Disasters

"Japanese authorities are unable to control the radioactive water leaking out of the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. Now the government plans to install a wall of ice around the facility to contain the contaminated water. Ed Lyman, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, tells host Steve Curwood that the new ice wall plan is likely an act of desperation, and that some American reactors are at risk for the same kind of flooding disaster."

"MIAMI -- The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, which forecasters had predicted would be more active than normal, has turned out to be something of a dud so far as an unusual calm hangs over the tropics."

"As the season heads into the historic peak for activity, it may even enter the record books as marking the quietest start to any Atlantic hurricane season in decades.

'It certainly looks like pretty much of a forecast bust,' said Jeff Masters, a hurricane expert and director of meteorology at the Weather Underground."

"A theoretical 9.1 quake off Alaska could flood Long Beach and parts of O.C., and force 750,000 to evacuate."

"NARAHA, Japan -- In this small farming town in the evacuation zone surrounding the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, small armies of workers in surgical masks and rubber gloves are busily scraping off radioactive topsoil in a desperate attempt to fulfill the central government’s vow one day to allow most of Japan’s 83,000 evacuees to return. Yet, every time it rains, more radioactive contamination cascades down the forested hillsides along the rugged coast."

"Firefighters in California gained ground on Monday against a massive wildfire burning part of Yosemite National Park, although complete containment may be weeks away, officials said."

"Japan pledged nearly $500 million to contain leaks and decontaminate radioactive water from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, as the government stepped up its intervention in the worst atomic disaster in a quarter century."

"Confronted with images of corpses floating in the blackened floodwaters or baking in the sun on abandoned highways, there aren't too many people left who see what happened following Hurricane Katrina as a purely 'natural' disaster. The dominant narratives that have emerged, in the four years since the storm, are of a gross human tragedy, compounded by social inequities and government ineptitude—a crisis subsequently exploited in every way possible for political and financial gain."

"TOKYO -- A crisis over contaminated water at Japan's stricken nuclear plant worsened on Saturday when the plant's operator said it had detected high radiation levels near storage tanks, a finding that raised the possibility of additional leaks."

"No one understands risk better than the insurance industry — except, perhaps, the reinsurance industry, the companies that sell insurance to insurers, which also need protection from risk exposure. As the risk managers for the risk managers, reinsurers follow climate change obsessively. A great deal of money is at stake. ..."