© YouTube/Adapt 2030 (screen capture)
Earth Changes
© USGS
The area where the quake struck off New Zealand's south island
The area where the quake struck off New Zealand's south island
According to RNZ, the strong quake was centered around 35km east of Seddon, a town on the northern tip of New Zealand's south island.
The quake, which hit at 3.34pm, had a depth of 15km and was followed soon after by a 4.7 aftershock.
GeoNet rated the intensity of the earthquake as 'severe'.
Shaking was felt in Wellington more than 150km away.
The island has been hit by several aftershocks following the devastating 7.8-magnitude quake which struck in November.
The New Zealand Herald reported that no injuries or damage had been reported to the Wellington Free Ambulance or St John central communications.
Comment: Earlier this month the same area was rocked by another severe, shallow magnitude 5.5 earthquake; and two earthquakes in two minutes, one of them strong.
© Eric Hewey
Among the things Eric Hewey discovered washed up on the beach near Savary Park in Digby County were these starfish.
Among the things Eric Hewey discovered washed up on the beach near Savary Park in Digby County were these starfish.
Ted Leighton, an adjunct biology professor at Nova Scotia's University of Sainte-Anne, said social media photos showing bottom-dwellers strewn in the sand near Plympton, N.S., could be an indication that the phenomenon that has killed schools of herring in St. Marys Bay is possibly spreading to new species.
The retired veterinary pathologist has compiled more than 40 sightings of dead herring since late November, to shed light on an ecological puzzle that has stumped the scientific community.
The herring deaths were cause enough for concern, Leighton said, but now that new species have surfaced dead on a beach in Digby County, it's time to figure out "what's really going on."
"We're kind of in the dark, not from lack of trying, but from the complexity of the case," he said. "(There's) no firm data to rule anything in or out."
In mid-December, federal scientists said they had yet to determine what is causing the herring die-off, despite a battery of tests. Negative results have been reported for physical damage and several types of bacterial infections and viruses.
Colima eruption on December 27, 2016.
Luis Felipe Puente Espinosa, the Interior Ministry's public safety coordinator, said in a statement that the latest eruption occurred early Tuesday, and created an ash plume about 1.5 miles tall. Ash could fall up to 30 miles away from the volcano, he said.
The Colima volcano -- known by Mexicans as the Volcano of Fire -- is in Mexico's Colima state, a small state on the Pacific coast. Authorities have also declared an exclusion zone in neighboring Jalisco state.
"Respect the radius of exclusion of 4.6 miles in Jalisco and 7.4 miles in Colima," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The Interior Ministry said ash will mostly affect areas east and west of the volcano, while areas within about three miles of the volcano are at risk of falling volcanic debris.
The Sabancaya volcano started spewing ash and smoke some 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) into the air on Monday, in the latest in a series of worrying explosions in the south of the South American country.
The volcano, situated just 40 miles from Peru's second most populous city Arequipa in the Andes, returned to life at 8.24am on Monday just over a week after it began activity on December 16.
Local authorities have warned the local inhabitants they are likely to be affected by the ash from the 20,000-ft (6,000m) volcano whose name translates at 'tongue of fire' in the local dialect of Quechua.
© Northern Territories Police
Floods in Kintore, Northern Territories, Australia, December 2016.
Floods in Kintore, Northern Territories, Australia, December 2016.
The rain, caused by a deep low pressure system, was described as a one-in-50-year event by Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.
Parks Australia to close the Uluru National Park on Monday 26 December, 2016. Images on Social Media showed streams of water cascading down the sides of the landmark rock. The park has since re-opened.
Elsewhere in the Northern Territories, the Walungurru district recorded 231.6 mm of rain in 24 hours between 25 and 26 December, cutting off roads and washing out tracks. The previous highest daily rainfall record was 127.2 mm set in March 2006.
At around 7 am, elephants entered the bazaar from Bardiya National Park and trampled on Bimal Pariyar.
Ram Prasad Lamichhane and Dinesh Singh Thakuri were seriously injured in the attack.
Terrified local people ran for their dear life when the elephants entered the bazaar.
Nepal Army personnel and local people drove them back to the forest later.
© NASA
On December 22, lucky spectators on the ground photographed the dazzling phenomenon from below, while NASA's infrared satellite captured it from the above.
Comment: See more on northern lights:
- Iceland turns off city lights to view spectacular Northern Lights show
- New study explains how Aurora Borealis produces strange noises
© USGS
© USGS
Reuters reports that no tsunami warning has been issued as a result of the quake.
The epicenter was reported as Ibaraki Prefecture in central Japan, about 170 kilometers north of the capital Tokyo, and near the town of Daigo. The prefecture has a population of about three million people.
Japan's NHK news agency report that tremors were felt throughout "wide areas" of the east coast, although it is unclear how much damage has been caused.
NHK reports that the JMA will hold a press conference at 11:45pm local time to provide further information on disaster prevention and earthquake activity.
In 2011, the 9.0 magnitude Tohoku earthquake caused large scale destruction of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which remains one of the biggest environmental disaster zones on the planet.
Unusual jellyfish blooms affecting fishing activities in coastal areas
During the past fortnight, blooms of the mauve stinger (scientifically known as Pelagia noctiluca) have been observed in the continental shelf along the Sindh and Balochistan coasts.
Large aggregations of this stinging jellyfish, which are mauve to magenta in colour, have been reported in offshore waters of Karachi to the Indus Swatch (some 140km south of Karachi) and Ormara.
WWF-Pakistan studies revealed a population of more than 150 individuals per cubic metre, which is clogging the fishermen's nets. Its eight tentacles carry stinging cells known as cnidocytes.
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