ENVIRONMENTAL - Rescue workers seized a window of clear skies Sunday to resume searching for victims of devastating floods that have killed 110 people and ravaged more than a dozen cities in southern Brazil.
Right: A flood victim carries donated clothes at a shelter set up in a school in Gaspar, Brazil, Nov. 29, 2008. Flooding and mudslides have ravaged southern parts of the country.
Heavy rains subsided, allowing authorities to continue looking for 19 people thought to be missing across Santa Catarina state and to boost aid to some 80,000 people whom floods have driven from their homes in the past week.
Bad weather had grounded air force helicopters on Saturday, slowing rescue efforts. Rains are forecast to resume in coming days, increasing the risk of mudslides.
The floods had killed 110 people as of Sunday morning, the state's civil defence department said. Nine bodies were pulled from beneath the mud and rubble the day before.
Nearly 80,000 people were taking shelter in churches, schools, gymnasiums and other public buildings, relying on volunteers and troops for medicine, food, water and clothes.
Officials on Sunday opened an army field hospital near the hard-hit cities of Itajai and Ilhota, where 39 people have died, mostly in mudslides.
The rains that devastated 30 towns in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina could be an early consequence of global warming, a climatologist from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said Friday.
Climatologist Carlos Nobre told Globo TV that heavy, persistent rains in southern Brazil usually coincide with the climate phenomenon known as El Nino, which warms up the Pacific Ocean. However, this was not the case this year.
“In the years when the El Nino phenomenon does not happen, like now, and there are very intense rains, their causes still remain mysterious for meteorology. It is already possible to start to identify some relationship with global warming, both in the increase of intense rain and in the drought in the south,” he said.
According to Nobre, southern Brazil is more vulnerable to climatic problems, as it is here that warm, humid air coming from the north converges with cold, dry masses from the south.
American, Canadian, Toronto & International News Commentary: Spreading Freedom in the Face of Tyranny
November 30, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Affordable Website Design & SEO
|
Featured Posts
The Sarcasm Symbol
Ever had some confusion online or with your cellphone when someone fails to catch the sarcasm? Well now with the SarcMark you can ge... |
|
Behold, the Scorpion Hydrogen Supercar
CARS - To the right is the future of supercars... it is a hydrogen supercar called the Scorpion. The Scorpion from Ronn Motors in Texas is t... |
|
Documents show Stephen Harper misusing public funds
CANADA - According to 950+ pages of documents obtained by the Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act the Privy Coun... |
|
Pink's Rosie the Riveter
ENTERTAINMENT - What I like about this video is how it meshes different social movements like feminism, veganism, anti-capitalism... |
|
California's Dustbowl
ENVIRONMENT - The photo on the right is a farm in California that has been put up for sale. Its just one of thousands of farms that are n... |
|
Is Steampunk the New Goth???
GOTHIC - Watch out what you see on the subway late at night because while in 2001 you might have seen some pretty freakish goths, by 20... |
|
Do you have enough Ice Water in your diet?
HEALTH - A Calorie (large C) is a measurement of the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a litre of water (1 kg's worth) ... |
|
North Korean timeline towards Inevitable War
POLITICS - The following is timeline of events that have occurred on the Korean Peninsula. 1945 - Japan surrenders to the United States a... |
|
Judgment Day is Tomorrow, so sayeth Cult
RELIGION - According to a cult based in California, Judgement Day is tomorrow (May 21st 2011) and Jesus Christ will return to the Earth a... |
|
Sex in Space Forbidden
SEX/TECHNOLOGY - Sex in outer space is a big no-no according to NASA. Not for professional astronauts at least, but the growing numb... |
Popular Posts / Last 30 Days
-
CANADA / SEX - An Ontario man charged with breaking Canada's nudity laws is challenging the legality of it based on the concept that it...
-
HEALTH - The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the pandemic alert level for the swine flu to five out of six. Dr. Margaret Chan, t...
-
POLITICS - In what is sure to be derided as a complete failure G20 leaders who met in Toronto this weekend have agreed to disagree. Arrivin...
-
CANADA / ENVIRONMENT - Wind generation in Ontario achieved record output on March 11th (yesterday). Over a 24-hour period, wind energy crea...
-
CANADA - An increasing number of Canadian soldiers may be using, dealing and becoming addicted to drugs, say reports from Canadian Forces of...
-
HEALTH - Mexico is on high alert today as the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the fast moving swine flu outbreak a “public health ...
-
And the similarities don't stop there. Hitler and Trump have a lot more in common. The context in which Adolf Hitler was elected is...
-
By Charles Moffat - June 2013. Local charity worker Edward de Gale says Toronto needs a new vision of the future. And Torontonians need t...
-
CANADA - Ontario's controversial amalgamation of the GST and PST into a harmonized sales tax (HST) is "virtually revenue neutral...
-
CANADA / ENTERTAINMENT - The fight over hockey fights is far from over. A new poll today shows that 63% of Canadian hockey fans want figh...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments containing links will be marked as spam and not approved. We moderate every comment. If you want to advertise on this blog it is $30 per link.