Blogs & Ecology

A 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit north Sulawesi in Indonesia last Monday displacing thousands of residents. A tsunami warning was also issued by the authorities.

Konbit Pou Ayiti says that “although most of the world has moved on from the tragic stories of the four powerful storms that thrashed Haiti in August and September, Haitians certainly have not. In Gonaives, people are still living on the roofs of homes that are covered in mud. In the south and southeast, hunger that was once a part of daily life is now becoming famine…”

Blesh Family in Haiti makes a visit to the General Hospital where some of the victims of the Petionville school collapse were taken: “We are glad we went & it was nice to be able to get the kids to smile but the situation is so devastating. Many of the parents had multiple children in the school…it was heartbreaking.

jack'sVolunteerWorkInArmenia details his weekend trip to Armenia's second largest city of Gyumri. Situated close to the (closed) border with Turkey, the city will next month commemorate the 1988 earthquake which devastated much of its infrastructure and left tens of thousands dead or homeless. The blog says that twenty years on, it is still going to take much longer to rebuild its shattered economy.

El Marco returns to Bali and posts pictures of the monument at the site of the 2002 Bali bombings. He also observes: “I found a land and a people painfully changed in the aftermath of the 2002 and 2005 terrorist bombings.”

Rule of Lords reports that “Over half-a-million people in eastern Burma are living in temporary dwellings, forced out of their villages as a result of fighting, insecurity and the whims of local army commanders.”

Des Balkans au Caucase, regards sur l'Est [FR] comments on the bombing of a minivan in the capital of North Ossetia in which 11 people died and 40 others were wounded.

Despite the recent spate of fires encountered in Egypt, today brings a different story for yet another fire - one started in the political Al Ghad Party's headquarters, in Cairo.

Blogger Zeinobia breaks the story:

“It’s becoming more like an annual ritual here! The ministry of transport and public works is as usual unprepared and obviously has been dealing with bad subcontractors,” writes Rami in this post with photos of the terrible traffic jams and flooding that followed the rain in Beirut.

India's troubled north-eastern Assam state was rocked by a series of coordinated blasts today. Praful reports that 60 people were killed and more than 200 injured. “Although ULFA’s involvement in the serial blasts in Assam is suspected, the intelligence sources believe that Bangladesh-based HuJI could be behind the blasts,” opines the blogger.

Foto by Mesas de Diálogo.

The past month has been very difficult for many Guatemalans. During tropical storms, heavy rains and flooding, a lack of public policies aimed at preventing tragedies resulted in even more damage, as agricultural crops have been ruined, houses completely destroyed and people have even been buried alive because of landslides.

For the past few years, Morocco has been experiencing a significant drought. Unfortunately, recent rain storms have brought little relief, as Northern Morocco experiences massive flooding, claiming the lives of at least 13 people.

The View From Fez recently reported on the floods:

Thirteen people have been killed in northern Morocco after their homes collapsed in flash flooding caused by torrential rains.

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Source: Global Voices Online

Chernobyl and Eastern Europe writes about a recent radiological accident training at Chernobyl Power Plant, and shares a link to the English-language section of Virtual Pripyat, “a new project associated with Pripyat.com […], a site that acts as an address book/directory of Pripyat and the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.”

Belizean reports that the country is still suffering from the effects of widespread flooding.

“Staff and students at a university in northwest Algeria suspended classes on Sunday to protest the murder of a lecturer who was stabbed to death by one of his pupils,” reports Daily Maghreb.