Smartphone Is Listening

Your Smartphone Is Listening in While You Watch TV

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 07:00:00 -0400

You're sitting on the couch with the TV on and phone in hand. As a commercial starts, a smartphone app hears what you're watching.

It then serves up links, coupons or music downloads corresponding to what it hears on the tube through smartphone microphones. So if you tend to impulse buy, the next time you're watching one of those late-night infomercials you might want to set your phone aside.

In recent months, logos for music-identifying service Shazam have popped up in Procter & Gamble, Honda or American Express commercials. Progressive Insurance, Starbucks and Paramount have also linked to mobile content through Shazam tags in their commercials or web videos. The ads prompt viewers to launch Shazam with the company's logo or a call-out, and if they do, the app brings up links their websites, discounts or other goodies.

One of the earliest users is Old Navy. The retailer's chief marketing officer, Amy Curtis-McIntyre, talked about the company's Shazam ads at Ad Age's Digital Conference this past spring. When consumers used the app to identify any of the songs heard in Old Navy spots, styling tips, deals and key looks featured in the commercial popped up.

More: http://m.adage.com/article?articleSection=digital&articleSectionName=Digital&articleid=http%3A%2F%2Fadage.com%2Fdigital%2Farticle%3Farticle_id%3D228760

Canadas Carney Economics

Carney warns U.S. default would have 'profound implications'

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney warns about the financial fallout from a U.S. debt default but says he doesn't think the U.S. will actually end up defaulting. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, says any U.S. government default on its debt would have "profound implications" for financial markets and that "it's our view that's not something that should be tested."

Carney said Wednesday the bank does not expect the U.S. will default, and said there's no certainty about what the effects would be if it did.

He said if there is no agreement among U.S. lawmakers by the deadline, but no default because the government met its interest and principal payments by deferring other spending, that would still likely slow the U.S. economy.

U.S. lawmakers continued Wednesday to debate various options for a deal to cut spending that would allow passage of a measure to increase the U.S. fiscal borrowing limit by the government's deadline of Aug. 2. The U.S. Treasury Department has said the country would be in default after that time.

Carney made the comments shortly after the bank released its latest outlook for the country's economic growth, saying that risks to the economy remain "roughly balanced” between a domestic economy that is picking up steam and a global economy that is facing more headwinds.

In its regular monetary policy report, the central bank added that it was closely watching the possibility that a worsening European debt crisis could drag down financial markets and spark a credit crisis around the world.

Q2 growth estimate cut

It reduced its estimate for how much the Canadian economy grew in the second three months of the year to 1.5 per cent, down from the two per cent estimate it gave in April.

However, the central bank said it expected the domestic economy will grow slightly faster in the second half of the year than thought earlier.

It predicted annual growth of 2.8 per cent for all of 2011, down slightly from an earlier estimate of 2.9 per cent.

"Although the global outlook remains broadly unchanged, global risks have intensified, most notably in Europe," it said.

The bank projected that the Canadian dollar will average $1.03 US this year, and the high loonie will be the chief competitive issue for Canadian businesses.

"However, an even stronger loonie is a price the bank seems willing to pay, given that a rising currency is seen as a key ingredient needed to help restrain core inflation in coming months," BMO Capital Markets chief economist Sherry Cooper said in a commentary.

The bank predicts that core inflation — which factors out such volatile items as food and energy prices — will rise above two per cent for a period early next year.

'There is zero indication that the bank is poised to aggressively move on rates.' —Sherry Cooper, chief economist, BMO Capital Markets

"The bank is preparing the groundwork for rate hikes later this year," Cooper said, "and may quietly welcome a further accompanying rise in the Canadian dollar to keep inflation in check."

" However, there is zero indication that the bank is poised to aggressively move on rates — Carney stressed the word "some" (with regard to) the stimulus (of low rates) being withdrawn, in today's press conference — and the rate-hike case is built entirely on the assumption that the drama surrounding U.S. and European debt subsides."

The report attributed the slower-than-expected growth in the April-to-June quarter in part to the end of government stimulus spending, as well as higher food and energy prices that crimped consumer spending in Canada and the U.S.

The global economic fallout from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that disrupted the supply of manufactured goods added to that, it said.

"The bank now estimates that these supply disruptions will subtract roughly three-quarters of a percentage point from GDP growth in Canada in the second quarter, a slightly larger impact than projected in the April report."

The outlook came a day after the bank kept its benchmark overnight rate target at one per cent.

However, the central bank hinted that as the Canadian economy continues to grow, it will look to raise it key interest rate, which directly affects prime lending rates at Canada's big banks and in turn variable-rate mortgages, lines of credit and other loans.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2011/07/20/bank-canada-monetary-policy-report.html?ref=rss

IDF Boards Flotilla

Full Stop! Video of IDF troops boarding Gaza flotilla boat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbFEtHTnjDo

The IDF saves Israel from letters to Gaza children.

Japanese Flying Spheres

Designed by Japanese Department Of Defense
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=153_1311013771

Groper Got Groped

Woman Arrested for Groping TSA Agent at Phoenix Airport

A Colorado woman was arrested Thursday after she groped a female TSA agent at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, MyFoxPhoenix.com reports.

Yukari Mihamae, 61, reportedly grabbed the left breast of a TSA agent at a checkpoint.

She then reportedly squeezed and twisted the agent's breast with both hands.

Phoenix police tell the website that Mihamae admitted to the crime, but they do not know why she groped the female agent. [admitted to the crime? How come it isn't considered a crime when you are a TSA worker who gropes?]

The 61-year-old woman was released on her own recognizance Thursday and now faces a felony count of sexual abuse.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/16/woman-arrested-for-groping-tsa-agent-at-phoenix-airport/#ixzz1SIW9WAL9

More details in new article:

She's a writer and translator.


Gropes of wrath — fed-up flier 'molests' TSA screener
By RON MYER in Longmont, Colo., and TODD VENEZIA in NY

Copyright 2011 NYP Holdings, Inc

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/gropes_of_wrath_for_screener_V0KQqUKIkE3aSgwRkeg93H#ixzz1SNRz7tw4

"Some Support Woman Who Assaulted TSA Agent"

(c) 2011 Fox Television Stations, Inc.,

http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/news/crime/some-support-woman-who-assaulted-tsa-agent-7-17-2011


Look at how the government's assertion on a person is taken at face value but assertions of invasiveness of government agents is put in air quotes.

"No felony charges in Ariz. TSA agent groping case"

http://ktar.com/category/local-news-articles/20110719/Prosecutor-says-no-charges-filed-in-groping-case/

Kish oil bourse

Submitted by John Daly of Oilprice.com

Iran Opens Oil Bourse - Harbinger of Trouble for New York and London?

The last three years of global recession have dealt a major blow to American capitalist ideas trumpeted throughout the world on the value of “free markets.” Wall St has been revealed as a form of casino economy, with the bankster insiders gambling with other people’s, and eventually, the government’s money in the form of bailouts. As the Republicans in Congress, scenting victory in the 2012 presidential elections, hold a gun to the Obama administration’s head and rating agencies consider downgrading U.S. government bonds in light of Washington’s possible defaulting, many ideas around the world that previously seemed implausible because of the dominance of the U.S. economy are garnering renewed interest.

The Iranian Oil Bourse^[1] (Persian: بورس نفت ایران) International Oil Bourse,^[2] Iran Petroleum Exchange or Oil Bourse in Kish^[3] (IOB; the official English language name is unclear) is a commodity exchange which opened on February 17, 2008.^[4][5][6][3] It was created by cooperation between Iranian ministries, the Iran Mercantile Exchange and other state and private institutions. The IOB is intended as an oil bourse for petroleum, petrochemicals and gas in various currencies, primarily the euro and Iranian rial and a basket of other major currencies apart from the United States dollar. The geographical location is at the Persian Gulf island of Kish which is designated by Iran as a free trade zone.^[7]

Not surprisingly, many of these concepts originate in countries not enamored with Washington’s influence, perhaps none so more than “Axis of Evil” charter member Iran, which has seen its economy hammered by more than three decades of U.S.-led sanctions. Now Iran is working a program, that, if it succeeds, could help undermine the dollar’s preeminence as the world’s reserve currency more effectively than a Republican filibuster.

Iran’s sly weapon against the Great Satan’s currency? An oil bourse on Kish Island in the Persian Gulf, which has now begun selling high-grade Iranian crude oil.

Mohsen Qamsari, deputy director for international affairs of the Iranian National Oil Company was modest about the exchange’s initial capabilities, saying, "The commodity stock exchange has been pursuing a mechanism for offering crude oil on the stock exchange for a long time, and it has taken the preliminary steps, to the extent possible. Considering the existing banking problems, foreign customers are not expected to be taking part in the first phase of offering crude oil on the stock exchange, and this will be done on a trial basis. Today Bahregan heavy, high quality, low sulfur crude oil with less sourness will be offered on the stock exchange for the first time. In the first phase, a 600,000 barrel shipment will be offered."

Given that the world currently consumes roughly 83 million barrels of crude oil each day, the initial oil offerings at the Iranian stock exchange are hardly going to make or break the market, but they do represent an attempt by a significant oil producer to divert revenue streams from New York Mercantile Exchange, the world's largest physical commodity futures exchange, which handles West Texas Intermediate benchmark futures, and London's Intercontinental Exchange, which deals in North Sea Brent. All trades are in dollars, effectively giving the U.S. currency a monopoly.

The Kish Exchange dates back to February 2008, when instead of Tehran, Kish was chosen because it had designated as a free trade zone. The Exchange was set up to trade contracts in euros, Iranian rials and a basket of other currencies other than dollars. The previous year, Iran had requested that its petroleum customers pay in non-dollar currencies. But the Exchange initially traded contracts only for oil-derived products, such as those used as feedstocks for plastics and pharmaceuticals. Now the institution has taken the next step.

Even as Congress remains tone-deaf to the recession’s effect on American jobs and the economy, others have taken careful note. On 17 June 2008, addressing the 29th meeting of the Council of Ministers of the OPEC Fund for International Development in the Iranian city of Isfahan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told those in attendance, "The fall in the value of the dollar is one of the biggest problems facing the world today. The damage caused by this has already affected the global economy, particularly those of the energy-exporting countries. ... Therefore, I repeat my earlier suggestion, that a combination of the world's valid currencies should become a basis for oil transactions, or (OPEC) member countries should determine a new currency for oil transactions."

What it would take for Iran’s new exchange to survive and flourish are some heavy-duty customers that Washington would be wary of picking a fight with, and Tehran already has one – China.

China, the world's largest buyer of Iranian crude oil, has renewed its annual import pacts for 2011. In 2010 Iran supplied about 12 percent of China's total crude imports. According to the latest report of the China Customs Organization, Iran's total oil exports to China stood at 8.549 million tons between January and April 2011, up 32 percent compared with the same period last year. Iran is currently China's third largest supplier of crude oil, providing China with nearly one million barrels per day.

China simply ignores Washington’s squeals about sanctions, but it is concerned about the bottom line, and unless Iran makes its oil prices more attractive versus competing supplies from the rest of the Middle East or South American exporters, it may be hard for the OPEC member to boost its share in the rapidly expanding Chinese market.

Enter the Kish Exchange.

China's Ambassador to Tehran Yu Hung Yang, addressing the Iran-China trade conference in Tehran on Monday, said that the value of the two countries' trade exchanges surged 55 percent during the first four months of 2011 over the same period a year ago to $13.28 billion and further predicted that the figure would surpass $40 billion by the end of the year.

So much for sanctions, eh?

So, while Washington prepares to commit political hara-kiri, Iran is preparing to take away a little of the capitalist glow from New York and London. If the Chinese decide to start paying for their Iranian purchases strictly in yuan, expect the trickle away from the dollar in energy pricing to become a stampede. That ought to give Washington politicos an issue to think about besides gay marriage.

No Greenhouse Effect

http://polymontana.com/2011/07/19/mexican-professor-shows-greenhouse-effect-does-not-exist/

Quote

Mexican Professor shows Greenhouse Effect does not exist
Posted on July 19, 2011 by Dr. Ed

by Ed Berry

Here is a simple physics experiment any high school student can do to show the greenhouse effect does not exist. Step-by-step instructions are given in Professor Nasif Nahle’s report, downloadable on Climate Clash.

Professor Nahle of Monterrey, Mexico, backed by a team of international scientists, recreated a famous 1909 experiment by Professor Robert W. Wood at John Hopkins University. Nahle’s results confirm Wood was correct and confirm that the greenhouse effect cannot cause global warming.

Professor Emeritus Vaughan Pratt of Stanford University attempted to replicate Wood’s experiment in 2010 but his experiment failed. Pratt claimed he had disproved Wood’s findings but Nahle’s experiment proves Pratt was wrong.

One must wonder

why our government spent over $100 billion attempting to prove our carbon dioxide causes catastrophic global warming before checking the facts.
why our alarmist college and university professors do not bother to check facts before parroting the fraudulent reports of the United Nations IPCC.
why our schools force students to watch Al Gore’s alarmist fraudulent movie but they do not bother to check facts in their own physics lab.
why our EPA moves to manage every aspect of our lives concerning our carbon dioxide emissions when they could have performed this same simple experiment.

Nahle concludes:

The greenhouse effect inside greenhouses is due to the blockage of convective heat transfer with the environment and it is not related to any kind of “trapped” radiation. Therefore, the greenhouse effect does not exist as it is described in many didactic books and articles.

The experiment performed by Prof. Robert W. Wood in 1909 is absolutely valid and systematically repeatable.

Nahle has nailed the coffin on the idea that our carbon dioxide emissions cause any important climate change. And the remarkable thing is your high school students can repeat Nahle’s experiment to test the greenhouse hypothesis for themselves.

To get an idea of what $100 billion in wasted money means, note that America is about $560 billion in the red on its account balance. Add another $100 billion or so for the damage to our economy done by the climate change fraud and we are talking about more than one-third of our present red ink!

By contrast, China has about $280 billion positive in its account reserve, not much more than the amount our eco-freaks and global warmists have wasted in America. We have let a false ideology decimate America’s cash.

Don’t expect Obama, the EPA, any government agency, eco-freaks, or retired alarmist professors to stop promoting their false global warming religion on the public. These people have agendas or are so brainwashed they cannot see reality.

So we still have a public relations battle to fight to bring the truth to the public. The truth is we do not have to worry that our carbon dioxide emissions will overheat the planet.

Joplin Tornado Disaster

Before & After Video

Green Nazi Economics

The SMART GRIDS are a Nazi invention to enslave and depopulate millions of human cattle. Their primary directive is the extermination of carbon based life forms...mainly human beings. This is now a provable fact and it is also provable that the entire agenda was created by the same Nazi banksters and royals who created the third Reich.

Don't believe it?

---

Prince Philip


40 years ago, Prince Philip gave the following instructions...

A new criterion has been added, the conservation of the environment so that in the long run life, including human life, can continue. This new consideration must be taken into account at all levels and in all departments of government and in the boardrooms of every industrial enterprise. It is no longer sufficient simply to quantify the elements of existence as in old-fashioned material economics; conservation means taking notice of the quality of existence as well...

The problem is of course to give some value to that quality and perhaps the only way to do this is to try and work out the cost in terms of loss of amenities, loss of holiday and recreation facilities, loss of property values, loss of contact with nature, loss of health standards and loss of food resources, if proper conservation methods are not used.

Looked at in that light it may well turn out that money spent on proper pollution control, urban and rural planning and the control of exploitation of wild stocks of plants or animals on land and in the sea, is the less expensive alternative in the long run...The conservation of nature, the proper care for the human environment and a general concern for the long-term future of the whole of our planet are absolutely vital if future generations are to have a chance to enjoy their existence on this earth.

-The Australian Conservation Foundation, Canberra (April 1970)

---

It is clear in the past 40 years that over 99.9% of the industrialized world has been put into this control system that Prince Philip said was necessary. Less wages, less amenities, loss of holiday, loss of property value, lossed contact with UN controlled nature preserves, loss of health standards, loss of control of food resources. What sacrifices have Prince Philip and his Bilderberg buddies made for the past 40 years?

It takes a powerful incentive to get me into my car to drive through morning rush hour to hot, smoggy, industrial Irwindale on another beautiful breezy beach day here in the South Bay, but that's just what Southern California Edison provided on Thursday.

I was invited to attend a special summit at SCE's Energy Eduction Center and Smart Energy Experience Facility on the future of the smart grid. SCE filed its smart grid deployment plan with the California Public Utilities Commission on July 1 and was looking to share its vision and plans with the public through what it called "an event to gather the top minds in the media on the subject." Somehow, my name got on the list.

Maybe it's because I've been a proponent and advocate of the smart grid concept since I first started learning about it in 2008. If you're working to increase energy efficiency and the use of solar, wind and other renewable forms of electric power generation, then you need a smart grid to manage the mix reliably and effectively.

Right now we're essentially using a "dumb grid" that relies on old 20th century analog hardware and in many ways 19th century technology and thinking.

But a smart grid is based on 21st century high-tech digital hardware and software. Its goal is to modernize electricity transmission and distribution and make them more secure, more reliable, more efficient, more interactive and more renewable.

SEC brought out their best and brightest to give us the lowdown on how they're going to take the Smart Grid from brilliant concept to everyday working reality. First up was Doug Kim, the utility's director of smart grid planning and energy storage who likes to say he works on "future stuff."

"Ten to twenty years ago," said Kim, "people weren't even imaging any of what we're now doing."

Although Kim said that the building and deployment of the smart grid is a long journey that will take 20 years, "things have to be happening now. It's not time for debate," he declared. "It's time for action."

I asked Kim about SCE's sense of urgency based on our state's Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) and its mandates to dramatically cut our greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, as well as our need to do so based on the accelerating impacts from climate change already being felt.

Kim said the utility feels such a sense of urgency on those fronts that it's also responding to our state's renewable portfolio standards mandates calling for California to generate 33 percent of our electricity from renewable sources by 2020—just eight and one-half years from now. Currently (no pun intended), we get 19.4 percent of our energy from wind, solar geothermal and other renewable sources.

The smart grid's ability to integrate and distribute intermittent renewable power—whether it comes from a homeowner's rooftop solar system or a field of industrial size wind turbines—was just one of the new grid's breakthrough attributes Kim was excited to talk about.

SCE wants to use the grid to empower customers to manage their energy use more efficiently and economically by linking devices, components, communications networks and systems—including solar and wind generation, distributed energy storage, smart appliances, electric vehicles (EVs) and smart meters.

When it comes to energy storage, the problem with electricity has always been that there is no way to inventory it and save it for later use. That, however, is changing with advances in lithium ion batteries that make today's EVs possible, and on a much larger scale with projects like SCE's Tehachapi Wind Energy Storage demonstration. Funded by a Department of Energy (DOE) grant, the project will store the electricity generated by huge turbines in the Tehachapi wind farm for later use when the wind isn't blowing.

Others are demonstrating energy storage storage systems for large scale solar using molton salt to store the sun's heat that is later converted to electricity, enabling solar power to generate electricity 24 hours a day. Such energy storage is a game changer; if it works out, it will end worries about days when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. Community-scale and even home-sized energy storage systems will also be a future connection to the smart grid.

The first mile on the long road to a functioning smart grid is the installation of the smart meters at end user facilities, and so far 2.7 million have been installed in SCE territory, Smart Connect Director Ken Devore told us.

Besides eliminating the need to send someone to physically visit your meter and record the data, smart meters also save the cost of those visits as well as wear and tear and maintenance on the vehicles that carry the personnel. Even more importantly, the pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from those vehicles are eliminated as well.

By the end of 2011 about 2 million SCE customers will start getting the first capabilities of smart meters including next-day online breakdowns of your energy use by hour, and "Budget Assist" alerts when you reach your self-selected energy goals. Eventually with advances in the smart grid, interactive smart appliances will turn themselves off and on—if you opt in to allow that—to take advantage of off-peak lower rates and remote capabilities from your smart phone.

Remarking on privacy concerns regarding the low-powered wireless transmitters in smart meter, Devore said that security levels are on par with Defense Department and financial institution protection.

As for claims that the radio frequency burst transmissions from the smart meters cause health problems, I've had my own home's smart meter tested by SCE experts with sophisticated equipment. The transmission level is far below that of my cell phone, my cordless home phone, my home WiFi network and my microwave oven. A video of my smart meter testing experience is being produced by SCE, and I look forward to sharing that video and the story of the filming with Patch readers soon.

Unlike in Northern California and PG&E's smart meter rollout, very few individuals and no local governments in Southern California have opted out of smart meter installations, reported Devore.

The SCE smart panel's third presenter, Ed Kjaer, is famous in the electric vehicle arena and someone I've been listening to at EV conferences and public events since 2008. Nobody knows more about plug-in electric cars and trucks and what they mean to the grid than Kjaer, and no one is more realistic and pragmatic about what's possible, what's headed our way, or how long it's going to take to get there than he.

Ed's got the unique perspective of someone who has spent the first half of his career in the auto industry and his second half working for SCE.

Among the key points he made in Irwindale:

* The current grid has a lot of excess capacity since peak power needs are only reached a few hours a year
* That excess capacity has room for 150-160 million EVs tomorrow to connect to the grid off-peak with no power problems
* When you fuel your EV with electricity, it's 100 percent domestic, made in the USA
* Electricity is 99 percent petroleum-free
* As we add more and more renewables to the power mix, the grid gets cleaner and cleaner and EVs get cleaner along with it
* Charging EVs off-peak corresponds with when we achieve peak wind power production
* It's going to take a long time before EVs make a serious dent in replacing the 220-240 million internal combustion engine-powered cars on the road
* It's also going to take a long time before technology like vehicle-to-grid sharing of power back and forth between electric cars and the smart grid is going to happen—if it happens at all
* 70 percent of car owners commute 40 miles or less per day.

Kjaer sees the transition to electric cars as a generational issue that will involve our kids and their kids after them to complete. And he advises a judicious approach when it comes to building public charging infrastructure as opposed to a full speed ahead, "build, build, build" course of action.

We'll get our first Southern California look at how the smart grid is going to work in a real community thanks to another DOE grant funding SCE's Smart Grid Demonstration Project in Irvine. The project will combine solar PV power generation, energy storage at the neighborhood and home level, plug-in vehicle charging, smart appliances and energy efficiency and monitoring technologies and attempt to make sure everything integrates gracefully together. SCE's approach, according to Doug Kim, is to "learn. Demonstrate. Plan to deploy."

It's merely enlightened self-interest to be rooting for SCE's smart grid success whether you're a customer of theirs or not. We need to add as much renewable energy to our grid as quickly as possible and to cut the pollution and greenhouse gases currently emitted when coal and natural gas are burned to generate electricity.

The smart grid is essential technology for our future survival. The sooner it's deployed, the better chance all of us in the South Bay and the rest of Southern California will have of doing so.

Related Topics: Electricity, Greenius Zone, Smart Grid, and Southern California Edison

http://hermosabeach.patch.com/articles/wising-up-to-the-smart-grid

Uttar Pradesh TrainCrash

Uttar Pradesh is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 199 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity. Were it a nation in its own right, Uttar Pradesh would be the world's fifth most populous country ahead of Pakistan and even Brazil.



LUCKNOW: The toll in one of India's worst train accidents rose to 69 by the time search operations ended Monday in Uttar Pradesh, where 14 coaches of the speeding Howrah-Kalka Mail jumped off the rails a day earlier. Out of the dead, 23 were yet to be identified.

The cause of the accident, which also left 249 injured, is still unknown. The dead include two Swedish nationals.



"Bodies of 46 victims have been identified and arrangements are being currently made to put them in individual coffins so that these could be easily transported to their respective homes," Special Director General of Police Brij Lal said here.

"As for the remaining 23, we are making every possible effort to identify them, but the task seems difficult since most of these were passengers of the general compartment about whom even the railways do not have any records," he said.



He expressed hope that their families would themselves come looking for them after knowing of the accident near the Malwan station in Fatehpur district, about 140 km from here, at 12.20 p.m. Sunday.

Six special teams of doctors were put on the job to carry out the post-mortem examination on each of the bodies. "Post-mortem cannot be avoided and it is mandatory under law," said Brij Lal.

Of the 249 injured, 63 were discharged after basic treatment, while the remaining were showing signs of recovery in different hospitals at Fatehpur, Kanpur , Allahabad and Lucknow, he said.

According to Fatehpur Chief Medical Officer K.N. Joshi, the injuries sustained by the passengers ranged from deep gashes to amputations and fractures.

It took a good 24 hours for a joint operation by army and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to extricate bodies from piles of mangled metal and plastic.

The dead included two Swedish nationals, Victor and Wick, who were travelling in a second class reserved coach that was completely smashed in the accident. Their companion Oscar, however, survived and was currently hospitalised with multiple injuries in Kanpur.

After a night-long search, the rescue teams also pressed trained sniffer dogs into service to lead the way to any dead body that could still be trapped under the heaps of mangled metal.

"This eventually helped to track down at least a dozen more bodies, which could not have been detected otherwise," Fatehpur's Additional District Magistrate Anil Kumar Pathak told IANS over telephone from the accident site.

The rescue operation was finally completed around 1 p.m. Monday after which railway authorities got down to working towards restoration of the busy track, on which traffic was thrown completely out of gear. At least a dozen trains had to be cancelled while about two dozen were diverted.

Some survivors were seen wailing and moaning at the site of the accident all night and even on Monday morning, in search of their kin who were untraceable.



"I went to the hospital and have been running around the whole night looking for my brother," a 14-year-old sobbing Shahana told reporters at the site of the disaster, which had left her mother dead and father with an amputated leg.

Minutes later, as she discovered that one of the bodies being pulled out by the army personnel was that of her brother, she went into uncontrollable hysteria crying: "What will I do now, where will I go?"

Even as shocked but less injured passengers managed to get out of the coaches, local villagers were the first to rush to the rescue of the victims. Many passengers complained that relief came quite late and they had to fend for themselves for at least two hours.

While some 200 policemen were rushed from Fatehpur and went about carrying the injured to waiting vehicles for hospitalisation in Fatehpur and Kanpur, the rescue work intensified after an 180-strong contingent of the Indian Army reached the site. Rescuers worked all night to pull out the dead as also rush the seriously injured for specialised treatment.

Military helicopters ferried the more seriously injured to hospitals to Lucknow and Allahabad.

The reason for the accident was not clear. But a senior railway official confirmed that the train was running at 108 km an hour when the driver applied emergency brakes just short of the Malwan station, triggering the derailment.



Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is currently holding the railway portfolio, expressed shock and grief over the disaster. The central as well as the Uttar Pradesh governments quickly announced compensation for the dead and the injured.

The accident is described as this year's worst rail tragedy in India's rail network which is regarded as one of the largest in the world, ferrying about 14 million passengers a day.