theguardianuk--2019-05-03--Cyclone Fani at least eight dead in Indias biggest storm in decades

Cyclone Fani: at least eight dead in India’s biggest storm in decades

Cyclone Fari barrelled into Bangladesh on Saturday after leaving a trail of deadly destruction in India, passing through hundreds of densely populated, low-lying communities along the Bay of Bengal, one of the most vulnerable regions to flooding in the world.  Major roads in the capital of eastern India’s Odisha state were scattered with trees and power lines, and the roof was torn off the city’s main railway station, after on Friday it was hit by the most severe storm on the Indian subcontinent in two decades.  Almost all thatched-roof and mud houses across four districts in the state were destroyed by the cyclone, which made landfall at about 8am on Friday morning and began migrating north-west towards the city of Kolkata.  More than 1 million people, including at least 1,000 pregnant women, were moved from their homes into shelters.  Eight people reportedly died in India and Bangladeshi police said nine perished even before the eye of the storm rumbled over the border.  Rescue officials told the Guardian the dead included a teenager in Puri who was hit by a falling tree and a woman in an adjoining district who was struck by a collapsing wall.  “We have taken full precautions and my government is fully prepared to deal with the situation,” Odisha’s chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, told the Guardian. “I have learned of the casualties and am instructing officers to find out the reasons behind them.”  A powerful storm in Odisha, one of India’s poorest states, flooded hundreds of villages and killed more than 10,000 people in 1999, but more recent tolls have been greatly reduced by greater preparation, including better weather forecasting and early warning systems that can reach people in isolated villages.  Indian meteorological officials had categorised Friday’s storm as “extremely severe” when it reached Odisha, with maximum wind speeds of 175km/h, but said it was slowing as it travelled and had been downgraded to “very severe”.  Footage from Puri, a temple city of about 200,000 people that was the first to be hit by the storm, showed saturated palm trees flailing in deafening winds. Parts of the city were flooded, including the Puri-Konark Marine Drive, a major road that was submerged by about 1.5 metres of seawater.  “People have suffered a lot because the roofs of many houses are not concrete,” said Sanjukta Pannda from Kakatpur, a village in the Puri district, as the storm eased on Friday afternoon. “Those roofs have been wiped out and because of the rain there [are] lots of problems. The wind is slow right now but the rain is continuing.”  In Odisha’s capital Bhubaneswar, a city of more than 900,000 people, fallen trees and electricity poles blocked almost every major road after winds reaching almost 170km/h battered the city for at least four hours. Images from its main hospital, the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences, showed broken water tanks, damaged roofs and overturned trucks at its perimeter.  “All main roads are closed and 60% – or maybe more – trees and electric poles in the city have fallen,” said Bimal Pandia, a disaster mitigation officer with the charity Oxfam, which has a state office in Bhubaneswar. “Rescue workers are clearing the roads on a war footing.”  He said concerns were now turning to the possibility of unreported deaths in the state’s remote hinterlands and the possibility of flooding in coastal areas in the next few days.  “The devastation is quite serious in the interior areas,” Pandia said. “In the last major cyclone there were massive floods that happened for two days, so that apprehension is always there.”  The storm has interrupted India’s feverish campaign season with major figures from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) including its president, Amit Shah, announcing they were suspending campaign rallies in adjoining states. Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal and a fierce rival of the BJP, also suspended campaigning for 48 hours.  All flights out of Bhubaneswar were cancelled on Friday and Kolkata airport was closed from 9.30pm on Friday evening until 6pm on Saturday. Tourists were evacuated on three special trains on Thursday but nearly 150 other railway services have been suspended.  Hundreds of disaster management personnel have been deployed across the state, which has closed its schools and colleges and suspended leave for doctors and health officials for the next fortnight. The Indian army, navy and air force were on alert to assist with rescues.  Nearly 5,000 shelters were set up in Odisha for the evacuees. Police in the state posted pictures on social media showing officers folding their hands in a mark of respect to persuade reluctant people to cooperate and move to safer ground.  Pandia said Oxfam was among the civil society groups working with the government and had prepared enough material to quickly reconstruct 5,000 houses.  The cyclone’s name, Fani, is Bengali for the hood of a snake. The word cyclone itself is said to be derived from the Greek word meaning “coiling of a snake”, and was coined by the British administrator Henry Piddington while he was stationed in Kolkata, then Calcutta, during colonial rule.  Fifteen of the 20 deadliest-ever storms have formed in the Bay of Bengal, where the combination of poor quality housing, dense populations and flash flooding frequently lead to high casualties. The Bhola cyclone that hit Bangladesh in 1970 killed more than half a million people.  But Indian governments had vastly improved their responses to such disasters, said Mihir Bhatt, the founder and director of All India disaster mitigation institute.  He said early warning systems were now geared to reach “the last mile and the last place”, people were promptly moved to shelters or safer ground within their villages, and state governments – which had previous prepared for disasters in isolation – were now sharing information and coordinating tactics. “This is new and has played an active role in reducing the death toll,” Bhatt said.  More than a million people were evacuated from Odisha during a 2013 storm in a move that is thought to have saved thousands of lives. Around 50 people were killed by that cyclone.  Bhatt said India’s recent election may have also contributed to increased preparedness among the central and state governments. “There is an environment of showing you are performing and doing it,” he said.

Michael Safi in Delhi and Bibhuti Pati in Puri with agencies


theguardianuk--2019-10-13--Typhoon Hagibis: recovery and rescue in full swing after deadly storm

At least 25 people have died and 15 others are missing after one of the most powerful typhoons in decades struck wide areas of Japan’s main island on Saturday night.  Media reports said thousands of troops, firefighters and other emergency workers had been dispatched to rescue people trapped by floodwater in the worst-hit areas, as utilities raced to restore power to hundreds of thousands of homes.  Typhoon Hagibis, described by meteorologists as the strongest storm to hit Japan for more than six decades, caused widespread damage across low-lying land in central and eastern parts of the country, with rivers bursting their banks after hours of torrential rain and howling winds.  Hagibis, which means “speed” in the Philippine language Tagalog, forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights and affected shinkansen bullet train services, the Japanese state broadcaster NHK said, reporting that more than 100 people had been injured.  Hagibis also caused disruption to major international sports events due to take place over the three-day weekend, including the rugby world cup, forcing the cancellation of several pool matches.  Millions of residents of Tokyo awoke to sunshine and clear skies, and many train lines resumed services, but authorities warned that rivers in eastern Japan could still overflow and inflict more damage.  The prime minister, Shinzō Abe, held an emergency meeting and offered his support to all those affected by the disaster – the second destructive storm to hit Japan in the space of a month.  “I extend my condolences to all those who lost their lives and offer my sympathies to all those impacted,” Abe said.  “With respect to blackouts, water outage and suspension of transportation services, we will do our utmost to bring about a swift recovery. We ask the public to stay vigilant in case of landslides and other hazards.”  The government said 27,000 members of the self-defence forces and other emergency workers had been sent to Nagano prefecture – one of the worst-affected regions – and other affected areas to help with the rescue effort.  TV footage showed military helicopters airlifting stranded people from homes that had been flooded by river water. Some families, including those with small children, had been forced to seek safety on their roofs.  One clip showed a helicopter hovering over a flooded area in Nagano prefecture, where an embankment of the Chikuma River had broken and unleashed sheets of water across residential areas. The helicopter plucked those stranded on the second floor of a home submerged in muddy waters.  Aerial footage showed tractors at work trying to control the flooding. Meanwhile, rows of bullet trains were left sitting in a pool of water at a depot.  The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was wrecked by a deadly tsunami in March 2011, reported irregular readings from sensors monitoring water at the facility.  Emi Iwasa, a spokeswoman for Tokyo Electric Power, said the storm had triggered 11 leak alerts at the plant, eight of which were confirmed as having been caused by rainwater. The utility has not confirmed if any radioactive water leaked into sea.  Away from the plant, a stretch of Fukushima was flooded, with only the rooftops of residential homes visible. Parts of nearby Miyagi prefecture were also under water. The 7 which runs by Tokyo, overflowed its banks.  Authorities at one point issued evacuation advisories and orders for more than 6 million people as the storm unleashed heavy rain and winds.  “The major typhoon has caused immense damage far and wide in eastern Japan,” Yoshihide Suga, the government’s top spokesman, told reporters.  “The water came up higher than my head in the house,” said Hajime Tokuda, a resident of Kawasaki, near Tokyo.  In Higashimatsuyama city, north-west of Tokyo, rice and flower farmers were counting their losses, with water submerging warehouses full of freshly harvested crops.  “We never had a flood like this before in this neighbourhood,” said one farmer, who declined to give his name. “We cannot even go into the flower warehouse due to the water. I don’t know where to start cleaning up this mess.”  Authorities warned of a continuing threat from mudslides. Among the reported deaths were those whose homes had been buried. Other fatalities included people who were swept away by raging rivers.  Suga said that damage to housing was extensive, but promised that recovery was on its way. By Sunday afternoon, more than 160,000 homes were without electricity, NHK said, adding that about 1,000 people in Chiba, east of Tokyo, were experiencing water shortages.  The widespread loss of electricity has again raised questions about Japan’s power infrastructure, weeks after Typhoon Faxai destroyed or damaged 30,000 houses in Chiba and caused extensive power outages.  The improvements in safety infrastructure that accompanied Japan’s postwar modernisation were apparent, however. The authorities had repeatedly warned that Hagibis’s strength was on a par with a typhoon that hit the Tokyo region 61 years ago, but that storm, Typhoon Ida, left more than 1,200 people dead and half a million houses flooded.  The Rugby World Cup match between Namibia and Canada, scheduled for Sunday in Kamaishi on the country’s north-east coast, was cancelled, but the decisive fixture between Japan and Scotland in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, will go ahead the same evening.  Qualifying for the Japanese Formula One race in Suzuka was pushed back from Saturday to Sunday.


theindependent--2019-03-18--Cyclone Idai Hundreds feared dead as tropical storm batters Zimbabwe and Mozambique

Cyclone Idai: Hundreds feared dead as tropical storm batters Zimbabwe and Mozambique

At least 157 people have been killed by a cyclone that has flooded land and destroyed roads across Zimbabwe and Mozambique, as officials admit the death toll could be significantly higher.  Cyclone Idai has caused huge damage to the port city of Beira, Mozambique’s second largest port which is home to around 500,000 people.  The cyclone made landfall in Mozambique on Thursday evening, with winds of up to 177 km/h and heavy rain.  Jamie LeSueur, leader of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies team in Beira, said: “The scale of devastation is enormous. It seems that 90 per cent of the area is completely destroyed.”  Nick Mangwana, the Zimbabwean information ministry official, said the number of confirmed deaths in Zimbabwe is 89, and that number is expected to rise.  Mozambique’s state news agency said Beira’s death toll is 68, and according to television channel TVM 84 people have died across the country.  In Zimbabwe the Chimanimani district has been cut off from the rest of the country, with many people forced to sleep in the mountains since Friday because their homes had been flattened by rock falls and mudslides, or washed away from the rain.  The intense rainfall has also prevented people from burying the dead.  Zimbabwe has been suffering from a severe, crop-wilting drought, and a United Nations humanitarian agency has said 5.3 million of the country’s 15 million people will need food aid.  According to the World Food Programme, teams are in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, planning to target food assistance to 650,000 in Malawi and 600,000 in Mozambique, and will be able to scale up the response with more food distribution in the coming days.  They said at least 1.7 million people were affected and in the cyclone’s direct path in Mozambique, as well as 920,000 in Malawi.  Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi says more than 1,000 people may have been killed, despite the official death count of 84.  The Zimbabwe Red Cross Society has put out a Facebook appeal for help with clothing, shelter, blankets, medical supplies and food.  The storm is the worst that Zimbabwe has had since Cyclone Eline in 2000, which destroyed land across eastern and southern Zimbabwe, and affected Mozambique at a time when it had been hit by its worst floods in three decades, killing 350 people and making 650,000 people homeless.  We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.  At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.


theindependent--2019-05-28--Ohio tornadoes Thousands without power and at least one dead in aposdangerousapos storms

Ohio tornadoes: Thousands without power and at least one dead in 'dangerous' storms

Tornadoes swept through western Ohio on Monday night, destroying homes and causing widespread power outages. One person was killed and dozens were injured.  The storms were among 53 twisters that forecasters said touched down on Monday across eight states stretching eastward from Idaho and Colorado.  Jeffrey Hazel, the mayor of Celina, near Dayton, said 81-year-old Melvin Delhanna died during the tornado “as a direct result of a vehicle entering his house”.  In Mercer County, where Celina is located, emergency management director Mike Robbins said that 12 people were injured in the storm. Mr Hazel said three of those injuries are considered to be serious but none are life-threatening.  The National Weather Service (NWS)  said on Tuesday morning that roughly five million people throughout the state had been affected by the power outages.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center showed that 14 suspected tornadoes touched down in Indiana, 11 in Colorado and nine in Ohio.  Dayton, the fifth-largest city in Ohio with 140,000 residents, was particularly affected. Nearly 60,000 residents were without power after the storm.  Homes and apartment complexes were levelled during the storm, devastating residents and leaving authorities scrambling.  “I don’t know that any community that is fully prepared for this type of devastation,” Dayton assistant fire chief Nicholas Hosford said on ABC’s Good Morning America.  The city tweeted that first responders are currently “performing search and rescue operations and debris clearing”.  The NWS says that it “will be conducting damage surveys for the next few days”. Utilities are expecting restoration to take several days.  For now, Dayton city officials have asked residents to conserve water, as power was lost in the city’s water plants and pump stations.  Montgomery County, where Dayton is located, Miami County, and Greene County were the most affected by the tornadoes, which authorities described as large and dangerous. The National Guard has been deployed in the aftermath.  Tornadoes also touched down in nearby Trotwood, where the mayor told residents that power lines and trees were down.  Ohio’s tornado spree marks the latest in a particularly harsh year for tornadoes in the US, which have caused major damage and several deaths in Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, and several other states.


theindependent--2019-09-04--Hurricane Dorian aposApocalypticapos devastation in Bahamas as deadly storm bears down on US

Hurricane Dorian: 'Apocalyptic' devastation in Bahamas as deadly storm bears down on US

Hurricane Dorian left “apocalyptic” devastation in its wake as it swept across the Bahamas.  Thousands of homes were destroyed or damaged, hospitals were crippled and a number of people were stranded on rooftops awaiting rescue after the small island nation was hit by the most powerful recorded storm in its history.  At least seven deaths were reported in the Bahamas, although relief workers warned this was likely to rise.  “It’s total devastation. It’s decimated. Apocalyptic,” said Lia Head-Rigby, who helps run a local hurricane relief group. “It’s not rebuilding something that was there; we have to start again.”  Ms Head-Rigby said her colleague in the hard-hit Abaco Islands told her there were “a lot more dead”, but she had no numbers.  Hubert Minnis, the country’s prime minister, said he expected more deaths.  “We are in the midst of one of the greatest national crises in our country’s history,”  he told a press conference. “No effort or resources will be held back.”  Red Cross spokesperson Matthew Cochrane said more than 13,000 houses, about 45 per cent of the homes on Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama, were believed to be severely damaged or destroyed.  UN officials said more than 60,000 people on the hard-hit islands will need food. The Red Cross said some 62,000 will need clean drinking water.  “What we are hearing lends credence to the fact that this has been a catastrophic storm and a catastrophic impact,” Mr Cochrane said.  Rescuers used Jet Skis, boats and even a huge bulldozer to evacuate people from the storm’s aftermath across Grand Bahama. The bulldozer cradled adults and children in its digger as it churned through deep waters and carried them to safety.  Britain’s Royal Navy rushed aid to the Bahamas while five US coast guard helicopters ran nearly hourly flights to the stricken Abaco, flying at least 21 injured people to the capital’s main hospital.  With telephones down across Abaco and Grand Bahama islands, residents posted lists of missing loved ones on social media.  A single Facebook post by media outlet Our News Bahamas seeking the names of missing people had 1,600 comments listing lost family members since it went live on Tuesday morning.  Food may be required for 14,500 people in the Abaco Islands and 45,700 people in Grand Bahama, the UN World Food Programme said in a statement.  More than two million people living along the coast in Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina have been warned to evacuate.  Although the threat of a direct hit on Florida has all but evaporated, Dorian is expected to pass dangerously close to the other southern states later this week.  Even if landfall does not occur, the US National Hurricane Centre warned, the system is likely to cause storm surge and severe flooding.  “Don’t tough it out. Get out,” said US Federal Emergency Management Agency official Carlos Castillo.  Dorian was centred around 90 miles east of Daytona Beach, Florida, on Wednesday morning, and was moving north northwest at 8mph.  Hurricane-force winds extended up to 60 miles from its centre, while tropical storm-force winds could be felt up to 175 miles from the core.  Dorian also left one person dead in its wake in Puerto Rico before it slammed into the Bahamas on Sunday.  The hurricane tied the record for the strongest Atlantic storm ever to hit land, matching the Labour Day hurricane that struck Florida’s Gulf Coast in 1935.


theindependent--2019-09-06--Hurricane Dorian death toll will be aposstaggeringapos says Bahamas as storm barrels up US coas

Hurricane Dorian death toll will be 'staggering', says Bahamas as storm barrels up US coast

The death toll from Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas will be "staggering", the country’s government has warned – as the storm now begins to batter the US east coast.  The official body count in the Caribbean nation stood at 30 on Friday morning but, with thousands missing, it is expected to rise sharply.  “Let me say that I believe the number will be staggering,” health minister Duane Sands told local radio. “Make no bones about it, the numbers are going to be far higher than 23 [the death toll as he spoke]. It is going to be significantly higher than that.  "The public needs to prepare for unimaginable information… I have never lived through anything like this and I don’t want to live through anything like this again.”  His words came as the sheer devastation wrought by the category 5 storm started to emerge.  The UN estimates some 76,000 people are now in immediate danger of disease and starvation, while the Red Cross said some 45 per cent of homes in some areas had been either severely damaged or destroyed. Surveyors put the total cost of the catastrophe at $7 billion.  Aerial photos show miles of flattened and flooded communities across the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama – both of which bore the brunt of Dorian’s 185 mph winds. On the ground, local journalists reported that vast swathes of the islands were essentially uninhabitable with water and power supplies down and bodies piling up. Militias have been formed, local media said, to prevent widespread looting.  As aid workers poured into the country on Thursday and Friday, meanwhile, harrowing tales started to emerge from those who had been caught in the churning storm.  One man, Richard Johnson, told of how his six-year-old brother Adrian was missing after being whipped by the winds into churning flood waters. “Given the circumstances,” he said. “I'm not that hopeful."  Another survivor, Ramond King, said he could only watch as swirling gusts ripped the roof off his home – then took his neighbour's entire house away into the sky. “This can't be real, this can't be real," he said. "Nothing is here, nothing at all. Everything is gone, just bodies."  In the waterside community of Mudd – now not much more than ruins – people were reported to be picking through the debris while avoiding a body hanging underneath a tree branch.  “Ain’t nobody come to get them,” said Cardot Ked, who has lived in the area for 25 years.  Aid supplies being delivered to the country now include eight tonnes of ready meals, storage units and generators, the UN World Food Programme said. Some £4.3 million has been put aside by the agency to fund a three-month emergency operation there.  Neighbouring Jamaica has said it will send 150 military personnel to secure lawless areas, while, in Barbados, prime minister Mia Mottley linked the devastation to climate change.  “We are on the frontline of the consequences,” she said. “And the vulnerability that attaches therefore to us is a matter we’re trying to get the international community to deal with consistently.”  She added: “People say the words and hear you, but they don’t follow through.”  But as both rescue and reckoning started in the Caribbean, the hurricane has now started to strike the US.  Although downgraded to a category 2 storm, it looks set to cause significant damage as it barrels up the country’s north-east coast. Millions of people have been ordered to evacuate in North and South Carolina.  Already overnight on Thursday, twisters peeled away roofs and flipped trailers in South Carolina, and left more than 250,000 homes and businesses without power. In Charleston, the state’s oldest city, trees and power lines littered flooded streets.  By 4am Friday morning, the US National Hurricane Center said Dorian was moving north-east along the side of North Carolina at about 13 mph.


theindependent--2019-10-13--Typhoon Hagibis: 77-year-old woman falls from helicopter during rescue as Japan hit by strongest sto

Typhoon Hagibis: 77-year-old woman falls from helicopter during rescue as Japan hit by strongest storm in 60 years

An elderly woman has died after falling from a rescue helicopter as Japan was hit by the strongest storm in six decades.  The 77-year-old fell about 130 feet to the ground after she was accidentally dropped during an airlift on Sunday, public broadcaster NHK said.  At least 35 people have so far been killed by Typhoon Hagibis, which has brought record levels of rain and left some 425,000 homes without power.  Another 20 people are missing and dozens more injured, Kyodo News has reported, based on information provided by rescuers and other authorities.  The transport ministry has also revealed that a Panama-registered cargo ship has been found sunk in waters near Tokyo after authorities lost contact with it on Saturday.  The Yomiuri newspaper has reported at least five of the crew’s 12 members have died and four people have been rescued.  About 360 people were left stranded after an embankment of the Chikuma River in Nagano collapsed.  Rescue efforts have been complicated as ten rivers in central and northeastern Japan burst their banks and dozens of others overflowed, the Japanese government said.  Evacuation centres filled up with residents after Hagibis, which means “speed” in the Philippine language of Tagalog, made landfall on Saturday evening.  Rie Hasegawa, a woman in her 30s, told Reuters she never imagined her landlocked town would face a water-related disaster.  “The force of the water was incredible. It was dark, frightening, and I thought this might be the end,” she said.  Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, has convened an emergency meeting of ministers and set up a task force to deal with damage from the storm.  “The government will do everything in its power to cooperate with relevant agencies and operators working to restore services as soon as possible,” he said.  The full extent of the damage has not yet emerged as many areas remained underwater on Sunday, public broadcaster NHK said.  Tokyo Electric Power Co has reported irregular readings from sensors monitoring water overnight in its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was crippled by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.  Despite the typhoon, a Rugby World Cup match between Japan and Scotland went ahead today, in which host country Japan progressed to the quarter finals.  However, a match between Namibia and Canada in Kamaishi was cancelled.  Just last month, another strong storm, Typhoon Faxai, destroyed or damaged 30,000 houses in Chiba, east of Tokyo, and caused extensive power outages.


theirishtimes--2019-10-01--Storm Lorenzo What makes a hurricane

Storm Lorenzo: What makes a hurricane?

The ingredients that go to make a hurricane are warm ocean water and moist, humid air. They originate as tropical cyclones; rotating, organised systems of clouds and thunderstorms that originate over tropical or subtropical waters –– and are of varying ferocity.  Tropical cyclones rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and are classified based on wind speed:   Tropical depression   A tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 61km/h or less   Tropical storm   A tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 62km/h to 117km/h Hurricane   A tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 119km/h or higher   Major hurricane   A tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 178km/h or higher, corresponding to a Category 3, 4 or 5 storm under what’s known as the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.  Tropical cyclones forming in the Atlantic Ocean typically move towards the west. Sometimes the winds in the middle and upper levels of the atmosphere change and steer the cyclone towards the north and northwest – ie Ireland and western Europe.  One or two Category 5 storms have formed in the Atlantic each year since 2016 – before that, they were less common. Lorenzo is the latest Atlantic storm to reach Category 5 status, while Dorian, which destroyed communities in the Bahamas last month, also reached that intensity.  Hurricanes are almost as varied as their distinctive names, and vary in strength depending on local conditions and atmosphere over head.  The one certainty is that human-induced climate change – ie global heating – is changing the nature of hurricanes; mainly making them more frequent and intense. They are also dumping more water when making landfall and so causing more devastation in the form of flooding.  Remarkably, they sometimes move very slowly; on Monday Lorenzo was heading to the Azores at about 20km/h. Dorian was so slow moving, it parked over the Bahamas for days.  Typically, tropical storms move towards America and then develop into hurricanes. Some of them just fizzle out. Predicting hurricane paths is always difficult, but they usually die out over land, or extinguish themselves when they meet cold waters in an area stretching offshore from south of Newfoundland to New York.  Lorenzo, which is meticulously tracked by the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, is different besides being a record breaker.  No Category 5 storm has ever been recorded as far north and east in the Atlantic.  It was a tropical storm early last week, tracing a northwesterly route from the coast of West Africa. By Wednesday, it was a hurricane. And on Saturday night, it gained Category 5 status.  Since then, it has lost some strength but its path and size remain unique. The storm is very broad, with tropical-force winds covering a span of some 800km.  Modelling of the atmospheric conditions gets more accurate within days of arriving at a particular location, so during Wednesday Met Éireann will be in a much better position to predict likely impact on Ireland.  Lorenzo is expected to lose its hurricane status some 1,000km off the southwest coast of Ireland.  Storm Ophelia, which battered the country in October 2017, retained its hurricane status until it was 500km away.  Regardless of status on reaching land, high winds and very heavy rainfall are notable features in both instances.


thesun--2019-09-04--Hurricane Dorian leaves Disney World Florida deserted as terrified tourists stay away as killer stor

Hurricane Dorian leaves Disney World Florida deserted as terrified tourists stay away as killer storm looms

The hurricane hit the Bahamas and a number of US states this week, at one stage reaching the maximum category five intensity.  Pictures from the park, Disney's busiest, showed attractions empty as worried tourists opted to stay at home rather than brave the bad weather.  Disney World was forced to close yesterday afternoon anticipation of strong winds, but re-opened this morning.  The park said it expects to see a spike in visitors over the weekend as guests who have postponed their trips return.  Dorian has now been downgraded to a category two storm, but wind speeds remain as high as 110mph.  The cyclone is now heading north, and will pass the states of Georgia and South Carolina over the next 24 hours.  It is expected to reach North Carolina on Friday morning before passing back out into the Atlantic Ocean.  The US National Hurricane Center said that life-threatening storm floods and dangerous winds are expected along the states' coasts.  "The flash flood threat will increase overnight along the Florida east coast, then spread up the southeast and mid Atlantic coast beginning Wednesday," the Center said.    Dorian has already left acres of debris and some 13,000 homes destroyed across the Bahamas after moving over the islands earlier this week.  Seven people have been confirmed killed, with the death toll expected to grow.  The long-term impact on the tourism-dependent islands is also expected to be significant.  All tropical storm warnings for the islands have now been discontinued.  Prime minister Hubert Minnis said the hurricane was "one of the greatest national crises in our country's history".  "Parts of [Baham island] Abaco are decimated" he said.  "There's severe flooding, there's severe damage to homes, businesses, other buildings and infrastructure."  He added that residents had "endured hours and days of horror, fearing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones".  Aerial images showed huge areas of usually-dry land submerged and devastation where waters have receded.  Harrowing accounts of personal tragedy have also emerged, including one survivor who described watching his wife drown.  Barbadian singer Rihanna led celebrity tributes to the people affected by the storm.  “It truly breaks my heart to see the complete devastation that Hurricane Dorian is having on the Bahamas,” she said.  “You are in our prayers.”  Witherspoon called the damage "beyond devastating" and said she was "praying for my friends and families in Bahamas".  Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg wrote on twitter: "Today our thoughts are with the people in the Bahamas. Stay safe."  We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.


thesun--2019-09-04--Hurricane Dorian victim describes watching his wife drown as 225mph mega storm ravaged The Bahamas

A DEVASTATED Hurricane Dorian victim has described watching his wife drown as the 225mph mega storm ravaged The Bahamas.  Fisherman Howard Armstrong told how he and his wife Lynn were sheltering in their home in Freeport, Grand Bahama, when the floodwaters came.  He described how a 21ft wall of water struck their home, leaving the couple stranded inside with the water rising.  Howard told CNN: “We were doing all right until the water kept coming up and all the appliances were going around the house, like the washing machine.”  He revealed his wife began suffering hypothermia as they waited for hours to be rescued.  He said: “She was standing on top of the kitchen cabinets until they disintegrated.  “And then I kept with her, and she just drowned on me.”  The distraught husband then somehow managed to get out of the flooded home.  He spotted his fishing boat miraculously still tied to its mooring – despite the storm capsizing other vessels and hurling them inland – and swam to it.  Howard said he'd lived in Freeport for 58 years and had "battled many a hurricane," but had never seen flooding like this.  Hurricane Dorian bulldozed the Bahamas, killing at least seven people – with that grim body count expected to rise.  The storm's punishing winds and muddy brown floodwaters destroyed or severely damaged thousands of homes, crippled hospitals and trapped people in attics.  Lia Head-Rigby, who helps run a local hurricane relief group and flew over the Bahamas' hard-hit Abaco Islands, said: "It's total devastation. It's decimated. Apocalyptic.  "It's not rebuilding something that was there – we have to start again."  She said her representative on Abaco told her there were "a lot more dead," though she had no numbers as bodies are being gathered.  The Bahamas' prime minister also expected more deaths and predicted that rebuilding would require "a massive, coordinated effort".  Hubert Minnis said: "We are in the midst of one of the greatest national crises in our country's history.  "No effort or resources will be held back."  Five Coast Guard helicopters ran near-hourly flights to the stricken Abaco, flying more than 20 injured people to the capital's main hospital.  The British Royal navy is also rushing in aid, while the UK Government sent in a team of humanitarian experts to offer their help.  A few private aid groups also tried to reach the battered islands in the northern Bahamas.  Tammy Mitchell of the Bahamas' National Emergency Management Agency told ZNS Bahamas radio station: "We don't want people thinking we've forgotten them. ... We know what your conditions are."  But with airports flooded and roads impassable, desperate rescue efforts are being severely hampered.  Locals rescued used jet skis and bulldozers as they were forced to improvise to reach those trapped.  Meanwhile deadly Dorian smashed into Florida's east coast last night - whipping up 110mph winds that prompted Disney World to close.  The Category 2 vortex began creeping up the shore 95 miles off Cape Canaveral on Tuesday.  In Florida, Walt Disney World closed its four theme parks by mid-afternoon on Tuesday amid fears for tourist safety.


thesun--2019-09-06--Hurricane Dorian Bahamas residents looting and shooting each other for food survivors of 225mph

Hurricane Dorian – Bahamas residents ‘looting and shooting each other for food’ survivors of 225mph mega storm say

BAHAMAS residents are "looting and shooting each other for food", survivors of Hurricane Dorian have claimed.  The 225mph megastorm bought near-total devastation to the Abaco Islands, with eyewitnesses saying the area "smells of death" with corpses floating in the water.  Tearful survivor Alicia Cooke wept: "Everything is gone, people are starting to panic. Pillaging, looting, trying to shoot people for food and water. It's just no way everyone's going to get out."  "No homes. No banks. No gas stations. No hardware stores. Everything is gone".  The death toll officially sits at 30 but officials expected that to rise dramatically over the coming days.  "The public needs to prepare for unimaginable information about the death toll and the human suffering," he told local radio.  On social media thousands are still listed as missing as British and American rescue teams hunt through the rubble for survivors.  People are also using websites such as DorianPeopleSearch.com, which currently lists the names of more than 5,500 missing people.    Speaking to the Daily Beast, the site's founder Vanessa Pritchard-Ansell said: “When you see that somebody has been found and their family knows where they are, you feel a moment of elation.”  “But you also know that there are so many thousands of others who have not been accounted for.”  In grim development officials in the Bahamas have deployed a team of morticians loaded with body bags to the Abaco Islands, the BBC reports.  Chilling pictures taken there over the past 36 hours show the catastrophic damage caused to thousands of homes.  The wooden-built properties were completely shredded as the mega-storm bulldozed towns and villages, ripping up trees and felling power lines.  The storm's punishing winds and shocking floodwaters destroyed or severely damaged homes, crippled hospitals and trapped people in attics.  Terrifying time-lapse footage has now emerged which shows the killer storm barrelling across the Atlantic and over the Bahamas before heading towards the US coast.  Mark Lowcock, the United Nations' under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, estimates about 70,000 people in the northern Bahamas now need vital help.  However, with no functioning water systems in accessible areas, workers had not been able to establish a permanent rescue site on the Abacos.  Lia Head-Rigby, who helps run a local hurricane relief group and flew over the Bahamas' hard-hit Abaco Islands, said: "It's total devastation. It's decimated. Apocalyptic.  "It's not rebuilding something that was there – we have to start again."  She said her representative on Abaco told her there were "a lot more dead," though she had no numbers as bodies are being gathered.  The Bahamas' prime minister also expected more deaths and predicted that rebuilding would require "a massive, coordinated effort".  Hubert Minnis said: "We are in the midst of one of the greatest national crises in our country's history. No effort or resources will be held back."  Volunteers from British disaster response charity Team Rubicon UK are in the Bahamas to help some of the 76,000 people worst affected by Dorian.  They will use their specialist military backgrounds to get aid to the most cut-off communities.  Paul Taylor, Team Rubicon UK Operations Response Manager and an Afghanistan veteran, said: “Where Team Rubicon UK can help, we will – but we need support from the public to do so, so we’d appreciate if people could spare a few pounds.”  Earlier five Coast Guard helicopters ran near-hourly flights to the stricken Abaco, flying more than 20 injured people to the capital's main hospital.  The British Royal navy is also rushing in aid, while the UK Government sent in a team of humanitarian experts to offer their help.  A few private aid groups also tried to reach the battered islands in the northern Bahamas.  Tammy Mitchell of the Bahamas' National Emergency Management Agency told ZNS Bahamas radio station: "We don't want people thinking we've forgotten them. ... We know what your conditions are."  But with airports flooded and roads impassable, desperate rescue efforts are being severely hampered.  Locals rescued used jet skis and bulldozers as they were forced to improvise to reach those trapped.  The news is sure to send shivers down the spines of those hunkering down in the US.  Dorian sideswiped the Carolinas with shrieking winds, tornadoes and sideways rain on Thursday as it closed in for a possible direct hit on the dangerously exposed Outer Banks.  At least four deaths in the Southeast were blamed on the storm.  One dad was forced to fling his son onto a roof to save him from sharks that had swum inland after Hurricane Dorian decimated the Bahamas.  Adrian Farrington was trying frantically to save his son from the predators in Murphy Town on the island of Abaco and thought he'd succeeded only for the howling winds to sweep away his boy back into the shark infested in the flood waters.  He recalled how his five-year-old, Adrian Jr, was reaching up and calling out “Daddy” as the winds blew him away.  The 38-year-old told the Nassau Guardian: 'I still could remember him reaching for me and calling, "Daddy,"  Adrian had thought his boy would be safer out of the water after spotting a shark beneath the waves so flung him onto a nearby roof.  He then tried to make his way to his son, Adrian Jr, but before he could sit down 'to hold him,' the hurricane 'dragged him across the roof back into the surge.'  Twisters spun off by Dorian peeled away roofs and flipped trailers, and more than 250,000 homes and businesses were left without power as the hurricane pushed north along the coastline, its winds weakening to 105mph by evening.  Trees and power lines littered flooded streets in Charleston's historic downtown. Gusts topped 80mph in some areas.  The damage from the same storm that mauled the Bahamas was mercifully light in many parts of South Carolina and Georgia as well, and by mid-afternoon many of the 1.5 million people who had been told to evacuate in three states were allowed to return.  Still, forecasters warned that Dorian could run straight over North Carolina's Outer Banks the thin line of islands that stick out from the US coast.  To the north, Virginia was also in harm's way, and a round of evacuations was ordered there.  "We have a long night ahead of us. Everyone needs to stay in a safe place and off the roads until the storm passes," North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said.  The Category 2 vortex began creeping up the shore 95 miles off Cape Canaveral on Tuesday.  In Florida, Walt Disney World closed its four theme parks by mid-afternoon on Tuesday amid fears for tourist safety.


thesun--2019-10-14--Typhoon Hagibis – Death toll rises to 48 as 110,000 rescuers join hunt for survivors after 140mph me

Typhoon Hagibis – Death toll rises to 48 as 110,000 rescuers join hunt for survivors after 140mph mega-storm devastates Japan

TYPHOON Hagibis has killed at least 48 people in Japan with the death toll expected to rise as more than 100,000 rescuers search for bodies and survivors.  Wading through muddy, waist-high waters, teams have fanned out across vast sections of the beleaguered country's central and eastern region, which are underwater in the aftermath of the 140mph storm.  Experts said it would take time to accurately assess the extent of damage, and the casualty count has been growing daily.  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said: "There are still many residents who have yet to be accounted for.  “Our people in uniform are working day and night in search and rescue operations.  "Damage has been made in an extremely wide range of areas, and more than 30,000 people are still being forced to remain in the state of evacuation.  “It is our urgent task to offer meticulous support to those who have been affected."  Typhoon Hagibis, which means "speed" in the Philippine language Tagalog, made landfall on Japan's main island of Honshu on Saturday and headed out to sea early on Sunday.  Groups of rescuers wearing goggles and snorkels searched for survivors while making their way in waist-high water in Nagano, central Japan, where the Chikuma River inundated swaths of land.  A middle-aged man in Nagano, asked about the situation around his house, told NHK: "It's just like a lake."  Public broadcaster NHK said evacuation centres were filled with residents, while some people perished as they sought shelter.  A 77-year-old woman fell about 40 metres to her death during an airlift.  A family who sheltered in their home before it collapsed told Sky News: "I heard a loud bang. And I thought, the house is probably collapsing.  "We were buried under all the things. My husband and my mum got out by themselves. And I was helped by my husband. And the other four of us were helped by firefighters."  Military helicopters airlifted stranded people from homes near the river, some cradling their children, after they were trapped by water reaching the roofs of their houses.  In Fukushima, north of the capital, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) reported irregular readings from sensors monitoring water in its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.  The plant was crippled by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.  Tepco spokeswoman Emi Iwasa said the typhoon triggered 11 leak alerts at the plant.  Of those, eight were confirmed as being triggered by rainwater and the rest were still being investigated.  Hagibis, which means "speed" in the Philippine language Tagalog, made landfall on Japan's main island of Honshu on Saturday evening and headed out to sea early on Sunday - leaving behind cloudless skies and high temperatures across the country.  NHK showed fields and vast residential areas in parts of central and eastern Japan covered in brown water, with some of the worst damage caused by Chikuma river in Nagano prefecture.  In Kawagoe, north of Tokyo, rescuers took residents from a flooded aged care facility by inflatable boats and carried them on their backs to safety.  They also searched for survivors in homes destroyed in landslides near Tokyo's suburbs and in Fukushima prefecture, NHK showed.  Damage was serious in Nagano prefecture, where an embankment of the Chikuma River broke.  In Hoyasu, a few vehicles in used car lots were flipped over by the waters that had gushed in, covering everything with mud. Apples swept from the flooded orchards lay scattered in the mud.  Areas in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures in northern Japan were also badly flooded.  In such areas, rescue crew paddled in boats to reach half-submerged homes, calling out to anyone left stranded.  Tokyo Electric Power Co. said 35,100 homes were still without electricity early Monday evening in Tokyo and nearby prefectures that the utility serves. That was down from nearly 57,000 earlier in the day.  East Japan Railway Co. said Hokuriku bullet trains were running Monday but were reduced in frequency and limited to the Nagano city and Tokyo routes.  Mimori Domoto, who works at Nagano craft beer-maker Yoho Brewing Co., said all 40 employees at her company were confirmed safe, though deliveries were halted.  "My heart aches when I think of the damage that happened in Nagano. Who would have thought it would get this bad?" she said.  Tama River in Tokyo overflowed, but damage was not as great as other areas. Areas surrounding Tokyo, such as Tochigi, also suffered damage.  Much of life in Tokyo returned to normal on Monday. People were out and about in the city, trains were running, and store shelves left bare when people were stockpiling were replenished.


thesun--2019-12-26--Philippines typhoon: 13 dead and 58,000 evacuated after 93mph Christmas day storm sweeps through isl

Philippines typhoon: 13 dead and 58,000 evacuated after 93mph Christmas day storm sweeps through island

AT least 13 people including a 13-year-old boy were killed as a typhoon with wind gusts of 93mph hit the Philippines.  More than 58,000 people were evacuated from their homes as Typhoon Phanfone struck on Tuesday, bringing with it heavy rain and flooding.  Among those killed were a 13-year-old boy who was electrocuted and a man who was killed by a falling tree branch. Another victim was killed in a car crash during the horrific storm.  The Philippine ABS-CBN network also reported a family was killed when they were swept away by a flash flood as they tried to escape.  Photographs across central provinces of Capiz, Iloilo and Leyte show widespread damage, with homes completely destroyed by the 93mph wind gusts and winds of up to 75mph.  People were forced to wade through the flood waters, while others were pictured taking refuge in their homes surrounded by the rising tides.  More than 58,000 people had been evacuated from their homes before the storm hit on Tuesday.  It then made its way across the Philippines on Wednesday night - moving wast over the South China sea.  Others were left stranded at airports as they tried to get home for Christmas, with buildings around airports including in Kalibo smashed by the winds and water.  Roads have also been left blocked by the flood waters, along with fallen trees and debris.  The typhoon came after nearby regions were devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.  More than 6,000 people had been killed when the typhoon with winds of more than 193mph swept across the region in November of that year.  The winds made it the most powerful storm to ever hit land.


thetelegraph--2019-08-10--Tornado injures 19 in Luxembourg as storms batter Europe

A tornado ripped across southwest Luxembourg on Friday leaving at least 19 people injured,  two of them severely, while 15 soccer players were injured by a lightning strike in southern Germany as unseasonal storms hit northern Europe late Friday.  The tornado in the southwestern Luxembourg communities of Pettingen and Kaerjeng left a path of destruction that made up to 100 homes uninhabitable, local media reported Saturday. Debris and damaged cars were left strewn around the area, while at least four power poles were destroyed.  In eastern France the tornado was less severe, but local media there reported that dozens of roofs were destroyed and cars were damaged in the communities of Longwy and Herserange. Tornadoes are a very rare weather condition in Europe, which is more typically hit by gales.  With winds reaching  80 miles per hour, according to the meteorological office, the tornado smashed through towns near the borders with Belgium and France on Friday evening.  Footage posted on social media showed the swirling winds towering above homes and roads and tearing up roofs and tree branches high into the air.  The Luxembourg government, which released the toll, has set up a crisis unit.


thetorontostar--2019-05-21--Dangerous storm sweeps Southern Plains spawning tornadoes

Dangerous storm sweeps Southern Plains, spawning tornadoes

OKLAHOMA CITY - An intense storm system that weather forecasters labeled “particularly dangerous” swept through the Southern Plains Monday, spawning a few tornadoes that caused some damage and a deluge of rain but no reports of injuries. The National Weather Service had warned that Monday evening could bring perilous weather to a large swath of western Texas, most of Oklahoma and southern Kansas. The storm was expected to move later Monday into western Arkansas.  As predicted, some tornadoes were reported early Monday evening, although they were in sparsely populated areas. Oklahoma residents were on alert as Monday is the sixth anniversary of a massive tornado in Moore, south of Oklahoma City, that killed 24 people. A tornado struck western and northern portions of the southwestern Oklahoma town of Mangum on Monday afternoon. Glynadee Edwards, the Greer County emergency management director, says some homes incurred roof damage and the high school’s agriculture barn was destroyed, but the livestock survived.  Emergency officials reported a tornado near Lucien, in northern Oklahoma, severely damaging a house and destroying a barn. One storm cell near Crescent, 32 miles north of Oklahoma City, spawned twin tornadoes. Earlier Monday, school districts in Oklahoma City, nearby Norman and elsewhere in Oklahoma cancelled classes with forecasts of hail and wind gusts of up to 80 mph (128 kph). A flood watch was in effect for the greater Oklahoma City region. Schools in Abilene and elsewhere in West Texas sent students home early. Tinker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City moved several planes to other military installations in anticipation of storm damage. Meanwhile, state workers in several Oklahoma counties were sent home early. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a statement that the state emergency operations centre was activated and urged motorists not to drive around barricades or into flooded roadways. In Oklahoma City, emergency management officials opened the Multi-Agency Coordination Center, an underground bunker on the city’s northeast side that serves as a clearinghouse for co-ordinating information about severe weather events and other major emergencies.  Some flights at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City were cancelled to avoid damage to aircraft and the possibility of extended delays elsewhere. It’s the latest round of severe weather to strike the region after a spate of tornadoes raked the Southern Plains on Friday and Saturday, leaving widespread damage and some people injured.


thetorontostar--2019-05-29--Tornadoes hit Kansas Pennsylvania as storms sweep across US

Tornadoes hit Kansas, Pennsylvania as storms sweep across US

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A vicious storm tore through the western outskirts of Kansas City on Tuesday, spawning one or more tornadoes that downed trees and power lines, damaged homes and injured at least 11 people in the latest barrage of severe weather that saw tornado warnings as far east as New York City. Parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey also were under tornado warnings hours after a swarm of tightly packed twisters swept through Indiana and Ohio overnight, smashing homes, blowing out windows and ending the school year early for some students because of damage to buildings. One person was killed and at least 130 were injured.  Those storms were among 55 twisters that forecasters said may have touched down Monday across eight states stretching eastward from Idaho and Colorado. The past couple of weeks have seen unusually high tornado activity in the U.S., with no immediate end to the pattern in sight. Tuesday offered no respite, as a large and dangerous tornado touched down on the western edge of Kansas City, Kansas, late in the day, the National Weather Service office reported. Kansas City International Airport temporarily suspended flights and forced travellers and employees to take shelter in parking garage tunnels for about an hour. A powerful twister also touched down in the nearby township of Pleasant Grove, Kansas, seriously damaging homes.  But the severe weather wasn’t limited to the Midwest. Tornadoes were confirmed in eastern Pennsylvania and the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for parts of New York City and northern New Jersey. The winds peeled away roofs — leaving homes looking like giant dollhouses — knocked houses off their foundations, toppled trees, brought down power lines and churned up so much debris that it was visible on radar. Highway crews had to use snowplows to clear an Ohio interstate. Some of the heaviest damage was reported just outside Dayton, Ohio. “I just got down on all fours and covered my head with my hands,” said Francis Dutmers, who with his wife headed for the basement of their home in Vandalia, about 10 miles (16 kilometres) outside Dayton, when the storm hit with a “very loud roar” Monday night. The winds blew out windows around his house, filled rooms with debris and took down most of his trees. In Celina, Ohio, 82-year-old Melvin Dale Hanna was killed when a parked car was blown into his house, Mayor Jeffrey Hazel said Tuesday.  Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine declared a state of emergency in three hard-hit counties, allowing the state to suspend normal purchasing procedures and quickly provide supplies like water and generators. The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center showed that suspected tornadoes touched down in several states including Indiana, Colorado, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois. Monday marked the record-tying 11th straight day with at least eight tornadoes in the U.S., said Patrick Marsh, a Storm Prediction Center meteorologist. The last such stretch was in 1980. A tornado with winds up to 140 mph (225 kph) struck Monday near Trotwood, Ohio, a community of about 24,500 people 8 miles (12 kilometres) outside Dayton. Several apartment buildings were damaged or destroyed, including one complex where the entire roof was torn away, and at least three dozen people were treated for cuts, bumps and bruises. “If I didn’t move quick enough, what could have happened?” said Erica Bohannon of Trotwood, who hid in a closet with her son and their dog. She emerged to find herself looking at the sky. The roof was gone. Just before midnight, about 40 minutes after that tornado cut through, the National Weather Service tweeted that another one was crossing its path. Only a few minor injuries were reported in Dayton. Fire Chief Jeffrey Payne called that “pretty miraculous,” attributing it to people heeding early warnings. Sirens went off ahead of the storm. Some of the people treated at the area’s Kettering Health Network hospitals were hurt during storm clean-up itself, while others may have waited before seeking treatment from storm injuries, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Long. A boil-water advisory was issued after the city’s pumping stations lost power. Dayton Power & Light said more than 50,000 customers remained without electricity and restoration efforts could take days. A high school gym in Dayton was designated an emergency shelter until authorities realized it was unusable. Vandalia’s school system tweeted that it is ending the year two days early because of building damage. In nearby hard-hit Brookville, where the storm tore off the school’s roof, classes were cancelled. In Indiana, a twister touched down Monday evening in Pendleton, about 35 miles (56 kilometres) from Indianapolis. At least 75 homes were damaged there and in nearby Huntsville, said Madison County Emergency Management spokesman Todd Harmeson. No serious injuries were reported. Pendleton residents were urged to stay in their homes Tuesday morning because of downed power lines and other dangers. “People are getting antsy. I know they want to get outdoors, and I know they want to see what’s going on in the neighbourhood,” Harmeson said. But he added: “We still have hazards out there.” Outbreaks of 50 or more tornadoes are not uncommon, having happened 63 times in U.S. history, with three instances of more than 100 twisters, Marsh said. But Monday’s swarm was unusual because it happened over a particularly wide geographic area and came amid an especially active stretch, he said. As for why it’s happening, Marsh said high pressure over the Southeast and an unusually cold trough over the Rockies are forcing warm, moist air into the central U.S., triggering repeated severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. And neither system is showing signs of moving, he said. Scientists say climate change is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme weather such as storms, droughts, floods and fires, but without extensive study they cannot directly link a single weather event to the changing climate. Associated Press writers Dan Sewell and Amanda Seitz in Cincinnati; David Runk in Detroit; Kantele Franko and Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Ohio; Rick Callahan in Indianapolis; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; and Marjory Beck in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed. This story has been corrected to show that the age of the man who was killed was 82, not 81. It also corrects the spelling of his last name to Hanna, not Hannah.

Julie Wright, Angie Wang And John Minchillo - The Associated Press


upi--2019-12-17--3 dead from storms hit the Southeast

3 dead from storms hit the Southeast

Dec. 17 (UPI) -- A series of violent storms tore through the Southeast, killing at least three people and destroying buildings in its wake.  Town Creek, Ala., police chief Jerry Garrett confirmed that a husband and wife were killed Monday night in from a tornado and at least four people were critically injured, including a 7-year-old child. Authorities said they were conducting door-to-door searches to see if anyone else was hurt.  In Louisiana, the Vernon Parish Sheriff's Office confirmed that Betty Patin, 59, was killed when her mobile home was destroyed by a storm earlier in the day.  "The Vernon Parish Sheriff's Office would like to offer our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of the storm victim," it said in a statement.  The Vernon Parish Sheriff's Office said several churches, numerous residences and buildings had sustained "significant" structural damage due to the tornado.  A number of power lines and trees in the parish had also been uprooted and crews we working to removed debris and return power to those that were left in the dark by the tornado, it said.  "We've got damage at lost of places," Vernon Parish Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Calvin Turner said. "We've got a church where the fellowship hall is torn all to pieces. Some homes are hit. Right now, we're having trouble just getting to places because of the trees that are down."  The storms Monday caused the National Weather Service to issue Tornado Watch for parts of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The NWS said a severe weather threat would be in place for central Alabama until 7 a.m. on Tuesday.  "A line of strong to locally severe thunderstorms should progress east from northeast and central Mississippi across west-central and northern portions of Alabama into far southern Tennessee this evening, offering a risk for damaging winds and a couple tornadoes," the Storm Prediction Center said. "An additional cluster of strong to severe storms over southwest Mississippi may eventually spread east towards southwest Alabama."


channel4uk--2019-03-21--Torrential rains expected as Cyclone Idai death toll rises above 300

When Cyclone Idai battered south eastern Africa with winds in excess of 100mph a week ago, it also brought torrential rains.  Flooding destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes and officials in Mozambique say 15,000 people still need to be rescued from floodwaters.  Many are still clinging to trees without food or clean water. And while the official death toll has exceeded 400 across the region, that figure is expected to multiply.


channel4uk--2019-03-24--Cyclone Idai death toll rises above 700

Cyclone Idai death toll rises above 700

The death toll from the cyclone that ripped across south eastern Africa just over a week ago has now risen above 700 in the three hardest-hit countries.  That figure is expected to rise with cases of cholera already being reported.  In the worst-affected part of Mozambique the United Nations had actually been preparing for just such a natural disaster.  But Cyclone Idai itself destroyed much of what was being stored.


eveningstandard--2019-03-14--More than 100 dead in Malawi and Mozambique floods as Cyclone Idai approaches south-eastern Africa

More than 100 people have been killed and 843,000 affected by torrential rains in Malawi, Mozambique, and South Africa, the UN and officials said, as tropical cyclone Idai is expected to hit the continent's south-eastern countries.  At least 66 people in Mozambique, and four in South Africa were killed, after heavy rains caused flash flooding.  In neighbouring Malawi, the death toll rose to 56, an official said on Wednesday, with the country on high alert for cyclone Idai, which is expected to make landfall on Thursday or Friday.  Almost 83,000 people have been displaced in the country since storms began more than a week ago, causing rivers to break their banks, leaving villages underwater, and knocking out power and water supplies in some areas.  Chipiliro Khamula, spokesman for Malawi's Department of Disaster Management, said 56 deaths had been recorded as of Tuesday, as well as 577 injuries.  "Most of the displaced families are living in camps," Khamula said.  "So far, a total of 187 camps have been established in the affected districts."  The cyclone will dump heavy rains and winds over Mozambique, before moving to southern Malawi and later Zimbabwe, the department's director, Jolam Nkhokwe, said.  Malawi's President Arthur Peter Mutharika, who declared a state of disaster in southern Malawi late on Friday, cancelled trips to the northern region of Malawi to attend to the flooding.  The Mozambique government have also issued a “red alert” with heavy rains expected to continue.  Mozambique cabinet spokeswoman, Ana Comoana said in Maputo on Tuesday: “the government has decreed a red alert due to the continuing rains and the approach to the tropical cyclone Idai.”  The floods have reportedly already destroyed more than 5,000 homes, and affected more than 140,000 people in the country, which is one of the poorest on the continent.  More than 168,000 hectares of crops were destroyed, the government spokeswoman said, and authorities ordered the compulsory evacuation of flood-prone areas.  Ms Comoana added: "Sixteen accommodation centres have been opened in the provinces of Zambezia and Tete to accommodate the displaced."  "The government needs 1.1 billion meticais ($16m) to assist 80,000 families affected by the rains."  "Tropical Cyclone Idai, which formed over the Northern Mozambique Channel on March 9, is expected to make landfall near Beira on March 14 or 15," said the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.


eveningstandard--2019-03-18--Cyclone Idai More than 1000 people feared dead in Mozambique

Cyclone Idai: More than 1,000 people feared dead in Mozambique

More than 1,000 people are feared dead after a cyclone devastated Mozambique, according to President Filip Nyusi.  Cyclone Idai made landfall close to the port city of Beira on Thursday with winds of up to 106 mph, but aid teams only reached the city on Sunday.  Speaking to state Radio Mozambique, Mr Nyusi said Monday that although the official death count is currently 84, he believes the toll will be more than 1,000.  More than 215 people have been killed by the storm according to official figures in the three countries, hundreds more are missing and more than 1.5 million people have been affected, according to the Red Cross and government officials.  "It appears that we can register more than 1,000 deaths," said the president.  "The waters of the Pungue and Buzi rivers overflowed, making whole villages disappear and isolating communities, and bodies are floating," said Mr Nyusi.  "It is a real disaster of great proportions."  Mr Nyusi spoke after flying by helicopter over the central port city of Beira and the rural Manica and Sofala provinces in which he saw widespread flooding and devastation.  Other officials from the emergency services cautioned that while they expect the death toll to rise significantly, they have no way of knowing if it will reach the president's estimate of 1,000.  The Red Cross said that 90 percent of Beira, a city of 500,000, had been damaged or destroyed.  Beira has been severely battered by the cyclone which cut off electricity, forced the airport to shut down and closed road access to the city, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Monday.  Cyclone Idai first hit Beira last week and then moved inland spreading heavy winds and rainfall to Zimbabwe and Malawi.  The scale of the damage to Beira is "massive and horrifying," said Jamie LeSueur, who led a Red Cross aerial assessment of the city. The team had to view the city by helicopter because roads were flooded, he said.  "The situation is terrible. The scale of devastation is enormous. It seems that 90 percent of the area is completely destroyed," said Mr LeSueur.  "Communication lines have been completely cut and roads have been destroyed. Some affected communities are not accessible," he added.  "Beira has been severely battered. But we are also hearing that the situation outside the city could be even worse. Yesterday (Sunday), a large dam burst and cut off the last road to the city."  UN agencies and the Red Cross are helping with rescue efforts that include delivering food supplies and medicines by helicopter in the impoverished countries.


eveningstandard--2019-03-19--Cyclone Idai UK pledges 6m of aid for hundreds of thousands hit by cyclone in Mozambique and Malaw

Cyclone Idai: UK pledges £6m of aid for hundreds of thousands hit by cyclone in Mozambique and Malawi

Britain has pledged up to £6 million of aid to send humanitarian relief to the hundreds of thousands of people affected by Cyclone Idai in Mozambique and Malawi.  International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said a team of experts was on the ground in Mozambique helping to co-ordinate the UK's response.  Filipe Nyusi, the president of Mozambique, said more than 1,000 people are feared dead in the country four days after the cyclone hit.  Tents and thousands of shelter kits will be sent to the country on Tuesday, and Ms Mordaunt said the UK stands ready to "scale up our support if needed".  Around 600,000 people in Mozambique and 900,000 in Malawi are thought to have been affected by the cyclone, according to United Nations estimates.  Entire villages were submerged and bodies left floating in the floodwaters in the wake of the natural disaster.  Ms Mordaunt said: "I have made £6 million of UK aid available to help meet the immediate needs of people who have lost everything.  "We have deployed a UK team of Dfid experts who are now on the ground in Mozambique helping to co-ordinate the UK's response to this disaster, and we hope to have vital UK aid supplies in the region shortly. We stand ready to scale up our support if needed.  "The images of loss and devastation following this deadly cyclone and extreme weather are shocking. The people of Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe should know that they are firmly in our thoughts at this difficult time, and that the UK stands by their side."  Cyclone Idai made landfall close to the port city of Beira on Thursday with winds of up to 106 mph, but aid teams only reached the city on Sunday.  The Red Cross said that 90 percent of Beira, a city of 500,000, had been damaged or destroyed.  Beira has been severely battered by the cyclone which cut off electricity, forced the airport to shut down and closed road access to the city, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Monday.  Cyclone Idai first hit Beira last week and then moved inland spreading heavy winds and rainfall to Zimbabwe and Malawi.  The scale of the damage to Beira is "massive and horrifying," said Jamie LeSueur, who led a Red Cross aerial assessment of the city. The team had to view the city by helicopter because roads were flooded, he said.  "The situation is terrible. The scale of devastation is enormous. It seems that 90 percent of the area is completely destroyed," said Mr LeSueur.


foreignpolicy--2019-03-22--Cyclone Idai Mapping Mozambiques Catastrophic Inland Ocean

Cyclone Idai: Mapping Mozambique’s Catastrophic ‘Inland Ocean’

Tropical Cyclone Idai struck the Sofala ‘province of Mozambique in the waning hours of March 14, causing damage and flooding that could make it one of the worst weather disasters to ever hit the Southern Hemisphere.  Idai left Sofala with what resembled an inland ocean stretching more than 30 miles wide and potentially about 20 feet deep. The tropical storm destroyed 90 percent of Beira, a port city of more than a half-million people. The confirmed death toll as of March 21 was 557 in Mozambique and neighboring Zimbabwe and Malawi, but with thousands still missing or at risk Mozambique’s president Filipe Nyusi said the death toll could reach 1,000.  The Sofala province is historically prone to flooding, and floods occur every two to three years in Mozambique, according to the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. It also reports that Mozambique ranks third among African countries for exposure to weather-related hazards.  But the “inland oceans” created by Idai surpass those created by any previous storm. A total of 836 square miles were covered in water as of March 20, according to the United Nations Institute for Training And Research (UNITAR). If the entire country of Bahrain were covered in water, it would only be roughly a third the size of the area flooded in Sofala.  To illustrate the extent of the damage, Foreign Policy created a map displaying satellite-detected surface water in Sofala province, using data from UNITAR as of March 20. This preliminary analysis shows the portions of land that have flooded in the days since Idai made landfall in Sofala on March 14. The satellite imagery, captured by NASA on March 15, shows Idai directly over Sofala.  Below, images show the scope of the devastation as seen from above and on the ground in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.


france24--2019-03-18--Death toll from Mozambique cyclone could rise above 1000

Death toll from Mozambique cyclone 'could rise above 1,000'

Déborah Nguyen/WFP/AFP Handout photo taken and released on March 18, 2019 by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) shows damages in Beira, Mozambique, in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai.  The number of people killed in a powerful storm and preceding floods in Mozambique could exceed 1,000, the president said on Monday, putting the potential death toll much higher than current figures.  Hundreds are dead, many more are missing and thousands are at risk from massive flooding in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi caused by Cyclone Idai and persistent rains.  Aid agencies and government officials were scrambling on Tuesday to rescue families trapped by rivers that burst their banks and were still rising.  Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi has said the death toll could reach as high as 1,000. Although emergency workers warn they do not know whether the fatalities will reach that estimate, they say this is the region's most destructive flooding in 20 years.  Hardest hit is Mozambique's Beira port, a city of 500,000 where thousands of homes have been destroyed.  The city and surrounding areas have no power and nearly all communication lines have been destroyed. Beira's main hospital has been badly damaged. The cities of Dondo and Chimoio in central Mozambique are also badly affected.  The medical charity Doctors Without Borders said its work in Beira and other local health centers had "ceased completely" but it was working to resume operations. The group anticipates that water and hygiene needs will remain high in the coming days.  In Zimbabwe the death toll has risen to 98, the government said. The mountain town of Chimanimani was badly hit. Several roads leading into the town have been cut off, with the only access by helicopter.  Malawi's government has confirmed 56 deaths, three missing and 577 injured amid the severe flooding. Rivers have burst their banks, leaving many houses submerged and around 11,000 households displaced in the southern district of Nsanje.


france24--2019-03-24--Death toll from Cyclone Idai tops 750 more than 100000 displaced

Death toll from Cyclone Idai tops 750, more than 100,000 displaced

Yasuyoshi Chiba, AFP | Two sisters walk through flooded waters to seek shelter after their house was destroyed by Cyclone Idai in Buzi, Mozambique, on March 22.  Cyclone Idai's death toll has risen above 750 in the three southern African countries hit 10 days ago by the storm as workers restore electricity, water and try to prevent outbreak of cholera, authorities said Sunday.  In Mozambique the number of dead has risen to 446 while there are 259 dead in Zimbabwe and at least 56 dead in Malawi for a total of 761 fatalities.  All numbers for deaths are still preliminary, warned Mozambique's Environment Minister Celso Correia. As flood waters recede and more bodies are discovered, the final death toll in Mozambique alone could be above the early estimate of 1,000 made by the country's president a few days after the cyclone hit, said aid workers.  Nearly 110,000 people are now in camps more than a week after Cyclone Idai hit, said Correia, the government's emergency coordinator. As efforts to rescue people trapped by the floods wind down, aid workers across the vast region are bracing for the spread of disease.  "We'll have cholera for sure," Correia said at a press briefing, saying a center to respond to cholera has been set up in Beira though no cases have yet been confirmed.  Beira is working to return basic services, he said. Electricity has been restored to water pumping and treatment stations by the government water agency, so Beira and the nearby city of Dondo are getting clean water, he said. Electricity has been restored to part of Beira and the port and railway line have re-opened, he said.  Repairs and bypasses are being built to the main road, EN6, which links Beira to the rest of Mozambique and the road should open Monday, said Correia. The restored road connection will allow larger deliveries of food, medicines and other essential supplies to be to be brought to Beira and to flooded areas like Nhamatanda, west of the city.  "People are already going," the environment minister said of the newly accessible road.  Malaria is another looming health problem that the minister said was "unavoidable" because large expanses of standing water encourage the spread of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.  Asked about his country's current corruption scandal and whether the diversion of money has hurt the rescue efforts, Correia bristled, saying the government's focus now is on saving lives.  "We are doing everything to fight corruption," he said. "It's systematic, up to the top," he said of the anti-graft drive.  Two large field hospitals and water purification systems were on the way, joining a wide-ranging effort that includes drones to scout out areas in need across the landscape of central Mozambique, said Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, deputy director of the UN Humanitarian operation.  The scale of the devastation is "extraordinary" not only because of the cyclone and flooding but because the land had already had been saturated by earlier rains, he said.  A huge number of aid assets are now in Mozambique, Stampa said: "No government in the world can respond alone in these circumstances."  FRANCE 24 visited a school in Beira, Mozambique’s fourth-largest city, that has been converted into a rescue centre for children.  UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said that at the centre, “When the cyclone comes in the area is just flooded, people run to the trees… but then we can’t reach them and many can’t swim. We now know we need about $30 million for the countries affected.”  The UN’s Fore added: “We are running out of time, it is at a critical point here."


france24--2019-04-29--UN gives 13 million as second cyclone pounds Mozambique

UN gives $13 million as second cyclone pounds Mozambique

Mike Hutchings, REUTERS | A group of men wade through floodwaters as rain falls in the aftermath of Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba, Mozambique, on April 28, 2019.  The United Nations has said it will grant Mozambique $13 million in emergency funds to help cope with the massive flooding and destruction caused by Cyclone Kenneth, the second tropical storm to hit the country within weeks.  Cyclone Kenneth crashed into the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado on Thursday just as the country was recovering from Cyclone Idai that hit further south last month.  Weather experts are warning that Kenneth could dump twice as much rain on northern Mozambique as Idai did. It has already killed 38 people as it unleashed heavy rains and flooding that has seen rivers burst their banks and smash whole villages, the Disaster Management Institute said.  An estimated 160,000 people are at risk, with more torrential rain forecast in the coming days, officials have warned.  On Sunday, the UN said it would grant $13 million in emergency funds to help provide food and water and repair damage to infrastructure.  "This new allocation of Central Emergency Response Fund funds will help humanitarian partners to scale up the response to address the needs of those most vulnerable in the aftermath of Cyclone Kenneth", said UN Humanitarian Chief Mark Lowcock in a statement.  Earlier in April, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) granted the southern African nation a $118.2 million credit facility, with the World Bank estimating that Mozambique and other countries affected by the tropical storm will need over $2 billion to recover.  Mozambique officials have described flooding from the new cyclone as "critical" in parts of Cabo Delgado province such as the towns of Ibo, Macomia and Quissanga, where many buildings and homes have been destroyed.  As soon as the rains lift aid distribution will begin Monday via helicopter and boats in Ibo and Quissanga, said officials, noting that roads have been rendered impassable by the heavy rains. Canoes may be used to deliver aid in Macomia, they added.  Safe drinking water is also becoming a challenge as wells have been contaminated, raising the threat of cholera. Malaria is another concern.  The prolonged heavy rains in Pemba, the provincial capital and an historic port city, caused deadly mudslides. As the rains eased Monday, residents of a poor neighbourhood were digging for bodies.  Two houses were crushed by the collapse of a sprawling dumpsite that hit just after midnight when rains poured, local resident Manuel Joachim told the Associated Press.  "We have pulled out one body only, maybe we can find the other five," he added.  In other parts of Pemba, some tried to return to a semblance of daily life amid the destruction.  At a school in one suburb, school children in blue uniforms trooped into classes. In central Pemba, traders put their wares on street pavements and wooden tables while others were busy removing rubble from their homes and yards.


france24--2019-05-04--Cyclone Fani hits Bangladesh after devastating eastern India

Dibyangshu SARKAR / AFP | An Indian resident rides a motorbike past a damaged structure after Cyclone Fani made landfall in Puri, in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, on May 3, 2019.  Cyclone Fani, the strongest storm to hit India in five years, barrelled into Bangladesh on Saturday killing nine, after leaving a trail of deadly destruction in India, where at least eight people reportedly died.  Bangladeshi police said the nine victims perished even before the eye of the storm rumbled over the border in the morning. More than a million people living in the most vulnerable districts of Bangladesh were moved to some 4,000 shelters.  Having hit land, Tropical Cyclone Fani lost some of its power and was downgraded to a “Deep Depression” by the Indian Meteorological Department. A storm surge still breached embankments to submerge dozens of villages on Bangladesh's low-lying coast, a disaster ministry official in Dhaka said.  Fourteen villages were inundated as a tidal surge breached flood dams. The dead included a minor in Barguna district on the coast, a two-year-old child in the Noakhali district and five others killed by lightening.  "We are mooring our boat because it's the only means of income for us. Only Allah knows when we can go back to fishing again," Akbar Ali, a fisherman near the town of Dacope in Bangladesh, told AFP while battling surging waves to tie his boat to a tree.  Although the storm was weakening on Saturday morning, it was still packing a punch, with winds of up to 70 kilometres per hour. Heavy rain battered the Indian state of West Bengal and its capital Kolkata, including the Sundarbans mangrove forest area.  "It's a total mess in islands of the Sunderbans as the cyclone has destroyed everything in its path, fuelling fears rivers could burst their banks and leave vast areas underwater," said Manturam Pakhira, Sunderbans affairs minister.  "Locals spent a sleepless night and many came out of their thatched huts and stood on the river banks measuring the level of the water," Pakhira said. "Several homes have been flattened, roofs blown off, electric poles and trees toppled."  According to local media, 1.2 million people were evacuated in the coastal areas of West Bengal 24 hours before the arrival of Fani ("snake" in Bengali), with 5,000 leaving the low-lying areas and old, dilapidated buildings of Kolkata, home to 4.6 million people.  "Nearly a dozen people were trapped as an old building in the northern part of the city has collapsed," Kolkata's mayor Firhad Hakim said. "They have been rescued and shifted to a safer place."  Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal's chief minister and a key figure in India's ongoing mega-election, cancelled all political rallies and set up an improvised control room in a hotel in the path of the storm.  Kolkata's international airport was ordered closed. Train services were also halted.  Worst hit was the state of Odisha, where Fani made landfall on Friday, packing winds gusting up to 200 kilometres an hour, sending coconut trees flying, knocking down power lines and cutting off water and telecommunications.  Eight people were killed in Odisha, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported, including a teenage boy crushed under a tree and a woman hit by concrete debris.  While not confirming any deaths, Odisha disaster management official Prabhat Mahapatra told AFP there were about 160 people injured in the Hindu pilgrimage city of Puri alone.  "It just went dark and then suddenly we could barely see five metres in front of us," said one Puri resident. "There were roadside food carts, store signs all flying by in the air," the man told AFP. "The wind is deafening."  PTI reported that a construction crane collapsed and that a police booth was dragged 60 metres by the wind.  As Fani headed northeast, Odisha authorities battled to remove fallen trees and other debris strewn over roads and to restore phone and internet services. Electricity pylons were down, tin roofs were ripped off and windows on many buildings were smashed.  Gouranga Malick, 48, was solemnly picking up bricks after the small two-room house he shared with his six-strong family collapsed, its roof blown away. "I have never witnessed this type of devastation in my lifetime," he told AFP.  "Energy infrastructure has been completely destroyed," Odisha's chief minister Naveen Patnaik said.  The winds were felt as far away as Mount Everest, with tents blown away at Camp 2 at 6,400 metres and Nepali authorities cautioning helicopters against flying. Ports have been closed but the Indian Navy has sent warships to the region to help if needed. Hundreds of workers were taken off offshore oil rigs.


newyorkpost--2019-05-30--Mozambique seeks 32 billion to recover from cyclones

Mozambique seeks $3.2 billion to recover from cyclones

JOHANNESBURG — Mozambique says it needs $3.2 billion to recover from a pair of powerful tropical cyclones that ripped into the southern African nation earlier this year and left hundreds dead, raising alarm about the effects of climate change on coastal nations.  That’s according to a government assessment supported by the World Bank, United Nations and European Union for a global pledging conference that begins on Friday.  Some aid workers fear the worst is yet to come. The storms wiped out crops on the eve of harvest in one of the world’s least developed countries, and many people must rely on food aid well into next year. More than 1.3 million people are said to require emergency food assistance.  Cyclones Idai and Kenneth killed more than 650 people in Mozambique, plus hundreds of others in Zimbabwe and Malawi. A final death toll may never be known as some bodies were washed away.  It was the first time in recorded history that two tropical cyclones struck Mozambique in a single season, with one making landfall farther north than ever recorded. The country’s 2,400-kilometer (1,500-mile) Indian Ocean coastline is one of the world’s most vulnerable to global warming .  The cyclones will worsen poverty in the region and recovery will be “extremely challenging,” the government assessment says.  “It’s getting worse with time, steadily,” Mahmoud Shabeeb, spokesman with the aid organization CARE, told The Associated Press, saying the next harvest season isn’t until March of next year. “If people receive assistance, they eat. If not, they don’t eat.”  Cyclone Idai in mid-March brought widespread flooding that created an “inland ocean” and left panicked residents clinging to rooftops and trees for days across central Mozambique, the country’s breadbasket. In the region’s main city of Beira , population roughly 500,000, many rooftops were peeled away.  Six weeks later Kenneth arrived in the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado, shocking residents who had never experienced such a powerful storm. A long swathe of coastal communities was destroyed, and some areas are still difficult or impossible to reach.  “The sound was like a pack of angry wolves,” Ahmad Baroudi, a spokesman with the aid group Save the Children, told the AP after visiting devastated Ibo island and hearing accounts of the storm. Residents told him how they had struggled to put one foot in front of the other in the hurricane-force winds, and how everyone — even those not thought to be religious — were praying.  The cyclones’ effects on children have been widespread, Baroudi said. Fewer are going to school. Some are exposed to abuse and neglect. Some must work or engage in “survival sex.” Many are drinking unsafe water. Livelihoods have been destroyed.  “This response is surprisingly underfunded,” he said. Just 30% of the U.N. humanitarian appeal for Mozambique has come in. “This (pledging) conference comes really at a crucial time.”


npr--2019-03-17--Tropical Cyclone Leaves Ruin Across Mozambique Malawi And Zimbabwe

Tropical Cyclone Leaves Ruin Across Mozambique, Malawi And Zimbabwe

Updated at 11 a.m. ET on Monday  A powerful cyclone that tore through Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe this past week has destroyed roads, bridges and homes and left more than 200 people dead and tens of thousands displaced across the affected region.  About 1.5 million people in total have been affected by Cyclone Idai's torrential rains and winds that have reached speeds of up to 200 kilometers, or 124 miles, per hour, according to the United Nations.  The tropical cyclone made landfall Thursday near the coastal city of Beira, Mozambique, which lost electricity and communications in the storm. The cyclone weakened as it moved into eastern Zimbabwe, Ish Mafundikwa reports for NPR. Nonetheless, it remained powerful enough to wipe out infrastructure and homes, leaving many people stranded in inaccessible regions in the country's eastern highlands.  The U.N. reported last week that 122 people had died in Mozambique and Malawi prior to Cyclone Ida's landfall as a result of flooding caused by the tropical cyclone's weather system. At least 48 more died after the storm made landfall, the U.N. said citing unverified media reports.  Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi said Monday that 84 had been confirmed dead in the country. Speaking on Radio Mocambique, Nyusi said that the scale of the disaster is "huge" and expressed fears that the death toll could rise to around 1,000.  Joshua Sacco, a member of parliament in Zimbabwe, told local media that officials did not have an accurate count of the missing, indicating that death toll reports could increase.  Pictures and video on social media showed roofs torn off buildings and extensive flooding strong enough to sweep along a large car.  Some of the storm's effects could be felt as far inland as Harare, the nation's capital city, some 200 miles from the border. Zimbabwe's president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, declared a state of disaster in affected areas and shortened a visit to the United Arab Emirates, according to Zimbabwe's Ministry of Information.  Karikoga Kutadzaushe, operations director for the Zimbabwe Red Cross, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation that the situation is "quite dire" in the country's eastern highlands.  "The immediate needs for people is shelter ... because most people have been displaced," he said. "There is need for food. There is also need for medicals for those who have been injured."  Two boarding school students were among those killed in eastern Zimbabwe, according to Kutadzaushe. He says they died after a boulder rolled into their dormitory.  Many of those displaced are being housed temporarily at higher ground, including in schools and churches. One hotel in Chimanimani, a mountainous area near the eastern border that was hit particularly hard by the cyclone, is sheltering more than 300 people whose homes have been destroyed, an employee told Mafundikwa.  Rescue efforts were hampered by flash floods and bridges that had been destroyed, Kutadzaushe says. By Sunday, the winds and rain had eased and visibility had improved, allowing Zimbabwe's air force to ferry some of the injured for medical care, the country's Ministry of Information reported.  The full extent of the devastation is unclear but will include damage to crops, water supply destruction and increased risk of gender-based violence, according to the U.N.


npr--2019-03-19--Cyclone Idai Leaves Millions In Need Of Rescue And Other Assistance

Cyclone Idai Leaves Millions In Need Of Rescue And Other Assistance  Humanitarian aid groups are rescuing survivors of Cyclone Idai which swept through Mozambique and Malawi before hitting Zimbabwe. The storm rapidly inundated communities with torrential rain, creating inland oceans in Mozambique.  Sacha Myers of Save the Children, in Mozambique, told NPR, "The situation at the moment, in Mozambique ... is getting worse by the hour. The area is already inundated by floods that hit the area last month. The cyclone has come through. It has destroyed everything in its path." Myers says 100,000 people in Mozambique alone need urgent rescue.  The World Food Program says "inland oceans" in Mozambique extend for "miles and miles in all directions," where survivors cram onto rooftops and cling to trees, waiting to be rescued. "People visible from the air may be the lucky ones," said Herve Verhoosel, Senior Spokesperson for the World Food Program.  Verhoosel told NPR 1.7 million people were in the path of the cyclone in southern Africa, and the biggest problem for aids groups in the region is reaching those who need assistance and rescue.  "All the roads are blocked. A lot of bridges are broken. Even the ports that are open ... All of the machinery of the ports are broken," Verhoosel told NPR, "There is no electricity. No telephone, obviously. No Internet. Access and communication is the first major issue for us to reach people, but also to understand the scale of the problem."  Rising floodwaters have left homes and roads completely submerged, and wiped out water pipelines. Dyson Chifudzeni, National Projects Officer for the Salvation Army in Mozambique, told NPR, "It is very, very serious. All of the household items have been swept away. Their houses have been damaged."  Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe are reporting hundreds dead and injured, and the numbers are expected to rise. Euloge Ishimwei, spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told NPR, "So many people have lost their loved ones. So many people have lost everything. They are injured. They are in hospitals."  Torrential rain is expected to continue through Thursday, submerging more communities under water.  Myers said, "We are really concerned about the rising flood levels, and those 100,000 people that need to be rescued. We're expecting the number of people impacted, and the death toll to rise, just because of the level of destruction, and the flood waters that are continuing to engulf communities."