Tag Archives: rescue

Three people trapped by lava airlifted to safety near Hawaii volcano

Darryl Sumiki, 52, of Hilo, watches as lava lights up the sky above Pahoa during ongoing eruptions of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, U.S., June 2, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

By Terray Sylvester

PAHOA, Hawaii (Reuters) – Three people were airlifted to safety on Sunday morning as lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano threatened an isolated area where they had become trapped, the National Guard said.

The two men and a woman became the latest in a series of evacuations on Hawaii’s Big Island forced by the volcano, which has been erupting since May 3.

Lava erupts behind a home in Leilani Estates during ongoing eruptions of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, U.S., June 3, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

Lava erupts behind a home in Leilani Estates during ongoing eruptions of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, U.S., June 3, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

On Saturday, National Guard troops, police and firefighters ushered evacuees from homes on the eastern tip of the island, hours before lava cut off road access to the area, officials said.

A stream of lava as wide as three football fields flowed over a highway near a junction at Kapoho, a seaside community rebuilt after a destructive eruption of Kilauea in 1960.

About a dozen people remain in the area, but it is not clear whether they are in neighborhoods that are immediately threatened by lava, officials said.

The lava flow left Kapoho and the adjacent development of Vacationland cut off from the rest of the island by road, according to the Hawaii County Civil Defense agency.

Lava also destroyed a freshwater lake, boiling away all of the water in it, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported late on Saturday.

Sgt. Gavin Ching (R) of the Hawaii National Guard monitors sulfur dioxide gas levels in Leilani Estates during ongoing eruptions of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, U.S., June 3, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

Sgt. Gavin Ching (R) of the Hawaii National Guard monitors sulfur dioxide gas levels in Leilani Estates during ongoing eruptions of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, U.S., June 3, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

Authorities since Wednesday had been urging residents of the area to leave before lava spewing from a volcanic fissure at the eastern foot of Kilauea reached the area.

The final phase of the evacuation was carried out late on Friday and early on Saturday by fire and police department personnel, with help from the Hawaii National Guard and public works teams, county civil defense spokeswoman Janet Snyder told Reuters by email.

An estimated 500 people live in the Kapoho area, but Snyder said it was not immediately clear how many residents, if any, had chosen to stay behind.

Lava covers a road in Pahoa during ongoing eruptions of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, U.S., June 3, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

Lava covers a road in Pahoa during ongoing eruptions of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, U.S., June 3, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

Another 2,000 people have already been evacuated from Leilani Estates, an area further west where dozens of homes have been devoured or cut off by rivers of lava streaming over the landscape since May 3.

For those whose homes have been unscathed, the prolonged strain of uncertainty has grown increasingly difficult.

(Reporting by Terray Sylvester; Additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Earthquake-hit Taiwan city still on edge as rescuers hunt survivors

A rescuer speaks on the radio as he searches for survivors at collapsed building after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 8, 2018.

By Yimou Lee

HUALIEN, Taiwan (Reuters) – Scores of aftershocks hampered rescue efforts on Thursday as emergency personnel combed through collapsed buildings in search of survivors after a powerful earthquake killed at least 10 people near Taiwan’s tourist city of Hualien.

The coastal city was hit on Tuesday by a magnitude 6.4 quake just before midnight (11.00 a.m ET) that injured 270 people. Four buildings collapsed, officials said, and seven people were still missing.

Volunteers pray outside a collapsed building after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 8, 2018.

Volunteers pray outside a collapsed building after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 8, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Rescuers stepped up efforts at one of the worst-hit structures, a 12-storey building that housed apartments and a small hotel, where authorities believe most of those still missing to have been, including several foreigners.

Thick steel girders propped up the heavily leaning structure to keep it from collapsing further, with the lower floors having already caved in.

“Everyone was surprised,” said Huang Chang Po, the 58-year-old owner of a unit in the building, built in 1994.

“We have strong earthquakes all the time in Hualien and it’s really bizarre that our building collapsed,” he told Reuters.

Up to 100 soldiers, rescuers, police, aid workers and volunteers scrambled in the cold and rain outside to find survivors, as excavators cleared away debris.

At an emergency meeting on Thursday, other residents and owners raised concerns about possible recent modifications and demanded a structural check by engineers to determine the cause of the collapse.

It was too early to ascertain the cause, however, said Chang Cheng Chen, an engineer from a regional architects’ association.

“It requires a thorough technical inspection, which may take two to three months,” he said, adding that factors such as the nature of the soil and how quake waves passed through the building could have played a part.

More than 220 aftershocks followed the main quake, including a 5.7 quake late on Wednesday. A Reuters witness said people rushed out of a residential building and rescue workers looked up from piles of debris after one such quiver.

Authorities “would not give up” on disaster relief efforts, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said during her second visit to the quake-hit area on Thursday.

“I didn’t really dare stay at home,” said Hualien resident Yang Yantin. “The area around my house is actually not that bad, the houses are all OK but, because of the aftershocks, I don’t really want to stay there.”

A damaged building is seen after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 8, 2018.

A damaged building is seen after an earthquake hit Hualien, Taiwan February 8, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Lin Tzu Wei, an official at the Central Weather Bureau, said continued vigilance of seismic activity was needed.

“We have not seen a sign of a slowdown yet,” he told Reuters by telephone. “We need to continue to monitor the situation for one to two days…this is quite a rare event.”

As many as 150 people were initially feared missing in the rubble.

More than 600 soldiers and 1,300 police spread out to help the rescue effort, along with a team from Japan. The government said three mainland Chinese were among the dead.

Chen Deming, president of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, said the mainland was willing to help with relief efforts, such as sending teams to the island. Taiwan authorities declined, however.

More than 800 people sought refuge in shelters overnight, many too scared to stay home as aftershocks fueled panic.

Hualien, whose rugged Pacific coastline and picturesque Taroko Gorge National Park are a major tourist draw, is home to about 100,000 people. Its streets were buckled by the quake, leaving large cracks in major roads.

“I’ve never experienced an earthquake but I’d heard people say there were often earthquakes here, so at first I didn’t react,” said tourist Zhang Hongcong.

“But later when all the lights started smashing – the floor was covered in glass – that is when I realized it was serious.”

Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China considers its own, lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is prone to earthquakes. An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1struck nearby on Sunday.

More than 100 people were killed in a quake in southern Taiwan in 2016, and in 1999, a quake of magnitude 7.6 killed more than 2,000 people.

(Additional reporting by Jess Macy Yu in TAIPEI, and Natalie Thomas in HUALIEN; John Ruwitch in SHANGHAI; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by James Pomfret and Clarence Fernandez)

Iran ends quake rescue operations, hungry survivors battle cold

Iran ends quake rescue operations, hungry survivors battle cold

By Parisa Hafezi

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iranian officials said there was little chance of finding more survivors from the earthquake that shook parts of western Iran on Sunday, killing at least 450 people, and rescue operations had now been called off, state television said on Tuesday.

Survivors, many left homeless by the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck villages and towns in a mountainous area bordering Iraq, battled overnight temperatures just above freezing and faced another bleak day on Tuesday in need of food and water.

President Hassan Rouhani arrived in the morning in the stricken area in Kermanshah province and promised that the government would “use all its power to resolve the problems in the shortest time”.

At least 14 provinces in Iran were affected by the quake which destroyed two whole villages, damaged 30,000 houses and left thousands of people injured.

Thousands of people huddled in makeshift camps while many others chose to spend a second night in the open, despite low temperatures, because they feared more tremors after some 193 aftershocks, state television said.

A homeless young woman in Sarpol-e Zahab, one of the hardest-hit towns, told state TV that her family was exposed to the night cold because of lack of tents.

“We need help. We need everything. The authorities should speed up their help,” she said.

Television showed rescue workers combing through the rubble of dozens of villages immediately after the quake. But Iranian officials said chances of finding any more survivors were remote.

“The rescue operations in Kermanshah province have ended,” Pir-Hossein Kolivand, head of Iran’s Emergency Medical Services, said.

Iran’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, offered his condolences on Monday and called on government agencies to do all they could to help.

Iranian army, the elite Revolutionary Guards and its affiliated Basij militia forces were dispatched to affected areas on Sunday night.

A woman reacts next to a dead body following an earthquake in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah, Iran. Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS

A woman reacts next to a dead body following an earthquake in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah, Iran. Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS

BITTER COLD

Hospitals in nearby provinces took in many of the injured, state television said, airing footage of survivors waiting to be treated. Hundreds of critically injured were dispatched to hospitals in Tehran.

Iran’s Red Crescent said emergency shelter had been provided for thousands of homeless people, but a lack of water and electricity as well as blocked roads in some areas hindered aid supply efforts.

“People in some villages are still in dire need of food, water and shelter,” governor of Qasr-e Shirin Faramarz Akbari said.

The mayor of Ezgeleh, a city in Kermanshah, said 80 percent of their buildings had collapsed and they desperately needed tents with elderly people and babies as young as one-year-old sleeping in the cold for two straight nights.

In an interview with state television Nazar Barani asked people to send them fuel, milk, water and food as emergency services were too slow and providing limited provisions.

A local man told ISNA news agency that “people are hungry and thirsty. There is no electricity. Last night I cried when I saw children with no food or shelter.”

More than 30,000 houses in the area were damaged and at least two villages were completely destroyed, Iranian authorities said.

Houses in Iranian villages are often made of concrete blocks or mudbrick that can crumble and collapse in a strong quake. Some people are angry that among the collapsed buildings were houses that the government has built in recent years under its affordable housing program.

Photographs posted on Iranian news websites showed rescue workers digging people out of collapsed buildings, cars smashed beneath rubble and rescue dogs trying to find signs of life under the twisted remains of collapsed buildings.

“More people will die because of cold. My family lives in a village near Sarpol-e Zahab. I cannot even go there. I don’t know whether they are dead or alive,” Rojan Meshkat, 38, in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj told Reuters by telephone.

Iran is crisscrossed by major fault lines and has suffered several devastating earthquakes in recent years, including a 6.6 magnitude quake in 2003 that reduced the historic southeastern city of Bam to dust and killed some 31,000 people.

The quake, centered in Penjwin in Iraq’s Sulaimaniyah province in the Kurdistan region, killed at least six people in Iraq and injured more than 68. In northern Iraq’s Kurdish districts, seven were killed and 325 wounded.

A man gestures inside a damaged building following an earthquake in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah, Iran. REUTERS/Tasnim News Agency

A man gestures inside a damaged building following an earthquake in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah, Iran. REUTERS/Tasnim News Agency

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi in Ankara, additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London, Editing and Nick Macfie and Richard Balmforth)

Strong earthquake hits Iraq and Iran, killing more than 300

Residents look at a damaged building following an earthquake in the town of Darbandikhan, near the city of Sulaimaniyah, in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, Iraq November 13, 2017

By Parisa Hafezi and Raya Jalabi

ANKARA/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – More than 300 people were killed in Iran when a magnitude 7.3 earthquake jolted the country on Sunday, state media said, and rescuers were searching for dozens trapped under rubble in the mountainous area. At least six have died in Iraq as well.

State television said more than 348 people were killed in Iran and at least 6,600 were injured. Local officials said the death toll would rise as search and rescue teams reached remote areas of Iran.

The earthquake was felt in several western provinces of Iran, but the hardest hit province was Kermanshah, which announced three days of mourning. More than 300 of the victims were in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah province, about 15 km (10 miles) from the Iraq border.

Iranian state television said the quake had caused heavy damage in some villages where houses were made of earthen bricks. Rescuers were laboring to find survivors trapped under collapsed buildings.

Iranian media reported that a woman and her baby were pulled out alive from the rubble on Monday in Sarpol-e Zahab, the worst hit area with a population of 85,000.

The quake also triggered landslides that hindered rescue efforts, officials told state television. At least 14 provinces in Iran had been affected, Iranian media reported.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his condolences on Monday, urging all government agencies to do all they could to help those affected.

Collapsed building is seen in the town of Darbandikhan, east of the city of Sulaimaniyah, in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, Iraq, November 13, 2017.

Collapsed building is seen in the town of Darbandikhan, east of the city of Sulaimaniyah, in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, Iraq, November 13, 2017. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed

ANGRY PEOPLE

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake measured magnitude 7.3. An Iraqi meteorology official put its magnitude at 6.5, with the epicenter in Penjwin in Sulaimaniyah province in the Kurdistan region, close to the main border crossing with Iran.

Tempers frayed in the quake-hit area as the search went on for survivors amidst twisted rubble of collapsed buildings. State TV aired footage of disfigured buildings, vehicles under rubble and wounded people wrapped in blankets.

“We need a shelter … ” a middle-aged man in Sarpol-e Zahab told state TV. “Where is the aid? Where is the help?” His family could not spend another night outside in cold weather, he said.

Kurdish health officials said at least six people were killed in Iraq and at least 68 injured. Iraq’s health and local officials said the worst-hit area was Darbandikham district, near the border with Iran, where at least 10 houses had collapsed and the district’s only hospital was severely damaged.

“The situation there is very critical,” Kurdish Health Minister Rekawt Hama Rasheed told Reuters.

The district’s main hospital was severely damaged and had no power, Rasheed said, so the injured were taken to Sulaimaniyah for treatment. Homes and buildings had extensive structural damage, he said.

The quake was felt as far south as Baghdad, where many residents rushed from their houses and tall buildings when tremors shook the Iraqi capital.

“I was sitting with my kids having dinner and suddenly the building was just dancing in the air,” said Majida Ameer, who ran out of her building in the capital’s Salihiya district with her three children.

“I thought at first that it was a huge bomb. But then I heard everyone around me screaming: ‘Earthquake!'”

Similar scenes unfolded in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, and across other cities in northern Iraq, close to the quake’s epicenter.

Iraq’s meteorology center advised people to stay away from buildings and not to use elevators in case of aftershocks.

A woman reacts next to a dead body following an earthquake in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah, Iran November 13, 2017. Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS

A woman reacts next to a dead body following an earthquake in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah, Iran November 13, 2017. Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS

NO SHELTER

Electricity and water was cut off in several Iranian and Iraqi cities, and fears of aftershocks sent thousands of people in both countries out onto the streets and parks in cold weather.

Across the area, thousands of rescue workers and special teams using sniffer dogs and heat sensors searched wreckage. Blocked roads made it hard for rescue workers to reach some remote villages.

Iranian authorities acknowledged the relief effort was still slow and patchy. The Iranian seismological center registered around 153 aftershocks and said more were expected. More than 70,000 people needed emergency shelter, the head of Iranian Red Crescent said.

Hojjat Gharibian was one of hundreds of homeless Iranian survivors, who was huddled against the cold with his family in Qasr-e Shirin.

“My two children were sleeping when the house started to collapse because of the quake. I took them and ran to the street. We spent hours in the street until aid workers moved us into a school building,” Gharibian told Reuters by telephone.

Iran’s police, the elite Revolutionary Guards and its affiliated Basij militia forces were dispatched to the quake-hit areas overnight, state TV reported. President Hassan Rouhani is expected to visit the Kermanshah province, TV reported.

Iran sits astride major fault lines and is prone to frequent tremors. A magnitude 6.6 quake on Dec. 26, 2003, devastated the historic city of Bam, 1,000 km southeast of Tehran, killing about 31,000 people.

An Iranian oil official said pipelines and refineries in the area remained intact.

 

TURKEY AND ISRAEL

Residents of Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir also reported feeling a strong tremor, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties there.

Turkish Red Crescent Chairman Kerem Kinik told broadcaster NTV that Red Crescent teams in Erbil were preparing to go to the site of the earthquake and that Turkey’s national disaster management agency, AFAD, and National Medical Rescue Teams were also preparing to head into Iraq.

AFAD’s chairman said the organization was waiting for a reply to its offer for help.

In a tweet, Kinik said the Turkish Red Crescent was gathering 3,000 tents and heaters, 10,000 beds and blankets and moving them toward the Iraqi border.

“We are coordinating with Iranian and Iraqi Red Crescent groups. We are also getting prepared to make deliveries from our northern Iraq Erbil depot,” he said.

Israeli media said the quake was felt in many parts of Israel as well. In a statement, Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz said, “My condolences to the people of Iran and Iraq over the loss of human life caused by the earthquake.” Iran refuses to recognize Israel.

 

 

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi, reporting by Raya Jalabi and Ahmed Rasheed in Iraq, Bozorgmeh Sharafedin in Londn, Tuvan Gumrukcu and Irem Koca in Ankara, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, and Dubai newsroom; Editing by Peter Cooney, Bill Tarrant, Larry King)

 

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)

Fierce winds stir deadly California wildfires as teams search for victims

Fierce winds stir deadly California wildfires as teams search for victims

By Noel Randewich

SONOMA, Calif. (Reuters) – Fierce winds were expected to stir wildfires and test firefighters on Saturday in Northern California where the most lethal outbreak of wildfires in state history has killed 35 people and forced more than 90,000 residents from their homes.

The wind-driven blazes, which erupted on Sunday night in the heart of California’s renowned wine country, north of San Francisco, have destroyed an estimated 5,700 homes.

A total of 17 major wildfires – some encompassing several smaller blazes merged together – had consumed nearly 222,000 acres of dry brush, grasslands and trees across eight counties.

Ground crews on Friday gained ground on the wildfires on Friday as they raced to clear drought-parched vegetation along the southern flanks of fires, removing highly combustible fuels adjacent to populated areas before extreme heat and winds were forecast to revive over the weekend.

Winds were to intensify overnight and into Saturday with gusts of up to 55 mph (90 kph) along with 10 percent humidity, the service warned.

“If new fires start they could spread extremely rapidly,” said Brooke Bingaman, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sacramento, California in a video posted on Facebook. “Those fuels are super dry right now. This also could cause problems for the current wildfires and the firefighters who are trying to suppress them.”

Wildfire ripped through the Sonoma County town of Santa Rosa, where whole neighborhoods were reduced to landscapes of gray ash, smoldering debris and burned-out vehicles.

The 35 confirmed fatalities – 19 in Sonoma County – mark the greatest loss of life from a single fire event on record in California, surpassing the 29 deaths from the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles.

Some victims were asleep when flames engulfed their homes, and many survivors had only minutes to flee.

With 235 people still missing on Friday in Sonoma County alone, and rubble from thousands of incinerated dwellings yet to be searched, authorities have said the number of fatalities from the so-called North Bay fires would likely climb.

The fires have thrown California’s wine-producing industry, and related tourism, into disarray at the end of the region’s annual grape harvest, damaging or destroying at least a dozen Napa Valley wineries.

Some 45 search-and-rescue teams and 18 detectives were deployed to scour obliterated neighborhoods for victims.

More than 90,000 residents have been evacuated, said Jaime Williams, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Governor Jerry Brown planned to visit the area with California’s two U.S. senators on Saturday.

“We’ll keep working day and night with our local and federal partners to fight these fires and help residents get back on their feet in these trying times,” he said in a statement.

Officials have said power lines toppled by gale-force winds the first night may have sparked the conflagration, though the official cause remained under investigation.

The picturesque town of Calistoga, at the northern end of Napa Valley, faced one of the biggest remaining hazards. Its 5,000-plus residents were ordered from their homes on Wednesday night as a fierce blaze dubbed the Tubbs fire crept to within 2 miles (3.2 km) of city limits.

On Friday, fires raged along mountain ridges overlooking Calistoga, threatening to rain embers onto the resort and spa destination if strong winds blow out of the north as predicted, Cal Fire spokesman Dennis Rein said.

“It’s surreal. It’s eerie,” Mayor Chris Canning told a local ABC affiliate as he surveyed the empty town on Friday. “It’s calm now and it’s giving Cal Fire an opportunity to really bang it down.”

The year’s wildfire season is one of the worst in history in the United States, with nearly 8.6 million acres (3.5 million hectares) burned, just behind 2012, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Lam, Dan Whitcomb, Steve Gorman and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.,; Gina Cherelus in New York, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Heather Somerville in San Francisco, Editing by Adrian Croft)

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)

Hope evaporating, a grim wait for relatives after Mexico quake

Hope evaporating, a grim wait for relatives after Mexico quake

By Ana Isabel Martinez

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Relatives waiting on Wednesday outside an office block that collapsed last week in Mexico City’s earthquake have resigned themselves to the likelihood that their loved ones did not survive, as a stench of death seeped from the rubble.

Soldiers, firefighters and volunteers have worked day and night since the Sept. 19 quake to find those trapped. In the past few days the search has narrowed to a handful of buildings. The focus is on the office block in the chic Roma district, where over 30 people are still missing.

Authorities say 337 people have been confirmed dead so far in the 7.1 magnitude quake, Mexico’s most deadly in a generation.

“Sadly, we have to be realistic, what we want are our relatives’ bodies at the very least,” said Martin Estrada, 51, whose son is believed to buried under the building.

Like others waiting for news of their relatives, Estrada was critical of a lack of information from authorities. He said the rescue had been too slow to save his son.

One rescue worker at the site said a putrid smell pervading the air was evidence bodies were still in the building.

The earthquake, and one a few days earlier that killed around 100 people, have become political issues for the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto, stretched to capacity by the disasters and coming under increasing criticism.

“We blame the government for their deaths,” Estrada said.

The earthquakes caused $2 billion in damage to schools, housing and heritage sites including churches, ministers said on Wednesday. Private estimates range from $2 billion to $8 billion.

Pena Nieto said funds set aside for disaster recovery “were not infinite” and warned financing would have to be reassigned in the 2018 budget, which is currently under discussion in Congress.

At least 190,000 buildings have been seriously damaged across Mexico by the quakes and storms in recent weeks, Pena Nieto said on Tuesday. A senior official said there was a collapse risk at 1,500 buildings in the capital.

Residents carry their belongings from their homes in the rubble of a collapsed building at Iztapalapa neighbourhood, after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Residents carry their belongings from their homes in the rubble of a collapsed building at Iztapalapa neighbourhood, after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

SMOKING MOUNTAIN

Earlier in the day, smoke, ash and red-hot rocks belched from the Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City, heightening anxiety for many locals, although officials said there was no imminent threat.

Popocatepetl, whose name means “Smoking Mountain” in the native Nahuatl language, showered a village at its base with ash, shook with the force of a 1.8 magnitude earthquake and spewed flaming rocks to distances of up to 1 km (0.62 mile), the National Disaster Prevention Center (Cenapred) said.

The earthquake had its epicenter just a few miles from the volcano and “probably pushed” the volcanic activity, Carlos Valdez, director of Cenapred, told Reuters.

However, eruptions at the volcano have become relatively common since it reactivated 23 years ago.

On a clear day, Popocatepetl looms on the horizon of Mexico City 44 miles (71 km) away, and volcanic ash occasionally blows into the city.

Winds blew the ash on Wednesday towards Ecatzingo, a village under the volcano that suffered damage to its church and dozens of houses in last week’s quake.

(Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez, Writing by Frank Jack Daniel, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Mexico in three-day countdown to search for earthquake survivors

Rescue teams remove rubble of a collapsed building after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

By Daniel Trotta

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Rescuers are unlikely to find any more survivors of Mexico’s earthquake still buried in the ruins and will cease operations to find them at the end of Thursday, the emergency services chief said.

Tuesday marks one week since the 7.1 magnitude quake struck around lunchtime, killing 331 people, damaging 11,000 homes and leading to a outpouring of civilian volunteers to aid and comfort the victims.

Luis Felipe Puente, coordinator of Mexico’s Civil Protection agency, told Reuters that rescuers would continue hand-picking through the debris at four sites until Thursday.

“I can say that at this time it would be unlikely to find someone alive,” Puente said, considering that specially trained dogs have yet to pick up the scent of survivors.

Forty-three people were still missing, including 40 who may have been trapped beneath a collapsed office building in the Roma district of Mexico City, Puente said. One person was believed missing at each of three other sites in the capital.

At the office building, relatives protested overnight, increasingly angry with the slow progress recovering their loved ones and an alleged lack of information.

Asked how much longer search and rescue operations would continue, the official responded, “As of today (Monday), we have agreed to another 72 hours.”

The week began with signs that Mexico was resuming its routine as the streets filled with traffic and more than 44,000 schools in six states reopened.

But in the capital city, only 676 of the more than 8,000 public and private schools resumed classes.

The quake, coming exactly 32 years after a 1985 earthquake killed some 10,000 people, delivered a massive psychological blow that specialists say will take time to overcome.

“The children are in crisis and don’t want to talk. Some kids didn’t even remember their own names,” said Enriqueta Ortuno, 57, a psychotherapist who has been working with victims in the hard-hit Xochimilco district.

Much of the nation’s attention was focused on a fallen school in Mexico City where 19 children and seven adults died. Later on Tuesday, the top official in the municipality where the school was located was due to reveal documents related to the its construction.

That school was one of many buildings that prosecutors will investigate, Puente said. Roughly 10 percent of damaged buildings were constructed after strict building codes were enacted in the wake of the 1985 earthquake.

“The Mexico City mayor and the national government have already ordered judicial investigations to determine who was responsible for new construction that did not meet the requirements,” Puente said from Civil Protection headquarters, where a roomful of technicians monitored seismic activity and tropical storms on an array of screens.

In Mexico City, 187 people died in 38 buildings that collapsed. Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said thousands of families who lost their homes in uninhabitable buildings would be offered 3,000 ($170) pesos monthly in temporary rent assistance.

Rescuers pulled 69 people from quake-damaged properties, of whom 37 were still in the hospital as of Monday, 11 of them in grave condition, Puente said.

Demolitions of buildings that are beyond repair could begin as soon as Tuesday, he said.

Responders from 18 countries came to Mexico to help, but with the search for survivors down to four sites most of them had gone home, with Americans and Israelis among the few to remain, Puente said. The Japanese contingent left on Monday.

International aid was now focused on humanitarian needs, Puente said, with China providing large numbers of beds, tents and kitchen and bathroom fixtures for temporary shelters for the homeless.

But the biggest contributions came from Mexicans themselves, who responded with so much food, supplies and volunteer work that officials had difficulty moving largesse from wealthy and accessible neighborhoods to the most needy.

Puente recognized some “deficiencies” in coordinating relief efforts, but overall, he said, “The government today is an international benchmark.”

(Additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Bill Trott)

Most schools in Mexico City still closed after earthquake

A girl hugs a Mexican marine officer as she offers hugs to people near the site of a collapsed building after an earthquake, in Mexico City.

By Lizbeth Diaz and Ana Isabel Martinez

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Most schools in Mexico City remained closed on Monday after last week’s deadly earthquake, but children outside the capital were set to return to their classrooms even though aftershocks are still jolting the country.

Search operations in Mexico City were narrowed to five buildings destroyed last Tuesday by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 320 people, Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera told local broadcaster Televisa on Monday.

“These are the places where rescue efforts continue,” said Mancera, ticking off locations in central and southern portions of the metropolis.

The quake rendered thousands of people homeless, with many of them living in tents in the streets or emergency shelters, but there were signs the 20 million people who live in Mexico City’s greater metropolitan area were gradually resuming their routines. (Graphics on ‘Earthquake strikes Mexico’ –

“Our neighborhood is in mourning,” said Deborah Levy, 44, from the trendy Condesa district that was among the worst hit by the quake. “Some neighbors and friends got together (Sunday). We went to eat to cheer ourselves up, looking for a little normality.”

Members of rescue teams search for survivors, in the rubble of a collapsed building, after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 25, 2017.

Members of rescue teams search for survivors, in the rubble of a collapsed building, after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Henry Romero

Some of the most affected neighborhoods, those built on top of a soft ancient lake bed, still had entire blocks cordoned off.

More than 44,000 schools in six states were due to reopen on Monday, but only 103 in Mexico City, or barely 1 percent of its schools, were set to resume classes after they were certified as structurally safe.

Officials said they did not want to impede relief efforts, so more than 4,000 public schools and nearly as many private schools in the capital will remain closed for now.

The National Autonomous University of Mexico, with 350,000 students at campuses in and around Mexico City, resumed classes on Monday.

Of 6,000 damaged buildings, some 1,500 have yet to be inspected, said Horacio Urbano, president of Centro Urbano, a think tank specializing in urban issues and real estate.

Ten percent of the damaged buildings were constructed after 1990, by which time strict building codes had been enacted in the wake of the 1985 earthquake that killed some 10,000 people.

 

SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS

Search operations, using advanced audio equipment to detect signs of life beneath tonnes of rubble, continued at a few buildings with help from teams from as far afield as Israel and Japan.

At a school in southern Mexico City where 19 children and six adults had previously been reported killed, officials recovered another body on Sunday, that of an adult women.

The search for survivors continued in a ruined office building in the Roma neighborhood and in a five-story apartment building in historic Tlalpan.

Authorities called off efforts in the upper-middle class Lindavista zone after pulling 10 bodies from the rubble over several days, and work at the Tlalpan building was briefly halted on Saturday by a magnitude 6.2 aftershock.

Another 5.7 aftershock struck on Sunday off Mexico’s west coast, jolting the southwestern part of the country, and seismologists predicted more tremors to come.

While aid and volunteer workers have flooded into the accessible districts of Mexico City, people in more remote neighborhoods and surrounding states have received less attention.

Mexican and international rescue teams remove a painting as they search for survivors in a collapsed building after an earthquake, at Roma neighborhood in Mexico City.

Mexican and international rescue teams remove a painting as they search for survivors in a collapsed building after an earthquake, at Roma neighborhood in Mexico City. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Miguel Angel Luna, a 40-year old architect, joined a caravan of civilians that headed out late last week to help isolated communities scattered around the base of the Popocatepetl volcano, located about 50 miles (80 km) southeast of the Mexican capital.

Around 40 percent of the adobe homes he saw in poor villages had been completely destroyed and some 80 percent were heavily damaged, Luna said.

“We’re talking about very poor communities,” Luna said. “They don’t have tools, they don’t have materials, they don’t have money to rebuild.”

 

(Additional reporting by Michael O’Boyle, Veronica Gomez and David Alire Garcia; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)