Tag: Evacuations

Landslide tears apart luxury homes on Southern California’s Palos Verdes Peninsula

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ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, Calif. — A landslide tore apart luxury homes on Southern California’s Palos Verdes Peninsula on Monday, leaving a confused jumble of collapsed roofs, shattered walls, tilted chimneys and decks dangling over an adjacent canyon.

The slide in the Los Angeles County city of Rolling Hills Estates began Saturday when cracks began appearing in structures and the ground. Twelve homes were red-tagged as unsafe, and residents were given just 20 minutes to evacuate.

The pace of destruction increased through the weekend and into Monday.

“It is moving quickly,” said Janice Hahn, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, who represents the area. “You can actually hear the snap, crackle and pop every minute when you’re there as each home is shifting, is moving.”

It was initially believed that all of the red-tagged homes were sliding, but Assistant City Manager Alexa Davis clarified Monday afternoon that 10 were actively moving. An additional 16 were being monitored but had not required evacuation, Davis said in an email.

The cause of the landslide was not known. But a fissure running among the homes raised suspicion that this past winter’s heavy rains may be involved, Hahn said.

“We won’t know until a geologist and a soil expert really does a post-op on this and tells us what happened,” Hahn said. “But because of that fissure, the initial thinking is that it was because of the heavy rains that we had last year and all that underground water has caused this. But we don’t know.”

Hahn said many of the displaced residents were unsure whether they were insured for such loss, including one who moved in two months ago after escrow closed. The county assessor was to meet with the residents to tell them they could apply for property tax waivers.

“My heart goes out to these people,” Hahn said. “We gave them 20 minutes Saturday night to evacuate and get their things. Obviously they didn’t get everything.”

Damaging landslides have occurred previously on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which rises high above the Pacific on the county’s south coast and offers residents spectacular views of the ocean and greater Los Angeles.

A landslide that began in 1956 destroyed 140 homes in the Portuguese Bend area of the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, and earth continues to move there. The slide coincided with construction of a road through the area, which is atop an ancient landslide.

Among other notable earth movements on the peninsula, a 2011 slide severed the blufftop ocean road near White Point in the San Pedro section of Los Angeles several months after engineers began noticing cracks and fenced off the area for study.

Southern California’s complex landscapes contribute to landslides, according to an overview by the U.S. Geological Survey in conjunction with the California Geological Survey.

Some of the many potential factors include earthquakes, steep slopes, sedimentary soil that is not rock hard, and water percolating down into the earth after heavy rains, the report says.

Human-induced landslide factors include construction without proper grading of slopes, alteration of drainage patterns and disturbances of old landslides.

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July 10, 2023
Relentless rain floods roads in Northeast, leads to evacuations, rescues

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NEW YORK — Heavy rain washed out roads and forced evacuations in the Northeast on Monday as more downpours were forecast throughout the day. One person in New York drowned as she was trying to leave her home.

The slow-moving storm reached New England in the morning after hitting parts of New York and Connecticut. Heavy downpours with possible flash flooding were forecast in parts of Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine.

One of the worst hit places was New York’s Hudson Valley, where rescuers found the body of a woman in her 30s whose home was surrounded by water. The force of the flash flooding dislodged boulders, which rammed the woman’s house and damaged part of its wall, Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus told The Associated Press. Two other people escaped.

“She was trying to get through (the flooding) with her dog,” Neuhaus said, “and she was overwhelmed by tidal-wave type waves.”

He said many roads and bridges were washed out. Officials believed everyone was accounted for, but they were trying to reach people to make sure they were OK.

Officials say the storm has already wrought tens of millions of dollars in damage. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a state of emergency Sunday for Orange County. That included the town of Cornwall, near the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, where many roads were flooded and closed off.

The storm also interrupted air and rail travel. As of early Monday, there were hundreds of flight cancellations at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports and more than 200 canceled at Boston’s Logan Airport in the last 24 hours, according to the Flightaware website. Amtrak temporarily suspended service between Albany and New York.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott declared a state of emergency on Sunday, in advance of Monday’s rain. Some campers and people caught in their homes have been rescued in central and southern Vermont, and more reports have been coming in, said Mark Bosma, spokesperson for the state emergency management office.

By the morning, some towns reported 2 1/2 to 4 inches (6.35 centimeters to 10.16 centimeters) of rain since midnight, and similar totals were expected during the day, said Robert Haynes, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Burlington, Vermont.

“We still look like we’re on track for that potentially significant, locally catastrophic flooding,” Haynes said.

Vermont had some of its worst weather during Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011, when it got 11 inches (28 centimeters) of rain in 24 hours.

“This is one of those unique events that we don’t see very often around here,” meteorologist Marlon Verasamy in Burlington said of Monday’s storm.

He said the ground was already saturated and rivers were relatively high from recent heavy rains. Parts of southern Vermont had mudslides and road flooding from a storm Friday night into Saturday morning.

“It’s the same area being hit today,” he said.

Irene killed six in the state, washed homes off their foundations and damaged or destroyed more than 200 bridges and 500 miles (805 kilometers) of highway.

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Associated Press writers Lisa Rathke in Marshfield, Vermont; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Karen Matthews in New York; and Sarah Brumfield in Silver Spring, Maryland, contributed to this report.

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July 10, 2023
12 homes evacuated in Southern California city after ground shifts

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Officials say twelve homes were evacuated in a Los Angeles-area city Saturday night after a major ground shift put them at risk of collapse

ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, Calif. — Twelve homes were evacuated in a Los Angeles-area city after a major ground shift put them at risk of collapse, officials said Sunday.

Janice Hahn, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, visited Rolling Hills Estates, a city 19 miles (30 kilometers) south of Los Angeles, Saturday night while the ground was moving. She said she had “never seen anything like” the damage that occurred.

“To think that these homes were intact, you know, yesterday afternoon, and today you can hear the creaking, the cracking, the crumbling,” Hahn said Sunday. “They’re going to fall.”

Evacuated homes were at risk of falling into a nearby canyon “sooner than later,” Hahn said.

Outside of those evacuated, some homes had their gas shut off to try to prevent an accident from happening, said Pete Goodrich, a Rolling Hills Estates building official.

Officials did not know yet what may have caused the ground to shift, Goodrich said.

The evacuations come after landslides haltedrail service in San Clemente, another Southern California city, earlier this year.

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July 9, 2023
Wildfires in Canada have broken records for area burned, evacuations and cost, official says

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Wildfires raging across Canada have already broken records for total area burned, the number of people forced to evacuate their homes and the cost of fighting the blazes, and the fire season is only halfway finished, officials said Thursday.

“It’s no understatement to say that the 2023 fire season is and will continue to be record breaking in a number of ways,” Michael Norton, director general, Northern Forestry Centre, Canadian Forest Service, said Thursday during a briefing.

A health expert also warned that smoke from the fires can cause health problems for people living in both Canada and the United States.

“When you’re emitting large amounts of fire smoke into the air, and that smoke is reaching populated areas, there will be health effects,” said Ryan Allen, a professor of health sciences at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.

Norton said warm weather and dry conditions across Canada indicate the potential for higher-than-normal fire activity through July and August.

“Drought is a major contributing factor affecting parts of all provinces and territories, intensifying in some regions,” he said. “When coupled with forecasts for ongoing above normal temperatures across most of the country, it is anticipated that many parts of Canada will continue to see above normal fire activity.”

As of Wednesday, there were 639 active fires burning in Canada with 351 of them out of control. So far this year there have been 3,412 fires, well above the 10-year average of 2,751, said Norton.

The fires have burned 8.8 million hectares (27.7 million acres) an area about the size of the state of Virginia. This already exceeds the record of 7.6 million hectares (18.7 million acres) set in 1989 and is 11 times the 10-year average experienced by this date.

“The final area burned for this season may yet be significantly higher,” said Norton. “What we can say with certainty right now is that 2023 is a record-breaking year since at least since 1986 when accurate records started to be kept.”

Allen said the fine particles found in fire smoke not only have the ability to penetrate deep into airways, they also can travel long distances meaning they could drift far into the U.S.

There have been reports that fires in Eastern Canada and Quebec are affecting air quality in Europe.

Allen said higher concentrations of smoke increases health risks to the lungs, brain, cognitive functions and even fetal development.

“As you get very far away, it’s unlikely the concentration would be as high as they are in close proximity to the fire and therefore the health risk would be lower, but the health risk is probably not zero,” he said.

Norton said the fires have forced an estimated 155,856 evacuees, the highest number in the last four decades. Currently about 4,500 people remain under evacuation orders across the country with about 3,400 in Indigenous communities.

Fighting the fires has taken on a global proportion.

There are about 3,790 provincial firefighters battling the blazes across the country being assisted by Canadian Armed Forces personnel. Another 3,258 firefighters from Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, the U.S., Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, South Korea and the European Union have travelled to Canada to fight fires.

Norton said the cost of fighting wildfires has steadily grown and is approaching about CDN$1 billion (US$750 million) a year.

“With the scale of this year’s activity and the fact we’ve still got three months left, there’s no question in my mind the direct cost of suppression will be a new record,” he said.

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July 6, 2023
A Tajik man fatally shot two officers at Moldova’s airport after he was denied entry, officials say

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CHISINAU, Moldova — A Tajikistan national who was denied entry into Moldova at its main international airport grabbed a guard’s weapon and fatally shot two security officers Friday, officials said. One traveler also was wounded.

The suspect was being escorted by officials at Chisinau International Airport when he “took the gun of a border guard” and opened fire, authorities said. Special forces then intervened, subdued the individual and handcuffed him, leaving him seriously injured. All passengers were evacuated from the airport.

Moldova’s Prime Minister Dorin Recean said in a statement that the suspect was from Tajikistan. He said a wounded passenger was being treated by doctors.

Moldova’s acting Prosecutor General Ion Munteanu told journalists late Friday that the suspect had arrived from Istanbul, Turkey. He said the Tajik national was being treated in hospital for “serious injuries” sustained while being detained, and that he was under police supervision.

Prosecutors are investigating the incident as a possible terrorist attack, Munteanu added.

Moldova’s President Maia Sandu said that the two people killed were a border police officer and an airport security employee.

“We send our sincere condolences to the bereaved families and relatives, the loss of loved ones is a great pain for the families,” Sandu wrote in a statement on Facebook. “It’s a sad day for all of us.”

State institutions have been put on high alert, Sandu said, and that “police and law enforcement agencies are mobilized throughout the Republic of Moldova” in response to the incident.

Moldova’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a separate statement that the victims “lost their lives while performing their duties” and that authorities “took care to protect the civilians who were in the danger zone.”

“The aggressor will be held accountable by law enforcement agencies that opened a criminal investigation file on the case,” the ministry said, adding that an investigation is being launched by the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, neighboring Moldova — a country with a population of about 2.6 million people, and a European Union candidate since June 2022 — has faced a long list of crises.

These include an acute winter energy crisis after Russia dramatically reduced gas supplies and recurring anti-government protests organized by a Russia-friendly political party against the ruling pro-Western administration.

Moldova’s leaders have also repeatedly accused Moscow of conducting campaigns to try to destabilize the country, which was a Soviet republic until 1991.

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June 30, 2023
11 passengers injured evacuating Cathay Pacific jet after aborted takeoff in Hong Kong

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Eleven passengers have been injured during an evacuation of a Cathay Pacific jetliner that aborted its takeoff in Hong Kong due to a technical issue, according to the airline

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A Cathay Pacific jetliner aborted its takeoff at Hong Kong International Airport early Saturday, and 11 passengers were injured while evacuating the aircraft, the airline said.

Flight CX880, bound for Los Angeles, returned to the gate after a “technical issue” caused the crew to abort the takeoff and “a precautionary passenger evacuation” was initiated, the airline said in a statement. It said those on board used five escape slides to exit the plane.

Cathay Pacific gave no details on the problem. Public broadcaster RTHK reported one of the plane’s tires had overheated, causing it to burst, citing police.

The flight was carrying 293 passengers and 17 crew members.

“We understand that 11 passengers are being treated at the hospital with injuries sustained during the evacuation process,” Cathay Pacific said. “Our priority is to look after all affected passengers and crew.”

By 10:30 a.m., nine of the injured passengers had been discharged from the hospital, the airline said later.

Using a different aircraft, the flight departed for Los Angeles at 10:12 a.m., carrying 283 passengers, it said.

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June 23, 2023
Paris police look at gas leak as possible cause of explosion and fire that injured 24

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PARIS — A strong explosion rocked a building in Paris’ Left Bank on Wednesday, injuring at least 24 people, igniting a fire that sent smoke soaring over the French capital’s monuments and prompting an evacuation of other properties, authorities said. Police were investigating suspicions that a gas leak caused the blast.

The facade of the building in the 5th arrondissement collapsed. Emergency services were searching for two people who might be trapped inside, the district’d mayor said. The explosion happened near the historic Val de Grace military hospital, in one of the most upscale neighborhoods of the French capital.

Some 270 firefighters were involved in putting out the flames and 70 emergency vehicles were sent to the scene. The fire was contained Wednesday evening but not yet extinguished as Paris bars and restaurants celebrated the summer solstice with a citywide annual music festival.

Sirens wailed as ambulances passed through the neighborhood, but residents started to move freely again on the previously cordoned off street, rue Saint-Jacques. Associated Press reporters said smoke had stopped pouring out of the building where the explosion occurred.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said the building housed a private school, the Paris American Academy. The school was founded in 1965 and offers teaching in fashion design, interior design, fine arts and creative writing.

A Paris police official told the AP that 24 people were injured, including four in critical condition and 20 with less severe injuries. The injuries were sustained mainly when people were blown off their feet by the blast, the official said.

Jema Halbert, who owns a butcher’s shop close to the explosion site, said she went upstairs to fetch something, and “I heard a ‘boom’. … So then I went downstairs, where I found my husband in shock, dust by the till and I thought, wait, there’s a problem. So I stepped outside and I saw big flames and I said, it’s impossible. I called my daughter. She was crying. She was shocked.”

Edouard Civel, deputy mayor of the 5th arrondissement, attributed the explosion to a gas leak but other officials were more cautious. A judicial official said a gas explosion was one of the possible causes under investigation.

District Mayor Florence Berthout said on French TV channel BFM that firefighters were searching for two people believed to have been inside the building at the time of the blast. “The explosion was extremely violent,” she said, describing pieces of glass still falling from buildings.

Renowned Greek-French filmmaker Costa-Gavras was among the witnesses at the scene .

“A huge noise and the house was shaken like this,” the 90-year-old told the AP, visibly rattled. “”We thought, what is going on? We thought it could be the sky (a storm). … It’s not something to laugh about.”

The Paris prosecutor said an investigation was opened into aggravated involuntary injury and the probe would examine whether the explosion stemmed from a suspected violation of safety rules. Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said investigators would seek to “determine whether or not there was failure to respect a rule or individual imprudence that led to the explosion.”

Firefighters prevented the fire from igniting two neighboring buildings that were “seriously destabilized” by the explosion and had to be evacuated, Nunez said. The explosion blew out several windows in the area, witnesses and the police chief said.

With more than 2 million people densely packed within the city limits and historic, sometimes ageing, infrastructure, Paris is not a stranger to gas explosions. A January 2019 blast in the 9th district killed four people and left dozens injured.

After Wednesday’s blast, a student at the private school said he was in a building about 100 meters (yards) away when the explosion hit.

“I was sitting on the windowsill, and we moved 2 meters away from the window, carried by a small blast (from the explosion) and huge fear,” Achille, whose last name was not given, told BFM television.

“We came down (from the building) and saw the flames,” he said. “The police gave us great support and we evacuated quickly.”

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Sylvie Corbet and John Leicester in Paris and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

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June 21, 2023
Week after Iowa building collapse, Minnesota condo evacuated over stability concerns

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More than 140 people were evacuated from a condominium in Minnesota amid concerns that the building was unstable

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Less than a week after an apartment building partially collapsed in Iowa, more than 140 people were evacuated from a condominium in Minnesota after a structural engineer expressed concerns about its stability.

Officials in Rochester, Minnesota, ordered residents of the 15-story, 94-unit Rochester Towers Condominium to evacuate Friday afternoon, police said.

Residents were advised to find temporary housing elsewhere while short-term shoring work is done to the building structure, The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

They will not be allowed back into the building until Monday at the earliest, city spokeswoman Jenna Bowman said.

In Davenport on Saturday, workers were removing pieces of the collapsed apartment building to control falling hazards and support recovery efforts, the city said on its website.

The six-story Davenport apartment building partially collapsed on May 28. Rescue crews pulled seven people from the building initially and escorted 12 others out. They later rescued two more people.

Three men remain missing, and officials said there was a “high probability” they were at home when the building partially collapsed and that their apartments were in the collapse zone.

The search for survivors ended on Thursday and work was begun to shore up the building for the recovery efforts.

The work to eventually bring down the building came amid questions about why residents weren’t warned about the potential danger even after a structural engineer’s report issued just days before the collapse indicated a wall of the century-old building was at imminent risk of crumbling.

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June 3, 2023
Wildfire on Canada’s Atlantic coast spurs evacuation of 16,000 people

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HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — A wildfire on Canada’s Atlantic coast has damaged about 200 houses and other structures and prompted the evacuation of 16,000 people, many of whom were eager to return Tuesday to see whether homes and pets had survived.

Firefighters worked through the night to extinguish hotspots in the fire that started in the Halifax area on Sunday, Halifax Deputy Fire Chief David Meldrum said. He said it was too early to give an exact count of homes destroyed, but the municipal government put the toll at about 200 buildings.

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston announced the province would be banning all travel and activity in all wooded areas as of 4 p.m. local time. The ban applies to all forestry, mining, hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, off-road vehicle driving and all commercial activity on government lands.

“We’re in a very serious situation in this province, and we need to take the steps that we can to protect Nova Scotia,” he told a news conference via a video call from Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where the province’s largest wildfire has been burning since the weekend.

“I wanted to get a sense of the damage here,” the premier said. “It’s extensive. It’s heartbreaking.”

Dan Cavanaugh was among two dozen people waiting Tuesday in a Halifax-area parking lot to learn if their suburban homes had been consumed by the wildfire.

“We’re like everyone else in this lot,” said the 48-year-old insurance adjuster. “We’re not sure if we have a house to go back to or the extent of the damages.”

Police officers were writing down the names of residents and calling people to be escorted to see what had become of their properties.

Sarah Lyon of the Nova Scotia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said an eight-member team was preparing to head out into the evacuation zone to retrieve animals left behind.

In all, about 16,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes northwest of Halifax, most of which are within a 30-minute drive of the port city’s downtown. The area under mandatory evacuation orders covers about 100 square kilometers (38 miles).

Sonya Higgins said she and more than 40 others waited in a nearby supermarket parking lot to be led into the evacuation area, in hopes of retrieving seven cats from two homes.

Higgins runs a cat rescue operation in Halifax, and she says the pet owners contacting her are “frantic” to find their animals and get them to a safe place.

Earlier in the day, fire officials said that with the return of dry, windy conditions on Tuesday, there could be a “reburn” in the evacuated subdivisions.

The extended forecast is calling for hotter weather on Wednesday and no rain until Friday at the earliest.

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May 30, 2023
Philippines warns of possible flooding, landslides as Typhoon Mawar slowly passes to north

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Philippine officials began evacuating villagers, shut schools and offices and imposed a no-sail ban as Typhoon Mawar approached the country’s northern provinces

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine officials began evacuating hundreds of villagers, shut down schools and offices and imposed a no-sail ban Monday as Typhoon Mawar approached the country’s northern provinces.

The storm, locally named Betty, was not expected to make landfall in the mountainous region. But forecasters warned that the typhoon would slow down considerably off the northernmost province of Batanes from Tuesday to Wednesday and could cause dangerous tidal surges, flash floods and landslides as it blows past.

Typhoon Mawar was moving northwest in the Pacific Ocean about 525 kilometers (326 miles) east of the coastal town of Aparri in Cagayan province with maximum sustained winds of 155 kph (96 mph) and gusts of up to 190 kph (118 mph).

Mawar tore through Guam last week as the strongest typhoon to hit the U.S. Pacific territory in over two decades, flipping cars, tearing off roofs and knocking down power. It weakened as it blew toward the Philippines.

“These typhoons, earthquakes and natural calamities have been a part of our lives,” Batanes Vice Governor Ignacio Villa told The Associated Press by telephone. “We cannot afford not to prepare because that would potentially mean the loss of lives and major damages.”

Disaster-preparedness officials said army troops, police, firefighters and volunteer groups were standing by for possible search and rescue in northern provinces and more than a million food packs for displaced villagers have been prepared.

More than 400 villagers have been evacuated to emergency shelters by Monday in the high-risk coastal communities of Gonzaga and Santa Ana in Cagayan and outlying provinces ahead of the expected onslaught. Other emergency shelters in several northern provinces have been prepared with the expected influx of displaced residents from flood-prone villages, officials said.

Classes and office work, except those involved in disaster-preparedness, have been suspended in most of Cagayan and Batanes provinces, where occasional downpours and gusty wind were reported Sunday night. Flights to and from the provinces have been cancelled and fishing and passenger vessels have been prohibited from sailing in provinces where storm warnings have been raised.

Villa said the local government lent ropes to villagers living in high-risk communities to strengthen their houses as the typhoon approached.

About 20 typhoons and storms each year batter the Philippine archipelago, which also lies on seismic faults where volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the Southeast Asian nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.

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May 28, 2023
Rain, even smoke help fight wildfires in Alberta; new blaze brings evacuation in British Columbia

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Canadian officials say scattered rains and even smoke cover have cooled air temperatures and helped efforts to fight wildfires in Alberta over the weekend

EDMONTON, Alberta — Scattered rains and even smoke cover cooled air temperatures and helped efforts to fight wildfires in Alberta over the weekend, officials said Sunday, while a new fire in neighboring British Columbia led to an evacuation order for one rural area.

As the heavy smoke brought cooler temperatures, it also limited the ability to fly firefighting aircraft and it can harm the health of people having to breathe it, authorities added.

“I couldn’t say one outweighs the other. We will take advantage of any opportunity we have, and if it’s providing an opportunity for more on-the-ground firefighting, then that’s what we’re able to do,” Christie Tucker, an Alberta fire official, said at a news conference.

Tucker said only five new wildfires started between Friday morning and Sunday morning, part of which he attributed to Albertans respecting restrictions on fires and ATV use. Overall Sunday, 84 fires burned in the province, 23 of which were out of control. More than 10,000 people were sheltering away from their homs.

“While we are optimistic that the forecast rain will be enough to make a difference to some wildfires in the province, we are not out of the woods yet,” Tucker said.

In British Columbia, which has also been plagued by wildfires, an out-of-control blaze that sprang up led officials to order the evacuation of an area near Tzenzaicut Lake about 600 kilometers (375 miles) north of Vancouver. Firefighters had to abandon one property.

Jessica Mack, a spokeswoman for the Cariboo Fire Centre, said crews were using heavy equipment and firefighting aircraft to combat the growing blaze.

Officials said a number of major wildfires remained in both the Cariboo and Peace River regions, but changing wind directions and cooler weather helped fightfighters temper the spread of those blazes.

In the Cariboo region, an evacuation alert was lifted for the communities of Anahim Lake and the Ulkatcho First Nation.

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May 21, 2023
Exceptional rains in drought-struck northern Italy kill 6, cancel Formula One Grand Prix

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ROME — Exceptional rains Wednesday in a drought-struck region of northern Italy swelled rivers over their banks, killing at least six people, forcing the evacuation of thousands and prompting officials to warn that Italy needs a national plan to combat climate change-induced flooding.

The heavy rains and floods also forced Formula One to cancel this weekend’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix to not overtax emergency crews that were already stretched thin in responding to the emergency.

Days of rainstorms stretched across a broad swath of northern Italy and the Balkans, where “apocalyptic” floods, landslides and evacuations were also reported in Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia.

The president of Emilia-Romagna, Stefano Bonaccini, said six people were killed and others unaccounted for in flooding that forced the evacuation of thousands of people.

Italian Civil Protection Minister Nello Musemeci called for a new nationwide hydraulic engineering plan to adapt to the impact of increasing incidents of floods and landslides. At a briefing, he noted that an average of 200 millimeters (7.9 inches) of rain had fallen in 36 hours in the region, with some areas registering 500 millimeters (19.7 inches) in that period.

“If you consider that this region averages 1,000 millimeters (39.3 inches) of rain in a year, you realize the impact that these rains have had in these hours,” Musemeci said.

Citing the November landslide in Ischia, which killed a dozen people, Musemeci said that Italy is increasingly experiencing Africa-style tropical weather, with long periods of drought punctuated by intense rainfall that can’t be absorbed by the soil.

“Nothing will ever be the same again … and what has happened in these hours is evidence of that,” Musemeci said. “When soil remains dry for a long time, instead of increasing its absorption capacity, it ends up cementing and allowing rainfall to continue flowing over the surface and causing absolutely unimaginable damage.”

The mayor of the city of Cesena, Enzo Lattuca, posted a video early Wednesday on Facebook to warn that continued downpours in the Emilia-Romagna region could flood the Savio river and smaller tributaries for a second day. He urged residents to move to upper floors of their homes and avoid low-lying areas and riverbanks. He announced the closure to traffic of some bridges and streets after rivers of mud sloshed through town and into basements and storefronts.

Museumeci said that 5,000 people had been evacuated, 50,000 were without electricity, and more than 100,000 were without cellphone or landline use.

The deputy chief of the Civil Protection agency, Titti Postiglione, said that rescue operations for those needing emergency evacuations were particularly difficult given so many roads and routes were flooded and phone service interrupted. Speaking on Sky TG24, she noted that the affected flood zone covered a broad swath of four provinces which, until the heavy rains, had been parched by a prolonged drought.

Some regional train routes remained suspended Wednesday around Bologna and Ravenna, with severe delays elsewhere, the Italian state railway said.

Premier Giorgia Meloni, who was traveling to the G-7 meeting in Japan, said the government was monitoring the situation and was prepared to approve emergency aid.

In the Balkans, the swollen Una river flooded parts of northern Croatia and northwestern Bosnia, where authorities announced a state of emergency. The mayor of the town of Bosanska Krupa in Bosnia said that hundreds of homes had been flooded.

“We have an apocalypse,” Amin Halitovic told regional N1 network. “We can no longer count the flooded buildings. It’s never been like this.”

Dozens of landslides were reported in eastern Slovenia, many of which endangered homes and infrastructure.

In Croatia, hundreds of soldiers and rescue teams continued bringing food and other necessities to people in flood-hit areas who have been isolated in their homes. No casualties have been reported so far.

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A previous version of this story was corrected to show that Meloni was en route to Japan, not coming home.

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Jovana Gec contributed from Belgrade, Serbia.

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May 17, 2023
Powerful Cyclone Mocha floods homes, cuts communications in western Myanmar, at least 700 injured

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DHAKA, Bangladesh — Rescuers early Monday evacuated about 1,000 people trapped by seawater 3.6 meters (12 feet ) deep along western Myanmar‘s coast after a powerful cyclone injured hundreds and cut off communications. Damage and six deaths have been reported, but the true impact was not yet clear in one of Asia’s least developed countries.

Strong winds injured more than 700 of about 20,000 people who were sheltering in sturdier buildings on the highlands of Sittwe township such as monasteries, pagodas and schools, according to a leader of the Rakhine Youths Philanthropic Association in Sittwe. He asked not to be named due to fear of reprisals from the authorities in the military-run country.

Seawater raced into more than 10 low-lying wards near the shore as Cyclone Mocha made landfall in Rakhine state Sunday afternoon, he said. Residents moved to roofs and higher floors, while the wind and storm surge prevented immediate rescue.

“After 4 p.m. yesterday, the storm weakened a bit, but the water did not fall back. Most of them sat on the roof and at the high places of their houses the whole night. The wind blew all night,” the rescue group leader said.

Water was still about 1.5 meters (5 feet) high in flooded areas later Monday, but rescues were being made as the wind calmed and the sun rose in the sky. He asked civil society organizations and authorities to send aid and help evacuate residents.

Six deaths were reported by Myanmar media and rescue groups. Several injuries were reported in neighboring Bangladesh, which was spared the predicted direct hit.

Mocha made landfall near Sittwe township with winds blowing up to 209 kilometers (130 miles) per hour, Myanmar’s Meteorological Department said. By midday Monday, it had weakened to a tropical depression, according to the India Meteorological Department.

The State Administration Council issued disaster declarations for 17 townships in Rakhine state.

High winds crumpled cell phone towers, but in videos collected by local media before communications were lost, deep water raced through streets and wind blew off roofs.

Myanmar’s military information office said the storm had damaged houses and electrical transformers in Sittwe, Kyaukpyu, and Gwa townships. It said roofs were torn off buildings on the Coco Islands, about 425 kilometers (264 miles) southwest of the country’s largest city, Yangon.

Volunteers previously said shelters in Sittwe did not have enough food after more people arrived there seeking help.

Mocha largely spared the Bangladeshi city of Cox’s Bazar, which initially had been in the storm’s predicted path. Authorities had evacuated hundreds of thousands of people before the cyclone veered east.

About a dozen people were injured on Saint Martin’s Island, while some 300 homes were either destroyed or damaged, leading Bengali-language daily Prothom Alo reported.

U.N. agencies and aid workers in Bangladesh had prepositioned tons of dry food and dozens of ambulances in the refugee camps that house more than 1 million Rohingya Muslims who fled persecution in Myanmar.

In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar with a storm surge that devastated populated areas around the Irrawaddy River delta. At least 138,000 people died and tens of thousands of homes and other buildings were washed away.

Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune city, said cyclones in the Bay of Bengal are becoming more intense more quickly, in part because of climate change.

Climate scientists say cyclones can now retain their energy for many days. Cyclone Amphan in eastern India in 2020 continued to travel over land as a strong cyclone and caused extensive devastation.

“As long as oceans are warm and winds are favorable, cyclones will retain their intensity for a longer period,” Koll said.

Tropical cyclones, which are called hurricanes or typhoons in other regions, are among the world’s most devastating natural disasters when they hit densely populated coastal areas.

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May 15, 2023
Stragglers pack up as Swiss village is evacuated under rockslide threat

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BRIENZ, Switzerland — Stragglers packed up belongings in cars, trucks and a least one pickup truck before a looming deadline on Friday to evacuate a village in eastern Switzerland that is facing an urgent rockslide threat.

About 2 million cubic meters of rock on an Alpine mountainside overhead could soon come crashing down.

As geologists and other experts in fluorescent vests took measurements on Friday, villagers and vacationers bared their emotion that the centuries-old Alpine village of Brienz — home to under 100 residents — could be soon be subsumed under spilling rock.

The rumble of shifting ground and the sporadic crackle of a few rocks colliding and sliding down underscored the rising urgency for locals to get out of town by a 6 p.m. deadline set by Swiss authorities.

One woman loaded up a pickup truck with a caged turtle and other belongings as neighbors packed up cars and trucks too.

A Zurich woman who has for years vacationed in bucolic, calm Brienz, stood back about 30 meters (100 feet) from a last barrier on the edge of the village to look up worryingly at the mountainside. She asked not to be quoted by a reporter.

At a local town hall meeting on Tuesday, authorities ordered the evacuation and said people wouldn’t be allowed to remain overnight after Friday, though they could return from time to time starting Saturday, depending on the risk level.

The centuries-old village straddles German- and Romansch-speaking parts of the eastern Graubunden region, sitting southwest of Davos at an altitude of about 1,150 meters (3,800 feet).

The mountain and the rocks on it have been moving since the last Ice Age, local officials say. But they issued a statement on Tuesday saying measurements indicated a “strong acceleration over a large area” in recent days, and “up to 2 million cubic meters of rock material will collapse or slide in the coming seven to 24 days.”

Christian Gartmann, a member of the crisis management board in the town of Albula, which counts Brienz in its municipality, said experts estimate there’s a 60% chance that the rock will fall in smaller chunks, which may not reach the village or the valley. The landslide could also move slowly.

But there’s also a 10% chance that the 2-million-cubic meter mass may spill down, threatening lives, property and the village itself, he said.

Gartmann said that glacier melt had affected the precariousness of the rocks over millennia, but melting glaciers due to “man-made” climate change in recent decades wasn’t a factor.

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May 12, 2023
Stragglers pack up as Swiss village is evacuated under rockslide threat

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BRIENZ, Switzerland — Stragglers packed up belongings in cars, trucks and a least one pickup truck before a looming deadline on Friday to evacuate a village in eastern Switzerland that is facing an urgent rockslide threat.

About 2 million cubic meters of rock on an Alpine mountainside overhead could soon come crashing down.

As geologists and other experts in fluorescent vests took measurements on Friday, villagers and vacationers bared their emotion that the centuries-old Alpine village of Brienz — home to under 100 residents — could be soon be subsumed under spilling rock.

The rumble of shifting ground and the sporadic crackle of a few rocks colliding and sliding down underscored the rising urgency for locals to get out of town by a 6 p.m. deadline set by Swiss authorities.

One woman loaded up a pickup truck with a caged turtle and other belongings as neighbors packed up cars and trucks too.

A Zurich woman who has for years vacationed in bucolic, calm Brienz, stood back about 30 meters (100 feet) from a last barrier on the edge of the village to look up worryingly at the mountainside. She asked not to be quoted by a reporter.

At a local town hall meeting on Tuesday, authorities ordered the evacuation and said people wouldn’t be allowed to remain overnight after Friday, though they could return from time to time starting Saturday, depending on the risk level.

The centuries-old village straddles German- and Romansch-speaking parts of the eastern Graubunden region, sitting southwest of Davos at an altitude of about 1,150 meters (3,800 feet).

The mountain and the rocks on it have been moving since the last Ice Age, local officials say. But they issued a statement on Tuesday saying measurements indicated a “strong acceleration over a large area” in recent days, and “up to 2 million cubic meters of rock material will collapse or slide in the coming seven to 24 days.”

Christian Gartmann, a member of the crisis management board in the town of Albula, which counts Brienz in its municipality, said experts estimate there’s a 60% chance that the rock will fall in smaller chunks, which may not reach the village or the valley. The landslide could also move slowly.

But there’s also a 10% chance that the 2-million-cubic meter mass may spill down, threatening lives, property and the village itself, he said.

Gartmann said that glacier melt had affected the precariousness of the rocks over millennia, but melting glaciers due to “man-made” climate change in recent decades wasn’t a factor.

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May 12, 2023
Worries grow about Ukraine nuke plant amid evacuations

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KYIV, Ukraine — Anxiety about the safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant grew Sunday after the Moscow-installed governor of the Ukrainian region where it is located ordered civilian evacuations, including from the city where most plant workers live.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi has spent months trying to persuade Russian and Ukrainian officials to establish a security zone around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to prevent the war from causing a radiation leak.

The evacuations ordered by the Russia-backed governor of Ukraine‘s Zaporizhzhia province, Yegeny Balitsky, raised fears that fighting in the area would intensify. Balitsky on Friday ordered civilians to leave 18 Russian-occupied communities, including Enerhodar, home to most of the plant staff.

More than 1,500 people had been evacuated from two unspecified cities in the region as of Sunday, Balitsky said. The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed the evacuation of Enerhodar was underway.

Moscow’s troops seized the plant soon after invading Ukraine last year, but Ukrainian employees have continued to run it during the occupation, at times under extreme duress.

Ukraine has regularly fired at the Russian side of the lines, while Russia has repeatedly shelled Ukrainian-held communities across the Dnieper River. The fighting has intensified as Ukraine prepares to launch a long-promised counteroffensive to reclaim ground taken by Russia.

Ukrainian authorities on Sunday said that a 72-year-old woman was killed and three others were wounded when Russian forces fired more than 30 shells at the city of Nikopol, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) across the river from the plant.

Grossi said the evacuation of civilians suggested a further escalation.

“The general situation in the area near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous,” Grossi warned Saturday.

“We must act now to prevent the threat of a severe nuclear accident and its associated consequences for the population and the environment. This major nuclear facility must be protected,” he said.

Although none of the plant’s six reactors are operating because of the war, the station needs a reliable power supply for cooling systems essential to preventing a potentially catastrophic radiation disaster.

Analysts have for months pointed to the southern Zaporizhzhia region as one of the possible targets of Ukraine’s expected spring counteroffensive, speculating that Kyiv’s forces might try to choke off Russia’s “land corridor” to the Crimean Peninsula and split Russian forces in two by pressing on to the Azov Sea coast.

Balitsky said Ukraine’s forces had intensified attacks on the area in the past several days.

Some of the fiercest ongoing fighting is in the eastern city of Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces are still clinging to a position on the western outskirts despite Russia trying to take the city for more than nine months.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Sunday that Moscow’s forces had captured two more districts in the city’s west and northwest, but provided no further details.

Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces on Saturday accused Russia of using phosphorus in the city and on Sunday released a new video showing the telltale white fire from such munitions.

International law prohibits the use of white phosphorus or other incendiary weapons — munitions designed to set fire to objects or cause burn injuries — in areas where there could be concentrations of civilians, though it can also be used for illumination or to create smoke screens.

It wasn’t possible to independently verify where the video was shot or when, but chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British army colonel, said it was clearly white phosphorus.

“This is being fired directly at Ukraine positions and this would be a war crime,” he said.

“I expect because the Russians have failed to take Bakmut conventionally, they are now using unconventional tactics to burn the Ukrainian soldiers to death or to get them to flee.”

Russian forces haven’t commented on the claim, but have rejected previous accusations from Ukraine that they had used phosphorus munitions.

In the south, an aide to the exiled Ukrainian mayor of the Russia-occupied coastal city of Mariupol said in a Telegram post Sunday that there was evidence that Moscow’s forces had intensified their transfer of tracked vehicles through the city and into Zaporizhzhia province.

Petro Andryushchenko claimed that more and more vehicles were being spotted crossing Mariupol “every day.”

He posted a short video showing heavy trucks transporting armored vehicles along an expressway, without specifying where or when it was taken.

In Enerhodar, the first residents evacuated were those who took Russian citizenship following the capture of the city by Moscow early in the war, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said.

They were being taken to the Russia-occupied Azov Sea coast, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) to the southeast, which is where Mariupol is located, the General Staff reported on Facebook.

Grossi said Zaporizhzhia plant’s core operating staff hadn’t been evacuated as of Saturday but that most live in Enerhodar and the situation has contributed to “increasingly tense, stressful and challenging conditions for personnel and their families.”

He added that IAEA experts at the nuclear site “are continuing to hear shelling on a regular basis.”

Elsewhere, Russian shelling on Saturday and overnight killed six civilians and wounded four others in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, according to a Telegram update published Sunday by the local administration.

Five civilians were wounded in the eastern Donetsk province, the epicenter of the fighting in recent months, local Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko reported on Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces overnight attacked the largest port in Russia-occupied Crimea with drones, a Kremlin-installed local official said on Telegram early Sunday.

According to the post by Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of Sevastopol, 10 Ukrainian drones targeted the city, three of which were shot down by air defense systems. Razvozhayev said there was no damage.

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Joanna Kozlowska contributed to this story from London.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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May 7, 2023
Nuclear watchdog growingly worried over Ukraine plant safety

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KYIV, Ukraine — The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog is expressing growing anxiety about the safety of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, after the governor of the Russia-occupied area ordered the evacuation of a town where most plant staff live amid ongoing attacks in the area.

The plant is near the front lines of fighting, and Ukrainian authorities on Sunday said that a 72-year-old woman was killed and three others were wounded when Russian forces fired more than 30 shells at Nikopol, a Ukrainian-held town neighboring the plant.

“The general situation in the area near the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous,” International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said in a warning that came Saturday before the latest report of attacks.

“I’m extremely concerned about the very real nuclear safety and security risks facing the plant.”

Grossi’s comments were prompted by an announcement Friday by Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-installed governor of the partially-occupied Zaporizhzhia province, that he had ordered the evacuation of civilians from 18 settlements in the area, including Enerhodar, which is located next to the power plant, which is Europe’s largest.

The settlements affected are about 50 to 70 kilometers (30 to 40 miles) from the front line of fighting between Ukraine and Russia, and Balitsky said that Ukraine had intensified attacks on the area in the past several days.

The region is also widely seen as a likely area where Ukraine may focus its anticipated spring counteroffensive.

The Ukrainian General Staff said Sunday that the evacuation of Enerhodar had already begun.

According to an update posted on Facebook, the General Staff said the first residents evacuated were those who took Russian citizenship following the capture of the town by Moscow early in the war.

They were being taken to the Russia-occupied Azov Sea coast, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) to the southeast.

Grossi said that operating staff of the nuclear power plant, whose six reactors are currently all in shutdown mode, hadn’t been evacuated as of Saturday but that most live in Enerhodar and the situation has contributed to “increasingly tense, stressful and challenging conditions for personnel and their families.”

He added that IAEA experts at the nuclear site “are continuing to hear shelling on a regular basis.”

“We must act now to prevent the threat of a severe nuclear accident and its associated consequence for the population and the environment,” Grossi said. “This major nuclear facility must be protected. I will continue to press for a commitment by all sides to achieve this vital objective.”

Elsewhere, Russian shelling on Saturday and overnight killed six civilians and wounded four others in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, according to a Telegram update published Sunday by the local administration.

Five civilians were wounded in the eastern Donetsk region, the epicenter of the fighting in recent months, local Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko reported on Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces overnight attacked the largest port in the Russia-occupied Crimean Peninsula with drones, a Kremlin-installed local official said on Telegram early Sunday.

According to the post by Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of Sevastopol, 10 Ukrainian drones targeted the city, three of which were shot down by air defense systems. Razvozhayev said that there had been no damage.

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Joanna Kozlowska contributed to this story from London.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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May 7, 2023
250 evacuated as Volcano of Fire erupts in Guatemala

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About 250 residents have been evacuated from the slopes of Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire as red-hot rock and ash flowed down the slopes toward an area devastated by a deadly 2018 eruption

GUATEMALA CITY — About 250 residents were evacuated Thursday from the slopes of Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire as red-hot rock and ash flowed down the slopes toward an area devastated by a deadly 2018 eruption.

Firefighters said residents of the hamlet of Panimache were taken to shelters.

Guatemala’s disaster agency said the volcano had been emitting ash clouds that could affect as many as 100,000 people in communities around the peak.

The 12,300-foot (3,763-meter) high Volcano of Fire is one of the most active in Central America. The 2018 eruption killed 194 people and left another 234 missing.

The biggest danger from the volcano are lahars, a mixture of ash, rock, mud and debris, that can bury entire towns.

The disaster agency said that such lahars were flowing down four of the seven gullies on the volcano’s flanks.

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May 4, 2023
Sudanese fleeing clashes flood port city, borders with Egypt

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CAIRO — Sudanese fleeing the fighting between rival generals in their capital flooded an already overwhelmed city on the Red Sea and Sudan’s northern borders with Egypt, as explosions and gunfire echoed Monday in Khartoum.

Many exhausted Sudanese and foreigners arrived in Port Sudan, the country’s main seaport, joining thousands who have waited for days to be evacuated out of the chaos-stricken nation. Others have been driven in packed buses and trucks, seeking shelter in Egypt, Sudan’s northern neighbor.

“Much of the capital has become empty,” said Abdalla al-Fatih, a Khartoum resident, “all (residents of) our street fled the war.”

The fighting, now in its third week, has turned Khartoum and its neighboring city of Omdurman into a battlefield. Fierce clashes taking place inside residential neighborhoods that have become “ghost areas,” residents say.

The conflict, which capped months of worsening tensions, pits the military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, against a rival paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

Al-Fatih’s family managed to get out of Khartoum over the weekend after they spent the past two weeks trapped in their home in Khartoum’s neighborhood of Kafouri, a major flashpoint since the fighting broke out on April 15.

They arrived in Port Sudan late Monday, after an exhausting 20-hour trip, he said. There, they found thousands, including many women and children, camping outside the port area. Many had been there for more than a week, with no food and other services, he said.

Port Sudan has become a hub for foreign governments to evacuate their citizens air and sea.

At the congested crossing points with Egypt, thousands of families have waited for days inside buses or sought temporary shelter in the border city of Wadi Halfa to finalize their paperwork to be allowed into Egypt.

Yusuf Abdel-Rahman is a Sudanese university student who crossed into Egypt along his family, through the Ashkit crossing point late Monday. They spent their night at a community hostel in Egypt’s southern city of Aswan, and plan to board a train to Cairo later Tuesday, he said.

Abdel-Rahman’s family went first to the Arqin crossing point over the weekend. It was overcrowded and they couldn’t reach the customs area. They then decided to move to the Ashkit crossing after they heard from people there that the crossing would be easier, he said.

“It’s a chaotic situation (in Arqin),” he said over the phone. “Women, children and patients are stranded in the desert with no food, no water.”

Abdel-Rahman reported widespread destruction and looting particularly in upscale neighborhood in the capital. He said a neighbor told them by phone said armed men in RSF uniform stormed their home in Khartoum’s Amarat neighborhood on Friday, a day after they fled the capital. Many Sudanese have taken to social media to complain that their homes were stormed and looted by armed men.

“We are lucky” that they didn’t at home at the time of storming,” he said. “We could be ended up dead bodies.”

Tens of thousands have already fled Sudan to neighboring countries, including Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Ethiopia. And the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warned that the number could surpass 800,000.

“We hope it doesn’t come to that, but if violence doesn’t stop we will see more people forced to flee Sudan seeking safety,” he wrote on Twitter Monday.

Early Monday sounds of explosions and gunfire echoed though many parts of the capital, with fierce clashes taking place around the military’s headquarters, the international airport and the Republican Palace in Khartoum, residents reported. The military’s warplanes were seen flying overhead across the capital, they said.

The fighting has come despite both sides declared Sunday a second, three-day extension of a humanitarian cease-fire to allow safe corridors for healthcare workers and aid agencies working in the capital.

“The war never stopped,” said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, Secretary of the Doctors’ Syndicate. “Doctors can’s move safely. Hospitals were still occupied.”

Morgues across the capital are overcrowded with dead bodies and people were still unable to collect their dead to bury, he said. Many injured also did not have access to hospitals, he added.

At least 436 civilians have been killed and more than 1,200 injured since the fighting began, according to figures on Monday by the Doctors’ Syndicate, which tracks civilian casualties. As of a week ago, the Sudanese Health Ministry had counted at least 530 people killed, including civilians and combatants, with another 4,500 wounded, but those figures haven’t been updated since.

The power struggle has derailed Sudan’s efforts to restore its democratic transition, which was derailed in Oct. 2021 when then allied generals, Burhan and Dagalo, removed a western backed transitional government in a coup.

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May 2, 2023
Sudan’s army and rival extend truce, despite ongoing clashes

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CAIRO — Sudan’s army and its rival paramilitary said Sunday they will extend a humanitarian cease-fire a further 72 hours. The decision follows international pressure to allow the safe passage of civilians and aid, but the shaky truce has not so far stopped the clashes.

In statements, both sides accused the other of violations. The agreement has deescalated the fighting in some areas but violence continues to push civilians to flee. Aid groups have also struggled to get badly needed supplies into the country.

The conflict erupted on April 15 between the nation’s army and its paramilitary force, and threatens to thrust Sudan into a raging civil war. The U.N. warned on Sunday that the humanitarian crisis in Sudan was at “a breaking point.”

“The scale and speed of what is unfolding in Sudan is unprecedented,” the UN’s humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in as statement.

He said water and food are becoming increasingly hard to find in the country’s cities, especially the capital, Khartoum, and that the lack of basic medical care means many could die of preventable causes. Griffiths said that “massive looting” of aid supplies has hindered efforts to help civilians.

Earlier Sunday, an aircraft carrying eight tons of emergency medical aid landed in Sudan to resupply hospitals devastated by the fighting, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which organized the shipment. It arrived as the civilian death toll from the countrywide violence topped 400 and aid groups warned that the humanitarian situation was becoming increasingly dire.

More than two-thirds of hospitals in areas with active fighting are out of service, a national doctors’ association has said, citing a shortage of medical supplies, health workers, water and electricity.

The air-lifted supplies, including anesthetics, dressings, sutures and other surgical material, are enough to treat more than 1,000 people wounded in the conflict, the ICRC said. The aircraft took off earlier in the day from Jordan and safely landed in the city of Port Sudan, it said.

“The hope is to get this material to some of the most critically busy hospitals in the capital” of Khartoum and other hot spots, said Patrick Youssef, ICRC’s regional director for Africa.

The Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, which monitors casualties, said Sunday that over the past two weeks, 425 civilians were killed and 2,091 wounded. The Sudanese Health Ministry on Saturday put the overall death toll, including fighters, at 528, with 4,500 wounded.

Some of the deadliest battles have raged across Khartoum. The fighting pits the army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, against Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces.

The generals, both with powerful foreign backers, were allies in an October 2021 military coup that halted Sudan’s fitful transition to democracy, but they have since turned on each other.

Ordinary Sudanese have been caught in the crossfire. Tens of thousands have fled to neighboring countries, including Chad and Egypt, while others remain pinned down with dwindling supplies. Thousands of foreigners have been evacuated in airlifts and land convoys.

On Sunday, fighting continued in different parts of the capital where residents hiding in their homes reported hearing artillery fire. There have been lulls in fighting, but never a fully observed cease-fire, despite repeated attempts by international mediators.

Over the weekend, residents reported that shops were reopening and normalcy gradually returning in some areas of Khartoum as the scale of fighting dwindled after yet another shaky truce. But in other areas, terrified residents reported explosions thundering around them and fighters ransacking houses.

Youssef, the ICRC official, said the agency has been in contact with the top command of both sides to ensure that medical assistance could reach hospitals safely.

“With this news today, we are really hoping that this becomes part of a steady coordination mechanism to allow other flights to come in,” he said.

Youssef said more medical aid was ready to be flown into Khartoum pending necessary clearances and security guarantees.

Sudan’s healthcare system is near collapse with dozens of hospitals out of service. Multiple aid agencies have had to suspend operations and evacuated employees.

On Sunday, a second U.S.-government organized convoy arrived in Port Sudan, said State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller. He said the U.S. is assisting American citizens and “others who are eligible” to leave for Saudi Arabia where U.S. personnel are located. There were no details on how many people were in the convoy or specific assistance the U.S. provided.

Most of the estimated 16,000 Americans believed to be in Sudan right now are dual U.S.-Sudanese nationals. The Defense Department said in a statement on Saturday it was moving naval assets toward Sudan’s coast to support further evacuations.

Meanwhile, Britain has announced that an extra evacuation flight will depart from Port Sudan on Monday, extending what it called the largest evacuation effort of any Western country from Sudan.

The government asked British nationals who wish to leave Sudan to travel to the British Evacuation Handling Centre at Port Sudan International Airport before 12:00 Sudan time. The flight comes after an evacuation operation from Wadi Saeedna near Khartoum, involving 2,122 people on 23 flights.

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April 30, 2023