SIO15/ERTH15: Natural Disasters

November 01, 2007 (for week ending Oct. 26)

Earthquakes:
- A string of strong offshore quakes (one measuring a mag 7.1) rocked quake-weary Bengkulu province on Indonesia's Sumatra Island, but there were no reports of damage.
- Earth movements also were felt in Papua New Guinea (5.3), central New Zealand (4.8), the southern Philippines (6.2) and Fairbanks, Alaska (2.5).

Tropical Cyclone:

At least 11 people drowned in high seas generated off Mexico's west coast by Tropical Storm Kiko when a boat carrying Central American migrants capsized near the isthmus of Tehuantepec. The storm also brought heavy rainfall to the Mexican coastal states of Oaxaca, Guerero and Michoacan before turning out to sea.
Typhoon Kajiki threatened shipping lanes in the open Pacific east of Japan

Indonesian Eruption:
A volcano on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi erupted with plumes of white smoke and sandy volcanic debris that soared nearly 5,000 ft into the sky. Residents living as far as 12 mi from the crater reported feeling the heat of erupting Mt Soputan. While there were no reports of injuries, many wore face masks to protect themselves against the heavy smoke and dust emitted by the volcano. People living around Soputan have been on alert since August, when the mountain produced a weaker eruption. Many had been evacuated just prior to last week's blast. Indonesia has more active volcanoes than any other nation.

California Conflagration:
A string of wind-driven firestorms across Southern California sent half a million people fleeing their homes through clouds of choking smoke in the most massive evacuation in the state's history. Flames fanned by hurricane-force winds blackened nearly 650 square miles, destroying more than 1,447 homes in their path. The scope of the disaster was also unprecedented in California history as homes and businesses from north of Los Angeles to the Mexican border were reduced to smoldering ruins. Wealthy and impoverished citizens alike were brought together in evacuation centers, queickly set up even before the magnitude of the "perfect firestorm" was apparent.

Anthrax Outbreak:
Seven people were hospitalized in Zimbabwe with anthrax poisoning after being exposed to the potentially deadly bacterium through contact with infected animals at the country's Manzou Game Park. Anthrax cannot be passed between humans, and is usually acquired as the result of contact with infected animal hides, fur, wool, leather or contaminated soil. Last December, three people died from anthrax in Eastern Zimbabwe after either eating or handling infected meat.

Greenhouse Surge:
A new report says atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) has soared 35% faster than expected over the past 7 years, meaning that climate models are underestimating how much hotter the world will become this century. The findings from the Global Carbon Project, the University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey attribute the inefficient use of fossil fuels and a drop in the ocean's ability to absorb the greenhouse gas as the cause of the surge. The report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that rapid expansion of the Chinese and Indian economies, and the construction of coal-fired power plants, are partially responsible for the increased rate that CO₂ has spewed into the atmosphre. The researchers said one of their most disturbing findings points to increased winds in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica bringing up carbon-saturated waters to the surface, preventing the vast body of water from absorbing any more carbon.

Elephant Electrocutions:
Six Indian elephants were electrocuted during a drunken rampage that occurred after their raided a village's supply of rice beer in the state of Meghalaya, according to officials. Drawn to the village by the aroma of the fermenting brew, a herd of about 40 wild elephants broke apart casks kept outside, drank the concoction and then ran amok through a paddy that had an electrical transmission tower rising above it. Witnesses and wildlife officials said one elephant rubbed his back against the pole, causing it to collapse and bringing down high-voltage lines onto the animal. Other elephants tried to come to the rescue of the fallen bull as it writhed in pain and trumpeted loudly, but they were also electrocuted as the made contact with the electric current. "It was a pathetic sight to see one elephant after another getting electrocuted in front of our eyes," said T. Sangma, an elder in the nearby village of Chandan Nukat. Villagers saved the remaining elephants from a similar fate by chasing them away.

Extreme temperatures: -77 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 109 deg F in Prats-Gil, Paraguay

October 25, 2007 (for week ending Oct. 19)

Eruption Warnings:
Thousands of villagers in Indonesia's East java province defied government evacuation orders despite intense rumblings from Mount Kelut volcano. The country's geophysics agency raised the alert status for the mountain to the highest level due to activity that produced more than 300 tremors within a six-hour period. Rising magma also caused the temperature of the crater lake to soar. Around 350,000 people live within the fertile 6-mi danger zone around the volcano, where they grow coffee, sugar cane and various tropical fruits.

The strongest (magnitude 6.7) in a series of powerful earthquakes that rocked southern New Zealand knocked items off shelves and triggered a landslide near a popular tourist destination. No injuries were reported.
Earth movements were also felt across a wide area of the South Pacific from Fiji to northern New Zealand (6.4), and in Indonesia's easternmost Papua province (5.1), northeastern Ohio (2.9) and southern California (4.2).

Tropical Cyclone:

An area of disturbed weather off Mexico's pacific coast strengthened into Tropical Storm Kiko. The storm was predicted to move ashore near the state of Colima.

Bangladesh Twisters:
Two outbreaks of post-monsoon tornadoes in Bangladesh killed at least seven people and destroyed over 500 homes. Three tornadoes embedded in severe Bay of Bengal storms moved ashore in the southern districts of Barisal, Gopalganj and Bhola on oct. 15, leaving approximately 3,000 people homeless. Five days earlier, one tornado wreaked havoc on a small village in the country's northern Sunamganj district, while another ripped through the Jamalpur district. Tornadoes often form over Bangladesh just before and just after the main summertime southwest monsoon season. This summer's monsoon rains produced disastrous flooding that forced nearly 20 million people from their homes across South Asia.

Climate Change Costs:

Researchers at the University of Maryland published a report that says inaction in responding to the challenges of climate change in the U.S. will cost billions of dollars. The reports warns that the impact of climate change will be felt differently in various parts of the country. In the South and Southwest, a decrease in rain will strain water resources for agriculture, industry and households. The Midwest could suffer from more frequent and severe floods and drought, causing billions of dollars in damage to crops and property.
An official at Indonesia's agriculture ministry cautioned that climate change has already affected the ability of certain crops to grow in parts of the country. The ministry's director general of horticulture, Ahmad Dimyati, said higher temperatures are altering where some vegetable, fruit and ornamental plants can survive. He said some crops that need temperatures below 77 deg F to thrive must now be grown in cooler climate zones at least 650 ft higher in elevation.

Elephants Buzzed Off:
Oxford University researchers have discovered that recorded sounds of angry bees can be used to deter elephants from raiding crops, protecting villages regularly pillaged by the hungry pachyderms. Lead researcher Lucy King made recordings of angry local African bees and played them back from hidden speakers at a test site in northern Kenya's Samburu National Reserve. A large majority of the elephants fled almost immediately after the buzzing sounds began playing, obviously remembering that bees can inflict nasty stings inside their trunks. King cautions that elephants are likely to catch on quickly should this be the only deterrent used to keep them from crops. And local farmers don't have the income to afford such a high-tech solution. She says positioning hives of notoriously aggressive African bees around fields could be part of a long-term and non-lethal solution to the elephant menace in East Africa.

Flood Worms:
The owner of a Taiwan vineyard became so alarmed at the hundreds of thousands of earthworms that suddenly appeared on his property that he consulted experts to see if the crawlers were heralds of an impeding earthquake. Worms and snakes are known to come to the surface when disturbed by seismic activity. Wu Ching-chuan told the China Times that he had never seen such a massive creeping invasion in the 40 years he has owned the vineyard. Experts allayed Wu's seismic fears when they said recent flooding from passing Typhoon Krosa had driven the megadriles to the surface by causing the groundwater level to rise too high for them to survive in the soil.

Extreme temperatures: -81 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 111 deg F in Curtin, W. Australia

October 18, 2007 (for week ending Oct. 12)

Sumatra's Padang and Bengkulu regions were jolted by a magnitude 6.0 quake, but there were no reports of damage or injuries. On Sept. 12 and 13, two earthquakes registering magnitudes of 8.2 and 7.7 hit West Sumatra and Bengkulu respectively, killing 23 people and causing extensive property damage.
Earth movements were also felt in the northern Philippines (5.4), southwestern Australia (4.8) and western Greece (4.5).

Java Volcano Alert:
Toxic fumes and strong seismic tremors sent hundreds of people living in Indonesia's East Java fleeing their homes on the slopes of rumbling Mount Kelud. The state vulcanology office placed the mountain on the second-highest of four alert levels. Meanwhile, officials cancelled all leaves for military and emergency personnel to ensure an adequate evacuation response to a violent eruption. The vulcanology office warned that signs of an imminent explosive eruption were much stronger new than those that preceeded Kelud's last major eruption in 990. A 1919 eruption sent boiling water cascading down the mountain's slopes, killing 5,000 people in 104 villages.

Powerful Typhoon Krosa prompted the evacuation of more than 1.4 million people in coastal areas of China's Zhejiang and Fujian provinces after the storm left five people dead, one missing and 52 injured on Taiwan.

Wildebeest Death Mount:
Record flooding that has caused extensive misery across a broad swath of Africa in recent weeks has also killed at least 20,000 wildebeests that were making their way across Kenya during their annual great migration, the Kenya Wildlife Service announced. The high death toll includes 10,000 of the animals that died in a single incident during late September while they attempted to cross the Mara River at a treacherous point. The other wildebeest deaths were due to the region's worst flooding in three decades, according to Sarisa Nkadaru, administrative manager of the Mara Conservancy group. "They were swept by strong tides in the flooded river. It's the first time in Mara's history that so many gnus (wildebeests) drowned during their much-anticipated migration," said Nkadaru.

Global Warming Fashion:
A warming climate in Australia over the past few years has forced designers to ditch traditional autumn and winter wear in favor of what they are calling "trans-seasonal" apparel, designed to be worn year round. Samples of heavy winter coats and other warm attire were virtually absent at the Australian Fashion Week gathering in Sydney, with retailers complaining that bulky winter clothing just sits on their racks. Fashion Week founder Simon Lock said that fashion houses and department stores around the world face the prospect of more unsold heavy winter garments as summer weather stretches well into autumn. He said that some brands have hired climate experts to advise them on everything from fabric types to the timing of retail deliveries and seasonal markdowns. "The fashion system must adapt to the reality that there is no strong difference between summer and winter anymore," Beppe Modenese, founder of Milan Fashion Wee, told The New York Times.

Bird Flu Mutation:
A new report warns that the H5N1 strain of bird flu has recently mutated to a form that is more easily able to infect humans, but researchers say the virus still does not have the ability to cause a global pandemic. "We have identified a specific change that could make bird flu grow in the upper respiratory tract of humans", said lead researcher Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said that recent samples of the avian influenza virus taken from birds in Africa and Europe all contained the mutation. The H5N1 strain, which has killer or caused the slaughter of millions of birds, has infected 329 people in 12 countries since 2003, killing 201 of them. It has only rarely been passed from human to human, but the wrong combination of mutations could give it the ability to spread into a global epidemic.

South African Iceberg?:
Maritime officials in South Africa broadcast a navigational warning to ships passing off the country;s southern coast after a fishing vessel reported seeing a large iceberg 35 nautical miles from Eastern Cape coast near Port Elizabeth. The crew estimated the chunk of ice was about 80 ft in length and 65 ft in height. Reports of icebergs near the southern tip of South Africa are exceedingly rare, given that Antarctica is 2,400 mi to the south. There were a few sightings in the 1850s near Cape Town, and a piece of ice about 3 ft above the surface was seen in 2002.

Extreme temperatures: -98 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 111 deg F in Podor, Senegal

October 11, 2007 (for week ending Oct. 05)

The New Zealand region's most powerful earthquake since 1934 (magnitude 7.4) sparked an international tsunami alert and caused minor rises in the sea level on the South Island and Australia's island of Tasmania.
Tremors were also felt in eastern Japan (4.9) and the Sumatra aftershock zone (6.4).

Red Sea Eruption:
A volcano near a key shipping route in the Red Sea erupted for days, killing at least three soldiers who had been stationed on the Yemeni island of Jabal al-Tair. Survivors rescued by a passing Canadian Navy ship said they were forced to escape lava flows and falling boulders by jumping into boiling water, heated by the violent eruption. "I saw ... my colleagues dying in the boiling water just behind me," said Ahmed Abdullah al-Jalal, who was rescued by the Canadian frigate HMCS Toronto. Yemen's minister of oil and minerals, Khaled Bahah, told reporters that the increasing volcanic activity on the island was first detected on Sept. 29, when a 3.7 magnitude tremor struck. The subsequent eruption obliterated the island, according to observers. The volcano last erupted in 1883.

Flash floods produced by developing Typhoon Lekima killed at least nine people in the Philippines before the storm drenched China's Hainan province. The typhoon then made landfall in Vietnam's Quang Binh and Ha Tinh provinces, killing five people.
At least five people were killed as spiraling band of Hurricane Lorenzo swept through the Mexican states of Puebla and Veracruz.
Tropical Storm Juliette passed west of Baja California, while Tropical Storm Melissa formed briefly over the mid-Atlantic.

Fatal Migration:
A tragic miscalculation appears to be responsible for a mishap that killed about 10,000 migrating wildebeest attempting to cross Kenya's Mara River in late September. The deaths occurred at Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve as the herd was beginning to swing eastward on its way back to the Serengeti. Conservationists estimate the fatalities account for about 1% of the total number of the species in East Africa. Terilyn Lemaire, a worker with the Mara Conservancy who witnessed the incident, wrote in her blog that the deaths occurred as the wildebeest tried to cross the waterway, "at a particularly steep and treacherous point." After the first animals fell into the river and drowned, thousands more continued to stampede into the water on top of them, according to Lemaire. She added that wildlife authorities considered blocking off the lethal crossing point, but decided to let nature take its course.

Earthquake Flotsam:
Strong curents generated by recent earthquakes around Sumatra are believed to have washed 50 endangered hawksbill turtles from their usual Indonesian habitat to beaches in Malaysia, where they have never before been seen. Two of the turtles, which landed on muddy Kuala Tunjang beach in Malaysia's northwestern state of Kedah, were found dead. Four others were injured and were being treated, according to state fisheries director Sani Mohamad Isa. He told reporters that the turtles were entangled in a mass of logs, bamboo and plastic water bottles and shampoo containers that had Indonesian labels. Sani said villagers and officials released the healthy turtles back into the sea.

Congo Ebola Update:
The World Health Organization says the latest outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo is slowly being brought under control. The announcement came as a new infection brought to 25 the number of people confirmed to be carrying the disease in additions to the 10 others who have died from the hemorrhagic fever. Health experts say the epidemic will not be declared over until two 21-day incubation periods pass without a new reported case.

Ozone Hole Shrinks:
The ozone hole over Antarctica shrank by 30% this year comapred with last year's record loss, according to a report by the European Space Agency. Measurements made by the agency's Envisat satellite show this year's ozone loss peaked at 27.3 Mio tons, compared to the 2006 record loss of 39.4 Mio tons. The hole in Earth's protective stratospheric ozone layer goes through a cycle each year as the chemical reactions that cause the depletion peak during the deep chill of the southern hemisphere winter. The layer has been badly damaged for decades by the use of man-made chlorine-based chemicals. Scientists say this year's smaller hole is due to natural variations in temperature and atmospheric dynamics and is not indicative of a long-term trend due to the reduced use of ozone-depleting chemicals.

Extreme temperatures: -105 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 113 deg F in In Salah, Algeria

October 04, 2007 (for week ending Sep. 28)

Late reports from the Caspian Sea nation of Azerbaijan say that a total of 715 homes were damaged by a magnitude-4.5 earthquake in the west of the country on Sept. 20. No injuries or fatalities were mentioned by the Azeri Press Agency.
Earth movements were felt in Greece's Dedocanese insland of Karpathos (5.3), southern Sumatra (6.4), southern Ecuador (5.9), nerthwestern Oregon (3.6) and the coast of Southern California (3.9).

North Island Eruption:
New Zealand's snow-capped Mount Ruapehu was blanketed with a layer of mud and ash after the volcano suddenly erupted, injuring at least four people. Mudflows cascaded down the 9,176-foot mountain shortly after it roared to life without warning. Mount Ruapehu has erupted five times since 1969, with one in 995 causing significant damage.

Hurricane Ivo brought heavy rain to the southern tip of Baja California, but had weakened to a tropical depression before reaching the popular resort area.
Tropical Storm Jerry and Hurricane Karen passed over open waters of the mid-Atlantic Ocean.
Tropical Storm Francisco drenched China's island province of Hainan before bringing unwanted rainfall to soggy northern Vietnam.

African Flood Crisis:
A flood crisis of unprecedented proportion has developed across 22 of Africa's poorest and normally driest countries over the past few weeks. Some of the heaviest rains in decades, linked to a strengthening La Niña ocean-cooling phenomenon in the Pacific, have inundated vast tracts of the continent from Senegal to Somalia. Areas on the fringes of the Sahara normally get most of their rainfall between June and September, when a band of near-perpetual thunderstorms in a meteorological region known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone shifts northward. La Niña appears to have amplified the storms, causing them to hover over the same area for weeks at a time.

Mutant Frogs Explained:
Grotesque deformities in frogs reported in recent years across North America can be linked directly to the runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus from farms and ranches, according to a new report. Both compounds bleed into the lake and pond habitats of the amphibians, encouraging the growth of a parasitic flatworm that inflicts the deformities on frogs, says lead author Pieter Johnson, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "You can get five or six extra limbs. You can get no hind limbs. You can get all kinds of really bizarre, sick and twisted stuff", Johnson told Reuters. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he said that the parasites form cysts in the developing limbs of tadpoles, causing the severe malformations. First reports of deformed frogs made headlines in the mid-1990s, when a group of Minnesota schoolchildren discovered a pond were more than half of the leopard frogs had missing or extra limbs. Since then, similar reports have been made across the United States.

La Niña Returns:
Last winter's El Niño ocean-warming phenomenon in the Pacific has been replaced by a stronger La Niña ocean cooling, which threatens to cause a distinctly different set of global weather abnormalities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) advises that La Niña may worsen the chronic droughts afflicting Southern California and the southeastern U.S., while northern Brazil and parts of Africa receive flooding rains. Shifts in atmospheric circulation could even rearrange the pattern of sea ice around Antarctica, pushing it toward the Pacific side of the continent. "This La Niña is now in its developing phase and getting stronger, and we can expect it to peak this coming December and January", said WMO chief Rupa Kumar Kolli. The U.S. weather agency NOAA predicts above-normal temperatures across most of the country through December, with the Pacific Northwest receiving coom and wet conditions.

Blue Whale Deaths:
Marine biologists scrambled to determine what caused three dead blue whales to wash ashore on Southern California beaches within a two-week period. Joe Cordaro, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, said he could not recall a similar spate of blue whale deaths off California or anywhere else. Some environmental activists blame the U.S. Navy's use of high-powered sonar in the Pacific off Southern California in recent weeks. Scientists say they believe two of the three whales were struck by ships, while the third is being tested for domoic acid poisoning. Last spring, domoic acid caused the deaths of hundreds of sea lions and birds along the coast of Southern California.

Extreme temperatures: -96 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 111 deg F in Mecca, Saudi Arabia

September 27, 2007 (for week ending Sep. 21)

Sumatra was jolted by several strong aftershocks[, including an magnitude 6.4 earthquake,] of the powerful 8.4-magnitude temblor that killed 24 people and wrecked more than 42,000 buildings on Sept. 12.
Earth movements were also felt in South Australia (4.8), eastern Texas (2.7) and northern parts of the San Francisco Bay Area (3.6).

Volcanoes:
The powerful Indonesian earthquake that struck Sumatra last week, and subsequent strong aftershocks, caused an increase in activity within three nearby volcanoes. The country's chief vulcanologist said an increase in the flow of magma was detected at Kaba, Talang and Dempo for days following the quake. Volcanic tremors created by the surge in magma have subsided in conjunction with the dwindling number of aftershocks.

Super Typhoon Wipha roared onto the Chinese coast south of Shanghai, killing at least nine people and destroying nearly 10,000 homes. A total of 2.67 million people were evacuated in Zhejiang, Fuijan, Shanghai and Jiangsu provinces before the storm made landfall along the coast of Zhejiang.
Powerful Typhoon Nari killed at least 14 people after slamming into South Korea's southern coast.
Tropical Storm Ingrid formed briefly in the Atlantic.

Meteorite sickens town:
A fireball that crashed to the ground in southern Peru produced toxic vapors that sickened hundreds of nearby residents. The impact created a crater nearly 100 ft wide and 20 ft deep, and sent a foul-smelling cloud of gas blowing over the town of Carancas. Local residents who came to examine the crater began vomiting and complaining of headaches and dizziness. The gas even affected scientists dispatched to the site wearing face masks. Carancas residents say cattle and sheep in the area have also begun to act strangely and refuse to eat. Peruvian Nuclear Energy Institute engineer Renan Ramirez told reporters that no radiation was found at the crash site, and said the crater was caused by a falling meteor[ite] rather than debris from a satellite. He said he believe the illness may have been caused be exposure to sulfur, arsenic, and other toxins that were vaporized by the extreme heat produced by the impact.
NB: a news item released by National Geographic News confirms that the illness was caused by inhaling arsenic fumes.
Cold harms bats:
A cold and damp summer across many parts of the United Kingdom has forced bats to abandon their young to survive, according to the country's leading experts on the flying mammals. A shortage of insects due to the soggy conditions has left adults competing to find enough food. The Bat conservation Trust says reports of grounded or injured bats soared over the summer months. "People have been noticing babies which have been abandoned because there is not enough food ," trust Scottish officer Anne Youngman told the BBC. "Some have found five babies walking about the floor. It's heartbraking." Youngman says she fears that the region has lost a good portion of this year's newborns.
Radioactive shield:
Authorities in Ukraine say the have developed what should be the final solution to the radioactive rubble left after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in 1986. The French firm Novarka has been hired to build a giant steel cover over the site if the world's worst nuclear accident. A fund administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will pay for the structure, and for a separate nearby facility to store nuclear waste produced by the plant. The reactor still holds 95% of its original nuclear material, and a concrete sarcophagus hurriedly built over it in 1986 has crumbled. The new steel casing is designed to prevent further leaks of radiation.

Long-haul record:

Photo: Godwit, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

U.S. scientists tracked a shore-bird as it made a record 7,145-mile flight from Alaska to New Zealand without stopping for food or water. The U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center says its observations confirm the godwit made the longest nonstop flight ever recorded for a land bird. The bird, dubbed E7, was one of 16 godwits captured by researchers in early February in New Zealand. All were fitted with GPS and a small battery-powered satellite transmitter to track their migration. E7 left northern New Zealand on March 17, flying 6,300 mi nonstop to China. After resting for five weeks, it then traveled on to a summer nesting area in western Alaska. The bird began its record-setting flight back to New Zealand on Aug. 29, flying past Hawaii, Fiji and other remote islands of the pacific before arriving on Sept. 7 just east of where she had been captured seven months earlier. During those nine days, the bird "slept" by shutting down one side of her brain at a time, researchers said.

Extreme temperatures: -102 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 115 deg F in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

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August 16, 2007 (for week ending Aug. 10)

A powerful earthquake centered beneath the Java Sea shook Indonesia's capital of Jakarta, violently shaking tall buildings and sending panicked residents into the streets. There were no immediate reports of significant damage.
Two people on Far East's Sakhalin Island were injured by sharp magnitude 4.9 aftershocks of a pair of quakes that killed two people and left 1,000 others homeless on Aug. 2.
Earth movements were also felt in far southern Japan (6.4), western Germany (4.2) and metropolitan Los Angeles (4.5).

Monsoon Misery:
Worsening floods across India, Nepal and Bangladesh have forced more than 19 Mio people from their homes since late July. An inadequate relief response has left many of the evacuees stranded without food, Health officials warn that an epidemic of waterborne diseases may soon spread across the disaster zone./li>

Vietnamese emergency teams moved thousands of people along the country's central coast to higher ground after Tropical Storm 06W dumped heavy rain on the region, killing 53 people. Most of the deaths were in the coffee-growing region of the Central Highlands.
Taiwan was lashed by two tropical cyclones in rapid succession. Typhoon Pabuk clipped the southern tip of the island, ending one of the worst droughts in decades with nearly 12 in of rainfall. The storm then moved southward, eventually passing directly over Hong Kong. Tropical Storm Wutip struck southern parts of Taiwan a day later, then lost force over China's Guangdong province.
Tropical Storm Flossie formed over the eastern Pacific.

Chilean Chill:
Chile's normally temperate central valley wine and farm region was blanketed with snow for the first time in have a century. Snow fell for four hours in the fertile Maule region, prompting officials to declare an emergency for residents unaccustomed to wintry conditions. Meteorologists said the latest Antarctic chill could also bring snowfall to the hills around the capital, Santiago. Chile has experienced its coldest winter conditions in 30 years since early June.

Extremes Now The Norm:
The United Nations' weather agency issued a report confirming fears that global weather extremes are now becoming the norm across the planet. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that during the first months of 2007, the Indian subcontinent suffered twice the normal number of monsoon storms, and that global temperatures were probably the warmest since reliable records began in 1880. The report also pointed to record storms across Britain and the rest of Europe, as well as disastrous floods in Argentina and Uruguay as further indications of climate change. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says man-made global warming is unequivocal. It notes that there has been an increasing trend in the extreme events observed during the last 50 years, particularly heavy precipitation events and heat waves.

Sonar Use Banned:
A federal judge barred the U.S. Navy from using a powerful sonar in upcoming war games off the California coast after a team of experts argued the ear-splitting sounds would be harmful to whales and other marine life. Judge Florence-Marie Cooper sided with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other environmental groups that argued that flooding large areas of the ocean with intense bursts of sound can injure or even kill whales. "(The ruling) confirms that, during sonar testing and training, the Navy can and must protect whales and other marine life in the extraordinarily rich waters off our Southern California coast," NRDC lawyer Joel Reynolds said. Navy officials said they will appeal the order.

Simian Bling:
Troublesome street monkeys in a northern India city will soon be sporting earrings that indicate they have been sterilized in a monkey population-control effort. The number of simians in Shimla, the former summer capital of the British raj in India, has soared in recent years. Officials say the animals harass tourists and need to be brought under control. Earlier efforts that used collars and dyes to mark the nearly 1,500 monkeys that had already been sterilized failed, with many of the collars falling off or the dyes fading. Nagesh Guleria, a Shimla district forest officer, told reporters that the monkeys number in the thousands across the city, where homes are stacked tightly along steep hills. The monkeys, which are a revered animal in the mainly Hindu nation, are sterilized with a technique that takes only a few minutes, according to veterinarians.

Extreme temperatures: -93 deg F at South Pole, Antarctica; 122 deg F in Death Valley, California

February 01, 2007 (for week ending Jan. 26)

South Seas storms: Two weak tropical storms formed briefly over the warm waters of the South Pacific, but neither affected any populated land areas. Tropical Storm Zita was the first to develop, but it quickly lost force after it encountered the coller ocean surface to the west of Tahiti. Tropical Storm Arthur formed a short time later to the east of American Samoa. It then took a similar path, eventually dissipating in the same area as Zita.

At least four people were killed and many buildings were cracked by an extremely powerful magnitude 7.5 earthquake that struck off northeast Indonesia's Sulawesi Island. All of the victims apparently died due to the stress caused by fleeing in panic.
Buldings in at least two villages in the eastern Turkey province of Agri were wrecked by a magnitude 5.0 temblor.
Earth movements also were felt in eastern South Korea (4.8), northern New Zealand (4.3), western Norway (4.0), northeastern Arkansas (2.5) and south-central Alaska (3.6).

Andean Rumblings:
A volcano in Southern Chile with a history of massive ash eruptions is showing signs of renewed activity. Scientists say the Hudson volcano has been producing tremors as often as every 15 min, indicating movements of magma. An explosive eruption of the volcano in 1991 sent massive amounts of ash raining down on southern Chile and neighboring parts of Argentina's Patagonia region. The disaster destroyed thousands of acres of grazing land, causing many of the region's livestock to die of starvation.

Snake invasion:
Three people have died from snakebites in Australia due to the country's worst drought in 100 years driving tens of thousands of the venomous creatures into urban areas in search of moisture. A teenager bitten near Sydney staggered onto a suburban cricket ground before collapsing. Doctors said he later died from the bite of an eastern brown, one of the world's deadliest snakes. There have been more than 60 serious snakebite cases since last September. The reptiles are invading homes, gardens and even shopping malls. Officials advise residents to avoid killing the snakes unnecessarily, but definitely to avoid getting near them.

Heated migration:
A gradual warming of the world's oceans has prompted several marine reserachers to warn of dramatic effects on ocean life as water temperatures soar to levels never before seen. A migration of jellyfish northward into the warmer North Sea may lead to them overwhelming and wiping out native fish stocks, according to Plymouth University marine scientist Martin Attrill. But the ocean warming may also allow fish species more common in southern waters to flourish off northern Europe. Norway's Institute of Marine Research has recorded 18 tropical swordfish since 1967, with sightings becoming more frequent in recent years. Canadian researchers have observed killer whales moving into the Arctic Ocean due to a melting of sea ice. The marine mammal's arrival could threaten the livelihood of First Nation tribes that depend on fishing for their food, according to Steven Ferguson, a scientist at Canada's fishing ministry.

Gorilla truce:
A leading conservation group announces that Congolese rebels have agreed to stop killing and eating rare silverback mountain gorillas in one of the primate's last remaining refuges. London-based Wildlife Direct has accused rebel guerillas loyal to mutinous Congo army general Laurent Nkunda of slaughtering two silverbacks within the past month. The environmental group had formed an alliance with the Frankfurt Zoological Society in a media campaign to halt the killings. A Wildlife Direct statement said one of Nkunda's commanders met senior Congolese national park warden Paulin Ngobobo and agreed to halt gorilla killings. Only about 700 mountain gorillas are believed to remain in the wild.

War legacy:
Toxic sludge continues to pollute the coast of Lebanon six months after an Israeli bombing raid on a power plant send 15,000 tons of fuel oil spilling into the Mediterranean around Beirut. A large portion of the spill sank to the seabed, where divers report it is up to 2 feet deep. Members of the Sea of Lebanon volunteer group have helped clean the shoreline, and recovered about 2 tons of sludge in large bags during the past two weeks. Those bags dot the coastline of a country that has neither the technology nor the means to treat or recycle the sludge. Greenpeace has called the disaster an "underwater nightmare", and predicts it will take at least a year to clean up most of the spill.

Extreme temperatures: -69 deg F in Oimyakon, Siberia; 112 deg F in Telfer, W. Australia

January 18, 2007 (for week ending Jan. 12)

Nicaraguan ash plume: The first eruption of Nicaragua's Telica volcano in two years sent columns of ash soaring above the rim of the 3,576-foot mountain's crater. The country's national Institute of Territorial Studies said the eruption was accompanied by a rise in seismic tremors, and it advised authorities to be on alert for additional activity. Telica is located near Nicaragua's second-largrst city of leon, in the east of the country.

Thousands of buildings were damaged in central China's Gansu province by a relatively weak earthquake. There were no immediate reports of injuries or fatalities from the magnitude 4.3 tremor, which was felt strongly around the provincial capital of Lanzhou.
A magnitude 6 erathquake caused buildings to crack in southern Kyrgyzstan, but no injuries were reported due to the shaking.
Earth movements were also felt in northeastern Japan (4.6), southern Spain (3.8), the Aleutian Islands (5.4), southern Yukon and neighboring southeastern Alaska (5.7) and southeastern Oklahoma (2.5).

Yucatan swarms:
Large swarms of locusts descended on the Mexican state of Yucatan, threatening to devour more than 12,000 acres of vegetation. The Yucatan Social Development Ministry said the insects are encountering optimum conditions for reproduction in remote forested areas, where it is virtually impossible to combat the swarms. Experts fear the locusts could spread into the nearby states of Campeche and Tabasco.

Fish farm escapes:
A record number of trout and salmon escaped from Norwegian fish farms during 2006, prompting wildlife officials and environmental organizations to warn of a mounting threat to wild fish stocks in the open oceans. The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries cautions that fish raised on farms are carriers of parasites such as sea lice, which can infect wild salmon and other marine life. "The consequences are dramatic for salmon", said Norwegian Association of Hunters and anglers spokesman Espen Farstad. "The farmed salmon invade the rivers and breed with the wild salmon, which cannot cope," he added. Rasmus Hansson, secretary general of the conservation group WWF Norway, said authorities should publish a list of fish farms that have failed to prevent farmed fish from escaping into the wild so buyers may avoid their products.

Silent dawn:
Thousands of birds have dropped dead out of the sky around the Western Australia beach town of Esperance during the past three weeks, leaving wildlife experts baffled as to the cause. The main victims have been wattlebirds, yellow-throated miners and two species of honeyeaters, but dead crows, pigeons and hawks have also been found. Some birds were seen convulsing as they died. The Department of Environment and Conservation says it has almost ruled out disease, and a toxin is considered the most likely cause of the deaths. Residents say there are no songbirds of any type left around the community, leaving an eerie silence at dawn due to their absence.

Polluted cleansing:
The waters of the Ganges River, considered sacred to those of the Hindu faith, have become so polluted that sadhus, Indian holy men, are warning the faithful not to bathe in the waterway during an upcoming religious festival. Thousands of sadhus demanded that the river be cleaned up before the next celebrated bathing day on Jan. 14. "The water ... is so dirty that no one can take a dip. It is dark red, whereas the Ganges used to be bluish green," Shankaracharya Vasudevanand Saraswati, who heads the main Hindu monastery in the holy city of Allahabad, told reporters. Many believe the waters of the Ganges wash away sins, free bathers from a continuous cycle of birth and reincarnation, and guarantee immortality.

Whooping recovery:
Numbers of the once critically endangered whooping crane have recovered from only about 15 in the 1940s to a record 237 birds seen this year in wintering grounds along the Texas Gulf Coast. Combined with the number of birds raised in captivity for reintroduction to the wild, and those in zoos, the crane population now numbers 518. The birds were nearly wiped out by hunting, loss of grasslands and the draining of wetlands from the late 1800s until the onset of World War II. International conservation efforts during the past few decades have resulted in a steady rise in the number of crane births. Wildlife officials say 45 of North America's tallest birds were born last year alone. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Tom Stehn credited the latest increase in births to mild weather at the cranes' summer nesting grounds in northern Canada's Wood Buffalo national Park.

Extreme temperatures: -76 deg F in Oimyakon, Siberia; 112 deg F in Oodnadatta, S. Australia

January 04, 2007 (for week ending Dec. 29)

Cyclone season: Two people were killed when powerful Cyclone Bondo hit the northern coast of Madagascar. They were the first cyclone deaths in the country since January 2005, when 17 people were confirmed killed and 139 others were reported missing in the wake of Cyclone Ernest. The western Indian Ocean is entering into its usual cyclone season, which will last through March.

A magnitude 7.0 temblor off the southern tip of Taiwan killed two people as it collapsed buildings and sparked fires. The seismic slip also ruptured undersea cables, disrupting telecommunications across Asia.
A cluster of 820 mild earthquakes, up to magnitude 4.3, jolted El Salvador within four days, damaging more than 1500 homes.
Earth movements also were felt in California's southern desert resorts (4.1), the San Francisco Bay Area (3.5), Scotland (3.5), northwest India (4.0), India's Andaman Islands (5.9) and Indonesia's easternmost Papua province (5.8) and Sulawesi Island (5.2).

Manatee deaths:
Florida wildlife officials reported that the state's endangered manatees died at a near-record pace during 2006, mainly due to the algae bloom known as red tide. "What threw us over the edge is there was a red tide event in the Everglades", said state marine biologist Ken Arrison. Out of the 392 recorded deaths of the marine mammals as of Dec. 8, boat collisions had killed 82, while 49 deaths were attributed to red tide. Scientists have warned the manatee population is expected to drop 50% over the next 5 decades because of habitat loss, boat collisions and red tide. But in February, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted to designate the manatee as a threatened species rather than endangered, saying the animal's population is on the rebound for only a short period of time.

Polar bears endangered:
The U.S. government has proposed adding polar bears to its list of endangered species due to threats to the animals' habitat from global warming. The U.S. proposal came after a lawsuit was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace that claims the government has failed to respond quickly enough to the polar bears' plight. H. Dale Hall, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Serivce, said at a news conference that the Bush administration now agrees with the conservation groups' assertions that the polar bear population could fall by more than 30% within 45 years due to "the warming of the climate".

Sleepless winters:
Scientists in Spain say bears have stopped hibernating in the country's northern mountains in what may be one of the strongest signals yet of how much climate change is affecting the natural world. Naturalists from Spain's Brown Bear Foundation say that many of the 130 bears in Spain's northern cordillera - which have a slightly different genetic composition than bear populations elsewhere in the world - have remained active throughout recent winters. The group told the El Pais newspaper that the change is affecting female bears with young cubs, which are now able to find enough nuts, acorns, chestnuts and berries on the mountainsides to survive through winter.

Rift valley fever:
A rare viral disease that usually affects only cattle has killed 23 people in parts of northeast Kenya and southern Somalia during December. Kenyan medical experts confirmed that the disease is Rift Valley fever, and the government immediately banned the transport and slaughter of livestock to help contain the outbreak. Rift Valley fever, which causes victims to vomit blood or bleed to death, passes from livestock to humans through mosquito bites or the handling of contaminated animal fluids.

Behemoth capture:
Japanese reserachers caught and filmed a giant squid near the surface of the North Pacific in possibly a first-ever glimpse of an elusive creature that has captured the imagination of sailors and fishermen for centuries. Scientists from Japan's National Science Museum videotaped the capture of a relatively small female of the species that measured about 22 feet in length. "We believe this is the first time anyone has successfully filmed a giant sqquid that was alive", said reseracher Tsunemi Kubodera. The legendary giant squid is the world's largest invertebrate. It can grow to be 60 ft in length and has long been cloaked in mystery because it lives at such depths that it is usually seen dead, washed up on the coast or in pieces found in the digestive systems of whales or very large sharks.

Extreme temperatures: -67 deg F in Oimyakon, Siberia; 108 deg F in Mandora, W. Australia