At least 10 people have been killed in flash floods in Mauritius and more downpours could be on the way, officials and the Indian Ocean island’s meteorological service said on Sunday. The deaths occurred on Saturday and most of the victims were trapped in an underpass leading to the Caudan Waterfront, a commercial area in Port Louis. Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam said on Sunday that Port Louis had a torrential downpour with 152 mm falling in two hours. “The speed of the torrents of water has led to tragic loss of life and heavy damage to property,” he said, adding that he was declaring Monday a day of mourning. The Mauritius meteorological service said showers were expected overnight and on Monday, with isolated thunderstorms that could cause further floods.
At least 10 people have been killed in flash floods in Mauritius and more downpours could be on the way, officials and the island’s meteorological service has said.
Most of the victims were trapped in an underpass leading to the Caudan Waterfront, a commercial area in Port Louis.
Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam said Port Louis had had a torrential downpour, with 152 mm falling in two hours.”The speed of the torrents of water has led to tragic loss of life and heavy damage to property,” he said.
The Mauritius meteorological service said showers were expected overnight and on Monday, with isolated thunderstorms that could cause further floods.
Published: 9:19AM Monday April 01, 2013 Source: Reuters
At least 10 people have been killed in flash floods in Mauritius and more downpours could be on the way, officials and the Indian Ocean island’s meteorological service said today.
The deaths occurred on Sunday and most of the victims were trapped in an underpass leading to the Caudan Waterfront, a commercial area in Port Louis.
Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam said Port Louis had a torrential downpour with 152 mm falling in two hours.
“The speed of the torrents of water has led to tragic loss of life and heavy damage to property,” he said, adding that he was declaring Monday a day of mourning.
The Mauritius meteorological service said showers were expected overnight, with isolated thunderstorms that could cause further floods.
In recent years, scientists, first responders and utilities have been preparing for “The Big One,” that inevitable quake that will rock Southern California to its core. It’s coming. For sure. They just don’t know when.
But the U.S. Geological Survey and Caltech have been on the ball, working from a likely scenario, a simulated “Shakeout” (see video after the jump) that would have a 7.8 quake hitting greater L.A. It would be deadly, destructive and put us in the dark for days, if not weeks.
Unfortunately, a 7.8 might now be too low of an estimate for The Big One:
Simulations for the magnitude 7.8 “ShakeOut” earthquake on the southern San Andreas fault, developed by the Southern California Earthquake Center ShakeOut Simulation workgroup. Simulation by Rob Graves, URS/SCEC. Visualization by Geoff Ely, USC/SCEC.
Scientists said the Indonesian rocker was larger than they ever thought such a quake “could be,” according to Caltech. It was a “intraplate strike-slip quake,” similar to what would happen at San Andreas, where much of California, from Baja to San Francisco, is moving north as the rest of America moves south.
In Sumatra, scientists found that this was not only the biggest strike-slip fault temblor ever, but that it set of a series of right-angle ruptures that amplified the shaking, like a block of ice cracking up in the heat.
And yes, it could happen here. The research, published last week in the journal Science Express, argues:
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.
Lingsen Meng, lead author of the Caltech research:
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.
The USGS, of course, is begging Southern Californians to prepare for our “mega-earthquake,” as academics called the Indonesian shaker. You know, flashlights, batteries, radios, water, nonperishable food. All that good stuff.
A volcano in Sakurajima in southern Japan has erupted, spewing volcanic ash onto Kagoshima City. The eruption at one of Japan’s most active volcanoes caused ash to cover roads. Residents of Kagoshima donned face masks to protect themselves while sweeping away the ash. The volcano has erupted over 600 times this year and is expected to continue its intermittent eruptions. Currently, the volcano warning there is at level three out of a possible five levels. A level five would mean that the residents living near the crater would have to be evacuated, while level three warns people not to approach the volcano.
ST LOUIS MO
TULSA OK
PEACHTREE CITY GA
MOUNT HOLLY NJ
CHARLESTON SC
GREENVILLE-SPARTANBURG SC
WILMINGTON NC
NEWPORT/MOREHEAD CITY NC
JACKSONVILLE FL
WAKEFIELD VA
BALTIMORE MD/WASHINGTON DC
RALEIGH NC
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.
WASHINGTON — From highways in Texas to nuclear power plants in Illinois, the concrete, steel and sophisticated engineering that undergird the nation’s infrastructure are being taxed to worrisome degrees by heat, drought and vicious storms.
On a single day this month here, a US Airways regional jet became stuck in asphalt that had softened in 100-degree temperatures, and a subway train derailed after the heat stretched the track so far that it kinked — inserting a sharp angle into a stretch that was supposed to be straight. In East Texas, heat and drought have had a startling effect on the clay-rich soils under highways, which “just shrink like crazy,” leading to “horrendous cracking,” said Tom Scullion, senior research engineer with the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University. In Northeastern and Midwestern states, he said, unusually high heat is causing highway sections to expand beyond their design limits, press against each other and “pop up,” creating jarring and even hazardous speed bumps.
Excessive warmth and dryness are threatening other parts of the grid as well. In the Chicago area, a twin-unit nuclear plant had to get special permission to keep operating this month because the pond it uses for cooling water rose to 102 degrees; its license to operate allows it to go only to 100. According to the Midwest Independent System Operator, the grid operator for the region, a different power plant had had to shut because the body of water from which it draws its cooling water had dropped so low that the intake pipe became high and dry; another had to cut back generation because cooling water was too warm.
The frequency of extreme weather is up over the past few years, and people who deal with infrastructure expect that to continue. Leading climate models suggest that weather-sensitive parts of the infrastructure will be seeing many more extreme episodes, along with shifts in weather patterns and rising maximum (and minimum) temperatures.
“We’ve got the ‘storm of the century’ every year now,” said Bill Gausman, a senior vice president and a 38-year veteran at the Potomac Electric Power Company, which took eight days to recover from the June 29 “derecho” storm that raced from the Midwest to the Eastern Seaboard and knocked out power for 4.3 million people in 10 states and the District of Columbia.
In general, nobody in charge of anything made of steel and concrete can plan based on past trends, said Vicki Arroyo, who heads the Georgetown Climate Center at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, a clearinghouse on climate-change adaptation strategies.
Highways, Mr. Scullion noted, are designed for the local climate, taking into account things like temperature and rainfall. “When you get outside of those things, man, all bets are off.” As weather patterns shift, he said, “we could have some very dramatic failures of highway systems.”
Adaptation efforts are taking place nationwide. Some are as huge as the multibillion-dollar effort to increase the height of levees and flood walls in New Orleans because of projections of rising sea levels and stronger storms to come; others as mundane as resizing drainage culverts in Vermont, where Hurricane Irene damaged about 2,000 culverts. “They just got blown out,” said Sue Minter, the Irene recovery officer for the state.
In Washington, the subway system, which opened in 1976, has revised its operating procedures. Authorities will now watch the rail temperature and order trains to slow down if it gets too hot. When railroads install tracks in cold weather, they heat the metal to a “neutral” temperature so it reaches a moderate length, and will withstand the shrinkage and growth typical for that climate. But if the heat historically seen in the South becomes normal farther north, the rails will be too long for that weather, and will have an increased tendency to kink. So railroad officials say they will begin to undertake much more frequent inspection.
Some utilities are re-examining long-held views on the economics of protecting against the weather. Pepco, the utility serving the area around Washington, has repeatedly studied the idea of burying more power lines, and the company and its regulators have always decided that the cost outweighed the benefit. But the company has had five storms in the last two and a half years for which recovery took at least five days, and after the derecho last month, the consensus has changed. Both the District of Columbia and Montgomery County, Md., have held hearings to discuss the option — though in the District alone, the cost would be $1.1 billion to $5.8 billion, depending on how many of the power lines were put underground.
Even without storms, heat waves are changing the pattern of electricity use, raising peak demand higher than ever. That implies the need for new investment in generating stations, transmission lines and local distribution lines that will be used at full capacity for only a few hundred hours a year. “We build the system for the 10 percent of the time we need it,” said Mark Gabriel, a senior vice president of Black & Veatch, an engineering firm. And that 10 percent is “getting more extreme.”
Even as the effects of weather extremes become more evident, precisely how to react is still largely an open question, said David Behar, the climate program director for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. “We’re living in an era of assessment, not yet in an area of adaptation,” he said.
He says that violent storms and forest fires can be expected to affect water quality and water use: runoff from major storms and falling ash could temporarily shut down reservoirs. Deciding how to address such issues is the work of groups like the Water Utility Climate Alliance, of which he is a member. “In some ways, the science is still catching up with the need of water managers for high-quality projection,” he said.
Some needs are already known. San Francisco will spend as much as $40 million to modify discharge pipes for treated wastewater to prevent bay water from flowing back into the system.
Even when state and local officials know what they want to do, they say they do not always get the cooperation they would like from the federal government. Many agencies have officially expressed a commitment to plan for climate change, but sometimes the results on the ground can be frustrating, said Ms. Minter of Vermont. For instance, she said, Vermont officials want to replace the old culverts with bigger ones. “We think it’s an opportunity to build back in a more robust way,” she said. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency wants to reuse the old culverts that washed out, or replace them with similar ones, she said.
Ms. Arroyo of Georgetown said the federal government must do more. “They are not acknowledging that the future will look different from the past,” she said, “and so we keep putting people and infrastructure in harm’s way.”
Matthew L. Wald reported from Washington, and John Schwartz from New York.
Residents were asked to evacuate from a rural area in southern Montana Thursday as a 5-square-mile wildfire approached the edge of a spread-out subdivision. County workers and firefighters were going door to door asking people to leave along a five-mile stretch of Shane Creek Road south of Columbus, officials said. The voluntary evacuation covered roughly 10 houses in Stillwater County, according to a hotline set up by the county. Shane Creek resident Shane Fouhy said he was packing some belongings, setting out sprinklers to water down his house and yard and heading into Columbus to stay with relatives. “I’ve been out all morning watering and the wind is kind of whirling,” he said. “It’s burning in all directions.” Paula Short with the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation said the Skibstad Fire was burning in grass and timber and had approached within two miles of houses along Shane Creek Road. Residents of more than 100 houses were put on notice that they, too, might have to go. Firefighters were trying to hold the fire along a nearby ridge top to keep it from reaching the houses, Short said. But they were braced for the blaze to spread amid hot, dry conditions and winds of 5 to 10 miles per hour. Columbus High School was set up as a shelter for evacuees. Some structures were confirmed burned; how many and whether any were houses remained unclear. The fire started Wednesday evening in a secondary building on Skibstad Road and quickly spread across the surrounding landscape. It was pushed to the south by the wind, eventually reaching into areas of Carbon County. A heavy air tanker and several smaller aircraft were providing support to at least 60 firefighters with more personnel en route, Short said.
More federal firefighters were being deployed to bone-dry Nebraska, where a huge wildfire is threatening more structures and two smaller fires are still out of control. The handful of people living in Sparks, a gateway to canoeing and tubing on the Niobrara River, were on alert for possible evacuation. A 14-mile stretch of the valley already has been evacuated. While a cold front is expected to provide some relief, highs Wednesday will still be in the mid-90s. The front may also bring some rain, but major storms aren’t likely to develop near the fire. Plus, storms could also bring lightning and spark new fires. Hot, windy weather on Monday helped the main Fairfield Creek Fire expand to 58,000 acres, or nearly 92 square miles. Two other smaller fires about 20 miles east of the main fire had burned more than six square miles. And Tuesday’s high temperature again topped Officials estimate the fires, which have already destroyed at least 10 homes, are about 25 percent contained. Some 200 federal firefighters were being sent to join the more than 300 crews already on the front lines. Four helicopters are also fighting the fires, and three firefighters have been injured. Much of the fire-swept land near the river is rugged, forested and populated with cabins, so only 17 residences had been evacuated as of Tuesday morning.
A much expected downpour bypassed Beijing Wednesday but battered the neighboring city of Tianjin, flooding many downtown streets and vehicles. As of 11 a.m. Thursday, the maximum precipitation had exceeded 300 millimeters, Tianjin’s meteorological center said in a press release. It said the city proper received an average rainfall of 147 mm, while the outer Xiqing district, one of the worst-battered areas, received 309.8 mm. The local fire prevention bureau sent 190 fire engines and 1,140 rescuers to help rescue flood stranded vehicles and pedestrians. The rain had largely stopped by midday, but the center issued another orange alarm at 11:10 a.m., warning residents of a further rainstorm. The downpour has paralyzed traffic in downtown Tianjin, drowning many roads. Dozens of vehicles were stranded on Baidi road in Nankai district after their engines died in the flood. Many pedestrians complained they had to trek in knee-deep water. In some sections of Xianyang Street, flood water was waist deep. On the badly flooded Friendship Road in Hexi district, five workers kept watch next to sewage wells whose manholes had been removed for faster drainage.The rain disrupted air traffic at Tianjin’s airport, where 20 flights were canceled and 34 delayed.8 The first flight, an incoming flight from Shanghai, landed in Tianjin after the rain subsided at 11:32 a.m., and the first departing flight took off at 12:08 p.m., according to the airport’s official website. Railway transportation, however, was largely unaffected, including the express rail link to Beijing, the city’s railway authorities confirmed. Vegetable prices were up at the city’s major wholesale markets Thursday. “Each kilo is at least 0.4 yuan — about 30 percent — more expensive than yesterday,” said Cui Hongqing, a wholesaler at Hongqi Market. Cui predicted further price hikes Friday as the rain devastated crops and increased transportation costs. China’s capital Beijing was on guard against heavy rain Wednesday, fearing a repeat of Saturday’s mayhem. Saturday’s downpour, which the local weather bureau described as the “heaviest in 61 years,” killed at least 37 people — some were drowned in private cars. Many office workers were allowed to go home early Wednesday for safety considerations, and city authorities bombarded mobile phone subscribers with text message warnings of an imminent downpour. The much expected rain, however, did not fall in Beijing. The capital was still overcast Thursday, as the central weather bureau has forecast rain in seven northern China provinces and municipalities, including Beijing, over the coming three days.
……………….
Summer Storms to Create New Ozone Holes as Earth Warms?
More storms may trigger ozone depletion in populated areas far from the Poles.
A thunderstorm rumbles through Kansas (file picture).
Summer storms may create new holes in our protective ozone layer as Earth heats up—bringing increased solar ultraviolet radiation to densely populated areas, a new study says.
What’s more, if more sunlight reaches Earth, skin cancer could become the new marquee risk of global warming.
In a recent series of research flights over the United States, Harvard University atmospheric chemist James Anderson and colleagues found that summer storms often loft water vapor into the stratosphere.
“It was an unequivocal observation,” he said. “We had a number of flights, and this was an abiding feature” of the storms.
Under the right conditions, this water vapor could trigger chemical reactions that deplete the ozone layer, which prevents harmful ultraviolet rays from reaching Earth’s surface, the study says.
Even small reductions in the ozone layer can make people more susceptible to skin cancer and eye damage, experts say.
The finding concerned Anderson, whose research in the 1980s and ’90s played a pivotal role in establishing the Montreal Protocol. The international treaty phased out the production of ozone-depleting chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were found in a variety of products, including hairsprays and refrigerators.
CFCs produce a form of chlorine that degrades ozone particles in the stratosphere, most signifcantly over the Arctic and Antarctic.
Subsequent studies in the Arctic and in the laboratory revealed that both temperature and water vapor concentrations are crucial in a chemical reaction that makes chlorine attack ozone.
Now, the new observations over the United States suggest summer storms create the same combination of temperature and water vapor conditions at mid-latitudes. (Interactive Map: Global Warming Effects.)
“We essentially have the chemistry that’s present in the Arctic that is clearly very potent for destroying ozone,” Anderson said.
The findings, published today in the journal Science, calculate ozone loss at a rate between 4 and 6 percent per day in water vapor-rich areas of the stratosphere. The effect could persist for several weeks after a storm, he added.
What worries Anderson most is where and when this phenomenon appears to occur.
“It is not ozone loss in Antarctica and the Arctic under winter conditions. It is an attack on the ozone layer in the summer over populated regions of the Northern Hemisphere,” he said.
Simone Tilmes, an atmospheric chemist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, views the new findings with caution.
Research does indicate that more water vapor in the stratosphere will lead to greater ozone loss under the right conditions, said Tilmes, who was not involved with the current research.
But the study found no direct evidence of a simultaneous observation of water vapor and the presence of destructive chlorine, she said.
“This raises attention,” she said, emphasizing that more research is needed to determine if such ozone depletion will occur.
Study leader Anderson and colleagues acknowledged that they haven’t yet measured the ozone-destroying chlorine in the North American stratosphere.
However, he noted that, though chlorofluorocarbons are no longer released into the atmosphere, the compounds already there can persist for decades.
If there’s a silver lining to the research, it’s that the results could have a tangible impact on people’s behavior, Anderson said.
Unlike with the “out of sight, out of mind” nature of melting glaciers and carbon dioxide and methane emissions, he said, “most people know that skin cancer is highly prevalent and increasing its frequency.”
If the new findings are confirmed, people may see a direct link between climate change and their health.
That, he said, “might spur them to “step up and take responsibility for what is actually occurring.”
A possible tornado touched down in Elmira, N.Y., late Thursday, damaging buildings, toppling trees and bringing down power lines. The authorities said some people were trapped in their cars when the storm struck around 4 p.m. There were no reports of serious injuries. Emergency officials in Chemung County said there was “significant damage” in Elmira. The National Weather Service said that there were unconfirmed reports that a tornado had touched down. Severe weather moved across Ohio and Pennsylvania on Thursday afternoon, and into New York and New England, bringing heavy rain and in some cases, strong winds and hail. In the New York metropolitan area, weather officials said that the storm moved in shortly after 7 p.m. The hardest hit areas were northwest of the city in Westchester County and in parts of Connecticut, where there were multiple reports of downed trees and power lines. The highest measured wind gusts in the area were 60 miles per hour, near the Tappan Zee Bridge, officials said. Around 8 p.m., wind gusts of up to 54 miles per hour were reported at Kennedy International Airport, weather officials said. Hundreds of flights were delayed because of the storm. Amtrak also reported delays. Late Thursday, tens of thousands of people in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were without power.
Today
Landslide
Vietnam
MultiProvinces, [Provinces of Tuyen Quang and Ha Giang]
Disaster officials and state media in Vietnam say landslides and flash floods triggered by Typhoon Vicente have killed seven people, including three in a single family, and left three others missing. Official Lai Thanh Huyen of Tuyen Quang province in northern Vietnam said Friday that landslides following heavy rains buried a 28-year-old woman, her five-year-old daughter and four-month-old son early Thursday while they were sleeping in their home. The Tuoi Tre newspaper reported that landslides killed four people in the neighboring province of Ha Giang. It says flash floods have left three other people missing elsewhere in the region. Vicente injured dozens and grounded planes in Hong Kong earlier in the week.
Minister of Local Government and Community Development Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh yesterday confirmed that there is a cholera outbreak in Bintulu. Speaking to reporters after a briefing by officers from the state Health Department at his office here yesterday, he said the department detected the outbreak on July 14 after a case was confirmed positive with Vibrio Cholerae. “Since July 14, the state Health Department declared there is an outbreak detected in Bintulu. Since then, the state Health Department initiated its investigation to trace all the suspected symptomatic cases. Anyone coming down with diarrhoea and vomiting will be investigated to check whether it is cholera or not,” he added. Based on investigation by the department, the outbreak was believed to have started when three groups of regatta participants from Rumah Gawan, Kampung Jepak and Kampung Hilir in Sebauh, Bintulu used water from Kemena River to wash plates, fish and their hands. “The bacteria from the river had contaminated the food and the hands of the people during the regatta and then continuously spread from person to person and contaminated food and drinks. Now the state Health Department is also suspecting that it is spread from Ramadan Bazaar due to contaminated food and drinks,” he added. He noted that as of yesterday, the department had received 140 cases – 33 positive for cholera, 55 negative and 52 cases still pending result. The youngest patient was one year 11 months old while the oldest was 84 years old. The department also detected nine cases with Vibrio Cholerae but without any symptom. As of yesterday, 177 people had been screened for signs and symptoms of acute gastroenteritis and were given doxycycline, an antibiotic.On the outbreak, Wong said it was still spreading in Bintulu with 11 localities declared positive for cholera; Rumah Panjang Gawan at Sungai Sebauh, Kampung Jepak, Kampung Sebauh Hilir in Sebauh, Rumah Usah in Sungai Segan, Setinggan Mozako, Kampung Assyikirin, Kampung Sinong in Jalan Masjid, Setinggan Hock Peng Tanjung Kidurong, Batu 10, Jalan Bintulu/Miri, Kampung Baru and Kirana Palm Oil/Brightwood Quarters, Kemena Industrial Estate. “The state Health Department will continue to take all samples from Sungai Kemena and its tributaries as well as food sampling from Ramadan Bazaar and houses. Besides that, the state Health Department will intensify diarrhoea and vomiting surveillance in all health facilities in Bintulu and issue cholera alert to all government, private health facilities in the state whereby when there is increase in number of admission, the state Health Department will investigate whether it is cholera or not,” he said. Wong said attention would also be given to all food handlers in the Ramadan Bazaar in Bintulu to ensure that they meet the department’s health standards, which also requires them to go for cholera screening. “Once they are cleared from the disease, they will be issued health cards and they must bring the health cards with them when they operate the stalls. If they refuse to go for screening, they will be asked to close down their stalls,” he added. For the convenience of the public, a screening centre is opened at the old Bintulu health clinic from 8am to 10pm every day. The department is also using Bintulu Hospital for isolation of severe cases while mild cases and asymptomatic cases would be treated at the national service camp in Samalaju in Bintulu. Wong appealed to the public to give their fullest cooperation to the department to ensure that the outbreak could be contained.
Biohazard name:
Vibrio Cholera Outbreak
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.
Sixteen people are reported dead in Uganda from a mystery illness. The Uganda publication UG Pulse reports that a strange illness, cause unknown, is spreading in the Kibaale district in western Uganda. The District Health Officer, Dr. Dan Kyamanwa, stated that 11 of the deaths were from the same family in the Nyamarunda Sub County. A twelfth death was a health officer. There are also reports of the illness appearing in the clinical officer who treated the family from Nyamarunda and a driver who transported the deceased. Kyamanwa says that symptoms of the illness include high fever, vomiting, diarrhea and systems failure. Death occurs within four to seven days.The Ugandan government is reportedly sending a team of experts to investigate the outbreak.
Biohazard name:
Unidentified fatal disease
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Lifeguard services provided by the department of tourism were called upon to carry out a multiple rescue operation on Thursday at Benaulim after a fishing boat with 12 crew members ventured out to the sea and capsized. The incident report stated that lifeguards were continuously observing the boat that had left at 7.20am when they saw it suddenly capsize when it was hit by a huge wave about 200m from the shore. Nine crew members were secured by the lifeguards on jet-ski boats and brought to shore while three managed to swim to safety. No injuries were reported. But as two victims Santan Fernandes and Menino Fernandes had shallow breathing, they were shifted to Hospicio hospital, Margao.
Hundreds of fish have gone belly-up in the Swan River and others are slowly dying as the latest toxic algal bloom to hit the river takes it toll. The Swan River Trust is responding to sightings of the dead and sluggish fish near the Ascot Waters marina. Elevated levels of the microalgae Karlodinium veneficum, which is potentially toxic to fish, have been detected in the area over the past few weeks. A similar outbreak in June killed more than 2,500 fish in a 13km stretch of the river from Bassendean to West Swan. Principal scientist with the trust Kerry Trayler said the free-floating microalgae were known to affect the capacity of fish to extract oxygen from the water. She said while the algae was not toxic to humans precautions should be taken in relation to the dead or dying fish. “The Department of Health advises that people should not swim in, or fish in, water with dead and decomposing fish. They should also keep pets and other animals away from the fish because they may contain high levels of bacteria,” she said. “Sluggish and dead fish should also not be collected and used for bait or consumption because of the risk of high levels of bacteria.”
Biohazard name:
Karlodinium veneficum (HAB)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
Today
Biological Hazard
USA
State of Kansas, Overland Park [South Lake Park, 7601 W. 86th St]
Kansas health officials have strengthened their alert about toxic blue-green algae in the pond at South Lake Park, 7601 W. 86th St. City officials said an earlier “advisory” has been upgraded to a “warning,” so people and pets should not drink the water. Any fish caught there should be rinsed with clean water, and only the filet portion should be eaten. Pets should not eat dried algae, and people and animals should be rinsed with clean water if they come in contact with lake water.
Biohazard name:
Blue-Green (cyanobacteria) Algae bloom
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Health authorities are warning residents and visitors to Kitsap Lake in West Bremerton that high levels of a toxic blue-green algae have been discovered in the water. If ingested in sufficient quantities, a toxin produced by the algae can make people sick and potentially kill pets, fish, waterfowl and livestock, said Jim Zimny, water quality specialist with the Kitsap Public Health District. Water samples taken Tuesday from Kitsap Lake showed levels of the toxic compound to be 6.7 micrograms per liter. Warnings are posted when the level exceeds 6.0. Signs have gone up at public access areas and on roads around the lake, Zimny said. Weekly tests will be conducted until the algae blooms subside. People are advised to avoid drinking the water or swimming in the lake, especially in areas where the algae have concentrated. Avoid eating any fish caught during the bloom. Pets should be kept back from the water. Zimny asks people to call the health district if they see large numbers of dead fish, unexplained illness in a dog or cat or if someone entering the water suffers a physical reaction, such as a rash or illness.
Biohazard name:
Blue-Green (cyanobacteria) Algae bloom
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
Today
Biological Hazard
Malaysia
State of Preak, loc:Kampung Sg Dua [Sungai Bentong River]
Residents in Kampung Sg Dua near here are worried after finding dozens of fish in Sungai Bentong dead. Village chief Wong Fan Chong said they believed it was due to pollution and hazardous waste from an industrial estate nearby. “We are not alleging that the factories are dumping their waste into the river but surely, there is a reason why the fish are dead,” he said. He urged the authorities to conduct an investigation into the matter, adding that if test results showed it was due to waste pollution, guilty parties must be punished. Wong said there were previously cases of fish dying in the river but of late, the number had increased. “For the time being, I have told all villagers to stop fishing or swimming in Sungai Bentong which flows into Sungai Dua near our village. “We are not sure whether the fishes are safe to eat,” he added. State Health, Environment and Local Government Committee chairman Datuk Hoh Khai Mun said he had instructed officers from the Environment Department to investigate the issue. “We will reveal the findings of the probe in due course,” he said, adding that the state government would not compromise on the safety of the people.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Die-off (fishes)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Dozens of beaches in Malaga province have played host to swarms or ‘blooms’ of jellyfish this summer, closing several beaches in Marbella and Estepona and administering more than 1,000 stings within a three-day period. Many bathers have been on the wrong end of the gelatinous varmint, whose sting causes a painful rash that can last for up to three days. According to Spain’s tourist office, the marine stingers are the venomous purple striped jellyfish. Their stings, although almost never fatal, have been known to cause severe allergic reactions. Here, the Olive Press looks at the different types of stingers in the Mediterranean, why they are becoming such a problem for bathers on the Costa del Sol and what can be done to protect yourself from eye-watering stings. Purple-striped jellyfish- aka mauve stingers: These increasingly common creatures have wreaked havoc on the Costa del Sol, causing the closure of a number of beaches. They are usually small but pack a powerful punch. Portuguese man o’ war – aka blue bottle: Although not technically jellyfish, these critters can deliver an agonising sting causing vomiting and fainting in some cases. They are usually found floating at the surface of the water with long, thin tendrils extending 10 metres. Fried egg jellyfish: A small but beautiful jellyfish which gets its name from its fried-egg shaped body. Its sting has little effect on humans. Moon jellyfish: One of the most common jellyfish in the world, these translucent creatures are often sold commercially as pets. The sting is harmless to humans. Compass jellyfish: With brown spots and a saucer-shaped bell, this jellyfish can often be found drifting on the sea surface. It can deliver a nasty sting.
Biohazard name:
Jellyfish invasion
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Blackleg normally kills livestock within 12 to 48 hours and is caused by the spore foaming, rod shaped and gas producing bacteria Clostridium chauvoei, which can live in soil for many years. The bacteria gains entrance to the animal through small punctures in the mucous membrane of the digestive tract. Animals begin showing signs of lameness, rapid breathing, loss of appetite and high fever. Shingairai Gudyanga said the spread of the disease has been fuelled by lack of adequate grazing caused by poor rainfall. This caused cattle to eat the roots of plants, a haven for the bacteria. “Most farmers in this area are reluctant to bring their livestock for vaccination and they do not report disease outbreaks,” she added. Blackleg is almost entirely preventable by vaccination. The department’s efforts to control disease are hampered because people eat the animals before tests can be done. “We fail to take smear samples because by the time we find out about deaths, only the bones of the dead animal are left, with the rest of the meat either sold or dried for consumption,” she said. “Our office is almost sure that two of the cattle died due to anthrax because when we examined the carcases, there was blood in the openings of the cattle, the mouth, ears and nose and they decayed faster than the others,” she said. “The community did not consume one of the cattle that I am referring to because it was in a terrible state, but ate the other one before it had rotted.” The District Head for Veterinary Services for Buhera South, Mr Mavhima, could not confirm nor deny the anthrax outbreak and said he would visit Mutiusinazita this week -end. “If it is anthrax, we will look into it and act on it swiftly,” he said.
Biohazard name:
Anthrax
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
They may seem like furry little friends, those little squirrels, as they skitter through the forests, but researches have discovered otherwise. A bacterium known to cause ‘Q-Fever’ in humans has been detected in a high percentage rodents in Algonquin Park. A team of Laurentian University biology researchers, led by Canada Research Chair Dr. Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde have found evidence of the spread of the zoonotic bacterium Coxiella bernetii in wildlife in the park and say their findings suggest that some visitors to the park could be at risk of infection. According to a Laurentian University press release the bacterium was “detected in six out of seven species of wild rodents tested within the boundaries of Algonquin Park, including red squirrels, flying squirrels and deer mice. It was also found in flying squirrels in the Peterborough area, indicating that the bacteria may be widespread among these animal populations in Ontario.” The bacterium is a cause of Query fever, also known as Q-Fever, in humans.According to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) website, “Human Q fever is primarily an occupational disease of farmers, abattoir workers, veterinarians, and laboratory workers.” The disease is a flu-like illness that often remains undiagnosed. In a minority of cases it can cause a clinical atypical pneumonia or hepatitis. If the disease becomes chronic, endocarditis and chronic hepatitis can develop. Chronic Q fever can be fatal, and is more likely to develop in immuno-compromised individuals and pregnant women. The OMAFRA website states, “In Ontario, Q-fever has occasionally been diagnosed as a cause of abortion in sheep and goats. Reported human cases have been associated with exposure to abortions in sheep and goats, and drinking unpasteurised goat’s milk.” “It can be transmitted reasonably easily among wildlife,” he said. “The suggestion is that people can get it from, like the Hantavirus, inhaling feces. Let’s say you have a cottage or a camp and sweep the corners. Any fecal material will dry and aerosolize, it goes up in the air and you inhale some of it.” In 2007, an outbreak in the Netherlands resulted in the infection of more than 2,000 people.Thousands of goats were culled. “There is a lot of interest in Europe now on how this pathogen is transmitted in the natural environment,” said Schulte-Hostedde. He says there is a hypothesis that ticks may be a cause of the spread of this pathogen. Schulte-Hostedde says he has spoken intensively to an Algonquin Park biologist who has indicted there have been no reports of people becoming ill with Q-Fever. “In terms of mortality I don’t think it’s going to kill anybody. There are no huge numbers of people reporting being ill,” he said. “We put the press release out not to alarm people but so that the public health authorities know that this bug is out there.” He says this might be quite large spread, and there are different strains of the infection, some that may be more dangerous than others. “We don’t know anything about the strain that we found versus what might be found on farms,” he said. He says after discussions with Public Health Ontario and the Public Health Agency of Canada, they are aware that it is out there and it is reportable at some levels. “They are aware that it happens on farms but there is no real work that is being done on Coxiella bernetii in the natural environment,” he said. “My point with the whole thing… it is just providing an awareness that there is a microbrobe that can make you sick so you should take some precautions.”
Schulte-Hostedde says he is in the process of returning to his initial studies and a zoonotics expert at the University of Guelph is hoping to attain OMAFRA funding to study this bacterium in a natural environment because there are still many questions to be answered, including whether this is being transferred from farm to the natural environment or vice versa; and whether the strains are the same. “It has an interesting history because it has been the subject of weaponization research in the United States,” he said. “That’s part of the sexy thing about this thing. It actually can infect people relatively easily, which is part of the history of human relationships with this bacteria.” He says in order to get the real story beyond the initial findings and the hundreds of animals tested, there is much more work to be done.
Biohazard name:
Q Fever (squirrels)
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.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is meeting with utility officials and state regulators as a wave of severe storms cross the state. The National Weather Service gave Cuomo a pre-emptive warning about the possibility that severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. Cuomo says he will meet Thursday with the leadership of Con Edison, the New York Power Authority, and the state Public Service Commission to make sure the New York City area is prepared. About 10,000 utility customers in western New York and Sullivan County northwest of New York City have lost power as New Yorkers are being warned of the possibility of severe weather. The power losses Thursday morning came as thunderstorms move eastward across the state. Most of the outages are in the Rochester area and in Cattaraugus County, south of Buffalo.
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A strong earthquake struck the main island of the Solomon Islands on late Wednesday evening, destroying an unknown number of houses and causing injuries, seismologists and local officials said on Thursday. No tsunami warning was issued. The 6.5-magnitude earthquake at 10:20 p.m. local time (1120 GMT) was centered about 39 kilometers (24 miles) southwest of Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands. It struck about 22.9 kilometers (14.2 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Emergency management officials in Honiara said they have received reports that a number of houses in settlements near the epicenter were destroyed and damaged, injuring at least one person. But the extent of the damage in the remote area was not immediately clear, and officials were still working to determine if there were other victims. The USGS estimated that some 137,000 people on Guadalcanal island may have felt moderate to strong shaking, while 348,000 others may have felt light shaking. The tremors caused scores of people to run out of their homes and flee inland or to higher ground in fear of a tsunami, which was not generated. Both the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) and the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Center (JATWC) said there was no threat of a tsunami and did not issue a warning. “A destructive tsunami was not generated based on earthquake and historical tsunami data,” PTWC said in a bulletin.
SYDNEY : A strong 6.5-magnitude earthquake hit the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean late Wednesday, the US Geological Survey said.
The tremor, which was just 22 kilometres (14 miles) deep, had its epicentre on the south coast of the island of Guadalcanal, 39 kilometres southwest of the capital Honiara.
The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a statement saying: “Based on all available data, a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami is not expected.”
The Solomons National Disaster Management Office could not be reached but Australia said that the quake was unlikely to pose a risk of a tsunami.
“It’s just the usual Pacific kind of event, they get earthquakes of this size regularly,” duty seismologist Mark Leonard told AFP.
“It’s unlikely that it’s going to cause any grief at all.”
The Solomon Islands form part of the Ring of Fire, a zone of tectonic activity around the Pacific Ocean that is subject to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
In 2007, a tsunami following an 8.1-magnitude earthquake killed at least 52 people in the Solomons and left thousands homeless.
Leonard said an earthquake of the magnitude experienced Wednesday would need to be much more shallow to cause that kind of impact.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Seismologists say a mild earthquake widely felt throughout Southern California was centered along the coast west of downtown Los Angeles.
No injuries were reported.
The U.S. Geological Survey says the magnitude-3.7 quake struck at 3:18 a.m. Wednesday. The quake initially was reported as a magnitude-3.8, but seismologist Kate Hutton says it was later found to be a 3.74 so it was downgraded.
The epicenter was 2 miles east-southeast of Marina del Rey near Culver City and Inglewood. A Sheriff’s Department dispatcher says it “wasn’t much of a quake” and no one called about it.
Dozens of people from as far away as Riverside and the San Fernando Valley logged onto the USGS website to report feeling the jolt.
Fire Department spokesman Matt Spence says firefighters rolled out of stations citywide and surveyed 470 square miles. No infrastructure or other damage was found.
000
WEPA42 PHEB 251128
TIBPAC
TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 001
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 1128Z 25 JUL 2012
THIS BULLETIN APPLIES TO AREAS WITHIN AND BORDERING THE PACIFIC
OCEAN AND ADJACENT SEAS...EXCEPT ALASKA...BRITISH COLUMBIA...
WASHINGTON...OREGON AND CALIFORNIA.
... TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN ...
THIS BULLETIN IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY.
THIS BULLETIN IS ISSUED AS ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. ONLY
NATIONAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE
DECISIONS REGARDING THE OFFICIAL STATE OF ALERT IN THEIR AREA AND
ANY ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN RESPONSE.
AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS
ORIGIN TIME - 1121Z 25 JUL 2012
COORDINATES - 9.8 SOUTH 160.2 EAST
DEPTH - 114 KM
LOCATION - SOLOMON ISLANDS
MAGNITUDE - 6.6
EVALUATION
A DESTRUCTIVE TSUNAMI WAS NOT GENERATED BASED ON EARTHQUAKE AND
HISTORICAL TSUNAMI DATA.
THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.
THE JAPAN METEOROLOGICAL AGENCY MAY ALSO ISSUE TSUNAMI MESSAGES
FOR THIS EVENT TO COUNTRIES IN THE NORTHWEST PACIFIC AND SOUTH
CHINA SEA REGION. IN CASE OF CONFLICTING INFORMATION... THE
MORE CONSERVATIVE INFORMATION SHOULD BE USED FOR SAFETY.
THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE PRODUCTS
FOR ALASKA...BRITISH COLUMBIA...WASHINGTON...OREGON...CALIFORNIA.
000
WEIO23 PHEB 250034
TIBIOX
TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 001
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 0034Z 25 JUL 2012
THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE INDIAN OCEAN.
... TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN ...
THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY.
THIS BULLETIN IS ISSUED AS ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. ONLY
NATIONAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE
DECISIONS REGARDING THE OFFICIAL STATE OF ALERT IN THEIR AREA AND
ANY ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN RESPONSE.
AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS
ORIGIN TIME - 0028Z 25 JUL 2012
COORDINATES - 2.5 NORTH 95.8 EAST
LOCATION - OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
MAGNITUDE - 6.6
EVALUATION
A DESTRUCTIVE WIDESPREAD TSUNAMI THREAT DOES NOT EXIST BASED ON
HISTORICAL EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI DATA.
HOWEVER - THERE IS A VERY SMALL POSSIBILITY OF A LOCAL TSUNAMI
THAT COULD AFFECT COASTS LOCATED USUALLY NO MORE THAN A HUNDRED
KILOMETERS FROM THE EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER. AUTHORITIES IN THE
REGION NEAR THE EPICENTER SHOULD BE MADE AWARE OF THIS
POSSIBILITY.
THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED BY THE PACIFIC TSUNAMI
WARNING CENTER FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
BECOMES AVAILABLE.
THE JAPAN METEOROLOGICAL AGENCY MAY ISSUE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
FOR THIS EVENT. IN THE CASE OF CONFLICTING INFORMATION...THE
MORE CONSERVATIVE INFORMATION SHOULD BE USED FOR SAFETY.
A level five would mean that the residents living near the crater would have to be evacuated, while level three warns people not to approach the volcano.
A volcano in Sakurajima in southern Japan has erupted, spewing volcanic ash onto Kagoshima City. The eruption at one of Japan’s most active volcanoes caused ash to cover roads. Residents of Kagoshima donned face masks to protect themselves while sweeping away the ash. The volcano has erupted over 600 times this year and is expected to continue its intermittent eruptions. Currently, the volcano warning there is at level three out of a possible five levels. A level five would mean that the residents living near the crater would have to be evacuated, while level three warns people not to approach the volcano.
MEMPHIS TN
ST LOUIS MO
LINCOLN IL
PEACHTREE CITY GA
SPRINGFIELD MO
TULSA OK
WAKEFIELD VA
MOUNT HOLLY NJ
LITTLE ROCK AR
WILMINGTON OH
LOUISVILLE KY
NASHVILLE TN
CHARLESTON WV
GREENVILLE-SPARTANBURG SC
CLEVELAND OH
NEWPORT/MOREHEAD CITY NC
CHARLESTON SC
JACKSONVILLE FL
INDIANAPOLIS IN
BALTIMORE MD/WASHINGTON DC
STATE COLLEGE PA
PITTSBURGH PA
WILMINGTON NC
RALEIGH NC
More than 800 people from four northern Manitoba First Nations have been flown to Winnipeg and Brandon due to forest fires near their home communities. Officials said people deemed the most vulnerable, such as those with asthma and other breathing conditions, were flown out first, while others may follow if the fire situation gets worse. “We didn’t have anybody who was acutely distressed from smoke inhalation but we did have folks with runny eyes, coughing, sore throats, which is a normal effect from being involved with the forest fires,” said Janice Lowe from the Brandon Regional Health Authority. The Manitoba Association of Native Firefighters is looking after the evacuations and asked both Brandon and Winnipeg to host the evacuees, due to the large number. “This is the largest evacuation that we’ve handled in recent times,” said Brian Kayes from the City of Brandon. On Monday, the province said 77 forest fires are burning in Manitoba. As of July 20, more than 360 firefighters were battling the blazes, with 12 water bombers and 31 helicopters being used. Fires are currently burning in northeastern and western, central and eastern parts of Manitoba, said officials. The largest numbers of fires are currently burning in the northeastern part of Manitoba. Officials from the Manitoba Association of Native Firefighters said people had to leave Red Sucker Lake First Nation, Wasagamack First Nation, St. Theresa Point First Nation and Garden Hill First Nation. They said it’s tough to determine how long people could be out of their homes, due to the unpredictable nature of forest fires. They said, however, people should be prepared to be out of their homes for approximately three to seven days. Community members said homes are not currently at risk of burning. Some evacuees, however, said leaving was still difficult. “Some people don’t want to go because they don’t want to leave their homes,” said Eric Wood from Garden Hill Public Health.
More federal firefighters were being deployed to bone-dry Nebraska, where a huge wildfire is threatening more structures and two smaller fires are still out of control. The handful of people living in Sparks, a gateway to canoeing and tubing on the Niobrara River, were on alert for possible evacuation. A 14-mile stretch of the valley already has been evacuated. While a cold front is expected to provide some relief, highs Wednesday will still be in the mid-90s. The front may also bring some rain, but major storms aren’t likely to develop near the fire. Plus, storms could also bring lightning and spark new fires. Hot, windy weather on Monday helped the main Fairfield Creek Fire expand to 58,000 acres, or nearly 92 square miles. Two other smaller fires about 20 miles east of the main fire had burned more than six square miles. And Tuesday’s high temperature again topped Officials estimate the fires, which have already destroyed at least 10 homes, are about 25 percent contained. Some 200 federal firefighters were being sent to join the more than 300 crews already on the front lines. Four helicopters are also fighting the fires, and three firefighters have been injured. Much of the fire-swept land near the river is rugged, forested and populated with cabins, so only 17 residences had been evacuated as of Tuesday morning.
Reports from Macedonia say two foresters died and one was critically injured on July 24 while trying to put out a forest fire. Four other people — including a teenage boy — were hospitalized after strong winds fanned the flames of the forest fire near Strumica, about 100 kilometers southeast of Skopje. About 50 acres of pine forest was burned before the fire eventually was extinguished by rain. Agriculture Minister Ivo Kotevski said, arson is suspected. The fire appeared to have been started as a result of “carelessness.”
BARCELONA, Spain, (ENS) – Four people have died in two giant wildfires now devastating northeastern Spain’s Catalonia region. Since they blazed up on the weekend, the fires have injured at least 100 people and scorched about 10,000 hectares (38 square miles). Authorities have ordered 150,000 residents to shelter in their homes.
One fire has charred the forests of Costa Brava, one of Spain’s most popular beach and resort destinations.
Inland, the town of La Junquera, in the border area between France and Spain, is at the center of a second huge fire, that police believe was started by a discarded cigarette.
Smoke billows over the Catalonian town of Terrades, July 23, 2012 (Photo by Celia Santacreu)
All four of those who died were French. One man died of a heart attack while trying to protect his home in the Catalonian town of Llers, and another died from burns.
A father and his 15-year-old daughter lost their lives while trying to escape the flames by jumping down a cliff in the Costa Brava town of Port Bou.
Flames forced the father and daughter, as well as three of their family members and some 150 other visitors, out of their cars as they were returning to France from the Spanish coast.
As ash from the Costa Brava fire reaches Barcelona this morning, Spanish firefighters say they are starting to gain control because strong winds that initially fanned the flames have now abated.
Temperatures have soared to over 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees F.) in the stricken area, and water levels in reservoirs are low there and across the country, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment.
Planes are dropping water in an effort to douse the raging fire in the border area between France and northern Catalonia, but until the fires are under control several cross-border roads connecting Barcelona with France have been closed.
Other fires are taking their toll across southern Europe.
In Croatia, hundreds of firefighters have been called up to battle fires all along the Adriatic coast.
Fire threatens the Croatian town of Crikvenica (Photo by Nika G.)
A firefighter died Monday while putting out a fire near Moscenicka Draga on the Istria peninsula, while other fires blaze near Pula at the southern tip of the peninsula.
At least 350 firefighters battled a large fire near the coastal town of Crikvenica, a favorite vacation spot for residents of the nearby Croatian capital of Zagreb.
Homes in Crikvenica were in danger Monday but the firefighters defended them. Residents fled and gathered to watch the situation from a safe distance.
One of the most serious fires has caused locals and tourists to flee the Croatian coastal towns of Selce and Novi Vinodolski.
In the popular resort town of Selce on a long, sandy beach, more than 1,500 visitors were forced to evacuate the Selce autocamp and nearby Club Adriatica.
“The situation is very serious, everyone is trying their best. Houses are in danger, and some have already been victim to the fires,” Slavko Gaus from the county fire department, told the “Croatian Times.”
Thick smoke has forced authorities to close the D8 road, and also the Adriactic highway, reported daily newspaper “24sata.”
More fires are burning on the islands of Rab and Mljet and near the town of Sibenik, located in central Dalmatia where the river Krka flows into the Adriatic Sea.
A firefighter died and 1,500 tourists were evacuated after forest fires fanned by strong winds broke out on Croatia’s Adriatic coast Monday, with the interior minister warning of a “very difficult” scenario.
“The situation is very difficult … we are doing everything possible to protect people’s lives and property,” Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic told commercial Nova television, as the fires continued to blaze out of control in the increasingly popular tourist area.
“Everything is ready for (further) evacuations,” said the minister, who visited the coastal resort of Selce, close to the northern port of Rijeka, where some 150 firefighters were battling the blaze.
A 45-year firefighter died while battling another blaze that broke out near Moscenicka Draga on the Istria peninsula, fire service official Slavko Gaus told national HRT television.
That fire was brought under control later in the day.
The inferno broke out in the morning in the hinterland of Rijeka, some 180 kilometres (110 miles) southwest of Zagreb, and spread towards Selce.
Strong winds of more than 100 kilometres (60 miles) an hour made tackling the fires very difficult as water-bombing planes could not be used, the authorities said.
In Selce some 1,500 tourists from two campsites, mostly Slovenians and Austrians, were evacuated while a number of other tourists left a nearby hotel, officials said.
Part of the Adriatic coastal highway was closed, police said.
The resort was cut off from electricity and phone lines were down, Nova television reported, showing footage of people in Selce covering their faces with scarves to protect themselves from the thick smoke and ashes.
The roofs of several houses also caught fire.
In fellow former Yugoslav republic Macedonia, 14 people were injured, five of them seriously, in a forest fire at Strumica, 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Skopje, the country’s farm minister said.
The minister, Lupco Dimovski, said there was information suggesting that this fire may heave been started deliberately
Australia’s feral camel population has dropped by an estimated 250,000 in recent years, but the arid outback is still home to the world’s largest wild herd, officials said Tuesday.
The Australian Feral Camel Management Project said about 750,000 camels were thought to roam the country’s desert heartland.
“Between 2001 and 2008, it was estimated that there could have been as many as a million feral camels in the outback,” said Jan Ferguson, the managing director of Ninti One, which manages the project.
“Since then, however, there has been a major drought, the feral camel management programme has come into effect and population survey techniques have been improved.”
Camels, first introduced as pack animals to help early settlers in the 19th century, roam wild in the states of Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland in the east, as well as the Northern Territory.
About 85,000 were culled under a plan to reduce their impact on sensitive areas and native animals but Ferguson said some populations were still too dense.
Wildlife scientist Glenn Edwards said the latest monitoring, under which about 50 camels fitted with special collars were tracked using satellites, provided a clearer picture of the extensive damage they caused.
“Feral camels can travel 70 kilometres (43 miles) in one day, and hundreds of kilometres within a week, over incredibly harsh terrain,” he said.
“We know that when they herd, they can converge on a natural waterhole used by native animals, and drink it dry within days.
“This has a devastating effect on the local flora and fauna and shows exactly why we need to control the population density of these animals.”
With few natural predators and vast sparsely-populated areas in which to roam, feral camels have put pressure on native Australian species by reducing food sources, destroying habitat and spreading disease.
During some of the worst months of drought, thousands of thirsty camels even besieged a remote town in search of water, leaving residents scared to leave their homes.
Tropical storm Khanun destroyed scores of houses, buildings and transportation infrastructure in southern parts of North Korea this week, killing at least seven people in the reclusive state, state-run media reported on Friday. It weakened quickly over North Korea before Khanun’s remnants dissipated over China. The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Friday that flooding triggered by Khanun caused significant damage and casualties in the southern regions of North Korea. It said at least seven people were killed in Kangwon Province, but few other details about casualties were released. “Many hectares of farmland were inundated in Kangwon province and some dwelling houses, public buildings, railways, roads, bridges, breakwaters, electric supply and communication networks were destroyed,” KCNA said in its report, adding that some areas saw up to 200 millimeters (7.8 inches) of rain. “The water supply system was paralyzed in Wonsan and Munchon cities, suspending the provision of drinking water to citizens.” In South Hwanghae province, several houses were destroyed in Haeju City and Jaeryong County while large areas of cropland were submerged in Unchon County. The report did not say whether there were casualties in South Hwanghae province, or in any other regions of North Korea. In South Korea, Khanun also caused flooding, power outages, and affected major transportation systems. One fatality was reported in North Gyeongsang province when the wall of a home collapsed, officials said.
A derecho, the kind of storm that knocked out power to millions in Washington last month, may accompany bad weather forecast for New York City and the rest of the Northeast tomorrow, the U.S. Storm Prediction Center said.
There’s a moderate chance the rare windstorm will develop in an area from Indiana to Massachusetts, the center said on its website. The region is also at risk for severe thunderstorms, hail and possible tornadoes after noon, according to John Hart, a meteorologist at the agency’s Norman, Oklahoma, offices.
“The environment is going to be favorable for considerably severe weather right across the area even if we don’t get a derecho,” Hart said by telephone.
Last month, a derecho knocked out power to at least 4.3 million people from New Jersey to North Carolina as it unleashed winds of as much as 91 miles (146 kilometers) per hour, as powerful as a Category 1 hurricane. Twenty-four deaths were linked to the storm and its aftermath, according to the Associated Press.
A derecho is defined as an event that has wind gusts of at least 58 mph and leaves a swath of damage for 240 miles, according to the storm center’s website.
A storm that swept from Chicago to Kentucky yesterday also seems to have met the definition of a derecho, Hart said. Yesterday’s storm wasn’t as intense as the one that struck the mid-Atlantic, including Washington, on June 29, he said.
Predictions Difficult
Hart said derechos are hard to predict because they require that a number of atmospheric elements come together.
“There is no way to have high confidence in such a forecast,” Hart said. “We decided the risk of that scenario happening was high enough that we would highlight it.”
The area from western Ohio to southern New England will probably be in the path of severe storms tomorrow afternoon, Hart said. New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Cincinnati all have a 45 percent chance of severe thunderstorms, high winds and hail.
Severe storms between the large airline hub cities of Chicago, New York and Atlanta often disrupt air travel throughout the U.S. Such fast-moving storms, which may include tornadoes, accounted for about $8.8 billion in insured losses in the U.S. in the first six months of 2012, according to the Insurance Information Institute in New York.
A much expected downpour bypassed Beijing Wednesday but battered the neighboring city of Tianjin, flooding many downtown streets and vehicles. As of 11 a.m. Thursday, the maximum precipitation had exceeded 300 millimeters, Tianjin’s meteorological center said in a press release. It said the city proper received an average rainfall of 147 mm, while the outer Xiqing district, one of the worst-battered areas, received 309.8 mm. The local fire prevention bureau sent 190 fire engines and 1,140 rescuers to help rescue flood stranded vehicles and pedestrians. The rain had largely stopped by midday, but the center issued another orange alarm at 11:10 a.m., warning residents of a further rainstorm. The downpour has paralyzed traffic in downtown Tianjin, drowning many roads. Dozens of vehicles were stranded on Baidi road in Nankai district after their engines died in the flood. Many pedestrians complained they had to trek in knee-deep water. In some sections of Xianyang Street, flood water was waist deep. On the badly flooded Friendship Road in Hexi district, five workers kept watch next to sewage wells whose manholes had been removed for faster drainage.
The rain disrupted air traffic at Tianjin’s airport, where 20 flights were canceled and 34 delayed.8 The first flight, an incoming flight from Shanghai, landed in Tianjin after the rain subsided at 11:32 a.m., and the first departing flight took off at 12:08 p.m., according to the airport’s official website. Railway transportation, however, was largely unaffected, including the express rail link to Beijing, the city’s railway authorities confirmed. Vegetable prices were up at the city’s major wholesale markets Thursday. “Each kilo is at least 0.4 yuan — about 30 percent — more expensive than yesterday,” said Cui Hongqing, a wholesaler at Hongqi Market. Cui predicted further price hikes Friday as the rain devastated crops and increased transportation costs. China’s capital Beijing was on guard against heavy rain Wednesday, fearing a repeat of Saturday’s mayhem. Saturday’s downpour, which the local weather bureau described as the “heaviest in 61 years,” killed at least 37 people — some were drowned in private cars. Many office workers were allowed to go home early Wednesday for safety considerations, and city authorities bombarded mobile phone subscribers with text message warnings of an imminent downpour. The much expected rain, however, did not fall in Beijing. The capital was still overcast Thursday, as the central weather bureau has forecast rain in seven northern China provinces and municipalities, including Beijing, over the coming three days.
Scores of people were injured and trees were ripped from the ground as a typhoon lashed Hong Kong packing winds in excess of 140 kilometres (87 miles) an hour, officials said Tuesday.
Authorities issued a hurricane warning for the first time since 1999 as Typhoon Vicente roared to within 100 kilometres of Hong Kong shortly after midnight, disrupting dozens of flights to the regional hub.
The alarm was downgraded to a strong wind warning by mid-morning as the cyclone passed to the west and weakened over the southern Chinese coast.
The storm brought down hundreds of trees and sent debris crashing into downtown streets as commuters made their way home from work on Monday evening, when people were told to seek shelter.
Ferry, bus and train services were suspended or ran at reduced capacity, the port and schools were closed, and 44 passenger flights were cancelled. More than 270 flights were delayed.
The stock exchange was also closed for the morning but reopened in the afternoon after authorities gave the all clear to go back to work.
“We haven’t experienced this for 10 years. I could hardly walk, the wind kept pushing me,” marketing research manager Alpha Yung, 28, told AFP as she went to work in the almost deserted streets.
Mignon Chan, a 21-year-old marketing assistant, said the storm was “crazy”.
“Last time I suffered this kind of weather I was small. It’s chaotic here, trees fell down, people fell down, but I still have to work. That’s the worst part,” she said.
Almost 140 people sought medical treatment and 268 people took refuge in storm shelters, officials said. Seventy-one people remained in hospital including one who was in a serious condition.
Local media reported that more than 100 commuters stayed in the Tai Wai train station overnight, unable to get home after services were suspended.
A landslide occurred in the upscale Peak neighbourhood but there were no casualties as a result, officials said.
“The wind and rain were pounding on my windows at home last night — bam, bam, bam — they were so strong that I couldn’t sleep,” security guard Tony Chan said as he cleared shattered glass on the street outside an office tower.
Ocean Park tourist attraction said it would remain closed for the day to carry out a “thorough inspection” of the property for possible storm damage.
In the nearby territory of Macau, three major bridges over the city’s harbour were closed overnight as the typhoon approached, the government said.
Mainland offcials said the typhoon hit Taishan city in Guangdong province at 4:00 am (2000 GMT Monday). There were no immediate reports of casualties but officials said damage was still being assessed.
Flash floods in West Sumatra of Indonesia on Tuesday evening have killed eight people and caused massive infrastructure damage, local officials said on Thursday. Heavy rains caused the river in Padang city overflowed its banks at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday when people were breaking their fasting, Ade Edward senior official at the local disaster management and mitigation agency said. “Eight people are dead in the floods and scores of buildings and bridges have collapsed,” he reported from Padang, the capital of West Sumatra province. Edward said that the floods had seriously damaged over 90 houses, 11 mosques, five bridges and one health clinic. Some rescuers are still trapped in the flooded areas, he added. The rescuers had difficulty in reaching some areas where water level was chest-deep, said Edward. The local authorities had delcared a state of emergency and warned residents who live near the rivers to be on alert. More than 250 people are taking shelter in their relative houses or mosques, said Edward.
Beijing authorities have reportedly ordered Chinese media to stick to positive news about record weekend floods, after the death of at least 37 people sparked fierce criticism of the government.
Censors also deleted microblog posts criticising the official response to the disaster in China’s rapidly modernising capital, which came at a time of heightened political sensitivity ahead of a 10-yearly handover of power.
City propaganda chief Lu Wei told media outlets to stick to stories of “achievements worthy of praise and tears”, the Beijing Times daily reported, as authorities tried to stem a tide of accusations that they failed to do enough.
Many Beijing residents took to the country’s popular microblogs, or weibos, to complain that some of the deaths could have been prevented if better warnings had been issued and the city’s ancient drainage systems modernised.
A call by the Beijing government for donations to an emergency flood relief fund was also criticised by microbloggers, with many ridiculing the authorities for asking ordinary people to pay for the damage.
On Tuesday, over 72,000 postings on a microblog thread focused on the call for donations were deleted.
David Bandurski, who monitors China’s Internet censorship at the Hong Kong-based China Media Project, said most of the microblog postings censored in China over the last two days related to the Beijing floods.
“There could be a number of reasons for this, but the overarching reason could be the upcoming change of leadership at the (Communist Party’s) 18th Party Congress,” Bandurski told AFP.
“This is an important political meeting, so when people are pointing responsibility at local government incompetence, everyone goes into sensitive mode… no one wants to take responsibility for anything.”
This year’s Congress will see President Hu Jintao step down from his position as head of China’s ruling Communist party in a leadership change that will usher in a new generation of leaders expected to be led by Vice President Xi Jinping.
Authorities were still clearing up the damage from Saturday’s disaster as the country’s top leaders gathered in Beijing on Monday for a meeting addressed by Hu that was given front-page coverage in state newspapers.
The China Daily, a state-run English-language newspaper with a predominantly foreign readership, ran an editorial on Tuesday urging Beijing authorities to improve the drainage system, which it said “leaves much to be desired”.
But much of China’s state-run media steered away from critical stories, focusing on human interest angles of residents helping each other out.
Senior Beijing leaders at an emergency meeting late Monday urged greater efforts to find those still missing, identify the bodies and repair flood-damaged roads.
But residents in the worst hit district of Fangshan on the mountainous southwestern outskirts of China’s sprawling capital told AFP the government was doing little to help find their missing loved-ones.
“The government doesn’t help at all, every family is responsible for searching for their own family members,” said Wang Baoxiang, whose 30-year-old nephew had been missing since going out in Saturday’s rains.
According to official assessments released Monday, seven people remained missing, but in the badly hit Fangshan district, locals told AFP reporters that at least 10 people were missing in one small village.
Tuesday’s Beijing Daily quoted mayor Guo Jinlong as saying any increases in the death toll should be reported immediately, amid suspicion that the authorities may be underplaying the impact of the floods.
Guo also urged journalists to “correctly guide public opinion”, code words in China that which mean to only portray the government in a positive light.
“The news media has played a very good role in timely reporting the developments in emergency response operations, correctly leading the public opinion… and playing a role in boosting morale,” Guo said.
“The focus of our rescue work and news propaganda must now be moved toward the suburban areas, especially those areas severely hit by the disaster like Fangshan.”
The IDF’s top physician has ordered a base in the Golan sealed and cleansed, and its soldiers screened, amid a spreading bacterial infection
By Gabe Kahn
IDF checkpoint
Israel news photo: Flash 90
IDF chief medical officer Gen. Itzik Kreis on Tuesday ordered the Yoav base in the Golan Heights quarantined after several soldiers fell ill with a bacterial infection.
Arutz Sheva has learned many soldiers at the base, including soldiers working in the kitchens, complained of itching all over their bodies.
As a result, the base has been sealed and a full sanitization effort is underway. All equipment, personal belongings, textile goods, and even personnel files are being removed in order to be cleansed.
Arutz Sheva further learned that all mattresses on the base were removed and will be replaced. Hazmat teams are spraying and disenfecting structures, vehicles, and grounds, as well.
Meanwhile, IDF medical personnel are screening soldiers and isolating those affected to ensure the infection does not spread.
The IDF spokesperson’s office has thus far declined to comment on the exact nature and full extent of the infection.
More than 40 workers at a nuclear power station in northern India have been exposed to tritium radiation in two separate leaks in the past five weeks. The first accident occurred on June 23 when 38 people were exposed during maintenance work on a coolant channel at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station in Rawatbhata, senior plant manager Vinod Kumar said. Two of them received radiation doses equivalent to the annual permissible limit, he said, but all those involved have returned to work. In a second incident last Thursday, another four maintenance workers at the plant were exposed to tritium radiation while they were repairing a faulty seal on a pipe. India is on a nuclear power drive, with a host of plants based on Russian, Japanese, American and French technology under consideration or construction.
The country’s growing economy is currently heavily dependent on coal, getting less than 3% of its energy from its existing atomic plants, and the government hopes to raise the figure to 25% by 2050. But environmental watchdogs have expressed concerns about safety in India, where small-scale industrial accidents due to negligence or poor maintenance are commonplace and regulatory bodies are often under-staffed and under-funded. The director of the Rajasthan power station, C.P. Jamb, confirmed the second accident to AFP but said the radiation was within permissible limits and posed no health threat. “The workers were exposed to radiation from 10 to 25 per cent of the annual limit,” Jamb said. “Such minor leakages keep on happening but they cause no harm.” C.D. Rajput, director of the unit where the leak happened, also said the radiation exposure “was well under the limits and all the workers are working normally”. No explanation was immediately available as to why the first incident at the plant took a month to emerge.
For several days this month, Greenland’s surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its two-mile-thick center, experienced some degree of melting at its surface, according to measurements from three independent satellites analyzed by NASA and university scientists. On average in the summer, about half of the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet naturally melts. At high elevations, most of that melt water quickly refreezes in place. Near the coast, some of the melt water is retained by the ice sheet and the rest is lost to the ocean. But this year the extent of ice melting at or near the surface jumped dramatically. According to satellite data, an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface thawed at some point in mid-July. Researchers have not yet determined whether this extensive melt event will affect the overall volume of ice loss this summer and contribute to sea level rise. “The Greenland ice sheet is a vast area with a varied history of change. This event, combined with other natural but uncommon phenomena, such as the large calving event last week on Petermann Glacier, are part of a complex story,” said Tom Wagner, NASA’s cryosphere program manager in Washington. “Satellite observations are helping us understand how events like these may relate to one another as well as to the broader climate system.”
Son Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was analyzing radar data from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Oceansat-2 satellite last week when he noticed that most of Greenland appeared to have undergone surface melting on July 12. Nghiem said, “This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?” Nghiem consulted with Dorothy Hall at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Hall studies the surface temperature of Greenland using the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. She confirmed that MODIS showed unusually high temperatures and that melt was extensive over the ice sheet surface. Thomas Mote, a climatologist at the University of Georgia, Athens, Ga; and Marco Tedesco of City University of New York also confirmed the melt seen by Oceansat-2 and MODIS with passive-microwave satellite data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder on a U.S. Air Force meteorological satellite. The melting spread quickly. Melt maps derived from the three satellites showed that on July 8, about 40 percent of the ice sheet’s surface had melted. By July 12, 97 percent had melted.
This extreme melt event coincided with an unusually strong ridge of warm air, or a heat dome, over Greenland. The ridge was one of a series that has dominated Greenland’s weather since the end of May. “Each successive ridge has been stronger than the previous one,” said Mote. This latest heat dome started to move over Greenland on July 8, and then parked itself over the ice sheet about three days later. By July 16, it had begun to dissipate. Even the area around Summit Station in central Greenland, which at 2 miles above sea level is near the highest point of the ice sheet, showed signs of melting. Such pronounced melting at Summit and across the ice sheet has not occurred since 1889, according to ice cores analyzed by Kaitlin Keegan at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather station at Summit confirmed air temperatures hovered above or within a degree of freezing for several hours July 11-12. “Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,” says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. “But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome.” Nghiem’s finding while analyzing Oceansat-2 data was the kind of benefit that NASA and ISRO had hoped to stimulate when they signed an agreement in March 2012 to cooperate on Oceansat-2 by sharing data.
The deputy chairman of the Astronomy Society in Jeddah and member of the Arab Federation for Space Science and Astrophysics, astrophysicist. Sharaf al-Sufiyani revealed that meteorite debris fell on Al-Shifa mountain last Sunday near the village of Al-Ajbel. He pointed out in his statement to the daily Medina newspaper today that the meteorite debris comprises large rocky pieces which before landing disintegrated into smaller pieces and landed on various locations. One of the dwellers told him that there are two other locations similar debris has fallen. Regarding the timing of the meteorite’s falling, Al-Sufiyani said that it would be too difficult to determine the exact timing which requires specialized laboratories, but it looks not too old because parts of the debris are still scattered on the surface and if it is old then it would have been buried under the ground and would have been too difficult to find. He also said that should this meteorite have fallen on a house or heavily populated region it would have inflicted gross damage. However, thanks to divine providence , our planet earth is surrounded by an atmospheric layer which prevents the landing of lots of meteorite debris onto mother earth otherwise it would have caused a great disaster that is many folds of its weight. Meteorites are universal rocky formations orbiting outer space and whenever these pass through the stratosphere the earth attracts them and so they fall onto earth. Such meteorites burnout as a result of friction against air and if burned before arrival onto earth, scientists call them meteorites however should they land on earth they are called universal debris.
A case of anthrax has been confirmed in an injecting drug user in Lanarkshire. The area’s health authority said the patient was being treated at one of its hospitals and was in a critical but stable condition. NHS Lanarkshire believes the patient could have contracted the anthrax bacteria from a contaminated batch of heroin circulating in the area. Anthrax is an acute bacterial infection most commonly found in hoofed animals such as cattle, sheep and goats. It normally infects humans when they inhale or ingest anthrax spores, but cannot be passed from person to person. Symptoms can include a raised, itchy, inflamed pimple which turns into a blister with extensive swelling. The lesion is usually painless, and will later turn into a black eschar. f left untreated the infection can spread to cause blood poisoning. It can take up to a week for symptoms to develop after a person comes into contact with anthrax. Dr David Cromie, consultant in public health medicine at NHS Lanarkshire, said: “It is possible that heroin contaminated with anthrax may be circulating in Lanarkshire and potentially other parts of Scotland.
“There have been recent reports of anthrax from contaminated heroin in other western European countries, the most recent reported outbreak being in Germany. “It is important that drug users are aware of the particular dangers involved when they are injecting heroin.” Dr Cromie said injecting drug users known to Lanarkshire addiction services were being contacted to alert them to the problem. “The advice to drug users is to avoid all heroin use, which we recognise may be very difficult for drug users to follow,” he said. “Muscle-popping, skin-popping, and injecting when a vein has been missed are particularly dangerous. “Smoking heroin carries much less risk than injecting it. If there is any pain or swelling around an injection site drug users should seek urgent medical attention.” The worst outbreak of anthrax in the UK for 50 years occurred among drug users in Scotland between 2009 and 2010. A total of 119 cases were recorded with a total of 14 deaths during the outbreak.
Biohazard name:
Heroin containing anthrax
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Symptoms:
Status:
confirmed
Today
Biological Hazard
Canada
Province of Prince Edward Island, [Watershed region]
Watershed groups on P.E.I .are wading through rivers and streams Wednesday, checking to see if there are any dead fish. Parts of the Island got heavy rain Tuesday night and there’s concern about sediment that could have run into streams. Fred Cheverie, head of the Souris Watershed group, said about 75 millimetres of rain fell in that area. “So we’re just out checking the streams … the water’s pretty high in most of all the streams,” Cheverie said. “Everything looks good so far, we haven’t encountered anything. We hit some crucial zones so things are looking pretty good. We definitely have some red water. Some siltation in the water all right but everything’s no problem so far.” Other watershed groups and environment officials are also checking streams.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Die-off (fishes)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
25.07.2012
HAZMAT
United Kingdom
England, Gravesend [Cascades Leisure Centre, Thong Lane]
A swimming pool had to close after a chlorine leak – just as the school holidays got under way. Fire crews were called to Cascades Leisure Centre, Thong Lane, Gravesend, at 10.30pm yesterday. The pool remained closed today on what was expected to be one of the hottest days of the year so far, but was expected to re-open as soon as it had been given the all-clear by plant engineers. Ambulance crews were put on standby today, but did not attend. A Kent Fire and Rescue spokesman said: “We were called out to a chemical drum that had a spillage in the swimming pool plant room. The building was evacuated as a precaution. “Crews in chemical suits removed the chemical and handed back to building management at about 1am.” A Gravesham council spokesman said: “There was a chemical incident at Cascades Leisure Centre about 10pm last night. “The incident was in the pool plant room and involved a chemical reaction in the system. The fire and rescue service was called. The pool was empty at the time. “The pool remains closed this morning as a precautionary measure. The water has been replaced and the chemicals changed. Suppliers are coming to site to investigate the incident.”
25.07.2012
HAZMAT
USA
State of Minnesota, Willmar [Rice Park (wading pool)]
A Willmar city worker was treated at Rice Memorial Hospital for a chemical reaction experienced while performing maintenance work Tuesday on the Rice Park wading pool. The man’s identity and condition were not released. The pool had been closed for the maintenance work, and no children were endangered, reported Willmar Police Capt. James Felt. Emergency responders were waiting to meet with the worker to learn what chemical or chemicals he was using and apparently spilled in the small maintenance building at the pool site. A Willmar EMS team transported the worker by ambulance to the hospital while Willmar police, fire and the Kandiyohi County Rescue and the Hazardous Materials Emergency Assistance Team, or HEAT responded shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday. Police cordoned off the area around Rice Park, located between Second and Third Streets and Rice and Kandiyohi Avenues. Police evacuated residents in several homes on Third Street located downwind of the pool for about 1½ hours. Officers also diverted traffic.
About 10 or 11 people were in their homes at the time and very cooperative with the need to evacuate, according to Willmar Police Sgt. Michael Markkanen. “If it had to happen, it was not a bad time to do it,’’ he said. Few people were at home, and most homes were sealed with their air conditioning units running. Also, a steady, southeast breeze of about 8.5 miles per hour kept any possible fumes from the heavy-traffic area of First Street South, only a block from the park. The decision to evacuate the area was based on the initial concern that chlorine or another hazardous material could be leaking. Two Willmar firefighters, also members of the Kandiyohi County Hazardous Material Emergency Assist Team, donned hazardous material suits to enter the pool building. They isolated the chemicals used by the worker, and placed them in a sealed container for safe transportation and handling. As they worked, two other members of the hazardous materials team waited in standby, and two Willmar firefighters using self-contained breathing apparatus also were in standby. City Administrator Charlene Stevens said the name of the employee will not be released due to privacy concerns. Steve Brisendine, director of Willmar Community Education and Recreation, said information to him was not complete as of Tuesday afternoon. His department oversees the operations of the wading pool.
Researchers lower plankton nets over the side during a scientific expedition in northern waters. Credit: Beth Stauffer/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
For the first time, scientists have identified tropical and subtropical species of marine protozoa living in the Arctic Ocean. Apparently, they traveled thousands of miles on Atlantic currents and ended up above Norway with an unusual-but naturally cyclic-pulse of warm water, not as a direct result of overall warming climate, say the researchers.
On the other hand: arctic waters are warming rapidly, and such pulses are predicted to grow as global climate change causes shifts in long-distance currents.
Thus, colleagues wonder if the exotic creatures offers a preview of climate-induced changes already overtaking the oceans and land, causing redistributions of species and shifts in ecology. The study, by a team from the United States, Norway and Russia, was just published in the British Journal of Micropalaeontology.
The creatures in question are radiolaria-microscopic one-celled plankton that envelop themselves in ornate glassy shells and graze on marine algae, bacteria and other tiny prey.
Different species inhabit characteristic temperature ranges, and their shells coat much of the world’s ocean bottoms in a deep ooze going back millions of years; thus climate scientists routinely analyze layers of them to plot swings in ocean temperatures in the past. The new study looks at where radiolarians are living now.
In 2010, a ship operated by the Norwegian Polar Institute netted plankton samples northwest of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, about midway between the European mainland and the North Pole. When the coauthors analyzed the samples, they were startled to find that of the 145 taxa they spotted, 98 had come from much farther south-some as far as the tropics.
Furthermore, the southern radiolaria were in different sizes and apparently different stages of growth for each species, indicating they were reproducing, despite the harsh conditions.
It was the first time since modern arctic oceanographic research began in the early 20th century that researchers had spotted a living population of such creatures in the northern ocean.
Coauthor O. Roger Anderson, a specialist in one-celled organisms at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said, “When we suddenly find tropical plankton in the arctic, the issue of global warming comes right up, and possible inferences about it can become very charged. So, it’s important to examine critically the evidence to account for the observations.”
He said the invaders were apparently swept up in the warm Gulf Stream, which travels from the Caribbean into the north Atlantic, but usually peters out somewhere between Greenland and Europe. Oceanographers have previously shown that sometimes pulses of warm water penetrate along the Norwegian coast and into the arctic basin; such pulses have occurred in the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s.
Further, the authors say that well-dated fossils of foraminifera-protozoans closely related to radiolaria-found on the arctic seafloor suggest that warm-water plankton may have temporarily established themselves at least several times before-around 4200 and 4100 BC, and again around 220, 370 and 1100 AD.
“All the evidence is that this isn’t necessarily immediate evidence of global warming of the ocean,” said Anderson. Lead author Kjell Bjorklund, of the University of Oslo Natural History Museum said of the invaders, “This doesn’t happen continuously-but it happens.”
That said, oceanographers have noted that such pulses seem to be coming more often and penetrating further-”exactly what one would expect from global warming,” said Rainer Froese, an oceanographer at the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research who tracks fish global populations. Could this be the start of a switch in currents predicted by climate models?
The most recent pulse began in the early 1980s, and has lasted more or less to the present. Even without that, the arctic ocean itself is warming rapidly; with progressive loss of summer sea ice over past decades, average surface temperature has gone up as much as 5 degrees centigrade (9 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1950 in some patches.
Physical oceanographers have different ideas on the mechanics of how more southerly water–and the things living in it–may arrive in the arctic. However, most agree that it will happen if climate keeps warming, said Arnold Gordon, head of Lamont’s division of ocean and climate physics, who was not involved in the research.
For one, a countercurrent running near Greenland, the North Atlantic Polar Gyre, normally wards off the Gulf Stream; but that gyre is predicted to slow with warming. Atlantic currents might also respond to changing wind patterns, or to the increasing fresh water now pouring into the northern ocean from melting sea ice and glaciers. Either way, this could draw more southerly water into the north, said Gordon.
Louis Fortier, an arctic oceanographer at Laval University in Quebec, said of the recent injections of southerly waters, “Whether or not [such] intrusions are signs of this predicted increased advection in response to climate change, nobody can tell yet, I believe. But for me, the observations so far certainly support the models.”
Paul Snelgrove, a specialist in cold-ocean studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland, agreed. “The question is, are these kinds of incursions becoming more frequent and stronger? If it continues, the case would become more persuasive. Right now, this study is not a definitive test, but it seems like an intriguing teaser as to what might happen.”
Whatever the answer, this is the first time a living population of southern radiolaria has been found so far north. Radiolaria live only about a month, so it must have taken 80-some generations for some species to make the five- to seven-year trip, say the authors. On the way, successive generations could have adapted to colder waters.
In 2009, the surface water in the sample area measured an extraordinary 7.5 degrees C (about 45.5F). A year later, when the samples were taken, it was down to a more normal level of 3.5C (38F), and yet the radiolarians were still there.
However, the fast-changing nature of the ocean makes their presence in the arctic hard to interpret, said Paul Wassman, an arctic biologist at the University of Tromso in Norway. Marine creatures routinely travel vast distances on currents.
Water temperatures may vary widely in the same latitude. Populations of some creatures may live for a while in a narrow tongue of temperate water, then wink out once that gets too diluted, he said.
Bjorklund, Anderson and their coauthor Svetlana Kruglikova of the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanography in Moscow note that it is uncertain whether the southern invaders are still there; they have not gotten any new samples since 2010.
In any case, changes in global ocean ecology are already being detected in many places. Warmer-water species are marching poleward, much as creatures are on land, where butterflies have been shifting ranges northward about 6 kilometers per decade, and amphibians and migratory birds are breeding an average of two days earlier.
A 2011 global study on the impact of climate change on fisheries says that many marine species are moving poleward or into deeper, cooler waters in response to warming–among other places, along the U.S. east coast, the Bering Sea, and off Australia.
The North Sea, off Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, has warmed about 2 degrees F in the last 50 to 100 years; there, 15 of 36 fish species studied have moved northward; fish more common nearer the Mediterranean-anchovy, red mullet, sea bass-are being caught by commercial fishermen, while cod, which prefer colder waters, are moving out.
There is also evidence that zooplankton similar to the radiolaria are shifting northward in the North Atlantic. In the Pacific, poisonous algal blooms harmful to the shellfish industry are being detected farther north, into Alaskan waters.
In the arctic itself, earlier and faster melting of sea ice in the summer appears to be shifting plankton species assemblages toward smaller types. This could ultimately damage the food web that feeds much larger creatures, including seals, walruses and whales, said Jody Deming, a biologist at the University of Washington who studies arctic microbes.
In an email, Deming said the new paper “presents an intriguing observation (warmer species making it into Arctic waters and surviving at least on the short term), but without more knowledge of how living radiolarians fit into the larger ecosystem, as both prey and predator, potential impacts on the whole ecosystem cannot be predicted reliably or at all really.”
The big question, said Bjorklund, is what happens next. In the future, radiolaria may serve as useful indicators of how currents, and ecology, are changing. There are at least 60-some radiolaria species peculiar to the arctic; they may be quite different from the new arrivals, but too little is known about the life cycles of either group to say how either will react if they meet on a long-term basis, and how this might affect arctic ecosystems.
Of the southerly radiolaria, Bjorklund said, “Will they adapt? Will they perish? Will they mix with the native fauna?” He said that he and his colleagues are anxious to receive new samples to find out.
Copies of the paper, “Modern incursions of tropical Radiolaria in the Arctic Ocean” are available from the authors or the Earth Institute press office.
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The relatively strong tremor that threw into panic people in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia and nearby Pernik is an aftershock of the 5.8-magnitude quake at the end of May, according to experts.
“What we experienced on Saturday is an aftershock of the earthquake of May 22 this year and has the same epicenter,” Professor Nikolay Miloshev, director of the National Institute of Geography, Geophysics and Geodesy, Sofia, explained.
In his words it is not unusual that today’s earthquake is related to the May tremor because it was very strong and even then seismologists predicted aftershocks may continue for months.
Saturday’s earthquake was estimated as 4.5 on the Richter scale by the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre and as 4.2 on the Richter scale by the Geophysical Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS).
The jolt struck at 3.52 p.m. and was felt in Pernik, Sofia, Samokov, Montana and Plovdiv.
The quake occurred at a depth of 10 km and was epicentered 7 km southeast of Pernik and 19 kilometers west of Sofia, very near to the epicenter of the 5.8-magnitude jolt which hit the region in the small hours of May 22.
Sheldon, Iowa — The dry conditions continue. But the past year has been a roller coaster into and out of drought.
We started 2011 wet, but by the end of the year, it was quite dry, and we were concerned about spring planting. We were in what the US Drought monitor calls “severe drought”. But by the time it was time to plant, we were pretty close to where we should be in the moisture profile, and the forecast was for improvement. Now it looks like the pendulum may be swinging back the other way.
The latest information from the US Drought Monitor indicates that our area is in moderate drought. The forecast isn’t any better news. The US Seasonal drought outlook for northwest Iowa is that development of greater drought is likely.
Much of the Corn Belt continues to experience increasing dryness and drought, with departure from normal precip over the past 30 days on the order of 3 to 5 inches below normal across central and eastern Iowa and much of Illinois and Indiana.
So the good news (if you can look at it that way) is that we’re not alone, it’s dry everywhere. In fact, over a thousand counties in 26 states are being named natural-disaster areas, the biggest such declaration ever by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It covers a third of farmers nationwide, and makes them eligible for low-interest loans.
The data cutoff for Drought Monitor maps is Tuesday at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. The maps, which are based on analysis of the data, are released each Thursday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
Firefighters aided by aircraft immediately attacked the first lightning-caused fire in Yellowstone National Park this season, but a park spokesman said Friday there’s been no talk of suppressing every blaze. “Our bottom line has always been if we believe that there is a threat to people and property, our goal is to protect people and property,” spokesman Al Nash said. “But not every fire in Yellowstone poses a threat.” The fire was reported Thursday near the park’s northern border in northwest Wyoming. Initially reported at 5 acres, the fire grew to 29 acres by Friday afternoon.
Torrential rains have killed more than 20 people in China and destroyed about one million homes, local media reported on Saturday.
Heavy rains have been battering a number of Chinese provinces for several weeks, triggering mudslides and flooding.
Eleven people were killed in the southern province of Guangdong and ten in the central province of Hubei, where more than 2 million people were affected by the disaster.
The damage caused by the rain has exceeded $156 million.
* Monsoon covers entire country four days ahead of usual date
* Deficit from June 1-July 11 narrows to 22 percent (Adds details, quotes, background)
By Ratnajyoti Dutta
NEW DELHI, July 12 (Reuters) – India’s monsoon rains were above average in the past week for the first time in the current season, the weather office said, as the downpours resumed after a worrying fortnight-long pause over the central part of the country.
The annual rains are crucial for farm output and economic growth as about 55 percent of the South Asian nation’s arable land is rain-fed. The farm sector accounts for about 15 percent of a nearly $2-trillion economy, Asia’s third-biggest.
Rains were 1 percent above average for the week ended July 11, a sharp improvement from 49 percent below average in the previous week – allaying fears of a drought, which would hit output of food crops in the major consumer and producer.
Rapid progress of monsoon rains over the grain bowl of northwest India helped cover the entire country four days ahead of the usual date of July 15 although weather officials have cautioned it could remain weak until next week.
“The monsoon scenario is not as bad as has been painted,” Food Minister K.V. Thomas told Reuters.
Farm Minister Sharad Pawar had already said on Wednesday the rains had improved, speeding the sowing of major summer crops such as rice and cotton.
Rains had been 30 percent below average from June 1 to July 4 and now that deficit has narrowed to 22 percent below average.
Weather officials said the monsoon rains would be above average over the hilly regions of the north and northeast over the next three days, helping to fill reservoirs, but would decrease over northern states such as Punjab and Haryana in the grain bowl of India early next week.
CROP SCENE
The revival of rains over central India increased the pace of soybean planting, which is now almost 80 percent complete in Madhya Pradesh, the main producing state for the oilseed, an industry official said.
“Rains are needed even in the next week to complete the sowing operations,” said Rajesh Agrawal, spokesman for the Soybean Processors’ Association of India said.
Soybean is the main oilseed crop for India, the world’s biggest importer of cooking oils and also a major supplier of soymeal to nations such as Iran, South Korea, Vietnam, Japan, and Thailand.
By July 6, soybean had been planted in 1.9 million hectares, more than the normal area, according to preliminary farm ministry data. A further update will be issued on Friday.
Thomas said the planting scenario for rice and cane was also “good.” India also has huge stockpiles of rice after three years of bumper harvests. By July 1, government rice stocks were 30.7 million tonnes, much higher than the 9.8 million tonnes targeted for the quarter to end-September.
But concerns remain for cereals in some rain-fed areas of the western state of Maharashtra and southern Karnataka. Cereals had been planted on 2.19 million hectares by July 6 compared with normal acreage of 5.66 million hectares.
Severe flooding in Japan has forced the evacuation of some 400,000 people today. The country’s meteorological agency today warned that more landslides and flooding is expected to hit the deluged island of Kyushu, where severe weather has killed up to 20 people in the last several days. Rain pounded the southern island today, with over four inches of water coming down per hour, according to the weather unit, said SAPA news agency. At least nine people have gone missing. Weather officials said that over 30 inches of rain hit the southern city of Aso in the last three days. Hundreds of thousands of people on the island and the surrounding southern provinces have been advised to leave the region or go to storm shelters. The nation has deployed self-defense units to the area to assist with recovery efforts.
Rock and debris from a landslide lie along five miles of what had been an ice-white glacier inside Glacier Bay National Park.
By Miguel Llanos, msnbc.com
A massive landslide sent tons of rock and debris tumbling more than five miles down a glacier in Alaska, the National Park Service reported in an event that could be yet another sign of a warming world.
Located in a remote area of Glacier Bay National Park, the slide was so big it registered on earthquake monitors as a magnitude 3.4 event.
“It’s certainly the largest that we’re aware of” inside the park, Glacier Bay ecologist Lewis Sharman told msnbc.com.
Larger landslides have happened over geologic time, Marten Geertsema, a natural hazards researcher for the Forest Service in nearby British Columbia, told msnbc.com, but it definitely was “one of the longest runout landslides on a glacier in Alaska and Canada in recent times.”
Moreover, the force was enormous, Geertsema said. No one was present, but had anyone been there they probably “would be blown over by the air blast,” he told the Associated Press.
Officials ruled out an earthquake as the trigger that caused part of the nearly 12,000-foot Lituya Mountain to give way, smothering the ice-white Johns Hopkins Glacier with dark rock and debris over an area a half-mile wide and 5.5 miles long.
Drake Olson / FlyDrake.com via AP
The landslide is viewed from above the Johns Hopkins Glacier.
One possibility is that thawing permafrost, which is ground that stays frozen for two more our years, caused the slide.
“We are seeing an increase in rock slides in mountain areas throughout the world because of permafrost degradation,” said Geertsema.
“I don’t know whether permafrost degradation played a role here, but we can be almost certain that permafrost exists on Lituya Mountain,” said Geertsema, who reviewed aerial photos of the mountain and slide area. ”Certainly this type of event could happen from permafrost degradation.”
Many areas of mountain permafrost have been thawing in recent decades as temperatures warm, and some experts are becoming convinced that thawing is a factor in the frequency of rock slides, Geertsema said, pointing to data by Swiss scientists studying the Alps.
Marten Geertsema and Drake Olson
The section of rock and ice that slid off Lituya Mountain is seen here. Marten Geertsema estimates it was 200 meters, or about 600 feet, wide.
“It plays an important role,” Geertsema said of climate change. “I think we have been underestimating the role it might play.”
Sharman, the park ecologist, echoed that sentiment, saying he’s heard from experts that “they would not be surprised” to see more such landslides inside the national park if temperatures continue to warm.
“Certainly we are seeing an increase in large landslides over the past decades,” Geertsema said, citing his 2006 study that found between 1973 and 2003 the average in northern British Columbia increased from 1.3 large landslides per year to 2.3.
Moreover, he said, most of the slides in northern British Columbia are happening in the warmest years.
Landslides like this one can also be triggered by other factors, Geertsema added, such as a combination of large snowpack and a cold spring that results in a delayed and then rapid melt.
The slide itself was miles from areas used by park visitors, most of whom see Glacier Bay by cruise ship.
“You can’t see it from a boat or the bay. You’ve got to be up flying. And it’s not on a typical flying route,” park service spokesman John Quinley told Reuters. “It would have been pretty horrific if you’d been camped on the glacier.”
And it won’t reach the bay for a long time.
The frozen ground that covers the top of the world has been thawing rapidly over the last three decades. But there is cause for concern beyond the far north, because the carbon released from thawing permafrost could raise global temeratures even higher. NBC’s Anne Thompson reports for “Changing Planet,” produced by NBC Learn in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
“The landslide is approximately 12-14 miles up the glacier,” the park said on its Facebook page, and the glacier itself moves material towards the bay only about 10-15 feet a day. “So this debris may not reach the face of the glacier for many years,” it added.
Officials are currently trying to estimate the volume of material that fell in the slide.
In 1958, a nearby landslide, this one above Lituya Bay and triggered by a 7.7 earthquake, created a wave hundreds of feet high that washed 1,720 feet up a narrow inlet. Two people on a fishing boat vanished and three others on land were killed.
One fishing vessel was able to ride out the wave, Geertsema noted.
“They looked below them and they could see the tops of the Sitka spruce trees way below,” he said. “The other boat disappeared.”
Last month’s slide covered more land area than the 1958 incident, but even so it probably won’t go down as the biggest one by volume in North America.
“We do not know the volume of the recent landslide on the Johns Hopkins Glacier yet, but it is unlikely to break the volume record,” Rex Baum, a U.S. Geological Survey expert, told msnbc.com.
What is the record? That, said Baum, would be the 2.8 cubic kilometer rock slide avalanche from the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state.
The search for four people assumed caught in Thursday’s landslide in southeastern B.C. resumed Friday afternoon and was to continue until dark, and then resume at first light Saturday morning, officials say.
More landslides earlier Friday had delayed the ground search for a father, his two adult daughters and a German woman believed to be trapped by a landslide that roared down a mountainside in southeastern B.C.
RCMP said there had been further slides in the area, and because of that searchers had to wait for geotechnicians to assess the safety of the terrain before they went in.
Bill Macpherson, spokesman for the Central Kootenay Regional District, said engineers gave the go-ahead, although there was no certainty the danger had passed.
“In spite of ongoing debris movement and continued slope instability, the search of the landslide at Johnsons Landing has resumed this afternoon at approximately14:15 hours [PT],” Macpherson said in a statement Friday afternoon.
About 40 rescue workers are now in Johnsons Landing, with 13 on top of the debris pile at any one time, trying to burrow in strategically to locate possible survivors, Vancouver Fire Department spokesman Les Sziklai told CBC News on Friday night. The department has a number of personnel assisting at the landslide scene, Sziklai said.
The earlier search delay had frustrated family members and local residents.
“It’s taken them a long time to get in there. In the old days we would’ve just gone in by ourselves, and it may have been dangerous, but this place is full of independent people,” said resident Susan Grimble.
The girls’ mother, Lynn Migdal, who is in Florida, told CBC News that Diana Webber, 22, and Rachel Webber, 17, and her ex-husband, Valentine Webber, were about to sit down for breakfast moments before the slide hit.
Now she believes they are trapped under the debris that destroyed the home.
“There is three people buried deep down in my house right now and there is not one rescue person on the property. Something fast has to be done,” Lynn Migdal said just after 7 a.m. PT.
Three homes were damaged by the landslide on Thursday. (Bob Keating/CBC)
Aerial reconnaissance of the site was conducted by 10 a.m., but ground crews were not allowed in to search the site because of stability concerns, according to Macpherson.
“My family has been buried under the ground since 11 o’clock yesterday. I know that the conditions were not good enough. They had to evacuate, but I was promised that by 4:30 yesterday afternoon, as soon as there was light, that there would be dogs and people digging,” said Migdal.
Diana Webber, 22, is believed to have been in a home hit by the landslide.(Facebook)
“All we need is some shovels to dig out my 17-year-old daughter, my 22-year-old daughter and my ex-husband.”
The other missing person is believed to be Petra Frehse, a German woman who has been a part-time resident of the area for several years.
RCMP Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said multiple helicopters, two search-dog teams, underwater recovery divers, a landslide expert and a geotechnician were dispatched to the scene in the tiny community of Johnsons Landing to help in the search and recovery effort.
The efforts were called off Thursday evening because the area was deemed too volatile to search in the dark.
Rachel Webber, 17, is also believed to have been in the house struck by the landslide.(Facebook)
“I think everybody is realistic that the odds of survivability for the individuals that were in the direct path [of the landslide] …are not that great,” said Moskaluk.
“So realistically, we are looking at possibly a recovery operation. But again, we never lose hope.”
Four members of Vancouver’s Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team arrived to help with the search on Thursday night, and more arrived on Friday morning.
By Ethan A. Huff,
(NaturalNews) Dozens of young children in Cambodia have died in recent months of what health authorities are claiming is some kind of mystery disease. But based on the nature of the afflicted children’s symptoms prior to their deaths, it seems a likely possibility that they may have been victims of vaccine injuries, and that the disease explanation is the media’s attempt to cover up the truth. According to Dr. Nima Asgari, a public health specialist at the United Nations (UN) body in Cambodia, as many as 60 children have died in Cambodia since April, all after experiencing similar symptoms. Prior to their deaths, many of the children had reportedly been suffering high fever, severe chest disease symptoms, and/or signs of neurological damage, symptoms which are all strangely associated with vaccine injury.
The so-called “disease,” which authorities insisted from the beginning they could not identify, has actually afflicted 61 children thus far, only one of which obviously survived. But all the children who were admitted to hospitals in both Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s largest and capital city, and a popular tourist area known as Siem Reap, were seven years of age or younger at their times of death.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is worried about the fact that the “condition” leads to a very high mortality rate in such a short period of time. But at the same time, the international body claims the disease is not contagious, as neither hospital staff nor nearby patients that have come into contact with the now-deceased children have developed similar symptoms.
Mysterious deaths wreak of deliberate experimentation on humans via vaccines
Since the mystery condition does not appear to be contagious in any way, and only seems to occur in young children of vaccine age, it is not that far of a stretch to hypothesize that vaccines may have something to do with these mysterious deaths. It would not be the first time, after all, that vaccine experimentation has led to the unusually rapid spread of “disease” in just a few weeks or months.
The AIDS epidemic, for instance, appears to have been triggered by a vaccine campaign for smallpox in Africa back in the late 1970s. (http://www.infowars.com) According to some reports, the 13-year campaign launched by WHO to vaccinate Africans living in Central Africa was directly responsible for inducing HIV and AIDS, which quickly spread around the world. (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net)
Interestingly, Cambodia has recently launched its own vaccination campaigns, including one for measles that began back in 2011. (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2011-02/10/c_13725980.htm) But neither health authorities nor the mainstream media have even entertained the thought that vaccines might the cause of the mystery deaths.
Some official reports are now blaming the deaths of Enterovirus Type 71 (EV71), also known as “hand, foot and mouth disease.” (http://news.blogs.cnn.com) But this explanation does not make any sense, as EV71 is highly contagious, while the “mystery condition” does not appear to be contagious.
Why are people panicking as their courtyards fill with “mysterious blood redrain“?
Did Nostradamus and others predict “rain like blood”?
Has this happened before?
What causes the red color in the mysterious rain?
Is it caused by an unidentified life form?
Could dust from a meteor affect an area more than a decade later?
Is all this just coincidence?
On Thursday, July 5, 2012, around 6:50 p.m. local time, a mysterious red rain shower fell for about 15 minutes in Kannur, Kerala, India. Locales within a one kilometer area in the Indian state of Kerala experienced this phenomenon, as it filled courtyards with blood red rain and stained people’s clothes pink.
Wildlife experts are concerned and investigating after 512 Magellanic penguins washed up dead across 65 miles of the Brazilian coast, reports the Merco Press. Further worrying veterinarians is that the birds were all apparently in good health, well fed, and free from oil stains. Magellanic penguins are migratory, moving from southern Argentina to Sao Paolo at this time of year. It’s not a great time for penguins in general, with the population of a major colony in Antarctica plummeting 36% since 1991.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Die-off (Magellanic penguins)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
A section of the Des Moines River with a history of hot weather related fish kills was home to one of the longest in the state’s history with nearly 58,000 dead fish in more than 42 stream miles with a value exceeding $10.1 million.
Dead fish were found in the Des Moines River from the dam in Eldon to the Farmington Bridge on Iowa Highway 2.
This section of the Des Moines River has had sizable fish kills over the years, including 2006 and in 2008, during summer flows of 300 to 500 CFS and high water temperature.
The DNR also investigated fish kills in the Iowa River between the Hawkeye Wildlife Area and the Iowa Highway 965 bridge in Johnson County and in the main lake at Lake Odessa in Louisa County.
The section of the Iowa River has periodically experienced hot weather fish kills in the past.
Paul Sleeper, fisheries biologist at Lake Macbride, said water from the shallow Hawkeye Wildlife area with low oxygen levels and temperatures in the 90s flowed under the Iowa Highway 965 and I-380 bridges where most of the dead fish were found. Sleeper said they counted 95 walleyes at the upper end of the Coralville Reservoir, along with six channel catfish and a few common carp on Monday.
“It looks like they had been dead for several days,” Sleeper said.
At Lake Odessa, 96 percent of the 19,000 fish killed were gizzard shad that are susceptible to changes in water temperature. Chad Dolan, fisheries biologist at the DNR’s Lake Darling office, said they suspect the kill happened Saturday night after the high air temperatures. The water temperature was in the low to mid 90s.
A section of the Des Moines River with a history of hot weather related fish kills was home to one of the longest in the state’s history with nearly 58,000 dead fish in more than 42 stream miles with a value exceeding $10.1 million.
Dead fish were found in the Des Moines River from the dam in Eldon to the Farmington Bridge on Hwy. 2.
The majority of fish killed, 37,159, were shovelnose sturgeon, with a value $116.20 per pound, according to American Fisheries Society guidelines for monetary value in fish kills. The sturgeon averaged more than two pounds each with a value of $9,865,241.85.
The investigation began around 10:30 a.m., July 7, when Lacey-Keosauqua State Park manager Justin Pedretti reported seeing “lots” of dead fish in the river to Mark Flammang, fisheries biologist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
Flammang and fisheries aide Wes Alexander were joined by Jon Ryk and Paul Brant from the DNR’s Washington field office on the river at Eldon and for the next 11 hours they collected water samples, conducted fish counts, and took water temperature readings working their way downstream to Farmington.
“We didn’t find low levels of dissolved oxygen or high levels of ammonia which is usually indicative of some sort of spill so it comes down to water temperature,” said Flammang. “You just don’t see rivers at 97 degrees and it was 97 degrees at every site that we sampled. I’ve never seen water at that temperature in Iowa.”
The effects of high water temperature on fish were likely compounded by stream flows that had fallen from 5,000 cubic feet per second before July 4, to 1,200 CFS on July 7.
In addition to shovelnose sturgeon, Flammang found more than 12,000 channel catfish, nearly 1,900 walleye, more than 1,100 flathead catfish, 1,500 freshwater drum, 750 carpsuckers, 370 white bass, 45 shorthead redhorse and 25 goldeye.
“It looks like a lot of fish, but I don’t expect this fish kill to have a noticeable impact on the fish population in this stretch of the river. The shovelnose sturgeon is something we’re concerned about, but the river has shown time and time again that it can recover,” Flammang said.
This section of the Des Moines River has had sizable fish kills over the years, including 2006 and in 2008, during summer flows of 300 to 500 CFS and high water temperature.
The DNR also investigated fish kills in the Iowa River between the Hawkeye Wildlife Area and the Hwy. 965 Bridge in Johnson County, and in the main lake at Lake Odessa in Louisa County.
The section of the Iowa River has periodically experienced hot weather fish kills in the past.
Paul Sleeper, fisheries biologist at Lake Macbride, said water from the shallow Hawkeye Wildlife area with low oxygen levels and temperatures in the 90s flowed under the Hwy. 965 and I-380 bridges were most of the dead fish were found. Sleeper said they counted 95 walleyes at the upper end of the Coralville Reservoir, along with six channel catfish and a few common carp on Monday.
“It looks like they had been dead for several days,” Sleeper said.
At Lake Odessa, 96 percent of the 19,000 fish killed were gizzard shad that are susceptible to changes in water temperature. Chad Dolan, fisheries biologist at the DNR’s Lake Darling office, said they suspect the kill happened Saturday night after the high air temperatures. The water temperature was in the low to mid 90s.
Other species killed were bluegills, crappies, freshwater drum, northern pike, largemouth bass, yellow bass, common carp, channel catfish, goldfish and brown bullhead. Dolan said live fish were seen in the areas of the fish kill and anglers were catching fish during the Sunday
While elevated water temperature is likely the cause of these fish kills, the DNR will be submitting water samples for analysis to see if other factors were responsible. If the public sees dead or stressed fish, they are encouraged to contact the DNR at 515-281-8694.
A friend of the surfer who was killed in a shark attack north of Lancelin this morning is believed to have witnessed the attack. Police have revealed the victim is a 24-year-old Perth man but have not yet released his name. He is the fifth person to die from a shark attack in Western Australia since September last year. Water Police and the Department of Fisheries are now searching for the man’s body. The attack happened about 4 km south of Wedge Island about 9am. Tony Cappelluti from the Fisheries Department said the victim was with a friend when attacked by what was believed to be a great white shark. “The two people were in the water surfing or waiting for a wave when the victim was attacked by a shark,” he said. It is believed that the two men were about 40 or 50 metres off the beach at the time of attack. Mr Cappelluti said two other surfers, one on a jet ski and the other being towed came over to help when they saw a commotion in the water. He said the man’s friend and the others surfers were not in a position to help and went back to shore and contacted the police. “No body has been recovered but from eyewitness accounts we presume he has been killed.” A man who said he had been the person on the jet ski nearby told ABC that he tried to retrieve the man who had been attacked from the water. “I was towing my mate on the back of the jet ski and in front of us I just saw a guy get attacked by a shark and I just took my mate straight to the shore and went straight out and there was just blood everywhere and a massive, massive white shark circling the body,” he said. “I reached to grab the body and the shark came at me on the jet ski and tried to knock me off and I did another loop and when I came to get back to the body the shark took it.”
Mr Cappelluti said the attack had taken place near a very remote section of the beach and he was not sure if anyone was on the beach at the time. He said the victim’s friend was believed to be “very distressed.” Shire of Dandaragan president Shane Love said the thoughts of the community were with the victim’s family and friends. “I think anytime this sort of thing happens it’s a shock to coastal communities who love to go in the water and enjoy it, it’s very sad,” he said. Mr Love said while there were not many people who lived in the shacks at Wedge Island, which is about 160km north of Perth, the wider community of people who visited regularly was much larger. Police from Jurien Bay are attending the incident and the beach where the incident took place is currently closed. Lancelin local, Michael Balcombe who has been fishing in the area for about 45 years said he often saw big sharks in the area including tiger sharks and bronze whalers. “You always see sharks if you’re fishing around here,” he said. Mr Balcombe said considering the attack took place 4 km south of Wedge Island, it may have been at a popular surfing area called Didi Bay. Today’s attack is the second fatal shark attack in Western Australia this year.
Biohazard name:
Shark attack (Fatal)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
A swarm of bees attacked several people Friday evening, sending five to the hospital for treatment. The bee attack took place about 6:30 p.m. Friday on the 4100 block of North 10th Street, where a construction crew was repairing the roof of a strip mall, said McAllen Fire Capt. Rene Del Bosque. Customers were ordered to stay inside the various buildings, including Hop Tung Vietnamese Chinese Restaurant and the Lucky 13 tattoo parlor. Employees at other stores looked out from their windows as firefighters worked to remove the bees, but were also stung in the process. Those not inside businesses were kept away by McAllen police and firefighters. Those who had been stung were moved across the street to North Cross Shopping Center, where first responders treated those who had been stung. About 7:45 p.m., firefighters wearing bee suits removed the beehive and cleared the area. “At first I saw some of the guys swatting in the air and didn’t know what was going on but then as they got close I saw the bees,” said Andy Wynn, one of the roofers who dropped to the ground and covered himself in insulation material in an effort to stay safe from the bees. “I was concerned that some of the guys might jump off the roof to get away from the bees … it was about 5 or 10 at a time but they came at you and tried to get in your ears or your nose.” Wynn said he’d never been attacked by bees in his eight years as a roofer.
Biohazard name:
Bees attack
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
A fire at a National Grid substation in Liverpool on Friday morning sparked outages in several local communities. / Bill Ali
SALINA — Thousands of National Grid customers were in the dark during a major power outage on Friday. The outage had the greatest affect on customers in Syracuse and Salina, and was sparked by a fire at a National Grid substation in Liverpool. The substation caught fire around 12:30am on Friday.
A National Grid spokesperson says the fire is believed to be specifically caused by bushlings, which allow energey to pass between pieces of equipment and are a vital component of substations.
National Grid has asked thousands of customers to conserve power while they are re-routing those serviced by the substation to other grids. To minimize strain on grids, customers are asked to unplug unnecessary electronics and turn up the temperatures on air conditioners to 70-72 degrees.
Those asked to conserve seem willing to comply, despite the 90 degree temperatures. “It’s hot, yeah, but there’s other ways we can keep cool,” said Salina National Grid customer Daniel Zaborskiy. “Like instead of using A/C, we can use a fan, for instance.”
Some affected by the outages are upset with National Grid. “They should provide a service and we should have confidence and know that they’re going to deliver that service to us, like they want their money on time at all times,” said Syracuse customer Taj Bey.
[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.]
New Delhi: A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck northern India on Thursday evening. Tremors were felt in parts of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir reportedly.
The epicentre of the quake was in Hindukush region.
Press Trust of India (PTI) reported that the powerful earthquake also jolted parts of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces of Pakistan though there were no reports of casualties or damage to property.
The tremor, which lasted about five seconds, occurred at about 7 pm and was followed by powerful aftershocks. It was felt in Islamabad, Lahore and other parts of Punjab, Peshawar and across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
The heat outside is taking a toll on firefighters. The men and women who sacrifice their safety on a regular basis to fight fires are working overtime now any time they get a fire call.
The Avelene Fire grew quickly overnight and is threatening homes in the Boise National Forest. Three fires started on Tuesday and combined into the 250-acre Avelene Fire, near Highway 21 and Grimes Creek Road. Steep terrain, scorching temperatures, thick smoke, and wind are making life hard for firefighters. But crews have put a fire line around half of the fire perimeter as they try to protect the community of Clear Creek, the edge of which is about 1/8 of a mile away. “There’s structure protection around 20 homes, but there are 100 homes in the area that are of concern,” said Christine Schuldheisz, with the Boise National Forest. Deputies are recommending people living within a mile of the fire evacuate, but they aren’t forcing them to. However, all that could change if the fire gets much closer to Clear Creek, and homes like Terry Day’s. “If it drops down into the gulch over this way and comes up, that’s going to threaten a bunch of homes. There’s probably 350 homes up here,” said Day. “If it gets hot enough, it could catch my house.” Day also happens to be a Boise County commissioner, and says commissioners have declared a county emergency to mobilize the sheriff’s department and other resources. But Day says this is bad timing for a county that just had to increase its budget to pay off a lawsuit. “They’ve got another fire on the Boise Front, Aldape Summit, that’s affecting us as far as the county goes,” said Day. “We’ve got to pay for all this stuff and we’re not financially real solvent right now.” If the fire continues to grow, the commission will ask the governor to declare a state emergency to get state resources. Fifteen engines, two helicopters and air tankers, and about 130 firefighters are battling the Avelene Fire, but a Type 1 Incident Management Team has been ordered to help manage the fire, and should be there in one or two days. Dave Olson with the Boise National Forest say a lot of support has come from the Clear Creek and Wilderness Ranch Rural Fire Departments. Also, firefighters urge you to drive very carefully on Highway 21, there’s a lot of fire traffic and heavy smoke.
The United States Department of Agriculture has declared natural disaster areas in more than 1,000 counties and 26 drought-stricken states, making it the largest natural disaster in America ever.
The declaration—which covers roughly half of the country—gives farmers and ranchers devastated by drought access to federal aid, including low-interest emergency loans.
“Agriculture remains a bright spot in our nation’s economy,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday while announcing the assistance program. “We need to be cognizant of the fact that drought and weather conditions have severely impacted farmers around the country.”
The average temperature was 52.9 degrees Fahrenheit, or 4.5 degrees above average, NOAA said on Monday. Twenty-eight states east of the Rockies set temperature records for the six-month period.
A heat wave blistered most of the United States in June, with more than 170 all-time temperature records broken or tied during the month. On June 28 in Norton, Kan., for instance, the temperature reached 118 degrees, an all-time high. On June 26, Red Willow, Neb., set a temperature record of 115 degrees, eclipsing the 114-degree mark set in 1932.
The world is watching and waiting while US farmers struggle with the worst drought in 25 years
By Veronica Brown and Nigel Hunt
LONDON — What looks to be the worst U.S. drought in a quarter of a century has given rise to an old-fashioned commodity rally on world markets, with key grain prices hitting highs which caused food crises in vulnerable parts of the globe last time around.
Seeking to protect their populations from hunger this time, many countries relying heavily on imports have held off for now, touting healthy stock levels and hoping other sources will come through and bring prices down.
But their hopes may be dashed if they all return to market at once.
With so much of the world putting faith in a record U.S. corn crop, it is little wonder that prices have surged around 40 percent in the past three weeks as relentless dry weather melted yield expectations for cereals. Soybeans are at record highs, while wheat is not far behind.
“Production potential looked great and it kind of lulled these end-users into a false sense of security. At that point we were seriously looking at (corn) prices under $5 if weather conditions remained ideal, but now we’ve rallied sharply higher and never looked back,” Jefferies Bache analyst Shawn McCambridge said.
Now, corn futures contracts backed by the 2012 harvest are above $7 a bushel and climbing fast.
Traders said consumers in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East had pulled back on regular purchases, expecting prices to cool off.
“This to me is a time bomb. I am routinely one of the more bearish people but it wouldn’t surprise me if corn traded at $10,” the trader added.
There are several parallels between the current state of play and food crises of the past few years, including scorching weather, wilting crops and sky-rocketing prices. Just substitute 2012′s U.S. drought and corn for 2010′s Russian crop failure.
Similarities can also be found on the macro front – 2008, when prices were last at these levels, saw a mushrooming financial crisis culminate in the failure of Lehman Brothers, and now Europe’s debt crisis has left the euro zone precariously balanced, with other regions also on edge.
The uncertainty has led to swings in all the markets this time as then, but the simple common denominator of supply and demand has been the driving force of the latest grain price spike, with weather the only fundamental that matters.
Such frenzied buying leads ultimately to additional food inflation and domestic price rises can be a tipping point in countries with already struggling populations.
Bulging demand pipeline Parking on the sidelines to avoid the sting of higher prices seems like a sensible tactic
Morocco is currently reluctant to buy, but faces its highest cereal import needs in three decades due to a poor domestic harvest. The north African country’s cereals crop fell from 8.4 million tonnes in 2011 to 5.1 million tonnes this year.
“Buyers have been rejecting offers in the last couple of weeks expecting prices to come down,” a Singapore-based grain trader said. “We have seen it in South Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam but how long can they wait?”
Buyers will do their best to hold out for the release of new crop grain in September and October from multiple sources including Eastern Europe, with Black Sea countries having forged a place on international markets as key suppliers of grain at cheap prices.
However those origins are also under pressure.
Hot and dry weather has forced Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan to reduce their harvest forecasts and the region’s total grain output could be at least 35 million tonnes less than in 2011.
A severe thunderstorm has flooded streets, yards, basements and construction sites in Edmonton. Sections of Whitemud Drive are underwater at 111th Street west of Calgary Trail. City workers arrived shortly after 7:30 a.m. to begin clearing the water.
Dharminder Gill told CBC News he was driving to work at 3 a.m.when his car stalled in the rising water. Within five minutes the water was waist deep, he said, and when he opened his window to escape the water began pouring in.
“I was scared,” he said. “I took my bag and ran through the water and moved to a safe place.”
The normally busy Mill Woods intersection at 66 Street and 34 Avenue is also flooded.
Firefighters spent much of the morning rescuing people from submerged vehicles, with at least 18 cars becoming trapped due to rainstorm, and responding to alarms set off by the storm.
“We had over 70 calls in a short period of time,” said fire Chief Ken Block, adding the calls left some areas of the city without direct fire coverage. “At a point last night we had crews from downtown responding in Mill Woods, which is a long ways away.”
Some off-duty firefighters had to be called in to bolster resources, he said.
Firefighters also responded to two house fires caused by lightning strikes, each damaged to the tune of $100,000, Block said. “Our resources were stretched very thin.”
Epcor reported 15 electrical circuits knocked out by lightning, though most power was restored by 8:30 a.m.
Several millimetres of rain and hail fell between 3 a.m. and 4:30 a.m.
The severe thunderstorm warning for Edmonton, St. Albert, Sherwood Park has ended, though Environment Canada says a few showers with thunderstorms are expected this morning.
The heatwave that helped generate the storm will continue Thursday with a high of 30 C.
Parts of the Houston region are seeing some significant flooding this morning. Hardest hit are areas to the northwest of the city, where parts of North Eldridge Parkway are reported to be completely impassable. An estimated five inches of rain have fallen during the last three hours along parts of Cypress Creek, and there is a flood warning for Cypress Creek at Grant Road. Due to the rains there is also a flash flood warning area for a large part of northwest Harris County until 9:45 a.m. CT. These heavy rains should persist for the morning hours, but forecast models move the heaviest rain to the east of Houston by the early afternoon hours. That will hopefully give the hardest hit areas to the northwest and north of Houston time to dry out, a bit. But the rain’s going to linger this week, says the National Weather Service. The upper-level system that’s been driving the rains is going to remain along the upper Texas coast through the early part of next week, which should produce at least scattered showers during the afternoon hours. High pressure may begin to return to Houston by the middle of next week, bringing an end to the rain chances. On the plus side, temperatures should remain below normal, with highs near or around 90 degrees. Yesterday’s high at Bush Intercontinental Airport was just 82 degrees, and that’s the fifth day of highs 85 degrees or less this month. Looking back to last summer there was just one day with a high of 85 or less during June, July, August and September.
Flooding and landslides caused by record torrential rain on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu have killed six people and left 20 missing. Rescue workers had been unable to reach some of the areas where people were believed to be buried under landslides, television reports said on Thursday. Authorities in the prefectural capital of Kumamoto ordered about 48,000 residents to flee the city. Blackouts hit about 10,000 households in Kumamoto and Oita prefectures, the Kyushu Electric Power Company reported. Railway services and motor traffic were suspended, Kyodo said, while some bullet train services were temporarily halted in the island’s north and centre. The Japan Meteorological Agency said rainfall in some parts of the island had reached levels that have “never been experienced”. It said hourly rainfall in the morning topped 120mm in Aso and reached 120mm in Ubuyama. The agency warned of more heavy rain and landslides in northern parts of Kyushu before the downpours move north to the main island of Honshu later on Thursday.
Flash floods in Japan leave trail of destruction
Kyodo via Reuters
An aerial view shows firefighters searching among collapsed houses following a landslide caused by heavy rains in Minamiaso town, Kumamoto prefecture, Japan, on July 12, 2012.
Jiji Press via AFP – Getty Images
Floodwaters engulf a river at Kumamoto city on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu on July 12, 2012.
Arata Yamamoto of NBC News reports — An unprecedented 20 inches of rain descended on the town of Aso in southwestern Japan, inundating homes and rice paddies and killing at least 6 people. 20 people are still reportedly missing.
Images on local news reports showed cars being dragged into the raging rivers and houses destroyed by landslides. But by around noon time the rain had stopped, allowing for the clean up efforts to kick in.
The local fire department in Aso District said they had managed to rescue 8 people trapped in mudslides.
The massive slide of snow happened around 5am this morning as early morning climbers made their way up Mount Maudit, which translates as “cursed peak”, in the Mont Blanc range. Most of them were roped together on what is considered to be one of the most dangerous ascents in Europe. Rescuers from the Alpine PGHM (high mountain gendarme platoon) said the initial estimated death toll was “at least six”. “There are around eight others injured and at least two people missing,” added a spokesman, who said that the avalanche had been caused by snow collapsing in July heat. “We were initially alerted just after dawn by one of the survivors who called us on a mobile phone.”
Mont Blanc avalanche – An emergency services helicopter searches for survivors of the tragedy in Chamonix, France. Photograph: Jean-Pierre Clatot/AFP/Getty Images
A further two British climbers were still missing as search and rescue workers from France and Italy combed the snow-covered slopes near Chamonix hours after the 28-strong group of climbers and guides were hit by a wall of ice and snow.
The search was called off at 5pm French time (4pm BST) and was expected to continue on Friday, depending on weather conditions.
French officials described it as the worst Alpine tragedy for many years.
The British ambassador Sir Peter Ricketts was on his way to Chamonix on Thursday afternoon.
The tragedy struck just after 5am as a group of climbers began a dawn ascent on Mont Maudit (Accursed Mountain) in the Mont Blanc range at Chamonix, at an altitude of just over 4,000m. The climbers were reported to have been roped together in at least two teams as they climbed one of the most popular but dangerous routes up the mountain.
A spokeswoman for the Haute-Savoie region said: “Nine people are dead, three of them British. It is not known whereabouts in the UK they are from.” The other fatalities are two Swiss, two German and two Spanish climbers. Another nine were injured and flown to hospital, while four remain missing.
Rescuers said they had searched the entire avalanche area and found no trace of the missing climbers. Colonel Bertrand François, commander of the local mountain gendarmes, said it was possible the bodies were buried deep under the ice and snow or outside of the area the 50-strong mountain rescue teams had searched.
Manuel Valls, the French interior minister, said rescue teams had been working in very difficult conditions.
“The mountain doesn’t always give up its victims,” he said, “but the search will obviously continue in icy and snowy conditions that are clearly very difficult.”
The climbers who died had been among a party that left the Cosmiques mountain hut above the popular Vallée Blanche off-piste ski descent at about 1am to follow the three mountains route, which ascends off the glacier and up the north-east face of Mont Blanc de Tacul. It then climbs Mont Maudit before continuing to the summit of Mont Blanc, continental Europe‘s highest mountain.
The accident took place on a long glaciated slope running from the shoulder of Mont Blanc du Tacul, up to the summit rock band of Mont Maudit, which is crossed close to a prominent ice cliff.
According to footage from the accident, and accounts of those who arrived on the scene in its immediate aftermath, there was fresh debris from a fallen section of ice cliff close to a large scoured area of wind slab avalanche, which had been deposited by high winds in the previous few days, leading to speculation that falling ice had triggered the slide.
Daniele Ollier, an Italian rescuer quoted on the British Mountaineering Council’s website, said the avalanche was 150 metres wide and took place in two phases: the initial serac fall hit the climbers who were higher on the Maudit face, then the windslab avalanche took out the climbers below, sweeping them for 200 metres.
One of the first on the scene was a British guide, Victor Saunders, and his doctor client, who were also following the route. They had left two hours later than the avalanched party after the guide expressed concerns about the weather. They gave first aid to the survivors and alerted the rescue services.
The accident came in amid a bad summer in the Alps that has resulted in several deaths across the region. Earlier this month, five German climbers fell to their deaths in Switzerland, also in a single incident.
A spokesman for the Alpine mountain rescue service, which scrambled a helicopter and sniffer dogs to the area after being alerted by an injured climber just after the avalanche, said it had probably been caused by snow collapsing in the warm July weather. “We were initially alerted just after dawn by one of the survivors who called us on a mobile phone,” he said.
Bertrand François, commander of the Haute-Savoie gendarmerie, whose officers were combing the mountainside for survivors on Thursday, offered a glimmer of hope for the missing climbers, saying it was possible the missing had been ahead of the group struck by the avalanche and had not been swept way. “It doesn’t necessarily mean they are under the avalanche,” he said.
Manuel Valls, the French interior minister, was on his way to the scene of one of the worst mountain tragedies in recent years.
The 4,465m Mont Maudit is widely considered one of the world’s most dangerous climbs. The Mont Blanc range claims more than 100 victims a year.
Eric Fournier, the mayor of Chamonix, described the snowslide as one of the deadliest in recent years. “There was no weather bulletin giving any avalanche warning,” he said, adding that shifting ice sheets could have triggered the avalanche.
The tragedy is one of the worst in the Mont Blanc region since August 2008, when eight climbers – four Austrians, three Swiss and one German – died in similar circumstances.
Leakage of radioactive water was reported in the Belgian Tihange NPP. “The problem is solved, there is no danger of pollution”, the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control announced. Leakage of radioactive water has occurred at the pool for cooling the spent nuclear fuel from the rector of the NPP. In 2011 there were 14 incidents in nuclear power plants in Belgium. 11 of them were qualified as technical incidents. In three cases there was a significant breach of security.
Health Officials in Winnebago County, Illinois, are investigating reports that a four-year-old child has been infected with the measles. The Winnebago County Health Department said that if tests confirm the infection it would be the county’s first case of the illness since 1994, according to BeloitDaily.com. The child in question began developing a rash near the ears at the end of June and also displayed symptoms including conjunctivitis, fever and Koplik spots. In response, the health department is urging local healthcare professionals to remain aware of potential new cases and report any new cases immediately, BeloitDaily.com reports. Measles is a once-common respiratory illness that is considered highly contagious. It is transported through the air by respiratory droplets primarily from coughs and sneezes. Approximately two weeks after exposure, the infected usually develop a rash that begins on the face and then spreads to other parts of the body. Other symptoms include a runny nose, red or sensitive eyes and a cough. Childhood vaccination programs have helped make the measles rare in the United States, but in recent years the number of cases seen nationwide has increased. In the first 19 weeks of 2011, there were 118 cases reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 105 were in unvaccinated patients.
Biohazard name:
Measles
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the year’s first case of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) caused by hantavirus and urged the public to avoid exposure to rodents, which are carriers of the virus. “The 63-year-old pig farmer from Kaohsiung has been discharged from hospital following treatment,” CDC Deputy Director-General Chou Jih-haw said. “Although the infection was likely caused by rodent bites, further laboratory tests are needed for confirmation,” he said. The patient began displaying symptoms of fever, vomiting, stomach pain, muscle soreness and shortage of breath on June 18, one month after being bitten on the toes by a rodent, a press statement released by the CDC said. Blood test results obtained on Wednesday confirmed that the man was infected with hantavirus, which caused HFRS, it said. With a hantavirus mortality rate as high as 10 percent, Chou urged those active in areas where rodents are present to take extra precautions to protect themselves from the disease. Previous studies have concluded that individuals working in wet markets tend to be in the high-risk group, he added. People usually get infected through exposure to the urine and droppings of infected rodents or after exposure to dust, which can also carry the virus. Human-to-human transmission is rare. There were 11 reported cases of HFRS caused by hantavirus between 2001 and last year, according to CDC statistics.
Biohazard name:
Hantavirus
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
The number of cases in the outbreak of the gastrointestinal disease, shigellosis, in the Central New York area continues to rise according to health officials. In an statement to Food Safety News Thursday, officials with the Onondaga County Health Department in Syracuse said the number of cases is now 45, up from 25 reported on June 22. They go on to say, “This includes confirmed, probable, and what New York State Department of Health is considering suspect (cases).” The source of the outbreak is still unknown and the investigation into the outbreak is ongoing. It is an acute bacterial disease of the intestines caused by several species of the bacterium, Shigella. It is typified by loose stools, frequently containing blood and mucus (dysentery), accompanied by fever, vomiting, cramps and occasionally toxemia. It can cause bacillary dysentery because of the invasive ability of the organism that may result ulcerations and abscesses of the intestines.It rarely spreads to the bloodstream. More severe complications may include convulsions in children, Reiter’s syndrome and hemolytic uremic syndrome depending on the species of Shigella implicated. This diarrheal disease is found worldwide with the vast majority of cases and deaths being in children. Outbreaks usually occur where there are crowded conditions and where personal hygiene is poor: prisons, day care centers and refugee camps are three examples. It is transmitted primarily by fecal-oral person to person means. It can also occur through contaminated food or water. Those primarily responsible for transmission are people that fail to wash their hands thoroughly after defecation. Because Shigella is resistant to gastric acid, a person can get infected with as little as 10 organisms. After getting infected symptoms usually appear 1-3 days later. It can be transmitted during the acute phase of infection till approximately four weeks after illness when the organism is no longer present in the feces. Asymptomatic carriers can also infect others. Diagnosis is confirmed through bacteriological culture of feces. Treatment of shigellosis may include fluid and electrolyte replacement if there are signs of dehydration. Antibiotics can shorten the course of infection, the severity of illness and the period of time a person may excrete the pathogen. Because of some antibiotic resistance, a antibiotic susceptibility test should be performed to determine which antibiotic will be effective.
Biohazard name:
Shigellosis
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
SpaceWeather
This morning a vast bank of electric-blue noctilucent clouds rippled across northern Europe. “It was like water in the sky,” says Barbara Grudzinska, who photographed the display from Warsaw, Poland:
“These are the first noctilucent clouds this year so clearly visible at our latitude in Warsaw (52 N),” says Grudzinska.
When NLCs first appeared in the 19th century, the mysterious clouds were confined to the Arctic, most often seen in the same places as Northern Lights. In recent years, however, their “habitat” has been expanding, rippling as far south as Colorado, Virginia, Kansas, and Utah. (Herearesomeexamples of sightings in the lower United States.) There is growing evidence that the expansion is a sign of climate change, although this remains controversial.
Whatever the reason, noctilucent clouds aren’t just at high latitudes anymore, so sky watchers everywhere should be alert for them.
Observing tips:
Look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the sun has dipped 6o to 16o below the horizon. If you see luminous blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you’ve probably spotted a noctilucent cloud.
Big sunspot AR1520 unleashed an X1.4-class solar flare on July 12th at 1653 UT. Because this sunspot is directly facing Earth, everything about the blast was geoeffective. For one thing, it hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward our planet. According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the CME will hit Earth on July 14th around 10:20 UT (+/- 7 hours) and could spark strong geomagnetic storms. Sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend.
The explosion also strobed Earth with a pulse of extreme UV radiation, shown here in a movie recorded by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory:
The UV pulse partially ionized Earth’s upper atmosphere, disturbing the normal propagation of radio signals around the planet. Monitoring stations in Norway, Ireland and Italy recorded the sudden ionospheric disturbance.
Finally, solar protons accelerated by the blast are swarming around Earth. The radiation storm, in progress, ranks “S1″ on NOAA space weather scales, which means it poses no serious threat to satellites or astronauts. This could change if the storm continues to intensify. Stay tuned.
Sunspots are magnetic islands on the sun. Sunspot AR1520 is a complete archipelago. Scroll down to scan more than 200,000 miles of island chain:
Amateur astronomer Alan Friedman took the picture on July 10th from his backyard observatory in Buffalo, New York. “AR1520 is a tremendous archipelago and a wonderful target for backyard solar telescopes,” he says.
The tangled magnetic canopy of the sunspot group, shown here in an extreme UV image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, harbors energy for strong solar flares. NOAA forecasters estimate an 80% chance of M-class flares and a 15% chance of X-class flares during the next 24 hours.
As expected, a giant sunspot AR1515 unleashed a strong X1.1 solar flare on July 6th at 23:08 UTC. This event triggered a 10cm Radio Burst and a Type IV Sweep Frequency Event. Preliminary analysis indicates the Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) associated with this event is not headed directly at Earth, it looks to be headed south and to the west. This should have little impact on Earth.
The protons blasted away from the flare site are currently streaming past Earth and a S1 Minor Radiation Storm is in progress
Geomagnetic storming
Region 1515 produced an impulsive R3 (Strong) solar flare radio blackout at 2308 UTC (7:08 PM EDT) on July 6. It means wide area blackout of HF radio communication, loss of radio contact for about an hour on sunlit side of Earth as well as low-frequency navigation signals degraded for about an hour.
Solar Radiation Storm levels are increasing above background levels reaching S1 (Minor) threshold at this time. It could result as minor impacts on HF radio in the polar regions. Additionally, G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storming is possible through July 8 as a string of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) observed earlier in the week make their way past Earth.
A Nogales man has died after authorities say he was attacked by a swarm of bees. The Nogales International reports that the man was one of several people attacked in Nogales by the pack of bees. The victim, whose name and age have not been confirmed, was taken to Holy Cross Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. Sanchez said it was not clear if he died from the bee stings or from another medical condition. He said that other people who were stung went by private vehicle to the hospital.
Biohazard name:
Bees attack
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is confirming that two mule deer shot in the Hueco Mountains in El Paso, Texas and Hudspeth counties tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease, an incurable, fatal illness that destroys a deer’s brain. This is the first cases to be documented in Texas and is bringing the issue of containing herds of animals that have the disease into the spotlight. CWD can spread quickly from animal to animal through bodily fluids like saliva, urine, etc. With moving herds, deer from one area can spread it quickly to other areas, affecting the over-billion dollar industry of hunting in Texas. A South Texas newspaper reports that the Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Texas Animal Health Commission want to impose regulations aimed at minimizing risks of the disease spreading to other parts of Texas. Back in June, it proposed regulations for a “containment zone” covering El Paso County and parts of Hudspeth and Culberson counties and a “high-risk zone” covering portions of Culberson and Reeves counties. Later this month, the officials plan to officially propose rules to cover movement of wild and captive deer under agency permits. CBS7 is also told the agency may push to have hunters who harvest deer from the containment area have their animals tested at check stations.
Biohazard name:
Chronic Wasting Disease (deer)
Biohazard level:
3/4 Hight
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans, but for which vaccines or other treatments exist, such as anthrax, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS virus, variola virus (smallpox), tuberculosis, typhus, Rift Valley fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Among parasites Plasmodium falciparum, which causes Malaria, and Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes trypanosomiasis, also come under this level.
When species lose their natural habitat to deforestation and other causes, they don’t immediately disappear. Instead, they gradually die off over several generations, racking up an “extinction debt” that must eventually be paid in full. New research shows that the Brazilian Amazon has accrued a heavy vertebrate extinction debt, with more than 80 percent of extinctions expected from historical deforestation still impending.
While the results are alarming, this deathly time lag provides a conservation opportunity to save some of the disappearing species, scientists said, stressing that actions taken in the next few years are critical.
“Now that we know where the extinction debt is likely to be, we can go to the ground to restore habitat and take remedial actions to try to regenerate new habitats,” said study lead author Robert Ewers, an ecologist at Imperial College London in the U.K. “We can try to put off ever having to pay that debt.”
The Brazilian Amazonis home to about 40 percent of the planet’s tropical forests and a staggering amount of biodiversity. However, the Amazon’s plant and animal species are under threat by deforestation, mostly due to agriculture and cattle ranging.
Ewers and his colleagues set out to determine how many species would be lost from at least part of their historical habitats in the Amazon because of past and future deforestation. They began by looking at the “species-area relationship,” a well-established ecological pattern describing how the number of species in a given habitat increases predictably as the habitat area increases. By turning this idea on its head, you can figure out how many species should go extinct as their habitat shrinks.
The researchers modeled the number of vertebrate species expected to go extinct within 31-mile by 31-mile blocks (50 by 50 kilometer blocks). They used a combination of deforestation data spanning back to 1970 and species-distribution maps of the Amazon. They compared their model’s predictions with the actual number of extinctions seen thus far in the forest regions and found that 80 to 90 percent of the expected local extinctions have yet to happen, and many of them will occur in the southern and eastern regions of the Amazon.
Next, Ewers and his team used their model to estimate the magnitude of the local extinctions and extinction debts expected to occur in four scenarios, which mainly differ in their projections of future deforestation rates. Under the most likely scenario, every forest block will lose an average of about nine vertebrate speciesand be in debt for another 16 species by 2050.
And in all scenarios, species will continue to go extinct more than three decades after deforestation in the Amazon has stopped, if key forest areas are not restored, the researchers found.
“What we’ve seen in the last four decades is nothing like what we are going to see in the next four decades,” Ewers told LiveScience.
Defaulting on the debt
Thiago Rangel, an ecologist at the Federal University of Goiás in Brazil who wasn’t involved in the research, was surprised to see the Amazon’s huge extinction debt. “Of course, that gives Brazil a very good opportunity for conservation measures,” Rangel said.
Rangel, who wrote a perspective article accompanying the study published July 13 in the journal Science, pointed out that Brazil has made a lot of progress in reducing deforestation in the last decade. Moreover, the county has been expanding its network of protected areas – more than 50 percent of the Amazon is now under some form of environmental protection.”But we are in the middle of a strong transition in Brazil from a very good and modern environmental legislation to something else,” Rangel told LiveScience. Agricultural businesses, for example, have been lobbying for weaker forest protection codes – this past May, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff vetoed portions of such a bill, though this isn’t likely the end of the debate, Rangel said.
Rangel stresses that Brazil must “default on its extinction debt,” possibly by creating more conservation areas, particularly in places that have been abandoned by agriculturalists. Whatever the case, something needs to be done soon, he said.
Ewers agreed. “This problem has been building, and it will soon roll over and crash like a wave,” he said.
12.07.2012
HAZMAT
China
Province of Jiangsu Sheng, Zhenjiang City [Jiangsu SOPO Group Co., Ltd]
Twenty-eight people remain hospitalized after a sulfur dioxide leak occurred Thursday morning at a chemical plant in east China’s Jiangsu province, local authorities said.Around 10 a,m. Thursday, a small amount of sulfur dioxide was leaked in a chemical plant belonging to Jiangsu SOPO Group Co., Ltd. in Zhenjiang City, according to an investigative report released by the environmental protectchinaion bureau of Jianbi county. The leak lasted for about five minutes, the report said. Shortly after the spill, dozens of plant employees and local residents began complaining of an “uncomfortable” feeling and were sent to a local hospital. The 28 patients who remain in the hospital are under observation and are in no imminent danger. The plant shut down a sulfuric acid production facility linked to the accident. A further investigation is under way. Sulfur dioxide is a poisonous gas with a pungent, irritating smell.
12.07.2012
HAZMAT
United Kingdom
England, Wickham Hill [Benton Hall Golf and Country Club, Witham, Essex]
Members and staff of Benton Hall Golf Club, in Wickham Hill, were asked to leave the building when three people were taken ill after a problem with chemicals in the swimming pool plant room on Tuesday morning. Fire crews from Chelmsford, Maldon, Colchester and Witham were sent to the club, where three people were found suffering from sore eyes and restricted breathing. They were given oxygen and an was ambulance called. Station officer at Chelmsford White Watch Sean Walshe said: “I was met by their caretaker who explained that everybody was out of the building but there was a strong smell of chlorine. Two chemicals used to clean the pool had been mixed in the wrong quantities but the guy did the right thing and switched off the machine. We ventilated the area and administered oxygen to those affected.” Manager Elaine Knight said: “Just our manager has been taken to hospital to get checked out. This kind of thing has never happened before – we’ve never had to be evacuated.”
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Some people described the shaking as ‘huge’. Photo / Thinkstock
North Islanders were again rattled by a strong earthquake yesterday, but experts say the tremor was not related to a much larger quake four days earlier.
GeoNet reported a magnitude 5.7 quake struck 10km south of Turangi at 12.50pm. The quake was 90km deep and, though police said there were no reports of damage, some residents said trinkets had been smashed.
It came four days after a magnitude 7 earthquake, centred at a depth of 230km and offshore from Taranaki, rattled residents from the Bay of Plenty to Canterbury, but caused little damage.
Shaken people took to social media and message boards yesterday to share their experiences, some describing the shake as “huge”.
A Trade Me post from Taumarunui said the quake “smashed a few photo frames” and GeoNet duty seismologist Lara Bland said a report on their website from a Turangi resident indicated some damage.
However, central North Island residents spoken to by the Herald on Sunday were stoic. Raetihi woman Wiki Brown said she felt a little tremor and “that was it”.
“The 7.0 was out of it. The whole house was shaking, I thought the mountain was blowing up. This quake was tiny.”
Another Raetihi resident, Creedence McNaught, described the quake as “just a little shake”.
Several residents spoken to in Turangi said they did not feel the quake.
Pura Smith was alerted to the drama by a friend who felt the earthquake 100km away in Napier.
“I never felt a thing. Turangi’s still standing.”
Bland said she was not surprised the quake felt stronger to those further away from the epicentre.
That was because the tectonic plate was dipping under the North Island, so energy from it travelled back up the plate following the easiest path available, which was to the east.
“On our maps [of earthquakes felt], there is a big empty space around Turangi. Sometimes it actually feels weaker to those closer to it.”
Even though the two quakes this week occurred on the same plate, that was the only similarity. “The distances are too great for one to have affected the strains of the other.”
Neither had caused major damage because of their depth.
“That’s the problem in Christchurch – it has the misfortune that its earthquakes have been very shallow, so almost all the energy comes up to the surface.”
The Canterbury earthquake sequence began with a magnitude 7.1 tremor, centred 10km deep and 40km west of Christchurch, but it was a 5km deep, 6.3 magnitude aftershock that struck 5km from the city months later that caused the bulk of the damage and the mass casualties.
Yesterday’s quake did not mean future shakes were any more or less likely than before, Bland said.
“It’s just another day, another earthquake. It’s just New Zealand.”
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – A 5.1 earthquake has struck the Dominican Republic near its border with Haiti, but no damage has been reported.
The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake’s epicenter was 7 kilometres (4 miles) west-northwest of the southern Dominican city of Barahona. It struck Saturday at a depth of 19 kilometres (12 miles).
Emergency management officials in Haiti and the Dominican Republic say no injuries or damages have been reported.
An earthquake of the same intensity struck the Caribbean island of Anguilla on Wednesday.
Panorama of the summit crater of Anak Krakatau (2 July 2012)
The collapse pits at the site of the 2012 lava dome in the western part of the summit crater of Krakatau (2 July 2012)
One of the new areas with shallow submarine hydrothermal activity on the western shore of Anak Krakatau, causing an intense orange water stain (2 July 2012)
During our recent expedition to Krakatau volcano, we could no longer see the lava dome active during Feb-May this year. Probably, the magma column had dropped in mid to late May and the dome collapsed. At its place, there were only 2 collapse pits, very hot ground and intense degassing from numerous fumaroles inside and outside of the now large summit crater.
Seismic activity when visiting the local volcano observatory was at very low levels, suggesting that Anak Krakatau is at the moment in a phase of repose.
Interestingly, a number (at least 4) areas with apparent submarine hydrothermal iron-bearing vents were observed that had not been there last year. In these areas, bubbling could be seen in the water, and where accessible, iron-rich greenish warm mud was found at the sea floor, which oxidized to orange when brought to the surface. The sea water around these areas had an intense yellow stain. Very similar submarine activity is known from around Nea Kameni island, Santorini.
Ohio’s heat wave has turned deadly, a coroner said Friday as he blamed excessive temperatures for the deaths of three people found alone in their homes earlier this week. The state Health Department urged people to check on friends and family. Violent storms that accompanied the high temperatures also contributed to two more deaths this week, including a Toledo area man killed Thursday when an uprooted tree fell on the car he was in. Forecasts continued to call for triple-digit temperatures as some cities broke heat records. Temperatures in Columbus hit 100 degrees Friday. A man in his 70s was found dead Monday in the city of Newark, about 40 miles east of Columbus, and two women – one in her late 60s, the other in her 80s – were found Tuesday in rural parts of the county, said Dr. Jeff Lee, Licking County deputy coroner. He said all three were suffering from heart disease but died from stress caused by high temperatures in their houses. Temperatures inside were stifling, recorded in the 90s in two cases, with windows shut and no ventilation. The houses lacked electricity because of the recent power outages. Customers of American Electric Power-Ohio in the Newark area have been among the last to have their power restored.
“The reason why these people died is because they were all in their homes with all the windows and doors shut, with no ventilation, and with no electricity, they couldn’t run fans,” Lee said. “If they had gotten cooling, we would have expected them to survive,” he said. The Health Department’s safety campaign urged Ohioans to look in on people to be sure they are all right and know how to survive the heat. Utility crews hoped to have power restored to the majority of Ohio customers by the end of the day Saturday, but they acknowledged that many would still have to wait at least another day. Efforts were hampered by another day of scorching temperatures and new rounds of storms, including one in northwest Ohio, where an uprooted tree fell on a car, killing a man inside. A second storm in the Columbus area late Thursday cut power to 11,000 residents, some of whom had previously lost power and had it restored. All but about 2,000 of those had power back Friday. American Electric Power-Ohio had a total of about 82,000 customers without power Friday, mostly in central and southwest Ohio. The utility said the recent storms have far surpassed the damage caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ike four years ago. It said it was on schedule to have power restored by midnight Saturday to 95 percent of the 660,000 customers affected by the storms. The heat wave has left residents longing for their air conditioning and has complicated repairs. Four utility workers have been hospitalized for heat exhaustion, according to AEP-Ohio. The job is getting harder and more dangerous as workers make their way into areas of rough, wooded terrain, AEP-Ohio spokeswoman Terri Flora said.
European Pressphoto AgencyJoggers cool off Saturday in a water sprinkler on the National Mall in Washington.
Americans dipped into the water, went to the movies and rode the subway just to be in air conditioning Saturday for relief from unrelenting heat that has killed 30 people across half the country.
The heat sent temperatures soaring over 100 degrees in several cities, including a record 105 in Washington, St. Louis (106) and Indianapolis (104); buckled highways; and derailed a Washington-area train even as another round of summer storms threatened.
If people ventured outside to do anything, they did it early. But even then, the heat was stifling.
“It was baking on the 18th green,” said golfer Zeb Rogerson, who teed off at 6 a.m. at an Alexandria, Va., golf course but was sweltering by the end of his round.
The heat sent temperatures soaring in more than 20 states to 105 in Louisville, Ky., 101 in Philadelphia, and 95 in New York; besides in Washington, a record of 104 was set in Sioux Falls, S.D.,
At least 30 deaths were blamed on the heat, including nine in Maryland and 10 in Chicago, mostly among the elderly. Three elderly people found dead in their houses in Ohio had heart disease, but died of high temperatures in homes lacking power because of recent outages, officials said. Heat was also cited as a factor in three deaths in Wisconsin, two in Tennessee and three in Pennsylvania.
Officials said the heat caused highways to buckle in Illinois and Wisconsin. In Maryland, investigators said heat likely caused rails to kink and led a green-line train to partially derail in Prince George’s County, Md., on Friday afternoon. No one was injured, and 55 passengers were safely evacuated.
Thousands of mid-Atlantic residents remained without power more than a week after deadly summer storms and extreme heat struck the area, including 120,000 in West Virginia and some 37,000 in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. In the Washington area, Pepco asked customers to conserve power, saying the heat was stressing the system.
Michael Heinz/Journal & Courier/Associated PressEthan Pastore, front left, and his brother Evan swam in their family’s pool Thursday near Lafayette, Ind.
“This is becoming a black swan of heat waves, in the sense that it’s such a long heat wave, such a severe heat wave and encompassing such a large area,” said Chris Vaccaro, spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Abraham Lewis and his wife, Dzifa Fianoo of Lorton, Va., brought their 8-week-old son out for a walk in the 100-degree heat.
“I really don’t want to be out, but she’s a new mother and was feeling cooped up,” Lewis said. “Do you see how hot it is?” he said, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead more than once.
The couple’s home in northern Virginia lost power for two days last week after a severe wind storm swept through. Ms. Fianoo had to haul the family’s food to a cousin’s house to prevent it from spoiling, then took it home again.
Micah Straight, 36, brought his three daughters to dance in jets of water spurting from a “sprayground” near Philadelphia’s Logan Square fountain to cool off.
“We got here early, because I don’t think we’ll be out this afternoon—we’ll be in the air conditioning,” he said. “So I wanted to get them out, get some sunshine, get tired.”
In South Bend, Ind. on Saturday, serious kayakers took to the East Race Waterway, a 1,900-foot-long manmade whitewater course near downtown.
“A lot of times I’ll roll over just to cool off,” said Robert Henry of Carmel, just north of Indianapolis. “The biggest challenge is walking coming back up carrying a kayak three-eighths of a mile in this heat.”
In Manhattan, customers who stepped in to see “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” at an IFC movie theater were there for more than entertainment.
“Of course we came to cool off!” said John Villanova, a writer who was on his second sweaty T-shirt of the day—expecting to change again by evening.
He said that earlier, he rode the subway back and forth for a half an hour, with no destination in mind, “because it really keeps you cool.”
A stifling heat wave grips much of the nation, with Chicago hitting a record-tying third straight day of 100-degree plus days, buckling roads, straining the electric grid and killing about 20 people nationwide. Ben Kesling has details on The News Hub. Photo: Reuters.
In cities around the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic region, people struggled to find ways to cope with the heat, but at least one such effort ended in tragedy.
In Aurora, Ill., Gene Autry Pryor, 52, had been drinking with three adult friends near Veterans Memorial Island and jumped into the Fox River to cool off, police said. The man’s friends lost sight of him after a few minutes and then spotted him floating face down and pulled him to shore. Pryor died Friday evening.
One man figured out a way to beat the heat: stay in the car. Roger Sinclair of Batavia, Ill., was headed home Saturday from Detroit, where he’d spent a few days visiting an old friend and catching Friday night’s Tigers game. The Tigers won 4-2, but the conditions were less than ideal.
“It was 97 at the first pitch and still in the 80s at the time of the last out,” he said. “It was tough. There was no breeze.”
Sinclair said he had been spending hours in his air-conditioned car to stay out the worst of the heat.
In Chicago, street magician Jeremy Pitt-Payne said he has been working throughout the three-day stretch of triple-digit temperatures but acknowledged that he might doff the Union Jack leather vest by the end of the day, even though it’s part of his British magician character, along with the black top hat.
But he had a secret for beating the heat—he starts his shows at 2 p.m. “when the Trump Tower is gracious enough to block out the sun” along his stretch of sidewalk.
At New York City’s Penn Station, the air conditioning was falling short of capacity. Amtrak officials have said for weeks that they’ve been trying to adjust it. The doors were left wide open at a half-dozen locations around the two-block-wide underground station.
“It’s so hot I feel like I want to faint,” said Betty De la Rosa, 19, of the Bronx, who was working at a station doughnut shop.
The heat didn’t stop Taylor Heaton of Houston from joining friends in Washington for her bachelorette party. They spent three hours walking the National Mall, seeing the Washington Monument and other tourist sites. They cooled off for a bit at the Lincoln Memorial but kept walking until they reached the Smithsonian museum.
How hot was it by Saturday afternoon?
“Hotter than the gates of Hades,” said Cathy Corey, of Bethesda, Md.
The bachelorette crew had a cocktail reservation for Saturday night at an outdoor deck at a hotel that overlooked the White House.
“How else are we going to see Barack?” Heaton said of Barack Obama. “It’s really not too bad in the shade.”
It’s not that the Midwest hasn’t been extremely hot before, and it’s not that it hasn’t been incredibly dry.
But it’s unusual for a vast swath of the Midwest to be so very hot and so very dry for so very long — particularly this early in the summer.
The current heat wave — which is spurring comparisons to the catastrophic heat of 1936 – is “out of whack,” meteorologist Jim Keeney said Friday in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
“Even on the East Coast today, temperatures are 100 or above” — basically, Keeney said, the heat wave extends from Kansas all the way to the East Coast.
“It’s a good chunk of the eastern half of the country, barring the far northern states, of course. So it’s pretty intense.”
Temperature records are being broken and residents are suffering in what Keeney called a “corridor of extreme heat,” generally through Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and into western Kentucky.
Heat records are being shattered as are records for the number of days in a row the temperature has hit 100 or higher, he said.
Take St. Louis, for example. The last time the city was this hot for this long was in 1936, said Keeney, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Central Region Headquarters in Kansas City, Mo. Then, the city recorded 13 days in a row of temperatures 100 degrees Fahrenheit or over. That devastating heat wave of the mid-’30s killed thousands of people and destroyed many crops.
The culprit in the current wave is a dome of high pressure that has been hovering over the eastern part of the U.S., said NWS spokesman Pat Slattery in an interview with The Times on Friday.
“It’s kicked the jet stream way to north, in some places into Canada, so there’s no way for the normal rotation of weather systems to get here into the middle of the country, which would bring us some moisture. So drought becomes more and more a major factor.”
Gregg Steele, a farmer for 35 years, has acreage in Missouri’s Ray County and has been watching as the heat and drought have damaged his crops.
“It hasn’t been this hot here this long since the ’30s,” Steele, of Richmond, Mo., said Friday in a phone interview. On Thursday, it was 105 degrees, he said, and it’s been 10 days with no sign of rain.
According to meteorologist Keeney, 56% of the country is experiencing drought conditions. And the timing of the heat wave couldn’t have been much worse. “June, early July, that’s when crops pollinate and mature,” he said. “It’s a critical time for moisture.”
Steele agreed. The heat and drought have continued for so long, he said, that, locally, worry is growing over the water supply for livestock. “Very easily, ponds could be dry by the end of summer.”
With grass dwindling, some livestock producers are starting to feed their animals hay, he said, which normally wouldn’t occur until November or December.
Relief could be on the way. The high pressure system causing the current problem is expected to start to make a move toward the east on Saturday, Keeney said.
That would allow a cold front, which currently is up in Minnesota and the Dakotas, to move southeast, bringing air that’s much cooler — by 10 to 15 degrees. By Sunday, Keeney said, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa should see temperatures in the upper 80s and low 90s, which are typical for this time of year.
As the cold front moves through the Midwest, there will the chance of large hail and damaging winds, but nothing widespread. There’s also no major relief expected from the drought conditions. It may rain, the meteorologist said, but it will be limited.
Steele said he would just continue to cope — and hope.
“There’s nothing you can do about it,” he said. “It’s just a day-to-day thing. They’re talking about a little cooler weather, and we just hope that we get some rain.
The heat wave that has gripped much of the nation continues this weekend, but there are signs that it may come to an end soon. NBC’s Michelle Franzen reports.
By Miguel Llanos, msnbc.com
The heat wave smothering the Midwest wasn’t the only thing spreading into the East Coast on Saturday — so too were storms and even smoke from the wildfires out west.
The New York City area, which saw muggy heat Saturday, was also in the path of a thunderstorm expected by late afternoon, NBCNewYork.com reported.
Parts of Ohio and West Virginia, two states where several hundred thousand people are still without power after last weekend’s storms, can expect severe thunderstorms through Saturday evening, as can Pennsylvania, the National Weather Service warned.
By Saturday afternoon, trees were reported down across parts of upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri.
St. Louis on Saturday saw 106 degrees, its 10th straight day of temperatures at 100 or above. Its record — 13 straight days — is not likely to be broken, with Sunday’s forecast in the mid-90s.
The smoke, meanwhile, has brought with it pollutants that will make the next few days even tougher for people with breathing issues.
In fact, prevailing winds over the last week have been sending that smoke east, with officials issuing local health advisories.
Maryland issued a “code orange” air quality alert on Friday and again on Saturday, meaning that the young and elderly are at risk, NBC affiliate WBAL-TV reported.
The wildfire smoke is on top of other air pollution coming into Maryland from other states.
“Maryland is not alone in these extreme conditions,” Jay Apperson, a Maryland Department of the Environment spokesman, told WBAL-TV. “Chicago and other areas of the Midwest are issuing these type of advisories and that pollution is coming into Maryland, and we’re also being affected by the wildfires.”
On Friday, smoke was detected “from the Rockies to to the Eastern Great Lakes, the mid Atlantic, and the Southeast,” according to the U.S. Air Quality “Smog Blog” compiled by the University of Maryland. “The smoke is primarily light density but a moderate density area can be seen in and around the Ohio River Valley.
The highest values on Friday, it added, were “mainly over the Midwest and down towards the Southeast.”
The heat wave shifting east comes after last weekend’s storms that left millions without power. Hundreds of thousands still don’t have electricity back.
Moreover, since the first round of extreme heat two weeks ago, at least 46 deaths have been tied to the high temperatures, according to a list compiled by the Weather Channel.
On Saturday, Washington, D.C., could break it’s all-time record of 106 degrees, the Weather Channel reported. So could Pittsburgh (103) and Louisville, Ky., (107), it added.
Chicago, meanwhile, stands a chance of a fourth straight day of temperatures at 100 or above — something it’s never before seen.
In the hot zone emergency room visits are on the rise as the number of heat-related deaths rose, especially among the sick and elderly. NBC’s John Yang reports.
By msnbc.com staff and news services
Cooler weather was on the horizon for the Midwest, but not before two weeks of oven-like temperatures had taken their toll: at least 46 deaths were tied to the heat over that period, according to a list compiled by the Weather Channel. Friday also saw the 9th straight day at 100 degrees or above in St. Louis, Mo., and the third straight day above 100 in Chicago.
Virginia saw the most heat-related deaths with 10, followed by Maryland (9) and Illinois (6). Three of the dead were children, with the rest adults between 45 and 83.
Temperatures in the Midwest should be back in the 80s by Sunday — but only after another hot round on Saturday as the heat wave shifts to the East Coast.
Washington, D.C., on Saturday could break its all time record of 106, the Weather Channel reported. Same with Pittsburgh (103) and Louisville, Ky., (107).
The heat wave has included several rounds of storms that add to the misery.
The extreme heat in Indianapolis, Indiana is proving to be too much for a chocolatier’s air conditioning system, reluctantly closing rather than risk having their inventory melt. WTHR’s Emily Longnecker reports.
Following last weekend’s storms, at least 406,000 people were without electricity on Friday in West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Ohio, power companies said.
Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia on Thursday saw new storms and new power outages, while the same happened in Michigan on Wednesday.
St. Louis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago and several other Midwest cities already have broken heat records this week.
St. Louis hit a record high of 105 on Wednesday and a record low of 83. The city hadn’t seen 9 straight days at or above 100 since 1936.
In Chicago, three straight days above 100 hadn’t been seen since 1947 and the city has no longer stretch on record. There’s a slight chance that could be broken Saturday.
In Wisconsin, the coolest Milwaukee and Madison got was 81 in the early morning, beating previous low records by 2 and 4 degrees respectively. Temperatures didn’t fall below 79 in Chicago, 78 in Grand Rapids, Mich., and 75 in Indianapolis.
“When a day starts out that warm, it doesn’t take as much time to reach high temperatures in the low 100s,” said Marcia Cronce, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “You know it’ll be a warm day when you start out at 80 degrees.”
Investigators say at least two deaths in the Midwest are the result of the sweltering heat that continues to cook the region. NBC’s John Yang reports.
When the air conditioner stopped in Ashley Jackson’s Southfield, Mich., home, so too did normal conversations and nightly rest.
“Inside the house it was 91 degrees. … I wasn’t talking to anybody. Nobody was talking to anybody,” said Jackson, 23, who works as a short-order cook in Detroit. “We mostly slept, but it was hard to sleep because of the heat. I probably got about four hours of sleep each night.”
In Chicago on Thursday, the Shedd Aquarium lost power as temperatures soared to 103 degrees, a record for July 5. Officials said emergency generators immediately kicked in and the outage never threatened any of animals, but several hundred visitors were sent back out into the heat.
The other heat-related deaths happened across a wide swathe of the country: Alabama (5), Missouri (5), Ohio (3), Wisconsin (3), Tennessee (2), South Carolina (2) and Kentucky (1).
The heat has also taken a toll on agriculture.
Dean Hines, the owner of Hines Ranch Inc. in the western Wisconsin town of Ellsworth, said he found one of his 80 dairy cows dead Thursday, an apparent victim of the heat. He said he was worried about the rest of his herd, in terms of death toll, reproductive consequences and milk production.
“We’re using fans and misters to keep them cool,” he said. “It’s been terrible. When it doesn’t cool down at night, the poor animals don’t have a chance to cool down.”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
The Texas Forest Service is warning homeowners about the dangers of drought-stricken dead trees.
By msnbc.com staff
Business is booming in Texas, and not just the oil and gas business. Tree trimmers are raking in the bucks after last year’s drought killed an estimated 500 million trees.
“I’ve been so swamped, we’ve had to call in reinforcements” from other states, arborist Glen Jennings told NBCDFW.com.
The Texas Forest Service, which estimates 5.6 million trees died in urban areas, urged homeowners to be pro-active about removing dead trees — before they land on neighboring property.
“Be aware that your tree could fall onto someone else’s property,” service official Jim Rooni said in a statement Thursday. “he rules vary from place to place, but generally the owner of the tree is responsible. Bottom line: You could be liable.”
Jennings was stunned by the amount of dead trees across the state.
“I, personally, have never been in the middle of something like this before,” he said. “Small droughts, yeah, but statewide?”
BRITAIN is facing its “worst ever” summer with cold wet weather ruining family holidays and blighting the Olympics, forecasters warned last night.
August is set to be a washout following a miserable July and the wettest June since records began – meaning summer is effectively over.
Gloomy forecasts suggest dire weather will continue as officials last night put Britain on flood alert after torrential downpours yesterday wreaked havoc.
As the Environment Agency warned of a “potential danger to life” with rivers swelling to breaking point in the Midlands, Yorkshire and Wales, Government forecasters were on standby to brief the Cabinet if severe floods strike.
The agency last night issued 51 flood warnings – meaning flooding is expected – and 135 alerts. Monsoon-like downpours hit 85,000 music fans at the T In The Park festival in Kinross, Scotland, and 28,000 Formula 1 spectators camping for the British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone. Race meetings today in Nottingham and Carlisle were cancelled while play was delayed on all courts at Wimbledon – other than Centre Court.
This could cause significant disruption
Tony Waters, deputy chief forecaster at the Met Office
In Leeds, organisers cancelled music festival MFEST over safety concerns.
Emergency services reported a surge of flood callouts, dispatched special operations teams and told motorists not to drive through floodwater.
The misery is set to continue with parts of the Midlands and northern Britain braced for six inches of rain – more than two months’ worth – in the 72 hours to tomorrow night.
Tony Waters, deputy chief forecaster at the Met Office, said: “We are expecting very heavy and thundery rain, with worst affected spots likely to be in central and northern parts.
The Environment Agency issued more than 40 flood warnings and over 120 less serious flood alerts as a month’s rain fell in just 24 hours. Motorists battled with treacherous conditions on the roads, and the M50 motorway in Gloucestershire was partially closed in both directions. Householders in the worst-affected areas in East Anglia, the Midlands and northern England were advised to move their valuables upstairs, roll up carpets and put down sandbags. The British Red Cross put emergency response teams on standby to help flood-hit communities and urged people to pack their bags so they could be ready to leave their homes at a moment’s notice Insurers have pledged to help people whose homes and businesses are damaged by the flooding. Many events were cancelled, including today’s racing at Warwick and this weekend’s MFEST music festival at Harewood House in Leeds, which was due to have been headlined by the Human League and Texas in front of 30,000 fans. Motor racing fans travelling to Silverstone for the practice sessions for Sunday’s British Grand Prix were stuck in lengthy queues getting to the circuit from the M1 and then had to negotiate waterlogged car parks. The flooding caused delays and cancellations on the railways, with problems reported in Manchester, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
The Prince of Wales was among those held up by rain-related travel disruption when he visited Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. The town, which was badly flooded a fortnight ago, was again hit by heavy rain and Charles was an hour late arriving. However, the Prince paid no heed to the bad weather, touring a flood-affected primary school before braving the elements without a coat to call in at several of Hebden Bridge’s shops and cross a bridge over the swollen and swift-flowing River Calder. The Met Office said the main band of rain would leave central England and move north before curling back overnight to reach south-west England, which is likely to be the worst affected area tomorrow. Forecasters added that between the showers conditions should be bright, with temperatures possibly reaching as high as 20C. The Met Office has issued amber weather warnings for south-west England and parts of central Scotland for tomorrow. It said: “The public should be prepared for the likelihood of surface water flooding and some disruption to travel and outdoor activities.” Last month was the wettest June since records began, with double the average rainfall for the period, and this month looks set to break the record for July. There is no immediate end in sight to the wash-out summer, with meteorologists warning that Britain is very unlikely to see a long spell of hot, sunny weather during the Olympics. However, the Met Office does say that the conditions when the Games are on should not be as bad as they have been over the past month. Bookmakers William Hill today cut the odds of rain falling during the Olympics opening ceremony on July 27 from 4/1 to 1/1.
At least ten people have perished in heavy downpours that caused flooding across the South Russian Krasnodar Territory, the Emergencies Ministry said on Saturday. Most heavily affected is the city of Gelendzhik where five people received electric shock and died after a transformer fell on the ground. Two other bodies were found by rescuers in the debris of a home destroyed by a flash flood. Three other bodies were found in villages near Gelendzhik. The heavy torrential rain began on Friday. All in all, 320 homes and about 1,000 households have been flooded. The emergencies ministry introduced state of emergency in Gelendzhik. Due to security concerns, 17 power substations had been temporarily closed there, leaving about 20,000 people without electricity. “The situation is now returning to normal… new flood alerts have not been issued,” a spokesman for the ministry said.
The flooded town of Krymsky is seen Saturday in a photo tweeted by regional Gov. Aleksandr Tkachyov .
By msnbc.com staff and news services
Updated at 5 p.m. ET: At least 134 people were killed and thousands of homes were flooded by torrential rain, landslides and a “wave of water” that rushed through one town in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia overnight.
Some of the victims were electrocuted while others were swept into the sea. Many of the dead were elderly people who had been sleeping and drowned.
In the town of Krymsk, residents reported being hit by a 20-foot wave that they suspect came downhill from a nearby reservoir.
“It all happened during the night,” Anna Kovalyovskaya, whose parents were in the flood zone, told the Russian News Service. “People just ran from their homes, because there was a huge wave of water, nobody warned them. Two-story houses were flooded up to the second floor. The water came on very fast. It wasn’t rain.”
RT said the Interior Ministry confirmed 123 people had been killed in Krymsk after an average two-months’ rain fell in just a few hours in the popular holiday region on the Black Sea where Russia will host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Television footage showed flooded streets and people scrambling onto rooftops.
Deadly flooding has claimed the lives of dozens of people in southern Russia.
“There are lots of overturned cars, even huge trucks. Brick fences are washed away,” a local resident, Vladimir Anosov, said by telephone from the village of Novoukrainsky.
“People are on the street, they are at a loss what to do. Helicopters are flying overhead, they are evacuating people from the flooded areas. The floods are really, really huge,” he said.
The BBC reported that, according to residents, the flooding came with no warning in the middle of the night.
Ignat Kozlov / AP
A homeowner inspects the damage in Gelendzhik on Saturday.
Police spokesman Igor Zhelyabin said 11 people had been killed in Novorossiisk and the coastal town of Gelendzhik.
“Police are beefing up their presence to prevent mass looting,” Zhelyabin said.
“The floods hit at night when people were asleep. You can’t do anything about that. Many people in Gelendzhik were hit by electric shocks and some of them were washed away into the sea.”
A state of emergency was declared in Krymsk, Novorossiisk and Gelendzhik, where 5,000 homes were said to be flooded, RT said. The station reported that part of the Northern-Caucasus railroad had been washed out.
No such floods ‘in our history’ Aleksandr Tkachyov, the governor of the Krasnodar region, urged local residents not to panic.
“No one can remember such floods in our history. There was nothing of the kind for the last 70 years. More than 5,000 households were hit,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.
“The water came with such force that it tore up the asphalt” in one area, he said via Twitter, according to RT.
Kovalyovskaya told the BBC that her relatives in Krymsk were caught by surprise.
Russia’s Interior Ministry via AFP – Getty Images
This street in Gelendzhik was swamped on Saturday
“People were running out into the streets in their underwear and wrapping their children in blankets,” she said. “People were only able to save their passports.”
“There is no electricity and the shops are shut,” she added. “Many people have lost everything and are in a state of panic.”
More rain was in the forecast for Saturday and Sunday.
“The region’s transportation is in a state of collapse,” a transportation spokesman said, and Russian Railways’ website said all trains heading to and from Novorossiisk had been suspended.
“The water has risen half a meter above the rails,” it said.
Msnbc.com staff and Reuters contributed to this report.
07.07.2012
Extreme Weather
USA
State of Tennessee, [Great Smoky Mountains National Park]
Violent thunderstorms swept through the Tennessee side of the national park, toppling hundreds of huge trees, killing at least two people and leaving an unknown number of people injured during the height of the summer tourist season. Ralph Frazier, 50, of Buford, Ga., was riding a motorcycle when a falling limb struck him in the head, park officials said. Rachael Burkhart, 41, of Corryton, Tenn., died when a tree fell on her at Abrams Creek campground near a popular swimming spot during the height of Thursday’s storm. The same tree struck a family, including a 7-year-old girl swimming in a creek. She and her father were airlifted to a Knoxville hospital. Their conditions were not available Friday. The storms hit Thursday evening at the west end of the 500,000-acre, densely forested reserve on the Tennessee-North Carolina line. The storms then moved down the mountains to the Tennessee River Valley. Most of the damage appeared to be in the popular Cades Cove area of the park and in communities just outside park boundaries.
The storm swept into those areas about 6:30 p.m. In the Smokies, rescue crews initially focused efforts in the areas of Little River Road east of the Townsend “Y,” Laurel Creek Road into Cades Cove and the Abrams Creek campground. Authorities set up a command center in Townsend, Tenn., at a hamburger restaurant on state Road 73 near the Lazy Daze Campground. Rural/Metro ambulances were posted at the ready to deal with any injuries. Ambulances were sent to Cades Cove for three injuries and one cardiac incident, according to the park. The same storm system killed a child and her grandmother in Chattanooga, Tenn., when high winds overturned a 30-foot double-decker pontoon boat she was on in Chickamauga Lake. Linda Nguyen, a producer at WATE-TV in Knoxville, Tenn., was at Cades Cove working on a special program about the Smokies when the storm hit at about 6 p.m. She and her photographer tried to get out and were stuck on the road for more than five hours. Violent thunderstorms swept through the Tennessee side of the national park, toppling hundreds of huge trees, killing at least two people and leaving an unknown number of people injured during the height of the summer tourist season.
Ralph Frazier, 50, of Buford, Ga., was riding a motorcycle when a falling limb struck him in the head, park officials said. Rachael Burkhart, 41, of Corryton, Tenn., died when a tree fell on her at Abrams Creek campground near a popular swimming spot during the height of Thursday’s storm. The same tree struck a family, including a 7-year-old girl swimming in a creek. She and her father were airlifted to a Knoxville hospital. Their conditions were not available Friday. The storms hit Thursday evening at the west end of the 500,000-acre, densely forested reserve on the Tennessee-North Carolina line. The storms then moved down the mountains to the Tennessee River Valley. Most of the damage appeared to be in the popular Cades Cove area of the park and in communities just outside park boundaries. The storm swept into those areas about 6:30 p.m. In the Smokies, rescue crews initially focused efforts in the areas of Little River Road east of the Townsend “Y,” Laurel Creek Road into Cades Cove and the Abrams Creek campground. Authorities set up a command center in Townsend, Tenn., at a hamburger restaurant on state Road 73 near the Lazy Daze Campground. Rural/Metro ambulances were posted at the ready to deal with any injuries.
Ambulances were sent to Cades Cove for three injuries and one cardiac incident, according to the park. The same storm system killed a child and her grandmother in Chattanooga, Tenn., when high winds overturned a 30-foot double-decker pontoon boat she was on in Chickamauga Lake. Linda Nguyen, a producer at WATE-TV in Knoxville, Tenn., was at Cades Cove working on a special program about the Smokies when the storm hit at about 6 p.m. She and her photographer tried to get out and were stuck on the road for more than five hours.
Several buildings and a marina were badly damaged by storms in eastern Tennessee. Msnbc.com’s Dara Brown reports.
By Miguel Llanos, msnbc.com
A storm that tore through Tennessee killed at least four people while tossing boats, tipping over trailers at a campground and toppling hundreds of trees with winds up to 70 mph.
A child and her grandmother died when a double-decker pontoon boat on a Chattanooga lake capsized after being hit by a strong gust, Dan Hicks, a spokesman with the state’s Wildlife Resources Agency, told msnbc.com. The grandmother had been hospitalized but later died of her injuries.
The storm “came up really quick … they were trying to get back to the bank,” said Hicks, who noted the high profile of the boat probably contributed to the accident.
“It was the fastest storm I’ve ever seen,” witness Stan Crawley told The Chattanoogan. “It was fine, then two minutes later the storm was here. The waves were three and four feet high. We saw the pontoon boat flip on its top.”
The other two deaths, and eight injuries, were at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Teams on Friday were searching for more victims from the Thursday evening storm, but felt confident the toll would not rise. While rangers “have not walked all trails,” spokesman Carey Jones told msnbc.com, all visitors “appear to be accounted for” based on a search of main roads and public areas.
Jeff Farrell / The Mountain Press via AP
The roof of the Carl Ownby & Co. hardware store, background center, sits on the Juvenile Detention Center, foreground right, in Sevierville, Tenn., on Thursday after winds ripped it off and hurled it across a five-lane street. No injuries were reported.
A man riding a motorcycle died when hit by a tree limb and a woman was crushed to death by a falling tree that injured three others, the park said in a statement. A girl, 7, and her father were airlifted to a hospital. Their conditions were not known. The girl’s mother suffered minor injuries.
Much of the damage was at the popular Cades Cove.
Staff from other parks were being brought in to help with the search and cleanup, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. ”We’re calling all hands on deck,” said Deputy Park Superintendent Kevin Fitzgerald. ”The most important thing right now is to get crews safely in there to assess what’s going on.”
Many roads inside the park were blocked by trees, and access into the park was blocked on the highway leading out of Townsend.
On nearby Douglas Lake, many boats at Mountain Cove Marina were destroyed or damaged.
Mark Northern said he was in his houseboat at the marina when the storm hit.
“It just took me and everybody on that dock like we were just toys,” he told NBC affiliate WBIR-TV. “It happened so fast that I didn’t even know where I was until I walked out to the front of the houseboat … there was wreckage as high as you could see.”
Several trailers were knocked over at a campground in Wears Valley, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported
The storm cut power to some 56,000 households in eastern Tennessee, including parts of Knoxville. The local utility said it could take several days for power to be restored to everyone.
The Edinburgh City by-pass has been closed due to flooding as heavy rain hit Scotland. The A720 was closed between Hermiston Gait and Straiton from around 9am. Lothian and Borders police advised motorists to avoid the area and allow extra time for their journey, particularly if travelling to the airport. Forecasters warned of rain and flooding for much of Scotland on Saturday. The Met Office issued amber “be prepared” warnings of heavy and persistent rain for central Scotland, Tayside, Fife, south-west Scotland and Lothian and Borders. They warned members of the public to be prepared for the likelihood of surface water flooding and some disruption to travel and outdoor activities, Yellow “be aware” warnings were in place for Strathclyde and Grampian. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency issued 12 flood warnings. Tayside Police used Twitter to advise people driving to the T in the Park festival at Balado near Kinross to take extra care due to heavy rain and surface water on the roads. Forecasters predicted that the rain would move north throughout the day. Brendan Jones, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: “There is a narrow line of rain running from south west to north-east Scotland at the moment. “It’s going to push north across Scotland.
By the end of today the rain is likely to be stretched through the northern part of Scotland and the south is likely to be dry.” Meanwhile the Taste of Edinburgh Festival cancelled all its Saturday sessions after its site at The Meadows was flooded. The event, from 6-8 July, features pop-up restaurants, chef demonstrations and exhibitors. In a statement organisers said: “This has not been an easy decision but the health and safety of all our restaurants, exhibitors and visitors is of paramount importance. “We’re continually assessing the situation and will make a decision at 6pm today about whether we will open for our Sunday sessions. We are insured and weather aside, we are doing everything we can to make this possible. “If we are open on Sunday, Saturday tickets will be valid for entry subject to site capacity. “Refunds on Saturday tickets will be made but at this current time we would ask visitors to be patient as we deal with some very challenging conditions.” The organisers said that further communication about refunds will be sent to ticket holders as soon as possible.
A day after Dhanera was declared “cholera-hit”, 25 more persons were hospitalised with diarrheal symptoms in this town of Banaskantha district on Thursday. Health authorities sent back, with medicines and advice, 69 others who suspected they were suffering from the illness. Officials from the epidemiology division of the state’s Health Department said a notification about the disease’s outbreak on Wednesday may have triggered mild panic, leading to the large turnout. The district administration had declared an outbreak in the town and nine surrounding villages after five persons died and 222 persons were hospitalised for diarrheal symptoms in the preceding week. Authorities believe the outbreak may have been caused by an unauthorised connection that diverted water from the main pipeline connecting the Sipu dam, the town’s main water source. Four such connections, or leakages, were detected soon after the outbreak and one of them – a plastic pipe that ran through a gutter – is believed to be the source. Authorities had earlier tested water from the dam and from bores within the water-scarce town but found no contamination there.
Biohazard name:
Cholera
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
The first cholera outbreak in Cuba in a century has left at least 15 dead and sent hundreds to hospitals all but sealed off by security agents bent on keeping a lid on the news, according to reports Friday. “There are 1,000-plus cases” in the southeastern province of Granma, said Yoandris Montoya, who lives in Bayamo, the provincial capital. Security agents have locked down the city’s hospital, he added, but staff told him the situation inside is “chaotic.” Santiago Marquez, a physician in the neighboring town of Manzanillo, said there is “a lot of panic” in the region because of the lack of official information about the intestinal disease. Cuba’s Public Health Ministry, which rarely makes public any information that could give the island a negative image, declared Tuesday it had “controlled” an outbreak of cholera that had killed three people and affected 50 others in Granma province. But unofficial reports from the region Friday indicated the disease was continuing to spread, with hundreds more suspected cases jamming hospitals in Manzanillo and Bayamo. Montoya said more cases were reported in nearby Niquero and Pilón.
As of Friday, the outbreak had killed at least 15 people and affected hundreds more, Havana independent journalist Calixto R. Martinez wrote in a report for the Miami-based blog Café Fuerte, or Strong Coffee. Cholera was reported to have been eradicated in Cuba in the late 19th or early 20th century, although it has killed more than 7,400 people and sickened 574,000 in Haiti, just east of Cuba. Scores of Cuban medical personnel work in Haiti. Cuba’s once-vaunted public health system has slipped significantly since the end of Moscow’s massive subsidies in the early 1990s. During one 24-hour period in January, three flights from Cuba to Toronto arrived with groups of passengers suffering from nausea, vomiting and fever. Manzanillo human rights activist Tania de la Torre, the wife of Marquez, said residents were boiling their water but could not wash their hands as often as they wished because the city of about 130,000 people has an acute soap shortage. Calls from El Nuevo Herald to the Celia Sánchez Manduley Hospital in Manzanillo, the biggest health institution in the region, were answered by women who said they were not authorized to comment.
Martínez told El Nuevo Herald that he had gathered his information from residents and health workers in the region. Some of them called him from public phones because police and state security agents are trying to block reports on the cholera outbreak, he added. A Manzanillo man named Enrique Piñeiro told him the death toll had surpassed 16, said Martinez, a member of the independent news agency Hablemos Press. Another man who claimed to have a relative working in a regional hospital put the death toll at 15, he added. The journalist also wrote that Piñeiro and a hospital employee reported that doctors are signing death certificates saying that the victims died from “acute respiratory insufficiency” rather than cholera. “We have been forbidden from using the word cholera, and there have been people arrested and detained temporarily in stations of the PNR,” the National Revolutionary Police, Piñeiro was quoted as saying. The provincial newspaper, La Demajagua, and radio stations have reported nothing on the outbreak.
Havana residents said there have been unconfirmed reports of cholera in the capital, especially near José Martí International Airport, as well as rumors of an increase in dengue, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes that thrive during the hot and rainy months of summer. Spanish tourism companies operating in Cuba meanwhile noted that they have not been affected by the outbreak and that Granma province is far from the main tourist areas in Havana and the beaches along the northern coast. “Everything is under control,” declared the Cuba director for Meliá Hotels International, Gabriel Cánaves, according to Preferente.Com, a travel industry website. The Iberostar Hotels & Resorts added that the company had “recorded not one case of cholera in the hotels until now, or cancellations of reservations because of that,” and that for the chain “the safety and health of its clients and employees is an absolute priority.
On July 4th, sunspot AR1515 hurled at least four minor CMEs into space. Most flew south of the ecliptic plane (the orbital plane of the planets), on track to miss everything. One of them, however, appears to be heading toward Earth. Click to view an animated forecast track of the incoming cloud:
According to analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, who prepared the forecast, the cloud will reach Earth on July 7th around 0600 UT. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras on that date.
For days, giant sunspot AR1515 has looked capable of producing a really strong explosion. On July 6th it finally did. Yesterday, the sunspot’s magnetic canopy erupted, producing a brief but potent X1.1-class solar flare. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash:
The explosion hurled a CME into space. According to this movie from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, the cloud appears to be heading south and away from Earth. However, we cannot yet rule out a glancing blow to our planet on July 8th or 9th. Stay tuned for further analysis.
Look at the CME movie one more time. The speckles near the end are caused by energetic protons accelerated by the flare. Guided toward Earth by solar magnetic fields, the protons are peppering Earth-orbiting satellites, causing “snow” in imaging systems and posing a slim threat for single-event upsets (computer glitches). X-flare alerts:text, voice.
MessageToEagle.com – Camelopardalis, or U Cam for short, is a star nearing the end of its life.
As it begins to run low on fuel, it is becoming unstable.
Every few thousand years, it coughs out a nearly spherical shell of gas as a layer of helium around its core begins to fuse.
The gas ejected in the star’s latest eruption is clearly visible in this picture as a faint bubble of gas surrounding the star.
U Cam is an example of a carbon star. This is a rare type of star whose atmosphere contains more carbon than oxygen.
Due to its low surface gravity, typically as much as half of the total mass of a carbon star may be lost by way of powerful stellar winds.
Located in the constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe), near the North Celestial Pole, U Cam itself is actually much smaller than it appears in Hubble’s picture.
In fact, the star would easily fit within a single pixel at the center of the image.
Its brightness, however, is enough to saturate the camera’s receptors, making the star look much bigger than it really is.
U Cam located in the constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe), near the North Celestial Pole. Image credit: ESA/NASA
The shell of gas, which is both much larger and much fainter than its parent star, is visible in intricate detail in Hubble’s portrait. While phenomena that occur at the ends of stars’ lives are often quite irregular and unstable, the shell of gas expelled from U Cam is almost perfectly spherical.
The image was produced with the High Resolution Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Camelopardalis – the Giraffe. Photo Credits: http://www.constellationsofwords.com
The nape of the neck of the Giraffe of this constellation, Camelopardalis, is very close to the Pole-star, Polaris, at the North Pole (in the Urania’s Mirror picture above the star, Polaris, is named Alruccababh, the Polar Star).
Atlas owned the Garden of Hesperides and in this garden he had the responsibility of holding up the heavens, and there the dragon (Draco) named Ladon guards the tree from which the Golden Apples grow (Newton discovered gravity from seeing an apple fall from a tree, it was Atlas who went and picked the apples for Hercules).
The tree is also the Pole, Polaris or Ursa Minor which is enclosed on three sides by the coils of Draco. Atlas is said to have reigned in Arcadia. The adjacent constellation, Ursa Minor, is identified with Arcas the eponym of Arcadia. @ MessageToEagle.com
The Northwest Territories government is warning people to stay away from 128 dead bison that were found during a routine flight to monitor anthrax. The animals were discovered Tuesday near Mills Lake northwest of Fort Providence. The territory says samples are being sent to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency lab in Lethbridge, Alta., for testing. The N.W.T. Environment Department has activated its anthrax emergency response plan as a precaution — anyone who discovers a carcass is asked to notify officials. The region where the bison were found is only accessible by boat at this time of year, but there are cabins in the area. Humans can develop skin, respiratory or intestinal infections if they contract anthra from an infected animal. Anthrax can be fatal but is controllable if promptly treated with antibiotics. The disease is caused by a bacteria that, once introduced into an area, leaves spores that can remain viable in the soil for many years. Under certain conditions such as wet weather followed by a hot, dry spell, the spores become concentrated in low-lying areas. Bison usually contract the disease by inhaling contaminated soil while they are wallowing in dust baths. Anthrax is not normally spread from animal to animal.
Biohazard name:
Anthrax (bison)
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
The P.E.I. and federal governments are investigating after a number of dead fish were found in a tributary of the Trout River, the same area of West Prince where a large fish kill was recorded a year ago. The province says the Trout Unlimited chapter of Prince County found the dead fish in Barclay Brook in Coleman on Thursday afternoon after a heavy rainfall the night before. It says samples of soil, foliage and water have been collected for analysis. The number of fish that were killed wasn’t immediately known, but 52 brook trout and one juvenile Atlantic salmon were collected for samples. A provincial biologist involved in the investigation wasn’t available to comment. Last July, hundreds of dead fish were found in the Trout, Big Pierre Jacques and Mill rivers after heavy rainfalls but officials said it was likely that thousands of fish were killed. After that fish kill, a farmer was fined $3,000 last September after he pleaded guilty to farming within 200 metres of a watercourse boundary without the protection of a grass headland. The P.E.I. government says the provincial departments of Environment Labour and Justice, along with Environment Canada, were involved in the investigation.
Biohazard name:
Mass. Die-off (fishes)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Crews using rakes and an industrial vacuum remove dead fish from Butterfly Lake in Knoxville, Tenn., on Monday. Some 10,000 bluegills died.
By Miguel Llanos, msnbc.com
In lakes and rivers across parched areas of the U.S., heat and lower water levels are reducing oxygen levels — and killing fish populations by the thousands.
At one lake in Delaware, up to 6,000 dead gizzard shad and 600 perch were found floating this week.
“Aggravating this summertime problem, increased temperatures lead to warmer water, which holds less dissolved oxygen,” state natural resources spokesman John Clark told NBCPhiladelphia.com.
In South Carolina, some 500 fish died at Lake Hartwell.
“It started Sunday afternoon,” local resident Brandi Pierce told NBC affiliate WYFF-TV. “We started seeing ten fish popping up out of the water. Then Monday, it was full.”
Across South Dakota, fishermen have reported thousands of fish kills in multiple lakes and rivers.
And in Tennessee, a fish kill on Butterfly Lake left a horrid stench in one Knoxville neighborhood.
“It’s really putrid,” Paula Gumpman, president of the local neighborhood association, told the Knoxville News Sentinel. “It’s like after a hurricane. Gooky and yucky.”
Some 10,000 bluegills were thought to have died, and city workers were tasked with the cleanup even though the lake is on private property.
“It’s a public health issue,” said Public Service Director David Brace, “and it just smells real bad.”
07.07.2012
Biological Hazard
USA
State of Washington, [Toutle Valley, Mount Saint Helens, Gifford Pinchot National Forest]
They’re everywhere up here, and they’ve brought the elements of an insect horror movie to the upper Toutle Valley. The Hummocks Trail near Coldwater Lake is speckled with their brown, fuzzy bodies, and you can’t help squashing them by the dozen as you hike the terrain northwest of Mount St. Helens. They’ve turned the trunks of trees into wiggling, squirming masses. If you briefly stand still, several will creep up your boots and legs. Interpretive signs and kiosks are curtained with their writhing bodies, and if you stand silent you can hear them munching away at the leaves of red alder trees. A breakout of tent caterpillars that began last summer has exploded this year at the heart of the volcano’s blast zone. Billions and billions of inch-long critters are stripping alders of foliage and bringing a creepy, but fascinating new factor to the evolution of the landscape Mount St. Helens blasted 32 years ago. Later this summer, after the caterpillars emerge from cocoons, the air will be filled with clouds of white, creamy moths. Tent caterpillars, like many other species of insect, typically experience boom-and-bust cycles, according to ecologists and entomologists. These cycles depend on the weather, food availability, the status of predators and other factors.
However, no one knows why caterpillar numbers surged last year and are really mushrooming this year, said Peter Frenzen, chief scientist for the U.S. Forest Service-managed Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Nor is there any way to determine whether the outbreak could be related to climate change, which has been cited as a factor in the pine beetle forest kill that is fueling massive fires in the Rocky Mountain states. Scientists don’t, however, expect the tent caterpillar outbreak here to have such calamitous effects. “From what I’ve read, this should be a three-to-five year cycle. We should see an increase in the population until their food supply and/or disease causes the population to crash,” Frenzen said. Robert Michael Pyle, an award-winning nature writer and entomologist from Grays River, said boom-and-bust insects like tent caterpillars typically “eat themselves out of house and home and parasites increase and then they collapse. … It’s an absolutely natural thing for them.” Because they are a native species, and the Volcanic Monument was established to allow natural processes to occur without human interference, the Forest Service does not plan to institute any controls, Frenzen said.
For now, the caterpillars are eating almost exclusively alder, a pioneering plant that is the dominant tree species in the area because it grows in the sterile volcanic debris that buried the valley floor hundreds of feet deep. There’s some indication, Frenzen said, that caterpillars are also eating blackberry bushes. How the caterpillars affect the landscape is an intriguing question Frenzen is hoping some researcher looks into. He and Pyle doubt the caterpillars will kill the alders, which grow rapidly and should put on new foliage once the caterpillar spin cocoons, a process that turns them into moths. Usually, foliage-eating insects typically don’t destroy their host plants, Pyle noted. However, the caterpillars could kill off some struggling alders and thereby give more light to other species, Frenzen speculated. In addition, the caterpillars’ droppings could also act as a fertilizer for other plants and trees, such as the Douglas fir, Pacific silver fir and other conifer species that now dapple the landscape. “If you’re an alder in the shade and already stressed, this may push you over the edge. Naturally thinning will occur,” Frenzen said. “If you’re a Doug fir or hemlock hanging around in the understory, this would be a good thing because it will mean more light and more nutrients.” So, it’s possible the caterpillar could play a role in determining the nature of the forest that emerges. Certainly their presence will attract songbirds and other predators to the areas, Pyle said.
“You never have that much fat and protein in one place without something wanting to eat it,” he said. Once the caterpillars turn into moths, they’ll be an ample food supply for bats, “which are under great stress,” he added. Only time will tell whether the caterpillars play a major evolutionary role in shaping the future of the landscape, a process scientists called “succession.” “As an event in the natural succession, this could be a significant one,” Frenzen said. “It is an event that might explain something later.”
Biohazard name:
Caterpillars invasion
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
07.07.2012
Biological Hazard
USA
State of California, [Scripps pier, Coronado and Mission Bay]
North County lifeguards have witnessed an increase in jellyfish stings, according to our media partner North County Times. Oceanside lifeguards said they have seen a “significant increase” in the amount of sting injuries from jellyfish, with about 25 people reporting injuries in the last few days, said Lifeguard Sgt. Greg Trebbe. Jellyfish stings at Oceanside beaches have been minimal to nonexistent before, lifeguards said to North County Times. It’s unknown exactly what type of jellyfish is causing the problems. But the executive director at Birch Aquarium said she has noticed a purple striped jellyfish present at the Scripps pier, Coronado and Mission Bay. The jellyfish have purple and white circular stripes and stings are not venomous. And this kind of jellyfish is common in San Diego. “This is a typical time when we have warmer waters and a lot of movements with currents from deeper waters,” Nigella Hillgarth said. “There is also a lot of plankton in the waters, so there is a lot of food for them.” Victims with more serious stings should seek medical attention, Hillgarth told North County Times. If the sting is minor, Hillgarth recommended washing it with fresh water.
Biohazard name:
Jellyfish invasion
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
A SOUTH African surfer survived an attack by a shark measuring up to 4.5 metres at a popular beach on Friday, rescuers said. Jacque Mostert, 29, was attacked and injured while he was surfing during a holiday in Stilbaai in Western Cape province, Rico Menezies of the National Sea Rescue Institute said in a statement. “He was surfing with friends and his fellow surfers, who reportedly witnessed the incident, removed him from the water,” said Mr Menezies. He said the shark of unknown species of between four to 4.5 metres bit him in his leg and he was taken to hospital suffering serious cuts and blood loss. His condition was described as “serious but stable”. Shark attacks in South Africa are less common but more often fatal than other shark international hotspots like Australia and the United States. The country accounts for one-third of the 24 deaths worldwide on the International Shark Attack File for the past three years.
Biohazard name:
Shark attack (Non-Fatal)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Assumption Parish emergency officials have asked to meet with an expert from the U.S. Geological Survey and for portable seismic equipment to get a better understanding of new tremors reported in the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou areas, officials said Friday. The earth tremors are being reported by residents in a swampy area of northern Assumption Parish where venting streams of natural gas have been roiling the surface of waterways for about a month. The source of the natural gas remains uncertain and is not an explosive risk but detailed tests to fingerprint the source of the leaking gas are pending, said John Boudreaux, director of the parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparednes. He said company reports posted on the parish’s website are from earlier tests that mainly established that natural gas had been bubbling up through the waterways. Boudreaux said residents reported tremors last month and again on Tuesday and Wednesday, about 7:30 a.m. each day. State and parish officials have not made a connection between the tremors and the natural gas releases and are focusing on the oil and gas infrastructure in the area to pinpoint the source of the leaking gas. One of those lines of inquiry has been the Napoleonville Dome, a 3-by-1-mile salt dome containing 51 caverns used to produce brine and for hydrocarbon storage.
The Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou areas are on one of the dome’s flanks. Two of the caverns store natural gas.Boudreaux said the cavern holding natural gas nearest to the two communities has undergone a scientific test to assess its integrity. He said the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources is evaluating a report on the test and is expected to provide the results next week. The cavern is ultimately owned by Chevron Pipeline. The other cavern, which is about a mile north of the Chevron cavern and is owned by Acadian Gas Pipeline of Houston, Texas, has been shut in for the past five days as a precaution and is being monitored, Boudreaux said. Parish officials have also said they monitoring the air for natural gas levels and what is called the lower explosive limit, or LEL, around the waterborne bubble locations and in populated areas. LEL indicates a risk of explosion. The LEL has been zero in almost all reports. In a news release Friday, parish officials said that in the Sportsman’s Drive area of Bayou Corne, a stationary air monitor hit 25.2 percent of the LEL on Thursday but officials say the reading is suspicious. Sheriff Mike Waguespack warned the public Friday not to tamper with the monitoring equipment. He said anyone caught tampering or trying to feed the monitors some type of foreign source “will be handled accordingly and will be arrested.”
Concerns would occur at 60 percent of LEL, and 100 percent would reflect an ignition risk. Boudreaux said he also heard community concerns about daily air monitoring reports on the parish website. The reports reflect passes by a boat near the bubbling locations and recently installed neighborhood air monitoring equipment, Boudreaux said. He said monitoring tests for chemicals in addition to LEL, including, in some cases, hydrogen sulfide, or H2S. Hydrogen sulfide is regularly tested in connection with oil and gas exploration. He said concerns would begin at levels of 35 parts per million and can be toxic at 100 ppm. The latest reports Friday show less than 1 ppm for hydrogen sulfide.
Pinyon pine forests near Los Alamos, N.M., had already begun to turn brown from drought stress in the image at left, in 2002, and another photo taken in 2004 from the same vantage point, at right, show them largely grey and dead. (Photo by Craig Allen, U.S. Geological Survey).
New research concludes that a one-two punch of drought and mountain pine beetle attacks are the primary forces that have killed more than 2.5 million acres of pinyon pine and juniper trees in the American Southwest during the past 15 years, setting the stage for further ecological disruption. The widespread dieback of these tree species is a special concern, scientists say, because they are some of the last trees that can hold together a fragile ecosystem, nourish other plant and animal species, and prevent serious soil erosion.
The major form of soil erosion in this region is wind erosion. Dust blowing from eroded hills can cover snowpacks, cause them to absorb heat from the sun and melt more quickly, and further reduce critically-short water supplies in the Colorado River basin.
The findings were published in the journal Ecohydrology by scientists from the College of Forestry at Oregon State University and the Conservation Biology Institute in Oregon. NASA supported the work.
“Pinyon pine and juniper are naturally drought-resistant, so when these tree species die from lack of water, it means something pretty serious is happening,” said Wendy Peterman, an OSU doctoral student and soil scientist with the Conservation Biology Institute. “They are the last bastion, the last trees standing and in some cases the only thing still holding soils in place.”
“These areas could ultimately turn from forests to grasslands, and in the meantime people are getting pretty desperate about these soil erosion issues,” she said. “And anything that further reduces flows in the Colorado River is also a significant concern.”
It’s not certain whether or not the recent tree die-offs are related to global warming, Peterman said. However, the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected that while most of the United States was getting warmer and wetter, the Southwest will get warmer and drier.
Major droughts have in fact occurred there, and the loss of pinyon pine and juniper trees would be consistent with the climate change projections, Peterman said.
Pinyon pine and juniper are the dominant trees species in much of the Southwest, routinely able to withstand a year or two of drought, and able to grow in many mountainous areas at moderate elevation. The trees are common in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, and may have expanded their range in the past century during conditions that were somewhat wetter than normal.
In some places up to 90 percent of these trees have now died, many of them during a major drought in 2003 and 2004. The new research concluded that most of the mortality occurred in shallow soils having less than four inches of available water in about the top five feet of the soil column.
Most of the tree mortality, the scientists said, was caused by trees being sufficiently weakened by drought that opportunistic bark beetle epidemics were able to kill the pinyon pine, and the vascular system of the juniper ceased to function.
Traditionally, pinyon pine and juniper were not considered trees of significant value. They were occasionally used for firewood, but otherwise small and not particularly impressive.
They perform key ecosystem functions, however, not the least of which is stabilizing soils and preventing erosion. They also provide some food in the form of pine nuts and juniper berries, and store carbon in their biomass, and in the soils beneath their canopies.
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FlyDrake.com via Glacier Bay National Park
Drake Olson / FlyDrake.com via AP
Marten Geertsema and Drake Olson
B.C. landslide rescue3:25
Diana Webber, 22, is believed to have been in a home hit by the landslide. (Facebook)
Rachel Webber, 17, is also believed to have been in the house struck by the landslide. (Facebook)
The annual migration takes some penguins as far north as Rio de Janeiro
(USDA)
Kyodo via Reuters
Jiji Press via AFP – Getty Images
The tragedy struck just after 5am as a group of climbers began a dawn ascent on Mont Maudit (Accursed Mountain) in the Mont Blanc range at Chamonix, at an altitude of just over 4,000m. The climbers were reported to have been roped together in at least two teams as they climbed one of the most popular but dangerous routes up the mountain.
![[image]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-TR261_0707he_DV_20120707121602.jpg)
European Pressphoto AgencyJoggers cool off Saturday in a water sprinkler on the National Mall in Washington.![[SB10001424052702304141204577510740238694450]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-TQ960_0706po_D_20120706113724.jpg)
Joe Harper playing in the water in Hebden Bridge
Aleksandr Tkachyov
Ignat Kozlov / AP
Russia’s Interior Ministry via AFP – Getty Images
Jeff Farrell / The Mountain Press via AP
MessageToEagle.com – Camelopardalis, or U Cam for short, is a star nearing the end of its life.
U Cam located in the constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe), near the North Celestial Pole. Image credit: ESA/NASA
J. Miles Cary / Knoxville News Sentinel via AP
