Archive for the ‘Natural Disasters’ Category

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Now Queensland faces “David and Goliath” cyclones

January 30, 2011

After the floods (even if some of the flooding in Brisbane was due to poor operation of the Wivenhoe Dam), Queensland faces a cyclone due to cross the coast today and another larger cyclone which could hit on Thursday.

SMH reports:

An infra-red image shows Cyclone Anthony bearing down on the Queensland coast, with a large tropical depression off Vanuatu expected to develop into another, more devastating cyclone.

An infra-red image shows Cyclone Anthony bearing down on the Queensland coast, with a large tropical depression off Vanuatu expected to develop into another, more devastating cyclone. Photo: US National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service

The two cyclones bearing down on the Queensland coast could be a case of “David and Goliath”, with the second system expected to be bigger and more devastating, Premier Anna Bligh said today.

Cyclone Anthony intensified to a category-two system just before 2pm (local time) today and is expected to cross the coast between Ayr and Bowen, in north Queensland, late tonight. …….

Cyclone Anthony was at 5pm located 255 kilometres east of Townsville and 125 kilometres northeast of Bowen, with a warning zone stretching along the coast from Lucinda to Sarina, the Bureau of Meteorology said. The bureau tonight warned of destructive wind gusts up to 130km/h and abnormally high tides between Ayr and Bowen, with large waves likely along the beachfront between Townsville and Sarina. It said heavy rainfall and flooding was developing about the coast near and to the south of the cyclone, extending as far south as Sarina. Gales up to 100km/h were battering Hamilton Island late this afternoon.

However, the bureau is more worried about Cyclone Yasi, lurking near Vanuatu, which could potentially cross the Queensland coast on Thursday morning. The meteorological centre in Fiji this afternoon upgraded the low-pressure system to a category-one cyclone, which was moving west at 13km/h and intensifying.

The prospect of two cyclones crossing the Queensland coast within four days of each other comes after three quarters of the state was recently declared a disaster zone in the wake of devastating flooding. ……. Ms Bligh today described the two cyclones as “David and Goliath”, with Cyclone Anthony expected to be “quite smaller than the second event”.

But Ms Bligh said Anthony should not be underestimated, with wind gusts of more than 120km/h likely and damage expected.

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Earthquake deaths mainly due to corruption

January 17, 2011

Most fatalities from earthquakes in the last 30 years can be linked to corruption in building practices and lack of building standards.

“While a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck in New Zealand in 2010 resulted in zero fatalities, an identical 2010 quake in Haiti resulted in a death toll reaching six figures”.

A new assessment of earthquake fatalities in Nature:

Nicholas Ambraseys, Roger Bilham. Corruption kills. Nature, 2011; 469 (7329): 153 DOI: 10.1038/469153a

Science Daily reports:

A new assessment of global earthquake fatalities over the past three decades indicates that 83 percent of all deaths caused by the collapse of buildings during earthquakes occurred in countries considered to be unusually corrupt.

Authored by Professor Nicholas Ambraseys of the Imperial College of London and Professor Roger Bilham of the University Colorado at Boulder, the study also found that in some relatively wealthy countries where knowledge and sound business practices would be expected to prevail, the collapse of many buildings is nevertheless attributable to corrupt building practices…… The authors determined that there is roughly a one-to-one relationship between a nations’ wealth and its perceived level of corruption. “Less wealthy nations are the most corrupt,” said Bilham, also a fellow in the CU-Boulder based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. “We found that fully 83 percent of all deaths from earthquakes in the last 30 years have occurred in nations where corruption is both widespread and worse than expected.”

Corrupt building practices — which are generally covert and hard to quantify — can include the use of substandard materials, poor assembly methods, the inappropriate placement of buildings and non-adherence to building codes, said the authors……

The poorest countries are the most corrupt, but some are more corrupt than others. A weighted regression line (dashed) divides nations that are perceived as more corrupt (below the line) than might be expected from the average income per capita.

……. The authors noted that while a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck in New Zealand in 2010 resulted in zero fatalities, an identical 2010 quake in Haiti resulted in a death toll reaching six figures. “Widespread anecdotal evidence points to the collapse of structures in devastating earthquakes as a result of corrupt building practices,” said Bilham. “In this study we have attempted to quantify that perception.

“Corruption is found to be far worse in some countries than others, despite a measure of wealth that tells us they should do better,” said Bilham. “It is in the countries that have abnormally high levels of corruption where we find most of the world’s deaths from earthquakes.”

The global construction industry, currently worth $7.5 trillion annually and which is expected to double in the next decade, is recognized by experts as being the most corrupt segment of the world economy, said the authors.

Since 1980, deaths due to an absence of effective earthquake engineering activity have averaged about 18,300 per year, according to the authors.

 

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“Not inconsistent with man-made global warming” !!

January 15, 2011

Climate Science – if there is such a thing – had long ago abandoned science to become a lobby for “global warming theory”. But the “scientists” are plumbing new depths.

It has not taken long for “climate scientists” to claim that all extreme weather events (heat wave in Russia, floods in Pakistan, coldest December in 100 years , droughts in Australia and now floods in Brazil and Australia)  are all “not inconsistent with global warming” implying by some strange, convoluted logic that all these weather events (which are also consistent with history repeating itself) somehow add to the body of “evidence” which “proves” that man-made global warming is happening. There have even been crack-pot scientists with such a vested interest in the “man-made global warming” ideology  who have found it possible to blame volcanic activity and even the earthquake in Haiti on “global warming”!!!

The current strength of the La Ninã conditions are perfectly consistent with other theories based on ocean variation and the frigid winters are quite consistent with the quiet Sun (which went spotless again yesterday). All current weather is also consistent with man-made effects being totally negligible and instead being dominated by the sun’s cycles and with the oceans as the primary vehicle for transporting heat around the globe. Weather is not climate and in fact none of the “extreme” weather events  are outside the range of weather variations that have been experienced over the last 1000 years.

The floods in Brazil have claimed over 500 lives and in Australia – which is far better prepared – the death toll will likely be between 20 – 30. In Australia where a higher flood occurred in 1974 in Brisbane voices are beginning to be raised that the “global warming” lobby have actually prevented the use of dams and implementation of proposed water management policies which could have been able to better manage these regular and recurring flood conditions.

The history of floods in Brisbane is telling:

Highest annual flood peaks for Brisbane

Highest annual flood peaks for Brisbane

The floods this year in Queensland are nothing new. Why would this flood be evidence of man-made global warming but not the floods of the 1800s? In fact the history of these weather conditions in Brisbane is not inconsistent with global cooling, the coming of an ice-age or an apocalyptic end to the earth in 2012!

thepunch.com.au

Any scientist who is concerned with science and not with religion, politics or defending his past conclusions would know that being “not inconsistent” with some theory carries no weight in a scientific proof – but it does sound so credible in a TV sound-bite.

But we can expect that over the next few years that every natural disaster or extreme weather event will be taken by the members of a dying religion as being “not inconsistent with” and therefore as proof of man-made global warming.

 

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La Niña driving severe rains and floods in Brazil and Australia

January 12, 2011

The La Niña event established this year is particularly intense and maybe the most severe in a 100 years. Such events are known to give warm sea surface temperatures and greater evaporation giving heavy rains in the Western Pacific in Australia, less rain in the Eastern Pacific on the western coast of S. America (coastal Chile and Peru) but increased rain on the east coast in southern Brazil and  northern Argentina.

Yesterday, heavy rainfall and floods in Brazil  claimed 80 lives.

UPDATE!! This morning the death toll is reported to be over 250.

UPDATE 2!! 13th January: Now death toll is around 400.

BBC:

More than 80 people have died in towns near Rio de Janeiro as heavy rains continue to cause flooding and mudslides in south-eastern Brazil. Overnight downpours triggered landslides in the mountain town of Teresopolis, where more than 50 were reported to have died. At least three firefighters were among several people buried in mudslides in Nova Friburgo.

Brazil has seen severe flooding this year which has left thousands homeless.

The death toll is expected to climb as rescuers reach remote villages in the mountains. One report, compiling official and media figures, put the toll so far at 93.

This week, torrential rains in neighbouring Sao Paulo state left 13 people dead and brought traffic chaos to Brazil’s biggest city. In Teresopolis, 100km (62 miles) north of Rio Janeiro, a river burst its banks, submerging buildings, while the rainfall set off several mudslides.

The rains and floods in Queensland have claimed 13 lives so far but the peak in Brisbane a few hours ago was fortunately about 1 m lower than in the 1974 floods. Nevertheless many thousands of homes have been inundated and the damage to Queensland industry and agriculture is severe. The final death toll is likely to be higher since it is feared that some bodies will only be discovered after the waters recede. Now heavy rain and flash floods have hit Victoria as well.

The Guardian:

The devastating flooding in Queensland is the result of Australia being in the grip of an unusually strong “La Niña”, a periodic climate phenomenon that brings more rain to the western Pacific, and less to South America along the eastern Pacific.

“The Queensland floods are caused by what is one of the strongest – if not the strongest – La Niña events since our records began in the late 19th century,” said Prof Neville Nicholls at Monash University and president of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. “The La Niña is associated with record warm sea-surface temperatures around Australia and these would have contributed to the heavy rains.” Warmer oceans produce damper air and hence more rain. This is driven onshore by the stronger east-to-west trade winds characteristic of La Niña.

In both Australia and S. America the rains have about another 2 months to run.

related posts:

June 2010 – https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/high-probability-of-la-nina/

October 2010 – https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/la-nina-strengthens-further/

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Posted in Australia, Brazil, Natural Disasters, Southern Hemisphere, Weather | 1 Comment »

Mt. Merapi rumbles on and rains cause cold lava floods

January 10, 2011

Mount Merapi has continued erupting in the past two or three weeks but at much lower intensities than the  fatal eruptions which occurred on October 26 and November 5.

Island Crisis reports that:

YOGYAKARTA, INDONESIA (BNO NEWS) — With heavy rainfall accompanied by sporadic but strong wind currents, Indonesia’s Yogyakarta was hit by the largest outflow of cold lava and mud, locally known as lahar dingin, since October’s Merapi eruptions, local media reported.

The cold lava damaged several bridges and created chaos as traffic flow was cut off for around 18 hours on one of the city’s main highways, which was flooded under meter-deep lahar in several areas. “In addition to destroying the Gempol main bridge on the Putih River, lahar also destroyed bridges in other villages, leading to the isolation of hundreds of residents in seven hamlets,” Heri Prawoto, head of the Magelang district’s Disaster Management Office, told the Jakarta Globe.

But the resilience of humans is amazing.

The Merapi Golf Course in Yogyakarta, covered in ash. image credit: DigitalGlobe.

In Merapi’s Shadow, a Tourism Boom

The golf courses may be covered in volcanic ash, but tourists are flocking to Indonesia to see devastated villages near the recently eruptive Mount Merapi volcano.

Tourists with a curiosity about the aftermath of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are being courted to the central Javanese city of Yogyakarta, Reuters reports.

The eruptions, which began on Oct. 26, killed more than 350 people and created nearly 400,000 refuges. That destruction, it seems, is a selling point for local travel agencies desperate for tourists’ dollars. “In the new volcano tour package, we’ll take customers to explore the closest village to the peak and see how bad the devastation is,” Edwin Ismedi Hinma, of the local tour agencies association, told Reuters. “Then we’ll take them to a river to watch cold lahars flood past.”


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Posted in Business, Environment, Indonesia, Natural Disasters, Volcanos | 2 Comments »

Why Munich Re’s report on natural catastrophes in 2010 is alarmist and self-serving

January 4, 2011

Munich Re – like all insurance companies – is in the business of alarmism. The insurance business relies on the total risk perceived by all the buyers of insurance products being significantly higher than the actual risk that materialises. The bigger this difference the greater the insurance company’s profits.

In a new press release Munich Re presents its overall picture of natural catastrophes in 2010.

Several major catastrophes in 2010 resulted in substantial losses and an exceptionally high number of fatalities. The overall picture last year was dominated by an accumulation of severe earthquakes to an extent seldom experienced in recent decades.

The facts are not in doubt but Munich Re’s opinionated conclusion and the introduction of global warming into the same breath as earthquakes and extreme weather is intellectually bankrupt and blatantly self-serving:

The high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world provide further indications of advancing climate change.

Munich Re’s business is best served if the perception of risk is very high, the actual risk is much lower than than that perceived and more and more people take to insuring these exaggerated risks. Munich Re – as other insurance companies – have become expert at taking real data, blending it with unjustified opinions and then applying a totally bogus “pondus” to exaggerating the perceived risk.

(more…)

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Posted in Alarmism, Business, Climate, Natural Disasters | 4 Comments »

Haiti: The UN cholera tragedy continues…..

December 26, 2010

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — At least 45 people, most of them voodoo priests, have been lynched in Haiti since the beginning of the cholera epidemic by angry mobs blaming them for the spread of the disease, officials said.

“People who practice voodoo have nothing to do with the cholera epidemic,” said Max Beauvoir, the head of a voodoo organization in the Caribbean country.

Beauvoir said Thursday that he has appealed to authorities to help before the situation gets worse.

Some of the victims were killed with machetes, others were burned alive by mobs that added tires and gasoline to stoke the fires. The cholera outbreak started in October.

Forty of the victims were found in a southwest area of Haiti called Grand Anse, said Moise Fritz Evens, a communications ministry official.

The victims have been targeted because of “misinformation” that had been circulating in the community that voodoo practitioners were spreading cholera by using witchcraft, according to communications Minister Marie-Laurence Lassegue.

“It was necessary to increase awareness of the disease and educate the population countrywide instead of getting into a religious war that has no ending,” Lassegue said.

The killings add to ongoing woes that have hit the island after the devastating earthquake in January. About 220,000 people were killed in the earthquake, and countless others left homeless. A cholera outbreak after the earthquake has killed more than 2,000 people, health officials said.

Before the current outbreak introduced by UN troops, Haiti had not seen cholera for over 100 years.

https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/un-cholera-and-protests-against-un-reach-port-au-prince/

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UN to “investigate” its introduction of cholera to Haiti

December 17, 2010

More than a month after the outbreak , the United Nations secretary-general plans to call for an independent commission to study whether U.N. peacekeepers caused a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 2,400 people in Haiti, an official said on Wednesday.

http://www.thehindu.com/health/policy-and-issues/article956037.ece?homepage=true

U.N. officials initially dismissed speculation about the involvement of peacekeepers. The announcement indicates that concern about the epidemic’s origin has now reached the highest levels of the global organization.

“We are urging and we are calling for what we could call an international panel,” U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said at a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York. “We are in discussions with (the U.N. World Health Organization) to find the best experts to be in a panel to be completely independent.”

Le Roy said details about the commission would be announced Friday by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He said cholera experts and other scientists will have full access to U.N. data and the suspected military base.

“They will make their report to make sure the truth will be known,” Le Roy said.

Soon after the cholera outbreak became evident in October, Haitians began questioning whether it started at a U.N. base in Meille, outside the central plateau town of Mirebalais and upriver from where hundreds were falling ill. Speculation pointed to recently arrived peacekeepers from Nepal, a South Asia nation where cholera is endemic.

U.N. officials rejected any idea the base was involved, saying its sanitation was air-tight.

WHO and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said at the time that it was unlikely the origin would ever be known, and that pinning it down was not a priority.

Then the Associated Press found not only sanitation problems at the base, but that the U.N. mission was quietly taking samples from behind the post to test for cholera.

When the CDC determined the strain in Haiti matched one in South Asia, cholera and global health experts said there was now enough circumstantial evidence implicating the likely unwitting Nepalese soldiers to warrant an aggressive investigation.

The experts have also said there are important scientific reasons to trace the origin of the outbreak, including learning how the disease spreads, how it can best be combated and what danger countries around Haiti could face in the coming months and years.

Many think the U.N. mission’s reticence to seriously address the allegations in public helped fuel anti-peacekeeper riots that broke out across the country last month.

This outbreak, which experts estimate could affect more than 600,000 people in impoverished Haiti, involves the first confirmed cases of cholera in Haiti since WHO records began in the mid-20th century. Suspected outbreaks of a different strain of cholera might have occurred in Haiti more than a century ago.

The current outbreak has spread to the neighbouring Dominican Republic and isolated cases have been found in the United States.

French epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux argues that “no other hypothesis” from the Nepalese being the origin could explain his findings that cases of the diarrheal disease first appeared near the U.N. base in Haiti’s rural centre, far from shipping ports and the area affected by the Jan. 12 earthquake.

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OAS/CARICOM accept Haiti election results: Was voting necessary?

November 30, 2010

To have a result – of any kind and whether valid or not – seems to be more important than having a proper election result for OAS and CARICOM (Organisation of American States and the Caribbean Community).

Haiti Libre asks plaintively:

But we must remember that in these elections, Haiti did not have much to say. It is decided internationally what is good or what is not for us!

Sometimes we wonder why our citizens have been voting at all?

Election scrutineers are let in to the Santa Ana de Cité Soleil polling station in Port-au-Prince on 29th November. image The Independant

The BBC reports that

Haiti’s general election on Sunday was valid despite “serious irregularities”, international observers have said. The joint mission from the Organisation of American States and the Caribbean regional grouping, Caricom, said delays at some polling stations were not reason enough to cancel the election. Polling day on Sunday was marred by disorganisation and some violence, as well as allegations of fraud in favour of the governing party candidate, Jude Celestin.

The election was characterised by mismanagement and incidents of fraud, our correspondent says. There were multiple reports of would-be voters turning up at polling stations to find they were not registered to vote – and of others having the right papers but no idea where to vote. Some polling stations opened hours late, there were allegations that some people were voting multiple times, and thugs ransacked some polling stations.

Hopefully the cholera outbreak will not get a boost from the enhanced human contact during the campaigning and polling process. But the death toll has passed 2,000. The UN especially has displayed organisational incompetence.

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Posted in Behaviour, Election fraud, Environment, Natural Disasters, UN | Comments Off on OAS/CARICOM accept Haiti election results: Was voting necessary?

UN Elections in Haiti a shambles

November 28, 2010

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Amid allegations of stuffed ballot boxes and other fraud, 12 of 18 candidates for president (have) called for the elections to be cancelled, (and) accuse President René Préval of trying to fix the contest.

Elections on Sunday in a nation already racked by January’s earthquake and a cholera epidemic devolved into chaos, with thousands of voters unable to find their names on electoral rolls and a general outcry alleging widespread fraud. Twelve of the 18 presidential candidates issued a declaration saying the elections should be canceled and that the people should “mobilize” to prevent the government from accepting the results. They accused President René Préval of conspiring with the electoral council to install his party in Parliament and his pick to succeed him, Jude Celestin, in the National Palace. Celestin was second in recent polling, but a reporter talking to dozens of voters at the polls Sunday could not find a single one who was planning to vote for him. Allegations of fraud are a usual part of Haitian elections but not on the scale of the claims Sunday, coming from thousands of people and the majority of candidates, including at least two of the frontrunners, Manigat and Martelly, who signed the declaration.

But the electoral commission and UN officials seemed to be living in some other reality and declared that all was well. HaitiLibre also describes the status and the apparent fantasy the UN is living in.

Twelve of the 18 candidates in the Haitian presidential election, denounced at a press conference at the Karibe Convention Center, massive fraud and irregularities. They issued a unanimous call for the annulment of the election, following protests from voters who could not vote and many cases of fraud and irregularities observed since the official opening of polling stations.

Three candidates for the presidential election in Haiti, which are Mirlande Manigat, Yvon Neptune and Jacques Edouard Alexis have denounced the fraud and demanded the annulment of the elections, adding their voices to those of other candidates favorable to the end of this sham democratic election …

Patrice Dumond, spokesman for the candidate Manigat “It’s not just fraud, it’s a scandal, a real kidnapping of elections”. Mirlande Manigat during the press conference said “I request the formal CANCELLATION of all electoral activities throughout the territory, what is happening now it’s brigandage organized […] Some State institutions are complicit in this brigandage”. For his part Jacques Edouard Alexis, also requested the cancellation of the poll citing a series of irregularities and involving President René Préval “I do not want an election with him”.

As for Yvon Neptune, also in favor of a cancellation, asks “What can we do in the meantime for good elections? We need a solution between all candidates”.

At Acul-du-Nord and Trou du Nord elections were cancelled. Violent incidents also occurred at Acul du Nord and Trou du Nord, near Cap-Haitien.

Patrick Julien mayor of Acul-du-Nord, said that people were ready to vote, but supporters of the candidates have fired in the air, there have been wounded and he himself was not able to vote “men armed with machetes ransacked six polling stations, elections were canceled,” he said.

At Trou-du-Nord, Mayor Jacques Gustave said a crowd had entered the offices and ransacked polling stations, “the ballots were thrown everywhere, the president of the pooling station made an official report and canceled the election”

At Desdunes in the north, after incidents and gunfire that resulted in injuries, Minustah has sent Sunday morning a half-dozen of armored vehicles “to regain control of the situation.”

Recall that this morning the head of the UN mission in Haiti (Minustah ), Edmond Mulet stated “In general everything goes well, all is quiet. There have been some incidents at Desdunes, minor incidents.” Edmond Mulet said there is no reason to be afraid”. “It’s a electoral feast”… Une déclaration, qui devant les moyens utilisés pour rétablir l’ordre se passe de commentaire…

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