Firefighters clear a tree from a road in Grove, Okla., Monday, Jan 15, 2007. The Association of Electric Cooperatives reported nearly 50,000 customers were without power in rural areas across the state. (AP Photo/Tulsa World, A. Cuervo)

Storm blacks out parts of Northeast

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - A storm blamed for at least 41 deaths in six states spread into the Northeast on Monday, coating trees, power lines and roads with a shell of ice up to a half-inch thick and knocking out power to more than half a million homes and businesses.

Icy roads cut into Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observances from Albany, N.Y., to Fort Worth and Austin, Texas, where officials also canceled Gov. Rick Perry's inauguration parade Tuesday because another round of ice was expected overnight.

The weight of the ice snapped tree limbs and took down power lines, knocking out electricity to about 145,000 customers in New York state and New Hampshire.

Even in Maine, a state well-accustomed to winter weather, a layer of sleet and snow on roads shut down businesses, day care centers and schools.

In hard-hit Missouri, the utility company Ameren said it would probably not have everyone's lights back on until Wednesday night. Overnight temperatures were expected to drop into the single digits. As of Monday afternoon, about 312,000 homes and businesses still had no electricity.

Missouri National Guardsmen went door to door, checking on residents, and helped clear slick roads.

About 100,000 homes and businesses blacked out in Oklahoma, some of them since the storm's first wave struck on Friday, also were still waiting for power Monday. Ice built up by sleet and freezing rain was 4 inches thick in places.

"Emergency responders are having a hard time getting to residents where their services are needed because of trees and power lines in the road," said Pittsburg County, Okla., Undersheriff Richard Sexton.

The Army Corps of Engineers dispatched soldiers from Tulsa to deliver 100 emergency generators to the McAlester area. Fifty additional generators were being sent from Fort Worth, Texas, by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

About 106,000 customers were without electricity Monday in Michigan.

More than 160 flights were canceled at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Authorities closed University of Texas and Austin public schools Tuesday.

Before dawn Monday, a car slid into the path of a dump truck on an icy New York highway in Sennett, 20 miles west of Syracuse, killing the car's driver and two passengers.

"It was very icy, rainy, a snow-sleet mix, so definitely the road conditions had a lot to do with this," Sheriff David Gould said.

A wave of arctic air trailed the storm and was expected to push temperatures into the single digits in some areas. Oklahoma officials strongly discouraged travel, saying the frigid weather would refreeze slush and water on roads.

Waves of freezing rain, sleet and snow since Friday had been blamed for at least 17 deaths in Oklahoma, eight in Missouri, eight in Iowa, four in New York, three in Texas and one in Maine. Seven of the Oklahoma deaths occurred when a minivan carrying 12 people slid off an icy highway Sunday and hit an oncoming truck.

In California, three nights of freezing temperatures have destroyed up to three-quarters of California's $1 billion citrus crop, according to an estimate issued Monday. Other crops, including avocados and strawberries, also suffered damage.

Comoros plans for 30,000 volcano refugees

MORONI, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Authorities in the Comoros islands have made emergency plans to help as many as 30,000 people expected to be uprooted if one of the world's largest active volcanoes erupts, officials said on Tuesday.

The 2,361 metre (7,746 ft) high Mount Karthala on the Indian Ocean archipelago's biggest island, Grande Comore, began glowing red and emitting fumes on Friday.

Strong tremors over the weekend -- thought to have been caused by lava trying to escape -- forced thousands of people to sleep outside for fear their homes might collapse.

The island's security chief, Oukacha Jaffar, told Reuters as many as 30,000 people could be displaced by an eruption.

"We have planned for the creation of two advance medical posts in the central and western zones, while primary and secondary schools will be used for first aid," said Hamada Goda, a doctor at one of the medical posts.

Hamidou Soule, a geologist who leads the Karthala surveillance centre, said satellite images clearly showed a build-up of heat on the northern edge of the crater.

"There are three possible scenarios: a crack on the side of the mountain mass, an overflow from the crater, or simply a settling of activity," Soule told journalists.

Karthala's eruptions have happened every 11 years on average, but have rarely caused a major disaster.

In 1903, 17 people died when noxious fumes seeped from cracks in the mountain, and the last big eruption was in April 2005 when thousands fled in fear of poisonous gas and lava.

Drought-stricken Ugandans receive emergency food

NAWEET, Uganda, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The U.N. World Food Programme launched an emergency food programme on Tuesday for half a million people in Uganda's northeastern Karamoja region, hit by a devastating third drought in six years.

WFP food trucks rolled into the semi-arid region to dump bags of maize and beans as lean, hungry villagers lined up to receive their rations.

Looyan Kapis, who said she was too old to remember her age, wept as she said she had not eaten for days.

"Look at us -- we are dying," she said, gesturing towards another elderly lady too weak from hunger to lift her head off the ground.

"We resorted to eating leaves foraged from trees that give stomach pains. But there's nothing else to eat."

WFP officials said levels of child malnutrition in the region had reached "emergency levels", with 16 percent of children malnourished in some places.

The food supplies will be distributed for several months throughout the semi-arid region where sorghum crops failed due to poor rains, aid workers said.

"We planted sorghum, it germinated, then the rain disappeared and it was all destroyed," said Choko Lomugele, 30, as she opened her thatched food granary to reveal nothing but a lizard scuttling over a few empty plastic pots.

Like much of the Horn of Africa region, Karamoja is plagued by frequent drought and food shortages made worse by banditry and inter-clan warfare.

But aid workers say drought cycles are worsening, with rains failing every two years, withering crops and killing livestock.

"The droughts seem to be getting worse," James Feeny, head of WFP for Karamoja, told Reuters. "They used to be every five years, now it's more like every two years."

As water and pasture run out, conflict among Karamojong warriors and with neighbouring Kenya's Turkana tribes has grown, fuelled by a flood of readily available semi-automatic weapons.

Drought and insecurity have left Karamoja Uganda's least developed region, the U.N. says.