Continue reading »]]> At least 36 people have died and 23 others are missing in fresh flooding from torrential rains in China’s Gansu province, the latest in a string of natural disasters to strike China.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported that the deaths came on Monday from flooding in Longnan city near Zhouqu.

Zhouqu is where at least 1,254 people were killed as a mudslide triggered by heavy rain crashed through the city on Aug. 8.

The government says another 490 people are still missing from that disaster.

Since Aug. 11, heavy rains have pelted several counties in Longnan city, triggering landslides, Xinhua said.

It said the latest flooding left 295 people injured and more than 6,000 homes collapsed. Flooding has cut off electricity and damaged roads.

In Zhouqu on Tuesday, workers used bulldozers and cranes to dig and search for the missing as rains threatened to hinder rescue efforts, Xinhua reported.

Up to 3 inches (8 centimetres) of rain is expected in the area through Thursday, it said.

China regularly suffers devastating summer floods, but this year has been unusually severe.

Storms killed at least 1,500 people nationwide before the Zhouqu landslide and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage.

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ZHOUQU, Gansu, – The death toll from a massive rain-triggered mudslide in Zhouqu County in northwest China’s Gansu Province has risen to 702, with 1,042 others still missing, local civil affairs authorities said Tuesday afternoon.

Some 1,243 people have been rescued, Tian Baozhong, head of the provincial civil affairs department, told a news conference.

Of them, 58 who were seriously injured had been hospitalized, Ma Chengyang, deputy director of the provincial publicity department, told another press briefing Tuesday night.

Torrential rain on Saturday night prompted an avalanche of sludge and debris to crash down on the county seat of Zhouqu early Sunday morning, ripping many houses off their foundations and tearing multi-story apartment buildings in half.

The mud-rock flow has leveled an area of about 5 km long, 300 meters wide and 5 meters deep in the county seat with more than 2 million cubic meters of mud and rocks, severely damaging power, telecommunication and water supply facilities.

About 45,000 residents have been evacuated, as mudslides have destroyed more than 300 homes and damaged another 700. Moreover, 3,000 homes have been flooded.

More than 4,400 tents have reached Zhouqu but most of them have not yet been set up due to a lack of open space, Tian said.

About 16,000 more tents from the Ministry of Civil Affairs are still in Lanzhou, the provincial capital, Tian said.

The mountainous terrain has hampered disaster relief operations. Rescuers could only set up 100 tents in two settlement centers on the playgrounds of two middle schools.

“We have adequate tents, but insufficient space to pitch them,” said Zhang Hongdong, a worker with the county’s Red Cross Society.

Most people affected by the disaster sought shelter with their relatives and friends in nearby regions, Zhang added.

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Continue reading »]]> Hopes are fading of finding more survivors from flooding and landslides in north-western China, as teams worked Wednesday to stave off disease outbreaks, three days after the disaster that killed at least 702 people.

More than 1,000 people have been listed as missing, but with mud, stones and debris covering many houses, the chances of finding anyone alive are considered slight.

Instead, troops and rescue teams joined by traumatised survivors turned to recovering bodies and seeing to the needs of the living. Clean drinking water was a primary concern, with most local sources destroyed or too polluted to use.

Entire communities in Gansu province’s Zhouqu district were swallowed up when the debris-choked Bailong River jumped its banks on Sunday, releasing wave after wave of mud and rubble-strewn water. While torrential rains were the direct cause, tree cutting that left the dry hills exposed and the weakening of cliff faces by a massive 2008 earthquake were seen as contributing to the disaster.

Buildings were torn from their foundations, their lower floors blown out by the force of the debris-laden water. Three villages comprising hundreds of households were buried entirely and much of the region left submerged.

On Wednesday, emergency crews in protective suits sprayed chemical disinfectant across the ground and over machinery, the smell of death heavy in the air. State media reported numerous cases of dysentery, while infected wounds, a lack of sanitation, clean drinking water and accumulating garbage all present the risk of typhoid, cholera and other diseases.

More rain is expected in the region in coming days, the China Meteorological Administration said. At least 45,000 people have evacuated their homes and the Civil Affairs Ministry reported the delivery of 7,000 tents and 21,400 blankets to the area, with thousands more on their way. Zhouqu has a total population of 134,000, but it wasn’t clear how many needed emergency shelter.

Rescue crews were largely reliant on hand tools, with heavy equipment either unable to traverse the difficult terrain or mired in mud up to several yards (metres) deep.

Shen Si, a member of the Tibetan ethnic group native to the area, watched forlornly as troops dug to reach the bodies of her relatives inside their buried home. She said: "My mother and father were in their 60s and my younger brother, all three of them, are buried here in our house still."

China’s leadership has ordered teams to continue the search for survivors and the ruling Communist Party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee met Tuesday to discuss rescue and relief work. Flooding in China has killed about 1,800 people this year and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage across 28 provinces and regions.

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Continue reading »]]> Twenty-two people were killed and seven others remain missing as typhoon “Emong” (international name: Chan-Hom) is leaving the Philippines after devastating the country’s northeastern coasts, disaster relief authorities said yesterday.

The tyhoon, locally known as Emong, has also displaced nearly 10,000 local residents since it slammed into the Northern Luzon region late Thursday, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said in its latest bulletin.

According to the official report, low-lying villages and towns were flooded, a boat capsized, a dike collapsed and in parts of the typhoon-hit areas roads and bridges remain unusable.

The weather forecast said the typhoon is moving northeast at a speed of 11 kph with maximum sustained winds of 55 kph. It is forecasted to arrive some 520 kilometers northeast of Aparri town of northern Cagayan province yesterday evening and head towards further north.

At least 22 killed as typhoon ‘Emong’ leaves

Continue reading »]]> Along the banks of this city, the Red River surpassed its highest level in history Friday morning, forcing the emergency evacuation of one neighborhood before dawn and leading city leaders here, once cheerfully upbeat, to sound far more dire.

“We do not want to give up yet,” Mayor Dennis Walaker of Fargo said late Thursday night after receiving yet another piece of gruesome news. Forecasters now believe the Red River will go right on rising, and by Saturday overtake the record set here more than a century ago by two feet or even more, much higher than anyone here had earlier believed possible.

“We want to go down swinging — if we go down,” the mayor said, as he urged his city to summon the energy to build the dikes that protect it yet another foot higher by Friday night.

“I’m going to be devastated if we lose,” said Mr. Walaker, who had, only a few days ago, expressed optimism, even certainty, that Fargo, a city of 90,000 and North Dakota’s most populous, would be fine.

By Friday morning, some hospitals here had transferred patients to other facilities miles away, and nursing homes had sent residents to relatives’ homes on high ground. Major roads here were closed, to allow trucks carrying more loads of sandbags to reach levees as fast as possible. And after about 100 people, including some residents of a nursing home, in one Fargo neighborhood and a large swath of neighboring Moorhead, Minn., were forced to evacuate Thursday night, officials on Friday ordered residents from about 150 more Fargo homes to leave just after 2 a.m. The authorities said they found a leak in a levee near those homes, and were racing to repair it. Residents, meanwhile, could be seen trudging out by foot, bearing belongings in bone-cold temperatures, local news reports said.

While flooding conditions have threatened much of North Dakota and parts of western Minnesota, and some rural communities are already under water, all eyes on Friday were on this city and on Moorhead, a city of 34,700 just across the Red River. More than a thousand members of the National Guard had been called in to add more sand to the area’s already enormous dikes, but even weather forecasters seemed at a loss to be sure what might come next.

“This is definitely ground zero right now,” said Patrick Slattery, a spokesman for the National Weather Service. “Once you get here, into predictions above the levels we have ever seen before, you’re taking about unbroken ground. Even we don’t know for certain what’s going to happen.”

People here found themselves facing added challenges given the singular dimensions of this flood. Once the river crests on Saturday, it is expected to stay at those swelled, highest levels for several days. Dikes that hold for a few hours may be in trouble in a matter of days, the authorities here say.

The temperature here, too — 10 degrees on Friday morning with a wind chill reported at 4 degree below zero — tested the stamina of thousands of volunteers. It also led some to worry about the condition of the piles sandbags. Would sandbags slide and give way on frozen ground? Would frigid sandbags allow water to flow through rather than holding it back?

In Fargo, a city where residents continued to offer applause at public meetings for their political leaders even as the news grew worse and worse this week, tempers were clearly tested by late Thursday. Kristy Fremstad, who owns rental property in Fargo, pleaded with city officials to add sandbags to the dike near her land.

“We’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting,” she tearfully told city commissioners at an emergency meeting, (also attended by Gov. John Hoeven, Senator Byron L. Dorgan and Representative Earl Pomeroy). “I need some help.”

Schools and businesses were closed. And some people in between the city’s primary dike system and a second set of newly created emergency dikes were advised to evacuate. Volunteers, now days into their work, went right on filling sandbags at the Fargodome all through the night.

Across the bulging river, in Moorhead, residents who had been advised to evacuate found themselves on roads jammed with other cars, (and, in some cases, still covered in snow). The congested streets led some here, including Mayor Walaker, to worry about how a broader evacuation plan, if one were required, would play out here.

Adding to the complications of such a concept, local officials acknowledged, was the fact that no one could be sure where the dikes might break or what roads — given rising waters and falling snow — might be passable.

In some rural areas to the south of Fargo and elsewhere, water had already filled homes. White caps, one law enforcement officer said, could be seen around what had once been farm fields. Rescues were made with boats and helicopters, even as other residents, surrounded on all sides by water, insisted on staying put.

Around Bismarck, the state capital, flooded neighborhoods sat empty as demolition crews battled dangerous ice jams on the Missouri with explosives. Water levels had dropped some there, offering hope.

“Our biggest concern is an ice jam in the river just 10 miles north of Bismarck, which we’re hoping does not dislodge,” said Bill Wocken, that city’s administrator. “An ice jam is kind of like my teenage daughter. Sometimes there is just no way to predict what they’ll do next.”

In Grand Forks, which was devastated by flooding in 1997, two of the three bridges leading in and out of town were already closed. But city officials seemed hopeful that a $409 million Army Corps of Engineers flood protection project, completed two years ago, would save the city from the Red River this time.

“We remain cautious, vigilant and watchful,” said Kevin Dean, a city spokesman.

Fargo Neighborhood Evacuated as Waters Rise

Continue reading »]]> SUVA, Fiji (AP) — Authorities rushed on Monday to deliver clean drinking water and other supplies to thousands of villagers who fled flooding from tropical storms that have killed at least eight people on this Pacific island nation.

The government declared a state of emergency in the western districts that were the hardest hit and are also home to most of the country’s international resorts. There have been no reports of tourists in trouble.

Fiji’s largest airport in Nadi, on the main island of Viti Levu, remained open but the city was flooded and some tourists were being turned back to their points of origin.

Tourists still at resorts were advised by the National Disaster Office to hunker down in preparation for more rough weather.

“We’d planned this holiday for a year, but it’s just turned into absolute hell,” Jane Bullock, an Australian tourist, told the Australian Associated Press news agency by telephone from the Sheraton resort on Denarau Island. “It’s scary stuff, and there’s more than a mild panic setting in.”

Floodwaters were slowly subsiding Monday in some of the worst hit villages, the government said, but forecasters predicted more heavy rain later this week.

“There’s another depression heading toward Fiji within the next two days and that will bring an additional threat,” Aisea Qumihajelo, the acting chief of disaster management, told The Associated Press on Monday.

Four days of torrential rains have flooded the towns of Nadi, Ba, Sigatoka and Labasa and many rural villages on Viti Levu, he said. Sugar cane crops have been washed out, roads severed and bridges submerged by surging floodwaters.

Authorities said six people drowned in floodwaters and two were killed in a landslide.

More than 6,000 people have been forced into emergency shelters in schools and other public buildings.

The military ruler, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, declared an emergency in parts of Veti Levu, allowing authorities to impose night curfews to deter looting.

New Zealand announced $59,000 (NZ$100,000) in funding to assist relief efforts by the Fiji Red Cross.

The Associated Press: Floods in Fiji kill 8; thousands seek shelter

Continue reading »]]> Three provinces in Thailand’s 14-province southern region have been hard hit by floods as a seasonal monsoon is creating havoc in the region, especially Narathiwat, Phattalung, and Yala where Thai Army units have been pressed into service to help evacuate communities that are cut off.

About 1,000 houses have been flooded in the southern province of Narathiwat, hard hit by heavy rain for almost a week.

Many roads are impassable and government offices and houses are under water. All trains have been halted due to inundated stretches of track making passage impossible.

Flash floods from the Sankalakhiri mountain range in Sukhirin district poured into the main rivers in the province, with rivers and waterways overflowing and causing flooding in 13 districts.

More than 3,000 homes have been affected while eight districts were hardest hit by the flooding.

A portion of train track was damaged and all train services were suspended when railway workers were fixing the track.

Rescue workers are ready to respond to any emergency situation in five southern provinces while the local meteorological department warned local residents in disaster-prone areas to beware of possible flash flood as the northeastern monsoon prevails the Gulf of Thailand and the southern region.

In Phattalung, five low-lying districts are under about one metre of floodwater. Some 30 households moved to stay at roadside temporary shelters.

In Yala’s Raman district, the Saiburi river overflowed its banks, flooding low lying areas along the river, forcing local residents to move their belongings to higher ground. Some roads are under two metres of floodwater and villagers must use small boats to travel.

Yala declared three districts as disaster zone areas as almost 100 villages are flooded, with more than 7,600 residents of Raman, Yaha and Kronpinang districts affected by the floods.

Military units are helping evacuate locals to higher ground as most roads are impassable. (TNA)

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Continue reading »]]> HANOI – UNSEASONAL floods in central Vietnam have killed at least five people and left three others missing and feared dead in recent days, national emergency services and state media reports said on Sunday.

Four men were swept away in floods and one woman drowned when her small fishing boat sank in a swollen river as heavy rains hit Quang Nam and Quang Ngai provinces, said the National Flood and Storm Control Committee in Hanoi.

More than 5,000 houses were destroyed or damaged, and almost 75,000 hectares of crops were under water, it said in an online report.

According to the state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA), 20 to 30 centimetres of rain fell in recent days and caused flooding of up to 80 centimetres.

Vietnam is hit by a series of typhoons, tropical storms and floods every year – mostly between July and November – which in 2008 killed at least 550 people, according to the communist government’s General Statistics Office.

Total material damage reached more than US$700 million (S$1.02 billion) during the year, VNA said. — AFP

5 dead in Vietnam floods

Continue reading »]]> CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The floods that hit three cities in Northern Mindanao have now affected at least 67,000 people, or more than 17,000 families, with seven persons reported missing and at least one dead, disaster councils reported late yesterday afternoon.

At least 5,480 families or about 27,375 persons in Cagayan de Oro City alone were affected by flash floods that hit the region’s capital city since Friday, the City Disaster Coordinating Council (CDCC) and the military reported.

The villages severely affected in Cagayan de Oro were Barangays 6, 7, 13, 15, 17 and Barangays Carmen, Balulang, Consolacion, Gusa, Taguanao, Kauswagan, Macasandig and Tablon, authorities said.

The CDCC and the Army’s 4th “Diamond” Division said flood victims are temporarily housed in various evacuation centers located in barangay halls, health centers and the city’s tourism hall.

They said that at least 3,954 families or 19,766 persons have already been served their immediate needs by the CDCC and the city government.

Rescue teams from the CDCC and the Rescue 2000 group are also stepping up their search and rescue operations for the reported seven missing persons.

Maj. Gen. Ricardo A. David Jr., area command chief of the 4th Infantry Division that covers Northern and Northeastern Mindanao, said the division’s “Diamond Rescue Team” have joined in the search and rescue operations.

Two of the missing were identified as 5-year-old Christina Dapasula and 6year-old Angel Vencio.

“Some of the flood victims have returned to their respective homes late Sunday afternoon while other victims are still at various evacuation centers,” said regional Army spokesman Maj. Michele B. Anayron, Jr.

He said that in Gingoog City, at least 1,264 families or about 5,989 persons were affected by the flash floods, with one reported dead.

In Iligan City, at least 10 barangays were reportedly flooded with 7,591 families or about 34,279 persons affected, while 28 houses were totally damaged.

Rescue teams from the different disaster councils in the three affected cities were already deployed in several floodprone and low-lying areas as overflowing creeks and rivers nearby aggravated the problems of residents in Iligan, Cagayan de Oro and Gingoog, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) reported.

A separate report also reaching this city said that an undetermined number of persons were trapped in the Bayug and Manauang areas when cascading floodwaters hit the two barangays on Thursday and Friday in Iligan City.

“We are still verifying these reports and we cannot confirm yet until official reports come in,” said Northern Mindanao OCD Director Carmelito Lupo.

Reports reaching the OCD also said that two children were rescued by disaster teams from a lowlying barangay here in Cagayan de Oro.

Some of the flood victims, particularly those families living in nearby creeks and rivers in the three cities, have already fled and evacuated to safer areas, some of them in barangay halls, health centers and basketball courts, the OCD report said.

The Regional Disaster Coordinating Council (RDCC) in Northern Mindanao had already mobilized all disaster councils to assist the flood victims, added Lupo.

A landslide was also reported along the national highway in Lanuza, Surigao del Sur.

It was learned that a low pressure area along the eastern part of Surigao triggered heavy rains in several areas in Northern and Northeastern Mindanao regions.

Meanwhile, search and rescue (SAR) teams of the Philippine Coast Guard also rescued at least 1,000 persons from various flooded barangays in Cagayan de Oro City, using rubber boats to pluck out affected residents marooned by high water levels that reached the roofs of houses.

As of yesterday afternoon, Coast Guard commandant Vice Admiral Wifredo D. Tamayo identified four of those rescued as John Sanchez, 22, of Barangay Bonbon, Orthan Lagam, 35, Alvin Gaaca, 42, and Rudy Lazaro, 40.

Lagam, Gaaca and Lazaro were spotted by PCG rescue teams on top of a half-submerged motor banca. Lagam and Garcia were conscious but Lazaro was unconscious and was given first aid by PCG medical teams.

Tamayo said the survivors were turned over to local rescue unit “Oro Alert’ head Sindolfo Edrote.

He said Coast Guard SAR vessels BRP Romblon (SARV 3503) with special operations group divers were continuing rescue operations and have proceeded to Gingoog City in Misamis Oriental and Iligan City in Lanao del Norte.

The Coast Guard operations were launched in support of the Office of Civil Defense, Philippine Army, local government units and other government agencies, including the Philippine National Red Cross and the Department of Social Work and Development, said Tamayo.

Manila Bulletin Online

Continue reading »]]> DETROIT – Wind gusting more than 60 mph knocked out power to about 413,000 Michigan homes and businesses on Sunday as temperatures dipped back into the 20s and 30s.

Meanwhile, flood warnings were posted throughout the Midwest as temperatures rose after a week of heavy snowfall. Forecasters said flooding was possible in areas of Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Michigan and Indiana.

In Michigan, high wind knocked down tree limbs and power lines. Parts of the state also got about 4 inches of snow.

“We’ve had an intensifying storm system track northeast through the state,” said Mark Sekelsky, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids. “As that storm intensified, it brought the winds.”

Detroit-based DTE Energy Co. said about 230,000 lost power Sunday, mostly in Wayne and Oakland counties. Crews were working, but spokesman Scott Simons said 10 percent of the 155,000 customers blacked out Sunday night would have to remain without power into Thursday.

“We’re still assessing,” Singer said.

CMS Energy Corp. subsidiary Consumers Energy said about 183,000 of its customers lost power because of the winds and 91,000 remained blacked out Sunday night. Consumers said it couldn’t predict when power might be restored because the winds continued.

Crews from Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio aided Michigan’s power restoration efforts.

Strong winds also gusted across upstate New York, reaching 75 mph in the Buffalo area and toppling some power poles and trees. Nearly 16,000 customers were without power in five western and northern counties. In New York City, residents relaxed as temperatures reached the mid-60s Sunday.

Melting snow and ice caused problems in the Midwest. In southeastern Wisconsin, the National Weather Service predicted the Fox River would crest about a foot over flood stage Tuesday in the town of Wheatland.

Flooding along U.S. 31 in Holland, Mich., forced Amtrak to cancel a train from Chicago to Grand Rapids on Saturday night, and at least 300 passengers were taken to buses to complete their trips, WZZM-TV reported.

Amtrak canceled one train Sunday night and one Monday morning between Chicago and Grand Rapids because of the weather, Amtrak spokeswoman Tracy Connell said.

High wind knocks out power to 413,000 in Mich. – Yahoo! News