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
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