New hurricane menaces Caribbean

Caribbean nations are bracing for another major storm, Hurricane Ike, coming just days after Tropical Storm Hanna passed through the region.

Ike has regained strength after weakening, with winds of up to 135mph (215km/h) as it nears the Turks and Caicos islands and the Bahamas.

Cuba has issued a hurricane watch for its eastern provinces.

Haitian officials have said that at least 500 people have been found dead as floodwater’s caused by Hanna recede.

That storm has hit the US south-east coast and is dropping torrential rain on North and South Carolina.

Storm warnings are in force along the Atlantic coast from Georgia to New Jersey.

‘Major hurricane’

Hurricane Ike gained strength to Category Four on the Saffir Simpson scale – an “extremely dangerous hurricane” – after weakening slightly earlier on Saturday, said the Florida-based National Hurricane Center (NHC).

As of 2100 GMT, Ike was tracking west south-west, moving at 15mph about 90 miles (145km) east of Grand Turk Island.

SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE Cat 1: Winds 74-95mph (119-153km/h). No real damage to buildings Cat 2: Winds 96-110mph (154-177km/h). Storm surge 6-8 feet (1.8-2.8 metres) above normal Cat 3: Winds 111-130mph (178-209km/h). Major hurricane. Coastal flooding destroys smaller structures Cat 4: Winds 131-155mph (210-249km/h). Large storm surge and widespread damage to smaller buildings Cat 5: Winds greater than 155mph (249km/h). Small buildings blown away, roofs on large buildings destroyed. All trees and signs knocked down. Widespread coastal flooding. Source: US National Hurricane Center

The NHC said the storm was expected to pass near or over the Turks and Caicos islands and the south-eastern Bahamas late on Saturday or early Sunday.

After Hanna pummeled the low-lying Turks and Caicos, a British territory to the north of Haiti, earlier in the week, many residents and visitors decided to leave.

Authorities decided to close the airport in Providenciales at mid-day on Saturday.

Ike should hit the northern coast of eastern Cuba by late Sunday or early Monday, according to the NHC forecast.

If it stays on its projected course, Ike will cut across the island from east to west, putting the crumbling colonial buildings of the capital, Havana, at risk.

A storm surge of up to 12ft (3.6m) is expected along with “large and dangerous battering waves” and heavy rainfall, the NHC said.

The center of the hurricane is forecast to pass to the north of Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

But Haiti, already reeling from three major storms in as many weeks, will not be spared, with up to 12in (30cm) of rain due to fall.

As floodwaters caused by Tropical Storm Hanna receded, Haitian officials said more than 500 people had been killed.

Hurricane Gustav last week and Tropical Storm Fay two weeks ago killed about 120 people.

Hardest hit by Hanna was the city of Gonaives, which was flooded with up to 16ft of water that has only now begun to recede.

The devastation there has been described as catastrophic.

Police said 500 people were confirmed dead but that others are still missing and the number could rise higher.

The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) said hundreds of thousands of people had been displaced by the flooding.

The WFP has begun distributing food aid but a spokesperson said the scale of the disaster was putting their resources to the test.

Other aid workers say people’s spirits are running low after the successive storms.

“Food supplies and water are scarce and the price of the food that’s left is rising,” said Parnell Denis from Oxfam in Gonaives.

“The morale of people staying in the shelters is so very low; I am afraid to tell them that another storm is on its way.”

More bad weather will hamper the aid effort even further.

In the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, there have been no reports of major damage.

However, preparations are under way for the arrival of Hurricane Ike.

“The ground is saturated and some of the dams in the south-east region are fairly close to their maximum capacity,” said meteorological official Gloria Ceballos.

Civil defense director Colonel Juan Manuel Mendez said Dominican troops had been put on alert.

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Deadly rockslide hits Cairo homes

At least 20 people have been killed by a rockslide which destroyed homes in Cairo, emergency services say.

Dozens of houses in the shanty town east of central Cairo were hit by huge boulders and rocks, reports said.

Witnesses said a six-storey building in the impoverished Duwayqa district below the Muqattam hills had been completely reduced to rubble.

Some people are believed to be still trapped in the rubble and police have cordoned off the area.

At least 20 people are reported to have been injured and the number of casualties is expected to rise.

Reports said that at least eight boulders – each estimated to weigh about 70 tonnes – had fallen from the towering cliffs overlooking the district at about 0900 local time (0700 GMT).

“It was horror,” said Hassan Ibrahim Hassan, 80, whose house escaped the destruction.

Distraught residents

“The power went out, we heard a loud bang like an earthquake and I thought this house had collapsed. I went out, I saw the whole mountain had collapsed.”

Witnesses described seeing hundreds of distraught people gathered around the site of the destruction, saying they had relatives and friends trapped under the rubble.

Some were scrabbling at the rocks with their bare hands.

The remains of the town have been covered by a thick layer of dust.

Rescue teams were forced to wait for the arrival of cranes and heavy lifting equipment to allow them to move the huge rocks.”I couldn’t find my house this morning,” said Mustafa Abdel-Fatah. “I could only see rocks on top of everything.”

It was not clear what had triggered the rockfall but a our correspondent says there have been previous landslides in the area.

Gustav changes Republican plans

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has suspended most events planned for day one of his party’s convention because of Hurricane Gustav.

The convention, due to begin on Monday in Minneapolis, was scaled down as the fierce storm approached New Orleans.

Gustav, now a Category Three storm, is due to make landfall on Monday.

Residents of New Orleans have been told to leave the city. The mayor has imposed an overnight curfew and warned looters they will be sent to jail.

Speaking in Mississippi, Mr McCain said it was important to tone down the traditional pomp and flair of convention week.

Predicted route of Hurricane Gustav (31 August 2008)

“Of course this is a time when we have to do away with most of our party politics,” Mr McCain told reporters.

President George W Bush and VP Dick Cheney have scrapped plans to address the convention on Monday. Mr Bush said he would instead go to Texas to monitor relief efforts.

Mr McCain’s campaign chartered a jet to fly worried delegates back to their home states threatened by the hurricane, which is set to hit the Louisiana coast on Monday.

‘Hope and pray’

After returning from a tour of relief preparations in Mississippi, he said convention delegates needed to “take off our Republican hats, and put on our American hats and we say America, we’re with you”.

The Republicans are keen to avoid the kind of political damage incurred by the Bush administration’s clumsy response to Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

Plainly the backdrop of images of destruction reminding Americans of Katrina will be horrible for the Republicans BBC North America editor Justin Webb

Republicans clearly cannot afford to be seen hosting glamorous political events, while the people of New Orleans are once again fleeing their city, he says.

“I hope and pray we will be able to resume some of our normal operations as quickly as possible,” McCain told reporters via a video link from St Louis.

“I have every expectation that we will not see the mistakes of Katrina repeated,” he added.

Mr McCain’s convention manager Rick Davis said the convention would open for just over two hours on Monday, solely to go through procedures necessary under law to begin the process of nominating a president and vice-president.

The streets of New Orleans were empty as a curfew loomed

The formal business of the convention includes, on Wednesday, the formal nomination of the Arizona senator for president and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Mr McCain’s acceptance speech, set for prime time on Thursday evening, is deemed to be among the most important events of the campaign for his chances of winning the White House in November.

Meanwhile, Democratic nominee Barack Obama said he would open up his vast donor list to channel money or volunteers to help recovery efforts, in response to Gustav.

“We can activate an e-mail list of a couple [of] million people who want to give back,” Mr Obama told reporters after attending church in Lima, Ohio.

Exodus

New Orleans residents have been fleeing in their thousands after Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a full evacuation of the city.

FLASHBACK TO KATRINA Katrina struck US Gulf Coast in August 2005 as a category three storm, killing more than 1,800 people New Orleans was 80% flooded after storm surge breached protective levees US Government was blamed for slow, botched response that exacerbated disaster Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced

Roads out of the Louisiana port – much of which lies below sea level and is protected from flooding only by a fragile system of levees – have been crammed with traffic.

Mr Nagin said that the first storm winds could hit New Orleans as early as daybreak on Monday and the hurricane could reach Category Four strength.

America’s homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, said the main evacuation was going well but he warned that people hoping to ride out the storm would be “exceptionally foolish”.

The evacuation comes almost exactly three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.

In 2005, three-quarters of the city was flooded after a storm surge breached its protective levees. More than 1,800 people died in coastal areas.

Gustav has already claimed the lives of more than 80 people in the Caribbean, causing widespread damage in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica over the past week.

At least 300,000 people were evacuated in Cuba as the storm brought extensive flooding and some severe damage, but no reports of deaths.

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US Gulf states prepare for storm

Weather forecasters in the US have warned that a tropical storm could gain near-hurricane strength winds before reaching Texas or Louisiana.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Tropical Storm Edouard was crossing the Gulf of Mexico and could make landfall by Tuesday morning.

The governor of Louisiana declared a state of emergency as winds reached sustained speeds of 45mph (75 km/h).

Oil workers have left some offshore rigs but no damage has been reported.

Evacuations

A hurricane watch is in place from west of Intracoastal City, in western Louisiana, to Port O’Connor in Texas, south-west of Galveston.

About 6,000 residents of two communities in western Louisiana had been asked to evacuate low-lying coastal areas.

The mayor of Galveston has not ordered an evacuation but has asked residents and visitors to be prepared.

A storm is considered to be a hurricane once its winds reach an average speed of at least 74mph (119 km/h), according to the NHC.

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port has stopped offloading tankers and two oil firms were evacuating workers from platforms, Reuters news agency said.

Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell said they were removing employees from rigs as a precaution, but both insisted that production had not been affected.

Oil prices dropped below $120 a barrel on Monday for the first time since early May as it appeared unlikely that the storm would significantly affect oil and gas facilities.

The Houston Ship Channel has also closed.

Hurricane Dolly

At 1300 CDT (1900 BST) Edouard was 145 miles (230km) south-southeast of Lafayette, Louisiana and 240 miles (390km) east-southeast of Galveston, Texas, a statement by the NHC said.

“Edouard could be nearing hurricane strength before reaching the coastline,” it added.

Rainfall of 3ins to 5ins (7.6cm to (12.7cm) was predicted in Louisiana, and up to 10 inches (25.4cm) in Texas.

With winds extending outwards from the centre of a tropical storm for 35 miles (56km), residents were braced for the second bout of severe weather to batter the Gulf’s coastline in a month.

On 24 July, a state of disaster was declared in 14 Texas counties when Hurricane Dolly lashed the state’s coast with winds of 100mph (161km/h).

The Gulf of Mexico supplies about 25% of the US’s crude oil.

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