Disasters

"LOS ANGELES - The future of the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant could balance on an inescapable question: Is it worth the money to fix it?"

"TOKYO — The nuclear accident at Fukushima was a man-made disaster rooted in government-industry collusion and the worst conformist conventions of Japanese culture, a high-level parliamentary inquiry concluded on Thursday, in a report that also warned that the plant may not have stood up to earthquake damage — a worrying concern as the quake-prone country starts to bring its reactor fleet back online."

"To date in 2012, more than 173,000 acres have already burned in Colorado, destroying more than 600 homes and taken six lives, 7News reports. Now with 4th of July approaching, the heat combined with relative low humidity and unseasonable dryness has firefighters saying that fireworks are "not worth the risk" this year during the worst wildfire season in a decade."

"The US Air Force, which grounded the remaining seven of its eight C-130 air tankers after a crash in South Dakota on Sunday, has cleared the fleet to fly again today."

"Nearly two years after the pipeline explosion that killed eight people and devastated a neighborhood in San Bruno, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. considers 239 of its natural-gas transmission lines to be at risk of a similar failure, according to a company assessment obtained by The Chronicle."

"With widespread power outages still plaguing a multistate swath from Indiana to Virginia after the severe “derecho” event on Friday night, the late June heat wave continues to make headlines. Numerous all-time high temperature records were set on Saturday, with additional records expected to be set during the first few days of July.

"After several years of relatively benign fire seasons, the West is headed into a hot, dry summer of potentially ferocious blazes like the ones that have scorched Colorado in recent weeks."

"TOKYO -- Protesters thronged the wide streets in front of the prime minister’s office in Tokyo over the weekend, and across the country they gathered about a quarter-mile from the entrance of a nuclear plant. They shouted “No to the restart” and parked cars in front of the plant’s access road to block workers from coming or going, according to Japanese media."

"Residents began returning to charred areas of Colorado Springs on Sunday after the most destructive wildfire in Colorado's history forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and left the landscape a blackened wasteland."

"Bears and burglars posed further danger to home owners who headed back to towns and cities after the fire, which killed two people.

The so-called Waldo Canyon Fire has scorched 17,659 acres, burned 346 homes and devastated communities around Colorado Springs, the state's second-largest city, since it began eight days ago.

"An intense heat wave broke records in more than a dozen states on Friday, and spawned one of the most damaging severe thunderstorm events seen in years. At least 3 million Americans, mainly in areas from Indiana Southeast to Virginia, were facing the prospect of another day of triple-digit heat heat without the benefit of air conditioning on Saturday, after the storms knocked out power. The severe weather also killed at least 13 people, including two young boys who were killed by a falling tree as they camped with their family in southern New Jersey."