tagged w/ Natural Disasters
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There is growing evidence that some of the Earth’s most catastrophic geological events were triggered by changes in the climate.
The melting of ice sheets and changes in sea level served as triggers to some of the world’s largest earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, according to British geologist Bill McGuire.
The best evidence of climatic influence on geology is from around 12,000 years ago, the end of the last ice age. Recent studies of volcanic deposits, have shown that this period of rapid change, as the ice sheets retreated, coincided with an outburst in geological activity.
Volcanic eruptions increased about 50 fold after the ice sheet retreated, and took around 1,500 years to return to the previous level.
McGuire argues that the weight of ice, two kilometers thick over Iceland, kept pressure on the volcanoes and suppressed the eruptions. As the ice sheet retreated, the surface of the ground in some places rose up by hundreds of meters, relieving the pressure.
Freysteinn Sigmundsson of the Nordic Volcanological Center at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, is quoted as saying “Reduction of pressure enabled mantle rocks to melt, creating a zone of magma upwelling underneath Iceland.”
The production of magma then increased 30 fold, leading to the huge increase in volcanic eruptions.
(click on the link for the complete article)There is growing evidence that some of the Earth’s most catastrophic geological... more
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Environmentalists are setting their sights on a small village in northeastern Pennsylvania and the impact hydraulic fracturing has had on the town.
Dimock, Pennsylvania, close to an hour's drive north of Scranton, is home to 11 families who received daily water deliveries for nearly three years, courtesy of Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. State regulators cited Cabot for drilling natural gas wells that allowed methane to enter the local ground water, according to the Associated Press.
Yet Cabot has insisted that the town's water is safe to drink, and a judge from the state's Environmental Hearing Board allowed Cabot to stop paying for water deliveries last week.
In response to the decision, several groups have stepped forward to show support for the residents of Dimock whose water has allegedly been affected. According to the NRDC, the city of Binghamton, New York has sent a tanker of water to the village. Due to "foot dragging" by Dimock township, however, Binghamton was not able to pay for the water and costs were covered by the Sierra Club.
A second shipment of water was delivered Tuesday by individuals traveling from New York City, including actor Mark Ruffalo and filmmaker Josh Fox ("Gasland").
Activists first gathered at New York's City Hall in Manhattan to call on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to visit Dimock and reject fracking In New York state, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Tuesday's delivery included water from New York City's watershed, a source that activists say is threatened by the prospects of fracking. A meeting to decide on the future of natural gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin (which supplies water to New York City and Philadelphia) was recently delayed, extending the current moratorium on fracking.
The EPA recently told Dimock residents that drinking their water poses "no immediate health threat," reports The Scranton Times-Tribune.
Others aren't so convinced. The NRDC announced that it will be joining in a lawsuit on behalf of the families impacted by fracking in Dimock. Kate Sindling, a senior attorney at NRDC said in a statement:
This is about standing up to the government when it abandons its people. It's about defending the basic human right of access to clean water. These are American citizens who are so desperate for clean water that they’re pumping the water out of ponds and mixing it with bleach because they believe it's safer than what's coming out of their tap. We cannot allow this to happen here -- America is supposed to do better.
Photo:
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/374353_230080780399189_126088217465113_572814_41173312_n.jpg
Article continues at link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/dimock-pennsylvania-fracking-water-_n_1131805.html#s524154Environmentalists are setting their sights on a small village in northeastern... more
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A magnitude-6.9 earthquake rattled most of Nepal Sunday, leaving at least six dead and some 24 seriously injured. The slow response to the quake puts a spotlight on Nepal’s dismal disaster preparedness record, despite a history of devastating earthquakes.
In Nepal, where seismologists have been warning that the region is due for “the big one,” people were relieved to read media reports that described the quake’s impact as relatively mild. The quake, centered in the Indian state of Sikkim, killed more than 50 people across India, Nepal, and Tibet.
“There is scant preparedness for a major quake,” says Suraj Shrestha, a civil engineer associated with National Society for Earthquake Technology – Nepal (NSET), a nongovernmental organization that seeks to build earthquake-safe communities in Nepal by 2020.
Nepal was fortunate because the epicenter was located far enough from major Nepalese cities to prevent more serious damage, Mr. Shrestha says.
Most of the country has been too busy focusing on how to respond to the Maoist insurgency that gripped the country for a decade until 2006. The country has yet to secure long-term peace.
The last time a major quake hit Nepal was in 1988. The magnitude-6.5 quake that hit the country then killed 721 people. Before that, the biggest recorded quake to strike the region was a magnitude-8.3 in 1934 that killed some 8,519 people, according to the government’s National Seismological Center.
Nepal introduced quake-resistant building code for the first time in 2003. But the code covers only a handful of cities, including the capital, Kathmandu. The code was the government’s response to the 1988 quake.
“Enforcement of the code remains very poor,” Shrestha says.
According to an estimate by the NSET, some 80 percent of the buildings in the country are not earthquake resistant.
“The risk is high. Yesterday’s quake was a wake-up call,” added Shrestha, who says he hopes the quake will lead to more stringent enforcement of building codes.
More at the linkA magnitude-6.9 earthquake rattled most of Nepal Sunday, leaving at least six dead and... more
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There has been a natural disaster that has caused at least a billion dollars of damage inside the United States every single month so far this year. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there have been 10 major disasters in the United States this year. On average, usually there are only about 3 major disasters a year. At this point, disasters are happening inside the United States so frequently that there seems to be no gap between them. We just seem to go from one major disaster to the next. Last year, FEMA declared an all-time record of 81 disasters inside the United States. This year, we are on pace for well over 100. We just got done dealing with Hurricane Irene, and now we are dealing with historic wildfires in Texas and unprecedented flooding up in the northeast part of the country. This has been the worst year for natural disasters in U.S. history, and we still have nearly four months left to go. Hopefully after everything that has happened this year it has become abundantly clear to all of us why we need to prepare for emergencies. The world is becoming an increasingly unstable place, and you never know what is going to happen next.There has been a natural disaster that has caused at least a billion dollars of damage... more
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What in the world is happening to America? In more normal times it would be easy to dismiss Hurricane Irene as an isolated incident, but so far this year we have had some sort of a "major disaster" almost every single month. In addition to Hurricane Irene, this year we have also had truly unusual earthquakes, unprecedented tornadoes, historic flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, horrific drought, massive wildfires and a continuous onslaught of nuclear radiation from Fukushima. Almost every single area of the United States has been affected by at least one of these disasters. So why is all of this stuff happening to America all of a sudden? Does anyone have any theories? Right now we are having a "once in a century" disaster every few weeks, and either we are just extremely "unlucky" or there is a reason why all of this is happening.What in the world is happening to America? In more normal times it would be easy to... more
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Yet another massive earthquake of a 7.3 magnitude jolted Japan's northeastern coast on Sunday that triggered a brief tsunami warning for the area, which is still recovering from the March 11 earthquake and resulting tsunami that destroyed houses, power and swept away whole towns.
According to public broadcaster NHK, the tsunami alert for the northeast coast has been lifted, about two hours after the quake. Earlier, the workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were warned to evacuate following an alert for a tsunami of 50 centimeters issued by the country's metreological agency. However, there were no immediate reports of damage from the earthquake.
The earthquake struck at 9:57 local time (0057 GMT). The epicenter of the quake was in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan's main island, Honshu, at a depth of about 20 miles (30 kilometers).
The same area was hit by a massive 9.0 earthquake on March 11 that left nearly 23,000 dead or missing. It also cut power to the Fukishima nuclear power plant that eventually melted down into the worst nuclear disaster ever.
After March 11, due to power loss at the Fukushima nuclear plant, the cooling systems were hurt badly, causing fuel in three of the plant's six reactors to melt down. Apart from that, subsequent hydrogen blasts scattered radioactive waste over a wide area.
Because of the radiation, nearly 80,000 residents have been forced to evacuate. Japan's government has faced tough time for its handling of the disaster, putting more pressure on unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan to quit.
Fortunately, there were no reports of abnormalities at the Fukushima plant caused by Sunday's quake, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency. Airports are also functioning normally.
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Does the Costa Rica's Seafloor hold clues to Japan earthquake?
Scientists believe that pieces of rock and seafloor from deep in the Pacific Ocean near Costa Rica might be helpful in explaining why Japan's deadly magnitude-9.0 quake was so large. Falling within the so-called Ring of Fire zone, both Japan and Costa Rica nations are prone earthquakes. Volcanic arcs and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin form the Ring of Fire, a zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Scientists have collected nearly 1 mile of sediment cores (cylinders of earth drilled out from the ground) from the ocean floor off the coast of Costa Rica, revealing detailed records of about 2 million years of tectonic activity along a nearby seismic plate boundary, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another, called a subduction zone. It was the crack of a subduction zone that generated the Japan quake, Insidecostarica reported.
"It's critical to understand how subduction zone earthquakes and tsunamis originate - especially in light of recent events in Japan," said Rodey Batiza of the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences. "The results of this expedition will also help us learn more about our own such zone off the Pacific Northwest."
Over 80 percent of global earthquakes above magnitude 8.0 occur along subduction zones.Yet another massive earthquake of a 7.3 magnitude jolted Japan's northeastern... more
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Federal forest officials say a wind-driven wildfire has forced the evacuations of about 100 people in northern New Mexico and the closure of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.Federal forest officials say a wind-driven wildfire has forced the evacuations of... more
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As Arizona fires rage, 7 states face extreme fire risk Sunda
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Regional vegetable prices rise by 40% as rains flood more that 1m acres of farmland and affect lives of 5.7 million people
Food prices are expected to rise steeply in China after flooding inundated more than 1 million acres of farmland in eastern provinces, killing at least 100 people and displacing hundreds of thousands more.
Weeks of torrential rain in Zhejiang province in the Yangtze delta have caused nearly 6bn yuan (£575m) of damage, reducing vegetable production by 20% and pushing prices in the provincial capital of Hangzhou up by as much as 40%, Xinhua news agency said.
Video here:
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/06/china-floods-bring-steep-food-price.htmlRegional vegetable prices rise by 40% as rains flood more that 1m acres of farmland... more
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The enormous Wallow Fire continues to rage in eastern Arizona, and it has rekindled the debate over whether environmentalists are to blame for wildfires.The enormous Wallow Fire continues to rage in eastern Arizona, and it has rekindled... more
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New data released in Germany strongly suggest that locally produced bean sprouts were, as suspected, the source of the deadly E. coli outbreak.New data released in Germany strongly suggest that locally produced bean sprouts were,... more
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Arizonans flee state’s 2nd largest wildfire ever |
Flames from a mammoth forest fire licked the ridges surrounding the eastern Arizona town of Eagar on Tuesday afternoon, forcing the evacuation of about half the 4,000 residents as surrounding towns also prepared to empty.Arizonans flee state’s 2nd largest wildfire ever |
Flames from a mammoth forest... more
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January 12, 2010: a 7.0-magnitude earthquake strikes Haiti. Over 300,000 killed and an estimated 50,000 severely maimed with crushing injuries to their limbs.
The plight of the Haitian people – some of the poorest and most disadvantaged on Earth – immediately goes from bad to worse.
How does a small-village hospital with only three full time doctors, two operating rooms and a delivery room prepare to handle a tragedy of this scale?January 12, 2010: a 7.0-magnitude earthquake strikes Haiti. Over 300,000 killed and an... more
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While rescuers scramble to dig out any remaining survivors from a weekend tornado that killed 116, residents in Joplin, Missouri, are bracing for the possibility of more tornadoes on Tuesday.While rescuers scramble to dig out any remaining survivors from a weekend tornado that... more
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Iceland closed its main international airport and canceled domestic flights Sunday as a powerful volcanic eruption sent a plume of ash, smoke and steam 12 miles (20 kilometers) into the air.Iceland closed its main international airport and canceled domestic flights Sunday as... more
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Thirty-One years ago this morning things got a little dusty and shaky in Washington.
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Thousands of people who evacuated Louisiana's Cajun country over the weekend began a long, stressful wait Monday to see if their homes, farms and businesses would be swamped by diverted Mississippi River waters.
In towns like Amelia, about 100 miles south of the spillway that was opened Saturday, crews worked around the clock to build earthworks and reinforce levees ahead of water expected to reach the area by Tuesday.
"I hope they know what they are doing," said Hue Tran, who was watching the giant dump trucks.
Video Here
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/05/flood-anger-saving-rich-and-burying.htmlThousands of people who evacuated Louisiana's Cajun country over the weekend... more
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A wildfire blazing through a northern Canadian town forced the evacuation of nearly 7,000 people, with many fleeing with just a few belongings before buildings were consumed — including the town hall and the main shopping mall.
Nearly a third of the buildings in Slave Lake were destroyed Sunday after strong winds suddenly turned the flames towards the town in Alberta Province, police said.
All residents were ordered to leave Sunday afternoon, but evacuation proved difficult as smoke and fast-moving flames blocked some of the highways. By Monday, however, 90 percent of residents were said to have fled.
See video here:
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/05/thousands-flee-town-on-fire-in-canada.htmlA wildfire blazing through a northern Canadian town forced the evacuation of nearly... more
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More than 2,000 representatives from governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society and the private sector are attending a U.N.-sponsored conference on disaster risk reduction. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who opened the conference, stressed the need for preparedness in reducing the worst effects of natural catastrophic events.
http://www.politicalfailblog.com/2011/05/global-disaster-conference-stresses.htmlMore than 2,000 representatives from governments, non-governmental organizations,... more
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