Earth ChangesS

Bizarro Earth

Flashback Scientists urge guard against comet disaster

There is a one-in-10,000 chance that an asteroid or comet, more than two kilometres in diameter, will collide with Earth in the next century, killing a large proportion of the population, according to space scientists.

Bizarro Earth

Flashback Fire stones support catastrophe theory

MILLIONS of small fire-blackened stones in Ireland and Scotland are giving support to the theory that northern parts of the British Isles were depopulated by a nuclear winter-style disaster almost 3,200 years ago.

Telescope

Flashback Comet may have caused catastrophe on Earth; Collision of celestial body gaining support as likely reason behind string of disasters in the sixth century

A GIANT meteor or comet fragment - the size of some of those which last week collided with Jupiter - may have played a key role in determining human history, according to new evidence.

Scientific investigations suggest that a collision between Earth and a celestial body may have been partially responsible for the final demise of classical civilisation and the onset of the Dark Ages.

Cloud Lightning

Last weekend's rain in Minnesota obliterates single day record

The rains that triggered widespread flooding in southeastern Minnesota last weekend smashed a state rainfall record for a 24-hour period, according to the National Weather Service. It broke the old record by more than 4 inches.

A Naitonal Weather Service gauge near the town of Hokah in Houston County had 15.1 inches of rainwater in it when measured at 8 a.m. Sunday morning. The previous record -- set in July 1972 at Fort Ripley, Minn., in the central part of the state -- was 10.84 inches.

Bizarro Earth

Moderate Earthquake Rocks Northern Japan

A moderate earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 jolted northern Japan Sunday afternoon, the U.S. Geological Survey said. No tsunami warning was issued.

The quake was centered 145 miles northeast off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island, according to the USGS. It struck 37 miles under the ocean floor.

Bizarro Earth

Thousands Ordered to Flee Idaho Wildfire

A mandatory evacuation was ordered Saturday for residents of more than 1,000 homes south of Ketchum, where a massive wildfire raged and high winds grounded firefighting air tankers.

After three days of relative calm, the 39-square-mile fire was 38 percent contained, but embers blew ahead of the blaze and increased the threat of spot fires, fire spokesman Bob Beanblossom said.

©AP/NASA
This image provided by NASA Thursday Aug. 16, 2007 was taken by one of the crew aboard the International Space Station of wide-spread forest fires in the Payette National Forest, Central Idaho within the Salmon River Mountains Monday.

Cloud Lightning

Queensland's wild weather caused by 'freak event'

The weather bureau says the current low pressure system over south-east Queensland is "a freak event" that has not been seen in Australia since the 1800s.

The system has left backpackers and Indonesian sailors stranded on the coast and substantial rainfall in the Condamine River catchment in inland southern Queensland.

©ABC News
Indonesian sailors ran aground on Rainbow Beach yesterday.

Cloud Lightning

Midwest storms part of once every hundred years weather pattern

A series of storms that has pummeled the Upper Midwest is part of a very unusual weather pattern.

Jonathan Martin is chairman of the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He says it only comes around once every 100 or 200 years.

Cloud Lightning

Severe weather kills 50 in Yemen

Fifty people are dead as a result of violent weather that has raged across Yemen since early this month, KUNA reported Saturday.

The Yemeni Interior Ministry said seven died and scores were injured when heavy rain and floods drenched western Yemen Saturday.

Lightning also killed nine people from the same family in Rimma.

X

New update: 51 dead as Greek forest fires rage on

Forest fires raged unabated today on the Peloponnese peninsula of southern Greece, killing at least 51 people as flames threatened historic sites including Ancient Olympia.

"We are dealing with a national catastrophe, without precedent," said Niakalaos Diamantis, a fire service spokesman.

The Greek Health Ministry announced this morning that the death toll had climbed past 50, putting it among the world's deadliest forest fires of modern times.

©AP
Fires in Greece as captured by NASA satelite

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