Facebook adds emergency check-in feature for natural disasters

In 2011, when a deadly tsunami set off 30-foot tidal waves that crashed into the shores of Japan, flooding entire cities and damaging nuclear power plants, Facebook became an instrumental tool in connecting loved ones and alerting family members to their safety.

The social network is now rolling out a new check-in feature for use during such natural disasters. Safety Check, as the new product is called, was unveiled by CEO Mark Zuckerberg Thursday afternoon in Tokyo, and is meant to help Facebook users quickly alert friends and family that they are safe during times of crisis, like earthquakes or tsunamis.

Safety Check works by sending users a push notification asking them if they are safe whenever a natural disaster strikes the area they list as their current location. User’s can then see a list of their Facebook friends in the area, and see which users have checked in as safe and which have not.

Facebook will determine what constitutes a disaster worthy of a check-in by communicating with local authorities and experts, says Marcy Scott Lynn, global policy programs manager at Facebook. Safety Check has a few added elements — for example, you can check in for a Friend, and Facebook will ask you to check in if it sees you are traveling in a compromised area — but for the most part, Safety Check is intended for sharing one simple status: Yes, I’m fine.



The initial idea for Safety Check came from Facebook’s Japan office following the 2011 earthquake and ensuing tsunami, hence Zuckerberg’s announcement in Tokyo. Employees at the time developed a Disaster Message Board within Facebook to help families and friends connect in the wake of potential disasters, but the tool was limited to Japanese users and slowly faded as Facebook continued to evolve.

Eleven months ago, product manager Sharon Zeng and software engineer Peter Cottle picked up the project during a company-wide hackathon at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.

Facebook didn’t partner with any outside organizations on the project, so for now, if a user does not check in during a disaster, authorities won’t be notified in any way. It’s possible that Facebook could partner with groups like the Red Cross down the road, but there are no partnership plans in the works, according to Lynn. “We recognize this tool isn’t for everyone or every time,” she added. “It wasn’t designed as a first responder tool.”

Other online communities, including Twitter, have also added features for sharing important information during natural disasters. Facebook’s Safety Check is now active for all 1.3 billion users.

Saturday 18 October 2014

http://recode.net/2014/10/15/facebook-adds-emergency-check-in-feature-for-natural-disasters/

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Truck crashes into shop in Cameroon killing 17

A truck crashed into a shop in Cameroon's capital Yaounde, killing 17 students, national radio reported on Friday.

The building in the neighbourhood of Monte des Soeurs was destroyed in the late Thursday accident, witness Aisha Mama told dpa.

The students were buying sweets at the shop. Several people were also seriously injured.

There was no immediate information on the reasons behind the crash.

Saturday 18 October 2014

http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Truck-crashes-into-shop-in-Cameroon-killing-17-20141018

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Tragedy at the Cambrian Colliery disaster of 1965

May 17, 1965. A day forever etched on the memory of the coalmining community of the South Wales valleys.

Next year, on the 50th anniversary, there will be a special event in Clydach Vale near Tonypandy to remember a tragedy.

It seemed to be just another Monday on the P26 coal face at Cambrian Colliery. But as the morning shift drew to a close, that impression changed. In a split second, 31 men lay dead. Another 15 were injured.

The site of one of the last great pit disasters of the South Wales coalfield lies underground but the history lives on in the memories of families and the testimony of those involved.

Nothing should have gone wrong. The “Cam” was equipped with the National Coal Board’s latest technology. The 192-yards of the P26 coalface were cut by an electrically driven “plough-type” machine and the roof supported by hydraulic props.

But that day, there were electrical and mechanical problems. By late morning, the colliery manager and under manager were on the coalface trying to sort the problems. By 12.15pm, the face was “on stop”.

Myrddin Pritchard and his workmates were chatting in the underground roadway near the face, waiting for the all clear. “It was about one o’clock,” he said. “There was a terrible noise — more of a thud than a bang — and a blast of air thick with dust and smoke came down the coal face.”

His worst fears were soon confirmed.

“After the dust settled,” he recalled. “I shouted down up the coal face to my mates — there was no answer.”

At 1.05pm, the Mines Rescue Station at Dinas was alerted. Roy Hamer, an official in the nearby Lewis Merthyr Colliery and a part-time rescue brigade man, was one of those called out. Wearing breathing apparatus, he and five others, were sent straight underground to inspect the length of the supply road to the coalface and back.

They went to look for survivors and mark accurately where the casualties were lying.

He later recalled how they identified the dead: “We would gently turn the person so as to pick up his lamp number on his lamp battery ... on returning to the surface they would know exactly where everybody was and be able to match lamp numbers with names.”

Trevor Ward was an underground haulage engine driver on the afternoon shift.

About two o’clock he was asked to go down the pit, not to work but to bring up the bodies.

Another volunteer was John Benbow. “There were bodies everywhere,” he said.

“They had died in the positions they were working: standing up, kneeling or bending.”

Each body was placed on a stretcher and into drams, the wagons that usually carried coal to the surface. Each body was accompanied by a man standing in respect.

Five and a half hours later, John Benbow came back to the surface. “I remember the television cameras being there but I also remember the Salvation Army giving out hot drinks, sandwiches and cigarettes. Although I’m not religiously inclined — in fact I’m an atheist — I’ll always give money to the Salvation Army.”

Bill Richards, former official at Cambrian, was on the surface when the bodies were brought up. Despite whispers of many fatalities, he was not prepared for seeing the convoy of 31 stretchers covered in bound blankets.

He later saw the funerals and the men walking in silence. “You’d see these big, strong men and you’d see the tears in their eyes.”

The next day, after all the casualties had been recovered and the pit made safe, Denzil Pennington was among the men sent underground to survey the coalface after the explosion. He remembers seeing the reflector of a cap lamp embedded deeply in a timber support, showing how powerful the blast must have been.

“The feeling in the pit was weird,” he recalled. “People were stunned as Cambrian wasn’t regarded as a particularly gassy pit. In my view it was one of those things that shouldn’t have happened. Production was important but not as important as human lives.”

The official inquiry, two months later, found that a build-up of gas had been ignited where electricians were working. The disaster, it said, was due to “poor pit practice”.

A year after the explosion, Cambrian Colliery closed. But the memories remain.

Saturday 18 October 2014

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/welsh-history-month-tragedy-cambrian-7951304

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Death toll rises in Nepal avalanche area

Rescuers have widened their search for trekkers missing since a series of blizzards and avalanches battered the Himalayas in northern Nepal earlier this week, leaving at least 29 people killed.

The government also announced on Friday the formation of a high-level committee that would monitor and co-ordinate rescue efforts following criticism that officials were not doing enough to help hikers who have been spotted but remain steanded along a popular trekking circuit.

A group of about 40 of the stranded trekkers tried to start leaving the area on Friday, not realising it was still blocked.

The incident prompted the army rescuers to abandon their operation to find survivors from under the snow on another mountain in order to airlift the trekkers.

Authorities have rescued 78 trekkers from Mustang and 157 from the neighbouring Manang district since Wednesday.

Minendra Risal, the country's information minister, said the new committee, ordered by the prime minister, would directly monitor the rescue operation and help wherever needed.

The committee would co-ordinate operations among the army, police, local administrations and the private operators now involved in the rescues.

The Annapurna trekking route, 160km northwest of the capital, Kathmandu, was filled with foreign hikers during the peak October trekking season, when the air is generally clear and cool.

There were also many Nepalese on the trails because of local festivals.

Two trekkers from Hong Kong and 12 Israelis were airlifted on Wednesday to Kathmandu, where they were being treated at a hospital. They said they survived by taking refuge in a small tea shop along the path.

The blizzard, the tail end of a cyclone that hit the Indian coast a few days earlier, appeared to contribute to an avalanche that killed at least eight people in Phu village in neighbouring Manang district.

The dead included three Indian and four Canadian trekkers as well as three villagers, said government official Devendra Lamichane.

The foreigners' bodies were buried in up to two metres of snow and digging them out will take days, Lamichane said.

Three Canadian trekkers who survived the avalanche were taken by helicopter to a shelter in a nearby town.

Authorities said five climbers were killed in a separate avalanche about 75km to the west, at the base camp for Mount Dhaulagiri.

The climbers, two Slovaks and three Nepali guides, were preparing to scale the 8,167-metre peak, the world's seventh tallest, said Gyanedra Shrestha of Nepal's mountaineering department. Their bodies were recovered on Thursday.

Friday 17 October 2014

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/10/death-toll-rises-nepal-avalanche-area-2014101773126516349.html

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Pentagon report faults efforts to find MIAs

The Pentagon's effort to find missing service members from past wars is wracked within inefficiencies, lacks a clear mission and fails to differentiate remains that can be recovered from those lost forever, an inspector general's report charged Friday.

As a first step, the Pentagon needs to limit its MIA search to those whose bodies might still be found, identified and repatriated, the report said, citing investigators who looked into the recovery process.

The Pentagon lists 83,000 American troops missing in action going back to World War II. But at least 50,000 of them are almost certainly beyond recovery since they were aboard ships or aircraft lost over deep ocean waters, the inspector general report said.

The report recommends that the Pentagon conclude that these remains -- mostly from World War II -- will likely never be recovered and notify the families.

Another problem is caused by confusion over who in the military can approve disinterring remains of service members buried as unknown casualties to try to determine their identities, the report said. As a result, some MIA cases that could be resolved remain open, the report said.

This includes an estimated 300 sailors killed in the sinking of the USS Oklahoma during the Pearl Harbor surprise attack on Dec. 7, 1941. Those remains were recovered and buried on land as unknown casualties. But the Navy has been reluctant to approve disinterring the remains, the report said.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, responding to the 108-page report, concurred with its recommendations and said he has already initiated changes.

Friday 17 October 2014

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/17/mia-inspector-general-report-assessment-pentagon/17442187/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories

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16 killed in collapse at South Korea pop concert

At least 16 people are dead and nearly a dozen injured after the ventilation grate they were standing on collapsed at an outdoor pop concert in South Korea today, officials said.

The crowd had climbed up a steel grate to get a better view of the stage, and their weight caused the grate to collapse sending their bodies crashing 40 feet below, rescue authorities told.

Hundreds of people were gathered at the show in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, to watch 4Minute, a popular girls' band, perform as part of a local festival.

Video from a concert-goer that ran on South Korea's YTN television network shows the group continuing to dance for a short while after the crash, apparently unaware that the grate behind them had collapsed, according to The Associated Press.

Many of the concert-goers were female students, witnesses said.

The steel grate was 13 square feet. Eleven people were injured.

The injured were being treated at several hospitals near the venue.

South Korea has suffered a recent series of accidents involving young victims, including the Sewol ferry disaster in April that left more than 300 dead, most of them high school students.

In February, the roof caved in on a student-packed auditorium near the southern city of Gyeongju, killing 10 people and injuring more than 100. An investigation uncovered evidence of structural flaws and lax management controls.

The Sewol disaster prompted government promises of a national review of safety standards, as it became clear that poor regulatory oversight was a major contributor to the scale of the tragedy.

The last major accident at a music concert was in 2005 when 11 people were crushed to death and nearly 80 injured in a stampede as thousands tried to enter the stadium venue in the southeastern city of Sangju.

Friday 17 October 2014

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/16-killed-in-collapse-at/1421310.html

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Nepal rescuers search for missing hikers, bodies in heavy Himalayan snow

The grim search for missing hikers and bodies buried under snow resumed Thursday against the dramatic backdrop of Nepal's Himalayas, a day after the news emerged that at least 17 trekkers had died in an exceptionally heavy snowfall.

Rescue crews combed the high altitude paths and passes of the popular Annapurna region as well as the neighboring Manang district.

Nine stranded Israeli tourists were rescued Thursday, as well as three Canadians and four Indians who were pulled to safety, according to the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal.

The trekkers' group said it deployed helicopters to rescue hikers stranded by snow, floodwaters and avalanches along the popular Himalayan trekking trails.

A dozen of the trekkers who died Tuesday lost their lives below the iconic 5,416-meter (17,770-foot) Thorung La Pass in Mustang district, the highest point of the highly popular 21-day Annapurna Circuit trek.

Four bodies were recovered Wednesday, while five more dead -- two Israelis, one Pole and two Nepalis -- were uncovered beneath the snow Thursday, said Baburam Bhandari, chief district officer of Mustang district. Three more remain buried.

Those who manage the steep ascent at energy-sapping high altitude to the Thorung La Pass are normally rewarded with breathtaking panoramic views. But on Tuesday morning everything changed.

Trekkers spend the night at local camps on either side of the mountain before they set out, sometimes as early as 4 a.m., to make the crossing, said Bidur Kuikel of Annapurna Conservation Area project.

"On Tuesday heavy snowfall began at about 8 a.m.," he said. "There was no visibility beyond three meters."

Since the tracks were covered by snow, people could have fallen down or become lost, he said. Those traveling on their own rather than in organized groups are usually most likely to lose their way, he said.

Officials did not provide a number on the people missing or their nationalities, but say they fear the death toll could rise.

As anxious families wait for news, army and police personnel continued to search the area below the Thorung La Pass in Mustang district on Thursday, Bhandari said.

A Facebook page, Annapurna Nepal Avalanche and Blizzard Info Share, has been set up to try to connect worried relatives with those in Nepal. Some trekkers who have made it down from the remote pass have posted updates to help others.

One, Virginia Schwartz, wrote: "Thank you to everyone for all the kind words and prayers, we are safe. We are trekking out of the avalanche danger zone and heading back down along the circuit."

Another, Nic Brdo from Perth in Western Australia, wrote: "I've just got out of base camp evac'd by heli and would advise to not go up. Flying to Pokhara the amount of snow in the pass (was) astounding."

This is already one of the deadliest such tragedies in the history of Nepal, a nation of about 26 million known worldwide for its spectacular mountain ranges, including Mount Everest.

Annapurna is far and away the most popular of its trekking areas, with some 90,000 trekking there in 2013, according to Narendra Lama, tourism officer of Annapurna Area Conservation Project.

"There have been incidents of trekkers being killed in snowstorms, landslides and avalanches in the past but not as many as this year," Lama said.

"But I do not think that this disaster will have a big impact since it is a natural disaster and not about a security situation," he said. "Trekking is adventurous in nature after all."

October is the best month of the year to do the Annapurna Circuit trek, meaning more visitors than usual may have been in the area when unusually heavy snow caused by Cyclone Hudhud in eastern India came down Monday and Tuesday.

Last year, about 20,000 foreign trekkers crossed the Thorung La Pass, almost 6,000 of them in October, according to Annapurna Conservation Area statistics.

Many remote Nepali communities rely on foreign trekkers and mountaineers for income and employment, meaning a drop in visitors could hit local people hard.

The deaths come only six months after tragedy last struck Nepal, on the slopes of Mount Everest.

Then, a bruising avalanche of ice swept 16 Sherpas to their deaths. After the accident, which came right before the peak season in May, many Sherpas refused to climb and at least six companies that lead Everest expeditions called off their 2014 climbs.

Thursday 16 October 2014

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/16/world/asia/nepal-snowstorm/

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Six months on, S. Korea ferry disaster victims’ families continue to grieve

“Sewol ferry recovery update No. 377 ... Days since last body found — 88.”

Six months after South Korea’s worst maritime disaster, the official e-mails keep coming — sometimes several a day — recording every detail of a largely forgotten and ignored operation.

Weather and sea conditions permitting, they detail the latest mission by divers to penetrate the sunken vessel in the search for 10 bodies that remain unaccounted for.

The last body to be pulled from the upturned ship was way back on July 18. The last before that was on June 19. Just two bodies in almost four months.

“There is no deadline. The work will continue indefinitely,” said Kim Sang-In, an official at the Disaster Management Headquarters overseeing the recovery effort.

“The government has already clarified its position that without the consent of the victims’ families, it will not cease operations unilaterally,” said Kim, whose office issues the e-mail updates.

It’s a consent that steel worker Huh Hong-Hwan has no intention of giving.

Of the 476 people on board the 6,825-tonne Sewol passenger ferry when it capsized on April 16, 325 — including Huh’s teenaged daughter — were high school pupils on an organised outing.

Only 75 of the students survived.

As soon as Huh heard of the disaster, he jumped in his car and drove, sick with anxiety, for five hours down to the southern island of Jindo where the rescue operation was gearing up.

Six months later, he is still there — one of a tight group of relatives still camped out in a public gymnasium which had housed hundreds of family members in the immediate aftermath of the sinking.

“I will never give up or leave this place until I can see my daughter,” the 50-year-old told AFP by telephone from Jindo.

Huh’s daily routine rarely varies: He wakes at 7.00am, has breakfast and walks to the local district office to check if there are any updates.

Some days he goes down to Jindo port and boards a boat to take him to the barge where the divers work from.

Otherwise he watches television, or talks with other relatives of the 10 people still unaccounted for.

“We look out for each other,” Huh said.

“It’s important because it’s very difficult — mentally and physically. I feel abandoned and trapped here. Sometimes I even think of suicide, but then I cling to the hope of finding my daughter,” he said.

The Sewol disaster and the loss of so many young lives was a profound shock that plunged the entire country into mourning and raised questions about what Asia’s fourth largest economy had come to and where it was going.

The grief swiftly turned to anger as it became clear that the tragedy was almost entirely man-made — the result of an illegal redesign, an overloaded cargo bay, an inexperienced crew and an unhealthy nexus between operators and state regulators.

And while the tragedy initially seemed to unite the country, its legacy six months later is one of division and discord.

Parliament was paralysed for months as the ruling and opposition parties bickered fruitlessly over the content of a bill to create an independent inquiry into the Sewol sinking.

Two weeks ago they finally reached a compromise about the composition and investigative powers of the inquiry — but the plan was immediately rejected by the majority of victims’ families, who had been pushing for a say in who should sit on the panel.

A group of family members, some of them on rotating hunger strike, have been camped out of Seoul’s main ceremonial thoroughfare for months to push their demands.

“The political parties are trying to use the tragedy for their own political interests,” said Jun Myoung-Sun, the father of one of the dead students who heads a group that claims to represent the majority of victims’ families.

“What we want is a full investigation aimed at making a safer society. A full disclosure that tells the truth about how such a disaster could occur,” Jun said.

As far as the continuing recovery operation in Jindo goes, Jun acknowledged the challenge posed by the coming winter weather — but was adamant that the time had not yet come to bring in the heavy lifting cranes.

“We have no plan to raise the vessel as yet. This is the wish of most of the families,” he said.

Wednesday 15 October 2014

http://www.malaysiandigest.com/world/523234-six-months-on-s-korea-ferry-disaster-victims-families-continue-to-grieve.html

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Jammu and Kashmir: Four bodies dug out in Saddal hamlet, eight yet to be recovered

Four more bodies have been recovered in Udhampur district's landslide-buried Saddal village, taking the total number of bodies recovered so far to 30.

The rescue teams, armed with heavy machines yesterday, recovered four more bodies buried under debris of houses which collapsed in the landslide triggered by heavy rains in Saddal village last month, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, Udhampur-Reasi range, Gareeb Dass said on Wednesday.

With these recoveries, the total number of bodies pulled out has gone up to 30, including recovery of some parts of two bodies.

"Eight bodies are yet to be recovered and work is on to dug them out", DIG said.

Armed with heavy machines, including bulldozers and cutters, rescuers have dug up these bodies from 10 to 15 feet deep debris and boulders triggered by massive landslide.

38 people were buried in the landslide triggered by heavy rains which buried Saddal village in Panchari block of the district on September 7. Of these, 12 bodies were recovered on first two days after the landslide.

Wednesday 15 October 2014

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-jammu-and-kashmir-four-bodies-dug-out-in-saddal-hamlet-eight-yet-to-be-recovered-2026270

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Himalayan disaster: Heavy snowfall in Nepal from Hudhud kills at least 17 climbers, several missing

An avalanche in the Himalayan region of central Nepal has killed at least 17 climbers, including at least eight foreign nationals, officials said Wednesday. More than 100 people are reportedly missing in the blizzard, which was triggered by the tail of Cyclone Hudhud.

Some bodies of the deceased, who include Polish, Israeli and Nepalese citizens, were recovered from Thorong La pass, about 100 miles northwest of the capital, Kathmandu, while 40 others were rescued, Nepalese army official Niranjan Shrestha reportedly said. According to reports, 12 of the deaths were in the Annapurna region. The avalanche, which hit the area on Tuesday, was reportedly caused by the remnants of Cyclone Hudhud, which killed at least 24 people and caused widespread devastation in southeastern India over the weekend.

"There has been heavy snowfall in the area, up to three feet (91 centimeters)," a police official in charge of the rescue effort reportedly said. "Among the dead are two Polish trekkers and one Israeli. A Nepali was also buried by the snow," he reportedly said, without revealing any other detail.

Local police officials reportedly said that 152 foreign tourists in Mustang district in the Dhawalagiri zone of northern Nepal could not be contacted.

“The phone network is not very good so we have not been able to get in touch with the missing, but we hope to find them later today,” Mustang district official Baburam Bhandari said, ABC News reported. Bhandari also reportedly said that five Polish nationals, four Israelis and five German citizens had been rescued.

The rescue operation, which was hampered by heavy snow, reportedly resumed after the weather cleared up on Wednesday. According to BBC, Cyclone Hudhud is now moving from Nepal toward China.

Officials said that three villagers were killed Monday in the same district, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of the capital, Kathmandu, and their bodies were recovered on Wednesday.

In the neighboring Mustang district, four trekkers caught in a blizzard died on Tuesday. Rescuers recovered the bodies of the two Poles, one Israeli and one Nepali trekker from the Thorong La pass area.

Meanwhile, the bodies of five more trekkers -- four Canadians and an Indian -- who died Tuesday were recovered Wednesday in remote Manang district, Narayan Datta Chapagain, a local police official told.

It was initially thought the group had been caught in an avalanche, but government official Yam Bahadur Chokyal said by telephone from Mustang that the four trekkers instead had been caught in the blizzard and died.

He said another 14 foreign trekkers have been rescued so far, and two army helicopters were picking up injured trekkers and flying them to Jomsom town.

Chokyal said it was not possible to say how many trekkers were still on the route stranded by the deep snow but several of them have reached safe ground on Wednesday because of improved weather.

The rain and snow in Nepal were caused by a cyclone that hit neighboring India several days ago.

October is the most popular trekking season in Nepal, with thousands of foreigners hiking around Nepal's Himalayan mountains.

The Thorong La pass is also on the route that circles Mount Annapurna, the world's 10th highest peak.

An avalanche in April just above the base camp on Mount Everest killed 16 Nepalese guides, the deadliest single disaster on the mountain. Climate experts say rising global temperatures have contributed to avalanches on the Himalayan mountains.

Wednesday 15 October 2014

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/nepal-avalanche-kills-four-trekkers-in-mountain-pass-with-dozens-still-missing-9795448.html

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Lagos church collapse: DNA samples needed

The coroner investigating the collapsed guest house at the Synagogue Church of All Nations (Scoan) in Lagos has appealed to South African authorities to help in the identification of bodies of their nationals who died in the September 12 disaster.

Oyetade Komolafe said on Monday at the inaugural sitting of the inquest set up by the Lagos State Government to investigate the accident, that it was necessary for the South African High Commission in Nigeria to ensure that relations of the victims came forward for the pathologists to get the needed samples of their DNA to compare with the bodies.

“Those corpses have to be properly identified and it is when that is done and the process completed that the bodies will be released to the South African government and they can take them home,” he said.

According to him, the inquest is not a set-up to indict anybody, but it is aimed at unravelling the cause of the incident.

“I want to say this court is not adversarial. We are not here to convict anybody. We are here to find facts. What happened, when it happened, why it happened, how it happened and also to get recommendations from interested parties in their depositions on how to prevent a recurrence of what happened,” Komolafe said.

He called on all interested parties and witnesses to come forward and to testify in order to get to the truth of the matter.

He said the court would visit the site of the collapsed building on Thursday and urged Scoan to make available its closed circuit television (CCTV) footage of the incident.

The court adjourned till October 24 for further hearing.

The founder of Scoan, “Prophet” TB Joshua blamed the collapse on an aircraft which he alleged flew over the building, but government officials say it collapsed because four floors were added to the existing two-storey structure.

Tuesday 14 October 2014

http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/lagos-tragedy-dna-samples-needed-1.1764932

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Tanzania: Death toll in Kigoma boat tragedy rises to 10

The death toll from Lake Tanganyika accident in which 70 people, including a newly-wed couple, were rescued has increased to ten people.

The accident that occured at Kigoma Region's Kalalanga village was reportedly contributed by laxity, according to Kigoma Regional Police Commander (RPC) Jaffar Mohamed and Kigoma Regional Commissioner Issa Machibya.

Mr Mohamed said the rescue effort by the TPDF men was still in progress, however expressing fear of retrieving more bodies as there are no proper records of the number of people who were in the ill-fated boat.

The RC on his part consoled the bereaved families and wished good health and quick recovery for the survivors. He urged Kigoma residents to take precaution when boarding lake going vessels, attributing the mishap and eventual deaths to overloading.

Mr Machibya directed the Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (SUMATRA) to regulate marine transport in the lake, partly blaming the accident on the laxity in SUMATRA regulatory services.

According to the state-run Swahili daily paper, Habari Leo late on Monday ten bodies were recovered during the search operations jointly conducted by the police and the armed forces.

Local sources said the two boats were returning from a wedding ceremony with some 80 passengers on board.

Seventy passengers including the newly-weds were rescued according to the paper.

The Tanzanian authorities have been ruing boat disasters caused by over-crowdedness on the country’s lakes and the Indian Ocean.

In January 2013 a boat disaster on Lake Tanganyika claimed the lives of eight people with some twenty more reported missing.

Tuesday 14 October 2014

http://allafrica.com/stories/201410140655.html

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15 teenagers feared dead as boat capsizes in Kano

The city of Kano was thrown into mourning on Tuesday following the death of 15 teenagers in a boat mishap at Jobawa village, Garin Mallam Local Government Area of the state.

The children, who were mostly girls between the ages of 8 and 14, were said to be on a trading mission when their ferry-boat had an encounter with storm and capsized.

It was gathered that the young girls boarded the boat to cross the river from a suburb called Lanjan to the Jobawa village, to supply cassava for sale at Garin Mallam town.

A Community leader at Jobawa village, who identified himself as Utubatu Yaro, told newsmen that the incident occurred Monday evening when a violent rainstorm shook the boat and forced it to capsize with the teenage girls on board.

Utubatu Yard explained that “they normally come here to supply cassava for sale around Garin Mallam town”, adding that “they don’t normally stay up to evening time, but because God has destined the incident, they were here until Magrib (evening prayer).

He added that “there was a violent rainstorm on their departure, and I suspect it was the excessive rain that fell into the boat as well as the storm that overturned the boat.

Yaro disclosed that “we have been able to find the bodies of nine of them, and we are searching for the bodies of the remaining”.

The acting Police Public Relations officer, DSP Mustapha Abubakar confirmed that 15 girls were involved in the boat mishap, adding that five had been rescued, while ten were still missing.

Tuesday 14 October 2014

http://dailypost.ng/2014/10/14/15-teenagers-feared-dead-boat-capsizes-kano/

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MH17 victims’ belongings recovered from Ukraine crash site

Four Dutch experts and local emergency services made a start on Monday recovering personal belongings from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in east Ukraine, carting away boxes of personal possessions despite fighting nearby.

But the leader of the Dutch team co-ordinating the repatriation mission said the aim was still to get a Dutch team on site to comb the crash area, despite the fighting between government troops and separatist rebels.

“The State Emergency Services managed to recover many personal belongings, nine boxes of a cubic metre each, from the crash site,” Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, head of the Dutch repatriation mission, said in an interview on Dutch television.

“(There was) jewellery, watches, credit cards, a driving licence, a passport, an iPad, photos - things that really should be with relatives,” he added.

But, he conceded, a Dutch team might not be able to get to the site until spring because the cold weather makes it inaccessible.

“We want to go back to the site. If it's not before the winter, then it's after the winter,” he said.

The experts said they were on hand to advise the local Emergencies Ministry team combing the wreckage in the fields where the Boeing 777 was brought down on July 17, killing all 298 passengers and crew, a Reuters correspondent on the scene said.

Two-thirds of the victims were Dutch nationals and the Dutch Safety Board is leading the investigation.

A short but intense exchange of artillery fire played out near the grassy fields where the team collected items such as books, toothpaste, playing cards, a plastic watch and a stick of antiperspirant. Many items were too charred to identify.

Black smoke rose in the distance less than 5km from the site, despite a ceasefire agreed on September 5 between Ukrainian troops and the pro-Russian separatists they are fighting.

Aalbersberg said the team was able to visit two of the three villages where the plane's wreckage was strewn.

Although ceasefire violations have been sporadic around strategically important locations in east Ukraine, they have led to a decrease in fighting.

Emergency Ministry officials loaded the recovered items on a small cargo truck to be transported from the fields near the village of Hrabove and returned to the victims' families.

Armed pro-Russian rebels stood around the site while workers from the European rights and security watchdog OSCE monitored the recovery process.

The Dutch forensics teams in the Netherlands have identified 272 victims of the crash but additional remains are still believed to be in the area.

Aalbersberg said local emergency services had done a good job recovering passengers' bodies in the days after the crash, despite initial reports of looting.

“These emergency services were different from the large group of people who were there in the first days after the crash. These people did a great job (collecting bodies), also by our standards.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Friday he was furious that Dutch investigators had been unable to finish work in the area because of fighting between the separatists and government forces.

Separatists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic fighting to split east Ukraine from Kiev on Monday said 36 civilians, including one child, were killed in shelling of the territory under their control last week.

More than 3 500 people have been killed in the conflict.

The aircraft, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, is widely believed to have been hit by a surface-to-air missile fired from separatist-held territory. Kiev blames the incident on the rebels and accuses Moscow of arming them. The rebels and Moscow deny the accusations.

Tuesday 14 October 2014

http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/mh17-victims-belongings-recovered-1.1764586

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Helicopter carrying 12 goes missing in Russia

A Mi-8 helicopter with 12 people aboard disappeared in Russia's Tuva republic in southern Siberia, regional transport prosecutor's office said Friday.

"The helicopter disappeared 220 km east of (the republic's capital) Kyzyl," the Interfax news agency quoted the prosecutor's spokesperson Oxana Gorbunova as saying.

Radio contact with the helicopter was lost when it was on the way between Sorug and Kyzyl. And a rescue team has been sent to that area by another Mi-8, Gorbunova said.

There are seven passengers, three crew members and two technicians on board. According to sources from local law enforcement agencies, the helicopter belongs to Tuva Airlines and was leased for private purpose.

No information has been updated till now about the fate of the Mi-8 or the people aboard.

Friday 10 October 2014

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=246013

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Government to declare Air Algerie plane deaths without bodies

The Lebanese government is planning to use French police reports rather than actual human remains to recognize the deaths of some 19 Lebanese nationals who died in a plane crash in Africa earlier this year, according to an official press briefing Thursday. The announcement has sparked intense debate among the Lebanese families of the victims from the July 24 Air Algerie plane crash in Mali, with some insisting on the recovery of remains before an official death declaration is made and others calling on the government to announce a long-awaited official day of mourning to provide some closure to those grieving the tragedy.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam is still discussing the issue with Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi and an official declaration of death is pending a judicial decision, Haitham Jomaa, the director-general of the Department of Emigrants at the Foreign Ministry, said at Thursday’s briefing, which was attended by many of the victims’ families.

However, it appears that the current course of action is to officially declare the deaths after France has passed on its report on the crash, which killed all 116 people on board.

“With regard to validating the deaths, we will seek permission from the French judiciary to use the French police report and deliver it to the Lebanese judiciary,” Secretary-General of the Higher Relief Committee Maj. Gen. Mohammad Khair said at the briefing. “We have agreed with Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi that this report will be used to validate the deaths.”

The news prompted an outcry among some of those present.

“I can’t declare my brother dead before his remains come back to me,” Fadia Rustom, whose twin brother Fadi Rustom was onboard the plane, told The Daily Star. “I can barely believe it myself and I won’t believe it until something of his is returned.”

Rustom said she opposed any governmental recognition of the death before either his remains or his belongings are retrieved.

But others expressed doubts over whether that condition could ever be fulfilled.

“What if they can’t retrieve any of his remains?” asked Loraine al-Hajj, wife of fellow crash victim Joseph al-Hajj. “What would we do then?”

“Not all the families want to wait for the remains of the loved ones before an official declaration is issued,” added Faisal al-Akhdar, who has stuck a poster on the window of his car describing his son Mohammad al-Akhdar’s “martyrdom at the hands of emigration.”

“We just want to end this misery,” he said.

France announced three days of mourning two days after flight AH5017 was known to have crashed, and many here have been clamoring for Lebanese officials to announce the same, something that has been delayed by the lack of official recognition of the deaths.

The reason behind this lies in the slow process of identifying those on board. Not a single whole body was recovered from the crash, Jomaa said. Instead, forensic experts in Paris – where everything found from the crash was taken – are working with 1,161 pieces of human remains that had been heavily degraded in the fire that occurred when the plane hit the ground at high speed.

The results are expected by mid-January, Jomaa said.

The director-general said that some personal belongings have been collected and “after DNA tests are conducted the families will be invited to the crash site to retrieve them.”

Mystery has surrounded the exact cause of the crash, which occurred after the plane changed course to avoid a storm.

However, Jomaa refuted reports that poor weather was behind the incident, saying harsh weather conditions were routine throughout the year. “The cabin crew was well equipped and fully aware of the climate before flying.”

Citing investigation reports, he said that at 1:45 p.m. the plane’s engine began to slow down, the automation handle faltered and the entire autopilot system crashed. The technical failure led the plane to immediately plummet to the ground.

“Investigations are currently looking into the cause behind the motor’s deceleration, as well as the autopilot failure,” Jomaa said, adding that officials would be considering the possibility of a failed hijack attempt.

Friday 10 October 2014

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Oct-10/273553-government-to-declare-air-algerie-deaths-without-bodies.ashx

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Forensic experts identify 10 more victims of MH17 crash

Forensic experts in the Netherlands have this week identified another 10 victims of downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, pushing the total number of victims identified so far to 272, the Dutch government said on Friday, nearly three months after the crash.

The Dutch Justice and Security Ministry said the remains of 10 additional victims had been identified since the previous update on October 3. It said seven of the newly-identified victims were Dutch nationals while the remaining three had a foreign nationality. Relatives of those victims have already been notified.

In total, forensic experts have now identified 175 Dutch victims, including one Dutch national who also had a British passport, and 97 persons who had a foreign nationality. The nationalities of the foreign victims are not precisely known because the Dutch government previously agreed to withhold the breakdown of foreign nationalities.

"At the request of the embassies of the countries involved, the specific nationalities of victims who are not Dutch will not be released," the ministry said in a statement. "A team of experts is working hard to identify the victims but, as emphasized earlier, it can still take months before each victim has been identified. The media will be notified regularly about the status of this process."

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said one Malaysian victim was among those identified this week, raising the number of Malaysian nationals identified so far to 43. Neil Hulbert, a spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office, said 7 out of 10 British nationals had been positively identified as of September 26.

Australia, for its part, has declined to provide a figure but said "substantial progress" had been made to identify Australian victims. Konrad Lax, a spokesman for Germany's Foreign Office, said the German government could not comment on the identification process, but the Dutch government previously confirmed that at least one German citizen had been identified.

The remains of one victim from Canada and two from Belgium have also been identified.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed near the city of Torez in eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 passengers and crew in the world's deadliest aviation disaster since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. It is believed the aircraft was downed by a surface-to-air missile which was fired from separatist-controlled territory, but separatists there have denied being responsible.

A preliminary report by the Dutch Safety Board said that puncture holes in the aircraft's wreckage suggested that small objects penetrated the aircraft in both the cockpit and forward sections. Holes were also found on the cockpit floor. Through analysis, the damage to the body of the aircraft is consistent with "high-energy objects" piercing the aircraft from the outside, they said.

Forensic experts have so far been unable to recover all bodies from the site of the crash due to ongoing fighting in the area. A total of 228 coffins have been flown back to the Netherlands for identification, but some of the coffins contained only partial remains, and it is unclear how many bodies remain unaccounted for.

Friday 10 October 2014

http://wireupdate.com/forensic-experts-identify-10-more-victims-of-mh17-crash.html

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America's worst worksite disasters

When measured in lives lost during concentrated periods of time, these accidents are the worst ones in America.

April 16, 1947: Texas City, Texas, dockside explosion takes close to 600 lives

One of the largest non-nuclear explosions in American history, this accident began early in the day when a fire broke out on the French-registered ship, the SS Grandcamp, detonating the docked ship's cargo – approximately 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate.

Its cargo exploded, starting a chain reaction of fires and explosions in other ships and nearby oil-storage facilities and killing at least 581 people, including all but one member of the Texas City Fire Department. Not all the bodies were recovered, rendering an accurate fatality count impossible.

Sept. 11, 2001: The World Trade Center towers collapse, burying 403 public safety workers

Terrorists attacking the World Trade Center killed 2,973 persons, including 403 New York City public safety responders. While the deaths could be construed as occupational, the deaths of public safety workers were most definitely arising out of and in the course of employment. Their deaths were all the more painful given that New York City was put on notice during a 1993 bomb attack that its fire and police departments were dangerously unable to communicate easily, but they had failed to remedy the problem.

1927: Hawks Nest, West Virginia, tunnel leads to hundreds of deaths from dust

As part of a dam project, a tunnel was constructed to handle the flow of a diverted river. Construction on the three-mile tunnel began in 1927, employing largely black workers, who were not provided protective equipment to guard against dust. Many contracted silicosis-related diseases and soon died. The minimum death count was 201, but total estimates exceeded 476.

Dec. 6, 1907: Fairmont Coal Company mine explosion in Monongah, West Virginia, takes 362 lives

The nation’s worst mining disaster killed 362 miners at the Consolidation Coal Company mine. Mining has remained for decades the most likely location of multiple workplace deaths from single incidents. The Sago Mine collapse on Jan. 2, 2006, in Sago, West Virginia, killed 12 workers. The worst mine disaster in the past 40 years occurred on April 5, 2010, at the Upper Big Branch underground mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, killing 29 of the 31 miners who were underground at the time.

Feb. 2, 1982: Offshore oil rig founders, causing 84 deaths

The Mobil-operated Ocean Ranger rig, 166 miles east of Newfoundland, failed, and the entire crew sought to escape by life rafts. Nobody was wearing protective suits, which have since become standard equipment on rigs and watercraft, and they all perished. When the Gulf of Mexico-based Deep Water Horizon rig blew up on April 20, 2010, 11 workers died.

Lesser but not forgotten tragedies include:

- The Willow Creek Power Plant in St. Marys, West Virginia, the largest vertical construction disaster, killed 45 workers in 1978 when scaffolding collapsed.
- The Texas City British Petroleum refinery explosion in 2005, which took 17 lives.
- The Imperial Sugar explosion in Port Wentworth, Georgia, killed 13 in 2008.
- A train collision in Granite, South Carolina, ripped open a Norfolk and Southern Railroad tank car containing chlorine, killing nine workers, in 2005.
- A South Canyon wildfire near Glenwood Springs, Colorado, killed 14 firefighters in 1994, prompting a major overhaul of emergency response guidelines through America.
- A small passenger plane crash in 2005, caused by a plane stalling on its approach to the Pueblo, Colorado, airport, killing eight passengers on a corporate visit and crew.
- A fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, in 2014, killing 15 people, some of whom were workers.
Thursday 9 October 2014

https://ww3.workcompcentral.com/columns/show/id/cba986a82f9dce28908798f0930327b4564c21ab

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Several dead as wedding boat sinks near Bali

Nineteen people have been confirmed dead after a boat carrying 49 people, including a groom and his wedding guests, sunk on its way to the Indonesian island of Bali earlier this week.

Rescuers found two bodies on Thursday, taking the death toll to 19, including three children, said Asnawi, the head of the search operation who goes by one name.

Eight people were rescued on Wednesday when they were spotted by fishermen floating in the water 3km from Pulau Raas, off the eastern tip of main Java island.

Asnawi said 22 people remain missing, all the passengers were believed to be Indonesian.

The groom was on his way to get married on Monday evening, while his wife waited for him and the guests to arrive at her home village on Bali.

"The wedding ceremony was supposed to start in the evening," said Ainur Rasyid, who lives near the groom on the small island of Pulau Raas.

The parents of the groom, called Ahmad Yani, and other relatives were also on the boat heading to the wedding, he said.

The boat was supposed to arrive on Monday afternoon, but began taking on water and sank after its engine failed according to officials.

Poor safety record

Indonesia relies heavily on boats for transportation to and from more than 17,000 islands, but has a poor maritime safety record.

Boats are often overcrowded and not properly equipped with enough life jackets and life boats.

In August, a tour boat carrying 25 people sank as it made its way from the island of Lombok near Bali to Komodo Island, a popular tourist destination.

Most of the passengers, who were mainly European tourists, survived.

Some had to swim a great distance to a volcanic island and stayed alive until being rescued by drinking their own urine and eating leaves. Two Spanish men were never found.

Thursday 9 October 2014

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2014/10/several-dead-as-wedding-boat-sinks-near-bali-201410951750418857.html

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More than 100 illegal migrants missing after Libya shipwreck

More than 100 illegal migrants were missing after their vessel sank off Libya's coast en route across the Mediterranean, with dozens of bodies already washed up on the shore, local Libyan authorities said on Monday.

The vessel went down over the weekend near the town of Zuawrah, west of Tripoli. Around 70 migrants, mostly from Syria and sub-Saharan Africa, had been rescued and around 30 bodies had been recovered, authorities said.

"The ship has sunk two days ago, and according to the survivors there were more than 250 illegal immigrants on the ship, most of them from Syria or sub-Sahara," an official at the press center for the local town government said.

There was no immediate reaction from the Libyan government.

Libya, whose fragile government has been unable to impose its authority on large parts of the country, has become an increasingly common takeoff point for illegal migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

The United Nations said in August that nearly 2,000 people fleeing Africa and the Middle East have drowned in the Mediterranean this year, most of them in the past three months as they tried to reach Europe from Libya.

Tuesday 7 October 2014

http://www.trust.org/item/20141006173620-k8y1m/

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Japan volcano toll reaches 52, 12 still missing

Rescue workers today found two bodies in the ash on a volcano in central Japan, where at least 12 hikers are still unaccounted for following an eruption known to have killed 51 others.

One body was air-lifted by military helicopter, according to a crisis-management official at the Nagano prefectural government.

Public broadcaster NHK said another had been found, but there were no details on how far the recovery had got.

It is unknown whether the bodies are those of some of the 12 people unaccounted for.

A search operation involving some 1,000 police, troops and firefighters resumed early Tuesday after a two-day hiatus because of atrocious weather.

Aerial footage showed rescuers walking with difficulty through a knee-deep clay-like mixture of ash and water.

The 3,067 metre (10,121 feet) Mount Ontake erupted without warning on September 27, while it was packed with hikers.

Autopsies have revealed that walkers, many of whom had been enjoying lunch at the peak in the autumn sunshine, died largely from injuries caused by stones hurled out in the initial explosive eruption.

Tuesday 7 October 2014

http://www.outlookindia.com/news/article/Japan-Volcano-Toll-Reaches-52-12-Still-Missing/862914

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Lightning strike kills 11 in Colombia

A lightning strike killed 11 members of an indigenous tribe in northern Colombia Monday after an electrical storm broke out during an early morning ritual.

Helicopters airlifted 13 injured people to hospitals for treatment, Gen. German Saavedra told reporters.

The lightning struck around 3 a.m. Monday during a ritual of the Wiwa community's government in the remote Sierra Nevada mountains, CNN affiliate Caracol TV reported.

Bernardo Gil Moscote, a member of the community, told Colombia's El Tiempo newspaper that villagers were gathered in a ceremonial hut to discuss problems the community was facing. He had stepped out to get a drink when he heard crashing thunder that shook the mountains.

"When I got back, the hut was on fire," he told the newspaper, "and you only heard men screaming."

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos tweeted his condolences and said military and police helicopters were evacuating the victims.

"I know that this is normal, that it is something that comes from nature, but nothing like this has ever happened there," said Marta Cecilia Gil, who tearfully told Caracol her brother and brother-in-law died in the lightning strike.

The region is home to several indigenous communities.

Tuesday 7 October 2014

http://www.news8000.com/news/lightning-strike-kills-11-in-colombia/28981564

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18 die in Indonesia illegal gold mine collapse

Eighteen people, including two women, died after an illegal gold mine collapsed in West Kalimantan in Indonesia.

The accident occurred at around 14:00 p.m. local time Saturday (0700 GMT) at Bengkayang district, when the 18 people were working underground, Ali Mahfud, an official at the national disaster management and mitigation agency, told.

National Army personnel were deployed to the scene after the accident, but help came too late to save the victims due to the remote location of the gold mine.

The bodies of the deceased were recovered late Saturday night.

Illegal gold mining has surged in Indonesia and accidents and fatalities are common.

Indonesian police and government officials are now trying to determine what caused the landslides that caused the mine to collapse.

In July of this year, a landslide killed nine men at an illegal gold mine in the Papua province.

Small-scale and illegal mining is a flash point for conflicts and accidents in Indonesia, where mineral resources are often situated in remote and protected forest areas that are difficult for the government to regulate.

The collapse occurred on Saturday at 11 a.m. but the rescue agency was not notified until evening, Leonardus Sabar Umbara, officer in charge at the West Kalimantan rescue headquarters in Pontianak, told Reuters.

A rescue team reached the site late on Saturday and found 18 victims, 16 men and two women. Fifteen have been identified. "Local people are reluctant to report incidents like this as many of them are engaged in illegal mining," Umbara said.

People in the area were not sure how many other miners may have been trapped, but television station Metro TV said there were up to 500 workers at the site on Saturday.

A similar collapse in the same area killed nine people several years ago, Umbara said.

Monday 06 October 2014

http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/content/en/mineweb-gold-news?oid=255435&sn=Detail

http://www.ibtimes.com/least-18-dead-illegal-gold-mine-collapses-indonesia-many-feared-trapped-1699506

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25 killed, 40 injured in Doti bus accident

At least twenty five people have been killed and forty others injured when a passenger bus heading to Dhangadi from Doti met with an accident near Chatiwan in the district on Monday.

The ill-fated bus (Na 3 Kha 5707) plummeted some 300 meters down the road. Six amongst the deceased are female while six others are minors. 22 of the injured are said to be in critical situation.

Assistant Sub Inspector Dan Bahadur Karki, who reached the incident site after the accident, informed that 30 passengers have been rescued and sent to Dhangadi for treatment. More than 80 people were on board the passenger bus.

According to police, bodies of 13 people have been identified.

Police speculate that death toll from the accident could rise. According to the station manager at local Attariya-based Godawari FM Station, no any ambulance has reached the accident site.

The accident site is 50 kilometers north from Attariya in Dhangadi.

Monday 06 October 2014

http://www.ekantipur.com/2014/10/06/headlines/25-killed-40-injured-in-Doti-bus-accident-Update/395990/

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Italy marks year after deadly Lampedusa migrant disaster

Italy marked the first anniversary Friday of its "Mare Nostrum" operation with no let-up in its rescue of migrants making the perilous Mediterranean crossing, saying its navy had scooped 2,000 more from the sea in just two days. The recent rescues took place off Italy's tiny island of Lampedusa, where 366 people perished on October 3 last year when their fishing boat, overflowing with refugees from east Africa, caught fire and capsized.

That tragedy, described as a wake-up call for Europe, prompted Italy to launch its rapid-reaction search-and-rescue mission, which since has led to the rescue of 144,000 people - some 400 per day.

At an official ceremony on Lampedusa, Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini said remembering the tragedy aboard the Libyan boat a year early was a "political, moral and institutional duty".

Along the jetty where the shipwreck victims' bodies were laid out in line last year, local students and survivors had placed concrete cubes with messages marking the anniversary.

Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio called on other European countries to do more to help Italy and Malta manage the unending influx of desperate migrants, most from the Middle East and Africa, risking their lives en route to the West.

Other EU states must "take into account the reality of forced migration so that no initial host country is left alone", he said.

Thus far EU partners have been hesitant about sharing the financial burden of patrolling Italy's lengthy coastline - estimated at between six and nine million euros a month ($7.5-11.5 million) - and Italy has said it will end Mare Nostrum patrols from November 1.

It is due to be replaced with a new operation, "Triton", and run by the European borders agency Frontex, but aid groups and rescue specialists suggest it will provide nothing like the cover that the Italian navy does.

Mogherini, due to take up the post of the European Union's foreign policy chief, said the EU goals would be to focus on "continuing to save lives, whether through Mare Nostrum or Triton, to efficiently manage (migrant) arrivals and to open legal paths" to immigration.

She said the issue would be covered in a meeting of EU foreign and interior ministers on November 27 in Rome.

Sunday 05 October 2014

http://www.brecorder.com/general-news/172/1230436/

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Lagos church collapse: identification process continuing

The bodies of about 80 South Africans killed when a church building collapsed in Lagos more than three weeks ago are decomposing in inadequate Nigerian mortuaries while officials there frustrate the South African government’s efforts to accelerate the identification of the remains.

The Sunday Independent understands that in some mortuaries the bodies are being kept cool only by fans, with no refrigeration.

The Nigerian government has denied this, insisting it has adequate mortuary facilities to properly handle the 116 people who died as a result of a guest house collapsing in the grounds of The Synagogue, Church of All Nations in Lagos on September 12.

But a statement issued by the South African government on September 28 hinted at the state of the bodies: “Part of what was communicated to the families is that, due to the scale of the disaster, passage of time and climatic conditions, most of the mortal remains are not in a good state.

“Out of concern for potential secondary trauma to the families as well as public health considerations, government discourages all families from viewing the mortal remains.”

The agonising wait for the South African families will not be over any time soon.

According to a government official who did not want to be named, the delays have been caused by the political haggling between South Africa and Nigeria.

The official said the Nigerian government has been refusing to have DNA analysis conducted in South Africa “even though they don’t have the expertise, facilities and skills”.

The Sunday Independent understands that the Nigerian government has finally agreed to have the DNA analysis done in Cape Town.

“The truth is the bodies won’t be coming home any time soon. Imagine the agony of the families of the people who have been waiting for several weeks to find out if their loved ones have died. They have to assume they are dead until the DNA tests’ results have been concluded.”

Family members waiting for the bodies in South Africa are growing increasingly angry at the delay.

This weekend some of them had to postpone funerals because the bodies did not arrive and there is still no indication when they will arrive.

Though African custom dictates that relatives should view the bodies before burial, the South African government has indicated all the coffins will be sealed in Lagos before the bodies are returned together because of the state they are in.

“We are now confronted with a unique set of circumstances that make it extremely challenging for us to observe this respected custom of our people,” it said.

The death toll rose by one – to 116 – this week when one of the Nigerian survivors died in hospital.

Although the South African government originally announced that 84 of those were South Africans, it disclosed last Sunday that three were from Zimbabwe and one from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Nigerian government has aggravated the delay in returning the bodies by refusing to allow the South African government to participate in the post-mortems or to do the DNA analysis to identify them, sources said.

Because of the state of the bodies, just over 40 of the South African bodies could be identified by fingerprints.

The rest now have to be identified by DNA.

But the Nigerian government would not allow the South African pathologists and forensic experts who travelled to Lagos to take DNA samples from the bodies, insisting on doing that itself.

And it would not allow them to do the matching of the DNA samples with the DNA of the relatives of the dead.

It insisted on commissioning a private company in South Africa to do the DNA matching in South Africa, sources said.

“They said the South African government was ‘conflicted’,” one source said.

“They seemed to think the government would tamper with the evidence. Why would the government tamper with the evidence?”

On Friday, the South African inter-ministerial task team set up to deal with the disaster announced that the Nigerian authorities had completed the post-mortems and had finalised the collection of DNA samples from the bodies.

Nigeria was also “currently finalising the administrative processes to transport the exhibits to a forensic laboratory for comparison purposes. The fingerprint verification process is still under way”.

The government statement said that South Africa’s Consul-General in Lagos, Sam Monaisa, met Nigeria’s High Commissioner to South Africa, Sunday Yusuf, on Thursday “to thank the Nigerian government for their co-operation during the repatriation of the injured”.

“The meeting also discussed the way forward towards the repatriation of deceased South African citizens.”

Sources said they did not know when the DNA samples would arrive in South Africa and the Nigerian government had not said which company would match the samples with those from relatives.

However, officials said Pretoria was “nursing” the relationship with Nigeria and the statement masked considerable frustration by the South African government at the way Nigeria was so jealously guarding its turf in the process of identifying the bodies.

“Government understands the toll this long period of waiting is taking on the affected families,” the task team statement said.

“We urge families to continue to bear with us. The validation and confirmation process are vital to ensure that families receive the correct remains.

“To minimise financial strain, we urge families to put funeral arrangements on hold until we receive confirmation from the Nigerian authorities on when the repatriation is going to happen.”

It is believed that some families had planned funerals for this weekend, expecting the remains of their relatives would be home.

Government spokeswoman Phumla Williams declined to comment further, referring to statements the government had issued on September 28 and October 3.

In Nigeria, Hakeem Bello, the spokesperson for Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola, said they felt insulted by criticism that they did not have mortuaries to take care of the bodies of the South Africans.

Said Bello: “We recorded a more complex disaster during the Dana air crash in Lagos in 2012 in which 153 persons were burnt beyond recognition. Did we not identify the bodies of the victims?

“In the case of the Synagogue building collapse, the State Health Commissioner even called on relations of victims to come forward and provide tissues and sample evidence for a DNA test. Does that not show a more sophisticated environment?’’

A source at the Lagos State Ministry of Health also insisted the state had enough mortuary space.

“We have 24 general hospitals. The mortuary in (the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital) is a world-standard mortuary.

“We have mortuaries in Gbagada General Hospital, Lagos Island, Lagos Mainland General Hospitals and, in fact, in all the 25 hospitals in the state, and there are also private mortuaries which are all world-standard.’’

He added that whoever had said Lagos did not have enough mortuaries to take care of bodies of the South Africans must be saying this so that the South African government would hasten the removal of the bodies to their country.

Sunday 05 October 2014

http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/lagos-victims-bodies-are-rotting-1.1760132#.VDEPK_nF8Ro

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Paddington rail disaster remembered 15 years on

Those bereaved by the Paddington train crash have marked the 15th anniversary of the disaster with a ceremony.

They have placed flowers at a memorial site high above the railway line at Ladbroke Grove in west London.

Just before 08:10 BST on 5 October 1999, 31 people died when two trains collided almost head-on.

The subsequent inquiry found the Thames Trains service travelling from Paddington to Bedwyn in Wiltshire had gone through a red signal.

It then crashed into the London-bound high-speed First Great Western train which had left Cheltenham Spa in Gloucestershire at 06:03.

The Thames driver, Michael Hodder, 31, and the other train driver, Brian Cooper, 52, were among those killed as the collision led to a fireball in which coach H was burnt out.

As well as the fatalities, more than 220 people were injured.

Paddington Survivors group chairman Jonathan Duckworth, 56, from Stroud in Gloucestershire, was on the First Great Western train.

Father-of-two Mr Duckworth said: "Luckily, I was only in hospital for around 24 hours but then I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I had to have about 18 months of treatment and was only able after that to take on small, part-time jobs.

"It was six or seven years before I was able to work full-time again."

The Paddington disaster was followed by fatal rail crashes at Hatfield in Hertfordshire in 2000, at Selby in North Yorkshire in 2001 and at Potters Bar in Hertfordshire in 2002.

But in the 12 years since, there has only been one passenger death in a rail accident in Britain - 84-year-old Margaret Masson was killed when a Virgin Trains Pendolino derailed on a faulty set of points at Grayrigg in Cumbria in February 2007.

Michael Roberts, director-general of the Rail Delivery Group, which speaks on behalf of Network Rail and the train operators, said: "We remember those who lost their lives and all those whose lives were changed as a result of the Paddington crash.

"After serious accidents in the early 2000s, changes such as an overhaul of employee training for those doing safety-critical jobs and a better approach to staff working hours have helped improve safety on Britain's railway."

Sunday 05 October 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29493287

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Japan volcano eruption: Three more bodies found on Mt Ontake, 16 still missing as Typhoon Phanfone approaches

Authorities have found three more bodies on a still-smouldering Japanese volcano after the search was stalled by heavy rain.

Adding to the difficulties facing rescuers, an oncoming typhoon threatens to further hamper the recovery operation.

Local authorities said 16 people were still unaccounted for on Mt Ontake, which erupted a week ago. It was not immediately clear if the three bodies found on Saturday were included in that figure.

The bodies of 47 other victims have already been retrieved from the mountain.

Rescue workers have spoken of up to 50-centimetre thick, sticky ash smothering the slopes, with some of the dead found half-buried, leading to fears others may be entombed.

"Rescuers found a total of three more people in cardiac arrest today, and are now preparing to carry them down," a local police spokesman said.

Only doctors can declare someone officially dead, so first responders typically report that someone's heart has stopped and they are not breathing.

About 930 troops, firefighters and police restarted their search on Saturday morning after heavy rain had suspended their recovery operation since Thursday afternoon.

Television footage showed soldiers in camouflage with gas masks hurriedly getting on a military helicopter departing to the peak, while scores of rescuers were carefully walking up an ash-covered path to the summit.

Rescuers were using hand-held metal detectors and sticking poles into the ground in a bid to find victims possibly buried under the ash.

Mt Ontake was packed with walkers when it burst angrily to life a week ago.

Local residents, government officials and rescuers standing by near the base of the mountain prayed in silence for one minute at 11:52am local time Saturday, the exact moment when the volcano exploded seven days earlier.

The volcano continues to emit steam and poisonous fumes, making a section near the crater inaccessible.

Meanwhile, a powerful typhoon looming off the Japanese coast looked set to batter the country over the coming days.

Typhoon Phanfone is predicted to slam into Japan with strong winds and high waves this weekend or later, the meteorological agency said.

Packing gusts of up to 252kph, Phanfone is moving northwest in the Pacific to curve toward Japan's southwest at a speed of 15kph.

That could force the recovery to be put off for days, drawing out the ordeal for families of those still missing, who are gathered at the foot of the volcano.

Sunday 05 October 2014

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-04/three-more-bodies-found-after-japan-volcano-eruption/5790844

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Bulgarian explosives plant blast kills 15

Fifteen people have died in a blast at a Bulgarian explosives decommissioning plant, officials say, as workers complained of low pay and poor safety at the facility, which has seen several incidents in recent years.

"Thirteen men and two women perished. The blast was so powerful that it left craters," civil defence force director Nikolay Nikolov said on Thursday.

Three female workers were also injured in the explosion, which rocked the mountainous area around the village of Gorni Lom in northwestern Bulgaria on Wednesday evening, residents told state television.

The women were taken to hospital and were not in critical condition.

Nikolov said "human error" was the most probable cause of the blast, which razed several buildings at the small plant.

The devastation was so complete that "no traces whatsoever of bodies could be seen" at the site, he added, noting that police forensic workers were continuing to search the area.

According to the plant's management, 12 workers and three of the factory chiefs were inside the facility at the time of the blast, which happened as Greek landmines were being taken apart.

Local resident Dimitar Dimitrov, 59, told: "I used to work there and I sneaked inside the area long before the engineers arrived. Everything was razed to the ground."

Among the locals, many of whom lost friends and relatives, the disaster did not come as much of a surprise.

Safety rules were ignored at the plant, outdated machinery was used, and workers were poorly paid, they complained.

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev did not mince his words on Thursday, saying: "Innocent human lives were lost because of the arrogant breaching of instructions and rules in state institutions governing work with explosives."

The country's main prosecutor has launched an investigation into the accident.

The factory, some 120km (75 miles) north of Sofia, destroys stockpiles of obsolete munitions for the Bulgarian army and Dnes daily newspaper quoted an expert as saying it had been handling explosives from Greece.

Some 10 tonnes of highly explosive chemicals were being stored at the plant.

"The factory has been reduced to ashes," an interior ministry spokesman said.

There were explosions at the factory in 2007 and 2010, in which several people were hurt.

Two units of the plant were flattened in the 2010 blast.

Thursday 2 October 2014

http://news.msn.co.nz/worldnews/8914555/bulgarian-explosives-plant-blast-kills-15

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Experts scour MH17 victims’ injuries, black boxes for clues

Experts will study injury patterns of those on board Flight MH17 along with its two data recorders in an attempt to establish how the plane was brought down over Ukraine, local daily New Straits Times reported today.

Kuala Lumpur Hospital pathology consultant Dr Mohd Shah Mahmood explained that forensic experts will also begin matching the victims’ seating arrangements against the patterns of injuries found on their bodies once all of their identities are determined.

The preliminary examinations of scans taken during the identification process revealed that passengers displayed differing levels of injury depending on their seat location, with wound patterns increasing the further back a passenger was seated.

“There are a lot of theories going around, but since the plane had just begun its flight, the fuel tank would have been full and those sitting near the wings (where the fuel bladders are located) would have sustained more burns compared with the others,” he told New Straits Times in an exclusive interview.

But Dr Shah said investigators were yet to begin establishing a correlation between injuries and seating positions as not all remains have been identified.

The identification work is being conducted by a multinational Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team that includes those from Germany, Belgium, Australia, UK and Malaysia,

Dr Shah earlier said the team had found metal or foreign objects embedded in remains when they were scanning these, and that these would be studied further.

“This is important, as the objects could be evidence that could help in the investigations into the downing of the airplane,” he was quoted saying.

It is believed that MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while flying over the restive eastern Ukraine region, but the Dutch Safety Board has so far only noted in its preliminary report on September 9 that “a large number of high-energy objects” penetrating the plane had caused it to break up.

In NST’s report today, Dutch Safety Board spokesman Sara Vernooij said further examination of the flight data recorder (FDR) - one of two black boxes recovered from the MH17 crash site - would provide more information about the downing of the plane.

“A more detailed analysis of the data is also needed before we can say what kind of ‘high-energy objects’ had penetrated the aircraft,” she was quoted saying in an exclusive interview with the English-language daily.

The FDR’s data may also narrow down the location where MH17 was hit, and give more information such as the status of the plan’s engines and onboard systems, as well as its altitude and speed, she said.

Department of Civil Aviation director-general Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said he could not conclusively say if the FDR could show the trajectory of the high-speed object that had shot down MH17.

He commented on the scouring mark under the Boeing 777-200 ER’s left wing, saying that whether the black boxes had managed to record the missile impact was subject to several conditions.

“It depends on whether the missile exploded above or below the aircraft, how severe the glancing blow was to the left wing and how it had affected the handling of the airplane,” he was quoted.

Thursday 2 October 2014

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/experts-scour-mh17-victims-injuries-black-boxes-for-clues

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Ten migrants dead, dozens missing in shipwreck off Libya

At least 10 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa drowned Thursday and dozens more were missing after their boat sank in the Mediterranean offshore Libya, the coast guard said.

Between 80 and 90 people were rescued after the boat went down in waters east of Tripoli, a coast guard officer said, adding that survivors said there had been up to 180 people on board.

Among those saved were two women, according to the officer, who said the boat capsized three nautical miles off Guarabouli, which is 60 kilometres (36 miles) from the capital.

Thursday's tragedy was the second this week involving Africans trying to make their way to a new life in Europe and comes a year after 360 people perished in a sinking, burning ship off the Italian island of Lampedusa.

On Wednesday, Spanish coastguards pulled the bodies of two Africans from the sea off Morocco and six others were missing after a dinghy carrying them sank.

For years, Libya has been a major embarkation point for hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly Africans, heading for Europe.

They risk their lives on often unseaworthy craft trying to make it to Malta or to Lampedusa, south of Sicily, and hundreds are lost each year. By far the worst tragedy took place last month, when about 500 people drowned off Malta after traffickers rammed and sank their boat after they refused to transfer to a smaller vessel.

The implosion of Libya, civil war in Syria and renewed Israeli-Palestinian hostilities have helped push the flow of would-be refugees seeking sanctuary in Europe to unprecedented levels.

More than 3,000 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean so far this year, more than double the previous peak in 2011, the International Organisation for Migration said Monday.

Thursday 2 October 2014

https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/ten-migrants-dead-dozens-missing-shipwreck-off-libya-141107106.html

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Why is the hunt for bodies on Japanese volcano Mount Ontake proving so difficult?

A combination of difficult terrain, poor weather, toxic gas leaks, the possibility of new eruptions and volcanic ash that is in places knee-deep have turned what should have been a straightforward recovery operation on Japan's Mount Ontake into a drawn-out slog.

Teams drawn from the military, the police, the fire service and local mountain rescue groups once again began scaling the 10,000-foot peak before dawn on Thursday, but they were forced to call off the search shortly before midday as the weather deteriorated.

Experts were particularly concerned that the heavy rainfall would destabilise the thousands of tons of ash that have been ejected from the volcano and settled on its upper slopes.

With more than half-an-inch of rain falling per hour as a typhoon approaches from the south, the waterlogged ash could slide and bury the search teams.

The forecast for Friday and into the weekend is for more rain, which will make recovery efforts on Japan's 14th highest mountain more perilous. Avalanches of ash are just one concern hampering a recovery mission that is low-tech and labour-intensive.

"They're a long way above sea level there, the slopes on all sides are steep and the rescue teams are finding it difficult to move around in that environment," said Professor Shigeo Aramaki, an authority on volcanoes formerly at The University of Tokyo and still works as an adviser to the government.

"As well as the weather, they have detected high levels of poisonous gases in the areas that they need to keep searching and there are repeated volcanic tremors," he told The Telegraph. "And when they are getting those sorts of signs, they simply have to halt the rescue effort."

The death toll presently stands at 47, making the eruption of Mount Ontake Japan's worst volcano disaster since the 1926 eruption of a volcano on Hokkaido, in which 144 people died. Authorities warn, however, that they still have no clear idea of the number of climbers who are still missing.



Hikers are not required to notify local authorities whenever they wish to climb a mountain, a pastime that is particularly popular at this time of the year in Japan, when the autumn foliage is spectacular.

Underlining the scale of the problem, the fire department in the town of Kisofukushima on Tuesday said that 79 people were still missing, although it cut that figure to 71 just a few hours later. The prefectural government subsequently claimed the fire department's announcement was premature, Kyodo News reported, and said in a statement that authorities are still trying to get an exact figure for the missing.

Dozens of relatives of the missing are still waiting for news of their loved-ones at the town hall in Kisofukushima, with many expressing anger at the slow pace of the recovery effort and the lack of news.

The families complained that they were learning more from the television reports than from local authorities.

The first funerals began on Thursday for hikers recovered from the mountain and identified by their families.

Those hit by the rocks and debris had multiple cuts and fractures, particularly in the head and the back, as well as the legs, a prefectural police official said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy. Nagano police had earlier said the victims died of “disaster,” without specifying the cause.

Most of the bodies were found near Mount Ontake’s summit, where many climbers were resting or having lunch. Some bodies were retrieved from a trail at a slightly lower elevation.



Experts say hikers near the summit might have been hit by rocks flying as fast as 300 kilometres per hour. Most of the ash fell in the first hour of the explosion, according to the University of Tokyo’s Earthquake Research Institute.

Survivors said they fled for their lives as rocks and debris rained down on them while they struggled with hot air and ash hitting their face.

Medical experts who have examined some of the nearly 70 injured have said most had bruises, cuts and bone fractures on their back, an apparent sign they were hit by rocks flying out of the volcano. Some of the injured reportedly had damage to their lungs and other organs due to the impact of rocks hitting them.

The eruption at Mount Ontake, located in central Japan, caught hikers by surprise. Seismologists have said that increased seismic activity had been detected at Ontake, one of 47 active volcanoes in Japan that are under 24-hour monitoring, but that nothing signalled such a big eruption.

Thursday 2 October 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/11135415/Why-is-the-hunt-for-bodies-on-Japanese-volcano-Mount-Ontake-proving-so-difficult.html

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/10/02/flying-rocks-responsible-for-nearly-all-47-deaths-on-japanese-volcano-police-say/

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Dodgy docs confuse identification of bodies

Four people killed in the Nigerian building collapse were travelling on South African documents, causing confusion about the local death toll, an official said on Monday.

“Initially we were told there were 84 (deaths) but through this rigorous process of identification we have now established four were not South Africans, but they have used South African documents,” acting government spokeswoman Phumla Williams told Sapa.

She said the three Zimbabweans and one Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) citizen all had South African residence permits.

The South African government had been in contact with Zimbabwe and the DRC.

“They have confirmed these are their citizens.”

Williams said the remains of the four people would be brought back from Nigeria with the remains of the South Africans who were killed when the when the multi-storey guest house attached to the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos collapsed on September 12.

Around 115 people were killed.

Tuesday 30 September 2014

http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/dodgy-docs-confuse-identification-of-bodies-1.1757559

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Boats carrying dozens of migrants drowns off Libya's coast; 70 dead

Two boats carrying dozens of migrants to Europe capsized near the Libyan capital on Monday, drowning at least 70 people, two coast guard officials said.

Coast guard spokesman Qassim Ayoub told The Associated Press that rescuers are retrieving dozens of bodies floating in the waves some 18 kilometers (11 miles) off the coast of Tripoli's Tajoura district. He added that 36 African migrants, including three women — one of them pregnant — were rescued.

Ali Sarti, a Libyan Coast Guard unit commander, said patrol boats rescued the migrants lying in "a broken and damaged boat in the middle of the sea" before dawn on Monday.

Ayoub said one of the boats was carrying at least 250 migrants. However, one of the 36 survivors told the AP that there were only 105 people on board. "There was a problem in the boat... Three women and one baby died," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity over concerns about his legal status.

There were no further details on the second boat accident.

Libya has grown increasingly lawless since the 2011 overthrow of dictator Muanmar Gadhafi, making it a migration hub for sub-Saharan Africans seeking a better life. Scores die every year on the dangerous journey to Europe.

Refugee numbers have swelled as thousands of people flee conflicts in Syria, Iraq and across the Middle East and Africa, boarding unsafe smugglers' boats in Libya. Nearly 110,000 people have been rescued since January, but at least 1,889 others have died making the perilous crossing, according to the UN refugee agency.

Tuesday 30 September 2014

http://www.firstpost.com/world/boats-carrying-dozens-of-migrants-drowns-off-libyas-coast-70-dead-1737047.html

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