Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

200 Feared Dead in Colombian Landslide

Image
© UnknownColombian emergency workers and residents used spades and rescue dogs to find victims.
At least 200 people are feared to have been buried by a landslide in Colombia's second largest city as rescue workers scramble to save victims of the country's worst floods in decades.

According to Red Cross officials, torrential rains have caused a major landslide in the city of Medellin, leaving at least 200 people missing, state-run BBC reported on Sunday.

"The initial count is that there may be 150-200 people considered missing. So far we have rescued three alive," said Cesar Uruena, a Red Cross official, adding that "We are focused on moving rubble to see if we find survivors. We've never had this many people affected [in Colombia] by the rainy season."

Officials say that at least two million people have been affected by the torrential rains and that over 10,000 homes have been destroyed as the result of the disaster in the country.

Igloo

'Warmest Year on Record'? The Truth is Global Warming Has Halted

blizzard 2010
© Daily MailWinter's icy grip: Drivers and pedestrians battle through blizzards in Kent last week.
A year ago tomorrow, just before the opening of the UN Copenhagen world climate summit, the British Meteorological Office issued a confident prediction. The mean world temperature for 2010, it announced, 'is expected to be 14.58C, the warmest on record' - a deeply worrying 0.58C above the 1961-1990 average.

World temperatures, it went on, were locked inexorably into an ever rising trend: 'Our experimental decadal forecast confirms previous indications that about half the years 2010-2019 will be warmer than the warmest year observed so far - 1998.'

Met Office officials openly boasted that they hoped by their statements to persuade the Copenhagen gathering to impose new and stringent carbon emission limits - an ambition that was not to be met.

Last week, halfway through yet another giant, 15,000 delegate UN climate jamboree, being held this time in the tropical splendour of Cancun in Mexico, the Met Office was at it again.

Never mind that Britain, just as it was last winter and the winter before, was deep in the grip of a cold snap, which has seen some temperatures plummet to minus 20C, and that here 2010 has been the coolest year since 1996.

Globally, it insisted, 2010 was still on course to be the warmest or second warmest year since current records began.

Umbrella

Australia: Drought-crippled farmers devastated by flooding

NSW Floods
© ABC Local Radio : Laurissa SmithIn New South Wales alone an estimated half a million dollars has been wiped off the value of the winter crop
The State and Federal governments are under pressure from farming groups to continue drought funding while farmers recover from the floods.

Recent flooding has devastated farmers also who, after 10 years of drought, have now seen crops lost to rain.

The New South Wales Farmers Association's chairman Charlie Armstrong says farmers are devastated and struggling financially.

"We've got this enormous mental stress that is now following what was a buoyant boom expectations of a bumper crop, followed now by some pretty dire circumstances as to how to even get the next crop in the ground," he said.

In New South Wales alone an estimated half a million dollars has been wiped off the value of the winter crop.

Snowman

UK: Food Shelves Empty and Petrol Running Out as Icy Roads Make Deliveries Impossible

Image
© The Daily Mail

  • Two pensioners die after collapsing in their gardens
  • Milder temperatures expected tomorrow but falling again on Sunday
  • Short-haul flights from Gatwick cancelled until 5pm
  • Petrol forecourts run dry as deliveries are held up
  • Rail networks cancel services for the third day running
Petrol forecourts were today running dry and food stores were struggling to replenish their shelves as icy conditions halted deliveries.

'Critical' shortages of petrol have been reported by the RMI Petrol Retailers Association, with remote areas being particularly badly affected.

Some fuel stations have also been accused of 'cashing in' on the crisis by increasing their prices - with one garage in Surrey putting up the cost of diesel per litre from £1.24 to £1.28 within the past four days.

The news came as snowfalls eased but temperatures plummeted even further, dropping -20.1C in Scotland and -7C in London and Birmingham overnight.

Phoenix

Tungurahua volcano prompts evacuation in Ecuador

Tungurahua
© Agence France-PresseView from Cotalo, Ecuador, of the Tungurahua volcano in eruption on 4 December, 2010 Scientists say pyroclastic flow from the volcano could threaten some of the villages on the slopes
The authorities in Ecuador have begun evacuating people from the slopes of the Tungurahua volcano after it started spewing ash.

Scientists say fast-moving currents of extremely hot gas and rock could be seen flowing from the volcano's crater.

Tungurahua, some 135km (85 miles) southeast of the capital, Quito, has been in an active state since 1999.

But experts say there has been a rapid increase in its seismic activity since Saturday morning.

Scientists with the Ecuadorean Institute for Geophysics say the number of explosions has increased. They say the ash cloud has reached 2km (1.2 miles) in height.

People living on the slopes reported the ground and buildings shaking, and a rumbling sound coming from the volcano.

Sun

Cancun Sun Speeds Decay of Global Warming

Cancun
© unknownNot a bad place for a climate conference, eh?
This global-warming/climate-change stuff is a great racket.

Over in England right now, they're locked in the jaws of a very early freeze-up. The roads are iced, the plows overworked, and people are angry. But there's a precious subset of the English population that are not enduring the frigid and premature torments of a northern winter. They're the climate-change activists, bureaucrats, politicians, puppeteers and NGOs - the class of professional alarmists who've been banging on about global warming for close on two decades now. This bunch has exempted itself from the rigors of English November, traded their sackcloth and ashes for sun-wear and tropical breezes.

They're toasting their pasty, righteous, caterwauling epidermi on the golden hot sands of Cancun, Mexico, flopped out amid the bikinis and barbeques while they attempt to spell out a future of rationing and want for all the rest of us. Flown there on taxpayer or foundation money, meeting up with all their buddies from the bust that was Cophenhagen, the grim, grey priesthood of "sustainable" living are convening in one of the great sybaritic strips of the entire Western world. The monks are in the cathouse.

But hey, if you're going to do Armageddon - do it in Cancun. The Apocalypse at the All You Can Eat Buffet. Parasailing to Armageddon.

Bizarro Earth

Australia: Hundreds evacuated in widespread NSW floods

Image
© Getty Images
Hundreds of flood-hit residents are being evacuated with parts of NSW's natural disaster zones braced for more rain. The Bureau of Meteorology issued flood warnings for swathes of the state's central west as people in Eugowra and Dubbo were forced to flee their homes amid the havoc.

Residents living near all western flowing NSW rivers from the Namoi south to the Murrumbidgee were warned their homes were at risk. With more rain forecast for the remainder of Saturday, additional flooding is expected in the Namoi, Castlereagh, Macquarie and Bogan river catchments.

Parts of NSW were declared disaster zones on Friday, with millions of dollars damage being caused. Residents of the Poplar Caravan Park were being evacuated on Saturday after intense localised rainfall in the Dubbo area.

Evacuation orders were also issued by the State Emergency Service for Eugowra. Residents of 11 properties and six businesses have been forced to pack up and leave.

Igloo

Seven trapped in Yorkshire pub for last Eight days under 16 feet drifts

Image
The Lion Inn pub in Blakey Ridge, North Yorkshire, where seven people have been trapped for eight days
While thousands braved the cold to begin their Christmas shopping, seven people in North Yorkshire are praying for better weather after being snowed into a pub for eight days and counting.

Heavy snow showers and strong winds have left the group stuck in the Lion Inn pub in Blakey Ridge, Kirkbymoorside since last Friday, with little chance of an escape.

Drifts of up to 16ft blocked the inn's doors and windows, with the surrounding roads impassable, and to make matters worse, the stranded seven's cars are buried under nine foot of snow.

The group's predicament in the fourth highest pub in England continues as forecasters warned Britons to expect icy conditions for at least another week, with temperatures falling as low as -10C in the South East of England overnight.

Katie Underwood, 18, who has been a waitress at the Lion Inn for four years, said: 'It was really novel at first, and quite exciting.

'The snow is immense. Most of the windows in here are blocked up, but we've got a door open at the back to get some air when we need to.'

Igloo

European Winter Blast Blamed For 40 Deaths While Flooding Devastates Balkan Countries

Image
© Phil Noble/ReutersA motorist drives through heavy snow in Manchester, northern England, December 1, 2010. The snow and freezing temperatures continued to cause major problems for road, rail and air services on Wednesday
Unseasonably cold weather and heavy snow in parts of northern Europe have killed at least 40 people in several countries this week and caused major travel disruptions.

The frigid weather is expected to linger through the first half of next week, CBC meteorologist Johanna Wagstaffe said.

"A 'blocking pattern' high-pressure system has set up over Greenland and Iceland, basically leading to an atmospheric traffic jam," Wagstaffe said. "This high is steering Atlantic warmth away from Europe and instead directing Arctic cold down from the North."

In Poland, officials said at least 12 people - many of them homeless - died overnight, bringing the death toll in Poland alone to 30 over the past three days. People have also died from the cold in Russia, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, local media reported.

Fish

Before the sand: Ancient Mega-Lake Found in Egyptian Desert

Image
© iStockphoto
One of the driest places in the world was once home to a lush lake nearly the size of Lake Michigan.

* A mega-lake in today's hyper-arid western Egypt might have been fed by the earliest Nile floods.

* The discovery helps explain fish fossils in the desert.

* An alternative hypothesis is that the mega-lake fed the Nile, not the other way around.

An ancient lush mega-lake would explain the longstanding puzzle of the fossilized fish found in the desert.

The hyper-arid deserts of western Egypt were once home to a lush mega-lake fed by the Nile River's earliest annual floods.