Weather

Citation

(1999), "Weather", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 8 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.1999.07308cac.004

Weather

Weather

26 May 1998 ­ South China

The death toll from floods in south China over the last week has risen to at least 37, bringing the toll to nearly 90 nation-wide since heavy summer rains started. The latest casualties: seven people fatalities and one person reported missing occurred in Shenzhen on Sunday (24 May). Fast-rising waters are also reported to have killed more than 10,000 cattle and damaged 57,500 hectares of farmland.28 May 1998 ­ Floods have wreaked havoc in eight provinces across China with the death toll climbing to 128 and losses estimated at 795 million yuan ($95.8 million), officials and state media said today. The north-western province of Gansu was the worst hit area, with 37 people dead and 141 injured, a provincial anti-flood official said. Direct economic losses were estimated at 120 million yuan, said the official. More than 174,000 people were affected, the official said. Almost 900 houses were destroyed, some 20,000 hectares of farmland affected and 285 head of livestock killed. In south-western Sichuan province, storms and torrential rains killed ten people, injured 40 and left four missing last week, one provincial anti-flood official said. About 5,000 houses have been destroyed and economic losses have been put at 100 million yuan. This brought the death toll in Sichuan this year to 19 and damage to property to 157 million yuan. In the southern island province of Hainan, seven people have been killed and nine injured, the Haikou Evening News said. In neighbouring Guangdong province on the mainland, nine people have died and 570 houses have been destroyed, the China News Service newsletter said. About 8,140 hectares (20,000 acres) of farmland have been hit and damage to property has been estimated at 288 million yuan, it said. In the nearby impoverished region of Guangxi, four people have been killed and five are missing, a spokesman for the provincial government said. State media have said raging floods killed 11 people and caused economic losses of 200 million yuan in the south eastern province of Fujian this month. In the north-western Moslem region of Xinjiang, deluges have left 11 people dead and caused damage to property estimated at 30 million yuan, the media have said. In the central province of Hunan, floods have killed 30 people and submerged 57,500 hectares of farmland, media have said.29 May 1998 ­ Floods and hailstorms have killed 323 people across China this year, flood control officials said today. Deluges have left 273 dead in ten provinces since March, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said. In south-western Yunnan province, hailstorms have killed 50 people, a provincial flood prevention official said. The ministry said the floods caused direct economic losses totalling 7.4 billion yuan ($892 million). Illnesses associated with the disasters had struck 20,000 people, more than one million houses had collapsed or suffered damage and 2.2 million hectares of farmland affected, the ministry said. Central Hunan province was the worst hit by flooding, with 58 people killed and 7,461 injured, it said. About 106,000 people had been relocated to higher ground. In Yunnan, hail storms caused property damage estimated at 120 million yuan, the flood prevention official said. More than seven million people and 807,000 hectares of farmland were affected.25 June 1998 ­ Flooding across a wide swathe of China has killed at least 212 people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars of economic losses, officials and state media said today. The flooding, an annual summer scourge in China, has hit the southern Chinese city of Guilin. No casualties were reported in Guilin, but in surrounding Guangxi province torrential rains killed 66 people and affected 5.8 million, a provincial government spokesman said. About 14,400 homes collapsed and 293,400 hectares of crops were affected in the south western province, the official said. Direct losses in the province totalled 1.84 billion yuan ($221.7 million), he said by telephone. In eastern Zhejiang province, floods killed 48 people and more than 75,000 residents were affected, the Xinhua News Agency said. The flood wrecked 11,391 houses and economic losses were estimated at 2.1 billion yuan, the agency said. Massive landslides in central Jiangxi province left at least 43 villagers dead, 20 people missing and over 100 injured, the agency said. About 500 houses were destroyed in the landslides, the agency said. In the south eastern Fujian province, flood killed people, the provincial government spokesman said. Another 34 people were missing, the spokesman said. Direct losses in the province hit 3.0 billion yuan, the official said, without giving further details.

22 May 1998 ­ Bartin, Turkey

Turkish naval commando teams on boats rescued locals today in the Black Sea town of Bartin. Residents were trapped in the upper floors of apartment blocks as muddy waters from a swollen river covered most of the town, reaching a depth of more than a metre in many places. "There is major material damage as up to 80 per cent of the town was flooded, but the rescue work is going well," Bartin Mayor, Oguz Pir, told the NTV news channel. Power supplies, telephone lines and roads were cut in the heaviest seasonal rains for 60 years, which caused extensive damage to infrastructure and agriculture. State-run Anatolian news agency said the floods were receding in the Bartin and Karabuk region and some roads had been reopened to traffic. Around 200 previously stranded people had been saved from the floods in the Bolu area, the agency said. Air force planes had begun parachute drops of food supplied by the Red Crescent organisation, Anatolian said. Helicopters and boats rescued 100 people in Zonguldak province. Rescue teams were yet to reach outlying villages. Two thousand workers at the Karabuk Iron and Steel plant were able to leave the factory today after being stranded there. Flood waters receded from bridges linking the complex to the highway and production was continuing normally. The floods also caused considerable damage to agriculture. Some 30,000 chickens and 150 cattle died at farms in Bolu.23 May 1998 ­ Turkish airforce planes and helicopters today airlifted food supplies to Black Sea towns stricken by three days of flooding that has killed at least 16 people nation-wide and caused an estimated 300 trillion lira ($1.2 billion) in damage. As the waters receded and the rains stopped, Turkish authorities began clearing the debris left by the floods. Several roads in the Black Sea region were reopened to traffic as water levels dropped, but more rain was forecast over the weekend. The 5,500 mine workers of the Turkish Coal Board which stopped mining production were expected to resume production next week.

1 June 1998 ­ Sakha-Yakutia, Russia

Many districts in the flood hit Russian region of Sakha-Yakutia were still under water today after two weeks of floods which have killed 15 people and forced tens of thousands to be evacuated. A spokeswoman for the Emergencies Ministry said warm weather had melted snow and ice on the rivers Lena, Aldan, Olekma and Amga in the Siberian region. In turn, ice blockages caused overflowing and flooding in some 163 villages and towns. She said authorities had to evacuate about 50,000 people. Floods destroyed 300 bridges, killed thousands of head of livestock and took out hundreds of km of roads and telephone lines. "The situation is stabilising now," she said. Ministry staff were distributing tents, boats, food and clothes. Air force jets have been used to break up the ice blockages with bombs. Sappers also worked to blow up the ice. Smaller floods have been registered in other Russian regions over the past few weeks. The spokeswoman said the ministry expected floods to hit the Primorsky region in the Far East soon.4 June 1998 ­ Four Russian fighter planes have bombed sheets of ice jamming the Pechora River in northern Russia in a final attempt to clear the ice floes and save a town from flooding. Russia's Itar-Tass news agency says the bombing did not help, and the river burst its banks, flooding parts of Naryan-Mar, a city of 35,000. The bombers were summoned from their base near St Petersburg, after attempts by local authorities to blow up the ice plug failed. Local officials said bombing was the only effective way to clear the ice in a matter of hours, but the air force failed to shift the ice. The ice had accumulated 18 miles downstream from Naryan-Mar 24 hours after a demolition crew had blasted a similar ice blockade with dynamite almost 40 miles up the river. This year's severe winter combined with a late spring has caused ice-jams on several northern rivers, flooding entire cities in eastern Siberia.

3 June 1998 ­ Guwahati, India

At least 21 people died and nine were injured in a landslide after heavy rains in the north-eastern state of Assam this morning, police said. A police officer said that the victims were buried by the mudslide in Sandhighat tea estate, 213 miles south of the state capital, Dispur. Rescue workers have recovered 14 dead bodies so far, police said. Heavy rains in the hilly tea-growing area of Udarband in the southern district of Silchar caused the landslide, police said.

8 June 1998 ­ Guwahati, India

At least 12 people died and 150 were injured in mudslides in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam, police said today. They said the victims were buried in a series of mudslides over the last couple of days in North Cachar district, about 370km from the state capital Dispur. A state government official said the mudslides had been caused by heavy rains. Several bridges had also been destroyed, he said.9 June 1998 ­ At least 14 people were killed when a severe cyclone hit coastal areas in the western Indian state of Gujarat today, officials said. Seven people died when a microwave tower collapsed in Porbander, 195 miles from the state's main city of Ahmedabad an official at a monitoring cell in Ahmedabad said. Three others died when a wall collapsed in Jamnagar, 120 miles from Ahmedabad, he said. Another four people were killed in nearby Junagadh district, he said. The official said he was waiting for further details and that 50 rescue teams were working in the area. Authorities yesterday warned of high-speed winds after spotting a depression in the Arabian Sea moving towards Gujarat. The meteorological department alerted ports and coastal villages in the state. The director of the state's meteorological department R.K. Kankane had forecast winds with a velocity of up to 81 miles an hour in the coastal areas. The state government has made relief arrangements and alerted the army and paramilitary forces to join rescue efforts, officials said. State, run All India Radio said the weather office had warned that parts of the north-western state of Rajasthan and Gujarat were likely to be the worst hit. The radio said the authorities had asked fishermen in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa not to venture out into the seas. The Press Trust of India said pre-cyclonic storms and rains last night had claimed three lives in Jodhpur city in Rajasthan.10 June 1998 ­ The death toll from mudslides caused by heavy rains in the state of Assam has reached 48, Government officials said today. They said continuous rains for the last week had resulted in numerous mudslides, injuring more than 50 people and leaving hundreds homeless. Communications Minister Kabindra Purkayastha and a team of state Government officials had reached the affected area to supervise relief operations, officials added. Yesterday, police recovered seven dead bodies at the Ratanpur tea estate, 343km from Dispur.10 June 1998 ­ A press report, dated 9 June, states: At least 12 people were killed after rains accompanied by thunderstorms lashed Karachi this afternoon followed by another spell in the evening. Five of the casualties were due to electrocution. Seven others were killed in other rain related incidents in the city. The meteorological observatory at Quaid-i-Azam airport said it recorded 17mm of rain at its station at PAF Base Masroor and 13mm of rainfall at its station at PAF Base Sharea Faisal up to 20.00 hrs. The storm began with violent gusts of wind and a duststorm followed by heavy wind-driven rain and rolling thunder, which reduced visibility and inundated low-lying areas. Immediately after the storm there was a major power breakdown. Almost half of the city was plunged into darkness and hundreds of telephones went out of order.10 June 1998 ­ A cyclone that hit coastal regions of the western Indian state of Gujarat has claimed more than 200 lives, state officials said today. "The death toll has risen to 205 with the recovery of more bodies," said an official in the state control room, set up to monitor yesterday's cyclone. The United News of India (UNI) said at least 140 people had been killed in Kutch district alone. A state government spokesman said: "Relief operations are on. Major highways in coastal areas have been flooded, which has seriously affected communication and relief operations," the spokesman added. About 15,000 people in Gujarat had been evacuated to safer places, 4,000 of them from the seriously affected Jamnagar district in Saurashtra region. Gujarat officials said the cyclone had weakened and it had moved into the neighbouring desert state of Rajasthan. Damage to property was still being assessed.10 June 1998 ­ At least 216 people were killed by a cyclone that ravaged India's western Gujarat state, but officials said today the storm was weakening. An official said 140 people were killed in the state's Kutch region and the rest in Saurashtra region. The victims included more than 100 salt workers near Kandla port. Weather officials said the cyclone was now losing intensity. Federal Agriculture Minister Som Pal said information received by the government put the number of dead at 205, with another 210 injured. An official of the Oil Coordination Committee in New Delhi said the LPG terminal at Kandla port in the state was severely damaged, disrupting supplies to the northern region. A.D. Desai, Gujarat's secretary of ports, said about 40 state-owned ports, both small and large, sustained extensive damage. "Operations in most of the ports had been halted since yesterday," Desai said. He said preliminary estimates put damage in ports around 300 million rupees ($7.14 million). Desai said several warehouses were razed by high speed winds, and tin roofs on buildings had been blown away. "We are yet to assess the damage to the goods lying in the godown ­ mainly soybean extract, wheat and foodgrains." A tug in Porbander was destroyed and several barges drifted away, Desai said. Officials and traders said the cyclone was unlikely to affect groundnut and cotton crops as sowing would begin only in mid-June after the monsoon rains. A state government spokesman said relief operations were hampered by heavy flooding of major coastal highways. About 15,000 people in Gujarat were evacuated to safer places.11 June 1998 ­ The following reports appear in the Indian press, dated today: Rescue workers pulled out the dead from the rubble of flattened houses and a maze of uprooted trees and electric poles yesterday as the death toll in cyclone-battered coastal Gujarat and parts of Rajasthan mounted to 385. Coastal areas of Gujarat bore the brunt as 376 persons, nearly half of them salt workers, were killed, 850 injured and over 150 missing in 12 districts. In neighbouring Rajasthan, the toll rose to nine, mostly victims of house-collapse and electrocution ­ with six more deaths reported yesterday from Barmer, Jalore and Bhilwara districts bordering Gujarat. The Central government has announced Rs50,000 from Prime Minister's relief fund to the next of kin of each of those killed in the cyclone. In Bhap village in Jalore some 150 houses had been damaged. Electricity and telephone poles were uprooted. In Gujarat, Kutch district was the worst hit where 276 persons, including 139 salt workers housed in tents near Kandla port area, perished in tidal waves rising up to eight metres triggered by the cyclone. There were 43 deaths in Jamnagar, 32 in Rajkot, 12 in Porbander, four in Junagadh, two each in Banaskantha and Surat and one each in Amreli, Bharauch, Valsad and Navsari, official sources said. The total damage caused in Gujarat has been estimated at Rs1,200 crore.Thousands of people were missing in the port town of Kandla in Gujarat, as the toll from the cyclonic storm which ripped through coastal Saurashtra crossed 400 today. As many as 258 deaths were reported from Kandla alone, where the people were caught unawares as there was no advance warning of the cyclone. Most of the victims in Kandla were salt pan workers and casual labour employed at the port who lived in the labour colonies of Sarva, Meethapur, and Zeerport. The houses in these areas were flattened by the storm. Many people were drowned in the three-metre high tidal wave, and then swept away in the low tide. Such was the fury of the cyclone that many vessels anchored at the port broke loose and ran aground. One large vessel had hit the ground at Satsaida island opposite Kandla jetty. Two boats were beached on the newly constructed four-lane national highway 8-A, which suffered extensive damage. During the storm, sea water surrounded the entire town and flooded the first floor houses in the multi-storey Kandla Port Trust residential colony. The people saved their lives by climbing to higher floors. The tidal water was two-metres high at the power jetty. A mammoth petrol tank of an oil company was upturned. The Kandla Salt Works vanished without a trace. KPT chairman A.N.M. Kishor said all their 15 craft had sunk and the port had suffered a loss of Rs300 crore, excluding the loss of the stored cargo.As the Kandla port meets the petroleum products needs of the entire north-west of India, Kishor said his priority was to make all the jetties operational in a week's time. It would take another week to resume loading and unloading of dry cargo, Kishor said, and added that he was also trying to arrange some crafts on loan.11 June 1998 ­ Military helicopters today distributed food to isolated communities after a cyclone tore through the coastal regions of western India killing 550 people and disrupting communications. Government officials said they feared the death toll may rise further as rescue operations continue. The state of Gujarat bore the brunt of the storm in the past two days, but officials said the cyclone had now subsided. "The worst is over," state home (Interior) minister Haren Pandya said in Ahmedabad, the state's main city. He said losses were estimated at 12 billion rupees ($284 million). An official in the state control room, set up to monitor the cyclone, said of the 550 who died 401 were impoverished salt workers in the Kutch region. Rescue workers focused on a slum by the port of Kandla, where the salt workers and fishermen lived and which was hit by a two-metre high tidal wave. Gujarat's interior minister Pandya said the Kutch region suffered the most casualties because there was no early warning. Federal agriculture minister Som Pal yesterday told members of parliament that 13 cyclone warnings were issued. About 15,000 people in Gujarat were evacuated to safety following the cyclone warning. State officials began counting the damage as the cyclone subsided. "Most of the roads in the coastal regions are flooded," a state government spokesman said. State officials said they were trying to restore communication links with coastal regions badly damaged by winds of more than 120kph. "Telecommunication links with some coastal towns have been completely cut off," the spokesman said. P.K. Lahiri, principal secretary to the chief minister, said that electricity supply to about 5,000 villages in the state had been cut. "More than 4,400 transformers have been damaged," Lahiri said. "It will take at least five to six days to resume electricity supply to these villages" ­ Reuters.12 June 1998 ­ India's port of Kandla remained virtually cut off yesterday after the cyclone which devastated the western state of Gujarat. State government figures put the death toll at 556, but sources warned the number of dead could be more than 5,000. Around 400 of the fatalities were salt workers in the Kutch region. Property damage was estimated at more than Rs10bn (S 1.7bn). Waves over 10m high swept Kandla port on Wednesday, 10 June. It was reported that the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation jetty at Kandla had been destroyed. They said the supply of petrol, diesel and LPG to most of northern India had been badly affected, since virtually all of it came through Kandla. High-level Indian Oil and Hindustan Petroleum officials went to Kandla yesterday to oversee plans to divert shipments to New Mangalore and ensure petroleum supplies. The intention was to step up output of the Barauni and Haldia refineries to meet demand from northern states. "There will be a complete blackout in five major towns of Kutch and Saurashtra (two primary districts of Gujarat state) over the next four to five days," G. Subbarao, principal secretary, Energy and Petro-Chemicals Department of Gujarat, said. The towns were Gandhidham, Jamnagar, Bhuj, Porbandar and Khamballa.12 June 1998 ­ Houses flattened by a cyclone that ravaged western India lay half-submerged today in the port town of Kandla as officials started the grim task of collecting and cremating the dead. State officials say the death toll had risen to 716 while 79 people were still missing. Electricity supply in many cities remained crippled after the storm. "The number of people dead are uncountable," Haresh Bhambani, a timekeeper at the Kandla port, said. "There were a lot of migrant workers who lived in shanties but there is no exact number". Officials said, of the deaths reported so far, 491 were in the Kutch region, in which Kandla town is located. Officials said they expected many bodies were still lying submerged in the mud and trapped under crushed buildings.

14 June 1998 ­ Ahmedabad, India

India's cyclone-ravaged Gujarat state faced the threat of an epidemic today as authorities tried to restore infrastructure damaged by sledge-hammer winds. The death toll in the cyclone that hit the Arabian Sea coast last Tuesday mounted to 942, all but 11 in Gujarat, as officials sent out medical help to cure and prevent outbreaks of disease following the disaster. As many as 144 people were still missing in the port city of Kandla, from where 100 more deaths were reported by search and rescue personnel. Officials say the final death count could be more than 1,000. "There is a threat of epidemic in water-logged areas and we have sent out 282 teams of doctors along with paramedics in the entire state," a state government spokesman said in Ahmedabad, the main city. Health officials distributed oral rehydration salts to cure stomach upsets and were also treating cases of gastroenteritis, he added. "Our full machinery has been employed," said Harin Pandya, state government minister. Police, navy and paramilitary Border Security Force forces assisted civilian authorities, he added. Authorities said electricity, cut off for nearly a week across the vast swathe of an industrially booming coast, was starting gradually to be restored. Power supplies had been restored to the refinery town of Jamnagar and the port of Porbandar, but usually-bustling Kandla port was still cut off, they said. With 100 more deaths reported from Kandla, the death toll in that part of Gujarat rose to 500. Another 431 died elsewhere in the state, while 11 died in neighbouring Rajasthan. Most of the dead were impoverished salt workers employed in an unorganised industry, who were taken by surprise as two-metre waves engulfed their slum. Kandla's residents conducted mass cremations of unidentified dead, unable to bear the smell. Military helicopters distributed food packets to isolated communities. The cyclone weakened in Rajasthan, but not before causing floods in an area which only days ago was reeling under a scorching heat wave.14 June 1998 ­ Heavy floods caused by torrential monsoon rains have claimed at least 60 lives and hit more than 2.5 million people in north-eastern India in the past few days, state officials said today. People have been worst-hit in the tea-growing state of Assam, where more than half of the 23 districts have been affected. The Brahmaputra river was flowing above the danger level, and more rains were in store, officials said. Most of the deaths were due to mudslides which followed heavy rains, they said. The Kaziranga National Park, home to the rhinoceros, has been submerged in water for the past week, endangering wildlife and driving hundreds of animals to seek shelter in highland areas, they said. "The situation may get worse in the days to come if the water level increases," said B.S. Bonsal, director of the wildlife park, but added that there had been no reports of poaching of the rare animal. "We have seen rhinos leaving their traditional habitat areas and moving towards the adjoining hills. Local tribals may kill them for the horn," Bonsal said. Thousands of hectares of cultivable land in Assam have been waterlogged following the rains, officials said. State meteorological department officials said that downpours were expected to continue for some more days. "Heavy rains lashed several parts of the region in the past 24 hours," a weather official said. "Rains and thundershowers are likely to occur at several places in the region in the next 24 hours." Local residents said the floods had triggered an outbreak of cholera and other diseases but Assam's heath department officials denied this. In Arunachal Pradesh, India's eastern-most province next to the Chinese border, communication links remained cut off for the second day following landslides and flooding, a senior police official said. Tea industry officials said yesterday that output in Assam was likely to be hit by the rains.12 June 1998 ­ Cyclone damage at Kandla: The cyclone has caused severe damage to the area around Kandla creek in Kutch district, sinking dozens of vessels and barges, damaging jetty imported oil installations and other structures of Kandla Port Trust. Hundreds of export-oriented units at the adjoining Kandla Free Trade Zone have been inundated in the tidal waves. Kandla Port Trust has incurred a loss of Rs300 crores without taking into account the cost of lost cargo. Stocks of various commodities lying at the port are severely damaged, and products like wheat, rice and sulphur have been completely destroyed. Kandla Port Trust chairman Anm Kishore said that all 15 craft had sunk, and his priority was to make all the four oil jetties operational within a week. It would, however, take a fortnight to resume loading and unloading of dry cargo, he added. He was also trying to arrange for some crafts from other ports. The cyclone, which has destroyed property worth hundreds of crores of rupees, also saw immense damage to shippers' goods. According to the rough estimates of shipping sources about 20,000 tonnes of imported edible oils, 10,000 tonnes of imported non-edible oils, a huge quantity of export-oriented basmati and non-basmati rice and 40,000 tonnes of export oriented oilmeals have been destroyed by the cyclone. A substantial stock of castor seed, castor oil groundnut and its oil are reported to have been damaged. Damaged imported edible and non-edible oils include RBD palmoien, sunflower oil, palm kernel fatty acid distillate (pkfad), crude palm stearin and palm fatty acid distillate. Export oriented groundnut extraction, soyabean extraction and rape seed extraction have been substantially damaged. A small quantity of other oilmeals and oilcakes has also been damaged. Meanwhile, Union Home minister Lk Advani visited the port on Thursday (11 June) and said the centre would provide Rs1 crore or more as per the guidelines laid down by the Union Finance Commission.The damage to Kandla Free Trade Zone and roads and buildings is put at Rs300 crore each, while it might take four to five days to restore power and telecommunications lines, it might take a month before the situation is brought to normalcy. One of the reasons cited for the destruction in the Kutch region was that the cyclonic storm gathered more speed, instead of petering off. It first hit Porbandar on Tuesday (9 June) around noon at a velocity of 100 to 120kph and by the time it hit Kandla that midnight, it picked up a velocity of 130 to 150kph. The destruction in Kandla was also unexpected as the cyclone changed direction. The authorities had first thought that the cyclone, after hitting Porbandar, would move north towards Namkhambhalia, but it suddenly moved to a north-north-easterly direction towards Kandla. According to official sources, the first information about an impending cyclone storm was received by the Gujarat Maritime Board from the Indian Meteorological Department at 22.40 Sunday (7 June). The state government issued an alert immediately asking fishermen not to venture out into the sea for the next two days. The highest signal No 10 was sounded that midnight. The alert did save the lives of fishermen but not the salt pan workers. The Indian Meteorological Department had predicted the onset of the monsoon along the Gujarat coast for about 15 June, but the server cyclonic storm hit the coast a week ahead of the scheduled arrival of the monsoon and caught the salt workers unawares. State surface transport secretary Deepak Dasgupta said yesterday it would take at least another seven days for the port to become operational. The focus now was on clearing the harbour channel as a number of smaller craft had capsized there. He said the Government had asked the navy and the private sector to come forward to help in the rehabilitation work.17 June 1998 ­ India has sent in its air force after landslides and floods killed at least 70 people in the remote north-eastern states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, the defence ministry said today. "Besides dropping food and medicines the air force helicopters are engaged in casualty evacuation and saving human lives," the statement said. It said the air force had deployed Antonov An-32 aircraft to drop food packets and medicines, and Mil Mi-8 helicopters to rescue people trapped in remote and inaccessible areas of Arunachal Pradesh. Heavy rains have washed away roads and bridges, cut electricity and telecommunication lines and disrupted water supply in most parts of Arunachal Pradesh. Monsoon rains have also hit tea gardens in Assam, which accounts for half of the tea produced in India.18 June 1998 ­ The death toll from the cyclone which ravaged the western Indian state of Gujarat could rise dramatically with 1,754 people still missing, a state government official said today. The bodies of many of the missing, mostly coastal salt-pan workers carried away by towering waves and powerful winds, might never be recovered, spokesman J.M. Dave said. The latest figure for the number of people unaccounted for, compiled after a study of salt workers' association records, marked a leap from the previous estimate of 250. Dave said the official death toll from the cyclone, which slammed into the state from the Arabian Sea with little warning on 9 June, had risen by 30 from yesterday to 1,126. He said that about 2,000 of the dead and missing were salt workers, with the rest mainly fishermen, labourers and port workers. Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee promised to help the Gujarat government put the state back on its feet. The USA authorised aid of $25,000 for the Prime Minister's Relief Fund to help cyclone victims, the US government said in a statement yesterday. Commodities donated by the US government under the PL-480 programme have been provided by Catholic Relief Services, a US private voluntary organization, to provide food for victims in the port town of Kandla and nearby Gandhidham, it added. Kandla port, where more than 500 people died after being swept up by giant tidal waves, inched back to normal operations. The Kandla Port Trust said it had resumed liquid cargo handling operations late on Tuesday (16 June), with the berthing of a phosphoric acid tanker.

12 June 1998 ­ Diyarbakir, Turkey

At least eight people were killed and 14 were missing today when a river in south-east Turkey flooded after heavy rain, local officials said. "We do not believe anybody can escape alive," an official in the south eastern city of Diyarbakir said. He said the victims had been having a picnic near the river in the province of Sanliurfa. They tumbled into the swollen waters of the river when a bridge they were crossing to escape from the flood collapsed. The flooded river is a tributary of the Euphrates River, which originates in Turkey and flows into neighbouring Syria. Floods and torrential rain swept across Turkey last month, killing 16 people and causing heavy damage to property and agriculture.

18 June 1998 ­ Beijing, China

More than five million people in a central China province are bracing for more flooding after heavy rains devastated the region, the official Xinhua news agency said in a report seen today. With water levels in Hunan province's major rivers approaching danger levels, soldiers and civilians were reinforcing dykes and dams to protect themselves from more floods, Xinhua said in an overnight report. Torrential rains had battered central and northern parts of the province from 12-16 June destroying crops, washing away houses, and damaging infrastructure in ten cities, the agency said. Five people were killed and another was reported missing in a landslide caused by the downpour, it said. More rain was expected in a few days, it said. Xinhua said on Monday (15 June) that the death toll from floods in the province had reached 40. Workers had repaired and reopened a railway line between the town of Zhicheng in Hunan and Liuzhou city in the south-western region of Guangxi after damage from the rains caused it to shut for 17 hours, Xinhua said.19 June 1998 ­ Floods across central and eastern China over the past week have killed 63 people, affected millions and engulfed houses, livestock and farms, the China Daily said today. In central Hunan province, torrential rains had killed 40 people, injured 17,000 and wrecked nearly 27,000 houses, leaving more than a quarter of a million people homeless, the newspaper said, quoting the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The high waters also killed 32,000 head of livestock and devastated 14,600 hectares of farmland, the newspaper said. In the eastern province of Jiangxi, flooding killed eight people when rivers swelled past danger levels, wiping out 43,000 houses, it said. Nearly 4,500 in Jiangxi were injured or became ill because of the floods, it said. Damage to agriculture was far worse than in Hunan, with more than 272,000 hectares of crops damaged and 15,700 hectares of cultivated land ruined, it said. Around 6,700 livestock had perished. The rainstorms had also triggered floods and landslides in the eastern province of Fujian, killing 15 people and injuring 3,700 others, it said. Total economic losses in the three provinces had topped yuan six billion ($723 million), Ministry figures showed. Ministry officials warned the region to brace for more floods with the rainy season still ahead, it said. The official Xinhua news agency said yesterday that more than five million people in Hunan were busy repairing damage from the floods and racing to reinforce dykes and dams in preparation for more rains.