Oil tanker crashes + poverty = disaster

When oil tankers crash in poor countries, people often rush to the scene to gather the spilt fuel, often with lethal results. That happened again this week after a tanker crashed on the outskirts of the city of Bahawalpur in Pakistan on Sunday.

It is reported that the vehicle overturned on a sharp bend after the driver lost control when a tyre blew. A crowd of 500 had gathered to try to collect fuel in bottles, cans and household containers when, about 45 minutes after the crash, the tanker exploded.

It took firefighters two hours to put out the blaze. Twenty children were among the 146 dead, and another 80 people were injured. One local man said he had lost 12 relatives.

Probably the deadliest tanker crash ever happened on 2 July 2010 at Sange village in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The vehicle overturned as it was overtaking a bus on a dirt road. Again local people rushed to collect the spilt fuel, and a lighted cigarette caused an explosion, killing at least 230.

For the story, see my post of 7 July 2010. See also my posts of 1 February and 12 October, 2009, and 13 July 2012.

History's most lethal storms

Doris has just reminded us how lethal storms can be, causing deaths in Wolverhampton, Swindon and London, but mercifully it was much less deadly than other tempests in our history.

As my latest book Storm: Nature and Culture reveals, the worst storm ever to hit the UK was the Great Storm of November 1703 which claimed about 125 lives on land and perhaps 8,000 around our coasts, where many vessels, especially Royal Navy ships, were sunk.

The deadliest storm of all was probably what became known as the Bhola Cyclone which also struck in November, this time in 1970. The world has seen many stronger storms, but this one was particularly lethal because it hit the Bay of Bengal where the land was densely populated and just a few feet above sea level.

Estimates of the number of people killed go as high as a million. The cyclone also played a significant role in history. The land it struck was then East Pakistan, which was already longing for independence. The dilatory response of West Pakistan to the disaster was the final straw, and after a bloody civil war, East Pakistan became the new country of Bangladesh.

Pakistan: fanatics for polio

There are only two countries in the world where polio is still endemic – Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Pakistan, Muslim extremists are helping it to go on killing and paralysing children by murdering vaccination workers.

In the latest attack this week, at least 15 people were killed by a suicide bomber at an inoculation centre at Quetta in Balochistan. It happened just as medics and the security staff who are needed to protect them had reported for duty before going out on their rounds. Another 20 people were injured.

There were more than 300 cases of polio in Pakistan in 2014, the highest number since 1999, following a series of attacks by extremists. Last year, energetic efforts by the security forces enabled the vaccine teams to penetrate what had previously been no-go areas, and the number of cases fell to 50.

The fanatics claim immunisation is a Western plot to sterilise Pakistani children. As a result of the latest bombing, the vaccination programme in Balochistan has been suspended. (See also my posts of 24 February, 3 March, and 10 December, 2014.)

War crimes: Of Bangladesh and long shadows

Facebook has been restored in Bangladesh, after a three-week shutdown following the hanging of Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid for war crimes during the country’s bloody struggle for independence from Pakistan 44 years ago.

A special war crimes tribunal had found Chowdhury guilty of 9 charges including genocide, arson and persecuting people on religious and political grounds. While Mujahid was convicted of 5, including abduction and murder.

Both were prominent opposition politicians. A senior figure in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Chowdhury had been elected an MP 6 times. Mujahid, an Islamist, was social welfare minister from 2001 to 2006. Both men maintained their innocence.

The tribunal was set up in 2010 by the current government, following an election pledge to bring murderers to justice, but human rights groups argue the men were not given a fair trial.

Mumbai train bombers convicted

In India, 12 men have been convicted for their part in the co-ordinated bombings of Mumbai commuter trains in 2006 that killed 189 people and injured more than 800. One man was acquitted. Sentencing is due tomorrow.

The seven bombs went off during a 15 minute spell, and appeared to have targeted first class compartments as people were going home from jobs in the city’s financial district. Explosives were packed into pressure cookers, then put in bags.

Prosecutors said the attack was planned by Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI, and carried out by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba with help from the Students' Islamic Movement of India, a banned Indian group. Pakistan has rejected the allegations.

Mumbai has been hit by a number of terrorist attacks. In 2013, bombs killed 257 people, and bombers also struck in 2003 and 2011, killing a total of 70, while in 2008, gunmen attacked a number of places in the city, killing 165.

Pakistan's 9/11

On this day………….3 years ago, more than 280 people were killed in a fire at a clothing factory in Baldia Town, Karachi in what is believed to be the worst disaster of its kind in Pakistan’s history.

The Ali Enterprises factory exported clothes to Europe and the United States.  An inspection in 2007 had revealed deficiencies in fire precautions, but a few weeks before the blaze in 2012, the building passed a safety test.

But when fire raced through the factory, it was said that exit doors were locked and windows were covered with iron bars, trapping victims inside. It was reported that it took the fire brigade 75 minutes to reach the scene.

A judicial inquiry concluded that the fire was caused by an electrical fault, but then in February of this year came claims that the MQM, one of Karachi’s leading political parties, had been involved in starting it. Last month, it was reported that investigators had travelled to London to interview the factory’s owners.  

Fight against Ebola hindered by attacks on aid workers

I have blogged a number of times about attacks on health workers vaccinating people against polio in Pakistan (24 February, 3 March, and 10 December, 2014), so how depressing to report that local people are attacking aid workers helping the fight against Ebola in Guinea.

The Red Cross says they are being subjected to about 10 assaults a month. The latest happened on Sunday when two volunteers were beaten while trying to conduct a safe burial. Traditional funeral rituals can help spread the virus. Last year eight aid workers were hacked to death in Guinea.

Apparently, many Guineans believe that those who come to bury the dead, disinfect areas and bring information about the disease are in fact spreading it.

And alarm bells are ringing. After several weeks of decline, the number of new cases is rising again. So far, in its deadliest outbreak ever, Ebola has claimed nearly 9,270 victims; more than 2,030 of them in Guinea. Liberia has been worst hit with nearly 3,860 while Sierra Leone has suffered more than 3,360.

Attacks on schools

Tuesday’s murderous assault on a school at Peshawar in Pakistan by Muslim fanatics that cost the lives of 132 children and 9 staff has caused revulsion across the world, but between 2009 and 2013, there were nearly 10,000 attacks on schools in 70 countries.

Diya Nijhowne, director of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, says murders and abductions of pupils and staff and the destruction of school buildings are seen by terrorists and criminal gangs as very effective ways of intimidating and undermining communities, and preventing them from becoming more prosperous.

Muslim fanatics, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, are often particularly resentful if girls are educated. The group kidnapped hundreds of female pupils in April. While in Pakistan, girls often have to be taught in secret by teachers who are risking their lives, to avoid the murderous attentions of the Taliban.

The deadliest ever terrorist attack on a school happened at Beslan in southern Russia in 2004, when Chechen terrorists massacred 334 people, including 186 children.  For the full story, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Islamic extremists for polio

Pakistan has recorded its highest number of new polio cases for 15 years, and is now one of only three countries in the world where the disease remains endemic. Health officials say the main reason is the killing of health workers carrying out immunisation programmes by Islamic extremists.

The extremists say the health workers are spies and that the immunisations are a Western plot to sterilise Muslims. They claim the US used a fake vaccination programme to track down and kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.

The latest murder happened in the north-eastern city of Faisalabad where a 40 year old man was shot down by attackers on a motorcycle. Deaths among immunisation workers or police guarding them now number more than 60 over the last two years.

One result is that the World Health Organization has imposed travel restrictions, so that all Pakistanis must now carry proof of vaccination before going abroad. (See also by blogs of 24 February and 3 March.) 

Diary Date - flood talk October 9

I'm giving a talk entitled 'Are floods getting worse? at Swiss Cottage Library on October 9 at 1830, based on my book Flood: Nature and Culture.  Admission free.  All welcome.   

Last year, the UK’s Environment Agency issued a record number of flood warnings, while also in the last few years, Pakistan has had its worst monsoon floods in eight decades, Thailand suffered one of the costliest inundations in history, Colombia and Brazil experienced the severest in living memory, and Australia’s prime minister declared the Queensland floods perhaps the worst natural disaster ‘in the history of our nation’.

So are things actually getting worse? I will be revealing that floods are the natural disasters humans are most likely to experience, and that some of the most ambitious structures ever built have been put up to defend us against them.

I will also be telling how stories like that of Noah’s ark, about an apocalyptic flood which almost wipes out humanity, feature in dozens of religions all over the world. Floods caused by rain, melting snow, storms, tsunamis, tides, the failures of dykes or dams, or deliberate act of war all feature.

The talk will also look at the way floods have been portrayed in films, literature and art.

Pakistan and Nigeria - Islamists against health and education

Another deadly attack on health workers trying to fight polio in Pakistan (see also my blog of Feb 24). At least 11 people were killed by a roadside bomb in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border.

No group has claimed responsibility, but the Taliban oppose polio vaccination, which is claimed to be part of a Western plot to sterilise Muslims. Pakistan is now one of only 3 countries where polio remains endemic (Afghanistan and Nigeria are the others). Indeed it is on the increase.

Meanwhile in Nigeria, the Islamist extremist group, Boko Haram, whose name apparently means ‘western education is forbidden’, have murdered 40 schoolchildren aged 11 to 18 in the town of Buni Yadi in the north-eastern state of Yobe.

A teacher said the assailants locked the victims in buildings then set fire to them. Those who managed to escape by climbing out of windows had their throats slit. Boko Haram is estimated to have murdered more than 300 civilians during the past month.

* Article on my new book Flood: Nature and Culture from the Camden New Journal - http://www.camdenreview.com/reviews/books/flood-nature-and-culture-by-john-withington

Polio - a tale of two countries

India became officially free of polio last month. It is now three years since its last case was recorded. The health minister praised the efforts of more than two million vaccinators who had made this possible.

India had launched its anti-polio campaign in 1995. An important role was played by religious leaders who gave reassurance to people who were suspicious about the immunisations. The country now hopes to eradicate measles by 2020.

Over the border in Pakistan, it is a different story. Along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, it is one of the last three countries in the world where the disease is still endemic. Indeed, it is on the increase. The practice of murdering vaccination workers does not help.

Last month, three were killed in Karachi, as were six policemen on their way to guard the teams. Those who oppose the immunisation programme claim it is a Western plot to sterilise Muslims. Now India is worried that the disease my re-enter the country from Pakistan.

Bangladesh war crimes execution

The execution that attracted most attention over the last few days was the killing – apparently by machine gun fire – of Jang Song Thaek, the uncle of North Korea’s young dictator, Kim Jong Un, but there was another of great significance in Bangladesh.

An Islamist leader, Abdul Kader Mullah, was hanged after being found guilty of crimes during Bangladesh’s bloody war of independence in 1971, which cost the lives of up to 3 million people. He was the first person to be executed following conviction by Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal.

At his trial, he was described by prosecutors as the ‘Butcher of Mirpur’, a suburb of the capital, Dhaka, where he is alleged to have been involved in the massacre of unarmed civilians and of intellectuals who supported independence from Pakistan. Mullah always denied the charges, and human rights groups have expressed concern about the court’s fairness.

Another 4 members of Mullah’s Jamaat-e-Islami party are also facing the death penalty. His execution has led to clashes in which at least 5 people have died.

Disasters and politics

When the Maxima supermarket collapsed in the Latvian capital, Riga, last month, with the deaths of at least 54 people, (see my blog of Nov 22) it also brought down the government.  Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis resigned after the president, Andris Berzins, described the disaster as ‘murder’.

Disasters often have important political consequences. The Bangladesh cyclone of 1970 was the deadliest in history, killing up to a million people. It was also the last straw in the fractious relationship between East and West Pakistan. The response of the government in the West was seen as grudging and inadequate, and the East began a war of independence from which it emerged as the new nation of Bangladesh.

In 2008, another cyclone, Nargis, killed perhaps 140,000 people in Myanmar. Again, the government was heavily criticised, for the slowness of the relief effort and its reluctance to accept foreign help. Many saw this as the beginning of the current transition to democracy.

Going further back into history, a devastating hailstorm  that flattened crops across much of France in 1788 played a crucial role in fomenting the Revolution that came the following year, as it bankrupted the government through loss of tax revenues, and sent food prices into the stratosphere.

War casts long shadow

An 83 year old Bangladeshi politician has been sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the country’s bloody independence struggle in 1971, which cost up to 3 million lives. A special war crimes tribunal had found him guilty of involvement in the deaths of 372 Hindus.

Abdul Alim, of the Bangladesh National Party, was convicted on nine charges. Last week the tribunal sentenced another senior BNP figure, Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, to death for crimes against humanity. 

Alim was spared the death penalty because of his poor health. Prosecutors say he headed part of a militia fighting on the side of the Pakistan government that was trying to stop Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, breaking away.

Six current and former leaders of the main Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, have  been convicted by the same tribunal. Critics say the trials failed to meet international standards, and dozens of people have died in violent protests against the verdicts.

(See also my blog of July 19.)

Relief workers murdered

In Pakistan, a roadside bomb has killed two soldiers helping with relief work after last month’s earthquake in Balochistan. Three others were injured in the explosion near the town of Mashkay.

Up to 800 people were killed in the quake, with many more injured, and altogether 300,000 people are said to have been affected. No one has admitted carrying out the attack on the troops, but Baloch separatists have been fighting the army for years.

Rockets have been launched against army helicopters and members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps delivering relief.

The Pakistani army effectively controls large parts of the province - one of the country’s poorest - and insurgents accuse them of kidnapping and killing Baloch nationalists, charges the army denies.

War crimes - first conviction in Bangladesh

More than 40 years after Bangladesh’s war of independence, in which as many as 3 million people died, a special tribunal in the country has convicted its first war criminal.   Abul Kalam Azad was sentenced to death in his absence for genocide and murder.

Azad is described as a former leader of the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s biggest Islamic party.    Its youth wing was the main source of paramilitary recruits for those supporting West Pakistan’s efforts to stop East Pakistan, as Bangladesh then was, seceding.

Its members are alleged to have abducted and murdered dozens of civilians.   Azad himself is accused of killing at least 12 people and of rape.    He fled the country last year, and is believed to be in Pakistan.

Critics, though, allege irregularities in the judicial process, and complain that it has been subverted in order to damage opponents of the government.

World's worst factory fire + London's worst post-war fire

The Sindh High Court in Pakistan has instructed the provincial government and other relevant parties to submit their reports on the Karachi clothing factory fire within the next week.    What was perhaps the worst factory fire in history killed at least 258 people on September 11.

There were about 400 people working at the Ali Enterprises factory when a boiler exploded and set alight chemicals stored in the building.    It is claimed that exit doors were locked and that windows were covered with iron bars.

Many of the victims died from suffocation, while some of those who managed to jump from upstairs windows survived, though often at the cost of fractured limbs.     Eventually rescue workers had to break down one of the walls to get access to the upper floors.

A few hours earlier, a fire had broken out in a shoe factory in Lahore  when sparks from a faulty generator set fire to chemicals.     At least 25 people were killed.

* London’s deadliest post-war fire - forgotten by many, but not by the Londonist website (or by me) http://londonist.com/2012/10/londons-forgotten-disasters-the-denmark-street-fire.php

Pakistan floods YET again

I have been away for a month, but some things don’t change.   My last blog at the end of August was about floods in Pakistan, so is this one.

During the last two weeks, heavy monsoon rains have caused floods that have killed more than 400 people and driven tens of thousands from their homes, with the province of Sindh worst hit.    

Pakistan’s worst floods came in 2010 (see picture) when nearly 1,800 people died and more than 20 million were affected in some way, leaving about a fifth of the country under water, and causing damage estimated at up to £30 billion.

Sindh also suffered badly from heavy rains in 2011, when again more than 400 people lost their lives, and 1.7 million acres of arable land were inundated in one of the country’s most important agricultural areas.

Pakistan floods again

Pakistan suffered dreadful floods in 2010, when nearly  2,000 people were killed, and last year, when the death toll was around 250.   Now at least 22 people have been drowned in flash floods in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while at least another 20 have perished across the border in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan in the heaviest rains there for more than 30 years.

Around 20,000 people have been driven from their homes, schools have closed, and transport has been disrupted.   A number of the casualties occurred when buildings collapsed, and rescue workers say they fear more bodies may be found as the waters recede.

The Pakistan floods of 2010 affected up to 20 million people, and left about a fifth of the country under water, while the total cost of the damage inflicted was up to £30 billion.

 (See also my blogs of Aug 11 and 23 and Sept 7, 2010, and Jan 27 and Sept 19, 2011.)

*On this web page, you can read the first chapter of my book Disaster! absolutely free - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/read/2940000926659