A hailstorm hit the northern mountainous provinces of Cao Bang, Ha Giang and Lao Cai, injuring dozens of people while damaging tens of thousands of houses. Photo from danviet.vn
News Desk
Viet Nam News
Publication Date : 28-03-2013
A hailstorm hit Vietnam’s northern mountainous provinces of Cao Bang, Ha Giang and Lao Cai yesterday, injuring dozens of people while damaging tens of thousands of houses.
Lao Cai was hardest hit with 33 people being injured and 5,700 houses damaged. More than 10,500 households in total and many schools and health clinics were affected.
Fifteen of the injured were taken to hospital after being hit by massive hailstones that rained down for 15 minutes.
The hailstorm hit Lao Cai at dawn yesterday, where hailstones had an average diameter of 5-10cm.
Vu Thanh Tuan, a resident in Muong Khuong district, told Vietnam News Agency it was the heaviest hail fall he had ever seen.
“There were hailstones the size of a person’s fist,” he said.
Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Ma Quang Trung said the storm was unusual.
A young teenage boy from Reu Village in Son Ha District in the central province of Quang Ngai on March 11 succumbed to the bizarre disease that is plaguing the area. Dinh Van Thap, 17, suffered from thickening of the skin (keratosis) on palms and soles, stiffness in limbs and ulcers on hands and feet, before he finally succumbed to the disease. Earlier he had been transferred to the Intensive Care Unit of the General Hospital in Quang Ngai Province, for treatment of liver failure but did not pull through. By February, two more patients from Son Ha District including Dinh Van Hoan, 63, and his wife Dinh Thi Lo, 58, were hospitalized for thickening of the skin (keratosis) on palms and soles, stiffness in limbs and ulcers on hands and feet that looked like burns. They have since left the hospital for their homes and have left their fate to God. Son Ha District is the second district to report a death from the yet unidentified disease, after Ba To District. In 2012, Ba To District reported 23 deaths from the bizarre disease with 240 infected cases. Since March, the district has reported 10 more cases, including two suffering from a relapse within a year of infection. Health agencies have yet to find a cure or cause of the disease.
Biohazard name:
Unidentified disease (fatal)
Biohazard level:
1/4 Low
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses including Bacillus subtilis, canine hepatitis, Escherichia coli, varicella (chicken pox), as well as some cell cultures and non-infectious bacteria. At this level precautions against the biohazardous materials in question are minimal, most likely involving gloves and some sort of facial protection. Usually, contaminated materials are left in open (but separately indicated) waste receptacles. Decontamination procedures for this level are similar in most respects to modern precautions against everyday viruses (i.e.: washing one’s hands with anti-bacterial soap, washing all exposed surfaces of the lab with disinfectants, etc). In a lab environment, all materials used for cell and/or bacteria cultures are decontaminated via autoclave.
Symptoms:
Thickening of the skin (keratosis) on palms and soles, stiffness in limbs and ulcers on hands and feet, before he finally succumbed to the disease
(NaturalNews) Most imported seafood, including shrimp, is from large fish farms in Asia, including China, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. There are also seafood or fish farms in Canada, Mexico, and South America that export to the U.S. and others countries.
Fish farming is just that. Breeding, cultivating, and harvesting fish from ponds, drainage ditches, or cages in lakes and even the open sea. There are also green houses with large containers of water. Unusual tropical fish, catfish, and salmon are farmed and sometimes deceptively sold as wild caught.
Farmed fish and shrimp pro and con
Proponents of fish farming point out that it’s more ecological since wild fish areas are invaded less as fish farms proliferate. Of course, there is the added incentive of not having to resort to seafaring vessels or fleets to come in with catches. Fish farming is more reliable and less expensive.
Since recent innovations of stacking indoor pools for breading shrimp was innovated, there is an incredible amount of farmed jumbo shrimp that is retailed and used in restaurants. These stacked pools permit up to 25 kilograms of shrimp to be bred in one cubic meter of water.
The stacked pool idea was spawned in Texas. So less farmed shrimp is imported now than a few years ago. But that doesn’t preclude antibiotics, bacterial, and chemical contamination from getting into those stacked pools.
Just like massive factory farms for sending hoofed meat to slaughter houses, there are problems with overcrowding and feeding in fish farms. Antibiotics are used in crowed aquatic conditions. And what they are fed can include even salmonella laced pig feces, as discovered in several Chinese fish farms.
Lazaro Sopena poses with Hann Dinh on their wedding day in Miami Beach, Florida, in this July 2, 2011 handout photo. Sopena opted to take his wife’s last name only to be accused of fraud by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. The South Florida real estate investor lovingly offered to change his name following his 2011 marriage to Hann Dinh in order to help his wife’s family perpetuate their family surname. Dinh, who was born in Vietnam, is from a family of all girls and only one son. REUTERS/Jay Nguyen/Handout
By David Adams
MIAMI (Reuters) – A newly married South Florida man who opted to take his wife’s last name is fighting the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles after it suspended his driving license on grounds of fraud.
Real estate investor Lazaro Sopena offered to change his name following his 2011 marriage to Hanh Dinh in order to help his wife’s Vietnamese family perpetuate their family surname.
Shortly after their marriage, Lazaro Dinh obtained a new passport and Social Security card and changed his bank account and credit cards before applying to update his drivers license.
“It was an act of love. I have no particular emotional ties to my last name,” said Dinh, 40, who was born in Cuba and came to the United States at the age of 11 in 1984.
His wife, Hanh Dinh, 32, has four sisters and came to the U.S. in 1990, after a family odyssey involving living in refugee camps and being separated from her father for 7 years.
Lazaro Dinh was initially issued a new license after presenting his marriage certificate at his local DMV office and paying a $20 fee, just as newly married women are required to do when they adopt their husband’s name.
“It was easy. When the government issues you a new passport you figure you’re fine,” he said.
More than a year later Dinh received a letter from Florida’s DMV last December accusing him of “obtaining a driving license by fraud,” and advising him that his license would be suspended at the end of the month. Ironically, it was addressed to Lazaro Dinh.
Second largest earthquake to hit Canada since 1949
Canadian Press
Map locates a violent earthquake measuring 7.7 which jolted British Columbia’s north-central coast Saturday night, frightening residents and forcing many to temporarily leave their homes for higher ground ahead of a possible tsunami.
Photograph by: Sean Vokey , Canadian Press
VANCOUVER — The Haida Gwaii region continues to feel the aftershocks of a violent earthquake measuring 7.7 that jolted British Columbia’s north-central coast Saturday night, frightening residents and forcing many to temporarily leave their homes for higher ground ahead of a possible tsunami.
The largest, a 6.4 magnitude tremor, struck Sunday afternoon, 136 kilometers south of Masset. There have been over 40 aftershocks in the area.
Tsunami warnings were issued for the North Coast Saturday, the Haida Gwaii islands, parts of the central B.C. coast, the coast of Alaska and as far away as Hawaii.
Early Sunday morning the warnings were downgraded to advisory status, meaning evacuations were no longer necessary, and they were cancelled altogether a few hours later.
Residents near the centre of the quake said the violent jolting lasted for up to a minute, but no injuries or major damage had been reported.
Carsten Ginsburg, who lives in the small community of Bella Coola southeast of Prince Rupert, said the quake lasted about 40 seconds.
“It shook everything. The electricity went out, the power lines were swinging all over the place and stuff was falling off the shelves.”
Brent Ward, an earth scientist at Simon Fraser University, said the earthquake was the second largest to hit the country since 1949, when another earthquake was recorded in the same area with a magnitude of 8.1.
“It’s an earthquake in an area that gets a lot of earthquakes,” he said. “It’s a tectonically active area.”
Ward said the area is known as the Queen Charlotte fault, where the earth’s plates slide horizontally across each other in a strike-slip action, similar to what happens along California’s San Andreas fault.
“Stresses build up because of that movement, and every so often we get the release of that stress in the form of an earthquake.”
Ward said he wasn’t surprised the tsunami warning was shortlived because the strike-slip movement along the fault doesn’t generally trigger tsunamis.
“To trigger a tsunami you need to have a vertical movement of the sea floor, and it’s that vertical movement that displaces water and triggers the tsunami,” he said. “Because it’s sliding across each other, you’re not generally moving the water.”
In fact, hours after the earthquake, Dennis Sinnott, who works at the Institute of Ocean Sciences, said the largest wave hit Langara Island, a northern Haida Gwaii island, and measured just 69 centimetres.
The quake also set off emergency sirens across the Pacific on the islands of Hawaii, but even as people were moving to higher ground, the warning was called off.
In Alaska, the wave surge was just 10 centimetres, much smaller than officials had been forecasting.
Kelli Kryzanowski, manager of strategic initiatives Emergency Management B.C., said the initial earthquake occurred at 8:04 p.m. inland on Haida Gwaii and was initially recorded at a magnitude of 7.1 but was quickly upgraded to a magnitude of 7.7.
Kryzanowski said small waves generated by the quake, measured at 28 centimetres and 44 centimetres, also hit the northern tip of Vancouver Island.
“What we’re seeing at this time are relatively small sea-level fluctuations,” she said.
B.C. Justice Minister Shirley Bond said there appeared to be little damage from the quake.
“We’re certainly grateful at this point,” said Bond, who spoke to reporters during a late night conference call. “We’re very grateful for that, but we’ll wait until we can actually see the impact.”
After the quake, Ginsburg said he ran home as quickly as he could to see if there was a tsunami warning.
“Which of course there was,” he added.
Ginsburg owns the Float House Inn on the public wharf in Bella Coola and had about six customers celebrating a birthday party.
They all evacuated to about 35 metres above sea level.
“I’m assuming that it’s OK,” he said laughing. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
Bella Coola resident Barb Cornish, 60, said she considers herself a very calm person.
“But I found it quite unnerving,” she told The Canadian Press.
Cornish lives in a log house and had been told that it’s one of the safest places to be in the event of an earthquake.
But she said it sure didn’t feel safe Saturday night.
“The log house swayed and creaked and my light over my kitchen table was swaying, some chimes went off. I stood up and I could feel the undulations under my feet, to the point where I almost got nauseated.”
Geoff Ray said he has felt a lot of earthquakes, but this was the most powerful quake he’s ever experienced in the 37 years he’s lived on Haida Gwaii.
Ray operates the Breezeway Accommodations bed and breakfast in Queen Charlotte City and said the beams of his building were “visibly shaking quite a lot, there were things falling off shelves.”
“(It was) an exciting experience, there’s no doubt about that.”
Lenore Lawrence, a resident of Queen Charlotte City, said the quake was “definitely scary,” adding she wondered if “this could be the big one.”
She thought the shaking lasted more than a minute.
While several things fell off her mantle and broke, she said damage in her home was minimal.
Residents rushed out of their homes in Tofino when the tsunami sirens sounded, but they were allowed to return about two hours after the quake.
Yvette Drews, a resident of Tofino, said she ran out of her home with her two children and mother in-law and drove to a local school when she heard the community’s tsunami sirens go off.
They were told by police that they could return home.
But while on the way home, Drews said she heard the tsunami sirens go off again.
“Well that just freaked me out, hearing the siren and the voice,” she said.
The quake shook Vancouver Island, the Haida Gwaii area, Prince Rupert, Quesnel and Houston, and was even felt in Metro Vancouver and Alaska.
“It’s a good wake-up call for everyone to make sure they have an earthquake kit and a plan if an earthquake like this hits an area that they live,” said Ward.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the west coast of Canada, but there were no reports of major damage. Residents in parts of British Columbia were evacuated, but the province appeared to escape the biggest quake in Canada since 1949 largely unscathed.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the powerful temblor hit the Queen Charlotte Islands just after 8 p.m. local time Saturday at a depth of about 3 miles (5 kilometers) and was centered 96 miles (155 kilometers) south of Masset, British Columbia. It was felt across a wide area in British Columbia, both on its Pacific islands and on the mainland.
“It looks like the damage and the risk are at a very low level,” said Shirley Bond, British Columbia’s minister responsible for emergency management said. “We’re certainly grateful.”
The National Weather Service issued a tsunami warning for coastal areas of British Columbia, southern Alaska and Hawaii, but later canceled it for the first two and downgraded it to an advisory for Hawaii.
Gerard Fryer, a senior geologist with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, said the first waves hitting shore in Hawaii were smaller than expected.
Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie said early Sunday that the Aloha State was lucky to avoid more severe surges after the powerful earthquake struck off the coast of Canada. Abercrombie said beaches and harbors are still closed statewide.
“We’re very, very grateful that we can go home tonight counting our blessings,” Abercrombie said.
The weather service also canceled a tsunami advisory for Oregon, leaving northern California as the only spot in North America still under a tsunami advisory.
Dennis Sinnott of the Canadian Institute of Ocean Science said a 69-centimeter (27 inch) wave was recorded off Langara Island on the northeast tip of Haida Gwaii, formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands. The islands are home to about 5,000 people, many of them members of the Haida aboriginal group. Another 55 centimeter (21 inch) wave hit Winter Harbour on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island.
“It appears to be settling down,” he said. “It does not mean we won’t get another small wave coming through.”
Canada’s largest earthquake since 1700 was an 8.1 magnitude quake on August 22, 1949 off the coast of British Columbia, according to the Canadian government’s Natural Resources website. It occurred on the Queen Charlotte Fault in what the department called Canada’s equivalent of the San Andreas Fault — the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates that runs underwater along the west coast of the Haida Gwaii.
In 1970 a 7.4 magnitude quake struck south of the Haida Gwaii.
The USGS said the temblor shook the waters around British Columbia and was followed by a 5.8 magnitude aftershock after several minutes. Several other aftershocks were reported.
The quake struck 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Sandspit, British Columbia, on the Haida Gwaii archipelago. People in coastal areas were advised to move to higher ground.
Urs Thomas, operator of the Golden Spruce hotel in Port Clements said there was no warning before everything began moving inside and outside the hotel. He said it lasted about three minutes.
“It was a pretty good shock,” Thomas, 59, said. “I looked at my boat outside. It was rocking. Everything was moving. My truck was moving.”
After the initial jolt, Thomas began to check the hotel.
“The fixtures and everything were still swinging,” he said. “I had some picture frames coming down.”
Lenore Lawrence, a resident of Queen Charlotte City on the Haida Gwaii, said the quake was “definitely scary,” adding she wondered if “this could be the big one.” She said the shaking lasted more than a minute. While several things fell off her mantle and broke, she said damage in her home was minimal.
Many on the B.C. mainland said the same.
“I was sitting at my desk on my computer and everything just started to move. It was maybe 20 seconds,” said Joan Girbav, manager of Pacific Inn in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. “It’s very scary. I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never felt that.”
Residents rushed out of their homes in Tofino, British Columbia on Vancouver Island when the tsunami sirens sounded, but they were allowed to return about two hours after the quake.
In Hawaii, the tsunami warning spurred residents to stock up on essentials at gas stations and grocery stores and sent tourists in beachside hotels to higher floors in their buildings. Bus service into Waikiki was cut off an hour before the first waves, and police in downtown Honolulu shut down a Halloween block party. In Kauai, three schools used as evacuation centers quickly filled to capacity.
Fryer said the largest wave in the first 45 minutes of the tsunami was measured in Maui at more than 5 feet (1.5 meters), about 2 feet (60 centimeters) higher than normal sea levels. No major damage was reported.
In Alaska, the wave or surge was recorded at 4 inches (10 centimeters), much smaller than forecast, said Jeremy Zidek, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. The quake was felt in Craig and other southeast Alaska communities, but Zidek said there were no immediate reports of damage.
Cars are seen on Ala Wai Blvd. in Honolulu’s Waikiki in Hawaii on Saturday before the arrival of the first tsunami waves.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: the largest wave was about 2.5 feet above ambient sea level
NEW: Tsunami advisory lifted
Hawaii evacuations are lifted
The tsunami was caused by a magnitude 7.7 earthquake in western Canada
(CNN) — A tsunami warning for Hawaii, triggered by a powerful earthquake in Canada, proved nothing more than a pre-Halloween scare for thousands of people this weekend.
“The tourists are doing their best Chicken Little impressions,” one CNN iReporter in West Maui, Hawaii, wrote early Sunday.
Sirens announced the tsunami warning across Hawaii on Saturday night, as thousands of revelers packed streets in Honolulu for the annual Hallowbaloo festival and many others in costumes headed to Halloween parties.
Restaurants, clubs and the festival immediately shut down and the parties turned into bumper-to-bumper traffic jams as residents headed to higher ground.
Visions of the devastating quake and tsunami that killed thousands in Japan in March 2011 fueled the fright, but the waves proved to be smaller and less powerful than feared.
While the warning said waves could surge between 3 and 6 feet, the largest wave, measured in Kahului on the island of Maui, was about 2.5 feet above ambient sea level, according to Gerard Fryer, senior geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
The evacuation orders for coastal residents and the tsunami warning were canceled by 1 a.m. in Hawaii (7 a.m. ET) and a tsunami advisory was put in its place. That advisory was lifted three hours later.
Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle said early Sunday that people who had evacuated could return to their homes. CNN affiliate Hawaii News Now reported that was also the case for coastal residents in various parts of the state.
Earlier, local television showed images of bumper-to-bumper traffic on roads leading from the coast to higher ground. About 80,000 people live in evacuation zones on the island of Oahu, where Honolulu is located.
Even Hawaiians accustomed to tsunami warnings spared no effort in bracing for the worst.
Honolulu resident Victoria Shioi filled her bathtub with water, set her refrigerator to the coldest setting and gathered candles in case of water or power outages.
“Also backed up my computer and put the external (hard drive) in the waterproof safe,” Shioi said.
The tsunami was spawned by a sizable earthquake in western British Columbia, prompting a local tsunami warning.
“A (magnitude) 7.7 is a big, hefty earthquake — not something you can ignore,” Fryer said. “It definitely would have done some damage if it had been under a city.”
Instead, the quake struck about 139 kilometers (86 miles) south of Masset on British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands. No major damage was reported.
The Alaska Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for western British Columbia from Vancouver to the southern panhandle of Alaska.
Canadians as far away as Prince Rupert, on mainland British Columbia, felt the quake.
Tanya Simonds said she felt as if her house was “sliding back and forth on mud,” but didn’t see any damage from the tremor.
Shawn Martin was at a movie theater when the quake struck.
“It just felt like the seats were moving. It felt like someone was kicking your seat,” he said.
Martin said more than hundred cars headed toward a popular intersection in the city known for its higher ground.
Thousands of miles across the Pacific, residents in Hawaii did the same.
CNN’s Joe Sutton, Jake Carpenter, Chandler Friedman and Maggie Schneider contributed to this report.
MANILA, Philippines – Eight earthquakes, many of which occurred within an hour of each other, were recorded east of Burgos town in Surigao del Norte on Sunday, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said.
A 4.1-magnitude tremor which has a depth of 21 kilometers was felt in the eastern part of Burgos at 6:20 a.m.
At 9:43 a.m., a 4.8-magnitue quake was recorded 137 km east of Burgos at a 62-km depth.
The third earthquake, felt at 9:53 a.m., measured 5.3 and rattled the eastern part of Burgos.
At 10:35 a.m., a 4.5-magnitude quake hit Burgos for the fourth time. It was plotted 118 km east of Burgos with a depth of 71 km.
The fifth tremor, measured 5.5 and located 113 km east of Burgos with a depth of 85 km, occurred at 10:43 a.m.
At 11:04 a.m., a 4.9-magnitude shake was recorded 117 km east of Burgos with a depth of 125 km.
A small earthquake measuring 3.5 magnitude struck at 11:37 a.m. It was located 116 km east of the town with a depth of 62 km.
The eighth earthquake happened at 2:15 p.m. and it measured 4.2-magnitude. It was located 57 km of Burgos and has a depth of 7 km.
Eugene Tanner/AP Visitors and Oahu residents watch the ocean water surge in and out of the Ala Wai Harbor carrying various debris during a tsunami Saturday in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Petti Fong and Graham Slaughter
Staff Reporters
VANCOUVER—The second largest earthquake in Canadian history was still rattling nerves Sunday, with aftershocks off the northern coast of British Columbia.
On Saturday night, a massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit about 30 kilometres north of Sandspit, B.C., in the Haida Gwaii islands shortly after 8 p.m. local time, sending tremors north through the island chain and south as far as Metro Vancouver.
It was the largest earthquake to be felt in Canada since an 8.1-magnitude quake in the same region back in 1949.
A surprisingly strong 6.4-magnitude aftershock in the same area shook residents again Sunday afternoon around 2 p.m.
Earthquake expert Brent Ward from Simon Fraser University said he expects aftershocks for days ahead, but generally in the 4- to 5-magnitude range.
“We don’t really understand how to predict earthquakes enough to know if something like this could be an indicator of a larger earthquake in the same vicinity occurring in the future,” Ward said Sunday. “If we get another earthquake that’s greater than 7.7, it wouldn’t be an aftershock, it would be a new earthquake.”
Saturday’s massive quake also caused a sleepless night for a whole section of western North America, watching and waiting for a tsunami warning to pass.
Based on historical records, earthquakes in the area of Saturday evening’s rumblings don’t generally trigger tsunamis, Ward said. But he added that evacuations are a worth the effort because tsunami waves can sweep through coastal communities with devastating consequences.
Neil Goodwin, a fishing lodge manager from Sandspit, was in his living room Saturday night when the rumbling started.
“It was the kind of shaking that if you weren’t holding onto something, you’d be on the floor,” he said. “It wasn’t very violent for probably the first 10 seconds, and then it really amped up.”
As the power cut out, Goodwin, 35, used the flashlight on his cellphone to find his two dogs and escape his house. He didn’t have time to assess the damage or find his cat.
Goodwin drove to one of two hills designated as safety point in tsunami drills, where he stood with his neighbours and watched the waves grow in size and strength.
“Within 10 minutes, pretty much 90 per cent of everyone in town was in one of the two points,” he said.
In Queen Charlotte, Canadian Coast Guard Malcolm Dunderdale spent a sleepless night in the dark after the power cut out within seconds of the shaking, which he said lasted about 30 to 45 seconds.
After gathering his cellphone, mobile radios and general tsunami kits, plus blankets and pillows, Dunderdale said, there was nothing to do but wait.
The first tsunami reached the West Coast at Langara Island, part of Haida Gwaii, at 9:16 p.m., about an hour and a half after the earthquake struck. But the waves caused no damage.
The earthquake also triggered tsunami warnings in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii. The last of the tsunami advisories were lifted Sunday morning.
The biggest waves — about 1.5 metres high — appeared to hit Maui, the Associated Press reported. There were no immediate reports of damage, though one person died in a fatal crash near a road that was closed because of the threat near Oahu’s north shore.
While the East Coast is bracing for the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy, southern California is contending with a pair of small earthquakes which struck Sunday.
NBC reported that the tremors measured 3.9 on the Richter scale.
Buildings shook in downtown Los Angeles, but no damages or injuries were reported. UPI reported that the first quake hit at 12:47 a.m., beginning from a depth of 11 miles. Its epicenter was 66 miles north of San Diego.
The next one occurred at 8:24 a.m., with the epicenter five miles east of Santa Clarita, 24 miles north of Los Angeles.
California was struck by a 3.5 magnitude earthquake a week earlier. It occurred at 1:40 p.m. near the city of Blue Lake, which is over 200 miles east of Sacramento.
Sunday’s quake occurred three hours after a 7.7 magnitude tremor hit the west coast of Canada, which led to a brief tsunami warning in Hawaii.
The Los Angeles Times reported that no warnings were issued for California at that time.
An earthquake that registered 3.9 on the Richter Scale hit eastern Arkansas Monday morning, and was felt by several Memphis-area residents as well.
According to the US Geological Survey website, the tremor hit around 7:39 a.m.
The epicenter was about 6 miles from Parkin, Ark., and about 30 miles from Memphis.
Several Memphis residents were chattering almost immediately on social media about the several seconds of tremors that shook Midtown.
“About 8 minutes ago, felt about 8-10 seconds of tremors in midtown,” tweeted @JeffGinMEM around 7:50 a.m. Monday.
Former Jackson resident Jada Love posted on her Facebook, “Did anyone else in Midtown Memphis feel earthquake tremors…?”
Tiffany Renee Daniel responded, “I’m in Southaven and I swear I just felt something too I was just sitting here trying to explain it away.”
Love lives in a fourth-story apartment and said she could hear a low rumbling and felt her couch shake. She said her parents, who are in the Bartlett/Arlington area, did not feel anything.
But Kevin Thompson did at his home in the Rivercrest neighborhood in north Bartlett.
“My wife and I had been awake and talking for a while. We felt an initial boom-rumble, and then the bed was shaking a little. We concluded that it was the kids pounding on the floor upstairs, but we thought it was weird because we had never felt the bed shake like that before,” he said. “A few minutes later, we saw that some of our friends on Facebook talking about the earthquake. That’s when the shaking started to make more sense.”
That experience was similar to what was reported by many residents of the Memphis area.
“A little after 7:30 this morning I felt my house shake and heard a rumbling noise! I thought it was my imagination! Felt better when I heard it really was an earthquake,” said Stacey Alpert of Cordova.
Kevin O’Brien lives just south of Olive Branch. When he felt the tremors Monday morning, at first he thought his cat was somehow shaking the couch.
“It seemed a bit too strong a shake for our smallish cat and my suspicion quickly shifted to earthquake when I saw the Halloween decoration hanging from the dinette light fixture swinging,” he said. “Still, I looked outdoors to confirm that the cat had not snuck into the house.”
VIJAYAWADA: Panic spread across several villages in five districts in the state due to mild tremors on Monday. People ran out of their houses when the earth shook for a few seconds. Though no casualties were reported from any of the districts, there was panic in many places in Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam, Nalgonda, and Khammam.
There were reports of tremors even at Hayathnagar in Rangareddy district around the same time. The earth quake monitoring centre at Vijayawada termed the incident as ‘very minor’ and said there was nothing to worry about. “It’s common to experience such tremors when the rocky layers of earth make adjustments within themselves,” said RDO S Venkata Rao.
The earthquake swarm in the Tjörnes Fracture Zone north off Iceland continues into its 10th day. After a decline in intensity during 25-28 Oct, the frequency of quakes has again picked up. There are often more than 100 quakes a day including some above magnitude 3. The Icelandic Met Office maintains a warning for a possible larger quake in the area.
Access to one of Costa Rica’s most popular national parks remains open to tourists.
Experts from the National Seismological Network are keeping the volcano under surveillance. Courtesy of RSN
The Poas Volcano early Sunday awoke residents of the province of Alajuela with a strong rumble.
At about 1 a.m., the volcano’s crater ejected mud and ash more than 500 meters into the air. Ashes traveled hundreds of meters around the national park, rangers reported.
Although the volcano is frequently active, this kind of strong explosion has not been recorded since 2006. Experts said the activity was normal, but they will continue monitoring the volcano.
Poás Volcano National Park will remain open to tourists while experts determine if there is any risk to visitors.
http://www.euronews.com/ “C’est l’hiver avant l’heure;” or ‘it is winter before it should be’, was one local person’s reaction to heavy snow falls which have hit eastern parts of France.
The cold snap brought power cuts with up to 50,000 households in the Isere region in the Alps deprived of electricity.
Authorities have issued an “Orange” warning, the second highest alert, and rescue services have been fully mobilised.
Up to 50 centimetres of snow fell in some parts making driving hazardous. An icy wind and fresh falls of snow on top of the ice only added to the dangerous conditions.
Many drivers were forced to abandon their cars while emergency services were called to clear trees from roads felled in the high winds, with gusts blowing up to 130 kilometres per hour recorded in one area.
Parts of the south of France were the worst hit by the high winds where on the riviera two people have been reported missing.
A search has been mounted for a 12-year-old boy on the island of Porquerolles. Emergency services say his bike has been found. A 26-year-old windsurfer is also missing.
In the port of Marseille the ferry Napoleon Bonaparte was damaged when strong winds broke the ship’s moorings.
The hull smashed against the dock flooding two of its watertight compartments.
Beijing — China’s central and eastern regions will experience temperature drops in coming days, while the southern parts will receive moderate to heavy rain, the national meteorological watchdog forecast Sunday.
Strong wind will make temperatures in northeastern regions fall by six to ten degrees Celsius on Sunday. A blast of cold air is forecast to sweep across the central and eastern parts from Monday, the National Meteorological Center said on its website.
The center also forecast that fog will shroud parts of Hubei, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces on Sunday morning, reducing visibility to less than 1,000 meters.
Over the next three days, parts of South China will see moderate to heavy rain, and some regions may experience torrential rain, the center said.
Son-Tinh, the 23rd tropical storm of the year, strengthened to a super-typhoon on Saturday night and was located 260 km southeast of Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa at 5 a.m. Sunday.
Son-Tinh is expected to move northwestward at a speed of 10 to 15 km per hour and make landfall in Vietnam’s northern coastal regions on Sunday night, the center said.
Meteorologists predict heavy snowfall throughout the country and have issued a nationwide class 1 warning.
“There may be large quantities of snow,” explained Lisa Frost of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, SMHI.
“As it’s the first snow and it’s quite early in the season, we’re issuing the warning – especially as some people haven’t changed to their winter tyres yet.”
Throughout Monday, the Dalarna and Värmland counties have been slammed by a lengthy snow storm, which has left 10 cm (4 inches) of snow. SMHI forecast a further 10 cm before Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) is already fighting the blizzards.
The season’s lowest temperature was recorded on Sunday night with Nattavaara in far northern Sweden hitting -22.1C (-6F).
Winter appeared overnight in many parts of Germany on Saturday with unseasonal heavy snow fall and subzero temperatures hitting central and southern areas.
Meteorologists say this is the first time for decades that snow has fallen on low lying areas in October. More flurries are expected over the weekend.
As much as 17cm of snow fell overnight in Thuringen forest in central Germany – a suspected record for this time of year.
Heavy snow also fell on Bavaria, Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and Saarland, with further flurries expected on Saturday in Leipzig, Dresden and Munich, according to the DWD.
“This happens maybe once every 30 or 40 years,” meteorologist Christoph Hartmann of the German weather service (DWD) told Die Welt newspaper on Saturday, referring to the unusual snowfall in October.
The severe drop in temperature – by 20 degrees within a week – also occurs “very, very seldom,” he added.
With winter’s first onslaught, fallen trees blocked train lines between Leipzig and Munich, causing delays and diversions to the ICE high speed rail network.
A further 10-15 cm of snow is expected overnight in the Alps and in the Ore Mountains in Saxony, where DWD said temperatures could fall as low as minus ten.
Only twice before since records began has there been snow in October in all the nine provinces of Austria, on the 31 October 1941 as well as in the night of 23 and 24 October 2003.
Austrian weather expert Alexander Orlik from the central weather institute ZAMG said: “It is true the snow is very early this year and that is an indication that it will be a long hard winter, but not proof.”
The early snow caught many drivers unaware who had not yet changed over to winter tyres – causing problems on the roads. The legal deadline to have winter tyres is 1 November in Austria.
In Carinthia parts of the region were left without electricity as the snow fell as a result of heavy snow meaning trees toppled onto the lines .
Parts of West Virginia were digging out from up to three feet of snow dumped in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, a deluge that cut power to hundreds of thousands of residents and shut down main highways.
The thick blanket of snow at higher elevations across the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, including in parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania, also brought concerns that rivers and creeks in low-lying areas could flood later in the week as the snow melts, with temperatures expected to reach 60 degrees. Falling trees and storm-related traffic accidents claimed the lives of three people in Maryland, three in Pennsylvania and one in West Virginia, state officials said Tuesday.
Close to 300,000 West Virginia residents were without power Tuesday afternoon, as high winds and heavy snow snapped branches and downed power lines, and officials expected the number to rise. Outages at several utilities had left some areas without access to water, and officials were sending out trucks to deliver bottled water.
“West Virginia continues to be hard hit,” said Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, a Democrat. “Right now, my main focus is on life safety, power restoration and critical infrastructure.…We are doing everything we can to help the folks in need.”
More than 30 of West Virginia’s 55 counties had snow, with the heaviest snowfall at higher elevations, said Liz Sommerville, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Charleston, W.Va. Bowden, above 3,000 feet, recorded 24 inches by early Tuesday, compared with 16 inches in Beckley, elevation 2,300 feet, and 9 inches in the capital of Charleston, elevation 980 feet.
“Trees are coming down. I got a feeling that a lot of weaker structures are going to come down,” said Gary Berti, of Davis, W.Va., where 30 inches of snow had fallen by Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Berti, 54 years old, said all the stores along the main street of Davis were closed Tuesday and only pickup trucks with four-wheel drive were braving secondary roads. Restaurants without power were making food for rescue workers using gas stoves, he said: “They’re cooking everything they’ve got because they know they’re going to lose it.”
Snow was expected to keep falling on mountainous areas through Wednesday, and blizzard warnings remained in effect in more than a dozen counties Tuesday. At lower elevations, snow was expected to turn to rain by Tuesday night.
The West Virginia Department of Transportation reported accidents on three major highways in the state and said fallen trees and power lines were complicating efforts to clear roads. The agency urged residents to stay home. Marshall University canceled classes at various campuses around the state, and West Virginia State University closed for the day.
Western Maryland recorded two feet of snow, and blizzard warnings remained in effect Tuesday. While eastern areas of the state endured some flooding, officials were bracing for worse, said Ed McDonough, a spokesman for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency. More than 300,000 people in the state were without power Tuesday, with many outages in the Baltimore area. About 50 people were evacuated late Monday from the town of Crisfield, which sits on the Chesapeake Bay, after floodwaters spilled into homes.
In Pennsylvania, 1.25 million residents remained without power Tuesday. Gov. Tom Corbett warned that the central part of the state could see minor flooding, but far less than what storms last year brought to the region. The highest point in the state, Mount Davis, received 9 inches of snow, with several more inches expected. There is “nothing of major significance at this point in time that we have great concern about,” Gov. Corbett said at a midday news briefing.
Pennsylvania officials planned to have a shelter open in West Chester, Pa., to house 1,300 people from New Jersey, and another in East Stroudsburg, Pa., to aid 500 people displaced in New York. In addition, Pennsylvania officials were providing 35 ambulances and a large vehicle to transport people, as well as providing a rescue team requested by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to New Jersey.
—Jennifer Corbett Dooren contributed to this article.
Strong winds swept ash from the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century into the atmosphere Tuesday, creating a haze over Alaska’s Kodiak Island and prompting the National Weather Service to issue flight warnings for the area. Powerful northwest winds funneled through the mountains at the Katmai Bay, sending ash around 4,000 feet into the sky southeast toward Kodiak. Brian Hagenbuch, general meteorologist at the National Weather Service Anchorage office, was the first to spot the ash. “When the sun came up yesterday, I noticed it looked foggy on the Larson Bay camera,” one of many cameras set up by the FAA to monitor weather conditions. But as the sun continued to rise, he noted the fog looked smoggy and brown. Around 10 a.m., Hagenbuch checked the visible satellite and found a “milky, dome-shaped plume.” He then double-checked on infra-red equipment that is used specifically to spot ash even through cloud cover, which verified his findings. Having confirmed his suspicions, Hagenbuch put together a “Significant Meterological Event” warning, called a SIGMET, to alert pilots of the hazardous conditions in the area. Hagenbuch says that very strong winds “from time to time” will stir up the ash from Novarupta. The Novarupta volcanic eruption of June 6, 1912, occurred in what is now the Katmai National Park and Preserve. For three days, the volcano spewed 100 times more material than the Mount St. Helens eruption, shooting plumes 20 miles into the air and burying the valley downwind in over 500 feet of ash and volcanic rock. Four years later, when botanist Robert Griggs visited the valley, steam still poured from vents across the valley, prompting the crew to name it The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. Hagenbuch will update, and possibly cancel, the SIGMET on the National Weather Service’s website Wednesday. Hagenbuch notes that there is “much less” ash in the air than Tuesday.
Washington – One crew member has died and the captain is missing in high seas and raging winds after the Canadian-built replica of HMS Bounty was abandoned and sank Monday morning.
U.S. Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopters rescued 14 others from life rafts in a dramatic dawn rescue about 150 kilometres off Cape Hatteras, N.C.
As the crew abandoned the sinking ship, struggling to get into life rafts before dawn, three were tossed into the sea by waves sweeping over the stricken vessel. “One of those managed to get to a raft, but not the other two,” U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Lieutenant-Commander Jamie Frederick told The Globe and Mail at 13:30 pm.
The dead crew member, 42-year-old Claudene Christian, was found unresponsive in the water on Monday evening. The Coast Guard said she was taken to a hospital in Elizabeth City, where she was later pronounced dead.
Rescuers continued to search for the missing captain of HMS Bounty, 63-year-old Robin Walbridge.
The Coast Guard says Captain Walbridge and Ms. Christian were able to put on survival suits designed to keep them afloat and protect them from chilly waters for 15 hours.
Helicopters were used in the search and two Coast Guard cutters have also gone out to sea to help search.
“We’re throwing all the assets we have out there so that we can keep searching for these folks,” Cdmr Frederick said.
Huge crop losses in southern Haiti raise famine worries
Flooding raises specter of cholera
Crop losses in Cuba, Jamaica as well
Port-au-Prince – As Hurricane Sandy barreled toward the U.S. East Coast on Monday, the full extent of the storm’s havoc on Haiti was just beginning to emerge.
Extensive damage to crops throughout the southern third of the country, as well as the high potential for a spike in cases of cholera and other water-borne diseases, could mean Haiti will see the deadliest effects of Sandy in the coming days and weeks.
Haiti reported the highest death toll in the Caribbean, as swollen rivers and landslides claimed at least 52 lives, according to the country’s Civil Protection office. More than three days of constant rain left roads and bridges heavily damaged, cutting off access to several towns and a key border crossing with the Dominican Republic.
“The economy took a huge hit,” Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told Reuters. He also said Sandy’s impact was devastating, “even by international standards,” adding that Haiti was planning an appeal for emergency aid.
“Most of the agricultural crops that were left from Hurricane Isaac were destroyed during Sandy,” he said, “so food security will be an issue.”
Sandy also destroyed banana crops in eastern Jamaica as well as decimating the coffee crop in eastern Cuba.
But the widespread loss of crops and supplies in the south, both for commercial growers and subsistence farmers, is what has Haitian authorities and aid organizations had worried about most.
The past several months have seen a series of nationwide protests and general strikes over the rising cost of living. Even before Hurricane Sandy hit, residents complained that food prices were too high.
A rise in food prices in Haiti triggered violent demonstrations and political instability in April 2008. Jean Debalio Jean-Jacques, the Ministry of Agriculture’s director for the southern department, said he worried that the massive crop loss “could aggravate the situation.”
“The storm took everything away,” said Jean-Jacques. “Everything the peasants had in reserve – corn, tubers – all of it was devastated. Some people had already prepared their fields for winter crops and those were devastated.”
In Abricots on Haiti’s southwestern tip, the community was still recovering from the effects of 2010′s Hurricane Tomas and a recent dry spell when Sandy hit.
“We’ll have famine in the coming days,” said Abricots Mayor Kechner Toussaint. “It’s an agricultural disaster.”
The main staples of the local diet, bananas and breadfruit, were ripped out by winds and ruined by heavy rains.
In the southwestern Grand Anse department, a boat that regularly comes from Port-au-Prince to deliver supplies and pick up produce to sell in the capital had not come in more than a week because of the storm. The cost of basic things, like fuel, had already jumped.
In Camp-Perrin, a mountainous region in the southwest peninsula where Sandy’s first fatality was recorded after a woman tried to cross a swollen river, coffee planters lamented the loss of a harvest they were weeks away from collecting.
“Coffee is the bank account of the peasants,” said Maurice Jean-Louis, a planter and head of a coffee growers’ cooperative in Camp-Perrin. Rain flooded many storage areas as well, soaking coffee beans that were set aside for export. He called the damage “incalculable.”
Cholera in the Capital
In the capital, Port-au-Prince, Sandy destroyed concrete homes and tent camps alike, where 370,000 victims of the 2010 earthquake are still living. Haitian authorities said 18,000 families were left homeless in the disaster.
Aid organizations began reporting a sharp rise in suspected cholera cases in several departments, with at least 86 new cases alone coming from Port-au-Prince’s earthquake survivor camps, according to Dr. Juan Carlos Gustavo Alonso of the Pan American Health Organization. Many communities are still cut off and only accessible by helicopter, he said, so the broader rise in cholera was “still too early to tell.”
Since October 2010, a cholera outbreak has sickened almost 600,000 people and killed more than 7,400 in Haiti.
Both the Haitian state and international aid organizations distributed food, water and other items to affected camps and communities throughout the weekend, including personal distributions by President Michel Martelly.
“These stocks are running dangerously low,” said George Ngwa, spokesman for OCHA, a humanitarian coordinating body in Haiti. “After Tropical Storm Isaac in August, these stocks have not been replenished. What we’re doing is scraping the bottom.”
Boats sit in the Beilun River, which separates China and Vietnam, on Tuesday, October 30. Tropical Storm Son-Tinh was moving northeast along the northern Vietnamese coast on Monday after tearing the roofs off hundreds of houses and breaching flood defenses overnight, the state-run Vietnam News Agency reported.
A Chinese soldier hands over a Vietnamese baby he rescued from the flood to his mother at a waterlogged market near the China-Vietnam on Monday.
A man stands on a flooded road in Sanya, China, on Sunday, October 28.
An uprooted tree crushes a car in China on Sunday.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
More than a thousand rescue workers have been deployed in Vietnam
Helicopters are on standby to search for an oil rig adrift from its towboats
Tropical Storm Son-Tinh had already killed at least 27 people in the Philippines
Hong Kong (CNN) — As Hurricane Sandy lashes the East Coast of the United States with wind and rain, Southeast Asia is dealing with the trail of death and damage from a powerful storm that has killed at least 30 people in the region over the past few days.
Tropical Storm Son-Tinh was moving northeast along the northern Vietnamese coast on Monday after tearing the roofs off hundreds of houses and breaching flood defenses overnight, the state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.
Son-Tinh was at typhoon level when it thumped into northern Vietnam late Sunday with winds as strong as 133 kilometers per hour (83 mph). It left three people dead and two injured, according to an initial estimate from the Office of the National Search and Rescue Committee reported by (VNA).
More than a 1,300 rescue workers and soldiers have been deployed to work with local authorities on search and rescue efforts in the aftermath of the storm, VNA said.
Helicopters were on standby for a search and rescue mission for an oil rig with 35 people on board that became disconnected from its towboats miles out at sea amid strong waves generated by the storm, according to VNA.
And five people were missing Sunday after winds from Son-Tinh sank an engineering vessel near a cargo terminal in Sanya, a city on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, China’s state-run news agency Xinhua reported.
Son-Tinh is expected to gradually weaken over the course of Monday, regional weather agencies said. At least 260,000 people in Vietnam had been relocated to safer areas as it approached Sunday.
The storm had already killed 27 people when it swept across the central Philippines during the second half of last week, causing flash floods and landslides, according to the Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. Nine people remain missing, the council said Monday.
East Asia is buffeted for several months a year by heavy storms that roll in from the western Pacific Ocean. In August, a big typhoon, named Bolaven, killed more than 60 people on the Korean peninsula.
The mammoth and merciless storm made landfall near Atlantic City around 8 p.m., with maximum sustained winds of about 80 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said. That was shortly after the center had reclassified the storm as a post-tropical cyclone, a scientific renaming that had no bearing on the powerful winds, driving rains and life-threatening storm surge expected to accompany its push onto land.
The storm had unexpectedly picked up speed as it roared over the Atlantic Ocean on a slate-gray day and went on to paralyze life for millions of people in more than a half-dozen states, with extensive evacuations that turned shorefront neighborhoods into ghost towns. Even the superintendent of the Statue of Liberty left to ride out the storm at his mother’s house in New Jersey; he said the statue itself was “high and dry,” but his house in the shadow of the torch was not.
The wind-driven rain lashed sea walls and protective barriers in places like Atlantic City, where the Boardwalk was damaged as water forced its way inland. Foam was spitting, and the sand gave in to the waves along the beach at Sandy Hook, N.J., at the entrance to New York Harbor. Water was thigh-high on the streets in Sea Bright, N.J., a three-mile sand-sliver of a town where the ocean joined the Shrewsbury River.
“It’s the worst I’ve seen,” said David Arnold, watching the storm from his longtime home in Long Branch, N.J. “The ocean is in the road, there are trees down everywhere. I’ve never seen it this bad.”
In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office said late Monday night that at least five deaths in the state were attributable to the storm. At least three of those involved falling trees. About 7 p.m., a tree fell on a house in Queens, killing a 30-year-old man, the city police said. About the same time, two boys, ages 11 and 13, were killed in North Salem in Westchester County, when a tree fell on the house they were in, according to the State Police.
In Morris County, N.J., a man and a woman were killed when a tree fell on their car Monday evening, The Associated Press reported.
In Manhattan, NYU Langone Medical Center’s backup power system failed Monday evening, forcing the evacuation of patients to other facilities.
In a Queens beach community, nearly 200 firefighters were battling a huge blaze early on Tuesday morning that tore through more than 50 tightly-packed homes in an area where heavy flooding slowed responders.
Earlier, a construction crane atop one of the tallest buildings in the city came loose and dangled 80 stories over West 57th Street, across the street from Carnegie Hall.
Soon power was going out and water was rushing in. Waves topped the sea wall in the financial district in Manhattan, sending cars floating downstream. West Street, along the western edge of Lower Manhattan, looked like a river. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, known officially as the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel in memory of a former governor, flooded “from end to end,” the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said, hours after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York ordered it closed to traffic.Officials said water also seeped into seven subway tunnels under the East River.
Joseph J. Lhota, the transit authority chairman, called the storm the most devastating disaster in the 108-year history of the subway system.
“We could be fishing out our windows tomorrow,” said Garnett Wilcher, a barber who lives in the Hammells Houses, a block from the ocean in the Rockaways in Queens. Still, he said he felt safe at home. Pointing to neighboring apartment houses in the city-run housing project, he said, “We got these buildings for jetties.”
Hurricane-force winds extended up to 175 miles from the center of the storm; tropical-storm-force winds spread out 485 miles from the center. Forecasters said tropical-storm-force winds could stretch all the way north to Canada and all the way west to the Great Lakes. Snow was expected in some states.
Businesses and schools were closed; roads, bridges and tunnels were closed; and more than 13,000 airline flights were canceled. Even the Erie Canal was shut down.
Subways were shut down from Boston to Washington, as were Amtrak and the commuter rail lines. About 1,000 flights were canceled at each of the three major airports in the New York City area. Philadelphia International Airport had 1,200 canceled flights, according to FlightAware, a data provider in Houston. And late Monday night, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said cabs had been instructed to get off New York City roads.
A replica of the H.M.S. Bounty, a tall ship built for the 1962 movie “Mutiny on the Bounty” starring Marlon Brando and used in the recent “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, sank off the North Carolina coast. The Coast Guard said the 180-foot three-masted ship went down near the Outer Banks after being battered by 18-foot-high seas and thrashed by 40-m.p.h. winds. The body of one crew member, Claudene Christian, 42, was recovered. Another crew member remained missing.
Delaware banned cars and trucks from state roadways for other than “essential personnel.”
“The most important thing right now is for people to use common sense,” Gov. Jack Markell said. “We didn’t want people out on the road going to work and not being able to get home again.”
By early evening, the storm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes, stores and office buildings. Consolidated Edison said that as of 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, 634,000 customers in New York City and Westchester County were without power. Con Edison, fearing damage to its electrical equipment, shut down power pre-emptively in sections of Lower Manhattan on Monday evening, and then, at 8:30 p.m., an unplanned failure, probably caused by flooding in substations, knocked out power to most of Manhattan below Midtown, about 250,000 customers. Later, an explosion at a Con Ed substation on East 14th Street knocked out power to another 250,000 customers.
In New Jersey, more than two million customers were without power as of 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, and in Connecticut nearly 500,000.
President Obama, who returned to the White House and met with top advisers, said Monday that the storm would disrupt the rhythms of daily life in the states it hit. “Transportation is going to be tied up for a long time,” he said, adding that besides flooding, there would probably be widespread power failures. He said utility companies had lined up crews to begin making repairs. But he cautioned that it could be slow going.
“The fact is, a lot of these emergency crews are not going to get into position to start restoring power until some of these winds die down,” the president said. He added, “That may take several days.”
Forecasters attributed the power of the storm to a convergence of weather systems. As the hurricane swirled north in the Atlantic and then pivoted toward land, a wintry storm was heading toward it from the west, and cold air was blowing south from the Arctic. The hurricane left more than 60 people dead in the Caribbean before it began crawling toward the Northeast.
“The days ahead are going to be very difficult, Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland said. “There will be people who die and are killed in this storm,” he said.
Alex Sosnowski, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather, said potentially damaging winds would continue on Tuesday from Illinois to the Carolinas — and as far north as Maine — as the storm barreled toward the eastern Great Lakes.
Mr. Cuomo, who ordered many of the most heavily used bridges and tunnels in New York City closed, warned that the surge from Hurricane Sandy could go two feet higher than that associated with Tropical Storm Irene last year. The PATH system, buses and the Staten Island Ferry system were also suspended.
Mr. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has said he expected to restore at least some service about 12 hours after the storm ended. But possible flooding within the subway system could prevent a full-scale reopening.
The storm headed toward land with weather that was episodic: a strong gust of wind one minute, then mist. More wind. Thin sheets of rain dancing down the street. Then, for a moment, nothing. The sky lightened. Then another blast of rain. Then more wind.
The day brought a giddiness to schoolchildren who had the day off and to grown-ups who were fascinated by the rough, rising water. Some went surfing, discounting the danger. Felquin Piedra, 38, rode his Jet Ski from Queens to Lower Manhattan.
“I love the waves,” Mr. Piedra yelled from New York Harbor. “The water is warm. I’ve jumped in several times.”
But even when landfall was still hours away, there was no holding back the advance guard of the storm — fast-moving bands of rain and punishing winds.
It added up to devastation. Driving through places like Pompton Plains, N.J., late Monday afternoon was like an X-Games contest for drivers. They had to do tree-limb slaloms on side streets and gunned their engines anxiously as they passed wind funnels of leaves swirling on highways.
On City Island, off the Bronx mainland, Cheryl Brinker sprayed “Sandy Stay Away” on her boarded-up art studio, expanding a collage she started during Tropical Storm Irene last year. But by midafternoon, nearby Ditmars Street was under as much as five feet of water and Steve Van Wickler said the water had cracked the cement in his cellar. “It’s like a little river running in my basement,” he said. “There are cracks and leaks everywhere.”
In some places, caravans of power-company trucks traveled largely empty roads; Public Service Electric and Gas said that 600 line workers and 526 tree workers had arrived from across the country, but could not start the repairs and cleanup until the wind had subsided, perhaps not until Wednesday.
They will see a landscape that, in many places, was remade by the storm. In Montauk, at the end of Long Island, a 50-seat restaurant broke in half. Half of the building floated away and broke into pieces on the beach.
The 110-foot-tall lighthouse at Montauk Point — the oldest in the state, opened in 1796 — shuddered in the storm despite walls that are six feet thick at the base. The lighthouse keeper, Marge Winski, said she had never felt anything like that in 26 years on the job.
“I went up in tower and it was vibrating, it was shaking,” she said. “I got out of it real quick. I’ve been here through hurricanes, and nor’easters, but nothing this bad.”
With at least 50 people dead, transit crippled in New York City and millions of people along the U.S. East Coast struggling without electricity, communities face a daunting challenge of repairing the damage wrought by superstorm Sandy.
In New York, where 18 people were killed, Mayor Michael Bloomberg surveyed the destruction in the hardest-hit neighbourhoods Tuesday. He said he saw homes so utterly destroyed only “chimneys and foundations” were left.
But despite the daunting challenge of recovery efforts, Bloomberg said “New Yorkers are resilient.”
About a third of New York’s fleet of taxis were operating Tuesday, bus service was partially restored, and the New York Stock Exchange was expected to reopen Wednesday.
U.S. President Barack Obama declared New York and Long Island a “major” disaster area.
The declaration means federal funding is now available to residents of the hardest-hit areas, who awoke to a tragic aftermath of the deadly storm that slammed ashore in New Jersey on Monday evening.
New York had seen a four-metre surge of seawater crash ashore overnight, inundating the city’s tunnels and electrical systems and causing massive damage to the city’s famed subway. The storm left New York with no running trains, a vacated business district and entire neighbourhoods under water.
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the subway system, which remains closed, had suffered the worst damage in its 108-year history.
As of midday Tuesday, Sandy’s sustained winds were already diminishing from the 130 km/h it was packing at landfall near Atlantic City, N.J. on Monday evening.
But forecasters warn the storm system will continue to affect a region stretching from the U.S. eastern seaboard north to Canada, and as far west as Wisconsin and Illinois, as it churns across Pennsylvania before veering into western New York state sometime Wednesday.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie gave a bleak update at a morning news conference Tuesday, saying seaside rail lines were washed away, and there was no safe place on the state’s barrier islands for him as large parts of the coast are still under water.
“We are in the midst of urban search and rescue. Our teams are moving as fast as they can,” Christie said. “The devastation on the Jersey Shore is some of the worst we’ve ever seen. The cost of the storm is incalculable at this point.”
The effects aren’t contained to America’s largest city. More than 7.4 million homes and businesses in an area that stretches from the Carolinas in the south to Ohio in the northeast are without power Tuesday. Tens of thousands were also without electricity in southern parts of Ontario and Quebec too, as Sandy carries its combination of rain and wind northwards.
In Canada, a Toronto woman was killed Monday evening after she was struck by a falling sign blown down in the powerful storm’s high winds.
Most of the Sandy-related wind warnings issued by Environment Canada have been called off however, except for the Sarnia region, areas along the St. Lawrence River in Quebec and Inverness County in Nova Scotia.
The storm was officially downgraded from hurricane status, but it came ashore packing a lot of energy due to its unusually low barometric pressure. Combined with a cold-weather system from the north, and the high tide of the full moon, the storm is forecast to continue wreaking havoc across a 1,300-kilometre region that’s home to 50 million people through Wednesday.
Forecasters are even warning as much as one metre of snow could fall in some states, some of which has already fallen in West Virginia and other higher ground inland.
Notable effects of post-tropical storm Sandy:
U.S. death toll so far is 50, including 18 people in New York, and numerous others killed in a total of seven states.
In Canada, one woman is dead after she was struck by debris from a wind-blown sign in the west-end of Toronto Monday evening.
Sandy had already been blamed for 69 deaths when it tore through the Caribbean.
Concerns during the peak of the storm prompted shutdowns at two nuclear plants in New York and New Jersey, as well as an alert at America’s oldest nuclear plant at Barneget Bay, N.J.
200 patients, including those on respirators and babies in intensive care, evacuated after New York University’s Tisch Hospital lost power.
Winds toppled a construction crane atop a 74-storey luxury high-rise in midtown Manhattan, forcing the evacuation of nearby buildings.
Fire destroyed at least 50 homes in the Breezy Point section of Queens.
Four unoccupied row houses in Baltimore collapsed in the storm.
Wind gusts of more than 100 km/h prompted the closure of the port in Portland, Maine.
Flooding in areas from Virginia to Atlantic City, where the storm washed away a 15-metre section of the famous boardwalk. New York City’s now-flooded subway remains shut.
The Holland Tunnel connecting New York to New Jersey is closed, as is a tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is also barricaded due to high winds.
More than 12,000 commercial flights are cancelled, with more expected. New York’s LaGuardia, Newark Liberty and Kennedy airports are all closed.
One crew member of the Canadian-built HMS Bounty sunk in storm-battered seas off North Carolina was found and later pronounced dead. 14 others rescued alive, but the captain is still missing.
An estimated 360,000 residents of 30 Connecticut communities were under mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders.
While it could take days to determine the extent of the storm damage, early estimates peg the potential price tag anywhere between $10 billion and $20 billion, which could make it one of the costliest storms in U.S. history.
Ahead of Sandy making landfall Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama declared states of emergency in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
“Please listen to what your state and local officials are saying,” Obama said from the White House. “When they tell you to evacuate, you need to evacuate. Don’t delay, don’t pause, don’t question the instructions that are being given, because this is a powerful storm.”
On the U.S. presidential election front, both Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney suspended campaigning Monday, with just a week left before voting day.
The Hindu Onlookers gather to get a glimpse of ‘Pratibha Cauvery’ that ran aground near Elliots Beach on Wednesday. Photo: V. Ganesan
The Hindu Cyclone ‘Nilam’ hits the Mamallapuram beach, in Chennai on Wednesday. Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam
A bird’s eye view of Marina beach in Chennai on Wednesday. Nilam evoked fears of large-scale destruction among the people in coastal districts in north Tamil Nadu. Photo: PTI
The Hindu An aerial view of the cyclone Nilam ravaged Marina on Wednesday evening. Schools, colleges and other educational establishments have announced holiday for the third day on Thursday. Photo: S.R. Raghunathan
The Hindu A man takes cover from gusty winds at Anna Salai in Chennai on Wednesday. Photo: M. Vedhan
India Meteorological Department Image shows Cyclone Nilam as captured by Kalpana-1 satellite on Wednesday.
Storm makes landfall near Mamallapuram; rain claims four lives in Tamil Nadu
Cyclonic storm Nilam, which threatened to hit the Chennai coast, spared the city, but made landfall near Mamallapuram, about 60 km south of Chennai, on Wednesday evening.
Four persons were reported to have died during the day in different parts of the State, but a Revenue department official clarified that Kancheepuram district, where the storm crossed the coast between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., did not report even a single death.
Nilam evoked fears of large-scale destruction among the people in coastal districts in north Tamil Nadu.
The exact details about the landfall would be known on Thursday after an assessment by the Meteorological Department, according to Y.E.A. Raj, Deputy Director General of Meteorology.
Though many areas in the northern belt received heavy rainfall on Tuesday night, the intensity was not much during the day when Nilam made the last leg of its journey. According to a bulletin issued on the basis of observations at 8-30 a.m., the storm lay centred about 260 km south southeast of Chennai, and by 6 p.m, it made landfall.
At the time of crossing the coast, Chennai recorded the maximum wind speed of 75 km per hour and Kalpakkam 65 km per hour. Hereafter, it was expected to weaken rapidly after making northwestward movement.
A holiday has been declared for schools and colleges in all coastal districts, including Chennai, on Thursday.
Today
Tropical Storm
India
MultiStates, [States of Tamin Nadu and Andhra Pradesh]
A tropical storm slammed into southern India, bringing heavy rain and a storm surge flooding low-lying areas and displacing more than 100,000 people. Just before the storm made landfall Wednesday, an oil tanker with 37 crew ran aground off Chennai. One of its lifeboats capsized in the choppy waters, and one crewmember drowned, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Coast guard officers were searching for the lifeboat’s six other occupants. Andhra Pradesh state said two people died there when their homes collapsed due to heavy rain Wednesday night in Nellore and Chittoor districts, and PTI reported another death in Tamil Nadu state, a 46-year old man who slipped into the rough sea from a pier and drowned. Sri Lanka reported two deaths earlier from the cyclone. The storm from the Bay of Bengal had maximum winds of 75 kilometers (45 miles) per hour after landfall but was weakening. A storm surge of up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) was expected to flood low-lying coastal areas, the India Meteorological Department said. Heavy to very heavy rain was forecast for Thursday, and fishermen were asked to stay at shore. State authorities turned 282 schools into relief centers in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu. The city’s port halted cargo operations, officials said. Twenty-three ships were moved to safer areas. About 150,000 people were moved to shelters in Nellore, district official B. Sridhar said.
In Sri Lanka, thousands have been displaced due to heavy rain and strong winds. The nation’s Disaster Management Center said 4,627 people were displaced by flooding and 56 fled because of a landslide threat in the island’s central region. One woman died Tuesday after a tree branch fell on her, while another person was killed in flooding, the agency said. Floods also damaged about 1,000 houses, it said.
Winds from hurricane Sandy have seriously damaged a building in Manhattan as the centre of the storm heads towards land. Part of the facade of a four story building in the West Village collapsed at about 6.30pm, leaving rooms open to the elements but no one injured. Elsewhere parts of midtown Manhattan were evacuated when a crane on top of a skyscraper partially collapsed. The Fire Department of New York initially reported a “multi-dwelling building collapse” on Twitter, although pictures quickly emerged showing that the front wall of the top two floors of the building was missing, rather than the entire structure collapsing. Images showed a fire truck at the scene, with a writer from the Huffington Post reporting that firefighters had to enter the building to help people out. The fire department later said that no one had been hurt. “There are no injuries or people trapped at 92 8th Ave building collapse, which involved the facade of the structure,” it said in a tweet. “Firefighters went in and rescued the residents. Some residents said same thing happened to same building 20 years ago,” said Meg Robertson, a reporter at HuffPost Live. She posted several pictures of the scene on her Twitter account. The building, 92 8th Avenue, is located between 14th and 15th streets in Manhattan. The main threat to buildings in New York City had been expected to come from flooding, with a mandatory evacuation order in place in many places along Manhattan’s coastline. Earlier a crane on top of the One 57 building, which is under construction on west 57th street further north in Manhattan, appeared to come loose from its bearings in high winds. Pictures showed the crane hanging upside down from the top of the building, which is set to be luxury flats. Police and the fire department evacuated all buildings north and south of 57th street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, CNN reported. The Le Parker Meridien hotel on West 56th Street was also evacuated, according to reports, with guests being transferred to a different hotel. In New York bridges across the East River have been closed, including the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, with people warned to stay inside.
Today
Landslide
Canada
Province of British Columbia, Langley [7700 block of 264th Street]
City workers in Langley, B.C., are cleaning up after two mudslides stuck on Wednesday morning, forcing the evacuation of one home and the closure of 264th Street between 72nd and 84th avenues. Just after 5 a.m. PT, mud rushed down the side of a steep slope and crossed a rural stretch of the 7700 block of 264th Street, moving a cement barrier. The slide also covered the side of a home below the road. No one was injured and there was only minor damage to the house. About 100 metres of 264th Street has been closed for much of the morning. It’s not clear when the road might reopen. While officials were cleaning up the first slide, officials confirmed they were responding to reports of a second landslide in the municipality, this time at 252A Street and 72nd Avenue. The second slide was much smaller and did not affect any roads or homes, city officials said. City officials say small mudslides on the hills into Glen Valley are common this time of year. A rainfall warning is in effect in the area with between 10 and 20 millimetres expected to fall throughout the day.
LONGVIEW, Wash. (AP) — Oregon State University researchers have found traces of radioactive cesium from last year’s Japanese nuclear reactor disaster in West Coast albacore tuna.
The amount is far too small to harm people who eat the fish, the scientists said.
Scientists from the university and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration collected and tested fish caught off the West Coast before and after the March 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami that caused a nuclear reactor to release radioactive material, the Longview Daily News (http://bit.ly/QIcdV8) reported.
The team’s findings are in line with work by researchers in California, who announced in May that they had found traces of radioactive cesium in bluefin tuna caught off the southern coast.
“We’re still processing new fish, but so far the radiation we’re detecting is far below the level of concern for human safety,” said Delvan Neville, a graduate researcher with OSU’s Radiation Health Physics program and a co-investigator on the project.
Albacore tuna is a $41 million business in the Pacific Northwest, and fishermen from the region caught about 10,000 tons last year, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Washington fishermen accounted for about 53 percent of the haul, and the remainder came through Oregon docks.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration and NOAA have jointly stated they have “high confidence” in the safety of U.S. seafood products because the radiation levels are so low.
The OSU team said its findings could reveal information about where Pacific albacore tuna travel and how the ocean’s ecosystem can be linked to events thousands of miles away.
Oct 26 (Reuters) - U.S. electric companies from Maine to
Florida are preparing for heavy wind, rain and flooding that
could take down power lines and could close some East Coast
nuclear plants early next week when Hurricane Sandy comes
ashore.
There are more than a dozen nuclear plants near Hurricane
Sandy's path in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut, providing power to
millions of customers in the region.
The following lists the nuclear reactors and utilities in
Sandy's potential path.
Plant State Size Company
(MW)
Brunswick North Carolina 1,858 Duke
Surry Virginia 1,638 Dominion
North Anna Virginia 1,863 Dominion
Calvert Cliffs Maryland 1,705 Constellation
Salem New Jersey 2,332 PSEG
Hope Creek New Jersey 1,161 PSEG
Peach Bottom Pennsylvania 2,244 Exelon
Limerick Pennsylvania 2,264 Exelon
Three Mile Island Pennsylvania 805 Exelon
Susquehanna Pennsylavnia 2,450 PPL
Oyster Creek New Jersey 615 Exelon
Indian Point New York 2,063 Entergy
Millstone Connecticut 2,102 Dominion
Pilgrim Massachusetts 685 Entergy
Seabrook New Hampshire 1,247 NextEra
Vermont Yankee Vermont 620 Entergy
(Reporting By Scott DiSavino; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)
Nuclear reactors in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast are being monitored for potential impacts by Hurricane Sandy, a Category 1 storm that may strike anywhere from Delaware to southern New England.
“Because of the size of it, we could see an impact to coastal and inland plants,” Neil Sheehan, a spokesman based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said by phone. “We will station inspectors at the sites if we know they could be directly impacted.”
Men walk amid the destruction caused by hurricane Sandy east of Havana in Mayari, Cuba. Source: AFP/Getty Images
The NRC met earlier today to discuss the necessary precautions to take for the storm, Sheehan said. Plants must begin to shut if wind speeds exceed certain limits, he said.
As of 2 p.m. New York time, Sandy had winds of 75 miles (121 kilometers) per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was about 430 miles south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, moving north at 7 mph.
The current Hurricane Center track calls for the system to come ashore just south of Delaware Bay on Oct. 30.
Contingency Plans
Nuclear plants in the projected path of the hurricane include North Anna and Surry in Virginia, Calvert Cliffs in Maryland, Hope Creek and Salem in New Jersey, Indian Point in New York and Millstone in Connecticut. The NRC is considering enhancing inspector coverage of these reactors, Sheehan said in an e-mail today.
Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PEG) must shut all units at the Salem and Hope Creek plants two hours before the onset of hurricane-force winds greater than 74 mph, according to Sheehan. An “unusual event” would be declared if the winds are sustained for greater than 15 minutes or if the water level reaches 99.5 feet or higher, he said. Such an event is the lowest of four level of emergency used by the commission.
Salem Unit 2 is currently shut for refueling, while Unit 1 was operating at 83 percent of capacity today during maintenance on the circulating water system. Hope Creek ran at full power. The three units have a combined capacity of 3,365 megawatts.
“We are in phase one of our severe-weather plan,” Joe Delmar, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail responding to questions. “This includes inspecting, removing and securing outside areas for potential missiles, objects that could go airborne, and staging of emergency equipment and supplies.”
Millstone Reactor
Nuclear generation in the Northeastern region dropped 1.1 percent to 18,016 megawatts, with seven plants shut, an NRC report today showed.
Dominion Resources Inc.’s Millstone plant is monitoring Sandy’s progress and preparing to adjust staff as it comes closer, according to Ken Holt, a plant spokesman based in Richmond, Virginia. The plant must shut if winds reach 90 mph.
“We would shut down in advance of the storm if they were expected to be 90 miles per hour at the site,” Holt said by phone today. “Floods and high winds are a threat because they can knock off off-site power and we’d then need to activate emergency generators for power to put the plant to safe conditions.”
Today
Nuclear Event
USA
State of Minnesota, Red Wing [Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant]
Xcel Energy Inc. says its Prairie Island nuclear plant near Red Wing declared an “unusual event” after some security equipment failed. The Minneapolis-based utility says the event happened around 2:15 p.m. Wednesday and was declared over just before 6 p.m. Xcel says there was no release of radioactive material and that there is no danger to the public or plant employees. Plant officials made the declaration after some security equipment temporarily failed. The equipment has been restored, and plant officials are investigating the cause. The plant maintained security during the event. Xcel says it notified federal, state and local officials. The declaration is the lowest of four emergency classifications. Prairie Island’s Unit 2 continues to operate at full power. Unit 1 remains offline has part of a scheduled refueling outage.
The death toll of the deadly Marburg hemorrhagic fever in Uganda has risen to eight and nine other people have tested positive of the highly infectious diseases, a top ministry of health official said. Christine Ondoa, Minister of Health told reporters on Monday that the latest patient died on October 27 at an isolation ward at Rushoroza Health Centre, in the western Ugandan district of Kabale, the epicenter of the outbreak. The disease broke out on October 4 in Kabale. Five people have tested positive of the highly infectious viral hemorrhagic fever in Kabale, two others in the capital Kampala and another two in the western district of Ibanda. “To date, the death toll of both the probable and confirmed cases stands at eight. Since the onset of the outbreak, we have collected a total of 45 samples of which nine were confirmed positive,” said Ondoa. She said the ministry has established temporary isolation facilities in Kabale, Mbarara, Ibanda and Kampala to accommodate the suspected and confirmed cases. “We have assembled a team of experts to work in the newly established isolation facilities and they are expected in these districts today. We also plan to undertake infection control procedures in these facilities as safety measures for the workers and the admitted patients,” said Ondoa. A total of seven student nurses who attended to a Marburg patient at Ibanda Hospital and died on October 24 at Mbarara Regional Hospital have been quarantined. The ministry is also monitoring a total 436 people who had contact with the patients. “Those being monitored got into contact with either the dead or confirmed cases. The team continues to monitor them on a daily basis for possible signs and symptoms of this highly infectious disease until they have completed 21 days without showing any signs and symptoms,”Ondoa said.
Officials at San Quentin State Prison say the prison is on a medical lockdown after at least two inmates became sick with chickenpox. Prison spokesman Lt. Sam Robinson says the prison has been locked down since last Friday, with only employees being allowed to enter and leave the facility. He could not say when the lockdown would be lifted. Robinson says the last time there was a medical lockdown at the prison was in March of last year when at least four inmates became sick with chickenpox. The Centers for Disease Control describes chickenpox as a “very contagious disease” that spreads easily from infected people to others who have never had chickenpox or have never received the chickenpox vaccine. San Quentin, located north of San Francisco, is the oldest prison in California. It houses about 3,800 inmates.
Biohazard name:
Chicken Pox
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
A previously unknown disease which has claimed more than 30 lives in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region this month has been identified as yellow fever, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. Preparations for a mass vaccination campaign are now underway. The outbreak was first detected early this month when a number of people in the central and southern regions of Darfur became ill and eventually died. Sudanese media said the victims suffered from a number of symptoms, including diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding from both the mouth and nose. Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO), on Tuesday said it had been informed by Sudan’s Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) that the outbreak is being caused by yellow fever. Since the first week of October, a total of 84 suspected cases, including 32 deaths, have been reported in the districts of Azoom, Kass, Mershing, Nertiti, Nyala, Wadi Salih and Zalingei. “FMoH said that the immediate priority is to control the vector, reinforcing the disease surveillance system and raising public awareness on the prevention and control of this disease,” Jasarevic said. “Preparations for a mass vaccination campaign are underway to vaccinate the at risk population in Darfur.”According to Darfur radio station Dabanga, however, at least 37 people are believed to have died as a result of the disease while 125 others have been infected. The radio station quoted a resident as saying that local authorities were slow to react and did not immediately take necessary action to contain the outbreak. “FMoH, WHO, as well as health partners are working on ground to ensure timely containment of the outbreak,” Jasarevic added. There is no cure for yellow fever, which is an acute viral haemorrhagic disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes. Treatment is aimed at reducing the symptoms for the comfort of patients, and measures often taken include supportive care to treat dehydration and fever and blood transfusion if needed. “It is a preventable disease with symptoms and severity varying from case to case,” Jasarevic explained. “Protective measures like the use of bed nets, insect repellent and long clothing are considered the best methods to contain an outbreak. Vaccination is the single most important measure for preventing yellow fever.”
Biohazard name:
Yellow Fever
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
A magnetic piece of rock stirred up controversy last week, but scientists confirmed, and reconfirmed, that the mysterious object in Novato residents Lisa and Kurt Webberâs backyard was a meteorite. And to prove it, a second was discovered just miles from the Webbersâ home. Webber gave the meteorite to her neighbor Glenn Rivera as a birthday gift. He helped her analyze the chunk before calling scientists. The meteorite broke off from the meteor shower that blazed over the night sky at approximately 7:44 p.m. on Oct. 17. It also happened to be Riveraâs birthday. âAs a result, Glenn was asked by the scientific team to ride in the airship Eureka from Moffett Field on Friday,â said Leigh Blair, Riveraâs mother. âThey flew over Novato and all the way up to Lake Berryessa, following the calculated trajectory of the meteor, looking for signs of larger meteorites on the ground.â Peter Jenniskens, the meteor scientist at the Seti Institute, a nonprofit scientific and education organization that has projects sponsored by NASA and other foundations and research groups, at first dismissed the first rock because the surface appeared strange and weathered, unlike most meteorites. But everything changed when a second rock showed small specks of what seemed to be metal, when observed under a microscope. Brien Cook, a meteorite hunter and Sacramento resident, found the second rock in the Novato area, but too dismissed it as a meteorite until the two chunks were compared. After cutting it open and looking inside, he knew he had found an extraterrestrial treasure. Cook is offering one chip of his meteorite on eBay. It weighs 6.6 grams, and objects like it regularly sell for approximately $100 a gram, he said. Lisa Webber, a University of California San Francisco nurse, found the meteorite in her backyard on Oct. 20. She returned the piece to Jenniskens, and he will send samples of both rocks to a noted meteorite expert Professor Alan E. Rubin of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UCLA.
Two men were transported to the hospital Wednesday afternoon after a bees’ nest was disturbed when one of the men, an unidentified DirectTV employee, was working on a home in the 40000 block of W. Magnolia Road. “It was terrible,” Phoebe Lechuga, one of the home’s five residents, said. “They were flying everywhere.” Lechuga’s 33-year-old son, Resugio Furwilder, was also transported to the hospital. Furwilder went outside to help the DirectTV worker and was stung himself, Lechuga said. Her daughter, Vanessa Lechuga, 27, was also stung but was not taken to the hospital. Lechuga said at first the worker thought there were only a few bees and didn’t come inside after the first stings.
Biohazard name:
Bees Attack (Non-Fatal)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
New Jersey environmental officials say 336,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled after a storage tank was lifted and ruptured from the surge from superstorm Sandy. The Coast Guard says all the spilled oil is believed to be contained by booms put in the water. Officials said today the spill happened Monday night at the Motiva oil tank facility in Woodbridge. Coast Guard spokesman Les Tippets says a secondary tank caught most of the oil and that the liquid that escaped moved into the Arthur Kill, the waterway separating New Jersey from New York’s Staten Island. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Larry Ragonese says the company reported the spill and hired contractors to clean it up.
Three people from North Laurel, Maryland have been taken to the hospital Tuesday morning with carbon monoxide poisoning, caused by a generator running inside their house. Authorities reported that Howard County Fire crews and paramedics found a man and two women inside the home in Brevard Street after responding to a 911 call which was made by one of the women. The victims suffered elevated levels of carbon monoxide. According to a spokesman from the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services, the three were transported to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. The two females have been released on Tuesday morning but the male, who was in critical condition, remained in the hospital for further treatment. The spokesman confirmed that all three patients underwent therapy in the hyperbaric chamber at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center. The male patient is scheduled to receive another hyperbaric therapy. Police said the firefighters discovered a generator operating at the bottom of the stairs on the ground level of the residence. It was placed in a doorway leading to the garage, but the garage door was closed, restricting ventilation. Firefighters later confirmed that the amount of carbon monoxide inside the house was 30 times more than the normal level.
01.11.2012
HAZMAT
USA
State of Kentucky, Louisville [Near the Dixie Highway]
Emergency officials have evacuated a few dozen homes near a derailed train in southern Jefferson County over concerns of hazardous material leaks. The Paducah & Louisville Railway train derailed just after 6 a.m. EDT Monday near Dixie Highway. Emergency officials are asking residents within a 2 ½-mile radius of the scene to stay inside their homes until they are told they can leave. Beuchel Fire assistant chief Rick Harrison says the train has a “small leak” of butadiene, which is a chemical used in the manufacturing of rubber. No other leaks have been found. Tom Garrett, president of P&L Railway, says the train was on its way to Louisville from Paducah with a total of 57 cars. He says company officials have not yet been able to get to the scene because of safety concerns. Garrett says the two crew members on the train were not hurt. Officials say eight of the 40 cars on the train were off the track.
[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.]
Boats sit in the Beilun River, which separates China and Vietnam, on Tuesday, October 30. Tropical Storm Son-Tinh was moving northeast along the northern Vietnamese coast on Monday after tearing the roofs off hundreds of houses and breaching flood defenses overnight, the state-run Vietnam News Agency reported.
A Chinese soldier hands over a Vietnamese baby he rescued from the flood to his mother at a waterlogged market near the China-Vietnam on Monday.
A man stands on a flooded road in Sanya, China, on Sunday, October 28.
An uprooted tree crushes a car in China on Sunday.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
More than a thousand rescue workers have been deployed in Vietnam
Helicopters are on standby to search for an oil rig adrift from its towboats
Tropical Storm Son-Tinh had already killed at least 27 people in the Philippines
Hong Kong (CNN) — As Hurricane Sandy lashes the East Coast of the United States with wind and rain, Southeast Asia is dealing with the trail of death and damage from a powerful storm that has killed at least 30 people in the region over the past few days.
Tropical Storm Son-Tinh was moving northeast along the northern Vietnamese coast on Monday after tearing the roofs off hundreds of houses and breaching flood defenses overnight, the state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.
Son-Tinh was at typhoon level when it thumped into northern Vietnam late Sunday with winds as strong as 133 kilometers per hour (83 mph). It left three people dead and two injured, according to an initial estimate from the Office of the National Search and Rescue Committee reported by (VNA).
More than a 1,300 rescue workers and soldiers have been deployed to work with local authorities on search and rescue efforts in the aftermath of the storm, VNA said.
Helicopters were on standby for a search and rescue mission for an oil rig with 35 people on board that became disconnected from its towboats miles out at sea amid strong waves generated by the storm, according to VNA.
And five people were missing Sunday after winds from Son-Tinh sank an engineering vessel near a cargo terminal in Sanya, a city on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, China’s state-run news agency Xinhua reported.
Son-Tinh is expected to gradually weaken over the course of Monday, regional weather agencies said. At least 260,000 people in Vietnam had been relocated to safer areas as it approached Sunday.
The storm had already killed 27 people when it swept across the central Philippines during the second half of last week, causing flash floods and landslides, according to the Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. Nine people remain missing, the council said Monday.
East Asia is buffeted for several months a year by heavy storms that roll in from the western Pacific Ocean. In August, a big typhoon, named Bolaven, killed more than 60 people on the Korean peninsula.
An earthquake in Southern Maine reverberated all the way to the Boston metropolitan area at 7:12 p.m. Tuesday evening.
“Notice how it seemed to kind of ‘roll’ through, shaking momentarily but kind of coming in a wave,” New England Sports Network, based in Boston, reported of feeling the quake.
Registering at a 4.5 magnitude, the temblor was centered 3.7 miles Maine’s Lake Arrowhead, Reuters reported.
There were no reported injuries or damage.
Maine has experienced over 80 earthquakes since 1997, according to the state’s Bureau of Geology. The state’s most serious earthquake was in 1904. It registered as a 5.1 on the Richter scale, and was felt through most of New England and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – An earthquake that hit southern Maine Tuesday night rattled nearby New England states as far as Connecticut, including the Boston area, but caused no injuries or apparent damage.
The U.S. Geological Survey at first estimated the 7:12 p.m. quake as a 4.6 magnitude, but later downgraded that to 4.0. The epicenter, about 3 miles west of Hollis Center, Maine, is about 3 miles deep. That location is about 20 miles west of Portland.
About 10 miles away in Waterboro, about 20 customers and staff at Waterboro House of Pizza ran outside when they heard a loud bang and the building shook.
“It was loudest bang you ever heard in your life. We actually thought it was an explosion of some type,” said owner Jessica Hill. “The back door and door to the basement blew open.”
In the same town, employees at the Milk Room said towels and other items started falling off shelves.
“I heard a bang, and it felt like the building was just shaking it went on for three seconds and then it started shaking again,” said George Moutsos, an employee.
In nearby Saco, Sue Hadiaris said, “The whole house shook. It felt like a train was coming right through the house. It was very unnerving because you could feel the floor shaking. There was a queasy feeling.”
Afterward, Hadiaris called her 15-year-old niece in Falmouth to make sure she was safe. “She said, `We can cross that off our bucket list. We’ve lived through an earthquake,”‘ Hadiaris said.
Lynette Miller, a spokeswoman for the Maine Emergency Management Agency, said her dogs started barking several seconds before the quake. “It was several seconds of good shaking but nothing falling down,” Miller said from her home in Readfield, about 60 miles north of Portland.
The Seabrook Station nuclear plant, about 63 miles away in New Hampshire, declared an unusual event — the lowest of four emergency classifications, but said it was not affected. The plant has been offline for refueling.
“There has been no impact at all to the plant from the earthquake and our refueling maintenance activities have not been affected,” said Alan Griffith, spokesman for Next EnergyEra Seabrook Station.
Jim Van Dongen, public information officer for the New Hampshire Department of Safety said New Hampshire 911 got about 1,000 calls in the first hour after the quake, but they later dropped off. He said no major damage was reported.
Brief, but noticeable shaking was felt in downtown Boston and the surrounding area.
In Melrose, just north of Boston, Peter Ward said the shaking he felt seemed to last about four seconds. “It felt like a big gust of wind shaking the house. I don’t want to overstate it, but the glass did rattle a little,” he said.
Former Maine resident Victoria Brett, who also has lived in San Francisco, felt the quake in Northampton, Mass.
“At first, it felt like something slowly wiggling the outside walls of the house. Then the table and floor started vibrating. I looked around and the water in the glass flower vase looked like a wave pool. I knew right away it was an earthquake,” she said.
Earthquakes are rare in New England but they’re not unheard of. In 2006 there was a series of earthquakes around Maine’s Acadia National Park, including one with a magnitude of 4.2 that caused boulders to fall from ledges onto Acadia National Park’s loop road. One of the park’s trails was closed for three years because of damage from the quake.
The strongest earthquake recorded in Maine occurred in 1904 in the Eastport area, near the state’s eastern border with Canada, according the Weston Observatory at Boston College. With a magnitude estimated at 5.7 to 5.9, it damaged chimneys and brick walls and could be felt in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
East Coast quakes are rarely strong enough to be felt over a wide area. A quake of magnitude 5.8 on Aug. 23, 2011, was centered in Virginia and felt all along the coast, including in New York City and Boston. Experts say the region’s geology can make the effects felt in an area up to 10 times larger than quakes of similar size on the West Coast.
RENO, Nev. (KRNV & MyNews4.com) — Some rattling and rolling in the area has earthquake experts on alert. In the past week more than 100 small earthquakes have shaken the earth beneath Spanish Springs.
So far they’ve been too small to feel, but quake experts want you to know they’re happening. There’s no reason to panic – but it’s a good reminder to make sure you’re prepared.
“People can consider certain mitigation steps in case these earthquakes increase in intensity and there’s a larger one,” said Ken Smith, associate director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory.
Smith says most injuries from earthquakes are caused by falling or flying objects – and you don’t want to wait for a big quake to get ready.
“Secure your water heaters. Secure your valuables. Secure your book cases,” Smith said.
It’s not strange for a dozen quakes this size to happen in a week, but there have been at least 115 since October 8, and about 60 of those have been since Thursday.
“These things are totally unpredictable,” Smith said. “It could stop today, or it could keep going at a level of very small events that no one would feel.”
Or they could get stronger. so far they’re small – with the biggest two quakes shaking at magnitude one – but there’s potential for one that really rocks Reno.
“We have faults around here that are capable of magnitude seven type events,” Smith said.
So this week the Great Nevada Shakeout will teach people to drop, cover and hold-on just in case there’s a big quake. It’s Nevada’s largest earthquake drill and it’s this Thursday, October 18 at 10:18 am.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) says an earthquake occurred Wednesday evening in Western Nebraska. About 1330 miles southeast of Rapid City.
The 3.6 magnitude earthquake occurred at 11:21 pm at a depth of about4 miles , 18 miles northwest of Hyannis, Nebraska.
Although not as common as in some other states earthquakes do occur in Nebraska. The strongest occurred on November 15, 1877 with a magnitude of 5.1. Two shocks 45 minutes apart rocked most of Nebraska and portions of surrounding states , including South Dakota.
In this Oct. 15, 2009 file photo, children participate in the “Great California ShakeOut” earthquake drill at the Para Los Ninos Elementary School in Los Angeles. Millions in the United States and several countries are set to participate in an earthquake preparedness drill, dubbed the “Great ShakeOut,” Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012.
LOS ANGELES — Get ready to rumble. Millions in the United States and several countries are set to participate in an earthquake preparedness drill Thursday.
Dubbed the “Great ShakeOut,” homeowners, schoolchildren and office workers across the West and Southeast will practice dropping to the ground, covering their heads and holding on to something sturdy – a technique that experts say minimizes injuries during strong shaking. Residents in British Columbia, Italy, Puerto Rico and Guam also signed up for the exercise.
Organizers estimated some 14 million people, including 9.3 million in California, will participate. Newcomers include Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, where a magnitude-5.8 hit last year that was felt along the East Coast.
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Northeast Shaken by Quake
In Los Angeles, commuters at Union Station will be asked to duck and take cover. Subways and light-rail trains will slow down so that operators can visually inspect the tracks – a process that’s expected to take 15 minutes. In an actual quake, trains can be stopped. Transportation officials also planned to show the public tips to safely evacuate a train.
Southern California held the first safety drill in 2008 based on a fictional magnitude-7.8 event on the southern San Andreas Fault. The entire state participated the following year and the exercise has since spread around the world.
“It’s not looking at earthquakes as doom and gloom,” said organizer Mark Benthien. “It’s all about what we’re going to do as a community to be prepared so that when there’s an earthquake, we’ll get back on our feet and recover.”
Southern California has not experienced a seismic disaster since the 1994 Northridge quake, which killed 72 people and caused $25 billion in damage to the Los Angeles region.
Listado Terremotos últimos 10 días
List of Earthquakes For The Last 10 days
Terremotos de los últimos 10 días en las Islas Canarias de magnitud igual o superior a 1.5 o sentidos:
List of earthquakes for the last 10 days for the Canary Islands of magnitude equal to or greater than 1.5
La información de terremotos de magnitud inferior se puede obtener en Catálogo y boletines sísmicos. Information for earthquakes of lesser intensity can be obtained at Catálogo y boletines sísmicos.Esta información está sujeta a modificaciones como consecuencia de la continua revisión del análisis sísmico.This information is subject to modification as a consequence of continuous revision and analysis of seismic data.Event Date Time Lat. Long. Depth Mag. Location Info.
Chief of Police in Hvolsvöllur, a representative of the Icelandic Road Administration and geophysicist Magnús Tumi Guðmundsson will discuss at a meeting on Thursday whether the levees to the east of Vík, which lies across the Ring Road near the river Múlakvísl, must be raised to prove effective in case of a volcanic eruption in Katla.
Vík. Photo by Bernhild Vögel.
Geologist Ari Trausti Guðmundsson stated in an article in Morgunblaðið yesterday that it is important to raise the levees judging by the information available on the volume and depth of flooding from Katla, ruv.is reports.
The volcano lies underneath the Mýrdalsjökull icecap and a volcanic eruption is likely to cause a major glacier outburst.
The levees are the responsibility of the Icelandic Road Administration and according to a report conducted by Einar Hafliðason, a representative of the Road Administration, last spring there was no need to raise the levees given the conditions at hand.
The levees are now five meters high and 4,000-5,000 meters long.
Scientists are monitoring the volcano closely due to ongoing seismic activity.
An underwater volcanic eruption was detected Wednesday morning close to Minami-Iwoto island in the Pacific Ocean and an expert speculated that the eruption could form a permanent island. A coast guard vessel spotted a white plume of smoke rising from the sea about three miles north-northeast of the island. It was the first time since July 2005 that volcanic smoke had been detected in the area, which is located about 745 miles south of central Tokyo. According to an announcement by the 3rd Regional Coast Guard Headquarters of the Japan Coast Guard, based in Yokohama, the volcano spewed ash and smoke about 100 meters into the air, and the surrounding sea area changed to a yellowish-green color while other parts became a cloudy gray. According to the Meteorological Agency, the volcano, known as Fukutokuokanoba, has erupted seven times since 1904, when its activities were first recorded. On three occasions, land masses were formed, but all later sank below the waterline. Tokyo Institute of Technology Prof. Kenji Nogami, an expert in geoscience, said: “In the 1986 eruption, a new island appeared after lava accumulated. The island was washed away by waves, but seabed upheaval reduced the water depth to 22 meters in 1999. It’s possible that this (recent) volcanic activity could form a permanent island.”
The highest active volcano in Eurasia, Klyuchevskaya Sopka has started to erupt, officials with the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said. On the night of October 15, there was light seen over the summit of the volcano indicating a blowout of lava in its crater, Vesti.ru reports. Experts believe the release of ash to the height of 6 feet above sea level may start any moment. Lava flows on the slopes of the volcano are also expected. Yellow aviation color code has been assigned to the volcano to warn about the potential danger that the volcanic ash and gases may pose to aircraft engines. Nothing has been said about the possible threat to human settlements. The nearest settlement is 30 kilometers far from Klyuchevskaya Sopka. The last eruption of Klyuchevskaya Sopka took place from September 2009 to December 2010. In June this year, the giant began to wake up again.
disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only
Increasing drought conditions across the planet are part of a “new normal” which oddly presents new business opportunities, a new Bank of America Merrill Lynch report says.
The report comes just after insurer Munich Re’s findings that North America has borne the brunt of weather-related natural catastrophes, with 30,000 deaths and insured losses of $510 billion in the 1980-2011 period.
The ongoing drought is the worst in the United States since at least 1956, with 63 percent of the lower 48 states suffering drought conditions in August, says the BofA Merrill Lynch report, “Global Drought — Opportunities and Risks.”
While conditions are far from those in the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, drought conditions are the new normal, the report said.
Previous reports in a series focused on obesity, energy efficiency and safety and security.
“Food, water and energy security are increasingly bigger issues, and as governments, businesses and other players struggle to adapt to and mitigate drought conditions, there will be an evolving set of opportunities and risks for investors,” the bankers said in their findings.
For investors interested in the fight against drought and in promoting food, water and energy security, the financial group has introduced a screen that identifies liquid stocks exposed to global drought-related themes under the Bloomberg ticker MLEIARID.
The stocks included in the screen are those that it considers to be long-term solution providers in such areas as water, fertilizers, crop science, energy efficiency, second-generation biofuels and renewables.
“The severity of the global drought underscores the long-term challenges for national and global economies,” said Sarbjit Nahal, a co-author of the report.
“Food, water and energy security are increasingly bigger issues, and as governments, businesses and other players struggle to adapt to and mitigate drought conditions, there will be an evolving set of opportunities and risks for investors.”
The Munich Re report also cited conditions in which North American stakeholders could benefit by learning about the weather risks.
The study was prepared in order to support underwriters and Munich Re clients in North America, the world’s largest insurance and reinsurance market.
“The North American continent is exposed to every type of hazardous weather peril — tropical cyclone, thunderstorm, winter storm, tornado, wildfire, drought and flood. One reason for this is that there is no mountain range running east to west that separates hot from cold air,” said the report.
Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America, it said.
Munich Re’s Geo Risks Research unit head Peter Hoppe called on all concerned to “collaborate and close ranks” to meet the situation.
Peter Roder, Munich Re board member with responsibility for the U.S. market, said, “We should prepare for the weather risk changes that lie ahead, and nowhere more so than in North America.”
Twenty-two houses at Kampung Sungai Burung and Jalan Baru Sungai Korok here were badly damaged during a severe thunderstorm today. In the noon incident, the winds blew away rooftops while falling trees compounded the destruction on the houses. Resident Zulkiflee Mat Yusof, 50, said many of the electrical items in his house were damaged by rain water, fanned by the winds into the house. A Bakso stall operator who only wanted to be identified as Anis, 31, said she was busy serving customers when the thunderstorm struck. “It was so sudden that I had no time to act,” she said, finding her stall and wares completely destroyed in the aftermath. Senior citizen Jamaludin Ahamad, 65, said he and his family were having their lunch in the living room when a tree at the back of the house fell and hit the kitchen roof.
Tropical Cyclone Anais is estimated to have a maximum wind of 115 mph as of early this morning, which is equivalent to a category 3 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean.
The southwestern Indian Ocean is prone to tropical cyclones but what makes Anais so rare is that it is occurring in October, which is early springtime in the southern Hemisphere.
The peak period for tropical events in this part of the world is normally during our winter months of January-March.
Anais is forecast to move southwest in the general direction of Madagascar for the next five days and weaken as it moves into cooler waters and unfavorable winds.
We rarely hear much about the southern Indian Ocean storms as the area has little land and the storms mostly stay at sea.
Occasionally Madagascar or the island nations of Mauritius and Reunion will take a hit, and more rarely a storm will reach mainland Africa.
Forecast responsibility for this region is through the French weather service, Meteo France, located in La Reunion to the east of Madagascar.
The countries in the Indian Ocean simply refer to these storms as Tropical Cyclones, regardless of intensity.
Tropical Cyclone Anais is the same thing as a hurricane in the Atlantic or typhoon in the western Pacific.
However, note that it rotates the opposite direction, clockwise, because it is in the southern Hemisphere.
To illustrate how unusual this event is, Anais is like having a Category 3 hurricane in the Caribbean in April.
Storm surges are considered to be the most dangerous and the most destructive aspect of tropical cyclones. The study shows that globally warm years has been associated with a significantly higher risk of extreme hurricane storm surges like the one that followed Katrina, which hit the New Orleans area in 2005 and caused devastating floods and thousands of deaths. Credit: Credit: LCDR Mark Moran, NOAA Corps, NMAO/AOC.
Are there more tropical cyclones now than in the past? – or is it just something we believe because we now hear more about them through media coverage and are better able detect them with satellites?
New research from the Niels Bohr Institute clearly shows that there is an increasing tendency for cyclones when the climate is warmer, as it has been in recent years. The results are published in the scientific journal PNAS.
How can you examine the frequency of tropical cyclones throughout history when they have not been systematically registered? Today cyclones are monitored from satellites and you can follow their progress and direction very accurately. But it is only the last approx. 40 years that we have been able to do this.
Previously, they used observations from ships and aircraft, but these were not systematic measurements. In order to get a long-term view of the frequency of cyclones, it is necessary to go further back in time and use a uniform reference.
Climate scientist Aslak Grinsted of the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen therefore wanted to find some instruments that have stood and registered measurements continuously over a long period of time.
Correlation between sea levels and cyclones “Tropical cyclones typically form out in the Atlantic Ocean and move towards the U.S. East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico.
“I found that there were monitoring stations along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States where they had recorded the daily tide levels all the way back to 1923.
“I have looked at every time there was a rapid change in sea level and I could see that there was a close correlation between sudden changes in sea level and historical accounts of tropical storms,” explains Aslak Grinsted.
Aslak Grinsted now had a tool to create statistics on the frequency of cyclones that make landfall – all the way back to 1923. He could see that there has been an increasing trend in the number of major storm surges since 1923.
Correlation between cyclones and climate Together with colleagues in China and England, he then looked at the global temperatures over the period to see whether there was a trend for a higher frequency of cyclones in a warmer climate.
The global temperature has increased 0.7 degrees C since 1923, but there are variations. For example, there was a warm period in the 1940s but the temperature has really risen since 1980.
“We simply counted how many extreme cyclones with storm surges there were in warm years compared to cold years and we could see that there was a tendency for more cyclones in warmer years,” says Aslak Grinsted.
But not all cyclones are equally harmful and those with the highest storm surges tend to cause the most damage. Cyclones with a strength like Katrina, which hit the New Orleans area in 2005 and caused devastating floods and thousands of deaths, make landfall every 10-30 years on average.
“We have calculated that extreme hurricane surges like Katrina are twice as likely in warm years than in cold years. So when the global climate becomes 3 degrees warmer in the future, as predictions show, what happens then?,” reflects Aslak Grinsted.
At least eight people were injured as a round of severe storms, including a few tornadoes, swept through the Mississippi Valley and South Wednesday and Wednesday night.
A potent cold front moving across the Lower Mississippi Valley acted as the ignition for the thunderstorms. Enough humid air was in place to support the growth of severe thunderstorms capable of spawning tornadoes. Twisting winds in the atmosphere aided the rotation in thunderstorms, further aiding tornado development.
Strong winds, wind damage or hail was reported across a half dozen states in total, from Illinois to Mississippi.
One particularly damaging tornado tracked across Sharkey County, Miss., shortly before 11:00 p.m. local time, destroying numerous mobile homes and injuring five near the town of Louise, which sustained “heavy” damage according to local law enforcement.
The same tornadic thunderstorm narrowly missed nearby Yazoo City, which was devastated by a pair of tornadoes in 2010.
The towns of Clarendon and West Jericho, Ark., and Shelby, Miss., were also impacted by tornadoes Wednesday evening, according to various reports.
Severe storm reports from Wed., Oct. 17. Strong winds and wind damage incidents are indicated in blue, while tornadoes are plotted in red and hail in green. (SPC)
It is possible that more tornadoes will be confirmed to have touched down across the region as other incidents of wind damage are assessed by the National Weather Service over the next couple of days.
One such incident occurred in Scott County, Miss., where a person was injured when a tree fell onto their mobile home.
Strong thunderstorm winds heavily damaged about a dozen buildings in Bland, Mo., earlier in the day, including the town’s post office, where two people sustained minor injuries.
As of 4:30 a.m. EST Thursday, there were nearly 100 reports of severe weather and damage from the severe weather outbreak. Eighty of the reports alone were wind damage, ranging from downed trees and power lines to partially collapsed structures.
While not as prolific, a few storms produced one-inch diameter hail stones in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.
The National Weather Service has confirmed that at least four tornadoes were part of the storm system that raked northern and central Mississippi on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. The biggest of the four storms was a twister that traveled 16 miles from Scott into Newton counties east of Jackson. With a half-mile-wide damage path, it was rated EF-3 on the Fujita scale, with peak winds estimated at 140 mph. That storm blew down trees as well as three electrical transmission towers. One person was injured when a tree fell through a roof. Authorities said Thursday that at least seven people were injured when a line of storms pushed across the state.
As severe storms pounded central and eastern Arkansas Wednesday evening, the Monroe County town of Clarendon experienced widespread power outages and heavy damage to some buildings. With most of the town without power for much of the night, several community members drove around town trying to offer help as best they could. Metal awnings from a building were ripped off and tossed across the street, and trees were downed, including one that hit a Clarendon video store just moments after the owner, Denise Davenport, left. Davenport said she left after friends called her and told her the storm was approaching. Shortly afterward, she says she heard the city’s weather sirens sound. Davenport also credits the support from the community for keeping her safe in a dangerous situation.
By John Breneman jbreneman@seacoastonline.com
SEABROOK — An “unusual event” indeed. The 4.0 magnitude earthquake that rumbled across the Seacoast and beyond Tuesday evening triggered normal safety protocols at the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared an “unusual event” — NRC-speak for the lowest of its four levels of emergency classifications — at 7:20 p.m. Tuesday. The declaration was prompted by on-site ground motion resulting from an earthquake centered near Hollis, Maine — about 50 miles from the plant.
“There was absolutely no impact to the plant from the earthquake,” said Al Griffith, spokesman for NextEra Energy, the plant’s owner. Griffith said a series of mandated safety checks were conducted at the plant, concluding at 1:49 a.m., some six and a half hours after the tremor.
Citing the “robustness” of the plant’s design, Griffith assured that it is capable of withstanding a far, far greater impact than Tuesday’s quake.
There are seismic monitors on site and Griffith said officials will be conducting “a very thorough examination and analysis of all of our data.”
An NRC resident inspector assigned to Seabrook responded to the site last night to confirm that there were no immediate safety issues at the plant, which is currently shut down for a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage.
“The reactor was fully shut down at the time the earthquake occurred,” said Neil Sheehan, regional public officer for the NRC.
“Following procedures used when there is seismic activity affecting the plant, NextEra personnel conducted initial walkdowns, i.e., visual inspections, and confirmed that all key safety systems were functioning properly and that there was no significant structural damage,” Sheehan said in a statement. “The company will subsequently gather more seismic data and perform more detailed inspections.”
Asked about the need to be vigilant in preparing for and reacting to any seismic activity, particularly in the wake of the March 2011 disaster following an earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, Sheehan said, “What happened at Fukushima served as a vivid reminder” of why the highest safety protocols are put in place and enforced.
Last April, NextEra Energy conducted a tsunami drill Tuesday at the Seabrook Station plant in order to identify strengths and weaknesses of the plant in case of such a disaster.
Health experts have confirmed an outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus in the western district of Kabale after samples from two relatives taken to the Uganda Virus Institute tested positive. Police Thursday stopped the burial of Boaz Turyahikayo a lecturer at Uganda Christian University and his sister Mildrid Asasira after it emerged that their family had lost four people from a mysterious disease in just a month. The other two are Lillian Banegura their mother and an elder brother Bernard Rutaro who passed away early this month. Dr. Patrick Tusiime the Kabale district health officer said a team from the Ministry of Health and World Health Organization is on its way to oversee the burial of the two victims. The Marburg virus was last reported in Uganda in 2008. It carries symptoms similar to those of Ebola that include fever, vomiting and internal bleeding.
Biohazard name:
Marburg virus disease (MVD)
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Eighteen people are confirmed to be suffering from dengue fever in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira and another 191 probably have the mosquito-borne disease which is also called “breakbone fever” because of the severe pain it can cause. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC.L) which monitors disease in the European Union, said the outbreak was “significant but not entirely unexpected” given that the most efficient carriers of the disease, mosquitoes known as Aedes aegypti, have an established presence in Madeira. “Portuguese public health authorities are implementing control measures to reduce the risk of sustained transmission locally, the export of infected vectors from the island, and to minimise the impact on the affected population,” it said. The ECDC said the risk for tourists visiting Madeira and for residents of the island would “depend on the course of the outbreak in the coming weeks and the effectiveness of the control measures.” It did not recommend any restrictions on travel or tourism to Madeira, but advised people to protect themselves adequately against mosquito bites, particularly during the day which is when dengue-carrying mosquitoes are most active.
Biohazard name:
Dengue Fever
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:
The disease is a viral infection that can cause a range of symptoms, from mild flu-like illness to more serious illnesses including rashes and bone pain. Severe and potentially deadly forms develop in around 5 percent of patients.
The United Kingdomâs Health Protection Agency reported 18 confirmed cases of dengue fever on the Madeira archipelago in Portugal and 191 probable cases since early October. The reported cases mark the first time that the mosquito-borne viral infection has been reported in Madeira. Health authorities in Madeira are looking into the cases and are implementing prevention and control measures along with a public awareness campaign. âDengue fever cannot be passed from person to person and infection occurs after being bitten by the Aedes mosquito carrying the virus,â Jane Jones, a travel-associated infection expert at the HPA, said. âTo minimize the risk of being bitten it is advisable to wear appropriate clothing to cover up â such as long sleeve tops and trousers, and to use insect repellents.â Dengue can cause multiple clinical symptoms, including a mild flu-like illness. It can also cause more serious symptoms such as rash, bone pain and severe complications. âThere is no specific preventive medicine or vaccination against dengue fever and prevention relies on avoiding mosquito bites particularly around dusk and dawn when the day biting mosquitoes are most active,â Dipti Patel, the joint director of the National Travel Health Network and Center, said. âAnyone who develops a fever or flu-like symptoms within two weeks of returning from a trip to Madeira should seek medical advice from NHS Direct or their GP.â Approximately 2.5 billion people worldwide are at risk of acquiring dengue fever, according to the World Health Organization.
17.10.2012
Epidemic Hazard
Zambia
Central State, [Lukanga Swamps (Kapiri Mposhi district)]
The diarrhoeal disease which broke-out last week and has since claimed over 14 lives of fishermen in Lukanga Swamps in Kapiri Mposhi district has been confirmed to be cholera. Kapiri Mposhi District Medical Officer, Charles Mwinuna confirmed to ZANIS today that according to the second-round of tests conducted on the samples obtained from the patients admitted at Waya clinic in the area, the diarrheal disease was confirmed cholera. Over 20 patients are admitted to Waya clinic after experiencing severe diarrhoea and vomiting. Dr Mwinuna said officers from the District Health Management Team have since been dispatched to Lukanga Swamps and were treating people with cholera symptoms. He also said precautionary measures were being taken to ensure that the disease does not spread to other areas in the district. Dr Mwinuna said the health personnel dispatched to Lukanga Swamps are also conducting further tests and contact tracing of the origin of patients admitted to the clinic and were sensitizing the community on hygiene and providing chlorine to households to reduce the chances of spreading the diarrheal disease. Fourteen people have so far died of the disease which was earlier mistaken to be severe diarrhoea. The diarrhoea and vomiting disease broke out at Kaswende, Waya, Kabosha and Ngwenya fishing camps on Lukanga Swamps. The bodies of the deceased are being buried at a cholera designated graveyard in the area Meanwhile, a traditional leader has appealed to the Ministry of Health to open-up cholera Centres in all fishing camps to treat patients and reduce chances of further spreading the diarrheal disease. Headwoman Agnes Chimbuleni noted that the disease has claimed many lives in the area because of the distances patients had to cover to Waya clinic from the fishing camps for treatment.
Biohazard name:
Cholera
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
Scientists have found support for the controversial idea that global warming is causing more frequent and destructive hurricanes, a subject that has been hotly debated during the past decade.
Data gathered from tide gauges, which monitor the rapid changes to sea levels caused by storm surges, show a significant link between both the frequency and intensity of tropical storms and increases in annual temperatures since the tidal records began in 1923.
The study found that during the 90-year period, when the average global temperature has increased by 0.7C, extreme hurricanes similar to Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, were nearly twice as likely in warmer years as colder years.
Although scientists were not able to prove that climate change is causing more large hurricanes, they believe the study is consistent with the predictions that global warming and warmer seas could bring about more intense tropical storms.
Hurricanes form when the sea’s surface temperature increases above 26C. However, they result from a chaotic interaction between the difference in sea and air temperatures, humidity and wind, so there is disagreement about how frequent they will become in a warmer world.
Studying the link between global warming and tropical storms has been hampered by the lack of data on hurricanes before the satellite age. Many hurricanes out at sea were missed before the first weather satellites were launched about 40 years ago.
However, a network of tide gauges around the south-east coast of the US has produced a reliable record of the rapid changes to sea level caused by storm surges resulting from tropical cyclones, said Aslak Grinsted of the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University.
“I found that there were monitoring stations along the eastern seaboard of the United States where they had recorded the daily tide levels all the way back to 1923. I have looked at every time there was a rapid change in sea level and I could see there was a close correlation between sudden changes in sea level and historical accounts of tropical storms,” Dr Grinsted said.
Once the correlation between storm surges and tropical storms was established, the researchers analysed global temperature records to compare the number of storm surges in warm years with the number observed in cold years.
“We simply counted how many extreme cyclones with storm surges there were in warm years compared with cold years and we could see that there was a tendency for more cyclones in warmer years,” Dr Grinsted said.
Storms of destruction: devastating weather
Wilma (2005)
The most intense Atlantic hurricane on record started in the Caribbean Sea near Jamaica, moving across the Gulf of Mexico to Cancun where it hit land with devastating consequences.
Katrina (2005)
The most costly hurricane in history caused damages of $85bn. The category-3 storm formed over the Bahamas crossed Florida and the Gulf of Mexico before striking New Orleans.
Gilbert (1988)
The second most intense hurricane observed in the Atlantic. It began to the east of Barbados before hitting Jamaica and the Gulf of Mexico. It raged for nine days, killing 433 people.
Global temperatures directly affect the acidity of the ocean, which in turn changes the acoustical properties of sea water. New research suggests that global warming may give Earth’s oceans the same hi-fi sound qualities they had more than 100 million years ago, during the Age of the Dinosaurs.
The reason for this surprising communication upgrade is that whales vocalize in the low-frequency sound range, typically less than 200 hertz, and the new research predicts that by the year 2100, global warming will acidify saltwater sufficiently to make low-frequency sound near the ocean surface travel significantly farther than it currently does – perhaps twice as far.
Rhode Island acoustician David G. Browning, lead scientist on the research team, will present his findings at the 164th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), held Oct. 22 – 26 in Kansas City, Missouri.
He explains the sea change this way: “We call it the Cretaceous acoustic effect, because ocean acidification forced by global warming appears to be leading us back to the similar ocean acoustic conditions as those that existed 110 million years ago, during the Age of Dinosaurs.”
Their work builds on the recent investigation by other researchers who analyzed historic levels of boron in seafloor sediments to reconstruct ocean acidity for the past 300 million years.
Using boron’s sound absorption traits and impact on low-frequency transmission, Browning and his colleagues were able to predict the soundscape of ancient oceans to conclude that 300 million years ago, during the Paleozoic, the low frequency sound transmission in the ocean was similar to conditions today.
They also found that transmission improved as the ocean became more acidic, reaching its best transmission value around 110 million years ago – allowing low frequency sound to travel twice as far.
“This knowledge is important in many ways,” notes Browning.
“It impacts the design and performance prediction of sonar systems. It affects estimation of low frequency ambient noise levels in the ocean. And it’s something we have to consider to improve our understanding of the sound environment of marine mammals and the effects of human activity on that environment.”
If further work validates this model, future SCUBA divers might hear in the oceans with the same clarity as the dinosaurs.
Scientists have discovered why the ‘broken world’ following the worst extinction of all time lasted so long – it was simply too hot to survive.
The end-Permian mass extinction, which occurred around 250 million years ago in the pre-dinosaur era, wiped out nearly all the world’s species. Typically, a mass extinction is followed by a ‘dead zone’ during which new species are not seen for tens of thousands of years. In this case, the dead zone, during the Early Triassic period which followed, lasted for a perplexingly long period: five million years.
A study jointly led by the University of Leeds and China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), in collaboration with the University of Erlangen-Nurnburg (Germany), shows the cause of this lengthy devastation was a temperature rise to lethal levels in the tropics: around 50-60 degrees C on land, and 40 degrees C at the sea-surface.
Lead author Yadong Sun, who is based in Leeds while completing a joint PhD in geology, says: “Global warming has long been linked to the end-Permian mass extinction, but this study is the first to show extreme temperatures kept life from re-starting in Equatorial latitudes for millions of years.”
It is also the first study to show water temperatures close to the ocean’s surface can reach 40 degrees C – a near-lethal value at which marine life dies and photosynthesis stops. Until now, climate modellers have assumed sea-surface temperatures cannot surpass 30 degrees C. The findings may help us understand future climate change patterns.
The dead zone would have been a strange world – very wet in the tropics but with almost nothing growing. No forests grew, only shrubs and ferns. No fish or marine reptiles were to be found in the tropics, only shellfish, and virtually no land animals existed because their high metabolic rate made it impossible to deal with the extreme temperatures. Only the polar regions provided a refuge from the baking heat.
Before the end-Permian mass extinction the Earth had teemed with plants and animals including primitive reptiles and amphibians, and a wide variety of sea creatures including coral and sea lillies.
This broken world scenario was caused by a breakdown in global carbon cycling. In normal circumstances, plants help regulate temperature by absorbing Co2 and burying it as dead plant matter. Without plants, levels of Co2 can rise unchecked, which causes temperatures to increase.
The study, published [19 October 2012] in the journal Science, is the most detailed temperature record of this study period (252-247 million years ago) to date.
Sun and his colleagues collected data from 15,000 ancient conodonts (tiny teeth of extinct eel-like fishes) extracted from two tonnes of rocks from South China. Conodonts form a skeleton using oxygen.
The isotopes of oxygen in skeletons are temperature controlled, so by studying the ratio of oxygen isotopes in the conodonts he was able to detect temperature levels hundreds of millions of years ago.
Professor Paul Wignall from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, one of the study’s co-authors, said: “Nobody has ever dared say that past climates attained these levels of heat.
Hopefully future global warming won’t get anywhere near temperatures of 250 million years ago, but if it does we have shown that it may take millions of years to recover.”
The study is the latest collaboration in a 20-year research partnership between the University of Leeds and China University of Geosciences in Wuhan. It was funded by the Chinese Science Foundation.
‘Lethally hot temperatures during the early Triassic greenhouse’ by Yadong Sun (University of Leeds and China University of Geosciences), Michael Joachimski (University Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany), Paul B. Wignall (University of Leeds), Chunbo Yan (China University of Geosciences), Yanlong Chen (University of Graz, Austria), Haishui Jiang (China University of Geosciences, Lina Wang (China University of Geosciences) and Xulong Lai (China University of Geosciences) is published in Science on 19 October 2012.
A large solar flare has burst forth from the sun, showcasing the awesome scale in the universe.
A gigantic solar flare, 100,000 miles across, has erupted from the sun, showcasing how truly great the scale of things can be in the universe. In comparison, the Earth only has a diameter of roughly 7926 miles.
An image of the solar flare. Earth would fit more than ten times along the length of the flare.
Solar flares are a massive energy release of the sun, sometimes up to a sixth of the sun’s total energy output, or 160,000,000,000 megatons of TNT, which can be seen as a sudden brightening in the sun and is often followed by a coronal mass ejection (CME), essentially a burst of solar material being flung out into the solar system.
These CMEs usually reach earth about one or two days later, and it is the earth’s interaction with these ionized particles which, together with regular solar winds, are the cause of auroras. If a solar flare is powerful enough though, they may cause damage, disturbing power grids and radio systems. A particularly disastrous solar flare may even permanently disable many electronic components, such as transformers, leading to widespread power outages.
Solar flares affect the entire solar system though; one hazard that would be encountered during a manned missions to Mars for example, would be the radiation emitted from solar winds, which the astronauts would somehow have to shield against during the entire flight.
The Bay Area was buzzing Wednesday night after a bright streak moved across the sky. It was accompanied by a loud boom.
This happened around 7:40 p.m.
Early bets said it was a meteor. The Orionids meteor shower is happening right now, but experts told NBC Bay Area that Wednesday’s streak was not from Orion because the earth is shielding us from those meteors tonight.
Whatever it was, it caught the attention of hundreds, if not thousands of people.
NASA Ames astronomer Peter Jennikens helped us get the photo at the top of this article and below. Jennikens said he will be up all night researching where the meteor may have landed. He will be out early Thursday morning looking for remnants. He’s hoping to get more video from security cameras that might have been rolling when the meteor hit.
Beppy Tobeler told us on our Facebook page that she saw it from Dublin Security Storage. “It was so low and close I thought it was someone setting off fireworks,” Tobeler said. She said it sailed across the sky and broke up in several pieces.
Steve Siegel said he saw it from Sunnyvale. He described it as a super bright streak going north about 30 degrees into the sky. He said it lasted for 7 or 8 seconds.
”I saw one giant, bright as close as a firework ball of light with long tail out visiting my parents in Forestville. One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen nothing at all like a shooting star,” Jessica Collins said on our Facebook page.
People at the Lick Observatory posted two raw clips of the what they said was a meteor breaking up over San Jose. It was taken by a security camera from the top of the observatory.
NASA posted on a science Website earlier this week that said this is the week to watch for the Orionid meteor shower caused by Halley’s Comet.
An article on NASA Science News said that every year in mid-to-late October, the Earth passes through a stream of dusty debris from Comet Halley. It promised sightings in the pre-dawn hours. Wednesday night’s streak was in the evening hours. Also, usually the meteor showers related to Hailey’s Comet are much smaller than what is being described.
NASA said that the highlight of the Orionid meteor shower is coming this weekend
“We expect to see about 25 meteors per hour when the shower peaks on Sunday morning, Oct 21st,” says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.
An extremely brief reversal of the geomagnetic field, climate variability and a super volcano
41,000 years ago, a complete and rapid reversal of the geomagnetic field occured. Magnetic studies of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences on sediment cores from the Black Sea show that during this period, during the last ice age, a compass at the Black Sea would have pointed to the south instead of north. Moreover, data obtained by the research team formed around GFZ researchers Dr. Norbert Nowaczyk and Prof. Helge Arz, together with additional data from other studies in the North Atlantic, the South Pacific and Hawaii, prove that this polarity reversal was a global event. Their results are published in the latest issue of the scientific journal “Earth and Planetary Science Letters“.
What is remarkable is the speed of the reversal: “The field geometry of reversed polarity, with field lines pointing into the opposite direction when compared to today’s configuration, lasted for only about 440 years, and it was associated with a field strength that was only one quarter of today’s field,” explains Norbert Nowaczyk. “The actual polarity changes lasted only 250 years. In terms of geological time scales, that is very fast.” During this period, the field was even weaker, with only 5% of today’s field strength. As a consequence, the Earth nearly completely lost its protection shield against hard cosmic rays, leading to a significantly increased radiation exposure.
This is documented by peaks of radioactive beryllium (10Be) in ice cores from this time, recovered from the Greenland ice sheet. 10Be as well as radioactive carbon (14C) is caused by the collision of high-energy protons from space with atoms of the atmosphere.
The Laschamp event
The polarity reversal now found with the magnetisation of Black Sea sediments has already been known for 45 years. It was first discovered after the analysis of the magnetisation of several lava flows near the village Laschamp near Clermont-Ferrand in the Massif Central, which differed significantly from today’s direction of the geomagnetic field. Since then, this geomagnetic feature is known as the ‘Laschamp event’. However, the data of the Massif Central represent only some point readings of the geomagnetic field during the last ice age, whereas the new data from the Black Sea give a complete image of geomagnetic field variability at a high temporal resolution.
Abrupt climate changes and a super volcano
Besides giving evidence for a geomagnetic field reversal 41,000 years ago, the geoscientists from Potsdam discovered numerous abrupt climate changes during the last ice age in the analysed cores from the Black Sea, as it was already known from the Greenland ice cores. This ultimately allowed a high precision synchronisation of the two data records from the Black Sea and Greenland. The largest volcanic eruption on the Northern hemisphere in the past 100 000 years, namely the eruption of the super volcano 39400 years ago in the area of today’s Phlegraean Fields near Naples, Italy, is also documented within the studied sediments from the Black Sea. The ashes of this eruption, during which about 350 cubic kilometers of rock and lava were ejected, were distributed over the entire eastern Mediterranean and up to central Russia. These three extreme scenarios, a short and fast reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, short-term climate variability of the last ice age and the volcanic eruption in Italy, have been investigated for the first time in a single geological archive and placed in precise chronological order.
DEDICATED
~October.15.2012~ You were a wonderful pet. I miss you already.
Information courtesy of NASA, NOAA, the US Library, the Goddard Space Flight Center, the Jet Propulsion Lab, the Environmental Visualization Laboratory, the NASA Earth Observatory, SDO, SOHO, Stereo, ISWA, SSEC, HAARP, and SolarIMG – Your information, images, and videos were essential to this video.
A massive fish kill on the Neuse River Tuesday washed up on the beach by Neuse Harbor. Mitch Blake, Neuse Riverkeeper, viewed the fish kill Tuesday afternoon, saying there were several hundred thousand washed up on the beach and in the river. For 21 days, mostly Atlantic menhaden have been dying over a large portion of the river from New Bern to Hancock Creek, Blake said.
Chuck Beckley/Sun Journal
By Eddie Fitzgerald, Sun Journal Staff
Published: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 at 15:35 PM.
A massive fish kill on the Neuse River that has been ongoing for nearly a month has resulted in thousands of menhaden washed up on beaches near Neuse Harbor.
Mitch Blake, Neuse Riverkeeper, viewed the area Tuesday afternoon, saying there were several hundred thousand dead fish washed up on the beach and in the river.
For 21 days, mostly Atlantic menhaden have been dying over a large portion of the river from New Bern to Hancock Creek, Blake said in an email.
Some of the dead menhaden have ulcers that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials have identified as Aphanomyces invadans from six samples analyzed in Beaufort. Fish samples were taken from the Neuse River in an impaired region by the Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation at the first sign of menhaden showing problems, Blake said.
“Over the 21-day period fish have been reported dead from New Bern to Hancock Creek and include areas in Slocum, Beard, Goose, Upper Broad, Northwest and Duck Creek,” he said.
Very few other species have been reported dead during the fish kill, except for isolated spots around Bay Point, which also had red drum, striped bass and spot.
“At this time we continue to see large schools of Atlantic menhaden, some floating, some are sinking to the bottom upon death,” Blake said. “An accurate count has not been totaled due to the massive area but just (Tuesday) I counted areas that were over 500 yards in length with approximately 90 dead fish per foot. With numbers like this it could easily go into the millions. In these areas there are dead, decaying, and in some cases just bones to reveal the timeline and magnitude of the kill.”
Joe Freemon, who lives in Neuse Harbor, said that on Tuesday there was a solid belt of dead fish on the beach of the river that bordered his property.
“You could stand there and see lots of others floating on top of the water,” Freemon said. “It’s the biggest (fish kill) I’ve seen and I’ve been on the water here over 50 years. You could smell it a couple of hundred feet away. … It’s a bad situation and unfortunate. ”
Blake said experts have told him the fish kill may continue due to the complexity of the area and lack of funding to run the proper analyzing equipment.
“There have been issues with oxygen, phytoplankton, stratification, nitrogen, pollutants among others, so the exact cause of death in the areas listed, has been complex to say the least,” he said.
Blake said he has been talking to a lot of people in the scientific community about what is causing the fish to die.
“I’m trying to put together a team to analyze it better,” Blake said.
As a nonprofit and staff of three to cover the Neuse Basin, The Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation depends on community support and volunteers.
“I’ve been working diligently to get information to the scientific community, the translation that comes from that is very important to the communities and people along the Neuse,” Blake said. “I think these menhaden stocks are extremely important to the dynamics of the estuary and millions of dead fish adding to the nutrient load creates its own set of concerns. As a community we have to address the impacts we have on the basin and we deserve to know where these impacts are coming from.”
Jill Paxson, environmental senior specialist with the N.C. Division of Water Quality, said for the past three weeks her office has been inundated with calls about menhaden fish kills, and not only in the Neuse River. There has been large kills in the Pamlico Sound also, she said.
Paxson said menhaden have a tough time living in a fresh and salt water estuary like the Neuse River. Some of the tributaries are shallow and the water can cool or warm up fast, causing a strain for the fish, she said.
“It is a very difficult place if you are a fish,” she said.
Paxson said as a precaution people should not go in the water around the fish or let their pets in the water and should wash if they do come in contact with the fish or water.
People usually don’t eat menhaden. They are on the bottom of the food chain and are eaten by larger fish like tuna and sharks, Paxson said.
Eddie Fitzgerald can be reached at 252-635-5675 or at eddie.fitzgerald@newbernsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @staffwriter3.
Today
Biological Hazard
Vietnam
Province of Dien Bien , Noong Luong Commune [Dien Bien District]
Cases of bird flu have been reported in Noong Luong Commune, Dien Bien District in the northern mountainous province of Dien Bien. Director of the provincial Department of Animal Health Cao Thi Tuyet Lan said bird flu outbreaks were discovered last Friday in two households in the commune’s Village 12, with nearly 720 livestock suffering from the disease. Three days later, local authority discovered nearly 400 other livestock infected with the H5N1 virus in Village 15. Since the outbreak, authorities have detected and culled more than 1,000 sick livestock in the commune. The province banned sick livestock from being transported, processed and traded out of the affected area, and closely supervised slaughter and trade in other districts and communes of the province. The provincial People’s Committee also quarantined the affected areas, and counted the number of livestock, especially ducks in Noong Luong Commune and Muong Thanh District, to ensure that a bird flu epidemic does not spread. The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development also gave guidance on carrying out preventive measures such as sterilisation of farms where infected poultry have been reported.
Biohazard name:
H5N1 – Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Officials closed beaches around Kanaha Beach Park Thursday morning after a shark bit a stand-up paddle board around 7:30 a.m. off of an area known as “Kite Beach,” or Kaa Point. Stand-up paddle boarder David Peterson of Pukalani was not injured, officials said. The 55-year-old paddle board and surfboard shaper said he was standing on his board waiting for waves to come in and “all of a sudden (I get) knocked off my board. I didn’t see anything.” He said the shark had a hold of his board and would not let go of it, so Peterson hit the shark with his paddle as he was in the water. The shark let go but then came between him and the board and with his hands Peterson pushed the shark away and jumped back on his board. Peterson said he suffered some scrapes from getting back onto the damaged board. Otherwise, he wasn’t hurt. The shark is estimated to be 6 to 8 feet long. Staff officials said it is unknown what type of shark was involved. Shark warning signs were to be posted, according to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.
Biohazard name:
Shark attack (non-fatal)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Authorities in Bhaktapur’s Bode have culled more than 1500 chickens following a suspected outbreak of bird flu, health officials said. The outbreak of avian influenza initially killed 500 chickens out of 2000 at the poultry farm of a local Om Khadka. A meeting of health officials is underway at Bhaktapur to confirm whether the reported case is of bird flu.
Biohazard name:
H5N1 – Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Hundreds of birds have been culled in central Nepal following confirmation of a highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak on a poultry farm. Animal health officials decided to cull all birds and destroy eggs suspected to be infected with a strain of H5N1 virus in Bhaktapur district, 15 km east of the capital Kathmandu. The Directorate of Animal Health killed 780 chickens at the poultry farm following the confirmation and around 150 crates of eggs and six sacks of feeds stored at the farm were also destroyed as part of preventive measures. Samples were sent to an animal health laboratory for examination after a sudden spurt in deaths at the farm. According to officials out of 2,500 chickens at the farm, 1,200 had already died of infection from the virus. “Surveillance will be intensified and veterinary officials deployed to monitor other poultry farms in the area,” said Dr Narayan Prasad Ghimire, a senior veterinary officer at Department of Animal Health. High alert was issued in and around Kathmandu to prevent the spreading of the virus.
A grenade left over from the second World War left 13 people needing hospital treatment in England. The casualties were exposed to toxic fumes after workmen disturbed the stockpile of phosphorous grenades left in the sealed-up cellar of a property in Bamber Bridge near Preston, Lancashire. It is thought one of the grenades, issued to members of the Home Guard during the war, was dislodged and cracked, Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service said. The devices, glass bottles about eight inches long, were intended to release a highly flammable mixture of phosphorus and benzene after being thrown, self-igniting on exposure to air. They were to be used by reservists against Nazi occupiers if Britain had fallen to German invasion, but had lain forgotten for almost 70 years in the sealed-off cellar of a former fire station, now used as a printing firm premises. A further six such devices were found in cellar space which had been bricked up for some years.
Firefighters were first called to reports of a fire at the premises of Sprint Print on Station Road in Bamber Bridge at 12.23pm yesterday. On arrival they established the smoke was in fact chemical fumes from what was thought to be a small container or bottle of acid in the cellar. Two drainage company employees investigating a report from the occupier of damp masonry are thought to have inadvertently dislodged one of the bottles in the stockpile, causing it to leak. They were exposed to the fumes and were injured along with three workers at Sprint Print. Of these five casualties, two suffered chemical burns and three experienced breathing problems. Two paramedics and six hospital staff at the Royal Preston Hospital – where the casualties had been taken – subsequently also complained of breathing difficulties. All 13 casualties responded well to treatment and have been allowed home. The cracked grenade was made safe and removed for disposal by an army disposal team and the rest of the stockpile will be disposed of in a controlled explosion, the fire service said.
Winds gusting up to 52 miles per hour and transformer fires were blamed for power outages Thursday that affected more than 2,000 homes and businesses in Sioux City. Service was restored to many of the homes within a few hours. The first outages were reported at 5:47 a.m. near 15th and Pierce streets. Outages caused by transformer fires were reported at 10:17 a.m. at 4105 Gordon Drive and about 12:30 p.m. at 2116 W. Third St. Officials at MidAmerican Energy Co. aren’t sure what caused the transformer fires but suspect the weather was a factor, company spokeswoman Tina Potthoff said. The company’s transmission system had been trouble-free before the powerful wind gusts arrived, she said. The top of a power pole exploded with a bang at Ultra No Touch Car Wash at 4105 Gordon Drive, said manager Brandon Swift. The flash was so intense, he thought something at the business had been struck by lighting.
[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.]
(NaturalNews) “Chronic care management” means someone has a disorder or a disease and the doctors and hospitals aren’t really helping to cure it, they just treat the symptoms with pharmaceuticals and wait for it to get worse. U.S. chronic care management is a well-planned out healthcare system based on the sobering fact that most people make themselves sick and diseased by what they eat and drink, and the popular medicine used to treat this sickness is made from the same chemicals found in what causes it. Still, fewer than 30 percent of the country understands this, and even fewer than that are doing anything about it.
Agent Orange Food Disorder, AOFD, is an ongoing mutation of cells from consuming pesticide regularly, in other words, it is the cumulative effect of consuming toxins over time. This type of cancer is not contagious and is not inherited, rather it is created inside the body and perpetuated, until it’s often too late to defeat, or so “chronic care management” would have you believe.
Big question: Exactly WHEN does this non-contagious, non-inherited “disorder” of the cells begin, so modern science can really find that cure? The answer to this question is complicated, but explainable. First of all, asking a doctor, an oncologist, or a nutritionist, “When does cancer start?” is like asking someone to tell you exactly when they fell asleep. They don’t know. Nobody knows exactly when or where in the body cancer starts. Doctors simply don’t know.
There’s a more intriguing question to consider: How long will people believe that the U.S. government, the FDA, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the entire pharmaceutical industry, and all those so well-promoted “walk for the cure” events keep conning people into believing they are searching for the cure? Let me tell you something now, no organization searches for the cure for something they are perpetuating; that would be stupid on their part. They do just the opposite without ever saying so. Plus, if any money actually does go to research, it goes to pay scientists to look for a magic vaccine to cure Agent Orange Food Disorder (PESTICIDE DISEASE), which is coming from the pesticide-laden foods you’ve been eating and keep eating, all while they continue searching, searching, searching “for the cure!” Yeah right.
AOFD is a mutation of cells from consuming pesticide regularly
GMO food delivers a small amount of Agent Orange ingredients into your blood and mutates your cells over time. How long that mutation of cells takes to overwhelm one of your vital organs, or strangulate your lungs or your brain, well, that’s just a matter of how much of it you eat, how often, and for how long. The genetically-modified vegetable contains herbicides that kills so-called super-weeds, which is linked to the notorious “Agent Orange” used in Vietnam. (http://www.cbsnews.com)
If you don’t know already, Agent Orange was a defoliant used in Vietnam to decimate the Southeast Asian jungles so the enemy couldn’t hide. Because of the ingredient “2,4-D’s” links to Agent Orange, people have dubbed the GMO corn as “Agent Orange corn,” but that’s just the beginning of the cancer breeding madness. (http://www.sott.net) Most of the U.S. soldiers who hiked through Agent Orange came home to the U.S. with cancer, and they didn’t even know it. Now, most Americans are “walking” through the same nightmare by consuming GMO foods. What is the cure? Understand this; there is no starting point for AOFD, only an end. People must use their common sense to beat cancer. Put it this way, would you spray a little “Raid” roach killer on your food if it made it taste better? What if “RAID FOOD” was a little cheaper than organic food, would you buy that instead? Wake up and smell the bug killer!
Let’s follow the 100 YEAR CANCER BREEDING historical time line:
Dow Chemical: The infamous Herbert Dow failed several times before finding the formula for cancer causing food. There are many years of corruption when it comes to pesticide laden food, but Dow and Monsanto are the reigning devils. Here’s a MASSIVE list of Dow Chemical’s violations, the same company the International Olympic Committee deemed “a proud Olympic partner:” (http://athletesagainstdowchemical.wordpress.com) Dow Chemical also manufacturers Bisphenol-A (BPA), the chemical used in plastics that leads to infertility, breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, thyroid malfunction, miscarriages and Down syndrome.
I.G. Farben’s “Business With Disease.” Interessengemeinschaft Farben, or IG Farben, was a powerful cartel of BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, and other German chemical and pharmaceutical companies. IG Farben was the single largest donor to the election campaign of Adolph Hitler. I.G. Farben created chlorine gas for Hitler to use on humans in WWI. In 1915, German troops began dispersing chlorine gas from tens of thousands of cylinders at the front lines of the enemy and in the trenches. They first used it against French and Canadian troops. The types of chemical weapons employed ranged from mustard gas to lethal agents like phosgene and chlorine.
(http://www4.dr)
The most effective and efficient technique developed for killing the Jews at Auschwitz depended on the same pesticide that was used to kill the lice in prisoners’ clothing. Thanks to I.G. Farben, the disinfectant, sold under the trade name of Zyklon B, was in plentiful supply. (http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/killing/) Hitler killed about three million Jews with pesticide. How many innocent people has Agent Orange food killed? Since cancer in the U.S. kills about 750 thousand people per year, you might start referring to agricultural biotechnology as the modern day Nazi SS.
Monsanto is the “wicked witch” of agricultural biotechnology. In 2010, the company reported sales of approximately $10.5 billion and had over 27,000 employees. This monstrous company produces biotechnology and the horror toxin of the cancer epidemic called Roundup. Other Monsanto products include the now ubiquitous PCBs, DDT, Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) and Aspartame. Monsanto is one of the “Big Six” biotech corporations, along with BASF, Bayer, Dow Chemical Company, Dupont, and Syngenta. Starting to sound familiar? Yes, we are talking about Nazi scientists working for American corporations and breeding cancer in vegetables. (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Monsanto)
Vietnam’s Agent Orange and Roundup: Monsanto’s deadly legacy. August of 2011 marked 50 years since Agent Orange was first used by the U.S. military in its war against Vietnam, and its effects persist to this day, with three generations of exposed Vietnamese families and American veterans suffering from horrific birth defects and disabilities. Of course, Monsanto and Dow profited greatly from its production and use, but are not responsible for reparations for the millions it crippled with disabilities and birth defects. Instead, Monsanto and Dow continue to profit from their poisons. Today, they are currently seeking approval for genetically modified crops that can withstand massive doses of 2,4-D, the major chemical agent used in Agent Orange.
Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide RoundUp causes birth defects. A new generation of babies born near fields of “RoundUp Ready” (genetically modified) soy in Argentina are suffering birth defects as terrible as those found in the Agent Orange contaminated areas of Vietnam. Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world, causes endocrine disruption, damage to reproductive organs and to DNA, and it causes cancer. (http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob281.htm)
The GMO wars
What do GMO, Zyklon B, RoundUp, Pesticide, Glyphosate, 2,4-D, Dimethylphthalate, and “Raid” Ant & Roach Killer have in common? They all kill bugs, weeds, rats and humans, but still most Americans have NO IDEA just how pervasive genetically-modified organisms (GMO) have become throughout the food supply, especially in GMO corn, soy, cottonseed oil and canola oil. So called “inert” ingredients can kill you! (http://www.getipm.com/government/ny-inert.htm)
Predatory marketing practices by multinational biotechnology companies like Monsanto effectively seize the reigns of agriculture and dictate how it will proceed. Check it out:
(http://www.naturalnews.com/033368_farmers_Monsanto.html#ixzz28uN8cLHT).
We are currently experiencing the GMO wars, where one biotech giant sues another for control. Monsanto is suing DuPont and vice versa, over patents and anti-competitive business practices, to see who will dominate the world’s toxic food supply and benefit the most from AOFD (cancer causing food and chemotherapy treatment). (http://www.naturalnews.com)
GMO foods, pesticide, and chemotherapy are cooked up by the same handful of companies, who all have the same dual agenda: MAKE MONEY AND MAKE PEOPLE SICK. These companies run the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries of America, and they don’t just feed Americans these toxins, they export them to countries all over the world. Continents are bombarded with exported contaminated vegetables which are simply molecular-twisted chem-food. Many countries are just starting to figure it out now, thanks to French researchers blowing the whistle over the past few weeks. (http://www.naturalnews.com)
Will people figure out cancer is mainly caused by eating chemicals, or will they get fooled for another generation or two, and serve their kids and grandkids Agent Orange food? Do you think there will be a pill or vaccine for that same cancer then? Do you still believe there will be a drug people can take for a few weeks or months that will reverse all those warped cells back to normal, and fight off the pesticide that you may still be eating? Will everything return to normal in your body, like it was before you began regularly eating what killed thousands of Vietnamese families, children, and U.S. soldiers in Vietnam? (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_23429.cfm)
I feel horrible for people suffering from cancer. As of now, only about 50 percent will survive it, unless they learn about organic food (http://www.forksoverknives.com/). I feel bad for the people who have cancer now and don’t know it. I also feel bad for people who don’t know how to cure themselves.
There is a cure for cancer. Oh, you didn’t know? Stop eating GMO, pesticide-laden food. Stop eating processed food. Stop drinking fluoridated water. Start drinking spring water (http://www.findaspring.com/). Change your ways! Start eating organic food. Only eat certified organic food. Try Superfoods! (http://store.naturalnews.com/) Question everything and read the labels on every product you buy, including what you put on your skin.
You can stop eating GMOs now or die of cancer later, it is YOUR CHOICE! Do you still want to “march for the cure?” March down your block and hand out brochures about organic food and spring water. You can even wear pink if you want to and I promise not to call the “pink” police. http://www.naturalnews.com/033783_Komen_for_the_Cure_pinkwashing.html
A shallow, magnitude 4.1 earthquake was reported Sunday afternoon 14 miles from Ocotillo Wells , according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 5:39 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of 4.3 miles.
According to the USGS, the epicenter was 16 miles from Julian, 17 miles from Borrego Springs, 45 miles from Escondido and 51 miles from San Diego.
In the last 10 days, there have been two earthquakes magnitude 3.0 and greater centered nearby.
MEXICO CITY — A magnitude-6 earthquake has shaken the Gulf of California coast in Mexico, but there are no reports of damage.
The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake hit at 11:26 p.m. Sunday local time (2:26 a.m. Monday EST; 0626 GMT) was centered 63 miles (102 kilometers) southwest of Los Mochis.
Local officials reported some panic, but no known damage.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 struck off the southeastern Indonesia coast Monday evening, the US Geological Survey said.
A picture taken in Banda Aceh on April 12 shows the general view of west coast of Sumatera in Banda Aceh. An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 has struck off the southeastern Indonesia coast evening, the US Geological Survey said.
The epicentre of the quake, which occured at 6:43 pm Monday (1143 GMT), was located in the Banda Sea 139 km (86 miles) southeast of the town of Ambon, USGS reported. It took place at a depth of 34 km.
Mount Lokon on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island erupts, spewing volcanic ash as high as 3,000 metres into the air. Rough cut (no reporter narrat…
ONE of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes has erupted again, spewing clouds of ash, an official has said.
The 1580 metre (5,214 feet) Mount Lokon on northeast Sulawesi island erupted at 2pm local time on Sunday with thunderous sounds heard as far as five kilometres away.
“Lokon has been quite active the past few months. This was the seventh biggest eruption since mid-September,” government vulcanologist Farid Bina told AFP from the volcano’s monitoring post in North Sulawesi province.
“It produced a loud sound like thunder. But we cannot detect the height of the eruption as thick clouds covered its peak,” he said, adding that muddy rains fell in surrounding areas.
There was no plan to upgrade the volcano’s alert level despite the series of eruptions, he said, adding that the nearest village of 250 people was outside the 2.5 kilometre danger zone.
The volcano experienced its biggest recent eruption in July 2011, when more than 5200 people were evacuated as it sent huge clouds of ash as high as 3500 metres into the sky.
Since then Mount Lokon has erupted and spewed clouds of ash about 600 times.
The volcano’s last deadly eruption was in 1991, when it killed a Swiss tourist.
The Indonesian archipelago has dozens of active volcanoes and straddles major tectonic fault lines known as the “Ring of Fire” between the Pacific and Indian oceans.
The country’s most active volcano, Mount Merapi in central Java, killed more than 350 people in a series of violent eruptions last year.
Mount Lokon volcano spews a giant column of volcanic ash during an eruption seen from Tomohon town on Sulawesi Island, Indonesia.
This was the seventh biggest eruption since mid-September for Mount Lokon.
When Mount Lokon erupted in July 2011, spewing rocks, lava and ash hundreds of metres into the air, hundreds of people were forced to evacuate the area.
One of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes has erupted again, spewing clouds of ash, an official said Monday.
The 1,580-metre (5,214-feet) Mount Lokon on northeast Sulawesi island erupted at 2pm (0700 GMT) on Sunday with thunderous sounds heard as far as five kilometres (three miles) away.
“Lokon has been quite active the past few months. This was the seventh biggest eruption since mid-September,” government vulcanologist Farid Bina told AFP from the volcano’s monitoring post in North Sulawesi province.
“It produced a loud sound like thunder. But we cannot detect the height of the eruption as thick clouds covered its peak,” he said, adding that muddy rains fell in surrounding areas.
There was no plan to upgrade the volcano’s alert level despite the series of eruptions, he said, adding that the nearest village of 250 people was outside the 2.5 kilometre danger zone.
The volcano experienced its biggest recent eruption in July 2011, when more than 5,200 people were evacuated as it sent huge clouds of ash as high as 3,500 metres into the sky.
Since then Mount Lokon has erupted and spewed clouds of ash about 600 times.
The volcano’s last deadly eruption was in 1991, when it killed a Swiss tourist.
The Indonesian archipelago has dozens of active volcanoes and straddles major tectonic fault lines known as the “Ring of Fire” between the Pacific and Indian oceans.
The country’s most active volcano, Mount Merapi in central Java, killed more than 350 people in a series of violent eruptions last year.
One of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes has erupted again, spewing clouds of ash, an official said Monday. The 1,580-metre (5,214-feet) Mount Lokon on northeast Sulawesi island erupted at 2pm (0700 GMT) on Sunday with thunderous sounds heard as far as five kilometres (three miles) away. “Lokon has been quite active the past few months. This was the seventh biggest eruption since mid-September,” government vulcanologist Farid Bina told AFP from the volcano’s monitoring post in North Sulawesi province. “It produced a loud sound like thunder. But we cannot detect the height of the eruption as thick clouds covered its peak,” he said, adding that muddy rains fell in surrounding areas. There was no plan to upgrade the volcano’s alert level despite the series of eruptions, he said, adding that the nearest village of 250 people was outside the 2.5 kilometre danger zone. The volcano experienced its biggest recent eruption in July 2011, when more than 5,200 people were evacuated as it sent huge clouds of ash as high as 3,500 metres into the sky. Since then Mount Lokon has erupted and spewed clouds of ash about 600 times. The volcano’s last deadly eruption was in 1991, when it killed a Swiss tourist.
by Robert Gutro for Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD (SPX)
NASA’s Global Hawk flew five science missions into Tropical Storm/Hurricane Nadine, plus the transit flight circling around the east side of Hurricane Leslie. This is a composite of the ground tracks of the transit flight to NASA Wallops plus the five science flights. TD means Tropical Depression; TS means Tropical Storm. Credit: NASA. For a larger version of this image please go here.
NASA’s Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel or HS3 scientists had a fascinating tropical cyclone to study in long-lived Hurricane Nadine. NASA’s Global Hawk aircraft has investigated Nadine five times during the storm’s lifetime.
NASA’s Global Hawk also circled around the eastern side of Hurricane Leslie when it initially flew from NASA’s Dryden Research Flight Center, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. to the HS3 base at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. on Sept. 6-7, 2012.
Nadine has been a great tropical cyclone to study because it has lived so long and has strengthened to hurricane status a couple of times, and then weakened back into a tropical storm. Hurricane Nadine is an anomaly because it has been tracking through the North Atlantic since Sept. 11, when it developed as the fourteenth tropical system of the hurricane season.
Longest-lived Tropical Cyclones As of Oct. 2, Nadine has been alive in the north Atlantic for 21 days. According to NOAA, in the Atlantic Ocean, Hurricane Ginger lasted 28 days in 1971. The Pacific Ocean holds the record, though as Hurricane/Typhoon John lasted 31 days. John was “born” in the Eastern North Pacific, crossed the International Dateline and moved through the Western North Pacific over 31 days during August and September 1994. Nadine, however, is in the top 50 longest-lasting tropical cyclones in either ocean basin.
First Flight into Nadine On Sept. 11, as part of NASA’s HS3 mission, the Global Hawk aircraft took off from NASA Wallops at 7:06 a.m. EDT and headed for Tropical Depression 14, which at the time of take-off, was still a developing low pressure area called System 91L.
At 11 a.m. EDT that day, Tropical Depression 14 was located near 16.3 North latitude and 43.1 West longitude, about 1,210 miles (1,950 km) east of the Lesser Antilles. The depression had maximum sustained winds near 35 mph. It was moving to the west near 10 mph (17 kmh) and had a minimum central pressure of 1006 millibars.
NASA’s Global Hawk landed back at Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., on Sept. 12 after spending 11 hours gathering data in the storm, which had strengthened into Tropical Storm Nadine during the early morning hours of Sept. 12.
The Global Hawk, one of two associated with the HS3 mission, sought to determine whether hot, dry and dusty air associated with the Saharan air layer was being ingested into the storm. This Saharan air typically crosses westward over the Atlantic Ocean and potentially affects tropical cyclone formation and intensification.
During its 26-hour flight around Nadine, the Global Hawk covered more than one million square kilometers (386,100 square miles) going back and forth over the storm in what’s called a “lawnmower pattern.”
The Global Hawk captured data using instruments aboard the aircraft and also dropped sensors called sondes into the storm. These sondes are small sensors tied to parachutes that drift down through the storm measuring winds, temperature and humidity.
Second Flight into Tropical Storm Nadine The Global Hawk investigated Tropical Storm Nadine again on Sept. 14 and 15. During its 22.5 hour flight around Nadine, the Global Hawk covered more than one million square kilometers (386,100 square miles) going again went back and forth over the storm in another lawnmower pattern.
“During the flight, Nadine strengthened from a tropical storm to a hurricane despite being hit by very strong westerly winds at upper levels and very dry air on its periphery,” said Scott Braun, HS3 Mission principal investigator from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Data from this flight will help scientists determine how a storm like Nadine can intensify even in the presence of seemingly adverse conditions.
Third Flight into Tropical Storm Nadine NASA’s Global Hawk unmanned aircraft departed from NASA Wallops at 2:42 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Sept. 19 and crossed the Atlantic to take additional measurements in Tropical Storm Nadine.
Both the Global Hawk and NASA’s TRMM satellite noticed that Nadine had continued to display tropical characteristics, indicating that it had not transitioned to an extra-tropical storm. An extra-tropical storm is one that loses its tropical characteristics, such as when the core of the storm changes from a warm core to a cold core, like a typical mid-latitude low pressure system that is associated with fronts. At that time, Nadine was located in the Atlantic a few hundred miles southwest of the Azores Island.
The science portion of the third flight was completed on Sept. 20. Scientists reported that they obtained excellent data from the dropsonde system, which showed some winds on the western side of the storm still reaching 60 knots (69 mph/111 kmh) at middle levels and possibly one measurement of near 60 knots (69 mph/111 kmh) near the surface. The data suggested that Nadine was still a tropical system rather than an extra-tropical system.
The three science instruments aboard the Global Hawk performed extremely well, transmitting data back to NASA Wallops for the scientists to analyze and discuss. The plane observed Nadine for more than 12 hours. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center were using the data supplied by NASA’s Global Hawk and noted in the discussion of Nadine at 11 a.m. EDT on Sept. 20, “The current intensity is kept at 45 knots (51.7 mph/83.3 kmh)…is in good agreement with dropsonde data from the NASA Global Hawk aircraft and AMSU [instrument] estimates.”
Fourth Flight Over Nadine The fourth science flight of NASA’s Global Hawk over Nadine concluded when the aircraft landed at NASA Wallops on Sunday, Sept. 23. The HS3 mission scientists changed the flight path during the Global Hawk flight to be able to overfly Nadine’s center that day.
“Measurements from dropsondes found wind speeds greater than 60 knots (69 mph/111 kph) at lower levels above the surface during that adjusted flight leg,” said Scott Braun. “Despite the large distance of Nadine from the U. S. East Coast, the Global Hawk was able to spend about 11 hours over the storm.”
Fifth Flight Over Nadine The Global Hawk aircraft’s fifth investigation of Nadine occurred on Sept. 26 with the aircraft returning to NASA Wallops the next day. While over Tropical Storm Nadine, the storm had maximum sustained winds near 60 mph (95 kmh). Despite adverse conditions, the storm re-intensified to a hurricane the next day, so the HS3 data captured the precursor conditions for intensification.
The NASA HS3 Mission Goals The HS3 mission targets the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change. The data collected will help scientists decipher the relative roles of the large-scale environment and internal storm processes that shape these systems.
HS3 is supported by several NASA centers including Wallops; Goddard; Dryden; Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.; Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.; and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. HS3 also has collaborations with partners from government agencies and academia.
HS3 is an Earth Venture mission funded by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Earth Venture missions are managed by NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder Program at the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The HS3 mission is managed by the Earth Science Project Office at NASA Ames.
A village in northern Sweden has been cut off since Sunday night after torrential rainfall made the area inaccessible. Gagsmark, near Skelleftea in far northern Sweden, houses some 40 families and is situated between several lakes that flow into the Aby river. It is this river which has caused the flood. Not even the spring floods generally causes this much trouble for the village. Several of the villagers with jobs further afield were forced to stay home on Monday. A total of nine roads were closed off to the public and a further five have limited access.
Today
Flash Flood
Vietnam
Multi Provinces, [Provinces of Quang Nam and Dak Lak]
Flash floods, triggered by heavy downpours during the past three days, swept away two people in central Quang Nam and Central Highland Dak Lak provinces. One has been confirmed dead. The local steering committee for Flood Prevention and Control said the victims, an 18-year-old female and a 30 year-old male were from Dak Lak and Quang Nam Province. The water levels were reportedly 60-80mm, causing serious flooding and damage to property. In Ea H’el District alone, flash floods swept away two bridges, submerged 490 houses and damaged 1,800ha of crops. The water levels in local rivers were forecast to increase due to the discharge of hydro-power reservoirs.
Hong Kong’s health authority received a report from a local hospital on Sunday, over a suspected case of severe respiratory disease associated with new coronavirus affecting a four-year-old boy who came from Jeddah of Saudi Arabia, the city government said in a statement. The boy presented with fever, cough and vomiting today and attended the Accident and Emergency Department of Ruttonjee Hospital on Hong Kong Island. The boy has been transferred to Queen Mary Hospital for isolation, and his current condition is stable. Respiratory specimen has been taken from the patient and test result is pending, according to the Center for Health Protection of the Department of Health. Investigation by the Center for Health Protection revealed that the boy traveled with his father from Saudi Arabia to Hong Kong on Oct. 3. His father also had fever two days ago but has recovered.
A spokesman with the Center advised travelers who fall sick within 10 days after visiting from affected countries should put on a mask and seek medical advice immediately, as well as report their travel history to the doctor concerned. The WHO said earlier that two cases of acute respiratory syndrome with renal failure had been reported from two persons who had both traveled to Middle East, and a novel coronavirus has been later confirmed relating to the two cases. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses which includes viruses that cause the common cold and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
A four-year-old boy from Saudi Arabia has tested negative for the new coronavirus which is from the same family as SARS. The Health Secretary, Ko Wing-man, said initial test results showed the boy was suffering from swine flu and further tests were being carried out. The boy was admitted to Ruttonjee Hospital in Wan Chai yesterday with a fever, cough and vomiting. He was later tranferred to Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam where he remains in isolation in a stable condition. His father had a fever two days ago but has since recovered. Dr Ko said that although swine flu was less serious than the new coronavirus, the government would remain vigilant to see if it had mutated since the major outbreak of 2009. The new coronavirus, which emerged in the Middle East, has killed one man in Saudi Arabia and left another, from Qatar, critically ill.
The suspected case of severe respiratory disease associated with Novel Coronavirus affecting a four-year-old Saudi Arabian boy was confirmed to be an influenza infection, the Center for Health Protection in Hong Kong said Monday. The center carried out an urgent investigation into the case on receipt of notification from Ruttonjee Hospital on Sunday. The boy was admitted to Queen Mary Hospital for isolation on the same day. He has upper respiratory tract symptoms and there is no clinical or radiological evidence of pneumonia. He is stable. The boy tested positive for influenza A (H1N1) 2009 virus but negative for Novel Coronavirus.
Image Credit: A computer visualization of the sun (red sphere) and its magnetic field lines (orange and aquamarine). The close-up shows the final stage of the emergence of magnetic fields from under the solar surface and the associated X-ray emissions. This sophisticated computer model is used to investigate the drivers of harmful space weather phenomena, including coronal mass ejections. Image courtesy of Cooper Downs, Predictive Science, Inc.
April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
After forty long years of debates and theories and counter-theories, the community of solar physics scientists has still failed to come to a consensus about what causes the sun’s powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs). CMEs have profound “space weather” effects on land based power grids and satellites in near-Earth geospace.
An international team of scientists explains the mysterious physical mechanisms behind the origin of CMEs in a study published in Nature Physics. The results, based on computer simulations, expose the intricate connections between CMEs and motions in the sun’s interior. This new data could lead to better forecasting of hazardous space weather conditions.
Clouds of magnetic fields and plasma – a hot gas composed of charged particles – comprise CMEs. The most powerful and fastest of these events explode from the sun at more than a million miles per hour, with an energy release more powerful than the entire worldwide stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Disruptions in power grids, satellites that operate GPS or telecommunication systems, pose threats to astronauts in space, cause spectacular auroras, and lead to the rerouting of flights over the polar regions are all effects of geomagnetic storms caused by CMEs. These storms happen when a solar eruption hits Earth’s protective magnetic bubble, or magnetosphere.
The study provides an explanation of the origin of these super speed ejections of magnetized plasma and the associated X-ray emissions, demonstrating a fundamental connection between the magnetic processes of the sun’s interior and the formation of CMEs.
“Through this type of computer modeling we are able to understand how invisible bundles of magnetic field rise from under the surface of the sun into interplanetary space and propagate towards Earth with potentially damaging results”, says SSC researcher Noé Lugaz of the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space. He adds, “These fundamental phenomena cannot be observed even with the most advanced instruments on board NASA satellites but they can be revealed by numerical simulations.”
Accurate forecasting of solar eruptions and being able to predict their impact on Earth has long been a goal of solar physicists.
“The model described here enables us not only to capture the magnetic evolution of the CME, but also to calculate the increased X-ray flux directly, which is a significant advantage over the existing models,” asserts the authors.
Source: April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
People and pets should avoid contact with water in Clear Lake in southeast Thurston County because of elevated levels of a toxic blue-green algae. The latest sample by Thurston County environmental health officials found 39.2 parts per million of the toxic algae Microsystin. The recreational advisory limit set by the state is 6 ppm. The lake will remain posted with a warning sign and be monitored weekly until the algae bloom dies off or until it stops producing toxins, health officials said. Toxic blue green algae is also present in Lake St. Clair and Black Lake, but at levels well below the health advisory threshold. However, health officials urge caution in lakes showing the presence of the toxic algae because it can be more concentrated in areas where the algae scum is thick. Lake St. Clair and Black Lake will continue to be monitored weekly.
Biohazard name:
Blue-green algae (Cyanobacteria)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
As many as 70 workers were hospitalised, after they inhaled chlorine vapours leaked from a factory in an industrial area of Jalgaon in north Maharashtra on Sunday. Of the hospitalised, the condition of three was reported to be critical. While two of them are undergoing treatment at a local super-specialty hospital, one person is being treated in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a government hospital. According to local fire brigade officials, one of the chlorine cylinders stored at Kalpataru Agrochem company in sector-N of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) area of Jalgaon, began to leak at around 3.30 am on Sunday. After inhaling the leaked chlorine, 70-odd workers of a company, Tulsi Pipes, located right in front of the agro-chemical unit felt uneasy. They complained of irritation in the eye and throat. Many of them began to vomit.
An illustration showing how a mantle plume can be emitted from the core-mantle boundary of the Earth to reach the Earth’s crust. Due to the movement of tectonic plates at the Earth’s surface, the mantle plumes can create a series of aligned hot spot volcanoes. A mid-ocean ridge and a subducted plate are also shown in this schematic from a study in the July 19, 2012 issue of the journal Nature.
By: Charles Q. Choi, OurAmazingPlanet Contributor
Published: 10/08/2012 12:35 PM EDT on OurAmazingPlanet
The entire outermost part of Earth may be wandering over the planet’s whirling molten core, new research suggests.
Knowing whether the Earth’s outer layers are roaming in this manner is key to understanding the big picture of how the planet’s surface is evolving overall, scientists added.
At various times in Earth’s history, the planet’s solid exterior — its crust and mantle layers — has apparently drifted over the planet’s spinning core. To picture this, imagine that a peach’s flesh somehow became detached from a peach’s pit and was free to move about over it.
This movement of the Earth’s outer layers is known as “true polar wander.” It differs from the motion of the individual tectonic plates making up Earth’s crust, known as tectonic drift, or the motions of Earth’s magnetic pole, called apparent polar wander.
‘Hot spot’ landmarks
Past research suggested the Earth experienced true polar wander during the early Cretaceous period that lasted from 100 million to 120 million years ago. Determining when, in which direction and at what rate true polar wander is taking place depends on having stable landmarks against which one can observe the motion of Earth’s outer shell, much like one can tell a cloud is moving by seeing if its position has changed relative to its surroundings.
Volcanic “hot spots,” or areas of recurrent volcanism, are one potential landmark. Geologists have suggested these are created by mantle plumes, giant jets of hot rock buoying straight upward from near the Earth’s core. Mantle plumes are thought to create long island chains such as the Hawaiian Islands as they sear tectonic plates drifting overhead.
Scientists have treated hot spots as stationary features for decades. The idea was that material surrounding the mantle plumes roil about to form structures known as convection cells that kept the plumes straight and fixed in place. [50 Amazing Volcano Facts]
Later on, however, researchers began suggesting that mantle plumes could move about slightly, caught as they are in the flowing mantle layer under the crust. “From this point of view, the plumes are expected to move, bend and get distorted by the ‘mantle wind,’ resulting in hot spot drift over geologic time,” said researcher Pavel Doubrovine, a geophysicist at the University of Oslo in Norway.
By allowing hot spot positions to meander slowly, Doubrovine and his colleagues have devised computer simulations that better match observations of the chains of islands created by each hot spot.
“Estimating hot spot drift in the geological past is not a trivial task,” Doubrovine told OurAmazingPlanet. “It requires substantial modeling efforts.”
The scientists then compared the way the Earth’s outermost layers drifted in relation to the planet’s axis of spin. The Earth’s magnetic field is aligned with the core’s axis of rotation, and researchers can tell how Earth’s magnetic field was oriented in the past by analyzing ancient rock. Magnetic minerals in molten rock can behave like compasses, aligning with Earth’s magnetic field lines, an orientation that gets frozen in place once the rock solidifies.
Current wandering
Using their simulations and the magnetic field rock record, the scientists identified three new potential instances of true polar wander over the past 90 million years. These include two cases in which the Earth’s solid outermost layers traveled back and forth by nearly 9 degrees off Earth’s axis of spin from 40 million to 90 million years ago. Moreover, the researchers suggest that Earth’s outer shell has been undergoing true polar wander for the past 40 million years, slowly rotating at a rate of 0.2 degrees every million years.
Researchers suspect true polar wander is caused by shifting of matter within the mantle, due, for instance, to variations in temperature and composition. However, “we don’t know yet what specific tectonic events may have triggered the specific episodes of true polar wander that we identified,” Doubrovine said.
These new details regarding true polar wander could help shed light on what triggers it. In the future, the researchers plan to look even further in the past at how the planet’s outermost layers have changed. Doubrovine and his colleagues Bernhard Steinberger and Trond Torsvik detailed their findings online Sept. 11 in the Journal of Geophysical Research — Solid Earth.
[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.]
Earthquakes of the last 2 days on the Canary Islands Mgnitude 1.5 or greater
Terremotos de los últimos 2 días en las Islas Canarias de magnitud igual o superior a 1.5 o sentidos:
The earthquake information for lesser magnitudes can be found at this link Catálogo y boletines sísmicos.
La información de terremotos de magnitud inferior se puede obtener en Catálogo y boletines sísmicos.This data is subject to change as a consequence of continuous revisions of seismic analysis
Esta información está sujeta a modificaciones como consecuencia de la continua revisión del análisis sísmico.
Translation by Desert Rose
95 Tremors in the Canary Islands Region between 9/17/2012 and 9/18/2012
Event Date Time Lat. Long. Depth Mag. Type Location
A man in Quang Nam Province swings his arms to describe earthquakes that rattled his house early on Monday. The tremors have left his wife and son in a panic, he said.
The central province of Quang Nam, which has been disturbed by tremors caused by the Song Tranh 2 dam, was hit by more earthquakes Monday and Tuesday.
Two earthquakes, the bigger of which registered 2.7 on the Richter scale, occurred early Monday, and three others early on Tuesday.
Nguyen Quoc Viet, who lives near the dam, said he was sleeping when a tremor woke him Monday.
“The bed shook. I knew it was another earthquake, and I just ran out of the house.”
Ho Van Tien, who felt a quake while exercising at 5 p.m., said the tremors lasted around seven seconds. He said it was the biggest of the recent quakes he’d experienced.
Many local residents agreed the late quake Monday was the worst, while scientists later said it occurred as close as five kilometers from the earth’s surface.
The quakes added to a series of at least 17 since September 3, including one of a magnitude 4.2, which have panicked local residents.
Scientists said the quakes were “normal” reservoir-induced ones, caused by the increased pressure of the dam’s water on the earth’s surface as water from the reservoir is absorbed into fault lines in the area, triggering seismic activity.
Geologists sent to the province said the quakes were not dangerous, but local authorities did not believe them.
Many local residents have packed their clothes and blankets and are ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Others have built wooden houses, leaving their cracked concrete houses abandoned.
Many parents have also pulled their children out of schools downstream from the dam.
Local officials have demanded that the dam’s investor, the state-owned monopoly Electricity of Vietnam, not to store any more water at the dam, and compensate affected families, at least with rice.
The Song Tranh 2 hydropower dam, the biggest in the central region, was built at a cost of more than VND4.15 trillion (US$197.53 million). It caused first quakes in November 2010 soon after it was completed, and more in April this year after it developed cracks. The cracks were fixed by the end of August.
JAKARTA, Indonesia — One of Indonesia’s most active volcanos has erupted, shooting ash and smoke nearly 1 1/2 kilometers (one mile) into the sky.
State volcanology official Kristianto says Mount Soputan on central Indonesia’s Sulawesi island erupted Tuesday afternoon.
Kristianto, who uses one name, says there is no plan for an immediate evacuation since the nearest villages are outside the danger area of about 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) from the crater.
Mount Soputan is about 1,350 miles (2,160 kilometers) northeast of Jakarta. It last erupted in July last year, causing no casualties.
Indonesia straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanos and fault lines around the Pacific Basin. It has more active volcanoes than any other nation. Another mountain, Gamalama, erupted last week on the Molucca Islands.
Steam and ash billow out of Mount Gamalama on Ternate Island on Sunday. (AP Photo)
Solo, Central Java. As two volcanos in the eastern part of Indonesia continued to erupt on Monday, Mount Merapi in Central Java has been displaying increasing activity, with rumblings in the past week.
“In the evenings, there are rumblings that are accompanied by the ground shaking,” Sapto, from Samiran village in the district of Boyolali on the slope of Merapi, said on Monday.
He said that the 2,968-meter volcano was also active during the day, as evidenced by the thick column of ash billowing out from its crater.
Sapto said that as of Monday, local authorities had not issued any information to the public regarding the volcano.
Subiso, head of Selo subdistrict in Boyolali, confirmed that no official advisories or warnings had been issued yet about the increased activity on Merapi.
However, he said that the rumbling sounds from the volcano were almost routine in the area, and added that the situation there “is still safe.”
Ngatini, another resident said that the rumblings did not disturb local residents too much.
“If an eruption is imminent, the rumbling will be heard continuously and there will be some ash rain,” she said.
Merapi last erupted in October 2010, spewing enormous amounts of ash. Pyroclastic flows, fast-moving currents of superheated gas and rock, killed more than 300 people along the heavily populated slopes and forced 350,000 to evacuate.
Meanwhile, with a small eruption still taking place on Mount Lokon in Tomohon, North Sulawesi, authorities there are maintaining the alert status for the volcano and have banned all human activities within a 2.5-kilometer radius of the crater.
Farid Sukendar, head of the Lokon volcano observation post, said that the mountain erupted after dusk on Saturday, spewing superheated volcanic material up to 600 meters and ash up to 1,500 meters into the atmosphere.
“This volcano is active and therefore we should remain vigilant because it could erupt any time,” he said.
Arnold Poli, secretary of the town of Tomohon, located at the base of the mountain, said that the authorities were continuously monitoring the volcano. He said that the series of eruptions had not affected the activities of the local population but added the authorities were calling on everyone to remain alert.
He also said that despite the volcanic activity, the government had yet to evacuate anyone from the villages of Kinilow and Kakaskasen III, the two villages closest to the smoldering crater.
“No one has yet been ordered to evacuate,” he said.
Mount Soputan, in North Sulawesi’s South Minahasa district, and Mount Karangetang in the Sitaro Islands district across from the northernmost tip of Sulawesi remained on a government-ordered standby alert status, or just one rung below the most severe alert.
“There are now three volcanoes in North Sulawesi under the standby alert status,” said Hooke Makarawung, head of the North Sulawesi Disaster Mitigation Office (BPBD).
“People should remain vigilant.”
He said that about 110 people had been evacuated from the slopes of Karangetang and that the North Sulawesi administration had sent relief supplies to them.
Djauhari Kansil, the deputy governor of North Sulawesi, said that those evacuated were from East Siau subdistrict, but he added that in the daytime, the people were allowed to return to their village to work their fields.
They have been asked to return to the shelters in the evening.
The volcanology office also announced on Monday that it had raised the alert level for Mount Gamalama, on Ternate Island in North Maluku province, to standby.
The office, on its website, said that the alert status was raised on Sunday.
The site offered no further details.
The 1,715-meter Gamalama, a conical volcano that dominates Ternate Island, last erupted in December, destroying more than 100 houses and leaving farmers devastated after a thick layer of ash smothered fruit trees and crops.
Four villagers were confirmed dead in that eruption.
Metro TV reported on Monday that the mountain spewed a white column of ash about 500 meters into the atmosphere.
There was also some volcanic debris thrown up by the mountain but on a smaller scale.
It also said the local volcanology authorities had declared a 2.5-kilometer exclusion radius around the crater of the erupting volcano.
On Sunday evening, the smoke and volcanic debris thrown up by Gamalama reached about 1,000 meters into the atmosphere, according to the report.
Anak Krakatau in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra also showed some signs of activity earlier this month. The volcano is the remnant of Krakatau, the site of an earth-shattering eruption in 1883.
Seismic unrest has been increasing. 2 earthquake swarms occurred on 23 and 26 August, with 115 and 94 quakes, respectively. White gas emissions from the El Verde fumarole could be observed on 24 August. INGEOMINAS mintains yellow alert for the volcano.
One of Indonesia’s most active volcanos has erupted, shooting ash and smoke nearly 1 1/2 kilometers (one mile) into the sky. State volcanology official Kristianto says Mount Soputan on central Indonesia’s Sulawesi island erupted Tuesday afternoon. Kristianto, who uses one name, says there is no plan for an immediate evacuation since the nearest villages are outside the danger area of about 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) from the crater. Mount Soputan is about 1,350 miles (2,160 kilometers) northeast of Jakarta. It last erupted in July last year, causing no casualties. Indonesia straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanos and fault lines around the Pacific Basin. It has more active volcanoes than any other nation. Another mountain, Gamalama, erupted last week on the Molucca Islands.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A second major wind storm in less than two weeks swept through Alaska’s largest city on Sunday, but unlike the earlier storm, its greatest intensity was mostly on higher elevations where gusts as high as 120 mph were reported, weather forecasters said.
Chugach Electric said as many as 6,000 customers between Anchorage and the northern Kenai Peninsula were without power at the height of the storm. Fewer than two dozen customers remained in the dark, utility spokesman Phil Steyer said.
The outages are known or suspected to be caused by fallen trees, although not as many as the stronger storm earlier this month that downed hundreds of trees across the city. That storm blew a lot of leaves off branches, making “less surface area now for the wind to catch on,” Steyer said.
iWitness/cindymbrice
The storm two weeks ago brought down trees and caused thousands of power outages. Only 6,000 outages were reported Sunday.
Era Aviation commuter planes were grounded Saturday evening, though only partially because of the weather. Spokesman Steve Smith said the statewide airline also learned recently that electronic components for cockpit voice recorders on its 12-plane fleet must be replaced to conform to federal regulatory specifications.
Smith said the equipment could be replaced within a few hours and a few days, depending on the aircraft. In the meantime, some passengers have been rerouted to other carriers, he said. With moderate rains in the area, the National Weather service issued a flood warning for Anchorage’s Chester Creek.
The storm turned out to be less dramatic than expected in the lower elevation Anchorage bowl, with the fiercest winds concentrated in higher elevations, such as the Hillside area and Turnagain Arm south of town.
“It looks like we’re dodging a bullet in the bowl,” weather service meteorologist John Papineau said.
For Anchorage police, the storm brought far fewer calls than the last one, with just a few reports of downed trees and of two flooded intersections, dispatcher Eric Anderson said.
“It’s pretty uneventful so far,” he said. “We’re pretty happy about that.”
The weather service said wind gusts of 35-40 mph were hitting parts of anchorage Sunday night.
With weather service instruments in some of the windiest spots knocked out by the earlier storm, the agency was relying on wind measurements taken by weather enthusiasts, meteorologist Emily Niebuhr said.
The storm, whose long front has stretched over much of south-central Alaska, was expected to shift to the east and diminish later Sunday, Papineau said.
More rain was expected early in the week, he said.
Arctic sea ice is shrinking at a rate much faster than scientists ever predicted and its collapse, due to global warming, may well cause extreme weather this winter in North America and Europe, according to climate scientists.
Last month, researchers announced that Arctic sea ice had dwindled to the smallest size ever observed by man, covering almost half the area it did 30 years ago, when satellites and submarines first began measuring it. While the loss of summer sea ice is likely to open up new shipping lanes and may connect the West Coast of the United States to the Far East via a trans-polar route, researchers say it will also affect weather patterns and Arctic wildlife. “It’s probably going to be a very interesting winter,” climate scientist Jennifer Francis said Wednesday in a teleconference with reporters. Francis, a researcher at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University, has argued that shrinking Arctic ice can be tied to such recent weather events as prolonged cold spells in Europe, heavy snows in the Northeastern U.S. and Alaska, and heat waves in Russia. Decades ago, Arctic ice covered about 6 million square miles of sea in the winter, and would shrink to about 3 million square miles in the summer. The rate of summer melt increased enormously around 2005, however, and today scientists say Arctic ice covers about 1 million square miles. “This is a very small amount of ice indeed,” said Peter Wadhams, an ocean physics professor at the University of Cambridge. Wadhams said that while Arctic ice used to build up over many years, new ice formations are now breaking up and melting each summer. “I think that what we can expect in the next few years is further collapse leading to an ice-free Arctic in summer,” Wadhams said. “It really is a dramatic change.” Previously, scientists had predicted that it would take 30 or 40 more years before the Arctic was ice-free in the summer.
The loss of Arctic ice has several effects. Ice reflects heat and solar energy back into space. With less ice cover, that heat energy is instead absorbed by the ocean, which warms and melts more ice. Currently, the Arctic region is the fastest-warming region on the planet, and the change in temperature will probably influence weather patterns here and in Europe, according to Francis. The heating and cooling of Arctic seawater has been affecting the jet stream – the river of air that flows from west to east high above the Earth’s surface – and has slowed it down, Francis said. The jet stream controls the formation and movement of storm systems, so when its movement slows, weather conditions persist for longer periods of time over the same area. They get “stuck.” “If you’re in a nice dry pattern with sunny skies, it’s great if it lasts for a few days. But If it lasts for a few weeks, well then you’re starting to talk about a drought,” Francis said. “If you have a rainy pattern and it hangs around for a long time, then that becomes a situation that could lead to flooding.” Arctic warming will influence weather to the south during the late fall and winter. While Francis said it would probably result in severe weather this winter, it was impossible to predict when and where those events would occur. Record ice melts this year and in 2007 have alarmed many scientists, mostly because they thought it would take many more years to reach this state. James Overland, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said forecasts failed to account for the physics of lost solar energy reflection and warming ocean water. “These are really surprises to most scientists,” Overland said. “In looking at climate models that are used to look forward, they’ve tended to say the Arctic may be ice-free by 2040 or 2050. It looks like things are happening a lot faster, and it’s because not all of the physics that we’re seeing today were well-handled in these climate models.” Overland, who is also an associate professor at the University of Washington’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, said these effects are known as “Arctic amplification” and would carry heavy consequences for wildlife like polar bears and walruses by reducing their habitat. Wednesday’s telephone news conference was hosted by Climate Nexus, a New York-based nonprofit that seeks to publicize the effects of climate change. (c)2012 Los Angeles Times Distributed by MCT Information Services
During the first six months of 2012, sea surface temperatures in the Northeast Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem were the highest ever recorded, according to the latest Ecosystem Advisory issued by NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC). Above-average temperatures were found in all parts of the ecosystem, from the ocean bottom to the sea surface and across the region, and the above average temperatures extended beyond the shelf break front to the Gulf Stream.
The annual 2012 spring plankton bloom was intense, started earlier and lasted longer than average. This has implications for marine life from the smallest creatures to the largest marine mammals like whales. Atlantic cod continued to shift northeastward from its historic distribution center. The Northeast US Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) extends from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The NEFSC has monitored this ecosystem with comprehensive sampling programs from 1977 onward; prior to 1977, this ecosystem was also monitored by the NEFSC through a series of separate but coordinated programs dating back decades. “A pronounced warming event occurred on the Northeast Shelf this spring, and this will have a profound impact throughout the ecosystem,” said Kevin Friedland, a scientist in the NEFSC’s Ecosystem Assessment Program. “Changes in ocean temperatures and the timing of the spring plankton bloom could affect the biological clocks of many marine species, which spawn at specific times of the year based on environmental cues like water temperature.” Friedland said the average sea surface temperature (SST) exceeded 10.5 degrees C (51°F) during the first half of 2012, exceeding the previous record high in 1951. Average SST has typically been lower than 9 degrees C (48°F) over the past three decades. Sea surface temperature in the region is based on both contemporary satellite remote-sensing data and long-term ship-board measurements, with historical SST conditions based on ship-board measurements dating back to 1854. In some nearshore locations like Delaware and Chesapeake Bays in the Middle Atlantic Bight region, temperatures were more than 6 degrees C (11°F) above historical average at the surface and more than 5 degrees C (9°F) above average at the bottom. In deeper offshore waters to the north, bottom waters were 1 degree C (2°F) warmer in the eastern Gulf of Maine and greater than 2 degrees C (3.6°F) warmer in the western Gulf of Maine.
Ocean bottom temperature data cited in the advisory posted today came from a variety of sources, including eMOLT, a cooperative research program between the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and lobstermen who deploy temperature probes attached to lobster traps. While some of the temperature probes from the eMOLT program are still in the water and have not yet been returned, those that have been returned indicate that bottom water temperatures in 2012 were the warmest since the eMOLT program began in 2001. Atlantic cod distribution in the Gulf of Maine continues a northeasterly shift, with the spring 2012 data consistent with a response to ecosystem warming. Warming ocean temperatures and the resulting impact on the distribution of 36 fish stocks was reported by the Center in a 2009 study published in Marine Ecology Progress Series. That study analyzed annual NEFSC spring survey data from 1968 to 2007 and other information and found that about half of the 36 fish stocks studied in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, many of them commercially valuable species, have been shifting northward over the past four decades, with some disappearing from US waters as they move farther offshore. Friedland notes that although cod didn’t shift as much as other species like hake in the 2009 study, the effects of warming water on ocean currents and other ocean circulation patterns could change that. “Cod distribution continues to be dynamic, with northerly shifts detected in the spring 2012 data, consistent with a response to ecosystem warming,” Friedland said. “The big question is whether or not these changes will continue, or are they a short-term anomaly?” Mike Fogarty, who heads the Ecosystem Assessment Program, says the abundance of cod and other finfish is controlled by a complex set of factors, and that increasing temperatures in the ecosystem make it essential to monitor the distribution of many species, some of them migratory and others not. “A complex combination of factors influence ocean conditions, and it isn’t always easy to understand the big picture when you are looking at one specific part of it at one specific point in time, “Fogarty said, a comparison similar to not seeing the forest when looking at a single tree in it. “We now have information from a variety of sources collected over a long period of time on the ecosystem, and are continually adding more data to clarify specific details. The data clearly show a relationship between all of these factors.” The 2012 spring plankton bloom, one of the longest duration and most intense in recent history, started at the earliest date recorded since the ocean color remote sensing data series began in 1998. In some locations, the spring bloom began in February, and was fully developed by March in all areas except Georges Bank, which had an average although variable spring bloom. The 2012 spring bloom in the Gulf of Maine began in early March, the earliest recorded bloom in that area. “What this early start means for the Northeast Shelf ecosystem and its marine life is unknown,” Fogarty said. “What is known is that things are changing, and we need to continue monitoring and adapting to these changes.” Intensive surveys of environmental conditions on the Northeast Shelf from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to Nova Scotia were conducted from 1977 to 1987 as part of the Marine Resources Monitoring, Assessment & Prediction (MARMAP) program. The efforts continued at reduced levels through the 1990s and are ongoing today as part of the Center’s Ecosystems Monitoring (EcoMon) program. Plankton samples are collected six times a year in each of the four subareas of the Northeast Shelf: the Middle Atlantic Bight, Southern New England, Georges Bank, and the Gulf of Maine. EcoMon scientists also collect water samples and other oceanographic data about conditions during each season in each of the four areas to provide a long-term view of changing conditions on the Shelf. Ecosystem advisories have been issued twice a year by the NEFSC’s Ecosystems Assessment Program since 2006 as a way to routinely summarize overall conditions in the region. The reports show the effects of changing coastal and ocean temperatures on fisheries from Cape Hatteras to the Canadian border. The advisories provide a snapshot of the ecosystem for the fishery management councils and also a broad range of stakeholders from fishermen to researchers. The Spring 2012 Ecosystem Advisory with supporting information is available online.
A fierce storm packing 140-kilometer (87-mile) an hour winds tore across the heart of South America on Wednesday, killing five people in Paraguay and wreaking havoc in Argentina and Uruguay.
The Roque Alonso suburb of the Paraguayan capital Asuncion was devastated by the storm and widespread looting was reported in its aftermath.
Four police cadets died and 15 were injured when the roof of their dormitory collapsed, and a 16-year-old boy died at a shopping center when a water tank collapsed on him outside a pharmacy.
“Roque Alonso has to be built all over again,” police commander Heriberto Marmol said.
Dozens of injured people flooded Asuncion hospitals and traffic was gridlocked in parts of the city.
A crowd of thousands braved torrential rain for a concert by the rock band Scorpions only to see the show cancelled.
Nationwide, at least 5,000 homes were destroyed and more than 80 people injured in storm-related incidents, Aldo Saldivar of the national emergency response center said.
The storm also blew the roof off homes and barns in Neembucu, south of the capital and knocked out power in the town of Encarnacion for many hours.
The wind was less severe further south in Argentina and Uruguay, around 100 kilometers (62 mph) per hour, but strong gusts still ripped of roofs and toppled trees and power lines, plunging some regions into darkness.
RUDRAPRAYAG, India (CNN) — The death toll in cloudburst that triggered a massive landslide and affected nearly five villages of northern India’s Uttarakhand state, rose to 50 and about 20 people are still reported to be missing.
The cloudburst preceded by incessant rains led to a massive landslide in the state’s Rudraprayag district caused heavy damage in the hilly region rendering almost 500 people homeless.
Search and the rescue operations are in full swing in the cloudburst-hit area, but the official says rains have disrupted the relief and rescue work.
Speaking to Asian News International in the state capital Dehradun, director of the Disaster Management and Mitigation Department (DMMD), Piyush Rautela said the rescue operations are in full swing in the region and also the basic necessities are being provided to the homeless people staying in relief camps.
“The incident happened on September 13 and 14 which affected four to five villages around Ukhimath. Again there were incidents of landslides in the morning of September 16. From this incident, so far 50 bodies have been recovered, and 20 people are still reported to be missing. The operation to search the missing people is going on.
The personnel from ITBP (Indo Tibetan Border Police Force), NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) and PAC (Provincial Armed Constabulary) are engaged in rescue operations. All our rescue teams are working. Two relief camps are there in Ukhimath for those who have been affected. About 500 people are staying there.
All the necessary items like food and other basic facilities are being provided to them,” he said
The cloudburst that occurred in the wee hours on last Friday, wreaked havoc in several villages of the area and killed most of the victims in their sleep.
Heavy monsoons have always resulted in calamities in different parts of India with each passing year.
The annual monsoon, vital for South Asia’ s agricultural dependent economy, often wreaks havoc as floods and landslides inundate vast swathes of low-lying lands. Weather News at TerraDaily.com
Mutated sunflower was found in Manno cho Kagawa prefecture. Kagawa is in Shikoku. 大きな地図で見る
For the question of the prefectural agriculture and distribution department, an expert commented it may be prolification flower, which is a sort of mutation. This is a rare phenomenon for sunflower.
General causes are
1. Excessive fertilizer
2. Unusual heat
However, it was growing naturally.
The central flower is about 20cm diameter, 14 other ones are 3cm diameter.
For the questionnaire, 34% of the people answered they want to evacuate Fukushima city, and local government staff is commenting they need to take measures about this situation.
In May, Fukushima city government sent questionnaires to 5,000 people of over 20 years old living in Fukushima city and to 500 people who evacuated to out of Fukushima city. The valid response rate was 55%.
The result showed 34% of them answered “They want to evacuate even now.”. 31% of them answered “They used to want to evacuate.”.
Among people who evacuated to out of Fukushima city, 27% of them answered “They don’t want to come back.”. 19% of them answered “They don’t want to come back to Fukushima city if possible.”
However, 55% of them answered “They want to come back to Fukushima city.”
The city government staff comments, “The result is very severe. We need to take some measures. “.
Before 311, nuclear material to contain more than 100 Bq/Kg of Cs 134 or 137 was treated as nuclear waste. Now it is the safety limit of food in Japan.
Japanese government is still investing into making people consume radioactive food.
On 9/12/2012, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Consumer Affairs Agency, food safety commission of Japan and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries published the leaflets.
The purpose is to help people understand and resolve their anxiety about radiation properly by supplying consumers with information about how Japanese and local governments take measures about food contamination, and the fact that only little amount of radiation is contained in food.
<End>
On the leaflet, they emphasized it’s safe to keep eating potentially contaminated food only if it’s under the safety limit.
<Translate>
If it’s under the safety limit, it’s safe to keep eating.
New safety limit has been introduced since April 2012. If it’s under this safety limit, the total dose for the entire life is less than 1mSv, which is safe adequately.
This safety limit is strictly determined by FAO and WHO and it doesn’t have to be more strict.
<End>
The leaflet is to be distributed at supermarkets or chain stores.
Residents in the Concho Valley area off of Highway 61 noticed hundreds of prairies dogs had died in a short span of time. Prairie dogs are considered sentinel animals to the fact that plague is in the area. Officials with Arizona Game and Fish were notified by an alert resident and further contact was made with health officials from Apache and Coconino counties, the state health department, as well as experts at Northern Arizona University. NAU is home to the Microbial Genetics and Genomics Center and has been a key player in testing for plague for the past 10 years. The lab sent a team to the area to trap fleas in the prairie dog holes that had recent die-offs. The team’s first visit was on August 27 and results from the lab testing showed positive for plague.
Biohazard name:
Yersinia pestis (plague)
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Malaria has been found in birds in parts of Alaska, and global climate change will drive it even farther north, according to a new study published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
The spread could prove devastating to arctic bird species that have never encountered the disease and thus have no resistance to it, said San Francisco State University Associate Professor of Biology Ravinder Sehgal, one of the study’s co-authors. It may also help scientists understand the effects of climate change on the spread of human malaria, which is caused by a similar parasite. Researchers examined blood samples from birds collected at four sites of varying latitude, with Anchorage as a southern point, Denali and Fairbanks as middle points and Coldfoot as a northern point, roughly 600 miles north of Anchorage. They found infected birds in Anchorage and Fairbanks but not in Coldfoot. Using satellite imagery and other data, researchers were able to predict how environments will change due to global warming—and where malaria parasites will be able to survive in the future. They found that by 2080, the disease will have spread north to Coldfoot and beyond. “Right now, there’s no avian malaria above latitude 64 degrees, but in the future, with global warming, that will certainly change,” Sehgal said. The northerly spread is alarming, he added, because there are species in the North American arctic that have never been exposed to the disease and may be highly susceptible to it.
Avian malaria was found in Alaska in the Savannah sparrow, pictured here. Credit: Jenny Carlson, SF State “For example, penguins in zoos die when they get malaria, because far southern birds have not been exposed to malaria and thus have not developed any resistance to it,” he said. “There are birds in the north, such as snowy owls or gyrfalcons, that could experience the same thing.” The study’s lead author is Claire Loiseau, a former postdoctoral fellow in Sehgal’s laboratory at SF State. Ryan Harrigan, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, provided data modeling for the project. The research was funded by grants from the AXA Foundation and National Geographic. Researchers are still unsure how the disease is being spread in Alaska and are currently collecting additional data to determine which mosquito species are transmitting the Plasmodium parasites that cause malaria. The data may also indicate if and how malaria in humans will spread northward. Modern medicine makes it difficult to track the natural spread of the disease, Sehgal said, but monitoring birds may provide clues as to how global climate change may effect the spread of human malaria. More information: “First evidence and predictions of Plasmodium transmission in Alaskan bird populations” was written by Claire Loiseau, Ryan J. Harrigan, Anthony K. Cornel, Sue L. Guers, Molly Dodge, Timothy Marzec, Jenny S. Carlson, Bruce Seppi and Ravinder N. M. Sehgal and published Sept. 19 in PLoS ONE. Journal reference: PLoS ONE search and more info website Provided by San Francisco State University search and more info website
A ringed seal peaks out from its snow cave. (Credit: Brendan Kelly, NSF)
As sea ice in the Arctic continues to shrink during this century, more than two thirds of the area with sufficient snow cover for ringed seals to reproduce also will disappear, challenging their survival, scientists report in a new study.
The ringed seal, currently under consideration for threatened species listing, builds caves to rear its young in snow drifts on sea ice. Snow depths must be on average at least 20 centimeters, or 8 inches, to enable drifts deep enough to support the caves.
“It’s an absolute condition they need,” said Cecilia Bitz, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington. She’s a co-author of the study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
But without sea ice, the platform that allows the snow to pile up disappears, ultimately reducing the area where the seals can raise their pups.
Bitz typically focuses on studying the area and thickness of sea ice. “But when a seal biologist telephoned and asked what our climate models predict for snow depth on the ice, I said, ‘I have no idea,’” she said. “We had never looked.”
That biologist was co-author Brendan Kelly of the National Science Foundation and he was curious about the snow depth trend because he was contributing to a governmental report in response to the petition to list the seals as threatened.
The researchers, including lead author and UW atmospheric sciences graduate student Paul Hezel, found that snowfall patterns will change during this century but the most important factor in determining snow depth on the ice will be the disappearance of the sea ice.
“The snowfall rate increases slightly in the middle of winter by the end of the century,” Hezel said. However, at the same time sea ice is expected to start forming later in the year than it does now. The slightly heavier snowfall in the winter won’t compensate for the fact that in the fall — which is also when it snows the heaviest — snow will drop into the ocean instead of piling up on the ice.
The researchers anticipate that the area of the Arctic that accumulates at least 20 centimeters of snow will decrease by almost 70 percent this century. With insufficient snow depth, caves won’t hold up.
Other climate changes threaten those caves, too. For instance, the snow will melt earlier in the year than it does now, so it’s possible the caves won’t last until the young seals are old enough to venture out on their own. In addition, more precipitation will fall as rain, which soaks into the snow and can cause caves to collapse.
The research is important for more than just the ringed seals. “There are many other reasons to study snow cover,” Hezel said. “It has a huge thermodynamic impact on the thickness of the ice.”
Snow on sea ice in fall and winter acts like a blanket that slows the release of heat from the relatively warm ocean into the atmosphere. That means deeper snow tempers sea ice growth.
In the spring, snow has a different impact on the ice. Since snow is more reflective than ice, it creates a cooling effect on the surface. “So the presence of snow helps sustain the icepack into spring time,” Hezel said.
To produce the study, the scientists examined 10 different climate models, looking at historic and future changes of things like sea ice area, precipitation, snowfall and snow depth on sea ice. The resulting prediction for declining snow depth on sea ice this century agreed across all of the models.
The new research comes too late to be cited in the report about ringed seals that was written by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in response to the petition to list the ringed seal as threatened. However, it confirms results that were based on a single model that Bitz provided for the report two years ago. NOAA expects to issue its final decision soon.
The UW scientists on this study were funded by the Office of Naval Research.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Washington. The original article was written by Nancy Gohring.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
P. J. Hezel, X. Zhang, C. M. Bitz, B. P. Kelly, F. Massonnet. Projected decline in spring snow depth on Arctic sea ice caused by progressively later autumn open ocean freeze-up this century. Geophysical Research Letters, 2012; 39 (17) DOI: 10.1029/2012GL052794
Day 256 Antarctic ice is the highest ever for the date, and the eighth highest daily reading ever recorded. All seven higher readings occurred during the third week of September, 2007 – the week of the previous Arctic record minimum.
NSIDC does not mention the record Antarctic cold or ice on their web site, choosing inside to feature an article about global warming threatening penguins.
NSIDC does have a completely nonsensical discussion page explaining why Antarctic ice does not affect the climate.
Scientists monitor both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, but Arctic sea ice is more significant to understanding global climate because much more Arctic ice remains through the summer months, reflecting sunlight and cooling the planet.
Nonsense. There is very little sunlight reaching the Arctic Ocean in September, and much more reaching Antarctic ice – because it is located at lower latitudes. Arctic ice took its big decline in mid-August, after the sun was already low in the sky.
Sea ice near the Antarctic Peninsula, south of the tip of South America, has recently experienced a significant decline. The rest of Antarctica has experienced a small increase in Antarctic sea ice.
Antarctic ice is nearing an all-time record high, and is above average everywhere.
Antarctica and the Arctic are reacting differently to climate change partly because of geographical differences. Antarctica is a continent surrounded by water, while the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land. Wind and ocean currents around Antarctica isolate the continent from global weather patterns, keeping it cold. In contrast, the Arctic Ocean is intimately linked with the climate systems around it, making it more sensitive to changes in climate.
Antarctic and Arctic ice move opposite each other. NSIDC`s dissonance about this is astonishing.
The H5N1 avian flu virus has been detected in the city of Zhanjiang in south China’s Guangdong province, experts confirmed on Tuesday. The virus has infected 14,050 ducks and killed 6,300 of them since Sept. 11, when symptoms were first reported, a Ministry of Agriculture official said. After the epidemic was confirmed, local authorities cordoned off an infected area in the city and killed all poultry in the area before starting to decontaminate it, the official said. China is particularly prone to bird flu epidemics, as it has the world’s largest poultry population and many rural farmers live in close proximity to their poultry.
Biohazard name:
H5N1 – Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
A fourth case of anthrax has been confirmed in a German heroin user since June, reports the Robert Koch Institut (RKI) in a news release Friday, September 14. According to the release (translated), the individual saw a doctor in mid-September presenting with a soft tissue infection in the area of injection site. The presumptive diagnosis of anthrax was confirmed by the RKI using real-time PCR laboratory on the wound material. Germany has now confirmed 4 cases in two states, two in Regensburg and two in Berlin since June 2012. The RKI says, the fact that the anthrax strains that were isolated from the first three anthrax cases in 2012 are similar or at least very closely related to the strains of the German and British cases of the years 2009/2010, suggests that the same source of infection might still be active. This case is the eleventh of anthrax among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Europe reported since June. In addition to the four cases in Germany, there have been four in the United Kingdom, two in Denmark and one in France. The RKI reminds the public, since anthrax is not passed on from person-to-person, there is no risk of transmission.
Biohazard name:
Anthrax contained heroin
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
19.09.2012
Biological Hazard
Vietnam
MultiProvinces, [Provinces of Haiphong, Ha Tinh, Ninh Binh, Nam Dinh, Bac Kan, Thanh Hoa and Quang Ngai]
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has decided to stop transport of live water-fowl from North and Central Vietnam to the South, in an effort to curb spread of the new highly toxic strain of avian flu virus. Pham Van Dong, deputy director of the Department of Animal Health, stated this at a meeting held yesterday in Hanoi by the National Steering Committee for Avian Flu Prevention and Control. The new strain, 2.3.2.1 C, which has been detected, is highly toxic and therefore extremely deadly. The virus strain has recently spread to Vietnam and is now present in affected areas in the northern and central provinces of Hai Phong, Ha Tinh, Ninh Binh, Nam Dinh, Bac Kan, Thanh Hoa and Quang Ngai. Fearing the virus may spread to South Vietnam, the Department of Animal Health was asked to isolate the virus and ban transport of live water-fowl from infected areas. Dong said that slaughterhouses practicing good hygiene should be mentioned to localities from the central province of Thua Thien-Hue to Ho Chi Minh City. Because the new strain is different from the earlier A/H5N1 virus, the ministry has urged for experiments and tests to confirm whether the vaccine used to combat A/H5N1 is also effective against the new strain. If the existing vaccine is ineffective, studies on new vaccines should be conducted soon. The Central Veterinary Diagnosis Center has been asked to study the new strain to help find a specific medication to fight the virus.
A substantial escape of hydrocarbons occurred on the Ula field in the Norwegian North Sea on 12 September. The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) has decide to investigate this incident.
No people were injured and no damage caused to the installation beyond the equipment directly involved. But the PSA considers the incident to have had a substantial potential.
The leak arose in the separator module on Ula’s production platform (PP). Nobody was in the module when the incident occurred.
While the facility was automatically shut down, all personnel on the installation were evacuated to the drilling platform (DP). Production on Ula has been suspended for the time being.
One reason why the PSA has resolved to conduct an investigation is the substantial potential involved in the incident.
Objectives include establishing the course of events and identifying the direct and underlying causes. The resulting report will be published on the PSA’s website.
The Ula oil field lies in Norway’s North Sea sector and has three conventional steel platforms for production, drilling and quarters. These are linked by bridges. BP is the operator.
The Czech Republic has the 23rd victim of methyl alcohol, an autopsy has confirmed, Stepanka Zatloukalova, from the police presidium said. She said methanol was not confirmed as the cause of death of another two people. They, too, died of alcohol, but not of methyl alcohol, Zatloukalova said. Tens of other people are hospitalised. Some of the cured have gone blind. The first victim in the series of methanol-related poisonings was reported on September 6. The sale of drinks with more than 20 percent of alcohol have been banned in the country since Friday evening. Extensive police raids and checks have uncovered barrels with dangerous alcohol since the “prohibition” was introduced on Friday and some distributors of the bootleg alcohol have been arrested. Both producers and sellers complain about the ban because it inflicts huge damage on them.
THERE’S something mean and magical about Australia’s Outback. An Alice Springs filmmaker captured both when a whirlwind of fire erupted before his eyes.
Chris Tangey of Alice Springs Film and Television was scouting locations near Curtin Springs station, about 80km from Ularu, last week when confronted by a fiery phenomenon.
He had just finished his tour of the station when workers encountered difficulties with a grader. So he went to help them.
A small fire was burning in nearby bushland, so Mr Tangey decided to start filming.
He caught the sight of his life.
A twister touched down on the spot fire, fanning it into a furious tower of flame.
“It sounded like a jet fighter going by, yet there wasn’t a breath of wind where we were,” he told the Northern Territory News.
“You would have paid $1000 a head if you knew it was about to happen.”
The column of fire danced about the landscape for about 40 minutes, he said, as he and the station workers stood transfixed.
There was talk of making a quick getaway, Mr Tangey said. But everyone was too hypnotised to feel scared – and he continued furiously filming.
“The bizarre thing was that it rarely moved,” he said.
“These things just stood there because there was no wind to move them … but it was flickering incredibly fast.”
Darwin weather forecaster David Matthews said small twisters were common in isolated areas. But the fiery vortex was highly unusual.
“The flames would have assisted by trying to suck in air and that could have helped generate those circular winds,” Mr Matthews said.
MessageToEagle.com – The problem with rivers around the world continues. A while back the Yangtze River in China turned red, and now there are reports of a river in Russia that has suddenly started to boil.
Hundreds of shocked residents that live in Yekaterinburg, Russia describe how a small river named Olkhovka that passes through the city unexpectedly turned into a stream of extremely hot water.
Olkhovka river in Russia begins to boil, causing yet another environmental disaster.
No one knew what caused the phenomenon, but the fact is that the river ecosystem was severely affected, causing the death of thousands of fish lying on the banks.
“The water is really hot. The shore of the river is littered with dead fish,” a Professor from a local university said.
The local urban traffic control service reported the problem.
According to them, the most likely cause to the disaster is that a great leakage of hot water that had flowed into the river Olkhovka of such intensity that could be water vapor on the surface.
“The problem is that when the river connects to the pond, the water flows through a tunnel, and no one knows exactly where there was a rush, “Russian urban traffic control dispatchers said.
Industries that might be involved, among which is the “heat supply company Sverdlovsk” deny any connection with thermal pollution of the watercourse. But local authorities are well aware that this is a problem caused by human action.
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Boats sit in the Beilun River, which separates China and Vietnam, on Tuesday, October 30. Tropical Storm Son-Tinh was moving northeast along the northern Vietnamese coast on Monday after tearing the roofs off hundreds of houses and breaching flood defenses overnight, the state-run Vietnam News Agency reported.
An uprooted tree crushes a car in China on Sunday. 
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File
VIEW GALLERY
A large solar flare has burst forth from the sun, showcasing the awesome scale in the universe.
A picture taken in Banda Aceh on April 12 shows the general view of west coast of Sumatera in Banda Aceh. An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 has struck off the southeastern Indonesia coast evening, the US Geological Survey said.
redOrbit
iWitness/cindymbrice
MessageToEagle.com – The problem with rivers around the world continues. A while back the 
Olkhovka river in Russia begins to boil, causing yet another environmental disaster. 