Catastrophe Monitor » NEWS

IAEA Briefing on Fukushima Nuclear Accident

admin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 08:11:35 +0000

On Thursday, 2 June 2011, the IAEA provided the following information on the status of nuclear safety in Japan: Overall, the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains very serious. The IAEA receives information from various official sources in Japan through the Japanese national competent authority, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA). [...]

Hunger is spreading in the Horn of Africa

admin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 07:58:55 +0000

NEW YORK – hunger in the Horn of Africa is still expanding and will soon spread to a further six regions in Somalia, said Valerie Amos, head of humanitarian operations the United Nations. She said that the assistance is urgently needed by 12.4 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti, and explained that the [...]

Fukushima reactors will be stable by January

Fargo — Wed, 18 May 2011 13:22:53 +0000

Tepco sticks to timetable for ‘cold shutdown’, despite revelations plant suffered greater damaged than previously thought The firm at the centre of Japan’s worst nuclear accident insisted on Tuesday it would bring stricken reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant under control by January 2012, despite evidence that the complex is more seriously damaged than previously [...]

How nuclear power works

Fargo — Thu, 12 May 2011 06:33:37 +0000

Is nuclear power the answer to the energy crisis? Ian Sample explains how it works – and how we get the awful side-effects of bombs and waste Nuclear power The world’s first large-scale nuclear power plant opened at Calder Hall in Cumbria, England, in 1956 and produced electricity for 47 years. Nuclear power is generated [...]

Memphis on flood alert

Fargo — Tue, 10 May 2011 06:33:47 +0000

Police evacuate residents as Mississippi river spreads to six times its usual span, threatening the city’s blues district The city of Memphis, Tennesee has been put on alert for record flooding as the waters of the Mississippi river reached a historic peak. Police went door-to-door to evacuate people from low-lying neighbourhoods after forecasters said the river [...]

Hamaoka nuclear plant to shut down temporarily

Fargo — Mon, 09 May 2011 11:13:23 +0000

Hamaoka nuclear plant, which sits near a major fault line, to be made more resistant to earthquakes and tsunamis The operator of Japan’s “most dangerous” nuclear plant has said it will comply with a government request to temporarily close the facility and carry out work to improve its ability to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis. Chubu [...]

Amazon drought caused huge CO2 emissions

Fargo — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:33:43 +0000

Experts fear it might happen regularly, turning forest into warming source RIO DE JANEIRO — A widespread drought in the Amazon rain forest last year was worse than the “once-in-a-century” dry spell in 2005 and may have a bigger impact on global warming than the United States does in a year, British and Brazilian scientists said on [...]

Loss of Antarctic ice ‘tongue’ could affect ocean circulation

Fargo — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:09:31 +0000

Experts test waters to see if salinity levels have been altered The loss of a massive “tongue” of glacial ice on the Antarctic coast — a natural protective barrier nearly four times the size of New York City — could affect ocean circulation patterns and be a harbinger of changes to come from global warming, [...]

Fossils Revealed Earliest Anthropoids Colonized Africa

Fargo — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:39:44 +0000

A new discovery described by a team of international scientists, including Carnegie Museum of Natural History paleontologist Christopher Beard, suggests that anthropoids -- the primate group that includes humans, apes, and monkeys -- "colonized" Africa, rather than originally evolving in Africa as has been widely accepted.

Link Found Between Electrons Trapped in Space and Upper Atmosphere’s Diffuse Aurora

Fargo — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:06:44 +0000

New research has settled decades of scientific debate about a puzzling aspect of space weather. Researchers from the University of California (UCLA) and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have found the final link between electrons trapped in space and the glow of light from the upper atmosphere known as the diffuse aurora.