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QINGDAO TODAY
在线翻译:
szdaily -> World -> 
Two deadly storms roar ashore on the same day
    2018-09-17  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

NATURE expresses its fury in sundry ways. Two deadly storms — Hurricane Florence and Typhoon Mangkhut — roared ashore on the same day, half a world apart, but the way they spread devastation was as different as water and wind.

Mangkhut made landfall Friday on the northeastern tip of Luzon island in the Philippines with top-of-the-scale Category 5 winds. Florence had weakened to a Category 1 storm winds by the time it arrived at North Carolina’s coast.

Yet a day after landfall the faster-moving Mangkhut was back out over open water — weakened, but headed across the South China Sea toward China. Florence, meanwhile, was still plodding across South Carolina at a pace slower than a normal person walks. By Saturday morning, it had already dumped more than 76 centimeters of rain, a record for North Carolina in the United States.

Experts say Mangkhut may well end up being the deadlier storm.

As the world warms from the burning of fossil fuels, the globe will see both more extremely intense storms like Mangkhut and wetter storms like Florence, Princeton University hurricane and climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi said Saturday.

On Saturday, U.S. authorities warned residents displaced by the killer hurricane that its devastation was far from over, as Florence dumped “epic amounts of rainfall” across the southeastern United States, bringing catastrophic flooding and up to 13 deaths, 10 in North Carolina and three in South Carolina, according to CNN.

Florence made landfall Friday as a Category 1 hurricane but has since been downgraded to a tropical storm, even as it continued to wreak havoc along the East Coast, downing trees and power lines and forcing 20,000 people to flee to shelters.

On Saturday some residents tried to return home, driving through flooded highways and armed with chainsaws to clear fallen pine trees that covered the road.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper warned against such behavior as roads became increasingly dangerous.

“All roads in the state right now are at risk of floods,” he said. “As rivers keep rising and rain keeps falling, the flooding will spread. More and more inland counties are issuing mandatory evacuations to get people to safety quickly.”

In New Bern, a riverfront city near the North Carolina coast that saw storm surges of up to three meters, residents took stock of the damage after flood waters began receding and authorities rescued hundreds of people who had been stranded.

Charles Rucker, a retired teacher, had only spent five nights in his newly-purchased house, built in 1830, when Florence struck.

“It was like a bullet train coming through the living room. Nothing I ever experienced before, I was truly scared,” he said.

“We have 4,200 damaged homes,” Mayor Dana Outlaw told CNN.

The White House said President Donald Trump would visit hurricane-hit areas next week “once it is determined his travel will not disrupt any rescue or recovery efforts.”

More than 800,000 customers in North Carolina were without power and 21,000 people were being housed in 157 shelters across the state.

The military announced Saturday it was deploying nearly 200 soldiers to assist in storm-related response and recovery efforts, along with 100 trucks and equipment.

Besides federal and state emergency crews, rescuers were being helped by volunteers from the “Cajun Navy,” civilians equipped with light boats, canoes and air mattresses, who also turned up in Houston during Hurricane Harvey to carry out water rescues.

About 1.7 million people in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia are under voluntary or mandatory evacuation orders, and millions of others live in areas likely to be affected by the storm.

Meanwhile, Mangkhut left at least 28 dead from landslides and drownings in the northern Philippines.

Philippine National Police Director General Oscar Albayalde said yesterday that 20 people had died in the Cordillera mountain region, four in nearby Nueva Vizcaya province and another outside of the two regions. Three more deaths have been reported in northeastern Cagayan province, where the typhoon made landfall before dawn Saturday.

Among the fatalities were an infant and a 2-year-old child who died with their parents after the couple refused to immediately evacuate from their high-risk community in a Nueva Vizcaya mountain town, said Francis Tolentino, an adviser to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

Tolentino, who was assigned by Duterte to help coordinate disaster response, said at least two other people were missing.

(SD-Agencies)

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