GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A number of tornadoes have torn through several states in the centre and south of the US and the death toll now stands at 31, but there are fears it will rise as rescue workers check rubble. The deaths occurred in four states: Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Alabama, but areas in at least three other states have tornado watches in place.
It’s unusual to have such a high number of deadly storms. Twisters usually occur later in the year, as the weather warms up.
Links to other sites: CNN, NPR, Storm Prediction Ceneter, US Weather Service
Editor Ellen Wallace shot this view out her kitchen window Thursday night, dimpled snow lit by a farmer's tractor headlights - by morning there was an additional foot of snow and the surface was smooth and white
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Friday 14:30, 6 January: snow has been falling steadily and heavily in many parts of Switzerland for the past 36 hours, with Crans-Montana and other resorts recording 100cm of fresh snow at 3,000 metres in the past 24 hours.
Most resorts are closed due to very high winds and heavy snow.
Canton Valais police say they received 1,200 phone calls between 08:00 Thursday and midnight, with flooding and fallen trees as well as electricity out in some areas. St Niklaus in the Goms Valley was without electricity and phones for several hours.
Main roads in Valais remain open but local road-clearing services are pushed to their limits and side roads above about 1,000 metres are closed or not completely cleared in many areas.
The CFF rail company says most trains are running, but several smaller trains up to mountain areas are not running, including Montreux to Rochers-de-Naye, Aigle to Diableret, Martigny-Le Chable, the funiculaire from Sierre to Crans-Montana, several Interlaken lines (Murren, Grindelwald, Kleine Scheidegg, Jungfraujoch) and the Valais-Bern train for cars is operating irregularly, with no stops at Goppenstein since the road between there and Goppel is closed.
Kloten airport had several delays due to and snow, but mid-afternoon Friday most flights are back on schedule. Geneva airport has not been affected by the weather in the rest of the country. Zurich and central Switzerland had winds up to 120kph, reports swissinfo.
The Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, WSL, has issued a bulletin showing the avalanche risk at 4/5 (high) in eastern Vaud, most of Valais and Graubuenden:
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The 89 passengers of a Boeing 737 flying from Vladivostok to Krasnodar are safe after their pilots landed the plane without incident after being temporarily blinded by a laser, reports the Moscow Times. The number of lasers beamed at pilots has jumped from five in 2010 to 50 this year. Legislation is under review to create penalties of up to 10 years in laser injury cases, says the newspaper.
Scores of ravers were injured after lasers at a giant outdoor party near Moscow burned their eyes in 2008.
Switzerland recently tightened its laws after a number of incidents, most involving helicopter pilots. The federal government announced in May that high-level lasers will be banned after government statistics published in March showed 80 laser attacks on pilots in 2010. Penalties for causing damage were increased in October 2011 about the time that a man in Vevey, near Lausanne, was fined CHF2,750 and given a three-year suspended fine sentence of CHF5,000 for his laser attack, while he was drunk, on two military helicopters.
Links to other sites: New Scientist, Rega magazine (Fr)
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Canton Vaud police have arrested three of the main members of a gang of youths, ages 20-25, who have been sabotaging rail lines in the Morges region and dumping apples onto cars from autoroute overpasses.
The group has been active since the spring of 2011, placing heavy objects on CFF anxd BAM rail lines, including rocks and bales of hay. They have worked mainly around Morges, Saint-Prex, Allaman, Etoy and Lonay but also in the Vallée de Joux, where they have set fire to a number of huts and other small buildings including local refuges used by residents for picnics and group parties.
Several police units from the region have worked together to find the culprits, who have put public transport users in “serious danger”, say police, and who have caused more than CHF350,000 in damages. One of the trio arrested is Italian and the other two Swiss; all live in the region.
They were caught when they dumped a load of apples on a police patrol that was checking speeders.
The three are part of a larger group whose composition appears to vary, and police are continuing their investigations to look for other members of the gang.
Forecast is for more of the same
Update 14 July 10:00 ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Thunderstorms and heavy rains are taking their toll in central and eastern Switzerland, with emergency services taking calls for pleasure craft in trouble on the lakes, trees down on roads, cellars flooded.
Torrential rains in parts of Valais are prompting fears of flooding in Zermatt (video, 20 Minutes) and the A2 autoroute in Ticino was cut off between Lugano and Mendrisio by a mudslide late Wednesday.
In the Bernese Oberland the Schynige Platte rail line was cut off by fallen trees and 64 passengers had to be evacuated by helicopters.
Zurich has had the most rain, according to TSR, with 40cm/m2 at the airport.
MeteoSwiss is predicting more of the same until at least mid-day Thursday in western Switzerland and Saturday in the central and eastern parts of the country.
Photos below, taken from the same spot in Valais during one hour, show the rapidly changing weather in the Alps. Click on images to view larger.
Swiss Alpine storm pummels garden 13 July
Heavy sheets of rain swept across the Alps Wednesday
Val d'Anniviers, storms come to an end
Val d'Anniviers, end of storm 13 July 2011
Not a cloud in the sky - storms have moved on to eastern Switzerland
The clouds are not quite ready to call it a day! Hikers, beware.
North Carolina was the worst-hit area, with up to 23 deaths reported after a series of tornadoes swept through the US state Sunday 18 April. Five other states also saw a total of 21 more people killed when tornadoes struck: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Virginia. The US weather service that predicts and tracks storms says it had reports of some 230 twisters over the weekend, although some may have been people spotting the same storms in different areas.
Hundreds of homes were destroyed in North Carolina, the Charlotte Observer reports, and 160 people were injured, some of them “severely”. The Washington Post writes that “homes broke apart, trees snapped and livestock were swept into the air”.
Several of the deaths occurred when a tornado hit an assisted living home for the elderly.
Links to other sites: Charlotte Observer, CNN, Washington Post
Wellington “rocked” by 4.5 earthquake Tuesday evening (NZ time)
New Zealand drew to a halt Tuesday 1 March for two minutes of silence to honour and mourn the country’s dead, exactly a week after the earthquake around Christchurch that killed at least 155 people. Rescue teams continue to try to stabilize and dig out collapsed buildings, in the central commercial district in particular, the New Zealand Herald reports.
Wellington Tuesday evening, after the noon mourning pause, was “rocked” by a 4.5 quake, similar to the one the area felt when the Christchurch earthquake occurred last week, with residents saying they were rocked in their beds and houses shook.
Links to other sites: New Zealand Herald photos of mourners, Sky News
Christchurch in New Zealand is the scene of at least 65 deaths following a series of tremors around the city that began around noon Monday 21 February. Buildings have collapsed and emergency services are overwhelmed trying to dig out people trapped under rubble. The largest tremor appears to have hit at 12:51, magnitude 6.5 on the Richter scale, according to GeoNet, which records tremors, and 6.3 according to local measurements.
The cathedral has been badly damaged, according to local reports, and some buildings have collapsed. The largest tremor was centred 20 km southeast of the city, with several others 5-10km southeast of Christchurch.
The city suffered considerable damage in September 2010 from a 7.0 earthquake.
Links to other sites: Geonet, NZ Herald, Reuters
Links to videos: NZ Herald rocks tumble from Sumner cliff, NZ Herald/AP, city centre Christchurch raw footage
Aerial photos, NZ Herald
A long silence abruptly followed by screaming wind and loud noises: Yasi, which could be the worst cyclone in 100 years in Australia, landed Wednesday.From Australia:
Brazil’s northeastern states of Pernambuco and Alagoas have been hard hit by floods that have killed 33 people, with hundreds missing. An estimated 40,000 homes were washed away, leaving 100,000 people homeless, regional officials say. In Alagoas, more than 1,000 people are missing. The Brazilian cabinet is holding an emergency meeting to review the situation.
Heavy rain in eastern and southern China that began 12 June has caused landslides and flash floods, killing scores of people, with unofficial figures of around 100 deaths. Chinese news agency Xinhua reports that “About 9.27 million people in Fujian, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Guizhou and Sichuan were affected by the heavy rains as direct economic losses caused by the heavy rains have topped 10 billion yuan (about $1.46 billion).”
Chinese ship Shen Neng 1 was lifted off the Great Barrier Reef Monday night 12 April as workers scrambled to refloat it ahead of expected storms, but the Australian government says the damage it caused during the week it was trapped is “extensive.” The ship was in a no-go zone, part of the Unesco World Heritage Site, and the company will face legal charges, Australia says. The ship was not merely stranded, but heavy seas during the week caused it to bump continually against the reef, grinding down the coral. The owner of the vessel, Shenzhen Energy Transport, apologized Friday for the accident, saying the ship had failed to follow its course as it returned from Gladstone, Australia, to China.
Links to other sites: BBC, Yahoo News
It will take Haiti a decade to rebuild, says engineers testing buildings in the country badly damaged by a 12 January earthquake. The UN has estimated that 20 percent of the buildings collapsed and 80 percent of those remaining are damaged. Volunteer engineers who are checking the buildings one by one say that many are too safe to be left standing, reports NPR.
The US Army Corp of Engineers lost a court case brought by six plaintiffs over damages from 2005 hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The judge ruled that the Army Corps for 40 years had not maintained a shipping channel between the city and the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in widespread flooding in two areas, Lower 9th Ward and St Bernard Parish. Five of the six were awarded damages from $100,000 to $350,000, but the ruling will now mean compensation for hundreds of others in the two districts.
Links to other sites: CNN, Times-Picayune, New Orleans
Storms have battered Switzerland in recent days
Hail balls hit orchards in Etoy, 23 July
Update 14:25 Bern and Lucerne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Heavy storms that crossed central Switzerland around 21.45 Monday night caused extensive damage, with firemen called to two houses in Bern that were struck by lightning, which also hit a swimming pool and electric line. Roads were closed and cellars flooded in canton Lucern. A pork house was hit by lightning on a Lucern farm, but the 200 pigs were saved, reports ats/romandie.
Damage from the 23 July hail storm that hit Vaud and central Switzerland is now estimated at CHF180 million, TSR reports.
