The longest day – Summer Solstice 21st June 2011

Solstice Sunset Credit:Adrian West

June 21st, 2011 is Summer Solstice – the longest day of the year.
This is the time when the Sun is at its highest or most northerly point in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere and when we receive the most hours of daylight. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere it is the reverse, so you will be having “Winter Solstice.”
Also known as “Midsummer” the Summer Solstice gets its name from the Latin for sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still). The Sun reaches its most Northerly point and momentarily stands still before starting its journey South in the sky again until it reaches its most Southerly point “Winter Solstice”, before repeating the cycle. This is basically how we get our seasons.

It’s not actually the Sun that moves North or South over the seasons although it may appear so. It’s the Earths axial tilt that causes the Sun to change position in the sky as the Earth orbits the Sun throughout the year.

The angle of the Sun and the Earth's seasons. Image credit: NASA

Summer Solstice/ Midsummer is steeped in ancient folklore especially in Northern Europe with the most famous place directly related to it being Stonehenge, where the sun has been worshiped for thousands of years.

Stonehenge Credit: bistrochic.net

The Sun reaches its most Northerly point in the sky at 17:16 UTC momentarily and from that point forward starts to make its way South. This means the days will get shorter and shorter until Winter Solstice in December.

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E coli death toll reaches 36 in Germany

The death toll from a killer bacteria outbreak rose to 36 yesterday, German health officials said, one day after warning that more fatalities cannot be ruled out.


The Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany's national disease agency, said 3,228 people had fallen sick from the virulent EHEC (enterohaemorrhagic E. coli) or the linked kidney ailment haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS).


On Sunday, German officials said 34 people had died in the country, but upped that figure to 35 yesterday.
"For many days the number of new infections from EHEC or HUS communicated to the RKI has declined in the country," the agency said in a statement that confirmed the new toll.


German Health Minister Daniel Bahr told Sunday's Bild am Sonntag newspaper that he was encouraged by the decline in new infections, but warned that more deaths were still possible.


Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment said Sunday the outbreak is the most serious of its kind recorded in the world to date.


After several frantic weeks of searching, German authorities on Friday said they had identified the contamination source as being vegetable sprouts from an organic farm in Lower Saxony, northern Germany.
The farm has been closed and all its products recalled. The farm cultivated sprouts from a variety of products including lettuce, azuki beans, mung beans, fenugreek, alfalfa and lentils.


Authorities have said though that the farm in the northern village of Bienenbuettel had done nothing wrong.
With German authorities only late last week dropping advice, particularly in northern Germany, to avoid uncooked tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, the scare has cost European farmers hundreds of millions of euros (dollars).

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Powerful quakes rattle New Zealand city, six injured

A series of powerful tremors rattled the quake-prone New Zealand city of Christchurch Monday, destroying a building and sending boulders tumbling down hillsides. Six people suffered minor injuries. New Zealand's GNS Institute put the strongest of the quakes at a magnitude of 6.0 at 2.20 pm (10:20 pm ET). The United States Geological Survey also pegged it at 6.0 -- with the epicentre four miles east south east of the city at a depth of 5.6 miles. Four tremors above 4.3 were recorded from 0029 GMT. Shopping malls and office buildings were evacuated across the city, which is still trying to recover almost four months after a magnitude 6.3 earthquake killed 181 people and caused extensive damage. A building in the city center collapsed and minor damage occurred in buildings affected in previous earthquakes, Christchurch Police spokesman Steven Hill told. "The building has been checked and been given the all-clear," Hill said, meaning no one was trapped inside. The St John ambulance service said six people had been taken to hospital with moderately serious injuries, all caused by falling building materials. As with the initial quake, Monday's aftershock sent boulders on the city's Port Hills tumbling toward houses. Parts of the eastern city, which suffered the most damage in February's tremor, suffered from flooding and liquefaction - where solid ground is turned into liquid by the force of the quake. Power was cut to about 10,000 houses. Christchurch has experienced a number of strong earthquakes since a magnitude 7.1 quake struck the city on Sept 4 last year. Parts of the central city have been closed to the public since the Feb 22 quake, and one of the city's tallest buildings, the Grand Chancellor Hotel, has been declared unstable and is being prepared for demolition.

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Death toll in Haiti's floods, mudslides rises to 23

Overturned furniture covered in mud is seen in a home damaged by severe rainstorms the night before in Port-au-Prince, June 7, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Swoan Parker

The death toll from days of heavy rains that triggered flooding and mudslides in earthquake-ravaged Haiti has climbed to 23.
 The deaths and damage caused by the first major rainfall of the Atlantic hurricane season have raised concerns about the ability of Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, to respond to a major storm as it works to stem an eight-month-old cholera outbreak that has killed about 5,400 people.
Emergency crews cleared rocks, trees and downed power lines from roads in the Haitian capital on Wednesday and aid groups fanned out to further assess the damage.
The rains turned dirt roads in Port-au-Prince into muddy streams, flattened ramshackle homes and flooded tent encampments where hundreds of thousands of homeless survivors of Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake still live.
At least six people were reported missing, said Nadia Louchard, a coordinator with Haiti's Civil Protection Department.
"We are asking the population to be vigilant and to leave areas at risk when it is raining," she added.
The rains eased in Port-au-Prince but weather forecasts showed more precipitation was likely in coming days. Torrential rains also set off flooding in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
Some Haitians wondered whether the government was adequately prepared to deal with a more powerful storm if one were to hit the impoverished country.

"If these rains can cause so much damage, what would happen if there was a real disaster?" asked Angeline Mauger, 38.

Last year, Haiti escaped a potential disaster when Hurricane Tomas skirted the country, flooding some coastal towns but largely sparing the crowded camps in Port-au-Prince.

Flooding set off by Tomas, however, is believed to have worsened Haiti's cholera outbreak, which started 10 months after the January 2010 earthquake killed more than 300,000 people.

A huge U.N.-led humanitarian operation has helped reduce the fatality rate from the cholera epidemic from peaks last year when dozens of victims were dying every day.
Still, humanitarian workers say flooding is causing fresh outbreaks of the deadly diarrheal disease spread by contaminated water and food.
"We can never say we are fully prepared," said Louchard. "The country has its structural problems. We are just trying to do our best."

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