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Bizarro Earth

Restless underwater volcano disrupts life on Canary Island

Image
© Guardia Civil
Madrid - Steaming magma is bubbling onto the sea surface. The earth shakes, and a smell of sulphur floats in the air.

For over a month, residents of the Spanish Canary Island of El Hierro have lived with an active underwater volcano that not only poses a security threat, but also scares off tourists and endangers the inhabitants' livelihoods.

Volcanic eruptions could continue for weeks, civil protection science representative Carmen Lopez said this week.

However, the situation has been deemed safe enough for the 550 evacuated residents of the fishing village of La Restinga to return home, though the island was still being hit by earthquakes.

The earth began trembling on El Hierro on July 19, in a sign that magma was rising toward the surface of the smallest Canary Island.

Cloud Lightning

Crews seek survivors as Southeast storm death toll rises to 6

The death toll from a storm system that spawned several possible tornadoes as it slammed the Southeast has risen to at least six, officials said Thursday as search crews went out to look for more victims and survivors.

Officials in central North Carolina said the deaths of a woman and a child in Davidson County were weather-related. However, Emergency Services director Jeff Smith did not have any other details early Thursday.


Suspected tornadoes were reported Wednesday in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina. Severe weather also hit Georgia.

Dozens of homes and buildings were damaged and thousands of people were without power as trees and power lines were downed.

In South Carolina, three people were killed and five injured when a likely tornado swept through a rural community near Rock Hill, about 20 miles south of Charlotte, N.C. One person died in northern Georgia when a tree fell on a car, the fire department in Forsyth, Ga., confirmed.

NBC station WCNC reported that search crews in York County, S.C., were to head back out Thursday morning to look for anyone who still might be unaccounted for and help cleaning up.

Fish

Thousands of piranhas invade popular Brazilian tourist beach

Image
© Unknown
Thousands of flesh-eating piranhas have infested a beach popular with tourists in western Brazil and have bitten at least 15 unwary swimmers.

Officials in the city of Caceres in Mato Grosso state say this is the first time they have had a problem with piranhas at the Daveron beach on the Paraguay river, where the aggressive fish began schooling about two weeks ago.

"People have got to be very careful. If they're bitten, they've got to get out of the water rapidly and not allow the blood to spread," firefighter Raul Castro de Oliveira told Globo TV's G1 website yesterday.

Elson de Campos Pinto, 22, was bitten on Sunday.

"I took a dip in the river and when I stood up, I felt pain in my foot," Pinto told G1.

"I saw that I had lost the tip of my toe. I took off running out of the river, afraid that I would be further attacked because of the blood. I'm not going back in for a long time."

City officials said the beach will remain open because it's an important draw for tourists in Brazil's Pantanal region, known for its ecotourism.

Bizarro Earth

Guatemala: 2 back-to-back Earthquakes hit within minutes of each other - 5.1 and 5.0 magnitude

Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 13:31:11 UTC

Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 07:31:11 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
14.729°N, 91.858°W

Depth:
96.6 km (60.0 miles)

Region:
GUATEMALA

Distances:
38 km (23 miles) WSW of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

47 km (29 miles) ESE of Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico

144 km (89 miles) W of GUATEMALA, Guatemala

935 km (580 miles) ESE of MEXICO CITY, D.F., Mexico

Bizarro Earth

5.7 Magnitude Earthquake Rattles Coast of Ecuador

Ecuador earthquake map 11.17.11
© USGS
A 5.7 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Ecuador at 1:57 UTC. The depth of the earthquake was 29.8 km (18.5 miles) SW of Manta and 380 km (236 miles) WSW of the capital QUITO, Ecuador. At the end of October, a 4.0 magnitude earthquake near Quito caused landslides and left cracks in some homes. Buildings were shaken but there have been no reports yet issued of damages. Ecuador sits in the Nazca tectonic plate which creates adjacent stress with the neighboring Caribbean Plate.

Bizarro Earth

Bangladesh Crisis: Population Explosion and Earthchanges Leaves Country Looking Elsewhere for Farmland

BangladeshFarmWomen
© n/a
Bangladesh is looking for farmland outside the country.

"Whether from the public sector or the private sector, the government of Bangladesh is fully behind any attempts to seek out unused land beyond its borders," Minister of Food and Disaster Management Muhammad Abdur Razzaque told IRIN, the news service of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

So far Bangladeshi officials are involved in preliminary discussions with Ukraine for wheat production and are considering Cambodia for rice, as well as ventures with sub-Saharan Africa, Razzaque said.

The dominant food crop of Bangladesh is rice, accounting for about 94.55 percent of the total cereal crop production.

With little arable land and frequent natural disasters, Bangladesh has often struggled to feed its population, now totaling about 160 million. It has the highest population density in the world but also one of the lowest rates of arable land per resident in the world, totaling about 54 hectares per 1,000 people in 2008, World Bank figures show.

Question

Ohio, US: Mystery Smell Dissipates After Prompting 911 Calls

Image
© Unknown
A pungent odor invaded a local community, forcing many concerned residents to call 911. The smell was gone by Tuesday night, but it lingered over Lorain for several hours Tuesday morning.

"I smell gas down here on West 21st Street and I don't know where it's coming from, but it's pretty strong down here," said one 911 caller.

"I got a strong odor of gas in my apartment, it just woke me out of my sleep," said another.

Lorain firefighters responded to calls from all over the city between 5 a.m. 9 a.m. Tuesday. The complaints are all the same.

"It's a real, real strong propane smell," said another 911 caller.

"It just smelled like gas, it was a really bad smell, and everything, and I smelled it all the way from my house, all the way up to the high school and everything," said Lorain resident Samantha Haupt.

Radar

Strong Magnitude 6.2 Earthquake Hit Eastern Indonesian Province of Papua, Causing Panic Among Residents

Earthquake
© redOrbit
A strong earthquake hit Indonesia's eastern province of Papua on Wednesday, causing panic among residents, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

The earthquake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2, struck at 8:42 a.m. local time Wednesday (11:42 p.m. GMT Tuesday), said Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency.

The agency said the quake was centered about 34 kilometers (21 miles) southwest of the mountainous town of Oksibil at a depth of 57 kilometers (35 miles).

It shocked residents in Oksibil, which is located south of Papua's provincial capital, Jayapura.

Attention

Italy: Etna erupts for eighteenth time this year

Mt. Etna
© Dr. Boris Behncke
Strombolian activity at Etna as seen on July 5, 2011.
Etna has intensified its activity today with fountains of lava and ash causing restrictions to air traffic. This eighteenth eruption this year has followed the Stromboli pattern as previous ones did and lasted just a couple of hours. The Crisis Unit at the Catania Fonatanrossa Airport met to assess potential consequences for flights and restricted air space until 16.30 without however affecting passenger flights.

Bizarro Earth

New Zealand: Mass Whale Stranding at Golden Bay

Stranded Whales
© New Zealand Herald
Half of the pod of pilots whales stranded at Golden Bay have died, according to DoC.

Half of a pod of sixty-five pilot whales stranded on Farewell Spit in Golden Bay have died.

The surviving 34 are stuck in shallow water, between two and three kilometres offshore.

Department of Conservation (DOC) Golden Bay area manager John Mason said there was nothing that could be done for them, other than to hope they manage to swim away on the next high tide.

"They're in a very remote location and they're in a very dangerous location to try and rescue them because to rescue a whale you have to stay with it until it can swim and to do that the water level is usually between your waste and your chest.

Once you've let the whale go you then have to head back to the beach yourself, which in this case would be two to three kilometres away, so we don't rescue them in those situations.

"All we can do is monitor them. I'm not optimistic that they're going to get back to sea but we certainly wish them well and hope that they make it.''