November 12, 2015 - CEIBA, PUERTO RICO - Eight houses are on the edge of a 20-feet hole as the ground collapsed just in front of them.
The dangerous landslide that even destroyed the wall of containment has occurred on November 9, 2015, at night and hasn’t been secured yet.
Luckily, only two families were sleeping in their homes since the state agency for emergency management and administration of disasters ( Aemead) had given orders of eviction last monday.
This ground instability isn’t new. These houses are suffering for more than one year from cracks and land movements.
But it is only on November 6, 2015 that the sidewalks began to collapse and the streets to crack.
Today, the wall of containment is left and a 32-feet hole is threatening 8 houses and families.
The landslide is however still active. The ground is continuously moving and you hear trees cracking…
These 8 houses will probably one day collapse into the ground.
IAF fighter jets during the Red Flag joint exercise at Nellis air force base in Nevada .
(photo credit:COURTESY IDF SPOKESMAN'S OFFICE)
November 12, 2015 - MIDDLE EAST - Israel reportedly carried out an airstrike Wednesday near the airport in the Syrian capital Damascus. Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinians have been injured in clashes with Israeli forces
on the anniversary of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s death.
Youths threw stones and burned tires while Israeli security forces
responded with tear gas and live bullets.
And, two suspected suicide bombings in the southern suburbs of Beirut have
left at least 41 people dead, Reuters reports citing the Interior
Ministry. The death toll is expected to rise with Lebanon's Red Cross
putting the number of those injured over 200.
Israel Strikes Damascus in Syria ... Again
Around two weeks after a reported Israeli strike
on a weapons convoy in Syria, media outlets associated with Syrian
President Bashar Assad reported Wednesday night another Israeli
airstrike in the country.
According to the reports, Israeli
aircraft carried out the strike adjacent to the Damascus airport at
around 6:00 p.m. Yet it was not clear whether the target of the attack
was a weapons shipment, or an alternate target, such as an Iran-backed
terror cell operating against Israel.
Defense officials declined to comment on the foreign media reports.
However,
Israel did previously announce a strict-policy of intolerance towards
threats to the state, such as weapons transfers between Syria and
Lebanon.
The last reported Israeli strike in Syria, on October 31, targeted numerous Hezbollah targets in Syria's south.
In
the October alleged attack, Syrian media reported that up to a dozen
Israeli war planes conducted the mission close to the Lebanon-Syria
border in the Qalamoun Mountains region. Estimated targets included a
weapons convoy destined for Hezbollah fighters traveling through Syria.
The alleged attack on Wednesday night would be the second attributed to Israel since Russia began operating in the area.
Israel has reportedly struck Hezbollah in Syria several times over the past year.
Earlier
this year, the Israel Air Force reportedly struck a vehicle located in a
Druse village in southwestern Syria, killing Hezbollah men and a
pro-Assad militiaman, as well as a military base in Lebanon.
Another
reported strike targeted a Lebanese military installation near the
Syrian border, wounding six. It is believed to belong to a pro-Syrian
Palestinian faction. In a newsflash, Syrian state television quoted a
military source as saying that Israeli planes had struck a base
belonging to the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine-General Command, a faction that backs Assad. - JPOST.
Dozens of Palestinians injured in clashes on anniversary of Arafat’s death
Dozens of Palestinians have been injured in clashes with Israeli
forces on the anniversary of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s
death. Youths threw stones and burned tires while Israeli security
forces responded with tear gas and live bullets.
At least four people were wounded by live ammunition near Ramallah,
in Al-Bireh, the Palestinian health ministry said. Another person
reportedly remains in a critical condition and is undergoing surgery
after being shot in the heart.
Clashes in Al-Bireh erupted after a few hundred Palestinians marched
towards Israeli forces, as part of a rally to commemorate Yasser
Arafat’s life. At some point the youths began throwing stones at the
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and rolling burning tires towards the
security personnel. The IDF responded by firing tear gas and live
bullets.
In other clashes in the West Bank, live rounds injured at least six other Palestinians in the city of Tulkarem.
In total, “62 citizens were injured by live ammunition and rubber-coated bullets during clashes with the (Israeli) occupation in Tulkarem, Ramallah, Al-Bireh and Bethlehem,” the health ministry announced.
Those hurt were transferred to the Palestinian Medical Complex in Ramallah, the Palestinian Health Ministry told the Ma’an news agency, adding that all were shot in the lower body.
WATCH: Palestinians injured in clashes with Israel.
Israeli forces said that they were responding to violence stemming from the Palestinian side. They confirmed the use of live fire.
“Rioters attacked forces and hurled Molotov cocktails and rocks at them. The forces then responded,” the statement said.
In the Gaza Strip, several Palestinian protesters were also injured during clashes with Israeli forces at the border of the Bureij refugee camp. Young protesters fired slingshots and threw tear gas back at IDF troops. The latter subsequently returned fire.
Meanwhile, over 2,000 activists flocked to a rally at the Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Organized by the Fatah Youth Movement, students marched to commemorate the anniversary of the death of the PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, who many believe was poisoned by Israel eleven years ago. There were no reports of violence.
The latest tensions erupted over a month ago when Israel tried to restrict access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem. Some 77 Palestinians have been killed since late September. At least 10 Israelis have died as the tensions continue. - RT.
At least 41 killed, 200 hurt in southern Beirut suicide bombings
Double blast in southern Beirut suburb of Burj al-Barajneh, Lebanon.
A pair of suicide bombings killed at least 41 people and wounded over 200 more Thursday evening in southern Beirut, a Lebanese Health Minister Wael Abu Faour said.
The blasts shook Bourj al-Barajneh, one of the biggest and most well-known largely Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, according to the state-run National News Agency.
The Lebanese news agency reported that two suicide bombers blew themselves up within 150 meters (490 feet) and five minutes of each other.
It was not immediately clear where they came from or what their motivation was.
Yet, in a purported statement circulated online by ISIS supporters on social media, ISIS claimed responsibility for the blasts. CNN hasn't confirmed the authenticity of the statement.
In addition to the human toll, the explosions damaged at least four nearby buildings. Video distributed by Reuters showed a dramatic scene in the bombings' aftermath, with rescue workers carrying out victims past piles of rubble and through a mass of people.
After the blasts, authorities closed all entrances to Bourj al-Barajneh, NNA reported. Judge Sakr Sakr dispatched military police and other authorities to investigate the blasts, cordoning off the area around them.
Citizens have been urged to stay away from the bloody scene as well as nearby hospitals to make it easier for ambulances to get back and forth.
Prime Minister Tammam Salam declared Friday a day of mourning for the victims of the bombings, a terrorist attack condemned by officials across the country's political landscape.
Bombings not new to Lebanon
Lebanon
has seen plenty of violence involving numerous parties in recent
decades, including recently as fallout from the bloody civil war in
neighboring Syria.
That war has
flooded the Middle Eastern nation with more than a million refugees,
according to the United Nations, and also contributed to intermittent
spillover violence.
Most of that bloodshed has been concentrated near the Syrian border, though not all, as evidenced by a November 2013 Beirut bombing that killed at least 23 people and wounded about 150 more.
The
al Qaeda-linked militant group Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed
responsibility for that bombing and warned of more to come unless the
Lebanese-based, Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah stops sending
fighters to support Syrian government forces. - CNN.
November 12, 2015 - ALASKA - A medium-power earthquake with a magnitude of 5.1 struck the
Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska.
This comes only two days after
the archipelago was hit by a 6.2 magnitude quake.
The earthquake occurred at
2:28 p.m GMT (5:28 a.m. local time) on Thursday, about 68 miles (109
km) of the island hamlet of Atka, putting it squarely between the United
States and Russia, according to the US Geological Survey.
The
Thursday tremblor is only the latest in the series of similar
geological events that have hit Alaska.
On Monday, the
sparsely-populated island chain was hit by a 6.2 magnitude earthquake
around 7 a.m. local time, this time 58 miles (93 km) southeast of Atka.
On
Friday, southcentral Alaska was hit by a light 4.5 magnitude quake and
could be felt in Anchorage, which it occurred 53 miles north of. No
damage was reported, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center.
The Aleutian Islands is a highly seismic area. Major earthquakes and tsunamis have come from seismic activity in the area. - RT.
Tectonic Summary - Seismotectonics of Alaska
The Aleutian arc extends approximately 3,000 km from the Gulf of Alaska
in the east to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the west. It marks the region
where the Pacific plate subducts into the mantle beneath the North
America plate. This subduction is responsible for the generation of the
Aleutian Islands and the deep offshore Aleutian Trench.
The curvature of the arc results in a westward transition of relative
plate motion from trench-normal (i.e., compressional) in the east to
trench-parallel (i.e., translational) in the west, accompanied by
westward variations in seismic activity, volcanism, and overriding plate
composition. The Aleutian arc is generally divided into three regions:
the western, central, and eastern Aleutians. Relative to a fixed North
America plate, the Pacific plate is moving northwest at a rate that
increases from roughly 60 mm/yr at the arc's eastern edge to 76 mm/yr
near its western terminus. The eastern Aleutian arc extends from the
Alaskan Peninsula in the east to the Fox Islands in the west. Motion
along this section of the arc is characterized by arc-perpendicular
convergence and Pacific plate subduction beneath thick continental
lithosphere. This region exhibits intense volcanic activity and has a
history of megathrust earthquakes.
USGS plate tectonics for the region.
The central Aleutian arc extends from the Andreanof Islands in the east
to the Rat Islands in the west. Here, motion is characterized by
westward-increasing oblique convergence and Pacific plate subduction
beneath thin oceanic lithosphere. Along this portion of the arc, the
Wadati-Benioff zone is well defined to depths of approximately 200 km.
Despite the obliquity of convergence, active volcanism and megathrust
earthquakes are also present along this margin.
The western Aleutians, stretching from the western end of the Rat
Islands in the east to the Commander Islands, Russia, in the west, is
tectonically different from the central and eastern portions of the arc.
The increasing component of transform motion between the Pacific and
North America plates is evidenced by diminishing active volcanism; the
last active volcano is located on Buldir Island, in the far western
portion of the Rat Island chain. Additionally, this portion of the
subduction zone has not hosted large earthquakes or megathrust events in
recorded history. Instead, the largest earthquakes in this region are
generally shallow, predominantly strike-slip events with magnitudes
between M5-6. Deeper earthquakes do occur, albeit rather scarcely and
with small magnitudes (Magnitude less than 4), down to approximately 50
km.
Most of the seismicity along the Aleutian arc results from thrust
faulting that occurs along the interface between the Pacific and North
America plates, extending from near the base of the trench to depths of
40 to 60 km. Slip along this interface is responsible for generating
devastating earthquakes. Deformation also occurs within the subducting
slab in the form of intermediate-depth earthquakes that can reach depths
of 250 km. Normal faulting events occur in the outer rise region of the
Aleutian arc resulting from the bending of the oceanic Pacific plate as
it enters the Aleutian trench. Additionally, deformation of the
overriding North America plate generates shallow crustal earthquakes.
The Aleutian arc is a seismically active region, evidenced by the many
moderate to large earthquakes occurring each year. Since 1900, this
region has hosted twelve large earthquakes (Magnitude greater than 7.5)
including the May 7, 1986 M8.0 Andreanof Islands, the June 10, 1996 M7.9
Andreanof Islands, and the November 17, 2003 M7.8 Rat Islands
earthquakes. Six of these great earthquakes (M8.3 or larger) have
occurred along the Aleutian arc that together have ruptured almost the
entire shallow megathrust contact. The first of these major earthquakes
occurred on August 17, 1906 near the island of Amchitka (M8.3) in the
western Aleutian arc. However, unlike the other megathrust earthquakes
along the arc, this event is thought to have been an intraplate event
occurring in the shallow slab beneath the subduction zone interface.
The first megathrust event along the arc during the 20th century was the
November 10, 1938 M8.6 Shumagin Island earthquake. This event ruptured
an approximately 300 km long stretch of the arc from the southern end of
Kodiak Island to the northern end of the Shumagin Islands and generated
a small tsunami that was recorded as far south as Hawaii.
The April 1, 1946 M8.6 Unimak Island earthquake, located in the central
Aleutian arc, was characterized by slow rupture followed by a
devastating Pacific-wide tsunami that was observed as far south as the
shores of Antarctica. Although damage from earthquake shaking was not
severe locally, tsunami run-up heights were recorded as high as 42 m on
Unimak Island and tsunami waves in Hilo, Hawaii also resulted in
casualties. The slow rupture of this event has made it difficult to
constrain the focal mechanism and depth of the earthquake, though it is
thought to have been an interplate thrust earthquake.
The next megathrust earthquake occurred along the central portion of the
Aleutian arc near the Andreanof Islands on March 9, 1957, with a
magnitude of M8.6. The rupture length of this event was approximately
1200 km, making it the longest observed aftershock zone of all the
historic Aleutian arc events. Although only limited seismic data from
this event are still available, significant damage and tsunamis were
observed on the islands of Adak and Unimak with tsunami heights of
approximately 13 m.
The easternmost megathrust earthquake was the March 28, 1964 M9.2 Prince
William Sound earthquake, currently the second largest recorded
earthquake in the world. The event had a rupture length of roughly 700
km extending from Prince William Sound in the northeast to the southern
end of Kodiak Island in the southwest. Extensive damage was recorded in
Kenai, Moose Pass, and Kodiak but significant shaking was felt over a
large region of Alaska, parts of western Yukon Territory, and British
Columbia, Canada. Property damage was the largest in Anchorage, as a
result of both the main shock shaking and the ensuing landslides. This
megathrust earthquake also triggered a devastating tsunami that caused
damage along the Gulf of Alaska, the West Coast of the United States,
and in Hawaii.
The westernmost Aleutians megathrust earthquake followed a year later on
February 4, 1965. This M8.7 Rat Islands earthquake was characterized by
roughly 600 km of rupture. Although this event is quite large, damage
was low owing to the region's remote and sparsely inhabited location. A
relatively small tsunami was recorded throughout the Pacific Ocean with
run-up heights up to 10.7 m on Shemya Island and flooding on Amchitka
Island.
Although the Aleutian arc is highly active, seismicity is rather
discontinuous, with two regions that have not experienced a large
(Magnitude greater than 8.0) earthquake in the past century: the
Commander Islands in the western Aleutians and the Shumagin Islands in
the east. Due to the dominantly transform motion along the western arc,
there is potential that the Commander Islands will rupture in a moderate
to large strike-slip earthquake in the future. The Shumagin Islands
region may also have high potential for hosting a large rupture in the
future, though it has been suggested that little strain is being
accumulated along this section of the subduction zone, and thus
associated hazards may be reduced.
East of the Aleutian arc along the Gulf of
Alaska, crustal earthquakes occur as a result transmitted deformation
and stress associated with the northwestward convergence of the Pacific
plate that collides a block of oceanic and continental material into
the North America plate. In 2002, the Denali Fault ruptured in a
sequence of earthquakes that commenced with the October 23 M6.7 Nenana
Mountain right-lateral strike-slip earthquake and culminated with the
November 3, M7.9 Denali earthquake which started as a thrust earthquake
along a then unrecognized fault and continued with a larger
right-lateral strike-slip event along the Denali and Totschunda Faults.
More information on regional seismicity and tectonics
November 12, 2015 - RUSSIA - A huge fireball has been spotted in the skies over the Russian
city of Chita near the border with China.
An unidentified flying object,
most probably a meteorite, made three extra bright flashes before
burning out, according to eyewitness accounts.
A video claiming to show a bolide [meteor] burning out in the skies was
posted on YouTube. Witnesses described the incident as an unusually
bright flash that illuminated the skies just after midnight on November
12. The falling object left long tail of light behind it.
"It resembled a fall of some kind of an [space] object," Zvezda TV channel said, citing an unnamed witness. The phenomenon was also clearly visible from neighboring cities.
WATCH: Meteor lights up Siberian skies.
The Russian military said that no drills were conducted in the region last night.
A similar meteor was clearly visible in the skies over Kaliningrad in
Russia's farthest western province on October 31. That fireball was also
a green and blue color with a long tail of light.
The largest meteor in modern history exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk in the Urals region of Russia in February 2013.
The energy of the explosion was estimated to be equivalent to several
megatons of TNT.
However, the Chelyabinsk meteorite was relatively
small, about 17 meters in diameter and it disintegrated with a blast at
an altitude of over 40 kilometers.
The impact wave damaged several
buildings and blasted out many windows in the city. - RT.
A fall Sierra Nevada storm dropped nearly a foot of snow at Mammoth
Mountain and less in town in Mammoth Lakes earlier this month. A second
storm dumped up to 36 inches of snow Sunday and Monday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
November 12, 2015 - CALIFORNIA/NEVADA, UNITED STATES - Alex Hoon was driving north from Mammoth Lakes on Tuesday, looking in awe at the decidedly winter landscape.
“Everything is blinding white … fresh white snow,” said Hoon, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Reno. “It was beautiful.”
A series of storms has left a large swath of the Sierra Nevada with a blanket of snow — something of a surreal sight after four years of drought. Social media filled with photos of snowplows, skiing and landmark peaks in Yosemite dusted with snow.
About 36 inches of snow was dumped on Mammoth's summit in just two days, while folks at slightly lower elevations saw up to 20 inches of snow. Farther north, Lake Tahoe got as much as 12 inches of snow.
Forecasters said the heavy snow was from one of the biggest storms the region has seen in several years.
But welcome as it is, the early November dump of white means little in terms of building a hefty winter snowpack that could help ease the drought.
“The snow that typically will fall in November isn't always the snow that lasts the entire winter,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Brooke Bingaman. “What we're really going to rely on is the snowpack that falls in the second half of the winter, particularly January and February.”
The key date for California's snowpack is five months away: April 1, when the mountain snowpack is customarily at its peak and state hydrologists know roughly how much water it will produce to help fill reservoirs in the spring and early summer. This year, the statewide snowpack on that date was an abysmal 5% of average, the lowest in more than 60 years of record-keeping.
The snowpack, technically the water content of snow, acts as nature's reservoir, typically providing about a third of California's water supply.
“We'd love to see a whole series of these, measured out tablespoon by tablespoon all winter long,” said Kelly Redmond, regional climatologist at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno.
Extraordinary as it may seem after four years of drought, the snowfall accumulation of the recent Sierra Nevada storms is about average for this time of year, Bingaman said.
“Once we get into November, that's when we get a more regular occurrence
of storms.... So far this month, it's pretty much clockwork.”
Sources: NOAA, Google Earth. Len De Groot and Paul Duginski @latimesgraphics
Forecasters continue to predict a strong El Niño this winter, but the storms could be warmer, producing more rain than snow. Moreover, Redmond said, “it's worth remembering, of the last four drought winters, two of them started out very promising: on the wet side and then just pooped out.”
“It's a good teaser,” he said of the storm that draped the valleys near Reno with 18 inches of snow. “Even just an average winter would be great.”
Nonetheless, the snow is a boon for sports shops and ski resorts across the Sierra Nevada, but it's too early to tell whether it's a harbinger of a snowy winter closer to the historical average that could help California's vital snowpack.
“It's really too early to answer that.... We're probably a little bit below normal,” said Karl Swanberg, a National Weather Service forecaster in Sacramento. “With the lowest snowpack on record last year, anything's an improvement.”
Indeed, a combination of years of drought and media hype over an upcoming El Niño may magnify the attention to any precipitation as something other than normal, Swanberg said.
At Mammoth Lakes, ski and snowboarding slopes opened earlier than scheduled after a storm last week, said Rick Flamson, owner of Rick's Sports Center, a mainstay for 25 years.
“If you believe the weather people — and I'm a little bit of a weather buff myself — it seems to me that, yes, we're all very optimistic it's going to be a better winter,” Flamson said. “Last year at this time, the ski area was just opening. I'm looking straight out this front door at the snow out there,” and he can imagine hotels will be booked this weekend.
But the storms also brought complications. Some areas were overwhelmed, and roads were closed temporarily, Hoon said.
Utility customers on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe have been coping with a power outage after branches weighed down with snow snapped and took out electrical lines, Hoon said.
Nevada Energy said it was a severe storm that caused widespread power outages.
The storm also brought heavy rain to coastal areas of Northern California. In Monterey, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties, more than an inch of rain fell in some areas. The Bay Area saw less rainfall but more than 500 lightning strikes.
For all the talk of El Niño, experts said the storm had the telltale signs of the routine seasonal systems that flow south from the northern Pacific.
Regardless, “we need moisture, no matter how it comes,” Swanberg said. - LA Times.
November 12, 2015 - PACIFIC RING OF FIRE - Have you noticed that seismic activity along the Ring of Fire appears to be dramatically increasing?
According to Volcano Discovery, 39 volcanoes around the world have recently erupted, and 32 of them are associated with the Ring of Fire. This includes Mt. Popocatepetl which sits only about 50 miles away from Mexico City's 18 million inhabitants.
If
you are not familiar with the Ring of Fire, it is an area roughly
shaped like a horseshoe that runs along the outer perimeter of the
Pacific Ocean. Approximately 90 percent of all earthquakes and
approximately 75 percent of all volcanic eruptions occur along the Ring
of Fire. Recently, we have witnessed a 4.4, a 5.4 and a 5.7 earthquake
in Alaska, a 6.8 earthquake in Chile and 20 earthquakes in
Indonesia of at least magnitude 4.3. And as you will see below, this
violent shaking along the Ring of Fire seems to continue a progression
of major disasters that began back during the month of September.
For
whatever reason, our planet suddenly seems to be waking up.
Unfortunately, the west coast of the United States is one of the areas
where this is being felt the most. The little city of San Ramon,
California, is about 45 miles east of San Francisco, and over the past
several weeks it has experienced a record-breaking 583 earthquakes:
"It's
the swarm with the largest number of total earthquakes in San Ramon,"
said USGS scientist David Schwartz, who is more concerned about the size
of quakes than he is the total number of them. Still, the number tops
the previous record set in 2003, when 120 earthquakes hit over 31 days, with the largest clocking in at a magnitude of 4.2.
Could this be a prelude to a major seismic event in California?
We shall see what happens.
Meanwhile, records are being shattered in the middle part of the country as well.
The state recorded its 587th earthquake of
3.0 magnitude or higher early this week, breaking the previous record
of 585. That record was set for all of 2014, meaning that Oklahoma has
now had more 3.0 magnitude or higher earthquakes so far in 2015 than it
did in all of 2014. So far this year, E&E News reports,
Oklahoma's averaged 2.5 quakes each day, a rate that, if it continues,
means the state could see more than 912 earthquakes by the end of this
year.
Oklahoma has also experienced 21 4.0 magnitude or greater
earthquakes so far this year — an increase over last year, which saw 14.
Starting
with a magnitude-4.1 temblor at 5:11 a.m. close to the Oklahoma-Kansas
border, the region experienced a series of six earthquakes within a
75-minute period Saturday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on its website.
The
largest earthquake Saturday morning was the 4.1, which had an epicenter
nine miles northwest of Medford, Okla., 59 miles southwest of Wichita.
That was followed by five more quakes near Medford with magnitudes of
2.5, 2.8, 2.5, 3.1 and 2.9—the last of which came at 6:24 a.m.
A seventh earthquake—this one a magnitude-4.2 temblor—was recorded at 12:29 p.m., 10 miles north-northwest of Medford.
So why aren't more Americans alarmed that these records are being broken?
We are seeing things that we have never seen before, and I believe that it will soon get even worse.
And
this dramatic increase in seismic activity that we are now seeing
appears to fit into a larger pattern of major disasters that we have
been witnessing over the past couple of months.
As we approached
the end of the summer, all of a sudden massive wildfires erupted all
across the western third of the country. According to the National Interagency Fire Center,
the only time in U.S. history when wildfires had burned more acres by
the end of October was during the record-setting year of 2006.
In
2015, a lot of these wildfires have really been threatening highly
populated areas. I know, because at one point a major fire came within
about 10 miles of my own house. Since the beginning of August, Barack
Obama has made an astounding 25 disaster declarations related
to fires, and by the end of September the horrible fires that were
threatening key areas of the state of California were making headlines
all over the world.
Then as we got to the very end of the month of September, a new kind of disaster began to take center stage. As I wrote about just recently, the storm that would later became known as Hurricane Joaquin developed into a tropical depression on September 28th.
Even
though that hurricane never made landfall in the United States,
moisture from that storm caused a tremendous amount of chaos along the
east coast.
The governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, said that it was the most rain that some areas of her state had witnessed "in a thousand years," and it is being projected that the economic damage that was done by all of the flooding "will probably be in the billions of dollars."
Shortly
after the flooding in South Carolina, a massive storm dumped an
enormous amount of rain on southern California. Because that area had
been experiencing severe drought for so long, all of that rain caused
tremendous flooding and massive mudslides.
Rivers of mud literally
several feet thick completely stopped traffic along many major roads
across the region. If you got caught in those rivers of mud, you were
lucky to get out with your life. In fact, authorities pulled one dead
man out of a vehicle that got completely buried by mud several days
after the storms had passed. It took them that long to finally get to
him.
The middle of the country was not spared either. Hurricane
Patricia ended up being one of the strongest hurricanes ever measured,
and the remnants of that storm dumped an incredible amount of rain on
the state of Texas. There was so much flooding that a train was
literally knocked off the tracks by the water. And about a week after
that there was more flooding in the state that caused at least six deaths.
Overall,
it has really been a bad couple of months for major disasters, and this
sequence of events seems to have begun during the month of September. - Charisma News.
November 12, 2015 - SOUTH SUDAN - ASoviet-era
Antonov-12 transport plane crashed Wednesday shortly after takeoff from
the airport in Juba, South Sudan, killing 15 people on the plane, a
South Sudanese presidential spokesman told CNN.
The South Sudan Red Cross said on Facebook that it had collected more than 35 bodies at the site. It wasn't clear whether those included people killed on the ground.
Ateny Wek Ateny, a press
secretary in the South Sudan President's office, said 18 people were
aboard the flight: 12 South Sudanese passengers and six crew members --
five Armenians and one Russian.
Three people survived: two South
Sudanese passengers and an infant boy less than a year old, Ateny said.
He had said earlier that there were 19 people aboard the plane, 17 of whom died.
The
cause of the crash might have been engine failure, Ateny said, although
he cautioned this had not been confirmed. He said a witness saw one
engine fail before the plane crashed.
The plane crashed less than 100
yards from the White Nile River at 9 a.m. Wednesday, the spokesman said.
A photo published by a local news organization showed the charred
wreckage of a plane in the reeds near the riverbank.
The plane was bound for the South Sudanese town of Paloich, in an area of oil fields in the north of the country.
The
Antonov-12 was registered in Tajikistan but it was not immediately
clear who owned the aircraft, Ateny said. It was loaded with foodstuffs,
he said.
According to the Aviation Safety Network website, which has records of aircraft by their registration number, the plane made its first flight in 1971.
South Sudan is the world's newest country, having gained independence from Sudan in 2011. - CNN.
November 12, 2015 - AFRICA - A riveting mystery is unfolding in Western Sahara, as scientists
discover a massive ancient underground river system with the aid of
satellite imaging. It confirms that only about 5,000 years ago, the
Sahara was an immensely vibrant place.
The African region
containing the Mauritanian Desert is roughly the size of the United
States – or a quarter of Africa; so if such conditions persisted today,
the river system would be the world's 12th-largest, French-led research indicates in the journal Nature Communications.
That means a river some 500km long, with sources in the Atlas Mountains and Hoggar Highlands, in present-day Algeria.
The
team used hi-tech equipment aboard the Japanese Advanced Land Observing
Satellite – particularly the PALSAR sensor system, capable of detailed
underground imaging from space.
As
the river approached the coast, it carried important minerals and
nutrients by way of an ancient underground canyon system, the team
believes. Those were fed to the variety of plant life, which existed in
abundance in the region and off the coast of Mauritania, as food for
marine life. The region just off the coast had an incredibly rich
ecosystem, with plenty of filter feeders and other organisms sustaining
it.
If that area had stayed hospitable, the entire region would be fit for humans to thrive in.
All
of this activity took place during several humid periods stretching to
245,000 years ago. The last such period would have been 5,000 years ago,
according to calculations. But abrupt changes in climate caused a
near-complete dry- up.
The
connection with the Cap Timiris Canyon system is obvious – the
underground canyon lines up almost perfectly to the river system.
The
2.5km wide and kilometer-deep artery that was first mapped in 2003
terminates off the Mauritanian coast. Underground sediment and
river-bone particles found at the bottom of the ancient underground
shelf establishes the link with inland Africa. “It’s a great
geological detective story and it confirms more directly what we had
expected. This is more compelling evidence that in the past there was a
very big river system feeding into this canyon,” Russell Wynn of
the National Oceanography Center in Southampton, who helped create the
3D map of the canyon, told the Guardian. He was not part of the current
research.
As the researchers indicate in the study, the current finding “provides
new insights for the interpretation of terrigenous sediment records off
Western Africa, with important implications for our understanding of
the paleohydrological history of the Sahara.”
According to
Wynn, this should serve as an example to those who doubt how fast
climate change can happen. The area in Western Sahara went from humid to
arid within a space of just a couple of thousands of years. - RT.
November 12, 2015 - BRAZIL - Marco Antonio Rossi, the top executive at the insurance arm of Brazil's second largest private lender Banco Bradesco SA, was killed in a plane crash on Tuesday, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Rossi, 54, was aboard a Cessna Citation VII jet traveling from Brasilia to São Paulo when it crashed in central Brazil, they said, adding that the plane belonged to Banco Bradesco.
Lúcio Flávio Condouro de Oliveira, who led Bradesco Seguros' life insurance and retirement business, was also killed, the sources said. They declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Brazil's Air Force said four people were aboard the plane when it disappeared from radar on Tuesday evening near the border between the states of Goias and Minas Gerais. Two of the plane's occupants were pilots, officials said.
Rossi was seen as the most likely successor to Luiz Carlos Trabuco, chief executive officer of Banco Bradesco .
Rossi replaced Trabuco as head of Bradesco Seguros when Trabuco was tapped for the top job at the bank in 2009. Under Bradesco rules, executives must retire at the age of 65. Trabuco will turn 65 in October 2016.
Founded in 1935, Bradesco Seguros is Brazil's largest insurer and generates about one-third of Banco Bradesco's annual profit. It has for years been a platform for executives to climb up the corporate ladder at the parent company.
In his post, Rossi created new products for low-income families and diversified into reinsurance and corporate products. He told investors last month that Bradesco Seguros could offset the impact of Brazil's recession on profit through a sharp focus on high-margin segments.
Rossi was also working on the potential sale of Bradesco Seguros' high-risk insurance portfolio and on the company's sponsorship of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, one of the sources said.
The O Globo newspaper reported on its website that firefighters at the crash site said there were no survivors. - Reuters.
