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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Megi towards southern China

Chinese authorities on Wednesday ordered fishermen back to shore and halted rail services as Typhoon Megi, the strongest storm to hit the northwest Pacific since 1990, barrelled towards the mainland. Megi has already wreaked havoc in the Philippines, killing at least 19 people and leaving relief workers scrambling to deliver aid to devastated, remote towns. It is now making its way towards southern China, where it is expected to make landfall in the southern province of Guangdong on Saturday, the National Meteorological Centre said. "We expect that the strong winds and torrential rain brought by Megi will increase the probability of geological disasters happening in the south such as floods, land and mudslides," the centre warned. Fishing boats in the southern province of Guangdong and neighbouring Fujian have been told not to leave port, and those already at sea have been ordered back to shore, the official China Daily newspaper said. China's state-run Xinhua news agency, citing the State Oceanic Administration, has said that Guangdong could see storm-triggered waves of up to seven metres (21 feet).

Vietnam flood

The death toll from flooding in Vietnam climbed to 59 on Tuesday after police said 18 passengers whose bus was swept away are presumed dead. Heavy rains that began late last week have washed over three provinces, Nghe An, Quang Binh, and Ha Tinh -- where a state of emergency was declared on Tuesday afternoon. Police in Ha Tinh said the bus disappeared on Monday in flood waters on the main north-south Highway 1A.The floods have wreaked havoc in Ha Tinh and the two adjacent provinces, where authorities said more than 150,000 homes had been inundated. Hundreds of soldiers using boats and metal detectors were mobilised to search for the missing passengers, state television reported. The international Red Cross on Monday appealed for more than one million dollars in aid for victims of the flooding, the second major inundation to hit the central region this month.

Attack on the Chechen parliament

A brazen attack on the Chechen parliament in Grozny killed at least six people, including Islamist insurgents, and injured 17 others Tuesday morning, a sign that post-war stability in the republic remains fragile. The attack began at about 9 a.m., when Chechen lawmakers were about to meet a delegation of 50 officials from the Sverdlovsk region legislature.The assailants killed at least two police officers, as well as the parliament's supplies manager, and injured seven policemen and 11 civilians. Early reports said the attackers took hostages, but that information was not confirmed. One of the attackers blew himself up near the parliament's front entrance, and two others barricaded themselves on the first floor, where they also set off explosives, investigators said. Tuesday's attack is the second high-profile assault in Chechnya in three months. A shootout in Kadyrov's home village in August killed 19 people, including five civilians, and fueled fears of reviving insurgency.