Forests are the lungs of our land,
purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.**
Franklin D. Roosevelt
LARGEST QUAKES -
This morning -
None 5.0 or higher.
Yesterday -
12/17/11 -
5.0 SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS
5.2 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.2 SOUTH OF KERMADEC ISLANDS
5.2 MONA PASSAGE, PUERTO RICO
5.1 MONA PASSAGE, PUERTO RICO
12/16/11 -
5.2 SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA, INDONESIA
5.1 OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
5.0 NICOBAR ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.2 PACIFIC-ANTARCTIC RIDGE
5.6 OFF COAST OF AISEN, CHILE
5.1 OFF COAST OF AISEN, CHILE
12/15/11 -
5.7 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.4 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
6.0 SOUTH OF KERMADEC ISLANDS
5.5 KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION
5.3 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.1 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
PUERTO RICO - Two strong earthquakes struck Puerto Rico within minutes of each other. The quakes, with magnitudes of 5.1 and 5.2 respectively, occurred three minutes apart just after 2am local time early Saturday in the Mona Passage, just to the west of the island. A smaller aftershock was reported a few minutes later, and all were felt in the capital, San Juan. The 5.1 quake was recorded at a depth of 14 kilometres, while the 5.3 quake occurred at a depth of 17 kilometres. No tsunami alert was issued.
Some residents in the island's southwest region reported power outages as well as broken items around the house. No injuries have been reported. There were no immediate reports of damage in the neighbouring Dominican Republic.
VOLCANOES -
INDONESIA - Villagers Facing Cold Lava Flood in Gamalama. Mount Gamalama in Ternate, Maluku Province, is still erupting. Residents around the area are now worried about cold lava flood. “The chance of cold lava flooding is increased because of rising rainfalls." Residents were warned to stay away from Disaster-prone Area III and II due to the possible hot clouds. Cold lava flood threatens Disaster-prone Area I.
“Currently, there are 646 households or 2,731 people evacuated in nine evacuation posts." There are no fatalities from the eruption. Mount Gamalama erupted on December 4 around 10.25 a.m. It was raining in North Maluku and the power was out when the eruption took place. However, there were no material losses from the eruption. The eruption had disturbed flights between Manado and Ternate. However, on Sunday, Dec 11, Manado-Ternate flights were reopened.
TROPICAL STORMS -
In the Western Pacific -
Tropical Storm 27w (Washi) was located approximately 630 nm east of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
600 dead as flooding ravages Philippines - Tropical storm Washi has unleashed widespread floods across southern Philippines. whipped the southern Philippines, unleashing mammoth floods across vast areas of the country. The cities of Cagayan de Oro and nearby Iligan on Mindanao island were worst hit when Typhoon Wasi slammed ashore while people slept late on Friday and early Saturday, sending torrents of water and mud through villages and stripping mountainsides bare. Relief workers said that 440 people had died and nearly 200 left missing after the storm wreaked havoc, destroying whole neighbourhoods.
About 20,000 soldiers had been mobilised in a huge rescue and relief operation across the stricken north coast of the island of Mindanao. Iligan's mayor described rampaging floodwaters from swollen rivers that swamped up to a quarter of the land area of the city of 100,000. "It's the worst flood in the history of our city. It happened so fast, at a time when people were fast asleep." The TV station showed dramatic pictures of a family escaping out of the window of their home in the town as the floods rose, and rescue workers in orange vests shepherding survivors to safety above chest-deep waters.
The President expressed concern at the extent of the tragedy and ordered government agencies to map out areas in the country most vulnerable to future flash floods. "These areas will be at risk every year... The first (step in) mitigation has to be relocation from these areas." The head of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said Mindanao residents were warned about the dangers posed by the storm days earlier but elected not to move to safer areas. Mindanao was rarely visited by storms, even as 20 major storms strike the Philippines annually, with most hitting Luzon, the largest and most populous island in the Southeast Asian archipelago. "We expect huge damage, especially on agriculture." An Iligan resident recounted how she and her children watched in terror from their rooftop as the floodwaters swallowed up the neighbourhood. "All the small houses behind ours were destroyed, and many of my neighbours are missing."
Waters began rising shortly before midnight (1600 GMT Friday) as people slept, sweeping houses made of light materials and their inhabitants along the riverbanks. "Many of them told me they sought refuge on their rooftops." Two of the three rivers that flow into the port of Iligan had overflowed, and a popular radio commentator was among those killed. Most of the dead were asleep Friday night when raging floodwaters tore through their homes from swollen rivers and cascaded from mountain slopes following 12 hours of pounding rain in the southern Mindanao region. Many of the bodies in parlours were unclaimed, indicating that entire families had perished. More than 4000 people in flooded areas were moved to evacuation centres. Two typhoons, Nesat and Nalgae, hit the country within days of each other from late September, leaving more than 100 people dead, while tropical storm Banyan killed another eight people in October.
SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -
A storm has battered north-western France, leaving hundreds of thousands without power, disrupting rail traffic and grounding a ship that spilled oil off the coast of Brittany. There were no immediate reports of serious injuries or significant damage as storm Joachim moved further inland to Switzerland and Germany. France had escaped largely unscathed. "It seems there have been no victims. A certain number" of people living in low-lying areas in Brittany had been evacuated because of the storm."
Officials said 400,000 homes had lost electricity, mainly in the west of the country. By mid-day, the number of homes without electricity had fallen to 330,000 as workers scrambled to restore electricity infrastructure.
The storm had been battering the area since Thursday night, with gusts of wind of up to 133km/h and waves up to 7m high. The storm caused a cargo ship to run aground and spill some oil into the sea off Brittany. Train traffic was disrupted, with more than 15 trains cancelled in central France and significant delays. The storm was moving its way inland, with Swiss authorities reporting it caused a train to derail in Switzerland, lightly injuring three people.
NEW ZEALAND - Residents of a New Zealand town will be evacuated as floods inundate the area following THE WORST RAINFALL IN 40 YEARS. Supplies are being delivered to residents in Cable Bay, near Nelson at the top of the South Island, who are expected to be isolated by road for weeks, while others in the area are unable to return to their homes as waters rise. Civil Defence says it will take two to three weeks to clear roads to Cable Bay, where power is still out, affecting 45 residents. The state of emergency is expected to remain in place until next week.
"A top priority is to clear arterial routes and to reach isolated communities." An aerial inspection of the Maitai pipeline, which supplies water to the city of Nelson, revealed eight slips but they are not disrupting supply and are being monitored. There have been 230 slips in Nelson. An aerial inspection has revealed extensive damage to homes in Ligar Bay, Wainui Bay and Pohara Valley. Access will be restored to Tata Bay on Saturday but there is still no access from Tata Bay to Wainui Bay and beyond to Totaranui. About 90 residents and Department of Conservation staff are stranded in Totaranui but they have water and supplies and access to water taxis. Building inspectors are visiting homes and are putting red stickers on unsafe houses, as they did after the Christchurch earthquakes.
EXTREME HEAT & DROUGHT / WILDFIRES / CLIMATE CHANGE -
Melting Permafrost Could Release Greenhouse Gases - Long trapped inside permafrost, stores of methane and carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gases, have been held in thrall for millennia. As temperatures rise globally, the organic matter that is trapped in the frozen soil is at risk of thawing, decaying and releasing these gases. Although the frozen carbon isn’t a surprise, the volume of organic debris is. “A recent estimate suggests that the perennially frozen ground known as permafrost, which underlies nearly a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere, contains TWICE AS MUCH CARBON AS THE ENTIRE ATMOSPHERE."
Even if the permafrost has not thawed, at least some of the still-frozen carbon could be losing its stability. The fear is that accelerating the entry of carbon into the atmosphere could compound the warming process. And, although it would not happen overnight, it could be unstoppable once it began. In 2009 a Canadian scientist and his team estimated that there were about 1.7 trillion tons of carbon in those permafrost regions and that 88 percent of it was frozen. Researchers at the Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) studied the effect that a thawed-out Arctic would have on overall climate health and found that one- to two-thirds of that permafrost will be gone by 2200. Indigenous populations worldwide are of course already seeing the effects of climate change, be it the Inuit trying to live their daily lives, or island nations struggling with rising sea levels.
As the recent COP17 climate change talks in Durban can attest, agreement is hard to come by on the subject of carbon emissions, and Canada’s pullout from the Kyoto Protocols on greenhouse gas emissions targets, along with the U.S. Congress’s support of the Keystone XL pipeline, do not bode well for a reduction of dependence on fossil fuels. “If we want to hit a target carbon concentration, then we have to reduce fossil fuel emissions that much lower than previously calculated to account for this additional carbon from the permafrost. Otherwise we will end up with a warmer Earth than we want.”
SPACE WEATHER -
COMET LOVEJOY SURVIVES - Incredibly, sungrazing Comet Lovejoy survived its close encounter with the sun Friday. Lovejoy flew only 140,000 km over the stellar surface during the early hours of Dec. 16th. Experts expected the icy sundiver to be destroyed. Instead, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the comet emerging from perihelion (closest approach) apparently intact. Comet Lovejoy began the week as a chunk of dusty, rocky ice more than 200 meters in diameter. No one can say how much of the comet's core remains intact or how long it will hang together after the searing heat of perihelion. "There is still a possibility that Comet Lovejoy will start to fragment. It’s been through a tremendously traumatic event; structurally, it could be extremely weak." The scorched core of sungrazing Comet Lovejoy is still intact as it recedes from the sun. Even the comet's flamboyant tail, temporarily lost in transit through the solar corona, has regrown.
