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Major oil producers said Sunday they would be evacuating workers from Gulf of Mexico platforms in the face of an imminent threat of high surf and winds from Tropical Storm Isaac.
BP Plc said it will shut production at all of its Gulf of Mexico oil and gas platforms and evacuate all workers on Sunday in light of Isaac's westerly shift and forecasts that it could strengthen into a hurricane. BP has already shut and evacuated four platforms, including Thunder Horse, the world's largest. The company said Sunday it will shut its other three platforms.
Chevron, second to BP in Gulf oil production, said it would be evacuating some workers directly involved in oil and gas production from some of its platforms. "Chevron continues to closely monitor the projected path of Tropical Storm Isaac and has begun to evacuate some essential personnel from some offshore facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. Production has not been affected," the company said.
A massive typhoon began to make landfall Sunday over Okinawa, bringing winds more ferocious than even the typhoon-weary Japanese island has seen in decades. It will likely be the strongest since 1956, said CN N International meteorologist Tom Sater.
With a cloud field of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), Typhoon Bolaven is 20 times larger than Okinawa's length. "It's been very, very severe," said storm chaser James Reynolds, on the northwestern coast of the island. Tree branches were flying through the air amid torrential rain, he said.
The infrastructure on Okinawa is designed to withstand violent storms. "Everything's made of solid concrete," said Reynolds. "Utility poles are so wide you couldn't even put your arms around them," Reynolds said. "All the houses are built with concrete. There's no such thing as a beach house in Okinawa because it would just get destroyed by a typhoon." Still, the power was out where he was Sunday.
With a cloud field of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), Typhoon Bolaven is 20 times larger than Okinawa's length. "It's been very, very severe," said storm chaser James Reynolds, on the northwestern coast of the island. Tree branches were flying through the air amid torrential rain, he said.
The infrastructure on Okinawa is designed to withstand violent storms. "Everything's made of solid concrete," said Reynolds. "Utility poles are so wide you couldn't even put your arms around them," Reynolds said. "All the houses are built with concrete. There's no such thing as a beach house in Okinawa because it would just get destroyed by a typhoon." Still, the power was out where he was Sunday.
There was a low-level flood in River Ravi at Baloki but the water level was gradually increasing.
According to Indus River System Authority (IRSA), in River Indus the water inflow at Tarbela was 256,000 cusecs and outflow was 140,000 cusecs, while in River Jhelum at Mangla the water inflow was 63,000 cusecs and outflow was 13,000 cusecs.
In River Chenab, the inflow was 126,800 cusecs and outflow was 91,800 cusecs at Marala. Water inflow recorded in
River Sutlej near Head Sulemanki was 16,777 cusecs and outflow remained 4,792 cusecs.
According to the Meteorological Department, the three rivers of Punjab, Ravi, Chenab and Jhelum, were facing flood threat. The department also forecast that within next 48 hours scattered rain/thundershower was expected over Azad Kashmir, Hazara, Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Lahore and Gujranwala divisions. The department predicted hot and humid weather elsewhere in the country.
Thousands of Haitians made homeless by a devastating earthquake two years ago are affected by tropical storm Isaac, as torrential rain and winds destroy the tent camps they live in. Because the country is heavily deforested, there are immediate concerns Isaac could trigger deadly flash flooding and mudslides.
Source: Reuters
Source: Reuters
Heavy flooding has displaced at least 85,000 people in Myanmar.
According to government relief officials, the people fled their homes on Saturday, following the worst monsoon flooding in years, which covered about 250,000 hectares of rice fields.
The Irrawaddy Delta, which was devastated in 2008 by Cyclone Nargis, was reported the worst hit area.
Cyclone Nargis killed about 130,000 people in the delta in 2008.
Heavy rains over the past few weeks have been the reason for the flooding, which initially hit the southern delta region.
At least three people died in Haiti as Tropical Storm Isaac triggered mudslides and flooding there before heading back over water and towards Cuba. Isaac should become a Category 1 hurricane on Sunday just as it nears the Florida Keys, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, and then grow into an even stronger Category 2 storm.
"Hurricane conditions are expected in the hurricane warning area in southwest Florida and the Florida Keys on Sunday," the center said in a Saturday morning advisory.
The center now expects Isaac to build to a Category 2 hurricane, with winds up to 110 mph, after it enters the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
In Haiti, a woman and a child in the town of Souvenance were killed in the storm, a local official reported.
In the capital Port-au-Prince -- where some 350,000 people are still living in tents or shelters after the 2010 Haiti earthquake -- a girl, 10, was killed when a wall fell on her.
It is an astonishing view of the swirling paths hurricanes and tropical storms have taken across the globe.
This amazing image was created by designer John Nelson, and shows data of every recorded event since 1851.
It also offers a unique perspective of the earth from the bottom up - with Antarctica in the middle, the Americas on the right and Asia on the left
Mapmaker Nelson, the user experience and mapping manager for IDV Solutions, a data visualization company, claims the unique view was the best way to tell the story of the data.
'When I put it onto a rectangular map it was neat looking, but a little bit disappointing,' Nelson told OurAmazingPlanet.
But the unorthodox, bottom-up perspective allowed the curving paths the storms make across the world's oceans to shine, he said.
This amazing image was created by designer John Nelson, and shows data of every recorded event since 1851.
It also offers a unique perspective of the earth from the bottom up - with Antarctica in the middle, the Americas on the right and Asia on the left
© John Nelson, IDV SolutionsAn astonishing new map reveals all of the world's hurricanes and intense weather events since 1951 in a single image.
'When I put it onto a rectangular map it was neat looking, but a little bit disappointing,' Nelson told OurAmazingPlanet.
But the unorthodox, bottom-up perspective allowed the curving paths the storms make across the world's oceans to shine, he said.
"It was definitely the closest I've ever seen a lightning strike," LT. Jay Kircher said.
LT. Jay Kircher says he and his crew were sitting in the operations center when they heard the crack and then saw four lighting bolts come down and make a meteor like hole right in the center of the tarmac with spraying debris everywhere.
"I remember it was so different, usually you just hear it, you hear the crack and maybe a little rumble, but this was like a transformer about to explode," Kircher explained.
The U.S. Coast Guard has strict guidelines in place as far as severe weather goes, and all of their pilots have spent much of their careers studying it, and they say they have never seen anything like this.
Three of the dead have already been identified, Emergency Ministry says. They are reported to have been tourists.
The overall number of those affected by the disaster currently stands between 1,500 and 1,800 people, according to different sources.
The heavy rainfalls battering the area in the last 24 hours - in some places the average monthly falls - triggered the flooding.
Tropical Storm Isaac strengthened as it dumped heavy rains on Haiti on Saturday, threatening floods and mudslides in a country where hundreds of thousands of people remain homeless more than two years after a devastating earthquake.
Lashing rains and high winds were reported along parts of Haiti's southern coast and in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, where more than 350,000 survivors of the 2010 earthquake are still living in fragile tent and tarpaulin camps.
Intermittent power outages affected the greater Port-au-Prince area in the early hours of Saturday as Isaac bore down on the impoverished Caribbean country.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said at 2 a.m. ET that Isaac was 55 miles southwest of Port au Prince and moving northwest at 13 mph.
It had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, the NHC added.
Its center was expected to pass over Haiti's southern coast early Saturday. The NHC warned there was a possibility Isaac could reach hurricane intensity before making landfall in Haiti.
Comment: Go here to see John Nelson's hurricane and tropical storms map in close-up detail.