Colombia survivors: A normal flight, then a crash on the runway

Aires Airlines Flight 8250 was seconds away from landing at San Andres airport on a small island off the coast of Colombia. The pilot had turned on the seat belt sign and told passengers to stay in their seats. Passengers could see rain and  lightning outside their small cabin windows, but nothing was amiss. Everything seemed calm. Normal. Routine. Then a hard, violent crash as the Boeing 737-700 smacked into the runway. The plane started to break apart, and sparks flew as metal ground against concrete. Seats came loose from their moorings and tumbled about the cabin. Passengers could see the runway and the rainy predawn sky through the gaping holes left in the sheared fuselage. Some of them fell to the ground, still strapped into their seats. 

Survivors of Monday's plane crash that left one person dead and more than 120 injured describe nearly two hours of normalcy followed by minutes of sheer terror."Everything was going well," Heriberto Rua told Radio Caracol. "When I felt something, it was the crash."Another passenger, Juan Carlos Hurtado, said everything was fine until the moment of landing about 1:49 a.m. (2:49 a.m. ET). "No sooner had the rear wheels touched down when it started to break apart," he told Radio Caracol. "It broke apart, and the seats were torn loose. We ended up seeing the road, and it started to catch on fire. There were many people wounded, screaming."

Industrial engineer Jose Ricardo Ramirez said he was ejected from the ruptured plane."The truth is that I can't say whether the plane got to roll down the runway," Ramirez told Radio Caracol. "Simply, when we fell down, we ended up on the pavement, chairs and all."Ramirez said his first inclination was to unbuckle his seat belt and then undo his wife's restraint.A couple and their three children were traveling behind him, Ramirez said. He noticed that a plane seat was lying on top of the man. He lifted the seat off him and then noticed that his own wife's face was covered in blood.

"I immediately grabbed her and tried to get her away because flames were coming from the plane," Ramirez said. "We tried to get away, but because my wife had a broken knee, I had to help remove her."A police patrol arrived minutes later, and they helped us and brought us to the clinic, where we were tended to as soon as possible."Two residents of the metro Atlanta, Georgia, area were among those seriously injured.Carolina Bellino said she and her husband, David, suffered fractured backs. She cannot move, Bellino said.

"He is worse than mine," she told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday. Bellino, who said she is seven or eight weeks pregnant, recalled that she prayed until rescuers arrived."It's just like a nightmare, but I'm thankful because I'm alive," she said."It's a new beginning for us. You know you realize you can lose your life in just 20 seconds."Colombian authorities say they are investigating whether the plane may have been hit by lightning or been buffeted by a severe downdraft.One of the two pilots stood outside the wrecked plane shortly after the crash and described to a police videographer the flight's final moments. CNN affiliate Caracol TV played the recording Tuesday.

"We were caught in a great sinking as we reached the runway, as our wheels touched down," said the unnamed pilot, his face bloodied. "It threw us out. It threw us out. Nature is very strong."The pilot paced back and forth before the camera, recounting his ordeal as crews worked on the plane just a few yards away."It grabbed us with everything it had," the pilot said. "I said, 'Landing' and cut, and when I was cutting, I started to level off, and I felt that the plane was going straight (down).

"I pulled [on the stick]. I pulled. I pulled. And the plane kept on going, kept on going. It was when we said, 'Landing.' When there's nothing left to do."Survivors said they were unaware that anything had happened to the aircraft until the violent impact.Ramirez, the industrial engineer, said he had seen lightning outside his window as the plane approached the airport."[But] I didn't feel any explosion," he told Caracol. "It's a miracle from God. Thanks to God we are all alive."Hurtado also said he was unaware of any lightning striking the plane, as reported by some officials on the ground."That's what people say," Hurtado said. "Others [say] that the landing gear did not go down. But I don't know what happened. Only that it was horrible."

Haiti appeals for aid; official fears 100,000 dead after earthquake

Rescue workers struggled to clear rubble and bodies Wednesday from the streets of Haiti's "flattened" capital, where a government official said the death toll from Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake may exceed 100,000.Thousands of injured people waited for care outside badly damaged hospitals, while an unknown number remained trapped inside collapsed buildings. Basic services like water and electricity were out, and Haitian President Rene Preval said his government needs help clearing streets so rescuers can reach some of the hardest-hit areas.

"We need medicine. We need medical help in general," Preval told CNN. "Some of the hospitals, they collapsed."

People were digging though the rubble of leveled buildings with their hands Wednesday, looking for survivors or bodies, CNN's Anderson Cooper reported from Port-au-Prince. Other CNN correspondents in Port-au-Prince and its suburbs reported whole blocks of collapsed buildings, with dozens of bodies piled in the streets.

Video images captured just moments after the temblor show dust-covered survivors rushing through the streets, yelling in terror. Others trapped in buildings are seen punching out debris and bricks, and shouting for help and trying to squeeze themselves out through cracks in the structures. Port-au-Prince "is flattened," said Haiti's consul general to the U.N., Felix Augustin, who said he believed more than 100,000 people were dead. But Preval said other estimates ranged from 30,000 to 50,000. "It's too early to give a number," Preval said.The 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday, centered about 10 miles (15 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. It could be felt strongly in eastern Cuba, more than 200 miles away.

The earthquake's power matched that of several nuclear bombs, said Roger Searle, a professor of geophysics in the Earth Sciences Department at Durham University in England. He said the combination of its magnitude and geographical shallowness made it particularly dangerous. About 3 million people -- one-third of Haiti's population -- were affected by the quake, the Red Cross said. About 10 million people most likely felt shaking from the earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

As night fell over the island Wednesday, gunshots sounded off in Port-au-Prince. Screams and wails could be heard with each aftershock. Some people who still had homes refused to go inside, fearing collapse. Scores huddled together in parks and sidewalks, trying to get rest.Though planes carrying aid began arriving Wednesday, humanitarian groups struggled to  get the supplies to victims due to the poor roads and debris. There was no clear system for clearing debris, removing bodies and treating the injured, officials and journalists reported.

"Simply getting through the streets to collect the dead bodies is seemingly an impossible task," CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta reported from the capital, where shooting could be heard in the background. "There's hardly any heavy machinery to try and dig through the rubble -- people are doing it by hand. "The hospitals themselves -- the destination of those patients who might survive -- they're nonexistent or have a terrible infrastructure," Gupta said. Haiti native and "Heroes" cast member Jimmy Jean-Louis was searching for his elderly parents in Haiti on Wednesday. He said the Haitian government is not up to addressing the overwhelming nature of the disaster. "Just as an example ... we had one school that collapsed -- one school, and we were unable to take care of that," he said, referring to a November 2008 incident that killed 90 people in Petionville, Haiti. "This year, we have the entire city [of Port-au-Prince] that collapsed, including the major points such as hospitals, hotels and even the presidential palace."

Former President Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, appealed to the public to support programs that will provide food, water, shelter and medical supplies to the impoverished country. "The most important thing you can do is not to send those supplies, but to send cash" to relief agencies, Clinton said. Governments and agencies across the globe geared up to help, including rescue teams from China, Iceland and France, Haiti's onetime colonial ruler; aid flights and 3 million euros ($4.35 million) from Spain; doctors from Cuba; and a field hospital from Russia.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the United Nations plans to release $10 million in aid immediately, while the World Bank pledged another $100 million Wednesday afternoon. President Obama promised a "swift, coordinated and aggressive" response from the United States. "The reports and images that we've seen of collapsed hospitals, crumbled homes and men and women carrying their injured neighbors through the streets are truly heart-wrenching," Obama said.

Russia Launches ‘Massive’ Strikes on Fires; Moscow Smoke Eases

Firefighting aircraft launched a “massive” attack on blazes near Moscow as smoke retreated temporarily from the Russian capital.The Emergency Situations Ministry began the operation yesterday evening and today deployed two Il-76 transport planes, two Be-200 amphibious aircraft and four helicopters, according to a statement on its website. Crews also began soaking peat bogs southeast of Moscow that have frequently ignited, filling the city with acrid smoke, the ministry said.

Moscow has been choking on smoke from forest fires and burning bogs since the last week of July, with occasional brief reprieves. Record heat and the worst drought in half a century have damaged crops and fuelled the flames that have scorched 810,804 hectares (3,131 square miles) this year and left 53 people dead. The drought led the government to ban grain exports and threatens to slow Russia’s recovery after the economy shrank 7.9 percent in 2009. The smoke cloud is expected to return to Moscow by the weekend and remain there because of an absence of wind, Rossiya- 24 reported. The temperature in the city rose as high as 33.4 degrees Celsius (92 degrees Fahrenheit) today after reaching 38.2 degrees Celsius, the highest ever, on July 29.

Areas with radioactive contamination from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster have been affected by forest fires, Interfax reported, citing the federal forestry agency. Fires in such areas, covering 3,900 hectares, have been recorded since June, the news service said. Radioactivity levels in the Bryansk region and three others affected by Chernobyl are normal, the Emergency Situations Ministry said on its website today. A ministry laboratory has monitored areas scorched by fires since last week.

The radioactivity in Moscow’s air doesn’t exceed normal levels, the Swiss embassy said in an e-mailed bulletin to citizens today. The most toxic day was Aug. 9, when carbon monoxide was at 6.5 times the acceptable level and the concentration of particulate pollutants was 5.6 times higher than permissible, according to the embassy. The European Union said in a statement today that the embassies of its 27 member nations are working normally. Consular services are continuing at the U.S. embassy with some delays because of staff shortages, spokesman David Siefkin said by phone. About 100 dependents and non-essential staff have been given the option to leave Moscow for as long as 30 days.

The fire situation in central Russia is stabilizing, Vladimir Stepanov, head of the Emergency Situations Ministry’s crisis center, said on Rossiya-24. Several rivers in central Russia are unfavorable for navigation because of a continuing drop in water levels, the state Hydrometeorological Center said on its website. The drought is exacerbated as planes scoop up water to douse fires. The heat and high fire danger will persist in most parts of European Russia and in the Urals through at least Aug. 13, according to the Hydrometeorological Center.

At least 15,000 people may have died as a result of heat and smog, according to extrapolations based on Moscow’s mortality rate made by Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground Internet weather service. The economic cost this year could total $15 billion, or 1 percent of gross domestic product, Alexander Morozov, chief economist at HSBC Holdings Plc in Moscow, said yesterday.

Medvedev sacks officers over Russia fire failures

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has sacked several top military officials for failing to stop wildfires from destroying a naval base outside Moscow. He made the announcement after halting his summer holiday to return to Moscow for emergency talks on the wildfires. Seven regions are under a state of emergency as the fires, which have killed 48 people, continue to rage. To the east of the capital firefighters are battling blazes near a major nuclear research facility in Sarov.

As a precaution, all nuclear materials have been removed from the site, which is about 400km (250 miles) to the east of Moscow. "All explosive and radioactive materials have been taken away," Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's nuclear agency, said after attending the emergency meeting of the national security council chaired by Mr Medvedev. Mr Kiriyenko said there was no risk of a nuclear disaster, and that the primary concern was the threat to expensive equipment and the suspension of important work. 

"I can guarantee that even in an extreme situation with squalling winds there is no danger to nuclear security, no threat of radiation, explosions, or environmental consequences," he said.Having returned to Moscow from his traditional summer break in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Mr Medvedev announced the military sackings during a televised appearance at the Kremlin. Last Thursday, flames tore through the naval logistics base in Kolomna, 100km south-east of Moscow, destroying office buildings and warehouses and equipment. 

Mr Medvedev said commanders of the base were absent when the fire occurred and that it was "unclear where they were". As a result Mr Medvedev formally reprimanded the head of the Russian navy, Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, and his deputy Alexander Tatarinov, accusing them of a lack of "professional responsibility" over how the fire was handled. He also said he had ordered the sacking of a swathe of officers including the head of the Russian navy's logistics division, Sergei Sergeyev, and Nikolai Kuklev, the head of the navy's aviation arm.

Mr Medvedev said many other military sites across Russia were also threatened by the wildfires, and warned that if they were not properly protected by the military there would be more sackings. "If something similar happens in other places and departments, I will act in the same way, without any pity," Mr Medvedev said. Thousands of people have lost their homes in 14 regions of Russia over the past few days. About a fifth of Russia's grain crop has also been destroyed.

China floods, landslides leave 1,148 missing

More than 6,000 troops sifted through mud-drenched villages and towns Monday in a desperate search for survivors of a series of flash floods and landslides in northwestern China. At least 337 people were killed after the disaster struck China's Gansu province on Sunday, covering entire villages in water, mud and rocks. On Monday night the government said 1,148 were missing, down from a previous estimate of 1,300. About 45,000 were evacuated.

Soldiers worked through the night heaving mud with bare hands and shovels, pulling mud-soaked corpses out of the rubble. Debris also blocked the transport of much-needed bulldozers and backhoes from roads into the mountainous county seat of Zhouqu, which remained largely submerged following Sunday's disaster.

Work was underway to restore power, water and communications in affected areas in the southern part of the province, and it was not known how many of the missing were in danger or simply out of contact.

Hoping to prevent further disasters, demolition experts set off three sets of charges to clear debris blocking the Bailong River upstream from the ravaged Zhouqu. The blockage had formed a three-kilometre-long artificial lake on the river that overflowed in the pre-dawn hours, sending deadly torrents crashing down onto the town. Houses were ripped from their foundations, apartment buildings shattered, and streets covered with a layer of mud and water more than a metre deep.

Premier Wen Jiabao flew to the area on Sunday to oversee relief efforts and offer hope to those still trapped. At one point, almost slipping in the brown muck surrounding him, Wen shouted encouragement to an elderly man trapped inside a collapsed house. "Hang on, dear fellow! We're trying to save you!'" Wen was seen shouting, in Chinese, on state broadcaster CCTV.

Wen visited hard-hit areas including the Sanyan Valley, where a village of 300 households was buried in mudslides, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It said more than 680 villagers have been rescued, but gave no word on numbers believed to still be trapped. Flooding in China has killed more than 1,100 people this year and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage across 28 provinces and regions. There is more heavy rain forecast for the region over the next three days, the China Meteorological Administration said. On Monday evening, clouds were building ominously over the mountains where the mud first started flowing.

Responding to the fires in San Bruno

Update at 6:27pm: We now have updated satellite imagery (from GeoEye) of the area. You can download it here and view it in Google Earth.

Update on Sep 11: These before and after images show the extent of damage in one area of San Bruno.

Before

After

Like many friends in the Bay Area and across the country, I’ve been stunned by the images of raging fires in San Bruno. Nearly 40 structures have been destroyed and 120 damaged, with several fatalities and multiple injuries after the explosion of a gas line. More than 100 people have been evacuated to nearby shelters. This disaster strikes close to home; our YouTube offices are about two miles away from the main gas explosion. We’re thankful that no Google employee was hurt, but remain concerned for the well-being of our neighbors in the area. We are donating an initial amount of $50,000 to the American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter to help with relief efforts. We’re directing Googlers to the local blood drives today and will be hosting blood drives in our San Bruno, Mountain View and San Francisco offices early next week.

Desperation as Pakistan flood misery grows

"Right now our land link with the rest of the country is gone. Right now the shortage of essential commodities is beginning to show." He said items in short supply included cooking oil, flour and sugar. "Everything seems to be coming to a very critical situation right now," he added. Mr Leghari said government relief had been arriving very slowly. "We are a poor country and our resources are very limited," he said. "We are not equipped to handle this kind of a disaster."

He said those delivering aid were being confronted by desperate people. "When you go in with 500 ration packages and there are 5,000 people out there who are expecting it, there is chaos. People attack you because they are desperate," he said. "Their children are starving, their elderly mothers are starving. So they have to be desperate. I don't blame them." UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said money raised by the appeal would be for immediate relief over the next three months.

Speaking in New York, he said the disaster was "one of the most challenging that any country has faced in recent years". Concern has been growing that militants in the restive north-west are regrouping as Pakistani troops focus on relief work.

Correspondents say insurgents have kept up attacks during the two-week flooding crisis. In a statement on Tuesday, the Pakistani Taliban described the floods as God's punishment to Pakistanis for accepting secular leaders. They urged Pakistanis to boycott foreign aid. However, Pakistan's army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said troops could manage relief work and security operations concurrently. 

Pakistan's meteorological service warned of floods in Hyderabad district, which could spread devastation further south in Sindh province. They also issued a "significant" flood forecast for Kalabagh and Chashma in Punjab. But in a glimmer of hope for relief teams, forecasters said the monsoon system over the Arabian Sea is weakening and torrential rains should ease over the next three days. Meanwhile, international donors have pledged more aid for Pakistan. The US, which has already committed $55m to relief efforts, announced it was contributing another $16.2m to the UN refugee agency and the International Red Cross for emergency help for flood victims.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates said a US aircraft carrier with about 19 helicopters was already off the coast of Karachi. The UK said on Tuesday that four more plane loads of relief supplies will be sent to Pakistan. The World Food Programme has said it is trying to get help to up to six million survivors at a cost of $150m.