Earth Report – Global Disaster Watch
Magnitude 5+ Earthquakes – Global
5.5 earthquake hits south of the Kermedec Islands.
5.3 earthquake hits the Babuyan Islands in the Philippines.
5.3 earthquake hits the Iran-Iraq border.
5.2 earthquake hits New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
5.0 earthquake hits North Island, New Zealand.
Tropical Storms – Roundup of Tropical Storms:
In the Southern Hemisphere: Tropical cyclone (tc) 27p (Ann), located approximately 691 nm east of Cairns, Australia, is tracking westward at 07 knots.
NewsBytes:
USA – Eastern Texas to Mississippi – Parts of the south-central United States hammered by severe weather and flash flooding this past week will face long-term river flooding through the rest of May and even into June. Southeastern Texas, including the Houston area, was hit hard by a couple rounds of flooding downpours, damaging winds and large hail this past week. Ten inches of rain fell in Sugar Land, Texas, on Tuesday alone. After another round of thunderstorms and torrential downpours slammed areas from eastern Texas to the lower Mississippi Valley on Saturday and Saturday night, dry weather will finally return for Sunday and Monday. Another dry spell is expected later this week. Even with the return of dry weather, the flooding on the Mississippi River will continue to get worse into the middle to latter portion of the month.
Wildfires – Russia
Wildfires have scorched over 44,000 hectares in 18 Russian regions, the Federal Aerial Forest Protection Service (Avialesokhrana) said in a statement on Saturday, adding that 155 forest fires had been extinguished in the previous 24 hours.
As many as 17 forest fires have been registered in Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region, while the number of wildfires active in the Kurgan, Irkutsk and Trans-Baikal region ranges from four to six. Firefighting activities involve 3,600 personnel and 835 pieces of equipment.
The fire season has begun in 77 Russian regions. A state of emergency has been declared in six regions, namely the Kurgan, Trans-Baikal, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Tuva regions, as well as in certain districts of the Chelyabinsk region
Dengue Fever – Philippines
Philippines health officials reported an additional nearly 800 dengue fever cases during the week ending April 20, bringing the cumulative total to 67,106 cases with 277 deaths.
Elsewhere in Asia, Vietnam has reported a total of 57,880 cases with three deaths.
Dengue infects nearly 400 million people across more than 120 countries each year. Most survive with few or no symptoms, but more than two million annually develop what can be a dangerous dengue hemorrhagic fever, which kills more than 25,000 people each year.