West African
Inundations
Unusually
heavy rains sweeping West Africa left a trail of death and
destruction from the Atlantic to Timbuktu on the edge of the Sahara
Desert.
Gambian authorities said that at least 53 fishermen had drowned
during violent rainstorms which also destroyed about 800 homes in
the small country. In neighboring Senegal, at least 16 fishermen
were killed and many others were reported missing after a violent
storm, associated with developing hurricane Cindy, off Senegal’s
Casamance Province. Heavy rains also battered the largely desert
country of Niger and its neighbor Mali. The downpours came at the
time the rainy season in Sahelian West Africa usually tapers off.
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Ecuadorian
Eruption
Ecuador’s
Pichincha Volcano burst into life just outside Quito, sending up
a 2-mile-high plume of water vapor.
The volcanic activity sent a wave of fear throughout nearby cities,
including the capital of Quito with a population of 1.4 million.
Scientists at Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute maintain that a serious
eruption of Pichincha is not imminent.
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Australian
Mini-Tornado
A
small twister roared through a suburb of Perth in western Australia,
tearing roofs from buildings and trapping people in a wrecked nine-story
apartment complex.
Two of the people buried in the rubble managed to dig themselves
out, but it took local police one hour to rescue an elderly woman
trapped in the debris.
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Killer
Bee Deaths
Killer
bees attacked a group of women and children heading for a swim in
a river in southwest Mexico, killing one and injuring 12
others.
Matilde Bernal died from hundreds of stings while 12 others, including
five children, had to be taken to a hospital after being attacked
by Africanized bees near the town of Tixtlancingo, 20 miles northwest
of Acapulco. It was the third reported attack by Africanized bees
in Mexico this month. The bees are a hybrid of European bees and
an aggressive African bee introduced to Brazil in 1956 for interbreeding.
The bees escaped into the wild in 1957, gradually working their
way north and reaching Texas in 1990.
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Lightning
Deaths
Five
family members were killed as they were sleeping when lightning
struck their home in the eastern Indian state of Orissa.
Three of the victims were children.
The strike was powerful enough to destroy the entire home, located
in the community of Itamati, but one person managed to escape with
burn injuries.
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Earthquakes
A
magnitude 4.7 earthquake struck the Turkish capital of Ankara on
Tuesday, sending thousands of residents fleeing into the streets
in fear of a repeat of the devastating quake which hit northwest
Turkey the previous week.
• Earth movements were also felt in eastern Turkey, northwest Greece,
Cyprus, Bulgaria, southern Iran, central Nepal, central and northern
Japan, the Alaskan Peninsula, Costa Rica, central Nicaragua, the
California-Mexico border region, southern Idaho and western Tennessee.
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Somali
Dog Attacks
One
person was killed and 11 others injured when a pack of wild dogs
attacked a community in the Lower Shabeelle region of Somalia.
The pack of at least eight canines continued the attack for a full
day, chasing and biting residents of Bulo Marer, about 75 miles
south of the capital of Mogadishu. The village has no hospital or
local doctor, and residents resorted to treating the victims themselves.
This is the second time within a year that dogs have attacked in
the Lower Shabeelle region. Last year, a similar attack occurred
in the city of Qoryooly, wounding a number of people. Four of the
victims contracted rabies from the bites. Somalis do not own or
feed dogs for religious reasons.
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Additional Sources: Japan Meteorological Agency, U.S. Climate Analysis
Center, U.S. Earthquake Information Center and the World Meteorological
Organization.
Distributed
by the Los Angeles
Times Syndicate.
Five
people were killed and 12 others injured when typhoon Sam made landfall
in southern China near Hong Kong.