Tag Archives: Missing

Hawaiians upset with President’s lack of response saying ‘You give all this money and time and effort to Ukraine but you won’t even do it for Americans? Come on.’

Emergency-Morgue-Hawaii

Important Takeaways:

  • Total of 850 people are STILL missing in apocalyptic Maui wildfires, officials confirm
  • Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen gave the update on a video posted to Facebook, saying the FBI, which is assisting with search efforts, combined various lists of missing people to arrive at the total number.
  • ‘It is my sad duty to report that 114 individuals have been confirmed deceased,’ the mayor said on a video posted to Facebook. ‘There are currently 850 names on the list of missing persons.’
  • The mayor’s update comes as Biden is set to visit the island following criticism that it took him too long to do so.
  • Ella Sable Tacderan, who is currently sheltering 23 relatives at her home, said ‘the community has been a big part of my family’s survival’…She said families were being turned away for aid because applications have not been approved or are still pending.
  • Meanwhile Maui resident Mike Cicchino told NewsNation the president’s response to the crisis leaves much to be desired.
  • ‘We’re not very political people, we don’t really go one way or the other, but Biden has really failed us.
  • ‘When one of the worst disasters in U.S. history happens, he hasn’t been out here and it’s been two weeks as of Tuesday – what kind of president does that?’
  • ‘You give all this money and time and efforts to Ukraine but you won’t even do it for Americans? Come on.’

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Maui’s death toll reaches 111 with more than 1,000 still unaccounted for

Prayer for Hawaii

Important Takeaways:

  • Maui’s death toll reaches 111 as searchers – many coping with their own losses – comb the wildfire zone
  • “No one has ever seen this that is alive today – not this size, not this number, not this volume,” Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said Wednesday. “And we’re not done.”
  • A genetics team will help identify remains, “so that we can make sure that we’re finding who our loved ones are, and that we make the notifications with dignity and honor,” Pelletier said, urging patience.
  • Searches through the burn areas have expanded over the past week, with 40 canines from 15 states deployed, the Hawaii Department of Defense’s Jeff Hickman told CNN.

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Cleveland Ohio spike in missing kids; 30 in two weeks

Mathew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Important Takeaways:

  • WHERE ARE THEY? Chilling mystery as nearly 30 kids go missing from city in two weeks and cops say they’ve never seen anything like it
  • In the span of two weeks, nearly 30 children have vanished in Cleveland, sparking huge concern from a local police chief who said he hasn’t seen anything like this in his 33-year career.
  • Majoy also serves as the board president of Cleveland Missing, an Ohio nonprofit that offers direct support for friends and families that are searching for a missing loved one.
  • He called the number of missing children, whose ages range from 12 to 17, unprecedented when speaking to reporters.
  • “For some reason, in 2023, we’ve seen a lot more than we normally see, which is troubling in part because we don’t know what’s going on with some of these kids, whether they’re being trafficked or whether they’re involved in gang activity or drugs.”
  • All of these disappearances fall into the larger problem of crime in the greater Cleveland area, said Majoy.
  • He added that many teenagers will seek out gangs when they’re desperate for protection.
  • This often leads to initiation crimes such as carjacking and robberies or even selling their bodies and drug use, resulting in them becoming addicts, he said.

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Turkey and Syria race against time as death toll reaches 19,000

Matthew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places

Important Takeaways:

  • Death Toll in Turkey-Syria Earthquake Surges Past 19,000, Rescue Efforts Still Underway
  • More than 19,000 people have now died along the Turkey-Syria border from this week’s catastrophic earthquakes. Rescuers are working as quickly as they can as the “survival window” closes fast.
  • Time is running out to find survivors in the rubble, now that the first critical 72 hours have passed. But there have still been some miracles.
  • A little girl was found alive alongside her father who, as they were loaded into an ambulance, whispered “I love you all.”
  • And in the Turkish city of Malatya, a man was found alive who had been trapped under concrete for 65 hours.
  • But the losses are staggering. Many victims were refugees who fled the civil war in Syria.
  • The final death toll from Turkey and Syria will probably not be known for weeks because of the sheer amount of rubble.

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In Turkey and Syria thousands of buildings have collapsed, death toll rising and bad weather is hampering rescue efforts after largest earthquake in 100 years

Matthew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

Important Takeaways:

  • Powerful quake leaves thousands dead in Turkey and Syria
  • More than 5,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands injured after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Turkey and Syria
  • Thousands of buildings collapsed in both countries and aid agencies are particularly worried about northwestern Syria, where more than 4 million people were already relying on humanitarian assistance.
  • Freezing weather conditions are further endangering survivors and complicating rescue efforts, as more than 100 aftershocks have struck the region.
  • The quake, one of the strongest to hit the region in more than 100 years, struck 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) east of Nurdagi, in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, at a depth of 24.1 kilometers (14.9 miles), the United States Geological Survey said.
  • The WHO warned on Monday that the toll could hit 20,000, and on Tuesday said 23 million people – including 1.4 million children – could be affected.

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A months’ worth of rain has brought flooding and mudslides to Petropolis Brazil

Important Takeaways:

  • Death toll in Brazil’s Petropolis mudslides, floods hits 176; more than 110 missing
  • Downpours in the colonial-era city exceeded the average for the entire month of February causing mudslides that flooded streets, destroyed houses, washed away cars and buses, and left gashes hundreds of yards wide on the region’s mountainsides.
  • rainfall was the heaviest registered since 1932 in Petropolis, a tourist destination in the hills of Rio de Janeiro state, popularly known as the “Imperial City”
  • Responding to the disaster, several Brazilian states sent reinforcements to help searching for missing people and cleaning up the debris alongside Rio’s fire department.

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Biden visits tornado-stricken Kentucky bringing federal aid, empathy

By Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden flew to Kentucky on Wednesday to survey the areas hardest hit by one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks in recent U.S. history, a system that killed at least 74 people in the state and at least 14 elsewhere.

Biden, no stranger to tragic personal losses, will reprise his familiar role as consoler in chief, while promising to bring the might of the federal government to rebuild devastated communities that suffered billions of dollars in damage.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear offered a grim update on Tuesday, saying the dead included a dozen children, the youngest of whom was a 2-month-old infant. He added that he expected the death toll to rise in the coming days, with more than 100 still missing.

Biden will visit the Army installation at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, for a briefing on the storm before continuing on to Mayfield and Dawson Springs, two towns separated by roughly 70 miles (112 km) that were largely flattened by the twisters.

The president will be “surveying storm damage firsthand, (and) making sure that we’re doing everything to deliver assistance as quickly as possible in impacted areas to support recovery efforts,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Tuesday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sent search-and-rescue and emergency response teams to Kentucky, along with teams to help survivors register for assistance, Psaki said.

FEMA has also sent dozens of generators into the state, along with 135,000 gallons (511,000 litres) of water, 74,000 meals and thousands of cots, blankets, infant toddler kits and pandemic shelter kits.

Biden has approved federal disaster declarations for Kentucky and the neighboring states of Tennessee and Illinois, offering residents and local officials increased federal aid.

Credit ratings agency DBRS Morningstar said the tornadoes were likely the most severe in the United States since 2011. Insurers are sufficiently prepared to cover claims without significant capital impact, it said in a report.

The trip marks one of the few that Biden, a Democrat, has taken to areas that tilt heavily toward the Republican Party, many of whose voters and leaders have embraced Donald Trump’s fraudulent claims that he won the 2020 election. The White House has been careful not to bring politics into the disaster relief efforts, including not focusing on what role, if any, climate change may have played in the tragic events.

“He looks at them as human beings, not as people who have partisan affiliations,” Psaki said. “And in his heart, he has empathy for everything that they’re going through.”

“The message he will send to them directly and clearly tomorrow is: ‘We’re here to help, we want to rebuild, we are going to stand by your side and we’re going to help your leaders do exactly that,'” she added.

Biden lost his first wife and daughter in a 1972 car crash, and his older son, Beau, died in 2015 after a fight with brain cancer.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, additional reporting by Rod Nickel; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Heather Timmons, Peter Cooney and Jonathan Oatis)

Death toll now 74 from weekend tornadoes, expected to rise -Kentucky governor

(Reuters) – The death toll from a string of tornadoes that tore through six states rose to 74 with at least 109 people still missing, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on Monday. He said the number of fatalities would likely rise in the coming days.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Chris Reese

 

By Gabriella Borter

MAYFIELD, Ky. (Reuters) – At least 64 people, including six children, lost their lives in Kentucky after a raft of tornadoes tore through six states, with power still out for thousands and strangers welcoming survivors who lost everything into their homes.

While the toll from the deadly twisters was lower than initially feared, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said he expects it to increase as searchers continue to sift through a flattened landscape of twisted metal, downed trees and homes reduced to rubble.

“It may be weeks before we have counts on both deaths and levels of destruction,” Beshear told reporters, adding that the victims ranged in age from 5 months to 86 years old, and that 105 people were still unaccounted for.

On Monday, Beshear said officials were working to confirm that eight people had perished when a candle factory in Mayfield, a town of about 10,000 in the southwestern corner of Kentucky, was hit in the storm.

Out of the 110 workers who had been toiling at the Mayfield Consumer Products LLC factory, 94 were believed to have made it out alive, according to the owners of the business, the governor said.

“We feared much, much worse,” he said. “I pray that it is accurate.”

In the hard-hit small town, the tornado destroyed not only the candle factory but also the police and fire stations. Homes were flattened or missing roofs, giant trees uprooted and street signs mangled.

Kentucky’s emergency management director, Michael Dossett also at the briefing, said 28,000 homes and businesses remained without power.

More than 300 National Guard personnel and scores of state workers were distributing supplies and working to clear roads so that mountains of debris can be removed in the aftermath of the disaster, the governor said.

He added that authorities were coordinating an “unprecedented amount of goods and volunteers,” and President Joe Biden was expected to visit the state but no date had been set.

Beshear, at times chocking up, said the search, rescue and recovery process in the swath of destruction has been an emotional roller coaster for all those involved, including him.

“You go from grief to shock to being resolute for a span of 10 minutes and then you go back,” he said.

Biden on Sunday declared a major federal disaster in Kentucky, paving the way for additional federal aid, the White House said.

While Kentucky was hardest hit, six workers were killed at an Amazon.com Inc warehouse in Illinois after the plant buckled under the force of the tornado, including one cargo driver who died in the bathroom, where many workers told Reuters they had been directed to shelter.

A nursing home was struck in Arkansas, causing one of that state’s two deaths. Four were reported dead in Tennessee and two in Missouri.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Mayfield, Kentucky; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Maria Caspani; Editing by Robert Birsel and Lisa Shumaker)

Indonesia bolsters recovery efforts after volcano kills 34

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo promised on Tuesday to bolster evacuation efforts and repair damaged homes after visiting the site of a volcanic eruption on Java that has killed at least 34 people.

The 3,676-metre Mt. Semeru volcano erupted on Saturday sending a cloud of ash into the sky and dangerous pyroclastic flows into villages below.

Thousands of people have been displaced and 22 remain missing, according to the disaster mitigation agency.

After visiting evacuation centers and surveying the area by helicopter – getting an aerial view of villages submerged in molten ash – the president said recovery efforts would be bolstered now and in the months ahead.

“I came to the site to ensure that we have the forces to locate the victims,” said the president, speaking from Sumberwuluh, one of the worst-hit areas.

“We hope that after everything has subsided, that everything can start – fixing infrastructure or even relocating those from the places we predict are too dangerous to return to.”

At least 2,000 homes would need to be relocated to safer areas, he said.

Search and rescue efforts continued on Tuesday but have been hampered by wind and rain, and limited equipment in some areas.

Mt. Semeru erupted three times on Tuesday. Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation said on Monday there was potential for further flows of hot gas, ash and rocks.

Mt. Semeru is one of more than 100 active volcanoes in Indonesia, in an area of high seismic activity atop multiple tectonic plates known as the “Pacific Ring of Fire.”

(Reporting by Stanley Widianto and Agustinus Beo Da Costa; Writing by Kate Lamb; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa and Janet Lawrence)

Indonesia volcano erupts again as death toll rises to 22

By Willy Kurniawan and Tommy Adriansyah

SUMBERWULUH, Indonesia (Reuters) – An Indonesian volcano was active again on Monday, spewing out hot clouds of ash, two days after a powerful eruption killed at least 22 people and left dozens missing.

Mt. Semeru, the tallest mountain on the island of Java, erupted dramatically on Saturday, shooting a towering column of ash into the sky that blanketed surrounding villages.

Aerial footage showed roofs jutting out of an ashen landscape, while on the ground, military officers, police and residents dug through mud with their hands to pull out victims.

The death toll had risen to 22 by Monday, while 27 were missing, Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said.

The volcano erupted again on Monday, Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation confirmed via its Twitter account, warning of continued seismic activity.

“Semeru is one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia. Before and after the December 4 eruption, it will continue to be active,” Liswanto, the head of the Semeru Volcano Observatory, told Reuters.

Some residents returned to their homes to check on belongings and livestock, but Liswanto urged people to keep a safe distance.

“People need to be more vigilant because the potential threat is still there,” he added.

In the Sumberwuluh area, rescue teams battled poor weather to retrieve victims from the rubble.

“The main obstacle is the weather… Hopefully the weather going forward will be good enough to make it easier for us to search,” Wuryanto, operations director of the national search and rescue agency (Basarnas), told reporters.

People have posted photos of missing loved ones on Facebook, with pleas for any information about their whereabouts.

Complicating logistics and rescue efforts, lava flows from Saturday’s eruption destroyed a bridge connecting two areas in the district of Lumajang with the city of Malang.

Public kitchens and health facilities have been set up for more than 1,700 people who have been displaced.

Semeru is one of more than 100 active volcanoes in Indonesia, a country that straddles the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of high seismic activity that rests atop multiple tectonic plates.

(Additional reporting by Prasto Wardoyo and Agustinus Beo Da Costa; Writing by Kate Lamb and Fathin Ungku; Editing by Karishma Singh, Gerry Doyle and Nick Macfie)