WATER
A month’s worth of rain fell on Toronto in just a few hours on Monday,
leaving cars and commuters stranded, crippling the subway system and
leaving some 300,000 customers without power across the city. The rain
started arriving ahead of the supper hour, which caused severe flooding,
major public transit delays and power outages across the city.
Pedestrians sought shelter where they could as they waited out the
weather. For drivers and commuters, the voyage home was just as
problematic. The rain made it hard to see, while the pools of water made
it hard to drive and in some cases drivers were unable to move.
Environment Canada has put Toronto under a severe thunderstorm warning
due to a "cluster" of storms that are making their way towards the city
from the Brampton and Mississauga areas. "Total rainfall amounts over 90
mm have been reported in some locations thus far, and will likely
exceed 100 mm before the rainfall tapers off later this evening," said a
weather warning from Environment Canada.
FIRE
More than a dozen forest fires are raging in northern Quebec, including
one just four kilometres northeast of the Cree community of Eastmain.
Quebec's forest fire protection agency, la Societe de protection des
forets contre le feu (SOPFEU), said the fire had spread over 257,000
hectares when last surveyed, although today it is likely closer to
300,000 hectares - 3000 square kilometers. "The winds at the moment are in the community's
favour," said Melanie Morin, a spokeswoman for SOPFEU. "The winds are
blowing away from the community and heading eastward." Late last week, some 275 elderly and infirm people, as well as those
with respiratory problems, were evacuated from Eastmain and are already
in Val d'Or. Viger said between 400 and 500 people remain in the Cree
community, with no passable road out due to smoke from the fire. "If the
wind changes direction we may have to evacuate Cree villages in the
territory," Viger said. "We are starting to put in place a Plan B, to
transport people by plane, as we can still get into all the communities
by plane." For a second straight day, damage to major transmission lines
from the fires caused widespread blackouts elsewhere in Quebec. Half a
million Hydro-Quebec customers were without power at the peak of
Thursday's outages, which began at around 5 p.m. Hydro-Quebec said most
had their power restored by 7 p.m., and the utility had the three
transmission lines affected up and running again by 7:30 p.m. On
Wednesday, damage to the hydro line caused a major power failure that
affected metro service in Montreal and cut off power at LaRonde, the
amusement park on Ile Ste-Helene.
"A major line, a major transmission line far up north basically went off
line," Hydro-Quebec's chief executive officer, Thierry Vandal,
explained early Thursday. "That has a cascading affect on a number of
lines." La Societe de developpement de la Baie-James, the agency in
charge of roads in that part of the province, yesterday closed a large
portion of the James Bay highway because of the fire, as well as side
roads. A second major fire is burning 40 kilometres east of Nemiscau,
another Cree community southeast of Eastmain. Morin said that fire,
covering some 25,000 hectares when last surveyed, is so far not
affecting the community because the prevailing winds are away from the
village. SOPFEU has posted an extreme danger alert for several regions
of the province - essentially everything north of the 49th parallel.
"Contrary to the southern portion of the province, where we have lots of
humidity and rain on and off throughout most of the summer, the nordic
portion of the province has had very little rain and is very dry," Morin
said. "The fire index is at 'extreme,' which means the tiniest spark
could set off a major forest fire." There is a ban on all open-air fires
in the affected regions.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/site/?pageid=event_desc&edis_id=WF-20130705-39898-CAN
METAL
At least 13 people have been confirmed dead in the devastating oil train
accident that happened in Quebec, Canada, and the death is expected to
rise, officials said today. The number of missing people was now "around
50." Earlier, they said the number of missing was around 40
individuals. Investigators said they are still working to locate the
missing people. The bodies that have been found were burned to "just
bones," police said today. The town of Lac-Megantic, east of Montreal,
was consumed by fire on Saturday when a cargo train parked uphill from
the town broke free, barrelled towards it and derailed. The 73-car train
carried up to 1 million gallons of crude oil that ignited when the
train derailed, causing a fireball that engulfed the town. Rescue
workers are still hoping to make their way through the smoldering rubble
to locate the missing individuals, many of whom are believed to have
been at a local bar, Le Musi-Cafe, when the crash happened. Benoit said
he expects the death toll to rise once they get to the site of the bar.
Investigators could not reach the bar site because of still-smoldering
hot spots, he said. The derailment caused fires throughout the town that
devastated more than 30 buildings and sent up to 2,000 residents
fleeing. Investigators have recovered two black boxes from the train
since the crash and are working to determine how the crash occurred,
they said Monday. The railway company responsible for the train, Rail
World Inc., said that the train's engineer had put the proper brakes on
the train when parking it uphill of Lac-Megantic. The company said that a
locomotive shutdown might have released the train's airbrakes that were
supposed to hold it in place overnight, setting it free on the tracks.
EARTH
An oil and gas platform well in the Gulf of Mexico has lost containment
and is leaking natural gas, the Coast Guard said. Early Tuesday, the
Coast Guard and the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental
Enforcement received a report from the owners of the natural gas and
crude oil platform that workers had lost control of a well, Coast Guard
spokesman Jonathan Lally told NBC News. "It is actively leaking natural
gas," Lally said, adding that all workers had been safely evacuated and
none were injured. The well, about 74 miles off Port Fourchon, La., is
owned by Energy Resources Technology Gulf of Mexico, a subsidiary of
Talos Energy. According to the company's site assessment, "there is a
rainbow sheen visible on the surface estimated to be more than four
miles wide by three quarters of a mile long." Talos Energy President
Timothy Duncan issued a statement late Tuesday saying workers were
trying to plug and abandon the nonproducing well when "salt water
containing a small amount of gas and light condensate began to flow to
the surface and around the wellhead." He said the platform was evacuated
and authorities were notified in "an abundance of caution."
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