Earth ChangesS


Ambulance

Quake in Iran kills 3, sends tremors across Gulf

Ali Akbar Dareini
Associated Press
Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:23 UTC
Tehran, Iran - A strong earthquake rocked southern Iran on Wednesday, killing three people and sending tremors across the Persian Gulf to the skyscrapers of Dubai.

The country's seismological center said the magnitude 6 quake struck at 3:30 p.m., with the epicenter about 850 miles south of the capital Tehran in the province of Hormozgan. The region's main city, Bandar Abbas, is one of Iran's key ports and home to a large oil refinery that primarily serves the domestic market.
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Umbrella

UK: Morpeth fights back after floods

Paul Costello
BBC News
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:06 UTC


Morpeth flood victims
©Unknown
Shops near the Chantry area were worst affected

The streets of Morpeth are buzzing with activity as clearing up continues after the worst flooding in Northumberland for 50 years.

Rescue and damage stories can be heard on every corner, while many shops and homes still bear the scars of the weekend's downpour.

More than 1,000 properties were affected, and about 400 people were moved to safety when the River Wansbeck burst its banks on Saturday.
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People

Flood victims in Bangladesh suffering from waterborne diseases


Xinhua
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:00 UTC
Dhaka - Waterborne diseases coupled with poor relief efforts, lack of jobs and price hike of essentials, are putting the lives of poor flood-hit people in Bangladesh in misery, leading newspaper The Daily Star reported Tuesday.

The flood situation is worsening in the central parts while the situation is improving in the northern districts, the newspaper said.

Waterborne diseases like dysentery and diarrhea have broken out in the central Faridpur district, as flood situation worsened in the last 24 hours. Medicine and oral saline are being distributed among the victims.

In northwestern Sirajganj district, about 200 people were infected with diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia and skin infections.
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Target

Strong earthquake off Solomon Islands


ABC News (Australia)
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:48 UTC
A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 has struck off the Solomon Islands.
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Bizarro Earth

Over 50 people killed in Chinese landslide


ABC News (Australia)
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:40 UTC
More than 50 people have been killed and hundreds may be missing in northern China after a reservoir of mining waste collapsed, burying cars and homes under a wall of sludge.
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Laptop

Hurricane Ike Tracking: Computer Model Projected Path - Gulf Coast

Mike Baron
The Post Chronicle
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:33 UTC
Tracking the projected path of Hurricane Ike - Hurricane Ike moved toward western Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico oil fields early on Tuesday.

Ike weakened on Monday as it bore down on Cuba, where it blew off roofs, toppled trees and flattened sugar cane fields like a giant lawn mower on a path toward the U.S. oil hub in the Gulf of Mexico.

Ike
©Unknown
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Better Earth

Parrots wreak havoc at New Zealand bird sanctuary


Associated Press
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:09 UTC
Wellington, New Zealand -- A gang of unruly teenage bush parrots have wrought havoc at a bird sanctuary in New Zealand by using their powerful beaks to destroy nesting boxes.

Image
©AP/Kakori Sanctuary
Teenage native Kaka parrot

The native Kaka parrots - juvenile birds that haven't reached sexual maturity - have torn off nesting box doors and vandalized the bird homes, sanctuary conservation officer Matt Robertson said Friday.

Twenty-four of 44 new Kaka nest boxes built over the winter have been ripped apart, he said, adding that the birds then gouged out chunks of wood with their strong beaks.

"It may be that the challenge of taking doors off nest boxes is the Kaka equivalent to the Rubik's Cube," said Robertson. "As far as I'm aware, this extent of destruction has never been observed."

Kaka are acutely threatened by loss of habitat, competition from introduced species, and predators like stoats, ferrets and wild cats. They disappeared from the capital Wellington in the late 19th century when forests were cleared for settlement.

After an absence of more than a century, Kaka parrots were reintroduced to the Karori Sanctuary in Wellington in 2002 with six captive-raised birds. Since then, sanctuary staff have counted more than 100 juvenile parrots.

The birds are highly intelligent and extremely resourceful, Robertson said.
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Ambulance

One dead, 60 injured in Indonesian quake


The Age
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:12 UTC
One person died and dozens were injured after a moderate 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia's Sumatra island, a health ministry official says.

"One elderly person, 70 years old, died and 60 people were injured," Rustam Pakaya, chief of the health ministry's crisis centre, told AFP.
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Target

M6.1 earthquake hits sea near Taiwan


China Daily/Xinhua
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:54 UTC
Beijing - A 6.1 magnitude earthquake shook the sea near Taiwan at 3:43 p.m. on Tuesday, said the Taiwanese weather bureau.

The quake's epicenter was 24.57 degrees north latitude and 122.71 degrees east longitude, the bureau said.
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Magnify

Chlorine fails to kill Australian far north E. coli


ABC News
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 06:40 UTC
Council water authorities say chlorine treatment on a contaminated reservoir in the Port Douglas and Mossman region of far north Queensland has failed to kill the bacteria E. coli.
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