Earth Changes
"There were arms everywhere," ecologist Drew Harvell told The Atlantic's Ed Yong last year. "It looked like a blast zone."
The dismal remains of these animals, who are usually capable of regenerating their own limbs, were strewn along the entire West Coast of North America, in one of the largest mass wildlife mortality events ever recorded. Over 20 species of sea stars were perishing.
In some areas, sunflower star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) populations dropped by an average of around 90 percent in weeks, a loss that saw this once common and abundant species vanish from most of its range in just a few years.
The victims died in the worst-hit port city of Beira, most of them killed by falling trees, authorities said.
Cars were submerged in water, walls of some low lying buildings collapsed and swathes of land were flooded in the city, posts on social media showed.
The districts of Buzi and Nhamatanda were affected by severe flooding.
Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi is set to travel to the area.

The International Space Station spotted an exotic type of upside-down lightning called a blue jet (illustrated) zipping up from a thundercloud into the stratosphere in 2019.
A blue jet - a bolt of lightning that shoots upwards from thunderstorm clouds - has been spotted from the International Space Station.
The phenomenon was spotted by the European Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) near the island of Naru in the Pacific Ocean.
In an article published in the science journal Nature, astronomers describe seeing five intense blue flashes, each lasting about 10 milliseconds.
Four of the flashes were accompanied by a small pulse of ultraviolet light, which appear as rapidly expanding ring. They are formed by the interaction of electrons, radio waves and the atmosphere and are known as elves (Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources).
M7.0 earthquake recorded near Chilean Antarctic base, nationwide tsunami alert 'accidentally' issued

Chile's Bernardo O'Higgins army base is seen at Antarctica in this undated handout photo provided by the Chilean Army on December 22, 2020
The strongest of over half a dozen jolts struck South Shetland Islands 216 kilometers northeast of Chile's O'Higgins scientific base at 8:36pm, while another 5.8 quake shook the Chile-Argentina border region close to the capital, Santiago around 30 minutes later.
While the warning was only meant for the coastal regions of Antarctica, people all across Chile received messages urging them to abandon coastal areas due to a tsunami threat, triggering much confusion.
Read more (article in Spanish): https://elpais.com/espana/2021-01-23/...
In the video shared on on social media, rocks tumble down a slope along Highway 96, four miles west of Happy Camp, and then trees begin to slide down. There's a loud rumbling, and a worker is heard yelling, "It's all coming!" The post calls the slide, which completely covered the section of roadway, "jaw dropping."
This landslide happened near one that happened in the past couple of weeks.
The front has left strong gusts of wind of more than 190 km / h, hail and snow in the mountains
It has crossed a good part of the NE peninsula and the Balearic Islands.
The high winds and bad weather also caused traffic havoc across the island and disrupted the demonstration over bar and restaurant closures.
In central Palma palm trees in the Paseo Marítimo and Plaza de la Reina were damaged by the high winds.
Comment: Mass mortality events caused by algae blooms are in the news more often recently, and the correlation of ocean anoxia with previous extinction level events is likely to be warning sign of what's to come: