Archive | August 4, 2015
Gas explosion at fuel depot kills at least 2 with many seriously hurt in Kasoa, Ghana, Africa
Two people are reported to have died when a gas cylinder exploded at a fuel station at Ngleshie Amanfrom near Kasoa. Several people are also believed to have sustained serious injuries from the blast which happened around 1 pm.
Eyewitnesses say that the explosion was caused by maintenance work on one of the cylinders at the station. One of them told Citi News: “We heard a huge sound and when we rushed to the scene we saw two bodies” He reported that there seemed to be an “issue with the gas cylinder which was being fixed by a welder” Gruesome images from the scene appear to show the bodies of the two people reported dead in the blast.
This incident comes two months after the explosion at the GOIL fuel station at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle which razed the building to the ground and claimed over 150 lives.
In April, an explosion at a fuel station in Dansoman claimed the lives of two people while another fuel station fire in Kumasi led to the deaths of two more people.
Courtesy of citifmonline.com
Massive explosion rocks aluminum plant in southeast Missouri, USA
Emergency crews are on the scene of a massive explosion at a southeast Missouri aluminum plant.
The explosion and fire around 12:30 p.m. CT Tuesday sent a large plume of smoke above the Noranda Aluminum plant near the town of Marston in New Madrid County, about 170 miles south of St. Louis.
Noranda spokesman John Parker says the company has accounted for all employees. He says there were no fatalities or critical injuries. Some people suffered what appeared to be non-critical burns and smoke inhalation.
Parker called the blast a molten metal explosion in the cast house of the plant, which employs about 900 workers. He says 20 people were working in the area when the blast happened.
The cause of the explosion is under investigation.
Courtesy of cnbc.com
Gas Pipeline Explosion Injures 2 In Texas, USA
A natural gas pipeline explosion Monday night near the small South Texas town of Falfurrias injured two people and prompted the evacuation about 150 homes, authorities said Tuesday.
The evacuated families were allowed to return home about five hours after the explosion, an official with the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office said.
A man and his wife were injured in the explosion and were taken to a hospital, Chief Deputy Urbino “Benny” Martinez said.
Pipeline company Kinder Morgan said in a statement Tuesday that its investigating.
The company said the impacted segment of the pipeline was shut down and isolated from the system on Monday night.
Courtesy of kwtx.com
Boat explosion badly injures 1 in Naples, Florida, USA
A man is in the hospital after suffering burns to his arms and face in a boat explosion.
Fire officials say the boat was in for a routine maintenance at Absolute Performance located on Exchange Avenue.
“Apparently there was a young man working on the boat and he was using some sort of power tool or cordless device. He was working in an atmosphere that supported combustion and there was apparently a flash caused many times by vapors hiding in low lying areas,” said Greater Naples Fire Chief Kingman Schuldt.
The man’s injuries were so serious, a helicopter transported him to the Tampa General Hospital’s burn center. Schuldt says the man sustained burns to about 20 percent of his body.
Courtesy of winknews.com
Oil tanker catches fire off Shanghai, one dead
Oil tanker Ye Chi (45,740dwt, built 2009), operated by China Shipping Group’s oil shipping arm China Shipping Tanker, caught fire yesterday afternoon off Dayangshan Island, Shanghai.
Five crew members were injured and one died after been sent to hospital, while the remaining 20 crew were rescued unharmed.
The tanker was carrying diesel from Shanghai to Singapore. The fire occurred in the accommodation area of the ship. Shanghai Maritime Rescue Center sent four ships and one helicopter in the rescue operations with the fire put out late last evening.
Currently authorities are investigating the incident.
The accident was the second involving a China Shipping tanker in the past two weeks. Another tanker operated by the company, Bai Chi, was involved in a collision at Shanghai Waigaoqiao Port on July 24th.
Courtesy of splash247.com
Severe heatwave is melting glaciers faster in Italy
Glaciers high up in the Italian Alps are melting faster due to the heatwave. Photo: Twiga269
Glaciers in the Italian Alps are melting faster due to the country’s lingering heatwave, experts have warned
The persistent high temperatures, which are expected to reach 41 degrees Celsius this week in parts of Italy, are speeding up the melting of glaciers high in the Alps, according to the Aosta-based Foundation for Secure Mountains.
The foundation has been monitoring Le Petit Grapillon on Mont Blanc, Rutor on La Thuile and Grand Vallon Timorion on Grand Paradise, and was cited by Ansa as saying that 2015 will be “a year of great loss of glaciers for the Aosta Valley.”
After a record-breaking July, the latest heatwave is expected to last well into next week, according to 3bmeteo.com.
Tuscany, Umbria, Lazio and Sardinia will be among the hottest regions, while high temperatures will also engulf Rome, Turin, Verona, Trento, Bologna, Florence, Perugia and Nuoro.
A brief respite from the heat late last week was met with violent storms in Tuscany, causing severe flooding in Florence on Saturday.
Over 100 people have died of the heat since the start of July, particularly in the northern Piedmont region.
Other lives have been claimed in Liguria, Tuscany and Sardinia.
The hot temperatures are reminiscent of the summer of 2003, when the whole of Europe was gripped by a heatwave that killed 3,100 people in Italy.
Courtesy of thelocal.it
MEGA DIP SPIKES ON THE WEAK MAGNETOSPHERE @ APPROX 22:15, 22:30, 22:45 HRS UTC
**VERY URGENT**
MEGA DIP SPIKES ON THE WEAK MAGNETOSPHERE @ APPROX 22:15, 22:30, 22:45 HRS UTC. FURTHER EARTHQUAKES, VOLCANO ACTIVITY & ADVERSE WEATHER PATTERNS WILL BE GREATLY INFLUENCED BY THE COSMIC RAYS STRIKING THE EARTH’S CORE
***BE ALERT***
Heatwave of 38C (100.4F) to strike Austria
Following the below average temperatures of the last week, the heatwave is set to return to Austria from Tuesday.
July was the hottest since records began, with a high of 38.6C, and August is not set to disappoint.
Forecasters are predicting the hottest weather on Saturday in the east of the country, with temperatures over 35C from Tuesday. The heat will bring more hot summer nights with it, with temperatures not set to fall below 20C at night for at least the next nine days.
The west of the country can expect small, localised thunderstorms on Tuesday afternoon, but there will be no relief from the heat for the rest of us – forecasts are currently pointing to stable, hot, and sunny conditions for the coming week for most of the country.
The hot weather has led to concerns for drought-stricken fields and hills. Many in the agricultural sector are afraid there will be crop losses for corn, sugar beet, sunflowers and grapes after a lack of summer rain, which will affect local farmers.
UBIMET weather experts have yet to give an end date for this current hot spell, which is the fourth heatwave Austria has experienced this year.
Courtesy of thelocal.at
Severe heatwave of 52C (125.6F) hits the Middle East
Intolerably high temperatures and soaring humidity are close to breaking meteorological records across region
A heatwave has engulfed much of the Middle East, sending temperatures and humidity soaring throughout the region.
The searing heat, ailing infrastructure and power cuts have combined to create a particularly intolerable climate in an area already notorious for its hot summers.
In the southern Iraqi city of Basra, temperatures are expected to hover around 51C for most of the week and reach 52C at the weekend.
In Iraq, the government ordered a four-day holiday to help people deal with the heatwave, while residents in Lebanon without electricity have taken to sleeping on bare floor tiles to cool themselves amid the electricity cuts, unable to operate their air conditioning.
In Beirut, nestled on the Mediterranean coast, temperatures will hover in the 30s, but humidity levels of over 50% and the city’s increasingly frequent power cuts have combined to create an oppressive heat that has residents sweltering, just a week after stinking garbage piles spilled over into the city’s streets in a crisis that highlighted the government’s chronic dysfunction.
Those who can afford to, cool off at the city’s private beaches or swimming pools. Those who can’t are directing their anger at their failing government and in particular the state provider, Electricité du Liban, which has said it will ration supplies amid ongoing repairs at its power plants.
“We had electricity from 3 to 6am last night, and the power comes on one hour during the day,” said Hasan, who lives in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where power cuts have been especially dire during the heatwave. “Officials sit in their offices with electricity, so my message to them is to go kill themselves.”
In the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, where citizens are protesting against stubborn power cuts that have made the height of summer even more unbearable, a high of 49C will be the norm this week.
The Iraqi meteorological agency said temperatures around the country this week would average 48-51C.
On Friday, a combination of extreme heat and humidity, made the air in the Iranian city of Bandar Mahshahr feel like 73C although the actual temperature there was around 46C. The city, which has a population of around 150,000, is situated in Iran’s south-western oil-rich province of Khuzestan, close to the Iraqi border.
Pictures posted online showed traffic cones across Bandar Mahshahr melting due to the heatwave.
“That was one of the most incredible temperature observations I have ever seen and it is one of the most extreme readings ever in the world,” said AccuWeather Meteorologist Anthony Sagliani in a statement.
The Gulf states will also endure temperatures as high as 48C in Kuwait City, and the mid-40s in Dubai and Riyadh.
A weekend dust storm in Jordan wreaked havoc on Queen Alia international airport, diverting planes and engulfing the facility with giant plumes of smoke.
“Around the Persian Gulf, where water temperatures are in the lower to middle-90s (30sC), the extreme heat combines with incredibly high humidity to produce astounding apparent temperatures,” according to Sagliani.
Experts say the high temperatures, which have come close to breaking regional records, are the result of a high atmospheric pressure ridge hovering above much of the Middle East that has persisted since July.
A heatwave in Pakistan earlier this summer killed hundreds of people.
Courtesy of theguardian.com
Severe heatwave bears down on Turkey
The weather forecast for the week indicates that temperatures will not drop below 30 degrees Celsius across Turkey, except for a few cities in the north, which will see a 1-degree drop below the 30 degrees Celsius mark.
A heatwave hailing from North Africa is engulfing the entire country and is particularly impacting southern cities known for their warm climate in the summer.
Occasional precipitation may be a relief for northeastern, central and western Turkish cities located near the Central Anatolian region, although only for a brief time.
For Istanbul, temperatures may fall a few degrees thanks to northeastern winds, but the temperatures will rarely drop below 32 degrees Celsius from today and towards the weekend. However, a new heatwave hailing from the Arabian Peninsula will hit Istanbul starting Sunday. This will mean an increase in temperatures of up to 5 degrees Celsius, but below 40 degrees Celsius. Temperatures were as high as 38 degrees Celsius in the city last week. Professor Orhan Şen, a meteorologist at Istanbul Technical University, told media last week that temperatures may even reach up to 48 degrees Celsius at times in Istanbul, linking the unusually hot weather to El Nino – a weather phenomenon associated with rising temperatures in the Pacific Ocean whose indirect effects can be felt as far away as in Turkey.
In Antalya, a southern city hosting several popular summer resorts, the felt temperature was 41 degrees Celsius on Monday with 49 percent humidity. Temperatures will gradually drop starting from tomorrow, from 35 degrees Celsius to 33 degrees Celsius by the weekend. It was 39 degrees Celsius on Tuesday with authorities warning residents to stay indoors, especially at midday.
Experts warn about “dangerously high” temperatures in the southern and southeastern cities, including Adıyaman, Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa, Mardin, Batman, Diyarbakır and Malatya. The highest temperature for tomorrow is expected in Batman at 42 degrees Celsius. Temperatures will fluctuate at 40 degrees Celsius in the abovementioned cities throughout the week.
Adana, a southern city notorious for its unbearable heat, is expected to experience an unprecedented heatwave, with temperatures rising to 41 degrees Celsius yesterday, compared to 36 C – the highest temperature recorded for the city for the past couple of decades.
Courtesy of dailysabah.com
Please Donate To Support My Work
Earth Extremities 
Comments