AT LEAST 32 PEOPLE DEAD IN STORM ON PERTUGESE ISLAND

A man is helped while trying to cross a flooded street in Funchal, the Madeira Island's capital

MADRID – Flooding and landslides swept away cars and knocked down houses as a violent storm killed at least 32 people Saturday on the Portuguese island of Madeira, a news agency reported.

• The Lusa agency quoted the vice president of the Madeira regional government, Joao Cunha e Silva, as saying another 68 people have been hospitalized in the island's main city, Funchal.
• Madeira is the main island of a Portuguese archipelago of the same name, in the Atlantic off the northwest coast of Africa.
• Floods tore down houses as the storm hit early Saturday. Roads were blocked by fallen trees and rocks carried by flood waters, and some bridges were also downed, Lusa said.
• Phone lines were knocked out, forcing emergency rescue services to appeal over local radio stations for off-duty doctors and nurses to report for duty.
• Local authorities called in employees to operate heavy machinery like bulldozers to clear roads and remove debris. People in low-lying areas of Funchal fled as flood waters rose, Lusa said.
• Madeira regional president Alberto Joao Jardim spoke to European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, who is Portuguese, to appeal for emergency aid from the European Union.
• Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates promised that help would be sent from the Portuguese mainland.

Source: AP