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."