(CNN) — A disabled Carnival Cruise Lines ship with thousands of passengers on board was nearing its pier in San Diego on Thursday, although it will take some time for it to dock, the Coast Guard said.

As of about 7:30 a.m. (10:30 a.m. ET), the Carnival Splendor was about four miles from its pier, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Rachel Polish. Towed by six tugboats, it was approaching at about 6 mph, meaning it should be at the pier in less than an hour, she said.

But when it arrives, the tugs must be reconfigured and bring the ship in portside, or on its left side, she said. That process could take a while, Polish said.

The passengers — all 3,300 of them — will disembark with tales from the three-day ordeal that began with a fire in the ship’s engine room. Engineers were unable to restore power to the ship after the fire was extinguished, leaving passengers without air conditioning, hot showers or decent meals. Instead, they had to settle for Spam and Pop-Tarts dropped off by the USS Ronald Reagan, which came to assist.

Aerial footage showed passengers congregating on the decks and at the railing as the ship was towed in.

While Carnival said Wednesday that most passengers knew that the Splendor’s crew was doing the best it could, there were reports of passengers pledging not to take up the company’s offer of a free replacement trip.

The vessel became stranded Monday after an engine-room fire off the coast of Mexico.

Because the ship is without most of its power, the company decided to wait until daylight for tugboats to deliver the Splendor to a dock, Carnival Cruise Lines CEO Gerry Cahill said at a news conference.

Carnival noted that as the ship gets closer to the coast, passengers are increasingly able to receive “intermittent cellular service.”

The ship’s crew had set up a call center for passengers to make urgent calls.

“Obviously, with eight phones and 3,300 people, you are going to have a pretty big backup,” Cahill said.

One passenger, David Zambrano, a KUSA-TV employee, called his Denver, Colorado, station Wednesday from his cell phone and said many passengers were in the dark in their cabins and had to wait in line for two hours to eat the cold meals, which were being delivered to the ship by helicopter from the USS Ronald Reagan.

“Many of the people I have talked to said that they will never take another cruise again, especially with Carnival,” said Zambrano, who was able to enjoy some sunlight because he has a stateroom with a balcony.

“It’s nothing like anyone expected, no,” Zambrano said. “You stand in line for two hours just to get your food because everybody goes to the same place to pick up their food. And, so you stand in line and you wait, then once you get your food, you leave and you look for something to do.

“People are playing cards. People are standing around just kind of talking. They’re getting to socialize,” Zambrano said. “It’s not what you would expect on a normal cruise, of course not, but it’s — they’re doing their best. The crew is doing their best to keep everybody satisfied and make sure that they’re watching everything.

“The only thing that made it really tough was when the facilities were all broken down and all the bathrooms weren’t working and people were starting to get uncomfortable,” Zambrano said. “But now that they started getting those things going and the water flowing, then that made all the difference.”

In addition to offering a free cruise, Carnival has promised passengers a refund and said it will cover transportation costs.

“Conditions on the ship have been challenging,” said Cahill, reiterating apologies to families.

“We’re disappointed about it. Reports from the ship show guests believe we are doing the best we can,” Cahill said. “We ruined their vacations. I am optimistic they will return.”

Cahill said the crew has done the best it can in making the passengers comfortable, including offering free drinks. The pool was closed because the ship didn’t have the power to run its chlorination system.

Passenger Lenora Chavez said Wednesday some of the plumbing was at capacity and vomit bags were hanging in corridors.

“It smells like a lot of people are throwing up,” she said. “I can smell that a lot.”

But the situation had improved Thursday morning as the ship neared land, Chavez said.

“It has not been too bad,” she said. “Everybody has been in good spirits. We have had entertainment and a lot of music. They are trying their best to keep us comfortable.”

Carnival told CNN that most of the plumbing is functioning and the ship’s doctors report few ill passengers.

A crew of about 1,200 is on board.

A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier resupplied the cruise ship Tuesday evening. Sailors stood on the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan in 50-yard lines, handing off boxes of water, frozen bread, sandwich meats, granola bars, paper plates and more for the Splendor.

Navy pilot Tamara Graham and Chief Petty Officer Steve Sinclair said they made 15 round trips from the Reagan to the stranded cruise ship.

“When we first showed up on scene, [passengers] were taking pictures, and flash bulbs were going off everywhere,” Sinclair said. “Once we dropped our equipment, we were getting a lot of waves.”

The Reagan received 60,000 pounds of food, bottled water and supplies by airlift for the cruise ship, said Cmdr. Greg Hicks, spokesman of the U.S. Third Fleet.

Graham said water “was definitely the top priority” on the list of supplies to bring on board the ship.

Carnival said it is making hotel and flight arrangements for guests once they reach port. About 100 representatives will be at the port Thursday to help passengers with transportation, hotel and other needs, Cahill said.

Crews will follow environmental and sanitation protocols when they begin unloading food spoiled because of the loss of refrigeration, said Carnival spokeswoman Joyce Oliva.

The fire occurred about 6 a.m. Monday in the engine room of the Splendor, the cruise line said in a statement on its website. The blaze was extinguished, and no passengers or crew were injured.

Engineers were not able to restore power to the ship, which was operating on auxiliary generators, a Carnival statement said.

The seven-day cruise along the Mexican coast departed Sunday from Long Beach, California. Carnival has canceled a seven-day cruise that was to leave November 14 from Long Beach, the company said.

“We’ve been in business for 35 years,” Cahill said. “We’ve never had anything like this happen before.”

John Heald, Carnival’s senior cruise director, blogged Wednesday from the Carnival Splendor. “I have to say that the crew has been absolutely epic and I am so very proud of each and every one of them,” he wrote.

“One thing is for certain though,” Heald added. “I doubt anyone onboard will ever, ever want to eat a sandwich ever again.”

Source(article): CNN

Source (pictures): VIRGINHOLIDAYSCRUISES, CRUISEWEB,THECRUISESENTRE

(CNN) — Investigators were working early Tuesday to figure out what caused a fire in a home in Marion County, Florida, that killed five children.

Firefighters got a call about the blaze at about 10:40 p.m. and arrived eight minutes after the emergency call, said Peveeta Persaud, a spokesperson for Marion County Fire Rescue.

“When they arrived the structure was fully engulfed,” said Persaud. “It was a wooden structure.”

Two girls, ages 6 and 12, were killed in the blaze, along with three boys, ages 8, 13 and 15.

At least three other people in the home were able to escape and were taken to nearby hospitals, the spokeswoman said.

The fire marshal and other officials were working to determine what caused the blaze, Persaud said.

A neighbor told CNN affiliate WKMG that she was able to break a window and help get one woman out of the home but the smoke and fire was so treacherous that she could not help any of the others.

“The whole house was engulfed in flames. And I heard the mom yell, ‘My babies, my babies are inside,’” said the sobbing neighbor, who was not identified. “It is very, very sad because I wanted to get all the babies out. My kids play with their kids.”

Marion County is located about 90 miles northwest of Orlando, Florida.

Source (article): CNN

Source (picture): OBIT-MAG.COM

While some were predicting a political tsunami that would wipe out Democrats across the country, the more apt metaphor of what took place on Election Night was the hurricane — which first ripped through the South and then the Midwest, but only nicked the Northeast and West.

The hurricane was destructive enough to dismantle the Democrats’ majority in the House, resulting in a party’s largest congressional-seat loss since 1948.

In particular, they suffered sizable losses in Midwest states that President Barack Obama carried in 2008 (five congressional seats in Ohio, five in Pennsylvania, three in Illinois and two in Indiana).

Democrats also lost both the Senate and gubernatorial races in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as the Senate contest in Indiana and the gubernatorial race in Michigan.

And the destruction for Democrats was equally bad in the South, with Republicans picking up four House seats in Florida, three in Virginia, three in Tennessee and one in Georgia.

Republicans also gained Senate seats in Arkansas and Florida, and governor’s mansions in Tennessee and Oklahoma.

“The path of the hurricane swished up the middle of the country,” says Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes Senate and gubernatorial contests for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “The eye was — bang — over the Industrial Midwest.”

But the political hurricane only touched the Democratic strongholds in the Northeast and West.

In the Northeast, Democrats held on to the contested governorships in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York. In the West, they won the governorship and Senate in California, and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray was neck and neck with GOP challenger Dino Rossi with 65 percent of the vote counted in Washington.

The Democrats’ biggest victory was in Nevada, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid defeated GOP challenger Sharron Angle. And in the battleground state of Colorado, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and Republican Ken Buck were deadlocked.

Still, Election Day was mostly a rebuke to Democrats and the expansion of government.

According to the nationwide exit poll, 73 percent of those who voted disapproved of Congress’ job, and those people voted Republican by a 64-to-33 percent margin.

In addition, 54 percent disapproved of President Obama’s job performance, and those voters broke 85 to 11 percent.

And 56 percent of the electorate said the government is doing too many things, which equaled the percent from 1994, the last time Republicans won back control of the House.

In 2008, however, only 43 percent said the government was doing too much.

NBC News’ Domenico Montanaro contributed to this report.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): BLOGS.E-ROCKFORD.COM, KENTGH, SEVENSIDEDCUBE

Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — It should be possible to keep an outbreak of cholera out of Haiti’s capital, but the potentially deadly disease remains a major risk, an international aid worker told CNN on Monday.

“I think we’ll be able to contain it fairly well, but it is a risk, it is a major risk,” said Jason Erb, deputy country director for the International Medical Corps.

The fast-moving outbreak has claimed at least 253 lives on the impoverished island nation, which has yet to recover from January’s massive earthquake. Another 3,015 cases have been reported, according to Haiti’s Health Ministry.

Even if the disease can be kept out of the capital, Port-au-Prince, it remains a serious risk in the tent camps that remain home to tens of thousands of earthquake survivors, Erb warned.

“It’s a danger because the camps are so crowded and so unhygienic,” he said on CNN’s “American Morning.”

Aid workers are trying to educate people about the importance of hand-washing and clean water in preventing the spread of cholera, he said.

A small number of cases have been reported in Port-au-Prince, but Erb said they seem to be the result of people carrying the disease from the camps — not from contaminated water in the capital.

And he cautioned against panic.

“You have to have quite a few people to contaminate a body of water,” he said. “It’s not just going to be one or two cases. That’s going to be quite controllable. It’s not good … but it’s not going to lead to a massive outbreak.”

There is “an awful lot of monitoring” for the disease, he said, and “cases generally don’t go unnoticed.”

Five patients in Port-au-Prince were infected north of the city in Artibonite, said Imogen Wall, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Haiti.

They traveled to the nation’s main city, where health officials discovered them to be infected within the incubation period, she said.

The five have been isolated and are receiving treatment, she said.

Meanwhile, officials are stepping up sanitation efforts and setting up quarantine areas in Port-au-Prince. Authorities are bracing themselves for a possible larger outbreak nationwide.

“I think the only responsible thing we can do at the moment is prepare and plan for the worst-case scenario,” Wall said.

Wall said aid organizations are working on constructing facilities to treat patients and sending more doctors to the affected areas.

“We’re all right for supplies … but we’re short on medical personnel,” she said.

The cholera outbreak comes after recent heavy rains caused the banks of the Artibonite River to overflow and flood the area.

The river was dammed in 1956 to create Lac de Peligre and is Haiti’s dominant drainage system.

On Friday, officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Agency for International Development discussed efforts on a containment strategy for the outbreak.

The CDC will send an 11-member team to Haiti over the next few days to find out which antibiotics will be most effective in treating the outbreak.

USAID will provide supplies needed to set up treatment centers.

The group already has 300,000 oral re-hydration kits in position and is distributing water purification kits in affected areas.

Cholera is caused by a bacterial infection of the intestines and, in severe cases, is characterized by diarrhea, vomiting and leg cramps, according to the CDC. In such cases, rapid loss of body fluids can lead to dehydration and shock.

“Without treatment, death can occur within hours,” the agency says.

A person can get cholera by drinking water or eating food contaminated with the bacteria.

During epidemics, the source of the contamination is often the feces of an infected person, and infections can spread rapidly in areas where there is poor sewage treatment and a lack of clean drinking water.

All the reported cases in the Lower Artibonite involve severe diarrhea and vomiting, Wall said.

Ian Rawson, director of Hospital Albert Schweitzer Haiti near Verrettes, said patients began showing choleralike symptoms October 16.

The pace picked up significantly Tuesday and beyond, though he said the situation was under control Friday at his 80-bed facility about 16 miles east of St. Marc.

“So far, we’ve been able to manage it,” Rawson said, noting that new patients were now coming in via pickups about every 10 minutes.

Temperatures in the mid-90s exacerbated the dual concerns about dehydration and people contracting cholera by drinking tainted water.

People with buckets lined roadsides in and around villages, hoping that passers-by might have clean water, said Eric Lotz, Haiti’s national director for the nonprofit Operation Blessing.

The U.N. mission in Haiti credited access to clean water and free medical facilities for preventing feared outbreaks of cholera and tuberculosis.

Source (article): CNN

Source (pictures): PRESSTV, ONLINE.WORLDMAG, 101NEWS

COPIAPO, Chile  — Chile’s 33 newly rescued miners recovered from their ordeal on Thursday while also pondering the celebrity status they have gained following a more than two-month entrapment deep under a remote desert.

Most of the miners were found to be in decent health despite being stuck in a collapsed mine tunnel since August 5.

The men were resting in a hospital after being hoisted to the surface in a rescue operation watched by millions worldwide . One of the miners had pneumonia and was being treated with antibiotics.

In a complicated but flawless operation under the far northern desert of the South American nation, the miners were hauled out one-by-one through 2,050 feet of rock in a metal capsule little wider than a man’s shoulders.

With much of the world transfixed on TV, celebrations erupted in Chile. The miners, who set a world record for survival underground, were welcomed as national heroes.

It took about 22 hours from the time the first miner was brought to the surface until the last miner was pulled to freedom late on Wednesday, and then another roughly 2-1/2 hours until the last of the six rescuers also emerged from the gold and copper mine early on Thursday.

“It’s so incredible that they all made it out alive,” said 51-year-old Luis Pina, a miner, hugging a perfect stranger as he celebrated in the main square in Copiapo where thousands of people cheered and waved red, white and blue Chilean flags.

“We have done what the entire world was waiting for,” said shift foreman Luis Urzua who enforced tight rations of their limited food and supplies before help could arrive. “We had strength, we had spirit, we wanted to fight, we wanted to fight for our families, and that was the greatest thing.”

The first rescue worker down was last up — Manuel Gonzalez, a mine rescue expert with Chile’s state-owned Codelco copper company, talked the men through the final hours inside the mine. Then, he spent 26 minutes alone down below before he strapped himself into the capsule for the ride up. He reached the surface at 12:32 a.m. Thursday local time (11:32 p.m. Wednesday ET) to hugs from his comrades and President Sebastian Pinera.

Despite the suffering they went through, the previously unknown miners now have plenty to look forward to if they want to take up the offers open to them.

Among a flood of invitations and gifts, Real Madrid and Manchester United have invited the miners — many of whom are avid soccer fans — to watch them play in Europe.

Book, film contracts
A flamboyant local singer-turned-businessman has given them $10,000 each, while Apple boss Steve Jobs has sent them all a latest iPod and a Greek firm has offered an islands tour.

Most of the miners are unlikely to return to their old employment, with various job offers, plus book and film contracts, coming their way in the wake of their experience.

President Pinera, whose popularity has risen over his handling of the crisis, was at the San Jose mine in the Atacama desert to greet each man as he emerged and plans to host them at his palace in the capital Santiago.

“I hand the shift over to you,” Urzua, who was the last miner out, told Pinera.

Having suffered a massive earthquake in February that killed more than 500 people, Chileans were euphoric about the happy ending to their latest challenge and proud of the technology that went into the successful rescue.

Church bells and car horns sounded across Chile in celebration, while family members and well-wishers both wept and laughed for joy outside the mine.

President Barack Obama and other world leaders sent messages of congratulations, saying the miners’ survival was an inspiration to all.

When the mine caved in on August 5, the men were all thought dead in yet another of Latin America’s litany of mining accidents. But rescuers found them 17 days later with a bore hole the width of a grapefruit.

That tiny hole became an umbilical cord used to pass hydration gels, water and food to keep them alive until a bigger space could be bored to bring them up.

Mining has played a central but often sad role in Latin America since the Spanish conquistadors’ first hunt for gold.

For centuries, conditions were appalling but they have improved radically in recent decades and the industry has helped fuel an economic boom in some nations including Chile.

The rescue process — via a metal capsule named Phoenix after the mythical bird that rose from the ashes — will do no harm to the reputation of Chile, which is already an investor’s favorite in the region due to its economic progress.

“I hope that this serves as a lesson so that things change in Chilean mining,” said Gonzalez, the rescuer, after emerging. “I hope this never happens again.”

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (pictures): BOSTON.COM, IRISHTIMES