Flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew has displaced several thousand people in North Carolina and authorities were on Tuesday helping more evacuate as swollen rivers threatened a wide swath of the state.
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory warned of “extremely dangerous” conditions in the coming days in central and eastern parts of the state, where several rivers were at record or near-record levels.
Matthew killed at least 1,000 people in Haiti last week before barreling up the US southeastern coast and causing at least 30 deaths in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
Photo: Reuters
McCrory’s office said four additional deaths were confirmed on Tuesday in North Carolina, raising the death toll in the state to 18.
One person was reported as missing.
An additional US death occurred on Monday night in Lumberton, North Carolina, where officials said a highway patrol officer fatally shot a man who became hostile and flashed a handgun during search-and-rescue efforts in fast-running floodwater.
Nearly 4,000 people have taken refuge in North Carolina shelters, including about 1,200 people in the hard-hit Lumberton area, where the Lumber River had crested at almost 1.2m above the prior record set in 2004 after Hurricane Frances.
Water blanketed the city of 21,000 people, leaving businesses flooded, homes with water up to their rooflines and drivers stranded after a stretch of Interstate 95 became impassable.
“We lost everything,” said 62-year-old Sarah McCallum, who was staying in a shelter established in an agricultural center after floodwaters drove her from her home of 20 years.
State officials are particularly concerned about victims like McCallum, who have no flood insurance because they do not live in areas typically prone to inundation.
US President Barack Obama on Monday signed a disaster declaration for North Carolina, which is to make federal funding available to people in the hardest-hit areas. Obama on Tuesday approved a similar declaration for South Carolina, where Matthew made landfall on Saturday.
About 532,000 homes and businesses remained without power in the US southeast on Tuesday, down from the peak of about 2.2 million on Sunday morning.
Matthew dumped more than 30cm of rain in areas of North Carolina already soaked from heavy rainfall last month. It has triggered the worst flooding in the state since Hurricane Floyd in September 1999, the US National Weather Service said.
That storm caused devastating floods in North Carolina, resulting in 35 deaths, 7,000 destroyed homes and more than US$3 billion in damages in the state.
In Matthew’s wake, officials are monitoring a number of overtopped or breaching dams, in addition to the threat of inland river flooding, the governor’s office said.
McCrory warned that the Tar River was yesterday expected to crest in Greenville, North Carolina, where a mandatory evacuation order is already in place.
Officials remain concerned about Kinston, where significant flooding was already occurring from the Neuse River, which is expected to crest at about 8m on Saturday, just shy of the Floyd record.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS