Week of 7/7/13 through 7/13/13

   July 10, 2013 – BEIJING — Flooding in western China, the worst in 50 years for some areas, triggered a landslide Wednesday that buried about 30 people, trapped hundreds in a highway tunnel and destroyed a high-profile memorial to a devastating 2008 earthquake. Meanwhile, to the northeast, at least 12 workers were killed when a violent rainstorm caused the collapse of an unfinished coal mine workshop they were building, said a statement from the city government of Jinzhong, where the accident occurred.

July 9, 2013 – JAPAN – VAAC Tokyo reported a small ash plume from the volcano at 5,000 ft (1.5 km) elevation today. Likely, some stronger strombolian-type explosion has occurred at the volcano, whose activity is similar to Stromboli in Italy. –Volcano Discovery

    July 9, 2013 – CHINA – More than 20,000 tons of bright green algae has washed ashore on China’s beaches in recent weeks, but there’s disagreement as to what caused the massive bloom. The algae began washing ashore about a month ago in the city of Qingdao in China’s eastern Shandong province, as it does every year. But this year’s bloom is estimated to be twice the size of 2008′s, when the Beijing Olympic sailing event was threatened by a similar bloom.

 July 9, 2013 – ROMA, IT (AKI) – Minor earthquakes shook several areas of central and southern Italy overnight, but there were no reports of casualties or damage to buildings. A magnitude 3.5 earthquake rocked the provinces of Massa Carrara and Lucca in Tuscany at 1.31 am.                   

July 9, 2013 – TORONTO, CAN – Epic rainfall devastates Toronto:  More than a month's rain falls in less than 2 hours - Like nothing we've ever seen.  It is official: the epic rainfall in Toronto on Monday afternoon that drenched highways, had cars bobbing up and down in rainwater and overwhelmed 911 was an extreme weather event. No, experts say, it wasn’t because of climate change. But yes, we will likely see more storms like it. “This is likely the wettest moment in Toronto’s history.

 

July 9, 2013 – TAIWAN – Taipei would be devastated if a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which struck central Taiwan’s Nantou in June, hit the capital, Interior Minister Lee Hong-yuan said Monday. The quake could bring down 4,000 buildings in Taipei, Lee said during a speech — on coping with and adjusting to climate change — at the Taichung City Hall. On June 2, an earthquake of 6.3 magnitude struck Nantou’s Jhushan Township, causing the death of four people. In his speech, the minister also cautioned the public to be prepared to deal with the effects of climate change. Lee, a former civil engineering professor, said Taiwan’s average temperature increases by around 1.5% a year, which is double the annual global rate. –Focus Taiwan

 Blood in the streets of Egypt

July 9, 2013 – EGYPT - With its people more polarized than ever and the military once again struggling to impose calm, Egypt’s downward spiral appears to have no bottom. At least 51 people were killed Monday when army and police forces opened fire on a sit-in during morning prayers. The protesters outside Republican Guard headquarters said they were peacefully calling for the release of the Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, whom the military deposed last week. The army said it responded to a “terror group” firing weapons and hurling Molotov cocktails. Stunned but not deterred by the violence, the Islamists quickly called for a national uprising.

July 8, 2013 – EGYPT – A bloodthirsty gang is filmed flinging r­ivals to their deaths from the top of a building, as violence spirals out of control in Egypt. Horrific scenes captured on a mobile phone and posted on YouTube show a group of men surrounded by captors in the north-east city of Alexandria, the Sunday People can report.

July 8, 2013 – MEXICO - The intensity of the current eruptive phase for Mexico’s Popocatépetl volcano remains high. A phase of particularly strong tremor accompanying continuous explosions and ash emissions occurred this morning. As a consequence of the elevated activity,

July 8, 2013 - Johannesburg, SA – The epicenter of a Lowveld earthquake that caused local residents some anxious moments on Sunday was right next the Vygeboom Dam, near Badplaas, Beeld reported. The earthquake, which registered 4.7 on the Richter scale, was felt as far away as Komatipoort and areas of Swaziland, but no major damage was reported.

July 8, 2013 – EL SAVADOR - A strong earthquake struck the Pacific coast of El Salvador on Sunday evening, shaking buildings in San Salvador, and sending residents running out into the street. There were no immediate reports of damage from the 5.9 magnitude quake, which according to the U.S. Geological Survey was centered 24 miles south-southeast of the capital, just off shore and 60 miles below ground

July 8, 2013 - California

Female prison inmates in California were sterilized without state approval in recent years, according to a new report by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

An inmate at California Institute for Women state prison in Chino, Calif., hugs her daughter during a Mother's Day visit.

Doctors in California prisons sterilized nearly 150 female inmates between 2006 and 2010 without state approval, according to a report.
The Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that doctors at two women’s prisons in California sterilized 148 women between 2006 and 2010 after they gave birth, with as many as 100 more in the years before that and without following proper procedures.
California, which has a long history of forced sterilization, banned the procedure in state prisons in 1979. Because of the state’s grim history, a number of laws were put in place including that state-funded tubal ligations (having one's fallopian tubes tied) be approved by a medical review committee and that inmates must give consent. Because of this, it would be illegal to pressure a female inmate to agree to the procedure while she is going through labor or childbirth.
But former inmates at the California Institution for Women in Corona and the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla claim they were pressured to undergo the procedure while they were pregnant and in prison. Doctors allegedly targeted inmates they thought were likely to be repeat offenders or already had many children.

July 7, 2013

Preliminary Earthquake Report
Magnitude	6.8
Date-Time	·         7 Jul 2013 20:30:07 UTC ·         8 Jul 2013 06:30:08 near epicenter ·         7 Jul 2013 15:30:07 standard time in your timezone
Location	6.024S 149.748E
Depth	61 km
Distances	·         30 km (18 mi) NE of Kandrian, Papua New Guinea ·         68 km (42 mi) SW of Kimbe, Papua New Guinea ·         315 km (195 mi) ENE of Lae, Papua New Guinea ·         334 km (207 mi) SW of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea ·         472 km (292 mi) NE of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

July 7, 2013

Preliminary Earthquake Report
Magnitude	7.2
Date-Time	·         7 Jul 2013 18:35:30 UTC ·         8 Jul 2013 04:35:30 near epicenter ·         7 Jul 2013 13:35:30 standard time in your timezone
Location	3.939S 153.882E
Depth	378 km
Distances	·         110 km (68 mi) ENE of Taron, Papua New Guinea ·         185 km (114 mi) ENE of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea ·         311 km (192 mi) NW of Arawa, Papua New Guinea ·         374 km (231 mi) ESE of Kavieng, Papua New Guinea ·         904 km (560 mi) NW of Honiara, Solomon Islands

July 7, 2013 – JAPAN - A possible small eruption occurred this morning. Tokyo VAAC received a (pilot) report of an ash plume rising to 7,000 ft (2.1 km) and drifting 40 nautical miles to the north of the small island. No ash could be detected on satellite images, and sometimes weather clouds are mistaken for ash plumes. On the other hand, the volcano has had relatively frequent small eruptions during the past centuries and new activity would not be a surprising event. The volcano’s last eruption was in 1968. –Volcano Discovery