Earth ChangesS


Ambulance

Winds push fires through dozens of Detroit homes

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© AP Photo/Carlos OsorioA burned home is seen through a remaining entryway of another home on Detroit's east side, Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2010.
Wind-whipped flames swept through at least three Detroit neighborhoods, destroying dozens of homes, including many that were vacant, and even sending waves of searing heat blocks away, officials said.

A thick odor of smoke filled the air Wednesday after the roaring fires, fanned by winds of up to 50 mph, jumped from house to house Tuesday night. No injuries were reported.

There were about 85 fires at homes and garages over a four-hour period, said Dan Lijana, spokesman for Mayor Dave Bing.

"It was a freakish day - the wind was tremendous," said City Council President Charles Pugh.

Residents complained of a slow response by the city's emergency responders, but Pugh said the fire department did its best with the resources available.

Detroit fire Capt. Steve Varnas told the Detroit Free Press that some fires may have been caused by dead tree limbs being blown onto power lines. At least one electric company launched an investigation into possible ties between the blazes and its lines.

Heart

2 panda cubs born in Spanish zoo

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© AP Photo/Spanish National Research CouncilThis picture taken on Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2010, and released on Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2010, shows a person feeding one of the two giant panda cubs born at Madrid's Zoo on Sept. 7, 2010.
Two newborn pandas are the latest additions to the Madrid Zoo.

The hairless, pink twins were born to a giant panda Tuesday after being conceived through artificial insemination, and each weigh 150 grams (5 ounces), the zoo said.

It will be a few days before veterinarians can determine their gender.

They are the first pandas born in the Madrid Zoo since it unveiled one named Chu-Lin in 1982 - the first panda born in captivity in Europe. That one became wildly popular and a symbol of the Spanish capital.

Spain's National Research Council, which took part in the recent insemination along with scientists from China, said pandas have been born in Europe four times - twice in Madrid and two other times in the Vienna zoo.

The council said there are only an estimated 1,600 pandas left living in the wild in China, their numbers depleted by destruction of their habitat.

The Madrid Zoo has four of the endangered animals: the newborns and their parents, mother Hua Zui Ba and father Bing Xing.

Ambulance

8 people missing in Colorado wildfire

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© AP Photo/Eric Peter AbramsonIn this photo provided by Eric Peter Abramson, a line of buses are destroyed after a wild fire passed through Gold Hill, Colo. on Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2010.
Boulder - Authorities are searching for eight people who have not been accounted for as a wildfire tore through their neighborhoods this week.

Sheriff's Cmdr. Rich Brough said Wednesday that 20 people were initially reported missing and 12 of them have been accounted for.

It's unclear whether the remaining eight were in some of the 53 homes that have been reported destroyed. Authorities are following up with family members of the missing people and checking homes in the area, and it's still possible they will be located once the checks are complete.

About 3,500 people have been evacuated from about 1,000 homes since the fire broke out Monday.

Firefighters say mapping now shows the blaze is burning on 6,168 acres, or about 9 1/2 square miles. That's about a thousand acres smaller than they had thought.

The new reports about eight people missing and the ever-changing acreage estimates have occurred as people are complaining about a lack of information from authorities about the blaze.

Laura McConnell, a spokeswoman for the fire management team, said as many as 300 firefighters are at the fire and more are on the way. She said they're dealing with downed power lines, debris, poison ivy and rattlesnakes. They also have to be watchful for propane tanks in the area.

Phoenix

US: Colorado fire forced residents to make mad dash

wildfire Boulder
© AP Photo/Peter M. FredinKurt Rieder, in white hat, with his 9 year old daughter Lily watch the smoke plume from a wildland fire burning in the Four Mile Canyon area just west of Boulder Colo. on Monday, Sept. 6, 2010. High winds pushed the smoke and ash eastward over the Colorado plains.
Boulder - David Myers knew it was time to leave when he looked out into the forest and spotted bright red flames towering skyward. Then came a blinding cloud of smoke and a deafening roar as the fire ripped through the wilderness.

"You can hear just this consumption of fuel, just crackling and burning. And the hardest thing is ... you couldn't see it because at the point the smoke was that thick," he said.

Myers was among about 3,500 people who desperately fled the fire after it erupted in a tinder-dry canyon northwest of Boulder on Monday and swallowed up dozens of homes. Residents packed everything they could into their cars and sped down narrow, winding roads to safety, encountering a vicious firestorm that melted the bumper of one couple's van.

Bizarro Earth

Floods leave tens of thousands homeless in Mexico

People use a make-shift boat
© AP Photo/America RocioPeople use a make-shift boat to cross a flooded avenue in Villahermosa in Mexico's Tabasco state, Tuesday Sept. 7, 2010. Weeks of torrential rains have unleashed flooding in huge swaths of southern Mexico, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes. )
Villahermosa - Weeks of torrential rains have unleashed flooding in huge swaths of southern Mexico, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.

Tens of thousands more are sleeping on their roofs, refusing to abandon their possessions even as the rivers around them rise rapidly.

Authorities on Tuesday started releasing 2,000 cubic meters (71,000 cubic feet) of water per second from four damns in the region that have reached capacity. That caused several rivers to overflow.

Bizarro Earth

Planchon Volcano Starts Spewing Rocks, Gases, Chile's Geology Service Says

The Planchon volcano, on the border between Argentina and Chile, started erupting in the last few days, spewing pyroclastic material and gases, Chile's National Geology and Mining Service said.

The plume yesterday reached as high as 1.2 kilometer (0.75 mile) above the crater, the geology service said on its website today. The volcano, 196 kilometers south of Santiago, has had a permanent plume of smoke for several years.

The geology service described the eruption as "minor." Geologists plan to fly over the area today. An erupting volcano in 2008 forced residents to abandon the Chilean town of Chaiten.

To contact the reporter responsible on this story: Sebastian Boyd in Santiago at sboyd9@bloomberg.net

Bizarro Earth

Fiji - Earthquake Magnitude 6.3

Fiji Quake_070910
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Tuesday, September 07, 2010 at 16:13:32 UTC

Wednesday, September 08, 2010 at 04:13:32 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
15.869°S, 179.261°W

Depth:
10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program

Region:
FIJI REGION

Distances:
155 km (100 miles) ENE of Lambasa, Vanua Levu, Fiji

210 km (130 miles) SW of Sigave, Ile Futuna, Wallis and Futuna

350 km (220 miles) NE of SUVA, Viti Levu, Fiji

2400 km (1490 miles) NNE of Auckland, New Zealand

Attention

South Africa: Rising Tide of Acid Mine Water Threatens Johannesburg

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© AlamyParticularly at risk is the central business district which is built over the central basin and is home to some of Africa's biggest firms
A toxic tide of acid mine water is rising steadily beneath Johannesburg which, if left unchecked, could cause earth tremors, power blackouts and even cancer among residents, experts have warned.

The water is currently around 600 metres below the city's surface but is rising at a rate of between 0.4 and 0.9 metres per day, meaning it could overflow onto the streets in just under a year and a half.

Because it would take 13 months to build a pumping station to clear the water, a legacy of 120 years of mining around Johannesburg, the state has just four months to find the millions of pounds needed to fund it.

It is currently locked in negotiations with multinational mining firms who have profited from the area's rich natural resources over who should pay and how much.

Announcing a task force of experts set up to deal with the issue yesterday, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said she was hoping that the potential dividends from tapping a new water supply for human consumption and use in industry would entice investors.

Bizarro Earth

New landslip buries 100 rescue workers in Guatemala

A massive landslide buried up to 100 people who were trying to dig out a bus caught in deep mud, killing at least 22 people with dozens more feared dead, as torrential rains battered Guatemala.

Emergency workers recovered 22 bodies from the landslide on a major highway northwest of the capital, and they warned it could take two days to dig out all the victims.

Bizarro Earth

Tropical Storm Hermine Threatens Mexico, Texas

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© National Hurricane Center/ReutersTropical storm Hermine is seen in this satellite image courtesy of the National Hurricane Center.
Tropical storm Hermine has formed in the Gulf of Mexico and warnings have been issued from Tampico, Mexico to the Baffin Bay on the south Texas coast, the National Hurricane Center said on Monday.

Hermine, the eighth tropical storm of the season, carried maximum sustained winds of 40 mph was located about 190 miles east-southeast of Tampico, Mexico. it was moving north at 8 mph.

U.S. forecasters said it was expected to turn toward the northwest and increase in speed on Monday.

"The center of Hermine is expected to approach the coast of northeastern Mexico or extreme southern Texas in the warning area early Tuesday morning," the Miami-based hurricane center said.