Efforts to save Shahdadkot fail, Qubo Saeed Khan submerges

SHAHDADKOT: Flood water has forced its entry into tehsil Qubo Saeed Khan as efforts to save the city from inundation have failed; the town is facing water surge from three directions: Shahdadkot, Chukhi and the FP embankment.

Seventy percent of the city has submerged leaving thousands trapped. Communication between Sindh and Balochistan remains suspended through Shahdadkot.

About 20,000 people are stranded; several adjoining areas of Kambar-Shahdadkot were evacuated and about 95 per cent of the population has moved to different cities of Sindh including Larkana, Hyderabad and Karachi.

To save Shahdadkot and several other districts and towns including Larkana, Dadu and all its tehsils, the administration had planned to divert the floodwater to RBOD-111 Canal from where it could head towards Manchhar Lake. Despite taking the RBOD route, the flood water went the

Two more oil cleanup workers sickened in Gulf of Mexico

NEW ORLEANS: Two crewmen aboard ships helping burn off surface oil from the massive slick in the Gulf of Mexico were evacuated late Friday after falling ill, the latest in a series of health concerns over the disaster.

“The unified incident command for oil spill operations is currently medically evacuating two crewmen from two controlled burn fleet vessels, after they started experiencing chest pains,” BP officials and federal authorities overseeing the response to the spill said in a statement.

The two men were taken to larger support vessels involved in response operations, and then airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in Louisiana.

No controlled burn was in operation at the time of the medical emergencies, although dispersants — seen by critics as a potential health hazard — had been sprayed in the area.

“Aerial dispersants have been used in the area of the burn fleet, but as per safety restrictions, no dispersants are deployed within two miles (three kilometers) of any vessel or platform,” the statement said.

On Thursday, the US Coast Guard said that all commercial fishing boats helping in clean-up operations off Louisiana were called into port after seven fishermen fell ill, and an investigation was launched.

George Barisich, president of United Commercial Fisherman”s Association, told media earlier that nine fisherman had to be taken to hospital Wednesday, and that dozens more have worked through sickness brought on by the clean-up operation.

At least 3 dead in suicide car bomb in Kabul

KABUL: A suicide car bomber attacked the heavily fortified Afghan capital early Tuesday, killing at least three people, police said.

Initial reports of the explosion in western Kabul indicated that U.S. vehicles were targeted, said Abdul Ghafor Sayedzada, the chief of the city police”s criminal investigation unit. The area around the blast site is also home to Afghan government buildings.

At least 12 wounded people were evacuated to hospitals, said Mirza Mohammad, a doctor who was treating the injured. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the blast wasnear the Afghan Ministry of Energy and Water.

800 evacuated due to flood risk near Iceland volcano

REYKJAVIK: Eight hundred people were evacuated in Iceland Thursday because of a flood from a glacier that melted after the country”s second volcano eruption in less than a month, police said.

Iceland”s Department of Civil Protection said the immediate area around the eruption in the southeast of the country was at risk of flash floods.

The volcano sent up the huge cloud of ash that has brought air chaos to much of northern Europe.

Police spokesman Vithir Reynisson said 800 people had been moved, many for a second time in less than 24 hours. Hundreds had to flee the floods after the eruption started on Wednesday.

The civil protection department said there was an “imminent and immediate danger of flash floods. Reports confirm a large body of water emerging from under” the glacier.

“The water is expected to breach the flood barriers,” the department added.

“We think that houses and roads and bridges are in danger of destruction,” police spokesman Reynisson added.

Australians Evacuated As Fires Rage

SYDNEY : Australian holidaymakers were evacuated on Thursday from a campsite in the path of raging wildfires, a day after an inferno destroyed 13 homes in the country’s southeast, officials said.

Fire crews in Victoria state were on high alert as strong winds and searing temperatures prompted extreme fire warnings, with four blazes burning out of control in the Gippsland region north of Melbourne.

“It’s going to be extremely hot, we’re looking at the spot forecast of temperatures of up to 40 degrees (Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit),” a spokesman for the Country Fire Authority (CFA) told state radio.

“Humidities will be low, and the wind will be out of the north gusting up to 55 or 60 kilometres (34 or 37 miles) an hour, which is a bad fire day.”

Camping areas in East Gippsland were evacuated and the CFA warned the main highway between Sydney and Melbourne could be closed as conditions worsened. Officials did not say how many campers had to flee.

The blazes come after February’s “Black Saturday” inferno killed 173 people and flattened more than 2,000 homes in the state, in Australia’s worst natural disaster of modern times.

Savage fires razed 13 homes and an emergency services building at Port Lincoln in the neighbouring state of South Australia Wednesday. Authorities said cooler temperatures and rain overnight had helped emergency crews bring some fires under control. Five firefighters were taken to hospital for smoke inhalation but no one was seriously injured.

Much of Victoria has been declared a catastrophic fire risk, when conditions are considered on a par with the Black Saturday firestorm and residents are urged to evacuate. Meanwhile farmers in central New South Wales were being advised to stock up on food and medical supplies ahead of a major Christmas Day deluge, with the weather bureau forecasting the worst floods in a decade.

“We’d hope most people would be prepared to be (trapped) out there for five days, because that’s how long it takes for floodwaters to subside,” a spokesman for the NSW state emergency service said.

The heavy rains are expected as cyclone Laurence moves inland after hammering the country’s west coast earlier this week.

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Australians Evacuated As Fires Rage was first posted on December 24, 2009 at 7:28 pm.

Typhoon Rocked Japan, China and Taiwan

BEIJING: A powerful typhoon killed eight people, toppled houses, flooded villages and forced nearly 1 million people to flee to safety on China’s eastern coast before weakening into a tropical storm Monday.

Named Morakot, the storm struck after triggering the worst flooding in Taiwan in 50 years, leaving dozens missing and bringing down a six-story hotel. It earlier lashed the Philippines, killing at least 22 people.

Morakot, or emerald in Thai, slammed into China’s Fujian province Sunday afternoon as a typhoon carrying heavy rain and winds of 74miles (119 kilometers) per hour, according the China Meteorological Administration.

At least one child died after a house collapsed in Zhejiang province. By early Monday, the storm packed winds of 52 miles per hour (83kilometers per hour) and churned at about 6 mph (10 kph), it said. Hundreds of villages and towns were flooded and more than 2,000houses collapsed, the official news agency said.

About 1 million people were evacuated from China’s eastern coastal provinces.

Taiwan’s Disaster Relief Center said Morakot killed 12 people and another 52 were missing, including 14 people whose makeshift home was swept away. Two policemen were washed away while helping to evacuate villagers in southeastern Taitung county.

In Japan, meanwhile, Typhoon Etau slammed into the western coast Monday. Nine people were killed in raging floodwaters and landslides and nine others were missing, police said.

In the northern Philippines, the death toll from Morakot rose to22 Monday with 18 injured and four missing, including three European tourists who were swept away.