Now 34 missing in supermarket fire

Nakumatt fire 1 dead, 19 reported missing

One person was confirmed dead Thursday morning after he succumbed to injuries at the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) where he was admitted following the Nakumatt Downtown inferno.

Seven other people, including supermarket staff who had been admitted to the Coptic and Avenue Hospitals were treated and discharged, according to the Kenya Red Cross Manager in charge of Disaster Management and Preparedness, Davies Okoko.

Mr Okoko said two of the victims were still admitted with serious injuries sustained in the Wednesday afternoon fire.

“One person has died in hospital where he was admitted since yesterday (Wednesday). The others have been treated and discharged but two are still admitted,” he said.

Mr Okoko explained that the deceased man had sustained serious fractures and other internal injuries after he jumped off the first floor of Woolworths building, which houses the supermarket.

“He had severe injuries, we have just received information that he has succumbed to the injuries,” he said.

The Red Cross official, who briefed journalists at the scene of the fire Thursday morning, would not reveal the identity of the deceased man, only saying he was a young man.

“For obvious reasons, we cannot reveal his identity. Understand,” he pleaded.

Mr Okoko said they had mobilised teams to be on stand by, so they could start an evacuation exercise once the building is declared safe.

Meanwhile, the Kenya Red Cross says it has received missing persons reports from 19 families who say they cannot trace their relatives after fire broke out.

The families had flocked to a tent set up outside the smouldering supermarket, saying that most of their kin had spoken to them on telephone moments after the disaster struck.

“Minutes later, their phones went dead,” many of those at the tent said.

A number of them had to be restrained after they demanded access to the building, which was still burning, close to 24 hours after the inferno started.

The Kenya Red Cross immediately started counselling the families that had showed at the tent in anticipation of any eventuality.

The fire continued burning on Thursday morning making it impossible for rescue teams to gain access into the building, as fears began to mount that the entire structure could collapse.

“We are unable to do any search and rescue because the shop is still very unstable. The roof has collapsed and also the first floor,” said Giles Littlewood, the General Manager of a rescue company that was helping out City Council fire-fighters.

He added: “We are not able to put people inside there to actually go looking, which is causing us a problem. Even with the fire fighting… we can’t get right to the source of the heat,” he said.

Knight Support Limited Fire and Rescue Company was at the scene all through Wednesday night together with the police and ambulance service.

“The fire is smouldering. If you leave it for long enough, it will heat up again and we had a huge problem yesterday with gas canisters blowing,” Mr Littlewood revealed. “We are just going to heap the water on it because unfortunately if you have a large mass of material like you have now, it takes a lot of time for the inside of it to lose its heat. It’s a waiting game really.”

Police remained on guard, trying to get curious onlookers from getting too close.

The fire placed the country’s disaster preparedness in sharp focus once again, after emergency crews arrived late and without water or proper equipment.

Group 4 security General Manager Clive Lee said the capital’s fire hydrants were short of water and they were forced to collect fresh supply from Nyayo Stadium, three kilometres away.

The Nairobi City Council fire brigade was later forced to rely on reinforcement from the Army, the Kenya Airports Authority and the Police Force.

“It takes more time. The coordination is very poor and in the first couple of hours, although the general public were trying to be helpful, they were just getting in the way and stopping the firemen from doing their job,” Mr Lee said.

Speaking after visiting the scene on Thursday morning, Nairobi Mayor Godfrey Majiwa ordered developers in the city to ensure their buildings had proper fire exits.

He said fire fighters had a difficult time accessing the interior of the building housing Nakumatt downtown due to sealed fire escapes.

The Mayor stated that the emergency exits make work easier for rescuers in cases of fire disasters.

“The only message I have for developers is that they must make sure that the fire exits are open.  This is because we had a problem with fire exits here.  The firemen could not gain access so they were fighting it (fire) from outside,” the Mayor said.

He also refuted claims of incompetence by the council’s fire fighters in responding to the Nakumatt blaze.

“They responded in five minutes… that is record time! That is world standard. They have done a good job but we need to improve both in the training of the firemen and equipment,” he stated.

Lorna Irungu Kidney odyssey

Lorna Irungu sits on a hospital bed looking extremely frail. She has lupus and her kidneys continue to fail.

“At some point I just wanted it to be over,” said Irungu, 35. “I was just tired. I was really, really tired of the fighting, of the struggling, of being sick.”

But Irungu did decide to fight, with the help of a very giving family. Three times she has needed a kidney transplant, and three times her family members insisted on donating. First her father donated, then her sister, and then her brother.

Irungu says what she couldn’t find was a doctor who would do the tricky third transplant in her own country of Kenya. When she checked in neighboring countries, the cost was impossibly high. Irungu, who’s single and has no children, has no insurance. So the former television host was paying for the surgery and medicines out of her own pocket.

“When we looked at the price of getting things done in South Africa. I’m like, ‘We’re never gonna get there.’ It’s $45,000. Where do I even begin?”

The cost of a kidney transplant in the United States can be $25,000 to $150,000, also out of Irungu’s price range.

So she began looking elsewhere, sending out e-mails and making phone calls to hospitals in other countries. Doctors at Fortis Hospital in New Delhi, India, were the only ones who responded to her somewhat complicated case.

Dr. Vijay Kher, the hospital’s director of nephrology, first talked to Irungu by phone.

“When she called me from Kenya, she was very sick,” Kher said. “She had uncontrolled blood pressures, and she was having fever. She had been in ICU for about three weeks.”

But Irungu made it to India. Once her condition was stabilized, doctors performed the third transplant, which is a rare operation in India.

Of the 1,500 kidney transplants performed at Fortis Hospital, doctors remember having done only two in which the patient was having a third transplant.

Doctors had to remove one of the previously transplanted kidneys to make room for the new kidney, Kher said. Doctors said it was unnecessary to remove the three other kidneys because they were not causing harm and they didn’t want to subject her to more surgery than was necessary.

Even with the complications that can arise during a third transplant, the cost of it and the weeklong hospital stay in India came to about $8,000. It’s a fraction of the price she was quoted elsewhere, as is the cost of the post-transplant medication.

“This last surgery, I keep saying, has been remarkable.” Irungu said. “I haven’t felt as good post transplant as I did this time around.”

After three months in India, Irungu is leaving with four kidneys inside her. Irungu says for now the newly transplanted kidney seems to be working great.

“From my experience, the cost here and the quality of care is worth it,” Irungu said. “It’s worth it because instead of you sitting wherever you are, thinking, ‘This is the end for me,’ or just getting depressed or getting into this struggle, (you can) just pack up and go.”

Uhuru Kenyatta named as Kenya’s finance minister

By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura and Andrew Cawthorne

NAIROBI, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki named close ally Uhuru Kenyatta as finance minister on Friday at a turbulent time for east Africa’s biggest economy.

Kenyatta — who moves from the trade ministry and is the son of independence leader Jomo Kenyatta — takes over as Kenya’s economy reels from the impact of a 2008 post-election crisis, a series of graft scandals and the global downturn.

Analysts did not foresee any immediate, major policy changes under Kenyatta, who has to fight to reverse Kenya’s economic slowdown and to tame inflation.

At 47, Kenyatta, is younger than most other senior members of the coalition government and has tried to portray himself as one of a new generation of leaders.

“We’re moving into a period that we have not witnessed in our lifetimes and it needs fresh people with fresh ideas,” said local trader and commentator Aly Khan Satchu. “I’d like to feel this is part of the post-colonial generation coming through.”

Kenyatta’s connections with the past run deep, however.

His family is one of the country’s richest, with vast tracts of land and an extensive business conglomerate.

He was the protege of former President Daniel arap Moi, and ran against Kibaki in the 2002 election, before throwing his lot in with him five years later at the December 2007 poll.

Like Kibaki, Kenyatta is an ethnic Kikuyu.

Analysts said Kenyatta was a good choice as most Kibaki allies were new faces in parliament with no experience in running a high profile portfolio like the finance ministry.

“I don’t think it is a bad choice,” said political commentator Robert Shaw. “He has a reasonable grasp of fundamentals and he is willing to listen.”

Kibaki’s office said former Finance Minister Amos Kimunya, who stepped down last July over the controversial sale of a luxury Nairobi hotel, was appointed as trade minister.

A government inquiry has cleared Kimunya of wrongdoing.

EYE ON 2012

Kenya’s shilling currency <KES=> saw volatile trade for most of Friday’s session, but shrugged off the appointment. It traded between 79.30 and 80.10, before closing at 79.65/85.

“It has nothing to do with Uhuru,” said Duncan Kimani, a Bank of Africa trader. Brokers did not see the appointment affecting the market significantly next week.

Commentator Satchu said Kibaki’s appointments showed he had an eye on the 2012 election. “These are the insiders being put in the key positions. These are the keys to the granary.”

But Shaw said Kenyatta’s task was too difficult to do much for any possible presidential bid. “Running this economy in the next couple of years is going to be very hard,” he said.

The country’s budget deficit is widening and revenue collection is slowing. Corruption allegations are also rocking the government, with senior officials accused of collusion in multi-million dollar scandals in the oil and maize sectors.

Kenya says 10 million people, about 30 percent of the population, are going hungry due to drought, disruption to agriculture from last year’s violence, and mismanagement.

Kibaki’s coalition government, formed in April 2008, halted bloodshed that killed at least 1,300 people, drove about 300,000 from their homes, and paralysed some sectors of the economy.

After 2007 growth of 7 percent, the economy is expected to expand by just half of that in 2008. A recent Reuters poll of analysts forecast, on average, 4.1 growth for 2009.

Kenya’s annual inflation rate was 27.7 percent in December.

Barack Obama’s inaugural speech

America’s greatness must be earned

Fellow citizens, I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.

I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown in the transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often, the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we, the people, have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebearers, and true to our founding documents. So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered.

Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Hope

Today, I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given.

It must be earned.

Our journey as a nation has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the fainthearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.

Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labour — who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom. For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth. For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Ambition

Time and again, these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction. This is the journey we continue today.

We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished.

But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.

We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.

All this we can do.

And all this we will do.

There are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. They have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

Trust

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.

Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programmes will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favours only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.

Those ideals still light the world and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.

So to all peoples and governments watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of all nations and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

Threats

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan.

With old friends and former foes, we will work to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the spectre of a warming planet. We will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

Respect

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West: Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. The world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honour them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

Citizenship

This is the price and the promise of citizenship. This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny. This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: “Let it be told to the future world … that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive… that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.

Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Obama Asks Nation to Rise to the Challenge of His Words

By David S. Broder, Washington Post

In the inaugural address launching his presidency, Barack Obama today drew on his sense of history and the needs of the moment — the same strengths that shaped the speeches that propelled him from obscurity to the White House in four years.

In his very first sentence, Obama cited “the sacrifices borne by our ancestors” and said the confidence he feels in the face of two wars and the worst economic crisis in three-quarters of a century rests on Americans remaining “faithful to the ideals of our forbearers and . . . our founding documents.”

More than most politicians, Obama has relied on his formal speeches to power his ambitious career. Today’s address — much of which he wrote himself — signaled a sharp break with the domestic and national security policies of the Bush administration and a reaffirmation of Obama’s main campaign themes.

As in his keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the speech that lifted the young Illinois state senator from obscurity, and in the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner speech that launched his first national campaign, Obama said he and his nation had “chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.”

Those words — hope and unity — have been the consistent keynotes of his political rhetoric. They now will be tested in the toughest of crucibles, as he confronts a deeply anxious nation that has attached its hopes strongly to him.

In turn, Obama was at pains in this somber inaugural to turn the burden back to them. “For as much as government can do and must do,” Obama said, “it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.”

“What is demanded,” he said, is a return to the old virtues and values — “hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism.”

In the few substantive passages in the speech, Obama signaled the change from the Bush administration. Alluding to the almost-trillion-dollar stimulus package he outlined to Congress even before he took the oath, he called for “bold and swift” action to stop the slide in jobs, manufacturing and housing. He also alluded to new initiatives, not yet specified, in energy, education, health care and technology.

Turning to national security, Obama rejected Bush’s contention that the terrorist threat necessitated some sacrifice of privacy and civil liberties, saying, “We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals . . . . Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.”

The biggest and most obvious change that Obama represents went almost unmentioned by him: the fact that he is the first African American or mixed race man ever elected president. He noted the uniqueness of the fact that “a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

But as was the case in his campaign, Obama did not identify himself as “the black candidate for president” and he cast his appeal broadly, not toward a targeted audience.

In the one major speech of that campaign devoted to race, a March 18 address in Philadelphia designed to get him safely past the controversy stirred by the angry words of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, Obama asserted “a firm conviction . . . that, working together, we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds and that, in fact, we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.”

He told his minority constituents that “it also means binding our particular grievances, for better health care and better schools and better jobs, to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who’s been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family.”

Obama never has lost sight of that larger constituency, which is why he was able to establish his candidacy in the unlikely locus of overwhelmingly white and largely rural Iowa. In the Jefferson-Jackson speech that keyed his victory there, he made not one reference to his own race.

In Philadelphia, Obama also addressed the theme of personal responsibility that he returned to for the inaugural. Then he said that “taking full responsibility for our own lives [means] demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism, they must always believe.”

Echoing not only his own earlier words but a major theme of President George W. Bush’s inaugural, he called Tuesday for “a new era of responsibility.”

For his peroration, Obama turned back to the first president, quoting George Washington’s words from the winter of Valley Forge, when “nothing but hope and virtue could survive.”

“With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come,” he said. It was the bookend to the closing words in Boston more than four years ago, when he invoked “Hope — hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope.”

What speeches can accomplish, they have delivered handsomely for Barack Obama. Now, it will depend on his deeds.

Miracle on the Hudson

NEW YORK — US Airways pilots executed a dramatic emergency landing Thursday on the Hudson River near midtown Manhattan, saving the lives of all 150 passengers and five crew members aboard Flight 1549.

The Airbus A320 twin-engine jetliner — enroute to Charlotte, N.C. — landed at 3:31 p.m., a few minutes after leaving New York’s LaGuardia Airport. The water landing of a large passenger aircraft without fatalities is a feat rarely seen in 50 years of commercial jet travel, according to air-safety experts.

Passenger and witnesses described a smooth landing on the Hudson and then a scramble for emergency exits. Within minutes, ferry boats surrounded the aircraft as it floated in 40-degree water and helped pull passengers from the wing. The U.S. Coast Guard dropped life vests and divers.

After the last of the crew and passengers were retrieved, the aircraft floated several miles downriver and settled, partially submerged, near the southern tip of Manhattan, northwest of the World Trade Center site. The wreckage was tied to a dock there, according to scuba divers at the scene, and crews began working to pull it from the river.

US Airways officials said Thursday it was too soon to determine the cause of the accident. The crew reported flying through a flock of geese, which were sucked into both engines, said a person at the Federal Aviation Administration familiar with conversations between the flight crew and air-traffic controllers. The damaged engines continued to run but weren’t generating enough power, this person said.

Witnesses described the jet gliding south over the George Washington Bridge before it touched down west of midtown.

Michael Fricklas, general counsel of media company Viacom Inc., watched from his 52nd floor office overlooking the river. “The plane was moving very slowly and low….It was flying very evenly and looked like it was coming in for landing,” he said. “When it hit the river, there was a spray of water and it quickly pivoted sideways.”

Passenger Jeff Kolodjay, who had been in seat 22A, said he noticed trouble within minutes of takeoff. The flight turned rough, he said, and smoke and flames were rising from the wing. The plane circled back in the direction of the airport, Mr. Kolodjay said: “Everyone started saying prayers and kinda looking at each other.”

The pilots maneuvered the plane well, he added. “It didn’t feel too good,” he said, “but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

Darren Beck, a 37-year-old passenger from Charlotte, said, “The flight attendants just kept chanting, ‘Keep your head down, brace for impact, keep your head down, brace for impact.’ No one screamed, they just kinda all braced.”

Passenger Jenny Moulton, 27, also of Charlotte, said, “There was a loud boom, you could feel, hear and smell. There was smoke in the cabin. There was panic in everybody’s face.”

When the plane started descending, she said, the man in the window seat of her row started counting down in an effort to calm people: “Thirty seconds to impact, 20 seconds to impact…”

Then the plane hit the water and, after it came to a stop, the exit chutes that double as life rafts were deployed.

Ms. Moulton said a man in the middle seat of her row pushed through the emergency exit and dove out onto the wing. The man in the window seat did the same, followed by Ms. Moulton, who was wearing high heels and no coat. She walked out as far as she could onto the wing, which was slowly sinking.

“The further you went…the further into the water you went and the narrower [the wing] got, and it was cold and you know you don’t have good traction,” she said.

By the time a ferry arrived, she said she was waist-deep in the river. “There were people on the ferry and of course everybody was screaming at you, ‘Are you injured? Are you injured?’ And then people just started handing their coats off, and I wrapped up in a man’s wool coat.

“We had a woman in a wheelchair that a guy had to basically carry her on his shoulders up the [ferry] ladder…and another woman that had a pretty bad laceration on her leg that had to be kind of helped up the ladder,” Ms. Moulton said. “People were pretty calm, it was the women-and-children first thing.”

One woman fell off as she was getting on a Coast Guard craft, said two New York police divers. An elderly woman wearing a life vest struggled to get pulled onto a ferry, pleading with one of the divers, “Please don’t let me go.”

Vince Lombardi of New York Waterway said his boat was leaving the New York side of the Hudson when the plane hit the water. It took him about three minutes to reach it. He said he pulled out 56 people — including two babies — some floating in the aircraft’s inflatable raft, some perched on the wing and others who had fallen in the water.

“It was scary, it was hectic,” Mr. Lombardi said.

The captain of the plane was Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III, a US Airways pilot since 1980 with 19,000 hours of experience. He had served as a U.S. Air Force F-4 pilot for seven years.

About 40 people were brought to the Weehawken, N.J., ferry terminal, with several suffering from hypothermia and minor bruises, said an officer there. Roughly 20 others were taken to the Arthur’s Landing restaurant, where some survivors ordered sandwiches and Scotch.

“They were completely soaked and we had to get their wet clothing off,” said Jeff Welz, director of public safety for the Weehawken police department. “So they were taken to a private room and given blankets and chef’s smocks.”

One man, who gave his name as Julian Williams, called out to spectators at the ferry terminal, “It wasn’t that bad.”

Survivors were taken to several hospitals on both the New Jersey and New York side of the river. Authorities on Thursday night did not release a tally of people treated for injuries.

In a news conference Thursday from US Airways’ headquarters in Tempe, Ariz., Chief Executive Doug Parker said the airline is cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board.

An Airbus spokesman at the European plane maker’s U.S. office near Washington, D.C., said: “We are making all our resources available to the National Transportation Safety Board.”

The Airbus A320, which was built in 1999, has only been in service with US Airways. Its two engines are made by CFM, a joint venture of General Electric Co. and France’s Safran SA.

While safety investigators look into dozens of serious bird strikes involving large jetliners each year in the U.S., several safety experts said they couldn’t recall an accident in at least the past two decades involving a dual-engine shutdown from bird strikes.

This flight was the second time a US Airways flight to Charlotte crashed into water after departing La Guardia. On Sept. 20, 1989, a US Airways Boeing 737 — slightly smaller than the jet in Thursday’s incident — failed to get airborne and immediately crashed into the East River at the end of the runway. The aircraft broke up and two of the 63 people on board died.

Of Thursday’s landing, airline consultant Bob Mann of Port Washington, N.Y., said, “It looks like a great bit of flying and great airmanship.”

Article By JONATHAN D. ROCKOFF and ELIZABETH HOLMES

Top 10 Etiquette Rules For Facebook

Facebook, like nuclear technology, is a tool that can be used for good as well as evil. There are clearly some people who lack the ability (or desire) to use either responsibly, and because this is neither Vietnam nor the Wild West, we decided to implement some rules of etiquette for Mark Zuckerberg’s handiwork. Here are the top 10 rules of etiquette for using Facebook responsibly in and around relationships:

10) Relationship status is a mutual decision. Lots of problems can arise from a unilateral status change. All of your friends get that update in real time, not a fun way to find out that the dream is over.

9) It’s OK to look through your friend’s friends for people you might want to meet/date/friend. It’s not OK to skip the middleman on the introduction. I get freaked out when anyone I don’t know tries to friend** me. I assume they’re trying to sell me something, stalking me or both. As always, be mindful of friend-poaching, it’s not cool.

Ask first before friending a close friend’s ex-squeeze. It’s common courtesy and it’s part of the Bro Code.

7) It’s OK to remain friends with someone you used to date on Facebook. We can be grownups about this. Just prepare yourself to see some status updates that you could probably do without.

6) Posting a ton of pics, vids and comments regarding a recent, failed relationship is a bad idea. If you need a lifeline, phone a friend don’t ask the audience.

5) As with all things, there is such thing as too much information. The airing grievances are best done over email, telephone and brunch. Likewise, starting a group about how “John Tucker must die,” while possibly cathartic, smacks of sour grapes. Starting a Facebook group called “I Hooked Up With Dane Cook And All I Got Was This Lousy Comedy CD” is, however, hilarious. Also, keep them photos safe for work.

4) This is sort of an addendum to 2 previous rules, but it bears it’s own space: don’t friend an ex’s new squeeze if you’re not actually friends. It’s easy not friending someone. In fact, it takes more energy to friend someone than not friend them. Nothing good can come of this. It’s the social media equivalent of John Cusack watching through the eyes of John Malkovich’s daughter as Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener kiss in the end of Being John Malkovich. No, life isn’t fair.

3) Know the difference between the Wall and a message. Facebook should devise a multiple-choice test for every new member. It will include questions like: The note “I luv u sooooo much baaaaaaaaby. I can’t waaaaaaait too seeee u 2nite” belongs in A) a private message; B) the Wall; or C) a coloring book for the mentally-special. In addition, know when and whom to Poke, Super Poke, Gift and, if it exists, Super Gift.

2) Again, the interweb is not a therapy session and shouldn’t be used with severely impaired judgment. For instance, there are only 2 occasions when you tell someone that you had a huge crush on them in high school: a best-selling memoir or in a situation where you think this may get them to sleep with you… in the next 15 minutes. Definitely not on their Facebook Wall.

1) Above all other rules (in this actually is in the Facebook rules), do not create a fake page as a way to punish an ex. Creating a page about your old flame and including; “pooping in the bed,” “giving people crabs” and “stealing from people I date” as favorite pastimes may seem funny, but it’s petty and it’s a pretty good way to get sued for like $40,000 (see the case of Raphael, Grant).

Follow these 10 simple rules and people across the land will say, “Hey, that [insert your name] is pretty responsible with [insert your gender-specific possessive pronoun] use of Facebook in a relationships setting.”

When frogs stop cows from drinking water

By Ibrahim Ndamwe

The phrase was made famous by Kanu boss Uhuru Kenyatta when his mentor, then President Daniel arap Moi, introduced him at a public rally in Nakuru.

Then, Mr Moi intended to crown him party chairman at a national party delegates’ conference at Kasarani – to the chagrin of other passionate contenders such as George Saitoti, Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Cyrus Jirongo. Granted, the disenchanted lot was snorting fire but Uhuru remained undeterred: “A frog’s eyes cannot deter a cow from drinking water,” he snarled.

Well, Uhuru did drink from the waterhole when he, indeed, was crowned party leader. But the frogs, now seething with righteous rage, ganged up into a massive headlamp called Narc, beat Jomo’s son and forced him to kiss the presidential waterhole goodbye.

One would imagine that Raila would learn from Uhuru and forswear any further reference to frogs, cows and such. But he forgot. After all, he, together with Kibaki and other new kids on the block, were basking in the glory of citizens chanting, “Yote yawezekana bila Moi.”

To his surprise, though, it is not frogs that surfaced soon after within Narc but baboons. So Raila became a dog. The people in government, he swore, were baboons stuck up the tree needlessly chanting “nyeff nyeff”, forgetting that he, the dog, awaited them on the ground with bared teeth.

Frogs and cows

To his credit, he rambunctiously tore into the baboons when they slid down the tree during the referendum. His success emboldened him so much that he forgot about Uhuru and got talking about frogs and cows again.

It happened in the runup to the 2007 elections. The presidential waterhole was beckoning once more and his ODM-K army was approaching on the double. Then some spoiler ran away with the party’s registration certificate and gave it to his rival, Kalonzo Musyoka. Raila — ever the pragmatist — studied the situation, transformed himself quickly into a cow and snarled, “Frogs cannot stop cows from drinking water.”

Fierce croaks

In retrospect, he should have been worried stiff about those frogs. For in a short while, they would team up with another bunch of disparate frogs under the PNU banner and croak the ODM juggernaut away from the waterhole.

The cows screamed “haki yetu”, and spontaneously threw this and chopped that into pieces. But the frogs croaked back, promising only half the loaf even as they — quite spontaneously, too — burnt this and chopped that.

Did the cows and the frogs get to drink amicably at the waterhole, sharing Cabinet positions, ambassadorial posts and the many other fruits of uhuru that the electorate only gets to eat, as Francis Imbuga would say, second-hand? Do the baboons still scream “nyeff nyeff” as the dogs wait beneath the tree with bared teeth?

Who is the frog now?

Or is it, perhaps, possible that Raila and his chest-thumping ODM brigade have all along been the frogs that couldn’t stop cows from drinking water and the baboons that pointlessly scream “nyeff nyeff” as dogs wait beneath the tree with bared teeth?

Strange misunderstood relationship

Maasai boys who have undergone circumcision. They will join the ranks of the morans after healing. Photo/REUTERS

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