Disasters

"Government officials have been slow to upgrade security at U.S. laboratories that handle deadly germs nearly a year after congressional investigators found weak security controls, a new audit finds."

"Union Carbide is defending its former chief executive now wanted for arrest in India, saying that managers at the company’s plant in Bhopal could not have anticipated a gas leak that killed 10,000 people 25 years ago."

"More than two million people living on the banks of Lake Kivu in central Africa are at risk of being asphyxiated by gases building up beneath its surface, scientists have warned."

"The Department of Homeland Security relied on a rushed, flawed study to justify its decision to locate a $700 million research facility for highly infectious pathogens in a tornado-prone section of Kansas, according to a government report."

The nation's program to detect nuclear devices and materials being smugggled into the country by terrorists went "off the rails" during the Bush administration and left the nation unprotected.

"Scientists have underestimated the potential for a giant quake and tsunami that could swamp much the U.S. northwest and Canadian west coasts, British and U.S. researchers said on Monday."

"On July 4, 1999, a storm devastated the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota and killed millions of trees. Now, the forest is growing back." Everybody who was there 10 years ago has a story.