Scientists Pinpoint Polar Cataclysm Date

Photo: This undated photo provided by David Marchant of Boston University shows The Labyrinth, a network of ice-free bedrock channels and scoured terrain emerging from beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. A 30-mile maze canyons in Antarctica was carved out of bedrock by the catastrophic draining of subglacial lakes during global warming between 12 million and 14 million years ago, according to university researchers who warn a similar event today could have serious environmental consequences. (AP Photo/Boston University, David Marchant)

Earth News/Climate Change
Skywatch Special Report
Aug 30, 2006
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) - A 30-mile maze canyons in Antarctica was carved out of bedrock by the catastrophic draining of subglacial lakes during global warming between 12 million and 14 million years ago, according to university researchers who warn a similar event today could have serious environmental consequences.
Although scientists have previously theorized that the Labyrinth region in southern Victoria Land was created by water released from lakes that had formed under glaciers, researchers at Syracuse University and Boston University say they found geological evidence to bracket the timing of the last major flooding and link it to a global warming trend at the time.
The scientists pinpointed the timing of the last subglacial flood by dating volcanic ash preserved on bedrock surfaces, said Laura Webb, a professor of earth sciences at Syracuse who took part in the study.
The Labyrinth is a network of ice-free bedrock channels and scoured terrain emerging from beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. It is one of a series of large channel networks that cross the Transantarctic Mountains. Some of the chasms are up to 800 feet deep and thousands of feet wide. Scientists have long speculated that the volume of water required to create the channels was far more than that produced by melting glaciers.
Webb said it appeared the subglacial flooding was not continuous but episodic, and likely lasted days or months at a time.
In an article on the study that appeared last month in the journal "Geology," Webb and her colleagues estimated the flood raged with approximately 1,000 times the volume of water flowing over Niagara Falls. At that rate, it would take Lake Ontario, for instance, about a month to drain, she said.
Suzanne Baldwin, another Syracuse professor who was one of the study's principal researchers, warned that the ancient episode has implications for global climate change today.
Continue Reading

Rain forests on fire

BREAKING ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS: INDONESIA
Aug 31, 2006
It was once thought that rain forests were resistant to fire because of their high humidity and the fact they stay lush and green all year long.
However, in Indonesia, the opposite is true because forest fires occur annually during the dry season.
Decades of reckless logging and the practice of slash-and-burn agriculture by farmers and plantation companies have made forested areas, bush and grasslands across the archipelago, particularly in Sumatra and Kalimantan, highly vulnerable to fires during the annual dry season between June and October.
It is tragic that the government has failed to learn from the series of forest fires that have occurred since 1982, ignoring the ecological and economic losses, health costs and disruptions to shipping and aviation in the country and its neighboring countries, notably Singapore and Malaysia.
Forest fires will continue to occur unless the government, in cooperation with all other stakeholders -- local administrations, plantation companies, farmers and non-governmental organizations -- embarks on developing a national forest fire management system covering preventive and suppressive programs. {PHOTO Above: Fires set to clear land for large-scale ranching and logging operations, not burning by small farmers, were the main cause of the uncontrolled fires in both Indonesian and Brazilian rainforests.

READ: Rainforest Fires in Indonesia and Brazil:
The U.S. Link esearch shows that 70% to 90% of the fires were set by large, officially sanctioned companies to clear land for timber, oil-palm, and rubber plantations. The irreplaceable tropical forests of Indonesia, and the land rights of their indigenous inhabitants, are being sacrificed to Indonesia's push to supply heavily subsidized plywood and paper mills.

Greenpeace slams Indonesia over forest fires
The environmental group claims that the thick haze is threatening the health of millions of people and contributing to climate change.

Thousands Displaced By Flooding

Earth News: African Desert
Aug 30, 2006
Torrential rains have left at least 17,000 people homeless in the north and south of Niger, according to authorities who have appealed for urgent assistance.
The remote desert town Bilma in Agadez region, 1,500 km northeast of the capital Niamey has been hardest hit, according to a cabinet statement released on Tuesday. In this town alone, some 3,400 people from 675 families have been driven from their homes or watched them destroyed by flooding, the report said.
According to the Nigerien government Bilma has received some 63 mm of rain in recent days - equivalent to the total rainfall recorded there during the last 10 years.
Abba Mallam Boukar, governor of the Agadez region, said in a television interview on Wednesday that Bilma is experiencing a "catastrophe", and pleaded for assistance.

Disasters Elsewhere
THAILAND - Continuous rainfall had led to landslides damaging five homes and 2,000 rai of forest in Nan's Thung Chang and Chalermprakiat districts, prompting officials to evacuate locals to temporary shelters. The discovery of a 700 metre-long and 50-metre-wide crack in the ground in Chiang Klang district's Ban Kok village prompted local officials to evacuate 152 residents to temporary shelters in the Phu Wae National Park. In neighbouring Chiang Mai, the Mae Rim River had overflowed and inundated 70 houses. The weather bureau has warned of heavy rains over the next few days.

NEPAL - Heavy rain that has flooded western Nepal villages and left thousands homeless is not expected to relent for at least three weeks. Flooding in the southwest and landslides in the mountainous northwest have already killed at least 39 people and several more are reported missing.

'Monster' Typhoon Ioke Makes Direct Hit on Wake Island

BREAKING STORM NEWS: CENTRAL PACIFIC
Aug 31, 2006
Super Typhoon Ioke has made a direct hit on Wake Island, pounding the tiny U.S. Pacific territory with catastrophic winds of up to 300 kilometers an hour.
Ioke is the strongest central Pacific typhoon in at least 12 years. Forecasters expect the "monster" storm to submerge Wake Island and destroy everything on it that is not made of concrete.
Wake is home to a U.S. Air Force base and a scientific outpost, roughly midway between Hawaii and Japan.
The eye of the typhoon skirted the north edge of the coral atoll Thursday. The U.S. Air Force had already evacuated all of the island's 188 residents to Hawaii, 3,700 kilometers across the Pacific.
The residents - Air Force personnel and American and Thai contractors - left Monday aboard two U.S. C-17 Globemaster planes. It was the first time the territory was evacuated in nearly 30 years. {photo above: Hurricane Ioke in the Pacific Aug 30, 2006)
Air Force to fly planes to check Wake Island damage after typhoon

Related Storms
Hurricane John hits Mexico
Thu Aug 31 2006
In Acapulco there were sea surges of up to 10ft which left seafront roads ankle-deep in water as people struggled to stay on their feet in 135mph winds
Hurricane John has hit Mexico's tourist resorts packing torrential rains and winds of 125mph.
As the Category 3 storm races up the coast, it is predicted to dump 12 inches of rain, triggering landslides or flooding, and could produce isolated storm surges of up to 18ft, uprooting trees and ripping roofs off buildings.
In the port of Manzanillo, residents boarded up doors and windows, and those living along hills were moved to emergency shelters as authorities warned the town would be hit overnight.
The Mexican government said its hurricane warning extends from the southern steel-making port of Lazaro Cardenas up the Pacific coast to the tip of the Baja California peninsula, popular with tourists and yachtsmen.

Tropical Storm Ernesto expected to deliver heavy rain to Carolinas
WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) - Coastal residents in the Carolinas braced Thursday for a stronger Ernesto but still worried more about the soaking rains than the winds from the newly upgraded tropical storm.
{photo: Alain Alvarez carries Istra Padilla while walking their dog as gusty winds blow as tropical storm Ernesto passes to the north of Key Biscayne, Fla., Aug 30, 2006.}

Mayon gas emission increases anew

Volcanic Update: Philippines
Last updated 04:25pm (Mla time) 08/30/2006
LEGAZPI CITY -- The sulfur dioxide (S02) emission of the rumbling Mayon Volcano abruptly increased to 9,733 tons on Wednesday from Tuesday's 3,864 tons.
The volcano's S02 emission is one of the parameters being monitored to establish the eruption pattern of the volcano.
Mt. Mayon's normal S02 emission rate is pegged at 500 tons daily.
The abrupt increase in the S02 emission rate was due to the degassing of magma after the two series of explosions recorded during the 24-hour observation period, said the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
The two explosions that occurred at 8:58 a.m. and 1:47 p.m. on Tuesday produced grayish 500-meter-high ash clouds from the summit, which drifted west-northwest.
There were 16 volcanic earthquakes, which Phivolcs said represented continuous movement of magma inside the volcano.

Mini-tsunami reported at Azov coast

Breaking Earth News: Russia
Read it in Russian
Aug 31, 2006
Search operation has continued at Dolzhanskaya Spit (Azov Sea Coast), where tourists were washed away by a surge last night.
As REGNUM is told at Southern Regional Center of Russia’s Emergency Ministry, last night Dolzhanskaya Spit, which is one of most favorite resorts for residents of Krasnodar Territory and Rostov Region, was inundated. According to witnesses, six people were washed away by the surge.
Yeisk Search and Rescue Unit of the emergency ministry managed to find five missing tourists at about 02:00 a.m. The rest one is still missing.
Dozens of cars with non-official holiday-makers were evacuated from the spit. Eleven people and their cars remained at the spit, as they refused to move away. Ten life-guards and a boat were involved in the rescue operation.

Related News
Aug 30, 2006
INDONESIA - Thousands of residents of the tiny islands of Tual and Langgur (Maluku province) abandoned their homes the night of the 29th for safer ground after a tsunami alert was issued. The population fled after an earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale was registered off the coast of the Maluku Islands, eastern Indonesia, forcing the authorities to sound the alarm, which was eventually called off. People found refuge in the villages of Un and Kampung Raja and on Masbait Hill. A local governmental building is now used as a temporary shelter for panicked residents, but the picture of the situation on the two islands remains unclear due to poor communications. It is known though that residents still refuse to go home until they are certain that the tsunami danger is over.

Newsletter:Preparing for the Next Pandemic

Skywatch Announcement
Aug 30, 2006
Dating back to antiquity, influenza pandemics have posed the greatest threat of a worldwide calamity caused by infectious disease. Over the past 300 years, ten influenza pandemics have occurred among humans. The most recent came in 1957-58 and 1968-69, and although several tens of thousands of Americans died in each one, these were considered mild compared to others. The 1918-19 pandemic was not. According to recent analysis, it killed 50 to 100 million people globally. Today, with a population of 6.5 billion, more than three times that of 1918, even a "mild" pandemic could kill many millions of people.

The Skywatch weekly newsletter 'Preparing for the Next Pandemic', has been emailed to subscribers and is available at the newsletter archives.

Viewers can subscribe to the Skywatch Newletter Here

The Skywatch Newsletter is provided to viewers and subscribers of the Great Red Comet and Earth Frenzy Radio blogs

Portugal battles six blazes, raises fire alert as temperatures soar

Earth News: Portugal
Aug 29, 2006
LISBON (AFP) - More than 450 firefighters backed by 135 vehicles battled six wildfires, including four burning out of control, in Portugal as authorities lifted the national fire alert level because of rising temperatures. Nearly 200 firefighters and nine water-dropping aircraft were at the scene of the largest blaze which raged out of control in woodlands near the central town of Castelo Branco, the national firefighting service said.
Another fire near the central town of Santarem forced the cancellation of six trains, including one linking Lisbon to Paris, the national railway service CP said. It was being battled by 70 firefighters.
Earlier on Tuesday the national firefighting service raised the national fire alert to "yellow", the third-highest of four levels, because it said high temperatures, low air humidity levels and strong winds had increased the risk of wildfires.
The alert level will remain at "yellow" until Thursday. It was previously set at "blue", the lowest level.
The national weather office forecasts temperatures to soar to highs of up to 40 degrees Celius (104 Fahrenheit) in some parts of Portugal over the next two days.
Wildfires destroyed nearly 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres) of forest and scrubland between the start of the year and August 14, one-third the average amount ravaged by flames the previous five years, according to the latest government figures.
Most of the fire damage took place during a heatwave which swept the country during the first two weeks of August. {photo: Firefighters try to extinguish a wildfire near Sever do Vouga, 300 Km North of Lisbon.}

Venango County Flooding Forces Evacuations

Earth News: Pennsylvania, U.S.
Images: Venango County Borough Flooding
Video: Town Flooded
Aug 29, 2006
VENANGO COUNTY, Pa. -- Sandy Creek spilled over its banks Tuesday morning and caused major flooding in the borough of Polk, according to Venango County 911.
The Polk Center dam was also leaking, and a water treatment plant in nearby Franklin leaked gallons of contaminated water, county officials said
About 100 people were evacuated below the dam and in Polk, Channel 4 Action News reported. It's unclear when they may be able to return to their homes.
Residents in danger of flooding were asked to go to the Polk fire hall, where a shuttle was running to a shelter at the Polk center.
The National Weather Service extended a flood warning in Venango County until 5:15 p.m. About 2.5 inches of rain fell in the area in 24 hours, the NWS said.

Drought in SW China worsens as temperatures soar

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: CHINA
BEIJING, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Southwest China is suffering from its worst drought in 50 years and temperatures soared to 41 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit) on Wednesday with crops withering in the scorching heat, state media reported.
More than 40 percent of the vegetable crop in parts of the municipality of Chongqing have suffered in the drought, and with production down, prices were rising.
In Chongqing and eastern parts of the neighbouring province of Sichuan, more than 11 million hectares of cropland had been affected, Xinhua news agency reported.
The government was calling on residents to plant alternative crops such as potatoes to make up their losses, and in Chongqing's Nanchuan city, farmers who had planted more than 10 mu of land were being given 100 yuan ($12.50) each in assistance. A mu is equal to one-sixth of an acre.
Despite efforts to dig wells in the area and create artificial rainfall, more than 17 million people were short of drinking water, Xinhua said, citing the state flood control and drought relief departments.
By contrast, a series of tropical storms and typhoons in the past two months have caused severe flooding in the south and east. In one county alone in Hunan province, almost 200 people died in floods triggered by tropical storm Bilis in July.
A study issued by Chinese climate scientists last year predicted that mean temperatures across China were likely to rise, bringing changes in rainfall, river flows and crop production.

Mud volcano floods Java

Earth News
Disaster-plagued Indonesian island faces new threat
Aug 29, 2006

What has happened?
For 3 months a sea of hot mud has been gushing from the ground in Sidoarjo, East Java, 35 kilometres south of Indonesia's second largest city, Surabaya. The steaming mud pool is growing at an estimated 50,000 cubic metres a day, accompanied by hydrogen sulphide gas, and now reportedly covers more than 25 square kilometres. The flow has not yet been stopped; thousands of people have lost their homes.

How bizarre... has this sort of disaster happened before?
The Sidoarjo disaster is an example of a 'mud volcano'. Mud and gas accumulates when sea sediments are trapped in subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides under another, and can erupt out of volcanic cones or simply from a crack in the ground. Mud volcanoes have burst on every continent, but are abundant in the South Caspian region (offshore and onshore Azerbaijan) and offshore Indonesia in the East Java Basin.But the Sidoarjo mud volcano is rather unusual. It's huge. And, says Sam Rice, a geologist with the Cambridge Antarctic Shelf Programme, UK, reports of the mud eruption suggest that it is a hybrid between typical mud volcanoes and hydrothermal vents. The mud is of an unusually high temperature (60 °C) and contains enormously high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide gas. This suggests that some kind of volcanic, hydrothermal activity is going on at the same time.
{Photo Above: Residents carry their belongings through mud as they evacuate their homes in east Java.}

RELATED NEWS

PHILIPPINES - Displaced residents have begun to trek back to their homes in the past couple of days as Mayon, one of the most active volcanoes in the country, showed signs of quieting down. But alert level 4, the highest alert level for a volcano, has not been lifted by PHIVOLCS. The latest bulletin said a total of 24 volcanic quakes were recorded around the volcano as of 8 a.m. Tuesday. "This means that a hazardous explosive eruption is highly possible." A series of small ash explosions were monitored from Mayon between late Monday afternoon and up to early Tuesday morning. "The series of small ash explosions for the past 24 hours indicated that Mayon is exhibiting a slight increase in activity. More ash explosions are expected in the coming days."

ECUADOR - the seismic activity of the Tungurahua during the past days has been low. Lava flows have been registered at the northwest flank of the volcano and descended through the Cusúa and La Hacienda rifts. The threat of a new eruption remains high and the volcano continues to be thoroughly monitored. The evacuated population continues living in 11 temporary shelters.

Hurricane off Mexico now Category 4

BREAKING STORM NEWS: MEXICO
Hurricane Alert
Aug 30, 2006
PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico - Hurricane John has become a dangerous Category 4 storm and is likely to strengthen further while traveling closer to Mexico's Pacific coast than previously thought, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Wednesday.
Packing maximum sustained winds of 135 mph, and gusts up to 161 mph, John was already lashing some tourist resorts with heavy winds and rain from its outer bands.
Hurricane-force winds were likely to begin raking beaches south of Puerto Vallarta late Wednesday, then come close to hitting land early Thursday. The storm would then nick Los Cabos at the tip of the Baja California Peninsula on Friday before heading out to sea.

View Video: Tracking John






TROPICAL STORM ERNESTO LATEST ADVISORY
At 11 Am Edt...A Tropical Storm Warning Has Been Extended Northward And Is Now In Effect From Sebastian Inlet Florida Northward And Northeastward Along The Coast To Cape Fear North Carolina.

Click Image at left to enlarge

Gulf Coast Mourns, 1 Year Later

{Photo: Residents of eastern New Orleans hold hands during a prayer at a candlelight vigil with 1600 candles to commemorate those who lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina.}

In Commemoration: Hurricane Katrina
Aug 29, 2006
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Bells tolled in this shattered city Tuesday morning, marking the moment one year earlier when New Orleans' levees buckled and unleashed a torrent of water that ripped homes from their foundations and sent half the city into an uncertain exile.As the bells rang, survivors of the storm gathered outside City Hall."I felt like I needed to be here. It's like a funeral, and life goes on after today," said Gayla Dunn, 33, of New Orleans.Mayor Ray Nagin told the crowd the anniversary was a difficult day for everyone, including himself."Trust me. We will get through it. We will get through it together," he said.As Nagin spoke at City Hall, President Bush and first lady Laura Bush sang a hymn inside St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter, which survived Katrina's cyclonic winds and was untouched by the flooding.Hurricane Katrina made landfall 65 miles south of the city in the tiny fishing village of Buras. Within hours, New Orleans' protective levees collapses, causing one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history which killed over 1,800 people.One year later, the Gulf Coast commemorated the storm that brought the region to its breaking point.In pockmarked neighborhoods choked with weeds, in church pews and in gutted community centers, residents held public and private vigils. At each of the city's broken levees, they tossed wreaths of flowers, sending them bobbing into calm, black water.Under an equally calm sky in Gulfport, Miss., the community remembered 14 residents lost to the storm."I'm hoping this is a step forward," said Carolyn Bozzetti, 60, whose 83-year-old father drowned in the his home during the storm. "I've been crying for a year. I'm tired of crying." Continue Story

Read how Katrina survivors are dealing with the emotional and financial blows dealt to them by the devastating storm. Rebuilding Lives



Click Photo Above to View Video: Katrina-One Year later

Fact Sheet: One Year Later: Katrina Facts

Hundreds feared dead in Nepal’s worst landslide in a decade

Earth News: Nepal
Aug 28, 2006
The landslide occurred two days ago in Achham district. About 500 residents of Balyalta village are missing. Locals demand the government come up with plans to avoid unrestricted use of local natural resources.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) – Fears are mounting that a massive landslide on Saturday night in the western Nepalese district of Achham could have killed up to 500 people. News of the disaster caused by heavy rain was reported only yesterday because of the area’s remoteness and lack of telephones. Achham District Chief Hom Nath Thapaliya said that a survivor from Balyalta village reported that 80 of the village’s 94 homes were swept away in the landslide. “More than 500 residents have simply gone,” the man said.

INDIA - How do those used to drought every year now battle with a deluge? Over 100 people are now dead around Barmer in floods. Barmer is normally a desert, but in what seems to be a FREAK happening, it's flooded. Floods in the area have brought to forefront all the issues they are familiar with as a nation in such circumstances; administrative delay in response, inadequate relief, and the colossal loss of human life and property. But what can't be stressed enough is the mad irony of a land thirsting for water now devastated in deluge.

Wake Island evacuated as Super Typhoon Ioke closes in

Breaking Storm News: Central Pacific
The Associated Press
Published: August 28, 2006 Last Modified: August 28, 2006 at 08:06 PM
HONOLULU (AP) - The military evacuated 200 people from Wake Island on Monday before the arrival of Typhoon Ioke, the strongest Central Pacific hurricane in more than decade.
Classified as a Category 5 "super typhoon," Ioke is expected to cause extensive damage when it hits Wake Island with 155 mph winds on Wednesday, said Jeff Powell, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in Honolulu.
"This is going to roll up a storm surge that will probably submerge the island and destroy everything that's not made of concrete," Powell said. "It's a good thing it's way out in the water."
The 200 people were loaded onto two C-17 Globemaster III aircraft and flown to Hickam Air Force Base on Oahu, said Maj. Clare Reed, a spokeswoman for the 15th Airlift Wing. They arrived Monday afternoon.
Wake Island is 2,300 miles west of Honolulu and 1,510 miles east of Guam.


Click on photo to view video: Workers evacuate Wake Island

Update: Tropical Storm Ernesto
Tropical Storm Ernesto lingered Monday night over Cuba, beating itself up over that island's mountains and raising the unfamiliar possibility that Floridians might catch a break on the tropical weather front.
A shadow of its former self after spending a full day and night over land, Ernesto still was expected to strike Tuesday at the Florida Keys and Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Disaster-prone China takes heed of global warming

Breaking Earth News: Global Warming/Climate Change
Aug 28, 2006
BEIJING (Reuters) - Storms, floods, heat and drought that have killed more than 2,000 people in China this year are a prelude to weather patterns likely to become more extreme due to global warming, the head of the Beijing Climate Centre said.
China was braced for further hardship as rising temperatures worldwide trigger increasingly extreme weather, Dong Wenjie, director-general of the climate centre, said.
"The precise causes of these phenomena aren't easy to determine on their own," Dong told Reuters of meteorological disasters that have caused 160 billion yuan ($20 billion) worth of damage this year.
"But we know the broad background is global warming. That's clear. It's a reminder that global warming will bring about increasingly extreme weather events more often."
A study issued by China's chief climate scientists last year predicted that mean temperatures across China were likely to climb, forcing major changes in rainfall, desertification, river flows and crop production.
Yet even as China approaches the United States as the world's largest producer of the manmade greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, Beijing is set against mandatory ceilings on its emissions, experts said.
"China's preoccupation is economic development and growth," said Paul Harris, of Lingnan University in Hong Kong, who studies climate change policy.
"It seems Chinese policy-makers are beginning to take warnings about global warming on board. But they certainly don't want to sign on to compulsory caps."
Global warming may increase rainfall in China's north, but increased temperatures and evaporation there are likely to offset much or all of that, Lin Erda, a climate expert at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told Reuters.
Without corrective action, nationwide agricultural production was likely to fall between 5 and 10 percent, he said.

Brown says White House wanted him to lie

Skywatch Special Edition: Katrina Politics
Aug 27, 2006
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- The ousted head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency says the White House wanted him to lie about the response to Hurricane Katrina.
Former Director Michael Brown told ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" Sunday he stood by comments in a Playboy interview, and President Bush wanted him to take the heat for the bungling.
"The lie was that we were ready and that everything was working as a team. Behind the scenes, it wasn't working at all," Brown said. "There were political considerations going into all the discussions. There was the fact that New Orleans did not evacuate and the mayor (Ray Nagin) had no plan."
Brown said it was natural to "want to put the spin on that things are working the way they're supposed to do. And behind the scenes, they're not. Again, my biggest mistake was just not leveling with the American public and saying, 'Folks, this isn't working.'"
The former FEMA chief cited what he called an e-mail "from a very high source in the White House that says the president at a Cabinet meeting said, 'Thank goodness Brown's taking all the heat because it's better that he takes the heat than I do.'"
Also on "This Week," U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said the administration still doesn't understand the magnitude of the reconstruction problem; but the president's Gulf Coast coordinator, Don Powell, said the federal government's No. 1 priority is to rebuild the area in a businesslike way.

More than 50 killed in Iraq in gunbattles, car bombing

War In Iraq
Aug 28, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- At least 40 people -- including 23 Iraqi soldiers -- were killed Monday in ongoing clashes between Shiite militia gunmen and Iraqi soldiers in Diwaniya, about 85 miles (160 kilometers) south of Baghdad, an Iraqi army official said.
The fighting, which began late Sunday, left 32 others wounded.
The clashes erupted after Iraqi soldiers began searching various parts of the Shiite city .
Also Monday, at least 11 people were killed and 63 others wounded when a suicide car bomb detonated at an Iraqi police checkpoint near the Interior Ministry Monday morning, Baghdad emergency police said.
Attacks on American troops around the Iraqi capital Sunday left seven soldiers dead, the U.S. command in Baghdad reported.
{photo: Iraqis look at a car damaged by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.}

RELATED NEWS
You wouldn’t catch me dead in Iraq
Scores of American troops are deserting — even from the front line in Iraq. But where have they gone? And why isn’t the US Army after them?

Former US president slaps down 'subservient' Blair
LONDON (AFP) - Former US president Jimmy Carter lashed out at British Prime Minister
Tony Blair for being "so compliant and subservient" to the Bush administration in Washington.
"I have been surprised and extremely disappointed with Tony Blair's behaviour," Carter told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper as he promoted his new book "Faith and Freedom."
"I think that, more than any other person in the world, the prime minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington, and he has not," said the 81-year-old former head of state
Photo above: Former US president Jimmy Carter, seen here in July 2006,

Flooding lake taking over town

Earth News: North Dakota, U.S.
Aug 27, 2006
DEVILS LAKE, N.D. -- Hundreds of families displaced. Traumatized children. Landowners losing everything and sickened from the stress.
It sounds like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, but these symptoms are appearing much farther north -- in North Dakota. A popular lake often used for recreation is rising ominously and spreading, drowning homes and lucrative fields of crops.
"It's like a cancer," said Joe Belford, a business owner and county commissioner.
Devils Lake, west of Grand Forks in the north-central part of the state, has risen about 26 feet since 1993. If it keeps rising, and the area's "wet cycle" continues, as some meteorologists predict, the lake could rise an additional 11 feet by 2012.
"With Katrina or Rita, the storm came and left," said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "In this case, the flood comes and stays. It's never over."
Much of the rest of the state, however, is in a record drought. {photo: Joe Belford stands by a county road Thursday that has been flooded by Stump Lake near Devils Lake, N.D.}

EARTH NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD



INDIA - At least 93 people were killed and dozens more are missing in massive floods caused by monsoon rains that have swamped the normally drought-prone desert state of Rajasthan. State officials, citing the numbers of people still missing, said the death toll could reach as high as 300. Government officials announced yesterday that 51 bodies had been recovered from Barmer, where vast swathes of land remained under water. Navy divers and army troops had been called in to rescue around 200 people who had taken shelter atop houses, vehicles and sand dunes after the UNUSUALLY heavy rains in the desert region. The army had flown nearly 3500 people by helicopter to higher ground. Around 47,000 animals had also been found dead. Earlier this month, more than ten million people were affected by floods in four states. Western Gujarat state faced the brunt with its diamond-polishing hub of Surat remaining under water for five days.

GERMANY - Lightning injured 25 people, several of them critically, at an air show and a soccer match in western Germany on Sunday. At least 20 people were hurt, 10 of them seriously, when a bolt of lightning hit a crowd at the air show in St Augustin, near Bonn. Two of the victims were in critical condition. Another five people suffered life-threatening burns during a thunderstorm in Gelsenkirchen. Lightning struck the tree under which the group was sheltering during a local league soccer game.

NEW ZEALAND - A suspected tornado hurled a family's steel trampoline 10m on to a neighbour's house in Tauranga on Saturday night. Residents in Papamoa were left wondering if they lived in tornado country after the FREAK winds left the trampoline hanging 2m in the air from the neighbour's roof. "When we came out the wind was still blowing a gale but then it became quite still. It was very strange." Small tornadoes in the North Island happen more often than most people thought. "They are reasonably common. It's not often we get a big one but there are quite a few little ones. It is quite possible it was a small tornado."

MALDIVES - Some houses in Laamu atoll Maamendhoo Island have been damaged because of heavy rains that have caused flooding throughout the island. Heavy rain on Thursday caused the water level to rise to one and a half feet. Some 15 houses in the center of the island were completely flooded because the ground level at the middle of the island is lower.



SUDAN - In recent weeks, rising waters have swept away homes and businesses, reportedly killing several people along the Nile River in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. Those who live and work near the Nile have done their best to shore up the river banks with dark red sand and go about their lives as normal. In fifty years of fishing the Nile waters, some have never seen flooding this bad. 'The current is so strong it tangles my net. I don't get fish. I get trees, thorns, branches and mud.' Hundreds of fishermen are facing the same dilemma. The river has risen to within metres of busy Nile street and passengers in cars and buses gape at billboards and trees, which barely poke above the water. Outbreaks of water-borne diseases like cholera have emerged as a real threat.

Tropical storm hits coast of Cuba

BREAKING STORM NEWS: CUBA
Aug 28, 2006
Tropical Storm Ernesto has hit Cuba after battering the Dominican Republic and Haiti, where it killed one person.
By the time Ernesto made landfall on Cuba's southeast coast early on Monday, it had weakened to 45mph (75km/h).
But forecasters said Ernesto could regain hurricane status before reaching Florida late Tuesday or Wednesday.
The Cuban authorities have evacuated tens of thousands of people in the east of the country and Florida Governor Jeb Bush has declared a state of emergency.
Nasa cancelled Tuesday's planned space shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida and was deciding whether to move the orbiter indoors because of the approaching storm.
Evacuation order
Tourists have been ordered to leave the Florida Keys island chain south of the US state.
«It certainly looks like it's going to impact a significant portion of Florida before it's all over,» said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Heavy rains, floods and mudslides are a significant threat for the Dominican Republic, Haiti and eastern Cuba, the NHC said in an advisory issued at 1200 GMT on Monday.
It said the centre of the storm was located on the coast of south-eastern Cuba, about 20 miles (30 kilometres) west of Guantanamo. {PHOTO ABOVE: People watch the strong waves produced by Tropical Storm Ernesto in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Saturday, August 26, 2006}

Click Image at Left to View Video on Projected Path of Ernesto

READ: New Path Shows Ernesto Bringing Damaging Winds To Central Fla.
The latest projected path of Ernesto shows the storm strengthening into a Category 1 hurricane after leaving Cuba and making landfall in Florida on Wednesday, according to Local 6 meteorologist Tom Sorrells.
The storm is expected to come across Cuba and it could come out as not much, Sorrells said. However, on its current path the storm would move through Central Florida.

Mayon Volcano Remains at Alert Level 4

Volcanic Update: Philippines
Aug 28, 2006
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology on Sunday kept Alert Level 4 hoisted over Mount Mayon as the volcano continued to show signs of activity for the past 24 hours.
PHIVOLCS recorded a total of 25 volcanic earthquakes and 354 tremor episodes in the past 24 hours while sulfur-dioxide emission remained high at 3,172 tons per day. Lava was also spotted flowing out of the southeast sector of the volcano.
The institute's science research specialist, Lesty Saquilon, meanwhile, denied reports of an ash emission on Saturday.
Saquilon said alert level 4 remains hoisted over Mayon, which means a hazardous explosion is possible.
"The volcano is gathering pressure inside and will eventually explode," Saquilon said.
"A mild or hazardous explosion is possible," he added.
The government earlier ordered the forced evacuation of people residing within the six-kilometer permanent danger zone around the volcano.
A total of 42,202 people or 9,275 families covered by the order are staying in 29 evacuation camps in the three cities of Albay, namely Legazpi, Ligao and Tabaco, and its five towns; Guinobatan, Camalig, Daraga, Santo Domingo and Malilipot.

New planet definition great step forward

COSMIC/SPACE NEWS:
[Special Report]

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 2006 (Xinhua)-- The new planet definition passed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is "scientifically right" and is a great step forward, an astronomer who spotted a celestial body larger than Pluto said on Thursday.
Mike Brown, a professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, should have become the discoverer of a new planet but for the IAU's new definition passed in Prague, Czech Republic earlier this day.
Brown announced last year the discovery of celestial body 2003UB313, also informally named "Xena." Somewhat larger than Pluto, the body should be qualified as the tenth planet of the solar system, Brown claimed at that time.
But now Brown said the new definition, which regulates that only eight planets revolve Sun and that Xena should be classified as "dwarf planet" as well as Pluto, is acceptable.
"I'm of course disappointed that Xena will not be the tenth planet, but I definitely support the IAU in this difficult and courageous decision," said Brown. "It is scientifically the right thing to do, and is a great step forward in astronomy."

Image Above: The International Astronomical Union (IAU) on Thursday adopted a resolution on planet definition, according to which Pluto had been stripped of the planetary status. (Xinhua Photo)

Evacuations Ordered in Wash. for Fires

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: WESTERN U.S.
Aug 27, 2006
(AP) Tourists and cabin owners were ordered to evacuate Saturday from the perimeter of a wildfire in southeast Washington state. Many of the evacuated tourists had gathered to take pictures of a DC-10 airplane that could carry as much as 12,000 gallons of fire retardant on one run _ eight times as much as anything else."There are a lot of tourists out there," fire spokesman Virgil Mink said. "People like to see what we do."By nightfall, the fire had charred nearly 110 square miles, fire spokesman Charlie Armiger said. It was about 10 percent contained, Mink said.In Idaho, a wildfire in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area kept campgrounds, roads and recreation sites in parts of central Idaho closed another day.The fire charred more than 6 square miles and threatened about 70 homes, although no evacuations had been ordered, fire officials said.

Review: "Surviving Katrina," One Year Later

Skywatch Special Report
From The Editor's Desk
Aug 27, 2006

The documentary "Surviving Katrina," which airs tonight Aug 27, at 9PM ET/PT on the Discovery Channel, is a powerful, yet emotional presentation depicting the experiences of survivors of one of the nation's worst natural disasters.

Many residents of the gulf coast, including myself, recall the terrible death, destruction and misery wrought by Katrina on that infamous August Summer day. Anyone who had ever visited New Orleans or has traveled the state rich in cultural history, is familiar with its tremendous hospitality and it's unique ability to show visitors a 'good time'. When touring the stately mansions sprawling the Mississippi, surrounded by oak trees decked out in moss, one remembers the song from Porgy and Bess, "Summertime, and the living is easy." So it was in New Orleans.

When Katrina struck the region, everything changed. No longer was New Orleans a bustling city of great cuisine, jazz musicians and all night escapades. In one day it was transformed into a city of chaos and frenzy. Suddenly, those who had lived an entire lifetime in this great crescent city, were faced with the unimaginable task of having to deal with a disaster of enormous proportions.
In a way, one can compare what happened to New Orleans, and the Mississippi gulf coast to the biblical story of Noah's Arc. When a population is unprepared for sudden disaster, they will soon find themselves confronted with death and destruction as were the people of Noah's time. People danced, frolicking in the streets even while the rains came down and the floodwaters began to rise. Mankind has a tendency to forget the lessons learned from past mistakes. Even today most people along the gulf coast are entirely unprepared for similar events which undoubtedly will occur sometime in the near future.

This brings us back to the story of Katrina, which some have dubbed as 'The Perfect Storm,' of the gulf coast. This is the story of courage in the midst of calamity, a story which for many has no ending. It takes great strength to pick up the pieces and begin one's life anew. Starting over is never an easy task, for some its incredibly insurmountable. To fully understand the grief and pain of these survivors, one would have to experience their misery firsthand. Yet those who were fortunate to be out of harms way, have come forward with generosity and compassion to offer assistance to those in time of need.

This, is the great story being told in the Discovery presentation. The documentary depicts hope in the midst of despair, charity and kindness while surrounded by greed and hate, and a sense that in time of need, people have a tendency to come together. Most importantly the documentary provided an important lesson, that mankind cannot continue taking life for granted for in the blink of an eye, all can be lost, and our lives can be taken from us.

Many residents of the gulf coast have said that things will never be the same again. That it will take years just to bring a semblance of normalcy back to the region. This is what people are trying to do. Yet the thought of what occurred on that balmy August day one year ago, will forever be ingrained in our memories. This was a turning point for so many, a time to ponder the true meaning of life. Things may never be what they once were for the 'big easy' and all along the gulf coast, but it will surely be a time of healing, with the hope for a new beginning.

Skywatch and The Great Red Comet would like to thank Crew Creative Advertising of Los Angeles and the Discovery Channel for allowing the opportunity to preview this dramatic presentation.

Steven Shaman
Editor/Publisher
The Great Red Comet

Global warming may be an accelerated version of ancient heat wave

Skywatch Special Edition
Photo: These two fossilized leaf bits come from a type of bean plant that migrated from the latitude of Louisiana to Wyoming 55 million years ago to escape a monster heat wave that dwarfs today's global warming.

Aug, 2006
WASHINGTON - It was one of the greatest calamities of all time: Something turned up the Earth's thermostat, touching off a monstrous heat wave that killed many animals and drove others far from their homes to seek cooler climes.
This catastrophe occurred 55 million years ago, after the age of the dinosaurs and long before humans appeared. But scientists warn that today's global warming means that it could be happening again.
The ancient hot spell, which lasted 50,000 to 100,000 years, goes by the unwieldy name of Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. It was caused by a sudden - in geological terms - doubling or tripling of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Climate scientists say the result was a massive increase of 10 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit - even higher near the poles - above the prevailing temperature.

Update:Ernesto strengthens into hurricane

Breaking Storm News: Jamaica
Aug 27, 2006
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Tropical Storm Ernesto strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane Sunday as it steamed through the central Caribbean toward Haiti, becoming the first hurricane of the 2006 Atlantic season.
The storm's maximum sustained winds increased to 75 mph, just above the threshold for a hurricane, said the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Ernesto could grow into a Category 3 hurricane by Thursday, menacing a broad swath of the Gulf Coast including hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, the hurricane center said earlier. Category 3 Hurricane Katrina struck the city a year ago Tuesday.
Story Continues

Drought fear looms

Breaking Earth News: Bangladesh
Aug 26, 2006
With all major rivers flowing at the lowest recorded level in 25 years and with 25 per cent less rainfall recorded during the peak monsoon season this year, experts fear that a severe drought might grip various parts of the country in the coming months.
"Our recorded history of river water levels during June, July and August since 1980 reveals that this year we have the lowest level of water in the rivers than ever before during this period," said Selim Bhuiyan, executive engineer and also in charge of Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC).
Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) sources said throughout the country average rainfall during June, July and August this year has been 25 per cent less than the usual average during the monsoon. The worst hit are Rajshahi and Chittagong regions where it rained 40 per cent less over the last three months compared to the past few years. BMD, however, recorded a tolerable 10 per cent less rainfall in Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet.
"The monsoon simply did not show up in our skies or in the upstream of Bangladesh from which we would have benefited," said an expert of BMD requesting anonymity.
"Instead, monsoon clouds moved towards countries like Myanmar, parts of India and Thailand where severe flooding was reported recently," said the expert.
Lack of natural flood flow and rainfall might trigger a drought in the coming months, warned both the experts at FFWC and BMD. It might also severely affect fish farming throughout the northern regions where fish is cultivated in ponds and wetlands, where water is currently lying at the lowest level. Flooding is also vital for replenishing the soil with alluvial deposits on the fields.
The experts said due to lack of flood and rainwater, the level of groundwater will not be replenished and a drought will occur in the coming months, making it more difficult for farmers to irrigate their lands. (photo: An elderly person seeks divine blessing after Jum'a prayers at Baitul Mukarram mosque yesterday for rain in the drought-affected northern districts. PHOTO: STAR )

Update: Massive Philippines Oil Spill Raises Health Fears

Environmental Alert
Nueva Valencia (AFP) Philippines
Aug 24, 2006
Hundreds of people have fallen sick and one man has died in central Philippines following the country's worst ever oil spill, health officials said Thursday. The health department has sent medical teams to Guimaras island, which bore the brunt of the disaster, where 329 people have complained of a range of symptoms including skin irritation and respiratory problems.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque arrived in the nearby city of Iloilo Thursday to see conditions first hand following the sinking of an oil tanker off Guimaras on August 11.
The sunken ship has discharged more than 50,000 gallons of industrial oil into pristine waters.
The tanker, said to be resting on the seabed with 450,000 gallons still in its hold, has been described an ecological time bomb by environmentalists.
Petron Corp, the company that contracted the tanker, said it would continue to provide the assistance necessary to clean up contaminated coastline. {photo above: Hazardous work - Philippino residents clean up one of Guimaras island's beaches which was destroyed by the recent oil spill. Photo courtesy of AFP.}

Thousands flee earthquake in China

BREAKING SEISMIC NEWS: CHINA
Aug 27, 2006 IDT
One person has been killed and 31 injured when a moderate earthquake in south-western China, toppled buildings and forced thousands of people from their homes.
More than 1500 houses were destroyed when the quake, measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, struck the counties of Yanjin, Daguan, Yiliang and Suijiang in Yunnan province at midday on Friday, the Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry of Civil Affairs as saying.
It said that 10 of the injured were in serious condition, and 45,520 people had been relocated.
"Many houses collapsed and water, electricity, communication and transport facilities have been damaged," Xinhua quoted a ministry notice as saying.
Provincial authorities had delivered tents, food and medicine to the quake zone, it said.

New Orleans Residents Nervously Watch Ernesto

BREAKING STORM NEWS: UPDATE: TROPICAL STORM ERNESTO
Aug 26, 2006
NEW ORLEANS — What was to have been a weekend of remembrance of Hurricane Katrina's death and destruction became a weekend of worry as Tropical Storm Ernesto gathered strength in the Caribbean.
A forecaster at the National Hurricane Center in Miami cautioned that it was too soon to say whether Ernesto would hit the United States. Still, with projections that Ernesto could reach the Gulf of Mexico as a hurricane by Tuesday, weary New Orleans residents kept one eye on the forecast.
Bari Landry, who lives in a New Orleans neighborhood heavily flooded by Katrina, said that after seing the possible storm track she decided to make a reservation for a hotel room in Houston for Thursday through Saturday.
"There may be panic, but we know the drill," she said.
Officials from the state, city and 14 parishes were to talk by conference call late Saturday, New Orleans Homeland Security chief Terry Ebbert said.
"We have a solid plan," Ebbert said. "All we need to do is watch the storm and the timing."
Depending on the strength and track of the storm, New Orleans could begin evacuations when it is 54-hours from landfall, Ebbert said.

"Surviving Katrina" One Year Later

Skywatch Public Announcement
From the Editor's desk
Aug 25, 2006
I have once again been invited by Crew Creative Advertising of Los Angeles, an affiliate of the Discovery Channel, to preview the Exclusive Anniversary Special "Surviving Katrina" which is scheduled for telecast on the Discovery Channel this Sunday August 27, 2006.
Included in the special are NEW dramatic documentary profiles, ENDURING stories of survival, and expert analysis of Hurricane Katrina. Skywatch will conduct a review of this documentary and will post an analysis to the Great Red Comet and Earth Frenzy Radio prior to the telecast.


The following is for press release:
(Pasadena, Calif.) – Survivors of one of the nation’s worst natural disasters open up about their experiences in SURVIVING KATRINA, a two-hour special premiering Sunday, August 27 at 9 PM ET/PT on the Discovery Channel. Emergency phone calls, never-before-seen home video from the Superdome, and analysis of the meteorological superpower combined with first-time heart-wrenching interviews and vivid reconstructions will shed new light on the dark days of August 2005 when a hurricane changed America.

Profiles of ordinary Americans who forged ahead through death-filled waters, mass confusion and devastation to save others and unite with loved ones provide a new face to the tragedy one year later. SURVIVING KATRINA covers the perfect storm of nature, science, politics and extreme human experience with a range of stories and interviews from all major aspects of the disaster, including Charity Hospital, the Convention Center and Superdome and with former FEMA director Michael Brown.

Viewers will meet a doctor who, forced to take matters literally into his own hands, performs open chest surgery on a patient without anesthesia and using only a flashlight, and the patient
who lives to thank him; a brother-and-sister team who make a harrowing road trip to rescue loved ones on their own; and a National Guardsman who took on surreal and horrific conditions in the Superdome. Survivors who watched their homes wash away and whose lives changed forever share with viewers the inspiration that kept them going and the unbridled joy they felt when finally reunited with families.

View Video Clip/FYI

VIEW VIDEO ON QUICKTIME

Science Timeline

Facts

Survivor Profiles


SURVIVING KATRINA is produced for Discovery Channel by Brook Lapping Productions.

Dow Chemical is the proud sponsor of Surviving Katrina

©2006, Skywatch-Keep Looking to the skies-All Rights Reserved

Tropical storm developing in the Caribbean

Satellite Image: Tropical Depression #5 at 3:15 pm

Posted August 25 2006, 11:51 AM EDT
MIAMI -- A tropical depression north of Venezuela was on the verge of strengthening into a named storm Friday, forecasters said.

At 11 a.m. EDT, the depression that formed Thursday had maximum sustained winds near 35 mph, below tropical storm strength of 39 mph, the National Hurricane Center reported. It could become Tropical Storm Ernesto later Friday.

"It's starting to have some of the signs of a tropical storm,'' said Eric Blake, hurricane specialist. "We have it passing pretty close to Jamaica in a couple of days and slowly intensifying. It could be a hurricane in the northwest Caribbean Sea.''The system was expected to enter the Gulf of Mexico in about five days, but it was too early to tell where exactly it was headed and how strong it would be, forecasters said.

The storm is expected to become Tropical Storm Ernesto over the next day or so, and to pose a threat to Jamaica over the weekend.
Click on the Image at left to View the storm's projected path Video presentation: "Depression on verge of becoming Ernesto"

Freak flooding was worst in 50 years

Earth News: Great Britain
Aug,2006
FREAK flooding was THE WORST IN 50 YEARS. The great mop-up went into action at the weekend after torrential rain flooded Great Yarmouth and Caister who appeared to have been the heaviest hit with homes and businesses inundated with flash floods, some livelihoods put at risk and families being forced to move into B&Bs. Floods destroyed the ground floor of a pub - the fourth time it has flooded in the space of a week. The flooding was the result of exceptionally heavy storms. Initial investigations suggest that the sewage system became overwhelmed by this UNPRECEDENTED rainfall. “We are getting more and more FREAK weather like flash flooding and the drains simply can't take that amount of water. I have been in properties affected by flooding and it's devastating - it really is a horrendous situation to be in." (photo above: Waves batter a train as gales combine with high tides.)
READ: Storms, floods and record tides on way

Disasterouos Conditions Elsewhere
ETHIOPIA - Floods in western Ethiopia's Gambella region killed two people and displaced more than 6,000 when the Baro River burst its banks on Wednesday, and residents were being resettled in safe areas to protect them from more potential flooding. "This river used to fill by the end of August and beginning of September, but this time the river started to overflow before the expected time. It started to fill from mid-June. It is now becoming a threat even to Gambella town." Heavy rainfall since the end of July has caused most big rivers in Ethiopia to swell and weather forecasts indicate more rains, which could lead to more flooding.
Listen to the Voice of America: Ethiopian Floods Mp3 or Ram

SOUTH AFRICA - The Southern Cape has again been hit by flooding. The Great Brak River near Mossel Bay has broken its banks in several places following heavy overnight rain. The weather office has warned of more rain in the next 24 hours. Cold and wet conditions are also expected over the western high ground of the Eastern Cape. This follows the major floods in the Southern and Eastern Cape almost a month ago which caused a number of deaths and extensive damage. Early indications are that flood damage in Nelson Mandela Bay could total as much as R120 million.

1 man dies as tornadoes hit Minnesota

Breaking Storm News: Minnesota, U.S.
Last updated: 11:06 a.m., Friday, August 25, 2006
NICOLLET, Minn. -- Deadly storms swept across the northern Plains, bringing tornadoes that ripped roofs off houses and hail that smashed car windshields. One man was killed when a tornado hit his home in Minnesota on Thursday, and in Wisconsin, lightning apparently killed a dozen cows and struck a woman as she left a supermarket.
Twisters, heavy rain and hail as big as grapefruit also struck the Dakotas, stripping trees of their leaves, and power was knocked out around the region.
In Nicollet County, Minn., a tornado ripped roofs, fronts or sides from farm homes along a 12-mile stretch of highway between Nicollet and St. Peter. Powerline poles lay along the road, and some treetops were sheared off. (In this photo provided by the Lake Region Life, A tornado is seen Thursday, Aug. 24, 2006, near Waterville, Minn. Severe thunderstorms moved through southern Minnesota late Thursday, spawning tornadoes that damaged buildings, twisted trees off their trunks and downed power lines over a wide area. East of St. Peter in Le Sueur County, the National Weather Service said a trained spotter reported a farmhouse destroyed three miles north of Elysian and major damage to the second floor of a home in Waterville. (Lake Region Life, Jay Schneider / AP)

From Another News Source
Tornadoes hit Minnesota
Aug 25, 2006
Tornadoes pummeled southern Minnesota and eastern South Dakota on Thursday night. Hail the size of softballs and grapefruit was reported in southern Minnesota and western North Dakota.

Severe Weather Elsewhere
WISCONSIN - Strong storms overnight knocked down a barn, toppled a gas pump and dumped golfball-sized hail in parts of Wisconsin. A brief tornado touched down in Sauk County, but no damage was associated with it.

ARIZONA -A rain-driven flash flood swept through the outskirts of Phoenix Thursday, trapping the occupants of two cars perched on the edge of a swollen wash.
View Video: Arizona Flooding

Quake coming, New Zealand experts warn.

Breaking News: Seismic Alert/Warning
Aug 26, 2006
New Zealand
Rotorua, Taupo and Whakatane are set to be wiped out in a massive overdue earthquake, say geologists. The shocking prediction has been made at a Natural Hazards Management Conference in Christchurch. Geology experts have predicted that an alpine fault earthquake is overdue, and would result in the East Cape ripping away from New Zealand, destroying the plateau that Rotorua is based on and taking Taupo and Whakatane with it. They say the earthquake will strike "out of the blue" and cause widespread death, shut down power generators, create tsunamis within New Zealand and overwhelm emergency services.

Volcanic Alert: Philippines

Manila, Aug. 25 (Xinhua): After over a month of calm, Bulusan volcano in Sorsogon province, central Philippines emitted smoke on Thursday morning, state volcanologists said.
The smoke was seen rising from the volcano crater at about 11 a.m. local time on Thursday, according to a report by dzBB radio station.
The Philippine Institute for Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said it was evaluating its data on the incident.
Phivolcs had lowered the warning status at Mount Bulusan to alert level 1, the lowest in its monitoring system, about a month ago.
In nearby Albay province, restive Mount Mayon continued to exhibit volcanic activity that showed it was headed for an explosive eruption in the coming days.

Poll sees global warming link to Katrina

Skywatch Public Announcement
Aug. 23, 2006 at 12:29AM
A Washington pollster says the majority of U.S. residents are connecting intense weather events like Hurricane Katrina and heat waves to global warming. The Zogby America telephone poll, sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation, says majorities of likely voters in both political parties favor requirements on industries to limit "greenhouse" emissions. Nearly three of every four of those surveyed said they are more convinced today that global warming is a reality than they were two years ago, the polls said. Eighty-seven percent of Democrats said they believe in global warming, with 56 percent of Republicans agreeing. Eighty-two percent of independents also said they think the United States is experiencing the effects of global warming. The survey, conducted Aug. 11-16, included 1,018 respondents. It carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, said Zogby, which has offices in Washington and Utica, N.Y. (photo above: New Orleans after levee break Aug, 2005)

Louisiana Levees Not Ready For Another Katrina

Washington (AFP) Aug 22, 2006
Repairs on the levees in New Orleans, Louisiana, which burst last year under the fury of Hurricane Katrina should do some good but are not enough to handle another storm that size, a US military official said Tuesday.
"There's still a huge amount of risk in that part of the country for a levee system," Don Basham, chief engineer for construction in the US Army Corps of Engineers, said at a a news conference.
Basham discounted the possibility of the levees failing but said: "If we have another Katrina event today ... you definitely are going to have water going on top of the levees."
Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore August 29, 2005, devastating New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities and killing more than 1,300 people. The US Army Corps of Engineers spent months repairing the levees that, when they overflowed or broke, flooded most of New Orleans.
"Our commitment was to restore the integrity of the levees system back to pre-Katrina conditions. We have done that," Basham said, allowing that "in some cases, we had to do that not with a permanent fix but with a temporary (File photo: A helicopter drops sandbags to fill a broken levee damaged by Hurrican Katrina. Photo courtesy of AFP.)

Related News
(TOP): The white truck and water are gone but the house is still in disrepair and empty 07 July 2006, almost one year after Hurricane Katrina flooded the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. (BOTTOM): A pickup truck is submerged in water on a street in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans 24 September 2005 after a storm surge from Hurricane Rita breeched a patch in the levee of the Industrial Canal, reflooding the area. The Ninth Ward was already desvasted by floods from Hurricane Katrina and had been pumped dry only days before Rita hit. Photos courtesy of Robyn Beck and AFP.

Reconstruction Of New Orleans Stagnates A Year After Katrina
New Orleans (AFP) Aug 23, 2006A year after the costliest disaster in US history nearly wiped out this cultural mecca, New Orleans is struggling to rebuild its shattered soul.
More than half the population is still scattered across the country. Entire neighborhoods remain abandoned to the mold and misery left behind by floodwaters that swamped 80 percent of the city. And bodies are still being pulled out of the ruins.
The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina is shocking to behold. The wind and storm surge literally wiped out entire towns across the Gulf Coast on August 29, causing more than 80 billion dollars in property damage.
Reports of the death toll vary, but the National Weather Service estimates that about 1,500 people were killed by Katrina, most of them in New Orleans. Another 135 people continue listed as missing.
While Mississippi got the brunt of the wind damage, New Orleans had most of the deaths after levees failed and 80 percent of the city was flooded with up to six metres (20 feet) of water. It took 43 days for the water to fully drain away.
Fears that the hastily repaired levees will not stand up to another storm have kept large numbers of people away. But the rebuilding effort has also stagnated amid political infighting: the city does not expect to have a reconstruction plan in place before the end of the year.
"The mayor has not taken a leadership role in driving this process - it's basically every man, woman and child for themselves," said Susan Powell, a political science professor and pollster at New Orleans University

Freak tornado hits Ha'apai rescue mission, sinks barge

Aug 22, 2006
A FREAK tornado struck three vessels linked together, in a search and rescue mission in Ha'apai last Friday that nearly ended in tragedy for 35 crewmen on board.After being hit by 40-50 knot winds, a rescue barge owned by the Tonga government was swamped and began to sink, starting to pull down two other boats chained to it, the "MV Hifofua" and the "Nai'a". In order to save the crews the barge was cut loose and sank, while the five men on board the barge escaped in a dingy.Today, from the safety of port in Nuku'alofa, Jonathan Smith the captain of a Fijian whale-watching vessel the "Nai'a" that was rescued by the barge after running aground on a Ha'apai reef on August 10, described the events as "pretty horrific". He praised the Tongan rescue effort."The main thing was lives were not lost, although a couple of the guys broke their fingers and had scratches,” he said.

170 die as Russian plane is struck by lightning

Photo: The wreckage of a Russian airliner. Photograph: Alexander Khudotioply/Reuters

Aug 23, 2006
A Russian airliner that crashed in eastern Ukraine yesterday killing all 170 passengers and crew on board was probably struck by lightning as it encountered heavy turbulence, a preliminary investigation suggested last night. The Tu-154 was flying from the Black Sea resort of Anapa to St Petersburg when it went down in open countryside about 30 miles north of the city of Donetsk. More than a quarter of the aircraft's passengers were children.
Russia's transport ministry said bad weather had probably caused the crash on flight 612. "A report about heavy turbulence came at 15.37 Moscow time from the aircraft, which was at an altitude of 11,000 metres, and then the plane disappeared from radar screens," a spokesman told Interfax.
St Petersburg-based Pulkovo airlines told reporters that the crew issued a second distress signal from a lower altitude but air traffic controllers could not make out the sentence that followed.

Volcano eruption affects 1 million Ecuadorians

Volcanic Update: Ecuador, S.A.
Aug 22, 2006
More than a million Ecuadorians have been affected by the eruption of the Tungurahua Volcano last Thursday, the government reported on Monday.
The government declared a state of emergency in the provinces of Bolivar, Chimborazo and Tungurahua, after the 5,029-meter volcano, 180 km from Ecuador's capital Quito, threw ash and burning rock into the stratosphere, affecting over one million people, almost 454,000 in Tungurahua and 403,632 in Chimborazo.
The rescue agency said at least five people died and three more went missing. The latter were also presumed dead. The lava injured 65 people, of whom five suffered serious burns, it added.
The bodies of four people have been found. A fifth person died in hospital, the agency said.
The eruption has destroyed more than 40,000 hectares of crops in Chimborazo alone. In addition, 50,000 poultry were also killed in the disaster.
Hugo Yepez, director of Ecuador's Geophysics Institute, told the media on Monday that the volcanic activity was calming. But he warned that an increasing warp on the north face of the mountain showed that it was continuing to accumulate lava. It could lead to an even larger explosion than Thursday's eruption, he said.
Tungurahua has not erupted or shown signs of seismic activity since Thursday, and the crater was showing signs of deflation.
"Probably the volcano will continue like this until there is a new upthrust of volcanic material," he said. (photo above: A view of the land destroyed by ashes from the Tungurahua volcano in Palictahua, Chimborazo Province, Ecuador, on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2006. The volcano erupted on Aug. 16 (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa R.)

Mud flood threatens Java residents

Earth News: Indonesia
Aug, 2006
Thousands of people on the Indonesian island of Java have been forced from their homes by tonnes of hot mud and gas.
The sludge, which has been spewing out of the ground for more than two months, is the result of a crack in a gas drilling project near Indonesia's second city, Surabaya.
In a sign of growing international concern over the disaster, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the affected area of Sidoarjo last week.
But despite attempts by government officials and the company involved, so far nothing has managed to contain the flow.
The mud now covers around 20 square kilometres. Climb up a bank of earth at the outskirts of Shiring village and you see it - a lake of mud stretching for kilometre after kilometre.
A white plume of gas marks the spot where it all started; a crack in the earth spewing out steaming sludge.
You can count the rooftops floating in the mud - marking out factories and schools. And you can imagine the things you cannot see - the homes, the rice paddies, the furniture, the toys: whole lives buried; their owners gone, forced to run for higher ground.

Worst Red Tide in Years Hits Puget Sound

Earth News
Aug 23, 2006
OLYMPIA, Wash. — The worst red tide in perhaps a decade has shut down shellfish beds all along Puget Sound and prompted serious public health worries, state officials said Wednesday.
Expanded beach closures have not reached the heart of Washington state's large farmed shellfish industry, and the state said commercial shellfish on the market have been tested and should be safe to eat.
But industry officials worried that more bad news could further damage businesses already reeling from a separate bacterial outbreak.
The state Health Department said the newest round of beach closures means virtually the entire shoreline from Everett south to the Nisqually River just north of Olympia is off-limits for shellfish harvesting.
The eastern Kitsap Peninsula also has been affected, along with areas near Port Gamble, Port Ludlow and along the Strait of Juan de Fuca, said Frank Cox, a Health Department marine biotoxin coordinator.
"I don't think we've ever had anything quite to this scale,"Cox said Wednesday.
Scientists were particularly worried by very high levels of the toxic organisms called Alexandrium, which produce powerful neurotoxins that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning in humans. (photo above: The water in Penn Cove (Coupeville, WA) turned orange on 5/8/04 due to a "red tide.")

Thousands Without Power After Storm Hits Northern Indiana

Breaking Storm News: Indiana, U.S.
(MICHIGAN CITY, Ind.)
Associated Press
It was intense. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Roscoe Serrells of Charlevoix, Mich., who rode out the storm on a boat in Trail Creek.

Thousands of homes and business in a 30-mile-wide stretch near Lake Michigan were left without power in the wake of a severe thunderstorm that swept in from the lake with strong winds and large hail.

Residents from Gary to LaPorte emerged from their homes after Wednesday evening’s storm to begin the work of clearing the numerous downed trees and other debris.

All available repair crews were out trying to restore electricity after Wednesday night’s storm, but they faced many broken utility poles, said Mike Charbonneau, a spokesman for Northern Indiana Public Service Co.

More than 20,000 customers were without power in the hours after the storm, Charbonneau said. About 9,300 remained without power as of Thursday morning, most in the LaPorte area, he said.

An estimate for when power would be restored to all customers was not immediately available.

Worst is yet to come, hurricane chief says

Aug 22, 2006
MIAMI (Reuters) - If you thought the sight of the great American jazz city New Orleans flooded to the eaves -- its people trapped in attics or cowering on rooftops -- was the nightmare hurricane scenario, think again.
Max Mayfield, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center, says there's plenty of potential for a storm worse than Hurricane Katrina which killed 1,339 people along the U.S. Gulf coast and caused some $80 billion in damage last August.
"People think we have seen the worst. We haven't," Mayfield told Reuters in an interview at the fortress-like hurricane center in Florida.
"I think the day is coming. I think eventually we're going to have a very powerful hurricane in a major metropolitan area worse than what we saw in Katrina and it's going to be a mega-disaster. With lots of lost lives," Mayfield said.
"I don't know whether that's going to be this year or five years from now or a hundred years from now. But as long as we continue to develop the coastline like we are, we're setting up for disaster."

Greenpeace team shocked by extent of Philippine oil spill

Breaking Environmental News
NUEVA VALENCIA, Philippines• Environmental watchdog Greenpeace said yesterday it was “shocked” by the extent of damage caused by the Philippines’ worst ever oil spill and called on the government to treat the raising of a sunken tanker as a matter of urgency.
“It’s really bad out there,” Athena Ballesteros, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace International said. “The extent of damage to such a wonderful part of the Philippines shocked us all. “The government must treat, as a matter of urgency, the raising of the tanker before more damage is done,” she said.
Some 50,000 gallons of oil has leaked from the tanker Solar 1 which sank on August 11 off Guimaras island in the central Philippines. The tanker was chartered by Petron, which is part government owned.
Resting on the seabed with some 450,000 gallons still in its hold the tanker has been described by environmentalists as a ticking time bomb.
Oil has contaminated 220km of coastline and destroyed 454 hectares (1,121 acres) of mangroves and 58 hectares of seaweed farms, Guimaras governor Joaquin Rahman Nava said at the weekend. (photo above: Survey team from Greenpeace inspecting a marine sanctuary in the waters off Nueva Valencia on Guimaras island. (AFP)

Other Environmental Disasters
Lebanon Coastline Becomes Casualty of War
More than a month of bombing and fighting in Lebanon between Hezbollah militants and Israel killed more than a thousand Lebanese and destroyed much of the nation's infrastructure. The Mediterranean country's coastline is another casualty of the war. (photo: Layer of crude oil covers Ramlet el-Beida public beach in Beirut, July 28, 2006)

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Israel's North Reels From Environmental Cost Of War
Safed (AFP) Israel, Aug 21, 2006A week after Hezbollah rockets stopped raining down on northern Israel, the acrid smell of smoke still hangs over many parts of the Galilee hills -- a reminder of the heavy environmental cost of the war. "It will take 50 years, two entire generations, for our forests to return to what they were before the war," says Paul Ginsberg, who heads the forestry department at the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a charity that specializes in planting trees in Israel (photo: An Israeli airplane extinguishing a fire forest started by rocket attacks fired from southern Lebanon by Hezbollah guerrillas into Israel 02 August 2006, close to the sorthern Israeli border with Lebanon. Photo courtesy of Menahem Kahana and AFP.)

More Rain on the Way in Flooded Alaska

Climate/Earth News: Alaska, U.S.
Aug 22, 2006
(AP) High water that closed the main corridor between the state's two largest cities dropped steadily Sunday, though weary emergency officials kept a close watch on forecasts calling for more rain."We have reports all over the valley of the rivers and streams subsiding," said Clint Vardeman, a deputy director of emergency services.Roads and bridges were still under water, he said. The Parks Highway and the Alaska Railroad were closed between Anchorage and Fairbanks most of the day because of bridge damage and mud slides. The railroad reopened late Sunday and service was expected to return to normal by midnight, spokesman Tim Thompson said.High water forced at least 150 residents from their homes Saturday and sent campers and fishermen scurrying for high ground, officials said.Residents could not return home for at least another day, Vardeman said.Heavy rain last week culminated with 3.7 inches falling Friday at Talkeetna, between Anchorage and Fairbanks, causing flooding and bridge damage.

Renewed volcanic activity at the Phlegrean Fields

Volcanic News: Italy
21 August 2006
Satellite images acquired by ESA’s Envisat satellite have revealed the volcanic region of the Phlegrean Fields, located in southern Italy near the city of Naples, has entered a new uplift phase. Using Differential SAR Interferometry (DInSAR), scientists at the Institute for the Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment (IREA) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) mapped the changes in the caldera – a ring-shaped region which includes several volcanoes – and discovered the area has uplifted about 2.8 centimetres from 2005 to 2006. (satellite image: Gulf of Naples including Phlegrean Fields to west.)

Scientists scared to speak out on climate

Aug 22, 2006
ONE of Australia's most distinguished climate experts has warned that scientists may be playing down the threat of climate change for fear of being attacked as "scaremongers".
Dr Barrie Pittock, who was awarded an Australian Public Service Medal for his leadership on global climate issues, says that the speed of change around the world suggests predictions of when dangerous climate change could hit the Earth may be conservative.
Five years ago, hundreds of the world's leading climate scientists agreed that global warming was likely to lead to temperature increases of between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees, along with global sea rises of nine to 88 centimetres.
Dr Pittock said that more recent observations of fast-retreating Arctic sea ice, disintegration of ice shelves in Antarctica, and slowing circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean had prompted his concern that more extreme climate changes could be under way.
"I think the problem is that people don't like to be branded scaremongers," Dr Pittock told The Age. "It gives an excuse for governments not taking much notice of them, because they say, 'Well, they're biased', whereas they're only reporting what the risks might be."
Earlier this year, Dr Pittock — the former head of the CSIRO's climate impact group — was one of several scientists to reveal they had been gagged from speaking out on climate change by Federal Government bureaucrats and CSIRO management.
Officially retired, Dr Pittock has written an article being published in the US journal EOS American Geophysical Union, titled "Are scientists underestimating climate change?".
He said he could understand some scientists' reluctance to speak out when it could jeopardise their jobs but added that "being cautious about your own career is not the same as being cautious about the future of the world".

Bush: "We're not leaving Iraq while I'm President"

Conflict in Iraq
(08-22) 04:00 PDT Washington -- President Bush offered a pointed rebuttal Monday to those who question his policy in a war that has already killed 2,600 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis, asserting that pulling out of Iraq would be even more dangerous.
As Republican congressional candidates struggle to defend the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, Bush said military withdrawal in the foreseeable future would increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack in the United States.
"We're not leaving, so long as I'm the president," he declared.
Bush's stance on the war that has defined his presidency is not new. Nor is his effort to tie the war in Iraq to a broader fight against terrorists.
But by summoning the White House press corps during a slow week in August for a nearly hourlong give-and-take on national security, Bush appeared intent on redefining the debate that threatens to cost his party control of Congress.
As Democrats try to frame the coming election as a referendum on the president's decision to stay the course in Iraq, Bush sought to portray it as a choice between confronting terrorists at home or abroad.
"If we withdraw before the job is done, the enemy will follow us here,'' Bush said, attributing the line to Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. {photo above: President Bush speaks during his first news conference in the new temporary White House pressroom Monday in Washington. The new pressroom is across the street from the White House complex. Bush called for quick deployment of an international force to help uphold the fragile cease-fire in Lebanon. Associated Press photo}

Poll: Opposition to Iraq war at all-time high
Aug 21, 2006
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Opposition among Americans to the war in Iraq has reached a new high, with only about a third of respondents saying they favor it, according to a poll released Monday.

Ethiopia Steps Up Flood Warnings As Death Toll Rises

Earth News: Africa
Addis Ababa (AFP) Aug 21, 2006
The death toll from flash floods in Ethiopia rose Monday after police reported an unknown number of bodies had been found in the country's southwest, where 364 deaths have already been confirmed. The discovery of bodies on a remote delta in the flood-ravaged omo River valley near the shores of Lake Turkana, on the Ethiopian-Kenyan border, came as authorities stepped up evacuation warnings in low-lying areas nationwide.
once counted, the bodies will add to the human devastation from floods that have swept through the south, east and north of the country since the beginning of the month, killing more than 600 and leaving some 250 missing.
"The Ethiopian Meteorological Agency is asking people who live around the dams to move to higher ground to take precautionary measures, as the rain in the highlands is increasing and dams have water beyond their capacity," it said.
In a statement read on state radio and television, the agency urged civilians to tune in to the state channels for updates on the situation at dams on the omo, Awash and Blue Nile rivers.
{photo above: Residents of the Southern Nationalities, Nations and People's State in Ethiopia walk 18 August 2006 through the flooded lands from which they have been forced to fleed after massive flashfloods in Tolta, Ethiopia. Photo courtesy of Abraham Fisseha and AFP.}

Tourists flee Greek forest fire

Breaking Earth News: Greece
Aug 22, 2006
Several thousand tourists and local residents have been forced to flee a huge forest fire in northern Greece.
The fire burned out of control on the Kassandra peninsula, threatening the resorts of Polychrono and Hanioti.
At least 1,000 British tourists were among those affected, as mass evacuations took place. Many spent the night on beaches.
Fishing boats and coastguard vessels took 600 people off beaches to safety, but one German tourist died.
A British holidaymaker at a Halkidiki resort, Jo Leaney, said the fire had raced down from nearby hills and forced her out of her apartment.
The fire comes at the hottest time of year and during a prolonged dry spell.
The BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens says the temperature on Monday was about 42C (107F) and the flames were fanned by a seasonal northern wind called the Meltemi.
Ms Leaney told the BBC she had been in her apartment with others when she spotted the flames in the hills.
The rooms "suddenly filled with smoke" and they fled to the beach "with only the belongings we had on us", along with other tourists and local residents.
Homes, hotels and campsites were evacuated.
At least 20 homes have been destroyed and many of the hotels in the region have lost electricity.

From Another News Source
Brits flee Greek forest fire
Up to 1,000 Britons have been forced to retreat onto beaches in a northern Greece seaside resort where a forest fire is burning out of control.


Related News
Indonesia to deploy hundreds of military, police to fight fires
JAKARTA, Aug 22 (AFP) Aug 22, 2006Indonesia is to deploy hundreds of police and troops to fight fires raging on Sumatra island, officials said Tuesday as they defended their response to the damaging blazes.

Bulge at Kilauea could mean eventual summit eruption

Aug, 2006
HILO, Hawaii (AP) _ Scientists say that a three-mile-wide bulge at the top of Kilauea could lead to an eruption from the volcano's summit. Jim Kauahikaua, the head of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, says the bulge is dramatic. He says he doesn't have enough information yet to determine what the bulge means, but it could eventually lead to a summit eruption. While this bulge isn't cause for immediate concern, he says some bulges result in eruptions after several decades. The bulge has lifted the volcano four-point-three inches since earlier this year. The bulge is caused by magma swelling into a reservoir beneath the surface. As it builds up, the reservoir inflates, causing the ground around it to crack.

MAYON'S ERUPTION TRAITS UNIQUE

LEGAZPI CITY, AUGUST 20, 2006 (STAR)
By Cet Dematera
For possessing unique eruption characteristics not found in any other volcano around the world, Filipino volcanologists want to christen Mt. Mayon’s eruption episodes as "mayonian."
Dr. Ernesto Corpus, chief of the volcano monitoring division of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), said it is high time for everybody to refer to Mayon’s eruption characteristics as "mayonian" because these traits are so unique that only this Philippine volcano has continuously displayed them in most of its 46 eruption episodes since the 15th century.
He said the term "strombolian," which is characterized by ash ejections and lava fountaining, derived its name from Stromboli volcano in Italy, while the term "vulcanian," characterized by strong explosions, lava flow and pyroclastic flow, derived its name from the Vulcano volcano in Sicily.
"We know that Mayon, since its recorded history in 1616, had been displaying eruption characteristics that are either a combination of strombolian and vulcanian or of distinct types. Therefore it is easier to describe Mayon’s type of eruption as mayonian," Corpus told The STAR yesterday.
He said the term "taalian" to refer to the eruption characteristics of Taal volcano in Batangas is now gaining ground in the volcanology community. This refers to eruption episodes dominated by water explosions and mud-geysering.
Corpus admitted they are running out of available names whenever they are asked to describe Mayon’s abnormal eruption episodes, saying the volcano with the near-perfect cone has its own unique patterns of abnormal behavior.
"We believe that it would be a lot easier if we would just refer (to it as) or call it mayonian. The existing terms such as strombolian and vulcanian will just be used as points of reference or comparison," he added.

Update: Philippines: Mt. Mayon Volcano Information

Winter's sprung a leak, or is it spring?

August 19, 2006
SYDNEY'S cherry blossoms are already dripping with bright pink blooms, the May bush is in bud, and trees are pushing out their new shoots.
It could all be the devious work of global warming, or just one of those tricks that unpredictable nature likes to play.
Whatever the cause, says Randy Sing, of the Royal Botanic Gardens, spring has escaped from its box well ahead of schedule.
"Everything is two weeks, if not three weeks, early," he said.
Mr Sing said the city's flowering plants and trees had been provoked into an early show of colour by winter's spell of warm weather and unusually heavy rain.
Ana Knight, a weather bureau climate officer, confirmed what Sydney's plants and trees already seem to know. Sydney in July was 0.8 degrees warmer than average, while August has, so far, been 0.3 degrees hotter.
And 140.2 millimetres of rain fell over Observatory Hill in July, compared with the long-term average of just 97.5 millimetres. By Thursday almost as much rain had fallen this month as would be expected in all of August.

Fatal storm hits Hungary festival

BREAKING STORM NEWS: HUNGARY
Aug 21, 2006
At least three people died and more than 250 were injured when a storm lashed Hungary's capital, Budapest, as huge crowds watched a firework display.
The wind toppled trees, causing at least one of the deaths at the event on Sunday on the banks of the Danube River, officials said.
Many panicked when the rainstorm broke. A search is on for two people missing after their boat capsized on the river.
At least one million people attended the display for Hungary's national day.
Families separated
Torrential rain and winds of up to 100km/h (62mph) tore down trees, smashed cars and windows and ripped off roof tiles.

Weather Related News Elsewhere
ETHIOPIA has rescued thousands marooned by flash floods that have killed nearly 900 people this month, but tens of thousands remain homeless as more rivers spilled over across the nation. Officials fear the death toll could still rise rapidly as bad weather and poor access hamper relief efforts. The floods have hit large areas throughout the Horn of Africa nation, displacing about 48,000 people, according to UN estimates. Ethiopia has warned that more rivers are overflowing, and its major dams are near to rupturing.

INDIA - Sunday saw 51 major state highways closed to traffic in 11 districts as extensive rains caused major damage to arterial roads connecting towns and villages across the state, resulting in collateral damage of hundreds of crores to business and trade, apart from snapping communication between people across the broken road divide. The large-scale damage has prompted them to do a rethink on design aspects of roads. “We get some funds for immediate repair from the calamity relief fund. But extensive rains like this year’s leave no access to habitation. Keeping this in mind, we are putting on the drawing board a plan to design roads in a way that they remain above water, come what may. For example, some 100 odd villages in central and south Gujarat get cut-off as all access routes get submerged. We intend to study hydrological environment of these to design all weather roads." But even as he sounds confident, for the people on the road it seems far-fetched. “The road in front of Karelibaug mental hospital was built only about four months back. And see what has happened of it. It did not survive even a single rainy season.” "It’s a record rainy season for Kutch and has left our vehicles useless outside city.”









Photo: The flood risk management budget for 2006/07 has been cut from £428m to £413m despite the Commons Environment Select Committee recommending a spend closer to £1bn

BRITAIN - the biggest insurers are threatening to stop cover to thousands of homes in flood-prone parts of the country unless the Government abandons proposals to cut its spending on flood defences. Recent leaks from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs reveal that, this year, the Government will cut £15m from its annual spending on flood defences. These cuts come in spite of warnings that the number of homes estimated to be at risk to flooding has more than doubled in the past four years. Senior insurance industry sources have also warned that any cut in flood defence spending could have an impact across the UK housing industry - and will certainly jeopardise the Government's plans to build thousands of low-cost homes on flood plains across the south east of England. The row follows flash floods in East Sussex last week, which led to raw sewage sweeping through the streets of Eastbourne. It also follows mounting concerns that the Thames Barrier could be breached if sea levels continue to rise.

110 earthquakes in Indonesia have triggered tsunami

Jakarta, Aug 20 (Xinhua) The Center for Volcanic and Geological Disasters Mitigation (PVMBG) in Indonesia has recorded 186 destructive earthquakes hitting the country in the past 377 years, including 110 quakes that triggered tsunami

Head of PVMBG Surono disclosed in Bandung, capital of west Java province, recently that the 186 destructive quakes hit different areas in Indonesia from 1629 to 2005, with Sumatra ranking first by recording 45 quakes and 26 tsunami disasters and Maluku ranking second by registering 41 quakes and 33 tsunami disasters.

Sumatra was more frequently hit by earthquakes, but Maluku was more severely devastated by the quakes as 80 percent of the 41 quakes jolting that region were followed by tsunami disasters, Antara news agency reported on Sunday

Powerful Magnitude 7.2 Earthquake Hits Near South Pole

TOKYO — A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.2 hit near the South Pole, Japan's weather agency said Sunday.

The temblor hit at around 0341 GMT, Japan's Meteorological Agency reported. The agency did not indicate the quake's depth.

The agency, which said it received magnitude data from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, said the quake was centered in waters in the Scotia Sea.

The Scotia Sea lies between Antarctica and South America

'Last Days on Earth'

Change How You See the World

Skywatch Special Announcement
Aug 20, 2006
Click Image at Left to watch Video from the renowned physicist on the threats facing our planet, and our existence.

How smart are we as a civilization?

Smart enough to control our destiny and avoid the cataclysms that may end life as we know it?

Watch "Last Days on Earth," a special 2-hour edition of "20/20," Wednesday, Aug. 30, at 9 p.m.

For thousands of years, different religions have warned Earth about Armageddon and the final days.

We are now living in an age where scientists are adding their voices and their evidence in support of end-of-the-world possibilities.

"Last Days on Earth" is a program that could change the way you see your world and yourself.

The world's top scientists, including Stephen Hawking, considered the foremost living theoretical physicist, describe seven riveting scenarios detailing the deadliest threats to humanity.

Some can destroy the planet, others have the ability to render us extinct, and all have the power to destroy civilization.

How likely are they to occur, and what exactly would happen if they did, and could we survive?

"Last Days on Earth" goes beyond science fiction to science fact.

"Last Days on Earth" is anchored by Elizabeth Vargas. Rudy Bednar is the executive producer. Michael Bicks is the senior producer.

Western China Endures Worst Drought In 50 Years

Earth News: China

Beijing (AFP) Aug 17, 2006
Areas of western China are enduring their worst drought in 50 years, with at least 14 million people suffering from a shortage of drinking water, state press reported Thursday.
Thousands of people are being admitted to hospitals daily due to heatstroke as temperatures regularly exceed 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), while large tracts of farmland have been devastated, the China Daily said.
The worst hit area is Chongqing municipality, which has had no rain for more than 70 consecutive days and where two-thirds of its rivers have dried up, according to the newspaper.
At least 14 million people across west and southwest China, including 7.5 million in Chongqing, do not have adequate access to drinking water, the paper said.
In Xiwang village, near Chongqing, the dry spell had caused the well water to fall so dramatically that only the most basic necessities could be covered.
"Most grown-ups in the village haven't had a shower for 40 days," Cai Bangshu, a Xiwang resident, told the Beijing News.
With scarcely enough drinking water to serve humans, in some cases animals did not receive enough to survive.
The Chongqing Business News described how close to 10,000 chickens had died from thirst at one farm, while the Beijing News said villagers had been forced to sell their pigs because they could not otherwise keep them alive.
Temperatures have not dropped below 35 degrees over the past month in Chongqing, and Tuesday the thermometer hit 42 degrees. {photo: Residents collect their ration of drinking water from a truck in China's southwestern municipality of Chongqing, 15 August 2006. Photo courtesy of AFP.}

 

 

Summer rain among heaviest on record to date

Tucson, Arizona Published: 08.17.2006
This summer's monsoon is one of the wettest on record so far and officials say there's plenty more rain on the way.
Wednesday's storms dropped nearly an inch of rain on the East Side and at Tucson International Airport, pushing the rain total to 7.84 inches since the monsoon began June 15.
The total makes the 2006 monsoon the second-wettest monsoon to date in Tucson, according to the National Weather Service.
The rainfall total is only surpassed by 1955, when 10.54 inches was recorded by Aug. 16.
Since Jan. 1, Tucson has received 8.56 inches of rain, nearly 2 inches above normal for this time of year.
With more than a month left in the season, this summer qualifies as the 18th-wettest monsoon on record in Tucson. The wettest monsoon was in 1964, with 13.84 inches of rain, according to the weather service.

CLICK MAP OF TUCSON TO ENLARGE

RELATED EVENTS ELSEWHERE

BELGUIM - More rain has already fallen in the first half of August than in June and July combined. After the RECORD WARMTH in July, the month of August is set to become a record month in terms of rainfall. More than a 100lr of rain per square metre has been recorded on average across the country in the first half of August. Normally, just 75lr of rainfall is recorded in August. In some regions, such as along the eastern coast and the Waasland, more than 200lr have been recorded. Beveren, for example, has recorded 232lr of rain.

UGANDA - A housewife and her two daughters were on Friday crushed to death in their sleep by a landslide that destroyed their home in Soono parish, Bumbo sub-county, Manafwa district. Tonnes of soil rolled down with stones from the slopes of Tasso hill at midnight, within the encroached section of the Mt. Elgon National Park. Four other homes and about six acres of maize were destroyed. The landslide also killed livestock and destroyed beans, coffee and onion gardens. The residents were reluctant to acquire land in the lowland areas for fear of diseases like malaria and were too poor to afford land elsewhere. It was the second landslide in three years in the area, the first having been in 2003.

NEW ZEALAND - Families rushed from their homes Wednesday as several thousand tons of hillside broke loose above an upscale Wellington neighbourhood, burying one building to its second floor level and smashing through windows. There were no reports of any injuries and the seaside street was closed to traffic. The five-storey building on the New Zealand capital's waterfront was threatened by a "substantial subsidence" of soil, after part of the hillside slipped and slammed into the rear of the building. Soil and rock had crashed through the building's windows. Further subsidence was likely from the loosened hillside. Apartments and houses on either side of the landslide and above it were evacuated in the upscale suburb of Oriental Bay. The landslide came after the WETTEST WINTER IN THE REGION SINCE 1972, according to rainfall figures.

Update:Typhoon Saomai death toll rises in China

STORM NEWS: CHINA
Aug 18, 2006
BEIJING — The death toll from Typhoon Saomai, the strongest storm to hit China in more than five decades, jumped to 436 after more than 100 new deaths were confirmed in the country's east, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Most of the 106 new deaths were in the cities of Wenzhou and Lishui in Zhejiang province, where 39,000 houses collapsed under the torrential rains and strong winds that Saomai brought when it slammed into the region last week, Xinhua said. Another 11 people were missing. (In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, local residents recover belongings on the ruins of their houses after the typhoon Saomai in Tuoxi Town of Shouning county, southeast China's Fujian Province, Monday, Aug. 14, 2006. The death toll from typhoon Saomai had risen to 255 in China on Monday. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Jiang Kehong)

Related Events
Pakistan rains 'kill at least 25'
At least 25 people have died in storms and heavy rains in the port city of Karachi in Pakistan, officials say.
Most of the victims were electrocuted after strong winds brought down power cables on Thursday night.

Ethiopian flood toll passes 700
Floods in Ethiopia are now believed to have killed more than 700 people.
A total of 456 people are confirmed dead in the flooding but another 250 are missing presumed drowned.
New flooding has been reported north of the capital Addis Ababa, as authorities try to help as many as 20,000 people who have been stranded by flood waters in the country's south

Emergency responders planning for New Madrid fault quake

Emergency Preparadness
Associated Press
Aug 18, 2006
METROPOLIS, Ill. - Doug Eames knows he has 10 months to prepare for a New Madrid fault earthquake that could cause damage in 18 states.
The quake, though, will be a drill, scheduled to start June 19, 2007, done as part of the Spills of National Significance 2007 and aimed at testing the response of cities, counties and states that choose to take part.
"A lot changed after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast last year," said Eames, national director of the exercise. "When numerous communities are affected, there's a question of where aid should go first, and how small communities can get help. Katrina took this exercise to the next level."
The project was formed after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. About 100 emergency response representatives from Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana met this week in Metropolis, Ill., for a preparedness seminar.
The seminar focused on how to respond to a catastrophic earthquake along the New Madrid fault, something that hasn't happened since 1812.

NEW MADRID FAULT BEWARE
June, 2006
BLYTHEVILLE, Ark. - An earthquake expert with the U.S. Geological Survey says many residents and officials in northeast Arkansas are setting themselves and their neighbors up for a worse disaster by underestimating the results of a quake in the region."This is a different kind of earthquake," said Gary Patterson of the United States Geological Survey Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tenn.
"This is not a California earthquake," Patterson said last week at a meeting of the Arkansas Gov.'s Earthquake Advisory Council. "There are some basic differences here that drive the hazard level up."

Strong Quake rattles eastern Russia, northern Japan

BREAKING SEISMIC NEWS
Aug 18, 2006
TOKYO - A strong earthquake shook the eastern Russian province of Sakhalin, rattling parts of northern Japan early Friday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, Japanese officials said.
The Meteorological Agency said the magnitude 6.0 quake posed no fear of tsunami — huge waves caused by undersea disturbances or volcanic activities.
The quake struck at 12:26 a.m. and was centered in Russia’s Sakhalin, about 770 miles north of Tokyo, the agency said.

Story Continues

Volcanic Alert
Experts: Ecuador's Volcano Ready to Blow Again
Aug 18, 2006
BANOS, Ecuador — Another violent explosion by Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano was looming, experts said Friday, as rescuers searched through hot rock and smothering ash for 30 people missing a day after a devastating eruption that killed at least one person. {photo: Aug. 16: An explosion of the Tungurahua Volcano in Ecuador.}

Volcano Eruption In Ecuador Buries Villages, Kills Five

Breaking News: Major Volcanic Eruption. S.A.
Banos (AFP) Ecuador, Aug 17, 2006
A volcano in southern Ecuador erupted Thursday, killing at least five people, injuring 13 and burying five villages in lava and hot ash, local authorities said. President Alfredo Palacio declared a state of emergency in the four affected provinces before heading to Penipe, at the foot of the active Tunguraua volcano, accompanied by several ministers.
The sky around Tunguraua, located 135 kilometers (83 miles) south of Quito, was thick with ash, blocking access by helicopter or plane. Geophysicists said it was the volcano's biggest eruption in seven years.
About 3,200 people living at the foot of the volcano were evacuated and more than 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of farmland were destroyed, said Penipe Mayor Juan Salazar, whose town was among the worst hit.
"Red-hot lava and ash buried five villages, killing five persons," Salazar told AFP by telephone. Four bodies could not be recovered as they were buried under debris, he said.
"Everything was knocked down. In one of the settlements, lava set fire to 12 houses that are still burning," Salazar said.
About 60 people who had been missing were found alive by a military rescue team, he said.
Authorities said five of the 13 injured people suffered first or second degree burns.
Thousands of cattle were killed, according to reports.
About 60 percent of the 15,000 people living in the tourist town of Banos took refuge in nearby hotels, said Civil Defense deputy director Mauro Rodriguez.
"Mama" Tunguraua, as locals call it, erupted violently before dawn, following a 4.4-magnitude earthquake that struck Wednesday southeast of the volcano.
Rocks up to 10 centimeters (four inches) large rained down on homes, piercing roofs and windows, witnesses said.
"The noise they made as they fell was thunderous," said Wilson Perez, the leader of the Cusua community at the foot of the volcano. "Several people were hit in the head, leaving them dazed."
(photo: The roof of a house sticks out of the ashes in Puela in southern Ecuador, after the Tunguraua volcano - just 3km away from the town - erupted on August 17th, 2006. Photo courtesy of Fausto Bonifaz and AFP.)

Five dead due to intense heat wave in India's Northeast region

Breaking Climate/Earth News: India
Aug 18, 2006
At least five people have died of sunstroke in the past week in Assam that is reeling under a searing heat wave forcing authorities to shutdown schools and colleges, officials Friday said.
A government spokesman said at least five people, including a woman and a child, died of intense heat in different parts of Assam.
"The normal temperature in the past week was at least four degree Celsius above normal and the state has received 41 percent less rainfall so far this year compared to the mean annual average," Dulal Chakraborty, deputy director general of the Regional Meteorological Center in Guwahati, said.
The soaring temperatures coupled with an abnormally dry spell have prompted the Assam government to order closure of all educational institutions from Wednesday last to August 23.
"We cannot take chances and put the lives of students at risk as the state is experiencing a heat wave", Assam education minister Ripun Bora said.
The weather office last week recorded 38 degree Celsius in Assam's main city of Guwahati, the highest temperature in the month of August in the last 16 years.
"The unusually hot and humid weather condition is due to the blowing of dry continental wind from Myanmar and southern China," Chakraborty said.
Authorities in Assam Saturday sounded an alert asking officials to work out contingency plans to avert a `famine' with the state hit by a drought like situation.
"The situation is indeed worrying and we have instructed our officials to ensure incentives and other facilities to farmers whose croplands have been severely affected due to the drought like situation", Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi said.
"We are taking steps to prevent a famine." The government has earmarked a whopping Rs. 500 million to help farmers tide over the crisis with 19 of the 27 districts in the state parched with scanty or very little rainfall being experienced this year.
Experts, however, said there was no need for worry.
"There were just two occasions when there was a moderate drought recorded in Assam a century back.
More than 75 percent of Assam's 26 million people eke out a living through agriculture with the state traditionally been hit by flooding during the monsoons.
Every year the monsoon causes the great Asian river Brahmaputra to flood in Assam.
In 2004, at least 200 people died and millions were displaced.

Related News
Greece braces for three-day heatwave
Greek health and fire authorities on Friday braced for a three-day heatwave expected to set in over the weekend, with temperatures scheduled to hit 42 degrees Celsius over parts of mainland Greece.In Athens, municipal and prefectural officers warned residents to avoid unnecessary travel during daylight hours and prepared air-conditioned public offices for use by elderly and ailing persons.

Typhoon No. 10 Slams Into Japan

Satellite Image: Tropical Storm Wukong is seen in an NOAA satellite image taken August 16, 2006

FUKUOKA -- Typhoon No. 10 hit Kyushu on Friday morning, leaving three people injured and forcing hundreds of households to evacuate, officials said.
The typhoon, with an atmospheric pressure of 982 hectopascals, was located near Shimabara, Nagasaki Prefecture at 11 a.m. on Friday, officials of the Fukuoka Meteorological Observatory said.
Three people were injured in Nagasaki and Oita prefectures. People from some 300 households were forced to evacuate in Kyushu and Yamaguchi Prefecture.
The largest amount of rain recorded was 516 millimeters in Hinokage, Miyazaki Prefecture.
Officials expect that the amount of rain will reach 300 millimeters in some parts of Yamaguchi Prefecture and 250 millimeters in Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Oita, and Miyazaki prefectures over 24 hours up to noon on Saturday.
Due to the typhoon, JR Kyushu bullet trains and Nippo lines temporarily stopped operations.

Typhoon Wukong to Bring Heatwave to Wet End
This years 10th typhoon Wukong will reach waters off Busan on Saturday morning and move up along the east coast, drenching those areas. Gyeongsang Province and coastal areas along the East Sea will see heavy rainfall. The typhoon, passing through seas 120 km off the northeastern coast of Kagoshima, Japan on Friday afternoon, is a storm with sustained winds of 21 m per second, an atmospheric pressure of 985 hectopascals at its eye and a radius of strong winds reaching 250 km. It is expected to pass Gyeongsang areas including Pohang and Ulsan on Saturday, move northward to Sokcho in Gangwon Province on Sunday, and dissipate on its way to seas 390 km off the northeastern coast of Wonsan on Monday afternoon. {photo: Gusts and high waves from this year¡¯s 10th typhoon Wukong hit the East Coast on Friday morning. }

Tornado seen in Midlands' skies

Storm News: England
Aug 17, 2006
A tornado has been spotted over parts of Warwickshire during freak thunderstorms in the area.
The funnel cloud was spotted during the evening rush hour on Thursday as torrential rain swept in.
Eye witnesses said the tornado lasted a number of minutes and appeared to finish in countryside near Warwick and Leamington Spa.
Warwickshire Fire Service said there had been no reports of damage following the storms, only localised flooding.
Nicky Stalker, who watched the storm in Leamington, said: "It lasted about two minutes before drawing up in to itself. It was pretty amazing to witness.

Astronomers Look for Near-Earth Objects

World's Astronomers Widen Search for Giant Objects on a Collision Course With Earth
PRAGUE, Czech Republic Aug 17, 2006 (AP)— They're out there, hidden among a haze of stars killer asteroids. Now the world's astronomers are keeping a wary eye to the skies for giant objects on a collison course with Earth.
Experts say there are about 1,100 comets and asteroids in the inner solar system that are at least a half-mile across, and that any one of them could unleash a global cataclysm capable of killing millions in a single blinding flash.
On Thursday, the International Astronomical Union said it has set up a special task force to sharpen its focus on threats from such "near-Earth objects."
"The goal is to discover these killer asteroids before they discover us," said Nick Kaiser of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, which hopes to train four powerful digital cameras on the heavens to watch for would-be intruders. (photo: This is an enhanced 1997 file photo of Asteroid Mathilde taken by the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft. The world's astronomers are keeping a wary eye to the skies for giant objects on a collison course with Earth. (AP Photo/NASA,ho)

From Another News Source

Astronomical cost of planet row

BREAKING COSMIC/SPACE NEWS
Aug 18, 2006
Sir Patrick Moore, the astronomer, this week called for text books to be rewritten to show eight, not nine, planets in the solar system. His comments came as the International Astronomical Union (IAU) was considering whether there are in fact 12 planets, following a debate over the status of Pluto in the solar system. Whatever the outcome of the deliberations, publishers could lose million of pounds reprinting books with the latest information. Sir Patrick, who presented The Sky at Night on the BBC for more than 40 years, said: “It’s perfectly obvious. Pluto is not a planet in the way Mercury or Venus are. It was only discovered in about 1930 and we thought it was much larger than it is.” He said a planet was broadly defined as a spherical body with a solid or gaseous surface, measuring more than 3,000 miles in diameter and which travels around the sun. Pluto measures just 1,467 miles. “Textbooks should be reprinted. There are eight planets, not nine,” Sir Patrick said. The eight he says are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. However, the IAU, of which he is a member, will next week decide whether there are 12 planets in the solar system. It follows the discovery of several planet-like objects including Ceres, the largest object in an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter; Pluto’s moon Charon and now Xena, a 1,864 mile-wide object found on the edge of the solar system, known as the Kuiper Belt. {photo above: The planets as captured by Nasa spacecraft from the top down: Mercury, Venus, Earth with moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto is absent as no craft has yet visited.}

From the Voice of America
Solar System Could Gain New Planets
There may soon be three new planets in our solar system. The expansion would be the result of a proposed new definition of what a planet is. The change is controversial, but if adopted by astronomy's governing body, it could eventually mean there will be many more than 12 planets.


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Backward Sunspot: The Beginning of a New Solar Cycle?

Solar News
August 15, 2006: On July 31st, a tiny sunspot was born. It popped up from the sun's interior, floated around a bit, and vanished again in a few hours. On the sun this sort of thing happens all the time and, ordinarily, it wouldn't be worth mentioning. But this sunspot was special: It was backward. "We've been waiting for this," says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. "A backward sunspot is a sign that the next solar cycle is beginning."
Photo Above: The tiny, backward sunspot of July 31, 2006. Credit: SOHO. [Larger image]
Sunspots are planet-sized magnets created by the sun's inner magnetic dynamo. Like all magnets in the Universe, sunspots have north (N) and south (S) magnetic poles. The sunspot of July 31st popped up at solar longitude 65o W, latitude 13o S. Sunspots in that area are normally oriented N-S. The newcomer, however, was S-N, opposite the norm.
A picture is worth a 1000 words. In the magnetic map of the sun, below, N is white and S is black. The backward sunspot is circled:


Click Photo Above to Enlarge: A SOHO magnetogram of the sun. July 31, 2006.

This tiny spot of backwardness matters because of what it might foretell: A really big solar cycle.
Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles, swinging back and forth between times of quiet and storminess. Right now the sun is quiet. "We're near the end of Solar Cycle 23, which peaked way back in 2001," explains Hathaway. The next cycle, Solar Cycle 24, should begin "any time now," returning the sun to a stormy state.
Satellite operators and NASA mission planners are bracing for this next solar cycle because it is expected to be exceptionally stormy, perhaps the stormiest in decades. Sunspots and solar flares will return in abundance, producing bright auroras on Earth and dangerous proton storms in space: full story.

July deadliest month in Iraq

INTERNATIONAL NEWS: WAR IN IRAQ, THE MIDDLE EAST
By Edward Wong and Damien Cave The New York Times

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 2006
BAGHDAD More Iraqi civilians appear to have been killed in July than in any other month of the war, according to national and morgue statistics, suggesting that the much-vaunted Baghdad security plan started in June by the new government had failed.An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed per day in July, according to figures from Iraq's Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue. At least 3,438 civilians died violently that month, a 9 percent increase over the total in June and nearly twice as many as in January.The rising numbers indicate that sectarian violence is spiraling out of control, and reinforce an assertion that many senior Iraqi officials and American military analysts have been making in recent months - that the country is already embroiled in a civil war, with the U.S.-led forces caught between Sunni Arab guerrillas and Shiite militias.The numbers also provide the first definitive evidence that the Baghdad security plan, started by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki on June 14, has done virtually nothing to quell the violence. The plan, much touted by top Iraqi and U.S. officials at the time, relied on setting up more Iraqi-run checkpoints to stymie insurgent movement.Those officials have since acknowledged that the plan has fallen far short of its aims, forcing the U.S. military to add soldiers to the capital and back away from proposals for a troop draw- down by the end of the year.The Baghdad morgue reported receiving 1,855 bodies in July, more than half of the total deaths recorded in the country. The morgue tally for July was an 18 percent increase over June.

Why has Iraq war lasted nearly as long as WWII?
Published August 14, 2006
The United States has been fighting in Iraq since March 19, 2003, when President Bush launched Operation Iraqi Freedom with air strikes against Baghdad. Monday marks the 1,245th day of the Iraqi conflict. By that reckoning, Americans troops will have fought in Iraq for as long as they fought Germany in World War II.


NEWS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST
Many Israelis Furious at How War Was Run
As the Mideast cease-fire took hold, there was no truce in Israeli politics: Demands mounted for the military chief's resignation, and the government came under increasing criticism over how the war against Hezbollah was waged.
Newspapers and radio shows were filled with outrage over army chief Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz's decision to sell off his stock portfolio just hours before launching Israel's biggest military operation since its 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Halutz declared himself a victim of malicious reporting, saying he has been turned "into a Shylock."
Calls mounted Wednesday for setting up a commission of inquiry into how the war was run, amid growing dissatisfaction with Israel's leaders and Monday's cease-fire.
The 34-day war against Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, widely seen here as just, had united Israel's fractured society. Hezbollah was considered a growing threat after it had vastly expanded its arsenal of missiles in recent years.
But the unity crumbled after Israel's fabled army pulled out of south Lebanon without crushing Hezbollah or rescuing two soldiers whose July 12 capture by the guerillas during a raid in Israel triggered the fighting.

WAR ON TERRORISM
Bush Sees No End to War on Terrorism
President Bush said Tuesday that the foiled plot to blow up flights between Britain and the United States is evidence the U.S. could be fighting terrorists for years to come.
"America is safer than it has been, yet it is not yet safe," Bush told reporters at the National Counterterrorism Center just outside Washington. "The enemy has got an advantage when it comes to attacking our homeland: They got to be right one time and we've got to be right 100 percent of the time to protect the American people."

Crisis talks on Lebanon oil spill

Environmental News: Catastrophic Oil Spill
Aug 16, 2006
An action plan to tackle the massive oil spill off Lebanon's coastline caused by the conflict is due to be discussed in Greece on Thursday.
Officials from the UN, the EU and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) are meeting to agree a way to halt the spread in the Mediterranean.
Oil spilled into the sea following Israel's bombing of a power station.
The slick now covers 170km (105 miles) of Lebanon's coastline and is spreading out to sea.
Environmentalists and health officials have warned that the spill poses a direct threat to marine life and could increase the risk of cancer among people living in the affected areas.
It could take up to 10 years for the affected coastline to recover, they say.

RELATED NEWS
Philippines Seeks Urgent Help To Battle Oil Spill
Nueva Valencia (AFP) Philippines, Aug 16, 2006The Philippines Wednesday appealed for urgent help to combat the country's worst-ever oil spill, which has polluted a major marine reserve and threatened the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen. Coastguard officials said they were struggling to cope with the scale of the environmental disaster caused by the sinking of the tanker Solar I last week with over 520,000 gallons of industrial fuel on board.
The ship went down on Friday in rough seas in the Panay Gulf between the central islands of Panay and Guimaras. Eighteen of the crew were rescued but two remain missing, the coastguard said.
"We don't have the capability right now to salvage sunken vessels this deep. That's why we're seeking international support," said coastguard spokesman Lieutenant-Commander Joseph Coyme. {photo: A policeman inspects a giant oil slick that has reached the coast of the town of Nueva Valencia, on the central Philippine island of Guimaras, 16 August 2006, five days after an oil tanker sank in the nearby Panay Gulf with more than half a million gallons of industrial fuel. }

Mayon cone swells; big bang just a matter of time

Breaking Volcanic News: Philippines
Aug 17, 2006
LEGAZPI CITY—Mayon Volcano’s cone swelled slightly yesterday as fresh magma forced its way to the top, indicating material is building up for an explosive eruption, scientists said.
They said instruments detected a slight swelling in the mountain’s upper part and some deformation on the ground as fresh magma started pushing up to the top.
Volcanologist Ed Laguerta said there was a high probability of the volcano erupting any time following recent readings.
“Almost all parameters such as lava flows, ash explosions, pyroclastic flows, and the recent edifice swelling indicate that the volcano could blow any time,” Laguerta said.
He said Mayon was shifting from magma buildup to ground inflation leading to ash explosions, pyroclastic flows, and finally to an eruption.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the volcano continued to push lava some 6.7 km down its slopes, bringing the lava deposit to 40 million cu m and surpassing the deposits from its previous eruptions.
Scientists warned residents against mistaking the calm for a signal to return home because the instruments were saying otherwise.
“What you observe on Mayon on the outside is not what it is on the inside,” said Ernesto Corpuz, the volcanology institute’s monitoring chief.

Public Announcement
ACT Alert: Mayon volcano, Philippines
Geneva, August 15, 2006
For more than two weeks, Mayon Volcano has continued to emit lava. The lava emission has already gone beyond the boundary of the 6-kilometer radius of the permanent danger zone. In its August 14, press release, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology-Bicol (PHIVOLCS) said that Mayon's seismic activity is now entering its most dangerous phase after weeks of ejecting lava and ash. The burst of pyroclastic flow marked the first time Mayon shot out fast-moving hot gas and rock fragments. Pyroclastic flows, locally known as "oson," are hazardous and often fatal. They travel with high velocity and could destroy everything on their path. Blistering gas and volcanic debris could travel at speeds of at least 60 kilometers per hour.

More Volcanic News
Volcano in Ecuador Erupts
QUITO, Ecuador — A volcanic eruption in Ecuador's Andes mountains killed at least one person and left more than 60 others missing, the mayor of a village on the volcano's slope said Thursday.

Ethiopian floods feared to have killed 870

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: AFRICA
Published: Thursday, August 17, 2006
ADDIS ABABA -- Ethiopia appealed for international help on Wednesday after the death toll from a devastating series of floods this month rose to some 870.
"The situation is beyond the capacity of our region, and we appeal to the international community to come to our assistance," said Southern Regional Administrator Shesaraw Shegute after flying over the devastated area in a helicopter.
The government warned of more floods in all areas.
"The country's major hydropower dams are holding more water than required and could spill over their banks causing heavy destruction to adjoining areas," said a joint statement from the Ministries of Mines, Information and Water Resources.
The statement added that more rivers in the north, south, east and west had burst their banks "threatening to submerge development projects in their respective areas." {photo: Ethiopians salvage their property outside their destroyed homes after the river Dechatu burst its banks and flooded the town in Dire Dawa, 525 km (326 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa, August 7, 2006. Ethiopia appealed for international help on Wednesday after the death toll from a devastating series of floods this month rose to some 870. REUTERS/}

Severe drought in southwestern China leaves millions without water

Earth/Climate News
CHONGQING, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Searing heat and the worst drought to hit parts of China in 50 years have left millions of people facing drinking water shortages and at least one person dead, and are challenging the country's power and water supply networks.
A 30-year-old tourist died of heatstroke in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province. In the southwestern municipality of Chongqing alone, more than 7.5 million people are suffering water shortages. In remote areas people are relying on water being transported from the towns and rationed on arrival.
The daily water consumption in Shanghai has hit 10.005 million cubic meters over the past few days, the highest in history. The maximum water supply of the city stands at 10.96 million cubic meters.
The water supply network in Shanghai faces "great pressure" for such a massive demand, said sources with the municipal bureau of water resources on Wednesday. {photo: Two children play in a dried-up pool at Xiniushi Village in Daying County of Suining City, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Aug. 13, 2006. Most areas of Sichuan Province have been suffering from month-long drought and searing heat. Local governments have allocated funds to help residents fight against drought by tapping ground water and improving water conservation facilities. (Xinhua Photo)
Photo Gallery >>>
Related photos: Drought strikes Sichuan Province

From Another News Source
Canadian Press
Aug 16, 2006
BEIJING (AP) - A severe drought in southwestern China has forced authorities to begin trucking in water to millions of people after wells and rivers went dry, state media said Wednesday.

South Africa warned of more cold coming

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS: South Africa
Aug 16, 2006
Johannesburg - Vast tracts of South Africa's south and its landlocked mountain neighbour Lesotho were covered in snow on Wednesday, with many major highways blocked by the new cold wave.
Weather forecaster Evert Scholtz said: "On the satellite picture you can see there is a lot of snow over the northern part of the Eastern Cape and also southern KwaZulu-Natal and Lesotho."
"At least 50cm fell at Tifendell," near the country's best known ski resort, about 450km south of Johannesburg.
"Temperatures in the area hovered around five degrees Celsius."
Tshepo Machaea, a road safety spokesperson, said: "Snow temporarily blocked at least three main highways linking the country's industrial interior and its harbours."
"Traffic was affected on a highway linking Port Elizabeth and Durban, the N9 connecting the central heartland to tourist destinations in the south, and the N10 running from Namibia to eastern South Africa."
Fairly serious system
"It was quite thick, up to my knees in places," said Machaea, adding that although graders were used to clear the roads, "it was quite difficult because the snow was very hard to break because it had turned to ice".

Is The Sky Falling?

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Aug 16, 2006

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54,700 dead or missing in NKorea's worst ever floods

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: NORTH KOREA
CLICK MAP TO ENLARGE
SEOUL, Aug 16 (AFP) Aug 16, 2006
About 54,700 people were dead or missing and 2.5 million others homeless after last month's floods in North Korea, the worst in the country's history, an independent humanitarian group said Wednesday.
The figure is a huge leap from the 10,000 dead or missing reported earlier by Good Friends, a South Korean group and long-term aid partner for North Korea.
Large tracts of farmland and entire villages are believed to have been washed away in floods and landslides, raising serious concerns over the impoverished country's ability to feed itself.
"The number of victims, either dead or missing, totaled 54,700. There were some 2.5 million people left homeless," Good Friends said in a statement released here.
The group described the damage, caused by a typhoon on July 10 followed by three days of heavy monsoon rains, as "the worst ever in North Korean flooding history".
It said the new tally was an approximate figure based on final counts in late July, without revealing its sources. The group also said 231 bridges were washed away along with large swathes of agricultural land.
Immediate confirmation was not possible. North Korea's state media reported last month that at least "hundreds" were dead or missing in the flooding.
The group said North Korea's southwestern province of Hwanghaedo, the communist state's largest grain-producing area, was among those areas hardest hit.

Tropical Storm Wukong Picks Up Speed, Heads Toward Japan

Breaking Storm News: China & The Far East
View full map
Update 1
Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Two tropical storms heading toward southern Japan increased speed with one, Wukong, expected to turn into a typhoon tomorrow, a U.S. weather agency said.

Wukong, with maximum sustained winds of 83 kilometers per hour (52 miles an hour), was located 612 kilometers southeast of the city of Kagoshima in southwestern Japan at 3 a.m. today, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center said on its Web site.

The storm, with gusts of 100 kilometers per hour, turned west from its earlier northwestern direction and doubled its speed to 16.7 kilometers an hour. The 11th named storm of the Pacific cyclone season is forecast to turn into a typhoon before reaching Kyushu tomorrow night.

The other storm, Sonamu, weakened into a tropical depression and was located 1108 kilometers south-southeast of Kagoshima at 3 a.m., with maximum sustained winds of 56 kilometers an hour.

Japan is regularly buffeted by tropical storms, which left scores dead in 2004. Tropical Storm Maria last week skirted past Tokyo as it moved along the southern coast of central Japan, causing flight cancellations and a halt to some sea shipments from Cosmos Oil Co.'s refinery in Yokkaichi.

Wukong is the name of the Monkey King in the Chinese novel Journey to the West.

Another storm, a tropical depression, was located 1,509 kilometers to the south of Kagoshima and will turn into a tropical storm by tomorrow, the U.S. weather agency said on its Web site. The storm is moving northeast and is forecast to turn north and head in the general direction of central Japan.

Japan's Meteorological Agency has already named the system Sonamu, which is the name for a pine tree in Korean. The Japan weather agency says Wukong is the 10th named storm of the season and Sonamu is the 11th.

Typhoon Saomai last week brushed past the southern Japanese island chain of Okinawa on its way to China, where more than 130 people were killed and more than 50,000 houses damaged or destroyed.

At least 20 people died in September last year when Typhoon Nabi hit southwestern Japan. A record 10 number of typhoons and tropical storms hit Japan in 2004, killing sores of people and causing billions of dollars of damage. Update 2: Typhoon Wookung Swinging Toward Korea

China floods: a close-up look at the destruction in Hunan Province
At least 1,800 people have been killed in severe flooding in China this year, following a series of devastating typhoons and tropical storms. Most recently, Typhoon Saomai – the worst to hit China’s mainland in half a century – claimed more than 200 lives and destroyed or damaged over 432,000 homes and around 270,000 hectares of farmland in south-east China. See Map Posted Above


Related News
Death Toll Rises To 319 From Typhoon In China
BEIJING -- China's most powerful typhoon in more than 50 years killed at least 319 people, and villagers said the true death toll is much higher.
Survivors accuse the government of failing to adequately warn about Typhoon Saomai, which struck last week. {photo: Victim of Typhoon Saomai is rescued in Zhejiang Province, China.}

Small quake shakes Lima for second time in 3 months

Seismic News: Ohio
Aug 15, 2006
Associated Press
LIMA, Ohio - A small earthquake shook this northwest Ohio city for the second time in about three months, awakening residents but causing no damage early Tuesday, officials said.
The 2:09 a.m. quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 2.5, was not related to the series of tremors that have struck in northeast Ohio's Lake County and under Lake Erie this year, said Mike Hansen, head of the Ohio Seismic Network.
Hansen said the quake occurred close to this city about 70 miles southwest of Toledo, although authorities were still trying to determine the exact location of the epicenter.
"It was very close to the one we had May 11," Hansen said.
Residents who called law enforcement authorities reported waking up to a loud boom and then feeling the earth shake, according to Lima police and the Allen County sheriff's office.
That sequence is typical for an earthquake this size, Hansen said.

ON THE NET
Ohio Seismic Network: http://www.ohiodnr.com/ohioseis

Seismic News Elsewhere
JAPAN - The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is set to launch a five-year research program into the detailed mechanism of a powerful earthquake that is highly likely to hit Tokyo and surrounding areas within the next 30 years. There is a 70 percent chance of an earthquake striking just below the Kanto region and measuring magnitude 7 within 30 years and a 90 percent chance within 50 years. The Kanto region has been jolted by a quake measuring about M7 a few times in the last century, with the latest ones being a quake whose focus was located off Chiba in 1987 (M6.7) and one near the Uraga Channel in 1922 (M6.8). The mechanism of a powerful earthquake beneath the Tokyo metropolitan area has never been studied before because of its complicated geographical structure.

CALIFORNIA - Geologists say a big earthquake is inevitable in Southern California and so is widespread damage, despite the construction of buildings designed to withstand it and built to the latest codes. A computerized simulation of a 7.9 quake showed buildings throughout the region would collapse. The last 7.9 quake in Southern California hit in 1857. Experts say such large temblors happen every 200 to 300 years. CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO VIEW THE VIDEO

SUNSPOT 904

Solar News
Aug 15, 2006
Bipolar sunspot 904 hasn't actually erupted, not in a big way, but it is crackling with promise. "The two giant spots look like whirlpools of gasoline," says photographer Larry Alvarez of Flower Mound, Texas. He took this picture on August 13th
Note the dark and ragged cloud, in flight, propelled outward by some minor explosion in the heart of the spot. The big explosions are yet to come.

more images: from Pete Lawrence of Selsey, UK; from Harald Paleske of Langendorf, Germany; from P-M Hedén of Vallentuna, Sweden; from Dennis Simmons of Brisbane, Australia;

Bush 'helped Israeli attack on Lebanon'

Aug 14, 2006
The US government was closely involved in planning the Israeli campaign in Lebanon, even before Hizbullah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross border raids in July. American and Israeli officials met in the spring, discussing plans on how to tackle Hizbullah, according to a report published yesterday.
The veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh writes in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine that Israeli government officials travelled to the US in May to share plans for attacking Hizbullah.
Quoting a US government consultant, Hersh said: "Earlier this summer ... several Israeli officials visited Washington, separately, 'to get a green light for the bombing operation and to find out how much the United States would bear'."
The Israeli action, current and former government officials told Hersh, chimed with the Bush administration's desire to reduce the threat of possible Hizbullah retaliation against Israel should the US launch a military strike against Iran.
"A successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign ... could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations," sources told Hersh.
Yesterday Mr Hersh told CNN: "July was a pretext for a major offensive that had been in the works for a long time. Israel's attack was going to be a model for the attack they really want to do. They really want to go after Iran."
An unnamed Pentagon consultant told Hersh: "It was our intention to have Hizbullah diminished and now we have someone else doing it."
Officials from the state department and the Pentagon denied the report. A spokesman for the National Security Council told Hersh that "The Israeli government gave no official in Washington any reason to believe that Israel was planning to attack."
Hersh has a track record in breaking major stories. He was the first to write about the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and has written extensively about the build-up to the war in Iraq. He made his name when he uncovered the massacre at My Lai during the Vietnam war. Most recently he has written about US plans for Iran, alleging that US special forces had already been active inside the country.

Floods, lightning strikes leave 25 dead in NW China

Breaking Earth News: China
URUMQI, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Natural disasters triggered by rain and snow melting at high altitudes have left 25 dead and affected 1.2 million people over the last month in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, said a regional civil affairs official on Tuesday.
Twenty-three people died in floods and mud-rock flows in the Kazak Autonomous Prefecture of Ili, Altay, in northern Xinjiang, and Turpan, in central Xinjiang, in July and early August, said the official.
Another two were killed by lightning strikes, said the official.
Natural disasters like rainstorms, floods, hail and strong winds also affected 1.21 million people and caused economic losses of 1.5 billion yuan (180 million U.S. dollars).
Floods also hit parts of southern Xinjiang.
In early August, the Aksu River, the Hotan River and the Yarkang River, all major branches of the Tarim River in southern Xinjiang, were hit by the worst flooding in 10 years, according to the office of the regional flood control and drought relief headquarters.
The floods were mainly caused by rapidly melting snow, said the office. One person was reported missing in the flooding, which also inundated an area of 20 square kilometers and 66 hectares of cotton crops.

Most Fires in Spain's Galicia Under Control

Earth News: Spain
Aug 15, 2006
Firefighters battling hundreds of forest fires for the past two weeks in Spain's northwest Galicia region have managed to control all but four blazes, officials said Tuesday.
None of those ongoing fires is considered serious, and rain is forecast for Wednesday, the rural affairs department of the Galician government said.
Cooler temperatures and an absence of wind have helped the 8,000 firefighters, soldiers and other people battling the fires, a department official said. A total of 1,750 fires broke out in Galicia from Aug. 1-13, a figure the official called way above average although she did not have comparable figures for other years.
Officials blame arsonists in most cases. Four people have died and 27 were arrested on suspicion of arson.

Record rain kills 11 in Bhopal

BREAKING CLIMATE NEWS: INDIA
Aug 15, 2006
BHOPAL: Eleven people were killed and more than 12 went missing following heavy rains since Sunday night. Bhopal received 29 cm of rain in a span of five hours, a record unheard of in the past 70 years, MET sources said. The Madhya Pradesh government has sought Army's help to evacuate people from the low-lying areas which have been inundated. Power supply to many areas of the state capital has been snapped. To protest against the local administration's inept handling of the situation, local residents of the city came out on streets. At Kachchi Chhola in old Bhopal, angry mob indulged in stone pelting when a relief operation team reached the spot on Monday. Meteorological office said more rainfall is expected as a depression in Bay of Bengal is advancing in the north-east direction. In the next 48 hours, Bhopal is likely to get more heavy rains.

Scientists warn of fresh flows from Philippine volcano

Volcanic Update: Mayon, Philippines
Published: Tuesday, August 15, 2006
LEGAZPI, Philippines -- Fresh deposits of searing gas, rocks and ash have been found on the Philippines' restive Mayon volcano, and scientists warned Tuesday that more of the destructive flows are likely.
Brief breaks in the clouds covering Mayon indicated fresh deposits in some gullies to the east and northeast of the summit, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said.
"More explosions from the crater are expected, and these shall likely generate pyroclastic flows," the institute said in a statement, referring to the gas, ash and debris flows.
Lava flowing down Mayon has already destroyed wide swaths of farmland and permanently altered the terrain near two villages, volcanologist Ed Laguerta said.
Some 50 hectares of farmland and plantations have been destroyed by the lava that has trickled at least 6.7 kilometres since July 14, covering once-fertile agricultural land with molten rock and debris 10-15 metres deep, Laguerta said.
Overnight, instruments recorded four mild ash explosions, 24 volcanic earthquakes and 330 tremors from lava fragments tumbling from the crater and upper slopes.
"The explosions, volcanic earthquakes, lava extrusion and high rates of degassing indicate a continuing high unrest at Mayon," the institute's bulletin said.

Global warming behind killer typhoon season in China

BEIJING, Aug 14 (AFP) Aug 14, 2006
Global warming is contributing to an unusually harsh typhoon season in China that started around a month early and has left thousands dead or missing, government officials and experts say.
"The natural disasters caused by typhoons in our country have been many this year," the head of the China Meteorological Administration, Qin Dahe, said in recent comments on his organization's website.
"Against the backdrop of global warming, more and more strong and unusual climatic and atmospheric events are taking place.
"The strength of typhoons are increasing, the destructiveness of typhoons that have made landfall is greater and the scope in which they are travelling is farther than normal."
The vice minister of the Ministry of Water Resources, E Jingping, also spoke last week about the unusual ferocity, frequency and early arrival of typhoons in China this year.
E said the typhoon season in China normally starts around July 27, but this year the first typhoon hit the southern province of Guangdong on May 18.
"This is the earliest typhoon to hit Guangdong since 1949," he said in a speech.
"The typhoons have come earlier this year, they are strong, the area that they hit is wide and the length of time they last is long."
Natural disasters in China this year have killed 1,699 people and left another 415 missing, the nation's Red Cross Society said last week.
More than 1,300 of those died in weather-related incidents from May to the end of July, the government reported earlier.

Related News
China typhoon toll up to 255
Monday, August 14, 2006 (Beijing)
The death toll from the strongest typhoon to hit China in five decades increased to 255 on Monday after the bodies of scores of dead sailors were pulled from the sea.

Allstate drops Alaska earthquake coverage

Aug, 2006
Nearly 7,000 Alaskans will lose their earthquake insurance as their policies come up for renewal in the coming months.
Allstate Insurance Co. is cutting its optional earthquake coverage nationwide, and will drop this plan as policies come up for renewal, said Caitlin Gorand, spokeswoman for Allstate's Northwest region.
"It's part of a larger catastrophic management strategy," Gorand said. "The insurance industry is in the business of managing risk. We're trying to manage our exposure to mega-catastrophes."
Alaska customers have been receiving notices since mid-June, Gorand said. The company stopped writing earthquake policies on March 6 throughout the country.
In 2005 in Alaska, Allstate had 76,000 auto policyholders and 45,000 customers carrying policies on their property - 6,800 of them carried optional earthquake coverage, Gorand said.
Allstate is working to provide its customers with an alternate carrier that is affiliated with the company, she said.
In Alaska, earthquake and volcanic activity are nearly everyday occurrences, but the state doesn't require earthquake insurance. The state has experienced three of the world's top 10 earthquakes. The 1964 Good Friday quake, centered in Prince William Sound, still ranks among the nation's strongest.

Sixty fishermen missing at sea

Aug 13, 2006
A STORM in the Bay of Bengal sank seven fishing boats and at least 60 Bangladeshi fishermen were missing, police said today.
The storm yesterday also triggered a meter high water surge, washing away some houses and shops on the island of Saint Martin, about 500km southeast of the capital Dhaka.
Some 500 people were stranded at Kuakata beach town, 400km south of Dhaka, after the sea surge damaged road bridges, police and witnesses said.
The missing fishermen were among about 100 people in the seven boats that sank during the storm. The rest were rescued by other boats that managed to reach the shores.
Police said a search for the missing was delayed as the sea was choppy.
Meteorological department said the sea would remain rough for days due to a monsoonal depression, which may cause some rain across the country.
Lack of rain over the last two months has hit crops, officials said.

Christchurch residents flee massive slip

Earth News: New Zealand
Aug 14, 2006
A landslip forced three people to flee a Christchurch home yesterday as hundreds of tonnes of rock and rubble stormed into two properties.
Darryl Harris heard a thunderous crack in the cliff above his Sumner house, looked up – and ran.
"We just heard like a shotgun blast, then we looked up and the face of the rock was just coming on down and we just turned and bolted. It was pretty frightening really," Harris said. "It looked like just a sheet of rock."
Christchurch City Council transport and greenspace manager Michael Aitken said there were issues with the security of the whole cliff face and other properties near where the slip occurred, but neighbouring residents were in no immediate danger.
Harris, his brother and a friend were in the driveway of his Wakefield Avenue house in the Christchurch seaside suburb at 10am yesterday when the landslip happened.
Rubble and boulders ploughed into Harris's property. His neighbour's property was also hit, with a huge boulder smashing through the weatherboards into a bedroom. No-one was home at the time. {photo above: HOMELESS: Darryl Harris sits among the boulders which have damaged his Sumner home. Harris and his family have been forced to leave the property because of a landslip.The Press}

Antarctic snow shock 'just around corner'

CHANGING CLIMATE NEWS: ANTARCTIC
Climate models predict global warming should produce greater Antarctic snowfalls. (ABC)
Aug 12, 2006
By Anna Salleh for Science Online
An Australian scientist says his findings that Antarctic snowfalls have changed little in 50 years, despite global warming, could be evidence the worst is yet to come.
A study published yesterday in the Science journal reports snowfall in Antarctica has not increased over the past 50 years.
This contradicts the predictions of most climate models that are based on the assumption that warming air can carry more moisture and produce greater snowfalls at the poles.
University of Newcastle palaeoclimatologist Dr Ian Goodwin says the recent evidence supports the idea that there is a lag between global warming and Antarctica's response to it, which is not recognised in climate models.
He says Antarctica and the southern hemisphere are surrounded by large oceans that take a long time to heat and therefore act as a buffer to climate change.
"We can be relatively complacent about the effects of climate change in the Southern Hemisphere because we haven't seen dramatic changes," he says.
"But the frightening thing I think is that we are not yet seeing the full impact of global warming in the southern hemisphere, but it's just around the corner."
Dr Goodwin says recent evidence suggests the lag time could be up to 60 years.
He says the new research should now feed into climate models and make them more accurate.
"In all likelihood, we're about to see in the next couple of decades a very large response to global warming in Antarctic and Southern Ocean regions," he said.
To read the full story, click here.

Quakes rattle experts' attention

Seismic Alert: Pacific Northwest U.S.
Aug 12, 2006
Northwest - Scientists don't know why there's been a wave of activity lately, but they urge people to be prepared
Call it the summer of shaking. Numerous small earthquakes have rattled the Northwest in recent weeks, including swarms beneath Mount Hood and east-central Washington and, on Aug. 3, a magnitude 3.8 quake just north of Vancouver that shook the entire metro area.
Don't head for the hills -- not yet, anyway. Scientists are cautious about signaling concern, much less doom. But they do say: Be prepared. The ground is very much alive, and far bigger quakes have hit here before.
Subterranean rumblings are everyday events in the Northwest, with some quake periods busier than others. But the current spate of activity has earned the full attention of scientists who wonder whether there's more to know or a pattern yet undeciphered.
Continue Story

More Quake News
Earthquake shakes Mexican capital
An earthquake has rocked central Mexico, prompting the evacuation of a number of buildings in the capital. Hundreds of people are said to have run onto the streets of Mexico City as skyscrapers swayed. No injuries have been reported.

Volcanic News: Hawaii
Aug 11, 2006
Lava Flows From Kilauea To Sea
HONOLULU -- Lava has started flowing from Kilauea Volcano into the Pacific Ocean from a new entry point, building more Big Island land.
Video taken on Thursday shows molten rock slithering down cliffs and oozing into the sea, unleashing clouds of steam as the lava hits the ocean.
Jim Kauahikaua is the scientist-in-charge at the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. He said the 2,000-degree Fahrenheit lava boils the sea water on contact. The ocean, meanwhile, freezes the lava and turns it into sand-like chunks that form a base for new land.
CLICK THE PHOTO AT LEFT TO VIEW IMAGES OF LAVA FLOW
The latest Kilauea ocean entry point developed the night of Aug. 3 when lava from the Campout flow hit the sea at East Kailiili.

Britain warns of coming coastal flooding

EARTH NEWS: Great Britain
Skywatch Special Report
Aug, 2006
NORWICH, England (UPI) -- The British government has begun warning people living on the eastern coast to prepare for flooding that record high tides could bring in coming weeks.
During September and October, the highest tides in 20 years are expected in the East Anglia region, which is north of London along England`s coast.
Already, the Environment Agency has begun notifying coastal residents to be prepared to evacuate as tides 10 feet above normal begin battering the coast. It has also established the Precautionary Evacuation Notice system, which uses electronic signs and siren warnings, The Telegraph reported. Homeowners are also being urged to register with the agency to receive direct flood warnings, the report said.
Such tidal and flooding conditions in 1953 killed 300 people, damaged 24,000 homes and flooded 180,000 acres of land. It happened again in 1978 but, because of lessons learned after 1953, there were no deaths

Related News
The Flood of 1953
The storm of January 31 1953 is described as the worst peacetime disaster that the UK has known. It killed 307 people and 30,000 were evacuated - but that is only part of the story. On the same night 132 people out of 172 passengers and crew died when they abandoned the British Rail ferry, Princess Victoria, in heavy seas, and across the North Sea another 1,835 people were drowned as the dykes gave way. {photo: Flooding in Whitstable }

53 years on: The great flood explained
As sea defences were washed away by huge waves, the Thames and Medway estuaries were inundated with more water than they could handle and along the North East Kent coast wave action ruined beaches and sand dunes. {photo: Kent, England 1953}

Philippines volcano spews searing gas, debris

Updated Sun. Aug. 13 2006
Associated Press
LEGAZPI, Philippines -- Searing gas and debris raced down the slope of the Mayon volcano in the Philippines this weekend, a development that showed the volcano has entered a much more threatening cycle, a scientist said.
The burst of pyroclastic flow Saturday marked the first time Mayon shot out fast-moving hot gas and rock fragments after weeks of showing signs of a major eruption, volcanologist Ed Laguerta said Sunday.
"This is really the dangerous phase," said Laguerta. "We're not worried much with lava flows because they're slow moving, but pyroclastic flows travel at such high velocity and could destroy almost everything in its path."
Blistering gas and volcanic debris can travel 40 mph or more per hour, he said.
Mayon continued to show signs of restiveness Sunday, emitting abnormally high levels of sulfuric dioxide and puffing ash at least six times.
Mayon, a popular tourist attraction because of its nearly perfect conical shape, is one of the Philippines' 22 active volcanos. It is located 210 miles southeast of Manila on Luzon island.
{photo: Red hot lava continues to cascade down the slopes of Mayon volcano in its continuing 'mild eruption' as seen from Legazpi city, Albay province about 340 kilometers (212 miles) southeast of Manila, Philippines at dawn Thursday Aug. 10, 2006. Thick clouds has been hampering the view of the summit of Mayon volcano since it spewed volcanic ash Monday.(AP Photo)

China typhoon death toll rises

Update: Typhoon aftermath
Aug 13, 2006
The death toll from Typhoon Saomai has risen to 134, with 163 people missing, as the strongest storm to hit China in more than five decades brings more rain to inland areas.
Chinese authorities said some of the latest victims were evacuees who died when buildings used as shelters collapsed.
On Sunday, residents of the southeast coast were clearing away the debris of wrecked houses.
Much of the area is still recovering from Tropical Storm Bilis, which killed more than 600 people last month.
Hardest-hit by Saomai was the coastal city of Wenzhou, where at least 81 people were killed after the storm hit late on Thursday with winds up to 270kph, reportedly destroying more than 50,000 houses, sinking more than 1,000 fishing boats and blacking out six cities

Related News
Chinese typhoon victims try to pick up the pieces
Aug 13, 2006
JINXIANG, China (Reuters) - Typhoon Saomai has weakened to a tropical depression after leaving almost 300 dead or missing in China, sinking 1,000 fishing boats, flattening thousands of homes and causing losses of over $1 billion.
Three days after the huge storm barrelled into the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, the official death toll had risen to 114 with at least 183 missing. The Xinhua news agency put overall economic losses at $1.45 billion. {photo: A resident of Jinxiang, China's eastern province of Zhejiang August 12, 2006, stands in front of his destroyed house following Typhoon Saomai. Typhoon Saomai punched into Cangnan County on Thursday after authorities had moved hundreds of thousands in the densely populated commercial province to safety. REUTERS}

Christians Warned Not to Jump on Global Warming Bandwagon

Environmental News: Global Warming
Aug, 2006
A conservative columnist says an attempt to align the evangelical movement with the environmental movement on the issue of global warming is "nothing new under the sun." He believes Evangelicals should have better sense than to support what he sees as just another cultural fad.
In February, 85 Evangelicals endorsed an "Evangelical Climate Initiative," stating their belief in the need to fight human-caused global warming, the increase in temperature in the world's climate that they believe to be almost entirely due to human activity. In their statement, they assert that the consequences of global warming will be disastrous, particularly for the poor, if the warming effect is not reversed.
However, Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy recently argued against these claims in a column for the American Spectator magazine. He contends it is foolish to spend hundreds of billions of dollars over the next few decades trying to reorder industry and reduce economic growth to stave off global warming.

Skywatch Commentary
From the Editor's Desk

It never ceases to amaze me when I read or hear that the conservative fundamentalists are on a crusade to discredit the proponents of global warming and climate change, and at the same time misinform the general public. They continue to maintain the notion that we are in some sort of climate cycle that will last only a few years, in which time everything will proceed as normal and the world will be fine once again. Sounds much like a fairy-tale with a sweet, enduring ending. Unfortunately, we are living in a dangerous world, one of great uncertainty. We are witnessing wars and rumors of wars, and mankind seems determined to let the chips fall where they may, instead of taking initiatives to undo or reverse the damage that has been inflicted upon the earth. Some people seem to believe that money is the answer to everyone's problems, this may seem logical to many, but what good is the money when nothing worthwhile is left to spend it on? The debunkers are spending considerable time trying to dissuade those who feel the world is heading towards perilous times. What possible motives do they maintain as they ride on this crusade of deception. It all comes back to the idea that unless they can put doubt in the minds of the believer, those who control the world's economy will be in great danger of losing their worldly possessions. The notion of losing personal wealth and power outweights the evidence that the world is slowly dying and heading towards a major environmental disaster. The thought that mankind is on a collision course with the earth may seem contrived to some, but for many who follow the teachings of the prophets, who observe the earth's surroundings, and who allow their conscience to be their quide, the thought is all to real and believable. Wise men would spend time listening and learning to what the earth is trying to tell them, rather than foolishly wasting time trying to decide who is right and who is wrong.

Steven Shaman
Editor/publisher
Skywatch
The Great Red Comet

Millions made homeless as floods worsen

photo above: This aerial view shows the roofs of buildings in a partially submerged village in Andhra Pradesh

Update: India Flooding
Aug 10, 2006
AHMEDABAD: Swollen rivers swamped thousands of villages and towns across the south and west yesterday, forcing 4.5mn from their homes as rescuers struggled to bring them food and drinking water, officials said. The annual monsoon rains – vital for the country’s agriculture-driven economy – have triggered floods across at least five states since the weekend, killing at least 550 people, submerging villages and causing widespread damage to crops.

Related News
Dams blamed for fuelling Indian floods
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The sudden release of large quantities of water from several large dams has contributed to devastating floods in India which have killed over 350 people, and authorities must take some of the blame, critics said on Friday.
Over four million people have been left homeless across western, central and southern parts of the country.
The flooding has been caused by the annual June-September monsoon rains -- key for the country's agriculture-driven economy -- but were made worse after authorities opened gates of dams and reservoirs brimming with water, activists say.
"The water levels in dams were actually too high prior to the monsoons so, when the rains came, vast amounts of water were suddenly released," said Himanshu Thakker of the New Delhi-based South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.
"If you look at the evidence before us, it is clear that the dam authorities are guilty of criminal negligence."

Increased activity at Mayon volcano

Volcanic Update
Aug 11, 2006
LEGASPI, Philippines - Activity has increased at the rumbling Mayon volcano in the Philippines after a brief lull, as scientists warned Friday it could be the prelude to a more explosive eruption.
A hazardous eruption is "more likely" following the increased activity on Thursday, said Renato Solidum, head of the government’s volcanology institute.
"We should not get the impression that the volcano is calming," he told AFP at an observatory office outside Legaspi.
Official warnings about Mayon, the country’s most active volcano which has claimed more than 1,000 lives over the years, have forced the evacuation of about 40,000 villagers from around the mountain. {photo: Workers carry sacks of relief and other supplies intended for evacuees in Legazpi city. Activity has increased at the rumbling Mayon volcano in the Philippines after a brief lull, as scientists warned Friday it could be the prelude to a more explosive eruption. Picture: AP }

`Super typhoon' sweeps China coast

BREAKING STORM NEWS: CHINA
Aug 11, 2006
AT LEAST 111 KILLED, DOZENS INJURED IN SOUTHEAST REGION
BEIJING - The most powerful typhoon to hit China in 50 years raged across its southeastern coast Thursday, claiming at least 111 lives as it capsized ships, destroyed buildings and forced 1.5 million people from their homes.
At least 28 people were killed in Cangnan County in coastal Zhejiang province, where Typhoon Saomai made landfall, the Xinhua News Agency said today. The government earlier reported two deaths in Fuding, a city in neighboring Fujian province. Xinhua didn't say how the latest deaths occurred, but said 7,300 homes were destroyed.
Officials said at least 80 people were injured and 19 reported missing across the region. The typhoon was also blamed for at least two deaths in the Philippines earlier.
Torrential rains were forecast in the next three days as the typhoon churned inland across crowded areas where Tropical Storm Bilis killed more than 600 people last month. { photo above: Villagers search the rubble of a collapsed house in Cangnan county after Typhoon Saomai battered areas of eastern China. Photograph: AP}

From Another News Source
Powerful Typhoon Kills 104 in China and Destroys 50,000 Homes
BEIJING Aug 11, 2006 (AP)— Typhoon Saomai, the strongest storm to strike China in 50 years, weakened to a tropical depression Friday but drenched the country's southeast after killing at least 104 people, blacking out cities and wrecking more than 50,000 houses. {photo: Chinese firefighters rescue a man from a collapsed two-storey building in Wenzhou, in east China's Zhejiang province Friday Aug. 11, 2006. The building collapsed on Thursday after being hit by Typhoon Saomai, leaving 43 people dead including 8 children. China's death toll from Typhoon Saomai rose to at least 100 on Friday, with another 190 missing, as the most powerful storm to strike the country in five decades weakened into a tropical depression. (AP Photo /EyePress)

Million flee worst storm for 50 years
Typhoon Saomai made landfall near the booming city of Wenzhou, between Hong Kong and Shanghai. It was packing winds of 134mph (216km/h), outpacing forecasts, and may have been fuelled by the remnants of tropical storm Bopha, which was weakening and moving westwards. Ships were reported to have capsized. South China has been battered by eight typhoons and tropical storms during this year’s UNUSUALLY violent typhoon season. Hundreds have been killed by rainstorms, mudslides and floods.

For some evangelicals, Mideast war stirs hope

SKYWATCH SPECIAL REPORT: Have the end times begun?

Believing the Mideast conflict is a sign that Christ will return soon, some evangelical groups have cheered Israel's military actions.
BY ALEXANDRA ALTER
aalter@MiamiHerald.com
Aug 8, 2006
The Rapture Index -- a popular evangelical Christian Web posting that calculates a global rise in natural disasters, war and inflation -- bills itself as ``a Dow Jones industrial average of end-time activity.''
An index below 85 signifies a week of ''slow prophetic activity.'' Anything above 145 signals the apocalypse is near.
The Rapture Index this week: 158. The spike reflects many U.S. evangelicals' view that growing conflict in the Middle East signals the start of a global struggle leading to Christ's return.
''We believe 100 percent what the Scripture has to say about this,'' said Jack Heintz, a South Florida businessman and president of the Christian group Peace for Israel, who recruited 23 evangelical Christians to join a July telephone fundraising event for Israel. ``There's going to be a total battle, the battle of Armageddon, and I believe that's very close to happening.''
Some have ratcheted up support for Israel in its current battle in Lebanon with Hezbollah out of belief that a raging war -- perhaps even a nuclear confrontation -- marks a prelude to the apocalypse. Christian groups are sending millions of dollars to Israeli communities and shelters, hosting pro-Israel rallies and urging U.S. politicians to back Israeli military action. [Image above: the four horsemen of the apocalypse.]

Update: Forest Fires Engulf Galicia

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: SPAIN
Aug 10, 2006
Police are reported to have arrested at least four suspected firebugs as the government presses for EU help to fight more than 150 fires devastating the countryside.Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero broke off his holiday to see for himself the devastation caused by the fires in the northwest of the country, as police investigated claims that arsonists are responsible.
Environmental authorities say that 92 of these are raging out of control.At least three people have died in blazes that appear to have been deliberately set near housing in the tinderbox dry area. And thousands of firefighters and soldiers have been sent to the region supported by up to fifty fire-fighting helicopters and aircraft bombing the flames with water.
In some areas the situation is reported to be "critical" and thousands of hectares of land have already been engulfed by fire. Eyewitnesses say columns of black smoke have filled the sky as flames are reported to have reached 2km from Santiago de Compostela and Pontevedra.

MORE NEWS ON SPANISH FIRES
Spain fights 'forest terrorism' fires
MADRID — Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero interrupted his summer holiday Wednesday to visit emergency crews fighting 134 forest fires, many started deliberately in wooded areas of northwestern Spain, officials said.
Mr. Zapatero, who had been on holiday in the Canary Islands, flew to Santiago de Compostela, in the Galicia region, where he was due to spend Wednesday night in areas affected by wildfires, a government spokesman said.
The fires have charred about 100 square kilometres of forest and scrubland, mainly between the port city of Vigo and tourist centre Santiago de Compostela, an area known for its fjord-like sea inlets.
“There's no doubt we're faced with a chain of deliberately lit fires, which are making it impossible to act efficiently because every time we put one fire out another is lit almost next to it,” Environment Minister Cristina Narbona told Cadena SER radio on Wednesday. [photo above: A villager sprays water on a fire in the village of Vilarchan in northwestern Spain on Wednesday. (Miguel Riopa/AFP/Getty Images)

Spanish Press Review
The situation in Galicia with the ongoing forest fires leads most of the papers still, with El Pais noting that the Prime Minister has given up his holidays to go to Galicia. The paper says he has admitted that the situation is ‘difficult’, and that the PP leader Mariano Rajoy, has criticised the delay in the government asking for reinforcements.El Mundo reports that the Prime Minister has described the putting out of the fires as ‘a state challenge’. The paper notes that until Tuesday however the Ministry of the Interior had not asked for help from other regions of Spain, and only yesterday did they turn to the European Union.ABC says the government has taken 4 days in asking other regions of Spain and Europe for help.

Giant Waves Smash The Philippines Coastline

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: Philippines
Aug 10, 2006
STRONG winds and giant waves, boosted by a southwest monsoon, wiped out hundreds of shacks on stilts and left thousands of people homeless in the southern Philippines, local government officials said today.
An undetermined number of people were missing after giant waves swept four coastal villages out to sea, said the governor of the Tawi-tawi chain of islands near the Malaysian borders.
The stormy weather was not related to a super typhoon churning towards China's southeast coast on Thursday, a forecaster said.
Nearly 3000 people were brought to a mosque and several public schools serving as temporary shelter centres as soldiers and police officers searched the sea for survivors.
"It's like a thief in the night," Albert Que, a local mayor, said. "Most of the people were caught by surprise as winds and waves ate their homes before dawn."

29,530 flee homes as Mayon eruption nears

Breaking Volcanic News Philippines: Major Eruption Fears
Aug 10, 2006
Some 29,530 people have evacuated their homes in Albay as Mayon Volcano continues to show signs of a major explosion.
The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) said at least 5,990 families were brought to 18 evacuation centers in Albay as of 6 a.m. Wednesday.
The evacuees are residents of 23 barangays inside the six-kilometer permanent danger zone and eight-kilometer extended danger zone of Mayon.
Officials said the number of evacuees is expected to balloon the whole day because of mandatory evacuation efforts being conducted by the police and the military under the coordination of Albay's provincial disaster coordinating council.
NDCC Executive Officer Glenn Rabonza said social welfare officers in Bicol are bringing tents to Legazpi City, Camalig, Guinobatan and Daraga towns for the new evacuees.
The military earlier deployed 100 soldiers to augment policemen deployed to the danger zone boundaries.
NDCC also reported that Mayon had 134 tremor episodes over the past 24 hours and lava continue to flow from its crater.
The government ordered the mandatory evacuation on Monday after repeated explosions shot giant clouds of smoke and ash into the skies above the mountain, which last erupted in 1993 and killed about 70 people. [photo: Mayon Volcano spews ash during its eruption in Legazpi City, Albay province, south of Manila, August 7, 2006. REUTERS/Stringer]

From Another Source
'Ominous quiet' at Mayon volcano
Scientists in the Philippines renewed warnings of a major explosion at the Mount Mayon volcano, describing a sudden period of quiet as "ominous".
A drop in gas emissions and earthquakes sparked fears that the crater had plugged itself, increasing the likelihood of an explosive eruption.

Hundreds displaced after floods in Ethiopia

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: AFRICA
In pictures: Ethiopian city after floods

Aug 10, 2006
Floods displaced hundreds of people and destroyed at least 5,000 hectares of farmland in Somalia's Middle Shabelle region around Jowhar, the regional capital, when the Shabelle river burst its banks last week, local officials said on Wednesday.

"Some of the villagers were about to harvest [crops] when the river broke its banks," Usman Haji Abdullahi, a member of the regional emergency committee, said. "Some families have lost everything."Heavy rainfall in neighbouring Ethiopia has caused the rivers downstream in Somalia to swell, causing the flooding.A local journalist, Muhammad Ibrahim Malimow, told IRIN on Wednesday that the Shabelle river burst its banks, flooding at least 15 villages around Jowhar, 90 km northwest of Mogadishu."The worst affected are the nearby villages of Bardhere, Mangay and Tuugarey," he said. "All three villages are completely cut off." The villagers have moved to higher ground where property has not been affected by the rising river water, Abdullahi said. The emergency committee is trying to build up the embankment of the river with sandbags to prevent more flooding. "Our priority is to first assist the marooned villagers and then to try to avert any more breaches of the river banks," Abdullahi said.

UPDATE: ETHIOPIAN FLOODS
Aug 10, 2006
Death toll rises in Ethiopia's worst floods
Addis Ababa - The death toll from weekend Ethiopia floods that devastated an eastern town rose to 250 Thursday as rescue efforts entered a fourth day, making it the worst flooding disaster ever in the impoverished Horn of African nation, officials said.

ELSEWHERE IN AFRICA
SOMALIA: Flooding in Middle Shabelle
NAIROBI, 9 August (IRIN) - Floods displaced hundreds of people and destroyed at least 5,000 hectares of farmland in Somalia's Middle Shabelle region around Jowhar, the regional capital, when the Shabelle river burst its banks last week, local officials said on Wednesday.
"Some of the villagers were about to harvest [crops] when the river broke its banks," Usman Haji Abdullahi, a member of the regional emergency committee, said. "Some families have lost everything."
Heavy rainfall in neighbouring Ethiopia has caused the rivers downstream in Somalia to swell, causing the flooding.

Super typhoon slams into China

BREAKING STORM NEWS: CATASTROPHIC TYPHOON HITS CHINA
Aug 10, 2006
LUOYUAN, China (Reuters) - Super Typhoon Saomai, the strongest to threaten China in 50 years, slammed into the southeast coast on Thursday after forcing more than 1.5 million people from their homes.
Saomai, one of three storms to hit East Asia in the past few days, made landfall in Zhejiang province at 0925 GMT, hitting Cangnan county just after officials there declared a state of emergency, Xinhua news agency said.
In one town, Longgang, nearly empty streets were awash with water, all shops were closed and the storm had already battered down trees, walls and billboards, and overturned pedicabs, the report said.
Chinese state media said it was the most powerful storm to hit the country since August 1956, when a typhoon hit Zhejiang, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 3,000.
"Saomai is packing winds of 216 kph (134 mph) and has outpaced forecasts," Xinhua quoted Li Yuzhu, head of the Zhejiang provincial observatory, as saying. [Image: Graphic showing the path of Typhoon Saomai. Storm-ravaged southeast China was hit by the strongest typhoon in decades, leaving 14 people dead or missing and forcing the evacuation of over 1.5 million. (AFP)

photo: Paramilitary policemen help residents tie up boats against the upcoming typhoons in Taizhou, east China's Zhejiang province August 8, 2006. REUTERS/China Daily

Typhoon hits China as over 1.5 million evacuated
Storm-ravaged southeast China was hit by the strongest typhoon in decades, leaving 14 people dead or missing and forcing the evacuation of over 1.5 million.

Millions homeless in Indian monsoon rains

BREAKING EARTH NEWS: INDIA Monsoon update
Aug 9, 2006
India's annual monsoon rains have triggered wide-scale flooding across the south and west killing at least 311 people and leaving millions homeless.

Most of the deaths were reported in the western state of Maharashtra, where 163 people have been killed in four days of constant rains - 86 of them in the past 48 hours, officials said today.

Floodwater almost entirely submerged the industrial town of Surat in the neighbouring state of Gujarat, cutting off power to the region and leaving around three million people homeless.

Military boats and helicopters were trying to reach thousands of residents marooned on trees and rooftops, many without food or drinking water, after the Tapti river burst its banks.

“We screamed out when we saw the soldiers, they saved our lives,” said Mulji Devalia, a Surat resident whose two-storey house was completely submerged by floodwaters.

Officials said there was an acute shortage of clean drinking water. Phone lines were also down and train services to the town, known for its diamond cutting and textiles, were suspended.

A full-scale relief operation would begin once water levels receded, officials said, but when that will be is not yet known. [photo: People wade through a flooded road in Surat (Amit Dave/Reuters)

FROM ANOTHER NEWS SOURCE
20 feet under
In some places near the banks of the river, the water level was as high as 20 feet, flood control officials said. The situation is expected to get worse as the tide rises in the Arabian Sea, making quick draining of the river difficult.Thousands of people in many parts left their homes after water was released from the Ukai dam. “Over 1,50,000 people have been evacuated from Surat since Monday after over eight lakh cusecs of water was released from Ukai dam,” said an official of the flood control room. [photo: Surat flooded by overflowing Tapi river; soldiers sent out for rescue operations stranded; Modi asks Mumbai, Ahmedabad to send provisions

Wildfires in Spain reported to be arson

MADRID, Spain -- Dozens of wildfires raged across northwestern Spain on Monday, and authorities said most of the blazes that have killed three people and destroyed thousands of acres of woodland were deliberately set.
More than 90 wildfires were reported over the weekend in Galicia, where almost 12,355 acres have been charred. Authorities said 85 were still ablaze Monday.
Many of the fires had been started near each other with a clear intention that winds would fan them into one big conflagration, said fire department spokeswoman Iria Mendez.
Most were started on wooded slopes near inhabited areas, regional environment spokesman Alfredo Suarez Canal said. [photo: A local resident throws a bucket of water on a forest fire near Ponte Bora, northwestern Spain, Monday Aug. 7, 2006. Police on Monday arrested a 24-year-old man they believe started several of the wildfires that are raging across northwestern Spain. The fires have claimed the lives of three people in the region in less than a week and destroyed thousands of hectares (acres) of woodland. (AP Photo)

Wildfires Elsewhere
Wildfires Threaten To Merge Into One
WINTHROP - The two largest wildfires burning in Washington state grew substantially early Tuesday and appeared likely to merge.
As of early Tuesday, the Spur Peak and Tripod fires together had scorched more than 116 square miles, or 74,312 acres, of national and state forest land northeast of Winthrop, according to a statement issued by the fire command center.

Nearly 1,000 people died in July from natural disasters in China

BREAKING EARTH NEWS
BEIJING, Aug 9 (AFP) Aug 09, 2006
Natural disasters killed nearly 1,000 people and left another 310 missing in China in July, state media said Wednesday, as two more potentially deadly storms approach the southeast of the country.
Most of July's 987 deaths occurred during typhoons which struck several provinces in southern, eastern and central China, Xinhua news agency said.
In the southeastern coastal regions, floods, landslides and mudflows claimed 637 lives and left 210 missing, Xinhua said, citing official statistics.
The report did not give details about where the other deaths occurred, but bad weather has taken its toll right across the country.
Floods and landslides killed 24 people in the far northwestern province of Gansu in late June and July, Xinhua said last week.
Severe storms led to the deaths of another nine people in neighboring Inner Mongolia on July 27 and 28, according to Xinhua.
The devastation continued into August with Tropical Storm Prapiroon killing at least 80 people in the south and southeast of the country, although this was not mentioned in Wednesday's report.
A total of 146.4 million people were affected by natural disasters in July, with total losses put at 68.8 billion yuan (8.6 billion dollars), Xinhua said in Wednesday's report.
The government said in late July that more than 1,300 people had been killed and 306 were missing from weather-related incidents from the start of May to July 21.
More storms are approaching, with the China Meteorological Bureau warning that two or three tropical storms or typhoons would hit China's coastal areas this month

Monsoon rains, hail cause flooding, power outages

BREAKING STORM NEWS: ARIZONA, U.S.
Aug 9, 2006
Rain and hail fell hard on Tucson, flooding homes, knocking down utility poles and knocking out electricity to thousands of Tucsonans.
Sheets of rain fell from the sky, blanketing Tucson, flooding washes and homes.
Maria Herrera shot video in her house less than an hour after the downpour started night.
"When I got home around 7:30, my house was already flooded. My husband and my daughter were trying to get the water out, but they couldn't," Herrera said.
Two feet of water poured into the Herrera home through their front door, filling the hallways, the bathroom, the bedrooms -- the entire house.
Her husband had trouble moving through the water in his wheel chair.
"The concern was that we had a lot of wires connected -- a lot of tv's, computers."
The Herreras were able to unplug everything before anyone got hurt.
This is a shocking sight for this family.
"I've been living here 13 years and this has never happened. We've had flooding outside, but not as bad as today," Herrera said.

VIEW VIDEO: Monsoon rains, hail cause flooding, power outages

Weather related news from Arizona
Aug 3, 2006
Residents pick up pieces after flooding
On Wednesday, we learned that this week's flood damage is so bad that Governor Janet Napolitano stands ready to declare Pima County a disaster area. [photo: "All the water came over the fences and hit this place," said homeowner Conrad Jackson.]

Groningen rocked by 'record' earthquake

BREAKING SEISMIC NEWS: EUROPE
UPDATED 9 August 2006
AMSTERDAM — An earthquake shook the north of the Netherlands early on Tuesday morning. Measuring 3.5 on the Richter Scale, it was equal in strength to the strongest earthquake on record in the northern Netherlands. This took place in Alkmaar five years ago.
Tuesday's quake in Groningen at around 7am was registered by all seismic stations in the country. It was centred on the town of Middelstum which lies in the middle of the gas fields in the province.
The town has experienced several earthquake in recent years. Weather and seismic agency KNMI and local broadcaster RTV Noord were bombarded with telephone calls and emails from concerned residents after the latest quake.
Hein Haak said the earthquake was the largest ever measured in Groningen and was felt across the entire province.

Full moon fear for Mayon volcano

Volcanic Alert: Philippines
Aug 9, 2006
Scientists in the Philippines have warned that Wednesday's full moon could spark a major eruption of the Mount Mayon volcano.
Experts say Mount Mayon, the most active volcano in the Philippines, could erupt at any time.
But the full moon's gravitational pull could trigger the eruption, they say.
A full moon coincided with at least three of Mayon's 47 eruptions, including the two most recent ones in 2000 and 2001.
The volcano has been spewing lava and flaming rocks the size of cars in a quiet but steady eruption since last month.

Click on Photo Below to View Slideshow: Philippines Volcano
Officials in the Philippines have ordered the evacuation of about 20,000 people living near the Mayon volcano, fearing an imminent eruption.

Mediterranean on jellyfish alert

Breaking Earth News: Odd Animal Behavior
Aug 8, 2006
Thousands of holidaymakers in the Mediterranean have been stung by jellyfish as huge swarms of the creatures invade coastal waters.
Some Spanish beaches have been closed, but Sicily and North Africa are also reported to be badly affected.
Researchers say at least 30,000 people have been stung since summer began.
Marine biologists blame hot dry weather for bringing jellyfish closer to the shore, and say overfishing may be increasing jellyfish numbers.
A recent survey by the Oceana environmental group found concentrations of jellyfish of more than 10 per square metre in some areas off the Spanish coast.
Francesc Peters of the Institute of Marine Science in Barcelona told the BBC World Service's Europe Today programme that coastal waters were warmer than usual, because of the hot weather, and saltier than usual because of low river flows.
He said this meant the offshore waters which jellyfish usually inhabit were being washed closer to the coast.

From Another News Source
Jellyfish invade holiday beaches
People have been banned from swimming on beaches in Europe after hundreds of people got stung by jellyfish.

Insurgent Attacks Kill 24 In Baghdad

BREAKING INTERNATIONAL NEWS: WAR IN IRAQ
Aug 8, 2006
(CBS/AP) Iraq's prime minister sharply criticized a U.S.-Iraqi attack on a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad, exposing a rift with his American partners on security tactics, as 24 people were killed Tuesday in a series of bombings and a shooting. An American soldier also died of wounds sustained in fighting in western Anbar province, the U.S. military said Tuesday. The latest violence, in addition to the 10 killed in a suicide bombing in Samarra on Monday, occurred amid a major U.S. operation to secure Baghdad in order to control Shiite-Sunni sectarian bloodshed that many fear will lead to civil war. The U.S.-Iraqi air and ground attack was launched before dawn Monday in Sadr City, which is controlled by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia. Police said three people, including a woman and a child, were killed in the raid, which the U.S. command said was aimed at "individuals involved in punishment and torture cell activities." [photo: Smoke billows after a bomb blast in a market in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday Aug. 8, 2006. (AP Photo)

News Video: Lebanon Standing Firm
At an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Beirut, Lebanon's Prime Minister made an emotional plea for Israel to withdraw its troops from the country.

New typhoon Bopha heading for southeast

BREAKING STORM NEWS: CHINA
Tropical Storm Alert
Full Report Posted(China Daily.com)
Satellite Image: Tropical Storm Bopha, Aug. 7, 2006

Aug 8, 2006
As millions of people in South China still struggle with the aftermath of typhoon Prapiroon, a new tropical storm is approaching and expected to affect coastal areas in southeastern China.
Zhejiang Provincial Observatory Station yesterday issued an emergency gale alert, saying that Bopha, one of three tropical storms forming in the western Pacific, is gaining strength.
Relevant departments in this region should pay close attention to the future route of the storm, the station warned.
Bopha, the ninth tropical storm this year, is expected to make landfall in northern Taiwan tonight or tomorrow morning as a relatively weak category one typhoon, reports said.
Tropical storm Saomai was also moving towards Taiwan from the southeast, with a maximum sustained wind speed of 119 kilometres per hour and gusts up to 155 kilometres per hour, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said yesterday on its website.
In the wake of Prapiroon, residents of typhoon-ravaged Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan in South China continued trying to rebuild their homes as the Ministry of Civil Affairs reported yesterday that the death toll from the storm has climbed to 80 with nine still missing.
As the sixth typhoon of the year, Prapiroon, which means "God of Rain" in Thai, has affected 10.3 million people, razed 29,000 rooms and caused direct economic losses of 7.23 billion yuan (US$900 million), said the ministry.
Moreover, the ministry has dispatched a work panel to Panjin in Northeast China's Liaoning Province, where heavy rain has led to severe flooding, according to a news release yesterday.
From July 29 to August 6, heavy flooding has affected 1.26 million people, forced the relocation of 115,000 and razed 110,000 rooms in eight cities, such as Shenyang, Dalian, Panjin and Dandong, it added.
The ministry also allocated 1,500 tents to the disaster-hit region. A total of 15 million yuan (US$1.9 million) of disaster relief funds have also been arranged by local governments to relocate and help the victims.
Medium to heavy torrential rains are forecast in southern Yunnan Province after Prapiroon has been downgraded from tropical storm to low-pressure cell, the Central Meteorological Office said yesterday.
Thunderstorms, hailstones and gales are forecast in a large area ranging from Northeast and North China to regions between the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers over the next two days, the office said.

Typhoon Maria, the season's seventh, is nearing the Japanese archipelago and may make landfall this afternoon in western or central Japan. Heavy-rainfall warnings were issued for as much as 00 millimeters (12 inches) of rain in the Kinki and Tokai regions, southwest of Tokyo, and as much as 100 millimeters in the Kanto area, which includes Tokyo, tonight.

VIEW VIDEO: Typhoon Prapiroon slams into S. China


photo: A fisherman seizes the life buoy cast to him from a rescue ship in the water near Shanwei, southern China's Guangdong Province, August 3, 2006
Related Photos

Half a million homeless in India floods

EARTH NEWS: INDIA
Aug, 2006
HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - Rescuers in India stepped up efforts on Sunday to help hundreds of thousands of people forced from their homes by floods in a southern state as torrential rain hit the country's financial capital.
"Over half a million people living in low-lying areas of 12 river front districts have been displaced due to the three-day downpour and flooding," Ponnala Lakshmaiah, the state's irrigation minister, told Reuters.
But relief and rescue operations picked up as rains subsided in most parts of the state. Two airforce helicopters and a dozen speedboats were taking food to nearly 1,000 villages and parts of some towns cut off by the floods.
Relief officials said rescuers were using boats to rescue those who had climbed up trees or on to rooftops. [photo: People cycle through a flooded road in Kanisa village, about 59 miles south of the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, August 3, 2006. REUTERS.]

Tornado Rips Through Manitoba,

STORM NEWS: CANADA
Aug, 2006
'In Manitoba, we know we get tornadoes … but we've never had one like this.'-Steve Strang, the reeve of the Rural Municipality of St. Clements
People are reeling as they try to pick up the pieces after tornadoes pounded eastern Manitoba on the weekend, killing a woman, injuring at least 20 others and wrecking homes and farms.
The storm on Aug. 5 spawned at least three twisters, including one that took the life of a 64-year-old Winnipeg woman in the resort community of Gull Lake, northeast of the city.
Police said on Monday that Elfreda Visser was walking with her husband when the tornado hit, picking her up and hurling her through the air. She died from her injuries while her husband is reported to be in stable condition in the hospital.
Police have let people back into the area to collect personal belongings and survey damage to their properties. A massive cleanup is underway.
"We're totally devastated, because we can't find nothing.… Everything's gone … blown away," said Larry Zakaluk, whose home was ruined by the tornado as it passed through the Gull Lake Campground.
"It's just history. I don't even want to talk about it."
The storm wrecked farms and cottages across a wide swath of eastern Manitoba, injuring at least 20 people in the Lac du Bonnet and Pointe du Bois areas

AUSTRALIA - FREAK TORNADO - The hamlet of Australind, about 150km south of Perth, has been declared a disaster area after a freak tornado flattened houses, upended trees and blacked out 1000 homes. With the damage bill expected to run into millions of dollars, Australind was coming to terms with the wind storm that put two people in hospital and destroyed dozens of homes.

Heat Wave Bakes South, Southeast

Heat Wave Continues for Parts of South and Southeast; Thousands in Tulsa Without Power
TULSA, Okla. Aug 7, 2006 (AP)— The heat wave that snapped last week for much of the nation shows no signs of letting up soon in parts of the South and Southeast, with heat advisories in effect Monday for Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi.
Oklahoma's unrelenting heat continued to punish: two more people died and a storm knocked out power for thousands of Tulsa residents.
The forecast for the state showed little promise for relief. The National Weather Service predicted mostly 100-degree days throughout the state for the rest of the week.
Even though the rest of the nation has largely seen temperatures drop, the full extent of this summer's killer heat wave has continued to be felt. More than 200 people have died across the nation since it began.

Storms pound High Desert with lightning, hail

CLIMATE NEWS: OREGON, U.S
Aug 7, 2006
In a familiar scenario repeated a half-dozen times this summer, thunderstorms rumbled northward through Central Oregon Monday afternoon and evening, bringing large hail, gusty winds, downpours and thousands of lightning strikes that had numerous fire crews scrambling from one reported smoke column to another.
By nightfall, lightning detectors had indicated more than 1,800 "down strikes" across the region, mostly on the ridges of the Cascades and Ochocos, said the Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch Center in Prineville. [photo: Redmond resident James Morris caught this dramatic bolt of lightning crackling in the sky from the backyard of his home around 5:30 p.m. Monday Aug 7.]

Flooding Wrecks Havoc In New Zealand

BREAKING EARTH/CLIMATE NEWS: CHRISTCHURCH, N.Z.
Aug 8, 2006
Heavy rain overnight Monday trapped many Christchurch residents in their homes.
The river flooded cars and closed roads and kept local children from attending school. Nearly 80 millimetres of rain fell in the area.
Council workers have been heavily sandbagging the area.
People are being warned to avoid the water because of possible contamination from overloaded sewer systems

Severe Flooding Elsewhere
Rescuers search for survivors in Ethiopia after floods kill at least 200
Aug 8, 2006
DIRE DAWA, Ethiopia (AP) - Rescuers using earth movers and their bare hands searched for survivors Monday, a day after flash floods killed at least 200 people, including dozens of children.
Hundreds more were feared missing, and officials said there was little chance of finding more survivors. [photo: A Ethiopian soldier stand guard near a road which was nearly swept away near the Afetesia slum in Dire Dawa, a city in far eastern Ethiopia, Monday. (AP/Les Neuhaus)

Pakistan: Death toll in floods hits 144
ISLAMABAD • Flash floods triggered by torrential rains have killed more than 144 people in Pakistan’s northwest, and forced hundreds of thousands out of their homes in neighbouring India, officials said yesterday [photo: People walking over a bridge damaged by flood in Mardan town, 50km from Peshawar yesterday. (reuters)

Strong quake hits near Vanuatu

SEISMIC ALERT
Tuesday, August 8, 2006
(CNN) -- A 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck in the South Pacific near the island nation of Vanuatu Tuesday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no threat of a major, Pacific-wide tsunami associated with the quake, although it could generate local tsunamis along coasts located within about 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the epicenter.
The epicenter of the quake was 80 kilometers (50 miles) east-southeast of Luganville, or about 220 kilometers (135 miles) north-northwest of the country's capital, Port Vila.
The earthquake occurred at 9:18 a.m. local time (10:18 p.m. Monday GMT).
There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Earth changes — religious, scientific or something else

SKYWATCH SPECIAL REPORT
August 05, 2006
The earth is changing and it's obvious that it's also changing our lives. After the fourth flood in Shawnee-on-Delaware since 1996, it's not a matter of if it will happen again, but when. We are getting better at cleaning up after each flood, but it doesn't make it any easier mentally or emotionally.The most valuable and unsinkable asset that I have witnessed has been the community spirit of people helping one another through these earth disasters.People of all religious persuasions were helping one another with genuine concern and compassion.

STORY CONTINUES HERE

More than two million people face shortage of drinking water in China

EARTH NEWS
Beijing, Aug 6, 2006
Southwest China is experiencing a serious drought, with 2.39 million people facing a shortage of drinking water, state media said Sunday.
The dry spell has descended over Sichuan province, which is located only a few hundred kilometers (miles) from Guizhou region which is currently soaked in torrential rains.
Xinhua news agency said 53 counties were hit by drought in spring, followed by 113 counties during the summer months, affecting not just large numbers of people but also more than three million head of livestock.
By the end of last month, over 60 percent of small-scale irrigation systems in the drought-stricken areas had dried up, resulting in total crop failure on 120,000 hectares (300,000 acres) of farmland, Xinhua said.

Related News From China
Acid rain in China threatening food chain
Beijing, Aug 6, 2006 China's sharp rise in sulphur dioxide emissions, the main component of acid rain, is ruining the nation's croplands and threatening the food chain in rivers and lakes, experts said Sunday.
The emissions, largely caused by burning coal to sate China's booming appetite for electricity and by vehicle exhaust, are further exacerbating severe ecological degradation in the world's most populous nation, they said.
China announced this week that it emitted nearly 26 million tons of sulphur dioxide last year, a 27 percent increase since 2000, making the nation the world's biggest polluter of acid rain-causing substances.
"The sulphur dioxide acidifies the soil, hurting the roots of the crops that farmers are growing and reducing total yields," Edwin Lau, assistant director of the Hong Kong branch of Friends of the Earth, told AFP.

Is global warming hitting home?

Climate News
Aug 6, 2006
Vermonters cranked up their air conditioners as last week's heat wave hit. Most towns saw thermometers climb into the 90s and in some places the heat index – the measure of what the weather really feels like – came close to 100 degrees F.While extreme heat in Vermont has been relatively rare historically, as are tornadoes – several of which touched down in parts of the state in July – weird weather events and patterns like these are becoming more common.Last summer, for example, was the hottest on record in Vermont – and worldwide. In the fall, Vermont had such a late frost that the leaves didn't begin to drop until mid-October, and the weight of an Oct. 25 snowfall caused thousands of trees to topple, affecting sugarbushes, especially in the northern part of the state.In the second week of January, heavy rains melted away the snow and ski lifts idled. At the height of planting season at the end of May, corn rotted in rain-drenched fields and farmers had to replant. While some crops recovered from record-heavy rainfall, many did not. And for the second time ever, dairy farmers received emergency funding from the state after the wet weather ruined feed crops.Weather is, by its very nature, unpredictable, but with so many anomalous weather events, anecdotal evidence would seem to point to global warming as a cause. Though a heat index of nearly 115 degrees F in parts of the Northeast this week might have inspired people to flock to air-conditioned theaters to watch "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's movie about global warm-ing, local meteorologists say the signs of climate change are difficult to pinpoint.

Is it just us, or is it a lot windier?

EARTH NEWS: CANADA
Aug 6, 2006
Despite an abundance of anecdotal evidence — including last week's storms in Toronto — to support a resounding `yes,' wind remains the `ignored statistic' in weather study. Winds and other forces of nature account for 70 per cent or more of power outages. We have seen the wind this year hauling down massive tree limbs, crushing cars, killing campers and being widely unpredictable and dangerous. A July 17 wind, which brought down hundreds of kilometres of power lines and felled 1,000 hydro poles across Ontario, inflicted the most damage to Hydro One's system since the ice storm of 1998. In 20 minutes, "perfectly sound limbs were coming off perfectly sound trees," that night in Toronto. "The writing is on the wall." Half the number of "calms" — times when the wind didn't blow at all — were recorded at Pearson Airport in Toronto from 2001 to 2005 than in the early '60s, but it's not clear why. For all the awe that wind inspires and the havoc it brings, wind records are not much studied, which makes it impossible for climatologists to state confidently, that yes, wind patterns are changing. "There is no serious publication that can say wind patterns have changed."

Earthquake hits Argentina

Seismic News: Argentina, S.A.
Aug 6, 2006
A strong earthquake hit Argentina early Saturday, causing damage to buildings but no casualties, the country's seismological bureau said.
The focus of the quake, measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale, hit at 11:03 local time (1403 GMT) and is located 27 km south-southeast of Mendoza, Argentina and 190 km east-northeast of Santiago, Chile, the bureau said.
The quake shattered some windows and left cracks on buildings, causing panic among local residents. Some people were evacuated to shelters offered by the government, the bureau said.
A quake measuring six on the Richter scale rattled the same area in Aug. 1985, causing some 12,500 houses to collapse and killing six people.
Source: Xinhua

Filipinos evacuated from around Mayon volcano

VOLCANIC WARNING: MAYON ERUPTION IMMINENT
Aug 7, 2006
Philippines: Tens of thousands of villagers were evacuated today from their homes on the lower slopes of Mayon volcano in the central Philippines after the authorities raised the alert level to four, meaning an eruption is "imminent".
As ash and smoke shot hundreds of metres into the air, the military deployed 80 trucks to help ferry the 34,276 people living in the five-mile-radius danger zone to 31 evacuation centres.
Volcanologists said they detected 21 low-frequency volcanic earthquakes in the previous 24 hours.
Renato Solidum, the Phivolcs director, said: "This [raising of alert] means that Mayon is ready to burst."
He said the eruptions could develop from their currently "quiet" characteristics to "explosive". If that happened, the danger zone would be expanded by at least another mile and a half, which would prompt the evacuation of another 50,000 people.
Mayon has erupted at least 47 times in the last 400 years. The latest was a mild outpouring of lava in June 2001 and the deadliest was in 1814, when the town of Cagsawa was buried, killing 1,000 people.

Rain, worries, and evacuations surge in El Paso

Governor wants region declared a disaster area
Aug 6, 2006
EL PASO, Texas -- More rain fell yesterday on the drenched El Paso area, where a week of storms forced hundreds of people from mountainside neighborhoods and caused flash floods and rock slides.
El Paso has recorded more than 8 inches of rain since Monday. Until the storms began, the city was in the grip of a drought, with only an inch of rain recorded since the start of the year.
Governor Rick Perry and the state's US senators have asked the federal government to declare the region a disaster area.
A new round of evacuations was ordered Friday after a downpour flooded homes and streets around El Paso for the sixth straight day.
Nearly 1,000 residents sought refuge in the city's convention center. By yesterday, the convention center was closed and about 30 people were placed in hotels by the American Red Cross.