Earth Changes
On being alerted by fishermen, a team headed by Mandapam wildlife ranger S Sathish visited the spot and examined the carcass.
According to wildlife officials, the whale shark is a protected species under schedule I of Wildlife Protection Act. It is also an endangered species under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The whale shark that washed ashore on Tuesday was 18 feet long with a circumference of 10 feet. "Whale shark is one of the shark species found in the Gulf of Mannar area. The cause of death is found to be heavy internal injuries it has suffered when it either hit a rock or a big vessel," Sathish said.
These are the people who have made the discovery.
The Québec Network of emergency for the marine mammals, which has been notified, should come to get rid of the carcass this week. It would be a minke whale female.
According to a witness, Valérie Lajoie, the animal ran aground in the night from Saturday to Sunday.
According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, ten right whales were found dead in the gulf of St. Lawrence since the beginning of the summer.
Residents had seen what was left of the roughly 25-foot whale floating by over the past few days; it likely came into the pond through a freshly made cut in the beach, Bagnall said.
"It's really decomposing," he said. "It's a tail and about two-thirds of a body."
One of the pectoral fins was down to the skeleton, and there is nothing left of the head, he said.
"But because it is a right whale, they are looking to come over and take a look at it," he said.
A 41-year-old Belgian man was among the dead after a tree fell on his tent at a Rainbow Gathering counter-cultural summer camp in the Tramontina valley in the northeastern region of Friuli.
Another tree, uprooted by powerful winds, fell on a festival at Marzia in the Dolomites, killing another man. A hiker was fatally struck by lightening on a path up a mountain in the same area, the Marmolada.
The weather-related deaths follow a storm-triggered mudslide on Saturday which swept a woman to her death on the outskirts of the ski resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo.
Yesterday's maximum temperature was just 9.0 degrees in Melbourne as the perfect 'cold day scenario' affected the city. The morning started out at just 3.1 degrees after clear skies allowed the mercury plummet during Wednesday night. Thick cloud then drifted over the city blanketed Melbourne throughout the day, limiting the amount of heating from the sun.
Yesterday's maximum temperature was six degrees below the average for August and came in as the city's coldest day for any month since 1998. The last time a maximum temperature that low occurred during August was in 1970, when the mercury only made it 6.8 degrees.
Daily maximum temperatures in Australia are measured as the highest temperature recorded during a 24 hour period between 9am on two consecutive days. This means the city needed to remain below nine degrees until 9am today for Thursday to go down as its coldest August day in almost 50 years.
The statistic came close to being spoilt this morning as the temperature rose to 8.6 degrees at 8:50am and 8.9 degrees at 9am.
Today is forecast to reach a more pleasant top of 13 degrees in Melbourne. While this is still two below average for this time of year, it's balmy compared to yesterday.
With air temperatures hovering around 40°C for much of the country, there was not much cooling down going on by jumping into the Adriatic Sea.
According to data from the Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service, on Saturday the sea temperature on the southern Dalmatian island of Mljet measured 29.9°C at 5 pm, breaking the current record set on 21 July 2015 on the island of Rab of 29.5°C.
In Dubrovnik today the sea temperature peaked at 27.2°C, whilst it was 28°C in Split, Krk, Rab, and Pula. In Zadar, it was 26°C, whilst Hvar's sea temperature was 27°C on Saturday afternoon.
You can check out the previous highest 11 recorded Adriatic Sea temperatures in Croatia here.
The quake rocked an area near the town of Jinghe in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region at 23:27 GMT on Tuesday, the US Geological Survey reported. The quake, which the USGS revised down to 6.3, reportedly hit at a depth of 25.9km.
The quake occurred some 107 kilometers southeast of Dostyq, a small town in Kazakhstan's Almaty Region on the border with China with an estimated population of less than 5,000 residents.
The impact could be felt in another Kazakh city, Zharkent, with over 30,000 people, located 226.7 km (140.9 mi) from the epicenter. Shihezi in China's northwestern Xinjiang with over half a million residents is 255.3 km (158.6 mi) away.
Residents of Kazakhstan's biggest city, Almaty, located some 490 kilometers from the epicenter, were also shaken by the quake. Some of them took to Twitter to report mild tremors.

Two more homes have been condemned because of a Florida sinkhole that swallowed two homes in July. The sinkhole at Lake Padgett Estates in Tampa first opened up on July 14, but got bigger Friday night (pictured on August 4).
The seventh house was condemned Monday morning, after two were condemned Sunday and two on Friday.
The sinkhole at Lake Padgett Estates in Tampa first opened up on July 14 and destroyed two homes when the ground caved in.
The sinkhole got bigger Friday night and is now about 260 feet wide at its widest point.
Crews brought in earth to stabilize the banks. Once the edges are stabilized, workers hope to remove debris.
Authorities hope to create a boat ramp so they can work from a barge, which will float on water in the sinkhole.
Overnight on Friday, an 80 by 10-foot-wide section of the sinkhole's banks collapsed.
Police said a dozen villagers of Shinghpur Pasi Tola locality of ward No 6 in Haveli Kharagpur had taken shelter in a thatched house to protect themselves from heavy rain when lightning struck. Two of them died on the spot, while the third one succumbed to his injuries in the nearby primary health centre.
The deceased have been identified as Mohan Chaudhary, Arvind Chaudhary, and Gaibi Chaudhary. Those injured are Shankar Chaudhry, Kundan Chaudhry, Raja Kumar, Bahadur Chaudhry and Sukhta Pandit, who were later referred to sadar hospital as their conditions were stated to be serious, said police.














Comment: Get ready for the Fall? Eastern US to experience unseasonably chilly August