In Other Bad Weather
As a result of all of the rain in Central America Guatemala has had a major landslide:
The Guatemalan authorities say the number of people killed when a hillside collapsed on houses in the village of El Cambray, 15km (nine miles) outside the capital, has risen to 73.
They said another 350 people were still believed to be missing under tonnes of rock and earth that slipped onto homes on Thursday night.
Then in Europe we had France floods: 16 dead on Riviera after storms
Violent storms and flooding have hit south-eastern France, killing at least 16 people with three more missing, officials say.
Three elderly people drowned when their retirement home near the city of Antibes was inundated with floodwater.
Others died trapped in their cars in tunnels and underground car parks as the waters rose.
French President Francois Hollande announced a state of “natural disaster” in the affected region.
And the flooding along the East Coast continues with tidal flooding from Joaquin and inland flooding from a stalled low pressure center. This October was acknowledged as the rainiest in South Carolina records with three weeks left.
2 comments
(Sigh.) I’m two for two on this one:
* A musician friend and colleague, an internationally known organ soloist who lived and worked in Dallas two or three decades ago with an early-instruments group I occasionally performed with, often spends summers in her family’s country home in France, the branch of the family that did not emigrate; I can only hope she had returned to the US before this happened.
* And several of my public health colleagues from 30 years ago lived and worked in Guatemala for many years, occasionally returning decades later to follow up on some of their work. Again, all I can do is cross my fingers… pray, if you prefer that term… that all of them are OK.
The earth is no longer a particularly stable place to live, and I doubt its stability is likely to improve in the near future. Bryan, I hope you are managing to avoid the rains on your coast. (Sigh.)
The sand couldn’t care less about a couple of feet of rain as long as there isn’t any wind to push over the pine trees. When you get to real dirt in the North County there are problems and the local rivers flood, but it does affect me.
The problem in both the Riviera and Guatemala are mountains which amplify the problems. The Carolinas suffer from the same problems.