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http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/17/world/africa/nigeria-church-collapse/index.html

At least 70 killed in Nigeria house collapse


updated 14:48 GMT 09.17.14
At least 70 killed in Nigeria house collapse
By Jason Hanna, Pierre Meilhan and Aminu Abubakar, CNN
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(CNN) - The death toll in last week's collapse of a guesthouse at a church run by a famous Nigerian preacher has risen to at least 70, a rescue agency official said Wednesday.

Rescuers have helped 131 other people out of the rubble and still are looking for more survivors from Friday's collapse of the two-story guesthouse at The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations, Nigerian Emergency Management Agency spokesman Ibrahim Farinloye told reporters at the collapse site.

The building, at the church run by televangelist T.B. Joshua in the Ikotun area of Lagos, came down Friday afternoon amid work to build additional floors, NEMA said.


Farinloye said NEMA hasn't identified the victims. On Tuesday, South African President Jacob Zuma said 67 South Africans were among the dead.

"This is a particularly difficult time for South Africa. Not in the recent history of our country have we had this large number of our people die in one incident outside the country," he said, according to a statement released by the President's office Tuesday.

NEMA said an investigation into the cause hasn't begun. But on its Facebook page Friday, NEMA said that two stories were being added without fortifying the foundation of the initial structure, and that there was a "high probability" this is what led to the collapse.

Joshua, dubbed "The Prophet" for his self-acclaimed healing powers and prophesies, has a large following among Nigerians and followers across the world.

His church attracts thousands of followers who attend every week to listen to his sermons, which are also telecast live on the church's television station.

"People travel from around the world to witness and receive from the mighty work that God is doing in the life of Prophet TB Joshua," the church's website says.

Centrifude: I knew this was going into another S.A vs Nigeria debate, we should be gathering different sources of information, comparing and trying to figure out what really happened

Don't get into it. Rise above it, bro.

A GROUP of 10 experts has been dispatched to Nigeria to evaluate the needs of South African citizens who may have been involved in the collapse of faith healer TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church of Nations building last week, says International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.

Addressing a media briefing at Parliament on Wednesday night, she said the group would include doctors who would be able to sign death certificates and see if those South Africans who were in hospital were receiving adequate treatment.

She said this was standard practice by the government and was being done on its own initiative.

Ms Nkoana-Mashabane said the South African consul-general in Lagos had been gathering information and keeping the government updated on the latest news. "This is the largest number of South Africans ever killed in a tragedy in a foreign nation," she said.

SA’s consul-general in Lagos has been working around the clock, visiting the scene, liaising with the leadership of the church and other authorities. In addition, the South African High Commission in the capital, Abuja, has seconded staff to Lagos to provide assistance to the consul-general.

"I am also able to confirm that an advance team of disaster management personnel is on the way to Lagos. In Pretoria, an inter-departmental team has been put together to co-ordinate all government activities relating to the calamity."

Ms Nkoana-Mashabane repeated President Jacob Zuma’s statement made on Tuesday that 67 South Africans had been killed in the building’s collapse. However, this appears to conflict with the Nigerian national emergency management agency’s claim that a total of 70 people had been killed and 131 rescued.

SA and Nigeria have developed business links with companies such as cellular network operator MTN and retailer Shoprite having operations there.

Ms Nkoana-Mashabane said at any given time there were about 300 South Africans in Nigeria.

Voicefilter: Now our humanitarian organisations were denied entry in the hospitals. The Nigerian government does not have value for human lives.Yet they do not have the resources to handle disasters. I feel sorry for ordinary people in that country. It does not help to be stubborn if nothing wise comes out of it. They want to hide information.

Ok, but now how can a church be allowed to chaise rescuers away and basically prevent the saving of lives?


Gift of the Givers chased away from church

Lagos - Gift of the Givers aid workers have been chased away from the scene of a collapsed building in Lagos, Nigeria, and threatened with arrest if they come near the site, the organisation said on Thursday.

“They tried to go to the church, but they were chased away. The authorities there didn't want them to take any information or come near,” said Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman.

“It was like a complete lock-out. They say if you go near the church you will be arrested and charged for like sabotage or something.”

The two representatives from the organisation told Sooliman it had been difficult to get information as there was no co-operation.

A multi-storey guesthouse at the Synagogue Church of All Nations (Scoan) in Lagos collapsed on Friday killing numerous people, including South Africans. President Jacob Zuma said 67 South Africans had been killed.

They were believed to be part of five South African tour groups lodging at the church of faith healer “prophet” TB Joshua.

One South African woman had asked the Gift of the Givers to find her brother who was at Scoan when it collapsed.

“...We requested our representatives in Nigeria to try and trace this family relative and check on the well-being of other fellow South Africans,” said Sooliman.

The two representatives found the man in a hospital called Avon Healthcare.

“He was injured, but we don't know what injuries it was. He was told his sister was looking for him and he phoned her.”

Before the two could look for other South African survivors they were chased out of the hospital.

Sooliman said the National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) had told its representatives in Nigeria that 131 survivors were pulled from the rubble and provided a different death toll - that 63 people had died in total, including the South Africans. ...

Nuff sed.

Weapons viewing. Professional. Weapons officer looking after quality control so that soldiers don't flee because they don't have quality weapons.

.

Sharing and getting involved since 1910. Bush survival skills passed on to US soldiers.

It is what it is. Fast Roping.

Wot it do.

Buddy aid. All South African soldiers have to be skilled in it. Professional army. People's army.

Camouflage techniques being passed down to recruits. Old lessons preserved.

As per tradition. He proudly pushes up because he received a box from his civilian life.

Indoor electronic rifle range. Technological solutions for today's problems. Bad weather? No problem!

Professional army. People's army.

Reserve force members of the Cape Town Rifle (Dukes) at training at Beaufort West. People's army.

Learn2history. Real experience.

Original caption: "Civilians tending soldiers' graves; some of the many thousands which serve as a legacy of man's madness. The total cost in human lives amounted to 13 million. The total number of South Africans killed during the First World War was 12 452, of whom 8 551 were white, 709 coloured men and 3 192 black. Although small when compared with the total, to sparsely populated South Africa, the losses were enormous. Not only in terms of numbers, but in terms of quality and kind. Those who served were all volunteers, and it is in the nature of things that a volunteer army takes a proportion of the best men of a nation."

It is what it is. South African Airforce Oryx from 22 Squadron on board the United States aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.

March 1917. WW1. Dannes, France. Real history.

Learn2History.

Original caption: "Rare photograph of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in training. Here seen being trained in the USSR by Russian Military advisors." And then imposters want to tell us they freed South Africa.

Korean war. 67th Fighter-Bomber Squadron North American F-86F-25-NH Sabre seen with a 2 Squadron South African Air Force Sabre's empennage (tail assembly). Real experience.

The people's army.

Original Caption: "There is good reason why a statue of ANOTHER South African - Jan Smuts - stands on the most revered British plot. Parliament Square, outside the British Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Next to the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Chruchill, Nelson Mandela and nearby Oliver Cromwell - such was the importance of this South African to world politics.

Smuts was rather lucky to survive his visit to Normandy, as both he and Churchill could very well have been killed while visiting Monty’s headquarters at Cruelly. The author Nicholas Rankin, in his book “Churchill’s Wizards, British Genius for Deception 1914-1945” relates on page 406 that while visiting the headquarters and as “senior officers stood outside with the Prime Minister [Churchill], South African Field Marshal Smuts sniffed the air and said, ‘There are some Germans near us now…I can always tell!’” And lo and behold, just two days later, “two fully armed German paratroopers emerged from a nearby Rhododendron bush, where they had been hiding all along. Had they used their guns and grenades on Churchill [and Smuts], everything would have changed.”

It is also really amazing when one considers that Smuts, an erstwhile enemy of the British empire, was not only to reconcile himself to his former enemy over the succeeding years, but was also to be greatly respected by two British prime ministers: Lloyd George appointing him head of the war council that was ultimately to bring about the amalgamation of the RFC and the RNAS and the subsequent founding of the Royal Air Force during the closing stages of WWI, while he was also earmarked to have been Churchill’s successor should the British prime minister succumb for whatever reason during the war."

The Fallen. Shot in Cape Town. Peep it out.

http://vimeo.com/37668393


In this short film about two close friends, Bauke juxtaposes the tumultuous desert warfare of North Africa with the sedentary life of South Africa. Yet, through love and loss, the effects of war are deeply felt no matter how far away the fighting is. It is soldier's personal account of the tumult around him and the aftermath told with intimate camera work and dialogue.

It pays tribute to the South African men who sacrificed their lives and the families and friends they left behind.

Real experience. SAAF in Tunisia. 1949.

SAAF Cheetah C, serial number 359 - sporting the low visibility SANDF SAAF roundel implemented in 2003.

Where is the lost Nigerian jet? Found? Not found? Which one is it? What does almost known mean? Is the whereabouts almost known as was the case with the girls?

#BringBackOurJetandGirls

Whereabouts of Nigerian missing jet almost known: air force chief

ABUJA, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- The whereabouts of a military jet which went missing in the far northeast of Nigeria last weekend is almost known, Nigeria's Air Force Chief Ademola Amosu said on Monday, allaying growing fears that the lost aircraft may never be found.

Amosu told reporters in the Nigerian capital Abuja that the air force authority has gathered credible information on the whereabouts of the military jet which went missing while on a mid- air in the northeast region.

He confirmed that local residents had launched a hunt as the air force authorities intensified their search for the jet, but said the inclement weather in the area has hampered search operations.

"The weather has not been helpful as we have deployed all our surveillance capability. The citizens have been very, very helpful and we have gotten good information from them. But you know, in the aviation sector, we have some specific information that we ought to have to make the search easy," Amosu said after a meeting with Nigerian Vice President Namadi Sambo, at the presidential palace.

The missing air force jet had two pilots on board while on a mission from Yola, capital of the northeastern state of Adamawa, to Maiduguri, capital of the neighboring Borno State, when it disappeared from radar since Friday, the Nigerian defense headquarters said in a statement.

C-130BZ, after a tactical demo.

People's air force in the rolling hills of Qunu.

SAA A340 + SAAF Silver Falcons.

SAAF Mirage underbelly.

SAAF vampire.