3 d. ago Storm landfall leaves 1 dead as thousands evacuate in Philippines

A tropical storm lashed the northern and central Philippines on Sunday, leaving at least one person dead and forcing more than 22,000 people to evacuate from flood- and landslide-prone villages, officials said. Tropical Storm Fengshen was tracked at midday over Manila Bay with sustained winds of up to 65kph (40 mph) and gusts of up to 90kph (56 mph). It was expected to move away from the main northern Philippine region of Luzon on Sunday night, government forecasters said. A villager drowned on...

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3 d. ago Tropical Storm Fengshen kills 8 in Philippines, heads for China

A tropical storm lashed the northern and central Philippines on Sunday, leaving at least eight people dead and forcing more than 22,000 people to evacuate from flood- and landslide-prone villages. Authorities warned that tropical Storm Fengshen may intensify as it heads for China and Vietnam. Known locally as Ramil, the storm caused torrential rains, floods and landslides at the weekend. The fatalities included a family of five who died after a tree crashed into their home, said Junie Castillo,...

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3 d. ago Tropical Storm Fengshen kills at least 7 in Philippines, heads for China

A tropical storm lashed the northern and central Philippines on Sunday, leaving at least seven people dead and forcing more than 22,000 people to evacuate from flood- and landslide-prone villages. Authorities warned that tropical Storm Fengshen may intensify as it heads for China and Vietnam. The government’s disaster-mitigation agency said seven deaths were reported. Nearly 14,000 people who evacuated were still displaced from their homes by Monday morning, the agency said. Known locally as...

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1 week ago Blast at Tennessee explosives plant leaves multiple people dead and missing

An explosion at a Tennessee military munitions plant left multiple people dead and missing on Friday, authorities said, as secondary blasts forced rescuers to keep their distance from the burning field of debris. The blast, which people reported hearing and feeling kilometres away, occurred at Accurate Energetic Systems in rural Tennessee. The company’s website says it makes and tests explosives at an eight-building facility that sprawls across wooded hills in the Bucksnort area, about 97km (60...

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2 w. ago Hong Kong police arrest driver after pedestrian killed in crash, 3 injured

Hong Kong police have arrested a 60-year-old man after his car rammed into a van, leaving a foreign pedestrian dead and three other people injured. Police received a report at 3.53pm on Monday that a white Lexus private car driven by a 60-year-old man, travelling along Po Heung Lane eastbound, rammed into a stationary white Toyota van near a roundabout. The van then knocked down two pedestrians: a 37-year-old foreign woman and an 88-year-old woman, as well as the 64-year-old van driver. The...

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2 w. ago Hong Kong police arrest driver after 2 pedestrians killed in crash

Hong Kong police have arrested a 60-year-old man after his car rammed into a stationary van, leaving two pedestrians dead and two other people injured. Police received a report at 3.53pm on Monday that a Lexus car driven by a 60-year-old man, travelling eastbound along Po Heung Lane, had slammed into a stationary Toyota van near a roundabout. The van then knocked down two women, aged 37 and 88, as well as its 64-year-old driver, who was reportedly about to climb into his vehicle. The 37-year-old...

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2 w. ago Climate change made damage from Super Typhoon Ragasa significantly worse: study

Climate change may have been responsible for more than a third of the direct damage to homes and property caused by the super typhoon that struck southern China last month, a study has concluded. A warming Earth also made Ragasa – the strongest storm recorded this year – more powerful when it made landfall in Guangdong province, according to researchers from Imperial College London. They added that as the planet continued to warm, tropical cyclones were expected to become increasingly...

Society

3 w. ago Typhoon Bualoi batters Vietnam with ‘terrible gusts’, leaving 2 dead, 12 missing

Typhoon Bualoi made landfall in northern central Vietnam in the early hours of Monday, damaging houses and knocking down power grids, with at least two people dead and 12 fishermen missing as the storm brought flooding rains and huge swells. The typhoon was over Nghe An province as of 8am, with maximum wind speeds weakening to 88km/h (55mph) from 117 km/h when it made landfall hours earlier, according to the national weather forecast agency. Before making landfall, Bualoi had moved along the...

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3 w. ago Typhoon Bualoi batters Vietnam with ‘terrible gusts’, leaving 9 dead, 17 missing

Typhoon Bualoi made landfall in northern central Vietnam in the early hours of Monday, damaging houses and knocking down power grids, with at least nine people dead and 17 missing as the storm brought flooding rains and huge swells. By 11am, the typhoon was moving over Nghe An province into Laos, with maximum wind speeds weakening to 74km/h (47 mph) from 117km/h when it made landfall, the weather agency said. State media said rescue teams were searching for 17 missing fishermen. Before making...

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3 w. ago Tropical Storm Bualoi leaves 11 dead in Philippines, heads towards Vietnam

The death toll from Severe Tropical Storm Bualoi rose to 11 in the Philippines on Saturday as the cyclone bore down on Vietnam, authorities said. Bualoi battered small islands in the centre of the Philippines on Friday, toppling trees and power pylons, ripping roofs off homes, unleashing floods and forcing 400,000 people to evacuate. Among the worst hit was the tiny island of Biliran, where eight people died and two were missing, provincial disaster official Noel Lungay said by telephone. “There...

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3 w. ago Philippines, still recovering from Super Typhoon Ragasa, lashed by new storm

The Philippines evacuated hundreds of thousands of people and confirmed at least three deaths on Friday as a severe tropical storm battered the country, still feeling the effects of Super Typhoon Ragasa. Civil defence officials in southern Luzon’s Bicol region said three people had been killed as walls collapsed and trees were uprooted by Severe Tropical Storm Bualoi, which is sweeping west by northwest at sustained speeds of 110km/h (68mph). Evacuees in one province took cover under pews as the...

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3 w. ago Southern China cleans up after lashing from Super Typhoon Ragasa

The southern Chinese province of Guangdong was mopping up on Thursday after a battering from Ragasa, a super typhoon that has since weakened into a tropical storm. Ragasa made landfall at Yangjiang, in western Guangdong, at around 5pm on Wednesday, bringing heavy rain and strong winds that caused flooding and disrupted transport in cities across the province. Despite the storm’s record strength – it became the world’s strongest typhoon so far this year with sustained wind speeds of up to 265km/h...

Politics

4 w. ago Typhoon Ragasa takes aim at China after leaving 14 dead in Taiwan, lashing Hong Kong

Typhoon Ragasa takes aim at China after leaving 14 dead in Taiwan, lashing Hong Kong  Reuters

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4 w. ago 14 killed as rival Ecuadoran inmates fight with guns, explosives

Inmates in Ecuador fought each other with guns and explosives in a riot that left 13 prisoners and a guard dead, police said. The mayhem was the latest in a series of bloodbaths to engulf gang-ridden, overcrowded prisons in a once peaceful country now at ground zero of the violent Latin American drug trade. An unknown number of inmates escaped in the clash between rival gangs, during which another 14 people were injured, a masked police officer identified as commander Colonel William Calle told...

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