Earth ChangesS


Attention

Large sinkhole swallows excavation truck in Georgia, U.S.

Nikita Biryukov
NBC News
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 15:37 UTC
Excavation truck falls into sinkhole
© NBC
An off-duty hydro excavation truck transporting approximately 1,600 gallons of water fell into a large sinkhole in Hall County, Georgia, early Tuesday morning.

The Badger Daylighting truck fell through the parking lot of a mechanic's garage at roughly 7:45 a.m., where it had been since before the start of operating hours of nearby businesses, said Hall County Fire Services Capt. Zachary Brackett.

Authorities are playing it safe and waiting until the hole is graded and checked to remove the truck.

"It being a sinkhole, there is a possibility of the outer walls of the current hole being unstable," Brackett said. "We don't want to cause a further collapse or anything by pulling the truck out
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Snowflake Cold

Italy sends in the army to assist people trapped by snow


The Local It
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 13:08 UTC
Snow in Italy
© AFP
Heavy snowfall and unusually harsh weather have left hundreds of thousands of homes without electricity, schools closed, and roads unusable.

Recent days have seen up to a metre of snow in southern areas, strong winds in the north and coastal areas, and temperatures well below the average for the season in most of the country, reaching lows of below -30C in some northern mountain towns.

The wintry conditions are expected to last for at least another week, due to the arrival of a polar air mass in the country, weather experts at Meteo.it explained.

On Tuesday evening, Italy's Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti confirmed that the army had deployed soldiers to Abruzzo, which is suffering the brunt of the wintry spell with road closures, power blackouts and some smaller villages isolated.
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Attention

Young gray whale found dead north of Main Beach in Laguna, California

Erika I. Ritchie
The Orange County Register
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 12:34 UTC
The carcass of a newborn gray baby whale is being examined at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles on Tuesday.
© Jim DinesThe carcass of a newborn gray baby whale is being examined at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles on Tuesday.
Experts at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles said Tuesday that a necropsy on a week-old gray whale found dead near Main Beach on Monday gave no indication of what may have caused its death.

"Unfortunately, nothing stands out as a cause of death," said Jim Dines, who did the examination and oversees the museum's marine mammal program.

Dines determined that the whale was a female, was a full-term neonate and likely was a week old. She measured 15.5 feet and weighed 1,800 pounds. There were no signs of trauma or disease.
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Snowflake Cold

Record snowfall forces migration in areas of Pakistan


Dawn
Mon, 16 Jan 2017 11:15 UTC
snow road
Food shortages caused by blockade of a main road owing to heavy snowfall in Kaghan valley have triggered migration of local people to plains of Hazara division.

The residents of upper parts of Kaghan valley continued to migrate to Balakot, Mansehra, Abbottabad and other parts of Hazara owing to shortage of food items following blockade of Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad road.

"We have relocated our police station in Kaghan to Mahandri area of Balakot tehsil as local people have been migrating to lower parts of Hazara because of heavy snowfall and blockade of roads in the upper reaches," SHO Tariq Khan told reporters.

Mr Khan said Gattidas, Baiser, Barawai, Battakundi, upper and lower Soch and Saiful Muluk Lake posts had already been closed, and now Kaghan police station was relocated.

Hotels in the Kaghan valley have also been closed following the heavy snowfall. "Our hotels are closed since start of the snowfall and now watchman and other staff are leaving Naran because of heavy snowfall in the valley," Saith Matiullah, president of hoteliers association, Kaghan, told reporters.

He said Kaghan-Naran section of Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad road remained closed since last week.

Comment: Pakistan government warns the country to prepare for global cooling

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Binoculars

'A Waxwing Winter': Soaring numbers of rare birds invade the UK


ITV
Wed, 18 Jan 2017 10:11 UTC
Waxwings
© Les WilliamsWaxwings
An unusual species of bird is enjoying a winter vacation here in the UK, according to the RSPB charity.

Waxwings are a small starling-sized bird with a prominent crest and colourful markings. They only travel here from Siberia and northern Scandinavia when they experience a particularly harsh winter or if there is a shortage of food.

So many have been spotted this year, the RSPB has described it as a 'Waxwing Winter'.
They're moving across the country from east to west and they're devouring trees full of berries .... Only ever 3 or 4 years do these birds come in large numbers.

- JAMIE WYVER, RSPB
The wildlife conversation charity hopes the rare winter visitor will encourage more people to take part in its annual Big Birdwatch, the world's biggest wildlife survey.

Waxwings mostly feed on fruit.
© Les WilliamsWaxwings mostly feed on fruit.

Comment: See also: Rare waxwing birds from abroad that signal harsh winter seen across Gloucestershire, UK as temperatures plummet

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Seismograph

5.4 magnitude earthquake hits central Italy, tremors felt in Rome

Lizzie Dearden
The Independent (UK)
Wed, 18 Jan 2017 09:50 UTC
Rome
© Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters
Quake comes months after almost 300 people were killed in Central Italy earthquake

An earthquake has struck Italy, shaking buildings in Rome just months after almost 300 people were killed in one of the worst disasters in living memory.

Residents of the capital described their homes and offices shaking at around 10.25am local time (9.5am BST).

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) measured the quake at magnitude 5.4, placing the epicentre in Central Italy, just over 10 miles from Maltignano.

There was no immediate indication of deaths or severe damage, the organisation said.

Small tremors have reportedly been felt in Rome for several weeks but Wednesday's was the biggest seismic event in several months.

It comes just months after a 6.2 magnitude earthquake killed at least 299 people in the country's central regions in August.

It was followed by at least two more deadly earthquakes in Umbria and Marche in October, both measuring over six on the Richter scale.
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Attention

Woman plays dead to stop rogue kangaroo attack in Melbourne, Australia

Frenalyn Untalan
International Business News
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 09:53 UTC
Grey kangaroo
Eastern grey kangaroo
A 54-year-old woman named Debbie Urquhart has shared that she needed to play dead to stop a rogue kangaroo from viciously attacking her. The animal attack took place while she was jogging along a running track in Melbourne's northeast at about 6AM on Jan.14.

The incident happened just 500m from her Templestowe home in Melbourne's northeast. She has recalled that she was kicked by a kangaroo repeatedly. The woman said she was left with no other option but to fake her death.

Urquhart managed to jog her way home after the attack. She was rushed to the hospital, where she received 35 stitches in her arm, shoulder and buttocks.

Urquhart shared that the animal has ripped her to pieces. "I was trying to crawl away. He left me for a bit and I thought he was going to come back and kill me," she told Manningham Leader.
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Camera

Frozen Baikal: Stunning Photos of the Deepest and Oldest Lake On Earth

Kristina Makeeva
PetaPixel (blog)
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 09:15 UTC
frozen lake Baikal
© Кристина Макеева
Baikal is... impressive. It's the deepest and the cleanest lake on Earth. When we were planning our trip, we had no idea how wonderful, majestic, and fairy it would be. We were enraptured by its beauty, so much so that we almost didn't sleep all 3 days we were there.

Lake Baikal is about 600km (373 miles) in length. The thickness of the ice on top reaches 1.5-2 meters (5-6.5 feet)—at its thickest, it can tolerate vehicles of about 15 tonnes, but sometimes we saw cars that had been fallen down.

But the ice isn't just strong, it's also gorgeous: displaying different patterns in different parts of the lake because the water freezes layer-by-layer. Baikal's ice is also the most transparent in the world! You can see everything all the way to the bottom: fish, green stones, plants, and bluish gulf. The water in the lake is so clear that you can see various objects even as deep as 40 meters (130 feet).

The bubbles in the ice are the result of methane gas that is produced by algae.
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Attention

Ten dead dolphins are washed up on British beaches in just a few days

Shari Miller
Daily Mail (UK)
Sun, 15 Jan 2017 12:45 UTC
dead dolphin in Cornwall
© Wessex News Agency/Clare RileyConcern: A dolphin found at Smeaton's Pier in St Ives, Cornwall is the tenth discovered dead along West Coast beaches in as many days, prompting fears over what could be killing them.
Ten dead dolphins have washed up on the beaches around the West Country in as many days, prompting fears among conservationists over the exact cause.

Pollution, trawler nets, inclement weather and jet skiers have all been cited as likely causes for the demise of these marine animals.

Clare Riley was among those who found the latest dead dolphin on the beach near Smeaton's Pier in St Ives, Cornwall.

'It was sad to see - I've been in Cornwall for six years waiting and hoping to see dolphins and I was finally rewarded two weeks ago with an awesome display of a pod playing and surfing the waves at Gwithian,' she said.

Another resident, Tony Mason, said: 'I saw them at Gwithian last Sunday, swimming around jet skiers. To then find that one dead was so sad. Such a beautiful creature.'

Between January and March last year, 61 dolphins, porpoises and whales were found dead around Cornwall's coast, the steepest rise in the death toll since 2006, according to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

They said previous post-mortem tests showed creatures washed up on the shores had died from a number of causes, including pollution, illnesses, natural causes and after being caught in fishing nets.

Comment: Last month in two separate incidents, thousands of dead fish were discovered on Pentewan and Marazion beaches in Cornwall.

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Fire

Costs of Alberta's Fort McMurray wildfire almost $10 billion


Calgary Herald
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 16:56 UTC
Fort McMurray wildfire
In this May 7, 2016 file photo, a wildfire burns south of Fort McMurray, Alberta.
An assessment of the total financial effect of last spring's Fort McMurray wildfire is pegging the direct and indirect costs of the blaze at almost $10 billion.

The $9.9-billion figure includes the expense of replacing buildings and infrastructure, as well as lost income, profits and royalties in the oilsands and forestry industries, said MacEwan University economist Rafat Alam.

It also includes early estimates on indirect costs such as environmental damage, lost timber, and physical and mental-health treatment for residents and firefighters.

The estimate will go even higher, Alam said Tuesday.

"It's not fully done yet. More data kept coming and I'm sure it will keep coming in."

Alam said it can take up to 10 years to get a complete picture of everything that happened and what it cost.

Earlier this year, insurers estimated they'd be paying out about $3.7 billion for damage caused by the blaze, which firefighters dubbed "the beast."

Comment: Study: Wildfire seasons are more destructive and lasting longer almost everywhere on Earth

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