America's god angry on Xmas killed 14, demolished homes

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http://www.channelnewsasia.com/mobile/world/christmas-storms-leave-14/2377090.html




Christmas storms leave 14 dead, homes destroyed in US
POSTED: 25 Dec 2015 19:22

Trista Boga (centre) helps salvage what she can from a friend's home along Highway 178 in Holly Springs, Mississippi on Dec 24, 2015. (Photo: Thomas Wells/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP)

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CHICAGO: Rescue workers and heartbroken residents sifted through what was left of homes wiped out by a series of ferocious storms and tornadoes that tore through swathes of the United States, killing 14 people.

The storms, feeding on unseasonable warm air, left a trail of destruction in rural communities from Illinois to Alabama, just as Christmas reached its crescendo.

More than a dozen tornadoes were reported in six states but Mississippi, in the south, was hardest hit. Seven people were reported dead there, said the state's Emergency Management Agency (MEMA).

"Most of these storms caused a lot of damage in north Mississippi but our teams are out assessing the damage, trying to put a quantity on how many homes and how many businesses have been damaged," the emergency agency's Brett Carr said on Thursday.

Among the dead in Mississippi was a boy of seven after one particularly brutal storm picked up and tossed the car he was travelling in, fire chief Kenny Holbrook told reporters in the town of Holly Springs, where thousands greeted Christmas Day without power.

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency in seven counties after the storms caused widespread damage. Debris from ravaged buildings and other structures littered roads, making them unpassable.

Officials were inviting volunteers to step up or make donations as people who fled returned to their homes to see what was left standing, if anything. Some were left in tears.

Television footage and pictures posted on social media showed homes flattened across several states, with possessions and Christmas presents strewn on the ground or left in a messy heap. Power lines, trees and mobile phone towers were also toppled.

The worst appeared to be over, but forecasters at the National Weather Service warned of flash floods in the US southeast.

The US East Coast meanwhile is enjoying unseasonably warm weather, with temperatures in New York's iconic Central Park peaking at 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius) on Thursday, the warmest Christmas Eve since records began in 1871.
- AFP/al

 

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Huat Ah Ang Moh's god don't let them have X'mas all homeless.




http://news.asiaone.com/news/world/christmas-wildfire-claims-more-100-homes-australia




Christmas wildfire claims more than 100 homes in Australia
AFP | Saturday, Dec 26, 2015
MELBOURNE - A bushfire which flared on Christmas Day has destroyed more than 100 homes in southern Australia, officials said Saturday, as they warned the losses could have been worse.



The blaze hit two towns southwest of Melbourne, Wye River and Separation Creek, where many of the 116 houses lost were believed to be holiday homes.

As about 500 firefighters worked to battle the blaze, aerial shots showed buildings razed to the ground in the tree-filled coastal area along the Great Ocean Road tourist drive.

"It's kind of confirmed for us just how hot, just how volatile, just how intense this fire was, burning right to the water's edge," Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Andrews welcomed the fact that no lives were lost in the state which endured horrific bushfires in 2009, in which 173 people perished.

"We can rebuild houses, of course. Things can be much worse than that," Andrews told a press conference earlier Saturday.

The fire near the coastal town of Lorne was started by a lightning strike on December 19 but flared up Friday due to hot weather and winds pushing embers over fire control lines.

Victoria's Emergency Management commissioner Craig Lapsley praised the community for heeding the evacuation warning just before lunchtime on Christmas Day to avoid the possibility of fatalities.

"They walked away from the fire that had every potential to be a killer," he said at a joint press conference with Andrews.

Nick Bailey, a resident of Separation Creek, told the ABC his family evacuated to nearby Apollo Bay and spent Christmas Day on the beach.

"(It was) a strange experience looking back across the bay at all of that column of smoke whilst we were trying to enjoy our Christmas," he said.

He said of the blaze: "You could see where the fire was slowly smouldering, then the wind got up and the thing just went mad." In a statement, Lapsley confirmed 18 dwellings at Separation Creek and 98 at Wye River were lost and noted that rain and cooler conditions had reduced fire activity.

But he warned there were "still many hotspots within the fire area so the change in conditions and the rain that fell this morning does not mean the threat posed by this fire is over".

Thirteen aircraft are being used to fight the fire, which is not particularly large at 2,200 hectares, and has the potential to flare up again in the coming week, he added.

"The fact we have had rain today across the state will not dramatically change anything," he said, saying very hot weather was predicted for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Holidaymakers who traditionally flock to the Victoria surf coast at this time of year have been asked to avoid the fire area.

Bush fires are a common feature of the Australian summer, with up to 15 homes destroyed by blaze near Melbourne on Monday.

But "Black Saturday" was the worst firestorm in recent years, devastating southern Victoria in 2009, razing thousands of homes and killing 173 people.

Seven people have died so far this year from bushfires across the country.

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