- During train derailment cleanup, railcars with loose wheels discovered, Norfolk Southern says CBS News
- Feds looking into Norfolk Southern’s handling of additional reported hazmat concern weeks after East Palestine ABC News
- ‘Loose wheels’ may have caused Springfield train derailment, Norfolk Southern says WDTN.com
- What was inside the Norfolk Southern train that derailed near Springfield? Springfield News Sun
- Defective, loose wheels at risk of derailment discovered on Norfolk Southern rail cars ABC News
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: cleanup
EPA says it will support East Palestine, Ohio, through the cleanup following the toxic train wreck. Here’s what it’s demanding – CNN
- EPA says it will support East Palestine, Ohio, through the cleanup following the toxic train wreck. Here’s what it’s demanding CNN
- EPA chief, Ohio governor drink tap water near train derailment site after heavy criticism Fox News
- East Palestine Makeshift Clinic Booked Solid as Resident Symptoms Persist Rolling Stone
- East Palestine derailment: How should Norfolk Southern, politicians help The Columbus Dispatch
- Brad Martin and Aaron Clark-Ginsberg: The East Palestine derailment is the real threat to national security, not a Chinese balloon Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Keystone cleanup turns remote Kansas valley into a small town
WASHINGTON, Kan., Dec 18 (Reuters) – Farmer Bill Pannbacker got a call earlier this month from a representative from TC Energy Corp , telling him that its Keystone Pipeline, which runs through his farmland in rural Kansas, had suffered an oil leak.
But he was not prepared for what he saw on his land, which he owns with his wife, Chris. Oil had shot out of the pipeline and coated what he estimated was nearly an acre of pasture uphill of the pipe, which is set into a valley.
The grass was blackened with diluent bitumen, one of the thickest of crude oils, which was being transported from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
The rupture on Dec. 7 is the third in the last five years for the Keystone Pipeline, and the worst of the three – more than 14,000 barrels of crude has spilled and cleanup is expected to take weeks or months.
TC has not said when repairs could be completed and a 96-mile (155-km) segment of the pipeline will restart. Crews will remain busy on site through the holidays and completion of the cleanup depends on weather and other factors, the Canadian company said in a statement.
“We are committed to restoring the affected areas to their original condition or better.”
BEEHIVE OF WORKERS
Keystone’s two previous spills happened in unincorporated areas in North Dakota and South Dakota. And while the city of Washington, Kansas, is small with just over 1,000 residents, it is surrounded by farms where wheat, corn, soybeans are planted and cattle are raised. The spill in Washington County affected land owned by several people.
The once-quiet valley is currently a construction site buzzing with some 400 contractors, staff from pipeline operator TC Energy, and federal, state and local officials. They are working into the night, leaving a glow from the high-intensity lamps seen from miles away.
Cranes, storage containers, construction equipment and vehicles stretch for more than a half mile from the site of the rupture. The valley has become almost a small town, with several Quonset-style huts erected for workers.
Aerial photos showed a large, blackened swath of land that almost looks like an airborne object is throwing a shadow over the land. Pannbacker said that pasture was used for cattle grazing and calving, but with calving season over, there were no livestock there at the time.
The oil-blackened grass on the land, which is owned by Pannbacker and his sisters as part of a family trust, is now completely gone. It was scraped away and is now confined to a giant mound of dirt that is noticeably darker at the bottom. But oil droplets on plants further up the hill were still visible.
WIDER GROUP AFFECTED
Living in rural Kansas, the Pannbackers are used to preparing for harsh weather, but not an oil spill. Residents have been largely unconcerned despite the accident, even as the area will resemble a work site for the near-future.
“How many people have experienced an oil spill? Who knows what it’s like?” said Chris Pannbacker. “It’s not like a tornado or a natural disaster.”
Kansas State Representative Lisa Moser in a Facebook post said there are 14 landowners who are being compensated for either the spill or the use of their property during cleanup.
TC said it is discussing compensation with landowners but would keep details private. The company said it has stayed in regular contact with landowners. Pannbacker said TC has not yet discussed compensation with them yet.
Pannbacker says he does not expect the grass on the pastureland to return for at least two or three years; there is a well site on the pasture used for the cattle that they will not be using either.
Reporting by Erwin Seba in Washington, Kan.; additional reporting by Rod Nickel; writing by David Gaffen
Editing by Marguerita Choy
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
With dangerous superbugs on the rise, hospital cleanup means life or death
Hospital rooms, operating rooms and medical equipment are so inadequately cleaned that any patient going into a hospital is at risk of getting a deadly superbug. That’s true even if you’re going for the happiest reason of all, to give birth.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest data show alarming increases in the most dangerous superbugs: Acinetobacter up 78%, Candida auris up 60% and notorious MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) up 13% year over year.
When you’re a patient, which room or bed you’re put in largely determines your risk of getting infected. If the previous occupant had an infection, your danger of getting infected with the same organism goes up 583% — almost sixfold, according to Columbia School of Nursing research.
Cleaning is so shoddy that the previous patient’s germs are still lurking.
Unlike the COVID virus, which spreads primarily through air, the bacterial and fungal organisms terrorizing hospitals are spread by touch and can last for weeks and months on surfaces. Masks are useless against most superbugs.
In Washington, DC, politicians and drug companies are pushing legislation, such as the Pasteur Act, that will incentivize companies to invest in new weapons against superbugs. “We’re playing with fire if we don’t pass” it soon, said Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), one of the bill’s sponsors.
Sorry, but that’s a long-term strategy. Patients who need hospitalization today, or this year, can’t wait for drugs that aren’t even in the pipeline yet.
Hospitals should be laser-focused on the strategy that will produce immediate results: rigorous cleaning and disinfection. Yet that is missing from the conversation.
Hospital mattresses are so contaminated with bodily fluids that placing a patient in a bed occupied as many as 90 days earlier by someone with C. diff (Clostridium difficile, the most common hospital infection) puts the new patient at risk, found Dr. Lucy Witt of Emory University.
Even fragile newborns are in danger. A staggering 20% of surfaces in the neonatal intensive-care unit of a Chattanooga children’s hospital were contaminated with drug-resistant MRSA, per University of Tennessee at Chattanooga researchers.
Unclean medical equipment is another culprit. Researchers traced an infection outbreak in a Galveston, Texas, hospital burn unit to a contaminated electrocardiogram wire. The last patient treated with that wire had been discharged 38 days earlier, but the superbug had stayed alive.
These are not anecdotes. Hospitals are a germy mess everywhere. A survey of 23 academic medical centers from Washington, DC, northward to Boston by epidemiologists Michael Parry and Philip Carlin found that hospital cleaners overlooked more than half the surfaces that are supposed to be cleaned. (Hint: If you have to eat lunch in a hospital room, the safest place to put your sandwich is on the toilet seat, which is almost never overlooked.)
The good news is that cleaning reduces infection rates. Researchers at Rush Medical College in Chicago reduced the spread of a superbug by two-thirds by instructing cleaning staff on which surfaces they were skipping and the importance of drenching surfaces and waiting, rather than doing a quick spray wipe.
Parry reports that at Stamford Hospital in Connecticut, improved cleaning contributed to “dramatic reductions” in infections including a 75% drop in C. diff.
Mayo Clinic’s Robert Orenstein reduced C. diff by 85% in a pilot program by wiping the surfaces around patients’ beds with a bleach wipe once a day. Why isn’t every hospital doing that?
The stakes are too high to settle for the dirty status quo. A hospital patient who contracts a superbug faces a far higher risk of death than another patient with the same medical problem who doesn’t get infected.
Two Johns Hopkins physicians, Cynthia Sears and Fyza Yusuf Shaikh, warn that despite expected “enormous strides” against cancer in the coming years, “without an equally energetic effort to beat back superbugs,” many cancer patients will still lose their lives.
Beating back the superbugs starts with hospitals cleaning up. Meanwhile, when you visit loved ones in the hospital, bring bleach wipes and clean the surfaces near their beds. You could be saving their lives.
Betsy McCaughey is chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.
Fiona swipes Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico faces big cleanup
CAYEY, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hurricane Fiona blasted the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday as a Category 3 storm after devastating Puerto Rico, where most people remained without electricity or running water and rescuers used heavy equipment to lift survivors to safety.
The storm’s eye passed close to Grand Turk, the small British territory’s capital island, on Tuesday morning after the government imposed a curfew and urged people to flee flood-prone areas. Storm surge could raise water levels there by as much as 5 to 8 feet above normal, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
Late Tuesday afternoon, the storm was centered about 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of North Caicos Island, with hurricane-force winds extending up to 30 miles (45 kilometers) from the center.
Premier Washington Misick urged people to evacuate. “Storms are unpredictable,” he said in a statement from London, where he had attended the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. “You must therefore take every precaution to ensure your safety.”
Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 125 mph (205 kph) and was moving north-northwest at 8 mph (13 kph), according to the Hurricane Center, which said the storm was likely to strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane as it approaches Bermuda on Friday.
Rain was still lashing parts of Puerto Rico Tuesday, where the sounds of people scraping, sweeping and spraying their homes and streets echoed across rural areas as historic floodwaters began to recede.
In the central mountain town of Cayey, where the Plato River burst its banks and the brown torrent of water consumed cars and homes, overturned dressers, beds and large refrigerators lay strewn in people’s yards Tuesday.
“Puerto Rico is not prepared for this, or for anything,” said Mariangy Hernández, a 48-year-old housewife, who said she doubted the government would help her community of some 300 in the long term, despite ongoing efforts to clear the streets and restore power. “This is only for a couple of days and later they forget about us.”
She and her husband were stuck in line waiting for the National Guard to clear a landslide in their hilly neighborhood.
“Is it open? Is it open?” one driver asked, worried that the road might have been completely closed.
Other drivers asked the National Guard if they could swing by their homes to help cut trees or clear clumps of mud and debris.
The cleanup efforts occurred on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which hit as a Category 4 storm in 2017 and knocked out power for a year in parts of Cayey.
Jeannette Soto, a 34-year-old manicurist, worried it would take a long time for crews to restore power because a landslide swept away the neighborhood’s main light post.
“It’s the first time this happens,” she said of the landslides. “We didn’t think the magnitude of the rain was going to be so great.”
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi requested a major disaster declaration on Tuesday and said it would be at least a week before authorities have an estimate of the damage that Fiona caused.
He said the damage caused by the rain was “catastrophic,” especially in the island’s central, south and southeast regions.
“The impact caused by the hurricane has been devastating for many people,” he said.
The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency traveled to Puerto Rico on Tuesday as the agency announced it was sending hundreds of additional personnel to boost local response efforts.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency on the island and deployed a couple of teams to the U.S. territory.
The broad storm kept dropping copious rain over the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where a 58-year-old man died after police said he was swept away by a river in the central mountain town of Comerio.
Another death was linked to a power blackout — a 70-year-old man was burned to death after he tried to fill his generator with gasoline while it was running, officials said.
Parts of the island had received more than 25 inches (64 centimeters) of rain and more was falling Tuesday.
National Guard Brig. Gen. Narciso Cruz described the flooding as historic.
“There were communities that flooded in the storm that didn’t flood under Maria,” he said, referring to the 2017 hurricane that caused nearly 3,000 deaths. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Cruz said 670 people have been rescued in Puerto Rico, including 19 people at a retirement home in Cayey that was in danger of collapsing.
“The rivers broke their banks and blanketed communities,” he said.
Some people were rescued via kayaks and boats while others nestled into the massive shovel of a digger and were lifted to higher ground.
He lamented that some people initially refused to leave their homes, adding that he understood why.
“It’s human nature,” he said. “But when they saw their lives were in danger, they agreed to leave.”
The blow from Fiona was made more devastating because Puerto Rico has yet to recover from Hurricane Maria, which destroyed the power grid in 2017. Five years later, more than 3,000 homes on the island are still covered by blue tarps.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday he would push for the federal government to cover 100% of disaster response costs — instead of the usual 75% — as part of an emergency disaster declaration.
“We need to make sure this time, Puerto Rico has absolutely everything it needs, as soon as possible, for as long as they need it,” he said.
Authorities said Tuesday that at least 1,220 people and more than 70 pets remained in shelters across the island.
Fiona triggered a blackout when it hit Puerto Rico’s southwest corner on Sunday, the anniversary of Hurricane Hugo, which slammed into the island in 1989 as a Category 3 storm.
By Tuesday morning, authorities said they had restored power to nearly 300,000 of the island’s 1.47 million customers. Puerto Rico’s governor warned it could take days before everyone has electricity.
Water service was cut to more than 760,000 customers — two thirds of the total on the island — because of turbid water at filtration plants or lack of power, officials said.
Fiona was forecast to weaken before running into easternmost Canada over the weekend. It was not expected to threaten the U.S. mainland.
In the Dominican Republic, authorities reported two deaths: a 68-year-old man hit by a falling tree and an 18-year-old girl who was struck by a falling electrical post while riding a motorcycle. The storm forced more than 1,550 people to seek safety in government shelters and left more than 406,500 homes without power.
The hurricane left several highways blocked, and a tourist pier in the town of Miches was badly damaged by high waves. At least four international airports were closed, officials said.
The Dominican president, Luis Abinader, said authorities would need several days to assess the storm’s effects.
Fiona previously battered the eastern Caribbean, killing one man in the French territory of Guadeloupe when floodwaters washed his home away, officials said.
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Associated Press reporters Martín Adames in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and Maricarmen Rivera Sánchez in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed.
Some Appalachia residents begin cleanup after deadly floods
PRESTONBURG, Ky. (AP) — Some residents of Appalachia returned to flood-ravaged homes and communities on Saturday to shovel mud and debris and to salvage what they could, while Kentucky’s governor said search and rescue operations were ongoing in the region swamped by torrential rains days earlier that led to deadly flash flooding.
Rescue crews were continuing the struggle to get into hard-hit areas, some of them among the poorest places in America. Dozens of deaths have been confirmed and the number is expected to grow.
In the tiny community of Wayland, Phillip Michael Caudill was working Saturday to clean up debris and recover what he could from the home he shares with his wife and three children. The waters had receded from the house but left a mess behind along with questions about what he and his family will do next.
“We’re just hoping we can get some help,” said Caudill, who is staying with his family at Jenny Wiley State Park in a free room, for now.
Caudill, a firefighter in the nearby Garrett community, went out on rescues around 1 a.m. Thursday but had to ask to leave around 3 a.m. so he could go home, where waters were rapidly rising.
“That’s what made it so tough for me,” he said. “Here I am, sitting there, watching my house become immersed in water and you got people begging for help. And I couldn’t help,” because he was tending to his own family.
The water was up to his knees when he arrived home and he had to wade across the yard and carry two of his kids out to the car. He could barely shut the door of his SUV as they were leaving.
In Garrett on Saturday, couches, tables and pillows soaked by flooding were stacked in yards along the foothills of the mountainous region as people worked to clear out debris and shovel mud from driveways and roads under now-blue skies.
Hubert Thomas, 60, and his nephew Harvey, 37, fled to Jenny Wiley State Resort Park in Prestonburg after floodwaters destroyed their home in Pine Top late Wednesday night. The two were able to rescue their dog, CJ, but fear the damages to the home are beyond repair. Hubert Thomas, a retired coal miner, said his entire life savings was invested in his home.
“I’ve got nothing now,” he said.
Harvey Thomas, an EMT, said he fell asleep to the sound of light rain, and it wasn’t long until his uncle woke him up warning him that water was getting dangerously close to the house.
“It was coming inside and it just kept getting worse,” he said, “like there was, at one point, we looked at the front door and mine and his cars was playing bumper cars, like bumper boats in the middle of our front yard.”
As for what’s next, Harvey Thomas said he doesn’t know, but he’s thankful to be alive.
“Mountain people are strong,” he said. “And like I said it’s not going to be tomorrow, probably not next month, but I think everybody’s going to be okay. It’s just going to be a long process.”
At least 25 have people died — including four children — in the flooding, Kentucky’s governor said Saturday.
“We continue to pray for the families that have suffered an unfathomable loss,” Gov. Andy Beshear said. ”Some having lost almost everyone in their household.”
Beshear said the number would likely rise significantly and it could take weeks to find all the victims of the record flash flooding. Crews have made more than 1,200 rescues from helicopters and boats, the governor said.
“I’m worried that we’re going to be finding bodies for weeks to come,” Beshear said during a midday briefing.
The rain let up early Friday after parts of eastern Kentucky received between 8 and 10 1/2 inches (20-27 centimeters) over 48 hours. But some waterways were not expected to crest until Saturday. About 18,000 utility customers in Kentucky remained without power Saturday, poweroutage.us reported.
It’s the latest in a string of catastrophic deluges that have pounded parts of the U.S. this summer, including St. Louis earlier this week and again on Friday. Scientists warn climate change is making weather disasters more common.
As rainfall hammered Appalachia this week, water tumbled down hillsides and into valleys and hollows where it swelled creeks and streams coursing through small towns. The torrent engulfed homes and businesses and trashed vehicles. Mudslides marooned some people on steep slopes.
President Joe Biden declared a federal disaster to direct relief money to more than a dozen Kentucky counties.
The flooding extended into western Virginia and southern West Virginia.
Gov. Jim Justice declared a state of emergency for six counties in West Virginia where the flooding downed trees, power outages and blocked roads. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin also made an emergency declaration, enabling officials to mobilize resources across the flooded southwest of the state.
The deluge came two days after record rains around St. Louis dropped more than 12 inches (31 centimeters) and killed at least two people. Last month, heavy rain on mountain snow in Yellowstone National Park triggered historic flooding and the evacuation of more than 10,000 people. In both instances, the rain flooding far exceeded what forecasters predicted.
Extreme rain events have become more common as climate change bakes the planet and alters weather patterns, according to scientists. That’s a growing challenge for officials during disasters, because models used to predict storm impacts are in part based on past events and can’t keep up with increasingly devastating flash floods and heat waves like those that have recently hit the Pacific Northwest and southern Plains.
“It’s a battle of extremes going on right now in the United States,” said University of Oklahoma meteorologist Jason Furtado. “These are things we expect to happen because of climate change. … A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor and that means you can produce increased heavy rainfall.”
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AP journalist Patrick Orsagos contributed to this report.
COVID rebounds: Immune responses may be reignited by cleanup of viral scraps
Enlarge / A box of Paxlovid, the Pfizer antiviral drug.
Pfizer’s antiviral pill Paxlovid is among the most treasured tools for hammering COVID-19; it can knock back the relative risk of hospitalization and death by 89 percent in unvaccinated patients at high risk of severe disease. But, as use of the convenient drug has grown in the US, so have troubling reports of rebound cases—people who took the pill early in their infection, began feeling better, and even tested negative but then slid back into symptoms and tested positive again days later.
It’s still unclear just how common the phenomenon is, but it certainly happens in some proportion of Paxlovid-treated patients. In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even issued a health alert over the rebound reports.
But, amid the rising awareness, it has also become clear that patients who have not been treated with Paxlovid can also rebound. In fact, in Pfizer’s clinical trials of Paxlovid, researchers noted that about 1 percent to 2 percent of both treatment and placebo groups had rebounds.
Together, this has raised a slew of questions: Are the rebounds reignited infections? Are people still infectious? Do they need to resume isolation? Are they again at risk of severe disease? Did their immune systems fail to mount an effective response? Is the virus mutating to become resistant to Paxlovid? Is omicron causing more rebounds than previous variants?
So far, there’s limited data and mostly only anecdotal reports. But a new, small pre-print study led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health offers some encouraging news about COVID rebounds. The study, which included data on seven rebounding patients—six of whom were treated with Paxlovid and one who was not—found no evidence of Paxlovid-resistant mutations, viral replication gone wild, or faltering immune responses.
Intact immune responses
Instead, a detailed look at their immune responses found that rebounds were associated with a surge in antibody and cellular immune responses specific against SARS-CoV-2. At the same time, rebounds were accompanied by downward trends in markers of innate (non-specific) immune responses, as well as levels of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid bits in the blood.
Together, the findings suggest that the rebounds could be partly due to reignited immune response as the body works to clear cellular debris and viral scraps from a quickly smothered infection. Or, as the authors put it: “rebound symptoms may in fact be partially driven by the emerging immune response against residual viral antigens possibly shed from dying infected cells due to cytotoxicity and tissue repair throughout the respiratory tract.”
In further support of this, the authors—co-led by infectious disease experts Brian Epling and Joe Rocco—note that while three of four controls had a recoverable, live virus during their acute infection, only one of the seven rebounding patients had a live virus at the time of their rebound. And that one patient also had underlying immune suppression, which may explain the finding. Further, none of the rebounding patients developed severe disease.
The study is, again, very small and may not be generalizable to all rebound cases. The authors call for rebound studies with larger cohorts. But some elements of the findings are already backed up. For instance, other studies have also failed to identify Paxlovid-resistant mutations. And on Tuesday, the CDC published a study of more than 5,000 Paxlovid-treated patients, finding that less than 1 percent of patients had emergency visits or hospitalizations in the 5-to-15 rebound period after treatment.
For now, the NIH researchers find their new findings “encouraging.” As Epling wrote in a tweet on Tuesday, ” the findings suggest that “an appropriate immune response is developing, so rebound isn’t caused by people not developing an immune response to COVID while on Paxlovid.”
Spacecraft anomaly stalls Astroscale space debris cleanup test
A pioneering space junk cleanup test is on hold for now.
Astroscale has suspended its ELSA-d demonstration mission in Earth orbit after detecting “anomalous spacecraft conditions,” the Japanese startup announced on Twitter Wednesday (Jan. 26).
ELSA-d (“End-of-Life Services by Astroscale demonstration”) launched to Earth orbit in March 2021 to test tech for capturing space debris, which poses a growing threat to humanity’s exploration and exploitation of the final frontier.
The mission consists of two spacecraft — a 386-pound (175 kilograms) “servicer” and a 37-pound (17 kg) cubesat “client” outfitted with a magnetic docking plate. In August, the servicer released and re-snagged the client multiple times, becoming the first private company to ace an orbital capture experiment.
Related: The Kessler Syndrome and the space debris problem
Astroscale controlled that operation from its facility in Hartwell, England. This week, the company initiated a new phase of the mission — an autonomous capture demonstration. The servicer released the client as planned on Tuesday (Jan. 25) and began autonomous navigation operations but was not able to see them through.
“Following an excellent start to mission operations, our team detected anomalous spacecraft conditions,” Astroscale representatives wrote in Wednesday’s tweet. “For the safety of the mission, we have decided not to proceed with the capture attempt until the anomalies are resolved.”
The servicer and client are both operational and are at a safe distance from each other, the company added, stressing that it plans to continue the mission after solving the problems. Astroscale promised to provide more details about the situation as they become available, a pledge also made by a company spokesperson to whom Space.com reached out for more information.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.
Riot-hit Solomons begins clean-up as more foreign troops arrive | Politics News
The prime minister of the riot-hit Solomon Islands vowed on Sunday to defy pressure to resign, saying violence that swept the capital had been orchestrated by a few people with “evil intention” to topple him.
“It is very clear that the recent events were well planned and orchestrated to remove me as the prime minister for unsubstantiated reasons,” Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said in an address broadcast to the Pacific island nation.
“I want to show the nation that the government is fully intent and nothing will move us. We must and will never bow down to the evil intention of a few people,” Sogavare said.
Sogavare previously blamed the three days of violence — during which rioters incinerated swathes of the capital Honiara before the unrest died down at the weekend — on an unscrupulous few leading others astray with false information.
“We must stand up to intimidation, bullying and violence. We owe this to our children and the majority of our people who cannot defend themselves,” he said.
Sogavare said the violence, centred on the capital’s Chinatown, had caused 200 million Solomon Islander dollars ($25m) in damage and destroyed 1,000 jobs in an economy already squeezed by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
‘Environment still unknown’
Clean-up operations started in the capital as soldiers and police from Australia and Papua New Guinea helped to restore calm after several days of deadly riots.
Residents of Honiara cleared shattered glass, rubble and rubbish from the streets as heavy machinery in the hard-hit district of Chinatown moved rubble from burned-out shops.
Mounds of rubbish still lined the streets in the district, a reminder of looting and rioting that broke out following protests over poverty, hunger and Sogavare’s policies.
“The situation has calmed down and people are moving about as normal but the environment is still unknown in terms of what may happen,” Red Cross official Kennedy Waitara told the AFP news agency.
Waitara said many food shops had been burned down in the riots.
“It will not be surprising if we have to experience food shortages and a hike in prices,” he said.
“Unemployment will certainly increase in the coming weeks as people will certainly be out of jobs now and will be finding it difficult.”
The riots broke out on Wednesday after protesters attempted to storm the Pacific island nation’s parliament, prompting the police to fire tear gas. Demonstrators then set fire to buildings, including a police station and shops.
Sogavare declared a 36-hour curfew in Honiara and asked for help from his country’s neighbours. Australia and Papua New Guinea sent 150 peacekeepers on Thursday and Friday, helping to quell the unrest in the nation of 800,000 people.
Police arrested more than 100 people and on Friday reported the first deaths from the rioting. They said the charred remains of three people had been found in a burned-out shop in Chinatown and that a forensic team was working to identify the bodies.
Despite the uneasy calm, many people in the capital were too nervous to even attend church services, said Nason Ta’ake, a youth leader at the Wesley United Church in Honiara.
“There are only a few people attending church services as most are still living in fear,” Ta’ake told AFP.
After leaving church, parishioners began scouring shops for food and essential goods but very few were open, he said.
An early estimate of the cost of the rioting, released this weekend by the Central Bank of the Solomon Islands, said 56 buildings in the capital had been burned and looted, with many businesses facing a recovery of more than a year.
The loss to the economy was expected to be at least $28m, with the bank’s governor warning that the nation’s accounts – already struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic – had been further weakened by the riots.
In neighbouring Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said more Australian Federal Police would arrive in the Solomon Islands on Sunday, and added that he expected Fiji to also contribute troops.
“Although things are very unstable at this point … plans, we know, are being made, to ensure there can be calm,” he said.
The Australian leader said it was up to the Solomon Islands to resolve the crisis.
“It is not for us to be interfering in their democracy. It is not for us to be interfering in how they resolve those issues,” Morrison said, stating that Australian forces aimed only to provide a safe environment for this to happen.
Many Solomon Islanders believe their government is corrupt and beholden to Beijing and other foreign interests.
Opposition leaders on Saturday called for a vote of no confidence in Sogavare.
They may not yet have enough votes to pass the motion and remove him from office, but the move could create another flashpoint.
The pro-Beijing leader claimed foreign powers opposed to his 2019 decision to switch the Solomons’ diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China were behind the disturbances.
But others pointed to inter-island tensions and widespread joblessness among the country’s population – 40 percent of whom are under 14 years of age.
China’s government on Friday condemned the violence and vowed to “safeguard the safety and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and institutions”.
Orange County offshore oil sheen likely related to repair work on damaged line, not a new spill, officials say
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (KABC) — An oil sheen reported on the water off Orange County on Saturday near the location of an earlier spill was likely a result of repair work being done in the area and not a new spill – and was not visible later in the day, officials said.
The U.S. Coast Guard said by Saturday afternoon it did not observe the sheen that was reported earlier in the day, according to updates from local elected officials.
Earlier Saturday, authorities were investigating a report of an oil sheen measuring about 30 feet by 70 feet on the water in the area where crews continue to make repairs to a damaged pipeline that resulted in an oil leak of some 25,000 gallons in early October.
The observation sparked concerns about a new spill in the area.
By later in the afternoon, authorities said the sheen was likely related to the repair work and not an indication of a fresh leak.
“We are expecting another flash alert later this afternoon, but initial observations from @uscoastguard & @CaliforniaDFW are not seeing signs of an oil spill,” state Sen. Dave Min tweeted. “Possible that the first sheen was related to remedial work being done on the damaged pipeline.”
Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley says the initial sheen was reported by crews approaching the pipeline for scheduled repair work.
Divers then observed oil droplets on the syntho-glass wrap covering the damaged line, Foley said. They removed the old wrap and installed a new one. As of 2 p.m. no sheen has been observed in the area, she said.
The pipeline itself has remained shut down since the initial spill on Oct. 2.
Authorities are still investigating to see if the sheen is related to the droplets found on the wrap.
Early last month, a pipeline owned by Houston-based Amplify Energy leaked at least about 25,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean off the coast of Orange County. Blobs of oil washed ashore, oiling birds and shuttering the famed shoreline of Huntington Beach for a week.
BREAKING NEWS:#OCOILSPILL
I received word from Unified Command:
Sheen seen in area of pipeline. Sending resources to investigate now. Source unknown at this time.Media inquiries call 3107810619 pic.twitter.com/Yrv2AWpakc
— Supervisor Katrina Foley (@SupervisorFoley) November 20, 2021
Environmentalists braced for the worst but the damage has been less than initially feared. Much of the oil broke up at sea and local officials put up booms to keep the crude out of sensitive wetlands.
The cause of that spill is under investigation, but federal officials have said the pipeline was likely initially damaged by a ship’s anchor.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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