Climate change in worlds major cites

The most populous cities on earthquake fault lines include Mexico City, New York, Mumbai, Delhi, Shanghai, Kolkata, Jakarta and Tokyo, according to the U.N.'s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.Many people also live in parts of urban areas vulnerable to landslides and floods, which are anticipated to occur more often as a result of climate change, Wahlstrom said, also warning of rising risks from "silent events" like droughts.Of the 373 disasters recorded last year, 22 were in China, 16 were in India and 14 were in the Philippines.The storms, earthquakes, heatwaves and cold snaps affected 207 million people and killed 296,800, according to the data, which does not incorporate an increase of Haiti's death toll announced earlier this month by Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.The global toll estimates that 55,736 people died from a summer heatwave in Russia which led to crop failures and helped drive up food prices.It also says 2,968 people were killed in an April earthquake in China and 1,985 died from the Pakistani floods.The 2009 economic price tag of $34.9 billion was unusually low because of the lack of a major weather or climate event in the period, which nonetheless saw floods and typhoons in Asia and an earthquake in Indonesia.A major earthquake in China in 2008 caused $86 billion in damage, bringing that year's economic toll to approximately $200 billion. In 2005, the hurricanes that struck the southern United States drove up the global disaster toll to nearly $250 billion.

Beiging earthquake

The death toll in China's major earthquake by 4820 to 60,560 as of noon today, according to the Information Office of the State Council. And injured 352,290 people and 26,221 missing in the quake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale hit the southwestern Sichuan Province on May 12 was affected by a total of 45.5 million people in the quake, were evacuated nearly 14.4 million quake-affected people, according to the office. He said 27 aftershocks measuring magnitude 5 above, and four above magnitude 6, and as of Monday noon, 178 aftershocks were monitored power above 4 on the Richter scale struck in Sichuan, and among them, in the office. Sources and medical treatment of victims of the earthquake, nearly 290,000. Has been in the hospital a total of 75,086 injured victims after the earthquake. Among them, 40,644 have been discharged from hospitals 0.23864 are still in the hospital and transferred to other hospitals out of 4274 of Sichuan for treatment. And reached the domestic and foreign donations for earthquake survivors reached 26.1 billion yuan in cash and goods, up 1.5 billion yuan from the previous day. Of the total, transferred 3.68 billion yuan for disaster railway area.The whole Baoji - Chengdu, were damaged by the earthquake, the key road between the north and south in the west of China, linking Chengdu with Baoji city in neighboring Shaanxi Province, to open the Saturday after the passage of 283 hours of closure, allowing batch transport of disaster relief goods to Sichuan. Train carrying relief supplies are urgently needed tents and medicines passed through the railway tunnel No. 109 at 9:53 on Saturday morning, where a freight train of 40 vehicles off the tracks and was trapped, paralyzing the railway in the May 12 earthquake. Electricity was restored partially in 16 counties in Sichuan by Saturday noon, but the blackout was still two hardest hit counties (Beichuan and Lixian) out. Resumed services of telecommunications in all quake regions, except for Hongguang Town, Qingchuan. Hongguang residents were evacuated because of fears of possible further geological disasters.

new zealand earth quake kermadec islands"series of earthquake and aftershocks"

The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck near New Zealand's Kermadec Islands. There are no reports of damage or risk of tsunami from the quake.According to the USGS, the quake struck at 21:17:00 UTC on Saturday, which is 9:17 a.m. Sunday morning local time. The epicenter of the quake was 12 miles below the mostly uninhabited islands, which are approximately 620 miles east of New Zealand's capital city of Auckland.A series of earthquakes and aftershocks have shaken New Zealand in the months following a magnitude 6.3 quake that devastated the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 181 people.Meanwhile, a magnitude 3.6 quake rolled across the San Francisco Bay Area at 7:05 p.m. local time on Saturday. Emergency officials said there were no reports of serious damage or injury.The USGS National Earthquake Information Center received scores of quake reports from people in the Bay Area.Also on Saturday, scientists from the Icelandic Meteorological Office confirmed that an eruption began in the Grímsvötn volcano at approximately 17:30 UTC.The eruption produced minor seismic activity in the region and an the eruption plume that had risen to an altitude of over 65,000 ft. a short time later. Radio evangelist Harold Camping had predicted that 'Rapture' would begin on Saturday, May 21, 2011 with an earthquake in New Zealand.Followers of the 89-year-old retired civil engineer spent months warning the world of the apocalypse, some giving away earthly belongings or draining their savings accounts. But the May 21 doomsday deadline has passed and many of Camping's followers are wondering why they're still here.Keith Bauer and other believers waited outside the Oakland headquarters of Harold Camping's Family Radio International. Bauer drove his family from Maryland to California to await the May 21 Rapture.Bauer says he was somewhat skeptical but made the trip because of his belief in God. "It's God who leads you, not Harold Camping".

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE TSUNAMI IS VERY POWERFULL........

The magnitude-8.9 quake struck at 2:46 p.m. local time and was the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s. It ranked as the fifth-largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and was nearly 8,000 times stronger than one that devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month, scientists said.The quake shook dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of coast and tall buildings swayed in Tokyo, hundreds of miles from the epicenter. Prime Minister Naoto Kan was attending a parliamentary session at the time.Large fishing boats and other vessels rode the high waves ashore, slamming against overpasses or scraping under them and snapping power lines along the way. A fleet of partially submerged cars bobbed in the water. Ships anchored in ports crashed against each other.The tsunami roared over embankments, washing anything in its path inland before reversing direction and carrying the cars, homes and other debris out to sea. Flames shot from some of the homes, apparently from burst gas pipes.
Waves of muddy waters flowed over farms near Sendai, carrying buildings, some of them ablaze. Drivers attempted to flee. The tarmac at Sendai's airport was inundated with thick, muddy debris that included cars, trucks, buses and even light planes.Highways to the worst-hit coastal areas buckled. Telephone lines snapped. Train service was suspended in northeastern Japan and in Tokyo, which normally serves 10 million people a day. Untold numbers of people were stranded in stations or roaming the streets. Tokyo's Narita airport was closed indefinitely.Police said 200-300 bodies were found in Sendai, although the official casualty toll was 185 killed, 741 missing and 948 injured. A ship with 80 dock workers was swept away from a shipyard in Miyagi. All on the ship was believed to be safe, although the vessel had sprung a leak and was taking on some water, Japan's coast guard said. Officials declared the first-ever state of emergency at a Japanese nuclear power plant and ordered evacuations after the earthquake knocked out power to a cooling system at the Fukushima Daiichi facility near the city of Onahama, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. They said radiation levels inside the facility had surged to 1,000 times more than normal. Some radiation had seeped outside the plant, the nuclear safety agency said early Saturday, prompting calls for more evacuations of the area. Some 3,000 people have already been urged to leave their homes.The group watched homes and vehicles carried away in the wave and found their hotel mostly destroyed when they reached it. A large fire erupted at the Cosmo oil refinery in the city of Ichihara and burned out of control with 100-foot (30-meter) flames whipping into the sky. Also in Miyagi prefecture, a fire broke out in a turbine building of a nuclear power plant, but it was later extinguished, said Tohoku Electric Power Co.Japanese automakers Toyota, Nissan and Honda halted production at some assembly plants in areas hit by the quake. One worker was killed and more than 30 injured after being crushed by a collapsing wall at a Honda Motor Co. research facility in northeastern Tochigi prefecture, the company said. Jesse Johnson, a native of Nevada who lives in Chiba, north of Tokyo, was eating at a sushi restaurant with his wife when the quake hit. Tokyo was brought to a near standstill. Tens of thousands of people were stranded with the rail network down, and the streets were jammed with cars, buses and trucks trying to get out of the city. The city set up 33 shelters in city hall, on university campuses and in government offices, but many planned to spend the night at 24-hour cafes, hotels and offices. Jefferies International Ltd., a global investment banking group, estimated overall losses of about $10 billion. The tsunami hit Hawaii before dawn Friday, with most damage coming on the Big Island. The waves covered beachfront roads and rushed into hotels. One house was picked up and carried out to sea. Low-lying areas in Maui were flooded by 7-foot waves. On the U.S. mainland, marinas and harbors in California and Oregon bore the brunt of the damage, estimated by authorities to be in the millions of dollars. Boats crashed into each other in marines and some vessels were washed out to sea. Rescue crews were searching for a man who was swept away in northern California while taking pictures. Two people with him tried to rescue him, although they were able to return to shore. Thousands fled homes in Indonesia after officials warned of a tsunami up to 6 feet (2 meters) high, but waves of only 4 inches (10 centimeters) were measured. No big waves came to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, either. Islands across the South Pacific were hit by bigger than normal waves, but no major damage was reported. Surges up to 26 inches (66 centimeters) high were reported in American Samoa, Nauru, Saipan and at the far northern tip of New Zealand. The quake struck at a depth of six miles (10 kilometers), about 80 miles (125 kilometers) off Japan's east coast, the USGS said. The area is 240 miles (380 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. Several quakes hit the same region in recent days, including one measured at magnitude 7.3 on Wednesday that caused no damage. Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 in Kanto that killed 143,000 people in 1923, according to USGS. A 7.2-magnitude quake in Kobe killed 6,400 people in 1995. Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire"  an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 countries. A magnitude-8.8 temblor that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.

Tokyo japan nuclear plant

TOKYO: The operator of the crippled nuclear power plant leaking radiation in northern Japan announced a plan Sunday that would bring the crisis under control within six to nine months and allow evacuated residents to return to their homes.The phased road map for ending the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, announced by Tokyo Electric Power Co. chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata at a news conference, includes plans to cover the damaged reactor buildings to contain the radiation and eventually remove the nuclear fuel.Frustrations have been mounting over TEPCO’s failure to resolve the nuclear crisis more than a month after a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11, knocking out power and cooling systems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex.
In the first three months of the plan, the company hopes to steadily reduce the level of leaking radiation, Katsumata said. Three to six months after that, it hopes to get the release of radioactive materials under control.
”We would like to see evacuees return to their homes as early as possible,” Katsumata said.
The company is focusing on cooling the reactors and spent fuel pools, decontaminating water that has been contaminated by radiation, mitigating the release of radiation into the atmosphere and soil, and measuring and reducing the amount of radiation affecting the evacuation area, he said.TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto said that in addition to covering the reactor buildings, the company will also work with authorities to decontaminate areas affected by the radiation.In a show of support for a staunch American ally, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed admiration and sympathy for the Japanese as she visited Tokyo on Sunday.
”We pledge our steadfast support for you and your future recovery. We are very confident that Japan will demonstrate the resilience that we have seen during this crisis in the months ahead,” Clinton told reporters after meeting with Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto.

tokyo:nuclear power plant leaking

TOKYO: The operator of the crippled nuclear power plant leaking radiation in northern Japan announced a plan Sunday that would bring the crisis under control within six to nine months and allow evacuated residents to return to their homes.The phased road map for ending the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, announced by Tokyo Electric Power Co. chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata at a news conference, includes plans to cover the damaged reactor buildings to contain the radiation and eventually remove the nuclear fuel.Frustrations have been mounting over TEPCO’s failure to resolve the nuclear crisis more than a month after a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11, knocking out power and cooling systems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex.
In the first three months of the plan, the company hopes to steadily reduce the level of leaking radiation, Katsumata said. Three to six months after that, it hopes to get the release of radioactive materials under control.
”We would like to see evacuees return to their homes as early as possible,” Katsumata said.
The company is focusing on cooling the reactors and spent fuel pools, decontaminating water that has been contaminated by radiation, mitigating the release of radiation into the atmosphere and soil, and measuring and reducing the amount of radiation affecting the evacuation area, he said.TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto said that in addition to covering the reactor buildings, the company will also work with authorities to decontaminate areas affected by the radiation.In a show of support for a staunch American ally, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed admiration and sympathy for the Japanese as she visited Tokyo on Sunday.
”We pledge our steadfast support for you and your future recovery. We are very confident that Japan will demonstrate the resilience that we have seen during this crisis in the months ahead,” Clinton told reporters after meeting with Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto.

jakarta:worlds biggest nuclear plant

The skeleton of what will soon be one of the world’s biggest nuclear plants is slowly taking shape along China’s southeastern coast right on the doorstep of Hong Kong’s bustling metropolis.Three other facilities nearby are up and running or under construction.Like Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant they lie within a few hundred miles (kilometers) of the type of fault known to unleash the largest tsunami spawning earthquakes.Called subduction zones, these happen when one tectonic plate is lodged beneath another. And because the so-called Manila Trench hasn’t been the source of a huge quake in at least 440 years, some experts say tremendous stresses are building, increasing the chances of a major rupture.Should that happen, the four plants in southern China, and a fifth perched on Taiwan’s southern tip, could be in the path of a towering wave like the one that struck Fukushima.But China, Taiwan, India and several other countries frantically building coastal facilities have made little use of new science to determine whether these areas are safe. At least 32 plants in operation or under construction in Asia are at risk of one day being hit by a tsunami, nuclear experts and geologists warn.And even when nations have conducted appropriate seismic hazard assessments, in many cases they have not shared the findings with the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, leaving experts frustrated and in the dark.In assessing the tsunami risks to nuclear power stations, scientists focus on their proximity to subduction faults, volcanoes and areas frequently hit by underwater landslides all of which can trigger seismic waves. Because giant tsunamis recur, they also look at historic and scientific records, going back up to 4,000 years if possibleThe greatest threat comes from the subduction faults crisscrossing the globe, some far from the minds of policymakers, nuclear industry officials and the public because it has been so long since they exploded.In places where tectonic plates that form these faults are ”coupled,” or stuck together, the stresses are the biggest, especially if centuries have passed without a major energy releasing earthquake.When the strain eventually forces one plate to pop up or dive under the other, the resulting temblor can spawn mammoth waves like the one that struck off Japan’s northeast coast on March 11, triggering the nuclear crisis that has carried on for more than a month.While there is some ”coupling” at the Manila Trench, there is debate about just how much. Scientists say more research needs to be done to determine if pressure is building and along which segments.A computerized simulation by Yuen’s students shows a magnitude-9.0 quake along the Manila Trench sending waves racing along the South China Sea, before slamming Taiwan’s southern shore 15 minutes later. The tsunami reaches China’s southeast coast in around two hours. It also strikes Hong Kong, which sits just 30 miles from the nearest nuclear plant close enough to see increased radiation levels if a plant were to be damaged by a Fukushima-like event.
Scientists paint a worst-case scenario in which waves 15 to 24 feet high (5 to 8 meters) could strike the plants in China and Taiwan.Science has come a long way since the first nuclear plant was built in the 1950s.By carbon dating the ash, pollen or other organic material attached to tsunami sand deposits swept inland with the giant walls of water, geologists can determine to the decade, and sometimes even the year, when the wave hit and how big it was when it roared ashore.
That’s important because some tsunamis only strike once a millennium.