A 3m, self-amputating, vertically swimming, serpent-like ''bizarre'' marine specimen has washed up on the salt marsh at Aramoana.

Department of Conservation service manager David Agnew said he got a call from Aramoana resident Don Gibbs, who discovered the fish on the salt marsh side of the spit.

He went to have a look and said he had never seen anything like it before in his eight years in Dunedin and 20 years with Doc, during which he has mostly been stationed along the coastline in New Zealand.

''It's very unusual looking.''

University of Otago NZ Marine Studies Centre manager Tessa Mills confirmed the fish was an oarfish, which have been known to grow to 11m long.

The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude 6.1 earthquake has struck near the Greek island Crete Thursday.

The USGS reports the quake's epicenter was located 29 miles (47 kilometers) northeast of Karpathos, Greece at a depth of 20.9 kilometers. The quake hit at 11:07 a.m. PDT, 9:07 p.m. local time.
The Athens Geodynamic Institute said the quake was felt on the islands of Crete, Karpathos and Rhodes.

The highest rates of earthquake activity in the Mediterranean region are found along the southern part Greece, along the North Anatolian Fault Zone of western Turkey and the Calabrian zone of southern Italy.

Strong earthquakes with an epicenter off the coast can trigger tsunamis, depending on the size and type of the fault movement. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center tracks earthquake data for the West Coast.

A rare suspected tornado in Oregon swept across a parking lot at a community college in the city of Eugene, lifting up a Jeep with two people inside and damaging three other vehicles, officials said on Wednesday.

Oregon gets only a handful of tornadoes each year, and they are usually weak, said National Weather Service meteorologist Liana Ramirez. She said meteorologists believe this was a small tornado and are working to confirm that determination.

No one was injured from the suspected tornado on Tuesday afternoon at Lane Community College in Eugene, about 100 miles (161 km) south of Portland, officials said.

The Jeep with the two people sitting inside was lifted about 5 feet (1.5 meters) off the ground before dropping back down, according to Joan Aschim, a spokeswoman for the college.

"I'm sure it was frightening for the two occupants," Aschim said, adding that few people were in the parking lot at the time.

A car was flipped around in the air and landed on another vehicle, and a fourth vehicle was flipped over and landed on its roof, Aschim said.

The Oregonian newspaper on its website posted photos submitted by a student at the college showing a sedan lying on its roof on a grassy space in the parking lot and another vehicle with part of its roof and windshield caved in.

Dramatic images have emerged from Peru after heavy snowfall, ash from the Ubinas volcano and warming temperatures triggered a massive mudslide earlier this week.

The Geophysical Institute of Peru (IGP) was conducting geogphysical measurements when the mudslide began to cascade down the mountain, and filmed the event

According to Peru This Week, towns in the Ubinas Valley are on alert for more volcanic activitiy, and residents have been advised to wear masks. Authorities in Peru have not ordered evacuations, the website reported.

The IGP reports that the landslide was due to ash deposits from the volcano's eruption on April 8 and heavy snow that fell April 10-11. As skies cleared and temperatures warmed on April 12-13, the snow melted and caused the mudslide.

A firetruck is stuck near the intersection of Noble and Rennie avenues after the back tire hit a sinkhole.

Engine 14 was out checking for street closures Thursday morning after a water main break on Wednesday when the accident happened. A tow truck is on the way.

No one was injured in the accident. The extent of the damage to the engine will not be known until they remove the vehicle.

Traffic came to a standstill during rush hour in Beijing on Wednesday as a massive sandstorm covered the Chinese capital in thick blanket of red dust, making internet users speak about the end of the world.

The China Meteorological Administration issued a yellow sandstorm alert - the third-most serious danger level - warning about a drop in visibility to less than 1,000 meters and increased air pollution.

Some areas in the city of 21 million recorded air pollution of nearly 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter, which is considered hazardous for people's health.

An "apocalyptical" storm swept through several regions in Belarus, including the capital. But it was in the city of Soligorsk where clouds as black as ink obscured the sun light, while strong winds ushered in a sand storm.

Soligorsk residents, about 120 kilometers from the capital Minsk, were both scared and excited by the weather phenomenon that hit Belarus on Monday. At around 17:00 local time, darkness descended on the city with over 100,000 residents opting to stay indoors.

Heavy rain continues to affect the South and the Gulf Coast, bringing fatal flash flooding to Louisiana and stranding drivers on impassable roads across multiple states. Water rescues have been ongoing in parts of Kentucky and West Virginia as more unwanted heavy rain swamps the soggy region.

Louisiana has been particularly hard hit by the flooding and at least three people died Tuesday. Three-year-old Remy Dufrene died after floodwaters swept the boy into a drainage ditch in Lafourche Parish. In Kenner, Louisiana, a mother and her daughter drowned after their SUV veered off the road and submerged in a local, rain-swollen canal, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office confirms.

A Kentucky man was found dead in a creek after search and rescue teams located his submerged vehicle.

"Impulses of upper-level energy combined with plenty of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico will keep the South unsettled through the end of the week. As a result, the threat of localized flooding will continue in parts of the region where rain or thunderstorms persist in any one location for too long," weather.com meteorologist Chris Dolce said.

The storms also created a dangerous situation when lightning ignited a few storage tanks in western Texas Sunday night, according to The Associated Press. Hundreds of miles away, a mother and daughter were injured by a lightning strike in Macclenny, Florida.

Here are the latest impacts from several of the states affected by this round of flooding.

Mt. Baekdu, (Mount Paektu ) the symbolically charged volcano straddling North Korea and China, could erupt again soon, a study warns. Professor Yoon Sung-hyo of Pusan National University says there are indications that the volcano, though quiet for decades, could erupt any time and urged closer monitoring of the situation. The last eruptive activity at the volcano occurred in 1903, though prior past eruptions were among some of the largest in recorded history.

He says the concentration of helium in the volcano has been rising over the last decade or so, and magma levels are creeping up. Yoon has been warning of another eruption since 2010, the first Korean to add his voice to a growing chorus of regional seismologists.
Source: Chosun Media

A 5.2 magnitude earthquake has struck off the Northeast coast of Japan. The shallow quake occurred at a depth of about 10 km (6.2) miles under the sea, near the Japanese Trench. Japan and the surrounding islands straddle four major tectonic plates: Pacific plate; North America plate; Eurasia plate; and Philippine Sea plate. The Pacific plate is subducted into the mantle, beneath Hokkaido and northern Honshu, along the eastern margin of the Okhotsk microplate, a proposed subdivision of the North America plate. Farther south, the Pacific plate is subducted beneath volcanic islands along the eastern margin of the Philippine Sea plate. This 2,200 km-long zone of subduction of the Pacific plate is responsible for the creation of the deep offshore Ogasawara and Japan trenches as well as parallel chains of islands and volcanoes, typical of Circumpacific island arcs. Similarly, the Philippine Sea plate is itself subducting under the Eurasia plate along a zone, extending from Taiwan to southern Honshu that comprises the Ryukyu Islands and the Nansei-Shoto trench.

Subduction zones at the Japanese island arcs are geologically complex and produce numerous earthquakes from multiple sources. Deformation of the overriding plates generates shallow crustal earthquakes, whereas slip at the interface of the plates generates interplate earthquakes that extend from near the base of the trench to depths of 40 to 60 km. At greater depths, Japanese arc earthquakes occur within the subducting Pacific and Philippine Sea plates and can reach depths of nearly 700 km. Since 1900, three great earthquakes occurred off Japan and three north of Hokkaido. They are the M8.4 1933 Sanriku-oki earthquake, the M8.3 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake, the M9.0 2011 Tohoku earthquake, the M8.4 1958 Etorofu earthquake, the M8.5 1963 Kuril earthquake, and the M8.3 1994 Shikotan earthquake.