Disasters

"On 13 April, coast guard officials from the US and Canada will train for a cruise ship catastrophe: a mass rescue from a luxury liner on its maiden voyage through the remote and deathly cold waters between the Northwest Passage and the Bering Strait."

"The ground east of the Rockies is far more likely to shake this year with damaging though not deadly earthquakes, federal seismologists report in a new risk map for 2016."

"The U.S. Geological Survey reports that a volcano on Alaska's Aleutian Islands erupted Sunday afternoon and sent ash 20,000 feet into the air."

"A wildfire that has scorched hundreds of thousands acres of prairie and ranch land in Kansas and Oklahoma since last week was slowly being contained, authorities said on Sunday, with a rare Easter snowfall providing some help to fire-fighting teams."

"On Jan. 21, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iraq's prime minister in Davos, Switzerland, and handed him a personal note from President Barack Obama pleading for urgent action."

"U.S. officials moved Thursday to strengthen safety rules for the nation's 300,000-mile network of natural gas transmission pipelines in response to numerous fiery accidents, including a 2010 California explosion that killed eight people and injured more than 50."

"Michigan's government on Monday released goals to help the city of Flint recover from a health crisis caused by the lead contamination of its drinking water."

"More than 36 million people face hunger across southern and eastern Africa, the United Nations has warned, as swaths of the continent grapple with the worst drought in decades at a time of record high temperatures."

"The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality repeatedly gave assurances that water from the Flint River was safe, when in reality it had dangerous levels of lead, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder says." CBS News/AP had the story March 17, 2016. The House Oversight Committee will hear testimony from Mich. Gov Rick Snyder and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy Thursday, March 17, at 9 am ET. The hearing will be cablecast/livestreamed via CSPAN3.

"Five years ago today a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of northeastern Japan unleashed a powerful, 30-foot-high tsunami that swept across the landscape, killing 15,000 people, displacing nearly 400,000 others, and triggering one of the worst nuclear disasters in history — a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant."