India sees 2012 monsoon normal, no El Nino threat

NEW DELHI: India's monsoon is likely to have average rainfall in 2012 despite fears the El Nino weather pattern may emerge in the second half of the season, the country's top weather official said, pointing to a third straight year without drought. The June-September monsoon, vital for agricultural output and economic growth, irrigates around 60 percent of farms in India, the world's second-biggest producer of rice, wheat, sugar and cotton. Agriculture accounts for about 15 percent of India's nearly $2 trillion economy, Asia's third biggest.

"Rains could be normal this year due to the absence of any strong signal that could inhibit occurrence of a healthy monsoon," L.S. Rathore, director-general of the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD), told Reuters in an interview. The IMD forecast is the basis for the government's official forecast which will be released in the last week of April with more details. According to the IMD classification, rains between 96-104 percent of a 50-year average of 89 centimetres is considered normal. The last time there was a drought with rains below this range was 2009 and before that, in 2004. For a graphic on India monsoon - forecast vs actual, click link.reuters.com/xux88r "The apprehension that the El Nino will impact the monsoon badly seems misplaced as this weather pattern is likely to emerge only towards end-August which is one of the two wettest months. Besides, El Nino is just one of the many factors that come into play," Rathore said. El Nino, an abnormal warming of waters in the equatorial tropical Pacific, is linked with poor rains or a drought-like situation in southeast Asia and Australia. The La Nina weather pattern, which is associated with heavy rains in south Asia and flooding in the AsiaPacific region and South America, and drought in Africa, ended in March. In the interim before El Nino appears, Rathore said a neutral condition continues over the tropical Pacific. "On a number of occasions, monsoon turned out to be normal despite the emergence of El Nino. There is no direct, one-on- one relationship between the success of the monsoon and the occurrence of El Nino," he said. Last month, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said climate models indicated that the La Nina weather pattern had come to an end. In 2009, the El Nino weather pattern turned monsoon rains patchy, leading to the worst drought in nearly four decades. Rains were within long-term averages in following years, helped by La Nina. According to the weather office, the El Nino weather pattern was present in 13 of the 20 drought years in the past 111 years.

"Although I cannot talk about this year's monsoon forecast now, as it due between April 25 and April 28, what I can say is there is no cause for concern at all," Rathore said. A monsoon with average rains would boost grains output, helping Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition government keep inflation under check and boosting the faltering economy. India's economy grew by 6.1 percent in the December quarter, its slowest in almost three years. To accelerate that, the central bank on Tuesday cut interest rates for the first time since 2009. In 2011, the monsoon rains were 101 percent of the long-term average, surpassing the weather office's forecast of 98 percent but still within average levels. The southwest monsoon rains enter India through the southern Kerala coast around June 1 and cover the entire country by mid-July.

Quakes off Sumatra trigger tsunami panic

Acehnese people scurry for safety moments after a powerful earthquake struck the western coast of Sumatra in Banda Aceh

Massive earthquakes hit the north Indian Ocean off Indonesia on Wednesday and triggered a tsunami watch. The tremors sent people scurrying from buildings as far away as southern India. A tsunami alert was issued to countries all along the rim of the Indian Ocean, from Australia and India to as far off as Africa. The U.S. Geological Survey said the first 8.6-magnitude quake was a shallow 22 km in the sea, 435 km from Aceh's provincial capital. In India, tremors were felt almost all along the east coast, sending people running out of their homes and offices. Tremors of varying intensity were felt in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and West Bengal, apart from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which are the closest to the epicentre.

In Chennai, tremors were felt in many areas, forcing closure of government offices, educational institutions and private companies. Traffic on the roads was chaotic. In Indonesia, the first temblor of 8.6-magnitude struck at 2.08 p.m. It was followed by aftershocks with magnitudes ranging from 6.6 to 8.2. Soon after the first quake, the Hyderabad-based Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami alert for the coastal areas. With no sign of a tsunami emerging, the centre was almost on the verge of withdrawing the alert, when the second tremor occurred at 4.13 p.m. The alert was continued and ultimately it was withdrawn around 6 p.m.

Siachen Glacier

Forever hostile to all life on the towering heights of this glacier, the weather has been particularly nasty ever since April 7 when a massive avalanche wiped out an entire battalion of the Pakistan Army in the Gayari sector at 13,000 feet. If overcast skies bring along with them sub-zero temperatures and blizzards, bright sunlight and rising temperatures raise the possibility of more slides that caused the avalanche in the first place. The weather changes come with little announcement as a group of journalists saw for themselves while being heli-hopped by the Army to Siachen's Ground Zero on Thursday.

For the first time, an Indian journalist was included in the group being taken to witness the rescue operations. Rescue workers have been struggling for nearly a month to recover the bodies of the 139 men 8 of them civilians. But until now, not a single one has been found. Only some traces of the battalion headquarters have surfaced: a few life jackets, pieces of the soldiers' igloo accommodation, and medicines were found about 600 metres from the original location. That was on April 23, over a fortnight after the avalanche. Nothing has been found since. Yet the search continues, and the Chief of the Army Staff, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, reiterated, while talking to the visiting journalists, that it would continue until the bodies, each one of them, was found. The minimum we can do is recover the bodies, said General Kayani, on his third visit since the disaster. On a previous visit, he had said: If we need to dig out this mountain, we will do so to get the bodies, no matter how long it took. The weather and the inhospitable terrain have taken more lives on this side of the glacier as well as on the Indian side than the actual conflict, and now it is the most slowing factor of the rescue work. This is difficult to fathom from afar or from the pictures that are being regularly released by the Army about the work going on in the Gayari sector to find the bodies, but it is immediately apparent to the visitor. The father of Maj. Zaka ul-Haq, the battalion second-in command who perished in the avalanche with his men, had accompanied the COAS to the site. Fighting back his tears, the bereaved father from Muzzafargarh in the Punjab province, urged the Army to declare them dead, something it has not done so far. He conceded that it was only after coming here that he realised what an uphill task was under way to find the bodies. The Army had apparently considered making the announcement on April 30 a day designated as Yaum-e-Shuhada' when the military remembers the sacrifices of its personnel but held back. Every day brings a new challenge for the rescuers, and the barren greyness of the area is a stark reminder of the futility of a war in the highest battlefield of the world. This is an area where the mountains seek to challenge the skies and man on the Pakistani as well as the Indian side of the glacier has sought to challenge both not only at his own peril but also nature's. Putting the task of the rescuers in perspective, Commander of the Force Command Northern Areas Ikram ul Haq said the area that requires to be dug up is 3.6 million cubic feet in mass. Of this, 1.73 million cubic feet, or roughly more than a third, has been excavated. Since the avalanche took place around 2 a.m., most of the men would have been indoors, so the focus of the rescuers is on tracking down the main accommodation area.

The area has been zeroed in on primarily with the help of two rocks one of which bears the words Welcome' and was near the entrance, and the other Allah Hafiz,' near the exit. Still, according to Maj. Gen. Haq, the rescue teams would be able to hit the ground level of the main accommodation by this month-end only. The problem is that after every 20-30 feet, we are encountering huge boulders which we are now blasting, despite expert advice against it. Pointing to a boulder sitting in front of the Bilafond La Wall' which the Army had thought would protect the battalion headquarters from slides that are frequent in the area he said it measured 22 metres in height and 44 metres in visible length. This boulder came down with the avalanche which came at such speed and intensity that the Bilafond La Wall could not stop it. Similar boulders are being encountered all along the way by rescue workers. To avoid triggering more slides in the process of blasting, the boulders are being blasted in the morning as this is the only way we can make our way through this, despite the heavy machinery that has been shipped in from Rawalpindi. Ferrying the machinery itself has proved to be a challenge as it has to be done by road. At Juglot in Gilgit district on the Karakoram Highway, they have to be dismantled as the bridges en route cannot take their weight, and then put back together at Goma, a base camp of the Army. All this takes a minimum of a fortnight, and on any given day 30 per cent of the equipment cannot be used due to snags, caused mainly by the weather and rocky terrain. The equipment and expertise brought in by some European countries were of no use as they are made for homogeneous snow-laden avalanches, and not the mix of snow, sand, slush and hard rock that they encountered in Gayari. The ground-penetrating radars donated by China too had the same limitations. The mercurial swings in the weather have ensured that for nearly the entire month, helicopters could not fly into Gayari. This is a delayed winter, and at a time of changing seasons, slides are almost a daily occurrence. On one day, there were as many as 54 of them, said the FCNA commander, and each slide is preceded by very strong blizzards. He is of the view that the April 7 avalanche was also triggered by the late winter and frequent changes in temperatures. An added problem is that the avalanche blocked the river Gayari, changed the lay of the land even as it took lives. After days of work, a water course has been opened to clear the lake that was formed by the blockade on the river. Simultaneously, a wall had to be constructed around the artificial lake to prevent the water from inundating the area marked out for excavation. The construction has disturbed the area so much that it is no longer safe for habitation.

Tremors in Kolkata; alert on coast

A pedestrian takes pictures of two multi-storeyed buildings coming closer at the top when tremors struck Kolkata

Even as tremors of the massive earthquake in Indonesia were felt in the city on Wednesday, an alert was issued for the coastal areas in West Bengal asking fishermen and tourists not to venture into the sea. Soon after her return from New Delhi, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appealed to the people to stay calm. The tremors triggered panic in the city. People rushed out of offices and high-rise buildings onto the streets below soon after the tremors were first felt at around 2 p.m. Just as matters settled and the crowds returned, a second round of tremors at around 4 p.m. resulted in yet another exodus. As a precautionary measure, services of the Metro Railway a long stretch of which is underground were suspended for nearly an hour. All trains were halted at the closest station and passengers were asked to leave the premises immediately. According to a press release issued by the Metro authorities, engineers conducted a check before services were resumed at 3.30 p.m. There is an all-India alert in the coastal areas and our coastal areas Digha, the Sunderbans and the others have been put on alertThe State government can only issue a warning. I appeal to the people to be alert, Ms. Banerjee told journalists at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport. She said the District Magistrates, Block Development Officers and district administration of these areas had been alerted. The district administration of North and South 24 Parganas, Howrah and Purba and Paschim Medinipur districts were asked to sound the alert to fishermen and tourists. A few buildings in the city developed minor cracks. It is difficult to estimate the magnitude of the tremors experienced in Kolkata, said G.C. Debnath, director of the weather section of the meteorological centre.

Tsunami fears grip the coast

Anxious moment:Employees in offices on M.G. Road in Kochi wait outside after the tremors rocked buildings

The coastal stretch of Kerala went into red alert on Wednesday afternoon following fears that the earthquake that shook the Indonesian region would trigger a tsunami across the Indian Ocean. Around the time the first of the earthquakes occurred off the West Coast of northern Sumatra at 2.08 p.m. IST, several places in Kerala had mild tremors. Buildings shook and windowpanes rattled. People rushed out of high-rise buildings and offices and there was panic for a while. Within minutes, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy was closeted with top government officials and scientists of the Centre for Earth Science Studies to assess the possible impact of the earthquake. There is no need for any panic; but we have to be alert and watchful, the Chief Minister Oommen Chandy told a press conference immediately after the meeting. Although the scientists were of the opinion that there was no tsunami threat for the Kerala coast, an alert went out to all the districts asking the police and the officials involved in disaster management to be ready in case their services were required, Mr. Chandy said. Tourists were evacuated from the beaches of Kovalam and Varkala in Thiruvananthapuram district. Word also went out to fishermen operating from the fishing harbours along the coast not to put out to sea for four hours. People kept tuned in to the flow of information over the television and radio till after 5 p.m., when the tsunami alert was officially withdrawn. The Chief Minister said there were also reports about unusual wave formation in the reservoirs around the time when tremors were felt in some parts of the State. These could be due to unnoticed tremors in the region where the dams were located, he said.