Earthquakes
USGS
| MAG | UTC DATE-TIME y/m/d h:m:s |
LAT deg |
LON deg |
DEPTH km |
Region | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MAP | 5.4 | 2012/09/13 23:40:02 | -10.809 | 113.738 | 9.8 | SOUTH OF JAVA, INDONESIA |
| MAP | 2.5 | 2012/09/13 22:53:23 | 64.049 | -148.983 | 18.5 | CENTRAL ALASKA |
| MAP | 4.9 | 2012/09/13 22:41:14 | -11.238 | 162.665 | 35.3 | SOLOMON ISLANDS |
| MAP | 2.5 | 2012/09/13 22:39:47 | 53.585 | -163.510 | 39.9 | UNIMAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA |
| MAP | 4.8 | 2012/09/13 21:16:44 | -15.563 | -175.610 | 328.3 | TONGA |
| MAP | 2.7 | 2012/09/13 19:54:46 | 51.967 | 178.232 | 3.9 | RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA |
| MAP | 3.1 | 2012/09/13 18:09:13 | 19.617 | -64.354 | 8.0 | VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION |
| MAP | 3.3 | 2012/09/13 17:33:45 | 47.345 | -120.014 | 12.7 | WASHINGTON |
| MAP | 5.1 | 2012/09/13 17:23:47 | 82.878 | 116.960 | 9.8 | NORTH OF SEVERNAYA ZEMLYA |
| MAP | 5.2 | 2012/09/13 17:22:09 | 35.761 | 140.450 | 38.3 | NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN |
| MAP | 2.9 | 2012/09/13 17:13:43 | 51.954 | 178.529 | 2.7 | RAT ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA |
| MAP | 2.6 | 2012/09/13 16:08:07 | 19.051 | -66.748 | 29.0 | PUERTO RICO REGION |
| MAP | 3.0 | 2012/09/13 15:51:17 | 18.969 | -66.823 | 52.0 | PUERTO RICO REGION |
| MAP | 2.6 | 2012/09/13 12:58:51 | 18.127 | -65.665 | 6.0 | PUERTO RICO REGION |
| MAP | 2.6 | 2012/09/13 12:22:57 | 61.570 | -146.355 | 31.6 | SOUTHERN ALASKA |
| MAP | 4.4 | 2012/09/13 11:19:07 | 21.671 | 142.924 | 300.7 | MARIANA ISLANDS REGION |
| MAP | 2.9 | 2012/09/13 08:34:29 | 59.986 | -152.715 | 99.8 | SOUTHERN ALASKA |
| MAP | 4.7 | 2012/09/13 08:17:55 | 30.049 | 70.174 | 24.5 | PAKISTAN |
| MAP | 4.4 | 2012/09/13 08:01:43 | 26.828 | 53.863 | 18.0 | SOUTHERN IRAN |
| MAP | 3.1 | 2012/09/13 07:35:32 | 19.130 | -64.568 | 43.0 | VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION |
| MAP | 3.0 | 2012/09/13 06:49:19 | 60.151 | -153.898 | 192.5 | SOUTHERN ALASKA |
| MAP | 2.8 | 2012/09/13 06:04:12 | 19.131 | -63.899 | 99.0 | VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION |
| MAP | 4.0 | 2012/09/13 05:58:04 | 59.610 | -153.130 | 102.5 | SOUTHERN ALASKA |
| MAP | 5.4 | 2012/09/13 05:54:47 | 10.268 | 126.989 | 10.0 | PHILIPPINE ISLANDS REGION |
| MAP | 4.2 | 2012/09/13 05:46:13 | 14.039 | -90.981 | 56.9 | GUATEMALA |
| MAP | 2.7 | 2012/09/13 04:54:16 | 59.127 | -154.040 | 100.0 | SOUTHERN ALASKA |
| MAP | 4.5 | 2012/09/13 02:42:20 | 36.742 | 43.599 | 10.0 | IRAQ |
| MAP | 5.2 | 2012/09/13 01:55:02 | -18.762 | 175.780 | 89.4 | FIJI REGION |
| MAP | 2.8 | 2012/09/13 01:19:40 | 59.524 | -152.347 | 67.1 | SOUTHERN ALASKA |
| MAP | 3.3 | 2012/09/13 00:27:20 | 19.637 | -64.223 | 40.0 | VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION |
| MAP | 4.7 | 2012/09/13 00:22:33 | 10.338 | -62.352 | 47.7 | GULF OF PARIA, VENEZUELA |
LISS – Live Internet Seismic Server
GSN Stations
These data update automatically every 30 minutes. Last update: September 14, 2012 08:18:58 UTC
Seismograms may take several moments to load. Click on a plot to see larger image.
CU/ANWB, Willy Bob, Antigua and Barbuda
CU/BBGH, Gun Hill, Barbados
CU/BCIP, Isla Barro Colorado, Panama
CU/GRGR, Grenville, Grenada
CU/GRTK, Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands
CU/GTBY, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
CU/MTDJ, Mount Denham, Jamaica
CU/SDDR, Presa de Sabaneta, Dominican Republic
CU/TGUH, Tegucigalpa, Honduras
IC/BJT, Baijiatuan, Beijing, China
IC/ENH, Enshi, China
IC/HIA, Hailar, Neimenggu Province, China
IC/LSA, Lhasa, China
IC/MDJ, Mudanjiang, China
IC/QIZ, Qiongzhong, Guangduong Province, China
IU/ADK, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, USA
IU/AFI, Afiamalu, Samoa
IU/ANMO, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
IU/ANTO, Ankara, Turkey
IU/BBSR, Bermuda
IU/BILL, Bilibino, Russia
IU/CASY, Casey, Antarctica
IU/CCM, Cathedral Cave, Missouri, USA
IU/CHTO, Chiang Mai, Thailand
IU/COLA, College Outpost, Alaska, USA
IU/COR, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
IU/CTAO, Charters Towers, Australia
IU/DAV,Davao, Philippines
IU/DWPF,Disney Wilderness Preserve, Florida, USA
IU/FUNA,Funafuti, Tuvalu
IU/FURI, Mt. Furi, Ethiopia
IU/GNI, Garni, Armenia
IU/GRFO, Grafenberg, Germany
IU/GUMO, Guam, Mariana Islands
IU/HKT, Hockley, Texas, USA
IU/HNR, Honiara, Solomon Islands
IU/HRV, Adam Dziewonski Observatory (Oak Ridge), Massachusetts, USA
IU/INCN, Inchon, Republic of Korea
IU/JOHN, Johnston Island, Pacific Ocean
IU/KBS, Ny-Alesund, Spitzbergen, Norway
IU/KEV, Kevo, Finland
IU/KIEV, Kiev, Ukraine
IU/KIP, Kipapa, Hawaii, USA
IU/KMBO, Kilima Mbogo, Kenya
IU/KNTN, Kanton Island, Kiribati
IU/KONO, Kongsberg, Norway
IU/KOWA, Kowa, Mali
IU/LCO, Las Campanas Astronomical Observatory, Chile
IU/LSZ, Lusaka, Zambia
IU/LVC, Limon Verde, Chile
IU/MA2, Magadan, Russia
IU/MAJO, Matsushiro, Japan
IU/MAKZ,Makanchi, Kazakhstan
IU/MBWA, Marble Bar, Western Australia
IU/MIDW, Midway Island, Pacific Ocean, USA
IU/MSKU, Masuku, Gabon
IU/NWAO, Narrogin, Australia
IU/OTAV, Otavalo, Equador
IU/PAB, San Pablo, Spain
IU/PAYG Puerto Ayora, Galapagos Islands
IU/PET, Petropavlovsk, Russia
IU/PMG, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
IU/PMSA, Palmer Station, Antarctica
IU/POHA, Pohakaloa, Hawaii
IU/PTCN, Pitcairn Island, South Pacific
IU/PTGA, Pitinga, Brazil
IU/QSPA, South Pole, Antarctica
IU/RAO, Raoul, Kermandec Islands
IU/RAR, Rarotonga, Cook Islands
IU/RCBR, Riachuelo, Brazil
IU/RSSD, Black Hills, South Dakota, USA
IU/SAML, Samuel, Brazil
IU/SBA, Scott Base, Antarctica
IU/SDV, Santo Domingo, Venezuela
IU/SFJD, Sondre Stromfjord, Greenland
IU/SJG, San Juan, Puerto Rico
IU/SLBS, Sierra la Laguna Baja California Sur, Mexico
IU/SNZO, South Karori, New Zealand
IU/SSPA, Standing Stone, Pennsylvania USA
IU/TARA, Tarawa Island, Republic of Kiribati
IU/TATO, Taipei, Taiwan
IU/TEIG, Tepich, Yucatan, Mexico
IU/TIXI, Tiksi, Russia
IU/TRIS, Tristan da Cunha, Atlantic Ocean
IU/TRQA, Tornquist, Argentina
IU/TSUM, Tsumeb, Namibia
IU/TUC, Tucson, Arizona
IU/ULN, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
IU/WAKE, Wake Island, Pacific Ocean
IU/WCI, Wyandotte Cave, Indiana, USA
IU/WVT, Waverly, Tennessee, USA
IU/XMAS, Kiritimati Island, Republic of Kiribati
IU/YAK, Yakutsk, Russia
IU/YSS, Yuzhno Sakhalinsk, Russia
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Volcanic Activity
Guatemala volcano erupts, forcing 33,000 to evacuate homes
Guatemala volcano: At least 17 villages near the Volcan del Fuego, six miles from the colonial city of Antigua, are being evacuated. The eruption of the volcano could cause a disruption in airline flights in and out of Guatemala.
By Alberto Arce and Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, Associated Press
Plumes of dark smoke rise from the Volcan de Fuego ( Volcano of Fire) as seen from Palin, south of Guatemala City, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012. Officials are carrying out “a massive evacuation of thousands of people” in five communities.
(AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
Guatemala City
A long-simmering volcano outside one of the Guatemala‘s most famous tourist attractions exploded into a series of powerful eruptions Thursday, hurling thick clouds of ash nearly two miles (three kilometers) high, spewing rivers of lava down its flanks and forcing the evacuation of more than 33,000 people from surrounding communities.
Guatemala’s head of emergency evacuations, Sergio Cabanas, said the evacuees were leaving some 17 villages around the Volcan del Fuego, which sits about six miles southwest (16 kilometers) from the colonial city of Antigua. The ash was blowing south and authorities said Antigua was not currently in danger, although they expected the eruption to last for at least 12 more hours.
The agency said the volcano spewed lava nearly 2,000 feet (600 meters) down slopes billowing with ash around Acatenango, a 12,346-foot-high (3,763-meter-high) volcano whose name translates as “Volcano of Fire.”
RECOMMENDED: The world’s most active volcanoes
“A paroxysm of an eruption is taking place, a great volcanic eruption, with strong explosions and columns of ash,” said Gustavo Chicna, a volcanologist with the National Institute of Seismology, Vulcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology. He said the cinders spewing from the volcano were settling a half-inch thick in many places.
He said extremely hot gases were also rolling down the sides of the volcano, which was entirely wreathed in ash and smoke. The emergency agency warned that flights through the area could be affected.
There was a general orange alert, the second-highest level, but a red alert south and southeast of the mountain, where, Chicna said, “it’s almost in total darkness.”
Teresa Marroquin, disaster coordinator for the Guatemalan Red Cross, said the organization had set up 10 emergency shelters and was sending hygiene kits and water. “There are lots of respiratory problems and eye problems,” she said.
RECOMMENDED: The world’s most active volcanoes
| 14.09.2012 | Volcano Eruption | Guatemala | Departmento de Sacatepequez, [Volcan of Fuego] |  |
 |
Volcano Eruption in Guatemala on Wednesday, 05 September, 2012 at 02:58 (02:58 AM) UTC.
| Updated: | Friday, 14 September, 2012 at 02:50 UTC |
| Description | |
| At least 17 villages near the Volcan del Fuego, six miles from the colonial city of Antigua, are being evacuated. The eruption of the volcano could cause a disruption in airline flights in and out of Guatemala. A long-simmering volcano outside one of the Guatemala’s most famous tourist attractions exploded into a series of powerful eruptions Thursday, hurling thick clouds of ash nearly two miles (three kilometers) high, spewing rivers of lava down its flanks and forcing the evacuation of more than 33,000 people from surrounding communities. Guatemala’s head of emergency evacuations, Sergio Cabanas, said the evacuees were leaving some 17 villages around the Volcan del Fuego, which sits about six miles southwest (16 kilometers) from the colonial city of Antigua. The ash was blowing south and authorities said Antigua was not currently in danger, although they expected the eruption to last for at least 12 more hours.
The agency said the volcano spewed lava nearly 2,000 feet (600 meters) down slopes billowing with ash around Acatenango, a 12,346-foot-high (3,763-meter-high) volcano whose name translates as “Volcano of Fire.” “A paroxysm of an eruption is taking place, a great volcanic eruption, with strong explosions and columns of ash,” said Gustavo Chicna, a volcanologist with the National Institute of Seismology, Vulcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology. He said the cinders spewing from the volcano were settling a half-inch thick in many places. He said extremely hot gases were also rolling down the sides of the volcano, which was entirely wreathed in ash and smoke. The emergency agency warned that flights through the area could be affected. There was a general orange alert, the second-highest level, but a red alert south and southeast of the mountain, where, Chicna said, “it’s almost in total darkness.” Teresa Marroquin, disaster coordinator for the Guatemalan Red Cross, said the organization had set up 10 emergency shelters and was sending hygiene kits and water. “There are lots of respiratory problems and eye problems,” she said. |
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Extreme Temperatures/ Weather / Drought
Droughts are pushing trees to the limit
by Staff Writers
Tucson AZ (SPX)
 In the summer of 2002, pinyon pines began dying in large numbers from drought stress and an associated bark beetle outbreak. This aerial photo was taken near Los Alamos, N.M. Credit: Craig D. Allen, USGS. |
As temperatures rise and droughts become more severe in the Southwest, trees are increasingly up against extremely stressful growing conditions, especially in low to middle elevations, University of Arizona researchers report in a study soon to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences.
Lead author Jeremy Weiss, a senior research specialist in the UA department of geosciences, said: “We know the climate in the Southwest is getting warmer, but we wanted to investigate how the higher temperatures might interact with the highly variable precipitation typical of the region.”
Weiss’ team used a growing season index computed from weather data to examine limits to plant growth during times of drought.
“The approach we took allows us to model and map potential plant responses to droughts under past, present and future conditions across the whole region,” explained Julio Betancourt, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey who co-authored the study along with Jonathan Overpeck, co-director of the UA Institute of the Environment. Betancourt holds adjunct appointments in the UA department of geosciences, the UA School of Geography and Development, the UA School of Natural Resources and the Environment and the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.
“Our study helps pinpoint how vegetation might respond to future droughts, assuming milder winters and hotter summers, across the complex and mountainous terrain of the Southwest,” Betancourt said.
For this study, the researchers used a growing season index that considers day length, cold temperature limits and a key metric called vapor pressure deficit to map and compare potential plant responses to major regional droughts during 1953-56 and 2000-03.
A key source of plant stress, vapor pressure deficit is defined as the difference between how much moisture the air can hold when it is saturated and the amount of moisture actually present in the air. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, and during droughts it acts like a sponge sucking up any available moisture from the ground surface, including from plants.
Both droughts – with the more recent one occurring in warmer times – led to widespread tree die-offs, and comparisons between them can help sort out how both warming and drying affected the degree of mortality in different areas.
Weiss pointed out that multiyear droughts with precipitation well below the long-term average are normal for the Southwest. He said the 1950s drought mainly affected the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and southern High Plains and happened before warming in the region started. The 2000s drought centered on the Four Corners area and occurred after regional warming began around 1980.
The actual causes of physiological plant stress and tree death during droughts are being investigated by various research teams using models and field and greenhouse experiments. One possibility is prolonged embolism, or the catastrophic disruption of the water column in wood vessels as trees struggle to pump moisture from the soil in the heat of summer.
The other is carbon starvation as leaves shut their openings, called stomates, to conserve leaf water, slowing the uptake of carbon dioxide needed for photosynthesis. Stomatal closure is triggered by deficits in the ambient vapor pressure, which controls the rate of evaporation for water and is very much influenced by temperature.
“When the air is hotter and drier, it becomes more difficult for plants to conserve water while taking up carbon dioxide,” Weiss explained. “As plants become starved of carbon, it also weakens their defenses and renders them more susceptible to insect pests.”
To make matters worse, Weiss said, the size of the “atmospheric sponge” grows faster during increasingly hotter summers like those over the last 30 years, absorbing even more moisture from soil and vegetation.
“When warmer temperatures combine with drought, relatively stressful growing conditions for a plant become even more stressful,” Weiss explained. “You could say drought makes that atmospheric sponge thirstier, and as the drought progresses, there is increasingly less moisture that can be evaporated from soil and vegetation to fill – and cool – the dry air.”
“In a sense, it’s a vicious circle. Warmer temperatures during droughts lead to even drier and hotter conditions.”
The researchers mapped relatively extreme values of vapor deficit pressure for areas of tree die-offs during the most recent drought determined from annual aerial surveys conducted by the U.S. Forest Service.
“Our study suggests that as regional warming continues, drought-related plant stress associated with higher vapor pressure deficits will intensify and spread from late spring through summer to earlier and later parts of the growing season, as well to higher elevations,” the authors write. This could lead to even more severe and widespread plant stress.
The results are in line with other trends of warming-related impacts in the Southwest over the past 30 years, including earlier leafout and flowering, more extensive insect and disease outbreaks, and an increase in large wildfires.
“We’re seeing climatic growing conditions already at an extreme level with just the relatively little warming we have seen in the region so far,” Weiss said. “Our concern is that vegetation will experience even more extreme growing conditions as anticipated further warming exacerbates the impacts of future droughts.”
Weiss added: “We also know that part of the regional warming is linked to human-caused climate change. Seeing vapor-pressure deficits at such extreme levels points to the conclusion that the warmer temperatures linked to human-caused climate change are playing a role in drying out the region.”
Betancourt said: “We have few ways of knowing how this is going to affect plants across an entire landscape, except by modeling it. There is not much we can do to avert drought-related tree mortality, whether it is due to climate variability or climate change.”
Instead, Betancourt suggested, land managers should focus on how to manage the regrowth of vegetation in the aftermath of increased large-scale ecological disturbances, including wildfires and drought-related tree die-offs.
“Models like the one we developed can provide us with a roadmap of areas sensitive to future disturbances,” Betancourt said. “The next step will be to start planning, determine the scale of intervention and figure out what can be done to direct or engineer the outcomes of vegetation change in a warmer world.”
Related Links
University of Arizona
Forestry News – Global and Local News, Science and Application
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Storms/ Flooding
| Active tropical storm system(s) | ||||||||||
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| Name of storm system | Location | Formed | Last update | Last category | Course | Wind Speed | Gust | Wave | Source | Details |
| Sanba (17W) | Pacific Ocean | 11.09.2012 | 14.09.2012 | SuperTyphoon | 360 ° | 278 km/h | 296 km/h | 6.10 m | JTWC | |
Tropical Storm data
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| Nadine (AL14) | Atlantic Ocean | 11.09.2012 | 14.09.2012 | Hurricane I | 330 ° | 111 km/h | 139 km/h | 5.18 m | NOAA NHC | |
Tropical Storm data
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| Kristy (EP11) | Pacific Ocean – East | 12.09.2012 | 14.09.2012 | Tropical Depression | 295 ° | 83 km/h | 102 km/h | 4.57 m | NOAA NHC | |
Tropical Storm data
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NASA sees Sanba become a super typhoon
NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over Super Typhoon Sanba on Sept. 13 at 12:47 a.m. EDT. AIRS infrared data found an eye (the yellow dot in the middle of the purple area) about 20 nautical miles wide, surrounded by a thick area of strong thunderstorms (purple) with very cold cloud temperatures. Credit: Ed Olsen, NASA/JPL Tropical Storm Sanba exploded in intensity between Sept. 12 and 13, becoming a major Category 4 Typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. NASA’s Aqua satellite captured infrared data that showed a large area of powerful thunderstorms around the center of circulation, dropping heavy rain over the western North Pacific Ocean.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-nasa-sanba-super-typhoon.html#jCp
NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over Super Typhoon Sanba on Sept. 13 at 0447 UTC (12:47 a.m. EDT). The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured an infrared image of Sanba and found an eye about 20 nautical miles (23 miles/37 km) wide, surrounded by a thick area of strong convection (rising air that forms the thunderstorms that make up the storm) and strong thunderstorms. Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning center noted that the AIRS imagery showed that there was “no banding outside of this ring, consistent with an annular typhoon.” On Sept. 13 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT), Sanba’s maximum sustained winds were near 135 knots (155 mph/250 kmh). Sanba had higher gusts into the Category 5 typhoon category. The Saffir-Simpson scale was slightly revised earlier in 2012, so a Category 4 typhoon/hurricane has maximum sustained winds from 113 to 136 knots (130 to 156 mph /209 to 251 kmh). A Category 5 typhoon’s maximum sustained winds begin at 137 knots (157 mph /252 kmh). Sanba was located about 600 nautical miles (690 miles/1,111 km) south of Kadena Air Base, near 16.8 North latitude and 129.5 East longitude. It was moving to the north at 9 knots (10.3 mph/16.6 kmh) and generating wave heights of 40 feet. Sanba is expected to continue on a north-northwesterly track through the western North Pacific and move through the East China Sea, passing close to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan on Sept. 15. Provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center search and more info website
As Isaac Swept Ashore, Miss. River Flowed Backwards
Terrell Johnson weather.com
Rare Reversal Last Occurred with Hurricane Katrina
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/GettyImages
People brave the rain and strong winds for a walk along the banks of the Mississippi River in New Orleans early in the day on August 28, 2012 in Louisiana, where Hurricane Isaac made landfall. Starting in the late afternoon, the river reversed course and began flowing away from the Gulf of Mexico.
Most of the time, rivers large and small are as consistent as the tides, flowing from their headwaters to their mouths, where they empty into oceans, lakes, seas and valleys. For nearly 24 hours during Hurricane Isaac, however, exactly the opposite happened in the mighty Mississippi River.
The category 1 storm’s intense winds and storm surge, which came ashore near New Orleans on Aug. 28, pushed salt water from the Gulf of Mexico up the fresh water river as far north as Baton Rouge, more than 200 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi, surging the river there more than 8 feet over its previous height.
During the night in Belle Chase, La., just south of New Orleans, the U.S. Geological Survey’s stream gage measured the river flowing backwards at 182,000 cubic feet per second. Normally, the river flows at about 125,000 cubic feet per second toward the Gulf of Mexico.
Cantore Talks About Isaac
“One of the unique things about Isaac was that, unlike most storms that tend to blow on through, Isaac ended up hanging around for a while,” said USGS Public Affairs Officer Alex Demas. “Because it hung around for a while, the storm surge built up enough momentum that it was able to push the river back up its channel.”
The Mississippi last flowed backward during 2005’s devastating Hurricane Katrina, when it crested at 13 feet above its previous level. At its highest point during Isaac, the river crested at 12.4 feet above its previous level.
(MORE: Photos of Isaac’s Impact, Aftermath)
“We saw an impact as far as 300 miles upstream from the mouth,” from Isaac’s surge up the river, said Greg Arcement, the director of the USGS Louisiana Water Science Center in Baton Rouge. “It had actually quite an impact when you think about it.”
What had officials concerned wasn’t just the impacts from storm surge, however. By the time Isaac arrived, severe drought throughout the Midwest had left the Mississippi several feet below its normal levels, which meant that salt water moving upstream from the ocean might easily overpower the depleted fresh water in the river.
Keeping Salt Water from Moving Up
Salt water is heavier than fresh water. When surging salt water meets fresh water that’s been laid low by a months-long drought, the salt water can travel upstream to places it normally doesn’t, explains Suzanne Van Cooten, Ph.D., a hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center.
“It’s very similar to how a cold front and a warm front work,” she said. “It basically works like a wedge — as the column of fresh water gets shallower because we’re in low flow, it has less weight. So the salt water is able to push underneath the fresh water and just move on up, because it doesn’t have as much weight to displace.”
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Denser salt water flows upstream along the bottom of the Mississippi River, underneath the less dense fresh river water.
That creates what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers calls a “salt water wedge.” If it moves up far enough along the Mississippi, the wedge can threaten cities and towns that rely on the river for their drinking water as well as industrial water supplies.
To prevent that, the Corps periodically builds a saltwater barrier sill, a kind of underwater levee, made from earth along the banks of the river and sandbars exposed by the drought. The sill stops the toe of the wedge from moving forward.
“It’s basically a speed bump at the bottom of the river, to prevent the salt water from moving upstream,” explains Dave Ramirez, the lead hydraulic engineer with the Corps’ New Orleans District.
The Corps builds these sills about every 7 to 8 years, and they work well in normal conditions. Fears rose sharply that Isaac would destroy this one when the storm approached, however.
“The toe of the wedge was about up to river mile 89 [before the storm], which is about the limit of where we want to see it,” said Ramirez, explaining that the wedge was about 89 miles up the river from the mouth of the Mississippi. “We didn’t really know if the sill would hold, because we’ve never had a salt water wedge during a hurricane.”
Thankfully, Isaac left the sill undisturbed. After the storm passed, Ramirez and his team inspected the salt water wedge and determined that it had actually regressed 20 miles back downstream, where he said it was expected to remain for the next few weeks.
| 13.09.2012 | Flash Flood | Pakistan | State of Balochistan, [Balochistan-wide] |  |
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Flash Flood in Pakistan on Wednesday, 12 September, 2012 at 03:09 (03:09 AM) UTC.
| Updated: | Thursday, 13 September, 2012 at 03:31 UTC |
| Description | |
| After six days of heavy rains, floodwaters are threatening Sindh and the army has moved in to rescue people in the worst-hit areas. The death toll of rain-related mishaps has crossed 100, as 18 more people died on Wednesday. After record-breaking rain in Jacobabad and Kashmore, thousands of people are stranded in the low-lying areas, where, according to reports, five to six feet water has accumulated. Torrents coming downhill from Balochistan have played havoc with ten union councils in the Thull taluka of Jacobabad. As hundreds of houses collapsed due to flooding, at least 18 people, including women and children, were reported to have died. Another 78 were reportedly injured. On Wednesday, hundreds of army personnel were dispatched to the rain-hit areas, including RD-44 and Bahoo Khoso, where thousands of people have been stranded for the past five days. In Ghotki, a teenage girl was crushed by a wall in the Katcho Bhindi area. A three-year-old girl, Kariman, drowned in rainwater in Rehmoonwali. Rainwater has also entered the Shahi Wah and Pat Feeder canals, breaching both in at least four places. The water is now heading towards the outskirts of Jacobabad. Relief camps have been set up in Shikarpur, Jacobabad and Kashmore. The people are, however, reluctant to go to the camps as neither food nor medicines are available. The district administrations have arranged cooked meals for the rain-hit people, but instead of being distributed among them, the food is being taken away by the influential. | |
Flash Floods Hit Las Vegas
Associated Press and weather.com
iWitness: Las Vegas Flooding
AP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, John Locher
University of Nevada, Las Vegas students relax on inflatable pool toys in floodwater at UNLV in Las Vegas Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012. Storms drenched parts of the Southwest on Tuesday, delaying flights and stranding motorists in the Las Vegas area and flooding two mobile home parks in Southern California.
LAS VEGAS — Intense thunderstorms swept through the Las Vegas area on Tuesday, flooding washes, delaying flights, snarling traffic and prompting helicopter rescues of stranded motorists in water-filled intersections, authorities said.
Television news video showed yellow school buses inching along roads after school in areas east of downtown Las Vegas, and muddy brown water up to the lower sills of picture windows of stucco homes in other neighborhoods.
In southeast Las Vegas, authorities recommended that the residents of about 45 homes damaged by flooding should leave in case the damage start electrical fires. The Clark County Fire Department was going door-to-door Tuesday night suggesting that residents leave their homes, said county spokesman Dan Kulin.
A Twitter photo showed dozens of cars swamped by water up to their headlights in a parking lot outside the Thomas & Mack sports arena at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
But after responding to numerous 911 calls, officials in Clark County, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Las Vegas said no serious injuries were reported.
The National Weather Service issued severe thunderstorm and flash flood warnings before and after almost an inch of rain was reported at McCarran International Airport just before 2 p.m. Meteorologist Michael Staudenmaier said more than 1.75 inches of rain were reported in downtown Las Vegas.
September 11, 2012 was the wettest September day on record in Las Vegas, according to weather.com meteorologist Nick Wiltgen. The city received 1.18″ of rain.
Firefighters responded to more than 20 calls about people in stalled cars, Kulin said.
A Las Vegas police helicopter was dispatched during the height of the storm to pluck several people from swamped vehicles on area roadways, Officer Bill Cassell said.
The Las Vegas area is crisscrossed with concrete-lined flood control channels and pocked by lake-sized water retention basins. Since 1985, Clark County Regional Flood Control District officials say they’ve spent $1.7 billion constructing about 573 miles of storm drains and 90 basins.
Police officer Jose Hernandez noted that homeless people sometimes live in normally dry tunnels beneath key areas like the Las Vegas Strip. After rains fall, the channels and tunnels fill quickly as water flows west to east across Las Vegas toward the Lake Mead reservoir on the Colorado River.
Crews searched in vain along a wash northeast of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, after at least two callers separately reported that they saw a person in the water during the height of the storm.
Departures were postponed and arrivals were delayed after the airport ordered a stop on fueling operations during lightning, airport spokeswoman Linda Healey said.
Staudenmaier said the rainfall amounts put the region on pace to exceed the 4.5 inches of rain it normally gets in a year.
Flooding in Nigeria
Between early July and early September 2012, flooding claimed an estimated 137 lives in Nigeria and forced thousands more to relocate, according to Reuters. In addition to the challenges posed by heavy rains, Nigerians had to cope with the release of water from the Lagdo Dam in neighboring Cameroon, which further swelled the Benue River. Flooding from the dam release was blamed for 30 deaths in Nigeria, Agence France-Presse reported.
These images show a stretch of the Benue River in eastern Nigeria, around the city of Lau. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured the top image on September 8, 2012. For comparison, the bottom image shows the same area nearly three years earlier, on September 23, 2009. These images use a combination of visible and infrared light to better distinguish between water and land. Water varies from electric blue to navy, vegetation is bright green, and clouds range in color from nearly white to pale blue-green.
In 2009, the Benue River was a relatively thin river bordered by small, isolated water bodies. Three years later, the river had spilled over its banks, engulfing the small lakes on either side. Flood waters often carry heavy loads of sediment, and such sediment might account for the relatively light shades of blue along part of the river.
Despite thousands of displaced residents, no major damage to agriculture and industry had yet been reported, Reuters stated.
-
References
- Agence France-Presse. (2012, September 9) Thirty dead in Nigeria flood, 120,000 displaced. Accessed September 10, 2012.
- Reuters. (2012, September 9) Nigeria floods kill 17, displace thousands. Accessed September 10, 2012.
NASA image courtesy LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
- Instrument:
- Terra – MODIS
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Epidemic Hazards / Diseases
An Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo risks spreading to major towns if not brought under control soon, the World Health Organisation said on Thursday.
The death toll has more than doubled since last week to 31, including five health workers dying from the contagious virus for which there is no known treatment. Ebola causes massive bleeding and kills up to 90 percent of its victims.
“The epidemic is not under control. On the contrary the situation is very, very serious,” Eugene Kabambi, a WHO spokesman in Congo’s capital Kinshasa told Reuters by telephone.
“If nothing is done now, the disease will reach other places, and even major towns will be threatened,” he said.
The disease has so far struck in the towns of Isiro and Viadana in Orientale province in the north east.
In August, 16 people in neighboring Uganda died of the disease, although health experts said the two epidemics are not connected and have blamed the Congolese outbreak on villagers eating contaminated meat in the forests which cover the region.
(Reporting by Jonny Hogg; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by David Lewis and Robin Pomeroy)
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Solar Activity
3MIN News Sept 13. 2012: SuperTyphoon- Record Ice Melt/Flooding- Spaceweather
Published on Sep 13, 2012 by Suspicious0bservers
TODAY’S LINKS
Isaac Reversed Mississippi: http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/miss-river-flowing-backward-is…
Vegas Flooding: http://www.weather.com/news/vegas-flooding-20120912
Utah Flood: http://www.weather.com/weather/videos/news-41/top-stories-169/residents-recov…
Nigeria Flood: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=79149
Himalayan Melting: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120912125826.htm
Arctic Ice Melt: http://www.weather.com/weather/videos/news-41/top-stories-169/arctic-ice-melt…
And this: http://www.weather.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-record-low-20120911
Wunderground Typhoon & Tropical Storm Map: http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/
REPEAT LINKS
Spaceweather: http://spaceweather.com/ [Look on the left at the X-ray Flux and Solar Wind Speed/Density]
HAARP: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/data.html [Click online data, and have a little fun]
SDO: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/ [Place to find Solar Images and Videos – as seen from earth]
SOHO: http://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/soho_movie_theater [SOHO; Lasco and EIT – as seen from earth]
Stereo: http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/images [Stereo; Cor, EUVI, HI – as seen from the side]
SunAEON:http://www.sunaeon.com/#/solarsystem/ [Just click it… trust me]
SOLARIMG: http://solarimg.org/artis/ [All purpose data viewing site]
iSWA: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/iswa/iSWA.html [Free Application; for advanced sun watchers]
NASA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov:8080/IswaSystemWebApp/iSWACygnetStreamer?timestamp=…
NOAA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wsa-enlil/
US Wind Map: http://hint.fm/wind/
NOAA Bouys: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/
NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory: http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/Default.php
RSOE: http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php [That cool alert map I use]
GOES Xray: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sxi/goes15/index.html
JAPAN Radiation Map: http://jciv.iidj.net/map/
LISS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/monitoring/operations/heliplots_gsn.php
Gamma Ray Bursts: http://grb.sonoma.edu/ [Really? You can’t figure out what this one is for?]
BARTOL Cosmic Rays: http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu//spaceweather/welcome.html [Top left box, look for BIG blue circles]
TORCON: http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-torcon-index [Tornado Forecast for the day]
GOES Weather: http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/ [Clouds over America]
RAIN RECORDS: http://www.cocorahs.org/ViewData/ListIntensePrecipReports.aspx
EL DORADO WORLD WEATHER MAP: http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/satellite/ssec/world/world-composite-ir-…
PRESSURE MAP: http://www.woweather.com/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=us&MENU=0000000000&…
HURRICANE TRACKER: http://www.weather.com/weather/hurricanecentral/tracker
INTELLICAST: http://www.intellicast.com/ [Weather site used by many youtubers]
NASA News: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/
PHYSORG: http://phys.org/ [GREAT News Site!]
QUAKES LIST FULL: http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/seismologist.php
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Space
Earth approaching objects (objects that are known in the next 30 days) |
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| Object Name | Apporach Date | Left | AU Distance | LD Distance | Estimated Diameter* | Relative Velocity | |||
| (2007 PB8) | 14th September 2012 | 0 day(s) | 0.1682 | 65.5 | 150 m – 340 m | 14.51 km/s | 52236 km/h | ||
| 226514 (2003 UX34) | 14th September 2012 | 0 day(s) | 0.1882 | 73.2 | 260 m – 590 m | 25.74 km/s | 92664 km/h | ||
| (1998 QC1) | 14th September 2012 | 0 day(s) | 0.1642 | 63.9 | 310 m – 700 m | 17.11 km/s | 61596 km/h | ||
| (2002 EM6) | 15th September 2012 | 1 day(s) | 0.1833 | 71.3 | 270 m – 590 m | 18.56 km/s | 66816 km/h | ||
| (2002 RP137) | 16th September 2012 | 2 day(s) | 0.1624 | 63.2 | 67 m – 150 m | 7.31 km/s | 26316 km/h | ||
| (2009 RX4) | 16th September 2012 | 2 day(s) | 0.1701 | 66.2 | 15 m – 35 m | 8.35 km/s | 30060 km/h | ||
| (2005 UC) | 17th September 2012 | 3 day(s) | 0.1992 | 77.5 | 280 m – 640 m | 7.55 km/s | 27180 km/h | ||
| (2012 FC71) | 18th September 2012 | 4 day(s) | 0.1074 | 41.8 | 24 m – 53 m | 3.51 km/s | 12636 km/h | ||
| (1998 FF14) | 19th September 2012 | 5 day(s) | 0.0928 | 36.1 | 210 m – 480 m | 21.40 km/s | 77040 km/h | ||
| 331990 (2005 FD) | 19th September 2012 | 5 day(s) | 0.1914 | 74.5 | 320 m – 710 m | 15.92 km/s | 57312 km/h | ||
| (2009 SH2) | 24th September 2012 | 10 day(s) | 0.1462 | 56.9 | 28 m – 62 m | 7.52 km/s | 27072 km/h | ||
| 333578 (2006 KM103) | 25th September 2012 | 11 day(s) | 0.0626 | 24.4 | 250 m – 560 m | 8.54 km/s | 30744 km/h | ||
| (2002 EZ2) | 26th September 2012 | 12 day(s) | 0.1922 | 74.8 | 270 m – 610 m | 6.76 km/s | 24336 km/h | ||
| (2009 SB170) | 29th September 2012 | 15 day(s) | 0.1789 | 69.6 | 200 m – 440 m | 32.39 km/s | 116604 km/h | ||
| (2011 OJ45) | 29th September 2012 | 15 day(s) | 0.1339 | 52.1 | 18 m – 39 m | 4.24 km/s | 15264 km/h | ||
| (2012 JS11) | 30th September 2012 | 16 day(s) | 0.0712 | 27.7 | 270 m – 600 m | 12.60 km/s | 45360 km/h | ||
| 137032 (1998 UO1) | 04th October 2012 | 20 day(s) | 0.1545 | 60.1 | 1.3 km – 2.9 km | 32.90 km/s | 118440 km/h | ||
| (2012 GV11) | 05th October 2012 | 21 day(s) | 0.1830 | 71.2 | 100 m – 230 m | 6.96 km/s | 25056 km/h | ||
| (2009 XZ1) | 05th October 2012 | 21 day(s) | 0.1382 | 53.8 | 120 m – 280 m | 16.87 km/s | 60732 km/h | ||
| (2006 TD) | 06th October 2012 | 22 day(s) | 0.1746 | 68.0 | 88 m – 200 m | 13.03 km/s | 46908 km/h | ||
| (2009 TK) | 06th October 2012 | 22 day(s) | 0.0450 | 17.5 | 100 m – 230 m | 11.10 km/s | 39960 km/h | ||
| (2004 UB) | 08th October 2012 | 24 day(s) | 0.1995 | 77.6 | 240 m – 530 m | 14.65 km/s | 52740 km/h | ||
| 277830 (2006 HR29) | 11th October 2012 | 27 day(s) | 0.1917 | 74.6 | 190 m – 440 m | 7.88 km/s | 28368 km/h | ||
| (2008 BW2) | 11th October 2012 | 27 day(s) | 0.1678 | 65.3 | 3.1 m – 6.8 m | 11.10 km/s | 39960 km/h | ||
| (2005 GQ21) | 12th October 2012 | 28 day(s) | 0.1980 | 77.0 | 620 m – 1.4 km | 23.86 km/s | 85896 km/h | ||
| (2012 GV17) | 12th October 2012 | 28 day(s) | 0.1500 | 58.4 | 160 m – 370 m | 16.11 km/s | 57996 km/h | ||
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Spectacular Photo Of “Herschel’s Ray” In Vela –
A Strangely-Shaped Leftover From A Vast Explosion
MessageToEagle.com – ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile presents a beautiful Herschel’s Ray commnonly known as the Pencil Nebula – a part of the Vela Supernova Remnant.
This peculiar cloud of glowing gas is part of a huge ring of wreckage left over after a supernova explosion that took place about 11 000 years ago. This detailed view was produced by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope.
Despite the tranquil and apparently unchanging beauty of a starry night, the Universe is far from being a quiet place. Stars are being born and dying in an endless cycle, and sometimes the death of a star can create a vista of unequalled beauty as material is blasted out into space to form strange structures in the sky.
Click on image to enlargeWide-field view of the sky around the Pencil Nebula. Credits: ESO
This new image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile shows the Pencil Nebula against a rich starry background. This oddly shaped cloud, which is also known as NGC 2736, is a small part of a supernova remnant in the southern constellation of Vela (The Sails).
These glowing filaments were created by the violent death of a star that took place about 11 000 years ago. The brightest part resembles a pencil; hence the name, but the whole structure looks rather more like a traditional witch’s broom.
The Vela supernova remnant is an expanding shell of gas that originated from the supernova explosion. Initially the shock wave was moving at millions of kilometres per hour, but as it expanded through space it ploughed through the gas between the stars, which has slowed it considerably and created strangely shaped folds of nebulosity.
The Pencil Nebula is the brightest part of this huge shell.
Click on image to enlargeThe Pencil Nebula, a strangely shaped leftover from a vast explosion. Credits: ESO
This new image shows large, wispy filamentary structures, smaller bright knots of gas and patches of diffuse gas. The nebula’s luminous appearance comes from dense gas regions that have been struck by the supernova shock wave. As the shock wave travels through space, it rams into the interstellar material.
At first, the gas was heated to millions of degrees, but it then subsequently cooled down and is still giving off the faint glow that was captured in the new image.
By looking at the different colours of the nebula, astronomers have been able to map the temperature of the gas. Some regions are still so hot that the emission is dominated by ionised oxygen atoms, which glow blue in the picture. Other cooler regions are seen glowing red, due to emission from hydrogen.
The Pencil Nebula measures about 0.75 light-years across and is moving through the interstellar medium at about 650 000 kilometres per hour. Remarkably, even at its distance of approximately 800 light-years from Earth, this means that it will noticeably change its position relative to the background stars within a human lifetime.
Even after 11 000 years the supernova explosion is still changing the face of the night sky.
MessageToEagle.com
See also:
Curiosity Leaves Morse Code Symbols On Mars
Curiosity Begins Its Longest Journey So Far
Curiosity Sends Interplanetary Voicemail From Mars And Beams Back First Telephoto
Curiosity Beams Back Strong And Clear Data From Martian Surface!
Curiosity Begins Driving: Landing Site Named In Honor Of Sci-Fi Writer Ray Bradbury
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Biological Hazards / Wildlife / Hazmat
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| The gray wolf (Canis lupus) CREDIT: Kramer, Gary | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service |
Less than two decades after wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, viral diseases like mange threaten the stability of the new population.
Humans had killed off gray wolves in the region by the 1930s, but in 1995, U.S. wildlife officials tried to restore the native population by bringing 31 wolves captured from Canada into the national park.
The new wolf community initially expanded rapidly, climbing to more than 170 at its peak. But researchers from Penn State University say that the most recent data show the number of animals has dipped below 100.
“We’re down to extremely low levels of wolves right now,” researcher Emily S. Almberg, a graduate student in ecology, said in a statement. “We’re down to [similar numbers as] the early years of reintroduction. So it doesn’t look like it’s going to be as large and as a stable a population as was maybe initially thought.”
The researchers point to pathogens as the culprit in the population’s instability. By 1997, all of the new wolves at the park that were tested for disease had at least one infection, including canine distemper, canine parvovirus and canine herpesvirus. Starting in 2007, wolves inside the park were testing positive for mange — an infection in which mites burrow under the skin causing insatiable scratching and so much hair loss that infected wolves often freeze to death in the winter.
A group of wolves known as Mollie’s pack was the first in Yellowstone to show signs of mange, in January 2007, but they recovered from the disease by March 2011. Meanwhile, another group, called the Druid pack — once one of the park’s most stable new packs — was decimated by the end of winter 2010 after showing signs of mange just half a year earlier, the researchers said.
“It was in a very short amount of time that the majority of the animals [in Druid] became severely infected,” Almberg said in a statement. “The majority of their hair was missing from their bodies and it hit them right in the middle of winter. The summer before it got really bad, we saw that many of the pups had mange.”
The Penn State researchers found that distance made a difference in the spread of the disease. For every six miles between a pack of mangy wolves and an uninfected pack, there was a 66 percent drop in risk of disease for the healthy pack, the researchers said. Thus the high wolf densities afforded by protection within Yellowstone may come at the cost of some population stability, the researchers wrote in their paper in the current issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
Mange was introduced into the Yellowstone ecosystem in 1905 in an attempt to accelerate wolf eradication during an era when wildlife officials tried to cut down predator populations. When the wolves were gone, the disease likely persisted among regional carnivores, like coyotes and foxes, the researchers said.
“Many invasive species flourish because they lack their native predators and pathogens, but in Yellowstone we restored a native predator to an ecosystem that had other canids (animals in the dog family) present that were capable of sustaining a lot of infections in their absence,” said Almberg. “It’s not terribly surprising that we were able to witness and confirm that there was a relatively short window in which the reintroduced wolves stayed disease-free.”
- My, What Big Teeth: Wolves Gallery
- Endangered and Threatened Wildlife
- Gallery: Brand-New Baby Wolves
| Today | HAZMAT | USA | State of Texas, Halliburton | |
|
HAZMAT in USA on Friday, 14 September, 2012 at 03:03 (03:03 AM) UTC.
| Description | |
| The Texas Department of State Health Services is looking for piece of equipment containing potentially dangerous radioactive material that was lost Tuesday by an oil and gas crew in a rural part of West Texas. The sealed radioactive source, a small stainless steel cylinder approximately 7 inches long and an inch across, contains Americium-241/Beryllium….The cylinder is stamped with the words “danger radioactive” and “do not handle” along with a radiation warning symbol. Anyone who sees it should stay at least 25 feet away and notify local law enforcement. This type of device is used to evaluate oil and gas wells and is usually stored in a protective shielding. A Halliburton crew was transporting it from a well outside of Pecos to another well south of Odessa. On arrival, the crew noticed the shielding was not locked and the device was missing. DSHS is assisting law enforcement with the search and investigating the loss of the radioactive material. |
| 13.09.2012 | HAZMAT | Czech Republic | Multiple region, [Prerov,Osek and Becvou] |  |
|
HAZMAT in Czech Republic on Tuesday, 11 September, 2012 at 14:15 (02:15 PM) UTC.
| Updated: | Thursday, 13 September, 2012 at 16:19 UTC |
| Description | |
| Czech police say they have discovered two possible sources of methanol poisoning that has killed at least 18 people. About 400 liters (106 gallons) of illegal alcohol was seized and two male suspects arrested in the northeastern part of the country where most victims lived. Around 500 bottles and several barrels of illicit booze have been found in a garage in the eastern city of Zlin on Thursday. Methanol tests still have to be conducted. Health Minister Leos Heger said Thursday a majority of alcohol samples taken elsewhere that have been tested so far contained dangerous levels of methanol that is mainly used for industrial purposes. About two dozen people are hospitalized, some in critical condition after drinking vodka and rum laced with methanol. | |
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Articles of Interest
| 13.09.2012 | Technological Disaster | China | Province of Hubei, Wuhan |  |
|
Technological Disaster in China on Thursday, 13 September, 2012 at 13:37 (01:37 PM) UTC.
| Description | |
| A platform elevator at a construction site in southern China has dropped 30 floors in a free fall, killing 19 workers. The accident happened Thursday in Wuhan city in Hubei province. A government notice posted by local Wuhan newspapers on their official microblogging sites says the elevator fell 100 meters (328 feet). It says the municipal government is halting all construction in Wuhan for security checks. Work safety is a big problem in China, where regulations are routinely ignored. |
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Family Survival Protocol - Microcosm News 