The Helpless Plight of Tafficked Migrants

"Exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit is shameful, as is political grandstanding around tragedy, and my administration will continue to do everything possible to stop human smugglers and traffickers from taking advantage of people who are seeking to enter the United States between ports of entry."

U.S. President Joe Biden

 

"They had just parked it [the truck] on the side of the road."

"Apparently [the truck] had mechanical problems and [the driver and his co-smugglers] left it there."

"The sheriff thinks it came across from Laredo."

Bexar Country Judge Nelson Wolff

The abandoned truck was discovered after a nearby worker heard cries for help   Getty Images

 

Difficult to fathom even with the tension involved in engaging in an illegal act, that anyone knowing there are scores of people, including children, in the back of the truck they're diving panicking -- their first impulse to put as much distance between themselves and the impaired truck with its helpless passengers -- in a belated effort to divorce themselves from what comes next. Discovery of course, coming next, apprehension by policing authorities for being involved in a human smuggling racket. 

 

And in that moment of 'escape', failing to consider the impact on the doomed people locked inside the trailer. They could just as easily and humanely unlocked the trailer doors to release the people within from the heat trap that eventually took their lives. They had already entered the United States, which was their goal. The people could have dispersed, making their way to an eventual destination. They would certainly have received help from others along the way. Instead, they were consigned to death.

It was a city worker that raised the alert after hearing a cry for help from the truck that had been left on a remote back road outside San Antonio, Texas. He opened the doors to the trailer and made that grisly discovery. When police arrived, efforts at restoring life to some of the people who had succumbed to heat prostration, suffocating in the airless trailer, sent some people to hospital. While forty-six people were discovered to be beyond help at the scene, another four after being hospitalized died there. 

Mourners visit the isolated Texas road where the abandoned truck was found with dozens of dead people inside  Getty Images

 

There were 39 men and 11 women among the dead who were left in the back of an abandoned tractor-trailer where there was no way forward for the trapped people looking for opportunity and a new life, to disengage from their situation. Two Guatemalen boys, ages 13 and 14 were among the dead. Those who died "Were likely trying to find a better life. This is nothing short of a horrific human tragedy", observed San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg.

The countries of origin of the migrants have not yet been fully identified, nor how long the unfortunate migrants had been abandoned to certain death. What is known is that twenty-two came from Mexico, seven from Guatemala, and two from Honduras, another two from El Salvador, according to Roberto Velasco Alvarez, head of Mexico's Foreign Relations Department, North America department.

The driver of the truck, identified as Homero Zamo, evidently made an attempt to pose as a victim, hiding in nearby bushes, before he was arrested. To the present, the total death toll is now 53 with several more of the migrants trapped in the truck having died in hospital. Minors are among the people who remain in hospital. In addition to the detention in police custody of the driver, another two Mexican men have been detained as accomplices.

 

Probing an Ancient Natural Catastrophe

"I do think -- and this is speculation -- that they likely suffocated rather than died of the heat."
"Our individuals were in these kind of sealed, trapped stone oven-type things, whereas his individual was in a regular building -- much more exposed and much more directly affected by the pyroclastic flow itself."
"Bone is a composite material of about 30 per cent organic material like collagen and about 70 per cent inorganic material like calcium, phosphates and the like. The two structures are very tightly connected within the bone – they have to extract the collagen from the bones to be studied which is a very complicated process."
"It [the temperature] came out quite low, lower than we expected. It surprised us how much collagen we had left over… from the unique environment of the bodies being in the fornici."
"You have people who are hiding, sheltering, in these stone boat houses and there is only one way in or out, so when that pyroclastic material comes down the hill or the sea it is going to cover that up and people would be trapped in there. Whether those boathouses fill with debris or ash or don’t, either way you’re stuck in there in a dark, cave environment with the heat increasing as well."
"What is interesting about Herculaneum is that it was some distance from Vesuvius, which means they saw the eruption and had a chance to try and escape, they all ran down to the beach to get in the boats and escape – although it was futile." 
"These methods really contribute to our understanding of death fire and heat."
Tim Thompson, professor, Applied Biological Anthropology, Teeside University, England

"While their analysis is intriguing, I do not think they have proved it is human brain material, nor have they ruled out other origins."
"This new work shows that researchers should renew their investigations into the causes and manner of death at Opiontis, Pompeii and other Vesuvian-area sites."
Kristina Killgrove, Bioarchaeologist, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

The snow-covered peak of Mount Vesuvius volcano is framed by ancient ruins of the archaeological excavations of Pompeii, Italy, on Jan. 23, 2019. (Cesare Abbate / ANSA via AP)

In the field of bioarchaeology it has long been believed that those who lived in Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. were instantly calcified by extreme heat. Newly published, two studies place that theory in doubt, as new evidence has been revealed indicating that the eruption on Vesuvius may have claimed lives in a manner that departs from the prevailing hypothesis that their blood and brains became vaporized through the pyroclastic flow's extremely ferocious heat.

Some researchers now propose that at least one of the individuals preserved from that ancient catastrophe had his brain turned to glass.

When on August 24 of that fateful year in antiquity, the sight of the awful eruption warned those below that they must take action as a fast-moving, dense, extreme-heated surge of ash, gas and rock slide down the mountain, Herculaneum's seaside residents fled for their boats. Infants and children were bundled into the stone boathouses, followed by women, and then men, desperately seeking shelter from the heat-ravages of the fast-moving pyroclastic flow.

Photo: Lancevortex/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0

The remains of 340 people have been dug out of the ancient clay since 1980. Some of them were those people who had fled for shelter to the boathouses, and some on the beach. The stone shelters they sought haven in were known as fornici. One set of researchers published their findings in the journal Antiquity, challenging the hypothesis of vaporization as the mode of death experienced by these unfortunate people.

The condition of the bones of those in the fornici, according to the researchers, suggest they had been protected from instant death both through the stone structure sheltering them and the condition of their own body tissue mass providing insulation against the intense heat of the flow. So instant death failed to deliver them from agony presumably, which instead visited them through suffocation or asphyxiation.

The second team had results they published in the New England Journal of Medicine, with the claim that the pyroclastic flow's intense heat had vitrifid the brain of at least one victim, who had been in a bed, in a building in the centre of the city. His brain, according to the research headed by Dr. Pier Paolo Petrone, a professor of human osteobiology and forensic anthropology at the Federico II University Hospital in Naples, Italy, had turned to glass as a result of the pressure of extreme heat.

Photo: Daniele Florio/Wikimedia Commons

The first team had studied the ribs of 152 individuals discovered in six of the 12 boathouses, focusing on crystal microstructures in the bones which had responded to thermal exposure, and the amount of collagen remaining. Data indicated people in the boathouses were exposed to temperatures of around 260 degrees Celsius. One reason for the results discovered, according to Dr.Thompson, was the protection afforded them through the stone boathouses, the other the very presence of that many people in each shelter. Which protection did nothing to preserve their lives, only to prolong the agony they suffered.

They would have been trapped by debris piling up at the exits of the boathouses as the pyroclastic flow blasted the beach. The rising heat first baked, and then preserved their remains for posterity. The team in the second study focused on a man found in the Collegium Augustalium, on the main street of Herculaneum, the building some distance from the seaside. Dr. Petrone, a forensic anthropologist, and co-author of the study, pointed out that his brain had turned to glass, resulting from the high heat, when the victim's skull exploded.

The difference between the two conclusions; victims at the seaside and the one on the main street, feels Dr.Thompson, lies in the shelters each was found within. The conclusions between the two studies may have differed, but do not quite contradict one another, in his accounting. The man whom the second team studied had shards of glassy black material within remnants of the exploded skull and scattered among the remains of the cranial cavity; his shelter left him vulnerable to that result.

Anthropologist Valeria Amoretti looks at a skeleton of a victim of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79, which destroyed the ancient town of Pompeii, at Pompeii's archeological site, near Naples, on Tuesday, May 29, 2018. (Ciro Fusco/ANSA via AP)

Defending Earth

"This plan is an outline not only to enhance the hunt for hazardous asteroids, but also to better predict their chances of being an impact threat well into the future and the potential effects that it could have on Earth."
"[Protecting Earth from incoming asteroids will be a huge job, no astronauts would be involved.] That's something relegated to the movies — it makes a good movie, but we do not see in our studies any technique that would require the involvement of astronauts. [NASA's proposed asteroid-deflection techniques] would all be done by robotic spacecraft."
"[The agency's Double Asteroid Redirection Test [DART], to be launched in 2021, will be] our first technology demonstration of the kinetic impact technique to deflect an asteroid."
NASA's planetary defense officer, Lindley Johnson

"[One focus of the DART goal is to increase international cooperation to better prepare the rest of the world for the possibility of an asteroid strike — under the leadership of the United States.]"
"This kind of cooperation is really important  It's a global hazard that we all face together, and the best way to approach and address that hazard is cooperatively."
Aaron Miles, senior policy adviser, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Artist's illustration of a large asteroid headed for Earth. Credit: ESA

A report from the National Science and Technology Council in the United States outlined a pressing need to improve vigilance by the international community dedicated to preserving Planet Earth's geological integrity and the safety of all living creatures, through international programs in coordination with the United States in detecting the presence of and danger posed by asteroids and other space objects speeding toward Earth, recognizing that a collision with a large rock-metal-ice object hurtling toward the planet could result in utter catastrophe.

During Earth's formative years tens of millions of years ago such collisions did occur when for example a 200-kilometre-wide crater was discovered, all that remained of the results of such an ancient collision that wiped out three-fourths of the vegetation and animal species then existing on the planet. The crater's remnants were recognized on the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Gulf of Mexico, a wide swathe of utter destruction.

The knowledge that Earth is vulnerable at any given time to other collisions which might occur have been fortified by some that have. As, for example in 2013's event when a 20-metre asteroid appeared suddenly over the sky in Chelyabinsk, Russia, exploding and damaging thousands of buildings in the thermal blast, causing widespread injuries. In 1908 a much larger asteroid exploded over Tunguska, Russia leaving 2,000 square kilometres of forest devastated.

The report, published in Science, pointed out that were such an asteroid to explode over a far more vulnerable, populated area such as New York City, the fallout would be enormous, the death toll unspeakably dramatic. NASA has catalogued no fewer than 18,310 space objects of sizes from minuscule to alarmingly huge. Just over 800 of those space objects are 140 metres or larger. Should a space rock happen to suddenly appear  and an estimate made of its strike time; anywhere from days to weeks in advance, current space technology offers no solutions for stopping or altering its trajectory.

The National Science and Technology Council report speaks of the urgent need to improve asteroid detection, its tracking and the potential for deflection. Its participating partners are NASA, federal emergency, the military, the White House and other similar U.S. national authorities. Scientists, according to NASA's planetary defence officer, have discovered 95 percent of near-Earth objects measuring one kilometre or larger, continuing to search for the remaining 5 percent and smaller objects still capable of inflicting damage on Earth.

The most difficult to detect are rocks that have passed the sun and are on their way out of the solar system, approaching from the day side, while ground telescopes are known to detect asteroids speeding into the inner solar system, approaching from the night side of Earth; the former is how the Chelyabinsk asteroid suddenly appeared. The nightmare scenario of a Tunguska-sized asteroid hitting New York City equates to millions of people dying.

Even with all resources put to work, headed by the American initiative and joined by international partners with every reason to be as concerned as the U.S., solutions will take years of planning, design, construction and implementation before it could be said an effective defence can be mounted. It would take years for any effort to turn away a threatening asteroid; a number of years to build a spacecraft, another few years for it to reach its target. A minimum ten years' advance notice of a feared approach of a killer asteroid is what Dr. Johnson envisions.

The mission could be comprised of a design to smash the asteroid or comet with a fast-moving robotic spacecraft to alter the path of the threat. Even to launch a nuclear device to superheat the surface of the asteroid, to remove sufficient material to make for a swerving diversion, thus bypassing its initial target Earth. It all sounds dramatically science-fiction-like, but then so does the prospect of our home, Earth, or parts thereof being blown to smithereens by some gigantic space object approaching and colliding  and destroying it and us.

This image of a vapor trail was captured about 125 miles (200 kilometers) from the Chelyabinsk meteor event, about one minute after the house-sized asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere.

Credits: Alex Alishevskikh

Alien Cyberattack: Send-Up?

"While it has been argued that sustainable ETI [extraterrestrial invasion intelligence] is unlikely to be harmful, we cannot exclude this possibility."
"After all, it is cheaper for ETI to send a malicious message to eradicate humans compared to sending battleships."
"[A cyber threat for example]: We will make your sun go supernova tomorrow."
"True or not, it could cause widespread panic, [or have a] demoralizing cultural influence."
"[A gaining-trust message, for example to read]: We are friends. The galactic library is attached. It is in the form of an artificial intelligence which quickly learns your language and will answer your questions. You may execute the code following these instructions ..."
"Current research indicates that even well-designed boxes [AI box] are useless, and a sufficiently intelligent AI will be able to persuade or trick its human keepers into releasing it."
"[Nonetheless] The potential benefits from joining a galactic network might be considerable. Overall, we believe that the risk is very small [but not zero], and the potential benefit very large, so that we strongly encourage to read an incoming message."
Michael Hippke, Sonnenberg Observatory, Germany -- John Learned, University of Hawaii

The common alien-doomsday scenario paints the picture of hostile invasion, with looming motherships and a firefight for the fate of Earth and all of humanity. But, according to new research, the reality could be far more sinister. A still from Countdown Alien Invasion is shown

Got that? Humanity is being forewarned. Two presumably knowledgeable scientists in the field of astronomy and astrophysics giving fair warning of the potential for an alien message arriving from that great unknowable horizon beyond or possibly within our galaxy prepared to do humankind great harm. Their considerable knowledge has led them to speculate and to prophesy an event that could conceivably solve the problem of humankind's inability to live together in peace. We could die together in infamy.

They're a trifle confused, perhaps a little paranoia in there, and certainly polarized in their might-be's, comparing the body of their work with the conclusion that we've nothing to lose but everything, so might as well join them. Despite that, should extraterrestrials decide a malevolent approach would suit them in contacting humanity any effort on our part to "decontaminate with certainty" might be negligible, in the face of such an "existential threat". Proceed, they warn, with caution.

Anyone recall Carl Sagan's optimism in 1977 when contact with extraterrestrials was hoped for when the Voyageur Interstellar Mission was launched? Carl Sagan, American cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer was excited at the prospect of intelligent life existing somewhere out in the universe on a planet like Earth, peopled by beings with whom earthlings could communicate. The prospect of such a contact between humans and other beings which vast distances separated did not come at that time with stated fears of miscommunication and hostility.

More recently, however, we have the world's foremost theoretical astrophysicist of great international renown whose brilliant mind is trapped in an enfeebled body, and whose outlook on the possibility of Earth's intelligent creatures coming in contact with another planet's far more advanced and presumably more advanced intelligent agents not particularly liking what they observe of humanity and turning out to be a threat to humankind's continued existence...and so, Stephen Hawking has warned of a looming -- perhaps -- disaster.

These two world-renowned scientists whose focus has been on the worlds within the universe have had plenty of company in their musings; other scientists, academics, futurists have joined this endless debate discussing the possibility of humans taking benefit from contact with other life forms existing elsewhere. This was the purpose and function of The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, (SETI), the group that endlessly scans the sky for signs of radio-signals from an outside source, emitting signals of our own to entice any intelligent beings to make contact. Nada.


Messrs. Hippke and Learned explore in their paper various malicious scenarios and have focused on a coded message with hidden threats, compressed and holding an algorithm shielding a code which could execute billions of instructions unleashing deadly malware. Expert computing intelligence could hope to isolate the artificial intelligence and in so doing rigging it with "remote-controlled fusion bombs" to execute its destruction in an emergency scenario, they muse.

Should, however, the artificial intelligence fail to be destroyed expeditiously as required, the issue is that innumerable types of damage could ensue, one of which is that the artificial intelligence could persuade a human agency that nanobots should be built to serve humankind. In reality, those nanobots would represent the destructive foot-in-the-door instructed to destroy humans and dominate the world to hand it to the possession of their masters. Sleep well tonight!

According to the researchers, a threat from aliens could come in several forms. These could be signals received by our radio telescopes, or even probes sent directly to our planet. According to the researchers, aliens could also transmit complex messages that embed viruses

Leviathan II Tragedy

"This vessel has operated for 20 years with an absolutely perfect safety record. This is something just totally out of the blue. We just don't understand and we won't know the answers until the Transportation Safety Board finishes their investigations."
"On larger vessels [like Leviathan II] we're not required to have the passengers wear the life jackets. On smaller open boats they are."
Jamie Bray, owner, Jamie's Whaling Station, Tofino, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

"They must have got swamped by a huge wave and it flipped their boat completely. I don't think they had time to do anything."
"Whatever happened, happened so quick."
Alec Dick, first responder

"It wasn't even blowing hard. This is the largest boat in Tofino, and I was really surprised that it went down."
"They [rescuers] grabbed on to a body and while they were doing that another body popped up and surfaced in the water. They grabbed two and said they had a difficult time because their bodies were covered in diesel. There was three of them they [relatives] brought in."
Joe Martin, carver, Tal-o-qui-aht tribal member

Brian Hutchinson/National Post  Clarence Smith, from the Ahousaht First Nation, describes the rescue effort in Tofino

 

It was fishing boats from the nearby Ahousaht First Nation that first arrived near Plover Reefs, west of Vargas Island when the whale-watching boat Leviathan II, a 65-foot covered cruiser, suddenly capsized in a 30-foot depth, after four in the afternoon on Sunday afternoon. In total, 27 people were aboard the tour boat, including tourists and crew. Of that number 21 were rescued; five bodies were recovered and one person was missing.

At that point -- where sea lions are often seen, an attraction for tourists who take such tours in hopes of seeing wild sea creatures like orcas and grey whales -- an area called Sea Lion Rocks by locals, there was nothing, evidently, to warn anyone, crew or tourists, that they would shortly be in trouble. When the ship had left the harbour in Tofino the waters were glassy-calm. But past the tip of Vargas Island, swells are more common, with two-metre waves plowing onto the rocks, the sea lions undisturbed by it all.

The first sign that something was wrong was when two men [Clarence Smith and Kenny Brown] fishing in their small boat from the Ahousaht First Nation, suddenly saw a flare reach for the sky; a distress signal, but when they dialled their radio there was no emergency call. The two men turned their fishing boat toward Sea Lion Rocks, and soon screaming was audible from panicked people. They were incredulous to see the Leviathan II close to fully capsized, its bow above water.

Albert Titian/Facebook  The Leviathan II whale-watching boat capsized near Tofino, B.C., Sunday, with 27 people aboard. Five Britons died, and one person remains missing

And then they saw people in the water, some on liferafts, and they began the difficult task of trying to retrieve as many as they could from the frigid, choppy water, relieved to soon see other fishing boats arrive to offer their assistance in the calamity as well, hauling frightened and freezing people out of the sea, and bodies as well of those who had died. A traumatic experience for everyone, the tourists whose furthest thought would have been they would be in danger, the rescuers, and the boat owners.

Later, the BC Coroners Service verified that three of the dead had come to Canada as tourists; one person came from Ontario, and the other lived in British Columbia; four men and one woman died, between the ages of 18 and 76. The search had been called off late Sunday night, a statement from the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre revealed. With Mounties taking charge afterward, of the search for the missing passenger.

And the fisherfolk of the Ahousaht First Nation determined to give aid to the search launched by the RCMP, as is their custom. "They know these waters. They have a custom not to leave a body out at sea", said volunteer Robert Burridge.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito   Ahousaht First Nation boats patrol an area on Monday, Oct.26, 2015 where the whale-watching boat Leviathan II capsized near Tofino, B.C. Sunday afternoon.

World Health Organization Ebola Response

"Time will come for investigation. Right now we have to focus on the response."
"When we scaled up, the beginning of the outbreak was very comparable to what we had seen elsewhere in Africa. And then, by June, it became something different."
"We indicated that this outbreak was different. I'm afraid we probably didn't say it loud enough for the world to understand what we were saying and for all the international community to be mobilised."
Isabelle Nuttall, head of global response and alert, World Health Organization, Geneva

  The World Health Organization is ramping up efforts to stop Ebola from spreading elsewhere in Africa

"I was not fully informed of the evolution of the outbreak. We responded, but our response may not have matched the scale of the outbreak and the complexity of the outbreak."
WHO director general, Margaret Chan

"We are putting in place the foundations of a very powerful response"
"I am absolutely certain that when we look at the history, that this effort that has been put in place will have been shown to have had an impact, though I will accept that we probably won't see a reduction in the outbreak curve until the end of the year." 
David Nabarro, United Nations Ebola Coordinator

Since April, Doctors Without Borders has been on the ground treating the ill suffering from the dread effects of Ebola, from the outset. They've long had familiarity with such outbreaks and the requirement to respond swiftly and put them to an end. They were alarmed by the spread of the most recent outbreak and the weak response to what looked to them to be becoming a real problem. And they began to warn that the global response to the Ebola outbreak was inadequate.

"Leaders are failing to come to grips with this transnational threat", MSF international president Joanne Liu cautioned at a UN briefing. "We are in uncharted waters." The trouble was the warning really was falling on deaf ears. The World Health Organization simply wasn't responding in a manner adequate to the perceived danger. Margaret Chan claimed to have been "very unhappy" in late June when she realized the scope of the health crisis outlined in a memo describing her local team's deficiencies.

Now the blame is being placed on poor communication, a lack of leadership and underfunding. All of which conspired to permit the disease to spiral out of control thanks to the World Health Organization's initial weak response to the Ebola outbreak. The WHO director general took personal command at that point in June to initiate moves to replace the heads of offices in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and at the same time upgrade the emergency to the top level.

Doctors Without Borders medical workers put on protective clothing at an Ebola treatment facility in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, on August 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)

Since that time the situation has only become exacerbated, the spread of the virus even more alarming, and particularly so with the swath it was cutting in the already-short-handed numbers of local health practitioners. Nurses and doctors were contracting Ebola from the overload of patients they were caring for, and dying. All of this occurring though there was no lack of warning. In April Doctors Without Borders warned the outbreak was "unprecedented". Even while the WHO felt the contagion was under control.

Toward the end of June, WHO's top Ebola expert, Pierre Formenty, finally produced a presentation to a steering committee of the Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network, with charts indicating that the outbreak in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea were swamping the capacity to respond. New infections were doubling every 24 days. By August, the tally had eclipsed the case total reported in the previous 24 Ebola outbreaks all combined. Nine thousand cases are now expected to emerge as of this week.

According to an October 8 report in the Lancet medical journal, the WHO's response capacity was weakened and eroded in the wake of budget cuts. And a  report in the British Medical Journal added that donors' contributions declined to 25% of the WHO's revenue in 2010 - 2011 from 80 percent in 1978 -1979. But the larger problem appears to be bureaucratic complacency and an unwillingness to listen to the experts in the field.

Forever Gone

"The police knocked on our front door and then our world was turned upside down from that moment on."
"I miss his hugs."
"You can't move on. I keep reliving that day over and over again."
"That was the last place that he was alive and I feel close to him [the roadside memorial they built]. I talk to him when I go. I tell him what we're doing for the day, if it's a good day or a bad day. I let him know that I miss him."
"It could happen to anyone in the blink of an eye. It could be anyone's child."
"I need answers. I want to be able to go to Michael's grave...[and say we found who did it]."
Kathy Morlang

Brian Visneskie​ and Kathy Morlang pose for a photo at the Strandherd-Armstrong Bridge construction site in Ottawa On, Wednesday Oct 9, 2013. The Morlang's son Michael, who worked on the bridge, was killed in a hit and run. Tony Caldwell/Ottawa Sun/QMI Agency

The municipality of Ottawa, Ontario gathers statistics that claim about 3,600 hit-and-runs annually; incidents where a vehicle has been involved in a collision; has hit a pedestrian, has gone out of control and caused property damage; and then the individual behind the wheel, ostensibly in control of the metal monster temporarily gone amok, pushes the pedal to the floor and leaves the scene, as though expunging from reality that they were there, involved in an accident, a crime, a tragedy.

For 30-year-old Michael Morlang's mother that very hit-and-run that took her son's life, repesented a tragedy; for her son it meant he would not see the sun dawn the next day, transforming him from a 30-year-old to a 31-year-old young man with a promising future beckoning down an entirely different road. It all began so innocently, with Michael attending a Saturday night bachelor party on August 10, 2013.

On August 11, a woman driving her daughter at 5:10 a.m. to a riding stable, passed a man walking alone along the side of Frank Kenny Road, in a stretch of 80-km/hr highway with only three houses on that lonely early-morning rural travelway leading to Navan, south of Ottawa. She thinks to herself how unusual it is to see anyone at that time of morning on a two-lane road in a dimly-lit atmosphere.

As she drops her daughter safely off at the stables, she thinks to herself: "I'm going to go back and pick up that young man and take him where he's got to go." That kindly impulse to do a favour for a stranger never comes to fruition. By the time she has returned to the same stretch of road 20 minutes after first sighting him, she finds his bloodied and battered body astride the middle of the road.

Planning to stay over at a friend's house Michael was dropped off by mistake on that two-lane road. He decided to walk, then, to his friend's house when he was struck.

Michael's mother Kathy Morlang and his stepfather, Brian Visneskie now mourn the absence of a young man who was dearly cherised. Their minds have been absorbed since their son's death by thoughts such as who had been driving that car, what caused the collision, and why didn't the driver stop. Did the driver stop momentarily to assess the condition of the young man their vehicle had hit, with them at its controls?

"Sometimes [not reporting to police, choosing to depart the scene, deciding to leave the injured person to their miserable fate] it's to avoid liability -- maybe they don't have insurance or a licence, and sometimes it could be criminal in nature, such as drinking and driving", assessed collision investigator, Sgt. Derek Menard.

Investigators in analyzing vehicle paint evidence at the scene of the death of the young man, feel the northbound vehicle was a product of General Motors between 1997 and 2010. But it would have sustained extensive damage and it might have been turned in to a garage for repair, or a body shop in the area, so they asked for aid in finding the driver's identity.

Calls did come in to police with tips, but nothing substantial appears to have been tracked to enable police to feel they have evidence that could be used to identify the malefactor. Of those 3,600 hit-and-runs reported in the Ottawa area each year, about one thousand are investigated by police. There is ample good reason to continue investigating this one.

Michael's parents spent some time and heartache building a roadside memorial to their son. Building crosses installing solar lights, planting flowers. The memorial site draws them daily, becoming a place of comfort to them, as the site where their son was last alive before a lightning-swift catastrophe brought it to an end.

War and Famine

"The world should not wait for a famine to be announced while children here are dying. We all have to do more, and quickly, to keep more children alive."
UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake

"Whether or not it is a famine, the point of our job is trying to prevent it from becoming a famine. And if we have to wait where conditions are so bad that it's a famine, it's too late."
Challiss McDonough, World Food Program spokeswoman

"If it's as bad as famine a declaration can have a significant impact on the level of support that goes toward the crisis."
"[Experts wonder if there are regions] people aren't reaching, that the information is even worse than what we're seeing."
Chris Hillbruner, lead food security analyst, FEWSNET

In this Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014 file photo, 7-month-old boy Dhieu Ding Chol, left, and 5-month-old boy Thuch Jong Kuch, 

right, are held by their mothers as they receive treatment for dehydration, vomiting and diarrhea, likely caused by the lack 

of any sanitation where they are now living, at a clinic run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) set up 

in a school building in the town of Awerial, South Sudan. The U.N.’s top official for human rights Navi Pillay told a news 

 conference in South Sudan’s capital Juba on Wednesday, April 30, 2014 that the country is on the verge of catastrophe 

because of a deadly mix of recrimination, hate speech and revenge killings since December and that she is appalled by the 

apparent lack of concern by leaders in South Sudan over the risk of a potential famine. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

FEWSNET is a famine early warning system that was put into place by the American government's aid agency, USAID. And Mr. Hillbruner is in Juba, South Sudan's capital, taking part in an analysis of the situation afflicting the word's newest country, that broke off from greater Sudan through a mutually-agreed-upon secession, after years of conflict and countless lives lost.

He and other health experts have sequestered themselves in a hotel conference room in the capital of South Sudan, deliberating over how severe the hunger situation is in the country, and whether the situation was caused by the violence that broke out in December, qualifying it as a famine situation which would motivate aid agencies and governments to view the situation as dire as it is, not one to set aside until it becomes even more urgent.

Even if the humanitarian emergency that currently presents does not provide sufficient hard data from field studies to accelerate the condition to that of an officially-acknowledged famine, the situation of hunger as currently exemplified by a shortage of food and starvation resulting "is still the worst food security emergency in the world ... there is still huge need", emphasized Mr. Hillbruner.

The more remote locations in South Sudan are not readily accessible in a country with little highway infrastructure other than dirt roads and dirt airstrips that seasonal rains plunge into a morass impossible to navigate. Moreover, because of the conflict situation, aid groups must provide military and political leaders on both the government and rebel sides, of their travel plans, in search of safe passage.

The global heads of the World Food Program and UNICEF made their way to South Sudan to confer with FEWSNET, on the situation. Almost a million children under the age of five live on the verge of starvation, requiring humanitarian food deliveries to address acute malnutrition. At risk of imminent death is an estimated 50,000 children.

In the last famine in Somalia in 2011, an estimated 260,000 people died, half of them perishing even before the formal famine status was officially declared. Along with WFP executive director Ertharin Cousin, Anthony Lake expresses their fear that the world is standing by silently while a repeat of the Somalia tragedy occurs. WFP urgently requires $143-million to maintain the urgent aid flow.

Complicating the urgency of food provision by aid organizations are issues relating to whether food markets are operating and how many crops families plant while violence displacing over a million people destabilize normal lifestyles. Even yet, a similar problem is overtaking Somalia, where 50,000 children are once again in danger of malnutrition in that conflict-rent country.

Analysts working in the field for the agencies collect data on rainfall, livestock numbers, nutrition levels and mortality rates; the data prepared for presentation as the groups set to meet in August for discussions, according to Nina Dodd, nutrition specialist for the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FAO) of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.

A famine is defined as two deaths daily per ten thousand people, along with malnutrition rates of over 30 percent, and a near complete loss of livelihoods and assets. "The last thing we want to be accused of is coming out with spicy messages that would help us get more support", stated Rudi Van Aaken, acting head of FAO in Somalia.

"[Still], if the coming season is problematic with too little rain or too much rain ... if that happens the situation will get worse."

African Ebola Crisis

"The first week I worked in the Ebola treatment centre in Gueckedou, a forest region of Guinea at the border of Sierra Leone and Liberia, I learned how to put the (protective) gear on, how to remove the gear and deal with the patients on a day-to-day basis. No skin is exposed to the outside world. Under tropical conditions, it gets very hot, very quickly. It's like being in a sauna."
"I did training in tropical medicine in England, so I knew about Ebola. I had friends from MSF who did missions with previous Ebola outbreaks. But I had never seen a patient. The patients came (to the treatment centre) in waves. We had 16 admissions in one single day. We were overwhelmed, we were struggling to get things done."
Dr. Marc Forget, Montreal physician

Members of Medicins Sans Frontieres dressed in protective gear, in Guinea, AFP/Getty Images

Dr. Forget, whose training as a general practitioner took place at Laval University, mostly works in emergency medicine. He recently spent seven weeks in Guinea with Medicins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders. His mission was to travel to remote forest villages assessing people who presented with symptoms of Ebola, to try to convince them to seek treatment; mostly to persuade them to allow themselves to be taken to isolation in a hospital setting, to prevent communicating the disease more widely.

It is fairly easy to infect other people by contact; with the advent of international air travel. It takes weeks after coming in contact with someone suffering from Ebola before symptoms appear. Take the case of a man whose name was Patrick Sawyer, who boarded a flight in Liberia, stopped over in Ghana, changed planes in Togo, then arrived in Nigeria where he died in a period of days from Ebola, known to be one of the deadliest of diseases with a huge mortality rate, killing up to 90% of those infected.

A health agent checks a passenger leaving Guinea at Conakry's airport. Protection and healthcare material were set up at the airport to fight the spread of the Ebola virus.   Cellou Binani, AFP, Getty Images

Liberia has become the latest West African country now to seal its borders resulting from the latest outbreak of the Ebola virus, which has catastrophically taken 670 lives. International air travel has become a certain vector for the spread of disease worldwide. No one has any idea how many people Mr. Sawyer infected on his own unknown death journey. Health workers are attempting to trace anyone who may have been exposed to him as he flew across West Africa.

Ebola's initial symptoms appear innocuous enough, just like a flu; with fever, muscle and joint pain, leading to gastric upset, then vomiting and diarrhea, and things go quickly downhill from there. Most people die from the effects of dehydration and shock to their system, sometimes with neurological involvement. People's ability to communicate at that point is so compromised it is as though their minds are absent to response, and most die.

Dr. Forget, during his time in Guinea, assessed what appeared to him and his colleagues those whose presentations appeared suspicious. They decontaminated areas when it became clear patients were assessed as positive for Ebola. Once assessed as positive through a blood test, an outreach team comprising water and sanitation specialists along with hygienists, arrive at a home  to burn mattresses and spray chlorine everywhere to ensure the home can be occupied with safety.

"The co-operation was good in some places; in other places it was simply impossible. There was hostility to our presence. They associated MSF wit the disease. They said it was brought by 'foreigners'," he explained in an interview. In some villages rocks were thrown at their cars leading to 'red zones' where the MSF team knew they couldn't enter in safety. In those regions when someone becomes ill, the family attempts to care for the person with local treatments. Which will fail, and transmission from one person to the other occurs, resulting in increased numbers of victims.

The thought of being isolated would be enough to alert villagers with patients among them that they would be taken to a strange place, and there they would die. In a very real sense, this was true; the concept of isolation to halt transmission as a preventive, was unknown to them. What was known to them was that to be taken away was to be consigned to death. Added to that was the firm conviction that foreigners were taking internal organs to sell to the United States.

There were some patients who survived the disease, and that was what gave Dr. Forget and other volunteer medics who work under MSF, the impetus to continue their work. That, and the fact that their efforts, when they succeeded in influencing people to seek help, would have the greater effect of stemming the tide of greater infection rates. Two American doctors in Liberia have contracted the disease.

Yet the World Health Organization (WHO) is not yet recommending any travel restrictions in prevention of spreading the infection, so international flights continued to depart from Liberia and other affected countries, such as Guinea and Sierra Leone. Dr. Forget experienced one personal time when he felt that he too might have become infected when his stomach had begun acting up; a normal enough fear of physicians attending morbidly affected patients.

"I will join forces again", he said. "This is an unprecedented Ebola outbreak, in terms of the numbers of people affected and geographic distribution. It's the worst crisis we've ever had." Last week in Sierra Leone, that country's top doctor who had treated a hundred Ebola cases, contracted the dread disease himself, and succumbed to its awful effect.

Sheik Umar Khan, Sierra Leone's top Ebola doctor credited with treating more than 100 patients, has died after being infected with the virus

Driving Under The Influence

"All of this verdict will never change anything that happened. My loved ones will not come back."
"It's hard because all the pictures that are in my head are coming back."
"It's not me that's bringing her to court. I have no expectations concerning this trial."
"Future and present drivers should know that we don't stop on highways, and it's very dangerous. Even if it's a small animal that we like or that we want to preserve we should not stop on the highways. It's not a place to stop."
Pauline Volikakis, Montreal, bereaved wife and mother

"I just wanted to pick all those ducklings up and put them in my car. I know it was a mistake."
Emma Czornobaj, 25, Laval, Quebec

Emma Czornobaj, left, leaves the Montreal Court room with a supporter Monday, June 2, 2014. Czornobaj has been charged with criminal negligence and dangerous driving causing two deaths when she stopped her car on a highway to avoid hitting a family of ducks.   Photograph by: Peter McCabe , The Gazette

Most people, women in particular, but not necessarily just women, would catch their breath and hope for the best, seeing a wild animal, small or large run out on a highway where cars are passing. Snakes, turtles, skunks, raccoons, squirrels, ducks -- any number of unaware, frightened animals seeking to pass from one wooded area to another, instinctively aware that to do so is dangerous, but risking the passage because of some irresistible natural draw -- all come to grief on highways.

When the animals that are crossing represent larger wildlife like deer or moose or bears, then the risk to the driver who cannot evade their presence, is multiplied, as well. Drivers, for the most part, make an effort to swerve slightly if it can help them to avoid hitting an animal or a bird, though it is also a fact that there are some who deliberately go out of their way to strike such targets, taking some kind of morbid pleasure in meting out death.

Emma Czornobaj wasn't one of the latter. On June 27, 2010, she was driving on Highway 30 on the South Shore of Montreal when she noticed seven ducks in a row, waddling in the left lane. It really is surprising how often that kind of thing happens, and when it does, there are occasions when people are alerted, perhaps not on a highway but on a rural lane, and the ducks are able to pass in safety. Emma Czornobaj parked her Honda Civic, started her flashers and walked on the highway back to where she had seen the birds.

At trial in Montreal, where Ms. Czornobaj is charged with criminal negligence causing death, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment on conviction, along with two charges of dangerous driving causing death, with a maximum sentence of 14 years, Martine Tessier informed the court she had narrowly avoided smashing into Ms. Czornobaj's car, seconds before a fatal crash occurred with others on the road nor managing to avoid a collision with the parked car.

Then it was the turn of witness Pauline Volikakis, driving her orange Yamaha motorcycle which she managed to skid to a stop, sustaining slight injuries. She had seen her husband gesture at a woman who had been walking on the narrow shoulder of the highway. "I wondered what she was doing there. It was not the place to be", she commented. She watched as her husband's Harley Davidson smashed into the parked car. And as her 16-year-old daughter Jessie, riding pillion, was thrown onto the car's back window, over the car, onto the hood and then the road.

She witnessed her daughter, pinned underneath the car as the force of the crash shoved the car forward. Her husband had been driving his motorcycle at an estimated 113 to 129 kmh. She suffered the agony of seeing her husband and her daughter, whom they had just picked up from her workplace, with the family heading out for home but with the intention of stopping on the way for ice cream, involved in a cataclysmic collision. That was at 7:20 p.m., daylight on a lovely summer's day.

Ms. Czornobaj's lawyer's argument was that the deaths were the result of "an unfortunate accident", not to be confused with a deliberate criminal act. She had stopped close to the barrier separating the highway, and put on her hazard lights, unaware she could be the cause of a dangerous life-threat to other motorists. The Crown attorney stated that Ms. Czornobaj had stopped on the road and emerged "for the purpose of catching ducks", her actions indicating "wanton and reckless disregard for the safety of others".

Superior Court Justice Eliane Perrault informed jurors they could find the accused guilty of simple dangerous driving, with a maximum sentence of five years. And she patiently responded to a number of queries posed by the jury, explaining that "Criminal negligence requires more than carelessness on Emma Czornobaj's part. It must be a marked and substantial difference from what a reasonable and prudent person would do in the same circumstances."

The Crown, pointed out Judge Perrault, must prove this; either by proving the accused was aware of the danger or the risk of safety to others and acted nonetheless; or to prove that the accused "gave no thought to the possibility that any such risk existed." As for charges of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death, the Judge remarked: "The Crown must satisfy, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Emma Czornobaj acted in a way that is a marked departure from what a reasonable and prudent driver would do in the same circumstances."

"You must be satisfied that a reasonable person in similar circumstances should have been aware of the risk and the danger involved in Emma Czornobaj's conduct."  Pauline Volikakis hadn't looked to charge the young woman whose oblivion to the danger her action in driving under the influence of kindness might impose on the travelling public. And the jury is now left with the perplexing and troubling judgement they must pronounce upon; requiring the Solomonic judgement.

Everest avalanche: Climbers descend amid uncertainty 

BBC News online -- 25 April 2014

Sherpa mountain guides have already held some talks with the Nepalese government

About half the teams at Everest base camp are descending amid uncertainty over this year's climbing season, after 16 guides were killed in an avalanche.

A row over local guides' share of revenue from foreign climbers erupted after last week's deadly accident, prompting some to threaten a boycott.
Sherpas also want better rescue and treatment facilities for guides.

If others descend, some fear it could effectively end plans to climb the world's highest mountain this year.

Ang Tshering Sherpa, the president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), told BBC Nepali's Surendra Phuyal that was a distinct possibility if the majority of climbers decided to abandon climbing.

But Madhusudan Burlakoti, a tourism ministry official, hoped that some teams might still climb. Sherpas have been in talks over these issues with the Nepalese government.

Everest's climbing season lasts three months every year

 

More than 300 foreigners were preparing to climb Everest this year, but the tense aftermath of the avalanche that killed 13 Sherpas and left 3 missing presumed dead dashed hopes and left many climbers disturbed and shocked, our correspondent reports.

Several expeditions appear to be cancelling their climbs. Alan Arnette, who runs a climbing blog , describes Everest as "an airport with the terminal open but the runways closed".

Monica Piris from Alpenglow Expeditions says on their website that attempting to climb Everest now would be "unwise and unsafe".

The Sherpa "need time to mourn their losses and their families want them at home", while "the ambience at base camp is becoming increasingly tense", she writes.

Saray Khumalo from the Ubuntu Everest expedition posts on their Facebook page that it was not meant to be this year, "but I have definitely enjoyed the journey till now", she says.

Meanwhile, Irish Seven Summits tweeted early on Friday: "Many groups have now left but we remain at Base Camp and are staying positive amidst the tense atmosphere....Discussions are ongoing with the expedition leader so to cover all options available to them."

About 50 expedition teams had been at the base camp, with 31 intended for Everest.

Some of the teams have chosen to go on trekking expeditions instead, while others are still waiting and watching, BBC Nepali's Navin Singh Khadka reports.

The government has assured teams that their climbing permits will remain valid for the next five years.

Last Friday's avalanche was the single deadliest accident in modern mountaineering on the world's highest peak.
It struck an area just above Everest base camp at 5,800m (19,000ft).

Sherpas can earn up to $8,000 (£4,800) in the three-month Everest climbing season - more than 10 times the average wage in Nepal, which remains one of Asia's poorest nations.

But BBC South Asia correspondent Andrew North says that does not look so good when the government is earning millions of dollars each year in fees for climbing permits. Some guiding companies charge up to $60,000 (£36,000) per person.

The guides who lost their lives had climbed up the slope early in the morning to fix ropes for climbers and prepare the route.

The avalanche struck a passage called the Khumbu Icefall, which is riddled with crevasses and ice boulders that can break free without warning.

Although relatively low on the mountain, it is one of its most dangerous points - but there are no safer paths along the famous South Col route first scaled by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

Sherpas often make 20-25 round trips to carry kit and supplies to advanced camps, exposing themselves to greater risk.

Everest has been scaled by more than 3,000 climbers since 1953.

 Causing a Disturbance

"[Sorry] for causing a disturbance."
"At the time, the current was very strong, the temperature of the ocean water was cold, and I thought that if people left the ferry without (proper) judgement, if they were not wearing a life-jacket, and even if they were, they would drift away and face many other difficulties."
Lee Joon-seok, captain, Sewol ferry, South Korea

Coast guard members search for passengers near a South Korean ferry that capsized on its way to Jeju island from Incheon, at sea some 20 kilometers off the island of Byungpoong in Jindo on April 17, 2014. (ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images)

"What the captain and part of the crew did is unfathomable from the viewpoint of common sense. Unforgivable, murderous behaviour."
"[Instead of following a maritime traffic controller's instructions to] make the passengers escape [the captain and some crew] told the passengers to stay put while they themselves became the first to escape. Legally and ethically, this is an unimaginable act."
President Park Geun-hye, South Korea

"At first, I was just very sad, but now it's like an endless wait. It's been too long already ... The parents' only wish right now is to find the bodies before they are badly decomposed."
Woo Dong-suk, missing student family member

The bodies of the recovered students are indeed in the initial state of decomposition. Even so, parents refuse to believe that their children are dead, gone from them forever. For the time being, bodies are receiving visual identification. That is, after they've been taken to Jindo island and rescuers notify families, where they wait endlessly at the port or at a gymnasium serving as a shelter.

If identifying items are not discovered on the body, notes are taken on clothing, on specific physical marks, and additional notes are taken on the condition of the body. Those details are given to the waiting families in lieu of definite recovered ID. Once at the dock, bodies are taken into a white tent where they are again inspected and a coroner tidies the bodies for viewing, mostly by wiping oil and dirt away, straightening limbs.

One distraught father, seeing his 15-year-old son's recovered body shouted "Don't touch my son! He's still alive!", then turning to the boy he begged "Stop sleeping! Why are you sleeping so much? Daddy will save you!" Whereupon the man began applying CPR, and blowing into his son's mouth in a desperate effort to resuscitate the boy; soon understanding he would not, could not, nothing would work: "...I could only smell a rotting stench".

The captain explained he was had been waiting with caution before issuing an evacuation order because of the strong current, the cold water and his concern that the passengers could drift off before help arrived. Maritime experts experts roundly disagree, saying passengers could have been ordered to the deck, and there might have experienced a greater opportunity for survival where they could be reached, as they could not be, below deck.

The third mate, Park Han-Kyul, who was steering in the absence of the captain on the bridge, had no prior experience of the area and she informed investigators just why she had made that sharp turn, which, it is speculated, caused the ferry to tilt, though her explanation has not been divulged publicly yet. Fifty-nine bodies were recovered, leaving about 240 people still missing and the death toll will rise of a certainty.

Thirty minutes after the tilt began, a crew member asked a marine traffic controller whether passengers would be rescued if they abandoned ship. A radio transcript recorded that conversation between the crew member and an unidentified official at Jindo Vessel Traffic Services Centre on Wednesday, 29 minutes after the ferry had reported encountering problems:

Marine Traffic Centre: "Even if it's impossible to broadcast, please go out and let the passengers wear life jackets and put on more clothing."
Sewol crewman: "If this ferry evacuates passengers, will you be able to rescue them?"
MTC: "At least make them wear life rings and make them escape!"
SC: "If this ferry evacuates passengers, will they be rescued right away?"
MTC: "Don't let them go bare -- at least make them wear life rings and make them escape! The rescue of human lives from the Sewol ferry ... the captain should make his own decision and evacuate them. We don't know the situation very well. The captain should make the final decision and decide whether you're going to evacuate passengers or not."
SC: "I'm not talking about that. I asked, if they evacuate now, can they be rescued right away?"

The traffic official assured at that point that patrol boats would arrive in ten minutes. Another ship was nearby and had informed controllers it meant to rescue anyone who was overboard. The ferry had 476 people aboard when it sank, the majority of them students from a South Korean high school. Over 170 people survived the Sewol sinking. Over the weekend divers were finally able to find a way to the interior of the sunken vessel and began discovering bodies.

The South Korean government has not exactly covered itself in glory in its response to the dreadful sinking of the ferry. Common sense appears to be in short supply. When a high ranking official in the Ministry of Security and Public Administration, chief of the Regional Development Policy Bureau thought it a good idea to take a photograph of the situation room in Jindo where briefings to relatives take place, he earned the fury of the grieving families.

A relative of missing passengers from a sinking South Korea ferry waits in a makeshift tent along a dockside in Jindo, April 17, 2014. (ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images)

When Song Young-chur resigned in disgrace, a spokesman for the government affirmed his resignation was accepted "as a warning to others, as he has raised public resentment by trying to take commemorative photos without understanding the feeling of the families of the victims and lost persons." On site was over 200 rescue boats, 35 aircraft, 13 fishing boats and 641 personnel representing the South Korean coast guard and navy.

Relatives wait for missing passengers of a sunken ferry at Jindo gymnasium on April 17, 2014 in Jindo-gun, South Korea. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

But this is no rescue mission. It is a recovery exercise, to bring the anguish of closure to hundreds of bereaved parents whose children perished because they trusted authority. The public is expending their anger in a fury of condemnation against the captain and the crew of the ferry, some of whom, principally the captain, have been placed under arrest and will stand trial for various offences against the maritime code of ethics.

But there were, among the 29 crew members at least seven who are missing or dead. A few of the others who survived to give witness to the catastrophe had remained on or near the ship helping passengers. Some of those crew members handed their own lifejackets to passengers. And one who refused to leave while shepherding students off the ship was later found among the dead.

Rescue helicopters fly over a sinking South Korean passenger ferry that was carrying more than 450 passengers, mostly high school students, Wednesday, April 16, 2014, off South Korea's southern coast. Hundreds of people are missing despite a frantic, hours-long rescue by dozens of ships and helicopters.

Others made strenuous efforts from rescue boats to break windows on the ferry's cabins and pull people to safety. Their morality and heroic efforts in a demonstration of decency and responsibility remains on the back burner as the public's fury over the inexplicable loss of life of so many young people wraps the nation in a black fug of mourning.