Disasters

"It was a few minutes before 8 on a cool spring morning at an oil well in West Texas last year when truck driver Roberto Magdaleno walked over to the site supervisor to get some papers signed. At that moment, a sand separator at the well site exploded, spraying shrapnel more than 1,400 feet, according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials who investigated the April 30, 2014, explosion outside Orla, Texas."

"In its most frank assessment since last year’s leak at Freedom Industries, the Tomblin administration said Friday that West Virginia had inadequate environmental regulations to prevent such an incident and lacked sufficient training and planning to respond once toxic chemicals had contaminated the Kanawha Valley’s regional water supply."

"The 13 white tanks that lined the Elk River just north of downtown Charleston are all gone now. Bankrupt Freedom Industries ripped them apart, tore them down and sold them for scrap."

"Up to 70,000 homes have been left without power in Scotland and trains canceled after high winds battered the northern parts of Britain on Friday."

"KETI BUNDER, Pakistan -- For fisherman Sammar Dablo, it was as if "the seawater stole our homes" when land erosion forced his village to relocate further inland on Pakistan's south coast."

"BOISE, Idaho — Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is calling for a new wildfire-fighting strategy to protect a wide swath of sagebrush country in the intermountain West that supports cattle ranching and is home to a struggling bird species."

"2,000 firefighters are battling a rapidly spreading blaze covering nearly 12,000 acres in South Australia."

"Many believe the coastal areas hit hardest by Superstorm Sandy should be vacated, saying future flooding is inevitable"

The expensive and disastrous failure of Shell's effort to begin offshore drilling in Arctic offshore waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas offers a tale of what can go wrong in such Arctic drilling.