Arkansas town copes with tornado damage

DUMAS, Ark. - Much of this small town still had no electricity Monday and an estimated 800 workers had no jobs to report to because of a weekend tornado.

Among the dozens of people injured, two young children remained in critical condition Monday.

Gov. Mike Beebe cut short his trip to the National Governors Association conference in Washington to tour the damaged area Monday. Lt. Gov. Bill Halter visited Sunday and said it looked as though "high explosives" had been set off in some homes.

The tornado struck Saturday with wind estimated at up to 207 mph.

It destroyed the Arkat Feeds pet food plant, where 125 people were employed, and heavily damaged the Federal Mogul auto supply company. It also destroyed several other businesses in the town of 5,300 people

About 2,300 customers in the Dumas area were still without power Monday, said Entergy Arkansas spokesman James Thompson.

Thompson said the utility's electric substation for the area was knocked out and it had to bring in temporary equipment. However, he said everyone able to accept electricity should have service by the end of business on Tuesday.

On Sunday, Dumas resident Kevin Hill and his family pulled furniture from the rubble of their home. He said he and his family were in Pine Bluff to pick up a saw blade when the storm ripped apart their home.

"Thank God for a five-dollar saw blade or we would have all been inside the house," said Hill, 42.

The storm also polluted the town's drinking water and residents were told to boil it before using it.

The National Weather Service rated the Dumas tornado an F-3, with wind estimated at 158 to 207 mph. A second tornado that went from near Pendleton to near Tichnor was rated an F-1.

The tornadoes were spun off by thunderstorms that were part of the huge weather system responsible for blizzard conditions farther north that blocked highways on the Plains, grounded airline flights and blacked out hundreds of thousands of customers.

At least 43 houses and 50 mobile homes were destroyed or damaged around Dumas, while 25 businesses were leveled and nine had major damage, a state Department of Emergency Management spokesman said.

"We feel like we've probably got 800 unemployed today as a result," Desha County Sheriff Jim Snyder said.

Severe winter storm hammers Midwest, East Coast

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A severe winter storm dumped snow and freezing rain across the Midwest and mid-Atlantic United States on Sunday, stranding air travelers from Boston to Chicago and causing several traffic deaths.

More than 200 flights were canceled at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, with remaining flights delayed 60 to 90 minutes because of the icy snow, Chicago Department of Aviation spokeswoman Wendy Abrams said.

JetBlue Airways Corp., still struggling from a service meltdown during last week's ice storm in New York, was among the airlines that canceled flights.

Numerous road closings were reported in the upper Midwest. Wisconsin police reported at least eight traffic-related fatalities, including one accident in southern Wisconsin where a woman's vehicle slammed into a snow plow, killing her and two children.

Thousands of homes lost power. In northern Illinois, utility company ComEd spokesman Jeff Burdick said at its peak, 38,000 customers lost power. Ice on the power lines was a major contributor to the outages, he said.

The National Weather Service said a winter storm warning was in effect from New Jersey to Virginia, while an ice storm warning was in effect in western Pennsylvania.

Moderate to heavy snow was expected through the afternoon for much of the region, but Pennsylvania and Maryland state authorities said all roads remained open.

Snow removal efforts caused flight delays at Dulles and Reagan National airports in the Washington region, Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority spokesman Rob Yingling said.

Bad weather caused flight cancellations from Boston to Milwaukee.

Amtrak service on the East Coast was unaffected by the storm, but service between Washington and Chicago was canceled in part due to the weather, spokeswoman Karina Romero said.

On Saturday, authorities shut down highways and canceled hundreds of flights on Saturday as the storm hammered much of the Midwest.

At least one tornado touched down in Arkansas, while the storm caused a 35-car pileup east of Denver.

Food crisis looms in flood-ravaged Mozambique

CAIA, Mozambique, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Thousands of flood victims are pouring into crowded refugee camps in central Mozambique, straining relief efforts and prompting fears of a food crisis, authorities said on Monday.

Weeks of heavy rains have triggered flash floods along the mighty Zambezi river and its tributaries, washing away homes, bridges, livestock and crops in four central provinces in the low-lying southern African nation.

Some 170,000 people have been displaced and at least 45 have died as a result of the flooding, the worst to hit the former Portuguese colony since the 2000-2001 floods that killed some 700 people and drove another half a million from their homes.

Aid workers were battling on Monday to supply food and fresh water to a ballooning refugee population, with an estimated 2,000 people each day streaming into temporary accommodation centers set up by the Red Cross and other agencies.

"We still have some food, but it's not enough," said Joao Ribeiro, deputy director of Mozambique's National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC).

Ribeiro said sanitary conditions in the shelters were worsening due to a lack of toilets and poor hygiene, raising fears of potential outbreaks of cholera and dysentery among the estimated 50,000 people living in the makeshift camps.

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, however, said the relief effort was proceeding smoothly and there was no need for the government to issue a broad appeal for help.

"It's not a declaration on the international front that can help to change the situation. I think we are going in the right direction," Guebuza told reporters in Caia, a central Mozambican town that has become a command center for the relief effort.

Earlier on Monday the Mozambican leader flew over parts of the Zambezi valley that were hard hit by the flooding.

The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) is already distributing food to refugees in the affected provinces. Neighbouring South Africa and the European Union also have pledged more help for the relief effort.

South Africa will send two helicopters and a mobile water purification plant to its northeastern neighbour this week and could add a field hospital and water and wind resistant tents to its contribution, the SAPA news agency reported on Monday.

But aid workers say the effort to feed and shelter refugees has been complicated by poor roads in Mozambique, which is still rebuilding after a 16-year civil war that ended in 1991.

The struggle to get food and water to flood victims could become more difficult in the coming weeks as more rain falls on the country. March traditionally is one of the wettest periods in Mozambique's rainy season.

"A lot of areas are still very difficult to get through and there are new pockets of disaster areas forming," said Peter Rodrigues, emergency relief coordinator for the WFP in Caia.

"The challenge is that these people are spread out, making it difficult to reach them."

In southern Mozambique, which is home to the bulk of the country's economically important tourist resorts, authorities were assessing the damage from Cyclone Favio, which came ashore on Thursday with winds of up to 270 kph (169 mph).

The cyclone slammed into the coast, knocking down buildings, uprooting trees and killing five people near Vilanculos. Mozambique's military on Monday was attempting to restore water and electricity in the resort city.