Yes, one! There's only one thing about which they think in a same way - a concern about possible eruption of Mt. Baekdu. The two Koreas remain at odds in everything. But they are one in voicing how to counter the possible volcanic explosion of the highest mountain in the Korean Peninsula

Inter-Korean anxiety is mounting, with growing apocalyptic predictions on the dormant volcano. A South Korean geological expert has warned that the volcano could erupt sometime around 2014 and 2015.

Former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reportedly said people in some regions of Yanggang and North Hamgyeong Provinces were feeling anxiety over a volcanic eruption of Mt. Baekdu. Kim called for quick countermeasures by the North Korean authorities.

If a volcano, located on the border between North Korea and China erupts, damage could be 10 to 100 times greater than that caused by the April 2010 eruptions in Iceland. Experts predict that the ashes would not only hit the neighboring area but damage agriculture and cause serious disruptions in industrial activities and air flights. The Korean Peninsula, China, Japan and Russia would be severely damaged.

A volcanic eruption begins when pressure on a magma chamber forces magma up through the conduit and out the volcano's vents. When the magma chamber is completely filled, the type of eruption partly depends on the amount of gas and silica in the magma. The amount of silica determines how sticky (level of viscosity) the magma is and water provides the explosive potential of steam.

The 2010 Iceland eruption caused enormous disruption to air travel across Western and Northern Europe, although relatively small in size for volcanic eruptions. About 20 countries closed their airspace and it affected hundreds of thousands of travelers. A very high proportion of flights within, to, and from Europe were cancelled, creating the highest level of air travel disruption since the World War II.

Over 50 thousand fish in a pond near an industrial area in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen died overnight on Monday, CRI Online reports.

The dead fish are mostly concentrated in the northern corner of the pond, and half of the body of water is now covered with rotting fish.

Located in the Qiangxiaxin Village at the junction of the Guangming New District and Dongguan in Shenzhen, the fish pond is larger than two basketball courts in area.

"We have invested a total of 350 thousand yuan (about 56 thousand USD) in the form of 60 thousand fish; now it's all over," said Ms. Liu, the fish pond owner. "These fish have been raised for one year, and could have been sold at market three months later."

Liu said she will not sell the dead fish at market despite suffering great financial losses as a result. She also suspects that heavy rain may have led to the pond being contaminated by toxic and harmful substances from a nearby building site in the Maike industrial area.

A manager surnamed Wen at the building site said that he is willing to cover any losses but stated that he is unaware of the presence of toxic materials at the site.

The Guangming New District environmental protection office has already begun investigating the case.

The attack only lasted 53 seconds as the deep-sea creature dragged the bird under near the Ogden Point breakwater in Victoria



Canada, British Columbia - Ginger Morneau was just taking a stroll along the water in Victoria when she saw a Giant Pacific octopus devour a seagull.

Morneau, her husband and her brother all watched as the octopus violently hugged the bird and pulled it under the water next to the Ogden Point breakwater in March.

She couldn't believe what she was seeing so she grabbed her camera and got some shots. The story and photos were first published by the BirdFellow Journal and are now going viral.

"From start to finish, from first photo to the last, there were 53 seconds that elapsed," said Morneau to The Canadian Press. "The struggle itself was really surreal in that it was quiet. You heard the sound of the water and nothing else."

Mexico City just 40 miles away from volcano throwing poison gases a mile up into the air over Puebla state

Mexico remains on high alert as the Popocatepetl volcano continuous to spew gas and volcanic ash into the air.

Mexico's National Centre for Disaster Prevention raised the threat level in April to its third highest warning in a seven-step scale. This indicates the possibility of magma expulsion and eruptions of increasing intensity.

A massive sinkhole opened up in a residential neighbourhood in Windermere, Florida today that was 100 feet across and nearly 50 feet deep.

Luckily, no one was hurt in the freak accident, though the massive hole displaced a family of six, which had to be evacuated with aid of the fire department.

The cause of the sinkhole is unknown, but officials believe the dry weather conditions experienced in parts of the south could have contributed to the hole.

The full Moon has a reputation for trouble. It raises high tides, it makes dogs howl, it wakes you up in the middle of the night with beams of moonlight stealing through drapes. If a moonbeam wakes you up on the night of May 5th, 2012, you might want to get out of bed and take a look. This May's full Moon is a "super Moon," as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full Moons of 2012.

Greenland's ice sheet is on the move, with new images showing its glaciers moving 30 percent faster than they were a decade ago.

Greenland and Antarctica are home to the two biggest blocks of ice on Earth. As climate changes, these glacier are shrinking and the water contained in them is moving into the oceans, adding to the already rising sea level.

A glacier's velocity is a measure of how fast the ice on the surface of the sheet is flowing toward the edges of the sheet.

This flow can be faster or slower, depending on how much the glacier is melting. The faster the flow, the more water and ice mass is lost from the glacier.

"You can think of the Greenland ice sheet as a really large lake that has hundreds of those little outlet streams that are acting like conveyor belts to move ice from the middle of the ice sheet, where it's getting added by precipitation, to the edges," study researcher Twila Moon, a graduate student at the University of Washington, told LiveScience.

After a mini heatwave and the wettest April on record, now parts of Britain are braced for a taste of some wintry weather.

Forecasters say it will be turning much colder as we head towards the weekend, with some areas seeing unseasonable frost and sub-zero temperatures.

Sky weather presenter Nazaneen Ghaffar said: "It's all thanks to a cold front slowly moving southwards across the UK on Friday. This will bring with it colder air into northern areas.

It'll be chilly for Scotland and Northern Ireland and northern Scotland could see a few wintry showers.

"On Saturday again some wintry showers are likely over the hills of Scotland."

Flood warnings and alerts remain in place after the recent heavy rainfall, with some rivers set to reach their peaks.

The Environment Agency is urging people to keep away from swollen rivers and not attempt to walk or drive through flood waters.

Residents of Morro Grande, São José dos Missing, reported that at 10am on Monday there was rain for about a minute of white ice grains (granular snow).

This was verified by the MetSul Meteorology, whose survey indicated freezing rain in Bento Goncalves, Caxias do Sul, San Marcos High Happy, Cinnamon, Capon Beautiful South, Ipe and Vacaria, San Joaquin in Santa Catarina, and possibly in Aparados and Serra Gaucho.

In the case of freezing rain, which looks like a kid sleet, precipitation leaves the cloud like snowflakes on a cold portion of the atmosphere. Then it goes through an intermediate layer of warmer air, but because it is not thick enough, it just melts part of the flakes. Before reaching the surface, however, the flakes are melted by a new layer of cooler air and they freeze yet again, precipitating in the form of ice.

The conditions were thus very conducive to the occurrence of winter precipitation (snow or freezing rain) with cold air temperatures and negative between 1500 and 2000 meters altitude, and the presence of a trough (an area of ​​lower pressure) on the River Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. It is one of the classic models for snow in southern Brazil: a continental high-pressure trough or cyclone ensuring moisture flow.

Source: Metsul Blog (In Portuguese)

A plume of volcanic smoke is seen rising from the appropriately-named Mount Asphyxia volcano, located on Zavodovski Island in the southern Atlantic. The image was acquired on April 27 by NASA's Aqua satellite.

Zavodovski is part of the South Sandwich Islands, a group of 11 British-owned islands located 217 miles southeast of South Georgia, off the tip of South America. Only 3.1 miles wide, the icy island is dominated by the 1,800-foot-high stratovolcano.

Aptly named, the sulphuric fumes from Asphyxia coupled with the stench of penguin droppings -- the island is a breeding ground for millions of chinstrap penguins -- can be suffocating for human visitors.