President takes cover during tornado scare

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush and first lady Laura Bush were moved to an armored vehicle on their ranch Friday when a tornado warning was issued in central Texas, the White House said.

The vehicle was driven to a tornado shelter on the ranch at 1:30 p.m. CT, and the president, the first lady and their two Scottish terriers, Barney and Miss Beazley, sat inside until the weather cleared, deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel said. They were never moved into the shelter, he said. The shelter is a few hundred yards away from the president's house on the ranch.

"He was in the vehicle for about 10 minutes and then he went back to the house," Stanzel said, adding that other members of the staff at the ranch were sheltered as well.

About an hour later in Groesbeck, roughly 60 miles east of Crawford, a man was killed when a tornado struck an assisted living facility for veterans, emergency management officials said.

Earthquake in Gulf of Aden, little damage reported

ADEN, Yemen, Dec 30 (Reuters) - An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 struck the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia on Saturday, but initial reports from Yemen said it appeared to have caused little damage.

The quake was at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said on its Web site, but residents of Yemen's port city of Aden said they did not feel it.

There did not appear to be any serious damage or injuries in Aden and the sea looked calm, one resident said.

It was not clear whether the earthquake had a more serious impact on nearby Somalia.

The quake struck at 11:30 a.m local time (0830 GMT), the USGS said. It located the quake some 240 km to the west of the Yemeni island of Socotra and 325 km north of Xaafuun on the Somali coast.

Indonesian flood-displaced return, new Malaysia fear

SUKAJADI, Indonesia, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Thousands of villagers forced from their homes by floods on Indonesia's Sumatra island returned on Friday to begin cleaning up as neighbouring Malaysia braced for another deluge.

In Indonesia's Aceh and North Sumatra provinces, where floods and landslides killed as many as 141, the number of displaced fell from 400,000 to nearer 200,000 as people returned from shelters on high ground and temporary government camps.

Aid was getting through to many of those in need of food and other basics, but rain was still heavy enough in some isolated areas to block relief shipments, officials said.

"There are still five villages and two districts that we cannot reach because of the rain," health ministry crisis chief Rustam Pakaya told Reuters.

He put the death toll in the two provinces at 104, although domestic affairs minister Muhammad Maaruf later gave reporters figures totalling 141.

It is not unusual for such numbers to vary in Indonesia, where communications can lag and more than one department might have responsibility for collecting data.

Maaruf said there were 211,530 people displaced and 179 missing in the two provinces.

Many survivors who had gone home were cleaning up mud and debris on Friday, but others had found the task overwhelming and returned to the camps.

"It seems impossible to return to our home. It's full of mud," Tamilah, a villager using a truck as a shelter, told Reuters Television in Sukajadi village in Tamiang district, Aceh's worst-affected area.

"The problems are lack of food and drinking water," said Rosmini, another villager.

Pakaya said medicines, biscuits and water purifiers would be distributed and scores of clinics were being opened in affected areas to treat and prevent medical problems.

Catur Haryani, a doctor helping coordinate the aid effort in Aceh, told Reuters Television: "The health cases that we found are injuries, breathing problems and small numbers of diarrhoea."

WORST SINCE 1969

Parts of peninsular Malaysia, across the Strait of Malacca from Sumatra, were also hard hit by floods, the country's worst since 1969.

The Bernama news agency said at least 11 had been killed and 63,000 displaced, while the state Meteorological Department expected rains in Johor and southern Pahang to continue until Sunday.

"Of course, we hope there will not be a second round of the heavy rains that caused the current floods," the New Straits Times newspaper on Friday quoted Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak as saying. "But we will be ready for it if it happens."

Officials said three states including Johor, the hardest hit, would remain on red alert.

"Other states have been put on standby," Che Moin Omar, director of the government's crisis and disaster management directorate, told the newspaper.

The opposition took the government to task over its handling of the crisis.

"One woman died because no rescue boat came despite promises of help by government agencies during the past 24 hours," said Lim Guan Eng, leader of the Democratic Action Party.

Malaysian palm oil prices rocketed to 8-year highs on Thursday on fears that floods could severely cut supplies. Johor is one of Malaysia's top palm oil producers.

The floods also raised concerns in Indonesia about flows of palm oil, rubber and coffee to factories and ports. Traders said damaged roads and bridges had hampered delivery.

But in Aceh, home to major offshore natural gas fields and onshore processing plants, output and movement of natural gas were unaffected, industry officials said.

Authorities blamed heavy rains and deforestation for the latest destruction. Lack of adequate cover leaves ground less able to absorb excess water or hold soil in place.

Colorado digging out after latest storm

DENVER - National Guard troops in tracked vehicles crawled through 10-foot snowdrifts and whiteout conditions Saturday in eastern Colorado, rescuing motorists trapped by the region’s second holiday season blizzard.

The storm, which brought Denver to a standstill and hampered holiday air travel Thursday and Friday, was slowly moving east, spreading snow from New Mexico to the Dakotas and generating strong thunderstorms in the lower Mississippi Valley. Blizzard warnings were posted for eastern Colorado and western Kansas and into parts of New Mexico, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle.

The Guard pulled about 20 people out of cars stranded on rural highways from Friday night into Saturday and took them to emergency shelters, said Maj. Gen. Mason Whitney, the state adjutant general.

“They’re telling me it’s zero visibility,” Whitney said. “They’ll kind of bump into something and it’ll turn out to be a car with people in it.”

No injuries were reported.

Interstate 70 and several other major east-west highways were closed Saturday from the Rockies east across Colorado into western Kansas. Interstate 25 heading south into New Mexico was closed near the state line.

Major interstate closed
All major roads from Kansas into Colorado were closed Saturday, including Interstate 70. A Kansas Highway Patrol dispatcher said the roads would remain closed until Colorado officials decide to reopen their routes.

One traffic death was blamed on the storm in Colorado and a tornado killed one person in Texas on Friday.

A possible tornado struck a rural part of south Louisiana early Saturday, damaging homes and ripping down power lines, but there were no immediate reports of injuries, Acadia Parish Sheriff Wayne Melancon said.

About 500 travelers spent the night at Denver International Airport, not stranded but hoping to get an early start on ticket lines, said airport spokesman Chuck Cannon.

The nation’s fifth-busiest airport was closed for two days by the storm that struck just before Christmas, but it was only slowed by the latest storm, with the major carriers canceling about 20 percent of their scheduled flights.

Airlines planned to fly full or nearly full schedules Saturday, Cannon said.

In southeastern Colorado, about 50 Guard troops operated four SUSVs, or “snow utility sustainment vehicles” — a military version of the sno-cat. The vehicles travel on tracks and can carry 12 people or supplies, Whitney said.

The troops were working around the clock through snowdrifts standing 7 to 10 feet deep, Whitney said.

Almost two feet of snow in foothills
Nearly two feet of snow fell in the foothills west of Denver, where many streets were still packed with ice from last week’s blizzard.

Up to 18 inches of snow had fallen by Saturday in western Kansas, but the snow had started turning to rain in many areas Saturday. Up to a foot fell in southwestern and central Nebraska.

Colorado Gov. Bill Owens had declared a statewide disaster emergency. Many government agencies and businesses were closed Friday. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said the economic impact on the city could easily total several million dollars.

Compared to last week’s blizzard, this storm produced its snow over a longer period, making it easier for armies of snowplows at the Denver airport and in most major cities across the state to keep up.

The tornadoes generated by the storm system in Texas on Friday destroyed as many as 50 homes, sent at least a dozen people to hospitals and forced President Bush and his wife into an armored vehicle on his Crawford ranch. The Bushes, and their two Scottish terriers, were driven to a tornado shelter on the ranch. They sat inside the armored vehicle until the weather cleared, deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel said.

Residents of an assisted living center for military veterans in Texas had little time to react Friday before a tornado struck.

“That convalescence center received word, from our understanding, about 30 seconds before the tornado hit them,” said Matt Groveton, the emergency management coordinator for Limestone County, about 60 miles east of Crawford near Waco. “Everybody dove to the ground.”