Earth ChangesS


Attention

Two elephants destroy house and kill man in Nepal


My Republica
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 22:23 UTC
Charging elephant
© GettyCharging elephant
A person has died after being attacked by two wild elephants in Saptari district on Saturday night.

The deceased has been identified as Raghunath Khanga, 60, of Bhardaha-9 of the district, according to Area Police Office (APO) of Bhardaha.

When Khanga and his family were fast asleep in the middle of the night, two wild suddenly elephants attacked his house. Everyone except Khanga managed to escape. He was chased down and trampled to death, informed the APO. According to locals, the elephants also destroyed sheds, and crops and vegetables cultivated in the farms of some locals.

Prior to this incident, Allahdin Khan, 55, of Bairawa-8 had also lost his life after being attacked by an wild elephant on November 3.
Read More...
Black Cat

Cat attacks man unwrapping Christmas present in Macon, Georgia

Alexandra Klausner
New York Post
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 18:48 UTC
Overexcited grown man attacked by cat
Overexcited grown man attacked by cat
Paws off the Christmas presents!

Andrew Woodward, of Georgia, was enthusiastically ripping the wrapping paper off his new PlayStation 4 on Sunday when his cat pounced on him and viciously clawed at his head and neck.

Video of the incident was posted to Facebook by Woodward's friend Jessica Freeman and had been shared nearly 200,000 times by Monday morning.

"This has resulted in a trip to the doctor and stitches. We love him and genuinely hope he feels better. It's just nice to be able to laugh with your best friends," Freeman said of Woodward's injuries.

Read More...
Cloud Precipitation

Waterfalls cascade off the iconic Uluru rock after a freak outback storm in Australia

Nic White
Daily Mail
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 19:01 UTC
Water begins to trickle down the side of the massive rock
Water begins to trickle down the side of the massive rock
Flash flooding closed Uluru and forced a town to evacuate after a record 232 millimetres of rain fell in a single day.

The freak desert storm damaged at least 40 per cent of homes in Kintore, about 520 kilometres west of the red centre, forcing 100 of its 400 residents to flee.

Uluru National Park was shut down at 9am on Monday but visitors revelled in the rare sight of water cascading down the sides of the massive rock the day before.

Dozens of waterfalls completely changed its complexion and put on a show for tourists who stayed out in the rain to watch the spectacle.

Photos and video from the base of Uluru showed huge pools forming below the waterfalls that lapped around raised walkways.

A thick low-lying white cloud obscured the top of the rock.


Photos and video from the base of Uluru showed huge pools forming below the waterfalls that lapped around raised walkways
Photos and video from the base of Uluru showed huge pools forming below the waterfalls that lapped around raised walkways
Read More...
Bad Guys

2016 review: Billion-dollar man-made and natural disasters in the U.S.


RT
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 17:08 UTC
natural disasters
© Andres Martinez Casares / Tyrone Siu / Reuters
Severe storms causing flooding topped the list of natural disasters in 2016, each one leaving behind billions of dollars in economic damage, and loss of life. Water-submerged shopping malls, homes, roads and cars became the leitmotif.

Man-made disasters also made news headlines from water pollution to gas and nuclear waste leaks.

Nuclear Leaks

Indian Point, New York

The year began with a groundwater leak at the Indian Point nuclear plant, when three monitoring wells were discovered to contain "alarming levels of radioactivity," after the operator Entergy Nuclear Operations raised the alarm.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called it "unacceptable," and said that one of three wells in question had "radioactivity increasing nearly 65,000 percent." Cuomo has repeatedly called for the shutdown of the plant.

The groundwater wells had no contact with any drinking water supplies, according to the plant's operators who said the spill would dissipate before it reached the Hudson River.

The leak was the latest emergency at Indian Point, which has experienced nine technical problems in the past year or so. Four of them were serious enough to shut down the entire plant.
Read More...
Igloo

Wikipedia fakes news and global cooling

Andy May
Watts Up with That
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 12:38 UTC
Annual Mean Temperatures
© Journal of Atmospheric Sciences
There is an excellent new post up at notrickszone.com on the global cooling scare of the 1970's and the efforts to erase it from the record by the climate alarmists at realclimate.com. For some the scandal at Wikipedia over William Connolley deliberately posting false articles and altering factual ones on climate is old news. This is for those who missed the story. William Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. "Fake news" is an old story, used extensively by radical climate alarmists and environmentalists. Indeed, Greenpeace seems to be based on the concept of fake news.

The following anecdote by author Lawrence Solomon is instructive. He tried to correct an article that stated Naomi Oreskes infamous 97% paper in Science had been vindicated and Dr. Bennie Peiser had conceded that she was correct. He had spoken with Dr. Peiser and confirmed he had said no such thing.
"Of course Oreskes's conclusions were absurd, and have been widely ridiculed. I myself have profiled dozens of truly world-eminent scientists whose work casts doubt on the Gore-U.N. version of global warming. Following the references in my book The Deniers, one can find hundreds of refereed papers that cast doubt on some aspect of the Gore/U.N. case, and that only scratches the surface.

Naturally I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that Oreskes's work had been vindicated and that, for instance, one of her most thorough critics, British scientist and publisher Bennie Peiser, not only had been discredited but had grudgingly conceded Oreskes was right.

I checked with Peiser, who said he had done no such thing. I then corrected the Wikipedia entry, and advised Peiser that I had done so.

Peiser wrote back saying he couldn't see my corrections on the Wikipedia page. I made the changes again, and this time confirmed that the changes had been saved. But then, in a twinkle, they were gone again. I made other changes. And others. They all disappeared shortly after they were made."
Read More...
Cloud Precipitation

Four people killed as Typhoon Nock-Ten hits the Philippines; over 200,000 evacuated


Al Jazeera
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 12:09 UTC
More than 218,000 people fled their homes and spent Christmas Day in evacuation centres
© EPAMore than 218,000 people fled their homes and spent Christmas Day in evacuation centres
Powerful typhoon passes over Manila after forcing more than 200,000 to spend Christmas Day in evacuation centres.

A powerful typhoon has killed at least four people in the Philippines before passing over the capital Manila.

Typhoon Nock-Ten, known locally as Nina, made landfall on the eastern island province of Catanduanes on Christmas Day, moved westward on Monday, packing winds of up to 240kph and gusts of 290kph, government forecasters said.

Tens of thousands of villagers were displaced as the typhoon cut power to five provinces at the height of the storm.

A farmer died in Quezon province and three other villagers, including a couple, were swept away by a flash flood in Albay province.

Officials in Albay, where more than 150,000 villagers were displaced by the typhoon, declared a "state of calamity" to allow faster disbursement of emergency funds.


Read More...
Arrow Down

Huge sinkhole opens up on road in Phillipsburg, New Jersey

Steve Novak
Lehigh Valley Live
Fri, 23 Dec 2016 11:37 UTC
A workers on Dec. 23, 2016, climbs down into to a large sinkhole that opened days earlier on Lopatcong Township's Wordsworth Lane, the same street where a snow plow was almost swallowed by a sinkhole in 2015
© Steve NovakA workers on Dec. 23, 2016, climbs down into to a large sinkhole that opened days earlier on Lopatcong Township's Wordsworth Lane, the same street where a snow plow was almost swallowed by a sinkhole in 2015
Santa has more than stockings to fill on Wordsworth Lane.

A huge sinkhole opened this week on the Lopatcong Township road -- nearly in the same spot where the earth almost swallowed a snow plow in 2015.

"I keep having visions of some 'Far Side' cartoon," 63-year-old Dave Thomas quipped Friday evening as workers tended to the maw at the end of his driveway. "We'll either be living on top of a tiny spike of land ... or in the middle of a lake."

Mayor Tom McKay estimated the hole was 20 feet wide and eight to 10 feet deep when it opened Thursday morning, fortunately before any school buses went down the road.

Residents said the water company, Aqua New Jersey, was fixing a leak in the water main on Wednesday that lead to the bigger problem.
Read More...
Seismograph

5.2 magnitude earthquake strikes off Philippines


Sputnik
Mon, 26 Dec 2016 08:07 UTC
Philippine Coast Guard and Police Maritime unit
© AP Photo/ Bullit MarquezPhilippine Coast Guard and Police Maritime unit
The earthquake occurred at 01:23 GMT on Monday at a depth of 10 kilometers (approximately 6 miles), 61 kilometers (about 38 miles) north of Namuac, a city located in the Philipinne Cagayan Valley region, according to the USGS.

​No information on casualties or damage from the quake has been provided to date.
Read More...
Camera

Intense pink Aurora Borealis captured over Alaska


Spaceweather.com
Sun, 25 Dec 2016 06:12 UTC
Pink aurora over Alaska
© James Helmericks
Intense pink auroras are dancing around the Arctic Circle on Christmas Day 2016. James Helmericks sends this picture from the Colville River Delta in northern Alaska.

"This was the brightest pink display I have ever seen, at one time even giving the snow a pink tinge," he says.

The pink color is probably a sign of nitrogen. Most auroras are green--a verdant glow caused by energetic particles from space hitting oxygen atoms 100 km to 300 km above Earth's surface. Seldom-seen pink appears when the energetic particles descend lower than usual, striking nitrogen molecules at the 100 km level and below. Such deep-penetrating particles are being produced by the solar wind stream now blowing around Earth.

On the days and nights around Christmas 2016, the pinks became so intense, they appeared white, not only to cameras, "but also to the naked eye," says Sarah Skinner, who witnessed the strange colors several nights in a row from Abisko, Sweden. "It looked like someone had photoshopped the sky!" she says

Comment: See also: Veteran northern lights guide surprised to see rare pink and white auroras

Read More...
Attention

7.7 magnitude earthquake hits off coast of Chile, tsunami threat issued


RT
Sun, 25 Dec 2016 15:17 UTC
Chile earthquake
© USGS
An earthquake of 7.7 magnitude was registered in southern Chile on Sunday, prompting a tsunami threat message for areas as far as 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the epicenter.

The quake's epicenter was 225km (140 miles) southwest of Puerto Montt in southern Chile, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), with a depth of about 15km (nine miles).

The National Emergency Office of the Chilean Interior Ministry and Public Security (ONEMI) has warned people in the coastal regions to leave the areas due to the tsunami threat.

People in the Biobio, Araucania, Los Rios, and Aysen regions have been advised to evacuate, ONEMI said on its official Twitter account.

Based on the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center's threat messages, "hazardous tsunami waves are forecast for some coasts." An earlier message said tsunami waves were "possible" within a 1,000km radius from the epicenter. Tsunami waves of up to three meters above the tide level might reach some coasts of Chile, it said.
Read More...