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Attention

Second mahout to be killed by elephant within 5 days in Kerala, India

Sarath Babu George
The Hindu
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 22:08 UTC
Image
© Yathin S Krishnappa
Asian elephant.
The district authorities have resolved to strictly enforce the prescribed norms for management of captive elephants in the wake of second incident within five days in which a man was killed by an elephant in Karuvatta, near Haripad.

In the latest-such case, a 52-year-old mahout was crushed to death by an elephant, named Chirakkadavu Thiruneelakandan, which was brought from Ponkunnam during a procession that was taken out in connection with a festival at the Thiruvilanjal Devi Temple on Sunday by around 10 p.m. The mahout, Unnikrishnan Nair, who hailed from Padeethathil house in Karuvatta, was knocked down and was trampled by the elephant. The animal could be brought under control only within two hours.

The incident came close on the heels of another in which a 72-year-old ex-serviceman was killed by an elephant. Which ran amok when being readied for the festival at the same temple at Karuvatta. The victim, who was reading a newspaper on his courtyard, was hit by the elephant's trunk and was killed on the spot. The pachyderm was brought under control, but not before it damaged several vehicles and other properties along the busy Karuvatta-Haripad stretch.
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Bizarro Earth

Massive landslide buries parts of Peruvian town amid heavy rains

Marco Aquino and Mitra Taj
Reuters
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 21:29 UTC
landslide peru
© REUTERS/ Mariana Bazo
A woman carries a baby as she walks past debris of houses after a massive landslide in Chosica, March 24, 2015.
Seven people were killed and more were feared dead in Peru after a massive landslide buried parts of a town amid heavy rains, authorities said on Tuesday.

Six were missing and 25 injured in the disaster in Chosica, some 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) east of Lima, said Alfredo Murgueytio, the head of the National Civil Defense Institute, Indeci.

"There are likely more dead bodies under the debris," Murgueytio said on local broadcaster RPP.

TV images showed water and mud rushing over the town's sloped streets and a distraught woman waving a picture of a missing girl.

The main road connecting Lima to the center of Peru, a top global producer of copper and gold, remained blocked since Monday, police said.

Comment: Peru has been plagued by heavy rains causing floods and landslides this year:

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Bizarro Earth

Massive wildfires threaten ancient forests in Chile


Phys.org
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 20:00 UTC
wildfire chile

Aerial view of smoke columns are seen over mountains on the Conguillo National Park in Chile on March 22, 2015
Chile has declared a red alert for three national parks and reserves where massive wildfires are threatening forests that are thousands of years old, officials said Tuesday.

The fires have been raging for more than a week in the southern region of La Araucania, which has been hit by a severe drought.

The National Emergency Office (ONEMI) warned they would likely spread and intensify.

"It's going to be difficult to contain this fire today and tomorrow, but we hope that by Thursday we can effectively have it under control," said the vice minister of the interior, Madmuh Aleuy.

The head of national forest service CONAF, Aaron Cavieres, said firefighters were battling to keep the blaze away from populated areas.

"High temperatures and strong winds of more than 50 kilometers (30 miles) an hour are complicating our work to contain the fires," he said.

The fires are burning in three protected areas: China Muerta National Reserve, Nalca Lolco National Reserve and Conguillio National Park.
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Attention

Massive sinkhole appears on N3 highway in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

Chelsea Pieterse
News24.com
Fri, 20 Mar 2015 13:17 UTC
Image
© Jonathan Burton
A massive sinkhole over two metres deep and three metres wide appeared on the N3 highway in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday, leading to the closure of one of the busy freeway's lanes.

The Durban-bound portion of the road near the Peter Brown offramp has been repaired numerous times, but it collapsed when a bus travelling over the sunken area collided with a truck in the early hours of Thursday.

Easter weekend

WBHO engineer Jacques Grobler, who has been contracted to repair the sinkhole, said he was hoping to fix the portion of road before the Easter weekend.

"We had a machine on site this morning to start excavating the bottom of the sinkhole and to investigate the problem."

He said once they identified the cause of the collapse, they would build up the hole layer by layer and "try to repair it before the Easter weekend".

Road Traffic Inspectorate spokesperson Zinhle Mngomezulu said the hole was 2.4 metres deep and would easily swallow the nose end of a car.

Photos of the sinkhole were plastered all over social media as local residents and travellers shared concerns over the collapsed portion of road.

Danger

Comments poured in on The Witness's Facebook page from locals who said they had hit the sunken patch of road days before it collapsed.

Local Andries Keyser said he hit the sunken patch of road on Monday whilst towing an empty bulk fuel trailer behind his bakkie.
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Hardhat

Fire Rescue officials pull man out of sinkhole in Dania Beach, Florida

Amanda Batchelor
Local10.com
Thu, 19 Mar 2015 16:50 UTC
Image
© NBC
Fire Rescue officials have pulled a man out of a sinkhole at a boat yard in Dania Beach.

Sky 10 was above the scene about 4:30 p.m. as firefighters could be seen helping a man, as his legs appeared to still be stuck in the sinkhole in the area of Northeast 7th Avenue off S. Federal Highway.

Firefighters were eventually able to pull the man onto a stretcher just before 4:45 p.m.

He was then rushed to a nearby hospital by ambulance.
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Post-It Note

No tornadoes reported anywhere in the U.S. in March

Justin Juozapavicius
The Seattle Times
Fri, 20 Mar 2015 14:44 UTC
Image
© Justin Hobson
An F5 tornado.
With only about two-dozen twisters recorded so far this year during a period when 100 or more are typical, the U.S. appears to be in a tornado drought as cool, stable air prevents the ingredients of the violent storms from coming together, meteorologists said Friday.

No tornadoes have been reported so far in March, when tornado season often begins ramping up for parts of the country. The last time the U.S. had no twisters in March was nearly 50 years ago, according to figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center in Norman.

Forecasters at the prediction center reported earlier this week that since the beginning of the year, it has issued only four tornado watches and no severe thunderstorm watches — less than 10 percent of the average 52 tornado watches issued by mid-March. The center hasn't issued a watch in March, something that's never happened in its record of watches dating to 1970, said Greg Carbin, warning coordination meteorologist for NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.

"Every day that goes by is quite remarkable (because) we're normally seeing very active day-to-day weather somewhere in the country," Carbin said. "Four watches is also unprecedented.

Even in tornado-prone Oklahoma, the dominant weather pattern of cold, stable air that prevents a tornado's ingredients from coming together means the state is again starting storm season in sluggish fashion, a repeat of the year before, said state climatologist Gary McManus.
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Arrow Down

Sinkhole devours part of street in Cleveland, Ohio


19 Action News
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 15:19 UTC
Sinkhole
© WOIO
Part of yet another road collapsing into a sinkhole.
While drivers across the city look out for potholes, residents who live along Eddy Road, south of the Shoreway worry about a much bigger problem. Part of their street was swallowed up by a big sinkhole.

"It's scary, it's scary. That's literally at the corner of my street," said Unique Patterson, a resident who has to drive past it on her way home.

Several neighbors say they noticed part of the asphalt collapsing yesterday. Within a matter of minutes there was a car crater in the middle of the street.


Comment: Sinkholes are scary stuff, so it's too bad they're so casually dismissed as isolated incidents by the media. Many have died in recent years when the earth opened up and swallowed them.


Comment: Sinkholes have continued to devour Ohio for the past month. Check out:

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Cloud Precipitation

Heavy rainfall floods Bangkok, Thailand


Bangkok Post
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 15:55 UTC
Image
© Nattapol Lovakij
The flood in Asok Montri road after the heavy downpour in Bangkok.
A heavy downpour for more than one hour around noon Tuesday in inner Bangkok has caused floods on several roads and traffic jams.

Traffic police reported at least seven locations in Bangkok were flooded.

In some areas, the water is as high as the footpath level.

The flooded areas are Asok Montri Road, some sections of Phetchaburi and Ratchadaphisek roads, Soi Suan Phlu, Sukhumvit Sois 1, 2 and 24, Phloenchit Road, Mitmaitri Road near the Thai-Japanese Stadium in Din Daeng and Silom Road.

Image

An image tweeted by Twitter user @hs3nza via @js100radio at 1.45pm Tuesday shows a deep flood in Ratchaphisek Soi 3.

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Cloud Precipitation

Giant hailstones fall in Queensland, Australia

Alfred Jacobs
youtube.com
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 14:58 UTC
Image

This shard of hail measuring about 12 centimetres crashed down in Chinchilla on Saturday afternoon
Weather watchers around the world have been stunned by giant chunks of ice that smashed an outback Queensland town in recent days.

Hailstones up to 12cm in diameter smashed cars and windows and left lawns checkered in the western downs town of Chinchilla during a freak storm on Saturday afternoon.

The downpour that stunned the state has now attracted interest overseas, with many in the US shocked at the "weird" weather that no one saw coming.

Some have pointed out the hailstones were about the same size as the small marsupials the town shares a name with.

"Shocking footage," wrote Keith Estiler, a New York City resident who shared video of the giant balls of ice bouncing off an oval in Chinchilla.


Comment: See also: Large hailstones kill horses, birds and ravage cotton crops in northern New South Wales, Australia

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Snowflake

250 villages cut off by heavy snowfall in Turkey

Robert Felix
iceagenow.info
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 12:19 UTC
Image

Snow removal in Turkey.
In Hozat and Ovacik snowfall exceeded half a meter (20 inches), says this article on gercekgundem.com. And there is 20 cm (8 inches) of snow in the city center of Pülümür.

Normal life in Tunceli is stopped

Due to the increasing snowfall during the night in Tunceli, the Tunceli-Pülümür and Tunceli-Erzincan highways remained closed to traffic due to the dozens of vehicles stuck on the road.

A large number of machines were sent to the area to open roads. Meanwhile, Tunceli-Hozat, it was learned that the Tunceli-Ovacik road transport in closed due to snow.

About 250 villages are cut off.
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