March 15, 2015 - BRAZIL
- Up to 54 people died as a result of an accident in the southern
Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, in which a bus fell into a ravine
from a height of 400 meters, local police said in a dramatic increase of
the initial death toll.
The bus fell down a cliff near the town of Campo Alegre when it was some 10 kilometers (six miles) away from its destination in the city of Joinville.
It was bringing a group of evangelical Christians to a religious event in the neighboring state, Reuters reported.
The toll was raised from 32 killed and 11 injured after emergency crews working at the scene discovered another 19 bodies. The total number of passengers was not immediately clear. The latest report says that at least six survivors, including two children, are being treated for injuries.
Police said the brakes of the bus appeared to have failed at a turn in the road.
WATCH: Raw - Bus falls 400m into ravine in Brazil.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff expressed her sympathy for the families and friends of the dead.
Traffic accidents have recently surged in the South American nation, according to the data cited by AFP over the years 2002 to 2012, with about 43,000 Brazilians now killed in road accidents annually. - RT.
Cyclone Pam was heading southwest when NASA’s Aqua
satellite acquired this image at 1:30 p.m. local time (2:20 Universal
Time) on March 13, 2015, shortly before the storm struck the island of
Efate, and Vanuatu’s capital city, Port Vila.
March 15, 2015 - SOUTH PACIFIC
- Tropical Cyclone Pam may have weakened somewhat Saturday morning, but
it was still pounding the islands of Vanuatu after hours of fierce
winds and torrential rain.
"#CyclonePam still tearing through #Vanuatu. 'Much bigger than expected,'says our colleague in Port Vila. Initial reports of devastation," tweeted the Australian branch of UNICEF.
Pam, one of the strongest storms seen in the South Pacific in years,
earlier made a direct hit on Port Vila, the capital, raising fears of
mass destruction.
In its 8 a.m. Saturday update, the Vanuatu
Meteorological Services warned of "very destructive hurricane force
winds" of 155 mph (250 kilometers per hour) in Shefa and Tafea
provinces, with several others facing "very rough to phenomenal seas
with heavy swells."
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Pearl
Harbor, Hawaii, said the cyclone had weakened from the equivalent of a
Category 5 hurricane to a Category 4.It has dumped more than 9 inches of rain on the capital in a 36-hour period and has wind gusts of up to 190 mph(305 kph).
Pam is forecast to move southeastward along the western edge of the
southern islands of Vanuatu. It isn't expected to make any additional
landfalls before dissipating.
It will continue to weaken as it crosses cooler waters and encounters higher wind shear.
Pam
is expected to pass east of New Zealand on Sunday and into Monday. It
could bring heavy rainfall to North Island, including Auckland.
The capital,the biggest city in the Vanuatu island chain,sits on the
coastline, which is vulnerable to storm surges during powerful cyclones.
Tropical
Cyclone Pam is the strongest storm to make landfallsince the
devastating Super Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines in 2013.
Chloe Morrison, an emergency communications director for the
humanitarian organization World Vision, told CNN that she could see some
light between her boarded-up windows but it was still hard to see the
totality of the destruction outside the house where she and seven others
huddled in a back room during the storm.
WATCH: Passage of Super-Cyclone Pam.
"Seven hours hunkered
down and it's still not safe to go outside," she said. "The winds are
still really howling. We're really lucky to be in a concrete house."
Part of the tin roof twisted off the house and landed by one of the
windows, she said. She also noted that two trees outside didn't get
uprooted, but they had not one bit of fruit or any leaves remaining.
Despite the "quite terrifying ordeal," Morrison said, their house didn't have any damage.
Through the night, the wind and torrential rain made it sound like an angry ocean was just outside their doors, she said.
World Vision, which says it's been based in Vanuatu for more than 30
years, said its emergency assessment team would head out to view the
damage when it is safe.
The staff helped prepare communities on
the islands for the cyclone by positioning water, food, blankets,
tarpaulins, and shelter, hygiene and kitchen kits in key places, it
said, as well as advising on disaster preparedness.
WATCH: Cyclone Pam menaces Vanuatu.
Residents have been advised to seek shelter in places such as churches, universities and schools.
"The strongest thing they've got is cement churches," said Inga Mepham,
program director for CARE International for the Vanuatu program. "Some
of them don't have that. It's hard to find a structure that you'd think
would be able to withstand a Category 5 (storm)."'Vanuatu Monster'
Earlier, photographer Michael McLennan -- who said the storm is being called the "Vanuatu Monster" -- told CNN that the "strength of winds is incredible."
Video footage he shot earlier Friday showed palm trees being whipped by wind and rain.
Tropical Cyclone Pam slams Vanuatu capital
Evacuation alerts have been issued for several parts of the country.
Even before the sun rose Saturday, Vanuatu was already getting hit
hard, with most communication and power cut off due to the storm.
"The wind outside is terrifying," Michael Wolfe, World Vision's
national director in Vanuatu, told that organization. "I can't imagine
what it's like for families out there who weren't able to find safe
shelter before the storm." The
archipelago nation northeast of Australia contains 83 small islands,
many of which have little infrastructure and lack the strong housing
structures that can endure a walloping storm.
Because of the tropical climate in Vanuatu, some of the housing is made
of lighter building materials, including straw and corrugated metals.
Residents prepared for the storm, boarding up windows and chopping down
trees that stand close to buildings in case they could become debris or
cause further damage or injury.
WATCH:Cyclone Pam make landfall in Port Vila, Vanuatu.
CNN host Bill Weir, who was
recently in Vanuatu on assignment, said that while Port Vila has some
modern development in the form of an airport, large hotels and a
convention center that's under construction, life on some of the islands
has remained almost unchanged for thousands of years.
"For search and rescue, for bringing food and supplies and medicine, it's extremely challenging," he said.
Pam has triggered watches and warnings in the Solomon Islands and New Zealand. - CNN.
4 cyclones in South Pacific simultaneously: The biggest, Super-Cyclone Pam, is South Pacific's strongest ever
The strongest tropical cyclone on record in the South Pacific, Tropical Cyclone Pam, a Category 5 super storm,
hit Vanuatu last night causing deaths and destruction. This morning Pam
had a central pressure as low as 899hPa and was gusting up to 335km per
hour at its centre. It is one of four cyclones unusually affecting the South Pacific at the same time.
The Vanuatu Meteorological Services warned very destructive
hurricane-force winds of 250 kilometres per hour continued to affect the
country's southern provinces this morning. It said the central pressure
of the system was estimated at 900 hectopascals, which is among the
strongest tropical cyclones on record.
Furthermore, at 8:00 am
today, Saturday, the Fiji Meteorological Service reported that Severe
Tropical Cyclone Pam (Category 5) was located about 890km West of Nadi.
"It
has a central pressure of 899hPa and average wind speeds of 250km per
hour close to the centre with gusts up to 335km per hour. It is
currently moving South 20km per hour. It is gradually turning
southeasterly," Fiji Met stated.
Vanuatu
The full impact of Pam on Vanuatu today is unknown as communications in
the worst hit areas are not restored, but early reports state dozens of
deaths.
NASA's Goddard Space Centre has released images today
of Cyclone Pam taken shortly before it struck the island of Efate, which
is home to Vanuatu's capital city, Port Vila.
Cyclone Pam was
heading in a southwesterly direction when the Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite acquired this
image at 1:30 p.m. local time on March 13, 2015.
"The
eastern side of Efate likely took the strongest hit from the cyclone's
eyewall, but Port Vila, which is on the southwestern side of the island,
faced extremely destructive conditions. As the storm approached the
city, it had sustained winds up to 265 kilometers (165 miles) per hour,
making it the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane. Dozens of people are
feared dead and forecasters expect flooding and catastrophic damage in
the city," NASA's Earth Observatory website reported.
Nathan, Olwyn and Bavi
On the same day, another major tropical cyclone, Category 3 Olwyn, made
landfall in Western Australia near the city of Carnarvon and captured
on NASA's Terra satellite. Thousands of people in Carnarvon lost power
as a result of the storm, which weakened as it pushed inland.
Nathan has been circling the coast of Queensland, Australia, the last
few days, but is expected to dissipate over the course of Friday.
A mosaic image compiled by NASA shows three storms - Pam, Nathan, and
Olwyn - swirling near the continent on March 11, 2015. The mosaic is
based on data collected during three orbital passes of the Visible
Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on Suomi NPP.
A fourth storm, Bavi, is in the Pacific Ocean well north of Pam, and not shown on the image.
After Vanuatu, Pam is expected to head toward northern New Zealand.
According to Wikipedia, on the available records, a total of 70
tropical cyclones attained a pressure of less than 900 hPa (mbar) (26.56
inHg), most of which occurred in the Western North Pacific Ocean. The
strongest tropical cyclone recorded worldwide, as measured by minimum
central pressure, was Typhoon Tip, which reached a pressure of 870 hPa
(25.69 inHg) on October 12, 1979.
The most intense tropical
cyclone in the South Pacific was Cyclone Zoe, which formed in 2002, and
was also the most intense storm in the Southern Hemisphere.
However, by 10-minute sustained wind speed, the strongest tropical cyclone in the South Pacific is Cyclone Pam. - Matangi Tonga.
March 15, 2015 - EARTH - Here are several of the latest reports of sinkholes and landslides in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Massive sinkhole opens up in Southport, UK
A sinkhole in Churchtown village has caused traffic chaos
A
busy road junction in Southport is likely to be closed "for several
weeks" after a collapsed sewer caused a large sink hole to appear.
The hole, which is 15ft by 10ft, is at the traffic lights at the
junction of the A565 (Cambridge Road) and the A5267 (Preston New Road)
in Churchtown.
The sewer collapse caused delays for drivers heading through the village, and motorists commuting from Southport to Preston.
Engineers were on site all day today using tankers to pump water from the hole.
United Utilities spokesman John Martin said: "We've now managed to pump
the majority of water away which was escaping from the collapsed sewer.
"This has allowed us to CCTV the sewer pipe which has
confirmed the large hole in the road was a result of the sewer
collapsing underneath."
He added: "The next stage of work will be to put in some temporary pipes to prevent further flooding.
"We also need some cables to be moved from our working area so we can dig down and expose the damaged pipe.
"From this point, without seeing the full extent of the damaged pipe, we envisage we'll be on site for several weeks.
"We would urge commuters travelling in and around the area to leave
some extra time to make their journey. And we're very sorry for the
disruption." - Liverpool Echo.
Road closed due to sinkhole in Clarksville, Tennessee
A sinkhole has opened on Arrowood Dr. in Clarksville.
Arrowood Dr. will be closed from the back entrance of Wal-Mart to Jordan Dr. off Purple Heart Parkway until further notice.
Officer Natalie Hall with the Clarksville Police Department says any
drivers who go around the barricades in place to enter the blocked
roadway will be cited.
"The roadway is blocked off in order to
keep those in the immediate area safe from injury and to prevent further
damage created by the sinkhole," she said.
A large sinkhole opened on the same stretch of road last September.
A busy road in Plymouth Meeting, Montgomery County is closed until further notice because of a sinkhole.
Plymouth Road between the Blue Route and Butler Pike is detoured
indefinitely while PennDOT assesses how badly a sinkhole has damaged the
bridge over Plymouth Creek.
At street level, the 12×3 foot
hole takes up the narrow shoulder of the two-lane bridge. But down along
the creek bed, exposed utility lines are visible.
Drivers, meanwhile, are being forced to detour to Germantown Pike until PennDOT can assess the damage and repair the bridge. - CBS Philadelphia.
Bus ends up stuck in sinkhole in Lackawanna, New York
Bus stuck in sinkhole.
No students were injured Friday when a bus got stuck in a sinkhole on a street in Lackawanna.
John Sengbusch shared this picture with 7 Eyewitness News, taken on Modern Avenue.
He says there is a water main break on the street, which likely caused the sinkhole.
A second photo with this story from Sengbusch shows the large crater after the bus was removed. - WKBW.
School bus gets stuck in sinkhole in Kensington, Philadelphia
Huge hillside collapse shuts down road near Yeager Airport, West Virginia
A
worst-case scenario became reality Thursday when a large portion of the
Yeager Airport hillside — which began experiencing some disturbing
slippage over the weekend — collapsed
into the valley along Keystone Drive, destroying at least one house,
damaging a church, blocking a creek and forcing the evacuation of dozens
of residents.
Now officials are scrambling to mitigate damage as they wait on a man-made mountain to finish its bow to gravity.
"It's a bad situation," said Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper. "This is a very serious event."
Airport officials initially sounded an alarm Wednesday when they
evacuated six people from two houses along Keystone Drive as a
precaution when a portion of the hillside underneath the main runway's
emergency overrun area slipped about 6 feet over the weekend. Most of
the overrun area, known officially as the Engineered Material Arresting
System, or EMAS area, was built about eight years ago atop an engineered
fill containing about 1.5 million cubic yards of dirt. It was the back
portion of that area that began shifting significantly over the weekend.
During an emergency airport board meeting Wednesday, airport
officials and representatives from the airport's consulting firm Triad
Engineering said the chance of a landslide was slight, but they couldn't
discount the possibility.
"The likelihood of a catastrophic
failure and it being down in those houses or on that church is slight,
but if there is a risk, you're talking about people's lives and I could
never live with myself if we didn't strongly encourage them (to
relocate)," airport executive director Rick Atkinson said at the time.
However,
that remote possibility became a stark reality a short time after noon
Thursday when about a third of the engineered fill area began collapsing
into the valley below.
Aerial photo by West Virginia National Guard shows
the extent of the landslide that’s closed Keystone Drive. Yeager
Airport said about a third of the engineered fill beneath its main
runway overrun area has collapsed
Aerial photo by West Virginia National Guard shows
the extent of the landslide that’s closed Keystone Drive. Yeager
Airport said about a third of the engineered fill beneath its main
runway overrun area has collapsed.
Aerial photo by West Virginia National Guard shows
landslide collapsing into Elk Two Mile Creek. Officials worry the
landslide will dam the creek and flood homes along Keystone Drive.
Kanawha County emergency services officials quickly shut down Keystone
Drive at its entrances along Greenbrier Street and Barlow Drive and
began urging residents in the area, which runs along Elk Two Mile Creek,
to evacuate their homes.
Utilities crews from Appalachian
Power, Mountaineer Gas, West Virginia American Water and Lumos Networks
all rushed to the scene asthe
landslide toppled power lines, and either severed, damaged or put at
risk gas, water and fiber optic lines running through the area.
Mountaineer Gas spokesman Larry Meador said a small gas line ruptured
during the landslide, and many in the area reported smelling natural gas
as utility crews advised them not to smoke. Meador said crews were able
to work quickly to contain the problem.
"There's no danger at this time with our gas line," Meador said.
He said to contain the leak, the company shut off the gas supply to
about 30 customers along Keystone Drive. He said crews would work to
restore service to those homes later today by piping in gas from a
different direction.
West Virginia American Water experienced a
similar disruption of service, and crews were working during the
evening to reroute water supply.
Yeager Airport has been in constant
contact with engineers from both Triad Engineering and Canonsburg,
Pa.-based Cast & Baker Corp., which did the original engineering for
the fill project.
Airport marketing director Brian Belcher
said the crews are working on a plan to contain damage and repair the
site, but they can't do anything until the hillside settles.
"We have to let this stabilize because it's not safe for anyone right
now," Belcher said. "After the engineers and professionals in that area
determine it's safe to work, we have equipment on site ready to go to
begin remediation."
Belcher said about eight families had been
relocated to area hotels as of Thursday evening. The airport is covering
the entire cost of the hotel and any needs the families may have while
they're away from their homes. Officials with the American Red Cross
also are assisting the airport with feeding families and providing any
essentials they may need.
Belcher said affected should call Kim Lewis of Yeager Airport at 304-550-8131 for housing assistance.
Carper said local and state officials are monitoring the situation from
a safe distance. While they don't have the power to hold the mountain
at bay, he said they are working to mitigate any potential complications
from the landslide.
"We're preparing for every potential that we can think of," Carper said.
Officials are concerned about potential rainfall that is forecast for
Friday and Saturday. That could both worsen the landslide as well as
create a potential flooding problem.
Part of the landslide has
now blocked a portion of Elk Two Mile Creek. Kanawha Deputy Emergency
Manager and Fire Coordinator C.W. Sigman said officials are working on a
plan to clear the stream, but admitted that could be a tricky
situation.
"What
we're concerned about, if (the hill) does slide worse and it fills the
creek up, we'll have two issues," Sigman said. "We'll have a pretty
good-sized dam that we need to not flood people upstream."
Sigman said there was an excavator standing by to break a path through
the earthen dam in the creek, but said if too much water builds up
upstream, it could create a problem for those living downstream along
the creek.
"We don't want it to become too big a dam to where it releases too much at once and floods people downstream," Sigman said.
Residents and businesses along the creek have been warned of the flooding potential.
The Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association is already evacuating animals
in case of a flood. All of the cats at the shelter were fostered out
with help from the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee and the dogs were being
taken to Camp Virgil Tate near Sissonville.
One potential
complication worrying officials is a possible additional crack that
might be developing at the top of the hill in the runway overrun area.
Sigman said officials were warned of the potential new crack Thursday
afternoon, but they have yet to be able to evaluate whether it is fully
developed or could break away in a second landslide.
"We put in
a request through the state which will be granted that way we can get a
helicopter and put our airport engineers in it so they can take a look
at it and see what's going on," Sigman said as he watched operations
along Keystone Drive. "We can't see it from here."
As of Thursday evening, the landslide had yet to affect flights at Yeager Airport.
Only about the farthest third of the 440-foot airport overrun area has
been affected by the landslide. Airport officials said only about the
first 150 feet or so of the overrun area is really needed to stop the
planes that fly into and out of the area, and most of that area sits
atop the original mountain rock, not on the engineered fill.
Belcher said the biggest threat to airport operations at this time is
the risk of flooding due to the obstructed creek. The only way to drive
up to Yeager Airport is on a road that crosses Elk Two Mile Creek. If
the creek floods over the bridge leading to the airport, the airport
would have to shut down.
"That would close us because that's our only entry," Belcher said. - Charleston Daily Mail.
The new explosions follow one that occurred at 4:30 a.m. Friday and four on Thursday.
The Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI)'s web cameras recorded the explosions Friday. The agency reported that columns of material reached some 1,500 meters high (4,921 feet), similar to those recorded on Thursday.
Spewings of ash and gases lasted for periods of some 30 minutes, OVSICORI reported.
"So far, we don't
have any visual confirmation on magma levels rising up," he said,
"however the characteristics of the explosions suggest magma levels
could be increasing inside the crater," he said Friday morning.
Earlier on Friday, National Police officers closed all main access
roads to the volcano, allowing passage only to residents and workers in
nearby communities.
Following recommendations of the National
Emergency Commission, Public Education Ministry officials suspended
classes in 19 schools: 12 in Turrialba and 7 in other cantons of
Cartago.
False rumor of water contamination
Hundreds of people reacted with alarm Friday morning to rumors
circulating on social networks that the water supply in the metropolitan
area had been contaminated by ash.
But Costa Rica's Water and Sewer Institute (AyA) reported Friday that the volcano's activity had not affected drinking water.
AyA Executive President Yamileth Astorga said the rumors were completely false.
"At the time there is no need to issue any public alert on water contamination," she said.
Astorga said experts at AyA's National Water Laboratory are conducting
frequent monitoring at all water distribution plants. In case of any
detected contamination, AyA would immediately cut off the contaminated
supply.
Still, Astorga advised the population to keep fresh
water on hand as a precaution, in case any increase in the volcano's
activity compromises the water supply in coming days. - The Tico Times.
March 15, 2015 - IRELAND & SCOTLAND -
The following constitutes the latest eye-witness testimonies from the
Lunar Meteorite Hunters of meteors over Ireland and Scotland.
15MAR2015
Maga Moate, co.westmeath, Ireland 21:00:00 5-6 seconds N-S. Very bright orange with a green tail, very close like firework, slow moving Brighter than Venus. No fragments. No pictures.
15MAR2015
Jamie
MacEwan aka Jamie Groobel. Screwtop Fulton, Amisfield, Dumfries and
Galloway, Scotland. Approx 20.59 GMt 2-ish seconds South East towards
North west. Orange ball followed by a bunson burner effect tail: yellow
surrounded by pale blue/ white. Almost like a car headlight at full beam
at 400 metres No. I have seen fragmentation once before. I thought that
experience would never be topped (2012 - unreported). I feel as if I am in a state of shock.
I watched an object travelling east to west in the small hours of the
morning on a clear, crisp morning in the spring of 2012 whilst driving
an HGV across the A66 from Scotch Corner to Kendal. On that occasion the
Orange ball split into around 4 pieces in way that I can only describe
as like a rocket breaking apart.Tonight it was not like that -'around 2 or so seconds then it appeared to 'burn out'. Incredible!!
15MAR2015
Nick
Bangor. Northern Ireland. 21.07 2 sw-ne green. Umm, it lit clouds up
and roof of homes yes. Very bright, passed in and out of clouds.
15MAR2015
Gregor
White Abington, Scotland 21:00:00 6 secs S to N. Me facing West.
Fireball with tail. Very bright. No Fast, S to N travel.
15MAR2015
We
were driving home tonight at 21:00 in Fortstewart ,Ramelton,Co
Donegal,Ireland. We saw what looked like a green shooting star streak
across the clear sky, it had a red trail, it then appeared to explode creating a large green flash. - Maura M.
