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- Weather Out of Control -
Fiji goes on Tsunami alert
Friday, November 17, 2000
OFFICIALS at the meteorological centre in Nadi late
yesterday warned Suva of a possible tsunami attack.
An official who identified himself only as Tomasi said there was a strong possibility of a tsunami heading Fiji's way.
He said an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale struck near Papua, New Guinea at 4.45pm yesterday.
"The earthquake was quite strong that is why we are on alert. It is not just us, Australia and New Zealand are also on alert."
According to Tomasi the tsunami would hit Suva at 11.05pm.
However Meteorological Department director Rajendra Prasad said there was nothing to worry about as the warning was just a precautionary measure.
"We are on an alert, this is part of the normal procedure," Mr Prasad said. "There is nothing to panic about."
Fiji's Daily Post
Preventing floods is a worldwide challenge, says Blair
By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent
9 November 2000 - Independent News UK
More flooding and severe weather is expected in Britain unless international measures are taken to tackle "freak climate changes", the Prime Minister said yesterday.
Tony Blair told MPs at Prime Minister's Question Time that improvements to flood defences were only part of the answer to tackling severe weather conditions.
He said the international community would have to take "difficult decisions on climate change" if more flooding was to be prevented. "This is a problem," he said. "I'm afraid it looks as if this is not going to go away in the next few years.
"These floods have been the worst for 50 years, in some cases, 100 years. We have to put in the short-term measures necessary, flood defences and so on. Then we have to take at international level some of the difficult decisions perhaps ducked for too long about some of the issues of climate change."
Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, asked why the Government had not acted on a report by the Agriculture Ministry five months ago, which called for "urgent" flood prevention work.
"Had they acted earlier and with greater alacrity, some of the worst effects could have been avoided," Mr Kennedy said.
Sunday November 5 11:05 PM ET
Storms Trigger New Flood Alerts Across Britain
By Nick Tattersall
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain issued new flood warnings on Monday when stormy weather battered the country, threatening to swell floodwaters that have already forced thousands to flee their homes.
Vast swathes of countryside have been flooded by weeks of rain, cutting roads and railways, and there are fears that more swollen rivers could burst their banks.
``There are now 12 severe flood warnings in place on eight rivers across England and Wales,'' an Environment Agency spokeswoman told Reuters.
She said a further 75 flood alerts were in force and warned that the agency expected to issue further warnings.
``There are a number of rivers that could be flooded in the southwest,'' the spokeswoman said.
``The difficulty is the rain is still coming down and some places have already had as much as 50 millimeters (two inches). The effect of that is that you will start to see the run-off and the compounded effect in the next few days,'' she said.
Gales reaching 60 miles (100 km) an hour struck southwest England late on Sunday.
Vast tracts of land around the city of York in northern England were submerged but a wall of sandbags helped save its historic walled center from the swollen River Ouse, which reached its highest levels since 1625.
The Environment Agency said it had reduced a severe flood warning in the city to flood warning status but said the effects of the latest rain would not be seen for a while.
Police said about 3,000 people had been evacuated from their homes in the city.
Emergency services evacuated residents in the western English village of Sandhurst when flooding raised concerns about poisoning from a chemicals plant.
Britain's woes don't stop with the floods. Its transport network is already creaking under the strain of nationwide rail safety checks and repairs after an October crash outside London.
Rail network operator Railtrack (RTK.L) said the floods had not affected planned repairs to some 200 miles (322 km) of track.
Fuel protesters, meanwhile, threatened to throw another spoke into national transport mayhem, saying they would repeat demonstrations that brought the country to a virtual standstill in September unless the government cuts fuel duties by a November 13 deadline.
To help those most affected by the flooding, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said he had asked insurance companies in Britain to speed up payments.
Flood damage claims are estimated to run into hundreds of millions of pounds (dollars).
``Climate change is having an effect on weather and floods and we've got to do more,'' Prescott told the BBC's ``Breakfast with Frost'' program.
Experts warned homeowners that property values in flood-prone areas were likely to plummet -- flooding has become increasingly frequent -- and that insurance premiums on them would soar.
Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) said it was time the international community took more steps to tackle climate change -- widely blamed on global warming caused by industrial pollution.
``There are serious issues about climate change... We can no longer avoid facing up to this issue on an international level,'' Blair told BBC radio. ``I think the international community for far too long has refused to face up to it.''
WSWS
Serious loss of life and property have been reported in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala in southern India and also in Bangladesh as a result of heavy floods and landslides caused by the monsoon at the end of August. The Indian floods, which are among the worst on record, have sparked accusations that the state and central governments have done nothing to alleviate the impact of these annual disasters.
According to official figures, 162 have died in Andhra Pradesh and 119 in Kerala. About three million people have been affected by floods. The lack of food and medicine for the victims are likely to lead to further deaths. Government reports indicate that Andhra Pradesh has received its highest monsoon rainfall in 50 years and that the state is still in endangered by rising water levels in the Godavari River.
In June more than 300 people died by floods in northeastern India, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Since then epidemics of malaria, cholera and diarrhea have taken hundreds more lives in the worst affected area, the state of Assam.
In Bangladesh, coastal areas and some offshore islands have been severely affected by floods as well as violent storms. Floods on Sandwip Island have forced the evacuation of 12,000 people. Floods have destroyed most dwellings on Urirchar Island and 60 fishermen are still missing as a result of storms. There is no drinking water because wells and water supplies have been flooded by seawater.
In a media statement on August 30, Kerala Chief Minister E.K. Nayanar reported that 11,800 homes had been destroyed by floods in his state and 55,578 people forced to take shelter in centres opened by the government. “We are worried as the rains have picked up this week,” he said.
Nayanar subsequently wrote to Prime Minister Vajpayee demanding one billion rupees from the central government for flood relief. He explained that the floods had “resulted in the massive loss of the houses of fishermen, fishing equipment, coastal roads and structures in coastal areas, coconut plantations and the erosion of hundreds of hectares of land.” He complained that Kerala had received no money for earlier floods in June.
In Andhra Pradesh, it was reported that by August 30 the floods have affected 3,080 villages and towns and submerged 177,987 hectares of farmland, causing damage officially estimated at 7.7 billion rupees. The real destruction far exceeds these figures. Several parts of the state capital Hyderabad, also known as “Cyberabad” because of its burgeoning information technology industries, have been submerged by floods, causing major damage to infrastructure such as roads and drains.
Authorities in Hyderabad have been accused exacerbating the floods by allowing the construction of dwellings in beds of tanks (water reservoirs) designed to take floodwaters. Dr. Narasimha Reddy from the Centre for Resource Education told the Hindustan Times: “Earlier rulers had created a chain of lakes, reservoirs and tanks with surplus water flowing from the one to the other without flooding the landscape. However most of the tanks and lakes have vanished.”
The lakes and tanks were build after the city was devastated in 1908 by floods that claimed 30,000 lives. But the failure of governments to provide low cost public housing has forced many of the poor to build shelters in the beds of these reservoirs. The construction of a 3.5-kilometre road cutting across part of one of the major lakes directly resulted in the inundation of a number of neighbourhoods.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu attempted to use the flooding for his own political purposes citing it as a reason why opposition parties should call off their protests over the police killing of four people during a demonstration on August 27 over rising electricity tariffs. The deaths provoked a widespread strike that shut shops and other businesses and paralysed bus and train services. “These incidents will hit the image of the State as an investor friendly destination,” Naidu said, revealing his lack of concern for the victims of the floods.
Natural disasters such as floods, cyclones and droughts are a common occurrence in India. In Andhra Pradesh itself, a cyclone in the Eastern Godavari district killed 2,000 people in 1996 and another in 1997 claimed about 10,000 lives. In 1998 floods in the state caused 150 deaths.
Last October the coastal areas of the eastern Indian state of Orissa were hit by a huge cyclone killing about 30,000 people. By May this year about 50 million people were affected by a severe drought Gujarat, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh itself as well as the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Yet despite the regularity of such disasters governments not only provide inadequate relief assistance to the victims, who are invariably from the poorest layers of society, but fail to take the most elementary precautionary measures. In Hyderabad even the previous steps taken to minimise the impact of flooding have been undermined by the lacking of planning and the domination of profit over the basic needs of ordinary working people.
WSWS
Food riots erupted last week in flood-affected areas of West Bengal as millions of people have been left homeless by the worst floods in 22 years. Many lack food, clean water, shelter and basic medicines as the central Indian government quarrels over who should provide aid. Clashes have also been reported in the flood-affected state of Bihar.
Hundreds of angry people demanding food at Ranaghat, 80 kilometres from Calcutta, surrounded the district administration and tried to force their way into the office. They only left after rations were distributed. At Nadia, 150 kilometres north of Calcutta, police fired on a crowd desperate for food.
Railway officers have reported that in some areas people have looted trains carrying food and occupied others, cooking and sleeping inside the carriages. The lack of boats has also resulted in clashes with police and troops involved in rescue operations as people attempt to scramble aboard the limited vessels available.
In West Bengal, an estimated 17 million people have been rendered homeless and more than five million are marooned in villages and towns surrounded by vast lakes of water. The official death toll had risen to 906 by Monday but the real figure is believed to be in the thousands. Nearly 100 people are still missing, feared dead.
The Ganges and 56 other rivers deluged a large portion of West Bengal and 11 districts in the western parts of neighbouring Bangladesh. The flooding has continued since September 18 when heavy and continuous monsoonal rains caused river banks and dams to overflow, submerging some areas of land by up to three metres of water.
Low lying areas of Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal and India's second most populous city, were inundated, turning streets into torrents and forcing 55,000 people out of their homes. According to one relief worker, “There was nowhere to store the dead bodies, some of which are simply being thrown into the water.”
While the floods have begun to subside in areas of West Bengal, a quarter of neighbouring Bangladesh is now under water. At least 70 people are dead and nearly 350 are missing. More than one million have been made homeless.
The flood victims face the danger of epidemics of cholera, dysentery, malaria and other diseases. In rural areas, the water is polluted with the decaying carcasses of cattle and other animals. One relief coordinator estimated that one million people could be suffering from gastric diseases. Doctors have already reported numerous cases of fever, skin infection and stomach ailments. According to one official, 20 people have already died of water-borne diseases.
“The situation is such that we cannot even claim to return to normal soon. Communication and infrastructure have totally collapsed. We are entirely dependent on the government for help,” one official said. One estimate put the damage to houses at 2.8 billion rupees ($US65 million) and crop losses at 30 billion rupees. About 10,000 cattle have perished.
Grant Cassidy, a World Vision spokesman, told CNN that people feel that nobody cares about them. “People are completely shocked... You see people's faces... They are devastated.” One Bengali villager told an interviewer: “Nobody has reached our village to help us. People are dying of snake bites.” He had just eaten his first meal in seven days. “Women and children in our village are still waiting for food. The government is doing nothing,” he said.
The central government, led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP), and the West Bengal state government dominated by the Stalinist Community Party of India (Marxist)—CPI (M)—which are currently engaged in a bitter political tussle, have both used the floods to blame the other.
The BJP is accusing the state government of not handling funds properly and has provided little in the way of flood relief. The CPI-M is calling on the central government to provide 9.62 billion rupees ($US209 million), less than one third of the estimated damage to infrastructure. West Bengal chief minister Joyti Basu has insisted that the central government declare the flood a “national disaster” but has not received any response.
Even though floods regularly hit West Bengal, few preventative measures have been taken. An expert committee set up after last year's floods recommended that all rivers in the state be dredged to counteract silting. The state irrigation department secretary has admitted that if the recommendations had been implemented the impact of the present flooding would have been lessened. But neither the central nor the state government was prepared to provide the five billion rupees needed to carry out the work.
The West Bengal floods are just the latest in a long line of tragic disasters, which have repeatedly devastated the Indian subcontinent. In late 1999, 30,000 people died when a cyclone hit Orissa in eastern India. In the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan in western India and Andra Pradesh in southern India, millions were affected by a severe drought in May.
In each case the lack of planning and preventative measures, and poorly equipped and financed relief operations, have compounded the number of deaths and the destruction of property. While billions of rupees are spent at the state and national levels on infrastructure and incentives to attract investors, very little money is available to lessen the impact of floods, droughts and other so-called natural disasters.
WSWS
A new wave of floods has killed hundreds of people in the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar as well as neighboring south Asian countries, for the second time this year. While the floods have wreaked havoc, destroying countless homes and exposing millions of people to famine and disease, India's Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP)-led government has again demonstrated its callous disregard for the fate of masses of ordinary people.
According to reports on August 10, more than 300 people have been killed and over five million made homeless in the north and northeast of India, as well as in Bhutan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. But these figures, which are regarded as conservative, are expected to increase as ongoing rain worsens flooding in coming days.
The disaster has been attributed to monsoon rains, although some experts claim that the flooding, which is increasing each year, could be caused by global warming. Despite this growing problem the Indian government and its neighbours have made no attempt to develop programs that would prevent millions becoming victims.
Dozens of bodies were found on July 31 in the Sutlej River in Himachal Pradesh, which borders Tibet. Large numbers were reported missing, according to official announcements, as the river submerged 200 square kilometres, the water level rising 50 feet in some places. Thousands of houses disappeared and roads, railways, telephone lines and water supplies were completely destroyed. Seventeen large and fifty small bridges and four power stations were washed away in the deluge. Distress is widespread throughout the state due to the lack of food and other essential items destroyed in the floods.
While the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Prem Kumar Dhumal, declared that the flood damage was serious, his main concern was not for the affected population but the state's apple and tourist industries. Dhumal ordered authorities to clear the roads so that apples could be transported to planes for export. And where roads were damaged, he declared that the “state government will deploy workers to carry them on foot to the airplanes”.
The Himachal Pradesh state government, which has estimated flood damage at 25 billion rupees ($US582 million), said it was expecting 5 billion rupees ($US112 million) aid from the central government but had only received one billion.
Flooding of the Brahmaputra River in northeastern Assam has also caused massive damage with approximately 80 people reported dead, 2.5 million houses damaged and 3.2 million people displaced so far. Assam health ministry official told the press that encephalitis, dysentery and malaria were rapidly spreading throughout that state, with more than 35 killed by these diseases so far.
Those affected by the floods in Assam were not provided food or medicine during the first week. One victim, Phani Das told the AFP news service: “We are surviving on coconut water and a few grains of puffed rice, which we managed to carry with us after flood waters engulfed our village on Thursday [August 4].”
Monimola Das, a mother of three, said: “We are virtually starving with no relief coming in from the government”. Another villager, Rini Kalita said he did not have a way to take his two children, who have diarrhea, to the hospital.
Assam's Food Control Minister Promode Gogoi admitted to AFP that the government could not provide relief to all flood victims: “We are trying our best to provide help to them all but it is physically impossible to reach all the affected villages”. The Assam state government has asked the central government for 200 million rupees in aid but only received 50 million.
In poverty-stricken Bihar, more than 20 people were killed and 16 districts affected. The floods hit the drought-devastated state in early July affecting 25 districts and 2 million people. It is estimated that crops worth about 84 million rupees were destroyed with 3,000 houses washed away.
Arunchal Pradesh state, which saw 10 people killed and 20,000 homes destroyed by flooding in early June, has been submerged again by the latest deluge. West Bengal, which reported five dead and 5,000 houses ruined in July, has also been hard hit by current flooding. According to official reports from Uttar Pradesh, 26 people have been killed in mud and rock landslides precipitated by the swollen Bahavra River.
The Indian sub-continent is regularly hit by devastating disasters. In October last year, a savage storm swept India's eastern coastal state of Orissa leaving 30,000 dead and millions of people still suffering the resulting health hazards and damage. In May this year, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Indian states of Gujarat, Rajastan, West Bengal and Andra Pradesh saw over 50 million people affected by a severe drought. In 1996 three villages were destroyed and flooding in the Kinnar district, Himachal Pradesh state, killed 200 people. These are just a few in the long list of tragedies.
As with previous ruling regimes in India, the present state governments and the BJP-led central government have not instituted any programs to prevent or respond to these catastrophes. Even after the tragedies have occurred, the central government has refused to allocate adequate funds to the affected areas. In fact, this year the Indian government has diverted funds away from welfare programs for the poor and boosted defense spending by a hefty 27 percent.
BJP leaders in the northeastern Indian states have also attempted to divert attention from their refusal to develop flood prevention and relief programs by blaming neighboring China. Government officials have claimed that landslides in Tibet, which is controlled by China, caused the floods. Environmentalists, however, have demonstrated that the main source for the flooding is unplanned forest clearing in India and elsewhere in South Asia, which has led to large-scale erosion of soil and filled riverbeds.
World Disasters Report 2000, which is published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, said: “Reckless human use of fossil fuel, overwhelmingly by industrialised countries, has helped raise the spectre of climate change which darkens everyone's horizon.” The report also points out that 96 percent of all deaths from natural disasters occur in developing countries.
A recent Oxfam Institute survey reports that every year in India 56 million people are affected by so-called natural disasters, 11 percent of the land is flooded, 28 percent of the country faces drought, half the country is hit by earthquakes and 4,700 miles of seashore is prone to cyclone damage.
WSWS
Large parts of India as well as significant areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where tens of millions of people live, are being ravaged by a devastating drought. It has destroyed livestock herds and forced hundreds of thousands of people to migrate to the cities or to irrigated areas in order to survive. Many who remain behind are in a precarious position without access to adequate supplies of food and clean water, facing the dangers of starvation and disease.
In what has been described as the worst Indian drought in a century, an estimated 50 million people are affected in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra in the west and Andra Pradesh in the south. More than 60 cities and 60,000 villages have been hit. Many people are struggling to obtain drinking water, their crops have withered away and hundreds of thousands of cattle and goats have died. A government report has identified 11 states in all that have been affected to one degree or another.
The worst conditions are in Rajasthan, which is suffering its second consecutive year of drought. An estimated 26,000 villages and more than 35 million people—that is, about three quarters of the state's population—are affected. In some villages, the only access to water is a tanker once a fortnight, providing each villager with between 10 to 15 litres.
In Gujarat, a government report has identified 9,421 villages in 17 districts (out of a total of 25 districts)—home to more than 25 million people—as drought-affected. The report projected that the state's food grain production would fall by nearly 30 percent and its output of oilseeds by nearly 50 percent. The livestock population of over seven million head is also expected to plummet.
In the state of Orissa, which was devastated by a cyclone and floods last year, around 8,000 wells have completely dried up in the worst-hit district of Bolangir. The local government has begun to close schools and colleges and restrict government office hours. On April 29 a train carrying drinking water from Calcutta to the area was mobbed by thousands of people desperate for water. Inmates in the district's Titlagarh jail rioted after being left without water for two days. “Give us water or kill us,” they shouted.
The situation in the southern areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan is just as grim. Authorities in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan say most of the province's 26 districts are suffering from severe famine as a result of the drought. The provincial governor Amirul Mulk Mengal said there was growing concern for 20,000 families and more than a million cattle trapped in inaccessible areas.
Last Monday, Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf made a TV appeal for donations to assist drought victims. His appearance came just a day after the governor of Sindh province announced that 127 people had died over the last three months, mostly in the Tharparkar region near the Indian border, as a result of severe water shortages. It is estimated that tens of thousands of people from Sindh and Baluchistan have migrated out of the area.
In Afghanistan the World Food Program (WFP) country director Mike Sackett last week warned: “There are no walking skeletons yet, but without an adequate response, thousands of Afghans in the southern provinces face a merciless summer after having lost almost all their rain-fed wheat crops and up to 80 percent of their livestock due to lack of precipitation.” He announced that the WFP had plans to feed 400,000 people—the poorest and most needy—for the coming 12 months. The worst-affected provinces are Zabul, Kandahar, Nimroz and Helmand, where more than four million people live.
The immediate cause of the drought is the repeated failures of monsoons, including the post-monsoon period from October to December 1999, and the winter rainfall in January and February this year. But the reasons for the calamity are also man-made. Governments in all three countries failed to take long-term measures to provide secure water supplies to drought-prone areas. Moreover, little action has been taken over the last six months as the developing drought conditions have become apparent.
In India, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by the Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) only began to allocate some money for relief and to send food, water and fodder for cattle to the affected states in late April. On April 26 the government requisitioned navy warships to transport drinking water to the drought-hit areas of Gujarat.
The NDA government is under fire not only in the media and from opposition parties but also from its own political allies. At an all-party meeting called to discuss the drought on April 25, Yerra Naidu, a leader of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), complained at having received only a tenth of what had been requested to combat the drought. The TDP is the ruling party in the drought-affected Andra Pradesh and a key ally of the NDA.
Opposition Congress Party MPs from the drought-hit states of Rajasthan and Gujarat also staged a demonstration in late April outside parliament house accusing the government of “inadequate relief” to the victims. But the Congress Party has done as little during its terms of office to alleviate the dangers of drought as the present ruling NDA coalition. In Gujarat, both the government and opposition parties routinely promise during election campaigns to solve the state's water problems, and just as routinely shelve their promises as soon as the poll is completed.
Both the state and national governments are trying to minimise the political impact of the drought, claiming that it emerged suddenly and is now being addressed. But water shortages, especially in states like Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andra Pradesh, are well-known and long-running problems. Moreover as the Tribune commented: “A scanty rainfall takes months to mature into a drought. If it happens for the second successive year, it rages as a famine. ... No government, either in the states or at the centre, should therefore pretend as though drought has sneaked in this year and surprised everyone.”
Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Minister Shantha Kumar has tried to play down fears that the rainfall in the coming June-September monsoon will be below normal. “Things are very much under control. We are sending all possible relief to the affected areas... There will be no shortage of food whatsoever,” he said.
But as an editorial in the Times of India noted: “Forewarned is normally forearmed, but official India stands such logic on its head. According to the Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation—which has been making accurate forecasts for the summer monsoon over the past four years—India is poised for a deficit south-west monsoon this year. If not addressed in time, this will worsen an already perilous situation in which famine is stalking 50 million Indians.”
According to Prashant Goswami from the Bangalore-based weather forecasting centre the overall monsoon rainfall will be about 789 millimeters as compared to 840 millimeters last year. That low figure is for the entire country and does not take into account regional differences.
Anil Agrawal, the director of the Centre for Science and Environment and a former member of World Water Commission, told the Indian magazine Outlook: “It (the drought) is purely man-made. The government, to be precise. There is no reason why every village in India can't get water...”
Asked why the present drought had emerged, he answered: “Ask the politicians. That there was a terrible drought in the offing in Gujarat and Rajasthan was evident way back in September last year when people had begun fleeing their villages. But nobody, the media included, could care less. I remember that when home minister L.K. Advani went to campaign in Gujarat during the last general elections, he was greeted with slogans like ‘Pehle paani phir Advani' (First water then Advani).”
No adequate measures have been put in place since the last major drought devastated India 13 years ago. Lulled by 12 years of “normal” monsoons, successive governments and the media have largely ignored the plight of people caught in localised pockets where no rain fell. Moreover what governments have done has benefitted the wealthier farmers and landlords at the expense of the vast majority of poor villagers.
BBC commentator Devinder Sharma noted: “With traditional forms of water storage and harvesting vanishing, and rural irrigation being completely taken over by inefficient government machinery, available ground water has been exploited indiscriminately.” The article also pointed out that India had “comfortable food grain supplies of 26 million tonnes” but there was no guarantee that it would get to those most in need.
The operation of the capitalist market in determining who will live, who will die and who will make a profit out of the misery of others was highlighted in an article in the Times of India entitled “Drought merchants rake in the moolah”.
“Drought may have meant misery and suffering for most people in Gujarat but it has also transformed some farmers and tanker-owners into drought merchants. Besides, there are mineral water suppliers like Helly Healthcare who earn 150,000 rupees a month just by selling mineral water... With business soaring in summer, HH hiked its per litre costs from 1 to 1.5 rupees and is laughing all the way to the bank.
“The rustic Laljibahi [a drought merchant] used his native intelligence, migrated from Kathiawar and now owns a sprawling bungalow near the Shyamal row houses. He is guarded about his business. Ask him how many trips his tankers make and he is evasive. Egg him on and he snaps, ‘A person selling firewood at the cremation ground will always wish that more people die so that his business prospers—same is the case with us'.”
The fact that millions of people are forced to rely on such economic parasites for something so essential to life as water underscores the fact that 50 years after independence, the ruling class and its politicians throughout the Indian subcontinent have proven completely incapable of addressing the most basic needs of the working class and oppressed masses.
Saturday, November 4 2000 2:54 AM SGT
MANILA (AP)--Typhoon Bebinca barreled through the northern Philippines on Friday, killing at least 26 people, triggering landslides and flooding many areas, officials and radio reports said.
Schools, government offices and many shops and banks were closed. Packing winds of up to 95 mph, the storm was about 105 miles west of Manila midday Friday, moving toward southern China, the weather bureau said.
At least 1,300 commuters were stranded at a port southeast of Manila because ferries weren't allowed to leave. Several Philippine Airlines flights were diverted to the central Philippines.
Powerful winds and big waves slammed at least seven barges into a seawall along Manila Bay.
In Laguna province, four mountain climbers drowned as they tried to cross a swollen river, provincial Gov. Joey Lina said. They were part of a group of more than 100 climbers trapped by the river, and later rescued by soldiers and police, civil defense officials said. Elsewhere in the province, three people, including two children, were killed in a landslide and two others drowned in a river, Lina said.
Ten people were killed in landslides in Anitpolo City, Manila and Cagayan and Nueva Vizcaya provinces. Five people total also drowned in the two provinces.
In suburban Quezon City, a falling tree killed a man. A small radio transmitter tower collapsed on a home in suburban Marikina City, impaling one man and injuring his 8-year-old daughter, radio reports said.
More than 10,500 people were evacuated because of flooding in suburban Taguig and four provinces east of Manila, the office of civil defense said.
Bebinca arrived a week after Typhoon Xangsane swept through the northern Philippines and left 40 people dead, 249 injured and 66 missing.
Earth in range of approaching asteroid
ABC News - 3 Nov 2000
US
scientists have spotted a small asteroid or a piece of space junk
they say has a one in 500 chance of hitting the earth in 30
years, far greater odds than any similar object ever discovered.
Officials from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory say if the object
IS an asteroid and hits the planet, it would be equivalent to a
nuclear blast.
The object has been designated 2000 SG344, and is believed to be
up to 70 metres long.
Projections are that it will make its closest approach to earth
on September 21 in 2030, while the chance of a collision is about
1,000 times greater than for any other asteroid-like object yet
discovered.
Floods force residents out of York
ABC News - 3 Nov 2000
Thousands
of people were evacuated from York city in northern England and
soldiers were called in on Friday night as floods continued to
ravage parts of the country.
Up to 3,000 residents of York took what belongings they could and
moved due to fears that the swollen River Ouse will breach flood
defences.
Soldiers were drafted in to help council workers in the city lay
sandbags in a desperate attempt to shore up flood barriers.
The Environment Agency, which coordinates the response to
flooding, put the entire city on flood alert and warned that
35,000 homes there could be affected.
After Britain suffered torrential rain and storms earlier in the
week, it is now enduring the worst spate of flooding since the
"Great Floods" of 1947, wth an estimated 3,000 homes
damaged.
In many areas, the mopping-up operation has already begun after
the water subsided, but in the north of England in particular,
the floodwaters were still rising.
Worse appears to be on the way, with meteorologists forecasting
48 hours of heavy rain and gales starting on Sunday.
The storms were set to batter Wales, south-west and north-west
England before moving to the east and the south-east, according
to forecasters.
In York, the Environment Agency advised residents in threatened
areas to leave for their own safety.
"We have spoken to everybody and have given them advice to
move their property upstairs and leave their homes," said
the agency's Tim Madgwick.
"Until we know which way this is going, we cannot afford to
take risks with their lives. If that river comes through the
flood barrier, we won't be standing here."
Resident June Simpson said she was moving out to stay with her
daughter.
"I saw this in 1968 and in 1982, but it's never been as bad
as this," she said.
"I don't like it at all and all we can do is try to look
after our property and ourselves. I'm just so worried about what
I will come back to if it does flood."
Elsewhere in Britain, the overflowing Severn River again
threatened the low-lying towns of Shrewsbury and Worcester in
central England, which have been flooded for several days.
Blair blames global warming for floods
ABC News - 3 Nov 2000
British
Prime Minister Tony Blair has warned that more must be done to
combat global warming, as his country faces its worst floods in
half a century.
Britain's Environment Agency says almost all of the country's
rivers and streams are at full capacity.
United Nations and European Union scientists are all warning that
the effects of global warming will be more severe, more quickly
than earlier thought.
That is the message Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair was
pushing as he toured some of the areas worst-hit by his country's
latest massive flooding.
"I think the world for far too long has simply treated this
issue of climate change as not specifically important, well
that's no longer an option," Mr Blair said.
In a fortnight, countries meet at the Hague to hammer out the
practical implementation of the Kyoto protocol to reduce
pollutants which increase global warming.
Tuesday October 31 6:56 PM ET
Singapore Airlines Crash Kills 68 in Taiwan
By Angus Chuang and Michael Kramer
TAIPEI (Reuters) - A Singapore Airlines (SIAL.SI) Boeing 747 crashed and burst into a ball of flames while taking off in Taipei during a typhoon, killing at least 68 people.
As workers combed through the wreckage on Wednesday, Taiwan authorities feared the death toll could hit 100. There were 159 passengers and 20 crew on board the Los Angeles-bound flight, SQ006.
The wreckage of Singapore Airline SQ-006 Boeing 747-400 is attended to by emergency services after crashing at Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport late October 31, 2000. The 159 passengers and 20 crew bound for Los Angeles crashed seconds after takeoff in Taipei during a typhoon on Tuesday. There were conflicting reports of fatalities. (Simon Kwong/Reuters)
A Reuters reporter at the scene said on Wednesday morning he counted 68 body bags at the airport awaiting identification from relatives.
SIA spokesman Rick Clements had said earlier in Singapore it was known that 64 people had died at the site and two passengers died in hospital.
Taiwan authorities said earlier 68 people were being treated in hospital and 16 escaped injury.
The flight commander of the Boeing (NYSE:BA - news) 747-400 reported hitting ``an object'' as the plane was taking off late on Tuesday night.
An airline official said investigators discovered a wheel at the scene that did not belong to the plane, and added it was unlikely that the weather or mechanical problems were to blame for the accident.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration said in a statement the aircraft burst into flames after skidding off the runway. It said the weather met conditions for take-offs and landings.
A police official and an eyewitness said earlier the plane slammed back to the ground shortly after lifting off.
``The aircraft was broken into three sections, and seriously destroyed by fire,'' said Simon Kwong, a Reuters photographer at the scene. ``Even with strong winds and heavy rains I can still smell the burning.''
While rescuers searched the wreckage and Buddhist monks nearby held prayer services, Taiwan Premier Chang Chun-hsiung said he feared the death toll could reach 100.
``I feel very sad because there are many casualties,'' he told a news conference. ``There are 179 people on board and maybe 100 people dead.''
Black Box
Workers had yet to start looking for the black box. ``It's sitting under the aircraft. It won't go anywhere,'' one aviation official said.
Singapore Airlines said on Wednesday the passengers included 55 from Taiwan and 47 Americans. Of the cabin crew, 15 were from Singapore and two from Taiwan.
The three technical crew were uninjured, spokesman Clements told a news conference. Eight cabin crew were unhurt, one was injured and eight were unaccounted for.
Asked if the airline could rule out foul play, he said: ``We can't speculate on anything at the moment because we don't have any information.''
The Boeing (BA.N) 747-400 crashed as it was taking off at 11.18 pm (1518 GMT Tuesday) during a storm. Survivors reported hearing a bang, followed by a fireball that swept through the cabin from the front of the aircraft.
``The flight commander reported hitting an object on the takeoff run,'' the airline said in a statement.
Survivors of Tuesday's crash said the plane began to shake seconds after takeoff. Then an explosion blew debris through the cabin and the plane crashed back down to the tarmac.
``I could feel the aircraft shaking during takeoff,'' said American Richard Maneth, 39, who walked away from the crash unaided.
``A few seconds after, the aircraft rolled to the left side. Flame was coming from the left side -- I could see some people were burned, but I was not sure if they were dead,'' Maneth said.
Destroyed By Fire
The jet's front had been destroyed by fire and it was broken into three sections. The rear end of the aircraft and tail loomed out of the smoldering wreckage on the tarmac.
``Many of the injured suffered burns, and several were in shock,'' said a doctor at a local hospital, adding that the victims reeked of jet fuel.
Yu Lu-yun, a 46-year old Taiwan businessman traveling in business class, said the plane ``just fell'' seconds after takeoff.
``Then there was fire on the left side of the cabin, and then smoke everywhere,'' he said.
Fire engines, ambulances and emergency crews in yellow rain gear, some carrying body bags, combed the rain-swept wreckage and rushed injured to hospital.
It was the second crash at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taipei in just over two years, and the first involving a Singapore Airlines plane.
A Boeing 737 belonging to SIA subsidiary SilkAir crashed in Indonesia in December 1997, killing 104.
The plane crashed a year to the day after EgyptAir flight 990 crashed into the Atlantic killing all 217 on board. Clements said it was built in January 1997 and was last serviced on September 16.
The rescue operation was still under way, Clements said.
Chiang Kai-shek International Airport was reopened early on Wednesday after being closed for hours following the accident.
A spokesman for Singapore's foreign ministry said a hotline for relatives had been set up at 65-332-0000. Part of Changi airport in Singapore had been cordoned off for families awaiting information. The plane had been due to land in Los Angeles at 6.15 p.m. local time.
It was the first major crash in Taiwan since 1998. In February that year, 202 people were killed when a China Airlines Airbus A300-600R crashed in the island's worst aviation disaster.
Toxic
tanker sinks while under tow in the Channel
01.11.2000 7:00 AM
Stormy seas begin swamping the Italian-registered chemical tanker, which later sank. Picture / Reuters
CHERBOURG, France - An Italian tanker with 6,000 tons of toxic chemicals aboard sank in the Channel on Tuesday as it was being towed to the French port of Cherbourg.
The Ievoli Sun, whose 14 crew were ferried to safety by helicopter when the vessel ran into trouble on Monday, sank 11 miles northwest of the Channel island of Alderney, the French maritime command in Brest said.
The second major shipping disaster in a year in the perilous seas off northwestern France sparked new calls from Paris for an urgent crackdown in maritime security at European level.
The stricken tanker was carrying 6,000 tons of chemicals, including 4,000 tons of styrene, a hydrocarbon used for making synthetic plastics. It reported a hole in its double hull in heavy weather on Monday and radioed for help.
The sinking raised fears of a major pollution spill just under a year after the Erika tanker sank off western France washing thousands of tons of heavy fuel onto the coast with disastrous effects for the local tourism and fishing industries.
Prime Minister Lionel Jospin told parliament that pollution control equipment was being rushed to the spot where the ship went down and a crisis center set up to coordinate the response.
Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot, who was flown to the area, said he had seen an "iridescent trail" of some 800 metres but did not know if it was fuel or chemicals from the cargo.
"This raises the question of the companies' responsibility," Gayssot also said. "We cannot accept that safety is sacrificed on the altar of profits."
A spokesman for the Brest maritime command said the ship was chartered among others by oil companies Shell and Esso, which is part of US oil giant Exxon Mobil.
President Jacques Chirac, whose country currently presides over European Union affairs, also called for tighter pan-EU rules. Jospin said the issue would be taken up at the highest level, at an EU summit in the town of Nice in early December.
The Green party and environment protection group Greenpeace said the shipwreck was already polluting the waters and that the Ievoli Sun went down in an area where radioactive and chemical waste and World War Two munitions had already been dumped.
Gayssot said that if the styrene, which is highly toxic and corrosive, leaked from the ship's tanks it could float to the surface and evaporate, and part could dissolve in the water. Or it might harden, which would be less dangerous, and could then be recovered by pollution-fighting ships.
Special booms used to combat the oil spill from the Erika on the other side of the northwestern Brittany peninsula early this year were being shipped to Cherbourg in case they were needed.
The 11-year-old Ievoli Sun, owned by Italian firm Marnavi, had left the British port of Fawley for Bar in Yugoslavia when its bow began to dip into the sea on Monday. The water was 60 to 80 metres deep where the ship sank.
The 114-metre-long tanker was being towed from the stern by a French tug when it began sinking on Tuesday morning, five hours before it was due to reach Cherbourg.
The Maltese-registered Erika broke in half in stormy seas on December 12 last year, spewing up to 15,000 tons of oil onto the southern Brittany coast. The disaster devastated the local tourist industry, forced most oyster farms and sea salt producers to close temporarily and killed thousands of seabirds.
Ships completed pumping thousands of tons of heavy fuel oil trapped in the holds of the Erika last month.
Maritime experts expressed hope that the Ievoli Sun's tanks would stay intact, allowing them to pump out the chemicals with less risk of pollution than in the Erika case.
"If it sinks intact, then it's not as urgent a problem as a spill at sea in real time," said Brest maritime prefect Admiral Jacques Gheerbrandt.
Chirac said France would do its best to tighten maritime safety rules. Gayssot said the Ievoli Sun had been cited for major deficiencies three times in Dutch ports and would have been banned from EU waters if tighter security measures that France proposed after the Erika disaster were already in effect.
But environmentalists accused Paris of culpable apathy.
"How was a boat carrying such dangerous substances allowed to take to the seas despite warnings of a Force 10 gale?" asked the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Greenpeace said if France had pushed more actively for stricter maritime rules during its six months at the EU helm then port controls would have been tightened and Italian vessel classification company Rina, which is being investigated for endangering lives in the Erika disaster, would have been struck off the list.
Rina said in a separate statement port authorities had last inspected the Ievoli Sun in April and found no "structure-related deficiencies."
- REUTERS
Deadly
storm's trail of destruction
01.Nov.2000
NZ Herald
LONDON - Parts of southern England endured their worst flooding in 40 years yesterday, after severe floods from torrential rain and galeforce winds engulfed towns and roads across the country.
Britain and Ireland bore the brunt of deadly storms that also lashed northern France, Belgium and Denmark, leaving at least nine dead. Britons were braced for further storms after forecasters warned the severe weather would continue. Another low pressure system, similar to the one that brought winds of up to 156 km/h and a month's rainfall in 24 hours, was brewing over the Atlantic.
Debris blown loose by the winds brought much of the British railway network to a standstill, while flooding cut many roads and caused power cuts affecting tens of thousands of people. Only 20 per cent of rail services operated with just 10 per cent of Intercity trains running. At one point there were almost no services running from London's mainline terminals.
British Airways cancelled scores of flights from Heathrow and Gatwick, with many switched to other airports around the country.
The heavy rain and unseasonal blizzards, brought by the most violent storm to hit Britain since the hurricane of 1987 which caused more than £1 billion ($3.6 billion) damage, led the Environment Agency to issue 25 severe flood warnings in southeastern and southwestern England and Wales.
As southern parts of England and the Midlands endured deep surface water and harzardous driving conditions, the chaos on the roads and flooding was worsened when blizzards hit Manchester, the Pennines and northern England. All rail and air links between Scotland and England were suspended.
The floods also threatened to again hit towns which endured the flooding which affected southern England two weeks ago. In East Sussex, the towns of Lewes and Uckfield were put on alert, amid fears that high tide could lead to renewed flooding.
Parts of the M25, M23 and M11 motorways were closed by flooding, as surface water brought parts of central London to a standstill. The London Eye wheel was forced to close after the storm damaged six of its 32 glass viewing capsules.
The flood waters and power cuts lead to thousands of children being sent home from, or warned to not attend, scores of schools in Wales, Cheshire and Merseyside.
In Kent, the River Medway in Maidstone town centre burst its banks, flooding riverbank walkways and threatening buildings such as the Archbishop's Palace. Staff at Hever Castle in Kent, near the River Eden and family home of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, desperately rescued antiques, furniture and carpets from rising water levels.
Avon and Somerset police closed roads going into Taunton to all non-emergency traffic, and sent loudhailer vans to tour five other Somerset towns warning of imminent floods. Royal Marines at a base close to the village of Norton Fitzwarren in Somerset deployed amphibious vehicles to help residents and businesses cope, after a foot of water flooded their homes and shops.
Motorists caught by sudden flooding at Hopkinstown in the Rhondda, and drivers stranded at Welshpool, mid-Wales, were rescued by firecrews using inflatable dinghies.
In Bantry, southern Ireland, a woman died when her car was swept away by a swollen river as she tried to negotiate a ford - her boyfriend escaped - and a man was reported missing near Ballyshannon, a northwest coastal town.
One person was killed and two were seriously hurt by a falling tree south of London, and a man fell overboard off a ferry from Ireland to Wales.
A driver died when his car crashed after skidding on surface water in southern London, and a woman slipped to her death in heavy rain at a Welsh waterfall.
A further two people were reported missing after being swept away by floodwater. One of them, a 28-year-old man, disappeared after diving into a swollen river to rescue a dog. Police said the second man jumped into a river to escape arrest after he was caught stealing from an electrical store.
Parts of northern France and Belgium suffered seriously disrupted rail, ferry and air services. In Denmark, too, the strong winds disrupted some rail and sea services.
In France, where three people were killed, an air-sea rescue helicopter winched a chemical tanker's crew to safety before it sank off the northwest coast near the Channel Islands and sparked fears of an environmental catastrophe.
The Italian-registered Ievoli Sun was carrying 4000 tonnes of styrene, which is insoluble in water, highly toxic and highly corrosive.
It also had two 1000-tonne cargos of less toxic chemicals used in plastics production.
Friday October 20 10:58 AM ET
Po River Flood Crest Moves East
ROVIGO, Italy (AP) - As the flood crest of the Po River entered a fertile strip of land in Italy's northeast Friday, authorities and residents in riverside villages reinforced the banks, lined up sandbags and raised a bridge.
The worst appeared to be over, but authorities said they would remain on alert until the floodwaters begin draining into the sea, likely this weekend.
To the north, search teams working in the debris in the hardest hit Piedmont and Val D'Aosta regions pulled out another body, raising the death toll for Italy and Switzerland to 36. The body was found in Piedmont, the Italian Civil Defense said.
Nine people were still missing.
``Now the main question is how the banks hold, but the pressure has decreased,'' Italy's Interior Minister Enzo Bianco said Friday, a day after he visited the flooded areas. ``Until the flood crest arrives into the Adriatic, we must not drop the guard.''
In Castelmassa, where the Po enters the Veneto region before emptying into the Adriatic, the river was about seven feet below its banks. The level of the waters was unchanged over the past 12 hours.
On the other bank of the river, railway workers spent the night cutting tracks on a bridge in Pontelagoscuro, near the Renaissance city of Ferrara, so they could lift the bridge by three feet and keep it from halting the flow of the river.
Closing the bridge caused major tie-ups in nearby highways, the ANSA news agency reported, while railway traffic was disrupted in both Italy and Switzerland.
Rail traffic through the Simplon tunnel between Italy and Switzerland remained closed because of the danger of landslides. Train connections with the Zermatt ski resort in Switzerland were still not working, but on Friday bus lines were restored.
Between the two countries, about 23,000 people were still unable to return to their flooded homes. Bianco said that about 4,000 Italians lost their homes. Authorities estimate the damage in the hundreds of million of dollars.
The floods and landslides started Saturday in southern Switzerland and northern Italy after days of pounding rain across the region.
Tuesday October 17 7:28 AM ET
Hopes Dim for Aid to Swiss Landslide
By PATRICK COMBREMONT, Associated Press Writer
SION, Switzerland (AP) - Rescuers who worked through the night in the wreckage of a Swiss mountain village have been unable to reach a woman trapped under the debris of a weekend landslide, officials said Tuesday.
Crews continued to hold out hope of finding her and other survivors under the 61/2 feet of mud and rocks left by Saturday's slide, but a key official conceded that prospects were dimming.
The death toll in floods and landslides that swept across Italy and Switzerland over the weekend rose to 15 on Monday, with three known dead in Switzerland and Civil Defense chief Franco Barberi confirming 12 dead across the border in northwestern Italy.
Eleven more people were still missing in Gondo after days of torrential rain spread destruction across Switzerland and northern Italy. The recovery work was often delicate, with rescuers on guard for any new landslides.
In Gondo, perched at 2,815 feet in the Alps above Italy, rescuers had heard echoes of a woman's voice and tapping early Monday and started tunneling in what they thought was her direction, but the sounds stopped.
``We still believe in'' the chance of finding her, said Valais state police spokesman Pierre-Martin Moulin, adding that the search for survivors would continue for at least two more days.
But Jean-Rene Fournier, president of the Valais government, told reporters that survival chances of anyone caught in the slide were growing slimmer after three days.
``Rescue crews haven't heard and sign of life from the debris for hours,'' Fournier said.
At the same time crews clearing debris from the streets were finding body parts, he said.
Below Gondo, on the Italian side of the Alps, waters continued to rise.
The surface of Lake Maggiore, hit its highest level in a century, but subsided slightly by morning, said Christian Koch, of the Federal Office for Water and Geology.
The main square in the picturesque Swiss lakeside town of Locarno remained flooded, with some 2,000 people forced from their homes.
In Italy, the situation remained critical in the Lombardy and Emilia Romagna regions, where authorities were monitoring the Po, Italy's longest river, which has been swelling by 3.6 inches per hour, RAI television reported.
In Piedmont, light rain fell on the flood-hit areas. Civil Defense official Marco Ludovici said there are about 8,000 people left homeless.
The government has declared a state of emergency for Val d'Aosta, Piedmont and the coastal region of Liguria, which includes the port of Genoa, and decided to immediately allocate $44 million for relief.
In Turin, the situation is ``critical, but not tragic,'' the city's Mayor Valentino Castellani was quoted as saying in Tuesday's Corriere della Sera. ``Water and road links are the main problems now.''
Transport links north of the Alps in Switzerland were being gradually restored Tuesday as the flood waters receded, and work began on reconstructing heavily damage roadbeds.
Many routes, among them the rail link to the mountain resort of Zermatt, remained closed.
The 5,500 residents and tourists in Zermatt, cut off even by telephone, were able to maintain links with the outside world only via helicopter, officials said.
Most of the tourists in Zermatt were able to continue their skiing and hiking holidays as normal, even though they couldn't assure their families at home that all was well, said Roland Imboden, Zermatt tourism director.
Tuesday October 17 3:50 PM ET
Alpine Towns Evacuated From Floods
By ALBERTO PELLASCHIAR, Associated Press Writer
PIACENZA, Italy (AP) - Italy hurried more than 15,000 people from the path of two raging rivers Tuesday as flood waters that wreaked death in Alpine towns bore down on the medieval villages and cities of the northern Italian plains.
The death toll in Italy and Switzerland rose to 25, with the mud-caked bodies of a 1-year-old Italian boy and a woman believed to be his mother among the latest uncovered. A total of 21 people in the two countries were missing and feared dead.
On Tuesday, emergency crews evacuated whole villages in the paths of the Po, Italy's longest river, and the Ticino that feeds into it from the Alps.
``Even those who were reluctant to leave their homes, like the elderly, eventually were convinced,'' said the Rev. Pier Luigi Rossi, one of a few people still in the riverside village of San Rocco al Porto on Tuesday afternoon.
Water was climbing within inches of the sandbags newly lining the Po, a few steps from Rossi's church. He too was leaving soon.
The Po already had burst its banks at some points. By Tuesday night, the flood crest was passing the old trade town of Piacenza, home to columned Romanesque churches and a Botticelli painting.
The Po divides the rich agricultural regions of Lombardy and Emilia Romagna, emptying into the lagoons of Venice. Tuesday, it hit its highest level in at least a half-century; its height at Piacenza was the highest ever recorded there.
While there has been some flooding of churches, where much of Italy's cultural patrimony is cached, the water generally has not yet threatened works of art, said Vincenzo Pandolfino of the Culture Ministry's art protection squad. Damage to Italy's countless masterpieces was not expected to near that suffered by Florence in a ruinous 1966 flood.
In both countries, however, authorities said overall damage would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Flooding forced the Fiat auto giant to shut down two of its biggest plants in its hometown of Turin. Blocked roads and railways and inundated factories made it impossible for suppliers to deliver parts, spokesman Franco Sodano said.
Officials were thinking of opening upstream dikes to ease the threat to communities downstream, Public Works Minister Nerio Nesi said.
``We are in a state of anxiety, of high emergency,'' Nesi told reporters, adding, ``The situation now could become very dangerous.''
Along the Ticino, water lapped at the third floors of evacuated palazzos in the Roman-era Lombard town of Pavia. Firefighters ferried food and clean water to the few holdouts who refused to leave.
The floods and landslides started Saturday in southern Switzerland and northern Italy after days of pounding rain. Flood water roaring out of the Alps brought Lake Maggiore on the Swiss-Italian border to its highest level in 160 years.
Most of the deaths came over the weekend when mud, rock and water rushed through villages and towns, sweeping away even massive stone houses.
In the Swiss village of Gondo, perched in the Alps above the Italian border, rescuers digging through mud and rock found only bodies Tuesday.
Hopes faded for the 10 people still missing in Switzerland. Jean-Rene Fournier, president of the Valais canton (state) government, said it now appeared that a body recovered Monday in Gondo was that of a woman whom rescuers had heard faintly tapping just hours before.
With roads to Switzerland's famed ski resort of Zermatt blocked, authorities used helicopters to fly out stranded tourists. Seven-hundred had left by late Tuesday; 1,000 more were on a waiting list.
Of the 25 confirmed deaths, 19 occurred in Italy and six in Switzerland.
Japan
Shaken By Another Earthquake
Source: Associated Press
Publication date: 2000-10-08
TOKYO (AP) -- Two fairly strong earthquakes rocked western Japan Sunday, two days after a more powerful temblor buckled streets, knocked down houses and paralyzed traffic for hours in a nearby region, officials said.
A magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck Sunday afternoon and was centered six miles beneath eastern Shimane prefecture, located 380 miles southwest of Tokyo, the Meteorological Agency said.
"There was one strong jolt. But the shaking only lasted a few seconds," Shimane police official Masayuki Murakami said.
About eight hours later, a 5.2-magnitude temblor hit at about the same location, the Meteorological Agency said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
A magnitude 5 quake can crack walls in homes if it occurs in a residential area.
There was no concern of a tsunami wave as a result of the seismic activity, the Meteorological Agency said.
On Friday, an earthquake with preliminary magnitude of 7.3 struck a largely rural area in Tottori prefecture, 310 miles southwest of Tokyo. Tottori borders Shimane to the east.
Though at least 120 people were hurt in Friday's quake, none of the injuries were reported to be life-threatening. Main transportation routes were almost fully restored to the area by Saturday evening.
Of the 2,000 homes damaged, only two were completely destroyed, Shimane police said.
The relatively light damage for such a strong earthquake has focused attention on the measurement of the magnitude, and officials conceded they might lower their assessment of the quake's strength.
Earthquakes continued into Saturday in Tottori. Sunday's quake was not considered an aftershock to the Friday tremor, said Meteorological Agency official Takeshi Hachimine.
10:41 am October 7th, 2000
SAKAIMINATO, Japan, Oct 07, 2000 (The Canadian Press via COMTEX) -- Hundreds of aftershocks rumbled through parts of southwest Japan on Saturday, a day after a powerful earthquake struck, injuring at least 120 people and damaging thousands of homes. A magnitude 4.9 quake shook Tottori Prefecture (state), 500 kilometres southwest of Tokyo, early Saturday followed by a series of slightly smaller quakes.
The Meteorological Agency said more than 812 aftershocks, including 213 strong enough to be felt by humans, were recorded since Friday's quake struck the area.
Friday's magnitude 7.3 quake, centred 10 kilometres underground in Tottori, buckled streets, knocked down houses and paralysed road and rail traffic for hours in the largely rural area.
None of the injuries were reported to be serious, and main transportation routes had almost been completely restored to the area by Saturday evening.
Also Saturday, a magnitude 4.6 quake jolted the northernmost main island of Hokkaido Saturday morning.
Police said there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from that quake.
Friday's quake was the strongest in Japan since the magnitude 7.2 quake that struck Kobe on Jan. 17, 1995, killing 6,425 people and destroying 250,000 homes.
Had such a strong quake hit Tokyo instead of largely rural Tottori, it could have left an estimated 7,000 dead and millions homeless.
National police said that 2,230 homes had been damaged in Friday's quake, and thousands of people were still evacuated either because their homes were unsafe or because they feared further aftershocks.
At Sakaiminato, among the towns closest to the epicentre, port facilities and an industrial complex built on landfills were damaged as the repeated shakings loosened the soil.
The relatively light damage for such a strong earthquake prompted officials on Saturday to say they may have to lower their assessment of the quake's strength.
"Depending on the extent of damages, there is a possibility that the figure might be revised later," said Masahiro Hijikata, an official with the Central Meteorological Agency.
Still, the quake-struck areas have plenty of cleaning up to do.
Seven bridges collapsed and were washed away in the region, including one in Okayama. Landslides were reported in 65 locations. Roads were ruined in 123 spots.
The online source for news sports entertainment finance and business news in Canada Copyright (C) 2000 The Canadian Press (CP), All rights reserved
TOKYO (Oct. 7) XINHUA - The number of people injured in a powerful earthquake that jolted western Japan on Friday has increased to 121 in Japan's nine prefectures while nearly 5,000 buildings were found damaged, the Kyodo news agency reported Saturday.
The strong quake, which measured 7.3 on the open-ended Richter scale, struck a wide area of western Japan at 1:30 p.m. (0430 GMT) Friday, with its epicenter estimated to be some 10 kilometers below ground in western Tottori Prefecture.
The Meteorological Agency said it had logged 357 aftershocks as of 7 p.m. (1000 GMT) Saturday since Friday's tremor.
About 700 police and firefighters in Tottori Prefecture, where some 80 people were injured, are on alert for further emergencies as aftershocks continue to rock the area, Kyodo quoted officials as saying.
Of a total of 4,952 buildings in seven of the nine prefectures damaged by the strong quake, 183 were public schools, gyms and similar public facilities in Tottori Prefecture.
Some 2,600 residents in Tottori Prefecture, about 200 in neighboring Shimane Prefecture and eight in Okayama Prefecture were evacuated from their homes and spent the night in local community centers.
The authorities said they are continuing their efforts to assess the damage to infrastructure such as water pipes and transportation routes blocked by landslides.
A total of 138 elementary, junior high and senior high schools in Tottori, Shimane and Okayama prefectures were closed Saturday.
Copyright XINHUA NEWS AGENCY
Friday October 6 10:13 PM ET
Japan Counts Damage, And Blessings, After Quake
TOKYO (Reuters) - Aftershocks jolted western Japan on Saturday as residents of the region counted the toll of damage -- and their blessings -- from a strong earthquake a day earlier which injured more than 100 people but caused no deaths.
Police said 106 people were injured and some 1,700 buildings were damaged -- including 70 totally or partly destroyed -- when the earthquake, measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale, struck around 1:30 p.m. on Friday.
Its epicenter was some six miles underground in largely rural western Tottori prefecture, officials said.
It was the strongest earthquake since January 17, 1995, when a devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake killed nearly 6,500 people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes in the western port city of Kobe.
More than 2,500 people spent the night in evacuation centers in Tottori Prefecture and another 230 in nearby Shimane Prefecture after warnings that strong aftershocks could continue.
Helicopters were being sent to remote rural areas to survey the damage, officials added.
Saturday classes were canceled at 117 schools in the three prefectures of Tottori, Shimane and Okayama, where about 2,600 households were left without water, public broadcaster NHK said.
Rural areas were among the hardest hit by the tremor, although the impact could even be felt in parts of Tokyo, about 360 miles east of the worst-hit areas.
Assessment, Relief
A government mission was expected to visit the region later in the day to discuss relief measures with local authorities, as officials continued to assess the damage to water mains and transport routes from quake-induced landslides.
Experts attributed the relatively limited scale of the damage in part to the fact that the epicenter was far from heavily populated areas.
Shinkansen bullet train services, including those between Tokyo and the western metropolis of Osaka, were halted temporarily on Friday but were operating normally by Saturday.
But the airport at Yonago in Tottori Prefecture remained closed for runway repairs.
An electric power industry official said no impact was reported on nuclear power plants in the area because they were shut for maintenance.
The tremor shook the Suzuka race track, where the penultimate Formula One race of the season takes place on Sunday. Journalists at the circuit's media center headed for the exits as the building swayed.
No tidal wave warnings were issued.
Companies with factories in the region said they had suffered no major damage, though some halted operations for inspection.
Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone regions, sitting atop the juncture of three tectonic plates, or pieces of the earth's crust. Tens of thousands of quakes have jolted the Izu island chain south of Tokyo in recent months.
Friday October 6 2:00 AM ET
Strong Quake Hits Western Japan, Two Buried
Alive
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's strongest earthquake in five years shook broad swathes of western regions on Friday, knocking people to the ground, shattering windows and burying at least two construction workers in landslides.
The earthquake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, struck at around 1:30 p.m. local time, with its epicenter some six miles underground in western Tottori Prefecture, the Meteorological Agency said.
Two people were buried when the earthquake triggered landslides at two construction sites in Shimane Prefecture on the coast of the Sea of Japan, said public broadcaster NHK. Rescue workers were digging to free them.
A local official in Shimane said there were reports that a few houses collapsed. One person was taken to hospital with cuts from flying glass.
Rural areas were among the hardest hit by the earthquake that was powerful enough to knock people off their feet and shatter windows -- and could even be felt in parts of Tokyo, about 360 miles east of the worst-hit areas.
``I've never experienced such a strong earthquake in my life,'' a woman in Yonago told NTV. ``I run a beauty parlor and I grabbed a customer and held onto her and we both crouched down on the floor.''
Officials said the quake was the strongest to strike Japan since the deadly Kobe earthquake in 1995 that killed more than 6,000 people and caused huge damage.
``I felt a big jolt and then there was shaking for at least 10 seconds and I couldn't stand up,'' said one NHK reporter.
The Defense Agency, Japan's military, said it had sent one reconnaissance plane and a helicopter to the area and F-15 fighter planes had been placed on standby.
Shinkansen bullet train services were halted between Toyohashi in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, and Shin-Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture, western Japan, and some smaller airports had been closed for checks.
An electric power industry association official said no impact was reported on nuclear power plants in the area because these were shut for maintenance.
No tidal wave warnings were issued, but aftershocks were felt in some areas.
Initial reports from companies with factories in the region indicated no major damage, though some halted operations for checks.
The tremor shook Japan's Suzuka race track, where the penultimate Formula One race of the season takes place on Sunday. Journalists at the circuit's media center headed for the exits as the building swayed.
Japan is one of the world's most earthquake prone regions, sitting atop the juncture of three tectonic plates, or pieces of the earth's crust. Tens of thousands of quakes have jolted the Izu island chain south of Tokyo in recent months.
Wednesday, October 4 4:40 PM SGT
CALCUTTA, Oct 4 (AFP) -
The official death toll from floods in India's West Bengal state rose to 1,020 Wednesday, amid growing concerns over the fate of some villagers who have been marooned for up to two weeks.
West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu said the situation was especially critical in the district of 24-Parganas, east of the state capital Calcutta, where some areas remained under 10 feet (three meters) of water.
Tens of thousands of villagers in 24-Parganas were still sheltered on elevated railway tracks and national highways, while others were spending nights in trees or atop electricity pylons.
"Three hundred troops and a large number of relief workers, equipped with speed boats, are doing their best to reach these people," Basu said.
Fernando Soares, a member of an International Federation of the Red Cross team sent to West Bengal, said some areas had been flooded for as long as two weeks.
"The truth is we don't know exactly how many people have been marooned or for how long," Soares told AFP.
"We met one guy who had swum 10 kilometers (six miles) to get some supplies for his family. He said the water level in his village was up to his neck, even when he was standing on a truck.
"That shows how critical the situation is in some areas."
Red Cross medical officer Jari Vainio said there was a "considerable risk" of an outbreak of water-borne disease, given the continued lack of access of many people to clean drinking water and proper food.
The flooding in West Bengal, which has spilled over into neighbouring Bangladesh with equally devastating consequences, has so far affected some 17 million people.
Wednesday, October 4 4:06 PM SGT
DHAKA, Oct 4 (AFP) -
Thousands of Bangladeshi flood victims Wednesday awaited help to rebuild their homes as rains brought more misery but experts said the situation was slowly "improving" in 11 districts bordering India.
Witnesses said water had receded in many of the districts but flood victims were sheltering in the open or in camps.
"Many want to go back to their villages and start rebuilding their homes but so far no help has reached them to begin the work," one witness told AFP after touring some of the areas which were hit first by the deluge more than two weeks ago.
A spokeswoman for the government's flood control room in Dhaka admitted no separate fund had yet been allocated for housebuilding as the waters had yet to recede.
"But so far we have given cash grants amounting to more than 1.7 million taka (31,482 dollars) along with food and clothes," she said.
Nearly 700,000 people were being sheltered in 583 camps, she said.
Flood control officals said water levels had fallen.
"Major rivers were flowing below their respective danger marks and the water level was rapidly falling," a spokesman for the flood control and warning centre told AFP.
"The situation, as we analysed it in the absense of any flood monitoring stations in those districts, was improving," he said, warning however that heavy rains could deteriorate the situation.
Four navy boats were likely to reach the affected areas Wednesday to join in aid and rescue operations, a defence ministry spokesman said.
"Helicopter sorties making air drops of food were continuing for the second day today," he said.
The unofficial death toll stood at 110, while the official figure up to late Tuesday was 28.
Flood deaths were linked to boats capsizes, snakebite and gastrointestinal diseases such as diarrhoea.
Witnesses said rains brought added misery for victims in coastal Satkhira, the latest area to be hit by the floods as the waters raged through the Sundarbans mangrove forest and into the Bay of Bengal.
The meteorological department forecast light rains Wednesday in Satkhira district, while the capital Dhaka was flooded by a heavy downpour.
The authorities, meanwhile, ordered immediate reconstruction of roads and bridges washed away by the worst floods in almost 100 years. Gushing waters which spilled over from India's West Bengal state inundated 11 western border districts for more than two weeks.
Telephone communications were disrupted but had been slowly restored in some places.
At least 461 medical teams have been deployed amid reports of widespread gatrointestinal diseases due to a lack of adequate fresh drinking water.
Meanwhile, Bangladeshi opposition leader Khaleda Zia blamed the floods on India, saying New Delhi opened its dams to inundate Bangladesh.
"It was because of the government's weak foreign policy that India could open the sluice gates and cut dams in a planned way to submerge Bangladesh," she was quoted as saying at a rally Tuesday in Jhenidah by the Janakantha newspaper.
Friday, October 6 7:07 PM SGT
KHORIDANGA, Bangladesh, Oct 6 (AFP) -
Thousands of people, perched on rooftops or tiny strips of dry land in this remote Bangladesh frontier village, were allowed a glimmer of hope Friday as devastating flood waters began to recede.
A 30 minute ride on an army speed boat from Jessore's Benapole district and a massive lake swamped what was three weeks ago a bountiful rice paddy field and home to many.
The boats had to stop several times to clear rice paddy plants which had become entangled in the blades.
In some areas, only the tiled or tin roofs of clay-made homes could be seen rising above the waters.
"The water came with tremendous speed and destroyed our homes," said Joinal Abedin, 18, standing in waist deep water.
He added: "Even three days ago the water level here had been the height of a man."
Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Abdus Salam of the para-military Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), supervising aid and rescue operations in Jessore district, told AFP that the "water has stopped coming into Jessore from across the border (India), but is receding very slowly."
He said the topography of the area was preventing a quick discharge of the waters and was destroying crops which could yet be salvaged.
Asked why people were still on their rooftops and had not been evacuated, Salam replied: "We have evacuated several thousand at the peak of the crisis, but now they want us to deliver food and medicine."
"How can we leave our home? We are maintaing a daily vigilance against bandits," added Abedin, who goes to a local college.
Local officials here said there had been cases of diarrhoea and fever, and additional medical teams were needed to stop more people from getting ill.
Over the past two weeks, flood waters had spilled over from India's West Bengal region and inundated areas in neighbouring Bangladesh.
Twenty-eight deaths have been officially confirmed from boats capsizing, snakebites and gastrointestinal diseases due to the lack of clean drinking water. The unofficial toll stands at more than 100.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who toured the area Friday, told reporters accompanying her that she had already discussed reconstruction issues with officials and everything would be in place to ensure that the villagers had homes and tools needed to start agricultural work.
She added that a study was being carried out into methods of discharging the stagnant waters. "We will cut embankments or roads in a way that does not affect the villagers and quickly discharges the water into canals and rivers."
Halima Khatun, seven years old, and one of the victims of the deluge, said she had been without food before being moved to a shelter camp in Benapole, the last land outpost before crossing into India.
"I also need clothes," she said, wearing only her underwear.
The Benapole bus stand has turned into a shelter camp for 25,000 flood-ravaged people, local officials said.
Meanwhile, the armed forces continued air dropping food and medical supplies in neighbouring Satkhira district, which was now facing the brunt of the floods as waters gushed down to the Bay of Bengal.
Friday October 6 2:51 AM ET
Red Cross Rushes Aid to Vietnam, Dozens Die
Daily
By David Brunnstrom
HANOI (Reuters) - The Red Cross is rushing emergency rice supplies and life belts to families running short of food in Vietnam's flood-devastated Mekong Delta, where dozens of children are dying each day, the agency said on Friday.
Officials in the stricken southern zone, where the floods have spread to eight provinces, said the death toll in the past month has reached 296, including 225 children.
``We're looking at 20-30 kids dying a day -- it's crazy,'' said John Geoghegan, chief delegate of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
``There should be something that can be done. We're trying to get people out delivering life belts to remote areas.''
The worst floods for decades from the swollen Mekong River have turned huge areas of the low-lying Delta into inland seas.
Vietnamese women carrying goods wade through the flooded banks of central Hanoi's Hoan Kiem Lake October 4, 2000. The death toll rose to 280 on October 5 in prolonged floods in Vietnam's Mekong Delta and state media warned of new hazards -- cholera and crocodiles swimming downriver from Cambodia. (Rathavary Duong/Reuters)
At the other end of Vietnam on Tuesday, a flash flood killed 40 members of a minority tribe and injured 17 in a mountain village in Lai Chau province, which borders China and Laos.
And in another northern province, Bac Kan, at least one child died and six others were reported missing after a bridge collapsed in torrential rains on Thursday.
Rice For Hungry Families
Geoghegan said the Red Cross would also start a rice hand-out for 38,000 families next week.
``Our knowledge is that people are not suffering from severe malnutrition as yet, but people are short of food and I wouldn't be surprised if certain families are running very, very short.
``We're getting the assistance out to as many people as we can now. Our heads are down and we are rushing forward with the distribution,'' he said.
In all, the homes of about four million people have been flooded, some up to the rafters. The official Vietnam News Agency said 200,000 people had been evacuated from their homes and 500,000 were in need of emergency relief.
Most evacuees have lived for weeks in cramped, dirty conditions atop crumbling earth dykes or raised roadways.
Flood waters have receded steadily in the upstream Delta in the past week, but it is likely to be late November before they subside fully and evacuees can return home.
Local officials warn high sea tides next week are likely to prevent drainage out to sea, thus increasing water levels in downstream provinces. They also said a tropical low pressure area might bring more rains in coming days.
State media on Thursday quoted provincial health officials as saying there had been cholera outbreaks in Laos and Cambodia, and the disease was spreading down toward Vietnam. It also warned crocodiles had swum downriver from Cambodia.
About $2 million of international relief has been pledged and a U.N. team is assessing further needs. The Royal Australian Air Force plans to airlift blankets on Monday.
On Friday, a dissident Buddhist monk said he was going ahead with a bid to break a ban on his church's distribution of aid, even though authorities have threatened him with arrest.
Thich Quang Do, 73, of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam told Reuters he intended to leave his monastery in Ho Chi Minh City to hand out rice and cash in An Giang province.
Do had planned to make his trip with 50 followers but said all but 12 had been intercepted before leaving their monasteries. Last time he himself attempted such a mission, in 1994, he was arrested and jailed for more than three years.
The government says Do should stick to rules requiring aid to be channeled through three state-affiliated organizations.
Thursday October 5 1:42 AM ET
Vietnam Flood Toll 280; Crocodiles a New Hazard
HANOI (Reuters) - The death toll rose to 280 on Thursday in prolonged floods in Vietnam's Mekong Delta and state media warned of new hazards -- cholera and crocodiles swimming downriver from Cambodia.
Local officials also warned that high sea tides next week would worsen the misery caused by the worst floods in decades, by raising water levels in downstream provinces.
``We will need more help as the situation in the province is expected to get worse by mid-October,'' said an official in the downstream province of Can Tho.
There have been 211 children among the 280 people killed by the floods in the low-lying Delta in the past month.
The International Red Cross estimates four million people have been affected in eight Delta provinces.
It says up to 35,000 families, or some 175,000 people, have had to be evacuated from homes in the Delta since the worst of the floods early this month and 150,000 more are critically in need of assistance.
Thursday's Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper quoted Doan Hong, director of the health department of Dong Thap province, as saying there had been outbreaks of cholera in Laos and neighboring Cambodia, and the disease was spreading down the swollen Mekong River toward Vietnam.
He said this raised the risk of outbreaks in the Delta.
Crocodile Hazard
The paper also warned of another hazard after a fisherman caught a 25-kg (55-lb) crocodile in the Hau River, a tributary of the giant Mekong in An Giang province.
Tuoi Tre said a number of crocodiles had been seen in the Hau River and were thought to have migrated from Cambodia.
Flood waters have receded steadily in the upstream Delta in the past week but it is likely to be late November before they subside fully and concerns have risen about water-borne diseases like cholera and dengue.
The high sea tides are likely to slow the process by preventing drainage out to sea, officials said.
Municipal officials said torrential rains and strong winds in the past few days had damaged dozens of houses in Tien Giang province, where more than 11,800 families, or about 60,000 people, are in need of emergency relief.
About $2 million of international relief has been pledged and a U.N. team is touring the Delta to assess further needs.
Domestic and international relief agencies have been distributing rice supplies, medicines and drinking water and the Royal Australian Air Force plans to airlift blankets on Sunday.
A dissident Buddhist monk has vowed to attempt his own aid distribution on Friday, complaining that the government has tried to block his church's relief supplies.
The Venerable Thich Quang Do, deputy head of the outlawed United Buddhist Church of Vietnam, was jailed for attempting a similar mission in 1994. He is unlikely to be allowed to leave his heavily-policed monastery this time.
On Wednesday the Foreign Ministry said Do should stick to rules requiring aid to be channeled via three organizations -- the Vietnamese Red Cross, the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front -- the ruling Communist Party's mass movement organization -- and the Finance Ministry's aid committee.
Thursday September 21 11:53 PM ET
Northern Florida Braces for Tropical Storm
Helene
By Angus MacSwan
MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Helene sprang up suddenly in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday and was poised to hit the northern Florida coast with heavy rain and possible tornadoes on Friday morning.
Communities along the Florida Panhandle braced for a dousing, but forecasters said that although the storm was likely to get stronger, it should not grow to hurricane strength.
``It's not a boarding-up kind of event, but stay inside, don't go out and play tonight. There'll be lots of wind and lots of rain,'' said Krissy Williams, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center (news - web sites) in Miami.
In the Gulf, ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM - news) evacuated some nonessential workers from its oil and gas production platforms as a precaution against the storm.
A hurricane watch was posted from the Florida-Alabama border to the mouth of the Aucilla River on Florida's ``Big Bend.''
A tropical storm warning was in effect from Pascagoula, Mississippi, to the Aucilla River. Forecasters said small boats should remain in port.
Williams said Helene was expected to hit land in the Florida Panhandle in the next 24 hours and the area should feel the advance winds and rains soon. Helene, the eighth named storm of the Atlantic storm season, grew unexpectedly from a tropical depression on Thursday morning and packed winds of 65 mph, nearing hurricane strength.
At 11 p.m. Helene was centered about 95 miles south of Pensacola, Florida, or near latitude 29.1 north and longitude 87.1 west, according to a National Hurricane Center advisory. It was moving north at a speed of 15 mph.
Anne Rowe, a spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said the storm was likely to come ashore between Fort Walton and Panama City, Florida. Damage assessment teams were ready to move as soon as it hit.
``We're already starting to see rains. We're probably going to have some localized flooding and we'll have gusty winds,'' Rowe said.
The FDEM's Jim Loftus added that the storm could be strong enough to down power lines. ``It's going to be a pretty tense 24 hours. We're geared up for it.'' No evacuations of communities had been ordered yet, he said.
The NHC warned of storm surge flooding about three to five feet above normal tide levels as well as battering waves. Up to eight inches of rain was likely.
There was also a threat of isolated tornadoes over eastern Florida, the NHC said.
ExxonMobil spokesman Bob Davis said the company's production of oil and gas was not yet affected by the storm but a number of nonessential workers had been evacuated from Gulf platforms. More could be carried out by helicopter at short notice if necessary.
Helene seemed likely to pass to the east of the main oil and gas producing area in the central Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. The eastern Gulf, off the Florida coast, is closed to oil and gas operations.
Helene will be the second big storm to hit Florida in the space of a few days. Tropical Storm Gordon (news - web sites) washed over north Florida on Sunday night after weakening from a hurricane, but caused minimal damage.
Thursday September 21 4:58 PM ET
Tropical Storm Helene Eyes Florida
MIAMI (Reuters) - A new tropical storm, Helene, sprung up suddenly in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday and looked like it would hit the north Florida coast as soon as Friday morning.
A tropical storm warning was issued from the mouth of the Pearl River on the Louisiana-Mississippi border eastward to the mouth of the Aucilla River on Florida's ``Big Bend.''
Helene, the eighth named storm of the Atlantic storm season, grew unexpectedly from a tropical depression on Thursday morning and by afternoon packed winds of 65 mph, getting close to hurricane strength.
At 2 p.m. Helene was centered about 230 miles south of Pensacola, Florida, or near latitude 27.1 north and longitude 87.2 west, according to a National Hurricane Center (news - web sites) advisory. It was moving north at a speed of 13 mph.
Anne Rowe, spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said the storm was expected to come ashore on Friday morning between Fort Walton and Panama City, Florida.
Damage assesment teams were ready to move as soon as it hit but no evacuations of communities had been ordered yet.
``We're already starting to see rains. We're probably going to have some localized flooding and we'll have gusty winds,'' she said.
The NHC warned that storm surge flooding about three to five feet above normal tide levels as well as battering waves could be expected near and to the east of where it hits land. Up to eight inches of rain was likely.
Helene was not expected to become a hurricane, forecasters aid.
It will be the second big storm to hit Florida in the space of a few days. Tropical Storm Gordon (news - web sites) washed over the corner of north Florida on Sunday night after weakening from a hurricane but caused minimal damage.
Sunday September 17 1:03 AM ET
Gordon Becomes Hurricane, Targets Florida Coast
By Angus MacSwan
MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane Gordon (news - web sites) churned toward Florida on Saturday, prompting a hurricane warning along the state's Gulf coast, and forecasters predicted it could hit land sometime late on Sunday or early Monday.
Gordon reached hurricane strength on Saturday afternoon while plowing through the Gulf of Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph) and higher gusts, according to the U.S. National Weather Service. Gordon previously had been classified as a tropical storm.
Authorities called for a voluntary evacuation along parts of Florida's western coastline and urged residents to make preparations for Gordon's arrival, as forecasters said the hurricane could make landfall somewhere between Tampa and Tallahassee.
Meanwhile, the other big mid-September storm, Florence, weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm over the Atlantic on Saturday night after brushing past Bermuda with gale-force winds that did not appear to have caused serious damage on the storm-hardened resort.
Rains from Gordon already have caused death and mayhem in Guatemala, where 19 people were killed and more than 50 hurt over the past two days. Hundreds of people in the Central American country have fled their homes for fear of landslides or flooding.
Hurricane or tropical storm warnings were in effect along Florida's Gulf Coast from Bonita Beach to Apalachicola -- around 400 miles (650 km) of coastline -- and communities as far west as Alabama were advised to keep an eye on the storm.
A forecaster at the National Hurricane Center (news - web sites) in Miami said that if Gordon stayed on its present track it was likely to spare towns and cities and lurch ashore at a thinly populated area.
``Right now it looks like it will land in north Florida on the West Coast somewhere between Tampa Bay and the 'Big Bend' south of Tallahassee,'' National Hurricane Center specialist Stacy Stewart said.
``We're zooming in on a remotely populated area.'' he said, adding that the storm could still deviate from that course.
If Gordon stayed on course it was expected to hit on Monday morning although a late Sunday night landfall was still a possibility, Stewart said. Although a minimal hurricane, Gordon is packing lots of rain, forecasters added.
Gordon Is Strengthening
Gordon was picking up strength as it moved to the northeast. At 10 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT Sunday), the storm's center was located about 235 miles (375 km) southwest of Tampa and 275 miles (440 km) south of Apalachicola, near latitude 25.7 north, longitude 85.3 west. The storm was moving northeast at about 12 mph (19 kph).
Communities along the coast were bracing for the storm.
``We have our emergency operations center open and operating, and issued a voluntary evacuation at 5 p.m. to citizens who don't feel comfortable staying in homes along the coastal areas,'' said Karen Windon, public safety director for Manatee County.
``We always encourage people to reinforce their homes. It's easier to do it before the winds start blowing.'' Sections of western Cuba were doused with seven to 10 inches (17 to 25 cm) of rain from Gordon and two to five inches (five to 12 cm) of rain were forecast for south Florida and the Keys.
The hurricane prompted several oil companies, including Unocal Corp. (NYSE:UCL - news), Texaco Inc. (NYSE:TX - news), Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CHV - news) and Shell Oil Co. (RD.AS), to evacuate hundreds of workers from platforms and rigs in the Gulf, which is a critical producing region for oil and natural gas. The companies said Gordon had made little impact on production.
Gordon already has lashed Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and the Guatemalan coast with heavy rains. Mexico's National Weather Service said on Saturday another 3 inches (7 cm) was forecast in some parts of the south, with wind gusts of up to 66 mph (110 kph) expected.
The storm forced authorities to shut the port of Campeche on the Yucatan peninsula to all shipping, according to the transport ministry. As of earlier on Saturday, Mexico's main oil ports were unaffected by the storm.
In Guatemala, two days of pounding rains left 19 dead and 50 injured, with hundreds more forced from their homes over fears of flooding, cave-ins and landslides, authorities said.
Florence Heads Out To Sea
Forecasters said Florence weakened after brushing past Bermuda, where local weather officials said the effects of the storm appeared light.
``I think the worst has past,'' Bermuda Weather Service meteorologist Declan O'Connell said shortly after driving to work in St. George on the island's east end.
``There was nothing more than light branches down, maybe some palm fronds,'' said Bermuda Weather Service meteorologist Declan O'Connell.
The storm packed sustained winds of 70 mph (110 kph) and was on a course that would take it near eastern Newfoundland on Sunday afternoon.
A tropical storm in the Pacific, meanwhile, moved closer to the Mexican coast on Saturday, prompting authorities to declare a state of emergency in the northwestern state of Baja California.
Tropical Storm Miriam was centered 125 miles (200 km) southeast of Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula late on Saturday. It was moving northwest at six mph (9 kph) and was expected to make a gradual turn west-northwest in the next 24 hours, bringing it near the southern Baja peninsula.
Miriam was packing winds of up to 45 mph (75 kph) and brought heavy rains to Baja California Sur and the northern state of Sinaloa on Saturday.
Another earthquake hits
Labasa
Friday, September 15, 2000
The northern town of Labasa has experienced another earthquake
just 48 hours after the last one on Wednesday.
According to the Mineral Resources Department, a strong
earthquake measuring 5.4 on the local Richter scale was located
about 160 km north-east of Labasa at about 3am today.
There were five aftershocks recorded between 3 - 4 am with
magnitude ranging from 3.0 - 4.0 on the Richter scale.
The mainshock was felt in Labasa and other parts of Vanua Levu
where some people experienced rattling of crockery, doors,
windows and furniture.
The Mineral Resources Department says although the area of the epicentre lies in a well known seismic zone that extends from northeast of Udu to Yasawa, the occurrence of an earthquake in this particular area is not very common.
Quake rocks town
Thursday, September 14, 2000
AN earthquake was recorded midday yesterday about 133 kilometres north-east of Labasa, near Cikobia Island.
The Mineral Resources Department said the tremors originated from a shallow depth of about 15 kilometres below the surface.
Its magnitude was measured at 4.8 on the Richter Scale.
The earthqauke was felt in Labasa where people experince rattling of doors, windows and vibration of funiture.
Although the area of the epicentre lies in a well known seismic zone that extends from north east of Udu to the Yasawas, occurrence of an earthquake in this area is not common, said seismologist Lasarusa Vuetibau.
This is the second time an earthquake has been recorded in a month. One was recorded in Ba last month.
Fiji's Daily Post
Monday September 4 5:23 AM ET
5.2 Quake Hits Calif. Wine Country
By CHRISTINE HANLEY, Associated Press Writer
NAPA, Calif. (AP) - In the dead of night, Etta Crocker woke up with a bolt: Her television set was inexplicably flying across the 52-year-old woman's room.
Crocker and hundreds of other residents in the heart of Northern California's wine country were jolted early Sunday when a 5.2-magnitude earthquake knocked out windows, broke gas and water mains, and shut down power to about half the surrounding county.
Jeff Barstad shovels up glass outside the Slam City wrestling school in Napa, Calif., Sunday Sept. 3, 2000 following a 5.2 earthquake that shook the wine country.(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
Arturo Elias carries blankets from a Red Cross emergency shelter at the First Baptist Church Monday, Sept. 4, 2000, in Napa, Calif. Elias was among dozens relocated yesterday when a moderate earthquake forced evacuation of their homes in Napa, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Three people were hospitalized following the temblor, including a 5-year-old boy in critical condition with head injuries and a broken pelvis after chimney parts fell on him. Two others - a 41-year-old man and 37-year-old woman - were both in fair condition, said Debbie Fisher of Queen of the Valley Hospital.
Napa officials estimated the quake caused between $5 million and $15 million in damage. About 100-150 buildings sustained structural damage, including collapsed chimneys and broken hot water heaters, according to Napa police.
Seventy-one people, including 23 children, spent Sunday night in an emergency shelter in a Napa church, said Jason Smith of the American Red Cross.
``It's been very difficult,'' said Crocker, who arrived at the shelter Sunday afternoon with her daughter and two teen-age grandchildren. ``We're all just kind of in shock now. Everybody just keeps sitting on their cots and staring at each other.''
Most of those bedding down for the night on cots at the First Baptist Church were evacuated from the same two-story apartment building, Smith said. City inspectors asked residents to leave the building after they deemed it ``unsafe,'' said Matt Wilson of Napa's building and street inspection department.
The quake hit at 1:36 a.m. about 6 miles northwest of Napa and 6 miles northeast of Sonoma, near the small town of Yountville, according to the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park.
California Highway Patrol spokesman Mark Bunger, who said he has lived in the Napa area his whole life, said the quake was ``by far the most severe I've ever felt.''
``Usually it's a rolling, but this was more of a real jolting,'' he said. ``My wife and kids were screaming. It was quite upsetting.''
He said his two-story house in nearby Browns Valley sustained no major damage. ``There's stuff all over the floor, a lot of cracked plaster. I was relieved it was nothing really costly.''
Numerous homes had chimneys that fell down or leaned following the earthquake.
Alison Saether, who lives two blocks from downtown Napa said plaster fell from her ceiling and she lost power for two hours.
``It was like someone was just holding the house and shaking it violently,'' she said. ``We were so panicked we couldn't even move.''
Despite the jolt, the earthquake was considered small by the USGS, said spokeswoman Pat Jorgenson. The shaking woke people as far south as San Francisco, some 50 miles away.
``It's very rare that there's any structural damage or loss of life in a quake of this magnitude,'' she said. ``Loma Prieta was about 100 times greater.''
The Loma Prieta earthquake, centered 50 miles south of San Francisco in 1989, killed 69 people and caused $6 billion damage.
Sunday's quake happened six miles underground on an unknown fault, Jorgenson said. There already have been two small aftershocks, of magnitudes 1.5 and 1.8, and in the next week, the area could feel as many as 20 small aftershocks.
On the Net:
United States Geological Survey: http://quake.wr.usgs.gov
Saturday, September 2 12:22 AM SGT
NEW DELHI, Sept 1 (AFP) -
Eighteen more people have died in floods in northern India, bringing the death toll from this year's monsoon rains to 244 in Uttar Pradesh alone, the Press Trust of India said Friday.
It said the deaths in the state occurred during the past 24 hours. Six were reported on Thursday night in the town of Bijnour.
The state government said the situation was grim, adding water levels in the largest rivers of the Ganges, Yamuna and Ghaghra were rising alarmingly due to non-stop rains in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
The monsoon rains began in June. Other parts of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, are in the grip of a harsh drought.
At least 140 people also died last month in flash floods which devastated the northern summer resort state of Himachal Pradesh, which adjoins Uttar Pradesh.
Im addition, the death toll from flooding in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh has also risen to 162, although water levels in the main Godavari river on Friday receded further, officials said in state capital of Hyderabad.
The worst floods to hit Andhra Pradesh in nearly 50 years have affected 3,112 villages spread over 16 districts, damaged 63,584 houses and submerged more than 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) of farmland.
Friday, September 1 11:40 PM SGT
BUDAPEST, Sept 1 (AFP) -
Hungary said Friday it was ready to settle with an Australian mining company following an environmental disaster but stuck to a multi-million-dollar claim, while the firm denied a settlement was imminent.
The Hungarian government wants 110 million euros (98 million dollars) from the Perth-based gold mining company Esmeralda Exploration Ltd., whose Aurul joint venture in Romania spilt some 100,000 tons of cyanide residue into the Somes and Tisza rivers.
Hungary claims more than 1,200 tonnes of fish were killed.
Eva Montsko, spokeswoman for the government's commissioner of the issue, said Esmeralda officials had travelled to Hungary to push for an out of court settlement.
"Hungary will weigh all feasible offers but there are two basic requirements," Montsko told AFP.
"One is that the damage it suffered must be paid for, and the other is a guarantee that the possibility of similar ecological disasters in the future will be eliminated," she said.
"The delegation pointed out that there were other civilised ways to arrange conflicts apart from court trials. Hungary agrees with this. We are interested in any good solution," Montsko added.
But Kim Strickland, administrator of Perth-based Esmeralda, said that a settlement was not at the moment on the agenda.
"At this point in time, I don't think they've even got a claim from the information provided to me so far," Strickland said.
"That's not to say they won't have one in the future -- they may be compiling one right now -- but there's nothing in front of me yet."
"The detailed claim with the full documentation, complete with expert statements, will be there in writing on the desks of all those concerned by the established deadline," Montsko replied.
Esmeralda was suspended from share trading and went into administration after the release of cyanide into the Tisza River contaminated water from its gold tailings dam at Baia Mare in Romania on January 30.
Where the Hungarian claim would fit into the claims on Esmeralda in its bankruptcy procedure will be decided at a meeting of the mining company's creditors on September 8, Montsko said.
Friday, September 1 12:27 PM SGT
TOKYO, Sept 1 (AFP) -
The chief of Japan's Miyakejima island Friday ordered remaining residents to leave for the mainland as its Mount Oyama volcano continued to rumble.
"We decided on an out-of-island evacuation in three days starting tomorrow (Saturday)," Miyakejima village mayor Ko Hasegawa told a televised news conference.
A total of 2,365 out of the 3,800 residents of Miyakejima island, 150 kilometers (93 miles) southwest of Tokyo, have already left by ferry for the capital, said village official Izumi Asanuma.
The order covered all but essential workers, said an official with the Tokyo city government, which has jurisdiction over Miyakejima.
"As residents evacuate, we need to safeguard the island's lifelines such as water, electricity and road maintenance," said Tokyo city government spokesman Kenji Tsukui.
"Therefore about 600 residents, including firefighters, will have to remain on the island."
The order was recommended by the Tokyo city authorities and accepted by Hasegawa, the spokesman said.
Miyakejima's 813-meter (2,683-foot) Mount Oyama volcano has belched out a series of steam eruptions since returning to life on July 8 after a pause of 17 years.
Friday, September 1 2:44 PM SGT
SEOUL, Sept 1 2000(AFP) -
Typhoon Prapiroon killed at least four people and left 21 others missing as it swept across the Korean peninsula, officials said Friday.
Prapiroon -- Thai for "God of Rain" -- smashed into the Korean peninsula late Thursday with heavy downpours and gusting winds which reached 209 kilometers per hour in the southern island of Huksan, the strongest ever recorded in South Korea.
Prapiroon, the 12th typhoon this year, also left 293 people from 71 families homeless, the National Disaster Prevention and Counter-Measures Headquarters said.
The four dead included a 39-year-old man in the southern suburbs of Seoul who was blown over by gusting winds and fell to his death as he was fixing a greenhouse early Friday.
The number of people listed as missing increased after a fishing boat sank with 10 fishermen aboard as the vessel was moored off the western island of Dukjuk in the Yellow Sea early Friday.
The typhoon also destroyed 111 houses, 121 fishing vessels and cut roads and flooded rice fields, causing damage estimated at 14.4 billion wonmillion US).
By mid-afternoon Friday, the typhoon had passed North Korea into the East Sea (Sea of Japan).
Tuesday August 29 6:31 PM ET
Montana Seeks Federal Disaster Aid Over
Wildfires
HELENA, Montana (Reuters) - As wildfires continued to ravage 13 states on Tuesday, Montana Gov. Marc Racicot formally asked the White House to declare a ``major disaster'' in his state and provide federal aid to help people cope with destroyed homes, threatened livelihoods and emotional despair.
Racicot was the first governor to seek federal aid over the the wildfires that have burned more than 6 million drought-stricken acres this year.
In a letter to President Clinton dated Tuesday, Racicot asked for federal disaster status and monetary assistance for direct and indirect losses stemming from the inferno of forest fires that has charred more than 715,700 acres in Montana this summer.
The fires have caused ``decreases in commerce, significant agricultural devastation and extraordinary stress for the people of Montana,'' Racicot wrote. Businesses are losing about $3 million a day because of the fires, he said.
Soldiers from the Army's 101st Airborne Division undergo training with a civilian military advisor at the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana, August 29, 2000. The soldiers, from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, deployed last Friday and are now assisting civilian firefighters in the effort to contain wildfires. (US Army via Reuters)
Though estimates on losses were still preliminary, the request from Montana sought about $35.6 million in assistance to businesses and $13.6 million for individuals.
``A lot of the ranchers have had their pastureland destroyed where they would normally be grazing cattle. And the outfitters and others who depend on tourism aren't going to do that this year,'' said FEMA spokesman Len DeCarlo. ``They're going to have a problem getting through the year.''
Throughout the United States, hot and dry winds have fanned fires across more than 6 million acres so far this year, with 1.6 million acres still in flames on Tuesday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (IFC) in Boise, Idaho. In 1999 fires burned through 4 million acres.
More than 23,000 firefighters were working around the clock to try to contain the fires in California, Washington, Montana, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Oregon, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Mississippi and Florida.
Nine new large fires were reported on Monday, IFC officials said. But firefighters were able to celebrate a measure of success after containing eight large fires in several regions, allowing people to begin returning to homes they fled in fear.
``We're making steady progress, not super fast progress, but the containments are a positive,'' said Punky Moore, an IFC spokeswoman.
In South Dakota's Black Hills National Forest, where the fire there has grown to be the largest in its history, burning through more than 64,000 acres, success was measured in the fact that the fire grew only by 1,000 acres overnight, said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Wendy Eisenbraun, stationed on the edge of the fire in Custer, South Dakota.
``The fire is lessening in intensity,'' Eisenbraun said. ``The first two days it grew enormously, by 30,000 acres each night. But last night it only grew 1,000 acres.''
The slowed pace and shift in direction of the fire in the Black Hills National Forest prompted local law enforcement officials to lift the evacuation order on Tuesday morning and allow hundreds of people in surrounding towns to go home, said Custer County Sheriff Greg Foster.
``We have breathed a sigh but we're not relaxing yet,'' said Foster, who expressed awe at the ferocious nature of the fire. ''This kind of thing is unheard of, the magnitude of it. What I've seen has just been incredible.''
Across the northern U.S. border, forestry officials in Alberta were hoping on Tuesday that cooler temperatures and calmer winds will help them contain a 47,000-acre blaze in the southwestern corner of the province.
``We are expecting to make much more progress on it today,'' said Norm Brownlee, of the Alberta Forestry Division.
Like their U.S. counterparts, fire crews in Alberta and British Columbia have also had a busy firefighting season this summer, but have had more success in keeping the blazes from getting too large.
Fiji Live -26 August 2000
Ba residents were shaken by four tremors between 3.25 and 4.20 this morning. Residents called FM96 News saying their homes shook for a few seconds at each tremor. They also spoke of tremors early on Wednesday morning and yesterday at 5am. The Mineral Resources department says it is investigating the tremors. They'll release a statement later today.
Wednesday, August 23 7:38 PM SGT
TAIPEI, Aug 23 (AFP) -
Two typhoons roared into Asia from the Pacific Wednesday, killing at least 25 people and cutting a trail of destruction across Taiwan, Vietnam and mainland China.
Typhoon Bilis, the most powerful storm in Asia this year, buried eight people alive in a mudslide in Taiwan and killed three more before slamming into mainland China.
To the south, the much weaker Typhoon Kaemi proved more deadly as it swept into Vietnam from the Gulf of Tongking, resulting in 14 deaths.
Bilis -- a "super typhoon" or maximum category five hurricane gusting at up to 300 kilometres (185 miles) per hour, with an eye 32 kilometres wide -- all but swallowed the 400-kilometer long island of 22 million people when it scored a direct hit on Taiwan in the early hours.
Trees were uprooted, power supplies cut to 450,000 homes, roofs ripped clean off and cars tossed in the air. Around 250 homes were destroyed and flooding by rivers and in coastal areas was widespread.
All schools and offices, including financial markets, were closed and air, train and road transport was suspended, with passenger jets tethered to the ground.
Seven women and one child died in a landslide in the central mountain county of Nantou when a landslide demolished a workers' hut in which they were sheltering.
Elsewhere a 27-year-old man was crushed by a mud wall, a 47-year-old woman electrocuted by wires ripped in half by the ferocious wind, and a 63-year-old killed outright by a wooden door blown off its frame.
Rescuers were also searching for a doctor, missing while hiking.
Late Wednesday President Chen Shui-bian announced he was cutting short his first overseas trip to central America and Africa to return Friday to take personal charge of rescue and disaster relief efforts.
By the official toll late Wednesday 80 people were injured, 14 of them seriously.
Bilis' screaming winds and unrelenting rains destroyed at least 1,688 hectares (4,170 acres) of farmland in Taiwan, mainly orchards.
Fishing and cargo boats of all nationalities sheltered in ports as the gale whipped up massive waves of up to nine metres (30 feet).
Ten trawlers were destroyed by a fire sparked by snapped electricity wires in Taitung county. Four prisoners also used the storm as cover to escape from a nearby jail.
To further add to the chaos, an earthquake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale jolted the island on Wednesday morning.
In Vietnam, the 14 dead included three tourists, two Indians and one Thai woman, and two crew members who drowned when a pair of sight-seeing boats capsized in the world-renowned Halong Bay in the northeast.
Nine other people died in central interior regions, officials said.
Local authorities also lost contact with more than 60 fishing boats when the typhoon hit and it was not immediately clear late Wednesday how many had been located.
Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Danang and the ancient city of Hue were worst hit. Rivers were running dangerously high, 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres) of rice fields flooded and residents evacuated in many areas.
After clearing Taiwan, a weakened Bilis reintensified slightly in the Taiwan Strait before slamming into southeastern China, near Quanzhou city in southern Fujian province.
Forecasters said rainfall near Xiamen city could reach 200 millimeters and residents in some low-lying areas were evacuated and there were reports of felled trees, but no casualties.
The Shanghai Evening Post said China's commercial capital would also see winds of force 6 or 7 on the Beaufort scale and heavy rain.
The US National Hurricane Center, which monitors weather systems worldwide, said the storm was expected to blow itself out over the mainland by the end of Thursday.
Wind speeds of 165-185 kilometres per hour were still being recorded in the early afternoon, it said.
"(Bilis) has weakened significantly as it has moved onto mainland China," said the center.
Kaemi had already been downgraded to a tropical depression by early Wednesday.
Friday August 25 2:36 AM ET
47 Injured in China Tornado
BEIJING (AP) - A tornado triggered by Typhoon Bilis scythed through villages in eastern China, wrecking homes and scattering their contents, overturning cars and injuring 47 people, an official newspaper said Friday.
In Fujian, the southeast China province where Bilis made landfall Wednesday, authorities said early warnings and preparations for the storm, including sending workers home, stopping ferry services and ordering boats to port, prevented casualties.
But in neighboring Zhejiang province, a tornado triggered by Bilis' approach cut through villages around the city of Yueqing on Wednesday morning, damaging 612 buildings and destroying more than 50 homes, the Beijing Morning Post said.
The tornado overturned cars, dumped debris in a field and sucked televisions, refrigerators and other belongings out of people's homes, scattering them outside, the newspaper said.
The paper said 16 people were seriously injured and 31 others slightly hurt. The tornado caused an estimated $443,000 in damage, according to the report.
Bilis killed 11 people in Taiwan before sweeping into China.
While authorities in Fujian said there were no casualties, the storm did wreck more than 1,100 houses in the province, uprooted thousands of trees, flooded farmland, cut power lines and triggered a landslide that severed a railway.
Further south, two tornados in Vietnam killed a 5-year-old girl and injured 77 other people, in the southern province of Tien Giang, an official said Friday.
The storms struck Wednesday night and Thursday morning, wrecking 387 houses and damaging 737 others, along with nearly 5,000 acres of crops, said provincial official Pham Quoc Tri.
The tornados also injured three people and destroyed 28 homes in Kien Giang and Tra Vinh provinces.
Wednesday August 23 12:41 AM ET
Hurricane Debby Heads Toward Dominican Republic
By Douglas Zehr
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - Hurricane Debby was poised to skim the northern coast of the Dominican Republic on Wednesday after dealing light blows to islands in the northeast Caribbean and setting a course that could slap it into south Florida at the end of the week.
The storm, just powerful enough for hurricane status with maximum winds of 75 mph, disrupted air traffic and forced the closure of schools and offices in the northeast Caribbean on Tuesday but largely spared the islands as it brushed past to the north.
Late on Tuesday, Debby was moving away from Puerto Rico and set to skirt the north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which share the island of Hispaniola. Forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said it would then approach the southeast Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands on a path that would put it near Florida by week's end.
The hurricane was a scare for residents of the small, storm-weary islands of the Leeward chain but it dealt them only a glancing blow as it passed north of Antigua and the Virgin Islands.
The U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico, home to 3.8 million people mindful of the battering the island took at the hands of Hurricane Georges in 1998, closed courts, government offices and schools and opened emergency shelters ahead of the storm.
Officials froze prices on essentials; residents loaded up on food and fuel, and one man died during preparations for the hurricane. But Debby churned north of Puerto Rico as well, sparing the island its strongest winds and officials said the island saw rainfall of only about 4 inches.
``I think something we can project from what happened is that our people have matured and prepare very appropriately,'' Gov. Pedro Rossello told reporters on Tuesday evening.
Debby's current track would take it near the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area, home to some 5 million people, by Friday. The projection triggered some hurricane anxiety, with some residents trekking to buy window boarding and bottled water.
But forecasters said it was too early to tell whether it would curve north into the Atlantic, hit Florida or cross into the Gulf of Mexico later in the week.
At 11 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Debby's center was just east of the Dominican Republic, about 270 miles southeast of Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands, near latitude 19.4 north and longitude 67.5 west.
The hurricane was churning toward the west-northwest at 18 mph and was not expected to increase in strength while it passed over the north of Hispaniola.
Hurricane Warning For Dominican Republic
Hurricane warnings -- alerting residents to hurricane conditions within 24 hours -- were in effect for the north coast of the Dominican Republic, the southeastern Bahamas, and Turks and Caicos islands.
A hurricane watch, advising residents they could see hurricane conditions in 36 hours, was in effect for northern Haiti, for Cuba's north coast in the provinces of Guantanamo, Holguin and Las Tunas, and for the central Bahamas.
People in warning areas could expect up to 10 inches of rain with flash floods and mudslides in mountainous areas, forecasters said.
In the Dominican Republic, a nation of 8 million people, the government urged evacuation of homes in flood-prone areas on Tuesday. President Hipolito Mejia ordered public buildings readied as shelters.
More than 100 people were killed in September 1998 when the country was hit by Hurricane Georges.
The Haitian government also issued a hurricane alert for its northern provinces.
Cuba put the eastern half of the island on provisional alert, urging residents from the central province of Camaguey to the easternmost province of Guantanamo to stay attentive to special TV and radio updates on the hurricane.
Across the Caribbean, regional airlines moved their planes out of the path of the storm on Tuesday and U.S. carriers including US Airways Group Inc, Continental Airlines Inc, Delta Air Lines Inc, Trans World Airlines Inc and American Airlines canceled flights to the islands.
In the Virgin Islands, cruise ships were rerouted, airports and businesses closed, hurricane shelters opened and electric power was shut off as a precaution. But Debby passed with barely a rustle of the palm trees.
Fiji Village - August 23 2000
An earthquake occured at around 3 o'clock this morning in Ba.
However, Seismologist Lasarusa Vuetibau said tremor which recorded 3.0 on the richter scale were felt by residents as far as Tavua and Lautoka.. No was hurt and no damages occured after the tremor.
Monday August 21 4:18 PM ET
Weather Aiding Fight Against Western Blazes
BOISE, Idaho (Reuters) - Firefighters across the U.S. West took advantage of calmer winds on Monday in their battle against blazes that have showed little mercy in the worst fire season in nearly 50 years.
Fire officials said there were 89 large fires burning nearly 1.4 million acres in eight western states, Texas and Florida. But officials said firefighters have managed to contain 8 blazes since Sunday, with only four new ones breaking out.
``We've made some progress but at the same time some of the large fires have ground along and continued to spread,'' said Howard Parman of the National Fire Information Center.
Firefighters also received a break over the weekend when predicted high winds and lightning strikes failed to materialize. Officials had feared gusty winds would spread existing fires and lightning strikes would spark new ones.
``We had a couple days of favorable weather conditions,'' said Parman, working out of the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
So far this year, fires have torched more than 5.6 million acres (2.27 million hectares) -- more than double the 10-year average and an area bigger than the state of Massachusetts.
However, the more than 69,000 fires recorded this year aren't significantly more numerous than the 10-year average of 59,000 blazes -- meaning this season's fires have been much bigger, Parman said.
The hardest-hit states remain Montana and Idaho, where a combined 1.2 million acres (486,000 hectares) are on fire. In Montana, where 30 large blazes are burning, the governor has declared a disaster area.
Efforts there are focused on a complex of blazes in the Bitterroot Valley, south of Missoula, raging in mostly steep, rugged terrain that is difficult for firefighters to reach.
But two large power lines in northeast Montana that carry electricity from the giant Colstrip power plant to the Northwest and California were back up on Monday after a fire knocked them out last week.
There was also help on the way for weary Montana firefighters with the expected deployment of two military battalions to the state later this week, Parman said.
They will join about 2,900 U.S. military, National Guard and Reserve troops already providing reinforcement to the some 20,000 firefighters battling the blazes across the United States.
Firefighters from Canada, Mexico and as far away as Australia and New Zealand are also working to help contain fires expected to burn for months.
``It is a welcome addition,'' Parman said.
In Idaho, with 28 large fires burning some 600,000 acres (243,000 hectares), officials have closed the 2.4 million-acre (960,000 hectares) Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness and banned rafting trips on the Salmon river.
But officials said Atlanta, Idaho residents were able to return home after a weekend blaze threatened the historic town, located some 60 miles (97 km) east of Boise, and forced the evacuation of some 150 people.
Wyoming was another trouble spot with 10 large blazes burning more than 60,000 acres (24,300 hectares). The governor has declared the state a disaster area but officials said the southern entrance to Yellowstone National Park reopened on Monday.
Tuesday August 22 12:28 AM ET
Tropical Storm Debby Moves Toward Leeward
Islands
By Suzanne Gordon
CHARLESTOWN, Nevis (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Debby marched over the Atlantic toward land early on Tuesday, with residents of many of the tiny northeastern Caribbean islands in its likely path bracing for a possible hurricane.
The governments of France, Antigua, the United States and the Netherlands Antilles issued alerts for islands ranging from tiny Dominica, with about 75,000 people, to Puerto Rico with 3.8 million, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Anticipating the storm's westward passage during the week, warnings were also issued late on Monday for parts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
U.S. oil prices rose on Monday as Debby churned in a path that could threaten the U.S. Virgin Islands, home to the largest refinery in the Western Hemisphere.
Across the northeastern Caribbean region, which has suffered the impact of several big storms in recent years, people prepared for the potential onslaught, protecting their homes by boarding windows, buying emergency supplies such as batteries and filling gas tanks.
In the Dutch territory of Saba, captains headed their dive boats for safe harbor. ``It would just be devastating to be hit again by another storm,'' said Glenn Holm, director of tourism with the Saba Tourist Bureau. ``We're well-trained now. We are beginning to close up shutters and put away flying things.'' At 11 p.m. EDT on Monday, Debby was centered about 55 miles east of Antigua in the Leeward Islands near latitude 17.2 north and longitude 61.0 west, the hurricane center said.
Debby Could Be A Hurricane On Tuesday Debby continued at just below hurricane strength, with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, and it was moving west northwest at about 20 mph -- a course that would send it over the northern Leeward Islands during Monday night and Tuesday, forecasters said.
Debby was forecast to strengthen to a hurricane on Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center said.
The islands from Guadeloupe northward and westward through to the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico were under hurricane warnings, which alert residents to hurricane conditions within 24 hours.
The Hovensa oil refinery in St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, which processes some 545,000 barrels per day, shut down some units as a precaution as the storm approached, a spokesman said on Monday.
Cruise ships scheduled to dock on Tuesday and Wednesday at Havensight in Charlotte Amalie, a St. Thomas port, revised their itineraries because of the approaching storm.
As residents shopped for batteries and other emergency supplies, Virgin Islands governor Charles Turnbull issued a consumer price freeze.
Included in the hurricane warning area were the Dutch territories of St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius; the French possessions Guadeloupe and St. Martin; independent nations Antigua and Barbuda; and St. Kitts and Nevis and other islands.
On the island of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic issued a tropical storm warning for some of the country while Haiti issued a hurricane watch for the north of the country. The Bahamas government was expected to issue a tropical storm watch for southeastern islands in the Bahamas, the U.S. hurricane center said late on Monday.
The Leeward Islands have been hit often in recent years. Some tourist destinations are still out of commission from the devastating passage of Hurricane Georges in 1998.
On Nevis, the upscale Four Seasons Resort, which has been closed since November 1999 after storm surge flooded out much of the property, is due to open on Nov. 24 following a $50 million reconstruction.
Debby was threatening St. Kitts and Nevis during a regional celebration of Caribbean culture, called Carifesta VII. More than 1,000 artists, musicians, writers and intellectual leaders from throughout the Caribbean were visiting the country.
Tropical storms form and are given names when maximum sustained winds reach 39 mph and they become hurricanes when top winds hit 74 mph.
Canterbury
floodwaters ease
20.08.2000 - 9:00 AM - NZ Herald
The main flood threat to life and property in Canterbury has eased considerably in the past few hours, Bill Simpson of Environment Canterbury said this morning.
Mr Simpson said water levels in all the region's rivers have been going down, although the road system in the area has been crippled by the floodwaters.
He said local councils, police and Transit New Zealand have their hands full dealing with landslips, rock falls and countless road closures.
There were alarm bells this morning when an eye witness reported a breach in a stopbank along the Selwyn River south of Christchurch.
Engineers rushed to the location, one kilometre upstream from the mouth of the Selwyn, and were relieved to find the river only overflowing slightly.
Meanwhile, Christchurch police are urging motorists to stay off the roads today if possible.
Sergeant Roy Appley said Christchurch is cut off completely from the south, mainly due to the Selwyn River flooding.
State Highway One at Kaikoura is blocked.
The Lewis Pass is closed to road traffic and there are long delays through Arthur's Pass because of rock falls. - IRN
Saturday August 19 1:16 PM ET
Firefighters Fear Weather Could Stoke U.S.
Wildfires
A satellite image taken August 18, 2000 shows wildfire heat signatures in red and the resulting dense smoke in blue with fires burning in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Utah. Strong winds have intensified blazes across the U.S. Wildfires this year have already scorched any area the size of Massachusetts. (NOAA/Reuters)
BOISE, Idaho (Reuters) - Wildfires raging across the U.S. West showed no signs of letting up on Saturday, and officials said they feared the weather might aggravate the situation, with gusting winds stoking old blazes and lightning strikes igniting new ones.
Fire officials said there were 94 large blazes burning in 11 states in the worst season in nearly 50 years. This year fires have consumed an area bigger than Massachusetts.
``We have been getting minor wind gusts and we are expecting more,'' said E. Lynn Burkett of the National Fire Information Center. ``It causes extreme fire behavior and makes firefighting a much more challenging effort.''
So far this season fires have scorched more than 5.4 million acres -- more than double the 10 year average.
Currently, there are fires raging on more than 1 million acres across the United States, with the biggest blazes located in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.
In Montana, the hardest hit state, the governor has declared a disaster area. The state's 30 large fires are burning on more than 530,000 acres of forest and shrub land and make up about half of the U.S. total.
The focus there remained on a series of blazes that have burned together on 142,000 acres in the Bitterroot Valley, south of Missoula, threatening at least 1,500 homes.
``The Bitterroot National Forest is really taking a hit right now,'' Burkett said.
Burkett, working out of the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, said officials have also requested two more military battalions to reinforce 20,000 firefighters battling the blazes.
The military has already pitched in with about 2,900 U.S. regular military, National Guard and Reserve troops in one of the biggest such military firefighter efforts in recent memory.
Firefighters from Canada, Mexico and as far away as Australia and New Zealand are also working to help contain fires expected to burn for months.
But one problem for firefighters is many of the blazes are roaming through steep, rugged terrain that is difficult to reach safely.
The task becomes even harder with wind gusts blowing blazes across fire lines and the threat of lightning strikes, which can easily spark more fires and drain crews from other areas.
``Many people don't understand that a fire can take on a life of its own and it can change very dramatically,'' Burkett said.
In Idaho, 29 fires are roaming through more than 414,000 acres, forcing the closure of the 2.4 million-acre Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness to public use.
But there was some good news in Colorado, New Mexico and South Dakota, where officials said no active fires are currently burning.
``That is beneficial because we can reutilize those people where we really need them,'' Burkett said.
There were also no new fires reported in Wyoming, but 11 large blazes there continued to burn out of control, prompting Gov. Jim Geringer to declare his state a disaster area on Friday in order to free up extra funding and resources.
Atlanta prepares for worst as the
flames draw nearer
Crews work to protect structures
By Jeffrey McKinnie
The Idaho Statesman - August 19 2000
|
|
| With a view of the Trail Creek fire just a
half-mile south, Boise residents, from left, Tony
Applegate, Nancy Fredricks and Darren Twilegar watch from
a sofa on Main Street in Atlanta on Friday. The three
were in town to help Applegate's parents move their
belongings from Atlanta to a safer area. |
Jeff Kindelay, left, of Fort Apache, Ariz., sprays a home near Atlanta with fire-retardant foam as Jason Barnard of the Whitney Fire Department in Boise helps the effort to protect structures from the Trail Creek fire. |
Many Atlanta residents and visitors said they knew it was time to go when the flames climbed the ridge above the town.
"It was pretty spooky," said Curtis Stigers, a musician and recording artist who is a frequent visitor to Atlanta.
On Friday, residents and fire crews shuttled back and forth down Middle Fork Road -- the main route into the town of about 100 people -- watering down homes and clearing debris from around property.
Sheriff's deputies are allowing only residents and fire personnel access to the Middle Fork, Edna Creek and Granite Creek roads.
The Trail Creek fire -- which is looming just a half-mile south of the town -- slowed its pace early Friday morning, but with more gusty winds in the forecast, fire officials will continue their efforts to protect it from the 13,232-acre blaze.
The fire is nearly 10 times the size it was on Tuesday when it started from 2-day-old lightning strikes that had been smoldering.
Fire officials said winds and dry timber fueled the blaze that is burning in several directions in the Boise National Forest.
Elmore County Sheriff's deputies ordered a mandatory evacuation on Thursday after the fire jumped containment lines and raced toward the town.
Fire crews worked into the night to create fire breaks around the town, 60 miles east of Boise.
Forest Service officials and fire bosses temporarily removed crews from the fire lines for safety reasons and redirected them to begin working on structure protection in the city.
Fire officials said several outbuildings near the Tolache mines were destroyed, but no structures in the city had been damaged.
Richard Markley, district ranger for the Boise National Forest, said the Forest Service is using a fire plan that was used in previous fires in the area.
"We had been preparing for this when the fire was in its early stages," said Markley during a press conference in Idaho City.
"And it's actually a plan that was used some years back."
He said when the fire reached a certain area of the forest, evacuation procedures were carried out.
Markley has requested more assistance from the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise and expected to have an additional Type 2 crew arrive late Friday.
Information officer John Segar said crews were in position to protect the town.
"All of our resources have surrounded the city," Segar said.
Fire officials are concerned that weather conditions will not allow them to effectively fight the fire.
Segar said crews hope to herd the fire into a rocky area of the forest.
"It has the potential to burn toward an area that's a natural fuel break," he said.
Segar said no crews were working ahead of the fire.
"The best we can do is steer it away from the town," he said, "because this fire is going to be with us a long time."
The Red Cross chapter in Boise set up a shelter at Mountain Home High School, but officials said no one has checked in.
"If the fire breaks loose tonight, I expect some of those people will use our facility," said Ted Phillips of the Red Cross.
Phillips said a number of people have been calling the shelter looking for relatives.
Fire officials would not make a prediction on when or whether the fire will reach the town.
Monday August 14 6:08 AM ET
Hurricane Alberto Weakening
By AMANDA RIDDLE, Associated Press Writer
MIAMI (AP) - As Hurricane Alberto gradually loses strength as it moves over cooler waters in the north Atlantic, forecasters have turned their attention to a tropical depression in the western Gulf of Mexico.
With winds near 35 mph, the depression is forecast to strengthen and could become a tropical storm as early as Monday, forecasters said.
``It's not a very well-defined situation so far,'' Miles Lawrence, hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said Monday. ``Overnight it's been very difficult to track the center so we're a little bit blind right now, but we're trying to stay ahead of it.''
At 5 a.m. EDT, the storm's poorly-defined center was about 290 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas. It was expected to begin moving northwest toward land, forecasters said.
With a reconnaissance aircraft being sent Monday morning to investigate the storm's center, forecasters said warnings could be later in the day.
``If the plane finds there is a well-defined center and if the winds have strengthened a little bit, then we can with confidence know that it will turn into a storm and put out a warning for the coast,'' Lawrence said.
The depression is forecast to reach hurricane intensity in the next 36 to 48 hours, at which time it also is expected to make landfall.
Tropical depressions become tropical storms once they reach 40 mph. Tropical storms become hurricanes once their top sustained winds reach 74 mph.
``Interests along the lower Texas coast and in northeastern Mexico should monitor the progress of this depression,'' Lawrence said.
Forecasters advised residents from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Tampico, Mex., to prepare and stock up on hurricane supplies.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Alberto had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph at 5 a.m. EST, down from 115 mph Saturday. Additional weakening was forecast over the next several days.
Alberto was located about 670 miles west of the Azores Islands, west of Portugal. The hurricane was moving east near 23 mph Monday.
``It looks like it's going to stall out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,'' Lawrence said. ``It should just continue to weaken but not go away altogether. Right now it's heading to the east, but we expect it to stall and drift back west.''
Tuesday August 15 12:35 AM ET
Tropical Storm Beryl Threatens Mexico
By Jane Sutton
MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Beryl formed in the western Gulf of Mexico and threatened Mexico with heavy rains and potentially dangerous flooding.
Beryl's center was expected to come ashore on Mexico's northeastern Gulf coast on Tuesday morning with a 2 to 5-foot storm surge and dump 5 to 10 inches of rain on the area north of where the eye crosses the coastline, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
``These rains could produce life-threatening flash floods and mud slides over mountainous areas,'' hurricane center specialist Stacy Stewart said.
Forecasters had expected Beryl to strengthen into a hurricane before making landfall, but said late on Monday that was no longer likely because the poorly organized storm was moving too fast to gain strength from the warm Gulf waters.
Tropical Storm Beryl formed in the western Gulf of Mexico on August 14 and strengthened quickly, prompting hurricane warnings for the Texas and Mexico coasts. Beryl's center was expected to come ashore on August 15 on the northeast Mexican coast about 60 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. (Reuters via NOAA)
All hurricane warnings in Mexico and Texas were dropped, but the U.S. and Mexican governments issued tropical storm warnings from Port Mansfield, Texas, southward to Tampico, Mexico.
Beryl grew from a tropical depression to a tropical storm with 50 mph winds on Monday. Tropical weather systems become tropical storms when their circulating winds reach 39 mph and become hurricanes at 74 mph.
At 11 p.m. EDT on Monday Beryl was centered 115 miles south of Brownsville, Texas, and 40 miles northeast of La Pesca, Mexico, near latitude 24.3 north, longitude 97.3 west.
It was moving toward the west-northwest at about 8 mph and was expected to weaken rapidly once it crossed onto the Mexican shoreline.
Meanwhile off Mexico's Pacific Coast, Tropical Storm Ileana was expected to reach hurricane strength overnight on Monday, though it was not likely to make landfall, the national hurricane center said.
A tropical storm warning and hurricane watch were in effect for Baja California from La Paz around the peninsula to Todos Los Santos, as Ileana moved northwest at about 12 mph with maximum winds near 65 mph on Monday evening. The center of the storm was located about 200 miles southeast of Cabo San Lucas.
``The Center of Ileana should be passing south of, or very near, the southern tip of Baja California on Tuesday,'' the center said in a bulletin. ``A deviation to the north could bring the core of Ileana over the southern portion of the Baja Peninsula.''
Beryl is the second named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June through November. The first, Hurricane Alberto, fizzled on Monday as the chilly north Atlantic waters sapped its strength.
Alberto weakened to a tropical storm with 50 mph winds, 525 miles west of the westernmost Azores Islands, near latitude 39 north and longitude 38.7 west.
It was moving south at nearly 7 mph but was expected to slow as it continued to weaken through Tuesday.
Residents of the Azores, thinly populated Portuguese islands, were advised to monitor the storm, but no warnings were posted.
Wildfires Raging Across the West, Abetted by
Dry Storms, Lightning
Inferno: More than 826,000 acres in 11 states have been
charred, overwhelming firefighters. Montana's Bitterroot Valley
is under siege.
By KIM MURPHY, Times Staff Writer
SEATTLE Dry, fitful thunderstorms with lightning in their
bellies rolled across the West, sparking new wildfires that have
consumed more than 826,000 acres in 11 states--threatening one of
the worst fire seasons in history, federal officials said Monday.
In Montana, more than 500 homes
were evacuated in the Bitterroot Valley as intense heat and gusty
winds pushed three large fires together into a massive,
25-mile-long blaze in the hills above the town of Hamilton.
"It's just about one of the
most awesome sights I think a person would ever see,"
Ravalli County Sheriff Perry Johnson said as his deputies helped
close a several-mile-long stretch of U.S. 93. "These columns
of smoke, they looked like mushroom clouds from a bomb."
President Clinton today was
scheduled to visit central Idaho, where federal troops have been
called out to help battle several fires raging through the
mountainous wilderness--including a single blaze in the
Salmon-Challis National Forest that covers 162 square miles.
More than a third of the nation's
blazing wild lands are in Idaho, where 357,668 acres have been
consumed and lightning strikes are igniting up to 50 new blazes a
day, most of them quickly extinguished.
"This could shape up to be the
worst fire season in Idaho in 65 years of records kept,"
Gov. Dirk Kempthorne said. "The conditions will only worsen.
We're still in for a hot summer."
Mesa Verde Blaze Threatens
Artifacts
Firefighters also were battling a
blaze at Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park, closing it for the
second time in a month. Five thousand acres have been consumed so
far, and the fire is threatening a number of ancient cliff
dwellings and a center containing 2 million Southwestern
artifacts.
A total of 73,343 acres has burned
in the Sequoia National Forest near Kernville, with eight major
wildfires in California now blackening 92,250 acres. A
10,600-acre blaze five miles east of Temecula was about 45%
contained, with full containment expected by Thursday.
All told, 65 major fires were
burning by late Monday, bringing total wildfire losses so far
this year to 4.03 million acres--nearly double the average over
the last 10 years.
Federal officials cautioned that
more trouble almost certainly is yet to come. A line of unstable
air is expected to move in over Oregon and Washington this week,
bringing more isolated thunderstorms with minimal rain--and
worrying potential for new lightning strikes.
Just as significant, officials
said, is that a full two months of hot, dry fire weather lies
ahead.
"The season started earlier
than usual, and the weather forecasts . . . don't call for any
early rains," said Mary Stansell of the National Interagency
Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
"With this dry lightning, it's
just really dry and hot. You get the east winds in the afternoon
that roll in and make the fire more active," she said.
"Plus, lots of the terrain is in steep areas, and there are
just several [blazes] going at the same time. . . . It's got the
potential to be a pretty serious fire season."
Marines Sent to Fire Lines
Firefighting agencies have mustered
a total of 17,279 firefighters and support staff from 47 states,
Canada and Mexico. Federal troops have been called out for the
first time since 1996, with 1,800 service members--including
active duty and National Guardsmen--summoned for hasty
firefighting training.
The 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine
Regiment from Camp Pendleton arrived in Idaho Falls over the
weekend to join firefighters battling the blaze 20 miles
northwest of Salmon--which moved with stunning speed over the
weekend to become the largest wildfire in the country.
Meeting with U.S. Forest Service
chief Mike Dombeck Monday, Kempthorne said that the fire--which
started at just 200 acres--flashed across 25,000 acres in a
four-hour period, a 10-mile run. It now spans 102,382 acres,
destroying the two longest wood-pole power line crossings in the
country.
Clinton was scheduled to visit
troops from Ft. Hood, Texas, who are battling a 23,000-acre blaze
in the Payette National Forest, 23 miles north of the resort town
of McCall, Idaho.
But interagency fire officials were
focusing their most intense efforts in Montana's Bitterroot
Valley, where rural homes near the ranching towns of Hamilton and
Darby were threatened by blazes that were closing in from three
directions.
"We had three larger fires and
a few smaller fires that essentially burned into one large
fire," said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Liz
Stevenson-Shaw.
"We had an inversion layer
that was kind of holding everything into the valley. That lifted
yesterday, and when that lifted, those fires took off,"
sweeping from 60,000 acres to more than 100,000 acres in a single
day. "We're starting to get some increased fire activity
again today," Stevenson-Shaw said Monday. "I'm looking
south, and we're seeing big columns of smoke going back up. So I
think the only thing we can hope is, God, I hope it doesn't get
anywhere near what it was yesterday."
On Sunday, whirling embers
temporarily closed a fire camp near Sula, and at least eight
homes and seven other structures were lost in one gulch in that
area, officials said. Surveys in adjacent areas were expected to
bring the inventory of losses even higher. New evacuations were
ordered Monday morning in a threatened drainage along Sleeping
Child Road, southeast of Hamilton.
"We've had numerous, numerous
evacuations, and I guess I should point out, this comes to a
county that has never experienced evacuations before,"
Sheriff Johnson said. "We've just been blessed before. But
this time, I guess, the moons are all in the right position. The
air is dry, the forests are dry, and the lightning is
striking."
Sandy Allred was evacuated Sunday
night, along with residents of 250 other homes in the Pinesdale
area near Hamilton. She returned to the house Monday to pick up a
few more possessions.
"I'm better off than most
people: A lot of people lost their homes yesterday in the
Sula/Darby area. The wind's blowing this way right now, but there
are choppers up there fighting it, and they're trying to make a
line up there," Allred said.
So Many Bad Fires, So Little
Manpower
"We have so many bad fires in
the Bitterroot Valley right now," she said. "They're
really doing the best they know how, but there just aren't enough
planes and enough manpower and enough fire engines to put them
all out. There's not enough to go around."
Allred's husband, she said, would
stay behind to try to protect the house as long as he could. She
was loading up photographs, insurance papers and birth
certificates. She packed up several mattresses she recently
bought on credit. "I'm still paying on those," she
said.
A neighbor, Debbie Burt, was
advised to evacuate, but was putting it off as long as possible.
"For the moment, we've packed our stuff up, and if it gets
looking real scary, we'll leave," she said. "We're kind
of all watching."
Sunday night, about 250 Bitterroot
Valley residents met with firefighting commanders, some demanding
to know why the fire hadn't been battled more aggressively in its
early stages.
"These aren't the kind of
fires we are trying to run out in front of and stop,"
incident commander Steve Frye told them. "It just won't
work. You take the opportunities that a fire allows you to take.
It's not safe and it's not smart to do it any different."
Saving lives is of the highest
priority, he said, followed by saving what homes and structures
can be saved. "Containment," he said, "is a low,
distant, third priority."
Tuesday August 8 3:52 PM ET
Clinton Tours Wildfires Ravaging Western U.S.
Marine One carries President Clinton over a fire zone about 30 miles north of McCall, Idaho, August 8, 2000. President Clinton took a helicopter tour of a vast wildfire ravaging the Payette National Forest in Idaho Tuesday, one of dozens of blazes racing through 11 Western states. After a 40-minute air survey of the Idaho fire, Clinton released $150 million in federal aid to help the 22,000 civilian firefighters and military troops continue their battle against the flames. (Pool via Reuters)
By Arshad Mohammed
BURGDORF JUNCTION, Idaho (Reuters) - President Clinton took a helicopter tour of a vast wildfire ravaging the Payette National Forest in Idaho Tuesday, one of dozens of blazes racing through 11 Western states.
After a 40-minute air survey of the Idaho fire, Clinton released $150 million in federal aid to help the 22,000 civilian firefighters and military troops continue their battle against the flames.
``There's a big plume of smoke over there,'' Clinton said, as he looked down on a whitish-gray flare of smoke during the helicopter tour. ``It looks like a bomb going off ... ``Clinton said.
Flying around the perimeter of the Payette fire, Clinton saw broad swathes of green, smoldering and charred forests with occasional flashes of flame. He also flew near where the fire was sparked by lightning on July 9.
Fires have raged for weeks across 11 Western states from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, laying waste to nearly four million acres since January in what may be the worst fire season in nearly half a century.
``It's just amazing, isn't it, the way it runs up a ridge like that,'' Clinton said as he flew over a line of charred forest left by the fire.
After the tour, Clinton went by helicopter to the firefighters' camp at Burgdorf Junction, a tent village nestled among fir trees some 8,000 feet above sea level, in central Idaho.
At Firefighters' Camp
``Mostly we came here to say thanks,'' Clinton told several dozen firefighters dressed in yellow fire retardant jerseys. ``I know that Mother Nature will burn in our forests one way or another, but it matters how it happens. It matters that people don't die. It matters that property is saved ... You're doing that.''
Some 1,250 firefighters are battling the Payette blaze, with 25,000 acres burning and 42 percent of the fire contained. About 500 of those working at this base are U.S. Army troops.
Clinton had lunch with the firefighters who spent most of their time digging trenches on the ground and pouring water and flame retardant from the air to try to choke off the massive fires.
|
They gave the president a Pulaski, a 10-pound tool used to cut down trees and dig trenches aimed at keeping fires from spreading.
$15 MILLION A DAY FIREFIGHTING PRICE TAG
The federal government has been spending $10 million to $15 million a day to fight the blazes.
The White House also said in a statement that Clinton would direct the agriculture and the interior secretaries to make recommendations on rehabilitating burned lands, reducing the risk of fire to rural communities and ensuring adequate firefighting resources in future.
Some 20,000 civilian firefighters, more than 2,000 Army, Marine and Air Force reserve troops and crews from Canada and Mexico have labored to beat back fires on 826,802 acres, with Idaho and Montana the hardest hit this week. Fire officials from New Zealand and Australia were conferring with U.S. fire officials and weighing options for sending resources from their countries.
Firefighting efforts have failed to douse the dozens of fires burning in 11 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. At the last count, there were 66 large fires burning across those states.
The blazes, many sparked by lightning strikes, have roared through tourist sites like California's Sequoia National Forest and forced the closure of Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park.
The Mesa Verde fire was so hot that until Monday most of the work was done from the air, with planes dropping a mix of water, fertilizer and fire retardant chemicals. The fertilizer is to help seedlings germinate once the fires burn out.
Officials say so far this year some 4 million acres have burned, about twice as much as normal. If that pace keeps up, it could make 2000 one of the worst fire seasons since the 1950s.
Some 14 million acres burned in 1952 and more than 17 million acres in 1950.
The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, said on Tuesday that nine new large wildfires had erupted in the past 24 hours. Crews contained eight others. With hot and dry conditions still prevalent fire fighters saw little relief on the horizon. ``It could go on until the snow flies,'' Sharon Sweeney, a fire information officer at the interagency center said.
Montana, New Mexico and Oregon each reported one new fire in the past day, Idaho had two blazes and Nevada four. ``There was quite a lot of lightning activity in Nevada,'' Sweeney said.
Monsoon flood death
toll rises
09.08.2000 -
PATNA - A two-week monsoon deluge has left about 2.5 million people homeless, hundreds dead or missing and many others facing disease as floods sweep through India's north, east and neighbouring Bangladesh and Bhutan.
Firm figures provided by authorities in the three countries showed that more than 160 people have died.
However, officials said the final toll could be much higher because many Himalayan rivers were still raging torrents and scattered rain was forecast in some areas of the region.
"We're still flying in the dark as far as the number of people homeless are concerned, but I think you're talking over two million," said the International Federation of Red Cross and Crescent Societies' spokesman for South Asia, Patrick Fuller.
"Over the next week if the rains don't abate things are going to get a lot worse. That's when people start to die as contaminated water brings diarrhoeal diseases."
India's armed forces stepped up operations in the north and east, joining hard-pressed local authorities with helicopters and motorboats to distribute provisions, including medicine and polythene sheeting, across vast lakes of water.
In India's Bihar state, the Government said 20 people had died, about one million had been displaced, 1015 villages inundated, 4000 houses had been destroyed and road and rail links washed away.
According to the Central Water Commission the Kamlabalan, Kosi, Mahananada and Adhwara group of rivers, all originating from Nepal, were flowing above the danger mark, and the Ganges and Bagmati rivers were also dangerously high.
Officials in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh said 115 people had died in floods in the mountain province so far, but the waters were now receding.
They said between 18 and 20 helicopter sorties were being made every day for relief operations in flood-hit districts.
In the northeastern state of Assam, where 18 deaths have been reported so far, officials said the water level of most rivers had started receding.
"More than 1.6 million people have been rendered homeless due to the floods and have sought shelter in relief centres and highlands," said Manoj Deb, Assam's public relations director.
Indian Army and Air Force personnel continued with rescue and relief operations in tea and oil-rich Assam state.
About 400,000 people were marooned in Bangladesh as swollen rivers swept down from Indian hills across the border, and hundreds were also displaced in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan after a landslide diverted a river towards an industrial town.
Bangladesh's official BSS news agency and newspapers quoted reporters in affected districts as saying at least eight people had died.
They said the flood situation could get worse because many rivers, already bloated by water rolling from upper catchment areas in India, might burst their banks. Bangladesh and India share more than 50 rivers.
- REUTERS
Monday August 7 1:34 PM ET
Millions Homeless As Floods Ravage India
By Faizan Ahmad
PATNA, India (Reuters) - Floods caused by a monsoon deluge have made millions of people homeless and left hundreds dead or missing in India, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
Figures provided by authorities in the three countries on Monday showed that more than 160 people were known to have died.
Villagers help people who are stranded by the flood onto boat in Sitamarhi, the worst affected region in Bihar, August 6, 2000. Indian troops have mounted rescue and relief operations in eastern and northeastern India, where floods have marooned millions of villagers and left at least 44 dead, government officials said. (Krishna Murari Kishhan/Reuters)
Indian officials said swollen rivers had started receding after two weeks of heavy rain, but the death toll could rise as more scattered rain is forecast.
``We're still flying in the dark as far as the number of people homeless are concerned, but I think you're talking over two million,'' said Patrick Fuller, South Asia spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Crescent Societies.
India's armed forces stepped up operations in the north and east, joining hard-pressed local authorities with helicopters and motorboats to distribute provisions, including medicine and polythene sheeting, across vast lakes of water.
In India's Bihar state, the government said 20 people had died, one million had been displaced, 1,015 villages inundated, 4,000 houses destroyed and road and rail links washed away.
According to India's Central Water Commission the Kamlabalan, Kosi, Mahananada and Adhwara group of rivers, all originating in Nepal, were flowing above danger levels and the Ganges and Bagmati rivers were also dangerously high.
Officials said thousands of marooned villagers in Bihar, one of India's poorest states, had refused to move to relief camps, fearing their farm animals and belongings would be looted.
``For villagers, leaving an animal behind is like leaving a child behind,'' Atiish Chandra, administrator of flood-ravaged Sitamarhi district in Bihar, told Reuters by telephone.
He said there were some reports of looting in remote areas.
The district has 12 rivers, many of which flood the area in May every year. ``This year nothing happened in May and suddenly in August we get the worst flood ever,'' he said, adding that the rivers had started receding Monday.
Bihar officials were unprepared. ``We have enough boats to take people across rivers if bridges are washed away, but if entire villages are under four feet of water, what do we do?'' Chandra added.
Officials in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh said 115 people had died in floods in the mountain province so far, but the waters were now receding.
Villagers leave their homes in Sitamarhi, the worst affected region in India's Bihar province August 6, 2000. Indian troops have mounted rescue and relief operations in eastern and northeastern India, where floods have marooned millions of villagers and left at least 44 dead, government officials said. (Krishna Murari Kishhan/Reuters)
Some Floodwaters Receding
``The flood waters are no longer threatening us. It is the rescue and relief operations which are posing a great challenge before us. The water in Sutlej has started to recede now,'' Director-General of Police A.K. Puri said.
In the northeastern state of Assam, where 18 deaths have been reported so far, officials said the water level of most rivers had started receding.
``More than 1.6 million people have been rendered homeless due to the floods and have sought shelter in relief centers and highlands,'' said Manoj Deb, Assam's public relations director.
The Indian army and air force continued with rescue and relief operations in tea and oil-rich Assam state.
``Soldiers and air force helicopters have rescued over 5,000
