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Mon, 08 Nov 2021
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Cloud Lightning

Lightning bolt kills 4 children in Ilorin, Nigeria

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Wednesday, May 27th, Children's Day, was a tragic day in Gure town in Ilorin, Kwara State, as three children are said to have been killed by lightning.

According to Vanguard:
The lightening at Gure, a popular ancient town and the commercial nerve centre of Baruten council, struck during a downpour between 12 midnight of Tuesday and 1a.m of yesterday.

The lightening was said to have killed all the children instantly, three of who were of the same parents. The fourth one came to pass the night with the other victims. The injured ones have been hospitalised.

Sources said the lightening broke down the wall of the house, and that the remains of the victims have been buried in accordance with Islamic rites.

It was further learned that the down pour also blew off the roofing sheets of many houses in the town, rendering some residents homeless.

Attention

Elderly woman attacked by bear in Japan

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© Guérin Nicolas/Wikimedia Commons
Asiatic Black Bear
Officials in Mie Prefecture have apologized to neighboring Shiga Prefecture after an elderly woman was attacked by a moon bear 6 km from where they released such an animal.

The 88-year-old woman from Taga suffered severe injuries including a broken right cheekbone after being attacked by a bear at around 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday while praying to a Jizo statue along the prefectural road in Taga's mountains.

Jizo statues are Buddhist icons that are believed to help protect travelers, women, children and the weak. They are usually found at crossroads, and are often looked after by elderly people living in the area.

According to Shiga Prefectural Police, the bear roared at the woman from behind and swiped at her with its paw before it ran away.

Health

At least 18 dead in Texas, Oklahoma flooding as region is again battered

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© Reuters / Daniel Kramer
Motorists survey the flood waters in southwest Houston, Texas May 26, 2015
The record-breaking weekend storm that pounded parts of Texas and Oklahoma with heavy rains and spawned widespread flooding has claimed upwards of 18 lives as of Wednesday, officials say.

According to Reuters, the death toll from the floods now stands at 18, up from 10 only a day earlier. Authorities were still looking to locate 13 people who vanished during the storm, CNN reported.

Five of this week's fatalities occurred in Houston, Texas--the fourth most-populous city in the United States--where a new flash flood warning was announced by the National Weather Service on Wednesday, as nearly 2.2 million Texans are reeling from the weekend's disaster.


"This rain has the potential to cause additional street flooding so residents are advised to be careful as they commute to work," city officials in Houston announced on Wednesday.

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© Reuters / Daniel Kramer

Wolf

UK hospital admissions for dog attacks up 76% in 10 years

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© Dominic Lipinski/PA
A pitbull. The HSCIC data showed a 6.5% year-on-year increase in the number of people requiring inpatient treatment for injuries inflicted by dogs.
Hospital admissions for injuries caused by dogs have risen by 76% in England over the past 10 years, according to official statistics.

The news has reignited the debate over whether enough is being done to tackle irresponsible owners and to protect the public.

In the 12 months from March 2014 to February this year, there were 7,227 admissions for dog bites or attacks, 6.5% up on the previous 12 months and compared with 4,110 in the equivalent period a decade ago, according to hospital episode statistics published on Thursday.

A number of high-profile deaths attributable to dogs - there have been at least 21 fatalities, including 13 children or babies, over the last 10 years - have led to a toughening up of the law, increasing the liability of owners and the potential punishments they face.

Cloud Precipitation

Massive rainfalls have devastated more than half of Texas state parks

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© Unknown
Flood waters inundate the Birch Creek Unit of Lake Somerville State Park. The park is one of more than two-dozen state parks wholly or partly closed because of damage from recent rains.
More than a dozen Texas state parks, including some of the most visited sites in the 95-unit system, are closed to the public as a result of damage caused by a month of heavy rains capped by torrential downpours over the Memorial Day weekend.

Portions of a dozen or so other state parks are closed to visitors, with most of the closures tied to flooding from rivers and reservoirs swelled with runoff from rains that have soaked much of the state over the past weeks.

More than half of Texas' state parks have suffered weather-related damage during the past month or so. A handful of those parks, including Blanco State Park, which was devastated by a record-setting surge of the Blanco River, could be wholly or partially closed for weeks as damage is repaired or, in the case of several parks on the shores of swollen reservoirs, flood water continues covering campgrounds and other facilities.

Comment: Also see: Record rainfall for Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Nebraska


Cloud Precipitation

'Epic' flooding on Alaska's Dalton highway near Deadhorse

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© Loren Holmes / ADN
The Dalton Highway is washed out south of Deadhorse on Thursday, May 21, 2015.
Unprecedented flooding continues to interfere with daily operations on the North Slope oil patch after surging waters wiped away swaths of the Dalton Highway and isolated a section of Deadhorse, the jumping-off point for the sprawling industrial region.

"This is just epic," said Mike Coffey, commander of the unified incident command, a response team consisting of the state, the North Slope Borough and oil companies. "People who have been here for decades say they've never seen anything like it."

The state has estimated the costs of the damage and repairs since March at $5.1 million. The federal government may pay for much of that, since the icing and flooding on the highway has been declared a disaster, said Coffey, the director of state transportation maintenance and operations.
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© Loren Holmes/ADN
A washed down stop sign

Cloud Precipitation

Record rainfall for Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Nebraska

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© Jamie Mitchell
Rain in Fort Smith, Arkansas
Several cities have already seen one of their wettest moths on record. And the month isn't over. And there's more rain in the forecast

Fort Smith, Arkansas - With 18.33 inches of rain through 2:00 a.m. Tuesday, Fort Smith broke the previous record of 15.02 inches in June 1945, making it the wettest month on record

Oklahoma City - On Saturday, the city broke its June 1989 record of 14.66 inches to become the wettest month in Oklahoma City history.

Wichita Falls, Texas - May 2015 became the wettest month on record early Friday afternoon when the city's month-to-date total reached 13.33 inches. That broke the record for May - and for any month on the calendar - both set in May 1982 with 13.22 inches.

Corpus Christi, Texas - Rainfall in May 2015 was 13.41 inches through 3:00 a.m. May 26, well beyond the previous May record of 10.44 inches set in 1941.

According to weather.com senior meteorologist Nick Wiltgen, May 2015 now exceeds Corpus's total rainfall for the entire drought-parched year of 2011, which was only 12.06 inches.

Info

Federal program allows killing of 500,000 protected migratory birds a year

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© Mike Baird/ Wikimedia Commons
Double-crested Cormorant in breeding plumage in Morro Bay, CA
Being a bird of "conservation concern" or even the oldest bird species on the continent is not enough to avoid being slaughtered under a little-known federal program that authorizes the killing of half a million birds a year.

The Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal looked into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's "depredation permit" program, which allows businesses, farmers and others to kill members of more than 300 species of migratory birds each year. The body count during a recent three-year period totaled 1.6 million birds, or just over 500,000 a year.

Two-thirds of all the birds killed were brown-headed cowbirds, red-winged blackbirds, common grackles and Canada geese. The rest of those killed included upland sandpipers, barn owls, wood ducks, lesser yellowlegs, snowy owls, roseate spoonbills, curlew sandpipers, red-throated loons, great blue herons, white and brown pelicans, cedar waxwings, robins, belted kingfishers, mourning doves, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, turkey vultures, mallard ducks and sandhill cranes, North America's oldest bird species

Attention

Magnitude 3.0 earthquake recorded in North Wales

Anglesey earthquake
© British Geological Survey
A seismograph shows the magnitude 3.0 earthquake that struck Anglesey

British Geological Survey records earthquake off Anglesey in North Wales just days after 4.2 magnitude quake hits Kent


An earthquake measuring magnitude 3.0 on the Richter scale has hit Anglesey in North Wales.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) said it was recorded at 4.41pm on Tuesday and struck off the coast about four miles (6km) below the surface.

North Wales Police said it received calls about the earthquake, which was recorded close to Caernarfon Airport in Gwynedd, but there are no reports of damage.

It follows a 4.2 magnitude earthquake that was recorded in Kent on Friday, becoming Britain's biggest in seven years.

Location of the earthquake off North Wales
© Google Maps
Location of the earthquake off North Wales
The latest quake was felt across Gwynedd and Anglesey, with witnesses reporting having felt the earth shake amid a "rumbling noise" that lasted for around three seconds.

Others said they heard a noise that sounded like an explosion.


Bizarro Earth

Is 'San Andreas' a cryptic warning about what is going to happen in America's future?

San Andreas Movie Poster
© endoftheamericandream.com
San Andreas Movie Poster.
Hollywood has a long history of inserting political messages, social commentaries, subliminal effects and even cryptic warnings about the future into big budget films. So is someone attempting to use San Andreas to tell us something? For many years, doomsayers have been warning that the "Big One" is going to come along and rip the coastline of California to shreds. Up until this moment, it hasn't happened, but without a doubt we have moved into a time of increased geological activity all over the globe. As you read this article, 42 volcanoes around the planet are currently erupting. That means that the number of volcanoes erupting right now is greater than the 20th century's average for an entire year. In addition, we have been witnessing a great deal of very unusual earthquake activity lately. Just in the United States, we have seen unusual earthquakes hit Michigan, Texas, Mississippi, California, Idaho And Washington within the last month or so. Could it be possible that our planet has entered a period of heightened seismic activity? And could it also be possible that someone behind San Andreas is aware of this and is trying to warn us about what is coming in our future?

Of course just about everyone in the scientific community acknowledges that the "Big One" is eventually coming to California. In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey recently came out and said that the probability of a megaquake along the west coast is greater than they had previously been projecting...
A recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey shows the inevitability of just such a quake, which is predicted to hit within the next couple of decades.

"The new likelihoods are due to the inclusion of possible multi-fault ruptures, where earthquakes are no longer confined to separate, individual faults, but can occasionally rupture multiple faults simultaneously," lead author of the study and USGS scientist, Ned Field says. "This is a significant advancement in terms of representing a broader range of earthquakes throughout California's complex fault system."
And it is undeniable that California has been hit by an unusual number of earthquakes recently. Could this be a sign that our portion of the "Ring of Fire" is heating up? Just over the past few days, there have been significant earthquakes at dormant volcanoes all over the state of California and in Nevada. I don't know about you, but to me all of this shaking is reason for concern.