20 September 2013 (BBC News) – Typhoon Usagi, which is likely to be the most powerful typhoon of 2013, is set to drench the Philippines and Taiwan with a month’s rainfall in just a few days. The tropical hurricane had speeds of up to 175 km/h (110 mph), and is expected to move north towards […]
By Jason Samenow19 September 2013 (Washington Post) – In the last 24 hours, a cyclone in the west Pacific has explosively intensified, and is on a track towards Hong Kong. The storm – named Usagi – has achieved super typhoon status, after an amazing burst in its peak winds from 75 mph Tuesday to over […]
By Marina Obrazkova12 September 2013 (RBTH) – Russia’s Far East has entered a second month of flooding, leaving flooded cities and villages in the waters’ wake. People have been forced to live on rooftops and even in the vacant cars of passenger trains. The area’s climate is northern and temperatures should drop below freezing within […]
By Jeremy Hance 12 September 2013 (mongabay.com) – Africa’s elephant poaching crisis doesn’t just threaten a species, but imperils one of humanity’s most important links to the natural world and even our collective sanity, according to acclaimed photographers and film-makers, Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. Authors of the book Walking Thunder – In the Footsteps […]
By Holli Riebeek16 August 2013 (NASA) – For the entire month of July and the first half of August, eastern China baked in a record-breaking heat wave. Nineteen provinces endured above-normal temperatures. Shanghai broke its all-time record high three times in as many weeks. The current record—40.8 degrees Celsius (105.4°F)—was set on 7 August 2013. […]
12 September 2013 (BBC News) – A famous Hindu temple badly damaged by floods in India’s Uttarakhand state has reopened for prayers. The temple at Kedarnath in Rudraprayag district is famous for its temple of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. But it was damaged by the floods and landslides in June that affected more […]
By Rhett A. Butler10 September 2013 (mongabay.com) – Harrison Ford sparked a complaint from Indonesia’s top forest official after the actor asked a series of tough questions about ongoing rainforest destruction in the Southeast Asian nation, reports Indonesian state media. Ford is in Indonesia filming a segment for Years of Living Dangerously, a Showtime documentary […]
By Holli Riebeek10 September 2013 (NASA) – The extreme floods that have been threatening northeastern China and the Russian Far East are slowly moving north along the length of the Amur River. The bulge of flood water has now reached Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a Russian city of about 500,000 people. The flood overwhelmed a dam, and the […]
By Bijoyeta Das 9 Sep 2013 Guwahati, India (Al Jazeera) – He sniffs, slurps his tea, swirls and spits a jet of orangish liquid into the tumbler. “Malty, hard,” says Parag Hatibaruah, a professional tea-taster. “But not as strong, brisk and creamy as it was once,” he adds, shaking his head dismissively. Rows of teacups […]
By NEIL GOUGH4 September 2013 HONG KONG (The New York Times) – Thousands of dead fish floating along a 19-mile stretch of a river in Hubei Province in central China were killed by pollutants emitted by a local chemical plant, provincial environmental officials said Wednesday. Environmental protection officials said tests on water taken from the […]
