Sunday, September 13, 2009 FREETOWN: Sierra Leone has recovered and buried the bodies of 120 people who died in this week's ferry disaster, a naval official said Saturday, but scores more passengers are still unaccounted for. Naval Lieutenant Mohamed Turay of the surveillance patrol unit said, "A total of 120 corpses have now been buried, some in mass graves... because of their badly decomposed condition." He added: "What is happening now is that many of the corpses have drifted from the scene of the accident and it is possible some will float into creeks and other places, but we shall continue to patrol despite the inclement weather." An official statement by Sierra Leone's President Ernest Koroma released Saturday did not give the number of deaths but stated that Tuesday's "gruesome sea accident claimed the lives of a large number of Sierra Leoneans." Koroma declared Monday a national day of mourning for the victims of the disaster off the coast of the west African nation. His statement said "during the day of mourning, citizens are encouraged to wear black armbands while flags will be flown at half mast". It also pledged government aid to speed up search operations and medical assistance for survivors. According to survivors, the wooden boat carried goods and passengers including a large number of children and went down within minutes when it was hit by a storm.Survivors also claimed that rescue operations were slow in getting started and medical officials said there was not enough medicine to treat the few dozen survivors.Police said on Friday only 37 people were known to have survived after the ferry, the Teh Teh, overturned and sank Tuesday night. Estimates of the numbers on board ranged from 268 to more than 300.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
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