Weather News

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) - Tropical Storm Ida bore down on the US Gulf coast on Tuesday, still packing strong winds after cutting a swath of destruction that left 136 dead in Central America.

MOBILE, Alabama (Reuters) - A weakening Tropical Storm Ida brought drenching rain to the U.S. Gulf Coast as it slowly approached shore on Tuesday after shutting down almost 30 percent of Gulf energy production.

GULF SHORES, Ala. - Weather-hardened Gulf Coast residents refused to retreat from a steadily weakening rare late-season tropical storm that crept toward shore Tuesday, bringing heavy rain, stiff winds and some flooding.

SINGAPORE - Oil prices fell below $79 a barrel Tuesday in Asia as a storm threatening oil installations in the Gulf of Mexico weakened and investors eyed a volatile dollar.

BEIJING - Increased droughts, floods and storms will hit China's Yangtze River Basin over the next few decades, the result of rising temperatures globally, according to a report released Tuesday.

GULF SHORES, Ala. - Squalls ahead of a rare late-season tropical storm that was crawling toward the Gulf Coast blew in heavy rain Monday as residents hunkered down mostly at home to ride out high winds and anticipated flooding.

RATHGAMA, Sri Lanka (AFP) - Raj Rajaratnam, a billionaire financier facing insider trading charges in the United States, is recalled in stone in one of the villages he helped recover from the Asian tsunami in 2004.

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico - The Mexican government has declared parts of the Gulf coast state of Tabasco disaster zones due to flooding from days of heavy rains, freeing up federal relief funds for the area.

BERLIN - Ulrich Sauff and his wife stared at the mammoth domino pieces marking the path where the Berlin Wall once stood and reminisced about life in the barrier's shadow.

NEW ORLEANS - The Coast Guard says two Chevron Corp. workers have been rescued from an oil rig that was in danger of toppling as Tropical Storm Ida churned up high seas.

SUVA (AFP) - A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 hit off the Pacific island nation of Fiji late Monday but it was too deep to generate a destructive tsunami, US geologists said.

MIAMI (AFP) - Ida weakened to a tropical storm on Monday and hurricane watches and warnings were lifted for the US coastline between Louisiana and Florida, US forecasters said.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Torrential rains triggered a series of landslides on Indonesia's Sulawesi island, killing at least 14 residents and burying many more, a local official said Monday.

MIAMI (AFP) - A late-season hurricane took aim at the United States and oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday after helping cause flooding and landslides that killed 124 people in El Salvador.

VERAPAZ, El Salvador - Tears streamed down Elsy Portillo's badly bruised face Monday as she walked behind coffins carrying her mother and only child in this town buried by a landslide, one in a series that killed at least 130 people in El Salvador.

LINCOLN CITY, Ore. - The National Weather Service has confirmed it was a tornado that tore through a coastal area of Lincoln City in northwestern Oregon, damaging about a dozen homes.

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - The death toll from flooding and mudslides in El Salvador triggered by the passage of Hurricane Ida jumped to 124 people, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes said in a national radio broadcast.

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - At least 91 people died and another 60 or more are missing after floods and mudslides in El Salvador triggered by Hurricane Ida, the government said on Sunday.

SAN SALVADOR (AFP) - Torrential rains caused by a low pressure system in the Pacific and the tail-end of Hurricane Ida killed some 91 people and left some 60 others missing in El Salvador, civil defense officials here said Sunday.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - Authorities report 91 deaths, 60 missing in floods, slides caused by rains in El Salvador.

MIAMI (AFP) - Hurricane Ida is now a category two storm packing top wind speeds of nearly 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour as it heads towards Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

SAN SALVADOR (AFP) - Torrential rains caused by Hurricane Ida have killed at least 50 people and left several others missing in El Salvador, civil protection officials said Sunday.

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - At least 42 people have been killed by flooding and mudslides in El Salvador due to heavy rains caused by Hurricane Ida, Interior Minister Humberto Centeno said in a press conference carried by national radio.

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico - A week of torrential rain has flooded the homes of more than 200,000 people along Mexico's Gulf coast, officials said Friday. Residents in some towns complained that no help had arrived.

MIAMI - Ida has become a tropical storm again, with top winds of 45 mph (72 kph), as it swirls in the Caribbean on a track that could bring it to the U.S. Gulf Coast next week.

HANOI (AFP) - At least 13 people have been killed in a landslide in central Vietnam following storms and flooding that have now left almost 130 people dead, according to officials.

HANOI, Vietnam - The 69-year-old watchman couldn't swim so when Tropical Storm Mirinae sparked a flash flood he ran, shimmied up a tree and hung on — for three nights and two days.

MANAGUA (Reuters) - Hurricane Ida weakened to a tropical depression as it churned through eastern Nicaragua on Thursday after cutting power and ripping roofs on little-developed Caribbean islands.

MANAGUA (AFP) - Hurricane Ida unleashed heavy winds and rain on thousands of residents of eastern Nicaragua Thursday, causing flooding and destroying homes, before being downgraded to a tropical storm.