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Saturday, October 9, 2010

Health Minister of Chile, Jaime Mañalich, announced on Friday the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners trapped in San José Mine, Copiapó is to begin this Tuesday, October 12.

Mining Minister Laurence Golborne announced that the tunnel the miners will ascend “will be ready in the next 24 hours. [The tunnel] could be done by this night or tomorrow’s early morning.” However, he couldn’t “assure an hour because it is not exact.”

“The rescue will take place between three and eight days (after finishing the perforation), depending on the decisions that are taken about the encamisado (process of coating the tunnel with a metal pipe),” Golborne added. He also said the miners “have no anxiety,” saying that “they’ve waited a few months now for their rescue and are aware that they will have to wait some more days.”

The thirty-three miners have been trapped at the bottom of San José Mine, Copiapó, Atacama Region, Chile since August 5. It was discovered they were alive on August 22, when they sent the note “We are fine in the shelter the 33 [of us].”

Sunday, July 2, 2006

A suicide bomber exploded a truck bomb in the crowded Al-Ula market in Sadr City in Baghdad on Saturday, killing 66 people and injuring over a 100.

‘At the beginning of this market, the criminal blew up his dynamite-packed truck after trying to go over the pavement,’ said Iraq’s Deputy Health Minister Sabah al-Hussein.

The explosion happened when a police patrol was passing by and caused heavy casualties in the morning market rush. Some shoppers were sent flying on top of nearby two-storey buildings.

The force of the blast left a large crater and wreckage of blown-out cars and windowless buildings. Rescuers were left to pick through a sickening scene of human remains mixed in with exploded vegetable matter and dead animals.

Sadr City, a Shiite city of two million in which religious leader Moqtada Sadr has found popular support, had many times before been targeted by Sunni terrorists who were blamed by some residents for this attack.

It was the deadliest bombing of civilians since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki‘s government assumed responsibility for domestic security in May 2006.

Experts said the truck bomb was a lethal concoction of explosives, shells and shrapnel hidden under a consignment of fruit. The driver of the truck blew himself up in the explosion.

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Sunday, March 15, 2009

200,000 litres of oil leaked into waters off the coast of Brisbane from the Pacific Adventurer when their fuel tanks were damaged in rough seas on Wednesday. The figure is about ten times higher than the original estimate of twenty thousand litres of oil. The devastating diesel oil spill has spread along 60 kilometres (37 miles) of the Queensland coast. In addition, 31 containers with 620 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser flew overboard during the violent storm.

Questions are being asked why the Hong Kong cargo ship was out in seas with nine meter waves caused by Cyclone Hamish, a Category 5 tropical cyclone, as well as why the fertiliser containers were not properly secured. One of the overboard containers ruptured the hull of the Pacific Adventurer, causing between 30 to 100 tonnes of oil to spew from the severely damaged ship.

If the ammonium nitrate mixes with the heavy oil, an explosion could occur. None of the containers have been recovered. Some of these may float, but it is believed that they may have sunk which then may cause algal blooms.

Disaster zones have been declared at Bribie and Moreton Islands, and along the Sunshine coast.

The vessel’s owner, Swire Shipping, reported that a second leak began on Friday, when the ship began listing after docking at Hamilton for repairs. “As full soundings of the vessel’s tanks were being taken at the port to determine how much oil had leaked from the vessel, a small quantity of fuel oil escaped from the Pacific Adventurer,” it stated. The ship was brought upright, and a recovery vessel was used to suck up the oil from the water. The leak produced a 500m-long oil slick down the Brisbane River. Booms were placed around this oil spill so that a skimmer could clean up the second spill.

Swire Shipping could face clean up costs of AU$100,000 a day as well as fines up to AU$1.5million (US$977,000; £703,000) if found guilty of environmental breaches or negligence.

Sunshine Coast beaches are slowly starting to be reopened. The beach of Mooloolaba was still closed following reports of burning sensations from swimmers. 12 beaches remain closed; however, 13 have been reopened.

Over 300 state government and council workers are using buckets, rakes and spades in the clean up effort. Sunshine Coast Mayor Bob Abbott says the majority will be gone by Sunday afternoon. The full environmental impact on wildlife is not yet known. One turtle and seven pelicans have been found covered in oil.

There are concerns that the drinking water of Moreton Island is at risk, as the island uses water from the underground water table near the oil spill site.

“Every bucketload of contaminated sand has to be removed from the island by barge, and each bucketload from a front-end loader weighs about one tonne. It’s just an impossible task,” said Mr Trevor Hassard of the Tangalooma Dolphin Education Centre.

The commercial fishing industry has suffered from the incident. Trawlers won’t resume operations until Sunday evening, and any catches will be tested for human consumption.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Mongolia’s ruling People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) has been declared winners of the country’s legislative elections, two days after allegations of vote-rigging leveled against the ruling party sparked violent protests in the capital of Ulaanbaatar.

Preliminary results show the MPRP with 47 seats out of 76 in the State Great Khural, General Election Committee spokesman Nergui reported. The opposing Democratic Party won 26 seats, Nergui said, with the remaining seats divided between minor parties. The official results are expected to be revealed tomorrow. Nevertheless, the preliminary results indicate a decisive victory for the former communist party.

International observers say the vote was largely fair. There were some irregularities reported, but according to William Ifante, Mongolia director of The Asia Foundation, “they were in no way widespread” and the election “appeared to have been transparent and free throughout.”

This did not stop Democratic Party supporters from taking to the streets on Tuesday in protest of alleged election fraud. Rioters clashed with police, setting fire to the MPRP headquarters and a cultural center. Five people were killed in the violence, over 300 were injured, and around 700 protesters were detained. President Nambaryn Enkhbayar declared a four-day state of emergency in the capital, which will stay in effect until Saturday.

Calm has since been restored in Ulaanbaatar, although a heavy police presence remains in the city. “Life is steadily coming back to normal. Military equipment has been moved from the city and traffic restrictions have been lifted,” said Justic Minister Monkh-Orgil. Protests have been banned during the state of emergency, but Democratic Party leader Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj does not expect a recurrence of the violence.

However, Elbegdorj still asserts that the elections were marred by fraud, and he is demanding a recount. “I am deeply saddened that this vote was stolen,” he said. “It was stolen and there needs to be a recount. The result is false.”

Friday, March 9, 2007

Imagine coming back from a camping trip in the desert. Then a few months later you notice in your photos from the trip that you camped inside a giant impact crater so big that no one documented it before. Could it happen?

During several trips to the Black Rock Desert, mostly while supporting the Stratofox Aerospace Tracking Team for suborbital space rocket launch efforts, Ian Kluft KO6YQ noticed some oddities in rock formations. He had a little experience with volcanoes, and some rocks in the area looked unusual. There seemed to be some lava here and there – but where was the volcano? He observed that even a large caldera should have mostly volcanic rocks. He then noticed some curved geographic structures in satellite imagery which made him curious if it might be an impact crater.

A TV documentary about meteor impacts mentioned some characteristics of impact craters. He went to the Internet to learn more. He noticed some of his own pictures of the area had cone shaped structures which might be “shatter cones” due to an impact shock wave that passed through the rocks. Discussion with others produced suggestions and volunteers who joined the effort. More circular features in satellite photographs were found. Igneous dikes through white layers of rock had been described and were visible in many photos.

The possible impact crater is 30 miles (48 km) wide east-to-west and 40 miles (64 km) north-to-south centered around 40.984045 N, 118.916016 W. That is in northwestern Nevada halfway between Reno and the Oregon border. The apparent ancient geological structure is so old that much of it is eroded away. The forces that eroded the Black Rock Desert itself, whether glacier or stream, have apparently cut through the crater rims and floor to do it.

Following an expedition to the area in late January, more possible shatter cones were observed in one of the rock samples collected. These are only formed by the shock wave of an impact event or nuclear explosion. The nearest nuclear test was underground at Sand Springs Range in central Nevada. Atmospheric tests at the Nevada Test Site were at the southern, and opposite, end of the state. So that points toward an impact if confirmed. But professional geologists will want to have the final word on confirming them.

In addition to shatter cones, rock samples were thought to contain shocked quartz because the criss-cross fractures looked like examples in online documents. But this group of volunteers doesn’t have equipment for proper photography of shocked quartz. If found, that would be another way to prove the impact origin of the rocks.

Columnar jointed columns hundreds of feet tall appear on some bluffs in locations that appeared consistent with part of a slowly cooling crater floor. But that alone only helps as part of a bigger picture, because volcanoes can have lava cool in columnar joints as well.

They also found local geological studies which described oddities which could be explained by an impact event. Layers of rocks in the mining district called Sulphur left geologists with a mystery about the cause of chemical alterations since 1980. The group compared it with information in online geological texts like “Traces of Catastrophe” by Dr Bevan M French of the Smithsonian Institution. Layers of impact ejecta seemed to explain the rock layers better than the previous theory about acid uniformly cooking the rocks across the region, and only in one layer of rocks. A separate 1980 study 40 miles away identified an immense air-fall tuff layer in the Soldier Meadows area as having been deposited in a single unit, yet couldn’t locate the volcano which produced this enormous volume. Fault diagrams published online by a mining operation at Sulphur on the edge of the circular structure from the satellite photo also look like curved terraced faults in the wall of a crater.

The mining geologists who wrote papers from 1980 to 2002 had not mentioned the possibility of a crater. But they were each gathering single puzzling pieces of information. A larger image seemed to be forming when putting the pieces together. The group hopes the information will be helpful to geologists who do further work in the region.

The theory hasn’t been put to any test by professionals yet. Some responses point out that the elliptical region reported as the possible impact crater could also be the volcanic caldera that the 1980 study was looking for. If so, such a large volcanic caldera would still be a significant discovery for the region.

This will remain officially a mystery for a while until the professional geologists get to study it. There is a lot of information available online for those who are interested.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Nine Peruvian miners were extracted from a collapsed copper mine Wednesday morning after spending six days underground. They were trapped under the Cabeza de Negro mine in Ica, Peru since the cave-in last Thursday.

The rescue operation over the weekend was delayed by another cave-in. Workers used shovels, pickaxes, and wheelbarrows to remove more than 26 feet of earth. The only source of communication and provisions including food, water, and oxygen was a tube set in place before the shaft collapsed. Inside the mine, the men told jokes to maintain their spirits. “It’s pretty ugly inside,” said Edwin Bellido, one of the freed miners. “We slept on the ground on muddy plastic.”

President Ollanta Humala welcomed the miners as they ascended from the mine. The event rekindled Humala’s efforts to convert Peru’s illegal mines into government-recognized entities that could be regulated for safety. “This should lead us to reflect that we have to avoid these kind of risks because the results will not always be like today,” said Humala.

The nine men trapped in the southern mine will be alright after they get over dehydration and dizziness, the president said. Mining accidents killed more than 50 individuals last year in Peru’s illegal mines.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

A truck on the Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick, Canada, carrying 12 million bees has overturned. The truck was carrying 330 crates of bees when it tipped on a ramp in Saint-Léonard. The bees were used to help pollinate blueberries, and were heading back to Ontario.

The accident happened in the morning hours. Bee experts were called in to control the bees, and they were helped by the rain as bees dislike it, with the bees staying close to the truck. However, by midday, the sun came out and the bees became much more agitated. The beekeepers had to douse them with smoke, while firefighters attempted to hose the bees down to try to get them back near the truck.

There were no serious injuries from the incident, but some reporters at the scene got stung repeatedly. Anyone with an allergy to bees has been advised to stay at least 200 metres away from the scene.

The highway was first reduced to three lanes from four, before being completely closed, to prevent curious onlookers from being endangered by the swarms of bees angered and agitated by the incident.

This accident was the first of its kind in New Brunswick.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

The two Australian mine-workers, who were trapped for 14 days underground in a collapsed mine, have signed a media deal reportedly worth AUD$2 million for their story of survival. Local media reports that the lucrative deal, announced by the Nine Network, is believed to be the “highest ever paid to secure news talent”. A planned TV special will be the outcome of a deal secured by Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL), which owns the Nine Network.

Miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb were entombed nearly a kilometre underground following a cave-in on April 25 at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine in Tasmania. A third miner, Larry Knight, was killed in the rock-fall. The two survivors trapped in a wire cage, survived by drinking water seeping through rocks until rescuers managed to dig a small tunnel to deliver fresh food and water. Their tale has captured the attention of the nation, with media corporations fighting for exclusive rights to the miners’ story.

The Nine Network’s chief executive Eddie McGuire said under the PBL deal, Woman’s Day, the Australian Women’s Weekly and the Bulletin magazines would also have access to the men. The Nine Network has announced it would broadcast a two-hour special with entitled “The Great Escape.”

Another deal is expected to be brokered with U.S. media. Mr McGuire said the deal would not restrict the pair from selling their story to CNN, the US Today Show and Good Morning America, who have all reportedly made contact with Mr Russell and Mr Webb this week.

Under the PBL deal, Woman’s Day, the Australian Women’s Weekly and the Bulletin magazines would also have access to the men, Mr McGuire said. Nine says it also wants the footage and photographs taken by the miners during their ordeal. The footage remains in the hands of the mining company.

The men, who were rescued on May 9, have not spoken publicly about the time they spent trapped underground.

See Wikipedia article: Beaconsfield mine collapse