• Missouri pounded by rains and tornadoes, thousands evacuate

    This week heavy rain storms are raging across the mid-west and south forcing thousands of residents in Missouri to flee as swollen rivers threaten to flood their homes; in some areas emergency responders do not have many options and can do nothing but hope that the levees hold; the mid-west will not see any respite from the storms until Thursday as another major storm system is about to hit; officials are bracing for substantial flooding; the region is still struggling to recover from major storms that spawned tornadoes in six states killing forty-five people and damaging structures; Missouri has requested aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency

  • Japanese app helps spread earthquake warning

    After the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan, hundreds of thousands of people have signed up for a new emergency warning app for their iPhones; when an earthquake is predicted to hit, the iPhone app, called Yure Kuru, will send out an alert and let subscribers know when the quake is coming, where the epicenter is located, and how bad the shaking will be; the app was developed by Tokyo based RC Solution Co., which specializes in mass alert systems and spreading information in the event of an emergency; since the 11 March earthquake, the company’s subscribers have sky rocketed from 100,000 to more than 1.5 million

  • Japan quake reconstruction could take ten years

    Yesterday an advisory panel to the Japanese government announced that it could take a decade to rebuild Japan after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami wiped out much of north-eastern Japan; the council said that the first three years alone would be devoted to building roads and erecting temporary housing for the thousands of families that have been displaced; rebuilding towns could take another four years and a full recovery might take even longer; the damage from the recent quake was far greater than the large quake that struck Japan in 1995; Prime Minister Kan’s cabinet has approved almost $50 billion in spending for post-earthquake rebuilding