Chiang Rai News
Tacloban City in the Philippines Begins to Bury Its Dead
TACLOBAN, the Philippines — Pausing occasionally to dodge driving rains by hiding under loose scraps of plywood, a group of firefighters lowered unidentified bodies into a mass grave here Thursday, six days after the city was largely destroyed in Typhoon Haiyan.
For days, the bodies had sat in public. First they were uncovered on roadsides; then they were placed in body bags. After that, they were collected, and nearly 200 were stored at the biggest site, a government office. In the nearby City Hall, the center of local government relief efforts, the stench from the bodies could be powerful when the wind blew off the harbor.
Two young boys look at the devastation in the aftermath of typhoon Haiyan“What we are doing is a little bit late,” said Alfred S. Romualdez, the mayor of Tacloban. He blamed the national government for widespread delays of burials and the distribution of food, water and basic relief supplies.
“I appreciate the boats coming in, the planes coming in,” he said. “But what we need are foot soldiers, times 10 of what you see now.”
The official death toll for Tacloban City rose to 2,000 on Thursday, but that covers only bodies that have been collected or visually confirmed by authorized officials. The visually confirmed bodies are those readily visible from roadsides, as relief crews have yet to start digging through towering piles of debris, much of it studded with nails.
There are also 3,000 injured, by the official tally, and 194 people for whom the paperwork has been completed for them to be declared missing.
In a familiar problem here, in a relief effort dogged by glitches, Mr. Romualdez said that the backhoe digging the mass grave had broken down before the hole was big enough for the initial batch of 244 bodies.
“Tomorrow morning, it’s going to get going,” he said.
Food distribution has improved, Mr. Romualdez said. Relief workers have now distributed packages of rations in 101 of the city’s 138 neighborhoods, he said, and will reach the rest on Friday, he said. Each family is supposed to receive three kilograms, or six and a half pounds, of rice and some canned goods.
Residents cover their nose from the smell of dead bodies in Tacloban city.But walk through Tacloban, and people plead for food, like the family near Santo Niño Church, packed into a crew cab pickup truck for shelter, who cried “We need food” to passers-by.
Mr. Romualdez acknowledged that food distribution had been a problem. Large numbers of people have been wandering across the city seeking food or missing family members. Those who are not at home when a relief truck arrives in their neighborhood are unlikely to get food, the mayor said.
A Philippine Red Cross convoy of two ambulances, two water tanker trucks, a busload of police officers and six large trucks carrying medical supplies drove into Tacloban on Thursday morning, having driven from Manila, a 22-hour trip. Jennifer Chico, the Leyte Island administrator for the Philippine Red Cross, said that the convoy had left a needed fuel tanker along the way, at least partly because of worries about the security of bringing such high-value cargo into a still-turbulent area. A Red Cross road-clearing equipment convoy also reached Tacloban on Thursday.
In a sign of the continuing fuel shortages, dozens of people waiting hours to receive gasoline that was being pulled out of a gas stations tanks by people using buckets attached to poles. “It’s free. You just have to get up early,” said Michael Patan-Ao, who had waited eight hours for fuel for his motorcycle. Two police officers watched over the scene.
Security concerns have plagued much of the disaster response effort. An effort to bury the bodies on Wednesday was halted over fears of possible violence.
“During transportation we noticed civilians running and crying and telling us there was a shooting,” said Reynaldo Romero, who heads a National Bureau of Investigation team that is overseeing the mass burial. “For the safety of the men, we had to turn back. Later it was confirmed there was no actual shooting.”
The death toll from a super typhoon that decimated entire towns in the Philippines could soar well over 10,000Mr. Romualdez later gave a different version, saying that a police investigation had found that law enforcement officials had fired warning shots to break up a fight between two people.
Flash thunderstorms were the biggest obstacle to the burial of corpses on Thursday. Rain soaked the eight firefighters who carried the bodies out of trucks and handed them to graveyard workers, most of them teenagers, who carried the bodies down into a freshly dug pit.
“It’s very, very difficult,” said Arnulfo Homeres, a firefighter who was helping carry the bodies. “But this is our profession, so we have to do it.” He wore two layers of masks that he occasionally daubed with perfume.
At one end, a backhoe worked to expand the pit, which was about two meters deep, three meters across and 60 meters wide. The backhoe broke down Thursday afternoon.
Mr. Romualdez said that he expected the pit to contain 400 bodies by Friday and that it could eventually hold 1,000. A separate mass grave will be dug at the site for the bodies of victims who have been identified.
At the foot of the pit and on the road beside the graveyard were more than a dozen bodies that been had brought by local residents to be buried in the mass grave. Most were wrapped in corrugated metal and cloth.
Destroyed houses lie in Tacloban city, Leyte province central PhilippinesIn a few months, the unidentified bodies will be exhumed and investigators will try to identify them using data like dental records, though many such records may have been destroyed in the storm. Mr. Romualdez said he expected that perhaps only 20 percent of the unknown dead would ever be identified.
The mass burial was at the Basper Public Cemetery, about eight kilometers, or five miles, outside central Tacloban. The storm surge did not reach the site, but it came close. A short distance from the graveyard, several taxis had been strewn across the road by the force of the wall of water that hit the city.
The steep hills above the graveyard, which residents said were green before the storm, are now brown and stripped of much of their plant life. A nearby valley is filled with badly damaged shack houses and palm trees with their tops broken.
The pit will remain open until all the bodies recovered from the public roads have been placed inside. Then they will be covered and a Mass will be offered, most likely on Friday, said Mr. Romualdez.
A second service will eventually be held for the dead found in houses and buildings, work that has yet to begin.
Police in Wiang Kaen District of Chiang Rai Province have arrested a 50 year old man after the threatened to rape a 20 year-old woman and the proceeded to murder her 2 and half month old baby.
Police with doctors from Wiang Kaen Hospital and the Chao Luang Wiang Kaen Welfare Association were summoned to the scene of the incident to a 2-story cement house, Village No. 2, Tha Kham Subdistrict, Wiang Kaen District of Chiang Rai
On arrival they found Ms. Chanikarn, age 20, in a state of distress crying uncontrollably beside her 2 and a half month baby girl (Linlada) that was dead on the floor.
After calming Ms. Chanikarn, the child’s mother, said that at approximately 2:30 p.m she was out to collect diapers that had been dried in front of the house, while her 2 and a half month old daughter was sleep on the ground floor of the house.
She said she was suddenly approached by a Mr. Lee, about 40 years old, who lived on the opposite side of the road. He came towards her and grabbed her arm and threatened her saying if she didn’t sleeping with him he will go and kill his daughter.
Miss Chanikan refused and ran away, then Mr. Lee then walked into the house and grabbed Ms. Linlada’s leg, smashing the child’s head against the cement floor of the house. The infant died immediately.
Mr. Lee then just walked away and returned to his own home, leaving Miss Chanikan and her dead baby.
When police went to Mr. Lee’s home he immediately confessed killing the infant and was taken to Wiang Kaen Police Station for further questioning. Under caution he told police that he was sexually attracted to Miss Chanikan‘s and when her husband leave for work he took the opportunity to approach her.
He said when he saw her husband leave he crossed that road and found Miss Chanikan in the yard alone, he then threatened her to sleep with him, saying he would kill her child if she didn’t have sex with him. However when she refused he flew into a fit of rage walked into her home and murdered he baby. He said he was out of control with rage.
After killing the infant he walk across the street to his home and waited for the police to arrive. The police have charged him with premeditated murder and attempted rape. He is being held without bail at the local remand center.
Meanwhile, Miss Chanikan and her family were preparing a religious burial ceremony for the child.
Other Chiang Rai News:
Machete Wielding Man Shot an Killed by Police in Chiang Rai
https://www.chiangraitimes.com/chiangrai-news/machete-wielding-man-shot-an-killed-by-police-in-chiang-rai/
CHIANG RAI: Prime Minister Settha Thavisin has authorized the establishment of an emergency cyber center operated by the Royal Thai Police to combat transnational crimes committed by call center gangs along the Thai border in Chiang Rai province.
On July 19, Prime Minister Settha Thavisin directed the Center to combat information technology crimes. The Royal Thai Police (Royal Thai Police) will crack down on call center gangs in Myanmar, Laos, and along the border.
His directive comes as call center gangs ratchet up their scams to defraud people of their money, causing concern among Thais and jeopardizing the country’s economic and social stability.
Pol. Gen. Kittirat Panphet, Deputy Commander and Director of the Police Crime Suppression Division, Assigned Pol. Lt. Gen. Thatchai Pitanilabut, Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the Police/Deputy Director of the Police Crime Suppression Division, has launched the operation ‘Bombing the Thieves’ Bridge’ in collaboration with the CAT Office, G., mobile phone network operators AIS DTAC TRUE NT, and local security agencies to cut the mobile phone signal and WiFi internet that criminals illegally use to deceive Thai citizens.
Pol. Lt. Gen. Thatchai stated that they will begin pressing the first action of the ‘Explosion of Thieves’ Bridge’ in Chiang Rai Province toward the thieves’ base of operations in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone.
The territory surrounding King Roman in Laos. King Roman is now a full-service entertainment destination with an airport that welcomes travelers from Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar, he explained.
According to Pol. Lt. Gen. Thatchai, this operation will have no influence on honest people along the Thai border, and it will only target cyber criminals.
They will also increase the arrest and prosecution of unlawful service towers, such as SIM booths, which allow gangs register SIM cards to swindle the people. Dealing with criminal organizations of foreigners and Thais who band together to deceive and damage Thais.
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) suspended more than three million SIM cards on July 16 because the holders had not verified their identities with their mobile phone operators by the deadline, in accordance with the NBTC’s measures to combat alleged fraudsters’ mule accounts.
The names of the holders of 80 million mobile phone numbers used for mobile banking transactions did not match the names associated with the mobile banking accounts.
The NBTC would require mobile phone companies to authenticate SIM card holders and the names of their mobile banking accounts. The verification procedure is expected to be completed by the end of September this year.
In addition, the NBTC and Royal Thai Police have collaborated to combat illegal telecom towers throughout the country’s borders, disconnecting signals at 465 places, altering antenna direction at 470 towers, and dismantling antennas at 179 locations.
They are certain that the move will disrupt contact center gangs and other types of technology-based crime.
Other Chiang Rai News:
Machete Wielding Man Shot an Killed by Police in Chiang Rai
https://www.chiangraitimes.com/chiangrai-news/machete-wielding-man-shot-an-killed-by-police-in-chiang-rai/
Police in Mae Chan, Chiang Rai, shot and killed a 28-year-old man who allegedly attacked a police officer with a machete. The officer was slashed in the right leg with the machete.
According to police, the culprit, known only as Mr. Toon, had been harassing local villagers in Mae Chan district, Chiang Rai, threatening them with a knife and using violet insults.
The village headman arrived on the scene to try to calm Mr. Toon, but he was shouting hysterically and taking swipes at him with the machete, so he contacted the police.
When the responding officer arrived at the site about 9 p.m., he attempted to calm the man, but he instead assaulted the officer, slashing his right leg with the machete. In self-defense, the cop had to fire his gun at Mr. Toon, striking him in the chest.
Mr. Toon and the policeman were taken to Mae Chan Hospital, where Mr. Toon died of a gunshot wound. Pol Sgt. Sutthikiat Phanomphraisakul was released from the hospital after receiving numerous stitches for his injuries.
Local police received a tip around 9.30 p.m. yesterday that a guy was causing mayhem in the village. When authorities arrived, they discovered 28-year-old Toon strolling along a public road, holding a large knife and threatening people. Mae Chan district officials attempted to contain the incident.
During a search of Mr. Toon’s home, authorities discovered methamphetamine consumption equipment. Locals told authorities that the man was addicted to Yaba (Methamphetamine) and an alcoholic.
The authorities are conducting an inquiry to determine Toon’s motivations and whether any underlying issues contributed to his violent outburst.
Other related news:
Chiang Mai Police Offer Cash Reward After Officer Killed
https://www.chiangraitimes.com/crime/chiang-mai-police-offer-reward/
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