DVI News 19 December 2011
18/Dec/2011
Death toll in Chinese school bus accident climbs to 1513 December 2011.
Three critically injured students died in a hospital in east China's Jiangsu Province early Tuesday, the local government said, bringing the death toll in Monday's school bus accident to 15.
The accident occurred at 5:50 p.m. Monday in Fengxian County. The bus was taking 29 students home when it veered into a roadside ditch and overturned after the driver tried to avoid colliding with a pedicab. Students became trapped at the bottom of the overturned bus and drowned as water gushed into the wreck, Zhang said.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Eight killed in accident
13 December 2011. Uganda.
Eight people, including five children, died on the spot and 23 others admitted to hospitals around Mbarara town when a speeding bus veered off the road near Sanga Town, about 35 kilometres from Mbarara town.
Witnesses said the incident happened at about 11am after the bus went off the road as it tried to avoid a head-on collision with a small car that was coming from the opposite direction. Residents from nearby villages and those travelling gathered in shock while police and volunteers broke their way into the bus using axes to remove stuck bodies
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/
Seven killed in explosion at Iranian steel mill
13 December 2011.
At least seven people were killed Sunday night in an explosion at a steel mill in the Iranian city of Yazd. Foreign nationals, possibly North Korean nuclear arms experts, are believed to be among the dead.
The explosion follows two blasts that occurred in Iran in recent weeks at sites linked to Tehran's nuclear program
The cause of Sunday night's explosion remains unknown
http://www.haaretz.com/print-
Army identifies victims of Washington's double helicopter crash
14 December 2011. USA.
A crash investigation team on Wednesday was still trying to determine the cause of the crash of two military helicopters that went down during nighttime operations at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state earlier this week, killing four aviators.
On Wednesday the killed aviators were identified
http://latimesblogs.latimes.
Fire at French old people's home kills six
14 December 2011.
A fire that broke out in an old people's home in the southern French city of Marseille on Wednesday killed six people, police said in a statement.
The six -- all women according to deputy mayor Caroline Pozmentier -- died from smoke inhalation after the fire raged through the third floor of the building after breaking out in one room.
http://www.france24.com/en/
Five Bodies Found at Mexican Student Group’s Headquarters
16 December 2011.
Authorities in the western Mexican state of Jalisco said the bodies of five people have been discovered at a student group’s headquarters in Guadalajara, three of whom have been identified as students missing since last week.
DNA tests identified those victims as Juan Pablo Valentin, 17, and 16-year-olds Francisco Carrillo and Gabriel Moran – who went missing last Friday and were found Wednesday night – and their families have already claimed the bodies, Jalisco Attorney General Tomas Coronado Olmos said.
Two more bodies were found late Thursday in a second grave.
http://laht.com/article.asp?
Hundreds of victims scrambled for 19 life jackets: Rescue team
18 December 2011. Indonesia.
The ship carrying hundreds of migrant workers that sank in waters off Prigi, East Java, on Saturday, lacked safety equipment, resulting in a mad scramble for just 19 available life vests on board, the head of the search and rescue team dispatched the accident said on Sunday.
The Surabaya Search and Rescue (SAR) team said the doomed ship had 25 life jackets on board, but six of them taken by the ship's crew, leaving the hundreds of panicking passengers to fight amongst themselves for the remaining 19 life jackets.
The accident, which was initially thought to have been caused by rough seas, might have also been caused by the fact that the ship had too many passengers aboard.
A spokesman of the Trenggalek administration, East Java, confirmed that the ship’s maximum capacity was 100 passengers, but that the sunk ship had around 250 people on board.
East Java Police deputy chief General Brigadier Eddi Sumantri said, “They [the bodies of the victims] were found by fishermen after six hours floating in the sea.”
http://www.thejakartapost.com/
Flashflood death toll up to 497, Red Cross Chairman Gordon visits Mindanao
18 December 2011. Philippines.
Philippine Red Cross Chairman Richard Gordon and his team leave for Mindanao Monday (Dec 19), to personally assess the aftermath of the flash flood that claimed 497 lives in eight affected areas as of Sunday morning.
Gordon will visit two worst hit areas, Cagayan De Oro City with 215 dead and Iligan with 195. Other areas with casualties were Bukidnon, 47; Compostela Valley 5; Zamboanga Del Norte, 3; Lanao del Norte, 9; Surigao Del Sur; 1 and Dumaguete, Negros Oriental, 22.
The Red Cross also reported earlier 202 injured and 162 others missing.
http://www.redcross.org.ph/
Mass burial of unclaimed bodies suggested in Cagayan De Oro
18 December 2011. Philippines.
Owners of parlors here have expressed concern over the lack of water and electricity as the bodies brought to them for embalming are now beginning to bloat and show signs of decomposition.
Dr. Joselito Retuya, city epidemiologist and assistant city health officer, said the city government should start considering a “mass burial to avoid the risk of contamination.”
Councilor Dante Pajo, chair of the committee on health, supported the suggestion.
“We will shoulder the expenses of the burial of the unclaimed bodies. I’m advising the owners of the funeral parlors to coordinate with the City Health Office for the permit so these bodies could be buried and they can also go to our City Social Welfare and Development for financial needs,” said Pajo.
The Bollozos Funeral Homes in Barangay Bulua, where most of the bodies were brought, has run out of space to lay the dead. Even the hallways have not been spared. The putrid stench of the rotting corpses combined with the pungent smell of formaldehyde could be smelled 200 meters from the funeral parlor.
Dexter Lacson, manager of Bollozos Funeral Homes, said exacerbating the crisis they now face is that they are severely undermanned for the sheer number of cadavers delivered to them.
“We only have five embalmers and they have been working round-the-clock since the cadavers started arriving here on Saturday morning,” he said.
http://www.mindanews.com/top-
Mine now safe so 'bring our boys home'
18 December 2011. New Zealand.
The atmosphere in the Pike River coal mine is now safe for a body recovery mission and an operation should be launched as soon as possible, advocates for the dead men's families say.
As the families prepare for their second Christmas without their loved ones, evidence is mounting that conditions in the mine near Greymouth are suitable for entry.
Mining industry sources – including some who have been involved with Pike River since the deadly November 29, 2010, blast – have recently told families' spokesman Bernie Monk and Green Party MP Kevin Hague the mine is now considered "inert" and safe for a recovery mission. Prime Minister John Key also said he had been told the mine was "inert", but still a "hostile environment".
The families were told by mine receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers on Wednesday that it was aiming to launch a body recovery mission by the end of March.
But West Coast-based Hague said the families had waited long enough and he challenged Key to show leadership and fast-track a mission into the mine to give them some positive news for Christmas.
"I would like him to be doing everything possible to get into the mine and get the bodies out. He will be getting the same advice that Bernie and I are getting, that it's safe to get into the mine now. Any delay that is not a necessary one is unforgivable. There's been a lot of that and what we need now is action."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-
Philippine storm toll exceeds 650; 800 missing
18 December 2011. Philippines.
Tropical Storm Washi blew away Sunday after devastating a wide swath of the mountainous region on Mindanao island, which is unaccustomed to major storms.
Most of the victims were asleep Friday night when flash floods cascaded down mountain slopes with logs and uprooted trees, swelling rivers and killing at least 652 people. The late-season tropical storm turned the worst-hit coastal cities of Cagayan de Oro and nearby Iligan into muddy wastelands filled with overturned cars and broken trees.
Most of the dead were children and women, Philippine Red Cross Secretary General Gwendolyn Pang said. At least 808 others were still missing
http://www.google.com/
Gas explosion kills 9 in C China coal mine
18 December 2011.
Nine people were killed after a gas explosion occurred at a coal mine in Binzhou City of central China's Hunan Province Sunday morning, said rescuers
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/
4 Dead, 49 Missing After Far East Oil Rig Sinks
19 December 2011. Russia
At least four people died when the floating Kolskaya oil rig overturned and sank with 67 people on board in the stormy Sea of Okhotsk as it was being towed to shore, 200 kilometers off Sakhalin Island.
Fourteen people survived with minor injuries and 49 were reported missing late Sunday.
The rig's captain sent an SOS signal early Sunday to evacuate people during a storm. But soon after, waves damaged the rig's pipes and knocked out cafeteria windows, inundating the rig with freezing water. It sank in 20 minutes at a depth of more than 1,000 meters.
Several rescue vessels and two helicopters were dispatched to the site of the accident, but the bad weather, with waves up to 6 meters, high winds and snow flurries complicated the rescue operation. Thirty-two workers on the rig were from Murmansk, while the rest were foreigners from unspecified countries, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
Four bodies clad in thermal suits were spotted floating in the sea. Rescuers could not retrieve them because of the ongoing storm.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/
AFP to assist Indonesia ship investigation
19 December 2011.
Australian Federal Police will assist the Indonesian investigation into the asylum seeker boat that capsized off the Java coast, leaving about 200 people missing feared dead.
And an Australian navy patrol boat and a surveillance aircraft will take part in the search-and-rescue operation when it resumes later today.
AFP officers have been deployed from Jakarta at the request of the Indonesian National Police.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/
180 still missing after asylum boat sinking
19 December 2011.
Australian search teams are heading to the area where an overcrowded boat full of asylum seekers sank on Saturday, killing as many as 180 people.
The vessel, carrying as many as 215 people, sank in rough seas off the coast of Prigi in East Java.
So far only 34 survivors have been found, and rough seas mean rescuers are pessimistic about finding further survivors.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/