Monday, August 23,1999 Page 2
Hurricane Bret hits Gulf Coast
■ Evacuation left parts of
Texas south of Corpus
Christi deserted as the storm
reached land with 125-mph
winds.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) -
Hurricane Bret, the biggest storm to hit
Texas in nearly 20 years, roared ashore
Sunday with horizontal sheets of rain
and 125-mph winds that whipped and
bent palm trees and forced thousands of
people to flee inland.
The rapidly developing storm made
landfall about 6 p.m. in sparsely popu
lated Kenedy County, about 70 miles
south of Corpus Christi.
Authorities reported no injuries in
the hours just after landfall. No major
damage was immediately apparent as
the storm moved inland Sunday night,
but there was no word about largely
unpopulated areas directly in the hurri
cane’s path.
Businesses and homes were shut
tered from Brownsville to north of
Corpus Christi, and highways leading
inland were packed with bumper-to
bumper traffic for miles.
Winds of 125 mph, with gusts even
higher, extended 40 miles out from the
storm. Forecasters warned about torna
does spawned by the storm, a foot or
more of rain and a storm surge that
could approach 25 feet.
The tightly focused storm had the
“clear potential of producing major dis
aster,” said Jim Hoke, director of the
National Weather Service’s National
Hydrometeorological Emergency
Center. He compared the storm with
Hurricane Andrew, which battered
Florida in 1992.
But unlike Andrew, which hit
densely populated South Florida, Bret
hit between Corpus Christi (population
of 275,000) and Brownsville
(132,000).
“The good news is that the core of
the hurricane ... is not over the more
populated areas,” said Max Mayfield of
the National Hurricane Center.
The path resembles that of 1980’s
Hurricane Allen, which packed winds
of 185 mph and did $55 million in
prbperty damage but killed only two
people when it came ashore.
Airline crash kills
two in Hong Kong
HONG KONG (AP) - A China
Airlines jet burst into flames, flipped
upside down and slid down the run
way at Hong Kong’s new airport
Sunday while trying to land in a trop
ical storm, killing two people and
injuring at least 206, officials said.
The jet’s right wing dipped and
struck the runway, breaking off as the
airplane caught fire, officials told
reporters. Witnesses said the jet was
ablaze before it hit the ground - an
account disputed by Hong Kong off -
cials and China Airlines.
Flight CI642 from Bangkok,
Thailand, was thrown off balance by
“an overly hard side wind” as the pilot
tried to land the MD-11 jet during
Tropical Storm Sam, said Scott Shih,
a spokesman for China Airlines at the
carrier’s headquarters in Taipei,
Taiwan.
After the crash, the plane’s body
was intact and the landing gear point
ed up into the night sky under huge
spotlights set up by rescuers.
Passenger Joemy Tam described
a harrowing landing in the storm,
which had earlier limited operations
at Chek Lap Kok airport.
“The airplane tried to lift up, but
somehow it couldn’t,” Tam told
Radio Hong Kong. “On the right
hand side, the wing hit the ground and
I saw the explosion, the fire, coming
all the way from the front of the plane
to the rear.”
Tam said he freed himself, then
helped the person next to him get
loose. Stunned passengers, some of
them burned, were screaming as they
made their way out onto a runway
drenched with jet fuel.
“I saw two ladies lying on the
floor, actually lying on the ceiling,”
Tam said.
The victims were a Portuguese
woman and a Taiwanese man,
according to China Airlines vice pres
ident Chang Liang-hsi in Taipei. An
official in Hong Kong said 101 of the
315 passengers and crew were unin
jured. Four Americans were on the
plane.
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' THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
«
The good news is that the core of the
hurricane... is not over the more
populated areas.”
Max Mayfield
National Hurricane Center
Palm trees whipped as the wind
strengthened in early afternoon and
Corpus Christi Bay was covered with
whitecaps as the storm came ashore.
As the storm hit, some people
braved driving rain and rolling surf to
walk on Corpus Christi beaches. A few
even grabbed surfboards or swam.
Carolina DeLeon, 23, was on the
beach with her husband, Jesus, making
a videotape of the storm for their
unborn daughter, Zara, who is due in
two weeks.
“She’ll probably say, ‘Mom, you’re
crazy,”’ Carolina DeLeon said.
Corpus Christi declared a state of
disaster and called for a general but vol
untary evacuation of the city of300,000
n - T sf r:±
residents, said city spokesman Ted
Nelson. • ' Qr :. n
The evacuation was “proceeding in
an orderly fashion,” Corpus Christi
City Manager David Garcia said
Sunday.
Emergency officials in San
Antonio set up shelters at Lackland Air
Force Base in anticipation of thousands
of fleeing residents.
Texas hadn’t been hit by a hurricane
since Hurricane Jerry killed three peo
ple in October 1989. However, the
state’s 367-mile-long coast has been
struck by tropical storms since then,
including Charley, which dumped 18
inches of rain and killed 19 people in
August 1998.
;ed rain
crease
1 ey’s plight
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -
Bulldozers and jackhammers tore into
flattened buildings still entombing
thousands of earthquake victims
Sunday in Turkey, rushing to clear
decomposing corpses before expected
rains increase die risk of epidemics.
Just how many people remained
buried across populous northwestern
Turkey was still unknown nearly a
week after Tuesday’s enormous quake.
The official death toll has surpassed
12,000, and some officials predicted
as many as 40,000 may have died.
In many places, the search for the
living was scaled back and there was
only the roar of machinery ripping
into the wreckage where rescuers once
carefully listened for any signs of life.
Survivors, some with .family
members still buried, watched help
lessly.
we can t even get our dead, said
J Osman Bakay, who has two relatives
1 still caught in a collapsed five-story
building in Yalova, about 30 miles
south of Istanbul.
The stench of decomposing bod
ies across the quake zone was an obvi
ous reminder that serious diseases
could flare any moment. Typhoid
fever, cholera and dysentery topped
the list of concerns. Officials have
sprayed disinfectants, distributed
water purification tablets and started
spreading antiseptic lime in the
region.
Rains forecast to begin Monday
could bring contaminated runoff into
streets. Rain also could contribute to
other health risks - for example, carry
ing down toxins pumped into the sky
from a huge fire at Turkey’s biggest oil
refinery after Tuesday’s quake.
Health Minister Osman Durmus
urged people to leave the area near the
refinery in Izmit, about 90 miles
southeast of Istanbul.
Up to 25,000 beds were available
at hotels and resorts around the region,
government officials said. Food, plas
tic sheeting and buses also were sent
in.
Tent cities have been erected in
some areas.
The government is desperate to
reverse the widespread impression
that it was unable to cope with the dis
aster.
Much criticism was focused on
why Turkey’s military - one of the
region’s laigest with nearly 800,000
servicemen - appeared to hold off on a
mass mobilization to dig for survivors
and lead relief operations. More sol
diers have been dispatched to the
quake zone, but, it seemed, more to
protect against looting than to provide
help.
l here was speculation in the
Turkish media that the military
response was complicated by the pos
sibility of Turkey declaring martial
law. That is a particularly sensitive
issue in a nation that has experienced
three military coups in the past 20
years. The government decided such a
decree was unnecessary, said the mili
tary chief of staff Gen. Huseyin
Kivrikoglu.
Kivrikoglu insisted more than
53,000 soldiers have been involved in
efforts since hours after the quake
struck and have pulled nearly 20,000
survivors from the rubble.
Independent confirmation wasn’t
immediately available?
“We have the strength to overcome
the damage of this earthquake very
soon,” Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit
said in a nationwide address.
The patriotic message was carried
even further by DurmUs,the heaith
minister. He said Turkish hospitals can
handle all the injured and foreign help
- including a U.S. military ship with a
surgical team able to accommodate
500 patients - was not needed.
But there were no plans to call off
the expected Monday arrival of the
American assault ship USS
Kearsarge, said military spokesman
Lt. Cappy Surette. The ship was
expected in the Golcuk area.
■Colorado
Bid that would allow actively
homosexual clergy rejected
DENVER (AP) - The Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America on
Saturday rejected a bid to scuttle its pol
icy barring actively homosexual cleigy.
The denomination will continue to
permit homosexual pastors who agree
to a celibate lifestyle.
The bill was submitted to a national
assembly by the regional unit, or synod,
covering northern California and
Nevada. ‘
Church members voted 820-159 to
continue talking about the issue. A
report from five denominational agen
cies said the 5.2-million member
church should not shrink from “the
sometimes discomforting experience
of looking anew at our inherited tradi
tion.”
■Australia
Independent republic vote
could mean new coins
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Despite
reports to the contrary, the government
said Sunday it has no plans to remove
the image of Queen Elizabeth II from
its coins if Australia votes to become an
independent republic in November.
Australia has been independent
since 1901, but like many
Commonwealth nations it still recog
nizes the British monarch as its head of
state.
The nation’s 11.6 million voters
will be asked in a referendum on Nov. 6
whether they want to drop the queen, a
holdover from Australia Is day as a
British colony, and become an indepen
dent republic.
News reports had said that becom
ing a republic would require the queen’s
head to be taken off Australia’s coins
and replaced with the image of notable
public figures, such as cricket legend
Sir Donald Bradman.
■California
First panda cub in nine
years bom in San Diego Zoo
SAN DIEGO (AP) - One of only
three giant pandas in the United States
gave birth to a cub Saturday.
Bai Yun, a 213-pound giant panda
on loan from China, delivered the cub at
11:40 a.m. in a specially constructed
den at the San Diego Zoo,
It was the first baby panda bom in
the Western Hemisphere since 1990,
zoo officials said. “Everyone here is
grinning from ear to ear over today’s
event,” said Don Lindburg, of the zoo’s
giant panda team.
Scientists were unable to determine
the cub’s gender. The mother can be
viewed only through a special camera
that allows observers to catch glimpses
of the cub as it is cradled in her huge
paws.
■Saudi Arabia
King Fahd’s eldest son,
54, dies of heart attack
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -The
eldest son of Saudi King Fahd has died
of a heart attack, Saudi government
officials said Saturday.
Prince Faisal bin Fahd, who was the
equivalent of minister of sports, died in
the intensive care unit of the King Faisal
Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, the offi
cialSjSaithHe was 54, the official Saudi
Press Agency reported.
Prince Faisal was not in line to the
throne. His uncle, Crown Prince
Abdullah, is the heir.
Prince Faisal had been admitted to a
hospital earlier Saturday with “severe
heart problems,” the.officials said on
condition of anonymity.
