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.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS