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At least 6 people have been killed, 2 seriously injured and thousands displaced due to floods and landslides in Indonesia‘s West Sumatra province.
According to the country’s disaster agency, four of the victims died in landslides and two as a result of flooding.
Heavy downpours from 03 March 2017 affected areas of Limapuluh Koto Regency, resulting in several rivers overflowing and as many as 13 landslides.
Several vehicles were buried in the landslides and disaster officials have been searching affected areas.
As of 04 March, 4 bodies had been found in the buried vehicles.
Thousands of residents in Lima Puluh Kota Regency in West Sumatra have been isolated by flood waters and landslides that hit the region on Friday last week.
The connecting roads to the regency had been cut off.
"Thousands of our residents are still isolated because of rough terrain," Lima Puluh Kota Regent Irfendi Arbi said on Monday, March 6, 2017.
Data from the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) Lima Puluh Kota Regent show that the disasters have isolated 2,272 residents of Nagari Galugua, some 3,251 residents of Nagari Koto Lamo and 350 residents of Neran Nagari Maek.
"The BNPB and Basarnas [the National Search and Rescue Agency] have deployed bell UH-1 helicopters to comb flooding and landslide locations in the sub-districts of Kapur IX and Pangakalan Koto Baru," he said.
Irfendi said that logistics distribution in isolated areas will be carried out by helicopters.
Meanwhile, search and rescue teams will open access roads to isolated areas by cleaning landslide material.
Lima Puluh Kota Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Bagus Suropratomo said that search and rescue teams are still searching for flood and landslide victims.
Reports earlier said that six persons were killed by the floods and landslides in the region.

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On Mar. 6, GPM rainfall data found rain falling at a rate of over 220 mm (8.7 inches) per hour in intense downpours. Many of these storms were reaching altitudes above 16 km (9.9 miles). Credits: NASA/JAXA, Hal Pierce

• Rainfall data found rain falling at a rate of over 220 mm (8.7 inches) per hour in intense downpours.
  
• A direct strike on northeastern Madagascar would also lead to a life-threatening storm surge
  
• The storm is now classified as an "intense" tropical cyclone with sustained wind speeds of 195km/h and downpours in excess of 100mm per day.
  
• Three successive years of failed rains have left the island nation with crop failure and a chronic lack of food and clean drinking water, nearly 850,000 people are experiencing “alarming” hunger levels.
  
• "We can see on the satellite image that there is another system behind it'
  

A direct strike on northeastern Madagascar would also lead to a life-threatening storm surge near and to the south of where Enawo makes landfall.
Water funneling into Helodrano Antongila Bay could especially put lives and property in danger in Maroantsetra.
Tropical cyclone Enawo is bearing down on Madagascar and flooding was already being reported in the north eastern part of the country on Tuesday.
Enawo was 70km from the coastal town of Sambava earlier in the day and was expected to make landfall at 10am.


The storm is now classified as an "intense" tropical cyclone with sustained wind speeds of 195km/h and downpours in excess of 100mm per day.
Madagascar Weather Service head of meteorology for the Antananarivo region' Anzela Ramarosadratana' predicted flooding in the island's capital city on Wednesday.
"There is a red warning for flooding in the north of Madagascar' and there is a flood in north eastern part of Madagascar now'"
Ramarosadratana told TMG Digital.
"The government will take the responsibility to help the population in the northern part of the country.
We estimate that the cyclone will reach the south of Madagascar by the 10th of March.
We think that the whole island will be affected by the cyclone."
Satellite images show another storm brewing behind Enawo' but the Madagascar Weather Service is keeping an eye on it and does not expect it to reach the island.
"We can see on the satellite image that there is another system behind it' but it is not yet a tropical cyclone.
It is more south from Madagascar' it is very far and we anticipate that it will not reach Madagascar'" Ramarosadratana said.
Three successive years of failed rains have left the island nation wrestling with crop failure and a chronic lack of food and clean drinking water, with agencies warning last month that nearly 850,000 people are experiencing “alarming” hunger levels.
“Three hundred and thirty thousand are on the verge of a food security catastrophe, next step being famine,” said Dominique Burgeon, director of emergencies and rehabilitation at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

In this 3-D Flyby animation of GPM rainfall data, rain was falling at a rate of over 220 mm (8.7 inches) per hour in intense downpours. Many of these storms were reaching altitudes above 16 km (9.9 miles). Credit: NASA/JAXA, Hal Pierce

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Photo Save the Water

Another algae bloom is thought to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of threadfin shad at Apache Lake in the Tonto National Forest, Arizona
The Arizona Game and Fish Department have investigated the death of thousands of fish and determined the die-off was caused by a golden alga bloom largely restricted to the riverine portion of Apache below Roosevelt Lake.
According to The Arizona Game and Fish Department “Golden algae thrives on elevated salinity associated with drought conditions,” said Marc Dahlberg, Water Quality Manager at AZGFD. “Therefore, recent heavy rains will hopefully knock down salinity levels and help control golden alga blooms.”
At this point, AZGFD believes the fish kill has been restricted to threadfin shad and a few gizzard shad, both of which are highly sensitive to the toxin produced by golden alga.

The last such fish die-off in this region occurred in 2007, also in upper Apache Lake. However, there were significant fish kills caused by golden alga in Saguaro, Canyon and Apache during the early-to-mid 2000s that affected all fish species.


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Photo The Huffington Post
In just three years’ time the World will have lost two-thirds of all wild animals.
This amazing statistic from The Living Planet Index goes on: The number of wild animals living on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds by 2020, according to a new report, part of a mass extinction that is destroying the natural world upon which humanity depends.
However what I would like to focus on today is the plight of bees of which Albert Einstein was credited with this quote; “If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have our years left to live!”(There is no proof he actually said this.)
Perhaps the biggest foreboding danger of all facing humans is the loss of the global honeybee population. The consequence of a dying bee population impacts man at the highest levels on our food chain, posing an enormously grave threat to human survival. Since no other single animal species plays a more significant role in producing the fruits and vegetables that we humans commonly take for granted yet require near daily to stay alive, the greatest modern scientist Albert Einstein once prophetically remarked, “Mankind will not survive the honeybees’ disappearance for more than five years.”
 Since 2006 beekeepers have been noticing their honeybee populations have been dying off at increasingly rapid rates. Subsequently researchers have been scrambling to come up with an accurate explanation and an effective strategy to save the bees and in turn save us Homo sapiens from extinction.
Extreme weather or climate change will be playing a significant role in the deaths of bees with droughts and extreme cold affecting the bees.
A new government study blames a combination of factors for the mysterious and dramatic loss of honeybees, including increased use of pesticides especially in the US, shrinking habitats, multiple viruses, poor nutrition and genetics, and even cell phone towers. However, according to last year’s joint EPA-USDA study, the biggest cause is the parasite called the Varroa destructor, a type of mite found to be highly resistant to the insecticides that US beekeepers have used in attempts to control the mites from inside the beehives. Moreover, new virus species have been found in the US and several of these have been associated with Colony Collapse Disorder.

In a vicious cycle, since 1987 when the Varroa mite was first discovered in the US, Monsanto, Dow, Bayer and other large chemical manufacturers aggressively glommed onto the bee industry selling genetically modified insecticides and herbicides as the quick and easy fix to remedy the parasitic invasion, only to weaken the bees’ natural genetic defenses to fight off the parasite. In an article from the Guardian earlier this month, Monsanto’s contribution to the vanishing bee population is detailed. From genetically altered corn, Monsanto produced an insecticide called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which once ingested by bees, Bt binds to receptors within the bee’s stomach lining that keeps the bee from eating. Of course this weakens the bee, causing the breakdown of the inner stomach wall, which in turn makes the bee susceptible to spores and bacteria. To further compound the problem, for years the lobbying power of the chemical giant denied causing damage to the bee’s internal immune capacity for resistance to parasites, which of course only continued to kill off the bee population worldwide. Thus, continued chemical use, especially in America, only exacerbates this growing problem.

Also on Greenpeace’s Save the Bees page, a type of insecticide called neonicotinoids is known to cause acute and chronic poisoning not just of one bee, but the entire colony. Bees take the contaminated nectar and pollen spread through the plant’s DNA back to the hive, creating a highly toxic living environment for all the bees. Toxicity builds up destroying the Central Nervous System, causing further disorientation and bees ultimately can neither fly nor make it back to the nest. Meanwhile, unlike the US, in Europe and Australia where the health of insects and humans is deemed more important than corporate profit, laws banning insecticide use have been passed, which in large part has largely saved the bee populations from being so decimated there.


More on Death and Extinction of the Bees here


Below is a small list of Bee deaths around the world so far this year

In February, 2017, more than 10 million bees died in an apiary in the rural area of ​​Porto Ferreira Brazil in less than a week. According to the owner, all the work of almost four decades was lost in the 136 hives due to agrochemicals of sugarcane.


In February 2017; Millions of bees die in massive pesticide poisoning in the Region of Murcia, Spain. Greenpeace and beekeepers report that the pollution event occurred when insecticides were applied to fruit trees.


In February, 2017; Thousands of dead and dying bees are washing up on a popular beach in Southern Florida. Naples beach goers had to watch where they stepped Tuesday after some people say they have been stung just along the shoreline


January 2017; 10 Million bees dead 'due to pesticides' in Porto Ferreira, Brazil.

Mass bee die offs

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