Cyclone Bulbul kills at least 2 as Bangladesh, India evacuate hundreds of thousands

MOUSOUNI ISLAND, India - Cyclone Bulbul hit India on Saturday, leaving at least two dead as authorities in the country and in neighboring Bangladesh ordered hundreds of thousands of people to get out of the path of the storm as it gained power.

The eye of the storm, packing winds of up to 120 kilometers (75 miles) per hour, was expected to hit the Bay of Bengal coast late Saturday near the Bangladesh-India frontier.

Airports and ports were shut down and the deaths were reported before the full force of the cyclone had hit. One person was killed by an uprooted tree in Kolkata and another by a wall that collapsed under the force of the winds in Odisha state, authorities said.

More than 60,000 people were moved away from the coast on the Indian side of the border while the Bangladesh government said 400,000 were evacuated.

Bangladeshi troops were sent to some villages, while about 55,000 volunteers went door-to-door and making loudspeaker announcements in the streets to get people away from the danger zone in villages, many of which were below sea level.

A storm surge up to two meters (seven feet) high was predicted along the coast, Bangladesh's Meteorological Department said.

About 1,500 tourists were stranded on the southern island of Saint Martin after boat services were suspended due to bad weather.

Bangladesh's two biggest ports, Mongla and Chittagong, were closed because of the storm, and flights into Chittagong airport were halted.


Flights suspended

In India, flights in and out of Kolkata airport were suspended for 12 hours because of the storm.

On the West Bengal island of Mousouni, which lies in the path of the storm, frightened residents took shelter in schools and government buildings because they had not been able to escape.

Military planes and ships have been put on standby to help in emergencies, Indian authorities said.

Bulbul was expected to hit the coast at the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, which straddles Bangladesh and part of eastern India, and is home to endangered species including the Bengal tiger.

Bangladesh's low-lying coast, home to 30 million people, is regularly battered by cyclones that leave a trail of destruction.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in cyclones in recent decades.

While the frequency and intensity have increased, partly due to climate change, the death tolls have come down because of faster evacuations and the building of 4,000 cyclone shelters along the coast.

In November 2007, Cyclone Sidr killed more than 3,000 people. In May this year, Fani became the most powerful storm to hit the country in five years, but the death toll was about 12.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Bangladesh evacuates 100,000 as Cyclone Bulbul approaches

DHAKA, Bangladesh - Bangladesh authorities have evacuated around 100,000 people from the country's low-lying coastal villages and islands, with Cyclone Bulbul set to slam into the country later on Saturday, officials said.

The Meteorological Department has asked local authorities and two ports to raise their highest alert, as the cyclone is expected to unleash a storm surge as high as two meters in coastal districts.

Bulbul, packing a maximum wind speed of 120 kilometers per hour, is on course to make landfall near the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, which straddles Bangladesh and part of eastern India and is home to the endangered Bengal tigers.

The cyclone is expected to hit the Bangladesh coast at around 8 p.m. (1400 GMT), disaster management secretary Shah Kamal told AFP, adding there are plans to evacuate some 1.5 million people before that.

Authorities have suspended a nationwide school test, cancelled the holidays of officials posted in coastal districts and called off a traditional fair that draws tens of thousands of people in the Sundarbans.

Operations at the country's two major ports -- Mongla and Chittagong -- have been suspended, Kamal said.

Some 55,000 volunteers have been mobilized to go door to door and alert people about the storm.

Bangladesh's low-lying coast, home to 30 million people, is regularly battered by powerful cyclones that leave a trail of devastation in their wake.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed over the last few decades in cyclones, whose frequency and intensity have increased.

Bangladesh has, however, improved its preparedness in recent years, cutting the number casualties since Cyclone Sidr killed more than 3,000 people in 2007.

In May this year, Fani became the most powerful storm to hit the country in five years, but just over a dozen people were killed.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Dorian's toll: Bahamas officials say 2,500 missing in storm's wake

NASSAU, Bahamas - Around 2,500 people are feared missing in the Bahamas in the wake of devastating Hurricane Dorian, a number that may include people who fled to shelters around the Caribbean island chain, authorities said on Wednesday.

More than a week after the top-of-scale Category 5 hurricane ravaged Great Abaco Island, Freeport and other parts of the tourism-dependent country, the number of those officially registered as missing was another sign the storm's death toll may rise significantly over the 50 reported so far.

"This list has not yet been checked against government records of who are staying in shelters or who have been evacuated," National Emergency Management Agency spokesman Carl Smith told a news conference. "The database processing is underway."

Thousands of people are in shelters on the islands and officials have warned the number of dead is likely to rise substantially.

People all over Nassau are still searching for friends and family they have not seen since the storm.

"My friends are missing, a few of my cousins are missing over there, five in total, they lived in Marsh Harbor," said Clara Bain, a 38-year-old tour guide, referring to the Abaco town where officials estimate that 90 percent of homes and buildings were damaged or destroyed by the storm.

"Everyone on the islands are missing someone, it's really devastating," Bain said.

Dorian slammed into the Bahamas over a week ago as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, packing top sustained winds of 185 miles (298 km) per hour.

Smith said more than 5,000 people had evacuated to New Providence, the island where the capital Nassau is located, but that there had been a "significant reduction" in the number of people now asking to be relocated.

Commercial flights to Abaco, one of the hardest-hit areas, were due to resume on Wednesday on a limited basis, officials said.

Some 15,000 people are still in need of shelter or food, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency.

Officials have already put up large tents in Nassau to house people made homeless by the storm and plan to put up tent cities on Abaco capable of sheltering up to 4,000 people.

Private forecasters estimated that Dorian destroyed or damaged some $3 billion in insured property in the Caribbean.

(Reporting by Zach Fagenson in Nassau and Maria Caspani in New York, writing by Scott Malone, editing by Chris Reese, Steve Orlofsky and Tom Brown)

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Hurricane Dorian leaves Bahamas in ruins

An aerial view shows devastation after Hurricane Dorian hit the Abaco Islands in the Bahamas on Tuesday in this image obtained via social media. Dorian left at least 7 people killed and destroyed 13,000 homes, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

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Wall Street ends little changed as media stocks slump, healthcare gains

Wall Street ended little changed on Thursday after a moderate late-day rally as media stocks, which slumped on negative business updates from Walt Disney and Comcast, were offset by gains in healthcare shares.

Comcast dropped 6.2 percent after the cable operator warned of subscriber losses, while Disney shares fell 4.4 percent after the company cautioned about its profit growth. The S&P 500 media index ended down 3.6 percent.

Gains in healthcare stocks such as AbbVie and Bristol-Myers Squibb buoyed indexes, while strength in Microsoft and Amazon helped keep the tech-heavy Nasdaq in positive territory.


Investors were tracking Hurricane Irma, which was bearing down on Florida on the heels of devastation in Texas caused by Hurricane Harvey. Irma plowed past the Dominican Republic toward Haiti after devastating a string of Caribbean islands.

With Irma looming, shares of insurers were weaker, with the Dow Jones US Insurance index off 1.9 percent.

“There’s further uncertainty because of Hurricane Irma that is supposed to be hitting Florida. You don’t know what kind of damage it is going to do," said John Praveen, managing director at Prudential International Investments Advisers in Newark, New Jersey.

Combined with Harvey, in the short term, Praveen said, "maybe it will have a negative impact upon US GDP growth and it might hurt US earnings, and that’s probably why the markets are reacting negatively."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.86 points, or 0.1 percent, to 21,784.78, the S&P 500 lost 0.44 points, or 0.02 percent, to 2,465.1 and the Nasdaq Composite added 4.56 points, or 0.07 percent, to 6,397.87.

Irma is the latest macro event to keep pressure on US equities following concerns earlier this week about geopolitical tensions involving North Korea, which sparked the biggest one-day drop for the S&P 500 in about 3 weeks. Adding to concerns, September historically has been the worst month for stocks, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac.

Still, the benchmark S&P remains near all-time highs, with market watchers pointing to strong earnings growth and solid economic data as helping to support stocks.

“For being in such a nervous world right now, the market has done exceptionally well,” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Investors were also digesting comments from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, who said the euro's strength was already weighing on inflation and will be a key factor for the ECB next month when it decides how to proceed with its massive stimulus program.

General Electric shares sank 3.6 percent, dragging on the S&P and the Dow, after a bearish analyst note.

Apple shares also weighed on major indexes, falling 0.4 percent after a report that the company's new iPhone was hit with production glitches.

Financial shares slid 1.7 percent amid a drop in US Treasury yields.

Healthcare was the best-performing sector, rising 1.1 percent. AbbVie shares surged 6.1 percent and Bristol-Myers Squibb gained 5.0 percent after the drugmakers separately reported positive developments for their respective medicines.

Eli Lilly shares rose 1.3 percent after it said it would lay off about 8 percent of its employees.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.07-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.06-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

About 6.4 billion shares changed hands on US exchanges, above the 5.8 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Four dead as 'worst storm in years' buffets California

LOS ANGELES - A devastating storm billed by forecasters as the worst to hit California in years pounded the southern half of the state, wreaking devastation that claimed four lives, authorities said on Saturday.

The powerful storm blew in from the Pacific Ocean, hitting California on Friday with high winds and heavy rain that downed power lines, leaving 60,000 people in the Los Angeles area without power, and prompting hundreds of flight delays and cancellations at airports.

Emergency workers were forced to carry out numerous fast-water rescues after flash flooding forced hundreds from their homes, officials said.

Several people stranded near the Los Angeles River had to be rescued with inflatable boats.

Los Angeles city fire officials said the fatalities included a 55-year-old man who was electrocuted after a tree downed a power line.

Two other people died in car accidents in the San Diego area, and a fourth was died in a submerged vehicle, local media reported.

Another person was injured after her car fell into a massive sinkhole in Los Angeles, local television station KABC reported. She was trapped until fire crews pulled her out.

Flash-flood warnings will continue through the weekend in many areas of the West Coast state, which has been hit this winter by a series of storms that have filled reservoirs, bringing respite following a severe five-year drought.

Although the latest storm, which packed heavy wind-driven rain, was mainly affecting southern and central California, rain was also forecast to hit the San Francisco Bay Area in the north.

Several inches of rain were forecast for parts of northern California.

Residents of the city of Duarte, located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains east of Los Angeles, were ordered to evacuate on Friday for fear of mudslides and voluntary evacuation orders were issued for some residents of Camarillo Springs, north of LA.

Mudslides in the southern city of Santa Barbara forced Amtrak officials to suspend service between nearby Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo.

The National Weather Service said the northern part of the state -- where flooding last week damaged the Lake Oroville Dam and forced the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people -- was expected to see new rain and snow systems moving in during the next few days.

It forecast "the wettest storm" on Monday and Tuesday, warning of potential renewed flooding across Northern California.

"Recent storms have left the region highly vulnerable, so amplified impacts will be possible with additional rainfall," the NWS said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

7 Pinoy students survive West Virginia's worst flooding

Seven Filipino students were among the hundreds affected by the flooding that left 24 dead and hundreds homeless in West Virgina, U.S. last week, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Monday.

DFA Charles Jose confirmed that the students were on-the-job trainees from the De La Salle - College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB).

Jose said the Philippine Embassy in Washington evacuated the students to a safer area after floods swept the house where they were staying.

 DLS-CSB students said the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC has reached out to them for assistance pic.twitter.com/CMFYZo9P1F — Jeff Canoy (@jeffcanoy) June 27, 2016
 
Before this, the group sought shelter at a cave near the resort, according to a report from ABS-CBN's Umagang Kay Ganda.

ABS-CBN's Jeff Canoy also reported that the students lost all their belongings, including passports and other travel documents in the flood.

DLS-CSB students among those who survived the historic floods; They're in #WestVirginia for an internship program pic.twitter.com/ahHq9oHzQD

— Jeff Canoy (@jeffcanoy) June 26, 2016

Jose said they continue coordinating with DLS-CSB authorities to help the seven students.

The DFA spokesperson said there were no reports of other Filipinos affected by the flooding.

U.S. President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster for West Virginia and ordered federal aid to affected individuals in Kanawha, Greenbrier and Nicholas counties.

A Reuters report said up to 10 inches (25.4 cm) of rain fell on Thursday in the mountainous state, sending torrents of water from rivers and streams through homes and causing widespread devastation.

Devastating scenes in White Sulphur Springs. At least 24 dead in flood-hit #WestVirginia @ABSCBNNews pic.twitter.com/oxUwFil7Ey


 — Jeff Canoy (@jeffcanoy) June 26, 2016
 
West Virginia's death toll from flooding is the highest for any U.S. state this year.

The state is home to some 3,000 Filipino expatriates. -- With a report from Jeff Canoy, ABS-CBN News

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Woman killed, 400 homes destroyed by California wildfire

LAKEPORT, California - A Northern California wildfire ranked as the most destructive to hit the drought-stricken U.S. West this year has killed a woman and burned some 400 homes to the ground, fire officials said on Monday, and they expect the property toll to climb.

The so-called Valley Fire erupted on Saturday and spread quickly to a cluster of small communities in the hills and valleys north of Napa County's wine-producing region, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents.

An elderly, disabled woman who was unable to flee her home died in the fire as flames consumed the building on Saturday evening, Lake County Sheriff's spokesman Lieutenant Steve Brooks said.

Evacuated residents recounted chaotic ordeals of having to flee their homes through gauntlets of flame, and some 9,000 structures remained threatened as darkness fell on Monday evening, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

"That whole place was ablaze. It was like Armageddon," said Steve Johnson, a 37-year-old construction worker from Southern California who was visiting his mother in the fire-ravaged community of Hidden Valley Lake. "We were literally driving through the flames."

Johnson and his mother safely escaped and spent Sunday night at a high school gymnasium converted into an evacuation center.

By Monday evening, the blaze had blackened 62,000 acres (24,690 hectares) of tinder-dry forests, brush and grasslands, and was only about 10 percent contained, according to Cal Fire.

About 40,000 acres (16,190 hectares) of the landscape were consumed in the first 12 hours of the fire at the peak of its intensity on Saturday and early Sunday, stoked by high winds.

Fire officials described the rapid initial rate of spread as nearly unprecedented, a consequence of vegetation desiccated by four years of drought and weeks of extreme summer heat.

Four firefighters were hospitalized with second-degree burns in the early hours of the blaze on Saturday.

By Monday night more than 1,400 firefighters were battling the flames, one of 12 major wildfires across the state during an intense fire season.

SCENES OF DEVASTATION

The communities of Cobb, Middletown, Hidden Valley Lake and the Harbin Hot Springs resort - located about 50 miles (80 km) west of Sacramento, the state capital - were reported to be hardest hit by the fire.

Reuters video footage from Middletown, a village of about 1,500 residents, showed a smoking, devastated scene of burned-out vehicles, twisted, blackened debris and charred foundations of buildings that had been reduced to ash. Roughly half of the town was leveled.

The carcass of a horse was seen lying on the shoulder of the road between Cobb and Middletown, a stretch of highway where miles of houses were laid to waste on both sides.

"We were trying to get out. We were trying to hook up our trailer and all of a sudden, two houses up I see this big wall of pink and red and gray," said Carol Ulrich of Middletown. "So we just dropped everything and left. I didn't even get my purse, nothing. We just drove away and left our trailer and everything."

Janet Mondragon of Middletown, appeared close to tears as she watched videotaped footage of her home in flames.

"We have nothing, absolutely nothing," she said. "What can I tell you? We are staying in a hotel in Santa Rosa, but we're going to have to start life over. There is nothing, absolutely nothing."

Cal Fire on Monday reported that some 1,000 structures had been lost, at least 400 of them homes. Mark Ghilarducci, Director of the state's Office of Emergency Services, told reporters on Monday some 13,000 people had been displaced.

Governor Jerry Brown, who also spoke at the news conference, said climate change would continue to worsen fire conditions.

That tally ranks as the greatest loss of property from a single blaze in California this season, or among the scores of wildfires that have ravaged the drought-stricken western United States so far this summer, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.

The property toll is expected to rise as damage-assessment teams reach areas of the fire zone that have yet to be surveyed, but no additional communities were under immediate threat on Monday, Smith said.

The Valley Fire also damaged the cooling towers at five of the 14 steam-generating plants operated by Texas-based Calpine Corp at a sprawling geothermal field straddling the Sonoma-Lake county border, company spokesman Brett Kerr said.

A separate blaze raging since Wednesday in the western Sierras has destroyed 135 homes and 79 outbuildings and was threatening about 6,400 structures, with some 10,000 people displaced there too, officials said.

In Oregon, meanwhile, Governor Kate Brown invoked the state's so-called Emergency Conflagration Act on Monday, mobilizing additional resources as a fast-growing wildfire threatened 275 homes in a rural area of the state.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

New Orleans mourns dead, celebrates life on Katrina anniversary

NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans remembered the dead and celebrated its painstaking comeback from disaster on Saturday, a decade after Hurricane Katrina ripped through the "Big Easy" leaving devastation and chaos in its wake.

City leaders placed wreaths at a memorial to Katrina's scores of unknown victims, marking the hour that the Category 5 storm struck with catastrophic force, overwhelming the Louisiana port's system of levees.

More than 1,800 people were killed across the US Gulf Coast when Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005. A million people were displaced and the financial toll topped $150 billion.

New Orleans was plunged into a nightmarish scene of death and looting after Katrina barreled her way through and government help was painfully slow to come, something which still rankles in the city.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu, at a solemn ceremony attended by about 400 people at Charity Hospital Cemetery in the Mid-City neighborhood, struck a defiant tone.

"New Orleans will be unbowed and unbroken. We're still standing after 10 years," he declared.

"We have risen and we will rise again, but we can only do it if we hold each other up and we don't leave anybody behind."

The memorial to the unclaimed Katrina victims holds the remains of bodies which were never identified or claimed.

"We know that even as New Orleans is rebuilding, there are those who are grieving the deaths of their mothers, their fathers, their sisters. I want those families to know that our thoughts are with them," Governor Bobby Jindal said.

The wreath ceremony gave way to parades, marches and partying, capping a week of remembrance that included a visit from President Barack Obama.

Barbeque smoke and music filled the stifling New Orleans air, as brass bands and revelers celebrated the recovery of a city synonymous with Dixieland jazz and the raucous Mardi Gras.

Gwen Truhill, a local from the Ninth Ward, said: "We've come a long way, but yet still so far to go.

"It's good to see everybody come together and remember what happened, to see that people are still in good spirits. It's still kind of bittersweet."

Neighborhoods and cultural centers are holding parties and parades before former president Bill Clinton speaks at an evening commemoration, with performances by a number of Grammy-winning musicians.

- 'Sea of misery and ruin' -
Some 80 percent of New Orleans was swallowed up by floods which rose as high as 20 feet (six meters) after the low-lying coastal city's poorly built levee system burst from the pressure of a massive storm surge.

The water came up so fast that some people drowned in their homes. Hundreds more were stranded on their rooftops.

The few dry spots in the city descended into anarchy as tens of thousands of increasingly desperate people with little food or clean water waited for help to finally reach them.

"All of us who are old enough to remember will never forget the images of our fellow Americans amid a sea of misery and ruin," former president George W. Bush said in a visit to a New Orleans school Friday.

Bush, who faced intense criticism for his handling of the crisis, said he was moved by the city's determination to "rebuild better than before."

Ten years on, colorful homes on stilts have replaced many of the rotten hulks left behind by the stagnant and effluent-tainted flood waters.

Music and the smell of gumbo -- a spicy stew -- once again waft through the bustling streets of the French Quarter.

The tourism industry is booming once again, with nine million visitors last year and the city has managed to attract a growing number new businesses.

Crime -- while still high -- is improving, with the murder rate hitting a 43-year low in 2014 and the population in city jails down by two-thirds.

- Changing city -
Some of the city's 385,000 residents say its Creole and Afro-Caribbean identity has been altered indelibly by the storm.

A large portion of the population never came back and New Orleans now has 100,000 fewer people than it did before Katrina, and many are newcomers.

The black population has also fallen, from 68 percent of residents in 2000 to 60 percent in 2013, latest census figures show.

But plenty of white New Orleans residents also found the emotional and financial cost of rebuilding to be too high, though their numbers are harder to measure.

"A lot of things have changed, but sometimes change is for the better," city resident Elisianne Coco said.

"It's not the same New Orleans that it was when I was growing up, but as long as they get the best of it, that's all that matters."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com