Monday 16 January 2012

Italian Cruise Ship Wreck: Missing Grows to 29

The number of people missing in the Italian cruise ship wreck has been increased to 29, the Italian coast guard said today.

A top coast guard official, Marco Brusco, said on state TV that 25 passengers and four crew members have not been found, according to the Associated Press.

The increased number of missing threatens to eventually boost the fatality count from the capsized ship. At the moment, at least six people are confirmed dead.

The discouraging announcement came after the coast guard had said all but 16 people -- including a couple from Minnesota -- had been accounted for. The official number rose after officials in other countries had reported higher numbers of missing citizens.

The search for survivors was still under way today as night fell, even though some officials said that the possibility of finding passengers and crew still alive three days after the vessel ran aground near the small island of Giglio grew slim.

"The hopes of finding any more survivors are fading," Sergio Ortelli, the mayor of Giglio, told The Sun today.

Francesco Schettino, the ship's captain, is being detained and questioned on allegations of manslaughter and abandoning the ship. He is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday.

Rescue efforts had been halted for about three hours earlier in the day because the huge vessel sits on a 120-foot ledge and had shifted slightly as the water got rough. Officials feared the ship could be pushed off the ledge into water that is 224 feet deep.

Officials, however, told ABC News today that it had moved only about 1.5 centimeters and resumed their search for bodies and possible survivors.

The Costa Concordia was carrying 4,234 passengers and crew when it hit rocks Friday evening near Giglio, off the coast of Tuscany. Investigators say the ship was "incredibly close," about 450 feet from the shore.


Italian Cruise Ship: CEO Cites Human Error Watch Video

Infrared Video Shows Cruise Ship Rescues Watch Video

Disaster at Sea: Inside the Ship Watch Video

At a news conference today, Costa Cruises chief executive officer Pier Luigi Foschi said the ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, had made an unapproved, unauthorized maneuver to change the ship's programmed course.

It's unclear why the ship was so close to shore. Early reports said that Schettino often brought the ship near island's port so passengers could take photographs. Italian media today, however, reported that he drew near the shore so he could wave to a friend who was on land.

"The company will be close to the captain and will provide him with all the necessary assistance, but we need to acknowledge the facts and we cannot deny human error," Foschi told a news conference in Genoa. "He wanted to show the ship, to [go] nearby this island of Giglio, so he decided to change the course of the ship to go closer to the island."

Unidentified Body Found Aboard

A sixth body was found in the wreckage early this morning when rescue workers searched the part of the ship that is above water.

The body had yet to be identified, although it was confirmed by Italian news outlet Ansa that the man was a passenger on the ship. The man was found wearing a life vest on the second deck in a part of the ship that was not flooded by water.

The bodies of two passengers found wearing life jackets aboard the ship were identified Sunday, officials said. Both passengers were elderly men -- one Italian, the other Spanish. The bodies were found earlier Sunday near a gathering point in the submerged part of the luxury liner.

"While the investigation is ongoing, preliminary indications are that there may have been significant human error on the part of the ship's master, Captain Francesco Schettino, which resulted in these grave consequences," Costa Cruises said in a statement. "The route of the vessel appears to have been too close to the shore, and in handling the emergency the captain appears not to have followed standard Costa procedures."

Experts are still analyzing the ship's black box, which has already revealed a one-hour lag between the time of the impact on the rocks at 9:45 p.m. local time Friday and the ship's alarm call to the coast guard at about 10:43 p.m. Investigators suspect Schettino tried to maneuver the ship before alerting the coast guard, Ansa reported.

Schettino is in custody, facing possible charges of manslaughter and abandoning his ship. He reportedly left the stricken vessel at approximately 12:30 a.m., while many passengers didn't get safely off the ship until 6 a.m., Ansa reported.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome estimates 120 Americans were on board the ship and 118 have been accounted for.

By KEVIN DOLAK, LAMA HASAN (@LamaHasan) , PHOEBE NATANSON and CLARK BENTSON
Jan. 16, 2012

http://abcnews.go.com/International/italian-cruise-ship-wreck-number-missing-now-29/story?id=15369876#.TxSlNVEaNBg

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15 bodies found off W. Mindanao coast

Six of the bodies in their advance stages of decomposition were recovered in the shores off Misamis Occidental while nine others were found off Zamboanga del Norte shores.
The findings brought to a total of 1,388 number of accounted dead bodies where 737 are traced to Cagayan de Oro City, 693 in Iligan City and the remaining 45 bodies from Bukidnon, the Office of Civil Defense in Region 10 said.

It said that only 837 dead bodies were identified as of Thursday last week.
Typhoon Sendong struck midnight December 17 last year, eight days before Christmas, with a killer flash flood that overflowed in the rivers of Cagayan de Oro and Mandulog in Iligan City, clearing middle-class subdivisions, shanties and gobbling thousands of residents, most of them living along riverbanks.

“It was like a bomb exploding in the dead of the night where everyone who were sleeping were roused from their sleep only to be trapped and drowned in rampaging waters that provide survivors a deadly glimpse of the ripper,” an survivor narrated.
The OCD estimated some 6000 injured. It said that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is now conducting forensics on unidentified bodies hoping to provide clues that would established their identities.

The NBI heads the Disaster Victims Identification (VDI), comprising clustered government agencies mandated to establish identities of victims, with the employment of the latest forensic technology.

In Cagayan de Oro City, the NBI has taken 243 specimens for DNA testing, 214 gathered specimens for ante mortem data and buried 200 unidentified bodies while 121 specimens for DNA testing taken in Iligan City, processed 118 specimens for ante mortem data and buried 128 unidentified bodies. CD With wire reports.

Posted on 16 January 2012 by mdb-admin

http://www.mindanaodailybalita.com/content/?p=1999

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Tsunami victims make own relocation plans amid slow gov't progress

ONAGAWA, Miyagi -- Residents of a fishing community in this tsunami-stricken town have set about finding relocation sites by themselves -- countering the local government's slow action.

With the help of professional consulting firms, residents of the town's Takeura district are advancing group relocation plans to an area further away from the threat of tsunamis.

At first, Onagawa town officials planned to construct houses at elevated places remote from the coast and to merge all fishing villages. However, residents opposed these plans, fearing that community ties would fray in the process. As a result, it was decided that communities would be relocated to an elevated inland area without being split up.

Because they were being dispersed across approximately 30 different temporary housing complexes after the March 11 disasters, residents of the Takeura district created an address list to keep themselves together, and kept in contact.

In November last year, nine of them visited areas including the site of the former village of Yamakoshi in Niigata Prefecture, which was hit by the Chuetsu Earthquake in 2004. There they inspected rebuilt homes, and studied the community building process. They also made inquiries about efforts to maintain communities, and incorporated what they learned into their plans.

Takeura district residents eventually selected four potential relocation areas and consulted specialists to survey the locations for all necessary factors for home construction. The residents also obtained permission from each of the locations' land owners to use the areas as potential relocation sites.

In early December last year, the Onagawa Municipal Government suggested a relocation area based on the residents' proposals, and began official negotiations on the construction of roads and other infrastructure between residents, consulting firms and municipal officials, using charts and diagrams made by experts.

The central government's response towards residents' relocation in quake and tsunami-affected areas has been slow. Despite establishing the Act on Special Financial Support for Promoting Group Relocation for Disaster Mitigation and establishing a supplementary budget for fiscal 2011 to finance measures to encourage collective relocation from areas that are now deemed dangerous to live in, local municipalities are still at the stage of debating collective relocation plans.

Experts say the relocation plans initiated by residents in the Takeura district, however, may serve as a model for other hard-hit areas. According to the Tohoku division of Nippon Engineering Consultants Co., a consulting firm in charge of some group relocation areas in Onagawa, the Takeura district has moved forward with relocation the fastest of all disaster-hit areas situated on a peninsula.

Onagawa initially had six town areas earmarked for group relocation following the March 11 disasters, but recently the figure has increased to more than 10. However, there are only nine local officials working on the relocation and their workload has doubled.

"In the case of group relocation, we need to have mutual trust with residents. However, we don't have enough people working on this. Normally, around 50 to 60 are needed for a project like this," says one of the officials in charge.

(Mainichi Japan) January 16, 2012

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120116p2a00m0na016000c.html

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All 11 balloon victims formally identified

All 11 people killed in the January 7 hot air ballooning crash in Carterton have now been formally identified.

Coroner Peter Ryan this morning officially confirmed that the remaining five people killed were Howard Cox, 71, and his wife Diana, 63, both of Wellington, Desmond Dean, 70, and his wife Ann, 65, both of Masterton, and Denise Dellabarca, 58, of Paraparaumu.

The other six killed were Chrisjan (Johannes) Jordaan, Alexis Still, Valerie Bennett, Belinda Harter, Stephen Hopkirk and pilot Lance Hopping.

Coroner Ryan commended the work of the disaster victim identification team for presenting sufficient evidence for the bodies to be formally identified.

"The horrific nature of this tragedy meant experts faced a very difficult challenge, but their skill and dedication means we have been able to return loved ones to their families in a relatively short timeframe.

A mixture of visual identification, dental records, fingerprint, DNA and other information was used during the process, and the coroner said the formal identification would allow the families to progress the legal formalities associated with a death.

The coronial inquiry has been adjourned until the police and Transport Accident Investigation Commission investigations have been completed.

"At that time we will see what, if any, questions remain unanswered and then determine the best way forward.

"All the families can be assured that the coronial system will continue to support them and that they have my deepest sympathies,'' Coroner Ryan said.

- APNZ

9:33 AM Tuesday Jan 17, 2012
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10779256

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The Costa Concordia disaster highlights the dangers of super-sized cruise ships

On 1 January, in a new year message to Nautilus members – 23,000 maritime professionals, including ship masters, officers and other seafaring personnel – we remarked that nobody will need reminding that 2012 is the centenary of the loss of the Titanic. While a massive nostalgia industry is already in full flow, we needed to remind the wider world that the Titanic offers lessons for today and that contemporary resonances should not be lost.

Though we had always cautioned that it was a case not of if, but when a major accident involving a huge passenger ship would take place, we had not expected that it would come within the first two weeks of the year.

Perhaps the most commonly voiced reaction to the Costa Concordia accident is how can such a thing happen in the 21st century? For many of us working in the shipping industry, it is more of a surprise that it hasn't happened earlier. And nobody can say that the warning signs weren't there.

In 2000, in an address to a conference on the safety of large passenger ships, the then secretary-general of the International Maritime Organisation (the United Nations agency that sets safety standards for shipping) cited 12 passenger ship accidents in the previous six years and noted "… in retrospect we can see that it was to some extent a matter of luck – good weather, calm seas, and other ships in the vicinity, for example – that very few lives were lost".

Since then, however, the size of these ships has continued to rise inexorably. Cruise shipping has been a boom industry and – in response to market growth and to maximise the benefits of the economy of scale – the largest vessels have in recent years doubled in size from 80,000gt to over 160,000gt. The new generation of mega-ships can carry more than 6,000 passengers and 1,800 crew – the equivalent of a small town – and this alone has created equally massive challenges.

How can multinational crew members – many of them from developing nations and not sharing the language of the passengers or even fellow seafarers onboard – be expected to maintain command and control in such circumstances? Marine insurers and ship salvage experts have also raised concerns about the inherent difficulties in dealing with a disaster involving massive ships.

Seafarers have spoken of their worries in handling such ships. Some large passenger vessels have been built with a relatively shallow draft so that they can get in close to land and avoid the use of tenders. The number of decks has been increased, with additional leisure facilities, to increase revenue-earning capacity. Additional swimming pools, coupled with a number of slack tanks when in operational service, further reduce vessel stability.

There has also been a growing trend to operate ships in increasingly exotic locations – polar waters or remote tropical areas, for example. Not only do such waters often present testing sea conditions and navigational challenges, they are often far away from major shipping lanes or search and rescue facilities, posing an extra challenge in the event of an emergency.

In recent years, there has been no shortage of warning signals. These have included: the collision of the Norwegian Dream and the containership Ever Decent; the grounding of Norwegian Crown; the fire onboard Star Princess; the explosion and loss of power onboard the Queen Mary 2 off Spain in 2010, and a number of incidents involving large angles of heel when turning, including the Crown Princess and Grand Princess incidents.

Research shows that between 60% to 80% of accidents at sea involve "human factors". While the major cruiseship companies have a clear commitment to the employment and training of quality officers, the huge new ships raise questions about the quantity of operational crew not only to meet routine requirements but also to be able to meet the demands associated with intensive operations and emergency situations. And while the core crew in both deck and engine, including the officers, are trained to a high level, the bulk of the passenger and catering department receive minimal training, and their safety training is a fraction of that received by aircraft cabin crew.

Lifeboats have increased in size and mass evacuation systems have been developed to meet the increasing number of passengers carried. But while regulatory requirements have been met, the adequacy of such systems has increasingly been questioned. While occasional reference has been made to innovative systems – such as escape modules – the lifeboat and life raft have remained unchanged as the main means of evacuation and survival and the basic technology of many is little different from Titanic times.

The Titanic resulted in a huge overhaul of shipping safety standards and laid the foundations for the principles that govern maritime safety today. It should not have to take a modern-day Titanic to get the protection that passengers and crew deserve, and Nautilus believes the Costa Concordia incident should serve as a wake-up call for the industry and for the regulatory authorities.

Andrew Linington
The Guardian, Sunday 15 January 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/15/costa-concordia-disaster-transport-titanic

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Bodies of missing French family that disappeared last year found in Cambodia

Police in Cambodia believe they have found the bodies of a Frenchman and his four children who all went missing last year.

A number of bones and skulls recovered from a car found dumped in a pond behind Laurent Vallier's home 45 miles away from the capital Phnom Penh are believed to be those of the Frenchman and his offspring.

The 42-year-old, and his two sons and two daughters, disappeared from their home in Kompong Speu province in September and the French Embassy became involved in November.

Mr Vallier’s father-in-law, 69-year-old Tith Chhuon, was at the scene yesterday and is believed to have identified his grandchildren as Johan, 11, Ramsey, 8, Sovan, 5, and Mickeal, 2.

He confirmed that the family had been missing since at least September 8, when he went to visit them, only to find that they were nowhere to be found.

'I wasn't with him when he died, I have to live with that forever': Ambulance staff refused to let wife drive to hospital with dying husband - and left her by side of road in a blizzard

He said: 'I filed a complaint with the French embassy and went to get information from the embassy six times. I just received the news on Saturday.'

'My son-in-law did not kill his kids and commit suicide. Someone killed them.'

The embassy said in a statement it had been informed of the discovery of the remains but that, 'because of the state of the corpses, it is impossible to confirm that these are the bodies of Monsieur Vallier and his children'.

Police said one skull had been found inside an open suitcase, having apparently floated in there after the car was submerged.

In a statement, the French embassy said it had been informed of the discovery of the remains but that, 'because of the state of the corpses, it is impossible to confirm that these are the bodies of Monsieur Vallier and his children'.

Police said one skull had been found inside an open suitcase, having apparently floated in there after the car was submerged.

Relatives of Vallier's Cambodian wife, who died during childbirth, held a religious ceremony for the dead on Sunday.

Neighbours were shocked to learn of the grim discovery.

'We just saw him taking his children to school every day and then they just disappeared. We thought they'd gone on holiday,' said Chuob Srey.

Police would not comment further because of the preliminary stage of the inquiry.

'We don't know whether this was a robbery or a murder. Just let our expert team work on it,' said district Police Chief Touch Heang.

Mr Vallier married his wife in 2000 in Kandal province’s Kien Svay district before eventually settling in Kampong Speu in 2007.

However she died in October, 2010, during the delivery of their youngest boy, Mickeal leaving Laurent as the sole carer for the four.

According to local media, Mr Vallier worked as a tour guide, until his mysterious disappearance.

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 3:53 PM on 16th January 2012

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2087342/Laurent-Vallier-bodies-believed-Cambodia-car.html#ixzz1jdq76XfF

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Hartley Colliery disaster remembered 150 years on

One hundred and fifty years after one of the worst mining accidents in England, a monument in Northumberland bears testament to the victims.

Inscribed on the obelisk in Earsdon churchyard are the names of the 204 men and boys who died in the Hartley Colliery disaster on 16 January 1862.

The youngest was 10, the eldest 71, and the same surnames are repeated time and time again. One family, the Liddles, lost nine members.

Such was the impact of the disaster that it resulted in a change of law, spelling the end of one-shaft mines, and the beginning of more support for miners' families.

The disaster in 1862 began when a beam supporting the steam engine which was used to pump sea water from the Hester pit broke, crashing down and blocking the single mineshaft.

Five men, who were in the lift coming up at the end of a shift, were killed instantly. Three others survived.

In common with many 19th Century coalmines the Hester pit had only one shaft. With this blocked, 199 men - almost double the normal numbers, as the accident happened during a changeover - were left trapped underground.
Campaign followed

A massive rescue operation began and workers from neighbouring mines came to help, but it proved more difficult than anticipated to reach the trapped men.

Progress was further delayed by the discovery of poisonous fumes, and it was six days before a passage could be cleared, by which time they were all dead.

Hardly anyone in the close-knit community was unaffected, with some families losing two generations of their menfolk.

Reports of the tragedy had appeared in the newspapers, attracting national attention.
Queen Victoria's message of condolence Queen Victoria sent a message of condolence

Queen Victoria, herself in mourning after Prince Albert's recent death, sent a message of condolence.

She offered her "tenderest sympathy" to the widows and mothers of the dead, with her "own misery" making her feel the more for them.

Public attention also led to a successful campaign to make two shafts compulsory at mines, and despite opposition from some mine owners, an Act of Parliament was passed in August 1862.

Most of the dead were buried in the nearest cemetery, four miles away in Earsdon, with the Duke of Northumberland releasing additional land as the existing church grounds were too small.
'Positive legacy'

The Reverend Andrew France, current vicar of St Alban's said: "At the time the devastation was felt all around this area, but I don't think there's still a scar here. It was such a long time ago.

"I will say something about the people round here, though, they all know about the Hartley pit disaster.

"They also realise that it had a positive impact. Although it was absolutely tragic that all those people died, out of that tragedy came mining legislation.

"It meant that never again would a mine be allowed to have a single shaft, there must be two ways in and two ways out.

"That really is its legacy, it meant that those people did not die in vain."

The modern-day community will be marking the disaster with a service at New Hartley Memorial Hall on Sunday at 16:00 GMT, and an event involving local schoolchildren in the village's memorial garden, on Monday.

15 January 2012 Last updated at 05:15

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-16494120

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Lebanon building collapse kills 18 people

The five-storey building collapsed in the Ashrafiyeh district of the Lebanese capital on Sunday evening. The victims included Lebanese and Sudanese nationals.

"We are hoping to find people alive. There are still some missing," Ali Hassan Khalil, the health minister told LBC television. Twelve people were being treated in hospital, he added.

The national ANI news agency reported on Monday, citing the Lebanese Red Cross.

The collapsed residential building in the Ashrafieh neighborhood in Beirut The collapsed residential building in the Ashrafieh neighborhood in Beirut

"Up until now, 11 bodies and 11 injured Lebanese nationals and foreigners have been recovered from the rubble," the report said, adding that rescue operations mounted during the night were continuing Monday morning.
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Rescue workers stretcher an injured person from the collapsed building Rescue workers stretcher an injured person from the collapsed building

The apartment block, in Beirut's eastern Ashrafiyeh district, came crashing down without warning on Sunday evening. It was known to house Lebanese and Sudanese families.

Neighbours said dozens of people had lived in the building.

Among the dead was a 15-year-old girl while her grandmother, a Lebanese man of 73, at least two Sudanese, an Egyptian and a Filipina were among the injured.

"It was like an earthquake" when the block collapsed, one witness told the local MTV channel.

ANI said the building had been in a state of disrepair made worse by recent torrential downpours.

Our Foreign Staff

9:34AM GMT 16 Jan 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/lebanon/9017208/Lebanon-building-collapse-kills-18-people.html

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Haiti: Reflections On Overcoming 2 Years Of Disaster

On Thursday, Haiti marked the second anniversary of the devastating 2010 earthquake. NPR's Jason Beaubien was back in the Caribbean nation for the quake memorials and he sent us this reporter's notebook about covering Haiti over the last few years.

Haiti is a land haunted by ghosts. My translator, Jean Pierre, won't shut up about the ghosts. He points toward some men plodding up the dusty street hauling huge bags of charcoal on their heads.

"Zombies," he declares. "Dead dudes are everywhere."

Haiti makes you believe in spirits, in resurrection. Fallen presidents rise up, they return in waves. Baby Doc Duvalier; Jean Bertrand Aristide; Ousted into exile but now home.

When I first came to Haiti in 2008, the city of Gonaives was under water. Over the course of a month, Gonaives was hit by two hurricanes, two tropical storms and it flooded twice.

When I came back in 2010, Port-au-Prince was under piles of rubble. Entire hillside slums had slammed down onto their neighbors below. Grey powdery dust covered everything; fires burned across the city.

Two years later, I still can't pull into the driveway of the Hotel Villa Creole without seeing the ghosts lying there. Right after the quake, the hotel driveway was covered with dying and injured Haitians. Children lay on sheets and blankets on the ground. A visiting gynecologist was sewing up a girl's head wound by flashlight.

As a reporter, some quotes get burned into your mind. "There isn't a family in Haiti that isn't crying right now," a woman told me in English.

Maybe those words stuck with me because I'd been crying myself. That morning my translator and I had been standing on a field of earthquake debris talking to an old woman. Tears streaked all our faces as the woman recounted how the walls of her house had started to wobble, and how her grandchildren didn't get out.

And then there were the bodies — piles of bodies — stacked like cord wood beside the road, dumped at the morgue, burned in the streets, shoveled with front-end loaders into trucks and dropped into mass graves at an old gravel pit just outside the city.
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Some of the men clearing debris could have been zombies, ghosts who'd wormed their way up to the surface. They were everywhere, stoically pounding away with sledge hammers at what looked like insurmountable piles of rubble.

Just days after the quake, people gathered in front of destroyed churches to sing, to pray, to praise a God that appeared to have abandoned them.

Over the coming weeks and months, spaces cleared. Tarps and tents went up. Shacks were built.

But like the double flooding of Gonaives, Haiti can't seem to get just one catastrophe at a time.

A cholera outbreak spread across the entire island, sickening a half a million people and killing thousands. More dead; more ghosts.

There's a lot of bad news in Haiti. Earthquake victims — 500,000 of them — are still living in squalid camps. There are entire neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince with no toilets, no electricity and no clean water. Cholera is now endemic.

But I left this time feeling like the country is at least moving forward. New universities, hospitals and hotels are being built. There's a government in place.

Haiti's ghosts seem to hang over the country whispering about its long tragic history. But even so, the streets of Port-au-Prince fill every day with chaotic traffic jams and freewheeling commerce.

It's reassuring that despite everything, people have somewhere to rush to. They have things they need to do, lives to live.

by Jason Beaubien
January 15, 2012

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/15/145267505/haiti-reflections-on-overcoming-a-year-of-disaster

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Filipino mom still hopeful of finding 3 kids lost in flood after a month

Lucina Waluhan 's only wish when she celebrated her 32nd birthday on Thursday was to see her three children again.

Nearly a month since up to 30 feet of rampaging water inundated the city on Dec. 17, Lucina said she had not lost hope of seeing them one day.

Mary, 6; Ian, 4; and Joshua, 2 years old, were among hundreds of people still missing from the devastating flood that had killed some 700 people.

When the flood struck, Lucina said her husband, Felix, had wrapped Mary Joy with a jacket and tied her on his back.

She said she took their two other children with her as they drifted down the river. "I lost them (Ian and Joshua) under the bridge," she recounted.

Lucina was later rescued in Camiguin Island while Felix was swept and rescued in Iligan City.

As tears rolled down her cheek, Lucina said it was important for her to see her children again, even if they died in the flood.

"I wanted to see them even if they are gone, that way at least, I know where they are," she said.

Felix refused to talk about his children anymore.

But Lucina said her husband did not tire looking for them every day.

She said Felix-armed with photos of their three children-would visit nearby areas, including mortuaries, in search of the children.

Lucina said they also provided the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) with their blood samples for DNA extraction.

The NBI 's disaster victim identification process would help identify those who perished in a calamity.

The bodies of those who perished in the Dec. 17 flood here were processed at the hangar of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines.

"It would take at least two months before the result could be released," Lucina said.

Lucina said she and her husband had not given up hope of finding the children, or at least one of them, one day.

The couple 's neighbors at the evacuation center here told the Inquirer there are nights when they could hear Lucina crying.

"Felix would stand outside the tent, staring into the night sky as if looking for answers for the questions he cannot fathom," one of them said.

"The hardest thing to do is to give up hope knowing that we have not seen any body and they had not appeared in our dreams, somehow, we know that they are in good hands, but we need to see them so we can rest too," Lucina said.

By Bobby Lagsa in Cagayan de Oro

http://www.pinoyfans.com/topic?nid=2113&itemsid=670

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Family of Peru cruise disaster victim wait for body repatriation

Lima, Jan. 15 (ANDINA). The family of the Peruvian crew member who died in the capsizing of the Costa Concordia cruise ship has appealed to Italian authorities to expedite the repatriation of his body to his native Peru.

"We only ask the authorities to accelerate the paperwork so we can repatriate his body and bury him in Trujillo," said Jorge Costilla Mendoza, referring to the victim's hometown in northern Peru.

A 50-year-old anthropologist who had worked on cruise ships for the past 13 years, Tomas Costilla Mendoza had signed on as a crew member on the Costa Concordia in mid-December, his brother said.

Costilla said the family had received no word from the Italian authorities on the circumstances surrounding his brother's death, which he said was confirmed to them by a cousin in Italy.

"Some accounts we have received say my brother threw himself off the ship and was hit in the fall, and drowned. Tomas knew how to swim very well, but I think he couldn't withstand the cold Mediterranean temperatures," he was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.

(END) EEP

http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/Noticia.aspx?id=fAiNPxKe9KA=

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Sixth Body Found On Italian Cruise Ship

A sixth body has been found on the stricken Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia, Italian authorities have announced.

The male passenger was found wearing an orange life jacket, of the type given to passengers rather than crew.

Fire official Luca Cari told state radio Monday that the victim was a man, found in a corridor in the part of the ship that was still above water.

The latest discovery comes after coastguard divers discovered the bodies of two elderly male passengers in the submerged part of the vessel.

They were later identified as 86-year-old Italian national Giovanni Masia and 68-year old Spanish national Gual Guillermo.

Costa Concordia ship route

The Costa Concordia set off from Rome and was to travel around the Mediterranean

The other three who died after the liner ran aground near the island of Giglio, off the Tuscan coast, have reportedly been identified as two French passengers and one Peruvian crewman.

One of the victims, a man aged in his 70s, is thought to have died of a heart attack caused by the shock of the icy water when he dived in during the chaos.

Rescue workers were continuing to search the Costa Concordia in an attempt to find the 14 people still missing after it sank with more than 4,200 passengers and crew on board.

At least one young child is believed to be among the nine passengers and five crew unaccounted for.

Paolo Tronca, a local fire department official, said the search would go on "for 24 hours a day as long as we have to".

However, other officials warned that the sea was becoming rougher and this could affect the rescue operation.

On Sunday, two 29-year-old South Korean honeymooners and a third survivor - believed to be crew member Marrico Giampetroni - were pulled from the semi-submerged vessel.

The cruise liner's owners have said the most likely cause of the disaster was a "significant human error" by the captain.

But Francesco Schettino, who was detained by police on Saturday on suspicion of manslaughter, has blamed the ship's navigation system.

He said it failed to detect the rocks that tore a hole in the hull.

9:31am UK, Monday January 16, 2012

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16149821

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