Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Sukhothai, Thailand floods as levees break, eroded barriers fail - local people rush to evacuate


BangkokPost.com
Mon, 10 Sep 2012 15:09 UTC
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© Phubas FaitesOfficials head by boat to help flood-hit people in Sukhothai municipality yesterday after the Yom River spilled into the area. Water levels reached up to 1 metre high in the city’s main fresh market.
Officials and resources were urgently mobilised to help people in areas of Sukhothai municipality which were abruptly hit by the flooding.

The surging waters made many roads in municipal areas of Sukhothai's Muang district impassable, with the level more than a metre deep in some places. At least five schools suspended classes.

His Majesty the King has had disaster relief packages worth more than 760,000 baht, delivered to 1,500 flood-affected households in the province via the Rajaprajanugroh Foundation.

The government said water management at dams was still under control, and that the Sukhothai flood was due to the levee bases on which flood walls had been built breaking unexpectedly.

Sukhothai municipality's Wichian Chamnong, Ratchathani, Pracha Ruamjai, Khlong Tapetch, Phra Maeya and Tan Diew communities were inundated.
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Cloud Lightning

Heavy Pakistan monsoon rains triggered flashfloods - 78 people dead and more than 1,600 houses destroyed


NYDailyNews.com
Mon, 10 Sep 2012 14:59 UTC
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Pakistan floods: monsoons bring more misery to millions
At least 78 people have died and dozens more injured in torrential rains and flash floods that have wreaked havoc in Pakistan over the past three days, a government spokesman said Monday. Heavy monsoon rains which began falling last week have destroyed more than 1,600 houses and damaged a further 5,000, Irshad Bhatti, a spokesman for the country's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) told AFP.

"A total of 78 people have died and 68 injured in rains and flash floods in the country so far," he said, adding that the casualties were caused mostly by houses collapsing and people being caught in floods.

The worst-hit region was Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where 32 people have died and 26 injured in several districts, he said, adding that 83 houses were totally destroyed and another 4,200 were partially damaged.

In the northwestern district of Swabi eight Afghan refugees were killed when the roof of their mud house collapsed overnight, police official Mohammad Ali said.
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Info

Yellowstone Wolves Hit by Disease

Megan Gannon
LiveScience
Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:23 UTC
Gray Wolf
© Kramer, Gary | U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceThe gray wolf (Canis lupus).

Less than two decades after wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, viral diseases like mange threaten the stability of the new population.

Humans had killed off gray wolves in the region by the 1930s, but in 1995, U.S. wildlife officials tried to restore the native population by bringing 31 wolves captured from Canada into the national park.

The new wolf community initially expanded rapidly, climbing to more than 170 at its peak. But researchers from Penn State University say that the most recent data show the number of animals has dipped below 100.

"We're down to extremely low levels of wolves right now," researcher Emily S. Almberg, a graduate student in ecology, said in a statement. "We're down to [similar numbers as] the early years of reintroduction. So it doesn't look like it's going to be as large and as a stable a population as was maybe initially thought."

The researchers point to pathogens as the culprit in the population's instability. By 1997, all of the new wolves at the park that were tested for disease had at least one infection, including canine distemper, canine parvovirus and canine herpesvirus. Starting in 2007, wolves inside the park were testing positive for mange - an infection in which mites burrow under the skin causing insatiable scratching and so much hair loss that infected wolves often freeze to death in the winter.
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Bulb

Unexplained power failure plunges western Cuba into darkness


TODAYonline.com
Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:32 UTC
Power failed across a large swath of western Cuba last night, plunging millions of people into darkness, including those in the capital of Havana and at the beach resort of Varadero. Other cities in central and eastern Cuba also had outages but for only brief spans.

There was no immediate word on what caused the blackout, which struck a little after 8pm (Cuba time) and was still mostly out in the capital more than three hours later.

Calls to the electrical system's headquarters were met with busy signals. Officials in the national government were not immediately able to offer an explanation.

State radio said power was gradually being restored but urged people not to use power-hungry appliances.

Lights came back on in at least one eastern Havana suburb after about two and a half hours. Havana's international airport reported that it had electricity and was continuing operations.

In the capital, home to about two million people, the lights went out in a 40km stretch from Havana's western residential neighbourhoods across the city's centre and Old Havana district and on to suburbs on the other side of the bay.
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Alarm Clock

"This is Brooklyn. Who ever thought there'd be a tornado!"

Magee Hickey
PIX 11
Sun, 09 Sep 2012 08:32 UTC

New York - The cleanup in Canarsie will resume tomorrow after a second, much stronger tornado touched down and created a two-block swath of destruction here in this corner of Brooklyn.

And what's got people in Canarsie really amazed about this twister is how it destroyed one house and left the houses right next door undamaged.

The winds were clocked at 110 mph in Brooklyn, compared to another twister in Breezy Point, Queens, which had 70 mph winds. Both tornados were about 150 feet wide.

"This is Brooklyn, who ever thought there'd be a tornado," Zorina Khan told PIX 11's Magee Hickey.

Mrs. Kahn showed me her daughter's house on Avenue N where the entire roof had been ripped off. The tornado also dislodged a chunk of concrete that just missed a sleeping baby by inches.

"It was a huge piece, maybe 50 or 60 pounds and the baby was so close to it," Mrs. Kahn said. "But the baby is fine, thank God."
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Bizarro Earth

Chamber of Molten Rock Inflates under Santorini


PhysOrg
Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:38 UTC
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A new survey suggests that the chamber of molten rock beneath Santorini's volcano expanded 10-20 million cubic metres - up to 15 times the size of London's Olympic Stadium - between January 2011 and April 2012. The growth of this 'balloon' of magma has seen the surface of the island rise 8-14 centimetres during this period, a team led by Oxford University scientists has found. The results come from an expedition, funded by the UK's Natural Environment Research Council, which used satellite radar images and Global Positioning System receivers (GPS) that can detect movements of the Earth's surface of just a few millimetres.

The findings are helping scientists to understand more about the inner workings of the volcano which had its last major explosive eruption 3,600 years ago, burying the islands of Santorini under metres of pumice. However, it still does not provide an answer to the biggest question of all: 'when will the volcano next erupt?' A report of the research appears in this week's Nature Geoscience. In January 2011, a series of small earthquakes began beneath the islands of Santorini. Most were so small they could only be detected with sensitive seismometers but it was the first sign of activity beneath the volcano to be detected for 25 years.
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Bizarro Earth

More tremors at Song Tranh hydro-power plant


Source
Sun, 09 Sep 2012 16:48 UTC
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Song Tranh 2 dam
VietNamNet Bridge - In the morning of September 6, thousands of residents of Bac Tra My district, Quang Nam province, panicked because of four consecutive quakes up to 3.4 on the Richter scale. In the last four days, this region suffered from 12 quakes.

While attending a ceremony to see recruits off, many officials of Bac Tra My district heard big explosions in the earth and fell tremors. "After the explosion, the ground shook and my car was also shaken," said Ms. Dung, a district official. Mr. Tran Van Anh in Phuoc Hiep commune, Phuoc Son district, where is very close to Song Tranh 2 hydro-power plant, said: "At 7.20am, when I was drinking tea with my neighbors, an underground blast exploded. After that the ground shook strongly. We had to run out of the house immediately."

In Hiep Duc and Nam Tra My districts, hundreds of people fled from their houses because of underground blasts and tremors in the early morning. The Geo-physic Institute verified that four quakes occurred near the Song Tranh 2 plant in the morning of September 6. The strongest tremor is 3.4 Richter and its epicenter was in Phuoc Hiep commune, which is very close to Song Tranh 2.

According to the institute's statistics, up to 58 tremors were recorded around Song Tranh 2 plant over the last year. From September 3-6, up to 12 quakes occurred. The strongest tremor was 4.2 Richter. Tremors may come from the Tra Bong or Hung Nhuong-Ta Vi faults, around 3km from Song Tranh 2 dam.
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Stop

Unexplained Hoof Disease Spreads Quickly In Washington Elk


OPB
Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:15 UTC
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© William OlsonElk on the grass in Packwood, Washington. A mysterious hoof disease is spreading through herds in southwest Washington
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is asking for help gathering clues about a hoof disease affecting elk in southwest Washington. Veterinarians with the wildlife agency say the disease, which causes severe hoof deformity, has spread rapidly.

It began with a few isolated cases and is now common in herds across the region, from Vancouver to the foothills of Mount St. Helens. Hunters first spotted elk limping near Longview Washington in the 1990s. They reported the animals' hooves were deformed or missing.

Darren Sparks can see the diseased elk in his backyard in Kelso.

"You'll see, usually, half the herd have hoof rot," he says.
"They won't survive the winter. They can't get around as good and you'll see their hindquarters, start getting skinnier and skinnier."
Kristin Mansfield, a veterinarian with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, says the disease hasn't caused a decline in Washington's elk population yet, but it may if it continues to spread to new herds.
"To me, the biggest concern is how quickly it has spread and how severe it is in the animals."
Mansfield says the disease doesn't match any other reports of elk maladies in the United States. Forms of hoof rot do appear occasionally in Wyoming's populations of elk that congregate around feeding sites. Mansfield says those reports of hoof disease are limited to winter and to a few individual animals.

Comment: It's the second mysterious disease to affect elk population around the world recently:
Swedish experts baffled by 'mystery' elk illness

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Cloud Lightning

Centre of Hurricane Leslie now expected to hit Newfoundland on Tuesday


Yahoo! News - Canada
Sun, 09 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
Halifax - The Canadian Hurricane Centre says the likelihood of tropical storm Leslie's centre making landfall in Newfoundland is quite high.

But Chris Fogarty, the centre's manager, says it's difficult to predict where the storm will land because its circulation is about 800 kilometres in diameter.

Fogarty says the storm's effects will be far-reaching and winds could gust up to 100 km/h when it hits on Tuesday.

He says Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Newfoundland could see 100 to 150 millimetres of rain over about 36 hours.

The centre says the small Category 2 hurricane Michael will likely be pushed northward out of the area by Leslie.

Fogarty says Leslie is expected to reach hurricane status sometime today or Monday, but he could not say if it will maintain that status for its arrival in Atlantic Canada.

Source: The Canadian Press
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Hardhat

Rescuers Told to Keep at It after China Earthquake Kills 80


Yahoo! News - Canada
Sun, 09 Sep 2012 00:00 UTC
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© Reuters/Jason LeeA man runs past a huge stone and damaged houses in Luozehe town, after two earthquakes hit Yiliang, Yunnan province September 9, 2012.
Guohui, China - Rescuers in southwestern China tried on Saturday to reach remote communities rocked by earthquakes that killed at least 80 people and damaged thousands of buildings, state media reported.

Shallow 5.6 magnitude quakes struck an impoverished, mountainous part of the country with poor infrastructure and communications on Friday and the death toll could rise as news trickles in from cut-off areas, the Xinhua news agency said.

The quakes cut off electricity and triggered landslides that blocked roads, hampering rescue efforts. Adding to rescuers' difficulties was rain which forecasters said was expected for the next three days.

"I was extremely scared when it started to shake. After it shook the first, second and third times, it was moving and I was extremely scared," said 56-year-old Zhou Weiping, a resident of the township of Guohui in Yiliang county, near the epicenter.

"We panicked and quickly ran out," she said

State television showed crumbled walls and roads strewn with rubble and rocks. The broadcaster put the death toll at 89 earlier in the day, but later revised it to "at least 80", in line with the official Xinhua news agency's tally.

More than 800 people were injured, Xinhua said.
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