At least 33 miners were confirmed dead and 29 others missing in the mining town of Itogon in the northern Philippine Benguet province due to typhoon-triggered landslides, authorities said on Sunday.

Itogon Mayor Victorio Palangdan said in local radio interviews that landslides had blocked roads, making relief rescue efforts difficult, Xinhua reported.

In Ucab village of Itogon, he said, two bunkhouses with an estimated 100 people living inside were buried by mud and rubble triggered by Typhoon Mangkhut on Saturday.

“I can’t begin to accept this, but it looks like the casualties here are going to go up to at least 100,” Palangdan said.

Most of Itogon residents work as miners in small scale mining industry while the rest are in farming. Most mine workers built boot camps around the mining area with their families.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines have sent troops to the disaster area to help in the rescue and retrieval efforts. But rescuers said the buried bunkhouses were built at a steep angle, making it difficult to implement rescue.

Meanwhile, the regional police of Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) said at least 49 people have so far died in the region that bore the brunt of the typhoon. Fourteen others are missing, the police said. Thirty-two people were also injured, the police added.

The Cordillera Administrative Region, which consists seven provinces, is the only land-locked region of the Philippines. The regional centre is Baguio City, officially known as the Summer Capital of the Philippines.

(IANS)

The outer reaches of Hurricane Florence began lashing coastal North Carolina with heavy winds and flooded roads on Thursday ahead of an expected landfall that will bring walls of water and lingering downpours to parts of the US East Coast.
The centre of Florence, which has been downgraded to a Category 1 storm, is expected to hit North Carolina’s southern coast on Friday, then drift southwest before moving inland on Saturday, enough time to drop as much as one metre of rain in some places, according to the National Hurricane Center.

An estimated 10 million people live in the storm’s path, according to the US Weather Prediction Center, and coastal businesses and homes were boarded up in anticipation. More than one million people had been ordered to evacuate the coasts of North and South Carolina and Virginia and thousands moved to emergency shelters, officials said.

Reporting from Carolina Beach in North Carolina, said the situation is going to “intensify as the storm moves closer to the shore line”.

Florence is producing a life-threatening storm surge and hurricane conditions over portions of eastern North Carolina. The threat of freshwater flooding will increase and spread inland over the next several days.
“In some areas, these conditions are going to continue for two days or more,” he said. “This is setting up to be a historic flooding in some of the low areas across the strike zone.”

Florence’s maximum sustained winds were clocked on Thursday at 165 kilometres per hour after it was downgraded to a Category 2 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the NHC. The winds had been as high as 140 miles per hour (roughly 225kph) earlier in the week.

But North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper warned: “Don’t relax, don’t get complacent. Stay on guard. This is a powerful storm that can kill. Today the threat becomes a reality.”

Some people who had rejected calls to evacuate the area in danger area took walks along the water as they tried to enjoy a few final hours of normalcy before Florence’s fury arrived.

In Sea Breeze, Roslyn Fleming, 56, made a video of the inlet where her granddaughter was baptised because “I just don’t think a lot of this is going to be here” after the storm, she told Reuters news agency.

Sixteen kilometres away in the city of Wilmington, wind gusts were stirring up frothy white caps into the Cape Fear River.

A man walks past a boarded-up business before Hurricane Florence comes ashore in Wilmington, North Carolina [Carlo Allegri/Reuters]
“We’re a little worried about the storm surge so we came down to see what the river is doing now,” said Linda Smith, 67, a retired nonprofit director. “I am frightened about what’s coming. We just want prayers from everyone.”

Flooding, power outages begin
The storm’s centre was about 180km east of Wilmington, North Carolina, at 2pm local time (18:00 GMT) but tropical storm-strength winds and heavy rains already were hitting North Carolina’s Outer Banks barrier islands. The main highway in the Outer Banks was closed in parts as seawater pushed in. Flooding from rain and rising rivers also was reported in New Bern.

Some 11,000 power outages have been reported in North Carolina.

The hurricane centre also said the threat of tornadoes was increasing as the storm neared the shore.

The Union Point Park Complex is seen flooded as the Hurricane Florence comes ashore in New Bern, North Carolina
Florence could bring wind-driven storm surges of seawater as high as four metres and NHC Director Ken Graham said on Facebook they could push in as far as three kilometres. Heavy rains were forecast to extend into the Appalachian mountains, affecting parts of Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

The storm will be a test of President Donald Trump’s administration less than two months before elections to determine control of the United States Congress. After criticism for its response to last year’s Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, which officials there said was responsible for 3,000 deaths, Trump has vowed a vigorous response to Florence and defended his handling of Maria.

“3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico,” Trump said on Twitter. “When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths … Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000.”

Trump provided no evidence to support his challenge on Maria.

Emergency declarations were in force in Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Millions of people are expected to lose power and it could take weeks to resolve the outages.

(Aljazeera)

Some 5.4 million people were issued storm warnings on the US East coast as Hurricane Florence builds in the Atlantic.

About 1.5 million were ordered to leave their homes and more than 5.4 million were issued storm warnings on the US East Coast as Hurricane Florence builds in the Atlantic.

Expected to be the worst storm in 30 years, it is likely to make landfall in North or South Carolina in the next two days.

US President Donald Trump has already signed emergency declarations to free up federal funds for the response.

(Aljazeera)

Six persons were killed and several others were injured in a chemical tank blast in Bijnore district of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, police said.

The incident took place at the Mohit Chemical and Metro factory situated on the Dehat Marg in the morning.

Senior officials including the district magistrate Atal Rai and Superintendent of Police (SP) Umesh Kumar Singh rushed to the scene of the incident and are overseeing the relief and rescue operations, a home department officials informed IANS. One labourer is missing.

Workers at the factory allege that the chemical tank had been leaking for past many days but despite their please the management turned a blind eye. The incident happened at a time when the labourers were working to plug the leakage by welding it.

Those who were killed, are all laborers and have been identified as Chetram, Vikrant, Lokendra, Kamalveer, Balgovind and Ravi. More details on the missing are awaited, an official said.

(IANS)

 A fire in a poor neighbourhood in Chile’s northern Antofagasta region on Monday destroyed at least 100 homes, injured eight people and left some 400 without a roof over their heads.

According to a preliminary police report, the blaze was reported about 4:30 p.m. in the so-called Frei Bonn shantytown and all local fire companies and vehicles were dispatched to the site, Efe reported

The volunteer firefighters were reinforced with a water cannon truck belonging to the Carabineros, Chile’s military police, whose personnel deployed throughout the zone to ensure that nobody was trapped in the burning and threatened houses.

Police reported that at least 700 local residents were evacuated.

Daniel Augusto, the mayor of the city of Calama, 1,564 km north of Santiago, said that the fire had destroyed more than 65 percent of the shantytown.

The Governor of the town of El Loa, Maria Bernarda Jopia, said that about 750 people – most of them foreigners – live in the shantytown, adding that one of the men taken to the Antofagasta Hospital had burns over 30 percent of his body.

Local authorities set up a shelter in an elementary school to temporarily house the people who lost their homes.

(IANS)

A powerful magnitude 6.6 quake rocked the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido on Thursday, killing eight people, collapsing homes, and triggering landslides that left dozens missing.
Multiple, large-scale landslides struck the sparsely populated countryside, which was also hit by the edge of a powerful typhoon that surged through Japan earlier this week.

Aerial views showed dozens of houses destroyed at the bottom of a hill that was engulfed by a landslide, with a rescue helicopter winching a resident to safety.

Around three million homes lost power after the quake damaged a major thermal plant supplying the region.

The Tomari nuclear power plant in Hokkaido, which was not operational before the quake, was forced to turn to emergency back-up power to keep its cooling system working, said broadcaster NHK.

“There was a sudden, extreme jolt. I felt it went sideways, not up-and-down, for about two to three minutes,” Kazuo Kibayashi, 51, a town official at hard-hit Abira town, told AFP news agency.

“It stopped before shaking started again. I felt it come in two waves. I am 51, and I have never experienced anything like this. I thought my house was going to collapse. Everything inside my house was all jumbled up. I didn’t have time to even start cleaning,” he added.

Moments after the initial quake, an aftershock measuring 5.3 rocked the area and dozens more aftershocks followed throughout the night and into the morning.

Akira Fukui, from the main city of Sapporo, told AFP: “I woke up around 3am with a vertical jolt. I put the light on but it went out shortly afterwards. All the traffic lights are out and there’s no power at work.”

No tsunami warning was issued after the relatively shallow quake, which struck 62km southeast of the regional capital Sapporo.

Around 20,000 rescue workers, including police and members of the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) were responding to the disaster, government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said. Another 20,000 SDF troops are expected to join the effort.

“We will do our best to save lives,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after an emergency cabinet meeting.

NHK reported that eight people had lost their lives, six of them in the village of Atsuma, where the landslide engulfed the homes. Nearly 40 people were still missing, the broadcaster added.

Local media said the dead also included an 82-year-old man who fell down the stairs at his home during the quake and that around 130 people had sustained minor injuries.

“I urge people in areas shaken by strong quakes to stay calm, pay attention to evacuation information… and help each other,” Suga added.

Japan is still recovering from the worst typhoon to hit the country in 25 years, which struck the western part of the country on Tuesday, claiming at least 11 lives and causing major damage to the region’s main airport.
‘Ring of fire’
Officials warned of the danger of fresh quakes.

“Large quakes often occur, especially within two to three days (of a big one),” said Toshiyuki Matsumori, in charge of monitoring earthquakes and tsunamis at the meteorological agency.

The risk of housing collapses and landslides had increased, he said, urging residents “to pay full attention to seismic activity and rainfall and not to go into dangerous areas.”

The earthquake also caused travel disruption, with all flights cancelled from Sapporo’s main Chitose airport, where the quake brought down part of a ceiling and burst a water pipe. Local buses and trains and bullet train services were halted.

Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko said it would take “at least a week” for power to be restored to nearly three million homes after a fire in the area’s largest thermal plant was discovered.

And the national meteorological agency warned that more bad weather could be on the way for Hokkaido, urging people to be vigilant for landslides, high tides and heavy rain.

Japan sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where many of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are recorded.

In June, a deadly tremor rocked the Osaka region, killing five people and injuring more than 350.

On March 11, 2011, a devastating 9.0-magnitude quake struck under the Pacific Ocean, and the resulting tsunami caused widespread damage and claimed thousands of lives.

(AFP News agency)

Himachal Pradesh was hit by a mild intensity earthquake early on Thursday, an official said. There was no loss of life.

Tremors of magnitude 3.4 on the Richter scale were felt in several parts of Chamba district at 12.35 a.m., a meteorological department official told IANS here.

The epicentre of the quake was the Chamba region, bordering Jammu and Kashmir.

A swelling Ganga river has inundated the temples on Varanasi ghats and forced cremations at the Manikarnika to be shifted to upper platforms, a Uttar Pradesh official said on Thursday.

The river rose by over two metres in the last 24-hours. The famous Ganga aarti from the boats has also been banned.

It is flowing just two metres below the danger mark at 69.91m. The Sheetla temple and Ratneshwar Mahadev temple were submerged.

The water level of Varuna river here has also increased. It has flooded the old bridge area, Konia, Kazzakpur and many other low-lying areas.

Three teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been pressed asked to keep a tab on the rising waters and brace for any eventuality.

An NDRF team consisting of 20-25 personnel have been posted on the Assi Ghat, Dashvashmedh Ghat and Rajghat.

Waters of the Varuna river increased due to increased monsoon activity and release of five lakh cusecs of water from the Matateela dam in Lalitpur a few days back, a district official said as rains continued to wreak havoc in many parts of Uttar Pradesh.

In the last 24 hours, 20 persons have been killed in rain-related incidents, including wall collapses, house cave-ins and lightening.

According to the office of the Relief Commissioner, three persons have died in Gonda, two in Mirzapur, one each in Meerut, Sitapur and Bahraich while three persons have died in Kushinagar, one in Unnao, two in Bijnore, one in Auraiyya, one in Jaunpur and one in Etah.

Sports minister of Uttar Pradesh, Chetan Chauhan would be visiting Farukkhabad later in the day to distribute relief and other material in the district.

He told IANS that he will be taking a boat ride to meet the marooned villagers and give them relief material, food items and medicines.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is also scheduled for an aerial survey of flood-hit districts of Barabanki, Basti, Sitapur and Gonda.

Heavy rains have been battering most parts of the state for the last 10 days, leading to flooding of many regions and water logging in major cities and towns.

There was, however, clear skies in Lucknow on Thursday, though the Met forecast two more days of heavy rains in the city and around.

(IANS)

As a dry spell entrenched itself over most parts of Peninsular India, India Met Department (IMD) has said that North India will not have any respite from active monsoon conditions. This is in view of the expected formation of a low-pressure area over North Bay of Bengal over the next two days, after it missed date with the region around the first of this month.

Dry spell in South
According to IMD’s wind-field projections, the system would track in a west-north-westerly track cutting across Bihar, Jharkhand, West Uttar Pradesh and winding up over Delhi and neighbourhood. This effectively means that the atmosphere over Rajasthan is not any more conducive to receive rain systems originating from the Bay since it is transitioning into monsoon withdrawal mode.

September 1 is the normal date of withdrawal for the monsoon from Rajasthan, the north-western fringes of the geography, in a month-long procedure that progressively covers the rest of the country.

Peninsular India would not benefit too much from the brewing ‘low’ since it forms too far north of the Bay and out of its own internal dynamics at a time when the Arabian Sea flows stay indifferent.

According to the Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Weather Services, the dry spell over Peninsular India may extend for another week (till September 11).

An ensemble model of the US National Weather Services, the monsoon circulations may linger over the East Coast, mainly along and off Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coasts, into September 20. It sees the last one among these emerging as a conventional ‘low’ and making its presence felt along the foothills of the Himalayas across Bihar and Uttar Pradesh before winding up over Uttarakhand.

Projections by the IMD indicate that there is scope for at least one more ‘low’ to form over the North Bay by September 13, although this needs to be watched out empirically for confirmation.

It said in the morning update that fairly widespread to widespread rainfall activity with isolated heavy falls are likely to continue over Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand during the next three days.

Heavy to very heavy and isolated extremely heavy falls are likely over parts of North-West Madhya Pradesh and adjoining areas during the next two days, it added.

At least 10 people have been killed in Japan by a powerful typhoon that has caused massive flooding, landslides and power outages across the country.

Typhoon Jebi, the most powerful storm to hit the island nation in 25 years, also injured at least 300 people, according to officials.

Jebi left at least 3,000 people stranded at Kansai airport, an artificial island located in Osaka Bay in the west of the country.

Authorities said they would start evacuating those stuck at Kansai airport on Wednesday to nearby Kobe airport using high-speed boats and buses.

As a result of the typhoon, more than 1.2 million people were without power. Other essential infrastructures such as train lines were also affected by the storm.

“The government will continue to do everything possible to tackle these issues with utmost urgency,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said in a response to the emergency.

READ MORE
Japan slammed by most powerful storm in decades
Depending on the damage, it could take up to a week before Kansai airport will be reopened again.

Jebi is considered a category-3 typhoon, out of five on the Saffir-Simpson scale. For a brief moment, it was considered a “super typhoon” because of its power.

Wind gusts of up to 208km/h were recorded in one part of Shikoku, with forecasts as high as 216km/h.

Tides in some areas were the highest since a typhoon in 1961, Japanese public broadcaster NHK said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was criticised for the government’s slow response to the natural disaster, cancelled a scheduled trip to Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost main island, to oversee the government’s response to the typhoon.

Damages are expected to put a further strain on Japan’s recovery budget as the country continues dealing with natural disasters.

The threat of further floods comes soon after parts of Japan were hit by torrential rains in July, killing more than 100 people.

(Aljazeera)