God is The Most Powerful.
The Most Powerful.
The Most Powerful.

"It seemed like the world was ending"

EL DORADO, Mexico, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Hurricane Lane left a trail of destruction on Mexico's Pacific coast that killed three people, washed away roads and knocked down flimsy homes before fizzling out on Sunday.

Lashing rains turned creeks into raging currents, destroying a bridge between the city of Culiacan and the tourist resort of Mazatlan when Lane made landfall on Saturday as a powerful Category 3 storm. Dozens of trucks and their drivers were stranded.

Lane's winds toppled electricity towers, trees and traffic signs.

"It seemed like the world was ending," said farm worker Jesus Javier Quintero.

...between 40,000 and 50,000 people in Sinaloa who lived near rivers and streams might be at risk. Many of the state's reservoirs were in danger of overflowing, he said.

At least 200 homes damaged; up to 10,000 customers without power

ROGERS, Minn. - A severe storm swept through this Minnesota town, killing a 10-year-old girl, damaging hundreds of homes and scattering debris across the city, officials said Sunday.

The girl was at a neighbor’s house with her 19-year-old brother when the house collapsed on her about 10 p.m. Saturday, Police Chief Keith Oldfather said.

“The roof is in the basement,” Oldfather said after an aerial view of the damage Sunday morning. He said between 200 and 300 homes sustained significant damage in Rogers, a town 26 miles northwest of Minneapolis.

“It’s more severe than we thought,” he said. “It just came out of nowhere and really did a lot of damage.”

Screams on the phone
Ryan Heibel told the Star Tribune that everyone was on the first floor when all of the sudden there was a “huge boom.” He couldn’t see anything but felt a weight on him.

“It always happens to somebody else in Oklahoma, or wherever,” he said. “You see it on TV, but until you stand in the middle of it, it’s unbelievable.”

Unprecedented floods in Ethiopia

"Floods in Ethiopia are seasonal. However, the magnitude of the current flooding is unprecedented", says David Overlack who heads the International Federation's field assessment and coordination team dispatched to Ethiopia. Since the floods started early August, as many as eight regions have been affected. In South Omo, the Omo River and the Turkana Lake overflowed their banks. As a result, 14 islands were formed.

Access to these areas is very difficult.

According to the Ethiopian Disaster Prevention and Prepareness Agency, 639 people lost their lives, nearly 200,000 people have been affected and 500,000 have been made vulnerable. Many of them are agro-pastoralists who have lost everything. Thousands of livestock have been killed, more than 42,000 hectares of crops were flooded, which causes growing concern for food security and livelihoods in the coming months.

Another identified problem is the spread of acute watery diarrhoea, which had already started before the floods. By the end of last month, 16,555 cases had been confirmed. 196 people have already died since April in five regions, including the capital, Addis Ababa. Malaria cases are also expected to rise.

Floods in Northwestern India

In response to severe flooding in several states in India, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is providing emergency kits to more than 2,000 residents in the hard-hit district of Jaisalmer in the state of Rajasthan, India.

One of the worst calamities to hit the state in decades, the late August floods were triggered by unusually heavy rains in the district of Barmer and adjoining districts of the desert fringe, which, according to Heriberto Muller, country director for ADRA India, received more than the whole season's quota of rain in just a few days. The heavy flooding affected 1,200 villages, leaving more than 100 dead and thousands homeless. Many lost their possessions and are in need of immediate provisions such as tarps, clothing, blankets, medicine, clean drinking water, and food.

ADRA is distributing emergency kits to 460 families, or approximately 2,300 flood survivors in the Jaisalmer District. The kits include essentials such as drinking water, dalia (broken wheat), flat rice, tarps, and blankets. "The food kit provides the most essential and basic components of the diet in the region and is expected to last for two weeks, which will give survivors an opportunity to regain normalcy in their lives," says Muller.

Typhoon Shanshan hits Japan's south

TOKYO, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Three people died in floods and landslides, two went missing and at least 40 were injured as a powerful typhoon moved in on Japan's main southwestern island of Kyushu on Sunday.

Typhoon Shanshan was carrying winds of up to 160 km (100 miles) per hour near its centre, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

Though weakening, the storm disrupted transport as it pounded many western areas of Japan with torrential rain. About 170 flights in and out of southwestern Japan were cancelled on Sunday, public broadcaster NHK said.

Shanshan was 220 km (137 miles) west-southwest of Makurazaki, 1,000 km southwest of Tokyo, at 9:00 a.m. (0000 GMT) and was moving north-northeast at 35 km per hour.

The eye of the storm may make landfall on Kyushu later in the day, the agency said.

Shanshan, now a Category 3 typhoon, is expected to fade into a tropical storm over the next 24 hours and head into the Sea of Japan, according to the U.K.-based Web site Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com).

Three people died in Saga prefecture on Kyushu on Saturday due to landslides and flooding caused by the storm's heavy rain.

Bird flu pandemic could cost $2 trln -World Bank

SINGAPORE, Sept 17 (Reuters) - A severe bird flu pandemic among humans could cost the global economy up to $2 trillion, the World Bank said on Sunday, sharply raising earlier estimates.

The comments came as a senior World Health Organisation official said the threat from the H5N1 avian flu virus was just as real today as it was six months ago, even if the headlines were not as scary.

Jim Adams, vice-president for East Asia and the Pacific and head of the Bank's avian flu taskforce, said a severe pandemic could cost more than three percent of the global economy's gross national product.

"We estimate this could cost certainly over $1 trillion and perhaps as high as $2 trillion in a worst-case scenario. So the threat, the economic threat, remains real and substantial," he told reporters at the annual IMF-World Bank meetings in Singapore.

Clean up of deadly waste in Ivory Coast begins

ABIDJAN, Sept 17 (Reuters) - French waste treatment experts in protective suits and masks began an operation on Sunday to clean up toxic chemical slops dumped in Ivory Coast whose poisonous fumes have killed seven people and made thousands ill.

Around 25 specialists from France's Seche group deployed equipment at one of more than 10 sites in the economic capital Abidjan where a foul-smelling black sludge was deposited after being unloaded from a Panamanian-registered ship last month.

Public outcry over the dumped waste, which has forced more than 30,000 people to seek treatment for vomiting, stomach pains, nausea, breathing difficulties, nosebleeds and migraines, caused the Ivorian government to resign earlier this month.

The National Intragency Fire Center reports that 8.65 million acres have burned so far across the country this year. The blackened 13,521 square miles represents an area bigger than Maryland.

Strong earthquake rattles Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - A strong earthquake sent panicked residents fleeing from their homes Sunday in Argentina, but it caused no injuries or damages, authorities said.

The magnitude 6.1 quake was felt in the provinces of Mendoza, San Juan and La Rioja. Its epicenter was in Pampa de las Salinas, about 745 miles northeast of Buenos Aires and it was the second in less than a week to shake the region.

A magnitude 5.7 quake struck the San Juan province on Tuesday but also caused no injuries or damage.

It's Sunday.
God is Taking Back Sunday.
If I were you, I'd be Bowing Down, and Thanking God for Life.
Because these storms will only get worse.

Thank You,
MorningStar