HURRICANE MICHAEL
Florida toll rises to 17
Rescue teams with sniffer dogs were searching for possible victims buried under the rubble in the debris-strewn community
Three days after the devastating passage of Hurricane Michael, search teams in Florida pressed their hunt for victims into hard-to-reach areas on Saturday, as the death toll rose to 17 and officials scrambled to deliver aid to those who lost everything. The mammoth storm, which made landfall as a category 4 storm on Wednesday, claimed lives in four states, but the Sunshine State suffered the worst damage by far. Large parts of the state’s panhandle were pulverised by the strong winds and rain, and eight storm-related deaths have been reported in Florida so far. "Mexico Beach is devastated," Governor Rick Scott said of the town hardest hit by the hurricane, the most powerful to hit the US in decades. "It’s like a war zone," he said while touring the town of 1,000 people on the Gulf of Mexico. Rescue teams with sniffer dogs were searching for possible victims buried under the rubble in the debris-strewn community. US media have reported one death in the town — the body of an elderly m...
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