The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)

Hundreds queue for supplies after Florence deluge

Asia: Korean leaders meet in Pyongyang for third summit United States: Storm’ s death toll continues to rise Russian’ s poison claim ‘plausible’

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Residents in Wilmington lined up by the hundreds for free food and water as officials struggled to open new routes to one of North Carolina’s largest cities following Storm Florence.

The death toll from the storm rose to at least 32 in three states, with 25 fatalities in North Carolina, as remnants of the once-powerful Category 4 hurricane – now reduced to a rainy, windy mass of low pressure – dumped rain on the heavily populated north-east region.

In Wilmington, population 120,000, workers began handing out supplies using a system that resembled a fast-food restaurant drive-through: Drivers pulled up to pallets lining a street, placed an order and left without having to get out.

Todd Tremain needed tarpaulins to cover up spots where Florence’s winds ripped shingles off his roof.

“The roof is leaking, messing up the inside of the house,” he said.

Others got a case of bottled water or military MREs – or field rations.

An olive-green military forklift moved around huge pallets loaded with supplies.

Four days after Florence blew ashore and began unloading more than two feet of rain that paralysed much of North Carolina, Wilmington was still virtually cut off from the rest of the state, with just one road tentativel­y open as a supply route.

Officials said they will open roads as flooding recedes and downed trees and power lines are cleared away.

It is not clear when that might happen.

Items have been brought into the city by big military trucks and helicopter­s, which also have been used to pluck hundreds of desperate people from on top of homes and other structures.

The dead include a oneyear-old boy who was swept away after his mother drove into floodwater­s and lost her grip on him.

Authoritie­s in Virginia said one person was dead after an apparent tornado. German doctors treating Pyotr Verzilov, a member of Russian protest group Pussy Riot, say claims that he was poisoned are “highly plausible” based on his symptoms.

Dr Kai-Uwe Eckardt of Berlin’s Charite hospital told reporters that Mr Verzilov has been receiving intensive care since arriving in Berlin from Moscow on Saturday, but his condition is not life-threatenin­g.

 ??  ?? A supply helicopter in Wilmington, North Carolina
A supply helicopter in Wilmington, North Carolina
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