Weather conditions

Citation

(2002), "Weather conditions", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 11 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2002.07311aac.007

Weather conditions

Weather conditions

11 June 2001 – China

Rainstorms and landslides in Guangdong Province have killed 14 people over the past few days and caused hefty economic losses following the region's heaviest rain since records began, state media said yesterday. Floods wreaked havoc across the province and 1.4 million people have been affected by heavy rain. More than 5,000 houses collapsed and 200 factories were temporarily closed, Xinhua said. The storms also caused blackouts and transport and telecommunications failures in many areas. The report said, that as of yesterday, the unusually heavy rain had caused flooding in seven cities, 18 counties and 144 townships in the province, resulting in 14 deaths. Nine people were missing. The estimated direct economic loss was at least 534 million yuan (£46,605,059), the report said. Flood waters also destroyed 47 hectares of crops. Most damage occurred in Yangjiang, where flood waters forced 6,500 people to flee. In some areas of the province, the water was 4m deep, according to a China News Service report. The severe weather had also caused a series of landslides over the past few days, Xinhua said in an earlier report. The agency said the recent rainfall had been the heaviest recorded in the area. The torrential rain was continuing as relief operations got under way. Li Changchun, Party Secretary of Guangdong, has rushed to the scene to inspect the damage, Xinhua reported.

12 June 2001 – Floods and landslides caused by torrential rains have killed 17 people and caused some $78 million in damage over the past ten days in the south China province of Guangdong, officials said today. Heavy rains have hit Guangdong since 2 June, causing floods that swept away 5,300 houses and affected at least 1.76 million people, according to the Web site of Guangzhou-based Nanfang Daily today. A flash flood in Zengcheng, a county near the provincial capital of Guangzhou, stranded over 2,000 people yesterday morning, local officials told Reuters.

15 June 2001 – At least five people were killed when their vehicles plunged into a river after flash floods brought down part of a bridge in the southern province of Guangxi, local police said today. They said three people survived when a portion of a highway bridge collapsed in Luzhai county early on Wednesday (13 June). Five bodies had been pulled from the river by Friday, said a police officer. The three injured people were in a stable condition at a local hospital. Floods and landslides have claimed at least 29 lives in two other southern provinces, Guangdong and Hubei, this month.

16 June 2001 – Flooding along rivers in China's southern province of Guangxi has affected nine million people and killed 66 since May, the state-funded China News Service said. Economic damage from flooding had reached yuan 1.7 billion ($205 million), the report said. Rising waters have toppled 15,800 houses and covered 335,000 hectares of farmland throughout the province, it said, but did not say which crops were affected.

17 June 2001 – More than 100 people have died in landslides and floods fuelled by seasonal downpours in southern China, state media reported today. In the north, farmers hastened to replant shrivelled crops as thunderstorms eased severe drought. Rescue officials reported that 66 people were killed and 3,198 injured since early May in landslides and flooding in the mountainous Guangxi region, the Beijing Morning Post and other official media said. The reports said that about 5 million people were affected and that 15,800 homes had collapsed in floods. In neighbouring Yunnan Province, six people were killed and 35 injured in rain-related disasters, including the partial collapse of a steel and concrete bridge over the Yuan River in Yuxi county, about 60 miles south of the provincial capital of Kunrning. Earlier, at least 29 others were reported dead due to flooding and landslides in other southern Chinese provinces as summer rains intensified. More flooding is expected when summer rains peak next month. Violent thunderstorms brought heavy rains and some relief from chronic drought in northern China, but meteorologists warned that dry conditions would persist. State media reports said farmers were lining up to get seeds and seedlings to replant parched crops after several days of intermittent heavy showers. In arid northern China, many areas had gone 100 days without rain. The drought, the worst in at least a decade, has intensified competition among farmers, industries and cities for water, prompting tighter regulation of the precious resource.

19 June 2001 – At least two people were killed and nine are missing after a bridge was brought down by a flash flood in the northern Chinese province of Hebei, local officials said today. Rescue workers were still searching for the missing people after the bridge's collapse yesterday, officials at the Flood Relief Command Office in Pingquan, 140 miles north-east of Beijing, said. The Hebei newspaper Yanzhao Metropolitan Daily quoted witnesses as saying at least 16 people fell into the river as the bridge collapsed. Police rescued five and pulled out two bodies, officials said.

23 June 2001 – Floods in a mountainous area of southern China have killed 54 people and left 112 missing. Torrential rains during the night of 18-19 June in Hunan Province's Suining County destroyed 2,400 houses and caused widespread damage to industry, agriculture and livestock. Some 280,000 people have been affected by the floods. At least some of the missing have been found alive. Poor transportation and communication in the remote, mountainous area have hampered rescue and information gathering. Suining is 1,736 miles south-west of Beijing.

27 June 2001 – Floodwaters caused by heavy rains crushed a workers' dormitory in eastern China, killing 22 people. The accident happened before dawn in a village near Hangzhou, a city 110 miles south-west of Shanghai, Xinhua said. Floodwaters that rushed down a hillside crushed a temporary hut for workers on a construction site, the agency said. The 22 dead were migrant workers from south-west and central China, it said. Seven people were injured.

12 June 2001 – Ecuador

An avalanche of rock and mud slammed down on a group of stranded motorists in the Andes, east of the capital, Quito, killing at least 36 people, authorities said today. The people were grouped together around a campfire to get warm after several buses, trucks and cars were blocked by an earlier landslide caused by torrential rain. The deaths occurred early today about 45km east of the capital according to a statement from Ecuador's Civil Defence Office. The accident brings the total number of people killed in the country to 41 during several days of heavy rains. Nearly 2,500 other people, mostly in Ecuador's eastern and southern Amazon region, were forced to evacuate their homes because of rivers overflowing their banks, officials said. A landslide also ruptured Ecuador's main oil pipeline and is expected to cut off transport of crude oil for four to five days, Rodolfo Barniol, President of Petroecuador, said today. Landslides near the village of Papallacta, about 50km east of the capital, Quito, had damaged a 60m stretch of the oil pipeline. He said the landslides had also ruptured a 150m section of a nearby pipeline carrying home cooking gas. Mr Barniol said in an interview with Radio Quito that technicians would take "between four and five days to repair both lines". He added that there was no danger of gas or oil shortages as a result of the damage. Between 800 and 1,000 barrels of gas had escaped and was on fire, and about 10,000 barrels of crude had also spilled nearby, he said.

28 June 2001 – Cameroon

Seven people have died and ten others were missing after floods hit a coastal town in south-western Cameroon, state radio said today. It said water had risen to a height of about one metre in Limbe after two days of sustained rainfall, causing several landslides as well as damage to many homes.

29 June 2001 – Floods which swept through a town in southern Cameroon killed at least 19 people and as many again are still missing, state radio said today. Most of the 19 dead in Limbe, southern Cameroon, were killed by landslides on Wednesday in northern parts of the town, situated on the lower slopes of Mount Cameroon, the radio said. It said rescue workers were searching through mud and debris in collapsed buildings for more bodies, but there was little hope of finding more survivors.

28 June 2001 – Nepal

At least 33 people were killed in central Nepal in a landslide and floods triggered by monsoon rains, police said today. The landslide occurred in Satyadevi village in the Dhading district, 100km west of Kathmandu on Tuesday night. At least 28 people were killed, police official Puma Chandra Joshi said. "They were waiting in a house when they were washed away by the landslide", Joshi said. Flash floods swept away another five people in the same village, he added. Most of those killed were labourers staying in a house. Joshi said rescue teams had been sent to the site. Landslides and flash floods are common in mountainous Nepal during the rainy season that began recently and usually lasts until September. Since early June, 57 people have been killed in landslides and floods across the country.

5 July 2001 – Vietnam

At least 11 people were killed and three reported missing after floods triggered by heavy rains from a tropical storm swept mountainous provinces of northern Vietnam, officials said today. The floods killed nine people in the province of Thai Nguyen, north of Hanoi and two more in neighbouring Tuyen Quang yesterday, officials in the provinces said. Two people were missing in the latter province. An official of the anti-flood committee in Thai Nguyen provincial capital, about 50 miles north of Hanoi, said 1,031 houses in the province had been flooded and three people injured. The deputy chairman of Thai Nguyen People's Committee, Nguyen Ngoc Kim, told Vietnam Television the floods had hit wide areas of the province and the military had sent amphibious vehicles to rescue stranded people and distributed more than 300 lifebelts. "These are the biggest floods ever in the province," Kim said, adding that the waters had damaged part of National Highway 3 and National Highway IB, blocking traffic for hours. An official of the Tuyen Quang Disaster Committee said rains had stopped overnight but waters of the Lo River, one of two rivers flowing through the province, were still rising. He said many roads had been blocked. The nearby provinces of Bac Can and Lao Cai were also hit by heavy rain that disrupted traffic. The Central Committee for Flood and Storm Prevention called on authorities in the provinces to stay alert to the possibility of landslides and rising river levels, which would cause the floods to spread. The floods were caused by the aftermath of Typhoon "Durian", which was reported to have dwindled to a tropical low pressure system by the time it crossed into Vietnam from China on Tuesday (3 July).

6 July 2001 – The death toll in the worst floods to hit Vietnam's far north for years rose to 30 today and several other people were reported missing. The floods, caused by heavy rains in the aftermath of Typhoon "Durian", struck six highland provinces north of Hanoi from Wednesday (4 July), inundating tens of thousands of homes, swelling rivers, breaching dykes and washing away parts of some roads. Local officials said river levels had started receding overnight in Thai Nguyen and traffic had resumed in some badly hit areas. Officials said more than 5,000 homes in Thai Nguyen province, 17,490 in Tuyen Quang and around 1,000 in Vinh Phuc had flooded or collapsed.

10 July 2001 – Heavy rains caused a hillside to give way in southern China, burying houses and killing at least 14 people, an official said today. Five other people were missing and 22 were injured, said a spokeswoman for the government of Dongchuan district on the outskirts of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, where the landslide occurred early yesterday morning.

6 July 2001 – Typhoon "Utor"

Typhoon "Utor" began to make itself felt across the SAR last night with high winds and heavy rain adding to the woes of those already reeling from the effects of the wettest June on record. The Hong Kong Observatory hoisted the No. 8 signal at 19.30, but the worst of the killer storm that has wreaked havoc in the Philippines and Taiwan was not expected until around 07.00 today. At least 55 people were killed and more than 30 were missing in landslides and floods as "Utor" ripped through the northern Philippines and Taiwan on Wednesday. Most of the deaths were in the Philippines, including 34 people who were buried in landslides in the mountain resort city of Baguio and adjacent Benguet Province, and 20 people who were electrocuted. More than 70 people were injured and dozens reported missing. Meanwhile, as Hong Kong braced for the region's biggest storm in 20 years, most airlines report delayed or cancelled flights. Cathay Pacific which is already having to contend with a pilots' work-to-rule disrupting schedules, expected about 20 incoming flights and every outgoing flight after 20.30 hrs to be affected. Loading and unloading operations were suspended at Kwai Chung Container Terminal, causing traffic jams. But it was residents in the northern New Territories who were fearing the worst after being repeatedly flooded by last month's torrential downpours and lashed by strong winds brought by typhoon "Durian" on Sunday.

7 July 2001 – Typhoon "Utor" left at least 112 people dead and 58 others missing in the Philippines, the government's disaster monitoring agency said today. The typhoon battered northern Philippine provinces last week, flooding wide areas and destroying more than 3,700 houses, before moving on to drench Taiwan, Hong Kong and China's coast. More than 12,000 people in the Philippines are still in 86 evacuation centres or government shelters, the Office of Civil Defence said. The death toll could rise as the search continues for victims buried in land- slides or swept away by raging floods.

The tropical storm "Utor" killed three people as it swept through the south-eastern Chinese province of Guangdong, wiping out 4,700 homes and causing $2.6 billion in damage, state-run media reported today. Meanwhile, thousands of passengers were stranded at the Hong Kong airport today as authorities tried to clear a backlog of flights caused by the storm and a labour action by Cathay Pacific pilots. As the storm moved into Guangxi Province in China, authorities mobilised more than 10,000 soldiers and 100,000 civilians to strengthen dams and battle severe floods, China News Service said. One rural town near the provincial capital, Nanning, was submerged in record flood waters. Electricity and transportation were completely cut off, CNS said. "Utor" was centred about 70 miles north of Nanning and was moving west at about 15mph, the Hong Kong Observatory said. In Hong Kong, Airport Authority spokeswoman Wong Sauying said 116 airplanes were cancelled or delayed today, on top of the 87 flights cancelled and 407 flights delayed yesterday. Cathay said 39 out of 128 flights were cancelled today, in addition to the 56 flights cancelled yesterday due to the storm.

8 July 2001 – The death toll in the Philippines from typhoon "Utor" continued to climb today with the discovery of nine more bodies, the government's disaster monitoring agency said. Last week's typhoon triggered landslides and floods, killing at least 121 people, including at least 28 in the northern city of Baguio alone. A total of 44 people are still missing, and 130 were injured, the National Disaster Co-ordinating Council said. The typhoon destroyed more than 3,700 homes and damaged nearly 8,400 others. More than 12,000 people were still in evacuation centres or shelters. Damage was estimated at $20 million.

9 July 2001 – The death toll in China from Typhoon "Utor" climbed to at least 23 today as hundreds of thousands of people battled flooding in southern China, state media reported. "Utor" blew over houses, sank fishing boats and triggered landslides when it slammed into Guangdong province on Friday (6 July). At least 23 are known to have died in Guangdong, the government's Xinhua News Agency said. Damage was estimated at $286 million. With flooding contained, crews were clearing roads and repairing dikes, Xinhua said. In Nanning, the capital of Guangxi Province which borders Guangdong to the south, more than 300,000 residents and soldiers piled sandbags and reinforced dikes to hold back surging river waters, the People's Daily said.

9 July 2001 – Typhoon "Utor" blew over houses, sank fishing vessels and started landslides, when it hit Guangdong Province on 6 June, after killing at least 121 people in the Philippines, the Xinhua News Agency said. At least 23 people were killed in Guangdong, Xinhua said. Damage there was estimated at $300 million. In Nanning, capital of Guangxi Province, which borders Guangdong to the west, more than 300,000 civilians and soldiers piled sandbags and reinforced dikes to hold back surging rivers, the newspaper People's Daily said. "Utor" was downgraded to a tropical storm before it hit Hong Kong and China. A total of 44 people were missing in the Philippines and the storm killed at least one person in Taiwan. In western China, heavy rains killed at least eight people today in the city of Haidong, in Qinghai province, Xinhua said. At least seven others were missing. A total of 17 houses were destroyed in Xining. Trucks and tractors were swept away and highways and communications equipment damaged. Xinhua said, late today, that at least 15 people had died in rainstorms over the past week in a mountainous area of Yunnan Province on China's south-western border with Vietnam. Rains that started 4 July damaged houses, schools and roads in Jinping county, Xinhua said. It said damage there was estimated at $4.6 million.

27 July 2001 – A monster flash flood, the biggest in 100 years in the mountainous area of China's north-western province of Gansu, killed at least 30 people, a local official said today. The flash flood, which left 16 people missing, was triggered by just 40 minutes of torrential rain on Tuesday (24 July) and was of a size and ferocity "not seen in the last century", an official with the Min County government said. "Min County is susceptible to sudden summer floods every year, but the scale of this flood was frightful", he said. The semi-official China News Service said the flood had waves up to 6m high and swept away dozens of houses, cut communications and destroyed roads. The official said it had caused an estimated 40 million yuan ($5 million) in direct economic losses to the mountainous county, some 300km south of the provincial capital of Lanzhou. The disaster had prompted the State Council, China's Cabinet, to dispatch a relief team consisting of high-ranking officials to oversee rescue and rebuilding work, the China News Service said.

7 July 2001 – France

Heavy winds sent a huge tree crashing down on spectators at a Yiddish music concert, killing ten people and injuring 85 others, 18 of them seriously. The mainly teenage victims were attending an outdoor concert yesterday evening at a chateau in the suburbs of Strasbourg when high winds suddenly ripped through the area. Organisers interrupted the show and asked about 120 concert goers sitting on bleachers to take refuge under a tent. A huge plane tree, similar to a sycamore, then fell on the tent. Six men and four women, all around the age of 18, were killed. Seven children were among the injured. Most of those injured suffered neck and head trauma, according to police for the Bas-Rhin region. The organisers had apparently received the go-ahead for the concert despite the weather forecast. Much of France was hit yesterday evening by strong winds and rain.

15 July 2001 – South Korea

At least 33 people have been killed in landslides and flooding triggered by heavy rain which swept across northern parts of South Korea. Government officials say 14 people are missing, including eight tourists who were swept away in rain-swollen streams in Kapyong, a camping resort 22 miles north-east of Seoul. With the rain now letting up, thousands of soldiers and government officials are helping flood victims to clear debris from some 15,000 homes that have been inundated. South Korea's all-news cable channel YTN is reporting that 36 people died and 15 are missing. Up to 12.2in. of rain fell overnight in Seoul and Kyonggi, a populous province surrounding the capital. President Kim Daejung urged his Cabinet to take steps to speed the clean-up and ensure preparations are made against more rain-related damage. About 9,000 disaster officials have been mobilised, and 1,050 military troops have been dispatched to storm-damaged regions to deal with emergencies.

15 July 2001 – Torrential rains drenched many parts of South Korea last night through this morning, leaving 38 people dead and 15 others missing, Yonhap News Agency reported. More than 300mm of rain fell on Seoul and about 220mm in Inchon and 175mm in Tongduchon in Kyonggi Province, destroying houses and overflowing rivers, Yonhap said. About 10,000 houses in Seoul were submerged and parts of the city's subway system were flooded, forcing temporary suspension of services.

16 July 2001 – The death toll in South Korea from the heaviest rain in 37 years rose to 45 today as rescue workers sifted through wreckage left by the downpour. The rain, which was most severe in the area of the capital, Seoul, followed months of unprecedented drought and triggered floods and landslides. Disaster relief officials said 45 people were reported dead and nine were missing after more than 12in. of rain fell in two days. Most of the victims were electrocuted by downed overhead wires, while some drowned in their homes or were killed when their houses collapsed under landslides. The National Disaster Prevention and Countermeasures Headquarters said the value of property damage from the storm was still being tallied. The rains hit South Korea after its worst drought on record, during which more than 100,000 soldiers were deployed to provide emergency water supplies to farms and to help transplant rice seedlings. Thousands of people were evacuated from flooded homes in the south and hundreds were moved from campsites along swollen rivers and the seashore, the disaster headquarters said. More than 30,000 houses in the capital and surrounding areas were flooded, officials said. Almost 3,000 soldiers were helping in the hunt for the missing and clearing away fallen trees, electrical supply poles and more than 450 vehicles damaged in the storm. Thousands of government workers and police were also called out to help. A bridge across Seoul's Ran River reopened today after flood waters topped the roadway yesterday. Subways, highways and roads across the capital were also flooded. The Agriculture and Forestry Ministry reported almost 1,600 hectares (3.954 acres) of rice paddies were flooded. One domestic flight was cancelled and 17 international flights were delayed over the weekend at Incheon International Airport which serves Seoul, but a spokesman said operations were back to normal today. The meteorological agency forecast substantially lighter rainfall today and tomorrow and lifted emergency weather warnings at 05.00.

17 July 2001 – India

Landslides triggered by heavy rain have killed ten people and 15 others are missing from three villages in the north of India. The Press Trust of India says the bodies of ten people have been recovered after the landslides hit the villages in the Himalayan state of Uttaranchal. Officials say rescue operations are continuing, despite heavy monsoon-season rainfall in the area. They say a large number of homes in the villages have been damaged by the landslides which have also caused flash floods.

17 July 2001 – Army and Air Force personnel have been called in for relief and rescue operations as the flood situation in the state worsened, with the death toll climbing to 31. The Orissa government requested an ad hoc financial assistance of Rs200 crore. Two MI-S helicopters of the Indian Air Force, which arrived at Bhubaneshwar this afternoon, began air dropping of food packets in the Kantilo area of Nayagarh district, where about 10,000 people had taken shelter in the premises of the Nilamadhab temple. Four more helicopters would be in service over the next two days. Four columns of the army were on their way to the flood-hit areas from Ranchi and Ramgarh in Jharkhand and Sagar in Madhya Pradesh.

18 July 2001 – The largest dam in the eastern Indian state of Orissa was threatening to overflow today, as rivers rose to dangerously high levels following torrential rains, officials said. About 7,200 villages were cut off and as many as half a million people were believed to be marooned in different parts of the coastal state, following flash floods caused by the rains, officials said. The water level at the Hirakud dam had risen to less than 1m (3ft) short of its capacity, due to rains in the catchment area of the Mahanadi River, which runs through the state, Special Relief Commissioner H.K. Pande said. He added that the situation will get worse. Officials said there were quite a few breaches of the Mahanadi and its tributaries this morning. Pande said all 45 sluice gates of the Hirakud dam were opened today and water levels were at an all-time high in Cuttack and Jagatsinghpur. The rains in Orissa have been unusually heavy during the annual monsoon season, which begins in June and lasts until September. Officials said the state had received 84 per cent more rain than usual between 1 June and 11 July. Yesterday, army helicopters began dropping food packets to thousands of marooned people, but intermittent heavy rain and poor visibility were hindering the relief flights. One helicopter on its way to the Cuttack district was forced to turn back without dropping its relief cargo because of bad flying conditions. With large parts of Orissa now vast sheets of water, road travel has been badly hit, with the air force the only lifeline. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has asked the federal government for Rs2 billion for relief operations in Orissa where flash floods have already killed 23 people, washed away 4,000 houses and damaged 14,000 homes in the past ten days. Officials said one army relief column of 100 men had reached the state capital, Bhubaneswar, and another was on its way. Last Friday (13 July), authorities evacuated 300,000 people from flood-hit coastal areas, after raging rivers swamped parts of the state. The flooding has caused huge crop damage, officials say. Elsewhere, 27 people were feared dead in landslides triggered by heavy rains in the Rudraprayag district of the northern state of Uttaranchal on Monday, the Press Trust of India reported.

22 July 2001 – Relief workers were battling to help more than 500,000 people still marooned in the eastern Indian state of Orissa today as swollen rivers receded, officials said. The floods, triggered by torrential monsoon rains, have left 45 people dead and affected more than seven million people in the last ten days in the poverty-stricken coastal state. Huge swathes of muddy water criss-crossed the landscape in the state's central eastern districts, home to more than 10,000 villages. "The trend of all the rivers is that water levels continue to fall", Karnnakar Biswas, a government official, said. "Over 500,000 people are still marooned but the number of people totally cut off is decreasing as waters recede particularly into the Bay of Bengal", Biswas said. In the district of Jajpur in the state's eastern part, patches of land started appearing from the huge expanses of muddy waters as water levels fell in the tributaries of the state's two major rivers, the Mahanadi and Brahmani. Villagers, with sacks on their heads, waded in waist deep water between the flooded village of Borajali Kundada and a highway some 200m away. The village is some 60km north-east of the state capital Bhubaneswar. Even though waters were receding, officials said in many areas fast moving currents had made relief operations dangerous. They said high tides over the past two days had prevented flooded water in low-lying areas flowing into the sea, although the situation was expected to improve. "By today, the outflow into the sea should really start", said A.K. Patnaik, another government official. To aid thousands still stranded in villages cut off by the floods, eight Indian Air Force helicopters and 1,000 government boats, including military motor launches, were supplying food and medicines, officials said. Villagers perched on embankments could be seen receiving pouches dropped from Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters in many flood-ravaged areas. Many were taking shelter under plastic sheets placed on bamboo sticks on elevated roads. Vast lakes of water were visible from a helicopter on a relief mission over Jagatsinghpur, one of the worst-hit areas. Much of last week's flooding was triggered by water from the massive Hrikud dam, more than 300km upstate. The dam was forced to release water after heavy rains in the catchment areas of the Mahanadi River in the neighbouring state of Chhattisgarh. However, today an official said that the water level at the dam was at 621ft, just below the critical level of 630ft.

23 July 2001 – Trying to help in a region where monsoon floods have forced tens of thousands to flee their homes, helicopters dropped rations to villagers sheltered in the ruins of an ancient Buddhist monastery in eastern India today. The two dozen sacks of rice, bread and drinking water, however, were clearly inadequate for the hundreds of refugees living among the brick ruins in Lalitgiri, 40 miles north-east of the state capital, Bhubaneshwar. Elsewhere, six military helicopters made 30 trips today, delivering 70 tons of emergency food, air force spokesman S.B. Savarkar said. The floods, caused by two weeks of heavy rain, have killed at least 77 people in Orissa. Residents of an estimated 13,000 villages have fled their homes, said B.B. Harichandan, the state's revenue minister. Rivers, swollen by the rainwater, have risen above their banks, destroying millions of acres of rice and vegetable fields and carrying away hundreds of thousands of cattle. Only tree tops and straw roofs poke out of the muddy floodwaters where villages once were. Thousands of refugees are living along the highways – almost the only high ground available – in crude tents made of sheets of plastic propped up on bamboo poles. Nearly 1 million people are living on the rooftops of their homes or in trees. For many, the air-lifted supplies are the only means of survival. With rainfall lessening in some areas, the flood waters have begun to recede. But health officials say the state's medical services are stretched to the limit treating thousands of cases of diarrhoea and jaundice. The overflowing rivers have prevented medical teams from reaching many remote villages.

24 July 2001 – Another 100,000 people joined the millions left homeless by two weeks of heavy monsoon rains when floods hit yet another town in the eastern state of Orissa today, officials said. The death toll has reached 83. Rescuers evacuated most of the residents of Kendrapara, a town 60 miles north of Bhubaneshwar, the state capital, to higher ground after the waters reached their homes. There were several fresh floods along the Brarnhani River and its tributaries following the release of water from an overflowing reservoir, and officials braced for more. The floods, the worst in 50 years to hit Orissa, which borders the Indian Ocean, have submerged large parts of 24 of its 30 districts. At least 3,000 people have been stricken with severe diarrhoea, and 12 people have died, state Health Minister Debi Mishra said. There has been no outbreak of cholera, however, as some local newspapers reported, Mishra said. More than 80 teams of doctors and paramedics have already reached flooded districts and more than 150 more teams will be sent in the next four to five days, Mishra said. Rice, bread, drinking water and medicine have reached nearly all the eight million people affected by the flood, including those still marooned in their villages, Harichandran said.

21 July 2001 – Iran

State media in Iran say at least 11 people have been killed and that more than 20 others are missing following heavy flooding in the north-western province of Ardebil. A senior emergency official, Behrouz Qorbani, said the flooding had inflicted heavy damage in the foothills of Sabalan Mountain, near the city of Meskinshahr. Rescue teams have been sent to the affected area. The flooding follows torrential rains and hail storms.

23 July 2001 – Pakistan

At least 38 people were killed and more than 40 injured, today, when a flash flood washed away a small hillside village in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, local officials said. An official at the deputy commissioner's office in Manshera town said that about 25 houses in the village were washed away by the flash flood that struck early in the morning. "We are still trying to recover people from the debris and those who have been swept away in the nearby river (Siran)", the official said. The village is 95km (60 miles) north of Islamabad.

23 July 2001 – Torrential rains sent a mass of mud roaring down a mountainside in north-west Pakistan today, burying dozens of homes and killing at least 62 people. Elsewhere, floods and mudslides left another 29 dead. Many others were missing and the death toll could rise, police said. By midday today, 24in. of rain had fallen in Islamabad –the heaviest downpour recorded in the capital in 100 years, weather officials said. As torrential rains pounded large parts of northern and central Pakistan, the government implored people living close to rivers and canals to leave their homes. Rescuers were digging frantically through mountains of mud, pulling out bodies and survivors. Some people were dragged downstream by raging rivers, rescue workers said. The worst-hit area was Mansehra district, where a river of mud buried homes in a tiny village called Old Dadar, 66 miles north of the capital Islamabad, police officials said. A total of 62 people were killed there. Details from the remote, mountainous area in northern Pakistan were sporadic, with many telephone lines to Mansehra down because of the rain, government officials and police said. In Buner, a town 120 miles north of Peshawar in north-west Pakistan, a flash flood killed 25 people when it engulfed their homes in water, police said. In Islamabad, rains caused several homes in poor districts to collapse, killing four people. The overall death toll stood at 91. Reports from villages near Buner said residents were using their hands to dig through the mud in search of survivors. Dozens of homes, many made of sunbaked mud, collapsed and were washed away in the lashing rains that caused rivers to swell and mountains to shed giant rivers of mud. Several mud homes in some of the poorest areas of Islamabad also collapsed, killing four people. The army has been deployed to assist rescue workers in the hardest-hit areas.

25 July 2001 – Poland

Flooding caused by heavy rain in southern Poland has killed at least nine people, emergency workers said today. Roads and buildings were flooded this week due to overflowing rivers. Emergency workers said more heavy rain was expected. The Polish Government held a crisis meeting in Warsaw to discuss fears of major population centres being flooded by the Odra and Vistula Rivers. "The current situation is quite severe and we can expect it to get even worse in the next couple of days", Witold Maziarz, spokesman at the national firefighting headquarters, said. "If we get intense rainfalls and strong winds, as expected, then many more rivers could overflow. We are preparing ourselves for many more operations." The flooding forced a car off a bridge in the area killing four people yesterday, while three more died today, Maziarz said. Authorities did not provide details on the other two deaths. Towns near the Polish southern border were badly affected, including the town of Novy Sacz where roads and hundreds of buildings were flooded this morning. Maziarz said that around 800 people had been evacuated from their homes since yesterday. According to the PAP news agency, local officials said property damage amounted to hundreds of millions of zlotys. Farmers in northern Poland have also reported crop damage after the recent rains and storms.

30 July 2001 – Hundreds of people were evacuated from six villages early today as the floodwater that has swamped much of southern Poland, overwhelmed dikes and surged downstream, emergency workers said. Some 25 people have been killed by the floods and violent storms in Poland this month, including 12 since the situation worsened in the south last week. Thousands have been forced from their homes. In the latest rescue operation, 1,800 people were evacuated from six villages after the Vistula River broke a 40yd hole in saturated dikes in Zalesie Gorzyckie and a tributary flooded near Zlota, about 130 miles south of Warsaw. No one was hurt, said Stanislaw Gacek, fire chief in the nearby city of Sandomierz, though some 50 houses were flooded and the region's main railway tracks were damaged. More than 12,000 acres of farmland were hidden under the brown water. Some 3,000 people were evacuated yesterday from Sandomierz, which so far has escaped flooding. About 1,000 firefighters and soldiers were helping local residents reinforce dikes with sandbags. Gacek warned that rivers might breach their banks in other places. But he said the work on the dikes should mean fewer leaks. "The water is receding, the situation is stabilising, but we still have a lot of trouble and work to do", he said. The floodwater is expected to reach Warsaw tomorrow night, but not to cause serious damage. Emergency services were nevertheless put on alert there today, according to Boguslaw Stanislawski of the National Crisis Management Centre. Storms and torrential rains have swept across Poland since 10 July, flooding property in the Baltic port city of Gdansk and sweeping away houses in southern Poland.

30 July 2001 – About 1,300 people in south-eastern Poland were evacuated from their villages early today, as the swollen Vistula River breached a dike, officials said. Floodwaters burst the dike near Kamien, about 105 miles from Warsaw, at about 05.30. Inhabitants of the nearby villages of Kepa Gostebcka and Kepa Solecka were evacuated, according to a spokesman for the national fire-fighting service. About 500 emergency workers and 180 troops were trying to repair the dike, breached along a 44yd stretch. Further upstream at Annopol, rescue workers were toiling to strengthen another dike that had started leaking.

1 August 2001 – Flooding in Poland, which has killed ten people since the beginning of last week, finally eased today as a surge on the Vistula River weakened on its way towards the Baltic Sea. "We do not fear any more severe floods. The worst is over", national fire service spokesman Witold Maziarz said. "We have the flood situation under control." Flood alarms were still in force on a 350km stretch of the Vistula, whose crest was expected to hit Torun, north-west of Warsaw, early yesterday, and to reach the coast at the weekend. There were 29 weather-related deaths in Poland in July, the highest toll since floods in 1997 killed 55 people and caused property damage estimated at 12 billion zlotys ($2.8 billion). The government has so far set aside 800 million zlotys for flood relief, while Germany, the European Union and the Vatican have also provided financial and technical help. Several villages south-east of Warsaw were still under water after sodden dykes on the Vistula ruptured in recent days. A big clean-up operation was continuing in Poland's southern uplands, where flash floods last week claimed most casualties.

2 August 2001 – Floods south of the Polish capital were receding rapidly today, as a 65-mile flood wave headed northward along the Vistula River. Troops used explosives overnight to widen a gap they had blown early yesterday, in a dike near Braciejowice, about 100 miles south-east of Warsaw, allowing more water to flow back into the Vistula from flooded land. The water level in the area, where the villages of Kepa Solecka and Kepa Gostecka were flooded Monday, dropped by about 2ft overnight. With less water pouring down the Vistula into the region, pressure was easing on dikes that hundreds of troops and fire-fighters have been reinforcing over recent days. The level of the river dropped by 6in overnight. A flood alert was announced yesterday, in the Pomorskie province, around the Baltic Sea port of Gdansk where the flood wave was expected Saturday (4 August), but authorities said there was no threat from the rising water. Weather forecasts predicted sunshine today across Poland. The surge earlier this week passed through the capital Warsaw without causing serious damage. Peasant farmers, yesterday, set out in small boats to check their drowned crops and ruined orchards. Ryszard Jurak, 48, lost his wheat and vegetable crop. He was still hoping to salvage part of his apple harvest, but was worried about his one-storey brick house in Kepa Gostecka. He said everything is floating inside and the house is slightly tilted.

1 August 2001 – Bangladesh

Floods caused by heavy monsoon rains have trapped nearly 50,000 people in their villages and damaged hundreds of houses in northern Bangladesh. Schools were closed as flood waters entered the low-lying areas of Sunamganj, 110 miles north-east of the capital, Dhaka. Some streets in the town are knee-deep in water. The Surma River broke two mud embankments meant to protect villages and crop lands in the Sunamganj and neighbouring Sylhet districts. At least 30,000 people have been stranded in flooded houses in the Sunamganj and Sylhet districts, located across the border from the Indian state of Assam, another rain-hit region. Another 20,000 people have been marooned in the northern districts of Netrokona and Chapainawabganj. Flood-affected villagers used home-made boats or rafts fashioned from banana trees to get around. Flood waters swamped at least 40 villages in the northern districts of Sunamganj, Sylhet, Netrokona and Chapainawabganj. The Meteorological Department said 9.4in. of rain has fallen in the region this week. The rains, along with flood waters coming from the neighbouring Indian state of Assam, have caused the Surma and Teesta Rivers to overflow their banks.

2 August 2001 – Schools closed and thousands fled their inundated homes after floods caused by heavy monsoon rains swamped more villages and affected nearly 200,000 people in northern Bangladesh, authorities said today. At least 15,000 villagers, displaced by the floods, have taken shelter atop raised ground or mud embankments in the worst-hit Sylhet and Sunamganj districts. The region is 190km north-east of the capital, Dhaka, and borders on the Indian states of Assam and Meghalaya. On Tuesday and Wednesday (31 July and 1 August), flood waters entered 55 more frontier villages in Sylhet district, closing schools and stores, Dhaka's Flood Warning Centre said. Now 200,000 people are stranded in more than 200 villages in the northern districts, where schools and businesses are closed, said the centre. Flood waters washed away dirt roads or overflowed the paved streets, disrupting communication and transportation. Gushing waters from the overflowing Surma, Teesta and Kushiara Rivers broke mud embankments meant to protect villages and crop lands in the Sunamganj and neighbouring Sylhet districts. Local people joined engineers to dump hundreds of sandbags in the gaps. The Meteorological Department said 10cm of rain fell on the region during a 12-hour period ending at 18.00 today.

1 August 2001 – Indonesia

At least 62 people were killed and hundreds were reported missing as a landslide buried 207 parts of a village on a remote Indonesian island, government officials said today. Rescue workers were on their way to Sambulu village on Nias island, about 100km off the north-west coast of Sumatra island, said government official Abdurrahman Nasution. He said at least 103 houses were destroyed in the landslide yesterday. Mr Abdurrahman said villagers were searching through the rubble for survivors and had reported that 62 people had been killed. Several hundred residents were still unaccounted for. Although Indonesia is in the middle of its annual dry season, there has been an unusually large amount of rainfall in parts of the country. Much of Sambulu village was still underwater today, officials said. It was not clear what triggered the landslide, but three earthquakes – measuring between 5.3 and 5.4 magnitude – were recorded near Nias Island yesterday, the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said.

2 August 2001 – Hundreds of people reported missing after landslides and floods on a remote Indonesian island have turned up safe, officials said today. However, the whereabouts of about 200 villagers in the mountainous interior of Nias Island, off the west coast of Sumatra, were still unknown. Local government official Herlan Tandjung said rescuers had made contact with more than 600 people who had been unaccounted for. Most of the survivors had moved to higher ground to escape rising waters, he said. Initially, local officials had reported that 64 people had died. However, they scaled the figure back to 35 after they received more reliable information from the disaster sites. Flood waters have washed away roads and covered the south-west of the island. A major river had burst its banks and landslides had flattened trees and scarred hillsides. On the ground, hundreds of police officers and villagers were digging through mud and wreckage to find survivors and bodies. At least 1,500 people were made homeless by the disaster. They sheltered in four camps in Lalusa district, one of the worst-hit areas, said Gen. Kusnanto, Nias police commander. He said there was no heavy equipment on the island and rescue efforts were being hampered by blocked roads and swollen rivers. An Indonesian Navy vessel was scheduled to arrive on the island late Thursday to evacuate victims. The island, 1,300km north-west of Jakarta, has a population of about 600,000. It has little infrastructure and many villages in the interior are inaccessible by road. Getting emergency assistance to the victims is likely to be difficult. Nias has only a small airstrip, and access by boat from the nearest port on Sumatra island takes at least eight hours.