Typhoon kills more than 436 in southern Philippines (Reuters)

CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines (Reuters) – More than 400 people were killed and an unknown number were missing after a typhoon struck the southern Philippines, causing flash floods and landslides and driving tens of thousands from their homes.

In a text message to Reuters, Gwendolyn Pang, secretary-general of the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC), said the death toll of 436 was expected to rise.

"Our death toll was based on the actual number of bodies that were brought to funeral homes in the two cities that were the hardest hit by the typhoon," Pang said, adding it was difficult to estimate how many were still unaccounted for.

Typhoon Washi, with winds gusting up to 90 kmh (56 mph), barreled into the resource-rich island of Mindanao late on Friday, bringing heavy rain that also grounded some domestic flights and left wide areas without power.

Emergency workers, soldiers and police were recovering more bodies - most covered in mud - washed ashore in nearby towns.

Pang said nearly 360 bodies had been found in the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan and about 50 in four other southern provinces. The government's official death toll stood only at 131 people and nearly 270 missing.

Another 21 people drowned on the central island of Negros, the PNRC said.

Hundreds were also unaccounted for, most of them from a coastal village in Iligan. Houses were swept into the sea by floodwaters while people were sleeping inside late on Friday.

The Philippines social welfare department said about 100,000 people were displaced and brought to nearly three dozen

shelters in Iligan and Cagayan de Oro.

"WE RAN FOR OUR LIVES"

Army spokesman Colonel Leopoldo Galon said search and rescue operations would continue along the shorelines in Misamis Oriental and Lanao del Norte provinces.

"I can't explain how these things happened, entire villages were swept to the sea by flash floods," Galon said.

"I have not seen anything like this before. This could be worse than Ondoy," he said, referring to a 2009 storm that inundated the capital, Manila, killing hundreds of people.

Television pictures showed bodies encased in mud, cars piled on top of each other and wrecked homes. Helicopters and boats searched the sea for survivors and victims.

"We ran for our lives when we heard a loud whistle blow and was followed by a big bang," Michael Mabaylan, 38, a carpenter, told Reuters. He said his wife and five children were all safe.

Aid worker Crislyn Felisilda cited concern about children who had became separated from their families or lost their parents. "Many children are looking for their loved ones... (and children were) crying and staring into space."

Rosal Agacac, a 40-year-old mother, was begging authorities to help find her two children after their shanty was swept to the sea. "Please President Noynoy, help me," she cried, holding a candle at a spot where their house stood before the floods, referring to President Benigno Aquino.

Aquino met with cabinet members and disaster officials to assess conditions on the main southern island and ordered a review of disaster plans to avoid a repeat of the tragedy. He is due to inspect typhoon-hit areas after Christmas.

Rescue boats pulled at least 15 people from the sea, said another army spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang.

Iligan City Mayor Lawrence Cruz said many people were caught by surprise when water rose one meter (three feet) high in less

than an hour, forcing people onto roofs. "Most of them were already sleeping when floodwaters entered their homes. This is the worst flooding our city has experienced in years."

The national disaster agency said it could not estimate crop and property damage because emergency workers, including soldiers and police officers, were evacuating families and recovering casualties.

Six domestic flights run by Cebu Pacific were cancelled due to the rain and near-zero visibility in the southern and central

Philippines. Ferry services were also halted, stranding hundreds of people.

An average of 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year.

(Writing by Manny Mogato)

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Strong winds leave 7 dead in southern Sri Lanka (AP)

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Strong winds have killed seven people along Sri Lanka's southern coast.

Pradeep Kodippili, the spokesman for the government's disaster management center, says three people were killed by fallen trees Friday in the southern coastal town of Matara.

Also on Friday, the bodies of four fishermen who had ventured out to sea from Matara were recovered. Kodippili says it was possible that their boats had been damaged by the bad weather.

He says the winds damaged about 1,000 homes in the area.

The strong winds subsided by Friday evening.

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Mudslides in southern Italy kill 3 people (AP)

ROME – Torrential rain battered eastern Sicily on Wednesday, where mudslides have killed at least three people and muddy torrents have swept away cars and washed out bridges, authorities said.

A mudslide in the hamlet of Saponara, near the Sicilian port city of Messina, fatally struck a 10-year-old boy Tuesday as his family fled their home. Much of Italy's terrain is landslide-prone, and many have built homes on steep hillsides in defiance of warnings by geologists.

Muddy torrents of water rushed through the Messina area, sweeping along cars as if they were toys and knocking down part of an elevated roadway.

Heavy rains also lashed Calabria, the southern Italian region across from Sicily. State railways said washed out railway bridges, landslides on track and flooding caused suspension of service on some routes.

About 100 soldiers were sent in to Saponara, one of the worst hit towns, to rescue residents stranded in flooded homes or vehicles, Italian news reports said.

This fall, flash flooding in Genoa, northwest Italy, killed at least six people, and at least nine perished in severe floods in Tuscany and the Cinque Terre tourist area of Liguria.

President Giorgio Napolitano asked local authorities to express his solidarity and closeness to the victims' families and repeated his appeal to Italians to pay urgent attention to their fragile environment.

Some of the flooding has been blamed on failure to regularly clean storm drains.

Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi had been criticized by environmentalists for concentrating his government's efforts on his pet project to build a bridge over the strait dividing Messina from Calabria, instead of devoting financial resources and manpower to more mundane projects like maintaining drainage systems and shoring up hillsides prone to landslides.

With Italy now slashing spending to cut deficit and devote resources to reviving the economy and prevent financial disaster, the plan to build a bridge has fallen by the wayside.

"A dramatic national emergency is before our eyes," said Stella Bianchi, the center-left Democratic Party's point person on the environment. "We are paying a painful price for years of errors, culpable lack of attention" and excessive building, she said in a statement.

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Southern California Fall Heat Wave Worries Fire Authorities (ContributorNetwork)

The National Weather Service for Los Angeles/Oxnard reports unseasonably warm Southern California fall temperatures that are between 10 degrees and 20 degrees above normal. As a result of the high pressure system that ushers in the dry heat, forecast Santa Ana winds increase the risk of fire danger in areas with dry brush. A Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesperson alerted the L.A. Times that 2,000 seasonal firefighters are kept on as a precaution. Just how common are California heat waves -- and will the trend continue?

* An Increase of three Heat Waves per Century

Writing for the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers on 2008, researchers have discovered that Los Angeles in particular is experiencing a marked uptick in heat waves. Findings support the notion that the number of events has increased by three for each century. The tripling of this figure is associated with a steady warming trend of the L.A. basin.

* Strain on the Water Supply

Attributing the heat waves to steady warming of the L.A. area, which in turn is caused by the increase of human activity in the city, researchers predict that there will be more notable heat waves. Moreover, of the average length of heat waves will increase. A direct result of this development is "increase in wildfires, and more strain on water, power, and agriculture." Already the County of Los Angeles warns that Southern California summer temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in valleys -- and above 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the low desert -- "are not uncommon."

* Notable Spring Heat Wave hit Southern California in 2006

NASA's Earth Observatory noted in 2006 that nearby Long Beach noted record temperatures that were 10 degrees Fahrenheit above normal spring weather. Relying on heat imaging, satellite photos revealed that the land mass had reached temperatures "nearing 150 degrees Fahrenheit" at 2:20 p.m. local (Pacific) time.

* More extreme nighttime Heat Waves

Climate researchers at the American Meteorological Society differentiate between daytime and nighttime heat waves. They document "stronger nighttime heating" especially along California's southern coast. In contrast, daytime heat weaves appear to be more common in the northern coastal hills.

* Looking into the Future

The Southern California Association of Governments warns that by the year 2100, Southern California's overall temperature will rise by four to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat waves "will likely intensify and last longer." In the same time frame, water levels along the coast will rise by 1.5 feet, even as precipitation continues to be erratic and unpredictable. This will most likely lead to water shortages. Further aggravating the expected temperature variations are short-term climate events, such as El Niño weather patterns.

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Storm lashes southern Michigan, 30,000 without power (Reuters)

DETROIT (Reuters) – Residents of southern Michigan were cleaning up on Monday after a violent storm ripped through the region, leaving at least 30,000 people without power, authorities said.

The Sunday storm hit northern Illinois with heavy rains and lightning, canceling at least 400 flights at Chicago airports, before raking a stretch of southern Michigan from Kalamazoo to Detroit. No deaths or injuries were reported, officials said.

The storm's 60-mile-per-hour winds drove heavy rain, uprooted hundreds of trees, ripped the roofs off buildings, and twisted billboards in and around Battle Creek, a city of 50,000 about 120 miles west of Detroit.

"As of right now we are going around taking trees off of houses, clearing out roadways, and pushing all of the debris aside so emergency vehicles can get to people who need it," said Tyler Upston, 24, who owns a landscaping business in Battle Creek. "Tomorrow we will start the full clean up."

About 34,000 people were still without power in Battle Creek's Calhoun County on Monday and "a significant number of Michigan residents are without power throughout the area hit by the storm," said Bob Dukesherer, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

"The storm was racing and moving over 50 miles per hour at times and with that forward speed it comes up on you very quickly," Dukesherer said.

Upston was at a friend's lake house as the storm swept in.

"It looked like a huge blanket coming across the sky," Upston said. "The rain was coming harder than hard. Everything was kicking up. Scrubs and trees were flying everywhere. Lawn chairs were flying from one neighbor's house to another."

Skies on Monday were clear in the Midwest from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico as hot, humid air pushed temperatures into the low 90 degree range, forecasters said.

But they warned that conditions for possible severe thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes could return on Monday night in the central Plains and upper Midwest.

(Reporting by Eric Johnson; Editing by Peter Bohan)

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