Earth Changes
As of 03 August, 14 people have died and nearly 250,000 displaced by floods across the districts of Purba Bardhaman, Paschim Medinipur, Hooghly, Howrah and South 24 Parganas.
News agency Press Trust of India (PTI), quoting local officials, said the flooding was a result of heavy rainfall and discharge of water from dams.
The rainfall was particularly pronounced on 29 July when Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district recorded 218 mm of rain, Midnapore 134 mm and Kolkata 146 mm.

Severe rain triggered flooding in seven provinces of the country, which have claimed three lives, and two went missing, spokesman or the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) has announced.
Currently, relief operations have been completed in five provinces, but continue in Qazvin and Zanjan provinces, he stated.
Over the last two years, Iran was doused with rain which was unprecedented during the past 50 years, but last year, unfortunately, the country faced drought, which shows a 40 percent decrease in rainfall.
Watershed management is a solution to strengthen the ecosystem in the face of subsequent droughts by penetrating rainfall into the ground.
The currently closed (for skiing and boarding) Stubai Glacier near Innsbruck in Austria is the latest to report a dusting of summer snow, following fellow Tirolean glacier ski area Hintertux last week (below).
Hintertux is one of five glaciers currently open for August skiing and snowboarding, along with Les 2 Alps in France, Zermatt and Saas Fee in Switzerland and Passo Stelvio in Italy.
Canterbury skifields received the majority of the heavy snowfall over the 24 hours to Tuesday evening, according to the SnowNZ website.
The Arrowsmith, Ragged, and Palmer ranges, operated on by Methven Heliski, led the way with a mammoth 62 centimetres of new snow. Tekapo's Roundhill Ski Area received 50cm, while Mount Cook Heliski region got 40cm, Temple Basin ski area near Arthur's Pass got 20cm, Ōhau got 15cm, Porters had 10cm, Wānaka's Treble Cone got 7cm, and Broken River got 5cm.
The group was hiking in the popular Ergaki national park in southern central Russia when the tragedy occurred on July 27.
Krasnoyarsk regional news service reports that the men scaled a wall of rocks once they saw the "drooling" bear - but one man, Yevenggny Starkov, 42, lagged behind.
One of the survivors told the local news that they watched their friend get devoured before fleeing further into the forest after the bear caught sight of them.
Swan Hills RCMP said they received a complaint of the bear attack shortly after 3 p.m. The victim was a tree planter from around the hamlet of Peers, working in the Swan Hills area with her co-worker.
"She was evacuated by her co-worker on a helicopter and brought back to the Swan Hills Airport where they met up with an ambulance, emergency crews, and she was subsequently declared deceased at the airport," RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Troy Savinkoff said Monday.
The witness at the scene told RCMP she believed it was a black bear, but RCMP said they have reached out to Alberta Fish and Wildlife who are taking the lead on the investigation to determine what type of bear it was and try to locate it.
Swan Hills is approximately 221 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
State, federal and contracted firefighters, augmented by helicopters and planes dropping fire retardant, pounced on the new wildfires in national forests in southwest Oregon before they could spread out of control. The largest one was estimated at up to 5 acres (2 hectares).
Thunderstorms unleashed some 700 lightning bolts that hit the ground and also brought rain to some places, but left others dry while triggering multiple fires, said Margueritte Hickman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service.
Firefighters and support personnel worked through the night to locate and extinguish fires.
The large rock fall, which happened on Saturday, blocked off the beach between Eype and Seatown in Dorset.
Dorset Council warned the fall had "not yet settled" and the ground inland was "relaxing with more cracks opening up".
The authority has urged people to obey the safety signs and not cross the cordons or climb on the debris on the beach.














Comment: In just the last year or so there seems to have been a significant uptick in the number and severity of landslides, rockfalls and sinkholes:
- Four dead and 80 still missing after torrential rains triggered a devastating landslide in Atami, Japan - UPDATE
- Himalayan glacier bursts in India causing flash flooding & destroying dam, 150 feared dead
- Huge landslide at peat bog in Donegal, Ireland
- Huge landslide hits residential area after large amounts of precipitation in southern Norway, 10 hurt, 26 unaccounted for
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