- Rescue teams began clawing through the wreckage of thousands
of homes yesterday in the hope of finding survivors after hurricane Charley
left a 320km trail of devastation across Florida.
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- At least 16 people are dead but officials said hundreds
of people were still missing. Tens of thousands are homeless.
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- At the Lazy Lagoon Mobile Park in Punta Gorda - the epicentre
of the destruction - bodies littered the streets.
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- Twenty-five officers were searching for missing people,
and a dog trained to find hidden corpses was brought in. Many mobile homes
were reduced to piles of matchwood and twisted aluminium.
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- Rubble was strewn across the bayside city. Cars parked
in what had been a garage were piled atop one another, the floors that
once separated them destroyed.
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- "This town got pulverised," resident Jerry
Luyk said.
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- Director of emergency services Wayne Sallade said trying
to establish how many people had died was difficult.
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- "We're going around knocking on doors - when we
can find a door. If there's no reply, we're smashing it down to see if
anyone is inside," he said.
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- A vast swath of southwest and central Florida is a disaster
area.
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- Near Orlando, a four-year-old girl was crushed when a
50-tonne truck was blown across a freeway and landed on her family's car.
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- Near Daytona Beach, on the east coast, a woman was electrocuted
by a broken power cable.
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- Governor Jeb Bush, who toured the area by helicopter,
said: "Our worst fears have come true. There was major devastation."
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- More than 1.3 million people endured a second day without
power, and many areas had no water.
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- The Federal Emergency Management Agency said 80 per cent
of the buildings in Charlotte County - including all three hospitals -
had been damaged.
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- Two thousand National Guard troops and 800 police officers
patrolled or guarded the area as dozens of shelters served 12,000 suddenly
homeless people.
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- In the eroded sands of Captiva Island, someone had etched
the words "Send Beer", large enough to be seen from the air.
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- President Bush has declared Florida a disaster area,
clearing the way for federal aid.
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- An elderly woman was killed when a tornado hit a New
Zealand farmhouse early yesterday.
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- The dead woman's seriously injured daughter and two grandchildren
were found in a field 50m from their shattered home near NewPlymouth, on
the North Island.
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- http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp
- ?sectionid=1268&storyid=1780686
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