Tsunami slap Hawaii, California north coast

HONOLULU - Tsunamis generated by a major earthquake near Japan left behind little damage but offered a legitimate test of international warning systems.

The waves, some measuring a few feet high, struck Hawaii shores Wednesday, slightly injuring one swimmer and temporarily flooding a harbor. A surge along California's northern coast destroyed two docks in Crescent City Harbor.

The waves hit Hawaii about six hours after a magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck north of Japan. Tsunami warnings were issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, which reported that its system of sending alerts functioned properly.

"It went very smoothly, and there weren't any major problems at all," said Brian Shiro, a geophysicist at the center. "We issued a warning for 1,000 kilometers surrounding the earthquake and an advisory for the rest of the Pacific Ocean."

The alerts were canceled once the center received further information that showed the tsunami was going to be small, he said. The center canceled the tsunami watch for Hawaii when it became clear the waves were unlikely to top one meter, or about 3.3 feet.

But local civil defense authorities still warned people to stay out of the water and to exercise caution near harbors, given the possibility the earthquake would generate unusual currents around Hawaii.

A woman swimming at Waikiki suffered cuts when she was sucked through an opening in a seawall as the water receded just before the swells arrived. She was otherwise fine, said John Cummings, a spokesman for Oahu Civil Defense.

On Kauai, a 2 1/2-foot swell flooded a parking lot at Nawiliwili Harbor. No serious damage was reported.

"Some of the boats hit the bottom with their keels when the water receded, sort of jostled them around their moorings when the wave came through," said Mark Marshall, Kauai County civil defense administrator.

In California, the weather service reported ocean surges as high as 6 feet and waves moving up to 30 mph but did not call an official tsunami warning or watch.

Harbor workers at Crescent City — about 20 miles south of Oregon's state line — noticed a fast-moving current around mid-afternoon that harbor master Richard Young described as a "river within the ocean."

As the surge rushed out of the harbor, two floating docks in the inner basin were destroyed, Young said. Another surge followed, severely damaging a third dock, he said.

Several vessels attached to the destroyed docks bobbed away from their anchorage and likely received dings and possibly greater damages, the harbor master said.

Young said the replacement costs of the docks could range from $300,000 to $700,000.

Thousands of people living along northern Japan's Pacific coast fled to higher ground, but Japan's meteorological agency withdrew its tsunami warning after about three hours. The waves near Japan did not swell higher than 23 inches.

Pacific tsunami alert triggers panic in Philippines

MANILA, Nov. 16 (Reuters) - Hundreds of residents of coastal towns in northern and central Philippines evacuated on Thursday despite official assurances that there was no threat of a tsunami following a major quake in the north Pacific.

Entire villages were abandoned as mobile telephone text messages from people warning of 40-foot (12-metre) waves caused panic among villagers after an estimated 8.1 magnitude earthquake struck 1,700 km (1,000 miles) northeast of Tokyo late on Wednesday.

Disaster officials had issued an alert level 2 -- meaning coastal dewellers should be watchful -- late on Wednesday after the quake but cancelled the advisory shortly after midnight when no large waves occured.

Hundreds of residents remain on higher ground, afraid to go home.

"We need a better advisory system," Renato Solidum, head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, told a local radio station. "We need a clearer way of disseminating information. We don't want people to panic."

Small tsunami waves hit Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido just before 10 pm (1300 GMT) on Wednesday but there were no reports of more significant waves either in Japan or Russia's sparsely populated Kurile islands.

Disaster officials advised coastal residents in Cagayan, Isabela and Quirino provinces in the northeastern Philippines to return home because there was no danger of giant waves hitting their communities.

But one woman told the radio station people were still fleeing the area. "Our neighbours are still packing and ready to go to nearby hills. There were only two families left here and we're preparing to leave too."

People feared a repeat of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami -- Japanese for "harbour wave" -- that killed or left missing up to 232,000 people in late 2004. The Philippines was not affected by that earthquake.

Fire department personnel survey storm damage at The Fun Zone, a skating rink and entertainment complex for children in Montgomery, Ala., Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2006. The roof collapsed at the facility due to high winds. (AP Photo/Jamie Martin)

At least 7 dead as storms hit North Carolina

RIEGELWOOD, N.C. - A tornado ripped apart a mobile home park in this tiny riverside community early Thursday, killing at least seven people and raising the death toll from a devastating band of thunderstorms sweeping across the South to 10.

Officials searching for victims amid the wreckage of Riegelwood cautioned that death toll still could rise.

Dozens of homes were destroyed when the tornado struck the Cape Fear River community, about 20 miles west of the coastal city of Wilmington. Searches had found seven bodies in the wreckage by midday, and "that number very well may go up," said County Commissioner Chairman Kip Godwin, the designated spokesman for the county's emergency management office.

"When a tornado hits a mobile home, it's probably much more devastating," Godwin said. "Most of these homes were blown off their foundations and are now just piles of debris."

Two other people died in North Carolina car crashes amid in the storms' strong wind and pounding rain early Thursday, and another person died Wednesday when a tornado struck his home in Louisiana as the storms began their path of destruction across the South.

In Riegelwood, the hardest hit community, rescue workers used back hoes and front-end loaders to search the rubble of the mobile home park.

Alton Edwards, a member of the volunteer Acme-Delco-Riegelwood Fire and Rescue team, said storm struck "with very little warning."

"There were cars on top of one another," he said. "It's just about as bad as it gets."

New York summer heat wave killed 140: health officials

NEW YORK (AFP) - A heat wave that hit New York in July and August left far more people dead than previously thought, authorities said, with an official report putting the number of dead at around 140.

The report from New York's health department found that the 10-day heat wave killed 40 people through heatstroke but that an estimated 100 others likely died of natural causes attributable to the high temperatures.

Health officials had previously put the number of dead at 24.

The record temperatures saw the heat index, which takes humidity into account, reaching 111 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius).

"Findings from this investigation suggest that encouraging friends and family members to help relocate those at highest risk... might save lives in future heat waves," the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene report said.

It particularly suggested relocating the elderly, who were the worst affected. More than half of those who died of heatstroke were over 65.

The heat prompted city officials to declare a state of emergency for the first time, fearing that demand for air conditioning would cause a blackout.

Officials ordered the lights on city landmarks like the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building to be dimmed to conserve power.

New Northwest storm cut power to 150,000
Wind gusts over 70 mph; rain renews flooding fears

SUMNER, Wash. - Rain and wind again battered the Puget Sound region, leaving tens of thousands of people without power and setting a rainfall record in Seattle as authorities began assessing the damage from floods last week.

The storms hit Wednesday as state and federal emergency management officials began touring areas hit hard by flooding that killed two, forced hundreds of people from their homes and damaged structures throughout Western Washington.

The new storms packed less rain but stronger winds, blowing down trees, closing roads and bridges and leaving roughly 150,000 homes and businesses without electricity.

Puget Sound Energy, the state's largest utility, reported 30,000 customers still in the dark early Thursday, mostly in the northwest part of the state, and spokeswoman Dorothy Bracken said some might not get power again until Saturday. Repair crews were being summoned from as far as California and Colorado, she said.

At the peak the utility had about 135,000 customers without power as winds gusted to more than 70 mph, Bracken said.

A blown-down tree blocked the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 for a time near Bellingham, and State Route 104 was closed for several hours over the Hood Canal floating bridge between the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas.

With rainfall largely ending by daybreak Thursday, National Weather Service flood warnings remained in effect for mostly minor overflows of the Skagit River from Concrete to Sedro-Woolley and the Puyallup River near Orting, southeast of Tacoma.

The latest rains raised the total for the month to 11.63 inches at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as of 8 p.m. PT Wednesday, breaking the old record of 11.62 inches set in November 1998, the National Weather Service reported.

Halfway into November, it's the sixth wettest month in the city's recorded history. No. 1 was December 1933 with 15.33 inches at the old downtown Federal Building.

Storm expected Sunday
A storm packing rain and wind similar to that of Wednesday is expected on Sunday, and Clifford Mass, a University of Washington meteorologist told The Seattle Times the end of November is historically the stormiest time of the year in the region.

"The jet stream is basically moving right over us," he said. "We're right in the storm track."

Local, state and federal teams ventured into the stormy weather Wednesday to examine damage to private property in this town east of Tacoma. Preliminary assessments also began in King County, which includes Seattle, and surveys were set to begin Friday in Snohomish County.

In the Snoqualmie River basin east of Seattle, the teams included representative from the state, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Small Business Administration and King County emergency management department.

Results will be forwarded to Gov. Chris Gregoire, who may use them to help decide whether to ask President Bush to declare parts of the state a federal disaster area and thus eligible for federal cleanup and rebuilding assistance, said Rob Harper, spokesman for the state's Emergency Management Division.

A state of emergency was issued for 24 counties last week.

There was excessive flooding along the Puyallup, Carbon and White rivers in Pierce County and at one point more than 1,500 people were evacuated from their homes.

On Tuesday, the Pierce County Department of Emergency Management issued a preliminary report of more than $40 million in damage to private property, with at least 175 residential properties and nine businesses affected.

In Snohomish County, flood damage to personal property is estimated between $3.3 million and $3.5 million, said Chris Badger, the county's deputy director of emergency management.

A displaced family is seen seeking refuge on a dry spot in Dadaab, Kenya, November 12. Unusually heavy seasonal rains are threatening Somalia with its worst floods in 50 years while the impoverished Horn of Africa country teeters on the brink of all-out war, the United Nations said.(AFP/File/Frederic Courbet)

On brink of war, Somalia faces worst floods in 50 years: UN

NAIROBI (AFP) - Unusually heavy seasonal rains are threatening Somalia with its worst floods in 50 years while the impoverished Horn of Africa country teeters on the brink of all-out war, the United Nations said.

As forces loyal to the weak government and powerful Islamist movement gird for full-scale conflict that many fear could engulf the wider region, some 50,000 Somalis have been displaced by devastating and deadly floods, it said Thursday.

"According to technical agencies, Somalia could experience the worst floods in a 20- to 50-year period," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement released in the Kenyan capital.

"Contingency planning for a worst-case scenario of concurrent floods and widespread conflict is ongoing," it said, adding that parts of Islamist-held southern and central Somalia are currently uninhabitable due to flooding.

The town of Beledweyne, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) north of Mogadishu has been underwater since November 10, forcing 50,000 people from their homes, marooning another 15,000 and affecting 10,000 in nearby villages, it said.

"As the water surge flows downstream, conditions ... are expected to get worse," OCHA said.

Witnesses and local officials have told AFP that at least 43 people have drowned, including several in Beledweyne, in raging flood waters since late October when torrential downpours first caused rivers to burst their banks.

The bulk of the dead are in the Bardheere, Lower Shabelle and Gedo regions, all controlled by the Islamists who seized Mogadishu in June and now hold almost all of southern and central Somalia, they said.

South of Beledweyne, in Jalalaqsi district, OCHA said it had reports that 19 villages had been abandoned due to floods, leaving about 1,000 families homeless.

It said some 2,000 hectares (4,940 acres) of cropland and 4,000 hectares (9,900 acres) of farmland, including pasture, had been destroyed in Jalalaqsi.

In the Islamist-controlled Lower and Middle Juba regions, south and west of Mogadishu, OCHA said 40 villages had been completely inundated but no casualties had been reported.

Relief efforts have been hampered by flooded roads and the military build-up and complicated further by a ban on flights to and from Somalia imposed by neighboring Kenya this week for security reasons, it said.

"Current capacity to deliver emergency aid hinges partly on immediate air access from Kenya to Somalia," OCHA said, adding that Kenya had exempted humanitarian flights from the ban, but still required 24-hour clearance.

"Several primary roads remain impassable and flights are in many cases the only possible means of transporting aid supplies."

Somalia, a nation of about 10 million, has lacked a functioning central authority and any disaster response mechanisms since being plunged into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The rise of the Islamists poses a serious challenge to the two-year-old transitional government that has been riddled with infighting and unable to assert control in much of the nation.

Tensions between the two have been rising for months, exacerbated by "rampant arms flows" from ten countries and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement with most of the weapons going to the Islamists, according to UN experts.

A report due to be discussed by the UN Security Council on Friday says that quite apart from natural disasters, Somalia now contains "all of the ingredients for the increasing possibility of a violent, widespread, and protracted military conflict."

It says the Islamists are backed by Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Hezbollah, while the government is getting military support from Ethiopia, Uganda and Yemen.

Coal mine explosion kills 47 in China

BEIJING - All 47 miners trapped after an explosion in a northern Chinese coal mine were confirmed dead after rescuers found the last body Thursday, a news agency said.

This brought the death toll from two coal mine accidents in Shanxi province in recent days to 81, a day after rescuers at another mine mishap said all 34 miners trapped after a fire on Sunday had died.

The Xinhua News Agency said rescue work at the Jiaojiazhai colliery in Xinzhou city where the Nov. 5 gas explosion occurred was hampered by the high levels of dense, toxic gas as well as several cave-ins.

There were 393 miners working in the pit when the blast went off, and 346 of them escaped.

Casualties have been mounting in the latest string of accidents to hit China's dangerous coal mining industry, which recently has increased production to feed a surge in demand for winter heating fuel.

Elsewhere, rescuers said eight miners had died in a coal mine flood Sunday in Guizhou province in the southwest, Xinhua reported.

The flood trapped 11 miners at the Debi colliery in the county of Libo, but three were rescued, Xinhua said.

Floodwater in the shaft measured 100 feet deep — and was at least 71,000 cubic feet in volume, the report said.

China's poorly regulated mining industry is the deadliest in the world, with about 6,000 people killed each year in explosions, floods, collapses or other disasters. Lax safety rules and poor safety procedures are often to blame.

The government has launched safety campaigns in recent years and says it has closed thousands of mines in an attempt to rein in the accidents, but death tolls remain high.