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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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New Delhi, India – It was on August 7, when two Panamanian cargo ships collided off the Mumbai coast causing an oil spill from one of the two vessels that is threatening the Mumbai coast.

Indian Coast Guard officials said no casualties were reported to the 33 crew members who were rescued after the incident.

According to Coast Guard officials, the outbound merchant vessel from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), collided with MV Khalijia-III, five nautical miles from the shores at 9:50 am when the latter was sailing towards Mumbai Port Trust (MPT), off Mumbai harbour, for berthing.

A senior Coast Guard official said on condition of that the spill was “significant” but claimed the situation was “under control”. However, shipping lanes off India’s commercial hub Mumbai may be closed for another two days because of the oil spill.

The collision left the Panamanian vessel tilting in the water, although it has now been stabilized with no more oil leaking from containers on its deck, according to S.S. Dasila, an Indian coast guard commandant.

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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 »]]> A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.9 rocked Japan’s southern islands, injuring two and prompting fears of a tsunami.

There were no reports of serious damage from the quake, believed to be the strongest in a century to hit Japan’s southern Okinawa Island. Japan’s Kyodo news agency said two people were hurt, but there were no reports of any deaths.

The Meteorological Agency says the quake occurred off the coast of the island of Okinawa at a depth of 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) at 5:31 a.m. Saturday (2031 GMT Friday).

The Meteorological Agency had initially predicted a tsunami up to 6 feet (2 meters) near the Okinawan coast and warned nearby residents to stay away from the coastline. The agency lifted the warning within two hours.

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Typhoon Morakot has killed at least 124 people and left 56 missing in Taiwan as of 10 p.m. Saturday, according to local disaster response authorities.

Another 45 people were injured after the typhoon, the worst on the island in nearly five decades, wreaked havoc across central and southern regions.

Sixty-six people died in Kaohsiung, 25 in Tainan, 16 in Pingdong, six in Chiayi, seven in Nantou, three in Changhua and one in Yunlin.

Nearly 23,700 people have been evacuated, and almost 5,000 are taking refuge in 170 sheltering camps.

Morakot has caused more than 12 billion New Taiwan Dollars (365million U.S. dollars) in damages to agriculture and forestry. Among the worst-hit regions are Pingdong, Kaohsiung and Tainan.

People from a wide range of social sectors in Taiwan have donated cash and materials worth millions of New Taiwan Dollars to support the disaster-relief work.

Charities and enterprises on the mainland also offered relief-assistance to the island.

On Saturday, an official with the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said the mainland will provide any necessary relief materials needed by Taiwan compatriots affected by the typhoon.

The office has requested factories to manufacture portable shelters day and night, and the first batch is expected to arrive in Taiwan Monday at the soonest.

Typhoon Morakot kills 124, injures 45 in Taiwan

Continue reading »]]> Taiwan leaders, already under fire over the response to a typhoon that likely killed hundreds, have accepted foreign aid after earlier refusing the offers, officials said on Saturday, as the president apologized.

Trying to repair its image after Typhoon Morakot caused widespread landslides in southern Taiwan, the government on Friday asked major world donors for equipment, a foreign ministry official said. Aid offers were initially refused on Tuesday.

“In our first message, we said we didn’t need help, just money,” said Joanne Ou, head of the ministry’s publicity section. “But on (Thursday) the ministry asked the disaster center what we needed. We asked them for a list.”

Local media, reflecting public sentiment, bashed the government for declining aid earlier in the week.

The ministry has approached Japan, the United States and European countries for supplies such as large helicopters and mobile homes, Ou said.

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, pressured by the public over his response to the typhoon damage, on Friday estimated the eventual death toll at more than 500, mostly people feared buried in a massive landslide in one mountain village.

COULD DRAIN SUPPORT

Survivors and Taiwan’s main opposition party have accused Ma of responding too slowly to the typhoon that hit last weekend, the island’s worst since 1959. The official death toll is 123.

Ma, touring a disaster area in central Taiwan, apologized on Saturday.

“Ma said the government response was a bit slow and expressed apologies for that,” his spokesman Tony Wang said.

Sustained pressure on Ma, who was elected in 2008, could drain support for his Nationalist Party (KMT) in city and county elections in December, analysts say.

The foreign aid snafu pointed to poor communication between government offices and may be remembered, said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taipei.

Taiwan seeks foreign aid after typhoon catastrophe

Continue reading »]]> Chinese rescue workers searched for dozens of people believed to be trapped by a massive landslide in the southwest city of Chongqing on Saturday, a state-run news agency reported.

Rescuers said about 80 people were buried in debris from the landslide and have almost no chance of survival, Xinhua reported. But rescuers hope to save 27 miners trapped under a mine in the area, the agency reported.

Rescuers pulled out seven injured people on Friday, including four who were seriously hurt.

The accident happened about 3 p.m. Friday at an iron ore mining area in Jiwei Mountain.

A government spokesman said the landslide destroyed 12 rural houses and buried a mining area.

The landslide cut off power and communications in many parts of the town, but 500 rescuers were still searching the area, Xinhua reported.

Massive landslide buries dozens in China

Continue reading »]]> The death toll from Cyclone Aila reached 40 yesterday after it lashed eastern India and Bangladesh and stranded thousands in their flooded villages.

The storm destroyed nearly 3000 thatched and mud houses and toppled trees in nearly 300 villages across India’s West Bengal state, said state minister Kanti Ganguly.

Cyclone kills 40 in India, Bangladesh

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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

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The Eastern Dam collapsed after reservoir overflowed due to heavy rains. Health Officials estimates death toll to reach 100.

Rescue workers are still searching for survivors, the tragedy already claimed 52 victims. Aerial photos shows an enormous hole on the dam.

Emergency crews evacuated hundreds of survivors, including terrified children weeping with fear, from the flood zone. Others paddled out on their own makeshift rafts.

Indonesia continues search after dam burst kills 52