Eideard

 
Several sailors have been rescued from a fire on board a ship in the Persian gulf by a TV crew who happened to be filming in the area.

Iranian state television reported the ship was carrying fuel to Iran’s Bandar Abbas port when a large blaze broke out on board.

All nine crew members were able to escape onto the TV documentary makers’ small boat.

Great timing – and an exclusive.

American commandos raced into Somalia early Wednesday and rescued two aid workers, an American woman and a Danish man, after a shootout with Somali pirates who had been holding them captive for months.

The American forces — drawn from the same Navy commando unit that killed Osama bin Laden — swooped in and killed nine pirates before spiriting away the hostages, who were not harmed…

It appeared that President Obama was fully aware of the raid as he was about to give his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, which would have been early Wednesday in Somalia…

In a statement on Wednesday, the president said he authorized the operation on Monday, and he mentioned the American hostage, Jessica Buchanan, by name. “Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our Special Operations forces, yesterday Jessica Buchanan was rescued and she is on her way home. As commander in chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission, and the dedicated professionals who supported their efforts…”

American officials said Wednesday that the assault team for the hostage-rescue mission drew from the Navy commando unit commonly referred to as Seal Team Six, the Navy’s top-tier counterterrorism organization, which carried out the deadly raid on Bin Laden inside Pakistan. But officials stressed that the rescue mission included personnel from the other armed services as well, and that the commandos themselves were not necessarily the same people who conducted the Bin Laden raid.

Somalia is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world, plagued by pirate gangs and countless militant groups, a lawless nation that has languished for 21 years without a functioning government. Several Westerners have recently been kidnapped, typically for ransom, and it seems that as Somalia’s pirates have a harder time hijacking ships on the high seas because of the beefed up naval efforts, they are increasingly turning to snatching foreigners on land…

Somalia is also considered a no-go zone for conventional American military operations, but it has been the site of several special operations raids, usually to kill wanted terrorism suspects. American forces stage the raids from a constellation of bases ringing Somalia, in Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya.

According to local leaders in Galkayo, dark helicopters began circling over the area late Tuesday night. Sometime around 3 a.m., the American commandos landed near a small village called Hiimo Gaabo, south of Galkayo and a firefight erupted.

The commandos freed the hostages, and the helicopters took off. By dawn, after morning prayers, the bodies of the nine pirates killed in the raid were brought back to Hiimo Gaabo…

Bravo! Pirates, gangsters, the lawless need to be treated as outside the law. Bring ‘em in for trial if you can. But, around Somalia, hardly anyone cares to waste the time on trials except as miniature agitprop shows illuminating what passes for democracy in the region.

 
Nova Scotia Power lineman Yvon Blin saves a seagull that somehow managed to get its head stuck in a braided power service line in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Canada.

The journalist who shot the video was also taking stills for the local paper; so, he stopped shooting video before the release. But, the lineman brought the seagull down to the ground and released him – and he flew away just fine.

Maybe had a little crick in his neck the next morning.

Thanks, Ursarodina

French solo sailing star Florence Arthaud fell off her boat during a toilet break but was saved from the Mediterranean waters by rescuers after she called her mother by mobile phone.

Ms Arthaud, winner in 1990 of the Route du Rhum single-handed transatlantic sailing race, was located and rescued near the island of Corsica thanks to a headlamp and the GPS system on her phone.

A small wave hit the boat and knocked her overboard while she was taking a toilet break without her usual harness, she said.

“I quite simply fell into the water while preparing to take a pee,” the 54-year-old told BFM television.

Ms Arthaud, alone on her 10-metre (33ft) yacht The Argade II when she fell overboard, managed to hold her phone, encased in a waterproof covering, above water and call her mother in Paris to raise the alarm. Her mother alerted a rescue team, which set off in search of the sailor.

She spent almost two hours in the water before being rescued. And probably won’t pee over the side of the boat for a while, I’ll bet.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Four people were pulled out alive Monday from the rubble of the Turkey earthquake after one managed to call for help with his mobile phone…

Dozens of people were trapped in mounds of concrete, twisted steel and construction debris after hundreds of buildings in two cities and mud-brick homes in nearby villages pancaked or partially collapsed in Sunday’s earthquake.

Worst-hit was Ercis – an eastern city of 75,000 close to the Iranian border that lies in one of Turkey’s most earthquake-prone zones – where about 80 multistory buildings collapsed.

Yalcin Akay was dug out from a collapsed six-story building with a leg injury after he called a police emergency line on his phone and described his location, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. Three others, including two children, were also rescued from the same building in Ercis 20 hours after the quake struck, officials said…

As over 200 aftershocks rocked the area, rescuers searched mounds of debris for the missing and tearful families members waited anxiously nearby. Cranes and other heavy equipment lifted slabs of concrete, allowing residents to dig for the missing with shovels. Generator-powered floodlights ran all night so the rescues could continue.

Aid groups scrambled to set up tents, field hospitals and kitchens to help the thousands left homeless or too afraid to re-enter their homes. Many exhausted residents spent the night outside, lighting fires to keep warm…

The bustling, larger city of Van, about 55 miles (90 kilometres) south of Ercis, also sustained substantial damage, but Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said search efforts there were winding down. Mr Sahin expected the death toll in Ercis to rise, but not as much as initially feared. He told reporters rescue teams were searching for survivors in the ruins of 47 buildings where dozens could be trapped, including a cafe…

More than 2,000 teams with a dozen sniffer dogs were involved in search-and-rescue and aid efforts.

Several countries offered assistance but Mr Erdogan said Turkey was able to cope for the time being. Azerbaijan, Iran and Bulgaria still sent aid, he said.

I decided a long time ago that life was tough enough without adding earthquakes to the potential of forces completely out of your control that could affect your life.

I’ve mentioned before that I grew up subsistence fishing on the New England coast. I come from island people – on my father’s side of the family.

These are the some of the people who work on the water – who helped folks on the morning of 9/11.

Thanks, Ursarodina

 
Police in Utah are searching for a group of construction workers, students and bystanders. But for a good reason.

This group is credited with saving a man’s life by working together to lift a burning car and pull a man to safety.

It was a “life-saving move that the Logan Police Department does not want to go unnoticed,” said Jeff Curtis, assistant chief of the police department in Logan, Utah.

The incident occurred Monday morning on a street near Utah State University and was captured on video.

Police said the BMW pulled out of a parking lot and in front of Wright. Curtis said the motorcyclist tried to avoid the car, which resulted in him laying the motorcycle down. After crashing, gas spilled out of the motorcycle and ignited, engulfing both the motorcycle and the front end of the car in flames…The motorcyclist became lodged underneath the burning vehicle…

Curtis said police are trying to find the people who helped so they can be recognized for their efforts at a city council meeting.

Bravo. Ordinary people torn an their ordinary day by extraordinary circumstances. Caring – as we all should – for the life of another human being.

Chilean rescuers have saved two tourists who got into trouble on an Andean mountain and raised the alarm by calling an emergency number in the US.

The two – an Italian and a Czech – used a satellite device to send their location to a rescue centre in Texas.

Local teams then had to contend with heavy snow, rain and high winds to reach the pair, who were sheltering on the slopes of the Quetrupillan volcano.

After the rescue, the tourists said they were lucky to be alive. “It was very serious. At times we thought that we were going to die,” said Czech Phillip Kunk. Italian Analissa Lombardo said it was the most frightening experience of her life.

The two were taken a local hospital to be treated for symptoms of hypothermia…

They entered the national park on Monday, planning to walk along a trail that usually takes five days. But they got into trouble by the early hours of Friday, and raised the alarm with Texas rescuers.

The Americans then alerted the Chilean authorities, and a rescue team was despatched to the area, near the resort town of Pucon.

This is one of those terrific solutions that finally becomes affordable. The usual satellite phone costs way too much for most adventure trekkers; but, a few firms now maintain a communications service for small, portable – affordable – phones that are only good for [a] sending an emergency alert and [b] identifying where you are.

No long conversations with the family dog; but – as in this case – the folks providing the service contact the authorities where you are cramped and send help.

A dog that survived in a house swept away to sea three weeks ago by the devastating Japan tsunami was saved on Friday by a coast guard rescue team flying over an island of debris.

Local television showed an aerial view of a brown medium-sized dog trotting around the roof of the house — the only part of it floating above water — before disappearing inside through a broken section of the roof.

The coast guard rescuers, thinking there might also be people alive inside the house, lowered one of their team onto the roof. He tried to coax the dog out, but then went in after tearing a wider opening. He came out with the dog in his arms and they were transported back to safety by boat.

Domestic media said no people were found inside the house.

Sad and happy at the same time. Too bad the dog’s people weren’t found with him.

Britain’s embarrassing efforts to evacuate stranded nationals from civil war in Libya were condemned on Wednesday night. The Foreign Office finally managed to load 300 Britons onto a plane at Tripoli, but only after it had borrowed the jet from BP.

The plane the Government had intended to use to evacuate Britons waited on the runway at Gatwick airport for 10 hours before taking off late on Wednesday night.

Mr Hague admitted the efforts had been a failure and said he would establish a review to investigate. Portugal, Turkey, France and the EU had already pulled out thousands of citizens…

The attempt to organise an airlift of the 540 Britons stranded in the country stumbled. The first plane the Government chartered was delayed on the runway at Gatwick with a mechanical fault.

A second was due to leave later last night and a third, if necessary, today. HMS Cumberland, a Royal Navy frigate, was on its way to the rebel-held eastern city of Benghazi to rescue Britons trapped there.

Doesn’t really build confidence in the plane-rental biz in the UK, does it?

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