Philippines flood victims, children want
schools
Published on Jan 4, 2012
CAGAYAN DE ORO (AFP) - Flood evacuees and pupils competed for space in southern Philippine
schools on Wednesday, with both wanting to use the buildings following the Christmas break, officials
said.
In some cases, survivors of last month's floods from Tropical Storm Washi were moved to alternative
shelters as children returned to schoolhouses that had been used as evacuation centres.
But in other instances, hundreds of the evacuees refused to leave, forcing school officials to find novel
ways of conducting classes.
In one school in Cagayan de Oro, it was the students who had to move to tents because the storm victims
refused to vacate their classrooms, said district school official Shirley Merida.
'We will have to hold these sessions inside the tents since all of our classrooms still have evacuees living in
them. We cannot just drive them away,' she said.
Ms Merida, who is in charge of five schools, said the situation was worse in other locations.
'I still do not know how to open two schools since these are still full of waist-deep mud,' she said.
Washi caused flash floods and overflowing rivers from Dec 16 to 18 that killed almost 1,260 people and
displaced more than 429,000, with nearly 37,300 still in makeshift evacuation centres.
The government, international and local charities have been working to provide new shelters for the
displaced but it will take months before permanent shelters are finished.
Thousands of people can no longer return home as the government has said the sites of their old
communities were too vulnerable to flooding.
Flood situation in Southern Thailand still
critical
Published on Jan 4, 2012
Residents wade through a flooded road in Had Yai district of Songkhla province, southern Thailand on Jan 2, 2012. -PHOTO: AP
(THE NATION/ ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The flood situation in nine southern provinces in Thailand
remains critical, with roads closed and train services halted due to high-level inundation and many villages
engulfed in mudslides.
Another 84 villages, all in Ranong, are at risk of mudslides, according to the latest warnings released.
Twenty-one of them are located in high-risk areas in Muang, Kapoe, La-un, Suk Samran and Kra Buri
districts.
The entire Lang Suan district in Chumphon has been isolated after a flash flood surrounded it last night,
submerging all roads connecting it with the outside world. Many thousands of residents have been
complaining about shortages of food and drinking water. A large portion of neighbouring Phato district is
facing a similar situation, after abrupt forest floods cut it off from other areas.
A large number of homes in low-lying areas around a market have been flooded, with residents moving up
to the second floor. Local radio announcements reported many phone calls asking for help and urgent
supplies of food.
Route 4 and Route 41 sections in Lang Suan district have been submerged, prompting police to divert
traffic to shortcuts and impose reversible lanes, creating heavy traffic congestion, as a huge number of
holidaymakers return to Bangkok as the four-day New Year holiday break ends today.
Citing a weather forecast, provincial governor Phinij Charoenphanich said more heavy rain was likely for
another day or two while urging residents living near the base of hills to brace for landslides and trawlers
not to go offshore because of high seas.
In Nakhon Si Thammarat, a long crack on a mountain in Ron Phibun has caused panic to local residents
with fears of falling rocks while all schools have closed until next Monday due to heavy flooding.
An Air Asia flight braved a thunderstorm to land at a local airport with a load of frightened passengers.
Nok Air and Orient Thai airways have called on prospective passengers to monitor weather reports and
flight schedules on a constant basis.
A situation update from Nop Phitam district has not been available as power poles were felled by strong
currents and most areas in the district have poor mobile phone signals. The district has been regarded as
'completely isolated' and has seen many incidents of mudslides, said district chief Preecha Khumwong.
Ten local and long-distance trains running from and to Bangkok have halted service, said railway chief
official Salaidej Saengphayak. Passengers are being transported to destinations on chartered buses while
they can refund tickets for suspended trains at full price, he added.
Shelters have been set up at schools for flood evacuees from many areas in Muang municipality, where an
estimated several thousand homes are under floodwater. The district's wholesale farm product market - the
largest in the South - has also been submerged, resulting in damage to a large number of products,
prompting vendors to sell at low prices.
Tha Sala hospital, which was heavily inundated in the extreme flooding of last April, has evacuated 50
patients to other hospitals while medical equipment and supplies are still sufficient but at the ready to be
moved up in case floodwater levels rise, said hospital director Kitti Rattanasombat.
A nine-year-old girl drowned yesterday in Yala's Muang district, where 51,189 people from 15,300
families had been affected and 1,645 others evacuated, and 7,424,000 square metres of farmland and 40
fish farms submerged or damaged. There has not been official confirmation whether the girl's death was
the first in the current South floods.
Their Majesties, the King and Queen have provided relief supplies and other assistance, through local
authorities, to owners of seven homes in Narathiwat's Rue Soh district which had been destroyed
completely by forest flooding.
Earthquakes prompt record insurance claims
in 2011
Published on Jan 4, 2012
FRANKFURT (REUTERS) - Insurance industry damage claims from natural disasters like the earthquakes
in Japan and New Zealand reached a record US$105 billion (S$135 billion) in 2011, said Munich Re, the
world's biggest reinsurer.
The cost to insurers from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March, which caused nearly 16,000
deaths, was estimated at US$35-$40 billion, the company said on Wednesday in a review of last year's
natural disasters.
An earthquake in New Zealand in February added a further US$13 billion to insurers' claims payout for the
year, Munich Re said.
The earthquakes together made up about half of last year's total insured losses from natural catastrophes,
which topped the previous record of US$101 billion set in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New
Orleans.
'Normally, it is the weather-related natural catastrophes that are the dominant loss drivers,' Munich Re said.
Despite the heavy payouts, many observers say that the claims were not big enough on their own to
provide a broad boost to reinsurers' pricing strength relative to their insurance company clients because
reinsurers still have plenty of excess capital.
Total economic losses last year, including those not covered by insurance, totalled US$380 billion, the
reinsurer said, thus also topping the previous record of US$220 billion set in 2005.
Munich Re's figures differ somewhat from those of rival Swiss Re published last month, which include
man-made disasters in the calculation.
Forest fires in Chile spread as police
investigate
Published on Jan 4, 2012
SANTIAGO (AFP) - Forest fires in southern Chile, fuelled by intense heat and strong winds, advanced
further on Tuesday after destroying nearly 40,000ha, officials said.
President Sebastian Pinera blamed the La Nina weather phenomenon and 'global warming' for the lack of
rain.
'We still have 20 fires that are active,' Mr Pinera told reporters, warning that Chile is facing 'an
extraordinarily risky and vulnerable' fire season due to dry summer weather.
Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter said some of the fires might have been set intentionally.
'The probability that they were caused intentionally, unfortunately, is not a probability that we can dismiss,'
Mr Hinzpeter said.
The worst of the blazes were concentrated in Chile's Bio Bio region, about 500km south of Santiago,
where about 22,500ha have been destroyed, according to Office of National Emergencies (ONEMI).
About 500 people have been evacuated from the area and 162 homes destroyed.
A 75-year-old man died early on Sunday when he refused to leave his home.
The damage prompted the authorities to declare the region a 'disaster zone', which will give residents
access to federal emergency assistance.
Bio Bio governor Victor Lobos said it was suspicious that eight of Arauco Forest fires started
simultaneously on Friday morning in different places.
Mr Juan Carlos Munoz, the mayor of the town of Cauquenes, said that some 200 families had been
affected by the fire and that 30 homes had been destroyed.
The first of the fires began six days ago in the Torres del Paine National Park.
An Israeli citizen, Rotem Young Singer, 23, was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of starting the fire.
He faces a possible penalty of up to 60 days in jail and a US$300 (S$387) fine.
Singer denies wrongdoing.
Quakes halt Ohio 'fracking' waste water well
Published on Jan 4, 2012
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A series of small earthquakes has prompted Ohio to suspend operations at a well
used to dispose of waste water from 'fracking,' a controversial technology to extract oil and gas from shale,
officials said on Tuesday.
The suspension came amid suspicions, which have not been confirmed, that the disposal of waste water by
reinjecting it into the ground, may have triggered the seismic activity.
The latest and strongest earthquake, which measured 4.0, occurred on New Year's Eve near the well
operated by D&L Energy in Youngstown, in a region of north-eastern Ohio that has seen a boom in
fracking activity from a major shale formation known as the Utica Shale.
The state had quietly shut down operations at the Youngstown injection well after a 2.7 magnitude quake
on Dec 24, but then extended the moratorium to an eight-kilometre radius around the well after the larger
quake December 31, industry officials said.
On Tuesday, state officials confirmed the suspension but would not comment further, apparently reflecting
concerns about its impact on a nascent industry that many have been banking on as a source of jobs and
investments in a long struggling Rust Belt state.
'I consider the link to be persuasive,' Mr John Armbruster, a seismologist with Columbia University's
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who studied the quakes, told AFP. 'In three dimensions, the
earthquake is about a kilometer from the bottom of the well.'
After measuring the latest of 11 earthquakes with seismographic instruments, Mr Armbruster's team told
state regulators that 'the link between them seems pretty good and they decided to shut down the well,
which was their responsibility.' A spokesman for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association said the suspension
was the right thing to do until the event was better understood.
'We also believe that while we may have a suspicious event here, nonetheless we do not have a direct link.
That needs to be established by using good scientific measurements,' said Tom Stewart, the association's
executive vice-president.
The state's oil and gas industry has a lot riding on the development because the huge oil shale formations in
Ohio are believed to hold potential reserves of up to 5.5 billion barrels of oil and 15 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas.
Hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking,' a process by which high pressure injections of water, sand and
chemicals are used to blast through rock to release oil and gas trapped inside, is considered key to
unlocking that potential.
The waste water that comes back out of those wells are then disposed of in separate injection wells.
Stewart pointed out that there are 180 water injection wells in operation in Ohio, taking in seven million
barrels of waste water a year, and problems have been rare since they began in the mid-1980s.
'In my view, if there is a link - if being the operative word - you have this proverbial needle in a haystack
where this well system may be touching some kind of fault system, or something similar to that,
underneath the basement rock, causing those types of temblors,' he said.
'But these wells have been in operation since the 1980s and the track record is superb. It is the preferred
method for managing the waste stream,' he said.
But little is known about the potential side effects of such operations on a larger scale, and while
earthquakes have been rare, they are not unprecedented.
A large cluster of earthquakes in Arkansas last year prompted authorities there to suspend operations at
two water injection wells, and seismologists at Southern Methodist University found links to quakes near
an injection well in the Fort Worth-Dallas area in 2009.
The Youngstown injection well entered in operation in December 2010, and soon after, in March, the
earthquakes began.
By the end of last year, 11 earthquakes had occurred, all in virtually the same location and at the same
depth, ranging in intensity from 2.1 to the 4.0 quake.
They caused no injuries and only minor damage, but they were especially surprising in that the area had
little history of seismic activity.
'My view is you cannot predict what is going to happen when you start operating one of these injection
wells, because the earthquakes that are happening are earthquakes you are triggering, sitting, waiting to
happen and you've given these earthquakes a slight extra push,' Mr Armbruster said.
'In order to predict what a given well is going to do, it's like predicting an earthquake. And no one has
predicted a method for predicting earthquakes.'