World News Roundup

ARAB TIMES, MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2015

18INTERNATIONAL

Megastorm

Discovery

Menacing Mexico

Patricia inflicts‘little’ damageCHAMELA, Mexico, Oct 25,(AP): Just a day after menacingMexico as one of history’sstrongest storms, Hurricane Patricialeft surprisingly little damage in itswake Saturday and quickly dissi-pated into a low-pressure systemthat posed little threat beyondheavy rain.

The hurricane’s most powerfulpunch landed on a sparsely populat-ed stretch of Mexico’s PacificCoast before the system crashedinto mountains that sapped itspotentially catastrophic force. Thepopular beach city of PuertoVallarta and the port of Manzanillo

were spared thebrunt of the vio-lent weather.

Au thor i t i e swere still check-ing on some iso-lated areas,where roads hadbeen blocked bydowned trees,but the devasta-tion appeared to

be far less than feared.There were no reports of deaths

or injuries, said Roberto LopezLara, interior secretary for thestate of Jalisco. Later, PresidentEnrique Pena Nieto reported thatbetween 3,000 and 3,500 homeshad been damaged and the stormalso affected 3,500 hectares(about 8,650 acres) of farmland.He said 235,000 people had lostelectricity when the storm hit, andabout half had power restored bySaturday.

RemarkableIt was a remarkable outcome,

considering that Patricia had oncebeen a Category 5 hurricane withwinds up to 200 mph (325 kph)before coming ashore with slightlyless power in an area dotted withsleepy villages and a few upscalehotels.

As the storm spun inland, it col-lapsed into fast-moving bands ofrain aimed at already sodden Texas.

Residents of towns nearest thestrike described enduring a terrify-ing night.

“Those were the longest fivehours of my life,” said SergioReyna Ruiz, who took coverbetween the shaking concrete wallsof a neighbor’s home when Patriciapassed over the hamlet of LaFortuna, about 2 miles (3 kilome-ters) from the ocean. “Five hoursriding the monster.”

Before the storm hit, Reyna triedto secure the shingles of his roofwith metal cables. But looking upfrom the inside Saturday, the ceil-ing was a patchwork of old tile andblue sky. He and family membersnext door tried to clean up, sawingthrough a downed tree and puttingwaterlogged mattresses and booksinto the sun to dry.

SurvivedAll were thankful that everyone

survived: “It’s something to tell thegrandchildren,” Reyna said.

Down the road in Chamela, peo-ple picked through boards, treelimbs and other refuse for anythingsalvageable. All 40 families thatlive there rode out the storm at ashelter in nearby San Mateo. Whenthey returned, they found little thatwas recognizable.

Arturo Morfin Garcia wielded amachete trying to clear debris fromaround his home, which wasreduced to a jumble of bricks andbeams. The only part left standingwas a concrete bathroom at oneend.

Remarkably little damage wasreported in the wake of HurricanePatricia, which hit Mexico afterpeaking Friday as the strongest hur-ricane on record in the WesternHemisphere.

Hurricane experts say these areamong the reasons why:■ The storm hit a sparsely populat-ed area, avoiding direct hits on theresort of Puerto Vallarta and portcity of Manzanillo. “You and Iwould be having a very differentconversation if this went over thetop of Puerto Vallarta,” said DennisFeltgen, spokesman for theNational Hurricane Center inMiami.■ Mountainous terrain quicklyweakened the system. “It ran intothe mountains and that completelydisrupted the circulation,” Feltgensaid.■ The hurricane had a very narrowwind corridor. Category 5 windsextended out only about 15 miles(25 kilometers) on either side of theeye and hurricane force winds only35 miles (55 kilometers).“Patricia’s Category 5 winds wereconfined to a relatively narrowswath ... and this swath missedmajor cities,” said Jeff Masters,Director of Meteorology at WeatherUnderground.■ It advanced rapidly. “The stormwas moving fast enough at landfall- about 20 mph (35 kph) - that theseheavy rains did not stay in placelong enough to generate the kindsof devastating floods we’ve seen inthe past from Mexican hurricanes, “said Masters.

A picture taken on Oct 24, shows visitors walking at the excavation site of the Dionysiac Villa, also known as the Villa of Augustus, in Somma Vesuviana, near Naples, southern Italy. (AFP)

In this undated photo released byCell journal, the Sope I grave inEstonia, where plague DNA wasfound in a tooth from this individualand is the earliest evidence of plague

found in Europe. (AP)

Simon Poinar

Plague spread 3K years earlier:The plague was spreading nearly 3,000years before previously thought, scientistssay after finding traces of the disease inthe teeth of ancient people — a discoverythat could provide clues to how dangerousdiseases evolve.

To find evidence of the prehistoricinfection, researchers drilled into the teethof 101 individuals who lived in CentralAsia and Europe some 2,800 to 5,000years ago. The drilling produced a powderthat the researchers examined for DNAfrom plague bacteria. They found it insamples from seven people.

Before the study, the earliest evidenceof the plague was from AD. 540, saidSimon Rasmussen of the TechnicalUniversity of Denmark. He and col-leagues found it as early as 2,800 BC.

“We were very surprised to find it3,000 years before it was supposed toexist,” said Rasmussen, one of the studyauthors. The research was publishedonline Thursday in the journal, Cell.

Rasmussen said the plague they foundwas a different strain from the one thatcaused the three known pandemics,including the Black Death that sweptacross Medieval Europe. In contrast tolater strains, including the one estimatedto have wiped out about half of Europe,the Bronze Age plague revealed by thenew study could not be spread by fleasbecause it lacked a crucial gene. So it wasprobably less able to infect people overwide regions.

But Rasmussen said knowing thatplague existed thousands of years earlierthan had been believed might explainsome unsolved historical mysteries,including the “Plague of Athens,” a horri-fying unknown epidemic that struck theGreek capital in 430 BC. It killed up to100,000 people during the PeloponnesianWar.

“People have been speculating aboutwhat this was, like was this measles ortyphus, but it could well have beenplague,” Rasmussen said.

He said tracking how the plagueevolved from being an intestinal infection

Heritage

to “one of the most deadly diseases everencountered by humans” could help scien-tists predict the disease’s future path.

“Typically, things get less virulent withtime, but that’s not always the case,” saidHendrik Poinar, a molecular evolution-ary geneticist at McMaster University in

Canada who was not part of the study. Henoted that diseases could acquire new fea-tures — including lethality — relativelyquickly.

Other experts said it was unlikely thatplague would ever pose as great a threatas it has in the past, especially since it is

now largely treatable.“It might be that (plague) will eventual-

ly burn itself out,” said Brendan Wren,dean of the faculty of infectious and tropi-cal diseases at the London School ofHygiene and Tropical Medicine. Wrensaid other diseases like leprosy have also

In this photo taken on July 9, 2013, Bill Ahern, a conservation specialist for theMiami-Dade County Parks, holds a loggerhead sea turtle egg on HauloverBeach in Miami. A Georgia man faces returning to prison after pleading guiltya second time to stealing the eggs of protected sea turtles. Lewis Jackson isscheduled to be sentenced by a federal judge on Oct 28, 2015 for taking 48

eggs from a loggerhead sea turtle nest on Sapelo Island, GA. (AP)

Nieto

China smuggling ‘rare’Philippine forest turtlesMANILA, Oct 25, (AFP): Chinesedemand for forest turtles is threat-ening an endangered species foundonly on one Philippine island,wildlife officials said Sunday.

The Philippine Forest Turtle,found only in the western island ofPalawan, is one of numerous fresh-water turtles being taken by poach-ers for sale to China, said AdelinaVillena, chief of staff at thePalawan Council for SustainableDevelopment.

“They sell them mainly to theChinese exotic food and medicinetrade and the pet trade. They aresmuggled out of the country, someare even traded on the high seas”,she told AFP.

The reptile, also known as thePalawan forest turtle, is listed as“critically endangered”, by theInternational Union for theConservation of Nature (IUCN)and is found in forests and streams.

lost genes over time and are now less ableto sicken people. (AP)

❑ ❑ ❑

Lake Erie wreck likely threat: Atanker barge found on the bottom ofLake Erie near the US-Canadian bordermay be the remains of a vessel loadedwith oil or some type of solvent when itsunk nearly 80 years ago and now is on afederal list of wrecks that could pose apollution threat, shipwreck hunters saidSaturday.

The US Coast Guard said it is investi-gating a small leak spotted near thewreckage just in the last few days,although it’s not clear whether it’s anongoing leak or what kind of substancemight be coming from the barge.

“We’re fairly certain there’s a leak,”said Cmdr. Anthony Migliorini, who leadsa Coast Guard marine safety unit based onthe lake. “It’s really hard for us to point toa specific cause.”

It would be a significant discovery ifthe wreck turns out to be the Argo, one of87 shipwrecks on the federal registry cre-ated two years ago to identify the mostserious pollution threats to US waters.

Like about half of the wrecks on thelist, the Argo’s exact whereabouts havebeen unknown since it went down duringa storm in 1937 in western Lake Erie —about midway between the Ohio cities ofToledo and Cleveland.

Shipwreck hunter Tom Kowalczk, wholives along the lake, discovered the bargein August while he was searching for awooden schooner that sunk in 1845between Ohio’s Kelleys Island and PeleeIsland in Canada. (AP)

EU funding deadline looms

Pompeii restorers dig, scrub against clockPOMPEII, Italy, Oct 25, (RTRS):Years of neglect at the ancientRoman city of Pompeii are beingdug and scrubbed away in a last-minute bid to keep money flowingfrom a huge European Union-backed renovation programme.

Workers in hard hats beaver awayas tourists visiting the Italian WorldHeritage site peer through screensand wire fences at ruins of ancienthouses where restorations are goinginto overdrive.

Submerged under volcanic ashwhen Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD, Pompeii is one of the most vis-ited archaeological sites in theworld, giving a unique glimpse intodaily life under the Roman empire.

But years of mismanagement andcorruption have exacerbated decayat the sprawling, 66 hectare (163acres) site, prompting the EuropeanUnion to intervene. In 2012, itpledged 78 million euros ($87 mil-lion) to finance urgently neededrepairs.

Italy threw some 27 million eurosbehind the Great Pompeii Project,which aims to rebuild collapsedarches, right sagging walls, cleanfrescoes and protect the area fromwater-logging.

Fast forward three years and onlyaround 21 million euros out of thetotal 105 million euros on offer havebeen spent. Unless the site managersdo the rest of the work by the origi-nal Dec. 31 deadline, they risk losingaccess to this money to pay for it.

“We are really working againstthe clock,” said superintendentMassimo Osanna, an ex-universityprofessor chosen by the governmentto take over in early 2014 to make abreak with the site’s scandal-riddenpast.

“If the timing had been respectedmore at the beginning we wouldn’thave this concentration of work thatis causing problems now,” Osannasaid in a makeshift workshop wheretechnicians are restoring plastercasts of Vesuvius’s victims.

The project got bogged down insquabbles over who should lead thework and extra checks and balancesput in place to keep contracts fromfalling into the hands of the localmafia.

Osanna said the pace of work hasalmost doubled since late 2014, witharound 30 technical interventionsunderway.

“It has become a really busy city,”he said. “Not just visitors but work-ers, engineers, architects, experts -just think of managing the parking!These are all small things but takentogether they become enormous.”

AttractsThe hubbub is causing headaches

at a site which attracts more than 2.5million visitors a year.

“People find houses closed, lots ofconstruction sites open, and it is dif-ficult to get around,” said StefanoVanacore, who has directed therestoration of several homes of

ancient Pompeians, including therecently re-opened Villa dei Misteri.

“If it weren’t for the Decemberdeadline we would have done every-thing more gradually,” he said.

Twenty new technicians havebeen hired, but there is still notenough help to go around, saidarchitect Maura Anamaria, who isoverseeing 18 million euros-worthof restorations.

“Each of us needs help and youcannot satisfy everyone’s demands,you just can’t. There are too manysites open and each one is complex,”Anamaria said.

FlurryEven after the current flurry of

work is over, the site will need along-term maintenance programmeto keep it from degrading again as ithad when former prime ministerSilvio Berlusconi’s governmentdeclared a state of emergency in2008.

A third of the city has never beenexcavated and soil movementsthreaten the fragile ruins. Earlier thismonth, heavy rain raised the floor inthe house of Roman noblemanJulius Polybius.

Italy now has until the end of2015 to present a request to theEuropean Commission to take theproject into the following year withnew funding.

A Commission spokesman said itwould be possible for Pompeii to getfunding in its next financing period,

and the Commission was more con-cerned with the quality of the workthan the timeframe as it is a high-profile sign of how well the EU’sregional funds can work.

In Italy meanwhile, the situationis an emotive example of centuries-worth of art and architecture left todecay as a cash-strapped statefailed to adapt to modern economicrealities and slashed funding for thearts.

A March report from UNESCO,the United Nations Educational,Scientific and CulturalOrganization, said the project wasmaking “excellent progress” andcalled on the government to makesure it had enough money and man-power to ward off more collapses.

As in the cases of the Colosseumin Rome and the Rialto Bridge inVenice, the private sector hasstepped in.

Aerospace and defence groupFinmeccanica donated technology,and healthcare instrument makerPhilips lent a CAT scanner toanalyse the plaster casts, which weretaken from the cavities left behindwhen victims’ bodies decayed underthe ash.

Vanacore says the work underwayshould have started long ago, but thecurrent flurry is a vital step towardsprotecting one of Italy’s greatestassets.

“If we see the walls aren’t fallingdown, it means the heritage is beingprotected,” he said.