Saturday 21 September 2013

Reminder CALL FOR PAPERS - BAHID conference


This is a reminder that we are still inviting submissions for oral and poster presentations to be presented at the upcoming BAHID conference on 30 November and 1 December in Manchester (UK). The theme of the conference is 'preparing for disasters'.

Final date for abstract submissions: 30 September 2013

Submissions of oral papers and poster presentations from all disciplines relating to human identification and disaster planning are invited. We particularly encourage presentations of student research dissertations. BAHID will award £500 in prize money for the best student presentation(s) and £100 for the best student poster. Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words to bahid73@yahoo.co.uk.

Your submission should include details of all contributing authors, their professional or institutional affiliations, and email contact details of the corresponding or presenting author. Please indicate whether this will be an oral presentation or a poster presentation. Student presenters should indicate their eligibility. After assessment of all the abstracts by the BAHID Conference/Scientific Committee you will be notified if your submission has been successful.

If you have any questions, please contact j.bikker@dundee.ac.uk (BAHID Membership Secretary) or info@bahid.org

Saturday 21 September 2013

http://www.bahid.org/

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Plea to continue Disappeared search


The struggle to find the bodies of seven people abducted and murdered by the IRA has been passed to a new generation, campaigners said.

Relatives of the Disappeared will gather for a ceremony on Saturday near where one of the victims is thought to have been secretly buried in the Irish Republic. Catholic Bishop of Meath Dr Michael Smith will lead prayers.

Newlywed Brendan Megraw, 23, vanished from West Belfast in 1978, and is believed to be interred near Kells, Co Meath.

Sandra Peake, chief executive of the Wave trauma group, said: "The journey of the families of the Disappeared will not end until they all can take their loved ones home.

"Many of the mothers of the Disappeared put their son's name on the family headstone, in effect passing on the responsibility for continuing the search to the next generation.

"We owe it to those mothers to do everything we can to end this torment."

Between 1972 and 2003, 17 people have been acknowledged as "disappeared" during the conflict, having been kidnapped, murdered and disposed of in unmarked graves by republicans. The remains of 10 bodies have been recovered.

As well as Mr Megraw, at least two other bodies are thought to be buried in Co Meath. Kevin McKee and Seamus Wright were taken from West Belfast in 1972 and searches have been carried out at Wilkinstown, a short distance from Oristown where Saturday's prayers will be said.

Saturday's event is organised by the Wave Trauma Centre, a charity which supports those bereaved or injured during the conflict.

Mr Megraw's brother Kieran will attend Saturday's ceremony along with members of the families of the Disappeared.

"All of the families have embraced the Good Friday Agreement and the newfound peace that has been created," he said.

"We have moved on with our lives as best we can but this nightmare doesn't go away. For us to fully move on we need to bring the bodies home and we will continue to fight until that happens."

Saturday 21 September 2013

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/plea-to-continue-disappeared-search-29591822.html

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Remembering the deadliest transit disaster in Toronto


This week's deadly collision between a Via Rail train and a double-decker Ottawa city bus has once again underscored the dangers of vehicle traffic crossing busy rail lines at grade. While investigators are still searching for the cause of the accident, the tragedy has awful parallels with an accident in Toronto 37 years ago.

In the weeks before Christmas 1975, a packed TTC bus became stranded and was struck by a fast-moving Lake Shore GO train in Scarborough, near Midland and St. Clair Avenue East.

Toronto's accident was, and still is, the worst mass transit disaster in the history of the city in terms of its death toll. The subsequent investigation and coroner's report would lead to widespread changes in the way rail lines interact with busy arterials.

December 12, 1975 was cold and overcast. The temperature hovered just above freezing and the threat of icy rain and snow lingered in the air. On St. Clair Avenue East, TTC bus driver Donald Sine was at the wheel of a No. 86 bus, making his usual round trip from Warden station to Metro Zoo via Kingston Road and Military Trail.

Aged 54, Sine was a 22-year veteran of the Toronto Transit Commission. He had operated buses for the last 14 years and earned merit pins for safe driving. A year earlier, on May 14, Sine had received his 10-year certificate of appreciation from the TTC in "recognition of his outstanding record of safe driving" over the last decade.

As usual for a Friday evening, bus 8044 - a brand new General Motors "fishbowl" model - was packed with rush hour commuters recently released from the subway. Christmas was a little over a week away, and the 65 regular passengers, familiar in each other's company, chatted as the vehicle rattled toward a level crossing at the GO tracks just beyond Kennedy Road.

The crossing, like others in Toronto, had been controversial for years. While subways and underpasses had been built to separate downtown traffic from busy train tracks, outside of the core the same lines regularly crossed major roads at grade.

Local residents and councillors, fearful of an accident at the busy St. Clair East crossroads, had been demanding the road be diverted beneath the rails for years, but federal funding had ben slow to materialize.

"We applied for the project last February 12," Metro Chairman Paul Godfrey told the Toronto Star at the time. "I have written to the transport minister, every member of Parliament, and spoken to (former transport minister) Mr. Marchand about the four or five grade separations needed in Metro."

That December, all that separated the roaring diesel GO and CN freight locomotives from the heavy rush hour vehicle traffic was a set of automatic wooden barriers.

At the last stop before the rail crossing, Leda Gulis, a 36-year-old newcomer to Toronto on her way home to help her 10-year-old daughter decorate the family Christmas tree, remembered the rear door of the bus became jammed closed, stopping people getting off.

Donald Sine called back from his seat to ask riders to open and close the door by hand, which they did, according to Gulis.

Moments after the bus was back in motion, the stuck rear doors suddenly popped back open, drawing giggles from passengers near the back of the bus. Sine tod two young boys to get off the automatic step, but no-one was there.

The bus slowed, its automatic brakes activated by the open doors, and witnesses remember the veteran driver fiddling with the electrical control panel. The bus was straddling the southbound GO train tracks when warning lights came on and the safety barriers eased downward.

"Don't panic," David Hales, a computer operator at Queens Park riding at the back of the bus remembered Sine calling out.

What happened over the next few seconds was a blur to the passengers on the bus. Some people, realizing their perilous position, began to file from out of the bus and gather on the tracks beside the stranded vehicle.

When the horn of the GO train sounded, the mood immediately turned to panic. "Everybody out," Sine yelled, but not everyone could hear in the crush towards the doors.

The driver jumped from his seat and out the front of the bus. "We saw the train coming and there was a little bit of panic, with a lot of people pushing and shoving," remembered passenger Dag Greeven.

GO train driver Patrick Gartland and second engineer Lorne Holder were traveling at 112 kilometres an hour at the first sign of trouble, having just passed a similar at-grade crossing at Midland Avenue. Donald Sine was running toward the train, arms waving, as his bus lay stricken, surrounded by a crowd of people.

"We'd better soak her," Holder called, using a technical term for shutting down the engine.

Gartland immediately threw the emergency brake, unleashing a deafening screech as the wheels dragged across the polished steel rails. The train lurched and juddered violently as its standing passengers fought to regain their balance.

Back at the bus, confusion reigned. Witnesses would later recall that some people thought the train was on a different track while others fled for the road. Several passengers stood on the tracks behind the bus, unable to see the looming train.

Sine stepped out of the train's path at the last possible second. He watched as the green 236-ton locomotive screamed past at 80 km/h and slammed in to his half-full bus, tearing it in half. Shreds of aluminium, dust, and bodies were scattered by the impact and part of the vehicle was dragged down the track.

John Irvine, the driver of the bus following Sine's, had been calling passengers to safety until the moment of impact. "A lady landed at my feet," he said. "Obviously she was dead. Another man landed a little further away."

"I've never seen anything like it in 15 years of nursing," off-duty nurse Barbara Hollness recalled of the accident, which happened just metres from her St. Clair Avenue East home. "I had to fight to compose myself."

Hollness, like dozens of witnesses, were drawn to the scene of the accident. She attended to a woman in her 50s with compound fractures to her legs who asked that they pray together while firefighters applied an oxygen mask and a pressure bandage to her head wound. Close by, Hollness' husband Ed helped with the bodies as the growing dusk turned to night.

There were eight in all, four of them beneath the crushed remains of the rear section of the bus. The men and women ranged in age from 19 to 66. They were Margaret Andrejek, 19; Joan Mich, 40; Wendy Gamey, 20; Renato Diano, 30; Leo McCale, 29; Frank Lederer, 42; Edelle Petersen, 48; and William Stride, 66.

Hundreds of bystanders looked on from the crossing gates, their collective misty breath visible in the spotlights set up by rescue workers. The glow of the red emergency flares wielded by police officers danced on their faces. No-one spoke.

Donald Sine was in shock. "I tried, I tried," he muttered as he surveyed the scene. He had been working overtime to raise extra money for his wife and three children to enjoy at Christmas.

The 16 injured were taken by ambulance to Scarborough General Hospital where they were treated for a range of injuries, some severe, some mercifully minor. "It was a sea of injuries ... like war," said Dr. Ed Moran, a general practitioner on duty that evening. His quiet emergency room was transformed in moments by the flood of ambulances.

"I stood there for a moment. My first major impression was one of indecision. Should I blow the whistle and call out the whole team? What if it turned out to be a few sprained ankles?" Moran made the call - five surgeons, the only ones on duty, were immediately summoned to the ER and worked late in to the night stitching wounds and resetting bones.

65-year-old Leslie Levin, riding the bus after staying late at work, died a short time after his arrival, becoming ninth and final victim of the crash.

The immediate legacy of the Christmas tragedy was increased urgency for grade separations on major roads. Five days later, Ottawa pledged the $5.2 million needed to build underpasses on St. Clair Avenue East and Midland Avenue, just down the tracks. Funds for similar bridges at Eglinton East, Kennedy Road, and Islington Avenue were also sought.

Sine was hailed as a hero for his attempts to restart the bus and flag down the approaching train, an honour he consistently rejected. "I'm no hero ... I did the best I could," he told the Star. "I don't feel heroic because nine people died and that is terrible, really awful."

The TTC made changes to the electrical systems in its 8000 series buses after a leaked preliminary report from coroner Dr. Donald Bunt suggested the brakes on the vehicle, which were programmed to automatically engage when the doors are open, may have been to blame for the bus becoming trapped.

The accident spooked TTC drivers, too. A report a month later revealed that bus operators were breaking official guidelines by refusing to stop at the crossing due to poor visibility and the unusual width of the tracks. Starting a bus from stopped and getting it across the five sets of rails took too long, they said.

When the coroner's verdict arrived in March 1976, it blamed a variety of failings at the TTC and CN, the operator of the GO trains. A switch that could have released the stuck brakes had been purposely moved out of the driver's reach to prevent "irresponsible" operators moving with the doors open. The TTC had neglected to mention the change to its staff.

The emergency brakes on GO trains were also scrutinized. It took the packed commuter 1.2 kilometres to reach a full stop, and the verdict recommended slower speeds and longer warning times for approaching trains at level crossings.

Dr. Bunt accepted that a wiring fault near the control switch for the automatic braking system was to blame for the bus stalling. The coroner took time to praise the actions of driver Donald Sine in his verdict.

Today, St. Clair Avenue East passes under the GO tracks via a concrete underpass completed in 1977.

Saturday 21 September 2013

http://www.blogto.com/city/2013/09/remembering_the_deadliest_transit_disaster_in_toronto/

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Mexico storm: Toll rises to 97, dozens missing


Rescuers pulled two bodies on Thursday from a mudslide that buried a Mexican village, but dozens remained missing after storms lashed the country and killed almost 100 people nationwide.

As soldiers and police removed debris in the southwestern village of La Pintada, hurricane Manuel pounded the northwest state of Sinaloa, bringing more rain to the flood-stricken nation before degenerating hours later.

Luis Felipe Puente, the national civil protection coordinator, said the death toll from days of floods and landslides had jumped to 97 from 81, with 65 of the victims registered in the southwestern state of Guerrero.

Guerrero was the hardest-hit state from the dual onslaught of Manuel and sister storm Ingrid on the east coast this week that drenched most of Mexico, damaging bridges, roads and tens of thousands of homes.

The storms flooded half of Acapulco, including the airport terminal, while landslides blocked the only roads linking the city to the capital. Thousands of angry, stranded tourists held a protest, demanding swifter airlifts.

West of the city, in the mountains of Guerrero, some 100 rescuers toiled in the mud to look for victims of an epic mudslide that swamped half the coffee-growing hamlet of La Pintada and left 68 people missing.

Wearing surgical masks, they removed pieces of broken homes and chopped up collapsed trees with machetes. The village church vanished; only its broken steeple was left, toppled on a mess of mud, with its cross broken.

Interior minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said soldiers had found two bodies so far. The municipality's mayor has said that 15 corpses were found by villagers in recent days.

"The rescue work has begun. It's very complicated, it won't be easy, it won't be just a few days," Osorio Chong said after visiting the village.

Mud cascaded down a hill and covered much of the village, burying homes, the school and church before ending its mad descent in a river.

"People were in the church asking God to stop the rain," said Roberto Catalan, a 56-year-old farmer. "The earth had been bubbling. When we heard a bang, we ran out."

Jose Minos Romero, 12, said he was playing soccer with 10 other children and was only saved "because my mother called me," but "my friends died."

The mudslide swamped the village on Monday as many people were having lunch during independence day celebrations. News of the tragedy only emerged two days later, after a survivor radioed a neighboring village.

The search for bodies was delayed several hours due to fears that water gushing from the mountain could trigger a new landslide in the village.

But troops finally arrived by helicopter or foot after a seven-hour hike on a winding mountain road covered by mud and rocks.

Police helicopters evacuated more than 330 people to Acapulco on Wednesday, and authorities said up to 30 survivors had decided to stay back until victims were found.

Local media said authorities lost contact with a helicopter after it dropped off a group of survivors, but said it may have simply landed due to bad weather and was unable to radio its base. A police spokesman refused to comment.

The storms that swept across the nation have damaged 35,000 homes and forced the evacuation of 50,000 people, officials said.

Human rights groups accused the government of neglecting mountain communities, but officials said some remote communities cannot be reached by land or air.

While rescuers looked for bodies in La Pintada, authorities hoped to re-open part of the highways around Acapulco on Friday, giving desperate and exhausted visitors a new way out after being trapped for almost a week.

Saturday 21 September 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Mexico-storm-Toll-rises-to-97-dozens-missing/articleshow/22803103.cms

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Ganesh Visarjan festival: 3 more bodies fished out from Yamuna, toll up to 20


With three more bodies fished out of the Yamuna on Friday and many people still reported missing since Ganesh Visarjan two days ago, it's turning out to be the biggest drowning tragedy in Delhi in recent years. The death toll from the festival has risen to 20 with the three bodies found at Timarpur Bridge in the Wazirabad area of north Delhi on Friday. Police say complaints of missing people are still coming in at the Sonia Vihar, Timarpur and Burari police stations.

One of the members of a procession from Madipur who lost a relative in the mishap said there was utter chaos and a rowdy crowd pushed a lot of them from the banks into the river. "There was an undercurrent as the place is near the Timarpur barrage. A lot of people were being pushed into the water by the crowd," said Sanjeev Singh, whose brother-in-law died after being pushed into the water by the crowd.

Locals said most of the deaths happened as people entered the waters with idols in the dark, unaware of the river's depth.

However, police officers said the drownings occurred at different places and many of the victims were in an inebriated condition. They had waded deep into the water and didn't pay heed when police personnel tried to stop them. Most of the bodies have been found from Qudsia Ghat near Kashmere Gate, Wazirabad, Burari and Sonia Vihar areas.

DCP north, Sindhu Pillai, said the district police had deployed additional personnel to control the crowd using lights, boats and loudspeakers. "There were people who were in a mood for revelry and did not heed the police's warnings, which led to the maximum number of deaths. Families who had come for the immersion could complete the process without any issues," she said.

Police said the bodies were being identified on the basis of the information and the missing complaints filed by families. The unidentified bodies are being kept in a morgue.

Police officers also pointed out that a request for adequate number of boats, volunteers and public announcement systems was sent to the civic authority days before the immersion but they were not provided the necessary support.

Saturday 21 September 2013

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Ganesh-Visarjan-3-more-bodies-fished-out-from-Yamuna-toll-up-to-20/articleshow/22823501.cms

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