Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Australia: Wheat crops devastated by rain

Michael Vincent
ABC News
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:19 UTC
wheat
© ABC News: Jo PrendergastGrain Growers Association chairman John Eastburn says damaged crop will only be good for stock feed.

The Grain Growers Association (GGA) says the recent wet weather has devastated wheat crops across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

A report by the Commonwealth Bank reveals the national harvest is expected to be pared back from 25 million to 22 million tonnes.

It says the "disruptions to the harvest this year and the implications for quality are the worst for a lifetime".

The loss of crops is also expected to have implications for some of Australia's staple foods.

GGA chairman John Eastburn says it has been a tough time for farmers.

"The crop here is well and truly shot and sprung and [there is] very little quality left in it," he said.

"I'll probably harvest a little bit for stock feed, but that's about it."

Mr Eastburn says the loss of the crops will hit hard.
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Bizarro Earth

Australia: Flooding continues in New South Wales as more rain is forecast


CNN
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:34 UTC
Sydney -- More than 4,000 people were isolated by flood waters and as many as 1,800 have been evacuated in the Australian state of New South Wales after a week of heavy rains, the government said Monday.

As a result of this week's rains, the government has so far issued disaster declarations in 17 of the state's rural and suburban districts, predominantly in the south and west. They join 17 other districts declared disaster areas after flooding in October.

The flooding, which is expected to continue as a new storm front is forecast to bring extended heavy rains through Friday, has already destroyed an estimated $500 million in crops in the region, according to a statement issued by New South Wales Emergency Services.
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Heart

Venezuela moves flood-hit families into resort hotels

Daniel Wallis
Reuters
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:35 UTC
People evacuate after the flooding
© Reuters/Carlos Garcia RawlinsPeople evacuate after the flooding of a river in Higuerote, about 100 km (60 miles) east of Caracas December 5, 2010.
Caracas - Venezuelan security forces have started housing families displaced by floods in tourist hotel rooms following an order by President Hugo Chavez to make use of vacant accommodation, local media said on Monday.

Heavy rains have killed at least 32 people and forced more than 100,000 from their homes in recent days. Emergencies have been declared in various states, and the country's Caribbean coast has been particularly hard hit by mudslides.

In a televised broadcast from one flooded area on Sunday, the president told the National Guard to begin moving families into vacant hotel accommodation.

"See how many buildings there are abandoned by tourists, and from today begin to occupy them with families," he said. "You will not pay anything," he told displaced people.
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Frog

Albino kookaburras found in northern Australia


Agence France-Presse
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:40 UTC
albino kookaburras
© AFP/ENWH-HO/Leslie BrownAn undated handout photo released by the Eagles Nest Wildlife Hospital shows wildlife expert Harry Kunz holding two extremely rare blue-winged albino kookaburras in Ravenshoe, believed to have been swept from their nests in a wild storm, at the wildlife sanctuary.
Australian wildlife workers on Monday said they had discovered a never-before-seen pair of blue-winged albino kookaburras, believed to have been swept from their nests in a wild storm.

The six-week-old birds, renowned for their laughing cry, were found waterlogged at the base of a tree by a cattle farmer near Ravenshoe, in far northern Queensland, said Harry Kunz from the Eagles Nest Wildlife Sanctuary.

The pink-eyed, pink-beaked and starkly white creatures, thought to be sisters, are the first specimens of their kind ever found in Australia, Kunz said. They are still too young to feed themselves or fly.

"Everybody asks me 'are they rare?' They have never been seen because in nature they would not survive a few days out of the nest because their white colour sticks out and every reptile, owl or predator will get them," Kunz told AFP.

"In the whole of Australia I know there is about three white laughing kookaburras but they are not albino, they have black eyes. For blue wings nobody knows that they exist or can be hatching in this colour."
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Bizarro Earth

Australia: Wagga Declared a Natural Disaster Zone

Ken Grimson
The Daily Advertiser, Australia
Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00 UTC
Wagga Disaster
© Daily AdvertiserAt first hand: NSW Premier Kristina Keneally visits Wagga yesterday to see for herself the damage being done to Wagga by the rising floodwaters.
Wagga survived its worst flood crisis in 36 years when the Murrumbidgee River peaked at a height of 9.67 metres yesterday evening, but sighs of relief were brief as predictions of heavy rainfall from tomorrow night could mean an even higher river later in the week.

Premier Kristina Keneally inspected the water-besieged city in a State Emergency Service (SES) helicopter yesterday morning before announcing Wagga had been declared a natural disaster area, paving the way for a range of government financial assistance.

"It's quite humbling to see what nature can do to farms, people's properties and people's livelihoods," Ms Keneally said after landing near the SES headquarters on Fernleigh Road.

The river peaked yesterday evening just six millimetres above the 1991 flood level of 9.61 metres and well below the 10.75 metres recorded in 1974.

Emergency Services Minister, Steve Whan, said floodwaters had caused tens of millions of dollars damage around the state and ruined the best harvest in a decade.

"Up to half a billion dollars crop value has been lost," Mr Whan said.
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Igloo

India: Kashmir Valley Freezes, Drass Coldest at (-) 20 C


Kashmir Observer
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:17 UTC
Srinagar - Severe cold conditions, coupled with power shortage, has affected normal life in the Kashmir valley, where Srinagar recorded coldest night after the minimum temperature dipped to minus 3.4 degree, 2.4 degree below normal.

Drass, the world's second coldest place after Siberia, remained coldest recording minimum temperature at minus 20 degree.

Taps, ponds and small nallahs were frozen this morning as people woke up. Water on roads could be seen frozen, However, it melted as the day progressed.

Because of an open sky during the night in the absence of any Western Disturbances (WD), the minimum temperature goes down, UNI quoted a weather office spokesman as saying.

He said the WD, originating from Arabian sea and entering the Kashmir through Afghanistan and Pakistan, are very weak resulting in dry weather conditions.
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Igloo

Russia: Snowstorm Shuts Down Tatar Capital


RFE/RL
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:11 UTC
Snowstorm
© A2ATLIQ (RFE/RL)A snowbound scene from Tatarstan's capital, Kazan.
Kazan -- A heavy snowstorm has paralysed life in Tatarstan's capital, Kazan, causing power outages, traffic jams, airport delays, and schools to close, RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reports.

A severe cold front brought gusty winds and wet snow to the Russian republic over the weekend, resulting in the loss of electricity for some 200,000 people in southeastern Tatarstan. Efforts to restore power continue, and more than 200 rescue teams are involved in operations to help people stranded by the inclement weather.

In Kazan, traffic jams and airport delays were reported, and school classes have been canceled.
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Igloo

Best of the Web: I Keep Telling You It's Getting Colder

Dr. Mark Sircus
Climate Change
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:02 UTC
Image
© Unknown
It's not supposed to be so cold and snowy so early in the winter when the world is thought to be warming. Eminent scientists are not supposed to turn their backs on the lying press and government to tell us it's getting colder, not warmer. The entire discussion has us in the Twilight Zone with the global warmers and coolers still in heated conversation. The press's most recent broadside entitled "World warmer, short-term trends need study: report"stated:
The global average temperature has increased over the past 160 years, but short-term trends in temperature and sea ice seem to be at odds with each other and need more research, the UK Met Office's Hadley Center said. In a report on long- and short-term climate trends, the Hadley Center found several factors that indicate a warming world and said 2010 has been one of the warmest years on record. The report drew on the work of more than 20 institutions worldwide and used a range of measurements from satellites, weather balloons, weather stations, ocean buoys, ships, and field surveys.
One of the warmest years on record - are we to believe this? If global warming was such a slam dunk, why are they now tipping their hands mentioning the colder short-term trend? How can they define what is going on as a short-term trend when the future is not written yet?
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Heart - Black

Protected seals clubbed to death at sanctuary

Ray Lilley
Associated Press
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 11:43 UTC
Image
© AP PhotoThree of the seals clubbed to death in New Zealand.
Wellington, New Zealand - Attackers wielding bats or clubs slaughtered two dozen fur seals, including newborn pups, over several days at one of New Zealand's most popular sanctuaries for watching the animals, officials said Monday.

Government officials condemned the attacks on the protected species as brutal and senseless and vowed to fully prosecute anyone involved.

The Department of Conservation said the bludgeoned bodies of 23 fur seals had been found at the Ohau Point colony, a rocky stretch of coastline near a highway that is a breeding ground for the animals.

Officials said eight pups - some just days old - were among those killed, and there were likely more juveniles that had died or would soon because their mothers were among those slaughtered.

The condition of the carcasses and the wounds indicated the attackers had returned several times to the scene, possibly for as long as two weeks. The site is at the bottom of a steep, 100-foot cliff with no easy access, and the bodies were only just discovered.
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Cloud Lightning

200 Feared Dead in Colombian Landslide


Press TV
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 02:38 UTC
Image
© UnknownColombian emergency workers and residents used spades and rescue dogs to find victims.
At least 200 people are feared to have been buried by a landslide in Colombia's second largest city as rescue workers scramble to save victims of the country's worst floods in decades.

According to Red Cross officials, torrential rains have caused a major landslide in the city of Medellin, leaving at least 200 people missing, state-run BBC reported on Sunday.

"The initial count is that there may be 150-200 people considered missing. So far we have rescued three alive," said Cesar Uruena, a Red Cross official, adding that "We are focused on moving rubble to see if we find survivors. We've never had this many people affected [in Colombia] by the rainy season."

Officials say that at least two million people have been affected by the torrential rains and that over 10,000 homes have been destroyed as the result of the disaster in the country.
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