Day: November 16, 2021

The port of Vancouver, Canada’s largest, said on Tuesday that all rail access had been cut by floods and landslides farther east that killed at least one person and left two others missing.

Two days of torrential rain across the Pacific province of British Columbia touched off major flooding and shut rail routes operated by Canadian Pacific Rail and Canadian National Railway, Canada’s two biggest rail companies.

“All rail service coming to and from the Port of Vancouver is halted because of flooding in the British Columbia interior,” port spokesperson Matti Polychronis said.

At least one person was killed when a mudslide swept cars off Highway 99 near Pemberton, some 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the northeast of Vancouver.

Search and rescue crews were combing through the rubble for signs of survivors or additional casualties, officials said.

Vancouver’s port moves C$550 million ($440 million) worth of cargo each day, ranging from automobiles and finished goods to essential commodities.

The floods temporarily shut down much of the movement of wheat and canola from Canada, one of the world’s biggest grain exporters, during a busy time for trains to haul grain to the port following the harvest.

This year drought has sharply reduced the size of Canada’s crops, meaning a rail disruption of a few days may not create a significant backlog, a grain industry source told Reuters.

Del Dosdall, senior export manager at grain handler Parrish & Heimbecker, said he expected some rail service could be restored by the weekend. Another industry source said he expected the shutdown to last weeks.

Floods have also hampered pipelines. Enbridge shut a segment of a British Columbia natural gas pipeline as a precaution.

The storms also forced the closure of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which carries up to 300,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Alberta to the Pacific Coast.

Copper and coal miner Teck Resources Limited said the floods had disrupted movement of its commodities to its export terminals, while potash exporter Canpotex said it was looking for alternatives to move the crop nutrient overseas.

Directly to the south of British Columbia, in Washington state, heavy rains forced evacuations and cut off electricity for more than 150,000 households on Monday. The U.S. National Weather Service on Tuesday issued a flash flood warning in Mount Vernon, Washington, “due to the potential for a levee failure.”

Some areas of British Columbia received 20 centimeters (8 inches) of rain on Sunday, the amount that usually falls in a month.

Authorities in Merritt, some 200 km (120 miles) northeast of Vancouver, ordered all 8,000 citizens to leave on Monday as river waters rose quickly, but some were still trapped in their homes on Tuesday, said city spokesman Greg Lowis.

Snow blanketed the town on Tuesday and some cars could be seen floating in the flood waters still up to 1.22 meters (4 feet) high. The towns of Chilliwack and Abbotsford ordered partial evacuations.

Rescuers equipped with diggers and body-sniffing dogs started dismantling large mounds of debris that have choked highways.

The landslides and floods come less than six months after wildfires gutted an entire town, as temperatures in the province soared during a record-breaking heat dome.

Source: Voice of America

Luanda – The health authorities on Tuesday reported the recovery of 218 patients, 13 new cases and 2 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Among those recovered, 128 reside in Benguela, 78 in Cabinda, 7 in Malanje, 4 in Huila and 1 in Uige.

Of the new cases, of which 10 are men and 3 women, aged between 7 and 62, 7 were diagnosed in Luanda, 3 in Malanje, 2 in Cabinda and 1 in Benguela.

In the last 24 hours, 1,813 samples were processed by RT-PCR, with a positivity rate of 5.6 percent.

The deaths were registered in the province of Luanda.

The country has a cumulative number of 64,940 confirmed cases, of which 646 are active, 1,729 have died and 62,565 have been recovered. Of the active cases, 4 are in critical state, 5 serious, 14 moderate, 16 light and 607 asymptomatic.

In treatment centres, 39 patients are hospitalised, while in institutional quarantine are 83 people and 93 contacts of positive cases are under epidemiological surveillance.

Source: Angola Press News Agency

Abubakar Yabagi from Niger State believes negligence made him develop type two diabetes and poor health.

The 65-year-old civil servant and father of four further narrated that “I got diagnosed for Type two diabetes seven years ago when I was 57 years. It all started with frequent headache and I thought it was prevalent Malaria which I kept treating with no little or no improvement. After several months, my sight started deteriorating and that was when I decided to go and see a doctor”.

“I ended up in the hospital with high blood sugar, severe dehydration, fatigue and exhaustion. The doctors were alarmed at my high blood sugar level such that I was admitted immediately. Upon admission, I was referred to the emergency room and that was how I spent two weeks under intensive care. I was given all necessary care ranging from insulin to several medications needed to stabilize me.”

I can say my diabetes was based on negligence as I paid more attention to my job than to my health. I now know that my health comes first and we must take proper leave when due to be able to keep up with my health.

After being discharged from the hospital, Abubakar says he was placed on medication twice daily and was put under monthly observation and after a year of so much improvement his monthly hospital visits reduced to three months till date.

“My wife and children have been very supportive ever since the diagnosis, the food I eat has been changed to low sugar with a lot of vegetables. My children have been supportive with the insurance co-pay for medication. My medication hasn’t been a hassle as I am enrolled on the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) so I get to pay a little out of pocket. The journey hasn’t been easy; some days are great, others—not so great but I thank God and my family that are going through this journey with me”.

“My diabetes journey continues with a renewed focus on prioritizing my health through exercise and instituting healthy eating habits. I am calling on people to please pay attention to their health, visit the hospital whenever they feel something unusual or persistent and make sure they eat healthy food. Many diseases can be prevented with lifestyle modification as it is always better to prevent diseases than manage it. The government also needs to do better on insurance, a lot of people are not able to afford and access diabetic care because of lack of coverage” says Abubakar.

Diabetes is a chronic, metabolic disease characterized by elevated levels of blood glucose (or blood sugar), which leads over time to serious damage to the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves. The most common is type two diabetes, usually in adults, which occurs when the body becomes resistant to insulin or doesn’t make enough insulin. In the past three decades the prevalence of type two diabetes has risen dramatically in countries of all income levels.

Source: World Health Organization. Africa