Switzerland Under Heatwave, Ozone Alerts

Heatwave, danger of forest fire, hazardous levels of ozone pollution plague Switzerland

All of Switzerland’s 26 cantons are under alerts for at least two of the following hazards: “heatwave,” “danger of forest fire,” and “hazardous levels of ozone pollution, as of posting.

Record-setting heat could hit southern Ticino this week, according to several models. The temperature in Villa Luganese rose to 33.6ºC on Tuesday.

Rare Earthquake Strikes Switzerland

SEISMIC HAZARDS
HEIGHTENED GLOBAL SEISMICITY
SCENARIOS 700, [500,] 08, 07, 02
.

M3.2 Quake Strikes Switzerland

Centered at 7.11°E, 47.19°N the quake struck about 120km NW of Meyrin (Canton of Geneva), the nearest Swiss town to the main site of the CERN particle physics laboratory.

EQ Details
Time: 2015-01-31 21:54:01.2 UTC
Magnitude: 3.2 ML
Epicenter: 7.11°E, 47.19°N
Depth: 3 km
Status: M – manually revised
SOURCE: GEOFON Extended Virtual Network (GEVN)

Deadly Storms Continue to Wreak Havoc in Italy

EXTREME WEATHER & CLIMATIC DISASTERS
EXTREME RAIN EVENTS
SEVERE FLOODING
DEADLY MUDSLIDES
CROP DISASTERS
SCENARIOS  900, 888, 444, 111, 070, 066, 027, 025, 024, 023, 022, 09, 02
.

Mudslides triggered by EREs claim more lives in Italy

Extreme weather events have left at least a dozen people dead in Italy during the past four weeks.

The Liguria region has received more rain over the past two weeks than it normally gets in the entire year, said a report.

Extreme Rain Events (EREs) since mid October have swamped large swathes of Italy, inundating homes, businesses and infrastructure, causing damage estimated at up to two billion dollars so far.

Related Links

Flooding Forces Thousands to Evacuate in Italy November 6, 2014

Deadly Floods Force Thousands of Evacuations in SW France

Storms Devastate Lourdes Catholic Shrine, Thousands Evacuated

Unseasonal stormy weather across France continued dumping heavy rain over large areas of the country, triggering flash floods in the southwest that killed at three people on Thursday, said a report.

The floods have devastated the Catholic pilgrimage site of Lourdes, forcing the authorities to evacuate at least 2,000 people since Tuesday.

The Roman Catholic shrine at Lourdes has been evacuated after flash floods struck SW France.

-oOo-

High winds and inch-wide hail batter central Switzerland

Winds of more than 130 kph and golf ball-sized hail tear down trees and leave piles of ice 20cm deep, said reports.

Road, train and air traffic were disrupted, according to MeteoNews. “… in the space of just a quarter-hour, near 20 litres of rain per square metre fell between Geneva and Nyon. Normally, all of June sees 70 litres per square metres.”

High winds also drove swept through Geneva’s international airport,” causing one plane on the tarmac to crash into a container.”

Several people were hurt, some seriously, by falling trees, reports said.

Geneva attacked by a significant hail storm.

Continued …

Flood Disaster Warnings Issued in Central Europe

Czech government declares a state of emergency in most of the country

Flooding in Czech Republic threatens the historic center of capital Prague, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes.

Levels on the Vltava river that runs through Prague’s center continued to rise Monday. Flood-related incidents have left a dozen people dead or missing, and forced thousands of people to flee their homes in low-lying areas of Prague and western half of the country.

• The Czech Prime Minister has declared a state of emergency in seven of the country’s 14 administrative regions.
• Authorities have shut a dozen subway stations in the capital.
• Many roads and train routes are also closed.
• All schools in the capital Prague will be closed Monday.

Flooding has also wreaked havoc across Austria, Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Switzerland.

Severe Flooding in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Dresden, Passau, Rosenheim and several other German cities have declared states of emergency due to severe flooding, with Passau requesting help from the federal army.

At least a dozen people were killed, several others reported missing and hundreds evacuated from their homes as floodwaters continue rising in Germany, Austria and Switzerland following days of torrential rain.

Major Flood Warning in Slovakia

Slovak authorities have issued the highest level of flood warning for the length of the Danube River in the country, as   water level on the river at the confluence with the Morava River topped 7.20 meters and continued rising.

• Slovakia’s State Shipping Administration has banned all traffic on the Danube River in the country until further notice.

Related Links

• Hundred Evacuated Amid Flooding in Central Europe

Image of the DAY: SUBMERGENCE!

Never Mind the Cars. Your Rolex Watch Would Probably Be Safe in the Water!

A police officer inspects flooded cars in a residential area after heavy rain fall in Giubiasco near the southern Swiss town of Bellinzona July 13, 2008. REUTERS/Fiorenzo Maffi. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

Seeking Toxic Asylum

submitted by a reader

Partenope: Naples Garbage Opera

Protagonists:

• Queen Partenope: Played by the entire population of Naples and Campania [and the estimated 1.2 million tons of rotting garbage]
• Prince Armindo of Rhodes: played by Il Duce [the leader] of Italy Silvio Berlusconi and his gang.
• Prince Arsace of Corinth: The garbage incinerators in Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere
• Prince Emilio of Cumae [who is at war with Naples and with Queen Partenope] : Played by the Camorra mafia

Full List of Actors:

• Il Duce [the leader] of Italy Silvio Berlusconi
• Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo
• Camorra mafia
• Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the influential Italian Bishops Conference
• The corrupt regional governor, Antonio Bassolino, and 27 others under house arrest.
• City’s chief officer and special commissioner Alessandro Pansa (one of the 27)
• Rosanna Laraia, head of waste management in Italy’s Ministry for the Environment

• Billions of missing, misappropriated, or unaccounted for euros [ € billions ]

• Environmental campaigner Francesco Pascale
• Sergio Sedia and his wife Giulia
• President Giorgio Napolitano
• Just over 1 million Neapolitans (and a further 5 million people living in Campania region and the province of Naples.)
• Hundreds of police officers in riot gears
• Probably as many as 10 million “super-charged” rats and 100 million cockroaches living in the garbage piles throughout the city of Naples

Composer:

• Germany’s George Frideric Handel

Act I – Seeking Toxic Asylum

In Act I of the famous Naples Garbage Opera, Partenope, Sergio Sedia and his wife Giulia request “toxic asylum” in Switzerland.

Sergio and his wife Giulia live in the “Triangle of Death” near Naples where the mafia has illegally dumped tons of toxic waste. British medical journal, The Lancet, reported in 2004 on “considerably higher cancer and deformity rates” in the area compared with other parts of the Campania region near Naples.

[Other than rats and cockroaches, what sort of vermin would transform its place of habitat to this?] A woman wearing a filtered mask walks past piles of trash thrown into a street intersection in protest in Naples May 16, 2008. REUTERS/Ciro Messere/Agnfoto. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

“The (Italian) government has not protected my right to health, and in this area people are dying of cancers caused by tonnes of chemical and toxic waste illegally dumped here for more than 20 years,” said Sergio.

Camorra mafia has been secretly dumping thousands of tonnes of industrial waste since the 1980s in what is “the heart of some of Italy’s best farm land,” environmental groups said.

“This area is nearly entirely agricultural, there are no factories, but has mortality rates for cancers linked to pollution higher than the national average. Here one doesn’t die of a heart attack or an accident, but from tumors,” said Sedia, 34, who works in the finance industry.

Silvio Berlusconi Prime Minister of Italy (President of the Council of Ministers of Italy). Born 29 September 1936, he is an entrepreneur, media proprietor and Head of the

“What I eat and breathe every day makes me afraid because of the products — the asbestos, the lead, the dioxins that are there in the air, the soil, the ground water,” he told AFP.

Fearing also for the health of their unborn child, said Sedia, “we decided to demand protection abroad and our choice fell on Switzerland.”

“We want to save ourselves, and only another country can help us, because if waste is one enemy, the Italian state is another in continuing to deny there is a problem in this area.”

“The Italian authorities are trying to act as if the problem of contamination doesn’t exist,” he said.

“I am not very confident when I see the authorities test mozzarella (over dioxin poisoning) because it is a valuable product, but doesn’t conduct tests on us citizens because we don’t have any commercial value.”

Earlier this year samples of mozzarella cheese, made from buffalo milk, were found to have highlevels of the toxic compound dioxin. As a result, buffalo farms in the Campania region were quarantined.

Japan, Singapore and South Korea banned the import of Italian mozzarella, earlier this year. (Source)

continued …

Related Links:

• Naples Garbage Opera – Act II
• Naples Garbage: First Commercial Dividends
• Naples: The Triangle of Death