Disaster

ISIS cut off the water supply from two processing plants on the Euphrates, east of the city of Aleppo on Friday. Aleppo’s Water Organization, Syria’s Red Crescent Society and local residents are having to look for ways to restore the water supply to the city which was recently liberated from terrorists. They are meanwhile relying on local water wells and water bottles until the situation is resolved. Press TV reports: Takfiri terrorist groups in Syria have resorted to cutting off water supplies to different residential areas in an apparent bid to retaliate battlefield losses.

A powerful earthquake has struck the eastern coast of Japan. The Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) put the quakes magnitude at 6.3 while the US Geological Survey reported the tremor to be 5.9.

A BP pipeline  running along Sauls Creek in Bayfield, Colorado ruptured last week for “unknown” reasons, spilling similarly unknown quantities of methane-contaminated wastewater into a tributary of the Los Pinos river. After the spill was discovered on December 13th, BP crews immediately closed the line, shut down 17 wells and constructed a temporary earthen dam to contain the produced water from spilling further downstream.

A 5.9 magnitude quake has struck northeastern Japan, 18km NNE of Daigo, and in close proximity to the infamous Fukushima nuclear power plant the US Geological Survey reported; no tsunami warning has been issued. The epicenter of the quake was given as Ibaraki Prefecture in central Japan, the same as was impacted during the 2011 Fukushima quake. The prefecture has a population of some 3 million people.

Earlier, the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) earlier put the magnitude at 6.3.

A Russian military aircraft crashed into the Black Sea yesterday killing all 92 passengers on board. The Russian defence ministry said that the plane disappeared from radar two minutes after taking off from Sochi at 05:25 (02:25 GMT), heading for Latakia in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the relatives of the passengers. “I want to express my most sincere condolences to the families of our citizens who died in the plane crash in the Black Sea this morning. The government will do everything to provide support.