Tag Archives: Death

Somalia calls for blood donations after bombing, Turkey sends doctors

Civilians walk at the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

By Maggie Fick

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Somalia is in desperate need for donated blood to treat survivors of a truck bombing in the capital Mogadishu on Saturday that killed more than 300 people and injured at least 400 others, a minister said.

The bombing was one of the worst such attacks in Somalia. Officials said it bore the hallmarks of the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group, but they have not claimed responsibility.

Information Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman said Somalia does not have a blood bank and that the limitations of its health care system was impeding the medical response. Countries including Turkey and Qatar are providing medical assistance.

“We are requesting blood, we are requesting assistance for verifying the dead in order for their relatives to know,” Osman told Reuters by phone from Mogadishu.

Somalia has been mired in conflict since 1991, when clan warlords overthrew a dictator then turned on each other. One of the poorest countries in Africa, it faces severe food insecurity and relies on foreign donors to support its institutions and basic services.

Osman said the bodies of more than 100 people buried on Monday “were blown beyond recognition”, and that he hoped other bodies could still be identified.

Turkish doctors — mainly surgeons and specialists in spine injuries — arrived along with Turkey’s health minister on Monday.

“They are treating people in hospitals in Mogadishu,” the minister said.

Turkey evacuated 35 critically wounded Somalis to Ankara by plane on Monday, the country’s deputy prime minister Recep Akdag told reporters upon returning from Somalia. An increasingly close ally of Somalia, Turkey opened a $50 million military base in the capital last month.

Medicine from neighboring nations Djibouti and Kenya arrived by plane on Tuesday and “air ambulance” was en route from the Gulf state of Qatar, the minister said.

Qatar would be evacuating 25 more injured people to a hospital in Sudan.

(Reporting by Maggie Fick; Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

California wildfire evacuees allowed home as crews search for bodies

California wildfire evacuees allowed home as crews search for bodies

By Paresh Dave

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (Reuters) – More evacuees were expected to return home on Tuesday in Northern California where the state’s deadliest wildfires have killed at least 41 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

Officials said they expected the death toll to rise as 88 people were unaccounted for in Sonoma County alone and search-and-rescue teams combed through gutted homes looking for bodies.

Lighter winds have allowed the 11,000 firefighters battling the flames, which have consumed more than 213,000 acres (86,200 hectares), to gain control of two of the deadliest fires in wine country’s Napa and Sonoma counties.

The Tubbs fire was 75 percent contained and the Atlas fire 70 percent contained on Monday night, said Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, which was hopeful the blazes would be fully contained by Friday.

Tens of thousands of people who fled the flames in Sonoma County and elsewhere have been allowed to return home, with about 40,000 still displaced.

Daniel Mufson, 74, a retired pharmaceutical executive and one of scores of Napa Valley residents who lost their homes in the fires, described his sense of bewilderment.

“Now we’re just trying to figure out what the next steps are. We’re staying with friends, and dealing with the issues of dealing with insurance companies and getting things cleaned up,” Mufson, president of a community-activist coalition called Napa Vision 2050, told Reuters.

The remains of a mobile home park where fatalities took place when it was destroyed in wildfire are seen in Santa Rosa.

The remains of a mobile home park where fatalities took place when it was destroyed in wildfire are seen in Santa Rosa.
REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

CONSUMED

At least 5,700 homes and businesses have been destroyed by the wildfires that erupted a week ago and consumed an area larger than that of New York City. Entire neighborhoods in the city of Santa Rosa were reduced to ashes.

The wildfires are California’s deadliest on record, surpassing the 29 deaths from the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles.

Most of the 1,863 people so far listed in missing-persons reports have turned up safe, including many evacuees who failed to alert authorities after fleeing their homes.

Hopes for victims known to have been in the direct path of the flames will dwindle as each day passes, Sonoma County Sheriff Robert Giordano said on Monday.

About 30 vintners sustained some level of fire damage to wine-making facilities, vineyards, tasting rooms or other assets, the Napa Valley Vintners association said. But only about a half dozen reported significant losses, spokeswoman Patsy McGaughy said.

Vineyards, which mainly occupy the valley floor, appear to have been largely unscathed as the fires in Napa County burned mainly in the hillsides, McGaughy said. About 90 percent of Napa’s grape harvest had been picked and escaped potential exposure to smoke that could have tainted the fruit.

Still, the toll taken on the region as a whole has thrown the wine industry into disarray, and McGaughy said the 2017 Napa vintage will likely be smaller than it otherwise would have been.

“This is a human tragedy, there are people who have lost their lives, lost their homes, lost their business,” McGaughy said, adding Napa’s celebrated viniculture would recover.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave in Santa Rosa, Calif; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Vietnam braces for typhoon Khanun after floods kill 72

A boy paddles a boat past a flooded village's gate after a heavy rain caused by a tropical depression in Hanoi, Vietnam October 16, 2017.

HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam braced for typhoon Khanun on Monday after destructive floods battered the country’s north and center last week, killing 72 people, the disaster prevention agency said.

Last week’s floods were the worst in years, the government and state-run Vietnam Television said, with thousands of homes submerged. Another 200 houses collapsed and several towns remain cut off by the floodwater.

The floods also damaged more than 22,000 hectares (54,300 acres) of rice.

Farmers harvest rice on a flooded field after a heavy rainfall caused by a tropical depression in Ninh Binh province, Vietnam October 14, 2017.

Farmers harvest rice on a flooded field after a heavy rainfall caused by a tropical depression in Ninh Binh province, Vietnam October 14, 2017. REUTERS/Kham

Vietnam is the world’s third-largest exporter of rice and the second-biggest producer of coffee, although the floods have not affected the Southeast Asian nation’s coffee belt.

Eighteen people from the hardest-hit province of Hoa Binh in the north were buried by a landslide, but only thirteen bodies have been found, Vietnam’s disaster agency said.

The government has said it is fixing dykes, dams and roads damaged by last week’s flood and is preparing for typhoon Khanun, which is expected to cause heavy rain in northern and central Vietnam from Monday.

It has also warned ships and boats to avoid the approaching typhoon.

Vietnam is prone to destructive storms and flooding due to its long coastline. A typhoon wreaked havoc across central provinces last month.

Floods have also affected nine out of 77 provinces in Thailand, Vietnam’s neighbor to the west. Three people had been killed in flooding since last Tuesday, Thailand’s disaster agency said on Monday.

The Thai capital, Bangkok, was hit by heavy rain at the weekend, with gridlocked traffic bringing parts of the city to a standstill. Bangkok has often been described as the “Venice of the East” because of its many waterways.

However, the floods prompted criticism of Bangkok’s city government, with some social media users accusing authorities of not managing water levels in canals properly.

The city government defended itself, saying it was working closely with the irrigation department. Thailand suffered its worst flood in five decades in 2011, with hundreds of people killed, industrial estates engulfed and key industries crippled.

 

(Reporting by Mai Nguyen in HANOI; Additional reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Panarat Thepgumpanat in BANGKOK; Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Paul Tait)

 

One dead as Storm Ophelia batters Ireland

A lighthouse is seen as storm Ophelia approaches South Stack in Anglesey, Wales, Britain, October 16, 2017

By Clodagh Kilcoyne

LAHINCH, Ireland (Reuters) – A woman was killed as Tropical Storm Ophelia battered Ireland’s southern coast on Monday, knocking down trees and power lines and whipping up 10-metre (30-foot) waves.

Over 230,000 homes and businesses were without electricity with more outages expected and almost 150 flights were canceled from Ireland’s two main airports at Dublin and Shannon.

The woman in her 50s was killed by a tree falling on her car in the southeastern county of Waterford, police said. A female passenger in her 70s was injured. Police corrected an earlier report that the victim was in her 20s.

The storm, downgraded from a hurricane overnight, was the worst to hit Ireland in half a century. It made landfall after 10:40 a.m. (0940 GMT), the Irish National Meteorological Service said, with winds as strong as 176 kph (110 mph) hitting the most southerly tip of the country and flooding likely.

“These gusts are life-threatening. Do not be out there,” the chairman of Ireland’s National Emergency Coordination Group, Sean Hogan, said on national broadcaster RTE.

Schools, hospitals and public transport services were closed and the armed forces were sent to bolster flood defences. Photos on social media showed the roof of a stand at Cork City soccer club’s Turner’s Cross stadium had collapsed.

Hurricane Ophelia image captured by NASA is seen in space, October 14, 2017 in this still obtained from social media.

Hurricane Ophelia image captured by NASA is seen in space, October 14, 2017 in this still obtained from social media. NASA SPORT/ via REUTERS

Hurricane force winds are expected in every part of the country, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said, advising people to stay indoors. The transport minister said it was not safe to drive.

“While the storm in some parts of the country is not yet that bad, it is coming your way,” Varadkar told a news conference.

Britain’s meteorological service put an Amber Weather Warning into effect for Northern Ireland from 1400-2100 GMT, saying the storm posed a danger to life and was likely to cause transport cancellations, power cuts and flying debris.

“Impactful weather” is expected in other western and northern parts of the United Kingdom, it said.

British media are comparing Ophelia to the “Great Storm” of 1987, which subjected parts of the United Kingdom to hurricane strength winds 30 years ago to the day.

The storm is expected to move towards western Scotland overnight.

The Irish government said the storm was likely to be the worst since Hurricane Debbie, which killed 11 in Ireland in 1961.

It is likely to pass close to a west of Ireland golf course owned by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been planning a wall to protect its greens from coastal erosion.

Similar sized storms in the past have changed the shape of stretches of the Irish coastline, climatologists said.

 

(Additional reporting and writing by Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Robin Pomeroy)

 

Death toll from Somalia bomb attacks tops 300

A general view shows the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 14, 2017.

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – More than 300 people died after twin bomb explosions in Mogadishu, an official said on Monday, as locals packed hospitals in search of friends and relatives caught up in Somalia’s deadliest attack in a decade.

The death toll has steadily risen since Saturday, when the blasts – for which no organization had claimed responsibility by Monday morning – struck at two busy junctions in the heart of the city.

“We have confirmed 300 people died in the blast. The death toll will still be higher because some people are still missing,” Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of the city’s ambulance service, told Reuters on Monday.

Aden Nur, a doctor at the city’s Madina hospital, said they had recorded 258 deaths while Ahmed Ali, a nurse at the nearby Osman Fiqi hospital, told Reuters five bodies had been sent there.

Nur said 160 of the bodies could not be recognized. “(They)were buried by the government yesterday. The others were buried by their relatives. Over a hundred injured were also brought here,” he told Reuters at the hospital.

Some of the injured were being evacuated by air to Turkey for treatment, officials said.

Locals visiting their injured relatives or collecting their bodies filled every available space in Madina hospital.

“My last time to speak with my brother was some minutes before the blast occurred. By then he told me, he was on the way to meet and was passing at K5,” Halima Nur, a local mother, told Reuters, referring to one of the junctions that was struck.

“I am afraid he was among the unrecognized charred bodies that were buried yesterday. I have no hope of getting him alive or dead. But I cannot go home.”

Somali government forces and civilians gather at the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 15,

Somali government forces and civilians gather at the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 15, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

DEADLIEST SINCE INSURGENCY BEGAN

Saturday bomb attacks were the deadliest since Islamist militant group al Shabaab began an insurgency in 2007.

Neither it nor any other group had claimed responsibility, but al Shabaab, which is allied to al Qaeda, stages regular attacks in the capital and other parts of the country.

The group is waging an insurgency against Somalia’s U.N.-backed government and its African Union allies in a bid to impose its own strict interpretation of Islam.

The militants were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 and have been steadily losing territory since then to the combined forces of AU peacekeepers and Somali security forces.

But Al Shabaab retains the capacity to mount large, complex bomb attacks. Over the past three years, the number of civilians killed by insurgent bombings has steadily climbed as al Shabaab increases the size of its bombs.

Some of those seriously injured in Saturday’s bombing were moved by ambulance to the airport on Monday morning to be flown to Turkey for further treatment, Nur added.

Workers unloaded boxes of medicine and other medical supplies from a Turkish military plane parked on the tarmac, while Turkish medical teams attended to the cases of injuries moved from the hospital for evacuation.

 

 

 

(Writing by Duncan Miriri; editing by John Stonestreet)

 

Car bombs kill at least 22 in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu: police

Civilians evacuate from the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 14, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Two car bombs in separate parts of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu killed at least 22 people on Saturday and injured several others, police said.

The first explosion – in the city’s K5 Junction area which is lined with government offices, hotels, and restaurants – destroyed several buildings and set dozens of vehicles on fire.

“We know that at least 20 civilians are dead while dozens of others are wounded,” said Abdullahi Nur, a police officer who was in the area.

“The death toll will surely rise. We are still busy transporting casualties,” he said, adding that there were bodies under the rubble.

About two hours later, a second blast took place in the city’s Madina district.

“It was a car bomb. Two civilians were killed, ” Siyad Farah, a police major, told Reuters, adding that a suspect had been caught on suspicion of planting explosives.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, although the Islamist al Shabaab group has carried out regular attacks

The al Qaeda-allied group is waging an insurgency to topple the weak U.N.-backed government and its African Union allies and impose its own strict interpretation of Islam.

They frequently launch gun, grenade and bomb attacks in Mogadishu and other regions controlled by the federal government, though in recent years the militants have lost most territory under their control to African Union peacekeepers and government troops.

(Writing by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

French army charter plane crashes in Ivory Coast, four Moldovans killed

People pull the wreckage of a propeller-engine cargo plane after it crashed in the sea near the international airport in Ivory Coast's main city, Abidjan, October 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ange Aboa

ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Four Moldovan citizens were killed and two others were injured when a cargo plane chartered by the French military crashed into the sea near the airport in Ivory Coast’s main city, Abidjan, on Saturday, Ivorian and French officials said.

Four French citizens survived the crash but were injured, Ivory Coast’s Security Minister Sidiki Diakite told reporters at the scene. Several Ivorian security sources said French soldiers were among the wounded.

“What we can say for the time being is that this morning around 8:30 (0830 GMT), an Antonov plane crashed…with 10 on board including the crew members,” he said.

The crash occurred during a storm with heavy rain and lightning and rescuers were hampered by rough seas. Though Abidjan’s airport is located in a heavily populated area, it did not appear that anyone was hurt on the ground.

The French military operates a logistics base next to the airport in support of its Barkhane operation, combating Islamist militants in West Africa’s Sahel region.

“This was a plane chartered by the French army in the framework of the Barkhane force in order to carry out logistical missions,” French army spokesman Colonel Patrick Steiger said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the plane to crash, he said, adding that the four injured French citizens were being treated at the French military base adjacent to the airport.

France’s ambassador to Ivory Coast along with French gendarmes and soldiers quickly arrived at the crash site.

Hundreds of residents of the heavily populated neighborhood of Port Bouet, which surrounds the airport, crowded around the crash site. Some of them assisted firefighters and rescue divers who freed the bodies of the dead from the wreckage, which had broken into several large pieces.

French soldiers and Ivorian security forces later sealed off the area and French and Ivorian military vessels patrolled waters surrounding the crash site.

The name of the company operating the aircraft was not immediately known.

(Reporting by Ange Aboa; Additoinal reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Clotaire Achi in Paris; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Ros Russell)

California woman rescues horses, yaks and cows from deadly wildfires

FILE PHOTO: A horse is seen along Highway 12 during the Nuns Fire in Sonoma, California, U.S., October 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo

By Sharon Bernstein

(Reuters) – The acrid smell of smoke borne on hurricane-strength winds greeted horse trainer Rebecca Cushman before dawn, her phone ringing repeatedly as people frantically sought help saving their animals from California’s deadly wildfires.

It was still dark on Monday morning when Cushman, 41, set out from her farm west of the conflagration, towing a four-horse trailer behind her white Dodge pickup truck.

She worked all day and into the night, loading four horses at a time from fire-ravaged farms and ranches in Sonoma and Napa counties, taking the animals back to her farm in West Petaluma before going out for more.

By Thursday, she had helped rescue 48 horses, several cows and even some yaks in the bucolic vineyard and farm country north of San Francisco hit by the state’s deadliest wildfires in nearly a century.

“We have dogs, goats, guinea fowl, chickens, ducks, donkeys, miniature horses and horses at our farm right now,” Cushman said on Thursday. “I just finished helping load yaks and cows.”

Firefighters began to gain ground on Thursday against blazes that have killed at least 31 people in Northern California and left hundreds missing amid mass evacuations in the heart of the state’s wine country. [nL2N1MO007][nL2N1MN1LB][nL2N1MN00H]

Animals are difficult to rescue in disasters like California’s fast-moving wildfires, as their owners must often choose between staying behind to care for them or fleeing to protect their own lives and those of their family members.

Some animals, including many rescued by Cushman, found refuge at privately owned farms outside the fire zone. Others were sheltered at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa.

The first calls there for help came in at about 12:30 a.m. on Monday, as winds of up to 75 miles per hour (121 km per hour) whipped fires throughout the state into dangerous conflagrations, said fairgrounds spokeswoman Leasha LaBruzzi.

By Thursday, the fairgrounds housed more than 300 horses, LaBruzzi said. It had also become a temporary home to 200 people who fled the fires with their pets.

POLICE ESCORT

Santa Rosa resident Christy Gentry, 43, who was staying at the fairgrounds, spent Monday morning helping round up and rescue horses at Mark West Stables, where she works, near her home.

She and her husband, Jeff, have no cellular service at their home, and their landline was knocked out by high winds on Sunday night, so they were fast asleep when the fires began.

They were awakened at midnight by the stable’s assistant trainer pounding on their bedroom window.

They ran to help evacuate the 26 horses that board at the stable. Christy Gentry’s job was to race out to the pastures, the sky black except for flames licking over the top of the mountain, bearing carrots to persuade anxious horses to come to the barn.

One, a dun-colored draft horse named Duncan, never liked getting into horse trailers, and he was particularly resistant that night.

As trainers and horse-haulers moved the animals, volunteers brought feed and hay. Cushman asked for contributions to her account at a local feed store, and quickly raised $8,000.

Exhausted, with a headache from the smoke, Cushman said on Thursday the size and unpredictability of the fires made rescues more chaotic than in past blazes.

She rushed to get to one property only to find the roads blocked. “We were later able to get a police escort to get those three horses out,” she said.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Peter Cooney and Lisa Shumaker)

Philippine anti-narcotics chief warns of drugs war slowdown, police target assassins

FILE PHOTO: Relatives and loved ones of Leover Miranda, 39, a drug-related killings victim, hold a streamer calling to stop the continuing rise of killings due to the President Rodrigo Duterte's ruthless war on drugs, during a funeral march at the north cemetery in metro Manila, Philippines August 20, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) – The head of the Philippines’ anti-narcotics agency on Friday warned of a reduced intensity in the country’s war on drugs after a removal of police from the campaign, which he hoped would only be temporary as his unit lacked manpower.

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief Aaron Aquino said he had only a fraction of the personnel and budget of police, and hoped President Rodrigo Duterte’s decision to make his agency responsible for all operations would not be lasting.

“I know the public has high expectations but I am asking the public for understanding because of our limitations,” he said in a radio interview.

“I hope this is just a temporary arrangement, we need the police.”

Amid unprecedented scrutiny of police conduct, the mercurial Duterte issued a memorandum on Tuesday ordering police to withdraw.

The authorities said the shift in strategy was to go after big drug syndicates.

National police chief Ronald dela Rosa on Friday said police could now focus efforts on catching mysterious gunmen who were assassinating drug users, to disprove allegations by human rights groups that police were behind such killings.

Police say they have killed 3,900 people in their anti-drugs operations over the past 15 months and deny allegations by activists that many of those were executions.

Police say they used deadly force in each of those cases, because suspects were armed and had resisted arrest.

ANGRY OUTBURST

In a tirade on Thursday loaded with profanity and aimed at his foreign and domestic critics, Duterte said deaths during PDEA’s operations were far less than police, and hoped “bleeding hearts” would be satisfied with his decision.

PDEA’s Aquino said the public might notice a slowdown in operations. He planned to ask for a bigger budget, to add 1,000-1,500 agents a year until 2022, adding it was unrealistic to expect the PDEA to fight the problem with its small numbers.

PDEA has about 2,000 personnel, 1,100 of which are agents, compared to more than 175,000 police nationwide.

Amid anger over a high-profile kidnap and murder case involving police, Duterte suspended police from the drugs war in January and put PDEA in charge. He reinstated police soon after, saying drugs had flooded back to the streets.

In an interview with CNN Philippines, police chief Dela Rosa suggested Duterte’s shift in strategy might have been a response to opinion polls that showed some public unease about the crackdown.

A survey on Sunday showed a significant slide in Duterte’s ratings, but another one by a different pollster, released on Friday, showed he was still hugely popular.

Dela Rosa said police were winning the campaign, having cut the drugs supply, made 113,000 arrests and convinced what he said were 1.3 million people to surrender.

However, he said it was “not a total victory”.

He said police would concentrate on stopping the shadowy gunmen on motorcycles who were killing drug users, which police have often described as vigilante murders. Such killings are among the 2,600 murders since July last year that police believe may have been drug-related.

“People think these are also policemen, so I want these people stopped and arrested,” Dela Rosa said.

“We are intensifying intelligence, maximizing police visibility to stop these criminals. We have to shoot them before they can shoot their targets.”

(Additional reporting by Manolo Serapio Jr; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Michael Perry)

California wildfires kill at least 31 as wind continues to fan flames

California wildfires kill at least 31 as wind continues to fan flames

By Noel Randewich

SONOMA, Calif. (Reuters) – Firefighters face another round of dry, windy conditions on Friday as they battle wildfires that have killed at least 31 people in Northern California and left hundreds missing in the heart of wine country.

The most lethal wildfire event in California’s history has killed people while they sleep in their beds and prompted authorities to evacuate thousands of residents, warning anyone deciding to wait it out: “You are on your own.”

An aerial view of properties destroyed by the Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa.

An aerial view of properties destroyed by the Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa.
REUTERS/Stephen Lam

The toll from the more than 20 fires raging across eight counties could climb, with more than 400 people in Sonoma County alone still listed as missing.

Winds of up to 60 mph (100 kph) and humidity of just 10 percent will create “critical fire weather conditions” and “contribute to extreme fire behavior” on Friday afternoon and into Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

A force of 8,000 firefighters is working to reinforce and extend buffer lines across the region where the flames have scorched more than 190,000 acres (77,000 hectares), an area nearly the size of New York City.

With 3,500 homes and businesses incinerated, the so-called North Bay fires have reduced whole neighborhoods in the city of Santa Rosa to smoldering ruins dotted with charred trees and burned-out cars.

A structure destroyed by wildfire smolders outside Calistoga, California, U.S. October 12, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

A structure destroyed by wildfire smolders outside Calistoga, California, U.S. October 12, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

The cause of the disaster is under investigation, but officials said power lines toppled by gale-force winds on Sunday night may have sparked it.

The Napa Valley town of Calistoga faces one of the biggest threats and its 5,000-plus residents were ordered from their homes as winds picked up and fire crept closer.

Calistoga Mayor Chris Canning said anyone refusing to heed the mandatory evacuation would be left to fend for themselves if fire approached, warning on Thursday: “You are on your own.”

Sonoma County accounted for 17 of the North Bay fatalities, all from the Tubbs fire, which now ranks as California’s deadliest single wildfire since 2003.

Some people killed were asleep when flames engulfed their homes, fire officials said. Others had only minutes to escape as winds fanned fast-moving blazes.

Mark Ghilarducci, state director of emergency services, said the loss of cell towers likely contributed to difficulties in warning residents.

As many as 900 missing-person reports have been filed in Sonoma County and 437 have since turned up safe. It remains unclear how many of the 463 still unaccounted for are fire victims rather than evacuees who failed to alert authorities, Ghilarducci said.

The fires struck the heart of the world-renowned wine-producing region, wreaking havoc on its tourist industry and damaging or destroying at least 13 Napa Valley wineries.

California’s newly legalized marijuana industry also was hit hard, with at least 20 pot farms in Sonoma, Mendocino and Napa counties ravaged, said Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association.

A sign left by an evacuated resident, fleeing wildfires in the heart of the California's wine country, rests against a fire hydrant in the evacuated town of Calistoga, California, U.S., October 12, 2017. REUTERS/Noel Randewich

A sign left by an evacuated resident, fleeing wildfires in the heart of the California’s wine country, rests against a fire hydrant in the evacuated town of Calistoga, California, U.S., October 12, 2017. REUTERS/Noel Randewich

(Additional reporting by Stephen Lam, Dan Whitcomb, Steve Gorman and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.; Jonathan Allen in New York, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)