Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Fifteen years after a tsunami caused the Fukushima nuclear accident, only bears, raccoons and boar are seen on the streets. But the authorities and some locals want people to move back Norio Kimura pauses to gaze through the dirt-flecked window of Kumamachi primary school in Fukushima. Inside, there are still textbooks lying on the desks, pencil cases are strewn across the floor; empty bento boxes that were never taken home. Along the corridor, shoes line the route the children took when they fled, some still in their indoor plimsolls, as their town was rocked by a magnitude-9 earthquake on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 which went on to cause the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chornobyl. Continue reading...

French port’s green energy push, evoking second world war spirit of resilience, is seen as a testing ground for reindustrialisation A new cargo and passenger ferry service directly linking Scotland and France could launch later this year as the port of Dunkirk embarks on a €40bn (£35bn) regeneration programme it claims will mirror the second world war resilience for which it is famed. The plans could include a new service between Rosyth in Fife and Dunkirk, eight years after the last freight ferries linked Scotland to mainland Europe, and 16 years after passenger services stopped. Continue reading...

Scientists expect 41% of the projected global population to face the extremes, with ‘no part of the world’ immune The number of people living with extreme heat will more than double by 2050 if global heating reaches 2C, according to a new study that shows how the energy demands for air conditioners and heating systems are expected to change across the world. No region will escape the impact, say the authors. Although the tropics and southern hemisphere will be worst affected by rising heat, the countries in the north will also find it difficult to adapt because their built environments are primarily designed to deal with a cooler climate. Continue reading...

Aircraft crashed on takeoff at Bangor airport as visibility diminished amid winter storm, leading to airport shutdown Six people died when a business jet crashed during takeoff as a snowstorm moved in and visibility diminished at Maine’s Bangor international airport on Sunday night, according to officials. The Bombardier Challenger 600 carrying the dead crashed on takeoff at about 7.45pm on Sunday night as Bangor, the rest of the New England region, and much of the country grappled with a deadly, major winter storm. The airport, about 200 miles (320km) north of Boston, shut down after the crash. Continue reading...