3 days of rain kills 400 people

In Islamabad, Pakistan, 3 days of heavy rain destroys hundreds of villages and turns thousands of people in refuges. At the same time, 400 people die cause distress and emotional trauma for hundreds more.

Many people look at rain with a neutral and sometimes even positive aspect. Rain provides water of growth and sustains life. However, rain can be a damaging force as well. Rain causes severe flooding - especially in developing nations where the drainage system is either limited or nonexistent.

Along with heavy rain, comes disease. Right now in Pakistan, the government is putting all their efforts into rebuilding this region before an epidemic strikes. The next 10 days are critical for the cleansing process, for disease is most likely to find a nest in the initial stages of a disaster. With the stench of death heavy in the air, airborne bacteria and viruses find homes in villages, schools, and even homes.

It is ironic that something as necessary to life such as rain, can destroy so much.

Conson

On Wednesday July 7th, a typhoon swept through Japan killing 36 people. A typhoon is a seasonal disaster that is most common in the Nothwestern Pacific. In particular, the Phillipines are most prone to these disasters, seeing up to 20 typhoons per year. A typhoon, to put it simply, is a water cyclone or a whirlwind. With this comes damaged homes, displaced refuges, and death. The recent Japanese Typhoon hit the main island of Luzon with wind speeds up to 120 kilometers per hour. The number of damaged homes increased from 500 to 11,230, and as of now, the number of utterly destroyed homes count up to 900. The typhoon settled down by late Tuesday, but now heavy rains are to be expected in Southern China and other regions in the Philippines.


Here in California and the United States, typhoons are not a common disaster, and so we do not realize the nature of these disasters. From a Californian perspective, the only significant disaster we face is the Earthquake. Both are extremely dangerous in their own ways. And earthquake comes from the ground and shakes the floor; a typhoon comes from the sky and water and rips apart a home. The damage is undeniable, and the only thing a person can do in such a situation is to sit tight though the disaster and help in reconstruction after.

India Trip :)

Dear Readers,
We are visiting Bihar / India this summer as a club to see the effects of Natural Disasters and understand the initiatives being taken by the administration to improve the situation. We will be sponsoring a cataract removal camp, observing a polio hospital, and meet some government officials in Bihar to find out what Bihar is doing to face these natural disasters that keep people poor. We are, therefore, creating this special edition newsletter on Bihar to show to what extent the people in Bihar are affected by natural disasters. The main disasters that affect Bihar are alternating floods and droughts. Please keep checking our blog on www.bhsnda.com for updates on our trip in India.
Thanks,



Aditi Verma

Check it out!

This is a red cross flier about safety. It effectively captures our message and motto for this club.

Check it out! http://american.redcross.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=7803.0&pgwrap=n

San Jancito Earthquake

On July 7th, 2010 at 4:53 PM, at 5.4 earthquake hit the SoCal region. Unlike other earthquakes, expets have predicted this earthquake for quite some time. These mini earthquakes - also known as "trigger earthquakes" - are known to come around after a particularly strong earthquake. One time of such situation was in 1992 - the 7.3 Landers earthquake. After this servere quake, aftershocks and "trigger earthquakes" were felt in the Mohave Desert of 15 years.

In this instance, scientists say the 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Baja California on Easter Sunday is responsible for yesterday's earthquake. They say that the 7.2 earthquake placed more pressure on the fault zones in Southern California in Elsinore and San Jancito. Wednesday's earthquake only confirmed this analysis as the earthquake centered around the San Jancito fault zone.

Experts say that the number of severe earthquakes have been increasing. A definite reason for this has not been published, but of course there are a plethora of reasons. Ranging from no reason at all to global warming, people try to explain the reasons of the increase in siesmic activity. It may be that the earth is simply going through a cyclic process and that there is no real reason for this natural damage, or there may be some unprecedented humane cause for the destruction.

Either way, the truth remains that earthquakes do occur often in the United States and around the globe. Rather than pursuing some elusive justification of the disaster, people should take the first necessary steps to become prepared to face the world that we live in.

Update on Hurricane Alex,

Hurricane Alex has gone a long way, leaving in its trails havoc, chaos, and destruction. It went through Northern Mexico where heavy rains and storms killed at least 2 people. In addition, most electricity within the city and all telephone connections have been destroyed in the wake of the storm. The situation has gotten more desolate as 4,000 people are evacuated from the despair and over 10 inches of rain falls radically in places. Flooding was common a donzens of communities in Matamors and Reynosa. Thousands of people now live without any TV or electricity because heavy winds topped utility poles. All of this Mexican region has been impacted in some way or another. However, now that the hurricane is coming to an end, people can work together and focus on rebuilding.