After the hurricane, cholera hits Haiti’s suffering survivors
The rains inundating their ruined homes are no longer the biggest concern of the long-suffering people of Randelle: cholera is tearing through the isolated Haitian mountain village at devastating speed. “Cholera is eating us alive: my neighbor was the first to fall ill, then it came to our house, infecting my husband and daughter,” said Andrise Lubin as she stood before her badly damaged home. The road that allowed...
Ocean warning for Pacific’s Melanesia
Marine ecosystems in one of the Pacific’s most vulnerable regions face decline unless they are better managed, a WWF report warned today. The report described the ocean as the lifeblood of Melanesia — a vast Pacific swathe comprising Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji. But it said a range of factors including overfishing, population growth and climate change were damaging the oceans and...
6.4 magnitude earthquake hits northwest China
A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck China’s northwestern province of Qinghai on Monday, the US Geological Survey reported, in an area frequently plagued with seismic activity. The quake was 32 kilometres (20 miles) deep, USGS said, with its epicentre in a sparsely-populated area of Yushu prefecture. There was a “low likelihood of casualties and damage”, it said. Yushu was the scene of a 6.9-magnitude earthquake in...
Hope for deal to scrap super greenhouse gases
Hopes were high Friday that world envoys meeting in Rwanda will agree to phase out potent gases used in refrigerators and air conditioners that are among the biggest contributors to global warming. While delegates expressed optimism that a deal was in reach, there was still horse-trading to be done, with wildcard India pushing for the gases to be phased out from 2031. US Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged that while the US...
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