Golf-ball sized hailstones, damaging winds and a thunderstorm have hit southeast Queensland this afternoon.

Ipswich, the Scenic Rim and the Brisbane Valley were hit by winds of up to 30km/hr and "golf ball-sized" hail as a the powerful storm worked its way to Brisbane, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

"Hammered out in the west," social media user and Moggill resident Quentin Hull captioned a photograph of the deluge.

A car-owner in Collingwood Park used towels to protect their vehicle from the pelting hail.

"The wild weather is expected to pass through Brisbane this evening before reaching the coastline", BoM senior forecaster Sean Fitzgerald said.

High winds and hail are expected to deteriorate as the conditions move east.

Within the last 2 days, 300 seals, 2500 birds and thousands of fish died around the world.

And the worst is that nobody knows why! Well this is what they say!

More than 300 dead seals discovered dead along the Caspian Sea in Dagestan. Cause unknown.

More than 300 dead seals have been found dead along the coast of the Caspian Sea in Dagestan, but the cause of their death remains a mystery. The dead seals were found over a 27 km long stretch on the coast. Officials believe that poaching isn't the cause. A disease? military exercises? Did a powerful storm disseminated the seal population? The last time such a massive seal die-off happened was 2011. The cause is still unexplained.

A 5.9-magnitude quake struck in the Pacific off the coast of Chile early Tuesday, the US Geological Survey reported.

The quake hit at about 0500 GMT, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the city of Concepcion and at a depth of 17 kilometers, the agency said.

There was no immediate word on damage or injuries.

Chile is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries.

It sits on the Pacific Ocean's "Ring of Fire," a seismically turbulent region where many of Earth's volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.

In 2010, an 8.8-magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami killed more than 500 people.

Source: AFP

A seismologist says another quake of the same size can't be ruled out, after a strong 5.0 tremor struck the Taranaki town of Opunake this morning.

The quake, which hit at 5.59am on Tuesday, 10km north of the town at a depth of 14km had been felt widely throughout the lower North Island.

Geonet initially classified the quake as a "severe" 5.2 magnitude, before revising it down to 5.

Aftershocks could be expected in region after the quake, Geonet duty seismologist Dr Anna Kaiser said.

"The most likely scenario is smaller aftershocks over the coming days, but we can't rule out there will be another one the same size."

It was not unusual activity for the area, she said.

"We saw a similar size in 2015 and others in the high fours in 2013."

The earthquake is a good reminder for people, she said.

"Hopefully people will be prepared and have their emergency kits and plans in place."

More than 2000 people had reported feeling the quake by 6.30am.

A gaping sinkhole in the middle of a road appeared next to a busy subway station in Japan, disrupting traffic and causing a local blackout. Emergency services expect the hole, which is dangerously close to the surrounding buildings, to expand.

The hellish pit opened in the middle of the road in Fukuoka, the capital of Japan's Fukuoka Prefecture, on Tuesday morning. The affected area is in the close vicinity of a subway station.

Multiple videos have emerged showing how the hole expanded.

Maximum deaths from dog bites were reported in 2013, when 8 people died.

In the last five years, residents in Mumbai have suffered instances of at least 457,579 dog bites, with the toll this year touching 58,631 cases until August end. Even as the figures have gone down each year in government dispensaries and hospitals, reportedly cases of dog bites have not fallen, instead patients are moving towards the private sector, where no collective records are available, for anti-rabies injections.

Data accessed by The Indian Express from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) shows that 18 people have died since 2013 from dog bites. Of those, 15 were bitten by a dog outside Mumbai and three within the city limits. In 2013, eight people succumbed to rabies, in 2014 three, in 2015 five and in 2016 two people have died as of August.

This year, Sunita Anantrao Jagtap, 54, was attacked by a dog in Panvel. She succumbed to the rabies infection on August 18 after getting admitted to KEM Hospital in Mumbai. Five days before her death, Madhukar Gade, 55, succumbed to a dog bite. Gade, a resident of Badlapur, was rushed to KEM hospital after there was a delay in getting her access to anti-rabies vaccine. Even as Kerala battles massive cases of dog bites (over 53,000 recorded this year), with the problem reaching such proportions that gold coins and cash rewards have been offered to those who can cull the stray population, Mumbai has an equally worrying situation.

A teenager whose out of control dog savaged a woman shopper during a horror mauling has been put behind bars.

Josh Miller, 19, lost control of his pet pitbull terrier Nala and the crazed beast sank its teeth into Elaine McAllister.

Mrs McAllister had been out shopping when the ferocious dog pounced in front of horrified by-standers.

Shocking CCTV footage of the attack in Wishaw, Lanarkshire, shows Mrs McAllister being dragged to the ground while Miller desperately attempts to get the animal back under control.

Customers from a nearby shop and members of the public are seen running to try and stop the attack after the dog locked its jaws onto Mrs McAllister's leg.

Disturbing footage shows a van driver slam on his brakes and run over armed with a weapon in a desperate bid to stop the attack.

Check out the map of snow cover.

"I just watched a video about the coming winter and apparently snow cover over Russia into Europe is a record for this time of year," says Andy S.

"The data only goes back to 98 so bear that in mind, however snow cover has penetrated right into NE Europe and all of Scandanavia is already completely covered."

I'd love to see a link verifying that this is a record for this time of year.

Asia's seafood addiction is depleting the oceans and stirring diplomatic tensions. The region consumes 70% of the world's fish, a share poised to rise as the middle class expands. Fishing operators are searching for bigger hauls, while governments are increasingly protective of marine resources. The seas are churning with competition and disputes.

At 3 a.m. one October night, in a dark and smelly Nagasaki port in western Japan, a 300-ton steel fishing boat from the East China Sea was unloading its catch. Not a man among the tired crew was smiling. One fisherman sighed. "The haul is so tiny," he lamented. The boat contained eight massive tanks but six were empty. And most of the fish in the hold were not mackerel, the hoped-for prize. Instead, the fishermen were unloading smaller and less-pricey fish to market.

Nagasaki, long a base for profitable deep-sea fishing. His father established a fishing company in 1961 and enjoyed a plentiful business from the East China Sea throughout his lifetime. Nomura took over in 2005. In less than a decade, he shut down his operations. "There was no hope for the future," Nomura said.

Diminishing catches and increasing equipment costs battered his ambition, but Nomura said it was the unstoppable wave of Chinese boats that made him call it quits in 2014. "We have been interrupted by Chinese boats a lot." Nomura said it was not unusual to see a fleet of 200 to 300 boats roll into his traditional fishing waters. It was so dense that his own boats could barely sail through.

The Chinese operate legally, he admits, and they work in a zone where both countries have fishing rights. Still, Nomura said, the Chinese surge drowns prospects for traditional or smaller companies. "If we leave the East China Sea as it is, all the fish in the area will be China's."

The East China Sea -- bounded by Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan -- used to be a trove for Japanese fishermen, but the situation has dramatically changed in the last decade. The life of Toshiro Nomura, 67, tells the story.

Hyderabad's notoriously capricious roads played up again on Saturday when a road caved in all of a sudden at Safilguda in the suburb of Malkajgiri and two motorcycles, one carrying a couple, fell right in.

The injured persons were helped up by passersby and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

This is the third such incident of a sink hole in Hyderabad during this year's monsoon.

In Saturday's incident, the subsidence occurred where a Water Board crew had dig a pit to carry out some repairs, and filled it with loose gravel after their work was done. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) came by and built a road over it without checking the soundness of the earth.