Hurricane Dolly was downgraded to a tropical storm on Wednesday after it tore into Texas with 160kph winds and left 250,000 people without drinking water across the border in Mexico.
The storm made landfall at South Padre Island, Texas, at midday as a Category 2 hurricane, the National Hurricane Center said.
The resort island was practically submerged under the storm surge.
But Dolly lost some punch as it interacted with the cooler landmass after leaving the Gulf of Mexico. It was to continue weakening as it moves further inland at about 11kph, the NHC reported.
By 0600 GMT yesterday, Dolly’s sustained winds fell to 95kph as it lumbered to the northwest 120km from the Texas border town of Brownsville.
The “slow-moving Dolly [was] dumping torrential rains on south Texas,” the NHC said, adding that Dolly is expected to continue weakening as it moves farther inland.
As pounding rain and strong winds battered the US-Mexico coast, authorities worried whether levees could sustain the floodwaters.
Bracing for as much as 400mm of rain, residents boarded up windows and piled up sandbags and thousands fled for safer ground.
In Matamoros, Mexico, 60km south of South Padre Island, Dolly’s winds damaged the city’s main water treatment plant, leaving half of the 500,000 inhabitants without drinking water, while heavy rain triggered extensive flooding, local officials said.
Texas Governor Rick Perry issued disaster declarations in 14 counties across the southern portion of the state, and hundreds of National Guard troops and other emergency crews were deployed in advance of the storm.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS