Landslides, floods kill 91 in southern
Bangladesh
Published on Jun 28, 2012
Bangladeshi fire fighters search for bodies after a landslide in Chittagong on June 27, 2012. -- PHOTO: AFP
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - Landslides and floods caused by heavy monsoon rains killed at least 91
people in southern Bangladesh and many more were missing, the government said on Wednesday.
Officials said the landslides occurred mainly in remote villages with poor roads, making rescue work more
difficult.
At least 37 died in Cox's Bazar, 33 in neighbouring Bandarban and another 21 in Chittagong, mostly in a
series of landslides, the Disaster Management Ministry said. It said soldiers were joining the search for the
missing.
Three days of torrential rain in the region of small hills and forests dislodged huge chunks of earth which
buried flimsy huts where families were sleeping late on Tuesday and early on Wednesday. Many homeless
people live at the foot of the hills or close to them despite warnings from authorities.
Many of the dead were women and children, officials said. In Bandarban, an 11-year-old boy was the only
member of his family to survive because he was away when mud buried his hut. His parents and three
siblings perished.
'I could survive because I was visiting a relative,' said the boy, Rafiqul Islam. 'The rain had kept me from
returning home.'
Monsoon floods are common in Bangladesh, a delta nation of 160 million people.
Volunteers using loudspeakers warned people about the danger of landslides during the rains, said Mr
Jaynul Bari, a government administrator in Cox's Bazar. The floods inundated dozens of villages and were
disrupting communications in the region.
Flood waters covered many roads and washed away a railway bridge, snapping road and rail links between
Dhaka and the three districts. An airport in Chittagong was closed after flood waters swamped its runway,
but reopened on Wednesday after the rains stopped, officials said.
The government said relief workers were distributing rice and water to hundreds of displaced people.
40 missing after torrential rains trigger
mudslide in Sichuan province
Published on Jun 28, 2012
BEIJING (AFP) - Torrential rains in mountainous south-west China triggered a mudslide that left about 40
workers building a hydroelectric dam missing on Thursday, state media reported.
The mudslide occurred overnight Wednesday in Sichuan province's Ningnan county and as of noon (noon
Singapore time) on Thursday, rescue workers were unable to contact the work camp housing the
construction team, the Sichuan Daily said.
The mudslide was at the construction site of the Baihetan hydroelectric dam on the upper reaches of the
Yangtze river, China's longest, the report said.
Rescuers were immediately dispatched in hopes of reaching the site where between 38 and 41 workers
were living, it said.
Colorado wildfire evacuees fear for homes
Published on Jun 28, 2012
Fire from the Waldo Canyon wildfire as it moved into subdivisions and destroyed homes in Colorado Springs, Colo, on
Tuesday, June 26, 2012. -- PHOTO: AP
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (AFP) - Grandmother Virginia Caldwell was at a baby shower when a
neighbour called to tell her that Colorado's Waldo Canyon Fire had burst into her neighborhood and
possibly swallowed her home.
'I've been evacuated since Saturday. I have no clothes - nothing,' she said on Wednesday as she cradled her
18-month-old granddaughter at a Red Cross shelter in this western United States (US) city, which for days
has been shrouded in black smoke.
She did not know whether her house was one of the 300 reportedly engulfed by the blaze, and her face was
creased with worry. 'I'm up until two and three in the morning,' she said.
Colorado residents are used to summer wildfires that roll across the mountains and cause dazzling sunsets,
but none in recent memory has burst into a major city, as the Waldo Canyon Fire did on Tuesday. Watch
Reuters video dated June 27 below.
There have been no reports of deaths or injuries from the fire - one of several raging across the Rocky
Mountains - but some 36,000 residents have been evacuated in Colorado Springs, the state's second largest
city.
And while all are happy to have made it out safely, few know for sure whether they will ever see their
homes or belongings again.
The Denver Post published an aerial photograph of the Mountain Shadows neighbourhood that it said
showed some 300 houses had been burned down, but officials have not given an exact figure.
Some residents were able to escape with treasured belongings, but everyone had to leave something behind.
Artist Colin Gingrich, 38, also at the Red Cross centre, said he managed to get his watercolors out of his
apartment but had to leave his acrylics.
'I'll have to remember how they looked so I can do them over,' he said.
'I don't have a car so I left with my neighbours... But I did get 50 pieces of art out.'
He and Ms Caldwell were among some 100 evacuees who had taken shelter in a converted high school,
where tents were set up in the gymnasium, with big fans to combat the record high temperatures that have
fuelled the blazes and compounded the agony of the firefighters trying to contain them.
Officials say they are still investigating the cause of the blaze, but Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper
told CNN on Wednesday 'there's suspicion out there that we've got some idiot,' indicating the fire was not
caused by lightning.
US President Barack Obama plans to visit the area on Friday to survey the damage from the fire, which has
consumed some 7,400ha and is just five per cent contained.
At the evacuation centre a local library has brought books to help people pass the time and set up laptops
so residents can check their email, follow the fire's progress and notify loved ones that they are safe.
But for now, all they can do is wait, and if high winds whip up the fire again they could be joined by a new
wave of evacuees.
Just outside the centre, Mr Rick Woolfolk sat with his one-year-old great granddaughter Charlotte, who
clung to an oversized teddy bear nearly as big as she.
He said she had been offered a smaller one but declined it.
Mr Woolfolk and around a dozen of his relatives had to evacuate quickly, pausing only long enough to
grab medicine and some valuables.
'My wife made me carry out boxes of china,' he said.
'We just take it one step at a time.'