Weeks of 8/11/13 through 8/31/13

August 28, 2013 – KYRGYZSTAN – Health officials fear an outbreak of bubonic plague in central Asia after a teenage boy died from the disease and three more were admitted to hospital in Kyrgyzstan. Temirbek Isakunov, a 15-year-old from a mountain village near the border with Kazakhstan, reportedly died from the disease last week after eating an infected barbecued marmot. Kyrgyzstan’s emergency ministry said a young woman and two children from a different village who came into contact with Isakunov were hospitalized on Tuesday with the high fever and swelling around the neck and armpits characteristic of bubonic plague, local news outlets reported. A total of 131 people, including 33 medical personnel, have been quarantined, although none of them have yet exhibited symptoms of the disease, the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in Kyrgyzstan reported. The health ministry continues to find and quarantine people who came into contact with the teenager, according to its director. Kazakhstan has stepped up its border control with Kyrgyzstan and is operating quarantine points in light of the possible outbreak, the news agency Tengrinews reported. The Kazakh health ministry is searching out people who might have come into contact with the dead teenager, and is also determining where animal carriers of the disease might be moving between the two countries, according to a ministry official. The bacteria that cause bubonic plague are typically transmitted from rodents to humans via flea bites but can also be contracted through direct contact with infected tissue. Some local authorities in Russia have also grown wary over the incident, since citizens of Kyrgyzstan do not need a visa to enter the country and, according to the newspaper Izvestiya, more than 500,000 Kyrgyz work in Russia. According to TV news report in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth largest city, checkpoints in the airport there are inspecting all those arriving from countries with a high bubonic plague risk. A Russian public health official said cases of bubonic plague were registered in Kazakhstan every year, and the disease existed naturally in parts of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia, Izvestiya reported. –Guardian

August 28, 2013 – SYRIA – The U.S. could hit Syria with three days of missile strikes, perhaps beginning Thursday, in an attack meant more to send a message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad than to topple him or cripple his military, senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Tuesday. The State Department fed the growing drumbeat around the world for a military response to Syria’s suspected use of chemical weapons against rebels Aug. 21 near Damascus, saying that while the U.S. intelligence community would release a formal assessment within the week, it was already “crystal clear” that Assad’s government was responsible.

August 28, 2013 – JERUSALEM — During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Israel endured dozens of Scud missiles launched by Saddam Hussein’s forces, but refrained from retaliating because of U.S. concern that Israeli involvement would fracture the international coalition it had built against Iraq. As the United States prepares for a possible military attack against the Syrian government over its alleged use of chemical weapons, Israeli leaders are making it clear that they have no intention of standing down this time if attacked. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday issued the starkest warning to date in response to recent saber-rattling by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, which has said it might respond to a U.S. strike by attacking Israel. ‘We are not part of the civil war in Syria, but if we identify any attempt whatsoever to harm us, we will respond with great force,” Netanyahu said after huddling for a second consecutive day with key Cabinet members to discuss the possible ramifications of a U.S. strike against Syria. 

Israel calls up reservists: Ahead of the US strike on Syria, the Israeli security cabinet in special session Wednesday, Aug. 28, ordered the partial mobilization of select, qualitative IDF reserve forces: Rocket, Air Force, missile interception, Home Defense command and intelligence units. Anti-missile Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome systems were spread out more widely than ever before across the country. U.S. and Syria wound up last military preparations for the US strike. Barring last-minute hold-ups, debkafile’s military sources report the American operation is scheduled to start Friday night, early Saturday Aug. 30-31. In the past 24 hours, the US Air Force finished a major buildup at the big US Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. B-1B bombers and F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets were brought over from other US Mid East air facilities on the Omani island of Masirah and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. On the opposite side, the Syrian army Tuesday started scattering personnel, weapons and air assets to safe places to reduce their exposure to damage and losses from US assaults. Our military sources report that personnel, tanks and artillery of the Syrian Army’s 4th and Republican Guard Divisions, which are held responsible for the Aug. 21 chemical attack on civilians, were being moved into fortified shelters built last year against potential foreign military intervention. –Debka

August 26, 2013 – ROME, Italy – Italian experts have been puzzled by the overnight appearance of what looks like a volcanic geyser erupting steam and gases 5 meters into the air. What appears to be a new fumarole appeared near Rome’s International Fiumicino airport Saturday morning. A vent producing small geyser-like fountains of steam, water and mud was suddenly opened in the ground near a road crossing near Fiumicino. Geologists are currently examining the phenomenon. It is still a bit unclear whether it is not a man-made accident caused by a broken pipe or similar (which might well be the case). As La Repubblica statess, first inspections however indicate that it is in fact a new natural vent. Obviously, there are also already some speculations whether it could be related to volcanic activity. The nearest possibly still active volcanic system in the area is the Monti Albani, an old but possibly not yet extinct volcanic complex located 20 km SE of the capital. Its last known activity there took place about 20,000 years ago. New volcanic activity in the suburban area of Rome itself is certainly not a completely impossible, but quite unlikely scenario. More data will be needed to shed light on this. “From Mt. Etna in Sicily up to the Alban hills around Rome, there is a good deal of volcanic activity,” Alberto Basilli, a seismologist at the Italian National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology told the Daily Telegraph. –Volcano Discovery

August 26, 2013 – SYRIA – Russia issued a stark warning today against renewed calls for foreign military intervention in Syria after an alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week. In a pair of statements, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman drew comparisons between the current situation in Syria and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and urged countries “not to repeat the mistakes of the past.”

August 24, 2013 – CHINA - A virus called H7N7 has been discovered in chickens in China, according to a new study published in the journal Nature. A team of Hong Kong researchers found the virus in about 25 percent of the fowl sampled, many of which also had the H7N9 virus. By testing the H7N7 virus on ferrets, the researchers found that it can be transmitted to mammals.

August 24, 2013 – JAPAN - The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant said on Thursday new spots of high radiation had been found near storage tanks holding highly contaminated water, raising fear of fresh leaks as the disaster goes from bad to worse. The announcement comes after Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said this week contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation was leaking from a storage tank.

August 23, 2013 – GUATEMALA – A major eruption occurred yesterday evening. Starting at 17:45 (local time), the top part of the Caliente lava dome collapsed and produced a series of relatively large pyroclastic flows and explosions. Ash plumes rose more than 2 km to elevations of 4 km altitude. The cause of the eruption was likely the accumulation of pressurized magma and gas under the dome composed of viscous (solid) lava. The pyroclastic flows affected mainly the south, southeast and NNE sides. Bombs from explosive activity were ejected to distances of 500 m. –Volcano Discovery

Earthquake swarm reported near NW volcanoes: Three earthquakes rattled an area northwest of Mount St. Helens on Friday, continuing what geologists say is a mini-swarm of earthquakes not related to the nearby volcano. The latest quakes, on Friday, were a 3.7-magnitude quake at 2:38 p.m. Friday, followed by a 3.4 at 6:08 and a 3.1 at 6:12 p.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A report from the USGS on Friday said the quakes have been centered about 13 miles northwest of Mount St. Helens at a depth of about 8 miles. They were described as tectonic in origin and not directly related to the volcano. The report said such earthquakes are common in areas around Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood. It said another mini-swarm of earthquakes also occurred about six miles southwest of Mount Hood. Volcano-related seismic activity at the two volcanoes themselves were at normal background levels, the USGS said. –The Columbian

August 23, 2013 – SAUDI ARABIA – Bats in Saudi Arabia appear to be the source of a mysterious virus that has claimed the lives of 47 and sickened 96 in the Middle East and Europe since last September, health officials reported Wednesday. For more than 15 months, officials have tried to determine what sparked the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). They have identified bats with similar viruses in Africa and Eastern Europe, but had not yet found an exact match to MERS.

August 22, 2013 – LOUISIANA - Assumption Parish officials on Wednesday released a video showing the sinkhole swallowing several trees in a matter of seconds. The video, posted on the city’s blog, is described a “slough in” that happened around 7:15 p.m. Wednesday. The collapse comes a little more than a year after an area around Bayou Corne dissolved into liquefied muck. The sinkhole, discovered Aug. 3, 2012, has grown to 24 acres, and 350 residents in the tiny community have no end in sight to their evacuation order because the hole continues to widen. The state of Louisiana earlier this month said it is suing Texas Brine LLC  for the environmental damage and massive sinkhole that officials say was caused by the collapse of a salt dome cavern operated by the company. The sinkhole is in a swampy area of Assumption Parish about 40 miles south of Baton Rouge. –NOLA

August 22, 2013 –  JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities have been warning local villagers in East Nusa Tenggara Province about increasing volcanic activities in the area in recent days. “The people around the areas should continue to practice caution” despite there not having been fresh volcanic activity on Wednesday, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.

August 22, 2013 – INDONESIA - Mount Hobalt, an underwater volcano off the coast of Lembata island, East Nusa Tenggara, briefly erupted on Tuesday but did not cause any damage, officials and residents said. “Based on information received from the head of the Center for Vulcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation [PVMBG], the mountain erupted Tuesday morning,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the head of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said.

August 22, 2013 – MEXICO – A magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck Mexico’s Pacific coast today (Aug. 21), shaking buildings in the resort town of Acapulco. The quake was felt as far inland as Mexico City. The temblor hit at 7:38 a.m. local time (8:38 a.m. ET), about 60 miles (100 kilometers) east of Acapulco. The earthquake was centered at a depth of about 18 miles (30 km), initial reports estimate. A magnitude-5.3 aftershock followed 24 minutes after the initial temblor, according to the United States Geological Survey.

August 21, 2013 – COSTA RICA - The Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI) recorded two phreatic eruptions at the Poas Volcano yesterday morning. The first eruption occurred at 9:55 a.m. and reached a height of between 2 to 3 meters. The second eruption occurred at 11:16 a.m., reaching an estimated height of 10 to 15 meters. The Director of OVSICORI, Victor Gonzalez, said the eruptions were not unusual for Poas, though did say that the low level of the volcano’s lagoon, despite significant rainfall, was striking. The National Emergency Commission (CNE) maintains a green alert in Turrialba, Poas and Rincon de la Vieja due to phreatic eruptions and seismic activity in recent months. Poas last erupted in 2011. –Inside Costa Rica

August 21, 2013 – SYRIA - Syria’s opposition accused President Bashar al-Assad’s forces of gassing many hundreds of people – by one report as many as 1,300 – on Wednesday in what would, if confirmed, be the world’s worst chemical weapons attack in decades. Western and regional countries called for U.N. chemical weapons investigators – who arrived in Damascus just three days ago – to be urgently dispatched to the scene of one of the deadliest incidents of the two-year-old civil war. Images, including some taken by freelance photographers and supplied to Reuters, showed scores of bodies including of small children, laid out on the floor of a clinic with no visible signs of injuries.

August 21, 2013 – JAPAN - Japan’s nuclear crisis escalated to its worst level since a massive earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima plant more than two years ago, with the country’s nuclear watchdog saying it feared more storage tanks were leaking contaminated water. The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Wednesday it viewed the situation at Fukushima “seriously” and was ready to help if called upon.

August 20, 2013 – ATLANTIC - Previously, oceanographers thought the Atlantic Ocean seafloor didn’t spit out as much iron as other regions. However, a recently discovered plume of iron billowing from the depth of the Atlantic Ocean suggests the seafloor may be pumping iron like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. The oceanic iron cloud spreads for more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) across the Atlantic from west of Angola, Africa, to northeast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The iron-rich waters flow 1,500 to 3,500 meters (4,921 – 11,482 feet) beneath the surface of the ocean. The complete extent and shape of the iron plume remains to be discovered. “We had never seen anything like it,” said Mak Saito, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute scientist and lead author of the study, in a press release. “We were sort of shocked—there’s this huge bull’s-eye right in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. We didn’t quite know what to do with it, because it went contrary to a lot of our expectations.” 

August 20, 2013 – NEW YORK – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 300,000 Americans are getting Lyme disease every year, and the toll is growing. “It confirms what we’ve thought for a long time: This is a large problem,” Dr. Paul Mead tells Shots. “The bottom line is that by defining how big the problem is we make it easier for everyone to figure out what kind of resources we have to use to address it.”

August 20, 2013 – NEW ZEALAND – A volcano off New Zealand sent a plume of steam two kilometers (1.24 miles) into the air Tuesday, although volcanologists described the eruption as small and said it was over in minutes.

August 20, 2013 – MANILA – Flooding caused by some of the Philippines’ heaviest rains on record submerged more than half the capital Tuesday, turning roads into rivers and trapping tens of thousands of people in homes and shelters. The government suspended all work except rescues and disaster response for a second day. Officials reported at least seven people dead, 11 injured and four missing. The dead included a 5-year-old boy whose house was hit by a concrete wall that collapsed. His two adult relatives also were injured.

August 19, 2013 – RUSSIA – Up to 100,000 people may be evacuated from flood-hit regions in Russia’s Far East. Water levels at local reservoirs have already reached historic highs, and officials say the floods raging in the area are expected to continue rising even further. Floods are currently affecting over 32,500 locals living in over 5,000 homes. Over 17,000 residents have already left the area over the disaster. Viktor Ishayev, Russia’s Minister for the Far East, said that “in the worst-case scenario up to 100,000 people could be evacuated” from the Amur, Khabarovsk and Jewish Autonomous Regions.

August 19, 2013 – JAPAN – A volcano has erupted in south-west Japan and coated a nearby city with a layer of ash. People in Kagoshima wore raincoats and used umbrellas to shield themselves from the ash after the Sakurajima volcano erupted yesterday afternoon. Local media said drivers had to turn on their headlights and reported the ash resembled driving through snow at night.

August 19, 2013 – IDAHO – More than 10,000 homes are threatened by a furious Idaho wildfire, including getaways owned by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis, after an all-out “ground and air attack” failed to stop the blaze spreading to more than 126,000 acres, according to latest reports from the U.S. Forest Service.

August 17, 2013 – NEPAL – Half a million chickens are to be culled in a district on the outskirts of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, as efforts to combat a major outbreak of bird flu are stepped up. Tens of thousands of birds have already been killed in what government officials have described as one of the country’s worst outbreaks of avian flu.

August 17, 2013 – ALASKA – Seismic unrest is being reported at another Alaskan volcano. Tanaga is a 5,924-foot (1,806 m) stratovolcano located in the remote Aleutian Range of the U.S. state of Alaska. There have been three known eruptions since 1763. The most recent was in 1914 and produced lava flows. According to the Earthquake Report, a swarm of seven earthquakes have struck near the volcano in the last 24 hours- the strongest of which was a 4.7 magnitude. This may suggest magma intrusion under the volcano.

Number 69: Iceland - A small phreatic eruption seems to have taken place yesterday at the ice-covered Kverkfjoell central volcano. The steam-driven (no fresh magma involved) explosion followed a small glacial flood on 15 August the Kverkjökull glacier released into the Volga river and was probably a result of the pressure release during the flood. –Volcano Discovery

Kliuchevskoi (Kamchatka): A new eruption began at 06:30 UTC on 15 August, KVERT reports. Accompanied by strong tremor, strombolian activity has been taking place in the summit crater. Incandescence at the summit of the volcano’s summit were observed at night and a gas-steam plume containing small amounts of ash rose up to 18,000 ft (5.5 km) a.s.l. and drifted to the north-east of the volcano on August 16. Satellite data showed a big and bright thermal anomaly over the volcano on August 15-17. –Volcano Discovery

August 17, 2013 PARBAT: Banau Secondary School in northern Parbat has been shut temporarily after students mysteriously started falling unconscious in the school.

“It has been happening for the past one month. The students started to shiver, cry, and scream and shout without any reason, due to which the school has been shut,” said Principal Chakra Pun. “Last Friday, a student started crying all of a sudden during the morning assembly, and other students who went to placate her, also started crying after a while,” said the principal. The incident halted the school’s academic activities on Friday leading to closure of the school.

“Most of the victims are teenage girls studying in grades VII, VIII and IX,” said Bhuwan Gurung, a teacher at the school.

As more and more students started showing such symptoms and the cause behind it could not be figured out, the villagers have started tying pieces of holy cloth (dhwaja) around their wrist and other parts of the body in the name of goddess Saraswoti, but the problem has not been solved.

Though the unconscious students were taken to a nearby sub-health post, the health facility suspected that ‘mass hysteria’ might have gripped the students at school, the principal said. According to a medical representative, it will gradually disappear if it were mass hysteria.

August 16, 2013 – NEW ZEALAND - A 6.5-magnitude earthquake has struck south of New Zealand’s capital Wellington, sending panicked workers and residents into the streets just weeks after a similar tremor struck the city. The quake hit 10 kilometres south-east of the town of Seddon at a depth of eight kilometres and has been followed by at least seven aftershocks, all measuring more than magnitude 4.4. So far, there have been no reports of injuries or major damage to buildings. There was no specific threat of a widespread tsunami, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre. The main tremor was originally reported as 6.0-magnitude by NZ GeoNet. The US Geological Survey (USGS) measured the quake as 6.8-magnitude. The quake was later downgraded to a 6.5. The University and business district were evacuated. Local reports said the quake was felt as far away as Gisborne, Auckland and Hamilton.

August 15, 2013 – CAIRO – Egypt’s military rulers on Thursday faced international condemnation over the bloody crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood protesters, with France warning of the threat of “civil war” and Turkey demanding UN action. At least 525 people were killed in Wednesday’s assaults on two Cairo protest camps of supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in the worst violence the country has seen in decades.

August 15, 2013 – BAGHDAD, Iraq – Car bomb attacks killed at least 34 people in Baghdad on Thursday but the Interior Ministry said it would not allow al Qaeda, which it blames for a surge in sectarian violence, to turn Iraq into another Syria. More than 100 people were wounded in at least eight blasts, one of which was near the “Green Zone” diplomatic complex, part of a wave of bloodshed that has taken the monthly death toll in Iraq to the highest levels in five years.

August 15, 2013 – ATHENS - Greece’s jobless rate hit a new record high of 27.6 percent in May, official national data showed on Thursday as the country staggers under austerity linked to its international bailout. Record joblessness is a nightmare for Greece’s two-party coalition government as it scrambles to hit fiscal targets and show there is light at the end of the tunnel after years of unpopular tax rises and cuts to wages and pensions. Unemployment rose to 27.6 percent from an upwardly revised 27.0 percent reading in April, according to data from statistics service ELSTAT and was more than twice the average rate in the euro zone which stood at 12.1 percent in June.

August 15, 2013 – ALASKA - Mount Veniaminof , an 8,225-foot peak 25 miles southwest of Chignik Lake and 485 miles from Anchorage which first rumbled to life in early June of this year, is again showing signs of elevated activity, spitting at least one cloud of ash and steam into the air earlier this week and featuring higher levels of seismic activity and surface temperature. One plume on Monday rose to a height of about 12,000 feet, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Meantime, NASA recently flew over the volcano and snapped a spectacular satellite picture showing the way that fresh ash is painting the peak, topping off the snow falling at the higher elevations of the mountain. –Alaska Dispatch

Merapi Volcano: The volcano continues to produce small explosions every now and then. Local press reported two small eruptions this morning. The first one occurred at 7:49 am (local time WIB), producing an ash plume of 300 meters height, and the second at 8:32 am with an ash plume rising 600 meters. The alert status had previously been raised from Normal to Alert (level 1 to 2) on 3 August and an exclusion zone of 3 km radius around the crater is in place. –Volcano Discovery

August 15, 2013 – INDONESIA - Hundreds of evacuees of the eruption of the Rokatenda volcano on Palue Island, East Nusa Tenggara, are suffering from illnesses at three rescue centers, sparking claims the government has not provided enough assistance. “It seems like the central government is not paying enough attention.

August 13, 2013 – CLERMONT, Fla.  — An official at the Florida resort where a villa was partially swallowed into the ground says it doesn’t appear the sinkhole on the site is growing. Summer Bay Resort President Paul Caldwell told reporters during a news conference Tuesday that engineers examined the 100-foot sinkhole at Clermont resort and determined there’s no reason to believe it will grow. Caldwell says the resort remains open, but with three buildings still unoccupied. The resort is taking claims from guests staying in the collapsed building. Guests from two adjacent buildings that also were evacuated are being allowed in with escorts to retrieve possessions.

August 13, 2013 – COLOMBIA – The U.S. Geological Survey said a strong earthquake of 6.7 magnitude occurred in the Pacific Ocean about 59 miles (95 km) west southwest of Mutis, Colombia. The quake hit at 10:43 a.m. local time (11:43 a.m. EDT/1543 GMT) at a shallow depth of 2.7 miles (4.4 km), USGS said. There were no immediate reports of damage, and the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, which covers this region of the Pacific, said no tsunami warning was issued. –Reuters

August 12, 2013 – PHILIPPINES – The most powerful typhoon to hit the Philippines this year triggered landslides and floods on Monday, disrupting power and communication links to leave one man dead and 13 fishermen missing, weather and disaster officials said. Typhoon Utor, packing winds of 150 km per hour (93 mph) near its center and gusts of up to 185 kmph, regained strength as it moved out of northern Luzon island towards the South China Sea, headed west-northwest at 19 kmph, the officials said. The coastal town of Casiguran in Aurora province, 343 km northeast of the capital Manila, suffered the worst damage, after the typhoon set off landslides that blocked its only access road. “About 90 percent of our agriculture was destroyed or damaged, particularly rice and corn crops and coconut plantations,” Aurora governor Gerardo Noveras told ANC television, adding that the full extent of damage was still unknown.

August 12, 2013 – HAWAII – The U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) recorded a 4.8 magnitude earthquake beneath the Big Island early Sunday morning. It was recorded at 5:54 a.m. about 5 miles south of the summit of Kilauea Volcano and at a depth of about 20 miles. Several aftershocks followed, the largest of which was a 3.4 magnitude earthquake at 6:06 a.m. According to Wes Thelen, HVO’s Seismic Network Manager, “these earthquakes were most likely structural adjustment of the Earth’s crust due to the weight of the island on the underlying mantle.” Many Big Island residents reported feeling the shaking and the HVO says people as far away as Oahu and Maui reported feeling the earthquake. Almost 400 reports received within the first hour of the earthquake. No injuries were reported. –Khon2