Weekend storms signal deadly year

The weekend blitz of tornadoes in Kansas and the Plains puts 2007 on track to be one of the busiest and deadliest tornado years in a decade, severe-storms meteorologists said Sunday.

"Even if the year stopped right now, it would be the deadliest year we've had since 1999," said Greg Forbes, severe-weather expert for The Weather Channel.

The huge twister that leveled the south-central Kansas town of Greensburg late Friday, killing at least eight people, is the first tornado of the year rated at the top scale of a new rating system adopted in February to measure intensity.

The tornado, which carved a 22-mile path and reached 1.7 miles wide, had winds estimated up to 205 mph, the National Weather Service reported.

The last one to reach such intensity was May 3, 1999, when an F-5 tornado — considered the most powerful under the old rating system — slammed an Oklahoma City suburb, killing 36 people.

Forecasters predicted more intense storms in the nation's heartland today and through the week. A slow-moving system from the West continues to draw warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, triggering violent thunderstorms from Oklahoma and Kansas up to the Dakotas and Minnesota.

"Considering that we're probably going to be close to 600 (tornado) reports already this year, this season is probably going to be one of the busier we've had since 1998-99," said Dan McCarthy, severe-weather meteorologist at the federal Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

The annual average for the past 10 years is 1,272 tornadoes.

This year's 69 fatalities are more than twice the usual number by this date and the worst of the season may just be starting. The prediction center says May averages the most tornadoes each year, followed by June and April.

Ten people died in this weekend's storms: eight in the Greensburg area and two others in Kansas.

The deadliest tornado day on record was April 3, 1974, when 330 people died on the first day of a "super outbreak" of 148 tornadoes in 13 states.

This year, "We've had a lot of bad luck in terms of where these tornadoes have hit," Forbes said, noting twisters that killed six or more people in towns in Florida, Alabama, Texas and Georgia.

Before this weekend, 44 of the first 59 storm fatalities of 2007 were mobile home residents.

The Greensburg tornado was so significant that McCarthy drove from Oklahoma to head a quick-response team to examine the damage and rate the tornado's intensity.

Florida fire situation 'critical,' 1 neighborhood evacuated

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Wildfire conditions in Florida are considered critical because parts of the state are dry and winds are gusty, state officials said Monday as they monitored a large fire on the east coast and a smaller fire in the Panhandle forced evacuations.

About 20 homes near Freeport in Walton County in the Panhandle were evacuated Monday morning as a 300-acre fire threatened the neighborhood, said Jim Harrell, a spokesman for the state Division of Forestry.

With humidity at dangerously low levels in much of the inland part of the state and winds gusting over 20 mph in many places, "conditions are critical," Harrell said.

"It's getting interesting and I don't think it's going to get better soon," added state Emergency Management Director Craig Fugate.

Causing the most concern was a large 6,100 acre fire about 4 miles west of Ormond Beach on Florida's east coast.

Harrell said tankers were dropping fire retardant in an area between that fire and a subdivision called Rima Ridge, hoping to keep the blaze away from homes.

"They're ready for evacuation on short notice, but so far they're still in their homes," Harrell said.

Firefighters were also working another large fire, covering almost 900 acres between Eustis and DeLand in central Florida.

In all, there were almost 200 separate fires burning Monday in Florida, covering about 19,000 acres. Nearly 50 of those started on Sunday, about half of them caused by lightning from a line of thunderstorms that moved through the state too quickly to offer much relief in the way of rain, Harrell said.

So far, no injuries have been reported in any of the fires.

SRI LANKA: Over 120,000 affected by severe flooding in west

COLOMBO, 7 May 2007 (IRIN) - "Weather Gods Show No Mercy!" That is how the headline of Saturday's edition of Colombo's "The Island" newspaper described the torrential rains on 3 and 4 May that flooded much of western Sri Lanka.

In Colombo, the capital city, routine commerce and most vehicular traffic, including some railway lines, came to a standstill and a large sinkhole developed in one of the city's main corridors, the Galle Road, causing massive traffic delays and diversions.

Voicing a common complaint, Sunil Lai Upali, one of the city's numerous three-wheel scooter taxi drivers said: "I just couldn't move with the water so deep." He bemoaned the fact he made little money during the two days of rain. "It was a metre-and-a-half-deep in so many places! It was just too dangerous for me to work," he said.

It was particularly dangerous in four districts in the south and west of the country - Colombo, Galle, Kaluthara and Gampha. Colombo received nearly 10 inches of rain and Galle over seven during the two-day period, according to Sri Lanka's Department of Meteorology.

The Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) reported that the government's Disaster Management Centre (DMC) under the direction of Maj-Gen Gamini Hetiarachi is leading efforts to assess, respond to, and mitigate the effects of, the floods. The immediate needs were for equipment to clear canals, water pumps and various non-food items.

Death toll 15

Hetiarachi told IRIN on 6 May: "Fifteen people have lost their lives in the floods and over 121,000 are affected." He said the deaths were due either to drowning, landslides, or electrocution. Seven died in Galle district, three in Colombo, three in Kaluthara and two in Gampaha. Another nine were reported injured.

Homes damaged, destroyed

The flooding, combined at times with high winds, resulted in 280 destroyed homes and 1,266 damaged ones, according to initial assessments by the DMC. Galle district sustained the most destruction with 247 houses destroyed and 813 damaged.

According to the Emergency Operations Centre of the DMC, of those affected or displaced 51,301 are in Colombo district, 40,088 in Gampaha and 17,486 in Galle. Some 16 camps and welfare centres in Colombo District and 14 in Gampha are being used temporarily to house displaced people, according to the DMC.

Hetiarachi said: "The government is currently assessing the situation and allocating money to government agents to provide food and other provisions to those in need." According to the acting director of the National Disaster Relief Service, Aarath Perera, 5 million rupees (US$50,000) are being sent to district authorities to assist flood victims.

UN aid

Hetiarchi said the humanitarian community is helping as well. "The UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] Emergency Fund has provided 100,000 rupees ($1,000) to Kaluthara and 100,000 rupees to Gampha district for the hiring of backhoes to clear canals." He said sandbags were being placed along the Kelani river in Gampha district to keep it from flooding the town of Kelaniya.

Poor drainage

According to the DMC director, and now most news reports, the principal reason for the recent flooding is poor drainage. "The waterways and canals in urban areas are blocked by debris and garbage and not maintained," Hetiarachi said. "And many poor people build their small houses on low-lying areas that quickly get filled with water."

Sri Lanka occasionally experiences damaging floods, most recently in mid-January 2007, when heavy rains in south and central Sri Lanka caused numerous landslides and 18 deaths and temporarily displaced some 30,000 to 40,000 people.