Malaysia flood toll at 17 as fresh rains hit

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - The death toll from floods in Malaysia has risen to 17 as fresh heavy downpours forced hundreds to evacuate in the country's north and the eastern state of Sabah.

The latest victim was a elderly man in Kota Marudu town in northern Sabah, where intermittent rain fell over the weekend, said Malaysia's crisis and disaster management chief.

Che Moin Umar said conditions were expected to worsen in the coming days, with heavy rains forecast over the country's northern states.

"It will deteriorate ... I cannot say much whether it will be like Malacca and Johor," Che Moin told AFP, referring to two southern states worst hit by Malaysia's flood crisis so far.

"We are preparing for the worst-case scenario," he added.

The meteorological department Sunday issued its highest "red stage" warning for heavy rains in the northern states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Perlis, Kedah, Penang, Perak, and central Pahang state until Wednesday.

Moderate rain will also continue in Sabah into the week, it said.

Che Moin said authorities had evacuated more than 150 people in Kelantan and Terengganu after rains on Saturday night sparked flooding.

Some 200 people were also evacuated over the weekend from the town of Beaufort in Sabah, he said.

Conditions are easing in Johor, which has seen 15 of the 17 fatalities, although 16,455 people evacuated from the floods were still sheltering in relief centres on Sunday, said Malaysia's Bernama news agency.

The number of people sheltering in relief centres nationwide peaked at 90,000 in the last week of December.

Johor authorities said Sunday that it would cost some 60 million ringgit (17.08 million dollars) to repair flood-damaged infrastructure such as bridges, Bernama reported, as Health Minister Chua Soi Lek warned of dengue outbreaks.

"There is a likelihood that we will see a sudden surge in the number of dengue cases in another two weeks if no effort is made to clean up the areas and rid them of stagnant water pools," Chua was quoted as saying from Johor.

Victims have blamed the flash floods, the worst in decades, on environmental degradation and poor development planning.

Avalanche sweeps cars off U.S. 40 in Colorado

DENVER (AP) — Crews fired artillery shells on Sunday to safely trigger avalanches before they could pose a threat to traffic on a mountain highway, a day after a huge snow slide knocked two cars off the road in a high pass and buried them.
Eight people had to be rescued from the cars that were swept off the main highway to one of the state's largest ski areas Saturday.

Wind whistled through the mountains west of Denver at 100 mph Sunday, producing whiteout conditions and driving wind chills well below zero, as the artillery fire was used to set off the controlled avalanches above the highway.

Witnesses said the slide on Saturday pushed the cars down about 150 to 200 feet into trees off U.S. 40 near 11,307-foot Berthoud Pass, which leads to Winter Park Resort.

"Our crews said it was the largest they have ever seen. It took three paths," said Stacey Stegman of the transportation department.

Crews searched the area, which is about 50 miles west of Denver, for other vehicles and believe all have been found, State Patrolman Eric Wynn said.

The trapped motorists were taken to hospitals, Wynn said, but details of their conditions were not available.

Members of Oakwood Road Church in Ames, Iowa, who were on a ski trip were among those swept away by the avalanche, including Darren Johnson, said his father, Don Johnson.

Darren Johnson's vehicle was the only one of the church's four-car caravan hit by the snow, his father said.

Don Johnson said his son was treated and released from a hospital, while a passenger in his car, Peter Olsen of Nevada and a sophomore at Iowa State University, was being treated for a broken rib.

The avalanche hit between 10 a.m. and 10:30 and was about 200 to 300 feet wide and 15 feet deep, Wynn said. The area usually has slides only 2 to 3 feet deep because crews trigger them before more snow can accumulate, said Spencer Logan of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.

Despite three snowstorms in as many weeks, the area of the avalanche hasn't been hit as hard as eastern parts of the state that got up to 4 feet of snow, Logan said. But the pass did get up to 10 inches in the past few days, he said.

Logan said authorities haven't had time to test all slide areas, and he blamed 30 mph wind, with gusts up to 60 mph Saturday morning, for the avalanche conditions.

"This is a tremendous amount of snow to come down the mountain for us," Stegman said.

Michael Murphy and his friends were heading to Winter Park when their path was blocked by the avalanche, which he estimated came down minutes before they got to the scene. One friend's father was about 10 minutes ahead of them, on the other side of the avalanche.

"Initially we couldn't get in cellphone contact with him so we were pretty nervous," said Murphy, 20, of Boulder.

Murphy's party and other motorists used avalanche probes and shovels to search for buried cars.

Mile Cikara, who was headed to Winter Park to ski, told KMGH-TV in Denver that he joined others furiously digging out victims. "I along with 30 other people grabbed shovels and started digging to get people out. I had a shovel but people were using their hands, skis, ski poles, whatever, to dig out," until rescue teams arrived, he said.

The timing meant most traffic headed to the ski area had already passed through.

"Good thing it didn't happen a couple of hours earlier," said Darcy Morse, a Winter Park spokeswoman. On an average January weekend day, the resort draws more than 10,000 skiers and snowboarders, with lifts opening at 8:30 or 9 a.m.

The pass was closed after the avalanche but reopened Saturday night.

Gusty winds scour SoCal, bringing fire warnings, blackouts

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After gale-force winds knocked out power for thousands of people in Southern California and kicked up a dust storm that caused a deadly desert crash, most residents regained electricity late Saturday.

For much of the day, wind advisories were in effect for winds of 35 mph or greater, gusting to 70 mph below some passes and canyons in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The winds diminished but were expected to pick up again Sunday.

On Friday, fierce gusts knocked down or hurled tree limbs into electrical lines, blacking out nearly 26,000 city Department of Water and Power customers.

About 3,000 remained without power by noon Saturday, mostly in Hollywood, West Los Angeles, Westchester, Venice and Mar Vista. By Saturday evening, only 30 people were without power mainly in the Westchester area, said spokeswoman Marie Lemelle.

"We've had all our available crews out there" making repairs, she said.

About 200 Southern California Edison customers remained without power in Los Angeles and Orange counties Saturday evening, down from nearly 190,000 before dawn on Friday, spokesman Steven Conroy said.

"We anticipate having almost all service back on sometime early Sunday morning," Conroy said.

The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings for fire danger because of the dry, blowing winds that reduced humidity.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department placed 100 additional firefighters in vulnerable areas.

The winds roared through San Bernardino County on Friday, kicking up a blinding dust storm.

The zero visibility is believed to have played a role in a crash that killed two people in a Dodge Caravan that was rear-ended by a tour bus near Yermo. The van went off the shoulder of Interstate 15, according to the coroner's office.

Erlinda Flores, 56, of Elsinore, and her 13-year-old grandson, Sean Rankin of Elsinore, were pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.

Floods after torrential rains kill 9 in Mozambique, affect 7,000

MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) — Storms and torrential rains over the past 10 days in southern and central Mozambique have killed nine people and made about 7,000 homeless, the National Disasters Management Institute said Saturday.
It said that the crops of about 240 households had been destroyed.

In the port city of Beira, many areas have been flooded, and people have been trying to reach safer areas. Roads are under water, causing traffic problems. The authorities are mobilizing emergency aid for the affected individuals, it said.

It said that moderate to heavy rainfall in central Mozambique and in neighboring countries is continuing to raise the level of the Zambezi river, from the Zimbabwean border all the way to the Indian Ocean.

At Caia, in Sofala province, the Zambezi is rising rapidly and approaching flood alert level. But in other parts of the country the threat of floods has receded slightly, the institute said.