Solar storms join floods, highest-priority risks to Britain

Britain has added volcanoes and solar storms to floods, flu and terrorism on a list of threats to national security.

The highest-priority risks to Britain are pandemic influenza, coastal flooding, terrorist attacks and — a new addition — volcanic eruptions in Iceland, according to the recently published 2012 edition of the government's National Risk Register for Civil Emergencies.

"Severe space weather" poses a threat to communications systems, electronic circuits and power grids, the list said. Solar storms — eruptions of magnetic energy and charged particles — are part of the sun's normal 11-year cycle, which is expected to reach a peak next year.

The storms can't hurt people, but can disturb electric grids, GPS systems and satellites. In 1989, a strong solar storm knocked out the power grid in Quebec, cutting electricity to 6 million people. Last week, the strongest solar storm since 2004 passed without major disruptions.

Last month, Parliament's defense committee called on the government to prepare for disruptions to electrical supplies and satellites from electromagnetic pulses — whether caused by the sun or by a nuclear weapon exploded in space.

Space war is not included on the British government's risk register.

"We are becoming more and more reliant on technology, and that technology is becoming more and more delicate," the committee's chairman, Conservative lawmaker James Arbuthnot, told Sunday's edition of The Observer newspaper. "Be afraid, very afraid."

Launched in 2008, the risk register assesses threats that are likely to endanger human welfare, the environment or security in Britain. It is the public version of the National Risk Assessment, which is classified.

Volcanic eruptions have been added to the list since the last edition in 2010. Ash from the April 2010 eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano grounded European air travel for several days.

But the British government says a more serious risk is posed by an effusive, or gas-rich, eruption. The 1783-84 Laki eruption in Iceland sent out noxious gases that spread as smog across Europe, causing crop failures, famine and thousands of deaths. The government said such an eruption "is now one of the highest-priority risks" Britain faces.

Dearly Typhoon hits Philippines

A typhoon hit the southern Philippines triggering flash floods and landslides that killed nearly 180 people and forced about 100,000 from their homes, government and army officials said.

Typhoon Washi, with winds gusting up to 90km/h (56 mph), hit the resource-rich island of Mindanao late Friday, bringing heavy rain that also grounded some domestic flights and left wide areas without power

Army spokesman Colonel Leopoldo Galon said emergency workers had recovered 97 bodies, most of them children, who drowned in floods in Cagayan de Oro City. Seventy-five people drowned in Iligan City.

The national disaster agency said five miners were also buried in a landslide.

"I can't explain how these things happened, entire villages were swept to the sea by flash floods," Galon told Reuters, saying the death toll could rise as hundreds of people were unaccounted for.

"I have not seen anything like this before. This could be worse than Ondoy," he said, referring to a 2009 storm that inundated the capital, Manila, killing hundreds of people.

Television images showed bodies covered in mud, cars piled on top of each other and wrecked homes. Helicopters and boats searched the sea for survivors and victims.

Rescue boats pulled at least 15 people from the sea, another army spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Randolph Cabangbang, told reporters.

Iligan City Mayor Lawrence Cruz said many people were caught by surprise when water rose one meter (three feet) high in less than an hour, forcing people onto roofs.

"Most of them were already sleeping when floodwaters entered their homes," he said. "This is the worst flooding our city had experienced in years."

The national disaster agency said it could not estimate crop and property damage because emergency workers, including soldiers and police officers, were evacuating families and recovering casualties.

The social welfare department said about 100,000 people were displaced and brought to more than a dozen shelters in the two cities.

Six domestic flights of Cebu Pacific were cancelled due to the rain and near-zero visibility in the southern and central Philippines. Ferry services were also halted, stranding hundreds of people.

An average of 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year, often causing death and destruction.