catastrophe

christchurch earthquakes followed by fukushima's earthquakes on 11 march 2011,tsunami and nuclear plant explosion
sending thousands to death and homeless,shortage of food..

tokyO: Japanese military helicopters dumped water Thursday onto the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant northeast of Tokyo in a bid to douse fuel rods and prevent a disastrous radiation release.

SAlt in demand due to nuclear radiations.

YANGON: At least 25 people were killed and dozens of buildings destroyed when a strong earthquake struck Myanmar near the Thai border, officials from both countries said Friday.

Tremors were felt as far away as Bangkok, almost 800 kilometres (500 miles) from the epicentre, Hanoi and parts of China during the earthquake on Thursday, which the US Geological Survey (USGS) measured at magnitude 6.8.

BANGKOK: Thailand mobilised its only aircraft carrier as efforts to rescue thousands trapped on storm-swept holiday islands intensified on Wednesday after severe flooding across the south killed 15.

Victims were either swept away by the rising waters, or buried in mudslides as the unseasonably wet weather deluged the homes and businesses of around a million people in what should be one of the hottest months of the year.

MEXICO CITY : An earthquake measuring 6.5 struck southern and central Mexico on Thursday, but there were no initial reports of damage or casualties, Mexican and US officials said.

The tremor was strong enough to shake buildings and restaurants hundreds of miles away in the capital Mexico City, residents said.

US experts said the quake hit the Veracruz region at 8:11 am (1311 GMT) some 57 kilometres (35 miles) from the city of Las Choapas. It was 167 kilometres (101 miles) deep.

The US Geological Survey measured the quake at 6.5 on the moment magnitude scale, and said the epicentre was almost 600 kilometres (370 miles) east of the capital.

No warning of a destructive tsunami was generated, the Pacific Tsunami Warning centre said in a statement.

The quake was especially felt in the southern state of Chiapas, which borders on Guatemala, an AFP correspondent reported.

In Mexico City - where memories of the magnitude 8.1 quake of September 19, 1985 that killed between 10,000 and 30,000 people remain fresh - restaurants and school buildings quickly emptied out.

"It was a strong one, and we have activated all the monitoring systems but have had no reports of damage or victims," said Elias Miguel Moreno, in charge of the Civil Protection office for Mexico City.

In Xalapa, the capital city of Veracruz, where earthquakes are not common, many people ran out into the streets, but there no early reports of damage or any injuries.

Thursday's quake is the strongest recorded so far this year in Mexico.

In October, a 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit the northwestern state of Baja California Sur, but caused only minor damage.

And in April 2010, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake killed two people and damaged thousands of homes in Baja California close to the US border.

TOKYO - A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit northeastern Japan late Thursday, seismologists said, prompting Japanese authorities to issue a localised tsunami alert.

The quake, which hit at 11:32 pm local time (1432 GMT), had a magnitude of 7.4, according to the US Geological Survey, which said it struck 66 kilometres (40 miles) east of Sendai.

Japan's weather bureau issued a tsunami alert for the Pacific coast, saying that waves of up to two metres could hit the shoreline.

In a statement on its website the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said it did not expect a Pacific-wide tsunami.

The quake had a depth of 25.6 kilometres (15.9 miles), the USGS said.

Although the epicentre was at a distance of 333 kilometres (207 miles) from Tokyo, it caused buildings to shake in the Japanese capital.

"Please do not hesitate to leave for higher ground, nor try to return to the coast line. Please do not try to check the status of the coastline," broadcaster NHK said repeatedly.

Its advice not to go to the coastline was supposedly addressed to fishermen worried about their boats.

JAPAN: A powerful earthquake of magnitude-7.1 has hit Japan's Fukushima prefecture, exactly one month after Japan was hit by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake which resulted in a powerful tsunami.

CHICAGO - At least nine people, including three young children, were killed as a powerful storm whipped up tornadoes across the central United States, officials said Friday.

The storm toppled trees and power lines, tore roofs off houses, and scattered tractor-trailers across highways.

Two-dozen tornadoes were reported in Mississippi and Alabama on Friday, a day after 15 twisters struck in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas, the National Weather Service said.

Many of the deaths were in rural areas of Arkansas and most of the damage was caused by falling trees.

But the storm was powerful enough to lift a double-wide trailer into the air and toss it about 70 feet (21 meters), killing a 65-year-old woman and critically injuring a 70-year-old man inside.

"Three of the seven victims were seven years of age or younger," said Tommy Jackson, spokesman for the Arkansas department of emergency management.

"It's quite sad."

A mother and her 7-year-old child were killed when a tree fell on their house in the city of Little Rock and a father and his infant son were killed when a tree fell on their mobile home in Garland County, Jackson said.

A 6-year-old child was killed when a tree fell on a house in White County and a man was killed when a tree fell on his trailer in Pulasky County.

Two other people were killed in Oklahoma when a major twister tore through Atoka County.

"It's pretty extensive," said Laura Taylor of the county sheriff's office.

"There are several houses destroyed. The school is pretty much leveled and there's two confirmed dead."

Meanwhile, the state of North Dakota continued to struggle to contain near-record flooding of the Red River.

- AFP /ls

WASHINGTON: Severe storms that ripped through the central United States left at least 10 people dead in the state of Arkansas, as authorities on Tuesday warned of "historic" flooding and urged people immediately to move to higher ground.

Torrential downpours have drenched a swath of the US midwest in recent weeks, saturating the ground and leaving river levels precariously high, leading the National Weather Service to warn of "catastrophic flash flooding."

In flash flooding advisories for Missouri, the NWS warned that the rising waters were "historic-type flooding that only rarely occurs."

Authorities were evacuating 1,000 people along the swollen Black River near the Missouri city of Poplar Bluff, home to some 17,000 people, as a compromised levee had reportedly already failed at four points.

Due to the placement of the failure, city deputy police chief Jeff Rolland told CNN the river's flooding was headed for rural but still populated Butler County.

Flash flood warnings were issued by the weather service in Arkansas in the wake of severe thunderstorms that flooded roads, fatally sweeping away at least six people in their vehicles, Arkansas Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Renee Presslar confirmed to AFP.

A deadly tornado, meanwhile, slammed the central town of Vilonia late Monday, claiming the lives of four people, said ADEM spokesman Chad Stover.

"There are a lot of responders still responding to yesterday's storm, and then preparation is underway for another round of even more severe (storms) than we saw yesterday, appearing later this afternoon, later this evening," Stover said earlier Tuesday.

"The entire state is at very severe risk for storm," he said. "We are urging all of our local citizens to be prepared, to have a plan for their families and where they would go for severe weather."

Emergencies were declared by governors in the states of Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky due to the flooding and the expected new round of storms.

Governor Pat Quinn in Illinois also activated the state's National Guard to "support flood-fighting and life safety missions in southern Illinois," his office said.

The NWS in its flash flood warning for three counties in Missouri's southwest said a "combination of heavy rainfall over the last five days... along with anticipated rainfall over the next 24 to 48 hours" has prompted the river to rise to 6.4 metres.

That rise would easily eclipse the river's flood stage of 4.8 metres, said the NWS.

In central and south Indiana the NWS issued a flash flood watch amid warnings of more thunderstorms expected through to Wednesday, saying heavy rains on already saturated ground could lead to overflowing rivers later in the week.

The NWS issued a tornado warning for westernmost Kentucky, saying the accompanying thunderstorm could also produce golf ball size hail.

Earlier the service had issue an urgent warning for the small Kentucky town of Sulphur where a dam was on the brink of failing: "If you live near this river... evacuate to higher ground now!"

The destructive weather come after weeks of storms sweeping the country's midwestern states, including a massive tornado that tore through St. Louis international airport on Friday that ripped off the roof of the main terminal and blew out windows and doors, but causing no fatalities.

Powerful tornadoes also struck several southern and central US states earlier this month, killing 44 people and reducing whole neighbourhoods to rubble.

the worst tornado in south eastern us. on friday

Saturday, May 7, 2011


World News




Floods swamp tornado-ravaged central US
Posted: 07 May 2011 0653 hrs
A resident removes clothes from his flooded home in Tiptonville, Tennessee, USA. (AFP/Getty Images/Scott Olson)

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A resident removes clothes from his flooded home in Tiptonville, Tennessee, USA. (AFP/Getty Images/Scott Olson)



VICKSBURG, Mississippi: Weary residents in the storm-ravaged central United States packed their belongings into moving trucks and prayed for levees to hold on Friday as swollen rivers swallowed roads, farms and homes.

"When you see the Mississippi River and it's three kilometres wide it's sobering," Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam told CNN.

"We have everything from state prisons to nursing homes that could be in danger from the flooding."

Elaine Fuller, 74, had started putting her belongings in the attic when a federal emergency management agent came to her modest brick ranch home in rural Mississippi and told her she had to leave.

"They said I might be able to see the roof," she said as she walked through the now-empty house near the Yazoo River.

Hundreds of people have been driven from their homes by the rising waters as National Guardsmen and civilian volunteers struggle to build temporary levees and lay out sandbags in front of homes and businesses.

"There are records here being broken that go back to 1927," said Pat Slattery, a spokesman for the National Weather Service.

Much of the flooding comes from the same weather system which sparked the deadliest tornado outbreak in the United States since 1925, which claimed the lives of 350 people across the US south.

That massive storm sucked moisture out of the Gulf of Mexico and brought two weeks of heavy rain to the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys before it finally moved out to sea, Slattery told AFP.

Tributaries across the region have also flooded after the ground became saturated and scores of roads have been closed as the rivers breach their banks.

Most unprotected farmland in northwest Tennessee, southeast Missouri, and northeast Arkansas was swamped and the deep waters covering roadways was hampering evacuation efforts, the weather service said.

Police and firefighters knocked on the doors of more than 1,000 homes and businesses in Memphis, Tennessee, on Friday to warn people to pack up their belongings and seek higher ground.

"Anybody that's ever been flooded before is going to be flooded again, that's a given," Steve Schular, a spokesman for Shelby County, told AFP.

"What we're trying to do is insure the safety of the other people so they can get their belongings out and - most importantly - get themselves out."

Inmates, government workers and volunteers have been filling thousands of sandbags to shore up levees and protect key buildings like hospitals in anticipation of a record crest of the Mississippi River on Wednesday.

But the flood threat is not expected to ease for weeks, and the county's emergency management team is straining to manage the response.

"Starting April 4 we've had continual storms that took down trees and left roads blocked," Schular said from the busy operations centre.

"Now it looks like we're going to be here for at least another month."

Officials warned residents to be wary of wildlife fleeing the rising waters - particularly snakes like the cottonmouth water moccasin which are more aggressive due to mating season.

One Tennessee florist has been using paddle boats to get to her greenhouse and retrieve plants and flowers slated for delivery for Mother's Day on Sunday.

"If God would just take his pinky finger and do whatever he does and blow the water away, man we're ready," Teresa Nance, who owns Bayless Greenhouse in Millington told WREG news.

-

MANILA (AFP) – Tropical storm Aere slammed into the eastern Philippine coast on Sunday, bringing heavy rains and landslides that have so far killed three people and forced thousands to leave their homes.

The Philippines' state weather bureau said Aere made landfall over the island of Catanduanes before noon, and was expected to move north-westerly for the next 24 hours.

Three people were killed when heavy rains triggered a landslide in the province of Camarines Sur in the eastern Bicol region, where local officials scrambled to launch rescue and relief missions.

"The provincial road going to the (area) is not passable due to flooding," said Inspector Ayn Natuel, a spokesman at the Bicol regional police headquarters.

MEMPHIS: The worst floods to hit the central United States in more than 70 years have swallowed up homes, farms and roads after the Mississippi River swelled to six times its normal width.

Army engineers on Tuesday patrolled stressed levees in waterlogged Memphis, Tennessee, where the Mississippi -- normally about half a mile across -- is currently about three miles (4.8 kilometres) wide.

LORCA, Spain - A magnitude 5.1 quake killed at least eight people in southern Spain on Wednesday, sending historic buildings crashing down as panicked residents fled for their lives.

Eight people perished in the deadliest tremor in Spain in more than five decades, a spokeswoman for the regional government of Murcia said, revising down an earlier toll of 10 dead without explanation.

The quake collapsed fronts of buildings in the southeastern town of Lorca and ripped open walls, which slumped into the streets.

typhoon hits taiwan, sending cars overturned.
on fri day afternoon

ANKARA - An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale hit northwest Turkey late Thursday, killing one person and causing material damage, local governor Kenan Ciftci told news channel NTV.

REYKJAVIK - The Grimsvoetn volcano under Iceland's largest glacier began erupting Saturday, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said, reporting a tall plume of smoke rising from the crater.

"An eruption at Grimsvoetn has started and there's an airplane on its way there now to investigate further," Haraldur Eirkisson of the office told AFP.

"There was a cloud rising up from Grimsvoetn around 1900 GMT and at just before 2000 GMT it had reached an altitude of 11 kilometres (6.8 miles)," he added.

Grimsvoetn is Iceland's most active volcano, having erupted nine times between 1922 and 2004. It lies beneath the Vatnajoekull glacier in the southeast of the North Atlantic island nation.

The eruption in April last year of Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano, southwest of Grimsvoetn, shut down large swathes of European airspace for almost a month amid fears the volcanic ash could wreak havoc on aircraft engines.

No two volcanic eruptions are the same, and it remained unclear late Saturday if the new eruption threatened to emit a similar kind of ash -- fine, with very sharp particles -- like the massive plume that burst from Eyjafjoell.

The problem with last year's eruption, according to the researchers, was that it happened under a glacier, bursting through 200-300 metres (yards) of ice.

It was the "interaction between the cold water and the hot magma that made the particles really tiny," and therefore especially dangerous to aircraft, Susan Stipp, a professor at the Nano-Science Centre at the University of Copenhagen, told AFP late last month.

Grimsvoetn is however also located under a glacier, in an enormous, eight-kilometre diameter caldera -- a collapsed volcanic crater -- near the centre of the Vatnajoekull icefield.

When it last erupted in November 2004, volcanic ash fell as far away as mainland Europe and caused some disruptions in flights to and from Iceland.

Geologists had worried late last year the volcano was about to blow when they noticed a large river run caused by rapidly melting glacier ice.

Eruptions at Grimsvoetn traditionally result in massive flooding, although this has little impact since the surrounding areas are uninhabited.

New tornadoes strike battered US Midwest
Posted: 25 May 2011 0826 hrs
Rescuers search for survivors in the tornado-hit town of Joplin, Missouri. (Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP)

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Rescuers search for survivors in the tornado-hit town of Joplin, Missouri. (Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP)


Video
New tornadoes strike battered US Midwest

JOPLIN, Missouri: New storms on Wednesday threatened a devastated Missouri town still looking for survivors from one of the strongest tornadoes on record after deadly twisters struck neighboring US states.

OPLIN, Missouri - Authorities said Friday the death toll from one of the worst tornadoes ever to hit the United States rose to 132, while the number of missing fell to 156 from 232.

The death toll in the tornado, which cut a path of destruction through this town of 50,000 people, rose overnight to from a previously reported 125, said city of Joplin spokeswoman Lynn Onstot.

The steep decline in the number of missing persons came after the Missouri Department of Public Safety published a list of 232 persons unaccounted for, and discovered that 90 people on the list were in fact alive, said spokesman Seth Bundy.

Bundy said an additional six persons on the list had died, two were duplicate names, and an additional 22 missing persons reports were filed, bringing the official number of missing to 156.

SINGAPORE: National water agency PUB explained that the flash floods on Sunday morning were caused by two bouts of heavy rainfall.

It said this at a news conference on Sunday afternoon, which was also attended by Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan.

The first bout of rainfall started slightly past 6am, and second downpour, which was more intense, occurred at about 10.30am.

About 65mm of rainfall was recorded within 30 minutes.

This was worse than the one on June 16 last year, which had 100mm of rainfall within two hours.

PUB said it had mobilised staff and contractors to the flooded sites once it received alerts of heavy rain.

PUB also deployed tankers to affected areas to pump out the water from carparks located in basements of buildings.

PUB chief executive Khoo Teng Chye said he is studying some possible solutions to prevent future occurrences.

"These include, possibly, building a big retention pond near where we can then trap some of the peak flows," Mr Khoo said.

"The other alternative is to really create a diversion canal from where this pond is to the Singapore River.

"But given Singapore's built-up situation, these are very, very expensive schemes."

Meanwhile, Dr Balakrishnan outlined five key areas that he would focus on, in dealing with floods in Singapore.

Speaking after inspecting the flood areas at Tanglin Mall, Dr Balakrishnan said one of his priorities now is to ensure safety is maintained along drains.

Dr Balakrishnan stressed there's no compromising safety.

He said railings will be installed where needed, and drains covered in the short term so that no one gets hurt.

On Wednesday, a 15-year-old teenager died when he fell into an uncovered drain swollen with rainwater.

BEIJING : China said on Monday it has evacuated more than 60,000 people in the nation's southwest, after torrential rain triggered floods that killed one and left another 15 missing.

The floods in Guizhou province also damaged or destroyed thousands of houses, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a statement.

During the downpours, water levels on a river in Guizhou's Wangmo county rose over three metres above the safe level, before dropping back to a normal range, the official Xinhua news agency said.

State television broadcast images of water raging through towns, cars piled up and motorbikes covered in brown sludge. It also showed people being evacuated in the eastern province of Jiangxi, also hit by floods.

In neighbouring Hunan, meanwhile, around 16,000 people were evacuated in Loudi city during rainstorms, Xinhua said in a separate report.

The province has recently been hit by a severe drought, and the recent rains had helped alleviate the situation, the report said.

China suffers from serious summer rainfalls every year. In 2010, torrential downpours across large swathes of the country triggered the nation's worst floods in a decade.

More than 4,300 people died or went missing in China last year in landslides or floods, including 1,500 people who were killed in one devastating mudslide in the northwestern province of Gansu in August.

China's flood control and drought relief headquarters said Monday that the recent downpours had helped ease a severe drought along the Yangtze river, but warned that more than two million people s

BEIJING - Floods triggered by torrential rain in southern and central China have killed 52 people and forced more than 100,000 to flee their homes, state media reported on Wednesday.

DUTCH HARBOR, Alaska : A powerful 7.3-magnitude earthquake shook Alaska's Aleutian Islands late Thursday, triggering a tsunami warning that sent people heading for high ground before the alert was cancelled.

Hundreds of people walked, drove and rode in the back of pickup trucks as they fled the coast after the earthquake struck 80 miles (130 kilometres) northeast of the seafood port of Dutch Harbor, home to some 4,400 people.

The temblor struck at 7:10pm local time (0300 GMT Friday), triggering a tsunami warning from the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC).

Sirens rang out, officials ordered people to move to at least 50 feet above sea level, and fishing boats could be seen steaming out of the harbour as a precaution in case waves strike the coast line.

"Those feeling the earth shake, seeing unusual wave action or the water level rising or receding may have only a few minutes before the tsunami arrival and should move immediately," warned the WCATWC.

"Homes and small buildings are not designed to withstand tsunami impacts. Do not stay in these structures," officials warned.

But about an hour later it was all over. "We've confirmed that no wave has been generated," acting public safety director Matt Betzen said at 8:21pm (0421 GMT). "We're giving the all-clear."

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in or near the remote i

hurricane irene hits newyork