Robinson Crusoe-style island retreat goes up in smoke close to millionaire's playground of Sandbanks

This is the dramatic moment the Robinson Crusoe-style island retreat of a multimillionaire went up in smoke.

The magnificent three-storey timber chalet was nearing completion when the inferno broke out at the empty property this morning.

The fire rapidly engulfed the six-bedroom log cabin hideaway, sending flames 40ft into the air above Green Island which is in the middle of Poole Harbour, Dorset.

It is just across from the millionaire's playground of Sandbanks, where celebrities such as Tottenham Hotspurs' manager Harry Redknapp enjoy the high life.

As the fierce blaze engulfed the remote cabin a dramatic rescue operation was launched.

Six portable pumps were hastily put on to barges and ferried out to the area of scientific interest where they battled to control the flames at the holiday home of Edward Iliffe, who owns the entire island in Poole Harbour.

Lifeboats were also put on standby as part of the operation and 30 firefighters were today still tackling the blaze. Read More

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Huge sandstorm destroys crops in Jordan Valley‎, Israel

NABLUS (Ma'an) -- A sandstorm that erupted in the central Jordan Valley on Wednesday has damaged hundreds of greenhouses and crops.

Locals estimate the damage at around 1 million shekels ($266,000).

Basim Ibrahim, head of the local association of greenhouse owners, said around 1,200 greenhouses were destroyed by the sand storm. Each greenhouse costs 1,000 shekels, he added.

The storm was the third of its kind this season, but it was the most destructive as it erupted as crops were ripe and ready for harvest. Read More

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Storms kill six, injure 100 all across Turkey

Powerful winds at speeds reaching up to 150 kilometers per hour wreaked havoc across Turkey yesterday, killing six, injuring 100 and sparking forest fires.

High winds in the Central Anatolian province of Konya led to a sandstorm that caused a pileup on the Konya-Ankara and Konya-Ereğli highways, killing four and injuring 73.

Nazife Gümüş, a 51-year-old woman in the Central Anatolian province of Kırıkkale, was killed when strong winds blew a tile off of a roof, hitting her in the head.

Meanwhile, a passenger bus carrying Spanish tourists to the Central Anatolian province of Aksaray hit a cargo truck from the rear due to low visibility caused by the sandstorms. All but one of the 35 tourists on the bus were injured.

Some 600 hectares of forest land were burned in a fire caused by raging storms in the district of Safranbolu in the Black Sea province of Karabük. The province’s deputy governor, Ertuğ Şevket Aksoy, said the fire had been brought under control and that efforts to cool the blaze were underway. Read More

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Pocklington town centre hit by flooding, East Yorkshire

A clean-up is under way in Pocklington, East Yorkshire after heavy rain caused a flash flood in the town centre.

Shops and homes were reported to be under 1ft (30cm) of water after the town's beck burst its banks.

Water levels have now receded and council workers are cleaning debris from the streets.

Further heavy showers have been forecast and East Riding of Yorkshire Council said it was monitoring the situation and had equipment on standby.

Martin Cooper, from Pocklington Town Council, said the town had been hit by flash flooding in the past.

"It just descends all of a sudden," he said. Read More

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Hundreds of hectares of forest destroyed in fire in Tirumala, India

Tirupati, Apr 19 (PTI) Hundreds of hectares of forest was destroyed when a major fire broke out in the dense forests of nearby Tirumala Hills today, sources at Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams said.

They told PTI that vehicular traffic was stopped on the first ghat (down route) road for over an hour as the fire was noticed spreading downhill and moving fast towards the road close to Lord Hanuman statue on the hills this afternoon.

By the time fire tenders reached the spot, the fire destroyed one km length of forest close to the road, they said. Meanwhile, forest personnel made a vain bid to restrict the fire even two hours after dusk fell, the sources said. A thick blanket of smoke was visible in Puttur 35 km from here, according to several devotees who reached the hills from Chennai via Puttur. Source

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Sandstorm strikes Baghdad

April 19 - Traffic in Baghdad slows down and many Iraqis are hospitalized as a sandstorm grips the city.

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Icebergs float thousands of miles to within feet of amazed sightseers near St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada.

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Heavy rain, flash floods cause road chaos across New South Wales

WITH Sydney and parts of NSW experiencing the heaviest rainfall of 2012 the weather has caused road chaos with closures and delays hitting drivers.

A number of roads across Sydney have been affected by flooding due to the heavy rain and forecasters have warned more flash flooding could strike again as some of the heaviest rainfall of 2012 drenches coastal NSW.

Up to 100mm of rain has been forecast for parts of the city, much of it expected to fall in brief, torrential downpours.

"We will see localised, heavy rainfall and the intense nature of these falls could lead to some form of flash flooding," Weather Channel's Felim Hanniffy warned. Read More

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Freak phenomenon along the southern coast of India

U.N. recognises terminology borrowed from Kerala fishermen

T. Peter vividly recalls the panic that gripped the coast for five days from May 17 in 2005. “The sea came surging in, inundating vast areas… It was an unprecedented phenomenon, occurring as it did in perfectly fair weather.”

With memories of the 2004 tsunami still fresh in the minds of people, the event sparked alarm all along the coast. As many as 12,000 people were affected as the tidal swell slammed the coastal belt, from Adimalathura to Pozhiyoor.

Residents fled their waterlogged houses; boats and fishing equipment were damaged. “It took several days for the situation to return to normality,” remembers Mr. Peter, president of the Kerala Swathantra Matsya Thozhilali Federation, who was at the forefront of relief operations.

Baffled by the freak phenomenon, scientists initially attributed it to an intensive pre-monsoon swell. The Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS) later conducted a detailed study, which traced the origin of the swell to a cyclonic storm off the west coast of Australia. Read More

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Hailstorms hammer San Joaquin Valley crops, California

A series of freak April storms hammered the San Joaquin Valley last week, damaging vulnerable crops with a one-two-three punch of hail, lightning and tornados that caused millions of dollars of crop losses.

It will be several weeks before an accurate tabulation of losses can be made, but for some growers it amounted to 100 percent of this year's production. A number of crops suffered damage from the unrelenting power of hailstones measuring 1.5 inches in diameter or larger.

Nature's fury came in the form of "supercells"—large thunderstorms that moved slowly across the valley from Kings County, through parts of Tulare County, up to Merced County and all the way eastward to Mariposa County.

The most destructive storm brought torrents of hail across a six-to-eight mile-wide swath of farmland that extended some 30 miles, accompanied by thunderstorms and numerous lightning strikes. Read More

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Massive typhoons could threaten Japan every 10-20 years by end of century: researchers

Massive typhoons with winds topping 194 kilometers per hour -- the highest strength classification -- may threaten Japan's coasts every 10-20 years by the end of the century, researchers have announced.

Such storms now pass near Japan's main island of Honshu only every 70-100 years.

A joint Meteorological Research Institute-Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) team made the predictions based on analysis of weather simulations, assuming that climate change will continue. The simulations also showed that the effects of global warming could produce the strongest typhoons ever recorded.

"Between 50 and 80 years ago, top-strength typhoons like the Muroto Typhoon (of 1934) and Typhoon Vera (of 1959) hit land one after another," says JAMSTEC special research chair Masato Sugi. "You could say that in recent years we've sometimes managed to avoid 'invasion' by such large-scale typhoons but major disaster damage from typhoons is not a thing of the past." Read More

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Sh1 Million Fish Killed in Nyeri's Downpour, Kenya

FISH farmers have lost fish worth Sh1 million as a result of heavy rains in Nyeri last weekend.

The farmers, who rear fish in six fish ponds near Nyeri town, woke up to find their fish dead. They claimed sewerages water may have found its way into the ponds.

The farmers affiliated to Githwariga Fish Farmers Group expected to make about Sh 1 million in two weeks as they were to start harvesting the fish this week. They established the ponds in October year 2010 and were to make their first harvest this week.

"We had already bought the fishing nets and had already found ready market for them. It's unfortunate that all of them are now dead. Only birds are happy since they are feeding on them," said the chairman John Njuguna Kamotho.

The projects were funded through the government's Economic Stimulus Programme. Tthousands of shillings were spent in the project. The more than 20 farmers, mostly youths, are now calling upon the government to intervene since they have been rendered jobless and all the efforts they have done in two years have gone to waste. Read More

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Loss of predators in Northern Hemisphere affecting ecosystem health

A survey done on the loss in the Northern Hemisphere of large predators, particularly wolves, concludes that current populations of moose, deer, and other large herbivores far exceed their historic levels and are contributing to disrupted ecosystems.

The research, published today by scientists from Oregon State University, examined 42 studies done over the past 50 years.

It found that the loss of major predators in forest ecosystems has allowed game animal populations to greatly increase, crippling the growth of young trees and reducing biodiversity. This also contributes to deforestation and results in less carbon sequestration, a potential concern with climate change.

"These issues do not just affect the United States and a few national parks," said William Ripple, an OSU professor of forestry and lead author of the study. "The data from Canada, Alaska, the Yukon, Northern Europe and Asia are all showing similar results. There's consistent evidence that large predators help keep populations of large herbivores in check, with positive effects on ecosystem health." Read More

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New Rules Seek to Prevent Invasive Stowaways in Ballast water: Great Lakes

Nearly a quarter-century has passed since an oceangoing ship from Europe docked somewhere in the Great Lakes and discharged ballast water carrying tiny but tenacious zebra mussel larvae from Europe.

Within a few years after they turned up in Lake St. Clair, between Lakes Huron and Erie, the small freshwater mussels and their larger and even more destructive cousins, quagga mussels, had coated lakebeds throughout the region, clogging intake valves and pipes at power, water treatment and manufacturing plants.

The filter-feeding mussels have since helped to upend the ecosystems of the Great Lakes, fouling beaches, promoting the growth of poisonous algae and decimating some native fish populations by eating the microscopic free-floating plant cells on which their food web depends.

“They didn’t just spread — they completely colonized the Great Lakes,” said Andrew Buchsbaum, director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office. Read More

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Warming Atlantic primes the Amazon for fire

The warming Atlantic Ocean is drawing moisture away from the Western Amazon, drying the rainforest and catching residents by surprise. 'We weren't prepared.'

MOYOBAMBA, Peru – Karina Pinasco watched in dismay as flames on a hillside at the edge of town lit up the sky one night in October 2010. A farmer had intended to clear a few hectares of land to plant coffee bushes, but the fire – set during an unusually hot, dry spell – quickly got out of hand.

Propelled by winds and high temperatures, it burned for 10 days, charring more than 250 acres of land.

"We realized we weren't prepared," says Pinasco, a biologist who heads Amazónicos por la Amazonía, a local environmental organization. "The firefighters weren't trained. It was the rain that finally put it out."

Scientists used to think the rainforest, especially in the western Amazon, was too wet to burn. But major fire seasons in 2005 and 2010 made them reconsider. Read More

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Weather Control as a Global Weapon with Author Bob Fletcher

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Glaciers in western Himalayas bucking global melting trend

(CNN) -- A heavily glaciated region of the Himalayas is bucking the trend of global ice loss and showing small signs of increasing in mass, according to a new study.

Data examining six regions in the Karakoram mountains in the western Himalayas, which contains 7,700 square miles (nearly 20,000 square kilometers) of glaciers, revealed more than half of them are either stable or have been advancing in recent years.

French scientists observed the size and shape of ice covering 2,168 square miles (5,615 square kilometers) in central Karakoram using satellite data from the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (STRM) and the Satellite Pour l'Observation de la Terre (SPOT5).

Between 1999 and 2008 the glaciers gained, on average, the water equivalent of around 11 centimeters a year, according to the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Read More

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2210: The Collapse? - National Geographic Channel Documentary

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Read This First Before You Decide That Preppers Are Crazy

Do you believe that preppers are a few cards short of a full deck? Do you assume that anyone that is "preparing for doomsday" does not have their elevator going all the way to the top floor? Well, you might want to read this first before you make a final decision that all preppers are crazy. The information that you are about to read shook me up a bit when I first looked it over.

To be honest, I had no idea how incredibly vulnerable our economic system is to a transportation disruption. I am continually getting emails and comments on my websites asking "how to prepare" for what is coming, so when I came across this information I knew that I had to share it with all of you. Hopefully what you are about to read will motivate you to prepare like never before, and hopefully you will share this information with others.

Originally, I was going to write an article about the rising unemployment in Europe today. Did you know that unemployment in the eurozone is now at a 15 year high? It has risen for 10 months in a row with no end in sight.

But I have written dozens of articles about the economic crisis in Europe already. So before starting on that article I started thinking of all the "preparation" questions I have been getting lately and I went over and checked out one of my favorite preparation websites: shtfplan.com.

Well, an article had just been posted over there about a report put out by the American Trucker Associations entitled "When Trucks Stop, America Stops".

I went and found that original report and I was stunned as I read it.

The truth is that our "just in time" inventory and delivery systems leave us incredibly vulnerable to a nationwide disaster.

You see, it is very expensive to hold and store inventory, so most manufacturers and retailers rely on a continual flow of deliveries that are scheduled to arrive "just in time", and this significantly reduces their operating expenses.

This is considered to be good business practice for manufacturers and retailers, but it also means that if there was a major nationwide transportation disruption that our economic system would grind to a halt almost immediately.

Once store shelves are picked clean, they would not be able to be replenished until trucks could get back on the road. In the event of a major nationwide disaster, that could be quite a while.

So what could potentially cause a nationwide transportation shutdown?

Well, it is easy to imagine a lot of potential scenarios - a volcanic eruption, a historic earthquake, an EMP attack, a solar megastorm, a war, a major terror attack, an asteroid strike, a killer pandemic, mass rioting in U.S. cities, or even martial law.

If something caused the trucks to stop running, life in America would immediately start changing. Read More

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Why Is The Heartland Of America Being Ripped To Shreds By Gigantic Tornadoes That Are Becoming More Frequent And More Powerful?

What in the world is going on in the heartland of America? Spring has barely even begun and we are seeing communities all over America being ripped to shreds by gigantic tornadoes.

A lot of meteorologists claimed that the nightmarish tornado season of 2011 was an "anomaly", but 2012 is shaping up to be just as bad or even worse.

These tornado outbreaks just seem to keep getting more frequent and more powerful. For example, several "super-cell" tornadoes ripped across the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area on Tuesday. People all over America were absolutely horrified as they watched footage of these tornadoes toss around tractor trailers as if they were toy trucks. Personally, I have never seen a tractor trailer tossed 100 feet into the sky before.

This is not normal. CBS 11 meteorologist Larry Mowry told his viewers that one of these tornadoes was "as serious of a tornado we've seen in years". So why is this happening? Why is the heartland of America being ripped to shreds by gigantic tornadoes that are becoming more frequent and more powerful?

Up to this point in 2012, at least 57 people have been killed by tornadoes across the country. Thousands more have been injured and countless homes have been reduced to splinters. In fact, there have been a couple of small towns that have been essentially wiped off the map by giant tornadoes. Read More

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