After the eruption of Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire, rescuers find villages covered in ash, 75 dead and 200 missing

Here are the latest videos, photos and news stories from the BBC, LA Times and CNN on the volcano which took villagers by surprise in Guatemala, killing 75 and leaving many more missing.


Sunday’s blast generated pyroclastic flows – fast-moving mixtures of very hot gas and volcanic matter – which descended down the slopes, engulfing communities including El Rodeo and San Miguel Los Lotes.



Volcanologist Dr Janine Krippner told the BBC that people should not underestimate the risk from pyroclastic flows and volcanic mudflows, known as lahars.



“Fuego is a very active volcano. It has deposited quite a bit of loose volcanic material and it is also in a rain-heavy area, so when heavy rains hit the volcano that is going to be washing the deposits away into these mudflows which carry a lot of debris and rock.



“They are extremely dangerous and deadly as well.”

(María Del Rocío Lazo / AFP / Getty Images)


Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire during an eruption as seen from Alotenango, Guatemala
It all happened in an instant. Not minutes, but seconds. The lava came down and swept everything away.
Eufemia Garcia, El Rodeo resident who was not home at the time of the eruption

Guatemala hotel that proudly touted its volcano views is now covered in ash 


The Hotel La Reunion is about 4 miles from Guatemala’s Fuego volcano.


Hotel personnel said they managed to evacuate all guests and staff, saving their lives.



“We thank everyone who since the first moment has provided words of encouragement and has offered their help so that we all move forward,” the resort said in an online statement, which was translated from Spanish. “We are united and pray to overcome this emergency, actively assisting the victims.”
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Greens urge NJ to clamp down on power-plant CO2

Environmentalists say state’s re-entry into RGGI offers opportunity to set ambitious cap on greenhouse-gas emissions

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

The Murphy administration is being urged to ratchet down on greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants when it rejoins a regional initiative to limit climate-harming pollution.
In a letter to two Cabinet officials, several environmental organizations recommended an ambitious cap on carbon pollution in 2020, when New Jersey re-enters the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate program aimed at combating climate change.
New Jersey had been part of RGGI until 2011, when former Gov. Chris Christie pulled the state out of the initiative, citing cost to utility customers. Lawmakers sought to rejoin the program but were blocked by repeated vetoes by Christie. Gov. Phil Murphy already has signed a law authorizing the state to rejoin RGGI and negotiations are ongoing.
The size of the cap is considered crucial to clean-energy advocates who argue that if it’s too modest it could undermine some of Murphy’s most significant environmental policies and the overall effectiveness of RGGI.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has analyzed the situation; it and other groups have recommended the state adopt a cap between 12 million and 13 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2020. In 2017, New Jersey’s in-state power emissions were 18.6 million tons of CO2, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Adopting a cap of 12 million to 13 million tons is consistent with the state’s current trajectory, achievable and economically reasonable, according to the letter sent to Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Catherine McCabe and Board of Public Utilities president Joseph Fiordaliso.


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NJ Senate Environment & Energy panel meets June 11

 
Here is the agenda for the Senate Environment and Energy Committee which is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. on Monday in Room 10 of the State House Annex in Trenton, NJ:


A1033 Palisades Interst. Park-open space elig.
ACR144 Clean Air Act-concerns
S542 Park-desig. Vet. St. Park
S1683 Solid & haz. waste-concerns regulation
S1760 Palisades Interst. Park-open space elig.
S2253 Natural gas veh.-bus., income tax cred.
S2255 Veh. charging stations-prov bus tax cred
S2645 Infra. Bank enabling act-makes changes
S2646 Env. infra. proj., FY2019-approp. fds.
S2647 Env. infra. proj.-expend cert. sums
SCR121 Clean Air Act-concerns
SCR122 Infra. Bank-approves FY 2019



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Keep your ugly butts off our beaches, out of our parks




Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

New Jersey is now moving to ban most smoking not only on its beaches, but also at public parks.
The new legislation goes further than a bill moving through the Senate, which would impose a ban only on smoking at public beaches, with the exception of certain areas making up less than 15 percent of the beach.
Anti-smoking groups and environmentalists long have pushed for a comprehensive ban, but were thwarted by former Gov. Chris Christie, who had conditionally vetoed bills to prohibit smoking on public beaches and parks.
Christie eventually backed a ban on state beaches, but argued it should be left up to local officials to police their own public spaces.
“It is certainly long overdue,’’ said Assemblyman Vincent Mazzeo, whose bill (A-4021), which would have banned smoking at beaches, was combined into an Assembly Tourism committee substitute with two other measures (A-3798/A-1703) that would have prohibited smoking at beaches and public parks throughout the state.
Cigarette filters are among the most common types of litter collected at beaches, according to environmental advocates, who collected an estimated 25,000 cigarette filters from “beach sweeps’’ last year alone.
In New Jersey, more than 18 communities have already banned smoking on beaches, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.

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Environmental bills up for votes in NJ Senate on June 7

These bills are scheduled for votes when the NJ
Senate meets at 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 7:


S601
(Smith)
Requires end-of-life recycling of solar and
photovoltaic energy
generation facilities and structures.

S879
(Sweeney)
Amends definition of “existing major
hazardous waste facility” in
“Major Hazardous Waste Facilities Siting
Act.”
The bill has already passed both houses. The vote is to adopt
changes called for by the governor in his conditional veto.



S1486
(Singleton/Bateman)
Prohibits sale of expanded polystyrene food containers
by public schools, colleges and universities.

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Guatemala volcano kills at least 69; Many are missing

 El Vocan de Fuego erupted on Sunday, spewing lava and ash 15,000 feet into the air. The eruption has been Guatemala’s most deadly in more than a century.

For details, click on NBC Nightly News video above and read BBC News account videos below.

Soldiers are helping firefighters search for missing people after Sunday’s horrific volcanic eruption in Guatemala, when torrents of superheated rock, ash and mud destroyed villages.

The official death toll from the destruction at the Fuego volcano has risen to 69, the authorities say.
Thousands of people are being housed in temporary shelters.
Volcanologists report the eruption, which sent ash up to 10km (33,000ft) into the sky, is now over.
The eruption also generated pyroclastic flows – fast-moving mixtures of very hot gas and volcanic matter – descending down the slopes, engulfing communities such as El Rodeo and San Miguel Los Lotes.

San Miguel Los Lotes in Escuintla, Guatemala June 4, 2018Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionEufemia Garcia (centre) escaped but is searching for her children

Eufemia Garcia, from Los Lotes, described how she narrowly escaped the volcanic matter as she walked through an alley to go to the shops. Though she had found two of her children alive she was still searching for two daughters and a son and a grandson, as well as her extended family.
“I do not want to leave, but go back, and there is nothing I can do to save my family,” she said.
Efrain Gonzalez, who fled El Rodeo with his wife and one-year-old daughter, said he had had to leave behind his two older children, aged four and ten, trapped in the family home.
Local resident Ricardo Reyes was also forced to abandon his home: “The only thing we could do was run with my family and we left our possessions in the house. Now that all the danger has passed, I came to see how our house was – everything is a disaster.”

Firefighter Rudy Chavez descried how he was searching affected areas for survivors and also for those who had died.

“We were about to evacuate the area when we found an entire family inside a home,” he said.
” We worked to remove their bodies from the house. Someone raised the alarm that the area was very dangerous and we evacuated but thank God we met with our objective of recovering the bodies of those people.”

‘Day turned to night’

Jorge Luis Altuve, part of Guatemala’s mountain rescue brigade, told the BBC how he and his colleagues had been up on the mountain searching for a missing person when they realised that the volcano’s activity had suddenly increased.
He heard something hitting his safety helmet and realised that it was not rain that was falling but stones.
“We’d already started our descent… when the ash cloud reached us and day turned into night. From daylight it went to being as dark as at 10pm,” he said.

Firefighters tour an area affected by the eruption of the Fuego volcano as they look for bodies or survivors in the community of San Miguel Los Lotes in Escuintla, Guatemala, June 4, 2018Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionFirefighters are searching for survivors and bodiesPolice officers and soldiers work in El Rodeo village, Escuintla department, 3 JuneImage copyrightAFPImage captionSoldiers were brought in to help emergency workers

Volcanologist Dr Janine Krippner told the BBC that people should not underestimate the risk from pyroclastic flows and volcanic mudflows, known as lahars.
“Fuego is a very active volcano. It has deposited quite a bit of loose volcanic material and it is also in a rain-heavy area, so when heavy rains hit the volcano that is going to be washing the deposits away into these mudflows which carry a lot of debris and rock.


“They are extremely dangerous and deadly as well.”


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