Tropical Storm hits Philippines ..[ 1473 ]

Philippines tropical storm death toll rises

By the CNN Wire Staff

Filipinos make repairs to a shanty home after it was damaged by Tropical Storm Conson in Manila Bay on Thursday.

(CNN) -July 15th, 2010- 

The death toll from a tropical storm that tore through the Philippines this week has doubled.

The country's National Disaster Coordinating Council reported Thursday that 36 people died from Tropical Storm Conson. 

-The previous death toll, reported Wednesday, was 18.

-More than 40 people remained missing as of late Thursday, the council said.

The tally of damaged houses also increased from 500 to 11,230. More than 900 houses have been destroyed.

Conson, known locally as "Basyang," started as a typhoon before weakening to a tropical storm and making landfall late Tuesday.

At least four children died from the storm, including three who were struck by falling trees, authorities said.

The storm is expected to move northwest of the Philippines by Friday morning. Conson is likely to move into southern China on Friday, but the Joint Typhoon Warning Center is predicting little or no intensification before landfall there.

Heavy rain and flooding will be a concern for southern China.

The latest news for the oil leak from Gulf well..[ 1472 ]

BP says test shuts off oil leak from Gulf well

Oil spill

1 / 19

A combination photo shows the BP oil leak in images taken from BP live video on May 26, 2010 (top L), June 1, 2010 (top R), July 13, 2010 and on July 15, 2010 (bottom R) after the leak was contained.

Credit: Reuters/BP/Handout

By Kristen Hays

 

HOUSTON | Thu Jul 15, 2010 11:59pm EDT

 

HOUSTON (Reuters) - BP Plc said on Thursday it stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from its deep-sea well for the first time since it ruptured in April, prompting hope that the leak can be plugged for good.
BP conducted a test in which it closed valves and vents on a tight-sealing containment cap installed atop its the well earlier this week. BP said results early in the test showed the cap had completely contained the flow of oil.
"It's a great sight but it's far from the finish line," Doug Suttles, a senior BP executive, told reporters.
President Barack Obama, who has seen his U.S. public approval ratings drop as the crisis dragged on, called it a "positive sign" but noted that the latest effort was still in the testing phase. BP's huge oil spill has caused an economic and environmental disaster along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The British energy giant's U.S. shares initially jumped 10 percent on the news and posted strong gains for the day.

The Coast Guard said BP likely will release the flow of oil again after the test is done -- siphoning it to ships on the ocean surface in an improved system able to handle up to 80,000 barrels a day until a relief well seals the well permanently.

As the company pushed ahead on the spill-control effort, U.S. energy company Apache Corp was moving forward on a possible $10 billion deal for some BP properties, including major assets in Alaska, CNBC reported.

After a delay to fix a leak, BP began the test on Thursday afternoon on the cap that could stop all or most of the flow of crude that has been polluting the ocean and coastline since April 20 in the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

The test, which could last up to 48 hours, gauges pressure in the well -- which extends 2.5 miles under the seabed -- to assess its condition. Officials said it will show whether the cap can safely shut off the flow from the well if oil-capture vessels at the surface must disconnect.
The Coast Guard calls the containment cap at best a temporary fix to the leak while BP finishes two relief wells it is drilling. BP intends for a relief well to intersect the blown-out well and permanently seal it next month.

The test is intended to determine whether the structure of the lengthy well is damaged or intact. Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the U.S. government's point man on the spill, compared the test to placing one's thumb over the end of a garden hose -- if the pressure does not increase that means there is a leak somewhere.
Regarding the BP well, a build-up of pressure would signal that the well is intact, which would make it easier to seal it with the relief wells.

The cap is a crucial step toward a multi-vessel oil-capture system that is hurricane-ready and can collect up to 80,000 barrels per day.
That should be more than enough to capture the whole well output, as estimates put the spill rate between 35,000 barrels (1.47 million gallons/5.56 million liters) and 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons/9.5 million liters) a day.

There appeared to be fresh hope in Gulf Coast communities reeling from the spill. "It's a great thing, it's a wonderful thing," said Jerome DeGree in Larose, Louisiana when he heard that BP had at least temporarily stopped the flow.
"This has been hurting this whole area," the shallow-water oil driller said. "I couldn't buy my shrimp, I couldn't buy my oysters, I couldn't take my boat out."

BP STOCK

Reports that Apache was seeking $6 billion to $7 billion for the purchase helped boost BP's U.S. shares from midday. The shares then rose further on the initial test results and ended up 7.6 percent at $38.92.
"It's been one of those headline things we've heard for 87 days, lots of people waiting for some good news," said John Massey, portfolio manager at Sunamerica Asset Management in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Analysts surveyed by Reuters Insider predict that BP will spend between $63 billion to $100 billion over the next 15 years in fines, cleanup costs and legal costs.
BP's shares have been ravaged since the well rupture, with $100 billion in market value being knocked off at one stage, before a three-week rally sparked by takeover talk, speculation about investment by a sovereign wealth fund and hopes that the well would be capped.

The news that BP had finally stopped the leak -- at least during the test -- was a bit of good news for the British company, which has seen its share value plummet and reputation battered since the April rig explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the spill of millions of gallons of oil.
BP also faced new measures in the U.S. Congress. Lawmakers are mulling a range of new laws that could require tougher safety regulations on offshore drilling or bar companies like BP from new offshore exploration leases.

The U.S. government, which has vowed to make BP pay for fixing the well and all cleanup efforts, told the oil giant that it was responsible for paying all royalties on the oil it is collecting from the ruptured well.

Currently, energy companies pay the government a royalty rate of up to 18.75 percent of the value of the oil and gas drilled in offshore tracts.

Through its containment systems, BP has collected or burned more than 800,000 barrels of oil.
The Gulf spill has soiled hundreds of miles (km) of shoreline, shut down about a third of Gulf fisheries and hurt tourism and fishing in all five U.S. Gulf states. It has also created problems for Obama as the government works to respond to the crisis while area residents struggle financially.

In an issue unrelated to the spill, but illustrating the pressure BP faces in the United States, the company confirmed on Thursday that it had lobbied the British government to speed up a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya in late 2007.

In August 2009, Britain released a Libyan convicted of blowing up a U.S. plane, angering the United States. Many of the 270 dead in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing were American.
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said it would hold a hearing on the issue on July 29

18th century ship unerthed in New York's WTCenter..[ 1471 ]

Old ship hull unearthed at World Trade Center site in New York City

Gallery

18th-century boat uncovered at World Trade Center site

Workers at Ground Zero found the 32-foot-long boat Tuesday, and now archaeologists are excavating for clues into Manhattan's past.

Click and » LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

  

By Associated Press

Friday, July 16, 2010

NEW YORK -- Workers at the World Trade Center site are excavating a 32-foot-long ship hull apparently used in the 18th century as part of the fill that extended lower Manhattan into the Hudson River.

It was hoped that the artifact could be retrieved by the end of the day Thursday, archaeologist Molly McDonald said. A boat specialist planned to look at it.

McDonald said she wanted to at least salvage some timbers; it was unclear whether any large portions could be lifted intact. "We're mostly clearing it by hand because it's kind of fragile," she said, but construction equipment could be used later in the process. 

McDonald and archaeologist A. Michael Pappalardo were at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when the discovery was made Tuesday morning.

"We noticed curved timbers that a backhoe brought up," McDonald said Wednesday. "We quickly found the rib of a vessel and continued to clear it away and expose the hull over the last two days."

The two archaeologists work for AKRF, a firm hired to document artifacts discovered at the site. They called the find significant but said more study was needed to determine the age of the ship.

"We're going to send timber samples to a laboratory to do dendrochronology that will help us to get a sense of when the boat was constructed," McDonald said. Dendrochronology is the science that uses tree rings to determine dates and chronological order.

A 100-pound anchor was found a few yards from the ship hull Wednesday, but the archaeologists are not sure if it belongs to the ship. It is three to four feet across, McDonald said.

The archaeologists are racing to record and analyze the vessel before the delicate wood, now exposed to air, begins to deteriorate.

"I kept thinking of how closely it came to being destroyed," Pappalardo said

NASA image of..Yesterday, July 15th..[ 1470 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Aerojet AJ26 Rocket Engine Arrives at Stennis

An Aerojet AJ26 rocket engine was delivered to NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center on July 15, 2010. 

This is the first of a series of Taurus II engines to be tested at Stennis to include acceptance testing of flight engines. Stennis will provide propulsion system acceptance testing for the Taurus II space launch vehicle, which is being developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va. The first Taurus II mission will be flown in support of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation 

Services cargo demonstration to the International Space Station.

Orbital's Taurus II design uses a pair of Aerojet AJ26 rocket engines to provide first stage propulsion for the new launch vehicle...

Image Credit: NASA
Πέμπτη, 15 Ιούλιος 2010 7:00:00

Heavy rains pound western and central Japan,..[ 1469 ]

Heavy rains pound western and central Japan, highways closed; 2 dead in Hiroshima

Mainichi , Japan., July 15th, 2010

Heavy rains continued in western and central Japan, leading to at least two deaths, triggering mudslides, and causing damage over a wide area.

The house in Kure, Hiroshima, where a woman died in a mudslide, is pictured on July 14. (Mainichi)

In the southern part of Nagano Prefecture, torrential rains forced the closing of several parts of national highways. According to the prefectural government and other sources, on the morning of July 15, Minamishinano and Kamimura, both districts located in the city of Iida, and the village of Tenryu had a combined 201 households and 448 people isolated because of the downpours. Prefectural and city governments were working on repairs. No dead or injured have been reported.

The prefecture and other sources said that due to mudslides, parts of national highways 152 and 418 have become impassable, and on July 14, access to 979 households and 2,159 people in two districts of Iida was temporarily cut off. Mudslides were also reported on roads in Tenryu, and in both Iida and Tenryu houses were damaged by falling trees and stone fences. Over 100 people in total in the two locations were evacuated to safer areas.

Cars at a driving school in Sanyo-Onoda, Yamaguchi Prefecture, are pictured on July 15, after being moved to high ground to avoid the floods. (Mainichi)

As of the morning of July 15, parts of Route 418 were reopened to traffic.

Other areas of western Japan also experienced heavy rains, causing mudslides and flooded rivers. 

The Meteorological Agency predicted heavy rain would continue through July 15, and urged citizens in affected areas to be cautious of mudslides.

In Hiroshima Prefecture, two deaths were confirmed: a 77-year-old woman who was swept into a river in Mihara, and a 72-year-old woman whose house was caught in a mudslide in Kure.

A 73-year-old woman in Sera was missing, possibly buried in a mudslide near her home, and an 82-year-old man in Tsuwano, Shimane Prefecture, was also missing.

Route 152 in Iida, Nagano Prefecture, is pictured after being closed to traffic because of mudslides, on July 15. (Mainichi)

Across Fukuoka, Saga and Yamaguchi prefectures, a total of 87,111 households and 180,534 people were advised or instructed to evacuate to safe ground. Actual evacuations across the six prefectures of Fukuoka, Saga, Yamaguchi, Oita, Nagasaki and Kumamoto, including those that were not advised or instructed by prefectural governments, came out at 897 households and 1,848 people. The prefectures reported flooding in a total of 420 households.

In Yoshinogari, Saga Prefecture, landslides partly or completely destroyed eight buildings including private residences and garages.

The Fukuoka District Meteorological Observatory's recorded rainfall from the beginning of heavy downpours at 11 a.m. on July 10 until 3 p.m. on July 14 included: Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, at 562 millimeters; Saga City at 542 millimeters; Tsushima, Nagasaki Prefecture, at 529 millimeters; and Shunan, Yamaguchi Prefecture, at 435 millimeters.

Several locations in July recorded the most rainfall over a 24-hour period they ever had, including Asakura, Fukuoka Prefecture at 224 millimeters; Tsushima, Nagasaki Prefecture at 282 millimeters; and Matsuura, Nagasaki Prefecture at 190 millimeters.

Click here for the original Japanese story