The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, August 24, 2000, Page A10, Image 10
IE tie 0 am rack
Typhoon Bilis leaves Taiwan after killing 11
*/ JL
by Annie Huang
Associated Press
TAIPEI, Taiwan —Typhoon Bilis swept
over Taiwan, killing 11 people, injuring
80 others and stranding thousands in
makeshift shelters before moving over
open water Wednesday and whirling in
to southern China, where it appeared to
be weakening.
Rescuers recovered the bodies of sev
en farmers and a 6-year-old girl buried in
a mudslide in the mountainous village of
Jenai, Interior Minister Chang Poh-ya
said
The victims were washed from a tem
porary shelter to the bottom of a creek,
but seven other farmers escaped to re
port the accident. It took rescuers hours
to reach the remote village, moving cranes
and tractors through roads blocked by
landslides.
Rescuers searched late into Wednes
day night for a missing man along a rag
ing river in central Nantou county. The
man was last seen flowing down the
river holding on to a piece of wood, of
ficials said.
Powerful winds ripped off electrical
wires that killed a woman outside the cap
ital, Taipei, and a construction worker
died when a retaining wall collapsed in
the suburbs, the government said. A man
died after he was hit by a door knocked
down by strong winds.
About 80 people were injured by fall
en utility poles and other objects, offi
cials said.
In eastern Hualien county, about 250
houses collapsed in the winds, officials
said. The typhoon flooded rice paddies
and fruit farms, causing $48 million in
agricultural damage, officials said.
An earthquake of preliminary mag
nitude 5.7 struck Hualien early Wednes
day, but no immediate damage was re
ported, weathermen said.
Taipei was latgely unaffected by the
typhoon, which hit southern Taiwan late
Tuesday night with winds of up to 118
mph.
Bilis lost some of its strength as it
headed toward southern China’s Fujian
province. By early afternoon, it had passed
through Taiwan’s outlying Kinmen is
lands and made landfall near the coastal
city of Xiamen, where it began weak
ening, meteorologists said.
City workers in Xiamen got the day
off Wednesday, and the Xiamen ferry ser
vice and a local airline shut down oper
ations, according to the state-run Chinese
news agency Xinhua. There were no im
mediate reports of how severely the city
was hit.
The typhoon’s winds had weakened
to about 78 mph as it approached main
land China and it was traveling at 9 mph,
said Chien Kuo-chi, a forecaster at Tai
wan’s Central Weather Bureau.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center
in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, said the typhoon
remained in southern China’s Fujian
province and by noon EDT Wednesday,
the winds had weakened to 75 mph.
Typhoon Bilis was the most power
ful storm to hit the island this year, but
there were differing reports about its
strength.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center
said it had sustained winds as high as 161
mph. Officials at the Taiwan Central
Weather Bureau, which measured the
storm at 118 mph, said the discrepancy
was partially the result of Taiwan mea
suring the storm’s intensity over a longer
period.
More than 600,000 Taiwanese homes
lost power during the height of the storm,
and tens of thousands of people across
the island were moved into shelters set
up by the government.
Local and international carriers can
celed 76 flights to southern Taiwan and
abroad. In southern Taiwan, Kaohsiung
haibor — one of the world’s busiest ports
— remained closed as waves battered the
sea walls. Government offices, banks and
Taiwan’s stock market were closed
Wednesday.
Bilis was the second strong typhoon
to hit Taiwan this year. Last month, Ty
phoon Kai Tak swept through southern
Taiwan with winds of up to 93 mph, leav
ing one dead and five people injured.
Officials were still searching for a doc
tor reported missing during a hike Tues
day.
Meanwhile, four prisoners had es
caped from a window at a detention cen
ter in the central county of Taitung. as jail
wardens were busy repairing a leaking
roof, state radio said.
Further south, Tropical Storm Kae
mi swamped central Vietnam with up
to a foot of rain, causing widespread flood
ing and leaving five people dead and one
missing, officials said Wednesday.
One person was killed when a home
collapsed and two were washed away by
floodwaters in Quang Ngai province, a
provincial official said.
Officials in Thua Thien Hue said one
person was killed by lightning and an
other reported missing in flooding. In
Danang, a man was electrocuted by a fall
en utility pole.
Meanwhile, two people were killed
and three others reported missing after
two wooden boats carrying tourists were
sunk Tuesday by a whirlwind that spun
across Halong Bay.
Hurricane
from page A8
public. A hurricane watch was in effect
for the rest of the Bahamas and north
ern Haiti. Cuba posted a hurricane watch
for its northeast coast and was expect
ed to extend it westward.
Forecasters may post a hurricane
watch in South Florida, Williams said.
As a relatively minor hurricane on
Tuesday, Debby brought some rain
and little apparent damage to the U.S.
territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Vugin Islands and a number of small is
lands like Antigua and Anguilla.
“This storm was quite confusing in
terms of all the various changes it made,”
Gene Whlker, emergency response leader
in the Vugin Islands, said Tuesday. “We
were supposed to have had heavy
rainfall, some 10 to 12 inches of rain,
and today that was changed to 5 inch
es.”
The only storm-related death was a
San Juan man who slipped from his roof
while trying to dismantle an antenna.
In Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory of 4
million people, there was relief as Deb
by’s eye passed just to the north. Puer
to Rico and the U.S. Vtrgin Islands re
opened schools and government offices
Wednesday, and flights were expected
to resume.
“We believe the conditions are ad
equate to return to normalcy,” Puerto
Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello said Tuesday.
Rains following in Debby’s wake
soaked Puerto Rico overnight, flooding
and closing some main roads in San Juan.
The HOVENSA oil refinery on
the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix, which
cut back production Monday and Tues
day, planned to resume normal opera
tions Wednesday.
Some tourists scrambled to board
flights to the U.S. mainland earlier Tues
day, but others were more relaxed.
“I hope it’s over soon, because I
need a suntan by Sunday,” said Diana
Chiquito of New York City, sunbathing
on San Juan’s Condado beach, where
many surfer? enjoyed the higher waves.
In Dutch St. Maarten, battered in
recent years by a series of hurricanes,
officials reported no damage and re
opened the airport.
“We’ve fared well. I’m looking out
ride at my garden, which was devas
ated by Hurricane Lenny last year, and
t still has flowers,” said Glen Holm, di
rector of the tourism bureau on the
Dutch island of Saba near St. Maarten.
Still churning in the northern At
antic was Hurricane Alberto, the longest
.ived August tropical storm on record.
Mberto, which formed Aug. 4, was mov
ng at 20 mph hundreds of miles east of
Newfoundland.
All visitors were ordered evacuat
ed from the Florida Keys on Wednes
day as officials prepared for the worst.
Monroe County, which governs the
island chain, declared a state of emer
gency with Debby still hundreds of miles
away.
Mary Ann Kirkland, dockmaster for
Whale Harbor Inn & Marina, said it was
business as usual at the Keys fishing re
sort on Islamorada, about 65 miles south
west of Miami.
“The skies are clear — a couple of
little puffy clouds up there — but it’s
a beautiful day,” she said.
Still, a Philadelphia fisherman re
booked his weekend trip rather than risk
confronting Debby, and some charter
boat captains canceled trips set for
Saturday. State and county parks and
private campgrounds were instructed
to close by noon, and all large recre
ational vehicles, travel trailers and
tent campers were ordered out.
Monroe County schools will be
closed Thursday and Fridiy. To the north,
in Cape Canaveral, Kennedy Space Cen
ter workers took plywood and sandbags
out of storage to be put up in case the
storm veered in that direction. Space
shuttle Atlantis could be moved off a
launch pad into its hangar if it were
threatened
Iraq says it won t allow new
U.N. inspection team to visit
by Leon Barkho
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq said
Wednesday it will not permit a new U.N.
weapons inspection team to visit, promis
ing that the country would stand firm even
if threatened with the use of force.
Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz
said Iraq had not changed its position on
a U.N. resolution that calls for the re
sumption of stalled weapons inspections
and promises Iraq a suspension of sanc
tions if it cooperates.
Asked about Aziz’s comments, U.N.
spokesman Fred Eckhard said: “That’s
been their standing policy for some time.
Our position is that we will continue to
prepare for a new round of inspections.”
Eckhard said at U.N. headquarters in
New York that the world body hopes that
Iraq will change its position, accept the
inspection teams “and eventually get to
a position where we could declare Iraq
in full compliance and see the lifting of
the sanctions against that country.”
The head of the new inspection pro
gram, Hans Blix, is ready to restart in
ternational efforts to ensure Iraq has sur
rendered weapons of mass destruction
and the ability to make and deploy them
in compliance with U.N. Security Coun
cil resolutions.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
met with Blix Tuesday and expressed full
support for his activities.
Aziz said Iraq will not allow Blix or
any of his inspectors to enter the coun
try.
“I have said Iraq will not cooperate
with Resolution 1284. This means it will
not receive Blix or any person related
to this resolution,” Aziz told reporters.
Blix is a former Swedish foreign min
ister who also served for many years as
director general of the International Atom
ic Energy Agency.
The new program is called the U.N.
Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission. It will replace the U.N. Spe
cial Commission, the inspection team that
left Iraq in December 1998 shortly be
fore the United States and Britain launched
airstrikes to punish Baghdad for alleged
ly failing to cooperate.
State Department spokesman Richard
Boucher has ruled out the use of force if
Iraq rejects the commission. Boucher said
Tuesday that Iraq stands to benefit by co
operating. He said the United Nations
won’t lift its sanctions, imposed to pun
ish Iraq for invading Kuwait in 1990, un
less it does.
Aziz said threats and military action
will not compel Iraq to change its stance.
“We have become accustomed to
threats. Iraq is ready for all challenges,”
he said.
(well, at LEAST THE CD
WE RE GIVING AWAY DOES)
FREE TUNES WHEN YOU OPEN A WACHOVIA
college account. And a free check card, free use
of Wachovia ATMs (they’re all over the place) and free
Online Banking. Try to find another bank that gives
you all this, plus the music of Train, Josh Joplin, Stir
and 10 other artists.
TO OPEN A COLLEGE ACCOUNT AND RECEIVE A
FRESH CD* STOP BY ANY BRANCH. OR FOR MORE
DETAILS, CHECK OUT WWW.WACHOVIA.COM.
*One CD per account, while supplies last.
Wachovia Bank, N.A., is a member FDIC.
Account subject to approval. ©Wachovia Corporation
I
WACHOVIA
Started:
1