Weather Signs

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — At least 20,000 people in northern Bangladesh have been cut off from the rest of the country after several rivers burst their banks, news reports said Sunday. Emergency officials said the situation is likely to deteriorate. Crops on some 25,000 acres of land were under water in the northern districts of Lalmonirhat, Rangpur, Kurigram, Nilphamari and Gaibandha, the United News of Bangladesh agency reported. The Daily Star newspaper reported at least 60,000 day laborers lost their jobs because of the flooding. The official Flood Forecasting and Warning Center called the flood situation in the country "alarming" because water levels in all three major rivers — Jamuna, Padma and Meghna — were rising simultaneously. The center said more low-lying areas in both northern and central Bangladesh are likely to be submerged within two to three days and that northeastern districts bordering India are under threat.

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Southern Chile's heaviest rains in four decades have damaged hundreds of houses and left thousands of people isolated. Rain ceased early Tuesday after more than 40 hours. Emergency Bureau director Carmen Fernandez says one woman is dead due to a collapsed wall, 2,000 have evacuated their homes and more than 12,000 are isolated by flooding in rural areas.

SAINT-MARC, Haiti — Haitian families scrambled onto rooftops and screamed for help Tuesday in a city flooded by Tropical Storm Hanna, as U.N. peacekeepers and rescue convoys tried in vain to reach them. By Tuesday night, Hanna claimed 21 lives in Haiti, including 12 dead in the state containing the cutoff city of Gonaives, said Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste of the country's civil protection office in Port-au-Prince, the capital. Heavy rain from the storm's outer bands fell relentlessly in Haiti, a country still recovering from drenchings by Hurricane Gustav and Tropical Storm Fay in the past two weeks. In all, floods and mudslides from the three storms have killed more than 100 people as Haiti's deforested hills melted away in the torrential rains.