Italy ignores pleas, ends boat migrant rescue operation

Terra Daily via AFP: Italy on Friday ignored the pleas of aid agencies and confirmed the end of its search and rescue operation "Mare Nostrum", responsible for saving tens of thousands of boat migrants stranded in the Mediterranean.

"From tomorrow a new operation called 'Triton' begins," deputy prime minister and interior minister Angelino Alfano told journalists at a press conference, referring to a much more limited mission led by the EU border agency Frontex. "Mare Nostrum ends. Italy has done its duty,"

He said the government had spent some 114 million euros ($142 million) on the massive naval operation since two deadly shipwrecks in October last year left over 400 people dead.

The decision comes after growing criticism both within Italy and Europe that the rescue mission was creating an unintended "pull factor" for more migrants in makeshift boats to attempt the dangerous sea crossings.

Although the op -- which has saved over 150,000 people -- is being shelved, Italy said it will abide by the laws of the sea under which ships that spot migrants in trouble are obliged to rescue them....

A 1945 boat rescue in the Mediterranean by the UK, not Italy

Rescue of stranded Antarctic ship stalls--shades of Shackleton!

Terra Daily via AFP: A Chinese icebreaker has failed to break through thick ice to free a ship carrying scientists and tourists stranded off Antarctica, forcing Australian authorities to look at other rescue options Saturday. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), which is coordinating the rescue of the Russian passenger ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy, said the icebreaker came within six-and-a-half nautical miles of the ship but had to stop.

"The Chinese vessel unfortunately encountered some heavy ice that it's not capable of breaking through," AMSA spokeswoman Andrea Hayward-Maher told AFP. "So unfortunately it won't be able to continue through to the Akademik Shokalskiy. It's making its way back."

"The rescue... unfortunately has stalled."  The Russian ship, with 74 people on board, has been trapped in ice about 100 nautical miles east of the French base Dumont d'Urville since Tuesday.

The Chinese vessel came tantalisingly close to the trapped ship, with those on board reporting they could see it in the distance, but was forced to turn back to open sea once it realised it could not break through.

"At the horizon in the east I can see the Chinese icebreaker that we were hoping was going to be here within hours cutting us a path out of this place but it just couldn't make it," science journalist Andrew Luck-Baker onboard the Russian ship told the BBC.

It slowed down to about half a knot and has decided to go back to where the sea begins and wait for the arrival of an Australian icebreaker. The idea now is for the two of them to come together in parallel towards us, cutting a wider path."

Three vessels with icebreaking capability, including Australia's Antarctic resupply ship Aurora Australis and French vessel L'Astrolabe, were ordered to the area to attempt to rescue the vessel once the distress signal was sent....

Frank Hurley's photograph of the Endurance being crushed by the ice in Antarctica, 1915 

Japan typhoon rescue effort goes into 2nd night

Terra Daily via AFP: A painstaking search through tonnes of mud and splintered houses entered its second night Thursday on a typhoon-battered Japanese island, where the death toll from landslides rose to 21.

Hundreds of police, firefighters and troops searched for the more than 30 people still missing in an area where buildings were swallowed when a mountainside collapsed.

Typhoon Wipha, dubbed the strongest in a decade, never actually made landfall as it surged past Japan, but violent winds and torrential rain set off mudslides that buried neighbourhoods on Oshima. At least 21 people died and 33 were still missing on the island, which lies 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of the Japanese capital, broadcaster NHK said.

One woman also died in western Tokyo, police have said. On Oshima, about 15 police officers spent the morning using chainsaws and shovels to free the body of an elderly woman buried in mud and the smashed remains of a wooden building, an AFP reporter said....

An aerial view of Oshima, Wikimedia Commons, "National Land Image Information (Color Aerial Photographs), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism"

NOAA satellites - helping save lives for 30 years

NOAA: Thirty years ago, about 300 miles off the coast of New England, a barrage of towering, 25-foot waves battered a catamaran sailboat, causing it to begin sinking. A satellite, orbiting in space, detected the signal from an emergency beacon onboard the boat. A short while later, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter pulled the three passengers to safety.
 
The Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking system, or Cospas-SARSAT, is celebrating the 30th anniversary of this first life-saving rescue in the United States, which occurred October 10, 1982. NOAA operates several satellites and the U.S. Mission Control Center as part of the international program that has been responsible for the rescue of more than 30,000 people worldwide and nearly 7,000 in the United States since its inception in 1982.

Cospas-SARSAT began as an effort between the United States, Canada, France and the former Soviet Union to establish a network of satellites, equipped with technology to detect and locate distress signals from emergency beacons onboard aircraft and ships, and later on from handheld personal locator beacons.

“Before SARSAT, there was no system to quickly find people who were in trouble whether they were sailing, went down in a plane crash, or if they were stranded in a remote area on a hiking trip,” said Chris O’Connors, NOAA SARSAT program manager. “Time after time NOAA satellites have made the difference between life and death thanks to this international program.”

Today, 43 countries and organizations around the world participate in the operation and management of the Cospas-SARSAT program, which includes a total of 12 satellites....

SARSAT overview from NOAA