Earth Changes
A heat wave is building and could reach dangerous levels in parts of the Midwest, the Plains and the Southeast this week.
Twenty-three states were under heat advisories Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Louis are under an excessive heat warning, along with Tulsa, Oklahoma; Memphis, Tennessee; and Evansville, Indiana. In these areas, the heat index, or how hot the body feels due to the combined effects of heat and humidity, will reach between 110 and 115 degrees this week.
A 51-year-old man in Granite City, Illinois, died Sunday due to the excessive heat, the Madison County coroner said. Mitsunari Uechi was found unresponsive in his mobile home, where the air conditioning was not working. Police described the residence as "extremely hot," Coroner Stephen Nonn said in a statement.
Uechi was transported to Gateway Regional Medical Center with a body temperature of 104 degrees. He was later pronounced dead, according to the coroner.
© WBTV
When work crews began digging on Monday they found that hole that was just a foot wide at the surface of the pavement, was more than twelve feet wide under the pavement.
"The pavement was holding itself up," said Streets maintenance Supervisor Estel Osborne. Pennton Avenue was closed last week as a precaution when the problem was discovered and Osborne said it was lucky they did keep cars off of the spot. "There was nothing under the asphalt."
Crews on Monday cut out a forty foot section of the road to get to the drainage problem that caused the sinkhole in the first place.
"There's an old pipe in there and the bottom of the pipe just rusted out." The pipe carries water from an old creek under the roads and buildings in the area.
© BBC
Witnesses said cars in Balcarres Street were bobbing about in the water
Witnesses said cars in Balcarres Street were bobbing about in the water
Witnesses have been reporting cars floating in deep rivers running down roads in Morningside, Colinton and Oxgangs.
One resident in Balcarres Street said her ground-floor-flat had been ruined following the flash flood at 1440 BST.
Emergency council teams have been deployed in a bid to help firefighters deal with the "huge volumes of water".
A resident in Balcarres Street added that the fish in her pond in her front garden had been washed away in the flood water.
A 31-year-old witness said: "I have never seen anything like it. There was such a huge volume of water in Balcarres Street that buses were trying to plough through it and the wake was causing the cars at the side of the road to crash into each other.
"There is also a car showroom in the street, which has been flooded."
Comment: The above is one we missed from 2008, but this report came in today, 12 July 2011:
US: Lenoir, North Carolina sinkhole evidence of a possible wider problem
These reports are from just the past month:
South Carolina, US: Sinkhole Closes Stephens County Boat Ramp
U.S.: Fairfield Township deals with sinkhole
Enormous sinkhole swallows south-east Queensland Rainbow beach
Canada: Downpour Leaves 18-metre Sinkhole in Ontario Highway
Australia: Sinkhole swallows south-east Queensland beach
North Dakota, US: Sinkhole closes Fargo overpass
US: 45' deep sinkhole appears in Pittsburgh parking lot
Big Apple, Cracked! New York, US: Midtown sinkhole stops rush hour traffic, baffles investigators
A collection of sinkhole images from around the world
The planet is literally opening up!
UPDATE 09:45 UTC : Due to the volcanic activity and the ash concentration in the air, the (important) regional airport of Catania was closed since yesterday 18:12 (6:12 PM). The airport reopened this morning at 07:00 ( 7 AM).
UPDATE 08:00 UTC : As stated below, the densely populated Catania area got a lot of ash showers covering cars and roofs with a gray layer.
UPDATE : One video tells more than a 1000 words. This YouTube video was recorded by Klaus Dorschfeldt alias KdEtna. We encourage our readers to take a look at his great Etna Channel on YouTube. The strong eruption was short-lived (see in-depth text below), which explains why there are only daylight videos from this eruption
UPDATE 08:00 UTC : As stated below, the densely populated Catania area got a lot of ash showers covering cars and roofs with a gray layer.
UPDATE : One video tells more than a 1000 words. This YouTube video was recorded by Klaus Dorschfeldt alias KdEtna. We encourage our readers to take a look at his great Etna Channel on YouTube. The strong eruption was short-lived (see in-depth text below), which explains why there are only daylight videos from this eruption
The monsoons arrived on schedule in northern New Mexico on Monday, bringing with them the promise of containing a monster wildfire that has broken records in the state.
But they also brought potential peril from flash floods, wind bursts and lightning, with possible flooding made worse by the ground-clearing fires.
"It's such a Catch-22 with the rains," said Arlene Perea, a fire information officer. "The rains are welcome, but we know there are some problems with it."
The National Weather Service on Monday put out a flash-flood watch for the fire area through at least Wednesday. Forecasters said showers and thunderstorms were expected, with hail, lightning and winds up to 45 miles per hour.
But they also brought potential peril from flash floods, wind bursts and lightning, with possible flooding made worse by the ground-clearing fires.
"It's such a Catch-22 with the rains," said Arlene Perea, a fire information officer. "The rains are welcome, but we know there are some problems with it."
The National Weather Service on Monday put out a flash-flood watch for the fire area through at least Wednesday. Forecasters said showers and thunderstorms were expected, with hail, lightning and winds up to 45 miles per hour.
© Grant Blankenship/The New York Times
Terry Pickle climbs out of the hole in Colquitt, Ga., that was once the spot on Spring Creek where river baptisms were held. Drought conditions have reduced the creek to a series of puddles.
Terry Pickle climbs out of the hole in Colquitt, Ga., that was once the spot on Spring Creek where river baptisms were held. Drought conditions have reduced the creek to a series of puddles.
Farmers with the money and equipment to irrigate are running wells dry in the unseasonably early and particularly brutal national drought that some say could rival the Dust Bowl days.
"It's horrible so far," said Mike Newberry, a Georgia farmer who is trying grow cotton, corn and peanuts on a thousand acres. "There is no description for what we've been through since we started planting corn in March."
The pain has spread across 14 states, from Florida, where severe water restrictions are in place, to Arizona, where ranchers could be forced to sell off entire herds of cattle because they simply can't feed them.
© David Lynch
Map of the San Andreas Fault (Red Line)
Map of the San Andreas Fault (Red Line)
In a new study led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, scientists found that the floodwaters that periodically flowed through faults helped trigger earthquakes in the area, including several large ones along the mighty San Andreas.
The modern Salton Sea came to life nearly a century ago when record floodwaters from the Colorado River overwhelmed barriers, and during the course of two years created the massive body of water in a desert sink. Dams and other irrigation barriers were eventually built to stop the flow of water into the sea and end the periodic flooding that had long plagued the area.
But scientists wonder whether the creation of the Salton Sea tweaked the seismic dynamics of the area, which is crisscrossed by numerous fault lines that feed into the San Andreas.
The study's lead author, Daniel Brothers, a marine geophysicist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said that in the past the weight of the flowing floodwaters bent the Earth's crust, causing some sections of the faults to bow and others to bulge. In addition, floodwaters percolated into voids in the rock, exerting an outward pressure on the faults. All this helped trigger quakes, he said.
© NASA
Christchurch City
Christchurch City
They've sent people running, brought buildings down and left 181 dead.
Many people had been injured, left without water and power - and some have had to abandon their homes.
The aftershocks include the February 22 magnitude 6.3 and the 6.3 tremor which shook the city once again on June 13.
They contribute to this year's total of more than 11,000 quakes felt throughout the country.
Four earthquakes larger than magnitude 6 have already hit New Zealand this year, compared to just three occurring for all of 2010.
Two of them were in Christchurch, one was off the Coromandel coast on January 28 and the largest, a magnitude 6.5, occurred in Taupo last week and was felt throughout the country.
© USGS
Earthquake Location
Earthquake Location
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 20:47:06 UTC
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 04:47:06 AM at epicenter
Location
9.535°N, 122.175°E
Depth
19 km (11.8 miles)
Region
NEGROS, PHILIPPINES
Distances
125 km (78 miles) W (280°) from Dumaguete, Negros, Philippines
134 km (83 miles) SSW (198°) from Iloilo, Panay, Philippines
150 km (93 miles) SW (215°) from Bacolod, Negros, Philippines
580 km (360 miles) SSE (167°) from MANILA, Philippines
Comment: Oh this goes WAY beyond the city's drainage system rusting out! Think on a global scale...
Australia: Enormous sinkhole swallows south-east Queensland Rainbow beach
A collection of sinkhole images from around the world
Huge sinkhole appears in Germany! Usedom Island has a Grand Canyon now
Update: Tropical storm leaves more than 115 dead and a huge sinkhole in Central America