Earth Changes

Flooding kills at least nine in Luanda, Angola

tvcnews.tv
Thu, 12 Mar 2015 16:34 UTC

Floods in the Angolan capital, Luanda, have left at least nine people dead and four others missing, state news agency Angop reported on Sunday.

A government official was quoted by Angop as saying the deaths were caused by destruction to houses during heavy rain on Saturday. Some of the victims were children according to the official.

Most of the affected areas were in the outskirts of Luanda, including in Kilamba Kiaxi, the site of a showcase public housing development with thousands of apartments built by Chinese firms two years ago.

According to Angop, hundreds of homes were submerged in the flood, causing widespread material damage, with 500 houses affected in the Samba and Coreia suburbs alone.

Sinkhole appears in Fort Campbell, Kentucky

Adrianne Flores
wsmv.com
Wed, 11 Mar 2015 15:50 UTC

A sinkhole forced soldiers at Fort Campbell to take evasive maneuvers to get around post.

The 20-by-20 hole opened up on Monday on the corner of Wickham Avenue and 101st Road Cole Park Commons.

Geologist Kallina Dunkle with Austin Peay State University believes the snow and ice followed by rain caused the sinkhole.

"Times when we tend to get more rain and especially this year with getting the snow melt on top of the rain, it's going to be more likely," Dunkle said.

Dunkle said sinkholes are fairly common in Tennessee, particularly in Clarksville where there is a lot of limestone. Dozens of sinkholes have opened up on Austin Peay's campus over the past decade.

Rare 'portal to heaven' cloud observed in Turkey

Hurriyet Daily News
Wed, 11 Mar 2015 14:00 UTC

Strange 'portal to heaven' cloud over Turkey

A rare cloud formation in western Turkey has gone viral on social media, dubbed "a portal to heaven."

A cloud over the Söke district of the Aydın province initially appeared as a ring on the evening of March 10. As the sun began to set, the circumference of the ring grew larger and the lower rim of the cloud approached the horizon.

Söke resident Yasin Toköz filmed the moment and shared it on social media, which led some Twitter users to liken the natural formation to supernatural phenomena.

Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus, often an image or sound, being perceived as significant.

Comment: In recent months other strange cloud formations have been observed, from Australia to the United States. Some bizarre clouds, such as this one in Australia have a recognizable cause, this one being a Fallstreak Hole. Other factors which may contribute to these 'strange skies' are possible comet dust loading and changes in the layers of the atmosphere.

An indicator of this dust loading is the intensification of noctilucent clouds we are observing. As explained in Pierre Lescaudron's book, Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection:

The increase in noctilucent clouds is one of the effects - among others - of increased dust concentration in the atmosphere in general, and in the upper atmosphere in particular. We suspect that most of this atmospheric dust is of cometary origin, while some of it may be due to the recent increase in volcanic activity.

See also: Chemtrails? Contrails? Strange skies

Second of Guatemala's three volcanoes now active

The Japan Times
Thu, 12 Mar 2015 10:27 UTC

Two of Guatemala's three active volcanoes have now rumbled to life, officials said Wednesday, one day after the Santiaguito volcano began belching smoke and showering nearby towns with ash.

Guatemala's Fuego volcano, in the southwest, over the past several weeks has spewed adjacent towns with soot, forcing the temporary closure last month of a neighboring airport.

Now the Santiaguito volcano in the west has awakened as well, emitting columns of ash 400 meters (1,300 feet) tall above its crater.

Santiaguito, whose peak soars to 2,500 meters above sea level, is located in western Quetzaltenango province.

The sleeping giant began to stir on Tuesday, but officials said that thus far, they have not had to evacuate populated areas nearby.

The 3,700-meter tall Fuego — whose name means fire in English — last month spewed out large columns of ash, prompting an orange alert and forcing nearby residents to wear protective masks.

More big earthquakes coming to California, forecast says

Becky Oskin
Live Science
Wed, 11 Mar 2015 16:59 UTC

A new view of California's earthquake risk slightly raises the likelihood of big earthquakes in the Golden State, but lowers the chance that people in some regions will feel shaking from smaller, magnitude-6.7 quakes.

The new report does not predict when or where earthquakes will strike, nor how big the next quake will be; instead, it provides a better sense of how often earthquakes will occur and how likely faults are to break in the next three decades. This information helps set earthquake insurance rates and building codes in California.

Under the new forecast, the likelihood of a magnitude-8 earthquake in the next 30 years has increased from about 4.7 percent to 7 percent. A magnitude-8 quake would be twice as strong as the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a magnitude 7.8.

Meanwhile, the analysis said that Californians should expect a magnitude-6.7 quake to occur every 6.3 years somewhere in the state, which is less than the estimate of every 4.8 years from the previous forecast, released in 2007.

According to the new model, magnitude-8 earthquakes are still exceedingly rare in California. An earthquake of that size would require an extraordinarily long break along the San Andreas Fault, something that may happen only every 500 years.

"The model is probably good news for a homeowner, because they are more threatened by a small, local earthquake than a big, rare, distant earthquake," said Ned Field, lead author of the report and a U.S. Geological Survey research scientist in Golden, Colorado.

But earthquake insurance rates and building codes may change to reflect the uptick in great earthquakes, Field said. A magnitude-8 earthquake triggers long and fast shaking that is highly damaging to buildings and structures such as bridges.

Landslide destroys a major road in Montenegro

Adnan Prekic
balkaneu.com
Mon, 09 Mar 2015 22:34 UTC

A landslide which has been happening for several days disrupted traffic on a section of the road Cetinje-Budva. This is one of the most frequent roads in Montenegro and the shortest route from the capital Podgorica to cities on the coast. The copious rains initiated the landslide and the road has already dropped more than five meters. Reconstruction is not possible to begin until the landslide completely stops. In the best of circumstances, remediation is expected by the beginning of the summer tourist season. In the meantime, it is possible to use alternative paths that are 50 kilometers longer than the damaged route.

Excessive rainfalls have initiated the landslide which destroyed the main road in the village Markovići. In the part of the road that the landslides occur, 100 meters of asphalt have been plunged and opened up cracks several meters deep. Every day the landslide is getting larger and larger, and this morning the old road section was moved several dozen meters from its original location.

Unseasonal heavy snowfall throws normal life out of gear in Kashmir, India

indiablooms.com
Wed, 11 Mar 2015 21:57 UTC

Jammu and Kashmir continues to experience heavy rainfall, throwing normal life out of gear. On Monday, a white blanket enveloped most parts of the state as mercury dipped further.

The state's main highway has been blocked affecting supply of foodgrains. The unseasonal snowfall with strong winds forced people to stay indoors.

According to the weather department, the wind confluence was continuing over northern India due to deepening of the westerly trough into central Arabian Sea. The Doda district remained cut off from rest of the state due to snowfall.

The Jammu-Srinagar national highway was shut due to heavy snowfall which has hit air and vehicular traffic heavily. Meanwhile, the snowfall has affected flora and fauna in Rajouri district. A resident Mukhtar said several people have been stranded.

Map depicts how freezing weather cut U.S. in half as westerners baked while the east shivered

Sam Matthew
Daily Mail, UK
Wed, 11 Mar 2015 20:44 UTC

The satellite image produced by NASA records the land surface temperature. The places that experience below average conditions are coloured blue, normal appear white and those in red were warmer than average

This winter has been the season that literally divided America into two.

This stunning weather map shows how those in the west of the country enjoyed one of the warmest February's on record, while those in the east endured heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures.

The extreme contrast in temperatures has been put down to global warming and the melting sea ice in the Arctic by some experts, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.

Comment: Exactly so. To find out much more about the cause of such weather extremes and other seemingly unrelated and disparate global upheavals, then the book Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection would be a very good place to start!

Western Newfoundland continues to be buried in snow

cbc.ca
Wed, 11 Mar 2015 20:34 UTC

Schools were closed and snowfall warnings were in effect for parts of western Newfoundland on Wednesday, with another 15 to 25 centimetres expected in the region throughout the day.

Environment Canada had snowfall warnings in effect for much of the west coast, and winter storm warnings were in effect for parts of the Northern Peninsula — saying conditions should continue well into Wednesday night.

Schools were closed for at least the morning in such communities as Stephenville, St. George's and Lark Harbour.

Massive sinkhole forming in Russia caught on camera

Daily Telegraph
Mon, 09 Mar 2015 20:17 UTC

Dramatic videos have emerged of a sinkhole forming in the city of Solikamskiy, Russia.

The footage, shot earlier this year by a resident, captures images of the huge hole in the ground only a few meters away from houses.

According to the filmer the 100 metre deep sinkhole formed after a Sylvinite ore colliery was flooded in November 2014.

According to the filmer - locals now fear that a neighbouring pit, which is connected to the collapsed one, will get flooded too and cave in right under their houses.

The filmer says locals think that the Russian authorities are hiding the risks of sinkholes in the region and allegedly say that the pit is stable and does not increase.