SIO15/ERTH15: Natural Disasters

EARTH WATCH 2004

Earthwatches

November 24, 2004

November 17, 2004

November 10, 2004

November 03, 2004

October 27, 2004

October 20, 2004

October 13, 2004

October 06, 2004

September 29, 2004v

June 09, 2004

May 19, 2004

April 28, 2004

March 03, 2004

February 25, 2004

January 28, 2004

January 21, 2004

November 05, 2003

October 08, 2003

November 24 (for week ending Nov. 19)

• Earthquakes:
  • A powerful magnitude 7.5 temblor and several aftershocks on the eastern Indonesian island of Alor killed 27 people and left most of the island's population of 160,000 too afraid to return home. Thousands of homes and several bridges were wrecked.
  • Four people in western Colombia were injured by a magnitude 6.7 quake that seriously damaged several buildings in Puerto Pizarro and surrounding villages.
  • Earth movements also were felt in Tehran (3.1) and western Iran (3.6), southern sumatra (4.8), Japan's Hollaido Island (5.4), parts of Southern California (4.2) and the Oregon-California border (3.6).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • The outer fringes of typhoon Muifa brought flash flooding and mudslides to the Philippine island of Catanduanes as the storm stalled for two days just offshore. Muifa was predicted to intensify and pass directly over the most densly populated areas of Luzon late in the week, including metropolitan Manila. The strom could eventually threaten Vietnam after passing over the South China Sea.
• ''Uninhabitable'' Australia: A leading Australian scientist predicted that parts of populated Australia will become uninhabitable during this century unless urgent action is taken to reduce the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. ''I think we'll see people climate-proofing their homes. At least, that's what wealthy people will be able to do'', said Australia Institute executive director Clive Hamilton at a meeting of the International Climate Change Taskforce. New South Wales (NSW) state premier and taskforce member Bob Carr said a study by the NSW Greenhouse Office predicts that more frequent heat waves and drought could make staying in parts of his state akin to ''living in an oven''.
• Volcanoes:
  • The lava dome at Mount St. Helens grew by several yards as gas emissions from the Washington State volcano increase. Volcanologists kept the mountain's alert level at two, meaning an eruption could occur without warning.
  • Japan's Mount Asama produced another in a series of eruptions that brought ash falling downwind of the mountain, which straddles Gunma and Nagano prefectures.
• Bolivian drought: United Nations humanitarian agencies made an urgent appeal for $1.8 million to bring emergency aid to 180,000 people in Bolivia's drought-stricken El Chaco region until the next potential harvest in May 2005. A recent assessment by U.N. agencies found that in some areas, 93% of the staple maize crop has been lost.
• Intercontinental storm: A violent autumn storm left a trail of death and damage across a wide area from North Africa to Eastern Europe. the storm's strong winds caused buildings to collapse and ships to sink in northern Algeria before they raked southern areas of Italy. Long stretches of Croatian roadway were blocked by heavy snow due to the storm encountering colder air from Russia. More than 100,000 people were left without power in Romania after the intensifying snowstorm hit that country.
• Extreme temperatures: -54 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 113 deg F in Dampier, Australia

November 17 (for week ending Nov. 12)
• Earthquakes:
  • A series of powerful aftershocks that rattled a central Japanese region still recovering from last month's earthquake slightly injured 13 people. The shaking sent frightenend children running out of their classroom on the day that class schedules had returned to normal following the initial quake disaster.
  • Earth movements were also felt in Japan's Izu Peninsula (5.4) and Hokkaido Island (5.9), Taiwan (6.7), southern Iran (4.2), south-central Alaska (4.9), western Alabama (4.2) and along the Colorado-Utah border (4.1).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • An area of disturbed weather off India's western coast formed briefly into Tropical Cyclone 04A. The storm dissipated over the Arabian Sea, but its remnants brought a few showers to Yemen and Oman.
  • Tropical Cyclone Arola passed over the open waters of the Indian Ocean and was a threat to shipping between the Maldives and Madagascar late in the week./li>
• Greenhouse warnings: Several scientific reports published on global warming during the week point to catastrophic environmental consequences within the next few decades as the Arctic ice shelf melts and life on Earth adjusts to a changing climate. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a four-year study by 300 scientists in eight Arctic-bordering nations, warned that increased temperatures due to the release of gases into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels will cause a substantial melting of the polar ice cap. Accelerated warming is also likely to cause forests to spread into the tundra regions and be followed by a northward migration of wildlife, possibly spreading disseases into the Arctic environment. Widespread extinctions of many delicate species, even in areas far to the south, also are likely, according to other reports. Some of the suggested economic benefits of the changing climate may be the opening of the northern oceans to shipping, and the discovery of new petroleum reserves in areas now far too remote to drill due to polar ice.
• Solar Storm: A massive distrubance on the sun hurled a stream of charged particles into Earth's atmosphere, producing a vivid display of the aurora borealis that was seen as far south as arizona and Oklahoma. Scientists were watching subsequent explosions on the sun, and the resulting "coronal mass ejections", to determine if they might cause further aurora displays late in the week. University of Washington professor John Sahr told The Seattle Times that the solar storm had an intensity expected to occur only once or twice a year at this point in the solar cycle.
• El Nino lingers: Meteorologists at the U.S. agency NOAA predict that a moderate El Nino ocean warming event is likely to linger into March across the tropical Pacific. Resulting atmospheric shifts are expected to bring arid conditions to Indonesia and parts of northern and northeastern Australia into February 2005. Drought conditions also may develop over the Amazon Basin. While strong El Nino-induced storms do not appear likely for California, winter outlooks point to above-normal temperatures in the western U.S. and cooler conditions in the Southeast. Texas may receive above-normal rainfall.
• Extreme temperatures: -75 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 107 deg F in Oodnadatta, Australia

November 10 (for week ending Nov. 05)
• Earthquakes:
  • Western Japan was rocked by strong magnitude 5.2 aftershocks of earthquakes that killed at least 39 people in Niigata prefecture late last month. No additional damage or fatalities were reported from the latest shakings.
  • Earth movements also were felt northern parts of Vancouver Island (6.7), southern Greece (5.6), northern Pakistan (4.9), the Russian Far East (5.6) and the Indonesian island of Sulawesi (5.3).
• Antarctic hunger : A researcher from the British Antarctic Survey warned in the journal Nature that global warming and the resulting disappearance of sea ice is causing a food shortage that could threaten whales, seals and penguins around the frozen continent. Marine biologist Angus Atkinson said analysis of data from the last 40 winters shows the number of antarctic krill, a shrimp-like creature that is a major maritime food source in the region, has declined to only one-fifth the level of 1975. Krill feed on algae under the ice sheets that have extended outward from the Antarctic continent. But a gradual warming that has seen a rise of more than 4.5 deg F over the last 50 years has also caused the ice sheets to diminish. "We are already seeing some effects in certain penguin species at several sites in this area where krill are declining so much", Atkinson warned.
• Heat and storms : Northern and central parts of Italy baked in a stretch of record hot temperatures, which were accompanied by severe storms that swamped the lagoon city of Venice for more than a week. Rome started the month of November with the hottest temperatures for the date since records began almost 150 years ago.
• Flood or records : More than 10 inches of rain falling within 24 hours near Hawaii's famed Waikiki Beach unleashed a wave of floodwater 8 feet deep that rushed through the University of Hawaii's main research library. Flash flooding destroyed irreplaceable documents and even forced some students to break a window to escape. Several cars were carried downstream when Manoa Stream overflowed its banks, and a school and church that were due to serve as polling stations for the U.s. election also were damaged.
• Volcanoes :
  • A volcano beneath Iceland's largest glacier erupted with plumes of black ash that disrupted aviation across the North Atlantic and northern Europe. Volcanologists believe the eruption was caused by an expansion of a lake beneath the Vatnajokull glacier. "The water is under extreme pressure from the glacier. We believe it could open a part of the Grimsvotn Mountain, causing the release of some magma", said Oli Thor Arnasson at Iceland's Meteorological Office.
  • The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology raised the alert level at Taal Volcano, calling on visitors to the volcanic island to be vigilant in the wake of a marked increase in tremors. Taal is located in the middle of a caldera lake about 35 miles south of Manila.
• Extreme temperatures: -76 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 111 deg F in Podor, Senegal

November 03 (for week ending Oct. 29)
• Earthquakes:
  • A swarm of powerful (mag 6.8) quakes in northwestern Japan's Niigata prefecture killed at least 35 people and injured more than 3400 others. More than 100,000 people were evacuated into overcrowded emergency shelters and tents after three of the strongest quakes destroyed homes, buildings and roads.
  • Earth movements were also felt in southern Sumatra (5.6), southwestern Tibet (5.2), the Kazakhsta-China border region (5.4), the Ethiopia-Eritrea border region (5.5), eastern Romania (5.8), northern Colombia (4.6), the central coast of California (3.3) and Southern California (3.8).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Strong winds and torrential rains from Typhoon Nock-ten killed four people and disrupted transportation across much of Taiwan. Flying debris injured about 100 people. The Storm's eye passed just north of the capital, Taipei, before Nock-ten made a sharp turn toward the northeast and weakened.
  • Tropical Storm 02S formed northeast of Madagascar and was predicted to weaken before making landfall on the coast of Tanzania late in the week.
• Syrian blazes: A wildfire sparked in northwest Syria near the Turkish border blackened 5000 acres of forest and orchards, and destroyed several houses. The fires erupted north of the Mediterranean prot city of Latakia, then spread rapidly inland. One man was killed when his home was burned, and dozens of other people were hospitalized for smoke inhalation. Acting on a request from Syria, the Turkish army dispatched three planes to help douse the blazes.
• Eruptions:
  • An erupting volcano on one of Papua New Guinea's (PNG) northern islands has polluted fresh water supplies and destroyed crops around four villages, forcing thousands of people to flee to safety. Mount Iabu, on the island of Manam, threw up fountains of lava and plumes of ash, which rained down on gardens and destroyed banana plantations. A spokeswoman for PNG Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare said most people were in church on sunday morning when the volcano erupted, which may have saved them from falling fist-sized rocks and hot ash. The last eruption of iabu in 1996 killed 13 people.
  • The U.S. Geological Survey said magma, pushing to the surface of Mount St. Helens at the rate of about a dump truck load per second, has caused the volcano's dome to grow to the size of a 35-story building within the last two weeks.
• Extreme temperatures: -87 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 110 deg F in Lingnere, Senegal

October 27 (for week ending Oct. 22)
• Earthquakes:
  • Approximately 20,000 houses in China's southwestern province of Yunnan were wrecked and 12 people were injured by a magnitude 5.0 quake that struck near the densely populated city of Baoshan.
  • Several people were injured and some buildings were damaged in Taiwan's Tao-yuan county when a magnitude 6.7 tremblor rocked the island.
  • Earth movements were also felt in eastern Japan (5.6), western Iran (4.7), northern Germany (4.5), central Chile (4.5), south Peru (5.5) and around Anchorage, Alaska (4.4).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Typhoon-weary Japan was struck by the deadliest storm in 25 years as Typhoon Tokage passed through almost the entire length of the country. At least 67 people were killed, and the storm produced widespread damage and transportation disruptions. Tokage, which means lizard in Japanese, was the 10th typhoon to hit Japan this year, breaking the 1990 record of six.
  • Typhoon Nock-Ten formed to the southeast of Guam and was taking aim at southern Japan late in the week./li>
• Andean glaciers shrink: Ecuador's mountain glaciers are melting at an alarming rate due to global warming, threatening the country's future water supplies, according to researchers. Ecuador's Meteorology Institute and France's scientific reserach institute IRD said that the towering Cotopaxi Volcano has lost 31% of its ice cover between 1976 and 1997, and others such as El Altar could lose all of their snow pack during the next 10 to 20 yeras. Ecuador's capital, Quito, depends on snow-covered mountains for 80% of its water supply.
• Eruptions: Far northern Indonesia's Soputan volcano spewed smoke and caused hot ash and lava to fall over North Sulawesi. A similar eruption last year on Aug. 18 also caused no injuries or significant damage.
• Deep oil: A report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that vast untapped reserves of oil and methane may exist 20 miles or deeper below the Earth's surface, providing fuel reserves for the distant future if technology can be developed to find and extract them. U.S. scientists duplicated the conditions that exist far beneath the continents and found that a combination of pressure and temperature can cause chemical reactions that produce hydrocarbons. Dr. Russell Hemley, from the Carnegie Institution in Washington, said: "these experiments point to the possibility of an inorganic source of hydrocarbons at great depth in the Earth - that is, hydrocarbons that come from simple reactions between water and rock.
• Extreme temperatures: -88 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 112 deg F in Nullagine, W. Australia

October 20 (for week ending Oct. 15)
• Earthquakes:
  • A magnitude 6.4 tremblor knocked out power in parts of the Philippines' Luzon province but caused no significant damage.
  • Earth movements were also felt in northern Japan (mag 5.1), Bali (5.1), China's Xingiang region 5.1), northern and southern Iran (5.6, 5.2), Greece's Dodecanes Islands (5.6), Nicaragua's Pacific coast (7.1) and parts of Southern California (3.1).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • The most powerful typhoon to strike eastern japan in a decade left six people dead and the transportation networks in metropolitan Tokyo paralyzed for a day. Ma-On passed almost directly over the Japanese capital, causing widespread flooding and numerous mudslides.
  • Developing typhoon Tokage drenched Guam and Saipan before aiming toward eastern Japan late in the week.
  • Tropical storm Matthew swamped part of Louisiana with up to a foot of rainfall and a storm-surge tide. Bermuda was drenched with heavy rainfall from tropical storm Nicole, which later lost force off Nova Scotia.
  • Hurricane Lester formed off Mexico's Pacific coast.
• Bengal storm: A powerful cyclonic storm from the Bay of Bengal triggered tornadoes and flooding that killed at least 184 people and caused widespread destruction in northern Bangladesh and eastern India's Assam state. Twisters wrecked mire than 400 villages with powerful whirlwinds that left about 50,000 people homeless in Bangladesh. The storm also brought mudslides and flash flooding to an area of eastern India that has suffered massive devastation and misery from previous monsoon storms this season.
• Greenhouse gas surges: Climate experts are debating the significance of increased rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during 2002 and 2003, which may mean that global warming has begun to accelerate. For the first time on record, CO2 levels rose by more than two parts per million for two years running. The data was recorded at the summit of Mauna Loa in Hawaii by U.S. researcher Charles Keeling, who has collected it since 1958. He feels the consecutive rises could be an anomaly, or a sign of increasing climate change. Peter Cox of Britain's hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research told the BBC that the increase in carbon dioxide was not uniform across the globe, and he suspects something unusual happened in the Northern hemisphere. He suggested hot European summers and wildfires could have destroyed vegetation and increased the release of carbon from the soil.
• Heat and locusts: Metropolitan Sydney sweltered through its hottest October day on record as authorities battled early-season bushfires while stockpiling pesticides to fight a new generation of locusts hatched by the hot weather. Residents of Australia's largest city hit the beaches as the official temperature reached the record of 100.8 deg F. A ban on outdoor burning was imposed after 25 bushfires were sparked in several areas of new South Wales. State Primary Industries Minister Ian MacDonald said his department had received 2,000 reports of locust hatchings, and warned the insects would devastate crops if not killed before gathering into giant swarms.
• Fresh swarms:A new generation of desert locusts is on the move across northern and western Africa in what experts warn could be an even more destructive invasion than the one earlier this year. Swarms of the maturing insects invaded southwestern Libya near the Algerian border. Others gathered in southern Mauitania, the country worst hit by earlier swarms. Increased international aid has halped combat the worst locust plague in a decade. But chief United Nations humanitarian official Jan England warned: "If we lose the battle in the next five weeks, we will have a tenfold increase in the locust swarms, and they will go north."
• Extreme temperatures: -78 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 110 deg F in Dampier, W. Australia

October 13 (for week ending Oct. 08)
• Earthquakes:
  • A moderate magnitude 5.3 earthquake along Nicaragua's Pacific coast cracked a few walls and sent frightened residents into the streets. There were no reports of significant damage or injuries due to the shaking.
  • Earth movements were also felt in metropolitan Tokyo (mag 5.8), western Japan (4.8), New Zealand's North Island (4.7) and southern Iran (5.2).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Minimal Tropical Cyclone 03A left 163 fishermen missing after it made landfall on the Arabian Sea coast near the India-Pakistan border. The storm uprooted trees and tore the roofs off some houses before it dissipated over Pakistan.
  • Typhoon Ma-On churned the western Pacific to the southeast of Japan, while Tropical Storm Kay formed brieffly off Mexico.
• Volcanoes:
  • Eruptions of steam and ash within Washington state's Mount St. Helens subsided, allowing seismologists to lower the alert status for the rumbling volcano. Rising lava inside the mountain;s dome was punctuated by an explosion, which sent ash soaring 15,000 feet into the sky. An eruption in 1980 destroyed more than 200 homes and devastated hundreds of square miles of surrounding forest. The mountain remained dormant from that catastrophic event until late September.
  • The collapse of a new lava dome at Volcan del Fuego (Volcano of Fire) sent columns of smoke and ash soaring over western Mexico. A light dusting of ash coated nearby communities as streams of lava poured down the mountain's slopes.
• Overfishing: A scientific gathering in Kuala Lumpur warned that overfishing and lack of sustainable fishing policies are threatening global marine resources, with two-thirds of the world's fish stocks already in serious decline. A report delivered by the World Resources Institute said the main perpetrators of overfishing are large industrial fleets that target cod, tuna, swordfish and salmon.
• Glacial catastrophe: China's leading glaciologist warned that an 'ecological catastrophe' is looming in Tibet due to global warming, which will cause most of the glaciers in the region to melt by 2100 if the trend is not halted. Yao Tangdong made the stark prediction as the results of several surveys performed by scientists from China and the United States over a 40-month period were announced. The Sino-U.S. team told the China Daily it had discovered numerous ice islands at high elevations on the Tibetan Plateau that used to be connected by glaciers. 'Tibet's glaciers have been receding over the past four decades due to global warming, but the alarming development has picked up rapidly especially since the early 1990s', the paper said.
• Ozone hole update: New Zealand scientists announced that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is about 20% smaller in coverage this season. Atmospheric scientist Stephen Woods at the country's Antarctic base said his measurements confirm data from a NASA satellite that show the depleted layer of ozone has shrunk from last year's record size. Wood advised that the levels of stratospheric ozone above the frozen continent were still much lower than before the hole began forming in the early 1980s due to fluorocarbon chemical pollution.
• Extreme temperatures: -89 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 115 deg F in Yenbo, Saudi Arabia

October 06 (for week ending Oct. 01)
• Earthquakes:
  • Residents from Los Angeles to san Francisco were rocked by a magnitude 6.0 quake centered near where a dense array of seismological equipment had been placed to measure such an event.
  • Earth movements were also felt in Montana (mag. 3.7), northwestern Mexico (mag. 5.8), central Greece (mag. 4.7), Istanbul (mag. 4.5), southeastern Turkey (mag. 4.0), Tehran (mag. 4.1), northern India (mag. 3.0), Moldova and eastern Romania (mag. 4.8).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Hurricane Jeanne's high winds and torrential rains inflicted further misery on hurricane-weary Florida and other parts of the southeastern United States.
  • Hurricane Lisa remained a threat to shipping as it moved northward over the Atlantic.
  • Typhoon Meari unleashed mudslides that left nine people dead and 15 others missing after it became the fourth storm this season to drench the entire length of the Japanese archipelago.
• Volcanoes:
  • A swarm of rumblings from within Mount St. Helens raised frears that the volcano could be returning to life after wreaking havoc on the Pacific Northwest 24 years ago. Volcanologists determined that lava moving beneath the volcano's crater has increased the chance of a new explosion.
  • Japan's Mount Asama continued to produce minor eruptions that blanketed a nearby area northwest of Tokyo with ash. Activity has been ongoing since a Sept. 1 explosion.
• Earth's hummm...: The source of a mysterious low-frequency 'hum' emitted by the Earth has ben pinpointed, according to seismologists writing in the journal Nature. It has been known for years that the persistent noise - between 2 and 7 milihertz and well below the range of human hearing - is cuased by large emissions of energy at or near the Earth's surface. But University of California Berkeley experts Junkee Rhie and Barbara Romanowicz have determined that the hum originates mainly in the northern Pacific Ocean during the northern winter, and in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica during the southern winter. The believe storm energy released in deep ocean waves during each winter interacts with the seabed, creating vibrations that cause the hum.
• Extreme temperatures: -94 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 115 deg F in Yenbo, Saudi Arabia

September 29 (for week ending Sep. 24)
• Earthquakes:
  • seismologists were baffled by a magnitude 5.0 tremblor that shook the Baltic coast from the Russian outpost of Kaliningrad to neighboring Poland and Lithuania. The quake occurred in an area not known to be seismically active.
  • Earth movements were also felt in northern Spain (mag. 4.2), southern Iran's Fars province (mag. 3.7), northern Japan (mag. 5.0) and southeaster parts of Kentucky (mag. 3.7).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Hurricane Ivan's rampage across the eastern U.S. left at least 44 poeple dead and many communities still swamped days after it passed. In an unprecedented meteorological event, remnants of Ivan looped southward from off New England to cross Florida and regenerate into a tropical storm over the Gulf of Mexico.
  • Authorities in Haiti began digging mass graves for as many as 1700 victims of massive flooding that was unleashed by Tropical Storm Jeanne. Before strengthening into a hurricane, Jeanne also caused widespread flooding in Puerto Rico.
  • Hurricane Karl and Tropical Storm Lisa passed over the open waters of the mid-Atlantic.
  • Typhoon Meari was aiming for northern Taiwan and the Chinese mainland late in the week.
• Glacial Impact: Antarctica's glaciers, once contained by a floating ice shelf along the icy continent's coast, are now sliding into the sea at an alarming rate, causing concern that the trend could contribute to a rise in sea level. A joint NASA-University of Colorado team, writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, said their satellite observations indicate that glaciers once blocked by the massive Larsen B ice shelf began flowing into the sea up to eight times faster following its break-off. When the floating Larsen B shelf separated from Antarctica and broke into thousands of chunks in 2002, there was no discernable rise in the region's sea level. But the researchers noted immediate water level rises when ice from the continent's glaciers began entering the ocean.
• Warming decline: Britain's moth population is dwindling due to changing habitat caused by global warming, according to a report by England's Rothamsted agriculture research station. Each year since 1968, volunteers have systematically catalogued moths collected in light traps across the length and breadth of Britain. Analysis of the samples shows that two-thirds of the moth species have suffered noticeable declines over the past 35 years. "This is the third warning we've had this year. There have been other studies on butterflies and birds and grassland diversity as well, and they're all showing that something really serious is going on." said lead researcher Dr. Kelvin Conrad.
• Oceanic Din: The United Kingdom's Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) launched a campaign to tackle increasing noise pollution, which it says may be seriously harming marine life. The group warns that undersea noise from oil and gas exploration, and the use of low-frequency military sonars, is causing hearing loss in marine mammals - sometimes killing them. It also believes the man-made din is interfering with the creature's ability to communicate with each other. The International Whaling Commission warned in July that low-frequency marine noise levels had increased in the Northern Hemisphere by two orders of magnitude over the last 60 years. Mar Simmonds of the WDCS told BBC News: "It's a problem that doesn't have much noticeable effect on us, unlike chemical pollution, and we can't see it either."
• Extreme temperatures: -101 deg F in Vostok, Antarctica; 112 deg F in Dongola, Sudan

June 09, 2004 (for week ending Jun. 04)
• Earthquakes:
  • A powerful [magnitude 6.2] temblor centered near northern Iran's Caspian Sea coast killed at least 35 people as it wrecked buildings in more than 80 villages.
    update 2024 - find the Wikipedia link to the 2004 Baladeh earthquake.
  • A series of strong earthquakes [,the largest being of magnitude 5.8,] damaged about 45 houses on Russia's Far Eastern island of Sakhalin.
  • [With a magnitude of 5.2,] Korea's strongest earthquake on record swayed buildings but did no significant damage.
  • Earth movements also were felt in western Iran [magnitude 4.4], northeastern Japan [5.5], two points in southern Greece [4.0 and 4.9], Argentina's Mendoza province [5.5], the Haiti-Dominican Republic border [4.4], the northern Sierra Nevada [4.5] and south-central Alaska [5.0].
• Deadly Cyclone: Late reports from Burma said that at least 220 people were killed and 14,000 others were left homeless when Cyclone 02B roared ashore from the Bay of Bengal in May 20.
  The storm was the worst to strike the area since 1968 and caused tidal surges and flooding in four towns in southwestern Rakhine state, near the border with Bangladesh.
  update 2024 - find the Wikipedia link to the 2004 Myanmar cyclone.
• Eruptions:
  • Indonesia's Mount Abu continued a violent eruptive phase with fountains of lava and plumes of smoke soaring above the northwestern most province of North Sulawesi. "We have already raised the status of danger from normal active to alert, and it looks like we may have to further raise the status by one rung soon," said Syamsurizal from the directorate of volcanology in the West Java city of Bandung.
  • Flows of lava from Hawaii's famed Kilauea Volcano reached the ocean for the first time since last year. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said that the interaction of water and lava has so far not been explosive. The flows from new vents are providing spectacular views for tourists on the Big Island.
• A Dying Sea: The Jordanian water minister warned that the Dead Sea could disappear within 50 years unless a canal to pump water from the Red Sea is constructed soon. Hazem Nasser urged water experts from Europe, the United Staes and Arab nations visiting the shores of the Dead Sea to campaign for the scheme once they returned home.
  "Most of the technical arrangements and reference terms have been completed" by Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which share the waters of the sea, the lowest point on Earth, Nasser said. The project's goal would be to replenish the highly salty sea, which has been dropping at a rate of 3 feet a year, and currently covers about one-third less area than it did in the 1960s.
  update - 2024: the proposed canal (and similar proposals) still await realization, while the Dead Sea continues to shrink. The area covered today is 605 sq km (235 sq mi), just a little over half of its extend in 1930 (1,050 sq km/410 sw mi).
  Find the Wikipedia link to the Dead Sea and the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance, a proposed project abandoned in 2021.
• Primary Polluters: An environmental report by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, established under NAFTA, announced that power generating plants are the largest single polluters of the air in North America, responsible for nearly half of all industrial air emissions during 2001.
  The report compared data submitted to U.S. and Canadian officials by 21m254 power plants, stating their releases of toxic chemicals, which include carcinogens and neurotoxins, to the air, land and water. "The sector generated 45 percent of the 755,502 tons of toxic air releases in 2001, with hydrochloric and sulfuric acids being the chemicals most commonly released from the burning of coal and oil," the report said.
• Australian Drought Fears: australian agriculture is threatened by the prospects that severe drought could return, causing a sharp decline in crop output during the next 12 months.
  A short break from the worst dry spell in the country's history last year allowed for a bumper winter grain crop in some regions. But recent long-range outlooks indicate that a shift toward a drought pattern may be under way. Authorities in Sydney have tightened water restrictions as reservoir levels for Australia's largest city approached record lows.
• Rare Birds: Bermuda has called on an Australian wildlife officer to help rescue one of the world's rated birds - the Bermuda petrel.
  It was thought to have become extinct 300 years ago until 18 breeding pairs were found on a rocky islet off the Atlantic island in the early 1950s. The exiled survivors have since managed to endure hurricanes and attacks from larger birds as their numbers increased to 70 breeding pairs.
  new South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service officer Nick Carlile will attempt to transplant some of the chicks to nearby Nonsuch Island, which has been groomed to provide an excellent breeding site for the new arrivals. No other species of seabird is known to have survived and expanded from the small number of petrels that existed in the 1950s. The relocation effort is hoped to bring the birds back from near extinction.
• Extreme temperatures: -109 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 120 deg F in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

May 19, 2004 (for week ending May 14)
• Earthquakes:
  • Southwestern Pakistan's city of Quetta was rocked by a late-night [magnitude 4.7] temblor that injured at least 32 people, mainly due to them jumping out of windows in panic. No significant damage was reported from the shaking.
  • Four schools and several other buildings were severely damaged by a magnitude 4.8 quake near the southerns Iranian town of Kazeroun, in Far province.
  • Earth movements also were felt in western China's Qinghai province [magnitude 5.9], Taiwan [5.7], new Zealand's North island [4.5], a wide area from northern Sumatra to Singapore [6.1], Java [5.5], central Alabama [3.3] and near Santa Barbara in California [4.6].
• Indian Ocean Cyclone: Authorities in India's southernmost state of Kerala reported that high winds and torrential rain from passing Cyclone 01A left about 50 fishermen missing and more than 2,000 coastal villagers homeless.
  The storm later passed off India's western coast and lost force in the Arabian Sea late in the week. Tropical cyclones in this region are not given proper names by the Indian meteorological department.
• Congo Eruption: Hundreds of people in the far eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were forced to flee their homes as Nyamuragira Volcano began to erupt.
  Access to the area by DRC officials and relief workers is difficult due to the presence of several battalions of Rwandan rebels - including former militiamen believe responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
  Volcanologist Celestin Kasereka in Goma told reporters that the rebels are hiding out in forests at the foot of the volcano, but he had received reports that the mountain was producing a significant eruption.
• Whale Hunt: Norway opened its annual whale hunt under renewed accusations that the whaling fleet can sometimes inflict a horribly painful death on its catch.
  The world's only country to permit commercial whaling allows the industry to use harpoons tipped with grenades, meant to deliver a fatal shock to the marine mammals' nervous system on impact. "Despite its destructive power, the harpoon often fails to kill outright and some whales take over an hour to die," the World Society for the Protection of Animals reported recently.
  Rune Froevik, spokesman of pro-whaling organization High North Alliance, countered to accusations with: "A whale does not realize what is going on. It does not know it is being hunted and when harpooned, will die instantly."
• Andes Drought: The worst drought to affect Peru's Andes region in a decade has forced officials in Lima to impose water restrictions for the capital's 8 million people.
  Tap water supplies are being suspended for 12 hours each day from late afternoon until just before dawn due to scant rainfall over the mountain watersheds. The measures are likely to remain in place until next December when rains are anticipated to return.
• Desert Swarms: Algerian officials reported that 13 out of the country's 48 provinces are currently infested with swarms of desert locusts, which are spreading rapidly.
  The said humid and windy conditions have also allowed the insects to move northward from sub-Saharan Africa into Morocco, Tunisia and Libya. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has made an urgent appeal to donor nations to provide $17 million in aid to help protect the region's crops from the growing swarms.
  Locusts are now threatening crops across a wide swath of North Africa from Morocco to the Red Sea. Breeding swarms in Saudi Arabia are feared to be a threat to areas as far north as Jordan later this year.
• Stranded Polar Bears: The fate of a stranded polar bear and her two cubs on an island in the Arctic is causing a public outcry in Norway for officials to rescue the animals.
  The bears became trapped on Bjoernoeya, or "Bear Island" in Norwegian, after they were caught off guard by a rapid ice melt that left them with no way off. Officials have said they will not launch a rescue attempt by sea or air, and believe the bears will only be able to survive for a short period on dead birds and eggs. "In nature, most animals after all generally don't survive their first year," said Sissel Aarvik, the environmental adviser for the Svalbard archipelago.
  Norwegian environmental organizations have also said they believe nature should take its course. But an Internet survey indicated that more than 80 percent of those responding wanted the government to take measures to save the bears.
• Extreme temperatures: -97 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 121 deg F in Kharga, Egypt

April 28, 2004 (for week ending Apr. 23)
• Earthquakes:
  • Bali and several neighboring islands were rattled by a series of earthquakes [, the largest having a magnitude of 5.0,] that produced cracks in the walls of houses and other buildings. No injuries were reported.
  • Earth movements also were felt in southern Sumatra [magnitude 6.4], New Zealand's Bey of Plenty region [5.2], western and southwestern Japan [4.8 and 4.9], Taiwan [5.1] and two points in southern iran [3.8 and 5.0].
• Kamchatka Eruption: Activity within far eastern Russia's Karymsky Volcano has increased dramatically since early April, producing as many as 400 minor eruptions each day.
  Volcanologists dispatched to the mountain on the Kamchatka Peninsula reported that the eruptions were occurring at intervals of between 1.5 and 15 minutes, and were sometimes accompanied by volcanic "bombs" on the slopes of the volcano.
  Karymsky does not pose a threat to any populated areas, but can produce ash plumes that could endanger aircraft flying over the regions. Its last significant eruptions was in 1996, when molten lava also shot up from the bed of the nearby lake, killing all marine life in it.
• Ocean Current Changes: Satellite observations since the 1970s indicate there has been a detectable weakening of a key North Atlantic current - a trend that could indicate significant changes for the region's climate.
  A NASA team, led by Sirpa Hakkinen of the Goddard Space Flight Center, found that the counterclockwise current between Ireland and Labrador, known as the sub polar gyre, had diminished since 1978. It is an extension of the warm Gulf Stream, which helps moderate Europe's winters.
  "If this trend continues, it could indicate reorganization of the ocean climate system, perhaps with changes in the whole climate system, but we need another good five to 10 years to say something like that is happening," said Hakkinen.
• Tornado Season: One of the slowest starts of the spring tornado seasons in the Midwestern United States was ended by a string of 50 tornadoes that pounded parts of Indiana and Illinois in a single day, killing eight people.
  The bodies of the victims were pulled from the rubble of a tavern in Utica, IL, where town residents had gathered to seek shelter before becoming trapped when the upper floors of the century-old building caved in on them.
• Siberian Ice Floods: Ice jams on rivers in Siberia's Kemerovo region produced deadly flooding that killed 18 people and submerged more than 1,500 homes.
  Oleg Berestevich of the Khakassia Republic's emergencies ministry told ITAR-TASS that nine people died when an accumulation of ice caused the Abakan River to inundate 450 houses in the town of Abaz. Russian aircraft were dispatched to bomb the ice jams in an attempt to prevent the floods from spreading farther.
• Bangladesh Tempest: Ongoing severe weather across Bangladesh produced a string of violent storms that killed 12 people and injured 150 others. The 12 fatalities resulted from lightning strikes, flying debris or collapsing buildings as the storms uprooted trees and wicked homes in the west of the country.
  The seasonal storms came in the wake of a tornado that killed at least 65 people and injured 1,000 others during the previous week. Such severe weather occurs most frequently in Bangladesh during April and May.
• Seiche: A sudden windstorm blowing across South Florida caused the large but shallow Lake Okeechobee to slosh frighteningly back and forth for several hours.
  At the height of the storm, the round body of water was lopsided 17.6 feet above sea level on its northern shores but only about 12 feet above sea level at the south. Such teetering of lakes, known as seiche, occur in the Great Lakes as a result of windstorms. But the phenomenon had never been measured to such an extent before on Lake Okeechobee.
• Dolphin Sorrow: The Croatian newspaper Jutarnji reported that a dolphin appeared to beach itself to die after its offspring perished at the same spot a few days earlier.
  fishermen initially found a dead baby striped dolphin near the southern Adriatic town of Ploce. A couple of days later, an older striped dolphin was discovered trying to beach itself at the same locations. The fishermen attempted to guide the marine mammal away from the shore, but it kept coming back.
  Experts from Croatia's Oceanographic institute were called in, captured the dolphin and released it in the open sea. but the following day, the same female dolphin was found dead, floating near the site where the infant had earlier beached itself.
• Extreme temperatures: -89 deg F at Vostok, Antarctica; 114 deg F in Tahoua, Niger

March 03, 2004 (for week ending Feb. 27)
• Earthquakes:
  • Hospitals across northeastern Morocco reported more than 650 people died in a magnitude 6.5 quake that wrecked the region.
    update 2024 - find the Wikipedia link to the Al Hoceima earthquake. The quake rendered 15,000 people homeless.
  • A magnitude 4.7 temblor in the African nation of Burundi killed three people as it destroyed a dozen homes.
  • Earth movements also were felt in Taiwan [magnitude 5.3], China's Qinghai province [5.0], the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border region [5.0], northern Iran [4.4], Sumatra [6.0], Nicaragua [5.0], Macedonia [4.4] and eastern France [5.1].
• South Seas Cyclone: Powerful Cyclone Ivy lashed the entire length of the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, where high winds damaged an unspecified number of homes as torrential rains caused extensive crop losses.
  the cyclone was predicted to pass just east of New Caledonia late in the week.
  update 2024 - Find the Wikipedia link to this Category 4 cyclone here.
• Bird Flu Outbreaks:
  • The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reported that Asia's deadly bird flu is still not under control despite the slaughter of 100 million birds.
    World health Organization animal disease expert Jeffrey Gilbert warned that the apparent role of migratory birds in spreading bird flu across Asia is likely to make the disease impossible to eliminate for many years.
  • Animal health authorities in Texas ordered a quarantine and the destruction of 6,600 chickens on a farm following confirmations that bird flu had emerged there.
    The strain discovered east of San Antonio was said to pose little threat to the human population, and is unrelated to a low-pathogenic bird flu strain that recently infected flocks in Delaware, New jersey and Pennsylvania.
• White Juan: Residents of Canada's Maritime Provinces nicknamed a bitter winter storm "White Juan" after it dumped the heaviest snowfall in recorded history over the region.
  It was a reference to last September's Hurricane Juan, which left Nova Scotia in a shambles. Halifax was forced to shut down for two days so snow-removal equipment could clear the roadways without having to dodge pedestrians and skidding vehicles.
• Locust Warning: The threat of locusts spreading from several African nations into the Middle East this spring prompted the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to warn of potential crop damage from Jordan to western Iran.
  The agency advised that unusually heavy rains last summer had allowed the destructive insects to breed into swarms. FAO said a fresh locust outbreak was in progress along Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast.
• Insecticide Ban: France suspended the sale of insecticides containing the chemical Fipronil, which is allegedly killing bees across the country.
  Farmers may use existing supplies through the spring. The ban was imposed after beekeepers told the government their hives were dying off in high numbers near where the chemical was being used. A judge in southwest France started legal action against a subsidiary of chemical giant Bayer AG, saying it sold an insecticide containing Fipronil without proper approval.
• Permafrost Warming: The melting of permafrost in Sweden's sub-Arctic region due to global warming is believed to be releasing vast quantities of the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere.
  A research team, led by the GeoBiosphere Science Center at Lund University, said its research shows the part of the soil that thaws during summer has become deeper since 1970, and the permafrost has disappeared entirely in some locations.
  "This has led to significant changes in the vegetations and to a subsequent increase in emission of the greenhouse gas methane," the team announced. They added that methane is 25 times more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide and often is overlooked in the discussion of greenhouse gases.
• Plastic Pollution: The German magazine GEO published a report that said plastic trash has created an environmental hazard that stretches across the Pacific from California to Hawaii, resulting in more plastic than plankton on the water's surface.
  the March issue quotes marine biologist Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation as saying: "Most plastic floats near the sea surface where some is mistaken for food by birds and fishes."
  The masses of plastic find their way into the Pacific from the western United States and Canada after storms flush the debris downstream and ultimately into the ocean. Maritime observers have witnessed areas of floating plastic that stretch as far as the eye can see in the central Pacific.
• Extreme temperatures: -64 deg F at Oimyakon, Siberia; 113 deg F in Walgett, New South Wales, Australia

February 25, 2004 (for week ending Feb. 20)
• Earthquakes:
  • A strong [magnitude 5.7] temblor in northwest Pakistan killed 21 people and damaged more than 500 houses in Northwest Frontier Province. Most of the casualties were in Batgram, where the shaking unleashed a landslide that hit a bus, killing 13.
  • Five Indonesians died and several homes collapsed when a powerful [magnitude 5.6] earthquake hit the western Padangpanjang region of Sumatra.
  • Earth movements also were felt in northern and southern parts of California [magnitudes 4.4 and 4.4], northern Algeria [3.7], southern Iran [4.3 and 4.3] and Taiwan [4.8].
• Transpollution: Hemispheric winds are transporting vast quantities of air pollution across the Pacific from the highly industrialized cities of China into North America, according to a report delivered at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  Daniel Jaffe, an environmental specialist from the University of Washington, told the gathering that pollutants carried by the jet stream can reach the West Coast of the United States within days, dramatically affecting air quality there. The most striking effects of this "trans pollution" are the increases in levels of ozone and fine particulate matter, which are well over the limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Jaffe said.
• Deep Sea Warnings: A group of more than 1,000 scientists made an urgent appeal for a moratorium on deep-sea bottom trawling, saying the practice could be destroying cold-water corals rich in life before they can be studied.
  The statement was released simultaneously at meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in the United States and the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity on Malaysia. It said researchers were just beginning to understand the importance of these ecosystems as human activities, particularly the dragging of heavy chains, nets and steel plates across the ocean floor in search of seafood, were causing unprecedented damage.
• Australian Oven: late summertime temperatures above 115 degrees Fahrenheit in South Australia's agricultural areas literally cooked fruit on the trees and vegetable crops on the ground.
  Fresh Stone Fruit Growers Association chairman Dino Cerrachi said that up to 30 percent of some stone fruit crops will be lost due to heat damage. Adelaide registered its hottest day in 65 years with a reading of 112 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Mediterranean Winter: A broad stretch of the Mediterranean was lashed by fierce winds and heavy snowfall that caused chaos from Greece and Turkey to the Middle East.
  Athens International Airport was shut down for 36 hours due to the wintry conditions, and Greek officials were forced to use armored vehicles to free hundreds of motorists trapped on the motorways.
  More than 2 feet of snowfall in parts of Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Territories brought down power lines and stranded motorists. In Jerusalem, heavy snow caused an old wall to collapse on the ramp leading to the Temple Mount, a site holy to Jews and Muslims.
• Bird Flu Update: The human death toll from Asian outbreaks of bird flu rose to at least 20 as Thailand announced its sixth fatality.
  The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 80 million chickens and other fowl have been culled from Indonesia to China in an attempt to contain the disease. It added that the outbreak is not likely to be eradicated soon.
  The spread of the virus in recent weeks has caused billions of dollars in losses to the region's economy, and prompted many to significantly modify their diets. Vietnam warned that a large-scale switch to seafood in that country could threaten the coastal ecology. Many Cambodians are cutting chicken out of their diets and filling their plates with the traditional delicacy of rat meat.
• Sicilian Sparks: Experts from across Italy were dispatched to a small Sicilian village to determine what was causing a string of mysterious fires that charred dozens of objects, including furniture, vacuum cleaners and other electrical appliances.
  the phenomenon continued to occur in Cannot di Caronia even after the Italian utility Unel cut off the community's power supply, convincing some villagers that satanic forces were at play.
  Tullio Martella, head of Italy's Civil Protection Authorities, told reporters the fires were determined to be "natural electrostatic phenomena." He added that underground "geo-thermic" energy beneath the Mediterranean island was rising to the surface, releasing a high electrical charge capable of setting objects on fire.
• Extreme temperatures: -64 deg F at Oimyakon, Siberia; 116 deg F in Oodnaddatta, S.Australia

January 28, 2004 (for week ending Jan. 23)
• Earthquakes:
  • A magnitude 4.9 quake centered along Nicaragua's Pacific coast sparked panic nearly 90 miles away in suburban Managua. No significant damage was reported from the shaking.
  • Earth movements also were felt in southern China's Guangdong province (magnitude 3.8], Indonesia's eastern province of papua [6.0], southern Iran [4.8], eastern Romania [4.1], southern Morocco [4.8], New Hampshire [2.2] and interior parts of the San Francisco Bay Area [3.5].
• Hawaiian Lava Flow: Increased activity within Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano produced a new flow of lava from the main crater that may soon reach the sea. It has been six months since lava has poured onto the southern shore of the Big Island, and the stream is producing a colorful spectacle for Hawaii tourists.
  Hawaii Volcanoes national Park spokeswoman Mardie Lane said it is the first new lava vent to open since May 2002, although a low-level eruption has continued since then.
• Fighting Extinction: The endangered population of mountain gorillas in central Africa's Virunga Highlands has gone through a surprising increase in numbers in recent years, according to conservationists meeting in Paris.
  Experts from the Dian Fossey Gorilla fund International announced that a 17 percent upturn in numbers since 1989 has brought the population of one of the world's rarest species of mammals to approximately 380.
  the gorillas' habitat is along the borders of Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, a region that has suffered from warfare, debris from volcanic eruptions and human refugees encroaching into the forests. An additional 320 gorillas from a genetic sub-species of the Virunga gorillas were said to be living in Uganda's Bwindi National Park.
  update 2024 - find the Wikipedia link to mountain gorillas here. As of 2018, and despite multiple challenges, the population of both groups of eastern mountain gorillas increase to 1,000.
• Drought Emergency: South African President Thabo Mbeki declared disaster areas in six of the country's nine provinces as widespread drought continued to wither vast tracts of maize, the country's staple food.
  Ongoing drought conditions also have brought reservoirs to critically low levels, threatening public water supplies.
• Australian Inundations: Midsummer storms in Australia's eastern states of New South Wales and Queensland produced high winds and flash floods that caused rivers to burst their banks and triggered numerous blackouts in rural areas.
  Rescue helicopters were dispatched to make food drops to people isolated by the inundations. Officials said that the latest in a series of storms had still not alleviated all the effects of last year's record drought.
• Brazilian Storms: Strong summertime storms raging across several cities in southeastern Brazil killed more than 23 people in the states of Mines Gerais and Rio de Janeiro.
  Mudslides swept away rickety shacks of slum dwellers in at least three neighborhoods of northern Rio de Janeiro, where one man was rescued from a swollen stream after clinging to a tree for five hours. Officials in Mines Gerais said more than 7,000 people had lost their homes due to days of heavy downpours. January and February are the peak of Brazil's rainy season.
• Bird Flu Update: The World health Organization (WHO) warned that the U.N. agency is concerned about the rapid spread of bird flu across Asia, and restated its concern that the disease could mutate into something far more lethal than SARS.
  Bird flu has killed at least five people in Vietnam and has forced extensive poultry culls from China to Japan. the massive killing of chickens has caused extreme hardship for farmers in poorer nations, such as Vietnam, and is coinciding with the Chinese lunar new year - a holiday usually celebrated with a feast that includes chicken. The WHO's regional office in Manila says a prototype vaccine to protect humans from avian influenza could be ready for clinical testing shortly.
• Alcohol-related Fatalities: Four wild elephants that ran amok after becoming intoxicated on bootleg rice beer in northeastern India's Meghalaya state were electrocuted when they brought down high-voltage power lines during a drunken rampage.
  Forestry officials said the herd stormed out of the forest and into villages after smelling the fermenting brew, then drank from open casks of beer in a remote area of Meghalaya's West Garo Hills district. The officials said the death toll among the elephant raiders could have been higher, but about 20 pachyderms moved away from the site, "sensing danger" just before the power lines came crashing down.
• Extreme temperatures: -67 deg F at Oimyakon, Siberia; 117 deg F in Mackay, Queensland, Australia

January 21, 2004 (for week ending Jan. 16)
• Earthquakes:
  • Northern Algeria was rocked by a magnitude 5.7 temblor that injured at least 300 people and caused widespread panic eat of the capital Algiers.
    More than 2000 people died in a massive quake in the same region less than eight months ago.
    update 2024 - NB: The May 21, 2003 earthquake had a magnitude of 6.8 and maximum Mercalli Intensity of X. Here us the Wikipedia link on the Boumerdès earthquake. A similar, magnitude 7.1 earthquake in Algeria in 1980 claimed over 2600 lives.
  • Earth movements also were felt in southwestern and southern Iran [magnitude 5.0], Taiwan [5.0], northern Japan [3.9], the Yukon Territory [4.3], Washington state [3.3] and a wide area of central and southwestern Mexico [5.4].
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Cyclone Heta's rampage across the Pacific nation of Niue on Jan. 5 could force the world's smallest independent state to return to New Zealand rule.
    High winds and pounding wave from Niue's worst cyclone in living memory leveled most buildings and destroyed crops on which the fragile economy depends. Niue's leaders believe the population could fall from around 1500 to 500 due to the disaster, making continued self-government unviable. "The morale of people is really quite low," said Terry Coe, a member of the Niuean Parliament. "People have already started leaving."
    update 2024 - NB: Find the Wikipedia link to the cyclone here
    find the Wikipedia link on Niue here. As of 2024, Niue remained a self-governing island country in free association with New Zealand. In 2022, it had a population of 1,689. Niue's area spans 101 sq mi (261.5 sq km) making it one of the world's largest coral islands. By comparison, Easter Island (or Rapa Nui) in the southeast Pacific Ocean spans an area of only 62.3 sq mi (164 sq km).
• Eruptions:
  • Guatemala's Fuego Volcano spewed fountains of lava during a series of explosions near the colonial city of Antigua. Authorities placed the area on a state of alert for a more powerful eruption.
    update 2024 - Wikipedia link to Fuego volcano. By end of May 2024, the volcano recorded 11 significant eruptions where the most recent distinguished itself by producing lightning strikes.
  • One of the world's most active volcanoes emitted a few stream of lava over an unpopulated portion of the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean. Piton de la Fournaise last erupted on Dec. 7 and continued to produce lava flows until Christmas Day.
    update 2024 - Wikipedia link to Piton de la Fournaise.
• Bird Flu Warning: The emergence of bird flu across parts of Asia has international health experts concerned that a mutated form of the virus could cause a pandemic even more dangerous than SARS.
  The deadly virus - highly contagious among chickens - is believed to have spread to several humans in Vietnam through contact with infected chickens, but has not been observed spreading from human to human.
  Vietnam joined with Japan to kill more than 1 million poultry in an effort to wipe out the disease before it becomes even more widespread. Health officials are concerned that if a person becomes infected with bird flu and another version of influenza at the same time, the viruses could "swap genes" and mutate into an even more contagious disease that could spread rapidly through international travel.
• Turtle Poaching: Mexican media reported that poachers killed 111 protected sea turtles off the Pacific Coast resort city of Acapulco during early January, leaving only the shells and a few other body parts to float onto the beach. Environmentalists speculated the marine reptiles were killed by a gang that sold the turtle meat on the black market.
• Tsunami: China's official Xinhua news agency reported that three people were killed and six were reported missing after a tsunami suddenly swept away two tractors carrying 21 people along the coast of Jiangsu province.
  The powerful wave came ashore near the town of Changsha, hitting the tractors, which were transporting peasants to the coast to collect seaweed. there was no word on which undersea seismic movement was responsible for the tsunami.
• Winter's Worst: A blast of Arctic air blew across eastern Canada before dipping into the northeastern United States, where bone-chilling temperatures froze waterways and caused a public health crisis.
  The U.S. National Weather Service described the minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit conditions as "life threatening," while officials stepped up efforts to shelter the homeless from the bitter cold.
• Elephant Dentures: News that a Thai veterinarian successfully fitted a toothless, 80-year-old elephant with a new set of choppers has cause a stampede of potential new customers, and the procedure has given the animal a new lease on life.
  Somsak Jitniyom, an animal husbandry official in Kanchanaburi province, said that heavy sedation and two mahouts, or elephant handlers, were necessary to help him insert the false teeth that will prevent the aging pachyderm from dying of starvation. Only a few minutes after the world's first elephant tooth implant, the animal was able to eat bananas and grass as though she had natural teeth, Jitniyom said. He added that since the operation, several members of the Thai Elephant Association have asked him to make dentures for their domesticated elephants.
• Extreme temperatures: -66 deg F at Oimyakon, Siberia; 112 deg F in Dampier, W. Australia

November 05 2003 (for week ending Oct. 31)
• Earthquakes:
  • Two powerful earthquakes in northwest China's Gansu province (magnitude 6.1) killed 9 people and injured 43 others, mainly inside collapsed buildings. The official Xinhua news agency said that more than 10,800 residential units had been destroyed by the shaking, and at least 3000 head of livestock were killed or injured.
  • Earth movements also were felt in Japan's Izu island chain (4.0), southern Sumatra (5.2), northern and central parts of the Philippines (5.0, 4.0), New Zealand's South Island (4.3), Papua New Guinea's New Britain Island (6.1) and the high desert area of Southern California (3.1).
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Tropical storm 23W produced heavy rain and storm-force winds as it moved ashore on India's Bay of Bengal coast near the Orissa-Andhra Pradesh border. There were no reports of significant damage before the storm lost force.
  • Typhoon Parma made a large loop over the open waters of the western Pacific. <\li>
  • High surf from passing typhoon Ketsana pounded Eastern Japan.
• Firestorms: The worst wildfires in California's history killed at least 20 people and destroyed thousands of homes from the Mexican border to the rough terrain north of Los Angeles. The early estimate of damage caused by the unprecedented firestorms was placed at $2 billion. More than 100,000 people fled their homes as the walls of fire advanced, but no accurate figures were available due to the rapid and erratic expansion of the fires. Some of the blazes were believed to have been intentionally set, and were made more destructive by drought and insect damage in the region's forests. Several wildfires also destroyed homes on Mexico's neighboring Baja California peninsula.
• Solar Storm: One of the most powerful geomagnetic storms ever observed on Earth disrupted communications, threatened power failures and forced Japanese technicians to deactivate a communications satellite when it became overloaded by the solar burst. Vivid aurora displays were seen in the nighttime skies from southern Australia to the southern United States. The geomagnetic storm was spawned by a spectacular eruption from a sunspot that sent a cloud of charged particles 13 times larger than Earth rushing toward the planet at more than 1 million mph. Due to the high level f radiation, the two crew members of the International Space Station were ordered to take shelter in the Zvezda service module, which offered a higher level of protection.
• Australian Tempest: severe spring storms lashing eastern Australia unleashed damaging hailstones around Sydney and produced a whirlwind that lifted a Queensland house, with its family still inside, then dropped it several yards away. Sydney residents raced to throw blankets over their cars in scenes reminiscent of the hailstorm that hit the city in 1999, causing an estimated $1 billion in damage. High winds in the wake of the severe thunderstorms carried dust from the outback to the east coast, where it grounded planes, knocked down power lines and fanned bushfires in southern Queensland.
• Sudanese Swarms: The fertile farmlands of central Sudan have been attacked by the worst invasion of grasshoppers in three decades, according to the Al-Rai Al-Amm newspaper in Khartoum. The insects were said to be threatening crops of peanuts, sorghum, wheat and cotton throughout Gezira, which has the richest farmland in the country. The paper said that dust left in the wake of the swarms had triggered an asthma outbreak that killed 5 people and sickened 600 others. Gezira health Minister Sadek al-Wakeel told the paper that aerial and manual spraying of insecticide would take at least two weeks to contain the infestation.
• Mile-a-minute vine: A non-native vine is threatening several islands of the South Pacific, where a botanical battle is underway to halt its rapid advance. Mikania micrantha, or "mile-a-minute vine", has entrenched itself in the forest canopies of the region, killing native plants and animals. The vine is believed to have arrived in the Palau Islands from Central or South America about 10 years ago. Palau, a chain of Micronesian islands between papua New Guinea and the Philippines, is a group of mainly uninhabited limestone islands covered in jungle. A massive volunteer effort was launched to eradicate the plant from the famed tourist destination before it becomes so widespread that it will be impossible to remove. The eradication efforts were intensified because Mikania is about to bloom and experts wanted to prevent seeds from being spread by the wind.
• Extreme temperatures: -61 deg F at South Pole, Antarctica; 108 deg F in Kununurra, W. Australia

October 08 2003 (for week ending Oct. 05)
• Earthquakes:
  • Hundreds of people were injured on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido when the world's strongest earthquake in 2.5 years rocked the region.
    Japan's strict building codes appeared to have prevented any buildings from collapsing, but the magnitude 8.0 shaking ignited a fire at an oil refinery and triggered coastal tsunami.
  • A swarm of powerful quakes near Russia's border with China and Mongolia wrecked approximately 900 homes in the remote Altai Republic. [The largest quake had a magnitude of 7.5.]
  • Earth movements also were felt on New Zealand's South Island [magnitudes 5.8 and 4.9], eastern Nepal; [4.5] and two areas of Iran [4.0, 3.9].
• Tropical cyclones:
  • Hurricane Juan, the most powerful to lash Nova Scotia in decades, killed two people and knocked out power to thousands in Atlantic Canada.
    Hundreds of residents were evacuated from low-lying areas, while others were warned to sty indoors due the the large number of downed power lines.
  • Hurricane Kate passed over the open waters of the mid-Atlantic.
  • Tropical cyclone Abaimba formed over the western Indian Ocean. <\li>
  • High surf from passing typhoon Koppu pounded Japan's eastern shores.
  • Tropical storm Larry formed over the Bay of Campeche, threatening Mexico's Gulf Coast late in the week.
• Eruptive Illnesses: Violent eruptions of Indonesia's Mount Lewotobi since Aug. 31 have triggered respiratory distress and skin diseases among many residents in the area.
  A nurse at the Hokeng Jaya clinic said that health complications resulting from the sulfur and volcanic dust spewed by the volcano have affected more than 565 villagers in East Nusa Tenggara.
• Limbless Lizard: An extremely rare limbless lizard was sighted in the eastern Indian state of Orissa for the first time in 87 years.
  The Barkudia skink, or Barkudia insularism, was found in a brackish lagoon on Badakuda Island, according to the United News of India. The reptile has not been seen since it was discovered in 1917, although there have been a few unconfirmed sightings.
  The lizard is said to look like a giant earthworm but is still considered a reptile. Scientists had thought it had become extinct, but Ajit Pattnaik, chief executive of Chalk Development Authority, said that the four lizards sighted all appeared to be healthy. Pattnaik added it seemed to be a nocturnal creature, feeding on a variety of insects.
• Ukrainian Outbreak: The sudden outbreak of a severe respiratory illness in a Ukrainian town has prompted schools there to cancel classes, and caused widespread protests against military exercises, which locals fear triggered the health crisis.
  Nineteen children have been hospitalized with the mysterious illness that caused coughing and extreme difficulty in breathing. Virtually all of Verblian's school-age children have come down with some symptoms of the disease since Ukranian and Italian troops began live-fire exercises in the area.
  The defense ministry denied any connection between the training activity and the outbreak. Medical personnel have been unable to identify the illness, but said lab tests did not detect the standard range of flu or any other known communicable diseases.
• Orissa Fireball: A terrifying fireball rattled windows and illuminated the sky above eastern India's Orissa state before breaking apart and raining down on a populated area.
  Five people were treated for injuries from falling debris, while several others were treated for temporary blindness or for having fallen unconscious after witnessing the celestial spectacle.
  Officials in Mayurbhanj said that a 13-pound "stonelike object" had been found in a rice field after the fireball streaked across the area. Geologists dispatched to the scene were collecting debris samples for analysis.
• Olympic Cull: More than 3,000 stray dogs the 2004 Olympic hist city of Athens are said to have been killed in an effort to clean up the city before the games begin.
  "The dogs have been killed, poisoned, burnt and dumped in garbage bins in various areas around the city," said Marianna Polyhroniadou, president of the Initiative Committee of Citizens, an animal rights group. Officials announced in June that the dogs would be rounded up, neutered and returned to their neighborhoods. But the animal rights group says that city authorities and Games organizers have decided to get rid of the strays instead.
  Athens 2004 Olympic Organizing Committee representative Serafim Kotrotsos said the accusations are not true.
• Extreme temperatures: -90 deg F at South Pole, Antarctica; 115 deg F in Mecca, Saudi Arabia