Paris, France (GenevaLunch) – An area 5km by 5km has been pinpointed, say French authorities, where the black box from the Rio to Paris Air France flight AF447 disappeared inexplicably 1 June 2009. New technology has made it possible to get a more precise location, and the French government has requested that the search continue. One of the more unusual details to come out of French coverage of the missing plane is that an American victim had a payout “value” for his of her family, according to Le Monde, 16 times higher than the value of a European victim. All 228 on board the plane were killed.
Links to other sites: Business Week, Le Monde (Fre)
US President Barack Obama has flown to New Orleans, Louisiana, to reassure residents of the area following the accident where an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and sank, releasing thousands of barrels of oil. The slicks from the accident, 40 miles from the Louisiana shore, have been moving inland, threatening the fishing industry and potentially creating the worst such disaster in US history. Obama pointed out that the responsibility lies entirely with BP, which will foot the bill. The bulk of the slick is now just nine miles (a little over 5km) off the coastline.
Meanwhile, supertankers that ship crude to the US may face tighter regulations in the wake of the disaster, reports Bloomberg.
Background, GenevaLunch
Links to other sites: New Orleans Times-Picayune, Times, UK,
Machu Picchu in 2009 (photo ©2009 Claude Vedovini)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland and the United Nations Development Programme will work with Peru to improve weather monitoring around the ancient Incan site of Machu Picchu, following a disastrous series of 40 mudslides due to heavy rains. The rains continue and the Cuzco department, where the site is located, was declared a disaster area Monday 1 February, by the regional president, Hugo Gonzales.
An estimated 25,000 people have been left homeless and another 37,000 have lost at least part of their property in the past two weeks. Some 4,000 tourists were airlifted out of the area last week, and Machu Picchu itself will be closed for at least two months while broken rail and road links are repaired.
Haitian Red Cross volunteer with child (image: IFRC on flickr)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Several Geneva-based organizations have rushed to help Haitians following the 12 January earthquake there, and they are now publishing striking images that show the scope of the disaster the work they are involved in.
Among them:
- Doctors Without Borders
- ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross)
- IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies)
- OCHA (UN disaster relief coordinating office)
Tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of lives may have been lost in the Haiti earthquake late Tuesday 12 January, the United Nations says, but with no official disaster recovery programme underway, measuring the damage and counting the missing from the population of two million is at best difficult. The Roman Catholic archbishop is dead and the senior UN envoy is missing. Medecins Sans Frontiers, which employs 800 people in Haiti, says its three emergency centres were badly damaged and doctors, who are able to provide only first aid, are overwhelmed with trauma patients. Humanitarian agencies and governments are gathering information with diffculty, given broken communications and the scale of the damage, but supplies have begun to arrive in Port-au-Prince, the capital that was badly damaged by the 7.0 earthquake.
Links to other sites: The Globe & Mail, Miami Herald, Medecins Sans Frontiers, Reuters AlertNet, list of major companies pledging aid, updated “snapshot” list of devastation, Times, UK
Rescue workers have stopped trying to dig out the village of Shiao Lin in Taiwan, with nearly 400 people feared buried by a mudslide caused by Typhoon Morakot, which dumped two metres of rain on the island in a short time. The government says a memorial service will be held on the spot where 170 homes were buried. More than 15,000 people have been rescued after being hit by the storm which provoked Taiwan’s worst floods in 50 years, but rescuers are still trying to reach another 1,900 people. The government has to date confirmed 116 people dead from the storm, not including Shiao Lin. In a strange twist, Taiwan’s media carry the story of what is alternately described as the about-face in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on foreign disaster aid or an administrative mistake that led to a government office initially telling other offices not to accept rescue assistance from abroad. BBC, China Post, Taipei Times
Cuba and the US have agreed to talks about improving migration from the island to the US to make it safer and more orderly. They will also discuss direct mail service between the two countries. Senior State department officials in Washington confirmed Saturday that Cuban officials have left open the possibility that future talks might include other topics, such as disaster-preparedness, counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism. US President Barack Obama earlier lifted restrictions on family visits and remittances to Cuba.
This comes as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to Honduras for a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS), where calls for Cuba’s readmission to the group will be debated. CNN, USA Today
