Water Famine: State of Emergency Declared in Baja California

EXTREME CLIMATIC EVENT
EXCEPTIONAL DROUGHT
WATER FAMINE
STATE OF EMERGENCY
.

Baja Declares a State of Emergency as City of Ensenada Runs Out of Water

The persistent drought has plagued Baja California, has intensifies following a dry winter, forcing the government to declare a state of emergency. The aquifers, which are the sole source of water for the port city of Ensenada, have dried up.

The state water supplier was forced to put Ensenada on a rationing regime   since January, delivering water only three times a week to most residents, said a report.

“Ensenada’s water crisis has been looming for decades, Guerrero said. Its urban population has grown rapidly, and the city increasingly competes for water with the nearby wine-growing region of Valle de Guadalupe.”

 Related Links

• Crop Disasters Declared for Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho March 21, 2014
• California Drought Continues to Intensify March 20, 2014
• Warmest Winter on Record Deepens California Drought March 18, 2014
• California Declares Drought State of Emergency January 18, 2014

 

FIRE-EARTH Bulletin NO. 79

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

FIRE-EARTH Bulletin NO. 79 has been released.

Related links

https://feww.wordpress.com/2-bulletin-board/

No. of Days left: 714

Killing Life in Beijing

ENVIRONMENTAL HOLOCAUST
DEADLY AIR POLLUTION
.

‘The great virtue of Heaven and Earth is creating life’  —I Ching

China issued a “yellow alert” yesterday amid 5th consecutive day of deadly air pollution in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Provinc . Beijing AQI reached a peak of of 417 at 11:00 am local time on Wednesday.

“Foggy weather will appear in north China and areas along the Yellow and Huaihe rivers, while some parts of Beijing and Tianjin, and the provinces of Hebei, Shandong and Liaoning will see heavy air pollution until Wednesday morning, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said on Tuesday,” Xinhua reported.

“Yellow” is the 2nd lowest [despite the life-threatening smog] of a four-tier alert system—red, orange, yellow, blue—indicating the severity of air pollution.

The reoccurring heavy smog episodes have been described as “Apocalyptic” by Beijing residents.

AQI for Beijing and surrounding areas. Source: aqicn.org

Related Links

• 7 Million People Killed by Air Pollution in 2012 March 25, 2014
• EU Capitals Rivaling Beijing Air Pollution March 16, 2014
• Chinese Cities Unfit for Living March 8, 2014
• You’ve Created a World Unfit for Living February 28, 2014
• Apocalyptic Smog Covers 10 Percent of China February 25, 2014
• Hazardous Smog Continues Choking N China  February 24, 2014
• Beijing 398  February 23, 2014
• Derisory “Yellow Alert” as Brown Smog Bears on Beijing February 21, 2014
• Smog and Mirrors in Beijing February 16, 2014

For earlier posts on Beijing AQI, search blog content.

M6.5 Strikes South of the Fiji Islands

15 M7.5+ earthquakes recorded near New Zealand since 1900

Earthquake Details

Magnitude: 6.5Mw
Event Time: 2014-03-26 03:29:36 UTC
Location: 26.092°S 179.279°E depth=493.1km (306.4mi)
Nearby Cities:

• 448km (278mi) NW of Raoul Island, New Zealand
• 786km (488mi) SW of Nuku`alofa, Tonga
• 884km (549mi) S of Suva, Fiji

Seismotectonics of the Eastern Margin of the Australia Plate

Excerpts from the Tectonic Summary [sourced from USGS]

Since 1900 there have been 15 M7.5+ earthquakes recorded near New Zealand. Nine of these, and the four largest, occurred along or near the Macquarie Ridge, including the 1989 M8.2 event on the ridge itself, and the 2004 M8.1 event 200 km to the west of the plate boundary, reflecting intraplate deformation. The largest recorded earthquake in New Zealand itself was the 1931 M7.8 Hawke’s Bay earthquake, which killed 256 people.

Large earthquakes are common along the North New Hebrides trench and have mechanisms associated with subduction tectonics, though occasional strike slip earthquakes occur near the subduction of the D’Entrecasteaux ridge. Within the subduction zone 34 M7.5+ earthquakes have been recorded since 1900. On October 7, 2009, a large interplate thrust fault earthquake (M7.6) in the northern North New Hebrides subduction zone was followed 15 minutes later by an even larger interplate event (M7.8) 60 km to the north. It is likely that the first event triggered the second of the so-called earthquake “doublet”.