Maui fires

9/14/24 - Report finds no evidence that officials acted on warnings about fire

8/18/24 - Insurance companies lay blame on Bishop Estate, Hawaiian Electric, and Oceanic

8/14/23 - Lahaina after the fire (photos)

8/10/23 - Maui fires devastate Lahaina (Hawaii News Now)

Libya flood

DERNA, Libya, Sept 12 (Reuters) - More than 2,000 people were killed and at least 10,000 were missing in Libya in floods caused by a huge Mediterranean storm that burst dams, swept away buildings and wiped out as much as a quarter of the eastern coastal city of Derna.

Officials expected the death toll to rise further after Storm Daniel barrelled across the Mediterranean into a country divided and crumbling after more than a decade of conflict.

The Great Chinatown Fire

On New Year's Eve one hundred years ago, the first of a number of controlled fires were set in Chinatown as a way of defending Honolulu from bubonic plague, known in history as Black Death. Next to the Pearl Harbor attack, the outbreak of plague was the greatest public-safety disaster in Hawaiian history. The government was determined to do anything to save the city -- even burn it to the ground. Today we begin the first of a four-part series describing the events leading up to what became known as the Great Chinatown Fire.

- Star Advertiser, 1/24/00, 1/25/00, 1/31/00, 2/1/00

Top news stories of 2018

The year that was 2018 might best be known in Hawaii for its explosions — the ones that did happen and the big one that didn’t.

Kilauea blew its top repeatedly this summer, blasting ash into the air and sending molten lava bursting from 24 vents in Lower Puna, disrupting thousands of lives, destroying millions of dollars’ worth of property and transforming the landscape over a dramatic four-month display of nature’s power.

The one that didn’t happen: the false missile alert. Whew!

Here are Hawaii’s top five news stories of 2018:

1. KILAUEA’S HISTORIC ERUPTION

2. FALSE MISSILE ALERT

3. RECORD FLOODING, ACTIVE STORMS

4. HOTEL WORKERS TAKE TO PICKETING

5. ASSISTED-DEATH BILL GETS APPROVAL

***

The Star-Advertiser’s top 10 stories online in 2018

***

2018 - the year in review

A.P. Top 10 news stories of 2018

Dave Barry year in review

9 ways the world got better in 2017

There has been a lot of bad news in America this year, and people are noticing: In December, 60 percent of US respondents felt the country was on the wrong track.

The angst isn’t unique to the US. Across 26 countries that are home to the considerable majority of the world’s population, an average of six out of 10 people thought their country was on the wrong track (as of the middle of 2017). That’s more surprising than the US result because, despite the threats posed by the world’s sole superpower going rogue — admittedly no small problem — the planet as a whole had a pretty good year.

Before 2017 recedes entirely into the rearview mirror, let’s take note of some of the good news.

death toll rises in Houston flood

HOUSTON — The biggest rainstorm in the history of the continental United States finally began to move away from Houston on Tuesday, as the remnants of Hurricane Harvey and its endless, merciless rain bands spun east to menace Louisiana instead.

But, after more than 50 inches of rain over four days, Houston was less of a city and more of an archipelago: a chain of urbanized islands in a muddy brown sea. All around it, flat-bottomed boats and helicopters were still plucking victims from rooftops, and water was still pouring in from overfilled reservoirs and swollen rivers.

Between 25 and 30 percent of Harris County — home to 4.5 million people in Houston and its near suburbs — was flooded by Tuesday afternoon, according to an estimate from Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the county flood control district. That’s at least 444 square miles, an area six times the size of the District of Columbia.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner imposed a curfew starting Tuesday from midnight to 5 a.m. to deter looting of abandoned homes.

On Tuesday morning authorities discovered the body of a Houston police officer who had drowned in his patrol car two days earlier, at the storm’s height. Sergeant Steve Perez, a veteran officer, was on his way to work on Sunday morning — spending two and a half hours looking for a path through rain-lashed streets — when he drove into a flooded underpass.

In all, authorities said at least 22 people had been confirmed dead from the storm. But they said it was difficult to know how many more were missing. They also said it is too early to assess the total number of homes and other buildings damaged, in part because rescue crews were still having trouble even reaching some areas because of flooded or flood-damaged roads, said Francisco Sanchez, spokesman for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Authorities said more than 3,500 people had been rescued from floodwaters, but that number was surely low. Many had been rescued by strangers with boats, who had rescued so many that they themselves had lost count. They left behind homes that could be flooded for days, or weeks, and perhaps lost forever.

Officials said more than 13,300 people were already in shelters. Federal authorities estimated that 30,000 people could be forced from their homes in Texas and surrounding states.

President Trump flew to Texas on Tuesday, and he visited both Corpus Christi — near where the storm made landfall — and state officials in Austin. At one point, he shouted a message to a crowd outside a fire station in Corpus Christi.

“This is historic, it’s epic what happened. But you know what, it happened in Texas and Texas can handle anything,” he told the crowd, which applauded his remarks and cheered more loudly when he waved the Texas state flag.

20 humanitarian crises of 2015

As the refugee crisis in Europe and ongoing Syrian war continues to dominate news headlines, many countries struggle with conflict and natural disaster largely out of sight—and largely on their own. Some 60 million people, about 42,500 a day, were displaced in 2015, the largest upheaval of humanity since World War II.

Below are 20 humanitarian crises that drove mass displacement this year, yet haven’t received much attention from the media:

Afganistan: Decades of chaos
Burundi: Unrest and upheaval
Central African Republic: Gripped by sectarian conflict
Democratic Republic of Congo: Continued politcal instability
Ethiopia: Extreme thirst
Haiti: Struggle to rebuild
Iraq: Recurring tragedy
Libya: Struggling to survive
Mali: Forgotten crisis
Myanmar: Deadly persecution
Nepal: Devastating quake
Niger: Overwhelmed host
Nigeria: Boko Haram terror
Pakistan: Disasters natural and man-made
South Sudan: Edge of mass starvation
Somalia: Legacy of conflict
Sudan: Cycle of violence
Ukraine: Trapped by war
West Africa: Shadow of Ebola
Yemen: Citizens under siege

[via twitter]

Himalayan earthquake

KATHMANDU, Nepal >> Sleeping in the streets and shell-shocked, Nepalese cremated the dead and dug through rubble for the missing Sunday, a day after a massive Himalayan earthquake killed more than 2,500 people. Aftershocks tormented them, making buildings sway and sending panicked Kathmandu residents running into the streets.

The cawing of crows mixed with terrified screams as the worst of the aftershocks — magnitude 6.7 — pummeled the capital city. It came as planeloads of supplies, doctors and relief workers from neighboring countries began arriving in this poor Himalayan nation. No deaths or injuries were reported from the early Sunday afternoon quake, but it took an emotional toll.

Iselle and Julio

[8/10/14] Julio moves north

[8/9/14] The one-two hurricane punch that was supposed to hit Hawaii is looking more like a jab and a missed left hook.

After Hawaii cleared Tropical Storm Iselle largely without deterring sunbathers and surfers, the state looked toward Hurricane Julio, which was expected to pass roughly 160 miles northeast of the islands at its closest point early Sunday.

While prospects for Julio could quickly change, the storms appear to have been more a scare for Hawaii than a significant threat.

[8/8/14] At the same time Iselle is wreaking havoc on the Hawaiian Islands, Hurricane Julio continues to churn in its wake, offering a real threat to deliver a rare double whammy of destruction on the state.

Julio strengthened to a Category 3 hurricane Thursday with 115 mph winds and traveling westerly at 16 mph more than 1,000 miles to the east of Hawaii.

It's moving in roughly the same path as Iselle, although the projected track would take it just north of the islands and arriving near Hawaii island Sunday and the rest of the chain Monday.

[8/8/14] HILO » The power supply and the geothermal plant in Puna proved to be among the first casualties of Iselle as it bore down on the Big Island Thursday night.

More than 18,000 people were without power, a Hawai‘i Electric Light Co. spokeswoman said.

After spending nearly all day as a Category 1 hurricane, Iselle weakened into a tropical storm, packing 70 mph winds, by 11 p.m., when its center was about 50 miles south of Hilo, according to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center.

No injuries were reported, but Iselle knocked out power, forced roads to close and sent more than 800 people and pets into evacuation centers to ride out the first hurricane to touch island shores since Iniki devastated Kauai in 1992.

Iselle, a Category 1 hurricane, triggered heavy rain, thundershowers, winds and high surf that forced repair crews to head out into the night Thursday to restore power from Puna through Hilo.

"So much wind, so much rain," Mayor Billy Kenoi said Thursday night at the Hawaii County Civil Defense headquarters in Hilo.

[8/7/14] After Hurricane Iselle surprised forecasters Wednesday by gaining strength, it may now become the first hurricane to make landfall in Hawaii since Iniki 22 years ago.

The storm was on a course to slam into Hawaii island Thursday and unleash sustained winds of 60 to 70 mph with gusts to 95 mph, forecasters said.

But projections show the storm should weaken as it moves west and south of Maui County Thursday night and Oahu and Kauai on Friday, packing 35- to 45-plus mph winds with locally higher gusts.

"The volcanoes of the Big Island will do a number on the system," said Mike Cantin, National Weather Service meteorologist. "So what it looks like on the other side — that's something we will be looking at closely."

All of the islands, he said, should prepare for 5 to 8 inches of rain and up to a foot of rain in some locations, especially in windward areas, with flash flooding a possibility.

"People need to understand this is a large system and the impacts will reach far from the center," he said.

Making matters worse, another storm, Julio, grew into a Category 1 hurricane late Tuesday and is following in the wake of Iselle a couple of days to the rear. But forecasters expect it to weaken and become a tropical storm when it nears Hawaii Sunday or later.

tornado hits Oklahoma City

Moore, Oklahoma (CNN) -- Amid downed power lines, hissing gas pipes and immense devastation, rescuers searched "board by board" Tuesday for survivors and victims of a massive tornado that pulverized a vast swath of the Oklahoma City suburbs.

It was a daunting task. The Monday afternoon storm carved a trail through the area as much as two miles wide and 17 miles long, officials said. Hardest hit was Moore, Oklahoma -- a suburban town of about 56,000 and the site of eerily similar twisters in 1999 and again four years later.

The scene -- block after block of flattened homes and businesses, the gutted remains of a hospital and hits on two elementary schools -- left even seasoned veterans of Oklahoma's infamous tornadoes reeling.

The devastation was so complete, Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis said city officials were racing to print new street signs to help guide rescuers and residents through a suddenly twisted and unfamiliar landscape.

Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb likened the destruction to a "two-mile-wide lawnmower blade going over a community."

Hurricane Sandy

[10/29/12] A superstorm threatening 50 million people in the most heavily populated corridor in the nation gained strength Monday, packing winds of 90 mph just hours before it is expected to make landfall, forecasters said.

The National Hurricane Center said Monday morning that the Category 1 hurricane is moving north-northwest at 18 mph, and will soon turn northwestward. At 11:00 a.m. ET the storm was centered about 260 miles south-southeast of New York City. Hurricane-force winds extend up to 175 miles from the storm's center, with tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 485 miles.

Maximum sustained winds of 90 mph, with gusts of up to 115 mph, were measured.

Gale force winds were reported over coastal North Carolina, southeastern Virginia, the Delmarva Peninsula and coastal New Jersey.

Hours before the storm made landfall, high winds had already knocked out power to more than 67,000 customers in several states Monday morning.

Flooding will be a huge threat, with many areas potentially seeing rainfall amounts between 5 and 8 inches over a 48-hour period.

nuclear reactor on fire in Japan

[4/5/11] The leakage of highly radioactive water from a cracked concrete pit at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi reactor No. 2 has stopped, the Japanese utility said early Wednesday.

The leakage stopped after workers poured 1,560 gallons of "water glass" — a sodium silicate compound—through holes around the pit and at the bottom of the pit, a Tepco spokesman said.

The radiation level of the water in the pit was 1,000 millisieverts an hour, and has been regarded as the most dangerous water flowing into the ocean.

Workers had tried a variety of methods to reduce the flow from the heavily damaged No. 2 reactor, put at several tons of water an hour, since it was discovered coming from a crack in a concrete container near the shoreline Saturday.

The steady flow from the crack had been blamed for a surge in the level of contamination in seawater near the complex. A water sample taken just outside the water intake for the No. 2 unit showed the level of radioactive iodine-131 at 7.5 million times the allowable limit, the most dangerous level of radiation so far detected.

[4/4/11] TOKYO >> Workers used a milky bathwater dye Monday as they frantically tried to trace the path of radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant.

The crack in a maintenance pit discovered over the weekend was the latest confirmation that radioactivity continues to spill into the environment. The leak is a symptom of the primary difficulty at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex: Radioactive water is pooling around the plant and preventing workers from powering up cooling systems needed to stabilize dangerously vulnerable fuel rods.

The plant operators also deliberately dumped 10,000 tons of tainted water — measuring about 500 times above the legal limit for radiactivity — into the ocean Monday to make space at a storage site for water that is even more highly radiactive.

Engineers have turned to a host of improvised and sometimes bizarre methods to tame the nuclear plant after it was crippled in Japan's magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami on March 11.

Efforts over the weekend to clog the leak with a special polymer, sawdust and even shredded newspapers failed to halt the flow at a cracked concrete maintenance pit near the shoreline. The water in that leak contains radioactive iodine at rates 10,000 times the legal limit.

Suspecting they might be targeting the wrong channel to the pit, workers tried to confirm the leak's pathway by dumping several pounds (kilograms) of salts used to give bathwater a milky hue into the system, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday.

"There could be other possible passages that the water may be traveling. We must watch carefully and contain it as quickly as possible," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear Safety and Industrial Agency.

Radioactive water has pooled throughout the plant because the operator has been forced to rely on makeshift ways of pumping water into the reactors — and allowing it to gush out wherever it can — to bring down temperatures and pressure in the cores.

Government officials conceded Sunday that it will likely be several months before the cooling systems are completely restored. And even after that happens, there will be years of work ahead to clean up the area around the complex and figure out what to do with it.

[3/27/11] TOKYO >> Highly radioactive iodine seeping from Japan's damaged nuclear complex may be making its way into seawater farther north of the plant than previously thought, officials said Monday, adding to radiation concerns as the crisis stretches into a third week.

Mounting problems, including badly miscalculated radiation figures and no place to store dangerously contaminated water, have stymied emergency workers struggling to cool down the overheating plant and avert a disaster with global implications.

The coastal Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, located 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, has been leaking radiation since a magnitude-9.0 quake on March 11 triggered a tsunami that engulfed the complex. The wave knocked out power to the system that cools the dangerously hot nuclear fuel rods.

On Monday, workers resumed the laborious yet urgent task of pumping out the hundreds of tons of radioactive water inside several buildings at the six-unit plant. The water must be removed and safely stored before work can continue to power up the plant's cooling system, nuclear safety officials said.

The contaminated water, discovered last Thursday, has been emitting radiation that measured more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour in a recent reading at Unit 2 — some 100,000 times normal amounts, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

As officials scrambled to determine the source of the radioactive water, chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano repeated Monday that the contaminated water in Unit 2 appeared to be due to a temporary partial meltdown of the reactor core.

He called it "very unfortunate" but said the spike in radiation appeared limited to the unit.

However, new readings show contamination in the ocean has spread about a mile (1.6 kilometers) farther north of the nuclear site than before. Radioactive iodine-131 was discovered just offshore from Unit 5 and Unit 6 at a level 1,150 times higher than normal, Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told reporters Monday.

He had said earlier there was no link between the radioactive water leaking inside the plant and the radiation in the sea. On Monday, though, he reversed that position, saying he does suspect that radioactive water from the plant may indeed be leaking into the ocean.

Closer to the plant, radioactivity in seawater tested about 1,250 times higher than normal last week and climbed to 1,850 times normal over the weekend. Nishiyama said the increase was a concern, but also said the area is not a source of seafood and that the contamination posed no immediate threat to human health.

Up to 600 people are working inside the plant in shifts. Nuclear safety officials say workers' time inside the crippled units is closely monitored to minimize their exposure to radioactivity, but two workers were hospitalized Thursday when they suffered burns after stepping into contaminated water. They were to be released from the hospital Monday.

Meanwhile, a strong earthquake shook the region and prompted a brief tsunami alert early Monday, adding to the sense of unease across Japan. The quake off the battered Miyagi prefecture coast in the northeast measured magnitude-6.5, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

[3/27/11] TOKYO >>Japanese officials reported a huge jump in radioactivity — levels 10 million times the norm — in water in one reactor unit at a tsunami-damaged nuclear plant Sunday, forcing workers to evacuate and again delaying efforts to control the leaking complex.

Radiation in the air, meanwhile, measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour — four times the limit deemed safe by the government, Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita said.

Word of the startling jump in radioactivity in Unit 2 came as TEPCO struggled to pump contaminated water from four troubled reactor units at the overheated Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. The reading was so high that the worker measuring the levels fled before taking a second reading, officials said.

[3/23/11] TOKYO >> A spike in radiation levels in Tokyo tap water spurred new fears about food safety Wednesday as rising black smoke forced another evacuation of workers trying to stabilize Japan's radiation-leaking nuclear plant.

Radiation has seeped into vegetables, raw milk, the water supply and seawater since a magnitude-9 quake and killer tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant nearly two weeks ago. Broccoli was added to a list of tainted vegetables, and U.S. and Hong Kong officials announced a block on Japanese dairy and some produce from the region.

The crisis is emerging as the world's most expensive natural disaster on record, likely to cost up to $309 billion, according to a new government estimate. The death toll continued to rise, with more than 9,400 bodies counted and more than 15,600 people listed as missing.

[3/18/11] As General Electric defends the reactors it designed for Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, independent nuclear specialists are also coming to the company's defense amid the nuclear crisis.

"I think GE should really be saluted for their design of the reactors," says Najmedin Meshkati of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, a nuclear safety expert who has studied power plants worldwide, including at Chernobyl and in Japan. "[The crisis] really hasn't been a problem with the reactor design."

The most pressing issue now at the plant is a possible crack in a spent fuel pool, which sits above the reactor containment vessel and was damaged during explosions earlier this week. The containment vessels that hold the actual nuclear reactors, meanwhile, appear to have largely withstood a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, a 30-foot tsunami, explosions, and fires.

"I think GE is a hero in this," says Dr. Meshkati.

Dr. Meshkati says a root-cause analysis traces the current crisis back to the failed diesel generators. The March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out electricity to the plant, which triggered the activation of diesel generators that stopped operating within hours. At that point, cooling water was no longer pumped into the reactors to prevent the fuel rods from overheating.

As to why the generators failed to withstand the earthquake and tsunami, Meshkati says that's a question for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and the Japanese regulatory body. "Had the diesel generators worked, we wouldn’t be talking today," he says.

[3/16/11] ZAO, Japan >> Japanese military helicopters dumped loads of seawater onto a stricken nuclear reactor Thursday, trying to avoid full meltdowns as plant operators said they were close to finishing a new power line that could restore cooling systems and ease the crisis.

U.S. officials in Washington, meanwhile, warned that the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in northeastern Japan may be on the verge of spewing more radioactive material because water was gone from a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel rods.

The troubles at several of the plant's reactors were set off when last week's earthquake and tsunami knocked out power and ruined backup generators needed for their cooling systems, adding a major nuclear crisis for Japan as it dealt with twin natural disasters that killed more than 10,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

A Japanese military CH-47 Chinook helicopter began dumping seawater on the damaged reactor of Unit 3 at the Fukushima complex at Thursday morning (Wednesday afternoon in Hawaii), said defense ministry spokeswoman Kazumi Toyama. The aircraft dumped at least four loads on the reactor, though much of the water appeared to be dispersed in the air.

The dumping was intended both to help cool the reactor and to replenish water in a pool holding spent fuel rods, Toyama said. The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said earlier that the pool was nearly empty, which might cause the rods to overheat.

The comments from U.S. officials indicated there were similar problems at another unit of the Dai-ichi complex.

[3/16/11] FUKUSHIMA, Japan >> Nuclear plant operators trying to avoid complete reactor meltdowns said Thursday that they were close to finishing a new power line that could end Japan's crisis, but several ominous signs have also emerged: a surge in radiation levels, unexplained white smoke and spent fuel rods that U.S. officials said might be on the verge of spewing more radioactive material.

As fear, confusion and unanswered questions swirled around the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex, and Japan suffered myriad other trials from last week's earthquake and tsunami believed to have killed more than 10,000, its emperor took the unprecedented step of directly addressing his country on camera, urging his people not to give up.

"It is important that each of us shares the difficult days that lie ahead," Akihito said Wednesday (Tuesday in Hawaii). "I pray that we will all take care of each other and overcome this tragedy."

The 77-year-old emperor expressed his own deep concern about the "unpredictable" nuclear crisis. "With the help of those involved I hope things will not get worse," he said.

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said at a congressional hearing in Washington that all the water is gone from the spent fuel storage pond of Fukushima Dai-ichi's Unit 4 reactor, but Japanese officials denied it. Hajime Motojuku, a spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., said the "condition is stable" at Unit 4.

Earlier, however, another utility spokesman said officials' greatest concerns were the spent fuel pools, which lack the protective shells that reactors have.

"We haven't been able to get any of the latest data at any spent fuel pools. We don't have the latest water levels, temperatures, none of the latest information for any of the four reactors," Masahisa Otsuki said.

If Jaczko is correct, it would mean there's nothing to stop the used fuel rods from getting hotter and ultimately melting down. The outer shells of the rods could also ignite with enough force to propel the radioactive fuel inside over a wide area.

"My understanding is there is no water in the spent fuel pool," Jaczko told reporters after the hearing. "I hope my information is wrong. It's a terrible tragedy for Japan."

He said the information was coming from NRC staff in Tokyo who are working with the utility in Japan. He said the staffers continue to believe the spent fuel pool is dry.

[3/16/11] The emergency at Japan's wrecked nuclear plant appears to be worsening after surging radiation levels forced engineers to temporarily withdraw, losing time in a desperate operation to cool the overheating reactors.

The technicians were dousing the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant with seawater in an effort to cool them when they had to retreat late Wednesday morning local time. They returned in the evening after radiation levels subsided but in the hours between it was not clear what, if any, operations continued.

***

High levels of radiation leaked from a crippled nuclear plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan after a third reactor was rocked by an explosion today and a fourth caught fire in a dramatic escalation of the 4-day-old catastrophe.

Workers were striving to stabilize three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Fukushima state that exploded in the wake of Friday's quake and tsunami. Officials said 50 workers, all of them wearing protective radiation gear and working at great personal risk, were still trying to put water into the reactors to cool them.

The crisis at the complex is already the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl reactor disaster a quarter-century ago.

earthquake hits Japan

An 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit northern Japan on Friday, triggering tsunamis and sending a massive body of water filled with debris that included boats and houses inching toward highways.

The epicenter was 373 kilometers (231 miles) away from the capital, Tokyo, the United States Geological Survey said. But residents there felt the tremors.
The quake rattled buildings and toppled cars off bridges and into waters underneath. Waves of debris flowed like lava across farmland, pushing boats, houses and trailers toward highways.

***

A tsunami warning has been issued for Hawaii as a result of a 8.9-magnitude earthquake near the east coast of Honshu, Japan.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami watch at 7:56 p.m. after the quake struck 231 miles northeast of Tokyo. The watch was upgraded to a more serious warning about 9:30 p.m.

"A tsunami has been generated that could cause damage along coastlines of all islands in the state of Hawaii," the agency said. "Urgent action should be taken to protect lives and property."

disasters strike Indonesia

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia -- A volcanic eruption and a tsunami killed scores of people hundreds of miles apart in Indonesia -- spasms from the Pacific "Ring of Fire," which spawns disasters from deep within the Earth.

The eruption of Mount Merapi on Tuesday killed at least 25 people, forced thousands to flee down its slopes and spewed burning ash and smoke high into the air on the island of Java.

Meanwhile, off the coast of Sumatra, about 800 miles west of the volcano, rescuers battled rough seas to reach the remote Mentawai islands, where a 10-foot tsunami triggered by an earthquake Monday night swept away hundreds of homes, killing at least 113 villagers, said Mujiharto of the Health Ministry's crisis center. Up to 500 others are missing.

The twin disasters happened hours apart in one of the most seismically active regions on the planet.

Pakistan floods kill at least 800

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Floods driven by record-breaking rainfall have killed at least 800 people and destroyed thousands of homes over the past week, officials said Saturday, in the latest disaster to test Pakistan’s already strained government.

The crisis comes as the government is struggling to fight an Islamic insurgency and to cope with the aftermath of Wednesday’s plane crash in which 152 people died in the fog- and rain-shrouded Himalayan foothills just outside this capital city. It was the deadliest domestic plane crash in Pakistan’s history.

Officials said the deluge was the worst since 1929 in northwest Pakistan, where water levels in dams continued to rise. And with more rain forecast for all but that part of the country, increasing the likelihood of more flash floods and landslides, government officials issued pleas for international aid.

BP oil leak in Gulf of Mexico

[4/22/10] A 1-by-5-mile sheen of crude oil mix has spread across the Gulf of Mexico's surface around the area where an oil rig exploded and sank, a Coast Guard lieutenant said Thursday.

"This is a rainbow sheen with a dark center," Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry told reporters Thursday afternoon.

Officials do not know whether oil or fuel are leaking form the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig and the well below, but BP Vice President David Rainey said "it certainly has the potential to be a major spill." BP PLC operates the license on which the rig was drilling.

***

[4/25/10] Efforts were under way Sunday to contain and stop oil leaking from a well after a rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

Officials found oil was leaking Saturday from the well. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig was drilling when it exploded Tuesday night, the Coast Guard said. Rescuers on Friday suspended the search for 11 people missing after the blast and subsequent sinking of the rig.

***

[4/28/10] The estimated amount of oil spilling in an underwater leak from last week's oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico has increased to 5,000 barrels a day, five times more than what was originally believed, a Coast Guard official said late Wednesday.

Rear Adm. Mary Landry said the increased estimate is based on analysis from the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She noted that there are "a lot of variables" in calculating the rate of the spill.

Additionally, a third underwater oil leak has been located in the pipeline that connected the rig to the oil well, said Doug Suttles, chief operating officer for BP, who joined Landry at a news conference. Two other leaks were located within 36 hours of the April 20 explosion.

The head of BP Group told CNN's Brian Todd in an exclusive interview Wednesday that the accident could have been prevented, and he focused blame on rig owner Transocean Ltd.

CEO Tony Hayward said Transocean's "blowout preventer" failed to operate before the explosion. A blowout preventer is a large valve at the top of a well, and activating it will stop the flow of oil. The valve may be closed during drilling if underground pressure drives up oil or natural gas, threatening the rig.

"That is the ultimate fail-safe mechanism," Hayward said. "And for whatever reason -- and we don't understand that yet, but we clearly will as a consequence of both our investigation and federal investigations -- it failed to operate.

"And that is the key issue here, the failure of the Transocean [blowout preventer]," Hayward said, describing the valve as "an integral part of the drilling rig," which is operated by Transocean.

***

[4/29/10] Experts still hope to close a stuck valve that's let oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico for more than a week. But if those efforts fail, the next-best plans will take weeks more to stop the flow, officials say.

The undersea oil well, following a drilling rig's April 20 explosion 50 miles off Louisiana's coast, is spewing up to 210,000 gallons of light sweet crude a day into the Gulf, officials say.

Eleven workers from the rig are missing and presumed dead.

Part of the Gulf Coast was bracing for oily water to reach shore early Friday.
BP, the well's majority owner, has been trying to stop the flow by using remote-controlled submarines to activate a valve atop the well. But the valve, known as a blowout preventer, is not working.

A stopgap plan -- putting a chamber over the well area and sending the oil to a ship -- is unproven at that depth and could take four weeks before it's ready. And the ultimate plan -- drilling a different well to access the first and close it with concrete -- could take three months. Meanwhile, efforts to contain the spill and stop the leak are costing the well's owners about $6 million per day, BP says.

***

[5/5/10] A four-story containment vessel left Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on a barge Wednesday en route to the Gulf of Mexico's gushing oil well, where BP will attempt to lower the container onto a ruptured deep-water pipe in an unprecedented operation.
"If all goes according to plan, we should begin the process of processing the fluid and stop the spilling to the sea on Monday," Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer, said Wednesday.

But he added: "It's very complex, and it will likely have challenges along the way."
The hope is that the container will collect the leaking oil, which would be sucked up to a drill ship on the surface. If the operation is successful, BP plans to deploy a second, smaller dome to deal with a second leak in the ruptured pipe, the company has said.

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[5/10/10] BP is moving on to plan "B" today to try to contain a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A 40-foot high containment dome lowered into the water over the weekend failed to work.

The company is scrambling to figure out how to clog a leak that's spewing more than 200,000 gallons of oil into the sea every day. Doug Suttles is BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production and he joined us on Monday's American Morning.

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[5/12/10] The "top hat" oil containment device has reached the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico and should be in position over a leaking well head and operational by the end of the week, BP said Wednesday. Meanwhile, one man says while all that's going on, he's sitting on a potential solution to saving the wetlands, if they're over-run with oil.

Frank Pajaujis is a partner at Aabaco and says he has a product that could actually "eat" away at the oil and turn it into dirt. He showed us a demonstration of his product on Wednesday's American Morning.

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[5/13/10] Oil company BP will attempt to insert a new section of pipe into the riser of its damaged undersea well to capture the gusher of crude now spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, a company spokesman said Thursday.

The operation could begin Thursday night, BP spokesman John Crabtree said. The goal is to use the new section of pipe, which is ringed with a gasket, to seal the 22-inch riser pipe -- the section that connects the well with the main pipe running to the surface -- then pump the oil up to a ship on the surface.

The new attempt is the latest plan by BP to seal the well that was uncorked when the drill rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and sank two days later, about 50 miles off the southeast coast of Louisiana, leaving 11 workers lost at sea. A previous effort to cap the gusher with a four-story containment dome failed when natural gas crystals collected inside the structure, plugging an outlet at the top.

[5/14/10] President Obama on Friday criticized executives from BP and two other companies for blaming each other for the continuing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

"I did not appreciate what I considered to be a ridiculous spectacle during the congressional hearings into this matter," the president said after meeting with Cabinet members to discuss the situation. "You had executives of BP and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else. The American people could not have been impressed with that display, and I certainly wasn't."

"I understand that there are legal and financial issues involved, and a full investigation will tell us exactly what happened. But it is pretty clear that the system failed, and it failed badly. And for that, there's enough responsibility to go around. And all parties should be willing to accept it," he said.

"It is absolutely essential that going forward, we put in place every necessary safeguard and protection so that a tragedy like this oil spill does not happen again.

"This is a responsibility that all of us share," he said. "The oil companies share it. The manufacturers of this equipment share it. The agencies in the federal government in charge of oversight share that responsibility. I will not tolerate more finger-pointing or irresponsibility."

[5/15/10] A mechanical problem prevented BP from inserting a tube into a ruptured pipe that would help siphon off oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, BP official Doug Suttles said Saturday.

Suttles said the device was hoisted back to the surface Friday for readjustments and the company expects to have it working by Saturday night. The plan is for the mile-long tube to collect the oil and send it to a surface vessel.

Millions of gallons of crude have gushed into the Gulf since the fiery explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig more than three weeks ago.

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[5/16/10] Oil company BP says it has resumed pumping oil to a ship on the surface after a weekend setback that halted efforts to siphon off the crude spewing from a damaged well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

Crews re-inserted the tube into the well's riser stack Sunday. The 4-inch pipe is now connected to a ship on the surface, 5,000 feet above the sea floor, and is pumping oil back to the surface, BP spokesman Mark Proegler told CNN.

If successful, the technique will capture most of the oil that is pouring out of the well. The well has been spewing an estimated 210,000 gallons, or 5,000 barrels, of light sweet crude a day into the Gulf since the sinking of the drill platform Deepwater Horizon in late April.

[5/17/10] For now, oil continues a-gush into the Gulf of Mexico. BP is attempting to stem the flow of oil using a "mile-long tube" to siphon the crude onto awaiting tanker ships, but even as that attempt gets underway, there's word of "giant oil plumes" forming under the water, which sounds -- let's say... menacing.

Against this backdrop, the Obama administration has escalated its efforts to resolve this crisis by assembling a "rag-tag band of big-think scientific renegades." It's a five-man group (no ladies, not in Larry Summers's America!) said by TPM's Zachary Roth to include Los Alamos veteran Richard Garvin, nuclear scientist Tom Hunter, MIT mechanical engineering professor Alexander Slocum, Lawrence Berkeley Labs engineer George Cooper, and Washington University physics professor Jonathan Katz. While so many aspects of these various "plug-the-leak" operations have come to resemble episodes of "Futurama" (Friendly robots! Shooting trash at the problem!), there's no indication that former Vice President Al Gore or chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue have been asked to participate.

[5/17/10] After more than three weeks of efforts to stop a gushing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, BP engineers achieved some success on Sunday when they used a milelong pipe to capture some of the oil and divert it to a drill ship on the surface some 5,000 feet above the wellhead, company officials said.

After two false starts, engineers successfully inserted a narrow tube into the damaged pipe from which most of the oil is leaking.

[5/27/10] BP shares were up 7% to $45.38 on reports that its "top kill" operation to stem the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was making progress.

[5/28/10] As BP labored for a second day Thursday to choke off the leak at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, dire new government estimates showed the disaster has easily eclipsed the Exxon Valdez as the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

[5/29/10] A BP executive says the company has yet to stop the oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico and is considering other ways to plug the leak.

BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles told reporters in Grand Isle, Louisiana, Saturday that the top kill has not stopped the flow of oil and he doesn't know whether it will succeed. He says the company is already preparing its next option to cap the well.

[6/4/10] Venice, Louisiana (CNN) -- On day 46 of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP, at last, began to siphon oil from the ruptured undersea well to the surface, where it was flowing onto the awaiting drill ship Discover Enterprise.

As the recovery process started Friday, BP said it would shut four vents on top of a containment cap from which oil was still escaping into the ocean. The company hoped that closing the vents would greatly reduce the amount of gushing crude, though there was still enormous uncertainty about the ultimate success of BP's latest effort to contain and recover the oil.

[6/8/10] NEW ORLEANS -- The cap on the blown-out well in the Gulf is capturing a half-million gallons a day, or anywhere from one-third to three-quarters of the oil spewing from the bottom of the sea, officials said Monday. But the hopeful report was offset by a warning that the farflung slick has broken up into hundreds and even thousands of patches of oil that may inflict damage that could persist for years.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the crisis, said the breakup has complicated the cleanup.

"Dealing with the oil spill on the surface is going to go on for a couple of months," he said at a briefing in Washington. But "long-term issues of restoring the environment and the habitats and stuff will be years."

Allen said the containment cap that was installed late last week is now collecting about 460,000 gallons of oil a day out of the approximately 600,000 to 1.2 million gallons believed to be spewing from the well a mile underwater. In a tweet, BP said it collected 316,722 gallons from midnight to noon Monday.

The amount of oil captured is being slowly ramped up as more vents on the cap are closed. Crews are moving carefully to avoid a dangerous pressure buildup and to prevent the formation of the icy crystals that thwarted a previous effort to contain the leak. The captured oil is being pumped to a ship on the surface.

BP said it plans to replace the cap -- perhaps later this month or early next month -- with a slightly bigger one that will provide a tighter fit and thus collect more oil. It will also be designed to allow the company to suspend the cleanup and then resume it quickly if a hurricane threatens the Gulf later this season. The new cap is still being designed.

[6/12/10] (Reuters) - A top U.S. Coast Guard official has told BP Plc the company's plans to contain the gushing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico do not go far enough or contain enough back-up measures.

"BP must identify in the next 48 hours additional leak containment capacity that could be operationalized and expedited," Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson said in a letter to BP dated June 11.

Watson, the federal on-scene coordinator for spill response, noted estimates of the amount of oil leaking from BP's damaged well have been raised sharply. He did not suggest what actions could be taken if the 48-hour deadline was not met.

Watson's letter was a response to one from BP that described the company's multi-phase plans to contain the spill, involving several elements to be phased in by mid-July.

[7/15/10] BP stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday — 85 days and hundreds of millions of gallons after the crisis unfolded — then began a tense watch to see whether the capped-off well would hold or blow a new leak.

[7/28/10] The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected, a piece of good news that raises tricky new questions about how fast the government should scale back its response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The immense patches of surface oil that covered thousands of square miles of the gulf after the April 20 oil rig explosion are largely gone, though sightings of tar balls and emulsified oil continue here and there.

Reporters flying over the area Sunday spotted only a few patches of sheen and an occasional streak of thicker oil, and radar images taken since then suggest that these few remaining patches are quickly breaking down in the warm surface waters of the gulf.

The dissolution of the slick should reduce the risk of oil killing more animals or hitting shorelines. But it does not end the many problems and scientific uncertainties associated with the spill, and federal leaders emphasized this week that they had no intention of walking away from those problems any time soon.

The effect on sea life of the large amounts of oil that dissolved below the surface is still a mystery. Two preliminary government reports on that issue have found concentrations of toxic compounds in the deep sea to be low, but the reports left many questions, especially regarding an apparent decline in oxygen levels in the water.

And understanding the effects of the spill on the shorelines that were hit, including Louisiana’s coastal marshes, is expected to occupy scientists for years. Fishermen along the coast are deeply skeptical of any declarations of success, expressing concern about the long-term effects of the chemical dispersants used to combat the spill and of the submerged oil, particularly on shrimp and crab larvae that are the foundation of future fishing seasons.

Earthquake hits Western China

A series of strong earthquakes has struck China's western Qinghai province.

Officials say at least 400 people have been killed, and 10,000 others have been injured. It is not known how many are still buried.

The earthquake, measured at magnitude 6.9, hit the remote county of Yushu near the Tibetan border, in the south of mountainous Qinghai.

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Soldiers and civilians used shovels and their bare hands to dig through collapsed buildings in search of survivors after strong earthquakes struck a mountainous Tibetan region of China on Wednesday, killing at least 589 people and injuring more than 10,000.

The series of quakes flattened buildings across remote western Yushu county and sent survivors, many bleeding from their wounds, flooding into the streets of Jiegu township. State television showed block after devastated block of toppled mud and wood homes. Local officials said 85 percent of the structures had been destroyed.

Residents and troops garrisoned in the town used shovels and their hands to pull survivors and bodies from the rubble much of the day. Several schools collapsed, with the state news agency saying at least 56 students died. Worst hit was the Yushu Vocational School, where Xinhua cited a local education official as saying 22 students died.

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BEIJING (AP) — Earthquake survivors shivered through a second night outdoors in a remote Tibetan corner of western China with rescuers fighting altitude sickness and dealing with a lack of supplies as the death toll rose to 760.

People with broken arms or legs cried in pain as medical teams could offer little more than injections. A doctor at the Qinghai provincial hospital, where the severely injured were being flown, said she had no idea how many were being treated because there was no time to count them all.

Stunned survivors wandered the dusty streets of Jiegu, where relief workers estimated 70% to 90% of the low-slung town of wood-and-mud housing had collapsed. Hundreds gathered to sleep in a plaza around a 50-foot (15-meter) tall statue of the mythical Tibetan King Gesar, wrapped in blankets taken from homes shattered by Wednesday morning's quakes.

coal mine disaster

An explosion Monday afternoon rocked the remote coal mine with a history of safety problems. Massey Energy says 25 workers have been killed in a West Virginia coal mine explosion in the worst U.S. mine disaster since 1984.

Though the cause of the blast was not known, the operation about 30 miles south of Charleston has a history of violations for not properly ventilating highly combustible methane gas, safety officials said.

earthquake hits Haiti

A major earthquake struck southern Haiti on Tuesday, knocking down buildings and power lines and inflicting what its ambassador to the United States called a catastrophe for the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

Several eyewitnesses reported heavy damage and bodies in the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince, where concrete-block homes line steep hillsides. There was no estimate of the dead and wounded Tuesday evening, but the U.S. State Department has been told to expect "serious loss of life," department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington.

"The only thing I can do now is pray and hope for the best," the ambassador, Raymond Alcide Joseph, told CNN.

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On Oct. 17, 1989, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Bay Area in Northern California. Sixty-three people were killed. This week, a major earthquake, also measuring a magnitude of 7.0, struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Red Cross estimates that between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died.

This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. It’s a story about poorly constructed buildings, bad infrastructure and terrible public services. On Thursday, President Obama told the people of Haiti: “You will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten.” If he is going to remain faithful to that vow then he is going to have to use this tragedy as an occasion to rethink our approach to global poverty. He’s going to have to acknowledge a few difficult truths.

The first of those truths is that we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not.

... it’s time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism.

These programs, like the Harlem Children’s Zone and the No Excuses schools, are led by people who figure they don’t understand all the factors that have contributed to poverty, but they don’t care. They are going to replace parts of the local culture with a highly demanding, highly intensive culture of achievement — involving everything from new child-rearing practices to stricter schools to better job performance.

The late political scientist Samuel P. Huntington used to acknowledge that cultural change is hard, but cultures do change after major traumas. This earthquake is certainly a trauma. The only question is whether the outside world continues with the same old, same old.

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They both have been colonized, oppressed and exploited. They have lived through brutal dictatorships and U.S. invasions.

The two countries that occupy the tiny island of Hispaniola may have a shared history, but they have developed into two startlingly different places. The massive earthquake that devastated the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince left many people in the Dominican Republic, just 155 miles away, feeling nothing worse than a little dizziness.