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Sinkhole partially swallows car at Perth casino, Australia

Chloe Ross
ninemsn.com.au
Mon, 23 Jun 2014 15:39 UTC
Image

A social media post showed the front and back tyres of a white Hyundai stuck in the hole.
An unlucky driver was left stranded at a Perth casino after a sinkhole partially swallowed their car.

The sinkhole, which opened up in the Crown Casino carpark yesterday morning, developed after heavy rain at the weekend, WA Today reports.

Nine News reporter Scott Cunningham said the bitumen had collapsed in two places, trapping the two left wheels of the driver's side.

"The bitumen has caved in, there's probably a metre-and-a-half drop I suppose where you can see that the sands just all cave in, around and underneath the wheels," he said.

"There's just one car that appears to be stuck there at the moment, security has fenced-off the area around it."

A photo posted by the reporter to social media showed the full extent of the damage.

As the sinkhole is on private property, the casino will be responsible for its repair.

Source: Nine News, WA Today
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15 feet deep sinkhole snares bus near Cincinnati Zoo

Jennifer Edwards Baker and Adam Kiefaber
USA Today
Sat, 21 Jun 2014 15:23 UTC
Image
© The Cincinnati Enquirer
A Cincinnati Metro bus was stuck in a sinkhole Thursday night.
A sinkhole near the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden that trapped a city bus will likely take a month to fix, according to a Metropolitan Sewer District official.

The Metro bus was partially stuck in the hole, 15 feet wide and 15 feet deep, near Vine and Shields streets in Corryville around 9 p.m. Thursday, said Cincinnati police Lt. Tim Brown, the night chief.

"It's crazy," he said.

The bus was towed overnight.

An MSD crew investigated a reported buckle in the pavement earlier Thursday when crews discovered a backup of sewage upstream of the buckled pavement in the sewer manhole, according to a release. The bus drove over the buckled area around 9 p.m., at which point the sinkhole opened.

MSD crews were called to repair the hole, which sewer construction inspector Dave Rieman says is the largest he has seen in at least a decade. "Cave-ins are common, but not ones this big," he said.

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Magnet

Satellite swarm spots North Pole drift

Jason Major
Discovery News
Sun, 22 Jun 2014 02:33 UTC
Magnetic Pole
© ESA/DTU Space
Swarm measurements of Earth’s magnetic field from June 2014. Blue areas show where it has weakened.
The North Pole is moving. Not the geographic axis around which Earth spins, of course, but rather its magnetic pole, the north end of which is slowly but steadily wandering across the Arctic Ocean toward Siberia. Scientists have known about our planet's shifting magnetic field for a long time, since at least 1904 - and today we now have a "Swarm" of satellites investigating its many inconsistencies from orbit.

Launched in November 2013, ESA's Swarm mission consists of three 9-meter satellites orbiting the planet at altitudes of 300-530 km (186-330 miles). Their goal is to monitor Earth's dynamic magnetic field, observing its changes over a period of four years.

The data gathered by the Swarm satellites will help scientists better understand how our magnetic field works, how it's influenced by solar activity, and why large parts of it are found to be weakening.

Because the magnetic field is our planet's first line of defense against radiation from both the sun and deep space, understanding what makes it tick is very important.
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Attention

Dead humpback whale washes up near Maldives island

Farah Ahmed
haveeru.com.mv
Sun, 22 Jun 2014 09:04 UTC
Image
© FENFUSHI ISLAND COUNCIL
The dead humpback whale that washed up near Fenfushi in Alif Dhaalu atoll.


A dead humpback whale has washed up near Fenfushi in Alif Dhaalu atoll on Sunday.

The island's deputy councilor Ahmed Saeed said that the whale that measures about 50-foot washed up near the island sometime on Saturday. The whale is about 1500-foot away from the island's beach, he added.

"The whale hasn't started rotting yet. But when it does, it'll prove to be problematic to us," Saeed said.

The deputy councilor also said that they have informed the authorities about the dead whale that washed up near the island.

"This is a breeding area for whale sharks. So lots of tourists come here every day to see them. If the whale starts rotting, it'll be a nuisance for the tourists who come here as well," Saeed said.
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Cloud Precipitation

3 million affected by deadly floods in China


RT
Sat, 21 Jun 2014 20:05 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo
This picture taken on June 4, 2014 shows rescuers helping two children cross a heavily flooded street in Shiqian county of Tongren, southwest China's Guizhou province
Rainstorms and floods sweeping eastern and southern China since mid-June have left 14 people dead, four missing and up to 3 million people affected. The cost of the flooding is estimated at $250 million in one province alone.

China's central Hunan Province was one of the worst hit, where seven people died. Also badly affected was Jiangxi province in the east where another five people lost their lives and in Guangxi Zhuang, an autonomous region in the south of the country, where another two people perished, China's Xinhua news agency reports.

In Hunan a total of ten cities and 47 counties were affected by the rainstorms and 171,000 people have had to be relocated. The economic cost to the region is $251 million, with 122,700 hectares of crops damaged.
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Camera

Rare 'Karman Vortex' spiral clouds spotted off coast of Baja California


bajainsider.com
Sat, 21 Jun 2014 04:56 UTC
Image
© NASA-MODIS
A unique weather event called a Karman Vortex was created by airflow disturbed by Island Guadalupe off the coast of Baja California only occurs in a few places around the world and only on rare occasion.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), photographed a strange atmospheric phenomenon in northern Baja California Sur called Karman vortices, which occur only in very specific climatic conditions.

The image of four eddies spinning in the Pacific in the wake of Isla de Guadalupe of the coast of Baja California, was taken by the MODIS instruments onboard the Aqua satellite in mid June 2014; also managed to capture a Gloria, a kind of circle that reproduces a spectrum effect
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Massive sinkhole opens up near World Cup stadium in Brazil


BBC
Sat, 21 Jun 2014 16:59 UTC
Image
Residents have been evacuated from a favela near one of Brazil's World Cup stadiums, after a huge sinkhole opened up.

Footage shows partially-collapsed homes perched on the edge of the crater in Natal, already filled with household appliances, furniture and vehicles.

The hole is four miles (6.5km) from the Arena das Dunas stadium, which will host the Group D match between Italy and Uruguay on Tuesday.

The sinkhole opened up earlier this week after record rainfall, but has continued to grow since.

      Read More...
Heart - Black

African elephant poaching numbers exceed 20,000 in 2013


wildlifeextra.com
Fri, 20 Jun 2014 16:29 UTC
Image
More than 20,000 African elephants across the continent were killed for their ivory last year, with poaching increasing across 33 per cent of the sites monitored, including Dzanga Sangha in the Central African Republic, a new report shows.

Although this number is shocking, and far exceeds the natural elephant population growth rate, the report, released by the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), highlights that this number is actually slightly lower than the 2011 figure, when numbers peaked following a dramatic increase that had begun in the mid 2000s.

It also shows a clear increase in the number of large seizures of ivory, ie shipments over 500kg, made before the ivory had left the African continent. For the first time, these seizures exceeded those made in Asia.

"Africa's elephants continue to face an immediate threat to their survival from high-levels of poaching for their ivory, and with over 20,000 elephants illegally killed last year the situation remains dire," said John E Scanlon, Secretary-General of CITES.

"Due to the collective efforts of so many we also see some encouraging signals, but experience shows that poaching trends can shift dramatically and quickly, especially when trans-national organised crime is involved."

Source: ELEPHANT CONSERVATION, ILLEGAL KILLING AND IVORY TRADE
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Bizarro Earth

Earth's biggest volcano Hawaii's Mauna Loa, might be waking up

Arden Dier
Newser
Sat, 21 Jun 2014 08:23 UTC
Mauna Loa Summit
© USGS
The summit of Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii.
Ready to rumble? The world's largest volcano - Hawaii's Mauna Loa - appears to be stirring back to life after a relatively quiet 30 years, geologists say. Don't fret: It isn't about to erupt at any minute, but four separate clusters of smaller earthquakes have been reported under Mauna Loa over the last 16 months, including as recently as April and May of this year, reports LiveScience. Geologists from the Hawaii Volcano Observatory note that similar events preceded the volcano's last eruption in 1984 - though these latest quakes are smaller in comparison - which may indicate magma is on the move.

As Wired explains further, the depth and location of the quakes suggests that magma is "refilling the reservoir that feeds Mauna Loa." Prior to the 1984 blast, scientists also observed ground deformation at the volcano's surface, as well as changes in gases streaming from cracks, and nothing like that has been seen in the last year or so. Still, the US Geological Society posted a photo on Instragram this week with the phrase, "A Stirring Giant?" notes EarthSky.org. You can track updates from the USGS on Mauna Loa here. (Scientists recently discovered a pair of rare tar volcanoes while searching for shipwrecks.)
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Binoculars

Tufted puffin seen on Atlantic coast for the 1st time in almost 200 years


cbc.ca
Thu, 19 Jun 2014 15:04 UTC
Image
© Ralph Eldridge
Machias Seal Island lighthouse keeper Ralph Eldridge photographed a tufted puffin on the island.
Mystery surrounds how a bird common on Pacific coast arrived on Machias Seal Island in Bay of Fundy

The first sighting of a tufted puffin on the east coast of North America in almost 200 years has people wondering how the common Pacific coast seabird made it to the Atlantic waters.

Ralph Eldridge, the lighthouse keeper on Machias Seal Island in the Bay of Fundy, spotted the bird and noted it was different from the thousands of Atlantic puffins found at the Canadian Wildlife Service sanctuary on the island.

"It stood out as different from our Atlantic puffins - larger, blacker but with a conspicuously orange beak and most notable, a very white face," said Eldridge in an email to CBC News.

Eldridge alerted Tony Diamond, a biology professor from the University of New Brunswick, who is on the island running the Atlantic Laboratory for Avian Research.

Diamond was able to view the bird in a large telescope and confirm the identification.

Tufted puffins are common on the Pacific coast from Alaska to northern California, breeding on offshore islands.

Jim Wilson, a naturalist, said the last recorded sighting of one in the North Atlantic was in the 1830s in Maine.
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