MAGNITUDE 5.5 POTOSI, BOLIVIA

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000rwqe#summary

Subject To Change

Depth: 115 km

Distances: 150km (93mi) E of Iquique, Chile
184km (114mi) W of Colchani, Bolivia
197km (122mi) W of Uyuni, Bolivia
247km (153mi) N of Calama, Chile
418km (260mi) S of La Paz, Bolivia

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Bubonic plague death: Town of 30,000 placed in quarantine after man dies sparking ‘Black Death’ outbreak fears in China

An entire Chinese town of 30,000 people has been quarantined off from the rest of the country after a man living in a nearby village died from bubonic plague.

Police have now had the old town of Yumen city in Gansu province sealed off for more than a week, the Xinhua state media agency said, after a patient died in a local hospital.

All movement between the centre of Yumen and the wider suburban area has been banned, with officers manning 10 checkpoints around the sealed-off district.

According to Xinhua, no one inside the city is currently believed to have contracted the plague, though 151 people who may have come into contact with the man have been placed under direct observation.

Investigators said they think the villager was herding in his fields when he killed a marmot – a small rodent – to cut up and feed to his dog.

He suffered a fever and was admitted to hospital in Yumen, but died last Wednesday. Police initiated the process of locking down the city, as well as the man’s home village and town and the fields where he had been working.

The cause of death was confirmed as the plague on Thursday, the South China Morning Post reported.

Health officials were quoted in Gansu’s local media saying that it appeared the plague had been put under effective control, and that the isolated areas had sufficient stocks of rice, flour and oil to last “for up to one month” if needed.

Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection that wiped out roughly half the population of Europe in the 14th century millions more during an outbreak in China in the 19th century.

It has been identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as one of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases.

Though antibiotic treatments are now available to combat the disease, without them patients can die within 24 hours of infection.

It is spread largely through flea bites and can cause gangrene, seizures and fever.

http://tinyurl.com/mhhgha7

Heatwave scorches multiple provinces in China

The weather authority on Tuesday said that multiple provinces in central and east China are seeing temperatures of over 35 degrees Celsius. In the southeastern city of Fuzhou, the heatwave has caused roads to melt, leading to several accidents. In Hangzhou, thermometers reached as high as 45 degrees during noon time. The local government even opened its bomb shelters for citizens to escape the baking sun.

 

Meanwhile, in Tai’an of east China’s Shandong Province, a car on the street suddenly caught fire after hours in the scorching heat.

http://tinyurl.com/p2d9amp

Three dead as heatwave strikes Japan

Sweltering temperatures across Japan have left at least three people dead while 3,000 others were rushed to hospital due to heatstroke, officials said Wednesday.

 

The mercury soared past 30 degrees Celsius with high humidity as the country’s month-long rainy season comes to an end, after a typhoon battered the country’s south earlier this month.

 

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said three people died from heatstroke last week while a total of 3,179 people were taken to hospital, spiking from 2,473 a week earlier.

 

Among the dead was a 76-year-old woman who was found collapsed inside a greenhouse in a coastal city east of Tokyo, public broadcaster NHK reported.

Nearly half the victims were over the age of 65.

 

In a message on its website, the agency urged people to drink water frequently “even if you don’t feel thirsty”.

http://tinyurl.com/mqw4x7f

Extreme Typhoon kills 27 in Vietnam, Philippines on second storm alert

Extreme weather caused by Typhoon Rammasun has killed 27 people in Vietnam, with the storm unleashing flash floods, landslides and lightning strikes, authorities say.

Heavy rain flooded more than 7,000 houses and thousands of hectares of cropland, with the north of the country worst hit, the national flood and storm control committee says.

 

The cost of the damage is estimated at about $6 million.

 

Rammasun – meaning “Thunder God” in Thai – had earlier barrelled through the Philippines and then hit southern China, killing more than 100 people and wrecking over 111,000 homes.

 

It was the most powerful storm to strike China’s southern areas since 1973, the country’s National Meteorological Center said.

 

The typhoon then weakened into a low-pressure area as it tracked along the China-Vietnam border.

 

In 2013 Vietnam was hit by 15 storms including Typhoon Haiyan, which killed 313 people and caused an estimated $1.4 billion worth of damage.

Philippines remains on storm alert

The Philippines has raised its storm alert levels as Typhoon Matmo threatened to drench the extreme north of the main island of Luzon with heavy rain as it churned towards Taiwan and mainland China.

 

Packing sustained winds of 130kph and gusts of up to 160kph, Matmo was moving at 24km/h northwest towards central Taiwan.

 

The storm was estimated to be about 180km north of Batanes group of islands on Tuesday morning.

 

Storm alert number two was raised in the Batanes, where up to 15mm per hour of rainfall was expected.

 

The typhoon was also expected to bring rain to other parts of Luzon.

 

Retired Admiral Alexander Pama, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said the government had suspended sea travel and prevented small fishing boats from venturing into the area.

 

“We do not expect the typhoon to make landfall anywhere in the country but we are still advising our people in the smaller islands in northern Luzon to take extra precautions,” he said.

 

“We continue to track the typhoon and we expect it to exit the Philippine area of responsibility on Wednesday afternoon.”

 

Wide areas of the southern half of Luzon remain without power after Rammasun toppled power lines.

http://tinyurl.com/pq5ta29

Plane crashes killing dozens in Taiwan

Rescue workers survey the wreckage of TransAsia Airways flight GE222 which crashed while attempting to land in stormy weather on the Taiwanese island of Penghu, late Wednesday, July 23, 2014. A plane landing in stormy weather crashed outside an airport on a small Taiwanese island late Wednesday, and a transport minister said dozens of people were trapped and feared dead.

http://tinyurl.com/om42qhb

MEGA DIP SPIKES ON THE MAGNETOSPHERE @ APPROX 20:45 & 21:00 hrs UTC

**EXTREMELY URGENT**

  MEGA DIP SPIKES ON THE MAGNETOSPHERE @ APPROX 20:45 & 21:00 hrs UTC. FURTHER EARTHQUAKES, VOLCANO ACTIVITY & ADVERSE WEATHER PATTERNS WILL BE GREATLY INFLUENCED BY THE COSMIC RAYS STRIKING THE EARTH’S CORE

***BE ALERT***

MAGNITUDE 5.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.

http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=392296

Subject To Change

Depth: 10 km

Distances: 685 km NE of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea / pop: 283,733 / local time: 03:23:57.3 2014-07-24
244 km S of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea / pop: 26,273 / local time: 03:23:57.3 2014-07-24

MAGNITUDE 4.0 CHANNEL ISL. REG, UNITED KINGDOM

http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=392290

Subject To Change

Depth: 8 km

Distances: 25 km SW of Saint Helier, Jersey / pop: 28,000 / local time: 17:26:41.3 2014-07-23
54 km S of Saint Peter Port, Guernsey / pop: 16,488 / local time: 17:26:41.3 2014-07-23
319 km SW of London, United Kingdom / pop: 7,556,900 / local time: 17:26:41.3 2014-07-23

MAGNITUDE 5.4 CARLSBERG RIDGE

http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=392230

Subject To Change

Depth: 10 km

Distances: 804 km SW of Male, Maldives / pop: 103,693 / local time: 10:52:30.9 2014-07-23
1430 km NE of Victoria, Seychelles / pop: 22,881 / local time: 09:52:30.9 2014-07-23
1568 km SW of Colombo, Sri Lanka / pop: 648,034 / local time: 11:22:30.9 2014-07-23