Temperature
Extremes
High
temperature extreme:
Tarcoola, South Australia, +110 degrees.
Low temperature extreme:
Oimyakon, Siberia -72 degrees.
(top)
Eruptions
Nyamuragira
Volcano near the eastern Congolese rebel stronghold of
Goma exploded, panicking nearby residents who feared they were
under artillery attack. The volcano sprang to life on Jan. 26
when its rim turned red and it began spewing fireballs that resembled
artillery fire. Lava from the volcano has flowed toward Virunga
National Park on the unpopulated side of the mountain.
A
column of ash soared high into the Mediterranean sky as Sicily’s
Mount Etna produced another in its current series of eruptions.
Although two coastal communities on the volcano’s eastern slopes
were blanketed by ash, there were no reports of damage and the
mountain’s ski slopes remained open.
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Floods
Threaten Antiquity
Crews
in Peru labored to protect the ancient Nasca lines, which
stretch for miles across the country’s topography, from floods
that followed heavy rainfall in the southern coastal desert.
Workmen
dug ditches and cleared blocked drains in an effort to prevent
mudslides that could damage the vast and mysterious lines which,
when viewed from the air, depict symbolic figures more than a
mile long. The animal and geometric figures, located about 250
miles south of Lima, were carved into the landscape by members
of the Nasca culture between 700 B.C. and 900 A.D. Their meaning
has been the object of decades of speculation.
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Holding
Back the Desert
Cities
in Libya have carried out an extensive program to plant
thousands of seedlings in an effort to stabilize the country’s
migrating sand dunes.
The
unstable dunes in the Libyan desert can move three to four miles
a day, burying homes, cropland, roads and oases. The campaign
was initiated after a period of sustained rainfall and will be
followed by another planting of about a million more seedlings
in many parts of the country.
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Equatorial
Frost
A
devastating frost spread across western Kenya’s Nandi District,
killing an elderly woman and destroying more than 12,400 acres
of tea.
Officials
said that temperatures in the equatorial tea-growing region had
plunged to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Local tea companies believe
that as much as 75 percent of their crop had been lost. The disaster
has caused widespread concern among local farmers as to whether
or not they should continue to plant maize this season.
(top)
Earthquakes
A
magnitude 5.5 temblor in Iran’s northeastern province of
Khorassan killed one person, injured 15 others and caused 400
homes to collapse.
Earth
movements were also felt in the Kuril Islands, Taiwan,
the northern Philippines, Indonesia’s Nusa Tenggara
Timur province, Tibet, Turkey, southeastern Greece,
western Guatemala, Oregon and Interior Alaska.
(top)
Indian
Ocean Cyclone
Tropical
cyclone Connie roared across the Indian Ocean island of Reunion,
taking two lives and destroying at least 100 homes.
Connie
hit Reunion with winds of 95 mph after bypassing the neighboring
island of Mauritius, 140 miles to the northeast. The storm later
lost force over the colder waters to the south.
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Andean
Spill
Famed
and pristine Lake Titicaca has been polluted by oil spilling
from a pipeline that ruptured during a fierce Andean Mountain
storm.
At least 5,000 barrels of the crude initially leaked into the
Desaguadero River, which empties into Titicaca on the Peruvian-Bolivian
border. Officials in southern Bolivia reported on Wednesday that
the spill had also reached Lake Poopo and Lake Uru Uru, as well
as spreading to the communities of the Aymara Indian dozens of
miles downstream. The oil company responsible for the spill only
realized that the pipe had ruptured after the transmission of
oil failed to reach its destination in the Chilean city of Arica.
Specialists from the United States have been dispatched to help
with the cleanup effort.
(top)
Cathedral
Squatters
Storks
in the small Spanish city of Alaraz in central Salamanca
Province are causing the roof of its 16th-century church to cave
in under the weight of their nests.
The
church is the breeding place of choice for the huge birds that
build 440-pound nests on the roof of the Gothic edifice. The mayor
of Alaraz, Marceliano Iglesias, reported that there are now 23
of the nests. The storks’ population is increasing at a rapid
pace and Iglesias said that, “at this rate, we will have to build
them a new church in two years.”
