Landsat 8 satellite show floods in Myanmar

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12 August, 2015

10 August, 2015 Sinking?

10 August, 2015. Sinking?

Landsat 8 show floods in India 

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6 August, 2015

6 August, 2015

6 August, 2015

6 August, 2015

6 August, 2015

Source:  landsatlook.usgs.gov; earthexplorer.usgs

MODIS Myanmar floods

6 August, 2015

8 August, 2015

2014 September wet season

MODIS India floods

6 August, 2015

13 August, 2015. At least 103 people have been killed and more than a million critically affected by the flooding in Myanmar

Myanmar was evacuating parts of a city on Wednesday after mudslides wiped away hundreds of houses and torrential rain threatened further damage in the worst floods to hit the country in decades.

The government in Hakha, the capital of impoverished Chin state in northwest Myanmar, was moving nearly 4,000 people to safety after landslides caused by rains destroyed 375 houses, Chin Finance Minister Nan Zamon told Reuters.

At least 103 people have been killed and more than one million "critically affected" by the flooding, according to the government and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

It is the worst natural disaster since Cyclone Nargis killed nearly 140,000 people in May 2008.

Five out of six townships in Hakha, population 50,000, had been hit by landslides and another 900 houses were in danger of being damaged, Nan Zamon said. Source: ewn.co.za

7 August, 2015. The hungry tide: Bay of Bengal's sinking islands

Salt water inundation has increased salinity of the soil to an alarming limit, making agricultural harvesting extremely difficult. Betel vine cultivation is one of the major sources of income on the island. However, rising water levels have washed away acres of plantation land, leaving behind financial difficulties. [Swastik Pal/Al Jazeera]

Ghoramara island is known as the "sinking island". Located 150km south of Kolkata in the Bay of Bengal's Sunderban delta, the island, once spanning more than 20sq km, has been reduced to an area of merely 5sq km.

"Over the last two decades I've lost 1.2 hectares of cultivable land to the Muriganga river and had to shift my home four times. There has been no resettlement initiative from the government," said Anwara Bibi, 30, a resident of Nimtala village on the island.

Global warming has caused the river to grow. Flowing down from the mighty Himalayas the river brings more and more snowmelt along as it empties into the Bay of Bengal.

High tides and floods play havoc on the fragile embankments, displacing hundreds of islanders every year.

"Most men have migrated to work in construction sites in the southern part of India," Sanjeev Sagar, the head of the local council of Ghoramara Island, told Al Jazeera.

More than 600 families have been displaced in the last three decades, leaving behind 5,000 odd residents struggling with harsh monsoons every year.

"A large-scale mangrove plantation could prevent tidal erosion," suggested Sugata Hazra who is a professor at the School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University. "With every high tide a part of the island is getting washed away."

Only those without any means to migrate are left on this island.

Amid this crisis, basic services such as education are being neglected by authorities.

"The nearest senior secondary school is across the river at Kakdwip," said Sourav Dolui, 16, a 9th grade student at the Ghoramara Milan Bidyapeeth. Source: aljazeera.com

Unseasonal floods in Argentina

Troubled times: Argentina

We have already stated that the Cordoba range would be a safe zone, safe from the tidal waves rushing in from the Atlantic. Hot springs appear in many places around the world, where the crust is thin, primarily due to stretching. Argentina, at Buenos Aires, will experience stretching as the top part of S America is pulled to the west while the tip of S America is nailed firmly at the Antarctic Plate. The bay at Buenos Aires will rip open, as we have stated. Thus inland, in San Luis, there are hot springs. This will not result in volcanic eruptions during the pole shift.

ZetaTalk ™ May 4, 2011

15 August, 2015

3 August, 2015

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Landsat 8 floods in Argentina

16 August, 2015

16 August, 2015

Unseasonal heavy rain has caused rivers to overflow in the province of Buenos Aires. Source: diariocol.com

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Mercedes suffered its worst flooding since 1985.Source: eldolorense.com

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Floods in Durazno. Photo: Victor Rodriguez. Source: elpais.com

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More than 10,000 people were evacuated from the province. Source: aljazeera.com

Worst-hit were the cities of Luján, Mercedes, Salto, Lobos, Areco and Arrecifes. Floodwaters in the middle of town reached a height of 1.8 metres in some cases.Source: tvn-2.com

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Buenos Aires is one of the most affected by floods / Photo: Courtesy. Source: radiomundial.com.ve

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12 August, 2015. Unseasonal heavy rain has caused rivers to overflow in the province of Buenos Aires.
At least three people have died and 11,000 have had to be evacuated from their homes in the Buenos Aires province of Argentina following heavy rain. The evacuations have been necessitated by rising river levels following unseasonal torrential rain across the province. Up to 350mm of rain fell in just a few days - this compares with an average for the entire month of August of just 60mm. The Lujan, Areco and Arrecifes rivers have all overflowed. The Arrecifes reached a record level of nine metres, nearly twice its normal level.

The flooding has submerged the rich soils of the pampas. Argentina is one of the world’s largest producers of soybeans, corn and wheat and this unseasonal rainfall is expected to hamper the planting of the wheat crop. Source: aljazeera.com

17 August, 2015. High and dry after Argentina floods
Looking across the skyline of Mercedes in Argentina’s Buenos Aires province, the first thing to strike your eye is the number of tents perched on people’s roofs. After the worst flooding to hit the city in decades, the tents aren’t just a refuge from the murky water below, they’re also a good idea if you want to ensure no one helps themselves to your belongings. The sun is shining again in the Pampas. The Luján, Salado and Arrecifes river basins are finally receding after weeks of torrential rain filled them three or four times above their normal levels. More than 10,000 evacuees from around the province are returning home. They will not be able to simply resume their lives as before. If not lost entirely, their properties will be severely damaged, and they face the added challenge of keeping their families healthy in far from sanitary conditions.

In early August, more rain fell in just two days in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe than normally falls in an entire month. Worst-hit were the cities of Luján, Mercedes, Salto, Lobos, Areco and Arrecifes. Floodwaters in the middle of town reached a height of 1.8 metres in some cases. At least three people died, more than 10,000 were evacuated and 20,000 affected.

More than 10,000 people were evacuated from the province. Photo: Friends of the Belgrano Railway

Mercedes suffered its worst flooding since 1985. The civil defense authority received its first emergency calls as dawn broke on 10 August. By eight o’clock in the morning, there had been more than 100 requests for assistance. It was left to volunteer firefighters to rescue those trapped by the rapidly rising water. Strong currents made it impossible to use anything else but motorised boats. “People know what to do when we arrive. They have learnt from previous catastrophes,” Alfredo Gutiérrez, the deputy head of the firefighters, tells IRIN ironically.
Another firefighter, Sebastián Cossi, recalls how difficult it was to reach those who had actually dialled in for help because the rescue teams kept finding other people in need along the way. After 15 hours, the teams had rescued some 200 people. Source: irinnews.org

19 August, 2015. Google translate. Floods: the field lost $ 1 billion

Source: reliefweb.int

More than 4 million hectares of Cuenca del Salado (32%) still underwater

At least a third of a large agricultural region of Buenos Aires, comprising the basin of the Salado River and north and east of the province, continues underwater with serious prospects of losses from recent floods. There are 4.1 million hectares, ie 32.8% of the total surface of the area (12.5 million hectares). Buenos Aires has 30 million hectares, bringing the area with serious problems reaches almost 14% of the territory.

The losses are huge in livestock and will continue to accrue, according to experts. In Las Flores, Rauch, Ayacucho, Dolores stack Tordillo producers and other parties they are reporting animal mortality, with calving cows calves in the water.

Although there is no official estimate, as the national government and the Buenos Aires not yet occurred and agro institutions are gathering information, producers warned that this situation continues it may lose not less than 50,000 calves (worth around 200 million pesos).

Furthermore, since they give unrecoverable 259,000 hectares of wheat (other $ 750 million). Thus, between livestock and wheat round economic impact, according to preliminary calculations, the $ 1 billion.

While the crisis by flooding began slowly overcome in the cities, in the countryside the problem does not yield.

According to a public image of Terra satellite, which analyzed Paul Ginestet, president of the Rural Association of Henderson and Rip specialist firm, which among other things is dedicated to working with satellite imagery, multispectral and drones, the impact of flooding is tall.

"In Buenos Aires, in 52 games analyzed, some 12,500,000 hectares, there are 4,100,000 hectares with water, 32% of the surface," said Ginestet. According to the expert, this area would have to add about 150,000 to 200,000 hectares that are not easily detected by the satellite. The spectral bands used for calculations are 1-2 and 7. According Ginestet in Santa Fe only party in the south, General Lopez, Constitution and Caseros, there are 65,000 hectares flooded. And in Córdoba, in the departments of Marcos Juarez and Union, there are 35,000 hectares affected.

In Buenos Aires there are parties who are in a high percentage underwater according to satellite image analysis. For example highlights stack and flowers, with 70%, and Dapple, with 61%. Meanwhile, General Guido has 56%; Rauch and General Belgrano, 55%, and General Alvear, 54 percent.

"Livestock producers lose pastures and forage reserves to feed their farm. The farm drowns because it weakens the physical state, the absence of food," said Ernesto Ambrosetti, chief economist for the Sociedad Rural Argentina (SRA) . "Calves are being born and everything is complicated by lack of food," agreed Joaquin Lascombes, an expert in satellite images. A lack of food illnesses such as pneumonia are added. Preliminary calculations of producers are saying that there is a risk that 50,000 animals were lost.

Another point is the shortage of machinery. According to producers in the region, hydraulics Dolores, an area with 80 percent fields under water, has not a single machine backhoe worked for. Break there the municipality ordered an embankment of a canal to prevent the city from flooding. Source: lanacion.com.ar

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Myanmar:

19 August, 2015. Floods cause acute water shortage in hundreds of Myanmar villages

Authorities are racing to clean contaminated water sources in flood-hit parts of Myanmar, while distributing bottled water, chlorine powder and purification tablets as they struggle with diarrhea outbreaks. Torrential rains since late June triggered floods and landslides across central and western Myanmar, killing more than 100 people and affecting 1.3 million, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
In four hard-hit states and regions - Rakhine, Sagaing, Magway and Ayeyarwady - tens of thousands of people lack access to clean water for bathing, washing and drinking, officials and aid organizations told Myanmar Now. Ponds and wells have been contaminated by floodwaters, including seawater in coastal Rakhine state, as well as faeces from farm animals that have sought safety on embankments around ponds, officials said. Source: news.yahoo.com

Pakistan:

Landsat 8 click to view high resolution

17 August, 2015

17 August, 2015

17 August, 2015

17 August, 2015

19 August, 2015

4 August, 2015

18 August, 2015. Floods wreaking havoc  

With the onset of the monsoon season, massive floods have engulfed major parts of the country. While taking a heavy toll on the lives of the poor people dwelling in the densely populated rural areas of the country, the onslaught of floods, as reported by the media, has so far razed more than 2,700 settlements to the ground. In the process, as reported in the media, roughly 0.7 million innocent people have so far been rendered homeless, and are passing sleepless nights under the open sky. Source: dailytimes.com

Incredible aerial pictures show US and European tectonic plates in Iceland pulling apart leaving dramatic 200ft water-filled crevices that divers can explore

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-3207774/Incredible-aerial...

A strange ghost town that spent a quarter century under water is coming up for air again in the Argentine farmlands southwest of Buenos Aires."

a particularly heavy rainstorm followed a series of wet winters, and the lake overflowed its banks on Nov. 10, 1985. Water burst through a retaining wall and spilled into the lakeside streets. People fled with what they could, and within days their homes were submerged under nearly 10 meters (33 feet) of corrosive saltwater.

People come to see the rusted hulks of automobiles and furniture, crumbled homes and broken appliances. They climb staircases that lead nowhere, and wander through a graveyard where the water toppled headstones and exposed tombs to the elements.

From:
http://www.disclose.tv/news/strange_argentina_ghost_town_that_was_u...

* Monitoring of Ground Motion in REV

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/index.html

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/stations.html

[Folding Pacific (Mariana Plate)]

* MI.ANSV; ANSW, Northern Marianas Islands; 16.34 N, 145.67 E

[2014/11/10 - 2015/09/29] 

* MI.HTSP; HUB; 15.23 N, 145.80 E

[2014/11/03 - 2015/10/03]

* IU.GUMO; Guam, Mariana Islands; 13.59 N, 144.87 E

[2014/11/05 - 2015/10/04]

* Monitoring of Ground Motion in REV

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/index.html

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/stations.html

[Tearing of the north Atlantic Rift]

* IU.KONO; Kongsberg, Norway; 59.65 N, 9.60 E

[2015/02/01 - 2015/10/04]

* BE.UCC; Uccle, Brussels, Belgium; 50.80 N, 4.36 E

[2014/11/01 - 2015/10/04]

* GB.ELSH; ELHAM, ENGLAND; 51.15 N, 1.14 E

[2014/11/01 - 2015/10/04]

* GB.HTL; HARTLAND, ENGLAND; 50.99 N, 4.48 W

HTL-1) [2014/10/31 - 2014/12/10]

HTL-2) [2015/01/10 - 2015/01/27]

HTL-3) [2015/01/28 - 2015/10/04]

* GB.BIGH; UPPER BIGHOUSE, SCOTLAND; 58.49 N, 3.91 W

[2015/02/05 - 2015/10/04]

* Monitoring of Ground Motion in REV

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/index.html

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/stations.html

[Folding Pacific (Hawaii)]

Troubled Times: Pacific Islands

The Pacific Plate is assumed to be a single plate, but it is not. Hawaii, which rides higher after every major adjustment in the area, is rising, and this can only be the case if there is subduction of a plate somewhere, pushing the plate that Hawaii rides on up. 

* HV.HUAD; Hualalai, Hawaii Digital; 19.68 N, 155.84 W

[2015/10/06 - 2015/10/09]

* IU.KIP; Kipapa, Hawaii, USA; 21.42 N, 158.01 W

[2014/12/10 -12/12, 2015/06/18 - 06/22, 2015/08/31 - 09/01]

* Monitoring of Ground Motion in REV

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/index.html

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/stations.html

[North American Rip (Greenland)]

ZetaTalk: N American Rip

The stress on the N American plate will resolve by ripping. Ripping the St. Lawrence Seaway open.

* DK.TULEG; Thule Air Base, Greenland; 76.54 N, 68.82 W

TULEG-1) [2015/06/13 - 07/05]

TULEG-2) [2015/07/12 - 09/23]

TULEG-3) [2015/09/28 - 10/08]

* GE.SUMG; GEOFON Station Summit Camp, Greenland; 72.57 N, 38.46 W

[2015/04/14 - 09/22]

* DK.ISOG; Isortoq, Greenland; 65.55 N, 38.98 W

ISOG-1) [2014/11/03 - 2015/04/20]

ISOG-2) [2015/04/21 - 04/26]

ISOG-3) [2015/07/03 - 10/05]

* Monitoring of Ground Motion in REV

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/index.html

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/stations.html

[Folding Pacific (West Pacific Plate)]

Folding Pacific

We addressed the fact that the Pacific plate is not one plate, as assumed. In fact, it is at least four plates. The rise and incident of islands from Kamchatka to Hawaii to the Society Islands shows this to be a plate boundary, down the center of the Pacific. Call that land to the east of this plate boundary the East Pacific Plate. There is also a triangle of a plate between the points of Hawaii, West Samoa, and the Society Islands. Call this the West Pacific Plate. Below the Society Islands is a plate which could be called the South Pacific Plate. And the portion of the Pacific Plate pushing under Japan and pushing under the Philippine Plate could be called the North Pacific Plate. All these plates are folding now, as a close examination of the live seismographs shows. Take a look at where magma sloshing is ongoing!

What we refer to as the folding Pacific is more than this, however. It is primarily the plates abutting Asia. The Mariana Trench will collapse against the tiny Mariana Plate which will tilt and fold to push under the Philippine Plate. The Philippine Plate is likewise tilting to fold and push under the tongue holding Indonesia, which is itself buckling and sinking. Where the Pacific plates are almost constantly adjusting, the north and west Pacific plates riding over the east and south Pacific plates, this is silent and virtually unnoticed by man, who cannot place his monitors under the deep sea. Hawaii is known to be steadily rising, however, as a result of this. Thus, when we refer to a folding Pacific, we are referring to the plates tilting and folding against Indonesia and Japan.

* IU.KNTN; Kanton, Kiritibati; 2.77 S, 171.72 W

KNTN-1) [2014/08/05 - 09/10]

KNTN-2) [2014/10/11 - 11/12]

KNTN-3) [[2014/11/14-16]

KNTN-4) [2014/11/20 - 2015/10/08]

[Folding Pacific (West Pacific Plate)]

*IU.FUNA: Funafuti, Tuvalu; 8.53 S, 179.20 E

FUNA-1) [2014/07/01 - 09/12]

FUNA-2) [2015/04/06-30]

FUNA-3) [2015/05/01-31]

FUNA-4) [2015/06/01-30]

FUNA-5) [2015/07/01-31]

FUNA-6) [2015/08/10-15]

FUNA-7) [2015/09/09-30]

FUNA-8) [2015/10/01-10]

[Folding Pacific (West Pacific Plate)]

*IU.AFI; Afiamalu, Samoa; 13.91 S, 171.78 W

[2014/11/11 -2015/10/10]

* II.MSVF; Monasavu, Fiji; 17.74 S, 178.05 E

[2014/11/03 - 2015/10/10]

Philippines floods:

The Philippines is sinking! Certainly the buoys to the east of the Philippines indicate action, as the sea flood is dropping there, water on the rise! The buoys above New Guinea, in the Pacific, likewise indicate a rising sea level. What could this mean?

There is indeed a relationship between the high waves and flooding in the Philippines in those towns along the eastern coastline and inland with access to the sea. The Philippines have begun to sink, though such sinking is never such that an entire land mass or large island sinks uniformly, so can be deceptive. There is an additional influence from the tilting of the Philippine Plate and continued compression out in the Pacific, so that water is heaped to the east of the Philippine Islands, and is washing over their eastern shores during equalization of the water level. However, this latter is a relatively small influence. The issue with flooding is absolutely due to a dropping in elevation for some parts of the Philippines.

ZetaTalk: Philippines Sink

In this photo provided by the Philippine Air Force, floodwaters inundate homes and rice fields in northern Philippines Tuesday Oct. 20, 2015. Tropical Storm Lando (international name Koppu) finally blew away from the main northern Philippine island Tuesday, after leaving several dead over the weekend and forcing tens of thousands of villagers into emergency shelters and destroying rice fields ready for harvest. Staff Sgt. Roldan L. Medina, Philippine Air Force - PIO 410th maintenance wing via AP. Source: philstar.com

An aerial shot taken with a drone helicopter by Bayan Patroller John Ryan Domingo shows the extent of the flooding on Macapagal Avenue, Diversion Road in Tuguegarao City on Monday. Photo by John Ryan Domingo, BMPM. Source: abs-cbnnews.com

‘Lando’ submerges ricefields in Pangasinan and Tarlac towns. Source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

After typhoon ‘Lando’ left a swath of destruction in Northern and Central Luzon, government authorities and local residents have started to pick up the pieces with bulldozers starting to clear a path at a highway in Carangalan, Nueva Ecija, that has been inundated with mud and rocks. Source: mb.com.ph

20 October, 2015

16 September, 2015

11 September, 2015. Enhanced flooding in Metro Manila: Water rising, ground sinking according to scientists

Flooded areas brought by the heavy downpour in the past few days left traffic at a standstill along major roads in Metro Manila.

Could Metro Manila be sinking?

Possibly, scientists are saying that over-pumping of groundwater can cause some areas to sink 5 to 6 centimeters yearly.

“Ang pagkuha ng sobrang tubig, the faster that it can’t be replenished.. ang lupa naging compact which causes subsidence,” said Narod Eco of University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman National Institute of Geological Sciences.

Land subsidence or sinking can produce higher tides that reach farther inland and floods that recede more slowly.

For cities in Metro Manila - Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and Valenzuela - areas are sinking fast, reason why flood waters rise and flow inland quickly.

Areas in Muntinlupa and nearby provinces like Cavite, Pampanga, Bulacan and Laguna are also sinking because most of their soil is made of clay.

If the sinking continues, what could be the worst case scenario?

“In 10 to 20 years most likely mga lugar na coastal areas ngayon maging permanently underwater like sa Venice,” said Eco.

Climate change is making problems worse. As the world's glaciers melt and oceans expand, water levels are rising.

Manila Bay is now higher than Manila, which has areas that are already below sea level. Source: cnnphilippines.com

30 September, 2011. Sinking lands behind worsening floods

Aside from global warming causing stronger cyclones and rising oceans levels, sinking lands in Metro Manila and Central Luzon are causing floods to worsen, scientists have warned.

Lands are sinking because of the natural compaction of soil and rapid withdrawal of groundwater, according to Dr. Fernando Siringan of the Marine Science Institute at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Siringan, in a post-"Ondoy" assessment paper, said land subsidence is the least understood but very important cause of flooding.

Typhoons, southwest monsoon not to blame

The study said typhoons should not be immediately tagged as the cause of worsening floods in the areas.

"The southwest monsoon and typhoons annually deliver approximately 2,000 millimeters of rain to the region, but the amounts have been decreasing since 1900 (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1995; Jose et al., 1996) and cannot be blamed for the worsening floods," the paper said.

Dr. Greg Bankoff, an associate professor in the School of Asian Studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, also identified sinking lands as one of the primary causes of severe flooding in northern Metro Manila and parts of Pampanga and Bulacan.

"The extent of flooding has also been considerably aggravated in recent decades by land subsidence," he said in a study published by the International Institute for Asian Studies.

"Sediments that underlie river deltas have a high water content that is 'squeezed' by the weight of succeeding deposits, a process that is greatly accelerated when groundwater is extracted faster than it can be replenished by natural recharge from rain seeping back into the ground," he explained.

Sinking land, higher sea level

"As the land around Manila Bay sinks and the level of the sea rises, flooding has become more prevalent not only in the city but also in the surrounding provinces," Bankoff said. Source: abs-cbnnews.com

13 August, 2012. Kelvin Rodolfo, an eminent Filipino geologist, gave a good perspective of what happened last week. Here is Dr. Rodolfo’s reaction to a New York Times account of last week’s floods:

“Just finished reading 35 comments...this abnormal rainfall event may be blamed on climate change induced by global warming, but sea level rise from global warming is not to blame. Far too few people know that a major cause of Metro Manila’s worsening floods is that the land there is sinking several inches a year -- more than ten times faster than sea level rise.

“Meanwhile, pious Catholic politicians are saying that God is punishing the Philippines with the floods because its congress is considering a Reproductive Health bill. How very sad...” Source: philstar.com

21 October, 2015. 246 villages still submerged

At least 246 villages in four Central Luzon provinces and in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan, remain submerged in floodwater even as typhoon ,” now downgraded to a tropical storm, finally blew away from the landmass of Northern Luzon yesterday, leaving at least 20 people dead and forcing 70,000 villagers into emergency shelters and destroying rice fields ready for harvest.

Likewise, disaster officials said floodwaters also swamped 15 towns in Cagayan, affecting 20,000 people.

Disaster-response agencies also warned that there was still a danger that rains dumped by “Lando” (international name: Koppu) in mountain areas may flood rivers and put hundreds of downstream villages at risk.

President Aquino had earlier warned that a lot of this rainfall that fell on the northern portion of Luzon will be coming down and will be affecting all of these barangays near the major river systems.

Aquino, who flew to hard-hit Nueva Ecija last Monday to check on the flooding and distribute food packs, said there were still worries that up to 800 villages could be threatened if rivers become overwhelmed by rainwater flowing down from northern mountain provinces.

Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) weather forecaster Aldczar Aurelio said “Lando” will continue to bring moderate to heavy rains, and to at times intense rains over Northern Luzon, particularly the western section until today, while Central Luzon will have cloudy skies with light to moderate rains. Source: mb.com.ph

19 October, 2015. Lando floods 'worst in this lifetime' for Nueva Ecija

Residents of flooded farming villages in the Philippines were trapped on their rooftops on Monday and animals floated down fast-rising rivers, as deadly Typhoon Lando (international name: Lando) dumped more intense rain.

Lando, the second strongest storm to hit the disaster-plagued Southeast Asian archipelago this year, has killed two people and forced more than 60,000 people from their homes, authorities said. After making landfall on Sunday morning on the east coast of Luzon, the Philippines' biggest island, the slow-moving typhoon has brought heavy rain to some of the nation's most important farming areas.

"I've never seen anything like this. It's the worst flood I've seen in my entire life," farmer Reynaldo Ramos, 68, told AFP as he walked through knee-deep water in Santa Rosa, about two hours' drive north of Manila.  Military, government and volunteer rescue units equipped with rubber boats were trying to help residents in dozens of flooded villages, according to Nigel Lontoc, a regional rescue official.

"The floods are rising fast and some people are now on their rooftops," Lontoc told AFP, but added there were not enough rescuers and he did not know how many have been rescued.

Lontoc said many thousands of people may be stranded in those villages, although it was too early to determine an exact number Source: gmanetwork.com

19 October, 2015. Typhoon Lando: 'Worst floods' in Cabanatuan history

STRANDED. Many Cabanatuan City residents spent the night of Monday, October 19, sleeping on roofs. Photo by Naoki Mengua/Rappler

The morning of Monday, October 19, saw Cabanatuan City slowly rising from the depths of muddy flood waters brought by Typhoon Lando (international name Koppu).

“First time ever sa kasaysayan ng Nueva Ecija. Akala ko nga 4 years ago yung Pedring na yung pinaka mataas pero hindi pala, ito talaga,” said Joanne Guevarra, a resident of barangay Aduas Norte

(This is the first time ever in the history of Nueva Ecija. I thought 4 years ago Pedring had the highest floods but no, it’s this storm.)

This sentiment was among the first to be voiced out by rescued residents as they boarded the truck.

“We never experienced these kinds of floods before,” said 59-year-old Anna Mateo of Aduas Centro village in Filipino.

Though rescue operations began the previous night amid heavy downpour, rescue teams were still rushing the next morning to heed requests for help in villages that remained submerged.

Those still under head-high floods as of Tuesday morning include the barangays Aduas Norte, Aduas Centro, Aduas Sur, Sumakab, and Isla.

Separated, reunited

Thirteen-year-old Raprap Guevarra spent the entire night on top of a metal roof on the second floor of his friend’s house in Aduas Norte.

His mother, Joanne, was up all night as well, desperately contacting rescue teams from the Padre Gregorio Crisostomo Elementary School evacuation center. She had been separated from Raprap and had no means to fetch him herself.

“Talagang naghi-hysterical na nga ako kasi nga syempre ang bilis ng taas ng tubig, baka abutin na yung tinutungtungan nila, wala nang kakapitan,” she told Rappler.

(I was hysterical because the water was rising fast, it could reach where they were standing, they would have nothing to hold on to.)

She almost lost hope when by 11 pm, she noticed there were fewer rescue personnel. She had been told that a team was sent to the area where her son was stranded but they were not able to cut through because of the strong floods.

Unexpected flood heights

Residents said they were not prepared for the speed at which flood waters rose.

Areas which before could expect floods to subside after reaching the knee were inundated by waters that went beyond their heads.

This lack of preparation was one reason why many got stranded in their homes.

“Hindi nga siya nakabalik dahil napakabilis ng pagtaas ng tubig. Within 30 minutes, hanggang dibdib,” said Guevarra, referring to Raprap who had promised to follow her to the evacuation center.

(He was not able to go back because because the water rose so fast. Within 30 minutes, it reached the chest.) Source: rappler.com

Philippines 

Click to view full resolution - Landsat 8 (Source: earthexplorer)

24 October, 2015

[22 October, 2015]

[23 October, 2015]

[18 August, 2015] (Source: MODIS Subsets; worldview.earthdata)

25 October, 2015. Ground swallows 4 houses in Itogon

Four houses crumpled and fell into a gaping hole that gave way beneath a community in Benguet’s mining town of Itogon on Thursday, a day after Typhoon “Lando” (international name: Koppu) left the country.

Results of initial geological investigation, however, discounted speculation that the hole was part of an old tunnel once used for a mining operation there.

Fay Apil, a geologist and Cordillera director of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), said the houses were dragged down the side of a hill and swallowed by the hole in Virac village.

Itogon Mayor Victorio Palangdan said the families living in the collapsed houses managed to flee after they felt their houses were shaking.

He said the hole gave way gradually. The first evidence of subsidence was detected by residents at 10 a.m. on Thursday. The hole began to grow wider in the afternoon.

The displaced families, as well as 32 other people, were relocated to Virac Elementary School.

Apil said at least 100 families were evacuated from the area. “The police worked quickly to clear these houses,” she said, after she and a team inspected the ground subsidence and helped identify the endangered houses.

Palangdan said engineers of the mining company came to check on the ground movement on Saturday. “But they did not show us any plans of action yet,” he said.

Apil said geologists and the mining company’s engineers inspected two underground mine structures which run beneath the subsidence area in Virac.

She said the old “Vegas” tunnel was the closest, having been part of the company’s tourist-drawing mine tours. But the team found no evidence of collapse there when it visited the tunnel.

Apil said the team also inspected the old “Diversion Tunnel No. 1,” which is being used to discharge water. On the surface, the length of this diversion channel is equivalent to an 80-meter stretch from the road.

But the team, accompanied by Virac village chief Noel Bilibli, checked the tunnel outlet and concluded that the volume of discharge was unhampered and the quality of water was clear, she said.

The diversion tunnel had not been compromised, she said, adding that the team and local officials would enter the tunnel on Oct. 27.

She said the MGB is working on another theory: The void underneath might be the result of operations of illegal small-scale miners. She did not elaborate.

Itogon is home to some of the country’s first mining companies, most of which were established when the country was ruled by the American colonial government. Vincent Cabreza and Kimberlie Quitasol, Inquirer Northern Luzon. Source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Philippines

28 October, 2015. After ‘Lando,’ Pampanga, Bulacan fight floods

WITHOUT rain for days, much of Central Luzon has turned dry land more than a week after Typhoon “Lando” (international name: Koppu) made landfall in Casiguran town in Aurora province on Oct. 18.

In the coastal towns of Pampanga and Bulacan, however, people still battle with floods as water from 30 or so major rivers in Central Luzon—starting from Pantabangan River in Nueva Ecija province to the waterways along the 260-kilometer meandering route—drains downstream of the Pampanga River before emptying into Manila Bay.

People in Candelaria have no dike to run to for safety whenever the Pampanga River overflows. Far down are six communities of Masantol town or what survived of these when the government widened the mouth of the river from 75 m to 750 m in 1998. Farther south are the Hagonoy and Calumpit towns of Bulacan.

Geologists and engineers refer to this area as the Pampanga Delta or downstream of the Pampanga River.

“It’s been almost a week now,” Pangilinan, a councilman, said of the flood. Thirty families in his neighborhood evacuated to the second floor of San Francisco Elementary School in Candelaria. They buy food in nearby Calumpit by banca.

“They don’t want to go to the other side of the river [to get to Macabebe town proper]. They’re afraid [because] water is high and the current is strong,” said Pangilinan, 53, an owner of a small fishpond.

But as floodwaters rise and linger—citing the successive Typhoons “Pedring” and “Quiel” in 2011, the “habagat”-triggered rain in 2012 and Lando of late—Pangilinan does not harbor any thought of leaving Candelaria although the risks of living there have grown.

But engineering interventions are not enough to minimize the risks of flooding, according to geologists Dr. Kelvin Rodolfo and Dr. Fernando Siringan.

In a paper published in 2006, they said groundwater extraction should be slowed down and regulated to curtail subsidence that worsens flooding.

“Unlike an earthquake or volcanic eruption, the worsening floods are gradual and permit temporary, stopgap solutions. Optimism is rampant during the flood-free half of the year when people want to forget the wet and discomfort,” they said. Source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

27 October, 2015. Rising tides in Brunswick  Brunswick Police Department. Source: firstcoastnews.com

Flooding in Brunswick. Submitted to First Coast News. Source: firstcoastnews.com

Flooding in Charleston, South Carolina, during the morning high tide on October 27, 2015.  (Steve Petyerak/The Weather Channel). Source: weather.com

Source: nbcmiami.com

28 October, 2015. Relief comes slowly to flood-weary coastal residents

For a third day in a row, what locals call "Lake Road" in Madisonville lived up to its name.

Lake Pontchartrain and the Madisonville boat dock became one as the lake spilled over the newly-built seawall and poured into the marsh. A no-name storm system - not quite tropical in nature - flooded Madisonville and other South Louisiana coastal towns with persistent south winds.

Finally, on Tuesday, relief started to come as winds shifted direction and water slowly receded.

"I think we had maybe four or five feet of surge out here," said Mike Benjamin, owner of T-Rivers Bar on the Tchefuncte River. "It filled up everything pretty good."

Benjamin uses an old military vehicle to access the bar during the frequent periods of high water. However, seldom does the water rise to the level experienced since Sunday. A couple of tourists from Boston hopped a ride, hoping to snap a picture of the Tchefuncte River Lighthouse.

"The lighthouse is beautiful, but the flooding is amazing, nothing like we'd ever see in Boston," said Nicole Giambro.

Floods along low-lying areas are more commonplace, as portions of the coast experience subsidence and rising sea levels.

"People underestimate the power of the lake and the wind," Benjamin said, "and how much the tide and the lake will affect the North Shore." Source: fox8live.com

27 October, 2015. “King Tide” floods parts of the peninsula

Unusually high tides made a mess of the peninsula Tuesday.

Many road closures were lifted as the water receded, but the intersection of Wentworth and Barre street still remained flooded even in the evening.

Residents in Harleston Village are no stranger to flooding and call this week’s the highest they had seen in decades. “This one block where I live is the one block in this area where it doesn’t flood,” said Will Schutze while picking up garbage spilled out from floated trash bins. “It finally got us today.”

Schutze along with other Harleston Village neighbors spent their day cleaning up debris. “It felt like it was a little bit of a sneak attack,” said Ham Morris, another resident. “The last couple of days it’s been getting higher and higher than all of the sudden it came in like a river.”

Morris with other neighbors anticipate Wednesday’s king tide will be the worst of the week and are taking the precaution of putting sandbags around their entryways. “It’s a good time to be in the sandbagging business,” laughed Henry Fielder of Hughes Lumber.

Wednesday morning’s high tide is expected to peek at 9:03 AM.

The city of Charleston has opened up its city owned garages to residents wishing to avoid the tidal flooding. Neighbors can park in the garages for free until Thursday, October 29. Source: counton2.com

27 October, 2015. Police: 'This is one of the highest tides we've seen in Brunswick'

9th Street this morning in Brunswick  Viewer Stephanie Allen McIntyre.

Rising tides have caused wide spread flooding in and around Brunswick on Tuesday.

According to One Hundred Miles, a coastal conservation group for Georgia's 100-mile coastline that's based in Brunswick, the unusually high tides and strong winds are to blame for the floods now troubling the low-lying regions of the Georgia town.

Employees for One Hundred Miles reportedly had to wade through calf-deep water just to get to work.

The Brunswick Police Department reported the tide to be 9.7 feet high.

Be sure to take care when driving through these waters. Remember as well that the water on the roads is salt water and can damage your car. Source: firstcoastnews.com

27 October, 2015. Homes Damaged From Highest Tides in Decades Along Parts of Georgia, South Carolina

Incredible images from Sean Compton of the coastal flooding out on HWY 80. Source: twitter.com

Persistent onshore winds coupled with the monthly spring tides led to the highest tides in decades Tuesday morning along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts, driving coastal flooding into Charleston, South Carolina, among other areas.

At least 20 homes, including two businesses, were damaged by the high water at Edisto Beach, South Carolina, according to a local storm report from the National Weather Service.

Coastal flooding closed several streets and intersections on the Charleston peninsula Tuesday morning, according to the Charleston Police Department.

Tide levels at Charleston's harbor topped out at 8.686 feet above mean lower low water level, the location's fourth highest tide on record, dating to 1921.

Only three events produced higher tides at Charleston Harbor: Hugo on Sep. 21, 1989 (12.56 feet), an August 11, 1940 hurricane (10.27 feet) and a New Year's Day 1987 coastal storm (8.84 feet) produced higher tides at Charleston Harbor.

Tuesday's tide level was 4-5 inches higher than the peak measured during the historic South Carolina flooding and coastal flooding event earlier in October. Fortunately this time, there wasn't 17-27 inches of rainfall occurring at the same time.

Flooding inundated roads in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, including Palm Boulevard, 41st and 25th Streets. Water flowed under waterfront homes and a condominium complex, according to the National Weather Service.

Tidal flooding was also reported in Folly Beach, Hilton Head, Beaufort, Edisto Beach, Kiawah Island and North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

A restaurant was flooded on Hilton Head Island and a golf course was partially submerged.

Floodwaters swamped several homes on Fripp Island, between Charleston and Hilton Head Island. The nearby Hunting Island State Park campgrounds were flooded, as well. Traffic was not allowed on the island due to widespread flooded roads, there.

Along the Georgia coast, tidal flooding at Ft. Pulaski National Monument east of Savannah was the highest since the 1940s and third highest on record dating to 1935, topping out at 10.427 feet.

Again, only two hurricanes -- Oct. 15, 1947 and Aug. 11, 1940 -- produced higher tides above mean lower low water level at Ft. Pulaski.

U.S. 80, the only road from Savannah to Tybee Island and Ft. Pulaski was flooded and closed Tuesday.

We mentioned earlier, there was no tropical storm, hurricane, or even bullish coastal low-pressure system associated with this event.

Instead, the pressure gradient between strong high pressure centered over the Northeast U.S. and low pressure over the northern Gulf Coast set up the persistent east to northeast winds driving water ashore.

Together with that were the monthly spring tides, the highest tides of the month corresponding to this month's full moon, known as the Hunter's Moon.

South Carolina and Georgia weren't the only ones dealing with coastal flooding. Minor flooding inundated some streets around high tide Tuesday morning in Miami Beach, Delray Beach and West Palm Beach.

High tides swamped docks on Perdido Key, Florida, Monday. Source: weather.com

27 October, 2015. King tide causes flooding in parts of South Florida

Earler this month, high tides left Northeast 32 Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, just east of the Intracoastal, under water. Robert Owen Courtesy of. Source: miamiherald.com

Julian Cohen watched the water rise Tuesday morning from the backyard of his Miami Beach home with his dog Kimbo.

Kimbo couldn't go for his usual morning walk because their house, which is on a canal, was marooned after the king tide swamped his street and driveway.

"It's double-waterfront," Cohen said, peering out from his front porch as cars splashed by just north of the Miami Beach Golf Club.
Tidal floods were expected Tuesday morning and will continue through Wednesday as the annual king tide causes saltwater to seep up in low-lying areas of South Florida.

From Fort Lauderdale to the Keys, flood-prone areas should plan for soggy conditions at high tide.

In Hollywood, where Robin Rorapaugh stacked 150 sandbags to keep her house dry, water bubbled up from storm drains to flood Buchanan Street and into her yard. Rorapaugh, who has lived in her 1923 house since 2000, said flooding has gotten progressively worse, with streets flooding after two inches of rain.

Miami Beach officials are entering the second year of a five-year plan to install dozens of pumps through the city to push water out into Biscayne Bay.

It's an aggressive push to combat high tides and the long-term effects of sea level rise. Miami-Dade County and other governments are in the planning stages to develop a strategy for contending with future sea rise.

This week's rising tides are commonly known as the king tide, which occurs every fall. South Florida got a preview of this in late September, when a supermoon-fueled high tide caused similar flooding. Another seasonal high tide is forecast for Nov. 24 through Nov. 27. Source: miamiherald.co

If in the beginning of October were storms and Supermoon event (when the tides were held in many parts of the world), now it is inexplicable.

Southeast U.S.

The media is blaming tropical storm Debby but what is the real reason that caused all these sinkholes in Florida? 
http://poleshift.ning.com/profiles/blogs/florida-sinkhole-opens-up-...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhW2jwiPSk8
http://www.zetatalk7.com/info/tinfx085.htm [and from another]Sinkhole Opens up at Ocala Townhome Complex June 25, 2012 http://www.local10.com/news/Sinkhole-opens-up-at-Ocala-townhome-com...A sinkhole at a Florida apartment complex forced the evacuation of several families Monday morning.

We have described the bowing process for S America, during the 7 of 10 S American roll, as one where the east coast of S America is pulled taut, stretched, and thus drawn down, losing elevation. This also happens in Africa, during the 7 of 10 African roll, where elevation is lost in the African Rift Valley. This is certainly the case then in N America, where the N American continent is bowing under the stress of having Mexico pulled west during the compression in the Pacific, while the top part of the continent remains firmly in place. The southeast of the US is being pulled down as the Atlantic Rift pulls apart. It is being pulled down due to the bowing of the N American continent. It is absolutely in the stretch zoneand this is being expressed in many ways.

ZetaTalk Chat Q&A for July 7, 2012

Severe flooding in Louisiana. Associated USA flood around Gulf of Mexico with 7 of 10? I do not know why but I think it is a loss of height. [and from another] http://www.disasternews.net/news/article.php?articleid=4510 Flood waters submerged parts of southern Louisiana Tuesday after heavy rains caused flash flooding and forced hundreds of rescues. The National Weather Service estimated 12 to 18 inches of rain fell across the region, with totals reaching up to 20 inches in some areas. Among the hardest hit areas in Lafayette Parish was Carencro, where reports indicated water was as high as high as 8 feet on some roads.

Just as the bowing in the S American Plate has produced stretching and consequent sinking in the swath of land from Rio to Buenos Aires, the bowing in the N American Plate has produced stretching and consequent sinking along the eastern seaboard and land bordering the Gulf of Mexico. Stretched land has only so many options. It can rip open to form a crevasse or a landslide or a sinkhole, or rock layers can pull apart so that train rails zip and zag and cause derailments and bridges pull from their moorings. In this case there is an adjustment in certain places, a pulling apart, which relieves the stress. 

Stretched land also almost invariably drops in elevation, because the crust is thinned. This may not be apparent on the surface if the rock layers are pulling apart deep underground or under a river bed. But the underlying rock cannot spread out and thin without some evidence of this process above. For Florida, this evidence is the increasing number of sinkholes swallowing houses. Lopsided buildings, drooping roadways, and swamps extending their borders are other such symptoms. Drainage is invariably affected, as water lingers where it formerly drained. Rains and tides thus confuse the issue, with high tides blamed for much flooding, when sinking due to stretching is the cause.

ZetaTalk Chat Q&A for March 17, 2012

ZetaTalk blog - THE STRETCH ZONE, THAT SINKING FEELING

13 January, 2014. The Flood Next Time

Rising Sea, Sinking Land

Tide gauges along the East Coast show a long-term increase in relative sea levels, in part because the ocean is rising and in part because areas of the coast are sinking.

Sources: American Geophysical Union; Rutgers University; NOAA; USGS The New York Times

The little white shack at the water’s edge in Lower Manhattan is unobtrusive — so much so that the tourists strolling the promenade at Battery Park the other day did not give it a second glance.

Up close, though, the roof of the shed behind a Coast Guard building bristled with antennas and other gear. Though not much bigger than a closet, this facility is helping scientists confront one of the great environmental mysteries of the age.

The equipment inside is linked to probes in the water that keep track of the ebb and flow of the tides in New York Harbor, its readings beamed up to a satellite every six minutes.

While the gear today is of the latest type, some kind of tide gauge has been operating at the Battery since the 1850s, by a government office originally founded by Thomas Jefferson. That long data record has become invaluable to scientists grappling with this question: How much has the ocean already risen, and how much more will it go up?

Scientists have spent decades examining all the factors that can influence the rise of the seas, and their research is finally leading to answers. And the more the scientists learn, the more they perceive an enormous risk for the United States

Much of the population and economy of the country is concentrated on the East Coast, which the accumulating scientific evidence suggests will be a global hot spot for a rising sea level over the coming century.

The detective work has required scientists to grapple with the influence of ancient ice sheets, the meaning of islands that are sinking in the Chesapeake Bay, and even the effect of a giant meteor that slammed into the earth.

The work starts with the tides. Because of their importance to navigation, they have been measured for the better part of two centuries. While the record is not perfect, scientists say it leaves no doubt that the world’s oceans are rising. The best calculation suggests that from 1880 to 2009, the global average sea level rose a little over eight inches.

Tide gauges along the East Coast show a long-term increase in relative sea levels, in part because the ocean is rising and in part because areas of the coast are sinking.

That may not sound like much, but scientists say even the smallest increase causes the seawater to eat away more aggressively at the shoreline in calm weather, and leads to higher tidal surges during storms. The sea-level rise of decades past thus explains why coastal towns nearly everywhere are having to spend billions of dollars fighting erosion.

The evidence suggests that the sea-level rise has probably accelerated, to about a foot a century, and scientists think it will accelerate still more with the continued emission of large amounts of greenhouse gases into the air. The gases heat the planet and cause land ice to melt into the sea.

The official stance of the world’s climate scientists is that the global sea level could rise as much as three feet by the end of this century, if emissions continue at a rapid pace. But some scientific evidence supports even higher numbers, five feet and beyond in the worst case.

Scientists say the East Coast will be hit harder for many reasons, but among the most important is that even as the seawater rises, the land in this part of the world is sinking. And that goes back to the last ice age, which peaked some 20,000 years ago.

As a massive ice sheet, more than a mile thick, grew over what are now Canada and the northern reaches of the United States, the weight of it depressed the crust of the earth. Areas away from the ice sheet bulged upward in response, as though somebody had stepped on one edge of a balloon, causing the other side to pop up. Now that the ice sheet has melted, the ground that was directly beneath it is rising, and the peripheral bulge is falling.

Some degree of sinking is going on all the way from southern Maine to northern Florida, and it manifests itself as an apparent rising of the sea.

A look at the growing threat of coast flooding in a time of climate change; the stenographer in the doctor's shadow; reconstructive surgery of all kinds for what ails your pet.

The sinking is fastest in the Chesapeake Bay region. Whole island communities that contained hundreds of residents in the 19th century have already disappeared. Holland Island, where the population peaked at nearly 400 people around 1910, had stores, a school, a baseball team and scores of homes. But as the water rose and the island eroded, the community had to be abandoned.

Eventually just a single, sturdy Victorian house, built in 1888, stood on a remaining spit of land, seeming at high tide to rise from the waters of the bay itself. A few years ago, a Washington Post reporter, David A. Fahrenthold, chronicled its collapse.

Aside from this general sinking of land up and down the East Coast, some places sit on soft sediments that tend to compress over time, so the localized land subsidence can be even worse than the regional trend. Much of the New Jersey coast is like that. The sea-level record from the Battery has been particularly valuable in sorting out this factor, because the tide gauge there is attached to bedrock and the record is thus immune to sediment compression.

Perhaps the weirdest factor of all pertains to Norfolk, Va., and points nearby. What is now the Tidewater region of Virginia was slammed by a meteor about 35 million years ago — a collision so violent it may have killed nearly everything on the East Coast and sent tsunami waves crashing against the Blue Ridge Mountains. The meteor impact disturbed and weakened the sediments across a 50-mile zone. Norfolk is at the edge of that zone, and some scientists think the ancient cataclysm may be one reason it is sinking especially fast, though others doubt it is much of a factor.

Coastal flooding has already become such a severe problem that Norfolk is spending millions to raise streets and improve drainage. Truly protecting the city could cost as much as $1 billion, money that Norfolk officials say they do not have. Norfolk’s mayor, Paul Fraim, made headlines a couple of years ago by acknowledging that some areas might eventually have to be abandoned.

Up and down the Eastern Seaboard, municipal planners want to know: How bad are things going to get, and how fast?

One of the most ambitious attempts to take account of all known factors came just a few weeks ago from Kenneth G. Miller and Robert E. Kopp of Rutgers University, and a handful of their colleagues. Their calculations, centered on New Jersey, suggest this is not just some problem of the distant future.

People considering whether to buy or rebuild at the storm-damaged Jersey Shore, for instance, could be looking at nearly a foot of sea-level rise by the time they would pay off a 30-year mortgage, according to the Rutgers projections. That would make coastal flooding and further property damage considerably more likely than in the past.

Even if the global sea level rises only eight more inches by 2050, a moderate forecast, the Rutgers group foresees relative increases of 14 inches at bedrock locations like the Battery, and 15 inches along the New Jersey coastal plain, where the sediments are compressing. By 2100, they calculate, a global ocean rise of 28 inches would produce increases of 36 inches at the Battery and 39 inches on the coastal plain.

These numbers are profoundly threatening, and among the American public, the impulse toward denial is still strong. But in towns like Norfolk — where neighborhoods are already flooding repeatedly even in the absence of storms, and where some homes have become unsaleable — people are starting to pay attention.

“In the last couple or three years, there’s really been a change,” said William A. Stiles Jr., head of Wetlands Watch, a Norfolk environmental group. “What you get now is people saying, ‘I’m tired of driving through salt water on my way to work, and I need some solutions.’ ” Source: nytimes.com

4 September, 2014. Reuters great analysis. As the seas rise, a slow-motion disaster gnaws at America’s shores

Part 1: A Reuters analysis finds that flooding is increasing along much of the nation’s coastline, forcing many communities into costly, controversial struggles with a relentless foe.

Tidal waters worldwide have climbed an average of 8 inches (20 cm) over the past century, according to the 2014 National Climate Assessment. The two main causes are the volume of water added to oceans from glacial melt and the expansion of that water from rising sea temperatures.

In many places, including much of the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, an additional factor makes the problem worse: The land is sinking. This process, known as subsidence, is due in part to inexorable geological shifts. But another major cause is the extraction of water from underground reservoirs for industrial and public water supplies. As aquifers are drained, the land above them drops, a process that can be slowed by reducing withdrawals.

WATER EVERYWHERE (from left): Seepage of seawater into coastal marshes is believed to cause ghost forests like these on Assateague Island, Virginia. “Nuisance flooding” inundated the historic City Dock in downtown Annapolis, Maryland, several times this spring. NASA has had to invest tens of millions of dollars into seawalls and replenished beaches to protect launch pads and other infrastructure at its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque; Mary F. Calvert; Kevin Lamarque

The coastal flooding is often minor. Its cumulative consequences are not. As flooding increases in both height and frequency, it exacts a toll in closed businesses, repeated repairs, and investment in protection. In effect, higher seas make the same level of storm and even the same high tides more damaging than they used to be.

In Charleston, a six-lane highway floods when high tides prevent storm water from draining into the Atlantic, making it difficult for half the town’s 120,000 residents to get to three hospitals and police headquarters. The city has more than $200 million in flood-control projects under way.

In Annapolis, home to the U.S. Naval Academy, half a foot of water flooded the colonial district, a National Historic Landmark, at high tide on Chesapeake Bay during rainstorms on April 30, May 1, May 16 and Aug. 12. Shopkeepers blocked doorways with wood boards and trash cans; people slipped off shoes to wade to work in bare feet.

Tropical storm flooding has worsened, too, because the water starts rising from a higher platform, a recent study found.

<...>

When Tropical Storm Nicole struck Maryland in 2010, it was no stronger than storms in 1928 and 1951 that were “non-events,” said the study’s author, David Kriebel, a Naval Academy ocean and coastal engineer. Nicole, by contrast, swamped downtown Annapolis and the Naval Academy. “It’s partly due to ground subsidence,” Kriebel said. “Meanwhile, there’s been a worldwide rise in sea level over that period.”

In tidal Virginia, where the tide gauge with the fastest rate of sea level rise on the Atlantic Coast is located, a heavy rainfall at high tide increasingly floods roads and strands drivers in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach.

Coastal flooding already has shut down Norfolk’s $318 million light rail system several times since it opened in 2011. Mayor Paul Fraim said he needs $1 billion for flood gates, higher roads and better drains to protect the city’s heavily developed shoreline.

Source: Reuters.com - Interactive graphics

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The latest wave of explosive seaside growth has occurred in the four decades since the state enacted laws to temper coastal development, protect the beaches that are Florida’s most treasured natural resource, and curb the rising costs of damage from tropical storms. During that time, the need to protect the coastline has only intensified.

As Reuters detailed in the first installment of this series, rising sea levels are not just a future threat: They are already here, a documented fact. The oceans have risen about eight inches on average over the past century worldwide. The rise is two to three times greater in spots along the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean because of subsidence, a process whereby natural geological movements and extraction of underground stores of water, oil and gas cause the ground to sink.

Higher water levels compound the effects of storms and regular flooding, hastening erosion. Hurricanes slam into Florida more than anywhere else in the nation; more than a dozen of them have resulted in major disaster declarations since 1990.

Yet, as Huckabee’s example in Walton County shows, the law has done little to discourage growth in harm’s way. Out of 3,302 applications for permits to build residential structures on Florida’s 825 miles of beaches since Jan. 1, 2000, just 114 have been denied, a Reuters analysis of state records shows.

<...>

Even without storms, rising seas are chewing away at the island’s unprotected beaches at a rate of two to 11 feet a year. The tide gauge at the city’s Pier 21 has shown a rise in relative sea level of 25 inches since 1908 – the largest increase over the past century at any of the scores of gauges monitored by NOAA.

About one-third of that rise was from oceans rising globally as water warms and polar ice melts. The remaining two-thirds resulted from land sinking due to subsidence, which happens when the removal of underground water, oil and gas causes the land to pancake.

Galveston Island is far from the only thing at stake. Between it and the mainland is Galveston Bay, connected to Houston by the 50-mile Houston Ship Channel, home to one of the world’s busiest ports. The entire area, once marshy wetlands, is lined with suburbs and at least $100 billion in oil refineries, chemical plants and related infrastructure. Metro Houston accounts for about 26 percent of U.S. gasoline production, 42 percent of base chemicals production, and 60 percent of jet fuel output.

A 25-foot storm surge pushing into the bay and up the ship channel would cause “economic catastrophe” to the nation and poison the bay in “the worst environmental disaster in United States history,” according to Rice University’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education, and Evacuation from Disasters Center. The Ike surge was just shy of that scenario.

<...>

Source: reuters.com

Around the world, the biggest increases were in Asia, reflecting the greater impact in that region of subsidence, the process by which geological forces and the extraction of groundwater cause the land to sink. Near Bangkok, Thailand, a tide gauge showed an increase of nearly 3 feet since 1959. In Manila, the Philippines, the sea level rose about 2.7 feet.

As the rising waters take a worsening toll, European governments and local authorities are forced to ask: What’s our coastline worth? And can we afford to defend it all?

<...>

Flooding from overflowing rivers and canals in the area is at least an annual event that forces Rahmawati and the rest of the kampong to evacuate to public buildings nearby. High-water marks from the last big flood, in 2013, are still visible on the walls of the kampong.

“WORST SINKING CITY”

Jakarta is sinking because of a phenomenon called subsidence. This happens when extraction of groundwater causes layers of rock and sediment to slowly pancake on top of each other.

The problem is particularly acute in Jakarta because most of its millions of residents suck water through wells that tap shallow underground aquifers. Wells also provide about a third of the needs of business and industry, according to city data.

“It’s like Swiss Cheese underneath,” the World Bank’s Fook said. “Groundwater extraction is unparalleled for a city of this size. People are digging deeper and deeper, and the ground is collapsing.”

The effect is worsened by the sheer weight of Jakarta’s urban sprawl. Economic development in recent decades has transformed the city’s traditional low-rise silhouette into a thickening forest of high-rise towers. The weight of all those buildings crushes the porous ground underneath.

Previous articles in this series have focused on rising seas, which are climbing as the warming atmosphere causes water to expand and polar ice to melt. Ocean levels have increased an average of 8 inches globally in the past century, according to the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But in many places – from metro Houston, Texas, and cities on the U.S. East Coast to the megacities of Southeast Asia – the impact of subsidence, due mainly to groundwater extraction, has been greater. Manila is sinking at a rate of around 3.5 inches a year. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is subsiding 3 inches a year, and Bangkok around an inch.

<...>

Source: reuters.com

2 February, 2015. Letter: It's not global warming that's causing floods

EDITOR: Recent letters to the editor on climate change have been one-sided. There have been none that give an opposing or skeptic view. Why is that?

The L.A. Times refuses to publish articles that provide a skeptical view of climate change or that claim that man-made global warming is not significant. Its reasoning is that the science is settled. Science is never settled. Is the Daily Herald of the same mindset?

A recent article stated that warming is causing the oceans to rise at an alarming rate. It is currently causing flooding of multiple areas of Florida and other coastal areas. While it is true that the oceans are rising, warming is not the major cause along most of the East Coast states. Instead, the cause is the subsidence of the land. That means the coastal lands are sinking faster than the oceans are rising. Some of the causes of subsidence include the fact that the high population density along the coasts has required a high demand for water. When water is drawn from underground aquifers it creates a zone of depression. That means sinkholes and other land movement takes place.

There have been numerous articles written about sinkholes in the Florida area. There are 17,000 square miles affected by subsidence in 45 states of the U.S. and the sea level rise is 3 to 4 times faster along the East Coast due to subsidence than in other U.S. coast lines Source: wausaudailyherald.com

25 June, 2012. Sea rise faster on East Coast than rest of globe. Source: finance.yahoo.com

Jakarta Flood threat and Promises Ahok

November 12, 2015

Last week, heavy clouds began to envelop Jakarta and surrounding areas. After a long wait, the rain began to fall. Uninvited guests began to arrive, and Jakarta to be ready. Although only a momentary rain, flooding began to greet the citizens of Jakarta.    According to the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG), the potential for rain of moderate intensity will begin to occur in all regions of Jakarta began..........

More info

India floods (Tamil Nadu)

IAF officials said the evacuation was done from Ashok Nagar and another adjoining area of the city. Source: ndtv.com

A bird view of the flooded farmlands. Source: ibnlive.com

An aerial view and a local view.. Chennai floods. Source: twitter.com

Food is delivered to people in pallikaranai through boats. Source: twitter.com

Scene at Thaiyur, OMR near PSB college. OMR can be seen as a line. Source: twitter.com

17 November, 2015. Tamil Nadu floods claim 95 lives

Source: facebook.com

Incessant rains continued to disrupt normal life in Chennai and across Tamil Nadu, with the death toll rising to 95.

Many areas in Chennai have been inundated, road traffic has been severely hit and schools and colleges are shut across Chennai as a result of the inclement weather. Boats are being used in flooded areas to rescue stranded people.

"It has been raining heavily in Tamil Nadu. 11 NDRF teams have been deployed in Tamil Nadu with boats and lifesaving equipment to handle flood situation there," Director General of National Disaster Response Force O.P. Singh told the media.

Director of Regional Metrological Department S R Ramanan had earlier said that since the cyclone currently rests near Sri Lanka, heavy rains will continue for the next three days in Tamil Nau.

Fishermen have been advised not to venture out to sea along and off north Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and adjoining Pudukkottai and Ramanathapuram districts of south Tamil Nadu. Source: kaumudiglobal.com

14 November, 2015. Subways: The first to go under when skies open up

A compelling, though cliched, image of a Chennai monsoon is that of an MTC bus stuck in a flooded subway. Earlier this month, the video of a man rescuing an old woman from the Thillai Ganga Nagar subway went viral. While the man's bravery was lauded online, many lambasted the city corporation's inability to prevent water-logging in the subways.

Though it is a given that subways are prone to flooding because they are 15ft to 20ft below the surface level, the corporation is yet to figure out ways to contain the menace.

A former planner with the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority said subways were inundated because unplanned development and encroachment of small lakes to build residential neighbourhoods have left the city with very few storage points where rainwater can flow in. "The main three drainage channels in the city, Cooum, Adyar and the Buckingham Canal can't drain out the water because of high tide in the sea. In this situation, the water flows into the subways because the lakes have vanished," he said. Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Heavy rain and floods have killed at least 45 people in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Officials say up to 56,000 people have been displaced and moved to relief camps. Most people were killed when flash floods destroyed their homes. Any comment here? Another sign, perhaps, of the upcoming changes leading to the Shift?

India is sinking, the Indio/Australian plate tipping up at New Zealand and plunging under the Himalyas. This is disguised as a rising sea, an increasingly inundating tide, but the land is sinking. This will get far more serious before the pole shift, with sudden adjustments forcing massive evacuations. 

ZetaTalk: GodlikeProduction Live written on Jun 23, 2007

Red 2007; Orange 2008; Purple 2009; Yellow 2012; Green 2013; The map shows the sum of all flooded areas. 

18 November, 2012. Land subsidence confirmed

Severity of the situation will increase in the next few years, expert warns

A spell of heavy rain that followed the Neelam cyclone which resulted in heavy damage to agriculture fields, particularly paddy, has confirmed that exploitation of natural gas has caused land subsidence in the Krishna and Godavari deltas, says a former professor of geology of Andhra University and member of Movement for People Centred Development G. Krishna Rao.
<...>
Coastal area is getting water logged even with a rainfall of 5 cm to 10 cm and for several days. Severity of this situation will increase in the next few years as the land is sinking, Prof. Krishna Rao warned.

Sea water is encroaching on the deltas with further sinking of the land and they would turn into wet lands, a stage preceding complete submergence into sea.

Land subsidence has also affected the canals and made the irrigation system defunct in the delta areas. The solution is to evaluate the changed topographic conditions and establishing the gradients in the entire region.

Appropriate designs are to be prepared for the changed topography for effective flow, suggested Prof. Krishna Rao.

“Stopping the sinking process of the deltas is a pre-requisite”, he asserted. Source: thehindu.com

25 July, 2011. Ganga inundates Sangam
<...>
Similarly, Jayant Kumar Pati another associate professor of the department said that plate tectonics owing to the fallout by the construction of Tehri Dam. "Our observations show that the course of Ganga is shifting towards the north side of Allahabad i.e. towards the Jhunsi side. As a direct implication, it is more unlikely that the annual phenomena of the inundation of the temple would cease to occur. But things do not remain constant, as far as level of water in any given river in concerned and if it has inundated the temple, there is no reason to get surprised," added Pati.

Sharing his view on the issue, Prof S S Ojha of the department of Geography, AU had also said that because of the Plate Tectonic theory, the western part of India is in the on the rise, while the eastern part (lying towards Bay of Bengal), is getting submerged. As an impact, the gradient of rivers flowing in west-east direction will become steep and vice-versa.

He adds that since Ganga in Allahabad flows in the direction of west to east, the river has slightly meandered towards its eastern bank, in this case towards Jhunsi. As a fallout, erosion towards the western bank is showing marginal decrease which would continue in the coming years. "This year too, the volume of water towards the west side of the river is far less than the east bank, which could be easily understand by the fact that the bank towards Jhunsi gets inundated every year, whereas Bade Hanumanjis temple has got inundated after five years," said Prof Ojha. Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

9 April, 2014. Indian deltas are sinking

Indian deltas are sinking, and no, it is not because of sea level rise. “Humans are sinking deltas four times faster than the sea level is rising,” says American professor of oceanography and geology at the University of Colorado, James Syvitski.
<...>
Here, groundwater mining has led to a significant compaction and subsidence of land over the last 15 years. He concurs with the concept of ‘Anthropocene,’ a term suggesting that human impact on the environment has been so large post industrial revolution that this era can be counted as an entirely new geological epoch. And the submergence of deltas is indeed a case in point, he said. Source: thehindu.com

Malaysia

17 November, 2015. Vehicles submerged and damaged in JB flash floods

Source: nst.com.my

A two-hour heavy downpour caused massive flash floods in the city here, which resulted in dozens of cars and motorcycles being submerged.

Many of the vehicles belonged to Malaysians working in Singapore, who had parked their vehicles indiscriminately around the city.

The badly-hit areas in the flash floods, which started at about 11.30am yesterday, were Jalan Wong Ah Fook, Jalan Meldrum, Jalan Siu Koon, Jalan Siu Chin, Jalan Siu Nam and Jalan Skudai along Danga Bay. Traffic came to a standstill at all major roads leading into the city.

Some basement carparks in the city centre were also submerged.

In a statement, Iskandar Regional Development Authority said that the floods were not caused by work on the Sungai Segget Rejuvenation Project.

It said the floods were caused by a combination of two factors – the high tide flows into the Johor Baru City Centre coupled with the heavy flow of rainwater as a result of the prolonged rain over the past few days as well as the downpour earlier yesterday. Source: thestar.com.my

17 November, 2015. Flash floods hit Shah Alam

Due to flash floods following heavy rain, several parts of Shah Alam are currently submerged in water. Malaysian Highway Authority (LLM) in a tweet confirmed that water levels have increased at KM 15.7 from Sungai Rasau heading to Batu Tiga.

“Both the middle and left lanes of the highway are blocked (due to high water),” tweeted LLM. Some Twitter users also tweeted pictures of Section 13, Shah Alam showing numerous cars submerged by the mud-filled waters.

Today’s episode follows similar ones after the heavy rain yesterday which saw flash floods in several parts of the Klang Valley.

Many were caught in traffic jams for hours after key roads were flooded.

Yesterday’s floods in Shah Alam at 1pm witnessed water rising at Section 13, Section 9, Section U8 and Batu Tig. Source: malaysiakini.com

18 November, 2015. Two dead in flash floods in Jeddah

At least two people have died in flash floods in Saudi Arabia's second city of Jeddah after heavy rain, the country's civil defence said on Tuesday.

It urged residents to stay indoors and said schools would remain closed on Wednesday.

Flooding is politically sensitive in Jeddah, where previous incidents have prompted widespread anger over the perceived failure of local and national government to build suitable defences and to prevent illegal housing developments in risky areas.

Footage and photographs shown on Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television pictured cars being swept along Jeddah streets and people using boats to navigate districts of the city.

The two deaths were caused by electrocution from a lamp post as people attempted to cross a flooded street. Two children have also been reported missing in northern Saudi Arabia.

Heavy rain struck other western, northern and central parts of Saudi Arabia, including Mecca and Medina, Hail and Arar, the civil defence said. Wet weather is forecast to continue in coming days. Source: thestar.com.my

22 November, 2015. Sinkholes in Nayanoripalle, Govt. evacuates villagers

Kadapa District Collector K.V. Ramana inspecting a large sinkhole formed in Nayanoripalle village in Kadapa District on Sunday.

Kadapa District Collector K.V. Ramana and Geological Survey of India officials of Hyderabad visited Nayanoripalle village on Sunday and inspected the multiple sinkholes.

The revenue and police officials of Kadapa exhorted the villagers of Nayanoripalle in Chintakommadinne mandal in Kadapa District to vacate the village and move over to safer places and large sinkholes formed in the village could endanger lives.

Kadapa District Collector K.V. Ramana and Geological Survey of India officials of Hyderabad visited Nayanoripalle village on Sunday and inspected the multiple sinkholes. Earlier, officials of the mining and groundwater departments conducted a survey on the Collector’s directions and detected limestone deposits at a depth of 30 feet.

Heavy rains since a week resulted in dissolving of the limestone and soil sunk to depths of 30 feet, the officials deduced. The villagers were panic-stricken with the formation of sinkholes of a diameter of 25 metres at several places in Nayanoripalle.

Nearly a dozen large sink holes were formed near Sri Bugga Malleswara Swamy temple and a mini-water tank atop a 15-foot high cement concrete pedestal sunk into the ground. A sinkhole was formed in front of the mandal parishad school in Nayanoripalle and the school compound wall, a surface-level water tank and a couple of trees fell into it. The sinkhole formation was coupled with defeaning sounds spreading panic among the villagers.

As sinkholes were forming with deafening sounds, the officials called upon the residents to vacate the village, as continuing to live there could endanger lives. Already over a dozen families left the village to take shelter in the houses of their relatives elsewhere. The revenue and police officials are proposing to evacuate the villagers who are continuing in Nayanoripalle.
Geologist Alok Kumar of GSI told TOI that a detailed study need to be conducted to arrive at the exact reason. "Preliminarily we have noticed the existence of an extinct river. A river once passed through the region. It is now extinct. Moreover, the area has carbonate deposits. The torrential rains led to the dissolution of limestone causing cavities or sinkholes in the ground," he added.

The Cuddapah (Kadapa) super basin is an ancient geological formation with a number of minerals including uranium. According to AP mines department, limestone reserves are about 1000 million tonnes. It also has superior grade clay. Source: thehindu.com

Chennai flood — Adrift, as agencies flounder

November 23, 2015

People playing on the Marina beach service road flooded with sea water on the Bay of Bengal. (Photo courtesy: B A Raju)

Life has been thrown out of gear. Schools and colleges have been closed for two weeks now . Floods had invaded many people’s homes, and the spotlight has been on the last wave of construction boom happening in low-lying areas where buildings should not have been allowed, according to some experts.

Source

Flood-prone river banks to be raised

November 24, 2015

KLANG: The Selangor Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID) is increasing the height of riverbanks in Kuala Selangor in anticipation of a second wave of heavy flooding.

Kuala Selangor district officer Shamsul Shahril Badlisza Mohd Noor said this was to prevent water flowing out of the river into low lying areas.

He said the authorities believed a second bout of flooding might occur in the district due to unusually high tides that would be hitting its coastline. These were expected to beginsoon and would last until the end of the month.

This phenomenon is caused by the Northeast Monsoon winds that will start this Thursday or Friday, he said.

Floods hit parts of the district last week.

Shamsul advises residents of other low lying areas to be cautious and to prepare for the situation.

He said that wave forecasts by the Malaysian Meteorological Department could reach a minimum of 5m in height.

On the situation in Kuala Selangor, Shamsul said that water was being pumped out of the area into the rivers with eight pumps.

Close to 600 people were being housed in temporary flood relief centres in schools, mosques and community halls in the district.

“We are waiting for the water levels to recede and once this happens we will send them home,” Shamsul said.

In Pasir Puteh, the Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID) said it would monitor tide control gates at Geting, Tumpat and Tok Bali because of the high tides, which can cause flooding, Bernama reported.

“High tides which coincide with heavy rainfall on the mainland can prevent river water from flowing to the sea, thus causing floods,” Kelantan DID director Shahimi Sharif said.

The Meteorological Department warned about the possibility of heavy rain on Nov 26 or 27 in the east coast states.

In Sungai Petani, 60 flood victims were evacuated to the Kampung Jerung relief centre here following floods that began on Sunday.More than 10 areas around the Kuala Muda district here were inundated by flash floods yesterday following heavy rain in the afternoon.

Among the areas affected were the Sultan Abdul Halim Hospital, Taman Nuri, Taman Serindik, Jalan Air Mendidih and Jalan Batu Lintang Kampung Hutan Gelam.

Source

Tamil Nadu Sinking:  stagnant water had not been drained even after 13 days.

November 30, 2015

The court has asked for providing shelter, water, food and restoration of  power in the affected areas. (File Photo)

India unseasonal floods

People wade through the flood waters in Chennai on Dec. 2.(EPA/STR). Source: qz.com

A man carries a dog and wades through a flooded street in Chennai on Dec. 2.(AP Photo). Source: qz.com

Indians help a man carry his two-wheeler on a cycle cart as they wade through a waterlogged subway in Chennai, India, Monday, Nov. 9, 2015. (AP Photo/Arun Sankar K.). Source: accuweather.com

A view of a residential area flooded following heavy rain in Chennai, Tamil Nadu state, India, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015. Incessant rain that lashed the city since Saturday night flooded several parts of Chennai. (AP Photo/Arun Sankar K). Source: accuweather.com

Heavy rains caused flooding in and around Chennai, India, on Dec. 2. Photo by Reuters stringer. Source: pbs.org

People travel by boat to safer places through a flooded road in Chennai, India, on Dec. 2. Photo by Reuters stringer. Source: pbs.org

In view of the water logging, Chennai Airport authorities have shut operations till 6 AM tomorrow. Chennai rains as well as those across Tamil Nadu have virtually broken a 100-year-old record with one day’s rainfall covering a month’s average have flooded areas in Vadapalani, Valasaravakkam and Nandamvakkam as nearby lakes overflowed into the city. (Photo courtesy: Twitter). Source: financialexpress.com

2 December, 2015. Rains, floods devastate Chennai, army rescues people

Soldiers joined the rescue and relief work and rescued 65 men and women till Wednesday afternoon, officials said, adding that more troops were on their way to Chennai from Bengaluru.

Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said in New Delhi that the situation in Chennai was "unheard of and unprecedented", and promised all help to the beleaguered city and other area.

Residents and officials admitted that almost everyone in Chennai, a sprawling city with over 4.6 million people, had been affected one way or the other by the devastating floods caused by torrential rains. <...> Source: business-standard.com

25 November, 2015. Unseasonal rain takes toll on health

Not just dengue, but cases of water-borne diseases like diarrhoea, viral fever and allergies too have gone up following unseasonal rain in the last two days.

"Besides cases of viral fever and body ache, I have been seeing quite a few cases of diarrhoea and nasal allergy . People who are mainly dependent on outside food and water are the ones who are more at risk of getting water-borne infections," said senior physician Prakash Mahajan, who runs a clinic in Model Colony .

Mahajan said, "We are experiencing two seasons in a day . In the morning, it is winter but as the day progresses, we get rain.This wide fluctuation in temperature boosts growth of micro organisms. Schools and colleges have re-opened post Diwali vacations; hence transmission or person-to-person spread of infection has become very easy .Besides, cases of dengue will rise now as the water accumulated may act as breeding ground for mosquitoes." <...> Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

2 December, 2015. Flights cancelled as floods strike Chennai airport

Met office has said that the weather patterns are due to a slow moving depression over southwest Bay of Bengal. Photograph: PTI. Source: rediff.com

All flights into and out of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, have been cancelled following floods at the airport. Airport director Deepak Shastri said floodwaters at the airport had reached the undercarriage of aircraft.

He was quoted as saying that flights would be unable to take off till the water level recedes. Meanwhile, army and navy personnel were deployed early today in low-lying areas of Chennai where thousands of people are reportedly stranded in their homes due to the worsening floods.

The authorities have intensified search and rescue operations. According to officials, schools and colleges were forced to shut down and these premises were being used as relief centres.

Domestic and inter-state train services were crippled after water flooded rail tracks.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi contacted Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.

Jayalalithaa late last night and assured her of central government assistance. Source: thestar.com.my

2 December, 2015. How Army, Navy and Air Force have responded to the deluge

Chennai is witnessing its worst crisis in decades. Large parts of the capital city and other parts of the coastal Tamil Nadu are inundated with continuous rains pounding the region. Water level at several lakes and dams has gone above the danger level mark. With the weather department predicting more rains in the coming days, the situation is alarming.
The Army, Navy and Air Force have launched a massive rescue and relief operation in what is being described as a war-like situation.

Three C-130s of the Indian Air Force (IAF) have flown from the Hindon air base in Ghaziabad to Tirupati along with NDRF personnel and relief material.
Air Force and Army choppers have also been pressed into the relief and rescue mission. Several people stranded in waterlogged areas have been rescued during regular sorties conducted by the Air Force and Army helicopters. Food packets, ration and other items of daily needs have been air dropped the worst-hit areas. Source: indiatoday.intoday.in

2 December, 2015. Rains flood Chennai again: airport shut, army joins rescue operations

The rain-ravaged southern Indian city of Chennai was Wednesday crawling with air and road traffic severely hit as Army, Navy and NDRF teams stepped up rescue operations in worst-hit localities of the city that is also witnessing power outages.

People move from their waterlogged houses with the help of Indian Army teams following heavy rains in Chennai

The rains pounding the city since Tuesday night showed some let-up Wednesday morning but the inundated streets left commuters stranded.

In view of the water-logging, Chennai Airport authorities have shut operations till 6 am Thursday. All airlines, including Air India, have cancelled their operations from Chennai airport.

The Airports Authority of India has issued a notice to all air operators in this regard <...>
However, “we are facing difficulty in bringing them (forces) there as the airport is not operating,” he said.

Areas in Vadapalani, Valasaravakkam and Nandamvakkam have been flooded as nearby lakes overflowed into the city.

The situation has worsened in suburban areas of Tambaram and Mudichur after the Chembarakam lake overflowed and an unprecedented 26,000 cusecs of water was released resulting in floods in downstream areas. These areas had already suffered heavily during earlier spells of rains. Source: http://atimes.com/2015/12/rains-flood-chennai-again-airport-shut-ar...;

2 December, 2015. Chennai turns virtual island; road, rail, air links disrupted

 
People stand on a flooded road in Chennai. (Reuters Photo)

Chennai on Wednesday turned a virtual island and several coastal areas of Tamil Nadu were marooned by flood waters after unprecedented rains in 100 years pounded the city, its suburbs and neighbouring districts destroying crucial road and rail links, shutting the airport and rendering thousands homeless.

Chennai, which received 49 cm of rain and Chembarambakkam, where the reservoir surplussed about 25,000 cusecs of water into Adyar river, received 47 cm of rains in the last 24 hours that flooded the city and the suburbs, uprooting people from their homes.

Flood waters reached upto even the second floor of the Housing Board colonies on the banks of Adyar river as people reached roof tops looking for rescue and relief in several parts of the city and suburbs.

The death toll in the rains that have lashed the city and other parts of state has gone up to 197, officials said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who spoke to chief minister J Jayalalithaa last night and promised all assistance, held discussions with his cabinet colleagues Rajnath Singh (Home), Arun Jaitley (Finance) and M Venkaiah Naidu (parliamentary affairs) in the morning to take stock of the situation.

The National Crisis Management Committee headed by cabinet secretary P K Sinha reviewed the situation and assured the state of all support from the centre.

A boy wades through a flooded street in Chennai (AP Photo)

All modes of transport--air, road and rail services-- remained suspended due to the unprecedented deluge, leaving thousands of passengers stranded at the airport and various rail terminals. Suburban rail services also remained suspended.

Adding to the worry of the citizens and administration, the weatherman has forecast rainfall over the next three days with the next 48 being very critical under the influence of a trough of low pressure and upper air circulation over the southwest Bay of Bengal and Sri Lankan coast.

Thereafter, the state will see an anti-cyclone activity which will be associated with "heavy rains" at some places.

"The phenomenon will continue for the next seven days, but the next 48 hours are very crucial. Neighbouring states will also see rainfall activity," L S Rathore, Director General of Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) told reporters in Delhi.<...> Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

2 December, 2015. Overnight rain batters Chennai, worst ever flood situation in Tamil Nadu

Many parts of the city and the suburbs have been flooded from the incessant rains that have hit Chennai in the past 24 hours, amidst the worst ever flood situation in Tamil Nadu.

The water has entered inside houses in the low-lying areas of Anna nagar and there is water-logging in almost every part of the city.

The flight operations at the Chennai Airport have been closed for the whole day because of the flooded water on the runway.

“All operations at Chennai Airport have been stopped for rest of the day and all flights stand cancelled. <...> Source: ibcworldnews.com

2 December, 2015. Chennai floods: Worst disaster since tsunami? Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com with video

India unseasonal floods

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted on Thursday that he was leaving for Chennai to take stock of the flood hit city. Modi tweeted: "Leaving for Chennai to take stock of the situation arising due to the devastating floods. Source: indiablooms.com

Stranded travellers look an as floodwaters lap at the end of a highway in Chennai on December 2, 2015. (AFP photo)

Army personnel rescuing people during their flood relief operations in rain-hit areas in Chennai on Wednesday. PTI. Source: english.manoramaonline.com

Thousands of people have been rescued by the army and police. Source: bbc.com

The federal weather office has predicted three more days of torrential rains. Source: bbc.com

3 December, 2015. Chennai floods: Death toll crosses 260, Home Minister says situation ‘very alarming’

Terming the situation in flood-hit Chennai as “very alarming”, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said in the Lok Sabha that the Centre will extend all possible assistance to the state governments in dealing with natural calamities.
“It would not be an exaggeration to say that Chennai has become an island as it has been cut off from all national and state highways,” he said, responding to a discussion on the flood situation in Tamil Nadu, Pudducherry and Andhra Pradesh.
Sharing concern of members on the magnitude of the calamity, he said the megapolis was witnessing an unprecedented emergency situation with unrelenting rains which was a record in the last 100 years. <...> Source: indianexpress.com

3 December, 2015. Rain Stops, But Flood Waters Rising in Parts of Chennai. Here's Why.

There has been little rain in Chennai today and the sun is finally out, but the water level in many of its residential areas is increasing, owing to the excess water released from the dam at Chembarambakkam.
For the residents, what is worse is that the release is being done without warning - in what is understood to be a violation of procedure.

In areas like Kotturpuram, where the waters have receded, residents are living in fear that another bout of water will be released from the dam later today.

"What worries us is most is if the worst is over or it is yet to come. The water level is increasing every hour," said a resident in Mylapur, one of the posh areas of Chennai.

"We do not know when the reservoirs are overflowing or how much water is discharged. We do not know when more water will be discharged... We have no power, no internet, or essential items," he added.
<...>
On Wednesday, commissioner of Chennai corporation, Vikram Kapur, said the rivers were still at the danger level and the surplus water was being released into Chennai. "None of the drains can work with such heavy rain. If this kind of rain happens again we are in for a tough time," he had said. Source: ndtv.com

3 December, 2015. Andhra Pradesh rain: 54 dead; losses pegged at Rs 3,000 crore

An aerial view of the flood affected areas of the Andhra Pradesh on Nov 18, 2015. [Representational Image] IANS. Source: ibtimes.co.in

Torrential rainfall in some parts of southern India has wreaked havoc in Andhra Pradesh, where at least 54 people have been reported dead.

Rain lashed the Nellore, Chittoor and Prakasam districts of Andhra Pradesh, bordering Tamil Nadu, on Wednesday.

The heavy downpour in the last two days has caused flooding in low-lying areas of Nellore, Chittoor and Prakasam. Streams and tanks were reportedly overflowing.

Normal life in some parts of the three districts has been crippled due to the heavy rain. At least 5,000 people in the Nellore district have been shifted to 50 relief camps.

The showers damaged crops and disrupted road and train services in the affected regions, an IANS report quoted officials as saying. <...> Source: ibtimes.co.in

3 December, 2015. India’s Tamil Nadu grapples with worst floods in a century

The heaviest rainfall in more than 100 years has devastated swathes of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with thousands forced to leave their submerged homes and schools, offices and a regional airport shut for a second day Thursday.

At least 269 people had been killed in the state since heavy rains started in the beginning of November, said India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh, although no deaths have been reported in the latest deluge.

“I can’t even believe that this much water was possible in Chennai,” one woman told NDTV channel as she stood in waist-deep water in the state capital.

“We don’t have any food. We don’t have any milk,” she said, adding that she had stepped out to see if she could find a shop selling some food. “But I’m scared to walk down this road. The water comes up almost to my hips.”

Chennai has received more than 330 millimeters (13 inches) of rain over the last 24 hours, which is significantly higher than the regional average for the entire month of December, Singh said.

While the downpour eased early Thursday, the Indian Meteorological Department has predicted more heavy rain in several parts of the state through the rest of the week. The rains have been caused by a depression in the Bay of Bengal, the agency said.

Separately, news reports said that flood waters released from a lake on the outskirts of Chennai inundated more neighbourhoods in the city. The Adyar river, which runs through Chennai before draining into the Bay of Bengal, was flowing above a danger mark. Source: globalnews.ca

Unseasonal floods Chennai

4 December, 2015

4 December, 2014 [ Source: earthdata.nasa.gov ]

* Monitoring of Ground Motion in REV

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/index.html

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/stations.html

[Tipping Indo-Australia Plate]]

* II.DGAR; Diego Garcia, Chagos Islands, Indian Ocean; 7.41 S, 72.45 E

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/stations/?zip_or_station_code=II.DGAR

[2015/12/03 -12/07]

Etna earthquakes, moves the fault of Pernicana: all connected to the eruption, lesions in the streets SICILY ITALY

8 December 2015

Etna earthquakes, tremors associated eruption: hypocenters very shallow seismic resentment particularly significant

http://www.meteoweb.eu/2015/12/terremoti-etna-si-muove-la-faglia-de...

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=y&...

The 'movement' of the fault of Pernicana, on the north-northeast of the 'Etna, is causing an earthquake swarm with - total - twenty shook the volcano. Three events of greater intensity ', in magnitude, measured by INGV Catania: magnitude 3.8 at 10:28, magnitude 2.9 at 10:32, and magnitude 3.2 at 11:53.

The depth 'epicenter, almost superficial, between 0 and 2 kilometers of events linking earthquakes of the attivita' of eruptive 'Etna. Experts from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Catania are monitoring the phenomenon and also checking the deformations to the ground.

There have been reports of roads of the 'Etna presenting the' injuries'. The events were felt in some countries on the slopes of 'Etna, but, at the moment, are not reported damage to property or persons.

Seismic activity intensifies in Azerbaijan  

14 December 2015

By Nigar Orujova

Seismic activity intensified in Azerbaijan as the country faced about 7,000 earthquakes in 2015.

Magnitude of more than 80 earthquakes ranged from 3.1 to 5.9, and tremors of 17 were felt, the Republican Seismological Service Center reported.

Azerbaijan locates in seismically active zone. Scientists believe that seismic zones with the potential to produce dangerous force cover the entire country, while the Alpine-Himalayan seismic belt passes directly through Azerbaijan.

An increase in seismic activity is observed since the beginning of the year in the northern part of Azerbaijan – in Oghuz, Shamakhi-Ismayilli, Shabran seismic zones, as well as in the southern part – the Talysh seismic zone, according to the center.

The seismic activity in the Caspian Sea increased in 2015 compared to the last year, but the level seismic energy released through tremors was lower.

In the first quarter of this year, the magnitude of the strongest earthquakes in the Caspian Sea was 5.4. This earthquake occurred on March 22, but the tremors were not felt.

The strongest earthquake of the second quarter of the year occurred in the Goranboy region (4.7), the third quarter – in the territory of Oghuz region (5.9), and in the fourth quarter again the strongest earthquake hit Oghuz (4.0).

The last earthquake recorded in the country was observed in the Caspian Sea to the north of Baku on December 11. The strength of the quake was 3.4 on the Richter scale; the epicenter was located at a depth of 61 km.

The Seismological Service Center noted that the seismic tension on the southeastern slope of the Greater Caucasus has decreased this year, while it remains the same in regions of the Lesser Caucasus and Talysh Mountains.

In November, the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry announced that Azerbaijan may face 3-4 magnitude earthquakes in the near future and named zones that have potential risks of earthquakes.

Shaki-Oghuz, Central Caspian seismogenic zone and partly Southeastern sector of Shamakhi seismically active zone were named as areas of potential seismic risk based on the operational analysis of seismic and geodynamic conditions in Azerbaijan in the end of October.

Last year was also marked with an intensification of seismic processes as well as the most powerful earthquakes that Azerbaijan has seen in the past 15 years.

Six earthquakes measuring over 5.0 on the Richter scale occurred in Azerbaijan in 2014, releasing a tremendous volume of energy.

Source

4,300 Earthquakes Hit Indonesia in 2015

27 December, 2015

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - At least 4,300 earthquakes measuring more than 3 in Richter scale happened in Indonesia in 2015, according to a report. As many as 360 earthquakes among them were felt and 7 of them were destructive.

A seismologist from the Bandung Institute of Technology Irwan Meilano said that on average, in Indonesia, earthquakes happened every day.

Irwan also said that the data was taken from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG).

"Ironically, almost all destructive earthquake happen in areas not included in the earthquake map,” Irwan said on Sunday (27/12).

Source

South America floods

We have already stated that the Cordoba range would be a safe zone, safe from the tidal waves rushing in from the Atlantic. Hot springs appear in many places around the world, where the crust is thin, primarily due to stretching. Argentina, at Buenos Aires, will experience stretching as the top part of S America is pulled to the west while the tip of S America is nailed firmly at the Antarctic Plate. The bay at Buenos Aires will rip open, as we have stated. Thus inland, in San Luis, there are hot springs. This will not result in volcanic eruptions during the pole shift.

ZetaTalk ™ May 4, 2011

Troubled times: Argentina

What is the relationship between recent large quakes along the southern Andes and the horrific flooding in several states in SE Brazil? S America is tugging to the west, along its top side. The trend has been in place for many months, with the Caribbean Plate sinking just above Colombia and in Panama. But as much as there is stress along the northern Andes where the S American Plate slides over the Nazca Plate, there is more stress along the southern Andes. Why would this be? The rolls that S America and Africa will do is primarily at the Equator, where the spreading apart of the Atlantic and the compressing of the Pacific is at an accelerated pace. Thus, the plates to the west of the top of S America have already granted S America room to roll. 

But as we have explained, the tip of S America does not roll, but remains nailed in place. This is due to the Antarctic Plate, which also abuts the south Andes. The Antarctic Plate is not compressing, as it is one solid piece. For the top portion of S America to roll to the west, something must thus give, and to some extent this is the southeastern portion of S America. There is already a seaway developing at Buenos Aires. But draw a line from the top of the current quake activity along the southern Andes to the southeast coast of Brazil and they line up! For S America to be pulled in a bow like this, the land is stretched, and stretched land sinks. Thus, where they did have rain, the rain was not excessive to the degree to explain the flooding. The inland rivers are not draining properly, due to the stretch and consequent sinking.

ZetaTalk ™ January 15, 2011

ZetaTalk: Brazil flooding

ZetaTalk: THE STRETCH ZONE, THAT SINKING FEELING

30 December, 2015

30 December, 2013

27 December, 2015 [Click to view 500m resolution Source: EOSDIS Worldview]

El Nino blamed for South America's 'worst flooding in 50 years' Source: ultimahora.com

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Many rivers in South America have breached their banks (Jorge Adorno/Reuters) Source: ibtimes.co.uk

Houses are seen partially submerged in floodwaters in Asuncion, December 27, 2015. (REUTERS/JORGE ADORNO) Source: reuters.com

The River Paraguay, which flows by the country's capital, Asuncion, has already reached 7.82 meters (25.66 feet), its highest level since 1992. Source: clarin.com

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Air record flooding in Bella Union, Uruguay. Source: twitter.com

27 December, 2015. El Nino blamed for South America's 'worst flooding in 50 years'

Aerial view of Paysandu, flooded by water. Source: elpais.com.uy

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At least 150,000 people have fled the border areas of four South American countries after what the "worst flooding in 50 years", brought about by downpours caused by the El Nino weather pattern. Heavy rains have swollen three major rivers affecting Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.

Paraguay is the hardest hit with around 130,000 people forced to evacuate their homes near the capital city of Asuncion, the BBC reported. About 7,000 residents of Alberdi, which lies south of Asuncion and close to the Paraguayan river, have also been asked to leave their homes.

President Horacio Cartes has declared a state of emergency in Asuncion and several nearby areas, and released $4m (£2.70m) to assist flood-hit families. According to reports, four people have been killed by fallen trees in Paraguay.

"(The flooding) was directly influenced by the El Nino phenomenon which has intensified the frequency and intensity of rains," Paraguay's national emergencies office said.

In Argentina's north-east areas, some 20,000 people have fled their homes. "We are going to have a few complicated months. The consequences will be serious," the governor of Argentine's Corrientes region, Ricardo Colombi, said.

At least two people have died in the floods in Argentina, where Entre Rios, Corrientes and Chaco provinces are the worst affected. National cabinet chief Marcos Pena said Argentina lacked proper infrastructure which will be addressed to prevent future flooding. He said government aid was on its way to flood-affected areas.

In Uruguay, some 9,000 people living near swollen rivers have been forced to leave their homes. The country's emergencies office said it expected the water levels in the rivers to remain high for several days.

In Brazil's south-eastern state of Rio Grande do Sul, at least 7,000 residents have left their homes, civil defence authorities told AFP. Source: ibtimes.co.uk

31 December, 2015. Since December 15th, Paraguay has been in a state of emergency due to flooding caused by unusually heavy rainfall for the season. Paraguayan Red Cross Branch Operations Centres, along with Asunción Municipality and the National Emergency Operations Directorate, estimate that 26,000 families have been affected over 42 zones in different areas of the country. The torrential rains have caused the overflow of the Jejuí, Paraguay, Parana, Estero Yetity, Tebycuary, Tebycuarymi, Aquidaban, Aguaray-mí y Aguaray-Guazú and Ypane rivers.

The majority of the affected population reside in the riverside areas of the city of Asunción and the Central Department. Their proximity to rivers that are prone to flooding exacerbates their existing vulnerabilities. This history of flooding includes May 1983 where 6,700 families were affected, and again in July 2014 where 17,789 families were affected in Asunción alone. The current floods have forced the evacuation of 15,000 families in Asunción to 114 temporary shelters. Source: reliefweb.int

* Monitoring of Ground Motion in REV

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/index.html

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/stations.html

[Tearing of the north Atlantic Rift]

* DK.BSD; BORNHOLM SKOVBRYNET, DENMARK; 55.11 N, 14.91 E

[2015/12/31 - 2016/01/07]

* Monitoring of Ground Motion in REV

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/index.html

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/stations.html

[Folding Pacific (Hawaii)]

* HV.HSSD; Humuluula Sheep Station, Hawaii Digital; 19.60 N, 155.48 W

[2015/12/21 - 2016/01/07]

Himalayas subsided by 60 cm after 2015 Nepal earthquake

The Himalayas subsided by up to 60 cm after the April 2015 Nepal earthquake -- but the world's tallest peak, the 8,848-metre Mt Everest was too far from the subsidence area to be affected, researchers have found.
Using satellite technology, researchers found that the Himalayas subsided by up to 60 cm after the April 2015 Nepal earthquake that killed more than 8,000 people.

Mount Everest, more than 50 km east of the earthquake zone, was too far away to be affected by the subsidence seen in this event, the researchers said.
The researchers explained that the apparent growth of the Himalayas between earthquakes is a result of a dangerous kink in the regional fault line below Nepal.
This kink had created a ramp 20 km below the surface, with material constantly being pushed up and raising the height of the mountains.
'We have shown that the fault beneath Nepal has a kink in it, creating a ramp 20 km underground. Material is continually being pushed up this ramp, which explains why the mountains were seen to be growing in the decades before the earthquake,” said lead study author John Elliott from Oxford University.
"The earthquake itself then reversed this, dropping the mountains back down again when the pressure was released as the crust suddenly snapped in April 2015,” Elliott noted.
"Using the latest satellite technology, we have been able to precisely measure the land height changes across the entire eastern half of Nepal. The highest peaks dropped by up to 60 cm in the first seconds of the earthquake,” Elliott said.
The study was published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Source: ibnlive.com

* Monitoring of Ground Motion in REV

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/index.html

http://rev.seis.sc.edu/stations.html

[Tearing of the north Atlantic Rift]

* GB.STNC; STOKE NEWCHAPEL, ENGLAND; 53.09 N, 2.21 W

[2015/11/22 - 2016/01/20]

Land subsidence in Arizona based on InSAR data google.com

Arizona earth fissures map data.azgs.az.gov

10 February, 2016. Arizona, Eloy’s elevation dropping: Earth fissures becoming bigger concern in Pinal

This large earth fissure can be found on the east side of Picacho Peak. The Arizona Geological Survey has just revised its earth fissure monitoring maps for southern Arizona with six new maps that detail these geological hazards throughout the area.

Longtime area residents may be right if they have a sinking feeling.
An Arizona geology official says the valley around Eloy is 20 feet lower than it was around 50 years ago.
The Arizona Geological Survey has just revised its earth fissure monitoring maps for southern Arizona with six new maps that detail these geological hazards throughout the area.
The maps include study areas east of Picacho Peak that have dozens of reported fissures.
The first fissures in southern Arizona appeared near Eloy in 1927 and are thought to be caused by depleting groundwater aquifers too quickly. The fissures can be miles long, according to AZGS.
“If you stop drawing on the groundwater table, we would anticipate at some point the subsidence would stop,” said Michael Conway, chief of the geological extension service for AZGS. Subsidence is the gradual lowering of the ground in relation to the sea level. According to Conway, the valley floor around Eloy has lowered as much as 20 feet in the past 50 to 60 years.
The geological survey started mapping fissures in 2007 after a horse fell into one in the Chandler Heights area and was killed. While there have been no human fatalities associated with earth fissures in Arizona, there are many hazards involved.
“A concern that we have is that contaminated fluids can get into these fissures and actually propagate very, very quickly into a groundwater aquifer,” said Conway.
Since earth fissures come upwards from the groundwater table, the surface evidence of these fissures leaves a direct line to the aquifer. Any pesticides or other fluids that are dissolved by rainwater and make their way into a fissure could end up in the groundwater. There have not been any cases in Arizona where this has happened yet.
Earth fissures are much different than sinkholes like the one that swallowed up a Queen Creek man on Friday. Sinkholes are caused by what geologists call Karst topography, which is when slightly water soluble minerals such as limestone and gypsum are dissolved. The result is a large hole where those minerals used to be.
Like earth fissures, their formation can be facilitated by high groundwater pumping. Heavy seasonal rains can open up incipient earth fissures as well as cause erosion in existing ones that can cause erosion of sidewalls as well as gullies, according to AZGS.
As urban and suburban communities start to encroach upon old agricultural land in Pinal County, more and more infrastructure will end up being placed in close proximity with fissures.
AZGS will continue to map fissures as they are reported and they appear, the agency said. Current maps of all reported fissures within study areas are available on the AZGS website. Source: trivalleycentral.com

12 August, 2015. ASU study: Parts of metro Phoenix area are sinking

The map is color coded so blue areas are where the ground has subsided and red/orange areas are where uplift in the ground has occurred. During the study, subsidence occurred mainly in the metro areas surrounding Phoenix and did not have an observable effect on the majority of the city of Phoenix. Subsidence occurred in much of the northwest valley (Sun City, Surprise, and parts of Glendale and Peoria), the northeast valley (Paradise Valley and north Scottsdale) and in the east valley (Apache Junction, east Mesa).(Photo: ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration)

Ground elevation levels in Apache Junction are seeing the fastest drop, followed by Sun City West, Peoria and the north Valley, ASU researchers say.

Parts of metro Phoenix are sinking by about three-quarters of an inch a year, according to new research by Arizona State University.

Scientists at ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration say ground-elevation levels in Apache Junction are seeing the fastest drop. Sun City West, Peoria and the north Valley are also descending.

People shouldn’t panic, said ASU researcher Megan Miller, co-author of the study published recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

“If anything this is slow. It’s rarely going to cause anything you would associate with a disaster. It can be a nuisance but has the potential to cause costly structural damages, and is something to keep an eye on,” she said.

The study didn’t examine whether people in the affected areas are seeing an impact.

If the trend continues over several years, more cracks in the ground called fissures will develop, she said.

Fissures can threaten canals, utility lines, water mains, storm drains and sewers. The foundations of homes and buildings can be damaged as ground levels drop. Changes in ground level also can affect where flood waters flow as water typically seeks the lowest spot when floods occur.

State officials have been aware of what’s called “land subsidence” — where the earth collapses and drops —for years.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources is working with NASA to collect radar data to compliment the department’s data and maps on where land has subsided. The department has been collecting and processing data since 2002 to monitor land subsidence, which is occurring over 2,800 square miles in Arizona.

The department says land subsidence has been happening in Arizona since the early 1900s with parts of Maricopa and Pinal Counties subsiding more than 18 feet since then. In Arizona, land subsidence in so-called geographical basin areas like the Valley is usually due to a lowered water table, according to the department.

But not all areas of the Valley are sinking, the ASU study found. Parts of Scottsdale, Chandler and Mesa have risen by as much as half a centimeter. ASU scientists say they did not observe a change in most of the city of Phoenix.

So how did it happen?

Miller said the variations of subsidence around the Valley depends on the composition of aquifer layers, the layer thicknesses and bedrock structure, as well as how much groundwater was removed.

When water was pumped out, the sediment layers essentially resettled after breaching a certain level of stress, leaving less available space for water than before and causing the ground level above to drop.

The study attributes the dropping water levels to water pumped from subsurface aquifers before 1980. Legislation passed in 1980 reduced the amount of groundwater pumping, with much of the Valley relying on the Central Arizona Project canal for surface water.

But even with the reduced groundwater pumping — and subsequent increase in the groundwater level — research published in 2005 and 2011 found the ground continued sinking and cracking in parts of the Phoenix metro area and other locations, including Tucson, Casa Grande and Eloy.

In the Valley, fissures have been reported in places including Apache Junction, Queen Creek, Chandler and Scottsdale. Some Valley homeowners have even filed claims and lawsuits against real-estate agents and builders, hoping to be compensated for property damage from fissures they say they weren’t told about.

The Arizona Geological Survey is mapping the fissures and posts the data online.

The ground sinking is not unique to the Valley. It’s also occurring in southwestern Arizona and agricultural valleys in California.

Land subsidance also has been identified in Denver, Colo., the New Jersey coast, Savannah, Ga., and New Mexico’s Albuquerque Basin. The U.S. Geological Survey has identified more than 17,000 square miles of land subsidence in 45 states, an area equivalent to the size of New Hampshire and Vermont combined.

Once the resettlement of the layers, or compaction, occurs, there’s nothing scientists can do to stop or reverse it, ASU’s Miller said.

“It’s important we, as scientists, get a better understanding of what’s happening,” she said, “so we can get a better idea of what the effects will be if we have to change our pumping rates or if we withdraw more water.”

The Bureau of Reclamation has projected about a 1-in-3 chance that as a result of the prolonged Southwestern drought Lake Mead will drop low enough to force Arizona to forgo some of its usual Colorado River water deliveries. The bureau has also forecast a better than a 2-in-3 chance that it will happen in 2017. The agency plans to release a new 24-month projection on Monday.

Any water shortage will initially affect central Arizona farmers, but a prolonged or deepening cut in supplies could force the state to start drawing water from its underground storage.

If Phoenix is forced to increase groundwater pumping due to the drought, that could affect both the extent of land subsidence and the rate at which it occurs, Miller said..

The ASU study used satellite data dating back to 1992 to examine elevation levels around the Valley and compare changes over time.

Miller and the study’s co-author, ASU professor Manoochehr Shirzaei, plan to continue their research, including a model to predict where fissures in the ground could form.

Their research group, the Remote Sensing and Tectonic Geodesy Laboratory, or RaTLaB for short, uses remote sensing to observe and model deformation in the ground due to natural processes: subsidence, volcanic activity , earthquakes and landslides Source: azcentral.com

17 February, 2016. Mekong Delta: Salt intrusion a once-in-a-century disaster

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat speaks at the meeting (Photo: VNA)

Saltwater intrusion in the Mekong Delta at present is comparable to a once-in-a-century disaster, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Cao Duc Phat said on February 17.

At a meeting in Can Tho city, Phat pointed out that more than 200,000 tonnes of rice have been damaged, resulting in a loss of over 1 trillion VND (44.64 million USD) to the region.
The ministry reported that saltwater intrusion appeared two months earlier than previous years due to serious river water shortages.
The salinity in the Vam Co, Tien and Hau Rivers and other rivers near the West Sea is now higher than traditional levels. Meanwhile, saltwater has intruded upstream 50 – 60km into the mainland, and even 93km in the Vam Co River’s neighbourhood, about 15 – 20km deeper than previous years.
This is the worst saltwater intrusion so far in the Delta – the rice hub of Vietnam, the ministry stressed.
In the winter-spring crop 2015-2016, more than 339,200ha of rice in coastal Mekong Delta provinces is prone to saltwater intrusion and drought, accounting for 35.5 percent of those localities’ rice area and 21.9 percent of the region’s total rice area. Of them, 104,000ha have been severely impacted.
The National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting said saltwater intrusion has already reached alarming rates in Ca Mau, Kien Giang, Ben Tre and Tra Vinh provinces.
Director of the centre Hoang Van Cuong said the water flow from upper rivers to the Mekong Delta this dry season (from November to April) will be low, leading to very acute drought and saltwater intrusion.
Meanwhile, Tang Duc Thang, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Academy for Water Resources, said the intrusion will prolong until May or even July if the region lacks rain.
Other participants at the meeting also warned of the recurrence of severe intrusion for many years ahead, adding that the impact will linger for decades.
The MARD said it urged ministries, sectors and localities to consider saltwater intrusion prevention as an extremely serious mission, and to drastically devise both short and long-term solutions.
The ministry also suggested relevant ministries and localities support residents in areas where agricultural cultivation was suspended; and build temporary dams and culverts, dig ponds and wells while dredging canals to store water and prevent saltwater incursion.
Minister Phat said the earlier anti-intrusion actions are taken, the less losses there will be.
At the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc asked relevant sides to firstly ensure drinking water for local residents. Vietnam, which lies at the end of the Mekong River, should also keep negotiating with other countries in the upper part, on water related issues, he said.
He also told them to be fully aware of the seriousness of drought and intrusion, and to take urgent action. Source: english.vietnamnet.vn

19 February, 2016. Mekong sees worst drought in 90 years

A farmer stands in his rice field in Mekong Delta Kien Giang Province's Nam Yen Commune. The field has been hit by the rice blast disease due to saltwater instrusion. Fighting against saltwater instrusion is one of tasks that Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc orders ministries to prioritise now. — VNA/VNS Photo Huy Hai HCM CITY (VNS)

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has ordered relevant ministries and Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta provinces to prioritise the fight against drought and saltwater intrusion which have severely affected agriculture and fisheries and caused a crippling water shortage.

Speaking at a seminar in Can Tho City on Wednesday, he said each province should have a comprehensive and appropriate plan for this and mobilise all resources required to implement it.

"They should ensure that people's livelihoods are not affected, everyone has enough water and food, and diseases do not break out due to the prolonged drought," he said.

The delta, the country's largest rice, fruit and fisheries producer, is facing the worst drought and saltwater intrusion in 90 years though it is not yet the peak of the dry season, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

The ongoing El Nino phenomenon caused the rainy season to come late and end earlier last year. This has caused a shortage of fresh water and saltwater intrusion to begin two months earlier then normal.

Saltwater has encroached 40-95km inland up the delta's major rivers, 10-15km further than usual.

In the Hau River, a tributary of the Mekong, saltwater has reached Can Tho City and Vinh Long Province, places that are usually not affected.

Hau Giang Province normally sees saltwater enter only from the West sea, but this year it has also entered from the East Sea.

Tran Cong Chanh, secretary of the Hau Giang Province's Party Committee, said he has ordered the drilling of six bore wells to supply water for farming and household use.

Hau Giang has also built a water pumping station in Long My District to increase supply since the district suffers a severe shortage.

Chanh said drought alone is easier to cope with since people can resume agricultural production once there is water again, but saltwater intrusion would have a lingering effect even 10 years later.

Hau Giang has lost 400ha of rice.

Kien Giang, where more than 34,000ha of rice were lost – the highest in the delta - has dredged canals, built temporarily dams and closed sluice gates to keep out saltwater.

Mai Van Nhin, deputy chairman of the Kien Giang People's Committee, said, "I have never seen saltwater intrusion so far [up rivers] and for so long like now."

Rach Gia city in Kien Giang has suffered a shortage of freshwater for household use for two months, which has never happened before, he said.

The delta's eight coastal provinces – Long An, Tien Giang, Ben Tre, Tra Vinh, Soc Trang, Bac Lieu, Kien Giang, and Hau Giang – had planted more than 950,000ha of winter-spring rice, accounting for 62 per cent of the delta's crop.

A total of 330,000ha will be affected by the drought and saltwater, according to MARD.

The delta's provinces have taken measures to mitigate the damages, including restructuring crop cultivation schedules, building temporary dams and dredging canals to store fresh water and installing public pumps.

Agriculture minister Cao Duc Phat said: "We have had measures [to deal with the drought and saltwater intrusion] but damage still occurs and will be more severe. Therefore, it is urgent to co-ordinate measures to deal with natural disasters and ensure water for daily use."

Long-term solutions are vital because the two disasters would occur frequently and be more severe in future, he said.

The most difficult problem now is to find funds to build irrigation works that are considered sustainable solutions against drought and saltwater intrusion, he said.

Construction of a sluice gate in the Cai Lon – Cai Be River in Kien Giang Province, for example, will cost $200 million while 29 smaller sluice gates in Kien Giang's An Bien and An Minh districts will cost $50 million.

The delta needs a few billion dollars for implementing sustainable solutions, he said.

"We should mobilise capital from all sources like the World Bank and official development assistance."

Deputy PM Phuc said: "The Government will allocate VND2.3 trillion (US$104 million) from bonds and official development assistance loans for the delta to combat drought and saltwater intrusion."

He ordered the Ministry of Finance and the delta provinces to provide relief worth VND2 million ($95) per hectare to affected households.

The provinces should quickly complete urgent works like building dams and pumping stations, sinking borewells and dredging canals to ensure there is enough water, he added. — VNS Source: vietnamnews.vn

21 February, 2016. Evacuated flood victims rise to 3,734 in Sarawak, Malaysia

The number of flood victims continued to rise as at noon with 3,734 people from 1,028 families in Kuching, Serian and Samarahan divisions evacuated to 25 relief centres.

Sarawak Civil Defence Department public relation officer Siti Huzaimah Ibrahim said the number had increased compared to 2,869 individuals from 779 families housed at 22 relief centres this morning. She said currently in Kuching division, eight relief centres were opened in Kuching district and eight in Bau district while in Serian division, five were opened in Serian district and one in Padawan district.

In a statement here, she said another three relief centres in Samarahan division comprising Darul Ibadah Mosque, Siburan Fire Station Multi-purpose Hall and Sekolah Kebangsaan Endap in Kota Samarahan district were also opened. Meanwhile a youth was reported missing when he was swept away by strong currents while trying to cross the river in Kampung Maang, Siburan, about 30km from here last night. A Fire and Rescue spokesman said the search operation for the youth identified as Judus (Rpt Judus), 20, was being intensified through surface water searching by boat within 1km from the area he was reported missing. Source: theborneopost.com

21 February, 2016. CASCADIA RISING

The San Andreas Fault in California, has a quieter, far more dangerous cousin that could make itself known at any moment. Running from Northern California to British Columbia, the Cascadia subduction zone can deliver a quake that's many times stronger than San Andreas – and far more deadly. Source: dailymail.co.uk 

It’s been building up pressure for 316 years, but scientists only discovered the earthquake potential of the Cascadia Subduction Zone roughly 30 years ago.
What they found is alarming.
This June, a consortium of emergency management agencies from four Pacific Northwest states and Canada will coordinate a four-day emergency management exercise called Cascadia Rising 2016. Federal agencies will join state and local agencies — including some in North Idaho — to prepare for the aftermath of “perhaps one of the most complex disaster scenarios” that will eventually impact the Pacific Northwest.
“The threat of an M9 (magnitude-9) Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake is very real,” said Bill Steele, seismology lab coordinator at the University of Washington. “These earthquakes have re-occurred every 200 to 1,000 years over the past 10,000 years with an average re-occurrence rate of one every 500 years.”
Steele, who is also part of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, said now the Pacific Northwest finds itself in that megathrust-earthquake window again.
He said the last great M9 earthquake in the Cascadia Subduction Zone occurred on Jan. 26, 1700, which was recorded by the Japanese coastal communities that suffered inundation from the Cascadia Tsunami on the morning of Jan. 27.
The Cascadia Subduction Zone, or CSZ, stretches 700 miles along the west coast from Mendocino, Calif., to Vancouver Island, British Columbia. A subduction zone is where two tectonic plates meet. In this case, the Juan De Fuca tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean is pushing itself under (subduction) the North America plate just off the coast of California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.
The subduction has been “locked” for more than 300 years and when — not if — it slips, scientists believe it could result in another M9 earthquake and tsunami that will cause massive destruction to coastal communities along the subduction zone.
“At depths shallower than (18 feet) or so, the CSZ is locked by friction while strain slowly builds up as the subduction forces act until the fault's frictional strength is exceeded and the rocks slip past each other along the fault in a ‘megathrust’ earthquake,” the PNSN explained on its website.
Scientists expect the severity of shaking caused by an M9 earthquake will be strong enough to cause slight damage to specially designed structures and considerable damage in ordinary substantial buildings with partial collapse.
There will also be severe damage to poorly built structures, toppling chimneys, factory stacks, columns, monuments and walls. The shaking will be strong enough to overturn heavy furniture. In certain areas the shaking will cause the ground to liquify.
According to the Cascadia Rising Exercise Scenario Document published by the Washington and Oregon Whole Community Exercise Design Committee in January of 2015, liquefaction is one of the most damaging effects of ground shaking.
“Certain soils, such as water-saturated silt and sand, can become dangerously unstable during an earthquake. The shaking increases water pressure, forcing the water to move in between the individual grains of soil, and as the grains lose contact with each other, the soil begins to act like a liquid,” the report states. “Overlying layers of sediment can slump and spread laterally. Structures built on such soils may shift position or sink, while buried pipes and tanks become buoyant and float to the surface.”
Transportation, energy and water infrastructures will be devastated.
Once the devastating earthquake occurs, a massive tsunami is going to follow. Scientists say in the case of the CSZ, it would hit different areas of the coast between 15 and 30 minutes after the shaking starts. According to the Cascadia Rising document, a tsunami can travel across the deep ocean at nearly 500 mph. <...>
Source: cdapress.com

19 February, 2016. Mekong Delta drought, saltwater intrusion worse

Drought and saltwater intrusion have worsened in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta this year, threatening rice crops and the daily life of residents.

Le Thanh Hai, deputy director of the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, said: "Saltwater intrusion [began in] Nov. 2015, one and half months earlier than normal."

The saltwater has reached 50-60 km inland, and even 70-80 km in some areas, compared to 30-40 km in normal years, he said.

Ma Quang Trung, head of the central Plant Cultivation Department, said water levels in southern rivers are at their lowest levels in 90 years.

As a result, saltwater has reached places it had not for the last 90 years, he said.

The drought and saltwater intrusion started when farmers began sowing the winter-spring rice and would last long, meaning the damage is expected to be severe, he said.

More than 950,500 hectares of the delta's 1.53 million hectares have been affected, according to the department.

Long An, Tien Giang, Ben Tre, Tra Vinh, Kien Giang, Hau Giang, Soc Trang and Bac Lieu are the provinces hardest hit, with some of them seeing saltwater encroach on 20-30 percent of rice-growing areas. Source: chinapost.com.tw

22 February, 2016. Saltwater continues threatening Mekong Delta
Saltwater is likely to intrude as far as 70km in Tien and Hau River, the two main tributaries of Mekong River in the Mekong Delta, said the National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting. Source: english.vietnamnet.vn

Malaysia

22 February, 2016. Evacuees rising as Sarawak floods worsen

The flood situation in Kuching, Serian and Samarahan worsened with the number of flood victims evacuated to relief centres increasing to 4,381 yesterday afternoon.

Sarawak Civil Defence Department public relations officer Siti Huzaimah Ibrahim said the number of relief centres had also increased to 27, providing shelter to 4,381 individuals from 1,221 families.

She said the number of relief centres opened in Kuching and Bau remained at eight each, while in Serian, the number remained at five and in Padawan, one. Source: thestar.com.my

Vietnam

26 February, 2016. River salinity threatens water supply

The La Nga River, part of the Dong Nai River, has been narrowed due to salinity and water shortages. Climate change could also shorten water supplies for HCM City residents this year. — VNA/VNS Photo Ngoc Ha

HCM City residents could face a water shortage this year as El Nino and climate change caused an unexpected increase in the salinity of the Sai Gon and Dong Nai rivers, which provide most of the city's water.

The salinity rate in the rivers is the highest in the last five years, which has affected the operations of some of the pumping stations that supply water to the city's nearly 10 million population.

The Sai Gon Water Corporation (Sawaco) has reported that in January and this month, Binh An, a Malaysian joint-venture water treatment plant with a capacity of 100,000cu.m a day, had to cease operations for several hours a day on several days due to excessive salinity in the Dong Nai.

The maximum permitted salinity rate is 250mg per litre.

The Hoa Phu pumping station in Cu Chi District has also had to shut down, especially on high-tide days, when more seawater flows upstream.

It is expected to stop operating for four to six hours a day in the coming period. During the worst periods, the company has to use water stored at other treatment plants to sustain supply, Bui Thanh Giang, the company's general director, said.

A study by the company found that the salt content in the Sai Gon was 358mg per litre last month and 340mg in February compared to 0.9mg in early 2012.

Giang said the rate is likely to be much higher in the coming months since the dry season has just begun.

<...>

Don't panic!

Rik Dierx, resident project manager of the Dutch-funded project "Climate Change and Water Supply in the Mekong Delta and HCM City" called on the city not to panic and to instead do something about the situation.

He suggested that the city should build a raw water reservoir that can hold at least a day's supply of river water so that when the salinity rate is high, the treatment plants do not have to draw water directly from the river and can continue normal operations.

At the Sawaco's main river water pumping stations the salinity rate is high during high tide and much lower during low tide, he said.

<...> Source: vietnamnews.vn

Activity in the Pacific Ocean

Vietnam

1 March, 2016. Water shortages affect land, residents, businesses

The saltwater intrusion and widespread drought have left millions of people of the south, central region and the Central Highlands in danger because of serious water shortages.

The widespread saltwater intrusion and severe drought will affect the water supply for daily use and irrigation.

The Mekong River water level is decreasing day by day. The water shortage in Kien Giang province is predicted to be more serious this year as it located downstream.

According to the Southern Water Resources Institute, the saltwater intrusion in the southern region, including HCM City, came early this year and may last until the end of the dry season.

Though the dry season has just begun, the lack of fresh water has occurred in many localities of the province, especially in U Minh Thuong and island district. Source: english.vietnamnet.vn

1 March, 2016. Vietnam farmers cry about dry fields
Thousands of hectares of rice fields in the southern region of Vietnam have been damaged by saltwater intrusion and the most severe drought in 100 years. Farmers are crying about their huge losses, caused by natural disasters.

 An abandoned field in Bac Lieu Province. Irrigation canals and lakes are also dried up and the biggest fear of the farmer is saltwater intrusion. If they try to pump water from canals to their fields, their rice will die faster.

Salt intrusion kills fish.

On February 22 noon, Mr. Ba Toi, a farmer in Tan Hung Commune, Long Phu District of Soc Trang Province was still on his scorched rice field in Tan Quy A Hamlet.
The 60-year old farmer said he had stayed up all night to think how to save the rice but he could not withstand natural disasters because the field and the canals are all dry while the salty level in the river water is up to 4‰.
Toi said in previous years, he harvested about seven tons of rice per hectare, in the winter-spring crop. With six hectares of land, he had 42 tons or rice. This year all of the six hectares of rice died because of severe drought.

Saline intrusion takes toll on rice crops in Soc Trang

A dried canal in Soc Trang.

More than 11,000 hectares of winter-spring rice crops in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang have been seriously damaged by intruding saltwater, prompting the authorities to declare a natural disaster emergency on February 23.
According to the provincial Department of Agricultural and Rural Development, saltwater has thus far crept into six out of 11 local towns and districts. It caused some 900 hectares of completely ruined rice fields, which led to a loss of almost 40 billion VND (1.8 million USD).
Tran De and My Xuyen districts have taken the brunt of the intrusion, with between 400 and 450 hectares of crops totally spoiled in each locality.
Local farmers, whose fields are facing a water shortage, have been warned not to plant spring-summer crops, while the irrigation system is now tightly controlled.
Due to the early saltwater intrusion and lower than expected annual flooding, which usually brings much-needed water to rice fields, farmers in the Mekong Delta are facing major losses.
More than 300,000 hectares of winter-spring rice, or about 35 percent of the delta's winter-spring rice crop, are prone to the intrusion that has crept 60-70 km inland, according to the Plant Cultivation Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. 

<...>
Hau Giang needs nearly $5 million to tackle saline intrusion

The Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang is in urgent need of about 100 billion VND (4.47 million USD) to cope with severe saltwater intrusion and protect crops during the dry season.
Saltwater is forecast to intrude upstream 60–70 kilometres into the mainland this year, the department’s director Nguyen Van Dong said.
He warned that Hau Giang is only 45 kilometres away from the Rach Gia estuary (Kien Giang province) to the west and 65 kilometres away from the Tran De estuary (Soc Trang province) to the east, making it seriously vulnerable to saline intrusion.
Flood tides raised the salinity in many river sections in early February, damaging more than 1,000 hectares of winter-spring rice in the province, he added..
Across the Mekong Delta, more than 200,000 tonnes of rice has been damaged, causing losses of over 1 trillion VND (44.64 million USD).
The 2015-2016 winter-spring rice crop has already been hit by saltwater intrusion, and 104,000 hectares have been severely affected. The National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting said saltwater intrusion has already hit alarming levels in Ca Mau, Kien Giang, Ben Tre and Tra Vinh provinces. Source: english.vietnamnet.vn

26 February, 2016. Dutch experts help Mekong Delta be resilient to climate change

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Chu Pham Ngoc Hien said the Mekong Delta is currently feeling the force of climate change, along with the impact of dam building and unsustainable water use in the upper Mekong River.
He cited saltwater intrusion as an example. Saltwater has affected almost 700,000 ha of the Delta’s 1.7 million ha of farmland. Source: english.vietnamnet.vn

Haiti

1 March, 2016. 1 dead, 4 missing as flooding hits Haiti

Fisherman sit in their boats at a wharf close to the Haiti port of Cap-Haïtien, in this May 21, 2015 file photo. 

Héctor Retamal/AFP

One person died and four others were missing in flooding that hit Haiti, leaving at least 9,600 houses in the deeply impoverished Caribbean country underwater, officials said Monday.

The floods were caused by heavy rainfall Sunday linked to a cold front.

One person was killed while crossing a river in the southwestern department of Grand-Anse, civil defense spokesman Edgar Celestin told AFP. The person accompanying the deceased has not been located and three fishermen in the same region have also been reported missing, he added. Source: ticotimes.net

Queensland, Australia

1 March, 2016. Inskip Point landslide: beach gets sinking feeling

A picture from the Seven News chopper of the sinkhole that has formed at Inskip Point

Another collapsing sandy hole has formed at Inskip Point at the northern end of rainbow beach.

According to Queensland Parks and Wildlife the activity started at the surface of the sand about 8am and ended at 10.15am.

The service is describing it as an erosion event better termed as a "near-shore landslide" than a sinkhole.

'Thanks to my husband, I'm alive'
The erosion has not affected any campsites nor access to the barge to Fraser Island.

The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service has erected traffic barriers and warning signs around the sites.

A statement on the parks and wildlife website said it was likely to be "another occurrence of the natural phenomenon which occurred in September 2015 at Inskip".

In that incident 300 people had to be evacuated after campsites came under threat, and some cars that were swallowed up by sinking sand are still underwater.

Another major erosion event along Inskip Point beach, Queensland. Second one in six months. Source: twitter.com

"It is caused by the undermining of part of the shoreline by tidal flow, waves and currents," the statement said.

"When this occurs below the waterline, the shoreline loses support and a section slides seaward leaving a hole, the edges of which retrogress back towards the shore."

Members of the public were urged to observe the warnings in place around the area.

Sinkhole in 30 September, 2015. The sinkhole has been described as a "near shore landslide". Photo: Kieren Hudson/Higgins Storm Chaser. Source: brisbanetimes.com.au

Rangers were monitoring the hole that has formed. Source: brisbanetimes.com.a

African Roll

1 March, 2016. Dead sea 5,548 sinkholes and counting

Animation

Fields of sinkholes instead of beaches, roads swept away by floods, large industrial ponds instead of a sea and one overarching question: What can be done so that things don’t get even worse in the next 20 years?

Image: Getty Images. Dead sea sinkhole

For many years, the dropping sea level was not thought to be a problem. Beach operators got accustomed to it and considered it part of the routine. Lifeguard towers had wheels attached so they could be moved forward every year. New steps were constructed from time to time and access pathways were extended. When the first reports of sinkholes in the Neve Zohar area surfaced in the 1980s, they were regarded as a geological curiosity. By the end of the 1990s, however, the anomaly had turned into a problem. Sinkholes appeared in date groves and in the overnight parking lot near Ein Gedi. In 1998, the regional council’s chief engineer ordered the closure of the parking lot, and two years later, some of the date groves were abandoned.

Just like the falling water level, the rate of sinkhole creation is speeding up. In 1996, there were 220 sinkholes; by 2006 this had burgeoned to 1,808; and last year, the number skyrocketed to 5,548. Dr. Gideon Baer, who heads the GSI unit that studies and monitors the Dead Sea, estimates that 500 new sinkholes open up every year, an average of more than one per day. Sinkholes are a known phenomenon around the world, but their appearance at this rate and intensity is unparalleled. Source: haaretz.com

10 March, 2016. King tide causes flooding in Marshall Islands

Several hundred residents of Kili Island in the Marshall Islands were forced to move when their homes flooded from a king tide pushed by storm surges.

It is the second time in as many years that high tides have caused significant flooding on Kili, home to displaced Bikini Islanders.

High tide inundation on a runway, Kili Island, Marshall Islands, February 2015.High tide inundation on a runway, Kili Island, Marshall Islands, February 2015. Photo: Kili/Bikini/Ejit Local Government Marshall Islands
But the king tide-caused inundation in Majuro, the nation's capital, was mild compared to previous flooding in recent years.

However roads in certain parts of the capital were flooded and debris was strewn across roads and in the backyards of local residents.

Some Majuro homes were flooded, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or any injuries.

The Bikini Mayor Anderson Jibas said in the evening, they had to move families from the northern part of Kili to the town area because their houses were flooded.

The mayor said he has given full alert to Public Works and Public Safety to look over the situation and to inform the community.

In Majuro, some homeowners whose houses and property were flooded with about six inches of seawater, called on the government to provide help in the form of seawalls and improving shoreline protection.

A king tide pushed by storm surges caused some inundation in Majuro Atoll, with water washing onto the roads and flooding homes in some areas of the capital atoll. Photo: Hilary Hosia.

An area in one section of Majuro known as "Jenrok" that frequently floods during annual king tides in February and March "saw debris strewn across the road, with several over-washes of up to four inches," said Karl Fellenius from the University of Hawaii Sea Grant program who is based in the Marshalls.

Dr Fellenius said Wednesday's flooding in Majuro "was the first ocean side inundation since typhoon Bavi a year ago in March."

Motorists had to navigate around sand, rocks and debris tossed up by waves onto the two-lane road that runs by Majuro's international airport runway.

US weather officials on Guam warned that flooding could continue this week because of the confluence of king tides and a storm that developed near Wake Island and is moving through the Marshalls. Source: radionz.co.nz

Strech zone, Sinking feeling. South east U.S. sinking

Severe flooding in Louisiana. Associated USA flood around Gulf of Mexico with 7 of 10? I do not know why but I think it is a loss of height. [and from another] http://www.disasternews.net/news/article.php?articleid=4510 Flood waters submerged parts of southern Louisiana Tuesday after heavy rains caused flash flooding and forced hundreds of rescues. The National Weather Service estimated 12 to 18 inches of rain fell across the region, with totals reaching up to 20 inches in some areas. Among the hardest hit areas in Lafayette Parish was Carencro, where reports indicated water was as high as high as 8 feet on some roads.

Just as the bowing in the S American Plate has produced stretching and consequent sinking in the swath of land from Rio to Buenos Aires, the bowing in the N American Plate has produced stretching and consequent sinking along the eastern seaboard and land bordering the Gulf of Mexico. Stretched land has only so many options. It can rip open to form a crevasse or a landslide or a sinkhole, or rock layers can pull apart so that train rails zip and zag and cause derailments and bridges pull from their moorings. In this case there is an adjustment in certain places, a pulling apart, which relieves the stress. 

Stretched land also almost invariably drops in elevation, because the crust is thinned. This may not be apparent on the surface if the rock layers are pulling apart deep underground or under a river bed. But the underlying rock cannot spread out and thin without some evidence of this process above. For Florida, this evidence is the increasing number of sinkholes swallowing houses. Lopsided buildings, drooping roadways, and swamps extending their borders are other such symptoms. Drainage is invariably affected, as water lingers where it formerly drained. Rains and tides thus confuse the issue, with high tides blamed for much flooding, when sinking due to stretching is the cause.

ZetaTalk Chat Q&A for March 17, 2012

THE STRETCH ZONE, THAT SINKING FEELING Blog

MODIS (Moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer)

14 March, 2016

5 March, 2016

13 March, 2016

6 March, 2016

13 March, 2016

6 March, 2016 [Source: https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/]

Landsat 8 Animation

Animation

13 March, 2016. Click to view full resolution

10 February, 2016. [Source: earthexplorer.usgs]

Extreme Flooding Damages Nearly 5,000 Louisiana Homes. Source: abcnews.go.com

Widespread flooding in Louisiana and Mississippi has damaged thousands of homes, and the risk of rising water prompted additional evacuations Sunday. Source: m.kingstonregion.com

A sign marks high water in a flooded section of in Oil City, La., Sunday, March 13, 2016. President Barack Obama has signed an order declaring Louisiana's widespread flooding from heavy rains a major disaster. (Lee Celano/The Shreveport Times via AP). Source: m.startribune.com 

12 March, 2016. Unusually Widespread Flooding Across Louisiana, Mississippi

Residents in Louisiana and Mississippi are taking stock of damage Saturday after a massive deluge of rain submerged roads and cars, washed out bridges and forced residents to flee homes.

The rain and flooding is part of a weather system that has affected Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama. At least three people have died in Louisiana alone, and more than 2,000 have been rescued.

In Mississippi, 41 of the state's 82 counties have sent storm reports about heavy rains or flooding, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said.
<...>
In Louisiana's St. Tammany Parish, officials late Friday asked people living near two rivers to consider evacuating because the rivers were rising to "historical proportions" because of heavy rains north of the area. Source: nbcnews.com

13 March, 2016. Six people dead and at least 5,000 homes damaged in record floods that swamped the South after a week of storms

Record-breaking floods in the South have left six people dead and thousands of homes damaged in the South after a week of storms.
More than 24 inches of rain have fallen in the hardest-hit areas, the Weather Channel reported. Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas have all been affected.
A man drowned on Wednesday afternoon in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, as he tried to drive across a flooded highway, according to the Weather Channel.
Three more deaths have been reported in the state. A 22-year-old man drowned in his car and a six-year-old girl passed away after her mother lost control of their vehicle, also on Wednesday. Source: dailymail.co.uk

14 March, 2016. Texas Town Swamped As 2 Million Across South Face Flooding

Mandatory evacuations were underway Monday in a Texas town that has been practically cut off from the rest of world by floodwaters rising to record levels.

The inundation of Deweyville, Texas (pop. 1,700) came as more than 2 million people across the soggy South braced for more devastating flooding and hail — after nearly a week of rain and violent thunderstorms that left six dead and forced thousands to flee their homes.

"No residents of the town have ever seen a flood in Deweyville like what's coming in the next few days," meteorologist Jonathan Erdman of The Weather Channel warned. "Deweyville could be cut off by floodwater for days." Source: nbcnews.com

4 September, 2014. As the seas rise, a slow-motion disaster gnaws at America’s shores

<...>

In many places, including much of the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, an additional factor makes the problem worse: The land is sinking. This process, known as subsidence, is due in part to inexorable geological shifts

<...>

The rise is two to three times greater in spots along the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean because of subsidence, a process whereby natural geological movements and extraction of underground stores of water, oil and gas cause the ground to sink.

<...>

About one-third of that rise was from oceans rising globally as water warms and polar ice melts. The remaining two-thirds resulted from land sinking due to subsidence, which happens when the removal of underground water, oil and gas causes the land to pancake.

<...>

Around the world, the biggest increases were in Asia, reflecting the greater impact in that region of subsidence, the process by which geological forces and the extraction of groundwater cause the land to sink

<...> Source: reuters.com

30 April, 2014. Forget global warming and melting polar caps - groundwater extraction is causing cities to SINK beneath sea level

You might think that storms and rising sea levels are the greatest threat to the survival of coastal cities.
But in many waterfront megacities the ground is now dropping up to 10 times faster than the sea level is rising, experts have warned.
The sinking of cities such as Jakarta and New Orleans is largely caused by humans pumping for groundwater and action must be taken for the cities to survive. Source: dailymail.co.uk

Pakistan

14 March, 2016. 45 DIE IN RAVAGING RAINS, FLOODS

Torrential rains and flash floods continued wreaking havoc across country, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA hard hit, as more incidents of house collapses and rain-related casualties were reported on Sunday taking death toll to around 45 in KP, Punjab and Balochistan with scores injured in three days of calamity.
Dozens of houses collapsed in different areas of FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Women and children are among the dead and injured. The routine life in the region has been badly disrupted owing to continued downpour and thousands stand effected.
The major and the most tragic incident took place on Saturday evening when two mines caved in leaving eight people dead and over two dozen injured in Dolay area of Orakzai agency. Majority of the victims belonged to Shangla district. Source: pakobserver.net

Indonesia

14 March, 2016. Floods submerge 35 thousand houses in Bandung district

Floods triggered by incessant heavy rains and the overflowing of Citarum River, have submerged some 35 thousand houses in the districts of Dayeuhkolot, Baleendah and Bojongsoang in Bandung District, West Java Province.
"This flooding is the worst over the past 10 years. The floodwaters have reached a height of up to 3.3 meters," Coordinator of Bandungs Disaster-Alert Youth, said on the phone, Sunday. The office of Dayeuhkolot Sub-district administration, which had never been flooded since 20 years ago, is now inundated at a height of 35 cm, he said.

In the meantime, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said in a statement in Jakarta, on Sunday that the floods left two dead and three others missing in Bandung District.

The dead victims were Risa, 13, and Ela, 40, who lived in Sawahluhur, Sukasari village, Pameungpeuk Sub-district. Elas husband and two daughters were missing as the building where they were staying and is located near the river bank, collapsed after being swept away by flash floods. The floods affected 15 regions, namely Cicalengka, Rancaekek, Cileunyi, Solokan Jeruk, Majalaya, Ciparay, Baleendah, Dayeuhkolot, Bojongsoang, Pameungpeuk, Banjaran, Arjasri, Cangkuang, Katapang and Kutawaringin. The flooding forced more than three thousand people to evacuate themselves to higher grounds, and affected some 5,900 families comprising 24 thousand people. Source: eng.belta.by

15 March, 2016. Drought affects 39 out of 63 provinces in Vietnam, UN says

UN officials in Vietnam have warned that "severe drought and salt intrusion in the Mekong Delta is affecting" 39 out of 63 provinces in Vietnam, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said here Monday.

As of March 10, an estimated 195,200 families did not have sufficient water supply to meet their daily needs, Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here. "Some 10 provinces have declared a state of emergency."

According to the authorities, 159,000 hectares of rice paddy have also been lost, amounting to an economic loss of 10.5 million U.S. dollars, and an additional 500,000 hectares were at risk of being lost by mid-2016, he said. <...> Source: shanghaidaily.com

Saltwater intrusion mapping in Mekong Delta (as of end Feb 2016). Rice production lost/affected due to drought and salinity in the Mekong Delta

Source: vnexpress.net; reliefweb.int Vietnam Consolidated Report on Drought and Saltwater ...

16 March, 2016. Salt-water attacks Can Tho for the first time

Nearly 100 km away from estuary, Can Tho – the largest city in the Mekong Delta – is still affected by salty water as saline intrusion is the worst in decades in Vietnam’s southwestern region.
The Office for Climate Change Affairs has reported that the salinity in the Hau River in Cai Cui port (Cai Rang District, Can Tho City), on March 11 was measured at above 2,000 mg per liter (2‰).Salinity is reducing but it is forecast to increase again in one month.
In the southwestern region, only Dong Thap province, in the upstream Tien River and Hau rivers, has not been attacked by saltwater. Source: english.vietnamnet.vn

15 March, 2016. Texas town soaked by worst flooding in over a century

In this aerial photo, a boat travels past a home submerged in floodwaters from the nearby Sabine River following recent heavy rains, Tuesday, March 15, 2016, in Deweyville, Texas. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT. Source: abcnews.go.com

Floodwaters are getting deeper in the Deep South. No place has been hit harder than Deweyville, Texas, on the Louisiana border.

It is the worst flooding Deweyville has seen in over 100 years. Everything -- the sheriff's department, post office, church, school, and the town's only grocery store -- is under water.

Deweyville, a town of 1,100 people, sits west of the Sabine River. It's a funnel for many smaller tributaries carrying water downstream from three larger bodies of water. Source: cbsnews.com

16 March, 2016. Disastrous flooding continues to swamp Texas, Louisiana

Record-high floodwaters continued to swamp parts of Texas and Louisiana on Wednesday as the region's slow-motion disaster drifted farther downstream.

The swollen Sabine River, which lies on the boundary between the two states, crested late Tuesday at an all-time record 33.24 feet in swamped Deweyville, Texas, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Tim Humphrey.

<...> In north-central Louisiana, the Red River in Alexandria could hit its highest level in more than 70 years this weekend. The river is forecast to crest at 40.5 feet Sunday. That would be the highest since a 40.65 crest on May 9, 1942. It has not topped 40 feet since 1958.

"This is the third time within a year that we've had a significant high water event," said Blake Cooper, executive director of the Central Louisiana Regional Port. "It's devastating to the river." Source: usatoday.com

Southeastern U.S. strech zone

Landsat 8

13 March, 2016. Click to view full resolution

10 February, 2016. [Source: earthexplorer.usgs]

17 March, 2016. FEMA official: Unprecedented Louisiana flooding affecting many uninsured, but federal help available

The damage and scope of last week’s flooding across Louisiana has been both record breaking and in many ways unprecedented, Gov. John Bel Edwards reiterated in a news conference on Thursday where he was joined by the top federal disaster recovery administrator in the country.

But to make matters worse, many of the people impacted by the recent rising waters didn’t have insurance because floods had never before touched their properties.

“This is a record-breaking flood event with floodwater all over the state of Louisiana, reaching places it’s never been before,” Edwards said.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate, in town from Washington, D.C., said authorities are working to assist people in need as quickly as possible. To date, he said $2.5 million has been paid out in flood insurance claims.

So far, officials have identified about 12,000 homes with reports of water damage across the state. Another 1,200 private residences, which make up second homes or businesses, and 13 public facilities, including Grambling State University and Southeastern Louisiana University, had damage from flooding.

Of those, only 3,600 flood insurance claims have been filed in Louisiana.

But all of these numbers are expected to grow, as officials are still calculating the damage and waters in some areas have yet to recede.

“We know some people’s homes are still underwater,” Fugate said. “Other areas are still at risk.”

So far, 26 parishes have been added to the list of federally declared disaster areas, and 11 more are being monitored to determine if they should be added. The declaration means residents and businesses are eligible for federal disaster aid.

The most recent additions were Allen, Ascension and Calcasieu parishes, which, alone, had some 900 homes damaged by high water, Edwards’ office said Wednesday.
<...>
“I spoke to a couple hundred home owners, and very few of them had flood insurance,” Edwards said. “I was in Merryville on Sunday and met a couple who was 86 years old. They’d lived in their home for 50 years and never had water approach their home before, but their home was probably totally destroyed by this particular incident.”

It was a sentiment echoed by the Washington Parish Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Thomas Thiebaud. Source: theadvocate.com

Indonesia

17 March, 2016. Bandung floods considered worst in 10 years

South Bandung area again hit by flooding due to overflowing Citarum River and intensity of heavy rainfall. (FOTO ANTARA / Novrian Arbi)

Floods have spread to wider areas across Indonesian provinces in the last few weeks, with the worst flood striking early this week in Bandung District, West Java Province.

The Bandung floods have left two dead and three missing, as the Citarum River overflowed following incessantly heavy rains, which began March 8.

The downpours caused flooding in 15 regions in Bandung District, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), said in a statement on March 13.

Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa and West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan visited flood victims on March 14. The minister inspected a public kitchen set up to feed the victims, to ensure that it had adequate supplies.

The flood-affected regions include Cicalengka, Rancaekek, Cileunyi, Solokan Jeruk, Majalaya, Ciparay, Baleendah, Dayeuhkolot, Bojongsoang, Pameungpeuk, Banjaran, Arjasri, Cangkuang, Katapang and Kutawaringin.

The flooding forced more than 8,000 people to evacuate to higher grounds, while submerging over 35,000 homes, and affected some 5,900 families, comprising 24,000 people.

The floodwaters reached a height of between 80 cm to three meters, particularly in villages near the river bank.

The dead victims included a 13-year-old teenager and a mother aged 40 years old, whose husband and two daughters were reported missing after being swept away by the flash flood.

The downpours also triggered a landslide that seriously damaged a house in the Lemburkebon area, Padasuka village, Kutawaringin Sub-district, Bandung.

Further, the major floods that ravaged Bandung have caused large losses to industries.

The current flooding was the worst to have occurred over the past few years and have caused larger losses than earlier floods, Chairman of the Indonesian Businessman Association (Apindo) of the West Java chapter Deddy Wijaya stated on March 15. <...>

Additionally, flooding caused losses to shop owners and the banking business.

"This flooding is the worst over the past 10 years. The floodwaters have reached a height of up to 3.3 meters," Coordinator of Bandungs Disaster-Alert Youth said on the phone recently.

The office of Dayeuhkolot Sub-district administration, which has not been flooded in 20 years, was inundated to a height of 35 cm this year, he said.

BNPB Chief Willem Rampangilei supervised the evacuation of the natural disasters victims. They were housed in local government offices, schools and mosques.

Earlier, on March 2, The BNPB chief told the media that floods and landslides had struck 260 districts and municipalities in the country from January 1 to February 25, leaving 46 people dead and 16 others injured.

The natural disasters also forced the evacuation of 1,083.104 people, Willem Rampangilei said at the press conference.

The government has made efforts to minimize damage from floods and landslides by holding coordination meetings, familiarizing the public with potential natural disasters, developing contingency plans, strengthening logistics, declaring alert status, and providing relief aid, he said.

"When a flood happens, we must first focus on searching and rescuing victims, evacuating refugees and meeting their needs," he said.

To support emergency rescue operations, meet emergency needs and finance emergency repairs of damaged facilities, the government has set aside Rp3 billion in funds.

"The funds have been distributed among the districts of Aceh Utara, Solok Selatan, Solok, 50 Kota, Kampar, Rokan Hulu, Medan, Binjai, Merangin, Bungo, Indramayu, and the province of Bangka Belitung. Each of the regions received Rp250 million," Willem said.

In addition to Bandung, floods have recently struck three sub-districts in Sukabumi District, as well as in West Java, leaving a number of buildings damaged.

In Ketapang District, West Kalimantan Province, three sub-districts -Nanga Tayap, Sandai and Sungai Laur- were also inundated beginning March 10. The flooding is believed to be as bad as in 2010, has affected thousands of local inhabitants.

Floods also inundated thousands of houses in ten villages in Tangerang District of Banten Province on March 13.

The high intensity rain caused the local Cimanceuri River to overflow its banks and sent floods throughout the region, Head of Regional Disaster Mitigation Agency of Tangerang Teteng Jumara said.

In Sampang, Madura Island, East Java Province, floods submerged 12 villages, as the Kalikemuning River spilled over its bank last week.

"The present flooding is the worst," Head of the Sampang Disaster Mitigation Agency Wisno Hatono said recently.

Additionally, harvest failures were feared over 1,083 hectares of rice fields in Sampang.

Floods inundated 7,199 hectares of paddy fields in Riau and over 1,000 hectares in Jambi on Sumatra Island.

In the capital city, despite the Jakarta administration�s efforts to normalize sewage systems, floods reaching a height of up to 120 cm and inundated 20 neighborhoods in early February this year.

Following a recent finding of a large amount of cable jackets in waterways on Merdeka Selatan Road, Central Jakarta, Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) voiced his suspicion about sabotage.

Ahok suggested recently that it demonstrated an attempt by unknown persons to engineer floods and he reported the case to police, the Jakarta Post reported.

Jakarta Police Chief Insp. Gen. Tito Karnavian said the police had yet to conclude that the cable jackets were a form of sabotage.

On March 11, Tito announced that six scavengers were detained for allegedly stealing copper and tin inside the cables, believed to have belonged to the State Electricity Company (PLN) , and they left the cable jackets inside the sewers, Tempo.co reported. Source: antaranews.com