SYDNEY: Australian authorities declared a state of emergency in Queensland Wednesday as torrential rain and gale force winds caused extensive flooding and left one man dead.Almost 30,000 homes were without power in the state's southeast, where some areas recorded 300 millimetres (12 inches) of rain in 24 hours and wind gusts exceeding 100 kilometres (62 miles) an hour.Ambulance officers said a 46-year-old man was killed by flying glass when a freak wind gust smashed in a window on a building on the Gold Coast tourist strip.Queensland Premier Anna Bligh declared a state of emergency including the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast and extending inland to Toowoomba.Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the federal government was ready to offer assistance if required.Rudd said he had received a briefing on the emergency and was told the floods were causing havoc on roads in southeast Queensland."There are quite a large number of people who are at this stage isolated in their vehicles and I am further advised there are a number of schools that have been cut off as well," he said.Police said tables, chairs and barbecues had been blown off the top of high-rise buildings on the Gold Coast and warned people to take extreme care if they ventured outside.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
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