Earth Sense

Strongest Solar Storm In 2005 Hitting Earth

2012-01-24T15:21:00.000-08:00

The sun is bombarding Earth with radiation from the biggest solar storm in more than six years with more to come from the fast-moving eruption.

The solar flare occurred at about 11 p.m. EST Sunday and will hit Earth with three different effects at three different times. The biggest issue is radiation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado.

The radiation is mostly a concern for satellite disruptions and astronauts in space. It can cause communication problems for polar-traveling airplanes, said space weather center physicist Doug Biesecker.

Radiation from Sunday's flare arrived at Earth an hour later and will likely continue through Wednesday. Levels are considered strong but other storms have been more severe. There are two higher levels of radiation on NOAA's storm scale — severe and extreme — Biesecker said. Still, this storm is the strongest for radiation since May 2005.

The radiation — in the form of protons — came flying out of the sun at 93 million miles per hour.

"The whole volume of space between here and Jupiter is just filled with protons and you just don't get rid of them like that," Biesecker said. That's why the effects will stick around for a couple days.

NASA's flight surgeons and solar experts examined the solar flare's expected effects and decided that the six astronauts on the International Space Station do not have to do anything to protect themselves from the radiation, spokesman Rob Navias said.

A solar eruption is followed by a one-two-three punch, said Antti Pulkkinen, a physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Catholic University.

First comes electromagnetic radiation, followed by radiation in the form of protons.

Then, finally the coronal mass ejection — that's the plasma from the sun itself — hits. Usually that travels at about 1 or 2 million miles per hour, but this storm is particularly speedy and is shooting out at 4 million miles per hour, Biesecker said.

It's the plasma that causes much of the noticeable problems on Earth, such as electrical grid outages. In 1989, a solar storm caused a massive blackout in Quebec. It can also pull the northern lights further south.

But this coronal mass ejection seems likely to be only moderate, with a chance for becoming strong, Biesecker said. The worst of the storm is likely to go north of Earth.

And unlike last October, when a freak solar storm caused auroras to be seen as far south as Alabama, the northern lights aren't likely to dip too far south this time, Biesecker said. Parts of New England, upstate New York, northern Michigan, Montana and the Pacific Northwest could see an aurora but not until Tuesday evening, he said.

For the past several years the sun had been quiet, almost too quiet. Part of that was the normal calm part of the sun's 11-year cycle of activity. Last year, scientists started to speculate that the sun was going into an unusually quiet cycle that seems to happen maybe once a century or so.

Now that super-quiet cycle doesn't seem as likely, Biesecker said.

Scientists watching the sun with a new NASA satellite launched in 2010 — during the sun's quiet period — are excited Source : NASA, NOAA, Yahoo News

Arrested Man Has Extremely Strange Name

2012-01-12T07:43:00.000-08:00

We've seen plenty of weird crime mugshots and heard plenty of bizarre stories. But when it comes to criminal names, this one is ... a mouthful.

Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop, 30, was arrested Thursday afternoon on charges of carrying a concealed weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana and a violation of probation in Madison, Wisc.

Zopittybop-Bop-Bop was born Jeffrey Drew Wilschke, according to court records unearthed by the Capital Times. He legally changed his name to Beezow Doo-Doo Zoopittybop-Bop-Bop in October.

According to Zopittybop-Bop-Bop's apparent Facebook account, when he's not in trouble with the law he enjoys activities including "eating," "standing," walking," "thinking," and "diamond." He's also single... so there's that, ladies.

Zopittybop-Bop-Bop was apprehended by authorities after neighbors complained of "excessive drinking and drug use" around a local park, the Madison police report says.

Police say that when they took Zopittybop-Bop-Bop into custody, they found him in possession of marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and a knife.

On his way to the prison, Zopittybop-Bop-Bop allegedly told cops that he would eventually "get even with them."

If he plans to do so by challenging the precinct to the most amazing scat-off we've ever seen, we call dibs on front-seat tickets.

For more info : Click Here

Reason To Visit Venice

2011-12-23T19:02:00.000-08:00

Venice teeters on the edge of with its lacework of canals, its domes and gilded spires, its kiosks with straw gondolier hats and refrigerator magnets in the shape of the Piazza San Marco. Postcard fodder, and yet...

Venice is beautiful—improbably so, a centaur-like hybrid, neither land nor water but somewhere in between as it lifts from the green of the Adriatic. The city is drenched in so-exquisite-it-hurts beauty: the tracery of arches in the Doge's Palace, the pinpoint of lights from boats in the lagoon at night. The grime of centuries eats at its stones, but the decay is luscious.

It has been so for centuries. To be a tourist in Venice is to join a procession reaching back to the 14th century, when pilgrims stopped en route to the Holy Land. To capitalize on its geography as the departure point for voyages to the East, the canny Venetians created festivals to coincide with the influx, a hint of the commercialism to come.

Irritating, that wallet-squeeze, but one you inevitably force yourself to stomach, particularly when catching sight of the Venice silhouette for the first time from the mainland shore of the lagoon. To get at the essence of Venice, we asked the experts—a group of professional photographers—what they see when they look at the city. From their most treasured scenes to their favorite hotels, they've given us five beautiful reasons to love this city even more than we already do.

Human chain against Israeli strike

2011-11-15T13:51:00.000-08:00

Iranian students form 'defensive belt' around uranium conversion facility, say Tel Aviv will be destroyed in three days in case of attack

Some 1,000 Iranian students created a human chain Tuesday around the Isfahan uranium conversion facility to protest a recent UN report charging that Tehran may be developing nuclear weapons.
The display, which was organized by the Iranian regime, was meant to convince the West that the Iranian people are willing to scarifies themselves in case of an Israeli strike on the country's nuclear sites.
A week ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency published a grave report on Tehran's nuclear program, charging that some of Iran's activities are military in nature. The charges were followed by increasing reports that Israeli officials are seriously considering a military strike on Iran.

The students, who arrived at Isfahan from across Iran, prayed outside the nuclear facility's main entrance and then proceeded to create a human chain around the site. While at it, they chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America."
During the event, one student leader warned the West against attacking Iran, vowing a devastating response to any strike.
"We, the young revolutionaries of Iran, promise the West and America that should they fire one bullet at Iran, we shall destroy Tel Aviv and its citizens within three days," Muhammad Jafrinejad said.

Iranian television reported that the students, who held up photos of Iran's leaders, were treated to a speech by the brother of a nuclear scientist assassinated last year. One student held up a "wanted" sign featuring US President Barack Obama.

Earlier Tuesday, in an apparent attempt to mitigate international pressure, a senior Iranian official said Tehran was willing to share its controversial nuclear technology with neighboring countries, suggesting it could help Turkey build a nuclear power plant.

Referring to Iran's nuclear technology, the official, Mohammad Javad Larijani, said, "We are quite ready to share it with our neighboring countries." YnetNews

Flood in Bangkok 2011

2011-10-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

The city's bus and train stations and many roads are jammed by crowds of people attempting to flee.

People in several northern districts of the capital - some of which are now 90% submerged by rising water - have been told they should evacuate immediately.

More than 360 people have died in Thailand's worst flooding in decades.

The crisis is an early test for Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who took office in August and has previously been criticised for failing to take the flood threat seriously enough.

"It's a crisis, because if we try to resist this massive amount of floodwater, a force of nature, we won't win," Ms Yingluck said.

"But if we allow it to flow freely then people in many areas are prepared."

Any lingering sense of complacency has long gone, says the BBC's Rachel Harvey in Bangkok.

'Food rationing'

Over the weekend the influx of run-off water from Thailand's inundated central plains is expected to combine with seasonal high tides to flood more parts of the capital.

Thai authorities have declared a five-day holiday, to run from Thursday through to Monday, in Bangkok and in 20 provinces affected by the flooding to allow residents to relocate.

Bangkok's Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra issued an evacuation alert for residents of Don Muang, Bang Phlad and Thawi Wattana districts in the north of the capital.

"This is the first time I am using the term 'evacuation', the first time I'm really asking you to leave," Mr Sukhumbhand said.

The city's Mo Chit bus terminal has already seen huge crowds of people, some of whom had to wait for hours to get a bus to leave the city.

Many residents were reportedly heading for southern and eastern coastal resorts that have escaped the flooding.

Flights out of the international airport, Suvarnabhumi, were operating as normal but were said to be packed.

At Bangkok's domestic airport, Don Muang, people living in an evacuation shelter are now being moved again. The airport itself is closed because the runway is flooded.

But the government's flood relief operation centre, which is based on the second floor of the airport, insists it will not relocate.

In the city of nine million, there were reports that some shops were rationing stocks of staples including rice and eggs amid stockpiling by anxious residents.

Supplies of bottled water were said to be running low in many areas.

Residents were protecting their homes and businesses with sandbags - with some even erecting sealed cement barriers across shop fronts, reported the Associated Press news agency.

Britain's Foreign Office on Wednesday warned against all but essential travel to Bangkok.

Ms Yingluck has warned that flood waters could linger in the capital for between two weeks and a month.

The flooding has been triggered by unusually heavy seasonal rains across the country since July. About one third of all provinces remain affected by flooding.

Plane Crash in Nepal, 19 Kill.

2011-09-25T01:56:00.000-07:00

A plane carrying tourists to view Mount Everest crashed while attempting to land in Nepal on Sunday, killing all 19 people on board, officials said.

Thirteen foreigners were among the victims, including 10 Indian nationals, two U.S. citizens and one Japanese, Tourism Secretary Ganeshraj Joshi said.

In addition to the foreign tourists, the turboprop plane belonging to Buddha Air was also carrying three Nepalese passengers and three crew members when it crashed in Bisankunarayan village, just a few miles (kilometers) south of the capital, Katmandu.

Rewant Kuwar, an official at Katmandu's international airport rescue office, said that 18 bodies were pulled out of the plane's wreckage, and that another victim died later after being rushed to a hospital.

The two Americans who died were identified as Andrew Wade and Natalie Neilan, while the Japanese citizen was Toshinori Uejima. Their hometowns and other details were not immediately released.

An eyewitness, Haribol Poudel, told Avenues Television that the plane had hit the roof of a house in the village and disintegrated into several pieces. No casualties were reported on the ground.

Poudel said it was foggy, and that visibility was very low in the mountainous area.

The Beechcraft 1900D plane — manufactured by Raytheon Aircraft, now known as Hawker Beechcraft — had taken the passengers to view Mount Everest and other high peaks and was returning to Katmandu. The one-hour "mountain flight" takes tourists over the Everest region, and passengers can view some of the world's highest peaks from the airplane windows.
AP

Heavy Snow in New Zealand will go on

2011-08-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

More snow will strike much of New Zealand today - turning the novelty into far more treacherous conditions, police say.

The polar blast that brought snow to downtown Auckland for the first time in 72 years - and created the city's coldest day on record - is set to worsen in many parts of the North and South Islands.

Snow continued to fall in Wellington, Kapiti Coast, Wairarapa, Wanganui, Taihape and much of the South Island last night, stranding thousands of air travellers and motorists. Snow forced the closure of Wellington Airport's runway, with each flight being assessed case by case.

WeatherWatch last night predicted more snow in 29 cities and towns by this evening - including the capital, Christchurch, Dunedin and Taupo - and a medium risk of more snow flurries in Auckland overnight and in Napier, Hastings, Rotorua and New Plymouth today.

Climate scientist Georgina Griffiths of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research said yesterday was the coldest day ever recorded in Auckland.

The temperature got up to only 8.2C - compared with the previous lowest high of 8.7C, on July 4, 1996.

The last time snow settled on the ground in the city was 1939. It fell to ground level at the airport in 1976.

The snow caused waves of excitement in Auckland. Kevin Prohl saw a snow flurry as he was driving around Western Springs and described it as a fairy tale. "Looking at oncoming drivers and seeing their smiles as we were fascinated by this unusual occurrence - it was truly delightful to see, yet all too short."

Richard Brown, 53, has lived in Auckland his entire life and had never seen snow in the city. "It was snow, I'm sure it was."

While many Aucklanders were delighted with the light flurry of snow - the result of weather MetService described as close to a one-in-50-year-event - the high winds created havoc. Four people were injured when a tree toppled on to a house in Pakuranga.

The cold snap also wreaked havoc further south including the quake-devastated eastern suburbs of Christchurch. Power was cut to hundreds of homes, mail postponed, schools were shut for the day and heavy snow made it too dangerous to drive on.

Police warned last night that conditions would get more treacherous.

Many state highways were closed, including the Desert Road and Rimutaka Hill road in the North Island and the Lewis Pass and Arthurs Pass in the South Island.

"We're warning drivers that, unlike today where the snow was a clearly visible hazard, there will be large areas of ice on the roads tomorrow, especially in rural and shaded areas, that you will not be able to see," said Inspector Al Stewart, of Christchurch police.

Motorists were also warned of the dangers of black ice - where snow melts then freezes again - forming on the roads today.

And the wild weather is set to continue. MetService forecaster Matt Naeraa said the big chill would cover much of the country for the next three days.

More snow was expected in Auckland today - down to 200m above sea level, said Mr Naeraa.

MetService duty forecaster Heath Gullery said snow could fall on the Southern Motorway around the Bombay Hills again today and there would possibly sleet at sea level.

In the Wellington region, five main roads were closed and 24 crashes were reported yesterday.

"We've been getting calls from people getting stuck on the road, or cars sliding down the driveway and getting stuck in the gutter. We've got quite a lot going on," Inspector Ken Climo of the police said.

Prime Minister John Key commented on "the very uncharacteristic weather" during his post-Cabinet press conference.

Describing the capital as a "winter wonderland", Mr Key said it was the first time he could recall seeing snow fall in downtown Wellington.

"My wife tells me there is snow around our house [in Parnell, Auckland]. It's very unusual, and the main message to New Zealanders is just to be cautious and a little bit careful - make sure they keep an eye out for their family and friends, and if they are aware of their neighbours living alone, it might be a good idea just to check up on them and make sure everything is OK."

While many Aucklanders appeared to enjoy the snow, there was debate among weather experts as to what was actually falling.

MetService weather ambassador Bob McDavitt said most Aucklanders had witnessed "graupel" - effectively hail with a soft centre.

Power services were also disrupted yesterday. In the Counties Power area, gusts caused a line to come down, with one fault at a Waiuku substation causing an outage to 7000 homes, but they were back on within about 20 minutes.

In the central North Island, 2000 homes and businesses lost power but lines company Power Co hoped most of them would be back on the grid last night.

In the South Island, lines company Orion had 500 homes and businesses without power but most of them had been restored by yesterday afternoon.http://www.nzherald.co.nz/

Purported manifesto from Norway terror suspect details war plan

2011-07-24T02:39:00.000-07:00

A rambling, 1,500-page manifesto purportedly written by the suspect in Friday's bloody terror attacks in Norway lays out right-wing extremist views and vows that a "European civil war" will lead to the execution of "cultural Marxists" and the banishing of Muslims.

While the title page of the document says "By Andrew Berwick," the writer later identifies himself as Anders Behring Breivik, the suspect in the Norwegian terrorist attacks.

The document, which is part political diatribe, part confessional and part action plan, details Breivik's background and his plans to commit Friday's attacks. It also contains various photos of him.

"If you are concerned about the future of Western Europe you will definitely find the information both interesting and highly relevant," the author writes, adding later that the work took him nine years to complete.

CNN could not independently verify that the document was written by Breivik. But police told the Norwegian newspaper VG that the document is "linked" to Friday's attacks.

Breivik is charged in an Oslo bombing and mass shooting at a political youth retreat on Utoya island, both of which left at least 92 people dead.

Geir Lippestad, who identified himself as the suspect's lawyer, told Norwegian broadcaster TV2 that Breivik believed the attacks were "horrible" but "necessary," and would explain himself in court Monday.

Norwegian authorities have not commented on a possible motive behind the terror attacks.

In the manifesto, the author vilifies Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and his Labour Party, which has majority control in Norway's government, accusing the party of perpetuating "cultural Marxist/multiculturalist ideals" and indoctrinating youth with those ideals. The author accuses the Labour Party of embracing those ideals and therefore allowing the "Islamification of Europe."

The manifesto speculates about would happen if the author were to survive "a successful mission and live to stand a multiculturalist trial."

"When I wake up at the hospital, after surviving the gunshot wounds inflicted me, I realize at least for me personally, I will be waking up to a world of shit, a living nightmare," the author wrote.

"Not only will all my friends and family detest me and call me a monster; the united global multiculturalist media will have their hands full figuring out multiple ways to character assassinate, vilify and demonize."

Breivik was taken into custody on Utoya island by police, authorities have said.

The manifesto includes photos that appear to match those of the suspect, some of which had been posted on his Facebook page and several never-before-seen images of the same man. The author leaves clues about his family and background, and also indicates that English is his "secondary language."

The document is titled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence," a date that the author later explains is the year he believes an European civil war will end with the execution of cultural Marxists and the deportation of Muslims.

This "civil war" would come in three phases, he predicts. The first runs through 2030 and includes "open source warfare, military shock attacks by clandestine cell systems (and) further consolidation of conservative forces."

Between 2030 and 2070, he calls for "more advanced forms of resistance groups (and the) preparation of pan-European coup d'etats."

The final stage features the deposition of Europe's leaders and "implementation of a cultural conservative political agenda."

Much of the manifesto contains diatribes against Marxism and calls for the destruction of governments endorsing Marxist ideals.

The author does not specifically explain why he chose the date 2083, though it is the 200th anniversary of the death of Karl Marx.

The manifesto also contains photos of Breivik in what appear to be uniforms, including one in which he is wearing a U.S. Marine dress jacket decorated with an Iron Cross, Knights Templar and Free Mason medals.

Another picture shows Breivik dressed in a wet suit with a patch that reads "Marxist Hunter" and holding a high-powered rifle.

The author states that he was moved to action dating to "my government's involvement" in NATO's 1999 strikes during the Kosovo campaign, claiming this wrongly targeted "our Serbian brothers (who) wanted to drive Islam out by deporting the Albanian Muslims back to Albania."

He also criticizes "my government's cowardly handling of the Muhammad cartoon issue" -- a reference to the Norwegian government's apology for the nation's private newspapers having repeatedly published the controversial cartoon. Another reference blasts Norway, home of the Nobel awards, for awarding a peace prize to former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"The situation is just chaotic," he writes, noting that "thousands of Muslims" are coming into his country annually. "These suicidal traitors must be stopped."

The author details his bomb-making experiments, including a theory that one should purchase a farm so that purchase of large amounts of fertilizer -- which can be used to make bombs -- is less likely to be noticed.

Oddmy Estenstad, an employee at a Norwegian agricultural cooperative, told CNN that Breivik bought six tons of fertilizer from her company in May.

"Be extra careful when researching for bomb schematics (fertilizer bombs), as many terms will trigger electronic alerts," he writes, one of several tips that include using an "anonymous laptop and browse free to your local McDonalds" in order to "avoid ending up on any watch list."

Besides hands-on instructions, the document also functions as a running diary. It also includes references to his relatives' sexual indiscretions, entries on some of his friends' personal lives, and his own off-and-on steroid use.

From July 2 on, though, the author becomes more business-like and complains that going off his testosterone supplements had ramped up his "aggressiveness." He then digs up his guns and prepares the bombs. It all leads up to July 22, the date of the Norway terror attacks.

"The old saying 'if you want something done, then do it yourself' is as relevant now as it was then," he writes. "In many cases; you could do it all yourself, it will just take a little more time. AND, without taking unacceptable risks. The conclusion is undeniable.

"I believe this will be my last entry. It is now Fri July 22nd, 12.51." - CNN

Germany is counting the losses incurred due to the E.coli outbreak

2011-06-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

Germany is counting the losses incurred due to the E.coli outbreak, which so far left 35 people dead, as new infections ebbed away and life returned to normal for thousands of consumers confused by unsubstantiated warnings about the cause of the epidemic.

Germany’s farmers’ association has described the epidemic as the “worst crisis” for the country’s agricultural sector since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 25 years ago, and claimed that farmers and traders of fresh fruits and vegetables have suffered “massive losses” as a result of false warnings about cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce as possible carriers of the deadly Escherichia coli bacteria.

The warnings issued by the health authorities against those fresh vegetables without scientific evidence did not prevent further spreading of the epidemic, but caused uncertainty about the source of the contamination and damaged the country’s farm sector, according to Gerd Sonnleitner, president of the German Farmers’ Association.

Sonnleitner described as “insufficient” 210 million euros offered by the European Commission in Brussels last week to pay compensation for EU farmers hit by the E.coli crisis.

Even though the consumers began buying fresh vegetables, it will take some time to restore the trade in fresh fruits and vegetables, which was completely broken down by the epidemic, he said, ahead of a meeting of EU agriculture ministers tomorrow to finalise the aid plan.

German health authorities at the weekend pinpointed bean sprouts as the main source of the worst E.coli epidemic in more than 60 years and confirmed that the contaminated vegetable had their origin in an organic farm in Bienenbuttel, in northern Germany.

They also lifted the warnings against eating raw cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce.

Health officials are currently investigating the possibility that the lethal bacteria may have been carried to the farm by imported seeds.

The Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s national disease control and prevention centre, confirmed that the death toll in the five—week epidemic rose to 35 on Saturday, but the number of new infections continued to drop steadily.

It estimated that around 3,200 people have developed symptoms of E.coli infection since its outbreak.

The EU farmers and fresh produce trade have suffered losses of 400 million euros a week, according to the estimates of the European farmers association Copa—Copeca.

The Spanish government claimed that its farmers lost around 200 million euros a week after the health authorities in Hamburg issued false warnings about Spanish cucumbers as a potential source of the infection, triggering an import ban in several countries.

France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Austria also claimed that the outbreak caused heavy losses for their farmers.

Meanwhile, a German epidemiologist has warned that more than 730 patients currently undergoing treatment for the haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), the worst form of E.coli infection, will suffer from consequential damage during the rest of their life and around 100 of them are facing so acute kidney complications that they will require kidney transplantation or life—long dialysis.

Karl Lauterbach, health expert of the opposition Social democratic Party (SPD) and member of the Bundestag health affairs committee, said in a newspaper interview at the weekend that doctors attending on those patients also reported severe neurological damage.

He warned that the aggressive E.coli strain, which caused the epidemic, is spreading rapidly worldwide and there will be similar outbreaks in the future in Germany and abroad.

Lauterbach said the health affairs committee would open an inquiry into whether lack of coordination among various federal and state health agencies and unsubstantiated warnings had cost precious time in identifying the source of the infection.

The German government has been under criticism at home and abroad for its handling of the E.coli crisis.

Several hospitals in northern Germany, the epicentre of the epidemic, have been over—stretched to deal with a flood patients who needed intensive care and they are now seeking support of the federal government to avert a financial collapse.

Many of the hospitals have already exceeded the annual budgetary limit set by the state—owned insurance companies.

Around 20 university hospitals, which bore the brunt of acute patients, have accumulated additional costs running into several million euros, according to the Federation of German University Hospitals.

A spokesman for the federation said it is too early to specify the overall costs for the university hospitals in treating E.coli patients, but treatments in intensive stations involving dialysis would have cost on an average 20,000 euros per patient.

An annual budget of 180 billion euros earmarked by the insurance companies for the university hospitals and regional hospitals is “insufficient” to cope with such a massive outbreak, the spokesman said in a TV interview.

In addition, several hospitals will be facing huge follow—up costs because many HUS patients will require life—long dialysis, the spokesman said.

297 People Killed By Tornado in Alabama USA

2011-05-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

Firefighters searched one splintered pile after another for survivors Thursday, combing the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation's deadliest tornado outbreak in almost four decades. At least 297 people were killed across six states – more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind.

The death toll from Wednesday's storms seems out of a bygone era, before Doppler radar and pinpoint satellite forecasts were around to warn communities of severe weather. Residents were told the tornadoes were coming up to 24 minutes ahead of time, but they were just too wide, too powerful and too locked onto populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count.

"These were the most intense super-cell thunderstorms that I think anybody who was out there forecasting has ever seen," said meteorologist Greg Carbin at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

"If you experienced a direct hit from one of these, you'd have to be in a reinforced room, storm shelter or underground" to survive, Carbin said.

The storms seemed to hug the interstate highways as they barreled along like runaway trucks, obliterating neighborhoods or even entire towns from Tuscaloosa to Bristol, Va. One family rode out the disaster in the basement of a funeral home, another by huddling in a tanning bed.

In Concord, a small town outside Birmingham that was ravaged by a tornado, Randy Guyton's family got a phone call from a friend warning them to take cover. They rushed to the basement garage, piled into a Honda Ridgeline and listened to the roar as the twister devoured the house in seconds. Afterward, they could see outside through the shards of their home and scrambled out.

"The whole house caved in on top of that car," he said. "Other than my boy screaming to the Lord to save us, being in that car is what saved us."

Son Justin remembers the dingy white cloud moving quickly toward the house.

"To me it sounded like destruction," the 22-year-old said. "It was a mean, mean roar. It was awful."

At least three people died in a Pleasant Grove subdivision southwest of Birmingham, where residents trickled back Thursday to survey the damage. Greg Harrison's neighborhood was somehow unscathed, but he remains haunted by the wind, thunder and lightning as they built to a crescendo, then suddenly stopped.

"Sick is what I feel," he said. "This is what you see in Oklahoma and Kansas. Not here. Not in the South."

Alabama Emergency Management officials said early Friday that the state had 210 confirmed deaths. There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured – nearly 800 in Tuscaloosa alone.

Some of the worst damage was about 50 miles southwest of Pleasant Grove in Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 that is home to the University of Alabama. The storms destroyed the city's emergency management center, so the school's Bryant-Denny Stadium was turned into a makeshift one. School officials said two students were killed, though they did not say how they died. Finals were canceled and commencement was postponed.

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox told reporters that police and the National Guard will impose a curfew at 10 p.m. Thursday, and 8 p.m. the next night. Authorities have been searching for survivors so far, but Maddox said they will begin using cadaver dogs on Friday.

A tower-mounted news camera in Tuscaloosa captured images of an astonishingly thick, powerful tornado flinging debris as it leveled neighborhoods.

That twister and others Wednesday were several times more severe than a typical tornado, which is hundreds of yards wide, has winds around 100 mph and stays on the ground for a few miles, said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the Storm Prediction Center.

"There's a pretty good chance some of these were a mile wide, on the ground for tens of miles and had wind speeds over 200 mph," he said.

The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states.

Brooks said the tornado that struck Tuscaloosa could be an EF5 – the strongest category of tornado, with winds of more than 200 mph – and was at least the second-highest category, an EF4.

Search and rescue teams fanned out to dig through the rubble of devastated communities that bore eerie similarities to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when town after town lay flattened for nearly 90 miles.

In Phil Campbell, a small town of 1,000 in northwest Alabama where 26 people died, the grocery store, gas stations and medical clinic were destroyed by a tornado that Mayor Jerry Mays estimated was a half-mile wide and traveled some 20 miles.

"We've lost everything. Let's just say it like it is," Mays said. "I'm afraid we might have some suicides because of this."

President Barack Obama said he would travel to Alabama on Friday to view storm damage and meet Gov. Robert Bentley and affected families. Late Thursday he signed a disaster declaration for the state to provide federal aid to those who seek it.

As many as a million homes and businesses there were without power, and Bentley said 2,000 National Guard troops had been activated to help. The governors of Mississippi and Georgia also issued emergency declarations for parts of their states.

"We can't control when or where a terrible storm may strike, but we can control how we respond to it," Obama said. "And I want every American who has been affected by this disaster to know that the federal government will do everything we can to help you recover and we will stand with you as you rebuild."

The storm prediction center said it received 164 tornado reports around the region, but some tornadoes were probably reported multiple times and it could take days to get a final count.

In fact, Brooks said 50 to 60 reports – from the Mississippi-Alabama line, through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham and into Georgia and southwestern Tennessee – might end up being a single tornado. If that's true its path would be one of the longest on record for a twister, rivaling a 1925 tornado that raged for 219 miles.

Brooks said the weather service was able to provide about 24 minutes' notice before the twisters hit.

"It was a well-forecasted event," Brooks said. "People were talking about this week being a big week a week ago."

Gov. Bentley said forecasters did a good job alerting people, but there's only so much they can do to help people prepare.

Carbin, the meteorologist, noted that the warning gave residents enough time to hunker down, but not enough for them to safely leave the area.

"You've got half an hour to evacuate the north side of Tuscaloosa. How do you do that and when do you do that? Knowing there's a tornado on the ground right now and the conditions in advance of it, you may inadvertently put people in harm's way," he said.

Officials said at least 13 died in Smithville, Miss., where devastating winds ripped open the police station, post office, city hall and an industrial park with several furniture factories. Pieces of tin were twined high around the legs of a blue water tower, and the Piggly Wiggly grocery store was gutted.

"It's like the town is just gone," said 24-year-old Jessica Monaghan, wiping away tears as she toted 9-month-old son Slade Scott. The baby's father, Tupelo firefighter Tyler Scott, was at work when the warning came on the TV.

Osama bin Laden Videos released by Pentagon

2011-05-08T02:18:00.000-07:00

The videos, seized from bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, gave the world a first glimpse into the al Qaida leader's private life behind his compound walls, and the image that emerged was of a man concerned both with his appearance and his portrayal by the media.

His surroundings appeared spartan and his electronic equipment outdated in the hideout that also had no telephone or internet connections. In one video he sits in shadow while wrapped in a brown blanket and wearing a wool cap, watching a small, old-fashioned television elevated on wooden boards while multiple cords dangle next to it

Bin Laden holds a remote control in his right hand and flips between channels, at least one of which featured his picture with Arabic writing underneath.

<p>&amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://video.heraldsun.com.au/1913452184/US-releases-seized-bin-Laden-videos"&amp;amp;gt;VIDEO: US releases seized bin Laden videos&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt;</p>

In other videos, none of which had audio, he appears in more formal garb, his beard dyed black and trimmed and appears to be delivering - or at least rehearsing - speeches. One was believed to have been recorded last October or November, a senior US intelligence official told reporters at the Department of Defence.

In releasing the "home movies," senior US intelligence officials also said it was clear bin Laden was not just a figurehead for al Qaida and that he directed tactical details and encouraged plotting.

"He was far from a figurehead, he was an active player," one official said.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said, "The material found in the compound only further confirms how important it was to go after bin Laden. Since 9/11, this is what the American people have expected of us. In this critical operation, we delivered."

Panetta added the mission was "a model of seamless collaboration, both within the intelligence community and with the US military."

Bin Laden was killed in his hideout in a precision raid by a team of US Navy SEALs who left with his body - later buried at sea - and the cache of electronic disks, drives and other documents.

President Barack Obama met with the SEAL team that carried out the mission but the name of only one member has been revealed thus far: Cairo, a dog trained to sniff out hidden danger. Source : HeraldSun

Japan Nuclear Disaster : Drifters Could Monitor Ocean Radiation From Japan

2011-04-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

Marine scientists say they are concerned about radiation spewing from the crippled Japanese nuclear plant even though they expect it will take at least two years for radioactive material to reach Hawaii, perhaps three to hit the West Coast.

They want to drop a fleet of 60 ocean-going drifters into the debris field as a kind of early-warning system to get a better idea of how much radiation has entered the Pacific Ocean and where it's going.

"Currently, we are blind," said Nikolai Maximenko, a physical oceanographer at the University of Hawaii's International Pacific Research Center. "We do not even know where the main plume of floating debris and all those houses (from the Japanese coast) are. We are pulling together an emergency project to put drifters into those patches of floating debris to know where they are."

Maximenko and colleagues at several U.S. institutions say they need to act quickly and are proposing to drop the drifters next month from C-130 aircraft operated by the U.S. Coast Guard and Japanese research ship later this summer. The researchers say that satellite tracking won't work because the pieces of debris on the surface are too small, and that using existing models of Pacific Ocean circulation won't give an accurate enough picture of where the plume is headed.

In addition to warning communities across the Pacific, the project would help make better short-term predictions for people living along the Japanese coast, according to Luca Centurioni, physical oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., and co-principal investigator on the project.

"The general ocean circulation generally well understood, but if you want to make a shorter prediction, you need models to help you out," Centurioni said.

The proposal would extend the reach of the Global Drifter Program, which has some 900 instruments taking a variety of measurements across the world's oceans.

Japanese scientists are sampling the coastal waters for radioactive nucleides that could pose a danger to humans and the marine ecosystem. Even though the plant isn't discharging cooling water from the plant's damaged reactors, radiation is still entering the ocean, says Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

"We know there are still discharges there may be a delayed release even if they plug every hole," Buesseler told Discovery News from his office at Woods Hole, Mass. "I see no evidence from the Japanese data that releases have decreased."

A quarter-century ago, Buesseler studied radioactive releases from the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, and found that radiation was carried by winds and rain into the Black Sea, several hundred miles away. The levels of radiation along the Japanese coast are much higher, he said.

Buesseler says there are still many unanswered questions about radiation levels in the ocean.

"What we don't know is if that's the main source or there were explosions or releases to the atmosphere," Buesseler said. "They also don't know how far north and south and further into the ocean or how much has gone up."

Buesseler said Japanese officials are providing data for three radioactive particles: iodine 131 (which decays rapidly has an eight-day half-life) cesium 134 (two-year half-life) and cesium 137 (30 year half-life). Buesseler notes that there are other kinds of radioactive particles produced by nuclear plants that are not being monitored.

"We don't know about plutonium," he said. "No one has taken that on in Japan."

Debris from the nuclear plant is expected to contain long-living radioactive objects, as well as industrial toxins, researchers say. Still, most of the radioactive particles from the plant that make their way directly into the ocean will become less concentrated over time -- like a drop of colored dye in a bathtub.

"If you take a volume of water across the Pacific Ocean, with the vertical and horizontal dispersion it's going to be mixed up and diluted so by the time it travels across the pacific you don't expect high concentrations," Centurioni explained.

Less well-known, however, is the fate of contaminated debris, he added.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the amount of radiation reaching U.S. shores through the air currents, rain or ocean water will be so small that it will be tough to detect, and less than the amount that people receive from the sun's cosmic rays or other natural background sources.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration does have a marine debris tracking program and will be coordinating sightings of the debris patch from ships crossing the Pacific.

After hitting the West Coast in three years or so, oceanographers say the debris from Japan is expected to enter a swirling gyre of water known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

The patch has been known about for several years, and occasionally dumps plastic, running shoes and other flotsam onto beaches in Hawaii and the Northwest coast.-Source: newsdiscovery.com

Radiation panic in Japan - Fourth n-reactor on Fire.

2011-03-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

High levels of radiation leaked from a crippled nuclear plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan after a third reactor was rocked by an explosion Tuesday and a fourth caught fire in a dramatic escalation of the 4-day-old catastrophe. The government warned 140,000 people nearby to stay indoors to avoid exposure.

Tokyo also reported slightly elevated radiation levels, but officials said the increase was too small to threaten the 39 million people in and around the capital, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) away.

In a nationally televised statement, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said radiation has spread from four reactors of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Fukushima state, one of the hardest-hit in Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami that has killed more than 10,000 people, plunged millions into misery and pummeled the world's third-largest economy.

Officials just south of Fukushima reported up to 100 times the normal levels of radiation Tuesday morning, Kyodo News agency reported. While those figures are worrying if there is prolonged exposure, they are far from fatal.

Kan and other officials warned there is danger of more leaks and told people living within 19 miles (30 kilometers) of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex to stay indoors to avoid exposure that could make people sick.

"Please do not go outside. Please stay indoors. Please close windows and make your homes airtight," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told residents in the danger zone. "Don't turn on ventilators. Please hang your laundry indoors."

"These are figures that potentially affect health. There is no mistake about that," he said.

Weather forecasts for Fukushima were for snow and wind from the northeast Tuesday evening, blowing southwest toward Tokyo, then shifting and blowing west out to sea. That's important because it shows which direction a possible nuclear cloud might blow.

The nuclear crisis is the worst Japan has faced since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. It is also the first time that such a grave nuclear threat has been raised in the world since a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded in 1986.

Some 70,000 people had already been evacuated from a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius from the Dai-ichi complex and about 140,000 remain in the zone for which the new warning was issued.

Workers were striving to stabilize three reactors at the power plant that exploded in the wake of Friday's quake and tsunami, after losing their ability to cool down and releasing some radiation. A fourth reactor that was shut down caught fire on Tuesday and more radiation was released, Edano said.

The fire was put out. Even though the fourth reactor was shut down, the fire there was believed to be the source of the elevated radiation.

"It is likely that the level of radiation increased sharply due to a fire at Unit 4," Edano said. "Now we are talking about levels that can damage human health. These are readings taken near the area where we believe the releases are happening. Far away, the levels should be lower."

He said another reactor whose containment building exploded Monday had not contributed greatly to the increased radiation.

Officials said 50 workers, all of them wearing protective radiation gear, were still trying to put water into the reactors to cool them. They say 800 other staff were evacuated. The fires and explosions at the reactors have injured 15 workers and military personnel and exposed up to 190 people to elevated radiation.

In Tokyo, slightly higher-than-normal radiation levels were detected Tuesday but officials insisted there are no health dangers.

"The amount is extremely small, and it does not raise health concerns. It will not affect us," Takayuki Fujiki, a Tokyo government official said.

Kyodo reported that radiation levels nine times higher than normal were briefly detected in Kanagawa prefecture near Tokyo and that the Tokyo metropolitan government said it had detected a small amount of radioactive materials in the city's air.

Japanese government officials are being rightly cautious, said Donald Olander, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at University of California at Berkeley. He believed even the heavily elevated levels of radiation around Dai'ichi are "not a health hazard." But without knowing specific dose levels, he said it was hard to make judgments on the evacuation orders.

"Right now it's worse than Three Mile Island," Olander said. But, he said, it's nowhere near the levels released during Chernobyl.

On Three Mile Island, the radiation leak was held inside the containment shell - thick concrete armor around the reactor. The Chernobyl reactor had no shell and was also operational when the disaster struck. The Japanese reactors automatically shut down when the quake hit and are encased in containment shells.

Olander said encasing the reactors in a concrete sarcophagus - the last-ditch effort done in Chernobyl - is far too premature. Operators need to wait until they cool more, or risk making the situation even worse.

The death toll from last week's earthquake and tsunami jumped Tuesday as police confirmed the number killed had topped 2,400, though that grim news was overshadowed by a deepening nuclear crisis. Officials have said previously that at least 10,000 people may have died in Miyagi province alone.

Millions of people spent a fourth night with little food, water or heating in near-freezing temperatures as they dealt with the loss of homes and loved ones. Asia's richest country hasn't seen such hardship since World War II.

Hajime Sato, a government official in Iwate prefecture, one of the hardest-hit, said deliveries of supplies were only 10 percent of what is needed. Body bags and coffins were running so short that the government may turn to foreign funeral homes for help, he said.

Though Japanese officials have refused to speculate on the death toll, Indonesian geologist Hery Harjono, who dealt with the 2004 Asian tsunami, said it would be "a miracle really if it turns out to be less than 10,000" dead.

The 2004 tsunami killed 230,000 people - of which only 184,000 bodies were found.

The impact of the earthquake and tsunami on the world's third-largest economy helped drag down the share markets. The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average plunged for a second day Tuesday, nose-diving more than 12 percent to 8,422.21 while the broader Topix lost 13 percent.

To lessen the damage, Japan's central bank injected $61.2 billion Tuesday into the money markets after pumping in $184 billion on Monday.

Initial estimates put repair costs in the tens of billions of dollars, costs that would likely add to a massive public debt that, at 200 percent of gross domestic product, is the biggest among industrialized nations.

In a bid to stop the reactors at the nuclear plant from melting down, engineers have been injecting seawater as a coolant of last resort.

Yuta Tadano, a 20-year-old pump technician at the Fukushima power plant, said he was on the second floor of an office building in the complex when quake hit.

"It was terrible. The desks were thrown around and the tables too. The walls started to crumble around us and there was dust everywhere. The roof began to collapse.

"We got outside and confirmed everyone was safe . Then we got out of there. We had no time to be tested for radioactive exposure. I still haven't been tested," Tadano told The Associated Press at an evacuation center outside the exclusion zone.

"We live about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the facility. We had to figure out on our own where to go," said Tadano, cradling his 4-month-old baby, Shoma. "I worry a lot about fallout. If we could see it we could escape, but we can't."

The Dai-ichi plant is the most severely affected of three nuclear complexes that were declared emergencies after suffering damage in Friday's quake and tsunami, raising questions about the safety of such plants in coastal areas near fault lines and adding to global jitters over the industry. Source : http://dailypioneer.com

Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan 2011

2011-03-15T09:11:00.000-07:00

Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan 2011 Video, On March 11, 2011, an earthquake of 8.9. magnitude struck off the coast of Japan, the strongest ever recorded in the country. The quake shook a devastating tsunami that swept the cities and agricultural fields in northern Iraq and warnings went as far to the west coast of the United States and South America.

Earthquake

Fragmentary reports indicate that early toll hundreds of people have been killed. Japanese police officials said 200 to 300 bodies were found in Sendai, a port city in northeast China and the city closest to the epicenter principal.

Tsunami

Walls of water transferred to houses and cars in northern Japan, where panicked residents fled the coast. The trains were shut down in central and northern Japan, including Tokyo, and air transport was severely disrupted. A ship carrying more than 100 people was swept away by the tsunami, reported Kyodo News.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the disaster caused major damage to large areas. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 8.9 and occurred about 230 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, at a depth review of about 17 miles. Japan's Meteorological Agency said the quake had a magnitude of 8.8, which they do among the largest in a century.

The quake occurred at 2:46 pm, Tokyo time and crumbs of Honshu, Japan's most populated island.

The earthquake was so powerful that buildings in downtown Tokyo, designed to withstand major earthquakes, swayed.

Warning from people at Pasific

Officials from throughout the Pacific, warned coastal residents to prepare for a possible tsunami, but initial reports were of little or no damage in the first places that the wave hit. relatively small tsunami waves were recorded in Halmahera, Indonesia, but little damage. Russia, China and Indonesia canceled its warning after a few hours.

Tsunami waves headed for the West Coast of the United States after the creation of only a modest increase in the size of the waves in Hawaii. coastal evacuations have been issued along the West Coast from central California to Alaska. A tsunami warning people in lower regions leads to move inland to higher ground. But experts do not expect floods.

Weired Animal Species Around The World

2011-01-20T01:01:00.000-08:00

Storm strands buses, planes, trains on East Coast

2010-12-27T10:59:00.000-08:00

A powerful East Coast blizzard marooned thousands of would-be air, rail and road travelers Monday, shutting down major airports and rail lines for a second day, stranding buses on buried highways, and forcing New York City subway riders to spend a cold night in unheated trains.

Officials urged anyone who did not have to drive to stay off roads in the region, where high winds pushed snow into deep drifts across streets, railroads and runways. More than two feet of snow had fallen in some areas by Monday morning.

The New York area took the brunt of a storm that meandered across the country over the Christmas weekend before plowing up the East Coast. States of emergency were declared in at least six states from the Carolinas on north. Jets got snowed in on the tarmac or never left the gate.

"People are exhausted. ... They want to get home," said Eric Schorr, 22, who was trying to get from New York City to Tel Aviv on Sunday night but ended up spending about nine hours stuck on the tarmac at Kennedy Airport, finally ending back in the airport around 3 a.m. His flight was rescheduled for 7 p.m.

Similar delays have produced outrage in the past, but Schorr said he and his fellow travelers were "as comfortable as you can be on a plane," with the crew passing out drinks and serving dinner.

Authorities had to rescue hundreds of motorists across the region, including about 100 people trying to get back to New York from a gambling trip to Atlantic City, some of them diabetic or elderly. As 5-foot drifts piled up on the road, state troopers took water and food to passengers who were feeling ill.

"Most of the people are pretty calm, but they are getting antsy," state trooper Chris Menello, who raided his personal stash of food for the gamblers, said early Monday as the rescues unfolded in Monmouth County.

Wind gusts as high as 80 mph knocked out power to thousands. Airlines scrambled to rebook passengers on thousands of canceled flights but said they didn't expect normal service to resume until later in the week. Amtrak service was trickling back after being knocked out from New York to Boston.

Hundreds of cold, hungry and tired air passengers spent the night at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty airports. Officials said they were provided blankets and cots, but some travelers were not allowed to retrieve their checked luggage, leaving them with no extra clothing or toiletries.

Jason Cochran, of Manhattan, boarded his flight to London at 6 p.m. Sunday at Kennedy, but it missed its takeoff window as high winds set in, he said. Passengers were told they would be sent to hotels but were given only food vouchers — and then vendors began running out of provisions. Source : http://news.yahoo.com , Associated Press

Heavy Snow Blasts France, Scotland

2010-12-08T16:10:00.000-08:00

Heavy snow in Paris on Wednesday shut down the city's main airport, its bus system and the Eiffel Tower. Elsewhere in Europe, bad weather caused travel chaos in Scotland, and a child's body was found after a flash flood in Spain.

In Paris, where heavy snowfall is unusual, the snow reached 4 inches, weather service Meteo France said. It quickly turned into a slushy mess, and vehicles skidded on unplowed roads.

Flights in and out of Paris' Charls de Gaulle were suspended for about an hour and a half Wednesday afternoon, the city's airport authority said. When it reopened, only one of four runways was in use. At both Paris airports, flights were delayed by up to three hours.

All buses in the capital stopped running, as did many suburban buses, the city's RATP transit authority said.

The Eiffel Tower was shut to tourists around midday, the monument's press service said. Officials said they couldn't sprinkle salt on the tower's floors because of concerns it could damage the iron structure.

Simone Laloum, at work in a shoe shop near Paris' famous Champs-Elysees avenue, said she watched from inside as many people slipped and fell on the streets.

"We are not prepared here for the snow in Paris, not equipped," she said. "People don't want to go out, they're scared of falling. It doesn't get cleaned up."

In Scotland, the first minister said everything possible was being done to keep the country moving in "exceptional conditions."

Road and rail journeys were once again plunged into chaos by the severe cold, and a 20-mile stretch of Scotland's busiest road, between Edinburgh and Glasgow, was closed.

Meanwhile, in Spain the Interior Ministry said rescuers had found the body of a 9-year-old boy who drowned in a flash flood, as torrential rains lashed parts of central and southern Spain.

The ministry said the child had been traveling Tuesday with his brother and father when their vehicle was overwhelmed by water from the Alcudia River near the south-central city of Ciudad Real. It said divers found the body Wednesday.

Elsewhere in Spain, around 100 homes in Cordoba were evacuated out of fear the Guadalquivir River would burst its banks. Another 150 families had to leave their homes in Lora del Rio in neighboring Seville province.

In Paris, in a sign of how a little snow catches the city off guard, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux called a news conference about the weather. He said an additional 5,000 police, including 2,000 in the Paris metropolitan region alone, were deployed to help keep trouble on the roadways to a minimum.

As Hortefeux spoke, his children were in the ministry's backyard, at work on a snowman. Source : http://www.usatoday.com

Indonesia Death Toll Rises to More than 300 in Disasters

2010-10-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

Relief workers struggled to overcome rough seas to assess damage and to deliver aid to islands smashed by a deadly Indonesian tsunami, while a volcano elsewhere in the country continued to smolder, raising fears of more possible destruction to come. More than 300 were reported killed in the two disasters.

The death toll from Monday's tsunami in the remote Mentawai islands, some 12 hours by boat from Indonesian Sumatra, rose to 272 people, with more than 400 people missing, disaster officials said. Although the islands are sparsely populated compared with other parts of Indonesia, authorities expected the number of dead to keep rising as aid crews reached the most remote villages—a process that could take days or longer, aid workers warned.

Some relief boats heading for the islands were forced to turn back after leaving the Sumatran city of Padang due to high waves and bad weather, though a few planes and helicopters were able to arrive with tents, medicine and food. Aid workers said they hoped to expand deliveries of water and other supplies on Thursday.

Aid teams also were struggling to cope with challenges at Indonesia's Mt. Merapi, an active volcano on the island of Java that erupted late Tuesday, killing at least 30 people. Among the dead was an 83-year-old man known locally as a guardian of the volcano's spirits and a leader of ceremonies there to appease them.

Although the volcano was calmer Wednesday, experts were concerned that pressure inside remained high, with the potential for further major explosions in the days or weeks to come. It also is possible the volcano could release its pressure through a series of smaller, less destructive eruptions.

Either way, officials cautioned residents not to return to the volcano's slopes, but many streamed back on Wednesday, saying they needed to check on their crops and homes.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono decided to cut short a state visit to Vietnam that included a summit with regional leaders later this week to help manage the response to the twin disasters, the Associated Press reported.

Indonesia has long suffered from an unusually high number of earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters because of its location along a series of dangerous fault lines known as the Pacific Ring of Fire. But it is unusual for two such deadly events to occur at the same time, straining the capacity of aid groups.

The tsunami in the Mentawai island chain, a popular surfing spot, presents an especially difficult challenge, because it includes a large number of hard-to-reach inlets and relatively underdeveloped infrastructure, including telephone service. The tsunami was triggered by a 7.7-magnitude quake that hit late Monday 13 miles, or about 21 kilometers, beneath the ocean floor.

The quake occurred in an area close to a December 2004 earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 226,000 people across Asia, in one of the worst natural disasters in modern history. But that quake was considerably larger than the latest one, initially recorded at 9.0 in magnitude. The waves it generated were far bigger—up to 10 meters, or 33 feet, high—wreaking havoc as far away as Sri Lanka and India. The tsunami in this case affected a relatively small zone that for now appears confined to parts of the Mentawai chain.

Ahmad Husein, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Jakarta, said it was having a hard time communicating with a damage-assessment team it sent out late Tuesday afternoon. Although the group arrived early Wednesday, he said, phone connections were so bad that it wasn't immediately possible to get a damage report.

Some officials in the islands could be reached. Maitam, an official at the Operations and Disaster Management Center near the earthquake epicenter on North Pagai Island in the Mentawais, said in a telephone interview with The Wall Street Journal that at least five bridges had collapsed, while five mosques and about 300 houses were heavily damaged or destroyed. He said the information was only collected from about four villages, while 10 others hadn't been reached.

He said that while the area has had tsunamis before, this one was worse because it came so quickly after the earthquake that caused it, hitting shores about 20 minutes later. "We didn't have much time to save ourselves," he said.

Dave Jenkins, founder of a nonprofit health organization, SurfAid International, operating in the Mentawai islands, said he expected further damage reports to trickle in as response teams penetrated more villages. For now, villagers have to "fend for themselves," he said.

Indonesian authorities were stepping up efforts to deliver aid by cargo plane and helicopter, though the amount of aid coming through remained small. The National Disaster Management Agency along with other ministries was able to reach the islands Wednesday with a cargo plane delivering 550 tents, 80 blankets, five tons of rice and food supplies, and four tons of medicine, local media reported. The Indonesian Navy also was sending five warships with floating hospitals to the affected areas.

Some international aid organizations, which often rush to disasters, said they were holding back on sending teams because of the logistical difficulties in getting to the islands, while others said they wanted to wait to get more reports from the government about what was needed. TheWall Street Journal

Hungary Arrests Director in Sludge Case

2010-10-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

BUDAPEST — The managing director of the company whose reservoir unleashed a lethal torrent of red sludge on three villages last week has been arrested, the Hungarian prime minister said Monday, castigating the company for corporate greed before Parliament.

“There’s probable cause to suspect that there were persons who had been aware of the dangerous weakening of the storage pond walls,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbon said, “but they thought, because of their private interests, that it was not worth mending them and hoped the disaster wouldn’t happen.

But the arrest also revealed the complex intersections of business and politics within the state companies that were privatized in a rush in the 1990s.

The arrested official, Zoltan Bakonyi, is the son of Arpad Bakonyi, a businessman who played a central role in the privatization of the country’s aluminum industry and is the largest shareholder of the company now under scrutiny, the formerly state-owned MAL. The elder Mr. Bakonyi is also a close business associate of a former prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, who is Mr. Orban’s political archrival.

The younger Mr. Bakonyi will be charged with criminal negligence leading to a public catastrophe, a government spokeswoman said. If convicted, he could face a sentence of up to 10 years.

In a statement to the Hungarian news agency M.T.I., he denied breaking any rules and said that the most recent inspections had shown no anomalies. “We observed every regulation to the letter,” he said.

A week ago, nearly 200 million gallons of caustic red mud — a byproduct of the conversion of bauxite to alumina, for aluminum — poured out of a reservoir after part of its containing wall collapsed. The cascade killed eight people and injured hundreds. Hundreds more have been forced from their homes, and tens of millions of dollars in private property have been destroyed.

On Monday, as part of its response, the government took control of MAL, the Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company. Mr. Orban told Parliament that a state commissioner would be appointed to manage the company and its assets. As custodian of the company, he said the government would make sure it paid for damage. He said the government would also focus on saving jobs and identifying further risky industrial sites.

“We need to hold the company responsible for the red sludge spill under state control,” he told Parliament.

Analysts said that Mr. Orban’s quick moves to take control of the situation and positioning as a Hungarian protector had provided a lift to his center-right government, elected overwhelmingly this year. It may also benefit from a wave of national unity over the disaster — and the distraction from the country’s economic woes.

But some saw the government’s moves as mainly a power grab.

Peter Rona, a Hungarian economist and visiting fellow at Oxford University, said, “It is certainly the case that the behavior of MAL’s management has been bloodcurdling and inept.”

“But,” he added, “Mr. Orban is seizing every opportunity to accumulate economic and political power in the hands of the government and is taking advantage of the situation to further his agenda.”

Anna Nagy, the government spokeswoman, said that the government was not renationalizing but rather protecting the public interest. “The government is becoming the caretaker of a company that has shown all too clearly that it can’t run itself properly,” she said.

As for the ruptured reservoir wall, disaster management officials said that other cracks appeared to be contained for the moment.

Gyorgyi Tottos, spokeswoman for Hungary's Catastrophe Protection Unit, said fissures in the northern wall, which experts feared could collapse over the weekend, had not expanded overnight.

“I have just returned from the site, and there are three gaps in the wall that are a half-meter wide and 20 meters long, which suggests that the wall will fall over time,” Ms. Tottos said. “But we are hoping that a concrete barrier we are building to contain the sludge, along with an emergency dam, will do their work and that the effects of the wall collapsing will be less dramatic than last time.”

Peter Szijjarto, the prime minister’s spokesman, told the broadcaster TV2 that he was hopeful that the dam would be finished by Tuesday. “We have 4,000 people and 300 machines working at the scene so we are doing our utmost to prevent another tragedy,” he said.

20 missing in mountain mudslide

2010-09-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

BOGOTA, Colombia — A mudslide swept over people changing from one bus to another because an earlier slide was blocking a mountain road Monday, and at least 20 people were buried, authorities said.

John Freddy Rendon, director of the regional disaster response office, said the accident happened in northwestern Colombia, on the road between the towns of Giraldo and Canasgordas, 200 miles (320 kilometers) from the capital, Bogota.

He said passengers had gotten off one bus and were crossing the blocked portion of the road to board a second bus that had been sent to pick them up because of the earlier landslide when another mudslide cascaded down the mountain.

The slide also destroyed four or five homes, he said.

"At this point we have between 20 and 30 people missing in the rubble," Rendon said in a telephone interview.

He said about 100 workers began digging looking for the missing but the effort had to be suspended because of dangers conditions caused by rain and poor visibility. The work would resume early Tuesday, he said.

A strong rainy season in recent weeks has caused flooding and made roads unusable across Colombia, authorities have reported. - AP

Flooding In Pakistan

2010-08-27T01:03:00.000-07:00

The 2010 Pakistan floods began in July 2010 after heavy monsoon rains affected the khyber pakhtunhwa, sidh lower Punjan as well as parts of Balochistan. It is estimated that two thousand people along with close to a million homes have perished so far.The United Nations estimates over 20 million people are suffering and homelesswith over 160,000 square kilometres (62,000 sq mi)affected as a result of the flooding, 2004 Indian tsunami, 2005 Khashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake,

However, the death toll in each of those three disasters was much higher than the number of people killed so far in the floods. exceeding the combined total of the affected of Around a fifth of Pakistan's total land area was underwater due to the flooding.

UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon has asked for an initial $460 million for emergency relief, noting that the flood was the worst disaster he had ever seen. 50% of the relief funds requested has been received as of 15 August 2010. The U.N. is concerned that aid is not arriving fast enough, while the World Health Organization reported that ten million people were forced to drink unsafe water.The Pakistani economy has been harmed by extensive damage to infrastructure and crops.Structural damages are estimated to exceed 4 billion USD and whest crop damages are estimated to be over 500 million USD. Officials estimate the total economic impact to be as much as 43 billion USD.

Current flooding is blamed on unprecedented monsoon rain.The rainfall anomaly map published by NASA shows unusually intense monsoon rains.On 21 June, the Pakistan Meteorological Department cautioned that urban- and flash flooding could occur from July to September in the north parts of the country. The same department recorded above-average rainfall in the months of July and Aug 2010, and monitored the flood wave progression . Interestingly, some of the discharge levels recorded are comparable to those seen during the floods of 1988, 1995, and 1997

Fires In Russian - Spread 500 Sq. Miles

2010-08-13T14:48:00.000-07:00

Russia is experiencing intensifying rural wildfires stoked by a heat wave and strong winds, the country’s Emergency Situations Ministry said.

More than 128,000 hectares (500 square miles) were burning today, the ministry said on its website. New fires appeared as temperatures in the European part of Russia approached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and winds reached 20 meters per second (45 miles per hour).

“We’re fighting the fires with all our strength,” Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Irina AndrianoveRossiya-24 today. During the past two days, no houses have burned down and there have been no more deaths, she said. told state-run broadcaster

Fourteen regions have declared a state of emergency after wildfires engulfed entire villages, leaving 28 people dead and more than 2,000 homeless, according to Rossiya-24. About 180,000 rescuers are battling the fires, aided by 18 aircraft, Andrianova said. Planes have dropped 3,000 tons of water to douse the flames over the last day.

Moscow has already broken several heat records this season and a drought in agricultural regions has scorched more than 10 million hectares of cropland. High temperatures of at least 36 degrees Celsius are forecast for Moscow in the coming week, according to Gidromettsentr, the state weather service.

Putin Meeting

PresidentDmitry Medvedev discussed the situation with the governors of five affected regions today, according to the Kremlin website. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is due to meet regional leaders in Moscow tomorrow.

The state has already released 321 million rubles ($11 million) out of a total of 4.6 billion rubles in government aid, the Regional Development Ministry said on its website today. Soldiers and volunteers have joined the ranks of firefighters, according to the Emergency

Situations Ministry.

Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, called on believers to pray for rain and assist the victims of the fires, Interfax reported from Diveyevo in the Nizhny Novgorod region, east of Moscow.

Putin traveled to the same region on July 30, where he promised inhabitants of the village of Verkhnyaya Verey are compensation and their homes would be rebuilt by winter.

The Emergency Situations Ministry reported that 1,257 homes have been destroyed by wildfires nationwide.

Fire near Russian nuclear centre grows‎ ,

Russian fires threaten to stir Chernobyl radiation

Source : http://www.bloomberg.com

Spain to Investigate Solar Plants Over Subsidies

2010-07-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

Spain may force any solar plant owners who cheated on paperwork to gain higher subsidies to repay income earned through deception, a ministry official said.

Officials will ask the operators of photovoltaic plants with about 800 megawatts of capacity, or a quarter of the total, to prove their panels were connected to Spain’s power grid before the September 2008 deadline for earning the highest premium, the industry ministry official said today at a Madrid news briefing. The plan will be set out in a decree due to be approved tomorrow by the Spanish government, he said.

While all photovoltaic plants will be obliged to prove they met the deadlines for subsidies, officials will focus their probe on plants that industry groups have identified as suspicious. Solar lobbyists have called on the government to clamp down on fraud within the industry as executives and officials negotiate ways to reduce the subsidies that consumers pay to renewable-energy producers.

Spain’s 52,000 photovoltaic-panel installations earn as much as 440 euros ($576) a megawatt-hour, or almost 10 times the futures price for 2011 power in the wholesale market. The premium was set at that level to spur investment in clean power.

Solar plants claimed more than half the 5 billion euros in renewable-power subsidies paid by homes and businesses through their bills last year while producing 11 percent of Spain’s emission-free electricity.

Rein in Deficit

The government is trying to cut rates to help economic growth after investors dumped the country’s bonds on concern it will struggle to rein in a budget deficit that reached 11.2 percent of gross domestic product last year.

Officials across Europe are looking too to rein in profits that energy companies earn under laws set up to reduce emissions. Germany has eliminated tax breaks for biofuels and cut solar energy subsidies this year while Italy plans to scrap a price-floor for emission-free power.

Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian said April 28 he wanted to lower the cost of Spanish power to boost the competitiveness of the country’s manufacturers. The government already cut the price for future projects more than 20 percent in a September 2008 law, sparking a rush among plant developers to hook up their generators before the deadline.

Reporter on this story: Ben Sills

A Hot Sunday of year so far in UK

2010-06-26T11:05:00.001-07:00

Sunday is set to be the hottest day so far this year and temperatures may hit 30C, the BBC weather centre predicts.

The previous high for 2010 was on 24 May - 28.8C at Heathrow.

The prediction comes as millions are set to watch England in the World Cup, tennis fans flock to Wimbledon and Glastonbury festival-goers bask in the sun.

"The heat just continues to build and build and Sunday could be its peak," BBC forecaster Dan Corbett said.

The hot weather has been caused by an area of low pressure to the north-west of the UK which is allowing warm air to travel in from southern Europe.

Sunstroke

"There could be some cloud and showers across parts of north west Britain and even some thunder. The south-east of England up to Birmingham will see the highest temperatures," the BBC forecaster said.

William Hill, meanwhile, has set odds of 16/1 that temperatures will top 100F at Wimbledon and 5/1 that the temperature will break the 100F mark at any time this year.

At Wimbledon officials have taken measures to ensure spectators do not wilt in the heat at the All England Club.

Some 1,000 bottles of suncream and 8,615 punnets of strawberries are expected to be sold.

Those attending Glastonbury can swap wellies for flip-flops and there will be plenty of sunbathing opportunities between gigs, with thermometers topping 25C.

Bangers and bikinis

Medics at the festival have treated 1,185 people so far, mostly for heatstroke and other sun-related ailments.

Tesco said it expects to sell one million burgers, nine million fresh sausages and 700,000 bags of salad as people plan to hold parties to mark the weekend's sporting events.

Asda said it has sold 165,000 bikinis in recent days, up 47% on this time last year.

Meanwhile, the threat of a hosepipe ban is looming over residents of north-west England.

United Utilities, the water company that provides water to the region's seven million people, has applied for a drought permit.

Source : BBC News

Arsenic in water poisoned 77 million people in Bangladesh

2010-06-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

Up to 77 million Bangladeshis have been exposed to toxic levels of arsenic from contaminated drinking water, and even low-level exposure to the poison is not risk-free, The Lancet medical journal reported.

Over the past decade, more than 20 percent of deaths recorded in a study that monitored nearly 12,000 people in the Araihazar district of the capital Dhaka appear to have been caused by arsenic-tainted well water.

By some estimates, between 35 and 77 million people in Bangladesh have been chronically exposed to arsenic-contaminated water as a result of a catastrophically misguided campaign in the 1970s.

Millions of tube wells were drilled in the aim of providing villagers with clean, germ-free water. Many wells were inadvertently dug into shallow layers of soil that were heavily laced with naturally occurring arsenic.

The UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) has called Bangladesh's arsenic crisis "the largest mass poisoning of a population in history."

Several previous investigations highlighted the health risks of contaminated groundwater, but they failed to explain how much of the tainted water a person may have drunk and what level of contamination was enough to cause sickness.

In the new study released Saturday, physicians checked the volunteers' overall health and took blood and urine samples every two years. They also took samples of local well water to monitor for arsenic levels.

After six years, 407 deaths had occurred from all causes, 21 percent of which could be attributed to arsenic concentrations above the UN's recommended threshold. Of deaths linked to chronic disease, 24 percent were associated with exposure to the poison at such levels.

The death rate rose in line with the exposure.

Bangladesh authorities reacted cautiously to the study.

"To be frank, I have my doubts about these findings -- I would like to examine their methodology more closely," Bangladeshi Health Minister A.F.M. Ruhal Haque told AFP on Sunday.

"Arsenic is a problem in Bangladesh, there is no question about that, but the risk that contaminated groundwater poses to the majority of the population has been blown out of proportion by this study," he said.

"Tube wells are a problem, but the government has been testing all wells, and when we find a contaminated one, we clearly mark them and stop villagers using them."

The government is distributing a new peat filter which can purify arsenic contaminated water in the worst-affected areas of the country, and it also expanding its surface water cleaning and distribution network, he added.

The study found that when compared to those exposed to the lowest arsenic levels (less than 10 microgrammes of arsenic per litre of water), people with levels of 10-50 microgrammes had a 34 percent higher risk of death.

Those with the highest level of exposure (between 150 and 864 microgrammes) had a 64-percent higher risk of death.

But even exposure at relatively lower levels carried a risk, a finding that is important for other countries -- there are more than 70 of them, including the United States, India and Mexico -- that face a serious arsenic problem.

In the study, 23 percent of the volunteers were exposed to water with up to 10 microgrammes of arsenic per litre, which is the UN recommended maximum.

Twenty-one percent were exposed to concentrations of between 10 and 50 microgrammes, with 50 microgrammes the current Bangladesh standard.

Thirty-one percent were exposed to between 50 and 150 microgrammes; and 25 percent to between 150 microgrammes and the maximum tested level, of 864 microgrammes.

Chronic exposure to arsenic is linked with cancers of the liver, kidney, bladders and skin, as well as heart disease.

Given the long-term effect of arsenic, taking a temporary break from exposure was no solution, for the risk of death remained the same, the researchers found.

Source : AFP