It’s like being incredibly good-looking:
you have to deal with it in a way that is not self-centred.**
Lou Paget
LARGEST QUAKES -
This morning -
5.2 CELEBES SEA
Yesterday -
10/11/10 -
5.2 NORTHEAST OF TAIWAN
Nine Months After the Quake - a Million Haitians Slowly Dying - "If it gets any worse," said a homeless Haitian mother, "we're not going to survive." Around the back of the Haitian National Palace, a park is now home to 5,000 people displaced by the January 2010 earthquake. Sheets are tied to pieces of wood to keep out the sun. Plastic sheeting covers the ground. When it rains, everything they have is soaked. There is no electricity at all in the camps. Water is hard to find. There is no food. The children are terribly hungry. They beg every day for food. The food aid program was terminated in April and nothing took its place. The authorities cut off the food so people would leave the camps, but where is there to go? There are an estimated 1300 "camps" of homeless people in Haiti. Homeless people live literally everywhere. People are camped in the middle of many streets. Shanty structures are built right up to the edge of streets. Every park, every school yard, every parking lot appear to have people living under sheets or lean-to tents. Evictions are starting. Churches are pushing people off their property. Schools which are reopening are turning off the water to the people camped in the ball fields. Some in authority are openly saying that people must be forced out of the camps. But only 13,000 temporary structures have been built and they are far away from family, school, jobs and health care. There is no place to go.
Nine months after the quake, over a million people are still homeless in Haiti. Haiti looks like the quake could have been last month. The Associated Press reports only 2 percent of the rubble has been removed and only 13,000 temporary shelters have been constructed. Not a single cent of the US aid pledged for rebuilding has arrived in Haiti. In the last few days the US pledged it would put up 10 percent of the billion dollars in reconstruction aid promised. Only 15 percent of the aid pledged by countries and organizations around the world has reached the country so far. A million Haitians are slowly dying from starvation, illness, lack of security and neglect.
TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
Earthquake experts see warning for California in new tsunami study on risk to Caribbean. Haiti and Jamaica are at greater risk for destructive tsunami than previously believed, according to a new study of tsunami generated during the catastrophic Haiti earthquake in January. The tudy raises troubling questions about the possibility of high death tolls should a large earthquake hit Jamaica, which could cause populated coastal areas to collapse into the Caribbean Sea, and trigger tsunami that would rebound back to shore.
The study was conducted to explain a mystery that popped up after the Haiti earthquake: Why were there so many reports of tsunami in a region that wasn't supposed to have many of them? Hornbach said scientists had long expected tsunami to occur from earthquakes generated from "subduction zones," in which one tectonic plate slides underneath the other. Such earthquakes push up the seafloor, moving water up, resulting in tsunami. But the fault that caused the Haiti earthquake was on a fault where one plate pushes past the other, and doesn't push up the seafloor. Scientists had long believed those faults don't often cause tsunami. But what was found during a visit to Haiti in February and March was that the Jan. 12 quake caused the collapse of both coastal land and underwater sediment. It is those landslides - both above and under water - that triggered tsunami that rebounded onto sparsely populated coastal areas of Haiti, killing at least three people and wiping out several homes. Such natively generated tsunami are particularly dangerous because damaging walls of water can begin rushing on land within a matter of minutes after a quake, before authorities can alert the public.
Californians need to learn from this also, and be better prepareo. After a quake, "if you live along the coastline, you want to be thinking about the potential tsunami hazard and get a couple hundred yards -- a couple football fields up -- just to make sure you’re not going to be in an area that's inundated." Even a 3-foot-high tsunami could bring in a wall of water coming in at 40 mph. "It's nothing to mess with. It's like being hit by a car." "The lesson here is, we really need to prepare for this. Even if they are rare events, they are high-impact events." (map)
TROPICAL STORMS -
Tropical storm PAULA was 49 nmi NNW of Puerto Lempira, Honduras
Tropical Storm Paula, the 16th named storm of the busy 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, spun along Honduras' Caribbean coast on Monday and took aim at Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. Paula was expected to strengthen into a hurricane today. Weather forecasts showed it could hit Mexico's popular Caribbean resort of Cancun. Authorities in Honduras closed schools and warned of flooding in some villages as heavy rains reached the coast. The storm in the southwest Caribbean was carrying top winds of 70 miles per hour and moving northwestward at a speed of 10 miles per hour.
High winds knocked over trees and rain swept away several wooden houses in remote Honduran coastal towns. Small mudslides caused by the rain blocked some roads, but there were no reports of injuries or deaths.
Mexico's government issued a hurricane warning from Punta Gruesa to Cancun. A tropical storm warning was also in effect for the coast of Honduras along the border with Nicaragua. Paula is expected to bring heavy rains in eastern Honduras, parts of the Yucatan peninsula, and possibly in mountainous areas of Nicaragua and Honduras, threatening flash flooding and mudslides.
JAMAICA - The Meteorological Service extended the Flash Flood Warning for all parishes until 5:00 am Monday. An area of low pressure across the central Caribbean has been producing unstable weather across Jamaica and has the potential to develop into a tropical storm or tropical depression west of Jamaica by today. Satellite imagery and radar reports indicate that large areas of moderate to heavy showers with embedded thunderstorms continue to move northward across Jamaica. Rainfall amounts of up to 30 millimetres were recorded over some sections of the island. The forecast is for the low pressure system to remain west of the island, gradually drifting away.
HEAVY RAINS, SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -
Three days of incessant rains in Bangladesh have left at least 17 people dead and 41 fishermen missing across the southern coast, news reports said Saturday. Tens of thousands of people are stranded as waters triggered by a tidal surge have inundated thousands of homes in the low-lying coastal zone. Worst affected are southern coastal districts, and 15 deaths have occurred in the region. At least 41 fishermen, who went to the sea days ago, were missing Saturday. At least 10,000 islanders had taken refuge at cyclone shelters — raised concrete buildings - as the tidal surge from the Bay of Bengal inundated their homes. Bangladesh is a delta nation of 150 million people.
More than 1,000 villages flooded on China's Hainan island following THE HEAVIEST RAIN FOR DECADES. More than 210,000 people had been evacuated by late Thursday, with more downpours forecast for Friday. The torrential rains have been falling for more than a week and are the worst on the island off China's southeastern coast since 1961. One fisherman had been killed and three others were missing.
Hope fades for Vietnam's flood missing - Hope faded Thursday for people listed as missing after floods killed at least 49 in central Vietnam. "The rains have stopped falling and the water level has visibly lowered. But the possibility of finding the missing is reduced after several days of searching." Quang Binh was hardest-hit by the flooding sparked by heavy rain over recent days. The province recorded 33 dead and 13 missing. In Quang Tri, roads and agricultural land remained inundated. "This will certainly affect rice production for the winter-spring season." Landslides disrupted traffic flow in the province's Huong Hoa district. Quang Tri is already a poverty-stricken province where more than 80 percent of the land is affected by unexploded munitions from the Vietnam War.
HEALTH THREATS -
RECALLS & ALERTS:
-The Blue Buffalo Company, Ltd., is recalling certain packages of its Wilderness Chicken, Basics Salmon and Large Breed Adult Chicken dry DOG FOODS sold under thc "BLUE" brand which have the potential to contain excessive levels of Vitamin D.
