At least 12 people have been killed in the flooding that affected the three provinces of Cordoba, Santa Fe and Santiago del Estero in Argentina over the last 10 days.

Improved weather conditions in some areas has meant that some of those displaced by the recent floods have been able to return home. However, as many as 4,000 people are still waiting to return to their homes.

Santiago del Estero

According to the local civil defence agency (Defensa Civil de la Municipalidad de Santiago del Estero) around 3,500 people have been evacuated in the province as a result of flooding since 05 March 2015, when heavy rainfall pushed levels of the River Dulce to overflow.

Heavy rain between 05 and 06 March 2015, resulted in a house collapse in La Banda that injured a young child. Two people have died in the floods in Santiago del Estero, according to state newswire Telam.

A waterspout stunned beach-goers on Recife's Piedade beach in Brazil, toppling umbrellas and chairs and sending people scattering.

A dog fell into a sinkhole that opened up right under its tiny feet in Rockwell Park on Wednesday, according to a witness.

The park, which sits at the intersection of N. Cleveland, Edgewood and 1st Streets, is popular for dog walking in the Lyon Park neighborhood. Resident Elsie Frasier told ARLnow.com that two days ago she and her husband "heard someone screaming" at the park from their adjacent house. Someone walking their dog said it had fallen into the hole.

"We initially thought she was talking about the storm sewer openings, and only later, when we went out to the park, did we find out that a sinkhole had opened up right under her dog while they were out for a walk," Frasier told ARLnow.com in an email. "The dog was on a leash so she was able to haul it out herself."

The dog was unhurt from the fall, Frasier said.

The pattern of global deluges continued last month as flooding again hit the Balkans, Greece, Bolivia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Northwest, Australia, and East Africa. February saw 'orange' snow, 'blue' snow and 'dirty rain' as particulates from ever more erupting volcanoes and incoming meteors continue to build up in the atmosphere. It's not just conditions above ground that are changing: alarming numbers of whales, sea lions and other sea creatures continue to wash up dead or dying on beaches around the world.

February saw meteor fireballs ranging from flashes that momentarily turned night into day over New Zealand, Florida and Korea... to a long-duration bolide of comet/asteroid size that broke up over the western half of North America. There were several major train derailments in February, particularly in the U.S., where oil companies are bypassing pipeline networks to transport fracked oil. We suspect that many railway lines are deforming due to the increased seismic activity.

More loud booms were heard and felt across the U.S. in February. Although attributed to 'frost quakes', where water seeps into the ground then freezes and cracks the bedrock, these localized booms also happened in ice-free regions, suggesting that some other mechanism is causing them. Besides strong earthquakes off Japan and along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an unusually strong quake in central Spain sent people running into the streets. Japan saw snow records broken (again), wild weather continued to pummel the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East was again snowed under.

THE major weather event in February 2015 was the record snow and cold in the U.S. Northeast. The South and Midwest were also hit hard, but the Northeast appears to have had both its snowiest and coldest month ever, at least since since record-keeping began in the mid-19th century. Meteorologists attributed this to the meandering Polar Jet stream delivering a 'Siberian Express' of non-stop winter storms from the northern Pacific down and across the North American continent, but another factor could be super-cool air coming down from the stratosphere.

The ice age cometh?


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One of the smallest whales species, pygmy sperm, was found around 120 nautical miles southwest of Karachi. The fishermen caught the whale on Wednesday while they were fishing in the deep sea but the whale was already dead.

This is one of the smallest whales found in the outer continental shelf and considered to be very rare. Known to exist in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans, this species is usually found dead on the shores.

The captain of the boat alFahim, Saeed Zaman, caught the pygmy sperm in gillnet used for catching tuna while they were fishing off the shelf area. The whale was enmeshed in the net and died when it was hauled onto the boat.

Italian website says "yes," but official measurements are needed.

"The latest updates of the dramatic situation that occurred in Abruzzo and Molise are clear," says this Italian website. "But official measurements are needed!"

In Capracotta, Isernia, more than 2 meters of snow fell in 24 hours, compared to the historical 193 cm in 24 hours measured in 1921 in Silver Lake, Colorado.

The Capracotta phenomenon occurred between yesterday afternoon and tonight, so with a duration of just 16-17 hours, it could set a real world record of intensity!

A new government-funded study attributes the high rate of marine mammal deaths in part to the BP oil spill.

Dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico continue to die at high rates five years after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to a new government-funded study.

The report, published in the journal PLOS One, could have a significant impact on how money the petroleum giant must pay to restore the Gulf will be used to save imperiled dolphins.

The study "indicates that the current multi-year marine mammal unusual mortality event (UME) in the Northern Gulf of Mexico has multiple groupings of high bottlenose dolphin mortalities and may be due to different contributing factors, including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill," National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials said in a statement.

The wild elephant, which trampled six persons to death and seriously injured four others in Sitamarhi and Madhubani districts of Bihar over the last two days, returned to its natural habitat in Nepal during the wee hours today.

Additional Chief Conservator of Forest and Chief Wildlife Warden (CWW) S S Chaudhari said, "We successfully managed to send the wild tusker back to Nepal. It crossed the Royal Canal at the international border near Jainagar in Madhubani district at around 2.30 AM. We verified this with its footprints."

The elephant had strayed from its herd based at Parsa Wildlife Sanctuary in the neighbouring country during the ongoing mating season, after perhaps losing in a fight with some other tusker and entered Sitamarhi district on Tuesday last.

A pensioner from the town of Novo Biryuzyak, in the south of Russia, has killed a wolf that attacked her.

Aishat Maksudova was fixing a fence in a field and was armed only with an axe at the time.

Aziz Nuritoff reports.

Coyotes were attacking in Connecticut this week, with three reports of the animals hunting down dogs.

Luckily, all the dogs survived. But as CBS2's Jessica Schneider reported, animal control officials said there is a big reason some big dogs are becoming prey.

At least one coyote has been making the rounds in suburban Stamford - looming dangerously close to homes and setting its sights on several family dogs.

"There was something following (my dog); chasing her," said Stamford resident Karen Hart.

Hart snapped a photo of her 2-year-old shepherd mix, named Kylie, running for her life.

"She got into the house and I slammed the door just as the coyote was approaching the front door," Hart said.

There were four attacks in a period of one week.