2010 Disaster Calendar [January]

U.S., the world, stake the future on high-energy strategies. Energy models’ simulations show all such strategies ending in collapse. EDRO

2010: Year One of Human-Enhanced Disasters

• FEWW Amendment to Murphy’s Law: If more things can go wrong they will go wrong about now!

• In the next few years, YOU or someone close to you will likely have experienced a man-made, or human-enhanced ‘natural disaster.’

• “About 99.98 percent of human effort goes to debilitate the ecosystems. In other words, for every single step taken to restore the natural life support services, humans take 6,400 steps in the opposite direction, destroying the planet’s ability to maintain life.” —EDRO

FEWW Global Disaster Forecast:

In line with its concept of ‘Shrinking World,’ and based on simulation of FEWW EarthModel and EDRO Energy Models, Fire-Earth Moderators believe at least one disaster could strike somewhere on the planet each day, throughout 2010. The outlook for 2011 and beyond …

2010 Disaster Calendar

January 2010

[Note: This listing is by no means exhaustive.]

• Day One:
  • Mudslides in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro state
  • Seven counties in Alabama and Florida have been declared disaster areas after latest floods
  • “Three Montana counties were declared primary natural disaster areas and 10 Montana counties were declared contiguous counties due to combined effects of drought, severe storms, excessive heat, hailstorms, excessive moisture at harvest, and weather related insect damage.“
  • Forty homes and 3,000 hectares of land were destroyed as the fire tore through the town of Toodyay, north-east of Perth, Australia. Livestock was also killed and injured in the blaze
• Day Two: Brazil death toll from floods, mudslides rises to 64
• Day Three:
  • Australia Flooding: Two regions in NSW declared “natural disaster areas” after days of heavy rain and flooding which forced at least 1,200 people to flee their homes.
• Day Four:
  • Tajikistan EQ – 5.5Mw earthquake which struck Tajikistan on Saturday has destroyed more than 1,000 houses.
  • China diesel spill – Yellow River Contaminated by Diesel Leak
• Day Five:
  • Solomon Isles – Tsunami Destroyed or Damaged Several Villages
  • Northern India – At least 125 people were killed as a cold front  swept Northern India, with Uttar Pradesh being the hardest hit region.
  • Kenya Deadly Deluge Wreaks Havoc in Kenya.  At least 30,000 people urgently need relief assistance due to the ongoing floods, and an estimated 70,000 people are at risk as the rains are expected to continue until the end of January 2010.
• Day Six: Europe. Cold weather kills more than 100 people, so far.
• Day Seven: Tanzania. Tanzania Floods Affect 25,000 People
• Day Eight:
   
  • Poland. The death toll from Poland’s big freeze reaches 122.
  • Switzerland. Avalanches kill at least 22 people in the Swiss Alps.
• Day Nine:
  • Albania. The Albanian government has declared a ‘state of civil emergency,’ appealing for international assistance, after floods in Shkodra and Lezha in the northwest of the country forced about 3700 people to evacuate. They have asked for rescue boats and helicopters; water pumps and generators; fuel; food; and medicine for the flood refugees. [Source: OCHA]
    
  • Guatemala. The situation in the “dry corridor” of Guatemala bordering Honduras and Salvador has become critical. The region is suffering from a severe drought caused by the El Nino phenomenon. Central America, especially Guatemala, has been particularly hard hit by El Nino this season. Food availability in the region has become perilous over the past few months as the drought has led to a loss of 70% of the harvest in certain parts of the country. [Source: ECHO]
• Day Ten:
  • Indonesia. Hundreds of villages and tens of thousands of homes have been inundated throughout Indonesia.  In Riau province floods have inundated at least 13,236 houses in four districts after local rivers overflowed … The floods submerged 5,661 homes in Indragiri Hulu, 3,552 in Pelalawan, 2,950 in Kampar, and 1,050 in Rokan Hulu districts. … 2,089 houses in Tebo District, Jambi province, 1,723 houses in five villages in Serai Serumpun sub district … as well as hundreds of fish pounds and many hectares of cropland… “As many as 56 villages in nine subdistricts in Indragiri Hulu district were the worst hit as the flood waters there reached heights of up to two meters,” Head of the Riau Social Affairs Agency Raja Lukman Mat said.
  • East Java, Indonesia. A massive flood has inundated at least five districts in Pasuruan Regency, East Java, leaving three people dead and one other missing.  According to the regency’s head for social security, health and public welfare, the floods have “submerged 5,713 houses, 1,022 hectares of paddy fields and 125 ponds. The flood also swept away two bridges at the Oro-oro Ombokulon village of Rembang district. By Sunday [today,] the floods had submerged houses in Pohjentrek, Kraton, Pandaan, Rembang and Bangil districts, the official said.
• Day Eleven:
  • Germany. The district of Ostvorpommern on Germany’s Baltic coast declared a state of emergency, Reuters reported the local authorities as saying. “Levees in parts of the neighboring state of Schleswig-Holstein showed cracks on Sunday, threatening low-lying areas with floods, police said. Coastal towns like Flensburg and Travemuende had suffered flooding by afternoon.”
    • More than 1,100 weather-related accidents were reported between Saturday and Sunday morning in Germany’s state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with one driver killed near the Dutch border and at least another 16 seriously injured in the state since Saturday.
      “In the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, snow caused more than 900 road accidents between Friday and midday on Sunday, seriously injuring 15 people and causing 4 million euros of damage, the regional interior ministry said.”
      Meanwhile, the British chemical firm Ineos diverted 12,000 tons of salt for use on British roads that had originally been earmarked for Germany, Reuters said.
  • Poland. Up to a quarter of a million households were left without power in Poland, where roofs were collapsing under 1.5 meters of snow. At least 152 people have now frozen to death in Poland, this winter, most of them in recent days.
• Day Twelve
  • Minnesota, USA. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has urged the Department of Agriculture to declare 18 counties as agricultural disaster areas. The governor is blaming repeated episodes of bad weather including  too much precipitation, deluge, near drought conditions and early frost.The governor wants the U.S. Agriculture Department declaration for counties stretching from the Canadian border to the Glenwood area. Pawlenty says the counties had several periods of bad weather last year, everything from too much rain to near drought conditions to an early frost.The list of disaster areas where farmers have lost more than a third of their crop to bad weather include the counties of [listed alphabetically] Aitkin, Becker, Beltrami, Carlton, Cass, Clearwater, Cook, Crow Wing, Hubbard, Itasca, Lake, Mahnomen, Pennington, Pope, Roseau, St. Louis, Wadena and Wilkin, AP reported.Crops destroyed by bad weather included [listed in the order of importance] corn, soybeans, sugar beets, barley, blueberries and sunflowers.
  • Florida, USA. Cold SW Florida Waters Kill Thousands of fish including cowfish, filefish, gag grouper, hardhead catfish, mojarra, mullet, snook and tarpon.
  • India. Death toll from the freeze in North India reaches 233.
  • Big Horn Basin, Wyoming, USA. U.S. Department of Agriculture Declared the Big Horn Basin counties of Hot Springs, Washakie, Fremont, Johnson, Sheridan, Park, Big Horn and Teton as primary natural disaster areas. Hundreds of farmers and ranchers lost crops including corn, wheat, sugar beets, dry beans and alfalfa as a result of freeze between Oct. 6 and Oct. 13, when the temperature storm plunged below zero and snow covered the Heart Mountain fields.
  • Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territory. More than a year after Israeli incursion into Gaza Strip, which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead and 5,300 wounded, Gazans aren’t allowed to rebuild their lives due to the Israeli blockade.
    • Israeli military forces destroyed or damaged more than 17,000 houses, leaving about 400,000 people without running water.
      Israelis  destroyed or damaged 50 U.N. facilities, 23 medical facilities, 1,500 factories and workshops, 20 mosques and 10 water and sewage pipes, as well as schools, universities and other institutions, a report said.
      “Many people in Gaza lost a child, a parent, another relative or a friend. Israel’s military operation left thousands of homes partly or totally destroyed. Whole neighbourhoods were turned into rubble. Schools, kindergartens, hospitals and fire and ambulance stations were [destroyed or] damaged by shelling [and aerial bombardment.]”  ICRC reported.
      “Restrictions on imports and exports of goods imposed since June 2007 have shut down 96% of industrial operations in Gaza, with the loss of about 70,000 jobs. ” More than 80 percent of Gazans live in abject poverty. Thousands of Gazans spend their second winter in tents, or out in the open near the ruins of their homes, which were destroyed by Israelis.
• Day Thirteen
  • Up to 20,000 people may have been killed or injured after a 7.3 earthquake and a dozen or so significant aftreshocks struck near the Haitian capital of Port-Au-Prince. More details as they emerge.
    • Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive says more than 100,000 people may have been killed as a result of Tuesday’s earthquake, though he did not explain how he had arrived at that figure. [As of January 19, 2010, there are still no authentic video image/pictorial evidence to substantiate the Haitian Prime Minister’s claim.]
• Day Fourteen – China Cold
  • Millions of Chinese have been affected by the extremely cold weather that has been gripping the north and east of the country, and causing many deaths.”The freezing weather has affected millions of people, with hundreds of people reported injured, and at least 8,600 evacuated in northwest China. The snow had also flattened and damaged at least 100,000 homes in Xinjiang.” The official news agency Xinhua reported.Both Coal and electricity are at critically short supply across the country. By Sunday the coal reserves for about 600  major power plants ‘were down to nine days supply, and more than 200 power plants saw their reserves falling to only seven days, said China’s National Power Dispatch and Communication Center.
  • Florida, USA. About 30 percent of Florida’s crops have been damaged or destroyed by the freezing weather.
    • “Meanwhile the farmers’ attempts to save their strawberries, citrus and other crops by spraying them with water all night caused such a dramatic drop in the underground aquifer that it resulted in at least 22 sinkholes opening up in Hillsborough County.”  TampaBayDotCom reported.
• Day Fifteen:
   
  • Seoul, South Korea. Seoul reported its second outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD). The first outbreak of FMD occurred last week at a dairy farm in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, 45 kilometers north of Seoul, Yonhap reported. So far about 3,000 animals across 30 farms have been culled.
  • HARARE,  Zimbabwe. The Agriculture Ministry has reported a fresh outbreak of the deadly livestock disease anthrax in several regions including Chegutu, Chinhoyi,  Kadoma and Karoi. However, the country’s Veterinary Services director, Stewart Hargreaves, said: “The situation is under control …”
    • “At least 278 animals have died as a result of livestock disease outbreaks that occurred in the last quarter of last year.” AllAfrica reported. The livestock died from several diseases including anthrax, black leg,  lumpy skin, rabies and tick-borne.
  • India, Behrampore, Murshidabad district, Khargram. More than 1,000 hens and ducks have died mysteriously in Khargram, India. The worst affected areas include Indrani, Kirtipur, Parulia, Jaipur and Margram.  A culling operations started in a 3-km radius of Nagar and Hazrabati villages Thursday evening.
• Day Sixteen:
  • South Africa, Eastern and Southern Cape. “A DEVASTATING drought has mired the Eastern and Southern Cape’s agricultural sector in one of its worst crises in living memory – one which farmers and analysts warn could soon result in massive job losses.”
  • Various Counties in Colorado, USA. Governor Bill Ritter has asked Department of Agriculture to declare Fremont County an agricultural disaster area. The county received freezing temperatures and damaging frost in October, destroying apple crops.
    • Other crops in Dolores, Mesa, Montezuma, Montrose and San Miguel counties have been damaged due to drought at levels that qualify for disaster designation, governor’s office said.
  • The Bogan and Lachlan local government areas, Australia. The two areas  have been declared an agricultural natural disaster area after December 27 flooding north-west of Condobolin affected more than 24,000ha, Minister for Primary Industries, Steve Whan, announced. “There were also unconfirmed stock losses, soil erosion and loss of stubble and groundcover, and damage to levy banks and dam banks.”
  • Florida, USA. After 13 straight days of freezing weather in Florida,  Gov. Charlie Crist has asked the federal government to declare the state  an agriculture disaster area, AP reported.
  • Korla city, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. The Ministry of Agriculture reported foot-and-mouth disease  Korla city in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, in northwestern China, the official news agency Xinua reported.
    • The outbreak was first reported on Dec. 30, 2009 in Xiniga township and confirmed last week by China’s National Foot-and-Mouth Disease Reference Laboratory.
  • Moravia, Czech Republic. The biggest snowfall in 17 years has left thousands of homes in Moravia without electricity as heavy snow blanketed most of the Czech Republic causing flight cancellations and transport chaos nationwide, with fatalities, Prague Post reported.
    • Prague has received a total of 40 centimeters of snow since Jan. 8 with temperatures dipping to minus 16 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit).
• Day Seventeen:
  • Yukon River, Alaska, USA. The US Department of Commerce has declared Alaska Yukon River a fisheries disaster area because of low Chinook salmon returns. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said Chinook salmon harvest in 2008 was nearly 90 percent below the 5-year average. In 2009 no commercial fishery was allowed because of poor returns. See also:  Chinook Salmon Fisheries Collapsing and  Collapsing Fisheries.
  • Pochen, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. As South Korea reports its third outbreak of  foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in little over a week, there are fears that FMD may have become an epidemic across the country. A total of 3,105 livestock have been culled so far.
  • Denmark. Danish Food and Veterinary Administration (DFVA), part of the country’s Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries have confirmed that about 950 out of 6,600 pigs from two Mid-Zealand pig farms, in Jystrup, Ringsted and Tølløse, Holbæk have tested positive for the  swine flu virus, and some of the animals have died.
  • Global Cases of FMD. A total of 67 outbreaks of FMD involving 3,249 cases have been reported in 9 countries: Angola, Botswana, China , Egypt, South Korea, Nigeria, Palestinian Auton. Territories, South Africa and Vietnam. More than 132,000 animals (cattle, goats, sheep, buffaloes, sheep/goats, and swine) are susceptible, Animal Health Information reported.
  • Scotland, UK. Flooding in parts of Scotland has led to landslides, causing major disruptions.
  • South and southeast Ireland.  “Flooding has resulted in the evacuation of a number of homes and the closure of roads and bridges in Co Wicklow.”  Several rivers in the region have burst their banks causing extensive flooding.
  • West and South Wales, UK. Amid severe weather warning  for heavy rain Melting snow, heavy rain and frozen ground have caused flooding in parts of Wales.
• Day Eighteen
  • State of Sabah, the island of Borneo, Malaysia. The flood intensity in the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah has increased prompting the authorities to evacuate  thousands of people. “In Kota Marudu district, northeast of here, heavy rain which had persisted from Thursday, forced an estimated 1,600 people to be evacuated,” local media reported. “About 30 villages have been cut off from road access because of the floods…”
    • “KOTA KINABALU: The number of flood evacuees in the state has nearly tripled from 850 to more than 2,600 as more districts reported being hit by flooding.” Malaysia Star reported.
      “In areas like Mukim Kalawat, more than 12ha of the padi fields have been flooded. The farmers are praying they can salvage about 40% of their harvest.
      “If the rain doesn’t stop, then all their crops will be wiped out. This is the second year in a row they are facing such a disaster,” State Assistant Minister of Community Development and Consumers Affairs Datuk Herbert Timbon Lagadan was reported as saying.
  • Xinjiang autonomous region, China. Report No1. Four people have reportedly died and more than 530,000 affected by the severe weather in Xinjiang, “where another cold front is expected to send the temperature plummeting to -42 C in some parts.” China Daily reported. “More than 100,000 houses have been flattened or damaged amid the heaviest snowstorms in a decade, and 15,200 livestock died in the autonomous region.”
    • Report No2. Snow storms and freezing temperatures in China’s western Xinjiang autonomous region have left about 300 casualties with up to 1000,000 people affected, CNN quoted the Xinhua news agency as reporting. The nature of the casualties were not specified. The report also said 16,000 houses had been destroyed. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/01/18/china.snow/
• Day Nineteen:
  • Jos, Nigeria. “Several thousand residents of Jos, in central Nigeria, are displaced after their homes burned in deadly sectarian clashes, according to residents and the local Red Cross.“
    “Local authorities have not confirmed the death toll from the 17 January violence but information IRIN obtained from hospital sources and residents put the number at 26, with 300 people injured.” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
  • Iowa, USA. Iowa’s Carroll, Crawford, Shelby, Audubon, Ida, Harrison and Pottawattamie counties have made local disaster declarations due to damage from ice and snow storms. Daily Times Herald reported.
  • Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China. Deadly freezing weather in Xinjiang has now affected up to 1.6 million people in NW China through property damage, supply shortages, power cuts, snow drifts, icy roads and travel chaos, a report said. People of Mongolia need emergency supplies including warm clothing, generators, heating devices and first aid kits, a government official said.
    • About a million people in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region have been affected by the extreme cold, and some 92,000 people have been evacuated, latest official figures suggest, China Daily reported.  Some 40,000 livestock have died, with estimated economic loses of 320 million yuan ($47 million), according to the regional government. Villagers have been evacuated because their houses had collapsed or sustained damage by the snowstorms. Others have been evacuated due to the threat of snow avalanches, as well as lack of food and water supplies, said the Chinese government, China Daily reported.
      “Altay, the area worst hit by continuous blizzards since late December, has been reeling under the heaviest snow in 10 years. The area is expecting a dramatic drop in temperature [down to minus 42 C] and severe blizzards in its mountain area due to another cold wave.”
      Earlier this month, Beijing experienced its heaviest one-day snowfall in almost 6 decades.
• Day Twenty:
  • GAZA, Occupied Palestinian Territory. “Dozens of Palestinian homes were flooded in the Gaza Valley area on Monday evening, and hundreds of families were rendered homeless after Israel opened one of its dams that were overfilled with heavy rain water. ” IMEMC Organization reported.  “The Civil Defense teams said that this was a deliberate Israeli attempt to flood the area after the Israeli authorities opened the dams allowing the water through. … [some] 100 families were flooded, and that the Israeli aggression and war left hundreds of home vulnerable to any natural disaster.”
    “The past 12 months saw the most destructive assault in the recent history of the oPt. Operation Cast Lead, which Israel prosecuted in Gaza between 27 December 2008 and 17 January 2009, resulted in the death of almost 1,400 Palestinians, including 347 women and 209 children, and more than 5,000 injuries. It also brought massive destruction of public and private property, infrastructure and productive capacity, prompting the expansion of an already extensive humanitarian relief effort.” UNRWA said.
    ” The war was preceded by a crippling siege on Gaza’s borders, which is still in place. The blockade – imposed following Hamas’s takeover in mid-2007 – has had devastating consequences on all aspects of life for the 1.4 million residents of Gaza, over two-thirds of whom are refugees registered with UNRWA. The ban on exports and extensive curbs on imports have all but destroyed the formal private sector, leading to dramatic increases in poverty and unemployment levels and enabling the growth of an illegal ‘tunnel economy’ beneath the border with Egypt. The blockade extends to the materials and equipment needed to rebuild homes and infrastructure destroyed during the war, stymieing all meaningful reconstruction and recovery efforts and leaving the population increasingly vulnerable and overwhelmingly dependent on aid handouts. Barring a few exceptions, including small numbers of patients and students, this population remains trapped inside Gaza’s borders. The provision of basic services – health, education and public utilities – continues to be severely degraded by a lack of materials, equipment, funds and unresolved internal political strife, whilst fuel shortages render the supply of electricity and water sporadic.” Full Report (PDF).
• Day Twenty-One:
  • Sinai and southern Egypt. Heavy rains and flash floods have destroyed hundreds of homes, leaving at least 10 people dead and dozens missing in Sinai and southern Egypt. Most of the flood damage has occurred in in Abu Sweira, the northern Sinai town of El-Arish and the city of Aswan in southern Egypt.
    As the Egyptian authorities closed down 5 ports due to the unpredictable weather, the police clashed with the residents of the resort town of Sharm el-Sheik which was also devastated by floods using tear-gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds as they protested against lack of government aid, a local news outlet reported.
  • Hawaii, USA. Drought is damaging agriculture almost in the entire state of Hawaii. “The weekly crop report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Hawaii office for the week ending Jan. 17 found that 99 percent of the state is in a drought, with more than a third of the state in a severe drought with average rainfall well below typical levels.” Pacific Business News said.
  • Northeastern Syria. A severe drought that has lasted more than three years has destroyed agriculture in northeastern Syria. About  160 villages have been abandoned. Some 800,000 people have lost their livelihood. Hundreds of thousands have left their farmland and pitched tents near the big cities, looking for work, a United Nations report on the drought said.
  • The Middle East. After 3 years of drought, farmland has dried up across much of the Middle East in Iraq,  Lebanon and southeast Turkey.
• Day Twenty-Two
  • California, USA. Edmund G. Brown Jr.,  California’s Acting Governor,  declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Francisco and Siskiyou counties after a series of back-to-back storms hit the region. “Brown cited the loss of human life, injuries, flooding, heavy snows, loss of power and mudslides as reason for the state of emergency.” LATimes reported. A tornado reportedly touched down in the city of Ventura, “downing power lines and causing damage to cars, outbuildings and agriculture, as well as toppling a tree into a home.”
    “There is more than a mile-long path of destruction. It’s a pretty serious situation.” Ventura County Fire Department spokesman said.
  • Arizona, USA. The worst winter storm in almost two decades hit the State of Arizona, prompting Gov. Jan Brewer to declare a state of emergency. Heavy rain buffeted metro Phoenix area, while the main route to Flagstaff was cut off by heavy snow.
    “The storm submerged roads in the Phoenix area, postponed flights at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and caused the evacuation of some Sedona residents. It also caused power outages for thousands of residents in Phoenix, Flagstaff and Tucson.” The Arizona Republic reported.
    The Arizona Department of Public Safety said it received reports of a tornado touching down near Desert Ridge in NE Phoenix. Two of Arizona’s major interstate highways I-40 and I-17 were inaccessible in various sections due to heavy snow.
  • Iowa, USA. Iowa Gov. Chet Culver issued an emergency proclamation for Carroll, Cass, and Sac Counties due to an ice storm in the regions.
    The proclamation will allow the state to provide generators, cots and blankets to communities in Carroll, Deadham, Early and Lake View, said  Chicago Tribune.
• Day Twenty-Three
  • EIGHT people were killed and up to 20 are missing after flash floods devastated villages in Indonesia’s Southeast Sulawesi province, local officials said.
    At least 2,000 people were displaced needing shelter when their homes were swept away after the Rante Limbong river overflowed and torrents of floodwater rushed through five villages in Kolaka Utara district,  a health ministry official told AFP.
  • Wenden, Arizona. Flooding forces town to evacuate in middle of night.  Much of Wenden is “under as much as several feet of water, and the elementary school had heavy damage. Many homes were also badly damaged by the floodwaters.”
  • Tijuana, Mexico. Heavy flooding in parts of the Mexican border city of Tijuana claimed a 5-year-old girl and at least another 10 reported missing. Washington Post reported.
• Day Twenty-Four
  • Arizona, USA. Storm has caused widespread damage throughout Arizona with at least 1 fatality reported. Roofs in Flagstaff collapsed under the weight of the heavy snow that had piled up during the week, AZ Central reported. Floods forced many residents to evacuate in eastern La Paz and northwestern Maricopa counties, as  silt settled in to homes and vehicles in Black Canyon City, and high winds destroyed tents and mobile homes. Several river beds were flooded in Black Canyon City, many “people are stranded in their homes after bridge is washed away and many have lost their homes after the floods washed away moblie home park,” AZ family dot com reported. The deluge was so large, even a waterfall was formed north of the Phoenix Metro area.
  • Larimer County, Colorado, USA. The numbers of dead or dying lodgepole and ponderosa pines are almost doubling in Larimer County, Colorado, as a result of bark beetle infestation that spread in 2009, an annual aerial survey of Colorado and Wyoming forests conducted by the Colorado State Forest Service and the U.S. Forest Service concluded. “The impact of the mountain pine beetle, or bark beetle, on Colorado is staggering: The bark beetle’s destruction spread across 524,000 new acres in Colorado and Wyoming last year, much of which was in Larimer County, as the beetles began to heavily infest forests east of the Continental Divide. The total bark-beetle-infested area now totals 3.6 million acres in both states.” Coloradoan reported. In Larimer County the bark-beetle-infested acreage nearly doubled from 280,000 to 500,000 acres.
  • Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Up to a million livestock have frozen to death nationwide as a severe cold front continues ravaging 19 of Mongolia’s 21 provinces, the state emergency commission said Thursday, according to Xinhua, sources reported. Temperatures plunged  to minus 48 centigrade this weekend in several provinces, including Ubsu, Philstar reported.
  • Port Arthur, Texas, USA. A tanker sustained a large hole the size of a billboard on Saturday after it collided with a barge in Port Arthur, Texas, releasing  a very large amount of  crude oil into the water, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
    About half a million gallons of crude was said to have leaked from the 95,663-ton, double-hulled tanker. However, the exact extent of the disaster has not been revealed. The spilled oil released hydrogen sulfide into the air prompting port authorities to issue warnings recommending nearby residents to stay indoors.
• Day Twenty-Five
  • Beirut, Lebanon. An Ethiopian Airlines jet with 90 people on board crashed into the Mediterranean sea off the coast of Lebanon. As of posting, 14 bodies had been recovered, but there was no report of any survivors. The plane may have been shot down by an Israeli missile, an informed source told the blog.
  • Tanzania. Floods have left thousands of families homeless in Tanzania. “Severe floods caused by three weeks of heavy rain have completely engulfed 28,000 families’ homes, forcing them to rely on emergency food and relief. As many as 50,000 people in the east African country have been affected by the floods,” SOS Children’s Villages said.
  • Guzelyurt, Northern Cyprus. Heavy rain and floods have caused disasters in many parts of  Northern Cyprus. “Many houses, shops, roads and cars were damaged seriously and intense efforts are still continuing to pump water out.” A report said.
• Day Twenty-Six
  • West Virginia, USA. “West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin declared a state of emergency for Greenbrier County and surrounding areas…”  Widespread flooding is expected to cause millions of dollars in damage.
  • The Andean province of Cusco, Peru. An earthquake, heavy rain and mudslides struck Peru. Heavy rains have buffeted the Cusco region in the past three days, flooding rivers and causing mudslides that killed at least two people and damaged stone walls at Inca sites, associated Press reported.
    • The overflowing Vilcanota and Rio Blanco rivers in the Andean province of Cusco, southeastern Peru, have flooded hundreds of hectares (acres) of corn crop, AFP reported.
    • “LIMA – Heavy downpours falling in the southern region of Cuzco, Peru’s main tourist destination, has left at least three people dead, close to a hundred families homeless and some 2,000 tourists stranded, authorities said Monday. “
    • “The president of the Huancavelica region, Federico Salas, said Sunday on CPN Radio that mudslides and flooding from swollen rivers have left 300 people homeless in that Andean area.”
  • West Java, Indonesia. Floods kill five, inundate homes in Lampung and West Java
  • South Africa. “THREE people died and four children were missing because of flooding caused by incessant rains in large parts of the country, police said today (January 26). The bodies of a woman and her six-month-old baby boy were found today after their home was washed away by overnight floods in Tembisa’s Phomolong informal settlement, east of Johannesburg.”
  • Europe. “A severe cold snap across Central and Eastern Europe has killed dozens of people in recent days, officials say.”
    • Romania: 22 people died as snowdrifts blocked roads and temperatures fell as low as -34C.
    • Poland: The winter’s death toll reached 207, as cold weather killed 16 more people.
    • Germany: 14 homeless people died from the cold snap.
    • Bulgaria: “In Bulgaria, three people died at the weekend as officials recorded minus 29 degrees Celsius in the northern town of Glavinitza, and Monday was set to be the coldest day so far this winter.” AFP said.
    • Czech Republic: Six people froze to death in the country.
    • Ukraine. Freezing temperatures plunging as low as -30C were recorded. “The cold has killed 256 Ukrainians since December 18, many of them homeless. ”  ABC Online said.
    • Belarus. “At least 10 homeless people have frozen to death in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.”
    • China. At least 13 people “have died in China’s western Xinjiang region from the worst snowstorms in six decades, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.”
  • Tampa Bay, Florida, USA. “From the beginning of the year through Jan. 23, biologists documented more than 100 manatee carcasses in state waters, an unprecedented number. Officials blamed cold stress for 77 of the deaths.”
  • Florida Keys, USA. Cold weather kills corals, assessment under way.
• Day Twenty-Seven
  • Duval and St. Johns counties, Florida, USA. Thousands of fish that were killed in cold snap in Duval and St. Johns counties have now turned up  throughout the Beaches area, Jacksonville dot com reported.  “St. Johns and Duval counties had about a dozen reports of fish kills, with the largest in the Palm Valley and Ponte Vedra Beach area along the Intracoastal Waterway.”
  • Florida Keys. Coral bleaching, caused by temperature stress, which was triggered by the cold snap this month, has destroyed shallow water corals across the Florida Keys, Miami Herald Reported. “The impact could extend from Key Largo through the Dry Tortugas west of Key West, a vast expanse that covers some of the prettiest and healthiest reefs in North America.”  Meaghan Johnson, marine science coordinator for The Nature Conservancy, said: ” Corals didn’t even have a chance to bleach. They just went straight to dead. It’s really ecosystem-wide mortality.”   Full story.
  • Florida & Georgia, USA. Florida strawberry growers have lost about 30 percent of their crop. Othergrowers in Florida have lost about 70 percent of their vegetables. “The freeze knocked out much of the red potatoes in northern Florida and greatly delayed or destroyed early plantings of the Vidalia sweet onions in Georgia.” Mercury News said. “At this time of year, Florida also grows about 50 to 60 percent of the nation’s supply of bell peppers, corn, green beans, eggplant, squash, strawberries and tomatoes.”
  • Florida, USA. “At least 10 homeowners have been driven from their residences by collapsing earth, including in Magnolia Green, Oakbrook Mobile Home Park, Sugar Creek and Walden Lake.” Tampa Bay Online reported. Other sources say up to 100 sinkholes or depressions have plagued Plant City.
  • NE Arizona, USA. Some 1,500 people – and counting – from the Hopi Tribe and the Navajo Nation in Apache, Coconino, and Navajo counties needed assistance as of Tuesday morning, as 6-foot-deep snowdrifts and deadly conditions killed livestock in their tracks in northeastern Arizona, said The Arizona Republic.
• Day Twenty-Eight
  • Nepal. The death toll from cold weather in Nepal reached 25 since the start of the week, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported. “Life in southern Nepal’s Terai region has been hugely affected due to the persistent cold weather and dense fog.”It added. “Many Terai districts have come under the grip of cold-related diseases like pneumonia, cold, diarrhea and respiratory problems.” [The exact death toll may never be known.]
  • Xinjiang, China. The reported number of deaths in the China’s western Xinjiang region from the worst snowstorms in living memory reached twenty, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported, warning of more freezing weather to come, Strait Times said.
  • Guizhou Province. China. The number of deaths from a weak earthquake measuring magnitude 3.4 that struck southwest China’s Guizhou Province on Sunday reached 7.  At least one person was reported missing with nine others injured, including two seriously. “The quake triggered landslides at two sites, causing casualties,” Xinhua reported.
• Day Twenty-Nine
  • Washington, USA. The US Senate voted 70-30 to let Mr Ben Bernanke do a second four-year term as chairman of the US Federal Reserve.  This is one disaster that the Americans could have avoided.
  • The Andean province of Cusco, Peru. According to Cusco’s governor about 3,000 homes and several bridges have been destroyed by the rains which triggered floodings and extensive mudslides throughout the regions. More than 13,000 hectares of farmland (crops) have been damaged (destroyed). The governor has put an initial estimate of the damage at $280 million.  The death toll varies from about 4 to 20, depending on which news source you believe.
  • Sao Paulo, Brazil. The flood death toll in Sao Paulo reached 64 after two months of heavy rains which triggered extensive mudslides. Two of the six dams supplying water to the city of 20 million were filled to capacity, requiring the release of millions of gallons of water, according to Sao Paulo’s sanitation authority, a report said.The two big rivers of Pinheiros and the Tiete, also broke their banks in various sections inundating the adjacent areas, destroying a major bridge, and causing a 100 mile tailback. More than 6,000 people are being evacuated.
• Day Thirty
  • Bolivia. Bolivian President Evo Morales has declared a state of emergency in La Paz, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and Beni as heavy rains and floods affect at least 24,000 families. More flooding and mudslide expected as additional rain is forecast, BBC reported .In La Paz, Bolivia’s capital, a landslide destroyed an entire neighborhood obliterating at least 72 homes, and killing at least 10 people, AP reported. Thousands of hectares of crops and grassland were submerged by flood water.
• Day Thirty-First
  • Southern Peru. The number of people killed in heavy flooding over the past week in southern Peru has risen to at least 20, local officials said, with another five people missing. Some 40,000 others have been affected.
  • North Carolina, USA. North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue declared a state of emergency as more than a foot of snow blanketed mountain areas. About 20 emergency shelters opened across the state, Perdue said.

Click link to go to Disaster Calendar Main Page

Related Links:

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Index of Human Impact on Nature (HIoN) March 2008
• 2010: The Year of Disasters
• Earth’s Human Induced Antiphase Nears Completion

“The antiphase will rapidly transform humans into vicious animals, fighting each other for water, food, fuel, land and all other dwindling natural resources. The fighting, in turn, enhances the positive feedbacks, accelerating the downward spiral.” —EDRO

Note: IF the numbers of fatalities/casualties in a given disaster are claimed to be larger than a few hundreds, and no video or photographic evidence is presented to support the claim, those figures should be carefully analyzed. Governments and aid organizations invariably exaggerate the casualty figures to maximize the inflow of aid and donations for self-serving purposes and interests other than those of the victims. See footnote at https://feww.wordpress.com/earthquake/haiti-earthquake-disaster/

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