Earth Changes

The floods in Nepal, Bangladesh and India have killed about 500 and affected over 16 million

BBC
Fri, 18 Aug 2017 13:09 UTC

Deadly floods hit South Asian states

More than 16 million people have now been affected by seasonal flooding across a swathe of South Asia, say aid officials.

The floods in Nepal, Bangladesh and India are thought to have killed about 500 people and are expected to worsen.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) says it is becoming one of the worst regional humanitarian crises in years.

There are growing concerns about food shortages and disease.

Martin Faller, ICRC's deputy regional director, said more than a third of Bangladesh and Nepal were flooded, while about 11 million people across four northern Indian states were also affected.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced.

2017 is British Columbia's worst wildfire season on record

Scott Brown
Vancouver Sun
Wed, 16 Aug 2017 12:12 UTC

The 2017 wildfire season is officially the worst on record in British Columbia.

The B.C. Wildfire Service said Wednesday that a total of 1,026 wildfires have razed nearly 8,950 square kilometres, surpassing the old record of 8,560 square kilometres set in 1958.

The majority of the activity has occurred in the province's Cariboo region where fires have destroyed more than 6,700 square kilometres.

B.C. Wildfire Service spokesman Kevin Skrepnek says there are still 142 fires currently burning in the province.

"Most of those are the major fires that started on July 7, we have done a good job at getting on new fires quickly and keeping them small," he said.

Man on disability scooter in China accidentally drives into a massive sinkhole

Nic White
Daily Mail
Fri, 18 Aug 2017 09:16 UTC

A scooter zoomed into view with the driver so distracted by their mobile phone they didn't see the sinkhole

Checking your phone while driving can have disastrous consequences, but none more obvious than driving into a sinkhole.

Footage from Chinese television shows the ground suddenly give way in the middle of a street, creating a hole almost the whole way across one side.

Some time later, a scooter zoomed into view and drove straight into it without slowing down at all.

Both driver and bike disappeared into the hole just as another man frantically ran towards it in a doomed attempt to warn the driver.

Landslide kills 40 people in DR Congo

Press TV
Thu, 17 Aug 2017 12:59 UTC

A landslide has swept over a fishing village on the banks of a lake in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 40 people, a regional official says.

Part of a mountain engulfed "a fisherman's camp after heavy rains caused a landslide," the deputy governor of Ituri province, Pacifique Keta, told AFP on Thursday.

He said 40 people were killed in the disaster in the village of Tora on the banks of Lake Albert on Wednesday.

"Yesterday (Wednesday), we buried 28 bodies and today we will bury 12 more," said Keta.

A doctor at the nearby Tshomia hospital, Herve Isamba, said they were treating four people injured in the landslide.

The vast country has experienced a number of previous such disasters.

Meteotsunami? Ocean dramatically recedes on South American Atlantic coast as huge waves batter the Pacific side

Sott.net
Thu, 17 Aug 2017 04:42 UTC

On August 11, 2017 the ocean suddenly receded in different coastal locations of Uruguay such as Montevideo and Punta del Este. Several hours later the same phenomenon occurred along beaches in Porto Alegre and Tramandaí in Brazil. Some local people feared a possible tsunami.

The Uruguayan Meteorological Institute (INUMET) had issued orange wind warnings earlier for Montevideo, Canelones, Maldonado, Rocha and Lavalleja. According to El Pais as reported in Elonce, the spokesman for the National Navy, Gastón Jaunsolo,said the phenomenon was caused by strong winds coming from the north.

Magnitude 6.6 earthquake strikes north of Ascension Island

Sputnik News
Fri, 18 Aug 2017 04:44 UTC

A powerful magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck Friday north of an isolated Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, the US Geological Survey said.

The shallow 6.2-mile-deep quake near the volcanic island was reported at 2:59 a.m. UTC.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there was no tsunami danger for the US east coast, the Gulf of Mexico states or the eastern coast of Canada based on the quake's location.

The Arctic Sees an Early Winter - 33% Above Normal Ice Observed in Greenland

Tony Heller
The Deplorable Climate Science Blog
Thu, 17 Aug 2017 00:00 UTC

The New York Times Lies

Winter has arrived about 10 days early in the Arctic, and Greenland's surface has gained 500 billion tons of ice - about 33% above normal.

Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Mass Budget: DMI

Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Mass Budget: DMI

Minke whale found dead in Blue Hill Bay, Maine

Henry Schulz
Mount Desert Islander
Thu, 17 Aug 2017 17:03 UTC

© Henry Schulz
Area whale experts at a property in Tremont prepare to perform a necropsy on a minke whale found dead in Blue Hill Bay on Sunday

The stench of a decomposing minke whale assailed the nostrils of a crew working on a necropsy here Tuesday. The whale had been found floating dead in Blue Hill Bay on Sunday. It was not the same individual freed from entanglement with fishing gear a week before, researchers with Allied Whale at College of the Atlantic confirmed.

"We got a picture of the dorsal fins for both and went to the office yesterday and confirmed it wasn't the same," said Emma Ober of Allied Whale.

The whale was brought to the home of Dan DenDanto, a research associate for Allied Whale, for a necropsy. The COA research vessel Osprey towed the carcass to the Seal Cove docks Monday, where it was transferred to a trailer for transport to DenDanto's yard.

Volunteers made precise incisions in order to search for the cause of the animal's death. Oil flowed out of the minke whale's blubber like olive oil being poured into a sink. "The oil coming out is due to the internal pressure, and when cuts are made, it relieves the pressure, and that's why the oil flows out like that," DenDanto said.

'It's very alarming': Another dead North Atlantic right whale discovered off Cape Cod; total now 13

Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon
CBC News
Thu, 17 Aug 2017 16:51 UTC

The dead whale has been identified as a reproductive female named Couplet, pictured here in 2003 with one of her calves.

© M. Zani/New England Aquarium
The dead whale has been identified as a reproductive female named Couplet, pictured here in 2003 with one of her calves.

Another dead North Atlantic right whale has been spotted off Massachusetts, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths in North America this summer to at least 13.

The U.S. Coast Guard documented and reported the latest carcass on Monday, Jennifer Goebel, public affairs officer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Greater Atlantic region, confirmed on Wednesday.

The dead whale is currently floating in the southern Gulf of Maine, about 160 miles (about 258 kilometres) east of Cape Cod, she told CBC News.

This is the third dead North Atlantic right whale discovered in U.S. waters, said Goebel. The news comes just one week after another whale was found floating off Martha's Vineyard, the Massachusetts island south of Cape Cod.

Between 10 and 12 dead whales have been found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence since June 7. Preliminary necropsy reports suggest ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements as possible causes for the deaths. A final report is expected by mid-September, and will be made public.

Only about 500 North Atlantic right whales are left in the world, according to fisheries officials.

Flood kills at least 57 in Bangladesh with over 3,326,000 affected

Abu Siddique
Dhaka Tribune
Thu, 17 Aug 2017 14:39 UTC

Desperate for help, a group of women and children at Hotathpara village in Fulchhari upazila, Gaibandha wade through chest-high water to get to relief workers on August 16, 2017.

© Focus Bangla
Desperate for help, a group of women and children at Hotathpara village in Fulchhari upazila, Gaibandha wade through chest-high water to get to relief workers on August 16, 2017.

Around 3,326,864 people in 22 districts have been severely affected by the latest bout of flood that hit last week, their houses and croplands inundated

At least 57 people have died in 13 districts, as of 6pm on Wednesday, due to the monsoon flood that is currently plaguing the country's northern and northeastern regions, according to disaster management officials.

The highest number of deaths occurred in Dinajpur, where 23 people have died, while Kurigram has the second highest death toll - nine.

Some of the victims were swept away by floodwater, some died from snake bites and lightning and others were crushed when walls collapsed on them, said the officials.

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Earth Changes

The floods in Nepal, Bangladesh and India have killed about 500 and affected over 16 million

2017 is British Columbia's worst wildfire season on record

Man on disability scooter in China accidentally drives into a massive sinkhole

Landslide kills 40 people in DR Congo

Meteotsunami? Ocean dramatically recedes on South American Atlantic coast as huge waves batter the Pacific side

Magnitude 6.6 earthquake strikes north of Ascension Island

The Arctic Sees an Early Winter - 33% Above Normal Ice Observed in Greenland

Minke whale found dead in Blue Hill Bay, Maine

'It's very alarming': Another dead North Atlantic right whale discovered off Cape Cod; total now 13

Flood kills at least 57 in Bangladesh with over 3,326,000 affected

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