Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Two More Large Earthquakes, Another Massive Hurricane Hits Land, Antibiotic Resistance And Hepatitis Outbreak In Los Angeles County



The Ring of Fire is heating up: M6.1 earthquake strikes off New Zealand just hours after M7.1 earthquake near Mexico 



A 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck off of New Zealand on Tuesday night, just hours after the deadly M7.1 earthquake killed at least 119 people in Mexico.

A M6.1 earthquake hit 256km W of Auckland Island, New Zealand on September 20, 2017. This was the second powerful quake within 7 hours on the “Ring of Fire” zone in the Pacific Ocean after that M7.1 near Mexico City.
Now 12 hours later, a M6.1 earthquake hit Honshu, Japan on September 20, 2017. That’s the third powerful quake within less than 24 hours to hit the Ring of Fire at total different places around the globe.

The underwater earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 magnitude struck in the remote Southern Ocean south of New Zealand on Wednesday.
The quake, at a shallow depth of 10km, was recorded 211km west of the sub-Antarctic Auckland Island, off New Zealand’s South Island.
There were no tsunami warnings issued immediately after the quake.
Just seven hours before, a deadly 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck near Mexico City. At least 119 people were killed and the numbers are growing every hours:
Part of Colegio Enrique Rebsamen, an elementary school in Mexico City, collapsed following the powerful M7.1 earthquake:
Emergency workers applaud after rescuing a person trapped underneath the rubble of a building collapsed by the earthquake in Mexico:









 Puerto Rico's governor is calling the storm "the biggest and potentially most catastrophic hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in a century."
Maria, which has left at least two people dead in the Caribbean, is forecast to "remain an extremely dangerous Category 4 or 5 hurricane" as it approaches Puerto Rico early Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said.
Maria could bring life-threatening flooding and mudslides, especially in mountainous regions in Puerto Rico, as well as a 6-to-9-foot storm surge in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
As of 3 a.m. Wednesday, Maria's maximum sustained winds had decreased to 160 mph, but it remained a Category 5 storm. Maria's maximum sustained winds were as high as 175 mph during the day Tuesday. It was 35 miles west of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and 70 miles southeast of San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. The storm was expected to reach the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico on Wednesday morning.
The last time Puerto Rico was hit by a Category 5 storm was in 1928.








Hurricane Maria made landfall near the city of Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, at around 6:15 am Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center, battering the densely populated eastern side of the island with torrential rains and 155 mph gusts as hundreds of thousands of people hunkered down in one of the island's 500 storm shelters in hopes of riding out the second major hurricane to impact the island within two weeks.
Category 4 Maria slammed the island with winds of 155 mph, just 2 mph short of category 5 status.

The island's governor has said the hurricane will likely cause "catastrophic" damage to the island's power grid and infrastructure, much of which has yet to be repaired following Hurricane Irma, which didn't make landfall in Puerto Rico, but passed close enough to cause $1 billion in damage. As Bloomberg points out, Maria is the fourth major hurricane and 13th storm in the Atlantic this season that’s wreaked havoc from Texas to the Caribbean and left dozens dead.


According to the NHC, the storm made landfall around 6:15 a.m. The NHC has instituted hurricane watches and warnings for many of Puerto Rico's neighboring islands.
SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT:
A Hurricane Warning is in effect for...
* U.S. Virgin Islands
* British Virgin Islands
* Puerto Rico, Culebra, and Vieques
* Dominican Republic from Cabo Engano to Puerto Plata
* Turks and Caicos Islands and the Southeastern Bahamas
A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for...
* Saba
* St. Maarten
* Dominican Republic west of Puerto Plata to the northern border of
the Dominican Republic and Haiti
* Dominican Republic west of Cabo Engano to Punta Palenque
A Hurricane Watch is in effect for...
* St. Maarten
* St. Martin and St. Barthelemy
* Dominican Republic from Isla Saona to Cabo Engano
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello is saying Maria is "potentially most catastrophic hurricane to hit" the U.S. territory in a century. Rossello said up to 25 inches of rain could fall in some areas and he urged anyone in a flood-prone, mudslide-prone or coastal area to leave.

"We have not experienced an event of this magnitude in our modern history," Rossello said. "Although it looks like a direct hit with major damage to Puerto Rico is inevitable, I ask for America’s prayers," he said. "No matter what happens here in the next 36 hours, Puerto Rico will survive, we will rebuild, we will recover and with your support, we will come out stronger than ever."







The NHS expects the storm to cross Puerto Rico on Wednesday and then move just north of the coast of the Dominican Republic later in the night and on Thursday. Maria had earlier battered the hurricane-ravaged Caribbean island nation of Dominica on Tuesday, devastating the island, according to the island's governor, Roosevelt Skerrit.




The powerful earthquake has struck off the coast of Japan near Fukushima, 281km ESE of Kamaishi, Japan at a very shallow depth of 10 km (6.2 miles).
Details about the consequences of the M6.1 quake is not known yet. There are however no tsunami warnings or advisories in effect.
This is the third large earthquake within 24 hours to hit different places around the world (Mexico and New Zealand) along the ‘Ring of Fire’. Where are we heading now? Cascadia? More volcanic eruptions?





Across central Mexico, rescue workers including soldiers and volunteers worked late into the night Tuesday to free the living who were still trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings following Mexico's deadliest earthquake in more than 30 years.
The death toll from the 7.1 magnitude quake – which bizarrely occurred on the anniversary of a 1985 quake that left 5,000 dead – has climbed to 248, with more than half of those deaths occurring in the Mexican capital city.  It also comes two weeks after another powerful quake left nearly 100 dead in Mexico City. The quake was unusually close to Mexico City, located just 60 miles south of the capital in Chiautla de Tapia, a small town in neighboring Puebla state, according to Mexico’s seismological service.

More are feared dead, including possibly dozens of teachers and schoolchildren feared buried in the rubble of a Mexico City school, one of hundreds of buildings that was destroyed by the quake, according to Reuters. 
Additionally, several buildings collapsed in the chic neighborhoods of Roma and Condesa in central Mexico City, where many foreigners live. In Condesa, rescue workers scrambled to find eight to 10 people believed trapped under the debris of a building that collapsed near Mexico Park, one of the city’s most famous parks. Hundreds of volunteers formed a human chain to help clear rubble and bring food and water to rescue workers.
Mexico was also hit earlier this month by Hurricane Katia, which killed two. Even the Popocatépetl volcano southeast of the city sent a large cloud of ash into the sky on Tuesday. “This is too much. It’s like we’re cursed or something,” said Marcos Santamaría, a 62-year-old retiree.
Philippines and the United Nations have offered to support the recovery effort. At least 30 second-grade students are still missing, along with eight adults.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said in a video message released late Tuesday that the initial focus of rescue efforts must be to find people trapped in wrecked buildings, according to the Associated Press. 
"The priority at this moment is to keep rescuing people who are still trapped and to give medical attention to the injured people."
Pena Nieto added that, as of late Tuesday, 40% of Mexico City and 60% of Morelos state had no electricity.
Dust-covered and exhausted from digging, 30-year-old Carlos Mendoza said two people were pulled alive from the ruins of a collapsed apartment building in the Roma Sur neighborhood during a three-hour period.
"When we saw this, we came to help," he said, gesturing at the destruction. "This is ugly, very ugly."
In Condesa, rescue workers scrambled to find eight to 10 people believed trapped under the debris of a building that collapsed near Mexico Park, one of the city’s most famous parks. Hundreds of volunteers formed a human chain to help clear rubble and bring food and water to rescue workers, according to the Wall Street Journal. 









A powerful 6.2 magnitude earthquake has struck off the coast of Japan near Fukushima.
Details of the extent of the damage have not yet emerged regarding the quake which hit 281km South East of Kamaishi. 
The depth of the earthquake, which struck at 2.37am local time, was measured at 10km.  
A similar earthquake back in 2011 killed 15,894 people and injured 10 more when a tsunami, landslides and fires broke out as a result.
But experts are predicting today's quake should pass by without causing any harm.
In June, five workers at a nuclear research facility in east Japan were exposed to radioactive material on Tuesday after a bag that contained it burst, the plant's state-run operator said.
Japan's nuclear industry has been in tatters in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, with parts of the public deeply skeptical about the safety of atomic energy.

Japan shut down all of its atomic reactors after a powerful earthquake in March 2011 spawned a huge tsunami that led to meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
It became the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
Since then, just a handful of reactors have come back online due to public opposition and as legal cases work their way through the courts.
However, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has aggressively promoted nuclear energy, calling it essential to powering the world's third-largest economy.
Much of the public remains wary of nuclear power after the disaster at Fukushima spewed radiation over a large area and forced tens of thousands to leave their homes, with some unlikely to ever return.  










Concern about growing global antibiotic resistance has come to a head: The World Health Organization is now warning that the world is running out of antibiotics.
There aren’t enough truly new antibiotics being developed, especially for the most concerning antibiotic-resistant infections, according to a WHO report released Tuesday. 
The United Nations health agency has aired its concerns about antibiotic resistance, which makes it more difficult to treat infections, for some time. Some of the group’s latest moves included updating guidelines for treating sexually transmitted infections and cautioning that just three antibiotics are being developed to treat gonorrhea, a “fairly grim” situation. 
But the latest WHO report takes a broad and prospective look at antibiotic development, and what it describes is not a pretty picture. 
“Antimicrobial resistance is a global health emergency that will seriously jeopardize progress in modern medicine,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general. Without more investment in research and development, “we will be forced back to a time when people feared common infections and risked their lives from minor surgery.”
Public health officials have long been concerned about antibiotic resistance, which occurs when bacteria mutate and become immune to a given antibiotic. Overuse or incorrect use of antibiotics are key contributing factors, as is antibiotic use in animals that are then consumed by humans. 
But drug development is lagging behind, especially for drug-resistant tuberculosis and other infections the WHO has designated as high priority, the U.N. health agency said. 
Of 51 new products in development for antibiotic-resistant infections, the WHO believes that only eight are innovative and add value to current options. And because drug development is a drawn-out process, most of it unsuccessful, current efforts could result in only about 10 new approvals in the next five years, the report said.
Even then, “these potential new treatments will add little to the already existing arsenal” because most of the products being developed today are essentially versions of existing antibiotic classes, the report said. Thus, most products usually can’t work against many current types of resistance, and will only be helpful in the short term.








The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has declared a local outbreak of hepatitis A.

The health agency said the declaration was issued after the most recent new cases of the disease appear to have been locally acquired.

So far, 10 cases of hepatitis A have been confirmed among the high-risk homeless population in Los Angeles County, according to a press release from the department.

Four of the confirmed cases were in individuals who had been in San Diego and Santa Cruz. Three other cases were identified in a health facility in Los Angeles County. Two of those cases appear to have been acquired locally, according to the health department.

"Public Health has been proactively preparing for an outbreak for some time and is working diligently to prevent spread in local communities. Our priorities are to keep all our residents both safe and well informed of the situation," said Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, MD, MPH, Interim Health Officer, Los Angeles County.

"Vaccination is the best protection against Hepatitis A. With this in mind, our outreach teams and clinics are offering free vaccine to persons who are homeless, active drug users, and those who provide services and support to those individuals."

According to the LA County health department, a person can get hepatitis A if they come into contact with an infected person's feces through contaminated food or objects. Other modes of transmission include certain sexual practices, sharing equipment related to illicit drug use, and consumption of food or water contaminated with the virus.




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