A man watches as a tornado crosses the highway east of the Northern Natural Gas Plant in Beaver County, Okla., on Wednesday.

Major storm slams Plains states

OKLAHOMA CITY - An early spring storm swept across the Plains early Thursday, spinning off tornadoes that killed an Oklahoma couple in a home that was blown to pieces and a Colorado woman whose small town was nearly destroyed.

A tornado as wide as two football fields carved a destructive path through Holly, Colo., late Wednesday, destroying five homes, damaging dozens more and littering the streets with broken power lines, tree limbs and debris.

“Homes were there and now they’re gone,” county administrator Linda Fairbairn said. “Many, if not all, the structures in town suffered some degree of damage.”

A 28-year-old woman who suffered massive injuries during the twister died after she was airlifted to a hospital in Colorado Springs, Prowers County Coroner Joe Giadone said Thursday.

The line of storms stretched nearly the length of the nation, from South Dakota to Texas. As it headed east on Thursday, it threatened flash flooding in central Nebraska and Kansas. More severe weather was expected in Oklahoma, as well, forecasters said.

At least 11 tornadoes were reported throughout western Nebraska on Wednesday, destroying or damaging three homes and 10-12 miles of power lines, emergency management officials said.

Oklahoma couple dies
A husband and wife were killed near Elmwood, Okla., when the storm blew apart their home, said Dixie Parker, Beaver County’s emergency management director.

In Holly, Colo., a town of about 900 residents 235 miles southeast of Denver, the storm tore the back off Cheryl Roup’s home and flipped it into her front yard, the Denver Post reported. Somehow, her China closet survived the damaged, and her border collie, Lacy, escaped harm.

“Lacy managed to crawl out from under the rubble, but she seemed OK,” Roup told the Post. “She’s a little shocked, much like I am right now.”

The same storm system had dumped snow on Wyoming, where a school bus carrying 36 students from Tongue River High School to a competition in Cheyenne collided with two minivans on Interstate 90 Wednesday, school officials said.

Weather sparks big-rig spill
Soon after that crash, another pileup started nearby involving several passenger vehicles and seven big rigs, two of which were hauling diesel fuel. One of the diesel haulers rolled over, and authorities said the other leaked around 1,000 gallons of fuel. No one on the bus was hurt, but four other people were taken to a hospital, Wyoming Highway Patrol spokesman Sgt. Stephen Townsend said.

The wintry weather closed a 100-mile stretch of I-90 and 45 miles of I-25. Thirteen other state roads were also closed.

As the storm moved through Texas, the Panhandle region was hit with baseball-sized hail, rain and 70 mph wind that downed power lines and uprooted trees. Tornadoes also touched down, including one that was on the ground at Caprock Canyons State Park for about 20 minutes, the National Weather Service said. The storm overturned trucks, and at least three people were hospitalized with injuries.

Quake in central Japan

NOTO PENINSULA, Japan, March 25 (Reuters) - A strong earthquake killed one person and injured at least 160 in central Japan on Sunday, demolishing houses, buckling roads, triggering landslides and cutting off water supplies to thousands of homes.

More than 1,300 people evacuated to shelters after 44 houses collapsed and some 200 others, mostly wooden with heavy tile roofs, were seriously damaged by the 6.9 magnitude earthquake, which struck at 9:42 a.m. (0042 GMT), officials and media said.

The focus of the quake -- which was also felt in Tokyo -- was 11 km (7 miles) below the seabed off the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture, about 300 km (190 miles) west of Tokyo.

"It was frightening so I dashed outside. It shook and shook," said Shina Yamashita, 88, one of about 200 mostly elderly people taking shelter in a civic centre in the rural city of Wajima, Monzen district, one of the hardest hit areas.

The mountainous peninsula is known for its hot spring resorts.

More than 100 aftershocks jolted the area, including one with a magnitude of 5.3 more than eight hours after the first quake, which was the biggest in the area since records began in 1926. Officials warned more aftershocks could follow.

A 52-year-old woman died in Wajima, a resort and fishing town on the western side of the peninsula, after being trapped under a stone lantern that toppled in her garden.

In Nanao, a resort and fishing city with a population of around 60,000, ambulance services were flooded with calls to help people who had suffered burns and injuries.

"I looked outside and electricity poles were shaking," said Hiroshi Tanaka, a fire department official. "Residents called in but they were calm and there weren't many serious injuries."

About 40 people were treated for mostly minor injuries in Wajima. Most were hurt from falls when the tremor struck or by being hit by falling objects, Kyodo news agency said.

Anxious residents gathered outside their homes in the town of 34,000 people, some holding children in their arms.

Around 1,200 Wajima residents whose homes were damaged were evacuated to schools and community centres and were receiving food and blankets, a city official said.

TSUNAMI WARNING LIFTED

Kyodo later said around 1,800 had been evacuated in Wajima but the number of injured had been lowered to 162, from 170.

About 30 troops arrived in the area to help assess the damage and some 400 police from neighbouring prefectures headed for the site to provide assistance, media reported.

The Japan Meteorological Agency originally estimated the magnitude at 7.1 but later revised it to 6.9.

Some trains were halted and people were trapped in elevators. Power outages hit nearly 500 homes in the area and 9,000 had their water supplies cut, public broadcaster NHK said.

"Furniture toppled over with a crash and dishes scattered and broke," said Yuko Ikawa, 38, who fled to the Monzen evacuation centre with her family.

"The biggest worry is there is no tap water," she added.

Officials closed an airport on the peninsula because of cracks on the runway and halted traffic on damaged expressways. High-speed bullet trains resumed service after being checked.

Telephone services were snarled, as many tried to confirm that friends and family were safe. Power companies said there were no reports of irregularities at nuclear plants in the area.

A tsunami warning issued for Ishikawa prefecture was later lifted after small tsunamis hit in some areas.

Separately, two strong earthquakes struck on Sunday near Vanuatu in the South Pacific, Australia's geological agency reported, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

The first, measured at magnitude 7.3, occurred two minutes before the quake in central Japan. Vanuatu's second quake, at magnitude 7.1, came about half an hour later.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

In October 2004, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 struck the Niigata region in northern Japan, killing 65 people and injuring more than 3,000.

That was the deadliest quake since a magnitude 7.3 tremor hit the city of Kobe in 1995, killing more than 6,400.

New Mexico towns clean up after twisters

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - When she awoke Saturday, Andrea McLaren found that a stretch of the eastern New Mexico city she calls home had been obliterated by a tornado that flattened houses, snapped telephone poles and even heaved a trailer through a bowling alley.

The tornado was one of 16 that moved through communities along the New Mexico-Texas border late Friday and early Saturday, leaving two people critically injured. Residents said Saturday that the cleanup effort could take months.

"Pretty much everything was pushed together like toy cars," McLaren said by telephone from Clovis, N.M. "We've been picking up debris the whole day. ... Clean up and assess the damage, that's all we can do."

The worst damage was reported in Clovis and the village of Logan about 80 miles to the north, state officials said.

The Clovis twister touched down shortly before 8 p.m. Friday, forecasters said. On Saturday, city officials described a narrow path of destruction about three miles long. About 100 homes and businesses were either lost or damaged, and at least three schools were damaged, police said.

"We've got some significant damage. No question it's the most significant we've ever seen here," Clovis Mayor David Lansford said.

Hospitals in Clovis treated 35 victims, including two critically injured, state emergency management spokeswoman Carrie Moritomo said Saturday. One of the critically hurt was taken to a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, for treatment.

Gov. Bill Richardson ordered about 20 soldiers from the New Mexico Army National Guard to provide support in Clovis, spokesman Maj. Kenneth Nava said. Richardson is expected to travel to Clovis Sunday to be briefed on the damage, Moritomo said.

In Logan, a twister hit a trailer park, leaving two people hospitalized, Moritomo said. Many other injuries were reported, but they were minor.

That tornado touched down shortly before 3:30 p.m. Friday, and early reports show that 55 properties were affected by the storm, state officials said. At least 20 properties were completely destroyed.

Nearly 3,000 people were without electricity in Clovis on Saturday, and state officials say it will take two to three days to restore power.

Larry Wallin, the village administrator, estimated it would be five to six months before the damage is cleaned up.

"It happened so fast and we were scattered so thin," he said.

Two state emergency assessment teams were expected to arrive in Logan and Clovis on Saturday, officials said. The Salvation Army has opened a shelter at high school in Clovis.
American Red Cross teams were fanning out to provide food and assistance as needed.

Three tornadoes touched down in west Texas late Friday night, damaging a cotton gin about four miles west of Morton, said Jose Valdez, a
National Weather Service meteorologist in Lubbock.

Early Saturday, a tornado touched down in McLean, causing damage to structures and trees, said Matthew Kramar, a weather service meteorologist in Amarillo. There were no reports of injuries.

"There's not a whole lot there, so there were some windows blown out in a couple homes and businesses," Kramar said.

Bird flu spreads to more farms in Bangladesh

DHAKA, March 23 (Reuters) - Bird flu has spread to six poultry farms near Bangladesh's capital, the government said on Friday, sparking a nationwide alert.

The United Nations also expressed concern.

C.S. Karim, the government adviser for agriculture and livestock, said among more than 42,400 poultry on the six farms in Savar, over 12,000 had died and another 21,000 had been culled over the past few days.

The H5N1 avian flu virus has not spread to other areas of the country and there was no cause for panic, he told a news conference. Savar is 25 km (14 miles) north of the capital.

Dr. Duangvadee Sungkhobol, representative of U.N.'s World Health Organisation in Dhaka, said: "We are very concerned because this is a highly densely populated country where people, animals and poultry live very close".

"The government has taken aggressive measures to stop the spread of the disease and that WHO has confidence it (the government) would be able to limit the spread," she told the same news conference.

The disease was confirmed through tests by laboratories in Bangladesh and Thailand, the government said late on Thursday.

Another U.N. official also expressed concern.

"Maybe the outbreak of avian flu started in the country weeks or months before but the authorities took a long time to confirm it."

"We are talking to the government and relevant agencies to find out the extent of the spread of H5N1 in Bangladesh," the official said on Friday. They asked not to be identified.

The European Union pledged assistance.

"The EU has kept funds ready for all of Asia in case they need to fight bird flu. All donors are contributing ... Bangladesh can use it to tackle the flu," Stefan Frowein, head of the EU delegation in Bangladesh, told a private television station on Friday.

"But such funds can be available through a single channel, the World Bank," he added.

Health experts had long expected an outbreak of H5N1 because the country is surrounded by India and Myanmar, which have reported bird flu infections.

Myanmar reported another outbreak of bird flu on Wednesday, saying a chicken farm had been hit outside the capital, where the H5N1 virus reappeared in four areas last month.

Bangladesh's dense population and large numbers of backyard poultry also increased the risks of outbreaks, experts have said.

The government has banned transport of poultry from affected areas, imposed constant monitoring of poultry farms across the country by joint forces led by the army and health checks on people working on the farms, Karim said.

"We have put the health network across the country on high alert and kept one specialised hospital ready to face any emergency," the government's health adviser, retired army major-general A.S.M. Matiur Rahman, said.

Syed Abu Siddiq, secretary of the Bangladesh Poultry Industries Association, said there were 125,000 small and large poultry firms in the country, producing 250 million broilers and 6 billion eggs annually.

Annual turnover was $750 million, he said.

About four million Bangladeshis were directly or indirectly associated with poultry farming.

Cyclone in Madagascar

ANTANANARIVO, March 23 (Reuters) - A cyclone that swept across Madagascar last week killed at least 69 people and made tens of thousands homeless in the north of the Indian Ocean island, officials said on Friday.

Mudslides have buried whole villages, rivers have burst their banks and roads have been cut off since Cyclone Indlala struck on March 15.

"I have never seen so much damage," Jacky Randimbiarison, executive secretary of the government's disaster management agency, told Reuters.

The agency said it had confirmed 69 deaths, two people missing, and nearly 78,000 people uprooted on the world's fourth largest island that is home to 18.6 million people.

The storm wiped out more than 3,600 houses plus dozens of government buildings, schools and bridges, officials said. Some 8,280 hectares of paddy-fields were ruined.

In northern Ambanja district "a whole mountain has collapsed, burying two villages under thousands of tonnes of rock and killing 20 people including six children in a school", Randimbiarison said.

FOOD CRISIS LOOMS?

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies appealed on Friday for $637,000 to help Madagascar.

"The situation has been made worse because Indlala is the fifth cyclone to hit Madagascar in the past three months and the region has already experienced heavy rains since December," said Amna Al-Ahmar, the federation's regional officer, in Geneva.

"According to government figures, about 80 per cent of the country's vanilla production -- Madagascar's top foreign exchange earner -- has been lost," it said in a statement.

Emergency assistance was focusing on temporary shelter and preventive health measures through the provision of tarpaulins, blankets, jerry cans, water purification tables and other basic relief items, the federation said.

Some emergency aid was being delivered by air and sea, officials in Madagascar said.

Aid agency CARE International said it was likely the total number of people affected is around 225,000.

"At least 75,000 people are in urgent need of immediate relief," said Didier Young, CARE's emergency coordinator in Madagascar. "These people have lost everything ... their houses, food stocks and their crops."

CARE said that with the destruction of the main rice harvest, which had been due in May, "a substantial part" of Madagascar was now facing a potential food crisis.

PAKISTAN: Landslides

ISLAMABAD , 21 March 2007 (IRIN) - Landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 40 people across Pakistani-administered Kashmir, an aid official confirmed on Wednesday.

At least 27 people, mostly women, died and 16 were injured when a landslide ripped through Doba Syedan village in the Jhelum Valley on late Tuesday, according to John Sampson, head of the International Organization for Migration's (IOM) sub-office in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

Landslides killed 10 people in the Bagh district and three died in separate incidents in Muzaffarabad, Sampson added.

In another incident, a landslide buried 22 people in their houses on Tuesday. Officials are expressing fears that they might not be alive, but there has been no confirmation of that.

Apart from the deaths caused by landslides, about 350 families have been left stranded in a remote village in Jhelum Valley at an altitude of more than 1,500 metres. Many roads in the area have been blocked due to a series of landslides following heavy rains that started on Sunday evening.

"This [Wednesday] morning, an emergency helicopter operation was planned to evacuate and shift the stranded families to a safe area, but continuing bad weather conditions are preventing us from taking any active steps," said Sampson.

The Pakistani military, together with international aid agencies, have shifted endangered families away from potential landslide risk areas.

"Still, we have not been able to lift them to a completely safe place. But the agencies are trying to assist them with food and non-food items," Sampson said.

In the Tariqabad area of Muzzaffarabad city, 160 families were evacuated after a landslide on Wednesday morning.

Survivors of the devastating earthquake of October 2005, the majority of whom live in temporary shelters, have also been affected by the recent bad weather.

"Several tented camps of quake-displaced people were flooded after three days' of continuous rain and we have been providing them with new tents, blankets, hygiene kits and other non-food items," Arshad Aziz, field coordinator for the Norwegian Refugee Council's camp support team, told IRIN from Muzaffarabad.

The second winter after the October 2005 earthquake was more severe than the previous one, according to meteorologists.

"This time, there were more rainy days across northern Pakistan, including the earth-quake affected areas," said Aamir Warsi, a senior meteorologist at Pakistan Meteorological Department in Islamabad. "Also, the spells were widespread and more intense."

According to the Met office, the winter rainy season, which started in early December 2006, is expected to continue until the end of March.

Weather experts expect more natural disasters

MADRID, Spain - Global warming is likely to bring more tidal waves, floods and hurricanes, leading meteorologists said on Monday.

"What we know is that global warming is very likely to lead in the future to more frequent tidal waves," the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) told a news conference ahead of a meeting in Madrid on Monday.

"Heavy precipitation events are very likely to become more frequent ... and it's likely that hurricanes and cyclones will become more intense," Michel Jarraud said.

He was speaking at the start of a four day conference of the WMO, a United Nations specialized agency for weather, climate and water.

The WMO's President Alexander Bedritsky said flooding in mid and higher latitudes in Western Europe had already become more common.

In Russia the number of damaging weather incidents logged in a year now averages more than one a day, said Bedritsky, who is also head of the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, Roshydromet.

"There's a constant increase of around 6 percent a year," he said.

A draft survey by top U.N. climate scientists is due for release in Brussels on April 6. It says climate change, widely blamed on the burning of fossil fuels, is already underway with impacts ranging from melting glaciers to earlier than normal plant growth in spring.

Meteorologists must increasingly consider climate change projections in their forecasting, former WMO president John Zillman told the Madrid conference, which is due to publish the conclusions of its four day meeting on Thursday.

Garden State digs out from icy storm

EWING, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey residents on Saturday were digging themselves out from a surprisingly strong storm that authorities said had caused at least six traffic deaths.

"It was a monster storm," said Kris Kolluri, who heads the state Department of Transportation.

The storm created treacherous travel conditions across the state. Just days after balmy temperatures covered the area, the wintry mix of snow and sleet caused hundreds of accidents and spinouts and led to airport delays and cancellations.

State police said a man was killed early Saturday morning when his car overturned on Interstate 287 in Bergen County.

Witnesses told state police that Stephen R. Day, of Montville, was passing another car, lost control and went off the roadway. Day, who was not wearing his seat belt and had a suspended license, was ejected from the driver's side window.

Two men and one woman were killed Friday night when a passenger van carrying 13 migrant workers collided with a box truck on a slick highway in Gloucester County, according to state police. The van's driver lost control of the vehicle and went into oncoming traffic, Jones said.

Several people in the van and a passenger in the box truck were ejected. The driver of the van, Juan Calderon, 23, and a female passenger, Reyna Vasquez, 39, both of Bridgeton, were killed in the accident. The third victim, a man, who was also riding in the van hasn't been identified yet, Jones said.

Thirteen other people were injured in the crash, but their injuries weren't thought to be life-threatening.

Earlier Friday, one person was killed on Interstate 80 in Warren County when a Jeep Cherokee veered off the road and smashed into a tree, state police said. And a 79-year-old woman was killed in a head-on crash on an icy road in Franklin Township, Gloucester County, Friday afternoon.

State police received more that 2,000 calls regarding motorists between 6 a.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Saturday, according Jones.

"No matter how many troopers you put on the road you're not going to be able to put up with those kinds of numbers," Jones said.

Continental Airlines canceled all flights to and from Newark Liberty International Airport through noon, except for one flight, the company said in a news release. The company did not return a call seeking comment.

JetBlue spokeswoman Jenny Dervin said none of her company's flights had been canceled in Newark on Saturday. Dervin said the company canceled some flights out of JFK in New York, but that Newark flights would only see delays of 20 to 30 minutes.

"We're working with the airports to make sure the planes are ready to go and not too significantly delayed," she said.

A combination of snow and sleet measured nearly a foot in Sussex County, while the central part of the state got 3 to 5 inches, said Dean Iovino, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.

Burlington and Camden counties in the southern part of the state received 3 to 5 inches while the southernmost portions saw just rain, Iovino said.

In Ewing Saturday, Mark Epstein, was out shoveling the walkway around his house shortly Saturday.

"I was waiting for it to warm up, but it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference," said Epstein, who was wearing water resistant boots to protect his feet. "I was hoping last week that we'd had the last of it. It's very inconvenient."

In Trenton, Laverne Woodall said she didn't think the storm would be as messy as it was.

"I thought it would be maybe more rain," the 42-year-old said as she tackled ice with the help from her nephews, Charles, 9, and Jordan, 4, Smith.

But she knew not to get used to the warmer temperatures from earlier in the week.

"I knew it was iffy," she said. "It could be back and forth."

Cleanup continues after Northeast storm

NEW YORK - Cleanup crews were out early Saturday to clearing snow and ice from Manhattan streets in preparation for the city's St. Patrick's Day parade, a day after a heavy storm buffeted the East Coast and caused the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights.

Forecasters said the sleet, snow and freezing rain that pelted the East Coast Friday had tailed off, and the National Weather Service canceled a winter storm warning for New York City and the surrounding areas.

"We got the whole gamut there," Nelson Vaz, a meteorologist with the weather service, said early Saturday. He called the weather "a pretty impressive late-winter storm."

The storm dumped up to six inches of snow on parts of Maryland and forecasters said more than a foot could have fallen in upstate New York. It was being blamed for at least five traffic deaths in New Jersey and three in Pennsylvania, authorities said.

JetBlue canceled nearly three-fourths of its scheduled flights on Friday to avoid the criticism and chaos that followed a Valentine's Day storm, when the company was slow to cancel flights and some passengers were stranded in planes for hours.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said more than 1,400 flights were canceled Friday at the region's three major airports because of the storm.

American, United, Delta and Continental also canceled flights, and there were delays reported in at airports in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Albany, N.Y., Baltimore-Washington and Boston.

At the airport in Newark, N.J., Karen Opdyke, 48, was trying to get to Miami for a cruise with her husband, three young children and mother after their 9 a.m. flight was canceled.

"We got on the plane, we got off the plane. We got on the plane and off the plane," Opdyke said as she balanced a crying child next to a pile of luggage. She wasn't having any luck rescheduling. "There's nothing available all week."

New Jersey state police had responded to about 1,300 reports of accidents or spinoffs on the roads by late Friday afternoon, state police Sgt. Stephen Jones said.

In Delaware, state police said sleet and ice were responsible for more than 100 accidents, and a vehicle in President George W. Bush's motorcade traveling from Washington to Camp David collided on Friday with another car along a slushy Interstate in Urbana, Md. No one was injured.

The storm also forced school cancellations throughout the Northeast and prompted some government agencies to send workers home early.

In Hartford, Conn. and York, Pa., officials postponed their annual St. Patrick's Day parades. New York did not cancel its parade, and officials were expecting up to 2 million people to attend.

Winter officially ends at the vernal equinox Tuesday evening, but climatologists said it was not unusual for storms to arrive well into March.

"Usually you have the biggest storms in March," said meteorologist Kevin Lipton in Albany, N.Y.

On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that this winter was the warmest worldwide since record keeping began in 1880.

Ivorian cocoa growers say drought worst in memory

DALOA, March 16 (Reuters) - A harsh spell of dry weather in Ivory Coast's central Daloa region which has lasted several months is the worst in living memory and is killing off young cocoa trees, farmers and cooperatives said on Friday.

Rains have scarcely fallen in the major cocoa producing region since late November, apart from a short but heavy downpour in early February.

Farmers in the world's top cocoa exporter said they expected to harvest far less than usual during the coming April-September mid crop, the smaller of the two six-month growing cycles.

"It's a complete failure. There will be no mid crop on my farm," said Lambert N'Dri, 47, picking up dry, shrivelled pods from the trees as he walked through his 10-year-old, three-hectare plantation.

The few tiny flowers visible on his trees -- which normally herald the growth of pods -- fell from the branches when touched. Many of his trees were bare while others had a small number of medium-sized green pods.

N'Dri, who was born in Daloa, said he had never seen such a harsh, long-lasting spell of dry weather.

A manager at the local cooperative Kavokiva said it reminded him of a 1983 drought which caused months of power cuts because of a lack of water for hydro-electric dams.

Exporters have estimated output for this year's mid crop possibly as low as 200,000 tonnes, far below last year's big harvest of more than 400,000 tonnes.

Farmer Cesar Yoboue, 33, was less fortunate than N'Dri. His plantation with younger, more vulnerable trees planted between three and five years ago bore little resemblance to a cocoa farm, with leaves drooping and almost no pods.

"When it doesn't rain the young trees die because they don't have deep roots," he said, explaining that older trees could source moisture from deeper in the ground to sustain them for longer.

The paper-dry brown leaves carpeting the ground crackled as he walked around and turned to flakes when handled.

"There are cocoa trees that I will have to replace now," he said, yanking a tall but thin sapling from the ground and tossing it aside.

East Coast expects major winter storm

A major storm is expected to hit the East Coast on Friday, with heavy rain forecast for areas of the Mid-Atlantic region that could lead to flooding.
The National Weather Service is forecasting heavy snow from northeastern New Jersey through southern New England, with more than a foot expected in some inland areas.

Temperatures in the Southeast are expected to be cool but remain above freezing. Most of the West will enjoy clear skies, but parts of the Northwest are expected to get rain.

Temperatures in the Lower 48 states Thursday ranged from a low of 0 degrees at Grand Marais, Minn., to a high of 99 degrees at Death Valley, Calif.

Rare snowstorm closes roads, schools, businesses in Jordan

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — A rare winter storm on Thursday dumped up to 4 inches of snow in parts of Jordan, closing roads, schools and businesses.
The director of the state meteorology department, Abdul-Halim abu-Hazeem, said more snow was expected during the day in several areas of the kingdom.

Temperatures dropped below 32 degrees F during Thursday's snowfall. Parents and children played with the snow around their houses while plows worked to clear Amman's hilly streets. Most banks and some government offices also closed in Amman within hours of opening Thursday.

An airport official said air traffic was unaffected by the storm, which contained winds of up to 50 mph.

Police spokesman Maj. Bashir al-Da'ajah said that approximately 100 traffic accidents were recorded on Thursday, including a Saudi bus that overturned near the northeastern city of Zarqa, injuring 12 passengers.

The Middle East is accustomed to mild winters, although big storms have occasionally battered the region. Last year, up to1.6 feet of snow fell in western and northern parts of Jordan.

In 2004, Jordan received up to three feet of snow in what was described as the kingdom's worst snowstorm since 1950.

Weak tornado touches down in northeast Ohio; buildings, power lines damaged

ELYRIA, Ohio (AP) — A small tornado touched down briefly near a shopping mall in northeast Ohio, ripping siding from an office supply store, flattening residential garages and forcing some schools to cancel classes because of a power outage.
No injuries were reported from the tornado, which struck Wednesday evening. Elyria is about 25 miles west of Cleveland.

The tornado was weak and on the ground only a few minutes, said Jim Kosarik, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cleveland.

Investigators will have to assess the damage to determine wind speed, said NWS meteorologist Mike Abair.

Strong winds downed power lines and trees, and tossed a shopping cart through the window of an empty building, said Lt. Bob Krugman of the Elyria Fire Department.

Classes were canceled at local schools because power was out and officials didn't know when it would be restored, school board member Kathryn Carpus said.

Very intense tropical cyclone Indlala

Rain drenches Texas; more expected Wednesday

Showers and thunderstorms fell across much of Texas on Tuesday, and more rain was expected Wednesday with highs in the 70s in many areas, the National Weather Service says.
Golf ball-sized hail was reported near Berclair in Goliad County. Hail the size of marbles was reported in Goliad.

Danny Madrigal, an investigator with the Goliad County Sheriff's Department, said a firefighter near Berclair reported seeing a tornado on the ground for about five minutes but there were no immediate reports of damage.

There were isolated reports of penny-sized hail and winds of up to 50 mph Tuesday as the storms moved across North Texas, said Alan Moller, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

South-Central Texas saw moderate to heavy rain and some road closures, said Mark Lenz, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service.

On Tuesday afternoon, emergency responders in San Antonio were called to five high-water rescues of motorists stranded in vehicles by rising water, but no injuries were reported, the San Antonio Express-News reported in its Tuesday online editions.

Meanwhile, Cameron County and Brownsville officials spent Tuesday surveying damage from a Monday storm that dumped more than 7 inches of rain in less than an hour.

Water reached near the front doors of St. Luke's Catholic School on Monday.

"We had kids that stayed a while in the portable building until it pretty much stopped raining," Ana Gomez, school principal, said in a story for Wednesday's editions of The Brownsville Herald. "We were pretty much covered in water."

In the Austin area on Wednesday, mostly cloudy skies were expected with a 50% chance of showers and thunderstorms and highs in the upper 70s. By evening, partly cloudy skies were expected with areas of fog after midnight and lows in the mid-50s.

A 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms was expected in the Dallas area with highs in the upper 70s. By evening, cloudy skies were expected with lows in the upper 50s.

In the Houston area, a 70% chance of showers and thunderstorms was expected. Some thunderstorms were expected to be severe in the morning and produce gusty winds and heavy rainfall in the afternoon. Highs were expected in the mid-70s. A 30% of showers and thunderstorms was expected by the evening with areas of fog late and lows in the upper 50s.

In the Amarillo area, partly cloudy skies were expected with highs in the upper 70s. By evening, partly cloudy skies were expected with lows in the lower 40s.

Fifty die as snow blankets Kashmir, rains pound northern India

SRINAGAR, India (AFP) - At least 50 people were killed as snow engulfed Kashmir and torrential rains pounded the rest of northern India, officials said Tuesday.

Some 28 people were killed and 25 others received burn injuries in separate lightning strikes in Uttar Pradesh as rains crippled life in the populous northern Indian state, they said.

Seventeen people, including two children and a soldier died in landslides, cold and floods in Indian Kashmir and its summer capital Srinagar reported its heaviest March snowfall in 15 years, weather officials said.

Five other weather-related casualties were reported from other parts of northern India, lashed by rains since Friday.

In Kashmir, five Hindu pilgrims trekking to a snowbound shrine high in the Himalayas froze to death.

A police patrol discovered the five bodies huddled together Monday in a shelter built to protect travellers to the Vaishno Devi shrine.

"All five pilgrims died of hypothermia as they weren't wearing enough clothes and heavy snow had brought down temperatures," said Puneet Kumar, a senior official at the shrine.

Another 13 people suffered hypothermia injuries. Nine were in critical condition but were "recovering fast" in hospital, the official said.

The dead were all from Uttar Pradesh, and officials said they had underestimated the cold at that time of year in Kashmir where the mercury regularly falls below zero Celsius (32 Fahrenheit).

"Ten more people died due to hypothermia, landslides and caving in of structures across the state," a police officer said while rescue officials reported another two deaths in the snowbound region.

Snowstorms have paralysed life in revolt-hit Kashmir, shutting schools, knocking out power and telephone lines and closing the region's main highway, police said.

"The main highway has been shut due to heavy snow and nearly 800 vehicles are stranded," police officer Abdul Hameed told AFP.

Labourers were using bulldozers, snow removal machines and shovels to open up the 300-kilometre (186-mile) highway, the main route for supplies to the Kashmir valley from state winter capital Jammu and the rest of the subcontinent.

"It may take us a few days to restore power supply in the valley," senior engineer Nissar Ahmed said.

Offices in the region were still open but many people were late as they had to walk through the thick blanket of snow.

Earlier this month, India's air force airlifted to safety more than 5,000 people stranded for days in sub-zero temperatures on the main highway by avalanches and landslides.

The Indian army has a strong presence in Kashmir where it is fighting to suppress a deadly Islamic separatist insurgency that has raged since 1989.

A firefighter races down Avenida De Santiago while helping fight a wildfire in Anaheim Hills near Orange, Calif., Sunday, March 11, 2007. (AP Photo/Orange County Register, Jebb Harris)

Calif. brush fire forces evacuations

ANAHEIM, Calif. - A fast-moving brush fire scorched 1,000 acres of parched hillside and charred at least two homes Sunday, forcing authorities to evacuate more than 200 homes, Orange County fire officials said.

The nearly 2-square-mile fire threatened many other houses and the firefighters working to protect them, Anaheim city spokesman John J. Nicoletti said.

"This is a very dangerous firefight," said Orange County Fire Authority Chief Ed Fleming. "The terrain is quite rugged, with homes on top of ridges, and the fire picks up speed as it heads up the hill."

No injuries have been reported, Nicoletti said.

The fire, stoked by hot dry winds and fueled by chaparral, spread south and west quickly in an unincorporated part of Orange County and threatened multimillion-dollar homes here and in Anaheim Hills, about 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Authorities said the blaze may have been started by a vehicle fire.

Capt. Steve Miller of the Orange County Fire Authority said winds blowing up to 35 mph were making firefighting difficult for the more than 400 firefighters on the scene. Temperatures were in the 90s and humidity was at 5 percent.

Firefighters were aided by helicopters and planes dropping water and retardant on the flames, and police went door to door to warn residents to evacuate.

"We are holding our own, but the fire is going to continue to make progress as long as fuel is in its way. It's not a good situation for us," Miller said.

The area, like much of Southern California, is under a red flag alert, indicating a high fire danger. A prolonged drought has left the chaparral-covered hills highly combustible.

Fleeing fires has become a part of life for many residents.

Susan Snell, who has lived in Anaheim Hills for 23 years, followed a well-worn routine Sunday: She put her cat in a carrier, packed tax and insurance papers and photographs and found a good vantage point.

"It's freaky what you end up taking with you," she said as she watched television at the Anaheim Hills Community Center for updates.

Meanwhile, another brush fire had started about 20 miles away in Corona in Riverside County, said Capt. Julie Hutchinson from the California Department of Forestry. It had consumed about 25 acres but didn't threaten any houses, said Hutchinson.

Flash floods kill six in Algeria

ALGIERS (AFP) - A flash flood killed six people in southern Algeria when torrential rains caused wadis to overflow, while high winds brought down trees and walls, press reports said Saturday.

Two teenage schoolgirls and four shepherds were swept away in separate incidents in the Djelfa region, 270 kilometres (170 miles) south of Algiers on Thursday when more than 100 millimetres (four inches) of rain fell in just a few hours, the reports said.

Other people were injured by falling walls, trees and telegraph poles as winds reached 120 kilometres (75 miles) an hour, the reports added.

In Algiers itself some 30 houses were flooded in the east of the city when a river overflowed for the first time in 15 years. Firemen had to use boats to evacuate the residents.

In the mountainous east of the country meanwhile roads were blocked by snow, and weather forecasters predicted conditions would worsen on Sunday.

Typhoon Muifa creating battering waves

What started Tuesday innocently enough as a moderate tropical storm has become a small, but potent, typhoon east of the Philippines. Typhoon Muifa (Moy-fa) became worthy of its prefix today when winds were estimated at near 105 mph. Muifa is at best meandering to the north while churning in the Philippine Sea just east of Manila. In fact, for all intents and purposes, the typhoon has stalled. Though forecast to move west over the islands, forward progression will be slow. Bad news for the island chain as flooding and mudslides will result from the copious amounts of rain expected to fall over the next 48 hours. There is no doubt that the large and powerful waves have been battering the eastern coast of the northern Philippines. The system is forecasted to weaken gradually over the next 5 days as it heads towards southern Vietnam.

The Atlantic and eastern Pacific Basins remain quiet.

Kansas tornado was one for the books
With speeds up to 200 mph, it was earliest twister in state history

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Meteorologists reached for superlatives to describe a tornado that barreled through two Kansas counties on its way into Missouri last week.

The National Weather Service on Tuesday said the twister that slammed parts of Anderson and Linn counties on Feb. 28 was classified as an EF-4, with wind speeds of 166 mph to 200 mph.

It was also the nation's most powerful so far this year, and the first one to get the EF-4 classification since the weather service switched Feb. 1 to the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which offers a more detailed analysis of tornado strength.

No tornado of such power had ever struck Kansas in February — or before March 13 of any year.

"It's unusual, but not as unusual as you might think," said Dan McCarthy, warning coordinator meteorologist at the Storm Prediction Center operated by the National Weather Service in Norman, Okla.

It felt very unusual to Lee Wilson, a Linn County veterinarian. Wilson heard the deafening whine the evening of Feb. 28 as the twister approached, and he later watched lightning illuminate the funnel cloud roaring away from his house near Centerville.

"It's definitely my first winter one," he said, "and I hope it's my last."

Sheriff Marvin Stites, a lifelong Linn County resident, said the Feb. 28 tornado was the earliest he could recall in any year.

No deaths and no major injuries resulted from the tornado, although it caused extensive property damage in Linn County.

The same storm system spawned 50 reported tornadoes from Minnesota to the Gulf Coast, killing 20 people, including a 7-year-old Missouri girl and eight students at an Alabama high school.

The National Weather Service classified the Alabama tornado as an EF-3 with winds 136 to 165 mph. Storms are rated from EF-0 to EF-5, with the higher numbers being the most damaging.

Forecasters said winter is a good time to prepare for tornado season, even if it seems distant. In the Kansas City area, for example, peak season for twisters is April to early June, said Andy Bailey, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service at Pleasant Hill.

"Families need to sit down and plan what they would do if there is a tornado warning," Bailey said. "If they wait until the warning is issued, it could be too late."

Monitoring the weather service's broadcasts to weather radios and staying alert to other media is good policy, forecasters say.

Linn County, however, doesn't get reliable weather radio reception, and parts of the county lack emergency sirens.

For Wilson, who has been through four tornadoes in the county since 1979, the only bright spot was seeing neighbors help neighbors. The veterinarian said volunteers combed his neighborhood on Sunday.

"Within one afternoon," he said, "they had picked up three square miles of debris."

Strong quake hits seas off Japan coast

TOKYO - A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.0 struck in Pacific Ocean waters off Japan's eastern coast Thursday, but there was no danger of a tsunami, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The earthquake, which occurred at 2:04 p.m., was centered 87 miles below the earth's surface, near the island of Tori-shima, the agency said. Tori-shima is about 360 miles southeast of Tokyo.

Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.

Small earthquake shakes Melbourne

A shallow earthquake of magnitude 3.5 shook homes east of Melbourne just after 1.30pm (AEDT) on Thursday.

The quake's epicentre was in the Bunyip State Park, approximately 70 kilometres east of Melbourne, although residents would have felt the shudders up to 40 kilometres away from its centre.

Duty seismologist David Jepsen at Geoscience Australia said it was unlikely there would be any damage associated with the tremor.

The last earthquake of a similar strength was six years ago, although Melbourne residents experienced one with a magnitude 2.9 in October last year.

Today's tremor, defined as an intraplate earthquake, occurred when stresses in the earth's crust exceeded the strength of the rock above, causing the rock to break, Dr Jepsen said in a statement.

Australia's west braces for tropical storm

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Communities on Australia's north west coast prepared for a severe tropical cyclone expected to hit the region early on Friday, with mines and oil production shut down and emergency services placed on alert.

Cyclone George was expected to hit the remote coast between Port Hedland and Karratha early on Friday, bringing heavy rain and winds of up to 235 km per hour (146 miles per hour).

A second storm, tropical cyclone Jacob, was also heading toward Western Australia, but was still far off the coast and was 240 km south of the Australian territory of Christmas Island.

Mining company BHP Billiton Ltd./Plc. said it had closed its iron ore port operations in Western Australia's Port Hedland as George was expected to intensify from category three to a category four cyclone within hours, just one step short of the maximum level five.

"People have been sent home to look after their own properties," a company spokeswoman said.

Much of the offshore oil production in the area was also suspended as a precaution, affecting about half of Australia's daily oil output.

The storm was moving slowly south toward the coast, in an area known as Cyclone Alley, at 16 km (10 miles) per hour and the Bureau of Meteorology expected it to cross the coast around 6 a.m. on Friday (2200 Thursday GMT).

Emergency services issued a yellow alert -- the second highest -- for the area between Broome and Dampier, warning of destructive winds and advising people to shelter in the strongest parts of their homes.

Ships in the area's iron ore ports were heading to the safety of deeper water to ride out the cyclone and await the possible arrival of category two Jacob.

The storm threat revived memories of Cyclone Glenda, a destructive category four storm, which forced oil and gas fields to shut down and thousands of people to take shelter when it hit the region last March.

Destructive storms also caused havoc along Western Australia's southern coast and goldfields in January, bringing flooding and strong winds.

The weather bureau said George also threatened to bring extensive flooding and dangerous storm tides as it crossed the coast, after which its power was expected to weaken quickly.

Cyclones are a regular feature of the Australian summer in the tropical north and the season still has another month to run. The most deadly on record was Cyclone Tracy, which killed 65 people in the northern city of Darwin in 1974.

Survivors stunned by power of Indonesia quake

SOLOK, Indonesia (AFP) - Relief operations swung into gear Wednesday a day after a powerful quake rocked the Indonesian island of Sumatra as a senior official revised the death toll down to 52.

The force of the 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which was followed by an almost equally powerful aftershock, stunned villagers used to the tremors that often shake this mountainous region of West Sumatra.

Rescue officials earlier said the quake, which hit early Tuesday, killed 71 people and injured hundreds, many seriously.

A spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono revised that figure to 52, saying some of the dead had been counted twice, although the Antara state news agency cited an unconfirmed breakdown of fatalities adding up to 88.

"We have earthquakes now and then but nothing as strong as yesterday's. I have never experienced an earthquake that strong," said Emi Zurmiati, 42, her eyes reddened from crying.

Speaking in front of a crumbled home in Sumani village, one of the hardest hit areas of West Sumatra's Solok district, she said her mother and two nieces had been killed in the quake.

The girls died in a fire that swept through a primary school after a wall collapsed on it. Her mother was killed in a nearby alleyway.

Altogether nine people died in Sumani, five of them primary school pupils and the rest women hit in the alley by the same collapsing wall.

Zurmiati, who had been sweeping in front of her home when the quake struck, said the ground shook so strongly that she could not even stand.

"Even crouching, I was tossed right and left," she said.

The quake's epicentre was located 49 kilometres (30 miles) northeast of the West Sumatran capital Padang, according to the US Geological Survey, but was also felt in neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore.

"This time, it was not only very strong but also lasted a long time," said 75-year-old Nurbari, a grandmother sitting under a large plastic sheet strung between trees in front of her house in Tanah Garam, a village near Sumani.

"The last time there was such a strong earthquake, that crumpled buildings and left large cracks on the ground. I was still very young," Nurbari said.

In the hamlet of Sumagek, near Sumani, about 70 people spent the night in the open, fearful of returning home.

"Everyone, by habit, knows what to do in case of a quake," said Masri, a 60-year-old farmer. "Run out of buildings. But this time, it (the quake) was extraordinary, really extraordinary."

Suryadi, a rescue coordinator on Sumatra, said more than 1,000 houses had been completely destroyed and at least 2,500 damaged.

"The latest data we have received is 71 dead in seven districts and cities," he told AFP.

"We have not received reports of the total number of people injured, but we did receive reports that many people cannot be accommodated by the hospitals."

Suryadi said the evacuation efforts were still underway and emergency meals were being distributed, although there was a shortage of tents.

"Many people are staying in front of their damaged houses, with whatever they can use as shelter," he added.

Syafrizal, member of an emergency team in nearby Tanah Datar district, said search efforts there had been called off.

"Now we are concentrating on relief efforts, including providing medical services, distributing aid and helping the population clean up," he said.

But quake survivors criticised the government's relief push as too slow.

Ridah, from Tanah Garam, said she had yet to be helped.

"Nothing, nothing, nothing," she responded when asked what she had received, the walls of what was once her home crumbling behind her.

The Netherlands pledged two million dollars to buy immediate necessities, while Canada promised 250,000 Canadian dollars.

Indonesia, an archipelago of some 17,000 islands, sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, where continental plates meet -- and where earthquakes are a regular and often deadly occurrence.

The devastating Asian tsunami in 2004 was set off by a massive earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, killing some 168,000 people in Aceh province on its northern tip in a total of 220,000 across the Indian Ocean region.

Table-sized ice slabs close Toronto streets

Bitter snowstorm interrupts warm China

BEIJING - The worst March snowfall to hit northeast China in 56 years killed three people and storms halted power and water supplies just days after the country registered one of its warmest ever winters, state media said on Monday.

The three died when roofs of two market stalls collapsed under the weight of the snow on Sunday in Liaoning province, Xinhua news agency said.

High winds brought down 1,100 ramshackle houses and damaged another 1,300, it said, citing a provincial spokesman.

Power stations in the coastal city of Dalian were hit by high winds. Water and heating were cut for many parts of the city, the agency said. As a result, some 900,000 students were told not to show up for school Monday.

Heating for 40 percent of users of Dalian's largest electricity group was cut at midnight on Sunday, leaving thousands of urban families shivering as the temperature dropped to 19 degrees Fahrenheit, it said.

It would take two or three days to repair the damage, it added, quoting city authorities.

Scores of flights and trains were cancelled in the area, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded.

Most of China's northern wheat-growing areas had also been hit by the snowfall, agriculture officials said.

A warmer-than-usual winter had increased the possibility of spring freeze damage as it accelerated growth of the crop, grain experts said.

Rain, isolation hamper Indonesia landslide rescue

JAKARTA, March 5 (Reuters) - Heavy rains and poor access to remote areas hampered search and relief efforts for about 40 missing people and hundreds displaced by landslides in Indonesia's eastern Flores island, officials said on Monday.

About 1,000 people whose homes were washed away have been evacuated, many still remain cut off with key roads severely damaged by the landslides and floods that have killed 34 people across vast swathes of land.

The landslides followed days of torrential rain in hillside areas in Flores' Manggarai regency, around 1,500 km (932 miles) east of Jakarta.

"It is still raining here today. There is thick fog around the location but we managed to evacuate 1,000 people," said Manggarai regent Christian Rotok, who was moving aid to an isolated district.

"Many houses in Manggarai are built on hills which are prone to disaster and much of the forest above has been stripped. Landslides occur almost every year," he told Reuters by telephone.

Rotok said rescuers, including soldiers and policemen, were forced to take food and medicine to evacuees by foot because some affected districts were still cut off.

Indonesia is in the middle of the rainy season, when landslides are frequent in the country. Tropical downpours can quickly soak hillsides and years of deforestation often means there is little vegetation to hold the soil.

Feds assess damage from Alabama tornado

ENTERPRISE, Ala. - Betty Thomas' house was without power, battered by a tornado that killed eight students at a nearby high school.

But Thomas said she was more concerned about caring for her five grandchildren and neighbors — who she was barbecuing food for in her front yard Friday — than about how much the government will chip in to help fix her place up.

"I haven't even had a chance to think about that," said Thomas, 54. "I'm just glad to be here."

President Bush arrived in Enterprise on Saturday, a day after Gov. Bob Riley toured the town's heavily damaged school and ravaged neighborhoods.

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials fanned Friday out to assess the damage, which Police Chief T.D. Jones said covered a swath about four miles long and hundreds of yards wide. Riley promised the state would help rebuild Enterprise High School, where a tornado struck Thursday, killing eight students.

"I told the superintendent that 'We're going to rebuild your school,'" Riley said.

The students were among 20 people killed in Alabama, Georgia and Missouri by tornadoes contained in a line of thunderstorms that stretched from Minnesota to the Gulf Coast. The storms damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes, toppled trees and knocked down power lines. In Enterprise, a town of 22,000 people, more than 50 people were hurt.

As residents began the arduous task of cutting and hauling away downed trees on Friday, some questioned why students were still at the high school nearly three hours after the first tornado warnings were issued Thursday.

Warning sirens began blaring about 10:30 a.m. that day, prompting school officials to order the high school's 1,200 students into interior halls — supposedly the safest part of the building.

Many students left school after the initial warnings, and administrators decided to dismiss classes at 1 p.m., before the worst of the weather was forecast to hit, said Bob Phares, an assistant school superintendent.

But with hundreds of students still huddled inside the school, emergency management officials warned that a tornado may hit the area and advised school officials to hold students until 1:30 p.m., Phares said.

"The storm hit about 1:15," he said. A wall in one hall collapsed, and the concrete slab roof fell on the victims.

Residents of the neighborhood around the school said they heard warning sirens long before the tornado slammed into the building, crushing the victims in an avalanche of concrete and metal.

"It came real fast, but they had plenty of time to get those kids out because sirens were going off all morning," said Pearl Green, whose 15-year-old niece attends the school and was hit in the head by a flying brick.

But school officials said they had no chance to evacuate earlier because of the approaching severe weather. And others said the carnage would have been greater had students been outside or on the road when the storm hit.

The governor defended administrators' actions after a tour of the school.

"I don't know of anything they didn't do," Riley said after stepping out of the collapsed hallway where the students died. "If I had been there, I hope I would have done as well as they did."

The last of the bodies were removed Friday. The dead students included five boys and three girls, all 16 or 17 years old.

"Each one who was brought out, somebody would say, `That was a good kid,'" said Phares.

Landslides kill 17 in eastern Indonesia

AKARTA, March 3 (Reuters) - Landslides caused by torrential rains in the eastern Indonesian island of Flores killed at least 17 people and left 46 missing, a government official said on Saturday.

The heavy rains also caused flooding and washed away dozens of homes in six hilly districts in East Nusa Tenggara province, Yos Nono, an official at the disaster management office in Manggarai regency, told Reuters.

"An evacuation team is digging to search for the victims, but we are facing problems because of bad weather and heavy rain," Nono said.

He said the road from Ruteng, the main town in the area, to Reok district was cut off because of the landslide and some areas had turned into virtual lakes.

Officials had no estimate of the number of people who may have been displaced from their homes, but the government was distributing rice, noodles and canned fish to victims.

Indonesia is in the middle of the rainy season when landslides are frequent in the country. Tropical downpours can quickly soak hillsides where deforestation has left little vegetation to hold the soil.

Moderate quake jolts Indonesia's Papua

AKARTA, March 3 (Reuters) - A moderate 5.3-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia's Papua island on Saturday, damaging some houses and a TV tower but caused no serious damage or deaths, a meteorological official said.

The quake struck 67 km (42 miles) southeast of Manokwari, the capital of West Irian Jaya province, at a depth of 33 km, Setiyono, an analyst at the meteorology and geophysics agency, said.

Indonesia lies in the so called "Pacific Ring of Fire" where seismic activity is frequent because of the shifting of tectonic plates.

Cyclone causes flooding across NT

Heavy rain from tropical cyclone George is causing widespread flooding in the Northern Territory's north-west.

Darwin's northern suburbs have recorded 206 millimetres of rain since yesterday morning.

Weather bureau spokesman Ian Roberston says the heavy downpours are the result of a tropical low, which is now a category 2 cyclone.

"Darwin has 310 millimetres of rain so far this month, and the average for the month is 317, so we've almost had the average for the whole, all of March, in the last four days," he said.

Tropical cyclone George is moving west at 15 kilometres-per-hour and is about 115 kilometres west-south-west of Port Keats.

A cyclone warning is current from Cockatoo Island off the Kimberley coast to Daly River mouth in the Northern Territory.

A cyclone watch has been extended from Cockatoo Island to the Kimberley town of Broome.

Oenpelli

Meanwhile, flood waters have dropped about half-a-metre overnight in the Arnhem Land community of Oenpelli, 320 kilometres east of Darwin.

Oenpelli has recorded almost 870 millimetres of rain in the past week, which forced the evacuation of almost 100 people to high ground.

Rain is still falling in the town today, but the local council is hoping the worst of the flooding is over.

Council spokesman Bill Medley says the community is now listing household goods such as beds, fridges and food stocks that will need to be brought in.

"We'll need to bring some stuff in and the environmental health people are coming out," he said.

"So once the water does receded, we've got a big clean-up of all the houses and buildings that have been affected by the water.

"But we're just compiling a list of gear now that we need to get bought in, but then it's just roll your sleeves up and just go and get your hands dirty and start working."

Katherine warning

Heavy rainfall in the Top End has also prompted police to launch the first flood warning under the Katherine region's new flood plan.

Floodwaters have reached three metres at the Nitmiluk Visitors Centre, near Katherine Gorge.

Katherine and Northern Regional Police Commander Greg Dowd says the warning indicates water could reach 14 metres at the town's Railway Bridge within the next 12 hours.

He says residents on Gorge Road and other low lying areas have been notified.

"Obviously we've now got about a 12 hour window where that water will flow through to Katherine, but we're not expecting it to go beyond somewhere about the 14 metre mark," he said.

"It doesn't even trigger us to the next stage of the plan for the Katherine township itself."

19 dead as tornadoes tear through southern US

NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) - Nineteen people were killed as tornadoes and severe storms rippped through the southern United States on Thursday, with many of the victims at an Alabama school, the White House said.

The US government extended federal aid to the stricken states of Alabama and Missouri. The aid came on the same day President George W. Bush, criticized for a slow response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, visited New Orleans to tell the storm victims he had not forgotten about them.

"The administration stands ready to help," Bush spokesman Scott Stanzel said, adding that Bush was "deeply saddened" by the deaths, which included a girl in Missouri and 18 more people in Alabama, of whom 13 were in a school.

The worst-hit was the Alabama city of Enterprise, where a tornado tore through a high school.

"I felt like I was on a rollercoaster. It was the scariest thing ever," student Brooke Shroades told the Enteprise Ledger newspaper after surviving the twister by hunkering down in a cubbyhole at the school.

"When I heard the train sound, I started screaming," she said.

Her father, Mike Shroades, who had hoped to pick up his daughter before the storm hit, sought shelter in a school hallway with other parents, teachers and students.

"You could feel your body moving from the wind and suction," the Enterprise Ledger quoted him as saying.

School official Bob Ferris said the extent of the tragedy was not immediately clear. "We need your prayers," he said at a news conference.

City Mayor Kenneth Boswell announced he had imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew to ensure emergency crews can work unhindered.

Dozens of people were taken to hospitals in Enterprise and other parts of the southern state, where numerous homes were reported destroyed.

"Cars are overturned and kids are being taken away in stretchers," Enterprise resident Maria Finch told the Montgomery Advertiser.

Television footage showed destroyed buildings, smashed cars, uprooted trees and downed power lines.

"It is complete devastation," Sheriff Russell Thomas told WSFA television as he assisted in rescue efforts in Enterprise. "It is very tragic."

"Enterprise has suffered major and widespread damage," said Alabama Governor Bob Riley, announcing he deployed about 100 National Guardsmen to assist in recovery efforts.

Local hospitals asked for blood donations and utility Alabama Power said about 15,000 homes across the state were without power Thursday afternoon.

In Missouri, one girl was reported dead after an apparent tornado touchdown.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said a total of 19 tornadoes were reported to have touched down in Alabama, Missouri and Georgia on Thursday.

And it warned more twisters, hail and "destructive thunderstorm winds" could threaten the southeastern United States and possibly some areas farther north during the night.

Near-blizzard, tornadoes sock central U.S.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The second big winter storm to hit the central United States in less than a week slammed parts of Nebraska and Iowa with near-blizzard conditions on Thursday and spun off tornadoes that killed a child in Missouri.

Snow piling up at a rate of 2 inches an hour closed Interstate 80, a major transcontinental highway, in southeast Nebraska from Omaha westward, where more than 9 inches of snow had fallen in some areas.

More than 50 counties were under blizzard warnings in neighboring western Iowa. Interstate 29 was closed in Iowa from near Omaha north to Sioux City at the South Dakota line.

Schools were closed across southern Minnesota as snow began piling up.

Parts of several Midwestern states and regions as far south as the Gulf Coast to the Florida panhandle were under tornado watches or warnings. In the town of Caulfield in south-central Missouri, a tornado killed a girl in a mobile home and damaged six other homes and two gasoline stations, officials reported.

Damaging hailstorms struck several states.

Foul weather in other cities snarled air traffic in Chicago, where 250 flights were canceled at O'Hare International Airport.

The Weather Channel reported that heavy snow would hit parts of northern New England on Friday and Friday night, where 1 foot or snow may fall as the storm moves east. But it said the bigger cities from Boston and New York, southward would escape with only rain.