For years, people have warned that the smallest nations on the planet — Pacific island states that barely rise out of the ocean — face being wiped off the map by rising sea levels. Now the first analysis of the data broadly suggests the opposite: most have remained stable over the last 60 years, while some have even grown. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tropical Storm Agatha swept across Central America yesterday, bringing torrential rain that killed more than 100 people and opened a 60m-deep sinkhole in Guatemala City which reportedly swallowed up a three-storey building.
The first named storm of the 2010 Pacific season dumped more than a metre of rain in parts of Guatemala, also hitting El Salvador and Honduras. At least 113 people were reported killed, with around 50 missing in Guatemala alone as rescue workers searched through the rubble.
The 30m-diameter sinkhole opened up in a northern district of Guatemala City, with residents blaming the rains and substandard drainage systems. Local reports said one man was killed when the building was swallowed. In 2007, three people died when a similar sinkhole appeared in the same area.
full story: Guardian
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An earthquake with a potential of triggering tsunami jolted Aceh around 1 p.m. on Sunday, stirring panic among residents.
The quake, measuring 7.2 on Richter scale, shook the western coast of Aceh, with epicenter of the temblor located at 66 kilometers southwest of Meulaboh at a depth of 30 kilometers beneath the see floor, according to the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency.
No damages or casualties were reported following the quake, which was also felt in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.
Over 1,000 houses in Simeulue and Aceh Singkil regencies were damaged when a 7.7-magnitude quake rocked Aceh early last month.
source: Jakarta Post
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An unidentified object, thought to be a fragment of a meteorite, has landed on a beach near Tel Aviv. Israeli police released mobile phone footage of something burning in the town of Bat Yam, as people gathered round to look.
source: BBC News
Update:
Geological Survey of Israel in Jerusalem made an official and unequivocal announcement that the unidentified object that landed at the Bat Yam beach on Saturday was not a meteor, but a man-made object.
“It is definitely not a meteor and not a different natural substance – somebody created it,” said Dr. Ittai Gavrieli. According to Gavrieli, “the object has high concentration of phosphorus, which is naturally ignited when it comes in contact with air, along with an inflammatory material; but it certainly did not come from outer-space.”
source: Ynetnews
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Tornadoes ripped through the southern U.S. Saturday, killing at least 10 people, including three children. Dozens of other people were injured.
A tornado more than a kilometer wide tore through central Mississippi, killing residents, destroying homes, blocking highways and knocking out power. Yazoo City was hit the hardest.
Mississippi’s governor, Haley Barbour, declared a state of emergency in the affected counties. He directed National Guard troops to help local officials responding to the storms.
Tornadoes also struck other southern states.
source: Voice of America
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A cloud of ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano is drifting across Europe today. This has caused a massive disruption in air travel, as many countries have grounded their planes. On the bright side, the cloud is causing sunsets of rare beauty. Europeans should look west at the end of the day. (Skywatching tip from spaceweather.com)
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Airline passengers are facing disruption across the UK after warnings of an ash cloud from a volcanic eruption in Iceland.
All of Scotland’s airports were shut and there were disruptions at others including Manchester, Liverpool, Stansted, Newcastle and Birmingham.
The Air Traffic Control Service (Nats), imposed restrictions after the Met Office warned ash could damage engines.
Birmingham airport warned of severe disruption with about 90% of flights cancelled, and there were problems reported at East Midlands, Leeds Bradford and Cardiff.
A Nats spokesman said: “The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre has issued a forecast that the ash cloud from the volcanic eruption in Iceland will track over Europe tonight.
The eruption under a glacier in the Eyjafjallajoekull area of Iceland is the second in Iceland in less than a month.
source: BBC News
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About 300 people have died and 8,000 others were injured after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit northwest China’s Qinghai Province early on Wednesday, a local official said.
Many others are still buried under the debris of collapsed houses near the epicenter, said Huang Limin, deputy secretary-general of the government of the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu.
About 700 soldiers are now struggling to clear away the rubble and rescue the buried people, a spokesman with the Qinghai Provincial Emergency Office said.
More than 85 percent of the houses in the Jiegu Township near the epicenter had collapsed, said Zhuohuaxia, a publicity official with the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu.
At least 18 aftershocks have been reported so far, with the biggest being 6.3 magnitude about an hour and 36 minutes later.
“Aftershocks above 6 magnitude are still likely to happen in the coming several days,” warned Liu Jie, of the China Earthquake Networks Center.
full story: xinhuanet.com
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Members of the south Iceland search and rescue team Árborg fetched two German hikers yesterday who had been stormbound for three days in Baldvinsskáli, a cabin on the Fimmvörduháls mountain pass near the volcanic eruption.
Despite spending three days on the mountain pass, the tourists were unable to see the eruption. “It was too risky,” said Tomas, one of the hikers. Meanwhile it seems as if the eruption has calmed down. It hasn’t been seen for a while due to poor visibility in the eruption area. “It is very likely that there is little activity there now, if any,” said geophysicist Ármann Höskuldsson.
Höskuldsson said this is not a definite sign that the eruption is over, pointing out that in the underwater eruption which created Surtsey island in 1963, activity also calmed down for a while but then resumed.
However, at 7:34 this morning an earthquake measuring 3.2 points on the Richter scale hit the northeastern Eyjafjallajökull glacier, mbl.is reports.
Geologist Einar Kjartansson at the Icelandic Meteorological Office stressed that the sensor located directly at the eruption site on Fimmvörduháls is not showing seismic activity and that the situation is similar as to what is was one hour before the eruption began on March 20.
source: Iceland Review Online
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An earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale in the town of Dúrcal (Granada) was felt at various different points along the Granada coast in the early hours of this morning, but has not caused any damage to property.
A number of inhabitants of Dúrcal alerted the local police at midnight after experiencing the earthquake, although many people were already asleep and woke up unaware of the event, so it has not produced great alarm.
The quake was felt at several points along the coast of Granada, but no material damage or injury or injury has been recorded anywhere. Read the rest of this entry »
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