DVI News 14 November 2011
14/Nov/2011
M5 crash police find no more bodies6 November 2011. UK.
No more bodies have been found at the scene of the crash on the M5 which killed seven people, police have said.
It had been feared the death toll from Friday evening's crash in Somerset could rise and emergency services had been searching for more victims.
Avon and Somerset Police Assistant Chief Constable Anthony Bangham said: "Overnight all the vehicles involved in this tragic incident have been removed from the scene. Our worst fears have not been realised and the number of those that sadly lost their lives remains at seven.”
"Extensive work has been carried out to identify those people and families are being appointed family liaison officers to support them.”
"Formal identification has not taken place - this will happen in the coming days."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
Body of ex-paratrooper who died in UK police custody found years later after mortuary mix-up
7 November 2011. U.K.
British officials were investigating claims today that the body of a man who died in police custody had been discovered in a morgue - more than a decade after he was supposedly buried.
The mix-up was discovered last Friday, when the Hull City Council in northern England tried to bury the body of Grace Kamara, a woman who died in 1999 but whose council-funded burial was delayed for "family-related reasons".
In a statement, the council said the body of a man in his late 30s was located in the city mortuary where Kamara's body was supposed to be resting. It said at the moment it "cannot explain" the situation.
Another statement was later issued confirming that the man's body is that of 37-year-old ex-paratrooper Christopher Alder. His family has been informed that they buried the wrong body over a decade ago.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.
X-rays key to identifying soldiers
7 November 2011. USA.
It was right out of the ending of the first Indiana Jones movie: valuable artifacts stored away and forgotten for decades in a government warehouse.
The value of these relics is not monetary, but their eventual rediscovery is expected to prove to be invaluable to some families of U.S. service members still missing from the 1950-53 Korean War.
The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command over the past six years retrieved 14,200 chest radiographs (X-rays) representing about 6,400 GIs missing from Korea, and the data have become key in the identification of Korea War veterans buried as "unknowns" at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, officials said.
The accounting command, headquartered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, has started using collarbone and vertebrae X-rays taken when a service member was living, and comparing them with remains previously buried at Punchbowl, to make identifications.
The clavicle and spinal comparisons are among several lab advances made in the past several years that should accelerate the identification of some of the 867 Korean War "unknowns" at Punchbowl, said the command, known as JPAC.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Five killed in fire at Marina care facility
7 November 2011. USA.
Five people died and seven were injured in a fire at a care facility for the disabled late Saturday night.
Police and firefighters arrived to find the house at 2339 Seaside Court "well involved with fire," said police Lt. Richard Janicki.
Five of the occupants were brought out by firefighters, he said, but four of them died, while a fifth was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
The five fatal victims are believed to have been clients living at the facility. All five bodies were removed by the coroner and autopsies are scheduled.
The names of the victims have been withheld pending notification of next of kin
http://www.santacruzsentinel.
Ten die, 23 hurt when coaches, truck collide
8 November 2011. Viet Nam
Ten people were killed and 23 injured when a truck crashed into two coaches in central Binh Thuan Province early this morning.
Eight of the casualties died on site while two others died on route to hospital where the injured have been receiving treatment.
Both the truck and the Tien Bo bus caught fire.
DNA tests have been employed to identify victims deformed in the blaze.
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.
DNA Databank to Identify Missing Migrants
8 November 2011.
DNA analysis, ethical tribunals and diplomatic pressure are the new instruments that migrants' organisations are wielding to combat the abuses suffered by undocumented migrants in Mexico and the United States.
The Committee of Relatives of Dead and Missing Migrants of El Salvador (COFAMIDE) set up a databank for disappeared migrants, with the support of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) and the Salvadoran government.
The databank "is very useful, as it facilitates identification of remains and sustains relatives' hopes of finding missing migrants," founder and secretary general of COFAMIDE Lucy de Acevedo told IPS.
"It was our greatest dream, because of the huge number of cases and the scarcity of information," she said.
Since 2010, 143 samples have been collected, analysed and stored in the U.S. state of Arizona, on the border with Mexico, and the remains of two men and one woman from El Salvador have been identified.
Since it began its work in 2006, COFAMIDE has managed to identify 59 people
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?
42 Dead in Colombia Mudslide
8 November 2011.
First responders have rescued 18 residents and a dog and say there may be people still alive amid the wreckage of the 16 homes and buildings buried in the avalanche.
Emergency teams continue a desperate search for people listed as missing after 42 of their neighbours died in a mudslide that buried a neighbourhood in the western city of Manizales, a Colombian Red Cross official told Efe on Tuesday.
Some 600 police, firefighters, soldiers, Red Cross workers and volunteers are painstakingly moving mud and debris at the site, working by hand to avoid injuring potential survivors.
Symposium held on emergency preparedness and management of mass fatalities
10 November 2011. Hong Kong.
To enhance Hong Kong's preparedness for the management of emergencies, especially those involving mass fatalities, the Department of Health (DH) invited a delegation from the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) to come to Hong Kong for experience sharing, particularly on their lessons learnt from managing the 9-11 emergency.
"During a two-day symposium completed yesterday (November 9), the systems and plans of New York City and Hong Kong for response to major emergencies involving mass fatalities were presented for exchanges and discussions by officials of the two cities," a DH spokesman said.
A number of disciplines were represented, with professionals involved in fields including bereavement support, body disposal, disaster victim identification, emergency medicine, maintenance of civil order, medico-legal death investigation, public health and search and rescue in attendance.
http://7thspace.com/headlines/
Air Force morgue lost body parts from war dead
10 November 2011. USA.
The Air Force mortuary that receives America's war dead and prepares them for burial lost portions of human remains twice in 2009, prompting the Air Force to discipline three officials for "gross mismanagement," officials said Tuesday.
A year-long Air Force investigation reviewed 14 sets of allegations of improper handling of war remains as reported by three whistleblower workers at Dover Air Force Base, Del. That is where all war dead are received from foreign battlefields to be formally identified, autopsied and prepared for transfer to their families.
The Air Force inspector general found no violations of law or regulation in any of the 14 cases, but he cited a series of failures by top officials that seriously undermined the mortuary work of the Air Force, which views the Dover mission as one of its most important duties to military members and their families.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/
5 dead after tour helicopter crashes on Molokai
11 November 2011. Hawaii
A 30-year-old pilot from Kihei, Maui and four passengers are dead after a tour helicopter slammed into a hillside on the east end of Molokai at about 12:15 p.m. Thursday.
Maui county fire officials say the weather in the area consisted of rain and a lot of wind.
The crash, involving a Blue Hawaiian tour helicopter, happened about a quarter-mile behind Kilohana Elementary. A newlywed couple from Pennsylvania and two people from Ontario, Canada were on the flight.
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/
Turkey quake death toll rises to 26
11 November 2011.
Rescuers on Friday recovered the dead body of one of the two journalists missing underneath the rubble of an earthquake-shattered hotel as the death toll in the second earthquake to hit eastern Turkey in about two weeks rose to at least 26.
A colleague identified a body found in the rubble of the collapsed hotel in the eastern city of Van as that of Cem Emir.
"In our profession we always come across disasters," Dogan agency's general manager, Ugur Cebeci, said earlier as he watched rescuers in red overalls search through the debris of the once five-story hotel. "But we are grappling with helplessness here."
Relief workers - who had arrived in the city to help survivors of the earlier, more powerful earthquake that hit the region on October 23 - also became victims when the hotel, weakened by the earlier quake, collapsed on Wednesday. The fatalities include a Japanese relief worker who had come to distribute aid to quake survivors and eight employees of a company who were in Van to assemble temporary housing units for survivors.
Rescuers pulled out 14 bodies from the wreckage of the Bayram Hotel as well as the low-budget Aslan Hotel on Friday, raising the death toll to 26, according to state-run TRT television.
Authorities called off rescue operations at the Aslan, but rescuers continued their search for possible survivors at the Bayram.
http://www.google.com/
Mortuary ‘crisis’ in KwaZulu-Natal
11 November 2011. South Africa.
Perceived failure by the KwaZulu-Natal’s Health Department to address damning claims of a “mortuary mafia” perpetrating serious health and human rights violations at state mortuaries, has prompted the resignation of the head of forensic medicine at the Nelson R Mandela Medical School, Durban.
In an interview with the Daily News on Thursday, Professor Steve Naidoo, a chief specialist in forensic pathology, described the services offered at mortuaries in KZN, particularly at Magwaza Maphalala (Gale Street) Mortuary, as “lame and pathetic” .
Damning claims by Naidoo include staff failing to conduct proper procedures for the identification, treatment and release of bodies, failing to comply with national protocols in the treatment of unidentified bodies and facilitating the irregular disposal of unclaimed bodies.
This, he said, opened the doors to insurance fraud and illegal trade of body parts.
The “terminal decline” of the mortuary services started in 2006, when the KZN Health Department took over the running of state mortuaries from the police.
http://www.iol.co.za/
Death toll from St Lucia accident now at 17
11 November 2011. Caribbean
Seventeen people died in last night’s horrific accident in St Lucia after a bus carrying mourners plunged off a cliff.
Fifteen people are believed to have died instantly while a girl died today. The body of the 17th person was retrieved from the wreckage today.
http://www.stabroeknews.com/
Helicopter crash on Molokai kills 5
11 November 2011. Hawaii
All five people aboard died Thursday when a tour helicopter crashed and burst into flames on Molokai's east end, in the deadliest helicopter crash in Maui County in more than a decade.
The crash of the Eurocopter EC130B4 operated by Blue Hawaiian Helicopters was reported at 12:23 p.m. about three-quarters of a mile from Kilohana Elementary School, mauka of Kamehameha V Highway. The helicopter, which was on an air tour flight from Maui to Molokai, was engulfed in flames after the crash, said Ian Gregor, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration Pacific Division.
Maui Police Department spokesman Lt. Wayne Ibarra said police were in the process of notifying family members of the four passengers, who weren't from Hawaii, before releasing their names.
Firefighters from the Kaunakakai and Pukoo fire stations on Molokai aided in the recovery of the bodies of two women and three men, including one that was under the wreckage, according to Maui County officials.
http://www.mauinews.com/page/
Eight Killed in Mexico Helicopter Crash
11 November 2011.
A Mexican Presidential helicopter crashed near Santa Catarina Atoyzingo killing all eight on board. The Super Puma helicopter departed Campo Militar Marte, Mexico City on a flight to Ciudad de Cuernavaca.
The helicopter carried the Secretary of the Interior, José Francisco Blake Mora, accompanied by Secretary for Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Secretariat itself, Felipe Castro Zamora, Director General of Social Communication, José Alfredo García Medina, the Technical Secretariat Office of the Secretary, Diana Hayton Miriam Sanchez and Rene de Leon Major Sapien, Security Chief Secretary of the Interior. Additionally there were three crew members on board.
The helicopter flew into the side of a hill. The wreckage was found at 11:12. According to the information available at this moment the location of the accident presented layers of clouds at low altitude and reduced visibility.
http://aviation-safety.net/
M5 crash victims identified through their dental records
11 November 2011. UK.
Police revealed yesterday that they have had almost 200 calls from members of the public offering information about the crash on the M5 last Friday which killed seven people.
Avon and Somerset Police said the public response had been "huge" as the inquests opened into the deaths of those killed in the crash in Somerset and their bodies were released for burial
The court heard that several of the victims had to be identified by their dental records.
West Somerset Coroner Michael Rose, releasing the bodies to their families for burial, said each death was a "tragedy" and, despite the ongoing criminal investigation, there was no need to keep them for a second post-mortem examination.
http://www.thisiscornwall.co.
6 killed in Rangpur bus crash
12 November 2011. Bangladesh.
Six people were killed and 25 others injured when a recklessly-driven bus crashed into a wayside tree in Kaunia upazila Thursday midnight.
Mojibur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Kaunia Police Station, said Dhaka-bound FK Line Paribahan ran into the roadside tree while overtaking another bus in Mirbagh area on Rangpur-Kurigram highway.
Six passengers died on the spot. Four of the deceased were identified.
http://www.thedailystar.net/
As 9/11 Remains Are Identified, Grief Is Renewed
12 November 2011. USA.
On Nov. 19, 2001, Susan Ainbinder Hutchins received a call saying that her son, Kevin Colbert, who worked at an investment bank on the 89th floor of 2 World Trade Center, had been identified among the ground zero remains
“I’m thinking, they found my son,” she said, “but the funeral director had a real hard time making eye contact with me. He said, ‘Susan, I don’t know what they told you on the telephone, but we only have his thighbone from his right leg.’ ”
To spare his friends and relatives the shock, Ms. Ainbinder Hutchins executed a plan to make everyone believe he was buried whole. But the nightmare was not over. “The calls kept coming and coming and coming,” she said. For several years, at roughly two-month intervals, she was informed that another piece of her son had been identified.
“Nobody gets it,” she said. “They don’t understand why I’m stuck in such an awful place.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/
Death toll rises to 28 in SW China coal mine gas leak
12 November 2011.
Twenty eight miners have been confirmed dead after a gas leak occurred in a coal mine in southwest China's Yunnan province Thursday morning, rescue headquarters said Saturday afternoon.
As of 6:30pm Saturday, 28 bodies have been found, and 15 miners are still trapped underground at Sizhuang Coal Mine, located in the county of Shizong near the city of Qujing.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Blast at Revolutionary Guard base kills 17
13 November 2011. Iran
An explosion at a Revolutionary Guard Corps weapons depot near the Iranian capital killed 17 soldiers on Saturday Iranian state TV reported.
Brig. Gen. Ramezan Sharif told the Fars news agency that an earlier announcement putting the death toll at 27 had been readjusted following the discovery of a “misprint.”
The blast was accidental and occurred when ammunition was being transported.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
31 people killed in Zamfara road accident
13 November 2011. Nigeria.
At least 31 people were feared dead in Wanzamai village of Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara State as a result of a fatal road accident which occurred along Tsafe/Funtua road.
The accident occurred on Friday evening when a station wagon collided with a bus.
Children and women were trapped and could not get out, leading to many of them suffering burns of varying degrees.
At least 29 dead bodies, mostly children and women, were retrieved from the bus, while only two passengers lost their lives in the station wagon.
http://www.tribune.com.ng/sun/
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