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Tag: Landslides and mudslides

  • Rare October storm brings heavy rain and possible mudslides to Southern California

    LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some homes were ordered evacuated in wildfire-scarred Los Angeles neighborhoods as Southern California was hit by a rare October storm that was expected to pummel the region with heavy rain, high winds and possible mudslides.

    “We’re very concerned about the weather,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said during a news conference Monday night, explaining that strike teams, rescue teams and helicopters were all ready to respond.

    The evacuations covered about 115 homes mostly in Pacific Palisades and Mandeville Canyon, both struck by a massive inferno in January that killed more than 30 people in all and destroyed over 17,000 homes and buildings in Los Angeles County. Wildfires can leave hillsides without vegetation to hold soil in place, making it easier for the terrain to loosen during storms.

    Bass and other officials warned residents across the region to remain alert and stay indoors. The worst was expected to begin early Tuesday and carry through the afternoon, and more than 16,000 had already lost power as of Monday night, according to PowerOutage.us.

    The storm could result in up to 4 inches (10.2 centimeters) of rain in some areas, according to the National Weather Service’s Los Angeles office, which described it as a “rare and very potent storm system.”

    Ariel Cohen, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service in Los Angeles, said the storm could even bring a couple of tornadoes, and one major challenge is its unpredictability.

    “The nature of this system is such that we cannot be certain about exactly when and where these impacts will strike, the exact details until right before they occur at the earliest,” he said.

    Teams from the Los Angeles Fire Department had started patrolling the area Monday night and a section of state Route 27, beginning at the Pacific Coast Highway, was closed in preparation for the storm, the California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans, said on social media.

    The weather service also warned of high winds that could knock down trees and power lines.

    To the north, up to 3 feet (1 meter) of mountain snow was predicted for parts of the Sierra Nevadas.

    Heavy rain had already started falling Monday evening across much of Northern California, bringing some urban flooding around the San Francisco Bay Area.

    Gladstones Restaurant, located along the Pacific Coast Highway, said it was closing on Tuesday in anticipation of the heavy rains. The Pacific Palisades establishment is located at an intersection that has experienced heavy debris flow during past rains.

    In February, torrential rains unleashed debris flows and mudslides in several neighborhoods torched by the January fires. In the community of Sierra Madre, near the site of the Eaton Fire, water, debris and boulders rushed down the mountain, trapping cars in the mud and damaging several home garages. A portion of the Pacific Coast Highway by Pacific Palisades was submerged in at least 3 feet of sludge, and a swift debris flow swept a Los Angeles Fire Department vehicle into the ocean.

    Concerns about post-fire debris flows have been especially high since 2018, when the town of Montecito, up the coast from Los Angeles, was ravaged by mudslides after a downpour hit mountain slopes burned bare by a huge blaze. Hundreds of homes were damaged and 23 people died.

    Elsewhere in the U.S., Typhoon Halong brought hurricane-force winds and ravaging storm surges and floodwaters that swept some homes away in Alaska over the weekend. One person was dead and two were missing in western Alaska on Monday, while more than 50 people had been rescued — some plucked from rooftops.

    Officials warned of a long road to recovery and a need for continued support for the hardest-hit communities with winter just around the corner.

    In Tempe, Arizona, a microburst and thunderstorm on Monday dropped about a half-inch of rain within 10 minutes, the National Weather Service said. The storm caused significant damage, including uprooting trees that toppled onto vehicles and buildings, and dropping them on streets and sidewalks. A business complex had its roof torn off, and thousands of homes lost power.

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    Golden reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Becky Bohrer contributed from Juneau, Alaska.

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  • Mudslides trap drivers, bury roads and damage homes in southern California

    OAK GLEN, Calif. — Flooding and mudslides carrying trees and rocks buried roads, damaged homes and trapped drivers in several southern California communities, authorities said.

    The mudslides affected Forest Falls, Oak Glen and Potato Canyon in San Bernardino County on Thursday, the county’s fire protection district said in a statement.

    A group of about 10 people traveling in at least six vehicles was stranded on state Route 38 in the area of Jenks Lake, near the San Bernardino National Forest, the fire district said.

    “Though cut off by debris in both directions, the group is safe and their needs are being evaluated by emergency crews,” the district said.

    The route was still closed as of Friday morning, the California Highway Patrol said.

    The fire district said that, as of Thursday night, there were no reports of injuries or missing people.

    The mudslides happened after heavy rain. The National Weather Service had issued flash flood warnings for the area.

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    “San Bernardino County Fire is planning for a full operational period tomorrow, with priorities focused on completing damage assessments, supporting affected residents, and addressing critical infrastructure needs in partnership with CAL FIRE, Caltrans, and other allied agencies,” the fire department said.

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  • Hurricane Helene displaced thousands of students. Some struggled to get back on track with school

    SWANNANOA, N.C. — When 12-year-old Natalie Briggs visited the ruins of her home after Hurricane Helene, she had to tightrope across a wooden beam to reach what was once her bedroom.

    Knots of electrical wires were draped inside the skeleton of the house. Months after the storm, light filtered through breaks in the tarps over the windows. “All I could think of was, ‘This isn’t my house,’” said Natalie, who had been staying in her grandparents’ basement.

    At school, Natalie sometimes had panic attacks when she thought of her ruined home in Swannanoa.

    “There were some points where I just didn’t want people to talk to me about the house — or just, like, talk to me at all,” Natalie said.

    Thousands of students across western North Carolina lost their homes a year ago when Helene hit with some of the most vicious floods, landslides and wind ever seen in the state’s Appalachian region, once considered a “climate haven.” Across the state, more than 2,500 students were identified as homeless as a direct result of Helene, according to state data obtained by The Associated Press.

    While storm debris has been mostly cleared away, the impact of the displacement lingers for the region’s children. Schools reopened long before many students returned to their homes, and their learning and well-being have yet to recover.

    The phenomenon is increasingly common as natural disasters disrupt U.S. communities more frequently and with more ferocity.

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    The Associated Press is collaborating with Blue Ridge Public Radio, Honolulu Civil Beat, CalMatters and Centro de Periodismo Investigativo in Puerto Rico to examine how school communities are recovering from the disruption of natural disasters.

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    In the North Carolina mountains, the challenge of recovery is especially acute. After all, many families in rural, low-income areas already deal with challenges such as food insecurity and rent affordability, said Cassandra Davis, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill public policy professor.

    “I would almost argue that they don’t get the opportunity to recover,” Davis said.

    After Helene flooded her rental home in Black Mountain, Bonnie Christine Goggins-Jones and her two teenage grandchildren had to leave behind nearly all their belongings.

    “They lost their bed, clothes, shoes, their book bag,” she said.

    The family lived in a motel, a leaky donated camper and another camper before moving into a new apartment in June.

    Goggins-Jones, a school bus aide at Asheville City Schools, struggled to heat the camper during winter. Her grandchildren kept going to school, but it wasn’t top of mind.

    The area around Asheville, western North Carolina’s largest city, still has a significant housing shortage a year after the storm.

    The family of America Sanchez Chavez, 11, had to split up to find housing. Helene left their trailer home in Swannanoa uninhabitable, and money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency wasn’t enough to cover the renovations.

    America and some relatives went to stay at her grandmother’s apartment, while her older brother lived at a friend’s house. Eventually, America moved with her mother to a room at a Black Mountain hotel where she works.

    America said she is still frightened by rain or thunder.

    “At one point when the rain actually got, like, pretty bad … I did get scared for a while,” she said.

    Helene damaged more than 73,000 homes, knocking out electricity and water for weeks if not months. The destruction of local infrastructure also closed schools for large stretches of time, and a barrage of snow days exacerbated the time out of class even more. In rural Yancey County, which has approximately 18,000 residents, students missed more than two months of school last year.

    After natural disasters, it’s common to see a surge in students living in unstable, temporary arrangements, such as sleeping on a couch, staying in a shelter, or doubling up with another family, according to research from UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools. Those arrangements qualify students as homeless under federal law.

    In Puerto Rico, more than 6,700 students were identified as homeless in Hurricane Maria’s aftermath during the 2017-2018 school year, the study found. Hawaii saw a 59% increase in its homeless student population following the 2023 Maui wildfires.

    In Helene’s aftermath, student homelessness spiked in several hard-hit counties, according to AP’s analysis of data from the North Carolina Homeless Education Program.

    Yancey County saw the region’s highest percentage increase. The number of homeless students went from 21 in the 2023-2024 school year to 112 last school year. All but 15 were homeless due to Helene.

    Some students enrolled in other school systems, at least temporarily. Others never returned.

    Terri Dolan of Swannanoa sent her two young children to stay with her parents in Charlotte ahead of the storm. After seeing the extent of the devastation, Dolan had them enroll in school there. They stayed over a month before returning home.

    “My job is to make money for our family and their job is to go to school,’” Dolan says she’d always told her kids. “Just because the school wasn’t open here, I felt like they needed to go to school and do their job.”

    Some districts receive federal money for services such as transporting homeless students to their usual school buildings and providing tutoring under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. But districts must apply in a competitive process, and they can’t request more money immediately after a natural disaster until the next application cycle. Many miss out on McKinney-Vento funding entirely.

    Helene-impacted students made up at least a fifth of the homeless population in 16 counties, but only six counties received McKinney-Vento money last funding cycle. Nationally, only 1 in 5 school districts receives McKinney-Vento money due to limited funds, said Barbara Duffield, executive director of Schoolhouse Connection, a nonprofit that advocates for homeless students.

    “If there’s a disaster, it’s going to involve districts that don’t get money from McKinney-Vento,” Duffield said.

    Gwendolyn Bode, a pre-law student at Appalachian State University, had to leave her mud-wrecked apartment complex after Helene. Told she couldn’t get campus housing, she found an Airbnb where she could stay at until her FEMA housing application went through, and then she moved into a hotel.

    She felt like she was drowning as she tried to keep up with her classes and a part-time job.

    “I can’t tell you what I learned,” Bode said. “I can’t even tell you when I went to class, because (mentally) I wasn’t there.” She found more stability after moving into an apartment for the spring semester.

    For Natalie Briggs, now 13, the grief of losing almost everything, coupled with the tight quarters in her grandparents’ basement, sometimes got to her — and to her mother, Liz Barker. Barker said it felt like a “time with no rules” because there was so much to deal with on top of her job as a health care worker.

    The circumstances sometimes led to friction. But Barker said overall, she and Natalie had “done pretty well” together.

    “She’s been a little bit more loving since all of this happened,” Barker said, smiling at her daughter.

    “I give her hugs and stuff,” Natalie said, “and I’ll tell her I love her, more than I did.”

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    The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Vietnam typhoon death toll rises to 233 as more bodies found

    Vietnam typhoon death toll rises to 233 as more bodies found

    HANOI, Vietnam — The death toll in the aftermath of a typhoon in Vietnam climbed to 233 on Friday as rescue workers recovered more bodies from areas hit by landslides and flash floods, state media reported.

    Flood waters from the swollen Red River in the capital, Hanoi, were beginning to recede, but many neighborhoods remained inundated and farther north experts were predicting it could still be days before any relief is in sight.

    Typhoon Yagi made landfall Saturday, starting a week of heavy rains that have triggered flash floods and landslides, particularly in Vietnam’s mountainous north.

    Across Vietnam, 103 people are still listed as missing and more than 800 have been injured.

    In A Lac village on the outskirts of Hanoi, Nguyen Thi Loan returned to the home that she’d hastily fled on Monday as the floodwaters rose.

    Much of the village was still under water, and as she surveyed the damage, she wondered how she and others would manage.

    “The flood has made our lives so difficult,” she said. “Our rice crop has been destroyed and at home the electrical appliances like the washing machine, TV and fridge are under water.”

    Most fatalities have come in the province of Lao Cai, where a flash flood swept away the entire hamlet of Lang Nu on Tuesday. Eight villagers turned up safe on Friday morning, telling others that they had left before the deluge, state-run VNExpress newspaper reported, but 48 others from Lang Nu have been found dead, and another 39 remain missing.

    Roads to Lang Nu have been badly damaged, making it impossible to bring in heavy equipment to aid in the rescue effort.

    Some 500 personnel with sniffer dogs are on hand, and in a visit to the scene on Thursday, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh promised they would not relent in their search for those still missing.

    “Their families are in agony,” Chinh said.

    Coffins were stacked near the disaster site in preparation for the worst, and villager Tran Thi Ngan mourned at a makeshift altar for family members she had lost.

    “It’s a disaster,” she told VTV news. “That’s the fate we have to accept.”

    In Cao Bang, another northern province bordering China, 21 bodies had been recovered by Friday, four days after a landslide pushed a bus, a car and several motorcycles into a small river, swollen with floodwaters. Ten more people remain missing.

    Experts say storms like Typhoon Yagi are getting stronger due to climate change, as warmer ocean waters provide more energy to fuel them, leading to higher winds and heavier rainfall.

    The effects of the typhoon, the strongest to hit Vietnam in decades, were also being felt across the region, with flooding and landslides in northern Thailand, Laos and northeastern Myanmar.

    In Thailand, 10 deaths have been reported due to flooding or landslides, and Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra flew to the north on Friday to visit affected people in the border town of Mae Sai. Thailand’s Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation warned of a continuing risk of flash floods in multiple areas through Wednesday, as new rain was expected to increase the Mekong River’s levels further.

    International aid has been flowing into Vietnam in the aftermath of Yagi, with Australia already delivering humanitarian supplies as part of $2 million in assistance.

    South Korea has also pledged $2 million in humanitarian aid, and the U.S. Embassy said Friday it would provide $1 million in support through the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

    “With more heavy rain forecast in the coming days, USAID’s disaster experts continue to monitor humanitarian needs in close coordination with local emergency authorities and partners on the ground,” the embassy said in a statement. “USAID humanitarian experts on the ground are participating in ongoing assessments to ensure U.S. assistance rapidly reaches populations in need.”

    The typhoon and ensuing heavy rains have damaged factories in northern provinces like Haiphong, home to electric car company VinFast, Apple parts suppliers and other electronic manufacturers, which could affect international supply chains, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a research note.

    “Though 95 percent of businesses operating in Haiphong were expected to resume some activity on September 10, repair efforts will likely lower output for the next weeks and months,” CSIS said.

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    Rising reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writer Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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  • Wild week of US weather includes heat wave, tropical storm, landslide, flash flood and snow

    Wild week of US weather includes heat wave, tropical storm, landslide, flash flood and snow

    FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. — It’s been a wild week of weather in many parts of the United States, from heat waves to snowstorms to flash floods.

    Here’s a look at some of the weather events:

    Millions of people in the Midwest have been enduring dangerous heat and humidity.

    An emergency medicine physician treating Minnesota State Fair-goers for heat illnesses saw firefighters cut rings off two people’s swollen fingers Monday in hot weather that combined with humidity made it feel well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 degrees Celsius).

    Soaring late summer temperatures also prompted some Midwestern schools to let out early or cancel sports practices. The National Weather Service issued heat warnings or advisories across Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. Several cities including Chicago opened cooling centers.

    Forecasters said Tuesday also will be scorching hot for areas of the Midwest before the heat wave shifts to the south and east.

    An unusually cold storm on the mountain peaks along the West Coast late last week brought a hint of winter in August. The system dropped out of the Gulf of Alaska, down through the Pacific Northwest and into California. Mount Rainier, southeast of Seattle, got a high-elevation dusting, as did central Oregon’s Mt. Bachelor resort.

    Mount Shasta, the Cascade Range volcano that rises to 14,163 feet (4,317 meters) above far northern California, wore a white blanket after the storm clouds passed. The mountain’s Helen Lake, which sits at 10,400 feet (3,170 meters) received about half a foot of snow (15 centimeters), and there were greater amounts at higher elevations, according to the U.S. Forest Service’s Shasta Ranger Station.

    Three tropical cyclones swirled over the Pacific Ocean on Monday, including Tropical Storm Hone, which brought heavy rain to Hawaii, Hurricane Gilma, which was gaining strength, and Tropical Storm Hector which was churning westward, far off the coast of southern tip of Baja California.

    The biggest impacts from Tropical Storm Hone (pronounced hoe-NEH) were rainfall and flash floods that resulted in road closures, downed power lines and damaged trees in some areas of the Big Island, said William Ahue, a forecaster at the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu. No injuries or major damage had been reported, authorities said.

    A landslide that cut a path down a steep, thickly forested hillside crashed into several homes in Ketchikan, Alaska, in the latest such disaster to strike the mountainous region. Sunday’s slide killed one person and injured three others and prompted the mandatory evacuation of nearby homes in the city, a popular cruise ship stop along the famed Inside Passage in the southeastern Alaska panhandle.

    The slide area remained unstable Monday, and authorities said that state and local geologists were arriving to assess the area for potential secondary slides. Last November, six people — including a family of five — were killed when a landslide destroyed two homes in Wrangell, north of Ketchikan.

    The body of an Arizona woman who disappeared in Grand Canyon National Park after a flash flood was recovered Sunday, park rangers said. The body of Chenoa Nickerson, 33, was discovered by a group rafting down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, the park said in a statement.

    Nickerson was hiking along Havasu Creek about a half-mile (800 meters) from where it meets up with the Colorado River when the flash flood struck. Nickerson’s husband was among the more than 100 people safely evacuated.

    The flood trapped several hikers in the area above and below Beaver Falls, one of a series of usually blue-green waterfalls that draw tourists from around the world to the Havasupai Tribe’s reservation. The area is prone to flooding that turns its iconic waterfalls chocolate brown.

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  • Study finds rains that led to deadly Indian landslides were made worse by climate change

    Study finds rains that led to deadly Indian landslides were made worse by climate change

    BENGALURU, India — The heavy rains that resulted in landslides killing hundreds in southern India last month were made worse by human-caused climate change, a rapid analysis by climate scientists found Tuesday.

    The study by the World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists who use established climate models to quickly determine whether human-caused climate change played a part in extreme weather events around the world, found that the 15 centimeters (5.91 inches) of rain that fell in a 24-hour period July 29-30 was 10% more intense because of global warming. The group expects further emissions of planet-heating gases will result in increasingly frequent intense downpours that can lead to such disasters.

    Nearly 200 people were killed and rescuers are still searching for more than 130 missing people in Kerala state, one of India’s most popular tourist destinations.

    “The Wayanad landslides are another catastrophic example of climate change playing out in real time,” said Mariam Zachariah, a climate scientist at Imperial College of London and one of the authors of the rapid study.

    Last month’s rainfall that caused the landslides was the third-heaviest in Kerala state since India’s weather agency began record-keeping in 1901.

    Last year over 400 people died due to heavy rains in the Indian Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh. Multiple studies have found that India’s monsoon rains have become more erratic as a result of climate change. “Until the world replaces fossil fuels with renewable energy, monsoon downpours will continue to intensify, bringing landslides, floods and misery to India,” said Zachariah.

    India’s southern state Kerala has been particularly vulnerable to climate change-driven extreme weather. Heavy rainfall in 2018 flooded large parts of the state, killing at least 500 people, and a cyclonic storm in 2017 killed at least 250 people including fishers who were at sea near the state’s coasts.

    “Millions of people are sweltering in deadly heat in the summer. Meanwhile, in monsoons, heavier downpours are fuelling floods and landslides, like we saw in Wayanad,” said Arpita Mondal, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and one of the study’s authors. Earlier this year another study by the same group found that deadly heat waves that killed at least 100 people in India were found to have been made at least 45 times more likely due to global warming.

    India, the world’s most populous country, is among the highest current emitters of planet-heating gases and is also considered to be among the most vulnerable regions in the world to climate impacts.

    “When it rains now, it rains heavily. In a warmer world, these extreme events will be more frequent and we cannot stop them. However, we can try to establish early warning systems for landslides and also avoid any construction activity in landslide-prone regions,” said Madhavan Rajeevan, a retired senior official at India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences who is from Kerala state.

    Tuesday’s study also recommended minimizing deforestation and quarrying, while improving early warning and evacuation systems to help protect people in the region from future landslides and floods. The study said the Wayanad region had seen a 62% decrease in forest cover and that that may have contributed to increased risks of landslides during heavy rains.

    “Even heavier downpours are expected as the climate warms, which underscores the urgency to prepare for similar landslides in northern Kerala,” said Maja Vahlberg, climate risk consultant at Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre who was also an author of the study.

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    Follow Sibi Arasu on X at @sibi123

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Torrential rains have claimed more than 150 lives in China in the past 2 months

    Torrential rains have claimed more than 150 lives in China in the past 2 months

    BEIJING — Landslides and flooding have killed more than 150 people around China in the past two months as torrential rainstorms batter the region.

    In the latest disaster, a flood and mudslide in a mountainous Tibetan area in Sichuan province on Saturday left eight people dead with 19 others still unaccounted for, state media said.

    The early morning disaster destroyed homes and killed at least six people in the village of Ridi, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Two more people died and eight are missing there after a bridge between two tunnels collapsed and four vehicles plummeted.

    China is in the middle of its peak flood season, which runs from mid-July to mid-August, and Chinese policymakers have repeatedly warned that the government needs to step up disaster preparations as severe weather becomes more common.

    An annual government report on climate said last month that historical data shows the frequency of both extreme precipitation and heat has risen in China, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

    A heat warning was in effect Monday in parts of eastern China, where temperatures were expected to top 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in several cities including Nanjing, and 37 C (98 F) in nearby Shanghai on the coast.

    There have been a series of deadly rainstorms since June.

    Days of intense rain from the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi, which weakened to a tropical storm after making landfall in China about 10 days ago, killed at least 48 people in Hunan province and left 35 others missing last week.

    Authorities said Friday that the death toll from an earlier storm in July that knocked out a section of a bridge in Shaanxi province in the middle of the night had risen to 38 people, with another 24 still missing. At least 25 cars fell into a raging river that washed some of them far downstream.

    In mid-June, at least 47 died from flooding and mudslides after extremely heavy rain in Guangzhou province. Six more people died in neighboring Fujian province.

    Intense rains have also taken hundreds of lives elsewhere in Asia this summer, including devastating landslides that killed more than 200 people in south India last week.

    The remnants of Typhoon Gaemi also drenched northeastern China and North Korea, overflowing the Yalu River that divides them and inundating cities, towns and farmland.

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  • Rescuers search for dozens buried by an Indonesian landslide that killed at least 23 people

    Rescuers search for dozens buried by an Indonesian landslide that killed at least 23 people

    JAKARTA, Indonesia — Rescue workers dug through tons of mud and rubble on Tuesday as they searched for dozens of missing people after a landslide hit an unauthorized gold mining area on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, killing at least 23 people.

    More than 100 villagers were digging for grains of gold on Sunday in the remote and hilly village of Bone Bolango when tons of mud plunged down the surrounding hills and buried their makeshift camps, said Heriyanto, head of the provincial Search and Rescue Office.

    Rescuers recovered more bodies on Tuesday in the devastated hamlet where the gold mine is located.

    “Improved weather allowed us to recover more bodies,” said Heriyanto, who goes by a single name like many Indonesians.

    According to his office, 66 villagers managed to escape from the landslide, 23 were pulled out alive by rescuers, including 18 with injuries, and 23 bodies were recovered, including three women and a 4-year-old boy. About 35 others were missing, it said.

    National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said torrential rains that have pounded the mountainous district since Saturday triggered the landslide and broke an embankment, causing floods up to the roofs of houses in five villages in Bone Bolango, which is part of a mountainous district in Gorontalo province. Nearly 300 houses were affected and more than 1,000 people fled for safety.

    Authorities deployed more than 200 rescuers, including police and military personnel, with heavy equipment to search for the dead and missing in a rescue operation that has been hampered by heavy rains, unstable soil, and rugged, forested terrain, said Afifuddin Ilahude, a local rescue official.

    “With many missing and some remote areas still unreachable, the death toll is likely to rise,” Ilahude said, adding that sniffer dogs were being mobilized in the search.

    Videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency show rescue personnel using farm tools and their bare hands to pull a mud-caked body from the thick mud and placing it in a black bag to take away for burial.

    Monsoon rains cause frequent landslides and flash floods in Indonesia, an archipelago nation of more than 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near floodplains.

    Informal mining operations are common in Indonesia, providing a tenuous livelihood to thousands who labor in conditions with a high risk of serious injury or death. Landslides, flooding and collapses of tunnels are just some of the hazards facing miners. Much of gold ore processing involves highly toxic mercury and cyanide and workers frequently use little or no protection.

    The country’s last major mining-related accident occurred in April 2022, when a landslide crashed onto an illegal traditional gold mine in North Sumatra’s Mandailing Natal district, killing 12 women who were looking for gold.

    In February 2019, a makeshift wooden structure in an illegal gold mine in North Sulawesi province collapsed due to shifting soil and the large number of mining holes. More than 40 people were buried and died.

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  • Heavy winter rains in Pakistan kill at least 29 as buildings collapse and landslides block roads

    Heavy winter rains in Pakistan kill at least 29 as buildings collapse and landslides block roads

    PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistani authorities said Sunday at least 29 people died and 50 others injured due to heavy rains that swept across the country in the past 48 hours, causing several houses to collapse and landslides to block roads, particularly in the northwest.

    This comes as Pakistan is also witnessing severe snowfall.

    About 23 rain-related deaths were reported in various areas in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan since Thursday night, the provincial disaster management authority said in a statement.

    Five people died in the southwestern Baluchistan province after the coastal town of Gwadar got flooded, forcing authorities to use boats to evacuate people.

    Casualties and damages were also reported in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the National Disaster Management Authority said in a separate statement.

    Emergency relief was being provided to people in affected areas and heavy machinery used to remove debris blocking highways, the agency added.

    The country’s Karakoram Highway which links Pakistan with China is still blocked in some places due to landslides, according to the spokesman for the northern Gilgit Baltistan region, Faizullah Faraq.

    Authorities advised tourists against traveling to the scenic north due to weather conditions. Last week, several visitors were stranded there because of the heavy rains.

    This year, Pakistan is witnessing an unusual delay in winter rains, starting in February instead of November.

    Monsoon and winter rains cause damage in Pakistan every year.

    In 2022, climate-induced unusual monsoon rains and flooding devastated most of the areas in impoverished Pakistan, killing more than 1,739 people, affecting around 33 million people and displacing nearly 8 million. The rains and floods in 2022 also caused billions of dollars of damages to the country’s economy and some of the areas people who lost their homes are still living in makeshift homes.

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  • 9 gold mine workers are missing in Turkey after a landslide that carries environmental risks

    9 gold mine workers are missing in Turkey after a landslide that carries environmental risks

    ISTANBUL — A huge landslide hit a gold mine in eastern Turkey on Tuesday, trapping at least nine workers underground, officials said.

    The landslide at the Copler mine happened at 2:30 p.m. near the town of Ilic in Turkey’s mountainous Erzincan province. Footage seemingly shot by a nearby worker showed a massive wave of earth rushing down a gully, engulfing everything in its path.

    Nine workers had not been heard from since the landslide struck and “it is thought that they are buried under the ground,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.

    The landslide involved a mound of soil extracted from the mine, Yerlikaya told urkey’s state-run TRT News.

    He said 400 search and rescue personnel were at the site. Turkish emergency agency AFAD said staff from surrounding provinces were brought in to take part.

    Erzincan Mayor Bekir Aksun, meanwhile, told broadcaster Haberturk that between 10 and 12 workers were missing. The Energy Ministry also put the number at nine.

    Geologist Suleyman Pampal told Haberturk that the soil that formed the landslide had been processed for gold and may contain dangerous substances such as cyanide.

    He also warned of an environmental threat to the nearby Euphrates River. “Mixing with the Euphrates means the end of all life. It must be prevented urgently from reaching the Euphrates,” Pampal said.

    The Environment Ministry said in a statement that a stream leading to the Euphrates was closed to prevent water pollution.

    Erzincan Gov. Hamza Aydogdu said no cyanide had gotten into the waterway. “There is no leakage at the moment,” he said. “If there were, we would explain it to you. There is no leakage into the Euphrates River. There was a landslide, so there is no problem other than this landslide.”

    The mine was closed down in 2020 following a cyanide leak into the river, which stretches through Turkey, Syria and Iraq. It reopened two years later after the company was fined and a cleanup operation was completed.

    The Turkish government said social media content about the disaster that “has not been confirmed through official channels and whose accuracy is not assured” had been blocked.

    Anagold Mining has operated the Copler mine since 2009. Yerlikaya said 667 people were employed at the site.

    In a statement, the Turkish company said its “most important priority in this difficult process … is the health and safety of our employees and contractors.”

    “This is a painful situation. Immediately after the incident, we immediately contacted our employees in the region, put our emergency plan into action and informed the relevant public institutions and organizations,” the statement said.

    Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said an investigation into the disaster had been launched. “I wish our citizens from Erzincan recover soon and hope that our miner brothers who are trapped under the rubble will be rescued safely,” he said.

    Turkey has a poor mine safety record. In 2022, an explosion at the Amasra coal mine on the Black Sea coast killed 41 workers. The country’s worst mining disaster took place in 2014 at a coal mine in Soma, western Turkey, where 301 people were killed.

    In the wake of those incidents, engineers warned that safety risks were frequently ignored and inspections not adequately carried out.

    “The disaster that took place in Erzincan Ilic Copler gold mine is a disaster that (was) coming,” the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects said in a statement issued on social media.

    The union added that it had filed two lawsuits against the mine’s operation. “We said that Ilic Copler gold mine should be closed and rehabilitation works should be started.”

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  • Mud and debris are flowing down hillsides across California. What causes the slides?

    Mud and debris are flowing down hillsides across California. What causes the slides?


    LOS ANGELES — When rainstorms like this week’s powerful atmospheric river hit California, the earth begins to move.

    Water rushing down mountains and hills picks up soil and vegetation, as well as boulders, trees and cars that can become battering rams. In the blink of an eye, property is damaged or destroyed and lives are put at risk.

    Commonly called mudslides, these dangerous torrents are usually referred to by geologists and first responders as debris flows, which the U.S. Geological Survey describes as fast-moving landslides capable of exceeding 35 mph (56 kph).

    In Los Angeles alone during the current storm, crews responded to 475 slides as of Tuesday evening. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, who toured hard-hit areas the previous day, said 35 buildings required inspections, five were deemed uninhabitable and there were seven where people were only allowed to remove possessions.

    “Yesterday I was reminded of the pure force and magnitude with which a hillside can suddenly come down,” Crowley said.

    The state has relatively young mountains from a geology standpoint, meaning much of its steep terrain is still in motion and covered in loose rocks and soil that can be sloughed off easily.

    That’s especially true when the ground is wet, according to geologists, and California was plenty wet from a pounding by a previous atmospheric river, a moisture plume that stretched far over the ocean to near Hawaii.

    Downtown Los Angelesrecorded 7.03 inches (17.8 centimeters) of rain Sunday through Monday, the third-wettest two-day total since weather records began in 1877. Some other parts of the city got far more, including more than 12 inches (30.4 cm) in Bel Air.

    The areas most at risk are on or near hillsides that have burned in recent years, with little or no vegetation left to hold soil in place.

    Burning vegetation and soil on a slope more than doubles the rate of water runoff, according to the California Department of Conservation, and there have been severe events over the years.

    On Jan. 9, 2018, intense rain fell on a weeks-old wildfire burn scar in the mountains above Montecito on the Santa Barbara County coast, unleashing what residents remember as the “ 1/9 Debris Flow.” Huge torrents tore through the community, killing 23 people and destroying or damaging hundreds of homes.

    In 1934 a storm over the Southern California mountains unleashed runoff so intense that 30 people were killed, more than 480 homes were destroyed and a nearly 60-ton (54-metric ton) boulder was pushed out of a canyon.

    And on Christmas Day in 2003, rain over fire-scarred mountains unleashed a debris flow that killed 16 people who had gathered at a church facility in a canyon.

    One of the best ways to manage landslides is with debris basins — pits carved out of the landscape to catch material flowing downhill.

    Often located at the mouths of canyons, the basins collect debris while allowing water to continue downstream, according to Los Angeles County Public Works. This prevents blockages of the storm drain system but requires the removal of sediment from the basins, something that can take days or months depending on their size.

    After the Montecito catastrophe, a nonprofit raised millions of dollars to bolster defenses by adding nets to catch debris. The installation was done in 2019, but a subsequent funding dispute led to their removal last year.

    The California Geological Survey, a state Conservation Department division, studies the potential for post-fire debris flows and creates maps and reports that the state Office of Emergency Services can pass along to agencies for emergency response and alleviating problems in places where people and property may be in danger.

    ___

    AP reporter Julie Watson in San Diego contributed.



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  • Second atmospheric river in days churns through California, knocking out power and flooding roads

    Second atmospheric river in days churns through California, knocking out power and flooding roads


    LOS ANGELES — The second of back-to-back atmospheric rivers churned slowly through California early Monday, flooding roadways and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people and prompting a rare warning for hurricane-force winds as the already soggy state braced for another day of heavy rains.

    The storm inundated streets and brought down trees and electrical lines Sunday across the San Francisco Bay Area, where winds topped 60 mph (96 kph) in some areas. Gusts exceeding 80 mph (128 kph) were recorded in the mountains.

    Just to the south in San Jose, emergency crews pulled occupants out of the windows of a car stranded by floodwaters and rescued people from a homeless encampment alongside a rising river.

    The storm then moved into Southern California, where officials warned of potentially devastating flooding and ordered evacuations for canyons that burned in recent wildfires that are at high risk for mud and debris flows.

    Classes were canceled Monday for schools across Santa Barbara County, which was devastated by mudslides caused by powerful storms in 2018.

    Further down the coast, strong winds and heavy rain brought treacherous conditions to the city of Ventura, said Alexis Herrera, who was trying to bail out his sedan which was filled with floodwater. “All the freeways are flooded around here,” Herrera said in Spanish. “I don’t know how I’m going to move my car.”

    More than 845,000 customers were without electricity statewide by Sunday evening, according to poweroutage.us.

    Winds caused hours-long delays at San Francisco International Airport. By 2:30 p.m. Sunday, 155 departing flights were delayed and 69 had been canceled, according to the tracking website FlightAware. There were also delays at the airports in San Jose and Sacramento.

    Palisades Tahoe, a ski resort about 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, said Sunday it was anticipating the heaviest snowfall yet this season, with accumulations of 6 inches (15 centimeters) per hour for a total of up to two feet (60 centimeters). Heavy snow was expected into Monday throughout the Sierra Nevada and motorists were urged to avoid mountain roads.

    Much of the state had been drying out from the system that blew in last week, causing flooding and dumping welcome snow in mountains. The latest storm, also called a “Pineapple Express” because its plume of moisture stretches back across the Pacific to near Hawaii, arrived offshore in Northern California on Saturday, when most of the state was under some sort of wind, surf or flood watch.

    The weather service issued a rare “hurricane force wind warning” for the Central Coast, with wind gusts of up to 92 mph (148 kph) possible from the Monterey Peninsula to the northern section of San Luis Obispo County.

    Meanwhile, the southern part of the state was at risk of substantial flooding beginning late Sunday because of how slow the system was moving, said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist at the weather service’s Los Angeles-area office.

    “The core of the low pressure system is very deep, and it’s moving very slowly and it’s very close to us. And that’s why we have those very strong winds. And the slow nature of it is really giving us the highest rainfall totals and the flooding risk,” he said at a Sunday briefing.

    Evacuation orders and warnings were in effect for mountain and canyon areas of Monterey, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties. LA County Supervisor Lindsay Horvath urged residents near wildfire burn areas of Topanga and Soledad canyons to heed orders to get out ahead of possible mudslides.

    “If you have not already left, please gather your family, your pets, your medications and leave immediately,” Horvath said at a Sunday briefing. The county set up shelters where evacuees could spend the night.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services activated its operations center and positioned personnel and equipment in areas most at risk.

    The storm was expected to move down the coast and bring heavy rain, possible flash-flooding and mountain snow to the Los Angeles area late Sunday, before moving on to hammer Orange and San Diego counties on Monday.

    As of Sunday afternoon, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest, said it was planning to open schools as usual Monday. The decision would be reevaluated at 6 a.m. Monday, said Superintendent Alberto Carvalho.

    The weather service forecast up to 8 inches (20 cm) of rainfall across Southern California’s coastal and valley areas, with 14 inches (35 cm) possible in the foothills and mountains. Heavy to moderate rain is expected in Southern California until Tuesday.

    ___

    Associated Press videographer Eugene Garcia in Ventura, Calif., and radio reporter Julie Walker in New York contributed to this report.



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  • Memphis residents are on day 4 of a boil water notice while ice hits Arkansas and Missouri

    Memphis residents are on day 4 of a boil water notice while ice hits Arkansas and Missouri

    MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Memphis was on its fourth day of living under a boil water notice on Monday, as repair crews worked to fix broken pipes in the hopes of easing the stress caused by a week of sub-freezing temperatures, snow and ice in this southern city.

    Memphis’ water company issued an advisory on Friday that residents of this city of more than 600,000 people should boil water they intended to use for drinking, brushing their teeth and preparing food. That’s because low pressure in the system and breaks in water mains could allow harmful bacteria to contaminate the water supply.

    Some residents lost all water service after winter storms that have caused at least 75 deaths around the U.S. this month, many involving hypothermia or road accidents. In Tennessee, the several inches of snow and unusually low temperatures led the Tennessee Valley Authority to ask the 10 million people in its service area to conserve energy to avoid rolling blackouts. The utility saw its highest demand for electricity ever last week but the system remained stable.

    Memphis, Light, Gas and Water CEO Doug McGowen told reporters Sunday afternoon that crews were making progress with repairs and he expects most customers to have water service restored on Monday and Tuesday. They will still have to boil water, likely through Thursday, though.

    Pamela Wells had been without any water since Thursday morning when she noticed a trickle coming through on Sunday night.

    “We kept praying that it was a sign that water was on the way,” she said. They woke up Monday morning to find water pressure restored to about 40% of normal. “Hopefully we’re on our way to full restoration of our water.”

    Family and friends have helped them by delivering bottled water, she said, but she really missed things that she normally takes for granted like being able to wash her hands in the sink or take a shower.

    As Memphis continued to thaw, McGowen also asked people to stop dripping their faucets and resist the temptation to wash their cars to help build pressure in the system. The city has been repairing at least 51 water main breaks and located more than 4,000 leaks at homes and businesses.

    Memphis was the largest, but not the only, water system in Tennessee to experience problems from the unusually cold weather. The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said on Sunday night that 28 water systems were under boil water notices and 17 counties were reporting operational issues with their water utilities.

    In Tipton County, the fire department in Mason warned residents on Sunday to be prepared for a multiday water outage.

    “There is no current time table on how long it will be before water services will be fully restored to all customers,” fire officials said in a Facebook post.

    The outages and boil water notices led residents throughout West Tennessee to clean out bottled water supplies in stores. There were also long lines for bottled water giveaways by local governments and churches.

    As Memphis was warming up and beginning to reopen closed businesses and government offices, freezing rain was falling in Arkansas and Missouri, leading to fatal accidents and concerns of possible power outages.

    Forecasters warned that up to a half-inch (1.27 centimeters) of ice could coat parts of the area by Monday evening. That prompted an ice storm warning for Monday that included much of the Arkansas Ozark Mountains and the cities of Fayetteville and Fort Smith. A small part of northeastern Oklahoma was also under an ice storm warning Monday, the National Weather Service said.

    The ice – combined with winds of up to 20 mph (32 kph) – could lead to power outages, the agency said.

    In Missouri, three fatal accidents were reported Monday morning as freezing drizzle in some spots and freezing rain in others created a thin coat of ice that blanketed much of the state. Capt. John Hotz of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said one fatal accident involved a Missouri Department of Transportation truck, but no further details were immediately released. Twenty others were injured in accidents statewide. Most involved cars, trucks and semi-trailers skidding on the ice.

    “Just lots of slide-offs,” said Dallas Thompson, a St. Louis-area trooper.

    Meanwhile, heavy rain in Southern California prompted the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management to issue an evacuation warning near Topanga Canyon effective through Tuesday morning due to possible mud or debris flows.

    The Los Angeles office of the National Weather Service reported possible rain totals up to 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) and up to 2.5 inches (6.3 centimeters) across the area’s foothills through Monday night.

    ___

    Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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  • At least 7 people dead after a landslide buries a house in the southern Philippines, official says

    At least 7 people dead after a landslide buries a house in the southern Philippines, official says

    A Philippine official says at least seven people, including five children, have been killed when a landslide set off by days of pounding rains buried a house where they were holding Christian prayers in the southern Philippines

    DAVAO, Philippines — A landslide set off by days of heavy rain buried a house where people were holding Christian prayers in the southern Philippines, killing at least seven people, including children, and seriously injuring two others, a disaster-response official said.

    Five to 10 people remained unaccounted following the landslide in a far-flung mountain village in the gold-mining town of Monkayo in Davao de Oro province, Ednar Dayanghirang, regional chief of the government’s Office of Civil Defense, said Thursday night.

    Rescuers stopped their search for more victims at mid-afternoon Thursday due to heavy rains that could cause more landslides, he said. The search and rescue work resumed on Friday.

    “They were praying in the house when the landslide hit,” Dayanghirang told The Associated Press by telephone. “It’s sad but it’s the reality on the ground.”

    Aside from the landslide, days of heavy rains also flooded low-lying villages and displaced more than 6,000 people in two other outlying provinces, he said.

    The rains were sparked by what local forecasters call a shear line – the point where warm and cold air meet. At least 20 storms and typhoons lash the Philippine archipelago each year specially during the rainy season that starts in June.

    In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest to hit on record, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages, swept ships inland and displaced more than 5 million in the central Philippines.

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  • More than 200 people died since Japan's New Year's quakes. 7 of them died in shelters

    More than 200 people died since Japan's New Year's quakes. 7 of them died in shelters

    TOKYO — The 7.6 magnitude earthquake that hit the western coastline of Japan on New Year’s has killed 213 people as of Thursday. Eight of the deaths were at evacuation centers, where rescued people died from injuries and sickness.

    Such deaths weren’t directly caused by the quakes, fires and mudslides. They happened in alleged safety.

    “The pressures and stress of living in a place you aren’t used to lead to such deaths,” said Shigeru Nishimori, a disaster official in Ishikawa prefecture, the hardest-hit region.

    Some 26,000 people whose homes were destroyed or deemed unsafe are staying at schools and other makeshift facilities. Even minor rain and snow can set off landslides where the ground is loose from the more than 1,000 aftershocks that rattled the region for more than a week. Half-collapsed homes might flatten.

    Shinichi Kuriyama, director at the International Research Institute of Disaster Science, who has studied the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster that hit northeastern Japan in 2011, warned that the chances for death double among populations undergoing a disaster.

    He said the number of deaths in Ishikawa evacuation centers surprised him.

    “I’m really shocked,” he said. ”Communication is key and it appears to be sorely lacking.”

    Kuriyama said the most vulnerable can be overlooked, missing food that’s being distributed, for instance, because they are unaware or can’t reach it. He added that Japanese tend to “suffer in silence,” which can make things worse.

    Deaths from the New Year’s temblor centered on Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa have climbed daily, as rescue teams pull more bodies from the rubble. Of the deaths, 98 were in Suzu city, 83 in Wajima and 20 in Anamizu, with the rest in smaller numbers among four other towns. The number of missing people declined in recent days and now stands at 52.

    Those injured totaled 567, and 1,830 homes were destroyed or seriously damaged, according to Ishikawa officials. More than 14,000 homes were without electricity, and nearly 59,000 homes had no running water.

    A tsunami reaching as high as about 3 meters (10 feet) spewed into coastal homes after last week’s biggest quake. A fire destroyed part of Wajima city. A search began Tuesday into the remains of the fire for bodies.

    Authorities warned about the raised risk of infectious diseases breaking out among people crammed into shelters. Food and drinking water supplies were short, especially initially.

    People slept on cold floors, some without blankets, amid dropping temperatures and harsh winds. Sheets were hung for partitions to provide privacy and in an effort to curtail the spread of disease.

    A week after the disaster hit Ishikawa, camping tents were set up at a big hall to accommodate 500 people — a change that could prevent further post-disaster deaths. People who are pregnant, sick or old get priority for the revamped accommodations.

    Soon, they’ll be able to move to the 110 hotels and inns that volunteered to accept 3,000 people from the quake-damaged region. Nearby prefectures were also offering to open up their hotels.

    With schools shuttered, people worried about the children, although some classes were moved to other campuses.

    As criticism grew about the government’s disaster response, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s administration earmarked 4.7 billion yen ($33 million) for the disaster to provide food, water, blankets, milk and clothing. The spending was expected to grow.

    ___

    Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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  • At least 20 killed in Congo flooding and landslides, bringing fatalities to over 60

    At least 20 killed in Congo flooding and landslides, bringing fatalities to over 60

    KINSHASA, Congo — At least 20 people have died following landslides caused by torrential rains which hit the South Kivu region in eastern Congo, officials announced on Friday.

    That brings to more than 60 the number of deaths caused by flooding and landslides in Congo in the past week alone.

    Officials said the landslides swallowed up houses and dwellings on Thursday in the locality of Burhiny, in the Mwenga territory.

    “The 20 deaths are the direct result of landslides that buried houses,” said territory administrator Walubila Ishikitilo.

    The government said on Friday that it was deploying emergency assistance to those affected and evacuating residents from the area.

    Flooding also affected other parts of the country on Friday, including the capital, Kinshasa, on the banks of the Congo River, and parts of Kasai province.

    The latest come just about 48 hours after landslides claimed the lives of more than 20 artisanal miners in Kamituga, also in the Mwenga territory, on Tuesday, according to officials.

    On Wednesday, 21 people died from landslides caused by torrential rains in Bukavu, an area in South Kivu.

    Observers have blamed the extent of the damage caused by torrential rains, flooding and landslides in South Kivu on the illegal construction of houses in unauthorized locations. Since the beginning of December, at least 100 people have lost their lives.

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  • Authorities in Alaska suspend search for boy missing after deadly landslide

    Authorities in Alaska suspend search for boy missing after deadly landslide

    Authorities have suspended the search for the 12-year-old boy still missing following a deadly landslide in the southeast Alaska community of Wrangell

    ByThe Associated Press

    December 6, 2023, 9:00 PM

    JUNEAU, Alaska — Authorities have suspended the search for the 12-year-old boy still missing following a deadly landslide in the southeast Alaska community of Wrangell.

    Five people have been confirmed killed in the landslide and their bodies recovered: Otto Florschutz, Timothy and Beth Heller and two of the couple’s children, Kara Heller, 11, and Mara Heller, 16. Derek Heller remains missing following the Nov. 20 landslide that came down into the path of three homes, one of which was unoccupied. Florschutz’s wife, Christina Florschutz, survived.

    The City and Borough of Wrangell on Wednesday said the decision to end the search for Derek Heller followed “15 days of tireless and exhaustive efforts” by search and rescue teams.

    “After careful consideration and evaluation of all available information, it has been determined that all accessible search areas have been thoroughly examined. Search and Rescue volunteers and a scent-detection K9 team will be available to respond with active searching if any new information or evidence leads to a specific search area in the future,” the city said in a statement posted on social media.

    The late-night landslide was estimated to be 450 feet (135 meters) wide and covered a swath of the coastal highway. It occurred during a storm marked by rainfall and gusty winds.

    Wrangell is about 155 miles (250 kilometers) south of Juneau.

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  • Rescuers are 16 feet away from Indian workers trapped in tunnel, official says

    Rescuers are 16 feet away from Indian workers trapped in tunnel, official says

    NEW DELHI — Officials in India said Tuesday rescuers are 5 meters (about 16 feet) away from the 41 construction workers who have been trapped in a collapsed mountain tunnel in the country’s north for over two weeks, raising hopes they may be freed soon.

    Kirti Panwar, a state government spokesperson, said about a dozen men had worked overnight to manually dig through rocks and debris, taking turns to drill using hand-held drilling tools and clearing out the muck as they approach what is hoped to be the final stretch of the rescue operation.

    Rescuers resorted to manual digging after the drilling machine broke down irreparably on Friday while drilling horizontally from the front because of the mountainous terrain of Uttarakhand state where the tunnel collapsed. The machine bored through about 47 meters (nearly 154 feet) out of approximately the 57-60 meters (nearly 187-196 feet) needed, before rescuers started to work by hand to create a passageway to evacuate the trapped workers. Authorities on Tuesday said rescuers had managed to drill through over 50 meters in total so far.

    Rescue teams have inserted pipes into dug-out areas and welded them together so the workers could be brought out on wheeled stretchers.

    The laborers have been trapped since Nov. 12 when a landslide caused a portion of the 4.5-kilometer (2.8-mile) tunnel they were building to collapse about 200 meters (650 feet) from the entrance.

    Rescuers on Sunday also began to create a vertical channel with a newly replaced drilling machine as a contingency plan.

    What began as a rescue mission expected to take a few days has turned into weeks, and officials have been hesitant to give a timeline for when it might be completed.

    “I just feel good. The drilling on top of the mountain is coming along perfectly, in the tunnel, it’s coming along very well. I have never said ‘I feel good’ before,” Arnold Dix, an international tunneling expert who is helping with the rescue, told reporters at the site on Tuesday.

    Most of the trapped workers are migrant laborers from across the country. Many of their families have traveled to the location, where they have camped out for days to get updates on the rescue effort and in hopes of seeing their relatives soon.

    Authorities have supplied the trapped workers with hot meals through a 6-inch (15-centimeter) pipe after days of surviving only on dry food sent through a narrower pipe. They are getting oxygen through a separate pipe, and more than a dozen doctors, including psychiatrists, have been at the site monitoring their health.

    The tunnel the workers were building was designed as part of the Chardham all-weather road, which will connect various Hindu pilgrimage sites. Some experts say the project, a flagship initiative of the federal government, will exacerbate fragile conditions in the upper Himalayas, where several towns are built atop landslide debris.

    Large numbers of pilgrims and tourists visit Uttarakhand’s many Hindu temples, with the number increasing over the years because of the continued construction of buildings and roadways.

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  • Girl, 11, confirmed as fourth victim of Alaska landslide, two people still missing

    Girl, 11, confirmed as fourth victim of Alaska landslide, two people still missing

    Authorities have recovered the body of an 11-year-old girl from a landslide that smashed into homes in an Alaska fishing village days ago

    ByThe Associated Press

    November 26, 2023, 5:29 PM

    FILE – This photo provided by the Alaska Department of Public Safety shows the landslide that occurred the previous evening near Wrangell, Alaska, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023. Authorities recovered the body of Kara Heller, 11, Saturday evening, Nov. 25, from the debris of a landslide in southeast Alaska that tore down a wooded mountainside, smashing into the homes in a remote fishing village Monday night, Nov. 20. The girl is the fourth confirmed killed by the landslide from the Heller family. (Alaska Department of Public Safety via AP, File)

    The Associated Press

    WRANGELL, Alaska — Authorities recovered the body of an 11-year-old girl Saturday evening from the debris of a landslide in southeast Alaska that tore down a wooded mountainside days earlier, smashing into homes in a remote fishing village.

    The girl, Kara Heller, was the fourth person confirmed killed by last Monday night’s landslide.

    The girl’s parents Timothy Heller, 44 and Beth Heller, 36, and her sister Mara Heller, 16, were discovered and confirmed dead in the initial days after the landslide. Search crews are looking for a third child still missing from the Heller family, Derek, 12, and neighbor Otto Florschutz, 65, according to Tim DeSpain, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

    Florschutz’s wife survived the disaster.

    The landslide came down in the direct path of three homes near Wrangell, a fishing community of about 2,000 residents located on an island about 155 miles (250 kilometers) south of Juneau.

    DeSpain said the latest victim was found under debris in the slide area. Authorities used trained dogs and an excavator to find and recover the remains.

    Photos showed the aftermath of the slide, which occurred during significant rainfall and heavy winds: a stark dirt path estimated to be 450 feet (135 meters) wide running from the top of a nearby mountain down to the ocean in the middle of lush evergreen trees. The debris field covered the coastal highway before reaching the sea.

    Troopers had initially said a large-scale search and rescue mission wasn’t possible because the site was unstable and hazardous. But a geologist from the state transportation department later cleared areas of the debris field for ground searches.

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  • 5 family members and a commercial fisherman neighbor are ID’d as dead or missing in Alaska landslide

    5 family members and a commercial fisherman neighbor are ID’d as dead or missing in Alaska landslide

    Authorities on Friday identified those missing or killed in a southeast Alaska landslide this week as five family members and their neighbor, a commercial fisherman who made a longshot bid for the state’s lone seat in the U.S. House last year.

    Timothy Heller, 44, and Beth Heller, 36 — plus their children Mara, 16; Derek, 12; and Kara, 11 — were at home Monday night when the landslide struck near the island community of Wrangell. Search crews found the bodies of the parents and the oldest child late Monday or early Tuesday; the younger children remain missing, as does neighbor Otto Florschutz, 65, the Alaska Department of Public Safety said in an emailed statement.

    Florschutz’s wife survived.

    Florschutz, a Republican who previously served on Wrangell’s Port Commission, was one of 48 candidates who entered the race to fill the congressional seat vacated when longtime U.S. Rep. Don Young died last year. He received 193 votes out of nearly 162,000 cast.

    In a candidate statement provided to the Anchorage Daily News back then, Florschutz said he was known for his ability to forge consensus.

    “As a 42-year commercial fisherman I have worn many hats,” he said. “Besides catching fish, I have served in community elected positions, done boat repair, mechanics, welding, carpentry, business and much more.”

    Beth Heller served on the Wrangell School Board from 2019 to 2020 after several years on the district’s parent advisory committee.

    The Hellers ran a construction company called Heller High Water, said Tyla Nelson, who described herself as Beth Heller’s best friend since high school. Beth and Timothy both grew up in Wrangell and married in August 2010, Nelson said.

    Nelson sobbed as she described her friend as a “fantastic human.”

    “And she was a wonderful mother,” she said. “She did everything for those babies.”

    Wrangell School District Superintendent Bill Burr said in an email Friday that counseling would be available for students and staff Monday when school resumes after the Thanksgiving break.

    “The loss of even one child is a very difficult time, and having an entire family with three students is devastating,” Burr wrote.

    The slide tore down a swath of evergreen trees from the top of the mountain above the community to the ocean, striking three homes and burying a highway near the island community of Wrangell, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) south of Juneau. One of the homes was unoccupied.

    The slide — estimated to be 450 feet (137 meters) wide — occurred during a significant rainfall and heavy winds. Wrangell received about 2 inches (5 centimeters) of rain from early Monday until late evening, with wind gusts up to 60 mph (96 kph) at higher elevations, said Aaron Jacobs, a National Weather Service hydrologist and meteorologist in Juneau.

    The landslide cut off about 54 homes from town. Roughly 35 to 45 people have chosen to stay in the area, said Mason Villarma, interim borough manager. Boats are being used to provide supplies including food, fuel, water and prescription medications.

    Given the geography of the island — with the town at the northern point and houses along a 13-mile (21-kilometer) stretch of paved road — currently “the ocean is our only access to those residences,” Villarma said.

    Officials continued to clear debris from the highway Friday.

    ___

    Sinco Kelleher reported from Honolulu. Bellisle reported from Seattle. Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed.

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