Saddam-era mass grave found in Basra province

Iraqi forensic teams in the southern province of Basra have found a mass grave containing 377 corpses apparently killed during the 1991 Shiite uprisings against Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, said Iraqi human rights officials Sunday.

A statement released by Mehdi Tamimi, an Iraqi government human rights officer, said that the mass grave was found in the east of Basra province. According to Tamimi, the grave is the second biggest mass grave ever found in southern Iraq.

“The first stage of exhuming bodies has been initiated. Bodies are mainly believed to be women and children,” Tamimi said, adding that the forensic teams need larger budgets for further excavations.

According to Tamimi, there are more than 40 mass graves in Basra province. He emphasized the importance of preserving graves in order for them to be documented properly.

A Shiite uprising in 1991 started following the Gulf War upheavals against Saddam Hussein’s rule in the country. After the failure of the uprisings, hundreds of Iraqi citizens were killed by the regime.

Sunday 28 June 2015

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/280620153

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Karachi heat wave: 82 unidentified bodies buried in Edhi graveyard

Around 82 unidentified bodies, most of whom were victims of the heatstroke, were buried in the Edhi graveyard in the past two days, officials told The Express Tribune.

On Saturday, 25 bodies were buried while a day earlier, 57 bodies were buried, said the Edhi foundation’s spokesperson, Anwar Kazmi.

Mass funerals and burials for the deceased were held at the Edhi graveyard at Mawach Goth, which was established in 1985 to bury unidentified persons. The official said that due to the hot weather, unidentified bodies were being buried at the earliest. “The heat is damaging the bodies and we are burying them before they start to decompose. It is also difficult to store them once their condition deteriorates.”

In the graveyard, the bodies are distinguished from one another by a number allotted to the grave. Kazmi said that most people who are buried in this graveyard are poor.

He added that the relief in the weather had also improved conditions at the Edhi morgue, which was overcrowded earlier. By Saturday, 60 bodies were kept at the Edhi morgue, which has a capacity of 200 bodies.

Sunday 28 June 2015

http://tribune.com.pk/story/910976/mass-funeral-82-unidentified-bodies-buried-in-edhi-graveyard/

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Pakistan heat wave: Death toll exceeds 1,200

The death toll from a weeklong heat wave in Karachi, Pakistan, has risen to 1,233, officials told the Associated Press Saturday. Some 65,000 people flooded the city’s hospitals to be treated for heat stroke, and about 1,900 patients were still receiving medical care as the country began to cool off.

“The government quickly responded by making arrangements for the treatment of heat stroke patients, and the situation has improved now," said Nazar Mohammad Bozdar, operations director at the Provincial Disaster Management Authority.

The heat wave started in earnest June 20, with temperatures climbing to 113 degrees Fahrenheit -- the hottest it’s been since 2000, CNN reported. The extreme weather came at the same time as Ramadan, a holy month most Muslims observe by fasting. Karachi’s power grid also collapsed, leaving thousands without air conditioning in a city already facing power cuts and water shortages.

The elderly and the poor were most affected, and they went to hospitals in droves for heatstroke and dehydration. The dead soon overflowed the city’s morgues. “They are piling bodies one on top of the other,” hospital official Seemin Jamali told Al Jazeera this week. To Dawn, he added, “We are continuously receiving people in a critical condition or dead.”

Pakistan’s laws forbid people from drinking and eating in public in daylight during Ramadan. As the heat wave has continued -- and worsened -- some Muslim religious leaders departed from tradition and encouraged followers to break the fast for health reasons.

The heat started to subside Saturday, with sea breezes and clouds taking temperatures to the mid-90s. But authorities in the Meteorological Department told Samaa Karachi could see 104-degree temperatures Sunday. “It has never been this bad,” meteorologist Farooq Dar told Time magazine this week.

Sunday 28 June 2015

http://www.ibtimes.com/pakistan-heat-wave-2015-death-toll-exceeds-1200-karachi-struggles-continued-extreme-1986866

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Naming the dead: Identifying Brooks County migrant bodies falls to dedicated volunteers

Kate Spradley was scrolling through the national database of missing people when she noticed a report contained a small detail, the color of a shirt, that made her pause.

A man Spradley calls Oscar, from El Salvador, was reported missing by a family member in Houston. He and a group of undocumented migrants circumvented the Border Patrol checkpoint in Falfurrias by trekking through sandy, rugged terrain. When Oscar was injured, another migrant tied a brown plaid shirt his leg to help him walk.

Spradley knew there was a body in the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University, one of dozens of unidentified migrants exhumed from Brooks County’s Sacred Heart Cemetery, that had been buried with a brown plaid shirt.

It’s the type of clue Spradley, an associate professor of anthropology, and a community of volunteers spend hours painstakingly documenting in hopes of identifying people who died crossing rural Brooks County to destinations north.

While exhuming the bodies during the past two summers gives the deceased a chance to be returned to their families, it’s far from the end of the journey.

Some loved ones of those who died in Brooks County already have waited years to learn what happened to their family members. The volume of cases, 90 total, mean they still have months or years left to wait.

“This is the equivalent of having a mass d

isaster dropped off at our lab,” she said. “It needs to be done to give them a chance to be identified.” VOLUNTEER STATE

Spradley directs Operation Identification for the Reuniting Families project, an all-volunteer organization of forensic scientists working to return Brooks County migrant remains to their loved ones. She and Texas State University students were joined in June by volunteers from Indiana, New York and Ohio.

The reports they create — biological profiles — are needed before a DNA sample can be taken, Spradley said. The information is added to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

“We consider this a humanitarian crisis just due to the sheer number,” Krista Latham, associate professor of biology and anthropology at the University of Indianapolis and a Reuniting Families director.

In the classroom of the anthropology center, Latham and three University of Indianapolis graduate students took turns inspecting each bone — from the cranium to tiny bones from the toes — of each skeleton arranged on the carpet-covered table. She said each person involved gives them a chance to find an individualizing characteristic that will help family members recognize their loved one’s remains.

With Latham was 33-year-old Justin Maiers, of Lapeer, Michigan. He first saw helping with the migrant grave exhumation in Brooks County as a learning opportunity, Maiers said. But volunteers have since built personal connections with the local community impacted by and responding to unidentified migrant deaths.

“To go from handling one set of remains to handling dozens at a time was almost a system overload,” he said. “That’s just in Brooks County. Multiply that across the border, and it’s hard to wrap your brain around how huge of an issue it actually is.”

In a small room down the hall, Ohio State University doctoral student Victoria Dominguez and Texas State University graduate student Lauren Meckel photographed a skeleton as part of a migrant’s biological profile. While Meckel grew up in Spring, her father is from McAllen, an area heavily traveled by undocumented immigrants who travel north on U.S. Highway 281 through Brooks County.

“The idea that we can help identify some of these people whose families are looking for them brings it home for me,” the 27-year-old said. “I think anthropologists have a natural instinct to want to help people, and we’re lucky to be able to do what we do.”

LOST, THEN FOUND

Before the skeletons and personal effects can be examined, they must be cleaned.

Four volunteers in blue protective gowns and purple latex gloves worked steadily over plastic basins and a sink in an examining room at the center, permeated by the sour, salty odor of the bodies.

Two students from Binghamton University, State University of New York campus, washed clothes the migrants wore while traveling. The garments were heavy and dark, often worn in multiple layers. Not the kinds of things the students imagined people choosing to wear in tough terrain.

“That’s sad because they probably don’t have any other options where they’re coming from, and it’s hurting them,” Amy Szen, 23 of Buffalo, New York. “It’s landing them here.”

Szen and Susan Sincerbox, a 21-year-old from Hammondsport, New York, offered to volunteer in San Marcos after Spradley visited their university to talk about the project. They both are studying anthropology, and Sincerbox admits before arriving she wondered: “Am I going to be able to handle it?”

“It’s a great opportunity to do some work that’s actually going to make a difference,” she said.

Personal effects of migrants are hugely important for identification, Latham said. Families remember the last thing they saw their missing relative wearing.

On a stainless steel table rested a black bra, underwear and a brown shirt with a stripe of color that indicates it may have once been red. Szen washed and added parts of an asthma inhaler.

On a top shelf, they placed a black shirt, a pair of tennis shoes — size U.S. 3.5 — a Guatemalan coin and a morgue tag dated July 12, 2013.

Texas State University students Eastman Barnard and Dustin Posey used toothbrushes to scrub soft tissue from vertebra. The bones would be set out to dry before being analyzed.

It can be tough at times, Eastman said, but it needs to be done.

“There’s definitely a human aspect that gets to you from time to time,” the 22-year-old Austin native said. “You feel like you’re helping rather than memorizing more information.”

As the group continued its work, Meckle broke the relative silence with the high-pitched whir of her bone saw. She planned to cut a sample from a femur until it was thin enough to allow light to pass through, then look at it under a microscope to help determine the individual’s age.

“We’ll have better methods of identification as a result of that,” Spradley said of Meckle’s research.

The science of determining age by bones was developed using skeletons of people who didn’t perform a lot of manual labor, Spradley said. When applied to migrant remains found in Brooks County, “they over-age individuals.” Some migrant profiles entered into the national missing persons database have age ranges of 25 to 99 years old.

THE JOURNEY HOME

It took Spradley a year and a half to fully understand how an unidentified migrant body is returned to the deceased’s family. She’s also learned how to troubleshoot when bureaucratic roadblocks surface.

When her team received the body of a Honduran woman, they found an ID card in her shoe and matched it to her missing person report. A positive DNA match followed. It was the team’s first identification.

However, it was another year before the woman’s remains were sent home. For eight months of the yearlong delay, Spradley said she tried without success to reach the Falfurrias funeral home in charge of changing the name on the death certificate.

“It’s a long process, and there’s lots of roadblocks, so we have to be able to think on our feet,” she said.

The second match was Oscar, the man found with the brown shirt tied around his leg. The third was a man from El Salvador, identified after Spradley shared migrant DNA profiles with a forensics team in Argentina.

A DNA sample, typically from a small foot bone, is sent to the University of North Texas to be entered into a database of missing people. But that process has complications of its own. The university requires a U.S. law enforcement agent to collect a DNA sample from the migrant’s family for comparison, which Spradley said means family members must travel from Central and South America to the United States.

“If we could cross the Argentine database with UNT, we’d probably have hundreds of matches within a week,” she said.

While much of the work identifying migrants is done by forensic anthropologists, the people who have the power to reunite remains with families are Brooks County justices of the peace. The deaths occur in their jurisdictions, and they are the ones who accept or reject DNA matches.

The distance makes it tough for Spradley to reach them. Staff in the past have wrongly insisted the justices are not responsible for authorizing a body’s release to foreign consulates, who send the remains home. At those times, she is assisted by Eddie Canales of the Falfurrias-based South Texas Human Rights Center.

“Eddie had been helpful in going across the street (from his office) and getting a signature,” she said.

Brooks County has received state grants to recover remains and periodic assistance searching for them. But identifying the bodies falls to volunteers like Spradley, Latham and their students. They’re not paid for their time. Some don’t even get class credit.

“We’re trying to make the policy better, but it’s really hard,” Spradley said. “It’s the most difficult thing I’ve done professionally, but it’s also the most professionally rewarding, working with people who care.”

Sunday 28 June 2015

http://www.caller.com/news/local-news/immigration/naming-the-dead-identifying-brooks-county-migrant-bodies-falls-to-dedicated-volunteers_69721144

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New law addresses rising death toll of unidentified border crossers

More than 1,000 immigrants have died in the Rio Grande Valley since 2005, the majority of whose bodies remain unidentified, because local authorities lack the resources to investigate their deaths and to extract their DNA.

But a bill signed June 22 by Gov. Greg Abbott tasks the Texas Forensic Science Commission (TFSC) with establishing methods of extracting DNA and other forensic evidence from unidentified bodies found less than 120 miles from the Texas border.

This first-of-its-kind legislation was attached as a last minute amendment to Senate Bill 1287 during its final reading in the House. Authored by state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, the bill addressed the licensing and regulation of forensic analysts and TFSC’s administration.

But state Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, saw a different opportunity.

“It was spontaneous. I just noticed the subject of the bill and it got me out of my chair,” Canales said. “I ran to the front of the house and said, I have an amendment to this bill, hold on.”

The bill narrowly passed the House by a two-vote margin and Abbott signed it into law along with Canales’ amendment.

“I think it was one of my most exciting moments in the legislator,” Canales said. “I was a little over jubilant that it passed especially with the anti-immigrant sentiment that exists in the Texas legislature. I think it’s a great victory.”

Canales grew up in Jim Wells County about 60 miles north of the Rio Grande, not far from the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Brooks County. The rugged ranchland last year surpassed the Arizona desert as the deadliest for undocumented border crossers in the United States, with 115 recovered bodies.

Still, many of the surrounding counties north of the border lack the financial assistance needed to deal with this growing death toll, Canales said.

“I’ve been personally involved in trying to find a solution to not only the financial burden that exists for border counties but finding a manner to properly bury and respect human life regardless of where they come from,” Canales said.

Brooks County remains the epicenter of migrant deaths in South Texas, where nearly 30 bodies have been recovered so far this year and hundreds are buried at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Falfurrias. Those numbers are down from 2013 and 2014, but the area remains a focus for authorities and immigrant advocates.

The South Texas Human Rights Center in Falfurrias has been documenting the deaths of these migrants as part of their fight for the rights of the living, the dead and the disappeared, on this migrant trail. Eddie Canales leads the local chapter and serves as board president of the national network.

“One of our goals is to find out how many undocumented or unidentified border crosses have perished in 18 border counties in the state of Texas dating back to the 1980’s.” Eddie Canales said. “DNA testing is required by law for all unidentified remains but is not always being carried out which makes it more difficult.”

Last month, he celebrated the passing of Senate Bill 1485 by Sen. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, which will make death records of unidentified persons available to the public after one year. The previous waiting period was 25 years making it very hard to unite and bring closure to the countless families with missing loved ones, Eddie Canales said.

Legislators also approved $2.3 million in new funding for the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center and the Missing Persons and Human Identification Program to help expedite the process of creating DNA profiles of migrant remains.

It takes anywhere from six months to a year to complete the DNA profile and to enter the information into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, prolonging grief for families seeking closure, Eddie Canales said.

“I think that it’s unquestionable what role immigrants play in our daily lives in our economy,” he said. “Not only do we need to respect what they do for our country but we need to respect human life in death.”

Sunday 28 June 2015

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/valley/article_d65da89c-1d41-11e5-8a77-cff837eeeead.html

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No closure likely for kin of over 4,000 missing in U'khand deluge as Centre, state abandon DNA project

Families of as many as 4,119 people who went missing in Uttarakhand deluge of 2013 may never get a sense of closure. Two years after the tragedy, an ambitious plan to match the DNA of all the decomposed dead bodies that were cremated onsite with samples collected from families of those missing, has been shelved—largely because of finances and logistics involved.

Both the Uttarakhand government and the Centre have termed the very exercise as "undesirable" now. This after close to Rs 1 crore were spent on collecting DNA samples from nearly 600 victim and 200 families and USA's FBI was roped in for analysis.

The state argues that families of all the missing have already been given death certificates overruling a seven-year cap on such declaration and so there is no need for DNA testing anymore. But the state seems to be focusing merely on the legal and not the emotional part of the tragedy.

Alwar-resident Vijendra Singh's wife Leela "died" during the 2013 Uttarakhand floods. However, since only a death certificate issued by the Uttarakhand government said so, he kept looking for her. On January 27, 2015, Singh found Leela alive, begging in the streets of Uttarkashi. He had then told the media that death certificate was not enough to convince him of his wife's death.

This is where DNA fingerprinting was thought to be essential as it would identify decomposed dead bodies and give families a sense of closure. The project was launched with much fanfare, with soundbites to the media from all and sundry in government, in the first few days of the tragedy itself.

NDRF and state police personnel collected samples from dead bodies and Centre for DNA Finger Printing and Diagnostics (CDFD) Hyderabad was roped in to build DNA profiles. As many as 574 samples were collected from dead bodies. CDFD managed to build over 450 profiles out these. But these were of no use until they could be matched with the families of all those missing.

This worked out to an impending collection of over 8,000 samples (the process requires two samples per family). The state government, however, could provide only 192 blood samples from families of victims. Based on this, CDFD, which imported technology from US with help from FBI, managed to generate 18 matches, thus giving a sense of closure to 18 families. This was in 2013. Since then, nothing has moved.

In fact, CDFD has had to struggle to recover even Rs 1 crore that it spent on generating 450 DNA profiles as Centre and state sparred over who would fund the project. The total cost of matching samples runs into Rs 5.15 crore according to CDFD. Sources say Uttarakhand government asked Centre for help which the latter refused saying it was the state's responsibility and no central scheme had provisions to fund such a project.

In a series of letters (in TOI's possession) written through 2014 to Uttarakhand chief secretary, National Disaster Management Authority and Department of Biotechnology (which funds CDFD), CDFD director J Gowrishankar has repeatedly pleaded for the state and Centre to take steps to finalize the process to give a sense of closure to families.

All he achieved was reimbursement from the state government of a little less that Rs 1 crore CDFD had spent on generating 450 profiles without any commitment on further action.

In a letter--its tone bordering on exasperation — written to the Centre on July 1, 2014, Gowrishankar writes, "The MHA (Home Ministry) letter of 26.6.2014 appears to suggest that the DNA-based identification of Uttarakhand victims may not be necessary any more at this stage. In CDFD's opinion discontinuing this exercise now would be most unwise and unwelcome ...Such a decision may have the effect of reducing the government's stature in the eyes not only of its citizens but also of the international community with respect to both human rights and S&T capabilities."

When TOI spoke to Uttarakhand Disaster Management secretary R Meenakshi Sundaram about the issue, he said, "These issues don't have any relevance today. The government of Uttarakhand with the permission of government of India has decided to treat all the missing persons as dead and has already issued death certificates to families of the victims. We needed to do DNA testing to prove the identity of the person. But since everybody has been issued a death certificate ...DNA fingerprinting is not required actually."

Sundaram insisted that this was not new and even during the tsunami of 2004 the government had done the same. He said that by issuing death certificates government had ensured families were able to claim insurance, compensation or use it for other such official purposes.

When reminded that a sense of closure to families was as important, he said, "I am not aware why things are stalled as I am new here. If it's a question of just Rs 4-5 crore, we can work something out."

CDFD director Gowrishankar, however, feels more than finances it's the logistics that the Centre and the state must focus on as samples have to be collected from thousands of families spread across the country. "If the entire process is completed we will be able to give a sense of closure to at least 450 people. We think it is still worth doing," Gowrishankar told TOI.

Home ministry's disaster management division, when contacted by TOI, maintained that the responsibility of funding as well as managing the logistics rested with the Uttarakhand government. It also feigned ignorance about the June 26, 2014 letter where it expressed that DNA fingerprinting was undesirable.

Sunday 28 June 2015

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/No-closure-likely-for-kin-of-over-4000-missing-in-Ukhand-deluge-as-Centre-state-abandon-DNA-project/articleshow/47848605.cms

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200 heatwave victims still unidentified, unclaimed; burial to complete today

Nearly 200 bodies remained unidentified and unclaimed at the Edhi morgue for days before over half of them were finally buried by the charity to make space for the bodies of other heatwave victims, said a representative of the country’s largest charity on Friday.

Among the dead included the old, the poor and those fasting, said Faisal Edhi, the representative of Edhi Foundation, while addressing a press conference along with Karachi chapter general secretary of the Pakistan Medical Association Dr Qazi Wasiq at Karachi Press Club. They suspected that most of the unclaimed bodies belonged to the people from other districts of Sindh and parts of Punjab province. Many of them could be beggars and drug addicts, Mr Edhi said.

Dr Wasiq said the deaths were unfortunate but everyone knew that it could happen not only because of the heatwave but due to multiple factors caused by negligence on the part of relevant authorities, local government, civil society and community.

He said the bodies which had not yet been claimed were being buried in the Edhi graveyard. Around 140 bodies had been buried so far, while all the remaining would be buried by Saturday, he added.

Saturday 27 June 2015

http://www.dawn.com/news/1190658/200-heatwave-victims-still-unidentified-unclaimed-burial-to-complete-today

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The Disappeared: work to identify remains begins

Investigators who have uncovered remains in a search for one of the Disappeared say two bodies have been found in a single grave.

The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR) initially thought the remains found at a bog in the Republic of Ireland on Thursday were those of Joe Lynskey.

He was abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA in 1972.

There was "surprise", an investigator said, when another body was found.

Two more of the Disappeared, Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee, were believed to have been buried close to the site that was being searched in Coghalstown, County Meath. The term the Disappeared refers to victims who were murdered and secretly buried by republicans during the Northern Ireland conflict.

Geoff Knupfer, the head of the ICLVR investigation team, said the "assumption" was that the first body discovered was that of Mr Lynskey.

"But as our archaeologists continued to excavate they found further remains in the grave," Mr Knupfer said.

"Because there are two people in the same grave, clearly there's a distinct possibility that what we have here are the remains of Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee. "But that remains to be seen.

"So, we're just saying that we have two victims in the same grave, which fits the profile of the Wright and McKee abduction and murder," he added.

Mr Knupfer also said that an adjoining plot of land had been searched "some years ago" for the bodies of the two men.

While the remains have not yet been identified, Mr McKee's sister Maria said she was feeling a mixture of emotions after being informed that one of the bodies could that of be her brother.

"It's a happy time, but it's also going to be a sad time," Ms McKee said.

"The sad thing about it is my mummy only missed it by three years. On her deathbed she did ask for Kevin.

"It's unreal, it's surreal to us."

Jon Hill, a senior investigator, said that due to the passage of time there could have been confusion among those who had provided information to the ICLVR on the where bodies of the Disappeared had been buried.

"It's so long ago that this happened and this ground where we're searching has changed dramatically from when these events occurred," he said.

Kevin McKee and Seamus Wright were both IRA members who were abducted and murdered by the organisation in 1972.

Mr Lynskey had been a former Cistercian monk from the Beechmount area of west Belfast, and later joined the IRA.

Once the remains have been recovered, they will be taken to Dublin for examination by the state pathologist.

Mr Hill said it would be "some weeks before the DNA can give some more clarity" as to whose bodies had been uncovered.

Maria Lynskey, a niece of Mr Lynskey, had travelled to the site after the initial discovery. null

Joe Lynskey was a former Cistercian monk from west Belfast.

Anne Morgan, the sister of another of the Disappeared, Seamus Ruddy, has been supporting the Lynskey family.

She said Ms Lynskey had "thought the whole day that it was her uncle" who had been found, but has "come to terms" with indications that now may not be the case.

Excavations had started at the bog in March in a search for Mr Lynskey.

Mr Knupford said that if it transpired that his body was not among those that had been found a search of the site would continue.

The ICLVR was set up by the British and Irish governments in 1999 to liaise with former paramilitaries to find the Disappeared.

Any information provided to the commission cannot be used in criminal proceedings.

Over the past 16 years, the ICLVR has searched for 16 people who were officially listed as the Disappeared.

The remains of 10 of the victims have been recovered and formally identified to date.

The most recent confirmed discovery was that of Brendan Megraw, whose remains were found in Oristown bog, also in County Meath, last October.

Saturday 27 June 2015

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-33280808#_=_

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Bus overturns, hit by truck on highway in China, killing 12

A bus overturned on a highway and was hit by an oncoming truck in eastern China, killing at least 12 people, officials said.

Another 24 people were injured Friday, including three in serious condition, the government of Wuhu city in Anhui province said. The crash was under investigation.

State broadcaster China Central Television said the bus overturned into the opposite lane and was hit by the cargo truck.

It wasn't clear how many people were aboard the two vehicles.

Photos circulating in the social media showed rescuers in a rain on a wet road with the bus resting on its side.

Road accidents in China are often caused by poor driving, inadequate maintenance, overloading, and dangerous mountain roads. The number of motorists also has been rapidly increasing, with the rise of the country's middle class.

Saturday 27 June 2015

http://news.yahoo.com/bus-overturns-hit-truck-highway-china-killing-10-112752227.html

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Authorities identify 9 people killed in Alaska plane crash

The remains of nine people killed Thursday in a plane crash in Southeast Alaska during a flightseeing tour were recovered Friday as federal officials continued their investigation into the cause of the wreck.

Alaska State Troopers late Friday released the names of the victims.

Troopers said the identifications were tentative pending positive ID by the State Medical Examiner’s Office. The victims' relatives were notified, troopers said.

Eight cruise ship passengers on a shore excursion were in the float-equipped de Havilland DHC-3 Otter when it crashed about 20 miles northeast of Ketchikan, against a rock face above remote Ella Lake in Misty Fjords National Monument.

The passengers had been aboard the Holland America Line cruise ship Westerdam, which docked Thursday in Ketchikan at the height of the city’s tourist season.

Promech Air, a Ketchikan-based charter and sightseeing service, operated the single-engine, turbine-powered plane. Promech sold shore excursions through Holland America, according to a statement from the Seattle-based cruise line.

‘Treacherous’ terrain

Brice Banning, National Transportation Safety Board investigator, described the site of the crash as "very treacherous” terrain.

Chris John, with the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad, confirmed about 5 p.m. that a team had tied down the plane and moved all remains to a Coast Guard boat waiting in a nearby bay.

"We're beginning to break down now and get everyone home," John said. "We haven't heard of any glitches. It just went really well."

John had anticipated earlier Friday that the terrain would pose challenges for the recovery team.

He said the plane rested at a steep angle in a “precarious” position about 800 feet above Ella Lake on the lake's west side. If the plane slipped, he said, it could fall about 100 feet before coming to a rest again.

Jerry Kiffer, president of the rescue squad, said helicopters dropped a crew into the area around 11 a.m. The crew hiked several hundred yards through slides and steep terrain, crossing a creek, before reaching an area above the crash site.

The team rappelled down the cliff, ran a cable through the plane and anchored it to the top of the cliff so the plane would not slip as the team went inside and brought out remains, Kiffer said.

Weather conditions on Thursday thwarted initial recovery efforts but improved significantly Friday, John said

Report of an overdue plane

Banning with NTSB said the cause of the crash has not been determined. He said he planned to fly to the scene Saturday to begin an investigation that will likely last several days. Afterward, responders will take the wreckage to Ketchikan to continue the investigation, he said.

The path the plane took before it crashed Thursday afternoon also remained unclear Friday. Clint Johnson, NTSB Alaska chief, said the plane was on its way back to Ketchikan when it crashed.

The plane had taken off after a stop in Rudyerd Bay in Misty Fjords, said a Promech Air representative.

Promech said the passengers were on the “Misty Fjords Wilderness Cruise & Flight,” a three-hour tour from downtown Ketchikan into Misty Fjords priced at $339 per person. It included a 30-minute “floatplane flight in a bush plane,” according to Promech Air’s website.

At 2:06 p.m. Thursday, troopers got a report that the plane was overdue. An emergency locator transmitter had activated in the vicinity of Misty Fjords, a vast wilderness marked by lakes, waterfalls, fjords and steep-sided glacial valleys.

The National Weather Service had reported scattered rain showers from about 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday at Ketchikan International Airport, with winds between 6 mph and 17 mph. Wind gusts hit 26 mph around noon.

Rob Murray, a pilot who flew with Promech Air between 2007 and 2013, called the flight loop into Misty Fjords “perfectly safe.” But he said gauging weather along the route could be difficult, unless there were cameras in the area or someone on the ground relaying information.

“You’ve got that big area in there where you’ve got to just fly it to see what the weather’s doing,” Murray said.

Friends and relatives phone in

On Friday, troopers said they “tentatively” identified the eight passengers and pilot killed in the crash using information from Promech Air, Holland America Line and photos provided to law enforcement.

Krill, the pilot, worked for Talkeetna Air Taxi last year, confirmed Paul Roderick, director of operations for the company.

As the crash gained national attention Thursday evening, Johnson said, friends and relatives of cruise ship passengers began phoning agencies involved in the response.

Callers grew concerned when they couldn’t reach the people they knew to be aboard the ship, but troopers spokesperson Megan Peters said part of that was likely due to the "lack of (cellular) connectivity in areas in Southeast Alaska.”

“It’s heartbreaking,” Peters said. “We’re doing everything we can to take care of (next of kin) notifications. While getting those names out will be a relief to so many people, it is still going to be tragic to the family and friends of those who died.”

Troopers said the medical examiner will make the official positive identifications.

Jason Grenn, spokesperson with the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, said the remains of those killed in the crash will be sent to the Alaska State Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage.

The medical examiner will first work to identify them based on fingerprints and then work through dental records, he said.

“As Alaskans, it’s like, we’ve all been in float planes. We see them all the time; they’re just part of our lives,” Grenn said. “Then people are out enjoying our state and something horrible happens.”

About 9,600 cruise ship tourists daily

Patti Mackey, Ketchikan Visitors Bureau president and chief executive officer, described Promech Air as a “highly regarded company” and flightseeing as a “very popular” attraction with tourists. A majority of the flights go to Misty Fjords, she said.

Tourist season in Ketchikan typically spans from early May to late September, Mackey said. Cruise ships will dock in Ketchikan nearly 500 times this year and roughly three to five ships arrive each day, she said.

On Thursday, cruise ships brought about 9,600 passengers to Ketchikan, and many spent hours in town, she said.

About Thursday’s crash, Mackey said, “Our community is just heartbroken over the loss of lives and it affects everyone.”

The Westerdam left Ketchikan around 7 p.m. Thursday on its way back to Seattle, according to the cruise line. A representative said a team on the ship was offering counseling services.

The seven-day Inside Passage cruise left Seattle last Saturday, the cruise line said.

‘Float planes, they’re the lifeblood of the communities'

Aside from tourism, Mackey said float planes are important to many residents in Southeast Alaska, where communities are not connected to the state’s road system.

“Float planes, they're the lifeblood of the communities down here,” Mackey said. “We all live on islands and they're called air taxis because they just do so much.”

The aircraft involved in the crash, a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter, is known as a workhorse in Alaska bush flying. Production of the plane ended in 1967, but in recent years, many Otters have undergone turbine engine conversions, increasing power and performance. They can carry up to 10 passengers.

“This airplane is perfectly suitable for tourist applications,” said Jane Dale, executive director of the Alaska Air Carriers Association. Many Otters, she said, were used in a military capacity and served in the Vietnam War.

In 2013, a de Havilland DHC-3 operated by Rediske Air Inc.crashed at the Soldotna airport, killing all 10 people onboard. An Anchorage Daily News report from that time called it the worst aviation accident in Alaska in at least 25 years. NTSB said the plane may have been overloaded and unbalanced.

Former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was killed in a de Havilland Otter in 2010.

Promech Air said it was not flying Friday but planned to operate limited charter flights starting Saturday.

“Promech Air continues to grieve those who were lost in yesterday’s accident,” the company said in a statement. “Despite this difficult time, our employees are working around the clock supporting and assisting the loved ones of those affected.”

Saturday 27 June 2015

https://www.adn.com/article/20150626/team-begins-recovery-efforts-southeast-alaska-plane-crash-killed-9

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Death toll from landslides, flashfloods climbs to 15

The death toll from landslides and flashfloods in Cox's Bazar and Bandarban districts has risen to 15.

Five people went missing in Chakaria flashflood early Saturday, our Cox's Bazar correspondent reports.

Of them, four bodies were recovered in the morning.

Chakaria police station OC Subhash Chandra Roy said the two bodies were recovered on Saturday morning.

The bodies were recovered from Kiajor Beel under Gorjania union in Ramu upazila.

Ramu UNO Masud Hossain confirmed the Dhaka Tribune about the deaths.

Two people were killed in separate incidents of landslide at Ramu upazila of Cox’s Bazar on Friday.

Besides, three people drowned in floodwater in the upazila.

Meanwhile, two women drowned as a boat carrying them capsized in a canal due to strong current at Gojania.

In Teknaf upazila, a woman and her minor daughter were killed as a tree collapsed on them in Saint Martin’s Island around noon.

Jahangir Alam, district relief and rehabilitation officer of department of disaster management and relief of Cox’s Bazar, confirmed reporters about the deaths.

In Bandarban, two siblings were killed and their parents injured in a landslide at Banarupa Para in Bandarban municipality area early Friday.

OC of Bandarban Sadar police station Imtiaz Ahmed said the incident took place in the area when a portion of a hill fell and crushed their house at the foot of the hill around 3am.

Firefighters and local people recovered the bodies and rescued two others after frantic efforts. The injured were taken to Sadar Hospital.

Saturday 27 June 2015

http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2015/jun/27/landslides-flashfloods-death-toll-climbs-13

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Indian monsoon rains kill 81 and leave over 9,000 stranded

Dozens of people have been killed as monsoon rains engulfed wide areas of Gujarat state in western India and thousands of others have been forced to leave their flooded homes.

Around 9,000 people were evacuated to higher ground in rural areas that have been worst hit by the rains. At least 81 people have been killed, many of them swept away by flood waters and mudslides, or buried in collapsed houses, according to Ridhi Butt, an official with the National Disaster Response Force.

More than 1,000 Hindu pilgrims were also stranded on the mountain paths leading to the Hindu shrines of Kedarnath and Badrinath in northern Uttrakhand state, because of the rains. Workers are clearing roads to restore the pilgrimage route, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

The monsoon has covered nearly the entire country, with the rains arriving days ahead of schedule. As well as Gujarat, parts of Assam state in the north-east were flooded and a swollen river breached its banks in the northern Jammu-Kashmir state.

India’s financial capital of Mumbai was also badly hit last week when torrential showers closed public transport and led to a breakdown in public services.

The rains follow a heatwave last month that killed more than 2,000 people across the country, with India’s Meteorological Department saying that it expected a drier July than average.

Neighbouring Pakistan has had a heatwave of its own to contend with in recent days, and Anwar Kazmi, of the Edhi Foundation, a private charity that runs a network of ambulances and mortuaries claimed that the death toll there had reached more than 1,150 around the around the port city of Karachi.

Saturday 27 June 2015

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/indian-monsoon-rains-kill-81-and-leave-over-9000-stranded-10348268.html

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Monsoon onset kills 45 across Gujarat

At least 45 people died, 36 in Amreli district alone, as Gujarat experienced the fiercest entry of monsoon in recent years, on Wednesday.

Amreli district was the worst hit by the rain fury as 13 people died when two houses collapsed in Nani Vaghaniya village near Bagasara town. "Of the 13, seven are females that include few young girls," said Pinakin Parmar, deputy superintendent of police, Amreli.

According to state flood control room, three persons died in Bhavnagar, two in Gondal and three in Surat. Official report states that 28 persons have died in rain-related incidents from June 1 to June 23.

Residents of Bagasara, famed for its gold-plated imitation jewellery, remained on the edge as the town was pounded by 636 mm rainfall in just 24 hours. National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team rescued 85 stranded people in the town.

Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopters air lifted 44 people after their bus got stuck in flood water on a state highway near Amreli. This was the first time that an operation to airlift people was conducted in the first spell of monsoon. Rescue teams also found bodies of two persons, who were missing along with five others from the bus.

Thousands of people have also been stranded as heavy rains triggered flash floods in rivers in Amreli, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Gir-Somnath districts. In Rajkot district, 4,121 people were shifted to safer locations from low-lying areas.

The death toll is only likely to increase as many people, who were swept away in flash floods, are reported to be missing.

Torrential rains also paralyzed south Gujarat that witnessed heavy rains accompanied by winds gusting up to 80 km/per hour. While a 42-year-old man was electrocuted in Kosambda village, a boy died after falling into a manhole near Althan garden in Surat city. In Valsad's Narwad village, a man died in house collapse while another man died in Uchhal after a tree fell on him.

Twelve relief centres were opened in Surat as nearly 1,000 people living near two creeks were evacuated. Adding to the rain worries, electricity was snapped in large number of villages of south Gujarat.

Amid reports of damage, however, there was some good news too in Saurashtra. The dams that had hit rock bottom were brimming, much to the relief of water-starved people. In fact, Bhadar dam, the region's biggest, is overflowing in just nine days of monsoon onset.

Thursday 25 June 2015

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Furious-monsoon-onset-kills-45-across-Gujarat/articleshow/47807802.cms

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Death toll rises to 13 in Henan apartment building fire

At least 13 people were killed and four others injured when a fire razed through a seven-storey building in central China's Henan province today.

The fire erupted on the ground floor of the building in downtown Zhengzhou, Henan's capital.

Reports said the deaths occurred on the top floor of the building, meaning the victims likely died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

The building contains to some 30 to 40 households, witnesses said.

The fire broke out in an electricity meter box, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The four injured were being treated for burn injuries at an area hospital.

The fire, the cause of which remains unknown, was put out this morning.

Apartments in China are not properly maintained, and improper wiring and bad ventilation are often blamed for major accidents.

The fire broke out on the ground floor of a seven-storey apartment building in downtown Zhengzhou, Henan's capital. It started in an electricity meter box.

Thursday 25 June 2015

http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/13-killed-in-apartment-fire-in-central-chinese-city-115062500718_1.html

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Toll in Mexico nursing home fire rises to 17, arson possible

A fire that killed 17 residents at a retirement home for poor people on Mexico's northern border may have been intentionally set, the city's mayor said Wednesday.

Mexicali Mayor Jaime Diaz Ochoa said in a statement that another body had been found in the charred wreckage of the wood-structure, tin-roofed nursing home's dormitory area.

Diaz Ochoa said the area where the fire started is suspicious because there appeared to be no natural source, like electrical wires or fuel, for the origin of the fire. Other officials said it started near a perimeter fence.

"There is the assumption that it could have been intentional," Diaz Ochoa told the Televisa network Wednesday. "In the area where it started there are ... boxes, which by themselves could not have started the fire."

Diaz Ochoa also said he had been told there was a dispute between the administrators of the facility.

"We have been told by the representatives that there was a dispute for control of the nonprofit," he said.

The facility was run by the nonprofit Cultural Society for the Promotion of Social Welfare and housed poor, abandoned or formerly homeless elderly people.

Telephone numbers listed for the home rang unanswered or were disconnected.

In its government registration page, the group lists one of its functions as "giving humanitarian assistance to low-income elderly people in need, including food, shelter, clothing and medical care."

Diaz Ochoa said state prosecutors were investigating the fire. Some of the bodies were badly charred and are still awaiting identification.

One resident was still in very serious condition, with burns. Three others injured in the fire were recovering and may be released from a hospital.

Thursday 25 June 2015

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/jun/24/toll-in-mexico-nursing-home-fire-rises-to-17/

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Almost 1,200 people are missing in Donbas

Almost 1,200 Ukrainians are listed as missing in the military conflict zone in Donbas, Iryna Heraschenko, a representative of Ukraine in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group and a member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, has said.

"We have almost 1,200 Ukrainians on this horrible 'missing persons' list," Heraschenko said on Facebook on Tuesday.

Heraschenko said International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) officials have offered expert assistance in the search for and identification of the missing people.

She also said the Ukrainian authorities had also suggested in the negotiations in Minsk on Tuesday that the ICRC should monitor the situation with the detainees and their living conditions, including in Russia. "We again emphasized that our colleague Nadia Savchenko has been illegally held in a Russian prison for a year now," the Ukrainian official said.

Additionally, the Ukrainian officials raised in the meeting of the subgroup the issue of the Russian humanitarian convoys to Donbas, which Kyiv finds to be illegal.

Thursday 25 June 2015

http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/273954.html

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Typhoon Kujira leaves 7 dead, 4 missing in Vietnam

Typhoon Kujira, which made landfall in Vietnam on Wednesday noon, has left seven dead and four others missing as of Thursday morning.

According to meteorological agency in Vietnam's northern Son La province, some 200 km west of capital Hanoi, the flood after typhoon Kujira has swept away 23 houses.

Rainfall from Wednesday night to Thursday morning hit 219 mm. Heavy downpours in a short period of time have flooded many districts in Son La province. Flash flood occurred in some areas, local VNExpress online newspaper reported on Thursday.

Making landfall in Vietnam's northeastern Quang Ninh province ( some 120 km east of capital Hanoi) and Hai Phong city (some 90 km east of capital Hanoi) on Wednesday noon, typhoon Kujira has brought about no casualties in these two localities.

However, the typhoon has caused heavy rain in all the country's northern region.

Kujira is the first typhoon hitting Vietnam so far in 2015.

Many districts in Son La were submerged in water.

As many as 23 houses were also wiped out by flood waters. The floods also eroded a number of roads, causing traffic congestion.

Typhoon Kujira has weakened into a depression, but heavy rains will still occur in northeastern provinces until Thursday, according to the National Hydro-meteorological Forecast Center.

Thursday 25 June

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=289442

http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/7-dead-4-missing-as-typhoon-kujira-hits-northern-vietnam-47108.html

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Japan Government to conduct DNA tests on more remains of war dead

The government will conduct DNA tests on more unidentified remains collected from World War II battlefields and internment areas, and store the results in a database, welfare ministry sources said Tuesday.

The move is part of an effort to identify the war dead and return the remains to aging relatives, as this year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

DNA tests have previously been limited to remains found near personal belongings bearing names. But they are expected to also be conducted on remains without such items, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry sources said.

The ministry will also receive DNA samples from potential relatives in a bid to match them with the test results, they said.

The new database is likely to contain data on DNA samples taken from the remains of around 8,000 people found in the battlefield in the Philippines, Okinawa and Iwojima (now Iwoto) in the Pacific, as well as areas in the former Soviet Union and Mongolia where Japanese were imprisoned.

The government began collecting samples in fiscal 1999 and launched the DNA analysis in fiscal 2003. But only 2,031 DNA tests have so far been conducted on the remains of the war dead, according to the ministry.

Thursday 25 June 2015

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/24/national/history/government-conduct-dna-tests-remains-war-dead/

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25 June 1975 - Eastern Airlines jet crashes at Kennedy Airport during a thunderstorm killing more than 100 people

(Originally published by the Daily News on June 25, 1975)

One hundred and nine persons were killed yesterday when an Eastern Airlines’ Boeing 727 jetliner carrying 115 passengers and eight crew members crashed and burned in an attempted landing in an electrical storm at Kennedy International Airport.

The plane, on a nonstop flight from New Orleans, struck several approach lights, crashed to the ground beside Rockaway Blvd., and burst into flames, spewing bodies and twisted bits of wreckage on a wide area.

The burning jetliner then skidded across Rockaway Blvd. and splintered, with most of the fuselage coming to rest upside-down in the eastbound lanes of the roadway. Miraculously, police said, no vehicle was struck by the flaming wreck as it careened across the artery.

As the plane swooped on low over a series of approach lights on 30-foot-tall steel towers, it struck one of the towers about a quarter-mile from Brookville Blvd. Then it smashed the next tower in line, cleared the next tower, knocked the next three down and struck the final one a glancing blow before crashing into a marshy area east of Rockaway Blvd., which was crowded with early rush-hour traffic.

The impact areas was littered with mangled bodies and twisted pieces of metal, suitcases, seats and other debris.

“It didn’t look like a plane crash site at first,” said one witness. “It looked like a garbage dump.”

Although two witnesses claimed that they had seen the plane struck by lightning as it was approaching the airport, and a ham radio operator reported that he had heard other pilots talking about a wind shear - a condition involving radical shifts in wind direction at the time of the crash - there was no official explanation of the accident.



George Van Epps, eastern area supervisor for the National Transportation Safety Board, declined to speculate on the cause of the crash.

As search crews worked under floodlights combing the crash area during the night. Van Epps said he had not questioned any witnesses and could not confirm the report that the plane had been struck by lightning.

Van Epps added that there were only two cases in commercial airlines history in which lightning had been determined as the cause of crashes. Both occurred in the early 1960s.

Herbert W. Banks, air safety investigator for the Safety Board, said the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder had been recovered from the wreckage of the plane.

Asked if officials had radio reports from the plane before the crash, which was the worst in the New York metropolitan area in a decade, Banks said: “We have not listened to the tower tapes yet.”

Sixteen survivors were rescued, but two of them died later in Jamaica Hospital. The pilot and co-pilot - Capt. John W. Kleven and First Officer William S. Eberhart, both based here - were killed. But two other crew members, Mary Ellen Mooney 28, a stewardess, and Robert Hoefler, 29, a flight attendant, walked away from the crash and were in fair condition at the South Shore Division of Long Island Jewish-Hillside Medical Center.

“Saw Plane Coming In” “I saw the plane coming in,” said Neal Rairden, a gas station mechanic. “It was raining very hard at the time. All of a sudden, there was lightning. I looked up and all I saw was smoke and flames and no plane. I said, ‘Holy God!’ I knew that plane had gotten hit by lightning. It just exploded and shattered. I looked up and again there was no plane in the air. The next thing I knew it was gone, and that was it.”

Police said that the plane, Eastern Flight No. 66, had been scheduled to land at 3:45 p.m. and was 21 minutes late when it crashed at 4:06 p.m.

Saul Horowitz Jr., a prominent New York construction executive, and Wendell Ladner, the reserve forward of the New York Nets, reportedly were among the victims of the crash. Also believed killed were the Rt. Rev. Iverson Noland, the Episcopal bishop of Louisiana, and New Orleans investment bank Edgar Bright Sr. his wife, their daughter Mrs. Jane Hickey and her daughter, Nancy, 4.

The passenger list included 19 Norwegian sailors, who had left their ship in New Orleans and were en route back to Norway.

Joseph Dispenza, of Baton Rouge, La., and his daughters, Sandy, 9, and Tina, 7, survived the crash, but his wife, Connie, was missing and feared dead.

Moments after the plane crashed, Port Authority police put out a call for body bags as the first of many fire and disaster units arrived at the crash scene.

Rescue workers spread out a large green tarpaulin at the side of Rockaway Blvd. and began laying out bodies in rows. Each body was covered with a white sheet, which quickly became stained with blood.

Within minutes, all highways and secondary roads in the area were clogged as rubbernecking motorists tried to park and get a closer took at the flaming wreckage.

Several Persons Arrested

Firemen had the blaze under control by 4:45 p.m., but the problem of the curious walking and driving into the area persisted. Several persons were arrested after they had crossed police lines into the area.

Mayor Beame and Police Commissioner Michael Codd flew to the crash by police helicopter. They stayed there for more than two hours as rescue workers combed the marshland for bodies and clues to the cause of the crash.

“I’m numb,” said the ashen-faced mayor. “it’s a terrible tragedy.”

Eastern Airlines reported before 6 p.m. that it had set up a control center for relatives of passengers to call so that they could be informed.

Thursday 25 June 2015

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/jet-crashes-kennedy-airport-thunderstorm-1975-article-1.2262925

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Fatal heatwave: Karachi running out of space for the dead

A stench surrounds the Edhi morgue. Bodies, some uncovered, others in a white shroud, lie scattered on the floor. Among them is a man with a white beard and shabby brown clothes, a fly sitting on his chest. Ambulances, parked outside, are also housing the dead until there is space available for them inside the morgue.

The fatal heatwave is making it difficult for the morgues to function, and the largest one in the city – the Edhi morgue at Sohrab Goth – is running out of space. By the scorching Tuesday afternoon, the morgue that has a capacity of 200 bodies had over 250 lying in and around it. Every few minutes, ambulances arrive at the entrance, bringing with them more deceased, mostly victims of the deadly heatwave.

In the last four days, more than 500 bodies were brought to this morgue, says Ghulam Hussain, one of the officials. “It is becoming difficult but we are trying to manage.”

Out on the streets

Umair Syed, an ambulance driver at the Edhi Foundation, parks his vehicle and hurries to shift the body into the cramped morgue. “Make space, make space,” he screams. He has brought a rickshaw driver from Basheer Chowk, who had even poured water over himself to beat the heat but could not make it. “He splashed water on himself but that didn’t help him against the heat. People are dying on the streets,” laments Syed.

Since the heatwave gripped Karachi, Syed has driven 15 bodies from hospitals, homes and outdoors to the morgue. On Tuesday alone, he brought four of them. The Baldia factory incident was the only other time that Syed has seen the morgue so full. He adds that he has never witnessed so many deaths due to the hot weather. “I am picking up bodies with swollen faces.”

Standing next to him, another driver, Afaq Ahmed, has brought a man who died in front of his eyes. The man was travelling on the roof of a W-11 bus when he started shaking and trembling violently. Ahmed had rushed him to the Civil Hospital, Karachi. “He died in front of me.”

The morgues, from the largest run by the Edhi Welfare Organisation at Sohrab Goth to smaller ones run by other charity organisations, such as the Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation, Chhipa, Al-Khidmat and Thanvi Trust, are now out of capacity. There is no place for the dead. Meanwhile, these welfare organisations, who alone bear the mantle of running ambulance services in the country’s largest metropolis, are reeling under the pressure as the number of victims rises with each passing hour.

Families

A man who had come for the ghusl of his sister-in-law, Kishwar Aftab, said that the K-Electric was also to be blamed for the deaths. “People don’t have electricity in their homes. We didn’t have power for many hours in Moosa Colony. My sister-in-law had a high fever and she died.”

The smell emanating from the bodies made him and others cover their nose with their hands or clothes. To stay away from the blistering sun, people tried to huddle under the small shade. Fareed, a shopkeeper, said he had been called from his shop to be given the unfortunate news that his wife had died. She was fasting and had died because of the heat, he said with teary eyes.

Bodies being buried

To accommodate more bodies, the Edhi foundation is now burying the unidentified bodies within a day. They have buried 50 bodies in their graveyard so far.

The graveyards, too, are overbooked. The grave-diggers are taking full advantage of the opportunity and demanding double the standard rates. “Each grave is being sold for at least double the money,” said Shahzad, whose friend died in Gulshan-e-Maymar. “You are lucky for not being refused a grave at this time.”

Wednesday 24 June 2015

http://tribune.com.pk/story/908627/fatal-heatwave-karachi-running-out-of-space-for-the-dead/

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Peru mass grave contains bodies of 17 'killed in 1980s'

Prosecutors in Peru say they have found a mass grave containing 17 bodies high in the Andes, in the Ayacucho region.

The bodies are believed to be those of local farmers kidnapped by the Shining Path rebel group in the 1980s.

Forensic experts said it was clear the 17 had been killed but not by whom.

Almost 70,000 people were killed in the two-decades-long conflict between the Peruvian government and the Maoist rebels, according to figures by Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Prosecutor Honorio Casallo Diaz said investigations carried out by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggested the farmers had been abducted in the 1980s from the town of Vilcashuaman by members of the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla group.

They had been missing ever since.

Villagers in the Ayacucho region of Peru were often caught up in the violence between the Shining Path and the security forces This was a common practice by the Shining Path to boost their ranks.

However, it is not clear whether the 17 were killed by their Shining Path captors or by members of the military, who often targeted locals they suspected of collaborating with the guerrillas.

Ayacucho was the heartland of the guerrillas and farmers were often caught between the two warring sides.

The Shining Path posed a major challenge to the Peruvian state in the 1980s and early 90s.

After the capture of its main leaders its influence was greatly reduced.

In December 2011, one of its remaining leaders admitted defeat.

However, remnants of the group are still active in the jungle areas of Peru producing and smuggling cocaine.

Earlier this month, the US treasury department designated the Shining Path a "significant foreign narcotics trafficker".

Wednesday 24 June 2015

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-33253849

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Search resumes on Alaska glacier for service members' remains at decades-old plane crash site

Scientists and volunteers tethered in safety gear and ice cleats painstakingly scoured the frozen dirt and ice to see if a glacier had given up any more of its dead before they are swept into a lake and lost to history.

Fifty-two service members died when their airplane smashed into an Alaska mountain more than 60 years ago. The wreckage was rediscovered in 2012, and the somber recovery effort resumed this month.

"It's a patriotic duty that we're doing up here to the family members of the service members that have paid the ultimate sacrifice for their nation," said U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Paul Cocker.

The C-124 Globemaster was en route from McChord Air Force Base, Washington, to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage when it vanished Nov. 22, 1952, with 41 passengers and 11 crew members onboard. The wreckage was found soon after, but became buried in snow, forgotten and eventually became part of the glacier at the bottom of Mount Gannett.

In 2012, an Alaska Army National Guard helicopter flying over the glacier, about 50 miles northeast of Anchorage, rediscovered the wreckage. Recovery efforts have been undertaken each summer since then, and the remains of 17 service members have so far been identified and returned to families for burial.

The race is now on to recover as many remains as possible before the relatively fast-moving glacier, advancing about a couple hundred meters a year, deposits the wreckage in nearby Inner Lake George.

The search area, which covers about three acres, is now near the toe of the glacier, and the leading edge is constantly being cleaved off and pushed into the lake.

"There is no way to know for sure when all of the remains and wreckage will be lost to the lake, this is why we're dedicated to doing all that we can now," Capt. Anastasia Wasem, an Air Force spokeswoman, said in an email.

About 12 people, both civilians and active-duty military members, have been at the glacier nearly daily since early June looking for remains and collecting plane wreckage. This year's search effort is scheduled to end Friday. Any remains found will be sent to an armed forces DNA lab in Delaware for identification.

This is the fourth summer on the glacier for Roy Adkins, a civilian working to recover plane wreckage for the military.

Those who have worked the glacier year after year have become accustomed to the changing landscape as the glacier continues to give up wreckage.

"Every year we come out here, there's more and more debris and in different areas," Adkins said. "We've left on a Friday and came back on a Monday, and debris fields have shown up."

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Bryan Keese of the Alaska Army National Guard ferries the workers to the glacier on a UH 60 Black Hawk helicopter from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.

He was flying a similar helicopter four years ago when his crew chief, Sgt. Roman Bradford, spotted some yellow fabric on Colony Glacier. That turned out to be a life raft from the Globemaster. A subsequent check of the crash database narrowed down the possibilities, and a crew returned to the glacier and found a log book and dog tags, identifying the wreckage from the 1952 Globemaster.

"It's pretty cool to get these folks back home to where they belong," he said of the effort to identify the human remains found on the glacier.

Tonja Anderson-Dell of Tampa, Florida, has researched the crash for years. Her grandfather, then 21-year-old Isaac Anderson died in the crash but his remains weren't among the 17 that have been identified.

She said the military has told families that some remains and debris might have gone into the lake already, and it worries her that the remains of all 52 men won't be found.

If her grandfather's remains are never identified, she does have some solace, thanks to Keese, the helicopter pilot.

He and others collected wreckage shortly after the discovery. Anderson-Dell and other family members traveled to Alaska to view the materials, including a mail box that still had a lock attached. They were also allowed to take metal pieces home; she says hers still smells like diesel fuel.

"For the families that means a lot because some of us many never bring our guy home but we still have a pace of that plane that they died in," said.

Wednesday 24 June 2015

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/b586da92e44741c89780d39b9a43081b/US--Alaska-Glacier-Remains

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Pakistan heatwave: Death toll crosses 700 people in Sindh

The death toll from an ongoing heatwave in Pakistan's southern Sindh province has passed 700, local media said, as mortuaries reached capacity.

Dawn newspaper said at least 744 people had died in Karachi and 38 in other areas, citing a government official.

The Edhi Welfare Organisation told the AFP news agency that their morgues had received hundreds of corpses and were now full.

Officials have been criticised for not doing enough to tackle the crisis.

"More than 400 dead bodies have so far been received in our two mortuaries in past three days," Edhi spokesperson Anwar Kazmi told AFP. "The mortuaries have reached capacity."

On Tuesday as temperatures reached 45C (113F), Pakistan's PM Nawaz Sharif called for emergency measures and the army was deploying to help set up heat stroke centres.

There is anger among local residents at the authorities because power cuts have restricted the use of air-conditioning units and fans, correspondents say.

Matters have been made worse by the widespread abstention from water during daylight hours during the fasting month of Ramadan.

On Tuesday, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said it had received orders from Mr Sharif to take immediate action to tackle the crisis.

This came as Sindh province Health Secretary Saeed Mangnejo said 612 people had died in the main government-run hospitals in the city of Karachi during the past four days. Another 80 are reported to have died in private hospitals.

Many of the victims are elderly people from low-income families.

Thousands more people are being treated, and some of them are in serious condition.

Hot weather is not unusual during summer months in Pakistan, but prolonged power cuts seem to have made matters worse, the BBC's Shahzeb Jillani reports.

Sporadic angry protests have taken place in parts of Karachi, with some people blaming the government and Karachi's main power utility, K-Electric, for failing to avoid deaths, our correspondent adds.

The prime minister had announced that there would be no electricity cuts but outages have increased since the start of Ramadan, he reports.

here's anger on the street about the government's slow response to the crisis. The provincial PPP government appeared aloof and unresponsive. The federal government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif woke up to the tragic deaths on the third day.

While politicians blamed each other for not doing enough, the army - always keen to seize opportunities to demonstrate its soft power - sprang into action to set up "heat stroke relief camps".

By the fourth day, a campaign was launched to reiterate steps people should take in sizzling temperatures.

Many in Karachi feel that had the authorities moved proactively many lives could have been saved.

The hope now is that with the expected pre-monsoon rains later in the week the weather will improve. That will certainly provide much-needed respite to millions affected by the heatwave, but it won't change the chronic underlying problems this ever-growing city of 20 million faces - a dysfunctional infrastructure and poor governance.

According to Pakistan's metrological office cooler weather is forecast from Tuesday.

The all-time highest temperature reached in Karachi is 47C, recorded in 1979.

Last month, nearly 1,700 people died in a heatwave in neighbouring India.

How the body copes with extreme heat

The body's normal core temperature is 37-38C.

If it heats up to 39-40C, the brain tells the muscles to slow down and fatigue sets in. At 40-41C heat exhaustion is likely - and above 41C the body starts to shut down.

Chemical processes start to be affected, the cells inside the body deteriorate and there is a risk of multiple organ failure.

The body cannot even sweat at this point because blood flow to the skin stops, making it feel cold and clammy.

Heatstroke - which can occur at any temperature over 40C - requires professional medical help and if not treated immediately, chances of survival can be slim. There are a number of things people can do to help themselves. These include:

wearing damp clothes which will help lower the body's temperature

sticking one's hands in cold water

placing fans next to windows as this will draw air from outside, which should be cooler

having a lukewarm shower rather than a cold one

fanning the face rather than other parts of the body

Wednesday 24 June 2015

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-33236067

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9 drown on Lake Mweru

Nine people have drowned while four others have survived after an overloaded boat they were travelling in capsized on Lake Mweru in Nchelenge.

Luapula Province police commissioner Hudson Namachila said in an interview yesterday that among the nine deceased persons are Zambians and those from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“Three people survived by clinging to water plants and were rescued and taken to dry land,” he said.

The boat, which capsized at Kasase between Monday around 20:00 hours and Tuesday 06:00 hours, was laden with cassava and the victims were travelling to Nkole Island in the DRC.

None of the victims have been identified and only two bodies had been retrieved by press time by the police working with military personnel and members of the community.

Wednesday 24 June 2015

https://www.daily-mail.co.zm/?p=34254

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Projects in South Korea to recover Sewol ferry

Some twenty companies presented projects to recover the Sewol ferry, sunken at sea in April 2014 with a total of 304 fatalities and missing people, said governmental sources today.

According to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, amid the projects presented from last May 23 are the ones suggested by companies from South Korea and also from China, Denmark and the Netherlands.

The projects will be reviewed in early July and the name of the company chosen to recover the ferryboat will be released later that same month, said the source.

The decision to recover the ferry was taken meeting the claims of the victims' relatives, who want to identify the exact cause of the accident and find the bodies of the missing people, said recently the news agency Yonhap.

Following the tragedy, the management of President Park Geun-hye was subjected to strong social criticism due to the irregularities that led to the sinking of the ferryboat.

The Sewol ferry, weighing more than 6,800 tons, sank offshore the Jindo Island (southwest) while traveling from Incheon to the Jeju Island.

Wednesday 24 June 2015

http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3919781&Itemid=1

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99 percent of missing persons in Mexico stay missing

Over the last two years, Mexican law enforcement has managed to locate less than 1 percent of all disappeared people in the country, according to a recent report by El Daily Post. The Mexican daily came to the conclusion by comparing data from two different federal government bodies.

According to figures from the Special Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons, which was created by the office of the attorney general, Mexican law enforcement managed to locate 112 disappeared people over the last two years.

Only 77 of them were found alive. In the same time period, however, the National Register of Missing and Disappeared Persons documented 26,928 missing people (this number does not include the found 112 people).

The numbers unfortunately suggest if people go missing in Mexico, they are more than likely to stay missing. While the 112 people were found predominantly within the country — in 19 different states of Mexico’s 31 plus the Federal District of Mexico City — three cases were found abroad, in Guatemala, Turkey and the United States, according to national attorney general data.



The missing persons register showed that Mexico's eastern border state of Tamaulipas had the highest number of disappeared people in the last two years, with 5,379 reported cases. Mexico has long been criticized for its high level of violence, disappearances, police corruption and impunity.

This has been compounded since the forced disappearance of 43 students in Guerrero state last September, which has caused massive uproar across the country and international condemnation. Of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training school, just one was found, dead; the rest remain missing.

Earlier this year, Mexico's National Public Security System reported equally startling figures: 1,360 people were reported disappeared in the country in the first four months of 2014 alone – an average of 11 new disappearances a day.

Wednesday 24 June 2015

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/99-Percent-of-Missing-Persons-in-Mexico-Stay-Missing--20150623-0009.html.

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70-year-old victim's identity established in 'missing melawa'

The innovative 'missing melawa' at Umred police station on June 17 or display camp for seeking information on untraceable people especially children, unidentified bodies and cases of unknown murders turned out to be a success of sort for rural police.

Vithal Choudhary, 70, had left from his residence at Jogithana village in Umrer on April 23 this year. A missing complaint was lodged at Umrer police station. In the meantime, Choudhary died in Saoner. A case of accidental death was registered at Saoner police station on May 1 this year.

Choudhary had remained an unidentified body for Saoner police till the 'Missing Melawa' was organized at Umrer police station this month leading to the identification of the septuagenarian.

Rural police have also claimed that vital clues in many missing cases and other incidents of unexplained deaths too have come to fore during the 'melawa' at Umrer police station which was attended by many locals.

Following the success of the Umrer police station, 'Missing Melawa' is set to be organized at Saoner police station on June 26.

Wednesday 24 June 2015

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/70-year-old-victims-identity-established-in-missing-melawa/articleshow/47783728.cms

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Service to honor 1950 plane crash victims to be held in South Haven

A memorial service for the victims of a 1950 plane crash in Lake Michigan will be held in South Haven on Wednesday. On June 23rd, 1950, Northwest Airlines Flight 2501 was lost over the lake after having left New York on its way to Washington state.

Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 was a DC-4 propliner operating its daily transcontinental service between New York City and Seattle when it disappeared on the night of June 23, 1950. The flight was carrying 55 passengers and three crew members; the loss of all 58 on board made it the deadliest commercial airliner accident in American history at the time.

There was stormy weather at the time, and vanHeest says that the search originally started off Milwaukee. However, when a boater off South Haven found some debris, the effort turned to southwest Michigan.

The aircraft was at approximately 3,500 feet (1,100 m) over Lake Michigan, 18 miles (29 km) NNW of Benton Harbor, Michigan when it vanished from radar screens after requesting a descent to 2,500 feet (760 m). A widespread search was commenced including using sonar and dragging the bottom of Lake Michigan with trawlers, but to no avail. Considerable light debris, upholstery, and human body fragments were found floating on the surface, but divers were unable to locate the plane's wreckage.

Although the plane has never been found, although there are still yearly searches for it.

In September 2008, a researcher investigating the crash of Flight 2501 found an unmarked grave that she believes contains the remains of some of the 58 victims. Valerie van Heest says human remains from the June 1950 crash into Lake Michigan washed ashore and were buried in a mass grave. She claims they were buried in a St. Joseph-area cemetery without the knowledge of the victims' families, and the grave was never marked. In a 2008 ceremony at the cemetery with 58 family members of Flight 2501, a large black granite marker was placed that now lists the names of the 58 and the words.

Wednesday’s memorial will be at their South Haven grave site, at Lakeview Cemetery at noon. VanHeest will also give a two PM presentation on the disaster at the Michigan Maritime Museum.

Wednesday 24 June 2015

http://www.wsjm.com/2015/06/23/service-to-honor-1950-plane-crash-victims-to-be-held-in-south-haven/

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South Africa: Investigators to Exhume Bodies From Mass Grave On South Coast Farm

The police have confirmed that an operation to exhume bodies believed to be buried in a mass grave at a former prison labour camp on a South Coast farm began on Monday.

SAPS provincial spokesperson Major Thulani Zwane said he could "confirm" officials were on site as of on Monday.

"We are assisting the Missing Persons Task Team of the NPA [National Prosecuting Authority] who are leading the investigation. Therefore we will not be able to comment further on the investigation," said Zwane.

The search is believed to get under way properly on Tuesday.

The Witness was told that the police had dispatched an SAPS Search and Rescue team complete with excavation gear and "four sniffer dogs" while several officials from various government agencies were also on site.

The Missing Persons Task Team were established in the Priority Crimes Litigation Unit (PCLU) in the NPA in 2004. The task team have since been conducting investigations into cases of missing persons who disappeared in political circumstances between March 1, 1960 and May 10, 1994.

The existence of the graves on a sugar plantation called Glenroy Farm in the Dududu area just outside Amanzintoti was first announced in March by the Office of the Premier.

The site was apparently found by local sangoma Gogo Bongekile Nonhlanhla Nkomo and was first brought to the province's attention in August 2014.

KZN Premier's spokesperson Thami Ngwenya said that Premier Senzo Mchunu will give feedback to his cabinet on Wednesday on progress made.

"The premier had referred the matter to the Presidency who confirmed they had tasked the Department of Justice to take the matter further. The premier wants a full inquiry into this matter. There are several agencies involved, including our office," said Ngwenya.

KZN Department of Arts and Culture communications head Lethukuthula Mtshali said they could not comment "due to the sensitivity of the Glenroy Farm case".

Tuesday 23 June 2015

http://allafrica.com/stories/201506231942.html

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Karachi heat wave kills about 400 people, death toll still rising

A scorching heat wave across southern Pakistan's city of Karachi has killed more than 400 people, authorities said Tuesday, as morgues overflowed with the dead and overwhelmed hospitals struggled to aid those clinging to life.

The majority of the deaths occurred in the port city of Karachi, Pakistan's economic hub of around 20 million people.

Temperatures reaching 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) began scorching Pakistan's port city of Karachi over the weekend. Hourslong power outages, typical in Pakistan, also struck the city, leaving fans and air conditioners inoperable as the majority of people in this Muslim country abstain from food or water during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

The power outages also affected the sporadic water supply in the city, where those who can afford it rely on tankers of water being delivered to their homes. Some men cooled themselves off Tuesday under the pouring water of a broken water pipe.

Most of the dead are the elderly, said Seemi Jamali, a spokeswoman for Karachi's Jinnah Hospital. Hundreds more are being treated for heat-related ailments, including fever and dehydration and stomach-related illnesses, she said. Mortuaries were running out of space, with local television stations showing bodies stacked inside of cold storage rooms of morgues.

Provincial Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah ordered schools and public offices closed Tuesday until the heat wave ends.

Semi Jamali, a doctor at Karachi's largest hospital said they had treated about 3000 patients.

"More than 200 of them were either received dead or died in hospital," Jamali told AFP.

Pakistan's largest charity, Edhi Welfare Organisation, said their two morgues in the city had received more than 400 corpses.

"More than 400 dead bodies have so far been received in our two mortuaries in the past three days," Edhi spokesman Anwar Kazmi told AFP. "The mortuaries have reached capacity."

Electricity shortages have crippled the water supply system in Karachi, hampering the pumping of millions of gallons of water to consumers, the state-run water utility said.

Pakistan's Meteorological Office said temperatures remained at around 44.5 Celsius in Karachi on Tuesday but forecast thunderstorms for the evening.

"Due to a low depression developing in the Arabian sea, thunderstorms will likely begin this evening and might continue for the next three days," a Meteorological official told AFP.

The provincial government meanwhile announced a public holiday to encourage residents to stay inside, an official said. Many of the victims have been labourers who toil outdoors.

Some residents also took to hosing each other down with water on Tuesday to avoid collapsing from heat stroke.

Tahir Ashrafi, a prominent Islamic cleric, urged those who were at risk of heat stroke to abstain from fasting.

"We (religious scholars) have highlighted on various television channels that those who are at risk, especially in Karachi where there is a very serious situation, should abstain from fasting," he said.

"Islam has drawn conditions for fasting, it is even mentioned in the holy Koran that patients and travellers who are not able to bear fasting can delay it and people who are weak or old and are at risk of falling sick or even dying because of fasting should abstain," he added.

An official from the National Disaster Management Authority told AFP heat stroke treatment centres would be established at all hospitals across the province to provide " emergency medicines for heat stroke victims".

The deaths come a month after neighbouring India suffered a deadly heatwave, with more than 2,000 deaths.

Hundreds of mainly poor people die at the height of summer every year in India, but this year's toll was the second highest in the country's history.

Tuesday 23 June 2015

http://www.12newsnow.com/story/29383428/major-heat-wave-in-pakistans-karachi-kills-over-400-people

http://news.yahoo.com/death-toll-pakistan-heatwave-rises-over-450-officials-065253981.html

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At least 6 immigrants drown as boat sinks in Aegean Sea

At least six illegal immigrants were drowned on Tuesday morning as a boat sank in Aegean Sea off western Turkey, private Dogan news agency reported.

The boat, which were carrying a total of 62 immigrants heading for Istankoy Island of Greece, sank in the Aeagean off Bodrum town of Mugla province of western Turkey due to the strong storm, according to the report.

Turkish Coast Guards have discovered six bodies of immigrants and rescued some others, said the report, adding that an investigation was underway.

They were apparently sailing for the Greek island of Kos, about 3.2 kilometers from the resort city of Bodrum, according to the source.

The coastguard and a helicopter are still searching for survivors and bodies, the source added.

In the first five months of 2015, over 42,000 people arrived by sea to Greece, most of them refugees, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

Turkey is geographically positioned between Asia and Europe, and has become a major transit point for Middle Eastern and Asian migrants and refugees fleeing from poverty or conflict in their home countries.

Tuesday 23 June 2015

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/928410.shtml

http://www.worldbulletin.net/boat-carrying-migrants-sinks-in-aegean-sea/161070/boat-carrying-migrants-sinks-in-aegean-sea

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Tbilisi flood: Three missing people feared dead

Three people remain missing following the June 13 deadly flash flood that tore through Georgia’s capital city Tbilisi.

Today the country’s Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri said there was almost no hope the three missing people would be found alive and efforts now focused on finding and recovering the bodies of the victims.

The natural disaster hit Tbilisi overnight on June 13 and claimed the lives of 19 people. Hundreds more lost their homes. Four days after the disaster, a local man was attacked and killed by a tiger that had escaped from Tbilisi Zoo in the flood.

Specialist crews now operated heavy machinery on affected Tbilisi streets to clean the city after the flooding.

Minister Gomelauri said there one rescue officer stood at each vehicle to monitor the recovery process. These officers were tasked with stopping the machinery and continue working with their hands if any of the missing bodies appeared under the debris.

Tuesday 23 June 2015

http://agenda.ge/news/37766/eng

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