Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Indonesia: Earthquake Magnitude 6.3 - Molucca Sea

Indonesia Quake_030810
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 12:08:26 UTC

Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 08:08:26 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
1.243°N, 126.277°E

Depth:
42.8 km (26.6 miles)

Region:
MOLUCCA SEA

Distances:
135 km (85 miles) WNW of Ternate, Moluccas, Indonesia

160 km (100 miles) E of Manado, Sulawesi, Indonesia

1590 km (990 miles) SSE of MANILA, Philippines

2310 km (1430 miles) ENE of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia

Phoenix

Russia on Fire: No air to breath, no home to return to

Intense temperatures and the worst dry spell for generations continue to pound parts of Russia, with at least forty lives now claimed by wildfires. Hundreds have been injured. Seven of the hardest-hit regions are now in a state of emergency. One of them is the greater Moscow area. RT's Natalya Novikova gives us a picture from the center of the capital, which has been gripped by smog. While outside the city, Peter Oliver says the situation remains severe.


Bizarro Earth

US: What's With the Weird Sky Color Sunday?

Weird Sky
© Shannon Fears / Seattlepi.comThe sun burns a strange, multi-hued glow through smoky skies Sunday afternoon as seen from Poulsbo.
Many around the Northwest noticed the sky looked a bit weird Sunday with the sunlight more of a brownish/orange akin to a sunset than midday sunshine.

It turns out, a decent plume of smoke from wildfires burning in inland British Columbia got caught up on the northerly flow and was pushed over Western Washington.

Go here to see an animation loop of the visible satellite over the area, taken between 10 a.m. and noon:

The smoke should subside by Monday morning.

Info

Grizzly cubs from deadly mauling were malnourished

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© AP Photo/Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks DepartmentThis image provided by the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department on Friday July 30, 2010, shows a captured grizzly sow believed to be responsible for the mauling death of one camper and injuring two others near Yellowstone National Park in Montana. The fate of the bear will be determined after DNA tests confirm whether it was responsible for the attacks.
Three grizzly bear cubs whose mother killed one person and mauled two others in a late-night attack at a Montana campground were malnourished and still in their winter coats.

The cubs have arrived at their new home at ZooMontana in Billings. Zoo executive director Jackie Worstell said Sunday the two female cubs and one male cub were underweight, possibly explaining their mother's unusually aggressive behavior.

"It may be an indication of what happened," Worstell said. "There's obvious signs of stress and malnourishment. Maybe (the sow) was desperate."

The year-old cubs each weighed only between 60 and 70 pounds, versus a normal range of 80 to 130 pounds. Wildlife officials are investigating what caused the cubs to be malnourished. Grizzlies are omnivores and eat everything from berries and ants to fish and elk.

Kevin Kammer, 48, of Grand Rapids, Mich., was killed and two people were seriously injured when the adult bear ripped into several tents Wednesday at the Soda Creek Campground near Cooke City, an old mining town just outside Yellowstone National Park.

Ambulance

Pakistan floods death toll rises to 1,100

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© KeystoneUSA-ZUMA / Rex FeaturesThe death toll from the Pakistan floods is set to rise even further.
Access blocked to areas in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa as authorities try to rescue 27,000 people trapped after heavy rains

The death toll from floods in north-west Pakistan has risen to 1,100 people, an official said today.

Adnan Khan, a disaster management official, said the toll could rise further, as there were areas in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province that rescue workers had not been able to access.

Authorities are struggling to save more than 27,000 people still trapped by flooding after heavy monsoon rains. Khan said more than 20,000 people had been rescued so far.

Efforts have been aided by an easing of the rains, but as flood waters recede authorities are seeing the full scale of the disaster.

"Aerial monitoring is being conducted, and it has shown that whole villages have washed away, animals have drowned and grain storages have washed away," said Latifur Rehman, a spokesman for the Provincial Disaster Management Authority. "The destruction is massive and devastating."

Phoenix

Record Heat Wave Fans Deadly Fires in Russia

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© Alex Aminev, Reuters
A security guard walks near grass, which was lit on fire by severe heat, at Khodynskoe pole aviation museum in Moscow July 29.
A record-breaking heat wave continued to send forest fires sweeping across parts of Russia today, destroying villages and leaving thousands homeless and up to 23 people dead, officials said.

More than 200,000 acres have been engulfed in the past few days, fueled by strong winds and a severe drought. Moscow's temperature hit 100 degrees on Thursday, the highest since measurements began 130 years ago. The city today faces severe thunderstorms.

In reaction to the anger expressed by villagers around the city of Nizhny Novgorod, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin canceled meetings in the capital and visited Verkhnava Vereva, some 300 miles east of Moscow.

Sun

71 Drown in Moscow During Record Heat Wave

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© Andrey Smirnov, AFP/Getty ImagesMoscow's record was broken several days after this report was made. Temperatures across Russia are now the warmest since records began 130 years ago.
The heat wave, which led to a record 71 drowning deaths Monday, will last another 10 days, the country's chief forecaster said.

Daily highs in European Russia will subside to between 30 and 33 degrees Celsius over the next two days before rebounding to 36 C or more by the end of weekend, Alexander Frolov, head of the Federal Meteorological Service, said Tuesday.

Temperatures have broken July records in dozens of cities in western Russia, including Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara, while Moscow may this weekend break the all-time record of 36.8 C set in August 1920.

Almost 300 people drowned in Russia last week as they sought to cool off in rivers, lakes and seas, with Monday's toll reaching a daily record of 71, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

Binoculars

Undersea River Discovered Flowing on Sea Bed

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© University of LeedsA 3-D radar image, using false colour, of the undersea river channel where it enters the Black Sea from the Bosphorus Strait.
Massive underwater rivers that flow along the bottom of the oceans have been discovered by scientists.

Researchers working in the Black Sea have found currents of water 350 times greater than the River Thames flowing along the sea bed, carving out channels much like a river on the land.

The undersea river, which is up to 115ft deep in places, even has rapids and waterfalls much like its terrestrial equivalents.

If found on land, scientists estimate it would be the world's sixth largest river in terms of the amount of water flowing through it.

The discovery could help explain how life manages to survive in the deep ocean far out to sea away from the nutrient rich waters that are found close to land, as the rivers carry sediment and nutrients with them.

Arrow Down

India: 23 Pilgrims Killed as Truck Falls into Gorge, Lashed by Torrential Rains, in Uttarakhand

Twenty-three pilgrims from Haryana were today killed when a truck in which they were travelling fell into a gorge in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand, which has been lashed by torrential rains during the last two days.

The incident took place at Dabrani on Rishikesh-Gangotri national highway about 70 kms from here when the truck, which was on its on way to Gangotri, fell into the 150 meter-deep gorge killing 23 'Kanwarias'( shiv devotees), Uttarkashi District Magistrate Saurabh Jain told PTI.

20 bodies have been fished out by the police and ITBP personnel, he said, adding efforts are on to extricate three more bodies from the accident site.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank has also ordered a magisterial probe into the incident.

Bizarro Earth

More than 800 dead in Pakistani floods

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© AP Photo/Mohammad SajjadA woman sits outside her house flooded by heavy monsoon rains in Peshawar, Pakistan on Friday, July 30, 2010. Boats and helicopters struggled to reach hundreds of thousands of villagers cut off by floods in northwest Pakistan on Friday as the government said it was the deadliest such disaster to hit the region since 1929.
Flooding in Pakistan has killed more than 800 people in a week, a government official said Saturday as rescuers struggled to reach marooned victims and some evacuees showed signs of fever, diarrhea and other waterborne diseases.

The flooding caused by record-breaking rainfalls caused massive destruction in the past week, especially in the northwest province, where officials said it was the worst deluge since 1929. The U.N. estimated Saturday that some 1 million people nationwide were affected by the disaster, though it didn't specify exactly what that meant.

The information minister for the northwest province, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, said reports coming in from various districts across the northwest showed that more than 800 people had died due to the flooding. Many people remain missing.

Floodwaters were receding in the northwest, officials said, but fresh rains were expected to lash other parts of the country in the coming days.