India's monsoon to hit Kerala coast on June
3, says weather office
Published on May 15, 2013
8:48 PM
NEW DELHI (REUTERS) - India's monsoon rains may arrive on the southern coast around June 3, the
weather office said on Wednesday, a late debut that will raise fears any revival for drought-hit tracts of
southern and western farmland could be delayed.
The rains, which run from June to September, are vital for the 55 per cent of farmland that is without
irrigation in India, one of the world's largest producers and consumers of food.
"The date of onset of southwest monsoon over Kerala is likely to be on 3rd June," the India Meteorological
Department said in a statement adding the forecast has an error margin of four days, a time frame treated
as normal.
Last year, the monsoon hit Kerala four days after the June 1 date forecast by the weather office, and the
season brought below average rainfall across the country, leaving several key sugar- and cotton-growing
states parched by drought.
One dead as cyclone hits Bangladesh, say
officials
Published on May 16, 2013
11:53 AM
People carry their belongings while moving to a shelter as Cyclone Mahasen approaches, in Cox's Bazar on May 15, 2013.
Authorities in Bangladesh moved residents out of low-lying coastal areas on Wednesday as Cyclone Mahasen approached to
within 800km. -- FILE PHOTO: REUTERS
CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh (AFP) - One person was killed on Thursday as Cyclone Mahasen hit
Bangladesh's southern Patuakhali coast, packing winds of up to 90 km per hour, officials said.
"Cyclone Mahasen started crossing the Patuakhali coast at 9:00 am (11am Singapore time) Thursday," Mr
Shamsuddun Ahmed, deputy director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department, told AFP, adding, "it
is not a severe cyclone".
"Its centre is still in the Bay of Bengal (and) will hit the Chittagong coast in the afternoon," he said, as
provincial administrators said one man had drowned in a coastal district after slipping in heavy rains.
Cyclone Mahasen crosses Bangladesh coast,
two dead
Published on May 16, 2013
1:09 PM

A flag of Bangladesh flies as people prepare for the coming of tropical cyclone Mahasen, in Chittagong, Bangladesh, on
Wednesday, May 15, 2013. People living in coastal areas in Bangladesh and Myanmar are being evacuated as cyclone
Mahasen appears to make landfall late Thursday or early Friday, according to news reports. -- FILE PHOTO: AP
CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh (REUTERS) - Cyclone Mahasen started crossing Bangladesh's low-lying
coast on Thursday, bearing down on the ports of Chittagong and Cox's Bazar, as tens of thousands of
people huddled in shelters from a storm which the United Nations says threatens 4.1 million people.
Winds up to 100 kph lashed the coast and whipped up waves, with an expected 2.1 metres storm surge and
heavy rain expected to cause widespread flooding.
"It started to cross and is approaching towards Chittagong and Cox's Bazar coasts," said a Bangladesh
meteorological department official.
The storm first hit Khepupara on Bangladesh's southern coast and was tracking northeast towards the two
ports on the eastern coastline near Myanmar.
Eyewitnesses said low-lying coastal areas were covered in waist-deep water as the storm crossed and trees
were uprooted and houses damaged. Two people were reported killed, one crushed by a falling tree and
another as he made his way to a shelter.
Bangladesh raised its storm warning to seven, on a scale with a maximum of 10, as Mahasen approached
one of the poorest countries in Asia.
The storm killed at least seven people and displaced 3,881 in Sri Lanka as it tracked across the Bay of
Bengal towards Bangladesh.
A boat carrying Rohingya Muslims in neighbouring Myanmar capsized at around midnight on Monday
after hitting rocks off Pauktaw in Rakhine State while evacuating ahead of the storm.
Official media said 42 people were rescued, but 58 were missing.
"The government has ordered the evacuation of about one million people from 15 coastal districts," said
the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
"As per the latest storm trajectory, 4.1 million people have been identified as living in at risk areas in the
districts of Chittagong and Cox's Bazar," it said in its latest update.
The port in Chittagong, which has a population of about three million, and the airport in Cox's Bazar were
closed on Wednesday.
Meteorologists said Mahasen should weaken quickly into a tropical rain depression over land.
"Mudslides will also be a concern as the heavy rain spreads farther north and east on Thursday night and
Friday into easternmost India and northern Myanmar," said meteorologists at Accuweather.com storm
forecasters.
Bangladesh has more than 1,400 cyclone-proof buildings on standby, but across its eastern border in
Myanmar tens of thousands of people on the coast were sheltering in makeshift camps and huts made of
timber and palm fronds.
In 2008, Cyclone Nargis killed up to 140,000 people in Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta, south of the main city,
Yangon.
The US-based Tropical Storm Risk said Mahasen should track northeast after hitting Chittagong, missing
Myanmar.
The Myanmar government had planned to move 38,000 internally displaced people, most of them
Rohingya Muslims, by Tuesday but many have refused to relocate from camps in Rakhine State in the
west of the country, afraid of the authorities' intentions.
At least 192 people were killed in June and October last year in violence between ethnic Rakhine
Buddhists and Rohingyas, who are denied citizenship by the government in Myanmar and considered by
many Buddhists to be immigrants from Bangladesh.
At a camp near the sea on the outskirts of Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, several people said on
Wednesday they would rather perish in the storm than evacuate.
"We arrived here last year because of the clashes between Rakhine and Muslims. I lost everything. Both
my mother and my two young daughters died," said Hla Maung, 38, a Muslim.
"If the cyclone hits here, I will pray to Allah. Everyone here wants to die in the storm because we lost
everything last year."
Myanmar is a mainly Buddhist country but about 5 percent of its 60 million people are Muslims. They face
a growing anti-Muslim campaign led by radical Buddhist monks.
A Reuters Special Report found apartheid-like policies were segregating Muslims from Buddhists in
Rakhine State.
Natural disasters cost $3.1 trillion, firms
must face risks, says UN
Published on May 15, 2013
7:39 PM
GENEVA (AFP) - The cost of natural disasters has hit US$2.5 trillion (S$3.1 trillion) so far this century,
far higher than previously estimated, a UN report said on Wednesday, urging companies to face up to the
risks.
The study by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) said the figure,
representing only direct losses, was more accurate than traditional tallies.
Most tallies "just represent the picture from internationally-reported disasters, the big disasters which get
into the headlines," said Mr Andrew Maskrey, author of the UNISDR's latest Global Assessment Report.
"If you add in all the nationally-reported disasters, which don't get into the international media and the
international databases, our impression is that losses are about 50 per cent higher than is currently being
reported, and losses are going up rapidly," he said.
As governments strive to limit the economic and human impact of catastrophes such as hurricanes or
floods - which experts warn will strike increasingly amid climate change - Mr Maskrey said business has
been missing from the debate.
Businesses have been outsourcing to disaster-prone locations without taking adequate catastrophe-proofing
precautions, a move which could be potentially costly in case of a disaster, he noted.
In 2011, for example, rains swamped factories located on a flood plain in Thailand, hitting a plant that
supplied the global auto sector and thereby halting output in countries such as the United States, Britain,
China and India.
"Businesses over the last 20 or 30 years have been gradually decentralising their production to areas with
cheap labour costs, that offer access to export markets, good infrastructure," said Mr Maskrey.
"This has obviously enabled a number of global businesses to become competitive, more profitable, more
productive, but in doing so, this has meant there's been an awful lot of investment in capital assets in
highly hazard-prone locations.
"Unthinking investment in risk regions could be dubbed "toxic assets," he added.
And any damage could have long-term effects, he added.
"Say your business does stop, you're out of business for two or three months, your customers are likely to
migrate to an alternative business, skilled workers may go elsewhere, your market share may go down and
your reputation may suffer," he added.
Mr Maskrey said locating in such regions was not wrongheaded, but that government investment agencies
and analysts needed to be frank about risks, while companies needed to make wise decisions, for example
by using disaster-proof buildings.
The report showed that even firms with risk-management departments tend to frame the issue in terms of
political and market threats, currency fluctuations, or litigation.
Another problem is that companies tend to let insurers do the thinking, he said.
"But insurers only ever cover a segment of the risk. Insurance definitely has to be part of the solution, but
not the solution itself," noting that while coverage can be around 90 per cent in a country like the United
States, it is often less than 10 per cent in emerging markets.
Texas tornado leaves at least 6 dead, several
dozens wounded
Published on May 16, 2013
2:31 PM
A trucking company trailer landed on a parked car in Cleburne Texas after a powerful storm went through on Wednesday
night, May 15, 2013. At least six people were killed Wednesday as the spring tornado outbreak devastated parts of Texas,
destroying or damaging dozens of homes and injuring dozens of people. -- PHOTO: AP
GRANBURY, Texas (AP) - At least six people were killed Wednesday as a spring tornado outbreak
devastated parts of Texas, destroying or damaging dozens of homes and injuring dozens of people.
The worst-hit city on Wednesday was Granbury, where authorities say a deadly tornado tore through two
neighbourhoods about 8 p.m. Sheriff Roger Deeds delivered the death toll at a midnight news conference.
"Some were found in houses. Some were found around houses," Mr Deeds said. He also said the total
could climb as crews pick through the rubble of shattered homes.
About 50 people were taken to a Granbury hospital, where 14 were admitted for treatment of injuries and
two were transferred to a hospital in Fort Worth, Deeds said.
As many as 100 people were injured, said Mr Matt Zavadsky, spokesman for MedStar Mobile Healthcare.
His company sent three ambulances and a medical bus from its Fort Worth base to Granbury.
Mr Deeds said officials were trying to account for 14 people, but it was not clear if they were missing or
were away from the area for other reasons.
Hardest hit were two neighborhoods in the southern end of the town of about 8,000 residents about 105 km
southwest of Dallas.
The same storm spawned another tornado that storm spotters told the National Weather Service was a mile
wide. That twister tore through the southwestern quadrant of Cleburne, a courthouse city of about 30,000
about 40 km southeast of Granbury.
There were no reports of deaths in that storm, Cleburne Mayor Scott Cain said, "but we do have the
potential for some injuries." He had no estimates.
Mr Cain had no estimate on the number of homes damaged, but he said he expected the number to soar
into the dozens based on his inspection of damage ranging from roof damage to total destruction.