“This disaster has caused untold damage to the marine environment and has left a legacy that will need to be dealt with long into the future,” Greens Spokesperson on Marine Issues, Senator Rachel Siewert said.
“We expect the Federal Government to immediately announce the commencement of a full, independent, judicial inquiry into this incident, to be conducted at arm’s length from both the Government and the company.
“The Greens have been calling for such an inquiry since the start of this incident. It now needs to start immediately.”
For more information or media inquiries, please call Eloise Dortch on 0415 507 763
Leak from Deep-Water Rig Has Released an Estimated 9 Million Gallons of Fuel; Bad News for the “Drill, Baby Drill” Crowd? Here.
Throughout the oil spill crisis, the Rudd government has been preoccupied with protecting the image and profits of the multi-billion dollar offshore drilling industry: here.
USA: Louisiana Copes With Oil Spill, High Winds, Flooding: here.
Toxic shipwreck an ecological disaster for southern Madagascar: here.
A detailed study of the events leading up to the BP Texas City refinery explosion of 2005. Litigation is still ongoing for this incident, which was preventable.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will announce the largest fine in its history on Friday, $87 million in penalties against the oil giant BP for failing to correct safety problems identified after a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers at its Texas City, Tex. refinery, federal officials said Thursday.
The suspected cause of the explosion that killed 15 workers at BP’s Texas City, Tex., plant in 2005 was the escape of flammable hydrocarbons that were ignited by the backfire of a truck.
The fine is more than four times the size of any previous OSHA sanction.
According to documents obtained by The New York Times, OSHA issued 271 notifications to BP for failing to correct hazards at the Texas City refinery over the four-year period since the explosion. As a result, OSHA, which is part of the Labor Department, is issuing fines of $56.7 million. In addition, OSHA also identified 439 “willful and egregious” violations of industry-accepted safety controls at the refinery. Those violations will lead to $30.7 million in additional fines.
An 8.1 magnitude earthquake struck northwest of Vanuatu, the US Geological Survey has reported.
The epicentre of the quake was 373 km north-northwest of Santo, and 569km north-northwest of Port Vila at a depth of 33km, the agency said.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has issued a regional tsunami warning and watch for parts of the Pacific closer to the Vanuatu earthquake.
The Ministry of Civil Defence is advising the public in New Zealand to stay away from beaches and the coast.
A spokesperson says the minstry is contacting the coastguard and other civil defence agencies, to put them on standby.
Tsunami warning
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says it is not known that a tsunami has been generated and the warning is based only on the earthquake evaluation.
The warning covers Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Kiribati, Kosrae, Wallis-Futunua and Howland-Baker, the Center says on its website.
The tsunami watch is in effect for Marshall Islands, Tokelau, Kermadec Island, Pohnpei, New Zealand, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Australia, Niue, Cook Islands, Chuuk, Indonesia, Wake Island, Jarvis Island, Palmyra Island, Guam. N. Marianas, Johnston Island, Yap, Marcus Island, and Belau.
UPDATE: Sydney - Panic spread among Pacific island nations after a tsunami warning was triggered by two massive earthquakes off the coast of Vanuatu Thursday morning. It took several hours for the Pacific Tsunami Center in Hawaii to cancel the warning once its ocean monitors detected only a 4-centimetre tsunami wave, but the message failed to reach many islanders who had already headed for high ground: here.
Climate change, poverty and ‘natural’ disasters: here.
The death toll from the September 29 earthquake and tsunami, which struck the small Pacific island states of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga, is continuing to rise, as the extent of the destruction becomes more apparent. So far 170 people have been confirmed dead—129 in Samoa, 32 in American Samoa and nine on the Tongan island of Niuatoputapu. An unknown number of people are still missing in Samoa and two are missing in American Samoa. Hundreds have been injured, with Samoan hospitals reportedly overflowing.
In absolute terms the numbers are small compared to the death toll in the earthquake that hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra less than a day later. However, per capita, the level of destruction wrought by the Pacific tsunami is enormous. In Samoa, according to a government estimate, 32,000 of the country’s 180,000 inhabitants have been affected, through the loss of relatives, injury, or by the loss of their homes, vehicles or food crops. Some 20 villages have been virtually flattened along the south coast of Upolu, the main island of Samoa, and scores more have been destroyed on Tutuila, in American Samoa. Thousands have been left homeless in both islands. Coastal homes on the small island of Manono, near Upolu, were also destroyed. On Niuatoputapu, an isolated island with little infrastructure and a population of less than a thousand, around 194 homes and the island’s health clinic were destroyed.
Although the tsunami hit the islands minutes after the initial 8.3 magnitude earthquake, some residents have criticised the authorities in Apia and Pago Pago for failing to provide any effective public warning. Initial reports suggest that the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning to governments across the Pacific as soon as the quake struck, leaving a window of between 8 and 28 minutes for local warnings to be issued. Reverend Uaea Isaraelu, from the Samoan village of Saleapaga, told Radio New Zealand International that 30 lives could have been saved had his village received a warning, as there was a 10-minute gap between the tremor and the first tidal wave. Yet the only public warning issued was in the form of a radio broadcast.
People in Sicily have turned their wrath on the government over landslides that claimed at least 22 lives. That figure could double as some 40 others are still missing.
Torrential rain triggered mudslides that swept away roads and houses in the town of Messina. But officials say shoddy building practices contributed to the tragedy and have opened a manslaughter inquiry.
One elderly man said: “We’ve been abandoned, we’ve had no help.”
A woman survivor said: “We have a mortgage to pay. Who’s going to give us the money? We’re ruined. We’re staying here hoping nothing else bad happens.”
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has visited the disaster zone and promised immediate tax relief and new houses for the victims.
But that has done little to quell the anger of local people. They want to know why construction was allowed on apparently unstable land. Some accuse the government of being more concerned with a project to build a bridge between Sicily and the mainland than the welfare the island’s residents.
At the Messina prefecture he [Berlusconi] used a side entrance in order to avoid an angry mass of people. During recent years, local authorities in zones threatened by landslides and floods had asked Rome for measures, but in vain.
Tens of thousands of people, including journalists and media rights activists, gathered in a Rome square Saturday to defend press freedom, accusing Premier Silvio Berlusconi of trying to silence critical voices: here. And here. And here.
In their place fungus ruled the land, according to a new study. It feasted on defunct wood, spreading across the planet in an orgy of decay.
The finding offers evidence against an alternative theory that rampant algae fed off the dead forests and puts to rest an old idea that an asteroid impact may have had a hand in the massive destruction.
“This [fungus] was a disaster species, something that perhaps enjoyed the extinction a little more than it should,” Mark Sephton of Imperial College London in the United Kingdom said. “It proliferated all over the globe.”
Sephton and a team of researchers studied rocks containing microscopic fossils from the extinction. They were trying to settle a decades-old debate: Were the remains in fact the fungus Reduviasporonites, or algae, as had previously been thought?
Carbon isotopes within the fossils indicated the organisms ate wood while they were alive, a strong sign that they were fungus.
“What we’re looking at is a lot of plant die-offs concentrated in time,” Peter Roopnarine of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco said.”We’re most likely looking at episodes of intense greenhouse warming, and chemical changes in the atmosphere that made it unsuitable for the huge, massive forests living at the time.”
The team’s results were published yesterday in the journal Geology.
The finding has important implications for the Permian-Triassic extinction, which wiped out a large majority of life on the planet. If the fossils had turned out to be algae, it would’ve suggested a soggy, swampy world dominated by gradual changes in climate and the environment.
But in this ancient murder mystery, fungus fits. Modern forests ravaged by acid rain are covered in the stuff, and scientists generally believe that the titanic eruptions of the Siberian Traps, a large volcanic province in Russia, choked the atmosphere and blighted the land with acid rains. The harsh conditions lasted for hundreds of thousands of years.
And it further puts to rest the idea that an asteroid impact caused the destruction.
“Fungal presence starts to increase just before the main extinction; it’s not as sudden as the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction [which killed the dinosaurs].” Sephton said. “The idea of a declining ecosystem doesn’t exactly fit will with an extraterrestrial impact event.”
A tsunami of six-metres or higher, followed by several smaller waves, hit the South Pacific islands of American Samoa, Samoa, and Tonga on Tuesday morning. Around 140 people are dead, many more are missing, and at least 1,000 people have been displaced. The toll is sure to increase as several remote, cut-off villages have been destroyed: here.
Indonesia: Earthquake Hits Along Same Fault Line That Spawned 2004 Tsunami
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian officials say at least 75 people have been killed and thousands more trapped under flattened buildings in a powerful earthquake off Sumatra island.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla announced the death toll at a news conference, hours after the 7.6-magnitude quake hit off the coast of the town of Padang on Wednesday.
Rustam Pakaya, head of the Health Ministry’s crisis center, said thousands of people were trapped under collapsed buildings. He said a field hospital was being prepared to assist the injured.
Officials said the quake triggered a landslide that cut off land transport to the area closest to the epicenter. Power and telecommunications were also cut.
The quake was along the same fault line that spawned the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information
The major 2004 earthquake in Sumatra may have weakened the San Andreas fault, 8,000km away in California: here.
TSUNAMI PICTURES: Samoa, Tonga Hit by Deadly Waves: here.
A tsunami caused by a powerful earthquake in the South Pacific has killed at least 20 people and injured 50 in Samoa, local media report.
Dr Lemalu Fiu of the main hospital in the capital, Apia, said the number of casualties is expected to rise as the injured arrive from coastal areas.
An 8.3-magnitude quake struck at 1748 GMT, generating 5.1ft (1.57m) waves in Apia and Pago Pago, American Samoa. …
The PTWC - a branch of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - issued a general alert for the South Pacific region.
Stuart Weinstein, the deputy director of the PTWC, told the BBC that the agency was monitoring the situation, but said the wave was expected to be “much smaller” than the 2004 Asian tsunami which killed about 230,000 people in 11 countries.
Mr Weinstein said Tuesday’s quake had only had 3% of the energy generated by the 2004 quake.
He said he expected the quake to be destructive in the areas closest to the epicentre, but said it “remains to be seen” how far any devastation would spread.
By 2200 GMT, the tsunami warning had been cancelled.
The Samoa islands comprise two separate entities - the nation of Samoa and American Samoa, a US territory - with a total population of about 250,000 people.
Update: A tsunami triggered by a strong quake in the South Pacific has killed at least 65 people in Samoa and more than 20 in American Samoa, say reports: here.
Samoa tsunami: more than 100 feared dead on Pacific islands: here.
The potential for a huge Pacific Ocean tsunami on the West Coast of North America may be greater than previously thought. The new study of geological evidence along the Gulf of Alaska coast suggests that future tsunamis could reach a scale far beyond that suffered in the tsunami generated by the great 1964 Alaskan earthquake: here.
She resigned from her position in the Cabinet as communities secretary in June but is still an MP.
A Hazel Must Go campaign spokesman said: “The campaign was born from the anger and frustration many of Hazel Blears’ constituents are feeling in the light of the scandals that have surrounded our representative.
“The Hazel Must Go! campaign is calling for her to stand down, right here, right now.
“We want as many people as possible to support us from all across Salford.”
