The surge before the storm swamps Galveston Island, Texas, and a fire destroys homes along the beach as Hurricane Ike approaches Friday, Sept. 12, 2008. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) This is the before shot.

A single home is left standing among debris from Hurricane Ike September 14, 2008 in Gilchrist, Texas. Floodwaters from Hurricane Ike were reportedly as high as eight feet in some areas causing widespread damage across the coast of Texas. (David J. Phillip-Pool/Getty Images. This image is 'after' the hurricane passed.
 

Flooding over access road 523 to Surfside beach, caused by Hurricane Ike forming in the Gulf of Mexico, is seen near Surfside Beach, Texas September 12, 2008. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria.

September 15, 2008

This image from September 8, 2008 was provided by the U.S. Navy. Homes seen in Port De Paix, Haiti remain flooded after four storms in one month have devastated the area and killed more than 800 people. The amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) has been diverted from the scheduled Continuing Promise 2008 humanitarian assistance deployment in the western Caribbean to conduct hurricane relief operations in Haiti. (Emmitt Hawks/U.S. Navy via Getty Images) #

Record-setting rains isolate thousands in Chile

The Associated Press Published: September 2, 2008 SANTIAGO, Chile: Southern Chile's heaviest rains in four decades have damaged hundreds of houses and left thousands of people isolated.

At least 70 dead in north India floods

August 21, 2008

 (RIA Novosti) - At least 70 people have died since Wednesday in floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains in various parts of northern India, national radio reports said on Thursday.

The floods caused severe damage in the states of Punjab, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and local authorities have asked the army for assistance in relief operations.

India's monsoon season, which usually occurs from early July to September, is vital for harvesting but regularly inflicts major destruction.

In early August floods swept along the coast of the Bay of Bengal in the south of the country, affecting around 50 neighborhoods in Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, and killing over 70 people.

Chad floods force 10,000 from homes, kill 3 - U.N.

© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved.  

8-23-08

Tamale, Ghana - Floods that have hit northern Ghana following heavy rains have claimed eight lives two districts, Alhaji Mustapha Idris, Northern Regional Minister said on Friday. Three deaths were recorded at Sug-Tampia and Yoggu in the Savelugu/Nanton District, one in the Tolon/Kumbungu District while four were recorded at Janga in the West Mamprusi District, he said.

Alhaji Mustapha told a meeting of key players to avert disaster that several are as of the Savelugu/Nanton District along the Nasia and White Volta had been cut off from the rest of the district.

He expressed fears that more communities would be cut off if its northern neighbour, Burkina Faso, spilled water from Bagre dam.

Idris said he had reports Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo and Chereponi districts that communities along the Oti and Gbugbari rivers were flooded with several houses washed away and farmlands inundated.

The White Volta in Tolon/Kumbungu and West and Central Gonja districts, he said, had broken its banks and could only be reached by boat.

The Regional Minister told the meeting that Saboba, the capital of the Saboba District, was virtually an island because all roads leading to the area were flooded.

Personnel from the National Disaster Management Organisaion, Volta River Authority and Information Services Department are on the ground warning the communities along the river banks to relocate to safer places.
 
Tamale - 22/08/2008
 

8-22-08

CHIANG MAI - As Mekong River floodwaters in Laos and Thailand recede, indignation with China for its lack of transparency on upstream dam developments is on the rise. China has recently pursued a friendly policy of economic integration with Southeast Asian neighbors but in relation to Mekong River development it has taken what many see as a covetous and less than neighborly approach.

Flood waters in recent days inundated parts of Luang Prabang and Vientiane provinces in Laos and at least seven northern provinces in Thailand. The flooding was widely reportedly the worst in a century for some areas, with river levels reaching a high of 13.7 meters on August 14. Previous record high floods occurred in 1966, when river levels reached 12.4 meters.

Thailand has estimated damages at around 220 million baht (US$6.48 million), while the Vientiane Times, a state-controlled Lao newspaper, cited an unofficial government report that the floods would cost Luang Prabang province alone some 100 billion kip (US$11.6 million). Those figures may only be provisional, as flood waters in the Mekong Delta have already reached critical levels and Vietnamese forecasters have predicted more flooding before the end of the rainy season.

The larger cost has been diplomatic, as downstream neighbors suspect rightly or wrongly that Chinese dams were primarily responsible for the flooding. From the hard-hit Chiang Saen and Chiang Khong districts of Thailand's northern Chiang Rai province to its eastern Mukdahan province, many Thais believe waters released from the reservoirs of three upstream Chinese dams swelled the runoff from heavy rainfalls. They also blame China's recent blasting and dredging of upstream river rapids to make the river navigable for large cargo vessels for rising water levels.

That may or may not be the case, but China's lack of transparency is fueling suspicions. The Mekong River Commission (MRC), a multinational grouping made up of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam responsible for sustainable development and water resource management of the Mekong, said in a statement that the high water levels were the result of above average rainfall and not the result of upstream Chinese dams opening sluice gates. The situation was compounded by tropical storm Kammuri, which hit the region between August 8 and 10, the statement said.

The MRC also noted that just half of the flood waters in Vientiane originated in China with the rest from Mekong tributaries, namely the Nam Ou and Nam Khan rivers. It concluded, "The current water levels are entirely the result of the meteorological and hydrological conditions and were not caused by water release from presently operating Chinese dams which have storage areas far too small to affect the flood hydrology of the Mekong," the statement said.

That view was supported by Thailand's Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and the Thai Water Resources Department, which oversees Mekong water flows and Lao government officials also said Chinese dams are not at fault. Heavy rains had lashed Myanmar and Vietnam - lending credence to the nation's views - resulting in severe flooding that killed at least 130 in northern Vietnam and forced thousands from their homes in both countries.
But the Thai People's Network on the Mekong, a grouping of several Thai environmental organizations, openly rejected the MRC's reasoning for the floods in an August 16 statement, calling for China to free up information on its dams. There also appears to be lingering doubts among some top government officials.

Thai Deputy Interior Minister Prasong Kositanond said on Wednesday that officials were studying the floods and that China may be asked to provide future warnings on the timings and volumes of water released by the dams. He noted that without the cooperation of China, Thailand's northeastern regions could face more severe flooding. Even the MRC in Thailand, in contradiction to the statement from the organization's headquarters, has said it will ask the Thai Foreign Ministry for help in requesting more information from China about its dams.

No dam evidence
China has remained reluctant to reveal information about its dams, including its own environmental and hydrological studies of their impact. This lack of transparency has continued despite heavy criticism from environmental groups and official pleas from Southeast Asian neighbors seeking more information.

Thai Water Resource Department deputy head, Thanade Dawasuwan, recently told the Bangkok Post that his department actually has scant information on the Chinese dams. Thailand's MRC coordinator, Burachat Buasuwan, told the same newspaper that Chinese officials only provide information on water discharges in the rainy season. The MRC, he claimed, had made requests for information from Chinese officials in the past, but had yet to receive replies.

China has so far completed three dams across the upper Mekong - the Manwan in 1993, the Dachaoshan in 2002 and the Jinghong in June of this year. The three dams have respective storage capacities of 920 million, 890 million and 1.2 billion cubic meters, meaning a total of over 3 billion cubic meters of reservoir. This is enough, environmentalists say, to significantly influence water flows on the upper Mekong. Chinese officials have countered that since only 18% of the Mekong's flow originates in its areas, the dams will not have an effect on the volume of water flowing downstream.

China's grand vision for the Mekong is to build up to fifteen power-generating dams on its upper reaches to fuel economic growth in its laggard southwestern territories. The Xiaowan dam, the world's tallest at 292 meters, is slated for completion on the upper Mekong in 2013. Scheduled to generate over 4,000 megawatts of electricity, that particular hydropower dam has downstream Southeast Asia concerned about the massive reservoir the dam is expected to create and its anticipated impact on river water levels. Chinese officials have said the 190 square kilometer reservoir will reduce the amount of water flowing downward by 17% during flood seasons and increase the flow by 40% in dry seasons.

What is certain is that there have been ecological and hydrological changes in the Mekong River since the construction of the Chinese dams, and more recently with the dynamiting of river rapids. Locals in Chiang Khong, Thailand, the closest major town of the MRC member countries to China, say that there is a noticeable rise in the river level when the water gates are opened on China's dams. Environmentalists say the dams have also affected the river's seasonal flows and caused the destruction of river islets. They also blame water blockages due to dam construction for unexpected and dangerous rapid rises and falls in downstream flows.

Until recently the main concern about the dams centered more on the lack of water flowing down the river. For example, the dams were criticized for exacerbating a drought in 2004 that left ships stranded mid-river and damaged crops and fishing in downstream nations. Halts in river flows for up to five days at a time due to Chinese dam construction inhibited trade, with angry cargo ship owners claiming journeys that used to take days instead took weeks.

China-first policy
The MRC said in 2004 that the Chinese dams had exacerbated the drought and sent an official letter to Beijing demanding information on the Chinese dams. In a seeming about turn, then-MRC chief executive officer Oliver Cogels wrote a letter to the Bangkok Post on January 9, 2007, claiming the impact of the Chinese dams was exaggerated in public opinion and not a factor in the drought affecting downstream countries.

He also noted, echoing Beijing's line, that because the Chinese dams are for power generation and not for irrigation, they do not hold water, but instead regulate flows, increasing them in the dry season and reducing them in the rainy season. Indeed China's dams may not be directly culpable for either the flooding or drought, but the lack of transparency has stoked downstream fears and anger among its southern neighbors and environmental groups.

China's unwillingness to allow independent scientific studies on its dams' impacts makes it difficult to conclusively determine what impact they have had on water levels. Even within China there is very little public discourse on the dams, in part because the issue is treated as a matter of national security.

Beijing has made clear its stance that since it is developing the Mekong on Chinese soil, it is not responsible for downstream impacts. Appeals to China by non-governmental organizations to compensate people living downstream whose farming or fishing livelihoods have allegedly been impacted by the recent changes in the river have been scornfully rebuffed.

China's lack of cooperation and responsibility is seemingly at odds with its broader soft power policy of forging greater economic integration with Southeast Asia, including through preferential free trade agreements and generous infrastructure loans. Seen from Beijing's point of view, its participation in the Greater Mekong Subregion is less about an altruistic desire to see its southern neighbors develop and more about gaining access to export markets for its industrial and agricultural goods and securing a strategic, alternative passage for fuel and other imports for its inland industries.

China is not a member of the MRC and critics say that without Beijing's participation the grouping is powerless to accomplish organizational goals related to sustainable development on the Mekong. If China were to join, it would have to conform to various mandatory standards and come under pressure to accept water management norms that are less harmful to downstream communities, a prospect it clearly wants to avoid.

The MRC has however recently incorporated China and Myanmar to some extent, as non-member, dialogue partners. While the MRC's most northerly monitoring station is in Chiang Saen, Thailand, in 2002 it convinced China to commit to exchanging some information from two of its monitoring stations, including the Jinghong station located below its three standing dams. Flood forecasting first became an issue after floods in 2000 killed some 800 people in the Mekong Delta. In 2005, China agreed to hold technical discussions with the MRC, including flood management and alleviation.

Last year, Beijing also agreed to begin supplying the MRC with 24-hour water level and 12-hour rainfall data for flood forecasts in return for monthly flow data from MRC stations on the lower Mekong. However the incentives for China to become a full-fledged member of the MRC are still few and far between. As the Mekong's most upstream nation, it is geographically in a position of power. And with its growing hunger for new and alternative energy sources to imported oil, it will likely remain loathe to enter into a multilateral mechanism which may attempt to put a brake on its ambitious dam building program.

For China, the Mekong is now viewed more as a potential source of energy rather than a trade artery, as the river has been quickly supplanted by a more efficient network of roads leading south from China's Yunnan province into Southeast Asia. The newly completed Route 3 in Laos that connects Yunnan with northern Thailand through Laos means trucks can complete a trade journey in hours which used to take days by river.

Once a bridge is completed across the Mekong between the northern Thai town of Chiang Khong and Laos' Huay Xai, where Route 3 currently terminates, Yunnan's goods will have direct access to Southeast Asian markets, and perhaps more importantly, to seaports on the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea. Close relations with military-ruled Myanmar have already provided China with another southern trade route, with a soon to be upgraded port at Sittwe on the Indian Ocean.

Of course cross-border river issues pose diplomatic problems and challenges in many regions of the world. Although a Law of the Sea treaty exists to govern disputes on the world's oceans, there is no comparable global law for rivers to mediate disputes over water resources. Until such a mechanism exists, and more importantly until China agrees to a more multilateral approach to managing the Mekong, the issue will remain a contentious one with its Southeast Asian neighbors while life for people living along the river's shifting banks will remain highly uncertain.

Brian McCartan is a Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast.net

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.
 

URANIUM MINE FLOODS
 22 August 2008

Cameco has temporarily suspended remediation work at the No.1 shaft at its Cigar Lake uranium project, after an increase in the rate of water inflow to the mine. The underground working areas of the mine were flooded in October 2006.

Tim Gitzel, Cameco’s chief operating officer, said: “Remediation and dewatering of the No. 1 shaft had been progressing smoothly up to this point.” He added: “An inflow at this rate is disappointing but our remediation plan, as approved by our joint venture partners, recognised the risk and included specific actions to be taken at various levels of inflow.”

The No. 1 Shaft had been pumped down to 430m below surface when the increase was reported early on the morning of 12 August. The inflow rate increased steadily during to the day, to approximately 600m3/h, which Cameco said “is beyond the range that can be managed while sustaining work in the shaft.”

Jerry Grandey, Cameco’s president & CEO, confirmed that the company intends to “prepare for and execute shaft 2 remediation.” Shaft No. 2 has been successfully plugged off, and Cameco has approval to begin rehabilitation.

The remediation budget for Cigar Lake was estimated at C$46 million ($43 million). However Kim Goheen, chief financial officer, said: “Much of that has been spent already.”

Production at Cigar Lake was originally planned to begin in 2008. In June, Cameco said that production is anticipated to start up in 2011 at the earliest.

8-22-08
 

The rocky area where the hamlet stood just a few days ago. Local villagers are trying their best to discover bodies in Tung Chin Village in the northern mountain province of Lao Cai, where rains from the storm Kammuri led to a flash flood that covered the entire hamlet.

A flash flood in the aftermath of storm Kammuri has taken an entire hamlet in the northern mountain province of Lao Cai off the map, and 19 lives with it.

Leaving behind a gaping hole of debris, many are left homeless and panicking over missing family members and neighbours. Twenty households with more than 100 people in the hamlet living near a stream in Bat Xat District were affected. Hundreds of people from neighbouring hamlets have spent the past few days walking along the stream, searching for bodies, but only two have since been recovered.
 

A section of National Highway 4E from Bao Thang District to Lao Cai Province’s centre has been damaged and flooded. It’s reported that the flood had swept away dozens more people and devastated rice crops in the province.

"We will move to a new hamlet in the next few days along with other flood survivors," he said

Cooking dinner in the yard while listening to the sounds of crashing rocks caught up in the stream’s current, Nung’s wife, Tan Mui Den, is still scared.

"I don’t want to live here anymore. I need to live together with others," she said.

Nung recalled the Saturday night when he was sleeping in the paddy fields. The heavy rain and thunder reminded him of mortar fire.

Prolonged rain and floods have collapsed and flooded more than 1,500 houses in Lang Son Province. Many people have had to travel by boat to buy food and necessities for their family members. Loss on properties has not yet been reported.

Nung lost both his mother and aunt to the flood. When it hit, his mother was sleeping with his three nephews and his niece in the house. The three children fled, but their old grandmother couldn’t make it out in time.

After hearing the children’s cries for help, Nung’s aunt went in to rescue his mother. Neither was seen again, as the house collapsed and killed both of them. Their bodies have yet to be found.

A child’s tale

Her friend, Phan Ta May, was likely swept away by the flash floods last Saturday.

"My friend was pretty and always did great in her studies," said a tearful May, adding that the new school year was about to begin. The classroom will now have 11 empty seats because of the floods.

Vang Kim Tin, deputy head of the hamlet, said that after the flash flood passed, local border-guard soldiers rushed

Many soldiers have helped people re-build dyke sections which have been damaged by floods in Song Thao Town in Phu Tho Province. — VNA/VNS Photo Huy Hung

While shaking his head, Tin recalled that the hamlet had been one of the richer ones in Trinh Tuong Commune before the disaster.

It was midnight. Fourteen-year-old Giang Seo Chu had just come back home to Tung Cum Village in Ha Giang Province after watching the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics live on television.

When he came to where his house had been, all that he found was the floor under water. The flood had taken his house, along with his parents and four brothers.

Chairman of Na Khuong Commune People’s Committee Ly Van Hao said that the heavy rain and flooding has swept away ten people from two families in Tung Cum and Lung Vi villages, including six children. Two of those children are reported as missing, as their bodies have yet to be found.

Hao said that five children are now orphaned and homeless.

Back on track

Luckily, the rain has finally stopped. Relevant sectors have jointly opened a new road and are building a new hamlet. Everyone available is searching for the bodies of those who died. The victims now need financial and emotional support to ease the pain and help them overcome this tragedy.

According to the deputy director of the National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting Nguyen Lan Chau, the ground of northern mountain provinces has been soaked. This means that flash flooding will continue to threaten northern mountain provinces from now to the end of October when the rainy season ends.

The flash floods will not only hit northern areas, but also the Central region, if hit with another wave of heavy rain.

It’s reported that the number of flash floods has been steadily increasing. In the 15 years from 1990 to 2005, there were nearly 300 flash floods in Viet Nam, 10 of which caused extensive losses of both property and lives.

Director of the Hydro-meteorology and Water Research Centre La Thanh Ha said that climate change was causing an increasing number of storms and rain anomalies.

"The people’s destruction of the forest is partly causing the flash floods," said Ha.

Although it’s difficult to forecast flash flooding, many experts believe that if people knew how to take the initiative to deal with them, losses could be reduced.

Doctor Vu Cao Minh from the Viet Nam Technology Science Institute, said people could not live with regular flash flooding like they do with normal flooding in the Cuu Long Mekong Delta.

"We need to remember that it’s very difficult to forecast flash flooding because it is sudden and quick and always takes place at night. With its devastating effects, we’d be deluding ourselves to think that we can fight it," said Minh.

People living in flash flood-prone areas need to take the initiative to minimise damages. People should not build houses along rivers and streams and need to pay attention to strange phenomena during periods of heavy rain.

Relocation

Doctor Ha said that northern mountain provinces were building resettlement areas. However, they were facing some difficulties due to a lack of land in mountain areas.

Another problem with relocation is that when people move to higher land resettlement areas to reduce the danger of flash floods, they then face difficulties in agricultural production.

Experts said that when flash flood warnings are given, people must be moved to safe areas. If people refuse, local authorities should force them to move.

It’s reported that the Meteorology and Hydrology Institute is working on a map of flash flood-prone areas which can help authorities forecast floods and send out timely warnings, according to the institute’s director Tran Thuc. The project is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

(Source: VNS)