Severe weather

Citation

(2007), "Severe weather", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 16 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2007.07316aac.002

Severe weather

18 August 2005 Bulgaria

More than one-quarter of Bulgaria’s 7.4 million people have been affected by flooding that has killed 20 and caused some $633 million in damage, the United Nations said today. Following more heavy rainfall last weekend, a state of emergency remained in force in 15 cities and unfavourable weather conditions were expected to continue in some parts of the country, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. The office has been helping co-ordinate the international response to the emergency. Nearly all arable land has been destroyed in five regions including around the capital Sofia, it said. Bulgaria and neighbouring countries have been swept for weeks by torrential rains. Bulgaria’s response has been hampered by the absence of a government following inconclusive elections in June, but a new centre-left cabinet started work yesterday, ending the political stalemate. While flooded roads and collapsed bridges have made it difficult to assess needs, preventing the possible spread of disease was a major concern and priority items included food and bedding for 20,000 people, hepatitis vaccine, antibiotics, insect repellent and motor pumps, the office said. Austria, the Czech Republic, Moldova, Switzerland, the UK and the USA were among those providing emergency aid. The UN Development Program and the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF were also helping out with cash, blankets, water purification equipment and other household items, the UN office said.

23 August 2005 China

Heavy rain and landslides have killed at least 47 people across China and storms are snarling transport and flooding reservoirs, reports said yesterday. The central province of Hubei was hardest hit, with heavy rain and flooding there claiming 32 lives, China Central Television reported. In the southern manufacturing hubs of Shenzhen and Dongguan, north of Hong Kong, eight people died after 30 landslides and house collapses during the weekend. Many streets in the busy downtown areas were flooded, bringing traffic to a standstill as cars and buses were stranded. At least ten towns were flooded in Dongguan, where at least one person was killed. Weather officials warned the rain was likely to continue in the south through the early part of the week. In the north-western province of Shaanxi, six people were killed during the past week as heavy rain and mud-rock flows destroyed more than 600 houses and cut off roads.

18 August 2005 Sierra Leone

Torrential rains have killed at least 20 people and destroyed homes in southern Sierra Leone, with thousands more villagers at risk as the floodwaters spread, local officials in the West African country said today. “The death toll has risen to 20 and more houses are being destroyed by floods after disastrous heavy rains in the Pujehun district,” a government official in the capital Freetown said. A team of rescue workers from the Sierra Leonean navy, Red Cross and the UN mission in the country had flown by helicopter to the region, which lies near the Atlantic coast around 300 km south of Freetown, the official said. About 600 people had been saved from flooded villages but some 15,000 more were still waiting for help. Some families had managed to rescue themselves by canoeing to nearby villages or climbing trees.

18 August 2005 Thailand

The death toll from last weekend’s flash floods in northern Thailand has risen to ten, with six people still missing, the interior ministry said today. Seven people died in Mae Hong Son province, two in Lampang and one in tourism magnet Chiang Mai, the ministry’s Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department said. All six missing people are from Mae Hong Son province, which borders military-ruled Myanmar. Another 85 people have been injured and about 119,270 people suffered property damage or had to be evacuated. The floods also damaged 87 bridges, 95 roads and 44,640 acres of farmland, the ministry said. Government spokesman Surapong Suebwonglee said the 200 millimetres of rain that had fallen in Chiang Dao district of Chiang Mai province was the highest in a century.

24 August 2005 Tropical storm “Katrina”

A hurricane warning was issued for the south-east Florida coast late today and people were advised to take safety precautions in advance of a late tomorrow strike by a growing Tropical Storm “Katrina”. “Katrina” was expected to reach hurricane strength as it moved west from the Bahamas and across the Gulf Stream, said forecasters at the National Hurricane Centre. The forecast path appeared centred on the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area, but forecasters warned that the storm could easily slip more to the north or south before making landfall early Friday (26 August). The hurricane warning was issued for the south-east Florida coast from Vero Beach to Florida City, including the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas, as well as inland Lake Okeechobee. A hurricane warning means that hurricane conditions are expected in an area within 24 hours. Many in the area – hit by two hurricanes last year – did not seem too worried about the slow moving storm whose worst threat appeared to be flooding. Hardware stores noticed a slight increase in sales, but there did not appear to be a crush of customers looking for plywood, water and other supplies. Broward County recommended that people evacuate barrier islands and low-lying regions, and some schools in the area were closing tomorrow and Friday. “Katrina” formed today over the Bahamas and was expected to cross Florida before heading into the Gulf of Mexico. It could drop 6-12 inches of rain in the state, with some spots getting up to 20 inches. National Hurricane Centre meteorologist Eric Blake said residents of threatened areas should consider putting up hurricane shutters, particularly in coastal and exposed areas. Storm surge flooding of three to five feet topped by battering waves is expected. At 2300 hrs, “Katrina” was centred about 135 miles east of the south-east coast of Florida and was moving west at eight mph. That motion was expected to continue through tomorrow, bringing “Katrina” across the warm, storm-feeding waters of the Gulf Stream.

25 August 2005. A hurricane warning remains in effect for the south-east Florida coast from Vero Beach southward to Florida City, including Lake Okeechobee. Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion. A tropical storm warning remains in effect for the north-west Bahamas. At 0500 hours, a tropical storm watch was in effect for the Florida west coast from Florida City to Englewood, including Florida Bay. A tropical storm watch remains in effect for the east-central Florida coast from north of Vero Beach northward to Titusville, including all of Merritt Island and for the middle and upper Florida Keys from the west end of the seven mile bridge northward to south of Florida City.

26 August 2005. Hurricane “Katrina” felled trees, peeled off roofs and left more than 1.3 million customers without power as it slammed into Florida’s densely populated south-eastern coast yesterday with driving rains and sustained winds of 80 mph. Four people were killed, three by falling trees. Rain fell in horizontal sheets, seas were estimated at 15 feet and wind gusted to 92 mph, toppling trees and street signs. Florida Power & Light said the vast majority of people without electricity were in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The storm made landfall along the Miami-Dade and Broward line between Hallandale Beach and North Miami Beach. Weather officials said flooding was the main concern as the storm dropped up to 15 inches in parts of Miami-Dade County. Early today, “Katrina” had weakened into a tropical storm with top sustained winds of 70 mph. It was about 40 miles southeast of Marco Island near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, heading southwest at eight mph. The storm proved fatal for three people who ignored warnings to stay inside until the worst was over. A man in his 20s in Fort Lauderdale was crushed by a falling tree as he sat alone in his car, while a 54-year-old man was killed by a falling tree in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Plantation. A woman who was struck by a tree died at a hospital in Hollywood, hospital officials said. A 79-year-old man in Cooper City also died when his car struck a tree, Broward County officials said. No other details were immediately available. An overpass under construction in Miami-Dade County collapsed onto a highway, authorities said. No injuries were immediately reported, but the freeway – a main east-west thoroughfare – was closed for 20 blocks. The usually bustling streets of Miami Beach, a tourist haven, were largely deserted as the storm pounded the area. The city is hosting celebrities and partygoers in town for the MTV Video Music Awards. MTV called off its pre-awards festivities yesterday and today. Tourists and others hoping to get out of town before the storm were stranded as airlines cancelled flights at Miami and Fort Lauderdale airports, which both closed yesterday night. Three mobile home parks in Davie sustained considerable damage, according to the Broward Emergency Management Agency. “A lot of roofs are off,” said Dennis Myers, a spokesman for the agency. Water management officials lowered canal levels to avoid possible flooding, and pumps were activated in several low-lying areas of Miami-Dade. Dozens of surfers and spectators lined beaches from Palm Beach to Miami-Dade counties to take advantage of the massive waves on the normally placid seas. “Katrina” formed Wednesday (24 August) over the Bahamas and was expected to cross Florida before heading into the Gulf of Mexico. After crossing the peninsula, the storm could turn to the north over the Gulf of Mexico and threaten the Panhandle early next week, forecasters said.

27 August 2005. Hurricane “Katrina” grew into a so-called major storm this morning and continued gaining power over the Gulf of Mexico, two days after slicing across Florida, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said in its latest advisory. The storm’s centre was about 405 miles south-east of the mouth of the Mississippi River, the center reported this morning. “Katrina” was upgraded today to Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with top sustained winds of near 115 mph, making it a major hurricane, and may reach Category 4 within 24 hours. “Katrina” hit southern Florida on 25 August with rain and wind, leaving at least five dead, knocking down trees and cutting power to more than one million customers. Forecasters this morning issued a hurricane watch for the south-eastern Louisiana coast, including New Orleans, expecting the storm to turn west- north-west and make a second landfall within 48 hours. Hurricane-force winds extend as far as 25 miles from the storm’s centrer. Category 3 hurricanes, the third step on the five-tier Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity, have winds of 111 mph to 130 mph. Governor Jeb Bush yesterday asked for federal disaster declaration for Miami-Dade and Broward counties. He said the state is assessing damage and may add other areas. He declared a state of emergency yesterday. Air Worldwide, a storm modeller that estimates damage from natural disasters, yesterday predicted as much as $600 million in claims. Hemant Shah, chief executive of Risk Management Solutions Inc., said losses from “Katrina” thus far would not likely climb above $1 billion. Damages might increase by a few hundred million dollars if the storm hits the Panhandle, he said. About 1.45 million people lost power when the storm hit, Florida Power & Light said in a statement. Power was restored to about 635,000 clients, the company said in a statement today. Restoration is expected to be completed in Palm Beach County late tonight. Work will continue around the clock in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, the company said. At least five deaths have been blamed on “Katrina”, officials said. An overpass under construction in Miami-Dade collapsed because of the hurricane, said Marlen Brant, a spokeswoman for the county’s Office of Emergency Management. Royal Dutch Shell plc said yesterday it would evacuate about 120 workers from its eastern Gulf of Mexico operations because of the storm. Murphy Oil Corp said it was removing non-essential workers from two Gulf producing platforms. Apache Corp. said it is evacuating nonessential staff from 37 rigs in the Gulf. Devon Energy Corp also said it was removing 45 non-essential workers from three Gulf producing platforms. Anadarko Petroleum Corp is evacuating 36 workers from its Marco Polo platform in the Gulf.

28 August 2005. In anticipation of hurricane “Katrina”’s arrival, Energy companies continued yesterday to shut down rigs and evacuate workers from the Gulf of Mexico. ChevronTexaco Corp. completed evacuations of all workers in the eastern and central Gulf of Mexico and non-essential workers in the western Gulf yesterday evening, company spokesman Matt Carmichael said. Chevron has about 2,100 employees and contractors working in the Gulf, Carmichael said. He did not know how many would be evacuated. Royal Dutch-Shell Group evacuated more than 1,000 offshore Gulf workers by yesterday. Only those workers in the far west remain, the company said on its web site. BP plc and ExxonMobil Corp. also brought workers ashore yesterday. In addition to evacuating all of its workers, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, or LOOP, stopped offloading ships yesterday morning, said Mark Bugg, the terminal’s manager of scheduling. However, the port continued to make deliveries to refineries throughout the day, he said. Those shipments probably will stop today if “Katrina” continues on its current track. Rig and platform evacuations most certainly will slow daily oil and gas production in the Gulf. At least 12 platforms and nine rigs had been evacuated by midday Friday, according to a report by the Minerals Management Service. That’s equal to about only 1.5 per cent of the total platforms and 6.7 per cent of rigs operating in the Gulf, and less than 1 per cent of daily production. But the shuttering process continued yesterday. Shell estimates 420,000 barrels of oil and 1.35 million cubic feet of gas per day will be shut in at its central and eastern Gulf facilities. Exxon Mobil has ceased daily production of 3,000 barrels of oil and 50 million cubic feet of gas. Carmichael said Chevron will continue to produce 90 per cent of its normal production by remote as long as weather cooperates. Meanwhile, a river pilot group stopped taking ships in and out of the Mississippi River yesterday. The Associated Branch Pilots, a group of state-commissioned river pilots who guide all foreign ships through the mouth of the Mississippi, discontinued services after guiding Carnival Cruise Line ship Sensation down the river. Sensation is scheduled to return to the Port of New Orleans on Thursday. Another Carnival ship, passenger Conquest, was diverted to Galveston, port spokesman Chris Bonura said. Conquest had been scheduled to arrive in New Orleans today. Passengers onboard Conquest will receive a transportation stipend to pay for their trip back to New Orleans, Bonura said. Conquest does not have another trip planned this week. Associated Branch Pilot President Mike Lorino said he did not know when the pilots would begin bringing ships in and out of the river again.

28 August 2005. Hurricane “Katrina”: a hurricane warning is in effect for the north central Gulf Coast from Morgan City, Louisiana, eastward to the Alabama/Florida border, including the city of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. Hurricane conditions are expected within the next 24 hours. A tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch are in effect from east of the Alabama/Florida border to Destin, Florida, and from west of Morgan City to Intracoastal City, Louisiana. Tropical storm conditions expected within the next 24 hours. Hurricane conditions possible within next 36 hours. At 0900, UTC, a tropical storm warning was issued from Destin, Florida, to Indian Pass, Florida, and from Intracoastal City, Louisiana, westward to Cameron, Louisiana. Tropical storm conditions expected within the next 24 hours.

28 August 2005. The mayor has ordered an immediate evacuation for all of New Orleans, a city with 485,000 inhabitants, as Hurricane “Katrina” bore down with wind up to nearly 282 kph and threats of a massive storm surge. Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave before the eye of the storm strikes land sometime tomorrow morning, the city set up ten places of last resort, including the Superdome arena. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime event,” Mayor Ray Nagin said. “The city of New Orleans has never seen a hurricane of this magnitude hit it directly.” The mayor said a direct hit by “Katrina”’s storm surge would likely top the levees that protect the city from the surrounding water of Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and marshes. President George Bush pledged federal support. Rain started falling on extreme south-eastern Louisiana by midday today as the storm moved across the Gulf of Mexico towards land. Highways in Mississippi and Louisiana were jammed as people headed away from “Katrina”’s expected landfall. All lanes were limited to northbound traffic on two major interstate highways. Beyond the Gulf Coast, “Katrina” was “unmitigated bad news for consumers” because it had shut down offshore production of at least one million barrels of oil daily and threatened refinery and import operations around New Orleans, said Peter Beutel, an oil analyst in New Canaan, Connecticut. At 1100, EDT, 1500, GMT, the National Hurricane Center said “Katrina”’s maximum sustained wind speed had stepped up to nearly 282 kph, with higher gusts. Forecasters said the weather would start getting rough late today and the eye would strike land early tomorrow. Mandatory evacuations were ordered all along the Mississippi coast, where casinos were closed today. National Guard units had already been deployed, state officials said. “Katrina” has been blamed for nine deaths in South Florida.

29 August 2005. Parts of New Orleans are flooded with up to six feet of water, today, after some of the pumps that protect the low-lying city failed under the onslaught from Hurricane “Katrina”, Mayor Ray Nagin said. Nagin said the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, on the east side of the city, was under five to six feet of rising water after three pumps failed. New Orleans police have received more than 100 calls about people in the area trapped on their roofs. “Katrina” crashed ashore around 0600 hours, in south-eastern Louisiana, as a Category 4 storm with winds topping 140 mph. By 1100 hours, winds had fallen to 125 mph as it moved inland. To the east, “Katrina” was hammering Biloxi, Gulfport and other communities along Mississippi’s Gulf of Mexico beaches. In Gulfport, intense damage was reported, with extensive damage reported in Biloxi. Water topped levees and spilled into downtown Mobile, where winds gusts approaching hurricane strength were reported. Levees overtopped in Orleans and St Bernard parishes, the National Weather Service said in a hurricane local statement. It also said “extensive and life-threatening storm surge flooding” was occurring along the Louisiana and Mississippi coast. The weather service reported “total structural failure” in some parts of metropolitan New Orleans, where “Katrina” brought wind gusts of 120 mph. Water was rushing down the street and had risen up to the wheel wells of parked cars. Earlier, “Katrina” ripped away a large section of the Superdome’s roof. It was reported that New Orleans could expect a storm surge of 15 to 20 feet. That surge would not top New Orleans’ levees, but CNN’s Myers noted that “there may be a 20-foot surge, but there may be a 20-foot wave on top of that.” At 1100, ET, the storm was centred about 35 miles east-north-east of New Orleans and 45 miles west-south-west of Biloxi, Mississippi. Hurricane force winds extended about 125 miles from the storm’s centre. The storm was moving north at 16 mph. Authorities in Gulfport said that ten feet of water cover downtown streets. In Biloxi, wind gusts topping 100 mph were starting to pull the roofs off buildings.

29 August 2005. Hurricane “Katrina” has unleashed howling winds and heavy rain on southern coastal areas of the USA. The storm has wrought extensive damage in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, where it swept ashore after moving across the Gulf of Mexico. “Katrina” submerged neighbourhoods in New Orleans and tore part of the roof of a stadium where many had sought refuge. But it weakened after making landfall and spared the low lying city a direct hit, despite frightening predictions. The hurricane, later downgraded from a category 5 hurricane to a category 1 storm, still brought 105 mph winds to Mississippi. Power lines have been cut, palm trees have been felled, shops wrecked and cars hurled across streets strewn with shattered glass. Hundreds of thousands have fled, amid fears that the storm surge could topple the barriers that protect the city. Mayor Ray Nagin said he had received reports that some water had breached the defences. “Katrina” passed to the east of New Orleans, although the National Hurricane Center warned it would be pounded throughout today and the potential storm surge could still swamp part of the city. Elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, “Katrina” flooded roads in Alabama and swamped bridges in Florida. The storm spurred a 22-ft surge on Mississippi’s coast. “This is a devastating hit, we’ve got boats that have gone into buildings,” the Gulfport fire chief said.

30 August 2005. Hurricane “Katrina” has smashed across the southern coastline of the USA, destroying houses and leaving some areas up to three metres under water. The US National Weather Service says what it calls “extensive and life threatening” storm surge flooding is occurring along the Louisiana and Mississippi coast. The cities of New Orleans and Gulfport appear to have been the worst hit. An early estimate of the damages bill is at least $34 billion. It claimed the lives of at least three people in New Orleans and sent crude oil prices surging to record highs after the evacuation of offshore rigs in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico and the closure of refineries. Emergency teams waited for the worst of the storm to pass to launch rescue operations. A number of homes were damaged by boats which broke free from their moorings in the heavy winds. Hundreds of thousands of people in New Orleans and other areas of Louisiana as well as Mississippi lost power.

30 August 2005. An oil rig tore free of its moorings as Hurricane “Katrina” lashed the Alabama coast, before surging downriver and smashing into a suspension bridge, witnesses have said. The platform broke free from the Bender shipbuilding and repair yard in Mobile during the morning as the then hurricane walloped the southern US coast. The runaway rig then drifted through the choppy waters of the Mobile River before hitting the Cochrane/Africatown USA road bridge. “It is fully under the bridge, it barely fits,” witness Robert Rishel said. Authorities could not immediately identify the company which owned the rig, which was in dock for repairs. Engineers were being sent to the scene to assess damage to the structure before deciding whether it was safe for traffic. Alabama was one of the states worst hit by “Katrina,” which also sowed devastation in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. State Governor Bob Riley declared a state of emergency as the storm tore ashore, whipping up huge waves, ripping down trees and causing widespread devastation.

The lower Mississippi River remained closed yesterday after Hurricane “Katrina” tossed empty barges, destroyed navigation markers and possibly re-channelled parts of the waterway, the Coast Guard and a river industry group reported. It may take barge operators and the Coast Guard several days to several weeks to determine the brunt of the storm’s damage. “This is America’s third coast,” said Paul Rohde, president of the Midwest Area River Coalition 2000. MARC 2000 represents industry groups that rely on the river to ship petrochemicals, construction materials, coal and grain. “Essentially, the traffic caught there has been asked to wait on the bottom third of the river,” Rohde said. “It’s just not safe to be on the river.” According to anecdotal reports, “Katrina’s” winds tossed some empty barges on the side of levees. Coast Guard Lt. Rob Wyman said the lower section of the river won’t be opened until it is deemed safe. He said navigation markers probably have been destroyed or moved by “Katrina’s” winds. He also said river channels could have been re-silted, or altered, making navigation dangerous. The Coast Guard’s Eighth District command and incident management team, usually situated in New Orleans, temporarily relocated its command staff to downtown St Louis to oversee hurricane response operations. The team of about 40 people is operating out of the Coast Guard’s Integrated Support Command at the Robert Young Federal Building, 1222 Spruce Street.

30 August 2005. A widespread disaster unfolded on the US Gulf Coast today as up to 80 people were reported dead in Mississippi, and floodwaters poured into low-lying New Orleans through levees battered by powerful hurricane “Katrina.” Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour told the NBC “Today” show there were reports of 50-80 fatalities in one coastal county alone, Harrison County. “They are unconfirmed but likely are accurate and likelier to go up when we take in the other counties,” Barbour said. Local media said 30 people died at a Biloxi apartment complex where they were drowned or crushed by debris, and New Orleans’ mayor reported bodies floating in floodwaters. The death toll was expected to grow as rescuers struggled through high water and mountains of debris to reach areas devastated by “Katrina” when it struck the region yesterday. Hundreds needed to be rescued from rooftops, US Coast Guard officials said. The storm inflicted catastrophic damage all along the coast as it slammed into Louisiana with 140 mph winds, then swept across Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. It shattered buildings, broke boats, smashed cars, toppled trees and flooded cities. Risk analysts estimated the storm would cost insurers $26 billion, the most in US history. Most of the deaths appeared to have been caused by a massive storm surge that swept in from the sea and as far as a mile inland in parts of Mississippi. “The state has suffered a grievous blow on the coast,” Barbour said. No deaths have been officially confirmed in Louisiana, but New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said bodies were floating in high waters that covered most of the city. “The city of New Orleans is in a state of devastation,” he told television station WWL. We probably have 80 per cent of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet. We still have many of our residents on roofs,” he said. “Both airports are under water.” New Orleans is mostly below sea level and protected by levees or embankments. Nagin said the levees had given way in places to the storm surge, including a 200-foot breach near the city centre through which waters from Lake Pontchartrain were pouring in. “There’s a serious leak and it’s causing the water to continue to rise,” he said. Adding to the problem were malfunctions in the system the city uses to pump out floodwaters. So far, Nagin said, the historic French Quarter and central business district had not been badly flooded. However, Tulane University Medical Centre vice president Karen Troyer-Caraway told CNN the downtown hospital was surrounded by six feet of water and considering evacuating its 1,000 patients. Louisiana emergency-preparedness officials said plans were in the works to fix the broken levee. The high waters flooded thousands of homes and forced many people into attics and onto roofs. Police took boats into flood-stricken areas to rescue some of the stranded. Others were picked up by helicopter. People used axes, and in at least one case a shotgun, to blast holes in roofs so they could escape their attics. Many who had not yet been rescued could be heard screaming for help, police said. In Mississippi, water swamped the emergency operations centre at Hancock County courthouse and the back of the building collapsed. “Thirty-five people swam out of their emergency operations centre with life jackets on,” neighbouring Harrison County emergency medical services director Christopher Cirillo told Mississippi’s Sun Herald newspaper. “We haven’t heard from them.” Before striking the Gulf coast, “Katrina” last week hit southern Florida, where it killed seven people. The storm knocked out electricity to about 2.3 million customers, or nearly five million people, in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, utility companies said. Restoring power could take weeks, they warned. On its way to the coast, the storm swept through oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico where 20 per cent of the nation’s energy is produced. At least two drilling rigs were knocked adrift and one in Mobile Bay, Alabama, broke free of its mooring and slammed into a bridge. Governors in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida had summoned a total of at least 7,503 Army and Air Force National Guard troops to state duty to provide services ranging from law enforcement to debris removal and providing portable generators for electric power, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. By this morning, “Katrina” had moved inland to north-eastern Mississippi where the National Hurricane Centre in Miami said it was downgraded to a tropical storm with 50 mph winds.

30 August 2005. Coast Guard crews on boats and aircraft continue to make search and rescue efforts a top priority today throughout the Gulf Coast region and plan on continuing recovery operations throughout the night. More than 40 Coast Guard aircraft from as far away as California and Massachusetts, along with aircraft from the Army and Air National Guard, have saved hundreds of people since the hurricane made landfall yesterday. The Coast Guard received more than 350 requests for help today, many from urban areas in New Orleans, but also from along the Mississippi coast, where people were stranded on rooftops due to severe flooding. Additional Coast Guard small boats and cutters are poised to join the search and rescue efforts tomorrow and will stage off the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi to provide communications and fuelling for aircraft, as well as to patrol nearby waterways. Other Coast Guard assets, including hazardous material disposal teams, aids to navigation teams and disaster assistance relief teams, continue to work in conjunction with local, state and federal agencies on other relief and recovery missions to minimize the economic and environmental impacts from the hurricane.

31 August 2005. New Orleans’ hurricane-ravaged airport remained closed yesterday, and it may be days away from resuming commercial service. Airports across the South closed by hurricane “Katrina” resumed service throughout the day, but those at New Orleans and Gulfport, Miss., were the exceptions. Airlines gave differing estimates of when they expect to resume service to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. The airport is the USA’s 42nd largest as measured by plane capacity, according to Back Aviation Solutions. Southwest is its biggest carrier. The airport lacked electricity, even auxiliary power. Debris littered airport roadways. Some jetways were battered by the storm’s powerful winds, Southwest spokesman Ed Stewart says. Southwest decided yesterday to cancel all flights at New Orleans for today. Southwest flew most of its employees and their families from New Orleans to Houston before “Katrina” landed, complicating the airline’s task of resuming service. Other airlines have cancelled flights for a longer period or indefinitely. The Gulfport-Biloxi airport, the USA’s 135th largest, may open as soon as today. Delta, the airport’s largest operator, as of late yesterday, planned to resume service there today, spokeswoman Chris Kelly says. The Federal Aviation Administration closed the airspace over a broad swath of the gulf region late Monday because of damaged radio and radar systems, agency spokeswoman Laura Brown says. Nationally, flights were mostly flowing smoothly with the exception of weather delays at a handful of airports such as Atlanta. “It looks like the rest of the system is operating well,” Brown says.

31 August 2005. The governor of Louisiana says everyone needs to leave New Orleans due to flooding from Hurricane “Katrina”. “We’ve sent buses in. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary,” Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. Army engineers trying to plug New Orleans’ breached levees struggled to move giant sandbags and concrete barriers into place, and the governor said today the situation was growing more desperate and there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city. “The challenge is an engineering nightmare,” Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. The mayor said today that the hurricane killed hundreds, maybe thousands, of people in New Orleans.

31 August 2005. Much of southern Ontario was lashed with heavy rain and strong winds early today as the remnants of hurricane “Katrina” blew in from the USA and the storm will move through Quebec into parts of the Maritimes. “It’s packing a good punch water wise,” said Carolyne Marshall, a forecaster with the Canadian Hurricane Centre in Halifax. “The heaviest rainfall we’re seeing on radar is basically over the Great Lakes and on the US side of the border,” said Marshall. The weather system, now classed as a post-tropical depression, was moving in roughly the northeast direction that forecasters expected, Marshall said. “Southern Quebec, most of New Brunswick, parts of Nova Scotia and even parts of Labrador are going to see some rain out of this,” she said. Environment Canada issued a heavy rainfall warning early today for a stretch of southern Ontario from the Niagara region, east through Lake Ontario shoreline communities and into western Quebec and the Montreal area. Rainfall amounts of up to 50 millimetres were expected in the warned areas, but higher amounts were likely in regions closer to eastern Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence River. The system was also accompanied by strong northeast winds gusting up to 70 kmh in some areas of Ontario. Environment Canada had issued a severe wind warning for Quebec City, where northeast winds were expected to reach 90 kmh this afternoon and into the evening.

1 September 2005. The full impact of hurricane “Katrina” began to emerge yesterday, with a prolonged choke expected on two sectors critical to US foreign trade as well as its domestic economy, commercial shipping in the lower Mississippi River and the refining and oil industries. The US Coast Guard faces the onerous task of juggling civilian search and rescue with assessing the navigability of the Mississippi. Lieutenant Rob Wyman, a Coast Guard spokesman in St Louis, Missouri, told Lloyd’s List that the Mississippi was open to limited tug and barge activity involving smaller and shallow-draught vessels. Several major ports, including the major complex of the port of South Louisiana as well as New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, Gulfport and Pascagoula, remained closed yesterday. River traffic could be closed for days, experts believe. The crippling of downriver ports has alarmed the US grain industry, which is concentrated in the Midwest. The industry relies on the ports to export nearly 2m bushels of corn, soya beans and wheat annually. The grain shipping season normally begins by the end of September. The US Army Corps of Engineers is co-ordinating depth surveys for clearing deep-draught ships to use the river. These were allowed to move within their anchorages provided they had pilots on board, another Coast Guard spokesman said. The Coast Guard has also begun to piece together a rig damage assessment, the spokesman said.

1 September 2005. The US government is to release oil from the country’s emergency stocks to help offset production cuts caused by hurricane “Katrina.” With many oil rigs or platforms reported missing in the Gulf of Mexico, the aim is to give US refiners a temporary stock-gap of crude supplies. Yet with “Katrina” also closing nine major refineries, it remains to be seen what impact the move will have. US Energy Department Secretary Samuel Bodman said the decision to open up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was made last night. The US Strategic Petroleum Supply totals almost 700 million barrels of crude oil, stored in five underground salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana. Mr Bodman said four of the sites were operative. No details have yet been released on the quantity of oil that will be made available to refiners. In addition, the White House said it would waive certain air pollution regulations for gasoline and diesel in all 50 states until 15 September. This will allow gasoline with higher evaporation rates and diesel with higher sulphur content to be sold. “These waivers are necessary to ensure that fuel is available throughout the country,” said the US Environmental Protection Agency. The US Minerals Management Service said 95 per cent of the Gulf of Mexico’s oil output is now out of service following “Katrina” together with more than 83 per cent of natural gas production. The region accounts for about one-quarter of US crude supplies. US Coast Guards have reported many rigs missing in the Gulf of Mexico. “We have confirmed reports of at least 20 oil rigs or platforms missing, either sunk or adrift, and one confirmed fire where a rig used to be,” said one US Coast Guard official.

1 September 2005. Gulfport, Mississippi, was once a tourist town, filled with beach-goers and gamblers drawn to the casinos on barges permanently moored just offshore. Now, not a building along this coast has been left unscathed by hurricane “Katrina.” The casinos faired even worse. Their colossal steel frames and hulls are now well inland, hurled across streets and parks by the waves. One of the casinos that used to be anchored off-shore has been lifted right out of the water. This badly damaged massive pink carcass, eight stories tall and 700 ft long, is now sitting in a car park 200 yards inland from the beach. Nearby, there are a couple of boats, again lying several hundred yards inland. They are stacked up along with trailer trucks and all sorts of vehicles from the casino. Every house in the area is damaged as well. Debris from the surging waters is everywhere, much of it the personal belongings of the thousands of people who have lost their homes. Nothing is working here. There is no water, no electricity, no refrigeration, no grocery stores. No petrol is available from the ground because it is all pumped up by electricity. Everyone else is just making do with the emergency aid that is starting to flow now. But the task is massive and it has not even begun to reach the many people who need it here. Officials are still looking for survivors and finding them all of the time. More than 100 are feared dead, 30 in one block of flats in the neighbouring city of Biloxi alone. People will try to get home now but the police will not allow them back because there is a 24-hour curfew. That is leading to confrontations with the police. It is going to take days, weeks, months or more before they get this back to normal. Casino gambling here provided jobs for 14,000 people. About $500,000 a year went into the local economy from gambling taxes alone and every single casino has been wrecked. Every single hotel is uninhabitable.

1 September 2005. A Coast Guard St Louis press release states: (1) The Coast Guard’s current emphasis is the safety and security of people in the areas impacted by hurricane “Katrina”, and is working closely with federal, state and local partners on that goal. Coast Guard air and boat crews have assisted in the rescue of 1,259 people, and they are continuing to respond to distress calls. The Coast Guard is working with FEMA, and is delivering relief supplies onboard its C-130 cargo planes. There are approximately 4,000 Coast Guardsmen currently in the area working on response and recovery, as well as 15 cutters, 37 airplanes and rescue helicopters, 63 small boats, three maritime safety and security teams, three oil and hazardous material response teams and five aid to navigation teams. This hurricane caused catastrophic devastation, and the Coast Guard anticipates that there will be prolonged waterways management and environmental cleanup operations. Currently, five oil rigs from West Delta Platform are missing, one submersible rig is grounded at south pass, two mobile offshore drilling units are adrift, two semi-submersibles are listing, and the MARS facility is severely damaged. A high priority is reopening ports and waterways and outer continental shelf reconstitution. The Coast Guard anticipates prolonged waterways management issues and environmental cleanup operations. Currently, all Gulf ports remain closed. The Coast Guard is beginning to conduct port surveys and is moving assets into the area to reconstitute the aids-to-navigation system on the Mississippi River and other waterways. Coast Guard facilities have experienced varying degrees of damage. Early reports indicate Coast Guard Station Gulfport, Miss., was destroyed. Station Venice, La., is partially submerged. Station Grand Isle, Ala., sustained slight damage to the group building and Coast Guard housing. Station New Orleans appears to have sustained little damage, but remains inaccessible by car.

The unified command here is continuing their hurricane response efforts today, performing search and rescue missions in the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama area and assessing damage to the ports and waterways. Coast Guard helicopter rescue crews have rescued 696 people, 16 dogs, two cats and have flown more than 243 hours. The Intracoastal Canal from Mobile to Panama City, Fla., is open, and tug and barge traffic has resumed in Mobile Bay, Ala. All other ports and waterways from Mobile to New Orleans remain closed. An HU-25 Falcon jet crew from Coast Guard Aviation Training Center Mobile is flying offshore in search of three missing oil rigs. Helicopter rescue crews from Coast Guard air stations Cape Cod, Mass., Clearwater, Fla., Miami and the Arkansas National Guard continue to rescue hurricane survivors and critically ill patients from hospitals. The number of rooftop rescues has declined but continue as rescue crews search for survivors. Three Coast Guard cutters and numerous small boats will patrol the Alabama and Mississippi coast. Members from Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Team Mobile have started placing temporary buoys in Alabama waterways today. The unified command, comprised of Coast Guard Sector Mobile, Coast Guard Aviation Training Center Mobile, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, was established Monday in response to hurricane “Katrina”. In addition to search and rescue, which will always take precedence, other top priorities are to open the ports of Pensacola, Fla., Mobile and Pascagoula, Miss., in order to allow the movement of supplies and fuel.

2 September 2005. Lloyd’s is likely to face a hit of around £1bn, net of reinsurance, from claims resulting from the devastating hurricane “Katrina,” say market sources. Speculation on the potential insured cost is very much unofficial and preliminary, but centres on the Louisiana hurricane taking a 5-8 per cent slice out of the market’s 2005 capacity of £13.7bn. Some experts say it will be six to nine months before a truly reliable picture of losses emerges. At Lloyd’s, the hit is expected to fall six times more heavily on the shore-based classes than on offshore energy.

2 September 2005. More than 2,580 people have been rescued from rooftops and flooded neighbourhoods since rescue operations began Monday, and joint agency rescue operations are continuing through the day and night. The Coast Guard’s primary focus along the Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana coast will remain search and rescue as long as necessary. Coast Guard assets continue to arrive in the impacted areas. There are 25 cutters off the Gulf Coast, in the rivers, and in the ports and waterways. The Coast Guard cutters Pelican, Cypress and Spencer are currently transiting the Mississippi River to New Orleans to establish a command and control presence and provide a flight deck, fuel and communications to the search and rescue assets in and around New Orleans. A total of 35 aircraft and hundreds of air crew personnel are in the area from Coast Guard air stations as far away as Barbers Point, Hawaii, and Cape Cod, Mass. Coast Guard C-130s are en route to Air Station New Orleans with additional fuel supplies. Coast Guard Auxiliary members have responded and are supporting the Coast Guard incident management team. The Coast Guard is contacting its Auxiliary divisions throughout the area to ask for help with post-hurricane recovery operations. Many other federal and local government assets are already in the area or being sent there, including FEMA urban search and rescue teams, incident management teams, disaster assistance and response teams, maritime safety and security teams, marine safety response teams, critical incident stress management teams. The Coast Guard anticipates significant waterways management and environmental clean-up operations. Most Gulf ports remain closed. However, joint-agency surveys of the ports, waterways and rivers are underway.

2 September 2005. Oil and gasoline prices dipped today as the US government moved to avert a fuel shortage and some Gulf Coast oil operations resumed, but losses were limited by fears it may take months to recover from the rampage of hurricane “Katrina”. Washington loaned out emergency crude supplies, eased environmental regulations on motor fuels and waived a shipping law to allow better flow of oil into the Gulf region, where most oil output and eight refineries were idled for a fifth day. Some regional pipelines also started pumping supplies around the country and power was restored to a number of plants. However, the US government said it might take months to recover from the killer storm, which struck at the heart of an industry already running nearly flat-out to satisfy two years of exceptionally strong demand growth around the world. “My feeling is that the pressure on the gasoline market is much more severe than we first imagined,” said Tetsu Emori, chief commodities strategist at Mitsui Bussan Futures in Tokyo. “With damage to refineries looking more serious than after hurricane “Ivan” last year, I don’t see prices falling far soon.” The US Department of Energy said some of the refineries shut by”Katrina” could take months to restart, with reports that floodwaters swamped at least three in Louisiana. A dozen other refiners along the coast and in the Midwest have also been forced to slow operations due to pipeline and supply shutdowns, further straining already low inventories. Soaring gasoline prices – up more than 20 per cent from just a week ago – have drawn an armada of gasoline cargoes from Europe, but most of those supplies will not arrive until October, leaving open the prospect of a month-long supply squeeze. President George W. Bush urged Americans to conserve gasoline supplies and warned retailers about price gouging as New Orleans and the Gulf Coast struggled to recover from one of the nation’s most savage storms, now estimated to have killed thousands. The DOE confirmed the loan of crude supplies from its strategic reserve to three refiners to enable them to resume operations at their Louisiana facilities. Washington temporarily eased environmental gasoline and diesel regulations and waived a shipping law to allow foreign tankers to move fuel between domestic ports. The European Commission said it could revive a plan to coordinate EU oil stocks, while France announced financial aid to its citizens to cushion the blow of rampant oil prices. Canada’s oil companies could defer autumn maintenance at refineries to maximise gasoline exports south of the border. Gasoline supply fears have overshadowed the loss of nearly all Gulf of Mexico crude production, a quarter of the nation’s total, which is more easily compensated with robust commercial stockpiles, strategic inventories or additional OPEC output. Power was slowly being restored to refineries, but plant operations will take days or weeks to resume, operators said.

2 September 2005. US troops poured into New Orleans today with shoot-to-kill orders to scare off looting gangs so rescuers can help thousands of people stranded by hurricane “Katrina”, find the dead and clean up the carnage. Faced with a growing threat of anarchy after a natural disaster that may have killed thousands of people, the US military rushed in National Guard reinforcements. Armed looters have had the run of the city since “Katrina” pounded the US Gulf Coast on Monday (29 August), but they were warned not to push their luck. “These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded,” Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said last night of one group of 300 National Guard troops being deployed here after recent duty in Iraq. “These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will.” Most residents are desperate for an end to the violence and a crackdown on looters was ordered when it became clear the looting and gunfire were hurting relief efforts. Bodies rotted on busy streets, gunmen opened fire on troops and rescue workers, and seriously ill people braved the floodwaters in wheelchairs to search for help. Officials said the death toll was certainly in the hundreds and probably in the thousands, but details remained sketchy. Pentagon officials said an additional 4,200 National Guard troops would be deployed over three days and that 3,000 regular Army soldiers may also be sent in to tackle the armed gangs that have looted stores across New Orleans. “We will not tolerate lawlessness, or violence, or interference with the evacuation,” Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said. The reinforcements mean nearly 50,000 part-time National Guard and active duty military personnel are being used in the biggest domestic relief and security effort in US history. However, the deployment has so far failed to guarantee an effective rescue plan and many of the hurricane’s victims are increasingly frustrated at being left to fend for themselves. Under pressure from some Democrats for allegedly acting too slowly and for cutting federal funding for improvements to New Orleans’ levees, US President George W. Bush was to visit the city today. The US Senate approved his request for $10.5 billion in emergency disaster relief late yesterday, with billions more in aid seen passing Congress in coming weeks. Flooded New Orleans hospitals had no electricity and critically ill patients were dying because they no longer had access to oxygen, insulin or other medicines. Doctors worked around the clock to keep patients alive and evacuate them but logistical arrangements were chaotic and made worse by the violence. At one hospital, one evacuation was called off when a gunman opened fire on doctors and soldiers. Shelters set up to care for thousands of evacuees in New Orleans were still without food and water early today and families slept near corpses and piles of human waste. Lake Pontchartrain’s muddy floodwaters still own New Orleans four days after bursting through the levees that once protected it, and now they are toxic with fuel, battery acid, gas, garbage and raw sewage. Health experts warn outbreaks of disease could wreak havoc in the days and weeks ahead. Thousands of people were finally evacuated from the city on Thursday night and taken to the Astrodome stadium in Houston, about 350 miles west, but it quickly filled up and police turned away busloads of the evacuees to other shelters. “Katrina” forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and shut refineries along the Gulf Coast shut, sending gasoline prices at the pump soaring to new records of well over $3 a gallon in most parts of the country. Bush urged Americans to conserve gasoline to help overcome the crisis. “Don’t buy gas if you don’t need it.”

2 September 2005. More than 2,580 people have been rescued from rooftops and flooded neighbourhoods since rescue operations began Monday (29 August), and joint-agency rescue operations are continuing through the day and night. The Coast Guard’s primary focus along the Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana coast will remain search and rescue as long as necessary. Coast Guard assets continue to arrive in the impacted areas. There are 25 cutters off the Gulf Coast, in the rivers, and in the ports and waterways. The Coast Guard cutters Pelican, Cypress and Spencer are currently transiting the Mississippi River to New Orleans to establish a command and control presence and provide a flight deck, fuel and communications to the search and rescue assets in and around New Orleans. Thirty-five aircraft and hundreds of air crew personnel are in the area from Coast Guard air stations as far away as Barbers Point, Hawaii, and Cape Cod, Mass. Coast Guard C-130s are en route to Air Station New Orleans with additional fuel supplies. Coast Guard Auxiliary members have responded and are supporting the Coast Guard incident management team. The Coast Guard is contacting its Auxiliary divisions throughout the area to ask for help with post-hurricane recovery operations. Many other federal and local government assets are already in the area or being sent there, including FEMA urban search and rescue teams, incident management teams, disaster assistance and response teams, maritime safety and security teams, marine safety response teams, critical incident stress management teams. There have not been any confirmed reports of casualties to Coast Guard members, but due to communications difficulties some Coast Guard personnel have not been accounted for. The Coast Guard anticipates significant waterways management and environmental clean-up operations. Most Gulf ports remain closed. However, joint-agency surveys of the ports, waterways and rivers are underway. There are approximately 86 vessels awaiting transit to or through the Port of New Orleans. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in Louisiana, Red River, Atchafalya, and Ouatchita Rivers has been opened in some areas. More than 100 barges have reportedly sunk, or are aground south of New Orleans, and the majority of buoys and other kinds of navigational markers are off station throughout the Gulf Coast. Ports of New Orleans, Gulfport, Pascagoula, and Destin/Panama City are closed. The ports of Pensacola and Mobile are open only to vessels with a 12-foot draft or less.

3 September 2005. Military convoys rolled into New Orleans yesterday, carrying troops to try to stamp out lawlessness and supplies for desperate survivors of hurricane “Katrina” after days of delays and broken promises. President George W. Bush, facing fierce criticism over the government’s slow response to the one of the worst disasters in US history, signed a $10.5 billion measure late yesterday to speed federal aid to Gulf Coast areas devastated by the storm. Earlier, Bush toured the stricken area and vowed to fix relief efforts he admitted had been “not unacceptable.” “We’re going to make it right,” he said. A caravan of camouflage-green trucks carrying National Guard troops and escorted by helicopters brought a glimpse of hope to New Orleans, which quickly fell into chaos and desperation after the storm surge broke its protective system of levees, and floodwaters inundated the city. Thousands of people are feared killed and scenes of decomposing corpses, rampant looting and widespread destruction have shocked Americans and aroused angry complaints from politicians and local residents about the lack of aid in the world’s richest country. The arrival of the military convoy raised hopes the government might finally be getting a grip on the crisis. “We got food, water and medical attention. We are gonna get you people out of here,” a National Guard officer told thousands of hungry and frustrated people who have waited days at New Orleans’ convention centre for evacuation buses that never came. Some cheered but others demanded to know why it had taken so long. Many stranded evacuees recounted horrific tales of murder, rape, death threats and near starvation inside the filthy, reeking shelter this week. Bush and Congress described the relief measure as a down payment on what will be a larger amount of money to be made available in coming weeks. The Army Corps of Engineers said it may need up to 80 days to drain the floodwaters from the city after the hurricane struck Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Monday with 140-mph winds and a huge storm surge. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said the troops were going in with shoot-to-kill orders to stop looting. Dozens of foreign governments offered help ranging from cash donations and helicopters to tents and medical teams. Even as the offers came in, the US government was widely criticised abroad for failing to move more effectively. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said Amtrak passenger trains would join buses and aircraft helping evacuate people trying to escape the city.

3 September 2005. Two major fires blackened the skies over New Orleans today, one of them engulfing an industrial stretch on the riverfront northeast of the downtown area and another burning at a fashionable mall. Thick clouds of black smoke from the Louisa Street Wharf area covered the city skyline this morning, where there was no sign of fire-fighting efforts to put out the blaze. Video showed flames shooting up 50 to 60 feet in the air as the warehouse appeared to be burn out of control. Witnesses said the fire apparently was started in a timber pile. Fears are the blaze could spread from warehouse to warehouse. Meanwhile, Ten fire companies, comprised of four fire-fighters each, were battling a blaze at the upscale The Shops at Canal Place, a New Orleans mall at the base of Canal Street and near the Aquarium of the Americas. Fire companies were being aided by four water tankers that had been sent to New Orleans from Mississippi. Fire-fighters told CNN that the building had no electricity and no gas and that the blaze started “under suspicious circumstances.” They’ve given up, they said, because they simply don’t have the water and water pressure to win the fight. Police were on scene watching the building, attached to the Wyndham Hotel, as it burned.

3 September 2005. Some evacuees from hurricane “Katrina” will be housed on board three Carnival Cruise Line vessels, including two initially slated to be docked in Galveston. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is chartering the vessels, which will be crewed by Carnival employees, for six months, Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen said today. Passenger Ecstasy, normally stationed in Galveston, and passenger Sensation, normally stationed in New Orleans, are planned for Galveston, Gulliksen said. Both can hold 2,600 people, he said. The vessels will be pulled from regular service on Monday (5 September). A third, passenger Holiday, which normally sails out of Mobile, will be docked there. It can hold up to 1,800 people, Gulliksen said.

5 September 2005. A week after hurricane “Katrina”, New Orleans today searched for growing numbers of its dead from the city’s worst catastrophe and had not given up on finding more of the living. As emergency teams scouted flooded homes and streets for bodies, authorities said Louisiana’s official death toll of 59 could rise into the thousands. Rescuers in boats and helicopters were still pulling hundreds of people from rooftops, homes and buildings and police said they were getting 1,000 or more emergency calls for help each day, many from people still trapped in their homes and attics by floodwaters. Local officials believe thousands remain in the city despite mass evacuations before and after “Katrina” struck the US Gulf Coast last Monday (29 August), hammering an area the size of Britain in one of the biggest natural disasters in American history. Well over 100 deaths have been confirmed in Mississippi, with many people unaccounted for. Authorities were slowly regaining control of New Orleans after days of murder, rape and looting that horrified America and the world. The Southern city, which lies below sea level, fell into chaos after being swamped by floodwaters when the hurricane’s force burst protective levees. The US Army Corps of Engineers said it was making progress towards pumping out the city but still expected it would take 80 days or more to complete the job. President George W. Bush planned to visit relief efforts in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Poplarville, Mississippi, today – his second trip to the devastated region in less than a week. His administration, criticised heavily for its slow response to the flooding, sent top officials to the disaster zone yesterday and pledged to do whatever it took to clean up New Orleans and help its evacuees. Bush has conceded the relief efforts were unacceptable and has ordered 7,200 extra active-duty troops to the disaster zone. Government and emergency officials said it was not the time to assign blame for the troubled rescue efforts but to focus on the challenges ahead. “We’re going to have to go house to house in this city. We’re going to have to check every single place to find people who may be alive and in need of assistance,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. Chertoff warned of grim times ahead in the rescue and recovery mission. “When we remove the water from New Orleans, we’re going to uncover people who died hiding in houses, who got caught by the flood, people whose remains will be found in the street. It is going to be about as ugly a scene as you can imagine.” Signs of hope were emerging for the stricken city. Lights began to go on in some neighbourhoods when the local power company began restoring electricity. National Guard troops and US marshals patrolled once chaotic streets, while some residents joined the Coast Guard in rescue efforts. In New Orleans’ notoriously poor 9th district, police launched search missions with small speed boats to find bodies and survivors. The tips of roofs poked out from water bubbling from burst gas mains, and, in one spot, a swelling corpse floated on floodwaters. Hundreds of thousands of internal refugees from the disaster in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were dispersing to states across the country as they confronted how to rebuild shattered lives. Texas alone was accommodating 139,000 in public shelters, while 100,000 others were in hotels. Many more were in private shelters run by churches and other groups or with Texas family and friends. Texas Governor Rick Perry said he was seeking to airlift some of the refugees to other states such as Utah, Michigan, Iowa and New York. “As Texas provides food, shelter and medicine to more than 230,000 evacuees, we are concerned about our capacity to meet this great human need as thousands more arrive by the day,” Perry said in a statement. “There are shelters set up in other states that are sitting empty while thousands arrive in Texas by the day, if not the hour.”

5 September 2005. Energy companies kept working through the US Labor Day holiday to restore damaged Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and natural gas production facilities and restart Gulf Coast refineries devastated by hurricane “Katrina” last week. Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas production showed improvement. The US Minerals Management Service said 30.43 per cent of oil output was online this morning, up from about 21 per cent pumping on Saturday (3 September). Natural gas production was at 47.75 per cent today, up from 42.21 per cent on Saturday.

6 September 2005. Telephone company BellSouth Corp yesterday estimated that it would cost $400 million to $600 million to repair the damage from hurricane “Katrina” and said it could take four to six months to restore service in the hardest-hit areas of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. The Atlanta based company, the dominant telephone service provider in much of the South, stressed that those were preliminary estimates. It has not yet been able to survey all of its sites given the breadth of the area struck by the hurricane a week ago. BellSouth said an estimated 1.1 million of its lines were out in the region, with 90 per cent of these in what it calls the “red zone” – New Orleans, areas north of the city and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. That is down from 1.75 million lines that were out late last week. “Our best guidance, at this point, without having had the opportunity to physically survey and assess the full area, is $400 million to $600 million,” BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher said of the company’s estimated repair costs. Technicians yesterday began surveying parts of New Orleans, where the company believes that the majority of its roughly 472,000 customers remain without service. To protect its workers, BellSouth is sending armed guards to protect trucks of diesel fuel for those of its offices in the city that are running on generators, Battcher said. Battcher said BellSouth’s main hub in New Orleans, on Poydras Street, is operating and is a key switching point for long distance carriers such as MCI Inc.AT&T Corp. and Sprint Nextel Corp. BellSouth’s recovery is also vital to mobile phone providers, which typically depend heavily on land lines run by local telephone companies to connect their wireless calls. The major wireless providers said some of their calls are going through in New Orleans but service is still out in much of the city. In contrast, most of these companies – Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless and Sprint Nextel – said they had made significant progress restoring service elsewhere in the region, including to Baton Rouge and Mobile, as well as along parts of the Mississippi coast. Public safety experts said hurricane “Katrina” exposed two major weaknesses in emergency communications: a failure to deploy enough satellite phones and the lack of a national system for police, fire-fighters and medical personnel to talk with one another seamlessly. In addition to disabling much of the regular telephone network in New Orleans and along the Mississippi coast, the storm damaged local police radio systems and made it much harder for emergency personnel to help those in need.

6 September 2005. In the wake of hurricane “Katrina”, the Mississippi River is now open in one direction to vessels with a draught of 35 feet during daylight hours. Now that a route has been re-established to the Port of New Orleans and other ports on the lower Mississippi River, the port is bringing together all of the pieces that will allow it to be a major force in the reconstruction of New Orleans. “The Port of New Orleans’ riverfront terminals survived hurricane ‘Katrina’ in fairly decent shape,” said Port President and CEO Gary LaGrange. “Although they are damaged, they are still workable once electrical power and manpower is available. In the next several weeks, almost all of the Port of New Orleans will be dedicated to military relief vessels. In the next week to two weeks, commercial vessels will return once electrical power and manpower arrive,” The Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MRGO), an alternate route for the Mississippi River, is open to nine feet of draught. It could be opened to 27 feet of draught once debris is removed from the channel. “We are thankful to Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and his staff for helping to get us what we need to get our port up and running as soon as possible,” said LaGrange. Port Chief Operating Officer Dave Wagner has established temporary administrative offices in Atlanta with the help of the Port’s Board Chairman John Kallenborn of Chase Morgan. They have established ways for staff payroll to be distributed as usual. Some staff members have been notified by the Port’s Emergency Hotline to make contact with the Port for payroll information and to establish communications. From Texas, Pat Gallwey, the Port’s Executive Assistant for Administration, is coordinating the needs of the Port with Congressional leaders, FEMA and other federal agencies. Port customers will be contacted by the Port of New Orleans’ New York office and by Marketing Manager Bobby Landry once he returns to New Orleans early this week.

6 September 2005. Victims of hurricane “Katrina” returned to pick through their battered homes today and President George W. Bush promised to fix bungled rescue efforts after a disaster in which the mayor of New Orleans said as many as 10,000 may have died. Rescuers in boats, helicopters and military vehicles went house to house looking for stranded survivors of one of the worst natural disasters to hit the USA. A full week after “Katrina” crashed into the US Gulf coast and ravaged one of America’s most popular cities, no one knows how many people perished. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said “it wouldn’t be unreasonable” for the death toll to rise to 10,000, although he admitted he had no idea of the exact number. While authorities allowed people to temporarily return to their homes in areas outside New Orleans, police pleaded with people who have not yet abandoned the city itself to get out. “There are no jobs. There are no homes to go to, no hotels to go to, there is absolutely nothing here,” Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley said. “We advise people that this city has been destroyed, it has completely been destroyed.” Forensic experts prepared a warehouse for the grim task of identifying victims when they are finally recovered. Some are not hard to find as swollen bodies float in the streets but officials fear thousands more are hidden in homes across New Orleans, In suburban Jefferson Parish, stunned residents got a first look at the hurricane’s damage to their homes when it struck with 140 mph winds and a massive storm surge. They were greeted by a panorama of toppled trees and street signs, and spacious middle-class homes that had been flooded with several feet of water. The Jefferson Parish government told its residents not to stay in their homes, but to gather items they needed and leave again by nightfall because there was no power or clean water. The US Army Corps of Engineers began pumping water from the flooded city after closing a major gap in the levees which burst during hurricane “Katrina” and allowed the waters of Lake Pontchartrain to rush through. Draining the entire city could take 80 days or more, but the Corps was working to plug another major breach in the levees, spokesman John Hall said. Bush, who has faced fierce criticism for the slow relief response, visited dozens of victims being cared for at a prayer centre in Baton Rouge and promised the country would “do what it takes” to help people get back on their feet. He has admitted the early relief effort was “unacceptable” and promised today to make changes as needed. “If it’s not right, we’re going to fix it, and if it is right, we’re going to keep doing it. And this is just the beginning of a huge effort,” Bush said. The official death toll in Louisiana stood at 59 but officials said it would climb dramatically in coming days. A warehouse in a Louisiana town is being set up to handle thousands of corpses. Police and troops were regaining control of the city after days of murder, rape and looting that horrified America and the world. However, New Orleans Police Department Deputy Chief Warren Riley said only about 1,000 of the force’s 1,641 officers were accounted for and that many had had gone looking for missing relatives but others had apparently deserted. At least 240,000 evacuees had flooded into neighbouring Texas, where Governor Rick Perry said the state could handle no more and asked that any more be airlifted to other states. Two cruise vessels based in Galveston were expected to start boarding evacuees later today. They both have a capacity of 2,600 people.

6 September 2005. Nearly one million electricity customers remained without electricity eight days after hurricane “Katrina” hit the US Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Mississippi, according to area utilities and the US Department of Energy. More than half the customers in Louisiana, or 588,000 homes and businesses, were still without power, while Mississippi had about 382,000 customers with no service. Entergy Corp, the hardest hit electric company, had about 462,000 customers out in Louisiana and 41,000 out in Mississippi. Most of New Orleans, however, remained without power. Crews from Entergy started to return to the city over the weekend (3-4 September) for the first time since the hurricane hit to assess the situation, according to a report by the DOE. Entergy also reported extensive damage to its natural gas distribution system serving 147,000 customers in New Orleans. The company said it would have to shut off gas service to many parts of the city to repair the damage but preserve flows to the power generators running the pumps to get the water out of the flooded areas of the city. Southern Co’s Mississippi Power subsidiary had about 119,000 customers still without service. The company expects to restore power to all customers by 11 September. The utilities in Florida, which restored power to customers last week, continued to urge customers to conserve energy due to the tight but improving natural gas supplies used to fuel power generation facilities. Entergy’s subsidiaries own and operate about 30,000 mw of generating capacity, market energy commodities and transmit and distribute power to 2.6 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Southern’s subsidiaries own and operate more than 39,000 mw of generating capacity and provide power to more than four million customers in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. The Gulf Coast electric companies restored full power to the Colonial Pipeline, which supplies gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to the South-east, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, by yesterday afternoon, according to pipeline officials. The pipeline is now at 100 per cent of pumping capacity. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) has been operating at almost full capacity but Entergy has not yet restored power to the Clovelly storage facility. The LOOP expects to be at full capacity when Fourchon gets power, which should occur in about seven days, according to the DOE report. Tankers are making crude deliveries to the LOOP, which is making deliveries to the Capline, a crude oil pipeline serving the Midwest. The Capline is running at over 80 per cent of capacity, according to the DOE. Three refineries with major damage in Louisiana remain without power, including facilities owned by ConocoPhillips in Belle Chasse, Exxon Mobil Corp in Chalmette and Murphy Oil Corp in Meraux. All of the other refineries in Louisiana and Mississippi still shut due to the hurricane have access to power. Even with access to power, however, it will still take some refineries weeks to resume operations.

7 September 2005. Insurers and Re-insurers globally are facing a total loss of around $50bn from the hurricane “Katrina” catastrophe in the USA, a top London practitioner has forecast. This would make the disaster twice as costly as the dreadful hurricane “Andrew” of 1992 and surpass the gravity in financial terms of the World Trade Center attack. Dane Douetil, chief executive of Brit insurance group, which has strong expertise in major risk, forecast that “Katrina” would be “the biggest natural catastrophe loss ever to hit the insurance market.” Commenting on earlier predictions by analysts that the insurance cost would range anywhere from $9bn to $35bn, Mr Douetil said: “I cannot see it being less than $35bn. I can easily see it getting above $50bn.” With talk of 60-80 days before water could be pumped out of the worst areas, “what are we going to find when that job is done?” he asked. On the positive side for insurers, Mr Douetil said that the catastrophe retrocession (reinsurance of reinsurance) market was already hardening and likely to go on doing so, while property reinsurance, direct US property and energy classes would also see rates strengthen. If the loss was as big as he suspected, that would affect the whole insurance market. Like other insurers, Brit, which, for instance, is involved in catastrophe retrocession cover, is taking a thorough, new look at the underwriting plans it was on the point of finalising for 2006. A top reinsurance broker in London, Charlie Cantlay of Aon, said that, at this stage, the likely loss from what he described as “an industry-changing event” would be around $40bn. Specialists expect London, especially Lloyd’s, to continue to offer cover for physical damage and business interruption to Gulf of Mexico installations but premiums could soar and terms and conditions tighten substantially. Marine generally may manage a much-needed uplift. A huge loss-adjusting operation is being prepared, meanwhile, across marine, energy and non-marine areas to allow Lloyd’s and the London insurance market to maintain a reputation of speedy settlement.

7 September 2005. About six or seven Maritime Administration vessels and three Navy vessels are scheduled to dock at the Port of New Orleans. Among the vessels that will dock at the port is assault vessel Iwo Jima, which has been assigned a berth at the Julia Street Cruise Terminal, and will be used to launch helicopters that will go on missions throughout the city.

The mayor of New Orleans has warned the estimated 10,000 residents still believed to be holed up in the ruined city to leave or risk being taken out by force. As floodwaters began to slowly recede with the city’s first pumps returning to operation, Mayor C. Ray Nagin authorised law enforcement officers and the US military to force the evacuation of all residents who refuse to heed orders to leave. Police Capt. Marlon Defillo said that forced removal of citizens had not yet begun. “That’s an absolute last resort,” he said. Nagin’s order targets those still in the city unless they have been designated as helping with the relief effort. The move – which supersedes an earlier, milder order to evacuate made before hurricane “Katrina” crashed ashore on 29 August – comes after rescuers scouring New Orleans found hundreds of people willing to defy repeated urgings to get out. In Washington, DC, President Bush and Congress today pledged to open separate investigations into the federal response to “Katrina” and New Orleans’ broken levees. “Governments at all levels failed,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine. The pumping began after the Corps used hundreds of sandbags and rocks over the Labour Day weekend to close a 200-foot gap in the 17th Street Canal levee that burst in the aftermath of the storm and swamped 80 per cent of the city. Although toxic floodwaters receded inch by inch, only five of New Orleans’ normal contingent of 148 drainage pumps were operating, the Army Corps of Engineers said. How long it takes to drain the city could depend on the condition of the pumps, especially whether they were submerged and damaged, the Corps said. In addition, the water is full of debris, and while there are screens on the pumps, it may be necessary to stop and clean them from time to time. New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said lawlessness in the city “has subsided tremendously,” and officers warned that those caught looting in an area where the governor has declared an emergency can get up to 15 years in prison. About 124 prisoners filled a downtown jail set up at the city’s train and bus terminal. Some National Guardsmen and helicopters were diverted from their search missions Tuesday to fight fires, an emerging threat in a city that has no water pressure to fight fires or electricity, which has prompted holdouts to use candles. In a plea to those who might be listening to portable radios, Nagin warned that the fetid floodwater could carry disease and that natural gas was leaking all over town. The Pentagon began sending 5,000 paratroopers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to use small boats to launch a new search-and-rescue effort in flooded sections of the city. Floodwaters also had receded from St Bernard Parish south-east of New Orleans, but it was still a disaster scene with bedroom dressers and hot tubs scattered on roofs, toilet seats dangling in tree limbs and cars overturned in driveways. Water gurgled and spouted where natural gas seeped from below. While New Orleans waited for the floodwaters to recede before counting its dead, the effort to accurately catalogue Mississippi’s toll was struggling to keep up with the decaying effect of 90-degree heat. Even when dogs pick up a scent, workers say they frequently cannot get at the bodies without heavy equipment. That is leading officials to estimate that more than 1,000 people could be dead. As of tonight, workers had recovered 196 bodies in Mississippi, the majority coming from coastal counties. Nagin has estimated New Orleans’ dead could reach 10,000.

7 September 2005. Early estimates for rebuilding roads and bridges in hurricane-ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi approach $2.5 billion combined as the government signed its first road rebuilding contract today, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said. Mineta said the cost of rebuilding highway infrastructure knocked out by “Katrina” last week could reach $1.3 billion in Louisiana and $1.1 billion in Mississippi. “We still don’t know the full extent of the damage to the region’s transportation systems,” Mineta said. “But we’re already working aggressively to get the Gulf Coast moving again.” Mineta said energy pipeline operations serving the storm-struck region and extending into the Midwest and eastern US were running normally. In addition, all airports in the region, except Lakefront just north-east of New Orleans, were fully operational. Lakefront remained under water, Mineta said. The agency said it had signed a $5 million contract with a local company to start work on a key bridge along Interstate 10 in Mississippi.

8 September 2005. The hurricane ravaged lower Mississippi River is open to two-way traffic for grain shipments from the Gulf Coast, and 63 per cent of grain elevator capacity has been restored, the government said yesterday. “Vessels are moving on the river. Vessels are being loaded today, literally as we speak,” Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns told reporters. But, he added, shipments remain restricted. River navigation is limited to the daytime because Hurricane “Katrina” knocked out lights used at night. Also, because there are two blockages in the major shipping channel, known as the Southwest Pass, the Army Corps of Engineers is limiting ships to a draft of 39 feet. That is keeping larger vessels out of the channel. Removing the two obstructions and allowing night time navigation are the biggest hurdles to resuming shipping, said Lt Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the corps. The USA exports one-quarter of its grain. More than half of that amount departs from Mississippi Gulf ports hit by Katrina. Producers rely on the Mississippi River as the cheapest route for shipping crops and other commodities overseas. Officials said some grain company employees and federal grain inspectors have returned to work. Johanns said most of the ten grain export elevators along the lower Mississippi are able to operate.

8 September 2005. Biologists expect to find major destruction when they take their first close-up look at the impact of hurricane “Katrina” on wildlife habitats and Louisiana’s vital fishing industry, the state’s top conservation official said yesterday. Dwight Landreneau, Louisiana’s secretary for the department of wildlife and fisheries, said until now biologists had been part of search and rescue efforts but would soon begin damage assessments to coastal areas, marshes and forests that surround New Orleans. “We’re going to see some massive destruction of the habitat in the coastal area when it deals with wildlife and with the fisheries,” Landreneau said. “With everything that is involved in dealing with the seafood industries, we’re going to have some very high numbers,” he said. Louisiana provides as much as 40 per cent of all seafood enjoyed in the USA, especially oysters and shrimp. Landreneau said the department’s fisheries division will focus on evaluating hurricane damage to coastal and inland waterways.

8 September 2005. Hurricane Katrina will cost NASA at least $1.1 billion, the space agency said today in its first assessment of the toll at its facilities along the US Gulf of Mexico. The storm was likely to set back NASA’s plans for another shuttle launch next year. The hurricane hit the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, which assembles shuttle fuel tanks, and the Stennis Space Centre in Bay St Louis, Mississippi, which tests shuttle rocket motors. Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s newly named associate administrator for space operations, put the preliminary damage estimate at $1.1 billion but it was unclear whether that figure included the cost of lost production as well as damage to facilities and equipment. The agency is still assessing the storm’s impact to its workforce. While most of the 300 employees at Stennis have been located, Lockheed Martin, which operates the Michoud facility under contract with NASA, has yet to hear from half of its 2,000 workers. No deaths have been reported but many workers lost their homes.

8 September 2005. The death toll from hurricane “Katrina” along the Mississippi Gulf Coast had crept up to 151, a senior official said today, far fewer than some had initially feared. Colonel Joe Spraggins, director of civil defence in one of the state’s worst-hit regions, Harrison County, said he was sure salvage teams would find more corpses but that he did not expect a surge in the body count. By the same token, Spraggins said that ten days after “Katrina” hit, there was little chance of finding anyone else alive under the mounds of debris that litter vast swathes of the Mississippi and Louisiana coastline. Instead, it was time to focus on rebuilding, he said in Gulfport. Spraggins said the 151 dead came from the six Mississippi counties closest to the sea, with Harrison County alone accounting for 80. Some local politicians initially predicted that several hundred might have died in Mississippi. The state’s overall toll had reached 201 by today. In adjacent Louisiana, officials are still predicting a substantially higher death toll, mainly due to the flooding of New Orleans, Spraggins said rescue teams would keep searching the tonnes of rubble that fill cities such as Gulfport and Biloxi. “Some of that debris is eight to 15 feet high. Once we start digging through that there is no question in my mind that we will probably find additional dead people,” he said. Mississippi officials said their main priority was getting water and sewer systems back to normal. Both services were running at about 35 per cent capacity and although water had returned to most households, it was still not safe to drink. Other services were gradually improving. Crews have worked around the clock to restore power to more than 60 per cent of homes along the Mississippi coast and estimate that figure will rise to 80 per cent by Monday (12 September). Battered telephone networks are also steadily recovering, while Biloxi reopened its airport today for the first time since the storm hit. Lines at gas stations have virtually vanished as supply improves and bulldozers have swept most of the roads clear. “We’re getting back to some form of normality and that is what we’re going to have to do for life to continue,” said Spraggins. However, down on Gulfpoint beachfront, normality still seemed months or probably years away. Almost every building facing the sea was swept away by the storm.

9 September 2005. Oil storage tanks ruptured by hurricane “Katrina” may have dumped as much as 3.7m gallons of crude oil into the lower Mississippi River and surrounding wetlands. Officials estimate the spillage at roughly one-third of the volume of the huge spill when tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground off Alaska in 1989. Last night experts said they could not yet assess the short-term effects of the spills but were hopeful there would be few long-term effects. Some of the oil is expected to find its way into the Gulf of Mexico. However, officials at the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality remain cautious because it is difficult to gain access to the area, which can be reached only by water. It is also unclear how much oil has been lost. The largest spill, believed to be about 3.3m gallons of crude oil, occurred after two 80,000-barrel storage tanks ruptured at a Bass Enterprises Production site at Cox Bay, Louisiana, just above the mouth of the river. The tanks were not full at the time of the rupture, a company executive said. Nevertheless, if current estimates prove correct, the spill would be big as a 1969 incident following a blow-out at an offshore well near Santa Barbara, California. That accident is seen as seminal to the development of the US environmental movement. The second spill at the Murphy Oil Corporation refinery at Meraux, Louisiana, is thought by state officials to have released 420,000 gallons of crude into a flooded area around the refinery. The Murphy spill was discovered by aerial surveillance a few days ago. The Coast Guard, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and a clean-up contractor are working at the site to contain the oil. Contractors have also been dispatched to the Bass spill. Eric Olsen, a spokesman for the National Resources Defence Council, said the environmental group was attempting to monitor the clean-up and remained concerned about possible threats to drinking water. In recent days concern has mounted over toxic water in New Orleans. The polluted water is being pumped into Lake Ponchartrain, where it is likely to cause significant short-term environmental damage. Frank Manheim, an associate professor at Virginia’s George Mason University and an expert on pollution in Lake Ponchartrain, said the environmental impact “probably will not be very long lasting but it may be severe in the short term.” Experts said Ponchartrain – an estuary on the Gulf – should not sustain significant long-term damage. However, Professor Manheim, a former geochemist at the US Geological Survey, said the floodwater could be polluted with “things that are serious that we don’t know about,” including pesticides and toxic chemicals.

9 September 2005. With President George W. Bush promising to speed help to anxious and frustrated survivors, the official death count from hurricane “Katrina” exceeded 300 today in the two hardest-hit regions. Relief supplies poured in from around the world and the US Congress rushed through approval for $51.8 billion in new aid, after an earlier $10.5 billion was exhausted. Bush, under criticism for his administration’s response to the disaster and with his approval ratings at a low, immediately signed the measure. “More resources will be needed as we work to help people get back on their feet,” he said. The president earlier said he would untangle bureaucratic red tape that had triggered complaints from some of the one million people displaced by the 29 August storm, and he pledged to ease access to special relief payments and government programs. However, confusion and complaints continued. At Houston’s Astrodome, some of the thousands of storm evacuees housed there complained of standing in line for hours and getting nowhere. The official death toll surpassed 300 in the two hardest hit states when Louisiana officials said they had confirmed 118 deaths, on top of 201 in neighbouring Mississippi. Thousands more may still be missing but the extent of the carnage remains unknown. In New Orleans, police and National Guard troops were trying to roust out the remaining 10,000 or so people either unwilling to leave the one-time city of 450,000 or unable to help themselves, despite an order for everyone to clear out. The city’s police chief, Eddie Compass, repeatedly said that the first priority was to help those still waiting for rescue and that forced evacuation of the unwilling would be a last resort, done with minimal force. The below-sea level city was inundated by levee breaks following the storm, and homes and streets filled up with water poisoned by bacteria, gasoline, oil, chemicals and submerged bodies. As the steady trickle of hold-outs left they were taken to a collection centre where their bags were checked by soldiers for weapons. Medical attention was given to those needing it, and all were handed cold water or soft drinks. UN Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Jan Egeland said 90 countries and international organisations had offered humanitarian aid to the victims and shipments were already arriving. Vice President Dick Cheney, touring the devastation in Gulfport, Miss., voiced confidence in top federal emergency and security officials. “I think the progress we’re making is significant,” he said. “I think the performance in general at least in terms of the information I’ve received from locals is definitely very impressive.” In New Orleans the Army Corps of Engineers said about an eighth of the city’s pumping capacity was back in service, draining fetid water from the city.

11 September 2005. The official death toll from Hurricane “Katrina” climbed past 400 today, as President George W. Bush arrived in New Orleans. The confirmed death count from the 29 August storm, which has displaced a million people, was far lower than initial projections that ran into the thousands. “We didn’t lose as many lives as had been predicted although we’re still in the process of finding those we lost,” said Louisiana Gov Kathleen Blanco. Bush was greeted at the airport by Mayor Ray Nagin as he began his third visit to the disaster region. This evening Bush went to a base camp for hundreds of fire-fighters from around the country who had come to help, shaking hands and putting his arm around shoulders. The search for the dead – and perhaps some victims still alive and trapped – went on in the now largely deserted city. Members of the Oklahoma National Guard moved through a middle-class residential area, breaking down doors. The water in that area had once stood seven feet deep but had now receded, leaving a layer of stinking sludge. Boat teams navigated the flooded streets of the worst-hit neighbourhoods, using axes to break into the attics of homes. Helicopters spun overhead all day although there were no signs of rooftop rescues. New Orleans police said they had decided not to forcibly evict anyone still in the city, despite an order for everyone to get out and earlier threats to use force. The thousands of holdouts who stayed were being told that if they remained, they would be on their own facing floodwaters poisoned by sewage and chemicals. Public health officials announced they would start spraying for flies and mosquitoes tomorrow. Louisiana State Police said they would issue permits for business owners to visit their properties in the central commercial district but told them they could go nowhere else in the city. Gary LaFarge, head of the Port of New Orleans, said the facility suffered serious damage but not as bad as feared, and could be back to normal in four to five months. Louisiana raised its official death count to 197, while Mississippi, the other hardest hit state, had 211 confirmed killed. There were also fatalities, though much lower numbers, in Alabama and Florida. The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children said 1,600 children were still listed as missing by their parents, or were seeking their families.

12 September 2005. The Coast Guard, the Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Louisiana are working together with local industries to recover spilled oil and mitigate further environmental damage in the aftermath of hurricane “Katrina”. The Coast Guard Sector New Orleans Federal On Scene Coordinator has established a forward operating base in Baton Rouge, La., to coordinate the pollution response efforts. The following industries are responding to product release in the aftermath of “Katrina”: The Murphy Oil Corporation, near Chalmette, estimated 16,000 barrels of oil have been discharged, with the vast majority contained within the existing secondary containment unit located on refinery property. Oil recovery operations are currently on going. During the hurricane, an unknown quantity of oil escaped the secondary containment and affected the surrounding neighbourhoods. The EPA and Coast Guard are working together to oversee the ongoing oil recovery operations. As of today, 1,645 barrels were recovered using 12 vacuum trucks and ten drum skimmers. There are plans for 24-hour operations with two high-volume pumps. Shell Pipeline Company LP has confirmed that damage from “Katrina” resulted in two crude oil spills from company-owned assets in southern Louisiana. In the first incident, crude oil was found leaking from an above-ground storage tank and into a tank dyke and surrounding area at the company tank farm in Pilottown. The incident was caused by apparent wind damage. Of the approximately 10,000 barrels estimated to have been leaked in Pilottown, more than 6,200 barrels have been recovered to date. About 2,800 feet of absorbent boom has been deployed and 2,000 feet of eight-inch hard boom has been deployed. Workers also placed 600 feet of 10-inch hard boom in the affected area. No further pollution is expected as the water/oil mixture within the secondary containment unit has been pumped to a level below the break in the containment unit. In the second incident, crude oil was found leaking from a 20-inch pipeline in Nairn. Damage to the pipeline resulted from a breach in a hurricane protection levee. The release was estimated at 250 barrels. There is no further potential for loss of oil as the pipeline has been secured. Pollution response equipment and responders are on scene and are cleaning up the remaining spilled oil. Bass Enterprises reported approximately 81,000 barrels of oil from two storage tanks were discharged into the secondary containment system surrounding the tanks. Preliminary tests indicate substantially all of the oil is contained within the secondary containment levee and approximately 7,500 barrels are still in the tanks. Pollution response equipment and responders are on scene and are transferring the oil in the containment system to a barge and have deployed boom to contain a visible sheen on the river. No sheen is visible beyond the booms. The Chevron Empire Facility reported 23,000 barrels of oil were discharged into the containment and are being pumped out. The majority of the oil is contained at the facility. Pollution response equipment and responders are on scene. The Chevron Pipeline Company reported an estimated 200 barrels of oil was discharged into West Bay, near Venice, La. Approximately 100 barrels of oil has already evaporated, and approximately 100 barrels of oily water mixture has been recovered. Venice Energy Services Company reported an unknown amount of oil discharged in Tante Phine Pass near Venice, La. The oil is contained within the facility’s secondary containment. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and the Coast Guard are working together to oversee recovery operations. Pollution response equipment and responders are on scene. The Coast Guard will continue to coordinate the pollution response efforts.

13 September 2005. The Lower Mississippi River is now open to all commercial traffic, the US Coast Guard said yesterday. The news came as the Port of New Orleans said it was readying to work its first incoming container carrier Lykes Flyer tomorrow. The port expected to restart commercial operations yesterday by working its first outgoing steel cargo.

13 September 2005. About 60 per cent of the US Gulf’s daily crude oil production, 38 per cent of natural gas production and four major refineries representing 5 per cent of national capacity were still shut at the weekend, exactly two weeks after Hurricane “Katrina” swept across the southeast coastline. About 56 rigs were damaged, with 20 total losses. An estimated 122 out of 819 manned platforms and three out of 134 rigs in the region remained evacuated, according to the US Department of Energy. Although the “shut-in” percentage of oil and gas production declined from 95 per cent and 88 per cent respectively, immediately after the storm, the latest figures confirm a growing view that a return to normality would stretch into November.

13 September 2005. The spiralling cost of Hurricane “Katrina” is taking a growing toll on the insurance market, leading firms warn. The world’s second-biggest re-insurer, Swiss Re, now reckons that companies will have to pay out a total of $40bn, £22bn, twice its initial estimate. California based Risk Management Solutions, which assesses disasters for insurers and financial institutions, said losses may be even higher. It sees insured losses at more than $60bn, with total damage at $125bn. Risk Management said its higher figure was based on reconnaissance work carried out last week. Flood damage is expected to account for half the total economic loss. And estimates of the wider economic cost of the hurricane are also growing. In the UK, Lloyd’s of London gave its syndicates until the end of business on Monday to supply details of the likely impact of the hurricane on their businesses. Swiss Re, which covers insurers against the cost of big claims, estimates its own exposure will be $1.2bn instead of a previously forecast $500m. Munich Re, the largest re-insurer in the world, said 2 September that it could face claims in excess of its initial estimate of $496m. On the same day, Germany’s Hannover Re, the fourth-biggest group, became the first reinsurance firm to warn that the cost of Hurricane “Katrina” would pull its profits lower. Hannover Re has said it expects a bill of 250m euros for Hurricane “Katrina.”

13 September 2005. Hurricane “Katrina” and the floodwaters that swept through New Orleans in its wake may have damaged 160,000 homes beyond repair, an official with the US Army Corps of Engineers said today. Col. Richard Wagenaar said that one of the local government’s biggest challenges would be letting residents return to look at their homes. Water flowed into the city from Lake Pontchartrain through five breaches in three levees after the storm hit on 29 August, leaving 80 per cent of the city submerged. Workers should be able to pump the remaining water out of the city by the end of October, said Wagenaar, the New Orleans district commander of the Corps of Engineers. “It’s set up by neighbourhoods,” he said. “Some of them will be done by early October, other ones by mid-, late October – if everything goes right, Mother Nature doesn’t give us any rain and our pumps continue working.” Wagenaar said the process would speed up once water recedes around the city’s main pumping station – Pump Station No. 6 – and its 1920s-era pumps can go back online. That’s not expected for another two weeks. He said that workers were focusing on making “semi-permanent” repairs to the levee system that protects the low-lying city – that could take two or three months. More permanent fixes would be made once investigators have determined why the levees failed. Water overtopped a repaired levee along the London Avenue canal yesterday evening, but the problem resulted from the repair operation and not from a new breach, a state official said. Crews reduced the water pressure to correct the problem, the official said. Wagenaar said Army Blackhawk helicopters would bring more 7,000-pound sandbags to shore up the levee. The Corps of Engineers hasn’t completed surveys of the levees outside the city, but Wagenaar said they appeared to be badly damaged. Some areas remain inaccessible and can only be looked at from the air. “The levee at the Mississippi River and Gulf outlet is virtually gone,” he said. Ninety per cent of the ten-mile long, 17-foot-high levee on the east flank of the river is gone, leaving only a small, 60-foot-long levee intact. “Should another storm come in, it could do more damage than it already has,” Wagenaar added. Rescue workers have removed 45 bodies from a downtown New Orleans hospital that was surrounded by floodwaters from “Katrina”, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals said. The bodies were recovered Sunday (11 September) from Memorial Medical Center, spokeswoman Melissa Walker said. Tenet Healthcare Corp., the company that owns the hospital, said in a statement that “a significant number had passed before the hurricane.” Tenet spokesman Steven Campanini wrote that the hospital was told Wednesday “that we were on our own to evacuate, [and] we brought our own helicopters to take the patients out.” He said, “Every living patient was evacuated by Friday afternoon.” The statement said that once all of the patients were evacuated, officials brought in guards to secure the hospital until the coroner could remove the bodies. Officials have confirmed 279 deaths in Louisiana in the wake of the hurricane. Meanwhile, authorities were considering launching a criminal investigation into the failure to evacuate St Rita’s Nursing Home in St Bernard Parish. A total of 34 residents died when the facility was flooded. In other developments: Michael Brown, under fire over his qualifications and for what critics call a bungled response to “Katrina”, announced his resignation Monday as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. President Bush later named David Paulison, a 30-year veteran of fire and rescue work, to be acting FEMA director. A limited number of cargo and commercial flights are scheduled to start flying into Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport today, the director of the agency that runs the airport said.

14 September 2005. Shell has said Hurricane “Katrina” caused two crude oil leaks from its pipelines in southern Louisiana. Shell found the leaks during early surveillance following the hurricane, the company said in a statement. After damage caused by high winds, some 10,000 barrels of crude leaked from above-ground storage at a tank farm in Pilottown, Louisiana. It leaked into a tank dike and the “surrounding area.” Shell said about 6,2000 barrels had been recovered. Shell could not be immediately reached on whether the crude leak was entirely contained at the tank farm. In the other leak, some 250 barrels leaked from a pipeline in Nairn. Shell said the US Coast Guard assisted with cleaning up the spills.

14 September 2005. The Port of New Orleans began unloading its first cargo ship since hurricane “Katrina” this evening a sign that disruption to the nation’s shipping capacity may be less severe than originally forecast. After the storm, port officials figured it would take six months to resume service in New Orleans and at facilities throughout the Gulf Coast. Importers scurried to reroute coffee, steel and other commodities, and Midwest farmers worried that they would not be able to ship their grain to the rest of the world during the harvest. The disruption threatened the supply of goods across the USA, and some forecasters said it would cause a drag on the economy. But today, the port was coming back to life, with electrical power restored to parts of the facility by late afternoon.

Gary P. LaGrange, chief executive of the port, said he expects it to be at 80 per cent of capacity within three months. The Port of South Louisiana and Port Fourchon, on the Gulf Coast, have also partially restored service, and the Port of Pascagoula, Miss., expects to resume service by early October, according to the American Association of Port Authorities. The improved expectations depend on continued progress, and there are no guarantees that it will continue at this pace, analysts said. Coastal Cargo Co., for example, operates barges from a terminal at the Port of New Orleans and yesterday shipped out a load of steel coils to an automaker in Alabama. But that was after a two week effort to get back to business, and the company has only two, instead of its usual 10 to 15, “gangs” of workers, each of which has about a dozen people. One of Coastal Cargo’s barges washed ashore in the storm, but was in decent condition, said Mike Lauland, the company’s director of risk management. So it has been put to use to help clear out barges clogging shipping channels. More will be needed to get the local economy fully back in business. For example, Folgers coffee has a roasting plant in New Orleans that accounts for more than half its supply. For the first ten days after the storm, it was unreachable except by helicopter, because of downed trees and security concerns on the roads. For the plant to be reopened, it needs a return of water, sewer and natural gas service, said Doug McGraw, vice president for global coffee at Folgers’ parent company, Procter & Gamble. There is enough green coffee in storage to supply the roasting plant for now, but without water and fuel, the company lacks the ability to turn bitter green coffee beans into the Folgers that shows up on shelves. “We’re hopeful that between starting some initial production, and living on inventories in the distribution centres and at retailers, the disruption to consumers will be limited,” McGraw said. “But it’s going to be a problem.” The faster-than-expected reopening came about through some bureaucratic arm twisting, coordination between groups, and a careful focus on the most urgent areas for repair, said LaGrange and outside analysts. “They’re moving at light speed,” said C. James Kruse, director of the Center for Ports and Waterways at the Texas Transportation Administration. “It’s been an example of good cooperation between federal agencies and the port authority, and an action plan to get to the critical things first and fix other problems later.” LaGrange said the most immediate problems were finding workers and getting a place for them to stay. The federal Maritime Administration provided ships with sleeping quarters, which are docked at the port and serve as floating dormitories for longshoremen and managers. The port also collaborated with the dockworkers’ union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, to bring in workers from other ports. LaGrange said it was necessary because most Port of New Orleans employees were forced to leave the area and could not be located. And state police are guarding the access roads from hijackers, and agreed to give truck drivers delivering goods to and from the port clearance to deliver their loads.

16 September 2005. The port of New Orleans has reopened for business after Hurricane “Katrina”. Yesterday the first vessel to leave the port in more than two weeks since the devastating storm went to sea. Lykes Flyer was carrying an assortment of products for Brazil, Argentina and Mexico after earlier unloading Brazilian coffee. Experts predict “Katrina” could cost the insurance industry as much as $25bn, after it wrecked homes and businesses across the Gulf of Mexico. Limited operations Paul Zimmermann, director of operations at the Port of New Orleans, said the port – one of the busiest in the USA – was in “fairly good shape for the most part”, but still far from regaining full operational capacity. Only two of the port’s 27 terminals are now open for business. Its main exports include machinery, paper products and some grain, while imports are coffee, rubber and steel. Most Gulf ports affected by the storm have now resumed operations.

15 September 2005. Although the clean-up will likely take months, New Orleans Mayor Ray C. Nagin said the tourist-friendly French Quarter and central business district of the city may reopen as early as Monday (19 September) after the Environmental Protection Agency said the foul smelling air in the city was not overly polluted. Nagin said he expects about 180,000 people to return to the city within a week or two, when power and sewer systems are restored. Some retailers should be operating by then, as well as two hospitals. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard and other rescue teams continued searching for bodies by boat and helicopter in areas that were still under several feet of water. The body count in Louisiana climbed to 474 yesterday, and it was expected to rise further as state and federal officials went about the tedious task of collecting bodies and identifying them through DNA tests. The total death toll in five states reached 710. President Bush planned to make a prime-time address from New Orleans today to offer new federal spending for the monumental task of helping hurricane victims rebuild their lives. The most obvious sign of progress has come from the lights flickering on. About 168,000 customers were still without power in the New Orleans area, mostly in places still flooded, but that number has gone down 10,000 in a day. The Hibernia Corp., Louisiana’s oldest bank, whose landmark building was once the city’s tallest, turned on its lights at sunset yesterday. About 40 to 50 per cent of the city was still flooded, down from 80 percent after “Katrina” hit, as pumps worked to siphon off eight billion gallons a day. In Baton Rouge yesterday, Gov. Kathleen Blanco echoed Bush’s words from a day earlier, taking responsibility for missteps in the immediate response to “Katrina”. “We all know that there were failures at every level of government: state, federal and local,” Blanco told lawmakers in a special meeting of the Louisiana Legislature. “The buck stops here, and as your governor, I take full responsibility.” Also yesterday, the state attorney general’s office said all of its investigators have been pulled from other tasks to work on the Medicaid Fraud Unit, the team whose work led to negligent homicide charges against the husband-and-wife owners of a Chalmette nursing home where 34 elderly residents drowned in floodwaters. Kris Wartelle, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Charles Foti, said the office has been besieged with allegations of neglect that may have led to injuries or deaths at other nursing homes and hospitals. Recovery efforts continued in Mississippi, where Gov. Haley Barbour said officials would offer some evacuees room aboard a small cruise ship moored off the Gulf coast. Barbour called the lack of temporary housing for evacuees the state’s largest problem, but he did not provide a timetable or other details about the 490-passenger vessel. He said about 2,000 travel trailers and mobile homes are en route to storm-damaged areas of Mississippi but most are still in staging areas, and fewer than 250 were ready for occupancy.

22 August 2005Yemen

Flash floods have killed a dozen people in Yemen and have injured at least six others in the poor Arab state, officials said today. “Twelve people have died in the last two days due to heavy rains and there have been six injuries,” a police official said, adding that 50 farmland animals had also died in the floods. The country’s meteorological office has warned the heavy rains will continue for the next two days.

1 September 2005Taiwan and China

Three people were killed and 59 injured after Typhoon “Talim” has pounded Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rains, forcing offices, schools and financial markets to close. Two men drowned in southern Tainan and northern Miaoli counties while a 60-year-old woman was hit by lightning in the southern Changhua county, said the National Fire Agency. The injured were from the worst-hit northern and central parts of the island. Winds uprooted billboards and trees across the island, all domestic flights were cancelled and many trains and international air services were delayed. Taiwan Power Co shut down generators installed in two nuclear power plants due to strong winds but said one of the generators would resume operation later in the day. Safety considerations prompted the company to cut the operation of its three nuclear power stations to 25 per cent of capacity. Electricity was cut to 1.7 million homes but most were expected to be reconnected before the end of the day. In central Taichung, a bridge connecting Kukuan, a popular hot spring, was submerged by flash floods, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of tourists, police said. In north-eastern Ilan county, powerful waves smashed into the port of Wushi, which was closed by the authorities. Nine people, eight prisoners and a policeman, were injured when a van carrying them rammed a crash barrier in Taipei county. Three were seriously hurt. In the capital, where the rains and winds were less severe than elsewhere, bars, karaoke lounges and restaurants were crowded as people took advantage of the national holiday declared by the government as a result of Talim. Most air and land traffic was expected to return to normal later today as the typhoon moved away from the island and made landfall on the Chinese mainland.2 September 2005. Typhoon “Talim” killed 14 people as it swept across Taiwan and tore into China, triggering landslides and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, Chinese state media and Taiwan rescue officials said today. The typhoon, which has since weakened into a tropical storm, killed nine people in mudslides and cave-ins yesterday in mountainous parts of China’s eastern Zhejiang province, Xinhua news agency said. A total of 15 people were missing. In one county alone, more than 300 houses had been destroyed and main roads cut off. A father and son were killed when their house collapsed in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province, to the south of Zhejiang. In Taiwan, three people were killed and 59 people were injured, according to the island’s National Fire Administration’s disaster response centre. As of late yesterday, more than 780,000 homes in Taiwan were without power and 48,000 had no access to clean water. Chinese authorities bracing for the storm had evacuated nearly 500,000 people, the China Daily said. Fujian authorities also shut schools and airports, closed sections of highway and suspended ferry services to ride out the storm, the newspaper said. The storm kicked up waves as high as 10 metres off Fujian.

3 September 2005. Flooding and landslides triggered by typhoon “Talim” have killed at least 53 people on China’s mainland and left 21 missing, the government said today. Talim roared ashore on Thursday (1 September), wrecking houses, damaging crops and roads and knocking out power and phone services. Before it hit the mainland, the storm killed at least two people on Taiwan and injured 24. The storm knocked down nearly 12,000 houses in Wenzhou in Zhejiang province and damaged homes in the Dabie Mountain area of Anhui, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The Dabie Mountain area got 16 inches of rain over 24 hours from yesterday to today, a record for the region, Xinhua said. “Talim” weakened to a tropical storm late on Thursday and moved inland. The storm forced the evacuation of nearly one million people in Zhejiang and neighbouring Fujian province from low-lying coastal areas and mountain villages prone to flash floods. More than 100,000 people were evacuated in Anhui, Xinhua said. In Fujian, flooding cut power in the provincial capital of Fuzhou and forced schools to cancel classes. Highway travel was disrupted and some airline flights cancelled.

5 September 2005. The death toll from typhoon “Talim” could be as high as 73. According to Xinhua News Agency reports, in addition to the deaths the direct economic losses from torrential rains, flooding and landslides are 7.8 billion yuan (US$960 million), mainly in East China’s Fujian, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi Provinces. In the worst-hit Anhui Province, at least 53 were killed as heavy rains began falling on Thursday (1 September). Rainstorms and heavy flows of mud and rock also destroyed 17,200 residential houses, damaged 61,100 houses and affected more than 130,000 hectares of cropland in the province, according to an official with the Anhui Provincial Disaster Relief Office. The province evacuated 168,100 people. The provincial government has allocated eight million yuan (US$986,440) in relief funds for affected areas. The provincial civil affairs bureau distributed 400 tents and other relief materials to affected people. In the two worst-hit counties Yuexi and Jinzhai, close to the Dabie Mountain area, about 400,000 people suffered from the disasters and 46,000 hectares of cropland were affected. In Yuexi County, where a landslide occurred, more than 10,000 homes were damaged and transport were cut off. The Ministry of Civil Affairs sent two work teams to carry out disaster relief work in affected provinces after the disaster happened. In Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, the typhoon killed 15, China News Agency reported. According to statistics, in Wenzhou and Lishui, a total of 2.22 million people in 18 counties have been affected. Meanwhile, 11,789 houses have been pulled down. The direct loss was put at 3.42 billion yuan (US$421.7 million), the local government said. Xinhua said the tropical storm was weakened on Friday as it passed further inland into Jiangxi Province. However, the destructive force was not reduced as parts of Jiujiang city, situated about 20 kilometres from Lushan Mountain, were flooded by the downpour. At 2200 Friday, a mudslide triggered by the typhoon at the Lushan Mountain area buried two buildings, where 21 occupants were inside. One was found dead by the time rescue crews reached him and five others were injured. The remaining 15 are still missing.

2 September 2005Indonesia

A landslide on Indonesia’s Sumatra island triggered by torrential rains buried at least ten people in their homes and left more than two dozen missing, a rescue official said today. The landslide occurred yesterday near Padang city, about 940 km north-west of the capital, Jakarta, after two days of heavy rains. Rescue official Yal Effendi said ten bodies had been recovered and 12 people found safe. However, with more people reported missing, it was estimated that 34 could be buried in the rubble. The search was suspended this afternoon because of heavy rain, Effendi said. Also yesterday, a police helicopter carrying seven people came down in bad weather in the Bung Hatta national park, 30 km east of Padang, a police spokesman said. At least one of the passengers had survived the crash and had been found on the outskirts of the thick forest, a provincial police spokesman said. He said the fate of the other six on board was unknown because rescue teams had yet to reach the crash site.

14 September 2005 Pakistan

At least 11 people have been killed in Karachi following a lashing of unexpected rains at the end of the monsoon season. Rainfall in the city reached an average 50 millimetres during what is thought to be the last wave of the monsoons for Pakistan. A spokesman for the Edhi Foundation, the country’s largest charity, said that over 3,000 households in low-lying areas by the Malir and Lyari rivers were inundated due to the rise in water levels following the rains. Around 1,200 people have been evacuated to temporary relief camps where they have been provided with food and healthcare services.

11 September 2005China

A typhoon made a direct hit on a sprawling city in prosperous eastern China today after nearly a million villagers and farmers had been evacuated from flimsy coastal and hillside huts to safety. Typhoon “Khanun”, which spared the island of Taiwan yesterday after forecasts predicted a near direct hit, made landfall in China’s mountainous Zhejiang province, where storms regularly trigger fatal floods and landslides. The new city of Taizhou, with a population of over five million, took the full brunt, a city government official said, adding that those evacuated by the army had been taken to schools, railway stations, hotels and other solid buildings for protection. “Signboards have been blown down and definitely trees will be uprooted and houses damaged,” the official said, adding that 330,000 people had been moved to safety in Taizhou alone. “It’s too early to talk about damage to property.” With its zigzag coastline, Taizhou is home to several ports, one being Taizhou Bay Haimen, with more than 10,000 tonnes of handling capacity. In nearby Leqing Bay is China’s largest tidal power station. Xinhua news agency said Zhejiang had so far evacuated 814,267 people to safer places. About 35,400 vessels and other vessels had returned to port. The ancient trade port of Ningbo was directly in the path of the storm which was unleashing maximum sustained winds of up to 110 miles per hour. Authorities in Shanghai, China’s financial centre north of Zhejiang, had issued the yellow warning signal, demanding that more than 100,000 people working outdoors or living in sheds and other temporary housing evacuate to safety. Thirteen flights between Hong Kong and three eastern Chinese cities had been cancelled or delayed because of the storm today. Dragonair Airways said it has decided to cancel six flights between Hong Kong and Shanghai, Hangzhou and Ningbo. China Eastern Airlines said it had delayed seven flights from Hong Kong to eastern China.

12 September 2005. Typhoon “Khanun” slammed into the city of Taizhou, in Zhejiang, yesterday unleashing maximum sustained winds of up to 177 kmh and brought rainfall of as much as 300 mm to some parts of the city. “Khanun” made landfall at 1450 hours. It moved north-west afterwards, gradually affecting Zhoushan, Ningbo, Shaoxing and Hangzhou. In Ningbo, Hangzhou and Shanghai, where “Khanun” is expected to bring strong wind and heavy rain today, authorities suspended school classes for today, a first for the city. In all, 1.05 million people were evacuated and 37,000 boats had returned to port by noon yesterday, Xinhua reported, in accordance with an order issued by provincial flood-prevention officials on Saturday. They were quoted by China News Service as saying that the coastal areas of Zhejiang were vulnerable to mudslides after being hit by Typhoons “Talim”, “Matsa” and “Haitang” since July. Taizhou took the full brunt, a city government official said, adding that those evacuated by the army had been taken to schools, railway stations, hotels and other solid buildings. Authorities in Shanghai upgraded the alert from yellow to red.

13 September 2005. At least 15 people were killed in Zhejiang province as Typhoon “Khanun” ground its way inland, causing widespread damage and forcing the evacuation of more than a million people in coastal areas. Eight people died when a flood swept through Qinglin village, near Ningbo, and swamped 20 houses. In Taizhou, which suffered the full fury of the storm overnight, seven people were killed, a flood control official said. Eight others were reported missing, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said, adding that 5.5 million residents had been affected in Zhejiang. Xinhua said vast tracts of farmland were flooded and reservoirs damaged, with economic losses estimated at 6.8 billion yuan. Shanghai officials said the city did not suffer any major damage. Economic losses were still being calculated. The central weather bureau said “Khanun” had weakened by yesterday morning. It moved from south to north across Jiangsu province, home to 74 million people, hitting nearly every major city on its way, ripping up trees and power lines and bringing heavy rain. “The typhoon is still battering the province as we speak, and we do not have a precise estimate yet of the material damage,” said Ji Hongfei, a spokesman for the Jiangsu flood control headquarters. The cities of Suzhou and Wuxi were severely hit and were forced to close all schools.

9 September 2005 Typhoon “Nabi”

Typhoon “Nabi” left Japan yesterday, dissipated after criss-crossing the country in a path of destruction that left at least 32 people dead or missing in Japan and South Korea, flooding nearly 10,000 homes. The typhoon headed onto the Sea of Okhotsk, east of Siberia, and was downgraded nearly a week after it first built up in the subtropical Pacific waters south of Japan. The worst-hit area was Japan’s Miyazaki Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu. With the typhoon bringing violent rains to most of Japan, police said that 143 people had been injured in 31 of Japan’s 47 prefectures.

10 September 2005. Elementary school classes, as well as local air flights were cancelled on Kamchatka peninsula yesterday as the “Nabi” typhoon approached it overnight. The education department of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky said kids of the first years of education could stay at home. The local airport said all flight across the peninsula were cancelled and only flights to the mainland were taking off. A storm warning has been issued on the peninsula. The typhoon has lost its power, however the wind is expected to reach the speed of 40 metres per second along the south-west coast of Kamchatka and 30 meters in the south of the peninsula, and 19 metres in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. On the Island of Sakhalin ferry service Vanino-Kholmsk resumed operations after Nabi has passed. However, on the north Kurile Island of Paramushir the sea is force four and the wind blows at 23 meters per second. The fishing fleet is hiding in the port of Severo-Kurilsk.