Storms in Midwest, South leave 5 dead


Workers secure the front of a convenience store damaged during a storm Friday, Sept. 22, 2006, in St. James, Mo. The blocks in the foreground are from the station's car wash. Two tornadoes swept through Phelps County in south-central Missouri Friday afternoon, damaging more than 100 homes, a middle school and a manufacturing plant. Bruce Southard, Phelps County's emergency management director, said a firefighter videotaped two twisters moving through the town. Southard estimated the tornadoes were on the ground for about 10 minutes.(AP Photo/Kelley McCall)



Lightning strikes in a wall cloud over Fort Smith, Ark. on Friday.

Severe weather kills 1 in Arkansas

ST. JAMES, Mo. (AP) — Severe thunderstorms spawned tornadoes, large hail and lightning in parts of the Midwest on Friday, killing a boater trying to get to shore.
Two tornadoes swept through south-central Missouri Friday afternoon, damaging more than 100 homes and tearing off part of a roof at a middle school moments after a tornado drill. No deaths had been reported.

A firefighter videotaped two twisters moving through St. James, said Phelps County emergency management director Bruce Southard. He estimated the tornadoes were on the ground for 10 minutes.

"It's devastating," he said. "We've got nice houses that are just tore to pieces."

In northwest Arkansas, Deborah Massey, 51, died when her boat was struck by lightning as she and Preston Starritt, 36, both of Prairie Grove, were on Bob Kidd Lake, Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder said. Starritt was injured and treated at a hospital.

Several tornadoes were reported in the region, where power was knocked out, trees broken and at least one home damaged.

"I've seen storms come through, but nothing that's taken down poles like this," Springdale police Sgt. Billy Turnbough said flagpoles bent sideways.

Three dead, thousands evacuated as Kolkata flooded


An Indian pedestrian carries his briefcase upon his shoulder as he walks through a waterlogged street of Kolkata, September 22. Three people were electrocuted and more than 2,000 evacuated after the heaviest rains in 23 years left large parts of the eastern Indian city of Kolkata under water.(AFP/Str/File)

KOLKATA (AFP) - Three people were electrocuted and more than 2,000 evacuated after the heaviest rains in 23 years left large parts of the eastern Indian city of Kolkata under water.

Residents blamed the city's poor drainage system for failing to carry away the rainwater that had turned the city into a swamp.

But Mayor Bikash Bhattacharya said there was little the capital city of West Bengal state could do.

"It's hard to fight nature's fury," he said Saturday. "If it rains beyond our capacity, we can merely watch the city going under water and wait for it to limp back to normal."

Some of the city's roads were waist-deep in water and the rainwater had invaded homes and swanky shopping malls alike.

"Life has virtually grounded to a halt as vast tracts of the city are under water for a second day with transport off the roads," said deputy police commissioner P. K. Chattopadhyay.

"Three people were electrocuted in the southern fringe of the city after their house was flooded," he said. "Rubber boats have been deployed in the worst-affected areas of the city and more than 2,000 people evacuated from different parts."

Twister rips roof off school seconds after drill


A rainbow rises behind a Missouri convenience store damaged Friday.

ST. JAMES, Missouri (AP) -- Severe thunderstorms spawned tornadoes, large hail and lightning in parts of the Midwest on Friday, killing a boater trying to get to shore.

Two tornadoes swept through south-central Missouri Friday afternoon, damaging more than 100 homes and tearing off part of a roof at a middle school moments after a tornado drill. No deaths had been reported.

A firefighter videotaped two twisters moving through St. James, said Phelps County emergency management director Bruce Southard. He estimated the tornadoes were on the ground for 10 minutes.

"It's devastating," he said. "We've got nice houses that are just tore to pieces."

In northwest Arkansas, Deborah Massey, 51, died when her boat was struck by lightning as she and Preston Starritt, 36, both of Prairie Grove, were on Bob Kidd Lake, Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder said. Starritt was injured and treated at a hospital.

Several tornadoes were reported in the region, where power was knocked out, trees broken and at least one home damaged.

"I've seen storms come through, but nothing that's taken down poles like this," Springdale police Sgt. Billy Turnbough said flagpoles bent sideways.

Carolina quake rattles homes, nerves

BENNETTSVILLE, South Carolina (AP) -- A minor earthquake shook homes and broke windows around this community Friday morning, but no injuries or serious damage was reported.

The shaking was felt in Marlboro and Chesterfield counties, adjacent counties on North Carolina state line. The U.S. Geological Survey reported the 3.5-magnitude quake struck at 7:22 a.m. about 6 miles north-northwest of Bennettsville.

"We had some folks saying the whole house shook," including some who fled outdoors, said Roy Allison, emergency manager for Marlboro County.

Generally magnitude 3.5 quakes cannot be felt.

"This one is a little small for having those sorts of things -- houses shaking or cracking windows. What it tells you is the house may be on ground that is a little more susceptible" to shaking, said Norm Levine, an assistant professor of geology at the College of Charleston.

Storms leave 170 dead in Bangladesh, India
Strong winds, heavy rain have left around 375,000 homeless

DHAKA - Storms that battered Bangladesh and eastern India have killed more than 170 people and left many missing, navy and coastguard officials said on Saturday.

Most of the victims were fishermen caught in the storm on Tuesday night while fishing in the Bay of Bengal, government officials said.

They said over a dozen navy vessels, other boats and helicopters launched a massive search and rescue operation off the Bangladesh coast on Saturday, as hopes of finding the missing alive faded fast.

“The sea is still very rough, hampering rescue efforts,” a coastguard official said.

Strong winds and heavy rain triggered by the storm also made around 375,000 people homeless in India and Bangladesh over the past four days, officials said.

Hundreds of fishermen unaccounted for
Authorities say that while many boats have managed to return to shore, the navy and coastguard are still looking for hundreds of fishermen who remain unaccounted for.

In the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, constant rain and flooding have killed around 30 people, and forced 350,000 living mainly in coastal areas from their homes.

“People have been killed mostly from houses collapsing, lightning, trees landing on them,” said Mriganka Biswas from the state’s relief department.

“Victims are now living under tarpaulin sheets provided by the government,” he said, adding that around 70,000 homes had been destroyed in the state.

In West Bengal’s capital, Kolkata, police used boats on Friday to rescue hundreds of families stranded in low-lying slums.

The storms also killed more than 40 people and left nearly 15,000 homeless in Andhra Pradesh state on India’s east coast.

Helene again reaches hurricane strength

MIAMI - Helene became a hurricane again Saturday as it moved quickly over the open Atlantic, and the storm will likely create hazardous surf conditions for Bermuda, forecasters said.

Helene's top sustained winds strengthened from 70 mph to 90 mph, above the 74 mph threshold to be classified as a hurricane, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said in a special advisory. Helene had been downgraded to a tropical storm Friday night.

Typhoon pummels Japanese isles, seen missing Tokyo

TOKYO (Reuters) - A powerful typhoon passed over a small group of Japanese islands on Saturday, but forecasters said the storm would veer further north into the Pacific and have little impact on Tokyo.

Typhoon Yagi, whose name means "goat" in Japanese, weakened to a Category 4 typhoon by late Friday from a Category 5, according to British-based Web site Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com), and was expected to weaken further on Saturday and Sunday.

Japanese forecasters said the storm had winds of up to 162 km (101 miles) per hour, and at 11:40 a.m. (0240 GMT), the center of the storm was about 200 km north of Chichijima, a subtropical resort island with a population of 2,000.

Television footage showed high waves pounding breakwaters in Chichijima. There were reports of blackouts, but none of injuries.

Yagi was moving north at 20 km (13 miles) per hour but was expected to start turning east on Sunday, after which it would start weakening sharply, an official at the Japanese Meteorological Agency said.

The storm follows Typhoon Shanshan, whose heavy rains and strong winds killed nine people and injured hundreds in southwestern Japan last weekend.

More severe weather and flooding today across U.S.


Mostly Women die in Baghdad tanker bomb

At least 31 people have been killed in a car bomb attack on a kerosene tanker in the mainly Shia district of Sadr City in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
The BBC's Ian Pannell in Baghdad says most of the victims were women queuing for cooking fuel to use throughout the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

US officials have predicted an increase in violence throughout Ramadan.

Meanwhile, Iraqi officials say they have captured a leader of violent Sunni militant group, Ansar al-Sunna.

The bomb attack is one of the deadliest in Iraq in recent weeks.

At least another 20 people were injured in the bomb blast, and Iraqi police Colonel Saad Abdul-Sada said that the death toll could rise further.

One witness spoke of their horror at the attack: "What did those people do? The poor civilians were trying to get kerosene and gasoline. All of them were women and children."

War Demos To Greet Blair

ens of thousands of anti-war protesters will take to the streets of Manchester today on the eve of Tony Blair's last party conference as leader.

The demonstrators want British troops to be withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan.

With as many as 30,000 expected to converge on the city, Greater Manchester police said it is likely to be the biggest protest they have ever had to deal with.

Around 1,250 officers will be on duty during the march and rally.

The theme, Time To Go, reflects calls for British troops to leave Iraq and Afghanistan and there will be speeches against replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system.

Yasmeen Ataulah of the British Muslim Initiative, which is helping to organise the event, said: "The injustice, lawlessness and devastation that the innocent people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon suffer are all a consequence of Tony Blair's collusion with the United States and Israel.

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