Death toll could hit thousands as abnormal rain swamps Bangladesh, Nepal and northern India, bringing threat of mass starvation and waterborne disease.
Women and children were seen screaming for help from treetops yesterday as monsoon floods struck three countries in south Asia, leaving at least 280 people dead and 20 million washed out of their homes.
Earth Changes
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| ©Ranjeet Kumar |
| SWAMPED: An aerial view of a part of Darbhanga district in North Bihar on Saturday. |
The State Government on Saturday owned the blame for the police firing on flood victims in which one person was killed and three others were injured in Madhubani on Friday.
A two-member administrative team, comprising Home Secretary Afzal Amanullah and Additional Director General CID Yashwant Malhotra, held the police firing "unwarranted" and placed Havildar Aditya Narain Singh, who opened fire, under suspension.
A series of small earthquakes around Upptyppingar north of Vatnajökull since this February has prompted speculations from geologists that a volcanic eruption could be imminent in the area.
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| ©WKYZ |
For much of the afternoon and early evening Thursday this lakefront city looked much more like a lake.
A strong isolated thunderstorm formed over the downtown area and brought down with it torrential rains the likes of which many lifelong Clevelanders said they had never seen.
An earthquake jolted the German town of Koblenz early Friday, but caused no casualties or damage, police said.
The quake, which measured 4 on the Richter scale, roused people from their beds at 5 a.m. It was followed half-an-hour later by a less powerful aftershock.
Hundreds of anxious residents telephoned the emergency services asking for advice, a police spokesman said.
The quake, which measured 4 on the Richter scale, roused people from their beds at 5 a.m. It was followed half-an-hour later by a less powerful aftershock.
Hundreds of anxious residents telephoned the emergency services asking for advice, a police spokesman said.
The most accurate measures of European daily temperatures ever indicate that the length of heat waves on the continent has doubled and the frequency of extremely hot days has nearly tripled in the past century. The new data shows that many previous assessments of daily summer temperature change underestimated heat wave events in western Europe by approximately 30 percent.
Paul Della-Marta and a team of researchers at the University of Bern in Switzerland compiled evidence from 54 high-quality recording locations from Sweden to Croatia and report that heat waves last an average of 3 days now - with some lasting up to 4.5 days - compared to an average of around 1.5 days in 1880. The results are published 3 August in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. The researchers suggest that their conclusions contribute to growing evidence that western Europe's climate has become more extreme and confirm a previously hypothesized increase in the variance of daily summer temperatures since the 19th century.
Paul Della-Marta and a team of researchers at the University of Bern in Switzerland compiled evidence from 54 high-quality recording locations from Sweden to Croatia and report that heat waves last an average of 3 days now - with some lasting up to 4.5 days - compared to an average of around 1.5 days in 1880. The results are published 3 August in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. The researchers suggest that their conclusions contribute to growing evidence that western Europe's climate has become more extreme and confirm a previously hypothesized increase in the variance of daily summer temperatures since the 19th century.
On July 3, a NASA aircraft equipped with a state-of-the-art sensor provided emergency response officials with critical soil moisture data for several regions across Texas that were threatened by flooding. NASA responded to the heavy rains and flooding in Texas by redirecting a NASA research aircraft, the P-3B, to Texas after it completed an interagency project in Oklahoma.
The aircraft had been flying a sensor developed by the University of Colorado at Boulder, NOAA and U.S. Department of Agriculture that could provide detailed maps of ground surface water. At the request of researchers at the University of Colorado's Center for Environmental Technology, which built the sensor, NASA detoured the plane to Texas to help emergency response teams there better track the areas subject to flash flooding.
The aircraft had been flying a sensor developed by the University of Colorado at Boulder, NOAA and U.S. Department of Agriculture that could provide detailed maps of ground surface water. At the request of researchers at the University of Colorado's Center for Environmental Technology, which built the sensor, NASA detoured the plane to Texas to help emergency response teams there better track the areas subject to flash flooding.
The heatwave that has already killed hundreds across Eastern Europe is no aberration. Since 1880, the frequency of extremely hot days has nearly tripled and the length of heatwaves across the continent has doubled.
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| ©ap |
| Families have been forced to wade through waist-deep waters |
Almost 20 million people have been displaced as some of the worst floods for years have hit a wide swathe of northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Denuded of their protective armour of sand, several beaches in KwaZulu-Natal are being swallowed up by the sea in the aftermath of the monster sea storms, that hit the coast more than four months ago.
Over the past few months, the Indian Ocean has been eating away slowly, but relentlessly, at several beaches - to such an extent that the high-tide mark has advanced up to 100m inland in some places.
Over the past few months, the Indian Ocean has been eating away slowly, but relentlessly, at several beaches - to such an extent that the high-tide mark has advanced up to 100m inland in some places.
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| ©Magellan Geographix |
