Desert Swarms
Hot, seasonal winds from Africa, known as the Levante, carried
swarms of desert locusts across the Atlantic to Spain’s Canary
Islands. Swarms also reached the beaches of southern Portugal.
Desert Swarms
Hot, seasonal winds from Africa, known as the Levante, carried swarms of desert locusts across the Atlantic to Spain’s Canary Islands. Swarms also reached the beaches of southern Portugal. Inclement conditions and the stage of development of the arriving insects prevented any significant crop damage in the two areas.
The latest expansion of this year’s desert locust plague means the insects have reached 3,500 miles eastward across the Sahara Desert into Jordan, and 2,000 miles southward to Cameroon.
Volcanoes
Ongoing eruptions on an island off Papua New Guinea’s north coast continued to blanket crops and pollute water supplies with ash, making the island uninhabitable. Officials believe it will take another 14 days to evacuate all of Manam Island’s 9,600 inhabitants because they have only one boat that can make a single trip to the mainland each day.
• Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Volcano has begun to swell and shake over the last year, and vulcanologists have detected an unprecedented number of earthquakes beneath the mountain within the last five months.
Rabbit Virus
Uruguayan authorities issued an alert for an outbreak of a highly contagious and fatal viral infection among rabbits around the capital. Experts are trying to contain the spread of rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) by restricting movement in the affected areas and culling all infected rabbits. RHDV once emerged in the United States, Mexico and Bolivia, affecting rabbit-raising industries.
Southern Strandings
A series of mass beachings of marine mammals occurred from Tasmania to New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula, leaving more than 140 bottle-nosed dolphins and pilot whales dead. The event may have confirmed predictions made in July by scientists at the University of Tasmania who said a 10-year cycle of increased westerly winds could cause large numbers of beachings during the next year. The current stronger winds draw up nutrient-rich waters in the region, which attract the marine mammals. Sen. Bob Brown of the Australian Greens party said that seismic tests carried out in oceans to search for gas and oil just days before the current strandings may be to blame.
Drought Warnings
Parts of South Africa’s grain-producing regions have become so parched by drought that there may not be enough time to plant next season’s crops. The optimum planting time for the southern summer in the country ends on Dec. 15. Grain SA warned that the hardest-hit regions are in Northwest Province and Free State.
Earthquakes
The town of Nabire in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua was wrecked by a powerful temblor that killed at least 30 people.
• Northern Japan’s Hokkaido Island was rocked by an offshore magnitude 7.0 quake that injured 17 people and prompted a one-hour alert for tsunami ocean waves.
• At least five people were injured and dozens of buildings were damaged when a strong quake rocked northern Italy early on Nov. 25.
• Earth movements were also felt in northern Algeria, the Slovakia-Poland border area and western and southern parts of Iran.
Tropical Cyclones
A tropical depression just below storm force unleashed flash flooding and mudslides that left 1,000 people dead or missing on the Philippines’ main island of Luzon.
• Powerful Typhoon Nanmadol was bearing down on the northern Philippines late in the week, and many survivors in the Luzon disaster area were evacuating in anticipation of further floods and mudslides.
• Cyclone Muifa lost force over the Malay Peninsula after leaving 41 people dead in southern Vietnam.
• Cyclone Agni was weakening in the northwestern Indian Ocean as it approached the Horn of Africa.
• Tropical Storm Otto churned the central Atlantic.
A Charming Threat
Indian snake charmers have threatened to let loose 5,000 snakes in the Orissa state assembly building to protest harassment by wildlife officials, India’s Telegraph reported. Since the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 banned the catching of snakes, the charmers say they have been repeated harassed and threatened, with many forced to leave the historic profession. The ban was aimed at preventing the killing of millions of snakes for their skins, but it also applied to the charmers. “We look after them like our children,” said charmer Chittaranjan Das. “We catch poisonous snakes, which intrude into households, tend to them in our homes and earn our livelihood by performing public shows.”
