At least 10 people have been killed and another three were feared dead after they were buried in a landslide on Indonesia's Sulawesi island, police said Wednesday.
A steep part of a hill in the Morowali district of Central Sulawesi province collapsed on Tuesday and engulfed dozens of people working for a local palm oil company, local police chief Suhirman told AFP.
"The workers were taking a lunch break on the hill's slope when the incident happened," he said.
Heavy rains as well as excavation work to build an access road for the plantation company may have been partly to blame for the landslide, he said, adding that 18 people were also injured, most suffering broken bones.
Search and rescue teams were trying to locate the three missing people using heavy machinery but hopes were slim of finding them alive as they were buried in about five metres of earth, Suhirman said.
Storms
© Arvind S. Grover
Lightning strikes the NYC skyline during Monday night's short, freak storm.
Lightning strikes the NYC skyline during Monday night's short, freak storm.
The ferocious front blew in out of the east, hitting the city at about 8:30 p.m. and prompting multiple severe storm warnings and flash flood warnings.
Joann Binns, 61, of Manhattan, said she was pelted by hail a quarter-inch in diameter.
"I started running. There were ice stones," said Binns, who sought shelter under the marquee outside Madison Square Garden. "They hit me and I said, 'I'm outta here.' They hurt."
The storm prompted transit officials to reroute the F subway line and suspend the G line because of station flooding. The wicked weather also delayed the Jets' game against the Minnesota Vikings in the Meadowlands for 45 minutes because of lightning.
© Unknown
Floodwaters rose south of Naujan lake on Mindoro island after heavy rain began falling in the area before dawn Friday, national police spokesman Senior Superintendent Agrimero Cruz told reporters.
In addition to the drowned person, an undetermined number of farm animals was also lost in floodwaters that reached an average of three feet (0.91 metres), he added.
Some 8,148 families were affected in the towns of Socorro and Pinamalayan, and police are on standby to conduct rescues or evacuations where necessary.
© Unknown
Six days of blizzards have caused deaths among new lambs numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and raised concern over the welfare of ewes yet to lamb.
Besides the effect of the cold weather itself, the continued snowfall has not allowed snow on the ground to thaw, making it much harder for stock to feed.
This makes ewes about to lamb particularly susceptible to metabolic illnesses from a lack of nutrients.
Reportedly, lamb mortality in the area may be as high as 15% for some farmers. With average prices for lambs expected to be around NZ$80/head this season (NZ Herald), the financial loss to NZ producers will be significant, estimated to exceed NZ$50 million (NZ Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry).
Source: MLA.com
Tropical storm Nicole lashed the eastern United States with heavy rain and high winds again on Friday, causing more flooding and leaving one Pennsylvania woman dead in a weather-related traffic accident.
The woman drove her car into a rain-swollen creek, bringing the U.S. death toll from the storm to at least six, after five people were killed earlier this week in North Carolina.
The governor of North Carolina declared a state of emergency, with officials there warning that creeks and rivers would continue to rise even after the storm passed.
Flood warnings were in effect for parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C.
The deluge that started on Wednesday set records in several areas, said Dan Peterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The woman drove her car into a rain-swollen creek, bringing the U.S. death toll from the storm to at least six, after five people were killed earlier this week in North Carolina.
The governor of North Carolina declared a state of emergency, with officials there warning that creeks and rivers would continue to rise even after the storm passed.
Flood warnings were in effect for parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C.
The deluge that started on Wednesday set records in several areas, said Dan Peterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Short-lived Tropical Storm Nicole triggered flash flooding that killed at least nine people in Jamaica and dumped heavy rain on Florida, Cuba, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas on Wednesday.
The broad and ragged storm formed on Wednesday morning and dissipated Wednesday afternoon. U.S. and Cuban meteorologists disagreed on whether it ever actually became a tropical storm at all.
Forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami pegged its peak sustained winds at 40 miles per hour, just over the 39 mph threshold to become a named storm.
Cuban forecasters put the top winds at 37 mph and disagreed that it was a tropical storm when it crossed the island. "No tropical storm exists," Cuba's top meteorologist, Jorge Rubiera, said on national television.
U.S. forecasters said Nicole had a poorly defined center of circulation and had been "a marginal system."
The broad and ragged storm formed on Wednesday morning and dissipated Wednesday afternoon. U.S. and Cuban meteorologists disagreed on whether it ever actually became a tropical storm at all.
Forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami pegged its peak sustained winds at 40 miles per hour, just over the 39 mph threshold to become a named storm.
Cuban forecasters put the top winds at 37 mph and disagreed that it was a tropical storm when it crossed the island. "No tropical storm exists," Cuba's top meteorologist, Jorge Rubiera, said on national television.
U.S. forecasters said Nicole had a poorly defined center of circulation and had been "a marginal system."
© CBC
Authorities closed major roads into Sherbrooke because of flooding.
Authorities closed major roads into Sherbrooke because of flooding.
More than 95 millimetres of rain have fallen in the region, which includes the city of Sherbrooke in the last 24 hours, causing nearby rivers to spill their banks.
A 66-year-old Sherbrooke nun plunged to her death Friday morning while trying to track down a leak on her roof. The woman, who lived on Évangéline Street, fell several metres from a ladder as she tried to climb down, according to eyewitnesses.
About 100 people were forced out of their homes because of high water levels in the Saint-François River, which rose to seven metres on Friday.
Transport authorities shut down at least two major arteries into the downtown core, Saint-François North Street and Grandes-Fourches Street because of water accumulation.
You know what comes out of the bottom of a thunder storm--lightning. But do you know what comes out of the top? On Sept. 28th at 7:01 am EDT, Joel Gonzalez photographed a gigantic jet shooting up from a storm near NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Click on the image to watch the action--and turn up the volume for a crackling soundtrack:
© Matt Rourke/AP Photo
Amel Sincere empties out her car after receded floodwaters submerged the parking lot of the Waterford Apartments in Havertown, Pa., Friday.
Amel Sincere empties out her car after receded floodwaters submerged the parking lot of the Waterford Apartments in Havertown, Pa., Friday.
The storm that killed five people in North Carolina on Thursday soaked a great swath of the Northeast by the Friday morning commute, including New York City and Philadelphia. Flights coming into LaGuardia Airport in New York City were delayed three hours and traffic coming into Manhattan was delayed by up to an hour under a pounding rain.
Firefighters in the Philadelphia area used a ladder truck to pull residents through the upper-floor windows of a building. Cars were submerged up to their windows, and a graphic artist found another vehicle floating atop his car.
Rainfall totals in the Philadelphia area topped 10 inches.
© Chuck Burton/AP Photo
A man cleans his car at a flooded car wash in Carolina Beach, N.C., Thursday, Sept. 30, 2010.
A man cleans his car at a flooded car wash in Carolina Beach, N.C., Thursday, Sept. 30, 2010.
Tornado watches were issued from North Carolina to New Jersey.
In North Carolina, the nearly 21 inches collected in Wilmington since rain started falling Sunday topped Hurricane Floyd's five-day mark of 19 inches set in 1999, the National Weather Service said.
In the eastern part of the state, officials evacuated about 70 people overnight from a mobile home community in Kinston because of high water, Roger Dail, director of emergency services in Lenoir County, said.
"The water's still up," Dail said. "I would suspect it's going to be later today, maybe tomorrow, before the water goes out of there."
Comment: For more information on unusual weather in New York, see this Sott article:
New York City Hit by a TORNADO: One Person Killed and a Trail of Destruction Left as 100mph Winds Rip Through City