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Storms
Landslides and flooding caused by heavy monsoon rains have killed at least 100 people in southern Bangladesh and many more are missing, the government said Wednesday. Officials said the landslides occurred mainly in remote villages with poor roads, making rescue work more difficult.
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Dumped: Mr Sinclair said he felt like 'a tennis ball in a tumble dryer' as he smashed against the walls, into cupboards and appliances
Dumped: Mr Sinclair said he felt like 'a tennis ball in a tumble dryer' as he smashed against the walls, into cupboards and appliances
David Sinclair, 49, said he felt like a 'tennis ball in a tumble drier' as the twister bounced his mobile home through the buffalo paddock, in Long Sutton, Lincs, before squashing him under his own fridge.
He managed to drag himself free and stagger to a nearby farmhouse for help and was rushed to hospital with suspected internal bleeding.
© Dan Zakreksi/CBC
Tree limbs were snapped off on 3rd Avenue in Saskatoon on Wednesday.
Tree limbs were snapped off on 3rd Avenue in Saskatoon on Wednesday.
Reports said some areas downtown, as well as homes in the Sutherland area, were in the dark Wednesday morning.
Broken branches littered some streets and city crews were called out to clean up the damage.
The day before, thousands of residents on the west side lost power for several hours after lightning struck a transmission structure outside the city. For them, the lights came back on before midnight.
A sinkhole looks to swallow an entire truck near Ocala Monday morning.
Marion County emergency managers reported a possible tornado touchdown around 11 p.m. in Ocala, near Highway 326 and Northwest 80th Avenue, about six miles southwest of Lowell.
Officials said six to seven buildings were damaged, including a barn with a damage roof. The damage reportedly spanned a mile to a mile and a half north to south.
The storm knocked down trees, left debris along the roadways and caused some flooding around storm drains in the area.
"I was in bed and it woke me up," said Joanne Stover, who lives near the reported touchdown. "It sounded like a train, and the house started moving. Then it was just over."
Limbs from some trees have been caught up in some power lines, knocking out power for more than 2,000 customers.
© Reuters
The rescue operation has been hampered by the heaviness of the rainfall
The rescue operation has been hampered by the heaviness of the rainfall
Three days of rain had hit the region of small hills and forests, and huge chunks of earth and mud buried flimsy huts where families were sleeping late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Many homeless people live at the foot of the hills or close to them despite warnings from authorities.
Monsoon floods are common in Bangladesh, a delta nation of 160 million people. Many of the dead were women and children, and the death toll is likely to rise as rescuers are searching for several missing people, officials said.
Volunteers using loudspeakers had warned people about the danger of landslides during the recent monsoon rains, said Jaynul Bari, a government administrator in one of the stricken areas, Cox's Bazar district. The floods inundated dozens of villages and were disrupting communications in the region.
Parts of the main interstate highway across northern Florida were closed by flooding Tuesday as Tropical Storm Debby hung stubbornly offshore over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening up to two feet of rain in places.
After raking Florida's Gulf coast with high winds and heavy rain, Debby promised to bring more of the same in the coming days as it drifted on a path forecast to take it over the state and east into the Atlantic by Friday.
The National Hurricane Center said Debby was about 85 miles west of Cedar Key, Florida, and moving eastward near 3 mph. It had maximum sustained winds near 45 mph, barely tropical-storm status.
But the wind, high surf and relentless rain have made the storm's presence felt.
After raking Florida's Gulf coast with high winds and heavy rain, Debby promised to bring more of the same in the coming days as it drifted on a path forecast to take it over the state and east into the Atlantic by Friday.
The National Hurricane Center said Debby was about 85 miles west of Cedar Key, Florida, and moving eastward near 3 mph. It had maximum sustained winds near 45 mph, barely tropical-storm status.
But the wind, high surf and relentless rain have made the storm's presence felt.
© Peter Busomoke/AFP/Getty Images
Ugandan soldiers and relatives search for victims of a landslide in Bududa in 2010.
Ugandan soldiers and relatives search for victims of a landslide in Bududa in 2010.
In March 2010, thousands were forced to flee after after a landslide killed more than 350 people in Uganda's eastern Bududa district.
'Many cracks'
Ken Kiggundu, director of disaster management for Uganda's Red Cross, told the BBC that 72 people were still missing. He added that 480 had been displaced and were now living with relatives and friends following Monday's landslide, which occurred after a number of days of heavy rain. "At 2pm, the ground trembled, followed by heavy rumbling of soil and stones which covered our home," Rachael Namwono, a villager in Bududa district, told Uganda's private Monitor newspaper.
© Dr. Scott M. Lieberman/AP
Lightning streaks across the sky in Tyler, Texas, as a powerful line of thunderstorms moved across the state in April.
Lightning streaks across the sky in Tyler, Texas, as a powerful line of thunderstorms moved across the state in April.
"More than 80% of lightning victims are male. Be a force of nature by knowing your risk, taking action and being an example"Eighty percent seemed to us pretty significant, so we turned to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and asked, "Why?"
Susan Buchanan, a NOAA spokeswoman, said the agency had not conducted any formal studies, but NOAA and its partners had batted around a few theories.
- First, men take more risks than women. "If you look at the percentage of men who take part in high risk sports, that might give you an idea," said Buchanan.
- Men typically spend more time outside.
- Men, said Buchanan, don't want to be seen as "wimps." This theory, she said, was backed up by talking to the Boy Scouts, who said no one wants to be the one to say it's time to go inside.
© NOAA
A ghostly Tropical Storm Debby is drenching Florida and surrounding regions.
A ghostly Tropical Storm Debby is drenching Florida and surrounding regions.
"This is first time we've had four tropical storms develop in the Atlantic basin before July 1," said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
U.S. records for tropical storms and hurricanes stretch back to 1851, Feltgen told OurAmazingPlanet. And although Tropical Storm Debby has broken the century-and-a-half-long record, there is certainly a chance that four storms may have formed this early in the past, yet escaped notice simply because forecasters didn't have the tools to see them.
"We figure that back in the day there could have been several storms per season that could have been missed," Feltgen said. "We didn't have satellites." Forecasters relied largely on ship reports and on firsthand observations when a storm hit land.
© Andy Clark, Reuters
A house is surrounded by water after the Fraser River burst its banks in Chilliwack, British Columbia June 24, 2012. Authorities have issued an evacuation order for 165 homes in Fraser Valley.
A house is surrounded by water after the Fraser River burst its banks in Chilliwack, British Columbia June 24, 2012. Authorities have issued an evacuation order for 165 homes in Fraser Valley.
Weeks of rapid snowmelt and wet weather have caused river levels to rise in the B.C. Interior, the Kootenay region and the Fraser Valley, and a weekend of heavy rain and violent thunderstorms have pushed many rivers and creeks in those areas to the brink.
Hardest hit was Sicamous, a community of about 3,100 people north of Kelowna, where about 350 people were ordered to leave their homes due to flooding along the Sicamous and Hummingbird creeks.
At least one home was swept away, and many more homes and dozens of cars were damaged after flash floods tore through Sicamous, where the local district declared a state of emergency.
"It's total devastation and disaster," said 65-year-old Judy Latosky, who saw Sicamous Creek spill its banks before fleeing her home with her twin five-year-old granddaughters.
"Parts of the bank were just falling off in chunks. We lost all of our backyard and now it's just boulders. ... I looked in this morning and the basement is half full of mud and water. It's a total loss."
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