Earth ChangesS


Lightning

Lightning killed 2,825 people across India in 2024, a 10% increase on 2023 - 17,000 killed over a 6-year period

Wahid Bhat
GroundReport.in
Tue, 12 May 2026 10:40 UTC
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Every day, on average, lightning kills nearly eight people in India. Not floods. Not cyclones. Not earthquakes. Lightning, a hazard most people still think of as random misfortune, has become the country's most lethal natural force, claiming more lives each year than any other weather event.

New data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that lightning killed 2,825 people across India in 2024, a 10.4 percent rise from 2,560 deaths in 2023. It accounted for 35.7 percent of all accidental deaths attributed to forces of nature that year, far ahead of heat stroke, which killed 1,832 people, and floods, which took 361 lives, 833 from cold exposure, and 361 from floods.

The figures are not an anomaly. Over the past six years, lightning has killed more than 19,245 people across India. The annual toll has remained stubbornly high: 2,357 in 2018, 2,876 in 2019, 2,862 in 2020, 2,880 in 2021, 2,887 in 2022 and 2,558 in 2023. Scientists say it will get worse before it gets better.
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Snowflake Cold

Best of the Web: May blizzard buries the Russian city of Noyabrsk

Nau Weather News
YouTube
Tue, 12 May 2026 09:46 UTC
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Unusual snowfall was reported in the southern Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, Russia, on Sunday, May 10, 2026.

Wind gusts reached 23 meters per second. A high alert status was declared in Noyabrsk.

Traffic was also restricted on regional highways in the Noyabrsk, Muravlenko, Gubkinsky, and Purovsky districts.

Drivers were advised to avoid traveling outside the city.

Public transportation was also suspended in densely populated areas.

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Lightning

Lightning strike kills 90 sheep in Jammu and Kashmir, India


Kashmir Observer
Mon, 11 May 2026 09:36 UTC
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At least 90 sheep were killed when lightning struck a grazing field in the upper reaches of Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said on Monday.

Lightning struck a meadow in Poshkar, Kangan area of Ganderbal district on Sunday night, killing 90 sheep, officials said.

The livestock belonged to a family of nomadic shepherds who were taking their animals toward the Sonamarg area for grazing, they said.

Strong winds and intermittent rains caused damage to houses and crops in some areas of Kashmir on Sunday night.
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Doberman

8-year-old mauled to death by stray dog in Gujarat, India

Saurabh Vaktania
NDTV
Fri, 08 May 2026 14:12 UTC
The incident occurred near the factory premises.
The incident occurred near the factory premises.
An eight-year-old boy was mauled to death by a stray dog in Gujarat's Morbi district. The victim, identified as Krunal Kripalbhai Malviya, was the son of a labourer working at the Titanium Vitrified factory. This death follows a series of aggressive dog attacks in the city over the last 48 hours.

The incident occurred near the factory premises, where Krunal was targeted by a stray dog. The attack was so severe that the child died due to his injuries. His body was shifted to a local hospital for a post-mortem examination. The incident comes just two days after a rampage on Morbi's Sanala Road and GIDC area, where more than 20 people were bitten by a single stray dog in a residential society.

Local residents and workers have expressed fierce resentment toward the municipal authorities, accusing them of negligence. Despite the reported surge in attacks in Chitrakut Society and nearby industrial zones, citizens claimed that the administration's response has been limited to paperwork rather than ground-level intervention.

Several residents argued that the stray dog population has reached a "lethal" level, and the lack of a comprehensive sterilisation or relocation programme has left vulnerable groups, particularly children of factory workers, at extreme risk.
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Attention

Elderly man dies in buffalo attack in Kerala, India


english.metrovaartha.com
Sun, 10 May 2026 14:08 UTC
A domestic buffalo , representative image
A domestic buffalo , representative image
An elderly man died after being attacked by a buffalo at Kaippadamughal here, police said on Sunday.

The deceased was identified as Aboobacker N A (74), a resident of Vadacode, Kaippadamughal, Thrikkakara North.

According to officials at the Kalamassery police station, a buffalo that had been grazing turned violent, damaging plants and trees around 7.45 pm on Saturday.

When Aboobacker attempted to bring the buffalo under control, the animal attacked him, causing serious injuries, police said.
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Tornado2

Waterspouts and flash floods hit southern Spain

Tannur Anders
Manchester Evening News
Sat, 09 May 2026 13:32 UTC
Several marine tornadoes appeared offshore(
Several marine tornadoes appeared offshore
Footage circulating on social media has captured the dramatic moment enormous waterspouts spiralled off the coastline of a popular tourist destination.

Southern Spain has been battered by flash floods as fierce storms swept through the region ahead of the summer holidays. Torrential downpours triggered widespread flooding on roads across parts of Murcia, with cars pictured floating in deep floodwater as the deluge hammered the area.

Several marine tornadoes emerged offshore, with witnesses reporting at least three waterspouts. The towering vortexes stretched from dark, brooding storm clouds down towards the Mediterranean, according to the Sun. A waterspout is a rotating column of air that forms over water, capable of producing destructive wind gusts. In extreme cases, winds can reach speeds of up to 250km/h.

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Volcano

Sakurajima volcano eruption sends 11,500ft ash plume into the sky in Japan on May 8


MSN
Sat, 09 May 2026 14:05 UTC
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This is the dramatic moment the Sakurajima volcano erupted in Japan today, sending an 11,500ft ash plume into the sky. Footage shows the volcano releasing a towering ash column over Kagoshima Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu on May 8.

Authorities confirmed the blast occurred at 4:15 pm local time from the summit crater of Minamidake. The eruption triggered a volcanic ash advisory issued by the Tokyo Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC), with ash drifting towards the southeast.

Sakurajima is one of Japan's most active volcanoes, with a history of frequent eruptions. Originally an island, it became a peninsula after a significant eruption in 1914. Japan lies inside the Pacific 'Ring of Fire' where the majority of Earth's volcanic eruptions and earthquakes happen.

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Doberman

Five-month-old baby dies after stray dog attack in Karnataka, India


The Hindu
Sat, 09 May 2026 13:49 UTC
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A five-month-old baby died at the Bidar Institute of Medical Sciences (BRIMS) on Saturday (May 9) after suffering severe injuries in a stray dog attack at Dubalgundi village in Humnabad taluk of Bidar district.

The deceased infant was the daughter of Siddappa and Sudha, residents of the same village.

According to family members, the incident occurred in the early hours of May 9 when the baby was sleeping in the verandah of the house while the mother was engaged in household chores. A stray dog reportedly entered the house premises and attacked the infant.

Speaking to reporters, the mother said she rushed to the spot after hearing the baby cry loudly and found the dog biting the child repeatedly. "By the time I drove the dog away, the baby had sustained severe injuries on the head, face and other parts of the body," she said.

The infant was immediately shifted to BRIMS for treatment, but succumbed to the injuries later in the day.

Senior paediatrician Shanthala Koujalgi confirmed the death.
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Bizarro Earth

US-Indian space mission records extreme subsidence in Mexico City

Sally Younger
NASA
Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:38 UTC
subsidence mexico city water table dropping
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/David BekaertNew data from NISAR shows where Mexico City and its environs subsided by up to a few centimeters per month (shown in blue) between Oct. 25, 2025, and Jan. 17, 2026. Uneven and seemingly small elevation changes have added up over the decades, fracturing roads, buildings, and water lines.
One of the most powerful radar systems ever launched into space has mapped the ground moving beneath one of fastest subsiding capitals in the world: Mexico City. The findings show how quickly and reliably the NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite can track real-time changes across Earth's surface from orbit, unhindered by clouds or vegetation that impede optical sensors and higher-frequency radars.

Home to some 20 million people, the Mexico City area is built atop an aquifer. Extensive groundwater pumping, combined with the weight of urban development, has resulted in the compaction of the ancient lakebed beneath the city for more than a century. An engineer first documented the issue in 1925, and by the 1990s and 2000s, parts of the metropolitan area were sinking by around 14 inches (35 centimeters) per year, damaging infrastructure including the Metro, one of the largest rapid transit systems in the Americas.
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Drought

The US just experienced the driest first three months of a year in its history

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
Wed, 06 May 2026 21:03 UTC
drought farm field crop dead
© Shutterstock
January, February and March were insanely dry. In fact, in all of U.S. history conditions have never been so dry during the first three months of the year. Just think about that for a moment. Not even during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s were conditions this dry. Many were hoping that 2026 would be the year when our multi-year drought would finally break. Needless to say, that hasn't happened. Scientists are telling us that the southwestern U.S. is in the midst of the worst multi-year drought in at least 1,200 years. We really are experiencing a "megadrought", and this is something that experts such as Steve Quayle and Dane Wigington have been talking about for a long time. Unfortunately, it appears that our seemingly endless "megadrought" has gone to an entirely new level in 2026.

If it simply doesn't rain, there is not much that farmers and ranchers can do.

Right now approximately 63 percent of the continental United States is experiencing at least some level of drought, and the first quarter of this year was one for the record books...
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