Archive | November 28, 2014
Major Storm Warning for Iceland on Sunday
The Icelandic Met Office has issued a warning as a major storm is expected to hit Iceland on Sunday afternoon and last until late on Monday. The wind speed might reach 20-30 m/s on Sunday, or 110 km/h (65 m/h). On Monday, squalls near mountains might reach 50 m/s, or 180 km/h (112 m/h).
According to the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale, storms with sustained winds of 50 m/s are described as Category 3 hurricanes or “major hurricanes.”
The wind direction is forecast to come from the southeast to begin with, then from the south and turn to a westerly storm early on Monday. The weather is predicted to be worst in the southern part of Iceland on Sunday, and as the low pressure moves north, to be worst in West and North Iceland on Monday with sleet and snowstorms.
A travel warning has been issued for Sunday and Monday, ruv.is reports.
ICE-SAR search and rescue just released a statement asking people to take precautions, such as tying down loose objects including garden furniture, BBQs and trampolines. Windows should be closed, roof slates secured and campers sheltered from the wind.
Search and rescue teams will be on the alert. In a case of emergency, call 112.
Severe floods in south of France leave four dead
Four people died and two other people were still missing on Friday after a heavy storm triggered flash flooding in southeastern France, the government said. Weather warnings were in place for some 14 departments in the region.
Helicopters, soldiers and paramilitary police carried out dozens of rescue operations in the rain-lashed region, hit by weeks of successive storms and flooding.
Updating an earlier toll, Cazeneuve said three people had died in the Mediterranean towns of La Londe-les-Maures, Grimaud and Hyeres and “two are missing.”
One of the victims was a woman whose body was found next to her car alongside a river, said Pierre Soubelet, the representative of the Var department on the Mediterranean coast. The woman was understood to have been out with her daughter at the time.
“Her daughter has not been found. It is likely that the child has died,” he said.
At Grimaud in the Gulf of St Tropez around 30 pupils were trapped in their school as flood waters rose. They were eventually rescued and allowed to return home at around 8pm.
There were also reports of two mini-tornado causing havoc in the towns of Sérignan and Nissan-les-Enserune in the Herault department that caused one house to collapse briefly trapping two people inside and leaving ten others injured.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve gave a toll of “one dead and three people missing” late on Thursday.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls expressed his “sadness” for the loss of life and urged residents to be particularly cautious.
In the village of La Londe, in the same area, divers were searching a river after witnesses said a car had been washed away.
Homes had to be evacuated as flood waters rose with residents forced to spend part of the night in an emergency centre set up b local authorities.
South-eastern France has seen multiple storms this autumn linked to abnormally high Mediterranean temperatures.
Earlier this month, storms in southern France left six people dead, including a mother and her two small sons whose vehicle was swept away on a submerged bridge.
The father, who was also travelling in the car, survived the ordeal after rescue workers managed to pull him out of the vehicle just before it was swept away by the floods caused by the torrential rain.
Six people died in mid-September when storms turned a peaceful river that bordered their camping site in southern France into a raging torrent that swept them away.
The victims were washed away from a campground in Lamalou-les-Bains by a two-metre deep surge of water and one died after falling into a swollen river in Arnac in the Aveyron region.
Japan volcano eruption hits flights
Flights in Japan have been cancelled or diverted to avoid a cloud of ash and smoke spewing from an erupting volcano in the south.
Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways warned passengers of ‘a number of cancellations and changed destinations’ on routes involving Kumamoto airport because of the 800-metre column of debris from Mount Aso.
‘Today we cancelled eight flights departing from Kumamoto and four flights arriving there,’ a JAL spokesman said.
‘There was also one flight which changed destination’ to a nearby airport,’ he said, adding that more could be affected if the eruption worsens.
A spokesman for the airport said one international flight had been cancelled and one diverted.
Mount Aso, whose huge caldera dominates the southwestern main island of Kyushu, rumbled into life on Tuesday.
Meteorologists warned volcanic stones and ash could fall in a 1km radius of the volcano.
The eruption is Aso’s first in 19 years and comes two months after Mount Ontake in central Nagano killed more than 60 hikers when it erupted without warning.
Last month, experts warned a disaster on Kyushu island, which has been struck by seven massive eruptions over the past 120,000 years, could see an area that is home to seven million people buried by molten rock in just two hours.
Landslide affects nine houses forcing families to flee in Negri Sembilan, Malaysia
A landslide in Kampung Panchor here Wednesday night has affected nine houses and forced three families out of their homes while six more houses risked being affected as well, according to the Negri Sembilan Fire and Rescue Service.
The occupants of the other houses have been advised to evacuate as well for their safety, said its director Norazam Khamis Thursday.
A tree had also fallen on one of the houses, he added.
“We are monitoring the situation at the village round the clock and will do so over the next two or three days,” he told Bernama.
Norazam said the fire and rescue service was alerted to the landslide at 7.17pm and 22 personnel from the Senawang, Seremban and Seremban 2 fire and rescue stations were sent there immediately.
He also said that a meeting would be held with the district office and relevant agencies for follow-up action.
He advised people who had knowledge of earth movement in their areas to move out of their homes immediately.
Landslide kills six in Southwest China
Six people were killed in a landslide in southwest China’s Yunnan Province on Thursday, local authorities said.
Police authorities in the city of Baoshan received a report at 4:30 p.m. saying six people in the city’s Longyang district were killed after being buried in a landslide, the district’s publicity department said in a statement late Thursday.
An investigation into the cause of the accident is under way.
MAGNITUDE 5.1 ICELAND REGION
Subject to change
Depth: 6.9 km
Depth: 6.9 km
Distances: Latitude, Longitude 64.674 -17.464
(4.8 km NE of Bárðarbunga)
Earthquake location 28 Nov 08:30 GMT
Time and magnitude of earthquake 28 Nov 08:30 GMT
MAGNITUDE 5.1 PANAMA-COLOMBIA BORDER REGION
http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=410799
Subject To Change
Depth: 48 km
Distances: 231 km E of Panamá, Panama / pop: 408,168 / local time: 23:36:23.6 2014-11-27
85 km NE of La Palma, Panama / pop: 1,845 / local time: 23:36:23.6 2014-11-27
29 km NW of Acandí, Colombia / pop: 4,840 / local time: 23:36:23.6 2014-11-27
MAGNITUDE 5.0 CARLSBERG RIDGE
http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=410798
Subject To Change
Depth: 10 km
Distances: 1323 km NE of Victoria, Seychelles / pop: 22,881 / local time: 08:28:15.9 2014-11-28
1363 km W of Male, Maldives / pop: 103,693 / local time: 09:28:15.9 2014-11-28
1822 km E of Mogadishu, Somalia / pop: 2,587,183 / local time: 07:28:15.9 2014-11-28
MAGNITUDE 5.2 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=410779
Subject To Change
Depth: 45 km
Distances: 604 km SW of Rangoon, Myanmar / pop: 4,477,638 / local time: 07:48:45.8 2014-11-28
83 km N of Port Blair, India / pop: 112,050 / local time: 06:48:45.8 2014-11-28
80 km N of Bamboo Flat / pop: 7,410 / local time: 06:48:00.0 2014-11-28
Volcano continues to erupt; Warning issued to residents in Japan
Mount Aso in southern Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture continued to spew smoke and ash 1,000 meters into the air Thursday, severely disrupting flights in the region on the southern island of Kyushu and forcing Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) to issue a warning to those in the vicinity to stay away from the volcano, particularly its crater.
In the immediate vicinity of the volcano, which has been erupting for the first time in 19 years since Wednesday, meteorologists from the agency warned residents nearby that volcanic rocks could be launched from the crater and fall within a 1 km radius of the volcano.
On its scale, which ranges from Level 1, meaning “Normal” and Level 5, meaning “Evacuate,” the advisory given by the JMA was between 2 and 3, officials from the agency said, adding that the crater, located near the 1,592-meter peak of the mountain, should be avoided.
The JMA has not raised its warning level to 3, however, meaning the active volcano is still accessible to the public.
They said that volcanic rocks had been detected shooting up as high as 200 meters in the air earlier Thursday and volcanic ash had blanketed the nearby city of Bungo-Ono, in Oita Prefecture, and the town of Gokase, in Miyazaki Prefecture, both of which lie within 50 kms of Mount Aso.
Aso’s eruption follows more than 60 people being killed after Mount Ontake, in central Japan, erupted on Sept. 27. The 3,067- meter volcano, which is situated over both Nagano and Gifu Prefectures, violently erupted in the middle of a busy hiking season.
Weeks before the eruption, as was the case in Kyushu, experts had detected increasing amounts of seismic and volcanic activity in the area.
Mount Aso’s huge caldera, caused by an ancient eruption causing the original collapse of the mouth of the volcano, dominates the southwestern main island of Kyushu, and as recently as last month, seismologists and volcanologists warned that a single massive volcano erupting, such as one of the seven that have occurred on the island in the past 120,000 years, could bury the region and its 7 million inhabitants in deadly molten rock.
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