Meteor crater: The hole from space that keeps on giving

Leonard David -

The huge, bowl-shaped Meteor Crater in Arizona that was formed some 50,000 years ago continues to yield new information, and surprisingly so.


Meteor Crater in Winslow, Arizona.

 A massive crater can be seen among flat high desert.© Provided by Space

In addition, it is a go-to spot for preparing Artemis crews how to explore the moon — as that place once did to train Apollo astronauts for lunar duties in the 1960s.

Research payoffs from the out-of-this-world Meteor Crater are ongoing, said David Kring, principal scientist at the Universities Space Research Association's Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas. He has carried out field training and research at the Winslow, Arizona site for a decade.

"We usually have two to three projects going on at the crater each year," Kring told Space.com, be they studies focused on the deformation of the crater wall or appraising the apron of tossed out debris that surrounds the impact crater. "Every year that we go back, we're mapping some new feature at the crater and filling in some of the details that just simply do not exist anywhere else on Earth," he said.

"The ejecta blanket is nearly 10 times larger in area than the crater," Kring said. The asteroid that formed the feature was an iron meteorite, Type IAB, he added, believed to be a fragment of an impact crater on an asteroid that then came to Earth and fashioned another impact crater.
Crater aging

What's the true age of the crater itself? "Actually, the uncertainty is growing," Kring said. Earlier, three independent methods produced the same number, pegging it at 50,000 years old.

"But in recent years we have realized that the calibration on two of those methods had more uncertainty attached to them than was appreciated," Kring said. "There's a possibility that the crater may be a few thousand years older than we often times stated. It's still during the last glacial epic. It is when mammoths and mastodons were grazing in that area."

Kring and colleagues have recovered pollen from the lake sediments that filled Meteor Crater and have been able to reconstruct what the vegetation was like at the time of impact.

Similarly, the bearing of the impactor is still unclear. "I can make the case for nearly any direction, although I think most of the evidence is pointing north to south. The angle is probably on the order of 45 degrees, plus or minus a little bit, to produce a nearly circular or symmetrically-shaped crater. And that's what we have," Kring said.

Basic training

Over the years, Kring has trained active and candidate astronauts at Meteor Crater. Doing so continues a teaching and learning legacy that had the late astrogeologist Eugene "Gene" Shoemaker of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and other geologists educating Apollo-era astronauts how to "read" the lunar landscape. "We do their basic training at the crater. I've proposed that we need to have more advanced training at Meteor Crater and other impact sites if we're going to conduct Artemis expeditions successfully," he said.

The first reason for training at impact sites like Meteor Crater is to expose astronauts to the type of terrain that they are going to operate within, and operate there safely, Kring said.

"I'd stipulate that the single best tool that we can deploy on the lunar surface is a well-trained astronaut," Kring advised. "We would like them to be as productive as possible in addressing the science and exploration objectives. Understanding impact cratering, the processes that go into producing them, the way they redistribute material across the lunar surface ... training is essential. I've also pointed out that the world's best spectrometers are the eyes of well-trained astronauts."

Kring said that as stunning as Meteor Crater is in the first place, he advises future moonwalkers to stand on its rim and gape, but then tells everybody to turn around and imagine another crater just to the left, and a third crater just to the right.

"That is the type of terrain that we are asking them to explore and understand how to be productive on the lunar surface," Kring concluded.

Detective work

"There's still a lot of research to be done out there," says Meteor Crater detective, Dan Durda, a senior research scientist at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

"Meteor Crater is an excellent analog for our moon exploration," Durda said. "It is still the freshest, best persevered crater on the planet." He harkens back to Gene Shoemaker's work at Meteor Crater to appreciate the process of impact cratering, excavation and ejecta deposits.

"Those markers are so evidently available and readily visible. It's the perfect training ground to show those processes to the field astronauts, so they understand what it is that they are doing on the moon" said Durda.

But there is another key message blasting out of Meteor Crater. "It's bringing the whole near-Earth impact hazard to the fore," Durda said. "We had to get over the giggle factor years ago. Meteor Crater has helped illustrate what kind of devastation can be wrought from even a very moderate-sized impactor."

Infectious enthusiasm

Durda has been to Meteor Crater too many times to count. But his maiden trek to the site was in 1991, then a graduate student in Florida and on his first trip out west.

"My first experience of the crater," Durda said, "was first looking at it on television as a youngster. In watching shows like those made by National Geographic, I was fascinated by this 'geologist guy' who kept talking about this crater. He had a rifle and showing how you shoot a bullet into sand and that's how the crater was formed. That person was Gene Shoemaker. Gene was the man…and my first experience being at the crater was with Gene!"

With Shoemaker at his side, Durda said that you could not possibly be around him and not come away enthused about geology. "He had an absolutely infectious enthusiasm for what he was doing."
Astronaut trail

To Durda's eye and mind on that first visit: "Holy cow. This is a deep, massive hole in the ground. It's amazing." Shoemaker and Durda walked down together on the "Astronaut Trail," making field stops along the way to chat about aspects of the impact stratigraphy and then down to the bottom of the crater.

"The real view, the real impression, the real awe and majesty is up on the rim, looking out and across and down," added Durda.

Once again, Meteor Crater offers yet another bonus from outer space. Durda is an active member of the International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA). "Meteor Crater is not just a science analog. It's not just an exploration analog. It's a visual analog for telling the story of other places in the solar system that artists use," he said.

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ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL
Tiny oysters play big role in stabilizing eroding shorelines
By WAYNE PARRY

1 of 10

Workers place bags of shells containing baby oysters into the water in Beach Haven, N.J. on Aug. 19, 2022 as part of a project to stabilize the shoreline by establishing oyster colonies to blunt the force of incoming waves. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — Denise Vaccaro bought her home on the Jersey Shore over 20 years ago, charmed by the little beach at the end of a sandy spit on Barnegat Bay where she could sit and read while listening to the waves and enjoying the cool breezes.

That home was destroyed 10 years ago in Superstorm Sandy, and the beach she loved is also gone, claimed by rising seas that are eroding the shoreline and pushing water to porches.

“It’s so sad that this little community has lost its beach,” Vaccaro said. “People are losing their property. My home was totally destroyed. It’s a way of life that’s being lost.”

It’s a story being played out on shorelines all around the world as once idyllic beach communities are washing away, and residents are struggling to adapt.

But a partial solution being tried around the world is also being done here: establishing oyster colonies to form natural barriers that blunt the force of waves and help stabilize eroding shorelines.

Such a project is underway near Vaccaro’s rebuilt house, carried out by the American Littoral Society, which received a $1 million grant from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The group has been building steel wire cages, filling them with rocks and whelk shells and positioning them in rows along the shoreline of Barnegat Bay.

Tiny baby oysters, called spat, are attached to whelk shells and placed in the bay near the existing cages to further stabilize the shoreline.

The shoreline in Vaccaro’s neighborhood has lost 150 feet (46 meters) of beach since 1995, according to the Littoral Society.

In much of it, there is no sand at all; waves pound against grassy mounds that are getting smaller all the time. A shuffleboard court that used to be part of a wide beach with plenty of sand between it and the bay is now halfway submerged in water.

“Some of the people along this shoreline have seen the bay swallow their back porches, more than one,” said Julie Schumacher, habitat restoration coordinator for the Littoral Society. “The water is right up against them.”

The rows of oysters appear to be doing their job as effective breakwaters. One recent day, a strong east wind rippled the bay with whitecaps out beyond the oysters. But between the oysters and the shoreline, the water was much calmer, and waves sloped gently onto the shoreline instead of pounding against it.

As an added benefit, the oysters help improve water quality in the bay: A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons (190 liters) of water a day.

Projects like this one are an important part of New Jersey’s coastal resilience program — using plants and shellfish beds to create “living shorelines” that complement engineered structures like sea walls and bulkheads to protect homes and people.

A few miles south, a group called ReClam the Bay is building an oyster reef to protect the shoreline of Mordecai Island, an uninhabited patch of land that in turn protects the shoreline of Beach Haven, a popular resort town on Long Beach Island.

Volunteers fill mesh bags with 35 pounds (16 kilograms) of whelk shells, to which millions of baby oysters have been attached, then sail them out to the reef a few hundred yards offshore. They’ve placed 10,000 bags of oysters and whelk shells there since 2015.

“In the last 100 years, Mordecai Island has lost 35% of its size,” said Jack Duggan, a longtime volunteer with the group. “If we do nothing, in 40 years the island will be gone — just washed over. This island protects Beach Haven from taking the force of all that wave action.”

ReClam The Bay has done a similar project establishing an oyster reef in front of a brick wall in Tuckerton, further north in the bay, and the Littoral Society has numerous other oyster projects underway. At the Naval Weapons Station Earle in Middletown, the NY/NJ Baykeeper organization is growing oysters along the heavily guarded pier and deploying them along the shoreline to protect the coast, which suffered serious erosion during Sandy.

Governments and volunteers in other places are doing the same thing.

In New York, city, state and federal agencies are building “living shorelines” along the southwestern tip of Long Island, using oysters, shells and native plants. A similar project in Delaware used 1,300 bags of shells to extend shoreline protection near Lewes CanalFront Park.

The Oyster Recovery Partnership in Maryland has placed billions of oysters on shells in Chesapeake Bay in a project set to run through 2025. In Florida, volunteers and researchers established oyster colonies along portions of the Peace River in Punta Gorda.

In California, the Wild Oyster Project is establishing reefs in San Francisco Bay for shoreline protection and water quality improvement purposes.

In Argyll, Scotland, a group called Seawilding began restoring an area in 2020 near a coastal inlet that had become degraded. They’ve restored more than 300,000 oysters there. Also in Scotland, a project aims to restore 30,000 oysters near Edinburgh.

Vaccaro realizes her New Jersey home may well depend on the success of a bunch of tiny oysters.

“If we don’t do anything, we’re not going to have any of these houses,” Vaccaro said. “In 20 years my house — which I rebuilt on pilings — could be gone again. This is why what we’re doing here is so important to me. I saw what happened and I see what can happen again.”

___

Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

India razes skyscrapers in biggest ever demolition

Thousands of families evacuated ahead of demolition ordered by country's top court

Ahmad Adil |28.08.2022

A controlled implosion demolishes the 100-metre-high residential "Twin Towers" in Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi, on August 28, 2022. Two illegally built residential high-rises were demolished near India's capital on August 28 in a rare crackdown on developers who cut corners and swindle unsuspecting home-buyers.

NEW DELHI

India on Sunday carried out its "biggest" ever demolition, bringing down two skyscrapers in a residential area on the outskirts of the capital New Delhi, local media and officials said.

The two 30-story skyscrapers were demolished following the Supreme Court’s direction last year as the towers had violated construction rules.

On Saturday, Indian authorities evacuated thousands of people from the buildings known as Apex and Ceyane, located in a densely-populated neighborhood in the city of Noida.

Officials said over 3,700 kilograms (8157 pounds) of explosives were used in the exercise and people living in the vicinity were told to leave their homes and return after the demolition is successfully done.

Alok Singh, a top police official in Noida, told reporters that the demolition was carried out as per the plan.

Mayur Mehta, a senior official from Edifice Engineering, the agency involved in the demolition, told Anadolu Agency that over 3,700 kilograms of explosives were installed to demolish the twin towers.

"We evacuated over 1,000 families and 250 meters (820 feet) area around the towers was also seized before the demolition," he said.

It was the "largest ever" demolition carried out in the country, he added.

Around 2:30 p.m. local time (0900GMT), television footage showed the buildings kissing the ground in a couple of seconds and creating a dust cloud in the area. An estimated 30,000 tons of debris is expected to gather at the bottom, which would take several weeks to clear by the authorities.

While the construction of illegal buildings in India is rampant, the demolition of buildings is rare in India.

In 2020, two lakeside apartment complexes were razed to the ground in southern India as they were also found to be built in violation of environmental rules.

Leaked Letter Reveals UK Government Scraps Plan to Enforce Human Rights with Brexit Trade Deals

TEHRAN (FNA)- The government is no longer planning to use its Brexit trade deals to spread and enforce human rights around the world, a leaked letter from the International Trade Secretary revealed.

Writing to MPs Anne-Marie Trevelyan said human rights would be kept out of trade talks and that she believed "free trade agreements are not generally the most effective or targeted tool to advance human rights issues", The Independent reported.

The dramatic change in approach comes as the UK tries to sign a deal with [Persian] Gulf countries including Saudi Arabian, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – all renowned for their poor human rights records.

“This response by the Trade Secretary confirms our biggest fears that human rights will not even be paid lip service in the upcoming trade agreement with the [Persian] Gulf," said Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy.

"The government shamelessly refuses to include even a mention of human rights in their trade deal, despite dealing with some of the most abusive states on the planet," Alwadaei added.

"The bottom line is [Persian] Gulf dictators will be confidently reassured that when it comes to business with the UK, human rights will be left completely off the table,” Alwadaei said.

Peter Frankental, Amnesty International UK’s economic affairs director, said the government was "sending a terrible message to other countries" about "how little the UK appears to value human rights and freedoms when trade deals are at stake".

“Any notion that trade can somehow be cordoned off from human rights issues ignores the grubby reality that multinational corporations all too often profit from lax labour laws, conditions amounting to modern slavery, and widespread environmental harm," he said.

“Once again, we appear to have a trade policy which runs counter to the UK’s stated foreign policy goals of championing openness and free speech, reducing conflict and environmental degradation, and ending modern forms of slavery,” he added.

Many free trade agreements around the world, such as the one the UK signed with the EU, include provisions to ensure countries holding basic standards of human rights – with formal clauses to make them legally enforceable.

As well their ethical dimension, the clauses are also intended to make sure countries cannot undercut each other by violating rights and exploitation – for instance with de facto slave labour.

Yet, the UK is desperate to sign agreements with countries around the world to illustrate what it says are the benefits of leaving the EU customs union – and human rights are a sore-point for some countries Britain wants to do deals with.

Last year, when he was foreign secretary, Dominic Raab told officials that “restricting” trade because of lower human rights standards would mean "we’re not going to do many trade deals with the growth markets of the future".

The shift in government policy is stark when compared to statements by ministers earlier on in their quest for free trade agreements. In October 2020 then Trade Secretary Liz Truss gave a landmark Chatham House speech titled "[Britain’s] vision for values-driven free trade".

She said Britain was "learning from the twin errors of values-free globalisation and protectionism" and "instead rooting our approach for global free trade in our values of sovereignty, democracy, the rule of law and a fierce commitment to high standards".

"In control of our trading future, we will work with like-minded democracies to support freedom, human rights and the environment while boosting enterprise by lowering barriers to trade," she said.

"The UK did not leave the European Union to have another country’s values thrust upon it. We support the right kind of globalisation, based on shared values as we help lead the fight for free markets, free societies, human rights and a greener world," she said.

Truss, who is on course to become prime minister in less than two weeks, said in the speech that "the values driving our newly independent trade policy are well-known".

"Our friends know how strongly freedom has delivered and driven the UK’s national story, whether they think back to the historic advancement of human rights under Magna Carta, the abolition of the slave trade or the development of free market economics," she said at the time.

"The British people care deeply about fairness, decency and liberty. We can best spread our fundamental values - freedom, democracy, human rights and protecting our natural environment for the future – by working with our friends and family across the world," she said.

Even as recently as October 2021 trade policy appeared to at least pay lip service to human rights as a key part of trade negotiations.

Asked by Labour MP Cat Smith "what recent discussions she has had with UK trade partners on inserting clauses on human rights into future trade deals", Trevelyan said, "The Government are clear that more trade will not come at the expense of human rights. The UK will continue to show global leadership in encouraging all states to uphold international rights obligations and to hold to account those who violate those rights. By having stronger economic relationships with partners, we have the opportunity to open discussions on a range of issues."

Answering another question from Tory MP Peter Bone about whether free trade agreements could help improve human rights in supply chains, she said, "It is important that we make sure not only that we use the power of trade to build relationships, as I said, but to give our businesses that want to work globally through supply chains the best tools and protections that they might need to ensure that they have authority with countries where the improvement of the position of the supply-chain workforce and, indeed, the protection of other human rights is critical."

Asked to comment on Trevelyan's leaked letter, a government spokesperson said, “The UK is a leading advocate for human rights around the world, and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office leads this effort within the UK government."

“We will continue to encourage all states to uphold international human rights obligations, and hold those who violate or abuse them to account,” the spokesperson added.

But Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrats business spokesperson said it was "crystal clear how little regard this Conservative Government holds for the respect of human rights on the international stage".

"After failing to guarantee British standards on animal welfare and environmental protection in the FTA with Australia, the Government are now sinking even lower and are set to finalise a trade deal with [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council countries that appears to make no reference to their abysmal record on human rights".

She added that there should be "a set of minimum standards for benchmarking future trade agreements; to include human rights, conflict and oppression, environmental, labour and safety standards".

Help Pakistan's flood victims by donating to Dawn Relief

We want to extend our efforts to flood-stricken areas across the country. Help us do so by donating generously.

 Published August 27, 2022  

As the 2022 flood emergency overtakes Pakistan, Dawn Relief once again deploys its resources to provide relief and rehabilitation in Balochistan.

In line with our vision to provide relief and rehabilitation to people in distress, Dawn Relief has initiated relief operations in those villages in Balochistan that have been worst-hit by floods.

We are providing flood-hit families with non-perishable food items, drinking water and essential medicine. We aim to replicate these efforts across the country, after which we will initiate our Home and School Reconstruction Programme which we implemented previously in Azad Kashmir, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

1) Send a cheque or money order to:

DawnRelief, c/o Irfan ul Haq, DawnRelief, Haroon House, Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road, Karachi 74500

2) Donate via bank transfer.

Account title: Dawn Relief Earthquake Welfare Organisation
National Bank of Pakistan
Account number: 4000373293
IBAN: PK81NBPA0223004000373293

We have been rebuilding lives for 15+ years and extended relief efforts to people affected by the earthquake in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (2005), the earthquake in Balochistan (2008), the humanitarian crisis in Swat (2009), the floods in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (2010 & 2011), the earthquake in Churan Oveer, Chitral (2015), the Covid lockdown (2020) and the destruction of settlements due to construction along Gujjar Nalla and Orangi Nalla (2021).

We want to extend our efforts to flood-stricken areas across the country. Help us do so by donating generously.

For more information, please call Irfan ul Haq at (021)3561-3115 or e-mail irfanuhaq@gmail.com during regular business hours.

Relief efforts

Editorial 

Published August 28, 2022 

HARROWING videos on social media of people, homes and commercial establishments being swept away by raging floodwaters have succeeded in bringing the ongoing monsoon-related disaster front and centre on the national stage and finally shaken the authorities out of their torpor.

No less than 116 districts have been affected. Of them, 66 are officially declared ‘calamity hit’. Nearly 1,000 people have died, while millions are without shelter, food and potable water. The government and NGOs have launched relief efforts in the worst-affected areas. In fact, NGOs — including smaller welfare organisations — were comparatively quicker off the mark in sending out provisions, tents, etc some weeks ago to help lessen the effects of the unfolding tragedy.

Appeals to the public for donations are popping up all over social media, in newspapers and on television, and a citizenry known for its altruism must dig deep within these financially straitened times to come to their compatriots’ help. On Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s appeal, global organisations and financial institutions have also announced immediate aid of more than $500m for flood victims. Former prime minister Imran Khan, after an inexplicable initial reluctance, has announced he would lead an international telethon to raise funds for flood victims. Politics must take a backseat for now.

Read: How to help Pakistanis affected by the floods

A general consensus is that this year’s disaster surpasses the ‘super floods’ of 2010. The destruction of infrastructure, including key roads and bridges, has compounded the challenge of accessing affected people. Aside from this, there is the question of tailoring the response to effectively meet the victims’ needs — always an important consideration but particularly so at a time when the country’s finances are already stretched thin. For example, many people have no means at present to cook anything; they must be provided cooked meals.

During the 2010 floods as well as the earthquake of 2005, it was seen that people rushed pell-mell to the affected areas out of a desire to help. Pakistanis also donated wholeheartedly in both cash and kind. But because the relief effort — at least in the earlier stages — was not properly coordinated and mapped out, there was chaos and replication of efforts, and whereas in some places donation was in excess of need, certain affected areas fell through the cracks. It is thus imperative for the provincial governments, especially their disaster management authorities, to play an effective role in coordinating diverse relief initiatives so that money and effort are judiciously utilised.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2022

Charity bodies face uphill task of taking aid to flood-hit areas of Sindh, Balochistan

Imran Ayub 

Published August 27, 2022 

Volunteers work at camps set up along the roads in Karachi by two separate charity organisations to collect relief goods and donations from citizens on Friday.—Fahim Siddiqi / White Star

• Camps set up across city for collection of donations and relief goods
• Accessibility to devastated areas becomes difficult due to broken, inundated roads

KARACHI: As heavy rains have triggered floods and wreaked havoc across the country, charity organisations and welfare bodies also pumped up their relief activities for hundreds of thousands of flood victims arriving at Karachi to seek shelter, but what emerges as the main challenge for the welfare bodies is to execute and take this huge gigantic operation to the disaster-hit areas after torrential rains have washed away key roads and highway links.

Hundreds of volunteers from Karachi associated with different organisations have already left for flood-hit areas in Sindh and Balochistan but the people engaged in supervising these activities now find it difficult to transport the truckloads of relief goods to the affected towns and villages due to ruined infrastructure.

They agree that the current level of crisis is much severe than the one which was witnessed in 2010.


Sarfaraz Sheikh, who’s heading the disaster management cell of the Al-Khidmat, said his organisation was generating funds from across the country, but they were operating from Karachi for dispatching relief goods, recruiting volunteers and arranging resources for flood-hit districts of Sindh and Balochistan.

“But the bigger challenge right now is that right from Hyderabad onwards, the whole province is inundated with flood water, whether it’s road, highway or any other alternative route,” he said.

“So arranging resources is one challenge, but delivering them at the right place is another challenge. In order to meet this challenge we have redesigned our strategy. We have set up a massive kitchen in Sakrand and a second one is being opened in Sukkur tomorrow [Saturday] that will provide cooked food twice a day in all three major affected areas — Sukkur, Shikarpur and Jacobabad. We are coordinating with the local administrations and all other welfare organisations for better and effective operation.”

He said Al-Khidmat had planned its operation in four areas — shelters, rations, medical camps and cooked and ready-to-eat food.

Under this strategy, he said, the organisation had set up base camps in Sukkur and Sakrand for relief operation in Sindh.

In Balochistan, he said, the team was engaged for last three weeks and camps were set up in Bela and Quetta.

Zafar Abbass of the Jafria Disaster Cell (JDC), which has set up donation camps across the city, believes media moved a little late to highlight the tragedy that had been claiming lives and property for a month.

But still, he appealed to Karachiites for donations and precisely mentioned a few things which were crucial in relief work.

“We have been providing food, tents and rations and using dozens of boats to evacuate people marooned in flooded areas,” he said.

“We have camps at Do Talwar, Numaish, Incholi and Five Star Chowrangi where people are offering donations. Both in Sindh and Balochistan, I have personally seen hundreds of villages turned flat, where homes, crops and every single structure have been wiped out. This tragedy is huge and we expect the same level of response from the people of Karachi.”

He requested for more government efforts and assistance to all those charity and welfare organisations carrying out relief operations in Sindh and Balochistan.

Hundred of trucks carrying relief goods are stuck in traffic jams due to ruined infrastructure and this issue must be resolved immediately for timely distribution of relief items to the affected people.

Fears of epidemic

Edhi Foundation, fears spread of epidemic diseases among children and women.

A field hospital, the charity says, is being established in Jacobabad which will cater to thousands of patients.

“Evacuation operation of our teams in Sindh is almost done and now it’s time to provide them shelters,” said an official of the charity.

“We are running out of time and it’s very crucial to carry out this operation with all due care and planning. The children, women and elderly people are vulnerable to different viral and infectious diseases due to flooding. After arranging food and shelter, our volunteers are now working with medical teams to address healthcare issue.”

Saylani Welfare has also set up a ‘logistic centre’ in Hyderabad, which is catering to the affected people in neighbouring areas and another one has been set up in Sukkur which is looking after the people in Khairpur, Kot Diji and Pano Aqil.

“At least 50,000 people are being fed daily through this logistic centre,” said the charity’s spokesman.

“Similarly, permanent kitchens have been set up in Matiari, Moosa Khatiyan, Kotri and Tando Jam. The evacuation in Sindh and Balochistan is almost done. Now the bigger challenge is the shelter and food for the homeless people. The people are sitting on main highways and roads under open sky. Their settlement needs gigantic effort.”

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2022

CLIMATE CRISIS

Pakistan flooding: Deaths from ‘climate catastrophe’ rise above 1,000


Maroosha Muzaffar
Sun, August 28, 2022 

The unprecedented monsoon floods in Pakistan have claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people since mid-June, the authorities said on Sunday.

Nearly 100 people have died over this weekend alone, taking the death toll to 1,033 – including 348 children, Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority said.

The flooding has also left 1,527 injured in flood-related accidents across Pakistan.

A national emergency has been declared in the country as prime minister Shehbaz Sharif appealed to international partners to help relief efforts.

Experts have blamed the climate crisis for the exceptionally high number of cycles of monsoon rain in Pakistan this year. Sherry Rehman, the country’s climate change minister, called it a “climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions”, and a “serious climate catastrophe, one of the hardest in the decade”.

She said: “It is beyond the capacity of any one administration or government to rehabilitate and even manage the rescue and relief. We need all the help we can get.”

Disaster management officials said on Saturday that the average rainfall this year has been nearly three times the 30-year national average.

It noted that rainfall in Sindh province in Pakistan had been five times the average.

Thousands have been rendered homeless, and millions of others have lost access to electricity. Pakistan’s NDMA said that nearly half a million were living in damaged houses due to the floodwaters.

So far, across Pakistan, more than 500,000 people have been evacuated to relief camps and shelters.

Heartbreaking scenes have emerged of the devastation the floodwaters have wrecked across the country.

Children use a raft to make their way in a flooded area after heavy monsoon rains on the outskirts of Sukkur, Sindh province, on 27 August, 2022 (AFP via Getty Images)

On Saturday, the Dawn newspaper reported that Mr Sharif and army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited flood-hit areas in Balochistan and Sindh provinces.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in northwest Pakistan, local authorities said that around 350,000 people were evacuated from Nowshera and Charsadda districts – the most flood-prone areas. And at least 14 were killed in flood-related incidents in Lower Dir, Mansehra and Kohistan.

The two leaders promised to make efforts to compensate and rehabilitate all those affected or displaced by floodwaters. Mr Sharif said: “All affected provinces of the country would get relief grants; Rs 38 billion have already been released by the federal government.”

An auto-rickshaw drives past temporary tents of people who fled their flood-hit homes set along a road in Sukkur, Sindh province, on 27 August, 2022 (AFP via Getty Images)

On his Twitter, the prime minister wrote: “The magnitude of the calamity is bigger than estimated. Times demand that we come together as one nation to support our people facing this calamity. Let us rise above our differences & stand by our people who need us today.”

Pakistan Rai­l­ways has suspended operations from Lahore to Karachi until 31 August. Services are scheduled to resume from 1 September, although officials said this could be subject to change depending on the progress of maintenance work and improvement in the weather.

Pakistan declares emergency as millions affected by floods


By AFP
Published August 26, 2022

Ashraf KHAN

Heavy rain pounded parts of Pakistan Friday after the government declared an emergency to deal with monsoon flooding that it said had affected more than four million people.

The annual monsoon is essential for irrigating crops and replenishing lakes and dams across the Indian subcontinent, but each year it also brings a wave of destruction.

The National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) said Friday that more than 900 people had been killed this year — including 34 in the last 24 hours — as a result of the monsoon rains that began in June.

Officials say this year’s floods are comparable to 2010 — the worst on record — when over 2,000 people died and nearly a fifth of the country was under water.

“I have never seen such huge flooding because of rains in my life,” octogenarian farmer Rahim Bakhsh Brohi told AFP near Sukkur, in southern Sindh province.

Like thousands of others in rural Pakistan, Brohi was seeking shelter beside the national highway, as the elevated roads are among the few dry places in the endless landscapes of water.

The disaster agency said over 4.2 million people were “affected” by the flooding, with nearly 220,000 homes destroyed and half a million more badly damaged.

Two million acres of cultivated crops had been wiped out in Sindh alone, the provincial disaster agency said, where many farmers live hand-to-mouth, season-to-season.

“My cotton crop that was sown on 50 acres of land is all gone,” Nasrullah Mehar told AFP.

“It’s a huge loss for me… what can be done?”

Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman, who on Wednesday called the floods “a catastrophe of epic scale”, said the government had declared an emergency, and appealed for international assistance.

Pakistan is eighth on the Global Climate Risk Index, a list compiled by the environmental NGO Germanwatch of countries deemed most vulnerable to extreme weather caused by climate change.

– From drought to floods –

Earlier this year much of the nation was in the grip of a drought and heatwave, with temperatures hitting 51 degrees Celsius (124 Fahrenheit) in Jacobabad, Sindh province.

The city is now grappling with floods that have inundated homes and swept away roads and bridges.

In Sukkur, about 75 kilometres (50 miles) away, residents struggled to make their way along muddy streets clogged with flood-borne debris.

“If you had come earlier the water was this high,” 24-year-old student Aqeel Ahmed told AFP, raising his hand to his chest.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif cancelled a planned trip to Britain to oversee the flood response, and ordered the army to throw every resource into relief operations.

“I have seen from the air and the devastation can’t be expressed in words,” he said on state TV after visiting Sukkur.

“The towns, villages and crops are inundated by the water. I don’t think this level of destruction has taken place before.”

A national fundraising appeal has been launched, with Pakistan’s military saying every commissioned officer would donate a month’s salary towards it.

The worst-hit areas are Balochistan and Sindh in the south and west, but almost all of Pakistan has suffered this year.

Images were circulating on social media Friday of swollen rivers obliterating buildings and bridges built along their banks in the mountainous north.

In Chaman, the western frontier town neighbouring Afghanistan, travellers had to wade through waist-high water to cross the border after a nearby dam burst, adding to the deluge brought by rain.

Pakistan Railways said nearby Quetta, capital of Balochistan province, had been cut off and train services suspended after a key bridge was damaged by a flash flood.

Most mobile networks and internet services were down in the province, with the country’s telecoms authority calling it “unprecedented”.

A farmer and his livestock seek shelter from flooded lands alongside the national highway in Khairpur district of Pakistan's Sindh province - Copyright AFP Asif HASSAN

Californians working while sick with COVID-19, fooled by mild symptoms


Jeremy Oyague, a registered nurse with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, administers a COVID-19 booster at a vaccination clinic in Los Angeles.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

BY RONG-GONG LIN II,

 
LUKE MONEY

AUG. 27, 2022 

Experts are warning that employees might be showing up to work while sick with COVID-19, with symptoms so mild even healthcare workers are being fooled.

It has long been known that people experiencing mild or no symptoms can spread the coronavirus to others. But health experts are now noting that more people who are experiencing very mild illness are working anyway — exacerbating the transmission risk.

Dr. Ralph Gonzales, a UC San Francisco associate dean, said at a recent campus town hall that the latest dominant Omicron subvariant, BA.5, can result in symptoms so mild that healthcare workers are still working despite the illness. Some people are not testing positive until four or five days after they start showing symptoms of COVID-19.

“We are seeing more employees having been on site with multiple days of symptoms. So please try not to work with symptoms — even if they’re mild — because we are seeing quite a bit of mild symptoms with BA.5, and people often don’t even realize they’re sick,” Gonzales said.


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While case counts are down markedly from the heights of the latest wave, the risk of exposure remains high. Almost every California county has a high rate of coronavirus transmission, defined as having 100 or more cases a week for every 100,000 residents.

When case rates are at this level, “it’s still recommended to layer in precautions that we have all become familiar with during the pandemic, including masking indoors, staying home and getting tested when ill, making good use of the outdoors and maximizing ventilation indoors and getting tested before gathering where people of vulnerable health may be present in order to protect them,” Los Angeles County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis said Thursday.

The number of L.A. County worksites reporting clusters of coronavirus cases continues to fall; there were 144 in the most recent week, down from the prior week’s tally of 152.

At sites where there are outbreaks, Davis said, factors that typically increase the spread of illness are people at work who aren’t aware they have a coronavirus infection and a lack of masking.

That’s “why it’s really important for people to ensure that if they feel sick, even with mild symptoms, to test themselves and make sure that they don’t have COVID,” he said. “There have been some studies that have shown in the past that even up to about 56% of people didn’t know they had an infection.”


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That’s especially vital now as the Omicron variant and its family of sub-strains have proved particularly difficult to avoid — even for those who have long dodged a coronavirus infection.

A review of infections from UC San Francisco’s Office of Population Health found that through the beginning of 2022, less than 10% of the campus’ employees and students had a prior COVID-19 illness, Gonzales said. But the various waves of the ultra-contagious Omicron variants radically changed the cumulative infection rate.

By the beginning of spring, 20% of the university’s employees and students had had a coronavirus infection, according to data shared by Gonzales. And by mid-summer, 45% had been infected, Gonzales said.

An Axios/Ipsos poll recently said that about half of U.S. adults have had a coronavirus infection at some point.


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Aug. 25, 2022

The most recent seroprevalence estimate for California — the share of residents thought to have been infected with the coronavirus at some point — was 55.5% in February, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was up markedly from an estimated 25.3% last November, prior to Omicron’s widespread arrival.

The proportion of Californians infected at some point has almost assuredly continued to climb throughout this year, given the steady spate of newly reported infections.

Meanwhile, the pandemic’s impact on hospitals has declined as the summer Omicron surge has faded.

As of Thursday, there were only seven California counties with a high COVID-19 community level as defined by the CDC, which generally indicates both a high case rate and elevated level of new weekly coronavirus-positive hospital admissions.

The counties still in the high COVID-19 community level as of Thursday — Kern, Ventura, Monterey, Merced, Imperial, Madera and Kings — are home to about 2.9 million Californians, representing about 8% of the state’s population. By contrast, two weeks ago, there were 14.4 million Californians living in the 21 counties in the high COVID-19 community level.


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Counties that exited the high COVID-19 community level this week were Fresno, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Humboldt, Sutter, Yuba, San Benito and Tuolumne. Those that exited the level the prior week were Orange, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Solano, San Luis Obispo, Napa and Mendocino.

Southern California counties in the medium COVID-19 community level include Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino and Santa Barbara. Riverside County is in the low COVID-19 community level.

As of Friday, Los Angeles County was recording about 3,000 coronavirus cases a day for the prior seven-day period — less than half the summer peak of nearly 6,900 cases per day, though still far above the springtime low of about 600 cases a day.

On a per capita basis, L.A. County is reporting 206 coronavirus cases a week for every 100,000 residents.

Coronavirus-positive hospitalizations are trending lower. As of Thursday, there were 827 coronavirus-positive hospital patients in L.A. County’s 92 hospitals, a 12% decrease over the prior seven days. State models project continued declines over the next month.


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L.A. County reported 96 COVID-19 deaths for the seven-day period that ended Friday, 16% higher than the prior week’s count of 83. The peak weekly tally for the summer was between July 31 and Aug. 6, when L.A. County reported 122 COVID-19 deaths.

More than 33,000 cumulative COVID-19 deaths have been reported in L.A. County since the pandemic began, including roughly 1,500 over the last five months. Prior to the pandemic, about 1,500 Angelenos typically died from the flu over the course of an entire year.

Some experts are expecting a fall-and-winter COVID-19 wave, as has occurred in the last two years, but it’s unclear how bad it may be. Officials are also concerned about the possible return of a significant flu season for the first time in the pandemic era.

The White House has signaled it expects a new Omicron-specific booster shot to become available in September. Health officials are urging people to get their flu shot and be up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines ahead of the winter.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Rong-Gong Lin II
Rong-Gong Lin II is a metro reporter based in San Francisco who specializes in covering statewide earthquake safety issues and the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bay Area native is a graduate of UC Berkeley and started at the Los Angeles Times in 2004.


Luke Money
Luke Money is a Metro reporter covering breaking news at the Los Angeles Times. He previously was a reporter and assistant city editor for the Daily Pilot, a Times Community News publication in Orange County, and before that wrote for the Santa Clarita Valley Signal. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Arizona.

Interview with BioNTech Founder Uğur Şahin

"The Virus Continues to Mutate at a High Speed"

We were fortunate that Omicron turned out to be as mild as it has been, says BioNTech co-founder Uğur Şahin. In an interview, he says he expects that his company's adapted vaccine will be available in September, just in time for the first Oktoberfest to take place in Germany since the pandemic.

Interview Conducted by Thomas Schulz

Bild vergrößern
Scientist Uğur Şahin: "It is important to show the immune system as many of these mutated positions as possible now, so that it learns and also recognizes subsequent variants."

 Foto:Ramon Haindl / DER SPIEGEL

26.08.2022, 


About Uğur Şahin

Uğur Şahin, born in 1965, is a medical doctor and CEO of the Mainz-based vaccine manufacturer BioNTech. The company that Şahin once founded with his wife Özlem Türeci has risen to become one of Germany's most valuable companies in the course of the coronavirus pandemic.


DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Şahin, at the beginning of the year, you worked as fast as possible to develop an adapted vaccine for the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and produced many millions of doses. This special booster, though, still hasn’t been approved. Should you have saved yourself the trouble?

Şahin: I still think that adapted vaccines make a lot of sense. The target structure of the vaccine, the spike protein, differs significantly in the Omicron variant from the wild type. On the one hand, our data has shown that a booster with an adapted vaccine produces significantly more antibodies against Omicron than the wild-type vaccine. The immune system is thus better able to ward off the variant. On the other, we must not forget that Omicron is already a partial escape variant. At some point, we could have a variant that doesn’t react at all to the antibodies in the original vaccine. We need to get ahead of it now.

DER SPIEGEL: How does an Omicron booster help?

Şahin: Omicron has a lot of mutations in the spike protein, so only some areas are still recognized by the antibodies of someone vaccinated with the wild-type vaccine. The virus continues to mutate at a high speed. It is difficult to predict when all the relevant positions will be mutated and thus no longer recognized by the wild-type vaccine. But it is likely to be sooner rather than later. It is thus important to show the immune system as many of these mutated positions as possible now, so that it learns and also recognizes subsequent variants.

"We can deliver in a very timely manner."

DER SPIEGEL: If the scientific benefits are as clear as you say, then why have finished doses been sitting in freezers for months waiting for approval?

Şahin: This is the first time that an adapted vaccine has been approved. The regulatory authorities wanted to see a whole range of additional clinical data. Things like whether an adapted vaccine should be based on Omicron only or on both Omicron and the wild type. Such a clinical trial takes four to five months.

DER SPIEGEL: It sounds like there was no longer any pressure once Omicron turned out to be less dangerous.

Şahin: A key factor was that the vaccine currently in use also significantly reduces mortality and reduces hospitalization in Omicron cases. The time required to develop an adapted vaccine could be bridged with boosters of the current vaccine.

DER SPIEGEL: Did it also take longer because the adaptation process for BioNTech was more difficult than previously thought?

Şahin: No, that went really fast and is no longer much of a challenge for us technologically. We produced the first doses for clinical trials in six weeks and started them in January. We make the spike protein sequences for potentially relevant variants in the lab every week and have run this process for hundreds of versions. We can also adapt production very quickly.

DER SPIEGEL: German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach announced that he expects the Omicron booster to be approved next week. Could you deliver immediately then?

Şahin: Delivery is logistically complex and requires a few days of preparation. But we could deliver very promptly, hopefully in early September. It should also be stated that we have made two different versions. One is based on the Omicron subtype BA.1. For that one, we have submitted all the necessary data to the European authority EMA for approval. The other vaccine is based on the BA.5 subtype, which is currently dominant in the EU, and we are currently submitting the final documents. Then it can go quickly on that, too. It depends on how rapidly the EMA conducts its review.

DER SPIEGEL: So, you anticipate that we will have to wait a few weeks rather than months for the more current BA.5 vaccine?

Şahin: Yes.

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The original BioNTech vaccine Foto:
Robert Michael / dpa

DER SPIEGEL: Which means that two different Omicron boosters are arriving at almost the same time. It’s a bit confusing. Which one should people get?

Şahin: Basically, there isn’t a huge difference between the two vaccines. Both have been shown in studies to produce a clearly superior antibody response to Omicron compared to the original vaccine. At the same time, we have clear indications that a BA.5 vaccine is just more effective against BA.5. However, there are also opinions that a variant could appear in a few months that is closer to BA.1 again.

DER SPIEGEL: That is a very diplomatic answer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made things simpler and clearly specified: In the U.S., we only want the BA.5 booster. Do you have a clear preference personally?

Şahin: Yes, I am in favor of always staying as close as possible to the dominant strain. This is how it is done with the flu. And we are able to reduce production times to less than three months with mRNA technology.

DER SPIEGEL: Starting in mid-September, Munich will host a big party that has the potential to become a massive super-spreader event. Millions of people will be crowded tightly together in the beer tents at Oktoberfest. Some virologists have thus called on visitors to be sure to get a booster shot beforehand. Will the BA.5 vaccine be available in time?

Şahin: That is out of our hands. However, BA.1 should be available by then.

DER SPIEGEL: Are there any findings from your studies on whether a minimum interval should be observed from the last vaccination with the wild-type vaccine?

Şahin: We haven’t looked into that specifically. In principle, however, in our studies we had an interval of six to eight months from the last vaccination. Individuals who had not previously had an Omicron infection could also benefit from an Omicron-adapted vaccination with a shorter interval. I can imagine that the EMA or the STIKO will make a recommendation on this.

DER SPIEGEL: Will the Omicron booster be approved for children?

Şahin: To begin with, we have applied for approval from the age of 12. For younger children, with are in contact with the authorities about what data they require for approval. I can’t give a date here yet.
"We have developed an early warning system that uses artificial intelligence to constantly analyze the evolution of the virus."

DER SPIEGEL: In the past two years, science has learned a lot about the virus. Can this knowledge be used to better predict its further evolution and new variants?

Şahin: We have indeed made progress. We have developed an early warning system that uses artificial intelligence to constantly analyze the evolution of the virus. As part of the process, we look at tens of thousands of sequences from the spike protein of new variants every month. For example, we identified the risk posed by variants BA.4/5 very early on.

DER SPIEGEL: Can you explain a bit more about how this early warning tool works?

Şahin: We first calculate whether and to what extent newly identified spike protein sequences can bypass current vaccine protection. We are also using new computer-based algorithms to see how fit these spike proteins are.

DER SPIEGEL: What do you mean by "fit”?

Şahin: How effectively the spike protein can dock to the host cell, increasing contagiousness. We map this precisely, calculate for each sequence how much it increases in frequency over the observation period, and produce a weekly Top 100 list of variants to watch. With this step, we can better identify which virus developments could become problematic. For all variants on this list, we also create the matching DNA plasmids.

DER SPIEGEL: Why are they so important?

Şahin: The plasmids are the template for the mRNA production, a kind of copying process. If we have these in stock, we can shorten the production time for a new potential vaccine by another two to four weeks.

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Vaccine syringes Foto: Jens Schlueter / Getty Images

DER SPIEGEL: What are you seeing right now? Are we just going to see new subtypes of Omicron from now on? Or is a new, potentially dominant variant lurking on the horizon?

Şahin: Omicron currently accounts for 99.8 percent of the pathogens, and it is constantly mutating. We also saw this type of evolution with new sublineages of Delta, but it is much more pronounced with Omicron. The variant will thus not be easy to supplant. An unsolved problem is the second evolutionary mechanism: highly mutated variants appearing seemingly out of nowhere. We can’t predict them because the virus practically reinvents itself.

DER SPIEGEL: Just as Omicron did originally.

Şahin: Right. There is a hypothesis that such sudden, highly mutated variants develop in people with compromised immune systems. There, they can gradually optimize themselves over a period of several months, largely undisturbed, until they possess a completely new set of escape mutations that can trigger a new pandemic locally or even globally.

DER SPIEGEL: In other words, we will have to be prepared for an annual booster vaccination for the dominant variant in each case? Or will there soon be a new generation of vaccines that covers a broad spectrum of variants and lasts longer?

Şahin: We are testing different approaches for our next-generation vaccines. Improved spike designs, for one. So far, I am not as enthusiastic about this as other researchers because, in my view, the approach underestimates the evolutionary capacity of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen. I am more excited about approaches for the other defense mechanisms of the immune system: the T cells.
"There are a number of studies showing that people have gotten rid of the virus even without measurable neutralizing antibodies, sometimes even asymptomatically."

DER SPIEGEL: The vaccine is mainly aimed at generating neutralizing antibodies against the virus. The body’s own T cells are normally the second line of defense in humans. Can this mechanism be optimized?

Şahin: There are a number of studies showing that people have gotten rid of the virus even without measurable neutralizing antibodies, sometimes even asymptomatically. T cells apparently manage the job of eliminating the virus on their own in these cases. We are actively researching this. The goal is a universal T-cell vaccine that targets non-mutating regions of the virus and will protect against disease of all severities, regardless of the viral variants circulating in the future.

DER SPIEGEL: Will future approval processes also become shorter?

Şahin: That is important, yes. We not only need improved vaccines, but also the processes to be able to respond more quickly. When dangerous variants appear out of season, for example. In our discussions with the authorities, we can see that progress is being made.

DER SPIEGEL: The process would then be similar to the flu vaccine, where adaptation to the currently circulating variant doesn’t have to be accompanied by a clinical trial and reapproved each time?

Şahin: I would be surprised if we don’t have an internationally agreed solution by next year at the latest, similar to the flu vaccine. We can’t afford anything else. We were doubly fortunate with Omicron because it is not a full escape variant and the existing vaccine could provide booster vaccine protection. And because Omicron leads to milder disease than Delta. We shouldn’t bet on that happening again.