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Fri, 09 Jun 2023
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In the eye of the storm: The moment Mother Nature unleashes fury on Finland, injuring 40 people

These dramatic images were taken in the moments before a powerful thunderstorm struck parts of Finland.

The bad weather front is clearly visible as it approaches the skies above the capital Finland, moments before strong winds, heavy rain and lightning battered the city.

Forty people were injured in the storm, two of them seriously, as they enjoyed a heavy metal festival in the town of Pori.

storm, Helsinki

Eye of the storm: This picture shows the moments before a powerful storm hit Helsinki

Cloud Lightning

Pakistan floods: supercharged jet stream causing flooding


The jet stream, a massive ring of high speed winds, is moving quicker than usual over north western Pakistan, causing wet monsoon air to be sucked faster and higher into the atmosphere.

The stream, which is normally too high to affect every day weather but does influence large scale weather patterns by shifting the atmosphere around, is "supercharging" the monsoon, leading to some of the heaviest rainfall in memory.

Scientists say the hyperactive jet stream is also causing deadly landslides in China and the drought in Russia, which is leading to wildfires.

The stream has split in two with one section heading north over Russia and the other going south over the Himalayas into Pakistan. In Russia the stream is inhaling some of the country's hottest temperatures on record and spreading them quickly, causing the fires.

Experts say it is very unusual for the stream to head that far south.

Comment: We find it curious that the mainstream media is widely reporting the altered jet stream to be responsible culprit behind this triple whammy of devastation.

Frozen jet stream links Pakistan floods, Russian fires

Russian Drought, Pakistan Floods, Chinese Landslides All Linked To Bizarre Jet Stream Change


Cloud Lightning

Tornado rips apart house in Minnesota (VIDEO)

A powerful tornado has been caught on camera moving through the US state of Minnesota and destroying a house on its way. The twister touched down in Wilkin County, near the North Dakota state border. The footage, captured by a storm chaser, shows the tornado crossing a road, then hitting a farmhouse and scattering debris. It could not be immediately verified if there were people inside the house. No injuries have been reported.


Bizarro Earth

Pakistan Floods: Disaster is the Worst in the United Nations's History


The United Nations has rated the floods in Pakistan as the greatest humanitarian crisis in recent history with more people affected than the South-East Asian tsunami and the recent earthquakes in Kashmir and Haiti combined.

Although the current 1,600 death toll in Pakistan represents a tiny fraction of the estimated 610,000 people killed in the three previous events, some two million more people - 13.8 million - have suffered losses requiring long or short-term help.

Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said: "This disaster is worse than the tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and the Haiti earthquake."

The comparison illustrates the scale of the crisis facing Pakistan as its inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy battles to mitigate the effects of the flooding.

The disaster zone stretches from the Swat Valley in the north, where 600,000 people are in need of help, to Sindh in the south.

Arrow Down

127 Killed as Mudslides Devastate China Town

Image
© Reuters
Rescuers search for missing.
Landslides triggered by torrential summer rains in northwest China killed 127 people and left 2,000 missing in the latest of a series of flood-related disasters to befall northern China where the heaviest rains in a decade have now cost more than 1,400 lives.

A small county town in a hilly area of Gansu province was smashed by a wave of mud and debris shortly after midnight on Saturday, according to local reports, with cars being swept down streets that were instantly turned into rivers.

In parts of Zhouqu town the mud reached as high as the third storey of buildings, with many other smaller single-storey lifted from their foundations by the force of the landslide, according to China Central Television, the state broadcaster.

A nearby village of 300 households was also inundated.

"Many single-story homes have been wiped out and now we're waiting to see how many people got out," one resident of Zhouqu, a merchant called Han Jiangping said.

Bizarro Earth

Landslides Raise Death Toll in Pakistan

Image
© Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani visited flood-hit areas and has said the disaster had spiralled beyond the government's capacity
Landslides have raised the death toll in flood-hit Pakistan, cutting off roads and hampering aid efforts as rescuers battled to beat rains exacerbating the country's worst ever floods.

Washed-out roads in Pakistan's northwest made ground access to many of the 15 million flood victims impossible and many helicopters were unable to fly as heavy rains persisted, cutting off the entire Swat valley, officials said.

In the far north of the country, 28 bodies were recovered from rubble after landslides in Gilgit-Baltistan province caused houses to collapse Saturday.

Administrative official Mohammad Ali Yougwi said up to 40 people were feared dead after the landslides hit those living at the bottom of a mountain in the town of Skardu.

"We have recovered 28 dead bodies, there are more people buried under the rubble," said Yougwi.

Cloud Lightning

Flooding kills 10 across Europe

Image
© Unknown
Floodwaters damage houses in Chrastava village
At least ten people have been killed and thousands of others have been evacuated as heavy rain and flooding disrupt traffic and cause power outages in central Europe.

Polish officials announced on Sunday that at least three people have been killed after rivers overflew and a dam burst, submerging towns in southwestern Poland.

"We had no warning. In less than an hour our town was totally inundated up to the first floor, many houses collapsed and we were cut off from the world," mayor of Poland's southwestern city of Bogatynia, Andrzej Grzmielewicz told TVN24news channel.

"We need amphibious vehicles and helicopters to help evacuate at least 2,000 flood victims," he added, calling on people to help the victims with blankets and food.

Torrential rain has also drowned four Czech nationals in a region bordering Poland and Germany on Saturday.

At least 1,000 people were forced to evacuate their houses and people of Chrastava and Frydlant were rescued by military helicopters from the roofs of their homes.

Bizarro Earth

'More than four million' hit by flooding in Pakistan

flooding
© AP

People look for survivors in the wreckage of a bus which plunged into the flooded River Jhelum near Muzaffarabad, in Kashmi
Pakistan's worst floods in 80 years have killed at least 1,600 people and affected the lives of more than four million, the UN said yesterday.

The UK's Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) said that aid from its members was reaching over 300,000 survivors, with many UK charities distributing food, water purification tablets, shelter, medicine and hygiene kits by raft, boat and donkey. Last night the actor Art Malik and the former hostage John McCarthy presented new TV and radio appeals.

Brendan Gormley, DEC's chief executive, said: "These devastating floods have left millions fighting to survive with little food, clean water or shelter. As monsoon rains continue unabated, the situation is deteriorating and the speed of our response is vital."

Bizarro Earth

Pakistan's flooding sweeps south


Sun

Northern Lights: Coronal mass ejection hits Earth's magnetic field, sparks geomagnetic storm

A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth's magnetic field on August 3rd at 1740 UT. The impact sparked a G2-class geomagnetic storm that lasted nearly 12 hours--time enough for auroras to spread all the way from Europe to North America. Shawn Malone of Marquette, Michigan, photographed this display over Lake Superior:

Image
© Shawn Malone