Nocere – Earth Disasters

In Cameroon, over 100 people have perished from cholera since this past June.

In June, a warning was announced about a possible cholera outbreak. Then came the news of people dieing in the Far North area located in the northern parts of Cameroon.

At this time, there have been known to be over 600 people who have contacted cholera. Cholera causes severe diarrhea which causes people to dehydrate. If you are dehydrating and cannot get proper medical care, you can die from it within hours.

Cholera is a disease that is found in infected drinking water. People living in the Far North region, do not have the access to potable water for safer drinking and cooking with.

It is possible that all the flooding in the area has led to the spread of the disease.

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On Wednesday, the firefighters who had been fighting the fierce wildfires on the north side of Los Angeles, prepared for the strong winds that were expected to arrive during the afternoon hours.

There had already been nearly 40 houses destroyed by the fires. About 2300 people had been relocated from their homes. Another 150 houses could be in the line of danger from the flames.

The fire started on Tuesday. It was 10 miles on the southeastern side of Tehachapi. The fire burned down 30 to 40 homes in that area. The other homes that were possibly threatened by the raging fire, 150 of them, are in the Old West Ranch community.

The fire is being fueled by dead timber from years without much rain. Drought conditions have left much dry wood in the states mountainous area.

There are around 250 firefighters battling the raging flames. They are from many different fire departments.

There are also water drops being brought in by airplanes and being dropped on the 1,230 acres of where the fire is burning relentlessly.

They are working day and night with bulldozers making fire lines and burning firebreaks.

There are more fires in other areas of the state In Kern County, a northern part of the state, another fire began on Monday in the Sequoia National Forest. It burned close to 15,600 acres. This is close to 24 miles of forest. There were 6 homes burnt down in that fire.

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Out of 152 passengers on the Airbus 321, not one survived as the plane wrecked into a dense area of trees. The area is located on a hillside just over the city of Islamabad and is not easy to maneuver..

The plane had left the Karachi area.Torrential rainfall was coming down when the plane crashed. The foul weather and the rugged area has made it difficult to get in to find the missing.

At this time, 115 people who had perished had been located. Their bodies were not in the best condition. It was reported that 12 of the bodies found had been identified while others were hard to tell who they were. They may have to resort to DNA to identify some of the people.

There were 2 Americans on the plane. No details of who they were are being released.

It is possible that the rain, and a heavy fog could be the reason for the crash but they have not ruled out sabotage. Anything possible is being checked out as a possibility.

The black box that sometimes tells what happened right before a crash has yet to be found.

The accident happened on Wednesday and is the worst airplane crash that has happened in Pakistan.

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Possibly more the 37 people died in the raging waters beneath a bridge in China that fell into the river.

After many days of rain pouring down and running into the river, the waters rose and exceeded what the river bed could hold.

It is possible that fallen trees floating down the rushing waters collected at the base of the bridge allowing a build up debris to put pressure on the bridge supports.

It only took 2 minutes for the bridge to totally collapse into the raging river water.

Very few escaped before the bridge fell into the river. Numerous people ended up in the water below struggling to reach trees or anything else to help then stay afloat in the water.

37 have been reported to have perished in the accident, while possibly more have yet to be found. The number could grow as they learn of more people that could have been on the bridge.

Rescuers are searching spots where people could still be holding on for dear life, or bodies could be hung up in debris.

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A landslide caused by rain fall took the lives of 18 people. The landslide occurred in the eastern parts of Indonesia on the island of Buru which is located itn the Maluku province..

The landslide took out many homes as it traveled down the hill side.

Heavy rainfall and lack of trees allowed the land to start sliding down. Without trees, there is nothing to hold the mud back.

The rainfall also was the cause of floods sweeping though towns taking the lives of 3 people.

There were over 3000 families whose lives were stricken by the flooding that started on Saturday.

This is the time of year that landslides happen quite a lot in Indonesia. They occur the most between April and December.

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After 19 people, 11 women and 8 men died while attending the festival on Saturday, it was closed down on Sunday.

A festival that was always a peaceful even and a happy celebration will now be tainted in the memories of many as the day of a terrible catastrophe.

Along with possibly more then 19 dieing at the festival, there were at least 400 wounded.

The underpass between two areas of the festival had become over crowded. People from both sides were pushing trying to get through. Many were crushed up against the walls and passed out. 16 of the 19 that perished, died at the entrance to the underpass and not inside it.

The number of people attending the festival was far more then the festival planners had anticipated. This was the reason for opening the underpass to allow people access to the other areas. There was yet another entrance opened before the accident happened to try and help relieve the number building up where the accident happened.

It is not sure how the underpass became so jam packed with people and the incident is being investigated.

There was adequate police officials on the job providing security at the festival.

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The flooding that has not let up in China has caused the destruction of 5700 homes and has been the reason that there are at least 152,000 people that have  been relocated in northeastern parts of China this past week.

China has experienced some of the worst flooding this year in over a 10 years. The floods have caused the deaths of 701 people and there are another 347 that haven’t been found.

According to the China Daily, the newspaper run by the state, the flooding this year has resulted in $21 billion dollars in damage.

Rising waters have pushed the flood wall reinforcements to their limit. The govenment of China has plans to reinforce the flood walls at all the smaller reservoirs.

There are approximately 81,000 small reservoirs in China. So far there have  been 9200 strengthened but many of of smaller ones need work done on them and reinforced also.

Most of the damages from the flooding is found in the north eastern provinces of Liaoning and Jilin. To help stranded people the civil affairs department has sent supplies of tents and quilts.

Now Chanthu made landfall on Thursday This is the third typhoon this time of year for the southern parts of China. With it has come winds of 71 miles per hour.

The already saturated parts of China could get another 20 inches of rain from Chanthu.

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In just one days time, there have been 71 deaths contributed to the heat in Russia. The temperatures are recording highest ever throughout the country, but the hottest temperatures are being seen in Moscow.

People trying to escape the heat, to get some kind of relief are taking swims in waterways that are unfamiliar to them. At this time, there have been 1,244 people that have perished and nearly 300 of this number just this past week.

71 of the deaths occurred in the Russian Federation according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations. This was all in a one day period.

People are taking risk. Just last week, 178 people were saved by emergency personnel and just yesterday there were 20 saved.

While some areas in the world are experiencing heavy rainfall and flooding, Russia is having the worst dry spell in 130 years.

Already nearly 20 per cent of their grain crops have been destroyed by the heat.

There is no relief in sight from the heat. They are saying there will be at least another week of these scorching temperatures.

The government is working on helping out the farmers who won’t be making the money on their crops they need to. They are lowering the price on fuel and issuing loans to ones who need them.

They have assured the people that the cost of bread will not increase since they had enough grain stocked up that will take care of this loss.

The only people that are possibly gaining through this crisis are the taxi drivers. Some are charging more for an air conditioned ride and of course not many want to walk any distance in the heat.

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