Archive for the 'Worldwide news' Category

Leak!!

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
As you might have heard, the night of sunday, a pipe which supplies the Unelco Power station with fuel-oil, the one situated at the entrance of Las Palmas, got damaged, causing a yet unknown amount of fuel-oil to get out and affect a shore stretch of 600m at the 'Las Gaviotas' beach near 'Jinamar'. The same night 'Disa', the company in charge of the supply, was alerted of this problem aswell as the 'Guardia Civil' and the local environment office. Though, there was barely nothing to do until the next day when the diggers started to clean the sand and the adjacent land, which luckily acted as a 'sponge', impeding huge ammounts of fuel-oil getting into the water. The cleaning works still continue today as this last two days the workers have been removing as much as possible with shovels and their bare hands. Tomorrow they will continue but with pressurizee ...

Pictures of yesterdays tragedy

Saturday, September 8th, 2007
Here you can see the covered bodies of immigrants after their death was certified and several agents of the 'Guardia Civil', two of them recovering a body from the waterat the 'Risco Verde' beach in Agüimes. You can also see the half sunk 'patera' and it being pulled out of the water later on and the enormous efforts done supported by the rescue helicopter and the sea rescue patrol boat. Really sad images that immigration gives us almost every day. :( ...

Worse than immigration

Friday, September 7th, 2007
If the immigration for itself, wasn't hard enough, as people give up all their savings for just an opportunity to make it alive to a 1st world country, to try for a better life, risking their lives and normaly resulting in an almost certain repatriation, things like this unluckily happen more often every time. The tragedy happened yesterday at daybreak when a 'patera', those small, unstable boats, subsaharian immigrants use to get here from Africa, arrived at the 'risco verde' beach in Agüimes at darkness, or at least that is what the occupants thought. What really happened is that they docked to an underwater rock formation, 20 meters off shore, which the immigrants thought to be the beach, but which in reality was surrounded by 2 meters(6 feet) of water, causing 10 of the 16 immigrants to drown. The Chief of the 'GEAS', the special group for scuba activities from the 'Guardia ...

“The branch” without branches

Friday, August 3rd, 2007
One of the most famous, if not the most famous, 'fiesta' on Gran Canaria is "La Rama", which literally means 'the branch' but is at the same time short for "La Bajada de la Rama" or 'the descent of the branch', is held every year in August 4th, which would be tomorrow. Traditionally the celebration is about going up the valley of Agaete dancing to the sound of a marching band, getting some tree branches, previously taken from trees in the 'tamadaba forrest', and taking them down (always dancing) to the 'port of Las Nieves' (the port of Agaete) to Our Lady of Las Nieves, who reside in the port hermitage, as an offering, after hitting the ports' waters with them. The mayor and the different neighbourhood associations of Agaete have decided not to carry branches this year, as a gesture of solidarity for the catastrophe suffered by the island due to ...

Under control

Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
The canarian government stated, that the fire, though still active, is 'under control'. It has affected 20.000 hectares and about 5000 people who start to get back to their homes progressively. Beside the firemen/women, the emergency intervention group, civil protection and the red cross, the gando UME (military emergency unit) took also part in the extinction works with help from units from Valencia, Zaragoza and Madrid. This has unfortunately been the worst natural disaster ever for Gran Canaria. :(
Posted by klopapier

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