Large fractures in the sea ice were observed off the north coast of Alaska and Canada, from near Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic to Barrow in Alaska, during the end of February and continuing into early March.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), this fracturing event appears to be related to an unusual storm that passed over the North Pole on February 8, 2013, which created strong off-shore ice motion. A similar patterns were seen in early 2011 and 2008 but the 2013 fracturing is quite extensive.
Satellite image captured the ice in the Beaufort Sea coming apart at the seams on February 27, 2013 (Credit: Econnexus)
Arctic sea ice is nearing its winter maximum and will soon begin its seasonal decline. Ice extent remains below average, in part a result of the persistence of the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation that has kept winter temperatures warmer than average.
Time-series (1996 to 2012) of total polar ozone mean values over the months of September, October and November as measured by GOME, SCIAMACHY and GOME-2 flown on ERS-2, Envisat and MetOp-A, respectively. Smaller ozone holes are evident during 2002 and 2012. The maps were generated using total ozone columns derived with the GODFIT algorithm (BIRA/IASB, RT Solutions Inc.), which has been consistently applied to the three different satellite instruments. Copyright BIRA/IASB.
Satellites show that the recent ozone hole over Antarctica was the smallest seen in the past decade. Long-term observations also reveal that Earth’s ozone has been strengthening following international agreements to protect this vital layer of the atmosphere.
According to the ozone sensor on Europe’s MetOp weather satellite, the hole over Antarctica in 2012 was the smallest in the last 10 years.
The instrument continues the long-term monitoring of atmospheric ozone started by its predecessors on the ERS-2 and Envisat satellites.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, an ozone hole has developed over Antarctica during the southern spring – September to November – resulting in a decrease in ozone concentration of up to 70%.
Ozone depletion is more extreme in Antarctica than at the North Pole because high wind speeds cause a fast-rotating vortex of cold air, leading to extremely low temperatures. Under these conditions, human-made chlorofluorocarbons – CFCs – have a stronger effect on the ozone, depleting it and creating the infamous hole.
Over the Arctic, the effect is far less pronounced because the northern hemisphere’s irregular landmasses and mountains normally prevent the build-up of strong circumpolar winds.
The simplified artist’s conception shows how changes in polar vortex winds high in the stratosphere can influence the North Atlantic to cause changes in the global conveyor belt of ocean circulation. Credit: Thomas Reichler, University of Utah.
A University of Utah study suggests something amazing: Periodic changes in winds 15 to 30 miles high in the stratosphere influence the seas by striking a vulnerable “Achilles heel” in the North Atlantic and changing mile-deep ocean circulation patterns, which in turn affect Earth’s climate.
“We found evidence that what happens in the stratosphere matters for the ocean circulation and therefore for climate,” says Thomas Reichler, senior author of the study published online Sunday, Sept. 23 in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Scientists already knew that events in the stratosphere, 6 miles to 30 miles above Earth, affect what happens below in the troposphere, the part of the atmosphere from Earth’s surface up to 6 miles or about 32,800 feet. Weather occurs in the troposphere.
Researchers also knew that global circulation patterns in the oceans – patterns caused mostly by variations in water temperature and saltiness – affect global climate.
“It is not new that the stratosphere impacts the troposphere,” says Reichler, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah. “It also is not new that the troposphere impacts the ocean. But now we actually demonstrated an entire link between the stratosphere, the troposphere and the ocean.”
Funded by the University of Utah, Reichler conducted the study with University of Utah atmospheric sciences doctoral student Junsu Kim, and with atmospheric scientist Elisa Manzini and oceanographer Jurgen Kroger, both with the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany.
Stratospheric Winds and Sea Circulation Show Similar Rhythms Reichler and colleagues used weather observations and 4,000 years worth of supercomputer simulations of weather to show a surprising association between decade-scale, periodic changes in stratospheric wind patterns known as the polar vortex, and similar rhythmic changes in deep-sea circulation patterns. The changes are:
+ “Stratospheric sudden warming” events occur when temperatures rise and 80-mph “polar vortex” winds encircling the Artic suddenly weaken or even change direction. These winds extend from 15 miles elevation in the stratosphere up beyond the top of the stratosphere at 30 miles. The changes last for up to 60 days, allowing time for their effects to propagate down through the atmosphere to the ocean.
+ Changes in the speed of the Atlantic circulation pattern – known as Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation – that influences the world’s oceans because it acts like a conveyor belt moving water around the planet.
Sometimes, both events happen several years in a row in one decade, and then none occur in the next decade. So incorporating this decade-scale effect of the stratosphere on the sea into supercomputer climate simulations or “models” is important in forecasting decade-to-decade climate changes that are distinct from global warming, Reichler says.
“If we as humans modify the stratosphere, it may – through the chain of events we demonstrate in this study – also impact the ocean circulation,” he says. “Good examples of how we modify the stratosphere are the ozone hole and also fossil-fuel burning that adds carbon dioxide to the stratosphere. These changes to the stratosphere can alter the ocean, and any change to the ocean is extremely important to global climate.”
A Vulnerable Soft Spot in the North Atlantic “The North Atlantic is particularly important for global ocean circulation, and therefore for climate worldwide,” Reichler says. “In a region south of Greenland, which is called the downwelling region, water can get cold and salty enough – and thus dense enough – so the water starts sinking.”
It is Earth’s most important region of seawater downwelling, he adds. That sinking of cold, salty water “drives the three-dimensional oceanic conveyor belt circulation. What happens in the Atlantic also affects the other oceans.”
Reichler continues: “This area where downwelling occurs is quite susceptible to cooling or warming from the troposphere. If the water is close to becoming heavy enough to sink, then even small additional amounts of heating or cooling from the atmosphere may be imported to the ocean and either trigger downwelling events or delay them.”
Because of that sensitivity, Reichler calls the sea south of Greenland “the Achilles heel of the North Atlantic.”
From Stratosphere to the Sea In winter, the stratospheric Arctic polar vortex whirls counterclockwise around the North Pole, with the strongest, 80-mph winds at about 60 degrees north latitude. They are stronger than jet stream winds, which are less than 70 mph in the troposphere below. But every two years on average, the stratospheric air suddenly is disrupted and the vortex gets warmer and weaker, and sometimes even shifts direction to clockwise.
“These are catastrophic rearrangements of circulation in the stratosphere,” and the weaker or reversed polar vortex persists up to two months, Reichler says. “Breakdown of the polar vortex can affect circulation in the troposphere all the way down to the surface.”
Reichler’s study ventured into new territory by asking if changes in stratospheric polar vortex winds impart heat or cold to the sea, and how that affects the sea.
It already was known that that these stratospheric wind changes affect the North Atlantic Oscillation – a pattern of low atmospheric pressure centered over Greenland and high pressure over the Azores to the south. The pattern can reverse or oscillate.
Because the oscillating pressure patterns are located above the ocean downwelling area near Greenland, the question is whether that pattern affects the downwelling and, in turn, the global oceanic circulation conveyor belt.
The study’s computer simulations show a decadal on-off pattern of correlated changes in the polar vortex, atmospheric pressure oscillations over the North Atlantic and changes in sea circulation more than one mile beneath the waves. Observations are consistent with the pattern revealed in computer simulations.
Observations and Simulations of the Stratosphere-to-Sea Link In the 1980s and 2000s, a series of stratospheric sudden warming events weakened polar vortex winds. During the 1990s, the polar vortex remained strong.
Reichler and colleagues used published worldwide ocean observations from a dozen research groups to reconstruct behavior of the conveyor belt ocean circulation during the same 30-year period.
“The weakening and strengthening of the stratospheric circulation seems to correspond with changes in ocean circulation in the North Atlantic,” Reichler says.
To reduce uncertainties about the observations, the researchers used computers to simulate 4,000 years worth of atmosphere and ocean circulation.
“The computer model showed that when we have a series of these polar vortex changes, the ocean circulation is susceptible to those stratospheric events,” Reichler says.
To further verify the findings, the researchers combined 18 atmosphere and ocean models into one big simulation, and “we see very similar outcomes.”
The study suggests there is “a significant stratospheric impact on the ocean,” the researchers write.
“Recurring stratospheric vortex events create long-lived perturbations at the ocean surface, which penetrate into the deeper ocean and trigger multidecadal variability in its circulation. This leads to the remarkable fact that signals that emanate from the stratosphere cross the entire atmosphere-ocean system.”
BEN NUCKOLS, Associated Press, STEVE SZKOTAK, Associated Press
FILE – In this Aug. 23, 2011, file photo, a U.S. Park Service helicopter flies between the Washington Monument and the Capitol on the National Mall in Washington, following an earthquake in the Washington area. The unexpected jolt cracked the Washington Monument in spots and toppled delicate masonry high atop the National Cathedral. The shaking was felt far along the densely populated Eastern seaboard from Georgia to New England. While West Coast earthquake veterans scoffed at what they viewed as only a moderate temblor, last year’s quake has forever changed the way officials along the East Coast view emergency preparedness. Photo: AP / AP
MINERAL, Va. (AP) — When the “Big One” rocked the East Coast one year ago, the earthquake centered on this rural Virginia town cracked ceiling tiles and damaged two local school buildings so badly that they had to be shuttered for good. Now as the academic year gets under way, students are reciting a new safety mantra: Drop, cover, and hold on.
Earthquake drills are now as ubiquitous as fire drills at Louisa County schools in central Virginia, where 4,600 students were attending classes when the 5.8-magnitude quake struck nearby on Aug. 23, 2011. Miraculously, no one was seriously hurt.
“It’s the new normal,” Superintendent Deborah D. Pettit said of the earthquake drills. “It’s become a normal part of the school routine and safety.”
One such drill is planned for Thursday at 1:51 p.m. EDT — the precise moment a year ago when the quake struck.
The unexpected jolt cracked the Washington Monument in spots and toppled delicate masonry high atop the National Cathedral. The shaking was felt far along the densely populated Eastern seaboard from Georgia to New England.
While West Coast earthquake veterans scoffed at what they viewed as only a moderate temblor, last year’s quake has changed the way officials along the East Coast view emergency preparedness.
Emergency response plans that once focused on hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding and snow are being revised to include quakes. Some states have enacted laws specifically related to the quake, and there is anecdotal evidence of a spike in insurance coverage for earthquake damage.
The quake was centered 3 to 4 miles beneath Mineral, a town of fewer than 500 people about 50 miles northwest of Richmond. Yet it was believed to have been felt by more people than any other in U.S. history.
The damage, estimated at more than $200 million, extended far beyond rural Louisa County. In the nation’s capital, the Washington Monument sustained several large cracks and remains closed indefinitely.
The National Park Service plans next month to finalize the contract to repair the Washington Monument. Repairs are expected to cost $15 million and require a massive scaffolding, and the landmark obelisk is likely to remain closed until 2014.
The National Cathedral reopened last November, but repairs are expected to take years and cost $20 million. The cathedral announced Thursday that it has received a $5 million grant from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc. With that funding in place, stonemasons were scheduled to begin active restoration Thursday afternoon. Previously, they had been stabilizing the damaged components and cataloging the damage.
In Virginia, the North Anna Power Station became the first operating U.S. nuclear power plant shut down because of an earthquake.
Was it a once-in-a-century anomaly, or are there more quakes to come?
Scientists are trying to answer that question as they pore over the data and survey the epicenter from the air.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, much of central Virginia has been labeled for decades as an area of elevated seismic hazard. But last year’s quake was the largest known to occur in that seismic zone.
“Scientists would like to know if this earthquake was Virginia’s ‘Big One,’” said J. Wright Horton of the USGS.
Meanwhile, the quake prompted several jurisdictions to revise their emergency response plans.
Photographs of the inner crater inside the outer crater, the presence of magma inside the inner crater and pyroclastic deposits in the crater. (S. Vallejo and MF. Naranjo, OVT-IGEPN)
Small pyroclastic flow on the western flank of the volcano in the afternoon of August 21, 2012 (IGEPN)
Thermal image of the continuous emission of gases and ash accompanied by expulsion of incandescent material (Source: S. Vallejo, OVT-IG)
Thermal image of the northern flank of the volcano with fresh pyroclastic deposits and the trace of the lava flow recorded on Saturday August 18 (S. Vallejo, OVT-IGEPN)
Current seismic signal (RETU station, IG)
Tremor signal on current seismic recording (RETU station, IG)
SO2 plume from Tungurahua yesterday 21 Aug (NOAA)
Tungurahua’s eruption continues. This morning, a tall ash plume was rising to 32,000 ft (ca. 10 km) altitude and drifting west. A slight decrease in tremor is visible on the latest seismograms.
So far, effects of the eruption have been limited to ash fall. In canton Quero, the ash fall during the past days has damaged more than 5000 hectares of plant cultivations and hit about 2.000 families.
In the meanwhile, scientists from the volcano observatory have made an overflight of the volcano and posted the following interesting update (freely translated) for 20-21 Aug:
The volcano emits a neary constant eruption column, associated with explosions, that reached a maximum height of 5 km and an average height of 1.5 km above the crater, with moderate ash content, drifting to the west. There were no new reports of ash fall.
An increase in the number and size of the explosions was observed since 15:00 local time on 20 Aug. Until 16:00 on 21 Aug, there were 16 large explosions producing strong cannon-shot noises heard in villages near the volcano and in cities as far away as Ambato, Riobamba and Miracle.
The seismic activity at Tungurahua shows a constant tremor signal associated with steam, gas and ash emissions.
Otherwise, the roaring noises have decreased in intensity and duration with respect to the previous days.
In the evening observatory staff observed constant expulsion of hot material in jets. Lava blocks landed outside the crater and rolled up to 1.5 km from the top of the volcano’s flanks.
An explosion at 14:11 on 21 Aug generated an ash column rising 4 km above the crater, that produced a small pyroclastic flow that descended approximately 2.5 km along the Achupashal creek.
Staff of the Geophysical Institute of the National Polytechnic School conducted an overflight of the volcano yesterday afternoon for thermal and visual monitoring of the activity in the crater area and top of the mountain. They observed that that much of the western and southwestern flank have been covered by fresh ash and blocks.
Thermal images show near continuous explosive activity from the inner crater, ejecting incandescent material onto the the upper flanks of the volcano, where temperatures ranged between 116 and 150°C.
The morphology of the summit consists of an outer crater containing an inner crater about 80 m wide, and a few dozend meters distance from the outside crater. The inner crater was observed to be almost filled with fresh lava. Numerous large meter sized hot blocks could be identified in the crater area and the upper flanks. Temperatures measured at the crater raned between 550°C for the inner crater and 236°C at the outer crater.
Many fresh lava blocks have accumulated in ravines on the south-west, west and north-west upper flanks of the volcano. These could be mobilized to form avalanches IG scientists warn.
The thermal image analysis confirmed that during the night of Saturday, August 18, a lava flow and an incandescent avalanche of blocks that had accumulated in the north-western flank flew down through the Cusu canyon as had been observed then.
IG recommends the authorities and the general public to maintain protective and preparative measures in case the activity escalates further which is a possibility. Most danger during the ongoing activity comes from pyroclastic flows, lahars and ash fall.
An aerial view of New Yorkers taking in the sun on a beach at Coney Island on August 4, 2012 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP)
PARIS: Heat waves, drought and floods that have struck the northern hemisphere for the third summer running are narrowing doubts that man-made warming is disrupting Earth’s climate system, say some scientists.
Climate experts as a group are reluctant to ascribe a single extreme event or season to global warming.
Weather, they argue, has to be assessed over far longer periods to confirm a shift in the climate and whether natural factors or fossil-fuel emissions are the cause.
But for some, such caution is easing.
A lengthening string of brutal weather events is going hand in hand with record-breaking rises in temperatures and greenhouse-gas levels, an association so stark that it can no longer be dismissed as statistical coincidence, they say.
“We prefer to look at average annual temperatures on a global scale, rather than extreme temperatures,” said Jean Jouzel, vice chairman of the U.N.’s Nobel-winning scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Even so, according to computer models, “over the medium and long term, one of the clearest signs of climate change is a rise in the frequency of heat waves”, he said.
“Over the last 50 years, we have seen that as warming progresses, heat waves are becoming more and more frequent,” Jouzel said.
“If we don’t do anything, the risk of a heat wave occurring will be 10 times higher by 2100 compared with the start of the century.”
The past three months have seen some extraordinary weather in the United States, Europe and East and Southeast Asia.
The worst drought in more than 50 years hit the U.S. Midwest breadbasket while forest fires stoked by fierce heat and dry undergrowth erupted in California, France, Greece, Italy, Croatia and Spain.
Heavy rains flooded Manila and Beijing and China’s eastern coast was hit by three typhoons in a week.
Last month was the warmest ever recorded for land in the northern hemisphere and a record high for the contiguous United States, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Globally, the temperature in July was the fourth highest since records began in 1880, it said.
James Hansen, arguably the world’s most famous climate scientist (and a bogeyman to climate skeptics), contends the link between extreme heat events and global warming is now all but irrefutable.
The evidence, he says, comes not from computer simulations but from weather observations themselves.
In a study published this month in the peer-reviewed U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hansen and colleagues compared temperatures over the past three decades to a baseline of 1951-80, a period of relative stability.
Over the last 30 years, there was 0.5-0.6 C (0.9-1.0 F) of warming, a rise that seems small but “is already having important effects”, said Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
During the baseline period, cold summers occurred about a third of the time, but this fell to about 10 percent in the 30-year period that followed.
Hot summers, which during the baseline period occurred 33 percent of the time, rose to about 75 percent in the three decades that followed.
Even more remarkable, though, was the geographical expansion of heat waves. During the baseline period, an unusually hot summer would yield a heat wave that would cover just a few tenths of 1 percent of the world’s land area.
Today, though, an above average summer causes heat waves that in total affect about 10 percent of the land surface.
“The extreme summer climate anomalies in Texas in 2011, in Moscow in 2010 and in France in 2003 almost certainly would not have occurred in the absence of global warming with its resulting shift of the anomaly situation,” says the paper.
In March, an IPCC special report said there was mounting evidence of a shift in patterns of extreme events in some regions, including more intense and longer droughts and rainfall.
But it saw no increases in the frequency, length or severity of tropical storms.
Budgets leave governments in tough spot to get people, planes, bulldozers to beat back flames
Jeff Barnard / AP
A damaged truck sits among other remains on Wednesday at a rural house site outside Manton, Calif., where a huge wildfire burned through on Saturday, forcing residents to evacuate.
By Jeff Barnard and Nicholas K. Geranios
MANTON, Calif. — Twisted sheets of metal, the hulks of pickup trucks and brick walls were all that was left of homes once sheltered by green pine and cedar trees.
In a rural Northern California subdivision that was the latest to feel the wrath of massive western wildfires, long pine needles bent back on themselves, unburned but dried to a brittle dusty gray by the intensive heat of the Ponderosa fire.
Thousands of residents of tiny rural communities just outside Lassen Volcanic National Park who had been forced to flee soon after the fire was ignited by lighting on Saturday were allowed to return home on Wednesday. But hundreds of other homes were threatened as the fire burned a new front on the southern flank.
The blaze has grown to 44 square miles in the hills about 30 miles east of Redding.
Bob Folsom, who works at a nearby hydroelectric facility, tended the gasoline generator that is keeping his refrigerator running while utility crews worked to replace power lines destroyed by the blaze when it roared through the area last weekend.
“I was ready for this day,” he said. “I try to be self-sufficient.”
Folsom and his son never left their home as the fire burned within a half mile of them last weekend, close enough that they heard trees exploding and the flames roaring like a freight train. Over the past 10 years, they had thinned hundreds of trees, dug a pond to store water, and installed hydrants to fill fire hoses.
“When it comes through, it’s gonna come fast,” he said. “You don’t have time to cut down trees.”
Fires across the West have left some states with thin budgets to scramble to get people, planes, bulldozers and other tools on fire lines to beat back the flames.
And that’s with about a third of the annual wildfire season remaining.
Video: Ponderosa blaze prompts state of emergency (on this page)According to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, the nation as of Wednesday had seen 42,927 wildfires this year, which burned just over 7 million acres.
While the number of fires is down from the 10-year average of 54,209 as of Aug. 22, the acreage was well above the average of 5.4 million acres, said Don Smurthwaite, a NIFC spokesman.
“The fires are bigger,” he said.
In Colorado Springs, Colo., this summer, about 350 homes were burned in the most destructive wildfire in state history. Another fire in northern Colorado just before it scorched 257 homes.
The costs have mounted, not just in the damage to houses and other buildings.
In Utah, for example, officials have spent $50 million as of mid-August to fight more than 1,000 wildfires, far surpassing the $3 million a year the Legislature budgeted for fighting wildfires.
The state’s share is estimated at $16 million, said Roger Lewis of the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands. He said lawmakers will need to figure out how to come up with $13 million.
That’s the largest-ever supplemental appropriation request needed for firefighting in the state, agency spokesman Jason Curry said. He said, “It’s obviously been a big year.”
Washington state fire officials project that they will spend about $19.8 million on emergency fire suppression activities in the current fiscal year that ends next June.
That is expected to far surpass the $11.2 million the agency was allotted for such work, meaning the Department of Natural Resources will have to ask the Legislature for supplemental funds.
Not all Western states are seeing their budgets busted because of fires.
In Oregon, the state estimated it had spent $3.4 million through last Saturday to fight wildfires, with more than two months of the season left. Last year, it spent $6.6 million.
In Montana, forest managers told Gov. Brian Schweitzer that long-term forecasts call for fire conditions through the end of September, which is longer than normal.
The Northern Rockies Coordination Center put the total cost of fighting large wildfires in Montana, including costs to federal and state agencies, at $64 million so far this season. The state’s share is about $25 million to fight fires that have burned about 1,100 square miles.
Schweitzer said the state has already burned through cash reserves set aside for such natural disasters, but that plenty of money is available from surplus general funds.
While parts of the Southwest, particularly Southern California, still have three months of fire season left, Smurthwaite said, shorter days, declining temperatures and higher humidity will help curtail fires.
“That’s almost like putting a little wet blanket over a fire,” he said.
Firefighters in Northern California on Thursday made progress in containing a huge wildfire that has burned 80 homes and other buildings and is threatening 900 more. It was 57 percent contained on Thursday.
Fire crews assessing the rural area determined Thursday that 84 buildings had been destroyed since it was sparked by lightning Saturday. It was unclear when the structures burned and how many were homes.
More than 2,500 firefighters were battling the fire near several remote towns about 170 miles north of Sacramento.
Elsewhere in California, a large wildfire in Plumas National Forest continued to expand, helped by gusty winds.
In Washington state, fire crews still hoped to fully contain a week-old wildfire that has destroyed 51 homes and 26 outbuildings and damaged at least six other homes, authorities said.
The fire, about 75 miles east of Seattle, has caused an estimated $8.3 million in property damage.
In south-central Idaho, authorities have spent more than $23 million fighting a fire near the towns of Pine and Featherville and another in a forest near the resort town of Stanley.
Those wildfires have each consumed about 150 square miles, and will not be extinguished for some time, Smurthwaite said.
“We expect to be managing them for weeks to come,” he said.
Associated Press writers Haven Daley in Manton Calif., Jonathan Cooper in Salem, Ore., Brian Skoloff in Salt Lake City, Terry Collins, John S. Marshall and Terence Chea in San Francisco, Shannon Dininny in Yakima, Wash., Mike Baker in Olympia, Wash., and Jessie Bonner in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.
California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in three Northern California counties on Wednesday after officials said wildfires in the region had destroyed at least 50 buildings and were threatening hundreds more. Some 3,000 people have been evacuated as the so-called Ponderosa fire burned through more than 24,000 acres (9,700 hectares) of steep, rugged terrain in the rural counties of Tehama and Shasta, about 125 miles (200 km) north of state capital Sacramento. The blaze is 50-percent contained, fire officials said. Brown also declared a state of emergency in nearby Plumas County, where a fire has burned through 47,000 acres (19,000 hectares). Declaring a state of emergency frees up funds to help battle the fires. Firefighters on Wednesday were expected to start inspecting the damage from the Ponderosa fire, which they surveyed by air on Tuesday. Efforts to prevent the fire from overrunning the rural towns of Manton and Shingletown have succeeded so far despite high winds and heat, fire officials said.
23.08.2012
Forest / Wild Fire
USA
State of Washington, [Ahtanum Forest, Yakima County]
State officials have closed part of Ahtanum State Forest to help fight a wildfire burning in a closed section of the Yakama reservation about 15 miles northwest of White Swan. Steep terrain is hampering firefighters efforts to contain the blaze, said Sarah Foster, a spokeswoman for the state fire management team that took over the 331-acre fire early Wednesday. The team’s staging camp is in the closed state forest land, which covers Ahtanum Meadows, Ahtanum Campground, Whites Ridge Trailhead and Middle Fork Road. The closures, which were enacted by the state Department of Natural Resources, are expected to last through the weekend, Foster said. Other parts of the state forest, including South Fork Road, Nasty Creek Road, North Fork Road and Jackass Road, are still open to the public. Lightning sparked the fire Sunday. About 200 firefighters and support people are working to contain the flames, which are burning in lodge pole pine trees in the Diamond Butte area. There are no structures in the area. The fire’s commanders want to keep the flames from reaching forested land with heavy infestation of mountain pine beetles. The insects’ activity kill trees, which creates ready fuel for wildfire, Foster said. “Those dead trees burn really rapidly.” Calm weather conditions are expected until Friday, when a cool front will bring lower temperatures and higher winds, she said. Helicopters and nine hand crews worked Wednesday to make progress on the fire. The helicopters are flying out of an area a couple miles outside Tampico. As many as 350 firefigthers could be called in to corral the fire, she said. Some of them could come from the Taylor Bridge Fire, where the incident commanders are starting to reduce the number of crews. In Washington, firefighters can work 14 days on a fire, then have to take 24 hours off before going back out.
TODAY’s Al Roker tracks Tropical Storms Isaac’s current path as it takes aim at Puerto Rico and the eastern Caribbean.
By Weather.com and wire reports
Updated at 11:12 a.m. ET: Tropical Storm Isaac brought rain and gusty winds to Puerto Rico and the eastern Caribbean Islands and was expected to gradually strengthen as it moved west through the northeastern Caribbean on Thursday.
Forecasters said it was too soon to gauge Isaac’s potential impact on Tampa on Florida’s Gulf Coast, where the Republican National Convention is to run from Monday through Thursday.
Some computer models showed Isaac shifting slightly to the west and eventually moving parallel to Florida’s western coastline. Others forecast the storm to make landfall in South Florida and then move inland.
Forecasters predict Isaac will become a hurricane by Friday morning, but perhaps the more ominous threat in the short term is the potential for extremely heavy rainfall over the islands near Isaac’s path, weather.com reported.
More than a foot of rainfall, and potentially as much as 20 inches in some places, was possible on the island of Hispaniola, home to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Life-threatening flash floods and mudslides could result from that amount of rain.
Residents and visitors of the northern Caribbean, Yucatan Peninsula, southeastern United States and the central/eastern Gulf Coast should watch the progress of Isaac closely over the next week or more, weather.com reported.
Numerous watches and warnings have been issued, including a hurricane warning for Haiti and the south coast of the Dominican Republic. Puerto Rico was under a tropical storm warning, and it was expected to see its greatest impacts from Isaac on Thursday.
On Thursday, Isaac was passing just south of Puerto Rico. As the storm approached, Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuno declared a state of emergency, canceled classes, closed government agencies and activated the National Guard.
The government also froze prices on basic necessities such as food, batteries and other supplies and prepared emergency shelters at schools and other facilities.
Despite Tropical Storm Isaac’s threatening winds and rains ahead of the GOP convention in Florida, Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan are taking aim at President Obama and his handling of the economy. NBC’s Peter Alexander reports.
Isaac was projected to weaken to a tropical storm over Haiti and then pass over Cuba before strengthening into a hurricane in the Florida Straits between Cuba and Florida. Its exact path after that remained uncertain.
Heavy rainfall, flooding and mudslides will be threats in all of the northern Caribbean islands regardless of how strong the system becomes, weather.com reported.
Isaac may also threaten U.S. energy interests in the Gulf of Mexico, weather experts said. It was centered about 265 miles southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, early on Thursday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Isaac had top sustained winds of 45 miles per hour.
At the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in southeast Cuba on Wednesday, authorities said Isaac forced the postponement of pretrial hearings that were to begin on Thursday for five prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks.
The U.S. military was preparing flights to evacuate the base of lawyers, paralegals, interpreters, journalists, rights monitors and family members of 9/11 victims who had traveled there for the hearings.
Lixion Avila, a senior hurricane specialist at the hurricane center, suggested it would be foolish for anyone to think Tampa — where Republicans will nominate Mitt Romney as their presidential candidate — was out of harm’s way.
Hurricane expert Jeff Masters of private forecaster Weather Underground said Tampa had a 9 percent chance of getting hit with tropical storm-force winds for a 24-hour period ending on the morning the Republican convention kicks off. But that could make the storm a non-event in terms of the convention itself.
“I put the odds of an evacuation occurring during the convention in the current situation at 3 percent,” Masters said in his blog on the weatherunderground.com website.
Orange juice prices rise Florida has not been hit by a major hurricane since 2005 and forecasts showed Isaac was not expected to strengthen beyond a weak Category 1, with top sustained wind speeds of about 80 mph.
The threat to Florida triggered a nearly 6 percent jump in orange juice prices on Wednesday as they surged to a six-week high in trading in New York.
Florida produces more than 75 percent of the U.S. orange crop and accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s orange juice supply.
Lurking behind Isaac, the hurricane center said another tropical depression grew into Tropical Storm Joyce on Thursday.
Located about 1,045 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, it was packing winds of 40 mph and was moving northwest at 17 mph.
Forecasts predicted it will eventually veer toward the open Atlantic and away from the Caribbean. No coastal watches or warnings were in effect for Joyce.
Reuters and weather.com contributed to this report.
Tropical Storm Isaac has strengthened slightly, data from the hurricane hunters show, but the storm remains disorganized and difficult to forecast. If you have to make decisions based upon what Isaac will do, I highly recommend that you wait until at least Friday morning to make a decision, if at all possible, as the forecasts then should be of significantly higher accuracy. Isaac continues to have a large area of light winds about 50 miles across near its center. This makes the storm subject to reformations of the center closer to areas of heavy thunderstorms that form, resulting in semi-random course changes. Until Isaac consolidates, the lack of a well-defined center will make forecasts of the storm’s behavior less accurate than usual. An Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter aircraft is in Isaac this afternoon, and has found that surface tropical storm-force winds on the east side of the storm, south of Puerto Rico, have undergone a modest expansion. These winds were mostly in the 40 mph range, with a few areas of 45 mph winds. The surface pressure remained fairly high, at 1004 mb. Infrared and visible satellite loops show that Isaac has fairly symmetric circular cloud pattern, with developing spiral bands that are contracting towards the center, which suggests intensification. However, the storm has a very clumpy appearance, and is a long way from being a hurricane. Given the storm’s continued reluctance to organize, Isaac is unlikely to reach hurricane strength before encountering Haiti and Cuba. An analysis of upper level winds from the University of Wisconsin CIMSS shows an upper-level outflow channel well-established to the north, and an intermittent outflow channel to the south. Radar imagery from Puerto Rico shows some weak low-level spiral bands that haven’t changed much in intensity or organization this afternoon. NOAA buoy 42060 reported 1-minute mean winds of 35 mph and a wind gust of 40 early this afternoon. At St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, wind gusts up to 45 mph were observed early this afternoon. Isaac’s rains caused major flooding last night in Trinidad and Tobago, the southernmost islands of the Lesser Antilles chain, according to the Trinidad Express. Isaac’s rains have not been heavy enough today to cause flooding problems on other islands.
Figure 1. True-color MODIS image of Isaac taken at 1:40 pm EDT August 23, 2012. Image credit: NASA.
Latest model runs for Isaac
The latest set of 12Z (8 am EDT) model runs have shifted to the west compared to the previous set of runs. The models continue to show a west-northwestward track to a point on the south coast of Hispaniola, then across eastern Cuba and into the Florida Straits between Florida and Cuba. A trough of low pressure is then expected to pull Isaac to the northwest and then north, towards the Florida Panhandle. The big news in this model cycle is that both of our top models–the GFS and ECMWF–predict that 5 – 6 days from now, the trough of low pressure pulling Isaac to the north may not be strong enough to finish the job. These models predict that the trough will lift out and a ridge of high pressure will build in, forcing Isaac more to the west. The GFS predicts this will occur after Isaac makes landfall in the Florida Panhandle, resulting in Isaac moving slowly to the west over land, from Georgia to Alabama. The ECMWF predicts the westward motion will happen while Isaac is in the northern Gulf of Mexico, resulting in an eventual landfall near the Louisiana/Texas border on Thursday. There are some huge issues to resolve to make an accurate long-range track forecast for Isaac. Where will its center consolidate? How will the interaction with the mountains of Hispaniola and Cuba will affect it? Where will Isaac pop off the coast of Cuba? Hopefully, the data being collected by the NOAA jet this afternoon will give us a more unified set of model forecasts early Friday morning. For now, pay attention to the cone of uncertainty. If you’re in the cone, you might get hit.
A worker tapes the window of a convenience store in Hualien, Taiwan province, on Wednesday, in preparation for typhoon Tembin. (Photo/China Daily)
Two powerful typhoons are heading toward China, putting the weather-beaten nation on alert again after four storms have caused landfalls across the country since the start of August.
“Typhoons Tembin and Bolaven may have a combined impact on coastal areas in the coming 10 days,” Zhang Chang’an, chief forecaster at the China Meteorological Administration, said on Wednesday.
Both storms are strengthening, with Bolaven expected to be the strongest typhoon to hit China this year if it lands in the country, Zhang said, adding that the storm will bring maximum winds of 220 km/h.
The National Commission on Disaster Reduction issued a typhoon alert on Wednesday, warning authorities to make emergency plans.
Tembin was about 2,000 km from the coast of Zhejiang province on Wednesday, moving at a speed of 5 km/h.
The administration has asked authorities in potential affected areas to set up warning signs in high-risk areas such as construction sites and low-lying areas, and open emergency shelters including schools and stadiums for evacuation of affected people.
The Fujian Meteorological Bureau urged boats to take shelter in ports by Wednesday to avoid possible damage brought by Tembin.
Cannon Beach City Councilor Sam Steidel displays the three containers residents can choose from to store their emergency supplies on Aug. 10, 2012 in Cannon Beach, Ore. By Oct. 18, when a statewide earthquake drill called the “Great Oregon Shakeout” is planned, city officials expect to complete the placement of at least one shipping container on Elk Creek Road, east of U.S. Highway 101. (AP Photo/The Daily Astorian, Nancy McCarthy)
CANNON BEACH, Ore. (AP) — What does one stash for a tsunami? Residents of Cannon Beach are thinking about that.
They’re planning to store drums full of survival gear far enough inland and high enough to be safe if the big one hits the Oregon coast and sends a tsunami wave ashore.
The Daily Astorian reports the city is offering residents space in a shipping container and various sizes of drums, barrels and buckets that can be stored inside.
Cannon Beach held a workshop on how to pack for the days after the big one, the equivalent of last year’s Japanese earthquake that could send a deadly tsunami across West Coast beaches and flood coastal towns.
Essential items would include a shelter, such as a tent or tarp; sleeping bags or blankets; food with a long shelf life, such as ready-to-eat meals or canned goods, and a can opener; a basic first-aid kit, either pre-assembled or one containing personal medical items; a survival knife; axe or hatchet; garden trowel or folding shovel; flashlights with extra batteries; matches or lighter with a fire starter; water purification; and bottles or canteens for water storage.
“We’re encouraging people not to turn this into a big to-do,” said City Council member Sam Steidel. “Most things they will need they can find at rummage sales, or they could be surplus stuff they find around the house that they’re not using all the time.”
“I have packed my barrel with enough things for a two-person camp,” said Steidel, who participates in Civil War re-enactments. “The things are pretty much up-to-date items that are in the re-enactment trailer. A simple pot or Dutch oven is all you really need to cook with. Just about everyone has an old cast iron fry pan.”
Cannon Beach is a popular tourist destination on the north Oregon coast, at the other end of a highway from Portland. It’s also known for thinking hard and creatively about tsunamis — something critics say has been lacking along the West Coast.
A few years ago, Cannon Beach looked at the idea of rebuilding City Hall on stilts to provide refuge for people fleeing a tsunami. Computer modeling showed that the location wasn’t the best, and a study of alternative ideas continues.
Recently, state and federal officials said they plan to use Cannon Beach in a pilot study of how landscape and a town’s demographics affect how long it takes for people to flee a tsunami.
For the storage exercise, the city is preparing a 2,000-square-foot pad for at least one, and perhaps two shipping containers, each 20 feet long, 8 feet wide and 8 feet high. The pad is inland, east of the coastal highway, and planned for an elevation above the expected inundation level.
Each shipping container could hold at least 50 of the largest containers offered, those of 55-gallon capacity, Steidel said.
There also are 30-gallon plastic barrels and five-gallon buckets.
In October, the shipping container is to be opened for families to store their emergency stashes. Unless there’s a disaster, the container wouldn’t be reopened until spring, when the caches could be restocked.
Earlier this year, 53 people at a forum signed up for the small containers, and orders are being accepted for more. City officials said some families are buying more than one.
In addition to a purchase fee, the city is charging an annual maintenance fee based on capacity. A 55-gallon plastic barrel costs $57.90, and the annual fee is $55.
Russian authorities said Wednesday that a flash flood had killed four people in the southern Krasnodar region where 172 people drowned in rising waters last month, many trapped in their homes.
“Four people have died,” a spokeswoman for the regional emergency situations ministry told AFP.
“Three people are listed as missing,” the Krasnodar regional government said in a statement.
Heavy rain battered the coastal Tuapse area overnight causing many rivers to overflow and flood the houses and apartments of around 1,837 people, the regional authorities said.
In July, 172 people were found dead after severe flooding in the Krymsk area not far from Tuapse. Around 35,000 people lost some or all of their possessions.
The local authorities faced widespread censure for their failure to warn people in time of the need to evacuate. Three officials have been arrested and accused of negligence leading to the deaths.
On Wednesday the regional government stressed that this time the warning system had functioned “in time” so that the public was not caught unaware by the flooding.
“There will not be a second Krymsk,” the regional government promised, saying that residents had been warned this time with an onscreen message on local television and officials driving the streets with loudspeakers.
Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are facing the threat of floods because of heavy rains which various districts of the two provinces are likely to receive over the next two days. The late spell of monsoon has already claimed 11 lives in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Bajaur Agency while eight people have died in Azad Kashmir. Officials said that torrential rains triggered flash floods in hill torrents in Nowshera, Mansehra and Bajaur Agency. The provincial disaster management authority said that floods had killed three people in Nowshera and six in Mansehra districts. A landslide blocked a portion of the main highway near Garhi Habibullah, Mansehra district. In Rawalpindi’s Kotli Sattiyan area, Ahmed Nawaz, a retired army man, lost three children-a son and two daughters- when a wall of their room collapsed after heavy rain. The three children were asleep when the wall collapsed on them, killing them on the spot. National Disaster Management Authority chairman Dr Zafar Iqbal Qadir told Dawn on Wednesday that catchment areas of Chenab and Ravi rivers’ distributaries were expected to receive heavy rains over the next two days. This may cause floods in Lahore, Faisalabad and Gujranwala divisions. He said the District Management Authority had been placed on alert.Areas around Jhelum river are also likely to receive rains which will raise the level of Mangla dam and will be of benefit to agriculture. He said the level at Mangla had risen by five feet over the past three days to reach 1,173 feet and was expected to go up by another 10-15 feet during the upcoming spell – sufficient for the irrigation requirements. He said there were fears of flash flood in urban areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, particularly in Nowshera, Peshawar, Mardan, Swat and Buner. He said the PDMA was fully operational in the province and working round the clock to cope with any situation and minimise losses. In reply to a question, he said the threat of drought was not yet fully over, but it had substantially fallen. He said Makran, Kharan, Chaghai and Washuk areas in Balochistan were not receiving rains and might face drought if the dry weather persisted. “There is no possibility of massive flooding and the heavy downpour is likely to cause medium-level floods.” The country saw worst flooding of its history in 2010. It affected one-fifth of the population and rendered several hundred thousand people homeless right from Himalayas in the north to the deserts of Sindh in the south. The following year, comparatively low-intensity floods hit the country again, especially parts of lower Sindh. This year the monsoon spell in the middle of July and August was predicted to cause disaster with a forecast of 15 per cent more than the usual rains, but the situation suddenly changed and the threat of flood turned into one of drought. The situation has once again changed and now moderate floods are likely in at least two provinces.According to the Flood Forecasting Division (FFD), heavy rains triggered a low flood in the Ravi river at Shahdara on Wednesday. The Ravi, Jhelum and Chenab rivers were expected to attain medium to high flood by Friday. The three rivers swelled because of rains in their catchment areas during Eid holidays. The FFD centre in Lahore forecast fairly widespread thunderstorm/rain, with isolated heavy to very heavy falls (extremely heavy at one or two places) over Azad Kashmir, northern and north-eastern Punjab (mostly areas falling within Lahore, Gujranwala and Rawalpindi divisions) for Thursday. Azad Kashmir covers the upper and low catchments of the Jhelum river while northern and north-eastern Punjab constitutes the lower catchments of the Chenab and Ravi. The rain forecast means the water level will shoot up by Friday. Riaz Khan, the FFD chief, however said the situation was not alarming.
Rain in the Jhelum catchments would help fill Mangla Dam. The Chenab and Ravi were approaching flood level because of rain in their lower catchments in Pakistan while rain in their upper catchments in India was being stored in dams. “Hence there is no threat of devastating floods.” The FFD reported that a peak of 40,000 cusecs was passing the Ravi at Shahdara on Wednesday evening and the level was rising. The river was in low flood and was expected to attain medium flood level on Thursday. The FFD expected medium to high flood in Jhelum river at Mangla and in Chenab at Marala and Khanki on Thursday or Friday. Heavy rains flooded the Dek and Basantar nullahs in Sialkot region, submerging hundreds of acres of agricultural land. Traffic also remained suspended on Narowal-Pasrur road because of the flooding. The FFD expected more flooding of almost all nullahs in the region over 24 hours.
The Met office reported that Kakul had received 84mm of rain, Murree 77mm, Jhelum 76mm, Sialkot airport 74mm, Mandi Bahauddin 60mm, Mangla 39mm, Kotli 37mm, Sialkot Cantt 32mm, Cherat 29mm, Saidu Sharif 21mm, Islamabad 14mm, Rawlakot 12mm, Muzaffarabad 10mm, Gujranwala 8mm, and Balakot 4mm.
It also forecast scattered thunderstorm/rain with isolated heavy showers over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well as Sahiwal, Faisalabad and Sargodha divisions of Punjab for Thursday. Azad Kashmir Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed on Wednesday appealed to the federal government to help his administration in rehabilitation of rain victims. A spell of relentless rain since Sunday has displaced thousands of people in the region, besides leaving eight dead. In Muzaffarabad, the capital, one person was killed and landslides threatened over 100 families living on the outskirts of the city. Within the city area, many areas were virtually buried under a huge rock that the gushing rainwater had brought with it. Four people were killed in Bagh district on Eid day and two children died in Mirpur on Wednesday in incidents of house collapse and drowning. Officials said almost all inter-city roads had been cleared for traffic.
A teenager was missing Thursday after heavy rain in southern Nevada brought flash flooding to both Las Vegas and Henderson. The 17-year-old disappeared late Wednesday morning in Henderson. He was swept into flood waters in Pittman Wash. Firefighters say the teen was with friends who witnessed his disappearance. Bud Cranor, a spokesman for the city, said a search for him turned up nothing. “I noticed a man go right through, right in the middle of it,” Mike Harms said. “I got in the car and rode down. I saw him one more time, he was waving his arms and yelling for help, but it was hopeless because he was going so fast, he was gone.” While the water had receded in most areas, it left debris behind. The Desert Rose Golf Course in Las Vegas was covered with trash, including a shopping cart and bottles. For some daredevils, the flood was a chance to show off, authorities said. A Metro Las Vegas helicopter pilot, sent to check out a report of teens riding an air mattress down a flooded wash, saw them leave the water without injury
An official from Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration takes a sample from a shipment of frozen fish imported from Japan to test for possible radiation contamination at Ladkrabang customs in Bangkok (Reuters/Sukree Sukplang)
A pair of fish captured near Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant have shown to be carrying record levels of radiation. The pair of greenlings are contaminated with 258 times the level government deems safe for consumption.
The fish, which were captured just 12 miles from the nuclear plant, registered 25,800 becquerels of caesium per kilo, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).
TEPCO says the high levels may be due to the fish feeding in radioactive hotspots. The company plans on capturing and testing more of the fish, as well as their feed, and the seabed soil to determine the exact cause of the high radiation.
The findings were surprising for officials, who had previously seen much lower levels of radiation in contaminated fish.
Fishermen been allowed to cast their reels in the nearby waters on an experimental basis since June – but only in areas more than 31 miles from the plant.
Previously, the highest recorded radiation seen in the captured wildlife was 18,700 becquerels per kilo in cherry salmons, according to the Japanese Fisheries Agency.
The radiation was caused by a meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima power plant after it was damaged by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The disaster was so intense that contaminated fish were caught all the way across the Pacific Ocean, on the California coast.
But it’s not only aquatic life that is suffering from side effects of the leaked radiation.
According to researchers, the radiation has caused mutations in some butterflies, giving them dented eyes, malformed legs and antennae, and stunted wings.
The results show the butterflies were deteriorating both physically and genetically.
But the harmful risks don’t stop with butterflies. The radioactivity which seeped into the region’s air and water has left humans facing potentially life threatening health issues.
The report shows that nearly 36 per cent of children in the Fukushima Prefecture have abnormal thyroid growths which pose a risk of becoming cancerous.
The World Health Organization warns that young people are particularly prone to radiation poisoning in the thyroid gland. Infants are most at risk because their cells divide at a higher rate.
NASSAU, Bahamas: The health minister of the Bahamas says he has ordered an investigation into a bacteria outbreak at a local hospital following the death of two babies and amid reports of new cases.
Perry Gomez says four adults and one child in the general intensive care unit of Princess Margaret Hospital in Nassau are carrying the bacteria.
About a month ago, the acinetobacter bamannii outbreak sickened eight babies in the neonatal intensive care unit, killing two.
Gomez announced in Parliament Thursday that the ministry will hire a physician to investigate the outbreak.
The hospital reported a similar outbreak in August 1996 that killed three infants and infected five others.
The bacteria enter the body through open wounds, breathing tubes and catheters and are highly resistant to antibiotics.
Written by UN News Service Wednesday, 22 August 2012 15:39
The United Nations health agency today reported that the cholera outbreak in Sierra Leone was escalating and stressed the need to rapidly scale up the response to the spread of the of the frequently fatal water and food-borne disease.
In a press briefing in Geneva, Glenn Thomas, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO), confirmed the spread of cholera to an additional two districts of the West African country, noting that since the beginning of 2012, there had been 11,189 reported cases and 203 deaths due to the outbreak.
Mr. Thomas told reporters that the WHO was supporting the Government of Sierra Leone in the areas of epidemiology and social mobilization and had sent three cholera experts form its regional office to respond to the deteriorating crisis, UN News Service reports.
Cholera is an acute intestinal infection caused by eating food or drinking water contaminated with the bacterium known as vibrio cholerae. The disease has a short incubation period and produces a toxin that causes continuous watery diarrhoea, a condition that can quickly lead to severe dehydration and death if treatment is not administered promptly. Vomiting also occurs in most patients.
In his briefing, Mr. Thomas also provided an update on the outbreak of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where a total of 15 cases of viral contamination, including nine deaths, have been reported.
He said that the WHO was supporting the DRC Ministry of Health in conducting a series of epidemiological investigations as well as surveillance, public information and social mobilization initiatives.
Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, secretions, other bodily fluids or organs of infected persons or animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys and antelopes, and it has an incubation period of two to 21 days.
Sufferers can experience fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat, as well as vomiting, diarrhoea, rashes and impaired kidney and liver function. In the most severe cases, the virus leads to both external and internal bleeding. The most recent outbreak happened last month in Uganda with a total of 20 cases, including 14 deaths, reported across the western part of the country.
In its briefing, the WHO added that it did not recommend that any travel or trade restrictions be applied to the DRC because of the outbreak.
Aerial mosquito spraying is underway in Dallas County and Houston to prevent the spread of West Nile virus while the disease spreads farther, faster and earlier in the season than ever before, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Only 29 cases were reported a month ago. Now, the CDC is reporting 1,118 cases spread across 47 states, with 41 deaths.
Seventy-five percent of the cases have been reported from five states: Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Illinois. Texas appears to be the hardest hit, with 586 reported cases in total. The death toll in Texas was 21 as of Wednesday, with Dallas County hit hardest, for a total of 270 cases and 11 deaths.
No place is striking back harder against the West Nile virus than Texas, which has launched an aerial assault against mosquitoes despite objections from environmental groups. Overnight, planes carrying pesticides took to the skies dousing more than 63,000 acres of land in Dallas and Houston to battle the disease.
“These kinds of chemicals are most toxic to young children, infants and babies,” said Jennifer Sass, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Dallas Fights West Nile Virus With Aerial Spray Watch Video
The CDC and health officials in Texas insist the worries about the spray are overblown and pale in comparison to the devastating effects of the disease. Harris County Mosquito Control Director Dr. Rudy Bueno told ABC News that the spray is “very safe and effective.”
“We normally kill 90, 95 percent of the mosquitoes that are out flying the night we put this out,” pilot Malcolm Williams said.
The CDC says this outbreak is on track to be the worst in the country’s history. The worst year on record is 2003, in which the country saw 9,862 cases of West Nile virus infection and 264 deaths.
Many experts point to last year’s mild winter for the drastic outbreak and the scorching temperatures this summer, helping the mosquitoes thrive.
Eighty percent of the people who contract the West Nile virus have no symptoms and their body eventually gets rid of it, according to the CDC. The remaining 20 percent experience flu-like symptoms.
One in 150 people will develop more severe forms of the disease and experience neurological symptoms and brain swelling, according to ABC News’ Dr. Richard Besser.
Patient Garrick Larson told ABC News affiliate WDAY in Minnesota, “I woke up with a headache like I have never come close to feeling before. The pain was immense. I knew I was in trouble.”
Larson, a cross country coach in Moorhead, Minn., was hospitalized for a week with a high fever and meningitis.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest briefed reporters aboard Air Force One as President Obama traveled from Las Vegas to New York Wednesday.
“The president’s been briefed on the increase in the number of West Nile virus cases,” he said. “[The] White House staff are at regular contact with the experts at the CDC, and the president will continue to receive updates as necessary.”
These are common disease manifestations in patients with anti-interferon-γ autoantibodies, according to researchers.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Patients with disease are making antibodies that attack their immune system
Cases date back to 2004, with most of them occurring in Thailand and Taiwan
Scientists do not believe the disease is contagious
The NIH has seen about 12 cases, all in people of Asian descent
(CNN) — Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified a new disease among people in Asia that causes AIDS-like symptoms but is not associated with HIV.
The study, released in the New England Journal of Medicine Thursday, found patients with the disease were making antibodies that attacked their immune systems.
“We all make molecules and proteins in the body that tell our immune system how to function properly,” said Dr. Sarah Browne, a clinical investigator at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH and the lead author on the study.
“They tell different immune cells when to turn on and when to start fighting infection,” she said. “We found a large number of the patients that we studied with serious opportunistic infections make an antibody that blocks the function of one of these molecules, which is interferon-gamma.”
Without functioning interferon-gamma, people become more susceptible to certain types of infections — infections people with working immune systems normally don’t get, she said.
The disease is being called an adult-onset immunodeficiency syndrome because it strikes adults. Cases date back to 2004, with most of them occurring in Thailand and Taiwan. The NIH has been studying the disease since 2005.
“It’s rare — more prevalent over in Southeast Asia,” Browne told CNN. “But we have been diagnosing it here in the U.S. in individuals of Asian descent.”
So far NIH has seen about 12 cases, all of them in people of Asian descent. According to Browne, most patients survive. There have been deaths in other countries, she said, but did not know how many. No one has died in the United States.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID, says it’s important to note the disease is not contagious.
“It is not a virus, that’s the first thing. It’s not a new AIDS-like virus,” Fauci said. “It’s a syndrome that was noticed and discovered in Asia where people get opportunistic infections similar to HIV/AIDS, but the cause of the syndrome is not an infection like HIV.”
Fauci said researchers “found the people have an autoimmunity, where their bodies are making antibodies against a protein that’s important in fighting infection.
“The reason the body is making that antibody is unclear but it isn’t a virus like HIV that’s causing it,” he said. ” It’s autoimmune disease, and people get secondary infections similar to AIDS.”
The study was already in the early stages in 2009, when Kim Nguyen, a 62-year-old Vietnamese woman from Tennessee, came to NIH suffering from symptoms that would be linked to the mystery disease.
A little more than 200 people — almost exclusively from Thailand and Taiwan between the ages of 18 and 78 — were studied. All were HIV-negative.
“We want to understand what triggers people to make these antibodies in the first place,” Browne said. “And we want to use that information to guide treatment — because really, when you treat the infection you’re treating the symptom. You’re not treating the underlying cause.”
Right now, doctors are simply treating the infections. For many of the patients, that’s sufficient, Browne said, but for those cases where it’s not, they are trying to find ways to target the antibodies themselves by lowering the antibody levels and trying to reverse the immunodeficiency.
Both Fauci and Browne believe a combination of both genetic and environmental factors are most likely at play, but don’t yet know what those factors are.
“Overall it appears to be a chronic disease, but we have not yet studied it for a long enough period of time to know the long-term prognosis,” Browne said. “We don’t yet know what factors may distinguish those with mild versus those with severe disease.”
The Ebola virus has killed 10 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. As of Monday, WHO said, the deaths are among 13 probable and two confirmed Ebola cases reported in Orientale province in eastern Congo. The Congolese Ministry of Health has set up a task force to deal with the outbreak and is working with WHO, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Twelve cases and eight deaths occurred in the area of Isiro, a town in Congo’s north, WHO said. The fatalities included three health care workers. One death each occurred in Congo’s Pawa and Dungu regions. Congo’s Orientale province borders western Uganda, where 24 probable and confirmed cases, including 16 deaths, have been reported since the beginning of July.But WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told CNN that there’s no connection between the outbreaks in Uganda and Congo. The viruses, he said, are two different Ebola strains. There are five strains of the virus, a highly infectious and often fatal agent spread through direct contact with bodily fluids And, Hartl said, it is extremely difficult to travel between Isiro, for example, and Kiballe, the western Ugandan district where an outbreak emerged last month. That’s because it is heavily forested with impassable roads, and the only viable way to travel is going 10 to 15 kilometers per hour via motorbike. So it is unlikely there would be contact between Ugandans and Congolese that would lead to infection. The natural habitat of the Ebola virus is in the central African forest belt region, Hartl said. It’s “either by chance” or from “more surveying” for the disease, he said, that “we see these two outbreaks concurrently.” Health agencies have embarked on an aggressive approach in Uganda to deal with the cases. WHO has asked countries bordering Uganda to “enhance surveillance” for the virus. The last confirmed case in Uganda was admitted to an isolation facility on August 4, WHO said.
Officials Find Another “Bubbles on the Bayou” Site in Louisiana Near Bayou Corne
The Assumption Parish Police Jury said it was discovered Monday between two previous sites in Grand Bayou.
A news release classified the bubbling as small and added it will be monitored daily.
A meeting is scheduled for Friday at St. Joseph the Worker Church Hall in Pierre Part at 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday is day four of drilling at the observation well near the giant South Louisiana sink hole in Assumption Parish. The company believed to be responsible for the sink hole, Texas Brine, brought members of the news media to examine what they hope will be a good piece of evidence as to what exactly happened at the sink hole 18 days ago.
The observation well is being used to show Louisiana DEQ officials exactly what happened to create the sink hole, or what they call a slurry.
Texas Brine is hooking its wagon to a 140-foot, 10-story drilling rig, and placed just 1,000 feet from the sink hole. The plan is for the well to drill to the salt dome believed to be responsible for the sink hole, and take observations of the dome. Those observations will be sent topside for analysis.
John Boudreaux is tired, he has worked 18 straight days at the staging area in Bayou Corne. Because the drilling will last at least another 40 days, he hopes things will be quiet.
“You have really two different events. You have the drilling, the observation event as they call it, but you have the sink hole and monitoring that and make sure that doesn’t expand or move any further,” said Boudreaux.
“We’ve got the casing, they are now drilling into the cap rock which covers the salt dome and I think once they get through that, things may move a little more rapidly,” said Sonny Cranch with Texas Brine.
Cap rock is being pulled out of the hold at 486 feet. It is pulverized by the drill bit before being sucked out of the ground. They are drilling 24 hours a day, seven days a week and Texas Brine is hoping they get some answers once the dome is pierced.
“All we want to know is what has happened,” said Cranch.
The drilling platform will be drilling for at least another 40 days. Texas Brine says 40 days is an optimistic goal.
Officials said the site of the slurry is still off limits and the cleanup remains halted.
The parish has requested Texas Brine provide a plan for continued cleanup.
Health officials have confirmed four people have contracted Murine typhus in Burbank. Two cases originated in the 700 block of Screenland Drive. Both of those men were treated at local hospitals and released. Murine typhus is also called endemic typhus and is transmitted by fleas. While rat fleas are the most common transmitters, cat fleas and mouse fleas can also transmit the Murine typhus virus.
Biohazard name:
Murine typhus
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
Symptoms:
Status:
confirmed
24.08.2012
HAZMAT
USA
State of Washington, Richland [Hanford Nuclear Reservation]
As part of the biggest, costliest environmental cleanup project in the nation’s history – disposing of 53 million gallons of radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state – one thing was supposed to be sure: Waste stored in the sturdy, double-wall steel tanks that hold part of the toxic ooze wasn’t going anywhere. But that reassurance has been thrown into question with the discovery of a 3-foot-long piece of radioactive material between the inner and outer steel walls of one of the storage tanks, prompting new worries at the troubled cleanup site. “We’re taking it seriously, and we’re doing an investigation so we can better understand what it is,” Department of Energy spokeswoman Lori Gamache said. The discovery marks the first time material has been found outside the inner wall of one of the site’s 28 double-shell tanks, thought to be relatively secure interim storage for the radioactive material generated when Hanford was one of the nation’s major atomic production facilities. It opened in 1943 and began a gradual shutdown in 1964. Cleanup started in 1989. The $12.2-billion cleanup project eventually aims to turn most of the waste stored at Hanford into glass rods at a high-tech vitrification plant scheduled to be operational in 2019, assuming the formidable design and engineering hurdles can be overcome. In the meantime, plant engineers have been gathering waste stored in the facility’s 149 aging, leaky single-wall storage tanks and redepositing them in the double0-shell tanks for safekeeping. Over the years, more than 1 million gallons of waste has leaked out of 67 single-wall tanks into the surrounding soil.”There’s been this presumption that the double-shell tanks at least are sound and won’t fail, and they’ll be there for us,” said Tom Carpenter of the advocacy group Hanford Challenge. Several days ago the group obtained a memo from the cleanup site detailing discovery of the mysterious substance. “This changes everything. It is alarming that there is now solid evidence that Hanford double-shell has leaked,” Carpenter said in a separate statement on the discovery. The 42-year-old tank, known as AY-102, holds about 857,000 gallons of radioactive and other toxic chemical waste, much of it removed several years ago from a single-shell storage tank where it was considered unsafe. Workers who relocated the material fell ill simply from inhaling the fumes, Carpenter said. Department of Energy officials said none of the material has leaked outside the outer steel wall or the concrete casing that surrounds the structure, and there is no present hazard to workers or groundwater. They said they were trying to determine whether the material leaked from the inner tank or oozed from a nearby pit into the space between the two walls, known as the annulus. “There’s no evidence of it leaking the liquid from the inner shell right now,” Gamache said. The material – a mound 2 feet by 3 feet by 8 inches — is dry and doesn’t appear to be growing. It was discovered during a routine video inspection of the annulus conducted last month from a viewpoint not normally used. The possibility that it could have come as overflow from a nearby pit arises because a pipe runs into the annulus from the pit, Gamache said.But Carpenter, who has talked extensively with workers at Hanford and was briefed Tuesday by one of the Department of Energy’s senior officials at the tank farm, said he believed the evidence was strong that there was a leak. “I know Hanford would like it not to be so. But the people I’m talking to at the Hanford site say, no, it really does look like a leak,” he said. “From what I’m being told and looking at the pictures, it appears it’s coming from under the tank and going up. Which is a far cry from it coming from the pit.” Gamache said an initial sample of the material revealed that “the contamination levels were higher than expected” and it definitely contained radioactive waste. “There wasn’t enough material to fully characterize the material, so we’re preparing to pull another sample. That will probably happen around the mid-September time frame,” she said. Carpenter said that if the inner tank leaked, it would probably prompt the need to reevaluate expectations that the tanks could safely act as interim storage vessels for several decades.
[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.]
SOLAR/SEISMIC CONNECTION:
1) Solar Activity as a Trigger Mechanism For Earthquakes. Simpson, John F. University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, Revised December 16, 1967
[In my opinion, only valuable for the theorized trigger mechanism]
2) Long-Period Trends in Global Seismic and Geomagnetic Activity and their Relation to Solar Activity. S. Odintsov, K. Boyarchuk, K. Georgieva, B. Kirov, D. Atanasov. Russian Academy of Sciences, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia University, Bulgaria. Accepted March 18, 2005.
3) Does the Solar Cycle Modulate Seismic and Volcanic Activty? A. Mazzarella, A. Palumbo. University of Naples, Italy. Accepted April 10, 1989.
SOLAR/ATMOSPHERIC CONNECTION:
Physical Mechanism of the Action of Solar Activty and other Geophysical Factors on the State of the Lower Atmosphere, meteorological parameters, and Climate. M. I. Pudovkin, O. M. Raspoov. Phys.-Usp. 36 644 (http://iopscience.iop.org/1063-7869/36/7/A09). 1993.
Interesting:::: CHINA QUAKE – 5/12/2008:
Formation Mechanism of Great Positive TEC Disturbances Prior to Wenchuan Earthquake on May 12, 2008. M. V. Klimenko, V. V. Klimenko, I. E. Zakharenkova, S.A. Pulinets, B. Zhao, M. N. Tsidilina. West Dept. of N.V. Pushkov, Kaliningrad State Technical University, Fedorov Institute of Applied geophysics, IKI (Moscow), Beijing National Observatory of Space Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Accepted March 31, 2011
Two Examples of Quake Forecasters Using Coronal Holes: Astrotometry, thebarcaroller
MILWAUKEE/SULLIVAN WI
LINCOLN IL
MEMPHIS TN
INDIANAPOLIS IN
GOODLAND KS
HASTINGS NE
SPRINGFIELD MO
NORMAN OK
TULSA OK
NORTH PLATTE NE
SIOUX FALLS SD
WICHITA KS
OMAHA/VALLEY NE
ST LOUIS MO
A series of raging wildfires in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia have killed at least three people and injured nineteen others, officials said on Sunday. The fires have burned thousands of acres (hectares) in recent days. The fires, which have been fanned by dry conditions and winds up to 55 miles (90 kilometers) per hour, have burned about 13,000 hectares (32,100 acres) as of late Sunday evening. The most serious fire broke out on Sunday afternoon and continued to burn out of control during the late evening hours. According to the Spanish Interior Minister, at least three people have been killed by the fires. A 60-year-old man and his 15-year-old daughter were killed after they attempted to evade flames by jumping off of a cliff and drowned in the sea below. A 75-year-old man was killed when he went into cardiac arrest. Spanish authorities said a further nineteen people have been injured, including an 8-year-old girl and a 65-year-old French citizen who suffered burns to 80 percent of his body. Thousands of people have also been forced to evacuate their homes, and more evacuations are expected if the fires continue to spread. Spain is regularly hit by wildfires. Eleven firefighters were killed in 2005 when a forest fire caused by a barbecue devastated a large area in Spain’s central province of Guadalajara. A wildfire also burned more than 2,000 hectares (4,900 acres) on the Spanish island of Ibiza in May 2011, making it the worst wildfire in the island’s history.
HORSESHOE BEND, Idaho — Authorities say U.S. Highway 95 has been reduced to one lane near Midvale as crews battle a 600-acre wildfire in western Idaho. Roadside Fire started early Friday and the cause has not yet been determined. Denise Cobb with the Payette National Forest says the fire is burning on a mix of private, state, and federal land within the forest’s protection zone. Officials reported just before 2 p.m. that the blaze had crossed Sage Creek and was heading northwest. To the south, firefighters said a brush fire that burned 100 acres near Highway 55 outside of Horseshoe Bend had been contained. The Summit Ridge Fire ignited Thursday afternoon and forced the evacuation of more than 10 homes. The blaze destroyed a barn but no houses were harmed.
Fires that reignited in Soda Springs and the Grace area were deemed under control Friday evening, according to officials.
Firefighters in Caribou County put out a blaze east of Soda Springs Thursday that had started the day before. Crews then reported to another fire that afternoon on the 1900 block of Turner Road in Grace. According to a previous Journal article, the resident’s trash incinerator ignited nearby grass which spread around the home and along the road. Fire crews arrived and worked to extinguish the blaze.
As of Thursday the fires had been under control, but were reignited Friday.
The fire that threatened homes near Soda Springs had burned more than 200 acres. It appeared to have caused smoke damage to some residences. Although it was reported the Soda fire had reignited, it was not known as of press time if the more acreage had burned.
The Caribou County Sheriff’s Office said a press release would likely be issued Monday.
Constable Lance Bouvier with the Smeaton Detachment of the RCMP said they were kept busy Saturday night after reports of a tornado touching down. “About five miles south of Smeaton a tornado had touched down and it headed north. It went through four farms and farm fields and left a path of destruction. The first farm it went through toppled a bunch of trees and leveled a chicken coop and threw trees around the yard. It continued further north and got to another farm and it leveled everything and leveled a house,” Bouvier said. Bouvier said the house had been moved 30 feet from its foundation and only had two walls left after the tornado went through the property. The man was not injured but shaken up. Lyle White the fire chief of Smeaton and District Fire and Rescue received the call to attend the scene shortly after 8 p.m. “We had a call of a tornado hitting a farm and a man missing,” White said. “When we arrived, I did meet the gentleman; the owner, when we got to the yard and we realized there wasn’t anybody missing … when we arrived on the scene the house was pretty much destroyed.” He described trees were torn down, machinery had been tossed around, and there was no roof on the garage. Lyn Brown was on her way into town when she witnessed the twister from Hwy 55. “After we saw the touchdown we were bombarded by quarter size hail as we turned into Smeaton.”
“The noise in the truck was deafening, it sounded like we were being pelted with rocks, ” Brown said. The tornado than moved further north and hit another farm yard where it leveled more structures, uprooted trees and even snapped power poles like toothpicks. “The family there was inside the house, but they were in the basement when it went through. No one was injured or hurt at that residence. Then it went across the street to another farm yard, and there it leveled a bunch of trees, it didn’t hit the house or other outbuildings. Soon after that it dissipated, the tornado lost its energy. There is a lot of damage,” Bouvier said. Bouvier said the tornado spanned about three miles and the Smeaton area had sever rain, hail and wind. There is a lot of water in the area but Bouvier said there is nothing in the way of flooding. Power lines had been destroyed in the area, but SaskPower crews were on scene quickly and restored power within four hours. That wasn’t the only report of a twister on Saturday night. The paNOW newsroom was flooded with photos of a sighting near Anglin Lake and Emma Lake. One witness said she narrowly got off the water before a bad storm hit Anglin Lake, located about 60 kilometres north of Prince Albert. She said hail and high winds knocked down trees. The same storm cell spawned a tornado in the area, however that has not been confirmed by Environment Canada. Devon and Shannon Billo watched the ominous clouds roll in from their camper at Sunnyside Beach at Emma Lake, located south of Anglin Lake. They said they saw a funnel cloud appear to touch down twice around 6:30 p.m. For the remainder of the evening thunderstorm watches were in effect for central and eastern areas of the province.
Torrential rain since Saturday midnight have either marooned or cut off over 30 villages from the rest of the district. District administration has started evacuating people from these villages to safer locations and also distributing food packets and drinking water. According to district collector, Ashwin Mudgal, at least 30 villages in Arni, Darwha, Yavatmal and Ralegaon tehsils are flooded. People from eight villages have been shifted to safer places since Sunday morning, he said. “The bridge between Yavatmal and Arni at Yeola village is submerged. Same is the case with the bridge between Arni and Mahur. As a result, Arni town and surrounding villages are cut off from the rest of the district,” Mudgal said. The administration has also alerted villages along banks of major rivers and nullahs so that people can be evacuated in time. Several trees have been uprooted while many houses in low lying areas are under water. “No casualty has been reported so far and damages are yet to be ascertained,” the collector added. The flood situation in Arni and Yavatmal Tehsil remains unchanged while water is reportedly receding in Darwha, Ralegaon and other parts of the district. Heavy rains are still lashing most of the affected villages. “Till 8am on Sunday, the district recorded 70-75mm average rainfall but it picked up afterwards causing flooding of many areas,” Mudgal said adding that a final report is awaited.
BEIJING — The heaviest rainfall in six decades caused widespread havoc in this capital over the weekend, killing at least 37 people and forcing the evacuation of 50,000 others from waterlogged neighborhoods and villages, according to the state news media.
More than six inches of rain fell overnight Saturday into Sunday, collapsing roofs, downing power lines and turning highway underpasses into ponds that engulfed scores of cars and buses. About 80,000 passengers at Beijing Capital International Airport were stranded overnight after fierce thunderstorms forced the cancellation of 500 flights, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
The sewer system of Beijing, a city poised on the edge of the Gobi Desert, is ill-equipped to handle heavy precipitation; residents in low-lying areas are accustomed to dealing with minor flooding after rainstorms. Officials said the rain, which began at noon and stretched into the early morning, was the heaviest since 1951.
The city’s flood control bureau said the downpour in the city’s southwestern Fangshan district brought 18 inches of water and forced the evacuation of hundreds, including 350 students who were trapped at a military training site. Among the dead were a police officer electrocuted by a falling power line and another person struck by lightning.
Elsewhere in the country, at least 10 people drowned or perished in landslides, including four people killed in northern Shanxi Province when their truck was swept away by a swollen river, the state news media reported.
Although the rain yielded to sunny skies on Sunday, meteorologists warned of more stormy weather in the coming days.
A government official in India says 18 people are dead after a bus fell into a deep gorge after being hit by hurtling boulders during a landslide in the mountainous northeast. Another 17 people are injured.
The Associated Press
GAUHATI, India —A government official in India says 18 people are dead after a bus fell into a deep gorge after being hit by hurtling boulders during a landslide in the mountainous northeast. Another 17 people are injured.
Arunachal Pradesh state Transport Minister Zoram Sangliana says the bus plunged about 45 meters (150 feet) into the gorge early Saturday near Keifang, a village 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Aizawl, the state capital. Monsoon rains triggered the landslide in the region.
The injured have been taken to a nearby hospital, Sangliana told The Associated Press.
India has the world’s deadliest roads, with more than 110,000 people killed every year. Most crashes are blamed on reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and aging vehicles.
[Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech]NASA’s range of telescopes continually manage to surprise and delight with their frequent discoveries of planets far, far away–some of which are particularly quirky. While Kepler may be the best known of these telescopes, this time the Spitzer Space Telescope made a pretty interesting discovery this week: an exoplanet two-thirds the size of Earth.
This may not seem like such a big deal, but it’s not very common for us to find exoplanets (planets outside of our own solar system) to be smaller than Earth in size, or us to fine one so relatively close. The planet, named UCF-1.01, is “just” 33 light years away. Additionally, Spitzer is normally used to study exoplanets already discovered and not to discover new exoplanets, so this is not only a first for the telescope, but a potential new role in for it.
Size-wise, UCF-1.01 is around 5,200 miles in diameter, and was discovered when scientists were using Spitzer to study Neptune-sized exoplanet GJ 436b, which orbits the red-dwarf star GJ 436. Scientists noticed “dips” in the infrared coming from the star that were not caused from GJ 436b passing by it. This in turn led to the discovery of UCT-1.01. Its year lasts only about 1.4 Earth days due to how close the planet orbits its star.
The planet’s temperatures are around 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, meaning there’s very little in terms of atmosphere. This isn’t surprising, considering how closely it orbits its sun. Scientists believe the planet itself has melted slightly, causing a molten surface.
It’s a precious discovery, considering that of the 1,800 planetary candidates discovered by NASA, only three were smaller than Earth. Three. You can find out more about the Spitzer Space Telescope and its missions on NASA’s website.
Beach-front property owners on Pigeon Lake were shocked Sunday morning to see “thousands” of dead fish wash up on the sand along Ma-Me-O Beach. Seagulls were feasting on the piles of dead walleye along the beach as community members led a self-started clean-up operation on the lake 109 kilometres southwest of Edmonton. From the window of her cabin, Deborah Cresswell said she could see at least a dozen people walking the shoreline, organizing the fish into piles and shovelling them into the bucket of a backhoe for disposal. “It’s surprising because we’ve been going to the beach and swimming every day and suddenly … we go to the beach and it’s littered with thousands of dead fish,” Cresswell said. “The fish started coming in last (Saturday) night after it was really windy,” Cresswell said, speculating that “the weather gets a little too hot and when the water gets above a certain temperature, the fish all die.” The fish aren’t small either, Cresswell said. Each fish is at least a foot-and-a-half long and would’ve made any sport-fisherman happy with his catch. Even now, the dead fish are still washing ashore, she said. Cresswell has lived in a cabin on Ma-Me-O Beach with her husband for several years. She said they’ve seen this happen twice before and believe it may be affecting the property values of cabins on the lake. “I think it is affecting the sale of cabins out here,” Cresswell said. “In the last few years, with the green algae and fish dying, people don’t want to come here and swim as much.” Cresswell said swimming and camping at Pigeon Lake has seen an increase in popularity this year, but fears people will stop coming if there are no fish to cast a line for. Alberta Fish and Wildlife could not be reached for comment Sunday. Pigeon Lake is a popular recreation lake. The summer village of Ma-Me-O beach has a population of up to 200 people during the summer. Ma-Me-O Beach gets its name from the Cree words for a “place of many shore birds.”
Biohazard name:
Mass Die-off (Fishes)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
Today
Environment Pollution
Colombia
Province of Boyaca , [Cano Limon Covenas oil well, near to Cubara]
Blast-triggered oil leakage in eastern Columbia had contaminated rivers, leaving more than 120,000 residents vulnerable to water shortage, authorities said Sunday. An unidentified group sabotaged late Saturday a 780-km long pipeline at the Cano Limon Covenas oil well near Boyaca province’s Cubara, leaving the small city Saravena most affected, said Mining and Energy Minister Mauricio Cardenas. Saravena is a thriving urban centre thanks to foreign investment in the regional mining and oil industries in recent years. The spill seeped into both Royota and Arauca rivers, affecting the water supply to Saravena and its surroundings. At least 120,000 inhabitants were to face water shortage, estimated local authorities. Cardenas condemned the attack and said authorities did not yet know how much il had spilled into the waterways. “First, we must categorically reject and condemn this new act of terrorism … against the population, the natural resources and a resource as fundamental and essential as water,” Cardenas told local RCN radio. He added that water supply would be restored soon, as workers were trying to stem the spill and clean up the polluted rivers. The river of Arauca lies along the border with neighbouring Venezuela. Asked whether the spill could have affected communities in Venezuela, Cardenas said “it may have happened, but we have no official information.”
[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.]
A 5.6 magnitude earthquake recorded in the coastal area west of the Greek island Rhodes jolted people in Cyprus right out of their afternoon siesta today.
The director of Cyprus’ Geological Survey Department told the CyBC that initial readings put the quake which hit at 5 minutes to five this afternoon, at a depth of approximately 50 km.
The quake, which lasted for just a few seconds, was felt in Nicosia and in the towns of Larnaca and Paphos.
The quake was also felt on the south coast of Turkey, namely in the Mugla and Antalya regions.
Turkey’s Kandilli Observatory gave a stronger preliminary magnitude of 6 on the Richter scale.
There were no initial reports of any damage. (source: famagusta-gazette)
The BBC’s Rajesh Mirchandani says people have been enduring triple-digit temperatures
At least 42 people have died in a heatwave that has brought soaring temperatures to a dozen US states from the Midwest to the East Coast.
Crops shrivelled and roads and railway lines buckled in the heat.
Hundreds of records fell across the affected area on Friday and Saturday, but the heat was expected to ease slightly on Sunday.
Severe storms are expected to follow. Many homes in the region are still without power after storms a week ago.
Media reports say many of the deaths were of elderly people stuck in homes without air conditioning because of the outages.
Ten deaths in Chicago were blamed on the heat, and at least 10 each in the eastern states of Virginia and Maryland.
Three each died in Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and two in Tennessee.
A four-month-old girl died after being left in a car for “an extended period” outside her home in Greenfield, Indiana.
On Saturday temperatures reached 105F (41C) in Washington DC – just short of the hottest ever recorded in the city – and 107F (42C) in St Louis, Missouri, which also extended its record for consecutive days over 100F to 10.
“It’s hotter than hell,” tourist John Ghio, visiting the White House, told Reuters news agency.
“Too hot,” said Chinese tourist Xiao Duan, 30, who was also visiting Washington.
“My father says it’s like we’re being burned by flames.”
High temperatures have also hit parts of Canada, with temperatures on Friday breaking 11 daily records in Ontario.
Storms to follow
A command centre in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park helped visitors after the deadly storm
Hundreds of thousands of people in West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, Maryland and Indiana are still enduring power outages caused by storms that swept through the area one week ago.
A number of cities have opened cooling centres and extended opening hours for public swimming pools.
Some communities are offering meals to residents whose food has spoiled after their refrigerators stopped working.
Officials in Chicago cancelled summer schools classes in 21 buildings without air conditioning because of the heat.
The heat there buckled a major road, cracking and bulging part of Columbus Drive by 5in (12cm).
Cooler weather is said to be on the way for northern parts of the Midwest, although strong storms could accompany the lower temperatures.
09.07.2012
Heat Wave
USA
MultiStates, [States of Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Missouri, Indiana, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Maryland, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia, South Dakota and Kentucky]
The Cook County medical examiner’s today determined eight more people died from heat-related causes following the heat wave that ended Saturday. That brings the total number of confirmed heat-related deaths to 18 in Cook County. Lucille Griffith, 100, of the 7300 block of South Peoria, Street, died from heart disease, with heat stress as a secondary cause. Griffith was declared dead a little before 10 a.m. at St. Bernard Hospital, after being found and home with a body temperature of more than 107 degrees, according to the medical examiner’s office. Irene Moriarty, 89, of West 60th Place in Summit died from heart disease, with heat stress as a secondardy cause. Moriary was found Saturday in her apartment, where investigators measured the temperature at 100 degrees. Mary Williams, 56, of East 122nd Place, was declared dead at 1:07 p.m. Saturday at Roseland Community Hospital. Williams died from heart disease, with secondary causes of obesity and heat stress. Sherry Garrett, 53, of the 1400 block of South Hamlin Avenue, was declared dead at 4:28 p.m. Saturday at her home. She also died from heart disease, with secondary causes of diabets, obesity and heat stress. Investigators measured the temperature in her apartment at 110 degrees when she was found. Ann Narcisse, 78, of the 9200 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue, was found dead Saturday. She died of heart disease, with heat stress a secondary cause.John Stacey, 81, of the 1800 block of South Cuyler, was declared dead on the scene at 5:45 p.m. Saturday. He died from heart disease, with heat stress and obesity secondary causes. Levon Calhoun, 54, of the 8100 block of South Saginaw Avenue, was found dead at home Saturday. He died from heart disease, with obesity and heat stress as secondary causes. Anthony Thomas, 48, also died from heart disease, with heat stress as a secondary cause. Details about where and when he was declared dead were not immediately available. Those confirmed to have died from heat-related causes were among at least seven people whose deaths the medical examiner’s office was investigating as possibly heat-related. In one case, that of a 43-year-old man found dead Saturday at his home in the 2800 block of North Maplewood Avenue, the medical examiner’s office did not determine a cause of death, pending further studies. In another case, that of a 67-year-old woman who lvied in the 6200 block of South St. Louis Avenue, the medical examiner’s office determined the woman died solely from heart disease and not from any heat-related causes.
Four water companies in Britain which imposed hosepipe bans earlier this year have lifted the restrictions after months of unseasonable heavy rain.
The move comes after a week of torrential downpours triggered floods across large swathes of the country in the wettest June on record in Britain.
In a joint statement, water suppliers said “abnormally heavy rainfall” meant groundwater supplies had recovered sufficiently to allow them to lift the ban.
South East Water, Sutton and East Surrey Water, Veolia Water Central and Veolia Water Southeast imposed restrictions in early April after two unusually dry winters led to a drought in parts of Britain.
Three other companies which also had bans in place lifted them last month.
Mike Hegarty, operations director for Sutton and East Surrey Water, said the recovery of underground water sources at this time of year was unexpected but “most welcome”.
“The recharge (of aquifers) is unprecedented and is the highest increase in water levels ever recorded in our area at this time of year,” he said.
Figures from Britain’s Met Office national weather service show that double the average rain fell in June — the wettest since records began in 1910 — while April was also the wettest on record.
Forecasters have warned that the wet weather could continue further into the British summer, and warned that sunny weather in London is “very unlikely” during the London Olympics.
Forecasters said below average sunshine and temperatures were expected during the Games which run from July 27 to August 12, with very wet conditions more probable than dry ones.
Last month heavy rains drenched revellers celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee, while on Saturday spectators were turned away from the British Grand Prix at Silverstone due to flooded car parks.
The Environment Agency has 14 flood warnings, meaning flooding is expected, and 84 flood alerts signalling possible flooding, in place across the country.
A tornado hit a building in Fredericksburg this evening as severe thunderstorms rolled through the area. The roof of one building reportedly flew off and hit a home about 40 yards away on Fleming Street. “It started hailing golfball-sized hail and then the lights went out,” said Mandy Spina, the director of Cheer Fusion gym at 86 Fleming St. “It was torrential downpour, and I told the kids to get into the dance room because it is steel re-inforced. Bricks started flying and the walls caved in.”
The Free-Lance Star reported that Spotsylvania fire and rescue authorities said “what appeared to be a tornado touched down off Lafayette Boulevard in Spotsylvania County this afternoon, collapsing two buildings …” Asst. Chief Mark Kuechler with the Spotsylvania Fire Department told the Free-Lance Star that the most significant damage was on Lafayette Boulevard and Route 1. Cheer Fusion, which Kuechler said was made of mostly concrete blocks, collapsed and suffered some of the most significant damage in the area. Kuechler said that there was a cheerleading practice hosted inside when the building collapsed and that “miraculously they all made it out.” There were seven minor injuries. Four were transported to the Mary Washington hospital with non-life threatening injuries and there were three refusals for medical help. A private residence collapsed from the blown debris of Cheer Fusion. There was a gentlemen in the home who was uninjured said Kuechler. Kuechler said that most of the buildings nearby were affected by straight-line wind damage.Mandy Spina, the director of Cheer Fusion said that golf-ball sized hail fell, and that there was no visibility due to heavy rain. Spina said that the kids were practicing on the main dance floor room when the storm hit. She told the Free-Lance Star that there were 14 cheerleaders, ages 11 to 18, in the facility for a practice when the storm hit. She said that a coach and about 10 parents also were there. She said that one of the father’s suggested they move to a separate steel-reinforced room just off of the main dance room. She said that after the storm passed they opened the door of the dance studio to find nothing left. Jared Klein, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Sterling office, told the Free-Lance Star that based on a description of the damage, he said it sounded more like a microburst than a tornado. He said that official won’t confirm if it was a tornado until they can inspect the damaged area or scrutinize photographs of the event. The storms drastically reduced weather temperatures, by about 32 degrees. The weather station at the University of Mary Washington reported a high of 100 degrees at 3:16 p.m. After the storm, the thermometer dropped 32 degrees to 68 just before 6 p.m.
More than 20 houses were completely damaged while fields and orchards spread over hundreds of kanals of land in Ghizer were destroyed by flood after a thunderstorm struck Sosot Nullah of Tehsil Gopis. The bridge connecting Gilgit district to Chitral was also washed away in the flood in the nullah. The Gilgit-Chitral Road was also partially damaged. As the flood of Sosot Nullah entered the Ghizer River, it overflowed to the surrounding areas giving it lake-like look. The residents of the area saved their lives by taking shelter at the mountains, but several houses and standing crops were damaged. People of the area near the nullah and river shifted to the safer places. The poor and hapless villagers were still awaiting the rescue teams and the whole area was presenting a gloomy picture. Hundreds of people on their way to attend the Shandoor Festival had to go back in despair due to closure of the road. On the other hand, the upper areas of Tehsil Yasin were also affected due to flood and people started moving towards the safer places.
Investigators have launched a probe into possible negligence after devastating flash floods in southern Russia killed at least 171 people and President Vladimir Putin demanded officials explain the disaster. As emergency workers pulled more bodies from the flood waters around Krymsk, the worst-hit district in the southern Krasnodar region, angry survivors insisted they had not received any warning from the authorities. Putin demanded that officials explain the massive death toll and personally inspected the worst-hit areas on Saturday evening. The Russian strongman compared the force of the water – which trapped people in their homes at night, ripped up pavements and traffic lights and flooded rail tracks – to a ‘tsunami’ and said the top investigator would probe ‘who acted how’. He also quickly moved to address concerns that the deluge might have been caused by an emergency opening of sluice gates at a local reservoir, with the Kremlin issuing a statement that Putin had been told it was not the cause of the flooding. Flash floods frequently batter towns along the picturesque Black Sea coast during seasonal rains in the Caucasus mountains, but authorities say the current disaster is unprecedented.Officials have been unable to explain the massive death toll, saying only the floods were caused by torrential rains over the past few days. The force of the water was so ferocious that many residents said they suspected the floods were caused by a release of water at a local reservoir on the Neberdzhai River. Investigators have acknowledged that repeated releases of water did happen but it remained unclear whether it might have contributed to the disaster. ‘Over the course of 13 hours portioned releases of water were repeatedly conducted in an automated mode,’ spokesman for regional investigators Sengerov said in televised remarks. ‘But there were not some large-scale water releases. We have yet to establish how much they could have affected the development of events.’ Investigators also opened a criminal investigation into possible negligence but did not provide further details. Some residents bluntly accused authorities of a cover-up. ‘It always rains here but we’ve never had this before. A seven-metre tall wave crushed everything,’ Irina Morgunova told AFP in Krymsk. ‘That is not rain. But no one will ever say it out loud.’
MOSCOW (AP) — The death toll rose to at least 150 on Sunday from severe flooding in the Black Sea region of southern Russia that turned streets into rivers, swept away bridges and inundated thousands of homes as many residents were sleeping.
President Vladimir Putin flew to the region and ordered investigators to determine whether more could have been done to prevent the deaths.
Torrential rains dropped up to a foot of water in less than 24 hours, which the state meteorological service said was five times the monthly average.
The water rushed into the hard-hit town of Krymsk with such speed and volume early Saturday that residents said they suspected that water had been released from a reservoir in the mountains above. Local officials denied this, saying it was not technically possible to open the sluices.
Federal investigators, however, acknowledged Sunday that water had been released from the reservoir, but they insisted it did not cause the flooding and the dam had not been breached.
Heavy rain also fell in Gelendzhik, a popular seaside vacation spot about 200 kilometers (120 miles) up the coast from Sochi, where preparations are under way for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Novorossiisk, a major Black Sea port, also was affected.
The Interior Ministry said Sunday that 150 bodies had been recovered, 139 of them in Krymsk and nine in Gelendzhik. The majority of the dead were elderly who were unable to escape the sudden deluge.
Krymsk residents described a wave of water that washed over the hoods of cars and inundated one-story homes. Some sought refuge on roofs and in trees.
Putin arrived Saturday evening and viewed the damage from the air. Television footage of Krymsk shot from Putin’s helicopter showed the city of 57,000 people partially submerged in muddy water. The city stadium looked more like a lake.
Across the region, more than 5,000 homes were flooded.
Putin ordered the head of Russia’s investigative agency to determine whether enough had been done to warn people about the floods. Federal prosecutors also said they were investigating whether the population had been properly protected from “natural and technological catastrophes.”
As an indication of the lingering concern over the condition of the water reservoir, Putin sent Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov to inspect the dam. Puchkov reported Sunday that he had flown over the dam in a helicopter and saw no evidence of any damage.
View GalleryA priest conducts a funeral ceremony, while acquaintances of Pyotr Ostapenko, 35, …
A photo released by Russia’s Interior …
People in a flood-ravaged southern Russian town on Saturday charged that authorities offered no help as masses of water tore through their homes overnight.
“Nobody came to our street to help. We need help,” pensioner Lidiya Polinina told AFP by phone from Krymsk, the worst-hit town, recounting how she managed to survive the flood that has claimed over 100 lives.
TV footage showed brown water rushing down the town’s streets, where bodies lay on the curbs, covered with dirty blankets. Trees were torn out, homes destroyed and giant slabs of asphalt thrown on top of cars.
“Our house was flooded to the ceiling,” said Polinina.
“We could not open the door because of the water, so we broke the window to climb out,” she said, seething with anger at what she said was the lack of help from the authorities.
“I put my five-year-old grandson on the roof of our submerged car, and then we somehow climbed up into the attic. I don’t know how we managed to survive.”
The floods left her house full of silt and debris, but did not knock it down, so she was turned away from the local emergency shelter with only two loaves of bread and a bottle of water, she said.
There had been no emergency warning about the flood, she said.
Flash floods frequently batter towns along the Black Sea coast during seasonal rains in the Caucasus mountains, but officials say the current disaster is unprecedented.
The floods and a landslide in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region over the past two days have killed at least 103 people and affected nearly 13,000.
Krymsk has been worst hit, with officials recovering at least 92 bodies there. Authorities have been unable to explain the massive toll, saying the floods were caused by torrential rains.
The town of 57,000 lies about 200 kilometres northwest of the Black Sea resort town of Sochi where Russia will host the 2014 Summer Olympic Games.
Police have beefed up patrols to guard against looting. Electricity and cell phone networks have not been restored, officials said.
“Patrols are everywhere,” Krymsk resident Alexander Natarov said by phone.
Natarov said he had to seek shelter on the second floor of his apartment building and spent the night in a stairwell.
“The market has been completely wiped out,” he added.
A rumour has swept through town that the overnight flood might have been caused by an opening of floodgates at a local dam.
“The water rose very quickly, it flooded people’s ground floors in five to 10 minutes,” said Krymsk resident Tatyana, who declined to give her surname. “That cannot be just rain.”
Krasnodar governor Alexander Tkachev called the reports “nonsense” and said on Twitter: “Enough! Stop spreading stupid rumors. The region has received five months’ worth of rain.”
Heavy rains in Cape Town on Sunday flooded roads and houses and caused the Liesbeek River to burst its banks, and there were “extreme weather” warnings of bitter cold over much of the country. The M3 was flooded where the road dips near UCT, and traffic was backed up as motorists slowed down to plough through the muddy waters. Many shacks on the Cape Flats were flooded and the city council and charity organizations provided hot meals, blankets and plastic sheeting to about 350 families. The SA Weather Service said on Sunday’s cold front had been particularly strong, adding that the cold, wet weather was here to stay for the next few days. The weather office said westerly winds at Cape Point reached near gale force of 55km/h on Sunday morning, while there were rough seas with heavy swells between 4m and 5m from Lamberts Bay to the southern Cape coast. The city council’s disaster risk management centre ordered about 60 people to evacuate the River Club premises for their safety on Sunday after rising flood waters from the Liesbeek had inundated the club’s parking lot and courtyard. Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, head of the city’s disaster management, said there had been 43 incidents of flooded roads in the metropole on Sunday, but none had caused road closures. Fifteen vehicles had been removed from the flooded River Club grounds. Bernie Maxwell, who works in the River Club’s golf shop, said on Sunday: “We’re trapped and the bus is taking us out from this area. The golf shop and the restaurant are closing up, but there are SA’s Got Talent auditions here too, and they’re carrying on. “The water is up to the car doors in the car park. Right now we’re preparing to store all the stuff in the shop above ground level just in case the water comes higher.” -Iol
The death toll from heavy monsoon rains which have caused massive flooding in India’s northeast has risen to more than 120, with six million forced to flee their homes, officials said Saturday.
The weather office forecast that more rains during the next 24 hours would lash the region, which is suffering from its worst flooding in recent years.
Assam state has been hardest hit by the annual rains with the mighty Brahmaputra river overflowing its banks, while flooding has also struck the nearby states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya.
“So far a total of 121 people have died in separate incidents in which 105 were drowned while trying to escape the gushing waters and 16 more were killed in landslides caused by heavy rains,” an Assam government statement said.
An estimated six million people have been forced to leave their homes to escape the floodwaters and find higher ground, a separate Central Water Commission bulletin said.
The monsoon, which sweeps across the subcontinent from June to September, is crucial for India’s farmers but also claims many casualties from flooding every year.
Assam state officials were struggling to cope with the huge number of people displaced by the flooding, with makeshift relief camps sheltering some of those forced to leave their homes.
Twenty-six of the 27 districts in the tea-and-oil-rich state have been hit by flash floods since June 24 as a result of the torrential rains while the Brahmaputra river has breached its banks in at least nine places.
The flooding has also devastated the Kaziranga National Park, famous for its tigers, one-horned rhinos and elephants.
The Press Trust of India quoted officials as saying more than 540 of the park’s animals, including 13 rhinos, had died.
In the adjoining states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya, monsoon rains have caused widespread flooding but there have been no reported deaths.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh toured the Assam region by helicopter earlier in the week to view the effects of the rains.
“The people of Assam are facing one of the worst floods in recent times that has inflicted considerable damage,” Singh said afterwards.
While India’s northeast has received too much rain, the monsoon has been late arriving in other parts of the country.
The monsoon is dubbed the “economic lifeline” of India, which has a population of 1.2 billion and is one of the world’s leading producers of rice, sugar, wheat and cotton.
Millions of Indian farmers still rely on monsoon rains to water around 60 percent of the country’s farmland.
This year, the monsoon rainfall is running at 31 percent below the normal annual average. But the weather office has forecast heavy rains in the key planting months of July and August to make up for the shortfall.
The BBC has learned that a patient has been diagnosed with cholera in the Cuban capital, Havana, days after three people died in a rare outbreak in the south-eastern town of Manzanillo.
More than 50 people were infected and about 1,000 have received medical attention.
The authorities say the outbreak is under control but four hospitals are prepared to isolate patients.
They say people became ill after drinking water from contaminated wells.
But it is not clear what the source of the cholera is.
Haiti link
Most of the cases were in Cuba’s south-eastern Granma province, more than 750km (470 miles) from Havana.
Hundreds of medical professionals from that area, including nurses, have worked and continue to work with patients in Haiti, where tens of thousands of people were infected after a devastating earthquake in 2010.
But the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford says that for over a week doctors in Havana have been doing the rounds of their patients, checking for symptoms of cholera.
The infirm, elderly and pregnant have been prioritised.
Now tests on a 60-year-old woman, admitted to hospital on Wednesday, have confirmed that she has the disease.
As she was diagnosed early, doctors say she is in a stable condition.
Health officials said they had “all the necessary resources to provide adequate attention to patients.”
They said they had taken a series of measures, including taking samples of water and adding chlorine to purify it, to combat the outbreak.
Cholera is a bacterial infection that can cause severe diarrhoea and dehydration.
The Health Ministry said the last reported cholera outbreak on the island was soon after the 1959 Revolution.
Postal worker at the mail sorting machines at the Brentwood postal facility. He is wearing a face mask and gloves as a precaution against anthrax exposure.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Danish authorities say an intravenous drug user who injected heroin and died has tested positive for anthrax.
The Health Ministry suspects the drug was contaminated with the bacillus anthracis strain of anthrax. The 55-year-old addict died Sunday.
Terrorism is not suspected, and the health ministry says there is no risk of contagion because the bacteria cannot be passed from person to person.
Anthrax is a deadly disease that can be treated with antibiotics if caught early.
Officials said Monday they will compare the case to two similar deaths in Germany in June.
Last week, German officials said there may be a link between contaminated heroin found in Germany and an anthrax outbreak in Scotland in 2009 and 2010, which left 10 people dead.
Researchers are closer to identifying a mysterious disease that’s killed nearly 60 children in Cambodia over the past three months. Though experts have been unsure whether the condition is a mixture of known diseases or something new, lab tests this weekend detected the presence of a deadly strain of hand, foot and mouth disease that can cause paralysis, brain swelling, and death. Still, experts stressed that they’re continuing to investigate the causes behind the deaths—and other illnesses, such as mosquito-borne dengue fever, are also associated with some of the cases. Infected kids suffer from a high fever, severe respiratory problems, and neurological symptoms. There’s no vaccine or specific treatment for hand, foot and mouth disease, which is spread by sneezing, coughing, and contact with fluid from blisters or infected feces. “Further investigation is ongoing and this includes the matching of the laboratory and epidemiological information,” Cambodian Health Minister Mam Bunheng said in a press statement, according to the Wall Street Journal. “We hope to be able to conclude our investigation in the coming days.”
Angela Haupt is a health reporter for U.S. News & World Report. You can follow her on Twitter or reach her at ahaupt@usnews.com.
Shellfish harvesting on a Lewis loch has been halted after Food Standards Agency inspectors found potentially harmful levels of toxic algae. The ban on Loch Leurbost comes after tests showed eating shellfish such as cockles,mussels or razor fish may pose a risk to human health. Notices to warn the public and casual gatherers have been posted at various locations on the shore. Commercial shellfish harvesters have been contacted by the comhairle and steps taken to postpone harvesting until algae levels subside. A council spokesperson said:‘It is a sensible precaution to avoid eating shellfish from these areas until further notice. ‘The council is monitoring the situation and will remove warning notices when it improves.’ A warning has also been issued for locations in the Kilbrannan Sound after Argyll and Bute Council carried out monitoring work which revealed raised levels of naturally occurring algal toxins in Campbeltown Loch,Kildalloig Bay,Carradale Bay,Saddell Bay and Machrie Bay,Pirnmill. These areas were closed on July 3 and signs posted to warn gatherers and members of the public of the danger. Commercial shellfish harvesters in these areas have also been contacted by the council and steps taken to postpone harvesting until algae levels subside. Eating shellfish such as cockles,mussels or razor fish from these areas may cause food poisoning. The algal toxins do not affect the taste of the shellfish and are not destroyed by freezing or cooking.
Biohazard name:
Toxic Algae Bloom
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Devastating floods in northeast India have killed around 600 animals in the region’s largest wildlife park, including more than a dozen threatened one-horned rhinos, officials said Monday.
“Most of the animals either drowned or were mown down by speeding vehicles when they tried to flee the heavy flooding,” said S.K. Bora, director of 430-square-kilometre (165-square-mile) Kaziranga National Park in Assam state.
“The water level is now receding, but the vast majority of animals that fled the park are yet to return,” he told AFP by telephone.
According to Bora, various species of deer accounted for more than 500 of the animal victims, which also included 14 rhinos and two elephant calves.
Assam has been the focus of severe regional flooding in recent weeks, triggered by heavy monsoon rains that caused the Brahmaputra river to burst its banks, inundating large areas of the state.
Nearly 130 people have been killed and six million displaced by the floodwaters, according to official figures.
Kaziranga is home to the world’s single largest population of one-horned rhinos. A 2012 census in the park counted 2,290 of the rhinos, out of a global population of 3,300.
The species declined to near extinction in the early 1900s, and is currently listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Kaziranga has fought a sustained battle against rhino poachers, who kill the animals for their horns, which fetch huge prices in some Asian countries where they are deemed to have aphrodisiac qualities.
Assam Forests Minister Rockybul Hussain voiced concerns that poachers would prey on those rhinos that had been forced out of the protective ring of the park by the flooding.
Two workers were hospitalized and at least 120 people were evacuated from a factory fish- processing ship that leaked up to 5,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia in port at Dutch Harbor Saturday afternoon. The two were flown to Anchorage for medical treatment. The ship, the 367-foot-long M/V Excellence, was relocated to a moorage in Wide Bay, about 7.5 miles from the Kloosterboer North Dock in Dutch Harbor, where it leaked. Workers cannot enter the engineering space where the ammonia is leaking because of the danger, said Steven Russel of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Anhydrous ammonia is used as a coolant in the vessel’s refrigeration system. When compressed, the ammonia is a liquid, but upon release it turns into a gas. The gas displaces the oxygen in the body, causing nausea, shortness of breath, irritation to the eyes and headaches. Ammonia is leaking at a fairly low pressure of less than 4 pounds per square inch. Russell said up to 4,000 pounds of the 22,000 pounds of ammonia aboard the vessel has been released. But Russel did not anticipate much more leakage due to the leak’s location in the refrigeration system. Once the leak was detected, nearby areas were cleared and the workers were evacuated. One of the workers flown to Anchorage has been released from the hospital. The Unalaska fire department has been combating ammonia vapors from the vessel using a high-pressure water fog. DEC plans to monitor the vessel until it’s safe for Hazmat teams to board and gather air data. Select members of the crew with Hazmat training are working alongside the Unalaska Fire Department and the U.S. Coast Guard. The M/V Excellence was built as a factory trawler in 1973 and refitted in 1990 for use as a factory processor.
Twelve factories in eastern China were closed down after children living nearby were found to have high levels of lead in their blood, state press reported Monday.
While local authorities sought to downplay the significance of the shutdown, it is the latest in a string of incidents to highlight the increasing environmental and health costs of rampant economic development across China.
“All 12 factories, related to metals, chemicals and recycled paper, have been halted for investigation,” the government of Jian city said in a statement carried in the state-run press on Monday.
The controversy surfaced when a boy living near the industrial park containing the factories was found last month to have higher-than-normal levels of lead in his blood, the China Youth Daily reported.
After a further 15 children were discovered to have excess lead levels, worried parents lobbied local authorities to close the factories, according to the report.
Prolonged exposure to lead can cause nausea and pain within the body, and may damage the heart and kidneys and harm fertility, according to the US Center for Disease Control.
While the government bowed to community pressure in closing the factories, the Jian city government said there was no evidence to show lead had leached out of the industrial park.
It added that the factories had only been closed temporarily.
Grassroots environmental activism is growing in China, with protests against polluting industries occurring frequently across the country.
Violent protests last week by thousands of people in the southwestern city of Shifang forced authorities there to cancel plans for a $1.6 billion heavy metals plant.
by Staff Writers
Nairobi, Kenya (SPX) Jul 06, 2012
Intern Daily
Remarkably, some 60 percent of all human diseases and 75 percent of all emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic. Among the high-priority zoonoses studied here are “endemic zoonoses,” such as brucellosis, which cause the vast majority of illness and death in poor countries; “epidemic zoonoses,” which typically occur as outbreaks, such as anthrax and Rift Valley fever; and the relatively rare “emerging zoonoses,” such as bird flu, a few of which, like HIV/AIDS, spread to cause global cataclysms. While zoonoses can be transmitted to people by either wild or domesticated animals, most human infections are acquired from the world’s 24 billion livestock, including pigs, poultry, cattle, goats, sheep and camels.
A new global study mapping human-animal diseases like tuberculosis (TB) and Rift Valley fever finds that an “unlucky” 13 zoonoses are responsible for 2.4 billion cases of human illness and 2.2 million deaths per year. The vast majority occur in low- and middle-income countries. The report, which was conducted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Institute of Zoology (UK) and the Hanoi School of Public Health in Vietnam, maps poverty, livestock-keeping and the diseases humans get from animals, and presents a “top 20″ list of geographical hotspots.
“From cyst-causing tapeworms to avian flu, zoonoses present a major threat to human and animal health,” said Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert with ILRI in Kenya and lead author of the study. “Targeting the diseases in the hardest hit countries is crucial to protecting global health as well as to reducing severe levels of poverty and illness among the world’s one billion poor livestock keepers.”
“Exploding global demand for livestock products is likely to fuel the spread of a wide range of human-animal infectious diseases,” Grace added.
According to the study, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania in Africa, as well as India in Asia, have the highest zoonotic disease burdens, with widespread illness and death. Meanwhile, the northeastern United States, Western Europe (especially the United Kingdom), Brazil and parts of Southeast Asia may be hotspots of “emerging zoonoses”-those that are newly infecting humans, are newly virulent, or have newly become drug resistant.
The study examined the likely impacts of livestock intensification and climate change on the 13 zoonotic diseases currently causing the greatest harm to the world’s poor.
The report, Mapping of Poverty and Likely Zoonoses Hotspots, was developed with support from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID). The goal of the research was to identify areas where better control of zoonotic diseases would most benefit poor people. It also updates a map of emerging disease events published in the science journal Nature in 2008 by Jones et al.i
Remarkably, some 60 percent of all human diseases and 75 percent of all emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic. Among the high-priority zoonoses studied here are “endemic zoonoses,” such as brucellosis, which cause the vast majority of illness and death in poor countries; “epidemic zoonoses,” which typically occur as outbreaks, such as anthrax and Rift Valley fever; and the relatively rare “emerging zoonoses,” such as bird flu, a few of which, like HIV/AIDS, spread to cause global cataclysms.
While zoonoses can be transmitted to people by either wild or domesticated animals, most human infections are acquired from the world’s 24 billion livestock, including pigs, poultry, cattle, goats, sheep and camels.
Poverty, zoonoses and markets Today, 2.5 billion people live on less than US$2.00 per day. Nearly three-quarters of the rural poor and some one-third of the urban poor depend on livestock for their food, income, traction, manure or other services. Livestock provide poor households with up to half their income and between 6 and 35 percent of their protein consumption. The loss of a single milking animal can be devastating to such households. Worse, of course, is the loss of a family member to zoonotic disease.
Despite the danger of zoonoses, the growing global demand for meat and milk products is a big opportunity for poor livestock keepers.
“Increased demand will continue over the coming decades, driven by rising populations and incomes, urbanization and changing diets in emerging economies,” noted Steve Staal, deputy director general-research at ILRI. “Greater access to global and regional meat markets could move millions of poor livestock keepers out of poverty if they can effectively participate in meeting that rising demand.”
But zoonoses present a major obstacle to their efforts. The study estimates, for example, that about one in eight livestock in poor countries are affected by brucellosis; this reduces milk and meat production in cattle by around 8 percent.
Thus, while the developing world’s booming livestock markets represent a pathway out of poverty for many, the presence of zoonotic diseases can perpetuate rather than reduce poverty and hunger in livestock-keeping communities. The study found a 99 percent correlation between country levels of protein-energy malnutrition and the burden of zoonoses.
“Many poor livestock keepers are not even meeting their own protein and energy needs,” said Staal. “Too often, animal diseases, including zoonotic diseases, confound their greatest efforts to escape poverty and hunger.”
Assessing the burden of zoonoses The researchers initially reviewed 56 zoonoses that together are responsible for around 2.5 billion cases of human illness and 2.7 million human deaths per year. A more detailed study was made of the 13 zoonoses identified as most important, based on analysis of 1,000 surveys covering more than 10 million people, 6 million animals and 6,000 food or environment samples.
The analysis found high levels of infection with these zoonoses among livestock in poor countries. For example, 27 percent of livestock in developing countries showed signs of current or past infection with bacterial food-borne disease-a source of food contamination and widespread illness. The researchers attribute at least one-third of global diarrheal disease to zoonotic causes, and find this disease to be the biggest zoonotic threat to public health.
In the booming livestock sector of developing countries, by far the fastest growing sectors are poultry and pigs. “As production, processing and retail food chains intensify, there are greater risks of food-borne illnesses, especially in poorly managed systems,” said John McDermott, director of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
“Historically, high-density pig and poultry populations have been important in maintaining and mixing influenza populations. A major concern is that as new livestock systems intensify, particularly small- and medium-sized pig production, that more intensive systems will allow the maintenance and transmission of pathogens. A number of new zoonoses, such as Nipah virus infections, have emerged in that way.”
Intensification and disease spread The most rapid changes in pig and poultry farming are expected in Burkina Faso and Ghana in Africa and India, Myanmar and Pakistan in Asia. Pig and poultry farming is also intensifying more rapidly than other farm commodity sectors, with more animals being raised in more concentrated spaces, which raises the risk of disease spread.
Assessing the likely impacts of livestock intensification on the high-priority zoonoses, the study found that livestock density is associated more with disease “event emergence” than with overall disease burdens.
Both the northeastern United States and Western Europe have high densities of livestock and high levels of disease emergence (e.g., BSE, or “mad cow” disease, and Lyme disease), but low numbers of people falling sick and dying from zoonotic diseases. The latter is almost certainly due to the relatively good disease reporting and health care available in these rich countries.
Bovine tuberculosis is a good example of a zoonotic disease that is now rare in both livestock and human populations in rich countries but continues to plague poor countries, where it infects about 7 percent of cattle, reducing their production by 6 percent. Most infected cattle have the bovine form of TB, but both the human and bovine forms of TB can infect cows and people.
Results of this study suggest that the burden of zoonotic forms of TB may be underestimated, with bovine TB causing up to 10 percent of human TB cases. Human TB remains one of the most important and common human diseases in poor countries; in 2010, 12 million people suffered from active disease, with 80 percent of all new cases occurring in 22 developing countries.
Massive underreporting “We found massive underreporting of zoonoses and animal diseases in general in poor countries,” said Grace. “In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, 99.9 percent of livestock losses do not appear in official disease reports. Surveillance is not fulfilling its purpose.”
The surveillance lacking today will be even more needed in the future, as the climate changes, she added. Previous research by ILRI and others indicates that areas with increased rainfall and flooding will have increased risk of zoonoses, particularly those diseases transmitted by insects or associated with stagnant water or flooding.
The main finding of the study is that most of the burden of zoonoses and most of the opportunities for alleviating zoonoses lie in just a few countries, notably Ethiopia, Nigeria, and India. These three countries have the highest number of poor livestock keepers, the highest number of malnourished people, and are in the top five countries for both absolute numbers affected with zoonoses and relative intensity of zoonoses infection.
“These findings allow us to focus on the hotspots of zoonoses and poverty, within which we should be able to make a difference,” said Grace.
A satellite passed over growing Daniel on July 4, and saw heavy rainfall near its center. Some of the rain clouds were more than 9 miles tall.
CREDIT: NASA.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 11:06 a.m. ET to note that Emilia has rapid strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane.
Hurricane Emilia has roared to life in the eastern Pacific Ocean, joining Hurricane Daniel in swirling over the waters off North America’s western coast. The storms are the fourth and third hurricanes of the East Pacific season, respectively.
A rotating gale was declared a tropical storm and christened Daniel in the early hours of July 5, when its winds crossed the required threshold of 39 mph (63 kph). The storm continued to strengthen, and was officially dubbed a hurricane — a storm packing sustained winds of at least 74 mph (119 kph) — late on Friday (July 6).
According to the latest report from the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla., Hurricane Daniel is packing maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph) and is weakening as it moves westward across the ocean and over cooler waters. It is currently about 1,300 miles (2,000 kilometers) west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California.
Emilia first formed as a tropical storm on Saturday night, and strengthened into a hurricane early this morning (July 9). It has maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (160 kph) and is 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) south of the tip of Baja California.
While Daniel, a Category 1 hurricane, is expected to weaken, Emilia has already rapidly intensified into a Category 2 storm and is expected to become a major hurricane (those of Category 3 or higher) by Tuesday.
Both storms lie far out to sea, several hundred miles west of Mexico’s mainland, and moving farther seaward, posing no threat to land.
Early in Daniel’s lifecycle, satellites spotted giant “hot towers” inside the storm. The massive, heated rain clouds can soar more than 9 miles (14 kilometers) into the atmosphere, and are a telltale sign that a storm will strengthen as Daniel did.
Hurricane Daniel was the fourth named storm and Emilia the fifth of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season. Storms are named only once they achieve tropical storm status. The first three storms of the season were Tropical Storm Aletta, Hurricane Bud and Hurricane Carlotta.
Although the Atlantic basin is now quiet, that ocean basin has so far seen four named storms this season — a record number of storms to appear so early in the year.
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AN earthquake with a magnitude of 4.2 was recorded between Tamworth and Gunnedah last night.
Emergency services received phone calls from areas including Tamworth, Gunnedah and Maules Creek from about 9.30pm reporting that the ground moved and buildings rattled.
No one has been reported injured and there have been no reports of damage.
There has been reported of sirens in Armidale.
Geoscience Australia reported a quake of 4.2 magnitude at 9.31pm.
Geoscience Australia said the quake could have been felt up to 76kilometres away and caused damage up to 6 kilometres away.
It shows there were two distinct tremors.
Geoscience Australia data shows it was the 10th tremor recorded in mainland Australia this week.
It had a depth of 17 kilometres.
Police media said they had received a number of calls from Tamworth residents who reported their windows had shaken and thought someone was trying to break in.
The quake struck west of Manilla north of Lake Keepit.
A Boggabri resident told the Newcastle Herald they felt the quake.
‘‘I just felt a quake like ten minutes ago, it shook my whole house,’’ he said.
Richard Turner, of Invergowrie said there was one tremor and then another two minutes later.
‘‘I contacted other neighbours they confirmed they had the same thing,’’ he said.
‘‘ A deep rumble and things shaking .
Twitter and hashtag Tamworth was abuzz in the minutes after the quake.
‘‘Long weekend started with a bang,’’ Benjamin Paton tweeted.
‘‘Cross that off the bucket list I guess.
‘‘First short like a strong sudden wind. Second about two minutes later, strong, longer, house shuddering.
‘‘All is fine, no damage, and all are safe, just a little shook up.’’
Others were quick to blame coal seam gas for the incident.
An earthquake swarm with possibly hundreds of small quakes has been detected at Chile’s San Pedro-Pellado (or Tatara-San Pedro) volcano. Not many details about this activity are available and reports are in parts contradictory, as the Eruptions Blog who brought this to our attention points out. There is little known about the eruptive history of the volcano except that it most likely has erupted during the past 10,000 years and can be considered an active volcano. Any reawakening would thus mark its first historic eruption, something that would remind what has happened at Chaitén volcano in 2008.
This three-dimensional perspective view of Long Valley, Calif., was created from data taken by the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar on board the space shuttle Endeavour. Credit: NASA/JPL.
Enormous volcanic eruptions with potential to end civilizations may have surprisingly short fuses, researchers have discovered. These eruptions are known as super-eruptions because they are more than 100 times the size of ordinary volcanic eruptions like Mount St. Helens.
They spew out tremendous flows of super-heated gas, ash and rock capable of blanketing entire continents and inject enough particulate into the stratosphere to throw the global climate into decade-long volcanic winters.
In fact, there is evidence that one super-eruption, which took place in Indonesia 74,000 years ago, may have come remarkably close to wiping out the entire human species.
Geologists generally believe that a super-eruption is produced by a giant pool of magma that forms a couple of miles below the surface and then simmers for 100,000 to 200,000 years before erupting. But a new study suggests that once they form, these giant magma bodies may only exist for a few thousand years, perhaps only a few hundred years, before erupting.
“Our study suggests that when these exceptionally large magma pools form they are ephemeral and cannot exist very long without erupting,” said Guilherme Gualda, the assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University who directed the study, which appears in the May 30 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.
The study was performed on the remnants of the Bishop Tuff, the Long Valley super-eruption that occurred in east-central California 760,000 years ago. Using the latest methods for dating the process of magma formation, Gualda and his colleagues found several independent lines of evidence that indicate the magma pool formed within a few thousand years, perhaps within a few hundred years, before it erupted, covering half of the North American continent with smoldering ash.
These giant magma pools tend to be shaped like pancakes and are 10 to 25 miles in diameter and one half to three miles deep. In the beginning, the molten rock in these pools is largely free from crystals and bubbles.
After they form, however, crystals and bubbles form gradually and progressively change the magma’s physical and chemical properties, a process that halts when an eruption takes place.
As far as geologists can tell, no such giant crystal-poor magma body currently exists that is capable of producing a super-eruption. The research team believes this may be because these magma bodies exist for a relatively short time rather than persisting for hundreds of thousands of years as previously thought.
According to Gualda, the estimates for the 100,000 year-plus lifetimes of these giant magma bodies appears to be an artifact of the method that geologists have used to make them. The measurements have been made using zircon crystals.
Zircons are commonplace in volcanic rocks and they contain small amounts of radioactive uranium and thorium, which decay into lead at a set rate, allowing scientists to accurately determine when the crystals formed. They are extremely useful for many purposes because they can survive most geologic processes.
However, the fact that zircons can withstand the heat and the forces found in a magma chamber means that they are not good at recording the lifetimes of crystal-poor magma bodies.
Gualda and his colleagues took a different approach in his studies of the Bishop Tuff. They determined crystallization rates of quartz – the most abundant mineral in the deposits – to gather information about the lifespan of these giant magma bodies.
They developed four independent lines of evidence that agreed that the formation process took less than 10,000 years and most likely between 500 to 3,000 years before the eruption.
They suggest that the zircon crystal measurements record the extensive changes that take place in the crust required before the giant magma bodies can begin forming as opposed to the formation itself.
“The fact that the process of magma body formation occurs in historical time, instead of geological time, completely changes the nature of the problem,” said Gualda.
Instead of concluding that there is virtually no risk of another super-eruption for the foreseeable future because there are no suitable magma bodies, geologists need to regularly monitor areas where super-eruptions are likely, such as Yellowstone, to provide advanced warning if such a magma body begins to form.
According to a 2005 report by the Geological Society of London, “Even science fiction cannot produce a credible mechanism for averting a super-eruption. We can, however, work to better understand the mechanisms involved in super-eruptions, with the goal of being able to predict them ahead of time and provide a warning for society. Preparedness is the key to mitigation of the disastrous effects of a super-eruption.”
Vanderbilt doctoral student Ayla S. Pamukcu, Mark S. Ghiorso of OFM Research, and Alfred T. Anderson Jr.,Stephen R. Sutton and Mark L. Rivers from the University of Chicago participated in the study, which was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation
The research team during the descent from the “Celestial Mountains” at an altitude of around 3,300 metres. Photo courtesy Timm John, Universitat Munster.
In the depths of the earth, it is anything but peaceful: large quantities of liquids carve their way through the rock as fluids, causing magma to form. A research team led by the University of Munster, has shown that the fluids flow a lot faster through solid rock than previously assumed. In the Chinese Tian Shan Mountains, fluids pushed their way to the earth’s mantle from great depths in just 200 years rather than in the course of tens or even hundreds of thousands of years.
The researchers from Munster, Kiel, Bochum, Erlangen, Bethlehem (USA) and Lausanne (Switzerland) present their findings, based on an innovative combination of fieldwork, geochemical analysis and numerical calculations, in the current issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. The RUB geoscientists are experts in determining time scales using numerical models.
How the “Ring of Fire” is formed When tectonic plates move towards each other and push over each other at the edges, so-called subduction zones are formed. The descending plate is heated and continuously releases the water stored in its rocks as fluid.
The fluid penetrates the earth’s mantle, which is located above the descending plate. The fluids thus lower the melting point of the mantle rocks, and the liquid rock formed rises to the volcanoes as magma.
This magma feeds the many volcanoes throughout the world that occur along the convergent plate boundaries and form the “Ring of Fire”, a volcanic belt that encircles the Pacific Ocean. The fluids are commonly assumed to flow through the rock in a defined flow system. Geologists call these structures veins.
Only two hundred years During field work in the Chinese part of the Tian Shan Mountains (Celestial Mountains), the research team found structures in the rocks they were studying which can be ascribed to massive fluid flows at great depth.
“Our investigation has shown that a great deal of fluid must have flowed through a rock vein at about 70 km depth and that this fluid has obviously already covered a distance of several hundred meters or more – the transport of such large quantities of fluid over such a great distance has not been demonstrated by anyone before us” explains Timm John from the Institute for Mineralogy, University of Munster.
“And the most exciting thing is that this amount of fluid flowed through the rock in what is for geological processes a very short time, only about two hundred years”, adds Nikolaus Gussone of the same institute.
Like in a reservoir The release of fluids from minerals in the descending plates is a large-scale and continuous process that takes place at depths up to two-hundred kilometres and takes millions of years. During this time, the fluids first accumulate.
As the researchers have now shown for the first time, the released fluids then flowed through the plate on their way to the mantle in pulses in a relatively short time along defined flow paths. “It’s like a reservoir that continuously fills and then empties in a surge through defined channels” Timm John points out.
“The fluid release is focused in space and time, and is much faster than expected – almost like a jet through solid rock”.
The researchers hope to be able to show the spatial and temporal correlations between such fluid pulses and volcanic activity in future studies. It is also possible that such focused fluid releases are associated with the occurrence of earthquake events in subduction zones. To be able to demonstrate such relations, however, intensive research is still needed.
RUB experts for time scales The RUB’s petrologists were involved in modelling the chemical data. This enabled the research team to determine the time it took the fluids to make their way to the mantle.
Determining the time scales of various geological processes is a particular expertise of Bochum’s petrologists. Among other things, they use minerals and rocks with zones that exhibit a different chemical composition.
T. John et al. (2012): Volcanic arcs fed by rapid pulsed fluid flow through subducting slabs. Nature Geoscience, doi: 10.1038/NGEO1482
Tatara-San Pedro seen in February 2006. Image by Michael Dungan (Univ. Geneva)
UPDATE June 8, 2012 at 2:30 PM EDT: This hasn’t entirely been settled, but the latest report in 24Horas.cl has the SERNAGEOMIN ruling out any volcanic origin to the spate of earthquakes near San Pedro-Tatara (San Pedro-Pellado). This report, however, implicates Laguna del Maule as the potential location of volcanic unrest.
Quick report tonight brought to my attention by Eruptions reader GuillermoChile. Apparently, the SERNAGEOMIN has been monitoring an earthquake swarm at Chile’s Tatara-San Pedro (also known as San Pedro-Pellado), possibly numbering in the hundreds of small earthquakes over the last few days. The reports are a little scant and the information coming from different parts of the Chilean government are contradictory: the regional governor of the area was quoted as saying that “it is of volcanic earthquakes, so we are on alert” while the regional director from ONEMI said “at first thought that we were facing a volcanic earthquakes, but known reports of the analysis has led to the conclusion that we were facing tectonic type earthquakes“. The article in La Tercera also mentions that the volcano hasn’t erupted in “decades” while the Global Volcanism Program’s entry for San Pedro says that the last eruption is “unknown”, likely in the Holocene (last 10,000 years). So, there seems to be lots of confusion (not to mention La Tercera calling the volcano “Catinao”). If this is renewed activity at the volcano, it is potentially the first in recorded history.
Tatara-San Pedro has been a focus of a lot of petrologic study, so any new activity would get the geologic community’s attention quickly. I’ll keep this updated with any new information as it arrives, but hard to tell what exactly is going on at the Chilean volcano.
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The tornado that cut a swathe through Perth’s northern suburbs on Thursday was strong enough to send shopping trolleys flying, the Bureau of Meteorology says.
Spokesman Neil Bennett said the tornado that hit Dianella and Morley brought wind speeds of at least 125km/h, so anyone in the area was lucky not to have been hurt by flying debris.
Estimates of wind speeds up to 180km/h were guesses and were probably too high, Mr Bennett said.
“We can’t measure the winds directly, so a structural engineer goes off to look at the damage, then gives us an assessment of the type of wind speeds that may have caused that damage, so we’re waiting on confirmation,” Mr Bennett told AAP on Friday.
Tornadoes were not particularly unusual, with a handful usually hitting the Perth metropolitan area and South West region during the cool season from May to October, he said.
The State Emergency Service (SES) on Friday said the tornado caused damage to around 100 homes and buildings.
The SES said eight homes sustained major damage, with five deemed uninhabitable.
Mr Bennett said a low-pressure frontal system was approaching the South West region, so it was at risk of wild weather on Monday.
Limited access to safe water sources is a major problem in the DRC (file photo)
KINSHASA, 8 June 2012 (IRIN) – A growing cholera outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed nearly 400 lives and affected more than 19,100 people since January, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“The total number of cholera cases in 2012 is around 90 percent of cases reported last year. Since January 2011, 983 people have died from the outbreak affecting eight of 11 provinces of the country,” Yvon Edoumou, OCHA spokesman, told a news conference.
Since the outbreak started, more than 40,795 cases have been reported. Edoumou said the growing epidemic had put a strain on ongoing humanitarian interventions funded mainly by a US$9.1 million grant by the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, which provides rapid response grants for humanitarian emergencies.
Experts have blamed the continued spread of cholera in the DRC on poor hygiene, lack of awareness about transmission mechanisms, limited access to protected and monitored water sources and a general lack of sanitation infrastructure.
Thomas Naeraa in Greenland. Image courtesy Anders Schersten.
The current theory of continental drift provides a good model for understanding terrestrial processes through history. However, while plate tectonics is able to successfully shed light on processes up to 3 billion years ago, the theory isn’t sufficient in explaining the dynamics of the earth and crust formation before that point and through to the earliest formation of planet, some 4.6 billion years ago.
This is the conclusion of Tomas Naaeraa of the Nordic Center for Earth Evolution at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, a part of the University of Copenhagen. His new doctoral dissertation has just been published by the esteemed international scientific journal, Nature.
“Using radiometric dating, one can observe that the Earth’s oldest continents were created in geodynamic environments which were markedly different than current environments characterised by plate tectonics.
Therefore, plate tectonics as we know it today is not a good model for understanding the processes at play during the earliest episodes of the Earths’s history, those beyond 3 billion years ago.
There was another crust dynamic and crust formation that occurred under other processes,” explains Tomas Naeraa, who has been a PhD student at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland – GEUS.
Plate tectonics is a theory of continental drift and sea floor spreading. A wide range of phenomena from volcanism, earthquakes and undersea earthquakes (and pursuant tsunamis) to variations in climate and species development on Earth can be explained by the plate tectonics model, globally recognized during the 1960′s. Tomas Naeraa can now demonstrate that the half-century old model no longer suffices.
“Plate tectonics theory can be applied to about 3 billion years of the Earth’s history. However, the Earth is older, up to 4.567 billion years old. We can now demonstrate that there has been a significant shift in the Earth’s dynamics.
Thus, the Earth, under the first third of its history, developed under conditions other than what can be explained using the plate tectonics model,” explains Tomas Naeraa. Tomas is currently employed as a project researcher at GEUS.
Central research topic for 30 years Since 2006, the 40-year-old Tomas Naeraa has conducted studies of rocks sourced in the 3.85 billion year-old bedrock of the Nuuk region in West Greenland. Using isotopes of the element hafnium (Hf), he has managed to shed light upon a research topic that has puzzled geologists around the world for 30 years.
Naeraa’s instructor, Professor Minik Rosing of the Natural History Museum of Denmark considers Naeraa’s dissertation a seminal work: “We have come to understand the context of the Earth’s and continent’s origins in an entirely new way. Climate and nutrient cycles which nourish all terrestrial organisms are driven by plate tectonics.
So, if the Earth’s crust formation was controlled and initiated by other factors, we need to find out what controlled climate and the environments in which life began and evolved 4 billion years ago.
This fundamental understanding can be of great significance for the understanding of future climate change,” says Minik Rosing, who adds that: “An enormous job waits ahead, and Naeraas’ dissertation is an epochal step.”
View from the cockpit of the Falcon during a measurement flight.
Thunderstorms have a significant effect on the formation of ozone. Nitrogen oxide is produced as a result of lightning; this in turn yields ozone at altitudes of 10 kilometres. Strong updraughts in thunderstorms also transport emissions from the ground into the upper atmosphere. But how significant is this effect – compared to aviation, for example?
Researchers at the German Aerospace Center, in collaboration with the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), NASA and other partners, are studying such questions. To this end, they will be conducting measurement flights in the United States until mid-June. The researchers are looking to increase the existing body of data and gain a better understanding of the processes that take place in thunderstorms.
“Thunderstorms are like vacuum cleaners,” explains Heidi Huntrieser from the DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics. The DLR project leader is supervising the measurement flights in the United States.
“Thunderstorms suck air up from the ground, sometimes at speeds surpassing 100 kilometres per hour, and carry it to an altitude of about 10 kilometres, to what is known as the ‘anvil region’. This is the mushroom-shaped layer high above the storm, where the air can only flow horizontally and hardly upwards at all.”
If polluted air, such as that from vehicle emissions on the ground, is transported to this region, the chemistry of these emissions is altered by the low temperatures, differing humidity and more intense solar radiation there; they take much longer to break down, and the production of ozone is increased. “At these altitudes, nitrogen oxide can produce up to 10 times as much ozone as on the ground,” says Huntrieser.
Huntrieser and her project partners intend to use the measurements to increase the existing data pool.
“Previous measurements lead to the conclusion that global aviation produces about one teragram of nitrogen oxide per year, but thunderstorms are responsible for about five times as much. All nitrogen oxide sources jointly contribute about 50 teragrams of nitrogen oxide to the atmosphere each year, so thunderstorms are responsible for about 10 percent,” explains Huntrieser. A teragram is 10 to the power of 12.
New model simulations show that thunderstorms exert a great influence on ozone. “These were somewhat surprising results,” says Huntrieser. “Now we need more measurement data to confirm this.”
Use of three research aircraft Three research aircraft are being used for the mission: the DLR Falcon research aircraft will take measurements at an altitude of 10 kilometres, while the American HIAPER research aircraft will take measurements at up to 15 kilometres. A DC-8, a much larger aircraft, will mainly operate at lower altitudes. “Our ambitious goal is for all the aircraft to operate simultaneously at different altitudes in the vicinity of thunderstorms. It would be a first,” says Huntrieser.
Influence exerted by different types of lightning Besides the transportation processes from the ground to the upper atmosphere, the studies will focus on the influence exerted by different types of lightning. There are relatively short lightning bolts a few kilometres long, and some that stretch horizontally over a distance of 100 kilometres or more.
The formation of lightning also depends on the type of storm; previous measurements over Europe indicate that storms with large amounts of hail and frozen rain that occur at mid-latitudes can contain relatively more and sometimes longer lightning bolts.
By comparison, measurements in tropical storms in Brazil indicate fewer ice particles, more cloud droplets and many – but shorter – lightning bolts. Previous measurements also indicate that less nitrogen oxide per lightning bolt is produced in storms with shorter lightning bolts than in those with longer lightning bolts. Due to the varied climatic conditions in the United States, the researchers can investigate both types of storms.
Over Alabama there are storms with less ice, and over Colorado there are those with more frozen rain and hail. Oklahoma is known for its violent storms, also known as supercells, which can also trigger tornadoes.
The research flights are very challenging, but not dangerous for the occupants: “We are not flying directly into the storms. That would be much too dangerous because of the strong turbulence, risk of ice formation, lightning strike and the high wind speeds.
Our measurements are being taken in the calmer anvil region,” explains Huntrieser. The robust Falcon is ideal for this. The DLR pilots have already carried out numerous similar measurements with the research aircraft over Europe, Brazil, Australia and Africa.
The researchers are also breaking some new ground with their measurement flights. Between 12 and 48 hours after the storm has dissipated, the scientists are planning to carry out measurement flights inside the storm’s residual air mass and determine, for example, how much ozone has been produced and how the chemical composition has changed as a result of the storm.
The shape of an RNA molecule remains the same with either magnesium (Mg) or iron (Fe).
When life began on Earth, iron may have done the job of magnesium, making life possible. On the periodic table of the elements, iron and magnesium are far apart. But new evidence discovered by the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) team at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that three billion years ago, iron did the job magnesium does today in helping Ribonucleic acid (RNA), a molecule essential for life, assume the molecular shapes necessary for biology.
The results of the study are scheduled to be published online in the journal PLoS ONE.
There is considerable evidence that the evolution of life passed through an early stage when RNA played a more central role, doing the jobs of DNA and protein before they appeared. During that time, more than three billion years ago, the environment lacked oxygen but had lots of available iron.
“One of the greatest challenges in astrobiology is understanding how life began on Earth billions of years ago when the environment was very different than it is today,” said Carl Pilcher, director of the Astrobiology Institute at NASA’s Ames Research Center Moffett Field, Calif.
“This study shows us how conditions on early Earth may have been conducive to the development of life.”
In the new study, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, used experiments and numerical calculations to show that under early Earth conditions, with little oxygen around, iron can substitute for magnesium in RNA, enabling it to assume the shapes it needs to catalyze life’s chemical reactions. In fact, it catalyzed those reactions better with iron than with magnesium.
“The primary motivation of this work was to understand RNA under plausible early Earth conditions.” said Loren Williams, a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech and leader of the NAI team. “Our hypothesis is that RNA evolved in the presence of iron and is optimized to work with iron.”
Free oxygen gas was almost nonexistent more than three billion years ago in early Earth’s atmosphere. When oxygen began entering the environment as a product of photosynthesis, it turned Earth’s available iron to rust, forming massive banded iron deposits that are still mined today.
When all that iron got tied up in those deposits, it was no longer available. The current study indicates that RNA then began using magnesium, resulting in life as we know it today.
In future studies, the researchers plan to investigate what unique functions RNA can perform with iron that are not possible with magnesium.
In addition to Williams, Georgia Tech School of Biology postdoctoral fellow Shreyas Athavale, research scientist Anton Petrov, and professors Roger Wartell and Stephen Harvey, and Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry postdoctoral fellow Chiaolong Hsiao and professor Nicholas Hud also contributed to this research.
This study was funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, a virtual institute located and managed at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
A NASA mission to study the tiny algae vital to the ocean’s food chain has turned up a massive amount of phytoplankton where scientists least expected it — under the Arctic ice.
In a project that uses both satellites and on-site measurements to study this important food source for many of the ocean’s creatures, NASA sent a team to sample the ice pack off the Chukchi Sea along Alaska’s coast.
Researchers aboard the US Coast Guard icebreaker ship, Healy, sampled beneath the 0.8-1.3 meter (2.4-4.0 feet) thick sea ice and found phytoplankton biomass was “extremely high, about fourfold greater than in open water.”
The “massive under-ice bloom” also appeared to extend about 100 kilometers (60 miles) into the ice shelf, until “the waters literally looked like pea soup,” mission leader Kevin Arrigo told reporters.
“We were astonished. It was completely unexpected. It was literally the most intense phytoplankton bloom I have ever seen in my 25 years of doing this type of research,” said Arrigo, a scientist at Stanford University in California.
“Just like the tomatoes in your garden, these and all phytoplankton require light and they require nutrients to grow,” Arrigo explained.
“It has been presumed that there was very little light under the ice and we didn’t expect to see much.”
Known formally as “Impacts of Climate on Ecosystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment,” or ICESCAPE, mission scientists went on two expeditions in June-July of 2010 and 2011.
The latest findings are published in the June 7 edition of the journal Science.
Arrigo said the discovery caused “a fundamental shift in our understanding of the Arctic ecosystem,” which was previously believed to be cold and desolate.
Before, the tiny single-celled plants were not believed to grow until the ice melted.
“If you rank all the phytoplankton blooms anywhere in the world by the amount of phytoplankton that is contained in them, the under-ice bloom that we saw during ICESCAPE would finish at the very top of the list,” he added.
“And it was growing beneath a layer of sea ice as thick as a five-year-old child is tall.”
Phytoplankton were scarcer and deeper in the open waters, and were “greatest at depths of 20 to 50 meters (66-164 feet) because of nutrient depletion near the surface,” said the study.
More research is needed to determine how these under-ice phytoplankton affect local ecosystems.
Phytoplankton blooms in the Arctic have been observed to peak as many as 50 days earlier than they did a dozen years ago, a development that could have implications for the larger food web, scientists have said.
“My concern is that if phytoplankton continue to develop and grow earlier and earlier in the year, it is going to become increasingly difficult for those animals that time their life cycle to be in the Arctic… to be there at the right time of year,” Arrigo said.
The microscopic organisms are the base of the food chain and drive the food and reproductive cycles of fish, seabirds and polar bears. How larger animals may react to phytoplankton changes remains unknown.
Phytoplankton are also important because through the process of photosynthesis they remove about half of the harmful carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels worldwide.
Previous research has shown the microscopic organisms have been disappearing globally at a rate of one percent per year.
Since 1950, phytoplankton mass has dropped by about 40 percent, most likely due to the accelerating impact of global warming, said a 2010 study in the journal Nature.
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The United Nations health agency today reported that the cholera outbreak in Sierra Leone was escalating and stressed the need to rapidly scale up the response to the spread of the of the frequently fatal water and food-borne disease.
[Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech]NASA’s range of telescopes continually manage to surprise and delight with their frequent discoveries of planets far, far away–some of which are 
A 5.6 magnitude earthquake recorded in the coastal area west of the Greek island Rhodes jolted people in Cyprus right out of their afternoon siesta today.
A command centre in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park helped visitors after the deadly storm
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Postal worker at the mail sorting machines at the Brentwood postal facility. He is wearing a face mask and gloves as a precaution against anthrax exposure.
