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A FREAK EARLY afternoon flash flood has killed a family of five and a guide out on a hike in Madagascar, witnesses said.
The family – a French father, Madagascan mother, their two-year-old child, an uncle and a grandmother – were hiking with a guide yesterday in a canyon in Isalo, a popular tourist destination in the south of the country.
They had turned back when it started to rain, but got caught up when the rain suddenly turned into a downpour.
“They became trapped,” said Isalo guide Olivier Rasambahita, 50, who was accompanying a separate group in the same canyon at the time.
“I’ve never seen the water rise so quickly, it reached two metres (6.5 feet) in a few minutes,” he said, adding the downpour occurred at around 1.00 pm local time “which never happens”.
One of his clients, a 31-year-old French woman said that Rasambahita had pushed them to run to escape the rising waters.
“We came across them at the natural pool at the end of the hike as they were getting ready to leave again with their guide,” she said.
“The grandmother was already on the way back with her cane, but she was advancing very slowly.
“Behind us, we heard the parents sing a lullaby to their baby, who was crying because of the thunder.”
Then, “we heard an enormous wave surge, like a dragon coming behind us”.
Madagascar’s rainy season falls between November and April but downpours usually occur at the end of the day.
Rasambahita accompanied his clients back to the car and went back to look for the family and his colleague.
“That’s when I saw the bodies of the couple floating at the entrance of the canyon,” he said.
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Fair play to him. Nice to see a young man trying to engage with the people. They usually only do this once every 5 years to get elected. And when does being an LGBT activist make you gay. I would also like to see rights for LGBT community and am married with 2 kids. Fair play to him
Question 1: why does a suburban sprawl on the outskirts of a relatively small city require a separate mayor?
Question 2: expenses are bleedin’ deadly right?
Question 3: I’m sorry, and you are?
South Dublin County has the fourth highest population for a council area in the country. Do you believe we deserve less representation for living close to a large city?
To be honest, I think a city of under 1.5m people having four separate mayors & councils is utterly ridiculous. Even if we have to retain the four separate councils, there should be one mayor over them all. There are ways to do this even if not the perfectly logical suggestion for a directly elected mayor which was rejected by Fingal council.
If you look at our national population you really have to wonder about the amount of political representation we currently enjoy. We’re about the size of greater Manchester who have a 12 person council governing them, and then a 2 house national parliament above that, and a queen. We have councils for each county/city (and we define cities in pretty questionable ways), 2 Houses of Parliament and a president, yet when the fat was being trimmed only town councils came in to question. Do we benefit from this excessive representation, or is it a costly hindrance to actually getting things done?
London has a population of 8.3 million. It has 33 local authorities all with their own mayor. It also has a London assembly as well as the office of the Mayor of London. And 4 is too much?
Ask him why he joined SF and how he reconciled his liberal agenda with their kangaroo courts, murder and rape?
Just reply on your Facebook and Twitter. No need to move away from the two
Tumblr is just as good,I’ve lost countless searching throughuser created content, most of it is brilliant,
Tumblr allows you to ask questions anonymously, maybe some people don’t feel comfortable asking publicly via Twitter or Facebook.
Because neither Facebook nor Twitter can be anonymous?
By the way well done Mayor
If he thinks engaging with young people and listening to what people want is the right way for politicians and politics to move forward in this country then he’s in the wrong place altogether. Seems to me that there’s nothing wrong with the “promise earth moon and stars to people to get elected, ignore and deprive systems that need the most help when you do (health, & education for example) then seek out every possible way to impose even more taxes on the mist taxed population in Europe”. Just my opinion tho.
Surprised he doesn’t do a Reddit AMA!
Tom only thing you can do is throw dirt..why not ask him yourself if you are genuinely interested though I fear you would not be willing to listen so closed is your mind
have your say