Asia floods: Death toll climbs in severe monsoon season
More than 100 people have died across Asia this month as the vast region experiences an intense monsoon season.
The past fortnight has seen extreme rain that has caused floods and landslides across several countries including India, China and Japan.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate as a result.
On Friday, South Korea was on high alert as a storm battered the capital Seoul, while in the Philippines officials warned of a tropical cyclone.
Earlier this week, Japan also reported record-breaking floods on the island of Kyushu in which at least eight people, including a local politician, died. Others are still missing.
“It’s raining like never before,” a spokesman for Japan’s meteorological agency said, as cities around the country logged record amounts of rain.
The World Meteorological Organization’s director of hydrology, water and cryosphere said developed countries such as Japan were “extremely alert, and they’re also very well prepared when it comes to flood management measures.”
“But many low-income countries have no warnings in place, hardly any flood defence structures and no integrated flood management,” Stefan Uhlenbrook added in his statement on Thursday.
Japanese authorities had earlier in the week evacuated more than 420,000 residents from two prefectures in Kyushu island.
“Your life is in danger, you need to take action immediately,” the orders read.
Meanwhile in Seoul, 135 people were evacuated early Friday as torrential rain hit the South Korean capital, causing power cuts across 4,000 households.
In an emergency meeting with government agencies, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said preventing deaths was the country’s top priority.
“All public officials should remain alert and respond until the end of the monsoon,” Mr Han told local media.
He also warned officials to “thoroughly prepare” for the possibility of North Korea releasing water from a dam near the inter-Korean border after the country also received heavy rain.
Such releases in the past have often occurred without notice and led to flooding and deaths in the South.
Courtesy of BBC News
Major flooding strikes Mississippi, USA
Torrential rain fell for several hours Thursday in central Mississippi, flooding roads, homes and businesses in Winston County and Louisville, where the mayor declared a state of emergency.
“Please do not travel anywhere in Louisville or Winston County unless it is an absolute emergency,” Mayor Will Hill said Thursday morning on Facebook. “This is not a typical flash flood and like no thing we’ve experience(d) in our area, maybe ever.”
Winston County Sheriff Jason Pugh said law enforcement officers rescued at least eight people from vehicles and removed several others from homes as the water rose.
Swift water washed one car into a ditch, but the driver escaped before it submerged. The man stood knee-deep in the floodwater on top of his car as officers rescued him, Pugh told The Associated Press.
About 17,500 people live in Winston County. Louisville, the largest town, is about 95 miles (150 kilometers) northeast of Jackson.
No deaths or serious injuries had been reported in the county by the evening, the mayor said.
“We are on the opposite end of the storm now with blue skies and calm weather and the water has subsided,” Hill said. “But what we experienced was not just a 100-year flood but a 1,000-year flood. He added that 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain had fallen “in a very short time.”
The mayor said the immediate focus was on safety and he and others had just gotten a first look around the city of about 6,000. He estimated that a couple hundred homes had water damage, as well as some businesses.
He added that officials were contending with debris, drainage problems, erosion and damage to streets and homes, with some taking on about 2 feet (60 centimeters) of water.
Pugh said the last time he can recall this type of rapid rainfall in the area was in 1977, when he was a child. “There are streets in Louisville that are flooded that I’ve never seen flooded,” he said.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation issued flash flood warnings on some state highways in Winston and Neshoba counties. Roadways also flooded in nearby Choctaw and Noxubee counties, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said.
Gov. Tate Reeves said on Facebook that two roads in the area were impassable and that a highway was closed because of about 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) of water on the road. Reeves said the county had requested a boat team, which responded.
He also said a shelter was open for residents seeking higher ground. “We’re standing ready to help support the residents there,” Reeves said.
Courtesy of apnews.com
At least 7 killed, 3 missing amid torrential rains and landslides in South Korea
At least seven people were killed and three more went missing due to the ongoing torrential rains nationwide as of Saturday, according to authorities.
The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters confirmed another seven people were injured as of 11 a.m. Saturday, with the casualties expected to rise amid the continued heavy rains resulting in multiple landslides.
Two people died after a building collapse following a landslide in Nonsan, South Chungcheong, on Friday.
Authorities confirmed that a 74-year-old resident died after falling into a state of cardiac arrest after being buried in a landslide in Yeondong-myeon, Sejong in South Chungcheong earlier Saturday.
Two people were also killed in their homes after landslides in Yeongju in North Gyeongsang, and another person died in a landslide in Cheongyang County in South Chungcheong.
In Cheongju, North Chungcheong, another person died due to a road collapse.
Earlier in Cheongju, some 6,400 residents were evacuated due to rapidly rising water levels.
The number of casualties is likely to increase, with victims from landslides in Yecheon County and Mungyeong in North Gyeongsang not included in the latest tally.
In Yecheon County, at least seven homes were buried in a landslide.
A 68-year-old woman went missing near a stream in Busan, last Tuesday, and two people went missing due to the flooding in Yecheon, North Gyeongsang.
At least 20 people are seen to be killed, fatally injured or missing due to the heavy rains.
On Saturday morning, two people, including a woman in her 60s, were also believed to have been killed when a landslide buried them in their home in Bonghwa County in North Gyeongsang, at around 9 a.m. according to the authorities.
Some 1,567 people were evacuated from 1,002 households in 13 cities and counties nationwide, said authorities.
Power outages occurred in six cities and counties in North Gyeongsang, including 5,819 households in Yecheon and 2,037 households in Mungyeong.
Courtesy of koreajoongangdaily.joins.com
Cyclone Leaves 1 Dead and 24 Injured in Brazil
On Thursday, the Civil Defense reported that an extratropical cyclone has devastated southern Brazil, leaving at least one person dead, 24 injured and some 790,000 users without power.
Between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the cyclone caused floods and the most damage in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina near the border with Argentina and Uruguay.
In the city of the Rio Grande, one person died when a tree fell on a house as a result of the winds, which reached 140 km per hour on Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, the National Institute of Meteorology declared a red alert in the southern region of Brazil due to the extratropical cyclone, the third in the region in less than a month.
Courtesy of telesurenglish.net
Super typhoon Nanmadol batters southern Japan, ‘forcing more than 8 million to flee their homes’
As an intense typhoon batters southern Japan with torrential rain and gales, authorities have ordered millions people to evacuate their homes, according to local reports.
Public broadcaster NHK said local governments have now ordered more than eight million people in southern and western Japan to flee due to Typhoon Nanmadol, which has already triggered power blackouts and flight cancellations.
Officials issued the highest grade on Japan’s disaster warning scale – a level 5 alert – to more than 330,000 people in Kagoshima, Miyazaki and Oita prefectures, NHK said.
The level 4 alert that prompts the evacuation order for eight million people affects 3.7 million households in parts of the Kyushu, Shikoku and Chugoku regions.
Weather forecasters have warned of strong winds and high waves “like never experienced before”, with the threat of rivers overflowing, high waves, violent winds and landslides.
Typhoon Nanmadol, classified as a super typhoon by the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center, has been slowly heading north to the country’s main southern island of Kyushu.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said the area faces being deluged by 500mm (20in) of rain and wind gusts of up to 155mph (250kph) on Sunday.
It also warned residents of “unprecedented” levels of powerful winds and waves in some areas, urging them to evacuate early.
Nanmadol is expected to turn east and reach Tokyo on Tuesday before moving out to sea.
In affected areas, thousands of residents have taken shelter at evacuation centres.
Kyushu Electric Power Company said more than 93,000 homes across the island were without electricity on Sunday because of damage to power lines.
Hundreds of domestic flights in and out of the region have been cancelled and more are planned to be grounded in western Japan until Tuesday.
Public transport, including rail services and buses, have also been suspended along with the famous bullet train.
Hundreds of shops have closed in the face of the extreme weather.
Courtesy of Sky News
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