Negative Blogs

Thousands of Venezuelans fled their homes on Tuesday after landslides and swollen rivers killed at least 21 people and threatened to cause more damage.

The stormy weather closed most of the Opec member nation’s two largest oil refineries on Monday.  A source at state oil company PDVSA said they were slowly restarting on Tuesday.

Millions of poor Venezuelans live in unplanned, hillside shantytowns in Caracas and along the Caribbean coast. Sustained rain conjures up memories of a devastating 1999 landslide that killed at least 10,000 people.

Small mudslides toppled dozens of houses, and crushing cars and blocking roads this week. Most of the 21 died in landslides, while others were swept away by a river. The government has declared an emergency in three states and Caracas, cancelling school and opening hundreds of storm shelters.

“The rains will carry on for the next three days at least,” Vice President Elias Jaua told state television.

Long lines formed in poor Caracas neighbourhoods as officials registered families to be housed in temporary accommodations including hotels, government offices and even the presidential palace.

Vice President Elias Jaua said 5,600 people were forced to leave their homes because of the rains.

Most of the oil-producing state of Falcon was hit by flooding, which caused a small oil spill near the Cardon and Amuay refineries, which have a combined capacity of 955,000 barrels per day.

The main units of Amuay, which can produce 645,000 bpd, restarted on Tuesday, a source at the refinery complex said. Cardon will take up to 10 days to operate normally after a power cut knocked out its industrial services on Monday.

The source, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak, said shipments from the two refineries had not been affected.

The Andean Development Corporation, a regional development bank, said it authorised a US$100 million (NZ$134 million) donation to Venezuela to help deal with the disaster.

By stuff.co.nz

China has evacuated more than 150,000 people and recalled more than 50,000 fishing boats to port as its southern coast braces for Typhoon Megi, state-run media said Thursday.

More than 150,000 people have fled for safety in Fujian province, the Xinhua news agency said.

Megi, which killed at least 11 people in the Philippines, is expected to reach Guangdong province Saturday, according to the Hong Kong Observatory. As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Megi was about 420 kilometers (261 miles) southeast of Hong Kong, according to the observatory.

Officials in China have issued the highest of four warnings, bracing for possible devastation in coastal areas such as Guangdong and Fujian, Xinhua said.

The warning allows local officials six hours to evacuate residents, close schools and airports, and recall vessels that are considered at risk.

Megi may be the strongest typhoon to hit China this year, Xinhua has said.

On Thursday in the Philippines, lawmakers placed the province of Pangasinan under a state of emergency, to help municipalities recover from Megi, which was known in the Philippines as Typhoon Juan.

The typhoon affected an estimated 258,844 Filipinos, leaving thousands homeless.

By edition.cnn.com

Typhoon Megi cleared the Philippines’ main island and headed toward China on Tuesday, and authorities said initial estimates showed around 105,000 tons of the region’s unmilled rice crop had been damaged.

The agriculture department’s early assessment that around 10 percent of the Cagayan valley’s annual crop had been damaged was well below a worst-case scenario of more than 230,000 tons. The area accounts for about 12 percent of national production.

Megi, known locally as Juan, was a category 5 super typhoon with winds in excess of 250 kph (155 mph) when it slammed into the east coast of north Luzon shortly before noon on Monday.

The national disaster agency put the death toll at seven, a low tally for such a strong typhoon in the country. Fuller assessments of the damage were expected on Tuesday, although the typhoon had cut power and communications in many areas.

After clearing the Philippines, Megi is expected to regain some strength over the South China Sea. Tropical Storm Risk’s (www.tropicalstormrisk.com) projections show the storm is expected to turn away from Vietnam toward China, with the center passing between Hainan island and Hong Kong.

Angelito Banayo, administrator of the National Food Authority (NFA) told Reuters on Monday the government’s worst case scenario was Megi could damage 232,169 tons of unmilled rice crop in the north with only 30 percent of it able to be harvested.

The Philippines is the world’s biggest rice importer and damage from the typhoon could see it buy more than had been expected for 2011, which could push up international prices.

By reuters.com

Tropical Storm Matthew made landfall over Nicaragua Friday afternoon and pushed through to Honduras, bringing with it a threat of heavy rain, flash floods and mudslides.

The weather system was centered about 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of the Nicaraguan town of Cabo Gracis a Dios Friday evening and was heading west at 15 mph (24 kph). Its maximum sustained winds had quickened slightly to 50 mph (85 kph), according to the Miami, Florida-based National Hurricane Center.

The governments of Nicaragua and Honduras dropped a hurricane watch they had issued earlier for parts of their countries. Tropical storm warnings remained in effect, as did a tropical storm watch for the coast of Belize, the Hurricane Center said.

The weather system could dump between 6 and 10 inches of rain over portions of Nicaragua and Honduras, with up to 15 inches falling in isolated areas, forecasters said. Both those countries are mountainous and have in the past suffered from treacherous rain-triggered mudslides.

“Torrential rains will be the biggest threat for the next few days,” the Hurricane Center said.

Track-prediction maps indicate that Matthew, the 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, will continue westward over the next 48 hours or so, taking it across Honduras and into Belize and Guatemala.

Forecasters say the storm could weaken and become a broad area of low pressure by Sunday.

It could regain strength once it moves back over warm Gulf of Mexico waters and head north toward the United States.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Lisa strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane, the center said, becoming the seventh hurricane of the season.

As of 7 p.m. ET, the center of Lisa was about 385 miles (615 kilometers) northwest of the Cape Verde Islands and was heading north in the Atlantic Ocean. The storm’s maximum sustained winds had quickened to 75 mph (120 kph).

There were no watches or warnings in effect associated with Lisa. The storm could continue to strengthen in the coming day, the Hurricane Center said, before weakening by late Saturday as it heads out over cooler Atlantic waters.

By the CNN Wire Staff

Residents boarded up windows, farmers hurriedly harvested vegetables and tourists vacated hotels in eastern Taiwan on Saturday as the island braced for its first typhoon this season.

China and Taiwan warned that Typhoon Fanapi was strengthening before its expected landfall on Sunday on Taiwan’s eastern coast.

Taiwan issued an alert that heavy rains and mudslides were possible and warned ships to expect dangerous sea conditions. The government ordered fishing boats to return to their docks.

Interior Minister Chiang Yi—hua said authorities would evacuate villagers later Saturday from mountainous regions prone to landslides.

Authorities released water from a reservoir to allow more room for the expected torrential rains to gather, Mr. Chiang said.

Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said the typhoon was expected to pack winds of between 96 and 110 miles per hour (155 and 177 kph) at landfall.

Officials said tourists vacated hotels in Hualien in eastern Taiwan where Fanapi was expected to land, while residents boarded up windows and piled sandbags at their doors.

In Keelung city in northern Taiwan, fishermen watched the overcast sky after docking their boats.

China’s National Meteorological Centre said Fanapi could be the strongest the country has seen this season. It was expected to hit China’s eastern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian on Sunday night or Monday morning.

Fanapi would be the 11th typhoon to hit China this year. Seasonal flooding in China has been the worst in a decade.

Flooding from Typhoon Morakot killed 700 people in August last year in Taiwan’s worst storm in half a century.

By thehindu.com

UN warns numbers of people affected exceed those in Indian Ocean tsunami and Kashmir and Haiti quakes put together.

Bad weather is preventing the relief effort from reaching hundreds of thousands of the millions of people affected by heavy flooding in Pakistan.

The north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is particularly inaccessible, the United Nations said today, with up to 600,000 people marooned and rain stopping helicopters flying to some areas that are unreachable from the ground.

The devastation continued as the UN said the number of people suffering in the floods in Pakistan exceeded the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

While the death toll in the three earlier tragedies was much higher than the 1,500 people killed so far in the floods, the UN estimates that some 13.8 million people have been affected – at least 2 million more people than in the other disasters put together.

It made the comparison to emphasis the scale of the crisis, which the Pakistani prime minister said today was the worst in the country’s history.

“The number of people affected by the floods is greater than the other three disasters combined,” said Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Giuliano said a person is considered affected by the floods if he or she will need some form of assistance to recover, either short-term humanitarian aid or longer-term reconstruction help.

“The magnitude of the tragedy is so immense that it is hard to assess,” he added.

His statement came as the prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, said the floods were a bigger crisis than the both the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, which killed nearly 80,000 people, and the army’s operation against the Taliban in the Swat valley last spring, which drove more than 2 million people from their homes.

Rescue workers have been unable to reach up to 600,000 people marooned in the Swat valley owing to bad weather, Giuliano said, adding that many residents there were still trying to recover from last year’s fight with the Taliban.

“All these people are in very serious need of assistance, and we are highly concerned about their situation,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of people have also had to flee rising floodwaters in recent days in the central and southern provinces of Punjab and Sindh as heavy rains continued.

One affected resident, Manzoor Ahmed, said that although he had managed to escape the floods that submerged villages and destroyed homes in Sindh, the subsequent lack of government help meant dying might have been preferable.

“It would have been better if we had died in the floods as our current miserable life is much more painful,” said Ahmed, who fled with his family from the town of Shikarpur.

“It is very painful to see our people living without food and shelter.”

Thousands of people in the neighbouring districts of Shikarpur and Sukkur camped out on roads, bridges, railway tracks any dry ground they could find, often with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and perhaps a plastic sheet to keep off the rain.

“We were able to escape the floodwaters, but hunger may kill us,” said Hora Mai, 40, sitting on a rain-soaked road in Sukkur along with hundreds of other people.

By Adam Gabbatt

 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

Rivers burst their banks during monsoon rains, washing away streets, battering a dam and killing at least 60 people in the most severe floods in decades in northwest Pakistan, officials said on Thursday. Hundreds of thousands more were stranded as rescue workers struggled to reach far—flung villages.

In the Peshawar area, two elderly men clung to a fence post and each other as a raging torrent swept over their heads, footage on Pakistan’s Dunya TV showed. It was unclear whether they survived.

People were forced to trudge through knee—deep water in some streets in the Swat Valley. A newly constructed part of a dam in the Charsadda district collapsed, while crops were soaked in many areas. At least 10 people died near Peshawar when their homes collapsed.

Dozens of people were reported missing, including at least nine Chinese construction workers in the Kohistan area. Some 200 other Chinese workers were trapped amid the downpour, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Khyber—Pakhtoonkhwa, the province that has been deluged.

He said it was the worst floods in the northwest since 1929 and estimated 400,000 people were stranded around the northwest.

“A rescue operation using helicopters cannot be conducted due to the bad weather, while there are only 48 rescue boats available for rescue,” he said, noting weather forecasts predict more rain over the next day.

The monsoon season often leads to widespread flooding in Pakistan, and the poorest residents are often most at risk because flood—prone areas are all they can afford.

The torrential rain this week is a suspected factor in a plane crash in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, that killed 152 people Wednesday.

By Thehindu

Typhoon Chanthu moved deeper into western China Friday, lashing Guangxi province with high winds and rain before weakening to a tropical storm.

Authorities predicted the storm would bring continued downpours to a region that already is suffering the worst flooding in 10 years.  The official Xinhua news agency said the official toll now is 742 dead and 367 missing after weeks of flooding from storms.

Chanthu was blamed for three deaths, including two killed when 126-kilometer-per-hour winds knocked over a wall in Guangdong province.  In neighboring Hong Kong, officials recovered the body of a man who was swept away late Thursday.

Earlier in Hainan province, authorities suspended all flights in and out, and ordered more than 20,000 fishing boats to return to port and seek shelter.

Xinhua said Chanthu has affected about 1.36 million residents and toppled almost 3,000 houses.  It estimated the economic losses at more than $350 million.

By VOANews

A tropical storm has shifted direction away from Hong Kong and is expected to make landfall in South China early Thursday, adding more weather woes to a region that’s already been deluged, causing suffering to millions.

Tropical Storm Chanthu is forecast to hit China’s Guangdong and Hainin provinces as a severe tropical storm, according to the Hong Kong Observatory.

Chanthu was about 260 miles (420 kilometers) south of Hong Kong Wednesday afternoon and was forecast to move northwest at about 6 mph (10 km/hr), edging closer to the coast. The observatory said the storm has slowed down and is taking more westerly track. The storm is expected to strengthen as landfall approaches.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center said the storm is packing sustained winds of 63 mph, which are expected to grow to nearly 75 mph. The center is operated by the U.S. Navy and Air Force in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

The storm is expected come ashore late early Thursday, local time.
This latest storm comes on the heels of major flooding and landslides across much of the nation with more than 700 people dead and hundreds more missing, China’s vice minister of water resources Liu Ning told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.

More than 700 dead in Chinese floods

Regions affected include Sichuan province and Shaanxi province. Of particular concern is the massive Three Gorges Dam in Hubei province. With the Yangtze River already running at record levels, engineers have opened up the flood gates.

The Yangtze is fed by three major tributaries, and it flows east, from Sichuan, toward the dam. Water flows near the dam are comparable to record flows during devastating floods in China in 1998.

The Three Gorges, the world’s largest dam, was completed last year. So far, it is holding up.

Xinhua quoted Yuan Jie, director of the dam’s cascade dispatching center, as saying that, “Compared to 1998, the biggest difference is the Three Gorges Dam. Without it, thousands of soldiers and rescuers would have been needed to fight the floods.”

Elsewhere, more than 230,000 people have been evacuated from the city of Guangan in Sichuan, after the worst flooding there in 160 years. There’s no power, no clean water, and the only way around is by boat.

The wild weather also has cut off roads, flattened homes, destroyed power facilities and flooded farmland in Ankang City, the worst-hit area, Xinhua reported. Flood control authorities say the lives of nearly 1.5 million people have been disrupted by flooding in 23 counties and cities in the southern regions of the province.

Other areas that have been inundated include the city of Chongquing, and Anhui and Hunan provinces, according to Xinhua. Altogether, more than 9 million people have been affected by floods and landslides, it said.

According to the observatory website, the outer rain bands of Chanthu may affect Hong Kong overnight and local winds will gradually increase.

The government weather website said that since there will be swells, people are advised to stay away from the shoreline and not engage in water sports. All small vessels, including low-power vessels and fishing vessels in open seas, should seek shelter as soon as possible, the government said.The storm is expected come ashore late early Thursday, local time.

This latest storm comes on the heels of major flooding and landslides across much of the nation with more than 700 people dead and hundreds more missing, China’s vice minister of water resources Liu Ning told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.

More than 700 dead in Chinese floods

Regions affected include Sichuan province and Shaanxi province. Of particular concern is the massive Three Gorges Dam in Hubei province. With the Yangtze River already running at record levels, engineers have opened up the flood gates.

The Yangtze is fed by three major tributaries, and it flows east, from Sichuan, toward the dam. Water flows near the dam are comparable to record flows during devastating floods in China in 1998.

The Three Gorges, the world’s largest dam, was completed last year. So far, it is holding up.

Xinhua quoted Yuan Jie, director of the dam’s cascade dispatching center, as saying that, “Compared to 1998, the biggest difference is the Three Gorges Dam. Without it, thousands of soldiers and rescuers would have been needed to fight the floods.”

Elsewhere, more than 230,000 people have been evacuated from the city of Guangan in Sichuan, after the worst flooding there in 160 years. There’s no power, no clean water, and the only way around is by boat.

The wild weather also has cut off roads, flattened homes, destroyed power facilities and flooded farmland in Ankang City, the worst-hit area, Xinhua reported. Flood control authorities say the lives of nearly 1.5 million people have been disrupted by flooding in 23 counties and cities in the southern regions of the province.

Other areas that have been inundated include the city of Chongquing, and Anhui and Hunan provinces, according to Xinhua. Altogether, more than 9 million people have been affected by floods and landslides, it said.

According to the observatory website, the outer rain bands of Chanthu may affect Hong Kong overnight and local winds will gradually increase.

The government weather website said that since there will be swells, people are advised to stay away from the shoreline and not engage in water sports. All small vessels, including low-power vessels and fishing vessels in open seas, should seek shelter as soon as possible, the government said.

By the CNN