Home/Posts Tagged ‘disaster’
Posts Tagged ‘disaster’
Politics, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Feb 29th, 2012,
An independent report on the level 7 nuclear incident at Fukushima, Japan, following the tsunami on March 11, 2011, reveals bad communication between authorities and irresponsible behavior by Japanese government officials. The report was carried out by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, who interviewed some 300 politicians, bureaucrats and workers who were involved in the Fukushima disaster. Lies about the level of risk, a lack of information provided to the public and general incompetence reflect poorly on Japan’s government, energy industry and nuclear energy as a whole. From Japan Times: The panel’s report reveals that although the public was being…
Tags: disaster, Fukushima, nuclear, report
Natural disasters, Nature, Videos & Documentaries, Dec 21st, 2011,
Philippine President Benigno Aquino declared a state of emergency after a tropical typhoon Washi (Sendong) battered the country and reportedly claimed the lives of nearly 1,000 people. Regions most affected by the tropical storm were areas of the cities Cagayan de Oro and Iligan on Mindanao island. In a mere few hours the raging elements led to local rivers overflowing their banks and flash floods to cause water saturated soil to slip down slopes destroying everything in their path. Due to the almost zero chance of finding anyone still alive, dozens of people who previously were considered missing are now…
Tags: disaster, donate, help, killed, Philippines, Sendong, typhoon, victims, Washi
Natural disasters, Nature, Videos & Documentaries, Nov 23rd, 2011,
An avalanche of water and mud swept away homes during the middle of the night in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, a small town near Messina in Sicily, causing several fatalities. Torrential rains poured over Italy for hours, causing a mudslide that killed four people, including an unidentified 10 year old boy. The landslide destroyed a large number of houses and many people have been reported missing. Search and rescue continues and the exact number of injuries and fatalities is unknown. A second landslide was also the cause of a train derailment in Calabria, Catanzaro. Fortunately no one was killed but…
Tags: disaster, heavy rain, Italy, landslide, mudslide, Sicily
Animals, Natural disasters, Videos & Documentaries, Mar 31st, 2011,
There have been many victims of this month’s earthquake and resultant tsunami disaster in northern Japan. The loss of human life, livelihood and property is immense and the suffering continues. Less attention has been given to the countless animals – wild, domestic and livestock – who have also suffered and are still in dire need of help. The title of this post has two meanings because there are two categories of help. There are still many animals stranded in or facing terrible and dangerous conditions in the areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami. There are also many who have…
Tags: animals, disaster, dogs, earthquake, japan, rescue, tsunami
Nature, Pollution, Mar 16th, 2011,
Japan is struggling to cope with a difficult tsunami/earthquake relief effort in the face of cold temperatures, food shortages, power outages and nuclear crisis. Please refer to this post for a list of links for aid agencies to donate to the relief effort. From the Guardian’s previous live blog (no longer being updated): The country faces an increasingly desperate humanitarian crisis caused by the direct effects of Friday’s huge earthquake and resultant tsunami, one made worse by freezing weather. The official death toll has now hit 4,255 deaths, with 8,194 people registered as unaccounted for. Survivors, many of them homeless,…
Tags: cold, disaster, earthquake, Fukushima, japan, nuclear, relief effort, tsunami
Pollution, Science & Technology, Feb 28th, 2011,
25 years after the worst nuclear accident in history, hundreds of millions of euros are needed to encase Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine amid fears of another potentially disastrous radiation leak. European and Ukrainian officials are trying to drum up hundreds of millions of euros to complete the project of encasing the site in steel. According to the Independent, the EU has contributed around €500m so far, but another €740 is needed: In recent years, the structure has become extremely unstable, with experts warning that if it collapses, a catastrophic amount of radiation could be released into the atmosphere….
Tags: accident, chernobyl, disaster, Europe, nuclear, plant, reactor
Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Jan 25th, 2011,
Remember the US’s worst ecological disaster in history? You may have to try pretty hard as it was way back in the spring of 2010. Here are some of the latest developments in that sad, sordid, and shameful story: A presidential commission in the US is set to lay most of the blame for the disaster on BP, yet not enough to stop the energy giant’s stocks from recovering almost two thirds of their value after losing half in the wake of the disaster. The overall blame, however, is placed on “systematic failures” including BP, Halliburton, Transocean and US government…
Tags: BP, Deepwater Horizon, disaster, Gulf, Halliburton, Transocean
Health, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Oct 5th, 2010,
So far at least four people have died and 120 have suffered injuries after a flood of toxic red sludge covered several villages in Hungary on Tuesday. The poisonous sludge comes from an alumina plant and began spilling into the surrounding area when the plant’s reservoir failed. So far it has leaked some 1 million cubic meters of the substance into a 40 square km area. 390 residents have been relocated and 6 people are still missing. The sludge, a waste product in aluminum production, contains heavy metals and is toxic if ingested. Many of the injured sustained burns as…
Tags: disaster, Hungary, red, sludge, TOXIC
Climate Change, Videos & Documentaries, Oct 2nd, 2010,
Is an environmental catastrophe on its way? How would you fare in a world where ecological disaster tests the limits of your archery and tent-setting-up skills? Would you be the rugged survivalist, the cannibal or the brainy nerd in the Hawaiian shirt? Saci Lloyd and Graham Land have fun discussing climate change-induced end of the world scenarios, Gaia theory and the Dark Mountain Project. To download this podcast in mp3, AAC or Ogg Vorbis click here Join the Facebook group for El Pod of Cast Saci Lloyd’s Carbon Diaries website
Tags: Armageddon, Carbon Diaries, Climate change, Dark Mountain, disaster, environment, Gaia theory, Graham Land, hexayut, Saci Lloyd, The Road
Pollution, Science & Technology, Wildlife & Flora, Sep 23rd, 2010,
In 1946, in the aftermath of the atomic bomb detonation in Hiroshima Japan, American journalist John Hersey traveled to the devastated city to write an article, entitled ‘Hiroshima’, for the The New Yorker magazine. The resulting, incomparable 31,000-word piece describes the experiences of several survivors of the attack. Among the harrowing portrayals of death and destruction, ‘Hiroshima’ also recounts how an unusual amount of greenery quickly sprang up to cover the ruins of the city, as if the radioactive fallout from the bomb had stimulated plant growth. As a symbol of human and ecological disaster, the 1986 incident at Chernobyl…
Tags: chernobyl, disaster, flax, Hiroshima, plants, Pripyat, radioactivity, soybean
Climate Change, Politics, Pollution, Aug 27th, 2010,
Poor BP. After the Deepwater Horizon mishap they have been tarred by their own brush, so to speak. But lets face it, despite BP’s exceptionally bad safety record, it’s a bad brush all around; whether you’re a pelican in the Gulf of Mexico or a person living beside Alberta’s tar sands or in the Niger River Delta. Of course BP has the well-deserved worst rap at this point in time and so they won’t be able to share in the spoils of the next – and probably last – oil frontier: the pristine icy waters of the Arctic. The company…
Tags: arctic, BP, Cairn, Climate change, Deepwater, disaster, energy, greenland, Gulf, Horizon, Mexico, oil, tar sands
Nature, Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Jul 14th, 2010,
BP’s crucial test of the new well cap over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been postponed yesterday. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and his team of advisers, who raised concerns that the operation could put damaging pressure on the busted well and make the leak worse, requested the postponement. By closing the source of the spill the pressure increase could cause the oil to start leaking in other places. The drilling of relief wells still remains the only proven way to stop the spill permanently, by intercepting the ruptured one. By the end of this month the…
Tags: BP, BP postponed new cap testing, British Petroleum, disaster, Gulf of Mexico, new cap testing, oil spill
Climate Change, Politics, Pollution, Jul 2nd, 2010,
Is there is just too much revenue in big oil to stop dangerous deep sea drilling? The oil industry, like the massive investment banks behind the financial crisis of 2008, is considered by some to be ‘too big to fail’. Yet also like financial crashes, disasters are calculated by those in charge as risks worth taking. Sure, a tragedy on the scale of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico wasn’t expected, but the industry and the government – and everybody – knew that spills happen. Also like the banks, the oil industry is largely self-regulating, so they…
Tags: blowout, BP, Brazil, British, dangerous, deep, Deepwater, disaster, government, Gulf, Horizon, industry, Mexico, north, oil, P-52, platform, rig, risk, risky, sea, spill, too big to fail, UK
Conservation, Nature, Politics, Wildlife & Flora, Jul 1st, 2010,
It seems that whenever there is a major (or at least rather anticipated) conference or meeting that is supposed to solve some ongoing environmental issue, it always fails. Either the people at the meeting can’t agree on anything and it’s all called off, or they scrap up some last minute deal that really amounts to nothing, or the decision is postponed for 6 month to a year (or longer). The latest IWC whaling conference in Morocco is no different. Nothing was resolved at the meeting and it turned into a rather ridiculous set of negotiations and trade offs. The main…
Tags: Captain Paul Watson, Conservation, disaster, epic fail, Interpol, IWC Whaling Conference, paused, postponed decision, Sea Shepherd, wanted, whales, whaling
Politics, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Jun 27th, 2010,
Survivors of the horrific chemical disaster that took place over 25 years ago in Bhopal, India are not satisfied with the recent actions of the Indian government regarding their case. The poison gas leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant is considered the worst industrial disaster in history, resulting in many thousands of deaths as well as serious lingering health conditions that continue to damage those affected to this day. Activists and victims of the tragedy are unsatisfied with a recent Indian court ruling, which sentenced 7 Union Carbide employees to 2 years in prison. Nor are they content with…
Tags: Bhopal, campaigner, disaster, government, India, Indian, justice, Union Carbide, victims
Climate Change, Politics, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Jun 19th, 2010,
Writer and activist Naomi Klein describes in a piece for the Guardian how an overconfident BP recklessly endangered the environment and human culture of the Gulf of Mexico, believing there to be ‘little risk’ of disaster. Even if a spill will to occur, BP believed, it would be minor and easily manageable. Now that a real – and plainly unmanageable – disaster has actually happened, promises from BP boss Tony Hayward and US President Barack Obama that the Gulf will fully recover are unrealistic and being met with skepticism by Gulf residents. It all sounded great. But for people whose…
Tags: BP, disaster, Fault Lines, Guardian, Gulf, Klein, Naomi, oil, spill
Climate Change, Politics, Jun 7th, 2010,
Over 25 years have past since the worst chemical disaster in history took place at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. The catastrophe killed 15,000 according to Indian government estimates. Activists and locals put the death toll much higher, not to mention the thousands left disabled by the disaster. Today, a court in Bhopal convicted 8 Indian former Union Carbide employees of ‘death by negligence’. The convicted were sentenced to two years in prison – save one who died before the verdict – and the company fined a paltry 500,000 rupees ($10,000/€9,000) according to a report from Reuters….
Tags: activists, Anderson, Bhopal, convicted, court, disaster, government, Health, India, Indian, Union Carbide, US, verdict, victims
Climate Change, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Jun 6th, 2010,
You can diagnose whether this country has a functioning media in this country by whether or not the country understands that this is a vile environmental mega-disaster. You can diagnose whether we have a functioning political system in this country by whether or not the result of this mega-disaster is change. –Rachel Maddow MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has been in Louisiana reporting on the spill from the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and broadcasting her show from what is essentially Deepwater Horizon ground zero. Here she is interviewing president Obama’s co-chairmen for the Oil Spill Commission. Maddow talks…
Tags: BP, commission, Deepwater Horizon, disaster, ground zero, Obama, oil, Rachel Maddow, spill
Climate Change, Politics, Jun 1st, 2010,
Large spills in Nigeria are routine, and oil companies go largely unpunished for destroying the local environment as well as poisoning the human population. Some of the damage is due to actions by rebel groups and criminals, who attack pipelines, but rusty old pipes continually leak oil, while gas flares both waste a valuable natural resource as well as release toxic pollution and greenhouse gasses. In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe…
Tags: disaster, environment, Exxon, gas flares, Gulf, human, Niger Delta, Nigeria, Observer, oil, Pollution, Shell, spill, Valdez
Climate Change, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, May 31st, 2010,
In contrast to articles on the ‘blame game’, failed solutions and abstract statistics about how much oil is fouling the Gulf, here is a piece of video journalism from Time magazine by a photographer who visited some of the human victims of the worst eco-disaster in US history. This moving report gives glimpses into the lives of the people living in southern Louisiana, which is effectively ground zero for the human tragedy resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil leak. We meet several workers in the fishing industry who are contemplating their future and survival in the face of an immense…
Tags: disaster, fishing, Gulf, human, Louisiana, oil, photographer, spill
