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More Florida sinkholes open up, including 100 foot wide gash in Marion Country

Amanda Evans, Dave D'Marko & Margaret Kavanagh
cfnews13.com
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 05:11 UTC
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A sinkhole looks to swallow an entire truck near Ocala Monday morning.
Severe weather from Tropical Storm Debby overnight has left a mess Monday morning in Marion County, where emergency managers said a tornado may have touched down.

Marion County emergency managers reported a possible tornado touchdown around 11 p.m. in Ocala, near Highway 326 and Northwest 80th Avenue, about six miles southwest of Lowell.

Officials said six to seven buildings were damaged, including a barn with a damage roof. The damage reportedly spanned a mile to a mile and a half north to south.

The storm knocked down trees, left debris along the roadways and caused some flooding around storm drains in the area.

"I was in bed and it woke me up," said Joanne Stover, who lives near the reported touchdown. "It sounded like a train, and the house started moving. Then it was just over."

Limbs from some trees have been caught up in some power lines, knocking out power for more than 2,000 customers.
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Arrow Down

Florida riddled with sinkholes: Multiple sinkholes open in Hernando County

Tony Holt
Hernando Today
Wed, 27 Jun 2012 05:01 UTC
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In the Trillium community of Brooksville, at least 15 sinkholes sliced up several front and back yards.
Brooksville - Chris Cook heard the suction from inside his house Sunday night.

It was dark, windy and raining. He saw the water stretching beyond the edge of the retention pond behind a row of homes along Nodding Shade Drive. It was inching toward the pole to his bird house, which is about 20 paces from his back porch.

Cook shined his flashlight to the left. He was joined outside by his next-door neighbor, who was hearing the same sounds.

He saw the whirlpool. He knew the depression underneath the flowing water was a fresh sinkhole.

In 24 hours, he saw 14 more open up in his neighborhood - some of them deeper than 20 feet.
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Cloud Lightning

Landslides, Floods Kill 76 in Southern Bangladesh

Farid Hossain
ABC News
Wed, 27 Jun 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Reuters
The rescue operation has been hampered by the heaviness of the rainfall
Dhaka, Bangladesh - Landslides and floods caused by heavy monsoon rains killed at least 76 people in southern Bangladesh and rescuers Wednesday were searching for more missing, officials said.

Three days of rain had hit the region of small hills and forests, and huge chunks of earth and mud buried flimsy huts where families were sleeping late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Many homeless people live at the foot of the hills or close to them despite warnings from authorities.

Monsoon floods are common in Bangladesh, a delta nation of 160 million people. Many of the dead were women and children, and the death toll is likely to rise as rescuers are searching for several missing people, officials said.

Volunteers using loudspeakers had warned people about the danger of landslides during the recent monsoon rains, said Jaynul Bari, a government administrator in one of the stricken areas, Cox's Bazar district. The floods inundated dozens of villages and were disrupting communications in the region.
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Better Earth

Quake Hits Northwestern Iran


Fars News
Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:34 UTC
Image
© Unknown
An earthquake measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale jolted the County of Nahavand in Hamedan province, Northwestern Iran, on Wednesday.

The Seismological center of Hamedan province affiliated to the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University registered the quake at 06:55 hours local time (0225 GMT).

The epicenter of the quake was located in an area 48.4 degrees in longitude and 34.1 degrees in latitude.

There are yet no reports on the number of possible casualties or damage to properties by the quake.

Iran sits astride several major faults in the earth's crust, and is prone to frequent earthquakes, many of which have been devastating.

The worst in recent times hit Bam in southeastern Kerman province in December 2003, killing 31,000 people - about a quarter of its population - and destroying the city's ancient mud-built citadel.

The deadliest quake in the country was in June 1990 and measured 7.7 on the Richter scale. About 37,000 people were killed and more than 100,000 injured in the northwestern provinces of Gilan and Zanjan. It devastated 27 towns and about 1,870 villages.

Tehran alone sits on two major fault lines, and the capital's 14 million residents fear a major quake.
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Phoenix

Waldo Canyon Fire: Colorado wildfire worsens, forcing 7,000 more from homes

Keith Coffman
Reuters
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 22:39 UTC
fire
© Reuters/Rick Wilking
A monster Colorado wildfire raging near some of the most visited tourist areas in the state took a turn for the worse on Tuesday as hot winds pushed flames north, prompting the evacuation of 7,000 more people, officials said.

Colorado's so-called Waldo Canyon fire sent a mushroom cloud of smoke nearly 20,000 feet into the air over Colorado Springs near Pikes Peak, whose breathtaking vistas from the summit helped inspire the song "America the Beautiful".

Closer to the blaze, which has been fanned by winds blowing into the Southern Rockies from the prairies to the east, trees were visibly twisting from the heat of the flames.

The latest evacuations brought the total number of people forced from their homes to about 12,000 as the blaze posed a renewed threat to hundreds of dwellings and appeared to have roared to within about a mile of the U.S. Air Force Academy grounds in Colorado Springs.
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Alarm Clock

As Silent Spring's 50th Anniversary Nears, What Would Rachel Carson Be Saying Now?

Paul R. Ehrlich
Environmental Health News
Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:29 UTC
Image
© Environmental Health News
Many people have the impression that climate disruption is the worst environmental problem humanity faces, and indeed, its consequences may be catastrophic. But the spread of toxic chemicals from pole to pole may be the dark horse in the race. We could just pursue business as usual and count on luck to save civilization. Maybe no truly lethal synergies will turn up, or no new chemical will become global before it is discovered to cause cancer. Maybe the poisonings will not collapse ecological systems and bring down civilization. Perhaps advances in molecular biology will neutralize any dangerous new chemicals or cure any serious diseases that appear. And perhaps they won't. Is it wise to sit by and not take substantial measures? In democracies, the decision rests ultimately with the citizens; I think it is crystal clear what Rachel Carson, author of the 1962 book Silent Spring, would have recommended.
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Phoenix

Flagstaff Fire: Blaze at 200-300 acres; pre-evacuation orders for south Boulder, Colorado

Mitchell Byars and Laura Snider
Boulder Camera
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:31 UTC

Aided by a massive C-130 air tanker, Boulder County firefighters are battling a 200-to-300-acre wildfire west of Boulder this afternoon, a fast-growing and "extreme" blaze that has forced the evacuation of 26 households in the foothills and put parts of south Boulder on pre-evacuation notice.

Approximately 931 south Boulder phone numbers have been called with pre-evaucation warnings.

"We're about one ridge over from the city of Boulder," Boulder County sheriff's spokesman Rick Brough said of the fire at an afternoon press briefing.

The fire started near the 1500 block of Bison Drive in the Walker Ranch area around 1:15 p.m. and is believed to have been sparked by lightning, Brough said.

The blaze is now burning toward the northeast, Brough said.
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Bizarro Earth

Floods cut part of main interstate highway as Debby storms over Florida - total of 2 feet of rain possible by weekend


CBS News
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:36 UTC
Parts of the main interstate highway across northern Florida were closed by flooding Tuesday as Tropical Storm Debby hung stubbornly offshore over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening up to two feet of rain in places.

After raking Florida's Gulf coast with high winds and heavy rain, Debby promised to bring more of the same in the coming days as it drifted on a path forecast to take it over the state and east into the Atlantic by Friday.

The National Hurricane Center said Debby was about 85 miles west of Cedar Key, Florida, and moving eastward near 3 mph. It had maximum sustained winds near 45 mph, barely tropical-storm status.

But the wind, high surf and relentless rain have made the storm's presence felt.

      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Update: Uganda tragedy: 450 people missing and believed to be buried under mountains of mud


BBC News
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 08:51 UTC
Image
© Peter Busomoke/AFP/Getty Images
Ugandan soldiers and relatives search for victims of a landslide in Bududa in 2010.
Rescue workers in Uganda have abandoned efforts to find an estimated 70 people believed to be buried in a landslide. Eighteen people have been confirmed dead after three villages were swept away on the slopes of Mount Elgon. Uganda's Red Cross told the BBC efforts were now concentrating on looking after the injured and displaced.

In March 2010, thousands were forced to flee after after a landslide killed more than 350 people in Uganda's eastern Bududa district.

'Many cracks'

Ken Kiggundu, director of disaster management for Uganda's Red Cross, told the BBC that 72 people were still missing. He added that 480 had been displaced and were now living with relatives and friends following Monday's landslide, which occurred after a number of days of heavy rain. "At 2pm, the ground trembled, followed by heavy rumbling of soil and stones which covered our home," Rachael Namwono, a villager in Bududa district, told Uganda's private Monitor newspaper.
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Heart - Black

An Entire Species Dies with Lonesome George

Nadine Bells
Daily Brew
Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:00 UTC
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Lonesome George
One turtle dies, an entire species becomes extinct. That's the story of 100-year-old giant tortoise Lonesome George. His death on at Galapagos National Park's breeding centre marked the end of his kind.

Lonesome George was discovered on Pinta Island in 1972, at a time when giant tortoises of his kind - known as Geochelone nigra abingdoni - were already believed to be extinct. Instead, it appeared that he was the last one.

All attempts to breed the tortoise failed.

"The plight of Lonesome George provided a catalyst for an extraordinary effort by the government of Ecuador to restore not only tortoise populations throughout the archipelago but also improve the status of other endangered and threatened species," the park said.
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