torrential

Cars slogged through the flooded streets of Santo Domingo as Tropical Storm Melissa dumped heavy rain and wind gusts up to 80 kilometres per hour. The stom, which also drenched Haiti, is expected to strengthen into a hurricane by Friday.

TENS of thousands are without power as Storm Amy’s 90mph gusts and torrential rain lash Britain leaving one dead.

The first named storm of the season has swept into the country with yellow weather warnings covering the whole of Britain on Saturday.

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Irish Police confirmed on Friday that a man in his 40s had died following a “weather related incident”.

While 234,000 homes were also left without power across the island of Ireland as Storm Amy brings widespread disruption.

The highest wind speeds so far have been recorded in the Hebrides Islands, Scotland, at 96mph with 92mph gusts recorded in Co Londonderry in Northern Ireland, say the Met Office.

An amber wind warning has been issued for the north of Scotland until 9pm on Saturday with yellow warnings covering the whole of Scotland, the north of England and north Wales until the end of the day.

A yellow wind warning will run until 7pm for the rest of England and Wales.

Additionally, yellow warnings for rain are in place in north and west Scotland until midnight and in Northern Ireland until noon.

Travel chaos has also been sparked across the country with road closures and disruption to public transport.

Train operator, Avanti West Coast, warned of “short notice changes” on Saturday and “strongly recommended” customers making journeys north of Preston to check updates before travelling.

In Scotland, ScotRail suspended services on Friday night and anticipated the disruption would extend in Saturday and possibly Sunday.

Network Rail Scotland route director Ross Moran said more than 60 incidents of flooding, fallen trees and debris on the tracks were reported across the network in the first two hours of the storm.

“Storm Amy has hit parts of the country much harder and more quickly than expected,” he said.

National Rail is carrying out safety checks for obstructions on the line and damage to infrastructure, warning of possible disruptions throughout the UK on Saturday.

Elsewhere, CalMac Ferries also said it expect many services to be disrupted on Saturday into Sunday with many routes already cancelled.

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The iconic Severn Bridge between Gloucestershire and Wales was also forced to close overnight due to strong winds.

While parts of the A19 Tees Viaduct, the A66 in Cumbria and the A628 near Manchester were all closed to high-sided vehicles.

Traffic Scotland has also reported a long list of road closures with Forth Road Bridge closed in both directions.

The Skye Bridge, Queensferry Crossing and Clackmannshire Bridge were also closed to high-sided vehicles.

They also reported a number of road closures due to falling debris and overnight flooding including the M9 eastbound near Stirling.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency had 30 flood warnings in place on Saturday with the Environment Agency issuing six in the north of England one in north Wales from Natural Resources Wales.

Belfast International Airport said it was expecting delays on Saturday and advised passengers to check with their airlines.

All eight of London’s royal parks, including Hyde Park and Richmond Park, will also be closed on Saturday due to the strong winds.

In a statement on its website, the Royal Parks said: “Due to severe wind gusts caused by Storm Amy, all of the royal parks, plus Brompton Cemetery and Victoria Tower Gardens will be closed on Saturday October 4.

“This closure includes all park roads and cycleways, cafes and kiosks, parks sports venues, the Serpentine lido and boating lake, and the royal parks shop.”

“The safety of visitors and staff is our top priority,” the Royal Parks added.

“We’re sorry for any inconvenience that these closures may cause.”

It said opening times on Sunday will be delayed because of safety inspections.

The Met Office said wind and rain was expected to ease throughout the evening for much of the country, but severe gales are forecast to continue in north east Scotland with a yellow warning for wind in place from midnight until 9am on Sunday.

Sunday is expected to turn dry and less windy with sunny spells for most areas, but outbreaks of rain developing in the north west.

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Schools shut and villages swept away as Pakistan reels from monsoon devastation.

At least 21 people have died in monsoon rain-related incidents in Pakistan, authorities said, pushing the nationwide death toll over the last week above 400 as floods and landslides continue to devastate large parts of the country.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said on Wednesday that 11 people were killed in Gilgit-Baltistan in the north and 10 others died in Karachi, Pakistan’s financial hub, where heavy rain triggered electrocutions and house collapses.

Schools in Karachi, a city of more than 20 million, remained closed as forecasters warned of further downpours until Saturday. Sindh’s chief meteorologist, Amir Hyder Laghari, blamed “weak infrastructure” for the severe flooding in urban areas.

The city’s ageing pipes and drains struggled to handle the deluge, leaving entire neighbourhoods submerged. Residents were seen scooping murky water from their homes as power and phone outages added to the disruption.

Provincial officials reported 40 to 50 houses damaged in two districts. “Another (rain) spell is to start by the end of the month,” NDMA chairman Inam Haider Malik said.

The northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been hardest hit, with more than 350 people killed since last Thursday. Authorities and army units are searching for dozens of missing villagers in areas struck by flash floods and landslides. Excavators have been deployed to clear debris clogging rivers and drainage systems.

“We have established relief camps where we are providing medical assistance. We are also giving dry rations and tents to all the people,” army Colonel Irfan Afridi told the AFP news agency in Buner district, where more than 220 people have died in recent days.

“The children are scared. They say we cannot sleep at night due to fear,” said Anjum Anwar, a medical worker at a relief camp. “The flood … has destroyed our entire settlements.”

The monsoon season, which runs from June to September, often brings destruction to Pakistan’s mountainous north and flood-prone south. Authorities warn the current rains may last until mid-September.

Nearly 750 people have died since this year’s monsoon began, officials said. Pakistan, one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, has faced increasingly extreme weather in recent years. In 2022, monsoon floods submerged a third of the country, killing about 1,700 people.

Torrential rain struck Chisoti, a town in Kishtwar district in Indian-administered Kashmir, on Thursday morning.

At least 37 people have been killed after a sudden cloudburst unleashed torrential rain in Indian-administered Kashmir, a disaster management official said, marking the second major disaster in the Himalayas in just over a week.

The deluge struck Chisoti, a town in Kishtwar district, on Thursday morning. The site serves as a key stop along the pilgrimage route to the Machail Mata temple, a revered Himalayan shrine dedicated to Goddess Durga.

Television footage showed terrified pilgrims crying as water surged through the settlement.

Omar Abdullah, chief minister of the federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir, described the situation as “grim” and said confirmed details were slow to emerge from the remote location.

Mohammed Irshad said rescue teams scouring the devastated Himalayan village of Chositi brought at least 100 people to safety.

“Dead bodies of 37 people have been recovered,” said Irshad, a top disaster management official, adding there was no count of any missing people available.

According to Ramesh Kumar, divisional commissioner of Kishtwar, the cloudburst hit at about 11:30am local time. He told ANI news agency that police and disaster response teams were on the ground, while army and air force units had also been mobilised. “Search and rescue operations are under way,” Kumar said.

An official, who asked not to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media, said the flood swept away a community kitchen and a security post set up to serve pilgrims. “A large number of pilgrims had gathered for lunch and they were washed away,” the official told the news agency Reuters.

The India Meteorological Department defines a cloudburst as a sudden, extreme downpour exceeding 100mm of rain in an hour, often triggering flash floods and landslides in mountainous regions during the monsoon.

Last week, a similar disaster in Uttarakhand, another Himalayan state, buried an entire village under mud and debris after heavy rains.

The Srinagar weather office has warned of further intense rainfall in several parts of Kashmir, including Kishtwar, and urged residents to avoid unstable structures, power lines and old trees due to the risk of fresh landslides and flash floods.

Around 20,000 passengers have been affected by flight cancellations, delays and rerouting.

Torrential rains have forced Mexico City’s main airport to suspend numerous flights for multiple hours for a second consecutive day, causing chaos in one of Latin America’s busiest travel hubs.

Authorities at Benito Juarez International Airport said on Tuesday that all runways were operating again by midday, after all flights were suspended for at least four hours earlier that day. Around 20,000 passengers were affected by flight cancellations, delays and rerouting.

The Mexican capital is experiencing one of its heaviest rainy seasons in years, leading to constant flooding in other parts of the city.

Passengers have reported numerous cancellations and delays this week as heavy rains fall on the capital.

Alicia Nicanor, 69, said her Sunday flight to the northern city of Tijuana was cancelled, and when she returned Tuesday morning for her early morning flight, it was also cancelled.

“I told them I have to go because I have an important appointment with my doctor, but they didn’t listen,” she said.

Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada said heavy rains on Sunday flooded the city’s main plaza, known as the Zocalo, with more than 76mm (3 inches) of water, much of which poured down in just 20 minutes. It broke a record set in 1952.

Meanwhile, videos from the city’s south showed cars floating on flooded streets. The flooding has fuelled criticism by some in the capital, who call it a sign of larger infrastructure failures by the city’s government.

Record rainfall is expected to continue hammering parts of South Korea until Monday as more warnings are issued to the public.

Four people have been confirmed dead and at least two others missing as torrential rains continue to batter South Korea for a fourth consecutive day, forcing thousands of people from their homes and stranding livestock in rising floodwaters, authorities said.

Authorities warned on Saturday that up to 250mm (9.8 inches) of additional rain could fall throughout the day, raising concerns of further damage and casualties, the country’s official Yonhap news agency reports.

Rain is forecast to last until Monday in some areas, and weather officials have urged extreme caution against the risk of landslides and flooding, with warnings issued for most of South Korea.

More than 2,800 people are still unable to return to their homes out of a total of more than 7,000 people evacuated in recent days, the Ministry of Interior said.

Rainfall since Wednesday reached a record of more than 500mm (almost 20 inches) in South Chungcheong province’s Seosan, located to the south of the capital, Seoul, the ministry added.

According to Yonhap, areas of the country have received 40 percent of their annual average rainfall in just the past four days.

Among those reported dead was a person who suffered a cardiac arrest inside a flooded vehicle on a road in Seosan. The man was taken to a nearby hospital but died later, officials were quoted by Yonhap as saying.

A man in his 80s was found dead in the flooded basement of his home, while a third person died when a retaining wall collapsed onto a moving vehicle. Another person was also found dead in a stream, officials said. Two people remain missing in the southwest city of Gwangju.

In the province of Chungcheong, cows were desperately trying to keep their heads above water after sheds and stables were flooded by the rainwater.

Yonhap also reported a total of 729 cases of damage to public infrastructure, including flooded roads and the collapse of river facilities. Cases of private property damage have reached more than 1,000, including 64 flooded buildings and 59 submerged farmlands, it added.

Rains were also expected in neighbouring North Korea.

In July 2024, torrential rains also hammered parts of South Korea’s southern regions, killing at least four people and causing travel chaos.

Eyewitness video shows climbers on Malaysia’s Mount Kinabalu descending its peak, wading through surging water and holding onto rope lines after torrential rains. Officials confirmed all the hikers made it down safely.

Heavy rains in New South Wales have caused record-breaking floods, killing two people and isolating tens of thousands of residents. Authorities warn of more rain and life-threatening flash floods as emergency teams continue rescue efforts.