A cyclone packing winds of more than 100 mph (160 kph) demolished ten of thousands of mud huts in northeastern India, killing at least 89 villagers, officials said Wednesday.
The cyclone struck close to midnight on Tuesday in northeastern parts of West Bengal and Bihar states, uprooting trees and snapping telephone and electricity lines, West Bengal Civil Defense Minister Srikumar Mukherjee said. Hundreds of people were injured and many thousands left homeless.
Devesh Chandra Thakur, Bihar state's Minister for Disaster Management, said there was no cyclone warning from the weather department, so villagers were unprepared.
Television footage showed uprooted trees lying across shanties and sheets of corrugated metal ripped from the roofs of homes. Small children sat outside their damaged huts as parents tried to salvage their belongings from inside.
Earth Changes
© Municipality of Carhuaz
Huancan peak seeing from a hill close to Carhuaz.
Huancan peak seeing from a hill close to Carhuaz.
The ice block tumbled into a lake in the Andes on Sunday near the town of Carhuaz, some 200 miles (320 km) north of the capital, Lima. Three people were feared buried in debris.
Investigators said the chunk of ice from the Hualcan glacier measured 1,640 feet (500 metres) by 656 feet (200 metres).
"This slide into the lake generated a tsunami wave, which breached the lake's levees, which are 23 metres high -- meaning the wave was 23 metres high," said Patricio Vaderrama, an expert on glaciers at Peru's Institute of Mine Engineers.
The mud volcano in Yushan Village of Nanhua Township erupted again on April 12, creating a boiling pot of soup-like mud. Retired teacher Lai Ming-chang says that the mountain erupts once every three or four months, and that this is a normal release of energy rather than a sign of an impending major earthquake.
At about 7 a.m., Lai was told by a landowner that another eruption was underway. As soon as it started, the surface of the water began bubbling, and the smell of gases released from the water got stronger and stronger. Around noon, the force of the eruption started mounting gradually, and it had reached its peak by 3 p.m. Mud was pouring outward from the middle, getting higher and higher. "It looked as though there was a pot of boiling soup on a burner," bystanders said.
Being a long-time observer of these eruptions, Lai says that the last eruption occurred on January 9, and they generally last between 24 and 26 hours. The water inside the volcano will dry up again in three days, but when they seep out to form an underground lake, the volcano will erupt again.
At about 7 a.m., Lai was told by a landowner that another eruption was underway. As soon as it started, the surface of the water began bubbling, and the smell of gases released from the water got stronger and stronger. Around noon, the force of the eruption started mounting gradually, and it had reached its peak by 3 p.m. Mud was pouring outward from the middle, getting higher and higher. "It looked as though there was a pot of boiling soup on a burner," bystanders said.
Being a long-time observer of these eruptions, Lai says that the last eruption occurred on January 9, and they generally last between 24 and 26 hours. The water inside the volcano will dry up again in three days, but when they seep out to form an underground lake, the volcano will erupt again.
© Icelandic Coast Guard
This second eruption in as many months was between ten and twenty times more powerful than the first
This second eruption in as many months was between ten and twenty times more powerful than the first
Emergency officials evacuated 800 residents from around the Eyjafjallajokull glacier as rivers rose by up to 10 feet (3 meters) and flooded a sparsely populated area, said Rognvaldur Olafsson, a chief inspector for the Icelandic Civil Protection Agency.
He said no lives or properties were in immediate danger. Scientists said there was no sign of increased activity at the much larger Katla volcano nearby.
Pall Einarsson, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland, said magma was melting a hole in the 650-foot (200 meter) thick ice covering the volcano's crater, sending floodwater coursing down the glacier into lowland areas.
© Associated Press
In this photo taken by a mobile phone, local people gather outside after being evacuated from buildings following an earthquake that hit the Tibetan area in Qinghai's south.
In this photo taken by a mobile phone, local people gather outside after being evacuated from buildings following an earthquake that hit the Tibetan area in Qinghai's south.
The U.S. Geological Survey said a magnitude 6.9 temblor struck an area in southern Qinghai, near Tibet, on Wednesday morning and was followed by several aftershocks.
The main quake sent residents fleeing as it toppled houses made of mud and wood, said Karsum Nyima, the Yushu county television station's deputy head of news, speaking by phone with broadcaster CCTV.
"In a flash, the houses went down. It was a terrible earthquake," he said. "In a small park, there is a Buddhist tower and the top of the tower fell off. ... Everybody is out on the streets, standing in front of their houses, trying to find their family members."
The quake hit the county of Yushu, a Tibetan area in Qinghai's south, said the China Earthquake Networks Center, which measured the quake's magnitude at 7.1. A local government Web site put the county's population in 2005 at 89,300, a community of mostly herders and farmers.
© AFP/Graphic
A map of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, locating the area where a Chinese-registered carrier ran aground and caused a three-kilometre slick. Australian officials raced against the clock to refloat a massive Chinese ship which grounded and leaked oil at the Great Barrier Reef before high winds and heavy seas rock the region.
A map of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, locating the area where a Chinese-registered carrier ran aground and caused a three-kilometre slick. Australian officials raced against the clock to refloat a massive Chinese ship which grounded and leaked oil at the Great Barrier Reef before high winds and heavy seas rock the region.
The Shen Neng 1 coal carrier veered into protected waters and ran aground on Douglas Shoal on April 3, immediately leaking 2-3 tons of fuel when coral shredded its hull. The vessel tore a 2-mile- (3-kilometer-) long gash into the shoal, causing damage that one leading marine scientist said could take up to 20 years to heal.
On Wednesday, a team of about 25 people was working to clean up bits of oil that had begun washing ashore on North West Island, a turtle hatchery and bird sanctuary about 12 miles (18 kilometers) from where the ship crashed into the reef, said Adam Nicholson, a maritime safety spokesman for the northeastern state of Queensland.
The globules were about an inch (3 centimeters) wide, and were scattered across about a half-mile (1 kilometer) of beach on the island, the second largest coral key on the reef.
© AFP/Graphic
Map of China locating the epicentre of a 6.9-magnitude quake which rocked remote Qinghai province Wednesday
Map of China locating the epicentre of a 6.9-magnitude quake which rocked remote Qinghai province Wednesday
The U.S. Geological Survey reported on its Web site that a magnitude 6.9 temblor struck an area in southern Qinghai, near Tibet, on Wednesday morning and was followed by three quakes in the same area.
The main quake sent residents fleeing as it toppled houses made of mud and wood, said Karsum Nyima, the Yushu county television station's deputy head of news, speaking by phone with broadcaster CCTV.
"In a flash, the houses went down. It was a terrible earthquake," he said. "In a small park, there is a Buddhist tower and the top of the tower fell off.
"Everybody is out on the streets, standing in front of their houses, trying to find their family members," he said, adding that school buildings had not collapsed but that students had been evacuated and were assembled in outdoor playgrounds.
Beijing - A magnitude 6.9 earthquake killed at least four people and trapped many others in collapsed houses in the ethnic Tibetan town of Yushu, Qinghai province, on the mountainous Tibetan plateau.
© AP
A pod of killer whales attack a gray whale in Puget Sound between Camano and Whidbey islands in Washington state
A pod of killer whales attack a gray whale in Puget Sound between Camano and Whidbey islands in Washington state
After the gray whale dove beneath the water on Sunday, the pod of attacking transient killer whales followed suit.
'Everything was quiet for a minute,' said Monte Hughes, captain of the Anacortes-based Mystic Sea Charters. 'Then the water went into a frenzy. ... You could see the movements of the grey whale being hit underneath the water.'
A short time later the gray whale surfaced, belly up, and jerked upward two or three times as it was being hit from below, he said.
The killer whales then took off, and the grey whale floundered for a time, but eventually swam toward shallow waters.
© Everything PR
Seismologists in Spain, and at the USGS associate this very deep seismic activity with a powerful earthquake which struck Spain in 1954. Besides that magnitude 7.1 event, earthquakes at this depth, in this region, are not all that common. One Spanish geologist, Spanish Geologist Luis Eugenio Suarez, predicted a month ago that a quake like that which devastated Chile would strike this region of Spain.
