Archive | February 22, 2015
Landslide kills 4 in Bosnia and Herzegovina coal mine
A landslide in Bosnia and Herzegovina coal mine has claimed lives of at least four people. Landslide occurred at an opencast lignite mine at Dubrave in northeast Bosnia and Herzegovina, Reuters has written quoting police and officials.
The people were buried while illegally collecting coal, probably with the intention to steal coal. However, the area could not be approached with big machines because of mud and huge piles of earth.
According to the mining inspector Nuraga Duranovic, the landslide was possibly caused by an earthquake that hit the area late on Saturday.
European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) has mentioned a magnitude 3.7 earthquake with epicenter 10 km S of Priboj, Bosnia and Herzegovina at 22:21 local time.
Landslide in central Bosnian town of Kakanj claimed life of a person and injured three others in first week of January. Among the injured, two children were pulled alive from the rubble by rescue services just hours after the incident.
Courtesy of Disaster Report
Enormous sinkhole opens up forcing more than 380 people to evacuate in Naples, Italy
Residents in Naples, Italy woke up this morning to a massive sinkhole that opened up in the middle of a street.
Officials say the sinkhole started off as a depression in the road and is most likely caused by a broken sewer.
‘It was 5 this morning when I heard a huge thud. I looked out and saw the road collapse and swallow a car,’ a woman who lives in a neighboring apartment told Il Mattino.
None of the surrounding buildings showed sign of damage, but nonetheless the four condominiums surrounding the crater were evacuated on Sunday with city officials scrambling to find accommodations for the 380 displaced locals.
‘We are in contact with hotel facilities in the area in order to accommodate everyone and try to reduce as far as possible, the inconvenience to citizens,’ an official said.
David Lezzi, the operations manager of the site, said crews will first figure out the extent of the hole before trying to stabilize it with concrete.
Reports did not say when residents might be able to return to their homes. The area has been cordoned off.
Next steps: Engineers plan to stabilize the sinkhole by filling it with concrete. It’s unclear when the evacuated families will be able to return to their homes
Courtesy of The Daily Mail
MAGNITUDE 6.3 OFF COAST OF JALISCO, MEXICO
http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=428669
Subject To Change
Depth: 10 km
Distances: 424 km SW of Guadalajara, Mexico / pop: 1,640,589 / local time: 08:23:14.5 2015-02-22
330 km W of Colima, Mexico / pop: 127,235 / local time: 08:23:14.5 2015-02-22
213 km SW of Tomatlán, Mexico / pop: 8,360 / local time: 08:23:14.5 2015-02-22
Fresh nuclear leak detected at Fukushima plant, Japan
Sensors at the Fukushima nuclear plant have detected a fresh leak of highly radioactive water to the sea, the plant’s operator announced today, highlighting difficulties in decommissioning the crippled plant.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said the sensors, which were rigged to a gutter that pours rain and ground water at the Fukushima Daiichi plant to a nearby bay, detected contamination levels up to 70 times greater than the already-high radioactive status seen at the plant campus.
TEPCO said its emergency inspections of tanks storing nuclear waste water did not find any additional abnormalities, but the firm said it shut the gutter to prevent radioactive water from going into the Pacific Ocean.
The higher-than-normal levels of contamination were detected at around 10 am (local time), with sensors showing radiation levels 50 to 70 times greater than usual, TEPCO said.
Though contamination levels have steadily fallen throughout the day, the same sensors were still showing contamination levels about 10 to 20 times more than usual, a company spokesman said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the original spike of the contamination and its gradual fall, he added.
The latest incident, one of several that have plagued the plant in recent months, reflects the difficulty in controlling and decommissioning the plant, which went through meltdowns and explosions after being battered by a giant tsunami in March 2011, sparking the world’s worst nuclear disaster in a generation.
TEPCO has not been able to effectively deal with an increasing amount of contaminated water, used to cool the crippled reactors and molten fuels inside them and kept in large storage tanks on the plant’s vast campus.
Adding to TEPCO’s headaches has been the persistent flow of groundwater from nearby mountains travelling under the contaminated plant before washing to the Pacific Ocean.
The International Atomic Energy Agency recently said TEPCO has made “significant progress” in cleaning up the plant, but suggested that Japan should consider ways to discharge treated waste water into the sea as a relatively safer way to deal with the radioactive water crisis.
Members of the media and TEPCO employees in the H4 area at the tsunami-crippled TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture. File Photo
Courtesy of The Hindu BusinessLine
Ships collide killing many in Bangladesh
At least 33 people including women and children are confirmed dead, and rescuers are still searching for missing passengers after a ferry collided with a cargo ship and sank in a Bangladesh river, officials said.
Sunday’s disaster was the second deadly boat accident in less than a fortnight in the country, which has a history of ferry tragedies.
Rescue workers had recovered 16 bodies including an infant and two women, local administrator Rashida Ferdous told the AFP news agency, adding that she did not know the exact number of people missing.
She said a salvage vessel was on its way to raise the sunken vessel, adding that the master of the cargo ship and two other crew had been arrested.
Survivors said the twin-deck MV Mostofa was carrying between 70-150 passengers when it capsized in the middle of the Padma river, local police chief Rakibuz Zaman told AFP.
“Some 50 people swam ashore or were rescued by other vessels,” he added.
The vessel was reportedly heading to the town of Paturia in Manikganj district, some 70km from the capital Dhaka, from Rajbari district.
Local newspaper Prothom Alo quoted one survivor, Hafizur Rahman, as saying the cargo ship hit the boat 15 minutes after departure – causing it to overturn and trapping many passengers.
“I was on the deck of the ferry and fell into the river. Those who were on the deck were able to come out but none of the passengers inside could get out,” Rahman said.
Bangladeshi ferries do not normally keep passenger lists, making it difficult to establish how many are missing after an accident.
The Padma river is one of the largest in the delta nation. Boats are the main form of travel in many of Bangladesh’s remote rural areas, especially in the south and northeast.
Catalogue of accidents
Boat capsizes are common in Bangladesh, one of Asia’s poorest nations, which is criss-crossed by more than 230 rivers.
Experts blame poorly maintained vessels, flaws in design and overcrowding for most of the tragedies.
Earlier this month at least five people including a minor were killed when an overloaded ferry carrying some 200 passengers capsized in an estuary in the south of the country.
About 50 people were killed in August last year when a crowded ferry sank in rough weather in the Munshiganj district.
Some 150 people were killed in March 2012 after an overcrowded ferry carrying about 200 passengers sank after being hit by an oil barge in the dead of night.
Naval officials have said more than 95 percent of Bangladesh’s hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized boats do not meet minimum safety regulations.
Courtesy of Maktoob Yahoo News
MAGNITUDE 5.1 FIJI REGION
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000tsa8#general_summary
Subject To Change
Depth: 591 km
Distances: 296km (184mi) N of Ndoi Island, Fiji
300km (186mi) SE of Lambasa, Fiji
343km (213mi) E of Suva, Fiji
452km (281mi) E of Nadi, Fiji
477km (296mi) NW of Nuku`alofa, Tonga
MAGNITUDE 5.6 COLOMBIA
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000tsa5#general_summary
Subject To Change
Depth: 151 km
Distances: 9km (6mi) ENE of Cajibio, Colombia
16km (10mi) SE of Morales, Colombia
28km (17mi) NNE of Popayan, Colombia
37km (23mi) S of Santander de Quilichao, Colombia
343km (213mi) SW of Bogota, Colombia
Deaths in Saudi Arabia From MERS Virus Climb to 385
Saudi Arabia’s Health Ministry says two more people have died after contracting Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS, pushing the total number of deaths from the virus in the kingdom to 385.
The ministry’s statement on Saturday says that 902 cases of MERS have been discovered in Saudi Arabia since the virus was first identified in 2012, though 490 people who contracted it have recovered.
Some 57 people have contracted MERS in the kingdom since the start of February.
The virus has affected people in other parts of the world, but has mostly remained centered in Saudi Arabia. MERS belongs to a family of viruses known as corona viruses that include both the common cold and SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.
Courtesy of ABC News
MAGNITUDE 5.1 SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000tsa0#general_summary
Subject To Change
Depth: 10 km
Distances: 1178km (732mi) NE of Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, Saint Helena
1896km (1178mi) WSW of Luderitz, Namibia
1963km (1220mi) WSW of Walvis Bay, Namibia
1978km (1229mi) WSW of Swakopmund, Namibia
2223km (1381mi) WSW of Windhoek, Namibia
Please Donate To Support My Work
Earth Extremities 
Comments