Multiple Wildfires Force Thousands to Evacuate in San Diego County

At least nine separate wildfires throughout northern San Diego county have forced thousands of residents in the cities of Carlsbad, Escondido, San Marcos and Fallbrook, CA as well as the 4S Ranch section of San Diego and the nearby Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base to flee their homes as firefighters battled the approaching blaze.

Most of the fires were sparked on Thursday and spread quickly due to dry vegetation, unseasonably warm weather and 50 MPH Santa Ana winds blowing in from the desert. Although firefighters have been going after the wildfires with a sustained air and ground attack, the Poinsettia fire in Carlsbad has destroyed at least 30 homes while the San Marcos fire was large enough to spawn its own weather system as it moved southeast to the neighboring city of Escondido.



Authorities have not ruled out arson and arrests have been made in Escondido and Oceanside, CA of individuals who were seen staring small brushfires in a dry riverbed and city parks. A 57 year old man in Oceanside was arrested after witnesses saw him fanning flames of a fire in the San Luis Rey riverbed while two teenagers were arrested in Escondido on Thursday after multiple witnesses saw them trying to start brush fires in a city park and by a street adjacent to a shopping mall. In Escondido, the fires were quickly doused by nearby homeowners and investigators believe the two teenagers- identified as 19 year old Isiah Silva and a 17 year old accomplice- were copycats who played no role in the larger fires in San Marcos, Carlsbad and Camp Pendleton.

The Poinsettia fire in Carlsbad has already caused one fatality- on Thursday night, firefighters checking an already-burned area for hot spots discovered the charred remains of a man in what was believed to be a transient camp in Carlsbad. A local TV station also broadcast amateur video of what they believe to be the ignition point for the Carlsbad blaze- a golf course along Poinsettia Lane.

Authorities were able to get the San Marcos fire 10% contained on Thursday night and evacuation orders were lifted for parts of San Marcos and Fallbrook overnight- although police set up a checkpoint and would only allow local residents with ID into some of the affected areas.

Meanwhile, military and civilian crews were battling to contain a 14,500 acre wildfire on USMC Camp Pendleton on Friday- although the Marine Corps base is generally wide open, evacuation orders were given to for some housing areas and the town of Fallbrook at the eastern end of Camp Pendleton.

Officials in Turkey Confirm Hundreds of Miners Killed in Coal Mine Explosion

At least 245 miners in western Turkey were killed when a transformer in a mine shaft exploded during a shift change. The death toll is expected to rise after rescuers have been continually hindered by smoke and fallen debris. It was believed that there were as many as 787 workers underground at the Soma Kömür İşletmeleri A.Ş. mine during the blast.

First responders were able to rescue some 88 workers in the minutes immediately after the blast. However, while some rescuers believe that a number of the estimated 120 miners trapped below the surface could have made it to underground 'safety chambers' carved into the mine shaft and equipped with oxygen masks, hopes for their rescue grow dimmer by the hour. Family members of some of the missing and dead were waiting outside the mine or local hospitals in Soma. Autopsies performed on two of the miners pulled from the Soma mine show that they were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning.

The mine, which was once state-owned, had been recently privatized and the CEO boasted of bringing down costs from $140 to $24 per ton since the facility was run by the state-controlled TKI Coal Mining in a 2012 interview with Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.

However, the repercussions from this disaster could be felt well beyond the western coal-producing city of Soma. As recently as the end of April, opposition members of the Turkish parliament wanted the government to look into working conditions at the mine as the facility was racked by intermittent strikes and labor stoppages during the last two years with workers claiming unsafe working conditions. The motion was blocked by members of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party.

Erdogan himself visited Soma on Wednesday and was greeted by jeers and heckling from residents of the mining town. While addressing some of the families of the miners, Erdogan stated that these types of accidents were fairly common- citing a number of 19th century mining disasters in Great Britain in his speech.

Insane shot of PM Erdogan advisor @YusufYerkel kicking someone in Soma y'day. #Turkey pic.twitter.com/AiyQMqQQNU

— Alexander Marquardt (@MarquardtA) May 15, 2014

Public anger at the Prime Minister only grew further after an image of one of Erdogan's aides kicking a protestor being restrained by Turkish military police in Soma.

After his remarks, relatives of some of the dead and missing miners and angry residents of Soma reportedly forced the Prime Minister and his entourage to seek refuge in a local supermarket. Others reportedly ransacked the local headquarters of Erdogan's Justice and Development party.

Demonstrators also hung banners that read 'MURDERERS' and staged demonstrations in front of government offices in Ankara and Istanbul as police moved in with tear gas and water cannons to break up those protests.

At Least 34 Killed As Tornadoes and Storms Rake Through Southeastern USA

After a fairly quiet start to the tornado season, a major storm system moving over Texas and Oklahoma spawned at least 60 tornadoes in the southeast over the last couple of days, as well as some flooding along the Gulf Coast and mid-Atlantic.



The tornado that struck Faulkner County, Arkansas on Sunday was reportedly the deadliest tornado to strike the state in nearly 17 years as it killed 15 people, most of them around the town of Mayflower, AR.

Deadly twisters also tore through Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kansas, Missouri, Alabama and Georgia over the next two days while the storm also saturated rivers and caused flooding along Alabama's Gulf Coast and Florida's panhandle before moving to the northeast.

More than 60 million people from southeastern Michigan to the central Gulf Coast to the Carolinas and southern Virginia were at risk of severe storms and tornadoes, AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said Tuesday.

Mississippi and Alabama remained the states with the highest risk of severe weather, with cities such as Meridian, Miss., and Birmingham, Ala., in the cross hairs for tornadoes, the weather service said.

Mississippi was hit the hardest Monday. The tornado that struck the Louisville, Miss., area was given a preliminary rating of at least EF4 by the National Weather Service. EF4 tornadoes have winds of 166-200 mph, making the Louisville twister the most powerful one to hit the USA this year.

Twelve deaths were reported in the state, nine of them in and around Louisville, a town of about 6,600 people. State Sen. Giles Ward said he was huddled in a bathroom with his wife, four other family members and their dog Monday night as a tornado destroyed his two-story brick house and turned his son-in-law's SUV upside down onto the patio in Louisville.

In Tupelo, Miss., dozens of buildings were damaged and 30 people sought treatment at Northeast Mississippi Medical Center. Four people were admitted.

Two deaths were reported in Tennessee. In Lincoln County, the National Weather Service lifted an initial tornado warning shortly after 7 p.m. Monday, but at 8:24 p.m. it warned a tornado was coming. "Catastrophic damage likely with storm in Lincoln County," the message read. "170 (knots) of rotation with debris extending above 20,000 feet."

Within minutes, the warnings grew more dire with winds exceeding 190 mph, The Tennessean reported. Two people were killed in Lincoln County and several homes were destroyed, The Tennessean reports.

The warning seemingly came out of nowhere, said Chris Murdock, who lives 4 miles from a damaged elementary school. Although he and his family didn't see the tornado, the gusts and hail they saw as they went to a friend's basement were enough for him to know this wasn't an average spring storm.

"Just by the looks of it, you could tell something terrible was happening," he said.

In Alabama, University of Alabama student John Servati, a member of the Crimson Tide swim team, was killed when he took shelter in the basement of a Tuscaloosa home and a retaining wall collapsed on him. In Athens, Ala., the Limestone County Sheriff's Department reported two deaths from a twister that hit a mobile home park west of the town.

In Baltimore, the storm dumped 7 inches of rain onto the area and triggered landslides and sinkholes in some parts of Maryland. Further north, local officials in Philadelphia estimated that the flooding was worse than 2012 superstorm Sandy and at least 60 people had to be rescued from their vehicles as they tried traversing flooded streets and roadways.

Massive Earthquake Jolts Northern Chile

At least six people were reported dead after a massive magnitude 8.2 earthquake rocked the northern part of Chile on late Tuesday. Local officials ordered an evacuation of low-lying coastal areas along the northern port cities of Iquique and Arica while President Bachelet dispatched 100 riot police officers and 300 soldiers to assist Carabineros [Chile's national uniformed police force- NANESB!] and local officers in rounding up an estimated 300 inmates who escaped a damaged prison and prevent looting.



Closed circuit TV cameras in pharmacies and shopping centers showed customers running for the doors as the massive temblor shook merchandise from shelves and knocked over displays. Evacuations were ordered for the coastal cities of Arica, Iquique, Tocopilla, Pisagua and Antofagasta. The earthquake was the most powerful to hit Chile since the February 2010 magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the central coast of Chile killed more than 500 and caused an estimated US $5 billion in damages. Tremors from Tuesday's quake were reportedly felt as far away as La Paz, Bolivia and tsunami warnings were issued in Peru and parts of Ecuador.



Chile is part of the "ring of fire"- an area of considerable seismic and volcanic activity that essentially circles the Pacific Ocean and also includes Colombia, Mexico, the west coast of the USA, Alaska, Russia's Far East, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. The relatively low death toll for such a powerful earthquake was attributed in part to the stricter building codes Chile has enacted since a devastating magnitude 9.5 earthquake off the coast of Valdivia in 1960- said to be the most powerful earthquake ever recorded- as well as northern Chile being sparsely populated compared to the central part of the country.

At Least 16 Killed, 176 Unaccounted For in Washington State Landslide

Volunteers and first responders using everything from power equipment to their bare hands are frantically searching through mud and wrecked homes in the northwestern corner of Washington state after a deadly landslide flattened dozens of home and blocked a state highway as well as the nearby Stillagumish River.

Searchers in the Snohomish County community of Oso found two more bodies in the mud and debris on Tuesday and authorities feared that the death toll could climb.

Snohomish County Emergency Management Director John Pennington has confirmed two more bodies have been recovered and eight more bodies located in Saturday's landslide.

The announcement put the official death toll at 16, with the possibility of 24 dead once the other bodies are confirmed. Searchers found no living survivors Tuesday buried in the tons of mud and crumpled homes in Oso, about 55 miles northeast of Seattle.

The grim discoveries further demoralized the four-day search, as the threat of flash floods or another landslide loomed over the rescuers. With scores still missing, authorities are working off a list of 176 people unaccounted for, though some names were believed to be duplicates. Pennington said an updated number would be available Wednesday.

Both Pennington and Snohomish County Fire District 21 Chief Travis Hots acknowledged the chances of finding survivors was small, but said the effort remained a rescue and recovery operation.

"We haven't lost hope there's a possibility that we could find somebody alive in some pocket area as the days go on," said Hots. "We are coming to the realization that may not be a possibility, but we are going full steam ahead. Even if we said it was a recovery operation, we are still going at this like I indicated earlier on all eight cylinders. We are going at this hard."

Hots said about 200 responders using everything from heavy equipment and search dogs to their bare hands were working through the debris field Tuesday in rainy, wet conditions.

There were also concerns that communities further upstream from the massive landslide could be flooded from the blocked Stillagumish river as well as accumulated rainfall that is forecast. However, a spokesperson for the Snohomish County Sheriff's department says that the river is starting to trickle through and around the blockage caused by the massive landslide. The slide was also big enough to be detected by the University of Washington's seismic listening devices at the school's Pacific Northwest Seismic Network- although scientists were quick to point out that the landslide wasn't necessarily triggered by an earthquake. As recently as 2006 there had been significant landslides in that part of Snohomish county, only not as destructive as Sunday's landslide.

At Least 4400 Killed, Thousands More Missing After Typhoon Haiyan Plows Through Philippines

Ted Aljibe- AFP

While ships from the US and Royal Navy have moved into the region to support relief efforts, officials from the United Nations are saying that at least 4,460 people have been killed in the wake of last week's Typhoon Haiyan [also referred to as Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines- NANESB!].

Local officials claim the death toll is much higher- as many as 10,000 on the island of Leyte alone- and while that can't be confirmed yet, the death toll is expected to rise. Hundreds of victims of the typhoon were reportedly buried in mass graves near the city of Tacloban with DNA samples being taken prior to burial so that Philippine authorities could eventually identify the dead.

As relief work and attempts to reach the hardest hit areas got underway, it's believed that more than 11 million Filipinos have been affected by Haiyan's rampage- this includes loss of a home or business or loss of electric power. With aid slow to arrive due to debris clogging roads in and around Tacloban and damage to the airport, there were reports of widespread looting in the area.

Crews are also working to restore power on Leyte. The city of Tacloban was down to one hospital with no power and most of the roof torn off to treat those injured by the typhoon.

Death Toll From Colorado Flooding Revised As Waters Recede

Helen H. Richardson- Denver Post

At least 7 people are feared dead after floodwaters tore through parts of Colorado's Front Range north of Denver last week. The college town of Boulder was particularly hard hit and several outlying mountain towns were cut off from the rest of the state after rising floodwaters undercut state and local highways.

Transportation networks were also snarled by the flooding, as rising waters shut down portions of I-25 between Denver and Cheyenne, WY. Union Pacific was working to restore service over their Denver- Cheyenne mainline as well as portions of the former Rio Grande Denver to Salt Lake City mainline just west of Denver. The UP is also working to shore up their transcontinental mainline downstream in Nebraska from additional damage from the floodwaters.

Joseph K Vonnida- Getty photo

The Colorado National Guard had been activated and was using helicopters and high wheel vehicles in an attempt to get to some of the completely cut off homes and towns in the mountains. The National Guard has also made it a point to evacuate people with their pets if possible in what officials are calling "No pets left behind".

Early estimates put the total amount property damage in the $2 billion range. Rebuilding efforts will likely be complicated by the fact that most of the damaged structures and properties lack flood insurance.

At Least 38 Killed in Southern Italy Bus Crash

Officials in Italy are trying to determine the cause of a deadly bus crash in the hills of Naples that killed 38 people this week. According to eyewitnesses, the bus plowed through a number of vehicles before crashing through a guardrail and plunging nearly 100 feet down an embankment.

The coach was taking about 50 people, including children, back to Naples following a pilgrimage.

The cause of the accident is not yet known. Some reports say the vehicle was travelling at speed.

The head of the local fire brigade division, Alessio Barbarulo, said barriers on bridges would normally prevent such accidents but "evidently it seems the impact was so strong that even the barrier gave way".

A survivor said the driver, who was among the dead, appeared to have lost control of the bus, possibly after a tyre punctured.

Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi said the vehicle had passed its annual inspection in March, and there was no indication of technical problems.

Tests are being carried out on the driver's body as part of the investigation into what caused the accident.

The crash took place in the mountains some 50km east of Naples along the Autostrada A16- a toll highway linking Naples with Canosa di Puglia on Italy's Adriatic coast. Some of the hospitalized include occupants of the cars that the bus struck before crashing into the guard rail and going over the embankment.

This week's crash is even deadlier than last year's Costa Concordia shipwreck off of the Isloa de Giglio off the coast of Tuscany. The captain of the vessel is currently undergoing trial in Grosseto, Tuscany on multiple charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship.

Dozens Killed in Spanish High Speed Derailment

At least 80 people are feared dead after an express train derailed at high speeds in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia on Wednesday. Dramatic images from a trackside security camera show cars beginning to lift off the rails as the train enters a curve on outside of Santiago de Compostela at a high rate of speed before the locomotive plows into the camera sideways.

The train derailed shortly before 9pm local time as it sped along a curve in the tracks approaching the cathedral city of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia.

Even several hours after the accident rescue crews were still trying to reach passengers trapped in the wreckage. Photographs of the scene showed rows of corpses covered in blankets on the ground next to derailment site.

The accident occurred on the eve of the feast of St James, a regional bank holiday in Galicia, and a festival which attracts hordes of pilgrims to the ancient city.

The train and track were operated by Spain's state-run RENFE rail network. While the train in Wednesday's derailment is not part of Spain's high-speed AVE [Alta Velocidad Española- NANESB!] fleet, the conventional trainset is capable of reaching speeds of 155 MPH.

Investigators combing through the wreckage have found the train's black box/event recorder and the Guardia Civil is also questioning the driver, who escaped the train wreck with relatively minor injuries. Pope Francis extended his condolences and Spain's King Juan Carlos visited some of the survivors who were being treated at a hospital in Santiago de Compostela on Thursday.

This week's derailment is the worst rail disaster in Spain since a 1945 collision between a passenger train and a freight train in Las Acubillas, south of Madrid.

At Least Thirteen Killed After Explosion From Runaway Train Derailment Levels Quebec Town Center

**UPDATE- 7/8- Local police have said they found eight more bodies around the derailment and blast site, bringing the death toll to 13 as of Monday.**

At least five people were killed and dozens remain unaccounted for in the southern Quebec town of Lac Megantic after a runaway freight train derailed and exploded in the town center early Saturday morning. The train was a Montreal, Maine & Atlantic unit oil train hauling crude oil from the Bakken formation in North Dakota to the JD Irving refinery in New Brunswick.

According to the MM&A, the 5-unit, 71 car train came to a stop at 11:25 PM Friday night at Nantes, a siding approximately 7 miles west of Lac Magantic. The engineer had tied down the train and left for a nearby hotel while the train was awaiting a fresh crew when it began rolling downhill and into Lac Megantic. Eyewitnesses said that by the time the runaway train had reached the center of Lac Megantic, it was moving at considerable speed. The locomotives were found a half mile from the derailed tank cars that triggered the blast while At least four of the derailed tank cars caught fire and exploded. Officials from MM&A and Transport Canada are hoping the locomotive's event recorder (a railroad equivalent to a plane's black box) can be recovered from the five units.

The downtown area contained a number of bars that were still full at the time of the derailment and amateur video clips showed an apocalyptic scene with orange flames shooting skyward along with thick billowing smoke over the pastoral southern Quebec town. The intensity of the heat from the derailed tank cars prevented firefighters from battling the blaze and checking the area for survivors. Firefighters from Franklin County, ME were also dispatched to aid their Quebec counterparts after the derailment.

The bodies recovered from the downtown area were burnt beyond recognition and will be sent to a forensic lab in Montreal so that they can be identified by their DNA or dental records. Local officials also said that the town hall and library were gone- the library archived a number of historic documents from the area.

Meanwhile, investigators from the Sûreté du Québec [Quebec Provincial Police] have not ruled out sabotage. Officials from the MM&A said there were also a number of failsafe mechanisms that should've prevented the train from rolling away on its own. Firefighters from nearby Nantes- where the train was initially stopped- received reports of a locomotive fire on the parked MM&A train. According to Nantes fire chief Patrick Lambert, the blaze was extinguished shortly before midnight and fire crews had left, believing the scene was secure.

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic C30-7 #3613 charges up the grade between Lac Megantic and Nantes with Montreal-bound train #1 in October 2010- before the line started handling oil from the Bakken shale in North Dakota destined for refining in New Brunswick. Frank Jolin photo

Hauling dedicated unit oil trains to the JD Irving refinery in New Brunswick has been boon for northeastern regionals such as Montreal Maine & Atlantic or Pan Am. The increase in oil traffic allowed the MM&A to hire new employees for the first time since announcing 75 layoffs at the end of 2009.

The unit crude trains originate in the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and are typically handed off the either the MM&A in Montreal by Canadian Pacific or to Pan-Am (by CSX) in Rotterdam Jct, NY where they continue eastward to the New Brunswick Southern Railway for the final leg of their journey. Until fairly recently, both railroads had relied significantly on the fortunes of the forestry industry to pay the freight.

Earlier in the year, a Pan Am unit oil train derailed at Mattawamkeag, ME but the damage was limited to only a few gallon due to the fact that the train was approaching yard limits and already travelling at a reduced speed.

Flooding in Southern Alberta Forces Evacuation Multpile Cities, Kills Three

Floodwaters that were responsible for the deaths of at least three people made their way into the heart of Alberta's largest city, forcing the evacuation of at least 75,000 people from their homes over the weekend.

In downtown Calgary, water was inundating homes and businesses in the shadow of skyscrapers. Water has swamped cars and train tracks.

The city said the home rink of the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames flooded and the water inside was 10 rows deep. That would mean the dressing rooms are likely submerged as well.

"I think that really paints a very clear picture of what kinds of volumes of water we are dealing with," said Trevor Daroux, the city's deputy police chief.

At the grounds for the world-famous Calgary Stampede fair, water reached up to the roofs of the chuck wagon barns. The popular rodeo and festival is the city's signature event. Mayor Nenshi said it will occur no matter what.

About 1,500 have gone to emergency shelters while the rest have found shelter with family or friends, Nenshi said.

The flood was forcing emergency plans at the Calgary Zoo, which is situated on an island near where the Elbow and Bow rivers meet. Lions and tigers were being prepared for transfer, if necessary, to prisoner holding cells at the courthouse.

Schools and court trials were canceled Friday and residents urged to avoid downtown. Transit service in the core was shut down.

Alberta Premier Alison Redford warned that communities downstream of Calgary had not yet felt the full force of the floodwaters.

Officials estimate that as many as 350,000 people work in downtown Calgary on any given weekday, but that was not a problem on Friday as most residents and commuters heeded official warnings about travelling to downtown Calgary.

To the southeast, authorities have ordered the evacuation of more than 10,000 residents of low-lying areas around Medicine Hat, AB. Water from the Bow River flows into the South Saskatchewan River, which bisects the town of about 60,000.

The flooding has also affected a number of Indian reservations (called First Nations Communities in Canada) to the south and east of Calgary and residents have been advised to boil tapwater before using it. Nearby schools are closed until further notice as many of them are being used to shelter evacuees.

The Canadian military was activated to help with flood control and evacuation in the province. Canadian Prime minister Stephen Harper, a Calgary resident himself, viewed the damage from above via helicopter.

To the west, the flooding had knocked Canadian Pacific's transcontinental mainline out of commission between Banff and Calgary, leaving some CP freight trains stranded in Alberta or British Columbia as the railroad negotiates with Canadian National and other carriers to accommodate detour traffic. Additional damage, including a washed out bridge, has been reported on CP's Crowsnest subdivision further south.

With a population of one million, Calgary is the largest city in Alberta and fifth largest metropolitan area in Canada. The TransCanada Highway and Canadian Pacific's transcontinental mainline both pass through the city. The city is probably best known as an energy and agricultural hub for western Canada and home of the Calgary Stampede- a 10 day rodeo and exhibition held every July in the city [Organizers of this year's Stampede have announced that the event will go on as planned, despite there being less than two weeks from the scheduled start- NANESB!] Calgary hosted the 1988 winter Olympics and is the home of the NHL's Calgary Flames as well as the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League and Calgary Hitmen of the WHL.

While much of the drilling and refining takes place elsewhere in the province, Calgary has been an administrative center for the oil and natural gas companies operating in western Canada since the 1970s- more than 80% of the gas companies operating in Canada are based out of Calgary. In 1996, the Canadian Pacific Railway relocated their headquarters from Montreal to Calgary.

At Least Two Dozen Killed As Massive Tornado Rips Through Oklahoma City Suburbs

Brenton Leete

Rescuers in the Sooner State were searching for survivors into Tuesday morning, less than a day after a massive tornado ripped through  suburban Oklahoma City, reportedly striking two schools and a hospital in its path.

Officials revised the death toll to 24- including 9 children- but warned that they expect to find more bodies as rescuers dig through the rubble in Moore, OK. The National Storm Prediction Center in nearby Norman, OK forecast more severe weather closing in on the region.



With winds of more than 200 MPH and more than two miles wide in some places, the tornado was estimated to be an F5- the highest possible rating on the Fujita-Pearson scale. The storm touched down as a category F0 tornado outside of Newcastle, OK- to the west of Moore- and quickly gained strength as it moved northeast. Monday's storm followed a similar track to the 1999 Bridge Creek-Moore F5, which killed at least 36 people.

The death toll was initially thought to be 51, but it appeared as though some of the casualties had been double-counted. However, local officials had warned that between bodies still in the rubble and relatives who took those killed to funeral homes instead of the morgue, the death toll will likely be higher than 24. Officials at local hospitals said they've treated more than 200 people after the tornado struck, including as many as 70 children. Urban search and rescue teams are also reportedly bringing in cadaver-sniffing dogs to search more collapsed buildings in the area- including Plaza Towers elementary school where seven of the nine children were killed on Monday.

Death Toll in Bangladesh Building Collapse Expected to Reach More Than 580

High temperatures outside the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka has hampered the grim recovery work in a building collapse that took place on April 24th and is now thought to have claimed nearly 600 lives.

The official death toll from the collapse reached 580 on Sunday, up from 547 a day earlier. It is expected to rise. The disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind with a higher death toll.

Five garment factories operated in the Rana Plaza building that collapsed, and many brand labels have been found in the wreckage, but only two retailers, Britain's Primark and Canada's Loblaw Inc., have acknowledged that their clothes were being made there at the time.

Government officials say substandard building materials, combined with the vibration of the heavy machines used by the five factories, led to the collapse.

The building developed cracks a day before the collapse and the owner Mohammed Sohel Rana called engineer Abdur Razzak Khan to inspect it. Khan appeared on television that night and said he told Rana the building should be evacuated.

Police also issued an evacuation order, but witnesses say that hours before the collapse, Rana told people that the building was safe and garment factory managers told their workers to go inside.

Rana has been arrested is expected to be charged with negligence, illegal construction and forcing workers to join work, crimes punishable by a maximum of seven years in jail. Authorities have not said if more serious crimes will be added.

Khan was arrested as well. Police said he worked as a consultant to Rana when three illegal floors were added to what was supposed to be a five-story building.

The building housed garment workshops for at least two dozen international retailers. permit for the collapsed building allowed for five stories, but owner Mohammed Sohel Rana decided to expand vertically and have three additional stories illegally added on to the building. Rana was arrested earlier this week as the tried to flee to India.

The collapse comes months after a deadly fire swept through another garment factory, killing 7 workers. Government officials were investigating claims from workers that emergency exits were blocked at the time of the blaze.

The garment industry accounts for about 80% of Bangladeshi exports and is worth an estimated $20 billion annually for the impoverished nation.

BREAKING- MASS EVACUATIONS AFTER HUGE EXPLOSION OUTSIDE OF WACO, TX INJURE HUNDREDS

Multiple explosions have at a fertilizer plant in north-central Texas has destroyed scores of homes and prompted the evacuation of a town of about 2700 people just outside of Waco.

Tommy Muska, the mayor of West, which is a community north of Waco, said at a news conference he did not know yet how many people were injured or killed.

KWTX reports dozens have been killed citing a hospital official, but Fox News has not confirmed the report.

MyFoxDFW.com reports as many as 300 people were taken away from the scene with injuries.

Among the damaged buildings was the West Rest Haven Nursing Home, from which first-responders evacuated 133 patients, some in wheelchairs. "We did get there and got that taken care of," Muska said.

Information was hard to come by in the hours after the blast, with even Texas Gov. Rick Perry saying state officials were waiting for details about the extent of the damage.

"We are monitoring developments and gathering information as details continue to emerge about this incident," Perry said in a statement. "We have also mobilized state resources to help local authorities. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of West, and the first responders on the scene."

Aerial footage showed fires still smoldering in the ruins of the plant and in several surrounding buildings, and people being treated for injuries on a flood-lit local football field, which had been turned into a staging area for emergency responders.

Debby Marak told The Associated Press that when she finished teaching her religion class Wednesday night, she noticed a lot of smoke in the area across town near the plant, which is near a nursing home.

She said she drove over to see what was happening, and that when she got there, two boys came running toward her screaming that the authorities ordered everyone out because the plant was going to explode.

She said she drove about a block when the blast happened.

"It was like being in a tornado," Marak, 58, said by phone. "Stuff was flying everywhere. It blew out my windshield."

"It was like the whole earth shook."

She drove 10 blocks and called her husband and asked him to come get her. When they got to their home about 2 miles south of town, her husband told her what he'd seen: a huge fireball that rose like "a mushroom cloud."

The explosion caused the roof of what appeared to be a housing complex of some kind to collapse. In aerial footage from NBC's Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate, KXAS, dozens of emergency vehicles could be seen amassed at the scene. Entry into West was slow-going, as the roads were jammed with emergency vehicles rushing in to help out.

Authorities set up a staging area on a flood-lit high school football field, where the injured were being treated or taken to area hospitals via road or helicopter.

Glenn A. Robinson, the chief executive of Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center in Waco, told CNN that his hospital had received 66 injured people for treatment, including 38 who were seriously hurt. He said the injuries included blast injuries, orthopedic injuries, large wounds and a lot of lacerations and cuts. The hospital has set up a hotline for families of the victims to get information, he said.

Reports from the area incidate volunteer firefighters from the town of West were at the West Fertilizer plant fighting a blaze shortly before the first massive blast. First responders had initially set up a triage center at the local high school's football field, but had to evacuate further away to the West community center due to concerns over toxic fumes from the plant and secondary explosions. In fact, the FAA has placed a temporary flight restriction over the site of the blast and firefighters were reportedly steeting clear of the blast site early Thursday morning due to the fumes. To further complicate things, thunderstorms are expected to move into the area overnight.

There have been no firm estimates of casualties from the explosions, but one public safety official said they could expect at least 60 killed in the initial blast. Six firefighters are also unaccounted for- although there has been no word on which agency.

Ammonia-based fertilizer can be used as either an explosive in addition to its intended use as a fertilizer. Most infamously, domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh used a truckload of ammonia-nitrate to blow up the Alfred P Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The explosion comes within days of two infamous events in Texas and Oklahoma- McVeigh's bombing in 1995 and the deadly 1993 FBI raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Elk, TX, just outside of Waco and some 20 miles away from West.

The blast also coincided with the 66th anniversary of the Texas City explosion, where a fire on board the French flagged Grandcamp docked in Chambers County detonated more than 2000 tons of ammonium nitrate in the cargo hold, killing more than 500 people.

The town of West itself is located about 20 miles north of Waco along Interstate 35 and the Union Pacific's mainline between Austin and the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Two Years Ago Today

Hell on earth came to the other side of the Pacific.

On March 11th 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck some 40 miles off the coast of Tohoku, triggering a deadly wave of massive tsunamis that wiped entire towns off of the map. Accoring to a 2012 Japan National Police Agency report, the number of deaths is an estimated 15,800 with another 2600 missing since the disaster.

Footage that could only be described as a sneak preview of the apocolypse was being filmed live from news helicopters and soon CCTV footage and amateur video filmed by survivors began circulating on the internet- each video demonstrating the ferocity of the massive, unrelenting waves as they swept away cars, warehouses, boats, cranes, tractor trailers, entire homes, shipping containers and even aircraft.



Even worse, the quake triggered a chain reaction that led to the meltdown of Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor, forcing authorities to establish a 20km exclusion zone around the power plant- the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl in the USSR [now the Ukraine- NANESB!].

Debris from the tsunami was swept out to sea and began washing up on the west coast of the USA and Canada, including a high school student's volleyball that was signed by her classmates and a derelict fishing vessel that was sunk by the US Coast Guard off the coast of Alaska.

Debris is still showing up on the West coast and in Hawaii- although not in the massive quantites predicted yet. Some researchers say this may be due to the fact that the anticipated debris field wasn't as large as advertised while others maintain the expected debris hasn't travelled as fast as initially calculated.

Japan marked the second anniversary of the disaster with a series of solemn ceremonies offering prayers to the dead throughout the disaster zone. Twenty four months later, much work still needs to be done in the stricken areas.

Efforts to rebuild the disaster-hit region have been slow. Figures show 315,196 people are still without a permanent home, many in cramped temporary housing units.

Tsunami-hit communities are divided among those who want to rebuild on land that may have been in the family for generations and those who want to move their towns to higher, safer ground.

Police in Miyagi prefecture were Monday continuing their search for those still listed as missing, with a 50-strong team scouring the coastline.

"We haven't found any bodies for a year," police officer Toshiaki Okajima told AFP.

"But there are still 1,300 missing people in Miyagi alone and the feelings of families haven't changed. That's why the police need to keep looking for remains."

The meltdown at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi's nuclear plant also prompted officals to idle all fifty of Japan's commercial nuclear reacors. Since then, only two have been re-started.

Horror In Brazil As Hundreds Perish in Nightclub Blaze

Reuters photo

More than 230 people are dead after a deadly fire swept through a packed nightclub in southern Brazil in the early morning hours of Sunday.

Witnesses at the Kiss nighclub in the southern college town of Santa Maria said the fire appeared to have been sparked by a the band setting off fireworks on stage and that there was only one exit. Firefighters responding to the blaze at first had trouble getting inside the Kiss nightclub because bodies partially blocked the club's entryway.

Officials at a news conference said the cause was still under investigation -- though police inspector Sandro Meinerz told the Agencia Estado news agency the band was to blame for a pyrotechnics show and that manslaughter charges could be filed.

Television images showed black smoke billowing out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless young men who had attended a university party joined firefighters using axes and sledgehammers to pound at windows and hot-pink exterior walls to free those trapped inside.

Bodies of the dead and injured were strewn in the street and panicked screams filled the air as medics tried to help. There was little to be done; officials said most of those who died were suffocated by smoke within minutes.

Within hours a community gym was a horror scene, with body after body lined up on the floor, partially covered with black plastic as family members identified kin.

Outside the gym police held up personal objects -- a black purse, a blue high-heeled shoe -- as people seeking information on loved ones looked crowded around, hoping not to recognize anything being shown them.

Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper that firefighters had a hard time getting inside the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance."

Teenagers sprinted from the scene after the fire began, desperately seeking help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms. Many of the victims were under 20 years old, including some minors.

"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.

The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, Silva said.

Another survivor, Michele Pereira, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage when members of the band lit flares that started the conflagration.

"The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward," she said. "At that point, the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak, but in a matter of seconds it spread."

Guitarist Rodrigo Martins told Radio Gaucha that the band, Gurizada Fandangueira, started playing at 2:15 a.m. "and we had played around five songs when I looked up and noticed the roof was burning."

"It might have happened because of the Sputnik, the machine we use to create a luminous effect with sparks. It's harmless, we never had any trouble with it.

"When the fire started, a guard passed us a fire extinguisher, the singer tried to use it but it wasn't working."

He confirmed that accordion player Danilo Jacques, 28, died, while the five other members made it out safely.

Police Maj. Cleberson Braida Bastianello said by telephone that the toll had risen to 233 with the death of a hospitalized victim. He said earlier that the death toll was likely made worse because the nightclub appeared to have just one exit through which patrons could exit.

Survivors said security guards briefly tried to block people from exiting the club. Brazilian bars routinely make patrons pay their entire tab at the end of the night before they are allowed to leave.

Authorities believe that most of the dead were killed by asphyxiation and stated that another 117 victims were being treated for burns and smoke inhalation in nearby hospitals. Brazilian media reports stated that there was as many as 2,000 people packed into the club at the time.

Santa Maria is a university and military town of about 250,000 in the fairly wealthy southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. Sunday morning's fire was the worst fire since a 1961 circus fire in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro that killed 500- most of them children.

Entire City Block- Including Strip Club- Levelled in Huge Blast in Springfield, MA

A massive explosion destroyed a strip club and levelled an entire city block in western Massachusetts, scattering glass shards and bricks early Friday night.

The explosion happened after a gas leak in the area, which was reported around 4:20 P.M.

The loud boom, which came just after 5:00, could be heard and felt as far away as Hardwick, Granby, Belchertown, and Monson. In downtown, the explosion sent a huge cloud of smoke into the air, and people standing nearby were knocked to their feet.

The Scores gentlemen's club was destroyed in the explosion.

Scores was closed on Friday, sparing exotic dancers [as depicted by Carrie Keagan in the animated GIF above- NANESB!] from any immediate harm. Police and fire were reportedly already on the scene when the explosion took place. Although the blast injured 18 people, officials said there were no fatalities- many of the injured were firefighters and the area was already in the process of being evacuated.

Mayor Dominic Sarno and Massachusetts Lt Gov Tim Murray were attending a tree-lighting ceremony across town when the explosion took place. State Fire marshall Stephen Coan said that his agency would be responsible for investigating the cause of the blast.

While most of the damage was sustained by commercial properties, officials condemned at least 40 nearby apartment units after the explosion and the number is expected to grow.

Springfield is Western Massachusetts' largest city and is perhaps best known as being the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame and Theodore Geisel- who would go on to be the author known as Dr Seuss. Some portions of the city are still rebuilding from a tornado that ripped through the city in June 2011.

Iron Horse Roundup for October/November 2012

EGYPT- At least 49 schoolchildren in southern Egypt were killed when the bus transporting them to school was struck by a speeding train at the village of al-Mandara on Saturday.

The bus was carrying more than 50 children ages four to six when it was hit near al-Mandara village in Manfaloot district in the province of Assiut, a security official said. He said it appeared that the railroad crossing was not closed as the train sped toward it.

Books, school bags and children's socks were strewn along the tracks near the blood-stained, mangled bus. Parents of the missing wailed as they looked for signs of their children. An Associated Press reporter at the scene said many of the remains were unrecognizable.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Residents in Assiut complained that there were not enough ambulances in the area that could respond quickly enough and that the ambulances themselves were ill-equipped to deal with the emergency.

At al-Mandara village, angry families and locals gathered near the tracks, shouting at officials. Some chanted: "Down with Morsi!"

This is the biggest disaster in Egypt since the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohammed Morsi took power in the wake of last year's 'Arab Spring' popular uprising. With frequent accidents and outdated equipment, Egypt's rail network has long been considered unsafe and accident-prone.

A pair of New Jersey Transit GP40s seen delivering 21 new Bombardier multilevel commuter cars at Dunellen, NJ on November 17, 2012. The cars are sorely needed after Superstorm Sandy damaged or detroyed 25% of NJ Transit's passenger cars after they were sent to a low-lying rail yard before Superstorm Sandy made landfall in late October. Robert Pisani photo

NEW JERSEY TRANSIT- New Jersey's commuter railroad agency has been dealt a considerable setback in their attempt to resume full service in the wake of Sandy after officials had decided to shuttle locomotives and rolling stock to a low-lying yard in Harrison, NJ ahead of the superstorm.

At least $385 million in equipment- including nine dual-mode locomotives, 84 multi-level commuter cars and NJT's computer equipment for dispatching- were damaged in a tidal surge at the Meadowlands facility while more equipment was damaged at the agency's Hoboken terminal and rail yard.

"If there's a predicted 13-foot or 10-foot storm surge, you don't leave your equipment in a low-lying area," said David Schanoes, a railroad consultant and former deputy chief of field operations for Metro North Railroad, a sister railway serving New York State. "It's just basic railroading. You don't leave your equipment where it can be damaged."

Most of the avoidable damage came at NJ Transit's Meadows Maintenance Complex, a sprawling 78-acre network of tracks and buildings in an industrial area of Kearny that is surrounded by wetlands. The complex is the primary maintenance center for the agency's locomotives and rail cars, with both outdoor and indoor equipment storage; repair, servicing, cleaning, inspection and training facilities; and the agency's rail operations center, which houses computers involved in the movement of trains and communication with passengers.

The yard sits in the swampy crook where the Passaic and Hackensack rivers come together. Elevation maps show that it lies between 0 and 19 feet above sea level. The National Hurricane Center was predicting a storm surge of 6 to 11 feet along the New Jersey and New York coast on top of an unusual tide that already had the rivers running high.

Forecasts were that the storm would make landfall on Monday, October 29, somewhere along the New Jersey or New York coast. On Friday, October 26, executives from the New York City subway system and all of the region's commuter rail systems - NJ Transit, Long Island Rail Road and Metro North Railroad - decided they would halt all service Sunday night.

NJ Transit's last trains left their originating stations at 11 p.m. on Sunday, and workers spent the next 12 hours securing equipment, said Weinstein.

At NJ Transit's emergency command center, reports streamed in from the governor's command center in Trenton, county emergency management officials and the National Weather Service, which provided frequent updates on the storm's progress. Monitoring those reports and advising the agency on what to expect from the storm was NJ Transit Police Capt. Robert Noble, who is well-versed and trained in monitoring storms, Weinstein said.

On any given weekday, New Jersey Transit carries an estimated 136,000 people between New Jersey and New York's Penn Station. NJT got some relief in the form of 21 new bilevel Bombardier commuter cars assembled in Plattsburgh, NY that arrived on Nov 17th.

Shortline operator Morristown and Erie has reportedly been contracted by the agency to repair at least ten of the damaged NJT locomotives at their Morristown, NJ shops.

Mass Coastal GP9M #2008 seen trundling down the Falmouth line past the cove at Bourne, MA with a trash train enroute to the Otis transfer station in August 2008. Ryan Parent photo

MASS COASTAL- Chicago-based Iowa Pacific Holdings acquired a controlling interest in the parent company of two southeastern Massachusetts shortlines in late October.

Iowa Pacific announced the acquisiton of Cape Rail, Inc- the parent company of Mass Coastal and Cape Cod Central- last month. Cape Cod Central hauls seasonal excursion trains on Cape Cod while Mass Coastal handles freight on the former New Haven Falmouth Line in addition to a pair of lines that serve New Bedford, MA and Fall River, MA from a CSX interchange in Taunton, MA. Both the Fall River and New Bedford lines are reportedly prime candidates for a proposed expansion of MBTA commuter rail service to Boston's South station. Mass Coastal has operated those lines for the last two years.

Other railroads in the Iowa Pacific fold include the Permian Basin Railways in New Mexico, San Luis & Rio Grande in Colorado, the Mount Hood Railroad in Oregon and the Saratoga & North Creek in upstate New York.

Norfolk Southern SD60 #6920 seen at Brea, OH with intermodal train 21G.
Dan Davidson photo.

NORFOLK SOUTHERN- Norfolk Southern unveiled a specially painted locomotive honoring veterans just prior to Veteran's Day.

Photographers got a glimpse of red white and blue (not to mention copious amounts of black) SD60M #6920 at the railroad's Altoona, PA facility before it headed south for a Veteran's Day event in Norfolk, VA. According to a press release, the special paint scheme required 26 employees (two of whom were veterans) and 66 gallons of paint. The railroad also stated that military veterans currently make up about 14% of their current workforce and they were ranked #32 by GI Jobs in their list of top 100 military and veteran-friendly employers.

After the Veteran's Day weekend ceremonies, the #6920 resumed regular service and was spotted leading intermodal freight 21G through Ohio.

Remebering Veteran's Day

United States Medal of Honor Memorial at the Riverside National Cemetary in California

I have to be honest, even though I try and keep some of the big holiday posts apolitical, I'm still dour and pessemistic after Tuesday's election results.

I suppose I could go off on what would probably come across as some sort of Grumpy Old Man 'get off of my lawn' rant [despite the fact that I'm actually younger than...say...Cameron Diaz or Grace Park- NANESB!] but as a veteran myself, I think that would be inappropriate on today of all days. First and foremost, today is about those who have served and continue to serve- the second it becomes a blunt insturment to bash politicians people don't particularly like with and nothing else, Veteran's Day or Memorial Day would become meaningless.

For those that despair about the future of the nation, I urge you to step into the wayback machine and head back to late October 2012.

The above image got alot of circulation amongst conservatives and milbloggers at the time. It depcits the Honor Guard for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetary in Virginia standing guard in the driving rain and went viral on social networks as Hurricane Sandy bore down on the East Coast.

However, this image was reportedly taken the day the storm hit- the US Army's 3rd Infantry Regiment has guarded the Tomb continuously since 1948. Should the cemetary close due to bad weather, the Old Guard can keep watch either from under an awning or a nearby enclosed area. The Old Guard's Tomb Sentinels reportedly declined to do either that day.

So even though image of the trio of Old Guard sentries on duty in the driving rain wasn't actually taken during Hurricane Sandy [remember that Sandy was still classified as a hurricane until making landfall in further north in New Jersey- NANESB!] I thought it was still a striking and appropriate visual for Veteran's Day.

I'm in between church, some football watching and attending a Veteran's Day ceremony this afternoon, but I wanted to also take this opportunity to thank both veterans and active-duty military for their service to this country.

It's also worth pointing out that restaurant chains like Applebee's, Friendly's, Golden Corral or TGI Friday's among others will be serving complimentary lunches to veterans and active duty servicemen with valid ID or a DD-214. A more comprehensive list can be seen here.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg Does an About-Face on New York Marathon, Rejects Bourogh President's Request for National Guard

After increasing public criticism, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced the cancellation of the 2012 New York City Marathon. This is the first cancellation in the history of the marathon and reverses an earlier decision from the mayor's office to hold the event despite diverting valuable city resources from assisting in the cleanup in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

Bloomberg, who as late as Friday afternoon insisted the world's largest marathon should go on as scheduled Sunday, changed course shortly afterward amid intensifying opposition from the city comptroller, the Manhattan borough president and sanitation workers unhappy they had volunteered to help storm victims but were assigned to the race instead. The mayor said he would not want "a cloud to hang over the race or its participants."

We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event — even one as meaningful as this — to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track," Bloomberg said.

No one can say they are truly shocked at the cancellation, but what can be shocking is the announcement so close to the race. Participants might have been able to delay flights, change bookings and released hotel space to people without shelter after power outages. Bloomberg has a little egg on his face after relentlessly insisting the race will go on all last week, only to reverse his decision a day and a half before the race, when most participants are already in the city. The suddenness of it all forced runners to deal with an unexpected twist, what to do with no race?

Many New Yorkers had pointed out that if the marathon went on as scheduled would've diverted much-needed police, fire and public works resources from parts of the city. The on-again-off-again decision-making for the Marathon isn't the only post-Sandy decision that Bloomberg has been criticized for.

Earlier this week, Bloomberg dismissed Brooklyn Bourogh President Marty Markowitz's request to send National Guard troops to the hard-hit sections around Coney Island.

Mayor Bloomberg has snubbed Borough President Markowitz’s impassioned plea to bring the National Guard to Hurricane Sandy-scarred Brooklyn — arguing that approving the Beep’s request would be a waste of federal manpower and turn the borough into a police state.

“We don’t need it,” Mayor Bloomberg said on Wednesday during a press update on the city’s ongoing Hurricane Sandy cleanup. “The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.”

Markowitz demanded the National Guard’s help just an hour before Bloomberg’s press conference, claiming that the NYPD and FDNY are “brave — but overwhelmed” by all the challenges Sandy brought when it visited the borough on Monday night: flooding, power outages, and looting.

“All of our resources have been stretched to the limit,” Markowitz said. “In the name of public safety we need to send more National Guard personnel into Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, Gerritsen Beach, Red Hook, and any other locations.”
Mayor Bloomberg has snubbed Borough President Markowitz’s impassioned plea to bring the National Guard to Hurricane Sandy-scarred Brooklyn — arguing that approving the Beep’s request would be a waste of federal manpower and turn the borough into a police state.

“We don’t need it,” Mayor Bloomberg said on Wednesday during a press update on the city’s ongoing Hurricane Sandy cleanup. “The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.”

Markowitz demanded the National Guard’s help just an hour before Bloomberg’s press conference, claiming that the NYPD and FDNY are “brave — but overwhelmed” by all the challenges Sandy brought when it visited the borough on Monday night: flooding, power outages, and looting.

“All of our resources have been stretched to the limit,” Markowitz said. “In the name of public safety we need to send more National Guard personnel into Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, Gerritsen Beach, Red Hook, and any other locations.”

There have been sparodic reports of looting in New York's outer boroughs as an estimated 2.5 million households in the New York metropolitan area are without power heading into the weekend.