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To: Jim Bishop who wrote (124860)	12/26/2003 7:06:37 AM
From: StocksDATsoar	Respond to of 150070

DID SOMEONE ORDER A MUDSLIDE? 10 Trapped by California Mudslide By ALEX VEIGA, AP SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (Dec. 26) - Rescue crews slogged past fallen trees and boulders in an overnight search for at least ten people trapped when a mudslide triggered by heavy rains swept over a foothill forest recently scorched by wildfire. AP Rescuers carry a woman to higher ground after a landslide Thursday in Devore, Calif. Traveling by foot because a road bridge was washed out, one team climbed up the steep terrain Friday and another descended it in an effort to reach the Saint Sophia Camp in Waterman Canyon, just north of San Bernardino. Fourteen other people staying at the Greek Orthodox youth camp had been rescued by late Thursday, and ten victims covered in mud were treated at a hospital for minor injuries, authorities said. "One man was there with his 3-year-old child and said he grabbed the child and watched his wife and his other child wash away," said Kimberly VandenBosch, spokeswoman for St. Bernadine Medical Center in San Bernardino. Streets and homes flooded in San Bernardino and elsewhere, while power outages and other mudslides were also reported after a storm dumped more than 3 1/2 inches of rain on some of the areas hit hardest by a series of massive Southern California wildfires that started two months ago. Wildfires make the region's mountains much more prone to mudslides because they burn off vegetation that normally would help shore up steep terrain. The blazes in October and November were the most severe in state history, burning more than 750,000 acres. Much of Waterman Canyon was scorched in the weeklong Old Fire, which burned more than 91,000 acres, destroyed 993 homes, and killed four people. Talk About It · Chat On Thursday, authorities evacuated residents who live in the canyon and closed off the road leading there. A surging stream of water rushed through the canyon, which looked like a sea of gray mud. Temperatures had dropped into the 40s, and county Fire Marshall Peter Brierty said rescuers faced "incredibly mushy, muddy, slippery" conditions. He said some debris flows contained logs and branches and were more than six feet high. "Even a foot or two feet of this will knock you down," Brierty said. One man was buried waist-deep in mud and debris and trapped underneath a log, county fire Capt. Rick McClintock said. Rescue crews were able to cut the log free and carried the man across a creek, he said. No one answered the phone at the Saint Sophia Camp on Thursday. Messages left with camp officials were not immediately returned. The camp hosts summer religious retreats for children and other events year-round, according to its Web site. It wasn't immediately known whether the people at the camp were affiliated with the Greek Orthodox parishes that run the facility or were holiday visitors. Elsewhere in the county, a mudslide damaged and toppled trailers at a campground in Devore. Sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Beavers said 30 to 50 people suffered minor injuries, some requiring hospital treatment. Several people were unaccounted for, but authorities said they were not believed to be in danger. Emergency crews spent much of Christmas Day setting sand bags outside homes and along waterways to contain flood water and diverting traffic from washed out roads. In Lytle Creek Canyon, the rain caused several mudslides, including a 4-foot-high flow across a road that trapped a car. The driver was not hurt, and the road was closed. Sections of Lytle Creek overflowed, flooding roads, and prompting emergency officials to order an undetermined number of residents along the creek and streams to evacuate. The Pacific storm began moving into Southern California on Wednesday evening, bringing Los Angeles its first rainy Christmas Day in two decades. Forecasters were not optimistic it would relent anytime soon. "It'll probably get worse before it gets better," National Weather Service forecaster Stan Wasowski said Thursday. Mudslides derailed an empty freight train in the Cajon Pass and shut down two main tracks between the Los Angeles basin and points east that serve about 100 trains a day, said Lena Kent, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern and A&D Santa Fe Railway. There were no reports of any injuries. Fire crews in an unincorporated area north of Upland were placing sand bags to protect structures, and minor flooding was reported on some roads in Crestline. Meanwhile, strong wind gusts downed power lines and caused a disruption in service to various areas of Los Angeles, authorities said. Hundreds of people were without power early Friday in San Bernardino and Los Angeles. In downtown Los Angeles, storm winds blew eight stories of scaffolding down onto parked cars, damaging the vehicles but not the nearby under-construction building. There were no injuries. Forecasters issued a winter weather advisory through early Friday to warn of winds gusting up to 55 mph. 12/26/03 05:05 EST Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

To: Jim Bishop who wrote (124860)	12/26/2003 7:08:12 AM
From: StocksDATsoar	Respond to of 150070

Updated: 06:24 AM EST At Least 2,000 Killed in Iranian Earthquake Devastation Reported in Ancient City By Parisa Hafezi, Reuters TEHRAN (Dec. 26) -- A powerful earthquake struck the ancient Silk Road city of Bam in southeastern Iran on Friday, killing at least 2,000 people and wrecking many buildings, officials said. State television said about 60 percent of the buildings in Bam, a popular tourist attraction some 600 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran, had collapsed in the earthquake which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale. ''So far we can only confirm 2,000 dead but the number is sure to rise,'' a senior official from Kerman province, where Bam is situated, told Reuters in Tehran by telephone. State media said two of Bam's hospital's collapsed, crushing many of the staff, and remaining hospitals were full. Wounded were now being ferried to neighboring towns. Many people were believed to be buried under debris, state media said, while appealing for people to donate blood. ''There is a lot of dead and injured in Bam city and everything is being done to take them out,'' Kerman province governor Mohammad Ali Karimi said. A large part of Bam's ancient citadel, one of Iran's best-loved tourist magnets, had been destroyed, Karimi said. State television said the whole castle could have crumbled. Witnesses said the road to Bam, a city of some 200,000 people, was choked with ambulances and people desperate to find family members. No official estimates of the number of dead or injured were available as the government mounted a major rescue operation. Houses in the date-growing area are traditionally made of mud-brick. The quake struck at about 5:30 a.m. (10 p.m. EST Thursday) when most people in the city would probably have been asleep. ''There was a lot of damage in (Bam),'' Karimi said, adding that a crisis headquarters had been set up. ANCIENT SITE The official IRNA news agency said Red Crescent rescue teams had been dispatched to the quake-hit area in Kerman province. Another quake, measuring 4.0 on the Richter scale, hit the oil producing town of Masjed Soleyman in the southwestern Khuzestan province. IRNA said there were no reports of damage. Quakes are a regular occurrence in Iran, which is crossed by several major fault lines in the earth's structure. In June last year, a tremor measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale hit northern Iran, killing at least 229 people and injuring more than 1,000. Some 35,000 people were killed in 1990 when earthquakes of up to 7.7 on the Richter scale hit the northwest of Iran. Tehran was hit by a quake of about seven on the Richter scale in 1830. The U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center said its measuring equipment indicated Friday's quake had a magnitude of 6.7. It said the epicenter of the ''strong earthquake'' appeared to be about 610 miles southeast of Tehran. A leading Iranian earthquake expert told Reuters in October that earthquake education in Iran was very poor. ''Most people think what God wills, will happen. This is absolutely wrong. This thinking is poisonous,'' said Bahram Akasheh, professor of geophysics at Tehran University. Reut05:45 12-26-03 12-26-03 05:45 ET Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

To: Jim Bishop who wrote (124860)	12/26/2003 7:09:18 AM
From: StocksDATsoar	Respond to of 150070

Gas Well Accident Kills at Least 191 in China By JOE McDONALD, AP BEIJING (Dec. 26) - Crews put off trying to plug a burst natural gas well in southwest China until Saturday after the leak of toxic fumes left nearby villages full of bodies. At least 191 people were killed, nearly 300 injured, and more than 41,000 forced to flee their homes, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Disaster officials feared the death toll could rise as 20 special teams combed the area near the gas field looking for survivors and more victims, Xinhua reported. It said the the effort to seal the well was put off to let officials focus on rescue efforts. Relief officials were rushing food and water to 41,000 people who were evacuated from homes within three miles of the remote, mountainous area around the gas field run by a government-owned oil company. Rescue workers had been prevented from entering the area immediately after the well erupted Tuesday night in a gas field in the town of Gaoqiao because they lacked the proper equipment and the fumes from the deadly mix of natural gas and hydrogen sulfide were too strong, Xinhua reported. Talk About It · Chat The mountainous terrain and muddy roads also made it difficult for villagers to flee and hindered rescue work and communications, Xinhua said. When disaster teams finally entered the area on Thursday, they made one grisly discovery after another, finding villages full of bodies, the agency said. The death toll steadily mounted through the day, and 191 people were confirmed dead as of Friday morning, Xinhua said. President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders ordered local authorities to ''go all out to rescue victims, prevent poisonous gas from spreading further and reduce casualties,'' Xinhua said. The cause of the disaster at the Chuandongbei gas field wasn't clear. Xinhua said it involved a drilling mishap that broke open a gas well, but didn't give details. Technicians were trying to contain the well on Friday. ''We will see whether we can curb the natural gas from further escaping,'' Qian Zhijia, deputy head of the gas field, told Xinhua. Xinhua had reported earlier that technicians would try to plug the well using cement and earth-moving equipment. They ignited the gas spewing from the wellhead on Wednesday to burn it off and stop it from spreading, Xinhua said. Photos released by the agency showed the flames shooting up into the night sky. The death toll was high even by the appalling standards of China's accident-plagued industry, where coal mine explosions and other disasters kill dozens at a time, totaling thousands every year. More than 290 people were hospitalized - most of them children, Xinhua said. Victims were being treated for gas poisoning and chemical burns, the Web site of the state newspaper China Daily reported. Photos from one makeshift showed women and children with blistered faces, some breathing from oxygen tanks parked beside their beds. ''There are farmers and miners, old and young, men and women,'' an unidentified hospital employee was quoted as saying by the China Daily. ''Some died after they arrived here.'' The gas field is about 210 miles northeast of Chongqing, a city of millions. The disaster came amid sweeping government efforts to tighten industrial safety in China and reduce the carnage in a country with one of the world's highest rates of workplace deaths. Despite the crackdown, the number of deaths in China's mines and factories jumped nearly 9 percent in the first nine months of this year to 11,449, according to the government. Fatal accidents often are blamed on lack of required fire equipment and indifference to safety rules by managers. State television reported the gas field disaster Thursday as the second item on its national evening newscast but gave no death toll. The gas field is run by the Sichuan Petroleum Administration, part of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp., Xinhua said. 12-26-03 0019EST Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.