Earth Changes
© Gay Sheffield
A dead Puffin found along one of the beaches of Nome in June, 2020.
A dead Puffin found along one of the beaches of Nome in June, 2020.
Brandon Ahmasuk, Kawerak's Vice President of Natural Resources, says for the region to see large numbers of dead seabirds for this many years is concerning.
"Like you mentioned, the last four years, maybe five now...the amount [of dead seabirds] that we've been getting is alarming."
- Brandon Ahmasuk
A blanket of snow is covering Patagonia provinces restricting vehicle circulation and has even brought down several high tension power towers
"This is an atypical winter with great snow storms. Since the nineties there was a tendency to lesser snow precipitation but this year climate conditions have even caused snow falls in certain areas of Patagonia, unaccustomed to such extremes", according to weather experts.
Temperatures have been much lower than normally and have remained below zero for several days running which contributed to an extreme wind factor. Some of these "persistent snowfalls" in the provinces of Rio Negro, Chubut and Neuquen forced the meteorological office to release warnings for this Patagonian region plus central Mendoza and the southern tip of the Buenos Aires province.
People ride on boat in flooded area after heavy monsoon rains in Dohar near Dhaka, Bangladesh on July 24, 2020. More than 9.6 million people have been affected by monsoon floods, devastating large areas of India, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Eleven more fatalities were reported in various flood-hit areas as the situation continues to deteriorate since the onset of monsoon rains at the end of June.
According to the country's health authorities, nearly 9,500 people in low-lying areas have fallen victim to water-borne diseases over the past 25 days.
© Matija Habljak/PIXSELL
A car underwater in Miramarska street in Zagreb
A car underwater in Miramarska street in Zagreb
Torrential heavy rain, as well as strong winds, lightning and thunder started at around 9 p.m. and left a good part of the city flooded.
The Zagreb Emergency Management Office reported that the Fire Brigade had already carried out over 80 interventions by midnight and had received over 1,000 emergency calls from the public.
One of the worst areas flooded was the underpass on Miramarska street with three cars stranded underwater.
A number of voluntary fire brigades, on-duty teams of the Office for Emergency Management, on-duty communal services and the Zagreb Police Department were also attending to call-outs.
Most interventions are technical interventions to pump water out of roads and from basements and authorities asked citizens to be patient as they could not cope with the volume of work.
Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team Supervisor Frank van Manen reported that there is usually a single interaction where a person is harmed in the first six months of any year, the Jackson Hole News & Guide reported.
Data from the team dating back to 1992 shows that 17% of injury-induced interactions occur in the first six months of the year compared to big game hunting seasons in September and October when there are more injuries to humans and bears.
The team includes experts from the U.S. Geological Survey, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service and other agencies. The Yellowstone region includes Yellowstone National Park and surrounding areas of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.
Reef tales: candid cams reveal shark populations in decline
This unprecedented global study, led by FIU researchers, reveals sharks are functionally extinct from many reefs.
Functionally extinct meaning "too rare to fulfill their normal role in the ecosystem," according to the landmark study by Global FinPrint.
Researchers examined 371 reefs in 58 countries and found sharks were not observed on nearly 20 percent, indicating a widespread decline that has gone undocumented on this scale until now.
Essentially no sharks were detected on any of the reefs in the Dominican Republic, the French West Indies, Kenya, Vietnam, the Windward Dutch Antilles and Qatar. Among these, a total of only three sharks were observed during more than 800 survey hours, according to the study published today in Nature.
© Petros Giannakouris/AP
Fire burns near the village of Galataki as authorities evacuate the place near Corinth, Greece. July 22, 2020
Fire burns near the village of Galataki as authorities evacuate the place near Corinth, Greece. July 22, 2020
A blaze at the popular spa area of Loutraki, Corinthia prefecture, was placed under control after it broke out at a forested area.
Fire Brigade operations were successful and managed to save evacuated homes in the area caught in the line of fire.
The Drassa settlement in the Corinthia prefecture was evacuated on Thursday as the fire that started on Wednesday at Kehries is burning "out of control," Corinth Mayor Vassilis Nanopoulos told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA), adding that a summer camp t Sofiko was also evacuated.
Mayor Nanopoulos requested that the government and the Peloponnese Regional authority declare the municipality in a state of emergency as 268 firefighters with 61 fire engines and 15 grounds teams battled the blaze and high winds created multiple pockets of fire.
The event was recorded at approximately five in the afternoon, witnesses did not hesitate to record the spectacular and dark moment, being a phenomenon rarely seen at the Alaska Summit in Sololá, about three hours from the capital.
Elements of the Fire Department gave attention to the families of a sector of zone 6 that were affected, who were waiting for government help.
Read more (article in Spanish).
© Yonhap
Firefighters help a driver on a flooded road in Incheon, west of Seoul, on July 23, 2020, in this photo provided by the Incheon Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters, as heavy rains pounded most of the country.
Firefighters help a driver on a flooded road in Incheon, west of Seoul, on July 23, 2020, in this photo provided by the Incheon Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters, as heavy rains pounded most of the country.
Local news reports said at least four inches of rain fell in Gyeongsang Province and the Korea Meteorological Administration warned of one to two more inches of rainfall per hour overnight. Seoul, the capital, and other areas of South Korea also received heavy rainfall.
Video filmed by a local resident in the Gwangan-dong area of Busan shows high water levels on the street, stranding at least one vehicle.
Credit: @meeeen__ via Storyful
Comment: Related: Bear attacks increasing worldwide