LARGEST QUAKES -
This morning -
6.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES
5.4 EASTERN KAZAKHSTAN
Yesterday -
4/30/11 -
6.1 SOUTH OF PANAMA
5.3 BISMARCK SEA
5.0 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.2 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
4/29/11 -
5.1 KEP. MENTAWAI REGION, INDONESIA
5.5 OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
5.1 GULF OF CALIFORNIA
5.0 BANDA SEA
5.3 TAIWAN REGION
5.0 VANUATU REGION
5.0 VANUATU REGION
5.3 VANUATU REGION
5.0 VANUATU REGION
5.1 VANUATU REGION
5.0 OFFSHORE O'HIGGINS, CHILE
5.0 KYUSHU, JAPAN
5.3 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical storms.
SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -
ILLINOIS - About 100 people in Cairo have decided not to leave the town, even as RECORD-BREAKING FLOODING on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers threatens to inundate the city at the confluence of the two waters. Those remaining in the city of about 2,800 decided to stay despite an order to evacuate the city by midnight Saturday. The Ohio River at Cairo rose to record levels today, hitting 59.89 feet by 1 p.m. The old record was 59.51 feet in 1937. Rains are expected in the area tonight.
The Army Corps of Engineers is in standby mode, ready to activate a plan to destroy the Birds Point levee and flood 130,000 acres to relieve the pressure on the levee system at Cairo, where a giant sand boil has appeared in the levee.
US tornadoes: Death toll rises as more bodies found. The death toll from the tornadoes that hit the southern US this week has risen to 340, in ONE OF THE WORST OUTBREAKS IN THE COUNTRY'S HISTORY. Soldiers and emergency teams are still searching for bodies and survivors. More than 200 tornadoes were reported across six southern US states on Tuesday and Wednesday. Alabama towns were hit by a mile-wide (1.6km) tornado on Wednesday. More than 250 people died in Alabama alone - mostly on Wednesday. As many as a million homes and businesses in the state are still without power. The overall death toll across the southern US makes it the second-deadliest tornado outbreak in US history. The largest death toll ever was in March 1925, when 747 people were killed in storms that raged through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. More bodies were expected to be found in the coming days. "Whole neighbourhoods of housing, just completely gone. Churches, gone. Businesses, gone... [it] seems like a bomb has been dropped." Tornadoes and storms have also caused deaths in Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, Georgia and in Virginia. A state of emergency remains in place in those states.
Storm leaves Alabama poultry industry in ruins - In Alabama on Wednesday, the storm devastated the state's $2.4 billion a year poultry industry, levelling chicken houses, killing birds and knocking out power to feed mills and processing plants. The storm destroyed facilities needed to tend them. "We can't care for them. No electricity, no water."
Across Alabama, the storm destroyed 200 chicken houses and significantly damaged as many as 450 others. Alabama's poultry industry is the third-largest in the US, producing about one billion meat chickens (called broilers) every year, and officials estimate it could be six months to a year before the industry resumes full production. In general, the farmers do not own the chickens but raise them under contract with national sellers. Although most Alabama farmers will not suffer financially from the loss of the livestock, they will have to rebuild the chicken houses and feed pens. Insurance companies are expected to cover much of the losses. It takes 20-25 weeks for new breeder hens to mature, and three weeks for eggs to hatch.
