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Sinkhole surprise in Costa Rica: Giant sinkhole opens up on busy highway


Tico Times
Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:03 UTC
Image
© MOPT
What is causing the Earth's surface to open up all over the world? Another sinkhole appears, this time in San José, Costa Rica
The torrent of storms brought on by the start of the rainy season exposed another weakness in Costa Rica's oft-maligned highway infrastructure.

A giant sinkhole opened up Tuesday night at one of the main arteries in and out of the capital. The ensuing tumult on General Cañas Highway - traversed by 100,000 vehicles per day - resulted in hours of delays, hurt local businesses and caused tourists to miss flights out of the country.

Heading into the weekend, the Costa Rican government enacted a contingency plan for the highway that connects San José to the northwestern province of Alajuela and the country's main airport. Bailey bridges, detours and increased train hours will assist highway commuters. However, the Public Works and Transport Ministry (MOPT) stated the sinkhole and the damaged sewer system below the road will take at least three weeks to fix.

The chasm - 3.5 meters wide and 4 meters deep - is in front of Plaza Los Arcos in Ciudad Cariari, northwest of San José, and several minutes from the Juan Santamaría International Airport. A tree trunk clogged the sewer system below the highway, and heavy rains caused a buildup of water and the eventual collapse in the road. The highway closure begins at Juan Pablo II Bridge in La Uruca, a northwestern district of the capital.
      Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Violent derecho storms ravage Eastern U.S. leaving 5 dead and 2 million without power


The Extinction Protocol
Sat, 30 Jun 2012 15:59 UTC
Violent evening storms following a day of triple-digit temperatures wiped out power to more than 2 million customers across the eastern United States and caused at least five fatalities - including a 90-year-old Virginia woman asleep in bed when a tree slammed into her home, and two young cousins on a camping trip in southern New Jersey. No significant damage was reported in Hampton Roads, according to police dispatchers in the five cities. Widespread power outages were reported from Indiana to New Jersey, with the bulk of the service interruptions concentrated on Washington, D.C., and the surrounding areas.


Image
© Unknown
derecho storm over Virginia June 29, 2012. A derecho (Spanish for straight) is a widespread and long-lived, violent convectively induced straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms in the form of a squall line usually taking the form of a bow echo.
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Sun

Scorching heatwave across US as millions suffer storm power outages


MSNBC
Sat, 30 Jun 2012 13:45 UTC
Image
© Mandel Ngan/Agence France Presse/Getty Images
An uprooted tree is seen Saturday after it damaged a home in Washington's American University neighborhood. The tree also cut a power line.
Air-conditioning out to 1.5 million D.C. homes, businesses; 15 deaths tied to storms, heat

As thermometers again reached triple digits, millions of people in the Mid-Atlantic area were without power on Saturday after violent storms with 80-mph gusts toppled trees, cut power lines and killed six people in Virginia alone.

Ohio also saw up to 1 million homes and businesses without power Saturday due to the storm front overnight, and at least one person died there.

Another person was killed by a falling tree in Maryland, while two cousins, ages 2 and 7, were killed by a falling tree at a campsite in New Jersey's Parvin State Park.

Five other deaths in recent days are thought to have been tied to the heat wave hanging over much of the nation, and forecasters warned of more dangerously high temperatures Saturday.
      Read More...
Arrow Down

Sinkhole Opens Up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn


NBC
Sat, 30 Jun 2012 15:40 UTC
Image
© NBC 4 New York
Eleven families were evacuated from their homes on 92nd Street but have since allowed to return home

Eleven families were evacuated from their homes in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn Thursday evening when a 60-foot sinkhole opened up in front of their buildings, officials said.

They have since been allowed to return to their homes on the 200 block of 92nd Street.

Crews are continuing repairs at the site of the sinkhole.
      Read More...
Better Earth

Tunguska, Psychopathy and the Sixth Extinction

Laura Knight-Jadczyk
Sott.net
Sat, 30 Jun 2012 04:33 UTC
Tunguska

How the Tunguska object may have appeared.
One hundred and four years ago today, on the night of 30 June and 1 July, one of the most extraordinary events in modern history occurred.
The first reports of a strange glow in the sky came from across Europe. Shortly after midnight on 1 July 1908, Londoners were intrigued to see a pink phosphorescent night sky over the capital. People who had retired awoke confused as the strange pink glow shone into their bedrooms. The same ruddy luminescence was reported over Belgium. The skies over Germany were curiously said to be bright green, while the heavens over Scotland were of an incredible intense whiteness which tricked the wildlife into believing it was dawn. Birdsong started and cocks crowed - at two o'clock in the morning. The skies over Moscow were so bright, photographs were taken of the streets without using a magnesium flash. A captain on a ship on the River Volga said he could see vessels on the river two miles away by the uncanny astral light. One golf game in England almost went on until four in the morning under the nocturnal glow, and in the following week The Times of London was inundated with letters from readers from all over the United Kingdom to report the curious 'false dawn'. A woman in Huntingdon wrote that she had been able to read a book in her bedroom solely by the peculiar rosy light. There were hundreds of letters from people reporting identical lighting conditions that went on for weeks... (Tom Slemen)
None of the people witnessing this strange phenomenon had any idea that, in the central Siberian plateau, just after 7:15 a.m. local time, the planet had been hit by a cometary impactor that exploded - as most such impactors do - in the atmosphere just above the Earth's surface.
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Better Earth

Stunning Map Reveals World's Earthquakes Since 1898

Andrea Mustain
Live Science
Sat, 30 Jun 2012 09:00 UTC
If you've ever wondered where - and why - earthquakes happen the most, look no further than a new map, which plots more than a century's worth of nearly every recorded earthquake strong enough to at least rattle the bookshelves.
Image
© John Nelson/IDV Solutions
More than 100 years of earthquakes glow on a world map.
The map shows earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 or greater since 1898; each is marked in a lightning-bug hue that glows brighter with increasing magnitude.

The overall effect is both beautiful and arresting, revealing the silhouettes of Earth's tectonic boundaries in stark, luminous swarms of color.

The map's maker, John Nelson, the user experience and mapping manager for IDV Solutions, a data visualization company, said the project offered several surprises.

"First, I was surprised by the sheer amount of earthquakes that have been recorded," Nelson told OurAmazingPlanet. "It's almost like you could walk from Seattle to Wellington [New Zealand] if these things were floating in the ocean, and I wouldn't have expected that."

In all, 203,186 earthquakes are marked on the map, which is current through 2003. And it reveals the story of plate tectonics itself.
      Read More...
Question

Mysterious Bubbles in Bayou Corne, Louisiana coincide with homes subsiding and shaking

Kiran Chawla
WAFB
Fri, 29 Jun 2012 15:20 UTC
Mysterious Bubbles
© WAFB
Assumption Parish, LA - Mysterious bubbles are rising up out of an Assumption Parish bayou. Officials are trying to figure what's causing them.

Take a ride down Bayou Corne, and there are bubbles of all sizes along the waterway.

"We have reported on May 30th a pipeline leak, which started us coming out and investigating a bubbling in Bayou Corne," said Assumption Parish Homeland Security Director John Boudreaux.

Since then though, pipeline officials have not ruled that out just yet, but said it's unlikely. So now, investigators are going through the process of elimination.

By coincidence, since the bubbling began, many in Assumption Parish are worried

"Our houses shifting and cracks in our sheet rock and our foundation," said Jason Hugh.

"My home moved, and my home shook. My home moved, and I'm on cement," said Debra Charlet.

Officials don't know yet whether the two are related. Boudreaux has taken samples of the bubbles and sent them off for testing. Those samples are expected back in the next couple of weeks.

Officials are monitoring the bubbles twice a day. As for now, no evacuations have been issued and the waterways remain open.

Click here for more information.
      Read More...
Question

Strange Sound Reported in San Diego

R. Stickney, Lauren Steussy and
NBC San Diego
Fri, 29 Jun 2012 20:02 UTC
San Diego
© Getty Images
Residents from Chula Vista to Oceanside reported a large rumble around 12:45 p.m. Friday.

The mysterious sensation was described by some people as sounding like a door slamming while others said it was strong enough to rattle windows.

A check of the U.S. Geological Survey website showed no earthquake activity.

NBC 7 San Diego's Dagmar Midcap was in Del Mar at the time and described it as a "Sonic 'rumble'" She tweeted, "according to my contacts at USGS, not seismic but rather sonic."

Two months ago, when San Diegans heard a similar sound, there was evidence of chaff on weather radar. Chaff is a material sometimes emitted during military exercises.

On Friday, however, Tina Stall with the National Weather Service said there was no visible chaff in the area at the time the noise was reported.

The mysterious sound had both residents and experts scratching their heads. Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientist Kristoffer Walker said he felt it too, and looked into microphones recorded from MCAS Miramar.

Evidence from his research revealed an answer.
      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.3 - Northern Xinjiang, China


US Geological Survey
Fri, 29 Jun 2012 21:53 UTC
Xinjiang Quake_290612
© USGS
Date-Time
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 21:07:32 UTC

Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 05:07:32 AM at epicenterTime of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location
43.444°N, 84.725°E

Depth
18 km (11.2 miles)

Region
NORTHERN XINJIANG, CHINA

Distances
99 km (61 miles) S of Dushanzi, China

141 km (87 miles) SW of Shihezi, China

218 km (135 miles) WSW of Changji, China

219 km (136 miles) NNW of Korla, China
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Phoenix

Northern Cheyenne Reservation Burning


Indian Nation
Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:46 UTC
The Ashland Creek fire on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation outside Billings, Montana, continued to rage on Wednesday and Thursday, with no sign of containment, authorities said.

As it surpassed 110,000 acres on Wednesday, three towns were evacuated and the people taken to Lame Deer 21 miles away, according to KULR TV in Billings. But Lame Deer is without power, so 700 people were crowding into the shelter there looking for food and other assistance.

"We've had quite a few families that are actually displaced," Geri Small, of the Boys and Girls Club of Northern Cheyenne, to the television station. "Their homes burned, and they don't have nothing. Some don't even have their shoes on."
      Read More...
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