Mt Mayon Update 21 Dec 2009

December 21, 2009 By BULLIT MARQUEZ  http://www.activeearth.org/SpecialContent/Volcanology.asp?fe=1 for this update and others that may follow

Previous article

The emission of sulphur dioxide – an indication of magma rising inside the volcano – jumped to 6,000 tons per day from the normal 500, said the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. It also reported “audible booming and rumbling sounds” in the eastern flank of the volcano, accompanied by intensified crater glow at night. Lava fountains bursting from the cone-shaped volcano overnight rose 650 feet (200 meters) in the air, the institute said. Scientists said red hot lava flows had reached 5 km from the crater. A major eruption could trigger pyroclastic flows – superheated gas and volcanic debris that race down the slopes at very high speeds, vaporizing everything in their path. More extensive explosions of ash could drift toward nearby towns and cities.

Many thousands of people have heeded the call to evacuate but 3000 are still holding out

Earthquake of magnitude 7.6 hit Penang, Indonesia on Sept 30 2009

About 5:00 pm on September 30th, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck just offshore of the town of Padang in Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake toppled buildings and started many landslides, smashing homes and swallowing up entire villages. If you want to see the graphic impacts, go and have a look at 40 horrific pictures taken after the event.

Here is one of them

Link to previous article about this quake

Impacts

Tremors from the first earthquakes were felt in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, Malaysia and Singapore. The management of some high-rise buildings in Singapore evacuated their staff.[

A tsunami watch was triggered and there are reports of house damage and fires.] Hotels in Padang were destroyed, and communications to the city were disrupted.

Local news channel Metro TV reported fires in Padang where panicked residents had run onto the streets as the first quake hit. Teams of rescuers from nearby branches of the National Search and Rescue Agency have been deployed to Padang. Large buildings came down in the earthquake. It was also reported that some water pipes in Padang were broken and there was flooding in the street. There have also been reports that at least two hospitals and several schools have collapsed as a result of the earthquake.

Padang’s Minangkabau International Airport suffered minor damage, with parts of the ceiling in the boarding area falling down.The airport reopened on 1 October.

Responses

Indonesian officials have suggested that the death toll is likely to rise sharply, because of the large number of people trapped in collapsed buildings. Authorities announced that several disaster management teams were en route to Padang although it took several hours for them to reach more remote areas.  Rescue workers pulled dozens of survivors from the rubble and rushed them to Djamil Hospital. The hospital itself was overwhelmed with patients, and many patients were treated in tents set up outside the hospital. A man was trapped beneath a flattened hotel for 25 hours with a broken leg before rescue workers pulled him free. The Indonesian military deployed emergency response teams with earth moving equipment to help move rubble and recover trapped victims. Rescue workers and volunteers searched the rubble of a collapsed 3-story course building, rescuing survivors and recovering bodies while parents waited nearby. Indonesian villagers used their bare hands to sift through ruins and try to find survivors. On October 5, Indonesian rescue workers called off their search for trapped survivors and increased efforts to recover bodies, clear rubble, and provide aid to survivors. Indonesian authorities used helicopters to airdrop instant noodles, blankets, milk, and dry food into remote areas, and to bring the wounded from these areas to hospitals.

Australia : 10 army engineers a civilian search and rescue team.,  a Royal Australian Navy hospital ship and a helicopter.- +$A350,000

China   Emergency aid worth $500,000.

Denmark :A six-man crew and camp material

Estonia : an information

European Union :Aid worth 3 million euros

Germany :Emergency aid worth 1 million euros

Hongkong :HKD 4 million

Ireland : Red Cross volunteers are working to rescue people and provide food, clean water and shelter.

Japan A team of 60 search and rescue workers and 23 medical personnel and emergency goods such as tents, sleeping mats, blankets and power generators.

Malaysia : two-member team to Padang on October 1 to conduct an on-the-ground assessment and an initial total of RM 100,000 emergency aid. Malaysian Red Crescent Society sent five-member Regional Disaster Response Team consist of a doctor, a nurse and relief officers . State Government of Selangor sent RM 500,000. Mercy Malaysia will deploy a surgical and medical team consisting of an orthopaedic surgeon, a general surgeon, an anaesthetist, general practitioners (GPs) and nurses The team brought with them surgical sets and primary healthcare kits worth a total of RM 100,000.  Malaysian Search and Rescue Team (Smart) with 39 members had left for Padang. A medical team sent  comprising 17 officers from the Malaysian Armed Forces medical corps, 8 officers from Malaysian Health Ministry. University send 14 volunteers in the relief efforts.

Netherlands     Emergency aid of 500,000 euros

Norway            Norway pledged a total of NOK 20,000,000 for emergency relief efforts.

Russia             Two aircraft, logistical supplies, medical supplies, doctors, nurses, and a search and rescue team with sniffer dogs

Saudi Arabia    has sent a plane carrying two units of trucks, one ambulance disaster response unit, a Search and Rescue (SAR) team, medicines, and four sniffer dogs

Singapore        Has pledged temporary shelters, blankets and medicine. It has also sent a 54-member medical team from the Singapore Armed Forces, 42-member Civil Defense Force search, rescue contingent and three helicopters.

South Korea    A 43-person search and rescue team and $500,000 in aid

Switzerland      A search and rescue team , and an aircraft, search and rescue team, logistical supplies

Taiwan donated $150,000 to the effort.

Thailand sent  a plane on October 3 with relief supplies

United Arab Emirates A 56-member search and rescue team, medical supplies, heavy equipment

United States Emergency aid worth $3,000,000, a Hercules transport aircraft and crew.

United Kingdom:  equipment including plastic sheeting, medical and water purifying equipment. The search and rescue team of 65 firefighters, 10 volunteers from the International Rescue Corps taking specialist equipment including listening devices and camera systems .S.A.R.A.I.D. have mobilised a team of 10 personnel and over a ton of technical equipment to the city of Padang to assist in the rescue efforts. Gloucester-based Rapid-UK has already sent a 16-person team of rescuers and medics to the area.

Mt Mayon raised to level 4 alert

Full article see here. This is the update on the phillipino earth quake where already 1000s have been evacuated.

Link to previous article

It is 5 years after the Tsunami – what have they learnt?

As a result of the disastrous tsunami just 5 years ago, one NGO, Save the Children, has worked there throughout that time. Initially they went in to provide emergency relief to the worst hit areas in Indonesia. However since then they have been working with schools and adults to find ways to prevent such a disaster have such an impact again.

They have achieved this by

Working with community to develop an early warning system and disaster alerts

what is the scale of the earthquake? Will it trigger a Tsunami? Where to? Communication is by mobile phones between communities, and a system has been developed to communication within the communities.

Education for disaster readiness

Children map communities for danger areas and safe routes out

Adults are taught to have emergency paper and important stuff kept together and safe in case of evacuation

The full article

20,000 evacuated as Philippine volcano oozes lava

By JIM GOMEZ (AP) – 6 hours ago (as of 17.00 UK time)

MANILA, Philippines — Authorities moved thousands of villagers from harm’s way near the Philippines’ most active volcano Tuesday after it oozed lava and shot plumes of ash, and said they probably would spend a bleak Christmas in an evacuation center.

State volcanologists raised the alert level on the cone-shaped, 8,070-foot (2,460-meter) Mayon volcano overnight to two steps below a major eruption after ash explosions and dark orange lava fragments glowing in the dark trickled down the mountain slope.

Nearly 50,000 people live in a five-mile (eight-kilometer) radius around the mountain, and authorities began moving thousands of them in case it erupts, Albay provincial Gov. Joey Salceda said.

More than 20,000 people were evacuated to safety by nightfall Tuesday, Salceda said, adding he has placed central Albay province, where Mayon is located, under a “state of imminent disaster,” which will make it easier for him to draw and use emergency funds.

“Whatever the volcano does, our target is zero casualty,” Salceda told The Associated Press.

Full report : here – watch this space for further news

For fantastic pictures of what an active volcano looks like as it is preparing to… who knows what? Go here

Example of National action on deforestation

MARABA, Brazil – Brazil took a step forward in protecting the Amazon rainforest on Wednesday, starting satellite surveillance of the cattle ranches that are among the chief culprits in the forest’s destruction.

The agriculture ministry will monitor more than 15,000 cattle ranches, many of which were established by clearing forested land, and stop ranchers from selling their cattle if they expand farms further by encroaching upon the rainforest.

“We can now say that Brazil is doing its part,” said Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes at the launch of the plan in Para, one of several states in the north of Brazil over which the world’s largest rainforest sprawls.

Brazil’s efforts to protect the Amazon are under the global spotlight this month as heads of state meet at the climate change conference which began this week in Copenhagen.

Cattle ranching is one of the main causes of deforestation, which accounts for about 75 percent of Brazil’s carbon emissions.

Full article

What are the chances of an earthquake > 5 hitting your home in the next 5 years?

Go to this site and check it out – my home in Rhayader has a 2.5% chance over the next 5 years – on that basis I could wait 200 years for one to turn up!

Follow this link

You may need to add your country (in my case UK) to get an answer.

BANGLADESH: Two years after Cyclone Sidr, survivors still seeking shelter

20 November 2009 Original article: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87126

Two years after Cyclone Sidr hit the southern coastal districts of Bangladesh, many of the survivors are still homeless and at severe risk from further disasters, officials say. Cyclone Sidr lashed the southern coastal regions of Bangladesh on 15 November 2007. Thirty districts were affected, with more than 3,400 deaths (yes I know – the numbers do not add up – but some died afterwards indirectly from Sidr itself from from waterborne diseases et)c. Damage to property, livestock and crops was estimated at US$1.7 billion, with half of that in the housing sector, according to the government.

Despite aid efforts, more new homes are still needed as are cyclone shelters. Meanwhile, crucial work to prevent flooding remains under-funded.

Extensive flood embankment networks provide this region with critical protection from these natural calamities, but Sidr damaged a large part, leaving the inhabitants of six coastal districts vulnerable to tidal waves and storm surges. According to the Bangladesh Water Development Board, which maintains these embankments, about 46 percent or 2,341km of the 5,107km of flood embankments protecting the southern regions were partially or completely destroyed by Sidr. Repair work to the embankments has yet to begin properly, with a lack of funding cited as the primary reason. About $100 million is required.  The money is being provided and repai should begin soon.

In the worst affected areas tidal seawater inundated their land. “Every day, during the tides, brackish seawater gets into the croplands, fouling up the fertile topsoil. Soil salinity is increasing alarmingly. Almost 1,400ha of croplands and is now vulnerable because of the damaged embankments.”

Lacking proper shelter: “Nearly half a million people who were displaced by Sidr are still without proper housing and need rehabilitation,” said a representative of  Bangladesh Red Crescent Society.

Farmer Jainal Abedin lost his father, his home and all his possessions to Sidr. “I am still living in a hovel made of plastic sheets and debris. I had to spend my housing grant money ($73) on food after the storm.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has built 1,250 cyclone core shelters, sturdier homes that can withstand a cyclone.

The district of Bagerhat is very short proper cyclone protection shelters. It needs 490 for the population but only has 130, which can protect about one third of the people who may need them.

Four Years After Katrina: The State Of New Orleans

Full articles: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/28/four-years-after-katrina_n_270944.html

Date: 28^th August 2009

NEW ORLEANS (Associated Press) — Shelia Phillips doesn’t see the New Orleans that Mayor Ray Nagin talks about, the one on its way to having just as many people and a more diverse economy than it did before Hurricane Katrina. How could she?

From the front porch of her house in the devastated Lower 9th Ward, it’s hard to see past the vegetation slowly swallowing the property across the way. Nearby homes are boarded up or still bear the fading tattoos left by search and rescue teams nearly four years ago. The fence around a playground a few blocks away is padlocked.

“I just want to see people again,” she said recently, swatting bugs in the muggy heat.

On paper, the city’s economy appears to be thriving, with relatively low unemployment, home repossessions and bankruptcy rates. But in post-Katrina New Orleans, whole areas of some neighbourhoods are sparsely populated, even desolate.

There are other causes for optimism: the overhaul of New Orleans’ long-dismal public school system, an influx of college-educated residents, the greening of neighbourhoods as they rebuild, and the elevating of more homes to help protect them from future flooding.

After Katrina, the mayor started talking about a new New Orleans. What he meant, he said recently, is a “better New Orleans; an updated New Orleans, one where we basically updated all of our critical assets but respected our history. “I definitely think we’re on track to realizing that,” Nagin said.

Some analysts believe the economic resilience powered by tens of billions in federal rebuilding aid is unsustainable. Once the money is spent, they say, the tourism-based economy and lower-wage jobs that dominated before Katrina are likely to re-emerge.

However areas like Lakeview, which saw some of the worst flooding, has come back stronger than other New Orleans’ neighbourhoods largely due to its relative pre-storm affluence and residents’ will to take charge of Lakeview’s recovery. As Lakeview residents invested in homes and businesses, government dollars followed. The post office has reopened, main streets have been or are being rebuilt and a business district is thriving. It’s one of the best examples of Nagin’s market-driven approach to recovery, where money follows money.

Side streets such as Bellaire Drive, a frequent bus route taking camera-toting tourists to see where a flood wall failed, are pocked with dangerous potholes. The public school is empty. Vacant houses dot many blocks.

By one estimate, 36 percent of New Orleans’ housing is empty and  there is no clear indication when or whether they will be rebuilt.

Many home construction workers had more work than they could handle in the first two to three years of the recovery. Now, small groups can be found gathered outside building superstores and at busy intersections well into the afternoon, still looking for work.

Flozell Russell, 38, a welder before Katrina, said he’s out looking for work around 6 a.m. each day; one recent day, he was among about two dozen men on a patch of grass near a busy intersection, the smells of po’ boy sandwiches mingling with the roar of heavy equipment. Seeking work as a carpenter, welder or construction helper, he said he’s sometimes lucky to make $50 for a day’s work. “It ain’t getting better. It seems to be getting worse,” he said, a pencil behind his ear, a spare pair of work boots handy. Russell said he lives in a friend’s tool shed because he can’t afford rent.

Russell’s experience seems contradictory to New Orleans’ relatively low unemployment rate — 7.3 percent in June compared to a national rate of 9.7 percent. But the area’s rate is low in part because many of the poor who left after the storm never returned. And because there is a need for engineers, project managers and social workers, New Orleans is attractive to recent college graduates.

Trevor Acy, 24, moved to New Orleans from Mississippi early this year to work as a grant specialist. It was the only place he could find a job after college.

“Coming in I had a lot of preconceptions about New Orleans,” Acy said, referring to the city’s long-standing reputation for crime, poverty and a roaring nightlife. “But I’ve found the people to be really genuine, really warm.”

New Orleans has regained about 75 percent of its pre-storm population, though a recent reports said slowing of school enrolment suggests those moving in are single or childless couples. While Nagin believes the roughly 455,000 here before Katrina can be recovered in the next few years, some experts are think it could be 20 years before the population tops 400,000. He cites as challenges facing the city a lack of major new commercial development and slow job growth.

Residential addresses actively receiving mail

2000 total: 188,251

2008 June: 146,174

2009 June: 154,592

School enrolment

2003-2004: 186,901

Feb 2005: 108,573

Feb 2009: 140,822

Hospitals open

Pre-Katrina: 100% (39 hospitals)

Jul 2006: 56% (22 hospitals)

Jun 2009: 69% (27 hospitals)

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