Floods

Citation

(2006), "Floods", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 15 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2006.07315dac.005

Floods

25 April 2005Ethiopia

Floods killed at least 84 people after a river burst its banks in Eastern Ethiopia because of heavy rains, officials said today. The flooding struck nearly 40 villages along the banks of the Wabe Shebelle River in Ethiopia's Ogaden region, destroying many homes, an emergency official said. “Following an investigation of more areas affected by the flood, it is now confirmed that the death toll from Wabe Shebelle river flooding has risen to 68 and could be rising,” relief coordinator Muktar Mohammed Seyyid told Reuters. Aid group Save the Children UK said another 16 bodies were discovered downstream in the Kebre-Beya area. The river burst its banks on Saturday night (April 23) after 48h of heavy rain.

27 April 2005. Relief aid has begun to reach survivors of devastating floods that hit Eastern Ethiopia, but the death toll could rise further without more help, officials said today. Some plastic sheeting and high-energy biscuits had arrived in the region but rescuers had been unable to get to all the survivors, Ahmed Abdi, from the UN's World Food Programme, said from Gode, one of the worst-affected areas. Many parts of the region still remained cut off, he said. Thousands were left homeless after flood waters crashed into 40 villages in Somali region at the weekend (April 23-24), sweeping families away, officials added. “This is a catastrophe,” Muktar Mohammed Seyyid, government relief co-ordinator, said. “If we don't take action I am afraid the death toll will increase.” The toll had risen to 82 dead with 30 people still missing, although Muktar said those figures could change. The floods, he added, had affected about 30,000 people, and at least 5,000 families had been left homeless. “We need boats, we need helicopters and we need food and plastic sheeting,” Muktar added. “Floods have not only led to deaths and displacement but also to extensive damage to property and farmland,” the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement released yesterday. “The current needs include food, shelter, blankets and utensils and medical care due to the potential increase of cases of malaria and waterborne diseases,” it added. The Wabe Shebelle stretches for over 1,340km and is Ethiopia's largest river, with a water catchment area of 200,000km. It burst its banks on Saturday after two days of heavy rains. Flood waters swept over 10km, forcing survivors to flee their homes to the safety of higher ground. Heavy rains and floods also hit Hargeysa, the capital of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, washing away one of the two bridges in the south-western part of the city. More than 500 families were displaced, Abdillahi Irro, mayor of Hargeysa said yesterday. Some 270 families were relocated to a camp belonging to the Somaliland police force. Muktar said if the current heavy rains continued in Ethiopia – and forecasters expected thunderstorms would continue into the weekend –further deaths could result from flooding.

2 May 2005. The death toll from flooding last month in a remote area of South-East Ethiopia has risen to at 134 and may go higher, officials say. Crocodiles are reported to have eaten at least 19 people during the floods. Rescue teams are working to bring in much-needed emergency supplies but are still unable to reach many survivors. Tens of thousands of people have been unable to return home because of floods and the fear of crocodiles, said the top local emergency official. Remedan Haji Ahmed, who heads the government's emergency response in the area, said: “We are going to declare an emergency.” Red Cross and Red Crescent workers are bringing in emergency shipments of blankets, plastic sheeting, cooking utensils and medical supplies.

5 May 2005. The combination of drought followed by recent floods in Ethiopia has caused a food emergency in the country where four million people now need food aid to survive. In a new report, the UN warns that 136,000 children are severely malnourished. Aid workers say that number will double if food aid is not increased and children in Southern Ethiopia will begin dying. The Ethiopian Government had reported a bumper harvest last year, but it is believed the figures were inflated. Drought has seriously affected food supplies and now massive floods have hit the north-east of the country. About 150 people have died and more than 250,000 people have been displaced by the rains.

21 May 2005. At least 20 people, including six children, were killed in flash floods overnight yesterday after an intense, sudden downpour pounded Ethiopia's South-Eastern town of Dire Dawa, officials said today. Hospital officials in the town, about 520km from the capital, said they had received 17 bodies, six of which were children, but police said the death toll was higher. “We are still recovering bodies and we cannot give exact figures, but our initial report indicates that 20 people were washed away and have all died,” said Derege Betru, a police official in Dire Dawa.

28 April 2005Indonesia

Flash floods swept through three villages in the Indonesian Province of Aceh, leaving 15 people dead and five missing, residents and officials said. The floods, which destroyed about 490 homes in the village of Lawe Mengkudu in South-Eastern Aceh, were caused when a river burst its banks after a day of heavy rain. Rescue workers had recovered 15 bodies, Southeast Aceh district chief Armen Desky said. “The flood actually hit three villages in the area but all of the victims came only from two of them,” he added. A local policeman said earlier that about 18 people were injured.

29 April 2005Saudi Arabia

Flash floods killed at least 34 people in Saudi Arabia in the last two days, sweeping cars off roads and destroying houses, newspapers said today. “Al Okaz” newspaper said 37 people were killed in the Southern Asir Province and the port City of Jeddah. Another daily, “Al Watan” put the death toll at 34.

4 May 2005. Jeddah experienced heavy rain accompanied with hailstorm and winds exceeding 60km/h at 04:40h, April 28. Unofficial sources claimed 70cm rainfall fell during this period. Several parts of the city including storage areas in Jeddah Islamic Port were flooded with rainwater causing considerable damage to various cargoes.

15 May 2005Taiwan

Torrential rain in Taiwan has caused mass flooding and landslides that have claimed the lives of four people and left another four missing, fire agency and government officials said today. “The bodies of the four victims have been found,” said an official from the National Fire Agency, which coordinates rescue operations in Taiwan. A 60-year-old man was drowned in Northern Hsinchu City. Two agricultural officials were found dead after they were washed away by rising floodwater outside the city in Hsinchu County. The fourth victim was working on a riverbed in South-Eastern Taitung County when he was engulfed by floodwaters, the agency said. Hundreds of residents were evacuated from Hsinchu County and central Nantou, where at least 500mm of rain had fallen in three days, it said. “They were relocated to nearby places which are safe,” Hsinchu's Deputy Council Magistrate Peng Kwang-cheng said. Television footage showed two cities outside Taipei – Sanchung and Hsinchuang – were marooned, with flood rising to 3m in some places. Taiwanese authorities also ordered the hundreds of people to be evacuated from mountainous regions where the torrents of water were causing landslides. The downpours prompted landslide alerts in six counties and a city, interrupting the search for three people who went missing and were feared killed in a landslide while scaling a mountain in Nantou on Tuesday. Another man, a worker on a bridge in Hsinchu County, was washed away by rising floods, but is still listed as missing.

1 June 2005China

Heavy rain had triggered floods and mudslides in Southern China, leaving about 200 people dead or missing, a resident and state media said today. Torrential rain hit a mountainous region of Hunan Province in the early hours and 17 people died in floods, the online edition of the official Xinhua news agency said. About 35 people were missing. However, a local resident with knowledge of the extent of the damage and casualties said about 200 people died or were missing after floods toppled more than 3,500 homes in Xinshao and Lianyuan counties in Hunan. “Villagers, cadres and rescuers were washed away by floods,” the resident said. “More than 10,000 people were left homeless after their homes were either washed away, flooded or toppled,” he said. Electricity was cut and houses and crops destroyed in four flooded villages in Xinshao County, Xinhua said. More than 60,000 villagers had been evacuated, it said. In South-Western Guizhou Province, a thunderstorm triggered flooding and landslides killing 12 people and injuring dozens, state radio said.

2 June 2005. The damage from Tuesday's (May 31) hailstorms in Beijing has reached 48 million yuan, or about six million US dollars. These figures were released by the Beijing Bureau of Civil Affairs. May 31 saw heavy hailstorms, with hail as big as golf balls, hit the capital city. In only several minutes, crops and thousand of cars were destroyed. The Bureau says nearly 90,000 residents were affected by the storm.

3 June 2005. Heavy rain and mountain torrents have left at least 80 people dead and 60 missing in central and western China, officials and state media reported yesterday as rescuers rushed to evacuate people and ferry in supplies. Hardest hit was Hunan Province, where more than 5 million people were affected. Xinhua said at least 47 were killed there and another 50 left missing. In neighbouring Guizhou Province, 18 were reported dead while heavy rain in Sichuan killed five. Most of the fatalities in Hunan occurred in Xinshao County and Lianyuan City when runoff from torrential rain surged down Mount Dragon between Tuesday night (May 31) and Wednesday morning. “About 3,500 buildings collapsed in this county alone,” said Shen Guirong, Director of the propaganda department in Xinshao. “Telecommunications, transportation and water supplies are not working. It will take time to restore them. We need medicine to treat those who were injured when the buildings collapsed. We don't know how many are injured and are still gathering details.” In Xinshao, 210mm of rain fell in just 2h. The resulting mountain torrents were responsible for at least 30 deaths. About 11 people died in Hetang, a town of 51,000 people and one of the most badly affected places in Lianyuan, with 13 still missing. Hetang township official Ouyang Yi said most of the dead were children and the elderly. He said hopes were slim of finding the missing alive. According to Mr Ouyang, 2,000 houses had collapsed, a third of the area's farmland was laid to waste and economic losses were estimated at 20 million yuan. Relief supplies to remote areas had to be taken in on foot because almost all of the local roads had been washed away. About 19 people died in Xinshao in what one unnamed county flood prevention official said were the worst downpours in more than five decades. The official also confirmed that Taizhimiao village Deputy Party Secretary Li Yinghui was killed when he and six other officials were swept away in their minibus as they tried to raise the alarm in surrounding villages. Only one of the officials survived. Yin Huajie, a Flood Prevention and Anti-Drought Commission spokesman from the Hunan City of Shaoyang, last night said workers were still trying to reconnect electricity and restore communications and transport services disrupted by the rain. The Hunan Meteorology Bureau expected the rain to continue for the rest of the week, but in reduced volume. Meanwhile, in Guizhou the downpours forced more than 4,000 residents to be evacuated. Guizhou relief official Zhao Weidong said five people were missing and that the bill for damages across the 32 affected counties has been estimated at 90 million yuan.

4 June 2005. China has dispatched disaster teams to flood-stricken areas, state media reported, after torrential rain razed mountain villages, possibly killing hundreds of people. A team headed by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and including officials from the education, health and water resources ministries, arrived yesterday in the worst hit area, Xinshao County in the South-Central Province of Hunan. “Efforts should be concentrated on the resumption of power and water supply as well as traffic and communication in the disaster-hit areas,” the official Xinhua news agency said in an overnight report. Three days of rain in Hunan and the Western Provinces of Sichuan and Guizhou killed at least 88 and left 73 missing, state media said. But with houses uprooted and mountain torrents flattening buildings, many more are feared dead. The flooding, an annual event in China that causes huge loss of life, has affected nearly 6 million people so far and caused direct economic losses of 2.47 billion yuan ($300 million), Xinhua said. More than 70,000 homes were destroyed and 215,000 people evacuated.

6 June 2005. A week of torrential rains and heavy flooding has killed at least 204 people in China and left 79 others missing, but forecasters warned the worst was yet to come, state media reported. The heavy downpours, which began in many parts of China last week, have affected more than 17 million people, including many who have lost property or been forced to flee flooded areas, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Official statistics showed that 614,000ha of farmland were destroyed and 137,900 rooms damaged as flooding affected several provinces, Xinhua said. Tens of thousands of livestock have also been killed. Strong rainfall is expected to pound the Yangtze River, China's longest river, in the coming ten days and trigger more floods and landslides, according to China's Meteorological Bureau. In coming days, the Three Gorges area of the river is expected to see 35-50mm of rainfall, more than the typical 30-45mm in previous years. The river will enter an even rainier period starting mid-June. Local governments across the country have been ordered to mobilise resources to battle the floods, with the focus on ensuring major rivers and reservoirs are not breached. Vice Premier Hui Liangyu told a meeting of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters Saturday (June 4) that measures should be taken to reduce human casualties and keep property loss to a minimum, Xinhua said. The worst-affected province was Hunan in central China where 75 people were reported dead and 46 others missing, said Xinhua. Economic losses in the province were estimated at 2.3 billion yuan ($277 million), said Xinhua. A total of 67,000 houses were flattened and another 193,000 houses damaged. Hundreds of government officials and soldiers were working in the disaster-hit areas to rescue survivors and find the missing, and to disinfect areas to prevent disease outbreaks. They were also working to mend damaged roads, repair power and telecommunications infrastructure, and provide food, water, clothes and temporary shelter for the displaced. Emergency relief supplies were meanwhile being rushed to flood-hit areas across the country to help hundreds of thousands of people forced from their homes, reports said. Officials said they had dispatched rice, clean water and other materials while the health ministry issued an urgent circular Friday (June 3) calling for immediate measures to stem outbreaks of disease.

10 June 2005. A flash flood in a mountainous region of North-Eastern China slammed into a primary school today, killing 29 people, mostly children, and leaving four people missing. A “mountain torrent” hit the town of Shalan near Ning'an City in Heilongjiang Province in early afternoon. More than 350 children aged 6-14 were at the school when the flood, triggered by heavy rains, hit, Xinhua said. Of the dead, 27 were children, with another two pupils among the missing, the report said. Rescue work was under way but poor communications in the town, in a valley about 450km from the provincial capital, Harbin, made it unclear how many people had been affected.

12 June 2005. Rescuers digging through mud and debris have found a further 27 bodies after a flash-flood swept through a packed Chinese primary school, state media said today. At least 91 people are now known to have died in the disaster Friday (June 10) in which a wall of water and debris smashed into the school near Ning'an, in Northeast Heilongjiang Province. Hundreds of children and more than 30 teachers were inside at the time. Of the dead, 87 were primary school students and four were adult villagers, Xinhua news agency said, adding that more than two dozen people were still in hospital. The flooding, triggered by torrential rain, caused damage in seven villages near Ning'an City, knocking down 55 houses, the agency said. Heilongjiang Governor Zhang Zuoji had travelled to the site, about 450km from the provincial capital of Harbin, to help co-ordinate a rescue and relief force of 1,400 people, it said. Xinhua did not say if the death toll was expected to rise further, and a local official reached by telephone said news from the area was still hard to obtain because of poor communications. Chinese newspapers carried photographs showing the school half-buried by mud and water. Television footage portrayed brick buildings in the area with walls washed away and fields ravaged by floods. The floodwaters had reached a depth of 2m as they swept through the school. More than 350 children and 31 teachers were inside at the time. State media have said that more flooding is likely with heavy rains predicted for Northern and Southern China in coming days and several rivers swollen to dangerous levels.

12 June 2005. Rescuers have found 28 more bodies, mostly children, after a flash flood triggered by the worst rains in 200 years hit a packed Chinese school two days ago, killing at least 92 people, state media said today. The toll could rise further as the official Xinhua news agency said 17 children were still missing after the wall of water and debris smashed into the school on Friday (June 10) near Ning'an, in North-East Heilongjiang Province. Of the dead, 87 were primary school students and four were adult villagers, the official Xinhua news agency said, adding that more than two dozen people were still in hospital. One body had not yet been identified. The flooding, triggered by a storm that dumped up to 20cm of rain in 40min, caused damage in seven villages near Ning'an City, knocking down 55 houses and devastating large swathes of farmland, state media said. The floodwaters had swelled to a depth of 2m when they swept through the school on Friday afternoon. More than 350 children and dozens of teachers were inside at the time. Poor communications and a chaotic situation meant the scale of the tragedy became apparent only slowly, the death toll climbing gradually from the 29 initially reported on Friday night. “The bodies of some students were taken home by parents that day, and it wasn't until the government began an official tally that they were brought to the morgue. Therefore, the number of dead went up quite a lot in several days,” Xinhua quoted local flood control spokesman Wang Tongtang as saying. Heilongjiang Governor Zhang Zuoji travelled to the site, about 450km from the provincial capital Harbin, to help co-ordinate a rescue and relief force of 1,400 people. China suffers widespread flooding every year, causing huge loss of life. Earlier this week, days of heavy rains in Southern China killed more than 200 and destroyed nearly 138,000 homes. State media have said more flooding is likely with heavy downpours predicted for Northern and Southern China in coming days and several rivers swollen to dangerous levels.

14 June 2005. Confirmed deaths from a flash flood that slammed into primary school in Northern China rose today to 99, and surviving students went back to class for lessons on how to deal with the trauma, state media reported. The dead included 95 students from the Shalan Central Primary School and four villagers, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Ten students are still missing from Friday's (June 10) flood. The torrent of water, triggered by heavy rain, rushed down a mountain and carried mud and debris into the school. Surviving students in Shalan, a remote village in Heilongjiang Province, returned to class in a school about a mile from their old one, the China Daily newspaper said. Local authorities were being investigated for negligence. Huang Mingjun, Communist Party Secretary of Shalan, and Li Zuoyu, the police chief, allegedly failed to organize a timely rescue, Xinhua said. Villagers complained that their appeals for help to the local government and police were ignored, it said. The Governor of Heilongjiang, Zhang Zuoji, told authorities in Beijing that he would accept disciplinary action for his subordinates' failure to respond to the disaster, Xinhua said.

23 June 2005. Heavy rains and mudslides killed dozens of people across China's densely populated south-east, pushing the region's death toll to at least 131 and forcing the evacuation of more than 900,000 people, the government said today. The flooding in some places was the worst in a century, the government said. At least 81 people were killed by the latest rain and landslides across an area stretching from Guangxi on China's southern coast through Guangdong Province to Fujian Province in the south-east, the government said. The latest fatalities raised the southern death toll to at least 131 and the nationwide toll in China's three-week-old flooding season to at least 248.

24 June 2005. A bus was swept away by fast, muddy flood waters in south China and passengers were missing, the latest in a string of disasters across the country where 536 people have died in floods and landslides this year. Torrential rain has pushed rivers above their bursting points and triggered mudslides in the past week, killing at least 97 people and leaving 41 missing, state media said today. As rain inundated the south, the central Province of Anhui was suffering widespread drought and a heat wave in the capital, Beijing, in the north lifted the temperature yesterday to close to 408°c. In Wuzhou, in the Southern Guangxi region, houses on the banks of the Xijiang River have been flooded up to their roofs and downtown residents have been forced to move to upper-storey apartments or to flee to higher ground. People have fashioned make-shift boats and today were cruising around flooded streets in turbid waters at the level of bare electrical lines seeking food and other necessities. About 18 people were missing in Fujian Province to the east after flood waters washed a bus and a pickup truck off a national highway yesterday, state media said. There was no clear death toll in Wuzhou, but locals say some elderly people who refused to evacuate were likely killed when the floods washed in, swelling up to four stories tall down narrow streets. And with the flooding set to peak on the Xijiang River and others in south China, there are fears the real disaster has yet to hit. “More than 100,000 people and soldiers are now bracing themselves for the worst peak of the floods on the (Xijiang) river as it passes Guangxi,” an official from the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters was quoted as saying in the China Daily. Some 1.4 million people have been evacuated in six southern provinces, where the week's floods have caused over 11 billion yuan ($1.33 billion) in direct economic losses and inundated huge tracks of crop land, Xinhua news agency said. Flood damage for the year so far totalled nearly 20.5 billion yuan, Xinhua said. Landslides in Southern Guangdong Province had damaged and cut off traffic on the Beijing-Hong Kong railway. “The Guangdong section of the Beijing-Kowloon railway will not be able to return to normal in the near future,” a source from the Guangdong Railway Group told the China Daily.

25 June 2005. Summer floods in China have killed 567 people and forced over two million from their homes, the government has said. Torrential rains in much of the country have left areas of Southern China submerged beneath muddy waters in the deadliest early floods for a decade. Heavy rains have come sooner than usual, leaving the City of Wuzhou, and the Provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong seriously affected. President Hu Jintao has ordered officials to increase emergency relief. “Faced with a serious fight against the floods... we must quickly step up efforts at organising construction and inspections of major dykes, reservoirs and reserve flood areas,” he said at a flood prevention meeting. Officials have warned of the spread of cholera and other intestinal diseases. The Chinese Health Ministry said, that nearly 3,400 cases of cholera, dysentery and typhoid fever had been recorded in the first six months of the year, and that the figure was still rising. The worst flooding in recent years was in 1998, when 4,150 people died. Rivers have burst their banks and mudslides have contributed to the death toll in the south, where 124 people died in the past week, Chinese state media said. Central drought Chinese officials expressed concern that the floods have yet to peak. Some 2.45 million people have been evacuated from their homes, officials said. In Wuzhou, a City of 300,000 people, residents were forced to construct makeshift boats and rafts as flood water approached the upper floors of houses. Meanwhile water levels reached their highest in at least 90 years in the Pearl River, which flows past the regional business centre Guangdong. Much of China is hit by floods every year, often spreading quickly because of deforested hillsides that trigger landslides and do not prevent flood waters from building up. The floods, which have come early in the annual wet season, have caused an estimated 22.9bn yuan ($2.77bn) worth of damage, reports say. Hong Kong was hit by heavy rains yesterday, causing traffic delays. Services on the main rail line from Hong Kong to China were suspended after a landslide. The situation in the south contrasted with soaring temperatures in central and northern regions. The central Province of Anhui is enduring a record drought, while a heat wave has persisted in the Chinese capital, Beijing.

28 June 2005. China has raised the number of killed and missing in this year's floods to 771. According to a report by the Xinhua news agency, citing the Ministry of Civil Affairs, a total of 607 have been confirmed dead and 164 remain missing. Nearly 2.9 million people have been evacuated because of the floods, while a staggering 21.5 million people have been affected to various degrees. The most severely affected areas are the Southern Provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan and Guangdong, as well as Guangxi Zhuang region, where unusually heavy rain has caused rivers to swell. As the water receded, the mercury started climbing, which was bad news for officials nervous about the outbreak of water-borne diseases. “The hot weather creates ideal conditions for the spread of many infectious diseases,” a flood control official in Guangdong Province told the China Daily. In Guangdong's capital Guangzhou, temperatures yesterday rose to 34.2°C. Guangdong, home to 80 million people, was severely affected by the floods. As in previous flood seasons, the People's Liberation Army has been charged with playing a key role in relief efforts. Around 144,000 active soldiers and reservists have been dispatched to help in the flood-ravaged areas. They have been engaged in evacuations, relocating half a million people and reinforcing dykes under pressure from the soaring water.

10 July 2005. Torrential rains in China's south-west have killed 65 people over the past two weeks and forced more than 428,000 to flee their homes in flood-prone areas, the government said today. Another 30 people were missing after densely populated Sichuan Province experienced storms that in some places were the heaviest in a century, collapsing 30,000 or so houses and damaging another 106,000, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Xinhua did not provide details of where the latest deaths occurred. However, most deaths reported earlier were in the City of Dazhou, where floodwaters in spots reached as high as the third story. Most roads to Dazhou were cut. Water, phone lines and power supplies were knocked out, news reports said. More than 600 deaths have been reported in flooding and landslides since China's rainy season began on June 1. China suffers hundreds of deaths every year in floods set off by summer rains. Rivers overflow and water rushes down mountains denuded of trees by decades of farming and logging. The government said this summer's death toll was among the highest in the past decade but had not reached the level of 1998, when 4,150 people were killed.

13 June 2005Colombia

At least 35 people have died in floods and mudslides caused by winter weather in Colombia since April, the local press reported Saturday (June 11). The six latest deaths occurred in the coffee producing Axis region in the City of Manizales, and in Villa Maria, which were hit by mudslides, official sources said. The most serious case occurred in Manizalez, capital of Caldas Department, where a mudslide buried two houses, with four persons, including two children, inside. In the rural area of Villa Maria, two people died after a mudslide toppled two houses while 30 others were evacuated. In Manizales, two houses collapsed and 50 more were evacuated because of a possible explosion of a vehicle that carried gas tanks. Weather experts forecast that the rain season in the Andean country will last until late June.

10 June 2005Vietnam

At least 12 people died after heavy rains triggered landslides and flooding in Northern Vietnam, officials said today. About 11 people died in the District of Binh Lieu where mudslides buried two houses overnight, said Nguyen Cong Thuan, Deputy Director of North-Eastern Quang Ninh Province's Department of Flood and Storm Control.

17 June 2005Afghanistan

Floods caused by heavy rains have destroyed hundreds of homes and may have killed up to 48 people in Northern Afghanistan in the past few days, a minister said today. Minister for Rural Development Hanif Atmar said flash-floods had hit 21 districts of the Provinces of Badakhshan, Takhar, Sar-i-Pul, Faryab, Jozjan, Samangan and Faryab. He said he had received reports from the provinces that a total of 48 people had been killed and 14 injured but these still had to be confirmed. “Badakhshan has been badly affected. About 36 of the 48 reported deaths were in Badakhshan alone,” Atmar said. He said the government planned to carry out an aerial survey of the remote and mountainous province to assess the damage. Emergency food supplies had been sent to affected families, but there was shortage of tents.

19 June 2005. Airplanes loaded with food, tents and other emergency supplies rushed to Northern Afghanistan today after floods left dozens dead and thousands homeless, officials said. About 700 homes and several roads were washed away in floods over the previous four days, said Abdul Majid, the Governor of Badakhshan Province, which was the worst hit. No overall death toll was available. Majid said at least 25 people were believed killed in Badakhshan. An official with a government disaster management team in Kabul, Abdul Hamid, said the province's toll was thought to be 36, while more than 50 were estimated to have died across all of Northern Afghanistan. Martin Battersby, a UN spokesman in Kabul, said three teams of UN and government officials were surveying the area by helicopter and road. “Initial assessments suggest this has been a serious flood,” he said. Two aircraft loaded with relief aid flew to the region today and additional aircraft were to join the airlift in the next few days. Heavy rains had pounded the region over the previous four days and low-lying areas also were flooded by water running off mountains. The UN World Food Program said in a statement that much of the damage was done by a hail storm that swept through the province Thursday. It said the agency was working closely with the government to assist with emergency relief.

20 June 2005. The UN is providing emergency aid to Afghanistan's North-Eastern Province of Badakhshan after a hailstorm and heavy floods last week killed an estimated 29 people, injured 40, and destroyed over 1,000 homes. The UN's World Food Programme said today it would distribute 88tons of food, including wheat, oil, salt and pulses to nearly 9,000 people after an assessment of affected areas after Thursday's (June 16) storm. A WFP statement said the agency's trucks are also delivering blankets, tarpaulins and tents to flood-affected families. WFP said the storm caused widespread destruction in 65 villages. Thousands of farm animals had been killed and more than 658ha of farmland, 28,000 trees and 92km of road damaged. “Badakhshan is one of the most remote and poverty stricken Provinces in Afghanistan. The floods will have a devastating effect on people who already live with a great deal of food insecurity,” WFP' Afghanistan representative Charles Vincent said in the statement. Afghanistan's Minister for Rural Development Hanif Atmar said last week he had reports that the floods may have killed as many as 48 people in several northern provinces, including 36 in Badakhshan, the worst affected.

17 June 2005Venezuela

Floods caused by heavy rains over the past three weeks in Venezuela have left 12 dead, one missing and 105 injured, Civil Protection Director colonel Antonio Rivero said yesterday. Rivero said that 12 of the 23 states in the country have been hit hardest by the rains. Rains also affected some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the southwest part of the capital, said the official. Floods caused by the rains have damaged 3,879 houses across the country, affecting over 19,000 people, he added. In the North-East State of Anzoategui, heavy rains have caused traffic problems, while some states in the plain region have been affected by river overflows which flooded thousands of hectares of plantations.

27 June 2003El Salvador/Honduras

Heavy rains caused flooding and landslides in El Salvador and Honduras, leaving a total of 39 dead in both countries, including 21 people killed when a bus was carried away by flood waters. Authorities were still searching for nine people missing after the bus was engulfed late yesterday 35miles west of San Salvador. It was carrying home a total of about 40 players and fans of a non professional soccer team called Los Leones. Ten passengers have been found alive. In towns west and southwest of the capital, seven people were killed in landslides and three people were killed when their homes were carried away by flood waters. In neighbouring Honduras, officials said eight people died and 200 homes were damaged during three days of flooding.

19 July 2005Bangladesh

More than half a million people are marooned in Bangladesh in a new wave of floods caused by monsoon rains over the past week. The rivers Teesta, Jamuna and the Brahmaputra, which flows from India, are disrupting train and road links in the north and north-western parts of the country. The floods have left tens of thousands of people stranded. A disaster management official says that many are living on river islands and have been cut off for nearly a week. At least ten people have died either by drowning or snake bites, mostly in Rangpur, Nilphamari and Sherpur districts. Several towns including Kurigram District headquarters, 400km northwest of Dhaka, are under knee-deep water. Schools and government offices have been shut down. The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre says the rivers in north-western Bangladesh would rise further if heavy rains continue in the area and neighbouring North-East Indian states. At least ten people died in May in floods in Bangladesh ahead of the main monsoon rains.

15 July 2005Romania

About 17 people are known to have died and one is missing as Romania suffers its worst flooding in three decades, the interior ministry said today. Over 12,000 people were evacuated from their homes around the country, and Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu said he feared the death toll would rise as many elderly people were refusing to leave their flooded homes. The interior ministry said large areas of the country were under water or threatened by flooding, with the worst affected areas in the eastern region of Vrancea, where 11 of the deaths occurred. Officials said 581 towns or villages were under water, and 229 of them were without electricity. Press reports said the floods, which have damaged thousands of homes and dozens of bridges, roads and railway lines, were the worst in the country for 30 years.

17 July 2005. Floods in Romania killed 20 people in the past week, with thousands left homeless and dependent on army airlifts for food and drinking water, authorities said today. The deaths took the toll in the Balkan State's worst floods in half a century to 26 this month. Torrential rains have swollen rivers, flooded homes and churned up roads, hitting the eastern part of the country particularly hard. Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu said emergency aid had been airlifted by the army to stranded villagers and floodwater had started to be pumped away. “The army will help the population with manpower and equipment,” said Tariceanu, announcing the latest death toll after a government crisis meeting this morning. “Beds and tents have started to be distributed.” Authorities said more than 11,000 people had to be evacuated in four central and eastern counties and 640 homes were completely destroyed by water that also swamped nearly 88,000ha of farmland. The government has earmarked around one billion new lei (US$344 million) to rebuild infrastructure and said Romania would also ask for international help to clean up the damage.

18 July 2005. Floods in mid July have caused damage worth about 43.5m, according to preliminary estimates by Romania's Transportation, Building and Tourism Ministry. “Damage reports are not completed yet, but we hope to get them ready as soon as possible. We cannot finish the reports yet, because some railway segments are still under water,” Director Vasile Olievschi with the Transportation Ministry's Railway Directorate told Rompres. At present, the most serious situation is that of the railway bridge of Putna Seaca, which brought about the traffic closure of the Line 500, running between Ploiesti and Vicsani. Traffic is also closed on 13 railway segments and restricted along 20 more. Traffic resumed yesterday on railway 602, linking Marasti to Tecuci as well as on Line 504, from Adjud to Ciceu. Most of the closed or damaged railway segments are in the eastern counties of Bacau, Braila, Galati and Vrancea, the counties most seriously stricken by floods.

14 July 2005. At least seven people have died in floods following days of torrential rain in Romania. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes, as flood water rose to 3m in places. Dozens of roads have been closed and many areas have been left without electricity or gas. Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu said the damage was so bad he was considering appealing for international help. In the Eastern Village of Ivesti, residents were stranded on rooftops, while the nearby City of Galati was put on alert as the River Siret reached record levels. Television pictures showed rescue services using boats and helicopters to ferry stricken villagers to safety. Thousands of homes and acres of farmland and other cultivated areas have been left submerged. Mr Tariceanu, who toured affected areas by helicopter on Thursday, said extra food supplies would be sent to flooded counties and the cabinet would approve financial aid.