Temperature
Extremes
High
temperature extreme:
Vitoria, Brazil, +108 degrees.
Low temperature extreme:
Baikit, Siberia -70 degrees.
(top)
Fairy
Penguin Peril
At
least six fairy penguins on an Australian island have been
killed by an oil slick and another 110 of the tiny birds are being
treated by animal specialists.
A
group of breeding terns and a large colony of seals are also threatened
by the thick black oil that washed up on Phillip Island near the
southeastern corner of Australia. The birds, called “fairy penguins”
because they stand only a few inches high, have been cleaned and
placed in specially made sweaters to prevent them from preening
their contaminated feathers. Environmentalists fear that even
more of the adult penguins will be affected by the oil slick as
they swim out to sea to gather food for their young. The oil was
believed to have been dumped by an unidentified ship during the
New Year’s weekend.
(top)
Brazilian
Slides
At
least 11 people in southeastern Brazil were buried alive
when landslides triggered by torrential rains hit a wide area
of the region.
Accompanying floods in the state of Minas Gerais forced the evacuation
of nearly 10,000 people, and officials declared a state of emergency
in 14 cities. The Acari suburb of Rio de Janeiro was one of the
hardest hit areas, and two people perished in slides that covered
their home. The Maracana River broke its banks and swept away
a car and its occupants.
(top)
Winter
Twisters
A
clash between unseasonably warm weather and a fresh Arctic chill
produced a string of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes across
the American heartland on the third day of the New Year.
A
powerful storm that spawned at least one tornado ripped through
Owensboro, Kentucky, damaging a shopping center, homes and a college
campus. Six people were taken to a hospital with injuries. Thunderstorms
and funnel clouds also toppled trees and power lines in the Mississippi
and Ohio valleys.
(top)
Philippine
Eruption
The
towering Mayon Volcano exploded violently with a plume of steam
and ash that soared four miles into the skies 215 miles southeast
of Manila.
No evacuations were ordered, and a second-level alert had already
been in place for Mayon due to its erratic activity since last
June. Residents were warned to stay away from the four-mile “danger
zone” around the crater of the volcano, famous for its symmetrically
shaped cone.
(top)
Lightning
Deaths
An
entire family of six was killed by a single lightning bolt in
a community near Mount Darwin, Zimbabwe, on New Year’s
Day.
The lightning struck the home, causing it to burst into flames.
In October, six people were also killed by a single lightning
bolt near the city of Gokwe, west of Harare. Traditional thatch
roofing material used in the region becomes impregnated with carbon
from the soot of cooking fires, making homes natural anodes for
lightning. Officials have issued appeals to Zimbabweans to install
lightning conductors to avert what is becoming an alarmingly common
cause of death as regional forests are cut down, leaving human
settlements more exposed.
(top)
Earthquakes
Bangladesh’s
tiny island of Moheshkhali in the Bay of Bengal and the nearby
coastal city of Cox’s Bazar were rocked by a strong temblor for
nearly 18 seconds, destroying or damaging at least 100 homes and
causing widespread panic.
The
most powerful earthquake in the region since 1935 hit parts of
western New York and southern Ontario, shaking people
out of bed and damaging chimneys in the Temiscaming region of
western Quebec.
Earth
movements were also felt in Maine, the Alabama-Tennessee
border area, south-central Alaska, the Aleutian Islands,
Sakhalin Island, Taiwan, the southern Philippines,
West Sumatra and western Turkey’s aftershock zone.
(top)
Leopard
Panic
A
wayward leopard, looking for a hiding place in metropolitan New
Delhi, caused widespread alarm after it sneaked into a home
and curled up in the bathtub.
Frightened
residents of Faridabad had armed themselves and alerted the police
after the big cat was seen in the area earlier in the day. Animal
control officers conducted a house-to-house search until they
finally tracked the leopard to the bathtub. After shooting several
tranquilizer darts through a ventilator in the bathroom, they
were able to get the 220-pound cat into a cage. Wildlife experts
were baffled by the appearance of the leopard in the city, as
there are no nearby forests. Some speculated that the cat had
hitched a ride into the city in the back of a truck. The five-year-old
male leopard will be given a home in the Delhi Zoo.
