MAGNITUDE 5.8 NEW GUINEA, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000ry5u#summary

Subject To Change

Depth: 10 km

Distances: 70km (43mi) SSW of Ialibu, Papua New Guinea
83km (52mi) SSE of Mendi, Papua New Guinea
123km (76mi) SSW of Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea
193km (120mi) WSW of Goroka, Papua New Guinea
462km (287mi) NW of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

 

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MAGNITUDE 4.9 NEW GUINEA, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000ry5n#summary

Subject To Change

Depth: 10 km

Distances: 61km (38mi) SSW of Ialibu, Papua New Guinea
75km (47mi) SSE of Mendi, Papua New Guinea
113km (70mi) SSW of Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea
185km (115mi) WSW of Goroka, Papua New Guinea
464km (288mi) NW of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Freak lightning strike on beach kills 1, injures 12 at Venice Beach, California, USA

A freak lightning strike killed one person and injured a dozen others, causing pandemonium on Los Angeles’ famed Venice Beach on Sunday, officials said.

 

Thousands of happy beachgoers, cooling themselves on an uncharacteristically muggy Southern California day, suddenly collapsed by their blankets and volleyball nets after a bolt of lightning struck the water a little after 2:30 p.m.

 

Rescuers rushed a 20-year-old man to the hospital, where he died, LA County coroner’s Lt. Larry Dietz said.

 

A 20-something man who was found floating face down following the deadly jolt is likely the strike’s one fatality, according to witnesses.

 

Steve Christensen said his body-surfing friend joined lifeguards looking for the missing swimmer, who was found in the surf.

 

“He (Christensen’s friend) went out to the water to find him and walked right into him,” Christensen said. “He was face down on the bottom.”

 

That swimmer was pulled from the water and lifeguards performed CPR before he was loaded into an ambulance.

 

“The guy wasn’t moving. He wasn’t responding at all,” Jesus Zamudio told the Los Angeles Times.

 

“This tragedy reminds us that we can take nothing for granted or underestimate the power of nature.”

 

One of the dozen injured was listed in critical condition.

 

The sudden boom of thunder and flash of lightning stunned beachgoers, unaccustomed to this kind of wild weather in Southern California.

 

“It was all blue skies, except there were some dark clouds coming from the south,” witness Gabe Anderson, 28, told the newspaper. “Then just one big crack of lightning — pretty unexpected.”

 

Stuart Acher said he was playing volleyball when lightning struck him like a punch “in the back of my head.”

 

“We went about our game and then all of a sudden, there was a big flash of light and a boom, and it felt like someone punched me in the back of my head,” Acher told KABC-TV.

 

“It went down my whole side of my right body, and my calves sort of locked up, and I fell over. And I looked up and everybody else was, you know, falling over.”

http://tinyurl.com/lz5h6sb

Plane crashes on beach, kills dad walking with family, Florida’s Gulf Coast, USA

Authorities say a father was killed and his daughter seriously injured when a small plane crash landed along Florida’s Gulf Coast near Venice Beach.

 

Around 2:45 p.m. ET, Venice Airport contacted Sarasota Sheriff’s Office regarding a small plane in distress that could not make it back to the airport.

 

Ommy Irizarry and his family from Georgia were walking on Caspersen Beach, about a mile from the Venice Beach pier, and may not have heard the plane approaching, according to a witness.

 

“I didn’t hear anything, actually,” said Zack Arceneaux, and speculated the plane’s engine might not have been working when the plane crashed.

 

Irizarry, 36, was killed. His daughter, Oceana Irizarry, 9, was critically injured and airlifted to All Children’s Hospital in Tampa.

 

Other family members were so traumatized they also sought treatment at a Venice hospital.

 

The pilot of the 1972 Piper Cherokee, 57year-old Karl Kokomoor, and his 60-year-old passenger, David Theen, both of Englewood, Fla., were rescued and were uninjured, according to Wendy Rose, community affairs manager for the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office.

 

National Transportation and Safety Board investigators have headed to the site.

http://tinyurl.com/k3xd3kf

Plane crashes & kills pilot in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, USA

The pilot of a small plane that crashed in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho has been confirmed dead.

The single-engine, homebuilt Lancair Legacy plane was flying from Richland, Washington, to Baker when it was reported missing Monday morning. A helicopter from Two Bear Air in FlatheadCounty was dispatched and located the wreckage near BlackleadMountain at roughly 11:30 a.m.

BlackleadMountain is eight miles due west of LoloPass in the rugged ClearwaterNational Forest.

Clearwater County Sheriff Chris Goetz said the downed plane was within 150 feet of Forest Service Road 581.

Goetz said his office was notified by the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office when the plane disappeared from radar.

Two Bear Air, an aviation support company based in Whitefish, was in the Hamilton area assisting with the search for a missing firefighter who later turned up alive and well.

“They were only 14 minutes from the last-known coordinates of the plane, so they flew over and actually hoisted paramedics down to the wreckage and confirmed that there was one deceased,” said Goetz, adding there was a coroner with the crew on the Two Bear helicopter.

A Forest Service helicopter in Powell, Idaho, on fire reconnaissance was also dispatched to help with the search.

Goetz said his office will release the name of the pilot once he is positively identified.

Initial radio calls came over the police scanner at 9:54 a.m. Monday reported that the plane was down south of Helena.

Multiple Montana Highway Patrol troopers and a couple of local deputies were dispatched to look in various mountainous areas near Helena, but Idaho Search and Rescue authorities located the wreckage around noon, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said.

http://tinyurl.com/ny4xoou

Landslide & Heavy Rain Kills 5 In Uttarakhand, India

Five people were killed in a landslide in Uttarakhand and the meteorological department Monday warned of another round of incessant downpour within 48 hours. Heavy rain pounded the state 10 days back. Officials have been asked to be “extra vigilant” in areas adjacent to rivers, many of which are in spate owing to the heavy rain that lashed the state July 16-17. A massive landslide in Pangla of the Dharchula area Sunday killed five of a family.

http://tinyurl.com/m7vpo8l

Severe storms knock out power to 200,000 across Mid West State, USA

Storms with high winds, pounding rain and large hail uprooted trees, triggered tornado warnings and knocked out power to more than 200,000 customers across the state on Sunday.

 

The worst-hit area was southeast Michigan, with 180,000 DTE Energy customers affected. Officials were still assessing the damage Sunday night and unable to say when power might be restored.

 

“It’s more than likely that the number will go up,” said Scott Simons, a spokesman for DTE Energy.

 

Waves of storms began sweeping through southeast Michigan on Sunday afternoon and continued throughout the evening, knocking down tree branches, dropping golf-ball-sized hail on parts of Oakland County and prompting severe thunderstorm warnings. A wind gust of an estimated 70 m.p.h. was reported at 5:10 p.m. in Bloomfield Hills, said Sara Schultz, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in White Lake Township.

Areas of rotation spotted on radar prompted officials to issue tornado warnings in Bay and Tuscola counties, Schultz said, but no tornadoes were seen on the ground there.

 

The damage reported to the weather service included a three-foot diameter tree down on a house in Chelsea, trees uprooted in Harrison Township and windows broken on homes in a mobile home park in Milford.

 

In less than an hour, parts of Oakland County received between 1 inch and 1½ inches of rain, Schultz said.

 

“The biggest (hail) we’ve had is about golf-ball size. We’ve had multiple reports of that in Oakland County,” she said. Two-inch diameter hail was reported in Kalamazoo County.

In Royal Oak, a fire broke out at a house and a nearby garage on Brookwood, near 12 Mile and Rochester roads, after a tree fell and knocked two primary power lines onto a metal backyard fence. Both incidents are under investigation, but authorities believe the fence became electrically charged, which led to the fires, said Assistant Fire Chief Jim Cook. No one was in the home at the time. There were no injuries.

 

The majority of power outages are clustered near Highland Road from eastern Livingston through to Oakland County.

 

DTE Energy’s online outage map shows large swaths of outages around Highland Township, Pontiac, Waterford, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Sylvan Lake, Keego Harbor, White Lake Township, Troy, Madison Heights, Clinton Township, Sterling Heights and Harrison Township.

 

About 26,000 Consumers Energy customers were without power late Sunday. Spokesman Terry DeDoes said Genesee County had the highest number of outages, with more than 12,000.

 

Cooler temperatures are in store for metro Detroit on Monday, with highs in the low 70s.

http://tinyurl.com/kg8l5me

Freak summer storm brings ‘rivers of hail’ and ‘snow indoors’ in the S/SE Of the UK

Courtesy of @Kennedy121

Lightning, heavy downpours and a huge hail storm created a scene described as the “zombie apocalypse” in Sussex this morning.

The storms hit the Hove, Brighton and Worthing during the morning rush-hour, causing chaos on trains when a lightning strike affected services.

An electricity sub-station was hit, causing power to the coastal rail route to be cut, although the main line to London was running normally, according to a Network Rail spokeswoman.

Network Rail said on its website: “Electrical supply problems caused by a lightning strike, near Hove, are causing delays of up to 30 minutes to trains between Worthing and Hove/Brighton.

“There is no firm estimate yet of how long disruption will last but it is likely to continue until at least 09.00.”

 

Commuters posted on Twitter descriptions of heavy hail and localised flooding caused by the storms.

Local residents said the storm started at 5.30am, leading to torrential rain.

Laurence Hill wrote: “Used to be roads. Now rivers of hail. Never seen anything like it.”

Brighton and Hove Police posted: “Localised flooding in Hove and Portslade, some roads not passable. Please do not enter flood water on foot or in cars.”

Brighton station tweeted: “At a stand west coastway, Worthing, Brighton, Both ways due to zombie apocalypse Brighton, Hove, Fishersgate, Portslade, Lancing, Shoreham”

London Fire Brigade rescued two women from a car which got stuck in flood water near South Ruislip station, north-west London.

The fire service said on Twitter that 50 houses were also affected by flood water in the area.

Firefighters rescued five people from three neighbouring houses which were flooded in Thaxted, Essex.

One family remained on the first floor of their home while crews pumped water from the property after flood water affected the electrics, a Essex Fire and Rescue spokesman said.

Brighton and Hove City Council’s headquarters also had to close after the basement flooded due to the heavy rain.

Commuters described flash flooding which left roads impassable

 

The Met Office issued a “yellow” warning of rain – meaning there is a “moderate risk” – for East Anglia, the South East and London. Some 30mm (1.2in) of rain – half the average monthly total for England in July – fell in an hour some areas overnight, a spokeswoman said.

Chief forecaster Steve Willington said: “A deeply unstable airmass will cover south eastern areas of England on Monday. The main risk of disruptive downpours is now early this morning, with only a very low risk during the afternoon period.

“These heavy showers and thunderstorms may become focused into slow-moving narrow bands, meaning that whilst some areas experience locally intense downpours giving 25mm within an hour and very locally 40mm within two to three hours, adjacent areas could stay dry. “

The Environment Agency issued a flood warning – meaning flooding is expected – for the Kidbrooke stream at Forest Row, East Sussex.

It said: “Heavy showers will bring a chance of some localised surface water flooding issues across parts of Sussex and Kent this afternoon.

“Further heavy showers are expected from around dawn tomorrow across much of south-east England which may result in some surface water flooding, especially in urbanised areas.

“In any one specific location within the South East, there is a very low chance of flood impacts, but flooding of properties and parts of communities and travel disruption is possible somewhere within the region as a whole.

“Despite some heavy showers across north-west England today and tonight flooding is not expected elsewhere or at other times during the next three days.”

 

http://tinyurl.com/ph6mnjq

MASSIVE DIP SPIKES ON THE MAGNETOSPHERE @ APPROX 21:00, 21:15 & 21:30 hrs UTC

**EXTREMELY URGENT**

  MASSIVE DIP SPIKES ON THE MAGNETOSPHERE @ APPROX 21:00, 21:15 & 21:30 hrs UTC. FURTHER EARTHQUAKES, VOLCANO ACTIVITY & ADVERSE WEATHER PATTERNS WILL BE GREATLY INFLUENCED BY THE COSMIC RAYS STRIKING THE EARTH’S CORE

***BE ALERT***

YELLOWSTONE REGION MAGNITUDE 2.3 BIG WATER, UT

http://www.seis.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Quakes/uu60078712.html

Subject To Change

Depth: 17 km

Distances:  Big Water, UT – 27 km (16 miles) SW (230 degrees)
Page, AZ – 38 km (24 miles) W (272 degrees)
Bitter Springs, AZ – 40 km (25 miles) NNW (329 degrees)
Lechee, AZ – 40 km (25 miles) W (278 degrees)
Mesquite, NV – 196 km (122 miles) E (85 degrees)