Breaking News -- Earthquakes, Famines, Pestilence and Disasters
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Fatal 6.0-magnitude earthquake strikes near Bologna, Italy by msnbc.com staff and news services At 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck just north of Bologna, Italy, on Sunday, causing at least three deaths and collapsing historic structures. The quake was centered 22 miles north-northwest of Bologna in northern Italy at a relatively shallow depth of 6.3 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey website. It struck at about 4 a.m. local time and was followed about an hour later by one of 5.1 magnitude, according to the USGS. A 4.2 quake had occurred a few hours earlier. One person working a night shift died in the collapse of a factory and two others were killed in the collapse of another building, Reuters repoerted. Rescue officials were checking reports that other people were buried under rubble. The Italian-language website repubblica.it reported that a historic bell tower had collapsed in Ferrara province. "There's been a bit of damage. Some structures have come down with people in them," a person at the Ferrara firefighter headquarters told Reuters over the phone. First television pictures taken after dawn showed serious damage to historic buildings and rural structures. Parts of a historic fortress in one town collapsed. Watch World News videos on msnbc.com Thousands of people in the area rushed into the streets after the quake, felt in the cities of Bologna, Modena, Ferrara, Rovigo, Verona and Mantua. Repubblica.it said the quake was felt in Italy's financial capital, Milan, and elsewhere in the Lombardy region and in the regions of Tuscany, Veneto, Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The last major earthquake to hit Italy was a 6.3-magnitude quake in the central Italian city of L'Aquila in 2009, killing nearly 300 people. In January, a 5.3-magnitude quake in northern Italy was felt in Genoa, Bologna, Turin and Milan. This article includes reporting by msbnc.com staff and Reuters. http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/19/11774810-fatal-60-magnitude-earthquake-strikes-near-bologna-italy?lite Magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes Papua New Guinea Fox News A magnitude 6.0 earthquake shook Papua New Guinea on Wednesday morning, the US Geological survey reported. The quake struck 29 miles west of Kimbe town on the island of New Britain. The impact on the surrounding area was not clear, although were no immediate reports of injuries and no tsunami warning was issued. The quake hit the remote region just before 11:00 a.m. local time, striking at a depth of 95 miles, 318 miles northeast of the capital Port Moresby, which is on the main island. Papua New Guinea is regularly hit by earthquakes due to its proximity to the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire," a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates. In 1998, a fatal 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the north coast of Papua New Guinea leaving 2,183 dead. NewsCore contributed to this report. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/15/magnitude-60-quake-strikes-papua-new-guinea/ Global famine if India, Pakistan unleash nukes New Yourk Daily News If India and Pakistan engage in a ‘limited’ nuclear war, more than a billion people could suffer from famine due to climate disruptions. Corn production in the US would decline by 10 percent for a decade and soybean production would decrease by 10 percent for five years. More than a billion people worldwide could starve if India and Pakistan unleash nuclear weapons because even a 'limited' nuclear war would cause major climate disruptions, a study warned. In addition to clouds of radiation which could contaminate farmland far from the center of the blasts, the study found soot released into the atmosphere would devastate crop yields by cooling global temperatures and reducing rainfall worldwide. The study provides hard data to back up dire warnings of the global -- and unintended -- consequences of nuclear weapons, said author Dr. Ira Helfand of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. "It is not just the arsenals of the US and Russia that pose a threat to the whole world," Helfand told AFP. "Even these smaller arsenal pose an existential threat to our civilization, if not to our species. It would certainly end modern society as we know it." The study, set to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Change, was released at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Chicago. It found that corn production in the United States would decline by an average of 10 percent for an entire decade and soybean production would drop by about 10 percent with the most severe decline occurring five years after the nuclear war. It also determined that rice production in China would drop by an average of 21 percent of the first four years and 10 percent next six years. Significant losses would also likely occur with other crops and in other countries, Helfand said in an interview on the sidelines of the summit. And the actual crop losses could be much worse than predicted since the conservative model did not account for increases in UV light and the likelihood that global cooling would also result in sudden, crop-killing frosts. "Even with what we are able to show, the consequences for human nutrition and human life are really profound," Helfand said. The resulting increase in food prices and agricultural shortfalls would almost certainly lead to panic and hoarding on an international scale, further reducing access to food. Given that some 925 million people worldwide already suffer from malnutrition according to the latest UN study, the study found that mass famine deaths would likely be unavoidable. That would further deepen social unrest and could lead to armed conflicts both within and between nations. Mass famine is also often by major epidemics of infectious diseases like cholera and dysentery, which could further raise the death toll. Those consequences would pale in comparison to the Nuclear Winter which would devastate the globe should the United States or Russia unleash even a small portion of their arsenal, Helfand said. "The US and Russia are not likely to start a war with each other, but we know of at least five times when the US or Russia prepared to launch a nuclear attack because it believed it was under attack," Helfand said. Until the bulk of the arsenal is disarmed and hair-triggers are removed, Helfand said only "luck" will prevent the next computer glitch or communication failure to result in total nuclear war. Mikhail Gorbachev, who as president of the Soviet Union helped end the Cold War and open Russia's communist regime to democracy, said the study offers further proof of the need to abolish nuclear weapons. "Over twenty-five years ago, (US) President Ronald Reagan and I ended our summit meeting in Geneva with a joint statement that 'nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,'" Gorbachev, who founded the summit of peace laureates, said in a statement. "This new study underscores in stunning and disturbing detail why this is the case and why we must discard Cold War-style plans for the possible use of these weapons and move rapidly to eliminating them from the world's arsenals." http://india.nydailynews.com/newsarticle/4f983821c110c0a75c000000/global-famine-if-india-pakistan-unleash-nukes |
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