Flukatastrophen in China, Süd-Asien, Mexiko, USA
Monsoon floods force millions to flee
August 16, 2002 Posted: 1:58 AM EDT (0558 GMT)
NEW DELHI, India -- Monsoon floods have killed more than 900 people in South Asia, and have forced millions to flee their homes.
Landslides have blocked the main highway that connects the summer and winter capitals of India's Jammu and Kashmir state, leaving hundreds of vehicles stranded on the roadway.
Heavy rains killed a further four people in Eastern India, and officials are concerned rising waters could lead to flash floods in the city of Patna. The city has a population of approximately 1.7 million people.
Officials estimate flooding has destroyed more than one million hectares of maize in the eastern state of Bihar. The state's top relief official says 269 people have died in the state alone as a result of the floods.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies is calling for more than $3 million in immediate aid for flood victims in Nepal and India.
At least 323 people across India have died in the monsoon floods, according to official estimates, The Associated Press news agency reports.
In Nepal approximately 424 people have been killed as floodwaters and mudslides ravage the kingdom.
Meanwhile in Bangladesh, homes, crops and livestock have been lost as floods affect large regions of the country. It is estimated 157 people have died as a result.
Encephalitis
The flood stricken regions also face the threat of water-borne diseases including diarrhea, typhoid and encephalitis.
Over the past month the northeastern Indian state of Assam, located on the edge of the Himalayas, saw hundreds of people admitted to hospital suffering from encephalitis and at least 90 deaths from the disease, according to media reports.
Encephalitis is spread by mosquitoes in water-borne areas and causes brain inflammation.
Almost a quarter of Assam's 26 million residents are now homeless as a result of extensive flooding, The Associated Press reports.
The rains have slowed in the state, however officials fear there may be more to come, with monsoon rains usually lasting until the end of September.
Nearly every year Assam experiences flooding because the government lacks funds to erect dams.
While eastern India suffers from heavy monsoon rains, western India is experiencing severe droughts, which pose a serious problem for crop yields and the economy.
Large areas of the region have seen less than 70 percent of the usual rainfall for the season.
India's weather is often a precursor for what will occur in Southeast Asia, scientists warn.
Dam breaks kill 14 in central Mexico
August 16, 2002 Posted: 1:09 AM EDT (0509 GMT)
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Reuters) -- At least 14 people were killed and 17 others were missing after one dam broke and another overflowed on Thursday, sending flood waters rushing through towns in two central Mexican states.
A government statement said late on Thursday that more than 7,000 people were affected after days of heavy rains caused a dam to burst in the town of La Ventilla in San Luis Potosi state and water to pour over a dam wall in El Capulin in Zacatecas state.
Fernando Romero, head of the communications center for the federal Civil Protection Agency, told Reuters that the 80-yard-long, 4-yard-high (73-meter-long, 3.6-meter-high) irrigation dam in La Ventilla gave way after several days of heavy rains.
The government said 13 people were reported dead and 15 missing in La Ventilla and neighboring communities. One person was killed and two were missing in the area around the El Capulin dam.
State and federal emergency workers were searching for the missing people and setting up shelters.
Much of the country has been battered by rain all week as a result of tropical fronts and high levels of humidity, the government said.
China landslide claims heavy death toll
August 16, 2002 Posted: 8:26 AM EDT (1226 GMT)
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- A huge wall of mud and rock slammed into villages in southwest China, probably killing 67 people in the second deadly landslide to strike the area this week, officials and state media said on Friday.
The landslide crashed into 10 villages in the middle of the night in Xinping county, about 200 km (120 miles) south of Kunming, the Yunnan provincial capital.
At least 24 people were confirmed dead and 43 were missing with little hope they would be found alive, officials and media said.
"We have never seen such a mudslide. One like this is very rare, it is record-making," a Xinping county official told Reuters by telephone.
"There is little hope of finding any survivors," he said.
The disaster struck at 4 a.m. on Wednesday, giving villagers little chance to flee.
"It destroyed over 600 houses in 10 villages and washed away the tobacco plants which give local residents their livelihood," said the official Xinhua news agency, which reported that at least 14 people had been injured.
Digging with hands
Some 3,000 police, troops and civilians had rushed to the area and were handing out quilts, clothes and grain. Tents had been set up for those left homeless, the county official said.
Rescuers were digging through the mountain of dirt with hand tools for fear that heavy equipment could injure survivors, he said.
The landslide struck after days of heavy rain and local weather officials predicted that more downpours on Friday could trigger further landslides, Xinhua said.
Yunnan, a province of 35 million people criss-crossed by mountains and rivers, borders Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar and has some of China's most stunning scenery.
It is also home to more than two dozen non-Chinese ethnic minorities.
But the rugged terrain has also made it one of the country's poorer regions. Some farmers, however, have prospered thanks to crops such as tobacco. Xinping is near the city of Yuxi, home to China's top cigarette brand.
The hilly province is no stranger to landslides.
Frequent disasters
"Ecological disasters like this one are very frequent in Yunnan," said Ding Jianbo, a retired engineer in Kunming who used to work for the provincial land and resources department. "Every year there are tens of millions of yuan in losses."
Wednesday's tragedy came on the heels of a huge landslide in northern Yunnan on Monday.
The confirmed death toll from that disaster had risen to 16 by late Thursday, Xinhua said. Local officials said there was little hope of finding survivors and the final tally was expected to be 29 dead.
That disaster was blamed on unusually heavy and sustained rain as well as deforestation in the hilly region that made soil on the slopes unstable.
The killer landslides are nature's latest blow to China, which has been battling floods that have killed more than 900 people so far this year.
Xinhua said rains and floods had killed 108 people in the central province of Hunan this month alone.
Torrential rains had lashed the province since August 5, triggering floods and landslides that also damaged railways and highways, it said.
The disasters had affected 38 million people in Hunan and caused more than 18 billion yuan ($2 billion) in damage, Xinhua said.
The flood season arrived early this year, but so far it has not been as bad as 1998 when the worst floods in decades killed 4,000 people.
Rain soaking much of the East
August 16, 2002 Posted: 11:17 AM EDT (1517 GMT)
Rain extended from the Great Lakes into the Midwest on Friday, while more precipitation was expected to spread through the lower Mississippi Valley and the Plains.
Showers and thunderstorms moving through the Gulf Coast states were expected reach the Tennessee Valley and the Southeast. Flooding was a threat in areas from eastern Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi northward into Tennessee and Kentucky.
Low pressure was expected to develop across the northern and central Plains, bringing strong thunderstorms to the region. Isolated tornadoes were possible. Showers were forecast to affect areas of far western Texas, but the rest of the southern Plains were expecting clear skies.
Scattered showers were forecast in the northern Rockies, while the rest of the West expected mostly clear skies and seasonable temperatures. Showers and thunderstorms were expected across parts of Arizona and New Mexico.
High temperatures Friday were forecast in the 60s and 70s across the far northern Plains, the Pacific Coast and the northern Rockies; 70s and 80s across the Great Lakes and Pacific Northwest; 80s and 90s in most of the eastern two-thirds of the country; 90s and 100s in the Great Basin, interior valleys of California and the Four Corners region; and 100s and 110s in the Desert Southwest.
Temperatures in the continental United States on Thursday ranged from a high of 124 degrees in Death Valley, California, to a low of 34 in Gunnison, Colorado.
