Mes: septiembre 2019

(CBS/AP) MANILA, Philippines – Philippine disaster officials were shifting Friday from rescue work to a massive clean-up of the capital following nonstop rains that left tons of muck and debris from floods littering the city. The torrential monsoon rains that began Sunday left at least 60 people dead in the worst flooding in Manila since 2009. More than half of the sprawling metropolis of 12 million was submerged at the peak of the floods, and schools and offices closed for days. About 2.4 million people in Manila and nearby provinces have been affected, forcing more than 360,000 to seek shelter in government-run evacuation centers, the Office of Civil Defense reported Friday. The sun was out for a second day Friday, and residents were hard at work fixing disheveled homes and stores in flood-hit communities that resembled a wasteland covered with mounds of mud-caked garbage. “It’s really an eyesore when we saw it from the helicopter,” said civil defense chief Benito Ramos. “There will be no more rescue. It’s now ‘Operation Cleanup.”‘ He said soldiers will be mobilized to help local authorities collect the debris that have clogged streets and waterways. Some of the displaced in still-crowded evacuation centers have begun to trickle back to their communities, where floodwaters have subsided, Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman said. Reservists will be assigned to help repack relief supplies for people still in...

(AP) VERACRUZ, Mexico – Ernesto weakened to a tropical depression as it moved inland Friday, killing seven people and dumping rains in the mountains of Mexico’s flood-prone southern Gulf region. In Veracruz state, two people were killed early Friday, including a teenage girl who was inside a car dragged by a river current and a 62-year-old man who was struck by lightning, the state’s civil protection department said in a statement. It said three members of a family died Thursday night when strong winds knocked down a tree that fell on their car, the state’s civil protection department said in a statement. A 38-year-old man, his wife and their 8-year-old boy were killed, it added. In neighboring Tabasco state, two fishermen drowned when the stormed passed through the area Thursday, Gov. Andres Granier told reporters. Granier said the storm’s strong winds ripped rooftops from several homes but residents refused to evacuate, fearing their possessions might be stolen. “People have chosen to stay in their homes and we are helping them,” he said. Ernesto came ashore Thursday near the waters dotted with oil rigs operated by the state oil company in the far southern Gulf of Mexico. The government closed its largest Gulf coast port, Veracruz, and the smaller ports of Alvarado and Coatzacoalcos. Coatzacoalcos, a major oil port, got seven inches of rain in the 24 hours before Ernesto’s...

(AP) AZAZ, Syria – Syrian fighter jets screamed through the sky Wednesday over this rebel-held town, dropping bombs that leveled the better part of a poor neighborhood and wounded scores of people, many of them women and children buried under piles of rubble. Activists said more than 20 people were killed. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 23 people died in the double airstrike and more than 200 were wounded. Mohammed Nour, a local activist reached by phone, put the death toll at 25. Neither figure could be independently confirmed. More in After the Arab Spring Reporters from The Associated Press saw nine dead bodies in the bombings’ immediate aftermath, including a baby. The bombings sent panicked civilians fleeing for cover. So many were wounded that the local hospital locked its doors, directing residents to drive to the nearby Turkish border so the injured could be treated on the other side. One person’s remains were bundled into a small satchel. A group of young men found a man buried in the wreckage of destroyed homes, his clothes torn and his limbs dirty, but still alive. “God is great! God is great!” they chanted as they yanked him out and laid him on a blanket. Nearby, a woman sat on a pile of bricks that once was her home, cradling a dead baby wrapped in a dirty cloth....