The South American nation seized Rurelec’s controlling stake in power company Guaracachi on May Day 2010 and has not paid any compensation.
Rurelec claims independent valuations show it is owed $142.3m (£94m) and on Tuesday the case will be heard at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
Peter Earl, Rurelec chief executive, said: “Bolivia has never gone to arbitration before — they have always settled beforehand. I think they thought we were a small company and they could bully us and we would cave.
“They never realised we had strong shareholders, or that we would get the support of the British Government.”
Rurelec raised money from shareholders to pay the legal costs of the arbitration process and said William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, had personally backed its case.
The company had said it would be willing for settle for a minimum of the book value of the assets, which it puts at $75m, plus interest. But Mr Earl said Bolivia had never even suggested a figure.
New Law in Bolivia to Protect Women from Violence (including “Femicide”)
The United Nations human rights office has welcomed a new law in Bolivia which broadens the protection of women against various forms of violence. “We welcome the promulgation, on 9 March 2013, of the Comprehensive Law to guarantee women a life free from violence in Bolivia (Law 348), which broadens protection of women against various forms of violence and establishes the eradication of violence against women as a priority of the State,” the spokesperson for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, told journalists in Geneva.
The law also includes the crime of ‘femicide’ – in which a woman is murdered due to the fact that she is female – in the penal code, with a prison term of 30 years without pardon.
A person from the city of Oruro, contracted and died from yellow fever in the tropical regions of Cochabamba, Bolivia, being the first such fatality from the mosquito borne viral disease, according to a La Razon report Feb. 14 (machine translated). This has prompted health authorities to urge people to get vaccinated against yellow fever at least 10 days prior to travel to tropical areas. In addition, they remind the public that the yellow fever vaccine is free. The report also says that dengue fever, another mosquito borne disease is present in the area where there are currently nine cases and over 120 suspected cases.
Biohazard name:
Yellow Fever
Biohazard level:
3/4 Hight
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, variola virus (smallpox), tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Among parasites Plasmodium falciparum, which causes Malaria, and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes trypanosomiasis, also come under this level.
A person from Oruro died due to yellow fever in the Cochabamba [department] tropics. This occurrence put the health authorities on alert and they requested the populace to get vaccinated 10 days before traveling to the tropical area.
Jorge Claros, Director of the Departmental Health Services (SEDES) reported that the fatality “is a person from the interior, from the Oruro area, who had visited the tropics and contracted the yellow fever [virus] infection there.”
Given the presence of the disease, it is recommended that before entering the topical area people must be vaccinated against yellow fever. “The vaccine is free and there are health centers [that have it],” [he said].
======================
[Yellow fever virus is endemic in the Amazon Basin of the South American tropics. This is undoubtedly a case of sylvan (jungle) yellow fever, where the virus infects wild primates and is transmitted to people by forest mosquitoes. It is critical that individuals in these areas be vaccinated against yellow fever virus infections, to not only protect themselves, but to prevent introduction of the virus into the urban cycle where significant numbers of cases, with a high (30 per cent) case fatality may occur, as happened in Paraguay in 2008. It is good that the local health authorities have responded to the occurrence of this case.
A HealthMap/ProMED-mail interactive map of Bolivia can be accessed at
<http://healthmap.org/r/5nSf>. - ProMed Mod.TY]
Mother Earth supports all life not just human beings. We are all tied to her. Our responsibility is to keep her healthy and her creatures safe. Man has trashed her in the name of money. Will money bring back the animals that have been wiped off the face of Mother Earth? Will money reverse the damage done by greedy companies that have cared nothing for the animals or the earth in their avarice for riches? Our duty is to protect Mother Earth and her creatures for she is unique and cannot be replaced. Those who are destroying her in the name of money must understand that we will have no where to go once they have destroyed her. Their money will not bring her back , nor her precious creatures.
It is time Governments understood that we will not allow this to happen. The time of the greedy corporations trashing our Mother Earth is coming to an end. It must stop as we will all perish with her and money will not bring her back.
Where do they think they will go when the air is no longer fit to breathe and the water no longer fit to drink? Money cannot replace t he beauty and splendor that they are destroying and it MUST STOP NOW!
Ecuador’s Sani Isla Kichwa people have asked for our help to stop the government turning their forest home into an oil field. A massive scandal in the global media challenging President Correa to act on his environmental principles could persuade him to pull back and stop the Amazon oil rush. Sign the petition now:
The local indigenous people have been resisting, but they are afraid that oil companies will break up the community with bribes. When they heard that people across the world might stand with them and make a stink to save their land, they were thrilled. The president of Ecuador claims to stand for indigenous rights and the environment, but he has just come up with a new plan to bring oil speculators in to 4 million hectares of jungle. If we can say ‘wait a minute, you’re supposed to be the green president who says no one can buy Ecuador’, we could expose him for turning his back on his commitments just as he is fighting for re-election.
He doesn’t want a PR nightmare right now. If we get a million of us to help this one community defend their ancestral land and challenge the president openly to keep to his word, we could start a media storm that would make him reconsider the whole plan. Sign the petition now and tell everyone — let’s help save this beautiful forest:
After Texaco and other oil companies polluted Ecuadorian waters and irreversibly devastated precious ecosystems, Correa led his country to be the world’s first nation to recognize the rights of “Mother Earth” in its constitution. He announced Ecuador was not for sale, and in Yasuni National Park promoted an innovative initiative where other governments pay Ecuador to keep oil in the ground to protect the rainforest rather than destroy it. But now he’s on the verge of selling out.
Shockingly, the Sani Isla Kichwa land is partly in Yasuni National Park. But even more shocking is Correa’s bigger plan — in days government officials begin a world tour to offer foreign investors the right to drill across 4 million hectares of forest (an area larger than the Netherlands!) Ecuador, as any country, may argue it has the right to profit from its natural resources, but the constitution itself says it must respect indigenous rights and its amazing forests, which bring millions in tourist dollars every year.
Right now, Correa is in a tough fight to be re-elected as president. It’s the perfect time to make him honour his environmental promises and make this green constitution come to life. Sign now to stand with the Kichwa people and save their forest:
Our community has fought year after year to protect the Amazon in Brazil and Bolivia, and won many victories standing in solidarity with indigenous communities. Now it’s Ecuador’s turn — let’s respond to this urgent call for action and save their forest.
With hope and determination,
Alex, Pedro, Alice, Laura, Marie, Ricken, Taylor, Morgan and all the Avaaz team
Bolivia’s President Evo Morales (AFP Photo / Lluis Gene)
Bolivia has “concrete evidence” that the US is plotting to destabilize the Latin American nation, Minister Juan Ramon Quintana said. Proof of US “harassment” of the Bolivian government will be handed over to President Obama, he added.
The Bolivian government is “scrupulously following” US activity in Bolivia, Minister for the Bolivian Presidency Quintana said in a press conference
“There is so much evidence to hand over to the President of the USA to say to him: Stop harassing the Bolivian government, stop politically cornering and ambushing us!” Quintana stressed. He added that investigations into drug-trafficking and human rights abuses would reveal a “permanent battle” waged by the US to impede progress in Bolivia.
“In the offensive against the government there are no visible subjects… What we’re seeing are the political machinations of the US Embassy,” which seeks to damage the image of the Bolivian government, Quintana said.
The country’s US ambassador was ejected in 2008 after being accused of plotting against the Bolivian government by President Evo Morales. The US quickly followed suit, removing its Bolivian ambassador.
A charge d’affaires now heads the American Embassy in La Paz; both nations signed a deal in 2011 that would pave the way for the reinstatement of the ambassadors. However, diplomatic relations between the two countries have yet to be normalized.
Larry Mermmot, the US diplomatic representative in La Paz, said that he was confident that 2013 would see the ambassadors restored in both countries.
A 5.3 magnitude earthquake hit Alexandria early on Friday morning.
Hatem Oada, head of the National Institute for Astronomical and Geophysical Research, said in a statement to the state-run MENA news agency that regional seismic networks indicate the tremor hit at 5:35 am, Cairo time. No damages or injuries have been reported.
The epicenter of the quake was in the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Delta. This region is not typically seismically active, Oada said.
SYDNEY, Oct 21, 2012 (AFP) – - A strong 6.2-magnitude earthquake rattled the South Pacific island of Vanuatu Sunday, seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued.
The quake struck at 10:00 am (2300 GMT Saturday) 500 kilometres (310 miles) northwest of the capital Port Vila at a depth of 35 kilometres, the United States Geological Survey said.
The USGS had earlier put the magnitude at 6.6.
Vanuatu lies on the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a zone of frequent seismic activity caused by friction between shifting tectonic plates.
It has been rocked by several large quakes in recent years, averaging about three magnitude 7.0 or above incidents every year without any major damage.
Biggest earthquakes during the last 48 hours
Size Time Quality Location
5.2 21 Oct 01:25:15 Checked 19.3 km NNE of Siglufjörður
4.9 20 Oct 22:53:46 38.3 116.8 km NE of Kolbeinsey
4.8 21 Oct 00:10:20 Checked 20.4 km NNE of Siglufjörður
4.4 21 Oct 01:03:42 90.0 20.1 km NNE of Siglufjörður
4.3 21 Oct 02:20:01 90.0 27.5 km NNE of Siglufjörður
4.1 21 Oct 00:10:21 90.0 16.6 km NE of Siglufjörður
A verdict in the trial of seven top Italian scientists for manslaughter for underestimating the risks of an earthquake which killed 309 people in L’Aquila, central Italy, in 2009, is expected on Monday.
“The verdict is expected on October 22,” said Enzo Musco, a lawyer for Professor Gian Michele Calvi who is one of the defendants.
The prosecutor’s office has asked for sentences of four years in prison for each of the seven who were all members of the Major Risks Committee.
The committee met in the central Italian city on March 31, 2009 — six days before the powerful earthquake devastated the region — after a series of small tremors in the preceding weeks had sown panic among local inhabitants.
Prosecutor Fabio Picuti said the experts had provided “an incomplete, inept, unsuitable and criminally mistaken” analysis after that meeting, which reassured locals and prevented them from preparing for the quake.
The experts had said after their meeting that they could not predict an earthquake but urged local authorities to ensure safety rules were respected.
The seven include Enzo Boschi, who at the time was the head of Italy’s National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology.
The La Repubblica daily on Friday also reported on a separate case against an engineer who lost his daughter in the earthquake but was put on trial for failing to respect anti-quake regulations in one of his constructions.
Diego De Angelis, 67, was convicted on Thursday and sentenced to three years in prison.
Mount Merapi erupting in 2010. (JG Photo/Boy T Harjanto).
Solo, Central Java. A lava dome that formed on top of Mount Merapi following its 2010 eruption has collapsed, prompting volcanology officials to issue a warning on Friday of a possible deadly cold lava stream on the mountain slope.
Tri Mujianto, from the Merapi mountain observatory in Jrakah, in the Selo subdistrict of Boyolali, said the lava dome had disappeared but he could not say precisely when.
“The dome is now no longer there but we were not able to monitor when it collapsed. Some [of the material] may have fallen inside [the crater] while some may have flowed into the channel of Apu River,” he said.
They have not been able to determine the cause of the collapse, as there has been no rain in the crater area for days. They also haven’t been able to estimate the volume of cold lava in the collapsed dome.
Tri said the alert status for Merapi remained at the normal level but warned that should rains fall over the crater, cold lava stream may flow down through natural river channels. A cold lava stream is congealed lava and other volcanic mud and debris flushed down the slopes of a volcano by heavy rains.
“Entering the rainy season, the frequency of cold lava stream is rising. We have checked the conditions at the craters several times and it appears to still be very much unstable. People on the slopes of Merapi, especially those living on the banks of rivers originating from the peak, should remain alert,” he said.
Meanwhile, Subandriyo, the head of the Volcanology office in Yogyakarta, said that parts of the lava dome facing Boyolali district had collapsed, and ventured that it was due to its fragile condition.
“The collapse was not directly recorded because there were so many small deflagrations. On the scale, they did not even reach one kilometer down the slope,” Subandriyo said.
He warned that rains with intensity of more than 20 millimeters and lasting more than two hours were enough to trigger flash floods of cold lava down the mountain’s slope.
Contact Information:
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
Office of Communications and Publishing
12201 Sunrise Valley Dr, MS 119
Reston, VA 20192
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Experts in volcano hazards and public safety have started a conversation about volcanoes in the southwestern United States, and how best to prepare for future activity. Prior to this meeting, emergency response planning for volcanic unrest in the region had received little attention by federal or state agencies.Though volcanic eruptions are comparatively rare in the American Southwest, the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah host geologically-recent volcanic eruption deposits and are vulnerable to future volcanic activity. Compared with other parts of the western U.S., comparatively little research has been focused on this area, and eruption probabilities are poorly understood.“A volcanic eruption in the American southwest is an example of a low-probability, but high-impact event for which we should be prepared to respond,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “No one wants to be exchanging business cards during an emergency, and thus a small investment in advance planning could pay off in personal relationships and coordination between scientists and first responders.””The goal of the conference is to increase awareness of volcanism and vulnerabilities in the American Southwest, and to begin coordination among volcano scientists, land managers, and emergency responders regarding future volcanic activity,” said Dr. Jacob Lowenstern, one of the organizers of the conference, and the U.S. Geological Survey Scientist-In-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. “This is the first time these federal, state, and local agencies have met to discuss their roles, responsibilities, and resources, should an eruption occur.”The “Volcanism in the American Southwest” conference on Oct. 18-19 in Flagstaff, Ariz. was organized by the USGS, Northern Arizona University, University at Buffalo, and New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, the meeting included interdisciplinary talks, posters, and panel discussions, providing an opportunity for volcanologists, land managers, and emergency responders to meet, converse, and begin to plan protocols for any future volcanic activity.
More information about the meeting, including presentation abstracts, is online.
Indonesia issued today an official alert at the straight of Sunda for the increasing activity of Mt. Anak Krakatoa. Dense clouds surrounding the mountain blind it from human eyes while fishers and tourists must remain at a distance of two kilometres, said Andi Suardi, head of the watch deport in Hargopancuran. Just 30 days earlier, Anak Krakatoa spewed lava and other material 2,000 meters high above the peak; there have been since hundreds of quakes in the area and black clouds continue to veil the mouth of the mountain. Situated between Sumatra and Java Islands, Anak Krakatoa emerged from sea late in the 1930s and from 1950, growing an average of five meters per year. Science has confirmed another five active volcanos and the authorities have activated the alert in their vicinity, and Indonesia has more than 400 volcanos and some 130 remain active.
A huge wave dragged a Polish woman to her death as she walked on a Spanish beach with a friend on Friday in a storm that also left a young French man missing.
As the powerful storm smashed into northeastern Catalonia, a big wave snatched away the 37-year-old Polish woman in the holiday resort of Lloret del Mar in the early hours, emergency services officials said.
“She was walking along the beach with a friend when she was surprised by a wave that dragged her in,” said a police spokesman.
Her corpse was found five nautical miles down the coast near Blanes later in the morning, officials said, and she was identified by her clothes and jewellery.
The French man, described only as a young person, disappeared after going fishing in a rocky area of the coast of Roses, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) further north.
Only his fishing rod was recovered.
Emergency services were alerted by the French man’s friend after he went fishing in a rocky area known as Carretera de Canyelles and failed to return, an emergency services spokesman said.
“This morning we found his fishing rod in a rocky area and began a search of the land and sea with helicopters and specialized vehicles,” he said.
Catalonia’s emergency services declared a state of alert on Friday because of forecasts for the weekend of heavy rain, rough seas with waves higher than 2.5 metres (eight feet) and strong winds.
The authorities warned people to avoid breakwaters, coastal paths and beaches affected by the waves.
Storms also beat down on the neighbouring northern Spanish region of Aragon, causing floods in the province of Zaragoza.
Spain has been punished by extreme weather in the past year.
After the driest winter in 70 years, forest fires scorched more than 184,000 hectares (454,000 acres) of land in the first nine months of 2012, the largest amount in a decade, according to government figures.
While the roads remained clear of any snow, ewes and lambs picked their way through the icy crust
By Hamish Clark
It’s been a bitterly cold end to Labour Weekend, with bad weather sweeping across the South Island.
Snow fell in Canterbury from Lake Tekapo up to Methven, while over on the West Coast, a tornado flattened an old theatre in the northern township of Hector.
The storm arrived at the break of dawn and blanketed the countryside. Temperatures dived in the wintry blast to near freezing – a turnaround on yesterday’s 20degC highs.
Five-to-10cm of snow covered the Canterbury Foothills, falling as far south as Twizel and Tekapo, cutting short holiday-makers’ long weekend away.
One by one, caravans, campervans and boats joined the queue home, although one classic bike was left on the side of the road.
“We have just come back from Twizel on the old motorbike and been in the snow,” says motorcyclist Grant Jones. “I have just blown a head casket on her, so she is on the trailer now until home.”
While the roads remained clear of any snow, ewes and lambs picked their way through the icy crust.
“[We have] few lambing ewes and a few sorry looking lambs,” says farming student Hamish Forrester.
Over on the West Coast, there was not much left of an old Hector theatre and dancehall north of Westport – a tornado flattened it in the middle of the night.
But if Tourism New Zealand ever wanted the perfect promo, this was it – visitors say they loved seeing the snow in Tekapo.
Brett Dutschke, Monday October 22, 2012 – 17:09 EDT Much of central Australia is baking in heat not experienced at this time of year in decades.
Temperatures have been reaching the high thirties each day for about a week, the longest it has been this hot at this time of year in more than 20 years.
Today is Yulara’s eighth day of reaching 35 degrees or more. In more than 20 years of record there hasn’t been a longer run of such heat at this time of year.
Alice Springs has reached at least 38 degrees in each of the past six days, beating the previous September/October record of four days, most recently set in 2008.
Across the border in far southwest Queensland, Birdsville has almost equalled its longest run of 40-degree days for this time of year. Sunday was the fourth day of 40 or more. This is only one day short of the October record of five days, set in 1988. Monday had only reached 39.4 degrees by 3:30pm. Birdsville’s records go back to the 1950s.
This heat has a few more days to go, at least until Wednesday in Yulara and Alice Springs and until Thursday in Birdsville, when a cooler southerly change is due. This change will drop temperatures by about 10 degrees.
Before the cooler change arrives Alice Springs is on target for nine consecutive days of 35 degrees, also a record for this time of year.
The persistent snow and rain hit the northwestern part of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, causing a dramatic temperature drop. This has resulted in the freezing of the road surface on several sections of Sayram Lake-Guozigou Highway, causing traffic congestion in the direction to Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, northwest China.
A hailstorm has left a trail of destruction, damaging furniture and ripping off roofing sheets at Lumanto Basic School in Lufwanyama. The storm, which happened last Friday, damaged a 1×2 classroom block at the school, whose window panes and part of the wall collapsed. Lufwanyama district education board secretary Hilda Kulelwa confirmed the tragedy in an interview yesterday. Ms Kulelwa said the hailstorm struck when schoolchildren were on lunch break and no one was hurt. “We had a very strong wind yesterday (Friday) which ripped off iron sheets at Lumanto Basic School. The desks are also damaged. The storm struck as soon as the grade nines finished their practical examinations,” she said. Ms Kulelwa said the damage left by the hailstorm will affect the school timetable as some classes will have to be rescheduled until the affected block is rehabilitated. She said the matter has been reported to the district commissioner and the provincial education officer. And Lufwanyama district commissioner Alex Kalela said his office will write to the provincial permanent secretary, requesting for the rehabilitation of the school as soon as possible. “The children are writing their final examinations and we don’t want their timetable to be affected. We are appealing to the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit to quickly repair the roofs before the rains start,” Mr Kalela said.
Ekurhuleni metro police ran for cover as hail the size of golf balls shattered their car windscreens and side mirrors, spokesman Kobeli Mokheseng said. The hail “came down like a ton of bricks” for about five minutes on Saturday between 2pm and 3pm, he said. “Metro police officers who were patrolling… ran for cover following heavy rain and winds blowing uncontrollably,” said Mokheseng. He said metro police were still assessing the damage, and that no one was hurt. The hail appeared to have been heaviest in Edenvale, Midrand, Germiston, Boksburg and Benoni. People took to the social networking site, Twitter, to express their dismay at the damage it caused. “What a scary experience yesterday really bad weather hail were so big damaged my younger sister’s kids playroom,” a Twitter user wrote. “Tennis ball sized hail at our place on Saturday crazy.” Another Twitter user wrote: “Talk about hail damage… 12 windows KO!!!!”. “Every car in the East Rand that wasn’t under cover or was on the road is damaged. Mine has 3 dents on boot,” wrote another person. “My mom’s Clio took a beating… Hail damage all over! It went right through the body work.” The Sunday Times showed a photograph of a Benoni man, Jimmy Sales, inspecting his car’s shattered rear windscreen under the headline “This weather is insane”. The newspaper carried an inset picture of a hailstone almost the size of a cricket ball which was among those which fell at the Glendower Golf Club, reportedly damaging several cars in the parking lot and gouging chunks out of the green.
22.10.2012
Flash Flood
Bulgaria
Province of Burgas, [Varvara and Ahtopol, Municipality of Tsarevo]
BLACKWELL, Okla. — Transportation officials say a stretch of Interstate 35 in northern Oklahoma is open again after a massive dust storm triggered a multi-vehicle accident.
Oklahoma Department of Transportation spokesman Cole Hackett said the 8-mile stretch of Interstate 35 reopened Thursday evening.
Transportation workers had been called in earlier Thursday to close the highway between U.S. 60 and Oklahoma 11. The area just south of the Kansas state line remained closed for several hours as crews cleared debris from the crash and waited for winds to die down.
weather.com
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said visibility was less than 10 feet as gusts as high as 55 mph blew dust over the roadway Thursday afternoon.
No one was killed in the multi-vehicle accident, though Blackwell Police Chief Fred LeValley said nine people were injured.
In a scene reminiscent of the Dust Bowl days, choking dust suspended on strong wind gusts shrouded Interstate 35, which links Dallas and Oklahoma City to Kansas City, Mo. Video from television station helicopters showed the four-lane highway virtually disappearing into billowing dust on the harsh landscape near Blackwell, plus dozens of vehicles scattered in the median and on the shoulders.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jodi Palmer, a dispatcher with the Kay County Sheriff’s Office. “In this area alone, the dirt is blowing because we’ve been in a drought. I think from the drought everything’s so dry and the wind is high.”
The highway patrol said the dust storm caused a multi-car accident, and local police said nearly three dozen cars and tractor-trailers were involved. Blackwell Police Chief Fred LeValley said nine people were injured, but there were no fatalities.
State transportation workers were called into to close the highway between U.S. 60 and Oklahoma 11, an 8-mile stretch of the cross-country roadway.
The area is just south of the Kansas state line in far northern Oklahoma. Interstate 35 runs from the Mexican border in south Texas to Duluth, Minn.
A red flag fire warning was in place for parts of northern Oklahoma on Thursday, as is a blowing dust advisory.
The National Weather Service forecast for the area said winds would subside to 20 mph or lower overnight but that gusts as high as 28 mph could continue. Calm winds were expected by Friday night.
The area has suffered through an extended drought and many farmers had recently loosened the soil while preparing for the winter wheat season.
“You have the perfect combination of extended drought in that area … and we have the extremely strong winds,” said Gary McManus, the Oklahoma associate state climatologist.
“Also, the timing is bad because a lot of those farm fields are bare. The soil is so dry, it’s like powder. Basically what you have is a whole bunch of topsoil waiting for the wind to blow it away. It’s no different from the 1930s than it is now.”
Steve Austin, a Kay County commissioner, said visibility was terrible.
“It looked like a huge fog was over the city of Ponca City,” he said. “We’ve had dust storms before, but I don’t remember anything of this magnitude in years.”
There are no flooded and isolated settlements after the heavy rain in the coastal municipality of Tsarevo on Sunday. A bridge has been hit by a tidal wave on the road between the southeastern village of Varvara and town of Ahtopol, municipality mayor Georgi Lapchev said. He added that the road was closed and experts were working to restore the damaged section. He said there was a roundabout route. He noted that Sunday’s heavy rain caused damages and other settlements might experience problems as well.
Flash floods in Papua in eastern Indonesia on Sunday night has displaced over 1,000 people and damaged over 200 houses and other public facilities, an official of disaster relief agency said here on Monday. Spokesman of the National Disaster Management and Mitigation Agency Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said that heavy rains at mountainous area led to overflow of Eranouli river and caused flash floods in Eranouli village in Panja district at about 21:00 pm Jakarta time (1400 GMT). “Over 200 houses and scores of office building have been damaged and about 1,000 people have escaped to higher grounds,” he said. The waters inundated the village by up to 2 meters high, said Sutopo. The waters also damaged a health clinic and a clean water facility, he said.
A flash flood triggered by torrential rain has killed at least nine construction workers and left 15 others missing and feared dead in India’s remote northeast. Karma Zyatso, chief secretary of Sikkim state, says the workers, who lived in camps, were swept away by the swirling waters of a flooded river Friday in Chungthan, a small town in the mountainous region. Zyatso said Sunday that authorities had recovered nine bodies and were searching for the 15 missing workers, who were building roads.
At least 11 Peruvians were killed and 10 more are missing after a mudslide Wednesday slammed into a small village in a mountainous jungle region, officials said.
Those killed in the landslide include five children, Ronald Garcia, the provincial mayor, told RPP national radio network.
The avalanche of mud and rocks swept away 24 homes when it crashed into the village of El Porvenir, in the northern department of San Martin, at dawn.
The head of Peru’s Civil Defense Institute, Alfredo Murgueytio, told the daily El Comercio in an interview posted online that rescuers pulled 11 bodies from the rubble, and that 10 people are still missing.
Mayor Garcia said that some of the missing people may have fled into the hills to save their lives.
“Whole families are missing,” said Garcia. More than 80 families live in the village, he said.
El Porvenir residents are mostly coffee farmers, officials said.
Heavy rain in Peru’s Andean region in recent weeks has triggered several landslides.
Tornadoes reportedly touched down Monday afternoon in three Northern California counties, knocking down some trees and power lines as a powerful storm blew over the region. Officials said no injuries were reported by the tornadoes, which were caused by the first storm of the season in Northern California. The National Weather Service said preliminary reports indicated that the tornadoes touched down in Sutter, Yuba and Butte counties. The unstable weather prompted the agency to issue a tornado warning for Placer County. Officials said they received reports from residents of toppled trees and power lines and damage to rooftops after shingles were ripped off by powerful winds.
22.10.2012
Tornado
USA
State of Pennsylvania, Fern Glen [Lancaster County]
Authorities have confirmed that a tornado caused a pavilion to collapse at a Lancaster County park, injuring 15 people and causing millions of dollars in damage. The EF-1 tornado touched down shortly after 8 p.m. Friday and over the next 10 minutes traveled about 16 miles from Fern Glen to Paradise in Lancaster County, packing maximum winds of 100 to 110 m.p.h., the National Weather Service said Sunday. Officials said several dozen people attending a baseball game near Paradise sought shelter at the 40-by-40-foot pavilion, but high winds collapsed it. Police said 10 to 12 people were injured, but the weather service put the injury total at 15. Authorities said most of the injuries were minor; one person had a broken bone. The tornado damage was sporadic and contained within a larger area of straight-line wind damage, weather observers said. Officials said 50 structures were damaged, including several barns that were destroyed. Two small high-tension towers and thousands of trees were toppled. The county emergency management office estimated damage at $3 million to $5 million.
More than 20 schoolchildren, who have fallen sick in some posh localities of the city, are attending their classes, posing a danger to others kids. Teachers suspect students are afflicted with chickenpox. With blisters over body, fever and tiredness, these students are going to school. The parents say they have to send their children to schools as their absence from the school would affect studies and they might miss the chance of writing their annual test because of falling short of minimum attendance necessary to appear in examination. “I know many children who are suffering from chickenpox, a woman teacher, residing in Arera Colony, told TOI. Instead of quarantining such kids, their parents were sending them to schools, which may trigger the spread of the contagious disease, she said. These kids, some from my locality, are from the posh localities, she said. The health officials should take some steps and visit schools.
Biohazard name:
Chicken Pox
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
Hospitals in the city have reported cases of rickettsial disease caused by tick bites – a rare infectious fever that is common in hilly regions having a tropical climate. Though doctors said the disease “is very rare” in Delhi, AIIMS has reported at least two cases in its paediatric unit over the past six weeks. Serological reports from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) confirmed that these patients were afflicted with scrub typhus, a variant of rickettsia. Doctors at three private hospitals said they had sent samples to the NCDC and received confirmed reports. Serological tests to confirm the infection is not available in government and most private hospitals. The Director of Health Services (DHS) Dr N V Kamat said the city’s infectious disease surveillance programme was yet to be notified about the cases. Dr V K Paul, the head of paediatrics in AIIMS, said: “The disease is very rare and we do not often get patients suffering from the it in Delhi. But we have received confirmation from the NCDC that two of our patients were diagnosed with Scrub Typhus over the past six weeks.” Dr Atul Gogia, associate consultant of internal medicine in Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said: “We have seen 8-10 cases of scrub typhus in the past month. We used to see a case once a year. This year, there has been a sudden jump. So we are sending every suspected, unexplained fever for tests.” Dr Gogia said patients have a characteristic black mark, known as eschar, left by the mite on the body accompanied by fever.
Biohazard name:
Typhus (Scrub)
Biohazard level:
3/4 Hight
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, variola virus (smallpox), tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Among parasites Plasmodium falciparum, which causes Malaria, and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes trypanosomiasis, also come under this level.
Solar activity has increased to active during the past 24 hours, featuring a long duration M9.1 flare and six C flares.
The M9.1 flare was released by sunspot region 1598 on the east limb of the Sun and peaked at 18:14 UT on October 20th. A high-speed shock wave registered 516 kilometers per second (320 miles per second) observed at 18:15 UT. An associated CME was observed by LASCO C2 at 19:00 UT, but is not directed towards Earth.
Earlier today sunspot region 1596 produced a M1.3 (2003UT), C7.8 (0316UT), and C5.6 (0534UT). Both regions 1596 and 1598 maintain potential for further isolated M-class to X-class activity.
Solar wind speed is expected to increase slightly days one and two under the influence of a coronal hole wind stream. NASA and NOAA has issued a WARNING for high flying aircraft, the ISS, NSSO and NSTAC due to an increased possibility of satellite deep dielectric discharge.
In a flux of high energy charged particles, they penetrate the spacecraft or satellite’s outer surface and bury themselves in dielectric materials such as circuit boards and the insulation in coaxial cables. The buildup of charge will continue until the dielectric strength of the material is exceeded, when a sudden electrical discharge will occur. This miniature lightning stroke can cause permanent damage in the associated or nearby circuitry.
Watch for increased extreme weather events which include earthquake, volcano, tornado, and cyclone activity over the next 48 to 72 hours.
A gray, 2-inch rock that hit a Novato home is the first confirmed chunk of the meteor that dramatically exploded over the Bay Area, a scientist said Sunday. Lisa Webber, 61, found the meteorite in her yard on Saturday, three days after the object fell onto the roof of her home on St. Francis Avenue. She had heard a strange sound at the time but didn’t think twice about it until she read a Chronicle story saying debris from the meteor would be found in a band stretching east of San Rafael toward Napa and Sonoma. Some have marveled at the potential cosmic significance of the fact that it hit a home belonging to a man of the cloth – Webber’s husband, Kent Webber, is pastor at Presbyterian Church of Novato. The space rock, in fact, had first hit the roof of his study, she said. “It’s just science – and it’s cool,” said Lisa Webber, an administrative nurse at UCSF Medical Center. “It’s wonderful. It’s like the heavens coming down, and history and this thing probably came from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter – I mean, how cool is that?” Peter Jenniskens, a leading meteor hunter at the Seti Institute in Mountain View, confirmed that the space rock was indeed debris from the meteor that streaked over the sky Wednesday night.”The significance of this find is that we can now hope to use our fireball trajectory to trace this type of meteorite back to its origins in the asteroid belt,” Jenniskens wrote on his group’s website. At the time the object hit her roof, Webber thought the sound she heard had come from an animal that was rummaging on her property. She checked the roof, found nothing, and quickly forgot about it until she read The Chronicle on Friday night. That’s when she went searching through the yard and found a rock. She summoned her neighbor’s son, the two put a magnet to the object, and they stuck together. On Saturday, neighbor Luis Rivera climbed onto the roof and found an indentation left by the meteorite. “The surprising thing about it all is that it’s something from the orbit between Mars and Jupiter, and it ended up in Novato,” Rivera said. “And when Lisa was relating all of this to me, it took a while to sink in as to the odds of this happening.”
Russia could start building a space rocket capable of destroying asteroids threatening the Earth, chief of rocket and space corporation Energia said Friday.
“There are three large asteroids, including Apophis, whose orbits cross the Earth’s orbit and which could hit the Earth in the next several decades,” Vitaly Lopota told the state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
To change the orbit of a small planet of Apophis’ size, a 70-ton rocket was needed to “tow” an asteroid away from Earth or to destroy it with a thermonuclear blast, Lopota said.
Apophis was discovered in 2004. It will approach the Earth dangerously close, at about 30,000 km, which is less than one-tenth of the Moon’s distance from Earth, in 2029.
Experts calculate impact of a collision between Apophis and the Earth will be equal to a 1,700-Megaton explosion.
Lopota said existing Russian rocket carriers with RD-171 engines could be redesigned to produce a rocket capable of destroying an asteroid. Energia was ready to build such a rocket within three to five years, he said.
Currently, RD-171 engines made by NPO Energomash have been used on Zenit-3SL missiles employed in the Russia-Ukraine-Norway-U.S. joint project Sea Launch.
“We call them Tsar Engines, which no other country possesses,” Lopota said, referring to Russian artifacts, the Tsar Cannon and Tsar Bell, which were the world’s largest in their time.
by Francis Reddy for Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt MD (SPX)
This plot shows the fractions of settled disk galaxies in four time spans, each about 3 billion years long. (full size chart) There is a steady shift toward higher percentages of settled galaxies closer to the present time. At any given time, the most massive galaxies are the most settled. More distant and less massive galaxies on average exhibit more disorganized internal motions, with gas moving in multiple directions, and slower rotation speeds. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
A comprehensive study of hundreds of galaxies observed by the Keck telescopes in Hawaii and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has revealed an unexpected pattern of change that extends back 8 billion years, or more than half the age of the universe.
“Astronomers thought disk galaxies in the nearby universe had settled into their present form by about 8 billion years ago, with little additional development since,” said Susan Kassin, an astronomer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the study’s lead researcher. “The trend we’ve observed instead shows the opposite, that galaxies were steadily changing over this time period.”
Today, star-forming galaxies take the form of orderly disk-shaped systems, such as the Andromeda Galaxy or the Milky Way, where rotation dominates over other internal motions. The most distant blue galaxies in the study tend to be very different, exhibiting disorganized motions in multiple directions. There is a steady shift toward greater organization to the present time as the disorganized motions dissipate and rotation speeds increase. These galaxies are gradually settling into well-behaved disks.
Blue galaxies – their color indicates stars are forming within them – show less disorganized motions and ever-faster rotation speeds the closer they are observed to the present. This trend holds true for galaxies of all masses, but the most massive systems always show the highest level of organization.
Researchers say the distant blue galaxies they studied are gradually transforming into rotating disk galaxies like our own Milky Way.
“Previous studies removed galaxies that did not look like the well-ordered rotating disks now common in the universe today,” said co-author Benjamin Weiner, an astronomer at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “By neglecting them, these studies examined only those rare galaxies in the distant universe that are well-behaved and concluded that galaxies didn’t change.”
Rather than limit their sample to certain galaxy types, the researchers instead looked at all galaxies with emission lines bright enough to be used for determining internal motions. Emission lines are the discrete wavelengths of radiation characteristically emitted by the gas within a galaxy. They are revealed when a galaxy’s light is separated into its component colors. These emission lines also carry information about the galaxy’s internal motions and distance.
The team studied a sample of 544 blue galaxies from the Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe 2 (DEEP2) Redshift Survey, a project that employs Hubble and the twin 10-meter telescopes at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Located between 2 billion and 8 billion light-years away, the galaxies have stellar masses ranging from about 0.3 percent to 100 percent of the mass of our home galaxy.
A paper describing these findings will be published Oct. 20 in The Astrophysical Journal.
The Milky Way galaxy must have gone through the same rough-and-tumble evolution as the galaxies in the DEEP2 sample, and gradually settled into its present state as the sun and solar system were being formed.
In the past 8 billion years, the number of mergers between galaxies large and small has decreased sharply. So has the overall rate of star formation and disruptions of supernova explosions associated with star formation. Scientists speculate these factors may play a role in creating the evolutionary trend they observe.
Now that astronomers see this pattern, they can adjust computer simulations of galaxy evolution until these models are able to replicate the observed trend. This will guide scientists to the physical processes most responsible for it.
The DEEP2 survey is led by Lick Observatory at the University of California at Santa Cruz in collaboration with the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., the University of Chicago and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. in Washington.
A bright fireball, reportedly with hues of red and orange, streaked across the night sky visible from San Francisco’s Bay Area on Wednesday, October 18, around 8 p.m. local time (3UTC on October 18). Many say they heard a boom, which was so loud it “shook their homes,” some residents said, making them think it may be an earthquake.
Wes Jones in Belmont, California caught the meteor disappearing behind the trees while using a wide-field camera. Image copyright Wes Jones. Used with permission.
Belmont, California astronomer Wes Jones captured the fireball as it sailed across the sky on October 17, just as it was entering the trees.
Here is the capture data for the Wes Jones’ image above:
Camera: Interactiveastronomy Skyeye Camera
Camera Location: 122°16’31.73″ W, 37°31’1.17″ N
Altitude: 17 Meters
Exposure Duration: 30 seconds
File Write Time: 07:44:44 PM PDT 10/17/2012
The video above is raw footage from the security camera at Lick Observatory, located in the hills above San Jose, California. Camera is a little out of focus. Round structure to the left is the 40-inch Nickel refracting telescope dome. Lights in the background are the San Jose cityscape. Video posted to YouTube by Erik Kovacs.
Screen grab from Google maps (not clickable) of area where October 17, 2012 meteorite might have fallen. One expert said it might have come down in the hills north of Martinez, California. If so, he said, hikers might be able to find pieces of the meteorite.
Jonathan Braidman, astronomy instructor at Oakland’s Chabot Space and Science Center, told SuiSunCityPatch.com that the meteor may have been “roughly the size of a car when it broke up over the Bay Area.” He said hikers might be able to find small pieces of the meteorite in the hills north of Martinez, California.
Was the October 17, 2012 meteor seen over the Bay Area associated with the Orionid meteor shower? If it were associated, it would have to have radiated from the same point in the sky as the Orionids. That point is in the the same famous constellation Orion the Hunter, shown here. Can anyone who saw the October 17 meteor tell us if it radiated from this constellation? More about this weekend’s Orionid meteor shower here.
Is the October 17, 2012 meteor associated with the Orionid meteor shower? That shower is coming up this weekend. Although I didn’t see it, and don’t know if its path could be traced back to the constellation Orion – which is the radiant point for all meteors in the Orionid shower – the answer is likely that the two are not associated. Meteors in annual showers are tiny, icy bits left behind by comets orbiting the sun. The Orionids, in particular, come from one of the most famous comets, Comet Halley, which last visited Earth in 1986. The meteor seen over the Bay Area on October 17, 2012 was more likely a larger, rocky meteor, just a random chunk of space debris that entered Earth’s atmosphere and vaporized due to friction with the air.
The October 17, 2012 meteor sighting is reminiscent of another meteor sighting earlier this year, when – on the morning of April 22, 2012 – many in Nevada and California saw a bright flash across the sky, and heard an audible boom, or explosion. The object was later called “a small asteroid” whose estimated weight was some 70 metric tons.
Wikimedia Commons image of a bollide or fireball – a piece of space debris entering Earth’s atmosphere and causing a particularly bright streak across the sky.
Astronomers use the word bolide to describe an exceptionally bright fireball such as this one. The term bolide – which comes the Greek word bolis, meaning a missile or to flash – is particularly applicable when the object is so bright it can be seen in broad daylight, when the object explodes in the atmosphere and when it creates audible sounds. In other words, all of these phenomena are known to occur, and astronomers even have a word for it.
Bright meteors or bollides were also seen in the U.K. and New Zealand in 2012. They are not uncommon, if you are considering the entire globe.
However, from any one spot on Earth, they are uncommon, Among astronomers, it’s sometimes said you might witness one bolide, or very bright fireball, in your lifetime. So if you saw this one, this was yours!
Bottom line: Many in San Francisco’s Bay Area saw an exceptionally bright meteor, and heard a loud boom, on the night of October 17, 2012. Photo and video in this post, plus information on the Orionid meteor shower, which peaks on the morning of October 21.
Concentrations of red tide have been detected from Charlotte County to Collier County. Hundreds of dead fish are washing ashore and a foul odor now fills the air at many beaches throughout Southwest Florida. Many residents and visitors are hoping that red tide is on its way out of town, but at Wiggins Pass State Park in Collier County, things aren’t looking too great. Thousands of dead fish remain in sight. But beachgoers we spoke with said they aren’t letting the toxic algae ruin their fun. “This is the first time I’ve seen this,” said Karl Udo, who has been visiting Southwest Florida from Germany for over 20 years. “It’s no good.” The toxic algae started to wash through Collier County beaches just last week, carrying with it the unpleasant stench. “You got to breathe through your mouth. So don’t take deep breaths through your nose,” said Liz Koch, who is visiting from Chicago. The latest tests done by county officials show that red tide is at medium levels throughout some of Collier’s beaches. The toxin can cause respiratory irritation, a concern for county officials with tourist season in sight.
Crews working on an old Air Force fuel spill have found potentially cancer-causing chemicals beneath a southeast Albuquerque neighborhood, Kirtland Air Force Base announced. The New Mexico Environment Department said Friday that Air Force crews found the pollutant Perchloroethylene, or PCE, in water around 500 feet underground while installing test wells. However, officials say they don’t believe the recently discovered pollutant is connected to a decades-old Kirtland Air Force Base jet fuel spill threatening Albuquerque’s water supply that could be as large as 24 million gallons. Davis tsaid that the chemicals likely came from a dry cleaner. Jim Davis, head of New Mexico Environment Department Resource Protection, told reporters that the chemical is threatening groundwater and not residents in the neighborhood above the contamination. Still, the discovery could trigger action under the federal Superfund law, a program aimed at the nation’s most serious hazardous chemical contamination problems. New Mexico Environment Department Secretary David Martin praised crews for making the discovery.The department has launched a probe to see if any businesses that used PCE were located in the vicinity of the well clusters in the past. The Air Force is two years away from finalizing a cleanup plan in connection with a toxin-laden plume from a 40-year underground pipe leak was discovered at Kirtland Air Force Base. The spill was first discovered in 1999 when the Air Force noticed a pool of fuel coming up out of the ground at its old aircraft fuel storage center, which dates back to the 1950s. Air Force officials say the fuel was leaking from an underground pipe for at least 40 years as tests on elements in the plume — which contains the cancer-causing Benzyne and other harmful toxins — show it dates back to at least the 1970s. Less than half a million gallons have been pumped out of the ground.
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes 'FAIR USE' of any such copyrighted material.]
An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale has struck off eastern Indonesia near the Aru islands, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the quake struck at 9:31 am local time (0131 GMT) on Friday and was centered 247 kilometers southwest of the city of Nabire in the eastern province of West Paupa and 108 kilometers north of Dobo in the Aru Islands.
Indonesia is vulnerable to earthquakes being located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region known for its seismic and volcanic activity caused by friction between shifting tectonic plates.
Last month, a 6.4-magnitude quake rocked the west coast of Sumatra Island, killing at least one person.
MAM/HN
6.7 Mwp – NEAR S COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
Preliminary Earthquake Report
Magnitude
6.7 Mwp
Date-Time
12 Oct 2012 00:31:30 UTC
12 Oct 2012 09:31:30 near epicenter
11 Oct 2012 18:31:30 standard time in your timezone
Location
4.842S 134.085E
Depth
24 km
Distances
108 km (67 miles) N (352 degrees) of Dobo, Aru Islands, Indonesia
273 km (170 miles) WSW (245 degrees) of Enarotali, Irian Jaya, Indonesia
440 km (274 miles) S (180 degrees) of Manokwari, Irian Jaya, Indonesia
669 km (416 miles) E (101 degrees) of Ambon, Moluccas, Indonesia
1027 km (638 miles) ENE (67 degrees) of DILI, East Timor
Location Uncertainty
Horizontal: 12.8 km; Vertical 7.3 km
Parameters
Nph = 145; Dmin = 295.0 km; Rmss = 1.08 seconds; Gp = 28°
M-type = Mwp; Version = 7
At least 14 people were killed and an estimated 1500 fishermen are missing after tropical storms smashed into Bangladesh’s southern coastal islands and districts early Thursday, police said. Police said at least 1500 mud, tin and straw-built houses were also levelled in the storms that swept Bhola, Hatiya and Sandwip Islands and half a dozen coastal districts after midnight local time. At the worst-hit island of Hatiya, at least five people were killed after they were buried under their houses or hit by fallen trees, said local police chief Moktar Hossain. More than 1000 houses were flattened. “More than 100 fishing trawlers, each carrying at least 10 fishermen, have been missing since the storm,” he told said, calling it one of the most powerful in decades. Many fishermen are expected to have taken shelter in other remote islands in the Bay of Bengal or in the neighbouring Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest. In the past, many fishermen thought to be missing from storms returned home to coastal villages a week or two later. Four people were killed in Bhola, three in Sandwip and two at Char Jabbar, police said. The police chief of Bhola district Bashir Ahmed said more than 500 fishermen were missing from the country’s largest island and at least 500 mud and straw-built houses were levelled by the sudden storm. Bangladesh’s weather office forecast heavy rain in the coastal region and advised fishermen to approach the shore and take care. But there was no major storm warning. “We only got the warning signal number three. But the storm was so powerful, the weather office should have hoisted the signal number seven or eight,” said Mr Ahmed, referring to the intensity of the storm in a scale of ten. “It caught the fishermen and coastal people by surprise. Till now we haven’t had any reports from the missing fishermen,” he said.
Tsunami Information Bulletin in Aru Islands Region Indonesia, Indian Ocean
000
WEIO23 PHEB 120037
TIBIOX
TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 001
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 0037Z 12 OCT 2012
THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE INDIAN OCEAN.
... TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN ...
THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY.
THIS BULLETIN IS ISSUED AS ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. ONLY
NATIONAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE
DECISIONS REGARDING THE OFFICIAL STATE OF ALERT IN THEIR AREA AND
ANY ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN RESPONSE.
AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS
ORIGIN TIME - 0032Z 12 OCT 2012
COORDINATES - 5.1 SOUTH 134.1 EAST
LOCATION - ARU ISLANDS REGION INDONESIA
MAGNITUDE - 6.7
EVALUATION
A DESTRUCTIVE WIDESPREAD TSUNAMI THREAT DOES NOT EXIST BASED ON
HISTORICAL EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI DATA.
HOWEVER - THERE IS A VERY SMALL POSSIBILITY OF A LOCAL TSUNAMI
THAT COULD AFFECT COASTS LOCATED USUALLY NO MORE THAN A HUNDRED
KILOMETERS FROM THE EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER. AUTHORITIES IN THE
REGION NEAR THE EPICENTER SHOULD BE MADE AWARE OF THIS
POSSIBILITY.
THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED BY THE PACIFIC TSUNAMI
WARNING CENTER FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
BECOMES AVAILABLE.THE JAPAN METEOROLOGICAL AGENCY MAY ISSUE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
FOR THIS EVENT. IN THE CASE OF CONFLICTING INFORMATION...THE
MORE CONSERVATIVE INFORMATION SHOULD BE USED FOR SAFETY.
…………………………..
11.10.2012
Forest / Wild Fire
USA
State of Michigan, [Heisterman Island, Saginaw Bay]
A wildfire has burned roughly one-third of an uninhabited island in Saginaw Bay. The Huron Daily Tribune of Bad Axe reports the fire burned Tuesday and Wednesday at Heisterman Island, located a few miles off Huron County’s Fairhaven Township. Members of the Fairhaven Township Fire Department couldn’t get to the scene, so they monitored the blaze from shore and kept in touch with the state Department of Natural Resources. Rain mostly put out the fire, and the DNR estimates that about 130 acres of the 400-acre island burned. The cause of the blaze wasn’t known. The island located about 100 miles north of Detroit is used by hunters, anglers and campers.
A Bangladeshi man walks over the destroyed roof of a building in Bhola Island after a deadly tropical storm killed at least 20 and left 1500 fishermen missing.
At least 20 people have lost their lives and some 1,500 fishermen gone missing as a result of tropical storms in Bangladesh’s southern coastal islands and districts.
Thousands of houses were also destroyed in the storms that started hitting Bhola, Hatiya, and Sandwip Islands and several coastal districts on Wednesday midnight for some hours.
Sixteen people died in Noakhali district, said Sirajul Islam, the district’s administration chief.
Four bodies were also found while over 500 fishermen remained missing in Bhola, the country’s largest island, according to Bashir Ahmed, the island’s police chief.
“More than 100 fishing trawlers, each carrying at least 10 fishermen, have been missing” in the worst-hit island of Hatiya, local police chief Moktar Hossain said.
Bangladesh’s weather forecast office had not issued a major storm warning although it had advised fishermen of heavy rain in the region.
“We only got the warning signal number three. But the storm was so powerful, the weather office should have hoisted the signal number seven or eight…It caught the fishermen and coastal people by surprise. Till now we haven’t had any reports from the missing fishermen,” Ahmed noted.
Authorities have issued evacuation orders in disaster-prone areas.
Torrential storms and landslides are common in Bangladesh. In June 2007, at least 130 people were killed in landslides in Chittagong, a port city in the southeast of the country.
Seven people were killed when overnight torrential rain unleashed heavy flooding in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Dagestan, officials said Wednesday.
The flooding in the ancient Caspian Sea city of Derbent affected hundreds of homes with 1,120 people in the affected area, the regional branch of the Emergencies Ministry said in a statement.
“Seven people have been killed,” it said.
Devastating floods in July in the town of Krymsk at the other end of the Caucasus mountains to the west killed 172 people and raised questions about the authorities’ handling of disasters.
Last winter, scientists at the University of Wisconsin and Erasmus University (Netherlands) shocked the world by announcing they had developed strains of H5N1 influenza that could easily pass between mammals (ferrets). In nature, H5N1 is extremely lethal (kills nearly 60% of its human cases), but it does not easily spread from person-to-person. Thus, biosafety concerns were raised over the possible release, accidental or intentional, of these new viruses.
In January 2012, an international panel of 39 influenza researchers agreed on a 6-month moratorium on all gain-of-function H5N1 research-classified as “dual-use research of concern” or DURC. This was followed over the summer by an indefinite continuation of the ban by the U.S. government until consensus emerges on how to proceed.
To advance this discussion, the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) journal mBio will publish a special issue of commentaries on the pros and cons of DURC from global experts in virology and public health (full list below).
Here is a brief summary. ASM officials Arturo Casadevall and Thomas Shenk set the stage by discussing the major events that led to the moratorium.
Anthony Fauci, head of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, reviews how the U.S. government plans to proceed.
Concerns over laboratory biocontainment are addressed by Professor W. Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
The authors of the controversial research, Ron A. M. Fouchier and Yoshihiro Kawaoka, along with Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, highlight the importance of DURC and why the moratorium should be lifted.
Public health experts Marc Lipsitch and Barry Bloom assess the probability of an accidental release from laboratories with advanced security.
Finally, Stanley Falkow, who attended the infamous 1975 Asilomar conference, provides historical context by comparing the current H5N1 moratorium to lessons learned from the moratorium on recombinant DNA technology.
Ten people died of a measles outbreak from 17 September to the present date, in Menongue City, capital of the south-eastern Kuando Kubango Province, a fact that is worrying the local health authorities. ANGOP has learnt that most of the deceased are children below the age of two, but there is also the record of a 35-year old adult. According to the head of the Menongue Municipality health department, Carlos Jonas, who gave this information to ANGOP on Thursday, in view of this worrying reality, which includes the fact that this disease is highly contagious, the authorities have reinforced routine vaccination acts. From 17 September up to the present date the authorities recorded 320 cases of measles were recorded in Menongue City, a number that is considered very high considering the period of the outbreak. According to official sources ten people are currently in-patients in the central hospital for medical assistance, while others are getting ambulatory treatment.
Biohazard name:
Measles
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
A 38-year-old woman, identified as Mrs. Torugbene-Ere Aboh, escaped death by the whiskers, following a violent attack on her by a shark at Forcados River in Oboro Community, Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State. Vanguard gathered that the woman, a mother of five, who was taking her bath in the overflowing river, had gone for a three-day fasting programme in a church in the community, when she was attacked by the shark in the river. Narrating her ordeal, Mrs Aboh, said: “Shortly after I started bathing, I felt a sharp cut on my right leg and I screamed for help. The screaming drew the attention of my brethren who were also in the river and they came to my rescue. “I was immediately taken to a nearby patent medicine shop, where I was given 12 stitches before I was later taken by my husband, to a private clinic at Bomadi, for proper medical treatment.”
Biohazard name:
Shark attack (fatal)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
NASA/THEMIS Illustration showing magnetic reconnection in the magnetotail triggering the onset of substorms. Substorms are the sudden violent eruptions of space weather that release solar energy trapped in the Earth’s magnetic field. The reconnections trigger dynamic changes in the auroral displays seen near Earth’s northern and southern magnetic poles, causing a burst of light and movement in the Northern and Southern Lights.
LONDON — The discovery by NASA rover Curiosity of evidence that water once flowed on Mars – the most Earth-like planet in the solar system – should intensify interest in what the future could hold for mankind.
The only thing stopping Earth having a lifeless environment like Mars is the magnetic field that shields us from deadly solar radiation and helps some animals migrate, and it may be a lot more fragile and febrile than one might think.
Scientists say earth’s magnetic field is weakening and could all but disappear in as little as 500 years as a precursor to flipping upside down.
It has happened before – the geological record suggests the magnetic field has reversed every 250,000 years, meaning that, with the last event 800,000 years ago, another would seem to be overdue.
“Magnetic north has migrated more than 1,500 kilometres over the past century,” said Conall Mac Niocaill, an earth scientist at Oxford University. “In the past 150 years, the strength of the magnetic field has lessened by 10 percent, which could indicate a reversal is on the cards.”
While the effects are hard to predict, the consequences may be enormous. The loss of the magnetic field on Mars billions of years ago put paid to life on the planet if there ever was any, scientists say.
Mac Niocaill said Mars probably lost its magnetic field 3.5-4.0 billion years ago, based on observations that rocks in the planet’s southern hemisphere have magnetisation.
The northern half of Mars looks younger because it has fewer impact craters, and has no magnetic structure to speak of, so the field must have shut down before the rocks there were formed, which would have been about 3.8 billion years ago.
“With the field dying away, the solar wind was then able to strip the atmosphere away, and you would also have an increase in the cosmic radiation making it to the surface,” he said.
“Both of these things would be bad news for any life that might have formed on the surface – either wiping it out, or forcing it to migrate into the interior of the planet.”
RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW
Earth’s magnetic field has always restored itself but, as it continues to shift and weaken, it will present challenges – satellites could be more exposed to solar wind and the oil industry uses readings from the field to guide drills.
In nature, animals which use the field could be mightily confused – birds, bees, and some fish all use the field for navigation. So do sea turtles whose long lives, which can easily exceed a hundred years, means a single generation could feel the effects.
Birds may be able to cope because studies have shown they have back-up systems that rely on stars and landmarks, including roads and power lines, to find their way around.
The European Space Agency is taking the issue seriously. In November, it plans to launch three satellites to improve our fairly blurry understanding of the magnetosphere.
The project – Swarm – will send two satellites into a 450 kilometre high polar orbit to measure changes in the magnetic field, while a third satellite 530 kilometres high will look at the influence of the sun.
DESCENT INTO CHAOS
Scientists, who have known for some time the magnetic field has a tendency to flip, have made advances in recent years in understanding why and how it happens.
The field is generated by convection currents that churn in the molten iron of the planet’s outer core. Other factors, such as ocean currents and magnetic rocks in the earth’s crust also contribute.
The Swarm mission will pull all these elements together to improve computer models used to predict how the magnetic field will move and how fast it could weaken.
Ciaran Beggan, a geomagnetic specialist at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, said studies have also refined our understanding of how the field reverses.
They have focused on lava flows. When these cool and form crystals the atoms in iron-rich molten rock align under the influence of the magnetic field, providing a geological memory of the earth’s field.
But that memory looks different in various locations around the world, suggesting the reversal could be a chaotic and fairly random process.
“Rather than having strong north and south poles, you get lots of poles around the planet. So, a compass would not do you much good,” said Beggan.
While the whole process takes 3,000-5,000 years, latest research suggests the descent into a chaotic state could take as little as 500 years, although there are significant holes in scientific understanding.
“Although electricity grids and GPS systems would be more vulnerable, we are not really sure how all the complex things that are linked together would react,” Beggan said.
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes 'FAIR USE' of any such copyrighted material.]
The southern California town of Brawley has taken the unusual step of declaring a state of emergency after a swarm of earthquakes rattled nearly 20 mobile homes off their blocks and forced a slaughterhouse to close, the mayor said on Wednesday. It is uncommon for quake-hardy California cities to declare emergencies due to tremors, but Brawley mayor George Nava said the earthquake swarm is a unique case because it has lasted for days and caused millions of dollars in damage. The cluster of relatively small quakes, which are caused by water and other fluids moving around in the Earth’s crust, began on Saturday evening and climaxed the next day with a 5.5 temblor, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The tremors were continuing on Wednesday and geologists say there have been hundreds in total.Nava said leaders in Brawley, a city of 25,000 residents south of the state’s inland Salton Sea and 170 miles (275 km) southeast of Los Angeles, declared a local emergency late on Tuesday. Officials with surrounding Imperial County made a similar declaration on Wednesday. Nineteen mobile homes were knocked off their blocks and their residents forced out, Nava said. The auditorium at Brawley Union High School has been damaged and closed off, and the National Beef slaughter plant in Brawley has been temporarily shut down due to damage, he said. Local businesses have suffered millions of dollars in losses from closures and from customers staying away, Nava said. But he could not give an exact account of quake-related losses. The Red Cross and local government agencies will offer services to residents on Friday and Saturday at a local center. The emergency declaration allows Brawley to receive more assistance from Imperial County, Nava said. At one point, about 10,000 residents in the city were without power, and the quakes have also caused water line disruptions, Nava said. “When you don’t have an AC or running water, it’s just not a good thing in this weather,” he said. Jeanne Hardebeck, research seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said earlier this week that the cluster of quakes is not a sign that a larger temblor is imminent.
A series of small earthquakes which began Wednesday night and continued into Thursday near a long-dormant volcanic peak in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands has prompted researchers to raise the alert level for the Little Sitkin volcano.
The nearly 4,000-foot-high Little Sitkin volcano is named for the island where it resides, located in the Rat Islands in the Aleutian chain. The volcano has shown little activity since scientists have started observing it, with only three questionable eruptive events at the volcano since that time. The most recent eruption may have come in 1900, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
Still, the AVO page for Little Sitkin mentions there may have been a “cataclysmic eruption” on the island sometime after the last ice age, which ended more than 11,000 years ago.
Seismic equipment located near the volcano began detecting a “swarm of high-frequency earthquakes” at about 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, the AVO reports. The earthquakes continued through the night into Thursday, prompting the alert level at the volcano being raised. The alert level is currently at yellow, which means that the “volcano is exhibiting signs of elevated unrest above known background level.” Additionally, aircraft traveling in the area are advised to exercise caution.
The volcano is located in a remote part of the Aleutians, about 35 miles northwest of the World War II outpost of Amchitka and 200 miles west of Adak.
Little Sitkin joins two other Alaska volcanoes, Iliamna and Cleveland, currently sitting at elevated alert levels.
Photos: Alaska volcanoes
Apr 02, 2012
Pavlof volcano and eruption plume on evening of Aug. 30, 2007. View is to the south. Plume height approximately 17-18,000 ft.
Iliamna, 130 miles from Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, was first elevated in March of this year following a continued increase in seismic activity.
“The current level of activity at Iliamna does not indicate an imminent or certain eruption,” a status update from the AVO said Thursday. “Seismic activity, along with gas emissions, appear to be declining gradually.”
Meanwhile, the oft-erupting Cleveland volcano which, like Sitkin, is located in the Aleutians, remains elevated as well. Cleveland has been upgraded a half-dozen times in since 2010 alone, and most recently erupted in June, when a pilot reported an ash cloud reaching up to 35,000 feet. Cleveland sits at a higher alert level than Iliamna or Little Sitkin, meaning the volcano still has a higher potential for eruption at any time.
Seismologists say a cluster of earthquakes has been detected at a remote volcano in Alaska’s western Aleutian Islands. The Alaska Volcano Observatory says the quakes began Wednesday evening at Little Sitkin Volcano and are continuing as of Thursday morning. No eruption has been detected. Scientist in charge John Power says there is no direct link to the swarm of earthquakes at Little Sitkin and a cluster of quakes that shook California’s Imperial County earlier this week. Powers says Little Sitkin is located on an uninhabited island and is far from any populated areas. He says the seismic activity is unusual for Little Sitkin, whose last eruption possibly in the early 1900s is questionable. Powers says the concern about an eruption would be the possible threat posed to aircraft.
South Korean rescuers Wednesday recovered two more bodies near two wrecked Chinese fishing boats, bringing the confirmed death toll from a powerful typhoon to 18.
Typhoon Bolaven — the strongest to hit the South for almost a decade — left a trail of death and damage in southwestern and south-central regions of the country.
It drove two Chinese fishing ships aground early Tuesday off the southern island of Jeju, sparking a dramatic rescue operation.
Coastguards wearing wetsuits struggled through high waves and pulled a total of 12 people to safety, and six swam ashore. Eight bodies had been recovered as of Wednesday and seven were still missing, the coastguard in Jeju said.
Dozens of divers are involved in the ongoing search. The coastguard said in a statement it would make “utmost efforts” to account for all the missing.
Most of the other deaths, confirmed by the public administration ministry, were caused by wind gusts that toppled walls or roofs or blew victims off their feet.
Typhoon alerts covering most of the country were lifted as ferries and flights returned to normal and schools reopened. But South Korea is now on watch for another typhoon, Tembin.
Bolaven moved on to North Korea, damaging crops and toppling some 3,700 roadside trees, the North’s official news agency said. Human casualties were not reported.
In North Hwanghae Province, the typhoon deactivated television relay facilities and destroyed or damaged some 20 houses and public buildings, the agency said, adding that “a lot of houses and roads” were submerged in other provinces.
Bolaven crossed the Yalu border river into China early Wednesday.
In South Korea, the typhoon was the strongest since 2003 in terms of wind speed. A maximum speed of 214 kilometres per hour (134 miles per hour) was recorded at Mount Mudeung in the southwestern city of Gwangju.
Power cuts of five minutes or longer hit nearly two million homes, a record in the country, the public administration ministry said.
The storm toppled nearly 8,000 trees and damaged 42 ships or boats and 35 houses. A total of 6,418 hectares (15,852 acres) of farmland was damaged.
Typhoon Tembin, located about 350 kilometres northeast of the Taiwanese capital Taipei early Wednesday, is approaching South Korea at a speed of 20 kilometres an hour.
The situation was bleak in some Eastbank Plaquemines Parish neighborhoods that were inundated by water as Hurricane Isaac pushed across the region.
Officials said an 18-mile stretch of levees was overtopped by water from the Mississippi River early Wednesday. The resulting flood brought as much as 10 feet of water to residential areas, early reports indicated.
The area includes a stretch from Braithwaite to White Ditch. Those communities were under a mandatory evacuation order because of safety concerns.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told WDSU that the problem was limited to overtopping, and not a breach. He described the situation as “serious.”
The National Weather Service noted: “This will result in significant deep flooding in this area.”
The levee is not part of the federal Corps of Engineers protection system.
WDSU reporter Travers Mackel said flood gates were closed to contain the water. He said there was concern that some people were trapped in dangerous conditions.
In nearby St. Bernard Parish, trees blocked roadways, making driving nearly impossible.
More than 400,000 Entergy customers on the south shore were without power.
WDSU reporter Gina Swanson said water was encroaching on an evacuation shelter in Raceland, in Lafourche Parish.
Jefferson Parish reported flooding in Lower Lafitte and water levels in the bayou that were up two feet from Tuesday.
The Harvey and Belle Chasse tunnels were closed — a move that followed the shut-down of the Lake Pontchartrain Causevay Tuesday evening.
Several fires, including major ones in Gretna and Arabi, were also reported.
(MOBILE, Ala.) – While Louisiana appears to be taking the heaviest blow from Hurricane Isaac, there’s no doubt the storm is impact our stretch of the Gulf.
One viewer send in video of waves churning in Mobile Bay ripping up a dock, and a man in Pensacola uploaded video of driving wind and rain from his pool.
Thousands have been without power in Mobile County but crews have been out trying to make those repairs today.
Lake Tangipahoa, a 450 to 500-acre lake at Percy Quinn State Park just north of the Mississippi state line, was swollen from Isaac’s rain, undermining a dam that, if it failed, would release the body of water into the Tangipahoa River that meanders down the parish’s length to Lake Pontchartrain. “That’s going to inundate an already flooded river,” said National Guard Col. Rodney Painting, the incoming commander of the Guard’s 225th Engineer Brigade who started his day helping oversee the evacuation of flooded areas in LaPlace and would end it in his native Tangipahoa helping oversee what appears to be the largest such effort in the state since Isaac made landfall Tuesday. Authorities in Mississippi tried to ease the pressure by releasing some of the water, an effort said to be working. Louisiana officials are taking no chances.State and parish officials called a mandatory evacuation for communities from Kentwood to Robert. If the dam breaks, the National Guard will go into the affected communities with high-water vehicles and small boats, “that we can get through the flooded woods or streets if we have to,” said Painter, who during the Isaac state of emergency has helped coordinate evacuation sites at Zephyr Field in Metairie and in Slidell before moving to Laplace and Amite. In the “controlled release” using spillways, the water from the lake flooded out into a sparsely inhabited area of Mississippi on Thursday afternoon, relieving pressure on a dam scoured by Hurricane Isaac that threatened to push water levels in the Tangipahoa River up to 17 feet in Louisiana. Officials believe the controlled release of waters through emergency spillways will allow the water level to stabilize and lessen pressure on the dam until crews can breach the edge of Tangipahoa Lake near McComb and drain another 8 feet of water.While the release is expected to protect communities on the north shore, officials in Mississippi said about 20 homes on their side of the state line will be flooded out and emergency crews conducted a door-to-door effort to warn residents to leave their homes. Meanwhile, a more massive effort was occurring miles downriver, as National Guard units and other state assets attempted to get 40,000 to 60,000 people out of their homes. Though the water level in the lake was dropping and Mississippi officials downplayed the seriousness of the dam’s condition, Gov. Bobby Jindal continued to urge residents to leave potential flood zones in Tangipahoa Parish Thursday night. “The worse thing that could happen is that people get a false sense of confidence and then if there be a breach overnight it would be a lot harder for people to evacuate,” Jindal said. From the Florida Parishes Arena, troops drove school buses to collection points, where they’re driving evacuees to evacuation shelters set up at schools. School buses have been brought in from as far as Avoylles Parish and Terrebonne Parish, each driven by soldiers. “I’ve already got buses on the road full of people,” said Lt. Col. Vincent Tallo.
About 200 coaches and school buses are being rushed to Tangipahoa, said First Sgt. Rufus Jones of 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, a Guard combat unit whose soldiers, all armed with M4 rifles, waited in the arena for missions that would likely would include security details. By Thursday night, Tallo said he expected 300 National Guard troops in the parish, assisting the evacuation. The National Guard received the mission at 10 a.m., Thursday, said Maj. Scott Slaven, who commands the 205th Engineer Battalion in Bogalusa. Troops and equipment are staged on both sides of the Tangipahoa River, Slaven said. At Pontchatoula High School, Darryl Holliday of Kajun Kettle Foods Inc., which has a state contract to feed evacuees, was told to brace for 2,000 people. At 6:30 p.m., none of the evacuees had reached the school on Louisiana 22. Holliday said he was told that 40 people were en route. Painter said the plan calls for keeping evacuees in Tangipahoa Parish. At the Florida Parishes Arena, employees of the state Department of Children and Family Services prepared to account for the evacuees with forms, in part designed to identify families.
The damage to dam prompted Parish President Gordon Burgess to order mandatory evacuations along the Tangipahoa River, which were carried out with the assistance of the state and National Guard units. The first reports of problems with the dam came into emergency operations officials at 8 a.m., when crews noticed two “sloughs” where dirt was sliding down the sides of the earthen structure, said Greg Flynn, spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. Those sloughs are the first sign of a problem with the integrity of a dam, Flynn said. The damage was caused by rain from Hurricane Isaac, which raised the water level of the recreational fishing lake by several feet, said Richard Coghlan, Emergency Coordinator for Pike County. “The dam appears very stable at this time,” Coghlan said. Mississippi officials stressed that reports Thursday that the waters had breached or overtopped the dam were incorrect. Opening the spillways will bring the water level back to normal but could cause flooding in a wide, sparsely populated stretch of Mississippi. Coghlan said residents had been warned and were planning on leaving for at least a night.
Those homes would also have been flooded in the event that the dam failed, he said. Once the water level drops back to normal, a process that could take days, crews will dig a trench out of the lake with the intention of causing a more serious drop in the water levels, Coghlan said. That will allow maintenance crews to go in and repair the dam, he said. Louisiana state officials estimated that between 40,000 and 60,000 homes would take on some water should the river flood. Many of those were outside the mandatory evacuation zone, which extended one mile on either side of the Tangipahoa River from Kentwood to Robert. It was unclear on Thursday exactly how many people lived in that area or how many were evacuated by the end of the day.
Officials rushed to evacuate more than 100 nursing home residents from Plaquemines Parish, an area with a reputation for weathering storms and perhaps the hardest hit by Isaac. In this hardscrabble, mostly rural parish, even the sick and elderly are hardened storm veterans. Other residents in the Riverbend Nursing and Rehabilitation Center were loaded into ambulances and taken to a nearby naval station. By midafternoon Wednesday, Isaac had been downgraded to a tropical storm. The Louisiana National Guard ceased rescue operations in Plaquemines Parish, saying it felt confident it had gotten everyone out. There were no serious injuries. National Guard spokesman Capt. Lance Cagnolatti said guardsmen would stay in the area over the coming days to help. By early Thursday, Isaac’s maximum sustained winds had decreased to 45 mph and the National Hurricane Center said it was expected to become a tropical depression by Thursday night, meaning its top sustained winds would drop below 39 mph. The storm’s center was on track to cross Arkansas on Friday and southern Missouri on Friday night, spreading rain as it goes.
Torrential rain left motorists battling flooded roads and residents using sandbags to stem the flow of flash floods. And yesterday’s downpour means the county is on track to record one of the wettest Augusts in recent years as families rue the summer that never was. The rain – which hit Staffordshire during yesterday morning and afternoon – forced local authorities and members of the emergency services to attempt to combat a number of deep floods. Weather experts said yesterday’s adverse conditions mean the region is on course to have endured a worse summer than the previous year. Figures from the Met Office have revealed the first two weeks of August saw 36mm of rain fall in the county. In July the region was hit with 139mm. Yesterday’s downpour caused problems across the city, along with Newcastle and the Staffordshire Moorlands. Staff from Staffordshire Moorlands District Council’s street cleaning team handed out sandbags to residents in Endon, Blythe Bridge, Stockton Brook and Brown Edge in a bid to tackle flooding. Firefighters were sent out to close off Endon’s Brook Lane after a flooded ford resulted in the area being deluged in 3ft high water. Crews from Leek and Endon also helped residents safely turn off their electricity and gas as water swept through the area. Last night motorists were being advised to avoid Brown Edge’s Breach Lane. A spokesman for Staffordshire Fire and Rescue said: “We’d urge people to monitor warnings given by the Environment Agency and to avoid driving in areas where there is localised flooding.”
Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) — Almost half of tuberculosis patients who received prior treatment were resistant to a second-line drug, suggesting the deadly disease may become “virtually untreatable,” according to a new study.
Among 1,278 patients who were resistant to two or more first-line tuberculosis drugs in Estonia, Latvia, Peru, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and Thailand, 43.7 percent showed resistance to at least one second-line drug, according to a study led by Tracy Dalton at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings were published in the Lancet medical journal today.
About 1.4 million people died from TB, the second-deadliest infectious disease globally after AIDS, and 650,000 cases were multi-drug resistant in 2010, according to the World Health Organization. Rising infection rates prompted the U.K. to announce in May it will require pre-entry tuberculosis screening for migrants from 67 countries seeking to enter the country for more than 6 months.
“The global emergence of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis heralds the advent of widespread, virtually untreatable tuberculosis,” the study authors said in the published paper.
Previous treatment with second-line drugs was the strongest risk factor for resistance to these drugs, the authors said.
Alcohol Abuse
The prevalence of drug resistance, which ranged from 33 percent in Thailand to 62 percent in Latvia, also correlates with how long second-line drugs have been available in each country.
South Korea and Russia had the longest histories of availability — more than 20 years — and the highest rates of resistance. In contrast, Thailand, Philippines and Peru, where second-line drugs were introduced 10 years ago or less, had the lowest resistance rates.
Unemployment, alcohol abuse and smoking were also associated with resistance to second-line injectable treatment across countries.
This is one of the few studies that have followed patients with the multi-drug-resistant form of TB for several years, Justin Denholm, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, said in a phone interview.
Patients not taking their medicines properly is a major driver for resistance, said Denholm, who is studying TB transmission patterns in Australia’s Victoria state.
Individualized Treatment
The WHO’s current strategy for tackling TB is called Dots, short for “directly observed treatment, short course.” Under Dots, patients are required to show up at a clinic three times a week to be supervised when taking their medicine to be sure they complete the treatment.
“The reality is that this one-size-fits-all approach is a major part of what’s led to this drug resistance issue,” Denholm said. “I think individualized treatment is what we should be aiming for.”
Scientists are also researching new treatments. In a study published last month in the Lancet, researchers from Stellenbosch University in Cape Town said an experimental three- drug combination killed 99 percent of the bacteria within two weeks. As the combination doesn’t contain isoniazid or rifampicin, the two main medicines used against TB, it may also provide a much-needed weapon against drug-resistant strains, the researchers wrote.
China Survey
India and China, which have the world’s highest numbers of tuberculosis cases, weren’t included in Dalton’s study as they hadn’t begun pilot programs for increasing access to second-line drugs until after the study began.
In a 2007 national survey in China, 27 percent of multi- drug-resistant tuberculosis cases showed resistance to the antibiotic fluoroquinolone, according to the Lancet report. In India, a 2006 population-based survey in the western state of Gujarat reported fluoroquinolone resistance in 24 percent of cases.
The U.K. Border Agency this month began requiring TB screening for Indians applying for a settlement visa and will extend the rule to those obtaining a work visa from Sept. 10. The new requirement replaces screening at airports.
TB is at the highest level in 30 years in the U.K. In London, 84 percent of the 3,302 people infected in 2010 were foreign-born, according to the Health Protection Agency.
30.08.2012
Epidemic Hazard
USA
State of Colorado, [Cimarrona Campground, Archuleta County]
A camper near Pagosa Springs has contracted bubonic plague. The Durango Herald reports that the person contracted the plague during a family outing in the Cimarrona Campground. The San Juan Basin Health Department did not give the victim’s age or gender. Warning signs are being posted in the campground, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an average of seven cases of plague each year across the country. Most human cases tend to occur in rural areas in the Southwest. Symptoms of plague begin two to six days after a person is bitten by an infected flea, rodent or cat. The plague can be successfully treated if diagnosed promptly.
A vast outcrop of the Arctic Siberian coast that had been frozen for tens of thousands of years is releasing huge carbon deposits as rising temperatures thaw parts of its coastline, a study warned Wednesday.
The carbon, a potential source of Earth-warming CO2, has lain frozen along the 7,000-kilometre (4,400-mile) northeast Siberian coastline since the last Ice Age.
But atmospheric warming and coastal erosion are gnawing at the icy seal, releasing about 40 million tonnes of carbon a year — 10 times more than previously thought, said a study in the journal Nature.
About two-thirds of the carbon escapes into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2) and the rest becomes trapped in higher layers of ocean sediment.
About half the carbon pool in soil globally is held in permafrost in the Arctic, a region that is experiencing twice the global average of climate warming, said the study led by researchers at Stockholm University.
Earlier this week, US scientists said the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean had melted to its smallest point ever.
The region covered by the Nature study, called Yedoma, is twice the size of Sweden but has been poorly researched because it is so remote.
The finding touches on a vicious circle, or positive feedback in climate parlance.
Under this, man-made warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels releases naturally-occurring stocks of CO2 that have been stored in permafrost since the last Ice Age, called the Pleistocene.
The released gases in turn add to global warming, which frees even more locked-up carbon, and so on.
“Thermal collapse and erosion of these carbon-rich Pleistocene coastline and seafloor deposits may accelerate the Arctic amplification of climate warming,” the paper warned.
The atmospheric leakage from Yedoma is equivalent to the annual emissions of around five million passenger cars, on the basis of average carbon output (five tonnes per year) of vehicles in the United States.
In a separate study also in Nature, researchers in Britain, the Netherlands and the United States used computer models to estimate there could be as much as four billion tonnes of methane under Antarctica’s icesheet.
Methane is 25 times more efficient at trapping solar heat than carbon dioxide.
Before it froze over, the region teemed with life whose organic remains became trapped in sediment later covered by ice sheets.
“Our modelling shows that over millions of years, microbes may have turned this old organic carbon into methane,” which could boost climate warming if released by icesheet collapse, the researchers said in a statement.
The collapse of the Antarctic icesheet is considered an extremely remote scenario by most climatologists, and some studies have suggested that parts of it could be thickening, due to localised increases in snowfall.
Out of the 36 patients, who underwent prophylactic treatment after identification of the anthrax hot bed in Zaporizhia region, currently two of them are remaining under supervision of physicians. “Today we can say that everything is fine with the people: out of 36 people, who received preventive treatment, only two are under the supervision of doctors now. They are a man and a woman from Voznesenka village, who had contacted the infected animal and were hospitalized immediately after the accident. Currently, they have no manifestations of disease, but to make sure that the health condition of these people is good, we should get the results of laboratory tests and withstand a certain period,” chief medical officer of Zaporizhia region Anatoly Sevalnev said. According to the deputy head of the Main Department for Veterinary Medicine in Zaporizhia region Serhit Dehtiarenko, the quarantine measures will continue until September 5.
Biohazard name:
Anthrax
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Streaks of red tide – a toxic algal bloom that threatens both marine life – were clearly visible in Noyac Bay during a flyover on Thursday. Aerial photographer Jeff Cully captured images of red tide lining the shore at Long Beach. Red tide has appeared in Long Island waters every summer since 2004, Chris Gobler, Ph.D., told Patch earlier this month, when the algal bloom made its first showing of the year. Gobler, a Stony Brook Southampton School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences professor, said red tide typically appears in late August, but this summer it was detected in late July. The early arrival could be attributed to high temperatures this summer, he said. “This red tide is caused by the dinoflagellate, cochlodinium,” Gobler explained. “Cochlodinium is not a human health threat but is highly toxic to marine life. Fish exposed to dense cochlodinium blooms cannot survive more than one to six hours, depending on their size. We have had fish die at the Southampton marine lab when our intake system brought in red tide water.” After patches of red tide have passed through, pound net fisherman have found that catches have died off, he added. The School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, thanks to $3 million in grants, announced Monday a plan to restore the health of another local bay, Shinnecock, by seeding eelgrass and shellfish beds in strategic areas where they are most likely to thrive. Shellfish filter algae from water, but their populations in Long Island waters have declined in recent decades, a trend marine sciences hope to turn around. If the effort proves successful, it could be implemented in other distressed bodies of water, both locally and around the world. Research demonstrates that algal blooms are made worse by an increased flow of nitrogen into the bays, from sources such as cesspools and fertilizers, Gobler said.
Biohazard name:
Red Tide
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
Today
Biological Hazard
Ireland
Multiple areas, [Beaches in Waterford and Cork, and Kerry]
Portuguese men-of-war, which look like jellyfish and whose sting can cause severe pain and, in rare cases, death in humans, has been seen on beaches in Waterford and Cork, and may yet reach Kerry coasts. The Irish Water Safety organisation yesterday warned swimmers, surfers and other beach users that Portuguese men-of- war have been seen in Tramore, Ardmore, Inchydoney and Schull, and that there is a risk they may drift farther north. The invertebrate and carnivore creature is a siphonophore, which means it is made up of a colony of organisms working together. Its float is about 30cm long and 13cm wide and it has tentacles that can reach 50m in length. The stinging venom-filled nematocysts in the tentacles cause severe pain to humans, leaving whip-like red welts on the skin. A sting may lead to an allergic reaction. There can also be serious effects, including fever, shock, and interference with heart and lung function. Stings may also cause death, although this is extremely rare.
Biohazard name:
Portuguese man O War Jellyfish invasion
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Once a resident of rivers throughout Japan, the Japanese river otter hasn’t been seen for more than 30 years. Today, the otter was officially deemed extinct by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment. The unique species of otter was designated as natural monument in Japan as the first Japanese mammal to have survived into the Showa Era (1926-1989) before succumbing to extinction. Two species of Japanese bat and two species of wolves became extinct in the Meija Era (1868-1912).
Over-hunting for its fur combined with habitat destruction from human development drove the river otter to near extinction by the 1930s. By the late ’70s the river otter was added to the “Red List of Threatened Mammals of Japan” as critically endangered. The last official sighting of a Japanese river otter was in 1979 along the banks of the Shinjo River in Susaki, Kochi Prefecture.
An adult river otter grew to about 110 centimeters (43 inches) in length, including a tail of up to 50 centimeters (20 inches), sporting a thick, lush coat of fur and short webbed feet. The typical diet for a Japanese river otter consisted mainly of fish, crab and shrimp, but they also dined on eels, sweet potatoes, watermelons and beetles.
Hope after extinction?
Official survey records from the Ministry of the Environment indicate the river otter disappeared from the northern island of Hokkaido in the 1950s and on the main island of Honshu in the 1960s. In the early 1990s research teams assembled in Kochi Prefecture, located in the southwestern part of the island of Shikoku, to see if they could find evidence of surviving otters. In March 1992 the researchers found hair and excrement that was determined to have come from an otter — perhaps the last official evidence of a surviving Japanese river otter.
But Yoshihiko Machida, professor emeritus at Kochi University, isn’t quite ready to sound the death knell for the Japanese river otter, citing reports of confirmed otter droppings found as late as 1999:
“I think it is possible that they still exist, and I want to continue my investigations,” he said in response to the declaration of the otter’s extinction.
Hope springs eternal.
30.08.2012
Environment Pollution
United Kingdom
Scotland, North Sea, [Between Tartan Alpha platform and Galley field]
An oil spill response spill vessel has been deployed to a North Sea field after oil started leaking from crack in a subsea pipeline. An estimated 13 barrels of oil have leaked from the pipeline which connects the Galley field to Talisman’s Tartan Alpha platform, 117 miles north-east of Aberdeen. The leak was first spotted last Friday. A spokesman for Talisman Energy said: “Talisman Energy (UK) Limited can confirm that following the identification of a crack in the production pipeline which connects the Galley field to the Tartan Alpha platform, flushing operations are being carried out using seawater to remove the production fluids from the pipeline. “This is being carried out in accordance with a plan developed by a specialist team and agreed with the Department of Energy and Climate Change, bringing the situation to a safe and timely resolution. All relevant authorities have been informed and are being kept updated.” He added: “Based on the investigatory and monitoring activity undertaken since we identified the issue on 24 August, we estimate the maximum total release to date is 88 barrels of fluids, of which approximately 13 would be oil and the rest water. “We take our responsibility to safeguard the environment very seriously and, as a precaution we deployed a spill recovery and containment vessel with oil spill response equipment on board, while monitoring the leak area by ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) on a round-the-clock basis. The oil spill response vessel will remain on station during subsequent remedial works. “In addition, we have established a regular programme of spotter plane flights to monitor the sea surface and placed a trained wildlife observer on a vessel at the site to monitor seabirds and marine life.”
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The 4.1 earthquake that jolted Yorba Linda on Wednesday afternoon appears to be an aftershock of the cluster of quakes that hit the region earlier this month, seismologists said.
The jolted area included southeastern Los Angeles County, Orange County and the Inland Empire. The quake occurred in about the same location of an earthquake doublet, two 4.5 quakes that occurred on Aug. 7 at 11:23 p.m. and Aug. 8 at 9:33 a.m. The area was also hit by a 4.0 quake on June 14.
Wednesday’s quake, which hit at 1:31 p.m., was located near the center point of the magnitude-5.5 Chino Hills earthquake that reverberated through the Los Angeles Basin in the summer of 2008, U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones told The Times.
Wednesday’s quake appeared to be located in the “Yorba Linda trend,” a seismic area identified by Caltech geophysicist Egill Hauksson in 1990, that might be a buried fault.
Many who felt the quake said it was relatively mild.
At Vinjon’s Kennel in Yorba Linda, the quake hit just as Carisa Feeney, 22, was giving a bath to a year-and-a-half-old boxer mix. When the quake delivered its single strong jolt, the dog leaped up in the tub –- and both quickly ran outside.
“I’m pretty much covered in water,” Feeney said.
Nancy Ferguson, who owns SGO Designer Glass in Old Town Yorba Linda, said, “We had a big jolt, just for a few seconds, then everything just kind of swayed.”
Ferguson, who has hundreds of pieces of glass on display in her store, said she holds her breath every time there’s an earthquake. “But nothing fell over today, so we’re feeling pretty lucky,” she said.
It is unlikely that the earthquake swarm that has hit Imperial County with hundreds of quakes since the weekend is related to Wednesday’s quake in Yorba Linda, Jones said.
Aug 29 (Reuters) – The southern California town of Brawley has taken the unusual step of declaring a state of emergency after a swarm of earthquakes rattled nearly 20 mobile homes off their blocks and forced a slaughterhouse to close, the mayor said on Wednesday.
It is uncommon for quake-hardy California cities to declare emergencies due to tremors, but Brawley mayor George Nava said the earthquake swarm is a unique case because it has lasted for days and caused millions of dollars in damage.
The cluster of relatively small quakes, which are caused by water and other fluids moving around in the Earth’s crust, began on Saturday evening and climaxed the next day with a 5.5 temblor, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The tremors were continuing on Wednesday and geologists say there have been hundreds in total.
Nava said leaders in Brawley, a city of 25,000 residents south of the state’s inland Salton Sea and 170 miles (275 km) southeast of Los Angeles, declared a local emergency late on Tuesday. Officials with surrounding Imperial County made a similar declaration on Wednesday.
Nineteen mobile homes were knocked off their blocks and their residents forced out, Nava said. The auditorium at Brawley Union High School has been damaged and closed off, and the National Beef slaughter plant in Brawley has been temporarily shut down due to damage, he said.
Local businesses have suffered millions of dollars in losses from closures and from customers staying away, Nava said. But he could not give an exact account of quake-related losses.
The Red Cross and local government agencies will offer services to residents on Friday and Saturday at a local center. The emergency declaration allows Brawley to receive more assistance from Imperial County, Nava said.
At one point, about 10,000 residents in the city were without power, and the quakes have also caused water line disruptions, Nava said.
“When you don’t have an AC or running water, it’s just not a good thing in this weather,” he said.
Jeanne Hardebeck, research seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said earlier this week that the cluster of quakes is not a sign that a larger temblor is imminent. (Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Tim Gaynor and Sandra Maler)
An unusual swarm of hundreds of mostly small earthquakes has struck Southern California over the last three days and shaken the nerves of quake-hardy residents, but scientists say the cluster is not a sign a larger temblor is imminent. The earthquakes, the largest of which measured magnitude 5.5, began on Saturday evening and have been centered near the town of Brawley close to the state’s inland Salton Sea, said Jeanne Hardebeck, research seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. Scientists were monitoring the earthquake cluster, which continued on Tuesday, to see if it approaches the Imperial Fault, about three miles away. A destructive and deadly earthquake of magnitude 7.0 struck on that fault in 1940, she said. “We don’t have any reason to believe that the (earthquake) storm is going to trigger on the Imperial Fault, but there’s a minute possibility that it could,” Hardebeck said, adding that the swarm of quakes was not moving closer to that fault.The Brawley quake cluster, which is caused by hot fluid moving around in the Earth’s crust, is different than a typical earthquake, in which two blocks of earth slip past each other along a tectonic fault line. After that kind of an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 or above, there is a 5 percent chance a larger quake will follow, Hardebeck said. But she added the same kinds of probability estimates were not possible with earthquake clusters caused by the movement of hot fluid. “We understand them even less than we understand normal earthquakes,” Hardebeck said, adding that scientists do not know why a cluster of earthquakes will occur at one time rather than another. The swarm led to jangled nerves in Brawley, a town of about 25,000 residents 170 miles southeast of Los Angeles near the border with Mexico. “It’s pretty bad. We had to evacuate the hotel just for safety,” Rowena Rapoza, office manager of a local Best Western Hotel, said on Sunday. There were two earthquakes on Sunday afternoon, one with a 5.5 magnitude and one measuring 5.3, Hardebeck said. Those were the largest quakes in the cluster amid hundreds of others, she said.
In the past, earthquake clusters have gone on for as long as two weeks, Hardebeck said. Before this recent cluster in Brawley, the last swarm of this size to hit the area was in 1981, she said. Earlier this month, a pair of moderate-sized earthquakes both registering a magnitude 4.5 struck the California town of Yorba Linda within 10 hours of each other, but no damage was reported. Yorba Linda, the birthplace of the late President Richard Nixon, is 145 miles northwest of Brawley.
Earthquake swarms continued Wednesday in Imperial County as the city of Brawley declared an emergency to deal with the damage. The swarm that began Sunday morning showed signs of slowing down Wednesday, with fewer quakes reported by the U.S. Geological Survey than on recent days. The magnitude of the quakes is also declining. There was scattered damage around Brawley, but officials have not yet compiled a full estimate of the costs. The Brawley City Council on Tuesday declared a local emergency, according to the Imperial Valley Press. More than 400 earthquakes greater than magnitude 1.0 have been recorded in Imperial County since Saturday evening, said U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Elizabeth Cochran. The largest were a 5.3 and a 5.5 about midday Sunday. Scientists say the reason is not fully understood, but there is a clue: Earthquake faults work much differently south of the Salton Sea than they do closer to Los Angeles. Take, for instance, the San Andreas fault as it runs through Los Angeles County. Itâs a fault where, generally speaking, two plates of the Earthâs crust are grinding past each other. The Pacific plate is moving to the northwest, while the North American plate is pushing to the southeast.South of the Salton Sea, the fault dynamic changes. The Pacific and North American plates start to pull away from each other, Cochran told The Times from her Pasadena office. (That movement is what created the Gulf of California, which separates Baja California from the rest of Mexico.) So Imperial County is caught between these two types of faults in what is called the âBrawley Seismic Zone,â which can lead to an earthquake swarm, Cochran said. The last major swarm was in 2005, Cochran said, when the largest magnitude was a 5.1. The largest swarm before last weekend’s occurred in 1981, when the biggest quake topped out at 5.8. Before that, there were swarms in the 1960s and 1970s. Brawley school officials told the Imperial Valley Press that Palmer Auditorium, a performance facility it manages with a local arts group, has been shut down after an inspection. âWe were told by engineers it needs to be shut down because there were huge structural damages,â school Supt. Hasmik Danielian told the paper. Crews would have a better idea of the total damage caused by the quakes in the coming days, said Maria Peinado, a spokeswoman for the Imperial County Public Health Department, but so far the list of affected structures includes about 20 mobile homes shifted from their foundations. The earthquakes also caused “cosmetic” damage to at least three buildings dating to the 1930s in downtown Brawley, said Capt. Jesse Zendejas of the Brawley Fire Department. A few displaced residents spent Sunday night at an American Red Cross shelter at the Imperial Valley College gymnasium, Peinado said.
The southern California town of Brawley has taken the unusual step of declaring a state of emergency after a swarm of earthquakes rattled nearly 20 mobile homes off their blocks and forced a slaughterhouse to close, the mayor said on Wednesday. It is uncommon for quake-hardy California cities to declare emergencies due to tremors, but Brawley mayor George Nava said the earthquake swarm is a unique case because it has lasted for days and caused millions of dollars in damage. The cluster of relatively small quakes, which are caused by water and other fluids moving around in the Earth’s crust, began on Saturday evening and climaxed the next day with a 5.5 temblor, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The tremors were continuing on Wednesday and geologists say there have been hundreds in total.Nava said leaders in Brawley, a city of 25,000 residents south of the state’s inland Salton Sea and 170 miles (275 km) southeast of Los Angeles, declared a local emergency late on Tuesday. Officials with surrounding Imperial County made a similar declaration on Wednesday. Nineteen mobile homes were knocked off their blocks and their residents forced out, Nava said. The auditorium at Brawley Union High School has been damaged and closed off, and the National Beef slaughter plant in Brawley has been temporarily shut down due to damage, he said. Local businesses have suffered millions of dollars in losses from closures and from customers staying away, Nava said. But he could not give an exact account of quake-related losses. The Red Cross and local government agencies will offer services to residents on Friday and Saturday at a local center. The emergency declaration allows Brawley to receive more assistance from Imperial County, Nava said. At one point, about 10,000 residents in the city were without power, and the quakes have also caused water line disruptions, Nava said. “When you don’t have an AC or running water, it’s just not a good thing in this weather,” he said. Jeanne Hardebeck, research seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said earlier this week that the cluster of quakes is not a sign that a larger temblor is imminent.
29.08.2012
Earthquake
British Virgin Islands
Atlantic Ocean, [Between 94 to 108 kilometers of the Road Town]
A total of 104 earthquakes were observed in the last four days, British Virgin Islands area. The smallest was M2.0 and the strongest quake was M4.8 on the Richter scale. The center of the earthquake at a distance of 94 to 108 kilometers and the depth were between 5 and 90 kilometers.
South Dakota students are used to extreme cold and having classes called off because of winter blizzards, but the weather that caused their school day to be cut short Wednesday was intense for a different reason: the triple-digit temperatures. More than two dozen school districts across the state shut down early Wednesday as temperatures rose above 100 degrees, turning classrooms into saunas. “The major factor in the decision is the safety and welfare of students and staff members. It’s tough to learn in an environment when a room is 100 degrees,” said Eureka Superintendent Bo Beck, whose north-central South Dakota district joined others in dismissing students a few hours early because their classrooms lack air conditioning. Eureka and other districts have called off classes due to late-summer heat in past years, but school closures are more common in winter months when snow, frigid temperatures and howling winds make travel unsafe, Beck said. Scott Doering, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Aberdeen, said high temperatures Wednesday were expected to range from the low 90s in northeastern South Dakota to as high as 107 in the center of the state as a ridge of high pressure made the northern and central Plains area the nation’s hotspot.Some places in central South Dakota could break or come close to breaking records before temperatures start to drop to the 80s and lower 90s Thursday, Doering said. He said temperatures topping 100 sometimes persist in South Dakota, even into September. “It’s unusual, but not highly unusual,” he added, referring to Wednesday’s heat. Don Hotalling, superintendent for the Stanley County School District, said all students in Fort Pierre were being sent home at 1 p.m. because some classrooms are not air-conditioned. That problem will be solved after a new building is completed next year, he said. “With 106 degrees forecast for today, we knew it really was going to be miserable for some of the students,” Hotalling said. “With the humidity and the heat, it’s very uncomfortable. Not much learning is going to be going on later in the afternoon, when it gets hotter.” Stanley County eighth-grader Madison Bogue was happy her Fort Pierre school ended the day early. “It’s really awesome. It’s better than sitting in there all day,” the 13-year-old said. The district used fans to try to cool buildings Tuesday, when a lot of parents picked up their kids and took them home to beat the heat, Hotalling said. Staff encouraged students to drink plenty of water, but some students complained Tuesday of headaches, he said. Deputy state Education Secretary Mary Stadick Smith said she didn’t know how many schools were closing because of the heat, but at least two dozen schools from northeastern South Dakota to Rapid City in the west let radio and television stations know of early closures.
“Typically in South Dakota, schools are closed because of cold weather and blizzards that kind of thing, so it is a little unusual,” Stadick Smith said. Schools will not have to make up the missed time as long as they meet annual requirements for hours spent in classrooms, she said. The Rapid City Journal reported that schools in that city also were closing early because 15 of the 25 public schools do not have air conditioning. “When we start reaching temperatures above 90 degrees in classrooms, we have concerns as to trying to do something to relieve that stress on the teachers and the students that have been trying to work in those rooms,” Rapid City Area Schools Superintendent Tim Mitchell told the newspaper. Principal Robin Gillespie said teachers at Rapid City’s Wilson Elementary have been beating the heat with fans, low lights, water breaks and Popsicles. Many South Dakota residents seemed to take the heat in stride.
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acquired August 28, 2012 download Google Earth file (KMZ)
Sparked by lightning in July, the Mustang Complex fire had burned 149,828 acres (60,633 hectares) of rugged terrain near Salmon, Idaho, by August 29, 2012. The fire burned in steep, inaccessible terrain.
By August 23, more than 1,106,545 acres (447,803 hectares) had burned in Idaho—more than any other state except for Oregon. By August 29, more than 7,277,838 acres (2,945,236 hectares) had burned throughout the United States in what has proven to be one of the most severe wildfire seasons in the last decade.
Crews dug in Wednesday against another round of Montana wildfires as evacuations were ordered ahead of blazes near Butte and Roscoe that authorities said threatened at least 130 houses. Searing heat set in across much of the drought-parched state, and gusting winds pushed flames through tinder-dry stands of timber and grasslands. The dangerous conditions prompted Gov. Brian Schweitzer to declare a statewide fire emergency. Eight large fires were burning on more than 73 square miles Wednesday, and more than 1,300 square miles already have burned in Montana this summer. Most of that destruction has been in the rain-starved eastern half of the state. Compounding residents’ woes are plumes of smoke pouring into mountain valleys from local fires and blazes in neighboring Idaho. The air quality has deteriorated most significantly in Hamilton, where it was listed as unhealthy by state officials. In Butte, Helena, Great Falls and Bozeman, officials downgraded the air quality to unhealthy for sensitive groups. About 10 miles south of Butte, the 19 Mile fire torched at least two homes and two outbuildings after growing to several square miles. Officials said the exact size was hard to determine because of all the smoke. Residents of the Whiskey Gulch and Friends Road area were told to evacuate Wednesday, after people living on Upper and Lower Radar Creek and Toll Mountain roads were advised to leave Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the fire, Mariah Leuschen with the U.S. Forest Service, said the evacuations covered roughly 150 people living in about 80 homes. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency put the figure higher – 275 people living in 103 homes, with another 100 to 110 houses put on pre-evacuation notice. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear. State officials sought and received federal help to pay for the effort against the fire. That authorizes FEMA to pay 75 percent of the state’s firefighting costs on the blaze, but does not provide assistance to individual homes or business owners.
A wildfire that broke out Tuesday afternoon in the Malheur National Forest spread to at least 2,500 acres before sundown, officials said. The fire ignited at about 2:30 p.m. near Parish Cabin Campground, about 10 miles east of Seneca. No injuries have been reported — as of late evening, the fire remained in the center of the forest and mainly was a threat to campgrounds and historic buildings in the immediate area, said Mike Stearly, information officer for Malheur National Forest. “It’s in some prime timber growth areas…the conditions are right,” Stearly said. He said the fire grew to between 2,500 acres and 3,000 acres through the afternoon and evening. Crews will be working through the night to fight the blaze, and spike camps have been set up. A Type 2 incident management team is coming in Wednesday morning, Stearly said. The goal is to hold the fire south of the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness. Firefighters and the Grant’s County Sheriff’s Department evacuated Parish Cabin Campground. Evacuees included a number of bow hunters in the area for archery season, Stearly said. The cause of the fire remains unknown.
Tropical Storm in USA on Wednesday, 29 August, 2012 at 07:29 (07:29 AM) UTC.
Description
Nearly 100,000 homes and businesses lost power after Hurricane Isaac landed in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Louisiana later Tuesday, local media reported. And among the homes and businesses being left without power, near half are in Orleans Parish, the reports said. Utility companies in the southwestern U.S. state on Tuesday morning started bringing in extra crews to help restore power in case strong winds bring down power lines. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu warned residents about the dangers of approaching downed power lines. “These are serious threats, as I have said many times, which can cause fatalities,” Landrieu said. State authorities have mobilized more than 4,100 troops, with 680 of them in Orleans Parish. A further 35,000 troops and almost 100 aircraft are available for mobilization, according to reports on the website of NOLA.com. The troops are assisting with the setting up of evacuation shelters, including a “mega-shelter” with about 2,500 cots in the inland city of Alexandria. Some 300 soldiers will work as bus drivers in Metairie, supporting the state departments of transportation and education. At a press conference on Tuesday, Luisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said the State National Guard posted 23 liaison teams with local governments, adding that 13 communications teams will deployed in the region, along with 921 security vehicles, 531 high-water vehicles, 40 aircraft and 74 boats.
In New Orleans, streets were flooding and up to 85% of residents were without power, Mayor Mitch Landrieu said. “One of the great challenges with this storm … is that it’s going so slowly … which means that it’s going to hover over us,” he told the Weather Channel on Wednesday morning. “The longer the rain and the greater the wind … (that) continues to concern us. That wind is really, really heavy, which is why it’s important you stay inside.” “We’re asking people to be patient,” he said. New Orleans, devastated by Katrina seven years ago to the day, was reporting 60-mph winds and drenching rains. Landrieu said about 1,000 National Guard troops are positioned in the city, working with police, firefighters and standing by for rescue operations. The historic French Quarter that forms the heart of New Orleans’ tourism industry appeared to have dodged the worst of Isaac. Downed tree limbs, minor flooding at intersections and a brief electrical outage overnight were the main problems confronting the residents who stayed , and stayed mostly indoors. “Honestly, man, it’s just been rain,” said Huggington “Huggy” Behr, manager of Flanagan’s Pub on St. Phillips, which stayed open through the night and served “about a dozen” patrons. “To us, we’ve seen the worst, so it’s business as usual.”
Southern Mississippi was still feeling the effects of the storm but emergency management officials along the coast said they got through the night relatively unharmed. No injuries or deaths were reported overnight in the coastal counties of Hancock or Harrison, which were two of the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina seven years ago. The biggest worry overnight from Hurricane Isaac? “We’re in the process of picking two people up who got stranded by the water and they’re scared,” Hancock County Emergency Management Director Brian Adam said Wednesday morning. With sustained winds throughout the region topping out at about 40 mph, the main concern remains flooding from a constantly driving storm surge and what is expected to be prolonged rainfall for several days. In Harrison County, the rising waters knocked a boat off its moorings. County Emergency Management Director Rupert Lacy said the boat slammed into Popps Ferry Bridge, forcing officials to shut it down until crews can inspect the integrity of the bridge. The bridge is one of two connecting Biloxi from the mainland, but Lacy said it could be a long time before an inspection can be done. “We cautioned our public safety employees … that you don’t need to be out there if the winds are too high,” Lacy said.
Twelve people were killed and 10 were missing after a strong typhoon pounded South Korea Tuesday, uprooting trees, sinking ships and cutting power to almost 200,000 homes.
By early evening Typhoon Bolaven — the strongest to hit the South for almost a decade — had moved to North Korea, which is still struggling to recover from deadly floods earlier this summer.
Hundreds of flights in the South were grounded, ferry services were suspended and schools in Seoul and several other areas were closed.
Bolaven left a trail of death and damage in southwestern and south-central regions of the country, although it was little felt in central parts of Seoul.
Off the southern island of Jeju, the storm drove two Chinese fishing ships aground early Tuesday, sparking a dramatic rescue operation.
Coastguards wearing wetsuits struggled through high waves and then used a line-launcher to fire ropes to one ship, a coastguard spokesman said. The other boat broke apart.
Rescuers saved 12 people while six swam ashore, but 10 crew members are still missing, the spokesman said. Five bodies were recovered.
In the southern county of Wanju, a 48-year-old man was killed by a shipping container flipped over by gale-force winds, the public administration ministry said.
An elderly woman was crushed to death when a church spire collapsed onto her house in the southwestern city of Gwangju, while another elderly woman was blown off the roof of her home in the western county of Seocheon.
A workman fell from the roof of a hospital in the southwestern port of Mokpo. At Imsil county in North Jeolla province, a 51-year-old man died while clearing toppled trees.
In Yeongkwang county west of Gwangju, a 72-year-old man suffered fatal head injuries when his house wall collapsed. At Buyeo city in South Chungcheong province, a woman aged 75 died after falling due to strong winds.
A 77,000-tonne bulk carrier broke in two off the southeastern port of Sacheon but no casualties were reported, the public administration ministry said.
The transport ministry said all 87 sea ferry services had been halted. A total of 247 flights — 183 domestic and 64 international — have been cancelled since Monday.
The typhoon — packing winds of 144 kilometres (90 miles) per hour at one time — brought heavy rain and strong winds to southern and western areas. It toppled street lights and signs, shattered windows, uprooted trees and tore off shop signs.
The National Emergency Management Agency said 197,751 homes in Jeju and the southwest and south-central regions lost power.
A total of 83 people, mostly in the southwest, were evacuated from their homes and taken to shelters. Some 21 homes were damaged.
The US and South Korean armed forces called a temporary halt to a large-scale joint military exercise that began last week.
After sweeping up the Yellow Sea to the west of South Korea, Bolaven made landfall in North Korea in the early evening.
The impoverished nation is already struggling to recover from a devastating summer drought, followed by floods which killed 169 people, left about 400 missing and made 212,000 people homeless, according to official figures.
Weather officials said Typhoon Tembin was also threatening the Korean peninsula, and was forecast to be some 200 kilometres west of Jeju early Friday.
NEW ORLEANS – Hurricane Isaac pounded Louisiana with heavy rains and damaging winds Wednesday as forecasters said the storm surge and serious flooding will likely continue through the night.
USA TODAYHurricane Issac landed at 3:15 a.m. EST just west of Port Fourchon, about 60 miles south-southwest of New Orleans.
USA TODAY
Hurricane Issac landed at 3:15 a.m. EST just west of Port Fourchon, about 60 miles south-southwest of New Orleans.
Isaac was still maintaining Category 1 hurricane strength, but just barely, with sustained winds of 75 mph, the National Hurricane Center reported. It was located directly over Houma, La., which is about 45 miles southwest of New Orleans.
The storm was crawling to the northwest at just 6 mph. It is expected to weaken to a tropical storm later Wednesday.
Widespread flooding was reported in New Orleans and other coastal cities.
One of the worst hit areas was Plaquemines Parish, about 50 miles southeast of New Orleans, where water spilled over a levee. Isaac passed directly over the region of marshland, fishing towns and marinas, peeling off roofs and flooding some areas.
The northern part of the parish is ringed in by the area’s hurricane protection system of fortified levees and floodwalls. But stretches of it on the east bank of the Mississippi River and further south lie outside the protection system, making it vulnerable to storm surge and flooding, Parish Councilman Kirk Lepine said.
Isaac came up the western edge of the parish, lashing at the area with powerful winds and storm surge, Lepine said.
“It came in at the worse scenario we can imagine,” he said. “There’s nowhere for that water to go than here.”
Rescue efforts were focused Wednesday in the small enclave of Braithwaite, on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish. Sheriff Deputies there were conducting rescue missions of residents trapped in homes, as flooding from Isaac overtook the area, said Trooper Melissa Matey, a Louisiana State Police spokeswoman.
Braithwaite was under a mandatory evacuation order prior to Isaac but some residents chose to stay, she said.
Early Wednesday, state police troopers were escorting National Guard troops with high-water vehicles down to that area to help in rescue efforts, state police spokesman Capt. Doug Cain said. Many of the roads in the area had become impassable.
Flanked by marshes and water, low-lying Plaquemines Parish has been repeatedly hit by disasters – from Katrina to Gustav to the 2010 BP oil spill, Cain said. Isaac late Tuesday passed directly over the area, pummeling the parish with powerful winds and a strong storm surge.
“The geography of it makes it vulnerable,” Cain said. “But talk about a resilient people. They’ve been through this before, and they’re going to make it through this one.”
Isaac also forced the closures of major roadways throughout the area, including US 90 at the Jefferson Parish/St. Charles Parish line, the causeway over Lake Pontchartrain and LA-73 south of Plaquemines, he said.
Besides dealing with downed trees across roadways from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, state police also encountered residents who may have underestimated the storm, he said. Troopers kept busy throughout the night with highway accidents, broken down cars and several DWI arrests.
“People aren’t adhering to the warnings,” Cain said. “Today, we’re really encouraging people to shelter in place.”
The Federal Amergency Management Agency has staged supplies throughout the south in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas and South Carolina. At Mississippi’s Camp Shelby, FEMA has 54 generators and 256,000 ready-to-eat meals. At Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, FEMA has 1.2 million meals, 2,134 cots and 3,800 tarps.
Volunteer organizations such as the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army can provide 65,000 hot meals a day in Louisiana, FEMA said in its daily briefing report.
So far the 350 miles of levees and floodwalls surrounding and meandering through New Orleans were holding back storm surge water as designed early Wednesday, city spokesman Hayne Rainey said. The city had not received any reports of levee breaches or calls for rescues, he said.
Early reports from Isaac’s effects were far different from the events that unfolded around Hurricane Katrina— which slammed the region seven years to the day and led to levee breaches and mass flooding of the city. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rebuilt the levee and floodwall system in the New Orleans area to be much stronger at a cost of $14.45 billion.
“All reports are indicating the federal levees protecting the city of New Orleans are holding,” he said.
The storm landed at 3:15 a.m. ET just west of Port Fourchon, about 60 miles south-southwest of New Orleans, said the National Hurricane Center.
Isaac, upgraded from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane midday Tuesday, first touched land in Plaquemines Parish, about 90 miles southeast of New Orleans on Tuesday evening before heading back over the Gulf of Mexico.
Because it is moving so slowly, the storm system could dump up to 20 inches of rain in some areas. The hurricane center said Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana could see peak surges of 12 feet.
In New Orleans, streets were flooding and up to 75% of residents were without power, Mayor Mitch Landrieu said.
“One of the great challenges with this storm … is that it’s going so slowly … which means that it’s going to hover over us,” he told the Weather Channel on Wednesday morning. “The longer the rain and the greater the wind … (that) continues to concern us. That wind is really, really heavy, which is why it’s important you stay inside.”
“We’re asking people to be patient,” he said.
New Orleans, devastated by Katrina seven years ago to the day, was reporting 60-mph winds and drenching rains. Landrieu said about 1,000 National Guard troops are positioned in the city, working with police, firefighters and standing by for rescue operations.
More than 470,000 homes and businesses have lost power, including 156,000 in New Orleans and 162,000 in the New Orleans suburbs, Entergy reported.
The company, which serves most of southern Louisiana, said its crews would begin restoring power as soon as sustained wind speeds fall below 30 mph.
“We expect outages to last several days,” the company said on its storm center website. “Severe weather conditions are expected across Louisiana and Mississippi through early Thursday morning.”
Officials in coastal Alabama were heading out Wednesday morning to assess damage from the storm.
“Right now, we are compiling our assessment teams,” said Paula Tillman, spokeswoman for the Baldwin County Emergency Management Agency. “As soon as it gets good and daylight, we’ll be sending them out.”
Some roads along the coast were closed because of flooding. “Those are down in those lower areas near Fort Morgan, right in the beach area,” Tillman said. “Those roads are pretty typical for flooding.”
At 6:30 a.m. central time, there had been no reports of injuries or deaths from the storm in Alabama. In Baldwin County, which includes the resort communities of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, 243 people were in two county evacuation shelters.
In Mobile, there was virtually no evidence of storm impact.
Officials were warning residents that flooding from storm surges and heavy rainfall expected with the storm could still pose a threat.
Southern Mississippi still has a long way to go before Hurricane Isaac moves past, but emergency management officials along the coast say they got through the night relatively unharmed.
No injuries or deaths were reported overnight in the coastal counties of Hancock or Harrison, which were two of the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina seven years ago.
The biggest worry overnight from Hurricane Isaac?
“We’re in the process of picking two people up who got stranded by the water and they’re scared,” Hancock County Emergency Management Director Brian Adam said Wednesday morning.
With sustained winds throughout the region topping out at about 40 mph, the main concern remains flooding from a constantly-driving storm surge and what is expected to be prolonged rainfall for several days.
In Harrison County, the rising waters knocked a boat off its moorings. County Emergency Management Director Rupert Lacy said the boat slammed into Popps Ferry Bridge, forcing officials to shut it down until crews can inspect the integrity of the bridge. The bridge is one of two connecting Biloxi from the mainland, but Lacy said it could be a long time before an inspection can be done.
“We cautioned our public safety employees…that you don’t need to be out there if the winds are too high,” Lacy said.
Although Hurricane Isaac‘s path has shifted a small degree, officials state Monday morning that all advisories released by the Assumption Parish Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Service remain, to expect the eye wall of Isaac to pass “right over” the parish, home of Louisiana’s giant sinkhole. Hard rains are causing concerning flooding of low-lying areas and power outages.
“Please note that as predicted, this update still shows 75 mph winds in Assumption parish at 1:00 p.m. today,” officials reported at 5:45 a.m. Wednesday.
“The track has shifted a bit; however, all advisories released by the Assumption Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness remain.”
Tuesday evening, Assumption Parish officials state that the latest update put the track of Hurricane Isaac‘s eye wall “right over Assumption Parish.”
A hurricane’s eye wall is located just outside of the eye. The eye wall is where the most damaging winds and intense rainfall is found.
The eye is typically the most calm location. It passes a vulnerable area in the hurricane path before the worst damage hits, thus the cliche, “The calm before the storm.”
“By 6:00 a.m., we should be experiencing tropical storm force winds,” officials advised.
“At noon, the forecast shows we will experience the strongest winds as the forecast predicts the eye wall to be right over us at that time,” the parish alert stated.
Up to 20 inches of rain could pound the already vulnerable giant sinkhole in Louisiana.
Rains were anticipated to make “flooding of low lying areas a concern,” WAFB reports Wednesday.
Isaac’s core is expected to pass over the sinkhole area west of New Orleans with winds close to 80 mph.
Winds could gust up to 100 mph at times.
“The hurricane is expected to gradually weaken, but only after dumping 7 to 14 inches of rain across the state, with some places receiving up to 20 inches,” reports Associated Press Wednesday morning.
Jeff Morrow with the WAFB Storm Team says that high winds will also cause widespread power outages, and “if that happens find the battery operated radio and tune to Tiger Country 100.7 FM as we will be simulcasting our advisories there.”
Katrina haunts thousands of residents
In New Orleans, Mayor Mitch Landrieu said evacuations would not be ordered and told residents to prepare carefully and ride it out. Nevertheless, Monday and Tuesday, traffic was bumper to bumper heading out of New Orleans.
In those vehicles were people too hurt and fearful to risk unpredictability of high waters and no power at home, with only hours away from the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
By midafternoon Tuesday, 400 residents of Plaquemines Parish, where Isaac made landfall southeast of New Orleans, were calling a hurricane shelter in Belle Chasse home.
Arriving on the eve of Hurricane Katrina’s seventh anniversary, Isaac is the first hurricane to hit Louisiana since Ike in 2008.
Everything reminds you of Katrina. When the wind howls, I think of Katrina. I don’t think of Isaac,” explained CNN iReporter Eileen Romero, a student in New Orleans who survived Katrina in 2005 but lost everything during it.
Romero still lives in New Orleans, in a different neighborhood and in a house built in 1908.
After going out Tuesday to take photographs, she said, “I am not seeing people real concerned to be honest. I think there is a false sense of security.
“Everybody talks about how we party all the time. When hurricanes are coming, people have hurricane parties.”
Many residents of public housing apartments never returned after 2005.
“Where are the people who lived here prior to Katrina?” she asked. “I don’t think they have a place to come back to.”
Assumption Parish officials ordered a mandatory evacuation. Monday morning, officials there ask that people who remained in the area to “please abide by the curfew and remain sheltered in place.”
Isaac inundated low-lying areas along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday as hurricane-driven water rose several feet in some spots while thousands waited out the storm in shelters. Officials in Hancock and Harrison counties extended curfews until 9 a.m. to keep off roads until after the high tide passes at around 8 a.m. Harrison County emergency management director Rupert Lacy said the storm surge coupled with the high tide could lead to more extensive flooding. Lacy said coastal rivers also were beginning to rise from the rainfall. More than 15,000 people remained without power in coastal areas.
A flood warning has been issued for the Capital after torrential rain battered the city this afternoon. Thunder and lightning storms were accompanied by the heavy rains at around 2.30pm. Environmental Agency SEPA issued a flood alert and warned that standing water was likely to pose a hazard to drivers and urged travellers to check the Traffic Scotland website before setting out. A spokesman for SEPA said: “ Due to the showery nature of the rainfall, it is difficult to predict which areas are most at risk, however, the overall risk is expected to decline during the early hours of Thursday morning.”
Mississippi wildlife officers and National Guard soldiers rescued at least 75 people from Isaac’s flooding Wednesday in Hancock County, including an 88-year-old man who had a stroke as the storm dumped heavy rains on his isolated neighborhood in Pearlington, near the Louisiana state line. The stroke victim was the last person brought out of the neighborhood, about 7:30 p.m. CDT, and Mississippi National Guard 1st Sgt. William Maddox said the man’s house is about six miles off the main thoroughfare, U.S. Highway 90. Rescuers spent hours trying to reach him, attempting with several vehicles. A paramedic waded through chest-deep water to get to the house, and then guided a large military truck to the man. Maddox said the man appeared to be in stable condition and was taken care of by paramedics at the scene. It was not immediately clear whether the man would be taken to a hospital. With a steady rain falling, wildlife officers used small motorboats to rescue at least two dozen people in Pearlington, including several members of an extended family. More than a dozen National Guard soldiers also helped with the rescues, as did ambulance crews and other emergency responders.One of those plucked from a rural neighborhood that had become a lake was 63-year-old Dianne Burton. She told The Associated Press that she and members of her extended family didn’t leave before Isaac because they didn’t expect so much water. She has lived there 46 years and said the only other time the area flooded was during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “Everything is under water. We picked up the furniture and stuff, as much as we could. I can’t believe it. The road and everything was dry yesterday,” Burton said after officers deposited her, her 82-year-old mother, her 46-year-old disabled daughter and two grandchildren, ages 10 and 12, safely on dry land. Those rescued were put onto school buses and were taken to shelters on higher ground. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said Wednesday afternoon that officers from the state Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks had rescued at least 58 people in Hancock County, which borders Louisiana. The rescue of Burton, her relatives and at least 20 other people was happening at the same time Bryant was doing a press briefing in Gulfport, and his initial figures didn’t include them.
Parts of Cumbria have been hit by flash flooding after a night of heavy rain. The west of the county appears to have been worst affected, with police and fire crews reporting cars partially submerged in the Egremont area. About 20 elderly residents were moved to an emergency shelter at Egremont Market Hall, after a power cut. Cumbria Fire Service said it received more than 100 calls for help, mainly involving requests for sandbags. Forecasters say the rain is now easing. Northern Rail services between Whitehaven and Barrow have been cancelled after a landslip near St Bees and some roads are only passable with care because of debris left by floodwaters. A spokesman for Cumbria Police said drains were unable to cope with the amount of water after the River Ehen and several becks in the Egremont area burst their banks. The Environment Agency said one flood alert remained in force for the River Ehen in Copeland. The police spokesman said: “We started getting calls from about 1am, mainly from people concerned that water was coming into their homes and asking for sandbags.”We also had calls from the fire and ambulance services asking for our assistance in reaching some areas and had to close some roads for a time. “The Egremont and Middletown areas appear to have had the worst of it.” Emma Jane Taylor said floodwater began entering her St Bees home shortly before midnight. She said: “We’ve had heavy rain here before, but it’s never been this bad before. “I alerted some neighbours, but within 30 minutes it was through my front door and coming up through my floorboards. “It’s lifted the block paving from my grandmother’s house nearby and was also coming through her French windows. “We just hope the rain doesn’t come back because the drains are full to the top and wouldn’t be able to take any more.” Wasdale Mountain Rescue volunteers also assisted the fire service to pump out several properties in the Egremont area. Earlier this week the rear of a four-storey house house in Egremont collapsed into the River Ehen after heavy rain.
A tornado touched down in an Ocean Springs neighborhood about 7:30 p.m. tonight, the Jackson County Emergency Management Agency said. While EMA officials said that initial reports indicated that the tornado knocked down trees and power lines, at least one witness told the Mississippi Press that at least one house was reported damaged. Two houses on East Simmons Bayou in Gulf Park Estates have sustained damage, according to Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd who is en route to the scene. Byrd said there were no injuries reported. “There’s extensive damage at two houses,” Byrd said. “There’s a roof off one house and a shed was taken away from another one. We have deputies on the scene assessing the situation. In addition to the tornado, Jackson County emergency officials announced waterspouts have been spotted at Miss. 57 and I-10, headed northeast.
A non-government group is urging Bayou Corne sinkhole area residents to use a new record log as a veteran radiation expert says Louisiana environmental officials are “in denial” over hazards posed by elevated radium levels that are actually fifteen times higher than the state limit, a “worst nightmare coming true,” according to an environmental attorney.
Stanley Waligora, a New Mexico-based radiation protection consultant and leading authority on health risks of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) has confirmed that radium levels at Bayou Corne’s sinkhole are not within safe limits, but instead, roughly 15 times higher than the state’s acceptable level, according to one of the nation’s leading environmental attorney’s Stuart Smith.
State officials are saying NORM is is below hazardous levels, but the independent findings indicate other actions need to be taken, including residents using Louisiana Environmental Action Network’s report logs to record signs and symptoms of ill health.
The information about radium is buried in a state news release, poorly written, “and goes out of its way to downplay the results,” Smith said Wednesday.
This week, after state officials released the results of samples taken 80 feet under the surface of the growing, slurry-filled pit, Marco Kaltofen, a civil engineer and president of Boston Chemical Data Corp., noted those results posted by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, show elevated rates of NORM in the sinkhole.
NORM is a frequent byproduct of the oil and gas drilling process, creating wastes that industry has often then dumped improperly, according to Smith who specializes in this area of environmental law.
Kaltofen’s analysis of the situation in Bayou Corne includes:
“Radium in the body is absorbed because it is chemically similar to calcium. The normal maximum guideline level for radium in surface water is 5 picoCuries per liter, (pCi/L). The state’s testing found 82 pCi/L in the water of the growing sinkhole. Radium gives off alpha’ radiation. This form of radiation is extremely dangerous if inhaled or ingested, and less dangerous if exposed by skin contact.”
When radium decays, it produces the dangerous radioactive gas, radon. EPA warns that radon gas causes lung cancer, and exposure can be as hazardous to your lungs as a serious cigarette habit.
“Waligora said officials with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality need to launch immediate additional testing to ensure that the hazardous radium is not leaking into nearby groundwater and posing a threat to human health as well as livestock,” Smith has stated Friday.
Waligora’s recommendations come two days after Smith’s blog first reported that analysis of DEQ test results from Bayou Corne, posted by the LEANouisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN), revealed elevated radium levels and airborne chemicals associated with highly volatile butane stored by Crosstex in a cavern near the sinkhole.
They also come two days after Homeland Security Louisiana announced that officials are stepping up around-the-clock emergency operations near Bayou Corne’s sinkhole, including extra Hazardous Materials & Explosive Units.
LEAN, after reporting lethal contaminants found in the sinkhole area, is urging residents to use the new report log it has for recording signs and symptoms of poisoning, as reported by the Examiner on Wednesday.
The Advocatereports Friday, “In two statements released Tuesday, LEAN noted air monitoring by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality since Aug. 4 over the sinkhole and in the neighborhoods near the sinkhole had picked up, depending on the location, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, other volatile organic compounds and components of natural gas.”
‘Worst nightmare coming true,’ says attorney
If the butane in the sinkhole vicinity exploded, it would meet, according to the National Terror Alert, the definition of a dirty bomb.
“I sought an analysis of the recent DEQ test results from Waligora, who since a stint as a nuclear weapons officer in the U.S. military has been teaching, consulting and testifying as an expert witness in radiation litigation for more than 45 years,” asserted Smith Friday.
He expressed concern that the state reported its findings of radium-226 and radium-228 as “below acceptable levels,” when in fact, the results were 15 times higher than the state’s own standard for soil contamination.
“Well, once again the Louisiana DEQ is in denial because they don’t know what to do about the radioactive contamination in the Bayou Corne subsidence,” Waligora wrote, adding the following findings:
There are immediate radiation dose concerns, not only cumulative toxin concerns.
“The release could reach the usable aquifer and contaminate drinking water along with livestock and irrigated crops,” Waligora says. “The DEQ must sample ground water to assess any transport. Airborne particulate might become entrained and cause contamination to be inhaled by the public. DEQ must collect air samples to assess the airborne radioactive particulate. Radon gas emanating from the radium could be inhaled by members of the public. DEQ needs to monitor airborne radon.
“A long range plan must be developed for remedial action. Funding should be provided by the oil companies that used the cavern for disposal,” asserted Waligora.
Waligora reports being concerned about DEQ understating of the Bayou Corne risks because of what he has witnessed in other cases handled by the troubled agency:
“This is reminiscent of the illegal waste disposal that was discovered several years ago at St. Gabriel. The community complained about illegal disposal of radioactive waste. DEQ sent a team to investigate who determined that there was no problem. Complaints continued and a second DEQ team investigated and again said that there was no problem. Finally, a legal action attracted the EPA who found widespread contamination. The responsible party had no worth so the site was cleaned up with Superfund support. The cleanup took over one year and cost over $1million. Quite a bit for ‘no problem.’”
Earlier this year, Smith joined the Louisiana Bucket Brigade in calling for the EPA to intervene and assume responsibility from DEQ because the agency was “overwhelmed and “in the back pocket of the businesses it’s supposed to be regulating.”
“Although company officials informed the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources in early 2011 of significant problems at the cavern, local residents and authorities were not told of the risk even after they began complaining this summer of shaking homes and noxious orders,” Smith says.
National Terror Alert (NTA) recently reported that due to recent terrorist events, people have expressed concern about a possible terrorist attack involving radioactive materials, possibly through the use of a “dirty bomb,” and the harmful effects of radiation from such an event.
“A dirty bomb, or radiological dispersion device, is a bomb that combines conventional explosives, such as dynamite, with radioactive materials inthe form of powder or pellets. The idea behind a dirty bomb is to blast radioactive material into the area around the explosion. This could possibly cause buildings and people to be exposed to radioactive material. The main purpose of a dirty bomb is to frighten people and make buildings or land unusable for a long period of time.
“In Bayou Corne, we are witnessing our worst nightmares coming true,” Smith asserted Friday. “It’s time for the EPA and other outside authorities to step in and make sure that proper testing is done and that emergency measures are carried out.”
The sinkhole, now the size of three football fields, shaped like an upside-down Superdome Stadium, and filled with liquid slurry is blamed on Texas Brine Co.’s failed salt cavern near Bayou Corne.
“There’s no excuse for allowing this new Louisiana catastrophe to get any worse,” Smith says.
Sources:The Advocate, Stuart Smith, Louisiana Environmental Action Network
A thief in Uganda has contracted Ebola after stealing the mobile phone of a hospital patient suffering from the potentially fatal infection.
Security and medical officials in Kibaale District, mid-west Uganda, told the Daily Monitor website that the man went into the isolation ward at Kagadi Hospital and stole a cellular phone from one of the Ebola patients.
The patient, who later died from the hemorrhagic fever, reported the theft.
Police began tracking the thief when he started using the phone, the Daily Monitor reported.
But by the time they found him he had gone to hospital with symptoms similar to those of Ebola.
He reportedly confessed to stealing the phone.
Kibaale District Health Officer Dr Dan Kyamanywa, told the Daily Monitor: “The suspect is admitted at Kagadi Hospital with clinical signs of Ebola.” “He is receiving medication. We have obtained samples from him,” Mr Kyamanywa added.
The Uganda Virus Research Institute is yet to release the results of the tests.
Texas bears the brunt of the outbreak, which has yet to peak, experts say
By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 29 (HealthDay News) — One of the worst outbreaks of West Nile virus to ever hit the United States continues to expand, with 66 deaths and 1,590 illnesses reported as of Tuesday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Cases have jumped 40 percent nationwide since just last week, the agency added.
Cases have now reached their highest level since the mosquito-borne virus was first found in the United States in 1999, agency officials said in a Wednesday press briefing.
While almost all states have reported at least one case of West Nile illness, over 70 percent of cases have come from six states — Texas, South Dakota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Michigan.
The outbreak has hit hardest in Texas, where nearly half (45 percent) of the total U.S. cases have been reported.
“The number of people reported with West Nile virus continues to rise,” said Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of the CDC’s Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases. “We have seen this trend in previous West Nile epidemics, so the increase is not unexpected,” he added. “In fact, we think the reported numbers will get higher through October.”
According to Peterson, of the cases reported so far, 56 percent are what is called neuroinvasive disease, when the virus enters the nervous system causing conditions such as meningitis or encephalitis. The remaining reported cases (44 percent) are non-neuroinvasive.
“These numbers represent a 40 percent increase of last week’s report of 1,118 total cases and 41 deaths,” Petersen said.
These numbers can be somewhat misleading since most cases of West Nile are non-neuroinvasive and are mostly unreported, the CDC said. That means that the number of unreported cases probably far exceeds reported ones.
Neuroinvasive disease is the most serious for of West Nile infection and these patients usually are hospitalized, Petersen said. The size of the outbreak is based on these cases since they are the ones easily identifiable, he added.
The only states that have not reported cases are Alaska and Hawaii, he said.
“Based on current reports, we think the number of cases may come close to, or even exceed, the total number reported in the epidemic years of 2002 and 2003, when more than 3,000 cases of neuroinvasive disease and more than 260 deaths were reported each year,” Petersen said.
The reasons for a major outbreak this year aren’t clear, Petersen said. The drought in Texas may have played a role, but there were probably other factors as well, he added.
The best way to avoid the virus is to wear insect repellant and support local programs to eradicate misquotes, Petersen said.
There is currently no treatment for West Nile virus and no vaccine to prevent it, he added.
Speaking at the press conference, Dr. David L. Lakey, Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services said that, “As I look at the data, I am not convinced that we have peaked.”
Since last week, there have been 197 new cases and 10 more deaths in Texas, Lakey said. “Those numbers will continue to go up,” he added.
Generally speaking, 80 percent of people who are infected with West Nile virus develop no or few symptoms, while 20 percent develop mild symptoms such as headache, joint pain, fever, skin rash and swollen lymph glands.
Less than 1 percent will develop neurological illnesses, such as encephalitis or meningitis, and develop paralysis or cognitive difficulties that can last for years, if not for life.
People older than 50 and those with certain medical conditions, such as cancer, diabetes, hypertension, kidney disease and organ transplants, are at greater risk for serious illness, according to the CDC.
There are no specific treatments for West Nile virus; the greatest risk for infection with West Nile virus typically occurs from June through September, with cases peaking in mid-August.
And because reporting lags behind actual infections, “we expect many more cases to occur and the risk of West Nile infection will probably continue through the end of September,” said Petersen.
Although most people with mild cases of West Nile virus will recover on their own, the CDC recommends that anyone who develops symptoms should see their doctor right away. The best way to protect yourself from West Nile virus is to avoid getting bitten by mosquitoes, which can pick up the disease from infected birds.
30.08.2012
Epidemic Hazard
USA
State of Colorado, [Cimarrona Campground, Archuleta County]
In the first confirmed case of bubonic plague in Colorado since 2006, an Archuleta County resident has tested positive for the disease. The last human case in Archuleta County, which borders on New Mexico, was in 1998. It is believed that the person contracted the plague during a family outing in the Cimarrona Campground northwest of Pagosa Springs, but the investigation is ongoing, according to a news release from the San Juan Basin Health Department. The gender and age of the victim were not released, the paper reported. In 2006, Colorado had four cases of plague, all in La Plata County, Joe Fowler, a disease-control nurse with the San Juan Basin Health Department said. Most human cases of plague tend to occur in rural areas in two regions — northern Arizona and New Mexico and southern Colorado or in California, southern Oregon and western Nevada. One human case has been reported in New Mexico so far this year – in a 78-year-old Torrance County man who contracted the disease in May, in what state health officials called the nation’s first human plague case of the yea
Biohazard name:
Plague
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
A camper near Pagosa Springs has contracted bubonic plague. The Durango Herald reports that the person contracted the plague during a family outing in the Cimarrona Campground. The San Juan Basin Health Department did not give the victim’s age or gender. Warning signs are being posted in the campground, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an average of seven cases of plague each year across the country. Most human cases tend to occur in rural areas in the Southwest. Symptoms of plague begin two to six days after a person is bitten by an infected flea, rodent or cat. The plague can be successfully treated if diagnosed promptly.
Ouest Haiti Department reported new cases of cholera as aftermath of the tropical storm Isaac, but Public Health Ministry General Director Guirlene Raymond sustains that so far the numbers do not match outbreak ratings.
Dr. Donald Francis, Ministry official on the matter, said the percentage of cases remain stable. Early July official statistics from the initial 2010 outbreak says the death rate climbed to 7,418, while the WHO talks of more than 42,000 new cases this year, blaming low budget and the rain season which undermines anti-epidemic efforts. The specialists think that enforcement and continuity of health promotional programs, access to drinkable water, sanitation and hygiene will stall propagation. US investigators suggested in June as source of the outbreak two distinctive cholera breads, not just one as they originally announced. Earlier studies indicated as source a microorganism -already reported in Asia- introduced by Nepalese soldiers working for the Minustah (UN Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti). However, a group of geneticists from Maryland University have found a new breed, seemingly of local origin and thought unable to stimulate epidemics. V. cholerae 01/0139 is part of the common populace in streams and lakes in the Western Hemisphere. It may cause diarrheas but only in very few cases. Just two percent of Haiti 10 million population has access to clean water and the majority defecates outdoors and in water sources like rivers and next to their homes.
Biohazard name:
Cholera
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
The epidemic of measles in North Waziristan Agency claimed the lives of two minor girls in Danada Derpakhel area on Wednesday while dozens of infected children are being brought to the Miranshah Headquarters Hospital for treatment. Talking to INP, Agency Surgeon Dr Mohammad Sadiq said that dozens of measles infected children have been admitted to the Miranshah Headquarters Hospital for treatment, adding that measles vaccine is not available in the tribal region to control the infection. “Around 40 children are infected by measles in three weeks that are brought to the hospital for treatment and two minor girls fell prey to the infection in Danda Derpakhel area of the tribal region,” Dr Mohammad Sadiq said. He said that health department should initiate measures on war footing in the area to control the spread of measles in the tribal region where vaccines of measles are short.
The agency surgeon said that not only from North Waziristan but children infected by measles are being brought from across the border to Miranshah for treatment, adding that scarcity of vaccines was creating problem in controlling the spread of epidemic.
Biohazard name:
Measles (fatal)
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
State wildlife officials believe hemorrhagic disease killed several deer in Calhoun County and the cases are being treated as an outbreak. There also have been reports of the disease in Roane County, said Jeff McCrady, a wildlife biologist with the Division of Natural Resources. “I think it is probably positive, based on the outward appearance of the deer,” McCradysaid. “…We are proceeding as if it is.” Samples of lung and spleen tissue from the Calhoun County deer were sent to the University of Georgia for testing. The testing requires fresh samples. “Seeing a deer two days ago in this heat is too late. … It is not easy to confirm,” McCrady said. The disease, which is transmitted by gnats, causes deer to hemorrhage internally and dehydrate. Infected deer head to water and more than one carcass found near water indicates the disease’s presence. “Usually multiple deer is an automatic trigger in our minds that it is hemorrhagic disease,” McCrady said. Hemorrhagic disease cannot be transmitted to humans but “it can kill a fair number of deer,” he said. “We probably have it every year somewhere in the state, it’s not like it is a real rare thing,” There is no treatment for hemorrhagic disease. Most cases appear in late summer or early fall, several months after deer are bitten. The disease’s spread stops when freezing temperatures arrive.
Biohazard name:
Undefined Hemorrhagic disease (deer)
Biohazard level:
3/4 Hight
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, variola virus (smallpox), tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Among parasites Plasmodium falciparum, which causes Malaria, and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes trypanosomiasis, also come under this level.
A new virus, dubbed “Heartland virus,” is being spread to people by ticks common in the Southeast, the CDC reports. The only known cases are two northwestern Missouri men who fell ill in 2009. Ticks had bitten both men, but they did not get better after treatment with antibiotics. Tests later showed that the men did not have any tick-borne bacterial diseases. But CDC researcher Laura K. McMullan, PhD, and colleagues did find something else: a previously unknown virus in the patients’ blood. “This virus could be a more common cause of human illness than is currently recognized,” they said. The two men, one age 57 and the other age 67, lived on different farms. The first had only a single tick bite. The second said that over a two-week period he’d received some 20 tick bites a day. Both men had fever, fatigue, diarrhea, and low levels of blood platelets and white blood cells. The symptoms are similar to those of ehrlichiosis, a relatively common tick-borne disease that is caused by bacteria. The first patient spent 10 days in the hospital. Two years later, he’s still feeling tired and often has headaches. At first he had memory problems and loss of appetite, both of which slowly got better. The second patient was in the hospital for 12 days. Over the next four to six weeks he had memory problems, fatigue, and loss of appetite. All of these symptoms went away and did not come back over the next two years.The new virus is related to a tick-borne virus recently discovered in central and northeastern China. That virus, called SFTSV, causes fever and loss of blood platelets. The most common ticks in northwestern Missouri, where the two men were infected with Heartland virus, are lone star ticks. These ticks are found throughout the Southeast and up the Atlantic coast to Maine. No ticks carrying Heartland virus have been found. It’s not clear whether a person infected with the new virus can spread it to another person, or whether a tick bite is necessary. “Although these two patients had severe disease, the incidence of infection with the novel virus and range of disease severity are currently unknown,” McMullan and colleagues write. They warn health professionals to be on the lookout for people who fall ill after getting tick bites and who do not get better after antibiotic treatment.
Biohazard name:
Heartland Virus (new strain)
Biohazard level:
3/4 Hight
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, variola virus (smallpox), tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Among parasites Plasmodium falciparum, which causes Malaria, and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes trypanosomiasis, also come under this level.
Bexar County sources are calling it an outbreak of Salmonella poisoning at the Bexar County Jail. But jail administrators will only refer to these cases as “severe food poisoning”. The outbreak happened inside the main jail facility downtown. The number of inmates affected is between 70 and 100. Four men were sent to a local hospital for treatment. And as of today, three out of those four inmates had been treated and released. At this point, the jail is working with Aramark to figure out how happened. But our sources tell us they are closely looking at meat the inmates were served late last week. Since last Friday, all of the inmates at the main jail have been given Gatorade to help speed up the recovery process. Metro health has confirmed they are investigating a foodborne illness situation and the problem has been contained to the jail. Jail administrators have not received a complaint in the last day. So, they do believe the problem has been fixed.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Food Poisoning
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
confirmed
29.08.2012
Biological Hazard
India
State of West Bengal, [Swarupnagar in North 24-Parganas]
A team of Animal Resource and Husbandry Department (ARD) on Wednesday visited Swarupnagar in North 24-Parganas to collect blood samples of dead chickens as reports of widespread deaths of poultry were reported from the area, triggering fear of an outbreak of bird flu. In the last 22 days, around 50,000 chickens have reportedly died in the four blocks of Swarupnagar — Baduria, Kakrasuti, Lakshmikantapur and Nayabandh. “I am closely monitoring the situation and the blood samples have been sent to Belgachia government laboratory for test,” said Chief Medical Officer (Health) of North 24-Parganas Susanta Kumar Sil. ARD Minister Noor -E- Alam Chowdhury urged people not to panic and said the government is prepared to tackle any outbreak of bird flu. “Yes, birds have died, but there can be a number of reasons behind it. We are prepared to tackle any such outbreak,” he said. Senior officials said if the blood samples of the dead birds are found positive of Avian Influenza Virus (H5N1) then it would be sent to National Institute of Virology in Pune for confirmation. Positive result from Pune lab would lead to beginning of culling operation within three days. Rapid response teams will be formed to carry out surveillance of bird deaths, said an official. Lime and bleaching powder are being sprayed in the area as a preventive measure. Leaflets containing dos and don’ts are being distributed. “We have started an awareness campaign in the area and asked villagers to dispose of the carcasses of the birds in a pit,” said an official. Villagers are being told to wear gloves while feeding their poultry or wild birds.
Biohazard name:
Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1)
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska is known for pioneering, self-reliant residents who are accustomed to remote locations and harsh weather. Despite that, Gov. Sean Parnell worries a major earthquake or volcanic eruption could leave the state’s 720,000 residents stranded and cut off from food and supply lines. His answer: Build giant warehouses full of emergency food and supplies, just in case.
For some in the lower 48, it may seem like an extreme step. But Parnell says this is just Alaska.
In many ways, the state is no different than the rest of America. Most people buy their groceries at stores, and rely on a central grid for power and heat. But, unlike the rest of the lower 48, help isn’t a few miles away. When a fall storm cut off Nome from its final fuel supply last winter, a Russian tanker spent weeks breaking through thick ice to reach the remote town.
Weather isn’t the only thing that can wreak havoc in Alaska, where small planes are a preferred mode of transportation and the drive from Seattle to Juneau requires a ferry ride and 38 hours in a car. The state’s worst natural disaster was in 1964, when a magnitude-9.2 earthquake and resulting tsunami killed 131 people and disrupted electrical systems, water mains and communication lines in Anchorage and other cities.
“We have a different motivation to do this, because help is a long ways away,” said John Madden, Alaska’s emergency management director.
The state plans two food stockpiles in or near Fairbanks and Anchorage, two cities that also have military bases. Construction on the two storage facilities will begin this fall, and the first food deliveries are targeted for December. The goal is to have enough food to feed 40,000 people for up to a week, including three days of ready-to-eat meals and four days of bulk food that can be prepared and cooked for large groups. To put that number into perspective, Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, has about 295,000 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and Juneau, its third largest, about 31,000.
It’s not unusual for states that routinely experience hurricanes or other large-scale disasters to have supplies like water, ready-to-eat meals, cots and blankets. But Alaska is interested in stocking food with at least a five-year shelf life that meets the nutrition, health and cultural requirements of the state’s unique demographics. That means, as part of the effort, trying to incorporate cultural foods like salmon for Alaska Natives as well as foods that would be more common in urban areas, state emergency management spokesman Jeremy Zidek said.
An estimated 90 percent of commodities entering Alaska are delivered through the Port of Anchorage. Air service is also a critical link to the outside world and generally the only way to reach many rural communities. A volcanic blast emitting a large amount of smoke and ash could disrupt supply lines by air and water for an extended period, Madden said, and an earthquake could knock out airport runways or ports. Those are just some of the disasters that might require emergency supplies.
Parnell has made disaster readiness a priority of his administration. His spokeswoman said he has experienced firsthand the devastation of natural disasters, including heavy flooding that knocked some buildings off foundations in Eagle in 2009, when he was lieutenant governor, and the Joplin, Mo., tornado last year. Parnell and his wife visited Joplin with members of the relief organization Samaritan’s Purse.
Madden said Alaska’s readiness is better than it once was and it continues to improve.
State officials have been working to encourage individual responsibility, with talks at schools and public gatherings. Emergency management officials plan to have a booth at the Alaska State Fair. A statewide disaster drill is planned for October.
Over the past year, the state has acquired or purchased water purification units and generators designed to work in cold climates, including units that could power facilities like hospitals, Madden said. Officials also are determining what the state needs in terms of emergency medical supplies and shelter, he said.
Delivery of the food stockpiles would be staggered over three years. It would be replaced after it’s used or expired, and it’s entirely possible that much of the food will never be needed. It is not clear what the state will do with the expired, unused food.
The project has a budget of around $4 million and hasn’t generated any real controversy.
Allen Geiger, enjoying hot dogs from a street vendor Tuesday in Anchorage’s Town Square Park, said he had no objections to the plan.
“It seems like an OK idea,” Geiger said. “The scale of it is not too huge.”
___
Associated Press writer Dan Joling in Anchorage contributed to this report.
More than half a million Louisiana homes and businesses lost power during Isaac and most will stay that way for at least several days, Entergy spokesman Chanel Lagarde said. As of noon Wednesday, 552,000 customers were without electricity, including 85% of New Orleans, Lagarde said. Entergy, which serves most of Louisiana, initially planned to dispatch 4,000 workers to repair the power lines once the storm passed. But with outages so widespread, the company said it will need 10,000 workers. Crews from power companies in 24 states, through mutual aid agreements, will pitch in, he said. “The one thing that’s really hampering us is that the winds are still here. The storm is just hanging around,” Lagarde said. “Looks like it won’t be until tomorrow (Thursday) that we can get out there.” Workers cannot go up in bucket trucks to do repairs until the winds drop below 30 mph. Entergy expects it will take “several days” before the company can restore power to most of its customers. The company will not have a more accurate estimate until the storm subsides and workers can assess the damage, Lagarde said. Lagarde also said the number of outages will continue to rise as the storm travels north through the state.
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(Reuters) – An unusual swarm of hundreds of mostly small earthquakes has struck Southern California over the last three days and shaken the nerves of quake-hardy residents, but scientists say the cluster is not a sign a larger temblor is imminent.
The earthquakes, the largest of which measured magnitude 5.5, began on Saturday evening and have been centered near the town of Brawley close to the state’s inland Salton Sea, said Jeanne Hardebeck, research seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.
Scientists were monitoring the earthquake cluster, which continued on Tuesday, to see if it approaches the Imperial Fault, about three miles away. A destructive and deadly earthquake of magnitude 7.0 struck on that fault in 1940, she said.
“We don’t have any reason to believe that the (earthquake) storm is going to trigger on the Imperial Fault, but there’s a minute possibility that it could,” Hardebeck said, adding that the swarm of quakes was not moving closer to that fault.
The Brawley quake cluster, which is caused by hot fluid moving around in the Earth’s crust, is different than a typical earthquake, in which two blocks of earth slip past each other along a tectonic fault line.
After that kind of an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 or above, there is a 5 percent chance a larger quake will follow, Hardebeck said. But she added the same kinds of probability estimates were not possible with earthquake clusters caused by the movement of hot fluid.
“We understand them even less than we understand normal earthquakes,” Hardebeck said, adding that scientists do not know why a cluster of earthquakes will occur at one time rather than another.
The swarm led to jangled nerves in Brawley, a town of about 25,000 residents 170 miles southeast of Los Angeles near the border with Mexico.
“It’s pretty bad. We had to evacuate the hotel just for safety,” Rowena Rapoza, office manager of a local Best Western Hotel, said on Sunday.
There were two earthquakes on Sunday afternoon, one with a 5.5 magnitude and one measuring 5.3, Hardebeck said. Those were the largest quakes in the cluster amid hundreds of others, she said.
In the past, earthquake clusters have gone on for as long as two weeks, Hardebeck said. Before this recent cluster in Brawley, the last swarm of this size to hit the area was in 1981, she said.
Earlier this month, a pair of moderate-sized earthquakes both registering a magnitude 4.5 struck the California town of Yorba Linda within 10 hours of each other, but no damage was reported. Yorba Linda, the birthplace of the late President Richard Nixon, is 145 miles northwest of Brawley.
(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Philip Barbara)
The Gulf of California rift zone is a complex transition zone between the dextral (right-lateral) motion of the San Andreas transform fault system and the northwestward progressing spreading ridge complex of the Gulf of California segment of the Eastern Pacific Rise. The Gulf of California and its onshore extension, the Salton Trough (which includes Mexicali, Imperial, and Coachella Valleys), are located over a series of rifts in the Earth’s crust which are filling with sediment from above, chiefly from the Colorado River, and magmatic material from below. The Cerro Prieto geothermal field in Mexico and the Brawley Seismic zone in the U.S. are located above two of these rifts, and young volcanoes in these locations are evidence of intrusion of magma from below.
The volcanics in this exploration region are less then 5-million year old and associated with northwest folding, block- and thrust- faulting. Dacite is the most common volcanic rock, with a composition that ranges from basalt to rhyolite. The volcanic activity appears to be related to extension associated with the San Andreas fault system. The most recent volcanic activity is dated to 10,000 years ago. The heat source for the Geysers geothermal field is provided by a silicic magama chamber. Clear Lake Volcanic Field, California[1]
Assessment of Moderate- and High-Temperature Geothermal Resources of the United States[2]
(AP)—Aftershocks continue to shake the Southern California desert a day after moderate earthquakes knocked farming town trailer homes off foundations and shattered windows in a swarm that scientists say could last for days. There are no injuries. The largest quake centered near Brawley was at a magnitude-5.5 at 1:57 p.m. Sunday and it was widely felt from San Diego to Arizona. About 90 minutes earlier, a magnitude-5.3 quake shook the region. By dawn Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey website shows there have been dozens of aftershocks in Imperial County, the largest a magniutude-4.9 at 9:41 p.m. Sunday. There was also a 3.0 at 12:32 a.m. Monday. There was cosmetic damage to several 1930s buildings in downtown Brawley and 20 mobile homes were knocked off their foundations and deemed uninhabitable.
Hundreds of earthquakes have rattled Imperial County since Sunday morning as an earthquake swarm continued. But experts say the swarm does not necessarily indicates a larger temblor is on the way. Certainly, the weekend’s quakes were troubling for Imperial County, which is located in one of California’s most earthquake prone regions. More than 400 earthquakes have been detected since Saturday evening, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. One local family felt 15 quakes in 21/2 hours. But for all the ground movement, experts said there is no evidence the earthquake swarms were a precursor to much larger quakes on longer, more dangerous faults. And scientists don’t see any immediate signs of added pressure to the San Andreas fault, which is not far from the location of the earthquake swarm. That makes this weekend’s swarm different than what occurred after the 2010 Easter Sunday quake that shook up the California-Mexico border. The 7.2 quake appeared to have directed tectonic stress northward, toward populated areas in Southern California. Three months after the Mexicali quake, a 5.4 quake that centered south of Palm Springs rattled the region.Scientists said the Easter Sunday quake and its aftershocks triggered movement on at least six faults, including the Elsinore and San Jacinto faults, which run close to heavily populated areas in eastern Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire. For now, there is no evidence that this weekend’s swarm will trigger quakes elsewhere, U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones said. No deaths or serious injuries have been reported from the weekend’s swarm, but the shaking was sharp enough to postpone what was to be the first day of the school year in Brawley. Local officials reported 20 mobile homes shifted from their foundations and cosmetic damage to downtown buildings in this city of 25,000. The swarming of earthquakes has occurred before in this largely agricultural, desert region near the Mexican border. The so-called Brawley seismic zone, about 100 miles east of San Diego, has endured earthquake swarms in the 1930s, ’60s, and ’70s, but was quiet between 1981 to 2000, according to a report on the Southern California Seismic Network. In fact, some swarms in the ’60s and ’70s included “many thousands” of earthquakes, but the largest quakes during those sequences topped out at a magnitude 5.
“Swarms are fairly typical for this region,” U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Elizabeth Cochran said. The last significant swarm occurred in 2005, when the largest quake was a 5.1. After a few days of quakes, the shaking tapered off. Before this weekend’s swarm, in which the top magnitudes were a 5.5 and 5.3 on Sunday, the most powerful swarm to hit the region was in 1981, when the most powerful quake reached 5.8. There are a couple of reasons the Brawley seismic zone is prone to earthquake swarms. The area is at the crossroads between two different types of faults, Cochran said. To the region’s northwest is the more familiar type of fault, where the Pacific Plate grinds past the North American plate, with one plate moving northwest and the other southeast. But south of the border, the two plates are seeking to pull away from each other. (That movement is what created the Gulf of California, which separates Baja California from the rest of Mexico, Cochran said.) Sitting at the crossroads of the different types of faults makes the area particularly volatile, Cochran said. Another reason is the relative thinness of the Earth’s crust in that region, which allows naturally occurring heat from subterranean rock to rise closer to the surface, increasing instability. By Monday, the swarm appeared to be decreasing in frequency, Cochran said, although she didn’t rule out the pace picking up again. Previous earthquake swarms have gone on for days.
An unusual swarm of hundreds of mostly small earthquakes has struck Southern California over the last three days and shaken the nerves of quake-hardy residents, but scientists say the cluster is not a sign a larger temblor is imminent. The earthquakes, the largest of which measured magnitude 5.5, began on Saturday evening and have been centered near the town of Brawley close to the state’s inland Salton Sea, said Jeanne Hardebeck, research seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. Scientists were monitoring the earthquake cluster, which continued on Tuesday, to see if it approaches the Imperial Fault, about three miles away. A destructive and deadly earthquake of magnitude 7.0 struck on that fault in 1940, she said. “We don’t have any reason to believe that the (earthquake) storm is going to trigger on the Imperial Fault, but there’s a minute possibility that it could,” Hardebeck said, adding that the swarm of quakes was not moving closer to that fault.The Brawley quake cluster, which is caused by hot fluid moving around in the Earth’s crust, is different than a typical earthquake, in which two blocks of earth slip past each other along a tectonic fault line. After that kind of an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 or above, there is a 5 percent chance a larger quake will follow, Hardebeck said. But she added the same kinds of probability estimates were not possible with earthquake clusters caused by the movement of hot fluid. “We understand them even less than we understand normal earthquakes,” Hardebeck said, adding that scientists do not know why a cluster of earthquakes will occur at one time rather than another. The swarm led to jangled nerves in Brawley, a town of about 25,000 residents 170 miles southeast of Los Angeles near the border with Mexico. “It’s pretty bad. We had to evacuate the hotel just for safety,” Rowena Rapoza, office manager of a local Best Western Hotel, said on Sunday. There were two earthquakes on Sunday afternoon, one with a 5.5 magnitude and one measuring 5.3, Hardebeck said. Those were the largest quakes in the cluster amid hundreds of others, she said.
In the past, earthquake clusters have gone on for as long as two weeks, Hardebeck said. Before this recent cluster in Brawley, the last swarm of this size to hit the area was in 1981, she said. Earlier this month, a pair of moderate-sized earthquakes both registering a magnitude 4.5 struck the California town of Yorba Linda within 10 hours of each other, but no damage was reported. Yorba Linda, the birthplace of the late President Richard Nixon, is 145 miles northwest of Brawley.
Peruvian geologists have revealed that recent activity at El Misti signal that the volcano is active.
Last Thursday researchers at the Geophysical Institute of Peru (IGP) found that El Misti – located 17km outside the city of Arequipa – had recently recorded the highest amount of seismic activity than in the past five years.
Engineer Orlando Macedo told El Comercio that 224 earthquakes were registered at El Misti – an event known as an earthquake swarm – and which signaled that the volcano was no longer dormant.
El Misti, he said, experienced 143 volcano tectonic earthquakes, which were caused by the fracture of rock inside the volcano, due to sudden changes in pressure and temperature.
Despite the recent increase in activity, the IGP said there were still no conditions for an eruption to occur at El Misti, which last erupted sometime between 1450 and 1470.
For an eruption to happen, Macedo said, El Misti would have to experience continued earthquakes, which “would have to occur after long-term movements of magma, and causing these earthquakes known as tremors, with lava.”
NASA infrared time series of Tropical Storm Isaac shows consolidation Enlarge The AIRS instrument onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite has been monitoring Tropical Storm Isaac for several days. Shown here are AIRS data from Aug. 24 and 25 (top left and right) and Aug. 26 and 27 (bottom left and right). AIRS has been providing infrared data about cloud temperatures, and sea surface temperatures around the storm. Credit: Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument is an infrared “eye” that flies onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite. AIRS has been providing the National Hurricane Center with valuable temperature data on Isaac’s clouds and the surrounding sea surface temperatures, and a time series of data shows that Isaac is consolidating. Ads by Google FLIR® Infrared Cameras – 12 Things To Know Before Buying An Infrared Camera. Read It Now! – FLIR.com/Learn-More The AIRS instrument has been monitoring Tropical Storm Isaac for several days. AIRS data from Aug. 24, 25, 26 and 27 showed Isaac’s movements through the eastern and central Caribbean Sea, across eastern Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico. On Aug. 24, Isaac’s strongest convection (rising air that forms the thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone) appeared all around the center, except in the western quadrant of the storm. On Aug. 25, when Isaac was affecting Haiti, it appeared more disorganized, and the strongest storms extended from southwestern Haiti into the central Caribbean Sea. On Aug. 26, AIRS data showed the area of strong convection had increased and the largest area was over the Florida Keys, with bands of strong thunderstorms extending over southeastern Florida and the Bahamas. On Aug. 27, Isaac’s center of circulation appeared more rounded on AIRS imagery, indicating the circulation center was becoming more organized. Southeasterly wind shear and the larger than average wind radii, and entrance of some dry air had been keeping Isaac from strengthening more quickly today, Aug. 27. That wind shear is the result of an upper-level low pressure area that lies southwest of Tropical Storm Isaac. As that low moves away and the wind shear lessens, Isaac will have more ability to strengthen. Where is Isaac on Aug. 27? NASA infrared time series of Tropical Storm Isaac shows consolidation Enlarge NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Isaac on Aug. 26 at 18:15 UTC (2:15 pm EDT) when it was over Florida and Cuba and the MODIS instrument captured this visible image of the storm. Credit: Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team At 11 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC) on Monday, Aug. 27, Isaac was a strong tropical storm with maximum sustained winds near 65 mph (100 kmh). Isaac is expected to become a hurricane in the next day or two over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. When Isaac reaches maximum sustained winds of 74 mph, it will be classified as a category one hurricane. Isaac’s cloud extent is about 480 miles in diameter, as tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 240 miles (390 km) from the center. Ads by Google Doppler Weather Forecast – Upto-the-Minute Radar Maps Plus Forecasts & Advisories in Your Area – http://www.WeatherBlink.com Tropical Storm Isaac was located about 250 miles (400 km) south of Apalachicola, Fla. and about 310 miles (500 km) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. That puts Isaac’s center near latitude 25.7 north and longitude 84.7 west. Isaac is moving toward the west-northwest near 14 mph (22 kmh) and the tropical storm is expected to continue on that track, but slow down before turning to the northwest on Tuesday, Aug. 28. The National Hurricane Center expects Isaac to move over the eastern Gulf of Mexico later today, Aug. 27 and approach the northern Gulf coast in the hurricane warning area on Tuesday, Aug. 28. An animation of satellite observations from Aug. 25-27, 2012, shows Tropical Storm Isaac moving past Cuba and the Florida Keys and into the eastern Gulf of Mexico. This visualization was created by the NASA GOES Project at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., using observations from NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite. Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project Hurricane Warnings and Watches A Hurricane Warning is in effect from east of Morgan City, Louisiana to Destin, Fla., including metropolitan New Orleans, Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas. A Hurricane Watch is in effect for Intracoastal City to Morgan City, Louisiana. Tropical Storm Warnings and Watches A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the Florida Peninsula from Ocean Reef Southward on the east coast and from Tarpon Springs southward on the west coast; the Florida Keys including the Dry Tortugas and Florida Bay; east of Destin, Fla. to the Suwannee River; and Intracoastal City to Morgan City, Louisiana. A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for east of Sabine Pass to west of Intracoastal City, La. Heavy rainfall, gusty winds, isolated tornadoes and dangerous surf can be expected along Isaac’s path. For updates on local effects, go the National Hurricane Center website (www.nhc.noaa.gov).
Nearly 100,000 homes and businesses lost power after Hurricane Isaac landed in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Louisiana later Tuesday, local media reported. And among the homes and businesses being left without power, near half are in Orleans Parish, the reports said. Utility companies in the southwestern U.S. state on Tuesday morning started bringing in extra crews to help restore power in case strong winds bring down power lines. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu warned residents about the dangers of approaching downed power lines. “These are serious threats, as I have said many times, which can cause fatalities,” Landrieu said. State authorities have mobilized more than 4,100 troops, with 680 of them in Orleans Parish. A further 35,000 troops and almost 100 aircraft are available for mobilization, according to reports on the website of NOLA.com. The troops are assisting with the setting up of evacuation shelters, including a “mega-shelter” with about 2,500 cots in the inland city of Alexandria. Some 300 soldiers will work as bus drivers in Metairie, supporting the state departments of transportation and education. At a press conference on Tuesday, Luisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said the State National Guard posted 23 liaison teams with local governments, adding that 13 communications teams will deployed in the region, along with 921 security vehicles, 531 high-water vehicles, 40 aircraft and 74 boats.
The yellow dots represent the location of all of the oil rigs in the northwest Gulf of Mexico.
Oil companies scrambled out of the path of Tropical Storm Isaac, withdrawing offshore workers and cutting oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico.
By mid-day Sunday, the U.S. government said that daily oil production in the Gulf was down 24 percent and natural gas production was off 8 percent.
Isaac, already carrying winds of more than 60 miles an hour, was expected to cross the Florida Keys by late afternoon. The storm will likely pick up strength from the warm, open waters of the Gulf of Mexico and strike somewhere between New Orleans and the Florida Panhandle between late Tuesday and early Wednesday, the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
Noting that the storm was moving west and threatening to grow more powerful, energy giant BP evacuated all its installations and temporarily halted production in the Gulf Sunday. Earlier, it had pulled workers from its massive Thunder Horse platform in the eastern Gulf.
Royal Dutch Shell is withdrawing all workers and suspending production in the eastern Gulf. It is pulling out all but essential personnel and cutting production in the central Gulf.
Apache Corp., a Houston oil services company, is withdrawing 750 workers and contractors from its installations in the eastern Gulf. It is also cutting production of oil and natural gas. Other energy companies have also been evacuating their platforms and rigs in the Gulf.
Murphy Oil Corp., based in El Dorado, Ark., said Sunday that it is pulling out all workers and suspending operations in the Gulf.
Overall, oil companies pulled workers off 39 (7 percent) of 596 production platforms and eight (11 percent) of 76 Gulf oil rigs, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement reported Sunday.
Former energy trader Stephen Schork, who now edits a report on the oil industry, worries that the storm will be a repeat of Hurricanes Katrina in 2005 and Gustav in 208, damaging Gulf refineries and pipelines and disrupting oil tanker traffic.
But Fadel Gheit, oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., says that the explosion that rocked an oil refinery in Venezuela on Saturday, killing 26 people, will likely have a bigger impact than Isaac. It could drive up gasoline prices and “further erode consumer confidence and derail (the) economic recovery.”
Tropical Storm Isaac, back over warm ocean waters, lashed Cuba with winds and rain as it swept toward the Florida Keys, where it was expected to strike on Sunday as a minor hurricane. The storm left six dead in Haiti, still recovering from a 2010 earthquake, and at least three missing in the Dominican Republic after battering their shared island of Hispaniola on Saturday.
The AIRS instrument onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this infrared image of Typhoon Tembin southwest of Taiwan and Typhoon Bolaven entering the Yellow Sea on Aug. 26. AIRS has been providing infrared data about cloud temperatures, and sea surface temperatures around the storm. The purple areas indicate the highest, coldest cloud top temperatures. Credit: Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen NASA satellites are providing imagery and data on Typhoon Tembin southwest of Taiwan, and Typhoon Bolaven is it barrels northwest through the Yellow Sea. In a stunning image from NASA’s Aqua satellite, Bolaven appears twice as large as Tembin.
NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies onboard the Terra satellite captured a remarkable image of Typhoon Tembin being dwarfed by giant Typhoon Bolaven at 0240 UTC on Aug. 27, 2012. The visible image shows that the island of Taiwan appears to be squeezed between the two typhoons, while the northeastern arm of Typhoon Tembin’s clouds extend over the southern half of Taiwan and sweep over Luzon, the Philippines, where it is better known as Typhoon Igme. Bolaven appears to be twice as large as Typhoon Tembin and has a visible eye. Tembin’s eye appears obscured by high clouds in satellite imagery. Typhoon Bolaven recently passed over Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan as it moves northwestward into the Yellow Sea for a final landfall later this week in North Korea. Clouds from Bolaven’s northeastern quadrant were blanketing Japan’s island of Kyushu, which is the southwestern most island of the four main islands of Japan. The Yellow Sea is an arm of the North Pacific of the East China Sea, and it is situated between China and Korea. On Aug. 26, NASA’s Aqua satellite captured both storms in one infrared image. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured an infrared image of Typhoon Tembin southwest of Taiwan and Typhoon Bolaven entering the Yellow Sea. AIRS has been providing infrared data about cloud temperatures, and sea surface temperatures around the storm. Both storms had large areas of very cold clout top temperatures that exceeded -63F/-52C) indicating strong uplift in each storm. At the time of the image, Bolaven was moving over the Ryukyu Islands. They are a chain of islands owned by Japan that stretch southwest from Kyushu, Japan to Taiwan.
On Aug. 27, infrared imagery from NASA’s Aqua satellite showed that Bolaven maintained tightly-curved banding of thunderstorms that were wrapping into a well-defined and large low-level circulation center. The center of circulation is as large as 550 nautical miles in diameter! NASA sees Typhoon Bolaven dwarf Typhoon Tembin Enlarge NASA’s MODIS instrument that flies onboard the Terra satellite captured this remarkable image of Typhoon Tembin (lower left) being dwarfed by giant Typhoon Bolaven (top right)in the Philippine Sea at 0240 UTC on Aug. 27, 2012. Credit: Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team Typhoon Bolaven in the Yellow Sea On Aug. 27, 2012, Typhoon Bolaven was moving through the Yellow Sea. Its maximum sustained winds were down to 70 knots (80.5 mph/129.6 kmh). Bolaven was located approximately 380 nautical miles (437.3 miles/703.8 km) south-southwest of Seoul, South Korea, near 32.2 North and 125.0 East. The typhoon is moving to the north-northwestward at 16 knots (18.4 mph/29.6 kmh) and creating high seas of 43 feet (13.1 meters). Bolaven is expected to weaken as it moves into cooler waters in the Yellow Sea. It is also expected to run into stronger wind shear. Bolaven is expected to make landfall in southwestern North Korea on Aug. 28. Typhoon Tembin Ready to Move North Typhoon Tembin completed its cyclonic loop south of Taiwan, and is now poised to move northeast and pass Taiwan on its journey behind Bolaven, into the Yellow Sea. On Aug. 27 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT), Tembin had maximum sustained winds near 65 knots (75 mph/120.4 kmh) making it a minimal typhoon. It was located about 240 nautical (276 miles/444.5 km) miles south-southwest of Taipei, Taiwan near 21.6 North and 120.4 East. It was moving to the east-northeast near 14 knots (16.1 mph/26 kmh). AIRS infrared data showed that Tembin showed an eye covered by central dense overcast, as correlated by the MODIS visible imagery. Tembin is expected to move north past Taiwan over the next couple of days, and track through the Yellow Sea. Tembin’s final resting place will be a landfall in southeastern China, near the North Korea border by the weekend. Provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center search and more info website
Today
Flash Flood
Pakistan
Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) , [Sudhanoti district]
At least 18 people, including eight women, are feared dead, while nine others were injured, after a passenger bus was swept away in a flash flood in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Tuesday. “Nine bodies have so far been recovered, while nine people have been rescued, from the sharp currents of Nullah Sair in the mountainous Sudhanoti district of AJK”, said the district police chief Sajaad Hussain. “The bus, with at least 27 passengers on board, was on its way from Palandri town to Anjaal Kot town when it was swept away in the seasonal nullah which had overflowed its banks,” said Shoukat Tabassam, a local resident and an eyewitness. Flash floods have become more frequent following a spell of heavy late monsoon rains in the northern areas. “Nine people, including three women and a child, were rescued and rushed to district hospital Palandri,” Tabassam said, adding their condition is stated to be out of danger. The deceased, whose bodies have been recovered, are all residents of Anjaal Kot town. Search for the remaining passengers continued till the filing of this report. The wreckage of the private passenger bus could not be recovered from the nullah till late Tuesday night.
Abuja, : At least 10 people were killed and 20,000 displaced when waters from a dam in Cameroon flooded some parts of the Adamawa state in Nigeria over the weekend.
State Emergency Management Agency official Shadrach Daniel Baruk said the flood was made more intense by heavy rainfall.
”Farmlands numbering thousands of hectares and cattle ranches were also inundated in the region which is mostly rural,” he said, adding that many persons were still missing.
Baruk said more than 40 villages were swept away by the flooding even as some houses were also destroyed.
He said that authorities in Cameroon had warned Nigerians living near Benue River to vacate the place because of the impending flooding but they refused.
Flooding is very common in Nigeria during rainy season and this year four persons were killed after a heavy downpour in Niger state. Another flood in central city of Jos left 68
people dead.
Nigeria has two seasons; dry and rainy.
Last July, torrential rain and flooding that hit Lagos led to more than 20 deaths, even as 2,000 persons were displaced.
Then, heavy downpour in the Island city of 15 million people triggered the overflow of canals with water pouring into residential areas and major roads.
Eleven of the dead were children who drowned in the ensuing flood as the victims could not distinguish between the roads and drainage channels.
Two residents walk among the damaged houses, suspected to be caused by a tornado in Vero Beach, Florida, the United States. The suspected tornado is believed to be caused by Tropical Storm Isaac. (Xinhua/Marcus DiPaola)
A tornado spawned by Hurricane Isaac touched down in the Gainestown area of Clarke County about 50 miles north of Mobile. Clarke County Sheriff Ray Norris said the small tornado touched down Tuesday afternoon. Norris said it did not cause any injuries and deputies could not find any structures that were damaged. He said the tornado knocked down some trees and power poles. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley mentioned the tornado at a news conference when he was talking about some of the early effects of Isaac on Alabama as the storm approached the Gulf coast. The governor also said there had been some flooding along coastal roads in Baldwin and Mobile counties. He said power had been lost on Dauphin Island south of Mobile.
In this photo from Sunday Oct. 23, 2011, tents are seen in Curry Village in Yosemite National Park, Calif. 2 people have died after contracting the rare rodent-borne hantavirus that might have been linked to their stay at this popular lodging area in Yosemite, officials said.
Photo: Ben Margot / AP
Another visitor to Yosemite National Park this summer who contracted the hantavirus while staying in the popular Curry Village has died, park officials said Monday.
That makes three confirmed cases, including two deaths. A fourth case, also reported Monday, is being investigated.
All four visitors stayed in Curry Village, a collection of tents and cabins at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley, over a one-week period in mid-June. Park officials are now contacting everyone who has stayed in the tent cabins since mid-June to warn them about the virus and advise them to seek medical attention if they have any symptoms of infection.
“This is being taken very seriously,” said park spokesman Scott Gediman. “We’ve been able to isolate the cabin area, we’ve done the thorough cleaning, we’re monitoring the area, we’re trapping mice and testing them. We’re making sure the cabins are shored up. We’re being very active, and we have been since the cases came to light.”
Hantavirus is a rare viral infection carried by mice and passed to humans by the rodents’ feces or urine. Most people infected with the virus suffer flu-like symptoms first, including fever, headache and muscle pains, often in the thighs, back and hips. After two to seven days, many patients have severe difficulty breathing and can die.
No cure available
Patients may not develop symptoms until one to six weeks after exposure. There is no cure or virus-specific treatment for hantavirus.
The first victim reported was a 37-year-old Alameda County man who died in late July. The second victim was a woman from Southern California who survived the infection. The third victim is a man who lives in another state and also died in July.
No immediate information was available on the fourth victim, who is expected to survive. Public health officials are waiting for lab tests to confirm that the fourth victim has hantavirus, but given the symptoms it’s likely that patient also contracted the virus in Yosemite, Gediman said.
Difficult to diagnose
Public health officials aren’t expecting to find more cases of hantavirus, but since it’s a rare disease that can be difficult to diagnose, it’s possible other victims may still be found, Gediman said. The two newest cases were reported to California public health officials only last weekend, although both victims had been symptomatic for weeks.
All four of the victims stayed in Curry Village’s “signature tent cabins” over a one-week period in mid-June. Curry Village has 408 tent cabins with wood frames and canvas sides; 91 of those cabins are higher-end, with more insulation and other amenities.
Gediman said contractors are currently making improvements to all of the signature cabins, including replacing the insulation and checking carefully for areas where mice could get into the structures.
“They’re doing everything they can to eliminate areas where mice can get into the cabins,” Gediman said. “This was never because the cabins were dirty, it was never because we didn’t take care of them. This is just because approximately 20 percent of all deer mice are infected with hantavirus. And they’re here in Yosemite Valley.”
Spread by deer mice
Hantavirus is spread primarily via deer mice, which generally live at higher elevations and, in California, are most common in the eastern Sierra. Lab tests taken after the first two victims fell ill confirmed that the hantavirus was present in fecal matter from mice trapped near Curry Village.
These four cases are the first ever to be reported from Yosemite Valley, although the national park has had two cases in past years, both in visitors to the higher-elevation Tuolumne Meadows.
There have been about 60 cases of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome reported in California since the virus was identified in the United States in 1993. About a third of those patients died.
Hantavirus
How it’s caught: Mice carry the viral infection and pass it to humans through their feces or urine.
Effects on patients: People infected with the virus may suffer flu-like symptoms, including fever, headache and muscle pains, often in the thighs, back and hips. After two to seven days, many patients have severe difficulty breathing. Death is possible.
To learn more: Anyone with questions about hantavirus at Yosemite National Park can call (209) 372-0822.
Cuba says a cholera outbreak on the island has run its course with more than 10 days since the last confirmed case of the infectious disease. A notice from the Health Ministry gives a final toll of 417 people sickened and three dead. It blames heavy rains and high temperatures this year for raising the risk of diarrheic diseases. The notice says the outbreak originated in contaminated water systems in the eastern city of Manzanillo, Granma province. Cases elsewhere in Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Havana were detected in people who had traveled from Manzanillo. The Health Ministryâs bulletin says ââthe outbreak is over,ââ but authorities remain vigilant.
On August 26, 2012, the extent of Arctic water covered by sea ice fell below 4.17 million square kilometers (1.61 million square miles), the record minimum set in 2007. Arctic sea ice stood at 4.10 million square kilometers (1.58 million square miles), the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and NASA reported on August 27.
This image was made from observations collected by the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) on the satellites of the U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. Sea ice appears in shades of white and light blue, with white indicating the greatest concentrations of ice. Open ocean water is blue, and land is gray. The yellow outline shows the median minimum ice extent for 1979-2000—in other words, areas that were at least 15 percent ice-covered in at least half the years between 1979 and 2000—on August 26.
In April 2012, Arctic sea ice reached a near-average extent, but periods of intense ice loss in June and August 2012 helped push Arctic sea ice below the previous record from 2007. In 2007, high pressure over the Beaufort Sea and low pressure over northeastern Eurasia pulled in warm winds, which melted the ice and pushed it away from the Siberian and Alaskan coastlines. Although these pressure patterns also occurred in 2012, they were much less persistent. Nonetheless sea ice melt rates still reached up to 150,000 square kilometers (57,900 square miles) per day in 2012, more that twice the long-term rate.
By early July, Arctic sea ice melting was three weeks ahead of schedule, but then slowed somewhat. Ice loss rates picked up again in early August, “probably the highest in the record for that period,” according to NSIDC staff scientist Walt Meier. Because the old record has been passed in August 2012—and Arctic sea ice generally reaches its lowest annual extent in September—it is likely that the amount of ice cover may continue to shrink. NSIDC provides an overview of melt rates in its Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis blog.
Arctic sea ice reached previous record lows in 2002, 2005, and 2007. (The 2007 record low was previously recorded as 4.13 million square kilometers, or 1.59 million square miles. Slightly different processing and quality-control procedures used by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center led to revised estimates of sea ice extent.) Over the past decade, sea ice extent in the Arctic has been well below the 1979–2000 average.
The loss of so much sea ice means that when ice reforms over the winter, it is “first-year ice,” which is much thinner than sea ice that has persisted over multiple years. Joey Comiso, senior research scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, explained that the loss of this multiyear ice contributed to record low ice extent in 2012. Another possible factor at work in the summer of 2012, Comiso suggested, may have been a strong summer cyclone, which broke up ice in the Central Arctic and dispersed it into warmer waters.
NSIDC director Mark Serreze differed with Comiso somewhat on the role of the storm. “The ice was already so thin it was ready to go,” said Serreze. “2012 likely would have set a new record without the storm.”
Once sea ice loss gets underway, it can become a self-reinforcing process. Because there is less light-colored ice to reflect the Sun’s energy back into space, more energy is absorbed by darker ocean water.
The new record low for sea ice in 2012 fits into a larger pattern of a changing Arctic. Regarding the rapid loss of Arctic sea ice, Serreze remarks, “What is perhaps most surprising is that we are no longer surprised.”
A meteorite the size of a golf ball exploded over South Wales last night, according to reports. At around 11.10pm, people across the UK reported seeing a bright light travelling across the skies which allegedly exploded near Cwmbran. Police said they were not aware of the incident, but dozens of Twitter users and people on meteor forum Meteorite News said the bright light stayed within view for between three and eight seconds as it travelled. Nathan Jones from St Athan, writing on Meteorite News, said: “After about eight seconds I lost line of sight due to houses. “I saw an object, I can’t specify what, with a heat trail behind. It was orange and white and very bright, and also seemed very close, not that I could see. “Never seen something so amazing in my life. It looked like it was skimming through the atmosphere due to the curved path it was taking.” Hannah Sabido said it looked like a “bright white ball with a long bright tail and possibly a green hue”. She said: “It became more orange towards the North East, giving off orange sparks before bursting out. “There was no sound distinguishable above background. It began brighter than the moon. It was first noticed as a very bright glowing light behind cloud, ravelling very fast.” T Doran, of New Brighton, Wirral, Merseyside, wrote: “We were on the beach walking towards the sea wall, facing the South East and it travelled from right to left across the sky. “It just appeared in the sky, then the view was obscured by the sea wall. “It was silent, a large orange and white globe with a long straight green tail.”
Wildlife authorities say a strong earthquake in the Pacific Ocean late Sunday destroyed more than 45,000 endangered sea turtle eggs on the coast of El Salvador. The director of the turtle conservation program for the El Salvador Zoological Foundation says the 7.4-magnitude undersea quake sent at least three waves at least 30 feet high up the beach and destroyed thousands of nests and just-hatched turtles. It also washed up on about 150 people collecting eggs in order to protect them in special pens hundreds of feet up the beach. The waves injured three. Program director Emilio Leon said that in the last year and a half the foundation has successfully hatched and released 700,000 turtles from four species at risk of extinction.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Die-off (sea turtle)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Hundreds of rats have died in the water-logged Walled City over the past few days. Not willing to take a chance, the district administration has sent the dead mice to a lab in Bangalore for testing. Nobody is willing to mention the plague word, yet, but residents fear the death of rodents is an ominous sign. Dr BR Meena, director of public health department, says his field unit is monitoring the situation on daily basis. “We have sent samples of the dead rodents for an autopsy to the animal husbandry department,” he said. “Samples have also been dispatched to a testing laboratory in Bangalore for interpreting the situation,” he said. Officials are wary of pronouncing a health scare due to the dead mice, but are on their toes after residents brought to their notice carcasses of pigs and stray dogs also floating in the rainwater that has flowed into the man-made lake. Local ward commissioner Kailash Mahawat says he has written to the Jaipur Municipal Corporation on the issue, but help has not yet arrived. “I have informed the CEO Loknath Soni on fears of plague in the area due to mass death of rats, but the JMC has not taken any initiative to clean up the lake or remove the bodies from it,” Mahawat adds. Talkatora Lake has around 1500 to 2000 people living around it. Water level in the lake is now eight feet high after recent spell of heavy rains. But, the lake has become a curse for the locals. “The dried-up lake was better on hindsight. Now we are worrying over the health risk it poses to our families,” Ramdas Agrawal, a sixty-year-old resident of Talkatora colony told us. “The odour coming of the dead animals floating in water is making our lives a hell; My wife lives in constant terror of our children falling to some water-borne disease,” says Rakesh Meena, another resident. Health director, BR Meena refuses a plague in the making, but admits the lake is breeding ground for seasonal diseases, particularly malaria and dengue. He says, “We are taking measures to ensure the dirty water in lake does not lead to spread of diseases in the area.”
Biohazard name:
Mass. Die-off (rats)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
confirmed
28.08.2012
Biological Hazard
Australia
State of Western Australia, [ Quobba Station, north of Carnarvon]
A man has been attacked by a shark off Western Australia’s Gascoyne coast on Tuesday afternoon. The attack occurred while he was surfing at Red Bluff near Quobba Station, 70 kilometres north of Carnarvon. The break is about 1,000 kilometres north of Perth. The 34-year-old man received serious injuries but was conscious when he was brought ashore. The Department of Fisheries says the shark bit the surfer on the abdomen and as he tried to fend it off he was then mauled on the arm. Rebecca Caldwell’s children were in the water when they noticed the man was injured, but she says they did not see the shark. “The water was full of blood,” she said. “He was conscious the whole way back though he was OK, he was good. “He’s in good spirits, as well as he could be.” Carnarvon Shire chief executive Maurice Battilana says the beach has since been closed. He has said it is in a remote area that is very popular with tourists. “Extremely popular surfing and camping spot and we’re probably in the peak season, very popular surfing spot,” he said. Police and the St John Ambulance were sent to the location and the man has been taken to Carnarvon Hospital. The Royal Flying Doctor Service is flying its crew from Meekatharra to Carnarvon and they will then fly the man to Perth for treatment. The RFDS says the man has serious injuries to his right arm and is in a stable condition. There have been five fatal shark attacks in less than a year off WA’s coast.
Biohazard name:
Shark attack (Non-Fatal)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Bolivian police on Tuesday confiscated two tons of uranium that was being stored at a building in central La Paz located near the U.S. and Spanish embassies. Four people, all of them Bolivian nationals, were arrested while they were transferring the uranium from one vehicle to another, Deputy Interior Minister Jorge Perez said. The radioactive material was in sacks of jute and nylon, he said. Since Bolivia does not produce uranium, Perez said, authorities assume the consignment originated in either of two neighboring countries that do: Brazil or Chile. The commander of the elite police unit that carried out the operation, Col. Eddy Torrez, said the seizure was the fruit of a six-week investigation. Police pounced when they learned the people in possession of the uranium planned to meet Tuesday with a potential buyer, the colonel said. Perez said one of the people arrested is an engineer who told police he was holding the uranium for other people, but provided no information on the owners of the cache.
Photo taken on Aug. 27, 2012, shows a storage tank on fire at the Amuay refinery in Punto Fijo, Venezuela. According to the local press, after two days of Paraguana Refining Complex’s blast, the fire remains confined in two storage tanks. The Paraguana Refining Complex’s blast at Amuay refinery caused the death of at least 48 people and left dozens injured on Saturday. (Xinhua/AVN)
CARACAS, (Xinhua) — Fire from an explosion at Venezuela’s Amuay refinery over the weekend, which has left 48 deaths, spread to a third fuel tank Monday, local media reported.
“We must announce that a third tank… is on fire,” said Oil and Mining Minister Rafael Ramirez, who is also head of the state-run Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) oil company, which operates the country’s biggest Amuay refinery in Falcon state. Full story
CARACAS, (Xinhua) — The number of people killed in a blast over the weekend at Venezuela’s Amuay oil refiner has climbed to 48, an official source said on Monday.
Stella Lugo, governor of northwestern Falcon state, where the blast occurred, told local Union Radio station that the number of fatalities rose from 41 to 48 over the past few hours.
Seven people badly burnt by the explosion are in stable condition and receiving treatment at a hospital in neighboring Zulia state, she said, dismissing earlier rumors that they died.
CARACAS, (Xinhua) — The number of people killed in a blast over the weekend at Venezuela’s Amuay oil refiner has climbed to 48, an official source said on Monday.
Stella Lugo, governor of northwestern Falcon state, where the blast occurred, told local Union Radio station that the number of fatalities rose from 41 to 48 over the past few hours.
Seven people badly burnt by the explosion are in stable condition and receiving treatment at a hospital in neighboring Zulia state, she said, dismi
Mount Merapi erupting in 2010. (JG Photo/Boy T Harjanto).
weather.com
Two residents walk among the damaged houses, suspected to be caused by a tornado in Vero Beach, Florida, the 
