The Jim Bakker Show

Rescuers in desperate search for girl as Mexico quake toll hits 225

By Michael O’Boyle and Ana Isabel Martinez

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Rescuers frantically worked to dig a young girl out from under the rubble of a partially collapsed school on Wednesday, a small glimmer of hope amid devastation from a major earthquake that killed at least 225 people across central Mexico.

Television network Televisa broadcast the dramatic rescue attempt live after crews at the school in southern Mexico City reported finding the girl, seeing her move her hand and threading a hose through debris to get her water.

The identity of the girl was not immediately known. The effort to rescue her is part of a search for dozens of victims feared buried beneath the Enrique Rebasmen school, where local officials reported 21 children and 4 adults dead after Tuesday’s quake. The school is one of hundreds of buildings destroyed by the country’s deadliest earthquake in a generation.

The magnitude 7.1 quake, which killed at least 94 people in the capital alone, struck 32 years to the day after a 1985 earthquake that killed thousands. Mexico is also still reeling from a powerful tremor that killed nearly 100 people in the south of the country less than two weeks ago.

As rescue efforts continued at the school, a facility for children aged 3 to 14, emergency crews, volunteers and bystanders toiled elsewhere using dogs, cameras and heat-seeking equipment to detect survivors.

Reinforcements also began to arrive from countries including Panama, Israel and Chile, local media reported.

Hundreds of neighbors and emergency workers spent the night pulling rubble from the ruins of the school with their bare hands under the glare of floodlights. Three survivors were found at around midnight as volunteer rescue teams known as “moles” crawled deep under the rubble.

By Wednesday morning, the workers said a teacher and two students had sent text messages from within the rubble. Parents clung to hope that their children were alive.

“They keep pulling kids out, but we know nothing of my daughter,” said 32-year-old Adriana D’Fargo, her eyes red, who had been waiting for hours for news of her seven-year-old.

Overnight, volunteers with bullhorns shouted the names of rescued kids so that tense family members could be reunited with them.

The earthquake toppled dozens of buildings, tore gas mains and sparked fires across the city and other towns in central Mexico. Falling rubble and billboards crushed cars.

Even wealthier parts of the capital, including the Condesa and Roma neighborhoods, were badly damaged as older buildings buckled. Because bedrock is uneven in a city built on a drained lake bed, some districts weather quakes better than others.

Parts of colonial-era churches crumbled in the adjacent state of Puebla, where the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) put the quake’s epicenter some 100 miles (158 km) southwest of the capital.

Rescue workers search through rubble during a floodlit search for students at Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City, Mexico September 20, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

VOLCANO ERUPTS TOO

Around the same time that the earth shook, Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano, visible from the capital on a clear day, had a small eruption. On its slopes, a church in Atzitzihuacan collapsed during Mass, killing 15 people, Puebla Governor Jose Antonio Gali said.

In Rome, Pope Francis said he was praying for Mexico, a majority Catholic country. “In this moment of pain, I want to express my closeness and prayers to all the beloved Mexican people,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday: “God bless the people of Mexico City. We are with you and will be there for you.” Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto spoke at length on Wednesday, according to the White House.

Residents of Mexico City, home to some 20 million people, slept in the streets while authorities and volunteers distributed food and water at tented collection centers.

Other volunteers, soldiers and firefighters formed human chains and dug with hammers and picks to find dust-covered survivors and bodies in the remains of apartment buildings, schools and a factory.

With each layer of rubble that was removed, workers pled onlookers and volunteers for silence, desperate to hear the sound of any survivors below.

Some volunteers in Mexico City expressed frustration at the disorganization among military and civilian emergency services, which competed over who would lead the rescue efforts.

“There is so much bureaucracy and so many obstacles in the way of getting these kids out alive,” said Alfredo Perez, 52, a freelance civil engineer, who arrived at the Enrique Rebsamen school in the early hours of the morning to help.

The middle-class neighborhood of Del Valle was hit hard, with several buildings toppling over on one street. Reserve rescue workers arrived late at night and were still pulling survivors out early Wednesday.

With power out in much of the city overnight, the work was carried out with flashlights and generators.

Moises Amador Mejia, a 44-year-old employee of the civil protection agency, worked late into the night looking for people trapped in a collapsed building in the bohemian Condesa neighborhood.

“The idea is to stay here until we find who is inside. Day and night.”

In Obrera, central Mexico City, people applauded when rescuers managed to retrieve four people alive, with cheers of “Si se puede.” — “Yes we can.” — ringing out.

Volunteers arrived throughout the night, following calls from the civil protection agency, the Red Cross and firefighters.

The quake killed 94 people in the capital by Wednesday morning, according to Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera. In Morelos State, just to the south, 71 people died, with hundreds of homes destroyed. In Puebla at least 43 died.

Another 17 people were reported killed in the states of Mexico, Guerrero and Oaxaca. The governor of Morelos state declared five days of mourning.

Nearly 5 million homes, businesses and other facilities lost electricity, according to national power company Comision Federal de Electricidad, including 40 percent of homes in Mexico City. Power was later re-established to 90 percent of the areas affected.

Still, much business and industry in affected areas suffered interruptions. After the quake struck, carmaker Volkswagen AG <VOWG_p.DE> temporarily shut its sprawling Puebla factory, its biggest outside of Germany, but then restarted operations Tuesday night, according to a statement from the company.

(Additional reporting by David Alire Garcia, Anthony Esposito, Lizbeth Diaz, Daina Beth Solomon, Stefanie Eschenbacher, Julia Love, Noe Torres; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Alistair Bell)

Quake pitches past into present in scarred Mexico City district

By Julia Love

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The powerful earthquake that rocked Mexico City last week had terrifying echoes of a more deadly 1985 shock in one housing project, raising tough questions about how ready one of the world’s largest cities is for a major catastrophe.

At its epicenter, Thursday’s 8.1 magnitude quake was stronger than the disaster three decades ago that killed at least 5,000 people in Mexico City, toppling two tower blocks in the historic central neighborhood of Tlatelolco.

Mexico City has made major advances since then, with regular earthquake simulations, improved building regulations, and seismic alarms designed to sound long enough before the shock to give residents time to flee.

Nearly 100 people are known to have died in the latest quake, none of them in the capital.

Yet experts noted the tremor’s epicenter was further from Mexico City and two times deeper than in 1985, and warned it would be wrong to assume the capital could now rest easy.

Such caution was palpable in Tlatelolco.

Antonio Fonseca, 66, a longtime resident who witnessed the 1985 collapse of the tower blocks in the Nuevo Leon housing complex that killed at least 200 people, said memories of the event sparked panic attacks in the neighborhood when the quake rolled through the city on Thursday.

“I’m quite sure that these buildings are very well reinforced,” said Fonseca, a local history expert. “But there are many people who are still wary.”

When the ground began shaking in September 1985, local workers laughed it off at first, continuing with breakfast. Nobody believed Fonseca when he told them Nuevo Leon had fallen, he recalled.

Later, Fonseca saw a group of children in the neighborhood’s central Plaza de las Tres Culturas who had been waiting for the school bus, their uniforms caked in white dust from the building’s collapse.

This time around, residents feared the worst. Streets filled across the city when the quake hit near midnight. Crying and praying, hundreds descended onto the plaza and some stayed for hours, questioning whether it was safe to return home.

Minerva de la Paz Uribe, a retiree living on the plaza, was unable to evacuate with her father, who turned 104 the next day. She watched from her window as neighbors scrambled to escape.

“People leave running with their dogs. They leave screaming. Are we prepared? No, no, we’re not prepared,” she said, as a group of friends on the plaza murmured in agreement.

Some 30 buildings in Tlatelolco were rebuilt after the 1985 disaster and a dozen were demolished. Mexico’s new skyscrapers include hydraulic shock absorbers and deep foundations.

But such safety features are less prevalent in much of the sprawling periphery, which is filled with cheap cinderblock homes like the buildings that collapsed on Thursday in the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas near the epicenter.

CRITICISM OF GOVERNMENT

Situated at the intersection of three tectonic plates, Mexico is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, and the capital is particularly vulnerable due to its location on top of an ancient lake bed.

The government’s widely panned response to the 1985 quake caused upheaval in Mexico, which some credited with weakening the one-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). After 71 years, the PRI was finally voted out in 2000.

Signs of government incompetence, or worse, persist.

Mexican news website Animal Politico on Monday reported that thousands of seismic alarms acquired by the government of Oaxaca five years ago were never distributed, with some appearing for sale on online auction sites.

A spokesman for Oaxaca’s civil protection authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mistrust of government has spurred some to form community groups. Among the most famous are the Tlatelolco Topos, or moles, formed from rescue squads that dug survivors and corpses out of the rubble in 1985, and have since traveled the world offering assistance in quakes and landslides.

But disasters have a habit of catching people off guard.

Georgina Mendez de Schaafsma was returning from taking children to school when the 1985 temblor struck Tlatelolco. To her horror, she realized her six-year-old daughter was home alone.

Racing back, Mendez retrieved the girl. But three other relatives died in the Nuevo Leon collapses.

Now 70, Mendez still lives in the same building, which had a number of floors removed after the 1985 quake. She stayed indoors when the tremors began on Thursday night and believes Mexico City is better equipped today – up to a point.

“In a catastrophe, I think we’re never prepared,” she said. “Nature is stronger.”

(Reporting by Julia Love, Additional reporting by Dave Graham, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

At least 32 die after massive quake off southern Mexico

By Frank Jack Daniel

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – At least 32 people were killed after a massive 8.1 magnitude earthquake, one of the biggest recorded in Mexico, struck off the country’s southern coast late on Thursday, causing cracks in buildings and triggering a small tsunami, authorities said.

The quake was apparently stronger than a devastating 1985 temblor that flattened swathes of Mexico City and killed thousands, but this time, damage to the city was limited.

A number of buildings suffered severe damage in parts of southern Mexico. Some of the worst initial reports came from the town of Juchitan in Oaxaca state, where sections of the town hall, a hotel, a bar and other buildings were reduced to rubble.

Alejandro Murat, the state governor, said 23 deaths were registered in Oaxaca, 17 of them in Juchitan.

A spokesman for emergency services said seven people were also confirmed dead in the neighboring state of Chiapas. Earlier, the governor of Tabasco, Arturo Nunez, said two children had died in his state.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the 8.1 magnitude quake had its epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, 54 miles (87 km) southwest of the town of Pijijiapan in the impoverished southern state of Chiapas, at a depth of 43 miles.

Rescue workers labored through the night in badly affected areas to check for people trapped in collapsed buildings.

Windows were shattered at Mexico City airport and power went out in several neighborhoods of the capital, affecting more than one million people. The cornice of a hotel came down in the southern tourist city of Oaxaca, a witness said.

The tremor was felt as far away as neighboring Guatemala.

WAVES

The quake triggered waves as high as 2.3 ft (0.7 m) in Mexico, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. Mexican television showed images of the sea retreating about 50 meters, and authorities evacuated some coastal areas.

President Enrique Pena Nieto said the tsunami risk on the Chiapas coast was not major.

“We are alert,” he told local television.

More aftershocks were likely, the president said, advising people to check their homes and offices for structural damage and for gas leaks. The USGS reported multiple aftershocks, ranging in magnitude from 4.3 to 5.7.

Classes were suspended in most of central and southern Mexico on Friday to allow authorities to review damage.

There was no tsunami threat for American Samoa and Hawaii, according to the U.S. Tsunami Warning System. The national disaster agency of the Philippines put the country’s eastern seaboard on alert, but no evacuation was ordered.

People in Mexico City, one of the world’s largest cities, ran out into the streets in pajamas and alarms sounded after the quake struck just before midnight, a Reuters witness said.

Helicopters buzzed overhead a few minutes later, apparently looking for damage to buildings in the city, which is built on a spongy, drained lake bed.

“I had never been anywhere where the earth moved so much. At first I laughed, but when the lights went out, I didn’t know what to do,” said Luis Carlos Briceno, an architect, 31, who was visiting Mexico City. “I nearly fell over.”

In one central neighborhood, dozens of people stood outside after the quake, some wrapped in blankets against the cool night air. Children were crying.

Liliana Villa, 35, who was in her apartment when the quake struck, fled to the street in her nightclothes.

“It felt horrible, and I thought, ‘this (building) is going to fall.'”

State oil company Pemex said it was still checking for damage at its installations.

Pena Nieto said operations at the Salina Cruz refinery in the same region as the epicenter were temporarily suspended as a precautionary measure.

(Repoorting by Mexico City Bureau, additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in the Philippines; Editing by Larry King and Bernadette Baum)

Hurricane Irma kills 10, may hit Florida Sunday as Category 4

The aftermath of Hurricane Irma on Saint Martin.

By Jorge Pineda

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (Reuters) – Hurricane Irma plowed past the Dominican Republic toward Haiti on Thursday after devastating a string of Caribbean islands and killing at least 10 people as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century took aim at Florida.

With winds of around 175 mph (290 kph), the storm lashed several small islands in the northeast Caribbean, including Barbuda, St. Martin and the British Virgin Islands, tearing down trees, flattening homes and causing widespread damage.

The eye of the hurricane did not directly hit Puerto Rico, passing north early Thursday, battering the U.S. territory with high winds and heavy rains. Three people were killed and around two-thirds of the population lost their electricity, Governor Ricardo Rossello said.

The eye of Irma was moving west-northwest off the northern coast of the Dominican Republic, heading slightly north of Haiti, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

The United Nations Children’s Fund warned that millions of children could be at risk in the two countries, which share the island of Hispaniola. Impoverished Haiti has been particularly vulnerable to hurricanes and heavy rains.

Irma’s eye was forecast to pass over the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British territory, and the Bahamas before moving towards Cuba’s keys.

Irma will likely hit Florida as a very powerful Category 4 storm on Sunday, with storm surges and flooding beginning within the next 48 hours, according to the NHC. Gas shortages in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area worsened on Thursday, with sales up to five times the norm.

Cuba started evacuating some of the 51,000 tourists visiting the island, particularly 36,000 people at resorts on the picturesque northern coast, most of them Canadians.

“Canada decided … to evacuate all the Canadian tourists in the country,” said Cuban Tourism Minster Manuel Marrero, estimating they made up 60 percent of tourists in the country’s keys.

Authorities in the Dominican Republic ordered evacuations in towns along the northern Atlantic coast such as Cabarete, a thriving tourist spot where trees were brought down by high winds but no severe damage was reported.

“There is a lot of wind and rain,” Puerto Plata Assistant District Attorney Juan Carlos Castro Hernandez told Reuters by telephone. “We expect things to get worse.”

Cabarete was expected to bear the brunt of the hurricane’s winds and storm surge. Hotel executive Roque Alvarez said most tourists left prior to the storm, either flown or bused out.

A woman walks through a flooded street as Hurricane Irma moves off from the northern coast of the Dominican Republic, in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

“ENORMOUS DISASTER”

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe lowered the death toll, saying four bodies were recovered on the tiny French-Dutch island of St. Martin, which was hit hard. Earlier, in the confusion surrounding Irma, France’s interior minister had said eight people were killed and nearly two dozen injured.

“It is an enormous disaster. Ninety-five percent of the island is destroyed. I am in shock,” Daniel Gibbs, chairman of a local council on St. Martin, told Radio Caribbean International.

Television footage from the island showed a damaged marina with boats tossed into piles, submerged streets and flooded homes. French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday to coordinate an emergency humanitarian response.

Amid criticism from many residents that the British government could have done more to help its territories, Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan said a Royal Navy ship would reach the affected islands on Thursday with tents, vehicles and other relief equipment.

“Anguilla received the hurricane’s full blast. The initial assessment is that the damage has been severe and in places critical,” he told parliament.

One person was killed on the island and roads were blocked, with damage to the hospital and airport, power and phone service, Anguilla emergency service officials said.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth said she was “shocked and saddened” by the reports of Caribbean devastation.

In Puerto Rico, Rossello said it was to early to estimate the cost of the damage. The streets of the capital San Juan were littered with downed tree limbs and signs, with many street lights out.

Juan Pablo Aleman, a restaurant owner, said he had ridden out the storm in his 11th-floor apartment.

“The building moved, shook a few times. A lot of shingles came off and some windows broke,” he told Reuters. “If it had gone a little more to the south, it would have been catastrophic.”

The first bands of rain and wind began to lash Haiti’s normally bustling northern port city of Cap Haitien on Thursday.

Authorities went door to door, encouraging people to evacuate voluntarily from exposed areas, said Albert Moulion, a Ministry of the Interior spokesman.

“We’re asking all those living in areas at risk to leave their homes. If you don’t, you’ll be evacuated by force,” President Jovenel Moise said. “When you go to shelters you’ll find food, you’ll have something to sleep on.”

Irma was the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean and one of the five most forceful storms to hit the Atlantic basin in 82 years, according to the NHC.

Florida Governor Rick Scott said it was unclear whether Irma would hit the state’s east or west coast but told residents to beware of the sea surge caused by powerful winds.

“The storm surge can kill you,” Scott said on the “CBS This Morning” program on Thursday. He urged people to heed local officials and be ready when the call came to leave their area, promising the government would provide transportation to those who need it.

The aftermath of Hurricane Irma on Saint Martin. Netherlands Ministry of Defense/via REUTERS

“YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN”

With Irma set to become the second hurricane to hit the United States in as many weeks, Florida emergency management officials began evacuations, ordering tourists to leave the Florida Keys.

Roman Gastesi, the administrator of Monroe County, which encompasses the Florida Keys, told CNN that streets were empty in Key West and 90 percent of businesses were closed. County officials, including police and emergency workers, would be leaving, he said.

“If you’re going to stay, you’re on your own,” Gastesi said.

U.S. President Donald Trump was monitoring Irma’s progress. The president owns the waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump approved emergency declarations for the state, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, mobilizing federal disaster relief efforts.

The island of Barbuda, one of the first hit by the storm, was reduced to “literally rubble,” said Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, adding that one person was killed and that the tiny two-island nation will seek international assistance.

Browne told the BBC that about half of Barbuda’s population of some 1,800 were homeless while nine out of 10 buildings had suffered some damage and many were destroyed.

“It was easily one of the most emotionally painful experiences that I have had,” Browne said in an interview on BBC Radio Four, adding that it would take months or years to restore some level of normalcy to the island.

A surfer was also reported killed in Barbados.

Two other hurricanes formed on Wednesday.

Katia in the Gulf of Mexico posed no threat to the United States, according to U.S. forecasters. Hurricane Jose was about 815 miles (1,310 km) east of the Caribbean’s Lesser Antilles islands, and could eventually threaten the U.S. mainland.

The storm activity comes after Harvey claimed about 60 lives and caused property damage estimated to be as much as $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana.

(For a graphic on storms in the North Atlantic click http://tmsnrt.rs/2gcckz5)

(Reporting by Scott Malone in San Juan, Jorge Pinedo in Santo Domingo, Makini Brice in Cap Hatien, Guy Delva in Port au Prince, Sarah Marsh in Havana, Susan Heavey and Ian Simpson in Washington, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Estelle Shirbon in London, Matthias Blamont and Jean-Baptiste Vey in Paris, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Writing by Daniel Flynn and Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Hurricane Irma kills eight on Caribbean island of Saint Martin

By Scott Malone

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) – Hurricane Irma killed eight people on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin and left Barbuda devastated on Thursday as one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century took aim at Florida.

Television footage of the Franco-Dutch island of Saint Martin showed a damaged marina with boats tossed into piles, submerged streets and flooded homes. Power was knocked out on Saint Martin, Saint Barthelemy and in parts of the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

“It is an enormous disaster, 95 percent of the island is destroyed. I am in shock,” Daniel Gibbs, chairman of a local council on Saint Martin, told Radio Caribbean International.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said eight people were killed and the toll was likely to rise.

“We did not have the time yet to explore all the shores,” Collomb told Franceinfo radio, adding that 23 people were also injured. In all, at least 10 people were reported killed by Irma on four islands.

Irma caused “enormous damage” to the Dutch side of Saint Martin, called Sint Maarten, the Dutch Royal Navy said. The navy tweeted images gathered by helicopter of damaged houses, hotels and boats. The airport was unreachable, it said.

The hurricane was on track to reach Florida on Saturday or Sunday, becoming the second major hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland in as many weeks after Hurricane Harvey.

The eye of Irma was moving west-northwest off the northern coast of the Dominican Republic on Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

The island of Barbuda is a scene of “total carnage” and the tiny two-island nation will seek international assistance, said Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda.

Browne told the BBC about half of Barbuda’s population of some 1,800 were homeless while nine out of 10 buildings had suffered some damage and many were destroyed.

RAIN AND WIND

“We flew into Barbuda only to see total carnage. It was easily one of the most emotionally painful experiences that I have had,” Browne said in an interview on BBC Radio Four.

“Approximately 50 percent of them (residents of Barbuda) are literally homeless at this time. They are bunking together, we are trying to get … relief supplies to them first thing tomorrow morning,” he said, adding that it would take months or years to restore some level of normalcy to the island.

Browne said one person was killed on Barbuda. A surfer was also reported killed on Barbados.

Irma hit Puerto Rico early on Thursday, buffeting its capital San Juan with rain and wind that scattered tree limbs across roadways. At least half of Puerto Rico’s homes and businesses were without power, according to Twitter posts and a message posted by an island utility executive.

The NHC said it was the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean and one of the five most forceful storms to hit the Atlantic basin in 82 years.

Irma’s precise course remained uncertain but it was likely to be downgraded to a Category 4 storm by the time it makes landfall in Florida, the NHC said.

It has become a little less organized over the past few hours but the threat of direct hurricane impacts in Florida over the weekend and early next week were increasing, it said.

Hurricane watches were in effect for the northwestern Bahamas and much of Cuba.

Waves battle a stranded ship as Hurricane Irma slammed across islands in the northern Caribbean on Wednesday, in Fajardo, Puerto Rico September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Alvin Baez

STORM PREPARATIONS

Two other hurricanes formed on Wednesday.

The storm activity comes after Harvey claimed about 60 lives and caused property damage estimated as high as $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana.

Florida emergency management officials began evacuations in advance of Irma’s arrival, ordering tourists to leave the Florida Keys. Evacuation of residents from the Keys began Wednesday evening.

Ed Rappaport, the Miami-based NHC’s acting director, told WFOR-TV that Irma was a “once-in-a-generation storm.”

In Cuba, 90 miles (145 km) south of the Keys, authorities posted a hurricane alert for the island’s central and eastern regions, as residents in Havana, the capital, waited in lines to stock up on food, water and gasoline.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he and aides were monitoring Irma’s progress. The president owns the waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump approved emergency declarations from that state, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, mobilizing federal disaster relief efforts.

Florida Governor Rick Scott said Irma could be more devastating than Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm that struck the state in 1992 and still ranks as one of the costliest ever in the United States.

Residents in most coastal communities of densely populated Miami-Dade County were ordered to move to higher ground beginning at 9 a.m. ET (1300 GMT) on Thursday, Mayor Carlos Gimenez said.

(For a graphic on storms in the North Atlantic click http://tmsnrt.rs/2gcckz5)

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien, Estelle Shirbon in London and Matthias Blamont and Jean-Baptiste Vey in Paris, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Exclusive: At least $23 billion of property affected by Hurricane Harvey – Reuters analysis

A house is seen submerged by flood waters from Tropical Storm Harvey in Orange, Texas, U.S., August 30, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

By Ryan McNeill and Duff Wilson

(Reuters) – At least $23 billion worth of property has been affected by flooding from Hurricane Harvey just in parts of Texas’ Harris and Galveston counties, a Reuters analysis of satellite imagery and property data shows.

The number represents market value, not storm damage, and is but a small fraction of the storm’s reach, as satellite images of the flooding are incomplete. Satellite imagery compiled by researchers at the University of Colorado shows flooding across 234 square miles (600 sq km)of Harris County and 51 square miles (132 sq km) of Galveston County, about one-eighth of each county’s land area.

It is impossible to discern damage amounts from the data, as the satellite imagery does not reveal the depth of the floodwaters; nor does it reveal the impact of wind. But even this partial tally signals that the storm will rank among the most damaging in U.S. history.

Reuters overlaid the flood imagery on property parcel maps and found floodwaters had encroached on at least 30,000 properties in the two counties, with a total market value of $23.4 billion.

Of that, 26 percent is land value; the rest is buildings and other improvements. In Harris County, where Reuters was able to determine the property’s use, about 18 percent of the affected property is residential.

The tally omits much of Houston’s dense urban center because a satellite specializing in urban imagery has not yet taken enough images there. Floodwaters have inundated the area, like surrounding regions, and thousands of homes are damaged. Many roads, including vital highways and parkways, were submerged and businesses flooded and shuttered.

Ultimately, storm damage totals will come from estimates of insured and uninsured losses and disaster assistance payments, not from tallying property assessment values.

And real estate is only part of the equation in the rapidly rising toll as Harvey moves from Texas to Louisiana. Federal damage estimates will also include the vast cost of business interruptions, ruined vehicles and other personal possessions, repairs to roadways and other public infrastructure, and disaster aid like the money used to feed and house tens of thousands of displaced people.

Adam Smith, a lead scientist for the federal agency that compiles storm damage costs, said it is “very possible” Harvey’s costs may surpass the record $160 billion from Hurricane Katrina.

“But it will take some time to understand the magnitude of Harvey’s devastation, which is still unfolding,” Smith said in an email Wednesday to Reuters. “It is very unclear if Harvey’s costs will ultimately surpass Katrina. However, since this is an unprecedented extreme precipitation event over a major city, in addition to the damage to other cities (and) regions from wind, storm surge and flooding, it’s very possible.”

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused about $160 billion in damage, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 caused $70 billion, and Hurricane Ike in 2008 caused $34 billion, according to research by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The damage figures are adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars.

Harvey, a category 4 storm with 130 mph winds, came ashore Friday in Rockport, Texas. It churned slowly over the next five days, dropping about 50 inches of rain on Harris County, more than any tropical storm recorded in the continental U.S. since 1950.

Rob Moore, a senior policy analyst for water issues at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, said it’s “anybody’s guess” how much damage Harvey has wreaked.

“Because of the extent of flooding, a lot of insurance companies are expecting to see very high numbers of complete losses of residential properties,” said Moore, who monitors government and insurance industry reports. “And large proportions of those properties are going to be uninsured. A lot of people have dropped flood insurance policies the last few years.”

Homeowners who live outside the 100-year-flood hazard zone or don’t have mortgages are not required to buy flood insurance. Because there hasn’t been major flooding in Houston in 16 years, many homeowners have dropped coverage to save money.

Asked what would happen to them, Moore said, “They’re left in a situation nobody wants to be in. They’re not going to have very many options for repairing their homes. And a lot of forms of federal disaster assistance aren’t available if you don’t have flood insurance.”

Many of the neighbors who returned Wednesday to Oak Knoll Lane in Northeast Houston find themselves in that predicament. One of them, Valerie Stephens, 32, abandoned her house on Saturday, when about nine inches of water rushed into the house over half an hour. She has no flood insurance, and she said her house, valued at $79,000 on Zillow just before the storm, is worth “much less than that” now.

Up and down the street, water had topped mailboxes and left behind puddles of dirty water, a festering stink and a faint line of grime inside each house where the water had stagnated, usually a couple of feet off the floor.

That’s much less water than some areas have reported, but it was enough that residents began piling furniture on the curb and ripping open walls and floors to stop mold from creeping in and making the situation even worse.

Many did the same thing in 2001 after Tropical Storm Allison swamped the street.

“We’ve already pulled out the doors, the door frames. Then we’ll start with the sheetrock and the floors,” Stephens said. She expects to live with concrete floors and bare sheetrock while she finds the money to pay for all the damage.

(Reporting by Ryan McNeill and Duff Wilson in New York; Additional reporting by Peter Henderson and Ernest Scheyder in Houston; Editing by Janet Roberts and Marla Dickerson)

Harvey soaks Louisiana as Houston paralyzed by flooding

By Ruthy Munoz and Gary McWilliams

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Harvey bore down on Louisiana on Wednesday, pouring down more water after setting rainfall records in Texas that caused catastrophic flooding and paralyzed the U.S. energy hub of Houston.

The storm that first came ashore on Friday as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years has killed at least 17 people and forced tens of thousands to leave their deluged homes.

Damage has been estimated at tens of billions of dollars, making it one of the costliest U.S. natural disasters.

There is some relief in sight for Houston, the fourth most populous U.S. city, with forecasters saying five days of torrential rain may come to an end as the storm picks up speed and leaves the Gulf of Mexico region later in the day.

Harvey made landfall early Wednesday and was about 32 miles (52 km) south of Lake Charles, Louisiana. It was expected to bring an additional 3 to 6 inches (7.5 to 15.24 cms) of rain to an area about 80 miles east of Houston as well as southwestern Louisiana, where some areas have already seen more than 18 inches of rain.

Several hundred people had already been rescued from their homes in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where floodwaters were knee-deep in places, Mayor Nic Hunter told CNN.

“We are a very resilient people down here. We will survive. We will take care of each other down here in Texas and Louisiana,” Hunter said. “But we do need some help from the federal government, these homeowners and these people who have been displaced. That’s going to be our biggest need.”

Harvey is projected to weaken as it moves inland to the northeast, the National Hurricane Center said.

“We aren’t going to be dealing with it for too much longer. It’s going to pick up the pace and get out of here,” said Donald Jones, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Lake Charles.

But nearly a third of Harris County, home to Houston, was under water, an area 15 times the size of Manhattan, according to the Houston Chronicle newspaper. It may take days for all flood waters, which have spilled over dams and pushed levees to their limits, to recede, local officials said.

City officials were preparing to temporarily house some 19,000 people, with thousands more expected to flee. As of Wednesday morning, state officials said close to 49,000 homes had suffered flood damage, with more than 1,000 destroyed.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner imposed a curfew from 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. amid reports of looting, armed robberies and people impersonating police officers.

U.S. President Donald Trump visited Texas on Tuesday to survey damage from the first major natural disaster to test his crisis leadership. The president said he was pleased with the response, but too soon for a victory lap.

“We won’t say congratulations,” he said. “We don’t want to do that … We’ll congratulate each other when it’s all finished.”

Moody’s Analytics is estimating the economic cost from Harvey for southeast Texas at $51 billion to $75 billion.

The storm has affected nearly one-fifth of U.S. refining capacity, sparking concerns about gasoline supply. The national average gasoline price rose to $2.404 a gallon, up six cents from a week ago, with higher spikes in Texas.

The unprecedented flooding has left scores of neighborhoods in chest-deep water and badly strained the dams and drainage systems that protect the low-lying Houston metropolitan area whose economy is about as large as Argentina’s.

The National Weather Service has issued flood watches and warnings that stretch from the Houston area into Tennessee.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump receive a briefing on Tropical Storm Harvey relief efforts in Corpus Christi, Texas. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

DIED TRYING TO RESCUE PEOPLE

Harvey has drawn comparisons with Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans 12 years ago, killing more than 1,800 people and causing an estimated $108 billion in damage.

Among the confirmed fatalities was Houston Police Sergeant Steve Perez, a 34-year veteran of the force who drowned while attempting to drive to work on Sunday.

In Beaumont, northeast of Houston, a woman clutching her baby daughter was swept away in raging flooding. The baby was saved but the mother died, Beaumont police said.

Ruben Jordan, a retired high school football coach died when he was helping rescue people trapped in high water, the Clear Creek Independent School District said.

In all, 17 people have perished, according to government officials and the Houston Chronicle. Four volunteer rescuers also went missing after their boat was swept in a fast-moving current, local media reported.

U.S. Coast Guard helicopters and boats have rescued more than 4,000 people. Thousands of others have been taken to safety by police, rescue workers and citizen volunteers who brought their boats to help, local officials said.

The National Hurricane Center on Tuesday afternoon said a record 51.88 inches (131.78 cm) of rain had fallen in Texas due to Harvey, a record for any storm in the continental United States.

This breaks the previous record of 48 inches set during tropical storm Amelia in 1978 in Medina, Texas, the NHC said. Medina is west of San Antonio. The island of Kauai was hit with 52 inches of rain from tropical cyclone Hiki in 1950, before Hawaii became a U.S. state.

For a graphic on storms in the North Atlantic, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/STORM-HARVEY/010050K2197/index.html

Ethan holds his 2-year-old daughter Zella as they walk through flood waters from Tropical Storm Harvey in Iowa, Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, U.S., on August 29, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

(Additional reporting by Gary McWilliams, Ernest Scheyder, Erwin Seba, Ruthy Munoz and Peter Henderson in Houston; Andy Sullivan in Rockport, Texas; Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Scott Malone and Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Toby Chopra and Chizu Nomiyama)

Solomon Islands scrambles to reach areas hit by second major quake

SYDNEY (Reuters) – The Solomon Islands plans to dispatch emergency supplies to areas affected by a 6.9 magnitude aftershock on Saturday, a day after a much larger tremor triggered a tsunami warning that send hundreds of coastal people fleeing into the hills.

General Secretary of the Solomon Islands Red Cross Joanne Zoleveke said the supply boat could take almost 24 hours to reach Makira Island, which lies close to the epicentre of Friday’s deeper 7.8 magnitude earthquake.

Both quakes triggered tsunami warnings which were lifted a short time later.

“We are working with the National Disaster Office of the Government and we’ve mobilised our emergency response teams to accompany the government officers and other international non-governmental organisations that are going on this boat,” Zoleveke said.

Makira Island’s airstrip services small planes incapable of shuttling the volume of aid required for the relief effort.

“We still don’t have that much detail but we know people are really affected by what’s happened,” Zoleveke said.

Zoloveke said based on reports received by two-way radio, Friday’s quake caused significant damage and forced people from homes in the town of Kirakira on Makira Island, about 200 km from the Pacific Island nation’s capital of Honiara.

She said she knew of only one reported casualty, a 25-year-old with non-specific injuries. The remoteness of the region and the failure of communications meant it was impossible to know the full extent of any injuries or damage, she said.

Australia has provided A$50,000 ($37,235) worth of supplies and a helicopter to undertake an initial assessment of affected areas to help target relief efforts, Zoloveke said.

Suzy Sainovski of World Vision in Honiara said staff from the humanitarian organisation in Kirakira saw people fleeing to higher ground.

“One of the reasons we need to get them shelter assistance (is) because it’s the start of the wet season here,” Sainovski said.

($1 = 1.3428 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Jane Wardell and Peter Gosnell; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Christopher Cushing)

6.7 Magnitude Aftershock Rattles Nepal; Over 2,500 Dead

In an eerie confirmation of reports from the National Earthquake Information Center that there was a 1 in 3 chance of a massive aftershock in Nepal following a 7.9 magnitude earthquake Saturday, the region was struck by a 6.7 magnitude aftershock Sunday.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck only six miles deep strengthening the damaging impact of the quake.

“The aftershocks keep coming … so people don’t know what to expect,” said Sanjay Karki, Nepal country head for global aid agency Mercy Corps. “All the open spaces in Kathmandu are packed with people who are camping outdoors. When the aftershocks come you cannot imagine the fear. You can hear women and children crying.”

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Officials said that at least 2,500 people have been confirmed dead as of Sunday night but the death toll is likely to rise significantly over the next few days when more rescuers reach the region to examine collapsed structures and areas buried in landslides.

Officials say that over 700 deaths have been confirmed in the capital of Kathmandu alone.

Residents of the city say that the majority of collapsed buildings were older structures made of brick. Modern buildings toward the business area of the city did not collapse leading officials to confirm the death toll was lower than it could have been at this point because those buildings stayed up.

International relief group World Vision said that many villages outside the capital are on mountains and they were not prepared for this massive quake and aftershock.

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Villages near the epicenter “are literally perched on the sides of large mountain faces and are made from simple stone and rock construction. Many of these villages are only accessible by 4WD and then foot, with some villages hours and even entire days’ walks away from main roads at the best of times,” the group’s local staff member, Matt Darvas, said in a statement to the Associated Press.

Residents of the area who had returned to their homes are now back in the streets following the massive aftershock. Makeshift tent cities have been created in open spaces such as school playgrounds, courtyards and even the traffic islands in streets shut down because of damage.

Hospitals have been overwhelmed with injuries.

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“Both private and government hospitals have run out of space and are treating patients outside, in the open,” Nepal’s envoy to India, Deep Kumar Upadhyay, told the AP.

Pakistan confirmed they are sending a 30-bed temporary hospital to the capital along with doctors and surgeons. They are also sending at least 2,000 ready to eat meals and drinking water.

Disaster experts Sunday admitted they had been in Kathmandu last week investigating ways to better prepare the region for a massive earthquake similar to the 1934 quake that leveled the city.

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“It was sort of a nightmare waiting to happen,” said seismologist James Jackson, head of the earth sciences department at the University of Cambridge in England. “Physically and geologically what happened is exactly what we thought would happen.”

“I was walking through that very area where that earthquake was and I thought at the very time that the area was heading for trouble,” said Jackson, lead scientist for Earthquakes Without Frontiers, a group that tries to make Asia more able to bounce back from these disasters and was having the meeting.

Over 1,300 Dead in Massive Nepal Earthquake

The strongest earthquake to hit the Himalayan nation of Nepal in over 80 years has left massive devastation and over 1,300 people dead.

The quake, which struck just outside the nation’s capital of Kathmandu, was measured at 7.8 on the Richter scale by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The death toll in Nepal is rising every hour. Neighboring countries India and China have reported deaths from the massive quake.

The quake struck just before lunch time local time in a very heavily populated area of the region. Residents began to run into the streets in panic as many buildings began to crumble. Trees fell knocking out power lines and massive cracks appeared in the middle of roads and walking paths.

Residents spent the rest of the day in the streets because of aftershocks that continued to collapse buildings damaged by the initial quake.

“It is hard to describe. The house was shaking like crazy. We ran out and it seemed like the road was heaving up and down,” Vaidya, who runs an advertising agency, told The Associated Press. “I don’t remember anything like this before. Even my parents can’t remember anything this bad.”

“It’s cold and windy so we are all sitting in the car listening to the news on FM radio,” he said. “The experts are saying it’s still not safe to go back inside. No one can predict how big the next aftershock will be.”

The region lost many historical buildings and artifacts in the quake.

The historic Dharahara tower was almost completely destroyed in the quake. The formerly nine story tower, listed as a world historical site by the United Nations, is now reduced to a partially collapsed building less than two stories tall. There were people on the 8th floor viewing tower when the quake struck and officials cannot say how many were killed in the building’s collapse.

The tower had been built by the nation’s first prime minister in 1832.

Durbar Square in Kathmandu’s Old City, also a U.N. recognized historical site, has been flattened.

The quake also triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest that killed at least 13.

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