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"Only God can change the climate"

ESITETI, Kenya, Nov 12 (Reuters) - At the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, an elderly Maasai village chief squints up at the summit and says only God can explain the shrinking snowcap and worsening droughts.

"The snows are getting smaller year by year," Kinyaol Porboli, the chief of Esiteti village, told Reuters at the base of Africa's highest peak at 5,895 metres (19,340 feet).

Many a travel brochure has shown the pastoralist Maasai, with their spears and bright red robes, standing before the towering peak which is a life-giver to their tribe and Kenya's crucial tourism economy. But now both may be threatened.

Cattle in the village died in droughts in 2005, 1997 and 1989, said Porboli, who does not know his exact age but reckons he may be 100. This year, some tiny green shoots are coming up through the dust around the village.

"Twenty years ago I had never seen droughts in which our cattle died ... in the old days droughts were short," he said, adding that now "droughts are increasing."

"It's linked to the mountain," he said, wrapped in a red robe and sitting on a stool in the shade of a toothbrush tree outside his village of 70 people who live in windowless huts made from branches and dried cow dung.

"Only God can change the climate," Porboli said when asked about the cause of the shrinking snow. "Only God can stop the rains and bring drought, or divide the seasons."

CLOSER TO HOME

The United Nations, hosting Nov. 6-17 climate talks in Nairobi 240 km (150 miles) north, reckons blame for the vanishing snows of Kilimanjaro lies closer to hand -- with global warming linked to human use of fossil fuels.

In Nairobi, a U.N. poster shows pictures comparing current snows, which appear only near the summit of Kilimanjaro, with a white cap far down the mountain almost 100 years ago.

"Mount Kilimanjaro's disappearing snows are believed to be linked to climate change," it says.

The 189-nation Nairobi talks are seeking ways to widen a fight against global warming that many scientists say could cause rising seas, more heatwaves, droughts and floods.

But some researchers say the shrinking snows may be linked to deforestation around the base of Kilimanjaro. Logging and land clearance to sow crops may have made the region drier -- cutting rains and snow.

"It's true that farmers are planting their crops higher up," said Rinkoine, 32, a Maasai warrior with a long knife on his belt, pointing to farmland on the slopes of the mountain over the border in nearby Tanzania.

He also said that a rising population of elephants was eating and knocking over more trees.

Whatever the causes, the Maasai fear for livelihoods based on herding goats and cattle. Some said springs on the plains near Kilimanjaro were drying up because of repeated droughts.

"Drought is a very big problem, affecting everything in our life. Poverty will increase," Porboli said.

"When the cows die from the drought we can only sell the skins at a low price," he said. "When there are rains we have enough to eat and everyone is happy."

The Wenatchee River runs through a fruit orchard near the Monitor, Wash., bridge Tuesday, Nov. 7, while rain continues to fall.

New storm system to move into Northwest

SEATTLE (AP) — Residents across the Pacific Northwest were cleaning up the muck and mess left by heavy rains and flooding that were blamed for three deaths, but forecasters said Saturday that more rain and possibly strong winds were on the way.
A storm system, expected to move in Sunday night, was not expected to be as dramatic as the past week's storms. Forecasters said there was little chance of more flooding; most of the precipitation was expected to fall as snow in the Cascade Mountains. Saturday's snow advisory was for 5 to 10 inches by Sunday morning.

However, up to 1.5 inches of rain was expected for the Puget Sound area in western Washington, according to the National Weather Service in Seattle.

Strong winds and possibly heavy rains were forecast for Oregon. National Weather Service forecasters in Portland were concerned that heavy winds will topple trees standing in saturated soil.

Flood warnings in Washington remained Saturday for the Cedar River in King County as well as the Cowlitz River below Mayfield Dam and the White River below Mud Mountain Dam. Twenty-four counties asked residents to report flood-related damages in advance of visits by state and federal authorities next week.

In Oregon, flooding carved up a major highway near Mount Hood. The road is closed indefinitely, state transportation officials said.

A jeepney drives through part of a road in Bagu, north of Manila, which is flooded by heavy rains from Typhoon Chebi.

Typhoon Chebi loses steam after causing floods, damage in Philippines

MANILA (AP) — Typhoon Chebi weakened Saturday as it sliced through the center of the Philippines' main island of Luzon, causing floods, toppling trees and power lines, and damaging crops, officials said.
The typhoon slammed into the northeastern province of Aurora early Saturday with maximum winds of 121 miles per hour and gusts of up 143 mph.

The Manila weather bureau said the typhoon lost some of its energy after hitting the Sierra Madre mountain range on Luzon's eastern flanks. The bureau says a storm packing winds of 73 mph or more is a typhoon.

With winds down to 88 mph and gusts of 106 mph, it blew westward from Aurora to Pangasinan, passing over the provinces of Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, and Tarlac.

By 4 p.m. local time, eight hours after it made landfall, Chebi further weakened to 75 mph as it reached the coastal area of Pangasinan, from where it is expected to head out into the South China Sea early Saturday evening.

It will likely gain strength as it travels over the South China Sea toward Vietnam, forecaster Jun Kindipan said.

Nery Amparo, chief of the Office of Civil Affairs in the central Luzon region, said strong winds toppled trees and electric towers, knocking out power and blocking roads in Aurora, about 125 miles northeast of Manila.

At least four villages in the hardest-hit town of Casiguran were flooded but there were no evacuations, Amparo said. Two people were wounded when a coconut tree fell on a house also in Casiguran, and strong winds destroyed two houses and damaged a dozen others, she added.

Several villages in San Jose town in the rice-growing province of Nueva Ecija were under 4 feet of floodwater, submerging farms and ready-to-harvest rice crops, Amparo said.

She said she expects the floodwaters to subside quickly, but warned that the rice crop would be permanently damaged if it remains submerged for two days. She gave no other details.

The typhoon hampered communications between the regional disaster center and its provincial units, particularly in Aurora where information were relayed mostly by radio and cellular phone text messages, Amparo said.

Officials had earlier warned residents in the path of typhoon to be on alert for flash floods and landslides.

Many of the areas had suffered damage last week when Typhoon Cimaron slammed the same region, leaving 19 people dead in flash flood and landslides. It came on the heels of Typhoon Xangsane, which left 230 people dead and missing in and around Manila in late September.

About 20 typhoons and tropical storms lash the country each year. Chebi, the Korean word for the swallow bird, is the 17th this season.

Heavy rain to impact both coasts