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Earthquakes

Magnitude 5+ Earthquakes – Global

5.5 Earthquake hits Antofagasta, Chile.

5.5 Earthquake hits Tonga.

5.2 Earthquake hits the west Chile rise.

5.2 Earthquake hits Colombia.

5.0 Earthquake hits the Galapagos Islands.

5.0 Earthquake hits Colombia.

5.0 Earthquake hits offshore Valparaiso, Chile.

Italy – More than 15,000 people are being housed in temporary shelters after the powerful earthquake on Sunday jolted central Italy, a region battered by relentless tremors since August.

Dramatic images from the disaster zone show villages that appear entirely flattened, with historical buildings, including churches, crumbling when the quake struck 10 kilometres below the earth’s surface.

The basilica of San Benedetto had withstood the tests of time since the end of the 14th century.

But on Sunday, the church that paid homage to the patron saint of Europe, Saint Benedict, was reduced to a heap of rubble.

Unnamed

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Disease

Zika Virus – Philippines

With the announcement of two additional autochthonous, or locally acquired Zika virus cases Friday in the Philippines, the Department of Health now puts the case tally at 19 this year.

Malaria – France, UK and USA

An international study, led by the University of Southampton, shows the UK and France experience the highest number of malaria cases imported from other countries.

Research led by WorldPop, based at the University, examined and mapped the movement of the disease from endemic countries (those where malaria is regularly found in the population) to around 40 countries defined as being malaria-free or non-endemic (such as the UK).

Findings, published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, revealed that countries with the highest average number of imported infections per year over the past decade were France (2,169), UK (1,898) and USA (1,511), followed by Italy (637) and Germany (401).

Infection movement was strongly skewed to a small number of ‘high-traffic’ routes, with malaria cases originating from West Africa accounting for 56 percent (13,947) of all cases detected in non-endemic countries.

Children Die of Malnutrition in Gauteng, South Africa

Gauteng health MEC Qedani Mahlangu revealed this in a statement on information based on the annual reported presented to the portfolio committee for the 2015/16 financial year on Friday.

“For the period under review‚ about 3040 new cases of severe acute malnutrition were identified‚ and out of those about 1512 children were admitted at different facilities and‚ unfortunately about 113 deaths were experienced as a result of severe acute malnutrition‚” Mahlangu said.

Gauteng is Africa’s wealthiest economic and industrial area.

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Space Events

NASA’s New ‘Intruder Alert’ System Spots An Incoming Asteroid

A large space rock is going to come fairly close to Earth later tonight. Fortunately, it’s not going to hit Earth, something astronomers are sure of thanks in part to a new tool NASA is developing for detecting potentially dangerous asteroids.

The tool is a computer program called Scout, and it’s being tested at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Think of Scout as a celestial intruder alert system. It’s constantly scanning data from telescopes to see if there are any reports of so-called Near Earth Objects. If it finds one, it makes a quick calculation of whether Earth is at risk, and instructs other telescopes to make follow-up observations to see if any risk is real.

NASA pays for several telescopes around the planet to scan the skies on a nightly basis, looking for these objects. “The NASA surveys are finding something like at least five asteroids every night,” says astronomer Paul Chodas of JPL.

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Storms and Floods

Tropical Storms – Roundup of Tropical Storms:

No current tropical storms.

Newsbytes:

Thailand – Several districts of this southern province have been hit by flash floods following heavy rain, provincial disaster prevention and mitigation chief Chamnong Sawatwong said on Monday. Numerous roads have been washout out and the ferry service between Don Sak and Koh Phangan have been suspended.