Natural Disaster // Current

Powerful quake rattles Indonesia

A powerful earthquake has struck off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi but fears of a tsunami receded after the country withdrew... more

DonkeyPong
added this

34 dead and 1.17 million people affected in Guangxi's flood of the century

Xinhua reports on devastating floods that have hit China's Southern Guangxi region. The flood has also affected parts of... more

purplefox
added this

Are we in a planetary endgame?

Three trends bode ill for our future: the increase in weather disasters, the black market in organs and the growing demand for... more

jubal
added this

Pakistan Earthquake Kills 175, More Deaths Feared

An earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale jolted parts of southwestern Baluchistan Province early Wednesday, causing... more

Future_America
added this

Angel Island Fire Rages in San Francisco Bay (Photos)

A fire broke out on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay at 9:00 p.m. on Sunday night. The fast moving brush fire produced... more

gmc1
added this

Deadly earthquake hits Chechnya

An earthquake in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya has killed at least 13 people and injured more than 100 more, officials... more

DonkeyPong
added this

Plain White T's Tell All

Pop-rock group, Plain White T's take over the Daily Fix to give us the details on their new album, new music video, upcoming... more

DailyFix
added this

Some Of Ike's Missing May Have Just Washed Away

The death toll from Hurricane Ike is remarkably low so far, considering that legions of people stayed behind as the storm... more

TimALoftis
added this

22 stuck on stalled freighter in Gulf of Mexico as Ike bears down

A freighter has broken down about 120 miles southeast of Galveston, TX and is directly in the path of Hurricane Ike. But high... more

Tori
added this

My Addiction

I am addicted to volunteering. This is my story.

jeffjohns
added this

Storm-Hit Haitians Starve on Rooftops

Haiti was reeling last night from a series of tropical storms which devastated crops and infrastructure and left bodies floating in flooded towns. Three storms in three weeks unleashed "catastrophe" and submerged much of the impoverished Caribbean nation, said President Rene Preval. A fourth storm, Ike, was gathering force in the Atlantic and could strike next week.

More than 120 people have died, thousands are homeless and agriculture and transport networks have been washed away, prompting calls for emergency international aid.

"There are a lot of people who have been on top of the roofs of their homes over 24 hours now," the interior minister, Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, told Reuters. "They have no water, no food and we can't even help them."

Haiti, vulnerable because of its flimsy dwellings and soil erosion, has been the worst affected by the tempests that have battered the Caribbean and US Gulf coast. Parts of Cuba have also been devastated, prompting Fidel Castro to compare the impact to a nuclear attack.

Tropical storm Fay started the crisis three weeks ago. Hurricane Gustav wreaked havoc last week by uprooting trees and triggering floods and mudslides that killed dozens.

Tropical storm Hanna struck on Tuesday with 65mph winds, killing at least 61 people and flooding the northern Haitian city of Gonaives with two metres of water. Corpses and the carcasses of donkeys and cows - flies swarming over them - bobbed down streets turned into rivers.

"I saw 10 bodies float in the flooded streets of the city," the police commissioner, Ernst Dorfeuille, told the local Radio Metropole.

Gonaives lies in a flat river plain between the ocean and deforested mountains that run with mud even in light rains.

With roads impassable and winds too strong for helicopters, UN peacekeepers reached the city on inflatable boats. They found hundreds of survivors clinging to rooftops, begging for water and food - women on balconies waved empty pots and spoons.

"I lost everything, even the baby's clothes," Jezula Preval, one of 1,500 people huddled in the a desolate shelter nicknamed the "Haiti Hilton", told the Associated Press. She gave birth to a healthy boy on Tuesday, after floodwaters swallowed her house.

Patients in a flooded hospital had crowded into an upper floor room. At the church about 100 people huddled on a balcony, waiting for the water to recede.

"There is no food, no water, no clothes," said the pastor, Arnaud Dumas. "I want to know what I'm supposed to do ... we haven't found anything to eat in two, three days. Nothing at all.

*CONTINUES*Haiti was reeling last night from a series of tropical storms which devastated crops and infrastructure and left bodies floating... more

goldenways
added this

0 responses

2 months ago

Hurricane Gustav: Fuzzy science confounds predictions

Meteorologists are predicting a more active hurricane season than usual this year, but there is no way to know whether global... more

lecoke
added this

0 responses

3 months ago

2,000 feared dead as floods swamp hundreds of Indian villages

Up to 2,000 people are feared dead after a river changed course, flooding hundreds of villages in the Indian state of Bihar.... more

lecoke
added this

0 responses

3 months ago

The Gulf Coast waits: Will it be another Katrina?

With a historic evacuation complete, and gun-toting police and National Guardsmen standing watch over this city's empty streets, even presidential politics stood still Sunday while the nation waited to see if Hurricane Gustav would be another Katrina.

The storm was set to crash ashore midday Monday with frightful force, testing the three years of planning and rebuilding that followed Katrina's devastating blow to the Gulf Coast.

Painfully aware of the failings that led to that horrific suffering and more than 1,600 deaths, this time, officials moved beyond merely insisting tourists and residents leave south Louisiana. They threatened arrest, loaded thousands onto buses and warned that anyone who remained behind would not be rescued.

"Looters will go directly to jail. You will not get a pass this time," Mayor Ray Nagin said. "You will not have a temporary stay in the city. You will go directly to the Big House."

Col. Mike Edmondson, state police commander, said he believed that 90 percent of the population had fled the Louisiana coast. The exodus of 1.9 million people is the largest evacuation in state history, and thousands more had left from Mississippi, Alabama and flood-prone southeast Texas.

Late Sunday, Gov. Bobby Jindal issued one last plea to the roughly 100,000 people still left on the coast: "If you've not evacuated, please do so. There are still a few hours left."

Louisiana and Mississippi temporarily changed traffic flow so all highway lanes led away from the coast, and cars were packed bumper-to-bumper. Stores and restaurants shut down, hotels closed and windows were boarded up. Some who planned to stay changed their mind at the last second, not willing to risk the worst.

"I was trying to get situated at home. I was trying to get things so it would be halfway safe," said 46-year-old painter Jerry Williams, who showed up at the city's Union Station to catch one of the last buses out of town. "You're torn. Do you leave it and worry about it, or do you stay and worry about living?"With a historic evacuation complete, and gun-toting police and National Guardsmen standing watch over this city's empty... more