dnesday, ()ctober 18,2U Wednesday, October i 8, 2000
nahan
Dvernor died
plane crash on his
npaign rally.
Democrat, was
le Senate seat held
tn John Ashcroft in
ost bitterly
ces this year.
Eugene Carnahan
"ree, Mo
Jachelor’s degree
dministration from
tington University;
om the University
olumbia
I: Agent in the U S.
ce of Special
; during the Korean
tl judge, 1960; state
!, 1962-66; majority
Missouri House,
e treasurer, 1980-
: governor, 1988-
overnor, 1992-2000
rried; four children;
dren
WORLD
THE BATTALION
Page 5B
Italy evacuates thousands
as rivers flood area towns
PIACENZA, Italy (AP) — Italy
hurried more than 15,000 people
from the path of two raging rivers
Tuesday as flood waters that wreaked
death in Alpine towns bore down on
the medieval villages and cities of the
northern Italian plains.
The death toll in Italy and
Switzerland rose to 25, with the mud-
caked bodies of a 1-year-old Italian
boy and a woman believed to be his
mother among the latest uncovered.
A total of 21 people in the two coun
tries were missing and feared dead.
On Tuesday, emergency crews
evacuated whole villages in the
paths of the Po, Italy’s longest river,
and the Ticino, which feeds into it
from the Alps.
“Even those who were reluctant
to leave their homes, like the elder
ly, eventually were convinced,” said
the Rev. Pier Luigi Rossi, one of a
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few people still in the riverside vil
lage of San Rocco al Porto on Tues
day afternoon.
Water was climbing within inch
es of the sandbags newly lining the
Po, a few steps from Rossi’s church.
He too was leaving soon.
The Po already had burst its banks
at some points. By Tuesday night, the
flood crest was passing the old trade
town of Piacenza, home to columned
Romanesque churches and a Botti
celli painting.
The Po divides the rich agricul
tural regions of Lombardy and Emil
ia Romagna, emptying into the la
goons of Venice. Tuesday, it hit its
highest level in at least a half-centu
ry; its height at Piacenza was the
highest ever recorded there.
While there has been some
flooding of churches, where much
of Italy’s cultural patrimony is
cached, the water generally has not
yet threatened works of art, said
Vincenzo Pandolfino of the Culture
Ministry's art protection squad.
Damage to Italy's countless master
pieces was not expected to near that
suffered by Florence in a ruinous
1966 flood.
In both countries, however, au
thorities said overall damage would be
in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Flooding forced Fiat, the auto gi
ant, to shut down two of its biggest
plants in its hometown of Turin.
Blocked roads and railways and in
undated factories made it impossible
for suppliers to deliver parts,
spokesman Franco Sodano said.
Officials were thinking of open
ing upstream dikes to ease the threat
to communities downstream, said
Public Works Minister Nerio Nesi.
“We are in a state of anxiety, of
high emergency,” Nesi told reporters,
adding, “The situation now could be
come very dangerous.”
Along the Ticino, water lapped at
the third floors of evacuated palazzos
in the Roman-era Lombard town of
Pavia. Firefighters ferrhed food and
clean water to the few holdouts who
refused to leave.
The floods and landslides started
Saturday in southern Switzerland and
northern Italy after days of pounding
rain. Flood water roaring out of the
Alps brought Lake Maggiore on the
Swiss-Italian border to its highest
level in 160 years.
Most of the deaths came over the
weekend when mud, rock and water
rushed through villages and towns,
sweeping away even massive stone
houses.
In the Swiss village of Gondo,
perched in the Alps above the Italian
border, rescuers digging through
mud and rock found only bodies
Tuesday.
Hopes faded for the 10 people still
missing in Switzerland. Jean-Rene
Fournier, president of the Valais can
ton (state) government, said it now
appeared that a body recovered Mon
day in Gondo was that of a woman
whom rescuers had heard faintly tap
ping just hours before.
With roads to Switzerland’s
famed ski resort of Zermatt blocked,
authorities used helicopters to fly out
stranded tourists. Seven-hundred had
left by late Tuesday; 1,000 more were
on a waiting list.
THE VICTORIA ADVOCATE
Presents
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WITH SPECIAL GUEST
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OCTOBER 28, 2000
8:30 P.M.
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Doors Open at 7:30 p.m.
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■§: ILLINOIS
Philippine president maintains
innocence of corruption claims
0 AO m\\es
o 10 kr
0 100 miles
0 100 km
ILLINOIS
|ht path -rA
New Madrid
I. Gastello, F. Duckett/*'
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — President Joseph
\ Estrada faced the most serious threat to his presidency
Tuesday as one-time allies — business, political and re-
; ligious — delivered a unified message: step aside.
Estrada again maintained he was innocent of corrup-
; tion, denying he received “even a centavo” of the $H .4
I million in illegal gambling money and tobacco taxes he
| is accused of pocketing.
“I have been convicted without a trial,” the president
! complained.
But the accusations already have had a devastating ef
fect on the Philippines’ faltering economy. And impeach
ment proceedings could jeopardize
democracy in the Philippines, former
President Corazon Aquino said.
The peso plunged to a record low
and the stock market dropped to its
lowest point in two years Monday.
The central bank has had to sharply
raise interest rates, threatening growth
in an economy that is already one of
the slowest in Southeast Asia, four
leading business groups said.
The “crisis of leadership” has seriously under
mined investor confidence, the business groups said
Tuesday, urging Estrada to step down to avert eco
nomic disaster.
The corruption allegations surfaced when provincial
Gov. Luis Singson, once a close friend of Estrada’s, tes
tified last week that he arranged payoffs of $8.6 million
from illegal gambling and another $2.8 million from to
bacco taxes.
Singson said he decided to step forward about the
payoffs after Estrada awarded the franchise for a legal
ized form of the numbers game jueteng to Singson’s po
litical rival.
For the sake of democracy, Estrada should step aside
until the allegations are resolved, political and religious
leaders said.
Aquino wore yellow -— symbol of the “people pow
er” revolt she led against ousted dictator Ferdinand Mar
cos in 1986 — to call on Estrada to resign or take a leave
of absence.
“No government can continue with
such charges hanging over its head,”
she said.
Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin
joined her at a shrine commemorating
the 1986 revolt to repeat his advice to
Estrada to step aside.
“May God show him the heroic
value of relinquishing his post for the •
sake of our people,” he said Tuesday.
Opposition lawmakers and citizen’s groups said they
planned to file a formal impeachment proceedings
against the president Wednesday in the House of Rep
resentatives.
Estrada — whose party holds large majorities in both
houses of Congress — welcomed the action, saying im
peachment proceedings would vindicate him.
“J have been
convicted out of
trial”
— Joseph Estrada
Philippine president
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