Around the world in 60 seconds - 10 September 2010

• BP releases its report on the cause of the oil spill
• New Zealand experiences double tragedy
• Google makes searching even faster with Google Instant
• Dozens killed in Guatemalan landslides

BP releases its report on the cause of the oil spill

On Wednesday the report from a BP investigation into the cause of the explosion and subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was released.

The report blames BP itself, but also the owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon rig Transocean, and the well cementer Halliburton, saying “a sequence of failures involving a number of different parties” was to blame.

More specifically, it said the accident was caused by “a complex and interlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgements, engineering design, operational implementation and team interfaces.”

The report says the well design was not to blame, which under US law could result in a US$17 billion fine for BP. However, Transocean says it was “fatally flawed”, suggesting that this will become one of the key issues in the inevitable court battles over liability.

BP and the two other firms face billions of dollars in compensation lawsuits arising from the incident, including for loss of life and income, and for illnesses suffered.

Wednesday’s report is only from BP’s internal investigation and the US government is conducting several of its own investigations into the cause of the accident.

Meanwhile, the well was capped on July 15 and a permanent seal is due to be completed in the next few weeks.

New Zealand experiences double tragedy

Saturday was a dark day for New Zealand. At 4.35 am a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the middle of the South Island near the country’s second largest city Christchurch at a shallow depth of 10km.

Remarkably no one was killed and there were only two reports of serious injury. However, 500 buildings and 100,000 houses were damaged, as well as crucial infrastructure.

The total cost of the damage is estimated to be over NZ$4 billion. However, most of that will be covered by the country’s Earthquake Commission (a fund paid for through house insurance contributions), private insurance and offshore reinsurance.

Power and running water was cut off to thousands of residents in the area, who continued to experience aftershocks during the week.

On the same day as the earthquake, a skydiving plane crashed near the popular tourist town of Fox Glacier, killing all 9 people on board including four New Zealanders and five tourists.

The cause of the crash is unknown as experts carry out an investigation. It is the country’s worst air disaster in 17 years.

Google makes searching even faster with Google Instant

Next week, Google is rolling out its latest product called Google Instant, which is a faster approach to internet searching.

Instead of typing in the search term and seeing results only after you click ‘search’ or press ‘enter’, Google Instant produces the search results as you type.

The results change as more letters are added to the search term in a predictive-like approach.

Google claims it provides searching at the speed of thought and will shave two to five seconds off a typical search query.

While some tech experts support the innovation and say rival Bing from Microsoft will have to up its game to compete, others say the improvement isn’t that big of a deal and may merely confuse people with all the unintended results.

Dozens killed in Guatemalan landslides

At least 45 people have been killed and dozens more are missing in landslides in central Guatemala after weeks of heavy rain.

In one incident, a hillside collapsed onto volunteers who were trying to dig out a bus buried by a previous mudslide. Further up the road, 12 more people were killed when another bus was buried.

15 landslides along the Inter-American Highway have caused 100km of the road to be closed.

The country’s president declared a state of emergency and said the heavy rain had undone a lot of the completed reconstruction work after Tropical Storm Agatha in May which killed 165 people.

Photo/Brian Nellor – Damage caused by the earthquake in New Zealand