MANILA: Philippine rescue workers battled floodwaters Friday to reach residents still trapped on the roofs of their homes as Tropical Storm Trami moved out to sea after killing at least 40 people.
Tens of thousands remained displaced after fleeing floods driven by a torrential downpour that dumped two months’ worth of rainfall in just two days in some areas.
“Many are still trapped on the roofs of their homes and asking for help,” Andre Dizon, police director for the hard-hit Bicol region, said. “We are hoping that the floods will subside today, since the rain has stopped.”
Accessibility remained a major issue for rescuers Friday, particularly in Bicol, President Ferdinand Marcos said at a press briefing.
“There were landslides in areas that didn’t have landslides before ... so I guess the soil is completely saturated, the water has nowhere to go,” he said.
The cities of Naga and Legazpi were reporting “many casualties but we haven’t been able to get in yet,” Marcos added.
As Trami departed the Philippines in the early hours, traveling west over the South China Sea, the storm’s death toll swelled as fresh reports of victims emerged.
In Batangas province south of the capital Manila, police staff sergeant Nelson Cabuso said six unidentified bodies had been found in Sampaloc village.
“The area was hit by a flash flood yesterday. Our people are still in the area to check if there are other casualties,” he said.
Another five people were killed in a flash flood in the coastal village of Subic Ilaya, police corporal Alvin de Leon said, pushing the toll to at least 40, according to an AFP tally from police and disaster officials.
While Manila was seemingly spared the kind of heavy flooding that accompanied Typhoon Gaemi in July, AFP reporters on Friday saw a subdivision south of the capital that was largely submerged.
Government offices and schools across the main island of Luzon remained shuttered Friday, and storm surge warnings were still in place along the west coast, with potential waves as high as two meters.
State weather agency specialist Jofren Habaluyas said that Batangas province had seen “two months’ worth of rain,” or 391.3 millimeters, fall over October 24 and 25.
An official tally late Thursday reported 193,000 people evacuated in the face of flooding that turned streets into rivers and half-buried some towns in sludge-like volcanic sediment set loose by the storm.
Many of those were in the Bicol region, where more than 30,000 fled Wednesday alone in the face of “unexpectedly high” flooding.
Rescuers in the region’s Naga city and Nabua municipality used boats to reach residents stranded on rooftops, many of whom sought assistance via Facebook posts.
In the Batangas town of Lemery, about 97 kilometers (60 miles) south of Manila, a hospital was forced to turn away patients as its wards and emergency rooms were flooded.
And the search for a missing fisherman whose boat sunk in the waters off Bulacan province west of Manila remained suspended on Friday due to strong currents, the local disaster office said.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Philippines or its surrounding waters each year, damaging homes and infrastructure and killing dozens of people.
But a recent study showed that storms in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.
Tropical storm leaves towns submerged, 40 dead in Philippines
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Tropical storm leaves towns submerged, 40 dead in Philippines
- Accessibility remained a major issue for rescuers Friday, particularly in Bicol
- Government offices and schools across the main island of Luzon remained shuttered
4 astronauts return to Earth after being delayed by Boeing’s capsule trouble
- A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachutes before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast
A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station mid-week.
The three Americans and one Russian should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas.
SpaceX launched the four — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin — in March. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us ... and helped us to roll with all those punches.”
Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.
The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven — four Americans and three Russians — after months of overflow.
Four killed in militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir
- Separatist militants have fought Indian forces for decades, with thousands killed in territory
- At least nine Indian soldiers were killed in two separate militant attacks in the region in July
SRINAGAR: At least four people, including two soldiers, were killed when militants ambushed an army vehicle in India’s restive Kashmir on Thursday night, officials said, the fourth attack in the region in a fortnight and the second this week.
The attacks come close on the heels of a government formed by an opposition alliance taking over in the territory where separatist militants have fought security forces for decades and thousands of people have been killed.
At least nine soldiers were killed in two separate militant attacks in the region in July.
Thursday’s attack occurred in the Bota Pathri area near Kashmir’s border with Pakistan, officials said, adding that two army porters were also killed in the incident and three soldiers injured.
“A massive search operation has been launched against the militants responsible for the attack...Additional reinforcements have been sent to the area,” said an army official who declined to be named.
Security forces are using drones and helicopters to scan the forest in the region where the incident occurred, a senior police officer said.
The People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), which Indian authorities say is an offshoot of Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-E-Mohammed, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulating on social media.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the authenticity of the statement.
Authorities closed Gulmarg town’s cable car — a popular tourist attraction that lies about 12 km(7 miles) from the spot of the attack — following the incident.
Around one million people use the cable car annually.
“The shutdown is a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of tourists and staff,” a senior official said.
At least six migrant workers and a doctor were shot dead in another attack in Kashmir this week when militants opened fire near a tunnel construction site.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, in a post on X, termed the “recent spate of attacks” in the region “a matter of serious concern.”
Kashmir is claimed in full but ruled in part by both India and Pakistan and the 2019 revocation of its special status, which saw it being split into two federally administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, led to the countries downgrading ties.
Japan PM on defensive as election prospects dim further
- Fresh survey suggest that Shigeru Ishiba’s ruling coalition could fall short of a majority in elections on Sunday
- Adding to Ishiba’s woes is the continuing fallout from a slush fund scandal within his Liberal Democratic Party
TOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba hit out at “biased” media reports related to a party scandal, as a fresh survey suggested that his ruling coalition could fall short of a majority in elections on Sunday.
This would be the worst result for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) — which has governed Japan for almost all of the past seven decades — since it last lost power from 2009 to 2012, as well as a major blow to Ishiba himself.
Adding to Ishiba’s woes is the continuing fallout from a slush fund scandal within the LDP that angered voters and helped torpedo his predecessor, Fumio Kishida.
Ishiba promised to not actively support LDP politicians caught up in the scandal running in the election, although they are still standing.
But according to media reports, the party has still provided 20 million yen ($132,000) each to district offices headed by these figures.
“It is truly frustrating that such reports come out at a time like this,” Ishiba said in a campaign speech on Thursday. “Those candidates will not use the money.”
“We cannot be defeated by those with biased views,” he added.
Opposition leaders pounced on Ishiba’s comments, including Yoshihiko Noda, a popular former prime minister who heads the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), the second-biggest in parliament.
“However you look at it, it is cash to secretly endorse them. Mr. Ishiba is making excuses that no one understands,” Noda, 67, said in a campaign speech.
“He is angry with these reports? What are you saying? It is the Japanese people who are angry.”
Ishiba, 67, only became party leader — on his fifth attempt — last month and took office as prime minister on October 1, calling snap elections within days to shore up his position.
LDP members picked the self-confessed defense “geek” as party leader, believing that his popularity among ordinary voters would restore the party’s fortunes.
The fan of trains, 1970s pop idols and making military models promised to create a “new Japan (that) will drastically change the nature of Japanese society.”
He pledged to revitalize depressed rural regions and to address the “quiet emergency” of Japan’s falling population by supporting families with policies like flexible working hours.
But he has rowed back his position on issues including allowing married couples to take separate surnames, and only named two women ministers in his cabinet.
Friday’s new poll by the Yomiuri Shimbun daily suggested that the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito might struggle to get the necessary 233 lower house seats needed for a majority.
Ishiba has set this threshold as his objective, and missing it would undermine his position in the LDP and mean finding other coalition partners or leading a minority government.
In voting districts, only 87 of the LDP’s 266 candidates are ahead of their rivals, while 133 are in neck-and-neck battles, many of them against CDP candidates, the top-selling Yomiuri said.
The LDP was also set to lose dozens of seats determined by proportional representation under Japan’s hybrid electoral system, the paper added.
“Regardless of what the election results are, Ishiba’s longevity as prime minister is in question,” said Rintaro Nishimura at think-tank The Asia Group.
UN report says planet to warm by 3.1 degrees Celsius without greater action
- Nations to discuss updated emissions strategies at COP29
- 1.5°C target likely out of reach without climate overshoot
TORONTO: Current climate policies will result in global warming of more than 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, according to a United Nations report on Thursday, more than twice the rise agreed to nearly a decade ago.
The annual Emissions Gap report, which takes stock of countries’ promises to tackle climate change compared with what is needed, finds the world faces as much as 3.1 C (5.6 F) of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100 if governments do not take greater action on slashing planet-warming emissions.
Governments in 2015 signed up to the Paris Agreement and a cap of 1.5 C (2.7 F) warming to prevent a cascade of dangerous impacts.
“We’re teetering on a planetary tight rope,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a speech on Thursday. “Either leaders bridge the emissions gap, or we plunge headlong into climate disaster.”
Global greenhouse gas emissions rose by 1.3 percent between 2022 and 2023, to a new high of 57.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent, the report said.
Under current pledges to take future action, temperatures would still rise between 2.6 C (4.7 F) and 2.8 C (5 F) by 2100, the report found. That is in line with findings from the past three years.
“If we look at the progress toward 2030 targets, especially of the G20 member states ... they have not made a lot of progress toward their current climate targets for 2030,” said Anne Olhoff, chief scientific editor of the report.
The world has currently warmed by about 1.3 C (2.3 F).
Nations will gather next month at the annual United Nations climate summit (COP29) in Azerbaijan, where they will work to build on an agreement made last year to transition away from fossil fuels.
Negotiations in Baku will help to inform each country’s updated emissions-cutting strategy, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which are due in February 2025.
The report suggests that nations must collectively commit to and implement a cut of 42 percent on yearly greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and reach 57 percent by 2035 for any hope of preventing warming beyond 1.5 C — a target now seen as likely out of reach.
Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, urged countries to use the Baku talks to increase action in their NDCs. “Every fraction of a degree avoided counts,” she said.
Trees and power lines flattened as Cyclone Dana hits India
- Cyclones are a regular and deadly menace in the northern Indian Ocean
- At least 1.1 million people in the states of Odisha and West Bengal were relocated to storm shelters
KOLKATA: Cyclone Dana uprooted trees and power lines after making landfall on India’s east coast, with officials warning of more fierce weather on Friday.
Cyclones — the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the northwestern Pacific — are a regular and deadly menace in the northern Indian Ocean.
At least 1.1 million people in the states of Odisha and West Bengal were relocated to storm shelters before the eye of the cyclone reached the coast just after midnight.
District official Siddarth Swain said that the storm had left a “trail of destruction” in the coastal town of Puri.
“Many trees and electric poles are uprooted,” he added. “Makeshift shops on the sprawling beach have been blown away.”
No casualties have been reported so far.
Dana flooded parts of the coast after triggering a surge in sea levels of up to 1.15 meters (3.75 feet).
On landfall the storm had gusting winds up to 120 kilometers per hour, Kolkata-based weather bureau forecaster Somenath Dutta said.
The Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world, was hit by a “gale force wind” that caused hundreds of trees to be uprooted, West Bengal minister Bankim Chandra Hazra said.
“The cyclone also damaged hundreds of homes, blowing off roofs in coastal areas,” he added.
Major airports have been shut since Thursday night in Kolkata, India’s third-biggest city and a key travel hub, which was lashed by heavy rains.
Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world heats up due to climate change driven by burning fossil fuels.
Warmer ocean surfaces release more water vapor, which provides additional energy for storms, strengthening winds.
A warming atmosphere also allows storms to hold more water, boosting heavy rainfall.
But better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced death tolls.
In May, Cyclone Remal killed at least 48 people in India and at least 17 people in Bangladesh, according to government figures.
