Earth ChangesS


Ambulance

Quakes injure 4, damage buildings in Indonesia's Java


AP
Mon, 10 Sep 2007 05:17 UTC
Two earthquakes rocked parts of Indonesia's Java Island early Monday, injuring at least four people and damaging buildings, officials said.

Wijanto, an official at Meteorological and Geophysics Agency in Jakarta, said the first quake with a magnitude of 4.9 occurred at 1:36 a.m., while the second one with a magnitude of 4.5 hit at 6:31 a.m.
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Attention

Strong 6.8 earthquake hits Colombia west coast


Reuters
Mon, 10 Sep 2007 05:17 UTC
A strong 6.8-magnitude earthquake hit near the west coast of Colombia on Sunday night, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but local authorities said there were no immediate reports of serious damage.

Officials in coastal Narino province said they had no news of damaged buildings or injuries, but they were still contacting remote rural areas. Residents told local radio the shock knocked out electricity in some areas.
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Info

Oceanic Planetary Waves

Harvey Leifert
Natural History
Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:56 UTC
Oceanic planetary waves, just an inch or two high at the surface but thousands of feet deep and hundreds of miles apart, sweep slowly but steadily across Earth's oceans: a surfer who caught one in Acapulco would take four years to wash up on a Chinese beach. The waves are speeding up, though, thanks to global warming, and as they do, they could affect weather patterns around the world.

©Paulo Cipollini, Southampton Oceanography Centre
Schematic of a typical oceanic planetary wave traveling westward with horizontal scale of about 500 kilometers and with vertical amplitude at the sea surface of about 10 centimeters. Such waves have a major effect on the large-scale ocean circulation and thus on weather and climate.
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Cloud Lightning

Thousands flee homes as fresh floods hit Bangladesh


Reuters
Sun, 09 Sep 2007 20:24 UTC
Large swathes of Bangladesh were underwater again on Sunday after heavy rains, adding to the misery of millions hit by flooding that has killed more than 830 people since late July.

Weather officials said that nearly 20 of the country's 64 districts were flooded after three days of rain swelled major rivers flowing through India into Bangladesh.

©AFP
A Bangladeshi woman uses a raft to cross a flooded field in Sirajgonj district of Bangladesh.
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Bizarro Earth

Clashes in Congo Park Endanger Gorillas

Todd Pitman
Associated Press
Sat, 08 Sep 2007 22:28 UTC
DAKAR, Senegal - Renewed fighting Saturday inside a national park in Congo that is home to endangered mountain gorillas forced rangers to flee for the second time in less than a week, conservationists said.

The clashes between fighters loyal to warlord Laurent Nkunda and government soldiers took place in Virunga National Park, where some of the world's last remaining mountain gorillas live on the slopes of a volcanic mountain range that straddles Congo's border with Rwanda and Uganda, the international conservation group WildlifeDirect said.
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Bizarro Earth

4.4 Earthquake Shakes Northern California


AP
Sat, 08 Sep 2007 16:35 UTC
A moderate earthquake struck off the coast of Humboldt County in far Northern California early Saturday morning.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the magnitude 4.4 quake was centered in the Pacific Ocean about 20 miles west of Petrolia and 40 miles southwest of Eureka.

©USGS
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Attention

Bay of Bengal Faces Major Tsunami Threat, Study Says

John Roach
National Geographic
Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:40 UTC
Millions of people along the coasts of Myanmar (Burma), Bangladesh, and India may be at risk of suffering a catastrophic tsunami-generating earthquake, according to a new study.

The northern Bay of Bengal could be pummeled by a temblor as massive as the one that sent devastating tsunamis into Indonesia and other Indian Ocean countries in December 2004, the research suggests.
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Info

Bees invade Texas woman's home


abc13.com
Wed, 05 Sep 2007 10:52 UTC
There is a potentially painful problem at a home in Katy. Hundreds of thousands of bees were living inside the walls of a woman's house and no one could get rid of them until today.

Claude Griffin with Gotcha Pest Control tried to talk himself through the enormous job of removing 500,000 bees that had taken up residence.

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Attention

Subtropical Storm Gabrielle forms


AP
Sat, 08 Sep 2007 02:23 UTC
Subtropical Storm Gabrielle formed Friday off the southeast U.S. coast, and a tropical storm watch was issued for portions of the South Carolina and North Carolina coast.

At 11 p.m, Gabrielle had top sustained winds near 45 mph and was centered about 385 miles southeast of Cape Lookout, N.C., the National Hurricane Center said. It was moving west northwest near 10 mph and was expected to continue along the same path during the next 24 hours.

©Weather Underground
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Clock

Polar Bear Population Seen Declining

JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press
Fri, 07 Sep 2007 19:05 UTC


©AP Photo/CP/Jonathon Hayward, File
Mother polar bear and her cub sleep near the ice outside Churchill, Canada Nov. 4, 2006.

WASHINGTON - Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 _ including the entire population in Alaska _ because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.
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