Weather

Citation

(2005), "Weather", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 14 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2005.07314eac.001

Weather

30 November 2004Philippines

Floods and landslides caused by heavy rains have killed at least 26 people in the northern Philippines, disaster officials said, a week after storms left about 160 dead or missing. The death toll from the latest disaster was expected to rise as soldiers and other rescuers struggled to reach areas blocked by landslides and rapid currents after tropical depression “Winnie” and ahead of another storm expected to hit the country in the coming days. “We have 26 dead but that’s unofficial because we expect it to increase as we gather more information,” National Disaster Coordinating Council Executive Officer Elma Aldea said in a television interview today. Most of the deaths appeared to be in the province of Quezon, about 80 km east of Manila. Police reported 14 people, mostly children, died in the towns of Infanta and Real due to landslides. Quezon police said two bridges were washed away as the area was hit by 12 landslides. ABS-CBN television showed 13 dead bodies piled on a road in the town of Real. Officials said the northern provinces of Aurora and Nueva Ecija, where at least 18 people died after a storm last week, were also badly affected by the latest rains. In at least one of the areas, rampant illegal logging was blamed for leaving towns vulnerable to landslides, a factor in several disasters in recent years. Hundreds of families lost their homes in Marikina City, part of Manila, and Montalban in Rizal province. Aldea said there were an unknown number of casualties in the provinces of Camarines Norte in the central Philippines and Rizal near Manila. On a national highway near Gapan town in Nueva Ecija, 90 km north of Manila, about 100 passengers were rescued after being stranded for hours on top of three buses stuck in deep floodwater. “In the case of Nueva Ecija there is no doubt that illegal logging is a cause of the flashfloods,” Environment Secretary Mike Defensor told television. Rescue efforts were hampered by landslides blocking roads and a lack of helicopters. Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said he expected damage to crops to be minimal as most rice farmers in northern Luzon island, the main rice-growing area, had already harvested this season’s crop. “Winnie” had moved into the South China Sea by early today, but a more powerful tropical storm was on course to hit a wider swathe of the country around Thursday morning (2 December), meteorologists said.

30 November 2004. Rescuers were desperately searching for survivors after floods and landslides unleashed by a tropical storm in the Philippines killed more than 100 people, most buried alive under tonnes of debris, officials said. A deadly mix of logs and earth dislodged by heavy rain buried several villages in the towns of Real, Infanta and Nakar on the east coast of Luzon island shortly before midnight amid a tropical depression yesterday, accounting for most of the casualties, rescuers and survivors told AFP. The worst-hit was the town of Real, a tiny town of just over 30,000 people, where 94 people were believed buried by landslides, Air Force spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Restituto Padilla told AFP. A total of 13 deaths were reported elsewhere on Luzon. As rescuers struggled to find more bodies beneath the debris, the weather also continued to worsen and hampering the mission, Padilla said. “Most of the bodies were (found) already,” Padilla said of the 94 people trapped, quoting police rescuers on the scene. “The problem we are encountering is the bad weather. The weather is getting worse. It is still raining. Floodwaters are still rising and the bridges are down,” said Padilla. Several thousands of people are still stranded on their rooftops in Real and in the nearby towns of Infanta and Nakar, he added. Civil defence official Armando Duque warned that casualty figures were expected to rise further as large parts of Real, Infanta and the nearby town of Nakar were still under water. Areas east and north of Manila were also hard-hit, with seven deaths reported in the mountain town of Montalban, one in Pililla and one in the eastern Manila suburb of Marikina, the civil defence office said. Two people drowned in the town of San Miguel together with a third in Angat, north of the capital, provincial administrator Gladys Santa Rita said. A landslide also killed another person in Vinzons town on the Bicol peninsula. The storm caused heavy rains on the Sierra Madre mountain range north-west of Real that unleashed floods on the central Luzon plains. A helicopter on a rescue mission was buffeted by strong winds and crashed into a river near the city of Cabanatuan. Its pilot and passenger however were safe. Nearly 1,800 people elsewhere fled their homes amid rising floodwaters. Officials said poor people living on river banks and under bridges might be forcibly evacuated due to the floods. The tropical depression struck Infanta and Real yesterday before dissipating over the Sierra Madre, the weather bureau here said. Meanwhile, a tropical storm bore down on the Philippines from the Pacific Ocean with maximum sustained winds of 85 km an hour. The storm was estimated to be 1,940 km east of the eastern island of Samar at dawn and moving north-west at 19 kilometres (12 miles) an hour, meteorologists said.

1 December 2004. Rescuers have struggled to reach three Philippine towns devastated by landslides and floods that killed at least 327 people as a powerful typhoon stayed on course to hit the same area within 48 hours. Hundreds of soldiers were ordered to carry relief supplies on foot to the coastal towns as bad weather grounded the country’s few rescue helicopters. “We need to bring food, medicine and blankets to affected communities today because another typhoon will hit these areas and it could be more difficult to reach thousands of families waiting for these relief goods,” Major-General Pedro Cabuay Cabuay told local radio. At least 306 people died in the towns of Real, Infanta and General Nakar in Quezon province, about 80 km east of Manila, after heavy rains caused flash floods and landslides, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said yesterday. She said 150 people were missing in Real alone. Officials said at least 21 people had died in other areas. Witnesses said flimsy houses in the three towns were swept away on Monday night (29 November) by a torrent of timber and mud, possibly loosened by years of illegal logging. Local radio said that residents of the towns were using the logs as makeshift coffins for their dead and had appealed for body bags before the next storm arrives. “We are hoping that the typhoon would change course,” said Rose Asejo, an official at the national weather bureau. “We haven’t seen anything like this since the start of the year. It’s a super typhoon with a wider coverage and very strong winds.” Typhoon “Nanmadol”, packing winds of 150 kph at its centre is expected to hit the country’s east coast late tomorrow or Friday. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who returned early from a Southeast Asian summit in Laos to help coordinate rescue efforts, was due to tour affected areas today. However, early attempts to reach the worst-affected towns by helicopter failed due to bad weather. “They explored all approaches but they could not get in, the clouds are drifting down the mountains and the ground so the helicopters came back,” said Lieutenant Colonel Restituto Padilla, an air force spokesman.

26 November 2004Turkey

A cold snap with snowstorms that has had most of Turkey in its grip since last weekend has claimed two more lives, bringing the total number of deaths to 19 in less than a week, media reports said today. With the three deaths reported yesterday – two by freezing and one when the roof of his house collapsed under the weight of snow – and 14 on Monday (22 November), mostly in snow-related traffic accidents, the toll from the sudden wave of cold weather now stands at 19, according to media reports. Hundreds of roads and more than 2,600 villages in the east and centre of the country remained snowbound, many without electricity or telephone links, Anatolia reported. Dozens of schools were closed because of the bad weather in the same parts of the country, as well as in Bursa and Duzce, in the north-west. At least two domestic Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul were cancelled yesterday because of the snowstorms, which are expected to abate tomorrow as they move further east, the meteorology department said.

26 November 2004Typhoon “Muifa”

Chumphon residents and state agencies were bracing for the worst as tropical storm “Muifa” swept onto the eastern coast of the southern region of Thailand last night. The Meteorological Department said last night the storm was likely to hit the coast of Chumphon, instead of Nakhon Si Thammarat as earlier thought. It would bear down on the two districts of Lamae and Lang Suan rather than Khanom and Tha Sala of Nakhon Si Thammarat. The storm, packing 70 kph winds and moving at 18 kph, was reported stirring up waves seven metres high in the Gulf. Hundreds of fishing boats stayed at their moorings along the coast of Chumphon province, some in an estuary, seeking shelter from tropical storm “Muifa”, which was to hit the South overnight. Samer Saeng-arun, chief of Chumphon’s irrigation project office, said residents would be warned of possible flooding 24 hours in advance. The agency had been diverting water into the sea and preparing for possible inundation. Several parts of Surat Thani and Nakhon Si Thammarat were drenched by heavy rain yesterday, as the storm drew near. In Nakhon Si Thammarat, thousands of villagers of tambon Talumpuk in Pak Phanang district were evacuated to safe areas following predictions that the storm would come ashore there. Some men remained to guard their belongings. Fishing trawlers were called back and told not to go out until 30 November as a safety precaution. About 2,000 fishing boats are based in the province. Schools in the coastal areas were also told to close for the rest of the week. Residents of Phipun district, one of the vulnerable areas, were warned of possible run-off and mudslides. About 400 people in tambon Chonlakhram of Don Sak district in Surat Thani were evacuated after their houses flooded. The bad weather had forced Surat Thani to cancel the famous full-moon party of Koh Phangan which this month coincides with Loy Krathong festival. Ferry operators between Surat Thani, Koh Samui and Koh Phangan suspended operations at 10:00 hours, yesterday. Many schools, including 39 schools on Koh Samui, were told to close and authorities instructed to stockpile food and water supplies for a few days. The Department of Mineral Resources also warned of possible mudslides in several districts including Tha Chana, Chaiya, Khiri Ratthanikhom, Koh Samui and Koh Phangan. In Chumphon, more than 1,500 fishing trawlers had sought shelter at piers in Chumphon estuary. The navy put its fleet, led by HTMS Chakri Narubet, on stand-by for rescue and relief operations. Health officials in 14 provinces were told to ready 130,000 emergency supply packs and 100,000 first-aid kits. Health permanent secretary Vichai Thienthavorn said 300 mobile medical units were ready to go to the affected areas. Staff were on stand-by to help.

27 November 2004. Flash floods triggered by typhoon “Muifa” have killed at least 11 people in central Vietnam, officials said. Rains started this week in the central region, wreaking havoc, but no damage has been reported to the harvest in the Central Highlands coffee belt. “A red alert has been issued as floodwater is rising in all rivers in the area,” said a disaster management official from the coastal province of Quang Ngai today. He said at least four people from the province had been swept away in flash floods. Officials from neighbouring provinces including Quang Nam, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Tri said seven people had been killed. State weather forecasters said floodwater levels in the Thach Han river in Quang Tri province, around 600 km south of Hanoi, had peaked at a year-high of 5.65 metres early this morning. Weather forecasters reported only mild, occasional rains in the Central Highlands coffee belt. Low-lying areas in Thua Thien Hue province were inundated. Trucks and trains stalled in the submerged national north-south highway. Typhoon “Muifa”, downgraded to a tropical storm, had shifted from Vietnam into the Gulf of Thailand by Thursday (25 November).

28 November 2004. Flash floods triggered by Typhoon Muifa have killed at least 25 people in central Vietnam, state-run Vietnam Television said yesterday. Torrential rains hit the region this week and floods submerged more than 10,000 houses and brought traffic to a standstill.

29 November 2004. Floods and landslides have killed at least 40 people in Vietnam and 42 are missing, officials said today, and elderly wooden houses inundated at a world heritage site are in danger of collapsing. The floods, sparked by torrential rains from typhoon “Muifa” last week, have submerged 170,000 houses in five provinces and destroyed roads, cutting food relief to many areas. Thousands of people have fled their homes and an official said today that 270,000 people in just one of the affected provinces needed urgent help. Officials said they had not been able to get relief supplies though to the mountainous district of Tay Tra, in Quang Ngai province, for four days due to landslides. “We tried, but the road is blocked. Helicopters cannot land,” said a provincial official, who added that more landslides were feared. Scores of low, tile-roofed houses in the town of Hoi An in central Vietnam, declared a world heritage site in 1999 by the United Nations, appeared ready to collapse, state media quoted a local official as saying. More than 500 houses in the sixteenth-century trading centre had been submerged in waters up to two metres deep. “The quality of 83 old houses has worsened seriously. They could collapse any time,” Le Van Giang, chairman of Hoi An town People’s Committee, was quoted as saying. Thua Thien Hue province officials told Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who toured the flood-hit area yesterday, that 270,000 people needed urgent help. Weather forecasters said slight rain was expected today in the Central Highlands coffee belt. No flood damage has been reported there but the rain could disrupt harvesting. Vietnam is the world’s top producer of robusta coffee. Having skirted Vietnam, typhoon “Muifa”, which killed 61 people in the Philippines, weakened into a tropical storm and went into the Gulf of Thailand last Thursday (25 November).

2 December 2004

Typhoon “Nanmadol” was expected to slam into the east coast of the main island of Luzon early Friday (3 December). The typhoon is packing winds of 175 km per hour over the Pacific Ocean and is already bringing driving rain and strong winds to the devastated region, the government weather centre said. The worst-hit coastal towns of Real, Infanta and General Nakar suffered 364 dead and 139 missing, said the civil defence office in Manila. At least 48 people were killed and 38 missing elsewhere on Luzon. The government plans to ask the USA to provide search and rescue and engineering equipment, said Vice Admiral Ariston de los Reyes, military vice chief of staff. Four United Nations agencies have meanwhile pledged about 200,000 dollars in assistance, the defence department said. Many of the dead and missing in Real were in a three-storey building at a beach resort that was being used as a makeshift evacuation center when it collapsed at the height of the storm, civil defence officials said. President Gloria Arroyo, who just returned from a regional summit in Laos, called off plans to fly to the storm-hit areas after warnings that it was not safe for helicopters to fly. About 100 soldiers armed with picks and shovels are to be sent to villages around Real today to look for survivors and to deliver food, said Air Force Colonel Jaime Buenaflor.

2 December 2004. Residents of flood-hit Philippine towns scrambled to higher ground today as the most powerful typhoon this year threatened to cause more destruction after floods and landslides killed up to 600 people. Typhoon “Nanmadol” had gained strength and was expected to make landfall close to the worst flood-affected areas on the eastern coast later today, packing winds of 185 kph. With flying conditions treacherous and roads cut off, disaster officials said there was little they could do to protect thousands of people made homeless by the floods and who were running short of food and drinking water. “We are very worried considering there is a typhoon that will make landfall this afternoon,” said Colonel Elma Aldea, an official at the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC). “There is no potable water in these areas and we are afraid there will be an epidemic.” Airlines cancelled several domestic and international flights. Schools, government offices and the Manila foreign exchange market closed early. Officials say up to 600 people may have been killed in landslides and floods that hit several areas in the main northern island of Luzon and devastated three towns on the east coast. Citing police reports, Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes said on Wednesday that 412 people were confirmed dead, 63 injured and 177 missing. The NDCC said 37,400 families, or 168,000 people, had been affected by the floods and landslides that followed heavy rains early in the week. Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said yesterday the damage to agriculture was already near pesos 500 million (£4.6 million). Coconuts, vegetables, livestock and fisheries have been badly hit. The government has pesos one billion set aside in its annual budget for disaster relief. Hundreds of people from the town of Real, where more than 100 people died, were walking through deep mud in a attempt to reach higher ground before the typhoon hit. Houses in Real and nearby towns were destroyed by torrents of logs and mud on Monday evening (29 November) after rain loosened soil in areas that had been affected by illegal logging. The government has appealed to the USA, Japan, Australia and neighbouring South-east Asian countries for relief assistance. Seven military helicopters were sent to deliver relief goods to isolated coastal and mountain villages on the east coast, Lieutenant-Colonel Restituto Padilla said. “Our pilots are attempting to penetrate the disaster-stricken areas,” he said, adding that low clouds and poor visibility made it a risky operation. He said air force pilots had seen dozens of bodies floating in swollen rivers or buried in waist-deep mud. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday ordered a nationwide crackdown on illegal logging, blamed for several landslide disasters in recent years.

2 December 2004. The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and Philippine Ports Authority today halted all seagoing vessels due to rough waters caused by typhoon “Nanmadol”. Vice-Admiral Arthur Gosingan, PCG chief, told DZMM the new advisory superseded an earlier order halting only vessels with less than 1,000 tonnage capacity. Meanwhile, passenger Superferry 5 from Iligan, carrying 600 passengers has arrived in Manila after sailing through rough waters. The vessel arrived ten hours later because of inclement weather, according to PCG spokesman Lt. Armand Balilo. PCG Action Center chief Christopher Caunan earlier said hundreds of passengers were left stranded in provincial ports after some 50 vessels were halted. Some 850 passengers were stuck in Matnog, Sorsogon port, 450 in Pilar, Sorsogon, and 300 in Masbate City and Tabaco City ports. More than 400 passengers were also stranded at Batangas International Port Terminal after 23 roll-on, roll-off vessels and 140 cargo trucks bound for Oriental Mindoro, Romblon and Aklan, were stopped.

3 December 2004. The Philippines is rushing to bury hundreds of people killed in storms this week, as typhoon “Nanmadol” barrelled out to sea after cutting a swathe of destruction across the north of the country overnight. Officials estimate that up to 1,000 people may have been killed in the last few days by ferocious weather, the vast majority of them by a tropical storm earlier in the week that triggered heavy flooding and landslides. Body bags and lime were flown into towns devastated by the savage storms that turned streams into raging torrents of muddy water carrying boulders and logs that destroyed everything in their path. Around the town of Real, one of the worst hit areas, many of the dead were being buried in makeshift graves and marked with wooden crosses until proper burials could be arranged, amid fears of possible outbreaks of disease. Local television footage showed crudely-made plywood coffins being thrown into water-filled holes and quickly covered in mud. Schools in much of the country remained closed today along with government offices and financial markets. The civil defence office said at least eight people were killed by “Nanmadol” through drowning, hypothermia and falling trees and power lines mostly in the Bicol peninsula southeast of Manila. More than 70,000 people fled their homes in the main Philippine island of Luzon as “Nanmadol” brought heavy rains, knocking out power in some parts of the island, including areas in Metropolitan Manila. Packing winds of up to 180 km an hour, the typhoon pulled away from the main island of Luzon before dawn and at 02:00 today, it was charted 90 km south-west of the northern city of Laoag, moving northwest at 22 km per hour heading toward Hong Kong. However the government weather station said the northern half of Luzon would still experience rough weather from the lingering effects of the typhoon. “Nanmadol’s” path through the country yesterday brought rains and heavy winds that swelled floods and hampered rescue efforts for the victims of an earlier storm that hit the country from Sunday, leaving at least 922 dead or missing. Five towns north of Manila were still covered with floodwater with power not yet restored in the capital and some parts of northern Luzon and in the islands of Catanduanes and Samar. The cost of damage from “Nanmadol” still had to be tallied but initial estimates from the earlier storm were placed at 193.39 million pesos $3.4m, the civil defence office said. As “Nanmadol” pulled away from the country, ferry services resumed and navy vessels set out to reach the storm-hit town of Real, which suffered 458 dead or missing and which had previously been cut off by landslides that blocked roads and knocked down bridges and rough waters that had prevented boats from reaching there. The government has placed seven regions in Luzon under a “state of calamity” to speed up the release of relief funds for these areas. Yesterday the military carried some 200 body bags into the Real area. Today the government said it was sending another 200 body bags to Real and Infanta, another disaster area nearby, along with 200 kilograms (442 pounds) of lime. Relief workers said they could not wait for body bags and chemicals to arrive to bury the dead. Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said yesterday that bodies should be buried “as soon as possible” to prevent the outbreak of disease. President Gloria Arroyo visited Real town yesterday to oversee relief efforts and blamed illegal logging for the deadly avalanches.

3 December 2004. Taiwan issued an alert to ships off its southern coast and warned of torrential rain and possible landslides as a rare winter typhoon approached today after the storm left thousands homeless by landslides and floods and left 1,000 dead or missing in the Philippines. Taiwan has been battered by a series of typhoons and tropical storms this year, but Typhoon “Nanmadol” would be the first in 100 years to threaten the island in December, the Central Weather Bureau said. By 08:00 the storm’s centre was about 310 miles south-east of Oluanpi, Taiwan’s southernmost tip, and was moving north-west at 11 mph, the bureau said. With maximum sustained winds of 81 mph and gusts of up to 103 mph, “Nanmadol” could pose a threat to the island despite showing signs of weakening in the past few hours. The weather bureau is expected to issue a land warning later in the day.

4 December 2004. Tropical storm “Nanmadol” fizzled out today off southern Taiwan after killing one woman, leaving another three missing and disrupting road and air traffic. “We downgraded the typhoon to an extratropical cyclone at 17:30, AEDT, as it is rapidly moving east-northeast away from Taiwan,” said an official from the central weather bureau. The bureau urged residents in low-lying areas to remain vigilant against floods because the cyclone may continue bringing heavy rain to the island. “Nanmadol” roared towards Taiwan yesterday after battering the Philippines and killing about 35 people there. It made landfall at southern Pingtung early today, bringing strong winds and heavy rain. A woman was killed in the southern county of Tainan when a falling billboard hit her head while three men were missing in the east of the country, the national rescue centre said. Most rail and air services that had been cancelled this morning resumed in the afternoon.

4 December 2004. Philippines President Gloria Arroyo has suspended logging and vowed punishment for lawbreakers as the country reels from four deadly storms in two weeks. Legal and illegal logging is blamed for worsening the impact of the storms, which have left 1,000 dead or missing. Permits to fell trees across the nation will no longer be issued, pending a review of the environmental effect and illegal loggers would be punished like “terrorists and kidnappers”, Mrs Arroyo said, visiting badly hit areas. She also revoked existing licences in the worst hit areas. The Red Cross says about 800,000 people need help in the wake of the past fortnight’s storms and aid agencies have launched an appeal for more than $2m for aid relief. President Arroyo today flew by helicopter to visit residents and relief workers in three devastated towns, General Nakar, Infanta and Real. Eight officials have already been sacked for failing to check illegal logging in their areas, the Manila Times newspaper reported on its web site, but experts say the problem is more complex than just cracking down on loggers as poverty drives any people to fell trees with little regard for the law. Legal loggers are also responsible for much damage, campaigners say. “There’s hardly a difference between so-called illegal loggers and legal loggers,” said Orlando Mercado, a former senator who tried and failed to pass bills outlawing logging in the 1990s.

7 December 2004. Soldiers manned bulldozers and residents pitched in with shovels and rakes as Philippine authorities cleared mud, logs and debris today from flood-hit towns where hundreds have died. Disaster officials said 657 people were killed and 718 were missing after two weeks of storms caused floods and landslides across a swathe of the northern Philippines. Three towns on the east coast bore the brunt of the casualties. The military said relief operations had been slowed by local politics with survivors accusing some officials of distributing food, drinking water and clothes to their supporters first. Mud that buried houses started to harden as the sun shone for the first time in more than a week. The tops of street signs barely jutted out of the ground. For some people, cleaning out up to six feet of mud from their homes was too much. Some queued to escape the devastation on helicopters bringing in aid while others boarded boats to escape the devastation. As the weather improved, air force helicopters and navy ships resumed delivery of emergency supplies and heavy equipment to clear roads of mud, logs and other debris, but clean water is in short supply and fears of disease are running high. Damage to crops, fisheries and infrastructure was estimated at 3.25 billion pesos ($58 million). Residents of Real, Infanta and General Nakar who chose to remain in the towns slopped mud from houses, took inventories of belongings and tried to pick up the pieces of their lives. Lieutenant-Colonel Restituto Padilla, an air force spokesman, said more than 20 helicopters, including two US Navy Blackhawks, were shuttling relief goods into devastated areas and returning with survivors. Padilla said the US Navy would send larger helicopters tomorrow that can carry up to 5,000 pounds of cargo or up to 25 passengers to speed relief efforts. Hundreds of soldiers delivered emergency rations on foot, climbing to mountain villages not accessible by helicopter. Logging has again been blamed for exacerbating damage from a natural disaster. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said at the weekend she was cancelling all permits to cut and haul trees.

10 December 2004. Philippine rescuers, short of time and heavy equipment, have refused to give up hope of finding more survivors after four were pulled from a building that collapsed 11 days ago during a fierce storm. Nearly 1,800 people are dead or missing in eastern and northern provinces after a typhoon and three tropical storms in two weeks set off torrents of water, mud, rocks and logs that swept away villages and bridges. Three million Filipinos have been affected. With disease a major worry, relief efforts are focused on getting food, clean water, medicine and shelter to 650,000 of the most desperate by helicopter, boat and on foot. In the town of Real, soldiers and miners digging for bodies yesterday found a child, her grandmother and two teenage boys alive in the ruins of a building that was used as a chapel by born-again Christians and a storm shelter by about 120 people. The discovery of the four survivors, ten days after they were buried, gave urgency to the rescuers as they resumed digging at dawn today. Logging has again been blamed for making a natural disaster worse. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered all permits to cut and haul trees to be cancelled but timber companies have scuttled previous attempts in Congress to ban logging. Damage to crops, fishing and infrastructure is estimated at pesos 4.69 billion. It will take weeks to restore power to the worst-hit areas, clear roads and rebuild bridges. Various nations have pledged about $3.75 million in relief and aid agencies are on the scene, but Philippine officials are appealing for more help as government resources run thin.

5 December 2004Indonesia

Floods have killed 11 people and forced thousands to flee their villages on the southern part of Indonesia’s main Java island, local media reported today. Heavy rain which began yesterday caused flooding around Pacitan and the neighbouring town of Blitar. Indonesia’s national news agency reported the dead came from villages around those towns. More than 3,000 villagers from around the Blitar-Pacitan area had to seek refuge at nearby schools, Antara reported.

10 December 2004Iran

Heavy rain and floods in south-western Iran killed at least ten people and injured at least 18, the official IRNA news agency reported today. In one incident in the Bushehr province, a bus fell off a bridge into a ravine. “One person was killed, 18 were injured and nine are still missing after the bus, with 28 people on board, fell from a bridge after it was surrounded by flood waters,” Mohammad Biravand, head of police in Bushehr, told IRNA. In another incident seven people died and three went missing after a vehicle carrying 12 people was overturned by the flood waters, IRNA reported. The agency said another two people drowned but did not say in what circumstances.

14 December 2004. The number of people who have died as a result of floods and heavy rain in Iran’s southern province of Bushehr has risen to 29, student news agency ISNA reported today. An Iranian Red Crescent official put the death toll at 29 since the heavy downpour began late Thursday (9 December), but gave no further details, ISNA said. On Friday, state television reported that 17 people had been killed in auto accidents caused by floods and heavy rain in Bushehr.

19 December 2004. Heavy rains have caused flash floods that killed at least 34 people and injured 43 others in southern Iran, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said today. The flooding hit southern Bushehr province, wrecking more than 380 homes and leaving 4,000 people without shelter, the Red Crescent said in a statement. The organization, which is the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross, set up tents for the homeless and sent more than 480 aid workers to the province to provide assistance.

28 December 2004. A total of 20 people have died as a result of floods and heavy rain in Iran’s southern provinces of Hormozgan and Sistan-Balouchistan, state television reported today. Four people were found dead in the town of Iranshahr and another ten were corpses were found in the city of Sarbaz, both in the south-eastern province of Sistan-Balouchistan, after the rivers overflowed due to heavy rains. Another six people were also found dead in the southern province of Hormozgan. Five of them were killed after the bridge they were crossing was demolished by floods. The region has been inundated with rain since Saturday (25 December).

12 December 2004Malaysia

More than 4,500 people have been evacuated and at least four people drowned in the worst floods in 40 years on the east coast of peninsula Malaysia, reports and police said. A number of roads in the eastern states of Terengganu, Kelantan and Pahang have been closed after being submerged following continuous heavy rainfall during the monsoon season while rail services were partly disrupted by landslides, police said. Most government buildings, including the police headquarters and federal administrative centre, as well as shops in Kelantan had to close as the state capital Kota Baharu remained under one to two metres of water, reports said. Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mustapa Mohamed was quoted by Bernama news agency as saying some areas of Kelantan were experiencing the worst floods in 40 years. He said part of the east-west highway may have to be closed to traffic if the rain persisted, but pledged the government would ensure adequate food and other supplies for flood victims moved to make-shift centres in government schools.

13 December 2004. Floodwaters in Malaysia’s north-east states have killed at least 11 people and forced the evacuation of more than 10,000 people from their homes. The floods have been described as the worst in 40 years in a region regularly hit by monsoon rains at this time of the year. Officials say in the worst hit state of Kelantan at least seven people have drowned and over 5,000 have fled their homes. Parts of the state capital, Kota Baru, are under more than a metre of water. Electricity supplies have been cut and shops have been closed.

17 December 2004. The Malaysian Federal Government has allocated RM6 million (S$2.6 million) in disaster relief to three flood-stricken east coast states. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang will each get RM2 million for immediate relief for affected families. Noting that Kelantan was facing its worst-ever flood, he said: “This aid from the National Disaster Relief Fund is the Federal Government’s contribution to ease the hardship until the people can return to their normal daily life.” The aid will be disbursed according to methods set by each state’s disaster relief committee and agreed by the National Disaster Relief Fund committee. “Each affected family will receive RM500,” Datuk Seri Najib said. Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Minister for Agriculture and Agrobased Industries, has given an assurance to farmers in the three states. He said his ministry will arrange for compensation in kind once the damage has been assessed. The amount paid in 1995, when floods hit Penang and Kedah, was RM31 million. Meanwhile, the situation on the ground improved with good weather on Wednesday (15 December). In Pahang, for example, only 89 people in Kuantan and seven in Triang remained at relief centres, compared with the 1,500 stranded earlier in six relief centres throughout the district.