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HOUSTON — Houston rescue agencies were struggling to find beds on Monday for tens of thousands of Texans driven from their homes by an unprecedented rainstorm that swamped America's fourth largest city.

And — as forecasters warned that Storm Harvey will regain strength and inundate the already devastated Gulf shore again by Wednesday — neighbouring Louisiana braced for the floods to come. 

Roads are flooded, Houston's two airports have suspended commercial flights and two hospitals have been forced to evacuate their patients, while volunteers, rescue agencies and the National Guard battle to ferry beleaguered families from their homes.

At least three people have died so far, with reports of other fatalities still unconfirmed, in what the National Hurricane Centre called the biggest rainstorm on record, which crashed ashore late Friday as Hurricane Harvey.

Harvey is now expected to swing back on itself and back over the warm waters of the Gulf on Mexico, sucking up another load of rain before doubling back midweek, on a deadly path back across Texas and Louisiana and deep into the US interior.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator Brock Long said finding shelter for those flooded out of their homes would be his next priority.

"We're anticipating over 30,000 people being placed in shelters temporarily to basically stabilise the situation and provide for their care," he said. 

"This is a landmark event. We have not seen an event like this. You could not dream this forecast up. You couldn't draw this situation up."

 President Donald Trump plans to go to the disaster zone on Tuesday. 

On Monday, he declared a federal state of emergency in Louisiana to match that in Texas and free up funds for relief and rescue. 

As of Monday morning, there were reports of 12.7 to 15.2 centimetres of rain per hour and unofficial reports of up to 20 centmetres in a band of heavy rainfall.

Roads completely submerged 

"It's crazy to see the roads you're driving on every day just completely under water," Houston resident John Travis told AFP.

Overwhelmed emergency services warned residents to head for high ground or climb onto rooftops — not into attics — so they could be seen by rescue helicopters. More than 2,000 rescues had been made so far.

Emergency 911 operators in Houston received 56,000 calls in a 15-hour span — seven times more than in a usual full day.

"We are going on fumes and our hearts ache for community we serve, but we will not stop!" said Houston police chief Art Acevedo.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned the operation was far from over, given the foreboding forecasts.

"The number of evacuees is increasing. The number in harm's way will increase also with the rain that is forecast to come," Abbott said, adding that the storm had inflicted billions of dollars in damage.

Houston proper has a population of 2.3 million people, but the greater metropolitan area has more than 6 million.

'Life and safety' 

"The focus must be on life and safety," Trump wrote in a series of tweets about the disaster, his most serious domestic challenge since taking office in January. 

"The breadth and intensity of this rainfall are beyond anything experienced before," the National Weather Service said, as the storm spawned tornadoes and lashed east and central Texas with torrential rains. 

The NWS said that between June 1 and Sunday, Houston had received 117 centimetres of rain — almost as much as it would expect in a year — in only three months.

'I might have left sooner' 

More than 60 centimetres of rain fell in Houston and nearby Galveston in a 24-hour period. Another 50 centimetres were expected.

Flooding is expected to worsen as Harvey, the most powerful storm to hit the United States mainland since 2005, lingers over the area.

Harvey ripped off roofs, flipped mobile homes and left hundreds of thousands of people in the dark on the Gulf Coast, home to some of the country's most important oil refineries.

Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Hobby International, the city's two airports, also stopped all commercial flights. However the hard-hit city of Corpus Christi reopened its airport Sunday afternoon.

Thousands of National Guard troops joined local police and emergency workers to help with rescues in inundated areas of Houston.

Boats also were being deployed, but more were needed. Harris County Judge Ed Emmett appealed to residents to use their own vessels.

"I'm not even thinking about myself right now," Bryan Curtis, who came to Houston with his jet skis to rescue people, told AFP. "I'm here to help, I want to do my part."

 'Landmark' disaster 

FEMA said there should be no illusions about the long-term impact of Harvey. Long told CNN it would take "years" to recover. 

Coastal Texas is home to a large number of oil refineries and a number of major ports. 

ExxonMobil said on Sunday it had closed its massive Baytown refining complex — the second-largest in the country.

US authorities said about 22 per cent of crude production in the Gulf of Mexico, accounting for more than 375,000 barrels a day, was shut down.

But Abbott said the oil industry was well prepared.

"They have the ability to ratchet up back up there quickly," he said on Fox News Sunday, predicting a "one- or two-week downturn".

 US neighbours Mexico and Canada offered solidarity and aid.

Mexico's foreign ministry said it offered help to deal with Harvey, "as good neighbours should always do in trying times".

 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that Canadians "are keeping the people of Texas in our thoughts — we're ready to offer any assistance needed to help recover from this disaster".

ROHTAK, India — An Indian court on Monday sentenced a controversial spiritual leader to a total of 20 years in prison for raping two of his devotees, days after his followers went on a rampage that left 38 dead.

The riots broke out on Friday when Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, 50, was convicted of raping the two women at the sprawling headquarters of his hugely popular Dera Sacha Sauda sect in the northern state of Haryana in a case that dates back to 1999.

"He has been sentenced for 10 plus 10, which is a total of 20 years of imprisonment," said Abhishek Dayal, spokesman for India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), after the sentencing hearing.

"I have the judgement which details the sentence."

 A lawyer for the victims earlier told AFP that Singh had been sentenced to 10 years in jail. In fact, he was given two consecutive 10-year sentences.

Authorities had imposed a security clampdown on the city of Rohtak where Singh is being held due to fears of a repeat of Friday's violence, when tens of thousands of his supporters set fire to cars and clashed with security forces.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned the violence but his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which is also in power in Haryana, was criticised for failing to anticipate the riots.

Police were taking no chances on Monday in Rohtak, where mobile Internet has been cut, roads barricaded with barbed wire and soldiers deployed to man checkpoints.

 'Guru in bling' 

More than 100 of Singh's senior loyalists had been placed in detention as a precautionary measure, said Rohtak police chief Navdeep Singh Virk.

He said his officers would use "whatever force is required" against the guru's devotees should they again resort to violence.

"If the situation so arises that [we] need to use firearms, my officers have complete authority," the police chief told broadcaster NDTV.

A judge was flown in by helicopter to sentence the spiritual leader, known as the "guru in bling" for his penchant for bejewelled costumes.

The rape case was brought after an anonymous letter was sent to then-prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002, accusing Singh of repeatedly raping the sender and several other women in the sect.

A judge asked the federal CBI to look into the accusations, but it took years to trace the alleged victims and it was not until 2007 that two women came forward and filed charges.

Utsav Singh Bains, a lawyer for the victims, said there could be dozens more cases of abuse involving women at the sect.

"We believe there are at least 48 more victims who were sexually abused and who may have been killed or are too scared to come out and testify against Ram Rahim," he told AFP by phone.

Singh also stood trial for conspiracy over the murder in 2002 of a journalist investigating the rape allegations. He denied the charge and the case is ongoing.

Over the weekend thousands of followers congregated in the spiritual headquarters of his sect at Sirsa, despite calls from police and troops for them to disperse.

Devotees eventually began trickling out one by one from the compound on Sunday, under the supervision of hundreds of soldiers and riot police. 

Modi said on Sunday it was "natural to be worried" as the violence even briefly reached the capital New Delhi.

"Violence is not acceptable in the nation, in any form," he said in his monthly radio address.

"Those who take law in their hands or take to violence will not be spared, whoever they are."

 Haryana authorities came under fire grossly underestimating the risk posed by the army of devotees after violent protests in many parts of the northern state on Friday.

Followers of the self-styled "godman" continue to insist upon his innocence.

India has been rocked by numerous scandals involving popular ascetics claiming to possess mystical powers.

Singh's sect describes itself as a social welfare and spiritual organisation but he is no stranger to controversy.

In 2015 he was accused of encouraging 400 followers to undergo castration at his ashram so they could get closer to god.

HOUSTON, Texas — Emergency crews raced to pull people from cars and homes as flood waters rose across southeast Texas on Sunday, rescuing more than 1,000 people in the Houston area as Tropical Storm Harvey pounded the region.

Harvey came ashore late Friday as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years and has killed at least two people. The death toll is expected to rise as the storm lashes the US state for days, triggering more floods, tidal surges and tornadoes.

Harvey is forecast to arc slowly toward Houston through Wednesday. The centre of the storm is still 201.17km southwest of the fourth most populous city in the United States. 

Emergency services told people to climb onto the roofs of their houses rather than into their attics to escape rapidly rising waters. Authorities warned the city's more than two million residents not to leave flooded homes because many of the city's roads were underwater.

The Twitter account of the sheriff of Harris County, which includes most of Houston, was inundated with rescue requests. Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said his deputies responded to unconfirmed reports of a deceased woman and child inside a submerged vehicle on a highway near Houston.

Another resident described seeing a woman's body floating in the streets during a flash flood in west Houston. The flood was several feet high, the resident told local TV station abc13.

Gonzalez' stretched rescue teams were struggling to deal with requests for help.

"All agencies care but everyone simply operating at maximum capacity," he tweeted at one point. 

Houston's William P. Hobby Airport cancelled all inbound and outbound flights early on Sunday due to standing water on the runway. The airport said its arrivals area was flooded, and the National Weather Service issued a flash flood alert for the surrounding area.

"The flooding in Houston is dramatic," Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday.

"We are working to save lives and to keep as many people safe as possible."

 The second confirmed fatality from Tropical Storm Harvey came on Saturday evening when an elderly woman drowned attempting to drive through flooded streets in west Houston, said Sergeant Colin Howard of the Houston police department.

Houston police officials said officers were evacuating two flooded apartment complexes.

Authorities have urged residents to stay off the streets of cities across southeast Texas as rain fell at up to 12.7cm per hour.

"There are a number of stranded people on our streets, calling 911, exhausting needed resources. You can help by staying off the streets," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said on Twitter.

On Friday night, a man died in a house fire in the town of Rockport, 48km north of the city of Corpus Christi. Another dozen people in the area suffered injuries including broken bones, another official said.

Energy production in the heart of the country's oil and gas industry was disrupted as several refineries and offshore platforms closed down, triggering a rise in gasoline prices.

Exxon Mobil said Sunday it was shutting down the second largest refinery in the United States at Baytown in Texas.

More than 45 per cent of the country's refining capacity is along the US Gulf Coast, and nearly a fifth of the nation's crude oil is produced offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Abbott said Sunday he expected disruption to the energy industry to last one or two weeks.

Harvey threatens record rain

Harvey slammed into Texas as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 210km per hour, making it the strongest storm to hit the state since 1961.

The storm ripped off roofs, destroyed buildings, flooded coastal towns and had cut off power to nearly 230,000 people in Texas as of Saturday night. 

Harvey was downgraded to a tropical storm on Saturday because its winds have slowed. But authorities issued stark warnings on the threat posed by days of torrential rain.

"This rain will lead to a prolonged, dangerous, and potentially catastrophic flooding event well into next week," the National Weather Service said.

Harvey threatens to break the record established nearly 40 years ago when Alvin, Texas, was deluged by 109cm of rain in 24 hours on July 24-25, 1979.

'It was terrible'

Abbott said 1,800 members of the military would help with the statewide cleanup. Another 1,000 people were conduct search-and-rescue operations.

The coastal town of Rockport took a direct hit from the storm, leaving streets flooded and strewn with power lines and debris on Saturday. 

A dozen recreational vehicles were flipped over on a sales lot, one blown into the middle of the street. A convoy of military vehicles arrived in the Rockport area on Saturday to help in the recovery efforts, and town officials announced an overnight curfew for residents.

"It was terrible," resident Joel Valdez, 57, told Reuters. The storm ripped part of the roof from his trailer home at around 4am, he said as he sat in a Jeep with windows smashed by the storm. "I could feel the whole house move."

 Before the storm hit, Rockport's mayor told anyone staying behind to write their names on their arms for identification in case of death or injury.

20 rescued at sea

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice said it was forced to evacuate about 4,500 inmates from three state prisons near the Brazos River because of rising water. 

The US Coast Guard said it had rescued 20 people from distressed vessels on Saturday, and was monitoring two Carnival Corp. cruise ships carrying thousands of people stranded in the US Gulf of Mexico. 

The size and strength of Harvey dredged up memories of Katrina, the 2005 hurricane that made a direct hit on New Orleans as a Category 3 storm, causing levees and flood walls to fail in dozens of places. About 1,800 died in the disaster made worse by a slow government emergency response.

US President Donald Trump, facing the first big natural disaster of his term, said on Sunday he would visit the area as soon as he could do so without causing more disruption.

He said the all-out effort to deal with the disaster was going well. Trump signed a disaster proclamation on Friday, triggering federal relief efforts.

Recovery would likely take years, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Brock Long said in an interview with CNN on Sunday. FEMA coordinates the response to major disasters.

"This is going to be a landmark event," he said.

NEW DELHI — India is deploying thousands of riot police and shutting down internet services in two northern states, as it prepares for the sentencing on Monday of a self-styled ‘‘godman’’ whose followers went on the rampage after he was convicted of rape on Friday.

 Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh's cult Dera Sacha Sauda has a vast rural following in Punjab and Haryana states, where frenzied mobs burned down gas stations and train stations and torched vehicles after a local court found him guilty of raping two women in a 2002 case.

 At least 38 people were killed and more than 200 injured in the violence in Haryana, officials said, drawing sharp criticism for the state government run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

 The case has also highlighted the Indian heartland's fascination with spiritual gurus, who enjoy immense political clout for their ability to mobilise millions of followers frustrated by the shortcomings of the state.

 Security forces have cordoned off a jail in Rohtak city, 70km from New Delhi, where Singh — also known as the guru of bling for the clothes he wears in the movies he has starred in — is being held.

 The judge who convicted Singh will hold a special hearing inside the prison in Rohtak around 2:30pm local time (0900 GMT) on Monday to decide the punishment, in a move that officials hope will prevent his followers from gathering in the streets like they did on Friday.

 Singh faces a minimum of seven years in prison.

 The town of Sirsa, home to Dera's headquarters, is already under lockdown, BS Sandhu, Haryana's police chief, told Reuters. Schools and colleges have been ordered shut, the government said.

 "We're fully prepared, we have a contingency plan in place," Sandhu said, adding that more than 10,000 police would patrol the state as it awaits Singh's sentencing.

 Neighbouring Punjab, where violence was sporadic, has summoned more than 8,000 paramilitary and police, banned large gatherings and switched off mobile Internet connections across the state until Tuesday, its top administrator said.

 "Our intelligence reports caution that there could be arson and some other incidents," Karan Avtar Singh, the chief secretary to Punjab government, told Reuters.

 In godman Singh's two films, "Messenger of God" and its sequel, there are sequences in which he fights off villains and tosses burning motorbikes into the air.

 In his spiritual avatar, Singh dresses in plain white traditional clothes, giving sermons or planting trees. In the movies he dons bejewelled costumes, rides motorbikes and sends bad guys flying.

Modi promises tough response

The Haryana government has faced severe criticism from opposition Congress and a state court for failing to stop the rioting and vandalism.

 Singh, whose verified Twitter profile calls him a saint, philanthropist, sportsman, actor, singer, movie director, writer, lyricists, and autobiographer, has been photographed with senior BJP leaders including Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

 Last year a Haryana minister announced the state would donate 5 million Indian rupees ($78,000) to Singh's Dera to promote sports.

 Bir Kumar Yadav, BJP's Haryana spokesman, said the party had been associated with Singh only in his capacity as a social worker who had spread awareness about public sanitation and cleanliness.

 Modi also weighed in on Sunday, vowing tough action against anyone trying to break the law.

 "I want to assure my countrymen that people who take the law into their own hands and are on the path of violent suppression — whether it is a person or a group — neither this country nor any government will tolerate it," he said in his monthly radio address, without directly mentioning the recent violence.

 Singh's conviction in a rape case is the latest in a series of cases involving spiritual leaders who have been accused of sexually abusing followers, amassing untaxed money and finding favour with politicians.

 Besides the rape charges, he is also under investigation over allegations that he convinced 400 of his male followers to undergo castration, allegations he denies. 

ROCKPORT, Texas — The most powerful hurricane to hit the US state of Texas in more than 50 years moved slowly inland on Saturday, dumping torrential rain expected to cause catastrophic flooding after battering the coast with 209km per hour winds.

Texas utility companies said just under a quarter of a million customers were without power. Wind and rain continued to lash the coast as residents began to assess the damage.

Harvey is the strongest storm to hit Texas, the center of the US oil and gas industry, since 1961.

The seaside town of Rockport, 48km north of the city of Corpus Christi, was hit hard. 

Several homes had collapsed, and many more buildings suffered damage. Roofs had been ripped off some, and windows blown in.

The streets were flooded and strewn with power lines and debris. At a recreational vehicle sales lot, a dozen vehicles were flipped over and one had been blown into the middle of the street outside.

"It was terrible," resident Joel Valdez, 57, told Reuters. The storm ripped part of the roof from his trailer home at around 4am, he said. "I could feel the whole house move."

 Valdez said he stayed through the storm to look after his animals. 

"I have these miniature donkeys and I don't know where they are," he said, as he sat in a Jeep with windows smashed by the storm.

Resident Frank Cook, 56, also stayed through the storm.

"If you have something left of your house, you're lucky," he said, surveying the damage from his vehicle.

Before the storm hit, Rockport's mayor told anyone staying behind to write their names on their arms for identification purposes in case of death or injury.

A high school, hotel, senior housing complex and other buildings suffered structural damage, according to emergency officials and local media. Some were being used as shelters.

The coastal city of Port Lavaca, farther north on the coast, had no power and some streets were flooded.

"There is so much tree damage and debris that the cost of cleanup will be enormous," Mayor Jack Whitlow told Reuters, after touring the city earlier on Saturday.

The hurricane came ashore near Port Lavaca late on Friday with maximum winds of 209km/h. That made it a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the second-highest category and the most powerful storm in over a decade to hit the mainland United States.

The streets of Corpus Christi, which has around 320,000 residents, were deserted early on Saturday, with billboards twisted and strong winds still blowing.

City authorities asked residents to reduce use of toilets and faucets because power outages left waste water plants unable to treat sewage. 

The city also asked residents to boil water before consumption.

A drill ship broke free of its mooring overnight and rammed into some tugs in the Port of Corpus Christi, Port Executive Sean Strawbridge said. The crews on the tugs were safe, he added.

The city was under voluntary evacuation ahead of the storm. 

Heading inland, storm weakens

The storm weakened to Category 1 early on Saturday and was expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm later in the day, the US National Hurricane Centre said. Harvey was about 241km west-southwest of Houston, moving at about 4km/h, the centre said in a morning update.

Harvey was expected to linger for days over Texas and bring as much as 101.6cm of rain to some parts of the state.

The latest forecast storm track has Harvey looping back toward the Gulf of Mexico coast before meandering north again on Tuesday. 

Nearly 25cm of rain had already fallen in a few areas in southeastern Texas, the center said. Flash floods have already hit some areas, the National Weather Service said.

As many as 6 million people were believed to be in Harvey's path, as is the heart of America's oil-refining operations. The storm's impact on refineries has already pushed up gasoline prices. The US Environmental Protection Agency eased rules on gasoline specifications late on Friday to reduce shortages. 

US President Donald Trump, facing the first big natural disaster of his term, said on Twitter he signed a disaster proclamation that "unleashes the full force of government help" shortly before Harvey made landfall.

"You are doing a great job — the world is watching," Trump said on Saturday in a tweet referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which coordinates the response to major disasters. 

Utilities American Electric Power Company Inc. and CenterPoint Energy Inc. reported a combined total of around 237,000 customers without power.

While thousands fled the expected devastating flooding and destruction, many residents stayed put in imperiled towns and stocked up on food, fuel and sandbags.

Houston prepares 

for floods

The size and strength dredged up memories of Katrina, the 2005 hurricane that made a direct hit on New Orleans as a Category 3 storm, causing levees and flood walls to fail in dozens of places. About 1,800 died in the disaster made worse by a slow government emergency response.

Texas and Louisiana declared states of disaster before Harvey hit, authorising the use of state resources to prepare. 

Residents of Houston, the nation's fourth most populous city, were awakened early on Saturday by automatic cell phone warnings of flash floods.

The city warned of flooding from close to 60cm of rain over several days. 

Gasoline prices spike

US gasoline prices spiked as the storm shut down several refineries and 22 per cent of Gulf of Mexico oil production, according to the US government. Many fuel stations ran out of gasoline before the storm hit.

More than 45 per cent of the country's refining capacity is along the US Gulf Coast, and nearly a fifth of the nation's crude is produced offshore.

Ports from Corpus Christi to Texas City, Texas, were closed to incoming vessels and Royal Dutch Shell Plc., Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and others have evacuated staff from offshore oil and gas platforms. 

Disruptions to fuel supply drove benchmark gasoline prices to their highest level in four months.

The US government said it would make emergency stockpiles of crude available if needed to plug disruptions. It has regularly used them to dampen the impact of previous storms on energy supplies.

SEOUL/WASHINGTON — North Korea fired several short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast early on Saturday, South Korea and the US military said, as the two allies conducted annual joint military drills that the North denounces as preparation for war.

The US military's Pacific Command said it had detected three short-range ballistic missiles, fired over a 20 minute period. 

One appeared to have blown up almost immediately while two flew about 250km in a northeasterly direction, Pacific Command said, revising an earlier assessment that two of the missiles had failed in flight.

The test came just days after senior US officials praised North Korea and leader Kim Jong-un for showing restraint in not firing any missiles since late July. 

The South Korean Office of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff said the projectiles were launched from the North's eastern Kangwon province into the sea.

Later on Saturday, the South Korean Presidential Blue House said the North may have fired an upgraded 300-mm calibre multiple rocket launcher but the military was still analysing the precise details of the projectiles. 

Pacific Command said the missiles did not pose a threat to the US mainland or to the Pacific territory of Guam, which North Korea had threatened earlier this month to surround in a "sea of fire". Tensions had eased somewhat since a harsh exchange of words between Pyongyang and Washington after US President Donald Trump had warned North Korean leader Kim Jong-un he would face "fire and fury" if he threatened the United States.

North Korea's last missile test on July 28 was for an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to fly 10,000km. That would put parts of the US mainland within reach and prompted heated exchanges that raised fears of a new conflict on the peninsula.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the missiles did not reach its territory or exclusive economic zone and did not pose a threat to Japan's safety. 

Military drills

The South Korean and US militaries are in the midst of the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills involving computer simulations of a war to test readiness and run until August 31.

The region where the missiles were launched, Kittaeryong, is a known military test site frequently used by the North for short-range missile drills, said Kim Dong-yub, a military expert at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul. 

"So rather than a newly developed missile, it looks to be short-range missiles they fired as part of their summer exercise and also in response to the Ulchi Freedom Guardian drill," he said.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with the North because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The North routinely says it will never give up its weapons programmes, saying they are necessary to counter perceived US hostility.

Washington has repeatedly urged China, North Korea's main ally and trading partner, to do more to rein in Pyongyang.

China's commerce ministry late on Friday banned North Korean individuals and enterprises from doing new business in China, in line with United Nations Security Council sanctions passed earlier this month.

Trump briefed

The White House said Trump had been briefed about the latest missiles but did not immediately have further comment.

The US State Department did not immediately comment about the Saturday launches. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson earlier this week credited the North with showing restraint by not launching a missile since the July ICBM test.

Tillerson had said he hoped that the lack of missile launches or other "provocative acts" by Pyongyang could mean a path could be opening for dialogue "sometime in the near future”.

Trump also expressed optimism earlier this week about a possible improvement in relations. "I respect the fact that he is starting to respect us," Trump said of Kim. 

North Korea's state media reported on Saturday that Kim had guided a contest of amphibious landing and aerial strike by its army against targets modelled after South Korean islands near the sea border on the west coast.

The official KCNA news agency quoted Kim as telling its Army that it "should think of mercilessly wiping out the enemy with arms only and occupying Seoul at one go and the southern half of Korea”.

A new poster on a North Korean propaganda website on Saturday showed a missile dealing "a retaliatory strike of justice" against the US mainland, threatening to "wipe out the United States, the source of evil, without a trace”.

On Wednesday, Kim ordered the production of more rocket engines and missile warheads during a visit to a facility associated with North Korea's ballistic missile programme. 

Diagrammes and what appeared to be missile parts shown in photographs published in the North's state media suggested Pyongyang was pressing ahead with building a longer-range ballistic missile that could potentially reach any part of the US mainland including Washington.

MADRID — One week on from the two deadly vehicle rampages in Spain, a second suspect was granted conditional release on Thursday as a probe into the deadly attacks deepened.

Salh El Karib was allowed to go free, but required to report weekly to authorities, after the judge found that evidence against him was not solid enough to keep him under detention.

According to a court document, credit cards in Karib's name were used to buy plane tickets for another suspect in custody, Driss Oukabir, and an imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty.

Satty, who is believed to have been the mastermind of vehicle attacks that killed 15 and wounded more than 120, died in an explosion last week at the extremists' bomb-making factory.

But an investigation found that the shop he manages sells plane tickets as part of its regular business, which means he did not necessarily play a part in the terror cell.

Officers are also battling to root out a possible support network for the men, accused of ploughing vehicles into pedestrians on Barcelona's busy Las Ramblas boulevard last Thursday and a seaside promenade in the resort town of Cambrils just hours later.

The international connections of the cell of mostly Moroccan nationals have also come under scrutiny as investigators retrace their movements to France and Belgium.

The scale of the assaults being prepared by the extremist suspects emerged during a preliminary court hearing on Tuesday, when Mohamed Houli Chemlal, 21, told the judge the group was planning "an attack on an even greater scale, targeting monuments" using bombs.

After Chemlal's chilling admission, Barcelona authorities said security was being boosted at key tourist sites including the iconic Sagrada Familia church as well as at major events.

Better protected 

Seven days after the attack in Barcelona, life was slowly returning to normal at Las Ramblas.

"We are now even better protected, I see there is a lot of police," noted Gonario Sirca, an Italian tourist.

Jose Gomez, a florist who was present when the van careered down the boulevard, said "the hardest was the day after what happened".

"It's difficult to come back here. But I can say now that I feel well," he said.

Barcelona's mayor, Ada Colau, and the head of the regional government Carles Puigdemont were due to participate in an interfaith ceremony on Thursday in memory of the victims.

But the attacks have sparked a rise in Islamophobic incidents.

Madrid police told AFP a Muslim woman had been "verbally and physically attacked by two or three people, who haven't yet been identified”, though she was only slightly hurt.

In the southern city of Granada on Wednesday, 200 people rallied to protest the surge in anti-Islamic hate crimes following last week's attacks.

'Nails, detonators,
gas canisters' 

At least 500 litres of acetone, large quantities of nails and detonators as well as gas canisters were found at a house in the town of Alcanar south of Barcelona, court documents said.

They are ingredients of TATP — the explosive of choice of the Daesh group, which has claimed its "soldiers" carried out the attacks.

But an accidental blast at the bomb factory in Alcanar on August 16, the eve of the Barcelona attack, forced the cell to alter its plans and turn to vehicles as killing machines.

Police said on Thursday they had identified the remains of the last suspected member of the cell, Youssef Aalla, who was killed at the blast in Alcanar.

The explosion also killed the imam Satty, who is believed to have radicalised the young men in the cell.

Surveillance video footage of three of the young suspects showed them speaking to a shop's checkout staff at the counter — two of them looking relaxed, a third more tense — just hours before the Cambrils attack.

Karib was the second suspect granted conditional release. Mohamed Aalla, 27, who owns the car used in Cambrils was freed two days ago.

But another two suspects, Chemlal and Oukabir, 28, were on Tuesday remanded in custody and charged with terror-related offences.

The four were the only surviving suspected members of the terror cell, which Spanish police said they had dismantled after gunning down the last man at large, the Barcelona van driver, Younes Abouyaaqoub, on Monday.

SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered more solid-fuel rocket engines, state media reported on Wednesday, as he pursues nuclear and missile programmes amid a standoff with Washington, but there were signs of tension easing.

The report carried by the KCNA news agency lacked the traditionally robust threats against the United States after weeks of unbridled acrimony, and US President Donald Trump expressed optimism about a possible improvement in relations.

"I respect the fact that he is starting to respect us," Trump said of Kim at a raucous campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona.

"And maybe — probably not, but maybe — something positive can come about," he said.

The KCNA report, about a visit by Kim to a chemical institute, came not long after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appeared to make a peace overture, welcoming what he called recent restraint shown by the reclusive North.

Kim was briefed about the process of manufacturing intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) warhead tips and solid-fuel rocket engines during his tour of the Chemical Material Institute of the Academy of Defence Science, KCNA said.

"He instructed the institute to produce more solid-fuel rocket engines and rocket warhead tips by further expanding engine production process and the production capacity of rocket warhead tips and engine jets by carbon/carbon compound material," KCNA said.

North Korea has conducted two nuclear tests and dozens of missile tests since the beginning of last year, significantly raising tension on the heavily militarised Korean peninsula and in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. Two ICBM tests in July resulted in a new round of tougher global sanctions.

The last missile test on July 28 put the US mainland in range, prompting heated exchanges that raised fears of a new conflict on the peninsula.

Tillerson, however, noted what he called the restraint the North had shown and said on Tuesday he hoped a path could be opening for dialogue.

Simulated war drills 

South Korea and the United States are conducting an annual military exercise this week involving computer simulations of a war. 

The drills, which the North routinely describes as preparation for invasion, run until August 31, and included South Korean a civil defence exercise on Wednesday that saw traffic halted, movie screenings interrupted and hundreds of thousands of people directed to underground shelters. 

The KCNA report said Kim had given "special thanks and special bonus" to officials of the institute, calling them heroes. A photograph showed Kim in a grey pinstriped suit, smiling before a large flow chart that described some kind of manufacturing process.

There was none of the fiery rhetoric of recent weeks, when Kim threatened to fire missiles into the sea near the US Pacific territory of Guam after Trump warned North Korea it would face "fire and fury" if it threatened the United States.

But there were some signs of tension after the United States imposed new North Korea-related sanctions, targeting Chinese and Russian firms and individuals for supporting North Korea's weapons programmes.

The US Treasury designated six Chinese-owned entities, one Russian, one North Korean and two based in Singapore. They included a Namibia-based subsidiary of a Chinese company and a North Korean entity operating in Namibia.

China reacted with irritation, saying the United States should "immediately correct its mistake" of imposing unilateral sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said all sides, especially the United States and North Korea, needed to exercise restraint.

"We hope all sides can be brave enough to shoulder their responsibilities, show goodwill to each other and take correct actions to help further ease tensions," she told a regular press briefing.

Singapore-registered companies Velmur Management and Transatlantic Partners were named in the US Treasury's sanction statement as providing oil to North Korea and working with designated individuals.

Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said US authorities had informed them prior to the designations and it was investigating.

"Singapore will strictly fulfil its obligations under the UNSCRs and international law, and not allow our financial system to be abused for the conduct of illicit activities," the ministry said in a statement, referring to UN Security Council resolutions.

Both Velmur and Transatlantic are represented by business service providers in Singapore that manage their local registrations.

Rivkin, which provides secretarial services for Velmur, said it would end its business relationship with the company and file a suspicious transaction report on their dealings to the police.

A representative for MEA Business Consultancy, which is located at the registered address for Transatlantic, said it provided services for the firm but only for registration purposes.

CASAMICCIOLA, Italy — An earthquake hit the tourist-packed holiday island of Ischia on Monday night, killing two people, injuring dozens and trapping three young brothers who survived for up to 16 hours before being rescued.

Tourists and residents on the island off the coast of Naples ran out onto the narrow streets after the quake wrecked a church and several buildings. Fearing aftershocks, many decided to leave the island early. 

Rescuers found a baby boy called Pasquale in the wreckage and pulled him out alive in his nappy early on Tuesday, seven hours after the shock. There was a hush followed by loud applause.

Fire crews found his brothers Mattia and Ciro, aged seven and 11, stuck under a bed nearby. They kept talking to them and fed water to them through a tube.

"I promised them that after this was all over we would all go get a pizza together," one emergency worker said on Italian television.

They freed Mattia late on Tuesday morning and later extracted Ciro more than 16 hours after the quake hit. The parents were safe because they were in another room.

They said Ciro had probably saved his brother's life by shoving him under the bed when the quake struck.

"The rescuers were great. We really have to thank God for this miracle," said the island's bishop, Pietro Lagnese.

About six buildings in the town of Casamicciola, including a church, collapsed in the quake, which hit at 8:57 p.m. (1857 GMT) on Monday. The walls of one were ripped open, exposing a kitchen with a table still set for dinner.

Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology put the magnitude at 4.0, revising it up from an initial 3.6, but both the US Geological Survey and the European quake agency estimated it at 4.3. 

It struck three days before the first anniversary of a major quake that killed nearly 300 people in central Italy, most of them in the town of Amatrice.

Falling masonry

The director of the island's hospital said two women were killed and about 40 injured. One of the victims was hit by falling masonry from the church of Santa Maria del Suffragio, the Civil Protection Department in Rome said.

The church was rebuilt after it, like most of Casamicciola, was destroyed by an earthquake that killed about 2,000 people in 1883.

Most of the damage was in the high part of the volcanic island. Hotels and residences on the coast did not appear to suffer serious damage but fire brigades were checking to see if they were still habitable.

The island has a year-round population of about 63,000, which swells to more than 200,000 in summer, with many people from the mainland owning holiday homes.

Civil Protection Department head Angelo Borrelli said about 2,600 people could not re-enter their homes, pending checks.

Helicopters and a ferry boat brought in more rescue workers from the mainland. Some civil protection squads were already on the island because of brushfires.

Three extra ferries were provided during the night for about 1,000 residents and tourists who wanted to leave. As daylight broke, dozens of people went to the island's ports, having decided to end their vacations early.

Many who were due to take ferries from Naples on the mainland to start their vacations cancelled their plans, local officials said. 

Ischia, about a one-hour ride from Naples, is popular with German tourists, and Chancellor Angela Merkel has stayed there often.

SEOUL — South Korean and US forces began computer-simulated military exercises on Monday amid tension over North Korea's weapons programmes, while a report it has earned millions of dollars in exports is likely to raise doubt about the impact of sanctions.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said the joint drills, called Ulchi Freedom Guardian, were purely defensive and did not aim to increase tension on the peninsula, but North Korea denounced the exercises as preparation for war.

"There is no intent at all to heighten military tension on the Korean peninsula as these drills are held annually and are of a defensive nature," Moon told Cabinet ministers.

"North Korea should not exaggerate our efforts to keep peace nor should they engage in provocations that would worsen the situation, using [the exercise] as an excuse," he said.

The joint US-South Korean drills last until August 31 and involve computer simulations designed to prepare for war with a nuclear-capable North Korea.

The United States also describes them as "defensive in nature", a term North Korean state media has dismissed as a "deceptive mask".

"It's to prepare if something big were to occur and we needed to protect ROK," said Michelle Thomas, a US military spokeswoman, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.

North Korea views such exercises as preparations for invasion and has fired missiles and taken other actions to show its anger over military drills in the past.

"This is aimed to ignite a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula at any cost," the North's KCNA news agency said.

"The situation on the Korean peninsula has plunged into a critical phase due to the reckless north-targeted war racket of the war maniacs."

 North and South Korea are technically still at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.

North Korea's rapid progress in developing nuclear weapons and missiles capable of reaching the US mainland has fuelled a surge in regional tension and UN-led sanctions appear to have failed to bite deeply enough to change its behaviour.

China, North Korea's main ally and trading partner, has urged the United States and South Korea to scrap the exercises. Russia has also asked for the drills to stop but the United States has not backed down.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said North and South Korea and the United States all needed to make more effort to ease tension.

"We think that South Korea and the United States holding joint drills is not beneficial to easing current tensions or efforts by all sides to promote talks," she told a daily news briefing.

Sanctions undermined

Japan's Kyodo news agency reported that a confidential UN report found North Korea evaded UN sanctions by "deliberately using indirect channels" and had generated $270 million in banned exports since February.

The "lax enforcement" of existing sanctions and Pyongyang's "evolving evasion techniques" were undermining the UN goal of getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, Kyodo quoted the report as saying.

The UN Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on August 5 that could slash its $3 billion annual export revenue by a third. The latest sanctions were imposed after North Korea tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July.

US President Donald Trump warned North Korea this month it would face "fire and fury" if it threatens the United States.

The North responded by threatening to fire missiles towards the US Pacific island territory of Guam, but later said it was holding off while it waited to see what the United States would do next.

There will be no field training during the current exercise, according to US Forces Korea.

The United States has about 28,000 troops in South Korea. About 17,500 US service members are participating in the exercise this month, down from 25,000 last year, according to the Pentagon.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Sunday the reduction in the number of US troops taking part reflected a need for fewer personnel and was not because of tension with North Korea.

Other South Korean allies are also joining this year, with troops from Australia, Britain, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand taking part.