The Big Wobble - this world needs a lot of prayer

Most of the dead shellfish which washed ashore at Waihi Beach this week have now been removed. Local residents were shocked when they encountered "millions" of dead shellfish washed ashore on the northern end of Waihi Beach on Tuesday.
Jeanette McCallum believed they were pipi and posted a video of the finding online, sparking thousands of views and hundreds of comments.
She said today that most of the shellfish had already been washed away now but they had begun to smell "horrible" while they were there.
"It's amazing how the ocean manages to clean itself," she said.
A Ministry of Primary Industries said it was in discussions with the Bay of Plenty Regional Council about the incident but the cause of the mass death was unlikely to be known before next week.
She said the council had collected samples and couriered them to the ministry for disease testing, which was standard practice in mortality events such as this.
"It is important to rule out any disease cause," the spokeswoman said.
The samples were expected to arrive today and the ministry planned to run tests on them tomorrow, and will likely conduct testing on further samples early next week, she said.
"At this stage it is considered that flooding with freshwater is the most likely cause of the event.
This is not uncommon with flood conditions."
The spokeswoman also confirmed the affected shellfish were actually tuatua, not pipi.
"In terms of eating the affected shellfish, MPI recommends people leave them alone.
Standard health safety advice regarding shellfish is that you do not consume obviously sick or dead animals."
In a statement released this afternoon, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council said staff from the council and the University of Waikato will be analysing the shellfish for toxins.
Professor Chris Battershill, chairman in coastal science, said it was likely a number of factors contributed to the die-off. "
Apart from the weather bomb that hit the area last week, higher ocean temperatures are being recorded in this area and there have been some large sea swells," he said.
"It is also possible that this is a natural die-off due to stress from overcrowding as there is a very large population of shellfish densely packed just off the beach in this area."
Despite the huge amount of shellfish that died, Prof Battershill said there were many live shellfish within the wave zone.
The council expected to have some results within 3-4 weeks.

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Photo www.theatlantic.com
Hailstorms hit parts of Marathwada, India on Wednesday, reviving memories of similar storms that struck the region in February-March 2014.
At least six people were killed in lightning-related incidents as unseasonal rain coupled with strong winds and hailstorms lashed parts of Beed Latur and Osmanabad districts.
Loss of livestock as well as significant damage to mangoes, grapes and sorghum has also been reported from many areas in these districts.Chandrakant Suryawanshi, Beed's resident deputy collector, said that heavy rain lashed parts of the district for almost three hours from 3 pm.
Two deaths each were reported from Kaij and Parali talukas and one from Dharur taluka.
Two bulls were also killed,  the preliminary assessment of possible damage to fruits and crops is on, Suryawanshi said.
In Latur district, Ausa, Nilanga, Renapur and tehsil limits of Latur reported maximum rain.
Saqueb Osmani, Latur district disaster management officer, said a 19-year old resident of Dhakni village in Latur taluka died after being struck by lightning.
Parts of Latur and Ausa talukas also reported hailstorms, he said.Osmanabad tehsildar Ayush Prasad said the areas bordering Latur and Beed districts of Osmanabad received heavy rain accompanied by strong winds.
While no loss to human lives was reported from this area, one buffalo was killed in the district, Prasad said.
Villages from two revenue circles in Osmanbad taluka reported damage to crops as per initial reports, he added.
Disaster management officials, citing the meteorological department, said Beed, Latur and Osmanabad districts would witness rainfall activity for another 24 hours.
Officials of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the set of weather systems that have formed over the southern states continue to raise the possibility of unseasonal rain, thundershowers or hailstorms in parts of Marathwada.
A trough has formed over coastal Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, while a cyclonic circulation has developed over parts of these two states.
Marathwada being adjacent to both these states is receiving rainfall due to this set of peculiar weather systems,

Increase in lightning strikes due to climate change

Lightning strikes are on a 12 to 24% increase: Phenomenon appears to be worsening with climate change
Lightning strikes are expected to increase by 12 percent for every degree Celsius of warming
A 50 percent rise in lightning expected by the end of the century.
Reports last year in America of "Strange lightning storms!" Lightning from cloudless sky! "Strange lightning storms" causing widespread bush fires in the US and Canada
Hundred's of people died last year due to lightning strikes in India

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Click on RSOE Alert map to enlarge, red squares indicate humans infected or dead
2 suspected human cases of bird flu have been detected in Cirebon, West Java Jawa Barat.
The 2 people have been treated in Gunung Jati Hospital Cirebon isolation room since Sun 5 Mar 2017.
The Health Ministry's director general of disease prevention and control M Subuh has confirmed the report.
"Both have made direct contacts with birds tested positive for bird flu," Subuh said on Wed 8 Mar 2017 at Gunung Jati Hospital.
Subuh said that results of laboratory tests will come out within the next 2 to 3 days, adding that the 2 patients' conditions had improved.
When pressed about the death of a resident of Pangenan sub-district, Cirebon, from alleged avian influenza, Subuh said that the hospital did not take the blood sample.
"But the current patient is the child of the deceased.
The blood sample will be taken from the child," Subuh said.
If the test proved negative, it would mean that the father was also tested negative for bird flu and vice versa.
Cirebon Agriculture Office head Ali Efendi said that his office can only vaccinate 75 000 out of 3 million birds in Cirebon District.
"Vaccination process is ongoing.
But we have not done it in Pangenan," Ali said.
On bird flu cases, Ali said that 105 ducks in Pangenan sub-district had been tested positive for bird flu.
"105 duck carcasses have been burned," Ali said.
Ali added that the 105 ducks were part of 500 ducks in Pangenan sub-district that should have been burned.
He said that his office does not have enough funds to pay compensation to farmers. Ali had promised to persuade the farmers to depopulate the affected flocks.

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Translated from Turkish
Thousands of dead fish have washed up in Hafik Lake in Sivas, Turkey as ice began to melt in Lake Hafik, which is frozen in winter.
The lake covered with ice in Hafik was said to be without oxygen which killed the fish.
An ice sheet of about 40 centimeters, which formed during the winter months, began to melt with the with the warm spring air.


OXYGEN FREE
The District Governor of Hafik have made studies of the fish deaths with the Provincial Directorate of Food who were at the scene of the investigation and came to the conclusion that the fish died because of oxygen depletion in the lake after being covered all winter with ice.

Mass animal deaths

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Nearly two tons of dead fish have washed up in a canal in Tainan, Taiwan.
Thousands of fish appeared to die a violent death as climate change is being blamed for the deaths. However some officials are blaming the discharge of waste water containing sewage on the deaths. The environmental Protection agency pointed out the canal had a very low oxygen level after heavy showers and warm temperatures, samples of the canal water discovered low oxygen level along with ammonia nitrogen, suspended solids and heavy metals.
Milkfish and mullet are the two species which suffered most loses.

Mass animal deaths

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This weekend two more were found in Punta Colorada Since the beginning of the summer, more than 40 turtles have been found dead on the Uruguayan coast, from Montevideo to Barra Del Chuy. Five such cases occurred in the last two days, since the storms last Thursday. Those five were of the head turtle species, but also green turtles and seven keel’s turtles were identified.
"It's a cycle that repeats itself year after year," Estrades said.
According to the analysis carried out by the Karumbé staff, the cause of death of the turtles is drowning, caused by fishing activity. "The turtles are entangled in fishing nets and drown," Estrades explained to El Observador.
Karumbé, which has a team of 20 volunteers, arrives at the beaches when a tortoise dies and conducts a field study that consists of "releasing the specimen (date, time and place), determining the species, taking biometric measurements, taking Tissue samples, do an internal study to determine sex and corroborate whether or not she was sexually active.” Then the stomach is searched for plastics and water is seen in the lungs. "That allows us to identify the cause of death," said Estrades. Once all the samples are taken, the animal is buried in the sand.
Difficult solution
The director of the NGO was not very optimistic to be able to find a solution and, although it identifies the fishery as the main threat to the turtles, it emphasized the responsibility of the Uruguayan fishing boats.
The problem, he said, is that it is impossible to determine which type of fish is the one that most affects turtles because it is not easy to know for sure how long the animal was drifting prior to reaching the coast. That makes it difficult to identify the fishing boat that causes the turtle to die.

"It's a difficult issue to stop and to do that, we have to ban the fishery and that's something that obviously cannot be done," Estrades told El Observador.


El Observador


Mass animal deaths

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PHOTO Farmers Weekly
Three new cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza HPAI were confirmed among poultry in Taiwan on Thursday the Council of Agriculture said.
They include two cases involving the H5N2 virus and one of the H5N8 strain, the council claimed.
In the last three months 84 poultry farms in Taiwan have been hit by HPAI, including 11 that were infected with the H5N8 strain which has jumped to humans resulting in the culling of nearly 700,000 birds since January.


Click on RSOE Alert map to enlarge, red squares indicate humans infected or dead
A Taiwan resident died of the H7N9 avian flu virus Monday evening, 23 days after the infection was confirmed, the local disease control agency said Tuesday.
The man, 69, contracted the virus on Feb. 4 and died in hospital on Feb. 27 after medical treatment failed, according to the agency.
The man, from Kaohsiung, initially felt ill on Jan. 23 when he was visiting Guangdong Province on business.
He returned to Taiwan on Jan. 25 but was tested negative for bird-flu at a hospital.
The patient felt symptoms such as fever, coughing and breathing difficulties on Jan. 29, and was diagnosed with pneumonia.
He was hospitalized on Feb. 1, and confirmed as having the avian-flu virus three days later.
The man was the first Taiwan resident and second person to die of H7N9 on the island, where a total of five human H7N9 cases have been confirmed, according to local media.
The first person to die from the virus in Taiwan was a mainland resident.

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Photo Sott.net
An eruption on Tuesday at the Chillan volcano in central Chile was followed by more than 700 minor earthquakes, authorities said.
A yellow alert remains in effect for communities near Chillan, located some 417 kilometers (259 miles) south of Santiago.
Sixty-seven of the 761 temblors that followed the latest eruption were classified as volcano-tectonic events involving a movement of magma, Chile's geological service said.
The active phase Chillan entered a year ago looks likely to continue, the National Emergency Office said, prompting officials to maintain an exclusion within a 3-kilometer radius from the craters.

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