Hurricane Irma, which has toppled cranes, swallowed streets and left millions without power, yesterday weakened to a Category 1 storm, but remained dangerous as it continued its furious climb up Florida’s southwest coast.
Warnings of hazardous storm surges remained in effect through vast swaths of peninsular Florida, where more than 6 million people had been ordered to flee Irma’s path — one of the biggest evacuations in US history.
“As little as six inches [15cm] of moving water can knock you down,” Florida Governor Rick Scott tweeted following the downgrade. “Stay inside. Stay safe,” he added.
Maximum sustained winds had decreased to 137kph as of 2am, with Irma projected to become a tropical storm as it moved into northern Florida or southern Georgia later yesterday.
After wreaking a trail of death and destruction through the Caribbean, Irma had killed three people when it struck the southern Florida Keys island chain as a more powerful Category 4 on Sunday. More than 4 million customers were without power throughout the state, according to Florida’s Division of Emergency Management.
Florida Power and Light said it had “safely shut down” one of two nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point power plant.
Handfuls of holdout residents, having defied calls to evacuate, hunkered down as Irma tore over the Florida Keys, ripping boats from their moorings, flattening palm trees and downing power lines across the island chain popular for fishing and scuba diving.
Hours later, one of the mightiest hurricanes ever to slam the state made a second landfall on Marco Island near the beach resort of Naples.
“I am concerned about people that don’t believe in the storm surge,” said Virginia Defreeuw, 76, who fled her mobile home in Naples to a shelter. “You need to be afraid of the storm surge. People are not listening.”
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was