Afghan flooding kills 56, NATO flies in aid

HERAT, Afghanistan, Nov 18 (Reuters) - At least 56 people have been killed and scores more are missing after severe flooding in northwestern Afghanistan this week, and NATO airlifted emergency aid on Saturday, officials said.

Relief workers and the governor of Badghis province, Mohammad Nasim Tokhi, said at least 50 people were still missing and more than 1,000 people had been made homeless.

NATO sent a reconstruction team to the worst-affected areas and flew in fresh supplies on Saturday.

"It's the things that will help people the most -- medical supplies, blankets, the things that will keep them warm at night," said NATO spokesman Major Luke Knittig.

Heavy rain at the start of winter has destroyed about 10 villages in Badghis and 150 homes in neighbouring Herat province. There were no early reports of casualties in Herat.

Afghanistan has been hit by heavy snow and rain in recent days.

CONGO: Six die as heavy rains continue to pound Brazzaville

BRAZZAVILLE, 17 November (IRIN) - Six people have died and at least 5,000 others rendered homeless by heavy rains that have caused extensive flooding in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo.

The rains have continued non-stop for the past three days, sweeping away houses and causing massive population displacement, a government official said on Friday on national radio.

The deaths occurred in the past two weeks after landslides in Brazzaville's southwestern neighbourhood of Kinsoundi, the official said. Two of the dead were children aged six and eight.

The deputy head of Kinsoundi, Philip Kokolo, said the authorities had abandoned those affected, many of whom are without food, clothes and shelter.

The worst-hit Brazzaville neighbourhoods include Ngamakosso, Mama Mbouale and Mpila in the northeast, bordering the Congo River, which sometimes bursts its banks.

The floods have also caused the suspension of rail traffic on the route between Brazzaville and the port city of Pointe Noire in the south. The floodwaters have totally submerged the railway lines.

At least 5,000 Brazzaville residents are homeless after landslides, erosion and flooding damaged or swept away buildings. The displaced also lost most of their household property.

"The rains have made moving around town and its surroundings difficult," Tsoumou Gavouka, the director-general in the Ministry of Social Affairs, Solidarity, Humanitarian Action and Family, said. "Most roads without tarmac have become impassable."

Since mid-October, the country has been experiencing heavy rains, which meteorologists say should subside in December.

Despite the government recently adopting a national plan to deal with natural disasters, it has failed to cope with the effect of the ongoing heavy rains.

Flood-hit refugees call for help in Kenya

DADAAB, Kenya, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Solomon Pile waded waist-deep through the flood water carrying his bicycle above his head, searching for higher ground after torrential rain swept away his family's makeshift shelter.

"We need help," the 17-year-old Somali refugee called out, swaying unsteadily in the fast-flowing water. "We left the camp and moved into the bush, but our food has been spoiled and we are drinking the floodwater."

This week the U.N. said more than 78,000 people had lost their homes to floods in northeastern Kenya's Dadaab area, and three vast refugee camps there were completely cut off.

Torrential rains and floods have hit up to 1.8 million people in the Horn of Africa, driving tens of thousands from their homes and threatening to trigger epidemics, U.N. aid bodies say.

Some 160,000 mostly Somalis shelter in the Dadaab camps -- Ifo, Dagahaley and Hagadera -- in shacks of twisted sticks and plastic sheets, having fled growing tensions in their homeland.

On Friday, the UNHCR refugee agency had hoped to deliver emergency aid to the worst affected groups, particularly the sick and elderly. But the fast-rising waters drove them back.

Four-wheel-drive vehicles became bogged down in thick mud and were left to be recovered later. Staff returned to Dadaab town on foot. More rain is forecast over the next two weeks.

The U.N. is now considering using donkeys and carts, or even boats, to distribute supplies.

REDIRECT WATERS

Satimo Ibrahim, a 40-year-old mother of six, said things were so bad she had seen people sleeping on top of toilet blocks to escape the floods.

Her family was sleeping in a crumbling kitchen, after their three-bedroom shack was swept away.

"Our immediate need is to redirect the waters away from the houses that remain standing," she said.

The hospital at Ifo camp was badly damaged by the floods, and some patients had to be moved on stretchers.

On Friday, a mechanical digger hacked out protection dikes around Dagahaley camp as residents were called to stack sandbags around other medical centres and lift hundreds of sacks of U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) maize and sorghum onto pallets out of reach of the waters.

WFP said more than 30 tonnes of food was already spoiled.

UNHCR temporarily withdrew all its staff from the three camps on Friday, and encouraged residents to move to higher ground where it is preparing water points and latrines.

They say they are preparing for possible typhoid, cholera and malaria outbreaks, but they have met some resistance.

"We can't shift because we would be leaving all our necessities behind," said Ifo camp chairman Ahmed Aden chewing his last leaves of khat, a mild stimulant now in short supply.

"What about the aid agency offices, the ration distribution centre and the hospital?"

Mainers lose power as wind knocks down tree limbs

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Trees in soil left saturated by days of rain were uprooted Friday when high winds hit the state, knocking down power lines and leaving thousands of Mainers without electric service.

Central Maine Power Co. said it had restored power by Friday afternoon to the bulk of the 13,000 customers who had experienced outages earlier in the day. Most of those affected were in the Skowhegan, Dover-Foxcroft and Brunswick areas.

Days of rain and drizzle were accompanied by high winds and unseasonably warm temperatures ranging as high as 64°F in Augusta, and 63°F in Caribou and Bangor on Friday. The weather service posted advisories warning of wind gusts up to 55 mph in some areas.

In addition to uprooting several trees, six utility poles were broken by the powerful wind, CMP spokeswoman Gail Rice said. The Maine Emergency Management Agency said outages were also reported in Hancock County.

Flood watches remained in effect as the rain began to work its way out of the state toward the Canadian Maritime provinces. The National Weather Service in Gray posted flood watches in western Maine from Fryeburg to Carrabassett Valley, and also in central and mid-coastal parts of the state.

The strong winds were expected to die down late Friday afternoon and give way to clearing and cooler temperatures as the weekend arrives.

While the flood watch remained in effect, MEMA duty officer Mark Belserene said ponding in low-lying areas where rain had saturated the soil was more of a problem than rivers and streams spilling over their banks.

"The rivers and streams that usually flood seem to be holding their own," Belserene said.

A powerful storm system that brought heavy rain up the East Coast Thursday was blamed for multiple deaths in other states. Forecasters said the rain would clear out from west to east as a cool front moves through for the weekend, with high temperatures in the 40s to near 50 for Saturday.

Survivors go through North Carolina tornado rubble

RIEGELWOOD, N.C. — Survivors picked through the rubble of their flattened homes Friday and divers planned to search a nearby pond after a tornado killed eight people in this riverside town, the area hardest hit by a devastating storm system that swept into the Northeast overnight.
Gov. Mike Easley said Friday that four of the 20 people injured when the tornado struck Riegelwood remained in "very, very critical condition." Several of the injured were children.

The deadly storms left a three-day path of destruction from Louisiana to Maine, killing 12 people, knocking out power and flooding streets.

Hundreds of people in New York and dozens in Maryland had to be rescued Thursday from homes and cars caught in flash flooding. Most of Maine was still under a flood watch Friday.

The tornado that hit Riegelwood left about 100 people homeless, but all residents were believed to have been accounted for, Columbus County Sheriff Chris Batten said Friday. He said a water search team still planned to check a nearby pond for any additional victims.

Residents, meanwhile, were getting a chance to retrieve whatever valuables they could salvage from devastated homes.

Darryl McNair had been sleeping when the tornado picked up his mobile home and tossed it across the street into his neighbor's yard.

"You could feel the house moving," McNair, 34, said during a break from picking through rubble Friday.

"My whole life was in that house," he said. "Everything that was me was in that house. How could you lose everything in so short a time? I struggled to get that stuff and now it's all out in the road like it was nothing."

As the storms moved northward with heavy rain, officials in Broome County near the Pennsylvania line rescued more than 200 residents from cars caught in flooding and from homes as water approached front doors and poured into basements.

One man clung to a tree as his car was swept away by flood water, county spokeswoman Darcy Fauci said. Sections of Interstate 88 east of Binghamton remained closed by mudslides Friday.

"Lots of roads are washed out, several areas of the city are shut down and impassible," said Lt. John Shea of the Binghamton Police Department. "But, as we speak, things are improving because the rain has stopped."

Dozens of schools in Broome, Chenango and Delaware counties were closed Friday, many because of impassable roads.

Three freight cars derailed in Bowie, Md., and investigators were trying to determine whether the storm caused the wreck, CSX Corp. spokesman Gary Sease said. The empty coal hoppers jumped off tracks shared with Amtrak trains, bringing down some power lines. No one was injured.

Amtrak service was delayed between Baltimore and Washington on Friday, while a commuter line serving the cities was suspended for the day.

Most of the dead in Riegelwood were found within 200 yards of where the tornado touched down, Batten said.

"We assume they were literally consumed by the tornado," he said.

The community on the Cape Fear River, about 20 miles west of Wilmington, has no tornado sirens.

"There was no warning. There was no time," said Cissy Kennedy, a radiologist's assistant who lives in the area. "It just came out from nowhere."

Three tornadoes also touched down in the western part of the state — destroying about a dozen homes and downing trees in Lincoln, Iredell and Gaston Counties, the National Weather Service said Friday. Officials said five people were injured.

In Louisiana, a man died Wednesday when a tornado struck his home. In South Carolina, a utility worker checking power lines Thursday during the storm was electrocuted. Two people died in car crashes in North Carolina as heavy rain pounded the state.

Red Cross meet seeks to reduce Asia's disaster toll

SINGAPORE (AFP) - Tsunamis, typhoons, landslides, earthquakes -- Asia is the world's most disaster-prone region and from Monday, Red Cross and Red Crescent societies will gather here to try to reduce the death toll.

"The four-day meeting in Singapore... will examine ways to cut down on the number of deaths and injuries from disasters and disease in Asia Pacific and the Middle East, while harnessing the power of communities to become more resilient and better prepared for the next time disaster strikes," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement.

The meeting of the organization's societies from the region and the Middle East will also set the Red Cross-Red Crescent humanitarian agenda for the next four years, it said.

Winston Choo, chairman of the Singapore Red Cross, said the gathering allows societies in the region to learn from experiences in responding to disasters "and put forward a regional strategy" to protect vulnerable citizens and improve their lives.

"This year alone, 15 Asian nations faced severe flooding, landslides and typhoons," Choo said.

Among the topics under discussion will be the humanitarian repercussions of this year's war between Israel and the Hezbollah Shiite militia in Lebanon, stopping the spread of infectious diseases, and assistance for vulnerable people in North Korea, the Federation statement said.

"Since 1995, Asia has consistently ranked as the continent most frequently hit by natural catastrophes, accounting for 60 percent of the world's disasters and 78 percent of global disaster-related deaths," it said.

In December 2004, more than 220,000 people died when a tsunami struck Indonesia and other nations around the Indian Ocean, in one of the deadliest natural disasters ever.

Another 74,000 people died and 3.5 million were left homeless from a massive South Asian earthquake in October 2005.

Early this year, an estimated 1,400 people were feared dead when a landslide unleashed a sea of mud that buried a farming village on the Philippines island of Leyte.

In June, more than 5,800 people died when an earthquake hit the area around Yogyakarta in Indonesia. Hundreds more died the following month during a tsunami that struck the southern coast of Java island.

Raccoons invade California enclave

LOS ANGELES - One balmy summer night, Larna Hartnack awoke to the cries of her dog Charlie and, to her horror, found the Dalmatian in a battle for her life — pinned by a gang of raccoons that tore into her flesh and nearly gnawed off her tail.

Charlie survived. But recurring raccoon attacks on dogs and other creatures have unnerved people along the Venice Canals, a funky, well-to-do beach neighborhood packed with ardent dog lovers, many of whom are now afraid to walk their pets at night or leave them alone in the back yard.

Communities around the country are plagued by destructive or aggressive raccoons, and many of them routinely trap, remove and even kill the animals. But this being California, the city's animal-control agency is instead urging people to try to get along with the raccoons — a notion that strikes some as political correctness gone wild.

"What we're trying to inculcate in the L.A. community is a reverence for life. If we have more reverence for life, it translates into all our programs — for women and infants, the elderly and everybody in our community," said Ed Boks, the head of Los Angeles Animal Services.

"As we develop these programs that demonstrate our compassion for creatures completely at our mercy, it makes for a more compassionate society all the way around."

Wildlife experts are commending the city for resisting demands to remove the raccoons. No-kill policies are rare among animal-control agencies in the U.S., and most apply only to dogs and cats. In Los Angeles, rabies in raccoons is not as big a threat as it is in other parts of the country, and there may be more sympathy for wildlife.

"Los Angeles is typically one of the more progressive agencies," said John Hadidian, director of the Humane Society's urban wildlife program. "I consider this a welcome sign that others might follow soon."

The strategy has angered some residents.

"Oh my God. I don't think I've ever been more insulted as a woman to be compared to a voiceless raccoon," said Hartnack, owner of Charlie the Dalmatian. She said the agency "seems more concerned with making a political statement than protecting people."

"Once you've been attacked by these animals and have them hanging out on your deck, your respect for their lives is lower than your respect for your animal's life and your own security," she said.

The animal-control agency sees people as part of the problem: They are tempting raccoons by leaving dog food and trash bags unguarded.

"If you live in a high-crime area and don't put bars on your windows and you've had break-ins before, you're asking for it," said Gregory Randall, a wildlife specialist with the agency. "Our goal here is coexistence and making the alterations you need to make."

In most cases, the city traps animals only if they are injured or attack people, he said.

Wildlife experts are reluctant to move the raccoons to the wilderness because they could have trouble surviving and might introduce diseases. Also, Randall said raccoons do not attack unless cornered.

He advised residents to try to keep raccoons out of their homes by getting rid of trellises and bougainvillea, closing cat doors and locking up kibble. Strobe lights, motion-activated sprinklers and talk radio can scare off the animals.

Venice Canals, a community of 400 homes, is the kind of place where nearby shopkeepers greet customers and their dogs by name and often have a bowl of water or dog biscuits on hand. One resident turned part of his property into a dog park.

Dogs have not been the only victims of the raccoons. They have chomped on ducks, a parrot and the legs of a turtle that they dug out of hibernation. Nadine Parkos, former president of the Venice Canals homeowners association, said the koi fish in her pond were massacred.

Some residents tried to trap the raccoons but instead snared two cats and an opossum.

As for Charlie the Dalmatian, fur has grown over her scars, but she still whimpers and cowers when she sees raccoons approaching the family deck.

Hartnack and her husband have bought a BB gun and got the dog a stuffed raccoon.

"She loves attacking it," Hartnack said.