August 21, 1998
Webposted at 2:50 PM EDT
By Steve Newman
© 1998, Earth Environment Service. Dist. by Los Angeles
Times Syndicate
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German researchers have announced that increases in the ozone-destroying chemical CFC-12 are slowing in the upper atmosphere. "The CFC-12 data show a continuous and rather constant increase between 1978 and the early 1990s, while a slowing down of the trend is observed after about 1990," the scientists reported in a paper scheduled to be published in the Geophysical Research Letters. CFC-12, a chlorofluorocarbon once commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioning systems, is one of the main chemicals found to be damaging the high-altitude ozone layer.
Another round of severe flooding hit China, this time in the northeast of the country hundreds of miles from the flood-ravaged Yangtze River basin. Swollen rivers crushed levees and threatened a major industrial city with its worst disaster in almost 50 years. Heavy rains in Heilongjiang Province, which borders Russia, were expected to bring the worst floods since 1949 to the provincial capital of Harbin. The breach on the dike in Zhaoyuan county sent flood waters pouring into China's largest oil fields at Daqing, forcing 527 wells to close.
A 2.5-mile-long crack in the earth has opened up at Adami Tulu, about 105 miles south of Addis Ababa, according to the Ethiopian News Agency. The report quoted Adugna Urgessa, vice-chairman of the east Shoa District, as saying that the crack resulted from a receding earth and is 16 feet wide and 40 feet deep. Adugna said the depression has been gradually growing southward in the direction of lakes Abiyata and Shala, two in a chain of lakes that stretch down the famed Great Rift Valley. Officials fear that if the crack widens and joins the lakes, it could result in the flooding of some agricultural areas.
Hundreds of earthquakes rocked the site of the last Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, with more than 600 occurring on one day alone. No damage was reported.
Earth movements were also felt in central Italy, Taiwan, south-central Alaska and Southern California.
Mount Etna volcano spewed lava high into the air above Sicily, but vulcanologists assured nearby residents that there was no immediate danger of a violent eruption. The mountain spit lava several yards into the sky at regular intervals from its main crater during the day, but the activity was not as spectacular as that seen during its last big eruption in late July.
Mexico's Popocatepetl Volcano also erupted with a column of ash, steam and incandescent rocks soaring three miles above the southeastern suburbs of Mexico City.
Three deadly mudslides struck India's Himalayan highlands, killing more than 200 people, including a group of Hindu pilgrims making an annual trip to a holy site. Most of the victims perished when the worst of the mudslides virtually wiped out the village of Malpa in the state of Uttar Pradesh. A wireless message from the only surviving radio operation at the disaster site said that debris, bodies and rubble were carried into a river flowing below when an entire hillside collapsed on the village. Torrential rain and dense fog prevented relief teams from reaching the site for two days.
The New Zealand Press Association reported that the country's scientists have cloned a calf from the last surviving member of an ancient herd of short-horn cattle that had adapted to the sub-Antarctic conditions on New Zealand's southern islands. "Elsie" is the world's first cattle clone produced from an adult cell and probably the first clone to be alive at the same time as the genetically identical adult it was cloned from, said scientists at the government-run Ruakura science center near Auckland. Researcher David Wells told reporters that the breakthrough offers new hope for other endangered species like the giant panda. Wells said the birth of Elsie in early August "vastly improved the chances of saving this endangered breed."
Additional Sources: U.S. Climate Analysis Center, U.S. Earthquake Information
Center and the World Meteorological Organization.
© 1998, Earth Environment Service. Dist. by Los Angeles Times Syndicate
