A total of 70 pupils of Sekolah Kebangsaan Bukit Kapar were down with food poisoning, with two of them treated at Meru Health Clinic. Selangor Education Department director Mahmud Karim said the pupils complained of stomach pains after a meal at the school canteen during recess at 10.20am on Wednesday. “Officers from the health office came for the pupils and sent two of them to Meru Health Clinic for treatment. “The canteen was ordered closed until March 5 to allow investigation,” he said. Mahmud advised the parents to prepare food for their children during the closure of the school canteen. A check found that the pupils down with food poisoning and those in the morning session (Year 4,5,6) had gone home. Efforts to get a statement from the school headmistress failed after she refused to talk to the press. Zamri Saadon, 36, father of Nornadiah Farhana, 12, said her daughter complained of stomach pains after eating fried rice at the school canteen. “When I fetched her after school at 1.30pm, she was weak and unhappy. “Nornadiah was given an injection at school,” he said He added it was the first food poisoning case in the school.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Food poisoning
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
At least 400 people, including children, were taken ill after food poisoning in North Dimoria block of Kamrup (Metro) district on Friday. Children of Durung ME School, Koraiguri LP School and Koikari LP School went to their respective institutions for Saraswati Puja on Friday. They fell ill after they consumed grams and khichri. On Saturday morning, the patients were admitted to the 30-bed Khetri Hospital and Sonapur Primary Healthcare Centre from where the critical ones were referred to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital(GMCH).
Principal of GMCH Kabul Saikia, said: “More than 400 people fell ill after consuming grams and khichri. The figure may increase. In our hospital, about 23 patients were admitted till 7.30 pm and more patients are on their way. Among the 23 patients, 15 are adults. It is difficult to tell the exact figure now.” “We have opened one relief camp at Khetri and five doctors have been sent to the site. The critical patients are being brought here for treatment. The patients complained of vomiting, fever, dizziness, diarrhoea and abdominal pain,” he added. He said: “We are making all arrangements to provide best possible treatment.”
Bhojan Das, the father of Vikram who has been admitted to GMCH, said: “My son who studies in Durong ME School went to his institution on Friday and ate grams and khichri. From early morning, he complained of vomiting and abdominal pain and his body turned pale. Noticing this, we took him to the nearby clinic from where he was referred to GMCH.” According to the report made available by the GMCH superintendent, Ramen Talukdar around 8.30 pm: “More than 100 patients have been admitted to the hospital and 300 are on their way. As there is limited capacity of beds in our hospital, around 50 patients have been sent to Mohendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital . Ambulance have been called in from Morigaon, Guwahati and Jagiroad. Moreover, five buses have been engaged to bring patients to the hospital.”
Biohazard name:
Mass. Food poisoning
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
More than 200 people are being treated for food poisoning in Chile after eating hot dogs during an outing at a park. Local media in the South American nation say the adults and children ate spoiled sausages or bad mayonnaise during the affair organized by a family benefit fund. It was held at a park in San Jose de Maipo. That’s a town about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south-east of the capital of Santiago. The sick are being treated at local hospitals. Some children have been released but others are being held for observation.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Food poisoning
Biohazard level:
1/4 Low
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses including Bacillus subtilis, canine hepatitis, Escherichia coli, varicella (chicken pox), as well as some cell cultures and non-infectious bacteria. At this level precautions against the biohazardous materials in question are minimal, most likely involving gloves and some sort of facial protection. Usually, contaminated materials are left in open (but separately indicated) waste receptacles. Decontamination procedures for this level are similar in most respects to modern precautions against everyday viruses (i.e.: washing one’s hands with anti-bacterial soap, washing all exposed surfaces of the lab with disinfectants, etc). In a lab environment, all materials used for cell and/or bacteria cultures are decontaminated via autoclave.
Biological Hazard in USA on Wednesday, 12 December, 2012 at 04:36 (04:36 AM) UTC.
Description
Dozens of people were sickened after a catered meeting at the Oregon Zoo last week, but officials have not yet determined what caused the illnesses. An estimated 220 employees of Women’s Healthcare Associates attended a meeting Wednesday at the Oregon Zoo conference facility. The zoo catered the event, which included fruit, pastries, bagels and other breakfast foods. About a third of the guests complained of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea afterward, according to Julie Sullivan-Springhetti of the Multnomah County Health Department. “The county was contacted Friday and ended up spending over three hours inspecting the facility and interviewing staff on Saturday,” she said. “No conclusion on what caused the sickness has been made yet.” She said investigators found nothing that would warrant closing or changing procedures at the kitchen. The health department did not determine if the kitchen was the origin of the contamination. Women’s Healthcare Associates CEO Brian Kelly said in a statement Tuesday that the company was working with health officials to find the cause. He said none of the company’s patients were at risk.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Food poisoning
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.
An earthquake early Monday centered in Beverly Hills was upgraded from to 3.2 to 3.3. and was felt around Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The temblor occurred at 3:26 a.m.
According to the USGS, the epicenter was one mile from West Hollywood, two miles from Century City and eight miles from Los Angeles Civic Center.
The USGS “Do You Feel It” site said the quake was most strongly felt on the Westside but also in the South Bay, downtown L.A. area and the San Fernando Valley.
In the past 10 days, there has been one earthquake magnitude 3.0 and greater centered nearby.
JAKARTA—A strong 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the Indonesian resort island of Bali early on Tuesday, but there was no tsunami warning and no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The quake’s epicentre was at a shallow depth of eight kilometers (five miles), the US Geological Survey said, putting it 278 kilometers south of Denpasar, on Bali. The quake hit at 2:23 am (1823 GMT Monday).
Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where continental plates collide, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.
Anak Krakatau in the Sunda Strait, 130 kilometers west of Jakarta, was created by the same tectonic forces that led to the 1883 Krakatoa eruption that killed tens of thousands of people. (Reuters Photo)
Bandarlampung. Volcanic ash from the increasingly active Anak Krakatau has reached a number of areas in Lampung, prompting officials on Monday to issue a warning for local residents and tourists.
“The ash was carried by wind from the southeast to the south, reaching Bandarlampung,” Nurhuda, who heads the observation and information section of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) in Lampung, said according to state news agency Antara.
Nurhuda said the ash fell over several subdistricts in Bandarlampung, about 130 kilometers away from Anak Krakatau.
“It is rather unusual for the dust to be this thick,” said Juniardi, a resident of Bandarlampung who complained that the falling dust was also hampering visibility.
Officials warned that the ask posed health hazards and asked local residents to wear masks when going outdoors or driving motorcycles.
“We also advise fishermen and tourists not to come within a radius of 3 kilometers of Anak Krakatau. The thick plumes of smoke sent off by Krakatau contain toxic material that is hazardous for your health,” said Andi Suhardi, head of the Anak Krakatau observation post in Hargo Pancuran village.
A report from the volcanology office in Bandung shows that the activities of Anak Krakatau has been on the rise over the past few days, reaching almost 90 eruptions per day.
Nurhuda said the report showed the volcano spewed red hot lava up to 300 meters above its peak. “More than 100 volcanic quakes and tremors have been recorded,” he added.
Anak Krakatau, or child or Krakatau, about 130 kilometers west of Jakarta, was created by the same tectonic forces that led to the 1883 Krakatoa eruption that killed tens of thousands of people.
A new phase of activity has started at Krakatau volcano. A large explosion occurred early today and produced an ash plume that reached 14,000 ft (4.2 km) according to Darwin VAAC who first observed it at 01:32 GMT. Ash fall has reached Lampung and over several subdistricts in Bandarlampung, at about 130 kilometers distance. Authorities have issued a warning for local residents and tourists not to approach the volcano. “It is rather unusual for the dust to be this thick,” said Juniardi, a resident of Bandarlampung who complained that the falling dust was also hampering visibility, the Jakarta Globe writes. According to the news article, the activity of Anak Krakatau has been on the rise over the past few days, reaching almost 90 eruptions per day. Nurhuda said the report showed the volcano spewed red hot lava up to 300 meters above its peak. “More than 100 volcanic quakes and tremors have been recorded,” he added.
Unusually fierce storms swept through Malta on Monday, killing one man and dropping more rain on the Mediterranean island in two hours than its normal monthly average for September. The first storm triggered floods that swept away a man who had abandoned his car. Police said the man managed to make it to higher ground. Another man working in a field was fatally struck by lightning, however, as a second storm battered Malta in the afternoon. The storms caused substantial damage across the small Mediterranean archipelago, which includes the main island and sister islands of Gozo and Comino, with cars overturned, trees uprooted, houses flooded and walls collapsed. Malta’s meteorological office said 42.4 millimeters (1.67 inches) of rain fell, eclipsing the 40-millimeter average for the month of September.
A fire in the Angeles National Forest north of Glendora has spread to 700 acres since it began about 2:15 p.m. along East Fork Road, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service. The blaze was moving north toward the Sheep Mountain Wilderness Area, said John Wagner, an assistant public affairs officer with the forest service. An evacuation was underway at a mobile home park in the vicinity of the fire, Wagner said. He did not know how many residents had been evacuated. There were no reports of casualties or property damage. Wagner said seven air tankers from various agencies were battling the blaze. Fifteen engine companies from the Los Angeles County Fire Department were also fighting the fire, a spokesman said.
NEW ORLEANS — Tens of thousands of customers remained in the dark Monday in Louisiana and Mississippi, nearly a week after Isaac inundated the Gulf Coast with a deluge that still has some low-lying areas under water.
Most of those were in Louisiana, where utilities reported more than 100,000 people without power. Thousands also were without power in Mississippi and Arkansas.
President Barack Obama visited Monday, a day ahead of the Democratic National Convention, and walked around storm damage in St. John the Baptist Parish, where subdivisions were soaked in water from Isaac.
“I know it’s a mess,” Obama said as he approached a resident in the Ridgewood neighborhood. “But we’re here to help.”
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney visited the state Friday.
In St. John the Baptist Parish, residents spent Labor Day dragging waterlogged carpet and furniture to the curb and using bleach and water to clean hopefully to prevent mold.
LaPlace resident Barbara Melton swept mud and debris from her home, which was at one point under 2 feet of water. The garbage, debris and standing water – combined with heat reaching the 90s – created a terrible stench.
“It’s hot, it stinks, but I’m trying to get all this mud and stuff out of my house,” she said.
Melton was grateful for the president’s visit.
“I think it’s awesome to have a president that cares and wants to come out and see what he can do,” Melton, 60, said.
A few houses away, Ed Powell said Isaac was enough to make him question whether to stay.
“I know Louisiana’s a gambling state, but we don’t want to gamble in this method because when you lose this way, you lose a lot.”
Powell said even if Obama comes up with a plan or solution to the flooding problem in his area, time is not on the residents’ side.
“Even if they narrow down what the problem is and begin to resolve the problem, it usually takes years. And between now and whenever, a lot of things can happen,” Powell said.
More than 2,800 people were at shelters in Louisiana, down from around 4,000. State officials were uncertain how many people would eventually need longer-term temporary housing. Kevin Davis, head of the state’s emergency office, said housing would likely include hotels at first, then rental homes as close as possible to their damaged property.
Progress was evident in many places, though lingering flooding remained a problem in low-lying areas.
Crews in the town of Lafitte intentionally breached a levee Sunday night in an effort to help flooding there subside, Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts told The Times-Picayune.
Much of Plaquemines Parish, a vulnerable finger of land that juts into the Gulf of Mexico, remained under as much as 5 feet of water, Parish President Billy Nungesser said. The Category 1 hurricane walloped the parish, and for many, the damage was worse than that from Katrina in 2005.
Mumbai received a whopping 15 cm average rainfall in 12 hours since 8 a.m. Monday, even as one person was killed and normal life disrupted, officials said. Five people were killed in rain-related incidents in other parts of Maharashtra. Five persons were killed and another four injured when the wall of a temple crashed at Kaundinyapur village in Amravati district. The incident occurred Sunday evening and the bodies of the victims were removed from the debris early Monday. The incessant rains resulted in overflowing of Thane district’s Lake Tansa, a major source of drinking water for the 17 million people of the city, civic official said. Some parts of the city received between four to eight centimetres of rains since Monday morning, raising hopes that the water deficit would be wiped out this year. Several low-lying areas in the city and suburbs were waterlogged, slowing down vehicular movement and causing massive traffic snarls on both the national highways and other major roads. In the evening, five people were injured in a house-collapse in Chunabhatti area of central Mumbai as torrential rains continued. Water logging was reported from parts of Borivli, Kandivli, Jogeshwari, Andheri, Santacruz, Bhandup, Sion, Byculla and some areas in Dadar, Worli, Goregaon and Kurla experienced flooding.
Suburban train services were disrupted on the Western Railway, Central Railway and Harbour Line with average 20-30 minutes delays, hitting office workers and students. The evening peak hour witnessed chaos with a signal failure at Santacruz-CST on the Harbour Line route and trains virtually crawling to their destinations. People commuting from south Mumbai to their homes in the suburbs were stuck en route and reached their destinations only after long delays of one-two hours. Elsewhere in the state, most districts of the coastal Konkan, eastern districts of Vidarbha, northern parts of the state, Marathwada and western Maharasthra were lashed with heavy rains since morning, spelling cheers for the water-starved farming community. Torrential downpour in Thane’s major towns like Kalyan, Dombivli, Vasai, Virar, Palghar and Dahanu led to flooding on the roads with vehicular movements virtually crippled for hours. As a precautionary measure, some schools in the district were closed early to enable students reach their homes safely. Farmers in the parched districts of Marathwada smiled broadly as the region was lashed with rains after a gap of over three weeks and earnestly resumed their farming activities. The weather bureau has forecast similar heavy to very heavy rains over Mumbai and other parts of the state for the next two days.
The Ohio Department of Health announced on Friday that the country’s first known swine flu death took place in their state. A 61-year-old Madison county women was infected with the H3N2v virus and died. She had had direct contact with swine at the Ross County fair and had “multiple other underlying medical conditions” according to the statement.
There are currently 102 cases of the H3N2v virus in Ohio. The age range of patients is between 6 months and 61 years. Most of the patients had only a mild illness, and there have been few hospitalizations in this outbreak.
David Daniels, director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, said, “swine flu is not uncommon, especially when temperatures have been high, as they have been this summer.” Dr. Tony Forshey, state veterinarian at the Ohio Department of Agriculture said “there are veterinarians in the barn at every fair. Heat-stressed swine are more likely to become ill and contagious.”
This type of flu is only transmissible through contact with live pigs. You cannot get the flu through properly handled and cooked pork. This virus is different from seasonal influenza, but it is transmitted in the same way: through coughing and sneezing by people who are infected. Most of the patients this year have been children.
To protect yourself, wash your hands with soap and water, especially after you’ve been around animals at the fair. Avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth. Do not drink or eat near animals, and do not bring food into the barns when you visit a fair. And limit time around animals. Young children, pregnant women, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems should avoid exposure to pigs and swine barns.
If you develop a flu-like illness, with symptoms including fever, tiredness, lack of appetite, coughing, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, see your healthcare provider. And make sure to tell her that you have been in contact with swine or other people who are sick. For questions or help, call the Ohio Department of Agirculture’s Division of Animal Health at 614-728-6220.
The next strong flare could be just around the corner. Sunspot AR1564 is growing rapidly and has developed a ‘beta-gamma’ magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class flares. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory took this picture of the active region during the early hours of Sept. 4th:
NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of M-flares during the next 24 hours. Any eruptions will likely be Earth-directed as the active region is turning toward our planet.
Solar wind
speed: 422.7 km/sec
density: 15.2 protons/cm3 explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 0735 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: C2 0507 UT Sep04
24-hr: C2 0507 UT Sep04 explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 0700 UT
Daily Sun: 04 Sep 12
Sunspot 1564 is suddenly growing. It has a ‘beta-gamma’ magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI
Spotless Days Current Stretch: 0 days
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
Since 2004: 821 days
Typical Solar Min: 486 days
Update 04 Sep 2012
A geomagnetic storm that began on Sept. 3rd when a coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth’s magnetic field is fitfully subsiding. The impact at 1200 UT (5 am PDT) induced significant ground currents in the soil of northern Scandinavia and sparked bright auroras around the Arctic Circle. Ole C. Salomonsen photographed the display over Naimakka, Finland, on Sept. 4th:
“There I was standing all alone deep in the Finish forest, just in awe of this display of light above my head,” says Salomonsen. “This is just one of many images of spectacular auroras I shot on this wonderful night.”
Forty-six students of Government Polytechnic College for Women at Sidhapudur in the heart of Coimbatore city became ill on Monday following suspected food poisoning. They were admitted at two hospitals in the vicinity after they complained of severe vomiting and stomach pain. The students developed discomfort after having dinner at the college hostel cafeteria on Sunday. While 11 of them were admitted at Ramakrishna hospital on Sunday night itself, 35 students were rushed to the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) at around 8 am on Monday. Seven of them are being kept in the Intensive Care unit at CMCH and Ramakrishna hospital. The doctors attending to the students said that most of them were admitted with complaints of vomiting, diarrhea and stomach pain. They were put on drips and medication. P Sivaprakasam, resident medical officer of CMCH said initial examinations had revealed that the students were suffering from food poisoning. He also said that they had consumed contaminated water. “They are recovering well and will be discharged in a couple of days,” he added.
A Kalpana, a third year student recovering at CMCH said that on Sunday night they were served tomato rice for dinner. For the past week the drinking water supply was not proper. Some students may have consumed contaminated water or it may have been used for cooking,” said another student on conditions of anonymity. “Just a few months ago the students had oragnised a public protest demanding good quality food. The case of food poisoning highlights the grim situation prevailing at the hostel,” she added. The doctors say that students fell ill because of consuming contaminated water. What has happened is unfortunate. We will look into the issue and ensure this does not happen again. Corrective measures will be put in place,” said B Padmini, principal of the college. There are 300 students residing at the hostel. Most hostel students are sports players, she said. “Students may have consumed pipe water instead of the boiled water made available to them. This is despite several reminders to drink only boiled water,” the principal added. Regarding the allegation of inadequate drinking water supply in the past one week, Padmini said that on certain days there was a disruption in supply.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Food Poisoning
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
03.09.2012
Biological Hazard
Kyrgyzstan
Chuy Oblast, [About 20 kilometers of the Kant Air Base]
Russia’s military officials say that efforts to prevent an anthrax epidemic have been increased at a Russian air base in Kyrgyzstan because of an outbreak of anthrax nearby. Officials from Russia’s Central Military District say one of the outbreaks is within 20 kilometers of the Kant Air Base in Kyrgyzstan’s northern region of Chui. He says all military buildings on the base — including apartments for officers and their families — have been disinfected and safety checks on food supplies have been increased. The move was undertaken after Kyrgyz health officials announced last week that several cases of anthrax had been confirmed in Chui and in the southern regions of Jalal-abad and Batken.
Biohazard name:
Anthrax
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
A wildlife rescue organization says 13 whales have died following a mass stranding off the Scottish coast. British Divers and Marine Life Rescue said Sunday that the mammals were among a group of 26 pilot whales stranded at Pittenweem, in eastern Scotland. Coast guards, volunteer medics, fire crews and police are all also involved in efforts to rescue the 13 still living. But rescue coordinator Gareth Norman said that it was likely more of the whales would die. A further 24 pilot whales from the same pod are currently in shallow water three miles along the coast at Cellardyke.
Scientists and conservationists are once again puzzled over the behaviour of whales – with two different pods of pilot whales beaching themselves this weekend on either side of the Atlantic.
A pod of 26 pilot whales stranded themselves off the coast of Fife in Scotland.
Crowds of on-lookers gathered to watch the massive rescue and relief operation.
13 of the 26 whales did not make it.
And in a strange coincidence… another pod of whales beached themselves along the coast of south-central Florida in the U.S.
This time, 22 pilot whales stranded themselves near Fort Pierce.
VERO BEACH, Fla., Sept. 2 (UPI) — Wildlife experts suspect an ailing alpha whale caused a pod of short-fin pilot whales to beach themselves in Florida this weekend.
Seventeen of the 22 mammals died in the surf at Avalon Beach State Park in St. Lucie County and five juveniles were taken to a rescue facility at nearby Florida Atlantic University, but were not expected to survive.
Blair Mase, who specializes in the study of whale stranding for the U.S. government, told TCPalm.com the tragedy was probably linked to the pod leader.
“This species has a tight social structure,” said Mase, a regional coordinator for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. “Typically, they stay together as a group. So if one animal is sick, they all come ashore.”
Hundreds of people on the area either watched the stranding unfold. Many tried to help out by throwing wet towels on the whales to protect them from the sun, TCPalm.com said.
Mase it would not have done much good to push the whales off the sand. “If you push them into the water, they’ll just keep coming back and stranding themselves again,” she 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.]
An earthquake that struck rural Indonesia left at least four people dead, authorities said Sunday. At least seven others were injured, according to the National Disaster Management Agency. The 6.6-magnitude hit Saturday near the city of Palu on the island of Sulawesi, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Three of the hardest-hit districts are still unreachable because landslides triggered by the quake are blocking the roads. Heavy equipment and bulldozers are helping clear the roads. Disaster, health and social welfare officials, including the Red Cross, are headed to the area to provide emergency assistance, trucks and ambulances.
Areas in Ecuador’s Quito region have been evacuated as the Tungurahua volcano continues to erupt. Authotiries have been forced onto making plans to evacuate residents of Ecuador’s Banos region as the Tungurahua volcano continues to erupt. Local cities and farms have been covered in volanic ash as the massive eruptions shoe no signs of abating.
Thousands of people were told to leave their homes Sunday as a growing wildfire burning out of control in thick forest threatened rural communities in far Northern California. The fire that started Saturday has destroyed seven homes and consumed nearly 19 square miles near the towns of Manton, Shingletown and Viola, fire spokesman Daniel Berlant said. About 3,000 homes spread out across a rural area along the border of Tehama and Shasta counties were threatened as the fire continued to expand, he said. “A good majority are immediately threatened, and a good number are in the path of the fire,” Berlant said Sunday. “We will be battling it hard today to protect as many of those homes as possible.”The fire’s cause had not been determined, but officials said it started after a series of lightning strikes in the area. Nearly 1,000 firefighters were battling the flames. No part of the blaze was contained Sunday evening, and fire activity had picked up, Berlant said. John Cluff, 42, told the Redding Record Searchlight that he was forced to flee his home before the evacuations were issued. He went back for his dog about 3:30 p.m. “The fire basically chased me out of the property,” he said. “All I could see was black smoke and flames.” The Shasta County Sheriff’s Department has declared a State of Emergency for the county, with evacuations expected to continue through Sunday. The agency also was closing some local roads. The Red Cross set up an evacuation center in Redding, about 35 miles to the west of the blaze. The fire, burning in a rugged area of thick forests about 170 miles north of Sacramento, is one of handful of new fires in Northern California.
Today
Forest / Wild Fire
Australia
State of New South Wales, [Clarence Valley region]
A Bushfire Emergency has been declared in the Clarence Valley, on the New South Wales north coast. The Rural Fire Service (RFS) says crews in the Clarence have battled about 20 fires per day over the weekend. It says the key problem was hazard reduction burns on private land running out of control. The Bushfire Emergency or Section 44 declaration means the area can now access fire fighting equipment and personnel from across the state, with the state government covering the cost. RFS spokesman Brian Daly says dangerous conditions are forecast to ease off this week. “The last two days have been horrendous, with winds up around 50 to 60 kilometres an hour, from the northwest or north nor west,” he said. “They were just terrible conditions for fires.” Mr Daly says there are bushfires along the north coast near Casino, Coffs, Kempsey and Taree but the worst problems are in the Clarence. “We’re getting upwards of 20 ignitions a day, some of them are growing significantly and are still burning in remote areas,” he said. “Others our crews are getting onto and extinguishing quite quickly. “At the moment we’ve got about 18 fires listed as either going or contained and that’s just Clarence Valley.”
Authorities say Hurricane Gordon has passed Portugal’s mid-Atlantic Azores Islands without causing major damage and is losing strength. The head of the Azores Civil Protection Service, Pedro Carvalho, says there were no reports of significant damage as Gordon passed by Santa Maria and Sao Miguel, two of the archipelago’s nine islands, Sunday night. He told public broadcaster Radiotelevisao Portuguesa on Monday that emergency services responded to some calls about localized flooding amid torrential rain. Nobody was reported hurt. Authorities had warned locals to take precautions ahead of the arrival of the hurricane, which formed Saturday.
Satellite imagery hints that Tropical Depression 7 may be reborn Enlarge On Aug. 17, 2012, NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite captured visible images of Tropical Depression 7′s remnants at 9:45 am EDT. Showers and thunderstorm activity has increased over the Bay of Campeche. Credit: Credit: NASA GOES Project Satellite imagery on August 17 is showing signs of re-organization in the remnants of Tropical Depression 7 (TD7). TD7 has moved into the warm waters of the Bay of Campeche where it is regaining strength and appears much more organized. Ads by Google Emergency Water Filter – Energy-Free Ceramic Water Purifier Use Raw Lake, River, and Rain Water – http://www.aquarain.com NASA’s GOES Project created a visible image of the remnants of Tropical Depression 7 from August 17 at 9:45 a.m. EDT (1345 UTC) from NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite. The image showed several areas of stronger thunderstorms. The stronger thunderstorms appear brighter white in the imagery and are located around the center and to the northeast of the center of circulation. NASA’s GOES Project is located at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The Bay of Campeche is located on the western side of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, and is part of the southwestern Gulf of Mexico. The Bay is surrounded on three sides by the Mexican states of Campeche, Veracruz and Tabasco. Shower and thunderstorm activity picked up during the morning hours (Eastern Daylight Time) on August 17 in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico and Bay of Campeche. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted “surface observations and radar data indicate that the circulation has also become a little better defined and environmental conditions appear conducive for development.” The remnants of TD7 are moving to the west-northwestward to northwestward at around 10 mph. The NHC stated that a tropical depression could re-form before the low pressure area makes another landfall in Mexico over the weekend. So the remnants have a 70 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression again. A tropical storm watch or warning could be needed for part of the Gulf coast of Mexico. Provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center search and more info website
Courtesy Photo | Derek DennisWaterspouts formed over Lake Michigan near Holland on July 27. Similar phenomena were spotted on Saturday morning off South Haven.
UPDATE: The National Weather Service is now reporting nine waterspouts from two separate storms were witnessed on Lake Michigan.
SOUTH HAVEN, MI — Waterspouts have been spotted over Lake Michigan today and forecasters say it’s possible more could spawn tonight and Sunday night.
The National Weather Service said three of the tornado-like vortices were reported to them shortly before noon on Saturday, by people who were out on a fishing boat in Lake Michigan this morning.
The spouts were spotted about 24 miles west of the South Haven lighthouse.
The storms that caused them were small, 15-minute “pop-ups,” said William Moreno, a meteorologist in the NWS office in Grand Rapids.
Conditions were right this morning for the waterspouts, Moreno said, with a land breeze converging over lake water warmed by the summer heat.
The water in that part of the lake, the widest part of Lake Michigan, is about 72 degrees, he said. Winds in spout areas often reach 40 to 60 mph. Boaters or swimmers are advised to seek shelter when they are spotted.
Scattered storms have been moving over the central Lower Peninsula on Saturday. Clusters have moved east from Muskegon through Montcalm and Isabella counties, said Moreno.
The outflow boundary from the storm cluster has been darkening skies over southern Kent County and the Grand Rapids area, and that could produce a storm in the next few hours, he said.
Tonight and Sunday night, the air over Wisconsin and Michigan will cool again, said Moreno, and the situation that produced the spouts could be repeated,
National Weather Service offices in Milwaukee, Gaylord and Chicago are forecasting waterspouts on Sunday, he said.
“Tomorrow is better because we have a cold front coming south. The convection will be deeper and that will encourage more in the way of waterspouts.”
Strong thunderstorms dumping as much as 4 inches of rain have flooded streets, trapped drivers and collapsed buildings in Dallas. The storms rolled over the city on Saturday night. National Weather Service meteorologist Jesse Moore says some areas got as much as 4 inches of rain. Authorities have not confirmed any deaths related to the storms, but people told WFAA-TV they saw a man fall into a creek and get swept away about 7 p.m. The Dallas Morning News says two building collapses have been reported, including a partial cave-in at the Urban Inter-Tribal Center of Texas. Dallas Fire-Rescue rescued one driver trapped in high water near the city’s downtown, and several were stranded in flooded streets near Baylor University Medical Center.
Today
Landslide
India
State of Himachal Pradesh, [Kullu-Manali-Rohtang highway]
Several parts of Himachal Pradesh experienced heavy rainfall during the past 24 hours, triggering landslides at various places and disrupting vehicular traffic in the state. The Kullu-Manali-Rohtang highway was blocked for several hours due to landslides while hundreds of tourists remained stranded in the tribal Kaza area as landslides blocked the roads linking the valley from other parts of the state. However, all the roads in the tribal areas and also the national highways were opened later. “The traffic which was suspended since last night due to landslides was cleared this afternoon,” Rakesh Kumar, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Kaza said. Meanwhile, traffic on the Chandigarh-Manali highway, which remained suspended for several hours due to a massive landslide near Mandi town, was resumed this evening after clearing the debris from the road. “The highway was closed due to massive landslides triggered by incessant rain in the region for the past two days,” a police official said. The local MeT office has warned of heavy to very heavy rains in many parts of Himachal during the next 48 hours resulting in a sharp rise in levels of major rivers and their tributaries. The tourist towns of Shimla, Narkanda, Kufri, Kalpa, Kasauli, Chamba, Dharamsala, Palampur and Manali may receive rains in the next few days, the MeT office added. Mandi was the wettest in the region with 86 mm of rains while Sujanpur Tira had 80 mm of rains, followed by Malraun and Nehri 73 mm, Kahu 69 mm, Sihunta 59 mm, Sundernagar 52 mm, Shahpur 49 mm, Ramshar 34 mm, Gaggal Airport 33 mm, Thana Plaun Ghumarwin 28 mm and Dharamsala, Hamirpur and Berthin 22 mm each.
A magnetic filament snaking over the sun’s northeastern limb erupted on August 18th (01:02 UT), producing a significant M5.5-class solar flare. Click to view a movie of the eruption recorded by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory:
A coronal mass ejection (CME) flew away from the blast site, but the cloud is not heading for Earth. This eruption was not geoeffective.
The magnetic filament reformed, post-eruption, and appears to be connected to an active sunspot group on the farside of the sun. Although the sunspot is hidden behind the limb, the Solar Dynamics Observatory can see the sunspot’s towering magnetic canopy flashing and hurling plasma over the edge of the sun. Click on the image to set the scene in motion:
A great way to see the hidden sunspot is using NASA’s 3D Sun app, which shows our star as a 3-dimensional globe that you can spin and inspect from any angle. Data for the app come from a fleet of three spacecraft (SDO + STEREO) that surround the sun. Download the app and look around the globe for a hot spot labeled ‘farside AR.’ (AR=”active region”)
Soon, the sun’s rotation will turn the sunspot from the farside to the Earthside of the sun. A significant uptick in geoeffective solar activity is possible in the days ahead.
It has been a while since sky watchers around the Arctic Circle have enjoyed the Northern Lights. Auroras are hard to see through the glare of the midnight sun. As summer comes to an end, however, aurora season is beginning again. On August 16th, B.Art Braafhart spotted a splash of green over Salla in the Finnish Lapland:
“Finally, after three nights hunting for ‘the green lights,’ I made the first catch of the new season,” says Braafhart. “The nice temperature (+12C) was accompanied by zooming mosquitos around midnight. The apparition was brief, the colors thin and light, but after an absence of 4 months exciting again!”
The Northern Lights above Lake Superior. Photographer unknown.
Recent X-class solar flares have ignited the polar lights.
An electrically active magnetotail (or plasma tail) extends for millions of kilometers from Earth. Charged particles from the Sun, otherwise known as the solar wind, together with ions generated by the Earth, gather in a plasma sheet inside the magnetotail. Earth’s magnetic field causes these particles to spiral around the poles as well as to bounce between them. Some ions circle the Earth in two bands at low latitudes. Electrons move in one direction and protons in the opposite direction.
Solar ions flowing down into the polar cusps excite atmospheric molecules. Red light is emitted from oxygen molecules at high altitudes, while green light shines from oxygen in the lower atmosphere. Auroral blue comes from nitrogen.
Electromagnetic disturbances accompany bright aurorae because electric charge flows parallel to the auroral formation. Since electricity must move in a circuit, the electric currents travel into the aurorae from space and then back out to space, magnetically guided along the auroral arcs.
As mentioned in a previous Picture of the day, a magnetometer launched in 1973 by the U.S. Navy onboard the Triad satellite found two electric current sheets above Earth’s ionosphere charged with more than a million amperes. One plasma sheet descended from the aurora’s morning side and the other ascended from the evening side.
Kristian Birkeland’s research at the beginning of the twentieth century predicted the connection between Earth and space, so the plasma sheets are known as “Birkeland currents.” Birkeland’s polar electric currents are linked with electric currents moving within the geomagnetic field into and away from the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
On March 7, 2012 the Sun unleashed the second largest solar flare recorded in this active cycle. The X5.4 flare released a gigantic coronal mass ejection that headed for Earth at hundreds of kilometers per second. A geomagnetic storm occurred on March 8, increasing the auroral brightness and extending its visibility as far south as the Great Lakes.
As mentioned in past articles, auroral brightness and frequency tend to increase when CMEs meet Earth’s magnetic field, so logic would assume that the solar discharges are a flow of ionic particles. Heliophysicists tend to refer to those ions as a “wind” that “rain downs” on Earth. However, the fact that they follow the polar magnetic field establishes their electrical nature.
Solar flares are sometimes observed to leave the Sun with rapid acceleration. One CME burst was clocked at a velocity greater than 70,000 kilometers per second. A confirmation of the Electric Universe theory in that measurement was that material continued to accelerate as it left the Sun. Shock waves and “acoustic wave guides” could not have been responsible, otherwise the blast would have decelerated as it rushed toward Earth. Since the opposite effect was seen, an electric field phenomenon must have been at work and not kinetic effects.
Stephen Smith
Editor’s note: Title taken from The Iliad of Homer by Alexander Pope (1688-1744).
The Government Model Residential School, Peerumade, was closed on Monday after over 60 students were admitted to various hospitals since Sunday, due to alleged food poisoning. The condition of none of the students was serious, reports reaching here said. The authorities at the Peerumade taluk hospital said that students started to arrive at the hospital with complaints of vomiting, head ache and fever symptoms by evening on Sunday. When the number of casualties increased by Monday, the hospital authorities referred those having severe symptoms to the Kottayam Medical College Hospital. 14 students were admitted there, 29 at the Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children, Kottayam, 22 at the observation unit of the Taluk hospital, Kanjirappally and two at the Taluk hospital, Peerumade. Of them, 32 are male. The Tamil medium residential school accommodates students from standard V to Plus-I after it was upgraded this academic year. Students of Scheduled Caste and general category from Vandiperiyar, Kumily and Munnar are admitted at the school.
A team of physicians led by District Medical Officer P.J.Aloxious checked all the students at the school after opening a temporary medical unit at the school office. The preliminary inquiry shows that students showed symptoms of vomiting and giddiness after having evening food on Sunday at the hostel. An official of the medical team which visited the school said that stale food served could have been the cause and added that food samples had been collected and sent for analytical tests at the Regional Analytical Laboratory, Kakkanad. He said that water samples were also collected in addition to the samples of milk served to the students. District Collector T.Bhaskaran who visited the hostel and the hospitals told The Hindu that an inquiry has been ordered and if anyone was found guilty, action will be taken. He said that health officials have been directed to visit government residential schools in the district on a routine basis and ensure that quality food is served to the students in other hostels also. He said that a meeting of the peoples representatives, parents and teachers will be convened at the school on August 22 to address the problems being faced by it. The school has been closed till September 3. By noon, parents of the students started reaching the school to accompany their wards home. About 250 students are accommodated at various classes in the school which cater exclusively for Tamil medium students.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Food Poisoning
Biohazard level:
1/4 Low
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses including Bacillus subtilis, canine hepatitis, Escherichia coli, varicella (chicken pox), as well as some cell cultures and non-infectious bacteria. At this level precautions against the biohazardous materials in question are minimal, most likely involving gloves and some sort of facial protection. Usually, contaminated materials are left in open (but separately indicated) waste receptacles. Decontamination procedures for this level are similar in most respects to modern precautions against everyday viruses (i.e.: washing one’s hands with anti-bacterial soap, washing all exposed surfaces of the lab with disinfectants, etc). In a lab environment, all materials used for cell and/or bacteria cultures are decontaminated via autoclave.
More than 800 people were evacuated when a main water supply pipe burst on Monday in Mamelodi, east of Pretoria, Tshwane emergency services said. Spokesman Johan Pieterse said the Phomolong informal settlement was flooded when the pipe burst at around 1am on Monday. “We are still busy on the scene with a search and rescue mission as some of the people were missing family members.” He said one person was taken to hospital in a critical condition while five others sustained minor injuries. “The Hans Strijdom drive have been closed from the Hinterland Avenue to the Pretoria Avenue. Traffic will be affected as the road will only be opened much later on Monday.” Motorists were advised to take alternative routes. Pieterse said they would soon know which suburbs have been affected with water supply.
[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.]
Some called it an “earthquake cluster,” others a “swarm.” Seismologists used the term “earthquake sequence.”
Whatever the name, a series of more than 30 small to moderate temblors jolted Southern California on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, rattling nerves but causing no significant damage.
The cluster of earthquakes that struck near Yorba Linda was centered near the Whittier fault, but preliminary data suggested that fault was not responsible for the temblor, said Doug Given, a geophysicist with theU.S. Geological Survey.
“There are lots and lots of little faults all over that area,” Given said of the northern Orange County region where the quakes were centered. “It’s a known active area.”
The shaking began with a magnitude 4.5 earthquake near Yorba Linda about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, bookended by another 4.5 quake about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, but with many smaller ones in between.
At a news conference Wednesday morning, Kate Hutton of theU.S. Geological Surveysaid that of all the quakes, only three were probably felt by residents. The two 4.5 temblors were felt across a wide swath of Southern California, with people reporting shaking as far away as Thousand Oaks, the Santa Clarita Valley, the Westside and northern San Diego County, according to the USGS’s “Did You Feel It?” website.
“This is all part of the same earthquake sequence; they’re all in the same area,” Hutton told reporters.
“It shook us pretty good. We’ve felt earthquakes before, so it came as no surprise,” said Chris Nordyke, director of marketing at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda. “It shook open the door, but nothing fell off the shelves.”
Given said the excitement offers a lesson for the region. “We live in earthquake country. Earthquakes are normal here, and people should be prepared,” he said.
YORBA LINDA, CALIF. — The earthquakes keep coming for Southern California was shaken Wednesday by the second moderate but widely felt earthquake in less than 11 hours, but no harm was reported. Officials said the recent outbreak of California earthquakes in 2012 is not out of the ordinary.
Or at least, the recent flurry of California earthquakes is nothing for residents to get unusually rattled about.
“There is nothing in this sequence, at this point, that tells us we need to be particularly worried,” said Elizabeth Cochran, a geophycist at the U.S. Geological Survey, according to the Lake Forest Patch in California.
Cochran said more aftershocks should be expected.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-4.5 quake occurred at 9:33 a.m. and was centered two miles northeast of the Orange County city of Yorba Linda, about 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
A magnitude-4.5 quake centered in the same area struck late Tuesday night. Both temblors were followed by numerous aftershocks that were mostly too small to be felt.
Quakes of such magnitude are unlikely to cause damage in cities built to modern standards but can rattle nerves.
The Orange County Fire Authority did not receive any 911 calls about the latest quake, said Capt. Marc Stone.
“It was a decent sized shake and it’s a reminder for everyone to have a plan for the Big One,” said Stone. “How would you and your family survive for 72 hours with no water, no food and no amenities? Think about it. It’s a reminder to go home and say, ‘What if?’ and make that plan.”
Seismologist Kate Hutton of the California Institute of Technology characterized the quakes as a swarm.
The location is near the Whittier Fault, but the quakes could be occurring on an unmapped fault, she said.
“This is likely normal California earthquake activity,” Hutton said.
The staff of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda was still talking about Tuesday night’s quake when Wednesday’s struck, said Jonathan Movroydis, director of communications.
“It did shake us pretty well,” Movroydis said, but the jolt was so short no one ducked under their desks.
Meanwhile, newly acquired Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Shane Victorino tweeted: “Why is the hotel shaking????? … Welcome to LA!”
(Reuters) – Overcrowded hospitals in northwest Iran struggled to cope with thousands of earthquake victims on Sunday as rescuers raced to reach remote villages after two powerful quakes killed nearly 300 people.
Thousands huddled in makeshift camps or slept in the street after Saturday’s quakes for fear of more aftershocks, 60 of which had already struck. A lack of tents and other supplies left them exposed to the night chill, one witness told Reuters.
“I saw some people whose entire home was destroyed, and all their livestock killed,” Tahir Sadati, a local photographer, said by telephone. “People need help, they need warm clothes, more tents, blankets and bread.”
The worst damage and most casualties appeared to have been in rural villages around the towns of Ahar, Varzaghan and Harees, near the major city of Tabriz, Iranian media reported.
Tabriz resident Ahmad, 41, told Reuters his cousin living in a village near Ahar was killed and his body found.
“Nobody knows what happened to his wife and two daughters,” aged 4 and 7, Ahmad said. “We fear that if rescuers don’t get to them soon, they will lose their lives too if they’re still alive.”
But Iranian officials said rescue operations had ended by Sunday afternoon and that all those trapped beneath the rubble had been freed, Iran’s English-language Press TV reported.
Many villages are hard to reach by road, hindering rescue efforts. Hospitals in Tabriz, Ardabil and other cities nearby took in many of the injured, residents and Iranian media said, and there were long queues of survivors waiting to be treated.
“I wanted to go there last night to help but heard there was bad traffic and that it wasn’t safe enough,” Ahmad said. “People in those villages need help.”
Abbas Falahi, member of parliament for Ahar and Harees, said people in some villages were still “in dire need of food and drinking water”, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
“Despite the promises of officials, little first aide has been distributed in the region and most people are left without tents. If the situation continues, the toll will rise,” he said.
Aidin, a Tabriz resident, said he went to give blood at a local hospital on Saturday and saw staff struggling to cope with the influx of patients. Most patients had been taken there by their families, he said, indicating a shortage of ambulances.
Ahar’s 120-bed hospital was full, said Arash, a college student in the town. There were traffic jams on the narrow road to Tabriz as victims tried to reach hospitals, he said by telephone.
VILLAGES DESTROYED
“People are scared and won’t go back into their houses because they fear the buildings aren’t safe.”
The U.S. Geological Survey measured Saturday’s first quake at 6.4 magnitude and said it struck 60 km (37 miles) northeast of the city of Tabriz, a trading hub far from Iran’s oil-producing areas and known nuclear facilities.
The second, measuring 6.3, struck 11 minutes later near Varzaghan, 49 km (30 miles) northeast of Tabriz.
More than 1,000 villages in the area were affected by the earthquakes, Ahmad Reza Shaji’i, a Red Crescent official, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA). Some 130 villages suffered more than 70 percent damage, and 20 villages were completely destroyed, he said.
“We saw some villages that were truly destroyed,” said Sadati, the photographer who was documenting the quake aftermath. “One good thing was that the earthquake happened during the day, so many people were not in their homes. If it had happened at night the casualties would have been far worse.”
Close to 300 people were believed to be dead, said Reza Sadighi, Ahar’s local governor, Fars news agency said. National emergency head Gholam Reza Masoumi said 5,000 people are believed to be injured, according to ISNA.
Nearly 100 ambulances and 1,100 Red Crescent workers were deployed, Shaji’i said, along with 44,000 food packages and 5,600 tents for shelter. The relief agency had enough supplies and most residents in the area had access to clean water but Shaji’i asked residents to donate cash to the relief effort.
Tehran officials sent condolences to the victims and declared two days of mourning in the province, ISNA reported.
About 36,000 people in the quake-hit area have been given emergency shelter, Masoumi was quoted as saying by ISNA.
Iranian lawmaker Mohammad Hassan-Nejad warned that if relief efforts did not speed up, the death toll would swiftly rise.
“Relief groups have still not reached many villages, because in normal conditions some of these villages are several hours away,” he told ISNA. “Currently the roads are closed and the only way to reach these villages is by air.”
COLLAPSED BUILDINGS
Photographs posted on Iranian news websites showed numerous bodies, including children, lying on the floor of a white-tiled morgue in Ahar and medical staff treating the injured in the open air as dusk fell on Saturday. Other images showed rescue workers digging people out of rubble – some alive, many dead.
Twenty-eight year old Narges in Tehran said she saw dozens of people in a hospital waiting to donate blood for the victims.
Iran is crisscrossed by major fault lines and has suffered several devastating earthquakes in recent years, including a 6.6 magnitude quake in 2003 that reduced the historic southeastern city of Bam to dust and killed about 31,000 people.
Saturday’s quakes struck in East Azerbaijan province, a mountainous region that neighbors Azerbaijan and Armenia to the north. Buildings in Tabriz, the provincial capital, are substantially built and ISNA reported nobody in the city had been killed or hurt.
Homes and business premises in Iranian villages, however, are often made of concrete blocks or mud brick that can crumble and collapse in a strong quake.
Water, electricity, and phone lines in the area of Varzaghan are all down, further hindering rescue efforts, Iran’s English-language Press TV reported.
Tabriz residents left their homes and crowded the streets following the two quakes, those in the city said. “Everyone was scared last night,” a resident said by telephone. “They set up tents and were sleeping in the streets and in parks.”
(Additional reporting by Marcus George and Zahra Hosseinian; Writing by Andrew Torchia and Marcus George; Editing by Jon Hemming)
14.08.2012
Earthquake
Iran
Province of East Azarbaijan, [About 21 miles west of Ahar]
With thousands injured as the death toll from Iran’s dual earthquakes nears 300, hospitals are reeling from the increased traffic. There are long lines outside as doctors work feverishly to cope with the injuries. “From last night until this afternoon when I left Shohada-ye Tabriz hospital, doctors were constantly performing operations,” said one physician. “Ordinary people were working alongside rescuers. They were bringing food and water to the hospital.” Meanwhile, thousands of refugees are staying in camps and parks as they weather the some 60 aftershocks that have hit thus far, Reuters reports.
Some 20 villages were completely destroyed, and 130 saw more than 70% damage, according to the Red Crescent. Officials say search and rescue operations are over; now they’re “working to provide shelter and food to the survivors.” But stories conflict as to how effective efforts have been. The Red Crescent says it has enough supplies, and an emergency official says 36,000 people have received emergency shelter. But “despite the promises of officials, little first aid has been distributed in the region and most people are left without tents,” said an MP.
Overcrowded hospitals in northwestern Iran struggled to cope with thousands of earthquake victims on Sunday and rescuers raced to reach remote villages after two powerful quakes killed nearly 300 people and injured 5,000. Thousands huddled in makeshift camps or slept in the street after Saturday’s quakes in fear of more aftershocks, 60 of which had already struck. A lack of tents and other supplies left them exposed to the night chill, one witness told Reuters. “I saw some people whose entire home was destroyed, and all their livestock killed,” Tahir Sadati, a local photographer, said by telephone. “People need help, they need warm clothes, more tents, blankets and bread.” The worst damage and most casualties appeared to have been in rural villages around the towns of Ahar, Varzaghan and Harees, near the major city of Tabriz, Iranian media reported. The U.S. Geological Survey measured Saturday’s first quake at 6.4 magnitude and said it struck 37 miles northeast of the city of Tabriz, a trading hub far from Iran’s oil-producing areas and known nuclear facilities.Tabriz resident Ahmad, 41, told Reuters his cousin living in a village near Ahar was killed and that his body had already been found.
“Nobody knows what happened to his wife and two daughters,” aged 4 and 7, Ahmad said. “We fear that if rescuers don’t get to them soon, they will lose their lives too if they’re still alive.” Iranian officials said rescue operations had ended by Sunday afternoon and that all those trapped beneath the rubble had been freed, Iran’s English-language Press TV reported. But the head of Iran’s Relief and Emergency Organization said that rescue operations were continuing, according to the New York Times.Many villages are hard to reach by road, hindering rescue efforts. Hospitals in Tabriz, Ardabil and other cities nearby took in many of the injured, residents and Iranian media said, and there were long queues of survivors waiting to be treated. “I wanted to go there last night to help but heard there was bad traffic and that it wasn’t safe enough,” Ahmad said. “People in those villages need help.” Aidin, a Tabriz resident, said he went to give blood at a local hospital on Saturday and saw staff struggling to cope with the influx of patients. Most patients had been taken there by their families, he said, indicating a shortage of ambulances. Ahar’s 120-bed hospital was full, said Arash, a college student and resident of the town. There were traffic jams on the narrow road between Ahar and Tabriz as victims tried to reach hospitals, he said by telephone.
“People are scared and won’t go back into their houses because they fear the buildings aren’t safe.” The second, measuring 6.3, struck 11 minutes later near Varzaghan, 30 miles northeast of Tabriz. More than 1,000 villages in the area were affected by the earthquakes, Ahmad Reza Shaji’i, a Red Crescent official, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA). About 130 villages suffered more than 70 percent damage, and 20 villages were completely destroyed, he said. “We saw some villages that were truly destroyed,” said Sadati, the photographer who was documenting the quake aftermath. “One good thing was that the earthquake happened during the day, so many people were not in their homes. If it had happened at night the casualties would have been far worse.” Close to 300 people were believed to be dead, said Reza Sadighi, Ahar’s local governor, Fars news agency said. National emergency head Gholam Reza Masoumi said 5,000 people are believed to be injured, according to ISNA.“Most of the dead are women and children, as the earthquake happened during the day, when many men were out working,” said Marjan Lagaei, an Iranian reporter who traveled to the area, told the New York Times.Nearly 100 ambulances and 1,100 Red Crescent workers were deployed, Shaji’i said, along with 44,000 food packages and 5,600 tents for shelter. The relief agency had enough supplies and most residents in the area had access to clean water but Shaji’i asked residents to donate cash to the relief effort. Officials in Tehran extended condolences to the victims and declared two days of mourning to be held in the province, ISNA reported. About 16,000 people in the quake-hit area have been given emergency shelter, Red Crescent official Mahmoud Mozafar told Mehr news agency. Iranian lawmaker Mohammad Hassan-Nejad warned that if relief efforts did not speed up, the death toll would swiftly rise. “Relief groups have still not reached many villages, because in normal conditions some of these villages are several hours away,” he told ISNA. “Currently the roads are closed and the only way to reach these villages is by air.”
Photographs posted on Iranian news websites showed numerous bodies, including children, lying on the floor of a white-tiled morgue in Ahar and medical staff treating the injured in the open air as dusk fell on Saturday. Other images showed rescue workers digging people out of rubble – some alive, many dead. Iran is crisscrossed by major fault lines and has suffered several devastating earthquakes in recent years, including a 6.6 magnitude quake in 2003 that reduced the historic southeastern city of Bam to dust and killed about 31,000 people. Saturday’s quakes struck in East Azerbaijan province, a mountainous region that neighbors Azerbaijan and Armenia to the north. Buildings in Tabriz, the provincial capital, are substantially built and ISNA reported nobody in the city had been killed or hurt. Homes and business premises in Iranian villages, however, are often made of concrete blocks or mud brick that can crumble and collapse in a strong quake. Water, electricity, and phone lines in the area of Varzaghan are all down, further hindering rescue efforts, Iran’s English-language Press TV reported. Tabriz residents left their homes and crowded the streets following the two quakes, those in the city said. “Everyone was scared last night,” a resident said by telephone. “They set up tents and were sleeping in the streets and in parks.” Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a telegram to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday expressing his sympathy and offering assistance, the Kremlin’s press service said. Pope Benedict XVI asked Christians to pray for the victims of the quakes.
An earthquake of the magnitude 2.7 hit just north of Goðabunga in Mýrdalsjökull glacier, which covers the volcano Katla in South Iceland, around 8:30 am yesterday morning. It was part of a swarm of minor earthquakes. The second-largest had a magnitude of 1.8. The Katla area has been rather quiet in the past weeks. There was more activity in the area in the spring when two small glacier outbursts flooded the river Leirá in Kötlukriki and Emstrur, to the west of Mýrdalsjökull, ruv.is reports. The seismic activity then subsided and GPS monitors showed decreasing tension in the lithosphere. Yesterday’s quakes were not connected with any volcanic activity and there has not been any increased flow in glacial rivers originating in Mýrdalsjökull. However, glacial water in the vicinity has smelled of sulfur, according to geophysicist Benedikt Ófeigsson at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, such as in the river Jökulsá at Sólheimasandur and Leirá in Kötlukriki. Katla has been monitored closely by scientists since a major glacial outburst, possibly caused by a minor volcanic eruption underneath Mýrdalsjökull, tore a hole in the Ring Road in South Iceland in July 2011.
…………………………..
Pacific quake swarm woke up underwater volcano
A screenshot of the Pumice island that the volcano is believed to have birthed. Image by: RoyalW1979 / YouTube
A swarm of more than 150 earthquakes over two days last month caused a previously dormant volcano to erupt 1 100 metres beneath the Pacific Ocean, a scientist says.
The eruption of the Havre Volcano, about halfway between New Zealand and Tonga, is believed to have caused a 7 500 square kilometre floating island of pumice that was encountered by a New Zealand navy ship last week.
Cornel de Ronde, principal scientist of the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, told Radio New Zealand the source of the pumice had been identified in cooperation with French researchers in Tahiti who monitor earthquakes in the south-west Pacific.
“When they looked at their physical records they saw that on July 17th and 18th, there were some 157 earthquakes of magnitudes between 3.0 and 4.8,” he said.
De Ronde said they occurred near the time of the first sighting of the pumice “raft” and when the institute looked at its database it found the Havre volcano which it had previously surveyed.
It was a caldera volcano, like White Island, 50 kilometres off the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island, which erupted last week, but the Havre was not thought to have erupted before, he said.
De Ronde said the pumice island was so light that it had floated several hundred kilometres from the volcano when it was encountered by the HMNZS Canterbury, which took samples last week.
Scientists were also analysing samples of rock ejected from Mount Tongariro, on New Zealand’s North Island, to try to find out why it erupted a week ago for the first time in 115 years.
A mass of small volcanic rocks nearly the size of Belgium has been discovered floating off the coast.
The stretch of golf-ball-size pumice rocks was first spotted this week by a New Zealand air force plane about 1,000 kilometres northwest of Auckland.
The rocks stretch for about 26,000 square kilometres.
A navy ship took scientists to the rocks Thursday night. Naval Lt. Tim Oscar says the rocks appeared a brilliant white under a spotlight, like a giant ice shelf.
He says it’s the “weirdest thing” he’s seen in 18 years at sea.
“The rock looked to be sitting two feet above the surface of the waves, and lit up a brilliant white colour in the spotlight. It looked exactly like the edge of an ice shelf,” he said.
Lt. Oscar said he had been briefed by GNS Volcanologist Helen Bostock the previous day when the ship first encountered an area of pumice from an undersea volcano.
“I knew the pumice was lightweight and posed no danger to the ship. None the less it was quite daunting to be moving toward it at 14 knots. It took about 3 – 4 minutes to travel through the raft of pumice and as predicted there was no damage. As we moved through the raft of pumice we used the spotlights to try and find the edge – but it extended as far as we could see.”
Scientists say the rocks likely spewed up in an eruption by an underwater volcano. They don’t believe the eruption is connected to the onshore ash eruption this week of another volcano, Mount Tongariro.
Officials say the small rocks pose no danger to shipping.
The Defence Force says the mass of rocks stretches 250 nautical miles by 30 nautical miles.
SOURCE: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10826068
TUPI, SOUTH COTABATO — The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) has allayed fears of volcanic activity in Mt. Matutum as claimed by residents.
Phivolcs chief Renato U. Solidum, Jr. said in a letter sent to Mayor Reynaldo S. Tamayo on Friday that the observations of smoke and fire coming out of the crater were non-volcanic in nature.
“Ocular inspections at the crater area and seismic records showed that there were no volcanic activities, specifically an imminent eruption, in Mt. Matutum,” Mr. Solidum said.
Rolly T. Visaya, Tupi information officer, told BusinessWorld that weeks prior to the Phivolcs letter, residents of Barangays Acmonan and Kablon in Tupi, and Maligo in Polomolok observed certain developments such as the descent of wild animals from the mountains as well as burnt vegetation.
The locals also claimed to have felt the ground shaking and heard unusual rumblings from the volcano, he added.
To confirm the observations, both Tupi and Polomolok towns sent their rescue teams to Mt. Matutum to get firsthand information through photographs and videos.
From the information acquired, Mr. Tamayo, who also chairs the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council of Tupi, then requested for Phivolcs’s investigation.
The absence of micro-earthquake activity in the seismic record of the agency’s volcano-seismic observatory at Mindanao State University in General Santos City meant that the phenomenon is not volcanic in origin, Mr. Solidum said.
On the reported sighting of wild animals descending to the lowlands, he said it could be due to scarcity of food or disturbances of their habitat, be it man-made, lighting and other phenomena.
Before Phivolcs’s response, there have been reports of several families from the adjoining town of Malungon in Sarangani province who have evacuated from their houses for safety, Mr. Visaya said.
Mt. Matutum stands 2,286 meters, the 14th highest peak in the Philippines, and has a base that covers the towns of Tupi and Polomolok in South Cotabato and Malungon in Sarangani. The popular trekking destination’s last recorded eruption was in 1911, Mr. Visaya said citing Phivolcs records.
Mr. Solidum explained that a new volcanic vent as dormant volcano reactivates will not dissipate overnight, but will become more vigorous over time.
He explained “that should the volcano end its dormancy and enter a period of magmatic activity, unmistakable signs of unrest will be manifested, such as small ash and gas explosions that can intensify through time, ground deformation, vegetation kill, unabated crater glow at the summit and increasingly perceptible earthquakes.”
Mr. Visaya said Phivolcs national office personnel are in town to further study the volcanic conditions. — Louie O. Pacardo
A fast-moving brush fire in Northern California is threatening 500 homes and has prompted officials to evacuate an entire town. Fueled by broiling, dry conditions, the Wye fire off Highway 20 has burned 3,000 acres near the Lake County town of Spring Valley, which was evacuated. “It is burning on both sides of Highway 20 and it’s burning in an easterly direction toward the community of Spring Valley,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief Julie Hutchinson told the Lake County News. According to Cal Fire, a second fire is also burning in Lake County. The Walker fire has burned 2,000 acres. Firefighters were traveling from across the state to help battle both fires.
A new wildfire burning east of Cle Elum in central Washington is growing quickly and reportedly threatening some homes. A Washington Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman says the Taylor Bridge fire had burned across more than a square mile – or about 800 acres- by mid-afternoon Monday. Fire crews from nearby communities are being called to the scene. The Daily Record of Ellensburg reports that the state Transportation Department is closing a two-mile section of U.S. Highway 97 because of the fire. The newspaper says a stable has moved all of its horses.
Hot, dry winds Monday afternoon prompted major growth in a week-old lightning-sparked forest fire on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, estimated to have burned 70 to 100 acres of valuable timber. The newly named Waterfall fire, burning about three miles northeast of the Mt. Jefferson summit, is “one we’ve been watching” since a lightning strike from Aug. 5 thunderstorms ignited it, said fire spokesman Clay Penhollow. “We had a crew on, fighting the west side of it today, but it took off on the east” side as winds picked up, Penhollow said, adding that no structures or roads were threatened. Instead, he said, it was burning some “valuable timber,” putting up a plume visible for many miles. An air tanker dropped retardant on the fire Monday morning until it was diverted to another fire in Washington state, Penhollow said. There were two helicopters dropping water on the flames later in the day, with one 20-person firefighting crew on the lines, another on its way and three more ordered up, he added. The fire was moving east down the headwaters of Shitike Creek, but was still more than 20 miles west of Warm Springs, Penhollow.
More than 5,000 people have been evacuated from La Gomera, one of the smallest Canary Islands, as forest fires that began nine days ago continue to burn out of control. Nearly 2,000 acres of the Garajonay national park have been destroyed. The evacuees represent a quarter of the population and some 11% of the island’s landmass is in flames. A dry winter and high August temperatures have led to this being one of the worst in many years for forest fires in Spain. On the Spanish mainland, tens of thousands of acres of woodland have been lost in Valencia, Galicia and Catalunya. Two people died fighting fires in Alicante. Humberto Gutiérrez, head of emergency services in the Canaries, says there is no hope of dousing the flames in the short term. “Meteorological conditions are not on our side,” he said. Paulino Rivero, the Canary Islands’ president, said he hoped falling temperatures and rising humidity might slow the spread of the fires.
A mudslide near Pahaska Tepee closed down the East Entrance to Yellowstone Park on Sunday morning. Early morning thunderstorms led to heavy rain and the slide covered both lanes of the North Fork Highway. Chris Jones, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Riverton, said about a half inch of rain fell in under 30 minutes. The same amount of rain in an urban area would cause street flooding, where water would rise above the sidewalks, Jones said. “A half inch in an urban area can cause problems,” he said. The slide caused the east gate to close 6:30-10 a.m. Sunday, Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said. A truck ended up stuck in the slide. It was traveling in the rain and was on top of the slide, said Jim Berry, maintenance foreman for the Wyoming Department of Transportation in Cody. Berry said traffic began moving again at 9:30 a.m. and the two lanes were open by 12:30 p.m. Jones said the area around the east gate, which has steep sides and sometimes low vegetation, has been known to have slides in the past.
A reactor at the Millstone nuclear plant in Waterford, Conn., has shut down because of something that its 1960s designers never anticipated: the water in Long Island Sound was too warm to cool it. Under the reactor’s safety rules, the cooling water can be no higher than 75 degrees. On Sunday afternoon, the water’s temperature soared to 76.7 degrees, prompting the operator, Dominion Power, to order the shutdown of the 880-megawatt reactor. “Temperatures this summer are the warmest we’ve had since operations began here at Millstone,’’ said a spokesman for Dominion, Ken Holt. The plant’s first reactor, now retired, began operation in 1970. The plant’s third reactor was still running on Monday, but engineers were watching temperature trends carefully out of concern that it, too, might have to shut down. A spokeswoman for the regional grid control center, ISO-New England, said the shutdown had not impaired the functioning of the grid because generation has been more than sufficient. But in periods when industrial demand for electricity has been stronger, a reactor shutdown has sometimes forced grid operators to scramble.
The water from the sound is piped into the plant to absorb heat from pumps and other pieces of equipment. As the sound’s temperature inched upward this summer, Dominion Power received permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to measure it at three locations instead of one and to calculate the average in the hope that it would be lower. That did not help on Sunday. And higher water temperatures could lie ahead. The sound’s temperature usually does not peak until late August. Eventually, engineers could change the Millford reactor’s intake pipe so it draws water from further below the surface, where temperatures are lower, Mr. Holt said. They could also sharpen their pencils and try to determine whether the plant can operate safely with cooling water above 75 degrees, but neither is a short-term project. Cloud cover and the mixing of some cooler rainfall might also bring down temperatures, Mr. Holt suggested. While some reactors in inland locations have had to reduce their power output or shut down because of warm cooling water in the past, it is unusual for coastal plants, nuclear industry officials say. “We are evaluating our options for the future,’’ Mr. Holt said. “We don’t know, is this year an anomaly or is it the continuation of a longer trend?’ Power plants in the Midwest have also experienced problems as temperatures soared in recent weeks. In some cases, reactors shut down because the cooling water was too warm; in others, the ongoing drought had shrunken the body of water from which the cooling water is drawn, and the plant’s intake pipes were above the surface. Last month the twin-unit Braidwood nuclear plant in Illinois needed special permission to keep operating because its cooling water pond reached 102 degrees as a result of low rainfall and high air temperatures. When Braidwood opened 26 years ago, it was designed to run at temperatures up to 98 degrees.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania Department of Health is once again providing free potassium iodide tablets to help residents of the commonwealth prepare for public health emergencies involving nuclear facilities.
People who live, work or attend school within a 10-mile radius of the state’s five nuclear power plants can get the tablets, which can help protect the thyroid gland against harmful radioactive iodine.
The tablets will be distributed Aug. 9 at 14 locations statewide, or can be obtained at state, county or municipal health agencies
Four 65-milligram tablets will be provided to each adult. Smaller doses will be given to children based on their age.
The department says people should only take potassium iodide tablets when directed to do so by health officials or the governor.
Two months after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in March 2011, a team of Japanese researchers collected 144 adult pale grass blue (Zizeeria maha) butterflies from 10 locations in Japan, including the Fukushima area.
When the accident occurred, the adult butterflies would have been overwintering as larvae.
Unexpected results
By comparing mutations found on the butterflies collected from the different sites, the team found that areas with greater amounts of radiation in the environment were home to butterflies with much smaller wings and irregularly developed eyes.
“It has been believed that insects are very resistant to radiation,” said lead researcher Joji Otaki from the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa.
“In that sense, our results were unexpected,” he told BBC News.
The Japanese researchers have been studying the species for more than a decade
Prof Otaki’s team then bred these butterflies within labs 1,750km (1,090 miles) away from the accident, where artificial radiation could hardly be detected.
It was by breeding these butterflies that they began noticing a suite of abnormalities that hadn’t been seen in the previous generation – that collected from Fukushima – such as malformed antennae, which the insects use to explore their environment and seek out mates.
Six months later, they again collected adults from the 10 sites and found that butterflies from the Fukushima area showed a mutation rate more than double that of those found sooner after the accident.
The team concluded that this higher rate of mutation came from eating contaminated food, but also from mutations of the parents’ genetic material that was passed on to the next generation, even though these mutations were not evident in the previous generations’ adult butterflies.
The team of researchers have been studying that particular species butterfly for more than 10 years.
They were considering using the species as an “environmental indicator” before the Fukushima accident, as previous work had shown it is very sensitive to environmental changes.
“We had reported the real-time field evolution of colour patterns of this butterfly in response to global warming before, and [because] this butterfly is found in artificial environments – such as gardens and public parks – this butterfly can monitor human environments,” Prof Otaki said.
But the findings from their new research show that the radionuclides released from the accident were still affecting the development of the animals, even after the residual radiation in the environment had decayed.
“This study is important and overwhelming in its implications for both the human and biological communities living in Fukushima,” explained University of South Carolina biologist Tim Mousseau, who studies the impacts of radiation on animals and plants in Chernobyl and Fukushima, but was not involved in this research.
“These observations of mutations and morphological abnormalities can only be explained as having resulted from exposure to radioactive contaminants,” Dr Mousseau told BBC News.
The findings from the Japanese team are consistent with previous studies that have indicated birds and butterflies are important tools to investigate the long-term impacts of radioactive contaminants in the environment.
A suspected food poisoning case on a southern Chinese island led to the hospitalization of 120 tourists on Sunday, including six foreigners, local authorities reported on Monday. The vacationers were sent for medical treatment after their breakfast in the Howard Johnson Hotel in Sanya City in Hainan Province, said Zhou Baocang, deputy director of the Sanya Health Bureau. Twenty-eight people left hospital after treatment, while the other 92 remain in the People’s Hospital of Sanya and No.425 Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army. “No deaths have been reported. The patients are recovering well,” said Chen Weijie, deputy director of the Sanya City Food and Drug Administration. Four of the six foreigners are from Russia and two from Japan, and all of them are in stable condition, Zhou said. Initial investigation showed that the illnesses were caused by food harboring bacteria, and more evidence needs to be collected, Zhou said. Service at the hotel’s restaurant has been suspended. “The fried rice at breakfast might be to blame. The biggest discomfort was suffered by my friend, who had stomach ache and wanted to vomit. Another friend has been suffering from fever,” said a tourist named Li Ximing from south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Hainan provincial government officials have urged local authorities to guarantee the safety of the tourists. Experts have been sent by the provincial government to the scene. An emergency response team has been set up by the hotel and 80 employees have been dispatched to hospital to help take care of the patients, said Wang Li, a spokeswoman for the hotel. The hotel will compensate the patients based on investigation, Wang added.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Food Poisoning
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.
NBC-10 reports, tens of millions of Jellyfish have invaded Barnegat Bay. The jellyfish have been spotted in Barnegat Bay, Manahawkin in Stafford, Waretown, and the bay side of Harvey Cedars on Long Beach Island. According to Professor Paul Bologna, Montclair State’s Director of Aquatic and Coastal Sciences, the reason for the proliferation of jellyfish could be the use of plastic on the surfaces of docks. He explains sea nettle larvae settle on those surfaces and change into polyps, which bud off to create more of themselves. Another theory from a Rutgers University report: the bay’s ecological decline has spread southward since the 1990s. The declining ecological conditions have become a perfect place for jellyfish to prosper. Whatever the reason, unless they’re looking for a shock to their system, swimmers and surfers should be on the lookout for the jellyfish.
Biohazard name:
Jellyfish invasion
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
It’s hot and getting hotter, and one more Lane County lake has sprouted a toxic algae bloom. State officials today said that based on scum they have observed, Dexter Lake has toxic blue-green algae, and they issued an advisory that people stay out of the water and avoid touching it or inhaling water droplets. Testing is taking place to determine whether the blue-green algae is of the type that produces cyanotoxins harmful to people and animals, the state said. Dexter Lake, about 20 miles southeast of Eugene on Highway 58, is the third Lane County body of water to merit a blue-green algae alert this summer, and only the fourth in the state. State officials on July 27 issued an alert for Walterville Pond off Highway 126 east of Springfield that is still in effect, followed by a July 31 alert on Dorena Lake southeast of Cottage Grove that is still in effect. Earlier in the summer, the state also issued an alert for a lake in Jackson County that lasted only five days. By comparison, at this time last year, the state had issued algae alerts at seven lakes. Last summer, alerts were issued for Cougar, Dorena, Dexter and Fall Creek lakes in Lane County. Health officials say exposure to the toxins can produce numbness, dizziness and breathing or heart problems, plus skin irritation, nausea and cramps. Dexter Lake is managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Oregon State Parks Department.
Biohazard name:
Blue-Green (cyanobacteria) Algae bloom
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
The city of Long Beach issued an alert to residents regarding an outbreak of flea-borne typhus, a disease transmitted to humans via fleas. Murine typhus, also known as flea-borne typhus, is spread from fleas living on rodents, possums, raccoons and cats. The disease is transmitted by bites from infected fleas. The disease is not spread from person to person. Symptoms include high fever, body aches, severe headaches and a rash. People may become sick enough to be hospitalized, but the disease is rarely fatal. Public health officials will continue to monitor and test for evidence of flea-borne typhus in areas throughout Long Beach. Area veterinarians will receive a letter requesting they educate pet owners on the importance of flea control in preventing flea-borne typhus. Long Beach has also issued letters to area health care providers providing guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of this disease.
Biohazard name:
Typhus (flea-borne)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Last week dead fish were found mysteriously washing up along the shores of Pago bay. Today PNC went to Pago Bay to investigate the possible cause of this unusual phenomenon. On Thursday of last week a student at the University of Guam’s marine lab noticed a lot of dead fish along the short in Pago bay. He took pictures of the fish and forwarded them to UOG marine lab professor Dr. Jason Biggs. “Well one of the things that set up a red flag for me is that this is the first time that it’s ever been noticed for Pago bay to have a fish kill like this,” said Dr. Biggs. Department of agriculture fisheries biologist Brent Tibbats also examined the photos. He says they appear to be shallow water fish that live in the reef flats and sea grass. Based on the photos, which show that many of the fish died with open mouths, Tibbats believes that natural causes are the most likely culprit. “We do get reports of fish kills almost every year at around this time of year, July and August, when there are very low tides during the hottest part of the day during the middle of the day what happens is fish get trapped in shallow water pools and they overheat and with a lack of oxygen they suffocate actually in the water and then when the next high tide comes in the fish get deposited on shore and people see this,” explained Tibbats.
However, as Dr. Biggs has pointed out this is the first time that they’ve seen this at Pago bay. “Over the past we’ve noticed areas where it happens commonly actually are Tumon bay is one and down along the southeast coast kind of from Ipan beach park down to first beach those areas something about them seems to be where fish kills repeatedly during these low tides during the middle of the day,” said Tibbats. Nevertheless Dr. Biggs is concerned that something else maybe the cause of this strange event. “Another thing that we’d like to point out is because it hasn’t happened at Pago bay before that maybe the sedimentation could have the same effect because if you have a big load of water bringing down a lot of dirt with it that dirt could mix with the salt water as well and particulate matter is known to clog the gills of the fish and make it so that water can’t pass and they can’t breathe,” explained Dr. Biggs. The marine lab professor says that choking from sedimentation would also result in dead fish with mouths open as seen in the photos. Pago bay has been known to have a lot of sedimentation after heavy rains. “You can see it every time it rains really hard there’s a plume that goes all the way out and then extends for miles out into the ocean,” said Dr. Biggs.
Tibbats says there is no way to tell for sure what killed these fish because he received the email over the weekend and by then the fish were gone. Tibbats says there are other potential causes for example fresh water can flood the reef flats killing saltwater fish. There is also the possibility that toxins from the land are washed into the water. Tibbats says that if anyone notices dead fish washing up on the shores anywhere on guam to try and collect some of the fish and then contact the Department of Agriculture’s Division of Aquatics and Wildlife Resources so they can study the dead fish and get a better determination of their actual cause of death. Senator Sam Mabini is concerned with the dead fish found at Pago bay and she has sent a letter to the Guam Environmental Protection Agency requesting their immediate attention to Pago bay’s current condition.
Biohazard name:
Mass Die-off (Fishes)
Biohazard level:
1/4 Low
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses including Bacillus subtilis, canine hepatitis, Escherichia coli, varicella (chicken pox), as well as some cell cultures and non-infectious bacteria. At this level precautions against the biohazardous materials in question are minimal, most likely involving gloves and some sort of facial protection. Usually, contaminated materials are left in open (but separately indicated) waste receptacles. Decontamination procedures for this level are similar in most respects to modern precautions against everyday viruses (i.e.: washing one’s hands with anti-bacterial soap, washing all exposed surfaces of the lab with disinfectants, etc). In a lab environment, all materials used for cell and/or bacteria cultures are decontaminated via autoclave.
Symptoms:
Status:
confirmed
13.08.2012
Biological Hazard
USA
State of Pennsylvania, [Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area]
A local Boy Scout leader is recovering this week after wrestling with a rabid beaver in the Delaware River. Health officials describe the attack as rare, but say human encounters with wild animals are more common in the summer months. On Aug. 2, Normand Brousseau, 51, of Pine Plains, an assistant scoutmaster with Boy Scout Troop 32 out of Elizaville, Columbia County, was swimming in the Delaware River. Brousseau, another leader and four Scouts were on a field trip at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in Pennsylvania. Brousseau, who was in the water hanging onto a noodle float, noticed a dark shape nearby. “It came through my legs and attached itself to my chest,” he said. “I thought it was a giant carp fish.” It wasn’t. He was being attacked by a rabid beaver. Once he was bitten, he grabbed the animal and threw it away from his body. “Then it came at me again,” he said. The beaver bit him in the leg and then again in his buttocks, arm, hand and waist. At that point, Brousseau said, “the adrenaline kicked in.” “I grabbed it in its mouth,” he said. “I had it around its bottom jaw as tightly as I could because I knew it was going to either bite me or bite the boys. I called the Scouts to come give me a hand.” One of the Scouts was 16-year-old Nick Hedges of Elizaville. “I grabbed him by the arm and started pulling him to the shore,” Hedges said.
The Scout was careful to keep an eye on the beaver, which, he said, was in Brousseau’s grasp about five feet away. Brousseau tossed the animal up onto the shore. The beaver was stunned for a second or two, Hedges said, but “then it started attacking the noodle.” With their counselor hurt and bleeding on shore, the teens took matters into their own hands. “We started throwing rocks at it,” he said. “We could see it was still dangerous.” The Scouts threw stones at the beaver until it was dead. A couple passing by in a canoe took Brousseau to the other side of the river and another passerby called 911. Dutchess County health officials said an attack from a rabid beaver is unusual, explaining that more often people in Dutchess report suspected cases of rabid cats, dogs and bats. “This is the time of year people will encounter more bats because they’re active now — they’re coming into contact with them more often,” said Stephen Capowski, director of environmental health services for the Dutchess County Health Department. Capowski cautioned people to steer clear of animals exhibiting unusual behavior: nocturnal animals such as bats, skunks and raccoons out during the daytime; dogs and cats indiscriminately attacking other dogs and cats, or people, and any animal behaving aggressively. Capowski said human cases of rabies are rare in Dutchess.
Park rangers brought Brousseau to the Pocono Medical Center in East Stroudsburg, Pa., where he was treated for his injuries. He’s now on the mend and the parents of Scouts in his troop are feeling grateful. “It was very brave of him,” said Susan Treacy of Stanfordville, whose 15-year-old son, Zach Pruner, was also in the river during the attack. “Who’d be crazy enough to hang onto a rabid beaver?” The day after the attack, Brousseau received a call from a doctor confirming the beaver had been rabid. Since then, he’s received more than 20 rabies shots. “I’m pretty sore,” he said, still appearing bruised with small cuts along his hands and arms Friday. Brousseau brushed off the notion of acting heroically that day. “It’s my job to protect the boys,” he said. “Part of what I do is to make sure they’re always protected.” Brousseau said he has gained a new-found respect for nature. “When you go out into nature, you always need to veer on the side of caution,” he said. “Don’t assume a wild animal is not sick. You have to be on your toes at all times.”
Biohazard name:
Rabies (beaver)
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.
Thousands of dead fish are washing ashore along the Texas coast from the Colorado River to Galveston Island and Parks and Wildlife biologists suspect low oxygen levels off shore may be to blame. What tides are bringing in on Jamaica Beach is making people pause. “I hope it’s nothing major,” said Mark Gannon, who took his family to the beach Sunday. “I hope the water is safe.” Thousands of dead shad litter the sand. “Any idea what it is?” asked Gannon’s wife Alexia. Her children tried to explain the problem. “At night time, the waves pull up really far so the fish can’t handle that, so they get up on the shore,” said Abby Gannon. Authorities said the answer is not so simple. Biologists with the Parks and Wildlife Department began testing ph, saline and oxygen levels in water samples taken along the coast. “When something’s affecting one [fish] then usually a lot of them are being affected at the same time because it’s such a big group [swimming in schools] together,” said Steven Mitchell of Texas Parks and Wildlife. He suspects low oxygen in the water is a problem. However, he won’t know for sure until biologists are able to test water up to 10 miles off shore. That could take several days. Meanwhile, there is no threat to people on the beach, authorities said. Still, people like the Gannons said their plan to spend the children’s final week of summer vacation on the beach could change a bit. “I imagine as it gets warmer the smell [of the dead shad] will get stronger and we will likely want to go home,” Alexia Gannon said.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Die-off (fishes)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
GALVESTON (August 13, 2012)–Hundreds of thousands of dead fish have washed up on the beach in Galveston, where crews went to work Monday to remove the dead fish.
Peter Davis of the Galveston Island Beach Patrol said Sunday the small shad fish likely were killed by low oxygen levels in the Gulf of Mexico.
Davis estimated hundreds of thousands of fish have died.
Galveston County health officials said the water is fine for beachgoers.
Biologist Steven Mitchell with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said calm conditions and summer heat may have contributed to the fish kill.
He said there’s a possibility of a dead zone in the water off Galveston.
Testing is expected this week.
Today
HAZMAT
USA
State of Colorado, Colorado Springs [Centennial Boulevard, Thin Metal Parts]
Around 100 employees have been evacuated from a handful of businesses on Centennial Boulevard because of a reported chlorine gas leak. The Colorado Springs Fire Department reports the leak occurred inside the Thin Metal Parts building off of Centennial and List north of Garden of the Gods. One person was being evaluated by medical personnel at the scene. There are no other reports of injuries.
[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 number of people taken to hospitals by ambulance due to heatstroke in the week through Sunday more than doubled from the preceding week to 5,467, preliminary data showed Tuesday. The figure, up from 2,622 in the week to July 15, hit the highest for a single week this summer, according to the data released by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Deaths caused by heatstroke increased to 13 from five in the preceding week. Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture had the most victims, with ambulances called for 388 people each. They were followed by 382 in Aichi Prefecture and 372 in Osaka Prefecture. People aged 65 or older accounted for 45.9 percent of the total. Since the agency started this year’s survey on May 28, 11,116 people were taken to hospitals as of Sunday. Twenty-three people have died. The rise in heatstroke cases reflects the smothering heat wave, with temperatures of 35 degrees or higher observed in many places for the four days from July 16, agency officials said. In Tatebayashi, Gunma Prefecture, the mercury shot up to 37.6 on July 16 and to 39.2 the following day, according to the Meteorological Agency.
Ten people were killed and 38 others went missing as incessant rains battered Uttarakhand today triggering landslides, cloud bursts and flash floods which flattened homes and stranded hundreds of pilgrims with the Chardham Yatra coming to a grinding halt. The Garhwal region bore the brunt of the natural calamity. The state government has sounded a high alert after the MET department’s warned of very heavy rains and sought the help of the army to mitigate the sufferings of the people. Nineteen labourers of the state-run UJVN Ltd’s Assi Ganga hydel project went missing following a cloud burst in the upper hills of Uttarkashi district. Similarly, 19 other people also went missing from Gangori, Dunda, Uttarkashi town and Barkot areas in the district. “We have launched a manhunt to trace the missing people,” said R Rajesh Kumar District Magistrate Uttarkashi. Elsewhere in the state, 10 people were killed in different incidents following heavy rains during the past 24 hours, said sources in the Disaster Management and Mitigation Centre (DMMC) here.
In the disaster-prone Uttarkashi district, flash floods hit several low-lying areas creating havoc there. At least three jawans of the fire brigade department and two others were killed at Gangori area even as Chardham yatra to Gangotri and Yamunotri remained suspended for the second day today. In Gangori area of Uttarkashi, Bhagirathi is flowing above the danger level with people being evacuated to safer areas. Nearly 30 homes were washed away in the floods with the Gangori bridge also collapsing. “We have now reports that three jawans of the fire brigade and two others were killed in Gangori,” said state disaster management minister Yashpal Arya. Two more people were killed in Dunda area of Uttarkashi district. While two children were killed in a house collapse at Kararnprayag area of Chamoli district early today, another child was washed away in flash floods at Pokhri area of the district where landslides continue to hit blocking highways leading to Badrinath.
Hundreds of Badrinath pilgrims were stranded at various places at Patalganga, Lambagar and Birahi due to fresh landslips. The yatra for Kedarnath shrine was also suspended, the sources said. The government has launched relief and rescue operations but heavy rains were hampering them, top officials said. Food packets are being sent to the affected people. Nearly 250 families have already been taken to safer areas in different areas of Uttarkashi and Chamoli districts. Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna was monitoring the situation and has asked the concerned authorities to launch rescue and relief operation in the disaster-hit areas. He also asked concerned officers to reopen roads leading to pilgrim shrines so that the stranded pilgrims can go home. Bahuguna also asked the special Chardham cell set up at the secretariat to send him a daily report regarding the situation in the Garhwal region. The CM said his government would provide food and other essential items to the stranded pilgrims. Landslides are common in fragile hills of Garhwal region.
Serious sandstorm hit the entire country Friday with the wind speed measuring about 90km/hr and visibility falling below 500m. According to Director of Weather Forecast Mohammed Karam, the weather is the outcome of winds blowing from the East and high altitude concentration on the North Arabian Peninsula that closes the atmospheric pressure lines. Karam anticipates the weather will be stable by Saturday. He also said the northwesterly wind will continue in moderate speed measuring 40 km/hr and later transform to moderate light northeasterly winds measuring 25-40km/hr until the end of the week, and then the weather will become stable. He urged elderly people and those suffering from allergies and breathing difficulty to be extra cautious and wear masks while reducing their outings to avoid complications. Meanwhile, the Director of Operations at Kuwait International Airport Essam Al-Zamen disclosed that aviation events are continuing as expected, indicating the bad weather has no effect on activities there. He reiterated that landing and departure of planes take place as scheduled, even though the visibility is about 400m.
Firefighters in Russia’s Siberia had extinguished 45 forest fires covering 522 hectares of forest in the past 24 hours, but 131 wildfires were still burning on the area of almost 15,000 hectares, the regional forestry department said Friday. A total of 29 wildfires covering an area of more than 5,000 hectares were localized, and 14,948 hectares of forest continued to burn in the Krasnoyarsk Krai, Tomsk Region, Tuva, Khakassia and Irkutsk Region. Some 3,000 people, 412 units of fire-fighting equipment and 24 aircrafts have been mobilized to fight the blazes, which are believed to be caused by hot and dry weather in the region where the temperature reaches 35 degrees. Reports said the wildfires posed no threat to populated areas or industry.
A wildfire whipped by gusty, southerly winds swept through rural woodlands north and south of Oklahoma City on Friday, burning several homes as firefighters struggled to contain it in 113-degree heat. Oklahoma’s emergency management officials said 25 structures had burned east of Noble, including a handful of homes, and several homes near Luther, north of Oklahoma City, were threatened. Hundreds of residents were told to leave their homes as flames spread through treetops. The state Highway Patrol closed part of the main highway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa because of the Luther-area fire, which may have been deliberately set. Local deputies were looking into reports about passengers in a pickup truck who were seen throwing out newspapers that had been set on fire. “I loaded the kids up, grabbed my dogs, and it didn’t even look like I had time to load the livestock, so I just got out of there,” said Bo Ireland, who lives a few miles from where the Noble-area fire started. “It looked to me that, if the wind shifted even a little bit, I would be in the path of that fire. It was just too close.” There were no immediate reports of injuries or livestock losses. Dayle Bishop stood in a convenience store parking lot about 2 miles away from his house, saying he was pessimistic about his home’s chances. “I know it’s gone,” said Bishop, who works nights as a nurse. “Didn’t even have time to get anything out.” But he noted “it’s just stuff,” and said he may not have made it out of his home had a woman not knocked on his door and woken him up.
Charles Wright was with his daughter, Christina, along with their cat, at a makeshift evacuation center doubling as a staging area for fire engines, ambulances and other emergency equipment. He said law enforcement ordered them to leave their home in Norman. “Praying for miracles. Praying for the best, that’s all we can do,” said Wright, who managed to pack some clothes, jewelry and legal papers before fleeing. Ruth Hood splashed water onto two Chihuahua puppies that she grabbed along with several other animals and her children, and left as flames burned in her neighbor’s yard. She said she couldn’t be sure her home would survive. “No guarantee,” Hood said. With the ongoing drought, high temperatures and gusty winds, it took little for fires to begin and spread — and there was little crews could do to fight them. “It’s difficult for the firefighters to get into the area because it’s heavily wooded on either side of the smaller roads. When the winds are blowing 25 mph it just blows the embers and fireballs across the roads as if they weren’t even there,” said Jerry Lojka with the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management. At mid-afternoon Friday, the temperature at nearby Norman was 113. Winds were from the south and southwest at 14 mph, gusting to 24 mph. “I can tell you the temperatures and the wind are not helping the situation at all. Some homes have been lost in the fire unfortunately, but we don’t know how many,” said Meghan McCormick, a spokeswoman for the Cleveland County Sheriff’s office.
Russell Moore, 53, who lives in the Noble area, said he was outside in his yard when a sheriff’s deputy drove down the road and told people to leave. He and his son went to a shelter set up at Noble City Hall, but planned to go to his daughter’s home in Norman. “About all we saw was smoke and a little bit of ash raining down from the sky,” Moore said. “Everybody was piling into their vehicles and leaving as we were.” Lojka said an Oklahoma National Guard helicopter has been dispatched to a fast-moving blaze in Luther, northeast of Oklahoma City. He also said helicopters were helping ground crews with a fire near Mannford and Drumright in Creek County. Helicopters from the National Guard and the Bureau of Indian Affairs were fighting a fire in Creek County. The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office said it was investigating reports that someone in a black pickup truck near Luther was tossing out newspapers that had been set on fire. The blaze and smoke led the Oklahoma Highway Patrol to shut down part of the Turner Turnpike, which carries Interstate 44 between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Traffic was rerouted onto old U.S. Route 66, the famed two-lane highway that crisscrosses Oklahoma. The state was monitoring 11 fires in all Friday afternoon. Gov. Mary Fallin announced a statewide burn ban as the fire danger heightened. She previously had announced a state of emergency for all 77 counties due to the extreme drought.
As a wildfire’s flames raced to the edge of Lame Deer’s town limits, police drove the streets with loudspeakers blaring orders for residents of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation community to grab their most important belongings and get out. Buses were waiting to carry people from danger area, which on Thursday night suddenly meant the entire town of 2,000. Desi Small-Rodriguez, a volunteer with the tribe’s disaster and emergency services department, recalled the chaotic scene as the Chalky Fire threatened to burn down the seat of the southeastern Montana reservation. “A lot of people were walking with their belongings, getting on buses, trying to find rides, getting out as told,” Small-Rodriguez said Friday. About 250 people stayed at a Red Cross shelter 25 miles away at the St. Labre Mission. Others took shelter with friends and relatives on other parts of the reservation. Those with no place to go camped out on lawns in nearby communities, or they just refused to leave. The fire had already burned two homes earlier in the day, then wind from a cold front whipped up the flames and drove the fire straight toward town. Things looked grim to Carol Raymond, Rosebud County’s head of disaster and emergency services, who had driven from Forsyth to see firsthand what was happening. “I figured the whole town of Lame Deer would go up in flames,” Raymond said. Firefighters worked overnight trying to keep the flames back. At one point early Friday, the fire jumped Highway 212, but firefighters contained it with a back burn of the surrounding area, and the wildfire skirted around town without destroying any buildings or causing any injuries, Small-Rodriguez said. On Friday, the smoke was choking the town, but rain was assisting firefighters. A red-flag warning was to be in effect until evening, and firefighters prepared for gusty winds and possible thunderstorms. The mandatory evacuation remained in effect.
The state is sending firefighters and managers to help battle a 1,000-acre wildfire in the southeast corner of Washington. Other firefighters also are trying to contain a 10,000-acre wildfire in central Washington. The new fire broke out Thursday afternoon five miles south of Asotin and is burning grass, brush and wheat. The state Emergency Operations Center at Camp Murray has been activated to coordinate state assistance. Overnight winds forced firefighters to retreat at the central Washington fire as it grew to 10,000 acres – more than 15 square miles. Spokesman Dan Garner at the incident management center at Brewster High School says no structures are threatened. The fire broke out Wednesday near Pateros and Brewster. It’s burning grass, brush, scattered timber and some wheat land.
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – Wildfires burned out of control on Friday in Oklahoma, destroying homes and shutting down highways in a state that has suffered 18 straight days of 100-plus degree temperatures and persistent drought.Emergency officials counted 11 different wildfires around the state, with at least 65 homes destroyed in parched areas north and south of Oklahoma City and south of Tulsa.
Oklahoma joins several states that have been plagued by wildfires this summer, including Colorado, Arkansas and Nebraska. Fires are being fed by a widespread drought.
Nearly two-thirds of the contiguous United States was under some level of drought as of July 31, according to the Drought Monitor, a weekly report compiled by U.S. climate experts.
Interstate 44, historic Route 66 and state highways were closed, but no deaths were reported in the Oklahoma fires.
Low humidity, strong southerly winds and drought conditions enabled the wildfires to spread quickly across treetops, said Michelann Ooten, deputy director of the state’s Office of Emergency Management.
“It’s just a very difficult situation we’re facing that’s all weather related,” Ooten said.
Governor Mary Fallin, who earlier in the day invoked a statewide ban on outdoor burning after declaring a state of emergency for the state’s 77 counties, told Reuters fire conditions may be worse on Saturday.
“The fire danger might be even higher,” she said.
Oklahoma has contacted neighboring states for help, but they are contending with their own wildfire threats and no out-of-state help is on its way, she said.
“There’s fires in Arkansas. There’s fires in Kansas and Texas. Everybody else is on high heat alert,” she said.
The heat in Oklahoma City, the state capital, has reached historic levels.
On Friday, Oklahoma City tied its all-time record for the highest temperature ever recorded when the thermometer reached 113 Fahrenheit (45 Celsius), a mark last recorded in the Dust Bowl days in 1936, according to the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma.
Volunteer fire departments have made a public plea for Gatorade donations to keep their crews hydrated in the scalding conditions.
(Reporting by Steve Olafson; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Lisa Shumaker)
After a lull in the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, Tropical Storm Florence formed on Saturday, joining Ernesto as both moved west on paths that could eventually take them to the U.S. coast.
It was still in the deep Atlantic, but on a path towards the Caribbean.
Ernesto was packing sustained winds of 50 mph and should pass south of Jamaica on Sunday, the center stated. “Ernesto is forecast to become a hurricane … in a day or two,” it added.
After Jamaica, which issued a tropical storm warning, Ernesto will likely head toward Grand Cayman, arriving Monday, and then Cancun/Cozumel in Mexico on Wednesday, weather.com reported.
Weather.com added it was “unclear whether Ernesto poses a threat to the U.S. late next week.”
On Friday, the storm swept over the tiny island of St. Lucia.
Businesses and government offices were ordered closed until noon on St. Lucia as Ernesto passed over the island, churning up 12-foot waves a few miles off its north shore.
It moved so quickly that St. Lucia got less than an inch of rain and there were no reports of damage or injuries.
August and September are usually the most active months of the Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.
Prior to Ernesto forming on Thursday, the last Atlantic tropical storm was Debby more than a month ago. It drenched Florida and eight deaths were tied to the storm.
U.S. government forecasters in May predicted a “normal” 2012 season, saying 9-15 named storms could be expected. Between 4-8 of those were predicted to become hurricanes.
Continuous heavy rainfall, cloud burst, and landslides have killed 10 in various parts of Sub-Himalayan region of Uttarakhand. At least 53 persons have been reported missing so far in flash floods and swallon rivers.
The pilgrims of the Chardham were stranded in the midway at various places and government has implemented temporary closure on the annual Char Dham pilgrimage until the situation becomes under control, official said on Saturday.
Due to heavy rains, the rivers have swollen and land sliding have increasing causing havoc among the localities and pilgrims. The pilgrims were stranded on way to Gangotri, Yamunotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath – the four points of pilgrimage.
According to official report, three fire fighters were killed in Gangotri due to heavy rains. A bridge was also washed away here and over 40 houses submerged in the overflowing Bhagirathi river.
Garhwal was the worst hit area, report said.
Two deaths were reported from Chamoli after two children died in a roof collpase. A child was swept away in Pokhri.
Uttarkashi has also been hit by flash floods.
Officials said following warnings of “more and severe rains” in the next two days, the Disaster Management and Mitigation Centre is on high alert and Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna was monitoring the situation.
Water level of Bhagirathi and Ganga rivers is also on the rise. The Uttarakhand government has issued red alert in areas along the river Ganga.
As many as 22 people were on Friday trapped in flash floods in Jammu region, prompting the authorities to sound an alert in the region. “A flash flood alert has been sounded in Jammu. Due to heavy overnight rains, various rivers in Jammu region are flooded…22 people and large number of cattle are trapped in the flash floods in Ujh and Tawi rivers,” an official said. Of the 22 people, 15 are trapped in Ujh river at Khadwal area in Kathua district and two each in Mayachak, Nagri, Sujanal (Satwari) and Muthi areas, he said. A rescue operation has been launched for those trapped in the flash floods, triggered by intermittent overnight rains in Jammu, Kathua and Udhampur districts, the official said. The water level in Chenab, Tawi, Ujh and Basantar rivers are nearing the danger mark, officials said, adding that people living in low-lying areas have been alerted and warned of flash floods. They have also been asked to keep away from banks of the flooded rivers.
Public Service Company of New Mexico said nearly 3,000 customers on Santa Fe’s south side were without electric power for more than two hours Friday evening after lightning struck the local power grid. Spokesman Frederick Bermudez said he couldn’t pinpoint where the lightning hit but said it knocked out power from 5:35 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. to 2,916 homes, businesses and institutions in an area bounded by St. Michael’s Drive on the north, Old Galisteo Road on the south, Old Pecos Trail on the east and Entrada de Santiago on the west. Much of Santa Fe was pounded by heavy rain with lightning and sudden high winds late Friday afternoon, suddenly swelling the Santa Fe River and other areas with swift flows of storm water. A driver on St. Michael’s Drive reported seeing thin funnel cloud on the horizon at about 5:45 p.m. “It was probably a dust devil, but we’ve been seeing that a lot this year,” said Brian Guyer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque. “We’ve had some strong winds in Santa Fe today.” Guyer said the peak wind speed recorded at Santa Fe on Friday was 41 mph. Between two-tenths and four-tenths of an inch of rain fell — not a lot by most standards but what Guyer said was the heaviest rain the city has seen so far this summer. “You had a ton of lightning, some around the Plaza and a lot of lighting strikes up in the foothills,” he said. “It’s still dry, so it wouldn’t surprise me if we might see some fires by tomorrow.”
Hundreds of people residing near Beas river have been evacuated to safe places after flash flood caused by torrential rain over Dhundi peaks at south portal of Rohtang tunnel flooded the Seri rivulet, a tributary to Beas river, on Friday at 8pm. People living close to river between Palchan and Kullu are being evacuated and traffic on national highway has been stopped. Till last report received from Palchan (near Dhundi) at 10.30pm, level of the river was rising continuously and police were evacuating the people from Bahang village, 6km from Manali. According to police, there is no report of any casualty. Sandeep Kumar, a resident of Bahang village, said people are trying to save the household accessories amid chaotic atmosphere and conditions have become even worse after power failure. “Everything was normal till late evening but the situation changed suddenly after 8pm when river water, mixed with sludge, started engulfing its banks. People are risking their lives to remove the household stuffs,” he said. An engineer working with a hydel project near Palchan said over phone that roaring sound of river is shaking the foundation of the houses. “Nobody is going to sleep tonight. Villagers have gathered at many places and are guarding the river banks with floodlights,” he said. According to villagers it is a cloudburst which might have caused devastation at its source on mountains. Kullu deputy commissioner Amitabh Awasthi said , police are patrolling the river banks and have directed people to move to safe places. “We have closed the traffic on national highway. We shall keep an eye on the situation throughout the night,” he said.
FLOODS which hit parts of North Korea in the past few weeks have killed 169 people and left 400 missing, the state news agency announced on Saturday, sharply updating earlier casualty figures.
The floods and torrential rain between late June and the end of July also made 212,200 people homeless and washed away or inundated 65,280 hectares of cropland, the agency said.
United Nations agencies have visited the worst-hit areas to assess aid needs and the World Food Program (WFP) is sending an initial shipment of emergency food aid.
North Korea suffered a famine in the 1990s that killed hundreds of thousands and still struggles to feed its people even in normal times.
It had been estimated by UN agencies, even before the current deluge, that three million people would need food aid this year.
More than 8600 houses were destroyed and another 43,770 swamped, and more than 1400 schools, hospitals and factories collapsed, the news agency said.
Official media had previously reported 119 deaths, with 84,000 people made homeless and 45,370ha of farmland damaged.
The WFP said its initial assistance would provide victims with an initial ration of 400 grams of maize a day for 14 days, after the UN assessment mission found considerable damage to maize, soybean and rice fields.
The mission has said immediate food aid is needed for residents of the worst-hit counties such as Anju and Songchon in South Pyongan province and Chonnae in Kangwon province.
It also stressed that tens of thousands of families urgently need clean drinking water to prevent disease.
Wells had been contaminated by overflowing latrines, creating a high risk of a diarrhoea outbreak, while floods had damaged water sources and pumping stations.
Citing North Korean government figures, the UN mission said about 50,000 families would need purification tablets or other help to secure clean water.
The UN children’s fund UNICEF has ordered 10 million tablets along with other materials. Drugs and IV fluids were also badly needed.
The assessment mission said on Thursday a hospital in Chonnae county had already seen a fourfold rise in diarrhoea cases.
“In general, unless … needs are addressed, rapid increase in diarrhoea, skin infection and respiratory infections could occur,” it said in a report.
Outdated and inefficient agricultural practices, along with a shortage of fertiliser and diversion of food to the military, have contributed to the annual food shortages.
Mountainous North Korea is also short of arable land. Widespread deforestation, partly to clear land for crops, has made the impoverished nation increasingly prone to serious flooding which ends up washing away the harvest.
In February, the US reached a deal to offer North Korea 240,000 tonnes of food in return for a freeze on nuclear and missile tests.
But the plan was scrapped after Pyongyang’s failed rocket launch in April, seen by the US and its allies as an attempted ballistic missile test.
At least 10 people admitted to the Sukraraj Tropical and Disease Control Hospital in Nepali capital Kathmandu have tested positive for cholera. The hospital laboratory said Vibrio Cholera belonging to 01 Ogawa stereotype was detected in all the patients. Doctors at hospital attributed the spread of cholera and diarrhea infection in Kathmandu to contaminated water, according to Saturday’s Republica daily. “Most of the patients who came to the hospital said that they had drunk water supplied by Kathmandu Upatyaka Kahanepani Limited without boiling or treatment,” Tulsha Adhikari, a nursing staff said. She said whole families had been infected and some were brought to the hospital by their neighbors as all family members were sick.
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.
Five children in South Waziristan have died from measles during the past week, an official said. “Non-availability of measles vaccines has become a big problem and if the desired vaccines were not made available, the situation could slip out of hand,” Dr. Azmat Hayat Khan, agency surgeon, told Central Asia Online August 3. Measles has affected about 400 children, of whom about 100 were hospitalised, he said. He warned of an outbreak throughout the agency if medics failed to immunise children immediately. Letters regarding the unavailability of measles vaccine have gone to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) directorate of health, he said, expressing hope the vaccine would become available in a few days. The Taliban have refused to allow polio vaccination in areas of South Waziristan they control, endangering more than 157,000 children below age 5, he said. The directorate has received the agency surgeon’s letter and is sending vaccines to South Waziristan, FATA Health Director Dr. Fawad Khan said. “We have also started vaccination in Mohmand, Bajaur and Khyber agencies, where measles had killed several children besides sending hundreds to hospitals,” he said.
Biohazard name:
Measles (fatal)
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.
MessageToEagle.com – Two of three key signs of changes expected to occur at the boundary of interstellar space have changed faster than at any other time in the last seven years, according to new data from NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft.
For the last seven years, Voyager 1 has been exploring the outer layer of the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself.
In one day, on July 28, data from Voyager 1′s cosmic ray instrument showed the level of high-energy cosmic rays originating from outside our solar system jumped by five percent.
During the last half of that same day, the level of lower-energy particles originating from inside our solar system dropped by half.
However, in three days, the levels had recovered to near their previous levels.
A third key sign is the direction of the magnetic field, and scientists are eagerly analyzing the data to see whether that has, indeed, changed direction.
Scientists expect that all three of these signs will have changed when Voyager 1 has crossed into interstellar space.
A preliminary analysis of the latest magnetic field data is expected to be available in the next month.
“These are thrilling times for the Voyager team as we try to understand the quickening pace of changes as Voyager 1 approaches the edge of interstellar space,” said Edward Stone, the Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.
“We are certainly in a new region at the edge of the solar system where things are changing rapidly. But we are not yet able to say that Voyager 1 has entered interstellar space.”
Click on image to enlargeVoyagers in the HeliosheathThis artist’s concept shows NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft exploring a turbulent region of space known as the heliosheath, the outer shell of the bubble of charged particles around our sun. After more than 33 years of travel, the two Voyager spacecraft will soon reach interstellar space, which is the space between stars.
Our sun gives off a stream of charged particles that form a bubble around our solar system known as the heliosphere. The solar wind travels at supersonic speeds until it crosses a shockwave called the termination shock. That part of our solar system is shown in dark blue. Voyager 1 crossed the termination shock in December 2004 and Voyager 2 did so in August 2007.
Beyond the termination shock is the heliosheath, shown in gray, where the solar wind dramatically slows down and heats up. Outside those two areas is territory dominated by the interstellar wind, which is blowing from the left in this image. As the interstellar wind approaches the heliosphere, a bow shock forms, indicated by the bright arc.
The Voyagers were built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which continues to operate both spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Click on image to enlargeBubbles and Cosmic Rays at the Edge of the Solar SystemThe latest data from the Voyager spacecraft indicate the edge of our solar system is much different from what was previously imagined. This resulted in a new computer model that shows the edge of our solar system is not smooth, but filled with a turbulent sea of magnetic bubbles.
The heliospheric boundaries are very important in shielding the inner solar system from the galactic cosmic ray flux. The heliopause, the last region that separates us from the rest of the galaxy, acts more like a membrane that is permeable to galactic cosmic rays than a shield that deflects those energetic particles.
The galactic cosmic rays slowly wander into the heliosphere and can get trapped in the sea of magnetic bubbles. Eventually they access the solar magnetic field lines that connect back to the sun, and can move quickly towards the sun and Earth. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab
The levels of high-energy cosmic ray particles have been increasing for years, but more slowly than they are now.
The last jump — of five percent — took one week in May. The levels of lower-energy particles from inside our solar system have been slowly decreasing for the last two years. Scientists expect that the lower-energy particles will drop close to zero when Voyager 1 finally crosses into interstellar space.
“The increase and the decrease are sharper than we’ve seen before, but that’s also what we said about the May data,” Stone said.
“The data are changing in ways that we didn’t expect, but Voyager has always surprised us with new discoveries.”
Voyager 1, which launched on Sept. 5, 1977, is 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun.
Voyager 2, which launched on Aug. 20, 1977, is close behind, at 9.3 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) from the sun.
“Our two veteran Voyager spacecraft are hale and healthy as they near the 35th anniversary of their launch,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena.
“We know they will cross into interstellar space. It’s just a question of when.” MessageToEagle.com
TEN secondary school teachers at the weekend died of food poisoning, and several others hospitalised in Katsina. Investigations by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) showed that the incident occurred at a workshop organised by the state Ministry of Education for some 650 teachers at Government Day Secondary School (GDSS), Kofar Yan’daka, Katsina. It was gathered that soon after taking their lunch, supplied by a popular corporate caterer on the fateful day, some of the teachers were vomiting and afflicted by diarrhoea, as a result of which they were rushed to the Federal Medical Centre, Katsina and the Police Clinic for medication. Ten of the affected teachers were said to have died as a result of the infection. When contacted, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Alhaji Khalil Musa, said: “I cannot comment on the issue now, because it is yet to be reported to the state government. I don’t want to pre-empt the government on the issue.” The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Abubakar Ibrahim, who confirmed the incident, said that only one teacher died, while 19 others were hospitalised. He said that 12 of the affected teachers had already been discharged from the hospitals, while seven others were still on admission at the Federal Medical Centre and Katsina Police Clinic. He said the police had already collected sample of the food supplied by the caterer for clinical analysis. All the victims are receiving treatment at various medical centres, while officials declined to comment on the number of casualties that were brought to the centres.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Food Poisoning
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.
Agro-pastoralists farmers in Loima District in Turkana County have suffered huge losses on their farms from massive locust invasion in the region. The farmers at Kang’ilita Irrigation Schemes in Loima district have decried the invasion as a major setback to their economic sustainability despite their recent devoted engagements into farming. They said raised fear of low crop yields in the coming harvesting season as a result of the unprecedented invasion. Ms Pauline Nakali, a farmer, said that her farm has been extensively damaged by the locust pest and could hardly think of ways to regain the loss. “We are experiencing big loss of crops to locust invasion and that we expect low yield this season since our farms have been destroyed by the pest,” Ms Nakali said. She appealed to the government and donor partners to intervene and salvage the situation before it goes out of hand. But the Rift Valley Director of Agriculture Leonard Nyambuya told farmers that the Ministry of Agriculture and the development partner Food Agriculture Organizations (FAO) would send experts to tackle the pest. Mr Nyambuya said the ministry and the donor partner will provide insecticide to fight the pest. He said experts from the directorate of crop and pest in the ministry will supply appropriate chemicals and insecticides to get rid of the pests. “We are immediately sending the experts to assess the damage caused by the pest before we swing to action to eradicate it,” Nyambuya said. The director who addressed farmers’ field schools in Kangilita irrigation scheme directed the Field extension officers to assess the damage caused by the pest. The FAO officials Dr Paul Omanga said his organisation would assist the farmers to fight the prevailing pest problems in the area so that farmers achieve good yields.
Biohazard name:
Locust Invasion
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Large numbers of jellyfish have been swarming near nine thermal power plants on Ise Bay. Chubu Electric Power Co. estimates that there are close to 24,000 tons of the sea creatures swimming around the area, twice the usual level and the second-most recorded in the past decade. Measures are being taken to ensure the jellyfish don’t clog the power plants’ water intakes and disrupt their operations. Chubu Electric launched a research project in 1999 to predict the number of jellyfish in Ise Bay. They discovered that most jellyfish larvae transform into polyps in three major areas: near the port of Nagoya; along the coast of the Chita Peninsula from Tokoname to Morozaki, Minamichita, in Aichi Prefecture; and along the coast of the Shima Peninsula from Matsusaka to Toba in Mie Prefecture. Every winter, the research group collects samples of polyps and compares them with past results to predict how many larvae will develop into adult jellyfish in the following year. Last winter’s findings indicated the number this year would be 1.5 to 1.8 times higher than usual. “We don’t know the reason why the number is so high this year, but we need to monitor the situation closely,” said Minoru Hamada, 46, an assistant project manager in Chubu Electric’s technology development department.
If jellyfish block the water intake, a power plant can’t draw enough water from the sea to cool the steam used to turn the turbine, and the plant has to reduce its electricity output. Each plant has adopted various measures, including putting up nets, to stop the jellyfish from swimming too close, but this is only effective when dealing with small numbers. It is not enough to prevent large amounts of jellyfish from swimming in all at once. The number of jellyfish near the thermal power plants usually peaks in July, August and September. However, this year they started gathering around the plants in May, resulting in reduced electricity output at three of the plants for a total of nine days. They were the Hekinan plant in Hekinan, Aichi Prefecture, the Shin-Nagoya plant in Nagoya and the Kawagoe plant in Kawagoe, Mie Prefecture. It’s a pressing problem for Chubu Electric because it has become increasingly dependent on thermal energy since its Hamaoka nuclear plant has been shut down over quake and tsunami fears. “The effect of the jellyfish isn’t fully known yet, but it can have a serious impact on electricity output if they keep increasing, especially during this season when there is high electricity demand,” a Chubu Electric official said. “We need to monitor the jellyfish further and take actions swiftly if necessary.”
Biohazard name:
Jellyfish invasion
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
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As our colleague Marc Szlegat reported on Vulkane.Net, the alert level of the Japanese Kirishima volcano (Kirishimayama) was raised last month”orange”. This is the third out of 4 warning levels and means that an eruption could occur any time.
Last year in March, the Shinmoedake crater of the complex volcano Kirishima had a violent eruption that make the headlines. The volcano is located close to the other volcano currently on orange alert in Kyushu, Sakura-jima, which last week had a stronger explosion that caused ashfall in the nearby city of Kagoshima.
TULSA OK
JACKSON MS
SHREVEPORT LA
JACKSON MS
NORMAN OK
MEMPHIS TN
SHREVEPORT LA
SPRINGFIELD MO
WICHITA KS
AMARILLO TX
ST LOUIS MO
FORT WORTH TX
LITTLE ROCK AR
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Triple-digit heat intensified across Arkansas on Monday, setting records in at least two cities and increasing the danger for wildfires.
Temperatures exceeded 100 in some areas, and are expected to stick around for much of the week. Low humidity also is settling in, increasing the threat for wildfires.
The daytime high reached 111 degrees in Little Rock, which not only broke the date’s record but marked the third-highest temperature ever recorded in the state’s capital city. The previous record for July 30 was 108 degrees in 1986.
Little Rock reached 114 degrees last year on Aug. 3, the city’s hottest day in 132 years of records. The city’s second-highest temperature on record occurred July 31, 1986, when it hit 112 degrees.
Also Monday, a record was set in Jonesboro, where the mercury peaked at 104, a degree higher than the record set in 1986.
National Weather Service senior forecaster Joe Goudsward warned that little relief from the high temperatures is expected soon.
“There will be some scattered thunderstorms pop up in the heat of the day but as far as anything organized or widespread, it’s not expected,” Goudsward said.
An upper-level ridge of high pressure is parked over the region. It’s expected to shift a bit to the west, but it may only shave five or six degrees off daytime highs, Goudsward said. After a brief cool-down, the ridge is forecast to rebuild, he said.
Arkansas’ all-time high is 120 degrees, set in Ozark on Aug. 10, 1936.
The mercury rose to over 30 degrees Celsius for the first time this summer in eastern Finland as meteorologists warned of severe thunderstorms later in the day.
Calm before the storm. Image: Eelis Pulkkinen
The temperature exceeded the 30-degree mark in Tohmajärvi, Lieksa and Juuka in North Karelia, close to the Russian border. But the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) says that a cooler weather front has already arrived in western Finland and will start moving eastwards soon, making the current heatwave quite short-lived. More storms thunder in Severe thunderstorms are expected to whip up very strong wind gusts on Monday, warns the FMI. Winds may reach speeds of 25 metres per second in North Ostrobothnia and western Finland, and elsewhere in the country gusts of some 15 m/s are expected. Additionally, heavy rainfall is forecast for various parts of Finland on Monday. Thunderstorms left thousands without electricity in different parts of Finland on Sunday. Most of them had been fixed by Monday afternoon. At 1pm, some 200 Fortum customers were still without power. Elenia (formerly known as Vattenfall) had about 1,200 customers without service at that time.
Italian dairy cattle are producing 10 percent less milk because of a heat wave, even as
farmers take steps to cool the animals including showers and fans, Coldiretti said.
Corn, tomato, beet and sunflower crops have been damaged across the country and some areas
have received no rain for months, the Rome-based agricultural union said in an e-mailed statement today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris at rruitenberg@bloomberg.ne
The National Weather Forecaster has extended a Code Yellow warning of heat till Monday for southern and eastern Romania, Bucharest included, while downpours and thunderstorms are expected in the country's West, Center and North starting Sunday night.According to a weather warning issued by the Forecaster on Sunday, the high temperatures at between 35 and 37 degrees Celsius will keep on in southern and eastern Romania and will even hit 38 C in some cities.
Russia is currently in the grips of an extremely strong heat wave. City and town residents are suffocating from the sweltering heat. For example, it is about 30 degrees in Moscow with prospects of the thermometer going up in the next few days. The heat wave situation is aggravated by wild fires producing clods of poisonous smoke. The wood rich Siberian taiga near Krasnoyarsk is fighting 83 fires on the territory of 12.130 hectares. As for rural Russia, that only last year was the world’s third-biggest grain producer, it suffers colossal damages. It threats to destroy a significant part of the crops. If last year’s harvest amounted to 94 million tons, this year it is a predicted at 80 to 85 million. Given the situation, earlier in July the Agriculture Ministry had to revise its harvest predictions.
As Rossiyskaya Gazeta writes, the hardest hit are the important grain-producing areas including Kuban, Stavropol, Volgograd, Volga, Rostov-on-Don, Lipetsk, Penza, Ulyanovsk, Kurgan and Altai. Nevertheless, Arkady Zlochevsky, president of the Russian Grain Union thinks that “The risks are there, but then there is a chance to avoid them.” Zlochevksy added that there will be 85 million tons of crops and the size of the harvest would depend on the weather. With the leftover stocks from previous harvests, the export potential will then be about 18-20 million tons. Although this is less than last year, when the country exported more than 26 million tons, it is still better than 2010, when the droughts and wild fires in Russia ruined about a third of all the grain harvested and the country had to impose an embargo on grain exports. The area of Russia’s irrigated fields is about 2.5 million hectares, and Russia has 44 million hectares of land under spring crops this year. “The biggest losses are not caused by the weather, it is rather the failure to comply with production rules in bad weather,” said Zlochevsky.
On the other hand Oleg Sukhanov, head of the market analysis unit at the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, thinks that Russia may gather in only 77 million tons of grain. And, Sukhanov said, “that is not the worst-case scenario.”
His forecast is worrisome as Russia’s annual domestic consumption amounts to 67 million to 72 million tons. As is expected this year Russia may consume up to 68.5 million tons of grain and so, considering the remaining stocks from previous years, Sukhanov’s institute colleagues are putting the Russian grain export potential this year at a mere 13.5 million tons.
If so, that would be all we will be able to sell to our traditional buyers of grain in the Middle East and North Africa, and some Southeast Asian countries that joined them last year. “But this is not a long-term trend. Next season, Russia might have a good crop and again become a leader among world grain exporters,” Sukhanov said.
Despite the poor forecast for this year, Russia has ambitious plans for increasing its grain exports. The new edition of the national program for development of agriculture for 2013-2020, adopted in early July, set a target of a 115-million-ton grain harvest by 2020, which should bring Russia within reach of the United States, the traditional leader on the global grain market.
The current Russian predicament begins to tell on the world prices. Although there is no acute grain shortage in the world, other major grain producers, including the United States, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and China, are experiencing some problems. Forecasts in these countries account for the current high grain prices, about $330 per ton of food wheat. Sukhanov believes global grain prices could rise by another 10 percent before the year is out.
However, our experts do not believe that this will make a big difference in the prices of bread, meat and other staples because the share of grain in the end product is small. For example, in Russia, grain accounts for only 23 percent of a loaf of white bread.
So, as the saying in Russia went some 20 years ago, “the fight for the harvest is going on.”
A fire north of Stanley in the Salmon/Challis Forest on the border of the Frank Church Wilderness of No Return continues to grow after it sparked Friday. U.S. Forest Service officials say the Halstead Fire is now threatening several campgrounds, as well as a local boy scout camp. The exact location of the fire is about 15 miles north of Stanley, between Beaver Creek and Marsh Creek near Seafoam Lake. Officials say lightning started the fire on Friday, and it has now grown to at least 60 acres. Several nearby campgrounds have been evacuated. The Bradley Boy Scout Camp is also in the area. Two-hundred scouts have been evacuated and the camp has been shut down for around 200 more scouts who were set to go to the camp this week. Officials from the U.S. Forest Service Regional Office in Salmon, Idaho, say one heavy-attack firefighting helicopter is currently battling the flames. Several fire crews, including two USFS hotshot crews, two USFS hand crews, and several smoke jumpers are standing-by to protect nearby camp-grounds and homes.
An evacuation alert has been issued for approximately 50 properties in the Wilson’s Landing area of West Kelowna, B.C., after a wildfire jumped a fireguard late Sunday night. The fire was sparked by lightning on Friday and was declared contained by noon on Sunday. However, on Sunday night winds in the area picked up and fanned the flames and on Monday morning officials said what was a fire of 4.4 hectares had grown to 30 hectares, and was only 20 per cent contained. “Crews have been on site overnight working hard to re-establish containment lines where it was safe to do so. The fire spread is southward and towards Westside Road. At this time Westside Road is closed for the safety of the public,” said a statement issued by the Forest Service. Early Monday morning, officials with the Regional District of Central Okanagan issued an evacuation alert for 40 to 50 homes in the Jenny Creek subdivision — and those along Blue Grouse Road, Browse Road and parts of Westside Road, all in the Wilson’s Landing area of West Kelowna. Residents are being urged to be ready to leave their homes on short notice. The fire has also closed a 14-kilometre section of Westside Road from Bear Creek Road to Browse Road, as fire crews carry out a controlled burn. “It’s right adjacent the road right now. Our crews are currently actively burning the fuels between the road and that fire, and they’re using Westside Road as a natural fire guard,” said fire information officer Michaela Swan. There’s no word when Westside Road will re-open. Residents are being asked to detour north through Vernon to get to Kelowna. About 25 firefighters, two helicopters and two air tankers are fighting the flames.
Wildfires burned across the state Sunday, with one blaze threatening about100 homes in Pottawatomie County. The fire, which started Sunday afternoon about two miles northwest of Earlsboro, was encroaching upon structures, and a mandatory evacuation order was put into effect, state emergency management spokeswoman Keli Cain said. The Pottawatomie County sheriff’s office said about 30 homes were evacuated in the town about 50 miles east of Oklahoma City. By 9:30 p.m., people were allowed to return to their homes and some firefighters were being allowed to leave the scene, Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth said. “The fire is contained, but not out,” Booth said. There were no reports of injuries or homes lost to the fire on Sunday. The fire had scorched across about 1,300 acres before being contained, Cain said. Firefighting resources were brought in from Cleveland County, and an Oklahoma National Guard helicopter made water drops, she said.
By Michelle Manchir, Chicago Tribune reporterJuly 27, 2012
More than 95 percent of Illinois is in a severe drought or worse, according to a national report Thursday that increased concerns about how the hot, dry summer is affecting farming.Most of Cook County is in a moderate drought, and other parts of the Chicago area are suffering through severe drought. But the central and southern portions of Illinois are experiencing even worse conditions that are classified as extreme or exceptional, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center.Surrounding states, especially Missouri and Indiana, have also been hit hard, with 55.5 percent of the Midwest experiencing at least a severe drought, compared with 45.6 percent of the country.The drought center’s new report doesn’t take into account the bit of rain the Chicago area received this week — about 0.55 inch fell at O’Hare International Airport on Tuesday and Wednesday — but it would take 3 inches or more to have made any significant improvement, said drought center climatologist Brian Fuchs.”In a lot of places in Illinois, this is the worst they remember,” said Emerson Nafziger, a professor of crop sciences at the University of Illinois.
About 66 percent of the state’s corn crop is in poor to very poor condition, according to a report his week from the Illinois Department of Agriculture. In states that are major producers of corn nationwide, about 45 percent of the corn is poor or worse, though the total produced this year won’t be known until after September, when harvesting begins, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During the same time last year, only 14 percent of corn crops nationwide were considered poor.
“We’re sitting here, watching the sky; it looks like it could rain,” Nafziger said in by telephone from near Vandalia. “People are kind of pessimistic.”
Nationally, almost 40 percent of agricultural land is experiencing at least a severe drought, which makes the 2012 drought more extensive than any other since the 1950s, according to the USDA.
Illinois Climatologist Jim Angel said July’s heat and lack of rain could make this drought its worst on record, especially because all across the state, farmers’ soil is showing signs of having very little moisture, something essential for plant health.
“In a normal season we rely on soil moisture to get you through August, but we don’t have that,” Angel said.
Less corn production usually means higher food prices, according to the USDA, though the full effect of a sparse corn harvest wouldn’t move through to grocery stores until at least 10 months from now. But grocery shoppers could see the price of chicken or eggs and other meats increase sooner than that, since farmers often scale back on their livestock when the cost of corn feed is high, which can happen when corn production is low, Nafziger said.
Still, some say there’s room for optimism. Angel said long-term forecasts show an increased chance of above-normal precipitation and more normal temperatures over the next two weeks. The heat and dry weather looks to be shifting to the west, maybe making the Midwest a little wetter and milder, Angel said.
CORVALLIS, Oregon, July 30, 2012 (ENS) – The climate’s “new normal” for most of the coming century will parallel the long-term drought that hit western North America from 2000 to 2004 – the most severe drought in 800 years – scientists report in a study published Sunday.
“The severity and incidence of climatic extremes, including drought, have increased as a result of climate warming,” the researchers said, adding that these long-term trends are consistent with a 21st century “megadrought.”
Crops and forests died and river basins dried, but as bad as conditions were during the 2000-04 drought, in the future they may be seen as the good old days, a group of 10 researchers warned Sunday in the journal “Nature Geoscience.”
Pinyon pine forests near Los Alamos, New Mexico, had begun to turn brown from drought stress in 2002, left. Another photo taken in 2004 from the same vantage point, right, show them grey and dead. (Photo by Craig Allen, U.S. Geological Survey)
Climate models and precipitation projections indicate this period will be closer to the “wet end” of a drier hydroclimate during the last half of the 21st century, the scientists said.
“Climatic extremes such as this will cause more large-scale droughts and forest mortality, and the ability of vegetation to sequester carbon is going to decline,” said Beverly Law, a co-author of the study, professor of global change biology and terrestrial systems science at Oregon State University, and former science director of AmeriFlux, an ecosystem observation network.
The 2000-04 drought had the effect of amplifying climate change as vegetation withered and could no longer take up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
This drought cut carbon sequestration by an average of 51 percent in the western United States, Canada and Mexico, the scientists calculate, although some areas were hit much harder than others. As the plants died, they released more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with the effect of amplifying global warming.
“During this drought, carbon sequestration from this region was reduced by half,” Law said. “That’s a huge drop. And if global carbon emissions don’t come down, the future will be even worse.”
The effects are driven by human-caused increases in temperature, with associated lower soil moisture and decreased runoff in all major water basins of the western United States, researchers said in the study.
Drought has affected Colorado farm lands near Strasburg, Colorado, July 21, 2012. (Photo by Lance Cheung, USDA)
It is not clear whether or not the current drought in the West and Midwest, now being called one of the worst since the Dust Bowl, is related to these same forces, Law said. This study did not address that, and there are some climate mechanisms in western North America that affect that region more than other parts of the country.
But in the West, this multi-year drought was unlike anything seen in many centuries, based on tree ring data. The last two periods with drought events of similar severity were in the Middle Ages, from 977-981 and 1146-1151. The 2000-04 drought affected precipitation, soil moisture, river levels, crops, forests and grasslands.
One person has died in flooding caused by tropical storm Saola in the central Philippines. Torrential rain brought on by the storm and the south-west monsoon have caused more flooding and landslides in the central and northern Philippines. Landslides have been reported in the mountainous Cordillera region while flood waters have swamped communities in the capital Manila and several nearby provinces. Hundreds of families have been evacuated, with rain on Sunday night causing three major dams to spill over. In the country’s northern and central provinces, five ships have run aground with rescue operations ongoing to bring passengers ashore. Over the weekend, rain blanketed most of the Philippines, forcing the cancellation of at least 13 domestic flights. Tropical storm Saola is now moving northwest towards China.
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Haboob in Phoenix, Arizona July 2012 at Mission Community Church
Phoenix covered in blanket of dust for second time in a week as massive cloud rolls in from desert
A second cloud of yellow in less than a week overwhelmed suburban Phoenix on Sunday, mixing with torrential rains and gusty winds that wreaked havoc on midday traffic in the area.
The thick wall of dust, known as a haboob, which is Arabic for ‘strong wind,’ was seen making its way through the town of Laveen about eight miles southwest of downtown Phoenix.
The greater Phoenix area and northwest and north central Pinal County were under a dust storm warning that expired at 7pm on Sunday.
Second coming: A large dust cloud was seen making its way through the Phoenix suburb of Laveen on Sunday
This comes just days after an enormous dust cloud measuring around 2,000 feet tall and almost 100km wide swept over the city, traveling at 35mph. The dust cut power to some 9,000 homes and caused disruptions at the local airport.
Caused by Arizona’s monsoon season which begins in early June and runs through till the end of September, haboob’s only occur in Africa, the Middle East, Australia and Phoenix, Arizona.
Known as the granddaddy of dust storms, the haboob is a rare event and is caused by loose dust being blown upwards in the absence of rain and collecting skywards where it is then propelled by another more distant thunderstorm brewing behind it.
Despite some of the 1.5 million residents of Phoenix objecting to the term haboob being used, meteorologists in the city confirmed that they have been using the Arabic word to describe the massive dust storms for over 30 years.
‘I think what’s going on is that we’ve had a higher frequency of stronger dust storms over the last couple of years and the term has been in play much more because of that,’ said Ken Waters of the Phoenix National Weather Service office to KPHO.
Blowing gusts of up to 50 mph at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, the haboob is destructive because of the fine dust particles that manage to permeate everywhere during the storm.
The 2,000 foot tall haboob cloud covers the city of Phoenix, Arizona cutting power to 9,000 homes
The haboob phenomenon affects Phoenix during the months of June through September which is Arizona’s monsoon season
The monsoon is here as the weather caused damage and traffic delays due to flooding all over the Valley. Washes in Queen Creek were raging Sunday while deputies tried to manage all the road closures. Part of Hunt Highway was shut down between Gary and Ellsworth roads as the water washed out debris from an abandoned storehouse. Crews cleaned up layers of mud off of Elliot near Ellsworth Sunday night. That road opened up just before 10 p.m. Even the little kids had it all figured out in Fountain Hills, as one 4-year-old told us, “They are cutting the tree so cars can move.” Near Calaveras and Yerba Buena roads, crews worked to clean up a tree that just barely missed hitting cars or houses. “All of a sudden we looked out the front and the tree just went crashing,” said Katherine Gratz. “It is kind of sad. It’s probably been here 70 years, the neighbors say,” said another neighbor, Hayden Bronte. We’re told four other households had to evacuate just around the corner from where the tree fell after the winds toppled some power poles. “It was as if the storm moved over the top of like this street and sat and it was like almost tornado force winds. It was insane,” said Ruth Woody, who evacuated her home Sunday afternoon. Another pine tree in the same area completely uprooted. Two palm trees were holding up the top of the pine while its roots stood more than five feet out of the ground.
Heavy rains in central and eastern Costa Rica have triggered floods that have forced evacuations and may be responsible for at least one death, relief workers said Sunday. Four people are missing, down from eight earlier, according to Freddy Roman, a spokesman for the local Red Cross. The government has declared a “yellow alert” in various parts of Cartago, a central province where one person was reported dead, said Roman. The person was rescued after a landslide, but died on the way to the hospital from injuries and heart failure, he said. A yellow alert is also in effect for parts of Limon, an eastern province. More than 1,500 people have taken refuge at shelters and others are waiting to be rescued, according to the Red Cross. “We have reports of people trapped in their houses that have been flooded by overflow from the Chirripo River, also of several communities that are isolated in other parts of Limon,” said Guillermo Arroyo, director of operations of the Costa Rican Red Cross. Heavy rain is typical this time of year in Costa Rica, where the rainy season runs roughly from May-November.
(CNN) — Heavy rains in central and eastern Costa Rica have triggered floods that have forced evacuations and may be responsible for at least one death, relief workers said Sunday.
Four people are missing, down from eight earlier, according to Freddy Roman, a spokesman for the local Red Cross.
The government has declared a “yellow alert” in various parts of Cartago, a central province where one person was reported dead, said Roman. The person was rescued after a landslide, but died on the way to the hospital from injuries and heart failure, he said.
A yellow alert is also in effect for parts of Limon, an eastern province.
More than 1,500 people have taken refuge at shelters and others are waiting to be rescued, according to the Red Cross.
“We have reports of people trapped in their houses that have been flooded by overflow from the Chirripo River, also of several communities that are isolated in other parts of Limon,” said Guillermo Arroyo, director of operations of the Costa Rican Red Cross.
Heavy rain is typical this time of year in Costa Rica, where the rainy season runs roughly from May-November.
A South Korean nuclear reactor went into automatic shutdown on Monday apparently after a malfunction, plant operators said, while ruling out a possible radiation leak. The 1,000-megawatt reactor at Yeonggwang some 260 kilometres (156 miles) south of Seoul halted operations after warning signals around 3:00 pm (0600 GMT), the state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power said. An investigation was under way to determine the cause of the shutdown, it said, adding there was no danger of a radiation leak. A warning signal and automatic shutdown can be triggered by a number of factors including malfunctions in the cooling pump, Yonhap news agency said. South Korea operates 22 reactors, which meet about 35 percent of its electricity needs. In February the country’s oldest nuclear plant at Gori, built in 1978 near the southern city of Busan, briefly lost mains power and the emergency generator failed to kick in. The incident resulted in no radioactive leaks but sparked an extensive probe amid concerns over nuclear safety following last year’s atomic crisis in Japan. In May, five engineers at Gori were charged with trying to cover up the potentially dangerous power failure and in July 32 people were charged with corruption involving the state nuclear power agency and its contracts with suppliers. A nuclear safety agency approved the restart of the Gori plant this month, but it has yet to resume operations due to protests by civic groups.
TERRIFIED PATIENTS fled from a hospital in western Uganda as soon as news broke that a mysterious illness that killed at least 14 people in the region was Ebola, one of the world’s most virulent diseases.
Ignatius Besisira, a member of parliament for Buyaga East County in the Kibaale district, said people had at first believed the unexplained deaths were related to witchcraft.
“Immediately, when there was confirmation that it was Ebola . . . patients ran out of Kagadi hospital [where some of the victims had died],” he said. “Even the medical officers are very, very frightened.”
Government officials and a World Health Organisation representative confirmed the Ebola outbreak at a news conference in Kampala on Saturday.
“Laboratory investigations done at the Uganda Virus Research Institute . . . have confirmed that the strange disease reported in Kibaale is indeed Ebola haemorrhagic fever,” they said in a joint statement.
Health officials said at least 20 people had been infected and of those 14 had died.
There is no treatment or vaccine against Ebola, which is transmitted by close personal contact and, depending on the strain, can kill up to 90 per cent of those who contract the virus.
It has a devastating history in Uganda, where in 2000 at least 425 people were infected, of whom more than half died. Ebola was previously reported in the country in May last year, when it killed a 12-year-old girl.
During an outbreak in 2007, which claimed at least 37 lives, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni advised people not to shake hands and public gatherings were also discouraged.
One of those who succumbed to the outbreak in Kibaale was a clinical officer, Mr Besisira said. The other fatalities came from a single household in Nyamarunda subdistrict, he added.
Joaquim Saweka, WHO’s representative in Uganda, said the suspected infections emerged in the region in early July but the confirmation came only on Friday.
The Ugandan government said a national emergency taskforce had been set up and urged the population to remain calm. The government, WHO and the US Centres for Disease Control have sent experts to Kibaale to tackle the outbreak.
Mr Besisira had not heard of people moving out of the region, but the Daily Nation newspaper in neighbouring Kenya said yesterday that people were leaving the area around Kagadi town, where the disease first appeared. – (Guardian service)
Ebola, one of the world’s deadliest viruses, has been confirmed in Uganda, where 14 people have already died from what health officials were calling a mysterious illness. The illness was not immediately described as Ebola because patients were not showing the typical signs of the lethal disease, the nation’s health minister told CNN on Sunday. After news of the virus broke, a team of health experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ugandan government were deployed to the area to begin emergency response measures, according to a government statement. The experts discovered the strain was Ebola Sudan, one of the most common strains of the virus. This particular strain has been associated with a 70 percent mortality rate in recent years. The virus manifests as a hemorrhagic fever. The last severe outbreak occurred in 2000, killing 224 people in Uganda. It was first reported in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the CDC. The strange disease was first reported in the area several weeks ago, according to a government statement.Ignatius Besisira, an MP for Buyaga East County in the Kibaale district, said people first believed the unexplained deaths were from witchcraft. “Immediately, when there was confirmation that it was Ebola … patients ran out of Kagadi hospital (where some of the victims had died),” Besisira told the Guardian. “Even the medical officers are very, very frightened.” Lab tests confirmed the illness was Ebola hemorrhagic fever. A baby from the village of Nyanswiga was the first confirmed death and so far 14 of some 20 that are known to have been infected have died. A clinical officer who treated the original case also fell ill and died soon afterward. Her four-month-old baby, admitted for treatment last Monday, died four days later. The clinical officer’s sister, who took care of the baby when she became ill, has been admitted for treatment with similar symptoms, but is currently in stable condition, the government statement said. There is no treatment or vaccine against Ebola, which is transmitted through close contact and, depending on the strain, can kill up to 90 percent of those who contract the virus. While Ebola outbreaks occur every few years, the virus’s delicate composition has so far impeded a significant, long-duration attack. But much about the disease remains a mystery.The CDC has a team of scientists stationed at a Ugandan laboratory who study Ebola and other deadly viruses that are often found in equatorial Africa. Ebola is among a list of viruses highlighted by the US as a potential biological-weapons threat. Officials are currently trying to determine the extent of the outbreak, CDC spokesman Tom Skinner told CNN.com on Sunday. “These outbreaks have a tendency to stamp themselves out, if you will, if we can get in and … stop the chain of transmission,” he explained. Health officials are urging area residents to report any suspected cases and avoid contact with anyone who has contracted the virus and to disinfect bedding and clothing of an infected person by using protective gloves and masks. They also advise against eating dead animals, especially monkeys, and to avoid public gatherings if at all possible. Despite the ongoing threat, the WHO said in its statement that it does not recommend travel restrictions to Uganda because of the outbreak. Besisira said officials in Kibaale had released radio broadcasts outlining the precautionary measures on Saturday. “We have assured (the people) that we have a very strong team … who are making sure the disease is controlled … I am very confident we can contain it,” he added. While there are no reports of people moving out of the region, the Daily Nation newspaper in Kenya said on Sunday that people were leaving the area around Kagadi town, where the disease first appeared. “We have to move to safer places because we can easily get infected by this disease here,” the paper quoted a resident, Omuhereza Kugonza, as saying. Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with the body fluids and tissues of infected persons. It can also be transmitted by handling sick or dead infected wild animals, such as chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, forest antelope and fruit bats. Symptoms include sudden fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rashes, impaired kidney and liver function and bleeding.
The number of gastro entritis cases has gone up to 132 at Dasuya in Punjab where spread of cholera and gastro enteritis cases was reported in some districts. Out of these, 86 have been discharged after treatment, a senior medical officer said today. Yesterday, the number of gastro patients admitted to the civil hospital at Dasuya was 117. Meanwhile, three serious patients were referred to Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences, Jalandhar, Dr Naresh Kansra, senior medical officer (SMO) of the Dasuya Civil Hospital said today. An increase in the number of gastro patients has been witnessed at Dasuya in the past few days. Director family welfare Punjab Karnjit Singh and state surveillance officer Deepak Bhatia inspected the areas of Dasuya town affected by gastroenteritis and also went to the hospital to meet the patients. Over 4000 chlorine tablets were distributed among the people of the area.
Biohazard name:
Cholera and gastroenteritis diseases
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.
Lunchtime Sunday at the Ateneo de Davao University (ADDU) turned bad after at least 100 students had to be rushed to area hospitals after suffering a nasty bout of food poisoning. According to an Ateneo de Davao University press statement Sunday: “A number of students, staff and administrators were rushed to the hospital a few hours after lunch after they complained of upset stomach with bouts of vomiting. Administrators and staff were dispatched to assist students in the hospitals. Some of the students were confined, majority were sent home after they were checked by doctors and administered the appropriate medications.” The Philippine news source, Interaksyon reports Sunday, the students were attending the student leaders gathering – called Sui Generis – with ADDU President Fr. Joel Tabora. The gathering of students ate lunch at the school around 12:30 pm. The menu included chicken adobo, pancit, fish , rice and buco salad. A couple of hours later, students starting getting sick, showing food poisoning symptoms such as nausea and vomiting. Chair of the student council Samahan, Mureene Ann Villamor told Interaksyon reporters that the chicken adobo “smelled terrible.” On the Facebook page of the student paper, Atenews, there are several posts about the outbreak including a photo of the implicated food, chicken adobo (or adobong manok ) by photographer Caycee Coronel. Students were taken to Davao Doctors Hospital and San Pedro Hospital or treatment. The etiologic agent of the outbreak has yet to be determined.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Food Poisoning
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.
Wildlife experts are shocked at the recent mass-death of wild peacocks fearing it may be an outbreak of the highly contagious Newcastle disease. At least 60 peacocks were found perished in the Thar desert in southern Pakistan, officials have confirmed, but local media reports say hundreds of the exotic birds have died. Newcastle disease, which has nothing to do with Cheryl Cole or Brown Ale, is the deadliest of all viruses spread among birds. The Pakistani wildlife ministry said tests were being done to determine cause of death, but experts are suspecting they may have been afflicted with Newcastle disease, known locally as ‘ranikhet’. A spokesperson said the wild peacocks had been weakened by starvation, deforestation and a lack of safe drinking water blamed on delays to the annual monsoon rains. Lajpat Sharma, an official in the provincial wildlife ministry said: ‘Wild peacocks have become susceptible to bacterial and fungal attack, which further suppressed the immunity of the birds that paved the room for viral attack.
Biohazard name:
Newcastle disease
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.
Symptoms:
Status:
confirmed
30.07.2012
Environment Pollution
USA
State of Wisconsin, [Wisconsin Dells, Adams County]
Crews will begin Monday, July 30, to replace part of a crude oil pipeline that leaked 1,200 barrels of oil in a field north of Wisconsin Dells in Adams County. Enbridge Energy could not say what caused the spill or when the line from Superior to Chicago will start operating again. The leak happened on Friday in the town of Grand Marsh. Enbridge officials said it was discovered very quickly. They said most of it was contained to the company’s right of way. The pipeline sends about 318,000 gallons per day of light crude oil from Superior to refineries in the Chicago area. Two similar pipelines along that route resumed operations on Saturday, once it was learned that they were not affected by the spill. A third line was expected to re-open right after that. Meanwhile, repairs began Saturday on the broken pipeline. Enbridge said two Grand Marsh landowners were affected, and one family was relocated for its safety. Oil was found on two small farm ponds, but drinking water wells were not affected. Federal officials said all of the pooled oil had been cleaned up. Reuters said the impact on Chicago’s oil refiners would depend on how long the pipeline’s out and how much oil the refineries have in reserve. The spill came at a poor time for Enbridge, which had another pipeline leak in Alberta, Canada, last month. The firm was the subject of a critical government report on its handling of a ruptured pipeline in Michigan in 2010 that was not noticed for 17 hours.
Dozens of wild peacocks have died suddenly in Pakistan, prompting experts to fear an outbreak of the highly contagious Newcastle disease.
Officials on Monday confirmed the deaths of at least 60 peacocks in Thar desert, part of southern Sindh province, over the last week. Local media reports say more than 100 of the exotic birds have died.
The wildlife ministry said tests were being done to diagnose the cause of death, but said the wild peacocks had been weakened by starvation, deforestation and a lack of safe drinking water blamed on delays to the annual monsoon rains.
“Wild peacocks have become susceptible to bacterial and fungal attack, which further suppressed the immunity of the birds that paved the room for viral attack,” it said.
Experts are alarmed by the number of deaths, suspecting they may have been afflicted with Newcastle disease, known locally as ranikhet.
“We are vaccinating wild peacocks protectively for suspected viral disease, as in 2003 when a few peacocks died from the same symptoms that later proved to be ranikhet,” said Lajpat Sharma, an official in the provincial wildlife ministry.
Tahir Qureshi of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) also told AFP that he suspected ranikhet was to blame.
Newcastle disease is a worldwide problem among birds and sporadic outbreaks can occur frequently. Affected birds suffer from loss of appetite, coughing, sneezing, diarrhoea, and in severe outbreaks a high proportion die.
The wildlife ministry said it was supplying fresh water to peacocks in affected areas.
Sharma said there are at least 30,000 wild peacocks in the Thar desert, but Qureshi said the numbers were declining, because of poaching and lack of effective conservation.
Seven states in North India have been facing a long power cut since late Sunday night. Due to a massive breakdown in the northern grid, the main power source for the affected states, there has been a massive power outage. The affected states are Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. There is no power in Delhi and its neighbouring states since 2 am reports IBN-Live. According to the report, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said that it’ll take another one and a half hour’s time to restore power. “My officers are on the spot. The fault is found near Agra. It will be corrected in one and a half hour time,” he said. Thousands of commuters in the Delhi Metro will face a harrowing time on Monday morning as services of all the lines of the Metro have been disrupted due to tripping of power supply. Train services on the 190-km Metro network connecting length and breath of the national capital were affected due to The Northern Grid failure also caused power cuts in large parts of Delhi. “Metro service will not be available today (Monday) till the supply is restored as it is a major Northern Grid power failure,” a Delhi Metro official said. The Delhi Metro normally operates over 2,700 trips a day, covering about 70,000 km and carrying around 1.8 million passengers on week days.
A massive power cut has caused disruption across northern India, including in the capital, Delhi.
It hit a swathe of the country affecting more than 300 million people in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan states.
Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said most of the supply had been restored and the rest would be reinstated soon.
It is unclear why the supply collapsed but reports say some states may have been using more power than authorised.
Mr Shinde said he had appointed a committee to inquire into the causes of the blackout, one of the worst to hit the country in more than a decade. The committee will submit its report within 15 days, he said.
The power cut happened at 02:30 local time on Monday (2100 GMT Sunday) after India’s Northern Grid network collapsed.
Mr Shinde told the BBC that he had been informed about the problem at 05:30.
Monday’s massive power cut is reportedly the first of its kind in more than a decade, affecting nearly 30% of India’s population in nine northern states. At the root of this is the severe energy crisis facing India today.
The country is facing a huge supply shortfall this summer. A shortage of coal (most of India’s energy is thermal), loss-making state electricity boards, the theft of power, a lack of transparency in fixing electricity charges and underperforming private distribution agencies mean that vast swathes of India live without electricity for several hours a day.
PM Manmohan Singh pushed through the civilian nuclear deal with the US to help meet India’s soaring energy but plans to set up new reactors have been embroiled in controversies about safety and the acquisition of land.
“Within two hours we tried to restore the railways, airport and Delhi Metro services and power supply to essential services, including the railways and hospitals, was restored by 08:00.”
The minister said the exact reason for the collapse had not yet been pinpointed but, in the summer, “states try to take more power from the grid” and at the time of the collapse, the grid frequency was “above normal”.
“That is one of the reasons why the grid failed,” he said.
By early afternoon, 80% of the supply had been restored, Mr Shinde said.
‘Worried’
Monday morning saw travel chaos engulf the region, with thousands of passengers stranded when train services were disrupted in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.
The Rajdhani train from Jammu to Delhi was more than five hours late.
“The train stopped near Panipat station [in Haryana] at about 02:30. For a long time we had no idea what was holding us up,” passenger DK Rajdan said.
“Rajdhani is air-conditioned so it was not uncomfortable. But for six or seven hours we couldn’t get anything to eat or drink and people were beginning to get worried,” he said.
Delhi Metro railway services were stalled for three hours, although the network later resumed when it received back-up power from Bhutan, one official said.
Traffic lights on the streets of the capital were not functioning as early morning commuters made their way into work, leading to gridlock.
Water treatment plants in the city also had to be shut for a few hours.
Officials said restoring services to hospitals and transport systems were a priority.
Power cuts are a common occurrence in Indian cities because of a fundamental shortage of power and an ageing grid. The chaos caused by such cuts has led to protests and unrest on the streets.
Earlier in July, crowds in the Delhi suburb of Gurgaon blocked traffic and clashed with police after blackouts there.
Correspondents say that India urgently needs a huge increase in power production, as hundreds of millions of its people are not even connected to the national grid.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has long said that India must look to nuclear energy to supply power to the people.
Estimates say that nuclear energy contributes only 3% to the country’s current power supply. But the construction of some proposed nuclear power stations have been stalled by intense local opposition.
NEW DELHI (AP) — A power grid failure blacked out northern India for hours Monday, halting trains, forcing hospitals and airports onto backup power and providing a dark, sweltering reminder of the nation’s inability to meet its energy needs as it strives to be an economic power.
While the midsummer outage was unique in its reach — it hit 370 million people, more than the population of the United States and Canada combined — its impact was softened by Indians’ familiarity with almost daily blackouts of varying duration. Hospitals and major businesses have backup generators that seamlessly kick in during power cuts, and upscale homes are hooked to backup systems powered by truck batteries.
Nonetheless, some small businesses were forced to shut for the day. Buildings were without water because the pumps weren’t working, and the vaunted New Delhi Metro, with 1.8 million daily riders, was paralyzed during the morning commute.
“This will obviously get worse,” said Subhash Chawla, a 65-year-old retiree who took the Metro once power was restored. “Unless the Metro has a separate power supply, it will be chaos in the future.”
The grid that failed feeds the nation’s breadbasket in Punjab, the war-wracked region of Kashmir, the burgeoning capital of New Delhi, the Dalai Lama’s Himalayan headquarters in Dharmsala, and the world’s most populous state, poverty-stricken Uttar Pradesh.
Most affected areas had power back by late morning, less than nine hours after the outage started. By evening, 15 hours after the outage began, officials said full power had been restored.
Many chafed at the inconvenience.
Amit Naik, a toy maker in New Delhi, was forced to close his workshop for the day.
“There was no water, so my machine couldn’t run. Other people had the same difficulties,” he said.
The Confederation of Indian Industry said the outage was a reminder of the urgent need for the government to fix the power sector, ensure a steady supply of coal for power plants and reform the electricity utilities.
Transmission and distribution losses in some states are as much as 50 percent because of theft and corruption by employees in the power industry. India’s Central Electricity Authority reported power deficits of about 8 percent in recent months.
Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde deflected criticism, pointing out that the United States and Brazil also had huge power failures in recent years.
“I ask you to look at the power situation in other countries as well,” he said.
The blackout, the worst to hit India in a decade, began about 2:30 a.m. when the grid covering eight northern states crashed. Officials in Uttar Pradesh, where the problem was believed to have begun, said the grid could not keep up with the huge demand for power in the hot summer.
But Shinde said he was not sure exactly what caused the collapse and had formed a committee to investigate.
The outage left millions sweltering in the summer heat. Muslim families were forced to eat their pre-dawn meals by candlelight before beginning their daytime Ramadan fast. “It was really difficult,” said farmer Mohammed Zaman.
As officials struggled to get the grid back on line, they drew power from the neighboring eastern and western grids as well as hydroelectric power from the small neighboring mountain kingdom of Bhutan.
New Delhi residents were roused from sleep when their fans and air conditioners stopped, and came out of their homes in the heat as the entire city turned dark. Temperatures in the city were in the mid-30s C (90s F) with 89 percent humidity.
Some trains across the northern region were stranded when their electric engines failed. Others were delayed by hours as they were hooked to diesel engines.
The failure was the first time since 2001 that the northern grid had collapsed. But India’s demand for electricity has soared since then as its population and economy have grown sharply.
But any connection to the grid remains a luxury for many. One-third of India’s households do not even have electricity to power a light bulb, according to last year’s census.
The power deficit was worsened by a weak monsoon that lowered hydroelectric generation and kept temperatures higher, further increasing electricity usage as people seek to cool off. Shivpal Singh Yadav, the power minister in Uttar Pradesh, home to 200 million people, said that while demand during peak hours hits 11,000 megawatts, the state can only provide 9,000 megawatts.
Uttar Pradesh Power Corp. chief Avnish Awasthi blamed the grid collapse on states drawing more than their allotted power to meet the summer demand.
____
Associated Press writer Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow and Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar contributed to this report.
Lightning flashes across the sky Thursday, July 26, in Nyack, New York, in this dramatic photo from CNN iReporter Eric Girard. Storms ripped through the Northeast on Thursday night, unleashing strong winds and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of customers.
(CNN) — Hundreds of thousands lost power due to a potent storm system that extended eastward from the Plains toward the Northeast on Thursday, bringing with it high winds and destructive lightning.
Severe thunderstorm watches were in effect at one point Thursday evening for a continuous stretch from Oklahoma through New Jersey. The danger could lurk for several hours longer, with the National Weather Service issuing such warnings in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Kentucky, Virginia, Arkansas and other points in between.
Well before then, the system had already packed a punch.
In Pennsylvania, a tree crushed a woman in her car as she sought shelter at a campsite, killing her, said Glenn Dunn, the emergency management coordinator for Potter County.
A 61-year-old man in Brooklyn, New York, died after lightning struck a church sending a scaffold crashing down on him, authorities said.
Witnesses reported trees in the region buckling under the impact.
“The trees were bending sideways, (and) the sky just went really dark and green,” said Mark Ventrini, a photographer, of the scene around 7:30 p.m. as he headed toward Belmar, New Jersey. “Some of the storms were pretty intense.”
The weather service had received reports of possible tornadoes touching down in Elmira, New York, and Brookville, Pennsylvania.
Emergency managers in Broome County, New York, reported people trapped inside a home because of downed trees in the town of Vestal.
Strong storms also caused damage in Binghamton, New York, but the weather service said no injuries or fatalities have been reported.
The residual and more widespread damage came in the form of extensive power outages. More than 100,000 First Energy customers in Pennsylvania, for instance, didn’t have electricity as of 10 p.m. ET, with other utilities like PECO and PPL reporting tens of thousands of others similarly in the dark.
An hour earlier, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a press release stating there were nearly 95,000 customers without power in that state, mostly NYSEG and Central Hudson customers.
Cuomo also declared a state of emergency for hard-hit Chemung County in the southwestern part of the state.
Many more people took in the impressive lightning storms, with daunting bolts preceding booming claps of thunder in small towns and big cities.
“The brunt of the storm itself was intense but short — there was very strong rain and wind for about 15 minutes, at which point the rain cleared and the lightning show began,” said Matthew Burke, a CNN iReporter who photographed lightning sprawling across the New York City skyline.
Several states away, tens of thousands also were in the dark, though power was being restored at a fairly fast rate. AEP Ohio, for instance, reported just over 51,000 customers lacking electricity at 6:15 p.m., yet more than 20,000 of those had the lights back on by 10 p.m.
CNN’s Greg Botelho, Lila King, Julie Cannold and Dominique Dodley contributed to this report.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Storms kill one in New York and one in Pennsylvania
More than 200,000 in Ohio, New Jersey and other states lose power
“Trees were bending sideways,” a man in New Jersey says
National Weather Service reports possible tornado touchdowns in the Northeast
[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.]
TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico — A 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Mexico’s Pacific coast close to the Guatemalan border on Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
The quake occurred at 6:22 am (1222 GMT) at a depth of 35 kilometers (21 miles), and was located 28 kilometers (17 miles) south-southwest of Suchiate, Mexico, the US Geological Survey said.
“The quake was felt across most of the Soconusco region,” civil protection official Luis Manuel Garcia told AFP. “We have no reports of damage for the moment.”
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue a report on the quake.
A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake rocked southwest Mexico on March 20, killing two people, injuring 13 others and damaging thousands of homes.
That earthquake — with its epicenter south of the Pacific resort of Acapulco — was the most powerful to hit the country since one in 1985, which destroyed entire neighborhoods of the capital and killed thousands of people.
The earthquake ruptured along multiple faults. Dotted lines indicate interpreted fault planes. Colored arrows indicate the direction of rupture. Credit: Caltech/Meng et al.
The powerful magnitude-8.6 earthquake that shook Sumatra on April 11, 2012, was a seismic standout for many reasons, not the least of which is that it was larger than scientists thought an earthquake of its type could ever be.
Now, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) report on their findings from the first high-resolution observations of the underwater temblor, they point out that the earthquake was also unusually complex-rupturing along multiple faults that lie at nearly right angles to one another, as though racing through a maze.
The new details provide fresh insights into the possibility of ruptures involving multiple faults occurring elsewhere-something that could be important for earthquake-hazard assessment along California’s San Andreas fault, which itself is made up of many different segments and is intersected by a number of other faults at right angles.
“Our results indicate that the earthquake rupture followed an exceptionally tortuous path, breaking multiple segments of a previously unrecognized network of perpendicular faults,” says Jean-Paul Ampuero, an assistant professor of seismology at Caltech and one of the authors of the report, which appears online today in Science Express.
“This earthquake provided a rare opportunity to investigate the physics of such extreme events and to probe the mechanical properties of Earth’s materials deep beneath the oceans.”
Most mega-earthquakes occur at the boundaries between tectonic plates, as one plate sinks beneath another. The 2012 Sumatra earthquake is the largest earthquake ever documented that occurred away from such a boundary-a so-called intraplate quake. It is also the largest that has taken place on a strike-slip fault-the type of fault where the land on either side is pushing horizontally past the other.
The earthquake happened far offshore, beneath the Indian Ocean, where there are no geophysical monitoring sensors in place. Therefore, the researchers used ground-motion recordings gathered by networks of sensors in Europe and Japan, and an advanced source-imaging technique developed in Caltech’s Seismological Laboratory as well as the Tectonics Observatory to piece together a picture of the earthquake’s rupture process.
Lingsen Meng, the paper’s lead author and a graduate student in Ampuero’s group, explains that technique by comparing it with how, when standing in a room with your eyes closed, you can often still sense when someone speaking is walking across the room. “That’s because your ears measure the delays between arriving sounds,” Meng says.
“Our technique uses a similar idea. We measure the delays between different seismic sensors that are recording the seismic movements at set locations.” Researchers can then use that information to determine the location of a rupture at different times during an earthquake. Recent developments of the method are akin to tracking multiple moving speakers in a cocktail party.
Using this technique, the researchers determined that the three-minute-long Sumatra earthquake involved at least three different fault planes, with a rupture propagating in both directions, jumping to a perpendicular fault plane, and then branching to another.
“Based on our previous understanding, you wouldn’t predict that the rupture would take these bends, which were almost right angles,” says Victor Tsai, an assistant professor of geophysics at Caltech and a coauthor on the new paper.
The team also determined that the rupture reached unusual depths for this type of earthquake-diving as deep as 60 kilometers in places and delving beneath the Earth’s crust into the upper mantle.
This is surprising given that, at such depths, pressure and temperature increase, making the rock more ductile and less apt to fail. It has therefore been thought that if a stress were applied to such rocks, they would not react as abruptly as more brittle materials in the crust would. However, given the maze-like rupture pattern of the earthquake, the researchers believe another mechanism might be in play.
“One possible explanation for the complicated rupture is there might have been reduced friction as a result of interactions between water and the deep oceanic rocks,” says Tsai. “And,” he says, “if there wasn’t much friction on these faults, then it’s possible that they would slip this way under certain stress conditions.”
Adding to the list of the quake’s surprising qualities, the researchers pinpointed the rupture to a region of the seafloor where seismologists had previously considered such large earthquakes unlikely based on the geometry of identified faults.
When they compared the location they had determined using source-imaging with high-resolution sonar data of the topography of the seafloor, the team found that the earthquake did not involve what they call “the usual suspect faults.”
“This part of the oceanic plate has fracture zones and other structures inherited from when the seafloor formed here, over 50 million years ago,” says Joann Stock, professor of geology at Caltech and another coauthor on the paper. “However, surprisingly, this earthquake just ruptured across these features, as if the older structure didn’t matter at all.”
Meng emphasizes that it is important to learn such details from previous earthquakes in order to improve earthquake-hazard assessment. After all, he says, “If other earthquake ruptures are able to go this deep or to connect as many fault segments as this earthquake did, they might also be very large and cause significant damage.”
Along with Meng, Ampuero, Tsai, and Stock, additional Caltech coauthors on the paper, “An earthquake in a maze: compressional rupture branching during the April 11 2012 M8.6 Sumatra earthquake,” are postdoctoral scholar Zacharie Duputel and graduate student Yingdi Luo. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Southern California Earthquake Center, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and the United States Geological Survey.
The number of people taken to hospitals by ambulance due to heatstroke in the week through Sunday more than doubled from the preceding week to 5,467, preliminary data showed Tuesday. The figure, up from 2,622 in the week to July 15, hit the highest for a single week this summer, according to the data released by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Deaths caused by heatstroke increased to 13 from five in the preceding week. Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture had the most victims, with ambulances called for 388 people each. They were followed by 382 in Aichi Prefecture and 372 in Osaka Prefecture. People aged 65 or older accounted for 45.9 percent of the total. Since the agency started this year’s survey on May 28, 11,116 people were taken to hospitals as of Sunday. Twenty-three people have died. The rise in heatstroke cases reflects the smothering heat wave, with temperatures of 35 degrees or higher observed in many places for the four days from July 16, agency officials said. In Tatebayashi, Gunma Prefecture, the mercury shot up to 37.6 on July 16 and to 39.2 the following day, according to the Meteorological Agency.
Austrian authorities say a man has died and several other people were injured after a tree limb crashed into tents at a festival during a storm. The security department in Lower Austria province said Sunday that a 50-year-old local resident died in a hospital after the accident in Poechlarn, west of Vienna. The incident happened late Saturday afternoon when a storm and heavy winds hit the town during a medieval-themed festival in a park. Authorities say the limb of an old tree crashed into tents that organizers had set up below it. Thirteen people were injured, including the man who later died. Firefighters had to use power saws to free people from the tents.
29.07.2012
Forest / Wild Fire
Russia [Asia]
Siberia, [Krasnoyarsk Krai, Tomsk Region, Tuva, Khakassia and Irkutsk Region]
Firefighters in Russia’s Siberia had extinguished 45 forest fires covering 522 hectares of forest in the past 24 hours, but 131 wildfires were still burning on the area of almost 15,000 hectares, the regional forestry department said Friday. A total of 29 wildfires covering an area of more than 5,000 hectares were localized, and 14,948 hectares of forest continued to burn in the Krasnoyarsk Krai, Tomsk Region, Tuva, Khakassia and Irkutsk Region. Some 3,000 people, 412 units of fire-fighting equipment and 24 aircrafts have been mobilized to fight the blazes, which are believed to be caused by hot and dry weather in the region where the temperature reaches 35 degrees. Reports said the wildfires posed no threat to populated areas or industry.
Wildfires burned across the state Sunday, with one blaze threatening about100 homes in Pottawatomie County. The fire, which started Sunday afternoon about two miles northwest of Earlsboro, was encroaching upon structures, and a mandatory evacuation order was put into effect, state emergency management spokeswoman Keli Cain said. The Pottawatomie County sheriff’s office said about 30 homes were evacuated in the town about 50 miles east of Oklahoma City. By 9:30 p.m., people were allowed to return to their homes and some firefighters were being allowed to leave the scene, Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth said. “The fire is contained, but not out,” Booth said. There were no reports of injuries or homes lost to the fire on Sunday. The fire had scorched across about 1,300 acres before being contained, Cain said. Firefighting resources were brought in from Cleveland County, and an Oklahoma National Guard helicopter made water drops, she said.
One person has died in flooding caused by tropical storm Saola in the central Philippines. Torrential rain brought on by the storm and the south-west monsoon have caused more flooding and landslides in the central and northern Philippines. Landslides have been reported in the mountainous Cordillera region while flood waters have swamped communities in the capital Manila and several nearby provinces. Hundreds of families have been evacuated, with rain on Sunday night causing three major dams to spill over. In the country’s northern and central provinces, five ships have run aground with rescue operations ongoing to bring passengers ashore. Over the weekend, rain blanketed most of the Philippines, forcing the cancellation of at least 13 domestic flights. Tropical storm Saola is now moving northwest towards China.
Heavy rains in central and eastern Costa Rica have triggered floods that have forced evacuations and may be responsible for at least one death, relief workers said Sunday. Four people are missing, down from eight earlier, according to Freddy Roman, a spokesman for the local Red Cross. The government has declared a “yellow alert” in various parts of Cartago, a central province where one person was reported dead, said Roman. The person was rescued after a landslide, but died on the way to the hospital from injuries and heart failure, he said. A yellow alert is also in effect for parts of Limon, an eastern province. More than 1,500 people have taken refuge at shelters and others are waiting to be rescued, according to the Red Cross. “We have reports of people trapped in their houses that have been flooded by overflow from the Chirripo River, also of several communities that are isolated in other parts of Limon,” said Guillermo Arroyo, director of operations of the Costa Rican Red Cross. Heavy rain is typical this time of year in Costa Rica, where the rainy season runs roughly from May-November.
Ugandan authorities did not initially detect an Ebola outbreak because patients weren’t showing typical symptoms of the lethal virus, the nation’s health minister reported on Sunday. Patients had fevers and were vomiting, but did not show other typical symptoms like hemorrhaging, Health Minister Dr. Christine Ondoa said. A team made up of personnel from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Ugandan health ministry and the World Health Organization early Monday were in Kibaale, a district in the midwestern part of the landlocked central African nation, WHO said in a statement. Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders, also is involved in setting up an “isolation center” at Kibaale’s hospital. National health authorities say the outbreak has infected at least 20 people, of whom 14 have died. Nine of the deaths were from a single household in the village of Nyanswiga, according to WHO. A medic who was treating victims is among the dead, Ondoa said. Officials are trying to determine the extent of the outbreak, CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said Sunday. The Atlanta-based organization was sending about five people to join a group of CDC staffers who are permanently based in Uganda, according to the spokesman.
“These outbreaks have a tendency to stamp themselves out, if you will, if we can get in and … stop the chain of transmission,” he said. Ondoa described the Ebola-Sudan strain detected as “mild” compared to other types of Ebola, noting that victims’ lives can be saved with intervention. The cases have emerged in Kibaale, where a national task force had been mobilized in an effort to combat the outbreak. As of early Monday in Uganda, two people with the virus remained hospitalized in stable condition, said WHO. One was a 38-year-old woman who’d attended to her sister, the medic who died, and another was a 30-year-old woman who participated in the burial of one of the other victims. The Ebola virus is considered a highly infectious disease spread through direct contact with bodily fluids, with symptoms that include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, headache, measles-like rash, red eyes and at times bleeding from body openings. Health officials urged the public to report suspected cases and avoid contact with anyone who has contracted the virus and to disinfect the bedding and clothing of an infected person by using protective gloves and masks. Officials also advised against eating dead animals, especially monkeys, and to avoid public gatherings in the affected district. Given these precautions, WHO said in its statement that it would not recommend any travel restrictions to Uganda because of the Ebola outbreak.
The number of gastro entritis cases has gone up to 132 at Dasuya in Punjab where spread of cholera and gastro enteritis cases was reported in some districts. Out of these, 86 have been discharged after treatment, a senior medical officer said today. Yesterday, the number of gastro patients admitted to the civil hospital at Dasuya was 117. Meanwhile, three serious patients were referred to Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences, Jalandhar, Dr Naresh Kansra, senior medical officer (SMO) of the Dasuya Civil Hospital said today. An increase in the number of gastro patients has been witnessed at Dasuya in the past few days. Director family welfare Punjab Karnjit Singh and state surveillance officer Deepak Bhatia inspected the areas of Dasuya town affected by gastroenteritis and also went to the hospital to meet the patients. Over 4000 chlorine tablets were distributed among the people of the area.
Biohazard name:
Cholera and gastroenteritis diseases
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.
At least three people were killed including a girl child and about 70 residents have been affected following cholera broke out in Dobhala village under Borekina Panchayat in Balikuda block past one week, reports said that most of the victims are undergoing treatment in headquarters hospital here and Borekina, Balikuda PHCs. Sources said that the deceased’s have been identified as Nari Sethy [70], Kailash Barik [45] and Ankita Barik a five year old girl child of Sudhansu Barik and affected victims shifted to headquarters hospital for treatment on Saturday night have been named as Betani Sethy, Anju Barik, Rangalata Barik, Nandei Sethy and Bebina Barik, meanwhile hospital sources said that their conditions are fast curing and would be discharged soon. Report said that this coastal village has population of about 700 numbers, and one week ago few people had complained suffering stomach ailments and dehydration and the illness turned to cholera when Nari Sethy a septuagenarian died in home on Wednesday night, soon after numbers of cholera affected people had grown inside village and till date about 5 to 7 people are going to be affected daily shifting to hospital for treatment. Ironically the nearby Borekina PHC suffers without any doctor past six years, one retired doctor has posted on contractual and a pharmacist are catering medical service at hospital as consequence victims have opted either moving Balikuda PHC or headquarters hospital for treatment after cholera broke out in village. The district headquarters hospital sources said after information reached a medical team comprising doctors, pharmacists and health staff have sent to village to study the situation and our medical team preliminary investigation indicates that due to using contaminated water the villagers have been affected, and we are taking all health related measures at village, informed Bijaya Sahoo, chief district medical officer.
Biohazard name:
Cholera Outbreak
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Locals claim an outbreak of measles in Ambar tehsil of Mohmand Agency has killed six children. Officials confirmed the death of two of the children, but said they died because of an unconfirmed disease. Local Qari Ali Gul told The Express Tribune on Saturday that the disease has struck the areas of Gumbati, Shaji Kor, Soor Tangi, Bakhmal Shah, Musa Kor and Khairo Kor, and has affected a large number of tribesmen. Another local, Mushtaq Khan, said that affected children were taken to Khar Hospital in Bajaur Agency. They said that the residents informed the agency surgeon to send inoculation teams to control the spread of the disease. They also urged the government to send mobile vaccination teams and said the situation may become uncontrollable if prompt action was not taken. An Expanded Programme on Immunisation Mohmand Agency Officer, Dr Shabeer, denied the spread of the disease and the cause of the deaths. “Two deaths have been reported in Ambar and Utmanzai but by an unknown disease, we cannot confirm they were caused by measles,” he said. He added that the areas further away lack qualified doctors and people depend on unqualified doctors.
“The scarcity of proper health facilities worsens the situation in these circumstances,” he said. He claimed the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) child heath project had worked in three community health centres, one in Daravo, one in Had Kor and one in Shati Meena. Ambar is a tehsil of the agency bordering Bajaur Agency. The area lacks basic amenities regularly, and has only one high and middle school with most residents going to schools in Charsadda. In June, 211 children with symptoms of measles were brought to the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) Peshawar from different areas of K-P and Fata. Hospital data revealed that a total of 989 cases of measles were brought to the LRH over the past six months, of which 884 were discharged and 44 had died. Nine patients left the hospital against doctors’ advice. A study conducted by Dr Majid Khan and Dr Tariq Anwar at LRH from November 1, 2011, to May 22 this year, revealed that the measles outbreak in K-P and Fata was a result of poor vaccination campaigns, military conflict, migration and malnutrition in the area. Talking to The Express Tribune, Dr Khan explained that measles was an infectious viral disease that could easily spread through migrating people, especially if they have a weak immunity due to inadequate food intake. He said the hospital has received children as young as four months suffering from measles. Khan explained that children younger than nine months usually do not get measles as they have antibodies transmitted from their mothers during pregnancy. This shows that the mothers did not receive proper nutrition. Measles is highly contagious and spread by a virus that is easily prevented by proper immunisation but can be fatal. It caused nearly 140,000 deaths worldwide in 2010, according to the World Health Organisation – 95% in low income countries with poor health infrastructure.
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.
Image Source
Anak Krakatau in the Sunda Strait, 130 kilometers west of Jakarta, was created by the same tectonic forces that led to the 1883 Krakatoa eruption that killed tens of thousands of people. (Reuters Photo)
The 
Courtesy Photo | Derek DennisWaterspouts formed over Lake Michigan near Holland on July 27. Similar phenomena were spotted on Saturday morning off South Haven.
The study found that mutation rates were much higher among butterfly collected near Fukushima
The Japanese researchers have been studying the species for more than a decade
MessageToEagle.com – Two of three key signs of changes expected to occur at the boundary of interstellar space have changed faster than at any other time in the last seven years, according to new data from NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft.
Second coming: A large dust cloud was seen making its way through the Phoenix suburb of Laveen on Sunday
The 2,000 foot tall haboob cloud covers the city of Phoenix, Arizona cutting power to 9,000 homes
The haboob phenomenon affects Phoenix during the months of June through September which is Arizona’s monsoon season
Trains were stranded after the power failure
Lightning flashes across the sky Thursday, July 26, in Nyack, New York, in this dramatic photo from CNN iReporter Eric Girard. Storms ripped through the Northeast on Thursday night, unleashing strong winds and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of customers.
