Global Disaster Watch - daily natural disaster updates.
**The sea has neither meaning nor pity.**
Anton Chekhov
LARGEST QUAKES so far today -
5.4 EASTERN NEW GUINEA REG., P.N.G.
5.3 SOUTH OF FIJI ISLANDS
5.2 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Yesterday, 5/14/15 -
5.1 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 BANDA SEA
5.4 OFF COAST OF PAKISTAN
5.1 OFFSHORE ATACAMA, CHILE
5.1 NEAR COAST OF NICARAGUA
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.3 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 KEPULAUAN BABAR, INDONESIA
5/13/15 -
5.0 NEPAL
5.2 EAST OF NORTH ISLAND, N.Z.
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 MOLUCCA SEA
5/12/15 -
5.2 NEPAL-INDIA BORDER REGION
6.8 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 SOUTH OF AFRICA
5.0 TONGA
5.0 NEPAL
5.3 NEPAL
5.2 NEPAL
5.1 NEPAL
5.0 NEPAL
5.0 NEPAL
6.2 NEPAL
5.5 NEPAL
5.4 KEPULAUAN BABAR, INDONESIA
5.6 NEPAL
7.3 NEPAL
5.1 SOUTH OF JAVA, INDONESIA
5/11/15 -
5.3 MID-INDIAN RIDGE
5.3 MID-INDIAN RIDGE
5.0 HALMAHERA, INDONESIA
5.5 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.2 KURIL ISLANDS
5.1 SOUTHERN EAST PACIFIC RISE
5.0 MOLUCCA SEA
5.1 FIJI REGION
5.0 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5/10/15 -
5.9 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.1 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.4 IZU ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
5.6 OFF COAST OF CHIAPAS, MEXICO
5/9/15 -
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.4 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.3 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5/8/15 -
5.1 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.9 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.7 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5/7/15 -
5.0 MENDOZA, ARGENTINA
5.4 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 TONGA REGION
5.0 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.4 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 SOUTH OF MARIANA ISLANDS
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.0 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
7.1 BOUGAINVILLE REGION, P.N.G.
Death toll in Nepal's fresh earthquake
reaches 83, over 1900 injured. Two weeks after more than 8,000 people died from a
powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Nepal, a new quake measuring 7.3 struck on 12 May.
The second massive earthquake to hit Nepal in less than three weeks has killed 83 people,
including 17 in India and one in Chinese Tibet, and injured nearly 2,000, with thousands
staying outdoors as the country was jolted by dozens of aftershocks overnight. Officials
put the number of wounded at 1,926.
Authorities said there was no news of the UH-1 helicopter of the US Marine Corps that went
missing on Tuesday during a relief sortie. Six US Marines and two Nepal Army personnel were
in the helicopter. With the fresh casualties, the total death toll in Nepal since the April
25 quake has crossed 8,200. The home ministry said 382 people had been reported as
missing.
Aftershocks continued on Tuesday night and in the early hours of Wednesday, forcing people
to stay outdoors. Eight houses were reportedly destroyed in the capital Kathmandu following
Tuesday's quake. Nepal's National Seismological Centre said 33 aftershocks of more than 4-
magnitude were recorded since 12:50pm on Tuesday. One of them, of 6.2-magnitude and with its
epicenter at Dolakha, was recorded 21 minutes after the 7.3-magnitude quake. Another one, of
5.9-magnitude and with its epicenter at Dhading, occurred at 3.10am on Wednesday.
Fresh landslides after Tuesday's quake were reported from 38 districts and key highways were
blocked in some areas. Authorities immediately launched operations to clear them. Tuesday’s
quake exacerbated the devastation caused less than three weeks ago by the devastating 7.8-
magnitude temblor. The fresh quake had its epicentre 68 km west of the town of Namche Bazaar
near Mount Everest. Tremors were felt in India all the way from the border states of Bihar
and West Bengal to Gujarat and Delhi.
Seventeen people were killed in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the Indian home ministry said in a
statement. Chinese media reported one person died in Tibet after rocks fell on a car.
Tuesday’s quake flattened buildings in Kathmandu and other parts of Nepal that were already
weakened by the April 25 earthquake. The fresh tremors, which lasted nearly a minute, came
just as residents of Kathmandu and other districts were picking up the pieces after last
month’s quake that displaced millions.
Mountaineers seeking to scale the world's tallest peak called off this year's Everest season
after 18 people died when last month's quake triggered avalanches. There were no climbers or
sherpa guides at the base camp when Tuesday’s quake struck. (video)
Nepal’s devastating earthquake underlines the risks of China’s
Tibet dam-building binge. The earthquake that rattled Nepal on April 25, killing
thousands, also cracked a huge hydroelectric dam and damaged many others. Things could have
been much worse, though. The collapse of one of these could have let loose a deluge of water
and debris downstream, a disquieting prospect given that more than 400 dams are being built
or are slated for construction in the Himalayan valley.
This underscores the risks of China’s recent push to dam rivers in Tibet. Threatened by a
lack of natural energy sources, the Chinese government has been on a dam-building bender.
China now has more installed hydropower capacity than the next three runner-up countries
combined. But the government has only just begun to harness the power created as runoff from
Himalayan glaciers flows across Tibet, plunging around 3,000 meters. The biggest of these
rivers, the Yarlung River (a.k.a. Yarlung Tsangpo, Yarlung Zangbo), cuts along the bottom
third of the autonomous region before hanging a sharp right into India and Bangladesh, where
it’s called the Brahmaputra. In November of 2014, the government unveiled Tibet’s first
truly huge hydropower project — a 9.6 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) project spanning the
Yarlung River’s middle reaches, called the Zangmu dam.
Unfortunately, like much of the rest of the Himalayan valley, the bedrock around the Yarlung
River is unusually tectonically active. Worse, the weight of dammed reservoirs has been
linked to more than 100 earthquakes, most notoriously, the 2008 earthquake in nearby
Sichuan, which killed around 80,000. Why take the risk? The Chinese government says the
hydropower projects will solve Tibet’s electricity shortages. But it’s not clear Tibetans
actually need it.
The region surrounding the Yarlung River has too few people and too small an economy to
require all that electricity, a geologist and chief engineer at the Sichuan Geology and
Mineral Bureau says. The Zangmu dam will provide 2.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a
year. That’s around 80% of what Tibet consumes in total — and four more dams are in the
works for other sites along the Yarlung River.
Mining companies probably need that electricity more than nomadic herders. Among Tibet’s
bounty of natural resources, a significant share of its gold and copper mines sit within
convenient reach of current or planned Yarlung River hydropower stations.
Other likely beneficiaries of Himalayan wattage are energy-strapped Chinese provinces to
the east. Though Tibet has less than 0.25% of China’s population, it holds around three-
tenths of its water power resources.
The government has long planned to turn Tibet
into a base for the “West-East Electricity Transmission Project,” shunting energy from
China’s resource-rich western regions to the coastal provinces, which are far more
industrialized yet also resource-scarce. This hints at ugly odds behind China’s dam-building
frenzy in Tibet. A single earthquake, let alone dam collapse, could devastate many in Tibet.
Unfortunately for them, the ultimate winners of this cheap-power gamble will be too far away
to feel it.
VOLCANOES -
Washington - A tunnel dug to help drain a lake whose
natural outlet was blocked when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980 is narrowing. Experts say
if it fails, Interstate 5 in Washington state could be inundated.
The Spirit Lake Tunnel was built after the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, when ash and
debris blocked the lake's natral outlet into a local creek. When lake levels began to rise,
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers bored a 1.6-mile tunnel through bedrock to provide Spirit
Lake a new outlet.
The tunnel opened in 1985. Last fall and spring, inspections found that the tunnel floor was
rising. Geologists say shifting rock formations under the surface are to blame.
"The bottom of the tunnel is actually pushing up into the tunnel and deforming the shape."
In October 2013, the tunnel had an opening of eight feet, six inches. One year later, the
tunnel was constricted to seven feet, one inch. In April of 2015, the uplift reduced the
opening to six feet, eight inches.
"That was a pretty gross and significant movement that I had not seen in the 30 years I've
been inspecting the tunnel." If the tunnel were to collapse, the lake could fill up and
overflow, causing a catastrophe. In a recent report, the U.S. Army Corps wrote that "this
worst case possibility would destroy all transportation routes" to the west of the lake, in
southern Washington along the Cowlitz Valley, including Interstate-5 and the main North-
South rail lines.
The tunnel still has a ways to go before it can no longer drain the lake. "I don't think
that is imminent. We have time." The Army Corp of Engineers, which inspects and maintains
the tunnel for the U.S. Forest Service, is now working on designs to fix the problem.
It hopes to make emergency repairs to the tunnel by later this year. So far, there is no
price tag on the fix.
Two Washington senators and a congresswoman have raised serious concerns about the problem.
"Complete failure of this tunnel in the shadow of Mount St. Helens could be catastrophic to
Washington state on multiple levels." (video)
TROPICAL STORMS -
* In the Western Pacific -
Typhoon Dolphin is located approximately 135 nm east of Andersen AFB.
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Tropical Storm Ana Starts Hurricane Season Early - Atlantic hurricane
season doesn’t start officially until June 1, but this year we’ve already seen our first
named storm. Tropical storm Ana spent this weekend off the southeast coast, transitioning
from a cluster of thunderstorms into a tropical system late on Friday night.
Ana moved onshore just northeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at 6 a.m. Sunday, with 45
mph sustained winds.
She dropped 2 to 7 inches of rainfall near the South Carolina – North Carolina border, and
created some coastal erosion. Overall, an unremarkable storm, except for how early in the
year she developed.
NASA scientists estimate that a tropical system, strong enough to get a name, occurs this
early in the year only once or twice every 100 years. Ana was the second-earliest tropical
storm or hurricane to make landfall in the U.S., behind an unnamed storm in February of
1952.
All this drama comes at a time in history when the U.S. has been in a hurricane drought, of
sorts. Over the past nine years there have been 59 hurricanes in the Atlantic. But during
that time, no hurricanes of Category 3 or higher have hit the U.S. coastline. Such a string
of lucky years is likely to happen only once in 177 years, according to a new NASA study.
Storms weaker than Category 3 can still be dangerous. Sandy in 2012, Irene in 2011, and Ike
in 2008, together caused over $100 billion of damage.
As for this upcoming hurricane season, the official predictions haven’t been released yet.
But statistical analysis suggests that, for any given year, there is a 40 percent chance of
a Category 3 or higher hurricane landing across the U.S. coastline.
SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -
New Zealand - Evacuations after heavy rain, floods and slips in
Wellington region. The Wellington region was battered on Thursday with torrential rain that
caused slips, travel disruptions and left one person dead.
An elderly man was found dead in floodwaters after torrential rain brought chaos to the
Wellington region. Police discovered the body of the 80-year-old man near Sladden Park, in
Bracken St, Petone. More heavy rain and traffic disruptions are expected on Friday after the
deluge that left homes flooded, roads turned to rivers, and trains cancelled. Thousands of
commuters were stranded in Wellington, once again highlighting the fragility of the road
network.
The region was hit by a deluge of rain overnight causing slips and flooding, with 117.4mm
falling in Paraparaumu and 96mm in Lower Hutt in the last 24 hours. Residents are being
advised by Civil Defence to stay out of floodwaters because of potential sewage
contamination and electrical danger.
All commuter train services across the Wellington region have been cancelled until Friday
afternoon at the earliest. Schools, businesses and homeowners have all been affected, with
18 homes evacuated.
(video)
EXTREME HEAT & DROUGHT / WILDFIRES -
Texas Removed From Worst Category of U.S. Drought Monitor For First
Time Since 2012. Just one year ago, more than 20 percent of Texas was labeled under the most
extreme category of the U.S. Drought Monitor – "exceptional." But for the first time in
nearly three years, the entire Lone Star State has been removed from that distinction.
In fact, more than three-fourths of Texas is no longer in any drought at all. That's big
news for a state that has been ravaged by drought since 2010.
During the most recent of its weekly assessments, however, the Drought Monitor found more
than 2.7 million people are still affected by drought in Texas, so the state hasn't
completely recovered from the long-term drought just yet. Sections of the state were still
listed Thursday as abnormally dry or in moderate, severe or extreme drought.
Parts of the Houston metro area received more than 10 inches of rain this week. Corsicana
last weekend was doused with 11 inches of rain.
Wichita Falls has already picked up more rain this year - 15.79 inches through May 13 - than
in all of 2011, their record driest year - 12.97 inches. At least one inch of rain has
fallen four separate days this month, two more than occurred in all of 2011.
More rainfall is on the way for Texas in the coming days, and that should continue to shrink
the area that's still highlighted by the Drought Monitor. On the other hand, additional
rainfall could actually be bad news for parts of the state that have already seen dangerous
flooding, which may cause water to rise over roadways and into homes.
Australia - Record Queensland drought could get worse with El Nino.
Drought has been declared in more than 80 per cent of Queensland, with fears El Nino will
only make things worse.
Queensland is experiencing its MOST WIDESPREAD DROUGHT CONDITIONS ON RECORD, with 80.35% of
the state drought-declared. During the past six months western and northern Queensland has
generally seen below average rainfall. In the southeastern districts rainfall has actually
been above average in some parts. However, the reason for drought declaration of so much of
Queensland is that widespread healthy falls haven't been experienced since the back-to-back
La Nina events finished in early 2012.
During the past 26 El Nino events, 17 have resulted in widespread Australian drought.
Thankfully El Nino is not the only climate driver to affect Queensland weather in the coming
months. During June and July there is actually a higher than usual chance of above average
rain in southwestern Queensland. This is due to the presence of warmer than usual waters in
the Indian Ocean off the Western Australian coastline. Northwest cloudbands drawing upon
this moisture are likely to be more frequent in the coming months and could bring some
decent rain.
Therefore, with drought in place and El Nino on the way it is likely to be a very hard
season for Queenslanders, but hopefully enough rain will fall in coming months to get them
through to the next wet season.
'This Could Be a Mess': An Apparent Drought in North Korea
Brings Fear of Famine - A severe drought could bring North Korea to the brink of famine
this summer, according to experts who keep close tabs on the Hermit Kingdom.
"If they get a lot of rain over the next two months, then they've dodged a bullet. If they
don't get good rain, then this could be a mess." Satellite imagery showed alarmingly low
reservoirs and dry lakebeds throughout the country's agricultural region. Even the lake next
to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un's vacation house appeared lower than usual.
They reviewed images dating from November 2012 to March 2014, so it is possible that
rainfall has helped refill those water bodies since then — but it's not likely. A severe
drought struck North Korea last year, and this past winter was also dry, leading to
wildfires in recent months. Much of the precipitation North Korea sees in a given year comes
during the wet season in June and July.
Without significant rainfall soon, North Korean farmers might not be able to grow enough
food to feed the country's nearly 25 million people. The financial excesses of the country's
elite are well documented, and Pyongyang lacks sufficient foreign currency reserves to make
up for the shortfall. And while international aid has helped address the country's food
shortages in the past, its distribution to the North Korean people depends on the country's
paranoid government.
A report on the situation from United Press International cited South Korean media saying
that North Korean officials had called for a "national mobilization" in response to the
drought. But North Korea is ill-prepared to contend with an extended drought. He noted
that, in addition to food shortages, low water levels could also lead to blackouts because
of the country's dependence on hydroelectric dams.
"North Korea is a poor, repressive country with a dated infrastructure and opaque political
culture. It would probably be very difficult for them to adapt to a severe climactic shock."
Of course, it's impossible to provide a clear picture of what's happening in North Korea
because of the regime's ironclad grip on information. But the country has a tragic, well-
documented history with famine.
In the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed and ended its subsidies to the
communist country, North Korea ran out of the fuel, fertilizers, and pesticides necessary to
grow enough crops to feed its people. A deadly famine ensued and between 600,000 and 2.5
million people perished.
Few experts believe famine on that scale would hit North Korea again. News outlets have been
unsuccessfully predicting another famine for the past few years, but harvests lately have
been good, and black markets sanctioned by corrupt bureaucrats are now booming in the
country and distributing food more efficiently than the overweening state.
Still, in the twisted world of North Korea, Kim arguably has little incentive to work too
hard to keep his people fed. "There's a line of thought that says, 'As long as he keeps the
army in good shape and the city of Pyongyang in shape, the rest of the country can go to
hell. If you're starving, the only thing you're interested in is getting food in your belly.
There are no revolts during famines."
'GLOBAL WEIRDNESS' / CLIMATE CHANGE -
A Rare
Mid-Year El Niño Event Is Strengthening - The robust El Niño event anticipated for more
than a year is finally coming to fruition, according to the latest observations and
forecasts. NOAA's latest monthly analysis, issued on Thursday morning, continues the El Niño
Advisory already in effect and calls for a 90% chance of El Niño conditions persisting
through the summer, with a greater-than-80% chance they will continue through the end of
2015.
These are the highest probabilities yet for the current event, and a sign of
increased forecaster confidence - despite the fact that we're in northern spring, the very
time when El Niño outlooks are most uncertain.
Forecasters and computer models alike have been confounded by this event.
In a classic El Niño, the ocean and atmosphere are synchronized in a mutually reinforcing
pattern that pushes warm sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) and thunderstorm activity along the
equator eastward for thousands of miles, from Indonesia toward South America (see Figure 1).
Sometimes the atmosphere doesn't respond to a "kick" from the ocean, and an embryonic El
Niño fails to develop. This was the case last spring, when a powerful oceanic Kelvin wave (a
broad, shallow, slow-moving impulse) pushed warm water east across the Pacific tropics.
Keying off this wave, many of the global models used in El Niño prediction called for a
moderate or even strong El Niño by the fall of 2014. However, the normal east-to-west trade
winds never reversed, which helped torpedo the needed ocean-atmosphere synchrony. The ocean
tried again last fall with another Kelvin wave, but again the atmosphere failed to respond,
and the SST warming disappeared after a few weeks.
This time, things appear to be different: SSTs have warmed for the last several months, and
more recently, trade winds have weakened. As of Monday, the weekly-averaged SSTs over the
four regions monitored for El Niño were all at least 1.0°C above average. If the values for
all four regions can sustain this feat throughout the next month, it'll be the first time
this has happened since November 1997, during the strongest El Niño event of the 20th
century.
Just as significant, the persistently warmer-than-normal SSTs over the
western tropical Pacific have now cooled, which helps support the reversal of trade winds so
critical to El Niño. The current SST map now resembles a more textbook-like El Niño
signature, and there is every indication that the ocean-atmosphere coupling will now
continue to grow.
An event out of season - As far as the eastern tropical Pacific goes, it's beginning to look
a lot like Christmas. El Niño - "the Christ child" in Spanish - gets its name from its
tendency to bring above-average SSTs to the coasts of Peru and Ecuador around Christmastime.
The climatology of the eastern Pacific tends to support El Niño and La Niña development
during the northern autumn, maximum strength in the winter, and decay in the spring.
The current event is thus bucking climatology as it continues into northern spring. The
three-month departure from average in the Niño3.4 region reached the El Niño threshold of
+0.5°C in Oct-Nov-Jan 2014-15, and it's hovered in the weak range (+0.5 to +1.0°C] ever
since, with a value of +0.6°C for Feb-Mar-Apr 2015. Only 12 of the 65 prior years in the
historical database of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events have seen a value of at
least +0.5°C during the Feb-Mar-Apr period.
Water temperatures in the Niño3.4 region
are normally at their warmest in May, so the current warm anomaly is leading to especially
toasty SSTs of around 29°C (84°F).
If this El Niño event does intensify, as models
strongly suggest it will, it'll be one for the record books. There are no analogs in the
database for a weak event in northern winter that becomes a stronger event by summer.
Persisting into northern fall will also greatly raise the odds of this becoming a rare two-
year event.
In every case since at least 1950 when El Niño conditions were present by
Jul-Aug-Sep, the event continued into the start of the next calendar year. Two-year El Niños
are more unusual than two-year La Niñas, but they do happen, as in 1968-1970 and 1986-1988.
Northern spring is an especially difficult time to predict El Niño evolution. Computer-model
skill at predicting ENSO is at its lowest then, in part because of reduced east-west
gradients in SSTs across the tropical Pacific, but also due to factors that have yet to be
fully understood.
"The Spring Barrier is the climate forecaster’s equivalent of
mayhem." Skill does begin to improve for forecasts produced in May, so we can begin placing
more trust in the 2015-16 El Niño predictions from this point onward - although even model
runs produced in August still miss about a quarter of the winter variability in ENSO.
How strong will it get? This week's Niño3.4 SST anomaly of +1.0°C is at the threshold of a
moderate-strength event. Another 0.5°C would push the event into the strong range, which was
last observed in late 2009 and early 2010. "We have had some pretty unusual (non-persistent)
behavior of the ENSO-system in the last four years that was anticipated better than by
flipping a coin, especially last year, but certainly not perfectly."
Because it's quite rare to have intensifying El Niño conditions at this time of year, it's
difficult to glean a confident signal from past events on how El Niño might affect U.S.
summer weather. The global effects of El Niño arise from a shifting of showers and
thunderstorms into the central and eastern tropical Pacific, which causes a reverberating
sequence of atmospheric waves that tend to enhance precipitation in some areas and reduce it
in others. In midlatitudes, these relationships, called teleconnections, are usually
strongest in the winter hemisphere; for example, Australia often falls into drought when El
Niño is developing in Jun-Jul-Aug.
If a strong El Niño does develop and persists into
northern winter, the likely U.S. impacts would be more clear-cut, including wetter-than-
average conditions across the southern half of the country, from California through Texas to
Florida. This month could be seen as a sneak preview of sorts, with soggy conditions
prevalent across the central and southern Plains and two unusually-wet-for-May systems
reaching southern California, one last weekend and another now on its way.
There is
some hope for drought relief in the Golden State, given that the odds of an wetter-than-
normal California rise sharply for the strongest El Niño events, but by no means would a wet
winter be guaranteed. The strong El Niño of 1987-88 (which happened to be the second year of
a two-year event) produced a drier-than-average winter from California to Washington.
Given that El Niño tends to suppress hurricane formation in the North Atlantic, the odds of
a quiet season in that basin are growing by the month. However, a season with few storms
doesn't necessarily translate into a low-impact year: the anemic 1992 season included the
catastrophic Hurricane Andrew. And it's possible (though unlikely) to have a busy Atlantic
hurricane season even during El Niño.
Right in the middle of the weak-to-moderate
two-year El Niño event of 1968-70, the Atlantic produced its most active season in 36 years,
with a total of 18 named storms, 12 hurricanes, and 5 major hurricanes - including the
horrific Hurricane Camille.
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