Severe weather

Citation

(2007), "Severe weather", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 16 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2007.07316bac.002

Severe weather

23 September 2005 Bay of Bengal

Thousands of Bangladeshi fishermen have begun returning to their homes in coastal areas after riding out a deadly storm in the Bay of Bengal earlier in the week, officials said today. The storm swept across the bay on Monday (19 September) before lashing coastal areas of India and Bangladesh and leaving a trail of destruction. In Bangladesh a tidal wave caused by the storm forced 12,000 people out of their flooded homes. At least 9,000 Bangaldeshi fishermen from 600 boats had now reported back to their landing stations in the southern coastal district of Barguna, sub-district executive officer Abdul Bari told AFP. Around 85 men on board six boats were still unaccounted for, said Bari adding that it was too early to say if they had perished. They would not yet be listed as officially missing as it was possible they had anchored off the Indian coast or were not yet due back, he said. “From what the fishermen have told us we believe that 15 to 20 boats capsized in the storm and the crews were rescued by nearby boats,” he added. Barguna is one of several districts used as a base by thousands of fishermen in southern Bangladesh. Abdus Salam Talukder, president of the fishing association in neighbouring Patuakhali district, said they had no reports of any deaths although the situation could change as more fishermen returned with eyewitness accounts of the storm. “Fishermen who have returned so far told us that no fishermen has died in the storm. We are expecting that some of the missing fishermen were rescued in the Indian part of the ocean,” he said. The storm killed at least 64 people in the east Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa and displaced tens of thousands.

23 September 2005. Helicopters and boats distributed food, water and medicines today to hundreds of people stuck on rooftops in an Indian state after a storm caused severe flooding, officials said. Large areas of the southern coastal state of Andhra Pradesh were still inundated after the powerful Bay of Bengal storm crossed India’s eastern coast on Monday (19 September), and they feared a spike in cases of malaria, diarrhoea and other diseases. More than 75 people have been killed due to electrocution, house collapses and drowning in Andhra Pradesh after the storm caused heavy rains and flooding. In western Gujarat state, heavy rains, lighting strikes and flooding had killed 12 people since yesterday and thousands had been evacuated to higher ground, officials said. In Andhra Pradesh, flood waters had largely receded and rains had eased, but thousands of people were still homeless or stranded in waterlogged villages and in several towns. Across the 12 flood-hit districts, helicopters were dropping medicines as well as food packets and water to flood victims. Aid was also being distributed by boats, officials said. About 150,000 people are crammed into schools, government buildings and community centres which have become relief camps.

23 September 2005 Hurricane “Rita”

More than a million people are fleeing towns and cities in Texas and Louisiana as the US Gulf Coast prepares for the arrival of Hurricane “Rita” today. Their flight inland has been slowed by traffic jams stretching up to 100 miles, with fuel shortages reported. Texas is due to bear the brunt of the storm but forecasters say its path may shift east, increasing the risk heavy rains may test New Orleans’ flood defences. Texas has called on the federal government to put 10,000 troops on standby for search and rescue work. The Gulf Coast from Louisiana as far west as Mexico is on alert, with officials warning “Rita”’s course remains unpredictable. In other developments: About 1,000 state troopers and 5,000 National Guard are already making preparations for the storm in Texas; National Guard lorries are taking badly-needed fuel to petrol stations and stranded motorists around Houston and Oil companies are closing refineries in Texas and moving workers from offshore rigs. According to the National Hurricane Centre, “Rita” weakened yesterday to a Category Four, but was still carrying winds of 140 mph this morning. The storm remains “extremely dangerous”, being at least as powerful as “Katrina” and threatening 370 miles of coastline. Houston’s busy airports will close at noon local time (1700, UTC) ahead of “Rita”’s expected landfall late today. A mandatory evacuation order in the island city of Galveston was rapidly observed and 90 percent of the city’s 57,000 residents had left by yesterday afternoon. The escape from Galveston has been gruelling, with those who left spending much of the past 24 hours stuck in traffic jams in stifling humidity. Many have been left stranded on the roadside, out of petrol, low on water and food, waiting for help from the police or the Texas National Guard. In Houston low-lying areas at risk from flooding were also emptying. To the north of the city, a traffic queue up to 100 miles long was reported as people headed inland in temperatures reaching 37C. Scores of hospitals along the main evacuation routes out of Houston closed their doors to new patients today after being swamped by people suffering heat exhaustion, AFP news agency reports. In neighbouring Louisiana, Governor Kathleen Blanco urged people to leave the south-western coast, already battered by Hurricane “Katrina”. She estimated that between 300,000 and 500,000 people would go. Engineers have been seeking to bolster the floodwalls in New Orleans, which were overcome by “Katrina”’s storm surges. Some estimates say even a few inches of rain would overcome the weakened flood defences. Mexico has not evacuated its coastal state of Tamaulipas where tropical storm conditions are predicted. However, the state is on a “yellow alert” in case “Rita” should veer west, away from Texas.

24 September 2005. Hurricane “Rita” has pounded the US Gulf Coast with driving wind and rains, leaving a trail of destruction. Electricity stations exploded and fires erupted as power lines came down, resulting in the loss of power for about a million people in the region. The cities of Houston and Galveston, which were braced for severe weather, escaped a direct hit, as the storm strayed east from its original path. “Rita” has weakened to a Category 1 hurricane but heavy rains continue. The US National Hurricane Centre said winds of up to 120 mph were recorded when the hurricane hit land at about 0600, UTC, but winds had since dropped to around 75 mph. “Rita” crashed ashore with a 20 ft storm surge into low-lying areas along the Texas-Louisiana border, prompting fears of flooding. The towns of Sabine Pass in Texas and Cameron in Louisiana took the initial fury of the hurricane. It is not yet clear what damage has been done to the oil refineries and facilities near Beaumont and Port Arthur. There was however renewed flooding in New Orleans. A surge of water flowed over one of the protective levees which had been patched up after the floods caused by Hurricane “Katrina” last month. The storm following the violent winds was also expected to dump up to 25 in of rain. Heavy rains fell in Lake Charles and powerful winds are reported to have caused considerable structural damage to property. As well as ripping off rooftops, the storm knocked a container vessel from its moorings in Lake Charles and the vessel threatened to hit a highway bridge, news reports said. Hotel worker Rainey Chretien, of the Elegante Hotel in Beaumont, Texas, said the storm blew out windows, brought down a chandelier and ripped the roof off another section of lobby. Chief Micky Bertrand, of the Beaumont Fire and Rescue, said it had been a rough night with a number of house fires and power lines down across the region. Flood waters and winds had prevented some emergency services from reaching the fires. But they are now starting to get out to assess the damage, officials said. There were 16 arrests for burglary in Houston overnight but few reports of lawlessness in other areas.

24 September 2005. Hurricane “Rita” pummelled east Texas and the Louisiana coast today, triggering floods and demolishing buildings, yet the dominant reaction was relief that the once-dreaded storm proved far less fierce and deadly than “Katrina”. Authorities pleaded with the roughly three million evacuees not to hurry home too soon, fearing more chaos. In any other hurricane season, “Rita” might have seemed devastating. It knocked out power for than a million customers, sparked fires across the hurricane zone and swamped Louisiana shoreline towns with a 15-foot storm surge that required daring boat and helicopter rescues of hundreds of people. But the new storm came in the wake of Hurricane “Katrina”, with its 1,000-plus death toll, cataclysmic flooding of New Orleans and staggering destruction in Mississippi. By contrast, “Rita” spared Houston, New Orleans and other major cities a direct hit, and by mid-afternoon today federal officials said they knew of no storm-related fatalities. “The damage is not as serious as we had expected it to be,” said R. David Paulison, acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “The evacuations worked.”

“Rita” showed its strength across a broad region between Houston and New Orleans. In Beaumont, trees of all sizes and power lines were down, street signs were shredded, and one brick wall of an office building had collapsed. In Port Arthur, which is virtually a ghost town, a number of neighbourhoods suffered minor flooding, with about a foot to two feet of water rising near doorsteps in some areas. Some storefronts were torn apart, and bricks from those buildings litter several streets. Some of the worst flooding occurred along the Louisiana coast, where transformers exploded, roofs were torn off and trees uprooted by winds topping 100 mph. Floodwaters were nine feet deep near town of Abbeville; farther west in Cameron Parish, sheriff’s deputies watched appliances and what appeared to be parts of homes swirling in the waters of the Intracoastal Waterway. The region was largely evacuated ahead of “Rita”, but some residents stayed behind and were rescued by helicopter. New Orleans, devastated by “Katrina” barely three weeks ago, endured a second straight day of new flooding that could seriously disrupt recovery plans. The Army Corps of Engineers said it would need at least two weeks to pump water from the most heavily flooded neighbourhoods, notably the impoverished Lower Ninth Ward, after crews plug a series of levee breaches. As Rita’s winds swept past, several fires broke out in and around Houston, including one in a two-story apartment building that damaged at least eight units. Several buildings were damaged or destroyed by fire in Galveston, and a blaze broke out before dawn at a shopping complex in Pasadena. As the sun came up in downtown Beaumont, a port city of 114,000, the few people who stayed behind emerged to find some blown-out windows, damaged roofs, signs twisted and lying in the street and scattered downed trees. There was some standing water, but no significant flooding. In Beaumont’s nine-story Elegante Hotel, wind blew out massive windows in the lobby, bringing down a chandelier and ripping part of the roof off.

25 September 2005. Damage caused by hurricane “Rita” as it swept across parts of Texas and Louisiana yesterday, was perhaps only one seventh as severe financially as the devastation that hurricane “Katrina” inflicted on Mississippi and eastern Louisiana, according to initial estimates by insurance experts. The early estimates suggested that there had been property damage of about $5 billion or less from “Rita”, not including the effects of flooding and the impact on offshore oil rigs, which are not covered in most of the calculations. The storm struck less heavily populated areas, with less force than “Katrina”, mostly bypassing Galveston and Houston, where damage of up to $30 billion had been feared. Claire Souch, a senior analyst and manager at Risk Management Solutions, a company that calculates storms’ effects, said that her company was still assessing the flood damage, but that so far, “From the wind, from the storm surge, we’re not seeing the devastating effects, the catastrophic damage that we saw in “Katrina”.” Early estimates indicate that Hurricane Rita would still be one of the ten most expensive storms in history. AIR Worldwide, another hurricane-tracking company, in Boston, said its first computer-based calculations indicated losses from “Rita” of $2.5 billion to $5 billion. Robert P. Hartwig, the chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group in New York, estimated Rita’s damage at perhaps $4 billion to $5 billion. Hartwig said: “Every passing hour seems to indicate that the storm is not as severe as had originally been anticipated.” He said he might revise his estimate as more information came in, including the condition of the energy infrastructure, which is included in his calculations. “My only concern is that there may be some offshore energy issues, damage to oil platforms, that we just don’t know about,” he said. Another company that calculates storm damage, Eqecat, put the number at $3 billion to $6 billion. Souch of Risk Management said the estimates of $5 billion or less were “in line with what we’re seeing.”

26 September 2005. More than 4,000 Coast Guardsmen continue to save lives and assess the damage to waterways, aids to navigation, the environment and maritime transportation system infrastructure in the wake of hurricane “Rita”. To date, the Coast Guard has rescued 120 people imperilled by flood waters and has medically evacuated two others from hospitals in the hurricane-impacted area. Coast Guard rescuers continue to work closely with local and state officials as well as the Department of Defense, to determine the number of people in need of rescue and to ensure help is delivered as swiftly as possible. Two Disaster Response Units (DRUs) were dispatched to the Lake Livingston, Texas, area while three more DRUs were deployed to Port Arthur, Texas, to aid in relief efforts. DRUs are equipped with flood punts that are able to navigate through flooded areas to rescue people and assist in recovery efforts. Waterways assessment continues today as the Coast Guard works with the maritime industry to safely restore commerce.

26 September 2005. Rescue teams are resuming their search for victims in coastal communities of the US states of Texas and Louisiana, two days after Hurricane “Rita” struck. Only two people are so far reported dead in the region, after the storm missed major population centres, but low-lying towns and villages in the immediate path of the hurricane have been devastated, and hundreds are still feared stranded. New Orleans residents were told they could return to some areas of the city. According to a plan drawn up by city Mayor Ray Nagin, residents can return to the Algiers district and workers to the business district, four weeks after Hurricane “Katrina” caused massive devastation and flooding. The plan was delayed for a week by Hurricane Rita, which overcame some flood defences for a second time. Meanwhile people have already begun to return to Houston. Military helicopter crews, coastguards and volunteers have been scouring the worst-hit areas, where many people are thought to have defied evacuation orders. In some communities, 90-100 percent of buildings were destroyed by the high winds, while many low-lying areas in the Louisiana wetlands were under 9 ft of water. Only stilts to hold buildings up were left standing in Holly Beach, Louisiana, the Associated Press said, while in nearby Cameron almost all homes were destroyed. Meanwhile Texas Governor Rick Perry, touring the worst affected areas, said his state had got off relatively lightly. “Even though the people right here in Beaumont and Port Arthur and this part of Orange County really got whacked, the rest of the state missed a bullet,” he said. One man was reported killed by a falling tree in Texas, while a person died in a tornado in Mississippi caused by the hurricane. No deaths have been reported in Louisiana. Mr Perry estimated that the state had sustained around $8bn of damage, but predicted that most of the vital oil refineries had been spared and could resume production soon. In Houston, special routes have been set up to let people enter section by section, as power remains down in parts of Texas, and schools and courts remain closed. Local sources report that residents are returning, but to order. While it is a slow process, it is so far running smoothly though the city is still effectively closed for business.

18 October 2005. Hurricane “Rita” caused an estimated $195 million in crop and livestock losses in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas with rice and sugarcane hit the hardest, the US Agriculture Department said today. The US Agriculture Department said US rice and sugar production sustained the most damage from “Rita.” The storm’s path took it through Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi counties that together account for about 11 percent of US rice production and 8 percent of the sugarcane crop. The USDA estimated production losses from “Rita” at $42 million for sugarcane, $24 million for rice and $20 million for upland cotton. The rice figure also included $22 million in estimated losses due to heavy rain and wind in neighbouring Arkansas. Producers of fish and shellfish products in Louisiana estimated their losses from the hurricane at about $80 million, the USDA said. “Estimates are for current production losses and exclude quality and future production losses that may be incurred by perennial crops or livestock and losses to infrastructure and increased marketing costs,” the USDA said in a preliminary report on damage to US agriculture from “Rita”. Damage to most other crops and livestock was much less severe. Rita affected less than 1 percent of the US inventory of cattle, milk cows and hogs and less than 1 percent of the nation’s corn, sorghum, cotton and soybean production. The storm also increased gasoline and diesel costs and closed shipping channels for many farmers. “In addition, the loss of electricity, and damage to roads and port facilities interrupted the movement and processing of milk and other agricultural products,” USDA said. US farm losses from “Rita” were far lower than from Hurricane “Katrina”, which caused an estimated $900 million in crop and livestock losses in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, according to an initial estimate released in September by USDA.

28 September 2005 Nepal

At least 15 people were killed when landslides and floodwaters engulfed a village in western Nepal, police said today. However newspaper reports said at least 25 people were missing in the village of Sirsha in Dadeldhura district after the landslides, which were triggered by several days of heavy rain.

23 September 2005 Typhoon “Damrey”

Sixteen people were killed after two weather disturbances battered Luzon in a span of two weeks, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) said yesterday. Tropical depression “Labuyo” (international codename: “Damrey”) blew out of the country on yesterday, leaving two people dead due to drowning. Late last week, a low pressure area dumped heavy rains in Northern Luzon, triggering floods and landslides that killed 14 people, the report said. OCD deputy administrator and spokesman Anthony Golez said the death toll was revised since casualties earlier attributed to “Damrey” were discovered to have been caused by the low pressure area. Damage to agriculture due to heavy rains brought by “Damrey” was estimated at 1.2 million pesos in Quirino province, 20 million pesos in Albay province, and 34.6 million in Camarines Sur province. Floodwaters forced 96 people in Nabua town, Camarines Sur province and six others in Solsona town, Ilocos Norte province. Flooding was also reported in low-lying villages in the provinces of Quirino, Cagayan, and Albay. At 1400, yesterday, “Damrey” was estimated to be 180 kilometres north northwest of Laoag City, Ilocos Norte with maximum sustained winds of 95 kilometres-per hour near the centre and gustiness of up to 120 kph. It is forecast to move west northwest at 11 kph, the state weather bureau said in its latest weather bulletin. Storm Signal number 2 remains in effect over the provinces of Cagayan, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Abra, Kalinga, Apayao, and the Calayan and Batanes island groups. Storm Signal number 1 remains over the provinces of Isabela, Ifugao, Mountain Province, Benguet, and La Union.

26 September 2005. The strongest storm to hit China’s southern resort island of Hainan in decades ploughed along its coast today after killing two people and forcing more than 170,000 from their homes. Typhoon “Damrey” had caused casualties, flattened houses and damaged crops on an island often referred to as China’s Hawaii since it made landfall yesterday, but the full extent of the destruction was unknown, a disaster relief official said. “The primary threat now is strong winds, but judging from our experience in recent years, river floods are also possible if the heavy rains continue,” He said more than 170,000 people had been evacuated to safety. There was no immediate word of damage to hotels. Two people were killed in Wanning, the coastal city where the typhoon made landfall yesterday, when their houses collapsed, Xinhua news agency said. Some 5,000 people were left stranded at the airport in the coastal city and provincial capital of Haikou after dozens of flights were cancelled. A Haikou official said power was cut to parts of the city as well as other areas of Hainan. She did not elaborate. The storm packed winds of up to 200 km per hour, Xinhua news agency said, and state television showed banana trees snapped in two. Experts warned rice and rubber crops could sustain major damage. In nearby Guangdong province, 16,000 people were evacuated in Zhanjiang city, state television said, and a fisherman has been reported missing after three boats capsized in choppy seas. “The typhoon, with the wind speed of 55 metres per second at the centre, dwarfs all those that have hit Hainan since 1960,” apart from a storm that struck the province on 13 September 1973, it quoted Cai Qinbo, deputy director of the Hainan Provincial Meteorological Station, as saying. The west-moving typhoon swept down the island’s south-eastern coast and was headed for Vietnam, where state forecasters have warned the storm is expected to dump heavy rains on more than ten northern and central provinces. The typhoon should miss the Central Highlands coffee belt, which lies further to the south. Vietnam is the world’s second biggest coffee producer after Brazil. The Defense Ministry-run Quan Doi Nhan Dan newspaper said helicopters had been scrambled to tell more than 19,000 fishermen to return to port while soldiers were dispatched to reinforce dykes and help evacuate several hundred people.

27 September 2005. Typhoon “Damrey” smashed into Vietnam today, tearing into vital networks of sea dykes on a long stretch of coastline after more than 300,000 residents had been evacuated. Prime Minister Phan Van Khai had ordered young people, police and soldiers to stay behind to watch over dykes built to keep the sea out of rice fields, but the barriers were soon breached in some areas. “The waves are high, rising across the dyke now,” Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat told state-run Vietnam Television from the northern province of Nam Dinh as the typhoon whipped up sea surges made worse by high tides. Nguyen Van Hop, head of the People’s Committee in Nam Dinh’s Nghia Phuc commune, told Reuters that two km of dykes hadbeen damaged seriously in his area. “We are not able to save the dyke but people are safe and we have our rescue mission ready,” he said. The sea dykes were built to withstand strong gales, but “Damrey” was blowing at 133 kph as it came ashore in Thanh Hoa province, cutting electricity supplies and tearing up trees. State forecasters said they feared sea surges of up to 5.5 meters in six northern and central provinces. Flash floods and landslides were other possibilities. Vietnam Television said four people were injured and several hundred homes flooded in Thanh Hoa when powerful sea surges breached sections of dyke. The typhoon had weakened slightly after hitting land and moving west, but still poured down torrential rain, the national weather bureau said. Fears of breached dykes had prompted the mass evacuation by truck and bus from vulnerable coasts to solid buildings, such as schools, well before “Damrey” stormed ashore and headed inland. But traders said the typhoon missed the Central Highlands coffee belt further to the south. Vietnam is the world’s second-biggest coffee producer after Brazil. Thailand also issued flash flood warnings for the north and northeast, which forecasters said could expect three days of heavy rain until the typhoon petered out. Parts of Laos were also likely to be hit, but drought stricken Cambodia saw only benefit. “We are on the tail of the typhoon, so there will be rain across our country which is good for areas hit by drought,” said Mao Hak, a senior official at the Water Resources Ministry. When it moved across Hainan in southern China, “Damrey”’s winds were gusting up to 180 kph, making it the strongest storm to hit the island in 30 years. Major power grids could be fixed in two to three days, but to repair the whole network would take a month, the official Xinhua news agency quoted a Hainan official as saying. Sea water soaked low-lying areas and crops of tropical fruit and rice were damaged or flooded, contributing to economic losses from the storm estimated at 10 billion yuan, the China Daily said.

27 September 2005. China’s south-eastern province of Hainan is cleaning up after Typhoon “Damrey” tore through the island, killing at least 16 people and causing extensive damage. The typhoon, packing winds of 200 km per hour, pummelled Hainan yesterday, uprooting trees, flooding roads and causing an island-wide power blackout. The Civil Affairs Ministry said that as of last night the storm had caused nearly 8.5 billion yuan ($1.05 billion) in damage in Hainan, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, while 436,000 people had been evacuated. By today, the typhoon had slammed ashore in Vietnam, breaching a network of sea dikes and forcing the evacuation of nearly 300,000 people along the coastal region. Hainan Vice Governor Wu Changyuan said that 20,000 homes had been flattened on the island province, while 380 km of roads had been damaged and 704,000 hectares of cropland ruined, Xinhua news agency said. By this evening, Xinhua put economic losses at 10 billion yuan and the death toll at 16. Extensive damage to Hainan’s electrical grid would also require costly repairs, while the island’s oil industry was facing damage to facilities and potential cutbacks in production, press reports said. “Damrey,” the most powerful typhoon to hit northern Vietnam in a decade, injured nine people after it landed in Thanh Hoa province early on today, packing winds of up to 102 km per hour, said Le Van Thao of the National Meteorology Centre. About 144,000 people from Thanh Hoa and another 145,000 from three surrounding provinces were evacuated from low-lying homes, schools and local government buildings before the storm hit, said provincial disaster official Tran Quang Trung. Initial damage is estimated at $5.2 million in Thanh Hoa alone, disaster relief officials said. Some 950 homes were completely destroyed while another 9,000 had their roofs blown off. A power blackout was reported in Thai Binh and Thanh Hoa provinces. More than 25,000 soldiers have been sent to help reinforce sea dikes and evacuate people, state media reported.

28 September 2005. Flash floods spawned by Typhoon “Damrey” killed at least four people in Thailand today and hard-hit Vietnam reported 22 swept away in similar torrents in its northern mountains. The deaths took the known toll to at least 41 in “Damrey”’s rampage across the main Philippine island of Luzon, the southern Chinese island of Hainan – where the economic damage was estimated at $1.2 billion – Vietnam, Laos and northern Thailand. Despite waning after hitting land in Vietnam yesterday, “Damrey” was still pounding wide areas with heavy rain and a Thai official said water spilling from a breached dam threatened the northern city of Chiang Mai. “Heavy rain broke the reservoir and the water will flow into Chiang Mai today. Right now, the city is throwing up walls of sand bags,” said Prasert Indee, a senior official in the area. Vietnam, where five people are known to have been killed, issued flood warnings after “Damrey”’s 130 kph winds and 5-meter sea surges shattered sections of the network of sea dykes protecting a key rice growing area. State television said soldiers had been sent to the mountainous northern province of Yen Bai to look for the 22 people swept away. The area in Vietnam most likely to suffer floods was the province of Ninh Binh, 90 km south of Hanoi, the government’s Committee for Flood and Storm Prevention said. The lashing rains “Damrey” brought were swelling rivers very quickly and it ordered five other northern provinces to reinforce dykes yet further. The rains also struck Laos, where the government said it had no immediate reports of major damage. “We’ve had heavy rain all night and we are monitoring the flooding situation closely, but there is nothing major so far. Just some roofing gone,” government spokesman Yong Chanhthalansy said. Vietnam’s dyke system, built to withstand strong gales and protect rice fields in the north, buckled under the power of winds and sea surges. Sections crumpled in four provinces, power supplies and telecommunications were hit and thousands of homes swamped, state media said. The government said at least 180,000 hectares of rice in seven provinces were damaged, but the typhoon did not hit the Central Highlands coffee belt further to the south and had no impact on crude oil output as Vietnam’s offshore rigs are well to the south. The government said in a statement read out on national television yesterday it was rushing emergency food and supplies to devastated areas to which 330,000 people evacuees returned only to find homes and rice fields under water. Nguyen Thi Nguyet, general secretary of the Vietnam Food Association, said the government was expected to take food relief from national reserves and would have no impact on exports. The northern region incorporating the Red River Delta is Vietnam’s second largest rice growing area after the Mekong Delta in the south. It produces about 36 percent of Vietnam’s rice, which is used mainly for domestic consumption, and shrimp and fish farms in the area also suffered typhoon damage. But the disruption to production in flooded areas will reduce supplies of vegetables and seafood to regional markets, including Hanoi, home to three million people where prices have already started rising.

28 September 2005. The death toll from flash floods spawned by typhoon “Damrey” more than doubled today as the hardest-hit Vietnam said it had recovered the bodies of 33 people swept away in the northern mountains. The deaths took the known toll to at least 74 in the typhoon’s rampage across the main Philippine island of Luzon, the southern Chinese island of Hainan – where the economic damage was estimated at $1.2 billion – Vietnam, Laos and northern Thailand. State-run Vietnam Television said 38 people were swept away last night as the worst floods in 40 years struck Yen Bai Province, 180 km north-west of Hanoi, and soldiers had so far retrieved 32 bodies. The broadcaster said another person was killed by landslides in neighbouring Lao Cai Province. Four died in similar torrents in Thailand while China and the Philippines each reported 16 deaths. Despite waning after hitting land in Vietnam yesterday, “Damrey” still pounded wide areas with heavy rain and water spilling from a cracked dam threatened the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. The city threw up walls of sandbags five metres high in vulnerable areas along the river but the top official in the region said the water was seeping relatively slowly from the reservoir, which has a capacity of two million cubic metres. “We are keeping eyes on the water level, but we are quite sure we can hold it,” Chiang Mai Governor Suwat Tantipat said. Vietnam has issued flood warnings after the typhoon’s 130 kph winds and five-metre sea surges shattered sections of the network of sea dykes protecting a key rice growing area. Prime Minister Phan Van Khai at a Cabinet meeting today called on rescue missions to seal off the broken dykes and pump out water to help farmers finish rice harvesting. The area in Vietnam most likely to experience floods was the province of Ninh Binh, 90 km south of Hanoi, the government’s Committee for Flood and Storm Prevention said. It ordered five other northern provinces to reinforce dykes. The rains also struck Laos, where the government said it had no immediate reports of major damage. Vietnam’s dyke system, built to withstand strong gales and protect rice fields in the north, buckled under the power of winds and sea surges. Sections crumpled in four provinces, power supplies and telecommunications were hit and thousands of homes swamped. The government said at least 180,000 hectares of rice in seven provinces were damaged. The government said it was rushing emergency food and supplies to devastated areas to which 330,000 evacuees returned only to find homes and rice fields under water. Nguyen Thi Nguyet, general secretary of the Vietnam Food Association, said the government was expected to take food relief from national reserves and it would have no impact on exports. “Rice from the region’s warehouses can be used to meet the food demand,” she said, adding that the region was harvesting a bumper crop this year. The northern region incorporating the Red River Delta is Vietnam’s second largest rice growing area after the Mekong Delta in the south. It produces about 36 percent of Vietnam’s rice, used mainly for domestic consumption, and shrimp and fish farms in the area also suffered typhoon damage. However, the disruption to production will reduce supplies of vegetables and seafood to regional markets, including Hanoi, home to three million people where prices have already started rising.

29 September 2005. Vietnam widened the search today for victims of flash floods spawned by Typhoon “Damrey” which Prime Minister Phan Van Khai said had caused “extremely serious losses”. With 54 people dead or missing in the north, a letter from Khai read out on state television asked the Fatherland Front, the Communist Party’s mass organisation, to appeal to the nation for help. Khai also urged provincial governments “to organise for the people living in the areas with high risk of landslides and flash floods to move to safety”. So far, soldiers had recovered the bodies of 25 of the 51 people swept away in Yen Bai province, 180 km northwest of Hanoi, a provincial official told Reuters. “The search is still under way, so we have no final toll yet,” he said. State television said 32 bodies had been found while one person was reported killed by a landslide in the neighbouring province of Lao Cai and two more died in Hoa Binh. The television showed pictures of flattened houses, submerged schools and rescuers searching for bodies along rivers. Three people drowned as floods struck Phu Tho province and two died in Nghe An and Ninh Binh, state media said. Seven died in similar torrents in Thailand while China and the Philippines each reported 16 deaths. The deaths took the known toll to at least 84 in “Damrey”’s rampage across the main Philippine island of Luzon, the southern Chinese island of Hainan – where the economic damage was estimated at $1.2 billion – Vietnam, Laos and northern Thailand. In some areas of Vietnam hit by “Damrey”’s 130 kph winds and five-metre sea surges on Tuesday (27 September), thousands of people were being evacuated for the second time as rivers swelled and breached sea dykes still posed danger. Emergency food aid has been distributed to areas hit by the typhoon, mainly instant noodles and bottled water. The government has yet to come up with an estimate of the overall damage, but power supplies and telecommunications were hit and thousands of homes swamped.

30 September 2005. The death toll from Typhoon “Damrey” and the flash floods it spawned in several Asian countries rose to at least 120 today. The official Vietnam News Agency said all 51 people swept away by flash floods in the northern province of Yen Bai, 180 km northwest of Hanoi, had died although a provincial disaster official told Reuters only 33 bodies had been found. China, where “Damrey” caused huge damage on the southern island of Hainan, raised its toll from 16 to 25 and Thailand said two more people had been killed in flash floods in the north, taking its total to nine. While “Damrey” killed only five people as it roared ashore in northern Vietnam on Tuesday (27 September), 65 people were killed by flash floods as it also lashed parts of Laos and northern Thailand with torrential rain. The Philippines reported 16 deaths in Damrey’s rampage across its main island of Luzon while the official Xinhua news agency quoted a Chinese official as saying it caused economic losses of 11.6 billion yuan. “Damrey” nearly wiped out the aquaculture industry on Hainan and damaged the power grid and rubber plantations there, Xinhua quoted the official as saying. Yesterday, Vietnam Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh toured Yen Bai and urged officials to speed up the distribution of relief. Prime Minister Phan Van Khai told provincial governments to evacuate people in areas at risk from landslides and flash floods. More than 2,400 people have been evacuated for a second time in Thanh Hoa province, one of the two provinces where “Damrey” landed, as rivers swelled and breached sea dykes still posed a danger. About 330,000 people were evacuated in advance of the typhoon’s arrival. More than 10,400 homes and schools in Vietnam were destroyed or damaged. “Damrey” also shattered nearly 120 km of dykes built to protect rice fields from the sea, the government’s Committee for Flood and Storm Prevention said. Power supplies and telecommunications were hit when the typhoon landed blowing at more than 130 kph and a preliminary government estimate put losses at 699 billion dong. State television said salt farmers on the northern coast, where the typhoon struck, were without food and local authorities had run out of stocks of noodles. Rice, instant noodles and bottled water have been rushed to flood-hit areas while state media said cholera – a disease caught from polluted water – had broken out in many places and the Health Ministry was sending experts and medical aid. Workers were repairing dykes to help farmers finish harvesting rice in a region which is Vietnam’s second-most important producer of the staple food after the Mekong Delta in the south.

30 September 2005. Death toll from tropical depression “Damrey” has risen to nine in Thailand as heavy flood continued to plague the country’s North and North-east region. Samart Chokkhanapitak, chief of the Irrigation Department, said the conditions were more worrisome in Lampang since water levels at the major dam the Kiew Lom had reached the peak. Floodwater overflowed from several rivers in Lampang inundated downtown area and several other districts. The water level at Chaomae Suchada bridge was expected to rise to five metres last night, the worst in the past ten years. Flash floods which intruded some 40 villages in the provinces left six people dead and one missing with the initial damage estimated at 500 million baht (US$12 million), said Lampang Governor Amornthat Niratsayakul. A committee has been set up to monitor the release of water from dams and reservoirs and seek ways to tackle the problem of dams bursting. Meanwhile, water levels in Ping river continued to rise putting downtown Chiang Mai at a fresh round of flash floods.

1 October 2005. At least ten people have been killed and three are still missing in northern Thailand in the aftermath of Typhoon “Damrey,” officials said. Seven died in Lampang province where one villager was reported missing, and three were killed when floods hit the tourist resort province of Chiang Mai, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said. Two villagers were missing in Mae Hong Son province in the far north-east. Thai authorities evacuated some 2,000 people and more than 32,000 have had their homes or property damaged. The disaster prevention department said 40 roads, 24 bridges and one reservoir were damaged in the floods, which began on Tuesday (27 September). Flooding has eased in several provinces, the department added.

;6 October 2005 Central America/Mexico

Raging brown floodwater and banks of mud covered chunks of Central America and southern Mexico today after days of torrential rain and mudslides killed at least 162 across the region. Rescue workers battled to get to remote villages, where hillsides have collapsed under the downpour, and thousands of evacuees from urban shantytowns hunkered down in emergency shelters as rain continued to pound the region. The death toll soared yesterday as rivers swollen by rain from Hurricane “Stan” burst their banks in southern Mexico, and emergency teams found dozens of bodies buried under banks of mud in remote towns in Guatemala and El Salvador. Tens of thousands of people fled their homes in Chiapas and the neighbouring state of Veracruz after “Stan”, now reduced to a tropical depression, swept in from the Atlantic this week.

4 October 2005 El Salvador and Guatemala

Heavy rains triggered landslides that killed 15 people – including children – in El Salvador today, while rising rivers forced the evacuation of dozens of people there and in neighbouring Guatemala. Both countries put their Pacific coasts on alert as a tropical weather front swept over Central America, unleashing downpours and causing principal rivers to overflow. A landslide buried several houses in El Salvador’s capital of San Salvador, killing a two-month-old baby, her two-year-old and four-year-old brothers, and their parents, Interior Minister Rene Figueroa said. Another ten people, who have not been identified, died in landslides in the nation’s central region, authorities said. Dozens of towns in Guatemala were cut off by floods as rescue workers tried to identify the number of people affected. No deaths were reported in Guatemala. “We are noticing a critical situation in the south where the rivers have overflowed their banks,” said Hugo Hernandez, executive secretary of Guatemala’s National Centre for Disaster Reduction. Salvadoran Interior Minister Rene Figueroa said disaster agencies were working “on responding to the emergency.” El Salvador’s airport was still open, but landslides cut off major roadways. Schools and universities suspended classes indefinitely.

29 September 2005 Hurricane “Katrina”

Flooding and storm surge from hurricane “Katrina” caused about $44 billion of property damage in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, risk analysis company AIR Worldwide estimated today. “While the flooding of New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm has garnered the most attention, we estimate that the devastating storm surge along the Gulf Coast, including southern Louisiana, was equally destructive,” Dr Jayanta Guin, vice president of research and modelling at AIR Worldwide, said in a news release. The estimate includes both insured and uninsured losses, company spokesman Michael Gannon said. “That is exclusive of wind damage. That is just water,” he said. “A portion of this is obviously going to be insured.” The company gave the following breakdown: New Orleans $22.6 billion, the rest of Louisiana $16.2 billion, Mississippi $4.4 billion, Alabama $793 million and Florida $32 million. The Boston-based company has not changed its previous estimate that insured losses from “Katrina” would be between $17 billion and $25 billion, Gannon said. “However, that does not include the potential impact of demand surge, the upward press on prices on labour and material after a catastrophe,” he said. Storm surge is the water forced ashore by a hurricane and is highest to the right of the storm’s centre. The force of the water can knock buildings off their foundations and move them a considerable distance from their original locations. AIR Worldwide said it used aerial images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and digital elevation models to determine water levels block by block. Then it used its detailed exposure database to calculate the total property damage within the flooded area. The company uses risk modelling to help insurance companies and governments gauge the losses they may ultimately have to cover.

3 October 2005. The search for bodies of people killed by hurricane “Katrina” has ended in Louisiana, and more searches will be conducted only if someone reports seeing a body, a state official said today. All agencies conducting the searches have finished their sweeps for remains. However, Kenyon International Emergency Services, the private company hired by the state to remove the bodies, is on call if any other body is found, said Bob Johannessen, a spokesman with the state Department of Health and Hospitals. “There might still be bodies found – for instance, if a house was locked and nobody able to go into it,” Johannessen said. Last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it had completed its role in the search, because its specialties were no longer needed. Those services include getting to bodies in attics or other hard-to-reach places or in buildings that may be structurally unsound. FEMA did nearly 23,000 secondary searches in New Orleans with about a dozen teams. As of today, the death toll in Louisiana stood at 964.

5 October 2005. The door-to-door search for corpses from in Hurricane “Katrina” has ended in Louisiana. The death toll stands at 972, substantially fewer than the 10,000 New Orleans’ Mayor, Ray Nagin, had feared. Mississippi’s death toll remains at 221. As schoolchildren are starting to return to classes and New Orleans accelerates its efforts to recover from “Katrina”, job losses are taking their toll. Mr Nagin said that up to 3,000 employees, half of those on the city’s payroll, will lose their jobs because of the damage done to New Orleans’ finances.

6 October 2005. In their first assessment of the chemical and oil spill damage from Hurricanes “Katrina” and “Rita”, the nation’s ocean stewards said today that the long-term impacts will be “tremendous” and take a year or more to deal with. “In terms of overall impact, these two hurricanes have created the largest incidents to which NOAA has ever responded,” David Kennedy, director of the Office of Response and Restoration at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a statement. “The scope of the damage in the area is enormous,” added Pat Montanio, chief of NOAA’s Damage Assessment Centre. More than 1,000 pollution reports have been received along the coastal waters of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, NOAA said. “Prioritizing oil spills in the region is vital,” the agency stated. “It is likely that the long-term effects to the heavily populated Gulf Coast will be tremendous.” Challenges include how to deal with numerous sunken or grounded vessels that may hold pollutants, NOAA said. The spills, the largest from refineries and storage tanks, include six in southeast Louisiana designated by the Coast Guard as major (more than 100,000 gallons) and three listed as medium (10,000-50,000 gallons). On Tuesday (4 October), the Coast Guard reported that 7.7 million gallons of oil or oil products had spilled due to “Katrina” in southeast Louisiana, of which 2 million gallons had yet to be recovered. Some 2.9 million gallons were recovered and 2.7 million gallons evaporated or naturally dispersed, the Coast Guard said. NOAA said its agencies are helping identify the location of spills in coastal waters as well as reviewing the conditions of petroleum facilities from Galveston, Texas, to Pensacola, Fla. “NOAA’s scientific support teams will be advising the US Coast Guard on ways to control and clean up spills throughout the region, and ensuring that additional damage to the environment does not occur during the cleanup,” the agency said. “We have people in the impact zone and around the country working seven days a week to support and evaluate hazardous material spills,” noted William Conner, chief of NOAA’s Hazardous Materials Response Division. Officials have yet to provide hard estimates of any impacts to marine life and other wildlife in the region from the hurricanes.

7 October 2005. The beach in West Gulfport shook under the straining of three large bulldozers and other heavy equipment yesterday afternoon. They were pushing a 360-ton barge, washed across US 90 by Hurricane “Katrina”, down a temporary stretch of railroad track for the last 200 feet of its journey back to its usual environment in the Mississippi Sound – one that doesn’t require a street address. R.J. Corman Derailment Service specializes in train-wreck cleanup but has found a new niche market. It moved 10 barges off the CSX railroad tracks in the Mobile area after Katrina, but literally broke new ground in scope and efforts here. The barge moved about 250 yards from the vicinity of 38th Avenue across US 90, thanks to old-school techniques. Workers used untreated telephone poles as a rolling mat under the barge between 1730 hours and 2230 hours, Wednesday (5 October). The barge reached the water yesterday afternoon through the work of 18 men operating three large bulldozers pushing from the stern, four mobile side-booms pulling with cables around the back of the barge and other support equipment. Economics make it the better business decision for American Commercial Barge Line, a barge company based in Jeffersonville, Ind., to move it rather than scrap it up and build a new one. New barges cost about $500,000 and there’s a two-year waiting list for construction. Its barge had about 1,500 tons of aluminium ingots worth $2.5 million on board, which had to be offloaded before the barge moved. Two barges owned by another company remain further inland in West Gulfport.

10 October 2005. The bidding process on rebuilding the Popp’s Ferry Bridge will have to be restarted this week thanks to a “double snafu,” postponing start of work by at least 12 days. Four companies turned in bids Friday (7 October) to repair Hurricane “Katrina” damage to a major north-south traffic artery in east Harrison County. But the low bid by Key Constructors of Madison was less than one-third of the next lowest, setting off a hectic Monday that ended with the city of Biloxi throwing out all four bids. The project will be advertised again Wednesday, with bids opened a week later. The city intends to award the contract that day and still anticipates the work taking 100 days from the start of construction. Key’s $2.79 million bid was far under T.L. Wallace Construction’s of $9.39 million. Key President David Trevathan said his company got into the process late, only last Wednesday, and it did not know about a pre-bid conference the other three bidders attended earlier

26 October 2005. The death toll attributed to hurricane “Katrina” in Louisiana has grown to 1,053, according to figures released Tuesday. The number of bodies received by a special morgue in St. Gabriel near Baton Rouge and by coroners in 13 parishes rose to 1,061, up from 1,056 on 21 October. However, that total included the bodies of eight people whose deaths have since been ruled unrelated to the storm, the state Department of Health and Hospitals said. Just under half of the bodies have been identified, and many of those names have not been released because of difficulty locating family members or because autopsies are pending, said Bob Johannessen, a DHH spokesman.

4 October 2005 Hurricane “Stan”

London, 4 October – A press report, dated today, states: The Mexican authorities have started evacuating people from areas of the Gulf of Mexico coast threatened by Hurricane “Stan”. The storm has already killed dozens of people in Central America. Forecasters say the category one hurricane is expected to hit the coast of the Mexican state of Veracruz later today or tomorrow. Schools have suspended classes there. The Mexican state oil company, Pemex, has evacuated several rigs in the area. Mexican officials issued a hurricane warning for much of the Gulf coast, from Cabo Rojo southward to Punta el Lagarto, and set up dozens of shelters, Associated Press reported. “Hurricane conditions are expected within the warning area within the next 24 hours,” including sustained winds of over 75 mph, advised the National Hurricane Centre in Miami. Meanwhile, thousands of evacuees remain in shelters in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where heavy rain caused by the storm is expected to continue. At least 39 people across Central America have been killed in flooding and landslides triggered by the deluge, which swept across Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula over the weekend before moving into the Gulf of Mexico. El Salvador was worst hit with at least 31 deaths. The government declared a state of emergency and is evacuating thousands. “Sixty percent of the country is in danger of landslides,” El Salvador’s President Tony Saca warned. “The risk caused by this accumulation of water is worrying.” The country’s director of the National Emergency Centre, Mauricio Ferrer, said some 300 communities had been flooded. More than 8,500 people had been forced to flee their homes, and were being accommodated in 122 shelters, he added. Emergency personnel were trying to reach stricken areas, but were hampered as landslides and swollen rivers cut off major routes. “Stan’”s trail of misery also extended elsewhere, killing at least four people in Guatemala and four in Honduras. A state of emergency was declared in parts of Guatemala, after dozens of communities were also stranded by floods.

4 October 2005. Tropical storm “Stan” has caused excessive rains throughout the country causing over 300 landslides and several main roads are blocked. A total of 32 deaths have been attributed to the rains and 15,000 refugees are being housed in 133 shelters nation-wide. Schools are closed Commerce closed early yesterday to allow staff to get home.

Hurricane “Stan” barrelled into Mexico’s Gulf coast today, pummelling the major port city of Veracruz with heavy rain and punishing waves, and forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents and several offshore oil platforms. “Stan” packed maximum sustained winds near 80 mph, the National Hurricane Centre in Miami reported. It was centred just inland about 85 miles southeast of the city of 425,000 people and was moving southwest at about 7 mph. Forecasters said wind and rain from the Category 1 hurricane were also reaching Central America, causing floods and landslides and leaving at least 38 people dead in El Salvador. Rain was still falling today in much of Central America, driving thousands from their homes in El Salvador and Guatemala. Veracruz’s busy port was closed, schools cancelled classes and officials at a nearby nuclear power plant prepared the facility for the hurricane’s arrival. Thousands of residents abandoned their homes and stayed in dozens of shelters set up all along the coast. It was unclear how the oil platform evacuations would affect production at Pemex, the world’s third-biggest oil producer and a major supplier to the USA. The company pumps about 3.4 million barrels a day of crude, just over half of which it exports. Forecasters said the storm could dump up to 10 inches of rain in some areas, and warned residents that flooding and landslides were possible.

4 October 2005. Hurricane “Stan” has made landfall in Mexico after killing dozens in Central America and has now been downgraded to a tropical storm. The hurricane, carrying winds of 80 mph, came ashore south of the port of Veracruz. Mexican authorities had evacuated the affected areas but there is no word on new casualties. The storm is heading slowly south-west and weakening further. There were reports of flooding and of trees being knocked down in Veracruz as the outer bands of the storm struck. The Mexican state oil company, Pemex, evacuated several rigs in the area and Mexican officials set up dozens of shelters.

5 October 2005. Torrential rains and flooding from Hurricane “Stan” killed six people in southern Mexico today after claiming more than 70 lives in Central America. Rivers washed away a major bridge and ripped apart houses and buildings when they burst their banks in the city of Tapachula, on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala. “We have news that there are six dead in total,” said Jose Ortiz, a senior official from Chiapas, the poor southern state where damage was worse. Tens of thousands of people fled their homes in Chiapas and the neighbouring state of Veracruz after “Stan”, now reduced to a tropical depression, swept in from the Atlantic this week. “There is flooding, in some communities mudslides, there is no access by road, no telephone communication,” said Jordan Jimenez of Mexico’s civil protection agency in Chiapas. “There are people missing, some in shelters.” At least 49 people were killed in El Salvador and 19 in Guatemala, most of them buried alive in mud as hillsides collapsed on their flimsy homes. Six people were killed in Nicaragua and three in Honduras. “Stan” came ashore yesterday near the city of Veracruz as a Category One hurricane with winds of nearly 80 mph. In Veracruz state, it blew the roofs off shacks, injuring four people, and forced hundreds to evacuate when rivers overflowed. Lucas Lopez, an organic coffee salesman in Tapachula, said many homes and a railroad bridge had been washed away. “The river is huge, people have lost their things. It rained all night and it’s still raining,” he said.

5 October 2005. Huge mudslides, flooding and torrential rains from hurricane “Stan” have killed at least 117 people in Central American and southern Mexico, rescue workers said today. Relentless rain pounded mountain villages and urban shanty towns across the impoverished region, and hillsides collapsed under the weight of four days of downpours. The death toll nearly doubled today when rivers burst their banks in southern Mexico, and emergency teams found another 42 people buried under several feet of mud in remote Guatemalan towns. Unconfirmed reports said hundreds may have died there. A total of 50 people have now been killed in both El Salvador and Guatemala, including the latest deaths, and another 17 total in Mexico, Nicaragua and Honduras, authorities said. Many of the victims in the worst-hit areas lived in flimsy, wooden and iron huts that were swallowed by landslides. Swollen rivers washed away a major bridge and ripped apart houses and buildings when they burst their banks at the city of Tapachula, in Mexico’s Chiapas state. “There is flooding, in some communities mudslides, there is no access by road, no telephone communication,” said Jordan Jimenez of Mexico’s civil protection agency in Chiapas. “There are people missing, some in shelters.” Tens of thousands of people fled their homes in Chiapas and the neighbouring state of Veracruz after “Stan,” now reduced to a tropical depression, swept in from the Atlantic this week. It came ashore yesterday near the city of Veracruz as a Category One hurricane with winds of nearly 80 mph. Lucas Lopez, an organic coffee salesman in Tapachula, said many homes and a railroad bridge had been washed away. In Veracruz state, the storm blew the roofs off shacks, injuring four people, and forced hundreds to evacuate when rivers overflowed. Mexico’s three main oil exporting ports, on the Gulf of Mexico, reopened after closing as the hurricane approached. President Vicente Fox travelled to Chiapas today to inspect the damage.

6 October 2005. Huge mudslides, flooding and torrential rains from Hurricane “Stan” have killed at least 133 people in Central America and southern Mexico, according to rescue workers. Rain has fallen relentlessly on mountain villages and urban shanty towns across the impoverished region, and hillsides have collapsed under four days of downpours. The death toll nearly doubled when rivers burst their banks in southern Mexico, and emergency teams found another 42 people buried under several feet of mud in remote Guatemalan towns. The Government says the death toll will rise, and unconfirmed reports say hundreds may have been killed in an isolated region of western Guatemala.

6 October 2005. As of this morning 52 deaths have been attributed to the excessive rain and 17,000 refugees are in shelters nationwide (due Hurricane “Stan”.) Forecast is for rain until the weekend. Schools remain closed until further notice.

6 October 2005. A rescue operation is under way in Central America and southern Mexico, where mudslides caused by a tropical storm have killed at least 160 people. The emergency services are continuing to find buried bodies as they reach more isolated villages. Although Tropical Storm “Stan” has passed, heavy rain is still falling and river levels are dangerously high. The worst affected countries, El Salvador and Guatemala, are struggling to evacuate everyone at risk. Shelters in both countries are holding thousands of people, while road links have been cut off. “The emergency is bigger than the rescue capacity, we have floods everywhere, bridges about to collapse, landslides and dozens of roads blocked by mudslides,” a spokesman for the Salvadoran Red Cross said. In Mexico, reports are now coming in that dozens of people are missing. Across the region, mountain villages and urban shanty towns were ill-defended against the tide of water and mud. Thousands of Salvadorans have fled their homes to seek shelter. The death toll so far has been put at 79 in Guatemala and 62 in El Salvador. At least 19 deaths have been reported across Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica.

6 October 2005. A huge mudslide in a Guatemalan lakeside town popular with tourists killed 40 people after rains and flash floods from hurricane “Stan” devastated Central America and southern Mexico. The latest tragedy was at Santiago Atitlan, a popular destination for US and European visitors in Guatemala’s Maya Indian highlands, the government said today. With the new deaths, 210 people have now been killed in floods and mudslides in Central America and southern Mexico in the last few days in the wake of “Stan.” Benedicto Giron, spokesman for the civil protection agency, said he did not know how many people were missing in Santiago Atitlan, but rescue workers told Guatemalan radio that up to 800 people might be unaccounted for. Santiago Atitlan is an indigenous town that sits on Lake Atitlan, a collapsed volcanic cone filled with turquoise water. Rain-sodden hills collapsed throughout the region, burying mostly poor peasants. Many of the victims lived in flimsy wooden and tin shacks. An unknown number of foreigners were trapped at the resort of Panajachel, also on Lake Atitlan. “The area was cut off by mudslides. We understand there are a good number of tourists there,” Defence Minister Carlos Aldana said at an airfield in Guatemala City. Few rescue workers had been able to reach the area, however, and communication was still cut off. Guatemala confirmed 119 deaths and said the toll would surely rise. There were at least 65 dead in El Salvador, 13 in Mexico, ten in Nicaragua and three in Honduras. Troops across Central America and southern Mexico tried to reach flooded areas with drinking water, food and medical kits but relentless rains and washed out roads made it difficult. “It’s the weather that is preventing us from doing a more-effective job,” Mexican President Vicente Fox said. Meteorologists predicted the rains would continue for the rest of the week. The flooding came from storms sparked by hurricane “Stan,” which smashed into Mexico from the Atlantic earlier this week. The storm quickly weakened but several days of rains swelled normally slow rivers into thundering, brown torrents that swept away bridges, houses, roads and trees across the region. Dozens of fishing villages on Guatemala’s Pacific coast were cut off by flooding, and another potentially deadly mudslide was reported on Thursday at the Tacamulco volcano near the Mexico border. Around 2,500 homes were destroyed in Mexico’s bustling southern city of Tapachula, on the border with Guatemala. Entire neighbourhoods were deep in water and families spent the night on roofs, waiting to be rescued. On Tapachula’s outskirts, residents and workers picked at a pile of mud with shovels, looking for the bodies of three neighbours buried overnight when a hillside collapsed.

8 October 2005. Rescuers are continuing their search for hundreds of people missing after mudslides, caused by hurricane “Stan”, hit Central America and Mexico. The death toll in Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and southern Mexico has reached 254, with fears that it will rise further. The Guatemalan president wants congress to declare a state of emergency. Entire villages have been completely wiped out by landslides and flash floods. Known death toll: Guatemala 156, El Salvador 65, Mexico 17, Nicaragua 10, Honduras four, Costa Rica two. Across the region, an unknown number of people remain trapped in their houses, with some 200,000 people forced to flee their homes. More rain, blocked roads and collapsed bridges have been hampering rescue efforts. The country’s civil protection agency said 50 bodies were recovered from a town on the edge of Santiago Atitlan in the Mayan highlands, popular with Western visitors. Reports in the local media say many people are still missing in the town after a mudslide. Outside emergency teams only reached the town yesterday and locals said they feared dozens more had died, trapped under the mud. In Quezaltenango, people are still trapped in what remains of their homes as flood waters have reached up to two metres high. Mexico was also struck by the weather system, which has killed at least 17 people and caused at least 30 rivers to burst their banks. The town of Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border, was flooded and badly damaged.

8 October 2005. About 1,400 people have reportedly been buried alive by a mudslide in the central American country of Guatemala. The tragedy was announced by a fire brigade spokesman, who said it happened in a highland village. The mudslide was caused by torrential rain from hurricane “Stan”. The mud that buried the village residents was 12 metres thick in places. Large swathes of land in Central America and Mexico have been flooded and dozens of mountain villages hit by mudslides.

9 October 2005. Rescuers are still not able to reach at least 90 Guatemalan villages cut off by mudslides after tropical storm “Stan”. At least 508 people are confirmed dead, but officials warn another 1,400 could have died in two villages in the worst affected area, around Lake Atitlan. Hundreds of rescue workers have been digging through congealed mud in heavy rain in a search for victims. “Stan” has claimed 100 more lives across Central America and southern Mexico. After Guatemala, El Salvador has suffered greatest loss of life, with 67 confirmed deaths. Emergency workers in Guatemala have been struggling to reach many isolated communities after mudslides swept away roads and bridges. Continuing torrential rain since the tropical storm hit the region on Tuesday brings the threat of fresh landslides, even as the search for victims goes on.

11 October 2005. The death toll from devastating mudslides in Guatemala topped 2,000, as rescuers called off their search for hundreds of people buried for six days under solidifying mud. The decision brought the death toll from the mudslide and accompanying heavy rains and flooding to 2,052 in Guatemala alone. Some 652 people had previously been confirmed dead in Guatemala, and 1,400 had been listed as missing. Another 42 were killed in Mexico, 72 in El Salvador and 11 in Nicaragua. Guatemalan and Spanish fire-fighters had little hope of finding survivors as they searched with sniffer dogs after a mudslide on the San Lucas volcano, triggered by the relentless rains unleashed by Tropical Storm “Stan”, hit the towns of Panabaj and Tzanchaj. Panabaj was declared an “area of high (health) risk” by the Guatemalan Red Cross, meaning the town was off-limits to everybody, including its inhabitants, and that its surroundings were to be evacuated, a spokesman told AFP. Several towns were “destroyed” and another 14 were flooded in the southwest, near the Pacific coast, according to Santo Domingo Mayor Mario Perez. Guatemala’s President Oscar Berger has urged the international community to help his nation of 11.2 million people, and several countries – including Canada, Cuba, France, Japan, Mexico and Spain – have pledged assistance. Vice President Eduardo Stein said the country needed 21.5 million dollars in emergency funds to provide food, blankets and medicine to an estimated 3.5 million people affected by the storm. The damage is estimated at 800 million dollars. The United Nations said it was launching a US$22-million flash appeal to assist victims in Guatemala. The US military sent a humanitarian assistance team of 58 over the weekend and eight helicopters to deliver supplies, while US General Bantz Craddock, commander of the Miami-based US Southern Command, arrived in Guatemala on yesterday to help coordinate relief efforts. Some 200 doctors from Cuba also travelled to Guatemala over the weekend to help with the emergency effort. Meanwhile, in south-eastern Mexico, hundreds of farming communities face months of possible food shortages and the loss of entire crops. Mexican authorities have launched a vaccination drive amid an outbreak of dengue fever in the storm zone. Mexican President Vicente Fox estimated that rebuilding broken bridges, homes and other infrastructure in his country would cost US$1.8 billion.

12 October 2005. Authorities reaching new communities previously cut-off by flood waters raised the number of Guatemalans whose homes have been damaged, destroyed or threatened by new rainfall to 200,000 – but the official death toll held steady at 652. Emergency response teams were able to assess the damage to isolated villages deep in the mountains of San Marcos province, near the border with Mexico, for the first time yesterday – nearly a week after relentless rain triggered flooding and mudslides. Agriculture Secretary Alvaro Aguilar said in an interview that officials had now reached 95 percent of the 515 estimated communities across Guatemala hit by flooding. The death toll from landslides and flooding stands at 652, but the number of missing whose bodies may never be recovered has risen to nearly 600, meaning more than 1,200 people may have been killed nationwide. Another 133 people died in El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras due to the heavy rains, but nowhere was the devastation more widespread than Guatemala. Some 120,000 residents continue to live in shelters after flooding forced them to flee their homes. In all, 200,000 people were considered “directly affected” by heavy rains, meaning that their homes were damaged, destroyed or rendered temporarily uninhabitable because of the threat of flooding from new rains, said Hugo Hernandez, director of the disaster response agency. A massive mudslide in Panabaj, close to Santiago Atitlan, about 140 km west of Guatemala City, buried a total of around 400 people, President Oscar Berger said during a visit to the now-hidden hamlet on the shores of Lake Atitlan. A second horrific mudslide occurred further to the west in San Marcos province, where at least 80 people who sought shelter from heavy rains in an evangelical meeting hall in the town of Tacana were buried by a river of mud. Authorities in those areas and elsewhere have begun abandoning efforts to recover bodies and turn to international agencies to help feed, clothe and treat tens of thousands of residents who survived – but lost everything. Berger said the government would provide land elsewhere to families looking to resettle and that trucks were bringing in tin roofing to build temporary shelters, but the town of Panabaj would be abandoned forever. Guatemala has issued an urgent call to the UN seeking US$21.5 million in aid.

2 October 2005 Nepal

At least 32 people have died till yesterday due to floods and landslides last week in a village of far western district of Nepal, a member of a rescue team said from Kathmandu today. “A total of 32 bodies have been discovered till yesterday out of the people missing due to landslides in Sirsha village of Dadeldhura district, some 800 km west of Kathmandu,” Ganesh Raj Bhatta, leader of Nepal Bar Association, a non-government organization involved in the rescue team, told reporters. As many as 39 people are still missing and feared dead, Bhatta noted. Rescue operation led by NBA team and the Nepal Red Cross Society is going on.

2 October 2005 Typhoon “Longwang”

Typhoon “Longwang” headed for China after swirling through Taiwan today, injuring at least 34 people. Most of the injuries were from broken glass, while strong winds lifted roofs off four homes and a university dormitory in Hualien, disaster response officials at Taiwan’s National Fire Administration said. The storm’s eye was over the ocean 70 km west-south-west of Taichung by 1230 hours, and the storm was headed west-north-west at 18 km/h, though much of the island remained under its influence, Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said. “Longwang” had maximum sustained winds of 137 km/h and gusts of up to 173 km/h, but had weakened as it passed over Taiwan’s central mountains, the weather bureau said.

4 October 2005. Rescuers were searching last night for 59 police academy students missing after a landslide in East China triggered by typhoon “Longwang.” Following on from the deaths of three people in Fujian Province over the past two days as a result of the storm, the landslide happened in Minhou County of Fujian’s provincial capital, Fuzhou, China Central Television reported. Torrential rains brought by the typhoon caused the hillside to give way above the civilian buildings where the students were staying, sweeping them away. President Hu Jintao yesterday made a phone call and asked for every effort to be made to find the missing. The typhoon raged across Taiwan at the weekend (1-2 October) before moving on to Fujian. About 537,000 people had been evacuated to safety, officials said, and 2.46 million people were affected. Although downgraded to a tropical depression yesterday, “Longwang” had already damaged 60,000 hectares of crops, with 12,500 “completely damaged,” Xinhua reported. Economic damage was estimated at yuan 1.2 billion (US$150 million). Officials and residents of Fuzhou were cleaning up today as the storm brought rain described as being on a scale of “once a- century.” One resident said he was confined to his 16th-floor apartment on Hualin Road, with no water or electricity. “A nearby river flooded the road, and the water rose to a depth of two metres,” he said. “The underground parking lot of my building is completely submerged. “Cars whose engines were stopped by water could be seen everywhere. Some drivers were forced to stay in their cars on Sunday night. Downpours from the typhoon began at noon on Sunday in Fuzhou and lasted for 14 hours, dumping 111 mm of rain, according to the provincial meteorological bureau. The rain paralysed Fuzhou’s transport system. Pools of water on the main streets were about 70 centimetres deep. The city imposed traffic control yesterday on more than a dozen main streets in the downtown area. The meteorological bureau reported that the storm first struck Weitou town, Jinjiang city, with winds of up to 120 kph at its centre.

4 October 2005. The death toll from Typhoon “Longwang” in China climbed to 15 people and dozens of military students were still missing, media reported today. In the central province of Hubei authorities evacuated about 24,000 people from along the banks of a tributary of the Yangtze River, in what the official Xinhua news agency said was the worst flooding since 1981. Xinhua said 730,000 people in all had been evacuated to protect them from the nineteenth typhoon to hit China this year, in the provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong. The China Daily said that 59 Chinese military students were still missing after torrential rain from the typhoon rushed down a hillside and swept away their school buildings in the south-eastern Chinese city of Fuzhou. State television said life was returning to normal in Fujian, and rail services out of Fuzhou had resumed. More heavy rain is expected to fall in the next two days in the province of Hubei and the local government is on alert for further flooding along the Hanjiang River, Xinhua said. The typhoon, which raged across Taiwan on the weekend before moving on to China’s adjacent Fujian province, also damaged 60,000 hectares of crops and caused economic damage of around 1.2 billion yuan ($148 million).

6 October 2005. The death toll from Typhoon “Longwang” rose to 65 yesterday, while in other parts of the country, flooding has inundated thousands of hectares. Grave fears were held yesterday for 36 police cadets still missing after a landslide killed 50 of their colleagues, as masses of people were evacuated from the worst floods in a decade swamping north China. More than 7,000 soldiers, police and local residents were carrying out a search-and-rescue operation to find the young recruits who were swept away by torrents of mud that engulfed their training academy on Sunday (2 October). The death of the trainees from the Fuzhou Command School of Armed Police in Fujian Province took the death toll from Typhoon “Longwang” that landed in south-eastern China late on Sunday to 65. Of the 15 others killed, five died in landslides, five were swept away by floods and the remaining five were drowned, the China Daily reported. Along with the havoc triggered by the typhoon, parts of northern and central China were dealing with torrential rains and severe flooding along major tributaries of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. According to Xinhua, flooding of the Weihe River in Shaanxi Province, a tributary of the Yellow River, is the worst seen in ten years. So far 315,000 people have been evacuated to safe places, while 30,000 others have been mobilized to reinforce embankments, it said. The flood crest has inundated an area of 180,000 hectares, washed down 12,000 houses and endangered another 25,000 in 11 counties and districts of Weinan City, city officials said. “These are the worst floods we have had in years. But this time we were well prepared so there is no big danger to the population and no large number of casualties,” an official at the flood control bureau of Weinan City said. Reports on Tuesday said three people had died from flooding in Shaanxi. The central province of Hubei was also struggling with heavy rain and the threat of widespread flooding, state media said.

8 October 2005. The death toll caused by mountain torrents that hit an armed police unit in east China’s Fujian Province Sunday night (2 October) rose to 80 yesterday, rescuers said. Among the 57 people saved, 39 were wounded and hospitalized. Some of them have recovered. Rescuers are still searching for the five people who remain missing, the sources said. Servicemen, policemen and local residents have been engaged in the rescue work over the past five days and have recovered 80 bodies. The sudden downpour brought by Typhoon “Longwang” hit the unit stationed in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian Province, Sunday night, when mountain torrents dashed against two houses and washed away people inside. The cause of the disaster is under investigation, the sources said.

11 October 2005. Typhoon “Longwang” to hit China has caused millions of US dollars in damage to the farming and husbandry industries in eastern coastal province of Fujian, according to the provincial statistics. “Longwang” brought damages to at least 111,500 hectares of cropland and killed approximately 530,000 domestic livestock, creating losses of some 725 million yuan, or about 90 million US dollars. “Longwang,” which landed in Fujian Province on the night of 2 October, ravaged the province for ten hours, dilapidating an estimated 5,500 houses and affecting the lives of 3.71 million people. The province is now busily restoring order and rehabilitating local economy, officials said.

8 October 2005 Bangladesh

Floods in northern Bangladesh have killed 16 people, damaged crops and infrastructure and marooned almost two million people over the past four days, government officials said. The victims died crushed in collapsed houses or from drowning or snake bites as rivers burst their banks following torrential rains. “The torrents washed away some 100,000 mud-walled houses, making at least half a million homeless in the region,” a disaster management official said. One-third of the homeless had taken refuge in government shelters or on high ground, he said. The flooding damaged rice and vegetable crops over at least 200,000 hectares and a road network stretching nearly 1,000 kilometres, according to preliminary estimates. One relief official said that rivers flowing into Bangladesh from India were still in spate and the situation might worsen if the rains continued. But the Bangladesh meteorological department said today the floods were likely to recede soon.

8 October 2005 China

Floods and landslides have killed 1,247 people and left another 331 missing in China in the major flood season this year, a senior official said, adding that crops on at least 15 million hectares of farmland have been destroyed and 1.17 million houses ruined. Direct economic losses from the disasters were estimated to have amounted to 136 billion yuan (US$ 16.8 billion), said Vice-Minister of Water Resources E Jingping. The hardest-hit areas include the provinces of Fujian, Anhui, Zhejiang and Hainan in southern and eastern China, which have been plagued by seven typhoons and cyclones that claimed 205 lives. According to the flood-control authority, this year’s major flooding period in China is drawing close. However, the continuous heavy rainfall during the National Day holiday has caused the biggest flood in a decade along the lower reaches of the Weihe River and the middle reaches of the Hanjiang River in Shaanxi and Hubei provinces. Sections of the rivers running through Shaanxi Province in Northwest China overflowed, forcing 359,000 people to be evacuated. More than 4.6 million people in 61 counties were affected by floods and mud slides, which ruined 79,800 hectares of crops and destroyed 39,200 houses. Floodwaters also damaged railways, highways, cable lines and irrigation infrastructure in the province. About 30,000 people have been mobilized to reinforce embankments. But the flood gradually receded as the water level fell below warning levels late Thursday (6 October), Xinhua reported. Central China’s Hubei Province was also dealing with torrential rains and the threat of widespread floods. The water level in the middle reaches of the Hanjiang River running through Hubei Province has risen above the danger mark. Some 20,000 people were toiling to shore up embankments and watch for breaches. The peak of the flood was expected to hit Xiantao, a city near provincial capital Wuhan, yesterday night.

7 October 2005 Colombia

An intense rainstorm triggered a landslide that buried part of a shantytown on the outskirts of the north-western city of Medellin, killing at least 26 people, many of them children, officials said today. Rescuers today recovered the bodies and continued digging through the mud as nearly 30 people remained missing, said Claudia Helena Velez, a municipal official in Bello, 160 miles northwest of Bogota. The landslide, which brought mud, trees, garbage and rocks sweeping through the town of Bello, occurred late yesterday after five hours of heavy rains that loosened the earth in the boulder-covered mountain above the town. At least 11 of those killed were children, said Gen. Ruben Carrillo, police chief of Antioquia state. About a dozen homes, many made of plywood with tin roofs, were destroyed, and entire families were killed by the mudslide. Colombian authorities announced a general alert throughout the region, warning that the heavy rains could continue during the weekend.

11 October 2005 Vietnam

Floods in Vietnam’s southern Mekong Delta had killed 39 local people as of yesterday afternoon, according to local newspaper Saigon Liberation today. An Giang province has suffered the biggest human loss with 21 people drowned, respectively followed by provinces of Long An and Dong Thap with ten and eight victims, since the beginning of the flooding season in mid-August. A total of 13 people in the country’s central region have been killed or left missing, and nine others injured due to floods caused by a tropical low pressure late last week. The floods also inundated nearly 45,000 houses, damaged over 21,500 hectares of rice and subsidiary crops, and nearly 1,500 hectares of aquatic ponds, causing property losses of roughly 245 billion Vietnamese dong (nearly US$15.5 million).

17 October 2005 Tropical storm “Wilma”

A tropical storm warning was in effect for the Cayman Islands as a tropical depression moved through the Atlantic on a path that could threaten the US Gulf Coast later this week as a hurricane, forecasters said. The system was expected to become Tropical storm “Wilma” later today, which would make it the twenty-first named storm of the season, tying the record for the most storms in an Atlantic season, the National Hurricane Centre in Miami said. The only other time so many storms have formed since record keeping began 154 years ago was in 1933. At 0200 hours, the depression was centered about 170 miles southeast of Grand Cayman, forecasters said. Forecasters said weak steering currents left the depression meandering over the same patch of waters, but it was expected to slowly drift west. Its sustained winds were near 35 mph; depressions become tropical storms when their winds reach 39 mph. Long-term forecasts show the storm would likely move west and north, putting the storm in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday (20 October) or Friday (21 October). Forecasters said water temperature and other conditions were favourable for it to become a significant hurricane. “Once storms get into the Gulf of Mexico, I’m aware of only one storm on record that dissipated.” hurricane specialist James Franklin said in Miami. “As it enters the Gulf of Mexico, the northwest Caribbean has some of the deepest warm water in the Atlantic basin and that’s fuel for tropical cyclones.” The system had yet to form the well-defined core needed for significant strengthening yesterday afternoon. Dry air also appeared to be stopping the rise of warm, moist air needed for development, he said. A hurricane watch was issued for the Cayman Islands yesterday, meaning hurricane conditions could be felt there within 36 hours. A tropical storm warning, meaning tropical storm conditions within 24 hours, also was posted. The depression is expected to bring four to six inches of rain in the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, with as much as 12 inches possible in some areas, forecasters said. In Jamaica, officials issued a flash flood warning for north-western parts of the island.

17 October 2005. “Wilma” formed in the Caribbean today, and forecasters warned it could become a powerful hurricane and hit somewhere along the US Gulf Coast as early as the weekend. “I think the message is that the season is certainly not over. People in the Gulf Coast are going to have to watch “Wilma”,” said National Hurricane Centre Director Max Mayfield. “Wilma” reached tropical storm strength before dawn. By tomorrow, it could become the season’s 12th hurricane, which would match the record 12 hurricanes in 1969, the highest number since Atlantic recordkeeping started in 1851. At 2300 hours, “Wilma” had top sustained winds of about 65 mph, up 25 mph from earlier in the day. It was centred about 250 miles south-southeast of Grand Cayman and was drifting westward at 2 mph. A hurricane watch was issued for the Cayman Islands, meaning hurricane conditions could be felt there within 36 hours. The storm was expected to bring two to six inches of rain in the Caymans, Cuba, Haiti, Honduras and Jamaica, with as much as 12 inches possible in some areas. The hurricane centre said “Wilma” could strengthen into a major hurricane, with winds over 110 mph.

18 October 2005. Tropical Storm “Wilma” stalled over the warm waters of the north-western Caribbean early today, where forecasters said it would strengthen into an intense hurricane before potentially menacing the US Gulf Coast this weekend (22/23 October). “Wilma” entered the history books yesterday, becoming the Atlantic hurricane season’s twenty-first named storm before dawn, tying the record set in 1933 and exhausting the list of storm names. Forecasters said it could strengthen into the year’s twelfth hurricane by today. At 0500, EDT, “Wilma’s” top sustained winds increased to about 70 mph. If its winds reach 74 mph, “Wilma” will be upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane. “‘Wilma’ is expected to become an intense hurricane in the north-western Caribbean Sea,” where conditions such as warm water and favourable atmospheric winds indicate strengthening, said Lixion Avila, a hurricane specialist at the hurricane centre. Forecasters said “Wilma” remained nearly stationary over the northwest Caribbean Sea about 260 miles south-southeast of Grand Cayman, but it was eventually expected to gradually turn to the west and northwest. New forecast models placed the storm closer to western Cuba than Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula by Friday. The storm was forecast to then turn sharply in the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida over the weekend. “There’s no scenario now that takes it toward Louisiana or Mississippi, but that could change,” Mayfield said. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin warned residents yesterday to prepare for another evacuation if “Wilma” strengthened and moved toward the city. Conditions such as warm water and favourable atmospheric winds are in place for “Wilma” to strengthen, possibly into a major hurricane with winds above 110 mph. “If it goes through the Yucatan Channel, there won’t be much to weaken it,” Mayfield said. The Cayman Islands were under a hurricane watch, meaning those conditions could be felt within 36 hours. A tropical storm warning was posted there and for the Honduran coast, meaning those conditions were expected within 24 hours. The storm is expected to bring 2 to 6 inches of rain in the Caymans, south-eastern Cuba, Haiti, Honduras and Jamaica, with as much as 12 inches possible in some areas, forecasters said.

19 October 2005. Hurricane “Wilma” triggered mudslides that killed up to ten people in Haiti as the season’s record-tying twenty-first storm strengthened rapidly on Tuesday and headed for the Gulf of Mexico on a path toward storm-weary Florida. Fuelled by the warm waters of the north-west Caribbean Sea, “Wilma” grew from a tropical storm to a Category 2 hurricane with 110 mph winds in less than a day. The US National Hurricane Centre expected it to strengthen at least into a powerful Category four storm on the five-step scale of hurricane intensity, with winds of over 130 mph on Wednesday, then cross into the Gulf of Mexico on Friday and plough across southern Florida on Saturday. Days of steady rain from “Wilma” caused mudslides that killed at least seven people and as many as ten in mountainous Haiti, government officials said. “Wilma” was not expected to threaten New Orleans or Mississippi, where Hurricane “Katrina” killed more than 1,200 people and caused more than $30 billion of insured damage in August. “Katrina” was followed in September by Hurricane “Rita”. “Wilma” was also expected to miss the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas facilities that are still reeling from “Katrina” and “Rita”. But frozen orange juice futures closed at a six year high on Tuesday amid fears “Wilma” could ravage Florida groves that had just begun to rebound from the hurricanes that destroyed 40 percent of last year’s crop. “We have not really begun harvesting, so much of the crop is still on the trees, which obviously is a concern for growers,” said Casey Pace, spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Mutual growers’ association. At 2300, local time, 18 October, “Wilma” was about 185 miles south-south-west of Grand Cayman. “Wilma” was moving west- north-west at eight miles per hour and was expected to turn north-west today. The US National Hurricane Centre predicted “Wilma” would skirt western Cuba on Friday and curve east toward Florida’s southern Gulf coast. Storm alerts were in effect for the Cayman Islands, parts of Cuba, Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and coastal Honduras. “Wilma” was expected to deluge the Caymans, Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, Honduras and Nicaragua, with isolated rainfall amounts of up to 15 inches possible. Emergency crews in Honduras prepared to evacuate 10,000 people, including tourists drawn to the Bay Islands of Roatan, Utila and Guanaja to scuba dive the pristine coral reefs. Cuba’s western tobacco growing province of Pinar del Rio braced for heavy rain and flooding. More than 5,000 people were evacuated from eastern Cuba, where two days of rainfall caused floods and mudslides in the provinces of Guantanamo, Santiago and Granma. The Florida Keys, a chain of islands connected to mainland Florida by a single road, planned to order visitors to leave on Thursday and to evacuate 80,000 residents on Friday. “This is our fourth storm but this one is really aggressive. This one we are taking seriously. The damage is going to be substantial,” Irene Toner, director of emergency management for the county that encompasses the islands, told local radio.

19 October 2005. Hurricane “Wilma” strengthened into a Category 5 hurricane early today packing 175 mph winds, and forecasters said a key reading of the storm’s pressure showed it to be the most powerful of the year. “Wilma” was dumping rain on Central America and Mexico, and forecasters warned of a “significant threat” to Florida by the weekend. The storm’s power multiplied greatly over the last day. It was only yesterday morning that “Wilma” grew from a tropical storm into a weak hurricane with 80 mph winds. “Wilma”’s pressure readings this morning indicated that it was the strongest hurricane of the season, said Trisha Wallace, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Centre in Miami. “Wilma” had a reading of 892 millibars, the same reading as a devastating unnamed hurricane that hit the Florida Keys in 1935. “We do not know how long it will maintain this Category 5 state,” Wallace said. Jamaica, Cuba, Nicaragua and Honduras were getting heavy rain from the storm, though it wasn’t likely to make landfall in any of those countries, she said. Forecasts showed it would likely turn toward the narrow Yucatan Channel between Cuba and Mexico’s Cancun region – then move into the storm-weary Gulf. By 0200 hrs, the hurricane was centred about 170 miles southwest of Grand Cayman Island and about 400 miles southeast of Cozumel, Mexico. It was moving toward the west-northwest at nearly 8 mph, according to the Hurricane Centre. “It does look like it poses a significant threat to Florida by the weekend. Of course, these are four and five-day forecasts, so things can change,” said Dan Brown, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Centre. “Wilma” has already had been blamed for one death in Jamaica as a tropical depression Sunday (16 October). It has flooded several low-lying communities and triggered mudslides that blocked roads and damaged several homes, said Barbara Carby, head of Jamaica’s emergency management office. She said that some 250 people were in shelters throughout the island. The government of flood-prone Honduras warned that Hurricane “Wilma” posed “an imminent threat to life and property of the people of the Atlantic coast.” Neighbouring Nicaragua also declared an alert. Honduran President Ricardo Maduro declared “a maximum alert” along the northern coast and his office said emergency personnel and resources had been sent to the area, where evacuations were possible. In Nicaragua, national disaster prevention chief Geronimo Giusto said the army, police and rescue workers were being mobilised and evacuation points readied. Authorities in the Cayman Islands earlier called an alert.

19 October 2005. All of the major weather models on Wednesday predicted that hurricane “Wilma”, the strongest Atlantic hurricane in terms of barometric pressure ever recorded, would strike Florida later this week. The weather models show the storm moving northwest across the Caribbean Sea to the waters between Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and western Cuba, where it is projected to enter the Gulf of Mexico and turn north-east toward the south-central Gulf Coast of Florida. “Wilma” will probably spare the US oil and natural gas rigs and refineries on the Gulf of Mexico which had been badly battered by hurricanes “Katrina” and “Rita” in late August and September.

20 October 2005. Officials in Mexico, Cuba and Florida have started evacuating thousands of people from areas threatened by the strongest hurricane ever recorded. Hurricane “Wilma”, which has weakened to a Category-Four storm, is packing winds of about 155 mph, its heavy rains already lashing outlying areas. At least 11 people have been killed in Haiti by floods and landslides. The storm’s barometric pressure – a measure of its strength – reached the lowest on record in the Atlantic basin. As of 0300, UTC, today, the centre of the hurricane was about 235 miles south-east of Cozumel, Mexico. “Wilma” is moving at a speed of 8 mph towards Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, but is expected to turn north-west today, said the US National Hurricane Centre. It said the “potentially catastrophic” storm was expected to dump up to 63 cm of rain in mountainous areas of Cuba until tomorrow, and up to up to 38 cm in the Caymans and Jamaica until today. The Mexican authorities have told tourists to evacuate high-risk areas along the coast near the holiday resort of Cancun. Forecasters say the hurricane presents a “significant threat.” The strong winds have forced music television station, MTV, to postpone its Video Music Awards Latin America, which had been scheduled to take place in the resort of Playa del Carmen. The Central American states of Honduras and Nicaragua have also issued alerts, and are expecting tropical storm conditions within the next 36 hours. Cuba began evacuating coastal residents and suspended school in the western province of Pinar del Rio. Forecasters say the hurricane presents a “significant threat” to Florida, which it is expected to hit this weekend. “Wilma” could “cause tremendous damage and loss of life if we’re not careful,” said Hurricane Centre director Max Mayfield. “The storm surge and the wave action will be tremendous with this hurricane, given the intensity and the size.” Officials in the vulnerable Florida Keys island chain have ordered visitors and non-residents to leave immediately. About 80,000 residents were expected to be asked to leave the area today.

20 October 2005. At 1500, UTC, the Government of Mexico has extended the hurricane warning southward to Chetumal. A hurricane warning is now in effect from San Felipe to Chetumal, on the Yucatan Peninsula, including Cozumel and the nearby islands. A hurricane warning is also in effect for Swan Island. A tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch remain in effect from west of San Felipe to Celestun. A tropical storm warning remains in effect for Belize, from the border with Mexico southward to Belize City. A hurricane watch remains in effect in Cuba for the provinces of Matanzas westward through Pinar del Rio and for the isle of youth. A tropical storm warning remains in effect for Honduras from the Honduras/Nicaragua border westward to Cabo Camaron. A turn toward the north-west is expected later today. Maximum sustained winds are near 145 mph, with higher gusts. Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 90 miles from the centre and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 260 miles. Coastal storm surge flooding of seven to 10 feet above normal tide levels, along with large and dangerous battering waves can be expected near and to the north of where the centre makes landfall on the Yucatan peninsula. “Wilma” is expected to produce 10 to 20 inches of rain through Saturday (22 October) across portions of western Cuba and the Yucatan peninsula, with isolated amounts of 40 inches possible particularly over higher terrain in western Cuba.

21 October 2005. Roaring waves pounded Mexican beach resorts on Thursday and thousands of tourists were evacuated to escape the wrath of Hurricane “Wilma”, which gathered strength in the Caribbean on its way to Florida. Cuba evacuated 220,000 people and residents of southern Florida stocked up on drinking water and gas to prepare for “Wilma”, which spun off the coasts of Mexico and Belize packing winds of around 150 mph (240 kph). Described by forecasters as extremely dangerous, “Wilma” killed ten people in mudslides in Haiti earlier in the week. Expensive beachfront hotels all along Mexico’s “Maya Riviera” coast emptied of tourists who escaped to shelters. The normally calm, turquoise Caribbean heaved and frothed and light rain began to fall. “We are trying to stay calm, but we are freaking out inside,” said Kerry Rieth, a tourist from Pennsylvania in the cloud-covered resort of Cancun. Winds were strong and heavy rains were expected later in the day. “Wilma” became the strongest Atlantic storm on record in terms of barometric pressure on Wednesday. It weakened to a Category 4 hurricane, then picked up speed again as it headed toward Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where it was expected to hit on Friday. “Believe me, this is still a very, very powerful hurricane,” said Max Mayfield, director of the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami. The hurricane season has six weeks left and has already spawned three of the most intense storms on record. Hurricane experts say the Atlantic has entered a period of heightened storm activity that could last another 20 years. The storm was expected to miss Gulf of Mexico oil and gas facilities battered by Hurricanes “Katrina” and “Rita” in August and September, but Florida’s orange groves were at risk. “The centre of “Wilma” will be very near the coastline of the Yucatan by midday tomorrow. However, “Wilma” has a large circulation, and hurricane conditions will be felt well before the arrival of the centre,” the hurricane centre said. Residents who live inflimsy shacks that cannot withstand high winds were being moved to shelters. “This is one of the most destructive hurricanes,” said Felix Gonzalez, governor of Quintana Roo state which is home to Mexico’s Caribbean resorts. “We are on maximum alert.” The island of Cozumel, one of the world’s best spots for scuba diving, faced a possible direct hit and tourists were ordered to leave. In Cancun, they took shelter at gymnasiums and schools as the storm was expected to send a 10-foot (3-meter) surge of water over the coast. Mexican authorities said about 42,000 tourists could be evacuated from coastal areas, and airlines added flights from Cancun and nearby points on the Riviera Maya as well as Cozumel and Isla Mujeres. Lowanda Cole, a massage therapist from Houston, said she was getting used to hurricanes after one of the most destructive seasons on record. “We evacuated from “Rita”, we helped folks out with “Katrina” and now here we are and we have to run again. We can’t get away from these things,” she said in a crowded Cancun hotel lobby as she waited with her sons to be evacuated. Some hardy local residents who have lived through many hurricanes were unfazed. “I’ve been here 25 years. I’m not at all worried. My house is safe,” said Jorge Moreno, a carpenter who lives in a low-cost housing project in Cancun. At a briefing in Tallahassee, Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush told residents to take advantage of the extra time the slow-moving storm has given them to prepare. “You need to have non-perishable food for 72 hours. Make sure you have fresh water, make sure you have batteries, battery powered radios and lighting so that you can survive what will happen after a storm.” Authorities in the Keys, connected to mainland Florida by a single road, ordered tourists out on Wednesday and are considering telling the islands’ 80,000 residents to evacuate on Saturday.

21 October 2005. Tourists packed Cancun’s airport and shuttled from luxury hotels to Spartan emergency shelters yesterday, desperately trying to escape Hurricane “Wilma” as its outer bands battered the resort’s white-sand beaches. Cuba evacuated more than 200,000 people. “Wilma”, a Category 4 storm with 150 mph wind, churned toward the Yucatan peninsula and south Florida after brushing by Haiti and Jamaica, where its killed at least 13 people. Forecasters said the storm was expected to make a direct hit on the vacation isle of Cozumel today, then slam Cancun and sideswipe Cuba. “As it hits the Yucatan peninsula, it has the potential to do catastrophic damage,” said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Centre in Miami. Forecasters predicted it would swing northeast around Cuba and charge Sunday (23 October) at hurricane-weary Florida. Gov. Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency, after the state got caught in the westerlies, the strong wind current that generally blows toward the east. Briefly the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record, “Wilma” was a potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm before weakening. Its 150 mph winds made it more powerful than Hurricane “Katrina” when it ploughed into the US Gulf coast on 29 August, killing more than 1,200 people. The National Hurricane Centre in Miami, Florida said that by early today, the storm’s centre was roughly 90 miles southeast of Cozumel. But hurricane-force wind extended 85 miles out from the centre, and tropical storm-force wind reached 200 miles out. It was heading northwest toward the Yucatan at near 6 mph. Tropical storm-force winds and rains were already hitting Cozumel by yesterday night. Hundreds of schools in the Yucatan were ordered closed and many were turned into shelters. Airlines started cancelling flights. While hundreds were evacuated from Cozumel, Mexican officials said about a thousand tourists stayed on the island, mainly at hotel ballrooms being used as storm shelters. About 20,000 tourists remained at shelters and hotels on the mainland south of Cancun, and an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 in the city itself. After the Cancun airport closed, desperate tourists shuttled from luxury hotels to emergency shelters ahead of “Wilma”, which forecasters said was growing stronger. Cuba evacuated more than 200,000 people as the storm approached.

21 October 2005. Lashing wind and rain pounded Mexican beach resorts today and thousands of tourists hunkered down in shelters to escape hurricane “Wilma,” which was hammering Caribbean resorts on its way to densely populated southern Florida. Heavy rain was coming down in diagonal sheets and howling winds were buckling sturdy trees. Tourists were evacuated from luxury beachfront hotels all along Mexico’s “Maya Riviera” coast and the normally calm, turquoise Caribbean seas heaved and “Wilma” dumped rain on streets patrolled by soldiers ordering people to take cover. Described by forecasters as extremely dangerous and at its height later today expected to send a 7-to-11-foot surge of water over the coast, the hurricane killed ten people in mudslides in Haiti earlier in the week. Cuba evacuated 220,000 people and residents of southern Florida stocked up on drinking water and gas to prepare for the storm, which hammered the coasts of Mexico and Belize with winds of around 150 mph. Mexican authorities said close to 22,000 tourists and locals residents had been evacuated from low-lying coastal areas. “Wilma” became the strongest Atlantic storm on record in terms of barometric pressure on Wednesday (19 October). It weakened to a Category 4 hurricane, then picked up again as it headed for Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where it was expected to hit around noon today. At 0500, EDT (0900, UTC), the hurricane was 55 miles south-east of Cozumel, Mexico, and was moving towards the north-north-west at roughly six mph, according to the US National Hurricane Centre. Forecasters said it would strike densely populated southern Florida late on Sunday. Wilma was expected to miss Gulf of Mexico oil and gas facilities battered by hurricanes “Katrina” and “Rita” in August and September, but Florida’s orange groves were at risk. The island of Cozumel, one of the world’s best spots for scuba diving, faced a possible direct hit. Authorities in the Florida Keys, connected to mainland Florida by a single road, ordered tourists out and were considering telling the islands’ 80,000 residents to evacuate. The hurricane was expected to bring 10-20 inches of rain through Sunday across parts of western Cuba and the Yucatan, the hurricane centre reported, with isolated areas of mountainous western Cuba receiving up to 40 inches of rain.

22 October 2005. Residents began fleeing the Florida Keys and parts of the mainland yesterday as Hurricane “Wilma” plodded toward Florida, its slower-than-expected path prolonging the anxious wait for a fierce storm that could hit the state Monday (24 October). The Category 4 hurricane earlier had been expected to strike somewhere on Florida’s west coast this weekend. Its erratic movement frustrated residents already worried about what would be the eighth hurricane to hit or pass near the state since August 2004. Charlotte Regional Medical Centre in Punta Gorda, which sustained tens of millions of dollars in damage last year from Hurricane “Charley”, was discharging as many patients as possible, had reduced elective surgeries and prepared to evacuate patients if needed. Scattered gas shortages were reported in parts of Florida, but Gov. Jeb Bush said the state had a ten-day supply of fuel. Some highways were jammed as people fled the west coast, but police told the governor most of the congestion was from accidents. At 0200, ED,T today, the hurricane’s winds were about 135 mph, down slightly from 140 mph hours earlier, as the storm made landfall on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. “Wilma” was about 450 miles southwest of Florida’s southwest coast and moving north-northwest at about 3 mph and is expected to reach Florida Monday, the hurricane centre said. Landfall in Florida was not likely until sometime Monday afternoon. “Wilma” will likely linger over the Yucatan for a few days, which should weaken the hurricane’s top sustained winds to 130 mph or lower.

23 October 2005. At least three people are known to have died as Hurricane “Wilma” continues to pound Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Tens of thousands of people, many of them foreign tourists, are riding out the storm in overcrowded shelters. The slow-moving storm has sent waves surging over hotels in the resort of Cancun, wiped out electricity supplies and flattened hundreds of homes. Forecasters said “Wilma” had weakened but was expected to intensify as it slowly heads towards Florida’s west coast. Officials have ordered 80,000 residents to leave the Florida Keys island chain ahead of the storm’s arrival late today or tomorrow. Hundreds of thousands of people have also been moved from coastal areas in western Cuba, already lashed by rains and a tornado spun off from “Wilma.” Storm surges reached as high as the third storey of some hotels yesterday, as the hurricane lingered over Mexico’s popular Cancun area. In the resort town of Playa del Carmen, two people died when a gas tank exploded. And to the west of the Yucatan Peninsula, a man died after he was crushed under a large branch. There have been some reports of looting and police officers have been standing guard outside some of the larger convenience stores. On the resort island of Cozumel, which took the brunt of the storm on Friday, streets have been flooded and hotel windows shattered. Playa del Carmen has also suffered severe damage, the town’s civil defence chief Moises Ramirez told the AFP news agency. “Playa is destroyed,” he said. “We have water everywhere, all of the power lines are down, we are flooded all over. Playa is just not like this.” Mexico’s President Vicente Fox, who is to visit the area today, sought to reassure both tourists and residents in a televised address.

23 October 2005. Hurricane “Wilma” punished Mexico’s Caribbean coastline for a second day yesterday, ripping away storefronts, peeling back roofs and forcing tourists and residents trapped in hotels and shelters to scramble to higher floors. At least seven people were killed. On the island of Cozumel off the Yucatan peninsula coast, a navy rescue mission sighted three bodies floating down a flooding avenue and a fourth in a town square. Cozumel has been isolated since weathering the brunt of the storm on Friday (21 October). Earlier, officials reported three other deaths from the storm. Waves slammed into seaside pools and sent water surging over the narrow strip of sand housing Cancun’s luxury hotels and raucous bars, joining the sea with the alligator-infested lagoon. Downtown, winds tore banks open, leaving automatic teller machines standing in knee-deep water. “Wilma”, which had weakened to a Category 2 as it inched northward with sustained winds near 100 mph, was expected to pick up speed today, sideswiping Cuba before it hits Florida. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, predicted the storm would pick up speed and its top winds would increase dramatically today. Early today, the storm was slowly moving back over the Caribbean Sea, and rains and winds were easing in Cancun. A hurricane watch was issued yesterday for the entire southern Florida peninsula, with heavy rain from Wilma’s outer bands already causing hip-deep flooding in the Fort Lauderdale. At 0100, EDT, today, “Wilma” was drifting northeast with maximum sustained winds near 100 mph. It was located about 55 miles north of Cancun, Mexico or about 370miles west-southwest of Key West, Florida. Even as it battered Mexico, the storm’s outer bands whipped the western tip of Cuba, where the government evacuated more than 500,000 people. A tornado spun off from the storm flattened 20 homes and several tobacco-curing huts.

23 October 2005. Hurricane “Wilma” set its sights on Florida, having left a trail of death and destruction across Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The Category 2 hurricane battered the popular holiday resort of Cancun for a third day today, prolonging the horror for thousands of stranded British tourists. Driving sheets of rain and howling 115 mph gales ripped off roofs, shattered windows and flooded streets. Homes were flattened and at least six people were killed. The eye of the storm, blamed for 13 deaths in Jamaica and Haiti, entirely cut of the idyllic Cozumel Island, before causing severe damage in Playa del Carmen. Trees were ripped from the ground, all power lines were down and waves crashed into the lower floors of luxury hotels. A hurricane warning was issued for the southern half of Florida as “Wilma,” with winds stretching 170 miles across, began beating a path towards the US mainland.

24 October 2005. Hurricane “Wilma” crashed ashore in south-west Florida and roared across the peninsula, pounding Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach today after slamming Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and killing 17 people in the Caribbean. Once the most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic, “Wilma” weakened after hammering Cancun and Cozumel for three days with punishing winds and rains but strengthened as it reached Florida with top sustained winds of 125 mph. The hurricane’s powerful core struck the Florida mainland before dawn on the west coast near Naples, blasting beach sand across coastal roads, shredding power lines and bending palm trees. It hit as a Category 3 storm on the five-stage hurricane intensity scale, capable of causing significant damage. “The rain is coming down sideways. We’ve had a handful of tornadoes,” said Jaime Sarbaugh, an emergency management spokeswoman for Collier County, where the hurricane made landfall. “We’re still in the middle of this hurricane so we’re not sending anyone out right now.” The sprawling storm, about 400 miles across, covered much of the Florida peninsula and some of its strongest winds whipped Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, the state’s most populous area with about five million people. More than 315,000 Florida Power & Light customers were without power, the utility said. Forecasters said “Wilma” could prove to be the strongest storm in Miami since hurricane “Andrew” caused more than $25 billion in damage in August, 1992. Before hitting the mainland, the hurricane’s eye roared just north of Key West, the popular tourist island at the end of the 110-mile Florida Keys island chain. The streets of the Keys, no more than 16 feet above sea level at their highest point and connected to the Florida mainland by a single road, were dark and deserted as the winds and rains picked up and power went out block by block. Seawater sloshed into downtown streets in Key West and local media reported parts of the Overseas Highway were swamped in the Upper Keys. Fatigued after being forced to evacuate for three earlier hurricanes this season, no more than 7 percent of the Keys’ 80,000 residents fled ahead of “Wilma,” officials said. Key West Police Chief Bill Mauldin said early today he had not received any reports of deaths or injuries. In southwest Florida, the hurricane’s tidal surge was expected to be up to 18 feet above normal. At 0700 hours (1100, UTC), the hurricane’s centre was just north of Everglades City and was moving north-east at 23 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 90 miles, while tropical storm-force winds stretched out 230 miles from the centre. “Wilma” was accelerating as it raced across the Florida Peninsula. The storm ploughed through the heart of the Everglades on a path to the state’s east coast around Palm Beach County. In Mexico, “Wilma” caused severe damage in Cancun and on the island of Cozumel off the Yucatan. Many of the 20,000 or more tourists stranded on the “Maya Riviera” were short of food and water and becoming increasingly frustrated yesterday as they faced a fourth night in cramped shelters with no electricity or running water. The storm killed seven people in Mexico, fewer than many had feared. It killed ten people in Haiti last week after spawning mudslides in the impoverished Caribbean country. In Cuba, 86-mph wind gusts howled through the deserted streets of Havana, knocking down lamp posts and smashing windows. Rough seas stirred up by “Wilma” crashed over Havana’s famed Malecon sea wall after midnight, turning streets into rivers of knee-deep flood water. About 15 blocks were under water.

24 October 2005. Developments across Florida related to Hurricane “Wilma”: “Wilma” made landfall as a Category 3 storm at 0630, EDT, today, near Cape Romano on the southwest Gulf Coast. It then weakened to a Category 2 as it churned across the peninsula. At least one death blamed on storm. Up to 2.5 million customers lost power. More than 33,000 people in shelters across the state. The National Hurricane Centre clocked a gust at its own building in Miami of 104 mph. President Bush signs disaster declaration. About 35 percent of Key West flooded. Schools in Monroe, Broward, Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Collier, Okeechobee, Polk and Glades counties closed. Some 3,100 National Guard soldiers on duty. State emergency officials said 200 tractor-trailers of ice and 225 of water ready to be deployed. Truckloads of tarps and ready-to-eat meals were being assembled. Rescue teams on standby. Walt Disney World theme parks closed; Everglades National Park closed.

24 October 2005. Rescuers in inflatable rafts and amphibious vehicles pulled nearly 250 people from flooded homes in Cuba today after huge waves churned by Hurricane “Wilma” flooded the capital’s coastal highway and adjacent neighbourhoods of old, crumbling buildings. The ocean spread up to four blocks inland, inundating streets and buildings with water up to three feet deep. There were no immediate reports of injuries anywhere on the island. Nearly 700,000 people were evacuated across Cuba’s west in recent days as “Wilma” approached, first hitting Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and then ploughing across southern Florida. The outer bands of “Wilma” also flooded evacuated communities along the island’s southern coast over the weekend after the hurricane clobbered Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Flooding and high winds caused heavy damage to homes in the northern coastal community of Baracoa, just east of Havana. In the Port of Mariel east of Havana, people gathered outside homes to watch in awe as waves several yards high rolled in one after another. Part of a concrete seawall crumbled, but otherwise no major damage was evident. The government shut off electricity throughout the capital and across the island’s west, a standard safety precaution, as high winds howled across the island.

24 October 2005. Hurricane “Wilma” knifed through Florida with winds up to 125 mph today, shattering windows in skyscrapers, peeling away roofs and knocking out power to six million people. At least six deaths were blamed on the hurricane in Florida, bringing the toll from the storm to 25. The insurance industry estimated insured losses in Florida at anywhere from $2 billion to $9 billion. Officials said it was the most damaging storm to hit the Fort Lauderdale area since 1950. More than one-third of the state’s residents lost power. Florida Power & Light, the state’s biggest utility, said it could take weeks to restore electricity to everyone.

24 October 2005. Hurricane “Wilma” knifed through Florida with winds up to 125 mph today, shattering windows in skyscrapers, peeling away roofs and knocking out power to six million people. At least six deaths were blamed on the hurricane in Florida, bringing the toll from the storm’s march through the tropics to 25. The insurance industry estimated insured losses in Florida at anywhere from $2 billion to $9 billion. Officials said it was the most damaging storm to hit the Fort Lauderdale area since 1950. The twenty-first storm of the 2005 season – and the eighth hurricane to hit Florida in 15 months – howled ashore around daybreak just south of Marco Island as a Category 3, cutting electricity to the entire Florida Keys. A tidal surge of up to nine feet swamped parts of Key West in chest-high water, and US 1, the only highway to the mainland, was flooded. As it moved across the state, Wilma weakened to a Category 2 with winds of 105 mph, but it was still powerful enough to flatten trees, flood streets, break water mains, knock down signs, turn debris into missiles and light up the sky with the blue-green flash of popping transformers. By early afternoon, “Wilma” had swirled out into the open Atlantic, back up to 115-mph Category 3 strength but on a course unlikely to have much effect on the East Coast. Forecasters said it would stay well offshore. “Wilma” brought 8 inches of rain to Miami-Dade County, nearly 6.5 to Naples and 3 to Fort Lauderdale. The flooding could well have been worse if the storm had lingered over the state instead of racing straight through, National Hurricane Centre meteorologist Mark McInerney said. More than one-third of the state’s residents lost power. Florida Power & Light, the state’s biggest utility, said it could take weeks to restore electricity to everyone. The storm’s reach was so great that it blacked out homes and businesses as far north as Daytona Beach, an eight-hour drive north from Key West. In Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Miami Beach, countless windows were blown out of high-rises. Along central Miami’s Brickell Avenue, broken glass from skyscrapers littered streets and sidewalks. Broken water mains in the Fort Lauderdale area prompted advisories to boil water, and a ruptured main in central Miami sprayed water 15 feet in the air. In the snowbird enclave Marco Island, where only about 3,000 of the 15,000 residents were believed to have stayed for the storm, the streets were littered with damaged street signs, roofing shingles, awnings and fences. “Wilma” also killed at least six people in Mexico and 13 others in Jamaica and Haiti as it made is way across the Caribbean. In Cuba, rescuers used scuba gear, inflatable rafts and amphibious vehicles to pull nearly 250 people from their flooded homes in Havana after “Wilma” sent huge waves crashing into the capital city and swamped neighbourhoods up to four blocks inland with three feet of water. In Cancun, Mexico, troops and federal police moved in to control looting at stores and shopping centres ripped open by the hurricane, and hunger and frustration mounted among Mexicans and stranded tourists. President Bush, bitterly criticised for a sluggish response to Hurricane “Katrina”, signed a disaster declaration for hurricane-damaged areas and promised swift action to help “Wilma”’s victims. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was prepared to send in dozens of military helicopters and 13.2 million ready-to eat meals. National Guard units airlifted 12 patients from a Key West hospital, and other units were prepared to deliver food, water and other supplies to the Keys.

25 October 2005. Across South Florida’s largest cities, Hurricane “Wilma” forced residents, hospital administrators, airport staff and emergency personnel to cope with sweeping power outages that may not be quickly remedied. More than six million people were without power early today, and while utility company officials said they would try to restore service within days, they also indicated that it could take up to four weeks to fully restore service to all customers. Armando Olivera, president of Florida Power & Light Company said “We will do everything we can to get the lights back on.” More of the company’s 4.3 million customers have been affected by “Wilma” than by any other natural disaster in the company’s history, Olivera said. In heavily populated areas such as Miami-Dade County, as many as 98 percent of its customers lost power. The corridors of Miami International Airport, usually teeming with 90,000 passengers on a Monday night, were dark and empty. The third busiest airport in the USA, like others in the region, was closed. Progress Energy, which has 1.5 million customers in central and north Florida, had 52,000 customers lose power at one point; by 0500, today, that number was down to 1,259.

25 October 2005. As hurricane “Wilma” hustled up the Atlantic coast toward the Maritimes, a Canadian search-rescue helicopter was dispatched today to look for a sailboat that was thought to be headed directly into the path of the sprawling storm. Two Canadian Coast Guard cutters and a military Hercules aircraft were also sent to track the US sailboat’s route from Nova Scotia to Massachusetts. But the ships and the Hercules were forced to seek shelter as the weather deteriorated. Steve Miller, a forecaster at the Canadian Hurricane Centre in Dartmouth, N.S., said the storm was expected to stay offshore, swinging well south of Atlantic Canada by tonight. Wind and heavy rain warnings were issued for all of Nova Scotia, coastal New Brunswick and southern Newfoundland. Mariners have been warned to expect storm-force winds as far north as Newfoundland. By 1500, Atlantic time, the storm was 430 km south-east of Yarmouth, N.S., travelling at 74 km per hour. Its maximum sustained winds were clocked at 157 km/h. The Category 2 hurricane was expected to be downgraded to an extra-tropical storm by the time it reached Canadian waters. In Halifax, the hurricane centre issued bulletins saying wind gusts were expected to peak at 90 kph in Nova Scotia by late today.

Repair crews across Florida struggled today to restore electricity to up to six million people, reopen the region’s airports and replace countless windows blown out of central high-rises. Officials said it could take weeks for Florida’s most heavily populated region, the Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach area, to return to normal. Water and gas became precious commodities, and people waited for hours for free water, ice and food. Lines stretched for blocks at the few petrol stations with the electricity needed to pump fuel, and arguments broke out when motorists tried to cut in line. More than 500 people waited outside one store for clean-up supplies. The quantity of debris was daunting: Pieces of roofs, trees, signs, awnings, fences, billboards and pool screens were scattered across several counties. Damage estimates ranged up to $10 billion. Some of the worst damage was in Fort Lauderdale, where “Wilma” was the strongest hurricane to strike since 1950. Winds of more than 100 mph blew out windows in high-rises, many built before Florida enacted tougher construction codes following Hurricane “Andrew” in 1992. The school district’s 14-story headquarters – known as the “Crystal Palace” – was stripped of nearly its entire glass facade on one side. Government officials and business executives scrambled to repair buildings and find other places to work. Broward County court officials were trying to determine whether sessions could be held at the damaged courthouse in coming days. Some schools and courts closed for the week. Orders to boil water were issued in many locations. Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties imposed overnight curfews. At Miami International, the busiest US hub for Latin American travel, the first plane to land since the hurricane arrived today from Brazil, and domestic flights were to resume tomorrow morning. Airports at Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach remained closed to commercial traffic but emergency aircraft were coming into both facilities. At least 2,000 domestic and international flights were disrupted by the storm, affecting hundreds of thousands of fliers, when “Wilma” knocked out electricity and damaged roofs, towers, fences and other equipment. Agriculture officials said damage to their industry would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The greatest losses were believed to be to the winter vegetable crop, which provides more than half of the nation’s supply from November to February. Also damaged were sugar cane fields and ornamental-plant nurseries. In the wake of complaints over the way the government dealt with Hurricane “Katrina”, the governor praised the early response to “Wilma”. But not everyone was so pleased. Thousands of people reportedly stood in line for up to ten hours in North Miami, waiting for relief supplies that did not arrive until early evening. Trucks carrying bags of ice and cases of water were late to a number of distribution areas. FEMA spokeswoman Frances Marine urged patience. “We can’t wave a magic wand and clear roads and fix damage that was done by nature in a day,” she said. Distribution went more smoothly elsewhere. “Wilma” knocked out power for hundreds of miles, cutting off electricity to a staggering one out of three Florida residents. Florida Power & Light, the state’ biggest utility, said Wilma affected more of its 4.3 million customers than any other natural disaster in the company’s history. In heavily populated areas such as Miami-Dade County, as many as 98 percent of its customers lost power.

26 October 2005. Port facilities on Grand Bahama had a narrow escape yesterday when Hurricane “Wilma” skirted by without causing too much damage, but many properties were destroyed and much of the island was without electricity. Freeport Container Port, a major transhipment hub for the region, was preparing to handle ships with mobile cranes while waiting for power to be restored. “We’ve been lucky, but some of our employees have lost their entire homes,” said Chris Gray, chief executive in The Bahamas for Hutchison Port Holdings, which operates both the container port and airport. The airport re-opened yesterday morning. The port closed down and all ships departed on Friday (21 October) as “Wilma” approached. Apart from a few containers that were blown over, damage in the harbour was fairly light, said Mr Gray.

26 October 2005. The docks on Cozumel island, Mexico’s top cruise destination and a popular stop for US ocean liners, suffered severe damage from Hurricane “Wilma” and should take months to repair, a port official said yesterday. “For the moment, (the industry) has collapsed,” CÈsar Patricio Reyes, Mexico’s ports coordinator, said. “Some of the docks have split and others have disappeared entirely,” Reyes said. “It’s a true disaster.” The island, just south of Cancun, is heavily frequented by the world’s two biggest cruise lines, Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., both of which are based in Miami. Cozumel is also a popular stop for divers. The island’s three cruise docks receive 1,600 ships a year carrying three million passengers, who in turn contribute an estimated US$150 million to the local economy. Each dock is worth about US$50 million, Reyes estimated. One of Cozumel’s docks is owned by Carnival, which confirmed yesterday that its facility there sustained heavy damage. The company also uses the other two cruise ports on the island. “We received a preliminary assessment yesterday from one of our Mexico based employees. He indicated that the facility has sustained heavy damage,” said Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz, adding that the cruise company has flown in a team to evaluate the damage. The Carnival brand features Cozumel as a destination for 14 of its 22 ships, while some of the company’s other lines such as Holland America also stop there. Royal Caribbean officials weren’t available to comment on how the damage in Cozumel will affect its operations. “We’re hoping that by December we’ll be able to offer some basic services at the destination so that we can rebuild faster with the economic help of the cruises,” Reyes said. Meanwhile, Reyes suggests that the ocean liners substitute other destinations on Mexico’s Caribbean and Gulf Coasts such as Progreso on the Yucatan Peninsula for Cozumel on their itineraries. Cozumel’s municipal dock, meanwhile, was left largely intact, and is being used to ferry passengers back to Playa del Carmen on the mainland, said Jes’s Vega, who has a concession to operate the dock at Playa del Carmen. “We will be able to receive cruise ships as always.” He said.

26 October 2005. The North Western Bahamas, particularly Grand Bahama (Freeport) have been badly hit yet again. Coastal flooding all along the southern shore of Grand Bahama has been severe but with only one reported loss of life at the moment. The basic infrastructure, which is basically “new” since “Frances” and “Jeanne” held up fairly well and it is hoped will be back on line soon (electricity, phones, water, etc) but property damage appears substantial. Marine losses not yet determined but the offshore oil terminal (BORCO) might have suffered badly, yet again.

Miami International Airport reopened to domestic flights today for the first time since hurricane “Wilma,” but the biggest carrier there only expected to operate about half its flights. West Palm Beach’s airport also opened, but Fort Lauderdale’s was still closed. Miami is the busiest US hub for Latin American travel and lines were beginning to form by this morning as more people tried to get on flights. Although several flights had arrived and left, the airport looked far from fully operational with some employees still standing around and waiting. The nation’s largest airline, American Airlines, is the airport’s biggest carrier. The airline typically flies 500 flights a day into and out of Miami, but the carrier said yesterday that operations there would run at 50 percent until aircraft and crews flown out before the hurricane arrived were back in place. The first flight to land in Miami since the hurricane hit on Monday (24 October) arrived from Brazil last night. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Southwest Airlines Co’s hub for South Florida, remained closed to commercial traffic but emergency aircraft were coming into both facilities. “Our main problem right now is water pressure, because it’s an integral part of our fire safety system,” Fort Lauderdale airport spokesman Steve Belleme said. “That’s mandatory before we can have passengers in the building.” No decision has been made on when commercial flights would be able to return, he said. Roof damage still needs to be repaired in many of the airport’s four terminals, but the instrument landing system and runway lights were working, he said. Palm Beach International Airport appeared to have about half its flights scheduled for the day operating, according to its web site. The airline disruptions in Florida caused a minor ripple effect of flight delays and cancellations in other parts of the country, but industry officials said the impact was limited because carriers had several days to prepare before “Wilma” made landfall. In the Florida Keys, Marathon Airport reopened yesterday. Key West International’s terminal was open and runways were clear of debris, and were to begin accommodating emergency aircraft today. No start date for resumption of commercial service has been announced. The hurricane also wreaked havoc at some Florida municipal and commercial airports and made others inaccessible by downing trees on access roads. Boca Raton lost most of its hangars, and Hollywood-North Perry sustained extensive damage to its tower and roof. Elsewhere, five cruise vessels also returned to the Port of Miami today, after spending an extra two days at sea because the world’s largest cruise terminal was closed due to the hurricane.

26 October 2005. Floridians already were waiting in long lines for gasoline at sunrise today as they voiced frustration at the slow arrival of relief following the destruction of Hurricane “Wilma”. Police watched over the few gas stations that were open as a precaution in case motorists’ tempers flared while they waited for hours to buy fuel. Florida Power & Light, the state’s biggest utility, said Wilma affected more of its 4.3 million customers than any other natural disaster in the company’s history. By today, service was restored to about 20 percent of the 3.2 million customers who lost service, but the company reminded Floridians that total restoration may take weeks. In Mexico, thousands of haggard tourists battled for airline and bus seats out of the country’s hurricane-battered Caribbean resorts, but thousands more remained stranded today. Officials said about 22,000 foreign tourists remained in the area yesterday, down from a peak of almost 40,000. There was limited progress in Florida as more streets were cleared of debris, a few restaurants opened and even trash removal returned to some areas. The quantity of debris was daunting: Damage estimates ranged up to $10 billion.

26 October 2005. An early nor’easter fed by moisture from Hurricane “Wilma” dumped heavy rain and up to 20 inches of wet snow from New England south to West Virginia, knocking out power to tens of thousands, closing schools and elevating rivers. The wintry blast yesterday brought the leaf-peeping fall foliage season to an abrupt end as branches still bearing leaves broke beneath the snow’s weight, pulling down power lines. Dozens of schools were closed in Vermont, western Maryland and West Virginia. Minor flooding closed some streets in Cape Cod, and ferries serving the Cape, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket were cancelled. The storm was reinforced by “Wilma’s” travels up the Atlantic Coast. “Wilma’s” spinning action pulled down cold air from Canada and mixed it with the hurricane’s subtropical moisture, she said. The National Weather Service in Vermont reported 16 inches of snow in Barton, 14 inches in East Brownington and, in Underhill, 20 inches on Jay Peak. In Maine, 12 inches fell in northern Aroostook County, and 12 inches was dumped on Garrett County in far western Maryland. Unploughed roads were clogged with tree limbs and deep slush in parts of West Virginia where 3 to 7 inches of snow fell. Power was restored to many in affected areas but thousands remained without this morning.