Earth Changes
© AP / Noah Berger
Firefighters battle a wildfire as it threatens to jump a street near Oroville, Calif., on Saturday, July 8, 2017.
Firefighters battle a wildfire as it threatens to jump a street near Oroville, Calif., on Saturday, July 8, 2017.
Here's a look at the wildfires blackening the West.
CALIFORNIA
Two major wildfires in California have sent nearly 8,000 people fleeing to safety.
About 4,000 people evacuated and another 7,400 were told to prepare to leave their homes as fire swept through grassy foothills in the Sierra Nevada, about 60 miles north of Sacramento, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Sunday.
© Krystyna Richer / Reuters
Weather services say 49.2mm fell in one hour, the French capital's heaviest July deluge on record.
Flooding closed 20 metro stations and three were still shut as commuters made their way to work on Monday morning.
Parts of Switzerland were hit by violent winds and hail storms that also caused flooding at the weekend.
Heavy rain began in Paris at 21:00 (19:00 GMT) on Sunday night and Méteo France said the amount that fell was higher than the previous record of 47.4mm set on 2 July 1995. Rain continued to fall heavily on Monday in Paris.
Some areas of the west and around Paris had seen more than a month's average rainfall between Sunday afternoon and 08:00 on Monday, it said.
© Global Times
Sources
Sources
© Lee Briese
Frost damage
Frost damage
Sources
Photos and videos shared on social media showed whitish substance on the streets of the town of Nyahururu located in the country's Laikipia County.
The Kenyan Meteorological Agency, however, clarified and explained that the incident was a case of rare hail storm and not snow. ''For it to snow temperatures are usually below 0°C," they explained.
The event in Nyahururu is a hail storm. Such storms occurs when there is abrupt convection and rain clouds form too fast.
— Kenya Met Department (@KenyaMetService) July 4, 2017
Yup turns out that global warming isn't "#fakenews" after all #snow in equatorial #Kenya pic.twitter.com/gJqxeOjZqw
— Allison Dunn (@a1dunn) July 4, 2017
Transit bus lies in a sinkhole in Veracruz
No one was hurt when the bus fell into the big hole while it was parked at the roadside in the Oasis residential area. Four nearby houses were evacuated initially and at least 20 more since because the rain hadn't stopped and the sinkhole was getting larger, said Civil Protection officials.
One said that 125 millimeters of rain fell between 8:00am and 1:00pm today.
Residents of at least 10 other houses in other parts of the city were also evacuated for fear they would collapse due to sinkholes.
The US Geological Survey said the moderately strong quake struck Leyte island near Ormoc, a city of about 200,000 people, at 9.41am at a relatively shallow depth of 12.7km.
A 6.5-magnitude quake stuck the region on Thursday last week, killing two people and leaving 72 others injured.
Large areas of Leyte, home to some 1.75 million people, and some parts of the central Philippines were still without electricity this week due to damage to a Leyte power plant.
The Philippines lies on the so-called Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Source: AFP/mn
© Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Seven endangered right whales have been found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence since June.
Seven endangered right whales have been found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence since June.
The Canadian Coast Guard discovered the dead whale near Havre-Aubert on Wednesday night.
Quebec's marine mammal research network, known by its French initials GREMM, confirmed to CBC's French-language service that it was not previously aware of the carcass.
Tonya Wimmer, with the Marine Animal Response Society, said the whale is a male, and it was badly decomposed. She also said it isn't clear yet what caused the whale's death, The Canadian Press reported.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans told CBC News in an email that it is investigating the whale carcass to determine if it is a new one or a carcass that has been previously identified.
Six other North Atlantic right whales, which are an endangered species, have been found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence since June.
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