Hurricane Alex picked up strength in the western Gulf of Mexico yesterday, heading toward northeastern Mexico and Texas and disrupting oil cleanup operations off the coast of Louisiana.
Alex, which became the first hurricane of the Atlantic season late on Tuesday, was packing winds of 130kph, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
US President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Texas late on Tuesday and ordered federal aid to bolster the local response efforts. Mexican authorities took similar measures and reported one storm-related death.
At 6am, the center of Alex was located 315km east-southeast of the Mexican coastal town of La Pesca and 415km southeast of Brownsville, Texas, at the point the US-Mexico border reaches the ocean, the NHC said.
The Category 1 hurricane was tracking “erratically” in a general westward direction at 8kph and not forecast to turn towards the massive BP oil spill along the US Gulf Coast.
However, severe winds from Alex churned up waves that halted clean up operations and threatened to push more of the huge slick onto the coastline.
On the forecast track, Alex was expected to make landfall late yesterday or early today in Mexico south of the US-Mexico border, separating Texas and Tamaulipas states, the NHC said.
“Additional strengthening is forecast prior to landfall,” the statement said, but after reaching land it is expected to lose power.
Mexico ordered authorities on emergency alert in Tamaulipas state after one woman died when a wall of her home collapsed in the southern state of Oaxaca during driving rain caused by the storm system, officials said.
Obama’s move late on Tuesday was a green light for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster relief efforts, a White House statement said.
Texas Governor Rick Perry issued his own state disaster proclamation for 19 counties, allowing Texas to launch preparations such as pre-deploying resources to ensure local communities are ready to respond to the hurricane.
Tornadoes were possible over southern Texas yesterday, the NHC statement said.
It said the storm could cause dangerous floods and was set to drench parts of Mexico and Texas with 15cm to 30cm of rain, with isolated maximum amounts of 51cm.
“These rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides,” the NHC warned.
Alex was well southwest of the area worst hit by the massive BP oil spill — the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida — though its strong winds were causing problems for the cleanup effort.
The storm forced suspension of oil skimming operations as visiting US Vice President Joe Biden heard complaints about the pace of cleanup efforts in the disaster zone.
Alex was also the first Atlantic hurricane to form in June since 1995, according to the NHC.
FEMA, an agency of the US Department of Homeland Security, urged Americans to closely monitor the storm and be as prepared as possible.
Alex killed at least 10 people when its rainwater unleashed landslides and floods in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador over the weekend.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
RSS