US federal officials vowed urgent support on Sunday for a region devastated by the deadliest US natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina, even as they acknowledged recovery would not be quick or easy.
US President Barack Obama’s administration is trying to show an effective response to the storms and twisters that killed about 350 people last week in seven southern states, reduced neighborhoods to rubble and caused damage expected to run into billions of dollars.
Obama visited Alabama on Friday and US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and the administrator of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Craig Fugate, toured damage on Sunday.
“I don’t think words can fairly express the level of devastation here. I am not articulate enough,” Napolitano said after seeing how killer storm winds had torn through Pratt City, Alabama.
Later in Smithville, Mississippi, Napolitano said the visit had offered an acute sense of urgency about the need to help communities “come to grips and recover” from the disaster.
“This is not going to be a quick comeback or an immediate one but it will be, in my view, a complete one when all is said and done,” she said.
The Republican governors of Alabama and Mississippi both spoke highly of Washington’s response to the latest disaster.
“When you see local, state and federal people cooperating like this, it really makes a difference,” Alabama Governor Robert Bentley said on CBS’ Face the Nation program.
Alabama was the worst hit state in last week’s storms, with 250 people killed. Elsewhere, 101 people died in Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, Virginia and Louisiana.
About 1,700 people were injured in Alabama alone and others were missing after tornadoes crushed homes, flipped cars upside down and tore children from their parents’ arms.
To help people get back on their feet, the US Department of Agriculture will make homes in rural areas available for rent, Vilsack said.
The US Small Business Administration said it would make loans of up to US$200,000 available to homeowners and up to US$2 million for small businesses.
FBI officers, FEMA officials, state troopers, police, sheriffs, firefighters and officials of the US Fish and Wildlife service worked with many local volunteers to clear roads and debris on Saturday.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
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Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia