SHANGHAI - China evacuated more than 790,000 people as powerful Typhoon Talim slammed into its east coast after barreling across Taiwan, where it left three dead and dozens injured.

Talim was forecast to be the strongest storm to hit China this season and the observatory in Fujian province issued its highest-level alert, warning of potential landslides, flooding and widespread damage.

With a radius of 250 kilometres (155 miles), Talim was packing centre winds of up to 144 kilometres (86 miles) per hour on Thursday, according to the central weather bureau in Taiwan.

The China Meteorological Association said the storm made landfall at Putian city in Fujian late afternoon, bringing torrential rain and strong winds.

State television showed rising seas off the coast of Fujian as rains hammered coastal roads, but winds did not appear as strong as they were in Taiwan where three people died and 59 were injured on Wednesday and Thursday.

Nearly 500,000 people have been evacuated in Fujian and another 291,000 from neighbouring Zhejiang province, according to local officials, while some 30,000 fishing vessels returned to harbour.

Most flights from Fujian's capital Fuzhou were cancelled Thursday and schools province-wide have been ordered to close until Monday, state television said.

Talim is "probably the strongest typhoon China will experience in terms of wind this summer," said National Meteorological Centre expert Zhang Ling.

Wang Dongfa, head of Zhejiang's meteorological bureau, said they expect the typhoon to focus on Fujian but nevertheless warned of torrential rain to Wenzhou, Taizhou and Ningbo cities and surrounding areas.

East and southeast China are prone to typhoons and have been pummeled by dozens over the past 50 years.

Talim churned through Taiwan Wednesday but by late Thursday had largely left the island as it churned toward China.

Two men drowned in southern Tainan and northern Miaoli counties while a 60-year-old woman was hit by lightning in the southern Changhua county, the National Fire Agency said.

Offices, schools and financial markets closed in Taiwan, all domestic flights were canceled and many trains and international air services were delayed.

An air raid drill slated for Friday in Taipei was postponed until next week.

Electricity was cut to 1.7 million homes but most were expected to be reconnected before the end of the day.

In Taichung, a bridge connecting Kukuan, a popular hot spring, was submerged by flash floods, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of tourists.

In the northeastern county of Ilan, powerful waves smashed into the port of Wushi which was closed by the authorities.

Among those injured were eight prisoners and a policeman, hurt when their van rammed a crash barrier.

In the capital, where the rain and winds were less severe than elsewhere, bars, karaoke lounges and restaurants were crowded as people took advantage of the national holiday declared as a result of Talim.

Most air and land traffic was expected to return to normal later Thursday as the typhoon moved away.

Freshly named Tropical Storm Ophelia was moving slowly toward the northeastern Atlantic coast of Florida on Wednesday, forecasters said, threatening to drench the state with up to 8 inches of rain in some areas, possibly within 24 hours.

Ophelia intensified to a tropical storm early Wednesday, with maximum sustained winds of near 40 mph and higher gusts. As of 5 a.m. Wednesday, the storm's center was located about 105 miles east of Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was moving north-northwest at near 8 mph and was expected to continue in that direction, slow down and possibly strengthen slightly within the next 24 hours.

Tropical storm warnings are posted from Sebastian Inlet, Florida, northward to Flagler Beach, Florida, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. The warning means tropical storm conditions, including winds of at least 39 mph, are expected in the area within the next 24 hours.

A tropical storm watch, meaning tropical storm conditions are possible within the next 36 hours, was in effect from north of Flagler Beach to Fernandina Beach, Florida, forecasters said.

Rainfall of 3 to 5 inches with isolated amounts of up to 8 inches are expected across portions of central and northern Florida and southeastern Georgia as a result of Ophelia. In addition, dangerous surf conditions and rip currents will be possible along the southeastern U.S. coast from the Carolinas southward to Florida.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Nate -- which initially was forecast to pose no threat to land -- is now on track to pass near or just south of Bermuda later this week, forecasters said Wednesday.

The Bermuda Weather Service has issued a tropical storm watch for the Atlantic island. Nate's maximum sustained winds were near 70 mph with higher gusts Wednesday -- just shy of hurricane force.

At 5 a.m. ET Wednesday, the center of the storm was located about 260 miles south-southwest of Bermuda. It was moving toward the northwest at about 2 mph, and was expected to turn toward the north or north-northeast later Wednesday and Thursday.

"On the forecast track, Nate is forecast to pass near or just south of Bermuda Thursday night or Friday morning," said the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.

The storm was expected to strengthen during the next 24 hours, and Nate could become a hurricane later Wednesday, forecasters said.

S 517 IS

To establish the Weather Modification Operations and Research Board, and for other purposes.

March 3, 2005

Mrs. HUTCHISON introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

To establish the Weather Modification Operations and Research Board, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the 'Weather Modification Research and Technology Transfer Authorization Act of 2005'.

SEC. 2. PURPOSE.

It is the purpose of this Act to develop and implement a comprehensive and coordinated national weather modification policy and a national cooperative Federal and State program of weather modification research and development.

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:

(1) BOARD- The term 'Board' means the Weather Modification Advisory and Research Board.

(2) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR- The term 'Executive Director' means the Executive Director of the Weather Modification Advisory and Research Board.

(3) RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT- The term 'research and development' means theoretical analysis, exploration, experimentation, and the extension of investigative findings and theories of scientific or technical nature into practical application for experimental and demonstration purposes, including the experimental production and testing of models, devices, equipment, materials, and processes.

(4) WEATHER MODIFICATION- The term 'weather modification' means changing or controlling, or attempting to change or control, by artificial methods the natural development of atmospheric cloud forms or precipitation forms which occur in the troposphere.

SEC. 4. WEATHER MODIFICATION ADVISORY AND RESEARCH BOARD ESTABLISHED.

(a) IN GENERAL- There is established in the Department of Commerce the Weather Modification Advisory and Research Board.

(b) MEMBERSHIP-

(1) IN GENERAL- The Board shall consist of 11 members appointed by the Secretary of Commerce, of whom--

(A) at least 1 shall be a representative of the American Meteorological Society;

(B) at least 1 shall be a representative of the American Society of Civil Engineers;

(C) at least 1 shall be a representative of the National Academy of Sciences;

(D) at least 1 shall be a representative of the National Center for Atmospheric Research of the National Science Foundation;

(E) at least 2 shall be representatives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the Department of Commerce;

(F) at least 1 shall be a representative of institutions of higher education or research institutes; and

(G) at least 1 shall be a representative of a State that is currently supporting operational weather modification projects.

(2) TENURE- A member of the Board serves at the pleasure of the Secretary of Commerce.

(3) VACANCIES- Any vacancy on the Board shall be filled in the same manner as the original appointment.

(b) ADVISORY COMMITTEES- The Board may establish advisory committees to advise the Board and to make recommendations to the Board concerning legislation, policies, administration, research, and other matters.

(c) INITIAL MEETING- Not later than 30 days after the date on which all members of the Board have been appointed, the Board shall hold its first meeting.

(d) MEETINGS- The Board shall meet at the call of the Chair.

(e) QUORUM- A majority of the members of the Board shall constitute a quorum, but a lesser number of members may hold hearings.

(f) CHAIR AND VICE CHAIR- The Board shall select a Chair and Vice Chair from among its members.

SEC. 5. DUTIES OF THE BOARD.

(a) PROMOTION OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT- In order to assist in expanding the theoretical and practical knowledge of weather modification, the Board shall promote and fund research and development, studies, and investigations with respect to--

(1) improved forecast and decision-making technologies for weather modification operations, including tailored computer workstations and software and new observation systems with remote sensors; and

(2) assessments and evaluations of the efficacy of weather modification, both purposeful (including cloud-seeding operations) and inadvertent (including downwind effects and anthropogenic effects).

(b) FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE- Unless the use of the money is restricted or subject to any limitations provided by law, the Board shall use amounts in the Weather Modification Research and Development Fund--

(1) to pay its expenses in the administration of this Act, and

(2) to provide for research and development with respect to weather modifications by grants to, or contracts or cooperative arrangements, with public or private agencies.

(c) REPORT- The Board shall submit to the Secretary biennially a report on its findings and research results.

SEC. 6. POWERS OF THE BOARD.

(a) STUDIES, INVESTIGATIONS, AND HEARINGS- The Board may make any studies or investigations, obtain any information, and hold any hearings necessary or proper to administer or enforce this Act or any rules or orders issued under this Act.

(b) PERSONNEL- The Board may employ, as provided for in appropriations Acts, an Executive Director and other support staff necessary to perform duties and functions under this Act.

(c) COOPERATION WITH OTHER AGENCIES- The Board may cooperate with public or private agencies to promote the purposes of this Act.

(d) COOPERATIVE AGREEMENTS- The Board may enter into cooperative agreements with the head of any department or agency of the United States, an appropriate official of any State or political subdivision of a State, or an appropriate official of any private or public agency or organization for conducting weather modification activities or cloud-seeding operations.

(e) CONDUCT AND CONTRACTS FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT- The Executive Director, with the approval of the Board, may conduct and may contract for research and development activities relating to the purposes of this section.

SEC. 7. COOPERATION WITH THE WEATHER MODIFICATION OPERATIONS AND RESEARCH BOARD.

The heads of the departments and agencies of the United States and the heads of any other public or private agencies and institutions that receive research funds from the United States shall, to the extent possible, give full support and cooperation to the Board and to initiate independent research and development programs that address weather modifications.

SEC. 8. FUNDING.

(a) IN GENERAL- There is established within the Treasury of the United States the Weather Modification Research and Development Fund, which shall consist of amounts appropriated pursuant to subsection (b) or received by the Board under subsection (c).

(b) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS- There is authorized to be appropriated to the Board for the purposes of carrying out the provisions of this Act $10,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2005 through 2014. Any sums appropriated under this subsection shall remain available, without fiscal year limitation, until expended.

(c) GIFTS- The Board may accept, use, and dispose of gifts or donations of services or property.

TOKYO - Japan braced for another hit by a powerful typhoon that battered the southern island of Kyushu and parts of South Korea, leaving at least 17 people dead and several others missing.

Officials said 10 people were unaccounted for after Typhoon Nabi set off landslides, forcing the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights and disrupting Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's re-election campaign schedule.

Police said at least 98 people were injured, 20 of them seriously. In South Korea, five people were also reported missing.

"It was such a large amount of rain and lasted for such a long time. There was more damage than we expected," said a police spokesman in worst-hit Miyazaki prefecture, where eight died and more than 300 homes damaged.

"The major rivers in Miyazaki were about to burst. Had they done so, the damage would have been even greater," he said.

Nabi worked a slow path over the southern island of Kyushu, including Miyazaki, on Tuesday before heading onto the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

But on Wednesday it was shifting back northeast, threatening the northern island of Hokkaido which is rarely hit by typhoons.

Four days ahead of Sunday's general election, Koizumi took a break from campaigning to hold a meeting with disaster authorities to review preparations.

"We will make decisions as we look at the entire situation" of typhoon damages, the disaster management minister, Yoshitaka Murata, told reporters after meeting with Koizumi.

Rescue workers on Kyushu used long, metal rods to feel under piles of mud for any buried victims.

In the rural town of Tarumi, rescuers found the bodies of two elderly women in their 70s at a house that was engulfed by a landslide. Another dead woman had been found in the house Tuesday.

In western Yamaguchi prefecture, a landslide collapsed a section of a highway, burying three people who were inside two houses.

Residents of Hokkaido were warned of heavy rain, strong winds and high waves, with Nabi expected to hit the island by Thursday, the meteorological agency said.

The typhoon caused the cancellation of 136 domestic flights Wednesday, after a total of 894 flights were cancelled on Tuesday, according to public broadcaster NHK.

As of 1100 GMT, Nabi was above the sea 240 kilometers (150 miles) west of Oga peninsula in northern Akita prefecture, the meteorological agency said.

Packing winds of up to 90 kilometers (56 miles) per hour, Nabi was moving northeast at 50 kilometers (31 miles) per hour, it said.

Mainland Japan was struck by a record 10 typhoons last year. One of them, Tokage, was the deadliest in a quarter-century, killing 90 people.

In South Korea, an 18-year-old student was missing after heavy rains sent here car into a river, police said.

Floods also swept away a 70-year-old man and three other people went missing overnight in South Korea, Yonhap news agency reported.

About 1,000 people fled their homes in the South Korean city of Ulsan and nearby cities. The typhoon grounded 100 domestic and international flights.

TOKYO - Powerful typhoon Nabi left Japan after crisscrossing north to south in a path of destruction that left 32 dead or missing in Japan and South Korea and flooded thousands of homes.

The typhoon headed onto the Sea of Okhotsk east of Siberia nearly a week after it first built up in the subtropical Pacific waters south of Japan.

The worst hit area remained Miyazaki province on the southern island of Kyushu, where rice fields were deluged by a powerful downpour.

"We found another body, believed to be a 28-year-old man who had gone missing, in a rice field" flooded by the typhoon, an official at Miyazaki prefectural police said.

It has raised the death toll in Japan to 19, with at least eight others still missing. The search was also on for five people who are unaccounted for in South Korea.

With the typhoon bringing violent rains to most of the country, police said 139 people had been injured in 30 of Japan's 47 prefectures.

After hitting Kyushu, the typhoon made a sharp turn to the east, slamming into the northern island of Hokkaido but bypassing Japan's central population hubs.

Television footage showed residents in Hokkaido, which is rarely hit by typhoons, using buckets to bail water from their flooded houses as high waves lashed the coast.

"We have not received reports of injuries or deaths over the typhoon ... but we need to be on alert," a Hokkaido police official said, noting waves were still high and rivers were swollen.

Nabi, which means "butterly" in Korean, was 300 kilometers north of Abashiri City on Hokkaido's Okhotsk coast at 10:00 am (0100 GMT) and is forecast to weaken into a temperate depression later Thursday.

At its height, the typhoon packed winds of more than 90 kilometers (56 miles) an hour across a radius of nearly 300 kilometers, a greater area than Hurricane Katrina which ravaged New Orleans.

The typhoon flooded more than 8,000 houses, triggered 155 landslides and damaged 80 roads since the weekend, Japanese police said.

The disaster also indirectly hit Japan's election on Sunday, with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi calling off campaign stops in the Osaka area Wednesday and staying near Tokyo due to the heavy rain.

Rescue workers in southern and western Japan continued to search for the missing using long, metal rods to feel under piles of mud for any buried victims.

In the southern rural town of Tarumi, rescuers found the bodies of two elderly women in their 70s at a house that was engulfed by a landslide.

In western Yamaguchi prefecture, a landslide collapsed a section of a highway, burying three people who were inside two houses.

Mainland Japan was struck by a record 10 typhoons last year. One of them, Tokage, was the deadliest in a quarter-century, killing 90 people.

In South Korea, an 18-year-old student was missing after heavy rains sent her car into a river, police said Wednesday.

Floods also swept away a 70-year-old man and three other people went missing overnight in South Korea, Yonhap news agency reported.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. - Tropical Storm Ophelia was drifting away from Florida's northeast coast Friday, but that may not be the end of it for the peninsula, Georgia or the Carolinas.

Though Ophelia's top sustained winds had dropped to 65 mph, some forecast models showed it turning back toward land as a hurricane sometime next week.

"By no means should people take this short-term motion as being let off the hook here," National Hurricane Center meteorologist Jamie Rhome said. "I don't want people to say, 'Whew this one's going out to sea.' There's still a possibility that it could loop back."

Ophelia was nearly stationary about 115 miles east of Daytona Beach. It briefly had been upgraded to a hurricane Thursday when its winds reached 75 mph - 1 mph over the hurricane threshold.

A tropical storm warning remained in effect for a 120-mile stretch of the Atlantic coast from Sebastian Inlet north to Flagler Beach, meaning tropical force winds of at least 39 mph are expected within the next day.

Florida has been struck by two hurricanes this year and six in 13 months. Many residents who learned from previous experiences have stocked up on batteries, water and nonperishable food.

"These people around here are veterans. They are already prepared," said Rick Storm, a clerk at a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Merritt Island. "They are fully stocked and ready to go."

Even as it lingered offshore, Ophelia sent waves crashing onto beaches and stirred up winds. Officials shut down a stretch of coastal road in Flagler County so transportation workers could shore it up with sand and boulders.

"The storm is eating up our dunes," county communications manager Carl Laundrie said. "It has cut up right next to the road."

Officials at NASA were also keeping an eye on Ophelia. Last summer, the space agency's launch and landing site took the brunt of three hurricanes, which punched big holes into the massive building where shuttles are attached to their booster rockets and fuel tanks.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Hurricane Nate pulled away from Bermuda, and Tropical Storm Maria was weakening in the north Atlantic. Neither posed a threat to land.

The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1 and ends Nov. 30. Peak storm activity typically occurs from the end of August through mid-September.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A large solar flare was reported Wednesday and forecasters warned of potential electrical and communications disruptions.

The flare was reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Significant solar eruptions are possible in the coming days and there could be disruptions in spacecraft operations, electric power systems, high frequency communications and low-frequency navigation systems, the agency said.

"This flare, the fourth largest in the last 15 years, erupted just as the ... sunspot cluster was rotating onto the visible disk of the sun," said Larry Combs, solar forecaster at the center.

The flare has affected some high-frequency communications on the sunlit side of Earth, NOAA reported.

Shanghai's Meteorological Bureau issued a warning and said it expects Typhoon Khanun to hit the nation's biggest commercial city tonight as more than 900,000 people in the region were evacuated or asked to seek safety.

Khanun, moving northwest at a speed of 25 kph (16 mph) with winds gusting as high as 144 kph, made landfall at Taizhou in Zhejiang Province at 2:50 p.m. local time and will bring heavy rain as it approaches Shanghai, the bureau said today in a statement on its Web site. The typhoon will probably head northeast tomorrow morning, the bureau said.

Chinese authorities evacuated 814,267 people in Zhejiang and asked that more than 100,000 working outdoors in Shanghai move to safety as coastal towns and cities prepared for the typhoon, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing local governments.

Both the Shanghai and Zhejiang meteorological bureaus issued warnings and recommended that people stay home. Khanun, the 15th typhoon of the year, is named after a fruit in the Thai language.

Typhoon Talim, which hit mainland China early this month, left 82 people dead and 28 missing, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The storm caused about $1.3 billion of damage.

WILMINGTON, N.C. - Coastal residents took precautions as Hurricane Ophelia sat nearly stationary off the coast on Monday, its outer bands of rain not quite reaching land. Ophelia was more than 200 miles from Wilmington on Monday with sustained wind of 75 mph, strong enough to be classified a hurricane. A tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch were in effect from Cape Lookout south to Edisto Beach, S.C., the National Hurricane Center said.

At 8 a.m. EDT, Ophelia was centered 215 miles east-southeast of Charleston, S.C., and 275 miles south-southwest of Cape Hatteras, the hurricane center said. The storm was nearly stationary but a very slow turn toward the northwest was expected later Monday, forecasters said.

Concerned about possible coastal flooding, Gov. Mike Easley ordered 200 National Guard soldiers to report to staging centers in eastern North Carolina. The governor also ordered a mandatory evacuation of nonresidents from fragile Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks, reachable only by ferry.

At Wrightsville Beach, lifeguards ordered swimmers out of the surf Sunday.

"They are saying they don't want anyone to even touch the water," said Kathy Carroll, 37, of Wilmington. "Now I know how a flounder feels. I was getting tossed all over the place."

Despite the warnings, there were no long lines at Roberts Grocery in Wrightsville Beach, where customers bought chips and beer - not bottled water and batteries.

"Usually, they are buying all the bread and milk," said store manager Teresa Hines. "Some of the regulars have told me they have their hammers and nails ready just in case."

With a history of destructive storms, New Hanover County has a well-rehearsed disaster plan. But Katrina, which was a powerful Category 4 hurricane before it made landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi, was on residents' minds even though Ophelia was only Category 1 and had been waxing and waning in strength.

"If it was a Category 4 barreling down here, I would get out if I had a chance," Lee said. "The structures just can't take that kind of wind. We're cautiously watching (Ophelia). We're not giving up until it's north of us."

Ophelia has been following a wandering course since it became a tropical storm Wednesday off the coast of Florida.

It is the 15th named storm and seventh hurricane in this year's busy Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30. Peak storm activity typically occurs from the end of August through mid-September.

KARACHI: Another nine people were killed in weather-related accidents on Sunday as heavy rains lashed Karachi for a third consecutive day.

Five people died in the wake of rains on Saturday.

Khadim Hussain, 40, died of electric shock when he touched the main gate of the National Institute of Cardio-Vascular Diseases. A 30-year-old man died of electrocution in North Karachi Industrial Area, and an unidentified man died of electrocution in Pirabad. The driver of a dumper was electrocuted in Razzakabad when his truck hit an electric pole. Mohammed Sadiq died of electric shock in Al-Falah.

A girl who was injured when the roof of her house collapsed died at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC). An unidentified man drowned in the Lyari river in New Karachi.

Many families were shifted from their houses in the Lyari river bed on Sunday as the river’s water level continued to rise.

On Sunday, 56mm of rain was recorded at University Road, 30mm at the airport, 7mm at Baldia, 24mm at North Karachi and 2mm at Masoor airbase.

AURORA WATCH: A strong geomagnetic storm sparked beautiful auroras on Sept. 11th. "I saw them from my bedroom window--without my contacts," says Chris Schierer...

Elsewhere, in Park City, Utah, "the auroras were so intense, everyone at our star party was jumping and cheering," says Brian Jolley.

September 11th Aurora Gallery

Although the storm is subsiding, it could be re-energized at any time by coronal mass ejections (CMEs) propelled in our direction from active sunspot 798. Sky watchers everywhere should remain alert for auroras tonight.

ACTIVE SUN: Solar activity is high. Earth-orbiting satelites have detected seven X-class solar flares since Sept. 7th, including an X17-class monster-flare. NOAA forecasters say there's a 75% chance of more X-flares during the next 24 hours, possibly causing radio blackouts and radiation storms.

The source of all this activity is giant sunspot 798, shown above flaring brightly on Sept. 9th. The sunspot has grown so large, you can now see it with the unaided eye--but never look directly at the sun. Try these safe solar observing tips.

ILULISSAT, Greenland - The gargantuan chunks of ice breaking off the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier and thundering into an Arctic fjord make a spectacular sight. But to Greenlanders it is also deeply worrisome.

The frequency and size of the icefalls are a powerful reminder that the frozen sheet covering the world's largest island is thinning - a glaring sign of global warming, scientists say.

"In the past we could walk on the ice in the fjord between the icebergs for a six-month period during the winter, drill holes and fish," said Joern Kristensen, a fisherman and one of the indigenous Inuit who are most of Greenland's population of 56,000.

"We can only do that for a month or two now. It has become more difficult to drive dog sleds because the ice between the icebergs isn't solid anymore."

In 2002-2003, a six-mile-long stretch of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier broke off and drifted silently out of the fjord near Ilulissat, Greenland's third largest town, 155 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Although Greenland, three times the size of Texas, is the prime example, scientists say the effects of climate change are noticeable throughout the Arctic region, from the northward spread of spruce beetles in Canada to melting permafrost in Alaska and northern Russia.

Indigenous people, who for centuries have adapted their lives to the cold, fear that even small and gradual changes could have a profound impact.

"We can see a trend that the fall is getting longer and wetter," said Lars-Anders Baer, a political leader of Sweden's Sami, a once nomadic, reindeer-herding people.

"If the climate gets warmer, it is probably bad for the reindeer. New species (of plants) come in and suffocate other plants that are the main food for the reindeer," he said.

Rising temperatures are also a concern in the Yamalo-Nenets region in Western Siberia, said Alexandr Navyukhov, 49. He is an ethnic Nenet, a group that lives mostly off hunting, fishing and deer-breeding.

"We now have bream in our river, which we didn't have in the past because that fish is typical of warmer regions," he said. "On the one hand it may look like good news, but bream are predatory fish that prey upon fish eggs, often of rare kinds of fish."

Melting permafrost has damaged hundreds of buildings, railway lines, airport runways and gas pipelines in Russia, according to the 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment commissioned by the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental body.

Research also shows that populations of turbot, Atlantic cod and snow crab are no longer found in some parts of the Bering Sea, an important fishing zone between Alaska and Russia, and that flooding along the Lena River, one of Siberia's biggest, has increased with warming temperatures.

In Greenland, Anthon Utuaq, a 68-year-old retired hunter, worries that a warmer climate will make it harder for his son to continue the family trade.

"Maybe it will be difficult for him to find the seals," Utuaq said, resting on a bench in the east coast town of Kulusuk. "They will head north to colder places if it gets warmer."

Arctic sea ice has decreased by about 8 percent, or more than 380,000 square miles, over the past 30 years.

In Sisimiut, Greenland's second largest town, lakes have doubled in size in the last decade.

"Greenland was perceived as this huge solid place that would never melt," said Robert Corell of the American Meteorological Society, a Boston-based scientific organization. "The evidence is now so strong that the scientific community is convinced that global warming is the cause."

How much of it is natural and how much is caused by humans burning fossil fuels is sharply debated. Greenland itself endured sharp climate shifts long before fossil fuels were an issue, and sustained Norse settlements for 400 years until the 15th century.

"We know that temperatures have gone up and it's partly caused by man. But let's hold our horses because it's not everywhere that the ice is melting. In the Antarctic, only 1 percent is melting," said Bjoern Lomborg, a Danish researcher and prominent naysayer on the magnitude of the global-warming threat.

What is clear is that the average ocean temperature off Greenland's west coast has risen in recent years - from 38.3 degrees Fahrenheit to 40.6 F - and glaciers have begun to retreat, said Carl Egede Boeggild, a glaciologist with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, a government agency.

The Sermilik glacier in southern Greenland has retreated nearly seven miles, and the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier near Ilulissat is also shrinking, said Henrik Hoejmark Thomsen of the geological survey.

In 1967, satellite imagery measured it moving 4.3 miles per year. In 2003, the rate was 8.1 miles.

"What exactly happened, we don't know. But it appears to be the effect of climate change," said Hoejmark Thomsen.

In August, the National Science Foundation's Arctic System Science Committee issued a report saying the rate of ice melting in the Arctic is increasing and within a century could for the first time lead to summertime ice-free ocean conditions.

With warmer temperatures, some bacteria, plants and animals could disappear, while others will thrive. Polar bears and other animals that depend on sea ice to breed and forage are at risk, scientists say, and some species could face extinction in a few decades.

The thinning of the sea ice presents a danger to both humans and polar bears, said Peter Ewins, director of Arctic conservation for the World Wildlife Fund Canada.

"The polar bears need to be there to catch enough seals to see them through the summer in open warm water systems. Equally, the Inuit need to be out there on the ice catching seals and are less and less able to do that because the ice is more unstable, thinner," he said.

When NASA started taking satellite images of the Arctic region in the late 1970s and computer technology improved, scientists noted alarming patterns and theorized that the culprit was gases emitted by industries and internal combustion engines to create a "greenhouse effect" of trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Inuit leaders are trying to draw attention to the impact of climate change and pollution.

"When I was a child, the weather used to be more stable. It worries me to see and hear all this," Greenland Premier Hans Enoksen said on the sidelines of a meeting of environmental officials from 23 countries in Ilulissat. The meeting ended with statements of concern - and no action.

The Kyoto Protocol that took effect in February aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But the 140 nations that have signed the pact don't include the United States, which produces one-quarter of the gases.

The Bush administration says participation would severely damage the U.S. economy. Many scientists say that position undermines the whole planet and they point to Greenland as the leading edge of what the globe could suffer.

"Greenland is the canary in a mine shaft alerting us," said Corell, the American meteorologist, standing on the edge of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier which he is studying. "In the U.S., global warming is a tomorrow issue. ... For us working here, it hits you like a ton of bricks when you see it."

The ground-breaking and richly illustrated new book, Lost Star of Myth and Time, marries modern astronomical theory with ancient star lore to make a compelling case for the profound influence on our planet of a companion star to the sun. Author and theorist, Walter Cruttenden, presents the evidence that this binary orbit relationship may be the cause of a vast cycle causing the Dark and Golden Ages common in the lore of ancient cultures.

Researching archaeological and astronomical data at the unique think tank, the Binary Research Institute, Cruttenden concludes that the movement of the solar system plays a more important role in life than people realize, and he challenges some preconceived notions:

The phenomenon known as the precession of the equinox, fabled as a marker of time by ancient peoples, is not due to a local wobbling of the Earth as modern theory portends, but to the solar system's gentle curve through space.

This movement of the solar system occurs because the Sun has a companion star; both stars orbit a common center of gravity, as is typical of most double star systems. The grand cycle–the time it takes to complete one orbit––is called a "Great Year," a term coined by Plato.

Cruttenden explains the affect on earth with an analogy: "Just as the spinning motion of the earth causes the cycle of day and night, and just as the orbital motion of the earth around the sun causes the cycle of the seasons, so too does the binary motion cause a cycle of rising and falling ages over long periods of time, due to increasing and decreasing electromagnet effects generated by our sun and other nearby stars."

While the findings in Lost Star are controversial, astronomers now agree that most stars are likely part of a binary or multiple star system. Dr. Richard A. Muller, professor of physics at UC Berkeley and research physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is an early proponent of a companion star to our sun; he prefers a 26 million year orbit period. Cruttenden uses 24,000 years and says the change in angular direction can be seen in the precession of the equinox.

Lost Star of Myth and Time expands on the author's award-winning PBS documentary film "The Great Year," narrated by actor James Earl Jones. The book brings intriguing new evidence to the theory of our binary companion star and an age old mystery - the precession of the equinox.

NAGS HEAD, N.C. - Hurricane Ophelia edged toward North Carolina early Wednesday, but many in the storm's path shrugged at the threat of flooding rain and wind even as officials urged them to evacuate.

The National Hurricane Center upgraded the storm's status from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane Tuesday, saying maximum sustained winds had reached 75 mph, with higher gusts. Further strengthening was possible.

Unlike Hurricane Katrina, which made a head-on charge at the Gulf Coast two weeks ago, Ophelia has meandered since forming off the Florida coast last week. That makes landfall predictions difficult - and makes it harder for some to take the storm seriously.

"We're just having a grand time," said Diane Komorowski, a tourist from Philadelphia, as she walked through the choppy surf on the Outer Banks with her husband.

"They keep saying, 'It's coming,' - yet every day, it's great here," she said.

Some doubted that Ophelia could pack the same punch as Katrina.

"If it was that bad, we would leave," said Charlene Heroux, 46, a 30-year resident of Manteo.

At 5 a.m. EDT, Ophelia was centered about 70 miles south of Wilmington and about 125 miles east-northeast of Charleston, S.C., and was moving north at 5 mph. The storm's effects were already being felt as heavy rains fell on the coast near the border of the Carolinas.

A hurricane warning extended about 275 miles from the South Santee River in South Carolina to Oregon Inlet at Pamlico Sound in North Carolina, meaning hurricane conditions were expected within 24 hours.

The storm was moving slowly, so heavy rain could linger over land and cause serious flooding. The hurricane center said up to 15 inches of rain was possible in eastern North Carolina.

Early Wednesday, a bridge in Hanover County was closed because of wind with gusts in the mid-40s. County spokesman David Paynter said the latest forecasts suggested that hurricane-force winds will only scrape the county's coast because the center of the storm would pass 30 to 40 miles offshore.

State and local officials, determined not to be caught off-guard after Katrina, blanketed the coast with a mix of voluntary and mandatory evacuations, closing schools and opening shelters. Nearly 100 people had checked into a shelter in an elementary school near downtown Wilmington on Tuesday night.

Bruce McIlvaine of Logan Township, N.J., was among those who cleared out Tuesday, packing to leave Hatteras Island before his vacation ended.

"I don't really want to mess with it," he said. "You're on a spit of land a dozen miles into the ocean."

Along the exposed Outer Banks, all residents and visitors were ordered to evacuate Hatteras Island on Tuesday, visitors had been ordered off Ocracoke Island and the National Park Service closed the Cape Hatteras lighthouse and the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills.

Schools were closed in several coastal counties in the Carolinas, while classes were canceled at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and East Carolina University in Greenville, S.C.

A surfer was missing along the South Carolina coast, with the search suspended because of rough seas.

North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley said coastal residents should be prepared to go without power for two to three days.

"The beaches we expect to take a real beating," Easley said. "The bottom line is we're definitely going to get flooding, not just on the coast but in low-lying areas as the rivers swell from the storm surge itself."

Still, many people were taking a wait-and-see approach.

"We're levelheaded - we got common sense," said Nancy McKenzie, 57. She was shopping at a Nags Head candy shop that sold plastic bags filled with saltwater taffy and fudge for $4, with the label "Hurricane Ophelia official survival kit."

Ophelia is the 15th named storm and seventh hurricane in this year's busy Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

A record loss of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has convinced scientists that the northern hemisphere may have crossed a critical threshold beyond which the climate may never recover. Scientists fear that the Arctic has now entered an irreversible phase of warming which will accelerate the loss of the polar sea ice that has helped to keep the climate stable for thousands of years.

They believe global warming is melting Arctic ice so rapidly that the region is beginning to absorb more heat from the sun, causing the ice to melt still further and so reinforcing a vicious cycle of melting and heating.

The greatest fear is that the Arctic has reached a "tipping point" beyond which nothing can reverse the continual loss of sea ice and with it the massive land glaciers of Greenland, which will raise sea levels dramatically.

Satellites monitoring the Arctic have found that the extent of the sea ice this August has reached its lowest monthly point on record, dipping an unprecedented 18.2 per cent below the long-term average.

Experts believe that such a loss of Arctic sea ice in summer has not occurred in hundreds and possibly thousands of years. It is the fourth year in a row that the sea ice in August has fallen below the monthly downward trend - a clear sign that melting has accelerated.

Scientists are now preparing to report a record loss of Arctic sea ice for September, when the surface area covered by the ice traditionally reaches its minimum extent at the end of the summer melting period.

Sea ice naturally melts in summer and reforms in winter but for the first time on record this annual rebound did not occur last winter when the ice of the Arctic failed to recover significantly.

Arctic specialists at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre at Colorado University, who have documented the gradual loss of polar sea ice since 1978, believe that a more dramatic melt began about four years ago.

In September 2002 the sea ice coverage of the Arctic reached its lowest level in recorded history. Such lows have normally been followed the next year by a rebound to more normal levels, but this did not occur in the summers of either 2003 or 2004. This summer has been even worse. The surface area covered by sea ice was at a record monthly minimum for each of the summer months - June, July and now August.

Scientists analysing the latest satellite data for September - the traditional minimum extent for each summer - are preparing to announce a significant shift in the stability of the Arctic sea ice, the northern hemisphere's major "heat sink" that moderates climatic extremes.

"The changes we've seen in the Arctic over the past few decades are nothing short of remarkable," said Mark Serreze, one of the scientists at the Snow and Ice Data Centre who monitor Arctic sea ice.

Scientists at the data centre are bracing themselves for the 2005 annual minimum, which is expected to be reached in mid-September, when another record loss is forecast. A major announcement is scheduled for 20 September. "It looks like we're going to exceed it or be real close one way or the other. It is probably going to be at least as comparable to September 2002," Dr Serreze said.

"This will be four Septembers in a row that we've seen a downward trend. The feeling is we are reaching a tipping point or threshold beyond which sea ice will not recover."

The extent of the sea ice in September is the most valuable indicator of its health. This year's record melt means that more of the long-term ice formed over many winters - so called multi-year ice - has disappeared than at any time in recorded history.

Sea ice floats on the surface of the Arctic Ocean and its neighbouring seas and normally covers an area of some 7 million square kilometres (2.4 million square miles) during September - about the size of Australia. However, in September 2002, this dwindled to about 2 million square miles - 16 per cent below average.

Sea ice data for August closely mirrors that for September and last month's record low - 18.2 per cent below the monthly average - strongly suggests that this September will see the smallest coverage of Arctic sea ice ever recorded.

As more and more sea ice is lost during the summer, greater expanses of open ocean are exposed to the sun which increases the rate at which heat is absorbed in the Arctic region, Dr Serreze said.

Sea ice reflects up to 80 per cent of sunlight hitting it but this "albedo effect" is mostly lost when the sea is uncovered. "We've exposed all this dark ocean to the sun's heat so that the overall heat content increases," he explained.

Current computer models suggest that the Arctic will be entirely ice-free during summer by the year 2070 but some scientists now believe that even this dire prediction may be over-optimistic, said Professor Peter Wadhams, an Arctic ice specialist at Cambridge University.

"When the ice becomes so thin it breaks up mechanically rather than thermodynamically. So these predictions may well be on the over-optimistic side," he said.

As the sea ice melts, and more of the sun's energy is absorbed by the exposed ocean, a positive feedback is created leading to the loss of yet more ice, Professor Wadhams said.

"If anything we may be underestimating the dangers. The computer models may not take into account collaborative positive feedback," he said.

Sea ice keeps a cap on frigid water, keeping it cold and protecting it from heating up. Losing the sea ice of the Arctic is likely to have major repercussions for the climate, he said. "There could be dramatic changes to the climate of the northern region due to the creation of a vast expanse of open water where there was once effectively land," Professor Wadhams said. "You're essentially changing land into ocean and the creation of a huge area of open ocean where there was once land will have a very big impact on other climate parameters," he said.

A massive global increase in the number of strong hurricanes over the past 35 years is being blamed on global warming, by the most detailed study yet. The US scientists warn that Katrina-strength hurricanes could become the norm.

Worldwide since the 1970s, there has been a near-doubling in the number of Category 4 and 5 storms – the strength that saw Hurricane Katrina do such damage to the US Gulf coastline late in August 2005.

Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, says the trend is global, has lasted over several decades and is connected to a steady worldwide increase in tropical sea temperatures. Because of all these factors, it is unlikely to be due to any known natural fluctuations in climate such as El Niño, the North Atlantic Oscillation or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

"We can say with confidence that the trends in sea surface temperatures and hurricane intensity are connected to climate change," says Webster's co-author Judy Curry, also of the Georgia Institute of Technology. The team looked at the incidence of intense tropical storms and the study results are the strongest affirmation yet that Katrina-level hurricanes are becoming more frequent in a warmer world.

Unnatural trend

The study finds there has been no general increase in the total number of hurricanes, which are called cyclones when they appear outside the Atlantic. Nor is there any evidence of the formation of the oft-predicted "super-hurricanes". The worst hurricane in any year is usually no stronger than in previous years during the study period.

But the proportion of hurricanes reaching categories 4 or 5 – with wind speeds above 56 metres per second – has risen from 20% in the 1970s to 35% in the past decade.

"This trend has lasted for more than 30 years now. So the chances of it being natural are fairly remote," says Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at Boulder, Colorado

Moreover, says Webster, natural fluctuations tend to be localised. "When the east Pacific warms, the west Pacific cools, for instance. But sea surface temperatures are rising throughout the tropics today." The surface waters in the tropical oceans are now around 0.5°C warmer during hurricane seasons than 35 years ago.

Satellite era

Hurricanes form when ocean temperatures rise above 26°C. "The fuel for hurricanes is water vapour evaporating from the ocean surface. It condenses in the air and releases heat, which drives the hurricane's intensity," says Webster.

"The tendency to Katrina-like hurricanes is increasing," Holland says. Without the warmer sea-surface temperatures, "Katrina might only have been a category 2 or 3".

All the data for sea surface temperatures and hurricane numbers and intensities come from satellite data. "We deliberately limited this study to the satellite era because of the known biases [in the data] before this period," says Webster.

This is the third report in recent months highlighting the growing risk to life and property round the world from hurricanes and tornadoes. In June, NCAR's Kevin Trenberth reported a rising intensity of hurricanes in the North Atlantic.

And in August, Kerry Emanuel of MIT found a 50% increase in the destructive power of tropical storms in the past half century.

September 15, 2005: Just one week ago, on Sept. 7th, a huge sunspot rounded the sun's eastern limb. As soon as it appeared, it exploded, producing one of the brightest x-ray solar flares of the Space Age. In the days that followed, the growing spot exploded eight more times. Each powerful "X-flare" caused a shortwave radio blackout on Earth and pumped new energy into a radiation storm around our planet. The blasts hurled magnetic clouds toward Earth, and when they hit, on Sept 10th and 11th, ruby-red auroras were seen as far south as Arizona.

So this is solar minimum?

Right: An X-flare photographed on Sept. 9th by Birgit Kremer of Marbella, Spain. [movie]

Actually, solar minimum, the lowest point of the sun's 11-year activity cycle, isn't due until 2006, but forecasters expected 2005, the eve of solar minimum, to be a quiet year on the sun.

It has not been quiet. 2005 began with an X-flare on New Year's Day--a sign of things to come. Since then we've experienced 4 severe geomagnetic storms and 14 more X-flares.

"That's a lot of activity," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Compare 2005 to the most recent Solar Max: "In the year 2000," he recalls, "there were 3 severe geomagnetic storms and 17 X-flares." 2005 registers about the same in both categories. Solar minimum is looking strangely like Solar Max.

Scientists like Hathaway track the 11-year solar cycle by counting sunspots. When sunspot numbers peak, that's Solar Max, and when they ebb, that's solar minimum. This is supposed to work because sunspots are the main sources of solar activity: Sunspot magnetic fields become unstable and explode. The explosion produces a flash of electromagnetic radiation--a solar flare. It can also hurl a billion-ton cloud of magnetized gas into space--a coronal mass ejection or "CME." When the CME reaches Earth, it sparks a geomagnetic storm and we see auroras. CMEs can also propel protons toward Earth, producing a radiation storm dangerous to astronauts and satellites. All these things come from sunspots.

Above: Ruby-colored Northern Lights over Payson, Arizona, on Sept. 11, 2005. Photo credit: Chris Schur. [gallery]

As expected, sunspot numbers have declined since 2000, yet solar activity persists. How can this be?

Hathaway answers: "The sunspots of 2005, while fewer, have done more than their share of exploding." Consider sunspot 798/808, the source of the Sept 7th superflare and eight lesser X-flares. All by itself, this sunspot has made Sept. 2005 the most active month on the sun since March 1991.

Weird? Much about the sun's activity cycle remains unknown, Hathaway points out. "X-ray observations of flares by NOAA's Earth-orbiting satellites began in 1975, and CMEs were discovered only a few years earlier by the 7th Orbiting Solar Observatory. Before the 1970s, our records are spotty."

This means we don't know what is typical. Scientists have monitored only three complete solar cycles using satellite technology. "It's risky to draw conclusions" from such a short span of data, he says.

Above: Sunspot counts and X-flares during the last three solar cycles. Note how solar activity continues even during solar minimum. Credit: David Hathaway, NASA/NSSTC.

Hathaway offers a cautionary tale: Before 2005, the last solar minimum was due in 1996 and the sun, at the time, seemed to be behaving perfectly: From late-1992 until mid-1996, sunspots began to disappear and there were precisely zero X-flares during those long years. It was a time of quiet. Then, in 1996 when sunspot counts finally reached their lowest value - bang! - an X-flare erupted.

"The sun can be very unpredictable," says Hathaway, which is something NASA planners must take into account when they send humans back to the Moon and on to Mars.

Returning to 2005: is this year an aberration--or a normal rush to the bottom of the solar cycle? "We need to observe more solar cycles to answer that question," says Hathaway. "And because each cycle lasts 11 years, observing takes time."

Meanwhile, Hathaway is waiting for 2006 when solar minimum finally arrives. Who knows what the Sun will do then?

KEY WEST, Fla. -- Hotel workers secured pool chairs and umbrellas, tourists boarded buses out of town and lines of vehicles snaked out of the lower Florida Keys as Tropical Storm Rita churned toward the exposed island chain.

Rita, which strengthened Sunday into a tropical storm with sustained winds of 50 mph, was forecast to be in the Straits of Florida between the Keys and northern Cuba on Monday, possibly as a Category 1 hurricane, forecasters said.

The entire Keys was under a hurricane warning. Rainfall totals of 6 to 15 inches were possible in the Keys, with 3 to 5 inches possible across southern Florida. Storm surges of 6 to 8 feet above normal tide levels were predicted to batter the Keys.

Officials issued evacuation orders Sunday for visitors - but not residents - from the Seven Mile Bridge near Marathon to Key West, including the Dry Tortugas.

"We're happy to get out of here before the storm comes," said Joan Taylor, 73, of Midland Park, N.J., who was planning to fly out of Key West on Monday.

The stream of vehicles leaving the Keys on Sunday included RVs, cars towing boats and thousands of motorcycle riders who left an annual gathering a day early. U.S. 1, the lone highway in the Keys, was packed.

Gov. Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency for Florida, which gives the state authority to oversee evacuations and activate the National Guard, among other powers.

Despite the evacuation order, however, some hotels and restaurants in Key West remained open, and few businesses were boarded up Sunday night.

In the Bahamas, which could be struck by Rita first, few on Mayaguana Island bothered to board their windows or stock up on emergency supplies as they normally would for a hurricane, said Earnel Brown, manager of the Baycaner Beach Resort.

"I don't expect that much trouble," Brown said. "I don't think we're going to have that much damage from it."

At 2 a.m. EDT, Rita was centered about 275 miles east-southeast of Nassau, Bahamas, and about 545 miles east-southeast of Key West. It was moving to the west-northwest near 10 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Long-range forecasts showed the system moving into the Gulf of Mexico late in the week as a hurricane, then possibly approaching Mexico or Texas.

But forecasters warned those across the U.S. southern coast that long-term predictions are subject to large errors. That means that areas ravaged by Katrina should be watching the storm.

Rita is the 17th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. That makes this season the fourth busiest since record keeping began in 1851 - 21 tropical storms formed in 1933, 19 developed in 1995 and 1887 and 18 formed in 1969, according to the hurricane center.

Four hurricanes struck Florida last year, killing dozens of people and causing $19 billion in insured losses in Florida. Hurricane Dennis brushed by the Keys in July, flooding some Key West streets, toppling trees and knocking out power, before slamming the Florida Panhandle.

Florida was also hit this year by Hurricane Katrina. Eleven people died there.

Farther out in the Atlantic, Hurricane Philippe formed late Sunday well east of the Lesser Antilles. At 11 p.m., Philippe had maximum sustained winds near 75 mph, and was centered about 390 miles east of the Leeward Islands and was moving to the north-northwest near 8 mph.

The hurricane season started June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

KEY WEST, Fla. - Thousands of residents fled the Florida Keys as Tropical Storm Rita barreled toward the island chain, poised to grow into a hurricane with a potential 9-foot storm surge and sparking fears it could eventually ravage the hobbled Gulf Coast.

South Floridians kept a wary eye on Rita, which threatened to arrive Tuesday and drop up to 15 inches of rain on some parts of the low-lying Keys. Oil prices surged on the possibility that oil and gas production would be interrupted once again.

"I've lived in Florida all my life," said James Swindell, 37, who shopped along a cleared-out Miami Beach on Monday. "You always have to be worried about a storm, because they are too unpredictable and they can shift on you at the last minute. Nobody knows what they are going to do."

In New Orleans, the mayor suspended his plan to start bringing residents back to the city after forecasters warned that Rita could follow Hurricane Katrina's course into the Gulf of Mexico and shatter his city's already weakened levees.

The storm had top sustained winds of 70 mph early Tuesday, and it was expected to strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane, with winds of at least 74 mph, as it approached the Keys. The storm's outer rain bands began drenching the Keys and Miami-Dade County early Tuesday after felling trees in the Bahamas.

"The main concern now is the Florida Keys," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "It's moving over very warm water and that's extremely favorable for development."

Hurricane warnings were posted for the Keys and Miami-Dade County, the hurricane center said. Residents and visitors were ordered to clear out of the Keys, and voluntary evacuation orders were posted for some 134,000 Miami-Dade residents of coastal areas such as Miami Beach.

"We're just trying to get enough gas to get home," said Andres Sweeting, 29, of Miami, as he stopped at a Coconut Grove gas station with his family. Long lines of customers had depleted two of the station's four gasoline tanks. [...]

At 5 a.m. EDT, Rita was centered about 160 miles east-southeast of Key West. It was moving west-northwest near 15 mph, according to the hurricane center.

In the Bahamas, no serious damage was reported after Rita passed to the south. However, fishermen had dragged their boats to dry land and some people shuttered their windows - a sign that normally laid-back islanders had been concerned about the storm.

Officials in Galveston, Texas - nearly 900 miles from Key West - were already calling for a voluntary evacuation. Forecasters said Rita could make landfall in Mexico or Texas by the weekend, with a possibility that it could turn toward Louisiana.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco urged everyone in the southwest part of the state to prepare to evacuate. "If Rita passes us by, we will thank the Lord for our blessings," Blanco told the state's storm-weary residents in a televised address. [...]

Crude-oil futures rose above $67 a barrel Monday, in part because of worries about Rita. About 56 percent of the Gulf's oil production was already out of operation Monday because of Katrina's damage, the federal Minerals Management Service said.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Hurricane Philippe was far out at sea and posed no immediate threat to land. The hurricane season started June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

This year, hurricanes just aren't acting like they used to.

The major storms are bucking traditional patterns by forming in the western, rather than eastern, Atlantic Ocean. Instead of taunting worried residents for days, they materialize, it seems, overnight.

The trend has baffled scientists and ratcheted up panic levels for South Floridians.

"It's crazy," said Robin Wagner, 45, of Hollywood. "They come so quick. With Katrina, before we knew it, it was on us."

Hurricane Katrina swept through Broward and Miami-Dade counties last month as a Category 1 storm -- a scant two days after developing in the Caribbean. Storms typically come to life in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean, often near Cape Verde, then pinwheel westward for several days, their ultimate course studied with dread speculation by those in its path.

This year's nine hurricanes have formed west of 55 degrees longitude, said meteorologist Jim Lushine of the National Weather Service in Miami-Dade County. Rita, for example, was but a soggy blob hardly worthy of notice on Saturday night. Sunday morning, it was a threat.

A speedy arrival can bedevil nervous homeowners, but overall it's a good thing.

"By forming farther west, they don't have quite the potential for strength as if they came all the way across" the ocean, Lushine said. "It hasn't had enough time to build up."

Hurricanes feed on warm water, but West Atlantic storms don't stick around long enough to be energized by the Caribbean's tepid currents. Like Katrina -- and Rita's expected track -- they can brush by or through Florida as weaklings, then spin into the Gulf of Mexico and bulk up into highly destructive Category 4 or 5 storms.

Why this season's storms are appearing so far west is a matter of speculation for forecasters.

Chris Landsea, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami-Dade, said, "It's not something we predicted, and I'm not sure it's something we can anticipate way in advance."

One comparable year was 1969, Landsea said, when 10 of 12 hurricanes formed west of 55 degrees longitude.

The ingredients needed for a hurricane -- warm water, an unstable atmosphere and lack of wind shear -- have been present in the western, not eastern, Atlantic this year. "Why further west? We don't know," Landsea said. [...]

Still, the appearance of an "instant hurricane" can unnerve homeowners used to having days to prepare.

"It makes people frantic," said Holly Markert, 28, a county employee from Fort Lauderdale. "We need more notice than this."

Besides compressing prep time, pop-up storms mean supplies come up short because stores don't have time to re-stock. More residents in the target zone lack the goods they need to endure floods or power outages.

"All of a sudden, all you've got is a day to prepare," complained Del Dacks, 37, of Fort Lauderdale. Broward emergency manager Tony Carper said: "Anytime you have less time to react and operationally to respond, it's a problem."

Not for Doreen Gargano, 61, who has a home in Fort Lauderdale and a boat in Islamorada.

"Once it's coming, you're moving quickly, you don't have time to think about it," she said. "When you watch it for days and days, I think it's really more nerve-racking."

KEY WEST, Fla. - Residents of the Florida Keys exhaled after Hurricane Rita largely spared the island chain, while those in Texas and already-battered Louisiana fretted the strengthening storm could become a Katrina-esque monster and target them by week's end.

Rita was upgraded to a Category 3 storm early Wednesday with 115 mph winds and forecasters said it could further intensify, sparking an order for mandatory evacuations in New Orleans and Galveston, Texas.

Federal officials told Gulf Coast residents to begin bracing for a blockbuster storm. "Up and down the coastline, people are now preparing for what is anticipated to be another significant storm," President Bush said.

Acting FEMA Director R. David Paulison told reporters that the agency has aircraft and buses available to evacuate residents of areas the hurricane might hit. Rescue teams and truckloads of ice, water and prepared meals were being sent to Texas and Florida.

"I strongly urge Gulf coast residents to pay attention" to the storm, he said.

Stung by criticism of the government's slow initial response to Hurricane Katrina, President Bush signed an emergency declaration for Florida and spoke with Texas Gov. Rick Perry about planning for the storm's landfall.

Rita created relatively few problems along the Keys, where thousands of relieved residents who evacuated are expected to begin returning in earnest on Wednesday.

During daytime hours, several stretches of the Keys highway, U.S. 1, were barricaded because of water and debris; by nightfall, only one small problem area remained and the entire highway was passable, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

There were reports of localized flooding, and some sections of the Lower Keys were still without power early Wednesday. But the storm's raging eye did not hit land.

"It was fairly nothing," said Gary Wood, who owns a bar in Marathon, about 45 miles northeast of Key West. "It came through and had a good stiff wind, but that was about it."

In Key Colony Beach, an oceanfront island off Marathon, Mayor Clyde Burnett said a restaurant and hotel were damaged by water and wind, but that widespread problems simply didn't arrive as expected.

Visitors ordered out of the Keys will be invited back Friday, and virtually all other voluntary evacuation orders in South Florida were lifted after Rita roared past.

Now, all eyes following Rita are turning toward the Gulf - where the hurricane is causing new anxiety among Katrina victims in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

At 2 a.m. EDT, Rita's eye was about 145 miles west of Key West. The storm was moving west at 14 mph - a track that kept the most destructive winds at sea and away from Key West.

"There's still plenty of warm water that it needs to move over in the next couple days. The forecast is favorable for further intensification," said Michelle Mainelli, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center.

Those were words that Gulf coast residents certainly did not want to hear. Even those who had survived major hurricanes were getting ready to leave, not wanting to challenge Rita's potential wrath or cling to hope that they'd be spared in the same manner the Keys were.

"Destination unknown," said Catherine Womack, 71, who was boarding up the windows on her one-story brick house in Galveston. "I've never left before. I think because of Katrina, there is a lot of anxiety and concern. It's better to be safe than sorry."

About 80 buses were set to leave the city Wednesday bound for shelters 100 miles north in Huntsville. The buses were part of a mandatory evacuation ordered by officials in Galveston County, which has a population of nearly 267,000. [...]

Before the 2005 hurricane season is done, you might read about Hurricane Alpha.

Each year, 21 common names are reserved for Atlantic Basin hurricanes, with the list arranged alphabetically and skipping certain letters. Rita is the 17th named storm in the Atlantic Basin this year. There are only four left.

So what will officials do after tropical storm Wilma develops, assuming it does?

"We go to the Greek alphabet," said Frank Lepore, spokesman for the National Hurricane Center.

This gives the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations agency responsible for choosing hurricane names, 24 more names to work with, from Alpha to Omega, and including such names as Omicron and Upsilon.

Could happen

This season started out as the busiest ever, with 4 named storms by July 5. It never really let up.

"The August update to Atlantic hurricane season outlook called for 18 to 21, so I would hope it doesn't go any higher than that, but it's a possibility," Lepore said. [...]

The twenty-one names reserved each year (the letters q, u, x, y and z are not used) are recycled every six years, minus those retired (such as Hugo and Andrew and, you can bet, Katrina). When a name is retired, the WMO chooses a new name to replace it.

The year with the most documented tropical storms was 1933, when there were 21 in the Atlantic Basin, but this was before hurricanes were routinely named. Activity is known to wax and wane in cycles that last decades. But some studies have suggested that global warming may be causing increases in hurricane intensity and frequency. Many scientists are skeptical.

Hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

WASHINGTON - Hurricane Rita could have a "substantial impact" on U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, a situation that the nation's already tight gasoline market cannot afford, the head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.

Hurricane Rita was packing 150 mph winds as it churned through the Gulf of Mexico, with computer models forecasting landfall south of Houston on Saturday.

Comment: At the moment, Rita's winds have increased to 165 mph, and its predicted path will take it right over Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch...

"There's a risk that we could have a substantial impact on further refineries," EIA Administrator Guy Caruso told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on gasoline prices. "We clearly cannot afford any further disruptions in gasoline production and capacity."

Caruso's remarks echoed worries expressed by oil market traders.

Four large refineries in the Gulf Coast region, which together account for about 5 percent of U.S. capacity, remain out of service from Hurricane Katrina last month.

Soon after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi on August 29, the nationwide average retail gasoline price jumped to $3.07 per gallon, nearly tying the inflation-adjusted high of $3.12 set in 1981.

Earlier on Wednesday, the EIA said Rita could threaten up to 18 Texas oil refineries that have a combined capacity of 4 million barrels per day, or nearly one-fourth of the nation's total refining capacity.

"While not all of this capacity would be affected under any scenario, it does point out how much refining capacity is at risk," the EIA said in a weekly oil market report.

Texas has 26 refineries, with 18 located near the Gulf of Mexico coastline, it said.

Marathon Oil, Valero Energy Corp. and BP Plc were among refiners that shut down or reduced operating rates at Texas refineries to prepare for Rita.

Thousands of workers were also evacuated from offshore drilling rigs and production platforms as a safety precaution.

"People were worried post-Katrina, as we have real tight product supply," said Jamal Qureshi, analyst at PFC Energy. "Now we have a hurricane heading for the bigger part of the coastal refinery center, threatening to blow a huge hole in products supply."

Valero, the nation's biggest refiner, said Rita's impact could be a "national disaster" and unleash retail gasoline prices above $3 a gallon.

Wholesale gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled at $2.0531 a gallon on Wednesday, up 7.65 cents. The futures price hit a record $2.92 a gallon soon after Katrina hit.

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Valero Energy Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Greehey said Hurricane Rita's impact on U.S. crude oil production and refining could be a "national disaster."

"If it hits the refineries, and we're short refining capacity, you're going to see gasoline prices well over $3.00 a gallon at the pump," Greehey said in a Tuesday night interview.

Valero became the largest U.S. refiner earlier this year when it completed the purchase of Premcor Inc. Valero operates refineries in Port Arthur, Houston, Texas City and Corpus Christi, Texas -- all potentially in the path of Hurricane Rita.

"It's going to be coming across the (U.S.) Gulf (of Mexico)," Greehey said. "There's a lot of oil platforms, oil rigs, (natural) gas platforms, gas rigs. It could have a significant impact on supply and prices, and then, depending on what it does to the refineries, there are still four refineries that are shut down. So this really is a national disaster."

Refineries in Houston and Texas City process 2.3 million barrels of crude oil or 13.5 percent of daily U.S. refining capacity. The Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas, refineries account for another 1.1 million barrels in refining capacity.

Based on Rita's current forecast path Texas City, Houston, Port Arthur and Beaumont could be lashed by high winds and heavy rains from Rita's northeast quadrant, which often packs the highest winds in a hurricane.

Valero announced on Wednesday morning it would reduce production at its Houston and Texas City refineries to prepare for the hurricane.

"You've got refineries that will start shutting down in anticipation of the hurricane, and then if any of them have permanent damage, we're going to be dependent on imports. Following Katrina, this is really serious."

NEW YORK - Remember when gas spiked to $3-plus a gallon after Hurricane Katrina? By this time next week, that could seem like the good old days.

Weather and energy experts say that as bad as Hurricane Katrina hit the nation's supply of gasoline, Hurricane Rita could be worse.

Katrina damage was focused on offshore oil platforms and ports. Now the greater risk is to oil-refinery capacity, especially if Rita slams into Houston, Galveston and Port Arthur, Texas.

"We could be looking at gasoline lines and $4 gas, maybe even $5 gas, if this thing does the worst it could do," said energy analyst Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover. "This storm is in the wrong place. And it's absolutely at the wrong time," said Beutel.

Michael Schlacter, chief meteorologist at Weather 2000, said Rita now appears most likely to hit between Port Arthur and Corpus Christi, Texas, sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

Just about all of Texas's refinery capacity lies in that at-risk zone. (For a look at CNN.com's coverage of Hurricane Rita, click here.)

"There is no lucky 7-10 split scenario to use a bowling analogy," he said. "If you're [a refiner] within 200 miles, you're going to feel the effect."

When Katrina hit, 15 refineries, nearly all in Louisiana and Mississippi, with a combined capacity of about 3.3 million barrels a day were shut down or damaged, according to the Energy Department. That represented almost 20 percent of U.S. refining capacity.

Within a week, almost two-thirds of that damaged capacity had resumed some operations, according to the department. But four refineries with nearly 900,000 barrels a day of capacity are still basically shut down.

If Rita hits both the Houston-Galveston area, as well as the Port Arthur-Beaumont region near the Texas-Louisiana border, that could take out more than 3 million barrels of capacity a day, according to Bob Tippee, editor of the industry trade journal Oil & Gas Journal in Houston.

"Before Katrina, the system was already so tight that the worst-case scenario was for a disruption that took 250,000 barrels of capacity out of the picture. That would have been considered a major jolt," said Tippee.

"We're already in uncharted territory now. We can't project what happens from another shot the size of Katrina or worse."

Part of the problem is that skilled crews needed to make refinery repairs are already busy trying to fix the Katrina damage. That would extend recovery time from Rita.

"[Rita] could have a significant impact on supply and prices -- this really is a national disaster," Valero Energy CEO Bill Greehey in an interview with Reuters Tuesday evening.

Problems could spread beyond the gas pumps.

Tippee said that natural-gas prices could see a further spike, since so many of the offshore platforms off of Texas produce natural gas, not crude oil.

And while gasoline imports have helped bring gas prices down from record highs, there isn't as much potential for heating-oil imports, he noted.

"Gasoline tends to obscure everything, especially since we aren't paying heating bills right now," said Tippee. "But we were already looking at a winter fuel problem. We're about to take another hit that will cause a lot of problems."

Schlacter said even the oil platforms off the Louisiana Gulf Coast, which are not likely to take a direct hit from Rita, could be affected by large waves churning up the Gulf of Mexico as the storm passes to the south. Waves of as much as 40 to 50 feet could hit the platforms off the Texas Coast, he estimated.

Tippee said that production across the Gulf is already being affected by oil companies pulling workers off platforms ahead of the storm. And it's not just domestic oil being interrupted.

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), the nation's largest gateway for overseas oil, stopped accepting deliveries of its 1.2 million barrels of oil a day Wednesday afternoon due to high seas, LOOP spokeswoman Barb Hesterman told Reuters. She said the disruption was expected to be "for a short time."

But if Katrina is any guide, it could take several days after Rita passes for production to resume even at oil and gas platforms that escape damage. [...]

But with almost 30 percent of U.S. refining capacity shut down across the Gulf Coast and gasoline inventories already running low, many dealers took a cautious approach, waiting to see whether Rita wreaks as much havoc as last month's Katrina.

U.S. light crude was down 86 cents to $65.64 a barrel, extending overnight losses of 30 cents. London Brent crude fell 89 cents to $63.71 a barrel.

The storm, still a Category 4 and equivalent in ferocity to Hurricane Katrina, is expected to hit by Saturday the upper Texas and southwest Louisiana coast, just to the east of main production and population centers in Galveston, Houston and Corpus Christi.

Estimated windspeeds have eased to 140 miles per hour from 175 mph over the past day.

"The market is now taking a pause to assess just what Rita will do," said Jarrod Kerr, economist at JP Morgan in Sydney. "It won't fully digest Rita until Monday, although the forecasts are looking a little better than yesterday at present.

"There's plenty of oil out there drums-wise, the problem remains converting that into product, with more damage no doubt translating into a negative for the global consumer," he added.

Gasoline futures which surged Thursday, led the early retreat, falling 6.93 cents to $2.0701 a gallon. Heating oil was off 4.72cents to $1.9986 a gallon.

Oil traders said the upside for prices was limited by the possibility that members of the International Energy Agency (IEA) could extend their post-Katrina emergency oil reserve release, which includes refined fuels such as gasoline and diesel.

The Department of Energy is ready to loan oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) as it did after Katrina, but it has little resource to deal with a shortfall in refined products.

"If there is a supply disruption, which there is a good chance there will be, they may not hesitate to release the SPR and we already have crude oil and products coming from Europe after Katrina," said John Brady, broker at ABN Amro in New York.

In addition to four refineries still out of action after Katrina, 13 Texan and two Louisiana plants have been closed as a precaution against Rita. Four others have reduced operations.

Exxon Mobil Corp. announced the closure of the country's largest refinery at Baytown, Texas and its Beaumont facility, the two disabling more than 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) alone.

Rita's onslaught has brought to a halt recovery efforts after Katrina churned through the Gulf of Mexico in late August, damaging oil and gas platforms, flooding the Louisiana refining center and sending crude prices to a record $70.85 a barrel.

Almost 92 percent of offshore oil output, or 1.379 million bpd, is out of action in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said. Almost 66 percent of gas output, or 6.594 billion cubic feet is also down.

But with U.S. crude supplies almost 12 percent above last year's levels, most concern is focused on sky-high gasoline prices and heating oil as the U.S. winter approaches.

Analysts warned that any damage to natural gas facilities could boost prices because reduced supplies would be far more difficult to replace than lost crude and could spur additional demand for heating oil and utility fuel oil.

The threat of further supply outages also hung over Nigeria, where more than 100 armed militants stormed an oil platform on Thursday, shutting down only a small volume of output but raising the specter of further disruptions from local groups.

The number of severe hurricanes has doubled worldwide even though the total number of hurricanes has dropped over the last 35 years, a new study finds.

The increase in major storms like Katrina coincides with a global increase of sea surface temperatures, which scientists say is an effect of global warming.

The possible relationship between global warming and hurricane strength has been a topic of controversy for years.

The new study supports another one released in July, in which climatologist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed for the first time that major storms in both the Atlantic and the Pacific since the 1970s have increased in duration and intensity by about 50 percent.

The new reearch finds that total number of hurricanes worldwide – except for in the North Atlantic – decreased during during the period from 1970 to 2004 compared to years prior.

Yet in the same period, the global number of intense Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has nearly doubled in number, jumping from 50 per five years during the 1970's to 90 per five years in the last decade.

This increase is most evident in the North Atlantic basin, where from 1975 to 1989 there were 16 such hurricanes, but from 1990-2004 there were 25, a 56 percent increase.

Warmer seas

Using satellite data, the scientists link the increase in major storms to rising sea surface temperatures, which they believe have been influenced by global warming. [...]

Hurricanes can trigger swarms of weak earthquakes and even set the Earth vibrating, according to the first study of such effects.

When Hurricane Charley slammed into Florida in August 2004, physicist Randall Peters of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, had a seismometer ready to monitor any vibrations in the Earth's crust. He did so for over 36 hours as Charley travelled briefly over Florida, then slid back out into the Atlantic.

As the hurricane reached land, the seismometer recorded a series of "micro-tremors" from the Earth's crust. This happened again as the storm moved back out to sea. Then, as Charley grazed the continental shelf on its way out, it caused a sharp seismic spike. "I suspect the storm triggered a subterranean landslide," says Peters.

More surprisingly, the storm also caused the Earth to vibrate. The planet's surface in the vicinity of the hurricane started moving up and down at several frequencies ranging from 0.9 to 3 millihertz. Such low-frequency vibrations have been detected following large earthquakes, but this is the first time a storm has been found to be the cause.

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Wilma Skinner would like to scream at the officials of this city. If only they would pick up their phones.

"I done called for a shelter, I done called for help. There ain't none. No one answers," she said, standing in blistering heat outside a check-cashing store that had just run out of its main commodity. "Everyone just says, 'Get out, get out.' I've got no way of getting out. And now I've got no money."

With Hurricane Rita breathing down Houston's neck, those with cars were stuck in gridlock trying to get out. Those like Skinner -- poor, and with a broken-down car -- were simply stuck and fuming at being abandoned, they say.

"All the banks are closed, and I just got off work," said Thomas Visor, holding his sweaty paycheck as he, too, tried to get inside the store, where more than 100 people, all of them black or Hispanic, fretted in line. "This is crazy. How are you supposed to evacuate a hurricane if you don't have money? Answer me that?"

Some of those who did have money, and did try to get out, didn't get very far.

Judie Anderson of La Porte, Texas, covered just 45 miles in 12 hours. She had been on the road since 10 p.m. Wednesday, headed toward Oklahoma, which by Thursday was still very far away.

"This is the worst planning I've ever seen," she said. "They say, 'We've learned a lot from Hurricane Katrina.' Well, you couldn't prove it by me." [...]

HOUSTON, Texas -- A bus caught fire and exploded early Friday on a crowded Texas interstate, killing as many as 24 people who were fleeing ahead of Hurricane Rita.

The bus, carrying about 45 elderly evacuees, burst into flames on Interstate 45 south of Dallas. It pulled over and people were getting off when a series of explosions ripped through the bus.

Dallas County Sheriff's Sgt. Don Peritz said 14 or 15 people got off the bus and said as many as 24 people may have died.

Peritz said the fire was believed to have started in the bus's brake system and may have caused oxygen canisters on the bus to explode.

Authorities blocked all lanes of the interstate, complicating the already grueling exodus from the Texas coast. [...]

MANILA - Typhoon Damrey swept away from the northern Philippines on Friday after killing at least 16 people across the main island of Luzon, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) said.

Damage to property and agriculture appeared to be low after the typhoon hit the east coast of Luzon on Tuesday but most areas in the northern provinces of Ilocos Norte, Cagayan and Isabela were under knee-deep water, said Anthony Golez, an OCD spokesman.

"Most of the casualties were drowning victims," he said, adding about 20,000 people were still in temporary shelters in the northern provinces.

Damrey had moved into the South China Sea and was heading toward southern China and Hong Kong with wind speeds up to 120 kph (75 mph).

"All public storm warning signals are now lowered but occasional rains with moderate to strong winds may still be expected over western Luzon," Golez said, citing a report from the weather bureau.

Local agriculture officials had reported very minimal impact to rice and corn farms, he said, estimating crop damage would reach about 60 million pesos.

Soldiers and civilian engineers had started repairing roads, bridges and power lines in the affected areas.

Typhoons and tropical storms regularly hit the Philippines, an archipelago of some 7,000 islands. In the worst disaster in recent years, more than 5,000 people died in floods triggered by a typhoon in southern Leyte island in 1991.

Last year, a series of storms left about 1,800 people dead or missing, including 480 who were killed when heavy rains triggered mudslides that buried three towns in Quezon, an eastern province on Luzon.

Helicopters plucked people from danger in the worst hit areas of Andhra Pradesh state and delivered thousands of tons of food, medicine and blankets to camps for the displaced. Boats rescued hundreds of others.

The rains flooded railroad tracks and major highways along the coast, marooning hundreds of trucks, buses and cars, said disaster relief official Shashank Goel in Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh.

Relief workers evacuated more than 140,000 residents of low-lying villages to 465 relief camps set up in government buildings and schools located on higher ground, Goel said.

Officials said at least 50 people were killed by rain and strong winds, which flattened homes, knocked down power lines and uprooted trees. Six people were killed when their homes in coastal districts collapsed.

The Godavari and Krishna rivers breached their banks at several places, flooding farms. Floods demolished more than 77,000 homes and damaged another 7,800 homes, Goel said.

The surging waters washed away or damaged 254,000 acres of tobacco, rice and vegetable fields, said Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, the state's top elected official.

In Bangladesh, a tropical depression churned through the Bay of Bengal and pushed walls of water onto the country's coast, forcing thousands to flee.

At least 16 fishermen were killed when three boats capsized, the Janakantha newspaper said, quoting fishermen who returned to shore.

Anxious relatives of fishermen gathered at beaches waiting for loved ones, local reporters said. ATN Bangla TV said that 200 fishing boats were missing.

A state of emergency has been declared in Brazil's western state of Acre as fires continue to rage across the country's vast Amazon region.

Thousands of hectares of the world's largest rainforest have already been destroyed by the blazes.

Acre's Governor Jorge Viana urged the federal government in Brasilia to act swiftly, expressing particular concerns about pollution caused by the smoke.

Hundreds of soldiers, rescuers and also local residents are battling the fires.

Correspondents say it is not known what caused the blazes, some of which broke out nearly two weeks ago.

Some 500 people have been evacuated from the area, officials said earlier this week.

In the past, authorities have blamed farmers who burned forested areas in the dry season to make space for their crops.

The blazes have often raged out of control in recent years.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (AP) -- Military officials told President Bush on Sunday that the U.S. needs a national plan to coordinate search and rescue efforts following natural disasters or terrorist attacks.

Bush said he is interested in whether the Defense Department should take charge in massive national disasters.

"Clearly, in the case of a terrorist attack, that would be the case, but is there a natural disaster -- of a certain size -- that would then enable the Defense Department to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading the response effort?" Bush asked. "That's going to be a very important consideration for Congress to think about." [...]

Under the existing relationship, a state's governor is chiefly responsible for disaster preparedness and response. Governors can request assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. If federal armed forces are brought in to help, they do so in support of FEMA, through Northern Command, set up as part of a military reorganization after the attacks of September 11, 2001. [...]

Bush got an update about the federal hurricane response from military leaders at Randolph Air Force Base. He heard from Lt. Gen. Robert Clark, joint military task force commander for Hurricane Rita, and Maj. Gen. John White, a task force member, who described search and rescue operations after Hurricane Katrina as a "train wreck."

With Katrina, "we knew the coordination piece was a problem," White said. He said better coordination is needed to prevent five helicopters, for example, from showing up to rescue the same individual. "With Rita, we had the benefit of time. We may not have that time in an earthquake scenario or similar incident," White said.

"With a national plan, we'll have a quick jump-start and an opportunity to save more people," White said.

Speaking of the helicopter example, White said, "That's the sort of simplistic thing we'd like to avoid." He added, "We're not maximizing the use of forces to the best efficiency. Certainly that was a train wreck that we saw in New Orleans."

Bush thanked White for his recommendations.

"This is precisely the kind of information I'll take back to Washington to help all of us understand how to do a better job," the president said.

Later, Bush spent a little more than an hour getting a private briefing in a FEMA joint field operations office that was set up in an empty department store building.

He urged people not to be too eager to return to their homes.

"It's important that there be an orderly process," Bush said. "It's important that there be an assessment of infrastructure."

Bush's comments came as residents along the Texas and Louisiana coasts began clearing up debris and power crews worked to restore power to more than 1 million customers in four states.

Rita, which hit the Gulf Coast early Saturday, toppled trees, sparked fires and swamped Louisiana shoreline towns with a 15-foot storm surge that required daring boat and helicopter rescues of hundreds of people.

Still, the devastation was less severe than that caused by Hurricane Katrina when it made landfall August 29, three days after striking Florida.

After the briefing, Bush attended a worship service at a chapel on the base.

Bush's appearance was clearly a surprise to the base congregation. The chaplain, Col. David Schroeder, said, "We usually make new people stand up and introduce themselves." Everyone laughed at that, and then he announced the president. Bush stood along with the entire, clapping congregation.

Before returning to Washington, Bush was visiting Baton Rogue, Louisiana. The White House has not released details of his scheduled.

On Saturday, he made a stop in Austin, Texas, and at the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado. [...]

CAMERON, Louisiana -- Towns near where Hurricane Rita made landfall have had all but a handful of buildings destroyed, including nearly all homes in Cameron, Holly Beach and Creole, officials say.

Though less destructive than Hurricane Katrina, Rita caused extensive damage when it roared ashore Saturday morning near the Texas-Louisiana border with 120 mph winds.

Along the state line, Louisiana's Cameron Parish was under as much as 15 feet of water, and thousands of homes were destroyed, said Freddie Richard, the head of emergency preparedness for the parish of 10,000 residents.

About 45 miles south of nearby Lake Charles, every home was destroyed in the town of Holly Beach, Richard told CNN.

In the parish seat of Cameron, 90 percent of homes were destroyed, he said.

In Creole, 70 percent of residences were destroyed, with little more than the courthouse and an elementary school still standing, according to Richard. (City-by-city impact)

More than 925,000 customers in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi are without electricity as a result of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, officials said.

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen told CNN that no deaths had been reported in Louisiana, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry reported no storm-related deaths in his state.

But a Rita-spawned tornado killed one person in Mississippi, and 24 people died Friday when a bus carrying evacuated nursing home residents caught fire and was ripped by explosions on Interstate 45 south of Dallas.

Water in Lake Charles was receding Sunday, revealing buildings smashed to bits.

"The lake has risen higher than I've ever seen in my lifetime," said Lake Charles Mayor Randy Roach. But, he added, "Everyone who wanted to got out."

Lake Charles Police Chief Donald Dixon said "sporadic" looting had taken place and will likely increase as food and water run out.

The city has no power, no sewer system, no open stores or gasoline stations, he said, while downed trees and power lines make the city "very unsafe."

But he vowed to protect the property of people who evacuated. About 15 people were arrested for looting, including some at an adult video store.

Lake Charles and surrounding Calcasieu Parish, on the Texas-Louisiana state line, were closed Sunday to returning residents because of damage to roads and infrastructure.

City and parish officials have set a target date of October 3 -- next Monday -- for allowing residents to return. They want to have them return in stages, with business owners being allowed back earlier.

Farther west, in Port Arthur and Sabine Pass, Texas, officials were conducting house-to-house searches for victims or survivors, Port Arthur Mayor Oscar Ortiz said.

Ortiz was among many locals whose homes were destroyed. "It's all gone," he told CNN.

He said two refineries appeared to be leaking gasoline. Boats and ships were tossed onto roadways by Rita's storm surge, and oil rigs ripped loose from their moorings had drifted ashore, he said.

"We've got a lot of damage," he said. [...]

POCATELLO - To the rest of the country, Scott Stevens is the Idaho weatherman who blames the Japanese Mafia for Hurricane Katrina. To folks in Pocatello, he's the face of the weather at KPVI News Channel 6.

The Pocatello native made his final Channel 6 forecast Thursday night, leaving a job he's held for nine years in order to pursue his weather theories on a full-time basis.

"I'm going to miss that broadcast, but I'm not going to miss not getting home until 11 p.m.," Stevens said. "I just don't have the hours of the day to take care of my research and getting those (broadcasts) out and devoting the necessary research to the station."

It was Stevens' decision to leave the TV station, said KPVI general manager Bill Fouch.

"When Scott signed his current contract, he told Brenda and me at the time that it would be his last contract," Fouch said Thursday. "We knew, but the timetable moved up because of all the attention (he's been getting.)"

Since Katrina, Stevens has been in newspapers across the country where he was quoted in an Associated Press story as saying the Yakuza Mafia used a Russian-made electromagnetic generator to cause Hurricane Katrina in a bid to avenge the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. He was a guest on Coast to Coast, a late night radio show that conducts call-in discussions on everything from bizarre weather patterns to alien abductions. On Wednesday, Stevens was interviewed by Fox News firebrand Bill O'Reilly.

Stevens said he received 30 requests to do radio interviews on Thursday alone.

Fouch said Stevens wanted to leave as quickly as possible because his "plate is full," and he needs to take advantage of the opportunities that exist now.

Stevens said he's received offers that he's not at liberty to discuss.

Stevens, 39, who was born in Twin Falls, plans to remain in Pocatello, where his family remains. He said his family wishes him the best in his future endeavors.

It costs him hundreds of dollars each month to run his Web site, weatherwars.info, but he said that's a price he's willing to pay.

"There's a chess game going on in the sky," Stevens said. "It affects each and every one of us. It is the one common thread that binds us all together."

Although the theories espoused by Stevens - scalar weapons, global dimming - are definitely on the scientific fringe today, there are thousands of Web sites that mention such phenomena.

"The Soviets boasted of their geoengineering capabilities; these impressive accomplishments must be taken at face value simply because we are observing weather events that simply have never occurred before, never!" Stevens wrote on his Web site. "The evidence of these weapons at work found within the clouds overhead is simply unmistakable. These patterns and odd geometric shapes seen in our skies, each and every day, are clear and present evidence that our weather has been stolen from us, only to be used by those whose designs for humanity are rarely in alignment with that of the common man."

However, Stevens never discussed his weather theories on the air during his time at Channel 6 - an agreement he had with the station management. What the meteorologist chose to do in his off time was his business, said his manager of eight years.

Fouch said he would miss Stevens, whom he described as energetic, easy-going and enthusiastic about the weather, but he is supportive of his decision to pursue his passion.

"His theories are his theories," Fouch said. "But, if you think about it - of all the TV weather people, he continues to be the most accurate. It isn't his theories getting involved with his professional job."

For Stevens, however, the recent attention to his theories has been somewhat of a distraction from work.

"When there has been so much attention, it gets in the way of them doing their jobs and me doing my job," Stevens said.

Find out more:

To learn more about Stevens and his thoughts on manipulated weather, check out his Web site at www.weatherwars.info, or go to www.journalnet.com/articles/2005/03/06/opinion/opinion04.txt to read the story that Journal City Editor Greg McReynolds wrote about Stevens in March.

Perched among the highlands of western Cameroon, bordered by green mountains and cliff faces, Lake Nyos is a scene of breathtaking beauty. But the picture is deceptive. A detailed study reveals that without emergency measures, the lake could release a lethal cloud of carbon dioxide, capable of wiping out entire communities around its shores.

The warning, from a team of scientists, comes nearly 20 years after the lake belched an estimated 80m cubic metres of CO2 into the atmosphere. Heavier than air, the cloud of gas rolled down surrounding hillsides, engulfing villages. Silent, odourless and invisible, it starved the air of oxygen, asphyxiating hundreds of cattle and claiming the lives of more than 1,700 people up to 26km away.

Article continues "It was one of the most baffling disasters scientists have ever investigated. Lakes just don't rise up and wipe out thousands of people," said George Kling, an ecologist at the University of Michigan.

Researchers called in after the 1986 tragedy discovered that the lake, which sits atop a volcano, contained record levels of carbon dioxide. Gas bubbling up from the Earth's magma was under such pressure at the bottom of the 200-metres-deep lake that it dissolved until it reached saturation point. A slight disturbance then released the dissolved gas as a devastating bubble.

To prevent a recurrence, in 2001 engineers installed a pipe to suck CO2 from the bottom of the lake and release it harmlessly into the air. A similar pipe was also installed at nearby Lake Monoun, where an eruption of CO2 killed 37 people in 1984.

But according to Dr Kling, too little has been done to make the lakes safe. With colleagues at the US Geological Survey and the Institute for Geological and Mining Research in Cameroon, he spent 12 years testing the CO2 levels of both lakes. In today's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they report that without emergency intervention, the lakes are set for further potentially devastating explosions. "In both lakes, there's been a 12% to 14% reduction in overall gas content, which is the good news," said Dr Kling. "The bad news is that the single pipes are not sufficient to rapidly remove as much as is needed to make them safe. There is still more gas in both lakes than was released in the 1980s. We could have a gas burst tomorrow that could be bigger than either of those disasters and every day we wait is just an accumulation of the probability that something bad is going to happen."

Dr Kling's team recommends the urgent installation of a further four pipes in each lake at a rate of one a year. "By 2010, those five pipes would be enough to get the carbon dioxide down to safe levels," he said.

The danger around Lake Nyos has increased in recent years as families evacuated for a generation since the 1986 eruption have started to move back, encouraged by the fertile farmland. The communities around Lake Monoun have expanded, meaning an eruption there could kill more than in the 1980s.

HANOI - Typhoon Damrey smashed into Vietnam on Tuesday, tearing into vital networks of sea dykes on a long stretch of coastline after more than 320,000 residents had been evacuated.

Prime Minister Phan Van Khai had ordered that only young people, police and soldiers stay behind to watch over dykes built to keep the sea out of rice fields, but the barriers were soon breached in some areas.

"The waves are high, rising across the dyke now," Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat told state-run Vietnam Television from the northern province of Nam Dinh as the typhoon whipped up sea surges made worse by high tides.

Demrey had plowed across the Chinese island of Hainan on its way to Vietnam, causing large-scale blackouts and economic losses the China Daily said were estimated at 10 billion yuan.

Chinese media said nine people were killed on Hainan, most when buildings collapsed or by trees falling in heavy winds.

Nguyen Van Hop, head of the Nghia Phuc commune People's Committee in Nam Dinh, told Reuters by telephone that 2 km (1.2 miles) of dykes had been seriously damaged in his area.

"We are not able to save the dyke but people are safe and we have our rescue mission ready," he said.

The sea dykes were built to withstand strong gales, but Damrey -- Khmer for elephant -- was blowing at 133 kph (83 mph) as it came ashore in Thanh Hoa province, cutting electricity supplies and ripping up trees.

Lieutenant-General Hoang Ky told state television that sea surges of up to 5 meters (16 feet) slammed into the coastline.

State media said thousands of homes had been flooded after dykes were breached and nine people injured as electricity poles and houses collapsed. Power blackouts were widespread in several northern and central provinces.

The typhoon weakened slightly after hitting land and moving west toward Laos, but still brought torrential rain, the national weather bureau said.

MASS EVACUATION

Fears of breached dykes had prompted the mass evacuation by truck and bus from vulnerable coasts to solid buildings, such as schools, well before Damrey stormed ashore and headed inland.

More were being moved out of flooded areas as dykes gave way, officials said.

Traders said the typhoon missed the Central Highlands coffee belt further to the south in Vietnam, the world's second-biggest coffee producer after Brazil.

But Thailand issued flash flood warnings for the north and northeast, which forecasters said could expect three days of heavy rain until the typhoon petered out.

Parts of Laos were also likely to be hit, but drought-stricken Cambodia saw only benefit.

"We are on the tail of the typhoon, so there will be rain across our country which is good for areas hit by drought," said Mao Hak, a senior official at the Water Resources Ministry.

Typhoons, which frequently hit Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong and southern China throughout the northern summer and autumn, gather strength from warm sea water and tend to dissipate after making landfall.

PORT ARTHUR, Texas - Nearly four days after Hurricane Rita hit, many of the storm's sweltering victims along the Texas Gulf Coast were still waiting for electricity, gasoline, water and other relief Tuesday, prompting one top emergency official to complain that people are "living like cavemen."

In the hard-hit refinery towns of Port Arthur and Beaumont, crews struggled to cross debris-clogged streets to deliver generators and water to people stranded by Rita. They predicted it could be a month before power is restored, and said water and sewer systems could not function until more generators arrived.

Red tape was also blamed for the delays.

Port Arthur Mayor Oscar Ortiz, whose own home was destroyed by fire after the hurricane, said "we've had 101 promises" for aid, "but it's all bureaucracy." He and other officials gathered at a hotel-turned-command center, where a dirty American flag found among hurricane debris was hung on the wall.

John Owens, emergency management coordinator and deputy police chief in the town of 57,000, said pleas for state and federal relief were met with requests for paperwork.

"We have been living like cavemen, sleeping in cars, doing bodily functions outside," he said.

Temperatures climbed into the upper 90s, and officials worried that swarms of mosquitoes might spread disease.

The White House on Tuesday said President Bush had extended complete federal funding for debris removal and other government assistance through Oct. 27.

In Beaumont, state officials briefed Bush and Texas Gov. Rick Perry on relief efforts. Perry later visited Port Arthur, where local officials said it could be up to three to five days before people could return and three to five weeks before power is restored.

"There's always going to be those discombobulations, but the fact is, everyone is doing everything possible to restore power back to this area," Perry said.

About 476,000 people remained without electricity in Texas, in addition to around 285,000 in Louisiana. About 15,000 out-of-state utility workers were being brought to the region to help restore power.

Residents of some hard-hit towns were allowed to check on their homes but were not allowed to stay because of a lack of generators and ice.

About 2,000 Port Arthur residents who stayed through the storm were advised to find other places to live until utilities are restored. Ortiz said it could be two weeks before people are allowed back into Port Arthur.

After seeing a swarm of ravenous mosquitoes around his storm-battered home in Vidor, Harry Smith and his family decided to leave. They hitchhiked 10 miles to an emergency staging area and got on a bus to San Antonio.

"It can't be any worse than here," said Smith, 49, a pipefitter. "This is the worst storm I've seen in the 46 years I've lived here."

In Louisiana, Calcasieu Parish Police Jury President Hal McMillin said residents who come back would be without air conditioning, and risk insect bites and the mosquito-borne West Nile virus. A mandatory evacuation remained in effect for 10 southwestern Louisiana parishes.

"There's a good chance we could have an outbreak or something," McMillin said.

There were some signs of hope. In a Port Arthur neighborhood not far from a grocery store that reeked of rotten food, three Federal Emergency Management Agency semitrailers delivered ice, ready-to-eat meals and water.

"Without these trucks here, I don't think we would have made it," said Lee Smith, 50.

In Orange, people converged in cars and trucks outside a shopping strip for water, food and ice supplied by the private disaster group the Compassion Alliance.

"I know it's going to take some time, but we really appreciate this," Dorothy Landry, 66, said after waiting in the line. "I can't thank them enough."

Hurricane Rita has caused more damage to oil rigs than any other storm in history and will force companies to delay drilling for oil in the US and as far away as the Middle East, initial damage assessments show.

Oil prices eased on Wednesday over concerns that demand for crude would be hit by the continued shutdown of refineries. US crude fell 27 cents to $64.80 a barrel by 06:44 GMT after losing 75 cents on Tuesday.

ODS-Petrodata, which provides market intelligence to the offshore oil and natural gas industry, said it expected a shortage of rigs in the US Gulf this year.

"Based on what we have right now, it appears that drilling contractors and rig owners took a big hit from Rita," said Tom Marsh of ODS-Petrodata. "The path Katrina took was through the mature areas of the US Gulf where there are mainly oil [production] platforms. Rita came to the west where there is a lot of [exploratory] rig activity."

Ken Sill of Credit Suisse First Boston said: "Early reports indicate numerous rigs are missing, destroyed or have suffered serious damage and several companies have yet to report. Rita may set an all-time record."

The US Coast Guard said nine semisubmersible rigs had broken free from their moorings and were adrift.

This damage could not have come at a worse time for oil companies and consumers. US crude futures on Monday fell 37 cents to $65.45 a barrel in midday trading in New York as refineries that were evacuated before the onset of Rita returned to operation.

Earlier in the day, Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, said the market had not taken up the 2m barrels a day of spare capacity the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries offered last week. Speaking in Johannesburg, he blamed high oil prices on a lack of industry infrastructure, including rigs and refineries, rather than oil reserves. Rigs, which are movable and are used for exploration and development, were in short supply before hurricanes Katrina and Rita blew through the US Gulf in late August and September.

High oil prices and the desperate search for new oil supplies needed to meet rampant demand from the US and China have made rigs difficult to find and expensive to hire. Rigs cost $90m-$550m to construct, depending on how sophisticated the structure and how deep the water in which it will drill. A rig ordered today is unlikely to be ready before 2008 or 2009, analysts said.

As a sign of just how precious rigs are becoming to the market, Anadarko, the biggest US independent oil company, this week set a record by committing to a rig six years in advance; commitments in the past were made months ahead of time rather than years.

Initial reports from companies are ominous. Global Santa Fe reported it could not find two of its rigs. Rowan Companies reported four rigs damaged, with two having moved, one losing its "legs" and the fourth presumed sunk. Noble has four rigs adrift, with two run aground - one into a ChevronTexaco platform.

HANOI - Flash floods spawned by Typhoon Damrey killed at least four people in Thailand on Wednesday and hard-hit Vietnam reported 22 swept away in similar torrents in its northern mountains.

The deaths took the known toll to at least 41 in Damrey's rampage across the main Philippine island of Luzon, the southern Chinese island of Hainan -- where the economic damage was estimated at $1.2 billion -- Vietnam, Laos and northern Thailand.

Despite waning after hitting land in Vietnam on Tuesday, Damrey -- Khmer for elephant -- was still pounding wide areas with heavy rain and a Thai official said water spilling from a breached dam threatened the northern city of Chiang Mai.

"Heavy rain broke the reservoir and the water will flow into Chiang Mai today. Right now, the city is throwing up walls of sand bags," said Prasert Indee, a senior official in the area.

Vietnam, where five people are known to have been killed, issued flood warnings after Damrey's 130 kph (80 mph) winds and 5-meter (16-foot) sea surges shattered sections of the network of sea dykes protecting a key rice growing area.

State television said soldiers had been sent to the mountainous northern province of Yen Bai to look for the 22 people swept away.

The area in Vietnam most likely to suffer floods was the province of Ninh Binh, 90 km (55 miles) south of Hanoi, the government's Committee for Flood and Storm Prevention said.

The lashing rains Damrey brought were swelling rivers very quickly and it ordered five other northern provinces to reinforce dykes yet further.

The rains also struck Laos, where the government said it had no immediate reports of major damage.

"We've had heavy rain all night and we are monitoring the flooding situation closely, but there is nothing major so far. Just some roofing gone," Lao government spokesman Yong Chanhthalansy said.

POWER, PHONES CUT

Vietnam's dyke system, built to withstand strong gales and protect rice fields in the north, buckled under the power of winds and sea surges.

Sections crumpled in four provinces, power supplies and telecommunications were hit and thousands of homes swamped, state media said.

The government said at least 180,000 hectares (445,000 acres) of rice in seven provinces were damaged.

But the typhoon did not hit the Central Highlands coffee belt further to the south and had no impact on crude oil output as Vietnam's offshore rigs are well to the south.

The government said in a statement read out on national television on Tuesday it was rushing emergency food and supplies to devastated areas to which 330,000 people evacuees returned only to find homes and rice fields under water.

Nguyen Thi Nguyet, general secretary of the Vietnam Food Association, said the government was expected to take food relief from national reserves and would have no impact on exports.

"Rice from the region's warehouses can be used to meet the food demand," she told Reuters. "Besides, the region is also harvesting a crop with higher yields this year."

The northern region incorporating the Red River Delta is Vietnam's second-largest rice growing area after the Mekong Delta in the south.

It produces about 36 percent of Vietnam's rice, which is used mainly for domestic consumption, and shrimp and fish farms in the area also suffered typhoon damage.

But the disruption to production in flooded areas will reduce supplies of vegetables and seafood to regional markets, including Hanoi, home to 3 million people where prices have already started rising.

MEXICO CITY - Intense rains throughout southern Mexico and parts of Central America have caused rivers to overflow, killing at least three people and forcing thousands to flee their homes, officials said Tuesday.

In southern Mexico, local officials declared a state of emergency in parts of Chiapas state and some 2,000 people were living in temporary shelters Tuesday.

On Monday, police officer Francisco Malpica drowned in a swollen river while trying to help several residents. In southern Guerrero state, a landslide buried a wooden home in Acapulco, killing one man.

In neighboring Oaxaca state, more than 1,000 people were evacuated from their homes and were staying in shelters.

In El Salvador, heavy rains on Monday flooded rivers, and one man drowned in the capital's Acelhuate River.

Two other people were injured when an electric wire fell on their vehicle. The rains flooded homes and cars, temporarily trapping some people in their vehicles. There were electricity outages in parts of San Salvador.

In Honduras, a landslide on a remote highway left 15,000 people trapped in several coffee-growing communities.

The chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, Sir John Lawton, has called climate change deniers in the US "loonies", and says global warming is to blame for the increasingly strong hurricanes being spawned in the Atlantic.

In an interview with The Independent, Lawton said that global warming is "very likely" the cause of increasingly intense hurricanes, in line with computer simulations.

He told the paper: "If this [the arrival of Hurricane Rita] makes the climate loonies in the States realise we've got a problem, some good will come out of a truly awful situation." [...]

Lawton said that with two such large storms hitting the Gulf coast in such quick succession, the Bush administration should re-evaluate its position on climate change. He said if the "extreme sceptics" in the US could be persuaded to change their minds, that would be "a valuable outcome [of] a horrible mess". [...]

Some climatologists maintain that global warming is unlikely to have an impact on hurricanes. They argue that the increase in landfalls we are seeing now is due to a long term (50-70 years) cycle in Atlantic ocean temperatures, a phenomenon known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

However, Sir John says that it is fair to conclude that an increasingly warm climate, caused at least in part by human activity, is also warming the oceans' surfaces, and increasing the violence of hurricanes.

"Increasingly it looks like a smoking gun," he said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Wind-driven brush fires scorched nearly 2,500 acres north of Los Angeles on Wednesday, killing thousands of chickens at a farm while destroying at least one home and threatening others.

A mandatory evacuation was ordered in Box Canyon and a freeway was closed as the blaze hopscotched the roadway and burned at the west end of the San Fernando Valley.

Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman Ron Haralson said more than 700 firefighters were on the scene. One firefighter was struck on the head by a 40-pound boulder and was taken to a hospital for treatment, Capt. Carlos Calvillo said.

The fire had burned over 1,200 acres and was 5 percent contained by evening, Haralson said.

A blaze in Riverside County spread over 1,300 acres between the cities of Redlands and Moreno Valley, about 70 miles east of Los Angeles.

That fire destroyed three chicken coops at a ranch believed to have housed 70,000 to 90,000 chickens, said Riverside County Fire Department spokeswoman Cheri Patterson. Thousands of chickens died.

"It's a vast amount,'' Patterson said.

Coverage is 20% below average for time of year · Destructive cycle could affect Earth's weather

Global warming in the Arctic could be soaring out of control, scientists warned yesterday as new figures revealed that melting of sea ice in the region has accelerated to record levels.

Experts at the US National Snow and Data Centre in Colorado fear the region is locked into a destructive cycle with warmer air melting more ice, which in turn warms the air further. Satellite pictures show that the extent of Arctic sea ice this month dipped some 20% below the long term average for September - melting an extra 500,000 square miles, or an area twice the size of Texas. If current trends continue, the summertime Arctic Ocean will be completely ice-free well before the end of this century.

Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the Colorado centre, said melting sea ice accelerates warming because dark-coloured water absorbs heat from the sun that was previously reflected back into space by white ice. "Feedbacks in the system are starting to take hold. We could see changes in Arctic ice happening much sooner than we thought and that is important because without the ice cover over the Arctic Ocean we have to expect big changes in Earth's weather." [...]

 LOS ANGELES, Sept. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Hundreds of residents were evacuated from their homes north of Los Angeles late Wednesday as brush fires driven by strong winds swept the hillsides in the Southern California county, officials said.

    About 700 firefighters stayed on the job throug h the night trying to control the blaze which began along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Chatsworth, about 50 km northwest of Los Angeles, officials said.

    "It's still warm and the winds are still blowing and we still have fires," said Inspector Ron Haralson.

    The fire burned some 3,500 acres, and only about 5 percent of the fire was contained as of 10 p.m., according to the Los AngelesCounty Fire Department.

They suddenly invaded the beach north of Fort Lauderdale on a clear, sunny, wind-free day in early March 1962 and frightened onlookers. One, Mary Swanson, now an Indialantic resident, said she'd moved to Arizona soon after the event and never knew what caused it.

She hoped our readers could tell her. We've been reporting their responses, which mostly blame the waves on far-off storms, as distant as Africa.

"Any storm powerful enough to send waves clear across the Atlantic would have affected the whole Florida coastline . . . and would also have first devastated the Bahama Islands," Gene said.

However, he added, "there was a more recent incident of 'mystery waves' that did hit Daytona Beach on an evening when the sea was flat, swamping beach-parked cars and scaring a lot of tourists at the boardwalk. Officials claimed these waves were generated by a 'sand slide' out on the continental shelf, but there was no geological activity registered by seismic sensors along the east coast.

"Some weeks later a local news channel ran a report about the operators of a shrimp boat off the coast witnessing a huge splash in the distance and then almost being swamped by massive swells.

"I believe the waves in both cases were caused by meteor impacts at sea. I also believe that safety officials play down these incidents, feeding the public any excuse but the truth.

"Why? Because we have no defense or warning systems to deal with meteor impacts. Our government justifies spending billions of tax dollars on missile defense systems, and yet a missile attack is less of a threat than the debris flying around in local space. The reality is that even if an imminent impact were predicted, there is nothing we could do about it."

Waves near Cuba, in deep Atlantic build

Hurricane forecasters today are tracking two systems that may build into tropical depressions over the weekend.

One of the waves has been drifting near Cuba for several days. The second system is in the deep Atlantic near the Cape Verde Islands.

In a statement today, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said the large low pressure area located over the northwestern Caribbean Sea has become better organized - even though upper-level winds have become less favorable.

"Shower and thunderstorm activity has increased and this system still has the potential to become a tropical depression during the next day or so as it moves slowly west-northwestward," forecasters said.

Heavy rainfall is forecast for Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and portions of central and western Cuba over the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, a low pressure center about 575 miles west-southwest of the southwesternmost Cape Verde Islands has become much better defined today.

"Thunderstorm activity has increased and become better organized and upper-level winds are favorable for a tropical depression to form later today or on Saturday," forecasters said.

If sustained winds hit 39 mph or more, the next system would be named Stan - the 18th tropical storm of the 2005 Atlantic season.