Mickeys

Tons of relief aid and a helicopter carrying rescuers have been dispatched to the region, Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees Tarsis Kabwegyere said on Wednesday.

Rescuers clawed through mud in driving rain in a desperate bid to find survivors from a huge landslide feared to have killed hundreds in villages in eastern Uganda.

At least 80 bodies have already been found on the slopes of Mount Elgon and at least 300 people are missing in the villages.

More torrential rain fell as rescuers dug through the mud with spades and and tools as mechanical diggers could not get up the slopes. Army helicopters flew up medical supplies to treat the injured.

After days of heavy rain, the mudslide engulfed the villages near the Uganda-Kenya border late on Monday.

Olyamboka Sam was praying when the disaster struck.

“I was in the church when I saw the landslide coming carrying stones and trees. Everyone was running from the church,” said Sam, who was being treated for a fractured arm at a hospital in Bududa, the nearest town.

The 24-year-old man told how he saw two women, two children and a man carried away to their deaths. Other survivors said the mudslide moved so fast that victims had no chance to escape.

Teams from UN agencies were heading for the stricken villages on Mount Elgon with food and other relief items.

The Uganda Red Cross said 80 bodies had been recovered that at least 300 people were missing after the wall of mud came down the hills near Mount Elgon.

“The situation is really very terrible,” said Bududa district Vice Chairman Geofrey Natubu “People fear there are actually 300 who have died.”

“It is raining quite heavily right now, so the place is becoming impossible to reach,” he added.

Doctors and paramedics at Bududa hospital struggled to cope with the numbers of injured survivors.

Namasa Elina, 18 said she believed 11 members of her family were engulfed by the racing heaps of earth.

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Beirut – An Ethiopian jet carrying 90 passengers and crew plunged into the sea off Lebanon in a ball of fire just after take-off in stormy weather early on Monday, witnesses and Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said.

Ethiopian Airlines

It was unclear whether there were any survivors.

Aridi said Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 lost contact with the airport control tower shortly after take-off and crashed into the Mediterranean sea about 12km south of the airport.

“The control tower was assisting the pilot of the plane on take-off and suddenly lost contact for no known reason,” Aridi told reporters, adding that the Boeing 737 crashed some 3.5km off the coast.

Families of the passengers, some of them weeping, could be seen arriving at Beirut International Airport, where they were escorted to a private area to await news of their loved ones.

Witnesses reported seeing a ball of fire as the jet plunged into the sea.

The accident took place amid heavy rains and storms in Lebanon in the past two days that have caused heavy flooding and damages in some parts of the country.

Aridi said the passengers include 54 Lebanese, 22 Ethiopians, one Iraqi, one French woman, one Syrian and seven crew members. There were also several dual nationals including two British-Lebanese, one Canadian-Lebanese and a Russian-Lebanese.

Thousands of Ethiopians are employed as domestic workers in Lebanon and Ethiopian Airlines operates a regular flight between Addis Ababa and Beirut.

Search and rescue effort

A government official told AFP that among the passengers was the wife of France’s ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton.

“Among the names on the passenger list was that of Marla Sanchez Pietton, the wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Ambassador Denis Pietton took up his post in Lebanon in September.

An airport official had initially said that 92 people were on board the doomed flight, which he said crashed about five minutes after take-off at 02:30 (12:30 GMT).

Aridi said he had formed an investigative committee to determine the cause of the crash and had contacted nearby countries to assist in the search and rescue effort.

The Lebanese army, navy as well as the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were assisting in the rescue, Aridi added.

“We have contacted everyone, inside and outside the country, that can assist us and the Lebanese navy, the army and UNIFIL have joined in the rescue,” the minister added.

He said the French organisation responsible for technical investigation of civil aviation accidents was taking part in the probe.

The Boeing 737-800, which entered into commercial service in 1998, is one of the latest versions of the world’s most widely used short to medium-haul airliners, and is capable of carrying up to 189 passengers.

taken from News24

Britain remains in the grip of wintry weather with travellers facing more delays, although the worst of the big freeze seems to be over for now.

Trucks are stuck along the A20 motorway to Greifswald as snowdrifts block the road, near the northern German town of Guetzkow, January 10, 2010. Snow and freezing weather swept parts of Europe on Saturday causing travel chaos for thousands and forecasters predicted no let-up in Britain's harshest cold snap in 30 years.

Many parts of the country have had snow flurries but with above-freezing temperatures in most areas the situation on the ground was set to improve.

Milder weather on Sunday and lighter than expected snowfalls increased the chances of getting transport networks back to normal and resuming full deliveries of food.

Hundreds of schools that were forced to shut last week were also reopening today ahead of a crucial exam period for many students.

Most of inland England will see maximum temperatures of around 2C today, rising to 3C or 4C in the far south west.

Scotland is due to fare a bit better, up to 3C inland and up to 6C on the far north coast.

But temperatures will remain freezing at night for the foreseeable future, with another band of snow forecast for many parts tomorrow.

Eurostar services are suffering another day of restrictions following last week’s train breakdown.

Villagers sledge down a snow covered hill in Priston on January 9 2010, near Bath, England. Britain is continuing to be gripped by the Arctic weather and forecasters are predicting more snow in the next 24hrs and that the cold spell could last for at least another week.

Several rail routes are affected, with Chiltern Trains saying London-bound trains were unable to call at Rickmansworth because of weather damage caused to the platform.

Southeastern, which serves Kent, south London and East Sussex, said some services would have fewer carriages because several trains had been damaged by the icy weather.

In the air, budget airline easyJet said it had cancelled a number of flights to and from Gatwick Airport today.

British Airways said the weather was continuing to disrupt services. It is offering passengers due to fly from Gatwick or Heathrow the chance to rebook their flights.

All the UK’s main airports were open but passengers are advised to check with their airlines before travelling.

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Heavy snow is causing travel chaos across Britain with severe weather warnings for many parts of the country.

Worried about getting to work or travelling? See our live updates on the roads, trains and airports.

The hardest hit is south-east England, including London, Kent and Essex, where temperatures dropped to as low as -3C overnight.

The Met Office has also issued severe warnings for north-east England including Yorkshire and County Durham.

The snow is expected to keep falling today, with some places seeing up to 20cm (8in).

Ice and snow are causing severe disruption on some roads in the south, south-east and east of England.

All flights in and out of Luton Airport have been suspended.

Gatwick had to be shut for seven hours as ice and snow was cleared from the runway – but Heathrow is operating as normal.

A series of accidents, including some jack-knifed lorries, led to road closures, with a section of the M40 in Buckinghamshire shut in both directions during the morning rush-hour.

Sky’s Mark Langford, who was stuck on the motorway while travelling from the Midlands to London, said: “From Oxford onwards on the M40, conditions were very bad.

“The motorway was closed and the traffic was diverted on to some snow-bound side roads, which just made the traffic even worse.”

There are cancellations on the Stansted Express, while passengers at London’s Liverpool Street station are being warned to expect delays.

In Cambridgeshire, motorists were told to steer clear of the A505 between Cambridge and Royston.

Brighton and Hove Buses said most of its bus services were suspended due to the weather conditions. (continue reading…)

This afternoon I went outside to discover a halo around the sun!

Here’s a couple of photos I took:

Here’s a bit of info on this phenomenon:

A 22° halo is a rather frequently appearing halo, an optical phenomenon forming a circle 22° around the sun, or occasionally the moon. It forms as sunlight is refracted in hexagonal ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. As the light beam passes through two sides of the prism forming a 60° angle, the angle of minimum deviation is almost 22° (e.g. 21,84° in average; 21,54° for red and 22.37 for blue.) This wavelength-dependent variation in refraction causes the inner edge of the circle to be reddish while the outer edge is bluish.[1] A 22° Halo may be visible on as many as 100 days per year.

Light passing through the hexagonal ice prisms is deflected twice which produces deviation angles ranging from 22° to 50°. Lesser deviation results in a brighter halo along the inner edge of the circle, while greater deviation contribute to the weaker outer part of the halo. As no light is refracted at smaller angles than 22° the sky is darker inside the halo.

Pathway of light through a hexagonal prism in the optimal angle resulting in minimum deviation.

22° halos form when the sky contains millions of poorly oriented ice crystals. Some of these happen to be aligned

A 22° moon halo photographed in Germany December 12, 2004.

perpendicular to the sun light as viewed by one observer which produces the illuminated 22° circle, while other crystals produces the same phenomenon for other observers. An Alexander’s band can be seen inside the halo.

Like other ice halos, 22° halos appear when the sky is covered by thin cirrus clouds containing the ice crystals which causes the phenomenon.

Small colourful coronas much nearer the sun produced by water droplets can occasionally be confused with 22° halos.

info from Wikipedia

The gale-force southeaster that has been raging in the Western Cape since Sunday has claimed the lives of at least six people and left 100 families homeless.

The damaged home of Kayisa Maqhetsheba in which her 6-year-old daughter Anathi died when a tree which had been uprooted during a storm, flattened her bedroom.

Anathi Maqhetshabe, 6, died when a huge eucalyptus tree fell onto her home on Broadlands Stud Farm outside Somerset West at about 02:20 on Monday morning.

Farm owner Willie van der Weshuizen said Anathi was trapped under the bricks and presumably suffocated. Paramedics struggled for some time to revive her.

In Mossel Bay in the Southern Cape, four fishermen died, another is missing, and one was rescued after a fishing trawler capsized in stormy sea conditions.

According to the Mossel Bay National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI), waves were 8m high and the wind speed was 57 knots (108km/h).

At Kay’s Caravan Park in the Strand, trees were knocked over at about 01:30 and by Monday afternoon, at least ten of the park’s log cabins had been damaged.

A couple of residents stood in front of the gate while police helped them to evacuate the park.

Anita Walker, the park’s deputy manager, said the 100 or so families who lived there had found accommodation in a nearby hall, with family and friends, or in tents in the neighbouring campsite.

The wind left a gaping hole in the roof of Strand Secondary’s school hall. “Gosh, really, it sounded like a bomb,” said Jan Vass, the school’s janitor who lived on the school premises.

Deputy principal, Nolan Thomas, said matrics were to start their final exams in the hall on Wednesday. There were classrooms available, however, and the exam would therefore not be disrupted.

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Cape Town – Heavy rainfalls on Sunday night and during Monday morning peak hour traffic caused flooding and disruptions in parts of the Western Cape, as unseasonal thunderstorms and temperature variations leave residents wondering whether to reach for their winter or summer wardrobes.

The next cold front is already approaching, but it seems like Western Province and the Blue Bulls will have sunny weather on Saturday, when they face each other in the Currie Cup semi-final at Newlands.

After the first heavy downpours on Monday morning, the City of Cape Town’s disaster management team got to work immediately, cleaning stormwater drains which had overflowed, and pumping water out of flooded areas.

“There was very little damage in the city and no-one was injured or killed,” said Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, spokesperson for Cape Town disaster management.

Carl Opperman of Agri Western Cape said the agricultural community is very grateful for the rain. The one disadvantage could be that downy mildew might now occur in vineyards.

“We’re also concerned about hail in certain areas near Prince Albert, since it causes damage to deciduous fruits,” Opperman said, referring to possible extreme weather conditions further inland.

The Overberg had heavy rains, and by Monday afternoon the road between Stanford and Hermanus was under water, but it wasn’t closed.

“The informal settlements also had heavy rains. However, no serious incidents were reported,” said Reinhard Geldenhuys, head of the Overberg’s disaster services and fire brigade.

According to Carlton Fillis, a meteorologist with the South African Weather Service, this peculiar weather is not entirely out-of-the-ordinary for this time of year.

“The weather conditions are not normal, but also not really very unusual. By Thursday a cold front will move across the Cape Peninsula, but by the weekend it will be clear and windy.

Dams levels are still favourable, according to Farouk Robertson, spokesperson for the City of Cape Town’s water and sanitation department.

“Even though we’re having plenty of rain, and the dam levels are high, people should still be aware of water conservation.”

“According to the weather service, this year’s summer is going to be very hot and dry.”

The George and Sedgefield regions had heavy rain on Sunday night and light rain persisted through Monday afternoon and through the evening.

story from News24

A look at other earthquakes that have triggered tsunamis in previous years:

• September 2007: A 7.8-magnitude earthquake rattles Sumatra island, triggering regional tsunami alerts and damaging scores of buildings.
  
• September 2007: An earthquake measured at a magnitude of 8.4 near Sumatra triggers a wave in the coastal city of Padang. The tremor kills at least 25 people and injures around 50.
  
• April 2007: At least 28 people in the Solomon Islands die in a tsunami and earthquake measured at a magnitude of 8.1.
  
• July 2006: A magnitude-6.1 earthquake triggers a tsunami off Java island’s southern coast, killing at least 600 people.
  
• December 2004: An Indian Ocean tsunami, triggered by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake, kills 230 000 in a dozen countries.
  
• August 1976: A magnitude-8.0 earthquake hits near the islands of Mindanao and Sulu in the Philippines, generating a tsunami and leaving at least 5 000 dead.
  
• March 1964: An 9.2-magnitude earthquake in Prince William Sound, Alaska, kills 131 people, including 119 from a tsunami.
  
• April 1946: An earthquake measured at a magnitude of 8.1 near Unimak Islands, Alaska, triggers a tsunami, killing 165 people, mostly in Hawaii.
  
• April 1868: A 7.9-magnitude earthquake strikes the Big Island, Hawaii, leaving 77 people dead, including 46 from a tsunami.

info from News24

Quake Sparks Tsunami Alert:

Jakarta – Indonesia’s meteorological agency says a powerful earthquake has shaken western Indonesia.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami alert for Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Thailand.

The Indonesian agency said the tremor had a magnitude of 7.6 and it epicentre was just off the coast of Sumatra.

The US Geological Survey put the strength at 7.9.

The shaking could be felt in high buildings in the capital, Jakarta, several hundred kilometres away and in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia.

There were no immediate reports of high waves or injuries.

taken from News24

Witnesses have told of scenes of panic and confusion after a major earthquake hurled giant waves at the islands of Samoa, smashing buildings, throwing cars and hurling boats ashore.

Strong Quake Causes Tsunami:

Washington – A powerful 8.3 magnitude earthquake in the Pacific Ocean off American Samoa generated a tsunami, US government agencies said on Tuesday.

Sea level readings indicated a tsunami was generated in the Pacific, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, a branch of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said.

The agency earlier issued a tsunami warning for New Zealand, American Samoa and other small Pacific islands.

The epicentre of the quake was located 190km southwest of American Samoa, a remote Pacific island, said the US Geological Survey. It struck at a depth of 33km.

story from News24

Tsunami, Quake Wipe Out Villages:

Apia – At least 36 people were killed when an 8.0-magnitude earthquake and devastating tsunami hit the remote Pacific islands of Samoa and American Samoa on Tuesday, wiping out tourist resorts and villages.

Buildings were toppled and thousands of people fled to higher ground after the offshore quake struck in the early morning, followed by giant waves which swept cars out to sea.

At least 22 were confirmed dead in American Samoa, while the Red Cross said another 14 were dead in Samoa and warned that the death toll was expected to rise amid unconfirmed reports of scores missing.

Eyewitnesses reported walls of water of between three and nine metres pounding the shore, wiping out villages and shattering holiday resorts.

Samoa’s deputy prime minister Misa Telefoni said a resort area popular with foreigners was “devastated” by the tsunami that followed the monster quake and that residents and holidaymakers had little time to flee.

“We’ve heard that most of the resorts are totally devastated on that side of the island. We’ve had a pretty grim picture painted of all that coast,” he said.

Two of the country’s most popular resorts, Sinalei Reef Resort and Coconuts Beach Resort, off the west coast of the main island of Upolu, had been hit hard, he told the Australian Associated Press.

There was widespread destruction in Samoa with possibly thousands of people left homeless on the island, local journalist Jona Tuiletufuga told AFP.

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Dozens of people have died and thousands left stranded in flooding after a tropical storm slammed ashore in the Philippines.

Flood victims wade through waist-high water in Manila

The government declared a “state of calamity” in Manilaand 25 storm-hit provinces with more than 106 people considered dead or missing.

More than a month’s worth of rain fell in just 12 hours as Tropical Storm Ketsana struck with winds of up to 53mph, delivering the capital’s worst flooding in more than 42 years.

A landslide and flash flooding in nearby Rizal province killed 35 people, most of whom drowned, local officials said.

The mayor of Cainta, also in Rizal, told reporters: “The whole town is almost 100% underwater.”

A further three people were reported killed in Manila’s southern suburb of Muntinglupa and two others in Quezon city.

Philippine television showed a dramatic video of more than a dozen people perched on roofs of damaged houses being swept away by the Marikina River.

They smashed against the pillars of a bridge and were separated from each other in the rampaging river. It was unclear whether they were rescued.

Forecasters said seasonal monsoon rains were intensified by Ketsana, which packed winds of 53 mph with gusts of up to 63 mph when it hit land early on Saturday.

By the evening, the storm maintained its strength as it moved over the coast of western Zambales province and headed west toward the South China Sea.

story from SkyNews

Cape Town – Although the sun has started breaking through in places in the Western Cape and the rain is over for now, temperatures are expected to remain freezing cold until Friday.

A small amount of snow fell on the Ceres mountains on Tuesday morning, while the South African Weather Service forecast snow for Tuesday night and Wednesday for the higher lying regions of the Western and Northern Cape.

Temperatures were expected to remain below 15°C throughout the Western Cape province on Wednesday.

The stormy sea conditions, which caused a freight ship to run aground near Bloubergstrand on Monday night, were expected to let up on Wednesday.

Niek Koegelenberg, weather forecaster at the Cape Town weather office, said the rain and cold weather was expected to begin declining as spring started.

“It is normal for so much rain to fall in September,” he said.

Wet roads caused more accidents on Tuesday morning.

Provincial traffic spokesperson, Xenophone Wentzel, said a motorist died on the N2 near the Macassar turn-off when his car skidded and he drove into a tree, reported Kobus Pretorius.

Twelve people were also injured when a taxi overturned at about 12:50 before the Raapenberg turn-off on the N2 in the direction of Somerset West.

“Two lanes were closed to traffic, which caused disruptions,” added Wentzel.

A bit of rain also fell in Southern Cape towns like Riversdal, Stilbaai and Mossel Bay, bringing a measure of relief to drought-stricken areas.

Dams in the Southern Cape remain much emptier than last year. The Gamka dam was only 16% full, the Leeu-Gamka dam was 31% full and the Garden Route dam only 38% full.

Meanwhile, dams in the Western Cape system are already 100.9% full.

Johan Pienaar, a consultant from Vinpro, said last September had also been a wet month and had resulted in a good year for winemakers.

“The vineyards are still resting this time of the year and don’t mind cold or wet weather.”

He said October should preferably be dry as the vineyards went into bloom and diseases could break out.

story from News24

Cape Town – A team of experts is standing by to intervene should a stranded Turkish freight ship – which ran aground on a sand bar off Blouberg on Monday night – start breaking up.

The Seli 1, which is registered in Panama, is carrying 30 000 tons of coal, about 660 tons of heavy fuel oil and 60 tons diesel.

Although no oil was seen in the water by late on Tuesday night, the first priority was to remove the oil from the ship and limit the danger to the environment, said Clare Gomes, spokesperson for the salvage company Smit Amandla. “Should anything happen, a team is standing by.”

Cape Town’s disaster risk management erected a communal operation centre at the beach near the freighter to manage and co-ordinate the situation.

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Los Angeles – Cool weather allowed firefighters to make progress against a deadly wildfire raging in Los Angeles on Tuesday but officials warned they were a long way from declaring victory.

After days of sweltering temperatures and single-digit humidity, Mother Nature came to the aid of firefighters tackling the blaze which has claimed two lives, gutted 63 homes and ripped through 51 400 hectares.

A rise in humidity and a drop in temperatures saw firefighters increase containment lines from five percent to 22%, and for the first time evacuation orders in several hillside neighbourhoods were lifted.

Incident commander Mike Dietrich told reporters at a 17:00 (0000 GMT) briefing that “if this was a boxing match, the scores would be even”.

“The weather has helped us certainly,” Dietrich said. “I don’t believe we have totally turned a corner at this point in time.

“The fire has laid down but there are still a lot of hotspots out there and if the temperatures go up and humidity comes back down it could be a very angry fire again. We’re going to stay with this fire until it’s out.

“But I feel a lot better today than I have done in the past three or four days, just based on the percentage of containment that we have today.”

An estimated 10 000 people have been evacuated since the fire erupted last Wednesday and flames continued to besiege a critical telecommunications facility as well as a historic hilltop observatory.

More than 3 600 firefighters are battling the fire in the Angeles National Forest.

The inferno threatened communications antennas for numerous television and radio stations, cellphone providers and law enforcement agencies on Mount Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains. (continue reading…)