Clipmarks | invictus's 'disasters' clips

The tornado nightmare

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:37:44 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: I wouldn't like to be there to take this photo.

A huge tornado funnel cloud touches down in Orchard, Iowa, Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 9:04 p.m. The Globe Gazette and Mitchell County Press News reported that Lori Mehmen of Orchard, took the photo from outside her front door. Mehmen said the funnel cloud came near the ground and then went back up into the clouds. Besides tree and crop damage, no human injuries were reported.

Tags: tornado, photography, disasters, iowa

'Doomsday' vault opens its doors

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:22:02 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The opening of the "fail-safe" vault attracted a number of dignitaries

Leading dignitaries have attended the official opening of a 'doomsday' seed vault built 130m (426ft) inside a mountain on a remote Arctic island.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai placed the first seeds in the depository during the ceremony.

The vault, designed to withstand all natural and human disaster, will house samples of all known food crops.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault took 12 months and cost £5m to construct.

During the ceremony, Mr Stoltenberg unlocked the vault before being joined by environmental campaigner Ms Maathai to place the first consignment of seeds in the -18C (0F) freezer.

When full, the vault will hold 4.5m samples - an estimated two billion seeds - from more than 100 countries around the world.

Tags: seed vault, arctic island, norway, disasters, doomsday, science

Ancient records help test climate change

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 01:07:05 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

A librarian at this 10th century monastery leads a visitor beneath the vaulted ceilings of the archive past the skulls of two former abbots.

He pushes aside medieval ledgers of indulgences and absolutions, pulls out one of 13 bound diaries inscribed from 1671 to 1704 and starts to read about the weather.

"Jan. 11 was so frightfully cold that all of the communion wine froze," says an entry from 1684 by Brother Josef Dietrich, governor and "weatherman" of the once-powerful Einsiedeln Monastery.

"But on Jan. 13 it got even worse and one could say it has never been so cold in human memory,"

Diaries of day-to-day weather details from the age before 19th-century standardized thermometers are proving of great value to scientists who study today's climate.

The accounts dispel any lingering doubts that the Earth is heating up more dramatically than ever before

Most historians and scientists delving deep into archives seek accounts of disasters and extreme weather events.

Tags: climate change, history, weather

Greece declares state of emergency

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 01:21:48 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Reuters reports many people are still trapped in villages surrounded by the flames.

Clip Source: www.alertnet.org

The Greek government declared a state of emergency for the entire country on Saturday after forest fires killed at least 44 people in the southern Peloponnese region.

"All regions of the country are declared in a state of emergency in order to mobilise all means and forces to face this disaster," Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said in an address to the nation.

Scores of fires have swept through the Peloponnese and other regions since Friday, trapping hundreds in villages. Greece has asked its European Union partners for help.

"So many fire fronts in so many locations in the country can't be a coincidence," Karamanlis said. "The state will do its utmost to find the culprits and punish them.

"No one has the right to take human lives and destroy the environment ... to destroy our country."

Tags: greece, forest fire, disasters, state of emergency

Inferno in Greece

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 16:57:27 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Death toll is at least 44. It's like a nightmare.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The speed with which the fire spread caught many people unawares

Greek emergency workers continue to find the charred bodies of people burned to death by forest fires that are raging in the south of the country.

Officials raised the death toll from the fires over the past two days to 44.

Searches of burnt cars, houses and fields were still turning up the remains of those who could not escape.

Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis called the situation "an unspeakable tragedy". The government appealed for EU help and later declared a state of emergency.

Greek newspapers are calling the southern Peloponnese region a "crematorium", says the BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens.

The fires have been moving so fast that people have been cut off before they could escape. With emergency services overstretched, desperate residents and local officials called television and radio stations to appeal for help.

Tags: greece, forest fire, disasters

Earthquake in Peru kills hundreds

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 17:47:13 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: A 7.9 magnitude quake shook Peru today, with aftershocks coming as big as 6.3. News agencies report a high casualty: hundreds were killed and at least 1300 were injured.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

CHINCHA, Peru (Reuters) - Powerful aftershocks shook Peru on Thursday as rescuers pulled wounded and dead from collapsed homes and churches a day after a massive earthquake killed hundreds of people.

Hospitals were overwhelmed with injured in the cities of Chincha and Pisco on the Pacific coast, and dead bodies were gathered on street corners in Pisco.

Peru's civil defense agency said at least 337 people perished and 1,300 were injured in the 7.9-magnitude quake and the death toll was expected to rise.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported aftershocks of magnitude 6.0 and 6.3 on Thursday morning near the central Peru coast.

Wounded people lay on the floor in the San Jose hospital in Chincha, south of the capital Lima. Television images showed walls in the hospital destroyed by the quake.

In the San Juan de Dios hospital in Pisco, doctor Ricardo Cabrera said staff was struggling to cope with 200 wounded and more than 40 dead, with no power and a large part of the hospital damaged.

Tags: earthquake, peru, disasters

NationMaster: World Statistics & Country Comparisons

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 22:02:47 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: A very useful reference site with a large database on countries and nations. you can create charts and graphs based on the criteria you choose and compare countries or see latest statistics.

Clip Source: www.nationmaster.com

(* = Graphable)

Welcome to NationMaster, a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. NationMaster is a vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, UN, and OECD. Using the form above, you can generate maps and graphs on all kinds of statistics with ease.

We want to be the web's one-stop resource for country statistics on everything from soldiers to wall plug voltages.

You can also view profiles of individual countries including their maps and flags, use correlation reports and scatterplots to find relationships between variables, and refer to fully integrated encyclopedia with over one million articles.

Tags: reference, countires, statistics, nations, web, internet

Devastating floods hit South Asia

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:28:45 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Devastating floods hit South Asia

Surviving the floods

Almost 20 million people have been displaced as some of the worst floods for years have hit a wide swathe of northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Roads have been washed away and hundreds of villages have been cut off by swollen rivers.

Almost 200 people have died in the floods in the last few days.

THE AFFECTED AREAS

India: 125 people killed and 12 million stranded, mostly in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Assam

Bangladesh: 64 people have been killed and seven million are marooned

Nepal: Thousands of people displaced in the south

Worst-hit areas

Tags: climate, disasters, floods, asia

The wettest season of modern times for the UK

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 02:24:38 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: comment.independent.co.uk

Leading article: The floods have exerted a salutary effect

Few people in England or Wales will be surprised to learn that this summer has been the wettest of modern times. The Meteorological Office confirmed yesterday that more rain has fallen through May, June and July than over any comparable period since records began. Last month it was the North-east that bore the brunt, with extensive flooding in and around Sheffield and Hull. This month, thousands living in the Avon, Severn and Thames river valleys have been driven from their homes by the water after days of incessant rain. And this time last week, London ground to a halt after a deluge many likened to a monsoon.

Tags: climate change, floods, britain, disasters, weather

The wave that may have destroyed Crete

Fri, 11 May 2007 16:30:11 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Finally, more evidence comes about the disasters that caused the Minoan civilization to collapse (and many more to be shaken in the Old World) more than 3500 years ago.

Clip Source: www.stonepages.com

The legend of Atlantis may be more than just a myth. Research on the Greek island of Crete suggests Europe's earliest civilisation was destroyed by a giant tsunami. Until about 3,500 years ago, the Minoan civilisation was flourishing in the Eastern Mediterranean. But around 1500 BCE the people who spawned the myths of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth abruptly disappeared. Now the mystery of their cataclysmic end may finally have been solved. A group of scientists have uncovered new evidence that the island of Crete was hit by a massive tsunami at the same time that Minoan culture disappeared.

Tags: archaeology, aegean, minos, minoan, disasters, tsunami, ancient history, minoan collapse, crete, earthquake

20 dead as tornadoes hit Ga., Ala., Mo.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 17:18:48 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Hope everyone is fine and alright in East and Midwest.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

ENTERPRISE, Ala. - A violent storm system ripped apart an Alabama high school as students hunkered inside and later tore through Georgia, hitting a hospital and raising the death toll to at least 20 across the Midwest and Southeast.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

US clean-up after lethal storms

A helicopter evacuates a student from Enterprise High School

Enlarge Image

Rescue efforts are under way in several states in America's south and mid-west after a series of tornadoes left at least 20 people dead.

Hardest hit was Alabama, where at least eight people died when a tornado struck a high school building on Thursday.

Nine more people died in Georgia, two of whom were killed when another tornado hit near a regional hospital.

The tornadoes were part of a major storm system that stretched across a swathe of the United States.

Further north, several mid-western states were hit by heavy snow and blizzards, which closed hundreds of miles of major roads.

Tags: storms, tornado, weather, disasters, america

Bangladesh: At the mercy of climate change

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:30:07 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: "It is more exposed than any other country to global warming. And a series of unusual events - from dying trees to freak weather - suggest its impact is already being felt." By Justin Huggler of The Independent.

Clip Source: news.independent.co.uk

Bangladesh: At the mercy of climate change

The weather in Bangladesh is going crazy. Last week, a freak tornado struck. Tornadoes occur regularly in Bangladesh - but usually only in the tornado season, in April. A tornado in February is almost unheard of.

Also, there were the strange events of 2004, when the tides in the estuaries of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers stopped ebbing and flowing. The water level just stayed at high tide. The same year, the capital, Dhaka, was hit by floods so severe the ground floors of most buildings were under water, and a catfish was caught in one of the government buildings.

And in 2005, the country had no winter at all. Westerners tend to assume the whole of the subcontinent is hot all year round; in fact, Bangladesh, like much of northern India, gets quite cold in winter. Except that it didn't last year. Winter never came - with serious effects on the year's potato crop. This year, too, it has not been as cold as usual.

Tags: climate change, disasters, bangladesh

19 dead in central Fla. storms

Sat, 03 Feb 2007 00:24:58 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

19 dead in central Fla. storms

LADY LAKE, Fla. - Disaster crews with dogs went from one pile of debris to another in a search for bodies Friday after powerful storms, including at least one tornado, smashed hundreds of homes across central Florida and killed 19 people or more.

It was the deadliest combination of thunderstorms and tornados to hit Florida in nearly a decade, cutting a 40-mile swath of destruction across four counties just before daybreak, terrorizing residents of one of the nation's biggest retirement communities, and leaving trees and fields littered with clothes, furniture and splintered lumber.

Residents helped pull the dead from the ruins.

Florida's emergency management chief, Craig Fugate, said it could take several days to determine the exact number of dead, and the main priority was finding survivors who may be trapped.

Tags: climate, storm, disasters, florida

Deadly ice storm hits central US

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 15:28:03 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Deadly ice storm hits central US

Ice storms occur when rain falls in temperatures so low it freezes

Ice storms that have killed at least 21 people in the United States are continuing to batter the country.

A state of emergency has been declared and the National Guard called out in Missouri after the storms knocked out power to 200,000 homes.

Churches cancelled Sunday services and businesses closed early or stayed shut.

Weather forecasters say the storm system will head north-east, threatening to bring more than a foot (30cm) of snow to New England.

Ice storms occur when rain falls during very low temperatures, causing it to freeze almost instantly as it hits a surface, resulting in ice layers sometimes several inches thick.

Tags: climate, weather, ice storm, united states, disasters

Typhoon Durian kills 198 in Philippines

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:08:58 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Really horrible and I feel terribly sad for the Philippines people who were directly affected by the typhoon. Haraya, I hope you're safe and all right hun.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Typhoon Durian kills 198 in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines - The fourth major typhoon to hit the Philippines in four months killed 198 people and left 260 others missing, officials said Friday.

Typhoon Durian caused flash floods and sent walls of muddy volcanic ash and red-hot boulders crashing down on several villages, the officials said.

The national Office of Civil Defense reported 198 people were killed and 260 were missing. Fernando Gonzalez, governor of worst-hit Albay province, said the figures included 109 people who died in mudslides on the slopes of the Mayon volcano that also injured 130.

"The disaster covered almost every corner of this province — rampaging floods, falling trees, damaged houses," Gonzalez said.

Tags: storms, typhoon, philippines, disasters