Climate change takes a toll on Western Ghats

In Puthumala in Wayanad, another hamlet has been wiped out as a hillside has almost melted away, bringing down everything in its path: homes, people, tea estates.

Ten days after an entire hillock collapsed and buried a village of 44 families, giant excavators continue to scoop out mounds of earth in search of human remains to tally the count of missing persons. The stench of decay and medicinal spray to avert a disease outbreak hangs heavy; the remains recovered are taken to a village mosque for post-mortem examinations and identification.

In Puthumala in Wayanad, another hamlet has been wiped out as a hillside has almost melted away, bringing down everything in its path: homes, people, tea estates.

Both these disasters occurred in what were described as the “ecologically sensitive zones” of the Western Ghats by a committee headed by ecologist Madhav Gadgil in 2011, and again in 2013 by a high-level working group on the Western Ghats headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chief K Kasturirangan.

Survivors at relief camps in Mallapuram are mourning the loss of 28-year-old Vishnu, an army jawan and the pride of the neighbourhood, who along with his family was among the 59 buried in the landslide that struck at 8pm on August 8.

Experts say soil erosion and quarrying have affected the ‘ecologically sensitive’ hills of Western Ghats. (HT photo)

Most villagers haven’t come to terms with the horror they witnessed. “I have seen many floods but not an entire hill collapsing within moments. All I can say is the rain was very intense. I had already lost everything. Now I saw an entire village and kids like Vishnu disappear,” said Ammani, 79.

V Nandakumar, a scientist from the National Centre for Earth Sciences who visited both sites to assess what could have led to the disasters, said: “Two structural streams were completely missing in Kavalappara; they were probably built upon. There was also a lot of pit making for rubber plantation. The soil couldn’t contain and slowly slid away. In Puthumala, too, where the slope is nearly 2.5km long, I suspect there was something similar amiss which aggravated the slide.”

In Puthumala, a hamlet was washed away within minutes at around 4pm on August 8. “It was a beautiful village amid the tea plantations. The Gram Panchayat suspected that the area was landslide prone and asked villagers to evacuate the previous day. But some people stayed on. They were washed away. I have never seen such a horrifying tragedy,” said Abdul Rasheed from Meppadi village, who has volunteered to serve tea and refreshments to rescue workers.

The team recovered 12 bodies by Tuesday, August 20; more people are suspected to be trapped. Mujeeb, who works as a labourer, claims that large resorts built uphill above Puthumala may have eroded the soil over time. Though Wayanad is one of the most biodiversity rich regions of the Western Ghats, very little forest cover is visible in Vyithiri and Meppadi, where only plantations of tea, coffee, areca nut and rubber are seen.

Though not linked directly to the two big landslides, Pullikal village in Mallapuram is also an example of how quarrying has affected the fragile hills of the Western Ghats. Entire hillsides have been eaten away by granite quarries, with some being rapaciously mined from both slopes, leaving a narrow table on the top. “These (mining operations) are unlicensed and definitely have a major environmental impact,” added Nandakumar.

In Pullikal, at least eight quarries can be seen. “There are several more. It’s all quarry in Mallapuram. I have seen forested hillsides being completely denuded in less than a year. They use blasting to mine, which also makes the hills shaky. I fear for people here,” said Naushad M, a resident of Mallapuram, who does temporary jobs after recently returning from a 17-year stint in Kuwait.

Naushad is among very few people willing to talk about the quarries and sand mining, which is rampant on the coast.

A study by TV Sajeev and Alex CJ of the Kerala Forest Research Institute published in 2017 based on GIS mapping found there are 5,924 quarries in Kerala, 657 in Mallapuram, 509 in Kozhikode, and 161 in Wayanad. Thirteen are within a 1km radius of a protected area or reserve forest.

The two worst-affected regions also received exceptionally high rainfall between August 8 and August 14, according to data with India Meteorological Department (IMD). Mallapuram received 500% more rainfall (594.3mm) than the normal of 99.1mm. Wayanad received 401% excess rains, getting 707.5mm against a normal of 141.1mm.

“There was intense rainfall in a very short period and land use change may have aggravated the damage. So both factors are responsible. The water must have flowed down through the slopes and the soil must have been very wet. The Western Ghats and the Himalayan region are extremely vulnerable and need a careful strategy to mitigate such disasters,” said M Rajeevan, secretary, ministry of earth sciences.

(Source: HT)

Massive pumice 'raft' spotted in the Pacific could help replenish Great Barrier Reef

The 150 sq km field of floating rock was created by an underwater volcanic eruption near Tonga

A giant raft of pumice, which was spotted in the Pacific and is expected to make its way towards Australia, could help the recovery of the Great Barrier Reef from its bleaching episode by restocking millions of tiny marine organisms, including coral.

The pumice raft, which is about 150 sq km, was produced by an underwater volcano near Tonga. It was first reported by Australian couple Michael Hoult and Larissa Brill, who were sailing a catamaran to Fiji, on 16 August.

 A pumice raft in the southwest Pacific in 2012. Researchers say pumice can carry marine life, including coral across the ocean helping to replenish reef Photograph: Erika Fish/QUT/AAP

“We entered a total rock rubble slick made up of pumice stones from marble to basketball size,” the couple said in a Facebook post.

“The waves were knocked back to almost calm and the boat was slowed to 1 knot. The rubble slick went as far as we could see in the moonlight and with our spotlight.”

The yacht’s steering became temporarily jammed by rocks between rudders and hull, but they managed to clear it and warn other vessels in the area.

A raft of rock, the size of 20,000 football fields is floating towards Queensland. The pumice was created when an underwater volcano erupted off Tonga. Scientists say it'll bring millions of new coral to the Great Barrier Reef. @ErinEdwards7 @QUT #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/W7pKdowYw2

— 7NEWS Gold Coast (@7NewsGoldCoast) 24 August 2019

Since then, the pair have been working with Queensland University of Technology geologist Scott Bryan by providing pictures and samples of the volcanic rock.

Bryan said the raft will be the temporary home for billions of marine organisms. Marine life including barnacles, corals, crabs, snails and worms will tag along as it travels toward Australia and become a “potential mechanism for restocking the Great Barrier Reef”.

“Based on past pumice raft events we have studied over the last 20 years, it’s going to bring new healthy corals and other reef dwellers to the Great Barrier Reef,” Bryan said.

I think Liss is enjoying the Science side of this... 

We have been contacted by a couple of Earth Science and Geology Professors from a couple of universities who study Volcanic and Pumice events looking for more details, photos and samples of the Pumice ROAM collected the other night. Liss is on the job of specimen photography this morning and taking it very seriously

Pumice forms when frothy molten rock cools rapidly and forms a lightweight bubble-rich rock that can float. The pumice raft comes from an unnamed but only recently discovered underwater volcano that satellite images reveal erupted about 7 August.

It should begin to hit Australian shores in about seven months’ time, passing by New Caledonia, Vanuatu and reefs in the eastern Coral Sea along the way as coral begins to spawn.

“It’s the right timing. So it will be able to pick up corals and other reef building organisms, and then bring them into the Great Barrier Reef,” Bryan said.

“Each piece of pumice is a rafting vehicle. It’s a home and a vehicle for marine organisms to attach and hitch a ride across the deep ocean to get to Australia.”

(Source: The Guardian)

'There was no hope': Treatable disease often mistaken for Alzheimer's

When John Searle started to fall down and lose his memory, he thought it was the early signs of dementia. But it turns out he has a rare - and often undiagnosed - condition called normal pressure hydrocephalus. The good news is it's treatable.

A few years ago, John Searle thought his life as he knew it was over.

His body had slowly stopped working. He had trouble walking, he was falling down, he had bad short-term memory and, at 69, he was incontinent.

It was a pattern of decline the retired Canadian engineer from Brantford, Ontario was all too familiar with. His own sister had died of Alzheimer's in her 50s. His father had died of dementia in his early 80s. So he began to start planning for a future he would not be able to participate in.

"You kind of wonder where you're going. You start thinking, is this it?" he says.

Doctors could not give him a definitive diagnosis, which only infuriated the retired engineer more. Parkinson's treatment had no effect, he didn't have Alzheimer's but something was clearly not right. By 2018, he needed a wheelchair to go outside, and a walking frame inside his own home.

After spending years unable to travel without a wheelchair, John Searle is finally able to go on vacation with his wife

"There was no hope, I was sitting in the window watching life go by."

"He was angry - he was beyond angry," his wife Barbara chimes in. "There were nights when I was laying in bed thinking maybe I'll have to sell the house... because I had to do everything."

But that changed when he met Dr Alfonso Fasano, a neurologist at the Movement Disorders Clinic at Toronto Western Hospital, who diagnosed him with a condition called normal pressure hydrocephalus, or NPH.

The disorder is caused when excess cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in the brain's ventricles, which are the communication centre of the mind.

This build-up of fluid can cause movement difficulties, memory and cognition problems and incontinence - symptoms that are also often associated with more common degenerative illnesses, like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or dementia.

Hydrocephalus Canada estimates that at least 1 in 200 Canadians over the age of 55, or more than 57,000 people, have NPH. In the US, the Hydrocephalus Association estimates that 700,000 Americans are afflicted, but that only about 20% of people living with the condition been correctly diagnosed.

"NPH is a condition that is not well understood yet," says Dr Fasano. Untreated, people may wind up in a nursing home, or die from complications. "That's what we don't want to see, people just dismissed," he says.

Mr Searle first heard about NPH when he saw a specialist to treat migraine headaches in 2003. An MRI revealed some fluid in his brain's ventricles, but because he had none of the telltale symptoms, he was not diagnosed.

In 2014, after several years of experiencing symptoms like memory loss and mobility difficulty, doctors did a lumbar puncture to drain some fluid from his brain to see if his symptoms improved, a common test for NPH.

Because Mr Searle's symptoms did not improve, his doctors determined NPH must not be the culprit.

Eight years after 2010, when he first noticed the mobility issues and with his health rapidly deteriorating, he met Dr Fasano and agreed to try the test again.

This time, his wife Barbara noticed small improvements - so small that even her husband did not notice them.

"He wouldn't believe it," she said. "It was almost like 'if I believe it and they're wrong, it will be too big a disappointment.'"

Dr Fasano suggested they insert a shunt into his brain to drain the fluid, the front-line treatment for NPH, with a high success rate according to recent studies.

Shunt surgery can have serious complications and is not recommended for everyone with the condition.

More than a year later, and Mr Searle says he is beginning to get his life back. His gait has improved as well as his memory. He regularly works out with a personal trainer at the gym and goes on walks to help build his strength back up.

"The operation is only 50% of it, the rest is your mindset," he says.

Dr Alfonso Fasano says while most patients diagnosed with dementia were diagnosed correctly, a small percentage may have NPH

Although he still does not have his drivers licence, Mr Searle and his wife have started to travel again. They went to Florida last winter, and they're planning trips to Las Vegas and Jamaica.

Barbara says the biggest change is her husband's mood:

"The apathy that plagued him is gone. He's his cheery self again."

Dr Fasano says since Mr Searle's story was shared with the media, the clinic has been overwhelmed with requests from patients who believe they have been misdiagnosed and have NPH.

Although misdiagnosis of NPH is a very real problem, Dr Fasano warns that most people who have been diagnosed with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's have the correct diagnosis - especially if they've been seen by a neurologist.

Up to 3% of the population over the age of 65 may have NPH, according to a recent study from Japan. The World Health Organisation estimates dementia, including Alzheimer's, affects between 5-8% of the population over 60.

"This is a disease that is probably more common than we think it is, and this is a disease that can be treated very well, with a huge dramatic change of quality of life for these people," says the doctor.

"At the same time, people are now believing that if they have Parkinson's, they were misdiagnosed.

"They all hope the doctor was wrong."

(Source: BBC)

Isis-inspired pair who wanted to be ‘bad bitches’ admit plot to bomb New York

The duo shopped for bomb ingredients with a third woman called 'Mel' - who turned out to be an undercover police officer

Two women inspired by Isis are facing up to 20 years in prison after admitting a plot to carry out a terror attack in New York.

Asia Siddiqui, 35, and Noelle Velentzas, 31, had studied how to make car bombs and had stockpiled propane gas tanks, soldering tools, jihadist propaganda and machetes in their homes in the Queens area of the city.

They also visited a Home Store looking for equipment for their bombs with a third woman they knew only as “Mel” - who was actually an undercover counter-terrorism officer.

Velentzas was said to have become “obsessed with pressure cookers since the Boston Marathon attacks in 2013”, when two brothers detonated bombs which killed three people and injured hundreds more.

New York City ( AFP/Getty Images )

She allegedly once asked her co-conspirator: “Why can’t we be some real bad bitches?”

She was heard on an undercover recording in 2014 saying that she and Siddiqui were “citizens of the Islamic State” and said that Osama bin Laden was one of her heroes.

On being told that an American had been arrested on his way to Syria to wage jihad, she said there were opportunities for “pleasing Allah” in the US.

The pair apparently discussed attacking the funeral of a police officer who had been shot and killed with his partner in the city.

They also talked about government targets, with Velentzas saying “you go for the head” when carrying out attacks.

Appearing in a federal court in New York on Friday, both women pleaded guilty to “teaching and distributing information pertaining to the making and use of an explosive, destructive device, and weapon of mass destruction, intending that it be used to commit a federal crime of violence”.

US attorney Richard Donoghue said in a statement: “In an effort to implement their violent, radical ideology, the defendants studied some of the most deadly terrorist attacks in US history, and used them as a blueprint for their own plans to kill American law enforcement and military personnel.”

The guilty pleas mean that details of the New York Police Department’s sometimes controversial undercover operations will not be revealed in court.

Civil rights groups have accused the police of using tactics that could lure innocent people into plots they may have had no intention of getting involved in otherwise. The undercover officer known as Mel had been instructed to mingle with young Muslims to identify potential threats.

Police officials had expressed concern that her cover have been blown had she been forced to testify.

(Source: Independent)

Changing places: Why countries decide to move their capitals

Indonesia is pressing ahead with plans to move its capital from the traffic-choked city of Jakarta to the island of Borneo. The precise location has not yet been revealed - nor has a timeline - but President Joko Widodo formally launched the scheme in parliament on 16 August.

Reasons for moving the capital are not hard to find. Jakarta is sinking by an average of 1-15cm a year. Almost half the city is now below sea level. It sits on swampy land, the Java Sea lapping against it, and 13 rivers running through it.

Its traffic jams are notorious: in 2016, a survey found that the mega-city had the world's worst traffic congestion. Government ministers have to be escorted by police convoys to get to meetings on time.

Jakarta is traffic-clogged - and sinking

The greater urban area has a population of 30 million. Only about 2-4% of its waste water is treated.

The new capital would be in Kalimantan, the name for the Indonesian part of Borneo. The move would cost up to $33bn (£27bn). It would require an area of 30,000 to 40,000 hectares to house between 900,000 and 1.5 million people.

The frontrunner city is Palangkaraya, in central Kalimantan. It is geographically close to the centre of the Indonesian archipelago, and the country's founding father, Sukarno, also proposed to make it the capital.

But Indonesia is by no means the first country to consider moving its capital. Here are some other notable examples:

1. Kazakhstan
In 1997, President Nursultan Nazarbayev decided to move the capital from the main city, Almaty, He chose a dusty provincial town, some 1,200km (750 miles) north. One of the first things he did was to change the name, from Aqmola - which means "white grave" - to Astana.

He then brought in architects from around the world to build his capital from the ground up. One of its most striking landmarks is Khan Shatyr - the world's largest tent. Designed by Norman Foster, it houses an indoor shopping mall and entertainment complex.

The Baytarek Tower, which resembles an egg perched on top of a tree, houses an observation deck with a view of other newly built landmarks. These include the presidential palace, a riff on the White House topped with a pale-blue dome. Next to that is the Central Concert Hall, a turquoise structure mimicking an unfolding spaceship.

All this was made possible by Kazakhstan's booming oil sector: the economy grew by 4.8% in 2018. As a mark of gratitude, after President Nazarbayev stepped down in March, parliament voted to name the city in his honour.

So now the Kazakh capital - the second-coldest in the world, after Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia - is known as Nur Sultan City. Not bad for a settlement perhaps best known in Soviet times for its proximity to a gulag.

2. Myanmar
The city of Nay Pyi Taw covers at least four times the area of London, but with only a fraction of the people. Its history is short: it has only existed since 2005, raised out of the flatlands by the then military rulers of Myanmar (previously known as Burma).

The name means "seat of the king". The reasons for moving the capital some 370km inland from the largest city, Yangon (Rangoon), have never been entirely clear.

The information minister told the BBC at the time that it was a more strategic location, but analysts were sceptical. They said it was possible the military feared a foreign invasion, or wanted more control over ethnic minorities in the border regions.

Others suggested Myanmar's notoriously secretive leaders were simply repeating the habits of Burmese kings in pre-colonial times, who built new towns and palaces on the advice of fortune-tellers.

The city bears all the hallmarks of a planned capital: the road leading from parliament to the presidential palace is 20 lanes wide, but carries hardly any traffic. Shiny shopping malls and empty luxury hotels line the boulevards. There's a safari park, a zoo, and at least three stadiums. Unlike other parts of Myanmar, it has electricity around the clock.

3. Bolivia
Bolivia has two capital cities: Sucre and La Paz. Sucre was the sole capital until 1899, when it lost a brief civil war to La Paz. After that, parliament and the civil service moved to Bolivia's largest city, La Paz, while the judiciary remained in Sucre.

Sucre, in the centre of the country, was where Bolivia was founded, in 1825. It has a population of just 250,000, compared to 1.7 million in La Paz.

In 2007, a proposal was put forward to move parliament and government back to Sucre, only for what was described as the biggest ever protest in La Paz to break out.

The idea arose out of a regional rivalry between President Evo Morales' supporters in Bolivia's poor western highlands and his opponents in the more prosperous east.

The scheme was eventually abandoned, and Bolivia has two capitals to this day.

4. Nigeria
Until 1991 Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, was also its capital. There were a number of reasons for moving the capital to Abuja: first of all, its central location, away from the coast.

It used to take about two days to travel the 1,600km to Lagos by road from the city of Maiduguri, in the north-east, Abuja was far closer.

Lagos was very congested (it's the most populous city in sub-Saharan Africa), and that was among the reasons for the move.

Abuja was also more politically and ethnically neutral. The Yoruba ethnic group dominates Lagos, while the Igbos are largely in the southeast and the Hausas in the northwest. This was no small matter: between 1967 and 1970, Nigeria was wracked by the Biafran war, when the Igbos sought to secede from Nigeria.

While Lagos grew up organically, Abuja is a planned city - the first in Nigeria. The traffic congestion in Lagos is notorious; in Abuja, the roads were designed to be wide from the start.

The national cultural institutes are there, along with the Supreme Court, the National Assembly and the presidential palace. However, many federal agencies are unofficially still based in Lagos.

5. Portugal
For 13 years, the capital of Portugal was not in Lisbon but Rio de Janeiro. The reason? Napoleon. During the Peninsular War (1807-14), the French invaded Portugal no fewer than three times. Days before the invasion in December 1807, the Braganza royal family and the court left for Brazil, then a Portuguese colony. They arrived in Rio in March 1808.

Rio in the early 19th Century was a booming city: there was gold, there were diamonds, there was sugar. There were also slaves: up to a million of them, about a third of the population.

Dom João VI, the prince regent, created the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. This elevated Brazil from a mere colony to the same level as Portugal. Brazil was also granted more administrative independence. When the queen died in 1816, he became king.

In 1821, the Portuguese court returned to Lisbon where it remained until the end of the monarchy, in 1910. Its sojourn in Rio, however, left a lasting mark on Brazil, boosting its economy and hastening its push for independence.

(Source: BBC)