Newsmax – March 19, 2021

With nearly two-thirds of the United States abnormally dry or worse, the government’s spring forecast offers little hope for relief, especially in the West where a devastating megadrought has taken root and worsened.

Weather service and agriculture officials warned of possible water use cutbacks in California and the Southwest, increased wildfires, low levels in key reservoirs such has Lake Mead and Lake Powell and damage to wheat crops.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s official spring outlook Thursday sees an expanding drought with a drier than normal April, May and June for a large swath of the country from Louisiana to Oregon. including some areas hardest hit by the most severe drought. And nearly all of the continental United States is looking at warmer than normal spring, except for tiny parts of the Pacific Northwest and southeast Alaska, which makes drought worse.

“We are predicting prolonged and widespread drought,” National Weather Service Deputy Director Mary Erickson said. “It’s definitely something we’re watching and very concerned about.”

NOAA expects the spring drought to hit 74 million people.

https://www.newsmax.com

Strange Sounds – Mar 10, 2021

Antarctica could be at the heart of the Earth’s doomsday if volcanoes beneath the ice were to erupt and speed up a process that could leave the planet “uninhabitable,” scientists have warned.

The icy continent is home to some 5,000 scientists around the world who study the unspoiled region to learn more about the Earth’s history and the effects of climate change.

But researchers got a shock when they discovered more than 100 dormant volcanoes below the continent’s ice sheet, making it the largest volcanic region on Earth.

The find was particularly important because the activity of these volcanoes could have crucial implications for the rest of the planet.

If one erupts, it could further destabilize some of the region’s ice sheets, which have already been affected by Earth changes.

John Smellie, Professor of Volcanology at the University of Leicester, told The Conversation: “The volcanoes would melt huge caverns in the base of the ice and create enormous quantities of meltwater.

“Because the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is wet rather than frozen to its bed – imagine an ice cube on a kitchen worktop – the meltwater would act as a lubricant and could cause the overlying ice to slip and move more rapidly.

“These volcanoes can also stabilise the ice, however, as they give it something to grip onto – imagine that same ice cube snagging onto a lump-shaped object.

“In any case, the volume of water that would be generated by even a large volcano is a pinprick compared with the volume of overlying ice.

“So a single eruption won’t have much effect on the ice flow. What would make a big difference, is if several volcanoes erupt close to or beneath any of West Antarctica’s prominent ‘ice streams’.”

https://strangesounds.org

Nick Perry – March 4, 2021

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — One of the biggest earthquakes to hit the South Pacific in modern history forced thousands of people in New Zealand to evacuate and triggered tsunami warnings across the world Friday, but it did not appear to cause injuries or major damage because it struck in remote ocean.

The magnitude 8.1 quake was the largest in a series of tremors that hit the region over several hours, including two earlier quakes that registered magnitude 7.4 and magnitude 7.3.

The earthquakes triggered warning systems and caused traffic jams and some chaos in New Zealand as people scrambled to get to higher ground, but their remoteness meant they did not appear to pose a widespread threat to lives or infrastructure.

The largest quake struck about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) off the coast of New Zealand. One of the earlier quakes hit much closer to New Zealand and awoke many people as they felt a long, rumbling shaking.

“Hope everyone is ok out there,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wrote on Facebook during the night.

After the largest quake, civil defense authorities in New Zealand told people in some coastal areas to immediately get to higher ground. They said a damaging tsunami was possible, and waves could reach up to 3 meters (10 feet).

Emergency Management Minister Kiri Allan told reporters that people had followed the advisory.

https://abcnews.go.com

Michael Snyder – February 21, 2021

The locusts are back, and they are hungry.  Last year, an unprecedented plague of locusts devastated crops in eastern Africa, across the Middle East and throughout much of Asia.  Many were hoping that it would just be a one year phenomenon, but now the locusts have returned and one British news source is using the world “biblical” to describe this second wave.  At this moment, the Horn of Africa is being hit the hardest, and the UN is warning that this new infestation “threatens the livelihoods of more than 39 million people”…

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the next generation of locusts threatens the livelihoods of more than 39 million people in Ethiopia, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya. Over recent months, the pests have been combated on 1.3 million hectares of land in the Horn of Africa. However, in northern and central Kenya, more than 15 districts, including many new areas, have already been severely affected by the second wave of locusts. Around 1.9 million people were already living in a precarious nutrition situation, which could now dramatically worsen.

One reporter recently had the opportunity to fly with a pilot that is tracking locust swarms in Kenya, and he was stunned when they came across a “swarm about twice the size of the City of London ready to devour every bit of vegetation in its wake”.

Can you imagine what it must be like for local farmers when millions upon millions of locusts suddenly show up in their area?

These locusts can literally wipe out an entire farm in as little as 30 seconds, and these swarms are capable of traveling vast distances in a single day…

Swarms can fly up to 150 kilometres a day with the wind, and a single square kilometre swarm can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 people.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

Strange Sounds – February 20, 2021

Cooling water levels have fallen in two reactors at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant since a powerful M7.1 earthquake hit the area last weekend, indicating possible additional damage.

New damage could further complicate the plant’s already difficult decommissioning process, which is expected to take decades.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Keisuke Matsuo said the drop in water levels in the Unit 1 and 3 reactors indicates that the existing damage to their primary containment chambers was worsened by Saturday’s magnitude 7.3 quake, allowing more water to leak.

The cooling water level fell as much as 70 centimeters (27 inches) in the primary containment chamber of the Unit 1 reactor and about 30 centimeters (11 inches) in Unit 3. TEPCO wasn’t able to determine any decline in Unit 2 because indicators have been taken out to prepare for the removal of melted debris.

Since the 2011 disaster, cooling water has been escaping constantly from the damaged primary containment vessels into the basements of the reactor buildings. To make up for the loss, additional cooling water has been pumped into the reactors to cool the melted fuel remaining inside them. The recent decline in the water levels indicates that more water than before is leaking out, TEPCO said.

I think this is a no-end disaster! More here.

https://strangesounds.org

Michael Snyder – February 18, 2021

We are getting a very short preview of what will eventually happen to the United States as a whole.  America’s infrastructure is aging and crumbling.  Our power grids were never intended to support so many people, our water systems are a complete joke, and it has become utterly apparent that we would be completely lost if a major long-term national emergency ever struck.  Texas has immense wealth and vast energy resources, but now it is being called a “failed state”.  If it can’t even handle a few days of cold weather, what is the rest of America going to look like when things really start to get chaotic in this country?

At this point, it has become clear that the power grid in Texas is in far worse shape than anyone ever imagined.  When extremely cold weather hit the state, demand for energy surged dramatically.  At the same time, about half of the wind turbines that Texas relies upon froze, and the rest of the system simply could not handle the massive increase in demand.

Millions of Texans were without power for days, and hundreds of thousands are still without power as I write this article.

And now we are learning that Texas was literally just moments away from “a catastrophic failure” that could have resulted in blackouts “for months”…

Texas’ power grid was “seconds and minutes” away from a catastrophic failure that could have left Texans in the dark for months, officials with the entity that operates the grid said Thursday.

As millions of customers throughout the state begin to have power restored after days of massive blackouts, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which operates the power grid that covers most of the state, said Texas was dangerously close to a worst-case scenario: uncontrolled blackouts across the state.

I can’t even imagine how nightmarish things would have eventually gotten in Texas if there had actually been blackouts for months.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

James Bickerton – February 10, 2021

A SERIES of powerful earthquakes struck off Indonesia and New Caledonia – sparking tsunami fears.

An earthquake of magnitude 7.7 struck southeast of Loyalty Islands on Wednesday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said. The quake’s epicentre was 401 km east of Tadine, New Caledonia, and was at a depth of 2 km, EMSC said. Ten earthquakes and aftershocks hit the region in a short space of time – ranging between a magnitude of 5.0-6.2 – with the first quake at 12.24.21 (UTC) and the final at 14.59.37 (UTC).

In response, a tsunami warning was issued with waves of between 0.3 and one-meter feared for Fiji, Vanuatu and New Zealand.

A lesser warning for a tsunami of up to 0.3 meters was issued for Australia, Papua New Guinea and American Samoa.

Separately an earthquake of magnitude 6.2 struck southwest of Sumatra, Indonesia, on Wednesday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said.

The quake was at a depth of 30 km (18.64 miles), EMSC said.

It struck around 217 kilometres to the south-west of Bengkulu, a city of 328,000 people, at 19:52 local time (12:52 GMT).

https://www.express.co.uk

Strange Sounds – February 1, 2021

In the last few years, the Cumbre Vieja volcano in La Palma / Canary Islands was hit by several earthquake swarms. The first major series occurred in October 2017. It was followed by another seismic event in February 2018 and five in 2020, the latest end of December 2020.

Meanwhile, a new seismic unrest has started beneath the volcanic peak since January 31, 2021. The magnitudes of the earthquakes are between 1,2 and 2,5 (MbLg) and their depths range between 10 and 29 km right under the western slope of the Cumbre Vieja volcano.

Although this new seismic swarm poses no danger to residents and visitors to La Palma given the low magnitude and depth of the earthquakes, it clearly shows that something is going on there.

Cumbre Vieja has erupted twice in the last 70 years, first in 1949 and then again in 1971. Taking those 22 years between each eruption as indicator, it means the volcano is about 25 years overdue for its next eruption.

There also have been thousands of tremors recorded near or beneath the Spanish volcano in the past couple of years, suggesting it could blow anytime.

Moreover, we went from 1 seismic crisis in 2017 and 2018 to 5 unsettling swarms in 2020. That’s a dramatic increase in activity!

There are concerns that if Cumbre Vieja blows, the massive slab of rock could smash into the Atlantic Ocean causing a killer tidal wave.

This gigantic tsunami could travel thousands of miles and wash out coastal areas of Britain and even parts of the eastern seaboard of America.

https://strangesounds.org

CNA – January 28, 2021

TOKYO: Overfishing has savaged populations of some sharks and rays by more than 70 per cent in the last half-century, leaving a “gaping, growing hole” in ocean life, according to a new study.

Decades of data show an alarming decline in species ranging from hammerhead sharks to manta rays.

Among the worst-affected is the oceanic whitetip, a powerful shark often described as particularly dangerous to man that now hovers on the edge of extinction because of human activity.

Targeted for their fins, oceanic whitetips are also the victims of indiscriminate fishing techniques. Their global population has dropped 98 per cent in the last 60 years.

“That’s a worse decline than most large terrestrial mammal populations, and getting up there or as bad as the blue whale decline,” Nick Dulvy, a professor at Simon Fraser University’s department of biological sciences, told AFP.

Dulvy and a team of scientists spent years collecting and analysing information from scientific studies and fisheries data to build up a picture of the global state of 31 species of sharks and rays.

They found three-quarters of the species examined are now so depleted that they are threatened with extinction.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com

Teo Blašković – January 21, 2021

A powerful earthquake registered by PHIVOLCS as M7.1 hit off the coast of Mindanao, Philippines at 12:23 UTC (20:23 LT) on January 21, 2021. The agency is reporting a depth of 116 km (72 miles). The USGS is reporting M7.0 at a depth of 96 km (60 miles), EMSC M7.1 at a depth of 114 km (71 miles).

The epicenter was located about 211 km (131 miles) SE of Pondaguitan and 312 km (194 miles) SE of Davao, Philippines.

There are about 100 000 people living within 100 km (62 miles).

6 000 people are estimated to have felt strong shaking and 173 000 moderate.

Based on the depth of the earthquake, a tsunami is not expected, NTWC said.

The USGS issued a green alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. There is a low likelihood of casualties and damage.

Overall, the population in this region resides in structures that are a mix of vulnerable and earthquake-resistant construction. The predominant vulnerable building types are unknown/miscellaneous types and heavy wood frame construction.

Recent earthquakes in this area have caused secondary hazards such as tsunamis and landslides that might have contributed to losses.

https://watchers.news