Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Australia - Sink Hole Sucks Away Trees at Inskip Point

Kristin Shorten
The Corier Mail, Australia
Sun, 26 Jun 2011 07:00 UTC
SinkHole
© Glenn Barnes / The Courier-Mail Big Bite: Inskip Peninsula campers cautiously check out the sink hole.
Now you see it, now you don't. That was the case at Inskip beach, north of Tin Can Bay, yesterday as a 100m-wide section of beach was swallowed by a sink hole.

The hole opened up on the popular stretch of beach about 10.30am and by mid-afternoon it looked like a giant bite had been taken out of the coastline.

Campers on Inskip Peninsula watched in awe as chunks of sand were sucked out to sea, followed by trees and signs.
Visitor Rhonda Harris said it was a "phenomenon''.

"When we first came up about 11am the water was actually bubbling like it was boiling,'' she said.

"We saw the 'no camping' sign get washed out.''

Camper Shane Hillhouse said four-wheel drives had been travelling along the popular stretch of sand, near Inskip Peninsula, shortly before the hole appeared.
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Bizarro Earth

Near The North Coast Of Papua - Earthquake Magnitude 6.4


USGS
Sun, 26 Jun 2011 13:30 UTC
Papua Quake_260611
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date and Time:
Sunday, June 26, 2011 at 12:16:39 UTC

Sunday, June 26, 2011 at 09:16:39 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
2.391°S, 136.663°E

Depth:
20.6 km (12.8 miles)

Region:
NEAR THE NORTH COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA

Distances:
172 km (106 miles) N of Enarotali, Papua, Indonesia

331 km (205 miles) ESE of Manokwari, Papua, Indonesia

1286 km (799 miles) NNE of DARWIN, Northern Territory, Australia

3336 km (2072 miles) E of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia
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Phoenix

Firefighters put out 3 forest fires in Russia's Far East in past 24 hours


RIA Novosti
Sun, 26 Jun 2011 04:33 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti. Mikhail FomichevFirefighters put out 3 forest fires in Russia's Far East in past 24 hours
Firefighters and rescuers in Russia's Far East extinguished three forest fires over the past 24 hours and continue battling 11 more forest fires, a spokesman for the regional emergencies ministry said on Sunday.

"Satellite monitoring and aircraft surveillance registered a total of 14 forest fires in the last 24 hours. Three of them covering an area 43 hectares were extinguished," the spokesman said.

He added that the remaining 11 wildfires had spread over the area of 519 hectares.
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Radar

China: Magnitude 5.2 Earthquake Hits Yushu, Qinghai Province


Xinhua
Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:17 UTC
An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale jolted Nangchen County in the Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Yushu in northwest China's Qinghai Province at 3:48 p.m Sunday, said the China Earthquake Networks Center.

The epicenter was monitored at 32.4 degrees north latitude and 95.9 degrees east longitude with a depth of 10 km, the center said in a statement on its website.

A fresh 3.1-magnitude quake shook the Nangchen county four minutes after the 5.2-magnitude quake, according to the center.

No casualties have been reported so far, said Wen Guodong, vice secretary of the prefectural committee of the Communist Party of China.

"We felt the quake strongly in Nangchen, but near our office we haven't found any collapsed buildings," said Drimi Lhundrup, deputy chief of the county government.
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Bizarro Earth

Storm drenches east China while drought plagues northwest

Deng Shasha
Xinhuanet.com
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:03 UTC
Shanghai - Extreme weather conditions are plaguing China with a strengthening tropical storm on the eastern coastline and a prolonged drought in the northwest.

The full force of Meari, still gaining in strength and likely to soon become a typhoon, would be felt in Zhejiang Province as it makes landfall there Saturday evening, according to an alert from the meteorological station of Zhejiang Province.

Meari, heading northward, is forecast to hit Shanghai soon after, with its center about 150 km to the east and out to sea of the city, according to the Shanghai municipal meteorological station.

Shanghai has emptied reservoirs to make room for the water the typhoon is likely to bring, said Zhang Zhengyu, spokesman for the Shanghai Flood Control Headquarters.
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Cloud Lightning

Storm Haima wreaks havoc in North Vietnam


English.vietnamnet.vn
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 20:50 UTC
Contrary to previous predictions, tropical storm Haima landed in Thai Binh province yesterday evening. At least 10 people were killed, 14 were missing and hundreds of others were injured in some northern provinces, Le Thanh Hai, deputy director of the Central Hydro-meteorological Forecasting Center, said.

Image
© Unknown
Previously, the storm was expected to make landfall in the Vietnam-China border area, he said.

In the past few days, the storm has caused heavy rains in many Northern Vietnam provinces, with rainfalls measuring 50 mm to over 150 mm. In the central area of Hanoi, the rainfall reached 120 mm.

The coastal areas of Quang Ninh-Thai Binh province are experiencing winds of force 7-8.

After landing in Thai Binh with force of 6-7, the storm has weakened to a depression and continued moving west. It will fade away when it reaches Northern Laos this evening, he added.

The heavy rains are expected to continue in the next few days, Hai said.

So far the coastal city of Hai Phong suffered the most from the storm, with 6 people dead, including four by lightning, in four districts Thuy Nguyen, An Duong, Tien Lang and An Lao.
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Umbrella

US - Tennessee- Storms add to woes

Jim Balloch, Suzanna McCloskey
Knoxnews.com
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 20:27 UTC
Power for some may not be restored until early next week, KUB says

Image
© Justin West An image taken video shows a tree on Austin Womack's car June 24, 2011 on Silverwood Road in West Haven. The tree was toppled by the Tuesday evening storm. Womack's house was hit again early Friday morning when a tree hit the side of his home, pushing the bed from the wall.
After a second wave of major storms in three days, KUB said Friday that it is possible power may not be restored to all of its customers until early next week, even though it has an all-time high number of crews at work.

When the storms of Thursday night and Friday morning occurred, KUB had not fully recovered from Tuesday's storms that left more than 127,000 customers without power.

As of 9:17 p.m. Friday, 20,710 customers were still without power.
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Alarm Clock

US - New York - Solutions needed in storm's wake


Lohud.com
Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:10 UTC
Image
© Vincent DiSalvio/The Journal NewsA pickup truck drives past an abandoned vehicle on a flooded South Pascack Road in Chestnut Ridge on Thursday.
Thursday's was an imperfect storm, especially in hard-hit Rockland County. It dumped huge amounts of rain, much of it when large numbers of motorists were in transit. On top of that, the heavy rain fell upon ground already saturated, making for more runoff than might have been expected. Ongoing construction projects added to the congestion and the runoff; delays with other projects make it even harder to cope with inordinately heavy rains.

Such heavy rains have been an especially vexing problem for Rockland. Twice in March the area got hit hard, with rains causing spot flooding. On March 6 and 7, five communities - Valley Cottage, West Nyack, Hillburn, Nanuet and Thiells - all recorded rainfalls of 4 inches or more; Thiells registered 5.28 inches. This time there was less rain and more flooding. New City, with 3.4 inches, was treading water; Nyack had a river running through it; West Nyack was awash, as were several other communities.
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Binoculars

US - Minot, North Dakota Floods: Threat of Rain Looms as Residents Brace for Flooding

Michael Murray and Gerard McNiff
Abcnews.go.com
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 20:02 UTC

Residents and officials in Minot, North Dakota, are bracing for record flooding from the swollen Souris River as the threat of more rain looms later today.

"A rain event right now would change everything. That's the scariest," Minot Mayor Curt Zimbelman told The Associated Press.

Some 4,500 homes are expected to be damaged from the expected surge of the river.

The flooding is due to the combination of excessive snow melt from an above normal winter snow pack, and above normal rainfall this past spring from the northern Rocky Mountain states through the Plains and Midwest.
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Binoculars

Massive flood expected to take toll on Lake Winnipeg, feed algae blooms

Chinta Puxley
Winnipegfreepress.com
Sat, 25 Jun 2011 19:53 UTC
Image
© The Canadian Press/Jonathan HaywardFlood waters from the breach in the dike at the hoop and holler bend fans out from the Assiniboine River, top of frame, to surrounding fields outside of Portage La Prairie, Man., on May 14, 2011. A massive flood that has turned fertile Manitoba pastures into lakes and driven people from their homes for weeks on end will probably deal another blow to the ailing prairie ocean known as Lake Winnipeg.
Winnipeg - A massive flood that has turned fertile Manitoba pastures into lakes and driven people from their homes for weeks on end will probably deal another blow to the ailing prairie ocean known as Lake Winnipeg.

Flood waters that have settled across much of southern Manitoba are expected to carry various nutrients picked up from farmers' fields and urban run-off when they do finally recede into the world's 11th largest freshwater lake. It already has dangerously high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, which feed huge blue-green algae blooms so large they are visible from space.

Experts say this year's flood, combined with a hot summer, could push nutrient levels up even more, as previous floods have done.

"The more land you inundate, the more potential there is for nutrients to come in," says Peter Leavitt, Canada research chair in environmental change and society, who recently conducted a study on Lake Winnipeg.
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