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Shark kills 15-year-old girl off Reunion island, Indian Ocean


newsdaily.com
Mon, 15 Jul 2013 07:38 UTC
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Shark
A teenage girl tourist was killed in a shark attack on Monday while swimming off the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, the second such attack this year in the French overseas territory.

Local officials said the 15-year-old was attacked in the mid-afternoon while swimming just a few metres (yards) from shore in Saint-Paul bay on the western side of the island.

The girl, on holiday from mainland France, was swimming with another girl who had just climbed on shore when the attack took place.

"Part of her body was carried away by the shark. Firefighters, lifeguards and a police helicopter are carrying out a search," said Gina Hoarau, the head of public safety in Saint-Paul.

"The conditions of this attack are very surprising. We didn't think a shark could come so close to the shore," Hoarau said.

A 36-year-old French honeymooner was killed by a shark in May while surfing not far from the island's popular beach of Brisants de Saint-Gilles.

Last year, 78 shark attacks were reported around the world, of which eight were fatal.

Source: Agence France-Presse
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Bizarro Earth

Mysterious disaster in India seen from space

Larry O'Hanlon
Discovery News
Mon, 15 Jul 2013 14:48 UTC
Mystery Landslide
© Indian National Remote Sensing Center
The village of Rambara is one of scores that were wiped off the map by the monsoon-triggered floods and debris flows in northern India last month.
Animated Image
It has taken some time for the news to come out of India, but there has been a major landslide disaster that has claimed an estimated 6,000 lives. In the remote, mountainous north of the country, steep slopes have given way and launched flows of rock and water that have destroyed or seriously damaged some 240 villages and small towns.

A very good place to get the details of the events, as well as analysis of the causes over the last few weeks, is via The Landslide Blog, by landslide expert Dave Petley of Durham University in the United Kingdom (full disclosure: I am the AGU blogosphere manager, where Petley's blog appears).

Among the dead are pilgrims, tourists and residents of a number of villages, including the temple town of Kedarnath. The cause of the disaster is the exceptionally heavy monsoon rains that have hit the region. Videos of the actual flooding can be seen here.

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Cloud Lightning

'Extremely unusual' storm system moving backwards across United States through end of week


TheWeatherSpace.com
Mon, 15 Jul 2013 14:59 UTC
A low pressure system that started in the Eastern United States has retrograded under a ridge of high pressure to the north over the last couple of days. This system is moving from east to west, which is extremely unusual for this hemisphere. We've seen these move east to west for a short period of time, but this one will make it to Southern California by the time it weakens.

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The upper level system is known as an easterly wave, however I'd like to call it a super easterly wave based on the distance it is going to travel. This particular system will have traveled from one side of the country to the other once it has stopped moving west, diving from there into Mexico, gathering up monsoonal moisture to be put into Nevada and Southern California later in the week into next week.

Rainfall estimations across parts of Central Texas could be over 2-4″ of rain, with more rain (above 6+" possible in parts of South-Central Texas. Severe storms, including tornadoes, hail, and damaging winds will be possible from Texas, New Mexico, and parts of Arizona through the next few days.
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Info

Air pollution responsible for more than 2 million deaths worldwide each year, experts estimate


sciencedaily.com
Fri, 12 Jul 2013 13:08 UTC
More than two million deaths occur worldwide each year as a direct result of human-caused outdoor air pollution, a new study has found.
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© Korobanova Marina / Fotolia
Smog hangs over Shanghai. Researchers estimate that worldwide, more than two million deaths occur each year as a direct result of human-caused outdoor air pollution.

In addition, while it has been suggested that a changing climate can exacerbate the effects of air pollution and increase death rates, the study shows that this has a minimal effect and only accounts for a small proportion of current deaths related to air pollution.

The study, which has been published today, 12 July, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, estimates that around 470,000 people die each year because of human-caused increases in ozone.

It also estimates that around 2.1 million deaths are caused each year by human-caused increases in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) ? tiny particles suspended in the air that can penetrate deep into the lungs, causing cancer and other respiratory disease.
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Bizarro Earth

India says nearly 6,000 missing a month after devastating floods


Rueters via Yahoo News
Mon, 15 Jul 2013 12:26 UTC
India officially declared on Monday that nearly 6,000 people were missing a month after flash floods ravaged large parts of its northern state of Uttarakhand, but stopped short of saying they were presumed dead.

The figure of 5,748, based on tallies of missing persons from around the country, was the first official estimate following weeks in which the numbers of dead and missing fluctuated wildly from a few hundred to several thousand.

Their families will now be eligible for financial relief, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna told a news conference, adding that his government would pay 150,000 rupees ($2,500) to families in the state, besides compensation from the federal government.
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© REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
Posters of missing people, caused by the flash floods and landslides, are placed on a gate as an Indian Air Force helicopter lands at a base in Dehradun, in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand June 26, 2013.
"We are not getting into the controversy whether the missing persons are dead or not," said Bahuguna. "We are abiding by what the families of the victims say, and if they think that they haven't come back and have no hope as well, (then) we are providing them monetary relief."

The official death toll still stands at 580, an official of the National Disaster Management Authority told Reuters. More than 4,600 of the missing in Uttarakhand had come from elsewhere in India, said the official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
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Bizarro Earth

7.3 magnitude earthquake shakes seafloor near South Sandwich Islands


US Geological Survey
Mon, 15 Jul 2013 11:52 UTC
Image
© USGS
A 7.3 magnitude earthquake has struck south of Bristol Island in the South Sandwich Islands. No tsunami alert exists, however. The massive 7.3 magnitude earthquake began today July 15, 2013 far out to sea, far from Argentina and Chile's coast, officials tell news. It was initially reported as a 6.8 magnitude quake before being upgraded. The large earthquake today began moments ago. It erupted at 12:03 pm local time, officials tell news. It also posted a moderate depth. USGS indicates to news that the quake starting twenty miles below sea level. But the quake was far from land when it began. Officials tell news that the quake was closest only to one island.

The quake began one hundred thirty miles southeast of Bristol Island in the South Sandwich Islands. The quake was thereafter a great distance from other nations. The quake was one thousand six hundred miles at least from Ushuaia, Argentina. It was roughly one thousand seven hundred miles from Rio Gallegos in Argentina as well. Reps tell news that the quake was about one thousand seven hundred miles from Punta Arenas, Chile and about one thousand three hundred mils from Stanley in the Falkland Islands. The National Weather Service says that no tsunami danger exists currently for the U.S, Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands. But officials. Both the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center confirm that no tsunami threat is in place. - LA Late News

USGS data
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Bizarro Earth

Ecuador's Tungurahua Volcano records major explosion- spews stones, gases and ash more than three miles into the sky


ShanghaiDaily.com
Mon, 15 Jul 2013 08:27 UTC
The Tungurahua Volcano, located in Ecuador's central Andean region, registered a major explosion on Sunday with a stronger eruption that spewed ash and rocks into the atmosphere, according to the Geophysics Institute of the National Polytechnic School (IGEPN).
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© Associated Press
A man walks on rocks and ashes spewed by the Tungurahua volcano in the outskirts of Cusua, Tungurahua province, Ecuador
The explosion caused a boom that could be heard in several cities, including Riobamba and Ambato in central Ecuador and Guayaquil in the southwest, and communities close to the volcano also felt ground tremors, said the IGEPN which is in charge of monitoring volcanic activity in a report.

The eruption scattered ash, rocks and other volcanic fragments into the sky, but due to cloud cover over the region it was impossible to determine how high the column of ash rose, the IGEPN said.

However, eyewitnesses said the ash could be seen as far away as the capital Quito.

The 5,016-meter-high volcano has been active since 1999, with alternating periods of increased activity and relative calm.
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Bizarro Earth

Some volcanoes scream at ever-higher pitches until they blow their tops


phys.org
Sun, 14 Jul 2013 00:00 UTC
Redoubt Volcano
© Game McGimsey
Redoubt Volcano on March 31, 2009. View to the east of the summit crater of the volcano, heavily covered with deposits from recent eruptions, many of which were preceded by harmonic tremor.
It is not unusual for swarms of small earthquakes to precede a volcanic eruption. They can reach a point of such rapid succession that they create a signal called harmonic tremor that resembles sound made by various types of musical instruments, though at frequencies much lower than humans can hear.

A new analysis of an eruption sequence at Alaska's Redoubt Volcano in March 2009 shows that the harmonic tremor glided to substantially higher frequencies and then stopped abruptly just before six of the eruptions, five of them coming in succession.

"The frequency of this tremor is unusually high for a volcano, and it's not easily explained by many of the accepted theories," said Alicia Hotovec-Ellis, a University of Washington doctoral student in Earth and space sciences.

Documenting the activity gives clues to a volcano's pressurization right before an explosion. That could help refine models and allow scientists to better understand what happens during eruptive cycles in volcanoes like Redoubt, she said.

The source of the earthquakes and harmonic tremor isn't known precisely. Some volcanoes emit sound when magma - a mixture of molten rock, suspended solids and gas bubbles - resonates as it pushes up through thin cracks in the Earth's crust.

But Hotovec-Ellis believes in this case the earthquakes and harmonic tremor happen as magma is forced through a narrow conduit under great pressure into the heart of the mountain. The thick magma sticks to the rock surface inside the conduit until the pressure is enough to move it higher, where it sticks until the pressure moves it again.
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Arrow Up

Visitors to the Mediterranean warned of an increase in jellyfish

Karl Mathiesen
The Guardian
Fri, 12 Jul 2013 13:55 UTC
Overfishing has reduced competition for food, allowing jellyfish whose stings can cause pain and nausea, to thrive
Image
© PA Archive/PA Photos
Mauve stingers ... a brush with these can cause pain, burning, nausea and muscle cramps.

Holidaymakers are being warned by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to take local advice in several Mediterranean countries as jellyfish numbers rise along coastlines popular with tourists in Greece, Spain and Malta. Jellyfish numbers have been rising consistently in the Mediterranean, and researchers warn that the increase in numbers poses a hazard to swimmers, fishing and the marine environment.

The FCO said: "We have been alerted to large numbers of jellyfish in the Mediterranean this summer, especially in a number of key holiday destinations for UK tourists. We have updated our travel advice for a number of Mediterranean countries to reflect this issue."

Up to 150,000 people are treated for jellyfish stings in the Mediterranean each year. The worst-hit coastlines this summer have been in Greece, Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, Israel and Lebanon. The FCO recommends that swimmers speak to local authorities and follow their advice on where and when to swim.

Barcelona Institute of Marine Sciences researcher Josep María Gili told the Guardian in June that jellyfish represented a growing problem, both in the Mediterranean and across the world.
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Bug

Madagascar battling worst locust plague since 1950s

Mark Tran
The Guardian
Fri, 12 Jul 2013 13:39 UTC
Locusts threatening livelihood of 60% of population, and have already destroyed a quarter of Madagascar's food crops

Madagascar is in a race against time to raise enough money to tackle its worst plague of locusts since the 1950s. Locusts have already infested over half of the island's cultivated land and pastures, causing the loss of 630,000 tonnes of rice, corresponding to 25% of food consumption.

At least 1.5m hectares (3.7m acres) could be infested by locusts in two-thirds of the country by September, warns the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Findings from a damage assessment indicate that rice and maize crop losses due to locusts in the mid- and south-western parts of Madagascar vary, on average, from 40% to 70%, reaching up to 100% in some plots.

Madagascar's agriculture ministry declared a national disaster in November. The food security and livelihoods of 13 million people are at stake, about 60% of the island's population. Around 9 million people depend directly on agriculture for food and income.

"We don't have enough funds for pesticide, helicopters and training," said Alexandre Huynh, the FAO's representative in Madagascar. "What is extremely costly is to run helicopters [needed to spray pesticides]. We have to start in September, and we have two to three months to prepare. We need $22.4m [£15.1m] but we are quite short of that. Discussions are going on with donors."
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© Tiphaine Desjardin/FAO
Adults locusts on a rock in Isalo national park, Madagascar.
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