Foreign aid workers in Burma have concluded that as many as 50,000 people died in Saturday’s cyclone, and two to three million are homeless, in a disaster on a scale comparable with the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The official death count after Cyclone Nargis stood at just under half that by 1300 GMT today, at around 22,500 people dead plus a further 41,000 missing.

But due to the incompleteness of the information from the stricken delta of the Irrawaddy river, UN and charity workers in the city of Rangoon privately believe that the number will eventually be double that.

"We are looking at 50,000 dead and millions homeless," Andrew Kirkwood, country director of the British charity Save The Children, told The Times.

 Source : Times Online UK

More than 10,000 people were killed in a devastating cyclone that hit western Burma on Saturday, Foreign Minister Nyan Win has said on state TV.

He said his government was ready to accept international assistance. Aid shipments are now being prepared. Thousands of survivors of Cyclone Nargis are lacking shelter, drinking water, power and communications. The United States offered to increase aid offered if Burma agreed to allow a US team access to assess the situation.

First Lady Laura Bush, who takes a special interest in Burma, urged Burma to accept $250,000 (£126,000) already allocated for emergency aid, and said more would be available if the team was allowed into the country. She also accused the Burmese authorities of failing to give a "timely warning" about the approaching storm, after which five regions - home to 24 million people - have been declared disaster zones.

 Source : BBC UK

"The basic message was that they believe the provisional death toll was about 10,000 with 3,000 missing," a Yangon-based diplomat told Reuters in Bangkok, summarizing a briefing from Foreign Minister Nyan Win. "It's a very serious toll."

The scale of the disaster from Saturday's devastating cyclone drew a rare acceptance of outside help from the diplomatically isolated generals, who spurned such approaches in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

 Source : Yahoo News

Scientists say they know far too little about Midwestern seismic zones like the one that rumbled to life under southern Illinois Friday morning, but some of what they do know is unnerving.

The fault zones beneath the Mississippi River Valley have produced some of the largest modern U.S. quakes east of the Rockies, a region covered with old buildings not built to withstand seismic activity.

And, when quakes happen, they're felt far and wide, their vibrations propagated over hundreds of miles of bedrock.

Friday's quake shook things up from Nebraska to Atlanta, rattling nerves but doing little damage and seriously hurting no one. It was a magnitude 5.2 temblor centered just outside West Salem in southeastern Illinois, a largely rural region of small towns that sit over the Wabash fault zone. The area has produced moderately strong quakes as recently as 2002.

But it hasn't been studied to nearly the degree of quake-prone areas west of the Rockies, particularly along the heavily scrutinized Pacific coast.

 Source : AP / Myway News

The magnitude 5.2 earthquake that rocked the Midwest on Friday was felt from Kansas to Georgia, and aftershocks could continue for months at this strange seismic zone at the nation's center and even trigger another big quake, a geophysicist said.

The quake occurred on a northern extension of the New Madrid fault, about 6 miles north of Mt. Carmel, Ill. The New Madrid fault was responsible for devastating quakes in the Mississippi Valley in 1811 and 1812. So the Friday quake and its aftershocks likely are raising the blood pressure of some residents and scientists. For decades, scientists have debated whether and when the underlying fault could generate another temblor of similar and deadly strength.

"I think we saw a window to this possibility today in the Wabash Valley," said geophysicist Allessandro Forte of the Université du Québec à Montréal, who has studied the region's seismicity. "It's to the north of the New Madrid seismic zone, but given the strength of crust, the stress can be distributed great distances. It's not clear if we could see something in the next few years or even next few months, I would say." The last earthquake in the region to approach the severity of Friday's temblor was a 5.0 magnitude quake that shook a nearby area in 2002, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

 Source: Live Science

Cristina Archer and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology tracked changes in the average position and strength of jet streams using records compiled by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the National Centers for Environmental Protection, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The data included outputs from weather prediction models, conventional observations from weather balloons and surface instruments, and remote observations from satellites.

 Source : Science Daily

"Current oceanic and atmospheric trends indicate that we will likely have an active Atlantic basin hurricane season," said William Gray, who is beginning his 25th year forecasting hurricanes at Colorado State University.

The team's forecast now anticipates 15 named storms forming in the Atlantic basin between June 1 and Nov. 30. Eight of the storms are predicted to become hurricanes, and of those eight, four are expected to develop into intense or major hurricanes (Saffir/Simpson category 3-4-5) with sustained winds of 111 mph or greater.  Long-term averages are 9.6 named storms, 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 intense hurricanes per year.

 Source : Science Daily

Now a tornado has hit the capital city and Arkansans have to be wondering what's next. Since the night of Arkansas' Super Tuesday primary in early February, the sky just hasn't stop hurling rain, wind and disaster across the Southern state. "We've been assaulted by Mother Nature over the last few months," Gov. Mike Beebe said.

Across the state, nights are filled with red and blue emergency lights flashing across wet streets strewn with pine needles and limbs thrown by tornadoes . Days remain soaked by muddy floodwaters that lap across front doors and seep into molding furniture. Thirteen people died after two tornadoes screamed through the state Feb. 5. One snaked over cross-country Interstate 40 on its 123-mile path.

In the time since, more than a foot of snow fell at points in Arkansas' Ozark Mountains. Swollen rivers spilled into farm pastures and bayous across Arkansas' eastern Delta region in March, killing two. Another man remains missing. South of the capital city in Benton, Thursday's storm destroyed a dozen homes at the Hurricane Creek Mobile Home Park. Emergency workers had trouble responding because downed power lines and trees blocked the main entry road. A gas leak caused by a felled tree ignited a fire that destroyed one of the trailers.

 Source : Yahoo News

The study, detailed in the April issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, revealed that 13 out of 15 of the San Andreas earthquakes in the past 3,000 years occurred at almost the same time (in geological terms) as quakes along the southern portion of the Cascadia fault. The Cascadia temblors preceded the ruptures along the San Andreas by an average of about 25 to 45 years (to seismologists who study events across millions and billions of years, that's a close match). "It's either an amazing coincidence or one fault triggered the other," Goldfinger said.

 Source : Live Science

The violent winds howl, announcing the arrival of the twister. Grapefruit-sized hailstones rain down and the huge funnel of the tornado swings menacingly on the horizon . These are the most violent storms on earth, wreaking havoc wherever they whirl. For most, the sight of an approaching "twister" is a vision of hell on earth. But for a few, experiencing a tornado in full flow is their idea of heaven.

 Source : Dailymail UK

Gigantic eruptions are one of two leading explanations for a series of mass extinctions that have killed off vast numbers of species periodically over the last 545 million years. Other scientists have blamed asteroids hitting the Earth - generally considered the prime suspect in the case of the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Up to now there had been doubts about the killing power of volcanoes because researchers had struggled to measure just how much toxic gas would have been released. But excavations in the Deccan volcanic rock - known as flood basalt - led to the discovery of traces of glass, allowing the British-based team to analyse the gases it originally contained. Writing in the journal Science, they conclude that the massive of amounts of both sulphur and chlorine released in the Deccan eruptions would probably have had a "severe" environmental impact .

"Gases from a series of eruptions of the Deccan Traps may have 'battered away' at life on the planet at the time, leading to the mass extinctions,” said volcanologist Stephen Self of the Open University in Milton Keynes. "It certainly bolsters the case, though it doesn't prove it," he added.

 Source : DailyMail UK

The Atlanta twister has not been characterized as a violent tornado. Tornadoes are rated using the Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale, which scores the damage caused by a particular twister on a scale from 0 to 5. Violent tornadoes are classified as EF4 and EF5, significant ones EF2 and EF3. EF5 damage is typically quite catastrophic: Houses are not only just destroyed but destroyed down to their foundation—no walls left standing--and the tornado might cause structural damage to larger, well-engineered buildings that are designed to survive even very intense winds. The tornado that went through Atlanta, although it broke lots of windows, didn't cause major damage to any downtown buildings. I believe that tornado has been rated an EF2.

 Source : Scientific American

The science supporting NOAA’s short-term forecasts allows for a high level of certainty. National Weather Service forecasters highlighted potential for the current major flood event a week in advance and began working with emergency managers to prepare local communities for the impending danger. 

“We expect rains and melting snow to bring more flooding this spring,” said Vickie Nadolski, deputy director of NOAA’s National Weather Service. “Americans should be on high alert to flood conditions in your communities. Arm yourselves with information about how to stay safe during a flood and do not attempt to drive on flooded roadways – remember to always turn around, don’t drown.”

Nadolski called on local emergency management officials to continue preparations for a wet spring and focus on public education to ensure heightened awareness of the potential for dangerous local conditions.

 Source : Science Daily

Further north, a winter of severe weather stretched into the second day of spring as a storm bore down on the Midwest, dropping heavy snow and delaying flights.

Many rivers were swollen beyond their banks, leaving houses under water, from parts of Texas north to Ohio after inundating rains this week -- in some cases on the heels of record snowstorms earlier in the month that left soils saturated.

Reports across the region said some 16 people had died, either swept away by rushing waters or in traffic accidents blamed on the heavy storms.

 Source : Yahoo News

And that's from ground shaking alone. If major fires break out - think 1906 in San Francisco - the total losses would be far higher, they said.

The staggering numbers come from new predictions of losses resulting from a magnitude 7 temblor on the fault, in which ground shaking could spread from the quake's epicenter directly on the fault to communities as far off as Santa Rosa and San Jose - or beyond.

 Source : SFGate.com

Storms killed one person Saturday in northwest Georgia, less than 24 hours after a tornado with wind up to 130 mph cut a 6-mile path through downtown Atlanta, blowing windows out of skyscrapers and injuring dozens.

More thunderstorms headed across northern Alabama toward the city Saturday. "We're bracing for another round of whatever mother nature throws at us," said Lisa Janak of the state emergency management agency.

A tornado touched down Saturday in Polk County on the Alabama line, killing one person, Janak said. She had no other details, and the National Weather Service had not confirmed the second tornado.

At least 27 people were hurt Friday night, though no injuries were believed to be life-threatening. Crews hauled broken glass and furniture out of streets downtown, where all events scheduled for Saturday were canceled, including the St. Patrick's Day parade.

"It's a mess," Janak said.

Weather service officials confirmed Saturday that a tornado hit around 9:40 p.m. as a thunderstorm roared through with wind up to 60 mph, about 10 minutes after the weather service issued a tornado warning.

 Source : Myway News

Indentifying fault of ancient disaster may help save tens of millions.

Scientists have found evidence that an overlooked fault in the eastern Mediterranean is likely to produce an earthquake and tsunami every 800 years as powerful as the one that destroyed Alexandria in AD 365. Using radiocarbon dating techniques, simulations and computer models, the researchers recreated the ancient disaster in order to identify the responsible fault, they said in a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday.

"We are saying there is probably a repeat time of 800 years for this kind of earthquake," said Beth Shaw, a seismologist at the University of Cambridge, who led the study.

Scientists study past earthquakes in order to determine the future likelihood of similar large shocks. Identifying the fault for the AD 365 earthquake and tsunami is important for the tens of millions of people in the region, Shaw said.

 Source : MSNBC News

Homes were flooded and hit by power cuts today as winds of more than 80mph battered Britain.

Forecasters warned of more rough weather to come after gales roared in from the Atlantic from the early hours onwards. Travellers by sea, air, rail and road faced delays and thousands of homes lost power as trees crashed down on lines.

Insurers said the cost of such a storm - the strongest of the winter in southern areas of the country - could run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

 Source : The Independent UK

A beekeeper says bees are dying at least as fast as they did last year, and farmers are getting stung. But what's causing it? And will it wreak havoc on America's crops?

 Source : CBS News

“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.”

In a newly published paper in Natural Hazards Review, the researchers also found that economic hurricane damage in the U.S. has been doubling every 10 to 15 years. If more people continue to move to the hurricane-prone coastline, future economic hurricane losses may be far greater than previously thought.

“Unless action is taken to address the growing concentration of people and property in coastal hurricane areas, the damage will increase by a great deal as more people and infrastructure inhabit these coastal locations,” said Landsea.

 Source : Science Daily

Britain was shaken by a 4.7 magnitude earthquake at 12.56am this morning which was felt by people from Yorkshire to the South Coast.

Thousands of people reported their homes being shaken violently and furniture moving, and hundreds more took to the streets for safety and to check for damage.

The epicentre of the tremor, which measured 4.7 on the Richter scale, was centred on the village of Holton cum Beckering, about 15 miles northeast of Lincoln. According to the US Geological Survey, the epicentre was 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) from the Earth’s surface.

Glenn Ford, a senior seismologist at the British Geological Survey (BGS), said: “It’s an extremely large earthquake in UK terms but not large in world terms; we’d classify it only as a light earthquake."

 Source : Times Online

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was to be officially inaugurated on Tuesday, less than a year after crews started drilling in Norway's Svalbard archipelago, about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the North Pole.

The vault, which Norway built at a cost of about 50 million kroner (US$9.1 million, euro6.25 million), has the capacity to store 4.5 million seed samples from around the globe, shielding them from climate change, wars, natural disasters and other threats.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg were to attend the opening ceremony, 425 feet deep into the Plataaberget mountain.

The vault is designed to be a "fail-safe backup" for the other 1,400 seed banks in the world, in case they are hit by disasters, said Cary Fowler, executive director of project partner the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

 Source : MSNBC.com

The world map might look differently had the Greek volcano Thera not erupted 3,500 years ago in what geologists believe was the single-most powerful explosive event ever witnessed.

Thera didn't just blow a massive hole into the island of Santorini – it set the entire ancient Mediterranean onto a different course, like a train that switched tracks to head off in a brand new direction.

Minoan culture, the dominant civilization in the Mediterranean at the time, crumbled as a result of the eruption, historians believe, changing the political landscape of the ancient world indefinitely. Environmental effects were felt across the globe, as far away as China and perhaps even North America and Antarctica.

The legend of Atlantis and the story of the Biblical plagues and subsequent exodus from Egypt have also been connected to the epic catastrophe.

 Source : Live Science