Steve Njuguna All Africa Wed, 21 Jun 2017 17:45 UTC
Hyena
An 80-year-old woman was admitted to hospital in Nyahururu after she was attacked by a hyena.
Dorothy Wangecii, a resident of Karaba village, Muhotetu division, in Laikipia West lost part of her left hand and three fingers in her right hand in the Wednesday attack.
She was also injured in the face and neck.
Ms Wangecii said the beast attacked her when she was driving away a neighbour's cow that had strayed on her farm.
"I was returning to my house when the hyena attacked me," she said.
She told journalists from her hospital bed that had it not been for her neighbours, who responded to her screams, the hyena would have killed her.
A terrified father has told of how his eight-year-old son was attacked by a vicious 'beast' while swimming in a river.
The boy was left with several nasty marks after being bitten on the shoulder and backside while swimming in the Rhine, in Switzerland, his father said.
And the culprit? A particularly aggressive beaver, the father told local news.
Speaking to 20 Minutes, he said: 'My son swam with his sister between the shore and some wooden boats shortly after 7pm when they began to scream like crazy.
'The beast bit twice - once into the shoulder and once into the buttocks.
'He was tall, about 80 centimeters long, and I could well see his distinctly broad tail.'
A Roanoke native now living in Tucson, Arizona, is recovering after a horrific bear attack.
It happened while Dawn Martin and her husband were camping. The couple dozed off in their chairs around a camp fire, and that's when the attack happened.
"Just as fast as he could he was coming at me. He came up behind my chair and slammed me down, and pinned me down the ground. I felt his head rip my scalp. His claws were in my arms," Martin explained.
It was a more than 300 pound black bear that stood more than 6 feet tall.
"By the time my brother-in-law got up, he was on my sister," explained Dawns sister Deborah who lives in Franklin County.
A rare tornado ripped through Hamburg on Thursday, causing travel chaos as many regional and long-distance train services were canceled.
German rail operator Deutsche Bahn had to shut down several lines in the north of the country, including its well-traveled lines from Hamburg to Berlin and Hannover, after strong winds blew trees and branches onto the tracks.
Regional train provider Metronom also said several of its services were facing similar disruptions while they worked to clear the tracks of trees and other debris.
The sun was attracting attention in Daytona Beach on Tuesday with a showy halo, just one day before the summer solstice and the first official day of summer. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says rings like this one form around the sun when light refracts off ice crystals in cirrus clouds.
A major earthquake struck off the coast of Guatemala on Thursday, damaging buildings and downing trees as well as causing powerful tremors in neighboring El Salvador. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The quake, measured at a magnitude of 6.8 by the U.S. Geological Survey, struck 38 kilometers (24 miles) southwest of Puerto San Jose at a depth of 46.8 kilometers.
A deeper earthquake of similar magnitude struck the interior of Guatemala last week, killing at least two people and damaging buildings.
Edwin de Leon, a spokesman for fire services in Guatemala, told local radio that the quake had damaged some houses.
"There are buildings with collapsed roofs, but we don't have casualties," de Leon said.
Superstitious villagers have been living in fear since a sheep gave birth to this creature (pictured) that was said by elders to be half-human half-beast and 'sent by the devil'
Superstitious villagers have been living in fear since a sheep gave birth to this creature that was said by elders to be half-human half-beast and 'sent by the devil'.
Many of the 4,000 residents and farmers of Lady Frere in Eastern Province, South Africa, were convinced that bestiality and witchcraft had led to the birth of the creature.
The panic got so great that the Eastern Cape Department of Rural Development sent out experts to carry out tests after pictures of it spread like wildfire through the community.
Chief Director of Veterinary Services Dr Lubabalo Mrwebi admitted that at first glance the lamb which was born dead did resemble a human being but was not part human.
Dr Mrwebi said: 'We can confirm this not a hoax photo but that the severely deformed lamb was born by a sheep in Lady Frere this week which at a glance resembles a human form.
Jessica Chia Daily Mail Wed, 21 Jun 2017 10:59 UTC
Two dozen people had to be rescued from a flooded parking lot in Georgia, where the water was chest-deep on Tuesday. Pictured, the water reaching up to the car's windows
Tropical Storm Cindy has claimed its first victim after a 10-year-old boy was struck by a log washed in by storm surge while he was on vacation with his family on the Alabama coast.
The storm's center, which is still off the coast of Louisiana, is expected to hit land by late Wednesday or early Thursday, before traveling north to Arkansas and east towards Tennessee.
More than 17 million people along the Gulf Coast are bracing themselves for life-threatening flash floods and scrambling to batten down the hatches as tropical storm warnings were issued in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
Torrential downpour and winds nearing 60 miles per hour have already hit the region, and more than a foot of rain threatens southeastern Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle by Thursday.
'It's kind of like a slow-motion disaster for us now. It's not wind, it's rain we're concerned about,' said Greg Flynn with the Mississippi Emergency Management Service.
A team from the International Fund for Animal Welfare was on Monomoy on Wednesday investigating the death of two humpback whales.
A young humpback was reported to have washed up Tuesday on the beach on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge, said IFAW spokeswoman Melanie Mahoney.
The team went out Wednesday hoping to visually evaluate the whale or conduct a necropsy, an animal autopsy, depending on the condition of the body, Mahoney said.
"While out examining the stranded humpback whale, our team received a report of another stranded dead whale on Monomoy," Mahoney wrote in an email. "The team was able to hike out and assess the animal. It was found to be alive and in poor condition."
The past few days have seen a swarm of tremors around Katla volcano, but yesterday they reached over a 3 in magnitude or up to 3.6. According to reports quakes aren't always signs of looming eruptions although the seismic activity has been frequent of late. The Icelandic Met Office is closely monitoring the volcano and surrounding area.
Katla is a large subglacial volcano in southern Iceland. It's been dormant under the Mydalsjokull glacier for almost 100 years, but it's considered a very active volcano with twenty documented eruptions between 930 and 1918, with intervals of 13 - 95 years.
Katla hasn't erupted forcefully since 1918, although there may have been small eruptions under the icecap that didn't break the ice, including ones in 1955, 1999, and 2011. Prior eruptions have measured with a Volcanic Explosively Index of between VEI-4 and VEI-6 on a scale of 0 to 8. In comparison, the infamous 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption had a VEI-4. The last major eruption started on 12 October 1918 and lasted for 24 days. It was likely a VEI-5 level eruption.
Katla's present dormancy is among the longest in known history and many theorize that the current seismic activity is a sure sign of a pending eruption although the Icelandic Met Office assures that there are no definite tell tale signs of a looming eruption.
Comment: See also: Second fatal mauling by black bear in just 2 days for Alaska