A severe dust storm has left Aktau citing in western Kazakhstan without water and electricity, Tengrinews reports citing Aktau Business. The disaster hit the city in Mangistau Oblast on Sunday, August 10.

The city is located on the shore of the Caspian Sea, in the middle of a desert with a harsh hot climate and no immediately available fresh water. Mangistau atomic energy complex MAEC-Kazatomprom is the only source of electricity, heat and water for the city of Aktau and the surrounding towns and villages. The water is produced by desalination and distillation of salty water from the Caspian Sea.

The dust storm caused a failure at the central power line leaving around 200 thousand citizens cut off from electricity. After that water supply stopped too - both drinking and technical water

At least nine people were killed and 11 others went missing after heavy rains lashed southwest China for the last two days.

Nine deaths were reported in Xishui County of Guizhou Province, which was battered by torrential rain on Sunday and yesterday, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. So far 3,120 people had been evacuated for safety reasons.

Twenty-five homes were washed away and 42 others were seriously damaged.

Economic losses in Xishui County were estimated at 190 million yuan ( USD 30.88 million).

Nine people in Xishui were reported missing in floods and rescue work continued till late last night.

Extreme weather phenomena battered many parts of Russia in July. From waterspouts in the Black and Azov Seas, to super-sized hail on beaches, super-cells in Siberia, and deluges throughout the country, Russia is not used to such weather. Check it out...

After a warm and dry weekend across the mid-Atlantic states, a potent early week storm will generate drenching showers and thunderstorms, bringing a threat for flash flooding to many locations.

The same storm system has already wreaked havoc in the Southeast, causing one fatality in South Carolina due to flash flooding.

Potent low pressure will strengthen over the Ohio Valley on Monday, tapping into abundant moisture from the south, which will provide fuel for the drenching storms.

Heavy thunderstorms will first develop across much of the state of Ohio during the day on Monday, bringing torrential downpours to Columbus, Cleveland, Zanesville, and Youngstown.

By the time the evening commute rolls around on Monday, the heavy rain threat will transition into western Pennsylvania.

Many locations will pick up between two and four inches of rainfall with locally higher amounts possible. Rainfall to this magnitude will lead to flooding of streams and creeks.

When the cruise ship Louis Majesty left Barcelona in eastern Spain for Genoa in northern Italy, it was for the leisurely final leg of a hopscotching tour around the Mediterranean. But the Mediterranean had other ideas.

Storm clouds were gathering as the boat ventured eastwards out of the port at around 1pm on March 3, 2010. The sea swell steadily increased during the first hours of the voyage, enough to test those with less-experienced sea legs, but still nothing out of the ordinary.

At 4.20 pm, the ship ran without warning into a wall of water 8 metres or more in height. As far as events can be reconstructed, the boat's pitch as it descended the wave's lee tilted it into a second, and possibly a third, monster wave immediately behind.

Water smashed through the windows of a lounge on deck 5, almost 17 metres above the ship's water line. Two passengers were killed instantly and 14 more injured.

Then, as suddenly as the waves had appeared, they were gone. The boat turned and limped back to Barcelona.

A few decades ago, rogue waves of the sort that hit the Louis Majesty were the stuff of salty sea dogs' legends. No more. Real-world observations, backed up by improved theory and lab experiments, leave no doubt any more that monster waves happen - and not infrequently. The question has become: can we predict when and where they will occur?

Thirteen members of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) were trapped and in danger of freezing to death when their base, Halley VI, lost power. Power went down on July 30th and is now partially restored. The BAS waited to report the incident until power came back up, however now reports that the incident was so serious that all science activities have been suspended and emergency contingency plans to abandon some of Halley's eight modules and attempt to shelter in a remaining few have been prepared.

The incident is particularly serious, as the station is likely completely cut off from rescue for months.

The incident occurred during the height of the Antarctic winter while southern sea ice is at or near record highs (Marc Morano has details at Climate Depot).

One Survey member, Anthony Lister, managed to send a out a "tweet" when power came back up, reporting that the outage occurred while the station was experiencing record cold temperatures of -55.4° C (-67.72° F). (h/t Rai news)

The makings of a mass-level extinction event in the world's oceans appear disturbingly imminent, as marine species after marine species washes ashore on the Pacific West Coast. Ailing seals, dead fish, missing pelicans and much more are being reported in the media as scientists struggle to figure out what, exactly, is causing entire marine ecosystems to suffer and die, seemingly inexplicably.

Much of the carnage is being reported in California, where baby sea lions in distress have been washing ashore in record numbers. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that, for the second year in a row, more baby sea lions than ever are having trouble surviving after being abandoned by their mothers, the direct result of a lack of food.

According to reports, a record 367 California sea lions were admitted to the Marine Mammal Center near San Francisco between January and May, which is nearly five times the normal average. In Southern California, more than 600 sea lions, or twice the normal average, have been taken in so far this year. This is on top of the 1,600 that were treated last year.

"Sea lions are living and feeding on the same resource[s] as humans are," stated Shawn Johnson, director of veterinary science at the Marine Mammal Center, to WSJ. "If they are starting to have problems, that shows there could be a problem with the ocean."

A little further north, orcas and beluga whales are suffering similar fates. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says widespread pollution from oil and gas drilling has caused populations of both species to dwindle significantly throughout the past several decades.

Also suffering along the Alaskan coast are Alaskan ice seals, more than 250 of which have developed a mystery disease that often results in death. Experts have postulated that toxic algal growth along coastal waters may be to blame, and this a result of excess sun exposure due to continued ozone depletion.

"In all, the federal government has declared 38 'unusual mortality events' involving marine mammal species since 2003," wrote Jim Carlton for WSJ. "That is nearly twice the number of events recorded from 1991--when the animals were put under greater federal protection--to 2002."

Over on the other side of the country, hundreds of manatees and about 80 bottlenose dolphins were discovered stranded in Florida's Indian River Lagoon between 2012 and 2013. And in South Carolina in 2013, as many as 40,000 menhaden fish, which measure between six and eight inches in length, washed up dead between DeBordieu Beach and Pawleys Island, just one week after thousands of the same type of fish washed up along North Carolina's Masonboro Island.

One year prior, thousands of dead starfish washed up along the same beaches.

The body of a two-headed dolphin has washed up on a beach in Turkey this week.

The conjoined corpse was seen floating onto the shore in Izmir on Turkey's west coast on Monday by sports teacher Tugrul Metin.

The dead dolphin was believed to be a one-year-old calf measuring just 3.2ft in length.

It had two heads but merged to share just one tail.

Mr Metin, 39, said: 'I noticed the dolphin in the sea and watched as it washed on to the beach.

A Florida 9-year old knew just what to do when he had a too-close-for comfort encounter with a nine-foot, 400-pound alligator.

"I just immediately hit it and I let it go a little so I pry its jaw open," James Barney Jr. said.

Sitting in his hospital bed with only minor cuts, Barney said some quick thinking saved his life when he was attacked by an alligator Thursday in Saint Cloud, Fla.

"First I thought someone was just playing with me and I didn't know what happened. I reached down to go grab it and I felt its jaw, I felt its teeth," Barney said.

Valley fever has been around for more than 100 years, and disproportionately affects poor farmworkers. For some, it becomes a lifelong illness, and doctors don't know why.
Last fall, Kirt Emery was on his motorcycle, cruising up the 99 freeway over the mountains from Santa Barbara to Bakersfield, California, when he saw the dust storm materializing in front of him.

Visibility was low, but he wanted to get through it as quickly as he could, so he held his breath and hammered his bike up to 100 miles per hour.

As the head of epidemiology for the Bakersfield Public Health Services Department, Emery has spent the past two decades studying dust like this - and avoiding it at all costs. He knows all too well what could happen to him if he got sick: the expensive medications with their nasty side affects, the uncertainty of whether he could be ill for the rest of his life.

It's been more than 20 years since he moved to Bakersfield, and so far, he's still healthy. That makes him one of the lucky ones. For many people living in places like Bakersfield, and throughout much of California's Central Valley, dust can be deadly.

Coccidioidomycosis, also known as cocci, or valley fever, is a fungal disease endemic to the soils of the Southwest, in places like Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. In California, it's rampant across the Central Valley, an area just slightly smaller than West Virginia that grows about a third of the country's produce. About 30 percent of all valley fever cases nationwide occur in the Central Valley each year.