Weather

Citation

(1999), "Weather", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 8 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.1999.07308aac.004

Weather

Weather

24 January 1998 ­ Grenoble, France

Shocked parents made a grim round of hospitals in France's Alpine south-east today to visit survivors and mourn the dead from an avalanche in which nine children died. Two adults, who had been guiding the cross-country trek as part of a junior high school holiday trip, also died in yesterday's disaster, the worst of its kind in France since 1970. Some 50 parents were being escorted by local officials and Secretary of State for Health Bernard Kouchner to hospitals and to a temporary chapel where the dead and injured had been taken. Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, accompanied by two ministers, travelled to the area to meet the survivors. "This catastrophe, which has plunged the St Francis of Assisi school in Montigny-le-Bretonneux into mourning, has saddened the whole nation", Jospin's office said in a statement. President Jacques Chirac also expressed sorrow over the disaster. Nine people on the trek remained in hospital today, including two who were in a serious condition. Another 12 injured had been treated and released while eight children participating in the school trip and initially feared missing were found to have not gone on the trek. Olivier Hindermayer, head of the National Union of Open Air Sports Centres (UCPA), said the school group had been under the supervision of eight adults, including four who were mountaineering experts. But parents and local officials questioned why the young children aged between 13 and 15 had been taken on snow-shoes to a remote mountainous area where avalanche warnings had been in effect following a period of heavy snowfall. Police opened an investigation to determine whether there had been any violations of the law. Officials said the trekkers were hit by a fast-moving, 300-metre long wall of snow as they walked in wooded mountains near the ski resort of Les Orres, close to the Italian border. More than 100 volunteers and paramilitary gendarmes with sniffer dogs had combed the area into the night, prodding through the deep snow with long poles to look for the missing people. The rescue operation was hindered by the terrain, with a number of trees, uprooted by the force of the avalanche, lying buried beneath the snow. Organizers of the school trip said the group included 32 children from the Saint Francis Junior High School in the town of Montigny-le-Bretonneux, near Paris. The teenagers had been accompanied by two teachers, four trained mountaineers and two other adults. None of the dead were named. Officials said they believed the avalanche had been triggered by the group of young trekkers themselves. Authorities had earlier speculated that it might have been caused by a group of people skiing further up the mountain outside authorised runs. Authorities had issued repeated avalanche warnings this week throughout the French Alps after recent heavy snowfalls and high winds had left the area unstable. Local residents said the school group, led by experienced trekkers, had been walking along an authorised route at an altitude of around 2,400 metres, when the avalanche struck soon after 1230, GMT, yesterday.

29 January 1998 ­ Milange district, Mozambique

The death toll from a landslide in the Milange district of central Mozambique last week could reach 143, Minister of State Administration, Alfredo Gamito, said today. By yesterday 73 bodies had been recovered. A total of 70 people are still missing and Gamito said on state radio today that the missing must now be considered dead.

29 January 1998 ­ Choco, Peru

At least 31 people died after an avalanche caused by heavy rains obliterated part of a remote town in Peru's southern Andes, local officials and witnesses said today. A river burst its banks near Choco, some 400 miles south-east of Lima, late yesterday, setting off a landslide. It buried nearly 100 homes and forced hundreds of people to flee by running or swimming in the flood of mud and rocks, according to the witnesses and officials. Light rainfall continued today and occasionally a new, small mudslide would surge down nearby hills, townspeople said.

10 February 1998 ­ Quito, Ecuador

The death-toll in Ecuador from several months of freak weather caused by El Nino has risen to at least 106, authorities said today. Flooding, mudslides and lightning have left a further 40 people injured and 5,887 homeless since October throughout the country, Civil Defence head Gustavo Burbano said. Ecuador is at the epicentre of El Nino, a warming of the Pacific ocean which occurs every two to seven years, distorting temperatures and causing flooding in some parts of the world and droughts in others. The Ecuadorean government has lowered its forecast for gross domestic product growth in 1998 to 2.5 per cent from 4.0 per cent due to the effects of the phenomenon. Since October, El Nino has caused about $200 million in lost agricultural output and $400 million in damage to roads. "Floods have affected several coastal provinces since Sunday (8 February)", Burbano added. At least nine of Ecuador's 21 regions have been declared in a state of emergency since the effects of El Nino began appearing in October.

11 February 1998 ­ La Paz, Bolivia

A mudslide swept over a ramshackle gold mine in the Bolivian jungle today, killing at least 40 miners as they slept in their huts, the government said. The mud slid down over the Mocotoro mine, in mountainous jungle country 60 miles north of La Paz, the administrative capital of Bolivia. "We fear that there may be more dead", government spokesman Mauro Bertero said. He said the government did not know how many people were injured by the mudslide, which followed two days of torrential rain blamed on the El Nino weather effect. Survivors digging with picks and shovels uncovered 19 bodies from under the mud, a Mocotoro co-operative official told local radio. However, they desperately needed the government to send in heavy equipment to find more than 20 other corpses, he said.

11 February 1998 ­ Ica, Peru

Freak El Nino rains have killed over 200 people in Peru since the end of last year, and many people listed as missing in floods are in fact now presumed dead, President Alberto Fujimori said today. While the government's official figures show a death toll much lower than 200, Fujimori acknowledged that dozens of people officially registered as "missing" after mudslides and floods triggered by El Nino rains must now be presumed dead. "There are more than 200 dead and missing. And about the missing, so much time has passed that we can assume they are dead", said Fujimori. The Centre for Disaster Studies and Prevention also reported today that between mid-December and February, storms associated with El Nino had left 234,000 people homeless. Its heavy rains have also destroyed 14,000 homes and 23,000 hectares of agricultural land, the private group said. In one of the worst single El Nino disasters, at the end of January, Ica was flooded when a river burst its banks, forcing more than 100,000 people out of their houses.

23 February 1998 ­ Tajikistan

An avalanche killed 11 people in a mountainous area of Tajikistan today, the Central Asian state's Emergency Situations Committee said. The wall of snow buried a house with 12people inside, most of them women and children, a spokesman for the committee said. Only one person survived. The avalanche, near the village of Dzhamiat Rokhaty about 100km east of the Tajik capital Dushanbe, followed several days of heavy snowfalls in the former Soviet state.

23 February 1998 ­ USA

As many as 20 people were feared killed today and hundreds of homes were damaged by tornadoes that tore through central Florida, a public safety official said. "I'm hearing at least 20 people dead across the state", said Ken Roberts, director of public safety for Seminole County. "We have ten dead just here in Seminole County. We won't be able to do an accurate count until morning".The south-eastern edge of an El Nino-related storm system covering much of the South and Midwest spawned several tornadoes that cut across the Florida peninsula, said meteorologist Guy Radar of the US National Weather Service. Near Daytona Beach, an elderly man was crushed to death when his mobile home collapsed, police said. At least two other people were killed at the Country Garden Apartments in Winter Garden, Seminole County. From Walt Disney World, just south-west of Orlando, to the speed-racing mecca of Daytona Beach on the state's Atlantic coast, a distance of about 75 miles, reports of damage poured into emergency management offices. Tractor-trailer rigs were overturned and scattered along Interstate 95. Docks and piers were torn out of lakes and dumped on home rooftops. Florida's Turnpike was closed by downed power lines and automobile accidents, police said. Police agencies throughout the area said that emergency 911 lines were clogged with people reporting funnel clouds. About 10 to 15 tornado touchdowns were reported in about eight Florida counties, but not all the damage was from tornadoes. Non-tornado winds reached 75mph and hundreds of lakes that dot central Florida rose, many threatening waterfront property. By the early hours today, the storm's Atlantic coast edge had moved south toward Cape Canaveral.

23 February 1998 ­ A series of tornadoes ripped through central Florida overnight, killing 28 people, injuring more than 100 and leaving nearly 300 homeless. Helicopters circled the area early today looking for more victims as cadaver-sniffing dogs and search crews went door-to-door in an effort to find other victims and survivors. The toll included 12 dead in Seminole County, 14 in Osceola County, one in Volusia and one in Orange. Two were missing in Seminole County and more in Osceola. Gailee Cardwell of the State Division of Emergency Management said at least 41,000 customers had no power.

23 February 1998 ­ A deadly swarm of tornadoes killed at least 38 people and smashed homes and businesses across four Florida counties yesterday, prompting President Bill Clinton to offer federal disaster aid. More than 100 people were hospitalised, hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed and at least 11 people were missing by nightfall, some 18 hours after the deadliest natural disaster in Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Emergency workers earlier had reported 39 deaths but then corrected the figure. Clinton will survey the damage on tomorrow. The president said federal disaster relief aid was being made available to tornado-stricken families and local governments in Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia counties under an extended major disaster declaration issued 6 January for Christmas Day storms there. Spokesman Joe Lockhart said Clinton would stop in Florida on his way to California on a previously scheduled trip. Public safety officials faced the grim task starting at dawn today of searching through a 75 mile trail of debris looking for survivors and more bodies. At one mobile home park, a father had his 18-month-old daughter torn from his grasp by swirling winds that reached speeds in excess of 250 mph. About 30 miles away, a five-year-old girl was found wandering in the woods about 100 yards from where her parents lay dead in the rubble of their family home, authorities said. In Osceola County, just a few miles from Walt Disney World and other Florida tourist attractions, at least 22 people died, including ten at one mobile home park, said Lt Judy Taylor of the sheriff's department. "Six homes destroyed, ten people dead, and two missing, including an eight-month-old baby", said Taylor. In nearby Seminole County, public safety director Ken Roberts counted 12 deaths. Three people were confirmed killed in Orange County and one in Volusia County, where an elderly man was crushed when his mobile home collapsed. Helicopters with infrared tracking scopes searched for the heat signatures of victims buried in the debris of collapsed houses and overturned mobile homes, indicating that the final death toll would not be known for a while. In parts of Florida, curfews were in effect and county officials invoked emergency authority to halt price gouging on generators, batteries and bottled water. Hospitals said they were running short of blood for transfusions. Fourteen Florida counties were declared disaster areas. Many suffered flooding problems but were not hit by the tornadoes. The winds left about 110,000 customers without electricity at the height of the storm, authorities said. By yesterday afternoon, about 66,000 homes were without power. As many as 12 tornadoes tore through central Florida, spawned by the south-eastern edge of an El Nino-related storm system covering much of the South and Midwest. "It's the most devastating tornado outbreak in Florida's history", said meteorologist Bart Hagemeyer of the National Weather Service, adding that some of the tornadoes hit wind speeds of 207-260 mph. A single tornado about 200 yards wide cut a nine-mile path through central Florida, narrowly missing the crowded tourist corridor that includes Disney World, Universal Studios Florida and Sea World.

24 February 1998 ­ A north-easterly storm front disrupted transportation across New England today with heavy rains and winds gusting to over 50mph. Officials reported lengthy delays at Logan International Airport, Boston, with other air facilities also experiencing similar problems. Passenger ferry services between Cape Cod and the islands were suspended because of gale conditions. A flood watch was in effect in southern New England, and the National Weather Service said the heavy rains could create added stress on some earthen dams which have been weakened by age. The weather service said up to three inches of rain, combined with already saturated land, could force some small rivers and streams over their banks. Some coastal roads also were reported to be flooded in spots. State police reported a number of accidents due to snowy and wet roads and poor visibility. Forecasters expected a foot or more of snow in inland and northern sections of the region.

25 February 1998 ­ The death toll from the tornadoes rose to 39 today, with the discovery of another body. Officials in the four counties hardest hit, Volusia, Orange, Seminole and Osceola, said preliminary damage estimates to homes and businesses totalled $61.5 million. Some 10,000 insurance claims for homes, businesses, cars and boats had been filed, state officials said. President Clinton said he had declared 34 counties eligible for disaster aid and said the Department of Labour was providing $3 million for temporary jobs for workers to assist in disaster recovery and rebuilding.

26 February 1998 ­ At a meeting in Oakland today, President Clinton announced federal aid declarations for four more California counties ­ Los Angeles, Orange, Stanislaus and Trinity. Statewide storm damage is estimated at $475 million, with federal states of emergency now declared in 35 of California's 58 counties. As Clinton held the session in Oakland, Gov. Pete Wilson declared state emergencies in seven more counties and designated $18 million to help local agencies handle storms blamed in part on the El Nino weather disturbances. The federal funding announced by Clinton includes $20 million to repair roads torn apart by flooding, $10 million to help workers left jobless and $1.5 million to repair damaged levees and stream banks.

25 February 1998 ­ Islamabad, Afghanistan

Flash floods caused by heavy rains have killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar, a Pakistan-based Afghan news service said today. The Afghan Islamic Press quoted officials of the ruling Taleban Islamic movement as saying the deaths occurred over the past five days in districts around Kandahar town. A Taleban spokesman in Kandahar, Wakil Ahmad, said the floods also destroyed many houses, killed livestock and damaged food crops and fruit orchards, AIP reported.

27 February 1998 ­ Heavy rains have caused flooding in large areas of south-western Afghanistan over the past week, killing at least 30 people in one of the five stricken provinces, UN and Afghan sources in Pakistan said. The floods, the worst to hit the region since 1990, have affected the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, Uruzgan and Nimroz, a UN official in Islamabad said last night. The official, Sarah Russel, said flood waters completely washed out vast areas of cultivated fields, including some poppy fields. She also said the main health problems facing the stricken population were exposure to cold and polluted drinking water in the area, where the floods had also destroyed hand pumps, irrigation channels, food stocks and livestock. The Afghan Islamic Press quoted a Taleban spokesman in Kandahar, Wakil Ahmad, as saying that the floods destroyed many houses, killed livestock and damaged food crops and fruit orchards.

5 March 1998 ­ New Delhi, India

A total of 26 people were killed in landslides following heavy rains in two Indian Himalayan states, a domestic news agency said today. The Press Trust of India said 16 people died in massive landslides in the Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh late yesterday. In Jammu and Kashmir, ten people were killed in Udhampur district after heavy rains triggered landslides burying many houses, PTI said. The rain forced the Election Commission to postpone polling for the national elections in the parliamentary constituency of Udhampur to 18 March.

4 March 1998 ­ Quetta, Pakistan

Thousands of people were reported homeless today after the worst floods in 20 years killed at least 40 people in a remote corner of south-west Pakistan, officials said. They said they feared the final death toll could rise to hundreds and that at least 250 people were missing after torrential rains lashed the Makran area of Baluchistan. Paramilitary forces were called in to assist local administration officials but continuous rain hampered the relief operation. A bridge over the river Dasht that links Turbat with the rest of the region was badly damaged, residents said, cutting off Turbat from the rest of the country. Water levels in the swollen Dasht river were the highest for 200 years after a torrential two-day downpour, officials said.

5 March 1998 ­ Rescue workers said today at least 150 bodies had been recovered from a flash flood in a remote corner of south-west Pakistan and some 25,000 people had been made homeless. They said at least 1,000 people were still missing after freak spring rains inundated the Turbat district of the Makran region and thousands were stranded on high ground and tree tops. The final death toll was expected to be in the hundreds but was impossible to collate because of the remoteness of the terrain and the collapse of telecommunications systems and roads, rescue officials said. "About 3,000 houses were washed away in the floods in Turbat and its surroundings", one local government official said. "So far around 70 bodies have been recovered from different areas of Turbat up until late last night". A huge relief and rescue operation was under way as army and navy helicopters rescued stranded villagers and ferried them to makeshift shelters in dry areas. The local administration has appealed for 10,000 tents as well as serum against snake bite and vaccine against cholera. All major rivers in the usually arid region were dangerously swollen. The area was deluged by abnormally heavy spring rains on Monday (Mar 2) which burst the Dasht river near Turbat, sweeping away mud and brick dwellings on the river bank.

9 March 1998 ­ Hopes of finding survivors from floods in south-western Pakistan have faded, with an estimated 1,500 people still missing, government officials said today. "We have lost hope of finding more people alive", one government source said. Officials in the flood-stricken Mekran area of Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, said the death toll from last week's floods could be more than 1,000. Rescuers had found 300 bodies by Thursday (5 March). No more had been reported since then, officials said. Many of the 1,500 people reported missing could have been buried under 5 to 6ft mud left by the floodwaters, or swept into the Arabian Sea. The waters left mud along large parts of three river beds for a total distance of some 300 miles. "No one was found alive along the courses of Kech and Nihing rivers which swept all human settlements on their banks", one official said. "Only 5 to 6ft deep mud is found". The devastation was worse beyond a point where the two rivers converge before falling into the Arabian Sea as the Dasht River, the officials said. "Everything is washed away", Turbat district deputy commissioner Fida Hussain Afridi said. "There is nothing to rehabilitate", he said. "We have to rebuild everything". The local administration has appealed for 10,000 tents as well as serum against snake bite and vaccine against cholera. All major rivers in the usually arid region were dangerously swollen as they pounded south towards the Arabian Sea. The area was deluged by abnormally heavy spring rains on 2 March that burst the Dasht River near Turbat.

13 March 1998 ­ At least 30 people were feared killed when a landslide caused by heavy rain devastated a remote Kashmir village, police said today. Ten bodies have so far been recovered. One boy has been found alive, but police said they feared there would be no more survivors after up to 30 houses in the village of Reshian were swept away by the landslide. No other details were immediately available from the remote area.

15 March 1998 ­ Nairobi, Kenya

A total of 100,000 refugees, hit by disastrous floods caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon, face the threat of disease caused by hunger, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said in Nairobi today. WFP workers said they were supplying only half the required food ration for Somali refugees in three camps in north-east Kenya because roads are cut and available funds do not cover the high cost of moving food by air. The normal ration of 2,000 tonnes of food supplied monthly to 125,000 refugees in three camps at Dadaab was halved early in March. WFP regional manager Mike Sackett said some roads washed out by floods late last year have now been repaired, but they cannot carry heavy trucks, he said. He said WFP had ample food stocks in Kenya's Mombasa port and in Garissa, 100km from Dadaab, but had been forced to use costly air transport because of the bad roads. WFP needs $2 million to cover the cost of supplying Dadaab by air up to the end of May, but it says aid donations have been slow to arrive. Aid workers are now concerned because Kenya's normal rains are due to start in April, and they say they have been unable to build up food stocks in the refugee camps to provide an emergency reserve against further flooding.

25 March 1998 ­ Bay of Bengal

A vicious cyclone killed at least 120 people, including 35 children in one school at Goborghata village in Orissa, when it whipped through 20 villages in eastern India, officials and domestic news agencies reported today. Another 500 people were missing after 160-180kph winds and torrential rain lashed the border area of the states of Orissa and West Bengal yesterday, Press Trust of India (PTI) said. At least 1,100 people were injured and some 15,000 left homeless, PTI added. Rescue officials, who were hampered during the night by the torrential rain, stepped up their search for survivors and bodies when day broke. Officials confirmed 41 deaths in West Bengal and 30 in Orissa. PTI put the overall toll at 120. Witnesses and officials said the storm destroyed thousands of buildings, uprooted electricity poles, snapped telecommunication links and overturned trucks. In West Bengal's Chakislampur village, near Danton town, nine labourers who had been harvesting potatoes were killed when they were swept up into the air by the winds and then slammed back to earth. Police said the cyclone originated near the local Subarnarekha river. Officials initially said it raced in from the Bay of Bengal. A cyclonic weather system also hit neighbouring Bangladesh the previous day, killing at least 28 people, injuring over 100 and leaving a trail of destruction. An official at the meteorological office in New Delhi, said yesterday that more severe weather was expected in the region.

26 March 1998 ­ Relief efforts were stepped up in eastern India today to shelter and feed thousands of people left homeless by a vicious cyclone. Press Trust of India (PTI) said more than 200 people had died in the cyclone, which raced through a string of poverty-stricken villages with winds of 160-180kph. Rescuers searched for survivors trapped under the rubble of houses which collapsed in Tuesday's (24 March) freak wind and rainstorm in coastal areas of West Bengal and Orissa. The interior minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, told the state legislative assembly in Calcutta today that only 47 bodies had been recovered so far from affected areas. In the neighbouring state of Orissa, officials said 30 people, including 16 children whose school crumpled on top of them, had died and two were missing. West Bengal Irrigation Minister Debabrata Banerjee, who yesterday had put the death toll at 83 people, said that of about 1,000 people who were injured, all but 78 had been discharged from hospital. Officials said some 2,400 homes, mostly thatched mudhouses, had been destroyed, affecting 12,000 people. The central government has released some 218 million rupees ($5.5 million) in disaster relief and compensation for families of the victims.

25 March 1998 ­ Seoul, South Korea

A Press report, dated Seoul, 23 March states: Rescue vessel and helicopters were searching today for a dozen fishermen feared drowned after their vessels got caught up in heavy storms last week. The rescue teams battled with winds of up to 28 metres per second as well as near-torrential rain in high seas between South Korea's mainland and Cheju Island. South Korean television today showed dramatic footage of Friday's (20 March) rescue operation, when nine crew members were pulled out of the waters alive. Three boats and 27 fishermen were involved in the tragedy. Seven fishermen died and 12 were still missing today. One vessel sank completely and the other became stranded off the southern island of Cheju. The drowned fishermen were among the 27 crew members on fvs Lurongwi 2082 and Gurongwi 2083, which wrecked off northern Cheju. Another fisherman, a member of the third boat, fv Zhelingwi 1789, which went down south of thc island early Friday, was still missing.

5 April 1998 ­ Tehran, Iran

All 50 residents of a village in south-west Iran are feared dead after a landslide, a United Nations official said today. Iranian television reported yesterday that a mountain village with 50 inhabitants in Chaharmahal-va-Bakhtiari province was buried under a landslide caused by flood waters. "They are all assumed dead", said Hamid Ghaffarzadeh, the Tehran-based representative of the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP), who is monitoring recent flooding in Iran. "Officials have not been able to trace anyone there yet", Ghaffarzadeh said. Floods caused by torrential rains have also killed six people in nearby Khuzestan province, most severely affected by week-long rains that have caused rivers to overflow across seven provinces in south-western Iran. More than 200 villages in Khuzestan and Lorestan provinces have been affected by the flooding, relief officials said today. Relief workers are using helicopters to airlift more than 10,000 people stranded in Lorestan province, they added. "The situation is still very dangerous", said Zahra Falahad, a Red Crescent official in Tehran. "Our people have been working throughout the night", she said. Officials in Khuzestan said 2,200 hectares of wheat and more than 53,000 date palms were destroyed. "The rain has been unprecedented. There has been a massive inundation of the Khuzestan plain", Ghaffarradeh said. Khurestan officials estimated damage to infrastructure, farmland and bridges would reach Rials 10 billion ($5.7 million). Iranian officials said they feared the number of casualties could rise as rescue workers try to access remote areas. Electricity lines were cut in both Khuzestan and Lorestan provinces.