massive tsunami hurled by a powerful earthquake flattened Samoan villages

APIA, Samoa – A massive tsunami hurled by a powerful earthquake flattened Samoan villages and swept cars and people out to sea, killing at least 99 and leaving dozens missing Wednesday. The toll was expected to rise.
The same day, western Indonesia was rocked by a strong underwater temblor, briefly triggering a tsunami alert for countries along the Indian Ocean and sending panicked residents out of their houses. The alert was later canceled.
Survivors of the South Pacific islands tsunami fled the fast-churning water for higher ground and remained huddled there hours after the quake, with a magnitude between 8.0 and 8.3, struck around dawn Tuesday.
The quake was centered about 125 miles (200 kilometers) from Samoa, an island nation of 180,000 people located about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii. It was about 120 miles (190 kilometers) from neighboring American Samoa, a U.S. territory that is home to 65,000 people.
Four tsunami waves 15 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters) high roared ashore on American Samoa, reaching up to a mile (1.5 kilometers) inland, Mike Reynolds, superintendent of the National Park of American Samoa, was quoted as saying by a parks service spokeswoman.
Hampered by power and communications outages, officials struggled to determine damage and casualties.
Samoan police commissioner Lilo Maiava told The Associated Press that police there had confirmed 63 deaths but that officials were still searching the devastated areas, so the number of deaths might rise soon.
Hundreds of injured people were being treated by health workers, and people were still cramming into centers seeking treatment, Maiava said.
At least 30 people were killed on American Samoa, Gov. Togiola Tulafono said, adding that the toll was expected to rise as emergency crews were recovering bodies overnight.
"I don't think anybody is going to be spared in this disaster," said Tulafono, who was in Hawaii for a conference.
In Washington, President Obama has declared a major disaster for American Samoa.
Obama said the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in contact with emergency responders, and the U.S. Coast Guard is helping deliver resources to areas in need of assistance.
The disaster declaration allows the United States to provide the support necessary for a "full, swift and aggressive response," the president said.
In a statement issued early Wednesday, Obama said he and his wife, Michelle, "will keep those who have lost so much in our thoughts and prayers."
Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi looked shaken Wednesday on board a flight from Auckland, New Zealand, to the Samoan capital of Apia.
"So much has gone. So many people are gone," he told reporters on board. "I'm so shocked, so saddened by all the loss."
Malielegaoi said his own village of Lepa was destroyed.
"Thankfully, the alarm sounded on the radio and gave people time to climb to higher ground," he said. "But not everyone escaped."
Gov. Tulafono told reporters in Hawaii that a member of his extended family was among the dead in American Samoa.
Because the closeness of the community, "each and every family is going to be affected by someone who's lost their life," he said as he boarded a Coast Guard C-130 plane in Hawaii to return home. The plane, which also carried FEMA officials and aid, was scheduled to arrive at about 7 a.m. local time. (2 p.m. EDT; 1800 GMT)
Authorities in Tonga confirmed at least six additional people dead in the island nation west of the Samoas, New Zealand's acting Prime Minister Bill English said. He said Tongan officials told him that four people were missing after the tsunami swept ashore on the northern island of Niua.
"There are a considerable number of people who've been swept out to sea and are unaccounted for," English said. "We don't have information about the full impact and we do have some real concern that over the next 12 hours the picture could look worse rather than better."
Britain's Press Association news agency, citing unidentified sources, said that a 2-year-old British child was killed in Samoa. It was unclear whether that reported death was included in the overall toll. The Foreign Office said Wednesday that one British national was missing and presumed dead in the disaster.
A New Zealand P3 Orion maritime surveillance airplane had reached the region Wednesday afternoon and had searched for survivors off the coast, he said. It was expected to resume searching at first light.
The Samoa Red Cross said it had opened five temporary shelters and estimated that about 15,000 people were affected by the tsunami.
New Zealander Graeme Ansell said the Samoan beach village of Sau Sau Beach Fale was leveled.
"It was very quick. The whole village has been wiped out," Ansell told New Zealand's National Radio from a hill near Samoa's capital, Apia. "There's not a building standing. We've all clambered up hills, and one of our party has a broken leg. There will be people in a great lot of need 'round here."
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told Seven Network in Australia that two Australians had died in the tsunami, including a 6-year-old girl.
Mase Akapo, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in American Samoa, reported at least 19 people killed in four different villages on the main island of Tutuila. Officials reported at least 50 injured.
Residents in both Samoa and American Samoa reported being shaken awake by the quake early Tuesday, which lasted two to three minutes and was centered about 20 miles (32 kilometers) below the ocean floor. It was followed by at least three large aftershocks of at least 5.6 magnitude.
The quake came Tuesday morning for the Samoas, which lie just east of the international dateline. For Asia-Pacific countries on the other side of the line, it was already Wednesday.
The Samoan capital, Apia, was virtually deserted by afternoon, with schools and businesses closed. Hours after the waves struck, fresh sirens rang out with another tsunami alert and panicked residents headed for higher ground again, although there was no indication of a new quake.
In American Samoa's capital of Pago Pago, the streets and fields were filled with ocean debris, mud, overturned cars and several boats as a massive cleanup effort continued into the night. Several buildings in the city — just a few feet above sea level — were flattened by either the quake or the tsunami.
Several areas were expected to be without electricity for up to a month.
The dominant industry in American Samoa — tuna canneries — was also affected. Chicken of the Sea's tuna packing plant in American Samoa was forced to close although the facility wasn't damaged, the San Diego-based company said.
The effects of the tsunami could be felt thousands of miles away.
Japan's Meteorological Agency said "very weak" tsunami waves were registered off the island of Hachijojima about 10 hours after the quake. There were no reports of injuries or damage in Japan, which is about 4,700 miles (7,600 kilometers) northwest of Samoa.
U.S. officials said strong currents and dangerous waves were forecast from California to Washington state. No major flooding was expected, however.
In Los Angeles, lifeguards said they would clear beaches at about 8 p.m. in response to an advisory for possible dangerous currents.
While the earthquake and tsunami were big, they were not on the same scale of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, said Brian Atwater of the U.S. Geological Survey in Seattle. That tsunami killed more than 230,000 in a dozen countries across Asia.
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Sagapolutele reported from Pago Pago, American Samoa. Associated Press writers Ray Lilley in Wellington, New Zealand; Jaymes Song and Herbert A. Sample in Honolulu and Seth Borenstein and Michele Salcedo in Washington contributed to this report.

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US soldiers were killed in the southern Philippines

MANILA (AFP) - – Two US soldiers were killed in the southern Philippines Tuesday in the deadliest attack against American troops there since they began helping local forces stamp out Muslim extremists in 2001, officials said.
The blast that killed the two soldiers also claimed the life of a local Marine and left two other Filipino Marines seriously wounded, Philippine military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner said in Manila.
The explosion struck the troops as they were riding a Humvee vehicle on the outskirts of a town on Jolo island, where the Muslim militant Abu Sayyaf group is active, according to Brawner.
Suspected Abu Sayyaf members set off an improvised bomb near a police station at another Jolo village about 20 kilometres (12 miles) away shortly before the explosion, local police said.
No one was injured in that incident.
Brawner did not directly blame the Abu Sayyaf, saying an investigation was still under way.
He also insisted the US soldiers were doing development work, and were not fighting the Abu Sayyaf.
"These US servicemen... were non-combatants. They were there to supervise the developmental projects in the area when they were attacked," he told reporters.
"There was no firefight."
The US military said it believed the Americans were killed by an improvised explosive, and not a landmine, as the Philippine military had first said, which would mean they were targeted for attack, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters in Washington.
"We feel the best way to describe this is as an improvised explosive device," said Whitman.
It was the first time the 600-strong US contingent in the Philippines had been targeted by an improvised explosive, he said, a frequent tactic used by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A US embassy statement said the soldiers were on a supply run for a school construction project when the explosion took place.
"They lost their lives serving others and we will always be grateful for their contributions to improve the quality of life on Jolo," US ambassador Kristie Kenney said in the statement.
The Philippine foreign affairs department hailed the US soldiers, saying their activities on Jolo "assisting" the Philippine military were "important to the Filipino people".
The Abu Sayyaf was established in the early 1990s, allegedly with seed money from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, to fight for a Muslim state in the south of this mainly Roman Catholic nation.
It has kidnapped dozens of foreign aid workers, missionaries and tourists and was blamed for the country's worst terrorist strike, the bombing of a ferry in 2004 that killed more than 100 people.
US soldiers first arrived in the southern Philippines in December 2001 as part of then US president George W. Bush's "war on terror".
However under an agreement between the two nations, the US forces were allowed only to advise and train the Philippine soldiers and were banned from engaging in combat operations.
A few hundred US soldiers are believed to be in the southern Philippines at any one time, and attacks against them have been rare compared with in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However one US soldier was killed and another seriously wounded when a bomb, believed to have been planted by the Abu Sayyaf, went off in a bar in the southern port city of Zamboanga in October 2002.
And just two weeks ago, a small bomb was hurled at a wharf in Jolo where US troops were unloading supplies. No one was injured in the incident.
The Abu Sayyaf is believed to have only a few hundred active militants and many of its key leaders have been killed in recent years.
But, with strong family ties in the southern Philippines, it remains a strong opponent for security forces.
Earlier this month, Philippine soldiers overran an Abu Sayyaf camp on Jolo, resulting in the deaths of 24 guerrillas and eight Filipino soldiers.
On the nearby island of Basilan last month, Abu Sayyaf militants killed 23 Philippine soldiers and lost 20 of their own when security forces raided one of their camps.

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822 people rescued in Metro Manila

MANILA, Philipppines - A total of 822 people were rescued by authorities from their flooded homes in many parts of Metro Manila, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said today (Sept. 27).
Some residents of Pasig, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela, and Marikina were taken by rescue teams from their houses which were submerged in flooded water, the NDCC said.
NDCC chairman and Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro called on mall and shopping complex owners in Metro Manila to open their parking spaces to thounsands of people stranded in the streets due to the overnight downpour.
Metro Manila was hit hard by massive flooding due to typhoon "Ondoy" (international name Ketsana).
Yesterday, the NDCC declared the National Capital Region and some regions in Luzon and Bicol in a state of calamity.
President Arroyo leads the 2 p.m. NDCC meeting today for an update on the damage as well as rescue operations after an aerial survey of several affected areas.
  - By Dennis Carcamo (Philstar News Service, www.philstar.com)
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massive flooding that has displaced nearly half a million people in philippines

MANILA (AFP) - – The Philippine government said Monday it could not cope with massive flooding that has displaced nearly half a million people, amid fears the death toll could soar well past the official tally of 86.
Reaching people still stranded after Saturday's disaster in the national capital of Manila and surrounding areas, possible disease outbreaks, looting and providing survivors with aid were all big concerns, authorities said.
"We are concentrating on massive relief operations. (But) the system is overwhelmed, local government units are overwhelmed," the head of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, Anthony Golez, told reporters.
"We were used to helping one city, one or two provinces but now, they are following one after another. Our assets and people are spread too thinly."
Saturday's disaster saw tropical storm Ketsana drop the heaviest rain in more than 40 years on Manila and neighbouring areas of Luzon island.
The nine-hour deluge left some areas of Metro Manila, a sprawling city of 12 million people, under six metres (20 feet) of water, with poor drainage systems and other failed infrastructure exacerbating the problem.
Eighty percent of the city was submerged and some areas remained more than knee-deep in water on Monday. Local television reported that some people remained stranded on the second floors of their homes.
Adding to the chaos, telephone and power services in some parts of the city remained cut, while local government officials said survivors in makeshift evacuation camps were desperately short of food, water and clothes.
Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said the official death toll stood at 86, with another 32 people missing. He said more than 435,000 people had been displaced.
However, radio station DZBB quoted local officials as saying that 58 more bodies had been recovered from a flooded area in the Manila suburb of Marikina, and that they had not yet been included in the official tally.
Teodoro, who is heading the government's rescue operation, said the government was looking into that report.
The chief of a riverside village in Quezon city, part of Metro Manila, also told AFP that 29 bodies had been recovered and 108 people remained missing from his community.
Armando Endaya, captain of Bagong Silangan village, said those deaths had not been reported to national government officials.
Endaya was overseeing a makeshift evacuation camp set up at a gymnasium, where more than 3,000 people were sheltering on the concrete floor alongside 11 white coffins containing the bodies of their neighbours.
"We are overwhelmed. We are waiting for more aid to arrive. We are trying to mobilise our own relief operations here. But we need more help," Endaya told AFP from the gymnasium, which had a roof but no walls.
The home of Edgar Halog, 44, a jeepney driver, was destroyed in the floods and he was sheltering at the centre with his wife and seven children aged between three and 12.
"We do not have any money, we do not know what to do. We don't have any other relatives. We are waiting for food rations," Halog told AFP.
With sanitation services across the city in disarray, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said authorities were working to prevent disease outbreaks.
"Our surveillance is continuing in evacuation centres for possible outbreaks and epidemics," he said.
Our health teams are bringing in water and (products for) sanitation and hygiene at evacuation centres to make sure that disease does not spread."
Looting was also a concern.
Many people were refusing to leave their flooded homes because they wanted to protect their belongings from looters, Teodoro and other officials said.
Initial frantic rescue efforts saw military helicopters and rubber boats fan out across the city to pluck people off houses and car roofs.
The government said more than 7,900 people had been rescued.

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Five American troops were killed in southern Afghanistan

KABUL – Five American troops were killed within 24 hours in southern Afghanistan, where Taliban militants have conducted an unrelenting campaign of bombings and attacks against U.S. and NATO forces.
This has been the deadliest year of the war for international forces and the Obama administration is debating whether to add still more troops to the 21,000-strong influx that began pouring into the country over the summer.
The five deaths announced Friday occurred in three separate attacks the day before in the south, where U.S. and NATO commanders have ramped up their operations to try to reverse Taliban gains.
The commander of U.S. and NATO forces, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, told "60 Minutes" the strength of the militant group took him by surprise when he arrived this summer.
"I think that in some areas that the breadth of the violence, the geographic spread of violence, is a little more than I would have gathered," he said in the interview, to be broadcast on Sunday.
Four soldiers died in the same small district of southeastern Zabul province, three of them killed when their Stryker vehicle hit a bomb, and the fourth shot to death in an insurgent attack, said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Robert Carr. The Stryker brigade arrived in Zabul as part of the summertime surge to try to secure the region ahead of Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Marine was fatally shot while on foot patrol in southwestern Nimroz province, said Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a military spokeswoman.
The U.S. is on track to have 68,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of 2009, but the Pentagon said McChrystal would ask this week for as many as 40,000 new forces. Some question the wisdom of sending more troops to support a government facing allegations of widespread fraud in last month's disputed vote.
About half of all Americans oppose increasing troop levels in Afghanistan, according to a poll released Friday. The New York Times/CBS News poll found that only 29 percent of respondents believed the U.S. should add troops in Afghanistan. The survey, conducted Sept. 19-23, had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
In a report to the White House, McChrystal argued that military commanders need to be less preoccupied with protecting their troops and send them out into Afghan communities more. He acknowledged this "could expose military personnel and civilians to greater risk in the near term," but said the payoff in terms of forging ties with the Afghan people would be worth it.
"Accepting some risk in the short term will ultimately save lives in the long run," he wrote.
The light-armored Stryker vehicles were sent to Afghanistan as part of a plan to take over a large swathe of the south. The idea behind the vehicles is that they can deploy quickly over large distances, exercising control over a much larger area than can be held by foot soldiers. However, they are more vulnerable to roadside bombs than more heavily armored vehicles.
Bombs planted in roads, fields and near bases now account for the majority of U.S. and NATO casualties and have proven especially dangerous in the south. With the five deaths, a total of 34 U.S. forces have died in Afghanistan in September. August, which was the deadliest month of the war for American troops, saw 51 deaths.

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AIDS vaccine has for the first time cut the risk of infection

BANGKOK (AFP) - – An experimental AIDS vaccine has for the first time cut the risk of infection in humans in what scientists Thursday called a "breakthrough" in the quarter-century fight against the epidemic.
The vaccine reduced the chance of being infected by a third, researchers announced after the world's largest trial of 16,000 volunteers, carried out by the US Army and Thailand's Ministry of Public Health.
The surprising result comes after years of fruitless attempts by the medical world to find an HIV vaccine, including one trial jab that apparently boosted infection rates.
"It is the first demonstration that a vaccine against HIV can protect against infection," Colonel Jerome Kim of the US military HIV research programme told a news conference in Bangkok via videolink.
"This is a very important scientific advance and gives us hope that a globally effective vaccine may be possible in the future," he said.
Thai Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai said the "outcome of this study is a scientific breakthrough."
The vaccine was a combination of two older drugs that had not reduced infection on their own and the researchers said they were now studying why the two apparently worked together.
The study combined the canarypox vaccine ALVAC, manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis of France, and AIDSVAX, originally made by VaxGen Inc and now licensed to the non-profit Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases.
Researchers said the latest vaccine showed a 31.2 percent efficacy in reducing the risk of HIV infection.
"The outcome represents a breakthrough in HIV vaccine development because for the first time ever there is evidence that HIV vaccine has preventative efficacy," said the research team in a statement.
The vaccine was tested on volunteers -- all HIV negative men and women aged from 18 to 30 -- at average risk of infection in two Thai provinces near Bangkok starting in October 2003.
Half received the vaccine and the rest were given a placebo. Out of the placebo recipients 74 of 8,198 became infected compared with 51 of 8,197 who got the vaccine.
The World Health Organization and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS congratulated the researchers for the "encouraging" results.
"The study results, representing a significant scientific advance, are the first demonstration that a vaccine can prevent HIV infection in a general adult population and are of great importance," they said in a statement. Experts' reactions
The UN said it may not be possible to get licensing permission for the drug at the moment based on the results, and that further studies were needed to determine if the vaccine has the same effect in other parts of the world.
AIDS first came to public notice in 1981 and has since killed at least 25 million people worldwide, and 33 million others are living with AIDS or the HIV virus.
Swift progress in identifying the virus that caused AIDS unleashed early optimism that a vaccine would quickly emerge. HIV destroys immune cells and exposes the body to opportunistic disease.
But out of the 50 candidates that have been evaluated among humans, only two vaccines have made it through all three phases of trials, and both were flops. About 30 vaccines remain in the pipeline.
Scientists were in 2007 forced to abandon two advanced clinical trials of a vaccine by pharmaceutical company Merck after it appeared to actually heighten the risk of AIDS infection.
Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi-Aventis, said the results of the latest test, although "modest", were the first concrete demonstration that a vaccine "could one day become a reality."
The Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, an alliance of researchers, policymakers, donors and advocates that includes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said it was a "historic day in the 26-year quest to develop an AIDS vaccine."
The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), an organisation that promotes the search for a vaccine, said the trial results were "very exciting and a significant scientific achievement."
The head of the US agency tasked with controlling the spread of infectious disease said it was an important breakthrough.
"These new findings represent an important step forward in HIV vaccine research," said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the US National Institutes of Health, which provided major funding and logistical support for the study.
But a top AIDS scientist, France's Jean-Francois Delfraissy, warned that the results were "good news but the effect remains modest".
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Sultan Kosen the world's tallest man

LONDON – A towering Turk was officially crowned the world's tallest man Thursday after his Ukrainian rival dropped out of the running by refusing to be measured.
Guinness World Records said that 8 foot 1 inch (2.47 meter) Sultan Kosen, from the town of Mardin in eastern Turkey, is now officially the tallest man walking the planet. Although the previous record holder, Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk, reportedly measured 8 feet 5.5 inches (2.57 meters), Guinness said he was stripped of his title when he declined to let anyone confirm his height.
Stadnyk, 39, told The Associated Press he refused to be independently measured because he was tired of being in the public eye.
"If this title had given me more health or a few extra years, I would have taken it, but the opposite happened, I only wasted my nerve cells," he said.
"If I have to choose between prosperity and calm, I choose calm."
Kosen, 27, told reporters in London that he was looking forward to parlaying his newfound status into a chance at love.
"Up until now it's been really difficult to find a girlfriend," Kosen said through an interpreter. "I've never had one, they were usually scared of me. ... Hopefully now that I'm famous I'll be able to meet lots of girls. I'd like to get married."
Kosen is one of only 10 confirmed or reliably reported cases in which humans have grown past the eight foot (2.44 meter) mark, according to Guinness.
The record-keeping group said he grew into his outsize stature because tumor-related damage to his pituitary triggered the overproduction of growth hormones. The condition, known as "pituitary gigantism," also explains Kosen's enormous hands and feet, which measure 10.8 inches (27.5 centimeters) and 14.4 inches (36.5 centimeters) respectively.
The tumor was removed last year, so Kosen isn't expected to grow any further.
The part-time farmer, who uses crutches to stand, said there were disadvantages to being so tall.
"I can't fit into a normal car," he said. "I can't go shopping like normal people, I have to have things made specially and sometimes they aren't always as fashionable. The other thing is that ceilings are low and I have to bend down through doorways."
But he noted some advantages too, including the ability to see people coming from far away.
"The other thing is at home they use my height to change the light bulbs and hang the curtains, things like that."
Kosen's trip to the U.K. — his first outside Turkey — was organized by Guinness to publicize the release of its 2010 Guinness World Records book, this year's repertoire of weird and wonderful records.
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Power outage crippled operations at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA)

MANILA, Philippines - A power outage at the airport control tower crippled operations at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), forcing the delay and diversion of all international and domestic flights yesterday.
Airport officials said the power supply of their radar at the control tower broke down at 2 p.m., forcing the diversion of several incoming international flights to other airports.
“The tower cannot communicate with the radar and they cannot guide the airlines to land and depart… so it is a safety issue,” airport general manager Alfonso Cusi explained.
Cusi said some international flights were diverted to Hong Kong while other incoming flights were ordered to land in other airports.
The loss of communication links with air traffic controllers forced some 20 local and international flights already airborne to turn back to NAIA while other flights preparing for take off were ordered grounded.
In the advisory released by airport officials, among the flights ordered to “return to base” were cargo flights from Manila to Taipei and Manila to Bangkok.
The cargo flight from Manila to Taipei (CI 5850) that departed 1:30 p.m. was ordered to return to base because of the radar problem. It was the same problem in flight TG 621 (MNL-Bangkok) that was forced to return to Manila following the power failure.
Other cancelled flights include PR 311 of the Philippine Airlines (PAL) bound for Hong Kong, which was ordered to return to base.
PAL’s PR 432 bound for Narita, Japan and PR 416 bound for Pusan, South Korea were also cancelled.
In the same advisory, international flights TG 620 (MNL-Kansai, Japan); SQ 917 (MNL-Singapore) and CZ 398 (MNL-Canton, China) were delayed at NAIA Terminal I.
At the NAIA Terminal 2, a total of eight domestic flights, were cancelled. Two domestic flights in NAIA Terminal 3 were also cancelled.
In the advisory, among the PAL domestic flights that were cancelled include the PR 177 from Manila to Tagbilaran; PR 178 Tagbilaran to Manila; PR 293 Manila to Dumaguete; PR 294 Dumaguete to Manila; PR 283 Manila to Cagayan de Oro; PR 284 Cagayan de Oro to Manila; PR 849 and PR 850, Manila to Cebu, Cebu to Manila; PR 817 and PR 818, Manila to Davao and Davao to Manila; PR 393 and PR 394, Manila to Tacloban and Tacloban to Manila.
Cebu Pacific’s Manila to Tacloban flight and its return flight 5J 657 and 5J658 were also cancelled.
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) issued a “notice to airmen” (Notam) around 3:30 p.m., advising all inbound and outbound flights of the radar and power failure at the airport.
The Notam forced several incoming international flights to divert to other airports and return to their point of origin.
With the long range area radar system out of commission due to the power failure, airport officials resorted to using the medium range Manila Approach Radar to guide other incoming flights to a safe landing at NAIA.
CAAP said the sudden loss of electricity should have triggered the standby generators to take over.
However, the generators were not sufficient enough to power the air-to-ground communication systems and the international hotlines connecting CAAP to nearby traffic facilities.
The problem remained even after Elmer Gomez, the chief of the Manila Airways Facilities Complex, reported that all facilities and international communication links had been restored by 3:30 p.m.
But the radar display at the Manila Area Control center remained out of commission.
CAAP then took over and allowed a five-minute departure interval at the airport.
Domestic flight carriers Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific, ZestAir and SeaAir were directly affected by the delays, and some flights to local destinations were cancelled.
On the other hand, the international flights by members of the Airline Operators Council also remain grounded at the NAIA Terminals 1 and 2, waiting for the resumption of normal service.
Marlyn Tolentino of Singapore Airlines said they were advised of the problem two hours after the blackout occurred.
“But we managed to depart our two flights back to Singapore before the power failure,” she said.
An airport official said CAAP was still attending to the radar repairs until last night.
CAAP director general Ruben Ciron said they would expect normal operations to resume at 10 p.m.
“Radar of Manila Air Traffic Control Center encountered technical problem at around 2 p.m. that slowed down all incoming and outgoing flights. My technical people are working on it and expect normal operations by 10 p.m. (last night),” Ciron said in the advisory. – With Rainier Allan Ronda - By Rudy Santos (Philstar News Service, www.philstar.com)
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Gertrude Baines the oldest person dies

LOS ANGELES – Although she liked her bacon crispy and her chicken fried, she never drank, smoked or fooled around, Gertrude Baines once said, describing a life that lasted an astonishing 115 years and earned her the title of oldest person on the planet.
It was a title Baines quietly relinquished Friday when she died in her sleep at Western Convalescent Hospital, her home since she gave up living alone at age 107 after breaking a hip.
She likely suffered a heart attack, said her longtime physician, Dr. Charles Witt, although an autopsy was scheduled to determine the exact cause of death.
"I saw her two days ago, and she was just doing fine," Witt told The Associated Press on Friday. "She was in excellent shape. She was mentally alert. She smiled frequently."
Baines was born in Shellman, Ga., on April 6, 1894, when Grover Cleveland was in the White House, radio communication was just being developed and television was still more than a half-century from becoming a ubiquitous household presence.
She was 4 years old when the Spanish-American War broke out and 9 when the first World Series was played. She had already reached middle age by the time the U.S. entered World War II in 1941.
Throughout it all, Baines said last year, it was a life she thoroughly enjoyed.
"I'm glad I'm here. I don't care if I live a hundred more," she said with a hearty laugh after casting her vote for Barack Obama for president. "I enjoy nothing but eating and sleeping."
Her vote for Obama, she added, had helped fulfill a lifelong dream of seeing a black man elected president.
"We all the same, only our skin is dark and theirs is white," said Baines, who was black.
The centenarian, who worked as a maid at Ohio State University dormitories until her retirement, had outlived all of her family members. Her only daughter died of typhoid at age 18.
In her final years, she passed her days watching her favorite TV program, "The Jerry Springer Show," and consuming her favorite foods: bacon, fried chicken and ice cream. She complained often, however, that the bacon served to her was too soft.
"Two days ago, when I saw her, she was talking about the fact that the bacon wasn't crisp enough, that it was soggy," Witt said.
She became the world's oldest person in January when Maria de Jesus died in Portugal at 115.
The title brought with it a spotlight of attention, and Baines was asked frequently about the secret to a long life. She shrugged off such questions, telling people to ask God instead.
"She told me that she owes her longevity to the Lord, that she never did drink, she never did smoke and she never did fool around," Witt said at a party marking her 115th birthday.
At the party, Baines sat quietly, paying little attention as nursing home staffers and residents sang "Happy Birthday" and presented congratulatory notices from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and others. But she laughed when told the Los Angeles Dodgers had given her a cooler filled with hot dogs.
With Baines' death, 114-year-old Kama Chinen of Japan becomes the world's oldest person, said Dr. L. Stephen Coles of the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks claims of extreme old age. Chinen was born May 10, 1895.
The oldest person who ever lived, Coles said, was Jeanne-Louise Calment, who was 122 when she died Aug. 4, 1997, in Arles, France.
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Airborne rescue from Taliban territory of a kidnapped journalist

Criticism mounted Thursday of the dramatic airborne rescue from Taliban territory of a kidnapped Western journalist who walked free as four others, including his Afghan colleague, were killed.
Negotiators were deep in talks with the Taliban to free New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell and appeared to be progressing well when British commandos intervened with the rescue operation, a source told AFP.
Farrell, who has dual British-Irish nationality, was freed unharmed, but his Afghan colleague, father-of-two Sultan Munadi, as well as a British soldier and an Afghan woman and child were killed.
In Afghanistan, journalists expressed anger over the death of Munadi, saying it was "inhumane" that his bullet-riddled body had been abandoned at the scene.
Farrell and Munadi were the second team from The New York Times to be kidnapped in Afghanistan in less than a year. Their abduction highlighted growing insecurity in the once relatively peaceful north of the country.
Downing Street said British ministers approved the rescue, but one person involved in the Taliban talks told AFP that negotiations were under way and that no one believed the journalists were in imminent danger.
"There were a lot of people trying to make contact and keep the discussions going," the source told AFP, adding: "We had contact with different parties and were urging them to release the two journalists unconditionally."
A spokeswoman for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office confirmed media reports that Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth took the final decision to approve the use of force.
Public support for British involvement in the eight-year Afghan war is plummeting over record soldier fatalities and a controversial presidential election last month mired in allegations of fraud and vote-rigging.
British newspaper The Times, quoting defence sources, said the raid was mounted after British forces feared Farrell could be moved, and there were no guarantees that the negotiations would have led to his and Munadi's release.
However, several other sources quoted by the newspaper said the kidnappers were, at worst, seeking a ransom.
An unnamed Western official told the paper: "It was totally heavy-handed. If they'd showed a bit of patience and respect they could have got both of them out without firing a bullet."
A British Foreign Office spokesman refused to comment on reports that negotiations with the Taliban were underway.
Journalists expressed anger at the apparent disregard for the Afghan reporter. While his Western colleague was whisked to safety, Munadi's parents had to collect his body themselves. It remained unclear if he was killed by Taliban or foreign soldiers.
The Media Club of Afghanistan (MCA) said there was "no justification" for international forces to rescue Farrell and leave behind Munadi's body.
"The MCA deems this action as inhumane," said the informal grouping of Afghan journalists working for international media.
Naqibullah Taib, of the Afghan Independent Journalists' Association, said Afghan reporters generally lacked the experience to make split-second judgements, and urged international news organisations to offer more training.
Munadi worked for The New York Times and Afghan state radio before going to Germany to study. He had returned to Kabul on a break to spend time with his wife and children.
Journalist colleagues visited his grave in Kabul to lay flowers and on Friday a memorial service will be held in a Kabul mosque.
Reaction to Farrell's release mirrored anger that many Afghans expressed over the release of a kidnapped Italian journalist in 2007. His interpreter was beheaded and his driver killed.
Farrell, writing about his four days in captivity and the rescue operation in The New York Times blog, said he was "comfortable" with his decision to go to the riverbank where a NATO air strike killed scores of people last week.
He said Munadi was shot dead right in front of him before the soldiers dragged him away to a helicopter.
"It was over. Sultan was dead. He had died trying to help me, right up to the very last seconds of his life," he wrote.
The Ministry of Defence in London on Thursday named the dead British soldier as Corporal John Harrison, aged 29, a member of the Parachute Regiment.
Reports had said the soldier killed had been special forces -- who are not normally named.
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