WORLD
Friday, September 8, 2017
East Oregonian
Nations rush to help islands hit by Irma
By EVENS SANON AND
DANICA COTO
Associated Press
P O RT- A U - P R I N C E ,
Haiti — French, British and
Dutch military authorities
rushed aid to a devastated
string of Caribbean islands
Thursday after Hurricane
Irma left at least 11 people
dead and thousands home-
less as it spun toward Florida
for what could be a cata-
strophic blow this weekend.
Warships and planes
were dispatched with food,
water and troops after the
fearsome Category 5 storm
smashed homes, schools and
roads, laying waste to some
of the world’s most beautiful
and exclusive tourist desti-
nations.
Hundreds of miles to the
west, Florida braced for the
onslaught, with forecasters
warning that Irma could
slam headlong into the
Miami metropolitan area of
6 million people, punish the
entire length of the state’s
Atlantic coast and move into
Georgia and South Carolina.
More than a half-million
people in Miami-Dade
County were ordered to
leave as Irma closed in with
winds of 175 mph.
“Take
it
seriously,
because this is the real deal,”
said Maj. Jeremy DeHart,
a U.S. Air Force Reserve
Jonathan Falwell via AP
This Sept. 6 photo shows storm damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma on the
Carribean island of St. Martin.
weather offi cer who fl ew
through the eye of Irma at
10,000 feet.
The hurricane was still
north of the Dominican
Republic and Haiti on
Thursday evening, sweeping
the neighboring nations
on Hispaniola island with
high winds and rain while
battering the Turks and
Caicos islands on its other
side.
Big waves smashed a
dozen homes into rubble
in the Dominican fi shing
community of Nagua, but
work crews said all the
residents had left before
the storm. Offi cials said
11,200 people in all had
evacuated vulnerable areas,
while 55,000 soldiers had
been deployed to help the
cleanup.
In Haiti, two people were
injured by a falling tree,
a national roadway was
blocked by debris and roofs
were torn from houses along
the northern coast but there
were no immediate reports
of deaths. Offi cials warned
that could change as Irma
continued to lash Haiti,
where deforested hillsides
are prone to devastating
mudslides that have wiped
out entire neighborhoods of
precariously built homes in
fl ood zones.
“We are vulnerable. We
don’t have any equipment
to help the population,”
Josue Alusma, mayor of the
northern city of Port de Paix,
said on Radio Zenith FM.
About a million people
were without power in
Puerto Rico after Irma side-
swiped the island overnight,
and nearly half the territory’s
hospitals were relying on
generators. No injuries were
reported.
The fi rst islands hit by the
storm were scenes of terrible
destruction.
French Prime Minister
Edouard Philippe said four
people were confi rmed dead
and about 50 injured on the
French side of St. Martin, an
island split between Dutch
and French control, where
homes were splintered and
road signs scattered by the
fi erce winds. The cafes
and clothing shops of the
picturesque seaside village
of Marigot were submerged
in
brown
fl oodwaters
and people surveyed the
wreckage from whatever
shelter they could fi nd.
The toll could rise because
rescue teams had yet to
get a complete look at the
damage.
At least four people
were killed in the U.S.
Virgin Islands, and offi cials
said they expected to fi nd
more bodies. Authorities
described the damage as
catastrophic and said crews
were struggling to reopen
roads and restore power.
Page 11A
Israel strikes
deep in Syria,
said to hit
military facility
BEIRUT (AP) — Israeli
warplanes struck a military
position near the Medi-
terranean coast in western
Syria Thursday killing two
soldiers, the Syrian army
said, in a stronghold of Pres-
ident Bashar Assad that is
also heavily protected by the
Russians and Iranians.
The airstrike targeted
a facility near the town of
Masyaf, in Hama province,
described by some as a
missile producing factory,
amid Israeli outrage over
Iran’s growing infl uence in
the war-torn country.
Other reports suggested
the facility was tied to Syria’s
chemical weapons program.
In a statement, the
Syrian army said the Israeli
warplanes fi red several
missiles from Lebanese air
space, and warned of the
“dangerous
repercussions
of such hostile acts on the
security and stability of the
region.”
“We will do everything
to prevent the existence of
a Shiite corridor from Iran
to Damascus,” said Israeli
Defense Minister Avigdor
Lieberman, who declined
commenting directly on
the strike in an interview
with Israel’s 100FM Radio
Thursday.
New fi res in empty Rohingya village challenge Myanmar claims
BANGKOK
(AP)
— Journalists saw new
fi res burning Thursday in
a Myanmar village that
had been abandoned by
Rohingya Muslims, and
pages ripped from Islamic
texts that were left on the
ground. That intensifi es
doubts about government
claims that members of the
persecuted minority have
been destroying their own
homes.
About two dozen journal-
ists saw the fi res in Gawdu
Zara village in northern
Rakhine state on a govern-
ment-controlled trip.
About 164,000 Rohingya
from the area have fl ed across
the border into Bangladesh in
less than two weeks since Aug.
25, when Rohingya insurgents
attacked police outposts in
Gawdu Zara and several other
villages, the U.N. refugee
agency said Thursday.
The military has said
nearly 400 people, mostly
Rohingya, have died in
clashes and that troops were
conducting “clearance oper-
ations.” It blames insurgents
for setting the villages on
fi re, without offering proof.
Rohingya who have
fl ed Myanmar, however,
have described large-scale
violence perpetrated by
Myanmar
troops
and
Buddhist mobs — setting
fi re to their homes, spraying
bullets indiscriminately, stab-
bing civilians and ordering
them to abandon their homes
or be killed.
On the Myanmar side of
the border, reporters saw no
Rohingya in any of the fi ve
destroyed villages they were
allowed to tour Thursday,
making it unlikely they could
have been responsible for the
new fi res.
An
ethnic
Rakhine
villager who emerged from
the smoke said police and
Rakhine Buddhists had set
the fi res. The villager ran
Ramon Zamora’s bringing it, every day,
with his one-two punch of helping and healing.
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off before he could be asked
anything else.
No police were seen in
the village beyond those
who were accompanying
the journalists. But about 10
Rakhine men with machetes
were seen there. They looked
nervous and the only one
who spoke said he had just
arrived and did not know
how the fi res started.
Among the buildings
on fi re was a madrassa, an
Islamic school. Copies of
books with texts from the
Quran, Islam’s holy book,
were torn up and thrown
outside. A nearby mosque
was not burned.
AP Photo
Houses are on fi re in Gawdu Zara village, northern Ra-
khine state, Myanmar, Thursday. Journalists saw new
fi res burning Thursday in the Myanmar village that had
been abandoned by Rohingya Muslims, and where
pages from Islamic texts were seen ripped and left on
the ground.