A 10-metre whale died on Sunday after becoming tangled in a Tunisian fisherman's nets off the coast of Sidi Bou Said town north of the capital Tunis.

"At first, I thought it was a car bumper. Then I saw the whale's tail," the 24-year-old Bilel Jerbi told AFP.

He said the whale, whose species has yet to be identified, was already dying when he found it in his nets, although it was unclear what had killed it.

Jerbi then towed the carcass to port in Sidi Bou Said.

The marine mammal was around 10 metres in length and weighed "seven or eight tons", according to an official from the Tunisian coastguard.

"We have seen three- or four-metre-long whales before. But it's the first time for one of this size or weight," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

An earthquake with a magnitude 6.3 occurred in the ocean to the south of the Mexican coast today, the US Geological Survey reports.

The epicentre of earthquake shocks registered at 4:38 Moscow time was located 32km south-west of the town of Pinotepa Nacional in Oaxaca State. The seismic centre lay 35km deep. There is no information about damage or casualties.

A massive 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of Northern California Sunday evening, 50 miles west of Eureka, Calif., according to the USGS.

The earthquake was recorded at around 10:18 p.m. Pacific and KTVU viewers say they felt it as far away as Redwood City.

"Felt the Eureka earthquake all the way down here in Redwood City. Friends up there say shaking lasted 30-60 seconds," wrote viewer Kristopher Rowberry on KTVU's Facebook page.

USGS seismologist Susan Hoover says more than 300 people have reported feeling the temblor on their website as of 10:49 p.m., according to the Associated Press.

By 11:15 p.m., that number had increased to 1300 people.

Event Time
2014-03-10 05:18:12 UTC
2014-03-09 21:18:12 UTC-08:00 at epicenter

Location
40.821°N 125.128°W depth=7.0km (4.3mi)

Nearby Cities
77km (48mi) WNW of Ferndale, California
81km (50mi) W of Eureka, California
85km (53mi) WNW of Fortuna, California
87km (54mi) W of McKinleyville, California
398km (247mi) NW of Sacramento, California

Technical Details

So I was walking with my dog in the evening just before sunset, we were traveling into vast fields of nature to escape common modern view. By accident I found a pond. It caught my interest since I saw a waterhole in the middle of it. Usually people drills waterholes in their ponds where fish lives, at winter time, so fish can breathe. I thought I will see some fishes and stuff... But as soon as I came closer, I noticed that it was evaporating.

You can't see this in the video since I was filming with my phone which has shitty camera. When I stepped on that frozen pond, farther away from that waterhole (where I was standing) ice was 20 centimeters thick or even more. And that waterhole looked like it was melted with fire or something... You can see around that waterhole that there is snow or maybe ice particles blasted away from the center of this waterhole.

Floods of the European Alps

Background

The authors write that "severe floods triggered by intense precipitation are among the most destructive natural hazards in Alpine environments, frequently causing large financial and social damage," and they say that "potential enhanced flood occurrence due to global climate change would thus increase threats to settlements, infrastructure, and human lives in the affected regions." However, they note that, currently, "projections of intense precipitation exhibit major uncertainties" and that "robust reconstructions of Alpine floods are limited to the instrumental and historical period," giving one reason to question whether global warming would lead to such a consequence.

What was done

In a study designed to reduce these uncertainties and extend reconstructions back in time beyond the instrumental period, Glur et al. developed "a multi-archive Alpine flood reconstruction based on ten lacustrine sediment records, covering the past 2500 years." More specifically, they studied ten lakes situated north of the Central Alpine arc along a montane-to-Alpine transect, spanning an elevation gradient from 447 to 2068 m asl," which allowed "the extraction of a synoptic, rather than a merely local rainfall signal revealed by a single-lake study." And to verify their approach to the subject, they compared the last 500 years of their Central Alpine flood reconstruction with an independently established flood record for that period that was based on historical documents, as developed and described by Schmocker-Fackel and Naef (2010).

What was learned

"Regarding the best-characterized climatic periods during the past 2500 years," the eight researchers report that "flood activity was generally enhanced during the Little Ice Age (1430-1850 C.E.; LIA) compared to the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950-1250 C.E.; MCA)." And they say that "this result is confirmed by other studies documenting an increased (decreased) flood activity during the LIA (MCA) in the Alps," citing the studies of Schmocker-Fackel and Naef (2010), Czymzik et al. (2010), Wilhelm et al. (2012) and Swierczynski et al. (2012).

Five firefighters were also hurt as they rushed to the aid of the 71-year-old in Palm Desert, California, where she is now recovering in hospital


A woman was stung more than 1,000 times after being attacked by a swarm of 75,000 killer bees.

Reports say the 71-year-old woman was sat in her car when she was completely covered by Africanized honey bees.

Five firefighters were also hurt as they cleared the swarm in a gated community in Palm Desert, California.

The 75,000 hybrid bees - who are known to attack when they feel threatened - are believed to have been living in a buried cable box.

Local TV station KCBS-TV reported the woman was taken to a local hospital where she was recovering from serious injuries.

Three firefighters were also taken to hospital to be treated for more minor injuries.

Very low levels of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster likely will reach ocean waters along the U.S. West Coast next month, scientists are reporting. Current models predict that the radiation will be at extremely low levels that won't harm humans or the environment, said Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who presented research on the issue last week.

But Buesseler and other scientists are calling for more monitoring. No federal agency currently samples Pacific Coast seawater for radiation, he said."I'm not trying to be alarmist," Buesseler said. "We can make predictions, we can do models. But unless you have results, how will we know it's safe?"

The beginning of March has never been so warm as this weekend, weather bureaus said on Sunday.

The temperature reached 19 Celsius at the De Bilt weather station near Hilversum on Sunday afternoon - the highest March 9 temperature ever recorded. Saturday was also a record-breaking day.

In southern and eastern parts of the country, the temperature tipped 20 Celsius. In Maastricht it reached almost 22 Celsius while in Twente and Eindhoven, it almost reached 21.

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The following video contains footage of some of the extreme weather, fireballs and seismic activity from around the world in February. Think the weather's crazy where you live? Check out what's happening elsewhere...

January's 'polar vortex' returned to bury most of the US in snow... despite a record number of 'winter wildfires' breaking out as far north as Oregon.

Mount Sinabung in Indonesia erupted spectacularly... then a string of volcanoes followed the ensuing pyroclastic cloud down the mountain, while another major volcanic eruption occurred in Ecuador.

Severe flooding, tidal surges and hurricane force winds hit Western Europe, while Eastern Europe was hit by heavy snow and ice-storms.

A wildfire broke out in Wales between winter storms... as Atlanta, Georgia was knocked out by snow.

There were record snowfalls in Iran and Tokyo, more 'strange sky sounds' and the Great Lakes almost completely froze over.

A waterspout was filmed off the Australian coast, a major heatwave hit Brazil, and sinkholes opened up all over UK...

Is this normal?!

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