Earthwatch: A Diary of the Planet

Earthquakes

Relief officials pulled the bodies of more than 12,000 victims out of the rubble left by a magnitude 7.4 temblor that struck western Turkey in the pre-dawn hours of Aug. 17. A massive international relief effort was launched to help the country recover from the disaster.

Earth movements were also felt in Cyprus, northwestern and southern Greece, Burma, southwestern China, Indonesia’s Sumatra Island and Timor Sea region, South Australia, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Southern Sierra Nevada of California, and around Santa Barbara.

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Ant Supercolony Peril

Construction projects on northern Japan’s Hokkaido Island threaten the world’s largest “supercolony” of ants, according to a professor who has spent 28 years studying the insects. Professor S. Higashi says the endangered 13-mile-long conglomerate of linked nests runs along the shore of the Sea of Japan and consists of approximately 45,000 nests populated by the Japanese red wood ant. Construction of a new port on Ishikari Bay, which began in 1973, has placed numerous roads and buildings over the supercolony.

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Swiss Glacier Crumbles

The Gutz Glacier in the Swiss Alps crumbled early on Aug. 14, sending chunks of ice hurtling into the valley below. The glacier, near the popular resort of Grindelwald, had begun shifting a month ago, and authorities closed off fields and roads in the area. Television crews and tourists waited for the event for several days in designated viewing areas. The glacier finally broke apart at 2:00 a.m. local time, and no one was able to see it fall in the darkness.

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Camel Drowning

At least 48 camels drowned in northern India’s Rajasthan state in flash floods triggered by monsoon rains. Incessant rainfall broke an embankment, causing water to gush from the breach and form a huge lake in the Thar Desert. The damaged barrier was initially weakened when 10 inches of rain fell within a two-day period during early August.

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Wayward Booby

A red-footed booby was treated for hypothermia at the Bird Treatment and Learning Center in Anchorage, Alaska, after it mistakenly followed a yacht from Hawaii to Kodiak Island. The birds are notorious for following boats, but one biologist said they had never seen one venture so far north.

The bird, which normally lives in the balmy climate of Hawaii, trailed the yacht, which hit a severe storm during the eight-day voyage. The boat’s crew took the battered booby aboard and radioed ahead to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials who then flew it to the treatment center. The bird was placed under a heat lamp until it stabilized.

The director of the center said the young booby was ravenous and was ready to be put on the next passenger plane outbound for Hawaii.