Sukhoi victims’ identification concluded: Police

The National Police’s Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) unit has concluded the identification process of the 45 people onboard the ill-fated Sukhoi Superjet 100. All of the remains have been identified. “The identification process has been concluded,” National Police medical unit chief Brig. Gen. Musadeq Ishak told a press conference on Sunday. He said that the team needed more time to reconcile the remains before handing them over to the families. “We will notify the victims’ families and they can see the remains on Tuesday at the Soekanto Police Hospital before we close the caskets. They can retrieve them on Wednesday at the Halim Perdanakusuma Airbase,” he said. Musadeq said the DVI team had used various methods during the process, including fingerprint identifications, forensic pathology, forensic anthropology and odontology. According to the team, of 45 victims, 31 were men and 14 were women. There were 35 Indonesian nationals among the identified victims. The Russian-made aircraft slammed into Mt. Salak in Bogor, West Java, on May 9 while flying an exhibition flight. 20 May 2012 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/05/20/sukhoi-victims-identification-concluded-police.html

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Italy Earthquake: Finale Emilia Quake Near Bologna Kills At Least 4

SANT'AGOSTINO DI FERRARA, Italy — A strong earthquake shook northeast Italy early Sunday, killing four people, tearing off chunks of church facades and sending panicked residents into the streets. Aftershocks wreaked more havoc in the region, including knocking down a clock tower and injuring a firefighter. The magnitude-6.0 quake struck at 4:04 a.m., with its epicenter about 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Bologna at a relatively shallow depth of 5 kilometers (3.2 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said. Civil defense agency official Adriano Gumina described it as the worst quake to hit the region since the 1300s. The four people killed were factory workers on the overnight shift when their buildings, in three separate locations, collapsed, agency chief Franco Gabrielli said, In addition, he said, two women died – apparently of heart attacks that may have been sparked by fear. Sky TG24 TV reported one of them was about 100 years old. Dozens of people were believed to be injured. Two of the dead were workers at a ceramics factory in the town of Sant'Agostino di Ferrara. Their cavernous building turned into a pile of rubble, leaving twisted metal supports jutting out at odd angles and the roof mangled. "This is immense damage, but the worst part is we lost two people," fellow worker Stefano Zeni said. News reports said one of the dead had worked the shift of an ill colleague. Elsewhere in the town, another worker was found dead under factory rubble. In the town of Ponte Rodoni di Bondeno, a worker also died as his factory collapsed, news reports said, citing emergency workers. Nearly 12 hours after the quake, a sharp aftershock alarmed the residents of Sant'Agostino di Ferrara and knocked off part of a wall of city hall. The building already had been pummeled by the pre-dawn quake, which left a gaping hole on one side of it. The same aftershock knocked down the clock tower in the town of Finale Emilia, injuring a firefighter. Images from Sky TG24 showed the firefighter lying in the street near the rubble. The national geophysics institute assigned an initial magnitude of 5.1 to the aftershock. The quake Sunday came as Italy was still reeling from Saturday's bombing that killed one person at a school in the country's south. Pope Benedict XVI, in his traditional Sunday appearance from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square, said he was `'spiritually close" to those affected by the quake, and asked people to join him in prayers for the dead and injured. Emilio Bianco, receptionist at Modena's Canalgrande hotel – housed in an ornate 18th century palazzo – said the quake "was a strong one, and it lasted quite a long time." The hotel suffered no damage and Modena itself was spared, but guests spilled into the streets as soon as the quake hit, he said. The fear was palpable in Sant'Agostino. Resident Alberto Fiorini said there was `'pandemonium" during the night. 'I took shelter under the bed and I prayed," he told Associated Press. His house was not damaged, he said. Many people were still awake at 4 a.m. and milling about town since stores and restaurants were open all night. The epicenter was between the towns of Finale Emilia, San Felice sul Panaro and Sermide, but the quake was felt as far away as Tuscany and northern Alto Adige. One woman in Finale Emilia told Sky a child had been trapped in her bedroom by falling rubble for two hours before she was rescued. The initial quake was followed around an hour later by a 5.1-magnitude temblor, USGS said. And it was preceded by a 4.1-temblor. In 2009, a temblor killed more than 300 people in the central city of L'Aquila, where the historic center is still largely uninhabited and in ruins. Sunday 20 May 2012 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/20/italy-earthquake-finale-emilia-bologna_n_1530822.html

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Search for Sukhoi Victims Ended After 10 Days

Search efforts for the victims of the crashed Sukhoi Superjet 100 were officially brought to a close on Friday, 10 days after the plane carrying 45 people collided with Mount Salak in West Java. The decision was marked with a small ceremony at the evacuation command post in Cijeruk, Bogor, led by a military coordinator of the team, Putranto. “In accordance with the National Search and Rescue Agency’s [Basarnas] decision, evacuation operations are officially ended. We will, however, continue to comb the [crash] site to search for some materials of the plane,” Putranto told journalists after the ceremony, which included joint prayer for the dead victims. The dispersed joint search team consisted of hundreds of personnel from Basarnas, the Indonesian Military (TNI) and police, as well as some volunteers and a team from Russia. The effort to find some of the materials from the crashed plane, which already turned up the cockpit voice recorder, one of two "black boxes" on the plane, will continue with 45 personnel, the same number of people that died in the accident. The team will include members of the Army’s special forces (Kopassus). “We will coordinate with the police and the Russian SAR [search and rescue] team,” Putranto said. While Basarnas led the larger team that was looking for the victims of the crash, the new, smaller team will be headed by the Bogor command of the TNI and will officially start its work on Saturday, Putranto said. As of Friday, the Basarnas-led team had sent 37 bodybags believed to contain the remains of all 45 of the passengers to the National Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, to undergo identification processes. Police announced earlier on Friday that they had so far managed to identify 15 of the victims — 13 Indonesians and two foreigners. There were 10 men and five women. I Ketut Parwa, the Basarnas official who led the first team, said there were probably more remains buried beneath the wreckage. “But it’s already the 10th day,” he said. “It will be very difficult to find and evacuate those remains.” Saturday 19 May 2012 http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/search-for-sukhoi-victims-ended-after-10-days/518673

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Indonesia needs finger print database

JAKARTA - It is time for Indonesia to have finger print database as it has many functions. For example, the database could also ease the identification of disaster victims of Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash, the Executive Director of Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) of Sukhoi SJ 100, Dr Anton Castilani, said on Saturday. DVI team is still having a hard time on identifying the data of the victims through the finger prints despite the ante mortem data is completely gathered. The obstacle is that the ante mortem data given by the family is different with the body parts found by the evacuation team. "The family sent us the certificate containing three finger prints from left hand, but unfortunately we found the right one. It does not match," Anton gave an example. DVI team, he added, successfully identified 15 victims. Yet, none of the identification uses the finger prints. "It is conducted by using their DNA," he explained. Saturday 19 May 2012 http://en.republika.co.id/berita/en/national-politics/12/05/19/m49np1-indonesia-needs-finger-print-database

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Tunnel Blast Kills 19 at Chinese Construction Site

A blast in a tunnel killed 19 workers at a central Chinese highway construction site on Saturday, authorities said. The explosion in Hunan province also injured one person, said two officials from the provincial work safety bureau who would only give their surnames, Li and Yang, a practice that is common among Chinese government employees. The blast occurred when a vehicle was unloading explosives in the tunnel of the highway that is being built between Yanling and Rucheng in Hunan province, the official Xinhua news agency said. A total of 24 people were working at the tunnel when the blast occurred. Four were pulled out, including one in critical conditions, the Hunan provincial transport department said in a statement. Accidents and explosions are common in China due to weak safety standards and lax building practices. In November, a massive explosion near an expressway ramp in southwestern China killed at least seven people and injured about 200. That blast was caused by three explosives-laden vehicles that caught fire, also destroying a garage and a food warehouse. Saturday 19 May 2012 http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/tunnel-blast-kills-19-chinese-construction-site-16384577#.T7ejDXj82W8

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Abertay University student's system uses digital networks to plot real-world disasters

The way emergency crews search for missing people following a natural disaster could be revolutionised by the work of a Dundee student. David Kane, a computing and networks student at Abertay University, has developed a programme whereby broadband routers are used to detect whether a building is still standing. By ''pinging'' internet addresses in areas affected by disasters such as tsunamis and hurricanes, David's software could provide information to assist rescue teams, detailing the extent of the disaster and the areas worst hit. David, whose work has been exhibited at the university's degree show, said: ''Responding to disasters is immensely difficult and any extra accurate information can make the difference in saving lives. ''I wanted to prove it was possible to use an ordinary piece of technology we all have, a home broadband router, to map natural disasters in real-time.'' Using Google Maps, the system shows live data from ''safe'' areas from which signals have been received from routers. It could be assumed that areas from which no signal is returned have been worse hit, allowing rescue crews to focus their efforts on saving lives there. ''The idea definitely works and I've built it so anyone can take this code and improve it,'' he added. Saturday 19 May 2012 http://www.thecourier.co.uk/Living/Digital/article/22808/abertay-university-student-s-system-uses-digital-networks-to-plot-real-world-disasters.html

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15 victims of Sukhoi crash identified

JAKARTA: Forensic experts from the Indonesian police Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team, Friday, said that they had identified 15 victims of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 which crashed at Gunung Salak, Bogor, last May 9. The victims, 10 men and five women, comprised 13 Indonesians and two of other nationalities. Head of the Indonesian Police Hospital at Keramat Jati here, Brigadier General Agus Prayitno, at a media conference which was broadcast live by several television stations, said the victims were identified through their finger prints, dental records, DNA and personal possessions. However, he said the bodies had yet to be handed over to their next of kin as some of their body parts were still missing. Until today, the hospital had received 30 body bags of the victims’ remains and belongings which were recovered from the site of the crash. The ill-fated aircraft, with 45 passengers on board, was on a demonstration flight on May 9 when it suddenly lost communication with the air control tower. The plane’s wreckage was spotted on Gunung Salak the following day Friday 18 May 2012 Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/05/18/15-victims-of-sukhoi-crash-identified-new/#ixzz1vFfrYGaE

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At least 36 dies in bus accident in Vietnam

Hanoi, Vietnam - At least 36 passengers died when a bus carrying nearly 60 passengers broke the banisters of Serepok Bridge on National Highway 14, which connects Dak Lak and Dak Nong provinces in central Vietnam, and fell into the river on Thursday night, the Vietnam News Agency reported on Friday. According to the initial report, the bus, owned by a transport cooperate in Dak Lak province, some 960 km south of capital Hanoi, was on the way to Ho Chi Minh City. At around 10 p.m., while crossing the Serepok Bridge, the vehicle suddenly crashed into the banister and fell into the river, from the height of 18 meters. Rescue workers and local people were mobilized to save victims. By 3 a.m., rescue works finalized. A total of 34 people were dead on the spot and other two victims died in Dak Lak hospital, according to the report. Friday 18 May 2012 http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/82196/at-least-36-dies-in-bus-accident-in-viet-nahm

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Another mass grave was found today on Balambo Mountain in Halabja

A mass grave was found Wednesday on Balambo Mountain including children and women remains. “The corpses of the mass grave might be victims of the chemical attack in the late 1980s,” Goran Adham Halabja town commissioner told Press. He said that they have indicated the location with the cooperation of Halabja Martyr association and have informed the KRG ministry of Martyr and Anfal affairs to dig up the corpses. “There might be also three other mass graves there,” he added. Halabja is a Kurdish town in Northern Iraq, located about 150 miles (240 km) north-east of Baghdad and 8–10 miles from the Iranian border. The former Baath regime bombarded Halabja with internationally banned chemical weapon in April 1988, killing 5 thousand innocent people and displacing thousands others. Those who were dead were buried nearby Halabja randomly. Wednesday 16 May 2012 http://www.komalnews.net/%28A%28tlc5BDBqzQEkAAAAMGQ3OWQ2Y2QtZmZiOC00Mjc2LTlmYWUtMmY4MDc3YmZiNWVj79RK3hAKpaskK5NhKbv1971f20Q1%29%29/En/Detail.aspx?id=15765&LinkID=88&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

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Police identification unit summons Sukhoi victims` family members

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) unit of the police has summoned a number of family members of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 victims to the Said Sukanto National Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, Jakarta, to help in the victim identification process. The unit will attempt to match the family members` DNA data with that of the bodies found at the crash site in Mount Salak, West Java. "The victims` families have been summoned to obtain some fingerprint, DNA and teeth samples, and this process is not yet complete," the chief of the hospital`s medical and health division Mussadeq Ishaq told reporters here on Thursday. According to Mussadeq, the families have been summoned to enrich the incomplete data stored in the DVI unit`s data base. "After this, the DVI team can do its job optimally, with almost 100 percent correct results," he remarked. As of Thursday morning, Mussadeq noted, the unit had received as many as 35 body bags containing the remains of the ill-fated plane crash victims. "We have received a total of 35 body bags - 30 of them contain the victims` body parts, while the other five contain the victims` property," he said. Mussadeq also asked for blessings from all parties so that the Sukhoi Superjet 100 victim identification process could be completed soon. The Sukhoi Superjet 100 jetliner slammed into the dormant volcano at nearly 800 kph (480 mph) during a light rain. Russian and French officials have now joined the investigation into the cause of the disaster. The ill-fated Superjet was carrying representatives from local airlines and journalists on what was supposed to be a 50-minute demonstration flight. Barely 21 minutes after the plane took off from a Jakarta airfield, its Russian pilot and co-pilot asked for permission to drop from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet; the plane disappeared from the radar immediately afterwards. Thursday 17 May 2012 http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/82183/police-identification-unit-summons-sukhoi-victims-family-members

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Bodies of Sukhoi Victims Kept in Containers - “The capacity of the existing container is not enough, so we bring more.”

The evacuation of the victims of the crashed Russian Sukhoi Superjet-100 through land is still underway. This morning, one body bag arrived at the Sukamto Police Hospital, Kramat Jati, East Jakarta. The body bag arrived at the Police Hospital today was temporarily kept in the mortuary before being stored into a cooling container. A joint forensic team from the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) and Police's Inafis brought one cooling container used to store the victims’ bodies. Earlier, Director of DVI Indonesia, Chief Commissioner Anton Castilani, said the container is used to prevent the victims’ body parts from decaying. “The capacity of the existing container is not enough, so we bring more,” said Anton. The white container came at 4.30 PM on Tuesday, May 15. The container was brought into the post mortem unit in the forensic building of the hospital with the help of two forklifts. The identification process of the victims’ body parts is still in progress. A total of 30 body bags have been evacuated to Jakarta including five bags which contain the victims’ belongings. The forensic team has recapitulated the post mortem data, namely the DNA, then the DNA samples will be sent to the Police Headquarters’ laboratory for identification and matched with the ante mortem data taken from the victims’ family members. As many as 45 passengers were in the SSJ-100 when it crashed into the cliffs of Mount Salak. Until the seventh day of the evacuation, there has not been any sign of life from the victims. Wednesday 16 May 2012 http://us.en.vivanews.com/news/read/314358-bodies-of-sukhoi-victims-kept-in-containers

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8 000 corpses still unidentified in Mexico

Even if someone had not chopped the heads, hands and feet off the victims first, the chances of investigators identifying the 49 bodies dumped on a road in northern Mexico this weekend would have been far from certain. More than 8 000 corpses left across Mexico since 2006 have not been identified, according to the National Human Rights Commission, a government-run body. At the same time, more than 5 000 people who have disappeared during the drug violence sweeping the country have never been tracked down, according to the commission. The failure to find and identify victims of massacres and murders has spurred criticism of the war on drug gangs waged by President Felipe Calderon since he took office in late 2006. The thousands of grieving families searching for lost loved-ones are also likely to haunt Calderon's successor, who will be chosen in presidential elections on July 1. “When you can't find your family member it completely destroys you,” said Irma Hidalgo, whose 18-year old son was dragged from her home in Monterrey in 2011. “We just want to know if he is alive - or if not, then lay him to rest.” Hidalgo immediately called the Monterrey morgue following the discovery of the pile of dead outside the city on Sunday, but police told her not to come in because they said the bodies were so badly mutilated they were only identifiable with DNA. She has already given her DNA samples to state and federal police and is assured they will be compared with the victims. The sheer scale of the carnage makes it difficult for authorities to handle the murder cases. The latest violence has pushed the total number of drug-related deaths to around 55 000 since Calderon assumed power in December 2006. Emergency teams have had to confront mass graves with more than 200 corpses, dozens of bodies thrown into mine shafts and massacres such as the 49 headless corpses left on a road about 29km east of this industrial city. State-employed forensic scientists complain it is an almost insurmountable task. “I used to just deal with traffic deaths and the odd crime of passion. I never thought I would see this kind of devastation in my country,” said a forensic scientist in Monterrey, who asked his name not be used. “I had a day recently when I had to look at five bodies that had been shot in one street, then three in another and then five corpses that had been cut up.” “At first you feel sick when you have to take evidence from bodies that have been decapitated and mutilated. But then you get used it and you don't feel anything,” he said. It has also been a challenge to store so many corpses. Following the killings on Sunday, forensics vehicles needed to make several trips to take all of the 49 cadavers back to a morgue located in a public hospital in Monterrey. Hospital officials said they just managed to fit the corpses in their fridges. In other cases, such as when mass graves were found by the nearby town of San Fernando in 2011, the government had to send refrigerated trucks to store all the victims. Calderon defends his offensive by saying his government has made record seizures of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine, and arrested or shot dead dozens of major traffickers. “There are people who criticise my government for fighting criminals, but what do they want? To invite (criminals) for a cup of coffee?” Calderon asked as he inaugurated a hospital in Mexico State recently. “If someone doesn't want to fight criminals, they shouldn't be in government.” But critics point out that even as soldiers and police round up drug smugglers, they fail to solve most murders. Fewer than 20 percent of homicides in the last two years have led to arrests and convictions, according to police and court statistics. With such a backlog, cases of disappearances are given even less priority, family members complain. Jorge Varestegui has been searching for almost two years for his brother and nephew, who were taken by armed men at a road block near his town of Parras in northeast Mexico. “Police don't take the cases of disappearances seriously. They say the person probably ran away or something, even when you bring evidence to show they were kidnapped,” he said. With so many crimes unsolved, police cannot identify if many of the victims were actually criminals killed over the fight to smuggle drugs or simply civilians caught up in the bloodshed. “The government gives a simplistic explanation that this is just criminals killing criminals. But how do they know, if they don't solve the crimes?” asked Indira Kempiris, a human rights activist in Monterrey. “Many of the victims are from the most vulnerable sections of society with no means to seek justice.” A day after the 49 bodies were dumped, police said they had not yet identified any victims nor had reports of a mass disappearance lately, signaling the victims may have been foreign migrants passing through Mexico to the United States. Graffiti at the crime scene bore the letter “Z”, a symbol for the Zetas drug cartel, known to dominate the area. As well as from drugs, the Zetas make money from human trafficking and extorting migrants, and have murdered many who fail to pay them. In 2009, the Zetas were blamed for a massacre of 72 foreign migrants, again in San Fernando. With many families of victims living in poor communities in Central and South America, it is even harder to identify them. Many of them are undocumented migrants, further complicating their identification. The continued failure to put names on so many victims leads to a vicious circle, in which gangs are encouraged to think that they can get away with murder, said Victor Clark-Alfaro, director of the Bi-national Centre for Human Rights in Tijuana. “Over the years, the state has accumulated a huge sack of dead people on its back without resolving the cases or punishing those responsible for them,” he said. - Reuters Tuesday, 15 May 2012 http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/8-000-corpses-still-unidentified-in-mexico-1.1296689

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Russia’s top DNA profiler to assist Sukhoi’s victims’ identification

Russia’s leading DNA expert, Pavel Ivanov, is slated to arrive in Jakarta on Tuesday to help the National Police’s Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) unit in identifying the victims of Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet 100 that crashed on Mt. Salak, West Java last week. An official from Raden Said Sukanto National Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, said late on Sunday that Ivanov would help analyze the remains of the ill-fated aircraft’s victims. “Ivanov will help the DVI unit to identify the victims through DNA profiling,” said the hospital’s medical and health division chief, Mussadeq Ishaq, as quoted by tribunnews.com. Ivanov is a Russian geneticist from the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, and is one of the experts who investigated the remains of Russia’s slain royal family Romanov through DNA analysis. According to Mussadeq, Indonesia’s forensic teams hoped that the helping hands from the Russian teams would make the identification process easier. Separately, Russian forensic expert Andrey Kovalev said that the Russians would conduct their jobs in accordance with Interpol standards. Previously, officials prepared six teams comprising 60 experts in forensic medicine, fingerprint identification, and DNA analysis to identify victims’ remains. The team consists of experts from Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, Airlangga University in Surabaya, East Java, and the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. As of Sunday morning the hospital had received 18 body bags that were sent directly to forensics teams for identification. (asa) Mon, 05/14/2012 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/05/14/russia-s-top-dna-profiler-assist-sukhoi-s-victims-identification.html

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Police identify 22 fingerprints of the ill-fated Sukhoi’s victims

A total of 22 fingerprints of the ill-fated Russian-made airliner’s victims have already been identified by the National Police’s Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) unit, a spokesman says. The National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Boy Rafli Amar was quoted by tempo.co on Tuesday as saying that the 22 fingerprints were identified from the 18 body bags that had been received by the victims’ identification team. As of Monday, a total of 25 body bags had been sent to the officials at R. Sukanto National Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta. Four out of 25 body bags contained victims’ personal items, such as wallets, ID cards, shoes and electronic gadgets. The forensics team helping to identify victims remains has examined 18 body bags of remains, while three additional body bags arrived to the hospital on Monday and currently undergoing testing. DVI chief Sr. Comr. Anton Castilani said that the 22 fingerprints would be cross-referenced with the DNA data that was submitted from the victims’ families. He added that the team had yet to sort out which partial remains belonged to Indonesians or to foreign citizens. The Russian-made aircraft Sukhoi Superjet 100, with 45 people onboard, disappeared from radar screens last Wednesday before an Air Force helicopter spotted its wreckage at an altitude of 5,800 feet in the foothills of Mt. Salak’s in Cidahu, Sukabumi, the day after. Search and rescue teams found that the bodies of the Sukhoi passengers were no longer intact. Eight Russian crew members, one American citizen and one French passenger were onboard along with 35 Indonesians. (asa) Tue, 05/15/2012 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/05/15/police-identify-22-fingerprints-ill-fated-sukhoi-s-victims.html

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22 body bags of Sukhoi plane crash victims checked

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian police hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, has examined 22 body bags of the victims of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 plane that crashed on Mount Salak in West Java last Wednesday. "Until last night, the disaster victim identification (DVI) team of the Indonesian police had examined 22 body bags, of which 18 contained body parts and four contained property," the head of the hospital, Brig Gen Agus Prayitno, said on Monday. "Three more body bags were sent to the hospital on Monday morning. The bags arrived at Halim Perdanakusuma airport in Jakarta at 8.05 a.m., after being flown from a command post near the plane crash site in Mount Salak," he added. "The three body bags are now undergoing a post-mortem check," Agus explained. He said since last night the DVI team had evaluated the post-mortems conducted after the body bags of Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash victims arrived at the hospital. "The results of the post-mortem checks will be compared with ante-mortem data to identify the victims," Agus added. "The medical center and health laboratory of the Indonesian police had started work ever since DNA samples were taken from the relatives of the victims. The DNA laboratory had begun comparing the DNA samples with the body parts of the victims,� he said. "We hope all of this will not take too long. We have done our best," Agus added. The Sukhoi Superjet 100 was carrying 45 passengers, including 34 Indonesians, eight Russians, two Italians, and one Frenchman. The plane crashed during a demonstration flight for potential Indonesian buyers. The National Committee of Transportation Safety (KNKT) earlier said it had located the black box of the ill-fated aircraft. "We have located it, but it has not yet been collected because it is buried under plane debris," KNKT chief Tatang Kurniadi said on Sunday. Monday 14 May 2012 http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/82091/22-body-bags-of-sukhoi-plane-crash-victims-checked

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37 dead in NW China storms

MINXIAN, Gansu - The death toll had risen to 37 and 19 others remained missing as of 6 pm Friday after hail and torrential rains battered a mountainous county in Northwest China, authorities said late Friday. As of 6 pm, the storms had affected 358,000 people in Minxian county, Gansu province, forcing the evacuation of nearly 30,000 local residents. Another 40 people had been hospitalized. Roads were blocked, houses collapsed, and farmland destroyed by the extreme weather, according to Minxian county civil affairs bureau. China's National Disaster Reduction Committee and the Civil Affairs Ministry raised the level of emergency response from level 4 to level 3 on Friday afternoon. A disaster relief team led by Sun Shaocheng, deputy minister of civil affairs and consisted of officials from nine ministries is heading to the disaster-hit area. About 2,000 officials, as well as 800 soldiers and militiamen, have trudged through mud and water into storm-battered areas to rescue trapped villagers. Gansu provincial Red Cross said it was sending 1,000 quilts and 1,000 coats to Minxian to help with disaster relief efforts. The provincial finance bureau, meanwhile, has earmarked 2 million yuan ($317,460) to repair damaged water control facilities. Food and water had been allocated to the evacuated residents by local authorities. Minxian's civil affairs bureau said the stormy weather lasted just from 5 to 6 pm, but wreaked havoc in all of the county's 18 townships. In the worst-hit areas, precipitation measured nearly 70 mm.

Hail and torrential rain cut power in six townships, damaged several homes, hospitals and schools, disrupted traffic on two interprovincial highways and destroyed over 7,000 hectares of crops, county authorities said. Minxian is a mountainous county in the city of Dingxi with a population of 450,000. It is located 150 km from Zhouqu county, where a rain-triggered mudslide killed more than 1,500 people in August 2010. Thursday's rains also triggered floods in two other counties in Dingxi, as well as parts of the city of Longnan and the Gannan Tibetan autonomous prefecture. No deaths have been reported in those areas. The national flood control and drought relief headquarters on Friday issued fresh warnings to northwestern provinces, urging them to step up weather monitoring and flood prevention efforts. The provincial observatory said more rains were likely from late Friday to Sunday in Minxian. Sunday, 13 May 2012 http://english.sina.com/china/p/2012/0511/466968.html

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11 Indians among 15 dead in Nepal plane crash

Eleven Indian pilgrims were among 15 people killed when a private plane crashed in northern Nepal today after hitting a hill top while trying to land at high-altitude Jomsom airport. The Dornier aircraft belonging to the Agni Air went down when it hit the top of a hill while landing at the Jomsom airport in northern Nepal, said an official at the Rescue Coordination Committee of Tribhuvan International Airport. “Eleven Indian nationals, two Danish nationals and two Nepalese crew members were killed in the crash,” the official said, adding rescuers have so far recovered nine bodies from the wreckage. Six people on board, including a crew member and five Indians, have been rescued alive from the crash site, he said. The injured people were taken to a hospital in Pokhara where condition of the three Indians was critical. There were altogether 18 passengers including 16 Indians and three Nepali crew members in the ill-fated aircraft. The aircraft was heading towards Jomsom in the morning from Pokhara when it hit the hill, the official said, adding that there are possibilities of a technical fault. The passengers had chartered the flight to take them from the central tourist hub of Pokhara to Muktinath, a famous Hindu pilgrimage in Jomsom near Tibetan border at the foot of the Thorong La Himalayan mountain pass, the official said. The high-altitude Jomsom airport, about 200 km northwest of the capital, is a gateway to a popular tourism and trekking destination situated more than 2,600 m above sea level. The plane turned into pieces but did not caught fire. The bodies of Pilot Prabhu Sharan Pathak and Co-pilot JD Maharjan have been recovered. When contacted, Indian Embassy officials said they were trying to collect the details as there was some confusion over the nationalities of the passengers on board the ill-fated plane. Agni Air marketing manager Pramod Pandey said two Danish nationals were among the passengers, although their condition was not known. “It’s not that much difficult to land at the Jomsom airport. We are using experienced pilots over there,”he added. Monday 14 May 2012 http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article3417494.ece?textsize=small&test=2

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Identification of Sukhoi crash victims may take months

While the evacuation of Sukhoi Superjet-100 crash victims is still underway, the victim`s identification may take months because many of their bodies are no longer intact, head of the police medical and health center (Pukdokkes) Senior Commission Anton Castilani told the press at the police hospital in East Jakarta Saturday. Anton said the identification process is like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle and he compared it also with the boat accident in Trenggalek in which identification of the victims took as long as five months. The police team of the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) has begun with identifying the contents of four body bags at the police hospital including identifying body parts, describing and making notes of special features of the victims. The return of the victims to their families cannot be done in a too short period because the team is still completing the identification process. Anton also cannot say how long it would take to complete the identification process, because DNA examination itself would take another two weeks, as it is also necessary to compare ante mortem data with post mortem data. "I cannot promise anything, because it is still too long," he said. The DVI team is making the comparisons such as by finger print data, teeth, DNA, physical/medical marks and the belongings of the victims. Anton said the Russian government has also promised to send a DNA expert to help the identification process, and universities and domestic agencies like University of Indonesia, Airlangga University, Bradijaya University, Eijkman Institute (Bandung) and a team of doctors from Banten will also help the identification process. Sunday 13 May 2012

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Cause of jet crash in Java unclear, investigators say NAMING THE DEAD:：Experts flown in from Russia will cooperate with Indonesian police to identify the victims, a complicated process that could take up to half a year AFP, CIJERUK, INDONESIA Sun, May 13, 2012 - Page 4 Body bags containing the victims of a Russian jet crash began arriving in the Indonesian capital yesterday as Russian investigators flew in to join the probe into how the aircraft smashed into the side of a volcano. Rescuers said the bodies of those who perished when Sukhoi’s new Superjet 100 hit Mount Salak in western Java on Wednesday, killing all on board, were badly dismembered. Officials said the remains of the victims found so far had been placed in 16 body bags. By noon, five had arrived in Jakarta by helicopter and were taken to a police hospital for identification. “This morning we have 16 body bags. On Friday, there were 12, and four more were filled today [Saturday]. No body was found in its whole form,” West Java provincial military chief Sonny Widjaja said yesterday. Each bag could contain the remains of more than one victim, he said. Officials said on Friday that 12 bodies had been found. As the bodies arrived at Jakarta’s Halim Perdanakusuma military airport, two Russian jets landed carrying medics, helicopters and experts who will work with Indonesian authorities in the investigation. Sukhoi’s representative company in Indonesia, Trimarga Rekatama — which organized the promotional flight to tout the new jet — said scores of Russian experts would join the investigation. “There will be 73 Russian experts, some are here already. Thirty-seven of them are mechanics,” the company’s consultant Sunaryo said. The company has apologized for confusion surrounding its manifest, claiming at first that 50 passengers were on board but then revising the number to 45. Local rescue officials said the plane was carrying 46. The company said the final passenger list was with a staff member on the plane, causing confusion as to how many and who exactly was on board. “We are so sorry about that. It was a mistake. The list should have been with us on the ground,” Sunaryo said. Questions now abound over why the plane crashed with an experienced pilot as its captain. Key to the mystery is why the pilot requested permission from air traffic control to descend from 3,000m to 1,828m before the plane disappeared from radar screens and slammed into Mount Salak, which rises to 2,094m. The Indonesian transport ministry said a control tower in Jakarta gave the pilot permission to descend as the plane approached a military base in a clearing amid the mountains in western Java. “Based on a report from the control tower, we know the pilot made the request to descend to 1,828m and yes, the control tower gave him permission to do so,” the ministry’s director-general for aviation Herry Bakti said. “He was approaching the Atang Senjaya military base, which is a safe place to fly low, and we know that he did in fact descend to 1,828m. We think he wanted to show the passengers the military base,” he added. Bakti said it was unclear what happened after that. A Russian fact-finding committee said on Thursday there were indications that safety standards had been violated. Relatives at the hospital wailed as they watched the body bags arrive for identification. Anton Castilani, a forensics expert with Indonesian police, said at the Kramat Jati Police Hospital in Jakarta that his team would try and “reconstruct the body parts as much as possible,” saying it could take up to six months. Photos of the plane’s first demonstration flight posted online by Russian blogger Sergey Dolya show relaxed passengers smiling onboard, being treated to champagne, as well as Russian and Indonesian crew members posing outside the jet. Eight Russians, as well as a French and US national, were on the flight out of a total of at least 45 passengers and crew. Indonesian police hospital chief Agus Prayitno said that because there were foreigners aboard, Indonesia was working with Interpol’s disaster victim identification agency based in Lyon, France. Rescuers were still searching for the aircraft’s black boxes at the crash site, 80km south of Jakarta. Wednesday’s calamity came 50 minutes into the flight, part of an Asian sales tour to promote the aircraft, a joint venture between Sukhoi and Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica, which had its first flight last year. Sunday, 13 May 2012 http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/print/2012/05/13/2003532717

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Antemortem data of sukhoi crash victims now complete

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Antemortem data of all the Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash victims are now complete and are in the hands of the Indonesian police, Head of the Police Medical and Health Center Police Brig Gen Dr. Mussadeq Isshaq said in Jakarta Sunday. "All the antemortem data are complete, and we are now awaiting the results of the evacuation of the victims from the crash site," he said. Antemortem data are very important in the identification process because the victims are no longer in tact, so that it is difficult for the police to identify them, he said. The wife of one of the victims of French nationality has come to Dr Sukanto Police Hospital in Kramatjati Monday morning to collect antemortem data. In the meantime, Police Senior Commissioner dr. Anton Castilani said the crash victims are no longer in tact. ANTARA observed that the total number of body bags already sent to the Police Hospital up to Sunday afternoon has reached 22. Three arrived at the Police Hospital at 12.15 local time and another at 1.50 pm.(*) Sunday, 13 May 2012 http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/82075/antemortem-data-of-sukhoi-crash-victims-now-complete

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