Earthwatch: A Diary of the Planet

Through Nov. 3

Lightning Deaths

A single lightning bolt killed all 11 members of a Congolese soccer team but left the opposing team members untouched, according to a report in Kinshasha’s L’Avenir newspaper. Thirty other people were said to have received burns. The two teams were tied at 1-1 when the lightning struck in eastern Kasai province. The paper said that the reason the lightning affected only one team was unclear.

Eruptions

Lava flowing from the Nyamuragira Volcano in eastern Congo lit up the nighttime skies of Goma, causing alarm among residents. Nyamuragira, just north of the city, has spewed lava from its cone and side fissure since Oct. 17. Goma is the headquarters of rebels who launched a revolt against Congo President Laurent Kabila in early August. The civil conflict prevented government teams from investigating the eruption.

Japan’s Mt. Komagatake sent a plume of smoke soaring nearly 4,000 feet above Hokkaido Island in the mountain’s first eruption in two years. Officials felt that there was no need to evacuate the area because of the relatively low level of activity associated with the eruption.

Earthquakes

More than 700 buildings were damaged when a magnitude 5.2 earthquake rocked southwest China’s Yunnan province. Officials say that 28 people were injured.

Earth movements were also felt in Indonesia, and in northeastern Algeria and parts of Southern California.

Tropical Storms

Hurricane Mitch, the fourth-strongest to form in the Atlantic basin this century, claimed as many as 7,000 lives as it roared across theCaribbean and Central America, even though it weakened to a tropical storm.

Typhoon Babs wreaked a trail of destruction as it swept across the Philippines, killing at least 163 people and destroying about 130,000 homes. The damage was largely the result of the very slow speed at which Babs passed over Luzon Island.

Humpback Recovery

The population of humpback whales is slowly recovering after reaching near-extinction 35 years ago, according to a report issued at the first international gathering of humpback whale experts in Brisbane, Australia. Commercial whaling between 1949 and 1963 had caused a dramatic decline in the number of the marine mammals from 12,500 to 400. Since a ban ended commercial whaling in the Southern Hemisphere in 1963, their numbers have grown steadily back to approximately 2,500. The focus of the Brisbane report was on the endangered humpbacks that migrate from the Antarctic along the west coast of Australia, and those that travel from Antarctica to New Zealand and Tonga.

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Additional Sources: British Meteorological Office, U.S. National Hurricane Center, U.S. Climate Analysis Center, U.S. National Earthquake Information Center and the United Nations World Meteorological Organization.