Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Strong earthquake jolts Tanzania

A strong earthquake hit East Africa on Tuesday, the latest in the region in several days, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

The USGS said the quake struck in northern Tanzania, 167km from the western town of Arusha, and measured 6,1 on the Richter scale of magnitude.

Cloud Lightning

Large dust storm hits Arizona

A large Arizona dust storm caused visibility to drop near zero in some places on Monday.

©NBC6.net

Stop

'Dead zone' off Louisiana may expand

Researchers predict that the oxygen-depleted "dead zone" that recurs off the Louisiana coast will expand this summer to 8,543 square miles - its largest area in at least 22 years.

The forecast, released Monday by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is based on a federal estimate of nitrogen compounds from the Mississippi River watershed that will reach the Gulf of Mexico. It discounts any effect storms might have.

Red Flag

Update: Japan Quake Causes 9 Deaths, Nuke Leak



©AP Photo/Koji Sasahara
A journalist stands outside a collapsed house following a powerful quake that hit Japan's northwest coast in Kashiwazaki

KASHIWAZAKI, Japan - A strong earthquake shook Japan's northwest coast Monday, setting off a fire at the world's most powerful nuclear power plant and causing a reactor to spill radioactive water into the sea _ an accident not reported to the public for hours.

Star

Czech Republic hit by heat wave



©CTK

A heat wave coming all the way from Africa arrived in the Czech Republic at the weekend, with Prague seeing a new record temperature of 35.8 degrees Celsius (96F) on Sunday. But Czechs are now bracing themselves for even hotter weather: forecasters say Monday could be the hottest day ever recorded in this country, with temperatures of up to 39 degrees Celsius expected.

Cloud Lightning

Canada: Storm rips off roofs, cuts power in northwestern Saskatchewan

SASKATOON -- Lorraine McSween thought someone had thrown a rock through her triple-paned bedroom window. It turns out it was her new fence, which had been blown three metres into the air by a powerful storm that wreaked havoc on northwestern Saskatchewan early Sunday.

Cloud Lightning

Texas: Tornado Hits San Antonio Neighborhood

The National Weather Service said a tornado damaged homes in a neighborhood on the city's Northeast Side overnight Saturday.

NWS inspectors said the tornado was an EF-1 on the enhanced Fujita Scale with wind gusts of 80 to 100 mph.

Question

Worms Fall from the Sky in Louisiana

Jennings Police Department employee, Eleanor Beal was just crossing the street to go to work when something dropped from the sky.

The sky wasn't falling. She says it was worms, large tangled clumps of them.

Beal says, "When I saw that they were crawling, I said, 'It's worms! Get out of the way!'"

She even called her co-worker outside to prove she wasn't making it up.

Question

Ponds in Colorado closed after several see large reptile

LOVELAND - A group of ponds and the 30-acre natural recreation area around it are closed until further notice in Loveland because of an unusual guest.

The city says it has confirmed sightings of a large reptile in the Jayhawker Ponds Natural Area. The animal is believed to be between 5 to 7 feet long and may be an alligator or caiman.

A boy was fishing with friends Wednesday night when he says the reptile lunged out of the water and scared them.

Attention

Quake causes radioactive leak in Japan

The earthquake that killed at least seven in western Japan Monday morning has caused a radioactive leak from the country's largest nuclear power plant, the operator company said.

Tokyo Denryoku said the incident occurred at the sixth reactor of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant hit by the first of three waves of the earthquake measuring 6.8 on Richter scale, which also left over 800 people injured. The discovery was made during regular maintenance checks of the reactor. The company suggested the water could have leaked from a special storage facility for used uranium rods.

Shortly after the first tremors, the company said four reactors that were operating at the time had automatically shut down by the safety system. But after a while, reports emerged that a transformer had caught fire on the external side of the third reactor. The fire was put out, and the company said there had been no radiation leak.