Over 8000 people still missing in Bosnia

Over 8,400 people are still missing after the Bosnian war between 1992 and 1995, Marko Jurisic of the Institute for Missing People in Bosnia and Herzegovina told the media in Sarajevo on Thursday.

Speaking after December 10 International Day of Human Rights, he expressed dissatisfaction with the attitude of local governments toward the issue of missing persons.

“One of the key issues in the process of the search for missing people is the lack of relevant information about mass graves,” Jurisic said, adding that the institute exhumed 506 body remains and identified 480 people during 2013.

Currently, exhumation is ongoing at one of the biggest mass graves in the country, Tomasica in northern Bosnia where 430 body remains were found since September.

According to existing data, more than 100,000 people were killed during the war.

Thursday 12 December 2013

http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=124854

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Clapham rail disaster: Ex-firefighter remembers train crash

Twenty-five years ago 35 people were killed and 500 people injured when three trains collided in Clapham, south London. BBC producer Clifford Thompson, who at that time worked as a firefighter and was on duty that day, says he will never forget what he saw.

The teleprinter furiously spat out messages printed on to a roll of paper.

It was Monday, 12 December 1988 - a bright but fiercely cold day - just after 08:00.

The London Fire Brigade's Green Watch firefighters were coming to the end of their 48-hour shift.

I stood in the watch room at Stratford fire station in east London - I'd been a firefighter for three years and was one of the Red Watch crews preparing to relieve our colleagues.

We crowded around the teleprinter as messages were relayed from Spencer Park in Clapham.

"This is a major incident - initiate major incident procedure," followed by: "two commuter trains in collision, five carriages involved, approximately 150 casualties, unknown number of people trapped, efforts being made to release".

A train travelling from Poole, Dorset, had passed a "clear" signal just outside Clapham Junction Station and hit the back of a train from Basingstoke, ripping open carriages. Some de-railed carriages were pushed into the path of a third train travelling away from London.

Fifteen fire engines from closer stations headed straight to the crash site, along with a number of specialist rescue firefighters and police, ambulance and hospital surgical teams.

At that point - being 12 miles away and a 45-minute drive from Clapham - I thought there was little chance of our crew getting called there.

Then at 10:25 the officer in charge of the incident sent the radio message: "request 18 pump relief... as soon as possible... rendezvous at junction of Windmill Road and Spencer Park."

A few minutes later the teleprinter bell sounded at Stratford and our engine was despatched to the crash.

I was struck by the scale of what met us - there were dozens of emergency service vehicles and also TV crews.

It was a surreal sight, like a massive film set.

We were told to go down to the crash site and assist with the remaining victims.

In the eerie quiet, it was clear that of those remaining, none was alive.

I walked down the steep embankment - at the bottom was a ledge with a vertical drop about 15ft (4.5m) into the cutting - and saw the jumbled mess of iron and steel.

Ladders and ropes were used to help us get down there.

A man's body was pulled from the wreckage, followed by a woman who had suffered multiple injuries.

We removed another body, leaving only one in place: a man thrown from one of the first two carriages on the Poole train.

At 15:52 another radio message was sent: "All bodies now removed from remaining coaches - British Rail heavy cutting and lifting units in operation. Brigade crews now standing by."

I played a very small part in the rescue operation: one of about 250 firefighters who attended the incident.

I could not imagine what the scene was like for the very first crews to arrive confronted by hundreds of injured people. But we worked with quiet determination to make sure that the final bodies were recovered with as much dignity as possible.

It took more than a year for the 250-page report by Anthony Hidden QC to be published.

It found that faulty wiring had caused an incorrect signal to be displayed to the driver of the Poole train, who was driving into a blind bend and had no chance of stopping.

This crash was by far the largest incident I had attended at that point in my firefighting career.

Of course, I had attended other incidents where people had died. But none of them were on this scale - even 25 years ago, it remains difficult to take in.

Thursday 12 December 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25331840

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Bubonic plague kills 20 in Madagascar village

Twenty people have died following a deadly outbreak of the bubonic plague, medical experts on the island of Madagascar have confirmed.

A village near the north-western town of Mandritsara is where at least 20 reportedly died last week. The Pasteur Institute in Madagascar confirmed tests had identified their cause of death as the plague, according to the BBC.

Public Health officials had warned of the risk of an outbreak in October. In 2012, 256 cases of the disease were recorded and 60 people died, making Madagascar the most severely affected country in the world. The disease is transmitted to humans usually via rat fleas and prisoners typically face the highest risk because of their living conditions.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Pasteur Institute had said Madagascar's dirty, overcrowded prisons could be an ideal breeding ground for the disease. They have been working with local health groups on schemes to improve prison hygiene and reduce rats in a bid to fight the plague at Antanimora Prison in Antananarivo, where 3,000 inmates are held.

"The chronic overcrowding and the unhygienic conditions in prisons can bring on new cases of the disease," Christoph Vogt, head of the ICRC delegation in Madagascar had said in October. "That's dangerous not only for the inmates but also for the population in general."

He added: "Rat control is essential for preventing the plague, because rodents spread the bacillus to fleas that can then infect humans. So the relatives of a detainee can pick up the disease on a visit to the prison. And a released detainee returning to his community without having been treated can also spread the disease."

According to the ICRC, an average of 500 cases have been recorded on the island every year since 2009. Africa is now believed to account for more than nine out of ten bubonic plague cases worldwide.

Thursday 12 December 2013

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/bubonic-plague-kills-20-in-madagascar-village-8997280.html

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Market fire in China's Shenzhen kills 16

A blaze which engulfed a Chinese food market killed 16 people in the early hours of Wednesday, firefighters and state media said. The inferno raged through the Rongjian Agricultural Wholesale Market in Shenzhen bordering Hong Kong, the city's fire department said.

The state news agency Xinhua said 16 people including an infant girl were killed and five injured, and the market manager was in police custody.

It took 145 firefighters and 29 fire engines a hour and half to put out the blaze, the fire department said on its verified account on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

The cause of the fire was still under investigation and rescuers were still searching the site.

Zhang Xiaowei, spokesman for the city fire department, was quoted by Xinhua as saying all the victims were people associated with four stores in the market.

Security guard Wang Long, who discovered the fire, was quoted as saying many shopowners and their families live in the market and store their goods there to start business in the early morning.


Workplace safety standards can be poor in China. Fatal accidents happen regularly at mines and factories, with some blaming lax enforcement of rules.

In June 121 people died in an inferno at a poultry processing plant in northeast China's Jilin province, which started in a workshop that had only one unlocked door.

It was the country's worst fire for more than a decade.

In 2000 a blaze at a shopping centre in Luoyang, in the central province of Henan, killed 309 people.

Thursday 12 December 2013

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hVM0DOPMVQwl4DqPNFi_r5vHXRFQ?docId=d19c1468-bcb7-4281-9fdc-e985154db415

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Typhoon death toll continues to rise as 23 more bodies recovered

Twenty-three more bodies were recovered yesterday as the death toll from Typhoon Yolanda rose to 5,959.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said 27,022 people were injured while 1,779 remain missing.

NDRRMC executive director Eduardo del Rosario said while the number of fatalities was increasing daily, the number of affected families declined to 2,581,677 or 12,191,201 individuals as of yesterday.

The displaced families are now staying in 386 evacuation centers set up by the government and non-government organizations involved in humanitarian operations in the Visayas region.

The NDRRMC said the Department of Social Welfare and Development is ending its food distribution operations to evacuees this month.

Government help for evacuees next year would be in the form of food-for-work program, a scheme that would give jobs to displaced residents in devastated communities.

Thursday 12 December 2013

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/12/12/1267100/typhoon-death-toll-continues-rise-23-more-bodies-recovered

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Russian experts test human remains after 39-year hunt for Hull trawlermen

British police are to work with Russian experts in an attempt finally to bring peace to grieving families of the victims of one of Britain's worst-ever tragedies at sea.

No distress call was made when the 1,100 tonne ship went down during a fierce storm in the Barents Sea in February 1974 - in a decade when British trawlers were routinely used by the Navy to spy on Soviet naval movements.

The mystery of what happened to the Gaul has endured ever since, amid rumours it was spotted spying on a military complex at Murmansk and sunk by a Russian submarine.

It took more than 20 years before the wreck was finally found in 1997, after a private expedition by a TV crew.

Subsequent searches of the vessel, 70 miles off the north Norwegian coast, found the remains of just three of the 36 crew - Stan Collier, 40; James Wales, 29; and Maurice Spurgeon, 38.

But now other grieving families could finally get confirmation of what happened to their loved ones.

For the human remains of up to ten people have been found on the Rybachy peninsula, Murmansk.

A team of Russian and British experts is working together to try and match the remains to missing crew members, with DNA samples being taken from British families in a bid to help identify the remains.

In a statement, a Foreign Office spokesperson told The Independent: "The Russian authorities have been in touch formally with the FCO suggesting possible direct cooperation between the Russian authorities and Humberside Police in the new year with the aim of conducting relevant tests to identify the remains found in Murmansk."

Tonight a spokesman for the Russian Embassy, London, said: "Currently Russian forensic experts in Murmansk are running tests to determine DNA samples, those should be finished in December." They added: "We are also working on provision of remains samples to the British experts for tests in the UK."

According to the spokesman, the remains were discovered by a Russian World War Two veteran from Murmansk who was involved in previous searches many years ago and who continued to search "on his own initiative until he found those remains last year."

Assistant Chief Constable Alan Leaver from Humberside Police confirmed: "We have met all the families of the crew members lost on the Gaul and will continue to provide them with information as it becomes available."

Humberside Police "will look to work closely with the Russian authorities," who Mr Leaver praised for being "very supportive and helpful."

Experts in Russia are conducting forensic and genetic testing on the remains, and he added: "The force plan to discuss these matters in the New Year - probably towards the end of January - with the Russian authorities."

But Beryl Betts, whose 26-year-old brother Billy Jones was one of those aboard the trawler, has "mixed feelings" about the news.

"My personal opinion is that they should have told us when they were 100 per cent sure. This has spoilt Christmas," said the 74-year-old from Hull.

Other relatives are also "in a state of shock" according to Mrs Betts, who is giving a DNA sample to help in the identification process.

Freezing conditions in the region they were found mean the bodies were never buried, simply covered with rocks.

It remains unclear why it has taken almost 40 years for the remains to be found.

The location where they were discovered is consistent with the area where the crew could have washed ashore, according to Humberside Police.

Responding to the news on Wednesday Lord Prescott, former Deputy Prime Minister and Hull East MP, said the fate of the crew has been "a continuing mystery" and added: "People want an ending to this terrible tragedy."

Theories that the Russians sank the ship have been discounted by previous official investigations, and a public inquiry in 2004 into the disaster concluded the Gaul went down in heavy storms and was not deliberately sunk or pulled down by a submarine.

Lord Prescott commented: "Our trawlers were used in the Cold War. That was a practice that was unacceptable and dangerous." In the case of the Gaul: "I don't think for a second that it was sunk by the Russians but some people believe that."

Hull MPs were briefed by officials on Tuesday and Alan Johnson, Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, said: "They didn't want to just go to the families and get their hopes up before they'd gone through a bit of a process of elimination, dating the remains, making sure they weren't Russian sailors...they are from the right time frame and it is becoming a reasonable possibility that these could be crew members from the Gaul."

But he admitted not all relatives have welcomed the news. "The first family member I rang yesterday said 'I wish this hadn't happened' because she had the slight feeling that her brother might still be alive. For the family members while there was no news there was hope."

Thursday 12 December 2013

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/closure-at-last-in-cold-war-mystery-russian-experts-test-human-remains-after-39year-hunt-for-hull-trawlermen-8997595.html

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