Seven people have died in a Caracas slum due to heavy rains from Tropical Storm Matthew, which brought fresh misery to a region were hundreds have been killed in flooding and landslides this year.
An unrelated freak storm in Haiti killed at least five survivors from the devastating January quake and wounded dozens as it blasted through the capital, Port-au-Prince, tearing down shabby tent homes, trees and power lines.
Citing local fire department officials, Venezuela’s VNA state news agency said Tropical Storm Matthew killed its seven victims on Friday in the Santa Ana de Antimano neighborhood after their home was flooded.
Caracas fire chief William Martinez said authorities also conducted preventive evictions in other high-risk areas.
Thousands of people had been evacuated elsewhere in Central America ahead of Matthew, which made landfall in a lightly populated area of northeastern Nicaragua, then headed west, dumping rain across much of northern Honduras.
Rosalba Silva of Nicaragua’s Meteorology Institute said that the storm struck further south than had been expected.
At 3am GMT yesterday, Matthew’s center was located inland about 130km east-southeast of the coastal city of La Ceiba, the US National Hurricane Center said. It packed top winds of 85kph.
The storm was moving west-northwest at 24kph.
There have been no reports of victims or serious damage in Honduras, though the Honduran government expanded a red alert nationwide because Matthew threatened all 18 departments.
“This is a new threat. Tropical Storm Matthew has entered the territory, and we predict heavy rains throughout the country,” Honduran President Porfirio Lobo told reporters.
Randolfo Funez of the national emergency commission pointed to high water levels in rivers, noting that the soil was highly saturated after frequent rains since May.
About 10,000 Miskito Indians living on the Caribbean coast were evacuated ahead of the storm, Nicaraguan civil defense chief Mario Perezcassar said.
“Torrential rains will be the biggest threat for the next few days,” the National Hurricane Center said.
The eye of the storm was forecast to move across Honduras yesterday and today, reaching Belize and Guatemala late yesterday and today.
Matthew is a large storm, with tropical force storm winds extending outward up to 280km to the north of the center, the center said.
It was expected to produce total rain accumulations of 15cm to 25cm over portions of Honduras, Nicaragua, southern Belize and Guatemala, with up to 38cm in isolated areas.
“These rains could produce life-threatening flash floods and mud slides,” the center warned.
The storm was expected to weaken and lose its tropical storm status by today.
Central America is in the midst of one of the most intense rainy seasons in the past 60 years, with flooding and landslides that have killed more than 300 people and caused serious damage in recent months.
The storm was expected to approach Belize’s coast later yesterday and the country placed its entire coastline on a tropical storm watch.
Since the arrival of Tropical Storm Agatha in late May, heavy rain has swamped the region.
Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has declared a “state of national emergency” due to the heavy rain and flooding, which has killed at least 36 people, left some 40 people missing, forced the evacuation of about 11,500 people and caused US$1.5 billion in damage.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Julia formed out in the eastern Atlantic with maximum sustained winds of 130kph. It was expected to become a tropical storm today.
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
Cozy knits, sparkly bobbles and Santa hats were all the canine rage on Sunday, as hundreds of sausage dogs and their owners converged on central London for an annual parade and get-together. The dachshunds’ gathering in London’s Hyde Park came after a previous “Sausage Walk” planned for Halloween had to be postponed, because it had become so popular organizers needed to apply for an events licence. “It was going to be too much fun so they canceled it,” laughed Nicky Bailey, the owner of three sausage dogs: Una and her two 19-week-old puppies Ember and Finnegan, wearing matching red coats and silver
RSS