. "I don't know why they took them. We're working people, peaceful people. I don't know what the problem is." Wrong circles

The interior minister recently stated that there were only 8,000 missing people in Mexico.

After accusations that the figure was a gross underestimation, the government revised it upwards to 16,000. But many human rights organisations say the real figure simply is not known.

What is clear, though, is that the problem affects families at both ends of the social spectrum.

Juan Rene Chiunti is a deputy for the governing PRI party in the Veracruz state parliament. His brother has been missing, feared dead, for 15 months.

Yet he insists the vast majority of people who vanish or end up in graves like Tres Valles moved in the wrong circles, often with the implicit knowledge of their families.

"Today those same family members cry: 'Oh, my poor son, where is he?'" he says.

Well, the first question I'd ask those families is: 'What did your son work in or study? Let's start there.' When you can answer that question satisfactorily, then we can see whether or not he was a good person."

"But if he was on the wrong path, we have a saying around here: he who walks badly, ends badly."

As we leave Tres Valles, we are told that another mass grave has been found nearby, this time with eight bodies inside.

Elvira Gomez, and other desperate mothers like her, were doubtless already on their way there, to see if they too can start to grieve.

Friday 18 July 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-28247468?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

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Malaysia Airlines Plane Crashes in Ukraine, 295 On Board

A plane belonging to Malaysian Airlines has gone down over eastern Ukraine, near the Russian border.

Malaysia Airlines has tweeted that it lost contact with flight MH17 from Amsterdam, and that the last known position of the plane was in Ukrainian airspace. The plane was travelling towards Kuala Lumpur.

Flightradar24, the flight tracking service, said the Boeing 777 was flying close to the city of Poltava in Ukraine flying at 33,000ft, or 10,000 metres when contact was lost.

An emergency services rescue worker at the scene told how at least 100 bodies have been found at the site so far, and that debris from the wreckage is spread across an area up to about 15km in diameter.

There were 298 people, including 154 Dutch nationals, on board the Malaysia Airlines flight that crashed in strife-torn eastern Ukraine, the carrier said on Friday.

The flight “was carrying a total number of 298 people — comprising 283 passengers including three infants of various nationalities and 15 crew of Malaysian nationality,” the airline said in an emailed statement.

There also were 43 Malaysians, including the crew and two infants, and 27 Australians, it said, updating earlier figures as the airline worked to verify passenger nationalities.

Twelve were Indonesians including an infant, nine were British, four were German, three were from the Philippines and one was Canadian.

The airline said four were Belgian but the Belgian foreign minister said five Belgians were on board.

Malaysia Airlines said the nationalities of 41 passengers remained unconfirmed.

Air traffic control lost contact with the Boeing 777-200 around 14:15 (12:15 GMT) near the Russian-Ukrainian border, Malaysia Airlines has said.

The flight took off from Schiphol airport in Amsterdam shortly after noon Thursday and was supposed to land in Kuala Lumpur at around 6:10 a.m. Friday local time.

Malaysia Airlines will send a team to Ukraine on Friday to help with the investigation.

Another plane will also be made available to grieving relatives wanting to visit the crash site, an official said.

The crash is the Netherlands’ second-largest air disaster to date.



The country’s largest happened in March 1977 when 238 Dutch citizens died at Tenerife in the Canary Islands when two Boeing 747s crashed with the loss of 582 lives.

The crash is a fresh blow to the flag carrier which, along with the Malaysian government, is still struggling to provide answers on the disappearance of flight MH370 on March 8 with 239 people aboard.

Malaysia Airlines will send a team to Ukraine on Friday to help with the investigation.

Another airplane will also be made available to grieving relatives wanting to visit the crash site, Gorter said.

Questioned about the cause of the plane crash, Gorter said: "At this stage we are still looking at it from the viewpoint of being an accident." Earlier, shocked and crying relatives were shielded from the press as they arrived at Schiphol to be taken to a special gathering area.

They were later escorted from the airport and taken by bus to an undetermined destination, Dutch news agency ANP reported.

The crash is the Netherlands' second-largest air disaster to date.

The country's largest disaster happened in March 1977 when 238 Dutch citizens died in Tenerife when two Boeing 747s crashed with the loss of 582 lives.

Malaysia Airlines says it will release the full list of the names of those who perished on board flight MH17 once all next of kin are notified.

The firm earlier revealed that it has diverted all of its European flights onto alternative routes following the downing of Flight MH17 yesterday.

The number of Britons killed in the Malaysia Airlines crash in eastern Ukraine has reportedly risen to nine. Including the 15 crew members, this brings the total death toll in the disaster to 298.

Among the dead were a number of people travelling to an international conference on Aids, being held in Melbourne, Australia.

Flight MH17 was said by eyewitnesses to have "exploded" after it was reportedly shot down by a ground-to-air missile.

In a statement released this morning, Malaysia Airlines said: "With immediate effect, all European flights operated by Malaysia Airlines will be taking alternative routes avoiding the usual route.

"Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was on a scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur went down in eastern Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines confirms that the aircraft did not make a distress call.

"The usual flight route was earlier declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. International Air Transportation Association has stated that the airspace the aircraft was traversing was not subject to restrictions.

Friday 18 July 2014

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/621093/298-on-board-crashed-malaysian-flight-airline

http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/malaysia-airlines-mh17-crash-298-people-board-flight-154-dutch-says-

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/malaysia-airlines-crash-firm-says-3877168

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Three months later, body recovered from South Korea ferry

Divers retrieved another body Friday from the site of South Korea's ferry disaster -- the first to be recovered in nearly four weeks from the submerged vessel that sank three months ago.

The body of a female was found inside a dining hall of the upturned ferry which is lying on the seabed at a depth of 40 metres (130 feet), rescue authorities said.

The 6,825-tonne Sewol ferry was carrying 476 passengers and crew -- including 325 high school students -- when it capsized and sank off the southern coast on April 16.

The latest body brings the number of confirmed dead to 294, with 10 victims still unaccounted for.

Although more than three months have now elapsed since the disaster, dive teams continue to carry out dangerous daily missions to scour the inside of the vessel for the missing bodies.

Victims' families insist that heavy cranes can only be brought in to lift the ship once all the victims have been accounted for.

President Park Geun-Hye and her administration have been bitterly criticised for their response to the disaster, which stunned the entire country.

A recent report by the state auditor said the sinking was a "man-made disaster" created by negligence, corruption and greed.

Fifteen Sewol crew members are on trial, including the captain and three senior officers who are accused of "homicide through wilful negligence" -- a charge that can carry the death penalty.

The bulk of the charges arise from the fact that they chose to abandon the ferry while hundreds of people were still trapped inside.

More than 30 student survivors marched on parliament this week to press demands by victims' relatives for parliament to pass a special bill setting up an independent inquiry.

The bill has been stuck in the National Assembly because of disputes between ruling and opposition lawmakers over the legal powers any inquiry panel should be given.

Friday 18 July 2014

http://news.yahoo.com/three-months-later-body-recovered-south-korea-ferry-031953006.html

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Medical workers say Golden Hour boosted Flight 232 survivor numbers

Two factors combined to help ensure that survivors outnumbered victims in the United Airlines Flight 232 crash at Sioux Gateway Airport, a doctor who helped save lives that day said.

David Greco, the Sioux City doctor who headed the triage unit and determined who got sent first to the hospital after the July 19, 1989, crash, said it was "incredible luck" that 300 members of the 185th Air National Guard unit headquartered nearby were participating in drills that day. Additionally, the crash occurred in daylight, which helped emergency responders find survivors in a half-mile stretch of wreckage in a cornfield.

That aided the response during what Greco called "the Golden Hour," the first 60 minutes when people who suffer traumatic injuries typically live or die.

"The debris was incredible. It looked like a war zone," Greco said.

Although 112 people on the plane died, 184 survived, a statistic at which Greco still marvels 25 years after the crash that drew international attention.

More than 400 agencies responded when the DC-10 aircraft flying from Denver to Chicago had mechanical problems and crash-landed at Sioux Gateway. About 100 medical professionals showed up at what was then Marian Health Center, now Mercy Medical Center-Sioux City.

Greco, now 58 and retired in Huntington Beach, Calif., was the hospital's emergency room director. He had come to Sioux City in 1982 and in 1987 founded the Mercy Air Care service, which flies patients by helicopter to the emergency room.

The chaos of Flight 232 started around 3 p.m. when the jet was over Alta, Iowa. An explosion sliced hydraulic lines, making steering almost impossible.

Greco was at home packing for a flight to California to attend a baptism. He got a call about a plane with an engine out, something that happened periodically.

"That's probably nothing," Greco recalled telling his wife. "Keep packing, I'll be back in a little bit." The next hours were a rush like he'd never experienced.

Greco went to the airport, where he heard a flight controller speaking with Capt. Al Haynes, the plane's pilot. Greco recalled Haynes' steady tone in describing the crippled plane's circumstances.

The helicopter crew soon hovered over the airport, waiting for Flight 232. That made Greco one of few to see the horrific crash in real time from a bird's eye view.

"We saw (the plane) hit the runway; we thought he was going to make it," Greco said. But when he saw the plane in flames, cartwheeling and breaking apart, Greco assumed there would be no survivors.

After landing in the helicopter, Greco ran around the wreck's mile-long perimeter to assess the situation. "I saw bodies left, right," he said. Then a flight attendant emerged from the plane.

"I thought, 'My God, somebody is alive.' She just slid out of the tail, other people came down," Greco said.

Assessing the people on the ground, Greco had to quickly decide who would be whisked off to the hospital at once and who would have to wait. Having 40 ambulances from local municipalities lined up helped relieve the pressure.

"It was a big relief off me, because I'm not good at playing God," Greco said.

In addition, emergency officials, 185th soldiers and others were working fast to get help where it was needed.

"Everybody was working on adrenaline. Everybody's ears were open," Greco said.

The helicopter made two runs with two people each to the hospital, with Greco piloting the second of those. Another 36 patients went by ambulance.

At Marian Health Center, Verna Welte and her staff were ready.

"I don't think it could have gone any better. I think the patients would say the same thing, that they were well taken care of," said Welte, who was vice president of patient care services.

"Not to sound haughty -- because it wasn't me, it was the staff -- but the impression was that we did it right," said Welte, now 80 and retired from a 42-year nursing career.

Welte had been in a meeting when the call about the disabled plane came in. The hospital's disaster plan went into effect immediately, and a command center was set up in the physician's lounge of the emergency room.

The daytime staff who typically left at 3:30 p.m. were told to stay. Nurses were told to free up beds by discharging any patients who could go home earlier than they might have.

One of Welte's most lasting memories is of when the first patients arrived.

"I will never forget this. The hallways were fully occupied by doctors who have left their practices and brought their nursing staffs with them," she said.

They worked through the night, administering critical care for head and chest wounds, burns, broken limbs and concussions.

"You saw a lot of blood. Their appearance was such that you knew that they had been through a lot," said Welte, whose role was to oversee staffing. She didn't personally administer treatment.

The injured kept arriving in waves, but Welte said the hospital had enough materials, medicines and personnel to treat them all.

"(Nurses) did what needed to be done. They didn't go through the bureaucracy of questioning. They stepped up. They saw what had to be done and they did it," Welte said.

Outside the hospital, area residents lined up to donate blood, and others sent food for nurses working extended shifts.

The ranks of those needing attention soon swelled with the arrival of patients' relatives and national news media members.

The last patient was discharged from Marian after eight weeks.

Meanwhile, a receptionist for the former Terra Industries in Sioux City was helping process information about the deceased. She didn't have a medical background, but she had a keen eye for detail.

"I worked the morgue for two and a half days," recalled Patricia Collins, now 73, of Sioux City. "It was a phenomenal experience."

She said the work was "emotionally heavy" but also rewarding. Each evening she would talk about it with her husband, Dick Collins, a member of the 185th who was at the crash scene.

"I am a very strong person. I am a strong Christian and a strong Catholic. I was stone when I was there. I didn't shed a tear," she said.

One case still tugs at her heart, though. It involved a girl of about age 9 with painted fingernails and wearing friendship bracelets.

"That little girl, I think about her today. I just wish her parents know what good care we took of her, as we did with them all," Collins said.

For Welte, too, the emotion came not in the midst of the all-consuming response to the crisis but later, when survivors and family members gathered for a 1990 crash memorial at the hospital, attended by survivors and family members of those who died.

"That was more of a tear-jerker than the day it happened. That was emotional, very emotional."

Thursday 17 July 2014

http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/local/a1/medical-workers-say-golden-hour-boosted-flight-survivor-numbers/article_e074da59-22dc-557c-8075-5670ecee487e.html

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Seven more bodies recovered in Tanjung Piai boat capsize incident

Seven more bodies have been recovered following Monday’s collision between a Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) vessel and a boat carrying illegal immigrants off Tanjung Piai.

The latest figure brings the death toll to 11.

An official involved in the search and rescue operation said that 61 people have been rescued so far.

The seven bodies recovered on Thursday were that of four men and three women.

Monday’s collision occurred following a tip-off received by authorities of a suspicious-looking boat in the waters off Tanjung Piai.

A 10-minute high-speed chase ensued after the MMEA vessel attempted to intercept it.

During the chase, the MMEA vessel was rammed twice.

A massive operation involving several agencies including the police, fire and rescue department and civil defence is underway to find the victims of the collision.

Thursday 17 July 2014

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/07/17/Seven-bodies-recovered-Tanjung-Piai-boat-capsize/

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Typhoon Rammasun kills 38 in Philippines

Typhoon Rammasun is headed for China after battering the northern Philippines, where it killed at least 38 people.

Philippine officials say eight people are also missing after the storm cut a path across the main island of Luzon on Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands are still without power in the capital, Manila, and surrounding areas, where trees and power lines remain down.

Most of those killed were hit by falling trees or other debris. In the city of Lucena, at least three people died when a wall collapsed on them.

Forecasters believe the storm will regain its category three strength as it moves over the warm waters of the South China Sea in the direction of Hainan Island, which is home to nearly 9 million people.

Rammasun, which means "God of Thunder" in Thai, is now a category one storm, with sustained winds of up to 130 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 160 kilometers per hour.

The storm, which is moving northwest at about 25 kilometers per hour, is expected to make landfall in southern China sometime on Friday.

China's official Xinhua news agency said strong gales, downpours and high tides are expected along the country's southern coast.

It said shipping will be halted indefinitely starting Thursday morning in the strait between Hainan and China's southern Guangdong Province.

Ahead of the typhoon, Philippine authorities evacuated more than 400,000 people. This was in an effort to prevent a repeat of last November's typhoon Haiyan, which killed 6,300 people with its tsunami-like sea surges.

About 20 major storms hit the Philippines every year.

Thursday 17 July 2014

http://www.voanews.com/content/typhoon-rammasun-kills-38-in-philippines-heads-for-china/1959294.html

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Helicopter crash kills South Korean ferry rescue workers

In a fresh tragedy related to South Korea’s deadly ferry sinking, a helicopter carrying rescue workers who participated in the search operation for those still missing crashed on Thursday, killing all five on board.

The helicopter crashed onto a street in the southern city of Gwangju just before 11am while traveling back to a base in the north of the country. No other serious injuries were reported. The reason for the crash is unclear.

The crash comes almost exactly three months after one of South Korea’s worst-ever maritime disasters. At the site of the April 16 sinking, divers continue to search for missing bodies, while a key fugitive remains on the run and politicians are squabbling over the creation of an independent committee to look into disaster.

On Wednesday afternoon, 43 student survivors of the sinking arrived at the National Assembly in Seoul to support a hunger strike outside parliament by parents of their dead classmates to demand the swift passage of a bill to set up the committee. The students walked for two days from their high school in Ansan, a Seoul suburb, about 47 kilometers, or 29 miles, away.

Politicians are split over issues such as whether to give the committee power to investigate and prosecute. The ruling party opposes the idea, noting that the case is already being investigated by authorities and insisting that state powers can’t be given to a civil committee.

Opposition politicians and the families argue that the committee can’t function properly unless given such strong authority.

“We will do our best to get the bill passed in order to seek the truth and allow no ‘sanctuary’ of the investigation,” Kim Han-gil, co-leader of major opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, said during a meeting with family members.

Since the disaster, progress has been slow in leading the country out of national trauma.

In May, President Park Geun-hye made a tearful apology in front of the nation and promised to overhaul safety standards, get rid of social ills, including collusion between the government and civilians, and announced a set of measures to prevent a similar tragic case from happening again.

Separate trials of the owners of the ferry company and of captain Lee Jun-seok and 14 crew members of the sunken Sewol are in their early stages. Most of the bodies from the wreck have been recovered, although divers are still making daily searches of the murky sea in search of 11 missing people who traveled on the ferry.

Authorities are also still chasing a man and his son who are believed to been deeply involved in the operation of the doomed ferry.

If parliament fails to pass the bill by Thursday, which is the last day of the current parliamentary session, it will have to wait until next extraordinary session, likely later this month.

Thursday 17 July 2014

http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2014/07/17/three-months-after-ferry-sinking-families-seek-new-inquiry/

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18 killed in bus accident in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

At least 18 people were killed today when the driver of a passenger van lost control and the vehicle plunged about 150 metres into a ravine in the mountainous region of Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

The van was on its way from Thakot to Battagram in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province when it plunged into the ravine near Kotgala village.

Eighteen passengers on board the van were killed when the driver lost control and the vehicle fell about 150 metres into the ravine, Noor Wali, a police official, said.

He said the rescue teams struggled to retrieve the bodies due to steep slopes and thick foliage.

The dead bodies were shifted to district headquarter hospital Battagram.

Road accidents are common in Pakistan where hundreds are killed every year due to traffic accidents.

At least 12 people were killed in a similar incident in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir over the weekend.

Careless driving, bad roads and faulty vehicles are common causes of such accidents.

Wednesday 16 July 2014

http://www.outlookindia.com/news/article/18-Killed-in-an-Accident-in-Pak/849938

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Phuket journalists saved 3000 lives but Tsunami death toll error continues

The Boxing Day tsunami was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. It caused serious damage to Thailand's west coast and killed more than 8000 people in Thailand.

THE TSUNAMI did not kill 8000 people in Thailand. The toll was just under 5400.

Sadly, an official Thai government document, published to mark the first anniversary of the tsunami that struck Phuket and the Andaman coast on December 26, 2004, carried the wrong figure of 8000 . . . and the inaccuracy has been repeated over and over again ever since.

Working in the aftermath of the tsunami, a colleague and I clearly established that the author of the government document had simply made the mistake of adding the known death toll and the so called total of ''missing.''

The author failed to take account of the wonderful work of the Thai Tsunami Victims Identification unit.

As the police, dentists and pathologists identified nameless body after nameless body, the names should have come off the ''missing'' list.

Unfortunately, because of the lack of coordination between Thai government departments at the time, that didn't happen.

So the mistake was carried in Associated Press and other international news organisations. The false figure even appeared in the closing credits of the the film, 'The Impossible,' last year.

It really is time that Thailand celebrated the work of the international and Thai team that identified the vast majority of the victims, leaving only 388 people who have yet to be identified.

Their bodies are buried in a special cemetery in Phang Nga, north of Phuket, each in a concrete tomb and a metal coffin, to preserve as much DNA as possible.

After nine years of this mistake being repeated over and over again, without journalists checking it properly, if there is one thing we wish for the tenth anniversary this December, it's for the Thai Government to finally correct the mistake.

Restore Thailand's reputation for accuracy.

Wednesday 16 July 2014

http://phuketwan.com/tourism/phuket-journalists-saved-3000-lives-tsunami-toll-error-continues-20633/

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Toll rises in boat accident off Malaysia

Malaysian maritime authorities have found two more bodies floating in the sea after a boat carrying illegal Indonesian migrants sank, raising the confirmed death toll to four with seven still missing.

The fibreglass boat, believed to be carrying 72 people, capsized late Monday off the southern state of Johor.

The Indonesians on board were trying to return home to celebrate the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

A total of 61 including the two boatmen were rescued.

Two more bodies - both men - were found in the water on Wednesday, said Aminuddin Abdul Rashid, an official with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency.

He said the search for the seven still missing would continue.

The boat, heading to Indonesia's Batam island, sank while being pursued by a maritime patrol vessel.

Aminuddin had said the boat rammed into the agency's vessel when trying to escape, causing it to be damaged.

Boat accidents off Malaysia are common as migrants from Indonesia and other poorer regional countries flock to the relatively affluent Southeast Asian nation in search of work.

An estimated two million foreigners are believed to be in the country without valid papers, with many sneaking in and out along the long coastline.

Malaysian authorities have stepped up patrols this month as many Indonesians seek to return to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, Islam's biggest festival, which marks the end of the fasting month.

Wednesday 16 July 2014

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/07/16/toll-rises-boat-accident-malaysia

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India: Government plans DNA database to help find missing people

The government told the Indian Supreme Court on Monday that it intends to create a database of DNA profiles for the first time to locate missing persons and to identify bodies, and a Bill in this regard is in the pipeline.

The decision is significant as approximately 40,000 unidentified bodies are disposed of every year, removing every trace of their existence.

At the same time, thousands are reported missing across the country.

The DNA profiles will be used to ascertain if there is a connection between unidentified bodies and missing persons.

The Centre provided the information in its response to a PIL filed by the NGO Lokniti Foundation, seeking a direction to the government to implement a scientific system of DNA profiling at the national-level for cross-matching missing persons reported from different parts of the country with unidentified bodies.

The PIL said it will also help establish the identity of victims in mass disaster situations like a tsunami, fire or terror attacks.

"Government is seized of the matter and will take an appropriate decision. We are not undermining the issue. But keeping in mind the expertise, expense and infrastructure involved, extensive consultation is required. We are even planning a bill on the issue," Additional Solicitor General Neeraj Kishan Kaul told a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra.

The NGO'S lawyer, Ashok Dhamija, said the INTERPOL Global DNA Profiling Survey of 2008 showed that 120 of 172 INTERPOL member countries were using forensic DNA profiling in criminal investigation, and as many as 54 countries had set up full-fledged national DNA databases.



Tuesday 15 July 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2692100/Government-plans-DNA-database-help-missing-people.html

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19 missing, two dead as boat with illegal immigrants capsizes off Malaysia

At least two people died and 18 others were missing after an overloaded fishing boat carrying illegal Indonesian immigrants capsized off the coast of southern Malaysia, a maritime official said Tuesday.

The small fibreglass boat overturned and sank late Monday with around 80 people onboard as a patrolling vessel was pursuing it off the state of Johor, the official with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency said.

"The boat carried illegal immigrants going back to Indonesia" to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the official told AFP, adding that 59 people had been rescued.

"The boat was small and... overloaded," said the official, who requested anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

He said the bodies of one man and a woman had so far been recovered.

The boat was heading to Indonesia's Batam island and sank three nautical miles off Tanjung Piai, peninsular Malaysia's southern-most point, he added, raising hopes that some of those missing could have swum to safety.

He said authorities were still investigating the accident but the boatman -- who is among those still missing -- may have panicked when he saw the agency's patrol vessel and lost control.

He denied local media reports that the two vessels collided.

Boat accidents are common as Malaysia draws hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from poorer regional countries who fill factory, plantation, construction and other mostly low-paid jobs shunned by locals.

Authorities have stepped up patrols along the country's long coastline during Ramadan as many from Indonesia seek to sneak out and return in rickety boats to celebrate Eid al-Fitr in late July, Islam's biggest festival which marks the end of the fasting month.

The government needed to crack down on agents and employers profiting from illegal labour and corruption among border authorities, said Aegile Fernandez, an official with Malaysian migrant labour rights group Tenaganita.

"Unless all this is addressed, this will happen again and again," she told AFP. More than a dozen people died and about two dozen others went missing last month in two boat accidents in rough weather off Malaysia's west coast.

The boats were also carrying Indonesians, trying to sneak out of the country for Ramadan.

Both Malaysia and Indonesia are Muslim-majority Southeast Asian countries.

About two million foreigners are estimated to live in Malaysia illegally, in addition to almost two million legal foreign workers.

Malaysia also draws refugees from strife-hit regional countries, such as Myanmar and Sri Lanka, who arrive illegally and hope to be resettled to the US, Australia or another nation that accepts them.

Tuesday 15 July 2014

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/two-dead-18-missing-as-boat-capsizes-off-malaysia.aspx?pageID=238&nID=69130&NewsCatID=356

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12 killed, over 160 injured as Moscow Metro carriages derail in rush hour

12 people have been killed and over 160 injured as several subway cars derailed on the Moscow Metro on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya dark blue Metro line on Tuesday morning.

“There are so far 12 [dead],” Vladimir Puchkov, the head of the Russian Emergencies Ministry (Emercom) told journalists.

“One hundred and twenty people have sought medical help, 106 were taken to hospital. About a half of them are seriously injured,” Golukhov told ITAR-TASS.

The driver of the train is among those dead, according to a source in the Moscow Metro.

Media reports have emerged of 16 people being dead. Those have not yet been officially confirmed.

The accident happened during the morning rush hour when the train was packed with passengers.

The first carriage of the train sustained most of the damage, according to an eyewitness of the accident who spoke to RT. Ivan, said he was in the second car when the train suddenly braked and the lights went off.

“I was tossed up in the air,” the young man says. “There was blood on the floor, heads bruised, arms broken. Panic broke out.”

Ivan also says after the train derailed there was a flash and then the tunnel was filled with thick smoke.

“The car was badly damaged. We started to get out. We saw a door in the tunnel’s wall. Men eventually broke that door and we saw workers, constructing a parallel tunnel. They helped us to get out.”

An eyewitness, who spoke to LifeNews, was in the fifth carriage and says they had to wait for 30 minutes before the evacuation started.

“So as we got out, we proceeded to march on foot, probably for two or three minutes - along the tunnel with cables underneath. The train driver had told us right away to stick to the right side, so we did. No sooner had we got to the surface than we realized it was a full-blown emergency.”

Andrey Zenin, another survivor in the accident, says he helped extinguish the fire in one of the carriages and he also was among the volunteers who helped to get the injured out of the tunnel.

“There was a man next to me and his head had been smashed by the handrail and he was unconscious,” Zenin told RT. “Some people had broken ribs and one person’s arm was injured. All in all, people were hysterical.”

Law enforcement officials told that three train cars had derailed, “but not overturned.”

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has expressed condolences to the families of the dead and promised that the federal government will help in the post-accident clean-up.

Moscow authorities do not consider the cause the accident in the Metro could have been a terrorist act, according to Maksim Liskutov, the head of the transport department in the Moscow government, cited by Dozhd TV channel.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin has promised to take tough measures against those responsible for the accident after visiting the crash site.

“I’m sure a criminal case should be launched into the accident, an investigation conducted and the toughest measures taken,” Sobyanin told journalists, after he visited a hospital where the injured had been taken.

Some passengers could still be at the site of the accident, according to Maksim Liskutov, Moscow’s deputy mayor.

Attempts are being made to try and evacuate the stricken passengers, who are stuck in a tunnel between Park Pobedy and Slavyansky Bulvar stations, in the west of Moscow.

News of the derailment was preceded by reports of smoke detected on the dark blue line of the Moscow Metro. Later, Moscow’s emergencies agency denied reports of smoke and said a sudden failure in the electricity supply to a conductor rail could have caused the accident.

A failure in the power supply led to a false alarm going off. The alarm was a signal to the train driver to immediately stop the train. The sudden braking led to the derailment of several carriages.

The press service says the train derailed because it had to brake too suddenly.

“At 8:39am Moscow time [04:39 GMT] on a stretch between stations of Park Pobedy [Victory Park] and Slavyansky Bulvar there was abrupt deceleration of a train,” Moscow emergencies agency 's press service employee told RT.

Sixty-six buses, 40 ambulances and eight helicopters have been deployed by rescuers for evacuations. Fifty people have already reportedly been evacuated from Slavyansky Bulvar and 200 from Park Pobedy.

The Investigative Committee (IC) has launched a criminal case over ‘violation of transportation security demands’, according to interim head of the Moscow’s Western District Department of the IC, Roman Syomushkin.

Tuesday 15 July 2014

http://rt.com/news/172808-train-moscow-metro-evacuation/

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One year since train crash killed 7 outside Paris

The crash happened in an instant one year ago on Saturday in the outskirts of Paris, but the image of a mangled intercity train has left an indelible image on the survivors.

“I clung on with my arm to keep from falling and when I looked down, I saw a passenger, half their body disappeared in a few seconds,” said Manou N’Diaye, a survivor who spoke to Le Monde newspaper.

Packed with 385 passengers, the train travelling from Limoges to Paris derailed some 32 kilometres from the capital and beneath a cloud of dust, split into two.

The train – No. 3657 – veered off the track as it entered the Brétigny-sur-Orge station.

Cars ploughed into each other as it smashed into the platform, leaving seven people dead and dozens injured.

Last week, investigators cited a rail joint that worked loose gradually from a track in the absence of proper maintenance, but ruled out the accident as a “malicious act.”

More than 200 irregularities of varying degree were spotted on the surveyed stretch of track and had not been dealt with adequately.

One year on from the accident, 32 passengers of the 177 who reported physical or psychological injury have accepted an offer of compensation, according to report by the Secretary of State for Transport.

Passengers have not been the only victims of psychological trauma over the past year.

SNCF employees are often quoted as saying "before and after Brétigny".

“I think of all of these people,” reportedly said the driver of the train during a ceremony on Saturday. “I think of them, that’s all.”

Monday 14 July 2014

http://www.english.rfi.fr/france/20140712-one-year-train-crash-killed-7-outside-paris

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23 killed in Casablanca buildings collapse

The death toll after three buildings collapsed in Morocco's largest city and commercial capital Casablanca has risen to 23.

Fifteen bodies were recovered from the rubble in one day on Sunday, including two children and Moroccan actress Amal Maarouf and her mother, local authorities said.

News website Yibiladi said the actress had continued to respond to calls on her mobile phone for several hours after the calamity but did not elaborate.

Medics said earlier on Sunday that 17 people were still being treated in hospital, while authorities warned of more buried bodies.

Rescue operations were temporarily suspended on Sunday afternoon as emergency teams sought more sophisticated equipment, sparking anger from relatives of the missing.

By evening the site had been cordoned off and the media barred, drawing criticism.

"Search for bodies suspended, equipment deficient. Three days to notice it," the Economist newspaper scoffed in a post on its Internet site.

It was still not known why the three apartment blocks in El-Hank district collapsed on Friday.

Residents told AFP the accident probably resulted from "haphazard works" on the lower floors of the buildings, as well as a general lack of maintenance.

Casablanca has a population of around five million, with many living in squalid conditions in sprawling slums, some exposed to serious safety hazards.

Monday 14 July 2014

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/07/14/23-killed-casablanca-buildings-collapse

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Costa Concordia raised: Divers to search and recover last missing body

Italian officials have pledged to search for the last remaining missing body within the partially submerged Costa Concordia wreckage as the salvage operation makes one final push this week.

Removal of the 290-metre vessel from the seabed will get underway today and last for several days, two-and-a-half years after it ran aground and capsized off the west coast of Italy.

Thirty-two people died in the incident, with most bodies since recovered except one – an Indian waiter.

Franco Gabrielli, from the Civil Protection Department, said it was a “great sorrow” that the final body has not yet been found.

He pledged that divers will continue to search for the last victim as the delicate operation to remove the ship begins this week.

Mr Gabrielli told reporters on the island of Giglio – off which the ship had sunk – that while the weather wasn’t optimal for the mammoth task of extracting the wreck, it was good enough to allow it to start.

The Concordia will be refloated and towed to Genoa on the mainland, where it will be used for scrap.

The cruise liner was successfully moved upright last September, with the hull currently resting on a false bed created at a depth of roughly 30 metres.

The comprehensive process of removing the ship from its current location means that an initial section of the structure will be floated first so that engineers can check for damage.

A pneumatic system will be used to pump water gradually from 30 caissons (airtight tanks) surrounding the wreck, filling them with air and pushing the vessel upwards.

Engineers will float a small section at first to check for structural damage. If the Costa Concordia cannot be moved in one piece, it will have to be dismantled where it is.

If the structure is safe, the ship will be moved 30 meters away from shore before being gradually refloated.

Each of the 13 decks will be examined as they emerge for any hazards that could seep into the ocean.

When the process is finished, a section of about 18 metres will remain submerged and the 114,500-tonne vessel will be tugged at a steady two knots to Genoa on a four-day journey over 190 nautical miles.

Monday 14 July 2014

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/costa-concordia-raised-divers-to-search-and-recover-last-missing-body-officials-promise-9603926.html

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Overloaded China kindergarten bus crash kills 11

An overloaded minivan ferrying children home from kindergarten in China's Hunan province has crashed into a pond, killing all 11 people on board.

The van was carrying eight kindergarten pupils and two teachers, as well as the driver. It was meant to carry only seven people, according to Xinhua.

The crash happened in the late afternoon near the province's capital of Changsha, in a mountainous area.

Local media reported it was travelling on a narrow road that had no barrier.

The victims' family members told Xinhua that school buses in the region are often overloaded.

School transport is a particularly sensitive issue in China, where a series of accidents have heightened concern.

A shortage of education funds has seen school closures and children, especially those from rural villages, are often forced to travel far to get an education, according to agencies. They often have to take overcrowded buses.

In 2011, 18 children and two adults were killed when an overloaded school bus collided with a coal truck in foggy conditions. That bus had only nine seats but was packed with 64 people at the time of the accident.

The following year a school van plunged into a pond in Jiangxi killing 11 children, and three children on board a bus died in a traffic accident in Guangdong.

China's cabinet issued new rules governing school bus safety, setting out specifications for school buses and punishments for offences such as overloading.

Friday 11 July 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-28258979

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Enduring anguish of ferry tragedy

When steel worker Huh Hong-Hwan heard his teenaged daughter might be trapped in a sinking ferry, he didn’t hesitate.

He jumped in his car and drove, sick with anxiety and panic, for five hours down to the southern island of Jindo where the rescue operation for South Korea’s worst peacetime disaster was gearing up.

Nearly three months later, he’s still there. “I never thought I would be waiting for her this long,” the 50-year-old said at a gymnasium that has been his home since the 6,825-tonne Sewol ferry capsized on April 16 with 476 passengers and crew.

“I’m totally exhausted, but parents can’t give up on their children even if the whole world does,” Huh said.

He is one of around 30 relatives who have maintained a bitter, defiant vigil in Jindo, as divers continue the increasingly desperate, dangerous search for the last remaining bodies trapped in the sunken vessel.

Just over 300 people died, the vast majority high school students on an organised outing.

A total of 172 were rescued before the ferry sank and a massive recovery effort involving hundreds of divers working in near zero visibility has since retrieved 293 bodies.

But 11 victims — including Huh’s daughter — are still unaccounted for.

Any hope of finding survivors inside the upturned vessel vanished within days of the accident, but the families of those missing are refusing to give up the search for a body they can bury and grieve over.

The last body to be recovered was more than two weeks ago on June 24 and there is no guarantee that the 11 missing are even inside the ferry.

Several bodies have been picked up dozens of miles away, suggesting a significant number may have been pulled out to sea by the powerful currents.

The 11 include five high school students and two teachers, one crew member and three other passengers.

In order to maintain a full-time vigil, some family members have quit their jobs and the lonely wait has taken a physical and mental toll.

In the immediate aftermath of the sinking, the Jindo gymnasium had resembled a refugee camp, packed with distraught relatives and a small army of volunteers helping to feed and comfort them.

But now the place is nearly empty and the default setting is of absolute silence, bar the muffled sound from a giant TV screen.

The screen had been brought in months ago to feed live pictures of the recovery effort at the offshore disaster site.

Now it is tuned to a news channel showing updates from the World Cup in Brazil.

There is nothing for the exhausted-looking family members to do, beyond sitting or walking aimlessly around the echoing gym.

Some stroll outside to smoke, through glass doors adorned with hundreds of wrenching post-it messages written by families and volunteers.

“My son, today is already May 16. Please come out of the cold water. Let’s go home with mom and dad,” one message read.

The volunteers, who once numbered in their thousands, are now down to around 200, working in shifts to provide what help they can to the remaining families.

“I never imagined the simple act of waiting could be this painful,” said Kwon Oh-Bok, a 59-year-old who lost a younger brother, sister-in-law and six-year-old nephew in the disaster.

Like Huh, Kwon drove to Jindo on the day of the sinking and he hasn’t left since, leaving his electrical business shuttered.

His days revolve around sleeping on a mattress laid out on the floor of the gym, eating meals provided by volunteers, attending daily meetings with rescue authorities, and endless hours of waiting.

“I’m so worried I’ll be the last one left,” he said, echoing a fear shared by many of the remaining relatives.

Kwon bristled at the idea of giving up, and said any move to call time on the recovery effort would feel like a death sentence.

“No one would give up if they were in my shoes,” he said, urging the government to step up search operations.

In the first few weeks, dozens of bodies were being brought up, but only five were recovered in the entire month of June.

Two divers have died and many others have had to be replaced because of sickness or exhaustion.

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye had initially promised that search operations would continue as long as the families wanted.

Park’s previously high ratings have plunged amid intense criticism of her administration’s response to the disaster, and there is little likelihood that she will go back on her vow anytime soon.

Anti-establishment anger is still running very high, and the greed, corruption and incompetence that led to the tragedy is repeatedly being highlighted at the ongoing trials of the captain, the crew and the ferry operators.

Some of the relatives still in Jindo spend much of their time at the island’s Paengmok harbour — the closest they can physically get on land to the recovery site.

Like the gym, the harbour had once been crammed with people, and was where family members were taken to identify bodies as they were brought in by the dive teams.

Now, the sound of a monk chanting and hitting a wooden gong echoes around the jetty, lined with several tents set up by religious groups.

“Please let everyone, to the last missing one, return to their families,” reads one large banner attached to a fence, along with hundreds of yellow ribbons.

“Three months is a long time, but for these families, their lives seem to be completely frozen in time,” said Lee Seong-Tae, a volunteer who has been at the site since the beginning.

Friday 11 July 2014

http://main.omanobserver.om/?p=94480

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Bosnia buries Srebrenica victims identified 19 years after the massacre

The remains of 175 victims of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia have been laid to rest in their final destination of Sarajevo.

After 19 years the pain remains raw.

In an annual event, newly found or identified remains of the victims are transported through the town, so that their loved ones can finally pay their respects before being laid to rest.

Fatima Efendic, lost her son Amir in the mass killing. Having found his remains she can finally begin to grieve.

“I am happy we found him,” she said fighting back tears. “I dreamt of him last night. I was looking for him in my dream. I found him on top of a house, I held him in my lap. My wish and dream finally came true. I just took him into my lap.”

Around 8,000 Muslim men were rounded up and killed when the town was seized during the Bosnian war on July 11 1995. Just over 6,000 have been exhumed from mass graves to be buried at Potocari cemetery.

At the International Centre on Missing Persons, the search continues for the remaining bodies.

“We calculate that there are still about a thousand persons missing,” explained Kathryne Bomberger, Director-General of ICMP. “But also, in addition to that, in addition to these thousand persons, there will be thousands of additional pieces of bodies, of skeletal remains that will also be uncovered that could be re-associated to the ones in the mortuary. So, this is an extremely complex process.”

Though many families wait to recover more complete remains before burial, for those yet to find their missing sons, brothers, husbands and fathers, discovering just one bone would be enough to provide closure.

Friday 11 July 2014

http://www.euronews.com/2014/07/11/bosnia-buries-srebrenica-victims-identified-19-years-after-the-massacre/

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Landslides in southwest China kills 12, leaves 33 others missing

A dozen people died and 33 others were missing Wednesday after being swept away or buried by two landslides in southwestern China.

Heavy rains triggered the landslide in Fugong county of Yunnan province that killed six people and left 25 others missing while destroying a silicon mine, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

More than 140 rescuers, using excavators, fire trucks and ambulances, were searching the site of the landslide, which lies about 500 meters (550 yards) from the Nujiang river, Xinhua said.

The Communist Party chief of Fugong county said some of the missing people may have been carried away by the river or buried under debris, the report said.

Reached by phone, a woman who would only give her surname, He, from the general office of the Nujiang prefectural government said rescue work was still underway but hopes of finding survivors were dimming.

"The chance that those who are missing might be rescued alive is very slim," He said.

In Yunlong county on Wednesday, six people were killed and eight others left missing after another landslide buried houses.

Thursday 10 July 2014

http://www.startribune.com/world/266369171.html

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Eight dead as cracker factories collapse in heavy rain in Maharashtra

Eight workers, including five women and a child, were killed and a number of others injured as the roofs of two fire-cracker manufacturing units collapsed in the district this afternoon.

Some more workers are feared to be trapped under the debris.

Police sources said lightning struck the Welcome and Paris cracker factories at Terkheda village in Washi tehsil during a thundershower, causing first a blast, and then collapse of slabs.

It was difficult for rescue teams to reach the spot as Terna river was flooded, police said.

Eight bodies have been recovered from the debris so far but they were yet to be identified, police added.

Wednesday 09 July 2014

http://zeenews.india.com/news/maharashtra/eight-dead-as-cracker-factories-collapse-in-heavy-rain-in-maharashtra_946090.html

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13 illegal migrants found dead on Libya coast

Libyan authorities have found 13 decomposing bodies in a wooden boat off the coast of the southwestern town of Tagora, a Libyan navy official said on Tuesday.

The boat, which reportedly sank off the coast on Sunday, is suspected of having carried a group of Syrians trying to illegally migrate to Italy via Libya, navy spokesman Ayoub Qassim told Anadolu Agency.

He said the bodies of women and children were among those found on the boat, which was pulled from the water on Tuesday.

Qassim warned of increasingly frequent cases of illegal migrants drowning while en route to Europe, going on to accuse European governments of not taking firm enough measures to address the crisis.

Libya is a major transit point for African migrants seeking access to Europe, especially Italy, via the Mediterranean Sea.

From March to August of last year, more than 30,000 illegal migrants entered the troubled North African country, according to U.N. estimates.

UNHCR told reporters that so far this year more than 500 people are known to have died trying to cross the sea from Africa and Asia to various countries in Europe. A record 64,000 people traveling in small boats from north Africa have reached Italy alone this year - more than in all of 2013.

The Libyan coast guard informed UNHCR on Monday that the dead in the latest accirdent included three Syrians - including the mother and her children aged three and six -- three Eritrean nationals and six other Africans of as yet undetermined nationalities, spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing.

The boat, which reportedly capsized off the coast of Tripoli, had a capacity of about 200 passengers and may have been carrying many more people, Edwards said. Search and rescue operations are ongoing and the fate of others who may have been aboard is unknown.

At least 217 people are believed to have drowned off the Libyan coast so far in 2014 while trying to cross the Mediterranean. Another 290 people are confirmed dead or missing from accidents in the waters off Italy, Turkey and Greece, bringing the death toll in the Mediterranean so far this year to over 500 people.

Wednesday 09 July 2014

http://www.worldbulletin.net/world/140319/13-illegal-migrants-found-dead-on-libya-coast

http://www.rttnews.com/2346702/syrian-mother-children-among-12-bodies-recovered-in-mediterranean-boat-tragedy.aspx?type=gn&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=sitemap

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27 Gambian migrants among dead aboard ship to Italy

At least 27 of the 45 illegal migrants found dead in a boat on its way to Italy last week were Gambian, police sources said Monday.

The victims were among hundreds of other African migrants trying to cross Libya to Italy. The dead were discovered by rescuers in the hold of a ship in waters off Sicily.

"It has been confirmed to us that 27 people among those who died last week are Gambians, which is sad news to us," a senior police officer told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

"We are really worried and so concerned about the death of our citizens who do take this clandestine journey to Europe, through North African Arab countries. These are really our concerns," the officer added.

According to the Italian police, 45 African migrants were found in the narrowest part of the boat, which was carrying more than double its capacity, and are thought to have suffocated. 566 survivors were rescued.

Tuesday 08 July 2014

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=228439

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Helicopter crash in Vietnamese capital's west kills 16, injures 5

A military helicopter crashed in the west of Vietnamese capital Hanoi on Monday morning, killing 16 people and injuring five.

Approximately at 7:45 local time (0045 GMT) on Monday, a helicopter crashed in Hoa Lac of Thach That District during a parachute training exercise, reported Vietnam's state-run news agency VNA.

The Russian-made Mi-171 plane of the Helicopter Regiment 916 of the Air Defense-Air Force Service's Air Division 371 took off from Hoa Lac Airport in Hanoi's western district of Thach That at 7:30 a.m. local time (0030 GMT) with 21 people onboard.

Some 16 minutes later, it lost contact and came down in Hoa Lac village, Binh Yen commune, about 3 km from the airport.

The cause of the accident is under investigation, said the report.

A middle-aged woman told Xinhua at the scene that she saw a helicopter hovering above when she was working at a paddy field.

"It is quite normal to see helicopter hovering above here because there is a military airbase located 2 km away. However, I then felt strange as the helicopter kept flying around," she said.

"I heard an explosion and saw the helicopter crash down to the paddy fields," she told Xinhua.

The eyewitness said she saw three people jump out of the helicopter after the explosion and get burnt.

"After the officials came, around six to seven bodies were pulled out of the wreckage," she said.

"Then I was evacuated from the site by military officials," she said.

At 11:00 local time (0400 GMT), Xinhua reporters saw ambulance vans and military vehicles still coming out from the village site. The entrance to the village has been blocked.

Earlier, Phi Quoc Tuan, Vietnam's Capital Military Region Commander, by telephone told reporters at 9:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) that the accident occurred during training.

Monday 07 July 2014

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=228364

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Gas explosion kills 17 miners in northwest China

Rescue workers have recovered the bodies of seventeen people who were trapped over the weekend after a gas explosion at a coal mine in China's western region of Xinjiang, state-run media reported on Monday, just a month after another deadly mine accident.

The latest accident happened at about 8:43 p.m. local time on Saturday when 20 people were working at a coal mine about 120 kilometers (74 miles) from Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. Three of the miners were able to escape, but the other seventeen workers remained trapped underground in unknown condition.

Rescue workers began pouring nitrogen into the coal mine on early Sunday morning to dilute the gas concentration, but the process had to continue for at least 24 hours before it was safe to enter the pit. Once the process was completed on early Monday, rescue workers went in and confirmed the seventeen missing miners had been killed.

It was not immediately known what caused Saturday's accident at the mine, which is owned by the Dahuangshan Yuxin Coal Mining Company. The state-run Xinhua news agency said the cause of the accident was being investigated but offered no other details.

Safety conditions at mines in China have rapidly improved in recent years, though they continue to be ranked as the world's most dangerous with 1,049 deaths reported in 2013, according to official figures. The Chinese government reported 1,384 fatalities in 2012, down from 1,973 fatalities in 2011, 2,433 fatalities in 2010, and 2,631 fatalities in 2009.

China shut down scores of small mines in recent years to improve safety and efficiency in the mining industry. The country has also ordered all mines to build emergency shelter systems which need to be equipped with machines to produce oxygen and air conditioning, protective walls and airtight doors to protect workers against toxic gases and other hazardous factors.

One of the worst mining accidents in China in recent years happened in November 2009 when 104 workers were killed after several explosions at a coal mine in Heilongjiang province. More recently, 22 workers were killed on June 3 in a gas outburst at a coal mine near the city of Chongqing.

Monday 07 July 2014

http://wireupdate.com/gas-explosion-kills-17-miners-in-northwest-china.html

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Seven killed, nine missing in China landslides

Seven people were killed and nine others have gone missing in two mudslides triggered by flash floods in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Five people were washed away and several houses were flattened last evening in Dongshan Village, according to the county government of Yongsheng.

Three bodies have been found. More than 200 rescuers are searching for the two missing.

Relief goods such as food and quilts have been sent to the affected areas, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

In Ludian County, four people were killed and seven others were reported missing after a rainstorm-triggered mudslide.

Continuous downpour has battered the Ludian County, leading to torrential floods and mudslides in many areas, said the Ludian County government.

Longtoushan and Lehong townships are the worst hit townships in the County.



Rescuers have rushed to search for the missing people.

Local governments have initiated an emergency rescue and allocated relief goods to the disaster-hit regions.

Monday 07 July 2014

http://www.outlookindia.com/news/article/Seven-Killed-Nine-Missing-in-China-Landslides/848545

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Identities of 18 Uttarakhand tragedy victims established

Identities of 18 victims of Uttarakhand natural calamity, out of a total of 630 bodies recovered from Kedar valley since the start of combing operations last year, have been established, police said on Monday.

191 persons from different states had submitted DNA samples of their kin, who went missing from the valley during the disaster that ravaged the hill state last year.

18 of those samples, have matched with those provided by Uttarakhand police to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Hyderabad, media cell in-charge of state police, Pradeep Godbole said.

The claimants, who had approached the police with the DNA samples of their missing kin, hail from different states including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Jammu and Kashmir, he said.

Since the start of combing operations last year, a total of 630 bodies were recovered and disposed of in Kedar valley which suffered extensive damage in last year’s deluge in which thousands were killed and thousands went missing.

“We had sent the DNA samples provided by 191 persons of the relatives who had gone missing after the tragedy. 18 of the DNA samples have matched so far with the ones provided by Uttarakhand police to FSL, Hyderabad,” he said.

The bodies which continued to be found in Kedar valley until recently even a year after the tragedy have been cremated by the police after their DNA sampling and other formalities amid Vedic rituals.

Uttarakhand police have requested families which lost their kin in the tragedy to submit their DNA samples to the cops either by coming to Dehradun or to the police in their own respective states which will direct them to Uttarakhand police.

“We request all such families to come forward and give the DNA samples of their missing kin. This will help us establish the identities of more and more tragedy victims,” Mr. Godbole said.

Monday 07 July 2014

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/identities-of-18-uttarakhand-tragedy-victims-established/article6186583.ece?ref=sliderNews

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Eleven people feared killed in Polish plane crash - emergency services

Eleven people were killed and one person is seriously injured after a plane crashed at a parachute club close to Czestochowa, in the south of Poland, a spokeswoman for the emergency services said.

"Twelve people were on board the plane and the only survivor was taken to hospital and is in a serious condition," Justyna Sochacka told AFP.

The plane, a Piper Navajo, reportedly had 11 parachutists and a pilot on board.

"It was flying from the south and the engine was making strange sounds," said eyewitness Barbara Minczykiewicz, a resident of the village of Topolow where the plane crashed, quoted by Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza broadsheet daily.

"It was flying very low, close to houses. It tilted to one side on its wing and caught fire," she said.

Village residents managed to pull one live person and two bodies out of the air craft, according to Minczykiewicz.

The light plane took off from an air field in Rudniki, near Czestochowa.

The causes behind the crash were not immediately known, but Polish media reports suggested the air craft was carrying passengers in excess of its capacity.

Saturday 05 July 2014

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/11-die-plane-crash-poland-parachute-club-170620166.html#6nRMS9l

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Building collapse tragedy: Two families fight over body at morgue

Adding a twist to the building collapse tragedy, members of a family had to bring a body back to the city after discovering it wasn't their kin's, while two other families fought for another body at the Government Royapettah Hospital on Friday.

A mutilated body, mistakenly identified as Prakash Raut, was being transported by his family to home in Kendrapara district in Odisha when it was learnt that Raut was alive and recuperating at Sri Ramachandra Medical Centre.

"The body was identified by his brother as that of 25-yearold Prakash Raut. We completed the legal formalities and sent the body with him for cremation. But when the real Raut emerged from the debris, we immediately called the driver and asked him to return," said a senior health department official.

Raut was on the seventh floor when the building collapsed in Moulivakkam. He was rescued 72 hours later. Officials said the mutilated body, now at the mortuary in Royapettah, was yet to be identified. As Raut's family celebrates, two families are at loggerheads over the identity of a body at the Royapettah mortuary.

Gowri Naidu, 35, and Chinnam Naidu, 45, of Vizianagaram in Andhra Pradesh had died in the building collapse. Their family members have been waiting at the morgue for five days to check if their kin's body had arrived. On Friday, Lokesh saw a mutilated body and claimed it was his father Chinnam Naidu, while another man called Simhasanam said it was that of his brother Gowri Naidu.

Finally, based on the description given by both the families and the doctor's advice, it was decided that the body belonged to Gowri Naidu. " To avoid such confusion, we have collected DNA samples of all the bodies that have arrived from the collapse site. We will run tests if necessary," said a senior doctor.

Meanwhile, to make space for bodies of victims of the tragedy, Government Royapettah Hospital have sent 38 unidentified bodies belonging to victims of road and rail accidents to the mortuaries attached to Government General Hospital and Kilpauk Medical College Hospital.

Saturday 05 July 2014

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Building-collapse-tragedy-Two-families-fight-over-body-at-morgue/articleshow/37810405.cms

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Devastating Bosnian floods unearths mass grave containing 24 people

The remains of 24 people believed to be Muslims and killed during the ethnic cleansing war of the 1990s in Bosnia are exhumed by heavy flooding that hit the country two months ago.

Lejla Cengic, spokesperson for The Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia-Herzegovina (MPI) told AFP on Friday that torrential floods in May removed a three-meter layer of ground, exposing a mass grave site on the left bank of the Bosna River in southern part of the country.

She said 24 bodies were found in the area between the towns of Maglaj and Doboj, after a month-long excavation operation to exhume bodies uncovered by flooding.

“Most of the victims had their hands tied around their backs, while several were killed by a bullet fired at a close range to the neck,” Cengic said.

The remains are thought to belong to Muslim men from the village of Jablanica, near Maglaj, killed by Serb forces in June 1992, at the start of the war.

Their identity will be confirmed by DNA analysis.

Torrential rains hit Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia in mid-May, killing 77 people in the Balkans’ worst floods and landslides in more than a century.

The disaster forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and caused damage estimated at two billion euros.

Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war claimed some 100,000 lives. More than 9,000 people are still missing, official data shows.

Saturday 05 July 2014

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/07/05/369969/floods-uncover-bosnia-war-graves/

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Building collapse: Death toll rises to 61, rescue operations may end tomorrow

Tamil Nadu Government today set up an inquiry commission to probe the collapse of a 11-storey under-construction residential building here in which the death toll has mounted to 61 with no survivors found for the second straight day.

As rescue operations by multiple agencies entered the sixth day, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa announced that the one-man commission headed by Justice (Retd) R Reghupathy will probe the circumstances leading to the collapse of the building at suburban Porur on June 28.

"The Commission will find out whose ignorant attitude resulted in such a mishap that left many workers dead and others injured and decide on (fixing) those responsible for it," she said in a release.

The rescue team personnel could not find any survivor for the second consecutive day today and pulled out 14 more bodies with the toll mounting to 61 as they indicated the operations might be nearing completion soon.

"As of now, 61 are dead and out of this 41 are men and 20 women," K Kulandaisamy, Director, Public Health told PTI.

The focus of the rescue operations was on reaching a spot - estimated to be around 2,000 square feet in the basement - where 20-25 people were feared trapped, revenue officials said adding they wanted to ensure all survivors were pulled out.

The massive rescue work undertaken by government agencies like the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), state disaster response force, police, fire and rescue services, revenue, public works, health and revenue departments is likely to be wrapped up on Friday evening, on the seventh day after the building collapsed.

More than 1,500 rescue workers, including police personnel who were deployed for crowd management, were involved in the operations.

"There is a general consensus among all agencies involved in the rescue operation that the chance of finding more bodies is very remote. We will have a review meeting at 11am on Friday and take a joint decision," said NDRF commandment M K Verma.

DIG of National Disaster Response Force S P Selvan said the operations were likely to end by tomorrow evening.

"We hope that the rescue work will be fully completed by evening tomorrow," he said.

A total of 27 persons, including eight women, were rescued alive till July 1.

In a related development, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority today commenced inspection of high-rise buildings in the city in the backdrop of the mishap.

Eighteen teams comprising 54 officials from the CMDA inspected eight multi-storeyed and 12 special (high-rise) buildings in various parts of the city, a senior CMDA official said.

Friday 04 July 2014

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-building-collapse-death-toll-rises-to-61-rescue-operations-may-end-tomorrow-1999445

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Poland finds skeletons in search for Stalinist victims

Investigators in Poland have unearthed seven skeletons in the search for a mass grave that may contain the remains of “a thousand” people murdered during the dark days of Stalinism.

The human remains were found in an unmarked grave in a Warsaw cemetery in the early stages of a hunt to locate the last resting place of hundreds of people who were executed, tortured to death or died in captivity in the years following the end of the Second World War.

“There is no doubt they were prisoners,” said Professor Krzysztof Szwagrzyk, the investigator leading the search at the cemetery where he believes “a thousand” people could be buried. “There was evidence in the grave we discovered. These people were at the bottom of a pit and their remains were entwined. The bodies weren’t arranged.”

Investigators have appealed to the descendants of anybody who disappeared during the Stalinist period to come forward and submit DNA samples in order to help identify the dead.

Thousands of people were arrested by the secret police in a government campaign to remove anyone believed to be an enemy of the state. Many of those imprisoned, often on bogus and fabricated charges, had been in the wartime Polish Home Army: the massive underground military organisation that had led Polish resistance to German occupation. But along with fighting Nazis, it had also drawn the hatred of Stalin and Poland’s communists because of its loyalty to the Polish government in exile and its commitment to an independent Polish state. After the war, anybody linked to it faced persecution, 
arrest and even death.

In particular, investigators want to find the remains of Captain Witold Pilecki. A Polish war hero, Capt Pilecki got himself arrested deliberately and sent to Auschwitz in order to write a report on the camp, and in doing so became the first man to document the Jewish Holocaust. After three years at Auschwitz, in 1943 he escaped and resumed his struggle against German occupation.

Despite his wartime record, in 1948 Capt Pilecki was executed by the communist government for allegedly working for “foreign imperialism” and he has no known grave.

The hunt for the captain and the hundreds who perished with him has been complicated by new evidence revealing the communist government buried people on top of the graves in 
an attempt to conceal its 
crimes.

“We have new information about the ‘death pits’ and it turns out that in an effort to erase any traces of unmarked graves, in the 1980s senior politicians from the Polish People’s Republic and military top brass were buried over them,” said Marcin Golebiewicz, one of the men leading the search for the dead.

Friday 04 July 2014

http://www.scotsman.com/news/world/poland-finds-skeletons-in-search-for-stalinist-victims-1-3466112

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Italy migrants: ‘Seventy missing’ off Sicily

At least 70 migrants have been lost at sea after their boat capsized off Sicily, survivors have said.

The latest disaster to hit migrants trying to reach Italy emerged from a group rescued by the Italian navy who spoke to UN workers.

Thousands of migrants have tried to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa in recent days.

Earlier, Italian officials said 45 people had died on another boat discovered two days ago.

Initial reports on Monday had put the number of deaths on the boat – which had been carrying about 600 migrants – at 30.



The navy said that those who died were crammed into a compartment below decks. They were either crushed or asphyxiated.

The discovery was made when rescuers boarded the vessel to evacuate a number of people said to be in distress, two of them pregnant women.

The boat has since been towed to the port of Pozzallo in southern Sicily and the bodies of those who died have been taken away.

The cause of many of the migrant tragedies in recent months has been the poor quality of the overcrowded boats making the crossings to Italy, largely from Libya and Tunisia,

The latest disaster to emerge involves a boat that capsized in the Strait of Sicily, the stretch of sea between the island and Tunisia.

Local prosecutor Giovanni Salvi told Italian media that 101 people were apparently on board the overcrowded boat. The navy managed to rescue 27 of those on board, he said, emphasising that the details were yet to be confirmed.

There has been a significant increase in the number of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Italy in recent weeks.



EU border agency Frontex says almost 60,000 migrants have already landed in southern Italy this year. The record of 63,000 set in 2011 is likely to be broken within weeks.

Most are from Africa or the Middle East and pay large sums to people smugglers in Libya who transport them in unsafe fishing vessels.

Officials say one reason for the rise in numbers is because of Libya’s continuing political instability.

Italy – which bears the brunt of migrants making the perilous crossing – launched a rescue operation in the Mediterranean last year but has repeatedly appealed for help from the EU to tackle the problem.

Friday 04 July 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28131675

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Death toll rises in SW China landslide

The death toll in a landslide in southwest China's Yunnan province has risen to five with ten still missing, local authorities said on Friday.

Rescuers retrieved three more bodies as of Thursday evening after the landslide on Monday in Latudi village, Shangpa Town, Fugong county, the emergency response and rescue headquarters said.

After the accident, two people were confirmed dead, three others were injured and another 13 were missing, it said.

More than 1,100 rescuers have cleared nearly 60,000 cubic meters of earth. Search efforts are still under way.

Friday 04 July 2014

http://www.ecns.cn/2014/07-04/122438.shtml

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The tragic, mostly forgotten story of the Sea Wing disaster

Lurid St. Paul newspaper headlines trumpeted dreadful news of a July 13, 1890, steamboat disaster: “Whole Families Forced into the Darkness of Another World Clasped in Each Other’s Arms”; “A Voyage of Pleasure That Ended on the Shores of Another World”; “The Tornado on Pepin’s Treacherous Bosom the Crowning Calamity of all Minnesota Annals.”

Sea Wing, a stern-wheeled steamer packed with 215 passengers on a Sunday cruise, had capsized on Lake Pepin, drowning 98. The steamboat and its attached barge had been about five miles north of Lake City, returning to Red Wing, when struck by a frontal thunderstorm. Straight-line winds flipped the boat.

For four days, Minnesotans and the rest of the nation followed the horrific story. Red Wing, soon labeled in newspapers as the “City of the Dead,” was home to 144 of the passengers. Residents knew little of who died or survived the accident until Monday morning when a steamboat carrying dozens of bodies reached the Red Wing levee with its grim cargo. A city in mourning saw 44 funerals conducted on Tuesday alone.

But many Sea Wing victims were still in the lake. A Minnesota National Guard regiment encamped at Lake City’s Camp Lakeview took over recovery operations from Lake City civilians. They searched for up to 40 still believed missing. As groups of relatives and friends of victims looked on, Guardsmen cannonaded and dynamited the lake in dramatic, but unsuccessful, attempts to raise bodies. On Thursday the drowned began surfacing, most unrecognizable.

Of 57 women and girls on board, only seven survived. Most of them were in the Sea Wing’s main cabin when the boat capsized and were immediately drowned.

Tragic vignettes of the accident and its victims emerged. Couples about to be married drowned; entire families killed; a mother clutching her baby, buried together as they had been found; initial survivors killed by hail as they struggled in the water; two sisters perishing when their escorts lost grips on their hair; family members struggling to identify badly disfigured remains.

Criticism of David Wethern, the ship’s captain, was tempered by the fact his wife and a son were among the drowned. Wethern and his steamboat sailed from Diamond Bluff, on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi. That small community and neighboring Trenton each suffered ten dead. An accident investigation found Wethern guilty of “unskillfulness” and overloading his vessel.

The Sea Wing disaster, so familiar to turn-of-the-twentieth-century Minnesotans, slowly disappeared from memory. Frederick L. Johnson, author of “The Sea Wing Disaster” (Goodhue County Historical Society, 1986) and the forthcoming expanded version of the original—”The Sea Wing Disaster: Tragedy on Lake Pepin”—said the calamity, so localized to Red Wing, Lake City, and Diamond Bluff, was largely lost outside of those communities.

Thursday 03 July 2014

http://www.zumbrota.com/articles/2014/07/02/tragic-mostly-forgotten-story-sea-wing-disaster

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