Torrential rain and floods washed away buildings and roads, killing at least 23 people in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, officials said Monday.


More than a dozen people died in the state's Rudraprayag district alone, while another 50 people were missing, said Amit Negi, an official in Uttarakhand.

A landslide triggered by the monsoon rains buried a bus, killing three people in Almora district.

An earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale has struck off Indonesia's most densely-populated island of Java, but there have been no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

According to the US Geological Survey, the quake took place at 11:47 pm (1647 GMT) on Thursday and was centered some 170 kilometers (106 miles) east of Flying Fish Cove, on Australia's Christmas Island.

The US Geological Survey also said that the quake was 11 kilometers (7 miles) deep.

The tremor has reportedly forced panicked residents and hotel guests to flee into the streets in Kawalu, West Java province.

Following the tremor, the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency issued a statement saying that "There are no immediate reports of damage or casualties, but we know the quake was felt in several parts of Java...There is no potential for a tsunami."

On April 20, a 6.4 -magnitude earthquake jolted Indonesia's Maluku, but caused no casualties or material damage.

On April 6, an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale struck eastern Indonesia's mountainous West Papua province.

Indonesia is vulnerable to earthquakes since it is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region known for its seismic and volcanic activity caused by friction between shifting tectonic plates.

Last year, a 6.4-magnitude quake rocked the west coast of Sumatra Island, killing at least one person. An 8.7-magnitude earthquake also hit off the city of Banda Aceh in Sumatra Island in May 2012, triggering regional tsunami alerts.

A strong quake off the shores of Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 13 countries around the Indian Ocean in 2004. Most of the deaths were in the northern Indonesian province of Aceh.

Thousands of fish have died in the past week at Cave Run Lake.

Biologists are still searching for the cause, which affected white bass, said Dave Baker, a spokesman with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.

The "fish kill" was similar to one in the early 2000s.

Bob Durborow, aquaculture extension specialist at Kentucky State University, said the white bass he examined had bacterial infections, which contributed to their condition, but was likely not the primary cause of the fish kill.

"It may have been some kind of virus," Baker added, saying biologist won't know until test results come back.

"It seems to have run its course," Baker said, adding that state officials are not seeing any new fish dying. But last weekend and earlier this week, there were many dead fish scattered around the surface of the lake.

Baker said anglers this weekend should not eat any fish that "don't look right." He said look for sores or other blemishes. To which I added, avoid eating fish that don't smell right, either! Baker reminded people not to eat dead or dying fish.

Gerry Buynak, assistant director of fisheries for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, said anglers first observed thousands of dead and struggling white bass in Cave Run Lake the weekend of June 8. No other species were affected.

The 8,270-acre lake is near Morehead.

To help maintain the fishery, biologists stocked 64,000 fingerling-sized white bass in Cave Run Lake on June 13.

Millions of moths have engulfed Madrid in a population explosion blamed on spring rains, a sudden blast of summer heat and winds that have wafted them in as unwelcome guests to the Spanish capital.

Across the city, people are swapping tales of night-time battles to swat moths lured by the light into their bedrooms, a whole new genre of jokes has been born and the phenomenon has become a trending Twitter topic.

No-one is sure of precisely where they came from.

Roger Vila, researcher at the butterfly diversity and evolution laboratory in the northeastern city of Barcelona identified three types of moth from photographic evidence: the gamma, noctua and catocala.

Many of them flew to the capital from southern Spain but others may have migrated from northern Africa on a long journey across the Gibraltar Strait to destinations across Europe, he told AFP on Thursday.

A huge sinkhole has closed both lanes of Highway 2 north of Prince Albert.Officials say a washout from heavy rains caused the road collapse.

The sinkhole is located about 52 kilometres north of the Waskesiu turnoff.Repairs are underway, but it wasn't known when the highway would reopen.

An apparent sinkhole swallowed up the front end of a semi tractor-trailer in Mission, Kan. Saturday afternoon.The pictures below were sent to FOX 4 by Jamie McCray. Others also watched as authorities tried to retrieve the truck from the lot. FOX 4 is working to gather more information on this developing story after the heavy rains.

This is fairly important news given the sun is strongly a magnetic entity, moreover this might be in line with some predictions about a kind of magnetic collapse.

US honey bees have been dying by the tens of millions, with annual death rates of about 30 percent. With fewer bees to pollinate fruits and vegetables each year, 'beemageddon' may soon cause the collapse of the agriculture industry.

Honey bees pollinate more than 100 US crops, including apples, zucchinis, avocados and plums, that are worth more than $200 billion a year. Since 2006, about 10 million bee hives at an average value of $200 each have been lost in what scientists call the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), according to a new report by the US Department of Agriculture.

There are currently about 2.5 million honey bee colonies in the US, which is a drastic decrease from the 6 million that existed in 1947 and the 3 million that existed in 1990. Last winter alone, the honey bee population declined by 31.1 percent, with some beekeepers reporting losses of 90 to 100 percent. In the previous two winters, beekeepers lost about 22 percent of their populations.

"Currently, the survivorship of honey bee colonies is too low for us to be confident in our ability to meet the pollination demands of US agricultural crops," the USDA report states.

There was an old man from the Freedman's town of Joppa named Bad Leg Fred who once ran a private fishing concession here in the 70s and 80s. For a buck or two, he'd let you drown worms for an afternoon in the pond the locals called Bad Leg Fred Lake. Stocked with bass, crappie, perch, catfish and carp the place was popular with locals who wanted a cheap place to fish.

Old Fred has most likely passed away. Unfortunately so has his lake and the fish in it.

That old pond sits inside River Oaks Park, part of Joppa Preserve and one of the trailheads for the Trinity River concrete trail at 4800 River Oaks Road.

The Corps of Engineers calls the place West Pond. North of River Oaks Road and about 5 acres in size this body of water is most likely an old gravel pit excavated for dam construction and improvement of Lemmon Lake which sits due east. An archeological site was identified there in the 1940s and is noted on the inset map as 41DL78. The pond was most likely used in the 50s and 60s to draw water for cement manufacturing.

The Ministry of Environment (MoE) has concluded its investigation into the deaths of thousands of small fish in a large detention pond in Willband Creek Park in Abbotsford, and the incident remains a mystery.

MoE spokesman David Karn said an emergency response officer tested the water temperature, pH levels, conductivity and dissolved oxygen, and determined none of those were connected to the deaths.

Contamination of the water was also ruled out.

"There was no obvious source of contamination and no physical sign that the fish were exposed to a chemical contaminant," Karn said.

The city's environmental team was also notified. Rhonda Livingstone, spokesperson for the City of Abbotsford, said the fish kill is being considered an "unfortunate mystery."

"City staff will be closely monitoring the ponds to see if any new issues crop up, but the hope is that we won't have any similar incidents and we can chalk this up to a one-time, unusual event," she said.

The dead fish were discovered on Sunday, May 12 by Abbotsford resident Gary Stewart while he was out for a walk.

Stewart immediately informed the ministry, which sent out an environmental emergency response officer that afternoon.

Volunteers with the Ravine Park Salmon Enhancement Society were also notified, and they determined that the fish were three-spined stickleback. No other fish appeared to have been impacted.

Doug Gosling, a member of the Stoney Creek Salmon Stalkers, which is affiliated with RPSES, said he is disappointed that the MoE is not investigating the incident further.

"Thousands of fish showing up on the shores of one of our local waterways seems to me to be important enough to garner a fairly significant investigation ... by doing nothing much more than a little snoop-around and shrugging our shoulders won't help in preventing another similar event."

He said the MoE should be pushed to provide answers.

"I think they need to know there are lots of people interested in this event and something needs to be done to prevent it happening again."

Willband Creek Park is located in east Abbotsford at Highway 11 and Bateman Road.