Hurricane Lala batters Hawaii, leaves one dead

International

HURRICANE Lala swept south of Hawaii over the weekend, leaving one person dead and hundreds displaced.

The storm brought torrential rain, triggering destructive flooding, authorities said.

A 90-year-old woman perished in the flood, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said at a news conference Monday.

A report by CNN said the woman had been reported missing in a neighborhood in the south of the Big Island and rescue crews from multiple agencies, including the National Guard, were dispatched to the search effort.

Lala, now a tropical storm, has moved away from Hawaii and is going west over the open Pacific.

Heavy rainfall, over 3 and a half feet of it in the Big Island’s mountains, set off landslides and flash floods that wiped out roads on the island and swept at least one home entirely off its foundation. Maui’s mountainous areas saw up to 2 feet of rain.

Over 100 homes were damaged in the storm on the island of Hawaii, also known as the Big Island, Green said Sunday.

Some 100,000 homes and businesses are still without power across the Hawaiian islands as of Monday afternoon local time, according to PowerOutage.com,.

Power restoration in some areas could take days or longer as major transmission lines were down, Mayor of Hawaii County Kimo Alameda said.(MyTVCebu)