Disasters

"For more than a decade, the question of how global warming is affecting the scariest storms on the planet—hurricanes—has been shot through with uncertainty. The chief reason is technological: In many parts of the world, storm strengths are estimated solely based on satellite images. Technologies and techniques for doing this have improved over time, meaning that there is always a problem with claiming that today's storms are stronger than yesterday's. After all, they might just be better observed."

"Two former BP Plc supervisors won the dismissal on Tuesday of some of the manslaughter charges facing them over the Gulf of Mexico drilling rig explosion that killed 11 people in 2010."

"Japan is planning to earmark 100 billion yen ($970 million) for a storage facility for tens of thousands of tonnes of soil contaminated with radiation from the Fukushima disaster, a report said Wednesday."

"A trouble-prone system used to decontaminate radioactive water at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant was switched off Sunday because of a chemical leak, the plant's operator said."

"People from Texas to New York were bundling up on Thursday against winter weather that closed schools and businesses, blanketed roads and power lines with ice and threatened to disrupt travel across a wide swath of the United States."

"Canada must be better prepared to respond to major oil spills if more crude starts to flow in pipelines to the country's Pacific Coast, a government panel said on Tuesday, as fears of a major marine disaster grow."

"At each of Electricite de France SA’s 58 nuclear reactors, there’s a water tank that stores spent atomic fuel rods, keeping them cool and trapping deadly radiation. The country’s atomic watchdog is concerned they aren’t safe enough."

"NORTH TOPSAIL BEACH, N.C. -- A crane swung a new roof truss into place above a house being built on this belt of sand last week, helping to expand development on what some experts say is one of the most dangerous islands to build on in the United States."

"MARIETTA, Okla. -- The ground had been shaking for a week, on and off, when the biggest of the earthquakes hit. People here heard two loud booms. Then the picture frames started falling. Wendy Gillham turned to see her flat-screen television crash to the floor only a foot or so from her infant girl. Then she looked outside and saw her chimney in pieces on her driveway."

"Long before disaster struck, the 5,900 residents of Lac-Mégantic had grown accustomed to the sight of large oil tankers rolling through their small, tightly knit community in the Eastern Townships of Quebec."