3 deaths in Missouri as tornado strikes state capital

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A “violent tornado” touched down in Jefferson City, causing heavy damage in Missouri’s capital city as severe weather swept across the state overnight, causing three deaths and leaving many people trapped in the wreckage of their homes.

The service reported that a “confirmed large and destructive tornado” was observed over Jefferson City at 11:43 p.m. Wednesday, moving northeast at 40 mph (64 kph). The capital city has a population of about 40,000 and is located about 130 miles (209 kilometers) west of St. Louis.

“Across the state, Missouri’s first responders once again responded quickly and with strong coordination as much of the state dealt with extremely dangerous conditions that left people injured, trapped in homes, and tragically led to the death of three people,” Governor Mike Parson said.

“I want our responders and all the neighbors who acted selflessly to help their neighbors to know how much their heroic efforts are appreciated by all Missourians.”

Missouri Public Safety confirmed in a tweet that three people were killed in the Golden City area of Barton County, and several injured in the Carl Junction area of Jasper County

Jefferson City Police Lt. David Williams said around 2:15 a.m. Thursday that there were no reports of fatalities in the capital, but authorities had received multiple calls of people being trapped in homes.

The tornado hit during a week that has seen several days of tornadoes and torrential rains in parts of the Southern Plains and Midwest.

“It’s a chaotic situation right now,” Williams said.

Williams spoke from the Cole County Sheriff’s office, where debris including insulation, roofing shingles and metal pieces lay on the ground outside the front doors.


Area hospitals did not see an immediate influx of patients but set up command centers in case the need arises.

“We have four patients with minor injuries,” said Jessica Royston, spokeswoman at St. Mary’s Health Center.

Power outages were reported in parts of the city.

Missouri Public Safety tweeted that there was a possibility of more tornadoes and flash flooding.

Austin Thomson, 25, was in the laundry room of his apartment complex to do his wash and noticed the wind started picking up.

He saw sheets of rain coming down and a flagpole bend and then slam to the ground.

The windows broke and he dove behind the washers and dryers.

After it calmed down, he walked outside to check the damage.

“There’s basically one building that’s basically one story now. Every building there is two stories.”

The National Weather Service said it had received 22 reports of tornadoes by late Wednesday, although some of those could be duplicate reporting of the same twister.

One tornado skirted just a few miles north of Joplin, Missouri, on the eighth anniversary of a catastrophic tornado that killed 161 people in the city. The tornado caused some damage in the town of Carl Junction, about 4 miles (6.44 kilometers) north of the Joplin airport.

Storms and torrential rains have ravaged the Midwest, from Texas through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.

Two barges broke loose and floated swiftly down the swollen Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma on Wednesday, spreading alarm downstream as they threatened to hit a dam.

Authorities urged residents of several small towns in Oklahoma and Kansas to leave their homes as rivers and streams rose.

The Arkansas River town of Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, was one such town. Town officials ordered a mandatory evacuation Wednesday afternoon because of the river’s rising level.

But Wednesday evening, a posting on the town’s official Facebook page sounded the alarm about the runaway barges for its 600 residents: “Evacuate Webbers Falls immediately. The barges are loose and has the potential to hit the lock and dam 16. If the dam breaks, it will be catastrophic!! Leave now!!”

There was no word by midnight Wednesday where the barges were on the river, but local television stations showing live video of the river and the lock and dam said they had not yet arrived.

The Arkansas River was approaching historic highs, while the already high Missouri and Mississippi Rivers were again rising after a multi-day stretch of storms that produced dozens of tornadoes. Forecasters predicted parts of Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas could see more severe weather on Thursday.

Deaths from this week’s storms include a 74-year-old woman found early Wednesday morning in Iowa.

Officials there say she was killed by a possible tornado that damaged a farmstead in Adair County. Missouri authorities said heavy rain was a contributing factor in the deaths of two people in a traffic accident Tuesday near Springfield.

A fourth weather-related death may have occurred in Oklahoma, where the Highway Patrol said a woman apparently drowned after driving around a barricade Tuesday near Perkins, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) northeast of Oklahoma City.

The unidentified woman’s body was sent to the state medical examiner’s office to confirm the cause of death. Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Keli Cain said she isn’t yet listed as what would be the state’s first storm-related death. /gg

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

California wildfire death toll: 2 firefighters, great-grandmother, 2 children

REDDING, California — Two young children and their 70-year-old great-grandmother died in the wildfire that swept into the city of Redding with devastating speed, their family said Saturday, and a bulldozer operator who died working to contain the fire was identified as an 81-year-old man from a small community east of Sacramento.

A tearful Sherry Bledsoe confirmed the deaths of her grandmother, Melody Bledsoe, and her children, James Roberts, 5, and Emily Roberts, 4.

The fatalities brought the death toll to five since the so-called Carr Fire started burning Monday. It exploded Thursday, jumped the Sacramento River and entered the Redding city limits.


The Shasta County Sheriff’s Department identified the bulldozer operator as Don Ray Smith of Pollock Pines. He was overtaken by flames while on the job and his body was found Thursday.

Authorities previously identified another firefighter fatality as Redding Fire Department Inspector Jeremy Stoke, who was killed on the job Thursday night. Details have not been released.

Donna Araiza, founder of the Alyssa Araiza “Wings of Angels” organization for seriously ill children, said Stoke regularly donated to her group, as well as the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

“He and his wife, Alyson, were always supporting us,” Araiza told the Record Searchlight, Redding’s daily newspaper. “He was a generous and a good man.”

The Bledsoes lived near the Keswick Estates neighborhood, and their home, like many around it, was reduced to ashes. The tragedy leaves Ed Bledsoe without his wife and the great-grandchildren he doted on.

“He lost everything. Everything. You can’t lose more than family. And then you lose everything on top of that?” said Don Kewley, whose girlfriend is one of the Bledsoes’ granddaughters. “The man’s got the shirt on his back and the pants on his waist. Like that’s it.”

Ed Bledsoe had headed out for supplies Thursday thinking the flames were far away, but while shopping he received a desperate call from his great-grandson. The boy said he had to come back to the home. Flames were closing in.

“We need your help,” the boy said, according to Jason Decker, who is the boyfriend of another Bledsoe granddaughter.


Kewley said the family believed the area was not in imminent danger and Melody Bledsoe had no car.

Ed Bledsoe rushed home, but was turned back by police. The fire was raging and there were walls of flames.

Decker took the day off work Friday and drove his motorcycle to the home to look for members of the family but only found the smoldering remains of the house.

A day later, what remained of the Bledsoe property was surrounded with crime scene tape.

Decker said his own children played with James and Emily and they had trick-or-treated together.

“I don’t even have any more tears to cry,” Decker said. “But I keep finding them.”   /kga

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Hope fading for survivors as Mexico search enters third day

Mexico City, Mexico —Mexico waited anxiously on Thursday for signs of life in the rubble of collapsed buildings as a desperate search for survivors of a devastating earthquake entered a third day.

Authorities put the death toll following Tuesday’s 7.1 magnitude quake at more than 250 people, with the number expected to rise.

Rescue workers scrabbled to remove tons of rubble at dozens of flattened buildings in the capital and across several central states.

But time is running out. Experts say the average survival time in such conditions and depending on injuries is 72 hours.

Authorities put the overall death toll at 272 — 137 in Mexico City, 73 in Morelos state, 43 in Puebla, 13 in Mexico state, five in Guerrero and one in Oaxaca.

However, the situation on the ground was chaotic, and the figures were rising — and sometimes falling.

Phantom schoolgirl

Highlighting the confusion that still reigned two days after the quake, one story that gripped the world’s attention turned out to be false: that of a girl supposedly trapped alive beneath the rubble of a school that collapsed in Mexico City.

Authorities denied Thursday that the girl existed.

“We have carried out a full count with the directors of the school and we are sure that all the children are either safe at home, in the hospital or unfortunately died,” Angel Enrique Sarmiento, a top officer in the Mexican marines, told journalists at the ruins of the Enrique Rebsamen school on the capital’s south side.

“There are indications there may be an (adult) still alive in the rubble. There are traces of blood, photographs, as if the person had dragged him or herself and may still be alive,” he added.

Rescue workers had told journalists they were certain a girl was alive beneath the rubble, but the different versions of the story varied widely.

The story had made headlines around the world after the quake, injecting a ray of hope into a tragedy that killed 19 children and six adults at the school.

‘I need volunteers here’

But real stories of hope continued to emerge from ruined buildings across the city, where more than 10,000 people lost their lives in a devastating earthquake in 1985.

In the north of the city, a man who had been trapped for 26 hours and a 90-year-old woman were pulled alive from the rubble.

Residents of San Gregorio in the tourist-magnet Xochimilco neighborhood in Mexico City’s far south were angry at the lack of material aid and volunteers.

“I need volunteers! Yesterday everything arrived and now there is nobody. They come, they do some disaster tourism, and they leave,” one volunteer who gave his name as Morales told AFP.

San Gregorio was badly hit by the quake with many collapsed buildings and others in a state of near-collapse.

Rescue teams were helped by thousands of ordinary civilians who dug through the rubble alongside them. Other Mexicans took to the streets with food and water for victims and emergency workers.

International solidarity

President Enrique Pena Nieto toured the hardest-hit areas and declared three days of national mourning.

“The priority remains saving lives,” he said Wednesday night in a broadcast to a grieving nation, insisting there was still hope of finding survivors.

More than 50 people have been rescued from collapsed buildings in the capital, he said.

US President Donald Trump called Pena Nieto and offered assistance and search-and-rescue teams which were quickly being deployed, the White House said.

Rescue teams have flown in from Israel, El Salvador and Panama and more were expected from Ecuador, Honduras, Colombia and Spain.

Rescuers said the Israeli teams came with equipment enabling them to detect cell phone signals within the rubble.

The earthquake hit on the anniversary of a huge quake in 1985 that killed more than 10,000 people, the disaster-prone country’s deadliest ever.

Tuesday’s temblor struck just two hours after Mexico held a national earthquake drill, as it does every September 19 to remember the 1985 disaster.

A system of quake sensors was set up in 1993 along the Pacific coast, where tremors are more common.

People in Mexico City were not warned by it on Tuesday because the epicenter was only 120 kilometers (75 miles) outside the capital and thus outside the main area of sensor coverage, said Carlos Valdes of the National Center for Disaster Prevention.

Adding to the national sense of vulnerability, the earthquake struck just 12 days after another quake that killed nearly 100 people in southern Mexico.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

So far, cellphone networks have weathered Harvey

NEW YORK —Roads, refineries and other infrastructure have taken a beating in the Texas and Louisiana regions hit by Harvey — but cellphone networks so far remain largely functional.

One reason: Big carriers brought in supplemental equipment and backup power and turned to drones to diagnose problems.

Four Gulf Coast counties northeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, had more than half of their cell towers knocked out earlier in the week, but crews have been able to restore many of them. As of Thursday, one of the most heavily hit areas, Aransas County, reported 32 percent of its 28 towers out.

That’s down from 95 percent right after the weekend’s storm, according to data from the Federal Communications Commission.

Throughout the affected region, slightly less than 4 percent of cell towers were out.

While cellphone services fared well, hundreds of thousands of people lost landline or other wired phone services, according to the FCC. Some 911 centers had to transfer calls to neighboring centers, while some television stations lost broadcast capabilities.

Here’s a look at communications in the affected regions.

Cellphone Services

All told, the devastating storm knocked out fewer than 400 of the 7,804 cell towers in the affected counties; just 296 were down as of Thursday. By contrast, Hurricane Katrina disabled more than 1,000 cell towers in 2005.

Cell towers typically have backup batteries and generators so they can keep operating in a power outage. The problem comes when generators run out of fuel. Verizon spokeswoman Karen Schulz said crews prepared by topping off all generators ahead of the storm. The company also bought spare fuel and had refueling trucks on standby at key locations.

In a few cases, there’s been damage to the fiber lines that connect cell towers to communications centers. In such cases, it might be possible to get a signal, but the data isn’t going anywhere. Schulz said Verizon has microwave technology to temporarily bridge those gaps.

Verizon and AT&T have both sent out drones to assess damage at cell towers. Crews are still necessary for repairs, but the drone inspections allow companies to determine whether a tower simply needs refueling or requires extensive repair. Cellphone companies also sent truck-based mobile cell towers to areas needing greater capacity.

Emergency Services

As of Thursday, only 7 of the region’s 911 centers were out of service, all in Texas, although all were able to reroute calls to neighboring call centers. That’s down from 11 on Wednesday.

Four of those centers still aren’t able to get callers’ location information automatically, which can be a problem if the caller is unable to speak. Earlier in the week, two centers were down completely, but both have since been restored.

The bigger problem is call volume. Many callers in the Houston area were placed on hold until a dispatcher was free, said Trey Forgety of the nonprofit National Emergency Number Association. In a few cases, callers got busy signals.

“We’re part of the telephone era, so if you want to move calls around (to neighboring centers), you have to go physically rewire things,” he said.

Wired Services

The FCC said that at the peak of the outage, at least 283,000 households lost wired phone services — both traditional landlines and internet phones such as cable. That was down to about 270,000 by Thursday, a slight uptick from Wednesday. In comparison, Katrina knocked out more than 3 million phone lines.

People are far less dependent on wired phone services these days. U.S. households with only cellphone service hit a majority for the first time in the second half of 2016, according to a government survey.

Broadcast Services

The FCC said two Texas television stations — KFDM and KBTV in Beaumont — were out of service as of Thursday, one less than the day before. The outages appeared to affect only over-the-air broadcasts, as the stations streamed their channels online.
Several radio stations also lost service — nine as of Thursday, all in Texas. Five stations were down on Wednesday.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Tornadoes slam southeast Louisiana, injuring dozens

NEW ORLEANS — Brittany Ross remembers she was savoring the smell of her aunt’s simmering white beans when the storm that injured about 40 people in southeastern Louisiana hit.

“The place started shaking, kind of twisting,” she said Tuesday as she stood amid the wreckage at a small trailer park in eastern New Orleans.

The tornado, she said, lifted the trailer off the ground and slammed it down.

Ross, 26, her aunt and two others crawled out of the wreckage amid flying debris — uninjured, but suddenly homeless.

The tornadoes that struck Ross’ home and other parts of southeastern Louisiana destroyed homes and businesses, flipped cars and trucks, and left thousands without power, but no deaths were reported, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said.

The governor took an aerial tour and made a disaster declaration before meeting with officials in New Orleans. The worst damage was in the same 9th Ward that was so heavily flooded in 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

Edwards, a Democrat, said he was heartbroken to see some of the same people suffering again, and promised that the state will provide the affected residents with the resources they need as quickly as possible.

He said seven parishes were hit by tornadoes in an afternoon of tumultuous weather across southeastern Louisiana.

The storm ripped apart homes, toppled a gas station canopy, snapped tall power poles and flipped a food truck upside-down. It left shards of metal hanging from trees, and trapped a truck driver as power lines wrapped around his cab.

The wall of severe weather also delivered heavy rain and hail to Mississippi and Alabama.

Artie Chaney said her granddaughter had just pulled up to the house from school.

“(Hail) rocks were falling on the car, and I was looking out the side door and saw the clouds moving fast. I heard this sound. We looked up in the air and we could see debris in the distance and before we knew it, it was just barreling down on us,” Chaney recalled.

“We ran in the house; the lights went out. We ran down the hallway to the middle bedroom and then we just heard glass shattering. We thought we weren’t gonna make it. It seemed like it lasted a long time. It was a horrible experience. We were just so grateful to God that nobody was hurt.”

Chaney said, her voice breaking as she looked at the damage, “We went through all of Katrina, with no damage. I didn’t think I’d be starting over again.”

The Baton Rouge area also got hit. Ascension Parish Sheriff’s spokeswoman Allison Hudson said three people suffered minor injuries and several homes and buildings were damaged in the historic part of Donaldsonville, about 20 miles southwest of the capital.

In Killian, just east of Baton Rouge, the mayor said several houses were destroyed and several others damaged, but an elderly couple suffered the only injuries he knew of: one, a broken leg; the other, a broken arm.

“How you manage to get blown completely across the street with cinderblocks flying and no worse than a couple broken limbs — apparently the good Lord was looking after them,” Mayor Craig McGehee said.

An official at NASA’s Michoud facility in New Orleans said it suffered some structural damage but the deep-space equipment being built there does not appear to have been harmed.

Steve Doering said the hardware and tooling used in the Orion and Space Launch System projects were not damaged, but Michoud will have to make a “significant effort” to cover everything up so any subsequent bad weather doesn’t affect it while the building’s roof and walls are repaired.

Two Mississippi counties reported wind damage, but no injuries, from suspected tornadoes. Other areas of Mississippi saw heavy rain and hail from the storm system that spawned multiple tornadoes in Louisiana. –Kevin McGill

* * *

Associated Press writers Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Janet McConnaughey, Chevel Johnson, Rebecca Santana and Gerald Herbert in New Orleans contributed to this report.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Thousands evacuated due to Alberta, Canada wildfire — official

MONTREAL, Canada — Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate a city in the Canadian oil sands region due to a major wildfire approaching Fort McMurray’s north end, officials said Tuesday.

The fire was “growing rapidly” toward the city in Alberta province. Mandatory evacuations were now in effect for seven neighborhoods in the city of 100,000, according to an alert issued around 3:30 pm (2130 GMT) by Alberta emergency authorities.

Shortly afterwards, the situation worsened.

“A number of evacs under way, and likely more to come. Be calm. Be prepared. Be ready to move politely in traffic to a safe destination,” Mayor Melissa Blake tweeted.

Long lines of cars headed north via the main highway of the city after police closed the southward lanes.

Authorities urged residents to head toward evacuation centers some 20 kilometers (12 miles) away.

The fire, which was contained until Monday south of Fort McMurray, was pushed toward the city by winds and quickly reached homes, helped by a drought in Alberta. The province saw record temperatures of nearly 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) on Tuesday.

On Monday, an alert was issued and some 500 people were evacuated as a precaution due to smoke from the wildfire.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Disruptions from twin quakes in southern Japan hit economy

TOKYO — The twin earthquakes that have paralyzed parts of southern Japan are having ripple effects far beyond the disaster zone, with automakers and other manufacturers suspending output in other areas due to disruptions in its parts supplies.

Toyota Motor Corp. says it has stopped production at a factory in Kyushu, where the quakes struck late Thursday and early Saturday, killing at least 42 people and leaving nearly 1,100 people injured.

The shutdown will progress to other plants in Japan through Friday. Output will resume depending on the availability of parts.

Honda Motor Corp. said production at its factory in Kumamoto, the largest city seriously affected by the quakes, would be suspended until Friday.

“Subsequent production plans will be determined according to facility restorations and component supply,” the company said in a statement.

The powerful earthquakes have caused electricity outages and disruptions to water supplies. Roads and airports in the region were affected, with some damaged areas in hard-to-reach mountain areas cut off by landslides that blocked roads and bridges.

Supply chain disruptions will hurt output by various manufacturers, including Toyota, which is cutting its output in Japan by 50,000 in April, according to the financial newspaper Nikkei, or about 8 percent of total production. Tourism will also take a big hit.

“The impact to near-term economic activity looks inevitable, while the comprehensive picture is difficult to gauge now, particularly due to the continued aftershocks,” Masamichi Adachi of J.P.Morgan said in a commentary. Overall, the risk to the outlook for growth is “to the downside” he said.




Some of the worst affected areas are deep in the mountains surrounding Mount Aso, Japan’s largest active volcano, an area renowned for dairy farming. But one of the hardest hit cities was Mashiki, a center for semiconductor fabrication and other manufacturing.

Though much of Toyota’s manufacturing is centered in central Japan’s Aichi prefecture, the company has suppliers scattered across Japan and worldwide. Up to 15 plants could be affected by the quake-related disruptions, according to a statement the company released Sunday.

Japanese share prices fell Monday, though there were multiple reasons for gloom. Apart from the potential impact of the quakes, an effort by major producers to shore up oil prices by freezing output fell apart over the weekend and the Japanese yen surged, in another potential blow to manufacturers who benefit when the yen weakens.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 3.1 percent to 16,307.11. Toyota’s shares lost 1.3 percent, Nissan Motor Co., which also has suspended output at a plant in Kyushu, lost 3.7 percent and Sony Corp. shed 3.5 percent.

source: business.inquirer.net

Death toll in northeast India, Bangladesh quake rises to 11

IMPHAL, India - The powerful earthquake struck northeast India and Bangladesh on Monday has killed at least 11 people and injuring nearly 200, with efforts to reach remote areas where people may be trapped hampered by severed power lines and telecommunication links.

The US Geological Survey said the 6.8 magnitude quake was 57 km (35 miles) deep and struck 29 km (18 miles) west of Imphal, capital of India's Manipur state, which borders Myanmar.

The pre-dawn quake killed six people in India and five in neighboring Bangladesh, officials said, while shockwaves were felt in the Himalayan nation of Nepal and as far away as the Myanmar city of Yangon, about 1,175 km (730 miles) to the south.

The quake struck while many people were asleep, and roofs and staircases of some buildings collapsed in Imphal, a city of about 270,000 people.

"It was like being tossed around in a frying pan," said Joy Thanglian, a 33-year-old employee of state energy firm Bharat Petroleum.

Police and hospitals in Imphal said the death toll had reached six with 100 people injured, 33 of them seriously.

Officials in Bangladesh said as well as the five people who died of heart attacks as they fled buildings, about 90 people were injured.

Rescue workers in Imphal used hand-held drilling machines to clear rubble from the ruins of a six-storey building under construction, the site of the heaviest damage in the city.

"I didn't feel the tremor, but when I woke up the entire ceiling had collapsed on me," said R.K. Ewansana, a 21-year-old student, who was on the first floor but survived as the rest of the building collapsed around him.

Residents said people fled from their homes, and power and telecoms links were down in the remote region.

At Imphal's airport, flights were normal, although a boundary wall collapsed, and a crack appeared in the terminal building, said Thanglian, who works there.

Some people criticised what they called the authorities' slow response, saying that although the army had begun to clear debris, it appeared to be short of heavy equipment.

"We haven't seen any help from the government side," said disaster volunteer worker Kangujam. "The government has not given us any information."

The government said two teams from the National Disaster Response Force had arrived to help with the rescue.

"The rescue operations are about to start on a war footing," Junior Home Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju told Reuters.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was in touch with authorities in the northeast.

Manipur is one of seven northeastern provinces joined to the rest of the India by a thin strip of territory arching above Bangladesh.

It was the most powerful earthquake to hit the state since 1957, according to academics at the department of seismological research at Manipur University. — Reuters

Powerful quake off Chile slams waves into coastal towns; eight killed

SANTIAGO - Strong aftershocks rippled through Chile on Thursday after a magnitude 8.3 earthquake that killed at least eight people and slammed powerful waves into coastal towns, forcing more than a million people from their homes.

The government ordered evacuations from coastal areas after the powerful quake hit on Wednesday evening, seeking to avoid a repeat of a quake disaster in 2010 when authorities were slow to warn of a tsunami that killed hundreds.

As the risk subsided, the government lifted its tsunami warning on Thursday morning.

The quake and heavy waves afterward caused flooding in coastal towns, damaged buildings and knocked out power in the worst hit areas of central Chile. It shook buildings in the capital city of Santiago about 280 km to the south.

The port of Coquimbo suffered major damage in the quake, which was the strongest in the world this year, Interior Minister Jorge Burgos told a news conference. The city was hit by waves of up to waves of up to 4.5 meters after the earthquake, Chile's navy said.

President Michelle Bachelet said she planned to travel to the areas worst affected by the quake, the biggest to hit the country since 2010.

"Once again we're having to deal with another harsh blow from nature," she said in a televised statement.

Chile is the world's top copper producer and operations were suspended at two big copper mines as a precaution, sending prices on the London Metal Exchange to two-month highs in early Asian trading on concern over disruptions to supplies. Prices dipped again after there were no initial reports of damage to mines after daybreak.

State copper miner Codelco said it was keeping operations at its Andina mine suspended, but it had restarted operations at its Ventanas smelter.

Both Codelco and Antofagasta, which halted operations at its Los Pelambres copper mine, said they were now carrying out inspections but they did not have any reports so far of damage. Los Pelambres is the closest major mine to the quake epicenter.

The quake was felt as far away as Buenos Aires in Argentina.

"It's been awful. We ran out of the house with our grandchildren and now we are on a hill hoping it will be over soon," said Maria Angelica Leiva from the coastal town of Navidad.

"It is all very dark, and we just hope the sea hasn't reached our house," she said.

Tsunami advisories were issued for parts of South America, Hawaii, California and French Polynesia, although waves were generally expected to be small. As far away as New Zealand, authorities warned of "unusually strong currents" and urged residents in eastern coastal areas to stay out of the water and off beaches.

Aftershocks felt

Dozens of strong aftershocks continued to rattle central Chile, a largely agricultural region south of the mining belt, on Thursday.

In the city of Illapel, near the epicenter of Wednesday's quake, a 26-year-old woman was killed by a collapsing wall. Another person died from a heart attack in Santiago, according to media reports.

Most buildings in Illapel had stayed standing, residents said. Quake-prone Chile has strict building regulations that limit potential damage, so newer buildings are able to withstand even strong quakes. Many homes in Illapel and surrounding areas are simple, adobe houses and are more prone to damage.

The brunt of the damage was borne by coastal areas such as Coquimbo where houses and fishing-boats were smashed by waves.

"We're going through a really grave situation with the tsunami. We have residential neighborhoods that have flooded. The ocean has reached the downtown area," said Coquimbo Mayor Cristian Galleguillos.

Chile is due to celebrate its national holiday on Friday, but roads were cut off and public transport canceled between Santiago and the north, local media reported.

The quake is the latest natural disaster to roil mining in Chile, which accounts for a third of global copper output. Northern Chile was hit by severe floods earlier this year, while a volcanic eruption caused problems for residents in the south.

Active quake zone

Chile runs along a highly seismic and volcanic zone where tectonic plates meet and often experiences earthquakes. In 2014, an 8.2-magnitude quake struck near the northern city of Iquique. In 2010 an 8.8-magnitude earthquake in central-southern Chile triggered a massive tsunami, and more than 500 people were killed.

In the hours after that quake, President Bachelet and other government officials misjudged the extent of damage and declined offers of international aid. That delayed the flow of assistance to disaster areas, leaving many survivors feeling they had been abandoned by the government.

Bachelet's government was also slow to prevent looting following the quake. Its failings hit her high approval ratings at the end of her presidential term, although she remained popular and was elected again in 2013. — Reuters

Indian landslide kills 10, scores feared trapped

NEW DELHI - Heavy rain triggered a landslide in rural western India that killed at least ten people and trapped up to 150 more after thick mud came crashing down on thatch huts and brick houses on Wednesday, a national disaster official said.

Rescue teams and local residents pulled people out of the deep mud and put them on stretchers, television images showed.

Seven teams of 42 rescue workers each arrived at the disaster site, a village 60 km (37 miles) from the city of Pune, but rain, mud and poor communications hampered efforts, Sandeep Rai Rathore, inspector general of the national disaster force, told Reuters.


Only two residents had been rescued by Wednesday evening, he said.

"The area is quite a difficult terrain," said Rathore, adding that rescuers were trying to determine how many people were caught in the landslide.

"The figure, it could be up to 150."

At least 30 brick houses and thatch huts were badly damaged in the village in the Ambegaon sub-district, he said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed the home minister to rush to Pune to take stock of the situation.

"The Prime Minister has condoled the loss of lives in the landslide, and directed all possible efforts to help the affected people," a government statement said.

Rainy season downpours, though vital for India's agriculture, often bring disaster.

Unprecedented rain in June last year wreaked havoc across India's Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, causing rivers and lakes to burst their banks, inundating towns and villages and killing thousands of people.

Badly managed hydro-power projects were partly to blame for those floods, an environment ministry panel said in April. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

LandBank allots P30B for victims of natural disasters

Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) on Thursday said it set aside P30 billion from the Calamity Rehabilitation Support program (CARES) to help Filipinos rebuild their lives in the aftermath of natural calamities.

“Through this program, LandBank helps those gravely affected by typhoons, floods, earthquakes, and other calamities get back on their feet and rebuild their lives,” President Gilda Pico said in a statement.

Present and new customers can also take out rehabilitation credits under the program, with local government units, home buyers, small and medium enterprises, cooperatives and NGOs, and countryside financial institutions considered as eligible clients.

“Affected SMEs in need of additional working capital or financial assistance for repair of existing facilities and purchase or acquisition of new ones may avail of loans under the Landbank CARES Program-Kaagapay sa Negosyo at a fixed interest rate of 6 percent per annum,” the bank said. – VS, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

Photo of kids selling lemonade for Yolanda victims goes viral

A photo of two girls selling lemonade drinks in the US to help victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) in the Philippines went viral on social media recently.

YouScooper Shekinah Eden Pugh was driving down the street in Studio City, Los Angeles, California when she saw a couple of kids selling lemonade on the street last November 11.

"I was driving down my street on my way to a meeting... when i happened to look to my right and see these two precious little girls selling lemonade," Pugh said.

The stand would have been like any other lemonade stand and the two girls would have thought of selling lemonade and iced tea as any other activity.

However, this business they set up was different.

A sign attached on the table said "Lemonade Ice Tea To Help Typhoon Families."




The kids were selling lemonade and ice tea to neighbors and passersby. The profit they earn will be given to the victims of Typhoon Yolanda.

"And then i saw their sign, and it hit me like a ton of bricks and made me start crying. These two precious little girls were standing out there selling lemonade and ice tea to help the typhoon families, a cause very dear to my heart," Pugh said.

When she saw the two girls selling drinks for a good cause, she became emotional.

"It just restored my faith in humanity, that there are still people out there, young children, who love the way we are supposed to love, who are kind and thoughtful, and selfless," Pugh added.

Pugh stopped by twice; each time, she donated money. At her second visit, she took the photo of them alongside the stand, posing with pride.

Thereafter, Pugh shared the photo with YouScoop, the citizen journalism arm of GMA News. The photo went viral.

As of this posting, the photo gained 10,244 likes and 5,847 shares on Facebook. The photo also has 452 retweets and 329 favorites on Twitter.

Users were quick to praise the kids for their kindness.

source: gmanetwork.com

Japan ready to send 1,000 troops to typhoon-hit Tacloban

Tokyo – Japan is ready to send as many as 1,000 troops to the typhoon-ravaged Philippines to help with relief efforts, a defense ministry spokesman said Wednesday.

The comments came a day after Tokyo dispatched 50 members of its Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to assist in medical support and transport operations following Manila's request for assistance.

Three naval ships and an unspecified number of aircraft would accompany the proposed contingent, Jiji Press news agency reported.

"We will continue consulting with the Philippine government about the size of the deployment it may need," the defense ministry official said.

Their work would be focused on the devastated city of Tacloban, after one of the biggest storms in recorded history demolished entire communities across the central part of the island nation.

The provincial capital was the first Philippine city to be liberated from Japan's occupying forces by US troops in 1944 during World War II.

Thousands are feared dead in the Philippines while 660,000 have lost their homes, according to the UN.

If Tokyo sends a 1,000-troop contingent, it would be the largest single relief operation team sent abroad by the SDF, Japan's de facto military which must adhere to the country's post-war pacifist constitution.

The defense forces have helped in previous regional relief efforts including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The Japanese government also said on Tuesday it would supply $10 million in grant aid to provide evacuees with emergency shelters and other help through aid organizations. – Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Vietnam begins mass evacuation as super typhoon looms

HANOI - Vietnam has started evacuating over 100,000 people from the path of Super Typhoon Haiyan, state media said Saturday, after the storm tore across the Philippines leaving scores dead and devastating communities.

Haiyan, one of the most intense typhoons on record, slammed into the Philippines Friday with maximum sustained winds of about 315 kilometers (195 miles) an hour. It is expected to make landfall in central Vietnam early Sunday.

Authorities have begun mass evacuations in central Danang and Quang Ngai provinces, the Tuoi Tre newspaper said, as the country goes on high alert in the face of the massive storm.

Many schools in the affected area have closed and people from vulnerable low-lying coastal villages are moving to temporary typhoon shelters set up in public buildings on high ground, state media said.

Although Haiyan is expected to weaken slightly, it is still considered a super typhoon with the potential for "complicated developments," said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at an urgent meeting Friday.

Dung, who is personally overseeing preparations for the super typhoon, has called all Vietnamese vessels back to shore and ordered hydropower reservoirs to step-up safety measures "to limit the consequences in terms of human and materials", a notice posted on the government's official website said.

National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines has advised passengers to be prepared for flights to be interrupted or cancelled on Sunday.

The scale of the damage wrought by Haiyan in the Philippines was still emerging Saturday, with many of the worst-hit towns cut off from communications, but early reports suggested mass casualties.

Over a hundred bodies were visible around the airport in Tacloban, the capital of eastern island of Leyte, according to aviation authorities.

Huge waves whipped up by Haiyan were believed to have been one of the main causes for the deaths in Tacloban and the nearby coastal town of Palo, while communities across the central Philippines also believed to have suffered serious damage. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

UN disaster assessment team stunned by Yolanda-wrought devastation in Tacloban

A United Nations Disaster Assessment Coordination Team (UNDAC) arrived this morning in Tacloban City. Even such a hardened team of humanitarian workers were shocked upon witnessing the scenes of total devastation in the city where Typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda) first struck.

Helicopter is the only means of travel at the moment, as the roads are impassable from the airport to the town. Trees and telephone poles lie unmoved across many roads. Even motorcyclists decline the journey, and so many people walk aimlessly, in search of food for their bellies, warmth to keep close, and a place to lay their dead if only for a little while.


Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, head of the UNDAC team, reported this morning that there is an unprecedented level of destruction.

"The last time I saw something of this scale was in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami," according to Stampa. "This is destruction on a massive scale. There are cars thrown like tumble weed and the streets are strewn with debris."

The UNDAC team arrived to prepare the ground work for an inter-agency humanitarian
assessment. "There roads between the airport and the town are completely blocked and relief operations will be extremely difficult," he added.

The acting Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the Philippines Dr. Julie Hall said. "We wish to extend our deepest sympathy to the Government and the people of the Philippines, who have been affected by this devastating typhoon which appears to have caused significant damage across a large tract of the Visayas."

She continued, "We are working very closely with the Government and are ready to respond in any way we can to this tragedy." — VC, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

Flooding brings chaos to Philippine capital

Manila, Philippines (CNN) -- Fueled by seasonal monsoon rains and a nearby tropical storm, widespread flooding in the Philippines worsened Tuesday, causing a landslide that killed nine members of a family, the national disaster agency reported.

The landslide in the Manila suburb of Quezon City buried two houses, leaving the nine people dead and four others injured, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Center.

Three of the dead were children, the state-run Philippines News Agency reported.

The capital city of Manila got 504 millimeters (about 20 inches) of rain Tuesday, PNA reported, with more on the way.

The country's weather service -- the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration -- warned the region's 12 million residents of continued torrential rains and serious flooding through Wednesday.

The national railroad called off service, and many roads were under water. Some dams were beginning to overflow, putting more communities at risk, authorities said.

The flooding has already forced nearly 130,000 people across the country from their homes, the disaster agency said. About 78,000 were staying in emergency shelters Tuesday night, the agency said.

Rescue requests continued to come in early Wednesday, including some people who were using Twitter to contact authorities for help.

"Pregnant woman needs help! Staying on top of a roof," one Twitter user posted, followed by an address. "Please help BORRES FAMILY w/ 2y/o child!!," posted another.

The weather agency warned residents to expect more landslides and flash flooding, and authorities urged residents in low-lying areas to move to higher ground to keep the death toll from the flooding from rising beyond the current 53.

In an effort to save lives and make way for rescue and relief efforts, President Benigno Aquino ordered work suspended at government and private offices around the capital region Tuesday.

Government offices and schools were also to be closed Wednesday, the president's office said.

"It's like a water world," PNA quoted Benito Ramos, head of the disaster agency, as saying of the city.

Deep water in many parts of metropolitan Manila blocked roads, stranded cars and flooded homes. In several areas, the water was waist deep or higher, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority said in its Twitter feed.

"Last night it was raining cats and dogs, or even like elephants banging on your roof top," said CNN iReporter Rummel Pinera. "You cannot sleep when it's raining for several hours like this, it was like a deluge."

Another iReporter, Jumar Rejuso, said the downpour was terrifying.

"We had to force ourselves to leave in order to be spared from the wrath of the raging waters," he said. "It was the first time I have witnessed in my entire life a flood as big as that."

Flooding has struck across the Philippines, with high water reported in 46 communities across the country, the disaster agency reported.

Authorities in Marikina City imposed a forced evacuation of areas near the Marikina River, which has risen above critical levels, PNA reported.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said the Ambuklao, Binga and San Roque dams were releasing water, putting several cities at a higher risk of flooding. The agency warned residents living near the dams to be on the lookout for rising waters.

U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Harry K. Thomas said Tuesday that the United States would provide $100,000 for disaster relief.

The rain and flooding are the result of the normal summer monsoon enhanced by the effects of Tropical Storm Haikui, the Philippines weather service said. The storm was about 258 miles southeast of Shanghai, China, on Tuesday, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

The country had already been lashed by heavy rain and wind in recent weeks resulting from Tropical Storm Saola, which plowed past it before hitting Taiwan and China at the end of last week.

The country is frequently subjected to flooding and landslides caused by heavy rain. In December, Tropical Storm Washi left more than 1,200 people dead after it set off flash floods that swept away entire villages in the southern Philippines.

source: CNN