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Meteor Strike Hazard: All US Nuclear Plants Facing Upgrades

Image

Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, as seen from space
Progress Energy's chief nuclear officer announced this week that every U.S. nuclear plant will add an extra layer of emergency equipment this year to deal with unforeseen natural disasters - such as earthquakes, tornadoes and even meteor strikes.

The announcement comes just ahead of the one-year anniversary of Japan's Fukushima disaster.

But nuclear watchdogs immediately expressed skepticism that the industry effort would do much good. Critics warned instead that unless the new machinery and equipment were safeguarded, the costly upgrades would likely be disabled by the same catastrophe if it obliterated a nuclear plant's primary emergency equipment.

Jim Scarola, Progress Energy's chief nuclear officer, said Friday that nuclear plants in this country will be adding pumps, generators and other safety equipment to deal with a total loss of onsite power, which led to Japan's nuclear crisis.

Comment: "Even a meteor strike", eh?

Maybe they are taking note of the incredible number of fireballs entering the atmosphere:

9 March: Fireball Spotted Over North Georgia

4 March: Meteor Shower Dazzles Victorians Lucky Enough to See It

4 March: Thousands Witness Spectacular Fireball Streak Over UK

2 March: Fireball seen from southern Norway and Sweden

2 March: Green Fireball Seen All Over Southeastern Canada

1 March: Green Object Reported in the Sky Over Newfoundland

29 February: What Was The Bright Flash In The Sky Tuesday Night?

22 February: "Huge fireball" streaks through Edmonton sky

22 February: Meteor Rain in China

14 February: Exploding UFO Wakes Thousands in South Carolina

12 February: Exploding Fireball recorded over Okayama, Japan

5 February: Fireball with huge tail seen over Western Australia

5 February: Fireball Photographed Over Corfu, Greece

4 February: East coast of US lights up as another enormous fireball streaks through sky

2 February: Huge Fireball Over Tokyo, 2 February 2012

1 February: Wednesday night's Texas meteor so bright it was seen in Kansas

1 February: Halifax 'fireball' probably a meteor

British nuclear plants are also being upgraded against anticipated effects of 'climate change':
UK nuclear sites at risk of flooding, report shows
The Guardian
Wednesday 7 March 2012

As many as 12 of Britain's 19 civil nuclear sites are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion because of climate change, according to an unpublished government analysis obtained by the Guardian.



Bizarro Earth

Rare Tornado Touches Down on Oahu

Tornado Damage
© Craig T. Kojima / staradvertiser.com
A home in Lanikai was severely damaged by a waterspout that came ashore in Oahu on Friday, March 9. The front and back of home was damaged.
A rare tornado blew roofs off homes and left other damage in its path through the Hawaiian communities of Lanikai and Enchanted Lake on Oahu, weather officials confirmed Friday.

A National Weather Service team surveying damage and talking to witnesses determined a waterspout came ashore and was reclassified as a tornado in Lanikai about 7:30 a.m. The 20-yard-wide tornado traveled about 1.5 miles in 15 minutes to Enchanted Lake with wind speeds reaching 60 to 70 mph before dissipating, officials said.

Hawaii, known for its famous sunshine, has been hit with unusually harsh weather for about a week.

A 30-minute hail storm on Friday in Oahu was "unprecedented ," Tom Birchard, senior meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Honolulu, told the Associated Press. Some of the hail stones have been unusually large for the islands -- the size of marbles and discs more than a half inch long, weather.com reported.

Arrow Down

UN Says 145 'Presumed Dead' in Afghan Avalanche

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© Agence France-Presse
Afghan rescue workers make their way to Badakhshan province in January 2012.
At least 145 people are missing and "presumed dead" after an avalanche hit a remote village in Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan province last week, the United Nations said Saturday.

Afghan officials had earlier in the day put the death toll from a series of avalanches in the province's Shekay district at 56.

The UN said an avalanche in the area on March 4 claimed 50 lives and warned of severe flooding over coming weeks due to melting snow.

Afghanistan's harshest winter in 15 years has claimed scores of lives, with the avalanches taking the toll to more than 90 in the mountainous province of Badakhshan alone, according to officials.

Rescue teams have so far been unable to reach the disaster-hit areas.

"Access to Dispay village is possible only by road from neighbouring Tajikistan but it has been severely hampered by snow-blocked roads," the UN's Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan said in a statement.

"Helicopter access is not possible as there is a high risk of triggering further avalanches."

Life Preserver

Dolphins rescued by beachgoers in Brazil

A tourist has captured on camera the frenzied rescue of a pod of beached dolphins on a beach north of Rio de Janeiro.

The footage shows over 20 dolphins trapped in the surf and thrashing their flippers in distress.

Realising the dolphins' plight, a dozen beachgoers began to pull the dolphins back into deeper water by their tails.


Stop

Bats Invasion: Colony of fruit bats in northern Australian town prompt disease warning

Image
© Agence France-Presse
Hundreds of thousands of fruit bats like these arrived in the town in late February
A town in northern Australia has been invaded by more than 250,000 bats, prompting warnings of a potentially fatal disease related to rabies.

The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) warned residents in Katherine to stay away from the fruit bats, which could carry the Australian Bat Lyssavirus.

The disease can be transmitted to people if they are bitten or scratched.

Authorities have closed down the main sports ground in the town 300 km south of Darwin in the Northern Territory.

The colony of fruit bats - little red flying foxes - arrived in the town late last month. In recent days numbers have begun to fall but large numbers continue to roost on the outskirts of town, reports the BBC's Phil Mercer.

Stop

Weather bomb hits New Zealand, afterwards, huge eels found swimming in the streets

They are one of the least attractive of all fish species and are normally found lurking in oceans and rivers.

But when part of New Zealand was hit by a 'weather bomb' recently, a number of eels suddenly sprung up in some surprising locations.

Residents in one street in Masterton, Wellington, were left shocked to discover dozens of the slimy creatures swimming in large puddles and gutters in the road.

Image
© Youtube
Slimy: When part of New Zealand was hit by a 'weather bomb' recently, a number of eels suddenly sprung up in the streets
Image
© Youtube
What lies beneath: Residents in a street in Masterton, Wellington, discovered dozens of eels swimming in large puddles and gutters
People could be spotted in the streets attempting to help the eels back into deeper water as a number became stranded on the side of the road.

It follows days of appalling weather in the region.

Nuke

Fukushima and Planetary Genocide: The Poisoning of Planet Earth

radiation symbol
© n/a
"The most difficult thing of all is to see is what is right in front of your eyes." Goethe.

As we approach the tragic one-year anniversary of Fukushima's multiple nuclear reactors' accident on March 11, that initially affected the entire Japanese population, we now know that this nightmare has engulfed all of us. Let us also not forget that this is the third nuclear attack on the Japanese (the first two were Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Given what has not been done to ensure public safety, we cannot think of it any other way. From the very first day, there were lies and a massive cover-up of the extent of the destruction and the inherent radioactive dangers - not just from Japanese officials and TEPCO corporate reports, but also from the US. The Mark 1 reactors, built by General Electric, have design flaws. There are many of these same-designed reactors in the US.

A year later, much of the corruption, deceit, and careless practices have been documented extensively here at Global Research - while mainstream news continues Orwellian doublespeak. Last month, in a rare but very belated mainstream account, CBS News reported that after the tsunami and nuclear accident: "The normal lines of [government] authority completely collapsed in Japan." See this.

Early on, even essential radioactive monitoring was shut down. In May 2011, the prestigious Norsk Institute's online site was blocked from the US. They had been monitoring on a daily basis the worldwide radioactive contamination to which we were all - and continue to be - exposed. Conveniently, any early radiation monitoring in the US was inconsistent, with numerous sites supposedly not working for one or another reason. Then the so-called "acceptable" radiation levels in food were raised in the US and EU.

Fish

Sharks: Galapagos Species New?

Scientists have announced the discovery of a new species of spotted, bottom-dwelling shark near the Galapagos Islands, where astonished researchers saw it from a submersible.

The newly named species, Bythaelurus giddingsi, is a kind of catshark. Such animals had never been seen near the famed Eastern Pacific archipelago until researchers descended some 1,600 feet (500 meters) to the ocean floor.
Image
© Unknown
"We looked out the window and saw this spotted catshark and said, 'What the heck is that?'" recalled John McCosker, chairman of aquatic biology at the California Academy of Sciences, and lead author on a paper describing the shark. "It was very exciting because we didn't expect that that genus had a species of shark living in the Galapagos."

Bizarro Earth

Kamchatka's Bezymianny volcano erupts, expels ash cloud 8 km high

Friday saw a new eruption of the Bezymianny volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East.
Image
© EPA
Bezymianny volcano
Earlier in the day, the volcano spewed ash up to 8 kilometers high, seismologists said, adding that the eruption does not pose a threat to population centers in the area.

One of the most active volcanoes in the world, Bezymianny is located 350 kilometers northeast of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

Bizarro Earth

Earthquake Magnitude 6.7 - Vanuatu

Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Friday, March 09, 2012 at 07:09:53 UTC
Friday, March 09, 2012 at 06:09:53 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
19.115°S, 169.643°E

Depth:
31.7 km (19.7 miles)

Region:
VANUATU

Distances:
61 km (37 miles) NE of Isangel, Tanna, Vanuatu

206 km (128 miles) SE of PORT-VILA, Efate, Vanuatu

325 km (201 miles) NE of Tadine, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia

1934 km (1201 miles) ENE of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia