Negative Blogs

QUITO, Ecuador — The Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador is billowing ash into the sky and sending super-hot pyroclastic flows surging down its slopes, causing authorities to evacuate nearby villages.

Hugo Yepez, director of Ecuador’s Geophysical Institute, says no one has been injured nor any village damaged. He says people within 8 miles of the volanco’s centre were evacuated Saturday as a precaution.

An eruption of ash from Tungurahua last May caused a one-day shutdown of the international airport at Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil. Thousands of people in near the volcano also were evacuated.

The volcano is 95 miles (150 kilometres) southeast of Quito, the capital. In 2006, an eruption buried entire villages and killed at least four people.

By ctv.ca

A column of smoke and ashes comes out from the Tungurahua volcano in Pelileo, Ecuador, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2010. (AP Photo / Patricio Realpe)

European aircraft dumped tons of water over flames raging through tall trees in northern Israel as firefighters struggled for a second day Friday to contain the country’s worst-ever forest fire, which has killed 41 people and displaced thousands.

Authorities raised the possibility of arson, saying several small fires that broke out in the same general area but were quickly contained appeared to have been deliberately set.

But the cause of the main fire, whipped by strong winds through one of Israel’s few natural forests, remained unclear. Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich told Channel 2 TV that if the big blaze did turn out to have several distinct centres, “then it would look like arson.”

But police chief David Cohen said later at a news conference that the fire broke out in a single centre and could have been caused by carelessness. Two Druze men arrested on suspicion they planned to set a smaller fire were cleared and released, Mr. Cohen said.

Flames nearly 30 metres high spread across a hilly pine forest toward the Mediterranean Sea, as the blaze reached the outskirts of Israel’s third largest city, Haifa. Helicopters and planes flew back and forth to the Mediterranean, scooping up sea water and dumping it on the fire. Turkish planes scattered white powdery material over the smoky hills. Banana trees were burned and cypress trees were stripped of their leaves with only thin trunks remaining.

One of the main country’s highways was closed to traffic as nearby trees smouldered and smoke billowed toward the Mediterranean coastline, with ash flying through the air and large red flames closing in on a hotel and a spa south of the city.

The eruption of the blaze Thursday overwhelmed Israel’s small firefighting force and prompted an unprecedented call for international help from a country better known for sending its own rescue teams and medical personnel to other countries’ disaster zones.

Yoram Levy, a spokesman for Israel’s fire and rescue service, said the fire was huge and that firefighters battling strong winds were having trouble accessing the mountains and valleys.

“We don’t have big aircraft that can carry a large amount of water,” Mr. Levy said. “It is not enough for a large-scale fire.”

Some 100 firefighters from Bulgaria arrived as well as fire extinguishing planes and crews from Greece and Britain, Israeli officials said. More aid was on its way from the United States, Russia, Egypt, Cyprus, Jordan, Spain, Azerbaijan, and Romania.

Turkey set aside tensions over Israel’s deadly raid on a Turkish Gaza-bound flotilla in May to lend a hand – though Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Ergodan underlined that the help didn’t mean ties were back to normal and said his country still wanted an apology for the raid and compensation for the victims.

Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu singled out Turkey for thanks as he expressed his appreciation to countries around the world for their help.

“We are amid a disaster of international proportions,” he said after an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss the fire. “We have to admit that our firefighting services cannot handle a forest fire backed by such a strong wind. We don’t have the means for it.” Mr. Netanyahu then headed north to visit the injured in hospitals and inspect firefighting efforts.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio that he was hopeful the fire could be suppressed by Saturday night.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak ordered the military to make all its resources available for the effort, which was being co-ordinated by the Israeli air force. The military said it sent soldiers and equipment, including helicopters, bulldozers, medics and army units.

The scorched woodland accounted for only 18 square kilometers of land. But because only 7 per cent of Israel’s land is forested, this worst forest fire in Israel’s history was felt here as a deep national loss.

By theglobeandmail.com

Foreigners help fight Israeli forest fire

Thousands of Venezuelans fled their homes on Tuesday after landslides and swollen rivers killed at least 21 people and threatened to cause more damage.

The stormy weather closed most of the Opec member nation’s two largest oil refineries on Monday.  A source at state oil company PDVSA said they were slowly restarting on Tuesday.

Millions of poor Venezuelans live in unplanned, hillside shantytowns in Caracas and along the Caribbean coast. Sustained rain conjures up memories of a devastating 1999 landslide that killed at least 10,000 people.

Small mudslides toppled dozens of houses, and crushing cars and blocking roads this week. Most of the 21 died in landslides, while others were swept away by a river. The government has declared an emergency in three states and Caracas, cancelling school and opening hundreds of storm shelters.

“The rains will carry on for the next three days at least,” Vice President Elias Jaua told state television.

Long lines formed in poor Caracas neighbourhoods as officials registered families to be housed in temporary accommodations including hotels, government offices and even the presidential palace.

Vice President Elias Jaua said 5,600 people were forced to leave their homes because of the rains.

Most of the oil-producing state of Falcon was hit by flooding, which caused a small oil spill near the Cardon and Amuay refineries, which have a combined capacity of 955,000 barrels per day.

The main units of Amuay, which can produce 645,000 bpd, restarted on Tuesday, a source at the refinery complex said. Cardon will take up to 10 days to operate normally after a power cut knocked out its industrial services on Monday.

The source, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak, said shipments from the two refineries had not been affected.

The Andean Development Corporation, a regional development bank, said it authorised a US$100 million (NZ$134 million) donation to Venezuela to help deal with the disaster.

By stuff.co.nz

FOOD DROP: A helicopter prepares to drop water and food for flood victims in Barlovento, about 48 km east of Caracas, Venezuela. At least 21 have died and thousands have been forced from their houses after weeks of downpours that have caused flooding and mudslides in the country.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s most volatile volcano spewed clouds of ash high into the sky Wednesday, forcing some international airlines to again cancel flights and U.S. President Barack Obama to cut short his visit.

The official death toll, meanwhile, climbed by more than 40 to 191.

Disaster officials said earlier figures had not included people who died of respiratory problems, heart attacks and other illnesses linked to the fiery mountain.

Mount Merapi, located in the heart of Java island, roared back to life two weeks ago, shooting searing clouds of gray soot and debris up to six kilometres into the air almost daily, with lava and rock cascading down its slopes.

More than 350,000 people have been evacuated to cramped emergency shelters.

Obama sliced several hours off his whirlwind 24-hour tour to Indonesia over concerns about the volcanic ash, which has been carried by westerly winds toward the capital, Jakarta. He flew to South Korea for the Group of 20 summit.

Safety concerns also prompted several international carriers to again cancel flights into and out of Jakarta, 450 kilometres from Merapi, said Syaiful Bahri, who oversees operations at the airport.

Among them were Cathay Pacific, Value Air and Qantas.

Merapi has erupted many times in the last century, killing more than 1,400. On Friday, it experienced its most explosive blast in more than a century. At least one yet-to-be evacuated village was incinerated, setting on fire houses, trees and fleeing residents.

Muhammad Anshori, a disaster official, said Wednesday the official death toll since the first eruption on Oct. 26 had climbed to 191 — up from 153 earlier in the day.

Another 600 have been hospitalized, some with burns covering 95 percent of their body.

More than 340,000 people living along its slopes and villages near the base have been evacuated, he said. They are now living in more than 80 government camps. Many complain about poor sanitation, saying the toilets and water are filthy.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 235 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanoes because it sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped string of faults that lines the Pacific Ocean.

By ctv.ca

Indonesian soldiers search for victims of Mount Merapi eruption in Cangkringan, Indonesia, Wednesday, Nov 10, 2010. (AP Photo)

Hurricane Tomas soaked Haiti’s crowded earthquake survivors’ camps and swamped coastal towns on Friday, triggering flooding and mudslides that killed at least seven people.

The center of the storm had cleared Haiti’s northern coast by nightfall and Haitian authorities believed the worst was over but meteorologists warned there was still a threat from ongoing rain.

“Now that, relatively speaking, Haiti has escaped the danger, we have to continue to be vigilant,” Haitian President Rene Preval said at the presidential palace.

Four people died in the southwestern province of Grande Anse, two in South province and one at Belle Anse in South-East province, said Haiti’s civil protection director, Alta Jean-Baptiste.

Scattered flooding was reported in the coastal towns of Les Cayes, Jacmel and Leogane.

In the capital Port-au-Prince, still scarred from a devastating January 12 earthquake, hundreds of thousands of homeless quake survivors huddled under rain-drenched tent and tarpaulin shelters in muddy encampments. The quake killed more than a quarter of a million people.

The United Nations and relief agencies have gone on maximum alert to prepare for the risk of another humanitarian catastrophe in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, which is already reeling from a deadly cholera epidemic on top of the widespread quake destruction.

The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the storm could have dealt a far worse blow.

“We have been incredibly lucky on this one. The flooding is still serious, particularly in Leogane, because of the cholera situation …. For once Haiti has been lucky,” said OCHA spokeswoman Imogen Wall.

Out of the 1.3 million quake survivors in the capital’s temporary camps, only some were able to evacuate to more secure structures with family or friends, or in schools or government shelters.

Wind from Tomas blew down some tents at camps for displaced people in the southern coastal city at Jacmel, and a river burst its banks in Leogane, pouring water into the town west the capital.

In Port-au-Prince, many people went about their business on Friday amid intermittent rain.

“Heavy rains did not come but I’m still not happy because my home has lots of holes in it and a lot of water got inside,” said Solange Louis-Charles, 40, as she washed plates outside her house, which was made of corrugated iron and tarpaulins.

At 8 p.m. (0000 GMT), the center of the storm was north of Haiti, about 135 miles east of Guantanamo, Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It had crossed into the Atlantic and was headed for the Turks and Caicos Islands and southeastern Bahamas.

Its top winds had dropped to 75 miles per hour (120 km per hour) but it was expected to strengthen again before starting to fizzle on Sunday. Tomas was still a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, but just barely.

By reuters.com

A Haitian walks under the rain in the early morning while Hurricane Tomas passes in Port-au-Prince November 5, 2010.

Indonesia’s Mount Merapi volcano erupted with renewed ferocity on Friday, killing another 39 people and blanketing the surrounding area with ash.

Ten days of eruptions have now killed more than 80 people and forced the evacuation of more than 75,000 people.

Mount Merapi, on the outskirts of Yogyakarta city in Central Java, began spewing deadly clouds of ash and superheated gas last week.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the director of disaster risk reduction at the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said the death toll had climbed significantly in the last 24 hours.

“Because of today’s eruption, we found 39 bodies, so the total death toll is 83, and another 66 have been injured, so the total number of injured is 185 people,” he told Reuters.

A column of ash billowed at least 4 km above the crater of Mount Merapi as worried authorities evacuated villages within a 20 km radius of the volcano, said the country’s top vulcanologist, Surono.

“It’s much worse than in the past. We cannot predict its behavior,” he said.

A Reuters photographer near the volcano said he saw blackened burn victims being carried into the Sardjito hospital on Friday morning.

“Their clothes had melted onto their skin,” he said.

The air in Yogykarta is now so thick with ash that motorists must drive with their headlights on during the day, he said.

“We can’t see anything, it’s very dark. The trees are all white with ash,” he said. “It’s like it’s raining sand.”

Indonesia is also struggling with the aftermath of a tsunami in the remote Mentawai islands off Sumatra last week that killed at least 431.

By reuters

Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano erupted with renewed ferocity on Friday.

Soldiers loaded men, women and crying children into trucks as rocks and debris hurled in the air and down the mountain’s slopes. The danger zone was widened from 10 kilometers from the glowing crater to 15 kilometers.

Indonesia’s deadly volcano erupted on Wednesday with its biggest blast yet, shooting searing ash miles into the sky and forcing the hasty evacuations of panicked villagers and emergency shelters near the base of the mountain.

Soldiers loaded men, women and crying children into trucks as rocks and debris hurled in the air and down the mountain’s slopes. No new casualties were reported immediately after the booming explosion that lasted more than an hour.

“This is an extraordinary eruption, triple from the first” on Oct. 26, said Mr Surono, a state volcanologist.

Tens of thousands of villagers have been evacuated from Mount Merapi, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, since it began erupting just over a week ago, killing 38 people, most from severe burns.

The danger zone was widened on Wednesday from 10 kilometers from the glowing crater to 15 kilometers because of the heightened threat.

“I (didn’t) think of anything else except to save my wife and son. We left my house and everything,” said Tentrem Wahono, 50, who lives in Kaliurang village, about 10 kilometers from the peak. He and his family fled on a motorbike, “racing with the explosive sounds as the searing ash chased us from behind.”

The last eruption has raised Merapi’s status to “crisis” condition, said Andi Arief, a special staff at the presidential office dealing with disaster and social assistance.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 235 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanos because it sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped string of faults that lines the Pacific.

As a reminder of that, a 6.1-magnitude quake hit waters off the eastern province of Papua on Wednesday evening, rattling several villages but causing no known damage or casualties.

The volcano’s initial blast on Oct. 26 occurred less than 24 hours after a towering tsunami slammed into remote islands on the western end of the country, sweeping entire villages to sea and killing at least 428 people. In both cases, relief operations are expected to take weeks, possibly months.

By thehindu.com

Mount Merapi pyroclastic flow as it erupts as seen from Deles, Central Java, Indonesia on tuesday.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the tsunami-hit islands

Hopes are fading for more than 300 people still registered missing after Monday’s tsunami in Indonesia, as the death toll climbs to 394.

Disaster official Ade Edward says the 3m (10ft) surge is likely to have carried many of the missing out to sea, or buried them in the sand.

The first major aid ships reached the worst-hit Mentawai Islands on Thursday.

The government has pledged millions of dollars for the relief effort, but activists say more needs to be done.

Aid agencies said people on the islands still urgently needed to food and shelter, three days after a 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake triggered the tsunami.

Indonesia is also struggling with the devastation caused by this week’s eruption of Mount Merapi in central Java, which killed more than 30 people.

As the scale of the tsunami disaster became clear on Thursday, Mr Edward painted a bleak picture of the chances of finding more survivors.

“Of those missing people we think two-thirds of them are probably dead, either swept out to sea or buried in the sand,” he told the AFP news agency.

“When we flew over the area yesterday we saw many bodies. Heads and legs were sticking out of the sand, some of them were in the trees.”

He estimated that a further 200 people may have been killed.

Indonesia’s state-run news agency Antara reported that 468 houses had been completely destroyed by the wave.

Village chief Tasmin Saogo told the BBC’s Indonesian service that the islanders have begun to bury their dead.

“In the village of Sadegugung, there aren’t any body bags. In the end we just lifted them and we buried 95 people today,” he said.

“There are still may bodies lying about, underneath coconut trees and in other places.”

Meanwhile, the party of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been trying to defuse a growing political row over comments made by one of its senior members

In comments translated on the Jakarta Globe website, House of Representatives Speaker Marzuki Ali suggested relocating people living next the sea, adding: “Anyone who is afraid of waves shouldn’t live near seashore.”

Rival politicians criticised his statement as insensitive, and the party has apologised.

Earlier, Mr Yudhoyono cut short a trip to Vietnam to oversee the rescue effort, flying in a helicopter loaded with food and other basic necessities to the remote and inaccessible islands.

Indonesian officials said locals had been given no indication of the coming wave, as a high-tech tsunami warning system installed in the wake of 2004’s giant Indian Ocean tsunami was not working.

The vast Indonesian archipelago sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the world’s most active areas for earthquakes and volcanoes.

More than 1,000 people were killed by an earthquake off Sumatra in September 2009.

In December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake off the coast of Aceh triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed a quarter of a million people in 13 countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.

By bbc.co.uk

Survivors have been moved into temporary shelters

The death toll from a tsunami that slammed the Mantawai islands off Indonesia’s Sumatra two days ago may rise as rescue agencies struggle with disrupted telecommunications and difficult search conditions.

At least 113 people were killed and 150 others missing, Mujiharto, head of the crisis center at the Health Ministry, said in a mobile-phone text message last night. The National Disaster Management Agency said 31 people were confirmed dead and 174 missing as of late yesterday. The agency received its information from the regional disaster office on Sumatra, Maryadi, a spokesman at the national agency, said by phone.

“The numbers may be different because information is coming in remotely at different times,” Mujiharto said today by phone in Jakarta.

The 7.5-magnitude temblor struck the Kepulauan Mentawai region of Indonesia, about 240 kilometers (150 miles) from Padang, the provincial capital of West Sumatra, and 640 kilometers from Singapore at 9:42 p.m. local time Oct. 25, the US Geological Survey said. The quake triggered a 3-meter (10- foot) tsunami that that reached 400 meters inland, the agency said yesterday.

A 7.6-magnitude earthquake in the same area in October 2009 left more than 1,000 people dead in Padang, many of whom were buried in mudslides and the rubble of collapses buildings. Less than a month earlier, a magnitude-7 temblor south of Java on Sept. 2 left 82 people dead.

A tsunami generated by a magnitude-9.1 earthquake off northern Sumatra in December 2004 left about 220,000 people dead or missing in 12 countries around the Indian Ocean.

By bloomberg.com

Women and children flee to higher ground in Padang, West Sumatra, on Oct. 25. Photographer: Rus Akbar/AFP/Getty Images

China has evacuated more than 150,000 people and recalled more than 50,000 fishing boats to port as its southern coast braces for Typhoon Megi, state-run media said Thursday.

More than 150,000 people have fled for safety in Fujian province, the Xinhua news agency said.

Megi, which killed at least 11 people in the Philippines, is expected to reach Guangdong province Saturday, according to the Hong Kong Observatory. As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Megi was about 420 kilometers (261 miles) southeast of Hong Kong, according to the observatory.

Officials in China have issued the highest of four warnings, bracing for possible devastation in coastal areas such as Guangdong and Fujian, Xinhua said.

The warning allows local officials six hours to evacuate residents, close schools and airports, and recall vessels that are considered at risk.

Megi may be the strongest typhoon to hit China this year, Xinhua has said.

On Thursday in the Philippines, lawmakers placed the province of Pangasinan under a state of emergency, to help municipalities recover from Megi, which was known in the Philippines as Typhoon Juan.

The typhoon affected an estimated 258,844 Filipinos, leaving thousands homeless.

By edition.cnn.com

Fishing boats sit moored in a typhoon shelter in Hong Kong on October 21, 2010.