Event Time
2015-03-29 23:48:34 (UTC)
Times in other timezones

Nearby Cities
54km (34mi) SE of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea
282km (175mi) ENE of Kimbe, Papua New Guinea
309km (192mi) SE of Kavieng, Papua New Guinea
367km (228mi) WNW of Arawa, Papua New Guinea
789km (490mi) NE of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Scientific data

Eric Worrall writes: The Guardian has published an unusually interesting article about the danger to our civilisation, of a new Tambora scale volcanic eruption.
According to Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL;

"In April 1815, the biggest known eruption of the historical period blew apart the Tambora volcano, on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, 12,000km from the UK. What happened next testifies to the enormous reach of the biggest volcanic blasts.

The Tambora volcano had shown no signs of life for 1,000 years; a single eruption in the previous five millennia provided the only indication that magma was still churning far beneath. It is very likely that the residents of the island considered the volcano extinct, and possible even that they did not know the impressive 4,300m (14,107ft) mountain - at the time, probably the highest in the East Indies - was a volcano at all. This all changed, however, with the rumblings and earthquakes of 1812, a full three years before the climactic blast. Over time, the seismic shocks were superseded by steam blasts and small ash explosions, engendering increasing trepidation on the island and signalling that something bigger might be imminent. It was. On 5 April 1815, a titanic explosion hurled a cloud of ash to a height of more than 30km."
...

The consequences for the developed societies of the northern hemisphere were dire. A dry, sulphurous, fog draped itself across the landscape of eastern North America, causing temperatures to plunge and bringing unprecedented summer cold. In New York State, snow fell in June, while the bitter cold and killing frosts wiped out crops and halved the length of the growing season across much of the region. On the other side of the Atlantic, Europe saw summer temperatures down by 2C compared to the average for the decade; the unseasonal cold accompanied by incessant rains and - into the following winter - by unusually powerful storms. Analysis of climate records reveals that 1816, the so-called "year without a summer", was the second coldest in the northern hemisphere of the past six centuries."

Read the rest of the article here.

Twelve people were killed and 11 houses buried after a landslide triggered by heavy rain in Indonesia's main island of Java, an official said Sunday.

The landslide hit Tegal Panjang village in Sukabumi district in west Java late Saturday after a particularly heavy downpour, according to national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

"We found all 12 bodies," he said in an update, revising the earlier death toll of 10 and two missing.

He said heavy rain caused a cliff to collapse and hit the village, burying 11 houses.

It brings new meaning to the phrase 'shark attack'.

While most people will be familiar with images of seals being violently smashed out of the water snatched in the jaws of a shark, it appears some are exacting their revenge on the ocean predators.

Scientists have reported multiple cases of cape fur seals attacking blue sharks off the coast of South Africa.

The seals, which are normally prey for great white sharks, have been seen attacking and killing medium-sized blue sharks, devouring their guts before leaving the rest of the carcass.

Divers also report seeing the fur seals attacking other species of shark and rays.

An unseasonable wildfire driven by strong winds prompted an evacuation of a ski lodge in southern Montana.

The blaze a few miles west of the community of Red Lodge had grown to 700 acres by Saturday night, US Forest Service spokesman Jeff Gildehaus said.

The fire was first reported on open private land around 12.30pm, but it was driven by winds gusting 35 to 50 mph into the Custer National Forest, where the Red Lodge Mountain Resort ski area is located.

It was zero per cent contained as of early Saturday night.

One person is dead and another person suffered critical injuries after an apparent rockslide at Point Reyes National Seashore Saturday evening, according to a park employee.

Emergency medical crews with the Marin County Fire Department responded at 5:55 p.m. to a report of a rescue in the area of Arch Rock in the West Marin park, Marin County fire Battalion Chief Mike Giannini said.

Two hikers were walking along Bear Valley Trail when they reached the end of the trail, the Arch Rock overlook, John Dell'Osso, a spokesman for the U.S. National Park Service said.

The cliff unexpectedly gave way and they fell an estimated 60 feet below. They were covered in rubble and rock, Dell'Osso said.

Three animals were killed by a mountain lion in San Mateo County where reported sightings of the big cat have increased in nearly two weeks, county officials said.

The most recent sighting was on Friday night around 7:30 p.m., when deputies responded to a report of multiple mountain lion sightings in the 900 block of Miramontes Street in Half Moon Bay, county emergency officials said.

On Thursday, emergency officials said that since March 9, three animals were killed by a mountain lion in the area of Ranch Road West and Cloverdale Road in Pescadero, according to emergency officials.

A winter scene in the middle of summer in Ecuador!

Look at these spectacular images of an apocalyptic hail storm that hit the Southern part of Quito, the capital of Ecuador yesterday, February 14, 2015.

This is really weird! Watch these winter scene pictures in the south west of the capital of Ecuador... During summer!

A minor boy was killed and a girl injured by a wild elephant at Kalachand village in Chakaria upazila of the district yesterday.

The deceased is Delwar Hossain, 4, son of Md Yousuf of the village.

Police quoted victim's father Yousuf as saying that a wild elephant from the adjacent hills entered the village around 12:00noon. It attacked the kids while they were playing in the yard beside their houses, leaving Delwar dead on the spot and Aysha injured.

Critically injured Aysha, 5, daughter of Abdul Khaleque, was admitted to a clinic in the upazila headquarters, said Probhash Chandra Dhar, officer-in-charge of Chokoria Police Station.

We're about to experience a "double El Niño" — a rare weather phenomenon that climatologists had warned about several months ago. That means two consecutive years of the concentration of warm water in the Pacific Ocean that brings West Coast storms, quiet hurricane seasons in the Atlantic and busy ones in the Pacific. The danger is that this could mean more than a few months of odd weather, but instead usher in a new phase of climate change. Last year was the warmest year on record; 2015 looks set to be even warmer. "One way of thinking about global warming from the human influences is that it's not just a gradual increase, but perhaps it's more like a staircase, and we're about to go up an extra step to a new level," says climate scientist Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Normally, the warm water from an El Niño spreads across the Pacific and cools as it evaporates. The increased moisture in the air leads to thunderstorms and tropical storms. That hasn't happened as much as anticipated over the last year. "The moisture in the atmosphere triggers a lot of thunderstorms and tropical storms, but in general that atmospheric connection has not been anything like as strong as we normally expect in El Niño events, and as a result, the warm water is sort of sitting there, and it hasn't petered out," Trenberth explains. "The energy has not been taken out of the ocean, and there's a mini global warming, so to speak, associated with that." What kind of temperature increase are we talking about? Trenberth says it could mean a rise of two- or three-tenths-of-a-degree Celsius, or up to half a degree Fahrenheit. The change could occur "relatively abruptly," but then stick around for five or 10 years. While those numbers may seem small, in the context of global climate, a shift of that magnitude could have devastating consequences.