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Archive for August 6th, 2010
Russia: Dense wildfire smog grips Moscow
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 6th, 2010
BBC: The thick blanket of smog that has shrouded Moscow as peat fires continue to burn just outside the city has worsened. The smog has disrupted air traffic at two international airports in Moscow - Domodedovo and Vnukovo. Many Russians are wearing masks as the temperature rises close to 40C (104F). On Thursday officials said nearly 600 wildfires were raging across a huge area of central Russia. The emergency has now claimed 50 lives. The smog has been affecting the ...
Health alarm as wildfire smog smothers Moscow
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 6th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Smog from wildfires in the countryside cloaked Moscow on Friday, with the levels of toxic particles, raising alarm over public health and numerous commuters wearing anti-pollution masks. The city's most famous landmarks like the spires of the Kremlin towers or the onion domes of Orthodox churches were largely invisible from a distance as Muscovites wheezed their way through the smog into work. "Smog has covered the entire city and the situation is getting worse," said Alexei ...
Half a million people evacuated as Pakistan floods move south
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 6th, 2010
Guardian: Floods sweeping south in Pakistan are threatening to destroy more villages and claim more lives as the number of people affected by the disaster rose to 4.5 million. Pakistani authorities have evacuated more than half a million people in the south of Sindh province in the light of the continued threat posed by the worst floods there in 80 years. A number of villages are already underwater in northern Sindh. "Monsoon rains continue to fall and at least 11 districts are at risk ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Half a million people evacuated as Pakistan floods move southGulf spill: How 3.6 million barrels of crude can disappear
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 6th, 2010
AFP: Three quarters of some 4.9 million barrels of crude disgorged into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's ruptured oil well has been neutralised by nature or human efforts, according to a US government report released Wednesday. Only 26 percent of the oil remains close to its original form, floating on the ocean water or suspended under the surface, said the report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The other 74 percent has either evaporated or been burned, ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Gulf spill: How 3.6 million barrels of crude can disappearCoverage Turns, Cautiously, to Spill Impact
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 6th, 2010
New York Times: And on the 106th day – after all the top kills and top hats and junk shots – the runaway oil well in the Gulf of Mexico finally seemed close to being tamed. Or was it? It could be "the beginning of the end," Katie Couric told viewers Tuesday on the "CBS Evening News." The same phrase, with an extra "perhaps" attached to it, was used over on "NBC Nightly News." But Diane Sawyer did away with the caveats on ABC. "Final fix," she declared Tuesday on "World News Tonight." "Tonight ...
Ice island breaks from Greenland
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 6th, 2010
BBC: A giant sheet of ice measuring 260 sq km (100 sq miles) has broken off a glacier in Greenland, according to researchers at a US university. The block of ice separated from the Petermann Glacier, on the north-west coast of Greenland. It is the largest Arctic iceberg to calve since 1962, said Prof Andreas Muenchow of the University of Delaware. The ice could become frozen in place over winter or escape into the waters between Greenland and Canada. If the iceberg ...
Gulf oil spill could have impact for ‘decades’: US official
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 6th, 2010
AFP: The massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill could have an "impact for years and possibly decades to come," a top US official said Wednesday, speaking after BP successfully plugged the leaking well. "We remain concerned about the long term impact," Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said at a White House briefing. US spill response chief Thad Allen told reporters at the same briefing that officials were confident that no more oil would leak ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Gulf oil spill could have impact for ‘decades’: US officialIce Island Breaks off Greenland; Bigger Than Manhattan
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 6th, 2010
National Geographic: An ice chunk four times the size of Manhattan has broken off of Greenland's Petermann glacier--possibly the biggest glacier collapse in recorded history, scientists announced Friday (Greenland map). The so-called "ice island" covers a hundred square miles (260 square kilometers) and holds enough water to keep U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days, according to Andreas Muenchow, a physical ocean scientist and engineer at the University of Delaware. As a result of the ...
Removal of ruptured of Mich. oil pipeline begins
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 6th, 2010
AP: Enbridge Inc. executives said Friday they had no timetable for resuming the flow of oil through a damaged pipeline that failed last week and poured hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude into a southern Michigan river. The Canadian company was removing a roughly 100-foot damaged section of the 30-inch line in a marshy area of Calhoun County. Federal officials planned an initial inspection at the site once the job was completed. Afterward, a segment containing the rupture ...
Huge ice island calves off Greenland glacier
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 6th, 2010
Reuters: An ice island four times the size of Manhattan broke off from one of Greenland's two main glaciers, scientists said on Friday, in the biggest such event in the Arctic in nearly 50 years. The new ice island, which broke off on Thursday, will enter a remote place called the Nares Strait, about 620 miles south of the North Pole between Greenland and Canada. The ice island has an area of 100 square miles (260 square km) and a thickness up to half the height of the Empire State ...