Speak and Trust in the Lord

January 2014

 

 

January 10, 2014 – CUBA – Even seasoned scientists were surprised by a rare 5.1-magnitude earthquake that struck Thursday afternoon off the northern coast of Cuba, rattling residents on both sides of the Florida Straits. “There is no question that it is unusual where it hit,” said Timothy Dixon, a University of South Florida geophysics professor and earthquake expert. “I have no clue why this earthquake happened.” Dixon said the earthquake — centered about 112 miles east of Havana in coastal waters — happened about 300 miles from a major fault line between southern Cuba and Hispaniola. “Scientists are definitely going to be looking at this one,” he said. “Earthquakes happen periodically in Cuba, but in the south.” The earthquake, which occurred at 3:58 p.m., was not strong enough to cause serious damage, but people reported feeling its effects across the Florida Keys and as far north as Cape Coral on Florida’s Gulf Coast.  “Unbelievable,” said Shelia Cullen, assistant retail manager at the Custom House Museum in Key West.

January 10, 2014 – AUSTRALIA – Animals are collapsing and falling down from the sky as Australia continues to sizzle in record-breaking temperatures. After news of 100,000 bats falling from the sky, reports of kangaroos “fainting” because of exhaustion and scorching heat have circulated in the country. A large number of kangaroos, parrots and emus were reportedly found dead in Winton, one of the hottest spots in Queensland. Winton Shire Council chief executive Tom Upton stated the deaths of animals had as much to do with the prolonged dry season and the heat wave. Hunters claimed to have seen groups of kangaroos staying near waterholes to cool down and seek relief from rising temperatures. Australia’s weather bureau has recorded a temperature of 50 degrees Celsius in the sparsely populated Pilbara region on Jan 9. According to historical records, the highest recorded temperature in Australia was set in 1960 with 50.7 C in Oodnadatta in South Australia. Weather experts say this record may be broken in the coming days if current temperatures continue to rise. Temperature records across Australia have already been broken in the past few weeks with the heat wave’s onslaught. Australian Bureau of Meteorology Climate Monitoring Manager Karly Braganza stated that the delayed arrival of a monsoon in northern Australia is contributing to the sweltering heat. The monsoon is said to have a cooling effect in the region. Mr. Braganza added global warning as another contributing factor to the ongoing heat wave.  

The heat wave in Queensland, Australia, caused 100,000 bats to fall from the sky to their deaths. The RSPCA reported seeing thousands of bats in 25 separate colonies, which were found dead on the ground in southern Queensland, including Boonah, Gatton, Laidley, Mt. Ommaney, Palmwoods and Redbank. The Scenic Rim Regional Council has ordered a massive cleanup to collect the bat carcasses since the stench is beginning to bother locals. Residents near Athol Terrace lookout in Boonah said they have been agonizing over the smell of dead bats for four days. Queensland Health has advised residents not to touch the dead bats. Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young stated that bats should be left alone to avoid the risk of infection with lyssavirus.  The southern hemisphere’s high temperature is in contrast with the deep freeze in some parts of North America caused by a phenomenon known as the polar vortex. –IBT

 January 9, 2014 – AUSTRALIA – Southern Queensland is being gripped by furnace-like temperatures, said the local RSPCA. The has in turn caused mass deaths at least 25 separate colonies have been reported since the weekend, including at Mt Ommaney, Redbank, Boonah, Palmwoods, Laidley and Gatton. RSPCA spokesman Michael Beatty says the heatwave was a significant hit to the population of bats across the state, reports the ABC news station. “The heatwave was basically a catastrophe for all the bat colonies in south-east Queensland,” he said. “That’s obviously going to have a pretty disturbing impact on those colonies and those colonies are vital to our ecosystem.” The smell of bat carcasses has caused problems for locals. The Scenic Rim Regional Council, west of Brisbane, has organized rubbish collectors to clear up the carcasses of about 2,000 bats. Residents near Boonah’s Athol Terrace lookout say they have been putting up with the stench of the dead animals for four days. Hundreds of bats also lie dead in trees and nearby bushes, and are being eaten by maggots.

The council today advised local residents it will not send workers into nearby bushland to collect the remaining bat carcasses, as it could cause further disruption to the nearby colony. One resident has told the ABC she is receiving anti-viral treatment after being scratched by a baby bat while clearing the dead animals out of her tree with a rake. Further north, Lockyer Valley Regional Council says it also faces a massive task of cleaning up thousands of dead bats from around Laidley and Gatton. Sunshine Coast Regional Council has sent workers out to collect thousands more dead bats near Palmwoods. At least 16 people across south-east Queensland are receiving anti-viral treatment after coming into close contact with a bat. Queensland Health is advising people not to touch the animals and to call authorities for help in clearing them away. Sammy Ringer from Bat Rescue echoed those concerns, saying it was best to call a wildlife volunteer or a vet. “Don’t touch them, they’re stressed,” she said. “If they do bite or scratch you and break the skin you can get a vaccination, you can get a shot for the lyssavirus.” –Express

January 8, 2014 – Bukittinggi, West Sumatra – Mount Marapi in West Sumatra, Indonesia expelled thin grey smoke up to 200 meters from the crater into the sky, on Wednesday morning, stated spokesman of the Bukittinggi Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Agency (PVBMG) Warseno. “The volcano spewed smoke after it showed signs of increased activity at 7.28 a.m. local time on Wednesday. Local residents should therefore, continue to stay alert,” he warned.  The volcano, located in the Tanahdatar and Agam districts, West Sumatra, remains on the second highest alert level. People living within 3-km radius of the crater are banned from climbing the volcano. Mt Marapi is one of the active volcanoes in West Sumatra. It had sent out sulfuric volcanic ash, one thousand meters into the sky, on August 3, 2011. The ash had fallen over several areas, such as Agam, Tanahdatar, Padangpariaman and Padangpanjang. The volcano is also considered a conservation area as well as a tourist destination in West Sumatra. When inactive, the mountains adjacent to Mount Singgalang and Mount Tandikek have always been a destination for climbers from within and outside West Sumatra. During every New Year, it is gets crowded with trekkers. –Antara



January 8, 2014 – INDONESIA – Indonesian authorities have been forced to extend a danger zone around Mount Sinabung in Western Indonesia, following an unrelenting volcanic eruption in the region. According to the authorities, Mount Sinabung, located on the island of Sumatra, has erupted more than fifty times since Saturday, spewing searing clouds of gas and lava as high as 4 to 5 kilometer. Tuesday’s overnight booming explosion in Mount Sinabung, however, triggered a panicked evacuation, sending the residents pouring down the sides of the mountain. National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the danger zone in southeast of the volcano was extended from five to seven kilometers radius of the crater. Authorities say the blistering gas has approached residential areas, with soldiers joining the rescue operation in two villages of Jewara and Pintu Besi, about seven kilometers (four miles) from the crater, where house and farmlands have been covered with ashes. More than 20,000 people have already been living in temporary shelters, since the alert status for Mount Sinabung was raised to its highest level in November. Indonesia is the home to dozens of active volcanoes and lies on the major tectonic fault lines known as the “Ring of Fire” between the Pacific and Indian oceans. In 2010, more than 350 people lost their lives, following a series of volcanic eruptions in Mount Merapi in central Java. –Press TV

   January 8, 2014 – CHICAGO – Fountains froze over, a 200-foot Ferris wheel in Atlanta shut down, and Southerners had to dig out winter coats, hats and gloves they almost never have to use. The brutal polar air that has made the Midwest shiver over the past few days spread to the East and the Deep South on Tuesday, shattering records that in some cases had stood for more than a century. The mercury plunged into the single digits and teens from Boston and New York to Atlanta, Birmingham, Nashville and Little Rock – places where many people don’t know the first thing about extreme cold. “I didn’t think the South got this cold,” said Marty Williams, a homeless man, originally from Chicago, who took shelter at a church in Atlanta, where it hit a record low of 6 degrees. “That was the main reason for me to come down from up North, from the cold, to get away from all that stuff.” The morning weather map for the eastern half of the U.S. looked like an algebra worksheet: lots of small, negative numbers. In fact, the Midwest and the East were colder than much of Antarctica. The cold turned deadly for some: Authorities reported at least 21 cold-related deaths across the country since Sunday, including seven in Illinois, and six in Indiana. At least five people died after collapsing while shoveling snow, while several victims were identified as homeless people who either refused shelter or didn’t make it to a warm haven soon enough to save themselves from the bitter temperatures. In Missouri on Monday, a 1-year-old boy was killed when the car he was riding in struck a snow plow, and a 20-year-old woman was killed in a separate crash after her car slid on ice and into the path of a tractor-trailer.

January 7, 2014 – CHINA - Chinese health authorities have reported four more H7N9 infections in three different areas of eastern China over the past 3 days, including the first detection in Shanghai since last April. Also, animal health officials in China have reported more positive H7N9 findings in environmental samples from a live poultry market, supporting the suspicion that such markets are fueling the outbreak in humans. The patient from Shanghai is an 86-year-old man whose H7N9 illness was confirmed Jan 3, according to a statement yesterday from Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection (CHP). Few details about his illness were available in official and media reports, other than that he is hospitalized. Meanwhile, a 34-year-old woman from Zhejiang province is hospitalized in critical condition with an H7N9 infection, according to a separate CHP statement. Her symptoms began on Dec 29 and she was hospitalized on Jan 2; the virus was confirmed in her respiratory samples 2 days later. She is in critical condition. The woman is from the city of Zhuji, and her illness is the first H7N9 case reported in Zhejiang province this year, Xinhua, China’s state news agency, reported yesterday. In the middle of December the province reported two cases, in a 57-year-old man and his 30-year-old son-in-law.


January 6, 2014 – INDONESIA – A volcano on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island erupted at least 77 times over the weekend, sending clouds of potentially deadly superheated gas barreling down the mountain and forcing the evacuation of more villages in the highly populated area. Mount Sinabung has displaced nearly 20,000 people from their homes since sporadic eruptions began in September. Experts have placed it under the highest alert status among the 127 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which is home to more active volcanoes than any other country and has some of the world’s most lethal volcanic activity. More people were evacuated Friday from villages in the path of hot clouds of ash and gases that on Saturday blew more than five kilometers (three miles) down the mountainside, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the national disaster-mitigation agency. ount Sinabung spews lava as seen from the village of Suka Ndebi in Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia, on Sunday. That was the farthest such clouds,—also called pyroclastic flows,—had traveled to date. Experts say the flows, which move at high speeds and scorch everything in their path, are among the most dangerous volcanic events. When another of Indonesia’s volcanoes, Mount Merapi, erupted in 2010, almost 2,000 kilometers to the southeast on the archipelago country’s main island of Java—dozens of people were killed by superheated gases that tore into their villages far below the summit. The disaster agency said Sunday that Sinabung had erupted 77 times in the previous 24 hours, sending fine particles of ash up to 4,000 meters into the air. That marks a major increase in the frequency of eruptions, although the maximum height of the plumes has fallen to roughly half the peak level last week. Winds have been pushing the ash to the east and southeast, away from Indonesia’s third-largest city, Medan, home to more than two million people. 

  January 6, 2014 – INDONESIA – Authorities have extended a danger zone around a rumbling volcano in western Indonesia after it spewed blistering gas farther than expected. National Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho says more than 50 eruptions on Saturday sent lava and searing gas tumbling out of Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra province down the southeastern slopes up to 5 kilometers (3 miles) away. He said the volcano’s danger zone to the southeast was extended from five to seven kilometers (three to four miles) after the new eruption.  It was still spitting clouds of gas and lava as high as 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) on Sunday, but no casualties were reported. More than 20,000 people have been evacuated from villages around the crater into several temporary shelters. Sinabung has been erupting since September. –Emirates 24

   January 6, 2014 – UNITED KINGDOM – A large sinkhole has appeared in part of the Peak District in Derbyshire. The hole, which eye witnesses said measures about 160ft (49m) wide, has opened up in the village of Foolow. Caver Mark Noble, 58, from Eyam, said he saw the hole during a walk on Christmas Day, but believes the land began to fall the day before. He said he has explored the caves at Foolow in the past as huge cavities were left in the area from an old lead mine. Mr Noble said: “It’s quite a large hole and it’s getting bigger all the time. It’s probably increased by about 10% since it opened up. It is quite interesting but there are two other similar large holes that appeared about half a mile away from this one in the 1970s, so it’s not a new thing.” -BBC 

   January 6, 2014 – ALBANY, N.Y. — Snow-white owls with luminous yellow eyes are thrilling bird-watchers as the magnificent birds set up winter residence at airports, fields and beaches far south of their normal Arctic range. The Florida Times-Union reports that one of the Arctic birds has been spotted since last week in Little Talbot Island State Park. It’s only the third-ever sighting of a snowy owl confirmed in Florida. Park services specialist Peter Maholland says bird watchers have been flocking to northeast Florida to catch a glimpse of the white bird. Snowy Owls are familiar to children as Harry Potter’s pet. They are the largest North American owl, and they’re typically found in Canada and the Arctic. Experts say snowy owls fly farther south when their population spikes or their food source becomes scarce. An invasion of snowy owls has been reported this winter across the Midwest, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. Snowy owls, familiar to children as Harry Potter’s pet, made a noticeable appearance in the northern half of the U.S. in 2011. Bird-watchers recently report on eBird.org snowy owl sightings in dozens of locations across the Midwest, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states as far south as Cape Hatteras, N.C.

 January 4, 2014 – HEALTH – Cases of the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, across Canada and the U.S. are increasing at the approach of the peak flu season of February. The Centers for Disease Control reports that in the U.S., the flu season has hit southeastern states Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas the hardest so far, and it is expected to spread across the nation in the coming weeks. Swine flu has not just affected the southern part of the United States. According the seasonal map issued by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), many states are seeing widespread flu activity. In Wisconsin, 81 people have been admitted to a hospital over a period of a week with a majority of the cases attributed to the H1N1 virus. The biggest concern is the increase in the number of H1N1 incidences, which has doubled in the past two weeks, according to a Jan. 2 WBay report. A death from swine flu was just reported in Santa Clara, CA, as well. In Michigan, emergency departments are filled with hundreds of patients with flu-like symptoms. However, infants on life support because of the H1N1 virus are causing the most concern. North of the border in Toronto, the Montreal Gazette reports that 36 percent of 210 confirmed cases of influenza were H1N1. One swine flu victim has died. This is an increase of 33 percent from this point last year in Canada’s largest city. 

January 4, 2014 – CLIMATE – The bitter cold that gripped the snow-covered northern tier from Cleveland to Boston on Friday shows no sign of easing, as another arctic blast roaring out of Canada threatens to drive weekend temperatures to all-time record lows. The National Weather Service said “dangerously cold temperatures” will slam the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest through the weekend, driving wind chill temperatures in some areas to 50, 60 or even 70 degrees below zero by Sunday night. The weather service warned that “wind chills colder than 50 below can cause exposed flesh to freeze in only 5 to 10 minutes.” Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton announced Friday that all schools in the state would be closed Monday. All-time record cold temperatures are possible in Minneapolis on Monday, according to the weather service. The combination of arctic air with the gusty winds is expected to lower wind chill temperatures to the single digits over the Mid-Atlantic while areas of New England can expect wind chill readings 10 to 20 degrees below zero, the weather service said. Before the full force of the Arctic blast roars in, another winter storm will spread snow and ice from the central Plains to the Great Lakes states this weekend. The heaviest snow is forecast to hit St. Louis, Indianapolis, Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, AccuWeather predicts, from late Saturday into early Monday. The storm will also bring snow and slippery travel to much of the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, AccuWeather meteorologist Courtney Spamer said. 

January 4, 2014 – EGYPT – At least 17 people have been killed across Egypt in a wave of protests, which saw demonstrators clashing with police forces. Over 50 other people were injured in the violence. Cairo, Alexandria, and Fayoum and Ismailia have all seen deadly scuffles as the Muslim Brotherhood-led National Coalition to Support Legitimacy organized protests on Friday. The protests were part of the Brotherhood’s boycott of the upcoming constitutional referendum. A security official told AP that 17 people died across the country, with 58 people injured nationwide. The Muslim Brotherhood places the death toll at 19. In addition, authorities arrested 122 Brotherhood members for possession of weapons, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The Egyptian government has vowed to confront the Muslim Brotherhood with “full force.” In Nasr City, a suburb of Cairo, police wearing bulletproof vests used tear gas to disperse demonstrators who threw rocks, set tires on fire and assaulted police lines. Security forces also fired teargas at the nearby Al-Azhar University where a number of students were marching.

  January 4, 2014 – GEOLOGY - Mysterious lights that occur before or during earthquakes have been noted by eyewitnesses for centuries but, until now, have baffled scientists. In one example from 1727, a man from New England reported how he felt the ground shake then saw a ball of light roll onto his dog, causing the animal to yelp. In Peru in 2009, a fisherman said he saw the sky turn violet before the earthquake, while in L’Aquila in 2009, a man saw white flashes before the tremor struck. Researchers writing in the publication Seismological Research Letters have now put forward a theory about this mystery glowing, which takes place in geological rifts when the ground is being torn apart. The authors looked at several studies about earthquake lights to propose a mechanism for why they occur, Nature magazine reports. They compiled all the reports of earthquake lights from 1600 to date, focusing on 27 earthquakes in the US and 38 in Europe. Of the 65 studied, 56 earthquakes occurred along ancient or active rift zones. A further 63 took place where geological faults that ruptured were almost vertical – many fault lines have much smaller angles. Lead author Robert Thériault, a geologist at Quebec’s Ministry of Natural Resources in Quebec City, said: “Earthquake lights are a real phenomenon – they’re not UFOs. They can be scientifically explained.”

John Ebel, a geophysicist at Boston College in Massachusetts, explained why there have been problems studying this phenomenon in the past: “It’s just not a regular area of scientific inquiry, because there’s no way to do an experiment on them.” In the study, the authors say that during an earthquake, the rocks grinding against each other generate electric charges that travel up along the fault lines. When they reach Earth’s surface, they create a glow. They believe the steep geometry explains the earthquake lights. Team member Friedemann Freund, a mineral physicist at the NASA Ames Research Center in California, believes a chemical process causes the lights. “When the stress of an earthquake hits the rock, it breaks chemical bonds involved in these defects, creating holes of positive electrical charge,” Nature reports. “These ‘p holes’ flow can vertically through the fault to the surface, triggering strong local electric fields that can generate light.” However, Ebel said there are a number of other reactions that may be responsible for these mystery lights: “It makes enough sense, but that doesn’t mean that it’s right.” Thériault added that while they have not yet got a definitive answer about the lights, awareness of their presence could help as a warning sign for earthquakes. -IBT

January 1, 2014 – NEW YORK – A storm covering 100 million Americans has the ingredients—fluffy flakes, strong winds, and record-low temps—to virtually shutdown everything from Boston to New York. Hold on to your ear muffs, East Coast: A near-perfect mix of snow, wind, and intense cold will bring blizzard conditions to New York City and Boston during the overnight hours on Thursday with a near-record chill to follow. The impending storm promises to be the biggest blizzard since a storm called Nemo paralyzed the northeast last February, and may work to bring the northeast corridor to a standstill. Late Wednesday, Boston mayor Tom Menino announced a full closure of city schools on Friday, a full 36 hours in advance. That city appears likely to take the brunt of the storm.  Blizzard warnings are in effect for Long Island and the Massachusetts coast, just south of Boston, where winds could gust in excess of 50 mph. The National Weather Service defines official blizzard conditions as snow mixed with high winds (greater than 35 mph) that reduces visibility to a quarter mile or less for a period longer than three hours. The New Jersey shore, New York City, and Boston itself should also get in on the blizzard-y action, though perhaps not for the full three hours.

January 1, 2014 – VANUATU - The U.S. Geological Survey says a 6.6-magnitude earthquake has hit the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. There are no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says there is no tsunami warning in effect. The USGS report says the quake hit early Thursday local time, with the epicenter 37 kilometers (23 miles) west of the village of Sola and 443 kilometers (275 miles) north of the capital, Port Vila. The report says the quake was at a depth was 196 kilometers (122 miles). The islands are on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,”  an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. –ABC

January 1, 2014 – INDONESIA – More than 19,000 people have been displaced by a volcano in Indonesia that has been erupting for months and shot lava into the air nine times overnight. Mount Sinabung on Sumatra sent hot rocks and ash 7,000 meters in the air last night and this morning, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said. “Mount Sinabung remains on the highest alert level and we have warned there should be no human activity within a five-kilometer radius of the crater,” Mr Nugroho said. “On Monday night, 19,126 people had fled their homes, and we expect that number to rise.” Police and soldiers were patrolling the danger zone to evacuate people who have chosen to stay in their homes, Mr. Nugroho added. Mount Sinabung – one of dozens of active volcanoes in Indonesia which straddles major tectonic fault lines – erupted in September for the first time since 2010 and has been rumbling ever since. In August, five people were killed and hundreds evacuated when a volcano on a tiny island in East Nusa Tenggara province erupted. The country’s most active volcano, Mount Merapi in central Java, killed more than 350 people in a series of violent eruptions in 2010. –ABC

Alaska Volcano erupts: Small, brief explosions were detected at the volcano yesterday evening (21:29 UTC or 12:29 AKST) and this morning at 4:06 UTC (19:06 AKST local time), USGS reported. No satellite images available after the time of the explosion, so uncertain if minor ash cloud generated, but unlikely. “Similar such explosions may continue without warning, and may produce minor ash clouds that are not expected to extend much beyond the volcano, but could produce local fallout on the flanks of the volcano. AVO has received no reports of activity from local observers.” –Volcano Discovery

Weeks 11/10/13 through 11/30/13

November 28, 2013 – TURKEY – The Sea of Marmara was shaken by two moderate earthquakes on Wednesday morning. According to a statement made by the Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD), an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude

November 27, 2013 – JAPAN – Explosive activity has resumed at the remote volcano in the Tokara Island chain. VAAC Tokyo reported explosions yesterday and this morning, with ash plumes rising to 4,000-6,000 ft (1.2-1.8 km) altitude.

November 27, 2013 – BOSNIA - Just outside the village, children fished in a tranquil pond bobbing with green algae and lined with willow trees, as cattle grazed nearby. Now, Rezak Motanic gazes in disbelief down a gigantic crater where the pond used to be. It’s like something from a science fiction movie: a sinkhole swallowed the water, the fish and even nearby trees. “I sat here only a day before it happened, sipping plum brandy,” Cemal Hasan said. “And then, there was panic. Fish were jumping out, and a big plum tree was pulled down like someone yanked it with a hook.” Residents of this remote north-western Bosnian village have been in shock since the pond vanished two weeks ago. The pond was about 20 meters in diameter and about eight meters deep. Now, the “abyss,” as the villagers have dubbed the crater, is some 50 meters wide and 30 meters deep – and growing. Scientists say it is not uncommon that ponds and small lakes suddenly disappear.

They say it could be caused by drying underground water currents, or changes in soil drainage due to irrigation. Sanica villagers, however, are having none of the scientific explanations. “It could have been a giant cave that opened its doors,” offered Milanko Skrbic. “Or a volcano.” Another popular theory – one that experts dismiss along with the others proposed by townsfolk – is that fish could have triggered the explosion of one of several world war two German bombs believed to have been thrown into the pond by an old woman after the war. “She herself died when one of the bombs exploded in her arms,” Cemal Hasan said as he stood on the edge of the “abyss.” Another spooky explanation: the owner of the pond took it with him when he died about a month ago. “Only days before Hasan passed away he said: ‘I’ll take everything with me when I die.’ And that’s what he did,” Motanic said. “His daughter saw him walk on the lake the night he died.” Husein Nanic said it could be a sign that the end is nigh. “All sort of miracles happen before the doomsday,” he said. –Guardian

 
November 26, 2013 – KUWAIT  – The national seismic network at Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) said on Tuesday that it had detected seismic waves in some of the network’s stations, at 10:06 a.m.

November 25, 2013 – SOUTH ATLANTIC – A magnitude-7.0 earthquake has struck in the South Atlantic, southeast of the disputed Falkland Islands, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

November 25, 2013 – JAPAN – After a short phase of weaker activity, the volcano began to erupt more violently yesterday with a series of powerful explosions that sent ash plumes up to 15,000 ft (4.5 km).


November 25, 2013 – GEOLOGY - The series of volcanic eruptions has again raised speculations about another Doomsday scenario. Saturday, Nov 23, was an explosive day on earth as seven volcanoes erupted hours apart from each other on the same day. In Japan, a volcano on Nishino-Shima Island erupted for the first time in 40 years. The eruption resulted in a new island in the Pacific. The Japanese Navy reported that the eruption caused boiling lava to meet sea water that gave rise to plumes of steam and ash. Some 7,000 miles from Japan. Mexico’s Colima Volcano created a steam and ash cloud that reached two miles into the sky. In Guatemala, Fire Mountain lived up to its name and created a moderate ash could that blanketed the nearby towns with ash fall. But the eruption and shock waves caused by the eruption was felt by Guatemalans as far as 6 miles away from the volcano. While it caused doors and windows to rattle, early reports said there was no damage so far. In Vanuatu in the Pacific, the Yasur Volcano had some weak explosions and the resultant ash fall is affecting farm lands. In Italy, Mount Etna created a spectacular lights display show anew, causing flights cancellations. The lava flow damaged the town of Zafferana. Black ash fall filled across the Strait of Messina from Sicily to the mainland, covering the streets and vehicles. The ashes were about 2 cm in size. Although there were no evacuations, a highway was shuttered from 30 minutes and it closed four air corridors servicing the Catania Airport in Sicily. In Indonesia, the country’s Mount Sinabung spewed ash cloud four miles high, causing the evacuation of 6,000 people, while scientists predict a major eruption forthcoming. The series of volcanic eruptions has again raised speculations about another Doomsday scenario. -IBT

November 25, 2013 – ITALY – An Italian photographer has filmed a town being blanketed in stone and ash as it fell from the sky like hail stones after Mt Etna erupted again on Saturday.

November 24, 2013 – INDONESIA – Indonesian authorities raised the alert status for one of the country’s most active volcanoes to the highest level Sunday after the mountain repeatedly sent hot clouds of gas down its slope

November 23, 2013 – ICELAND – A small swarm of earthquakes has occurred today under the eastern caldera rim. Another minor swarm took place yesterday under Þórðarhyrna volcano 20 km to the NE. The volcano last erupted in 1961. –Volcano

November 23, 2013 – FIJI – The U.S. Geological Survey reports an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.5 has been recorded in the south Pacific.

November 22, 2013 – PAPUA, NG – RVO reported that Rabaul caldera’s Tavurvur cone was quiet during 1-12 November. At 0516 on 13 November a moderate explosion generated a dense billowing ash cloud that rose 1 km above the crater

November 21, 2013 – JAPAN – A new island was born today in the Pacific Ocean in Japan’s Izu (or Volcano) island chain.

November 20, 2013 – MEXICO – On Monday night and Tuesday morning, the Colima volcano showed two strong exhalations; ejecting lava down its slopes and ash skyward, that has reached several villages.

November 20, 2013 – GUATEMALA – Two lava flows are active on the upper slopes of the volcano at the moment, to the Taniluya (south) and Ceniza canyon (SE).

November 20, 2013 – SICILY, ITALY – Mount Etna, the most active volcano in Europe, put on a spectacular show Saturday night and into Sunday. A massive eruption from Etna lit up the night sky over the island of Sicily.

November 20, 2013 – INDONESIA – The 8-kilometre-high ash cloud from Mount Sinabung dwarfs this villager in the north of the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, on Monday. The volcano rumbled back to life in 2010 after lying dormant for hundreds of years.

November 19, 2013 – SARDINIA, Italy – A storm has killed at least 16 people on the Italian island of Sardinia, with two people unaccounted for and fears the death toll will rise, officials say.

November 19, 2013 – INDONESIA – A strong 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck off eastern Indonesia on Tuesday, the USGS reported, but there were no immediate reports of damage and local officials ruled out any threat of a tsunami

November 19, 2013 – CROTIA – Four earthquakes were recorded in only a few hours in Croatia and in neighboring Greece and Romania in the past 48 hours.

November 19, 2013 – LOUISIANA - Scientists are now saying they will need to monitor for decades an enormous — and growing — Louisiana sinkhole that has already forced hundreds to evacuate, contaminated an aquifer and has been registering increased seismic activity, including mini-earthquakes. What is known as the Bayou Corne sinkhole in southern Louisiana is now reportedly 25 or so acres in size and 350 feet deep, having opened in August 2012 when the wall of a subterranean salt mine collapsed and the ground above it was seemingly swallowed by the earth. It has since filled with water. “While it was a manmade action that started this; it’s geology and natural forces that are making everything happen,” Patrick Courreges, a policy analyst for the Louisiana Dept. of Natural Resources, told TheVerge.com. “And geology happens slow.” When it occurred, Assumption Parish reportedly ordered the 300-or-so nearby residents to evacuate their homes. Hundreds have done so, although more than a few have remained behind, regardless of the danger.

According to TheVerge.com, recent studies show a good deal more methane gas than the initial estimate of 45 million cubic feet have leaked into a nearby aquifer and, “the fear is that the highly combustible gas will collect in a crevice or enclosed space and then ignite.” Meanwhile, a YouTube video garnering nearly 7 million views since its posting in August shows the sinkhole, which is expected to at least double in size over time, swallowing numerous trees. The video was reportedly shot by John Boudreaux, a local official coordinating efforts to hamstring the sinkhole’s growth, in hopes of attracting a measure of national attention to the affected residents’ plight. –Bayou Buzz

 
November 19, 2013 – SOUTH AMERICA – Scotia Sea earthquakes on the move. On the heels of a 5.0 magnitude quake along the Scotia tectonic plates, a 7.8 M quake shook things up further.

November 18, 2013 – INDONESIA – Two volcanoes erupted Monday in Indonesia, prompting warnings for flights and evacuation preparations, official said. Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra province unleashed volcanic ash as high as 8,000 meters

November 18, 2013 – ANTARCTICA – A volcano may be stirring more than a half-mile beneath a major ice sheet in Antarctica, raising the possibility of faster base melting that could ultimately affect climate.

November 18, 2013 – ILLINOIS – A fast-moving storm system triggered multiple tornadoes on Sunday, killing at least six people, injuring about 40 and flattening large parts of the city of Washington, Illinois as it tore across the Midwest, officials said. The storm also forced the Chicago Bears to halt their game against the Baltimore Ravens and encourage fans at Soldier Field to seek shelter as menacing clouds rolled in. Chicago’s two major airports also briefly stopped traffic with the metropolitan area was under a tornado watch. The city of Washington, Illinois, was hit especially hard by what the National Weather Service called a ‘large and extremely dangerous  tornado.

November 17, 2013 – SOUTH AMERICA – A powerful 7.8 magnitude undersea earthquake struck in the Scotia Sea, a remote region in the far south Atlantic near Antarctica, US earthquake monitors reported Sunday.

November 16, 2013 – SPACE – Sun is set to “flip upside down” within weeks as its magnetic field reverses polarity in an event that will send ripple effects throughout the solar system.

November 16, 2013 – TOKYO, JAPAN – A 5.5 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Japan on Saturday. Tremors were felt from inside Tokyo skyscrapers, and the city’s high-speed train service was halted as a precaution. The earthquake struck at 8:44 p.m

November 16, 2013 – SOUTH AMERICA - A strong 6.8 magnitude undersea earthquake struck in a remote area known as Scotia Sea, between the furthest tip of South America and Antarctica, U.S. monitors said late Friday. There is a low likelihood that the quake, which struck at 0334 GMT Saturday, will cause casualties or damage because of its remote location, said the U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors earthquakes worldwide. –The News


November 16, 2013 – INDONESIA – Indonesian farmers continued to harvest their crops Thursday even as a volcano erupted less than two and a half miles away, coating their fields in ash. Up to 4,300 residents have been evacuated from five villages in North Sumatra due to the eruptions of Mount Sinabung, according to Getty Images. The volcano has been spewing ash and lava 2.5 miles into the sky. The Jakarta Globe reported that tens of thousands of hectares of farmland had been affected, with losses to farmers expected to amount to millions of dollars. –NBC


November 15, 2013 – FLORIDA – Michael Dupre, his wife and his daughter made it out of their Dunedin, Florida, house after noticing its screened-in room plunging into a pit in the ground. His wedding ring did not. As the family stood outside early Thursday, a firefighter buckled herself up, smashed a window, then snatched the ring from a desk in Dupre’s office. “And a few minutes later, the whole thing collapsed back down there,” he said. Sinkholes like this one in Dunedin, a city of about 35,000 people just north of Clearwater, are hardly rarities in Florida. Hundreds pop up in the Sunshine State each year, like the one in August that gobbled a condo building in the town of Clermont. Dupre not only knew of the dangers, but he also was doing something about them. After spotting “a few little hairline cracks,” he contacted his insurance company and, after a lot of back-and-forth about what to do, had workers come to his western Florida house over the last few days to start stabilizing the ground.


November 14, 2013 – INDONESIA - A small eruption occurred this morning (9 am local time), producing an ash plume that rose about 350 m according to local news. Marapi has been showing increased activity since August 2011. VSI keeps the volcano at level 2 alert (out of 4) and recommends not to approach the summit within a radius of 3 km, as stronger eruptions could occur any time. –Volcano Discovery

November 14, 2013 – ALASKA - Far out in the Andreanof Islands, nearly 100 miles southwest of the Aleutian Islands town of Adak, a big earthquake of a 6.0 magnitude was recorded early Wednesday morning.  The shallow quake was centered at a depth of 2 miles and was recorded at 6:57 a.m.  Although residents of Adak felt the quake, there were no reports of damage in the lightly population region. The quake was later downgraded to a 5.8 by the USGS. –Alaska Dispatch

November 12, 2013 – PHILIPPINES - Soldiers were forced to hold back thousands of desperate Filipinos as they rushed to board to military planes that could only evacuate a few hundred people from the typhoon-ravaged region. About 3,000 Tacloban residents walked for miles to queue for help at the airport but just two planes arrived to take survivors to Manila, the capital of Philippines. There were scenes of chaos and devastation as families, many of whom containing young children or elderly people, were held back by soldiers. When the two Philippine Air Force C-130s arrived, people surged forward past a broken iron fence, witnesses said. But only a few hundred made it aboard and the rest were left to wait in the rain, with few supplies. 

November 12, 2013 – PHILIPPINES - A 4.8 magnitude earthquake has hit the Philippines island of Bohol just days after a powerful typhoon left thousands dead in the Pacific nation. The quake’s epicenter was in the San Isidro municipality of the island province, according to a USGS report. It is located some 45 km from Tagbilaran, the provincial capital that has almost 100,000 residents. The tremor hit at the depth of about 70 km, according to early USGS estimates. The Philippines Institute of Volcanology and Seismology put the depth of the quake much less deep, at just 9 km. It said it was an aftershock of the 7.2 magnitude quake that hit the island on October 15. No immediate casualty or damage report is available. The authorities did not issue a tsunami alert following the quake. Last month’s quake killed 22 people and displaced tens of thousands. It also caused damage to more than 73,000 structures. Bohol Island is located just south of the path of devastation left behind by the powerful Typhoon Haiyan,  known locally as Typhoon Yolanda. The typhoon, which was the strongest to hit the country in decades, left an estimated 10,000 people killed and leveled thousands of homes. Philippines declared a state of national calamity as search and rescue operations continue. –RT


November 12, 2013 – INDONESIA - As many as 4,300 residents in five villages in Karo regency, North Sumatra, were evacuated following increasing threats of volcanic ash, pyroclastic flows and molten lava, caused by Mount Sinabung’s strong eruptions on Monday. The recent evacuation was carried out on Monday when a joint team comprising personnel from the police, the Indonesian Military (TNI), and the local administration evacuated 2,500 residents in Gurukinayan village. Karo regency administration spokesman Jhonson Tarigan said residents in Gurukinayan were evacuated because the village, located around 4 kilometers from the volcano, was already covered in volcanic ash. Jhonson added that the government refused to risk allowing residents to remain in their homes as volcanic ash emitted by the volcano had reached the village. “Mount Sinabung again erupted strongly [on Monday] and discharged volcanic ash, pyroclastic flows and molten lava. The eruption threatened residents living in Gurukinayan, so we have evacuated them,” Jhonson told The Jakarta Post. He said the volcano erupted twice on Monday morning, the first at 6:14 a.m. and the second at 7 a.m. He added the first eruption was more powerful, spewing volcanic ash as high as 4,000 meters, followed by pyroclastic clouds and molten lava that flowed down the slopes of the mountain between 500 and 1,000 meters from the crater. Jhonson said during the first eruption, volcanic ash reached Gurukinayan village and caused panic among residents. The village, he added, was not included in the danger zone as it is located beyond the 3-kilometer radius.  

November 12, 2013 – KAMCHATKA –  A 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula on Tuesday. No one was injured in the quake, which struck at about 7 p.m. local time (11 a.m. Moscow time), the region’s Emergencies Ministry said, but emergency workers are surveying buildings in the area to check for damage. The earthquake shook the ground on the peninsula up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the epicenter, according to the local geophysical center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but did not cause a tsunami. Earthquake severity in most former Soviet states is measured on the Richter magnitude scale, which quantifies the amount of seismic energy released by the tremors. Earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.0 to 6.9 are considered strong, potentially causing damage in populated areas within a 160-kilometer (100-mile) radius. -RIA


November 11, 2013 – SPACE – Something is up with the sun. Scientists say that solar activity is stranger than in a century or more, with the sun producing barely half the number of sunspots as expected and its magnetic poles oddly out of sync. The sun generates immense magnetic fields as it spins. Sunspots—often broader in diameter than Earth—mark areas of intense magnetic force that brew disruptive solar storms. These storms may abruptly lash their charged particles across millions of miles of space toward Earth, where they can short-circuit satellites, smother cellular signals or damage electrical systems. Based on historical records, astronomers say the sun this fall ought to be nearing the explosive climax of its approximate 11-year cycle of activity—the so-called solar maximum. But this peak is “a total punk,” said Jonathan Cirtain, who works at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as project scientist for the Japanese satellite Hinode, which maps solar magnetic fields. “I would say it is the weakest in 200 years,” said David Hathaway, head of the solar physics group at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Researchers are puzzled. They can’t tell if the lull is temporary or the onset of a decades-long decline, which might ease global warming a bit by altering the sun’s brightness or the wavelengths of its light. 


November 11, 2013 – VIETNAM - Typhoon Haiyan continued on its destructive path into Vietnam and China Monday, although it had weakened slightly and was later downgraded to a tropical storm. At least 14 people were killed and 81 injured in Vietnam according to the Voice of Vietnam, the country’s national radio broadcaster. Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua said at least nine people had died and seven were missing in Hainan and Guangxi provinces. Gusts of up to 74 mph also left thousands without power, uprooted trees and ripped billboards from their stands after the storm slammed into Vietnam at around 3 a.m. local time (3 p.m. ET) the station reported. The storm may be the most violent to ever make landfall. Power is out and both water and food are in short supply. NBC’s Angus Walker reports. The storm made landfall near the city of Cam Pha in Vietnam, a small city about 100 miles east of Hanoi according to Kevin Noth, a lead meteorologist at The Weather Channel, who called Haiyan the most powerful tropical cyclone of the year.

November 11, 2013 – CENTRAL AMERICA – Hundreds of sea turtles are washing up dead on the beaches of Central America and scientists don’t know why. One hypothesis is that the killer is a potent neurotoxin that can be produced by algae during red tides, which are large accumulations of algae that turn sea water red or brown. The puzzling thing, though, is that red tides have come and gone before without taking such a deadly toll on turtles. Making things worse, some o f the turtles dying are from endangered species. In El Salvador, for instance, from late September to the middle of October, 114 sea turtles were discovered dead on Pacific coast beaches, according to the environment ministry. They were black turtles (Chelonia agassizii), Olive Ridley turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) and ones that are a cross between the two. Scientists throughout Central America are alarmed, and the only laboratory that specializes in these creatures is taking tissue and organ samples to figure out what is going on. The death toll in other countries is just as ugly — 115 so far this year in Guatemala, 280 in Costa Rica and an undisclosed number in Nicaragua. Another 200 died in late 2012 in Panama. And in Nicaragua there is yet another problem: turtles showed up weeks late, at the end of September, to crawl up onto the beach and lay their eggs.

Weeks 10/13/13 through 11/9/13

November 10, 2013 – TACLOBAN, Philippines - One of the most powerful storms ever recorded killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines, a senior police official said on Sunday, with huge waves sweeping away entire coastal villages and devastating the region’s main city. Super typhoon Haiyan destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of the area in its path as it tore through Leyte province on Friday, said police chief superintendent Elmer Soria. As rescue workers struggled to reach ravaged villages along the coast, where the death toll is as yet unknown, survivors foraged for food as supplies dwindled or searched for lost loved ones. “People are walking like zombies looking for food,” said Jenny Chu, a medical student in Leyte. “It’s like a movie.” Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging sea water strewn with debris that many said resembled a tsunami, leveling houses and drowning hundreds of people in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the typhoon-prone Southeast Asian nation. 

November 9, 2013 – LONDON - Health chiefs have warned Britain is on the brink of a second major ­epidemic just four months after the previous outbreak, which claimed one life and more than 1,200 victims. The virus is highly contagious. Experts say one child with measles sitting in a classroom for just an hour will pass it on to at least 70 per cent of other pupils who are not vaccinated. Cases have once again soared in Swansea, the area which was hit earlier this year. Health chiefs in Wales warned last month that a renewed flare-up was likely to spread rapidly unless children have the vital secondary measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) booster jab. At that point, the total stood at 13 cases but this has already risen to 36. “Parents and young people should not underestimate how serious ­measles can be and how quickly it can spread,” said Dr. Jorg Hoffmann, ­Public Health Wales consultant in communicable disease control. “To prevent this outbreak spreading even further, it’s crucial that unvaccinated children and young people receive two doses of MMR urgently and that those with symptoms do not attend school.” The ­epidemic which swept the greater Swansea area earlier this year triggered a huge vaccination program.



November 9, 2013 – OCEAN – The deadliest known outbreak of a measles-like virus in bottlenose dolphins has killed a record number of the marine mammals along the U.S. Atlantic coast in recent months, officials said Friday. A total of 753 bottlenose dolphins have washed up from New York to Florida from July 1 until Nov. 3, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The figure represents a 10-fold increase in the number of dolphins that would typically turn up dead along East Coast beaches, said Teri Rowles, program coordinator of the NOAA Fisheries Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. “Historic averages for this same time frame, same geographic area, is only 74, so you get an idea of the scope,” she told reporters. The cause of death is morbillivirus, a form of marine mammal measles that is similar to canine distemper and can cause pneumonia, suppressed immune function and brain infections that are usually fatal. The virus spreads among dolphins in close contact to one another. The death toll is also higher than the 740-plus strandings in the last major Atlantic morbillivirus outbreak in 1987-1988. And they have come in a much shorter time period, leading officials to anticipate this event could get much worse. “It is expected that the confirmed mortalities will be higher,” said Rowles.  “If this plays out similar to the ’87-88 die-offs, we are less than halfway through that time frame.”

November 8, 2013 – SPACE - Astronomers viewing our solar system’s asteroid belt with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have seen for the first time an asteroid with six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel. Unlike all other known asteroids, which appear simply as tiny points of light, this asteroid, designated P/2013 P5, resembles a rotating lawn sprinkler. Astronomers are puzzled over the asteroid’s unusual appearance. “We were literally dumbfounded when we saw it,” said lead investigator David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles. “Even more amazing, its tail structures change dramatically in just 13 days as it belches out dust. That also caught us by surprise. It’s hard to believe we’re looking at an asteroid.” Jewitt leads a team whose research paper appears online in the Nov. 7 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. P/2013 P5 has been ejecting dust periodically for at least five months.




November 8, 2013 – NICARAGUA – A seismic swarm in the Momotombo volcano in August claimed nearly 300 microearthquakes in a single day, more than twice as common tremors reported the same month, reported the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies (INET). According to the Monthly Bulletin of Earthquakes and Volcanoes of INET, the Momotombo swarm of microearthquakes caused 284 on August 17. The Momotombo, located north of Lake Managua, presented 524 microearthquakes between 16 and 18 August, according to the report. The microearthquakes are earthquakes with magnitudes less than the magnitude of 1.0 on the Richter scale, which are not perceived by the population. The swarm in August Momotombo volcano did not cause any damage in Nicaragua.


November 8, 2013 – AFRICA - Africa’s western black rhino is now officially extinct according the latest review of animals and plants by the world’s largest conservation network. The subspecies of the black rhino — which is classified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species — was last seen in western Africa in 2006. The IUCN warns that other rhinos could follow saying Africa’s northern white rhino is “teetering on the brink of extinction” while Asia’s Javan rhino is “making its last stand” due to continued poaching and lack of conservation.




November 7, 2013 – INDONESIA – Mount Sinabung in Indonesia has erupted for the third time in as many months, spewing ash over 4 miles into the air and covering nearby villages in gray powder. The volcanic activity began on Sunday and more than 1200 people have been evacuated so far. The volcano surprised scientists in 2010 when it rumbled back to life after being dormant for centuries.  Sinabung is one of 120 active volcanoes in the country which is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire.” –NBC



November 7, 2013 – KAMCHATKA – A remote Russian volcano may be readying for a new eruption, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory. On Nov. 5, NASA’s Earth-Observing 1 satellite spotted ash above the 9,702-foot-tall (2,958 meters) Zhupanovksy volcano, which recently woke from a decades-long slumber. The snowy peaks also shows signs of phreatic explosions — the stupendous blasts that result from hot lava meeting snow, ice or water, the Earth Observatory reported. Zhupanovksy’s latest activity started on Oct. 23, when the volcano spewed ash 16,400 feet (5 kilometers) into the sky. It was the first explosive eruption at the volcano since 1959, according to KVERT, the Kamchatka Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, which monitors volcanic and earthquake hazards in the Russian peninsula. The initial blast of ash and volcanic gases was followed by several days of phreatic bursts and strong gas emissions from fumaroles (gas vents) at the peak, KVERT reported. –Live Science


November 7, 2013 – LONDON – A new breed of poison-resistant “super rat” is spreading across the UK. The rats look like normal rats but cannot be killed by regular poison pellets and eat them ‘like feed.” The disease-carrying rats are taking over other rat populations, experts say. They have been spotted in Kent and Sussex in the southeast of the country and the West Country in the southwest, the International Business Times reports. The rats have also reportedly been sighted further north in Oxford and Berkshire, sparking fears that they are spreading. Pest controllers want to use more lethal poisons in order to stop the rats travelling further but are facing resistance from authorities. Richard Moseley from the British Pest Control Association said: “Normal rats are being killed off by poison, so these resistant species are taking their place – it’s only natural that their numbers are expanding. “But they’re being found further afield than previously anticipated. They eat poison like feed, you might as well be leaving out grain for them.” Dr. Dougie Clarke, from the University of Huddersfield, said even poisons used by pest control experts were not strong enough to kill them. “There are obviously health concerns and worries about the bacteria they carry, such as salmonella,” Dr Clarke said. “They carry a lot of diseases, including Weil’s, which has been linked to deaths. They also chew on electrical cables.” But pest controllers’ bids to use stronger poisons have so far been denied by the Health and Safety Executive because there are fears they will damage the environment and kill other wildlife. –News

November 7, 2013 – CALIFORNIA – A massive fireball zipped through the night skies around Southern California Wednesday, causing “cars to hit their brakes and swerve,” according to at least one mesmerized witness. More than 130 people reported seeing the fireball as far north as Salt Lake City and east of Phoenix around 7:55 p.m., according to the American Meteor Society. The AMS, which tracked the flash’s trajectory, identified the extraterrestrial stunner as part of the Southern Taurids, an annual shower which peaks in early November. The showers “usually don’t offer more than about seven meteors per hour,” according to EarthSky News. “The Taurids are, however, well known for having a high percentage of fireballs, or exceptionally bright meteors.” One video capturing the stunning sight in Los Angeles shows a massive white ball plunging toward the Earth while giving off two large flashes, making it resemble the size of the moon.

November 2, 2013 – TONGA - A magnitude 6.4 earthquake has been reported off the coast of Neiafu, Tonga. The quake struck around 8 am this morning. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says there is no risk of a ‘destructive’ tsunami being generated and impacting New Zealand, the Pacific Islands or Hawaii, but says local tsunamis may occur within 100 kilometers of the epicenter. The United States Geological Survey says earthquakes below 6.5 on the Richter scale are ‘unlikely’ to generate a tsunami. A magnitude 7.5 temblor shook the Tongan islands in May this year. No injuries were reported following that quake and no tsunami was generated. -3News


November 2, 2013 – GEOLOGY – One of these days, a field of volcanoes you have never heard of will wake up, and if it fulfills its geologic potential, the consequences will be heard around the world. Curiously, Laguna del Maule, situated along the spine of the Andes, doesn’t even look like a volcano. No towering peak, no plume of smoke or steam, no stench of sulfur. But 36 times in the past 20,000 years, volcanic vents surrounding the lake basin have created monster fields of lava — with huge deposits of volcanic glass, pumice and ash. Once, almost a million years ago, this volcano field had an eruption that, if repeated, could change history by affecting air travel, agriculture and climate. Tantalizing scraps of lava indicate enormous eruptions 1.5 million and 336,000 years ago. It’s a maxim of geology: What happened before can happen again. The volcanic field is 20 kilometers in diameter, and the recent surge in attention is largely due to a widespread, 1.5 meter rise since 2007. “That’s phenomenal,” says Brad Singer, a professor of Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who began studying this part of the Andes 20 years ago. “There is no other volcano in the world that is going up at this rate.”

Unrest growing among world’s supervolcanoes: Santorini in Greece, Uturuncu in Bolivia, the Yellowstone and Long Valley calderas in the U.S., Laguna del Maule in Chile, Campi Flegrei in Italy – almost all of the world’s active supervolcanic systems are now exhibiting some signs of inflation- a potential early indication that an eruption could be building in these volcanic systems for the near future. When they will erupt is anybody’s guess? In the meantime, unrest is also growing among the volcanoes of Central America, Kamchatka, Alaska, Indonesia, and Iceland- which is home to some of the most dangerous volcanoes on the planet. The clock is ticking. Their magma chambers are expanding. Tremors are increasing. If any one of these volcanic systems has a major eruption, we’re in deep trouble. If they erupt in cascading fashion; Earth will be reeling through a doomsday scenario. –TEP

November 1, 2013 – HONG KONG – Typhoon season isn’t over yet, with Typhoon Krosa on the move in the South China Sea. Krosa passed over the Philippines Friday, bringing peak wind gusts of 67 mph, over a foot of rain, and a strong storm surge to Luzon Island Friday. Krosa’s proximity to Hong Kong prompted the city of seven million to issue typhoon signal No 1 as a warning, the first time one has been necessary this late in the season since 2006. Hong Kong has only needed to issue three cyclone alerts in November in the past 30 years. Despite the warning, the typhoon seems more likely to take a westerly path towards Vietnam in the coming days, missing Hong Kong. Typhoon Krosa comes at the end of an active Pacific storm season, particularly for Hong Kong. Usagi menaced Hong Kong for a while before killing at least 25 people in southeast China in late September. And Fitow came only weeks later, hitting southeastern China in early October, displacing over half a million people, and causing at least $3.4 billion in damage. Extreme weather events like typhoons are becoming more destructive as human activity drives changes in the climate. Usagi was fueled by very warm waters in the Western Pacific, and rising sea levels contribute to more damaging storm surges. China’s State Oceanic Administration itself “blames rising sea levels for magnifying the impact of storms around China’s southeastern coast and salt tides in the Yangtze and Pearl rivers in 2011,” according to state-run news site Xinua. –Climate Progress

November 1, 2013 – OREGON - A giant fireball was spotted in the Pacific Northwest Wednesday, sparking more than 200 reports from observers. The American Meteor Society received at least 234 reports of a “major fireball event” over the Pacific Northwest and southwestern Canada around 6 a.m. PDT. Many reports came from Oregon, as well as Washington, British Columbia, Alberta, Idaho and Montana. “A fireball is another term for a very bright meteor, generally brighter than magnitude -4, which is about the same magnitude of the planet Venus in the morning or evening sky,” Jim Todd from the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry told the Oregon Coast. AMS experts say the meteor entered Earth’s atmosphere over Washington and traveled east to west, landing in the Pacific Ocean, Fox 12 reports. Individuals that saw the fireball describe the event as something extraordinary.

November 1, 2013 – CHILE – A 6.6-magnitude earthquake rocked north-central Chile on Thursday, causing buildings to sway in the capital and nervous people to run out into the streets. But Chile’s emergency services office said no damages to infrastructure were reported and Chile’s Navy discarded the possibility of a tsunami. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake’s epicenter was located about 54 kilometers (33 miles) southwest of the city of Coquimbo or about 400 kilometers (250 miles) from Santiago. Its depth was 10 kilometers (6 miles). Chile is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake and the tsunami it unleashed in 2010 killed more than 500 people, destroyed 220,000 homes, and washed away docks, riverfronts and seaside resorts. That quake was so strong it shortened the Earth’s day slightly by changing the planet’s rotation. The strongest earthquake ever recorded also happened in Chile, a magnitude-9.5 in 1960 that killed more than 5,000 people. –ABC News

November 1, 2013 – TAIPEI — A strong earthquake struck eastern Taiwan Thursday, shaking buildings in the capital and causing tremors across the island. The 6.3 magnitude at 8:02 pm (1202 GMT) had its epicenter 53 kilometers southwest of Hualien city at a depth of 19.5 kilometers, according to the country’s Seismology Center. The U.S. Geological Survey gave a slightly higher magnitude of 6.6 and a shallower depth of 9 km. There was no immediate information on any damage or casualties. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no immediate threat of a tsunami. Residents in Taipei took to social media to describe their alarm after the quake hit. “Yikes. Now the sirens are going. Definitely the worst earthquake I’ve felt here,” wrote Lola Dodge on Twitter, describing herself as an expat living in Taipei. Elga Reyes tweeted: “Ohmygod. That was the scariest moment ever! Earthquake in Taipei. I could hear the walls creaking. And felt like I was swaying on a ride.” -Inquirer

November 1, 2013 – CHINA – There have so far been 12 reports of injuries after two earthquakes shook Songyuan City in northeast China’s Jilin Province on Thursday morning, local authorities said. A 5.5-magnitude quake hit the city at 11:03 a.m. Its depth was eight km, and its epicenter was located at 44.6 degrees north latitude and 124.2 degrees east longitude, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center. A second 5.0-magnitude quake at a depth of six km hit the same area at 11:10 a.m, and at least three aftershocks of 3 magnitudes or above hit the area during the afternoon. As of 5:30 p.m., nearly 5,000 homes had been damaged in Qian Gorlos Mongol Autonomous County and Qian’an County. Local governments are still verifying economic losses. “I felt three quakes, and my house was shaking badly,” said Ju Shufen, a villager in Chaganhua Town, the worst quake-stricken area. “We heard sudden sounds similar to firecrackers and felt the house shaking,” said villager Li Jinlong, adding that he found cracks on house walls after he ran out of his home. Local authorities have relocated about 14,420 residents in Chaganhua Town.



November 1, 2013 – CALIFORNIA - Wildlife biologists will be putting radio collars on the Mojave National Preserve’s bighorn sheep in early November to try and learn more about an outbreak of pneumonia that has killed more than a hundred animals. Biologists from the National Park Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) will be flying over the Preserve’s mountain ranges for four days starting November 3 to capture, examine, and collar bighorn sheep in an attempt to track the spread of the usually fatal respiratory disease. Tracking the animals’ movements through the desert will give wildlife managers a better chance of finding ways to limit the disease’s impact on the desert bighorn population. Mojave National Preserve scientists suspect that the outbreak may have begun when sick domestic sheep were illegally dumped in the Preserve. Domestic sheep and goats are c There seem to have been two distinct outbreaks of pneumonia in and near the Preserve since the first dead animals were found this summer, lending credence to the notion that multiple instances of sheep dumping are behind the problem. Wildlife biologists will survey mountains ranges just outside of the known outbreak centers by helicopter; any bighorn sheep they encounter will be netted, enabling crews to take nasal swab samples and affix GPS tracking collars provided by CDFW. 

November 1, 2013 – RUSSIA – The high cliffs of Eastern Siberia – which mainly consist of permafrost – continue to erode at an ever quickening pace. This is the conclusion which scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research have reached after their evaluation of data and aerial photographs of the coastal regions for the last 40 years. According to the researchers, the reasons for this increasing erosion are rising summer temperatures in the Russian permafrost regions as well the retreat of the Arctic sea ice. This coastal protection recedes more and more on an annual basis. As a result, waves undermine the shores. At the same time, the land surface begins to sink.

November 1, 2013 – OCEANS - It was the silence that made this voyage different from all of those before it. Not the absence of sound, exactly. The wind still whipped the sails and whistled in the rigging. The waves still sloshed against the fiberglass hull. And there were plenty of other noises: muffled thuds and bumps and scrapes as the boat knocked against pieces of debris. What was missing was the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat. The birds were missing because the fish were missing. Exactly 10 years before, when Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen had sailed exactly the same course from Melbourne to Osaka, all he’d had to do to catch a fish from the ocean between Brisbane and Japan was throw out a baited line. “There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn’t catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice,” Macfadyen recalled. But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two. No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all. “In years gone by I’d gotten used to all the birds and their noises,” he said. “They’d be following the boat, sometimes resting on the mast before taking off again. You’d see flocks of them wheeling over the surface of the sea in the distance, feeding on pilchards.” But in March and April this year, only silence and desolation surrounded his boat, Funnel Web, as it sped across the surface of a haunted ocean.  


October 30, 2013 – ITALY – Mount Etna, one of the most active volcanoes in the world has again started spewing lava from its bowels and sent a huge plume of volcanic ash into the air much akin to the earlier eruptions in 2012. Mount Etna volcano is situated in Sicily and it started to spew volcanic ash on Saturday Morning. There has been no casualties’ according to BBC but Air Traffic at the Catania airport was temporarily halted because of the smoke. The Airport reopened at Dawn. As mentioned, Mt Etna is an active volcano which erupts regularly at short intervals. Situated in Sicily the volcano stands at an imposing 10,922 feet high at its summit and is Europe’s highest and most active volcano. The volcano has been spewing small and sporadic volcanic ash emissions since September. Mount Etna reported the 13th episode of activity in 2013, but the last major eruption was in 1992. The primeval Greeks thought Mount Etna was home to the god of fire, Vulcan. When Mount Etna erupted, they thought that Vulcan was simply forging weapons for Mars, the god of war. Volcanic eruptions are often accompanied by tremors and in Mount Etna’s case also underground tremors were reported on Friday before the eruptions on Saturday. Till now evacuation has not been ordered from the many villages that are present on the volcano slopes. –Pentagon Post

October 25, 2013 – JAPAN - An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude 7.1 struck off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture early Saturday morning and the Japan Meteorological Agency issued an alert for tsunami of 1 meter high for Japan’s northeastern Pacific coast but lifted it about two hours later. The agency urged people to stay away from waterfront areas after the 2:10 a.m. quake. The tsunami alert covered Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures. It was lifted at 4:05 a.m. No injuries have been reported in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures after the 2:10 a.m. quake, according to police. No abnormality was reported at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which was crippled by the magnitude 9.0 quake in March 2011, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co. Workers, however, were ordered to evacuate from waterfront areas.


October 25, 2013 – KAMCHATKA – A new explosive eruption started yesterday night (23 Oct). An ash plume was detected drifting at an estimated 16,000 ft (5 km) altitude and drifting ESE. At least 1 mm of ash has been deposited in the Nalychevo valley, a natural park between Zhupanovsky and Avachinsky volcanoes. Zhupanovsky volcano lies about 70 km northeast of the capital of Kamchatka, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and had its last eruption in 1959. It is a complex volcano composed of several overlapping cones aligned on a roughly east-west oriented axis. The new eruption comes from the same vent that has been also the site of all known historical eruptions, located west of the highest point of the volcanic massif. Zhupanovsky is the 8th volcano in Kamchatka to erupt this year. –Volcano Discovery  
October 25, 2013 – INDONESIA - A volcano in western Indonesia erupted Thursday, unleashing a column of dark volcanic material high into the air weeks after villagers were returning home from an earlier eruption, officials said. The explosion at Mount Sinabung, located in North Sumatra province, shot black ash 3 km into the air, but there were no reports of injuries or damage, said National Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. He said villages, farms and trees around the 2,600-meter-high rumbling volcano were covered in thick gray ash, prompting authorities to evacuate more than 3,300 people. Most were from two villages within 3 km of the mountain in Karo district. No lava or debris spewed from the volcano, and nearby towns and villages were not in danger, but authorities warned tourists to stay away from the danger zone located 1.5 km from the crater, Nugroho said. Last month, more than 15,000 people were forced to flee when the volcano rumbled to life after being dormant for three years, belching ash and smoke and igniting fires on its slopes. The volcano’s last major eruption, in August 2010, killed two people and forced 30,000 others to flee. It caught many scientists off guard because it had been quiet for four centuries. Mount Sinabung is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin. –Japan Times

October 24, 2013 – WASHINGTON - America’s pork industry has been gripped by an outbreak of porcine diarrhea since mid-May, the first appearance of the condition in North America. US farmers have reported 768 cases of the disease, known as porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), through the first week of October, which implies that many more thousands of animals could be affected. Although the disease is not transferable to humans, it has been devastating for the US pork industry. It causes severe “watery diarrhea and vomiting in nursing pigs,” according to information from the US’s National Pork Board. Almost all the piglets who get the disease die because of it, and farmers are reportedly filling “wheelbarrows of dead piglets.”

October 24, 2013 – UNITED KINGDOM – A mysterious hum has been keeping people in Hampshire awake all night, and scientists have said there could be something fishy about it. The noise “pulsates” through homes, forcing some residents of Hythe near Southampton to evacuate the area just to get a good night’s sleep. People have complained to their local council, and the blame has been put on everything from heavy industry to the large cargo ships coming in at Southampton Docks – some residents have even gone to the doctor thinking they had tinnitus. Scientists now think that the noise is being caused by fish, competing to out-hum one another as part of an unusual mating ritual. Male Midshipman fish let out a deep, resonating drone which attracts females and acts as a challenge to other males. They are nocturnal creatures, but once they get going can keep up the distracting hum all night. Unfortunately for the residents of Hythe, the noise created by the Midshipman is of such a low frequency and long wavelength that it can carry through the ground, walls, and into homes. This is not the first time fish have been blamed for keeping people up at night – a number of US cities suffer their droning on a regular basis. But it was a problem which stumped various authorities in Southampton, including the National Oceanography Centre based there.


October 24, 2013 – PHILIPPINES – As the magnitude 7.2 earthquake ended on Oct. 15, residents of Sitio Kumayot in Barangay Anonang heard an explosive sound like a thunderclap. Villagers watched in horrified disbelief as the ground cracked open and, with smoke and the stench of sulphur spreading, one side started to rise. The emerging wall of rock and earth missed by a hairline the toilet of baker Menecia Bautista Aparecio, 43. “We will be living forever in fear, being so close to the fault line,” said Aparecio, who fears returning to her home and now bakes her “pan Bisaya” or “pan kinamot,” a local bread, in the village chapel. The rock face, about three meters high and two kilometers long, raised fears among villagers that more cracks would appear on the ground and swallow them up. Scientists, who may declare a 300-meter permanent danger zone around the fault, described the appearance of the ground rupture as a “eureka” moment in their search for what they have long suspected was an active earthquake fault in the area. Government scientists said the appearance of the yet unnamed fault, which does not exist on the country’s map of fault lines, triggered the powerful earthquake in Central Visayas. “We are 100 percent sure that this is the generator (of the earthquake),” Teresito Bacolcol told GMA 7 as he noted that the rock face appeared near the quake’s epicenter at the boundary of Sagbayan and Catigbian towns. “When we saw (the fault), eureka! This is it.” Bacolcol led a team from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), which inspected the rock face last Monday. “We recommend that no structures should be built on top of a fault and within the five-meter buffer zone on both sides of the fault,” Phivolcs director Renato Solidum told The STAR. He also urged the local government of Bohol to revise its land use policy around the fault. -Philstar

October 23, 2013 – AUSTRALIA - New South Wales is bracing for a potentially devastating day of bushfires, with the state’s fire commissioner urging people not to travel to the Blue Mountains due to conditions that are set to be “as bad as it gets.” The fire danger warning for the greater Sydney area, the Blue Mountains and the Hunter valley has been set to “extreme” – the second highest level.

October 23, 2013 – BRITAIN – An English school has been forced to close after an outbreak of “false widow” spiders, the latest in a series of sightings of Britain’s most poisonous arachnid. Dean Academy in the western Forest of Dean region would shut its doors on Wednesday while experts dealt with the eight-legged invaders, vice principal Craig Burns said in a statement. The spiders, which resemble the potentially deadly black widow, have colonized parts of southern England for more than a century although they are thought to have spread in the last 25 years, according to Britain’s Natural History Museum. Their bite can cause swelling or fever. So far, no one at the school has been bitten, said Burns. There have been numerous newspaper reports of false widow sightings and attacks around Britain in recent weeks. –Reuters


October 23, 2013 – CATALINA ISLAND, Ca.  — Could the appearance of rare “sea serpents” washing ashore beaches in Southern California portend disaster? The question comes following the discovery of the carcass of a rare 18-foot-long oarfish off the coast of Catalina Island on Oct. 13, followed by another snakelike 14-foot-long oarfish found on Oct. 18 in Oceanside. Fishermen in Japan reported a sharp uptick in oarfish sightings in March 2010 following the massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake in Chile that same month, which marked almost exactly one year before the country was devastated by its own magnitude-8.9 quake in northeast Japan. Oarfish, which can grow to more than 50 feet in length, are considered the longest bony fish in the world. They typically dive more than 3,000 feet deep, which makes sightings rare and has fueled various serpent legends throughout history. According to traditional Japanese lore, oarfish rise to the water’s surface and beach themselves to warn of an impending earthquake, a notion that some scientists have speculated could be supported by the bottom-dwelling fish being more sensitive to seismic shifts.

October 23, 2013 – BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — A 5.3-magnitude earthquake has struck western Indonesia, killing one villager, injuring two others and damaging dozens of houses. The U.S. Geological Survey said Tuesday’s quake was centered about 19 miles southwest of Reuleuet town in Aceh province, at a depth of 29 miles. Local government officials said a 90-year-old man suffered a heart attack when the temblor struck. Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said two other villagers were rushed to a nearby hospital with head wounds and broken bones after around 160 houses and buildings were damaged. A massive quake off the coast of Aceh caused a powerful tsunami in 2004 that killed around 230,000 people in a dozen countries. –USA

October 22, 2013 – ISRAEL – A small earthquake shook the Sea of Galilee area on Tuesday morning, the fifth such tremor in less than a week. The quake, measuring 3.3 on the Richter scale, caused no reported damage or injuries. On Sunday, two minor earthquakes, both measuring 3.6 in intensity, were reported in the north, which followed similar quakes on Saturday and Thursday. No injuries have been reported, although some buildings in Tiberias were lightly damaged by the tremors. Last Sunday, a 6.4-magnitude quake, centered in the Mediterranean Sea near Crete, was felt in Athens, Egypt and Israel. And in September, an early-morning 3.5-magnitude quake was felt in the northern Dead Sea area, including in Jerusalem. In response to the string of temblors, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a special cabinet meeting Monday to discuss the state’s earthquake preparedness, and, on Sunday, the Home Front Command and emergency services representatives held a meeting to discuss emergency procedures in the case of a more major earthquake. However, seismologist Dov Lakovsky of the Geophysical Institute of Israel told The Times of Israel Sunday that there was no cause for alarm and that the quakes were just “a bit stronger than usual.” Such tremors, he said, “happen all the time.” According to the GII’s statistics, seven earthquakes strong enough to be felt have rattled Israel in 2013. Israel is situated along the Syrian-African rift, a tear in the earth’s crust running the length of the border separating Israel and Jordan, and is part of the Great Rift Valley, which extends from northern Syria to Mozambique. Israel’s last major earthquake rattled the region in 1927 — a 6.2-magnitude tremor that killed 500 and injured another 700. An earthquake in 1837 left as many as 5,000 people dead. According to a 2010 Haaretz report, major earthquakes strike Israel once every 80 years or so. The country is currently in the midst of a program to upgrade buildings to withstand earthquakes.   Times of Israel

October 22, 2013 – Manipur, INDIA - A suspected volcano-like eruption has been reported in a remote village of Manipur near the India-Myanmar border which forced locals to evacuate the area, official sources said on Sunday. According to locals in Tusom village in Ukhrul district of Manipur, a deafening sound was followed by the rolling down of a huge boulder from a nearby hilltop which then released a lava-like liquid that charred trees and plants on the hill slopes. Although the incident reportedly occurred on October 13, road link between the district headquarters and Tusom was so bad it took the villagers several days to reach the information about the matter to the officials concerned, sources said. The district headquarters is 120km away from the village. No casualty was, however, reported in the incident. Official reports from the district said mud, water and other discharges were still flowing from the hilltop. Villagers have moved to safer places in the neighborhood, they added.


October 19, 2013 – INDONESIA – A pilot observed a small ash eruption this morning at the Semeru Volcano. The volcano had recently been very calm, but this could be a sign it is getting more active again. Semeru, or Mount Semeru, is a volcano located in East Java, Indonesia. It is the highest mountain on the island of Java. The stratovolcano is also known as Mahameru, meaning ‘The Great Mountain.’ – Volcano Discovery

October 19, 2013 – CALIFRONIA - A moderate 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck off the western coast of Mexico, 90 kilometers southwest of Huatabampo in Sonora state, the US Geological Survey reported. The epicenter of the quake was 10 kilometers deep in the Gulf of California, USGS said. There is no information yet concerning the casualties. The quake was initially reported to have reached a magnitude of 6.8, but was later downgraded to 6.5 by USGS. A tsunami warning has not been issued. Over 138,300 people live within 100 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake, according to the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS). Mexico is located atop three large tectonic plates and is one of the world’s most seismically active regions. On August 21, two strong 6.0 magnitude quakes hit central and southern Mexico, causing extensive damage. One of the earthquakes affected the capital of Mexico City and the resort city of Acapulco, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of people. Numerous injuries were reported. The country’s deadliest natural disaster occurred in September 1985 when an 8.1 magnitude earthquake killed more than 9,500 people in Mexico City. -RT



October 17, 2013 – MONTANA – All across the U.S., moose are dying – and scientists yet don’t know how to save them. Moose populations across swaths of the U.S. – from the West Coast to the East Coast, from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River – are declining at an unprecedented rate, imperiling fragile ecosystems and putting the moose tourism industry on edge, the New York Times reported. But though scientists have a long list of culprits – disease; climate change; over-hunting – it’s not clear just what is causing moose to die in droves. And that means that scientists are at the moment unsure how to save America’s moose. Once, moose made headlines for doing a bit too well in the U.S. As the largest members of the deer family, Cervidae, blooming moose populations meant more accidents on rural, mountain roads, and more reports of moose attacks against humans. But the news has changed. In New Hampshire, the moose population has dropped from some 7,000 moose to around just 4,600 animals.

October 16, 2013 – PAPUA, NG - An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 struck off the coast of Papua New Guinea on Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey reported. The USGS said the quake’s epicenter was 47 miles west-southwest of the island state’s capital Bougainville and (58 km) 36.2 miles deep. The quake was preceded by several 5.0+ magnitude foreshocks. This is the fourth 7.0+ magnitude earthquake to strike the planet in less than a month. There have been no initial reports cited of damage or injuries. -TEP

October 16, 2013 – TOKYO, JP – A typhoon killed 17 people in Japan on Wednesday, most on an offshore island, but largely spared the capital and caused no new disaster as it brushed by the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power station, the plant’s operator said. More than 50 people were missing after the “once in a decade” Typhoon Wipha roared up Japan’s east coast. About 20,000 people were told to leave their homes because of the danger of flooding and hundreds of flights were canceled. Sixteen people were killed on Izu Oshima Island, about 120 km (75 miles) south of Tokyo, as rivers burst their banks.


October 15, 2013 – SOUTH DAKOTA – The animals held out as long as they could against the punishing 70-mile-per-hour winds and the blinding snow. Unable to get to safety, thousands of cattle, horses and other animals simply died where they fell—or stood—in the storm that lashed western South Dakota for 24 hours earlier this month, with whipping winds lasting well into the following day. State Senator Al Davis of Nebraska, which was also hit, visited the affected areas last week and estimated that up to 100,000 cattle and other livestock died, he said in a statement. Ranchers are assessing millions of dollars in damages that will affect the region’s economy for years. “Things here are far worse than I anticipated in terms of deaths among cattle,” Davis said. “Livestock losses on the plains of Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming are estimated to be between 60,000 and 100,000 head. There are also animals that will sicken and die as time goes on which will add to these numbers.” Though South Dakota is famous for extreme winter weather, that fateful storm seemed to bring all of it at once. Tornadoes, thunder and lightning, high winds and driving snow were reported in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota, all of which run along the borders of South Dakota’s Indian reservations. The animals and their owners were caught completely unaware by the unseasonable storm, which in a mere three days dumped more snow than the region usually receives for all of October. Ranchers had not yet moved the animals from their summer pastures to their winter areas, where more shelter is available, they said. Further, there was only a 12-hour warning before the storm hit. And the animals had not yet grown their winter coats, which might have helped them cope.

October 15, 2013 – VIETNAM - Vietnamese authorities are evacuating thousands of people in the path of Typhoon Nari, expected to hit the country in the next 24 hours. Typhoon Nari will slam into central Vietnam tomorrow after the powerful storm left 13 dead in the Philippines. A 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck the Philippines, in the aftermath of the storm. The typhoon hit northern Philippines over the weekend ripping off rooftops, toppling trees and triggering flash floods. Authorities in the central provinces of Thien Hue and Da Nang are moving roughly 66,000 people in vulnerable coastal areas to safety, according to the state-controlled Tuoi Tre newspaper. “Very strong winds are expected from later Monday,” Bui Minh Tang, head of Vietnam’s national weather forecast centre, said. “There might be heavy rains of up to 500 millimetres over the next few days.” Boats have been urged to seek shelter and food has been prepared for residents in case of prolonged flooding. Vietnam is hit by around eight to 10 tropical storms every year, often resulting in loss of life and heavy material damage. Last month Typhoon Wutip left a trail of destruction in Vietnam, ripping the roofs off nearly 200,000 houses and leaving several people dead. According to official tolls 40 people have been killed in flooding in Vietnam since early September. –ABC

October 15, 2013 – PHILIPPINES – Tuesday morning. Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the epicenter was recorded at 2 kilometers south of Carmen, Bohol and was tectonic in origin. The earthquake occurred around 8:12 in the morning and was also felt in Cebu, Masbate, Iloilo, Samar, Negros Oriental, Siquijor and in Northern Mindanao. The National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) said at least 144 people were reported dead and 33 injured in the wake of the quake: at least 16 dead in Cebu, 69 in Bohol and one person in Siquijor. But the Bohol Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (PDRRMC) said they recorded at least 20 dead and 102 injured. Phivolcs head Renato Solidum said they are classifying the quake as a “major earthquake.” He also said the quake emanated from the East Bohol Fault. Solidum also said around a hundred aftershocks have already been reported.

October 13, 2013 –SAUDI ARABIA — As of today, the submarine eruption continues with the production of a steam plume of variable size, not always easily identifiable on satellite images. A SO2 plume is also visible on satellite data drifting from the eruption site. No ash can be seen on satellite imagery, only steam, and the area of discolored water (indicator of suspended particles) is small if not has disappeared. That suggests that the eruption is currently rather weak and probably has not yet entered the so-called surtseyan phase where solid fragments (ash, lava blocks) are ejected above the surface of the sea. –Volcano Discovery