Earth Changes

2 children injured by bear in Poonch, India

Ishrat Butt
Greater Kashmir
Sun, 30 Oct 2016 19:19 UTC

Reports said that Muhammad Ilyas, 12, and his sister Sobeya Bi,7, were injured after bear attacked them in Loran area of Mandi tehsil in Poonch district.

A 12-year-old boy and his younger sister were injured in a bear attack in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Reports said that Muhammad Ilyas, 12, and his sister Sobeya Bi,7, were injured after bear attacked them in Loran area of Mandi tehsil in Poonch district.

The duo were out to fetch water when the attack took place.

Bear mauls man to death in Himachal Pradesh, India

The Times of India
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 18:45 UTC

In yet another death arising out of the growing cases of man-animal conflict in Himachal Pradesh, a bear mauled a 31-year-old man in a remote village in Kullu district on Wednesday morning.

Though the group of people accompanying Jeet Kumar back to Kehsan village in the district's Anni sub-division scared the animal away by shouting and blowing whistles, Jett succumbed to injuries on the spot. Anni deputy superintendent of police Baldev Thakur said Jeet had returned to the village after selling vegetables in the main market of Anni.

"The bear suddenly came out of the bushes when Jeet along with few others was near the village. He sustained deep injuries around the neck and throat in the attack that just last a few seconds. His body has been handed to his family after the post-mortem," he said.

Floods force thousands to evacuate in Gorontalo, Indonesia

Richard Davies
Floodlist
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 17:49 UTC

Floods in Gorontalo, Indonesia, October 2016.

Further flooding has been reported in Indonesia, this time in the province of Gorontalo, on the island of Sulawesi.

Earlier this week, one man died and thousands of homes and businesses were left damaged after floods in the city of Bandung, West Java. Reports said that 77 mm of rain fell in just 1.5 hours.

Gorontalo

Indonesia's National Disaster Management Authority (BNPB) reports that heavy rain in Gorontalo since 25 October triggered several rivers to overflow, causing floods that left at least 1,500 homes damaged. Several landslides also occurred in some places, causing damage to roads and bridges. Around 4,500 people were forced to evacuate their homes. No deaths have been reported at this time.

BNPD says that the Boyonga, Marisa, Meloopu and Bulota rivers all broke their banks around the same time during the evening of 25 October. The flooding affected the districts of Limboto, West Limboto, Pulubala, and Tolangohula. In some areas the flood water has already started to recede.

In some areas the flood water was up to 1 metre deep. Over 100 patients had to be evacuated from a local hospital, and moved to a hospital in the city of Gorontalo.

Flash floods hit Penang, Malaysia

Phuah Ken Lin
New Straits Times
Sat, 29 Oct 2016 15:23 UTC

Penang flash flood leaves thousands stranded

For the second time in two months, flash floods brought Penang to its knees, halting traffic and submerging homes in various parts of the city.

The floods, which have become a perennial problem on the island, also meant that a bleak Deepavali was on the cards for the Hindu community.

In Jalan P. Ramlee and arterial roads at Bandar Baru Air Itam, more than 100 houses were submerged in knee-deep water, forcing residents to salvage whatever they can.

Several roads in Lebuhraya Thean Teik and Jalan Thean Teik were also badly flooded, leaving dozens of cars submerged and their owners ruing the damages.

Floods waters also struck Jalan Masjid Negeri, one of the island's main arterial roads. Water levels rose quickly, reducing traffic to a crawl. Several cars which later attempted to brave the flood waters ended up stalled halfway.

The water also seeped into the common area on the ground floor at a densely-populated block of flats in Bandar Baru Air Itam.

Record snowfall freezes northeastern British Columbia grain harvest

cbc.ca
Fri, 28 Oct 2016 10:49 UTC

© Dave Gilson/CBC
Rick Kantz of the B.C. Grain Producers Association says snow has forced farmers across the Peace region in northeastern B.C to leave anywhere between 10 to 20 per cent of their crop in the fields.

A record snowfall is forcing grain farmers in northeastern B.C. to halt their harvest.

On Oct. 1, Fort St. John received 23 centimetres of snow, The old record for the day was six centimetres set in 1954.

"This is probably the most severe one-off weather condition that I can remember in the last 40 years," said Rick Kantz, president of the B.C. Grain Producers Association.

Kantz said harvest had already been difficult this year.

"[The fields] were extremely wet before the snows came ... so instead of travelling across the surface, you're sinking in."

He said it's been raining and snowing since then, and the weather has forced grain farmers to leave anywhere between 10 to 20 per cent of their crops in the field.

"You're down 20 per cent of your income ... you might have enough to cover expenses but it doesn't leave much for wages to carry on," he explained.

Study: Receding glaciers leave communities at risk in Bolivia

Eurasia Review
Fri, 21 Oct 2016 08:20 UTC

A new study published in The Cryosphere, an European Geosciences Union journal, has found that Bolivian glaciers shrunk by 43% between 1986 and 2014, and will continue to diminish if temperatures in the region continue to increase.

"On top of that, glacier recession is leaving lakes that could burst and wash away villages or infrastructure downstream," said lead-author Simon Cook, a lecturer at the Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK.

Receding glaciers also put water supply in the region at risk. Glacial meltwater is important for irrigation, drinking water and hydropower, both for mountain villages and large cities such as La Paz and El Alto. Throughout the year, the 2.3 million inhabitants of these two cities receive about 15% of their water supply from glaciers, with this percentage almost doubling during the dry season. Glacier retreat also means less water is available to supply rivers and lakes, such as southern Bolivia's Lake Poopó, which recently dried up.

Comment: Bolivia's second-largest lake has completely dried up

The new study is one of the first to monitor recent large-scale glacier change in Bolivia, to better understand how receding glaciers could affect communities in the country. "The novelty of our study lies in the bigger picture — measuring glacier change over all main glaciated ranges in Bolivia — and in the identification of potentially dangerous lakes for the first time," Cook said.

Strong 7.1 magnitude earthquake hits central Italy, tremors felt in Rome- USGS

RT
Sun, 30 Oct 2016 08:06 UTC

A powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake has hit central Italy, Reuters reports citing the United States Geological Survey and local broadcasters. This comes only three days after two more tremors shook the region on Wednesday, leaving villages partly destroyed.

There were no immediate reports on damage or casualties caused by the quake.

However, local RAI TV reports that the tremor was powerful enough to wake the residents of the capital Rome, who reported walls of buildings shaking.

Initial reports on the magnitude of the tremors varied - while the USGS and Italian media talked of a 7.1 earthquake, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) said the tremor was magnitude 6.5 or 6.6.

The USGS reports the quake was centered 68 km (42 miles) east-southeast of the city of Perugia and 132 kilometers northeast of Rome. The epicenter lay some 108 kilometers deep.

Heavy rainfall and flash floods kill 26 in Egypt

Al-Ahram
Sat, 29 Oct 2016 20:47 UTC

Heavy rain floods a street in the Egyptian city of Ras Gharib in Red Sea province on October 27, 2016

The death toll from torrential rain and flooding in Egypt has risen to 26 people, state news agency MENA reported on Saturday, citing the health and population ministry.

A further 72 people were injured following the floods over the weekend, according to the ministry.

In South Sinai, nine people were killed and another was injured. In Upper Egypt's Sohag, eight people were killed, 23 injured, and in Beni Suef, a further five people were injured.

In the Red Sea, nine people were killed and 35 others injured.

On Saturday, Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ordered a total of EGP 50 million (around $5.6 million) to be allocated as compensation to the victims of the floods nationwide, while a further EGP 50 million was allocated for an urgent restoration of infrastructure in areas affected by the floods.

Signs and Portents: Two-headed turtle born in Khatam, Iran

Sputnik
Sat, 29 Oct 2016 18:37 UTC

Two-headed turtle

A two-headed turtle has been born in Khatam, a city in Iran's central Yazd Province, The Tehran Times reported.

The head of the local environmental protection department, Saber Afhami, told the newspaper that the newborn turtle was in good health, the newspaper wrote.

The rare turtle arrived into this world in the company of another, less odd-looking single-headed, one.

Saber Afhami held out hope that scientists would look into the cause of this unusual phenomenon.

2 cars plunge into sinkhole of boiling hot water in Samara, Russia

Genevieve Hayward
The Sun (UK)
Sat, 29 Oct 2016 17:47 UTC

The water was so hot, anybody inside the cars would have been boiled alive

Hot steam gushed from a massive 15-metre sinkhole that opened up in a Russian road

This is the bizarre moment two cars got sucked into a giant sinkhole filled with boiling water.

The incident happened in the south-west Russian city of Samara when massive pipes containing hot water from a central heating system burst underneath a road, causing a massive 15 metre sinkhole to open up.

Hot steam could be seen rising out of the sinkhole as tarmac and the two cars fell inside.

Local media reported that had anybody been inside the cars they would have been boiled alive.