Earth Changes

Russian town besieged by hungry bears; one man killed and other locals attacked

Will Stewart
Daily Mail, UK
Thu, 03 Sep 2015 20:15 UTC

Unwelcome guest: This is one of the bears which has surrounded the town of Luchegorsk, in eastern Russia

A Russian town is under siege from at least three dozen ravenous bears, leaving many locals too terrified to open their doors and go outside.

In a month-long blockade, the hungry beasts have attacked residents in Luchegorsk - population 20,000 - and there are reports of one man being killed.

Inhabitants say at least eight Asian black bears have been shot as they stalk the streets and terrorise the town in the country's extreme east, close to the Chinese border.

One woman likened the bear threat to being under siege from an army.

'Hunters say that they looked at the area from a helicopter - there are crowds of these bears, like army units,' she said.

'We are scared to walk outside.

'All doors are shut in kindergartens, there are written warnings everywhere that walking with kids is allowed only in certain areas.'

2 massive waterspouts filmed spinning off the Sussex coast in the UK

Kirstie McCrum
Daily Mirror, UK
Wed, 02 Sep 2015 19:18 UTC

Stunning scene: This dramatic picture shows beautiful waterspouts forming in the skies

They don't pack the punch of their close relation the tornado, but these meteorological events are still stunning to watch

The skies over Shoreham have been in the news recently for tragic reasons.

But this dramatic video shows beautiful waterspouts forming in the skies above the English Channel of the coast of the West Sussex town.

Two of the funnels formed and remained in the cloudy sky for some time, showing the cloud reaching down towards the earth.

2 tornadoes strike Ibiza, Spain; sending boats crashing into rocks, uprooting trees and damaging houses

John Hutchinson
Daily Mail, UK
Thu, 03 Sep 2015 13:56 UTC

This amazing shot was captured on the coast of Ibiza, showing the tornado stirring up the waters

This shocking video shows the moment a tornado struck the holiday resort of Ibiza as torrential storms swept the island.

Footage, that appears to be shot at a safe distance, shows the swirl of a tornado exiting from a grey sky.

Local news sources reported that there were two tornadoes in Ibiza on Tuesday, one at sea and one inland that hit San Antonio. They appeared during a storm that uprooted trees and damaged power lines and houses.

Harry Russell, who films club nights and weddings in Ibiza during the summer months, was also on hand to capture the phenomenon.

Russell, from Northampton, told MailOnline Travel: 'I was excited when I saw it. My girlfriend and I had a filming job to cover a private villa party then the sunny day turned into a storm in such a short space.

'The weather hasn't been too bad but roughly two weeks ago Ibiza had a massive storm that flooded the town areas.'

Sliding into the abyss: Giant sinkhole in Russian Urals keeps growing

Sputnik
Thu, 03 Sep 2015 13:21 UTC

A sinkhole near one of the mines in Russia's Ural Mountains has grown in size at least fivefold since it was first reported last November; the huge abyss keeps swallowing up nearby summer cottages and shows no signs that it will stop getting bigger.

A huge sinkhole, in the very middle of a seasonal cottage community and near Solikamsk-2, a mine operated by Russia's biggest potash fertilizer producer UralkalI, keeps growing in size.

It is gradually widening, and swallowing in more nearby holiday homes as the earth keeps collapsing.

South Carolina man claims to have been hit by lightning ELEVEN times

Rachel Eddie
Daily Mail, UK
Sun, 30 Aug 2015 11:44 UTC

Mr Roberts has medical records showing injuries which doctors say are consistent with lightning strikes – including multiple exit wounds and trouble with memory and speech

A man who claims to have been struck by lightning 11 times in his life insists he is telling the truth, despite skepticism from experts and the Guinness World Records.

Melvin Roberts, 62, from Seneca in South Carolina, claims to have been struck in the sunshine, while driving a bulldozer, and twice while mowing the lawn.

'It's like being stalked,' Mr Roberts told Sunday Night reporter Denham Hitchcock.

'It cooks you from the inside out,' he said.

Mr Roberts has the medical records showing injuries which doctors say are consistent with lightning strikes - including multiple exit wounds and trouble with memory and speech.

'You can't taste anything for days and days,' Mr Roberts explained.

Sott Exclusive: Shocking weather! Lightning fatalities across the planet on the increase

Julian Friese
Sott.net
Thu, 03 Sep 2015 11:37 UTC

Lightning bolt near people in Germany

As planetary chaos continues to unfold with an increase in floods, earthquakes, extreme temperatures, fireballs, volcanic eruptions, sinkholes wildfires and storms there seems to a concomitant rise in the number of lightning strikes reported and in particular of fatalities due to same.

A search of the Sott archives reveal the following statistics. Last year 10 reports of death by lightning strikes were noted and 38 others found on a google search for 2014 - a total of 48 reports. This year however 79 reports have been added to the Sott database with another 27 others (involving single fatalities) found on another google search. Which brings the total to 106 so far and it should be noted that there's still another third of this year left to unfold. So it would appear that this year has already shown a dramatic increase in the number of reports when compared to last year.

The Sott archived reports can be accessed here.

Global tree populations are declining at an alarming rate

Will Dunham
Reuters
Wed, 02 Sep 2015 17:25 UTC

© Reuters/Enrique Castro-Mendivil/Files

A rubber tree is seen at the Manu National Park in Peru's southern Amazon region of Madre de Dios in this July 17, 2014 file photo

Earth is home to just over 3 trillion trees - the redwoods of California, the olive trees of Tunisia, the cherry trees of Japan, the eucalyptus of Australia and so many more - but they are being lost at an alarming rate because of human activities.

Those are the findings of researchers who on Wednesday unveiled the most comprehensive assessment of global tree populations ever conducted, using data including satellite imagery and ground-based tree density estimates from more than 400,000 locations worldwide.

The estimate of 3.04 trillion trees - an estimated 422 for every person - is about eight times higher than a previous estimate of 400 billion trees that was based on satellite imagery but less data from the ground.

The new findings leave abundant reason for concern - with people at the root of the problem.

Comment: According to a recent study, 49% of tropical deforestation was due to illegal conversion for commercial agriculture. Consumer demand for agricultural commodities is the main driver for these clearances that have seen more than 200,000 sq km of forest laid bare.

300 flamingoes killed by hailstones in Albacete, Spain

spanishnewstoday.com
Wed, 02 Sep 2015 20:24 UTC

Dead flamingoes

Dozens more birds were injured at the lagoon of Pétrola

There have been various stories in the news during the early part of this week concerning the rash of fierce hailstorms which has affected numerous areas of the country, and some of the most violent storms have hit the province of Albacete in the region of Castilla La Mancha.

One of these occurred at the saltwater lagoon of Pétrola in the east of the province on Monday, where around 300 flamingoes are reported to have died although an official total has not yet been finalized. The regional firefighting services were called in to help environmental officials remove the dead birds from the water, and dozens of injured flamingoes were also rescued from the lagoon by staff on board small zodiac boats which were brought from Almansa and Hellín as they worked all morning to clear the shallow water.

60,000 antelopes died in Kazakhstan in 4 days — and no one knows why

Tia Ghose
Live Science
Wed, 02 Sep 2015 07:51 UTC

© Albert Salemgareyev
In May 2015, nearly half of all the saigas, a critically endangered antelope that roams the steppe of Kazakhstan, died off. Exactly why is still a mystery.

It started in late May.

When geoecologist Steffen Zuther and his colleagues arrived in central Kazakhstan to monitor the calving of one herd of saigas, a critically endangered, steppe-dwelling antelope, veterinarians in the area had already reported dead animals on the ground.

"But since there happened to be die-offs of limited extent during the last years, at first we were not really alarmed," Zuther, the international coordinator of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, told Live Science.

But within four days, the entire herd — 60,000 saiga — had died. As veterinarians and conservationists tried to stem the die-off, they also got word of similar population crashes in other herds across Kazakhstan. By early June, the mass dying was over. [See Images of the Saiga Mass Die-Off]

Now, the researchers have found clues as to how more than half of the country's herd, counted at 257,000 as of 2014, died so rapidly. Bacteria clearly played a role in the saigas' demise. But exactly how these normally harmless microbes could take such a toll is still a mystery, Zuther said.

"The extent of this die-off, and the speed it had, by spreading throughout the whole calving herd and killing all the animals, this has not been observed for any other species," Zuther said. "It's really unheard of."

Wrong place, wrong time: Extremely rare Arctic Beluga whales seen off cold beach in Northumberland, UK

Stuart Winter
Daily Express, UK
Wed, 02 Sep 2015 17:31 UTC

Delighted holidaymakers caught sight of two elusive beluga whales swimming casually off a Northumberland beach over the weekend in arguably the wildlife event of the year.

Belugas are some of the most charismatic of all the whales, their ghostly white forms blending with the ice floes of their native haunts off Greenland and the Barents Sea.

They are extremely rare visitors to British waters and until last month there had only ever been 17 recorded sightings throughout history, with the vast majority in Scotland.

After one was filmed off the coast of County Antrim in July, two other belugas have now turned up in the North Sea, with experts highlighting the unusually low water temperatures this summer as a possible cause for their visits.

Whatever the reasons, for fortunate whale-watchers the chance of seeing the belugas is a once in a lifetime happening.