Disasters

"Dispersants used to encourage the oil's breakdown actually hindered microbes that were helping clean-up the huge slick, says new research."

"After a ruptured oil pipeline went undiscovered for 17 hours, spilling 800,000 gallons of heavy oil into Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010, Congress ordered an audit that laid bare the industry's lackluster record of spotting leaks. But after five years of work, the Obama administration has proposed a regulatory overhaul that fails to patch that hole in the nation’s pipeline safety net — a revelation that has been largely ignored amid Washington's obsession with the Keystone XL pipeline."

"Of 32 BNSF train cars that hurtled off the tracks near Alma, Wis., on Saturday, five of them broke open and spilled at least 18,000 gallons of ethanol into the Mississippi River, the railroad company said."

"MARIANA, Brazil -- "Three days after a massive mudflow and flood caused by ruptured dams at an iron ore mine, Brazilian authorities are still struggling to determine a cause or even recover the bodies of as many as 28 people possibly swept away in the torrent."

"Casualties from a collapsed dam at a Brazilian mine owned by Vale and BHP Billiton mounted on Friday after rescue teams worked through the night to find the dozens missing in mudslides that devastated a nearby village."

"Did climate change cause that heat wave? That hurricane? That drought? A new collection of studies examined extreme weather events last year, including drought, floods and storms, to look for signs that climate change was a cause or contributor — and found mixed results."

"Aid flights rushed food and tents to the Yemeni island of Socotra, local officials said on Wednesday, after it was hit by a rare cyclone the United Nations said has displaced 40,000 people there and on the mainland."

"A stubborn forest fire in the Brazilian Amazon is threatening to consume the forest home of one of the last remaining uncontacted tribes on Earth – the awá-Awá."

"A cyclone with hurricane-force winds made landfall on Yemen's Arabian Sea coast on Tuesday, flooding the country's fifth-largest city Mukalla and sending thousands of people fleeing for shelter."