Earth ChangesS


Attention

Crane collapses onto busy Tel Aviv road as storms rage

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As stormy winds, rain and giant hailstones buffet Israel, locals capture terrifying moment large crane crashes onto commuters.

Tel Aviv locals caught the terrifying moment a giant crane crashed down onto a busy Tel Aviv street, as the first major winter storm rages through Israel.

Miraculously, there were no reported injuries.

The footage shows the crane swaying in the gale-force winds before suddenly keeling over and bending in two, crashing onto the street below.

The sudden storm has also caused some localized flooding in central Israel, and at least one other person was critically injured when a wall at a construction site collapsed on top of him due to the extreme weather.


Cloud Lightning

Lightning strikes kill 8 in Pakistan

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Lightning killed eight including three kids on Saturday in Loralai, Sibbi and Dera Ghazi Khan while three other kids were injured in the incidents, reported Dunya News.

In Dera Ghazi Khan's suburb area Pagan, lightning claimed lives of at least two people and injured one.

Meanwhile, one youth died in Loralai's area of B and R Colony while two laborers died in Daki as lightning struck upon a coalmine.

On the other hand, lightning fell on a house in Waam Tangi area of Harnaai, near Sibbi, and killed three kids on the spot while critically injuring other three.

Snowflake

Tourists stranded following heavy snowfall in Naran Valley, Pakistan

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Several tourists have been stranded in Naran Valley after heavy snowfall cut off the area from rest of the country on Sunday.

Women and children are among the tourists from across Pakistan and facing difficulties due to running out of supplies amidst continuous rain and snowfall.


Taking advantage of the situation, several hotel owners have also raised prices of food and accommodations.

Matiullah Khan, president of a local hotels association, however claimed that accommodations were being provided for free to the stranded tourists.

The fresh spell of snowfall had started yesterday afternoon, also trapping several vehicles on the roads.

Attention

5.0 tremor jolts Canela Baja in central Chile

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© Google
A moderate earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.0 has struck near the town of Canela Baja in central Chile, seismologists say.

The earthquake, which struck at 6:24 p.m. local time on Saturday, was centered about 5 kilometers southeast of Canela Baja, which is located in Choapa province. It struck about 50 kilometers deep, making it a relatively shallow earthquake, according to Chile's national seismological center (CSN).

Chile's national seismological center initially measured the earthquake at 5.2 before downgrading it to 5.0.

Residents in the region reported feeling tremors, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

ONEMI reported that there was no threat of a tsunami.

Bug

Bridge crawling with thousands of spiders in Columbus, Ohio

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© Doral Chenoweth III/The Columbus Dispatch This Oct. 19, 2015 photo shows one of the thousands of spiders that are living on the new Main Street bridge over the Scioto River in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State University entomologist David Shetlar estimated that up to 5,000 spiders live there.
The Main Street bridge is crawling with spiders.

Crawling. With. Spiders.

But this is no Halloween tale. The $60 million bridge that spans the Scioto River and connects Downtown to Franklinton really is infested with thousands of orb weavers spinning intricate webs up and down the hand and guardrails.

If you pay close attention during the day, you can see the sun playing off the silk strands woven round and round on nearly every open span on the steel structure.

But at night, you can really see the webs, snagging thousands of flying insects that live in and around the river. (You can tell how successful the hunters are at night by all the repair work being done during daylight.)


Cloud Precipitation

Storms cause train derailment amid flash floods in Texas

Flooding in Dallas.
© Tony Gutierrez/APFlooding in Dallas.

Remnants of storm fuel heavy rains in south-eastern US, as Houston braces for high water and freight train comes off tracks


Heavy rains fuelled by two storm systems, one of them remnants of hurricane Patricia, have pounded south-eastern Texas, triggering flash floods in Houston and derailing a freight train.

Forecasters predicted 15-30cm (6-12in) of rain for coastal areas of the US, including south-west Louisiana, by Monday morning, exacerbated by tides up to 1.5 metres high (5ft) and wind gusts of up to 35mph (56km/h).

The rain systems were intensified by the remnants of hurricane Patricia, which was downgraded to a tropical depression after crashing into Mexico's west coast.

As the storms moved east early on Sunday, cities in Texas's flood-prone Gulf of Mexico region braced for the impact. They include Houston, the state's second most populous metropolitan area with 6.1 million people.

Cloud Precipitation

Canary Islands hit by fierce storms, flash floods, landslides and waterspout

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© Cabildo Gran Canaria / twitter Waterspout off Playa del Ingles, Gran Canaria
Severe weather warnings have been issued across the Canary Islands this weekend as torrential rain brings chaos and forced the closure of schools.

All schools were closed on Friday as storms hit the archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of west Africa.

Spain's meteorological agency AEMET put the region on amber alert and warned that the eastern most islands of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote were likely to be the worst hit with rain of up to 30 litres per square meter per hour expected.

Those tourists willing to brave the wind and rain and head for the popular resort of Playa del Ingles in Gran Canaria may have spotted an unusual weather phenomenon just off the beach.


Question

Dead birds wash up on beach in Tiny Township, Ontario

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© Brandon Rowe / CTV NewsSeveral dead birds washed up on the shore of Ardmore Beach in Tiny Township on Friday October 23, 2015.
An investigation is underway to figure out why a large number of dead birds have washed up on beaches in Tiny Township.

It's not uncommon to see ducks wash up on the beaches but on Thursday Tiny Township workers counted 66 dead birds.

"We find ourselves back here this year with another large amount of dead water fowl on the beach," says Tiny Township Mayor George Cornell.

The last major occurrence of dead birds was in 2011. On Friday workers removed 12 more ducks from the beach.

Windsock

Massive hurricane Patricia batters Mexico's Pacific coast: Strongest ever recorded in western hemisphere

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© Jonathan Levinson/AFPThe US National Hurricane Center (NHC) downgraded Patricia to a Category 4 storm but said it remained an ‘extremely dangerous major hurricane’.
There were no reported casualties and officials said the damage might not be as catastrophic as feared

One of the strongest ever hurricanes lashed western Mexico with rain and winds of up to 165 mph (266 km/h), causing chaos in coastal towns and resorts but less damage than feared before weakening on Saturday as it moved inland.

Mowing down trees, flooding streets and battering buildings, Hurricane Patricia plowed into Mexico as a Category 5 storm on Friday before grinding inland, where it began to lose power in the mountains that rise up along the Pacific coast.

Around 15,000 tourists were hurriedly evacuated from the beach resort of Puerto Vallarta as people scrambled to get away from the advancing hurricane, whose massive swirl over Mexico could be seen clearly from space.

"It sparked chaos here, it ruined a lot of things, took down the roof, lots of trees. Things are in a bad state where we work," said Domingo Hernandez, a hotel worker in the resort of Barra de Navidad near to the major port of Manzanillo.

Thousands of residents and tourists ended up in improvised shelters but there were no early reports of fatalities and many felt they had escaped lightly.



Windsock

Hurricane Patricia: Thousands evacuated as 325km/h winds blast Mexico

hurricane Patricia
© Jonathan Levinson / AFP A truck drives along a flooded street in Manzanillo, Colima state, Mexico on October 23, 2015, during hurricane Patricia
The strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere has struck Mexico's Pacific Coast, destroying houses and forcing thousands to evacuate. Heavy flooding and mud-slides are also feared along the hurricane's path.

Hurricane Patricia grew at an "incredible rate" on Friday, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said. It became a hurricane overnight, carrying maximum sustained winds of about 200 miles per hour (325 km per hour) as it moved north-northwest at 12 mph (19 kph).

Comment: See also: Hurricane Patricia becomes strongest hurricane ever recorded