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Fort McMurray wildfire update: Massive Canadian blaze remains 'out of control'; set to double in size to 300,000 hectares; approaching oil sands project & Saskatchewan

Gregoire Lake
The Indian Express
Sun, 08 May 2016 04:25 UTC
Fort McMurray devastation
© Getty Images/S.Olson
Several Fort McMurray neighborhoods have been destroyed
A raging Canadian wildfire grew explosively on Saturday as hot, dry winds pushed the blaze across the energy heartland of Alberta and threatened to burn close to an oil sands project.

The fire that has already prompted the evacuation of all 88,000 people who lived in the city of Fort McMurray was set to double in size on Saturday, the seventh day of what is expected to be the costliest natural disaster in Canada's history.

Provincial officials praised evacuees for their patience and, in a sign of how long the crisis could drag on, said the cities of Calgary and Edmonton, many hundreds of miles to the south, were the best place to receive longer-term support such as medical care and emergency payments.

Firefighting officials said the inferno, propelled northeast towards neighboring Saskatchewan by high winds and fueled by tinder-dry forests, was set to double in size to 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) - almost twice the size of Houston - by the end of Saturday.

Fort McMurray is the center of Canada's oil sands region. About half of the nation's crude output from the sands, or one million barrels per day (bpd), had been taken offline as of Friday, according to a Reuters estimate.

Officials said they expected the fire would burn up to the edge of a project operated by Suncor Energy Inc, but noted the site and others like it were resilient to fire damage.


Comment: See also:

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Bizarro Earth

Mt. Ruapehu crater lake recording increased temperatures


MSN News
Sat, 07 May 2016 22:23 UTC
Mt Ruapehu
© Getty
The crater lake at the top of Mt Ruapehu.
Temperatures have risen to a 16-year high and surface activity has been reported at Mt Ruapehu's crater lake in the central North Island. A tourist flight over the lake on Saturday afternoon reported vigorous steaming of the surface, which was also disturbed by upwelling bubbles.

GNS duty volcanologist Brad Scott said although these signs hadn't been seen in recent years, the same sort of activity had been observed when temperatures rose over 40-42C. Crater lake temperatures have been rising since late 2015 and have now reached 44C, the hottest recorded since the new lake was established post 2000.

A swarm of volcanic earthquakes reported beneath the surface late last month has stopped, although volcanic tremor has increased slightly this week. Volcanic tremor is always present at Ruapehu, although the level varies and doesn't necessarily indicate an upcoming eruption.

GNS Science volcanologists regularly monitor Mt Ruapehu, an active volcano at the southern end of the Taupo Volcanic Zone.
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Attention

Dead whale found on the shore of northern Taiwan

Lu Kang-chun and Christie Chen
Focus Taiwan
Sat, 07 May 2016 19:54 UTC
Dead whale
A 10-meter long dead whale recently washed up on the shore of Gangnan in Hsinchu City, northern Taiwan, and authorities are till trying to determine the cause of its death, the Coast Guard Administration's (CGA's) local unit said Saturday.

The dead whale was discovered by a coast guard officer on duty on May 4, according to the CGA's Northern Coastal Patrol Office.

Experts from the Taiwan Cetacean Society were called in to examine the whale, which will be dissected to determine the cause of death, the coast guard said.
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Attention

Mysterious fish die-off at volcanic Lake Toba, Sumatra


Strange Sounds
Fri, 06 May 2016 19:20 UTC
Dead fish
© Tribun Medan/ Royandi Hutasoit
Lake Toba is the largest volcanic lake in the world occupying the caldera of a supervolcano on the Island of Sumatra in Indonesia.

Millions of fish were found dead by fishermen between May 3 and May 5, 2016. Officials are unable to find the source of the mass killing but think it is linked to the lack of dissolved oxygen in the water. Could the drop in oxygen content in the north-east of lake Toba be the result of volcanic activity of some kind?

It all started one month ago, when fishermen at Lake Toba started to find dead fish in their nets.

But the mysterious die-offs have suddenly increased beginning of this month, when professional fishermen caught more than 320 tones (May 3, 2016) and then 800 tons (May 5, 2016) of dead fish... In overall about 1500 tones in 3 days! So millions of fish!

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Bizarro Earth

Turrialba Volcano in Costa Rica erupting 3 times per hour


Latin America Herald Tribune
Sat, 07 May 2016 19:24 UTC
Turrialba Volcano
© OVSICORI via Facebook
Turrialba Volcano erupted at 3:25 p.m. on Monday, May 4, 2015
The Turrialba volcano in central Costa Rica is erupting three times per hour, the National Seismological Network reported Friday.

While volcanic activity remains at the same level of recent days, the tremors accompanying the eruptions are growing less intense, the network said. The ash plume barely rises above the crater's edge, a height of less than 500 meters (1,640 feet).

Turrialba, located some 70 kilometers (43 miles) east of San Jose, entered a phase of increased activity in October 2014, emitting ash, gases and incandescent material. The latest round of eruptions began last week.

Entrances to the national park that surrounds the volcano have been closed as a precaution. Turrialba, which rises 3,340 meters (10,950 feet) above sea level, is Costa Rica's second-highest volcano after Irazu.
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Bizarro Earth

Millions of dead fish wash up on Vietnamese coast

Lindsay Murdoch
Sydney Morning Herald
Fri, 06 May 2016 19:17 UTC
dead fish
© Phuong Tung and Nghe Si/Facebook
Some of the dead fish which have washed up on the coast of Vietnam, as reported by locals on Facebook
Millions of fish have washed up dead along a 125-kilometre stretch of the Vietnamese coast in one of the communist country's worst environmental disasters.

Soldiers have been deployed to bury tonnes of fish, clams and the occasional whale that began dying in early April along the north-central coast, including some popular tourist beaches.

Vietnamese officials facing growing anger over the disaster have not announced the official cause of the deaths, which have affected the livelihoods of tens of thousands of families.

Some officials have suggested it may be toxins or algal blooms known as red tide.

But Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has ordered an investigation into how a Taiwanese-owned steel plant received approval to pipe waste directly into the sea.
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Red Flag

Cleveland Volcano in Aleutian Islands under heightened alert after explosion


Alaska Dispatch News
Fri, 06 May 2016 19:13 UTC
cleveland volcano
© NOAA
Smoke rises from Cleveland Volcano in the Aleutians on Aug. 8, 2011, in this aerial photo provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Alaska Volcano Observatory staff raised the volcano's alert level after detecting an explosion Thursday evening.
The Cleveland Volcano in the Aleutian Islands is again under a heightened alert level from the Alaska Volcano Observatory, after researchers there recorded an explosion Thursday evening.

The observatory issued a statement raising the eastern Aleutians volcano's alert level to watch, and its aviation color code to orange, late Thursday.

Researchers said in the statement they detected an explosion at 6:44 p.m. Thursday using both air pressure and seismic data.

"There are no recent satellite views since the detected explosion. However, previous Cleveland explosions have typically produced ash emissions," observatory staff wrote.

Nearly a year ago, scientists recorded a restless period at the volcano on Chuginadak Island, including an explosion -- but no detected ash cloud -- in July.

In March, an eruption at Pavlof Volcano on the Alaska Peninsula sent an ash plume to an altitude of 20,000 feet, coating the nearby village of Nelson Lagoon and disrupting flights across Alaska as the material drifted northeast across Interior Alaska into Canada.
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Snowflake Cold

Rare May snowfall in northern Chinese cities


CCTV
Mon, 02 May 2016 18:57 UTC
Snow China
Unusual snow in May blanketed the suburb of Beijing and the mountainous region in Chengde City, north China's Hebei Province on Monday, forming an amazingly gorgeous scenery.

Thunder shower hit the Yanqing District of Beijing at dusk on Sunday, with average precipitation reaching 19.1 millimeters from 17:00 on Sunday to 14:00 on Monday. Because of the high altitude of the Haituo Mountain, where the temperature was minus 0 degree Celsius, the rainwater turned to snow.

Elsewhere, the lowest temperature in Wulingshan National Nature Reserve in Chengde City dipped to minus 15 degrees Celsius and the depth of snow was estimated at 18 centimeters.

The current snowfall in May marks the second one in Chengde since 1991, according to local meteorological department.

"It is quite rare to see such snow and it really came all of a sudden," said Wang Jihui, staff member of Wulingshan National Nature Reserve.

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Airplane

7 injured by air turbulence on flight from Dominican Republic

Erin Dooley
abcnews.go.com
Thu, 05 May 2016 18:33 UTC
Plane
Seven people were transported to a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida after an Allegiant Air jet hit turbulence returning from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, first responders told ABC News. The flight was bound for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Allegiant Air's Flight 7001, a charter operated on behalf of Apple Vacations, encountered "unreported moderate clear air turbulence" Thursday afternoon and was diverted to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International airport, according to the company.

When the Airbus A319 landed, emergency personnel assisted four flight attendants and three passengers who had suffered multiple injuries, from bruises and lacerations to head injuries -- none life-threatening.

According to airline spokesperson Jessica Wheeler, a nurse aboard the flight assisted crew members following the turbulence, and all passengers were "ambulatory" by the time they were transported to Broward Health Medical Center.

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Airplane

17 passengers hurt as Hong Kong-bound flight hit by severe air turbulence over Borneo


South China Morning Post
Sat, 07 May 2016 18:26 UTC
plane
Passengers travelling from Bali - one of whom was severely injured - were rushed to hospital after plane ran into severe turbulence

Seventeen Chinese nationals were injured, with 12 taken to hospital, today as a Hong Kong Airlines flight departing from Bali, in Indonesia, was hit by severe turbulence.

"Twelve people were rushed to a hospital, one of them with a very serious injury," said Herni Pramuharjo, spokesman of the transport ministry said, according to the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua. "Five others were treated at the health clinic in the airport. All of them were Chinese nationals."

The incident occurred when the aeroplane was flying over Borneo, about one hour after flight HX6704, bound for Hong Kong, took off from Bali International Airport.
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