Tag Archives: Evacuate

Workers at Washington nuclear waste plant take cover after tunnel collapse

The Purex (Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant) separations facility at the Hanford Works is seen in an undated aerial photo. The building has been vacant for nearly twenty years but remains highly contaminated, according to the Department of Energy. DOE/Handout via REUTERS

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – A tunnel partly collapsed on Tuesday at a plutonium handling facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, leading authorities to evacuate some workers and instruct others to take cover, federal officials said.

Workers took cover and turned off ventilation systems after minor damage was discovered in the wall of a transport tunnel, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy said by telephone from the Hanford Joint Information Center.

The damage was more serious than initially reported, and the take-cover order was expanded to cover the entire facility after response crews found a 400-square-foot section of the decommissioned rail tunnel had collapsed, she said.

“The tunnel itself was breached. There was a 20-foot wide hole,” the spokeswoman said.

No spent nuclear fuel is stored in the tunnel, and no further evacuations have been ordered for workers, nor have any warnings for civilians around the site been issued, she said.

She declined to identify herself, citing agency policy.

The site is in southeastern Washington on the Columbia River, about 170 miles (270 km) east of Seattle. Operated by the federal government, it was established in the 1940s and manufactured plutonium that was used in the first nuclear bomb as well as other nuclear weapons. It is now being dismantled and cleaned up by the Energy Department.

“This is a potentially serious event,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “I can see why the site ordered emergency measures. Collapse of the earth covering the tunnels could lead to a considerable radiological release.”

Lyman pointed to a description of the storage tunnels from a report from the Consortium For Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation in 2015 about the Hanford site, saying there is quite a lot of cesium-137 and plutonium in those tunnels. Those are radioactive materials that can cause radiation sickness and death depending on the amount and length of exposure.

Mostly decommissioned, Hanford has been a subject of controversy and conflict between state and local authorities, including a lawsuit over worker safety and ongoing cleanup delays. The site has been described in media reports as the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States.

The evacuation did not affect the nearby nuclear power plant operated by Energy Northwest, company spokesman John Dobken said. The Columbia nuclear plant was located about 12 miles southeast of where the incident at Hanford occurred, he said.

(Reporting by Tom James in Seattle; Additional reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)

Rain threatens U.S. Midwest as flooding force hundreds from homes

Long Creek Bridge on 86 highway, flooding Photo By Austin Metcalf

(Reuters) – Unrelenting rain will drench the already saturated U.S. Midwest on Thursday and Friday, forecasters said, after floods in the region killed at least five people and forced residents in vulnerable areas to evacuate their flooded communities.

Parts of Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Indiana and Oklahoma could see as much as an additional 4 inches (10 cm) of rain as a slow-moving system is expected to hover over the region for at least one more day, the National Weather Service said in flood warnings and watches.

“The flooding in the middle part of the county has been unbelievable over the last couple of days … and we have more rain on the way, if you can believe that,” Weather.com meteorologist Ari Sarsalari said during his forecast on Wednesday night.

The National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings and watches along waterways from eastern Texas north through Indiana and into northwestern Ohio as forecasters expected most of the rivers across the U.S. Midwest to crest over the weekend.

Branson Landing in Branson, Missouri. Photo by Austin Metcalf

Branson Landing in Branson, Missouri.
Photo by Austin Metcalf

The rain comes after five people were killed in flooding in Missouri, the last two of them swept from their cars on Monday and Tuesday, after a storm dumped almost 12 inches (30 cm) of rain in the region over the weekend, the National Weather Service said.

Schools throughout the Midwest canceled classes on Thursday as dozens of roadways and parts of interstate highways remained under water. Amtrak also suspended service in Missouri until at least Saturday, it said in a statement.

The heavy rains have caused levees to fail or to be breached along the Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio rivers and their tributaries over the last few days.

Hundreds of people in places like Eureka, Missouri and Pocahontas, Arkansas have heeded evacuation orders and advisories after building walls of sandbags to protect their homes and businesses from the rising waters.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Toby Chopra)

U.N. aborts plan to evacuate patients from Aleppo – Blames ALL parties

A Civil Defence member stands as a front loader removes debris after an air strike Sunday in the rebel-held besieged al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The United Nations has abandoned plans to evacuate patients from besieged rebel-held east Aleppo which it had hoped to accomplish during a three day lull in fighting last week, blaming all parties to the conflict for obstructing efforts.

“The evacuations were obstructed by various factors, including delays in receiving the necessary approvals from local authorities in eastern Aleppo, conditions placed by non-state armed groups and the government of Syria’s objection to allowing medical and other relief supplies into the eastern part of the city,” U.N. Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator Stephen O’Brien said in a statement on Monday.

O’Brien said no patients and family members were evacuated during the three-day Russian unilateral ceasefire last week which ended on Saturday with a resumption of air strikes and a surge in ground fighting.

“I am outraged that the fate of vulnerable civilians – sick and injured people, children and the elderly, all in need of critical and life-saving support – rests mercilessly in the hands of parties who have consistently and unashamedly failed to put them above narrow political and military interests,” he said.

The U.N. has been unable to access east Aleppo since July, when Syrian government and allied forces put the eastern part of the city under siege.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Hurricane Matthew’s threat to Haiti grows, some resist shelters

Families aboard a plane to evacuate them

By Makini Brice and Joseph Guyler Delva

LES CAYES/PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Hurricane Matthew edged closer to Haiti on Monday, bringing 130- mile-per-hour (215 kph) winds and torrential rain that could wreak havoc in the Caribbean nation, although some 2,000 people in one coastal town refused to evacuate.

Matthew’s center is expected to near southwestern Haiti and Jamaica on Monday night, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Crawling towards Haiti’s Les Cayes, Jamaica and Cuba at five miles per hour (seven kph), the storm could be just as slow leaving, giving its winds and rain more time to cause damage.

“We are worried about the slow pace of Hurricane Matthew, which will expose Haiti to much more rain, and the country is particularly vulnerable to flooding,” said Ronald Semelfort, director of Haiti’s national meteorology center.

The storm comes at a bad time for Haiti. The poorest country in the Americas is set to hold a long-delayed election next Sunday.

A combination of weak government and precarious living conditions make the country particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. More than 200,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7 earthquake struck in 2010.

“Even in normal times, when we have rain we have flooding that sometimes kills people,” said Semelfort, comparing Matthew to 1963’s Hurricane Flora, which swept away entire villages and killed thousands in Haiti.

RESISTANCE

In Jamaica too, officials were scrambling to protect the vulnerable, as residents boarded up windows and flocked to supermarkets to stock up on food, water, flashlights and beer.

In Cuba, which Matthew is due to reach on Tuesday, evacuation operations were well underway, with people voluntarily moving their belongings into neighbors’ houses or heading to shelters. Some even found cliff-side caves they said were the safest places to ride out storms.

Matthew was about 245 miles (3955 km) south-southeast of Jamaica’s Kingston early on Monday and moving north toward Haiti. The hurricane center ranked it at Category 4 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.

In Haiti, some streets were already flooded in Les Cayes, a town of about 70,000 people that was previously ravaged by hurricanes in 1781 and 1788.

But Haitian officials said about 2,000 residents of the La Savane neighborhood of Les Cayes refused to heed government calls to move out of their seaside homes, even though they were just a few miles from where the center of the hurricane is forecast to make landfall.

As the wind died down at night, people remained outside in La Savane, hanging out on porches, playing checkers and dominoes outside, and listening to music.

“The police and local authorities and our evacuation teams have been instructed to do all they can to move those people,” Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph said.

“They have also been instructed to move them by force if necessary. We have an obligation to protect those peoples lives, even against their will.”

However, the chief of police for the southern region, Luc Pierre, said it was almost impossible to force such a large number of people to leave their homes.

“I would have to arrest all those people and take them to a safe place. This is very difficult,” he said, adding that the power had already gone off in the town.

Poor Haitians are at times reluctant to leave their homes in the face of impending storms, fearing their belongings will be stolen after they leave.

Only a few families had opted to move to a high school in La Savane, designated as a shelter for up to 600 people. It was without electricity and lit only by candlelight.

“There are babies crying here; there is nothing at all,” said Nadja, 32, who was pregnant with her fourth child.

(Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh and Gabriel Stargardter; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Larry King)

Colima Volcano Erupts Twice in One Day

Mexico’s Colima volcano is causing local officials to dust off evacuation plans.

The volcano erupted twice in one day and is spewing large plumes of hot ash into the sky.  The ash has been raining onto the homes of residents’ miles away from the mountain.  The largest of the plumes reached two miles into the sky.

Local officials are preparing to evacuate residents if the mountain continues to increase in eruption intensity.  The last time an evacuation was required was in 2005.

The volcano is considered one of the most active in the nation.

The country’s national civil protection agency has a station three miles from the volcano to monitor for severe eruptions.