• Waste management critical to natural disaster recovery

    Disasters can typically generate up to fifteen years worth of a community’s solid waste over a few days, with the potential to overwhelm day-to-day solid waste operations and to lead to years of disruption; FEMA estimates that debris removal accounted for 27 percent of their total disaster response costs for those U.S. disasters between 2002 and 2007; prolonged problems with the management of solid waste can lead to public and environmental health issues; slow management of solid waste can also impede economic recovery by inhibiting rebuilding activities

  • Japan sets up reconstruction planning structure

    Japan has announced that three newly created bodies will be in charge of Japan’s reconstruction: a 15-member panel of experts called the Reconstruction Design Council which will offer plans and programs for reconstruction; a cabinet task force, in which all cabinet members will be members, which will be responsible for implementing the programs; and a panel of reconstruction of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, which will be in charge of coordinating relevant policies with the opposition parties

  • Five U.S. nuclear plants in earthquake zones

    Five active U.S. nuclear reactors — the Diablo Canyon Power Plant and San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California; the South Texas Project near the Gulf Coast; the Waterford Steam Electric Station in Louisiana; and the Brunswick Steam Electric Plant in North Carolina — are situated in seismic activity-prone zones

  • Easing contamination fears in Japan's food industry

    With much of Japan’s manufacturing sector, land, and critical infrastructure badly damaged from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, dairy and rice manufacturers have struggled to produce enough to feed the nation; Japan produces all of its own milk, rice, and yogurt products, but domestic plants are operating far below full capacity; shortages may persist into the summer; as production ramps up, fears of contamination from radiation leaked from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may dampen consumption; one analyst suggests that Japan institute a food tracking program that will allow consumers to track the production of food every step of the way to help ease fears

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  • Geologists push for earthquake early warning system despite costs

    Geologists on the West Coast are actively pushing for an earthquake early warning system, similar to the one deployed in Japan; the Japanese warning system helped save lives as it gave people valuable extra time to prepare before the devastating 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit; scientists want to place a similar network of data transmitters and information receivers along fault lines up and down the West Coast; geologists fear that a major impediment to the installation of the system would be its cost during times of fiscal austerity; the system would take roughly ten years to build and an estimated $145 million, making the project nearly impossible to undertake without federal funding

  • Portable military barriers help Canadian city in flood fight

    Canada is using a new technology to prevent flood damage in Manitoba; the one-meter-square wire cages can be unfolded and quickly filled with dirt or mud; they can also be linked for a long row that can be set up far quicker than it takes to sling sandbags; the barriers have been used by the U.S. military to protect embassies from terrorist attacks, and have also been used for flood protection in the United States

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  • U.S. earthquake resilience needs strengthening: report

    A new National Research Council report presents a 20-year road map for increasing U.S. resilience to earthquakes, including a major earthquake that could strike a highly populated area.; the report was mostly written prior to the 11 March earthquake in Japan, but the committee of experts who authored it noted that the Japanese experience is a reminder of the devastation that can occur even in a country acknowledged as a leader in implementing earthquake-resilience measures

  • Rising seas and coastal risks

    Most scientists believe that melt water from glaciers, the Greenland ice sheet, and possibly the West Antarctic ice sheet, along with thermal expansion from warming oceans, will raise sea levels by one-half to one meter (1.6 to 3.2 feet) over the next century and by one meter to two meters (6.5 feet) over the next 200 years; if sea level rises by a meter, “we will see higher tides, higher tidal velocities and tidal inundation every day,” says one expert; “And we’ll have a different shoreline”

  • U.S. reactors have weaker back-up batteries than Fukushima Daiichi had

    Almost all American nuclear power plants have backup batteries that would last only half as long as those at Japan’s troubled Fukushima Daiichi plant did after a tsunami knocked out power there; just eleven of the U.S. 104 plants had eight-hour batteries, and 93 had four-hour batteries; the batteries are not powerful enough to run pumps that direct cooling water, but they can operate valves and can power instruments that give readings of water levels, flow and temperatures

  • Indiana prepares for major seismic event

    Two of Indiana’s earthquake preparedness drills, the Great Central U.S. Shake Out scheduled for 19 April, and a training program in May for emergency management and response agencies are receiving increased interest following the devastating quake in Japan

  • Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant lost

    The radioactive core in the Unit 2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and is now resting on a concrete floor; officials are now struggling with two crucial but contradictory efforts: pumping in water to keep the fuel rods cool and pumping out contaminated water; an investigation found that Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials had dismissed scientific evidence and geological history that indicated that a massive earthquake — and subsequent tsunami — was far more likely than they believed; more than 11,000 bodies have been recovered, but officials say the final death toll is expected to exceed 18,000. Hundreds of thousands of people remain homeless, their homes and livelihoods destroyed. Damage could amount to $310 billion — the most expensive natural disaster on record

  • Japan begins road to recovery

    Japan’s long road to recovery has already begun; it is estimated that more than 135,000 buildings were destroyed and the Japanese government estimates that the recovery will cost as much as $310 billion; in the Miyagi prefecture, 80 miles from the quake’s epicenter, construction will soon begin on 1,110 temporary homes to shelter the more than 243,000 people who are now homeless; authorities are struggling to provide those living in shelters with enough food, clothing, and sanitary supplies; experts believe that Japan can rebuild quickly; Miyagi plans on building 10,000 temporary homes

  • 2010 record year for economic costs from disasters

    On Tuesday the Swiss insurance giant Swiss Re, released a study that found disasters in 2010 caused more than three times as much economic damage as 2009; last year disasters caused more than $218 billion in economic losses, the most in over thirty years; in 2010, insured losses totaled $48 billion, an increase of 60 percent from 2009; 2011 is on track to surpass 2010 as the costliest year, with massive earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand; the Japanese government estimates that the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami caused as much as $309 billion in damages

  • Lloyds of London's 2010 profit dropped 43 percent as a result of diasasters

    The profits of Lloyd’s of London dropped by 43 percent last year as the insurance market took big losses from earthquakes in Chile and New Zealand and from BP’s oil rig spill in the Gulf of Mexico

  • Japan's disaster draws attention to little-known U.S. nuclear insurance plan

    A little-known insurance pool in the United States that would provide insurance coverage for victims of nuclear reactor accidents occurring in the United States; the pool has been around for decades; Created under the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act of 1957 (Price-Anderson), the pool provides general liability insurance