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Earth ChangesS
DUBAI - Cyclone Gonu waned into a storm as it passed into a major oil shipping route toward Iran on Thursday, but killed 28 people and left a trail of destruction that halted Oman's oil and gas exports for a third day.
A Queensland council has been condemned by the RSPCA for encouraging its residents to splatter cane toads with golf clubs.
Townsville City Council produced several hundred beer stubby holders carrying slogans promoting local activities including "cane toad golf", as part of a recently launched advertising campaign.
The $270,000 campaign is designed to showcase "all the great things about Townsville and the people who live here", a council spokeswoman said.
Other slogans on the beer coolers include "cold beer on a hot summer's day" and "bagging a barra" (barramundi).
RSPCA Queensland spokesman Michael Beatty said the merchandise encourages animal cruelty.
Townsville City Council produced several hundred beer stubby holders carrying slogans promoting local activities including "cane toad golf", as part of a recently launched advertising campaign.
The $270,000 campaign is designed to showcase "all the great things about Townsville and the people who live here", a council spokeswoman said.
Other slogans on the beer coolers include "cold beer on a hot summer's day" and "bagging a barra" (barramundi).
RSPCA Queensland spokesman Michael Beatty said the merchandise encourages animal cruelty.
A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck in the Bismarck Sea near Papua New Guinea on Thursday but it was unlikely to generate a tsunami, a spokesman for the country's Geological Survey said.
Los Angeles residents were urged on Wednesday to take shorter showers, reduce lawn sprinklers and stop throwing trash in toilets in a bid to cut water usage by 10 percent in the driest year on record.
ILULISSAT, Greenland - Atop Greenland's Suicide Cliff, from where old Inuit women used to hurl themselves when they felt they had become a burden to their community, a crack and a thud like thunder pierce the air.
Three B.C. communities Squamish Mount Currie and Prince George issued states of emergency today as flood waters continue to rise to near record levels.
More than 50 homes were evacuated in Terrace, Smithers and Mount Currie, and thousands more throughout the province placed on alert, as rivers overspilled their banks and threatened homes and livestock.
The biggest flood threat is in Smithers and the Kitimat-Stikine Regional District, where up to 400 homes are at risk, while the Lower Mainland is expected to see the effects of flooding by Friday.
More than 50 homes were evacuated in Terrace, Smithers and Mount Currie, and thousands more throughout the province placed on alert, as rivers overspilled their banks and threatened homes and livestock.
The biggest flood threat is in Smithers and the Kitimat-Stikine Regional District, where up to 400 homes are at risk, while the Lower Mainland is expected to see the effects of flooding by Friday.
Gov. John Hoeven today issued a disaster declaration for impacts resulting from heavy rainfall that is causing river and small stream flooding, and damage to roads, bridges, farmland, homes and businesses in the Red River Valley Basin. Hoeven also contacted Col. Michael Phenning of the Army Corps of Engineers to request assistance in constructing earthen dikes in Fargo in anticipation of a possible flood crest in the region over the next few days.
They can start as a small little ripple in the desert crust. A little bit of rain can trigger an earth fissure to tear open a crack large enough to swallow a car.
Fissures are a southwestern phenomenon aggravated by our need for water. Underground water tables hold up the earth above. As we pump out the water the earth has nothing to support it and collapses on top of itself creating a fissure. The on -going drought and constant demand for water has lowered the water table below compounding the fissure problem.
Fissures are a southwestern phenomenon aggravated by our need for water. Underground water tables hold up the earth above. As we pump out the water the earth has nothing to support it and collapses on top of itself creating a fissure. The on -going drought and constant demand for water has lowered the water table below compounding the fissure problem.
A strong undersea earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale hit eastern Indonesia, although there were no reports of casualties or damage, an official at the country's meteorological agency said on Wednesday.
The U.S. Geological Survey said in a bulletin sent by email that the quake struck the Moluccas islands in the Banda Sea at 1128 GMT and put the magnitude at 5.8.
The U.S. Geological Survey said in a bulletin sent by email that the quake struck the Moluccas islands in the Banda Sea at 1128 GMT and put the magnitude at 5.8.
Hurricane forecasters are getting better at pinpointing the paths of these swirling storms, but predicting how intense they will be is still problematic, according to a statement released today by the American Meteorological Society.
The errors in track forecasts (which tell where a hurricane is most likely to head next and are the foundation of the warning process) have roughly half the errors that they did just 15 years ago.
Forecasts for tracks generally appear in what is called a cone: the middle portion on the cone is where the storm is most likely to hit, but it can veer anywhere inside the total cone's area. Over the past decade, forecasters have honed their predictions so that the length of coastline under warning from that cone has decreased from 454 miles to 317 miles, meaning there's less chance of a false warning.
The errors in track forecasts (which tell where a hurricane is most likely to head next and are the foundation of the warning process) have roughly half the errors that they did just 15 years ago.
Forecasts for tracks generally appear in what is called a cone: the middle portion on the cone is where the storm is most likely to hit, but it can veer anywhere inside the total cone's area. Over the past decade, forecasters have honed their predictions so that the length of coastline under warning from that cone has decreased from 454 miles to 317 miles, meaning there's less chance of a false warning.
