Japan's Mount Ontake eruption: Fumes, smoke and ash hamper rescue efforts - video

Japanese rescue teams have spent a third day searching for survivors on Mount Ontake, trapped by Saturday's eruption.

Recovery efforts have been hampered by conditions as the volcano continues to shoot gas, rocks and ash into the air.

Hundreds of hikers were on the volcano when it erupted. At least 36 people are known to have died.

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes from BBC reports from central Japan.

NASA Modis Image: Russian Smoke pollution over the Arctic Sea

Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team.

Numerous wildfires have dotted the Russian landscape this past summer fire season.

Although not quite as the adage says, although still true, where there's fire there's smoke.

The smoke in this image has drifted from the Eastern Russian wildfires to the Arctic Sea.

Other images that have been collected over the summer show both the fires that have broken out and the accompanying smoke.

The blaze of a fire is dangerous enough but smoke is an insidious by-product of fires as well. Winds carry the smoke out of the immediate area to other parts of the world not affected by the direct fire.

That smoke can cause multiple problems in the areas that it is carried to. The smoke released by any type of fire (forest, brush, crop, structure, tires, waste or wood burning) is a mixture of particles and chemicals produced by incomplete burning of carbon-containing materials.

All smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter (PM or soot).

Smoke can contain many different chemicals, including aldehydes, acid gases, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzene, toluene, styrene, metals and dioxins.

The type and amount of particles and chemicals in smoke varies depending on what is burning, how much oxygen is available, and the burn temperature. As always, exposure to high levels of smoke should be avoided.

This natural-colour satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite on August 12, 2014. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red.

ISS cosmonauts detect smoke in Zvezda Service Module

The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) has been alerted to a little smoke coming from the Russian module, NASA website reported Wednesday.

The smoke was coming out of a vent in the Zvezda Service Module, according to the US space agency.

The Russian segment's ventilation system was isolated by flight controllers at the mission control center in Houston, RIA Novosti report.

"Expedition 40 Commander Steve Swanson reported that the smoke quickly subsided and the crew was not in any danger,"NASA added.

Russian flight controllers determined that the smoke was most likely caused by a heater for the Russian segment's water reclamation unit used for cooking.

Guatemala Volcano Erupts, 33,000 Evacuated: Erupting Volcano Del Fuego

Guatemala Volcano Erupts & 33,000 Are Evacuated: Photos Of Erupting 'Volcan Del Fuego'

The Guatemala volcano "Volcan del Fuego" erupted Thursday, forcing some 33,000 locals to flee the area, emergency services said.

Ash and smoke were spewed into the sky as the volcano began to erupt. The volcano lies 25 miles southwest of Guatemala City and began to send a cloud of ash into the sky in the early afternoon, Sergio Cabanas, director of emergency response in Guatemala's CONRED emergency agency, told Reuters.

Nearly 8,000 people have already been evacuated and almost 23,000 are awaiting evacuation, he added.

Guatemala has four active volcanoes, Reuters said, and the 2010 eruption of Pacaya covered 25 miles of Guatemala City with ash. Airports were closed and hundreds of families were evacuated.

Cabanas additionally said that 17 villages near Guatemala City were evacuated in the biggest such operation the country has ever seen.

Although the volcano is just six miles from Antigua, a popular tourist destination, Antigua was not in the evacuation zone according to NBC News.

The "Volcano of Fire" has spewed lava that billowed 2,000 feet down its slope, BLIPPITT reported.

"A paroxysm of an eruption is taking place, a great volcanic eruption, with strong explosions and columns of ash," Gustavo Chicna, a volcanologist with the National Institute of Seismology, Vulcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology, said to BLIPPITT.

He said the ash from the volcano was nearly half an inch thick in some areas and the government's disaster agency added that homes and buildings were covered with ash miles away.

This is the fifth time Fuego has erupted this year, but its biggest eruption since 1999, a Guatemalan scientist told NBC News.

Teresa Marroquin, a Guatemalan Red Cross coordinator, told NBC News that the group has set 10 emergency shelters and is sending hygiene kits and water.

"There are lots of respiratory problems and eye problems," she said.

Chinca added that "it's almost in total darkness" near the living mountain.

Aerogels: The lightest stuff gets lighter

Known as “the lightest material on the planet,” aerogels consist mostly of air. But the services this stuff could potentially provide are substantial.

Their low thermal and acoustic conductivity makes them superb heat and noise insulators. They’re very absorbent, perfect for an oil spill or umm, kitty litter. And depending on their construction, they can specifically filter certain toxins or pollution particles.

Unfortunately, their construction doesn’t come easy, especially when made out of carbon nanotubes (silica, metal oxides, or other carbon-based materials typically comprise aerogels). But a team of scientists is reporting they’ve fabricated a multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) aerogel.
Published in ACS Nano, the study describes this new “frozen smoke” as the lightest of its kind, with a density of just four milligrams per cubic centimeter.

The chemists, from University of Central Florida, removed the moisture from a wet gel of dispersed carbon nanotubes, leaving a material with honeycomb structures with varying degrees of porosity. The below image shows the pristine multi-walled carbon nanotubes at each step of the fabrication process.

The MWCNT aerogel has a large surface area and conducts electricity very well but not heat, so its use in electronics is far-reaching. After testing the aerogel’s compressibility, the chemists also discovered it is highly squishable (video) and recovers quickly.

This sensitivity to pressure and its porosity make the material a good candidate for sensing chemical vapors and changes in pressure. So if you tend to think, heft connotes value, you may be wrong in the case of areogels.

NASA Modis and Aqua images of Smog hazard over China

October 14, 2010

October 8, 2010

In early October 2010, a high-pressure weather system settled in over eastern China, and air pollution began to accumulate locally for nearly a week.

By October 9 and 10, China’s National Environmental Monitoring Center declared air quality “poor” to “hazardous” around Beijing and in 11 eastern provinces.

Citizens were advised to take measures to protect themselves, and visibility was reduced to 100 meters (330 feet) in some areas.

News outlets reported that at least 32 people died in traffic accidents caused by the poor visibility. Untold were the number of people suffering with asthma and other respiratory difficulties.


On October 8, 2010, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites captured this natural color view of the smog event in China.

The milky white and gray covering the center of the image is smog and fog, while the brighter whites at the left and right edges are clouds.

The Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA’s Aura satellite detected extremely high levels of aerosol particles (lower left image) and sulfur dioxide (lower right) on October 8.

The sulfur dioxide typically comes from coal-burning power plants and smelters, and the peak concentrations—6 to 8 Dobson Units—were six to eight times the norm for China and 20 times the norm for the United States.

The Aerosol Index indicates the presence of ultraviolet light-absorbing aerosols, most likely smoke from fires and industrial processes. At an AI value of 4, aerosols are so dense that you would have difficulty seeing the midday sun.

The event was likely caused by a blend of increased emissions—from agricultural burning, factories, and vehicle emissions—and the stagnant weather system.

The relatively calm days did not bring enough wind to blow the pollution away from its sources. By October 11, a cold front brought cleansing rain and winds that cleared up the skies.

Smoke from Forest Fires close Moscow Airports

A dense smog shrouded Moscow on Friday, grounding flights at the city's international airports, seeping into homes and offices and stinging the eyes of residents as wildfires raged to the east and south.

Dozens of incoming flights were diverted from the capital's Domodedovo and Vnukovo airport hubs, as smog from blazes around the capital brought runway visibility down to 220 yards, airport officials reported.

All incoming flights to Moscow were being offered alternative airports at which to land, but the decision to divert was up to individual flight crews, Domodedovo spokeswoman Yelena Galanova said.

Moscow's other main airport, situated on the opposite side of the city from most of the blazes, freed up tarmac space to receive some planes. Other flights diverted to St. Petersburg and Kazan, a city 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of Moscow, Irina Ivanova, a Vnukovo Airport spokeswoman, said.

Visibility in parts of the capital was down to a few dozen yards due to the smog caused by the fires, which carries a strong burning smell and causes coughing. Airborne pollutants such as carbon monoxide were four times higher than average readings — the worst seen to date in the Russian capital.

Kremlin spires and church domes disappeared into the dirty mist, which is forecast to hang in the air for days due to the lack of wind.

"It hurts my eyes," student Valeriya Kuleva said on a central Moscow street. "I'm wearing a mask, but nothing helps."

"It's just impossible to work," said Moscow resident Mikhail Borodin, in his late 20s, as he removed a mask to puff on a cigarette. "I don't know what the government is doing, they should just cancel office hours."

More than 500 separate blazes were burning nationwide Friday, mainly across western Russia, according to the Emergencies Ministry. Dozens of forest and peat bog fires around Moscow have ignited amid the country's most intense heat wave in 130 years of record-keeping.

"All high-temperature records have been beaten, never has this country seen anything like this, and we simply have no experience of working in such conditions," Moscow emergency official Yuri Besedin said Friday.

He added that 31 forest fires and 15 peat-bog fires were burning in the Moscow region alone.

At least 52 people have died and 2,000 homes have been destroyed in the blazes. Russian officials have admitted that the 10,000 firefighters battling the blazes aren't enough — an assessment echoed by many villagers, who said the fires swept through their hamlets in minutes.

To minimize further damage, Russian workers have evacuated explosives from military facilities and were sending planes, helicopters and even robots to help control blazes around the country's top nuclear research facility in Sarov, 300 miles east of Moscow.