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 Amid sirens and blaring horns, people across China Sunday stood in tribute to victims of a massive mudslide in a remote northwest town.

Chinese leaders, students, workers and members of the public paused for three minutes from 10 a.m. Sunday, a week after the devastating mudslide hit Zhouqu County, in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Gansu Province.

At least 1,248 people have died and 496 are listed as missing.

Chinese President Hu Jintao, top legislator Wu Bangguo, Premier Wen Jiabao and other top Chinese leaders stood and paid silent tribute to the victims at the beginning of a meeting by the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee held in Beijing on Sunday morning.

DEEP GRIEF

At the Dongjie Village in Zhouqu, more than 5,000 rescuers and villagers stood still on the debris of mudslide, bowing their heads in commemoration of those killed in the disaster.

A huge black banner hung in front of the mourners, and wreaths lay on the ground. The white lettering on the banner read, “Mourning in deep grief for deceased compatriots of the Zhouqu massive mudslide.”

“I only feel sad as I stand on the debris of our homes,” said villager Zhang Xiujuan.

“Although my husband, my son and I survived, I lost more than 30 relatives in the mudslide,” she said.

In Dongjie, two thirds of the families were buried when the mudslide struck. And 368 of the 848 villagers died in the disaster.

Before and after the three-minute tribute, rescuers including troops and medical workers continued to clear the debris, searching for bodies and spraying disinfectant in the area.

Some survivors sat silently on the debris, still holding out hope that the bodies of relatives could be found.

In temporary tents, some bowed their heads, some knelt and some put their palms together to pray for the dead. Loud cries could be heard from time to time in the shelters.

“May the deceased rest in peace. We the people who are still alive must be strong and continue our lives,” said Han Ying, who lost all her family members in the disaster.

Tibetans account for about a third of the total population in Zhouqu. The county sits in the steep valley of the Bailong River, a tributary of the Jialing River, which meets the mighty Yangtze River in Chongqing, and is hemmed in by rocky mountains on both sides.

At the nearby Heiyu and Labrang Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, monks and believers attended a religious ritual to mourn for the dead.

In Lanzhou, the provincial capital, about 10,000 people gathered at a city square to show respect for those killed in the mudslide.

Chinese national flags across the country and at embassies and consulates abroad flew at half mast Sunday.

All public entertainment activities, such as movies and karaoke, and on-line entertainment, including games and music, were ordered to be suspended. Major newspapers, were printed in black and white Sunday. Home pages of Chinese websites were turned black and white.

At an on-line condolence hall on Sina.com, a major Chinese Internet portal, tens of thousands of people presented virtual chrysanthemums and posted tributes.

“All the pain and hardships we have endured will become impetus for us to move forward. Be strong, Zhouqu!” said an anonymous posting.

In central Beijing, thousands of people gathered at the Tian’anmen Square early Sunday to watch the national flag hoisted to full height and then lowered to half-mast, shouting “Go Zhouqu! Go China!”

At the Shanghai World Expo Park, all performances were canceled and background music was turned off.

The Gansu Pavilion would not hold any entertainment activities until September, its spokesman Wang Shigang told Xinhua.

Visitor Du Jingli, 50, had planned to visit the China Pavilion first, but changed her mind when she heard a tribute would be observed at the Gansu Pavilion Sunday.

“I don’t know what to say, I just feel sorrowful,” she said, presenting her flowers at the Gansu Pavilion and gazing at a Gansu map.

In the flood-ravaged Yaque Village, in Yongji County of northeastern Jilin Province, thousands of villagers could not feel happy although power supplies were restored Sunday after days of disruption.

“There were no cheers when the power resumed. We paused to remember those dead in Zhouqu,” said Yang Hongming, head of the village.

“In spite of the long distance, we, as people also in disaster-hit zones, have a special affection about the people in Zhouqu. We will rebuild our homes along with them,” he said.

According to Chinese tradition, the seventh day after a death marks the height of the mourning period.

Large-scale national displays of mourning are rare in China.

China observed a three-day national mourning period after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and a one-day national mourning after the Yushu quake in Qinghai Province on April 14 this year.

On both occasions, the national flag was lowered to half-mast and all public entertainment was suspended.

ROAD TO RECOVERY

Zhouqu is braced for more rain in coming days, and thousands of troops are still using large excavators to remove silt and debris that block the county roads.

But life is gradually recovering as the relief operation continues.

The county education department said Saturday that primary and middle schools in Zhouqu will start the autumn semester on Aug. 25, 10 days later than scheduled.

This was because hundreds of homes and one primary school were buried and more schools were damaged or inundated in water. Many classrooms are being used as temporary shelters.

By Saturday noon, power supplies had resumed in 8,375 homes, or 76 percent of all homes affected by the blackout.

Vegetables were on sale Saturday for the first time since the disaster. Local authorities ordered 8,400 kg of vegetables from neighboring Longnan City and they sold at the same or lower prices than prior to the disaster.

But new floods and landslides triggered by torrential rains over the past week have brought misery to Longnan and neighboring Sichuan Province.

In Longnan, at least 34 people had died and 63 were missing, said Huang Zeyuan, deputy Party chief of Longnan, at a news conference Sunday.

More than 120,000 people had been evacuated, and direct economic losses were estimated at more than 3 billion yuan (441 million U.S.dollars), Huang said.

“The situation is very tough as rainstorms would likely trigger further geological disasters, such as landslides. We are still in dire need of relief supplies,” he said.

In Gansu’s neighboring province of Sichuan, floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains this week have killed at least 13 people and left another 59 missing.

Altogether 31 people are missing in Wenchuan County alone, the epicenter of an 8-magnitude earthquake in May 2008 that left about 87,000 people dead or missing.

More than 8,000 villagers have been evacuated from below two “barrier” lakes that were formed after landslides blocked sections of the Minjiang River. Local authorities planned to use explosives to clear the blockages.

China suffered the worst floods in at least a decade this summer.Floods and other rain-triggered disasters have left more than 2,300 people dead and 1,200 missing nationwide this year.

By Mu Xuequan

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — As violence spiraled out of control in a third day of clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan on Saturday, the Kyrgyz provisional government asked Russia to send in troops.

With the death toll in and around Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second largest city, reaching 77 and a state of emergency extending to a second city, the government acknowledged that its efforts to end the violence had been fruitless.

“The situation in the Osh region has spun out of control,” said Kyrgyzstan’s acting president, Roza Otunbayeva. “Attempts to establish a dialogue have failed, and fighting and rampages are continuing. We need outside forces to quell confrontation.”

But Russia, which has a small military base in the north and has been a political patron of this former Soviet republic, said only that it would consider the request.

A spokeswoman for President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia said that no decision would be made until at least Monday, when Russia will consult with other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a regional security alliance of former Soviet republics.

“A decision about deploying peacekeeping forces to Kyrgyzstan can only be made collectively with all members of the C.S.T.O.,” the spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, said Saturday evening. She also said that Russia was continuing to ship humanitarian assistance, including medicine, to Kyrgyzstan.

It remained unclear what started the violence, which threatens to undermine the already fragile provisional government that took power in April after rioting deposed the country’s president. The interim government has never fully established control in parts of the south, where supporters of the ousted president, Kurmanbek S. Bakiyev, have frequently clashed with those loyal to the new government.

The country is host to an important United States military base on the outskirts of the capital, Bishkek, that is used to support the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

On Saturday, heavily armed gangs continued to battle on the streets of Osh, burning and looting as they rampaged through the city.

“It was raining ash the whole afternoon, big pieces of black and while ash,” said Andrea Berg, a Human Rights Watch employee holed up her apartment in the city. “The city is just burning. It’s totally out of control.”

The rioters at one point commandeered two armored personnel carriers from troops stationed in the city, said Timur Sharshenaliyev, a spokesman for the government there. Soldiers were able to take only one back.

The provisional government passed a decree giving the police and soldiers permission to open fire on rioters to prevent attacks on civilians and government buildings, according to a statement on the government’s Web site.

The authorities also ordered a partial mobilization of military forces throughout the country, indicating the government may fear the spread of violence to other regions.

Yelena K. Bayalinova, a spokeswoman for the Kyrgyz Health Ministry, said that in addition to the killings, nearly 1,000 people had been wounded, most with gunshot wounds.

Meanwhile the violence spread to a second city, Jalalabad, where the government declared a state of emergency on Saturday. At least six people have died in clashes there and dozens more have been wounded, Ms. Bayalinova said.

The recent politically inspired clashes in the region have reopened a historic ethnic fault line there, with gangs of heavily armed Kyrgyz youths clashing with members of the region’s sizeable Uzbek minority. Much of Mr. Bakiyev’s base in the region, his ancestral home, is Kyrgyz, while many Uzbeks support the new government.

Mr. Sharshenaliyev, the government spokesman in Osh, said the military had opened a corridor to allow Uzbek women, children and the elderly to escape across the border, though he said he did not know whether Uzbekistan was prepared to receive them. The Associated Press reported that several children were killed in a stampede at one border crossing.

Uzbekistan said it was “extremely alarmed and concerned” about the situation. The Uzbek Foreign Ministry said in a statement that violence against Uzbeks was being carried out in a manner calculated to provoke ethnic conflict.

The Kremlin said that Mr. Medvedev spoke Saturday with the presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan about the violence. Russia also sent a plane to Kyrgyzstan to provide humanitarian aid and medical assistance, as well as to evacuate the wounded.

The Kyrgyz government has deployed troops, armored personnel carriers and helicopters. Soldiers with automatic weapons gathered at the Bishkek airport early Saturday morning awaiting transport to Osh, some downing a few vodka shots before they set off.

Russia and the United States have in recent years been jockeying for influence in Kyrgyzstan, and deploying soldiers there could help solidify Russia’s foothold. Russia has frequently chafed at the American military presence in what it considers its sphere of influence.

Russia appeared to support the protest movement that led to Mr. Bakiyev’s ouster, and it has sought closer relations with Kyrgyzstan’s new authorities.

Officials of the provisional government frequently travel to Moscow for talks with high-ranking Russians, including Mr. Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.

Under Mr. Bakiyev, the Kyrgyz government appeared to favor the United States. Mr. Bakiyev incensed the Kremlin when he reneged on a tacit agreement to close the American base in exchange for more Russian aid.

The provisional government took control after riots forced Mr. Bakiyev from power on April 7. In those riots more than 80 people were killed when the police and presidential guards opened fire on demonstrators, who had gathered in Bishkek to protest government corruption and rising utility prices.

The new government, though unelected and made up of an uneasy alliance of political forces, quickly established control over the capital and the north of the country, but not in the south.

The south of Kyrgyzstan is part of the Ferghana Valley, a fertile strip of land that has a long history of interethnic strife and includes parts of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Similar violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Osh in 1990 left hundreds dead and only abated when the Soviet government sent in troops.

By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ

 

In India, Maoist rebels have mounted one of their deadliest attacks on security forces, killing at least 70 policemen. It is the second strike by the rebels this week and comes as the guerrillas step up attacks in response to an anti-Maoist offensive launched by the government.       

Police say a patrol party of more than 100 paramilitary forces was on its way to Dantewada, in Chattisgarh state, early Tuesday, when it was surrounded and ambushed by hundreds of Maoist rebels.  The patrol party had been sent to rescue soldiers who had come under attack when they were engaged in an anti-Maoist offensive in the remote and forested area.

Officials say the rebels triggered land mine explosions and fired indiscriminately on the soldiers from hilltops. Fighting carried on hours after the ambush began.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram called it a huge attack by the rebels, who are also known as Naxalites. Their group is called the Communist Party of India (Maoist) or CPM Maoist.

“They seem to have walked into a camp or a trap set by the Naxalites,” he said.  “Casualties are quite high and I am deeply shocked. But this shows the savage nature of the CPM Maoist, their brutality and savagery which they are capable of.”

The latest Maoist strike is the deadliest since the government launched an anti-Maoist operation last year, vowing to root out the guerillas from their strongholds in several central and eastern states. 

Maoist leaders have threatened to step up attacks, in response to the offensive, and have conducted several raids targeting security forces.  Sunday, they triggered a land mine blast which killed 10 soldiers in the eastern Orissa state. In February, they carried out a daylight attack in West Bengal state, killing at least two dozen police.

Ajay Sahni, who heads the Institute of Conflict Studies in New Delhi, says security forces are vulnerable because the numbers deployed are too few to combat the rebels in the huge swathes of territory where they are active.

“They [soldiers] are spread out so thin, you can take them out wherever you want.  When you do not have adequate level of saturation, they pick you off on your peripheries.  They pick you off on your vulnerabilities.  They pick you off on transport.  They pick you up when you are in movement,” Sahni said.  “So they will just keep on knocking off five people here, ten people there, when they are lucky 50-60 people at a time.”

The operation to counter the rebels was launched last year as the guerrillas steadily gained influence in rural and remote areas, which remain backward and untouched by economic progress witnessed in other parts of the country.

The Maoist rebels say they are fighting for the rights of the rural poor.  Top Indian leaders have called the insurgency the most serious domestic threat faced by the country.

The second record storm that socked the Northeast this month was reduced to drizzle as it was winding down Wednesday, but the worst of widespread flooding was yet to come, forecasters said.

Rivers from Maine to New York were expected to crest later Wednesday or Thursday. And in Rhode Island, officials were bracing for what was expected to be the most severe flooding to hit the state in more than 100 years.

“None of us alive have seen the flooding that we are experiencing now or going to experience,” Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri said Tuesday night. “This is unprecedented in our state’s history.”

Interstate 95, a major East Coast thoroughfare, was closed for about a quarter-mile in Warwick, R.I., because of flooding and down to one lane in other areas of Rhode Island. Officials on Wednesday warned that stretches of the highway could remain closed for several days as the water recedes and to allow time for safety inspections.

Nonessential state employees were given the day off in Rhode Island and state offices were closed. Schools and private businesses were urged to follow the same policy. State officials asked drivers to stay off the road.

“If we end up with a gridlock, it’s going to impact the entire state,” said Amy Kempe, a spokeswoman for the governor.

President Barack Obama issued an emergency declaration late Tuesday for the state, ordering federal aid for disaster relief and authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts.

The rain came as residents were still recovering from a storm two weeks ago that dumped as much as 10 inches on the region. Business owners in the flood zone are still grappling with the impact of lost income.

“It’s definitely devastating,” said liquor store owner Maria Medeiros, whose family-owned business in Providence now abuts raging rapids of water and streets barricaded by the police. “Situations like this, what can you do?”

Even fishermen were hit: Shellfish beds in Rhode Island and Massachusetts were closed because of sewage overflows and failures at wastewater treatment facilities caused by flooding.

National Guard troops were activated in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Pockets of home evacuations were reported in those states, as well, and more than 100 people were ordered to leave an apartment complex in Milford, N.H. No deaths were reported in those states as of Wednesday.

In Connecticut, heavy rains caused the earth under a Middletown apartment complex parking lot to give way, leaving two buildings teetering over the ravine of a river. Residents were taken to an emergency shelter at a local high school.

Authorities also evacuated 50 units at a condominium complex in Jewett City in eastern Connecticut because a sewage treatment plant next door was under at least 4 feet of water. Crews were rushing to put sand bags down to try to save the $16 million facility.

In Massachusetts, the biggest concerns were in the southeastern part of the state, where a highway was closed, said state Emergency Management Agency spokesman Scott MacLeod. A bridge gave out in Freetown, isolating about 1,000 residents, he said.

Records fell across the region.

The more than 14 inches of rain that fell this month in Boston broke the previous March record of 11, according to the National Weather Service. New Jersey and parts of New York City also set March records. And by Tuesday afternoon, Providence had recorded more than 15 inches of rain in March, becoming the rainiest of any month on record.

Cranston Mayor Allan Fung told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that the city was facing “dire circumstances.” A sewer pump station gave out early Wednesday, and about 130 homes had been evacuated. Warwick also was urging residents to conserve water because of a failed sewer treatment facility.

In one water-weary neighborhood along the Pawtuxet River in Cranston, basements were flooded by early Tuesday morning as water levels approached waist-deep levels toward the end of the street. One resident hung a sign: “FEMA + State + City of Cranston. Buy our houses.”

“Right now it’s bad and getting worse,” said Brian Dupont, a real estate broker who owns two homes on the street. He feared the dozens of sandbags protecting the homes would offer minimal protection.

Standing water pooled on or rushed across roads in the region, making driving treacherous and forcing closures. Adjutant General Robert Bray, the commander of the Rhode Island National Guard, said the area south of Providence was like a “maze” with drivers repeatedly getting stuck.

In Maine, a dam in Porter let loose Tuesday morning, sending a torrent of water down country roads. No evacuations or injuries were reported.

North of New York City, a man in his 70s drove past a barricade onto a flooded section of the Bronx River Parkway and had to be rescued from the roof of his truck, Westchester County police said. On Long Island, rain coupled with tides inundated a 20-mile stretch of oceanfront road in Southampton.

In northeastern Pennsylvania, colder temperatures turned the storm into a surprise spring snowfall. Snowfall, which totaled more than 4 inches in some areas, caused dozens of car accidents, including a fatal crash in which a woman in her 20s lost control of her car on a snow-covered road in Dorrance Township. Hard money training.

A second major storm in less than a month continued to drench the East Coast as meteorologists predicted “very dangerous” flooding Tuesday in the Northeast and the wettest March on record in some places.

The National Weather Service called on commuters to be prepared to travel alternate routes in case of washed-out roads and posted flood warnings and advisories from Maine to the Carolinas, with as much as 5 to 7 inches of rain expected over the coming days.

The storm hits as the Northeast works to recover from a storm March 13-15 that dropped as much as much as 10 inches of rain, causing several rivers to rise and flooding basements throughout the region.

Wamed Mansour of Paterson, N.J., was scrambling Monday to move new computers, phone consoles and fax machines in his office to higher ground — about $10,000 worth of equipment he bought last week to replace what was destroyed earlier this month when his auto parts business flooded with 7 feet of water from the Passaic River.

“It’s been a really tiring few weeks, and now it might be all over again,” Mansour said.

In Rhode Island, meteorologists warned of a possible “life-threatening” situation along the Pawtuxet River, with heavy flooding by Tuesday afternoon that could be as severe as or worse than the mid-March storm.

“This is turning out to be a nightmare,” said Steve Kass, spokesman for the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency.

In Cranston, R.I., about 100 people were evacuated from their homes late Monday night because a bridge over the Pawtuxet was closed due to damage from the earlier storm, and authorities were concerned that residents would be without an escape route.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency Monday and mobilized as many as 1,000 National Guardsmen to assist in the event of major flooding.

The rainiest March on record in Boston was 1953, when 11 inches fell during the month; nearly 10 inches had already fallen before the start of the latest storm.

New York City was within 3 inches of the March record of 10.54 inches set in 1983, and forecasters said the storm could easily eclipse that mark.

“Our ground is so wet it’s like pouring water into an already saturated sponge,” said Tony Sutton, commissioner of Emergency Services for Westchester County, N.Y., north of the city. “Thank God we’re not expecting real strong winds. That’s a break.”

Coastal flooding from rain and high tides was a concern on Long Island beaches. Workers were busy Monday trucking tons of sand to the eastern end of the popular Robert Moses State Park to battle erosion, state parks spokesman George Gorman said.

Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell opened the state’s emergency operations center Monday as flood warnings were posted along many rivers and streams throughout the state.

Road closures were reported Monday in several states, including New Jersey.

Violent weather from the same system, including at least one tornado, was blamed for injuries to several people and damage to more than 30 homes Sunday night in the Carolinas. Two teenagers in North Carolina died after their car slid off a rain-slick road into a swollen creek.

The rain was tapering off in the Carolinas early Tuesday, but some flood warnings remained. Hard money training.

For farmer Brian Thomas, getting to town for errands is no simple matter these days as floodwaters cover fields and sections of country roads in the rural areas near Fargo, N.D.

He wades through shallow rapids cascading across his driveway, then drives a mud-spattered pickup on a narrow dirt road until so much water blocks his path that he must hop into a motorboat and putt-putt over a cornfield resembling a sprawling lake. Finally, about four miles from home, he gets into his waiting car and drives to the nearest town.

“It’s kind of a hassle,” Thomas, 52, said Thursday as he jerked the rope to restart the boat motor.

As the cities of Moorhead, Minn., and next-door Fargo nervously wait for the Red River to crest on Sunday at 20 feet above the flood stage, some of the region’s farmland is already under water after smaller rivers, swollen with melting snow, overflowed. Even fields that aren’t buried in water are so saturated that they look like vast expanses of squishy black mud.

At this point it’s mostly an inconvenience, growers say. Spring planting is a month or more away for crops such as corn, soybeans and sugar beets. If the rain holds off and unusually warm temperatures don’t melt the remaining snowpack too rapidly over the next few weeks, the waters could recede, enabling a decent or even good growing season.

But a worst-case scenario — heavy spring rains and prolonged flooding well into April — could spell trouble for this year’s crops, while also causing problems for livestock producers during the crucial calving season.

“It’s definitely not going to help us any to have this flood, but I can’t say definitely that it’s going to hurt us either, because it depends on the weather from here on out,” said Andrew Swenson, an extension farm management specialist at North Dakota State University.

The region’s fertile soils yield an abundance of grain and beets. About 500,000 acres in Cass County — which includes Fargo — are planted in soybeans, more than in any other county in the nation.

Farmers prefer to get their corn and sugar beets in the ground by late April but can hold off until early May, when soybeans usually are planted, Swenson said.

Flooding in 2009 rendered almost 1.9 million acres unsuitable for planting in North Dakota, said Doug Hagel, regional director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency in Billings, Mont. The floods then gave way to a cool summer and rainy fall, leaving the ground unusually moist even before this winter’s snows began. In some places, up to 25 percent of last year’s corn couldn’t be harvested because of soaked fields.

“We may be looking at the same scenario this year and maybe magnified, because it was already so wet,” said Doug Goehring, North Dakota’s agriculture commissioner. Hard money training.

A torrential rainstorm that brought heavy winds to the Northeast, causing damage and flooding, created some minor headaches for commuters Monday.

At least eight people died in storm-related accidents over the weekend, and nearly half a million people were without electricity in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut at the peak of the storm.

Authorities warned that the storm could cause rush-hour delays on Monday morning, but the impact was relatively minor, especially compared with the havoc wreaked by nasty winter storms in recent months.

In Boston, the transit authority shut down some sections of subway and trolley lines on Sunday, but the lines were mostly reopened on Monday. Several highway ramps in Massachusetts remained closed.

NJ Transit briefly shortened the routes of some trains into Manhattan, but restored service later in the morning. The Long Island Railroad pumped out an East River tunnel, allowing trains to pass through normally.

In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie declared a state of emergency, which would allow National Guard troops to be called up if needed. In signing the declaration Sunday night, Christie said he wants to ensure local and county resources are supplemented if needed.

Utility crews were making headway in restoring power. In New Jersey, for example, about 100,000 customers were without service Monday, down from a peak of 235,000. In Connecticut, where a handful of schools were closed, two major utility companies said more than 57,000 customers were still without power, down from a peak of about 80,000.

The storm, which carried wind gusts of up to 70 mph, came about two weeks after heavy snow and hurricane-force winds left more than 1 million customers in the Northeast in the dark.

“I spent most of the past few months clearing snow and ice out my driveway, sidewalks, front walks, and now we’re picking up all these branches,” Jack Alexander said Sunday as he and his family worked to clear debris from the front yard of their Egg Harbor City home. “It seems like we’ve had every type of weather event you could have this winter — I’m almost afraid to see what else can happen.”

In Atlantic City, N.J., residents in a condominium complex and two apartment buildings were ordered to leave their homes Saturday after a crane snapped and twisted at the Revel Entertainment casino construction site, sending debris crashing through a window of a police cruiser. No one was hurt. The residents may not be able to return until Tuesday.

Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in the northern New Jersey community of Bound Brook, where flooding is common.

Among those in a shelter were the Malik family, including eldest son Norbert, who celebrated his ninth birthday Sunday. His mom said he had cried Saturday night because he was worried the storm would ruin his celebration. Instead, he said it was the best birthday he ever had.

“I got to ride in a police boat, and then a truck and a small bus,” said Norbert.

In Manhattan, Broadway’s sidewalks and trash cans were littered with hundreds of shattered umbrellas.

Falling trees proved to be a deadly hazard.

A New Jersey woman was killed and three others were injured in Westport, Conn., after a tree fell on a car Saturday night during the storm, police said. Another woman died when a tree struck her as she was walking in Greenwich, Conn., they said.

In the suburb of Teaneck, N.J., two neighbors were killed by a falling tree as they headed home from a prayer service at a synagogue. In Hartsdale, N.Y., another suburb, a man was killed when a large tree crushed the roof of his car and entangled it in live wires.

A 73-year-old woman was killed by a falling tree while walking to her car in Bay Shore, N.Y. Three people tried to save the Brooklyn woman.

In New Hampshire, a large pine tree fell on a car traveling on Interstate 93 on Sunday afternoon, killing a man and injuring his wife and child, state police said.

And in Rhode Island, an off-duty state trooper died early Sunday after his car hydroplaned in standing water left from the storm, state police said. Hard money training.

Emergency crews used bulldozers and other heavy equipment Monday to search for at least four people still missing in Madeira after flash floods and rockslides killed 42 people on the Portuguese vacation island.

Rescue teams in more than 400 vehicles worked all through the night to clear tons of caked mud, boulders and snapped trees that had piled up in the capital of Funchal and other coastal communities, authorities said.

After a month’s worth of rain fell in about eight hours, a raging torrent of water and mud swept away people, houses and vehicles Saturday on the steep-sloped Atlantic Ocean island. Locals said the storm was the worst in living memory.

Only four people were officially unaccounted for on Monday, but officials said there could be further victims because blocked roads and downed phone lines made it difficult to get a complete picture of the damage.

Parts of downtown Funchal were cordoned off as crews pumped rainwater and sludge out of a shopping mall’s underground parking lot where officials fear more bodies may be found. The parking lot’s two levels were completely submerged.

“The recovery is going to be a hard work,” resident Miguel Eduardo told Associated Press Television News. “It will take us a few months to recover.”

More than 120 people were injured, and almost 120 others forced to leave their homes by the flooding were staying at a military barracks, according to the regional government.

Several main roads remained blocked by debris, but officials hoped to reopen all the island’s roads by the end of the week.

The victims, in white body bags, were taken to Funchal’s international airport where a makeshift morgue was set up. Among the dead was a local firefighter who was swept away in a muddy torrent as he tried to save a woman, his colleagues said.

The British Foreign office said one British national was killed and a few others had been hospitalized on Madeira. The island is popular with British tourists because of its mild climate.

Madeira is the main island of a Portuguese archipelago of the same name in the Atlantic Ocean just over 300 miles (480 kilometers) off the west coast of Africa. It has a population of around 250,000 people.

The head of the regional government, Alberto Joao Jardim, told people to stay at home if they could Monday and schools canceled classes for some 30,000 students.

The flash floods were so powerful they carved paths down mountains and ripped through the city, churning under some bridges and tearing others down.

“A woman came running and said the water is coming and then she started to run, and then we ran with her,” Danish tourist Luna Graigsson told APTN. “It was astonishing that the water came so fast.”

The Portuguese government was holding a special Cabinet meeting Monday and was expected to announce three days of national mourning for the victims. It may also grant financial aid to rebuild Madeira’s many destroyed roads and bridges.

The regional government says it has no estimate yet of its financial needs.

Portugal Telecom said 85 percent of the island’s cellular and fixed-line capacity was restored by late Sunday.

Environmental groups alleged that building on natural water runoffs and the island’s poor infrastructure management contributed to the disaster, but officials insisted it was impossible to prepare for such a freak deluge.

A Portuguese Navy frigate bringing troops to help with the cleanup was to dock in Funchal later Monday. A medical team with divers and rescue experts arrived Sunday aboard a military transport plane.

Light showers were forecast for the Atlantic Ocean island Monday and Tuesday. Hard money training.

Worst winter ever? The second blizzard in less than a week buried the most populous stretch of the East Coast under nearly a foot of snow Wednesday, breaking records for the snowiest winter and demoralizing millions of people still trying to dig out from the previous storm.

Conditions in the nation’s capital were so bad that even plows were advised to get off the roads, and forecasters were eyeing a third storm that could be brewing for next week.

For many families, the first storm was a fun weekend diversion. People even went skiing past Washington’s monuments. But Wednesday’s blizzard quickly became a serious safety concern. The Pennsylvania governor shut down some highways and warned that people who drove were risking their lives.

“I’ve seen enough,” said Bill Daly, 57, as gusts of wind and snow lashed his face in Arlington, Va., where streets were nearly empty just a few days after people had been playing in the snow.

“It’s scary and beautiful at the same time. I wanted to shovel but thought if I had a heart attack it could be a while before anybody found me in this kind of weather.”

Old-timers talk about a storm that blew through Washington in 1922, collapsing the roof on the Knickerbocker theater and killing more than 90 people. Their great-great-grandchildren will be able to describe the back-to-back blizzards of 2010, which were not nearly as deadly but set records for the snowiest winters ever in Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Up to 16 inches fell in parts of western Maryland. Reagan National Airport outside Washington had nearly 10 inches by 2 p.m., and Baltimore got nearly a foot. That was on top of totals up to 3 feet in some places from the weekend storm.

“I have never in my lifetime seen or heard anything quite like this,” said D.C. Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin, who was born and raised in the District.

The previous records for snowiest winters were 62.5 inches in Baltimore in 1995-96; 54.4 inches in Washington in 1898-99; and 65.5 inches in Philadelphia in 1995-96.

On Wednesday, Baltimore had 72.3 inches so far this winter, the Washington area had 54.9 inches and Philadelphia had 70.3 inches.

Heavy snow also fell in New York and New Jersey. Airlines canceled hundreds of flights, and New York City’s 1.1 million schoolchildren enjoyed only their third snow day in six years. The Washington area’s two airports had no flights coming or going Wednesday.

The streets of downtown Philadelphia were nearly vacant as people heeded the mayor’s advice to stay home.

Entrance ramps to closed highways were blockaded, and the Pennsylvania National Guard had Humvees stocked with food and blankets ready to help anyone who got stuck. Earlier in the day, about 25 vehicles were involved in two separate pileups on snowy Interstate 80 in central Pennsylvania. One man was killed and 18 people injured.

“For your safety, do not drive,” Gov. Ed Rendell said. “You will risk your life and, potentially, the lives of others if you get stuck on highways or any road.”

Two other people were killed when their snowmobile struck a moving vehicle at an intersection in Lancaster, Pa. Michigan authorities said the storm contributed to at least four traffic deaths there.

In Virginia, where some areas had snow totals exceeding 30 inches from the two storms, winds were howling at 50 mph and temperatures were plunging. Gov. Bob McDonnell urged people to stay indoors.

“This snow reminds me of when I was driving tractor-trailers in Saudi Arabia, and the sandstorm starts and you can’t see the roads,” said Syeed Zada, 55, a plow driver for the Virginia Department of Transportation.

More than 100,000 utility customers in Pennsylvania were without power. Some never got it back after the last storm.

Glenn Harvey, 59, who has a lung problem and needs oxygen, had been staying at a Red Cross shelter in Bentleyville, Pa., since Saturday.

Firefighters brought him there after the storm knocked out power to his house Friday night. His wife stayed home with their dog, where she’s using a kerosene heater to keep warm.

“It’s not been easy on her,” Harvey said.

In Washington, officials announced that federal agencies would stay closed for a fourth straight day Thursday. The longest weather-related government shutdown ever was in 1996, when employees did not have to go to work for a full week.

A Caribou Coffee shop in the capital was standing room only. Most people pecked away at laptop computers as snow fell steadily outside.

“Can’t get to the office, but the work still needs to get done,” said attorney Christopher Erckert.

Driving conditions got so bad that officials in Washington and some nearby suburbs pulled plows off the roads. In Baltimore, Pete Korfiatis dumped snow into the Inner Harbor with a front-end loader until city officials decided the roads were too slick.

“They just shut everything down,” he said.

Heavy snow collapsed part of the roof and a wall at a Smithsonian Institution storage building in Suitland, Md. It was not clear if any artifacts were damaged.

The District of Columbia’s representative in Congress asked the White House to declare a federal emergency to help the capital recover.

In New York, George and Natividad Sanchez trudged over slushy sidewalks in boots, parkas and scarves to take their 2-year-old daughter to see “Sesame Street Live: When Elmo Grows Up.”

“I didn’t want to disappoint her,” George Sanchez said as the family arrived for the show at a theater in Madison Square Garden.

The news wasn’t all bad. Washington has not had a homicide in a week. Ski areas were doing brisk business, when people could get to them. And private contractors were making money plowing driveways and parking lots.

But many people were just ready for the ordeal to end.

In a yard in Westmont, N.J., someone used bright orange paint to scrawl nature a message on a white backdrop: “Dear Mr Frost,” it read. “We’re good w/ snow.” Home Security Systems.

The death toll from massive avalanches that blocked a mountain pass north of Kabul soared to 157, as hundreds more remained trapped in their snowbound vehicles, Afghan officials said Wednesday.

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said rescuers have recovered 157 bodies from the Salang Pass, a key road that connects the Afghan capital with the north, over the past two days. The number of deaths had more than doubled from the last reported figure of 64 a day earlier, as rescue teams scrambled to reach survivors.

At a press conference in Kabul, Bashary said 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) of road have been cleared for ambulances, bulldozers and other road-clearing equipment to get through. About 2,600 people have been rescued so far, he said.

A series of avalanches that were triggered Monday along the 12,700-feet-high (3,800-meter) pass closed off roads and stranded hundreds of people in snowbound vehicles.

Some of the victims were found frozen to death inside their vehicles, while in other cases, their bodies were strewn along the road, he said.

More than two dozen avalanches had poured tons of snow and ice on the pass, blocking off 2.1 miles (3.5 kilometers) of road and burying hundreds of vehicles. The 1.6 mile (2.6 kilometer) -long Salang Tunnel, a Soviet-built landmark dating from the 1960s through the Hindu Kush mountains, had been cut off, with dozens of cars, buses and trucks jammed inside.

Some 400 police, along with 100 local volunteers, have been involved in the frantic effort to dig out survivors in the last 24 hours, he said.

Bashary said 135 bodies have been taken to Parwan province to the north while the remainder were taken to Baglan province in the south.

Rescuers reached dozens more of the stranded this morning, including seven children whose mother had died.

Search-and-rescue teams took advantage of clear and sunny weather on the pass to retrieve more victims, said Suhrab Ali Safari, the acting minister of public works.

“Now the weather is good so we’re trying to find more bodies. Most of them we found on the road under the snow,” he said. “The avalanche was very strong. It pushed the cars 200 yards (meters) away from the road.”

Emergency rescue workers said among the dozens of vehicles stuck in the high drifts of snow were two buses. In one bus, at least 15 people were found dead.

On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry said that Afghan forces had managed to evacuate more than 400 of the injured, with 180 taken by coalition helicopters to Bagram Airbase for medical treatment, said Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak.

Some 500 Afghan soldiers were also mobilized to join the police and others in rescue efforts. The international coalition contributed four Chinook helicopters, while the army sent two choppers, several ambulances and several bulldozers, the Afghan National Army said. Hard money training.