This hurricane season is shaping up to be one of the most intense of recent years with many powerful storms that displayed rapid formation, fast intensification, and incredible amounts of damage due to heavy rain and floods. Here's a summary of the most significant storms on September:
Hurricane Francine rapidly intensified into a Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of 100 mph (155 km/h), making landfall in southern Louisiana, torrential rains and severe flooding caused widespread damage, submerging homes and infrastructure, and resulting in $1.5 billion in damages. Fortunately, there were no fatalities.
Storm Boris reached wind speeds of 75 mph (120 km/h) and rainfall of up to 14 inches (360 mm) in some areas of Central and Eastern Europe, causing the Elbe and Danube rivers to overflow, submerging entire communities, collapsing bridges, damaging homes, and sweeping away cars. The floods caused at least 19 deaths and significant economic losses, making it one of the worst flooding events in the region in decades.
Zhanna Nurmaganbetova en.inform.kz Tue, 08 Oct 2024 12:28 UTC
Some 200 people may have been buried after a landslide occurred Monday in a port area of Manacapuru, Brazil's Amazonas state, according to official sources, Xinhua reports.
The Military Firefighters Corps of the State of Rio de Janeiro said that the land supporting part of the Terra Preta Port, located on the banks of the Amazon River, slid due to unknown reasons. Although the area was under construction, the port continued to operate as a key transportation point.
It is estimated that over 200 people were loading and unloading goods at the site when the accident occurred. Initial reports confirmed that an entire family on a floating boat was buried. Additionally, debris from boats, pipes, houses, and vehicles has been found in the waters of the Amazon River.
The landslide could be related to riverbank erosion, which has been worsened by the severe drought affecting the Amazon region.
The Manacapuru's city council issued a statement, deeply regretting the accident, and detailed that teams of the Civil Defense, the Military Firefighters Corps and other sectors are working intensively at the site to rescue those trapped.
There are also some news reports about the event, both in Portuguese and in English.
The site of this landslide appears to be [-3.2950, -60.6374]. This is a Google Earth image of the location, collected in February 2024:-
Google Earth image of the site of the 7 October 2024 landslide at Porto da Terra Preta, in Manacapuru, Brazil.
This image does not give any obvious indications as to why a landslide might have occurred. However, many of the local reports suggest that construction work was under way at the site.But, significantly, the Solimões River is at a historically low level currently, and the banks of the rivers in the Amazon region suffer a phenomenon known locally as "terras caídas" (fallen lands), which describes river bank landslides. There is a literature on this type of failure - a good starting point is Bandeira et al. (2018). These failures can occur in periods when the river level is falling, and under such circumstances are generally caused by toe erosion.
A search operation is ongoing at Porto da Terra Preta - it is to be hoped that those on the site managed to escape. But this event illustrates the risks of landslides along rivers, and highlights that failures are not always due to rainy conditions.
Five sperm whales have died after becoming stranded on an island off Australia's south coast.
The whales were found on a beach on the coast of Flinders Island, which is located between the Australian mainland and the island state of Tasmania, on Sunday night and were reported to Tasmania's Marine Conservation Program, according to Xinhua news agency.
Authorities arrived at the beach on Monday morning to inspect the whales and found three of them dead.
The remaining two were administered palliative care and died on Monday night.
Heavy rain lashed Shangla, Bajaur and Kohat districts on Tuesday, inundating roads and streets and damaging vegetable crops and fruit orchards.
A hailstorm damaged vegetable crops and orchards of red persimmon in Shangla district.
The growers said red persimmon orchards were damaged at a time when the fruit was ready to be harvested.
Mohammad Miraj of Kuz Kana area said the hailstorm extensively damaged his orchard of red persimmon. He said he was expecting a handsome profit this season.
He said he never saw such a hailstorm in his lifetime.
Miraj said the recent years had seen a change in weather patterns with unprecedented rains causing huge losses.
Last week, category 4 Hurricane Helene hit the eastern coast of North America causing massive flooding and devastation across the region, leaving people stranded and homeless.
This week, Hurricane Milton - a category five hurricane - is predicted to hit Florida's west coast after forming in the Gulf of Mesico and moving eastwards.
Two such storms in less than ten days have fueled online talk of "Weather modification" from Republican politicians and alternate media personalities:
The summer shipping window on Russia's Northern Sea Route is coming to a rapid close weeks ahead of schedule. A number of vessels and convoys are rushing to complete their transits before the route shuts down in the next three weeks.
Northern Sea Route Information Office
Unlike the last couple of summers when Russia's Arctic coastal waterways were fully clear of sea ice, residual winter ice persisted in the eastern section this year. This has resulted in the early onset of ice formation especially in the Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi Seas.
Rare rainfall has hit some of the most arid places on earth.
The deluge has left blue lagoons of water amid the palm trees and sand dunes of the Sahara desert, nourishing some of its most drought-stricken regions with more water than many had seen in decades.
Southeastern Morocco's desert rarely experiences rain in late summer.
The Moroccan government said two days of rainfall in September had exceeded yearly averages in several areas that get an average of less than 250 millimeters (10 inches) annually, including Tata, one of the areas hit hardest. In Tagounite, a village about 450 kms (280 miles) south of the capital Rabat, more than 100 mm (3.9 inches) was recorded in a 24-hour period.
The storms provided more rainfall than had been seen in decades, leaving striking images of bountiful water gushing through the Saharan sands amid castles and desert flora.
At Least Three Killed as Floods Swamp Thailand’s Chiang Mai
At least three people have been killed after flash floods swamped Thailand's northern city of Chiang Mai.
The city, a popular tourist destination, was inundated by torrential rain as the Ping River swelled to 5.30 metres (17.4 feet), its highest level in 50 years, on Saturday night. The river runs along the eastern edge of the city,
Residents were forced to wade through thigh-high brown waters, and some tourists evacuated from their hotels in trucks. Some shops were forced to close, while the central train station was shut after floodwaters poured inside. Train services to the city were also suspended.
Saritdet Charoenchai, a public health official, said that three people had been killed, including a 44-year-old man who was electrocuted and a 33-year-old woman who died in a mudslide.
More than 80 people have moved into shelters, he said, as almost a dozen medical centres were closed due to the high water.
WOAI was at Animal Control Services as three dogs were taken off the property on Monday at Spruce Ridge Drive near Kitty Hawk in Converse.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Heather Rodriguez, 36, who was babysitting, left the toddler with her 13-year-old daughter when one of the pit bulls forced its way into a bedroom and attacked the baby.
"The 13-year-old was able to maintain control of the baby, but at this point, it was being described to me as almost a tug-of-war for the baby between at least one of the dogs and the little girl," he said.
Investigators noted other dogs joined in the attack on the baby, also biting the 13-year-old. She managed to break away to call 911 then came back to protect the baby from the dogs.
The great danger is that under the pressures of anxiety and fear, the alternation of crisis and relaxation and new crisis, the people of the world will come to accept gradually the idea of war, the idea of submission to total power, and the abdication of reason, spirit and individual conscience. The great peril of the...cold war is the progressive deadening of conscience.
- Thomas Merton
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Many dozens of tornado warnings and lots of tornados touching down in Southern Florida today Oct 9th with Hurricane Milton about 5 hours out with...
Comment: Some observations from The Landslide Blog: