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Dozens die as floods engulf northern Afghan villages


BBC
Fri, 25 Apr 2014 09:21 UTC
Afghanistan flood
© Unknown
Villagers took shelter on roofs as waters rose about them.
At least 58 people have been killed and hundreds of villagers left stranded in devastating flash floods in northern Afghanistan, officials say.

The governor of Jowzjan province warned that the number of victims was likely to rise.

People have been left trapped on the roofs of their homes and rescue helicopters have been deployed.

There are reports of flooding in other provinces in the north and west.

"Thousands of homes have been destroyed and thousands are suffering", Jowzjan's governor Boymurod Qoyinli told the BBC. He said that more than 80 people are missing and that 3,000 homes have been destroyed.
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Ice Cube

Antarctic iceberg six times the size of Manhattan in open ocean tracked by scientists

Lucy Kinder
The Telegraph, UK
Thu, 24 Apr 2014 13:39 UTC
Image
© NASA/REUTERS
The B-31 Iceberg as it separated from a rift in Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier
Scientists are monitoring one of the largest icebergs in existence, after it broke off from an Antarctic glacier and began to head into the open ocean.

The iceberg covers about 255 square miles, making it roughly six times the size of Manhattan - and is up to 500 meters thick.

Known as B31, glacial crack that created the iceberg was first detected in 2011 but the iceberg separated from Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier in November.

NASA glaciologist Kelly Brunt said that the iceberg is not currently presenting a danger, but needs to be continually monitored.

"It's one that's large enough that it warrants monitoring. There is not a lot of shipping traffic down there. We're not particularly concerned about shipping lanes. We know where all the big ones are."
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Snowflake Cold

Third coldest start to a year on record in US

Steven Goddard
stevengoddard.wordpress.com
Thu, 24 Apr 2014 08:32 UTC
US temperatures through April 23 are the third coldest on record

Image
Generated by :

./ghcn.exe US23042014.txt through=0423 > US23042014_through_0423.csv

Image
YearTDeptUS.png (688×531)

      Read More...
Nuke

North Dakota finds more radioactive oil waste

Kevin Burbach
Yahoo! News
Thu, 24 Apr 2014 17:38 UTC
Radioactive Waste
© AP Photo/The Bismarck Tribune, Lauren Donovan
In this photo taken on Wednesday, April 23, 2014, white-suited workers wearing respirators clean up the illegal filter sock dump in an abandoned gas station in Noonan, N.D., near the Canadian border. Radiological readings were to be conducted to be sure the building and soil was back to normal.
Bismarck -- North Dakota confirmed Thursday the discovery of a new radioactive dump of waste from oil drilling, and separately a company hired to clean up waste found in February at another location said it removed double the amount of radioactive material originally estimated to be there.

The Canadian company hired to clean up the largest dump found so far, located at an abandoned gas station in Noonan, also said that it suspects the soil at the site is contaminated and that samples were being analyzed.

The twin disclosures highlight a growing problem from North Dakota's booming oil development - illegal disposal of oil filter socks, which are tubular nets that strain liquids during the oil production process and contain low amounts of radioactive material. Health officials have said that radioactive filter socks increasingly are being found along roadsides, in abandoned buildings or in commercial trash bins - sometimes those of competing oil companies.

State Environmental Health Chief Dave Glatt said investigators are examining the new site north of Crosby - a town about five miles from the Canadian border - which was discovered late last week by Divide County Emergency Manager Jody Gunlock.

Gunlock said he found 15 garbage cans and about 25 bags full of the oil filter socks.

"So maybe one-fourth of what we found down in Noonan," Gunlock said, "But you know, it's still a significant amount and it's still an environmental problem."
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Cloud Grey

U.S. tornado activity at 60-year low

Barbara Hollingsworth
CNSNews
Tue, 22 Apr 2014 11:07 UTC
Tornado
© cnsnews.com
Tornado activity in 2014 so far is at its lowest level since 1953, according to the National Weather Service's (NWS) Storm Prediction Center (SPC). "2014 has likely established a new low in tornado activity through the 21st of April," according to SPC warning coordination meteorologist Greg Carbin.

Carbin also pointed out that the time gap between the worst tornadoes is also the fourth largest since 1953. "At 152 days on April 18, 2014, the span between EF-3 or stronger tornadoes is the 4th longest span... in the last 60 years," Carbin noted. The longest gap was 249 days in 2004.

The NWS defines an EF-3 (Enhanced Fujita scale) tornado as one with winds between 158 and 207 mph capable of causing "severe damage," including blowing off roofs, overturning trains, and uprooting trees.

Between 2001 and 2010, 563 Americans were killed by tornadoes, which occur 1,200 times a year on average.

Although Texas experienced the highest number of twisters per year (142 on average) between 1981 and 2010, compared to less than five in 15 Northwest and Western states, Alabama had the nation's highest annual number of tornado fatalities (6 per year), the NWS reported.

The deadliest tornado day in U.S. history was March 18, 1925 when 695 people were killed by twisters in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.
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Attention

Chile quake defies expectations

Alexandra Witze
nature.com
Tue, 22 Apr 2014 16:20 UTC
Image
© Ivan Alvarado/Reuters/Corbis
People walk along a road damaged in the 1 April Chilean earthquake.
Monika Sobiesiak wasn't expecting the morning of 2 April to start with such an adrenaline jolt. But as she scrolled through a list of earthquakes on her mobile phone, she saw that overnight a series of quakes had rocked the coast of northern Chile - almost exactly where she had installed a seismometer network a few years earlier. "I saw the 8.2," says the geophysicist, who works at the University of Kiel in Germany, "and I rushed to get to my desk."

That 1 April quake, which struck offshore near the village of Pisagua, was the largest in Chile since a magnitude-8.8 quake hit farther south in 2010. Although the Pisagua quake was not as big and not particularly damaging, it will still go down in the annals of seismology - as an intensively studied earthquake that upends some assumptions about how and when big quakes happen.

In one sense, seismologists knew it was coming. Northern Chile, near the border with Peru, was the only stretch of the country's coastline that had not broken in a large earthquake in the past century (see 'Under pressure'). In 2006, expecting it to go, a German - French - Chilean collaboration blanketed the region with seismometers, tiltmeters and other ground-measuring instruments, creating the Integrated Plate boundary Observatory Chile (IPOC). It captured the Pisagua quake in action, as did Sobiesiak's network.
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Phoenix

Grass fires total over 400 in March across South Wales despite cool temperatures

Cathy Owen
Western Mail
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:08 UTC
Image

The fire above Ogmore Vale
Fire crews caught on camera dealing with more than 400 fires, many of them started deliberately, across many parts of South Wales

Huge areas of grass and shrubland are a sea of charred black today after a wave of deliberately set fires swept through huge chunks of the Welsh countryside.

These dramatic pictures show firefighters trying to deal with the grass fires, including one which at one point was six miles wide.

The lone firefighter walking through the charred scrubland sums up the battle fire crews have had to deal with since the start of the month.

From March 1, South Wales Fire and Rescue Service alone has attended 215 grass fires and 283 deliberately set fires across huge areas of land. There were another 35 deliberately lit grass fires in the South Wales Fire and Rescue area yesterday damaging over 198 hectares of Welsh countryside
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Phoenix

Despite cool damp Spring fire crews tackle nearly 300 grass fires during April in Mid and West Wales

Roger Vince
South Wales Guardian
Wed, 23 Apr 2014 13:38 UTC
Image
© Roger Vince
Mid and West Wales fire crews were called into action to tackle a blaze on the Black Mountain at 7pm on Saturday. The service has faced 200 grass fires during the month of April.
The latest grass fire to strike the Amman Valley raged for more than five hours on the Black Mountain on Saturday night before being brought under control by emergency crews.

Amman Valley firefighters based at Gwaun cae Gurwen were called to tackle the blaze, which began above Cwmgarw Road on the Black Mountain, following reports of the fire at 7pm.

The incident is just the latest in what has become an ever increasing problem for emergency services.

As well as taking up time and manpower, the grass fires are also proving a massive drain on financial resources.
      Read More...
Phoenix

Another large forest fire breaks out in New Jersey despite cool Spring temperatures


6abc.com
Thu, 24 Apr 2014 08:02 UTC
Image
A forest fire continues to grow in Downe Township, Cumberland County, fanned by strong winds.

As of Thursday morning, officials said about 1500 acres have been consumed in a remote area of the Edward G. Bevan Fish and Wildlife Management Area.

So far, no structures or people have been threatened.

At least 50 firefighters were battling the blaze, which started Wednesday as a Red Flag warning went into effect in New Jersey.

      Read More...
Attention

Unprecedented plagues hit oranges and bananas

Michael Snyder
The American Dream
Wed, 23 Apr 2014 08:10 UTC
oranges
© unknown
What is causing all of these plagues to hit our food supply? Have you heard of citrus greening disease? Probably not, but it has already gotten so bad that it is being projected that Florida's orange harvest will be the smallest in 30 years. Have you heard of TR4? Probably not, but it has become such a nightmare that some analysts believe that it could eventually wipe out the entire global supply of the type of bananas that Americans eat. In addition, another major plague is killing millions of our pigs, and a crippling drought that never seems to end is absolutely devastating agricultural production in the state of California. Are we just having bad luck, or is there something else to all of this?

Citrus greening disease has been a steadily growing problem that has reached epidemic levels this year. Because of this disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is projecting that orange production in the U.S. this year will be down 18 percent compared to last year. Here is more on this horrible plague from Yahoo News...
A citrus disease spread by a tiny insect has devastated Florida's orange crop, which is expected to be the worst in nearly 30 years, and sent juice prices soaring on New York markets.

The culprit? The gnat-sized Asian citrus psyllid, which is infecting citrus trees across the Sunshine State with huanglongbing, or citrus greening disease, which causes fruit to taste bitter and fall from trees too soon.

"It feels we are losing the fight," said Ellis Hunt, the head of a family-run citrus farm spread over about 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares) in the central Florida town of Lake Wales.
      Read More...
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