Disasters

"BP Plc has paid out more than $5 billion to 204,434 victims of last year's massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg said on Tuesday."

"Top military brass, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the UN Secretary General have all warned that climate change will create conflicts in the future. But environmental shifts are already causing wars, argues a team of experts in a new paper in Nature published this month."

"MILES, Texas -- After scanning the landscape surrounding this tiny (population 757) central Texas town, one immediately understands why the city's officials have decided to scratch the word 'cotton' from the annual September Cotton Festival.

"Like thousands of other people, Miwa Kamoshita's life was turned upside down when the March 11 tsunami struck the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, leading her and her family to voluntarily evacuate their home in Iwaki, some 40 km south of the crippled power station."

"Dominion Resources workers were inspecting the North Anna nuclear power plant in Mineral, Virginia on Wednesday, a day after an earthquake centered near plant knocked both reactors offline, the company said."

"Hurricane Irene thrashed the Bahamas early Thursday, with widespread damage reported on at least two southern islands.

It was a powerful Category 3 hurricane with winds at 115 miles an hour. Forecasters said the winds will ramp up quickly over the next day and Irene was expected to become a Category 4 storm with winds at least 131 mph.

"The U.S. put its eastern seaboard on alert for Hurricane Irene on Tuesday as the powerful storm barreled up from the Caribbean on a path that could hit the U.S. coast on the weekend."

The tar-sands oil entering the pipeline in Alberta contains a small amount of water. Whether this will cause corrosion of the pipeline is a question that has brought high emotions and little actual study.

"Of all the things there are to worry about, earthquakes are fairly low on the list for those on the East Coast. So it was startling, just as the lunch hour was ending Tuesday and workers in a broad area of North America were settling back into their cubicles, when floors began to shake and chairs rocked."

"Video footage of Tatsuhiko Kodama's impassioned speech before a Diet committee in July went viral online recently, showing the medical expert's shocking revelation that the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant spewed some 30 times more radioactive materials than the fallout from the Hiroshima atomic bombing."

Jun Hongo reports for the Japan Times August 24, 2011.